Pakistan is bracing for a backlash from Islamic militants after its most successful crackdown on al Qaeda and local allies to date, military and civilian officials said on Tuesday.
Around 20 al Qaeda suspects, foreigners and locals, have been arrested in the past month in Pakistan, leading to a security alert in the United States and the arrest in Britain of man believed to have been plotting an attack on Heathrow airport.
President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led war on terror, has already been targeted by Islamic militant groups and survived two assassination attempts in December linked by officials to al Qaeda.
"Certainly, there would be some reaction. The government is mindful to that and is prepared to face it," said Major-General Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's main military spokesman.
"Pakistan is in a very, very tight-rope walk situation in the war on terror," he said. "It is an action and reaction syndrome. We are prepared to pay the price of our decision," he added.
Musharraf said "90 percent" of militants in Pakistan had been captured. Over 500 Taleban and al Qaeda fighters had been handed to the United States before the latest crackdown began.
"We have to eliminate al Qaeda, which is (the) ultimate objective," Musharraf said in an interview with The News daily.
But top government officials said some militants escaped the dragnet after a US official named Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan to the press, possibly compromising the computer engineer's role in a sting operation.
"The exposure of Naeem's name proved a blow to the investigations," a senior government official said, on condition of anonymity.
Pakistani agencies are chasing four or five mid-level foreign militants in an attempt to smash al Qaeda in Pakistan.
As well as the attempts on Musharraf's life, a suicide bomber narrowly missed Prime Minister-designate Shaukat Aziz during a by-election rally in July. Nine people died in that attack. Karachi's army chief escaped a gun attack in June in which 10 people died.
The official said several ministers, including Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, were on alert for possible attacks.
"They have been advised to limit their movements," he said.
Despite the success of the recent crackdown, al Qaeda remains able to strike, Pakistani officials said.
Several key leaders of the network have been captured, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks who was seized in 2003.
But al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed by US officials to be hiding somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.
Sultan said the foreign militant who planned an attack on Musharraf was still on the run. He refused to disclose his identity, but intelligence officials have said militant Amjad Hussain Farooqi was the prime suspect in both December attempts.
Major-General Sultan also said Pakistani security forces had scored a major success in smashing two "terror" bases in the tribal region of South Waziristan, where hundreds of foreign militants and their local tribal supporters were hiding.
"Their activities and freedom of action has been restricted because we have security forces deployed on all roads," he said.
Al Qaeda operatives, many of whom fled to Pakistan from neighbouring Afghanistan when the United States went to war with the Taleban, have linked up with local Islamic militant groups to launch and plan attacks inside Pakistan and abroad.
Musharraf banned five radical Islamic groups following the September 11, 2001, attacks, but was criticised when they re-emerged under new names and their leaders remained at large.
But the crackdown on militant outfits has gathered pace since local groups were found to have been involved in the attempts on Musharraf's life.
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