14 Al Qaeda Suspects in Pakistan Handed to U.S.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —  Fourteen suspected Al Qaeda militants, most of them Arabs, have been arrested in Pakistan and others are under strict surveillance, Pakistani government officials said Thursday.

The English-language newspaper Dawn said that FBI agents took part in the arrests and that the suspects were in U.S. custody.

“The detainees were immediately handed over to the American officials who took them to an undisclosed destination for interrogation,” Dawn newspaper said.

The arrests were made Wednesday night in the northwestern city of Peshawar near the Afghan border, an Interior Ministry official told Reuters.

“They are Sudanese, Algerians and Egyptians and a few others,” he said. “We are interrogating them and will decide their future accordingly.”

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, said that small bands of Al Qaeda militants could have crossed into the country from Afghanistan this week and vowed to do his utmost to track them down with U.S. help.

A law enforcement official in the port city of Karachi said some suspected members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network had been living in Pakistan’s urban areas and were being closely watched.

He said most of them were living in Afghan refugee camps on the outskirts of Karachi.

“They are under vigilance, and if we get some concrete information about their involvement in illegal activities we will take action,” he said.

In southern Afghanistan on Thursday, U.S. forces released 50 villagers captured in a midnight raid last week that they said was aimed at rounding up leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Residents of Band Taimore, site of the May 24 operation, 50 miles west of Kandahar, claimed that five people detained in the raid remained in American custody. U.S. officials had no immediate comment on the release or any detainees they still might be holding.