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Pakistan arrests key suspect in terror attacks on Christians
Islamabad, July 02: Pakistani security forces have arrested a key suspect in three terror attacks on Christian targets last year that left 15 people dead, officials said today.
Islamabad, July 02: Pakistani security forces have arrested a key suspect in three terror attacks on Christian targets last year that left 15 people dead, officials said
today.
Abdul Jabbar, who commands a faction of the outlawed
extremist group Jaish-e-Mohammad, was captured in a lightning
raid in the city of Sargodha in Punjab province at the weekend, a provincial official told a news agency.
Jabbar, who had close links to Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, has a history of active involvement in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir. Five of his accomplices were also rounded up, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Police believe Jabbar provided weapons, intelligence and funds for a suicide attack on a diplomat-filled church in Islamabad, an attack last august on a school for foreign missionaries' children in Murree near the capital, and the grenade attack on a catholic hospital chapel a few days later.
An American diplomat's wife and stepdaughter were among four killed in the March 2002 Islamabad church attack that also left the bomber dead. Four Pakistani nurses were killed in the hospital chapel attack, while six Pakistani Muslim guards died defending the Murree school.
He ran a training camp for fighters in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) before President Pervez Musharraf outlawed Jaish and four other extremist groups in January 2002, the official said.
Bureau Report
Jabbar, who had close links to Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, has a history of active involvement in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir. Five of his accomplices were also rounded up, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Police believe Jabbar provided weapons, intelligence and funds for a suicide attack on a diplomat-filled church in Islamabad, an attack last august on a school for foreign missionaries' children in Murree near the capital, and the grenade attack on a catholic hospital chapel a few days later.
An American diplomat's wife and stepdaughter were among four killed in the March 2002 Islamabad church attack that also left the bomber dead. Four Pakistani nurses were killed in the hospital chapel attack, while six Pakistani Muslim guards died defending the Murree school.
He ran a training camp for fighters in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) before President Pervez Musharraf outlawed Jaish and four other extremist groups in January 2002, the official said.
Bureau Report