10 AlQaeda Suspects Held

Authorities said they arrested 10 Al Qaeda suspects Sunday, including a nephew of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and accused them of carrying out a series of terrorist attacks.

A $1-million reward had been offered for the capture of Masoob Aroochi, Mohammed’s nephew, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told a hurriedly called news conference that was broadcast on state-run TV.

“It is a major breakthrough,” he said. “We have made a big dent in the Al Qaeda network.”

Eight of the suspects are accused of involvement in an ambush of the local military commander’s convoy in this southern port city Thursday, Hayat said. He said the men, arrested separately from Aroochi, belonged to a terrorist group called Jundulla and were trained in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan.

Hayat said the men had confessed to terrorist activities, including a bombing in 2002 at the U.S. Consulate here, and to their part in the attempt Thursday to assassinate Lt. Gen. Ahsan Saleem Hayat. The general was unharmed, but 10 other people died in the attack.

“Our investigations have established that this eight-member gang was involved in most acts of terrorism in Karachi and Quetta,” the capital of Baluchistan province, he said.

“We have also arrested the mastermind of the recent terrorist attacks, but due to security reasons, his name is not being disclosed,” the interior minister said of the 10th suspect.

The suspects are of Uzbek, Chechen, Afghan and Arab origin, he said. But Information Minister Sheik Rashid Ahmed contradicted him, saying they were Pakistanis, reports said.

The interior minister alleged that the suspects had “training camps and firing ranges in and around Shakai,” near Wana, the administrative center of South Waziristan.

He said the 10 men arrested Sunday included the leader of the Jundulla terrorist organization, whom he identified as Ataullah, who uses only one name.

Associated Press contributed to this report.