KARACHI, Aug 12: The government announced on Thursday that it had arrested two more Al Qaeda militants from various parts of the country, bringing the total number of activists held in the last two days to five.
According to a report by S. Raza Hasan police on Thursday arrested an important member of a recently-surfaced jihadi outfit, Jundullah, in a pre-dawn raid near Malir.
City Police Chief Tariq Jameel told Dawn that the accused, Rao Khalid alias Haris, had taken part in the attacks on the Karachi Corps Commander, Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station and Rangers. Haris, 23, was also involved in the Bible Society and Golf Club blasts, and in a bank robbery in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, added the police chief.
The police seized a pistol, a tripple-two rifle and two hand-grenades from him in the raid on a small house he had rented in a village close to Cattle Colony. With his arrest, the number of Jundullah activists arrested came to 10.
According to the police record, Hamza, Tipu, Bilal, Saad, Maaz, Faiz and Shahab are still absconding. The police have already arrested nine members of the group, including its chief Attaur Rehman alias Ibrahim alias Umar alias Tahir, deputy chief Shahzad Ahmed Bajwa alias Umar, Shoaib Siddiqi alias Usman, Yaqoob Saeed Khan alias Roomi, Kashif Abdullah alias Uzair, Danish Imran alias Shami, Najeebullah alias Atif, Khurram Saifullah alias Anas and Shahzad Mukhtar alias Talah.
Zulfiqar Ali adds from Peshawar: Secret agencies have picked up a foreign suspect who they believe is a member of a suicide squad plotting to assassinate important people. The foreigner identified as Mansoor, an Uzbek, is suspected to have ties with Al Qaeda.
Well-placed sources said the Uzbek was a 'ready-to-die' suicide bomber who had close links with the Al Qaeda computer engineer, Naeem Noor Khan, captured in Lahore last month.
"Mansoor is an active militant with close ties to Al Qaeda," a source told Dawn here on Thursday. According to the source, the secret agencies had detected his presence through electronic surveillance equipment provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
"He was captured on the basis of information gleaned from Naeem Noor Khan," the source confirmed. The Uzbek was wanted by the state agencies since long, but efforts to nab him remained futile. Finally, he was detected through high-tech electronic equipment, it is learnt reliably.
The arrest was made when the suspect was on his way to Lahore. He is being interrogated at a secret location, but the source did not give details about the Uzbek. Meanwhile, secret agencies are interrogating three persons, including an Arab, arrested from Mohmand tribal region on Wednesday.
Officials said preliminary investigations revealed that the UAE national, Mohammad Khalid Rashed Ahmad, had links with Al Qaeda while his two Pakistani friends had association with militant organisations. Initially, the suspects told the investigators that they had come to the tribal area to purchase falcons.
REUTERS ADDS: Intelligence and police officials have announced at least five fresh Al Qaeda-linked detentions in the last 24 hours. The authorities are chasing various leads after questioning at least three top Al Qaeda operatives caught in the last month- Tanzanian-born Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Qari Saifullah Akhtar and computer engineer Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan.
Government officials said the suspects caught in the last two days were captured in various parts of the country. "These people keep many aliases and it is too early to say whether there is an important target among them," one official said on the condition of anonymity. "They often appear as ordinary people, but during interrogation and investigations, they turn out to be real valuable people, big gems," he said.