Another cockroach jihad caught, and a possible jihad attack prevented.
Pakistan: Arrest of local Taliban chief ‘foiled a major terror plot’
Karachi, 19 October (AKI) – By Syed Saleem Shahzad – Police on Monday moved to arrest the Pakistan Taliban’s chief in the southern port city of Karachi, Akhtar Zaman, foiling a major new terror plot there, a senior intelligence official told Adnkronos International (AKI) on condition of anonymity.
Intelligence agents who are deeply embedded in the Mehsud tribe network in Karachi became aware of the plot allegedly being hatched by militants on the outskirts of Karachi, the official told AKI.
Police described the previously unknown Zaman as the head of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in Karachi, but the organisation has a cell structure in the city and no official local leader.
“The arms cache recovered from Akhtar Zaman, so-called chief of TTP’s Karachi and his aides Samiullah, Fazl Karim, was sufficient to fight a battle,” the unnamed official told AKI.
“It includes grenades, rocket launchers, AK-47 guns and light machine guns. This was very timely arrest which saved the city from major devastation,” the official said.
Pakistani police and intelligence services have been investigating Zaman and his fellow militants in Karachi since a foiled attempt to bomb the Kemari oil depot in mid-September.
A security guard was killed in an exchange of fire there between police and militants in which police said the would-be bombers had been disguised as women and had worn burqas. The attackers fled, leaving their their arms and ammunition in the Baldia town area.
Power cuts are a frequent problem in Pakistan, which keeps just 20 days of strategic oil reserves. Had the TTP attack against the oil depot succeeded, the whole country would have been plunged into darkness.
The TTP’s reign of terror in the northern and central parts of Pakistan has included a string of recent attacks against the military, security services and government targets, including a brazen raid on the army headquarters in the garrison town of Rawalpindi earlier this month.
Karachi is the industrial and the financial capital of the country, and Pakistan’s intelligence services had been largely expecting an attempted terrorist attack there.
Zaman’s arrest came amid an intensifying battle between the Pakistani army and Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the restive northwest.
The army last Friday launched a major ground offensive in the lawless South Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan in which it claims scores of militants and several soldiers have been killed.
Props to the Pakistani police forces. It’s just too bad they still view India as more of a threat than the Taliban. Or at least that’s how it appears. Hopefully, leadership will wake up, in time to stop the Taliban from making an even bigger mess.
Related posts:
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- Pakistani soldier, would be suicide bomber, among three jihadis detained
- Report: Young Pakistani Army Officers May Be Turning to Taliban
- Hezbollah jihad plot against Israeli target in Europe thwarted
- UK: Islamist Hijack plot from India caused yesterday’s “severe” terror alert
- Fresh off Pakistani government surrender to shariah, Taliban extend invitation to Osama bin Laden
- Angry Pakistani villagers rise up against Taliban
- Taliban threaten to kill Pakistani schoolgirls: Officials
- Pakistani villagers stand up to Taliban, Taliban threaten revenge
- Another Taliban Leader Captured in Pakistan
