Taliban suspects arrested

Islamabad, Nov 22 (UNI) Pakistan police have arrested at least 38 Taliban suspects in raids on several Madrassas in Quetta.

The News quoted a senior police officer as saying the raids were conducted yesterday on information that some suspects having links with Taliban militia were residing at religious seminaries in Pashtoonabad, Satellite Town, Ghousabad, Chandi Chowk and Kuchlak areas of Quetta.

Superintendent of Police Qazi Abdul Wahid said the suspects have been shifted to some unknown location, where they are being interrogated for their alleged links with the Taliban and their leadership.

Pakistan repeatedly offered fencing and selective mining of its porous borders with Afghanistan to check the increasing cross border infiltration by the radical Taliban.

However, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who often alleged Islamabad of not doing enough in the ongoing war against terror, rejected the proposal, saying ''fencing means distancing the people''.

As the war of words intensified between the two neighbours on the issue, President Pervez Musharraf categorically said Taliban is Afghanistan's problem and its solutions there and not in Pakistan.

He told a joint press conference with the visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair last Sunday that Pakistan was against Talibanisation. ''We are doing much more than our capacity and trying to cut off the support, the militia is getting from elements inside Pakistan's tribal regions.'' UNI XC SB KN1708