Dozens of suspected members of outlawed Islamic militant groups have been arrested following a bomb attack on a bus in Pakistan.
US and French investigators have joined Pakistanis in looking for possible links between al-Qaeda terrorists and the bombing that killed 14 people, including 11 French engineers.
Interior Ministry official Mr Tasneem Noorani said "a number" of activists belonging to groups banned by President Pervez Musharraf have been arrested in cities across the country.
"We are expecting more arrests as the raids are still in progress," he said.
But a senior intelligence official said at least 50 suspected members of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and other groups have been arrested.
Most of the arrests, he said, were made in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, the country's biggest with more than half the population.
Many Islamic militants inside Pakistan have close links to al-Qaeda and 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 post-September 11th.
In Karachi, three FBI agents continued to sift through the twisted wreckage of a Pakistan Navy shuttle bus which was blown apart by what Pakistani police believe was a suicide bomber in a nearby car.
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 post-mortems.
The engineers all were in Pakistan to help with construction of a French submarine bought by the Pakistani Navy work .
PA