Peshawar (Pakistan): Two al-Qaida suspects were arrested in an Internet cafe in Pakistan's North West in a dramatic swoop by officers, security officials and witnesses said on September 26.

"Two al-Qaeda suspects have been arrested. We are interrogating them," a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.

The arrests were made on September 25 in the frontier city Peshawar, police and the security official said.

The first man had entered the City Net Cafe, Peshawar's latest and most modern, at around 10:30 hours (local time), cafe employee Shaukat said.

He spoke the local Pashtu language, gave his name only as Habib, and spoke in secretive whispers into his mobile phone.

He logged on at one of the 20 terminals and sent a message through Yahoo Messenger which read, "I am waiting for you in Net cafe. I have mother with me and we will go to village," Shaukat said.

But he was not accompanied by any woman, Shaukat said, speculating the brief email was a coded message.

Shortly after, a bearded Arab man entered the cafe and approached the Pashtu-speaker.

Around half a dozen plainclothes intelligence agents, seated at the cafe's other terminals, immediately pounced on both men.

Habib took out a pistol but was overpowered before he could fire it, Shaukat said.

Uniformed anti-terrorist commandos then screamed up to the cafe in jeeps. Some 15 commandos blindfolded Habib, tied the hands and feet of the Arab man and bundled the pair into the waiting jeeps and drove off.

Agencies