Pakistani law enforcement agencies have arrested a key al-Qaeda suspect and nine others blamed for last week's assassination attempt on a senior military commander in southern port city Karachi, the Pakistani interior minister said.

Among the arrested men was Masrab Arochi, nephew of former al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Khalid Sheikh, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told a news conference in Islamabad on Sunday.

The interior minister said Arochi carried a US$1-million reward on his head and is believed to have been behind several attacks in Pakistan, including the attack on Karachi corps commander Lt. General Ahsan Saleem Hayat last week.

General Hayat escaped unhurt in the assassination attempt but 11 people including seven soldiers were killed.

The suspects were arrested on weekend in different raids in Karachi, the interior minister said.

"It is a major breakthrough," Faisal Saleh Hayat said. "We have made a big dent in the al-Qaeda network," he noted.

Eight of the ten suspects came form Central Asian, including Chechens and Uzbeks, and have confessed to their role in the plot to kill the military commander.

Faisal Saleh Hayat said one of the arrested was identified as the mastermind of two sectarian attacks in western Pakistani city Quetta in the past few months that left scores dead. He did not disclose his name.

The interior minister said all the Central Asian suspects were trained at al-Qaeda camps in South Waziristan, a tribal area near the Afghan border, where the Pakistani army is engaged in fierce battle against foreign militants hiding there.

In the past several days, nearly 50 suspected militants and 17 Pakistani security forces were killed in the battle in the tribal area.

(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2004)