Between Washington and Al-qaida

The latest round of terrorist arrests in Pakistan has sparked a security alert in New York and Washington, rumours of a Heathrow bomb plot in London, and claims of victory in the war on terror in Islamabad. They have also made observers wonder about the trigger for the arrests, and the extent to which the Pakistani security services are producing terrorists out of a hat at politically expedient moments rather than cracking down on extremism.

Officials in Pakistan have rounded up 20 terrorists in the last month, including Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian indicted for his role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was arrested along with 13 others on July 25, and at least six other people have been held since then.

Those arrests followed the capture of computer expert Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan, whose computer allegedly held details of a planned attack on Heathrow and five financial institutions in New York, Washington, DC and New Jersey. In addition, the Pakistani interior minister, Faisal Saleh Hayyat, said his country was holding two senior al-Qaida fugitives of African origin, one of whom had a multi-million dollar bounty on his head. He has refused to name them, say where they were from, or reveal when they had been arrested.

The Pakistani security services made their most high profile catch to date in March 2003 when they seized Sheikh Khalid Mohammad, allegedly the mastermind of the September 11 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. He has been extradited to the US.

Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, told English language newspaper Dawn that the latest arrests proved his government had the courage to confront Islamist terrorists and was meeting with significant success.

"Nobody was touching religious organisations, now we are touching them," he told the paper. "Therefore, they will set off bomb blasts, they will create problems for you. Because we are arresting them, and ... we are eliminating masterminds."

In the past, however, roundups of terrorists have often coincided with politically convenient moments for Pakistan. The latest arrests come after Mr Musharraf pardoned the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, after the US accused him of selling nuclear expertise and equipment to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

Such blatant promotion of nuclear proliferation would normally earn a country the status of rogue state, and the sanctions that come with it. But the US held off, some believe because the US president, George Bush, wanted Pakistan to come up with some senior al-Qaida figures before the US election in November.

But Gareth Price, senior research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said the shift in Mr Musharraf's motivation could be traced to an assassination attempt in December, and the fact that he and his government are the most obvious targets for extremists within Pakistan.

"Musharraf is not hedging his bets anymore. It is not clear how much the ISI [Pakistani security services] act autonomously, but they clearly are finding people, arresting them, and handing them over the US.

"Pakistan does tick most of the boxes of a rogue state, so it has to demonstrate that it is not," Dr Price said.

Muhammad Ali Siddiqi, the assistant editor of Dawn, said the reason for the success of the anti-terror strategy was simply one of resources. With a peace process underway along the line of control in Kashmir, Mr Musharraf had been able to move troops to the tribal areas where many of the terrorists have sought refuge.

"By a rough estimate, Pakistan has deployed 70,000 troops in the Wana area in South Waziristan. This could not have been possible earlier," he said.

Mr Siddiqi also felt that no deal between the US and Pakistan was necessary to convince Mr Musharraf to crack down on terrorists, as the country itself had been the victim of devastating attacks. Last week nine people died in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Pakistan's prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz.

"I do not think there is a bargain of that sort. Trial or no trial [of Dr Khan], the US would expect Pakistan to continue the war on terror. At Camp David last year, the US pledged a $3bn (£1.64bn) economic and military package spread over five years. Each year Congress will approve $600m only when it is satisfied that Pakistan is behaving," he said.

In the long term, Dr Price said, the combination of US aid money and an internal crackdown on terrorists could result in a different kind of Pakistan. With money for education, he said, "people won't feel so radicalised and they won't be educated only in madrasahs [schools for Islamic religious instruction]."

Change on that scale takes a long time, he added, and there was reason to fear that Mr Musharraf may not live to see it.