RAWALPINDI, March 1: The government claimed on Saturday to have arrested four Al Qaeda “terrorists” from here, three of them identified as foreigners.

Senior government officials said the government had obtained solid proof of the involvement of the arrested persons in activities related to Al Qaeda.

The arrests, it has been learnt, were made in two separate raids in the cantonment area.

Though the government claimed the arrests were made by the police, a source, however, said the police had nothing to do with the arrests which were made by the FBI in collaboration with national intelligence agencies.

But another source close to the police claimed that the elite police force was also involved in the raids.

Senior Rawalpindi police officials confirmed that no police personnel were involved in the raid and subsequent arrests.

A police official said on condition of anonymity police help was neither sought nor was it even consulted about the development.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, talking to Dawn, confirmed that the arrests had been made but declined to give further details of the raids.

Mr Rashid Ahmed refused to disclose the identity of the arrested persons and the exact location of their arrest, citing security reasons and national interest.

Meanwhile, local leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami, a component of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), claimed here at a press conference that some 18 to 20 people, who had been wearing blue uniform, raided the house of one Mr Abdul Qudoos on Nisar Road, Westridge II, and took away his son, Mr Ahmed Abdul Qudoos.

Mr Abdul Qudoos is a former employee of the United Nations.

When the Westridge police was contacted, they denied that any raid was conducted in the area under their jurisdiction.

MASTERMIND: An official later said that one of the suspected was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept 11 attacks on the United States, adds agencies.

“We have finally apprehended him,” presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi told Reuters. “It was the work of Pakistani intelligence agencies...It is a big achievement. He is the kingpin of Al Qaeda.”

In June 2002, US investigators identified Sheikh Khalid as the probable mastermind behind the Sept 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

He was indicted in the United States in 1996 for his alleged role in a plot to blow up American civilian airliners over the Pacific.

Kuwaiti-born Khalid is a relative of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, now serving a life sentence for involvement in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.

Pakistani security agencies have been hunting Al Qaeda members with the help of US intelligence agents since the ousting of the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Hundreds of Al Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies are believed to have crossed into Pakistan since US-led forces began hunting for them in Afghanistan after the end of Taliban rule.