Police raided more suspected al-Qaida hideouts, arresting 16 people in an ongoing crackdown against Osama bin Laden's terror network in Pakistan, officials said yesterday.

Meanwhile, the country's major Islamic parties called on the government to end military cooperation with the United States in the war on terrorism and announced plans for nationwide protests against Israel's military offensive against the Palestinians -- a move the clerics sought to link to U.S. policies.

The latest raids occurred Monday afternoon at two houses in Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city, a senior police official said. Two of the 16 people arrested are Pakistanis and the other 14 are foreigners, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said most of the foreigners are Arabs -- Saudis, Libyans and Syrians -- but "a few" are Afghans.

All admitted they had entered Pakistan after the collapse of Taliban rule in Afghanistan last year, Lahore police chief Javed Noor said. Other police officials said they expected further raids on suspected al-Qaida hideouts in Punjab province, which includes Lahore.

Officials said none of the 16 were believed to be major figures in the terrorist network. However, one suspect told interrogators that Taliban and al-Qaida fighters were regrouping near the Afghan village of Ziruk in Paktika province, about 20 miles from the Pakistani border.

Monday's raids were carried out exclusively by Pakistani police, authorities said. On Thursday, joint FBI and Pakistani teams raided hide-outs in Lahore and Faisalabad, arresting about 60 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives, including one of bin Laden's chief lieutenants, Abu Zubaydah.

The police shooting of an agitated, knife-wielding man as he pleaded for sanctuary in a church was justified, the attorney general ruled yesterday.

Robert Woodward, 37, had disrupted a Sunday service at All Souls Unitarian-Universalist Church in Brattleboro on Dec. 2 by going before the congregation, saying government agencies were trying to kill him, asking for political sanctuary and threatening himself with a small knife.

In a report on the incident, Attorney General William Sorrell said it was reasonable for the two police officers to believe they were "in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury."

The report said witnesses described Woodward as acting psychotic. Among other things, he claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency was behind the deaths of celebrities including former Beatle George Harrison, who died of cancer just days before the shooting.

Sorrell called Woodward's death "tragic."

Three Brattleboro police officers responded to a call from the church and two of them, Terrance Parker and Marshall Holbrook, fired a total of seven shots at Woodward. He died at a hospital four hours later.

Since the shooting, there has been widespread public clamor for information, led by Woodward's family and friends. On March 19, which would have been his 38th birthday, more than 60 friends and supporters gathered on the steps of the Brattleboro municipal building to demand justice.

American Indian activist Russell Means plans to campaign for governor as a third-party candidate by walking across New Mexico starting later this month.

"I am going to walk the state because I have the time and desire to meet as many citizens of this state as possible. That's how I am going to build my base of support and my organization," Means said yesterday.

"The Democrats and Republicans are going to envy my organization when I get through with this walk."

He will start from the state Capitol on April 21 and expects to be finished by July 4.

Means intends to run for governor as the nominee of a newly formed political party -- the Independent Coalition Party. He said the party and his candidacy would offer a "centrist, populist platform."

Last year, Means announced he would run as an independent -- unaffiliated with a political party -- after he dropped plans to be a Libertarian Party candidate.

The filing deadline for minor party candidates is in July.

Yesterday, a group of activists submitted petitions with the secretary of state to form the new political party.

Means, who lives in the small community of San Jose, has acted in movies. He ran unsuccessfully for the Libertarian nomination for president in 1988.