Pakistan arrests 21 militants in major raid on hideout

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Wednesday (Reuters) Pakistani forces have arrested 21 militants in a major search operation in a tribal region close to the Afghan border where al Qaeda-linked militants hide out, a Pakistani general said.

Analysts say Pakistan is under pressure from the U.S. and Afghan governments to do more to stop Taliban and al Qaeda fighters crossing the rugged frontier to disrupt Afghanistan's Sept. 18 parliamentary elections.

The operation in North Waziristan coincides with President Pervez Musharraf's visit to the United States, where he will attend the U.N. General Assembly and meet with both U.S. President George Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"The operation is still continuing. It is probably the biggest operation to date in North Waziristan," Lieutenant-General Safdar Hussain, the army's top commander in northern Pakistan, told a news conference in Peshawar, the provincial capital of North West Frontier Province.

He said 21 suspects had been seized in raids that began on Saturday, along with a large quantity of weapons, a suicide bomb jacket, and a remote-controlled drone with a wingspan of less than a metre.

"There are some important people among those arrested," Hussain said without elaborating. He declined to say whether the suspects included foreigners.

Pakistani military officials believe that many militants fled to North Waziristan after a series of army offensives drove them out of neighbouring South Waziristan.

Hussain said the focus of operation was an Islamic school, or madrasa, near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, which was serving as a headquarters for the militants.

"I can say with authority that the centre of terrorists and al Qaeda from where all operations were controlled has been destroyed," he said, referring to the madrasa. "With the destruction of this centre, I am sure that the back of al Qaeda and terrorists has been broken in the area."

Fed up with repeated complaints that his army was not doing enough to stop infiltrators entering Afghanistan to fight U.S. and Afghan forcess, Musharraf offered to erect a fence at select points along the long, porous border during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in New York on Monday.

The Pakistan Army announced last week that it had deployed an extra 9,500 troops, taking the total stationed in the border region to over 80,000.