SA 'terrorist' held in Pakistan
2004-07-26 08:27
Islamabad - A South African is believed to have been one of three people captured in a raid on a suspected terrorist hideout in eastern Pakistan.
The suspects, along with six children and three women - all foreigners, were captured by police and intelligence agents during a raid on a house in the Industrial city of Gujrat early on Sunday after a 12-hour-long shootout.
The other two suspects are from Kenya and Sudan respectively.
The authorities also recovered two AK-47 rifles, plastic chemicals, two computers, computer diskettes, and a "large amount" of foreign currency at the home, where the suspects had moved to last month.
On Monday, Interior Ministry spokesperson Abdul Rauf Chaudhry said the three men had been handed over to Pakistani intelligence officials, who are questioning them to determine "why these people were staying in Pakistan".
"So far we only know that these three men belong to Sudan, Kenya and South Africa, but we cannot say whether any among them is an important figure or they have links with al-Qaeda," he said.
The majority of al-Qaeda suspects arrested in Pakistan in recent years have belonged to Arab and Central Asian countries.
Chaudhry said the arrested women and children were also in custody.
He would not say what prompted police and intelligence agents to conduct the raid on a home in the neighbourhood of Islam Nagar in Gujrat, about 170 kilometres east of the capital Islamabad.
However, an intelligence official said that the raid was carried out on information from a suspected Pakistani militant who was arrested in a separate raid in the eastern Punjab province.
Pakistan, which became a key ally of the United States in its so-called "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks in America, has so far arrested more than 500 al-Qaeda suspects from different parts of the country.
They included Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was arrested in March 2003 during a raid in Rawalpindi. Almost all the foreign suspects, including Mohammed, were later handed over to the US.
On Monday, Chaudhry said the "foreign suspects" captured in Gujrat were in Pakistan and were being interrogated by Pakistani intelligence officials.
He gave no other details, saying: "Everything will be clear in a couple of days".
- AP