Reporter Held at Pakistan Border

A British journalist has been arrested in Pakistan along with two local fixers, after crossing the border into Afghanistan without valid travel documents.

Amardeep Bassey, a reporter with the Birmingham-based Sunday Mercury newspaper, was arrested by border guards last week on suspicion of espionage, a Pakistani official told Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Bassey was wearing traditional Pashtun clothing and police confiscated a wristwatch camera, the official said.

Trinity Mirror, the newspaper group that owns the paper, pledged to do all it could to free Bassey.

The company confirmed he had been returning from Kabul to Pakistan but said claims he was spying were "nonsense".

A spokesman said the newspaper was working with the Foreign Office to clear up a "bureaucratic mix-up" in order to secure Bassey's release.

The official said police officers and intelligence agents were questioning Bassey at Landi Kotal, near Peshawar in Pakistan's north-west frontier province.

Pakistani troops and US intelligence experts are searching for al-Qaida and Taliban hideouts in the area.

The questioning should be completed this week, he said.

Police and border guards have arrested several foreign journalists for illegal border crossings since the start of US operations against al-Qaida forces in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Most were later released.