Tirah operation foils terror plot

Forces arrest suspect linked to Gul Bahadur group

TIRAH:

Law enforcement agencies and security forces have arrested an Afghan national suspected of planning terrorist attacks in Pakistan during a joint intelligence-based operation in Tirah Valley on November 7, Additional Inspector General of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Police Abbas Ahsan said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a news conference alongside Area Development Secretariat Information Secretary Mahmood Jan Babar, Ahsan identified the suspect as Hikmatullah, alias Hamza, son of Noor Mohammad. He said the suspect was arrested near Peshawar in an operation involving police and security forces.

The arrest was made using human intelligence, electronic surveillance and other intelligence resources, Ahsan said. The suspect belongs to the Mangiyar village in the Chamkaniye area of Afghanistan's Paktia province, he added.

Ahsan said the suspect had served in the former Afghan National Army, where he received three months of military training and three months of commando training. After the Afghan army was dissolved, he used his expertise at various madrassas, resumed training activities and established contacts to facilitate attacks in Pakistan, he said.

"He also prepared a suicide bomber," Ahsan said, identifying the individual as Akrama, whom the suspect had trained at the Khalid bin Waleed madrassa near Jalalabad.

The suspect was linked to the former Gul Bahadur group and had also served as a security guard for its commander, Mansoor, Ahsan said.

Interrogation had revealed the identities of the suspect's facilitators in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the locations where he had received training and sites where he allegedly planned attacks, he added.

Officials also played a video statement attributed to the arrested man during the news conference. In the recording, Hamza said he had studied under a religious scholar for a year before beginning to teach at a madrassa.