Pakistan Arrests 13 Suspected Al Qaeda Militants

Pakistani authorities said Thursday that they had arrested 13 more alleged Al Qaeda-linked militants in a fresh sweep in the semiautonomous tribal region of Bajur in northwestern Pakistan.

The arrests came a day after the government disclosed the capture of a man they described as a leading Al Qaeda figure, Abu Faraj Farj, also known as Abu Faraj Libbi. A senior Pakistani government official said there were no direct links between the two operations.

“We have arrested 13 suspected terrorists in various raids in Bajur but these [operations] had no link with al-Libbi’s arrest,” said Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, head of the Interior Ministry’s National Crisis Management Cell.

Twelve of the suspects are Pakistani nationals and the other is an Uzbek, Cheema said, adding that more raids were likely soon in various parts of the country, especially North-West Frontier province, which borders Afghanistan.

Though officials gave few details, Pakistani newspapers said Farj was arrested by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency in Shadand Baba, near the town of Mardan in Bajur province.

“The Al Qaeda leader, clad in a ... burka, was riding a motorbike along with his companion,” said the News, a national newspaper. “On being spotted by the security personnel, the riders tried to flee and took shelter in a house. They climbed the rooftop of the house and jumped over to another house but were trapped over a three-story building.”

News reports also said that tear gas was used to overpower the suspect and three of his companions.

Pakistan had announced a $350,000 reward for Farj’s capture.

The BBC, meanwhile, reported that Pakistani agents wearing burkas seized Farj by ambushing him as he rode his motorbike.

The Pakistani security officials said they also had captured a fugitive militant, Mushtaq Ahmad, who had been convicted of participation in assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf.

Ahmad, a junior airman, was court-martialed in November and sentenced to death but escaped soon after from air force custody.

Investigators said his arrest last week led to the capture of Farj.

No information was released on any possible information provided by Farj, who was being interrogated by a joint team of military intelligence officials.

Pakistani officials had said they were reasonably certain that Farj was in contact with Osama bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri.