A suspected senior Pakistani Taliban leader has been arrested during a major anti-terrorism operation in Punjab province in eastern Pakistan, security forces said.
The operation has resulted in the arrest of five suspected terrorists from the Pakistani Taliban and the Sipah-i-Sahaba (SS) organization, an armed splinter of the Islamist Jamiatul Ulema-e-Islam party.
Among the detainees is Mehmud Musa, a «key operative of the Pakistani Taliban», who was arrested in the city of Lahore, the capital of Punjab. The other detainees have been identified as Abdul Hanan, Rahmat Ali, Muawiya and Muhamad Arabi.
All of them, according to the statement of the Anti-Terrorism Department reported by the newspaper ‘Dawn’, were planning to launch «a large-scale attack in the province».
The department added that a total of 97 suspects have been arrested in the latest operations against these armed groups.
Afghan security forces have been trying for years to eliminate the Pakistani Taliban, with whom they held an unsuccessful ceasefire last year, and have asked the neighboring Taliban regime for help in eliminating this armed group which often hides on the border between the two countries.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
