Pakistan foils three suspected terror plots in two days
(Read article summary)The arrests show that militants still pose a threat throughout the country despite the death of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
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Police in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and financial capital, announced Monday the arrest of seven militants accused of planning suicide attacks. It was one of three suspected terror plots foiled throughout the country in the past two days. Together with a suicide bomb Sunday, the events underscored that Pakistan remains vulnerable to terrorist attacks even after the Aug. 7 death of Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.
After receiving a tipoff, on Sunday night Karachi police arrested seven members of the banned militant organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). In the raid police recovered three suicide jackets, four Kalashnikovs, two gas masks, 15 kilograms of explosives, and two kilograms of heroin, reports The New York Times.
One of the men arrested was a close associate of Amjad Hussain Farooqi, who is accused of trying to assassinate former president Pervez Musharraf and of facilitating the 2002 beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
According to Agence France-Presse, the LeJ militants were planning to hit government and police establishments as well as Shiite mosques in Karachi.
