Pakistan 'rocket plotters held'

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Pakistani security forces have arrested a group of "extremists" behind recent security alerts in the capital, President Pervez Musharraf has said.

The suspects were held after rockets and rocket launchers were found near key buildings in Islamabad last week.

Gen Musharraf called the plotters' devices "crude" and said the group might have links with al-Qaeda.

But the president, the target of a number of assassination plots, was not sure he was the intended victim.

"I am not an easy target," the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency quoted him as saying.

'Warning'

President Musharraf made his remarks to Pakistani journalists on Wednesday evening.

"We have unearthed the whole gang, caught the culprits who are extremists."

He did not say how many suspects were being held or when they had been arrested.

Two rockets and a rocket launcher were found close to the parliament building in Islamabad last Thursday.

President Musharraf was in a conference centre about 2km away when the discovery was made.

Hours earlier, a small explosive device was detonated in a park close to the president's home in nearby Rawalpindi, although the military dismissed suggestions that the blast was related to Gen Musharraf.

On Saturday, two more rockets were discovered near the headquarters of the ISI intelligence agency in Islamabad.

There was speculation that the incidents were aimed at warning President Musharraf's government that its close collaboration with the US and allies in the West would not go unchallenged, BBC correspondents said.