Pakistan arrests 7 militants, foil plot to kill PM
MULTAN, Pakistan
Senior police official Abid Qadri said authorities learned about
the plot during an initial interrogation of militants, who were
arrested late Wednesday after a shootout near a village in central
Pakistan.
The militants opened fire when police tried to pull the
suspects' car over for a routine check, Qadri said. Nobody was
wounded or killed in the shooting, but two men managed to escape,
he said.
"We have averted several high-profile attacks by arresting
these terrorists," he told The Associated Press.
The men are all part of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is a banned
Sunni Muslim militant group linked to both the Taliban and
al-Qaida, Qadri said. The group has been blamed for attacking
minority Shiite worship places and killing Shiites across Pakistan.
Some of the suspects arrested Wednesday are believed to have
taken part in last year's attack on the main Pakistani spy agency
in the central city of Multan that killed 12 people, Qadri said.
He did not say how far along the men were in their alleged plot
to kill Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah
Mahmood Qureshi and the others.
Qadri said the suspects also had plans to attack a key dam, a
bridge and military installations.
