Pakistan may hold senior al Qaeda leader

The raids were conducted under heavy security and with the reported aid of U.S. operatives.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pakistani authorities may have captured a "very senior" member of al Qaeda after a series of raids on suspected al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts, a senior U.S. official said Saturday.

Pakistani police told CNN about 35 Islamic militants were arrested in the raids, which were carried out Thursday under extremely tight security.

"The U.S. strongly suspects they've captured someone very senior in al Qaeda," a senior Bush administration official with knowledge of intelligence matters told CNN. But the source said authorities are not positive of the person's identity.

A regional intelligence source confirmed to CNN there are extensive efforts under way to determine the identities of those being held. It is too early, the source said, for authorities to be able to positively identify all those in custody.

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Authorities conducted the early-morning raids in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, near the Indian border, in at least two Pakistani cities, Lahore and Faisalabad. A Pakistani police spokesman said the suspects opened fire during one of the raids, seriously wounding an officer.

One of the suspects was killed, the spokesman said, and two more wounded.

The Pakistani spokesman said authorities conducted the raids after getting unspecified information that the suspects had been "involved in terrorist activities in the past and were planning further terrorist acts."

Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, banned five Islamic groups in January as part of a major crackdown on militancy in his country.

About 35 Americans joined the Pakistani police in the operation, police sources said, but it was not clear where the operatives came from. The U.S. military said Friday that its personnel did not take part, and officials in the U.S. Justice Department declined comment.

-- CNN Correspondents Andrea Koppel, Sheila MacVicar, CNN Producers Barbara Arvanitidis and Mohsin Syed contributed to this report.