Pakistan 'arrests Mumbai suspects'

08/12/2008| IslamWeb

A number of people have been arrested after Pakistani forces raided a camp said to be used by the group India blames for the coordinated attacks on Mumbai, according to intelligence officials.

 

Witnesses said the raid was carried out on Sunday, close to the town of Muzaffarabad in the Pakistani-controlled territory of the disputed Kashmir region.

 

It would be the first in response to the Mumbai attacks, which Indian officials say were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an outlawed Pakistani group.

 

Some reports said that there had been a brief exchange of fire as the raid began.

 

There was no immediate official confirmation of the incident.

 

The Associated Press news agency reported unnamed fighters from the group as saying the camp was abandoned by Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2004 and had since been used by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the group's parent organization, for education and charity work.

 

'Tight-lipped'

 

"There are reports that security forces including military personnel went into the area," Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder reported from Islamabad.

 

"But the government is tight-lipped about it ... and so far there is nothing significant," he said.

 

"There is speculation that these are preliminary investigations into what the activities of Jamaat-ud-Dawa in that particular region are all about."

 

News of the arrests emerged hours after Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, urged Pakistan to act quickly and said there was evidence the country was used by "non-state actors" to mount the attacks.

 

"I do think that Pakistan has a responsibility to act," Rice said in a television interview.

 

Islamabad has denied any of its state agencies were involved in the Mumbai attacks, which left more than 170 people dead, but has said it is prepared to co-operate with India if authorities prove the attackers came from Pakistan.

 

Lashkar-e-Taiba has also denied any role in the deadly rampage, but the only surviving suspected attacker named one of the group's leaders as being behind the Mumbai plot, according to Indian officials.

 

Earlier on Sunday, the Pakistan government declined to comment on a report that it had agreed to a 48-hour deadline set by the US and India to hand over Pakistanis suspected of involvement in the attacks and form a plan of action against Lashkar-e-Taiba.

 

PHOTO CAPTION

 

Pakistani policemen stand guard in Karachi in November 2008.

 

Al-Jazeera