A senior foreign al-Qaeda commander has been arrested in Pakistan, US media reports citing Pakistani officials say.

Initial reports suggested the detainee was US-born al-Qaeda spokesman, Adam Gadahn. Other reports name him as Egyptian-American Abu Yahya Azam.

He is reported to have been in charge of al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan.

There is no official confirmation about the arrest from Pakistani authorities. A number of militant suspects are said to have been seized in recent weeks.

But few reports have been officially confirmed.

Analysts say that most of the information about these arrests has come from unnamed Pakistani intelligence officials, which makes it very difficult to verify.

But US and Pakistani officials did confirm the capture in Karachi of the Afghan Taliban's military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in February.