LAHORE, April 3: Police late on Wednesday night picked up two more suspected Al Qaeda men from a house in Township.
On condition of anonymity, a senior police officer told Dawn the arrests were made on the identification of some 14 suspected Al Qaeda men who were picked up in two raids in Lahore late Monday night.
The officer identified the two arrested men as Abdullah and Fazalullah, hailing from Tunis and Peshawar, respectively. Fazal is said to have been working for Al-Jazira TV in Afghan war, he said.
Meanwhile, one of the 14 people arrested from Lahore on Monday included an important member of Al Qaeda, the senior police official said.
The official said so far the investigation had found that at least one of the arrested men had links to the Al Qaeda leadership and its terrorist network. “He has been identified as Abu Haadi,” he said.
“It’s too early to say anything about any important man among the arrested one,” Lahore District Police Officer (DPO) Javed Noor told Dawn. A majority of them are foreigners, he said, claiming the operation was conducted solely by Lahore police. No other agency whether foreign or Pakistani took part in the raids, the DPO said and added the arrested men were being interrogated. For more raids, Mr Noor said, it “depends on the information derived from the suspects” and their interrogation.
The arrests were made in two raids conducted in Township by police commandos late Monday night. Besides, the commandos also seized some documents, photographs, cell phones and other belongings from the two houses.
According to the official, the arrested men included at least nine foreigners. “Most of the foreigners are said to be Arabs and Afghans,” he said.
