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PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Tuesday (AFP) Federal MPs from Pakistan's northwestern border have warned American forces hunting al-Qaeda to stay out of the constituencies they won in recent national elections.

"We will not allow American troops to launch any operation in the name of al-Qaeda," Maulana Naik Zaman Haqqani, a member representing the district of North Waziristan, told AFP.

"They arrested innocent tribesmen in previous operations and if Americans launch another operation, we will protect our countrypeople and would resist the operation."

Haqqani holds one of 12 seats in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the 62,500-square-kilometer (2,016-square-mile) belt of rugged mountain terrain hugging the porous northwest border with Afghanistan.

Although FATA MPs were elected on independent tickets due to legislation that bars them from joining any party, seven of them have since pledged support to the far-right Islamist Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance in the national assembly.

The MMA won massive vote gains in the adjacent North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in October 10 polls on campaign pledges to end the hunt, unpopular among tribal residents who resent the US forces' presence.

The Islamists now hold the balance of power in the federal parliament and also control the NWFP legislature.

The tribal areas have been the focus of an intensive US-assisted manhunt for al-Qaeda and top Taliban extremists fleeing Afghanistan.

Thousands of Pakistani army and paramilitary troops, aided by United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, have been scouring the region since late last year to flush out the fugitives.

The majority of the 422-plus al-Qaeda militants nabbed in Pakistan over the past year were captured in the tribal belt.

The region is also the focus of speculation about al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's whereabouts.

But Maulana Khalil-ur-Rehman, a federal MP who hails from the belt's Khyber Agency, insists that no al-Qaeda members are sheltering in the region.

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