A blitz of detentions of suspected militants and Islamists in Pakistan has not resulted in the arrest of anyone linked to the July 7 London bombings, British diplomats said on Thursday. Stung into action by Pakistani connections with the attacks on London that killed 56 people, security forces have detained close to 300 people, with more raids overnight on private houses and madarsas. ‘‘No one connected to the London bombings has been arrested in Pakistan during the past 48 hours,’’ Peter Wilson, political counsellor at the British High Comission said. Other media quoted High Commissioner Mark Lyall-Grant as saying that no arrests linked to the bombings had been made in Pakistan since the attacks on July 7. Security officials said on Wednesday they had on Monday arrested Haroon Rashid Aswad, a British national of Gujrati descent, reportedly wanted for questioning in London. The suspect, Haroon Rashid Aswat (31) was a senior aide to Abu Hamza al-Masri, the militant cleric arrested in Britain in 2004 and now facing extradition to the United States on terrorism-related charges. However, the Daily Times newspaper reported on Thursday that a Haroon Rashid had been picked up but it was not the same man. Pakistan’s crackdown began in Faisalabad and Lahore, two cities in the eastern province of Punjab where intelligence sources say at least one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, visited several madarsas. Fifty more people were detained in Punjab, during raids around the city of Multan, security sources said. In the southern province of Sindh, police have arrested 45 people, including Maulana Ali Sher Hyderi, a top leader of the Sipah-E-Sahaba Pakistan, a Sunni extremist group with a record for attacks on the country’s minority Shi’ite Muslims. Among those rounded up in Punjab were members of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammad and a splinter group which have a history of running with foreign Al Qaeda operatives hiding in Pakistan. Western powers are impatient with Pakistan’s failure to curb those madrasas, among thousands of bone fide religious schools, that are suspected of breeding extremism. As the country’s main Islamist alliance, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), geared up to launch nationwide protests against the government’s campaign. PM Shaukat Aziz defended the arrests, saying they were aimed against extremist elements and were part of the fight against terrorism. Reacting to the MMA’s Wednesday accusation that President Pervez Musharraf was launching the crackdown to ‘‘please’’ Western leaders, Aziz said, ‘‘The crackdown was not launched to please any country or on the directives of any country. Pakistan is an independent country that took decisions without any foreign interference.’’
