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ISLAMABAD, June 24 (Reuters) - Pakistani police have detained more than two dozen people in the eastern city of Lahore as part of a continuing crackdown against Islamic militants, a senior government official said on Monday.

Most of those arrested during overnight raids were senior members of banned Islamic militant groups, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

"They are A-class activists with a previous record of involvement in incidents of violence," the official said. "We are questioning them in hope that we will get some new information about their activities."

Pakistani newspapers reported on Monday that dozens of militants from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, were arrested in raids on religious seminaries and other hideouts in Lahore.

The English-language newspaper The Nation said the raids were monitored by American FBI officials, on hideouts disclosed by two other suspected al Qaeda members.

But the official in Islamabad said those detained overnight were not thought to be linked to al Qaeda, and denied reports that a new crackdown had been launched since a June 14 suicide bomb attack outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi.

"It's an on-going operation," he said. "Whenever we get information (about their presence) we go and get hold of them."

A previously unknown group calling itself Al Qanoon (The Law) said it was responsible for the Karachi attack, in which 12 Pakistanis died, and said the bomb was the start of a "jihad" against the United States and Pakistani rulers.

Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, banned two Islamic militant groups last August and another five in January and has vowed to crack down on anyone using Pakistani soil to commit acts of terrorism.

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