ISLAMABAD - PAKISTAN has arrested two leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group considered the prime suspect behind the Mumbai attacks, the country's prime minister confirmed on Wednesday.

The two men are senior members of the banned Islamist group and have both been named by Indian media as key planners of the devastating attack on Mumbai in which 172 people died.

Police: Militant group snuck across Indian borders NEW DELHI - AN Indian militant based in Nepal who helped Pakistani gunmen cross India's porous borders to stage attacks is being brought to Mumbai for questioning in the recent Mumbai siege, police officials said on Wednesday. Sabauddin Ahmed was arrested in February with another militant who police say had scouted Mumbai targets a year before last month's attacks, they said. ... more

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah were in detention and an investigation was underway, Yousuf Raza Gilani told journalists.

Indian newspapers say the sole surviving gunman named Lakhvi as the man who put together the team of attackers, while investigators suspect Shah arranged SIM cards and satellite phones used in the siege on India's financial capital.

Under intense international pressure, Pakistan launched a major operation over the weekend against militant organisations in the country, raiding a camp in Kashmir run by a charity linked to LeT and arresting 15 people.

It was not clear if Lakhvi and Shah were among those arrested in the raid.

Some of the 15 men are reported to be on a list of people that India last week requested Pakistan extradite in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

But Mr Gilani denied that Pakistan was responding to pressure from India.

'Whatever action we take will be in the interest of the country and its people,' he told reporters. 'If Indian intelligence send us their findings we will investigate accordingly.'

Indian press reported on Wednesday that the surviving gunman has told how Lakhvi selected and trained the ten attackers, who set out from Karachi after scouting their targets on the Internet using mapping site Google Earth.

Each of the men was given eight grenades, an AK-47 assault rifle, 200 cartridges and a mobile phone, he was quoted as saying.

Pakistan has said it does not want war with India over the Mumbai siege, but was 'fully prepared in case war is imposed on us'.

Islamabad's foreign minister has also insisted arrested suspects would be tried in Pakistan rather than handed over to India.

India and Pakistan - both nuclear-armed - have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and nearly came to a fourth in 2001 after an attack on the Indian parliament that was also blamed on the LeT.

Mr Gilani declined to say whether Pakistan would impose a ban on Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity widely seen as the political arm of LeT.

'We are not doing anything under Indian pressure. The ban already exists,' he said, referring to the ban Pakistan imposed on LeT in 2002 in the wake of the attack on the parliament in New Delhi.

The comments came after Pakistan's UN envoy on Tuesday indicated the country would be prepared to ban Jamaat-ud-Dawa and freeze its assets if the UN Security Council deemed it a terrorist group.

Speaking during a UN Security Council debate on terrorism in New York on Tuesday, Hussain Haroon also said no LeT training camps would be allowed on Pakistani soil.

Indian police late on Tuesday released the names of the ten gunmen and their hometowns across the border in Pakistan.

Mumbai city police chief Rakesh Maria said that information about the men was obtained from Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, the only attacker captured alive and who is now in police custody.

'All of them were given aliases during training to prevent them from knowing each others' original names,' Mr Maria told reporters.

According to police, Iman, from Okara, Punjab, opened fire on commuters at Mumbai's main railway station on November 26 with Ismail Khan, from restive northwest Pakistan.

Mr Maria also gave the names of four other people who attacked the Taj Mahal hotel, two who attacked a Jewish cultural centre, and two who attacked the Oberoi/Trident hotel.

The youngest of the group was 20 and the eldest was 28, Mr Maria said. -- AFP