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290'militants' caught after Pakistan blast

AP, Karachi
Hundreds of suspected members of outlawed Islamic militant groups were arrested yesterday as US and French investigators joined Pakistanis in looking for possible links between al-Qaida terrorists and a bombing that killed 14 people, including 11 French engineers.
A top Interior Ministry official, Tasneem Noorani, said "a number" of activists belonging to groups banned by the military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, last January have been arrested in cities across the country.
"We are expecting more arrests as the raids are still in progress," he said, declining to elaborate.
However, Interior Ministry officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 290 suspected members of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Tayeba and other groups have been picked up in the crackdown, which will continue for sev-
eral days.
The arrests were not "random" but aimed at tracing "those involved in recent acts of terrorism and sectarian killings," one official said.
After Musharraf's ban, more than 2,000 militants were arrested but later released. Officials said those militants who had been cleared were not being re-arrested.
Many Islamic militants inside Pakistan have close links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organisation. They have vowed revenge for Musharraf's banning of five militant groups after he abandoned Afghanistan's Taliban regime and sided with the United States in its anti-terrorism campaign postSeptember 11.
In the port city of Karachi, three FBI agents spent 90 minutes sifting through the twisted charred hulk of a Pakistan Navy shuttle bus blown apart Wednesday by what Pakistani police believe was a suicide bomber in a nearby car.
French Defence Minister
Michele Alliot-Marie, who arrived Thursday to consult with Pakistani officials in the wake of the attack, said French investigators were already in Pakistan helping with the investigation as well.
Twelve French naval workers wounded in the attack were flown back to France on a German military jet. The bodies of those killed were to be repatriated later after postmortems, she said.
The engineers all were in Pakistan to help with construction of a French submarine bought by the Pakistani Navy -- work that Alliot-Marie said would continue despite the attack.
While stressing it was too early to say who was behind the bombing, the French minister said the bombing was "part of the larger terrorist movement against which the international coalition is fighting."
She praised Musharraf for his "brave choice" to join the US-led war on terrorism after September 11, and said Wednesday's attack only strengthened France's resolve.
"We have to fight terrorism till it's eliminated," she said.
Alliot-Marie was flanked by scores of heavily armed Pakistan Naval Police as she visited the wounded French engineers at the Aga Khan hospital in the heart of Karachi before their departure.