ISLAMABAD, May 20 (Reuters) - Pakistani police have arrested three Pakistani Islamic militants suspected of links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, police said on Friday. The three were members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed Sunni militant group implicated in assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, said a senior police official who asked not to be identified.He identified them as Ali Sher, Haji Ejaz and Pir Jamil and said they were arrested in the central city of Multan five days ago. "They were arrested in a raid on their hideouts on the outskirts of Multan. They have been arrested for suspicion of links with al Qaeda," the police official said. "These people had fought in Afghanistan and have also reportedly met Osama (bin Ladan) and (Ayman) al Zawahri," the official said, adding that the meetings with the al Qaeda leaders were thought to have taken place about a year ago. "They were involved in ensuring safe passage and settling down of terrorists and militants fleeing from the South Waziristan area," he said, referring to a tribal region bordering Afghanistan where al Qaeda militants took refuge last year.
He said laptop computers, satellite phones and maps were seized at the time of the arrests.
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The arrests followed the capture this month of Abu Faraj Farj al Liby, thought to be al Qaeda's number three, in northwestern Pakistan, but it was not clear if the raids were connected.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told reporters on Thursday that bin Laden was thought to be alive, based on video and audio tapes the al Qaeda leader had released and the tracking of communications by security forces. Kasuri said bin Laden was probably moving from place to place in a small group, but it would not be in his interest to remain in the border region if he was there. Kasuri said Pakistani security forces had succeeded in destroying the communications, propaganda and other infrastructure of al Qaeda and the network no longer had the capability to carry out large-scale attacks in the country.
Musharraf said in early March that his forces believed they nearly hunted down bin Laden about 10 months earlier, but the trail had since gone cold.