Pakistan arrests suspected plotter of Mumbai attacks (1st Lead)

Dec 8, 2008, 8:44 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistani security personnel have arrested the alleged planner of the November 26 Mumbai terrorist attacks in a raid on a suspected militant camp, media reports said on Monday.

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhwi, who was named by Indian officials for planning the Mumbai siege, was captured near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Dawn newspaper reported.

The security forces also detained several of Lakhwi's associates after they stormed the camp in the Shawai area late Sunday afternoon.

The camp was used by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity wing of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which New Delhi blamed for the Mumbai attacks that killed more than 170 people, the newspaper said.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa previously claimed it had no connection with the LeT and was focusing on religious and charitable work.

Several media sources reported the raid but there were conflicting figures regarding the people taken into custody. According to Geo News television channel, eight people were arrested.

Pakistan's Ministry of Interior and the military's public relations directorate did not confirm the crackdown.

According to Dawn, ambulances from various hospitals in Muzaffarabad were called to the camp site, but no casualties were evacuated during the operation.

'I saw an army helicopter hovering over the area and around 5 pm I heard two or three loud explosions,' an unidentified woman living in the area was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Indian accusations of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai bloodshed increased tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, who have been at war three times since they both gained independence from Britain 61 years ago.

Islamabad is under great international pressure to urgently address India's concerns in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying, 'I made very clear to the Pakistanis that we are a friend ... but when something like this happens, the United States expects Pakistan to act.'