Pakistan arrests London bombing suspect – sources

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani security forces have
arrested a British Muslim believed to be wanted in connection
with the July 7 London bombings, Pakistani intelligence sources
said on Wednesday, but a minister denied he had been detained.

Several intelligence sources, who asked not to be
identified, said Haroon Rashid Aswad had been picked up earlier
this week during a crackdown on militants in Pakistan that has
netted more than 150 people.

“We have arrested Haroon Rashid from the house of Qari
Fateh Mohammad from Sargodha three days ago… We strongly
believe he has links with bombers,” one security official told
Reuters.

An official said the qari, an honorific title for someone
who recites the Koran, had been detained at madrasa Qasim
ul-Aloom on the outskirts of Sargodha, 150 km (90 miles) south
of Islamabad.

Officials said Aswad had been taken from Sargodha and was
being held in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province.

Other intelligence sources also stood by their comments on
Aswad’s arrest, despite a denial by Information Minister Sheikh
Rashid Ahmed.

“We have arrested nobody called Haroon Rashid,” the
minister told Reuters.

One of the intelligence sources said Aswad had been
carrying a belt packed with explosives for a possible suicide
attack, around one million rupees ($17,000) and a British
passport.

Aswad appears to be the unnamed militant Reuters reported
was captured on Monday and found with explosives and cash.

Various media, including Wednesday’s Asian Wall Street
Journal, have reported that a search was still on for Aswad
after his name was passed to Pakistani intelligence by British
investigators.

The newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying Aswad’s name
had come up in the investigation based on information from the
cellphone of one of the London bombers.

It also said a man named Aswad Rashid Haroon figured in
U.S. intelligence databases as having ties to the al Qaeda
network of Osama bin Laden.

Speaking to BBC Radio, Pakistan’s high commissioner
(ambassador) to London, Maleeha Lodhi, declined to go into
specifics when asked about the arrest, on the grounds that this
could compromise the investigation.

“But certainly people are being questioned in Pakistan and
we ourselves have renewed a crackdown on extremism.”

SWEEPING CRACKDOWN

President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war
on terrorism, ordered a new crackdown on militants after
revelations that three of the four London bombers were British
Muslims of Pakistani descent who visited Pakistan before the
attacks.

Officials say the three entered Pakistan last year through
the southern city of Karachi and at least one of them visited
Islamic schools, some of which are seen as militant breeding
grounds.

Musharraf plans to address the nation on Thursday on the
London bombings and the crackdown on Islamist militants.

On Tuesday security forces detained more than two dozen
suspects in a series of raids linked to investigations into the
bombings, which killed more than 50 people.

More than 120 other suspects have been detained in a
broader crackdown on militants not directly related to the
investigation into the bombings, officials said.

In overnight raids on controversial Islamic religious
schools, known as madrasas, and on private houses, police
detained 39 students and clerics belonging to banned
organizations in restive Karachi, authorities said.

Another 39 were detained in the northwestern city of
Peshawar, 30 in the southwestern city of Quetta and 30 in the
central city of Multan and some other cities in Punjab
province.

“These people have been under surveillance for some time
for their links to extremist groups,” said senior police
officer Malik Mohammad Saad of the Peshawar arrests.

“It’s an ongoing process,” he said, but added that the
raids were not linked to the London bombings.

An opposition grouping of six Islamist parties, Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), complained that “dozens” of its workers
had been detained around the country.

The MMA’s parliamentary leader, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, said
they included Sajid Farooqi, head of its Faisalabad chapter. He
said Mufti Abrar, personal secretary to MMA secretary-general
Fazal-ur-Rehman, had been detained in Islamabad but later
released.