4 militants arrested in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: Security forces have arrested four terrorists, including the commander of a banned outfit, who were reportedly planning a major terror attack in Peshawar on December 25, which is Christmas Day and Quaid-i-Azam Day.

The arrests were made from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Khyber district. In a raid at a house in Sipah Thursday night, security forces and police arrested the four terrorists, one of whom was identified as Zakir Afridi, a commander of Lashkar-e-Islam. Lashkar-e-Islam is a banned militant organisation active in and around Peshawar’s Khyber. It was founded in 2004 by Mufti Munir Shakir. Three suicide jackets and six improvised explosive devices were also seized from the possession of the terrorists.

Sources said another search operation was conducted with information from the arrested men in Badaber village, from where eight facilitators of the terrorists were arrested. According to security sources, the terrorists and their facilitators have been shifted to an undisclosed location for further interrogation.