Pakistani police have arrested 10 suspected suicide bombers, some of whom were planning to attack Shia processions and religious scholars in the port city of Karachi.

Eight suspected suicide bombers were picked from different areas of Karachi for planning to attack Shia processions and some religious scholars in the city, while the other two beloning to terrorist outfit Harkat-ul-Mujahideen were arrested from Hyderabad in Sindh province, officials said.

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen is involved in terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir. Those arrested in Karachi were from the Punjab, North West Frontier Province and Karachi and were planning to hit the office of a federal law enforcement agency in Karachi, religious procession of Shias and target some religious scholars, officials were quoted as saying by The Nation on Tuesday.

However, it was not clear when the arrests were made. Earlier, law enforcement personnel had arrested a suspect with the help of the public.

Police later followed the clue collected from the suspect and arrested a group of suicide bombers from various areas of the city.

A large amount of explosive material was recovered from these suspects. During interrogation, the suspects revealed that illegal citizens like Bengalis and Burmese, who had settled in Karachi were involved in suicide bombings, it said.

The report, however, did not specify whether those arrested were Pakistanis or nationals of other countries.

On the arrest of two Harkat-ul-Mujahideen militants in Hyderabad, a senior police official in Karachi said they were picked up from a well-known dargah.

"They were picked up with 5 kilograms of explosives, chemicals and other ammunition on tips we got from three militants we had arrested in Karachi," the official Fayyaz Khan said.

He said Ejaz and Shoaib were apparently planning suicide attacks on some targets when they were picked up without any resistance.

"It was a smooth operation and we are now investigating them. We are hoping to break a chain of potential suicide bombers in the country with information gleaned from these arrested militants," Khan said.

Pakistani police last week arrested three militants with links to Al Qaeda in Karachi and another three from Sukkur city.

There were fears that groups of alleged suicide bombers have come down from tribal areas of the country to carry out attacks to destablise the government of President Pervez Musharraf.