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By Abdullah Jan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Pakistani paramilitary troops blew up homes of tribesmen they suspected of harbouring six al Qaeda suspects on Wednesday and said they would continue until the men were handed over, officials said.

Local government officials said units from a force of 1,800 paramilitary troops that had surrounded the village of Jani Kheil since Monday began infiltrating it late on Tuesday.

They detained four locals there on Wednesday, including Maulala Shamsul Haq, a religious scholar thought to have given refuge to the six wanted men, described by officials as "Arabs".

Five clerics from the village were detained in the nearby town of Bannu, said the officials, who did not want to be identified.

After detaining Haq and his nephew, they blew up his house with rocket grenades along with that of a cleric, the officials said.

"The troops have a list of villagers who may be hiding the suspects," one of the officials said. "These houses will be raided and searched one by one and demolished."

Villager Imran Khan Wazir told Reuters by telephone the soldiers had marked six houses with red paint and told the families to leave them as they would blow them up.

The government official said the operation was expected to continue through the night. "It will continue until all the men are arrested and their houses demolished."

The official said there had been no resistance and no casualties, but 700 armed tribesmen had taken up positions in nearby hills and the threat of a clash was looming.

"They have not fired on the troops so far," he said.

Tribal elder Malik Dil Nawaz told Reuters earlier there were no foreigners or al Qaeda members in the village. He said six men the authorities were looking for were all local people.

Officials said the men they were searching for were "Arabs". People living near the village said five were thought to be Saudi Arabian or Indonesian.

ATTEMPTS TO MEDIATE

Pakistani authorities earlier brought in Muslim scholars to negotiate with tribesmen in Jani Kheil, which is about 170 km (106 miles) southwest of Peshawar, the capital of Northwest Frontier Province.

A government official said the suspected militants had been in custody but were snatched by heavily armed tribesmen from detention at a military post near Jani Kheil on Monday.

Large numbers of al Qaeda members and their Taliban allies are thought to have crossed into Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region after U.S. forces began pursuing them in Afghanistan last year.

The United States blames al Qaeda and its leader, Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and has vowed to hunt them down.

Pakistan pledged to help this effort after September 11 and Pakistani officials say hundreds of militants have been caught in the tribal areas.

Other suspects have been seized in the cities of Faisalabad and Lahore including senior al Qaeda coordinator Abu Zubaydah, who was handed over to the United States.

But many of the fugitives are thought to have melted into the local population or into the crowds of Pakistan's cities. The whereabouts of both bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar are unknown.

The hunt has brought some bloody clashes.

Four suspected al Qaeda militants, thought to be Chechens, and three Pakistani security men were killed in July in a clash near the town of Kohat, about 120 km (75 miles) from Jani Kheil. A week earlier, 10 soldiers and two suspected al Qaeda men were killed in a battle in the South Waziristan tribal region.

Small numbers of U.S. special forces soldiers have been working with Pakistani troops in the tribal areas, but on Monday military ruler General Pervez Musharraf ruled out deployment of of more American troops in the country to hunt for al Qaeda.

General Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command responsible for Afghanistan operations, said last month the U.S.-led war on terror needed to look at neighbouring countries. 

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