Pakistan arrests 97 al-Qaeda and other militants; foils jailbreak plan

The same groups were involved in attacks on armed forces of Pakistan, SSP Chaudhry Aslam, FIA headquarters, Lahore Police Training School and Karachi airport as well, he said. “Our conclusion is that all of the terrorist groups are trying to cooperate with each other in order to carry out terrorist attacks”, he told a news conference. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had also been patronizing these three groups, he added.

Lt-Gen Bajwa said there was also a significant decline in terror acts, target killings declined by 69 percent, there was also a decrease by 85 percent in incidents of extortion and a 90 percent decline in kidnappings for ransom.

Bajwa said the 97 militants had been arrested in a series of raids and operations over the course of several months.

Khalid Omar Sheikh, who kidnapped and killed USA journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, was to be released during the attack.

Six suicide bombers had been enlisted within the assault plan, along with 19 concerned in facilitating it, Bajwa stated.

Brazen Hyderabad jailbreak plan halted by intelligence agents with arrest of 97 “hardcore terrorists”, military says.

The suspects had been involved in several attacks in the southern port city of Karachi and elsewhere, and planned to kill 35-40 hostages and break about 100 inmates out of a prison, he added.

A network of terrorists has been broken in Karachi.

As part of Zarb-i-Azb, he said, “all terrorist sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) have been wiped all with the exception of a few pockets”.

Talking about Karachi operation, which commenced in Sept 2013 at a time when high crime was at its peak in the city, he said target killing has declined by 70 percent since the launch of operation. “Weapons have been recovered in Hyderabad jail break attempt”. The military also recovered about 9,000 weapons in different operations in Karachi.

Most of the arrested men, including Bokhari, had nearly concluded planning the prison break attack on the Hyderabad Central Jail, Bajwa said, according to Reuters.

With al-Qaeda, LeJ and dozens of militant groups, Pakistan has been under domestic and global pressure to take sever measures against all such groups. Al Qaeda in the Sub-continent leader Mussannah is the mastermind and arranges financing for the group’s operations in Karachi, the ISPR spokesman said.

Pearl, 38, was researching a story about Islamist militants while working as head of the WSJ’s South Asia office when he was abducted and beheaded in Karachi in 2002.