ISLAMABAD, December 19 (IslamOnline) - United States and Pakistani intelligence agencies early Thursday morning, December 19, raided a residential area in the outskirts of eastern Lahore city and arrested nine suspects allegedly having links with Al-Qaeda organization, including two U.S. and one Canadian nationals, senior city administration officers said.

The raid was conducted on a tip-off, according to the sources, suggesting presence of what they described as some “Al-Qaeda-linked people” at the place owned by Dr. Ahmad Javed Khawaja, a known physician. According to his family, Dr. Khawaja, his two sons, brother and other male family members were also taken away by the FBI agents.

The family also confirmed three of the arrested were foreign nationals. They, however, refused to give exact identities of the foreigners arrested in the joint Pak-U.S. operation.

The central government did not give any details of the Lahore arrests while confirming the incident. “Six of the arrested persons have been remanded to police custody and fate of the other three, who are not Pakistani nationals, is being discussed,” Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, Information Minister and chief spokesman of the government, said.

But Rashid made it clear that the FBI did not take part in the raid and only Pakistani agencies were involved.

The family of Dr. Khawaja insisted, however, that the arrests were made by U.S. agents who introduced themselves before taking away the detainees.

Dr. Khawaja, 65, is closely associated with a trust hospital where Dr. Amir Aziz has also been treating patients from Afghanistan in the post-September 11 bombing of that country. Dr. Amir Aziz was picked up in the same manner in October and was released after one month of interrogation at the hands of U.S. agencies.

Dr. Khawaja was in charge of the dedicated section of Surriya Azim Hospital where only injured persons from Afghanistan were treated.

Government is tightlipped over any Al-Qaeda relevance with Thursday’s arrests.