Terror plot foiled in Islamabad, say officials

Authorities have arrested at least two terrorist suspects in the Pakistani capital, unravelling a plot that intelligence officials said, on ...

Authorities have arrested at least two terrorist suspects in the Pakistani capital, unravelling a plot that intelligence officials said, on Sunday, targeted senior cabinet ministers.

The suspects are believed to belong to an Al-Qaeda-linked local militant group, Jundullah, or Allah’s Brigade, accused in an assassination attempt in June against the top general in Karachi that left 10 people dead.

Security agencies are meanwhile hunting for Abu Farj, a Libyan believed to be Al Qaeda’s operational commander in Pakistan, accused of masterminding two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in December.

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Intelligence officials said that Farj is thought to have trained Pakistani militants as suicide bombers at an Al Qaeda camp in the tribal South Waziristan region near the border with Afghanistan.

Since mid-July, Pakistan has nabbed more than 30 terrorist suspects and unearthed valuable Al Qaeda intelligence that has led to a dozen more arrests in Britain and a high-level terror alert in the US. Pakistani government officials have become increasingly guarded with information about the investigations.

They have offered only sketchy details of the latest arrests — apparently after news of the July 13 arrest of a Pakistani Al Qaeda computer expert was leaked prematurely to reporters in Washington, interfering with efforts to entrap more suspects.

Yesterday, a series of bomb blasts rocked Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, a report said today.

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There were no casualties in the 10 bomb blasts that rocked the province on the country’s Independence Day.