Three top al-Qaeda men nabbed in Lahore?

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Rauf Klasra
ISLAMABAD: In a major breakthrough, secret agencies captured three high-profile targets of al-Qaeda in Lahore on Tuesday in the light of explosive information obtained from the captured Afghan national during the Lahore attack.

But sources say the news about their arrest is being kept highly secret, even from the top bosses of the interior ministry, fearing they would leak it. Officials were highly optimistic that after the arrests of these three high-profile leaders, whose identities were being kept secret, the network of these terrorists based in Lahore might be broken. The next target of al-Qaeda was said to be the Seraiki region of the southern Punjab where al-Qaeda was planning to unleash violence with the help of its local operatives.

A total of 12 people, mostly Pashto speaking and a couple of Uzbek and Tajik nationals, were said to be among those arrested. They were said to be behind the attack on the Sri Lankan team on March 3 as both the attacks had many similarities.

Sources said the lone captured terrorist was not offering any resistance to the investigators and had started singing. As he continued to divulge information, agencies raided certain places in Lahore city and immediately arrested nine people on the day of the attack at Manawan.

The Afghan national actually provided the security agencies big leads when he gave them the names of three top members of al-Qaeda leaders hiding in Lahore. Without raising any hue and cry, the raids were conducted and these high-profile targets were arrested.

Sources said investigators were now quite hopeful that they might get useful information from these high-profile al-Qaeda men as they knew the plans of Baitullah Mehsud how to target different areas of the Punjab. They would be able to get more information about their plans to hit the Seraiki areas of the Punjab where they were planning to get the cooperation of banned religious organisations that still had significant manpower available at their disposal.

This correspondent tried to contact Interior Secretary Kamal Shah but he was said to be out of the country. Interior Ministry spokesman Bashir Mazari’s mobile phone was switched off. Adviser Rehman Malik did not respond to a message.

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