ISLAMABAD, 23 January 2008 — Younus Mehsud, brother of Taleban leader Baitullah Mehsud, was arrested by security forces in the southern port city of Karachi on Monday night.
A security source said Younus was captured after a call from his brother was traced to his phone. Younus was assigned an important task in Karachi by his brother, the source said but did not elaborate. He also did not disclose where the brother of the Taleban leader is currently detained.
The news of the arrest came as militants killed five Pakistani soldiers in a raid on a fort near the Afghan border yesterday. Residents said two civilians died in military airstrikes after the attack in the South Waziristan tribal zone, the hide-out of Baitullah Mehsud whom the government has accused of masterminding the murder of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
In a separate incident in the neighboring region of North Waziristan, two security personnel were killed and six others injured when militants fired rockets at a fort in Razmak, chief military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said.
Fighting has escalated sharply in the rugged region since Benazir was assassinated last month, with more than 150 militants and soldiers said to have been killed since the start of the year.
The clashes came hours before Adm. William Fallon, head of US Central Command which deals with the Middle East, met Pakistan Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. “He (Fallon) remained with him for some time and discussed matters of professional interest with particular reference to (the) security situation in the region,” a Pakistani military statement said.
US and other Western officials have been watching nuclear-armed Pakistan with alarm since Benazir’s death sparked mass unrest and the postponement of elections by six weeks until Feb. 18.
A teenager who admitted being a back-up suicide bomber for a team that assassinated Benazir has come out with “revelations” concerning the murder, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
Fifteen-year-old Aitezaz Shah and his militant “handler,” were arrested in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan on Thursday and Shah had told interrogators he was next in line to kill Benazir had the other assassins failed.
Benazir was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack as she left an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27.
The boy’s information had led investigators to the capture of Sher Zaman, and explosives and detonators were found at Zaman’s house, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told a news conference.
Detectives from Britain’s Scotland Yard, which Pakistan invited to join the investigation into Benazir’s death, will be able to question Shah and Sher Zaman, Cheema said.
— Additional input from agencies
