Pakistani security agents detained on Thursday four foreigners suspected of belonging to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, officials said.
The suspects -- an Afghan, a Russian Muslim, a Turk and a Spanish national of Middle Eastern origin -- were detained in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which is not far from the border with Afghanistan.
“They have been picked up for suspicion of links with al-Qaida,” said an intelligence official, who did not want to be named.
The official said the men were arrested at the house of the Afghan, who he identified as Abdul Aziz from Kunduz province. He did not give names of the other three.
He said two computers, passports and mobile phones were seized during the raid.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told state-run Pakistan Television that none of those arrested was on a list of most-wanted terrorists.
“We seized some small weapons, some literature,” he said.
Pakistan has arrested hundreds of al-Qaida suspects since joining the war on terrorism declared by Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
They have included Sept. 11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed but other senior figures, including al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain at large.
U.S. officials have said they believe bin Laden may be hiding in the rugged border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in early March that his forces believed they nearly hunted down Osama bin Laden about 10 months earlier, but the trail had since gone cold.
