Pakistani security agencies, following a tip-off from the FBI, have arrested an Arab national, an alleged accomplice of the Al Qaeda terrorist Abdullah al Muhajir involved in the dirty bomb case.
More arrests are expected in the light of interrogation of an Arab arrested a few days ago from Lahore, Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider told reporters on Thursday.
Regarding the arrest of Abdullah al Muhajir, he said: "The credit goes to Pakistani agencies." He disclosed that Abdullah al Muhajir a Hispanic-American and the main character in the dirty bomb case was deported from Pakistan for travelling on forged documents.
The US authorities when asked to check his record found that he had a long criminal record and had also remained in prison. He said that Pakistani law enforcement agencies were doing their best to track down the remnants of Al Qaeda and Taliban who had run away from Afghanistan after the US-led anti-terrorism operation.
The minister refuted reports that al Muhajir had taken some radioactive material from Pakistan. "The question of his carrying something from Pakistan does not arise," he added.
The minister did not disclose the name of the Arab national and the date of his arrest. However, sources disclosed his name as Benjamin Ahmed Mahmud.
AFP adds: Pakistan has arrested several US citizens linked to Al Qaeda near the Afghan border, including a possible associate of suspected "dirty bomb" builder Jose Padilla, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
The detainees - whose nationality has yet to be confirmed by US officials - are part of some 400 suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured by Pakistan since December, senior Pakistani officials told the paper.However, a State Department official said Washington knew nothing about the reported arrests and was seeking information from authorities in Islamabad.
"Our embassy in Islamabad doesn't know what's going on with this," the official said. "They're trying to find out, but we just don't know at the moment." "Normally, we would be told about detentions of US citizens, but we haven't been told anything by the Pakistanis yet," the official told newsmen on condition of anonymity. "Occasionally, we aren't notified but I would think that would be odd in cases like these."
The Times reported that among the captured are disaffected Westerners converted to Islam who have been recruited to fight with Al Qaeda, Taliban forces or with guerrillas in Kashmir. The arrests were made in Pakistan's remote tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, it said.
They also suspect that some of the arrested men who claim US nationality may have studied under Mufti Muhammad Iltimas, a radical Islamic cleric who runs a religious school in Bannu, a village near the border with Afghanistan. |
