KARACHI: Security forces busted a foreign-sponsored gang, in intelligence based operations conducted in Karachi and Hyderabad, according to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Wednesday.

The statement added that security forces averted a major terrorist attack which was planned by the gang to sabotage Independence Day celebrations in Karachi.

The apprehended suspects include deputy emir of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Swat chapter, Bakhat Zaman.

According to details by ISPR, the militant gang has been planning the attack since some time and had prepared an explosive-laden vehicle and motorcycle, which they planned to use on August 14.

Security forces also claimed to have recovered the explosive-laden vehicles along with arms and ammunition from the arrested men.

During interrogation, the suspects confessed that the vehicles were arranged in Karachi and the gang was waiting for suicide bombers to arrive from Afghanistan. They revealed that Bakhat Zaman had traveled to Afghanistan to arranger for the bombers.

Following a tip off, security agencies carried out surveillance of the group for weeks before the operation was launched on August 9 in Hyderabad and Karachi to arrest the culprits.

Police and government paramilitary forces have been mounting an operation against militants and criminals in Karachi since September 2013. The city of around 20 million people and Pakistan's economic capital has been racked in recent years by criminal, ethnic, political and religious violence.

In June last year the military launched a major operation against TTP strongholds in the tribal northwest aimed at ending the bloody insurgency that has plagued the country for more than a decade.

The offensive intensified after December last year when TTP militants attacked a school in Peshawar and killed over 150 people — mostly children.