30-minute shoot-out: Wagah attack mastermind killed in Lahore raid

Two associates of TTP commander Asadullah also died

LAHORE:

The law-enforcement and intelligence agencies have killed three suspected terrorists, including the alleged mastermind of the November 2 suicide bombing at a ritual flag-lowering ceremony on Wagah border that had killed 60 people, including women and children.

Officials told The Express Tribune that intelligence and law-enforcement agencies were tipped off about the presence of the commander of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s Lahore chapter Asadullah alias Roohullah alias Qureshi in a house in the Barki area of the city. Subsequently, they raided the house in the early hours of Saturday.

When the premises was besieged, the terrorists hiding inside opened fire on the raiding party. The law enforcers returned the fire and a gunfight ensued which lasted for at least half an hour and resulted in the death of all those inside. Later, the law enforcers recovered three bodies from the house, which were shifted to a morgue. The police claimed that the slain terrorists hailed from Bajaur Agency and belonged to TTP’s Mullah Fazlullah group.

They were identified as Asadullah, his brother Miraj Khan and Umar Farooq.

A police official told The Express Tribune that they found a huge quantity of arms, explosives, suicide vests, detonators and other equipment in the house. The intelligence agencies had been searching for the mastermind of the Wagah attack in which a suicide bomber had blown himself up in the midst of a crowd of men, women and children who were leaving after attending the flag-lowering ceremony.

It was learnt that the attackers had brought two suicide jackets – one of which was used while the other was discovered near the bombsite the next day. The police suspected that the suicide vests had been transported in a truck that reached the nearby NLC Yard.

More raids

Following Saturday’s raid, the CIA police carried out a search operation in the Millat Park area of the city and rounded up at least 40 suspects and shifted them to an undisclosed location for interrogation. According to sources, almost all the suspects belong to Buner and Malakand regions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2015.