SWABI/HARIPUR, Sept 14: Intelligence agencies on Friday arrested a man from a village in Swabi who, they believed, could have provided clues to the lone suicide bomber who struck a special anti-terrorist unit in Tarbela and killed 15 soldiers, a security official confirmed.

Security personnel raided

a house in Haider Colony in

the sub-district of Topi in

the wee hours of Friday and picked up Amir Mohammad Khan along with his two brothers.

Topi in Swabi and Ghazi in Haripur share border and a bridge over Indus along the Ghazi Barotha hydropower project separate the two districts.

Officials said that Amir had retired from army one and a half years ago and had gone for tableegh. He later joined Wapda as a security guard and looked after a warehouse close to the place of Thursday’s bombing.

Military spokesman Maj-Gen Waheed Arshad said the bombing had left 16 people dead, including the suicide bomber, and scores wounded.

He denied reports that Al Qaeda was involved in the attack and said that investigations were under way and it would be premature to say anything at this stage.

Amir’s father Ghulam Ghafoor said his sons were innocent. “I don’t know what wrong has been done by my sons. The army and police raided our house at 1am and picked up my three sons,” he told Dawn.

Amir’s two brothers -- Salim and Arif -- were locked up at a local police station and are reported to have been released later.

M Ghafoor said Amir had gone for duty early in the morning and returned at 4pm on Thursday. “At the time of the blast he was in a mosque in Haider Colony for prayers,” he said.

But the security official said that Amir could have provided clues to the suicide bomber.

An investigator quoting witnesses told Dawn in Peshawar that a man with short beard had entered the mess of the elite Special Services Groups’s Special Operation Task Force minutes before the blast. “The stranger’s entry into the mess might have been facilitated by the security guard,” he added.

The security official said that Amir would be interrogated and his role would be determined. However, he said that investigations were under way and would take time.

Meanwhile, the authorities reopened roads leading to the Tarbela Hospital. Sources said that military personnel remained busy collecting evidence from the building completely damaged by the blast.

—Additional reporting by Muhammad Sadaqat