ISLAMABAD - PAKISTAN'S interior ministry said on Monday it had launched an investigation into the theft of a large quantity of weapons seized during last year's raid on the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad.

One senior police official has been arrested and another suspended for negligence following the weekend discovery that the weapons had been taken from a police station in the Pakistani capital, a ministry spokesman said.

'We have taken swift action and arrested a police official in charge, along with a few other officials from the local police station,' the spokesman, Shahidullah Baig, told AFP.

He said senior police superintendent Shahzad Asif had been suspended from active duty pending the outcome of the ministry's probe.

Mr Baig declined to reveal the type of weapons stolen, but local media reports said the stash included rocket launchers, hand grenades, dozens of light machine-guns and several AK-47 rifles.

Government forces besieged the Red Mosque on July 3 last year after a clash between police and militants in the building. Army commandos stormed it a week later, laying waste to parts of the building and leaving scores dead.

The mosque operation unleashed a wave of revenge suicide attacks across Pakistan that have left around 1,500 people dead. Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network also called on Pakistani Muslims last year to avenge the military raid.

Militants said to be loyal to the Red Mosque have been blamed for some of those attacks, especially a number of blasts in Islamabad, although most have been attributed to Pakistani Taliban rebels. -- AFP