QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani police said Tuesday they had detained 150 Afghans suspected of having links to militant attacks, while a renegade Afghan warlord urged Pakistan to stop backing the U.S.-led war on terror.

Police said the Afghans were detained after a string of rocket and bomb attacks in Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, which analysts say has become a refuge for Afghans loyal to the former Taliban regime.

Baluchistan police chief Shoaib Suddle described them as "illegal immigrants."

"They are being investigated for their alleged criminal and terrorist activities," he told Reuters.

In the most recent attack, two journalists and seven policemen were wounded when three bomb blasts rocked Quetta on Monday.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency quoted a statement from Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as saying neighboring countries, especially Pakistan, should end support "to the brutal murderers of oppressed Afghans."

"They should keep in mind that one day the United States will leave Afghanistan and the entire region and then we will have to live together," he said.

AIP said the statement was dated November 8, a day after U.S. forces launched an operation in the northeastern provinces of Nuristan and Kunar, where Hekmatyar is thought to be most active.

The statement made no mention of the U.S. operation, but the former Afghan prime minister, who rained rockets on Kabul during factional fighting in the 1990s, questioned U.S. resolve.

"Americans have not heard any good news from Afghanistan for the past two years and we don't think they have the patience to listen to more bad news," he said in the statement.

The United States has declared Hekmatyar a terrorist for supporting the Taliban and allied al Qaeda militants.

Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e-Islami group were strongly backed by Pakistan and the United States during the U.S.-backed war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

He lost favor with Pakistan after the Taliban rose to power in Kabul with Pakistani help in 1996.

Pakistan was the key backer of the Taliban but abandoned the radical Islamists after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States were blamed on al Qaeda militants the Taliban sheltered.

Hekmatyar's whereabouts have been a mystery since he was expelled by Iran last year.