ISLAMABAD, 22 August 2004 — Pakistan has foiled an extremist plot to attack key sites including military headquarters, the US Embassy and Parliament. Security forces have arrested nearly a dozen Al-Qaeda-linked terror suspects, officials said late yesterday.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told reporters that security forces had captured five or six suspects — one Egyptian, the others Pakistani — in the past week across the country, and had seized some weapons. Authorities were hunting for four to five other suspects, he said.

However, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said about a dozen suspects had been nabbed. He said they had been planning suicide attacks on “important personalities.”

Hayat said the group wanted to hit the official residence of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Parliament and the US Embassy, as well as Army House in Rawalpindi.

They also wanted to target some government ministers, he said.

“This is a gang of suicide bombers and our security agencies have done a remarkable job by foiling this plot,” Hayat said, adding that those captured were “definitely linked to Al-Qaeda.”

In the past five weeks, Pakistan — a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism — says it has captured more than 60 terror suspects, including some key Al-Qaeda operatives.

Days ago, authorities said they had foiled a plot by terrorists to sabotage last weekend’s Independence Day celebrations in Islamabad, making at least two arrests.

Hayat said that some of the suspects arrested in the past week had links with Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a senior cleric and head of a religious school in Islamabad.

He said security agencies seized missiles, rockets, detonators, electronic surveillance equipment and other ammunition planned for use in attacks — including on Independence Day. He said the arrests were made between Aug. 11 and 15, but gave no reason why the announcement was delayed.

The haul is the latest in a stepped up crackdown to hunt down Al-Qaeda linked suspects launched in mid-July. Since then more than 60 have been taken into custody from different parts of the country. Among those earlier arrested were Al-Qaeda’s Pakistani computer whiz Naeem Noor Khan and Tanzanian Ahmad Khalfan Ghailani, suspected of involvement in the 1998 bombing of US embassies in East Africa.