Pakistan Verifies Arrest of Suspected Extremist

Authorities on Friday confirmed the arrest of a militant suspected of involvement in a March 2002 grenade attack on a church near the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad that killed five people, including the wife and daughter of an American diplomat.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said Osama Nazir, a leader of the banned militant organization Jaish-e-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad, was behind a series of attacks on Christian facilities in 2002. They include strikes on a Christian school and a chapel at a missionary hospital, both near Islamabad, that killed 11 people.

Officials said Nazir also was involved in failed assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

He was picked up Wednesday night during a raid by commandos at a madrasa, or religious school, in Faisalabad, the city where an Al Qaeda leader, Abu Zubeida, was captured in 2002. The team also recovered cellphones, computer disks, documents and other materials allegedly related to the organization.

Nazir is reportedly the No. 2 in Jaish-e-Muhammad and a close associate of Jaish chief Maulana Masood Azhar.

A leading Pakistani daily newspaper, Dawn, reported that Nazir had direct links with Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and that he had visited Afghanistan on various occasions -- especially during Taliban rule -- as well as the disputed region of Kashmir.

He was brought to Lahore on Friday for interrogation.

Nazir was arrested a day after Pakistani security forces arrested Rana Naveed-ul-Hasan, who is suspected of involvement in a June 2002 bomb attack on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi in which 12 Pakistanis were killed.

Musharraf on Friday reiterated his resolve to fight “terrorism and militancy.”

“This is the task ahead, and it requires military action and use of force against masterminds in the mountains and in the cities,” the state-run television channel PTV quoted him as telling a gathering of religious scholars in Rawalpindi.