About 200 Malaysian students ordered out of Pakistan's madrassas, or Islamic seminaries, in July will be watched by police in case they have been exposed to militant activities, local media said on Sunday.

The Malay Mail tabloid, citing an unnamed source, said authorities feared a backlash after foreign students were ordered to leave by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, a key Western ally, shortly after the London bombings.

"They may perceive the move as anti-Islam by Westerners to curb them from furthering their education in the religion," said the source.

Thirteen Malaysian and six Indonesian students studying in madrassas in Pakistan were arrested in 2003 with suspected links to the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror group, and authorities were wary of similar developments, said the source.

"Police are not taking chances as some of the Malaysian students had been linked and caught for militant activities in Pakistan previously. There were indications the students were linked to the Kashmiri-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET)," said the source.

The middleman

The source also said Rusman Gunawan, one of the six Indonesians, had claimed that as a go-between for the JI and LET, he had recruited students from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia for training in Afghanistan.

"This is worrying the Malaysian authorities," said the source.

Rusman is the brother of JI operations chief Hambali, who has been in US custody since 2003.

Malaysia has had no major terrorist attacks on its own soil, but has detained scores of alleged Muslim militants accused of membership of regional groups such as the JI.

JI, which is seen as the Southeast Asian wing of Al-Qaeda, has mounted a string of attacks, including the Bali bombings in October 2002 that killed 202 people.

Three of the four London bombers who killed 52 people on three subway trains and a bus on July 7 were Britons of Pakistani origin.