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Key Al-Qaeda suspect among 10 arrested: Pak official

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, June 14, IRNA -- Pakistani law enforcement agencies have 
arrested a key Al-Qaeda suspect and nine others blamed for last 
week`s assassination attempt on a senior military commander, the 
interior and information ministers said Sunday. 
Among the people arrested was Masrab Arochi, a nephew of former 
Al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Khalid Sheikh, arrested in March 2003 in 
Rawalpindi, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told a news 
conference. 
Arochi carried a US$1 million reward on his head, the minister 
said, and is believed to have been behind several attacks in Pakistan,
including the attack on Karachi corps commander Lt. Gen. A Ahsan 
Saleem Hayat last week. 
Hayat escaped unhurt in the assassination attempt, which killed 
11 people including seven soldiers. 
The men were arrested on a weekend in different raids in the 
Pakistani port city of Karachi, according to the official. 
"It is a major breakthrough," Hayat said. "We have made a big 
dent in the Al-Qaeda network." 
He said those arrested included eight Central Asian suspects, 
including Chechens and Uzbeks, adding that all have confessed to 
their role in the plot to kill the military commander. 
Hayat also said they have confessed to a key role in the attack. 
"The detained men are having direct links to Al-Qaeda." 
He said a tenth man arrested was identified as the mastermind of 
two sectarian attacks in Quetta in the past few months that left 
scores dead. The minister did not disclose his name. 
According to Hayat, the Central Asian suspects had all trained at 
Al-Qaeda camps in South Waziristan, the tribal region near the Afghan 
border where the military is engaged in a fierce battle against 
foreign militants. 
A Pakistani military spokesman had said that more than 50 
suspected militants and 17 security forces died in the four day 
operation. 
Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, in a statement on Sunday, said that the 
operations had been successful and that it is about to end. 
He said a hideout of the militant has been smashed. 
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said that the campaign against 
suspected terrorists will continue. 
"Pakistan will not step behind from its commitment to fight 
terror," Sheikh Rashid told reporters. 
TK/TSH/2321/1432