MULTAN:
A CIA police team claimed to have foiled a terrorist attack on a passenger van near Ghazi Ghaat check post in Dera Ghazi Khan and killed a terrorist.
Police said two accomplices were arrested from other vans and have been shifted to an undisclosed location.
Senior Superintendent of Police (Operations) Gohar Nafees said a van headed off to Rajanpur was stopped at the check post, a man, later identified as Abdul Ghaffar Ghafari, got up and chanted slogans of Allahu Akbar. They said he claimed that he was about to detonate a bomb he was carrying.
But before he could do anything, the CIA personnel shot him promptly in a way that he died on the spot without an explosion.
The Bomb Disposal Squad was called to disarm the suicide jacket he was wearing.
A bag full of weapons, grenades and suicide jackets was recovered from him.
Nafees, who was leading the operation, later told The Express Tribune that Ghafari was believed to have been involved in the Sri Lankan team attack in Lahore in 2009.
He said investigations suggested that the terrorists were currently focusing on bank robberies to fund their activities. He said two security guards serving at banks had been recently killed in Multan.
The SSP said that Ghafari was also involved in the attack at a bank in Taunsa where three people were killed.
He said Ghafari was part of the Qari Matiullah group of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
The arrested men were residents of Basti Shalani in Taunsa.
Inspector General of Punjab Police Haji Habibur Rehman congratulated the SSP and his team for a successful operation.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 2nd, 2012.
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