ISLAMABAD, Aug 17 (AFP) - Top Al-Qaeda operatives have fled sanctuaries near Pakistan`s border with Afghanistan to cities and other countries after army raids, President Pervez Musharraf was reported saying Tuesday.
Some of them were among the 30 or so suspects rounded up by Pakistani security agencies since mid-July, including a communications expert and a Tanzanian suspect in the 1998 East Africa US embassy bombings.
"Authentic information has revealed these terrorist masterminds were re-locating from the mountainous and tribal regions in the north to other cities and even other countries," General Musharraf told state-run Pakistan Television PTV overnight.
"They are desperate. They are trying to move away. They are perhaps trying to relocate elsewhere in the world."
The assaults on Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in February and March in South Waziristan, the remotest of seven tribal districts hugging the porous Afghan border, had sent them scattering.
"Military operations in Wana, Shakai, Santoi and Mantoi villages in South Waziristan have uprooted these terrorists to move away to other cities and countries," he said.
The captures in July of computer whizz Naeem Noor Khan and of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the suspect in the Kenya and Tanzania bombings of US embassies in 1998, yielded a massive trove of information on Osama bin Laden`s network.
This in turn led to the uncovering of fresh terror plots in Britain, Pakistan and the US, new terror alerts in US cities and the arrests of 12 Al-Qaeda suspects in Britain including major operative Abu Eisa al-Hindi.
Musharraf traced the Al-Qaeda planners` presence in Pakistan back to the US-led military campaign to oust Afghanistan`s Taliban regime in late 2001.
"These elements came to Afghanistan after the 9/11 events where the military operations forced them to hide in the mountainous region along the Pak-Afghan border and in cities," he said.
He said top Al-Qaeda operatives such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Abu Zubayda had then moved eastwards to cities to hide among crowds.
But their captures in March 2003 and March 2002 respectively, from garrison city Rawalpindi and industrial city Faisalabad, had panicked their cohorts into staying in the remote frontier tribal areas -- from where they were driven out early this year.
"The capture of 500 to 600 al-Qaeda operatives including top Al-Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheikh (Mohammed) and Abu Zubayda from different cities forced them to take refuge mostly in South Waziristan," Musharraf said.
Two more Al-Qaeda suspects -- a Myanmar national and a Pakistani who is also a member of a banned local militant organisation -- were arrested Monday in the eastern city of Lahore, an intelligence official told AFP.
Al-Qaeda operated by using foreign masterminds who enlisted local Pakistani militants as the executors of their terrorist plans, he said.
"Masterminds were found to be foreigners who were using local extremists for planning and executing terrorist activities," he said.
"We are attacking the masterminds to dry up the source of terrorism and they are on the run," he said.
Musharraf, who campaigns worldwide for "enlightened moderation" among Muslims, urged Pakistanis to resist "elements infusing extremism in the society."
He said most Pakistanis were "moderate but religious people fulfilling their obligations."