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They also said they suspected that some of the men recently detained and believed to be Americans may have studied under Mufti Muhammad Iltimas, a radical Islamic cleric who runs a madrasa in Bannu, a village near the border with Afghanistan.
John Walker Lindh, the American charged with fighting alongside the Taliban, is believed to have attended Mr. Iltimas's religious school, and Pakistani officials say Richard C. Reid, a British subject and suspected Al Qaeda member arrested in December for trying to blow up a passenger jet with a bomb in his shoe, may also have attended the school.

Mr. Iltimas was taken into custody last month during an American-Pakistani operation in the area, and was released the next day.