Pakistani authorities interrogate key suspect in London terror plot

Published: 08/15/2006 8:47:51am

Islamabad- Pakistan said Tuesday it had not found any
links between Rashid Rauf, a key suspect arrested in connection with
the abortive London terror plot and the Pakistan-based outlawed
militant organizations.
"We have not yet been able to find any links between Rauf, a
British national and the Pakistan-based proscribed (militant)
organizations," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam told a
press briefing in Islamabad.

Pakistani officials had last Friday confirmed the arrest of Rashid
Rauf in Pakistan in connection with the terror plot, which triggered
several arrests in Britain.

While there has not been any word about where Rauf was arrested,
officials claimed that he had links with the Afghanistan-based al-
Qaeda terrorist network.

However, the spokeswoman denied Rauf's arrest had any connection
with the detention of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the former chief of the
defunct militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Saeed had been put under house arrest at his Lahore residence last
Friday for one month. But officials did not give any reasons for
Saeed's detention.

Aslam also pointed out that Saeed was in no way linked with the
London terror plot.

The LeT, which was among the six militant and extremist
organizations banned by President Pervez Musharraf in January 2002,
had introduced suicide attacks to hit Indian civilian and army
targets in the Indian-administered Kashmir in late 1990s.

Saeed had abandoned LeT a few days before it was outlawed by
Musharraf.

The spokeswoman recalled that British authorities had asked
Pakistan for mutual legal assistance after unearthing of the plot.

© 2006 DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agenteur