Pakistan has busted an Al-Qaeda-linked plot to kill civil and military officials and attack key sites including the US embassy and the military headquarters, officials said yesterday.
The government said intelligence agencies had arrested around a dozen local and foreign militants who plotted attacks that were to begin August 13.
"Their plan was to carry out physical assaults on important civil and military dignitaries using sophisticated weapons and hand grenades," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said early yesterday.
Hayat said their targets included the legislature, military headquarters, the prime minister's house, the presidency, the US embassy and the residence of President Pervez Musharraf.
He said the arrests were made between August 11 and 15 and the plot had been masterminded by Egyptian Al-Qaeda suspect Sheikh Esa, alias Qari Ismail. Security officials did not confirm whether the Egyptian was arrested.
The arrests marked the latest success in a crackdown launched by Pakistani security agencies in July. More than 60 suspects, among them some key Al-Qaeda operatives, have been arrested.
"It is a big achievement of Pakistani intelligence agencies, which carried out daring raids at serious personal risks to foil the sinister plan," said Brigadier Javed Cheema.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told reporters on Saturday that the conspiracy could have killed hundreds of people.
"These people were planning to carry out destructive and bloody terrorist attacks during a week-long time starting from August 13," he said.
Rashid said a huge cache of arms and ammunition recovered from the suspects included bombs, grenades, rockets, rocket launchers, detonators and around 50 explosive devices.
"We are looking for three or four more suspects in connection with the plot," he said.
The interior minister said the leader of Islamabad's Lal Mosque, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was the main coordinator in the planning. It was not clear whether Ghazi was among those arrested.
Ghazi was already wanted in connection with a religious edict he and some clerics had issued a few months ago against military operations in the tribal region near the Afghan border against Al-Qaeda linked fugitives.
"Ghazi was the main communicator between the Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative and other men involved in the plot," he said.
In mid-July, Pakistani intelligence arrested Al-Qaeda's Pakistani computer expert, Naeem Noor Khan, in Lahore. Two weeks later Tanzanian Ahmad Khalfan Ghailani, indicted in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa, was also captured.
Information gleaned from the key operatives led to disclosure of plots to launch attacks in Pakistan, the US and Britain.
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, who is to be sworn in as prime minister next week, survived an Al-Qaeda-linked assassination attempt on July 30. Nine people were killed in the suicide attack.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of