ISLAMABAD, Jan 29: A senior official said security agencies on Monday arrested six militants on suspicion of involvement in the string of suicide bombings in Islamabad and the NWFP. The arrests were made in Dera Ismail Khan before Monday’s attack.

“Two of them are suspected suicide bombers and the four others masterminded the attacks,” the chief of the interior ministry’s National Crisis Management Cell, Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema, told Dawn.

“They have been moved to Rawalpindi where they are being interrogated by intelligence agencies,” the official said.

In reply to a question about the identity and links of the arrested, the NCMC chief said `we know nothing as yet’.

“However, it is believed that the militants were involved in the recent suicide attacks.”

If the links of the suspects are established, it would be the first breakthrough by the security agencies against `the terrorist network’, Brig Cheema said.

“In Islamabad, Peshawar and D. I. Khan, the suicide bombers were intercepted by security personnel and bombers in all three cases failed to hit their targets. I think that the security personnel who sacrificed their lives have averted collateral damage by stopping the bombers from infiltrating processions,” the official added.

In a statement, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said the suicide bombings had made the ‘war on terror’ very trying for Pakistan.