In a first, a suicide bomber’s jacket that could bring the house down

Police arrest 4 TTP/LeJ men in shoot-out.

KARACHI:

Suicide bomber jackets SSP Omer Shahid has seen aplenty. But this one, he said on Wednesday, could bring the house down.

“This jacket contains mortar bombs, that could easily damage a third-storey building,” declared the SSP at a press conference with four scalps to his team’s name after a raid in Metroville. “It is the first time we’ve seen this in Karachi.”

The Criminal Investigation Department’s (CID) Anti-Extremist Cell and Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) chief Choudhry Mohammad Aslam Khan arrested alleged members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban, Musharraf, Sherzali, Hameedullah and Ahmad Ali, who are also suspected of having ties with the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. In the shoot-out TTP Karachi ameer Qari Zaman, LeJ group chief Qari Abid Iqbal Mehsud, Tayyab Mehsud and Shujah Mehsud escaped under cover of fire. They are believed to have been trained in Waziristan. “They confessed to plans to target the offices of intelligence agencies and high-ranking police and intelligence officials,” said SSP Shahid. “They had killed and wounded several policemen too.”

The men are believed to have been involved in an attack on intelligence and police officials at Sohrab Goth on January 15, 2009 when Anti-Violent Crime unit chief SSP Farooq Awan had raided a hideout to recover the abducted Hindu filmmaker Satesh Anand. Two policemen were killed and one dozen others, including Awan and an intelligence official, were wounded in the counter attack. This time, the police seized the suicide jacket, 32 kilogrammes of C-4 explosives, seven handgrenades, one smoke bomb, one detonator, 10 metres of detonator wire, three Kalashnikovs, three TT pistols and drugs.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2011.