Five held for plotting to kill Musharraf

Five men accused of a second plot to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in April have been arrested, police said yesterday as security was stepped up in the port city ahead of the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.

A senior police official said four of the arrested men belong to the Harakatul Mujahideen Al Alam, a dissident faction of an outlawed extremist group, Harakatul Mujahideen which is fighting in Indian part of Kashmir, which planned two assassination attempts in April.

The fifth man, Abdul Zaheer, who is not a member of al Almi, was taken from rooms at the naval headquarters in Karachi but it was not clear whether he was a naval employee.

His wife Najma told Gulf News that her husband had been detained on August 31, but police sources refused to comment on the timing of the arrest.

Home Secretary Brig. Mukhtar Ahmed said he could not comment on the timing or the arrest. But other police sources named the four Al Almi men arrested as Imran Ahmed, Aminur Rehman, Wakil and Zakir.

Three members of that group were arrested in July and accused of plotting to assassinate Musharraf in Karachi. It is believed their interrogation led to the uncovering of the second plot.

Unconfirmed reports say there have been seven attempts made on the life of the president so far.

"The (recently) arrested people hatched a plot to kill the president after the failure of an earlier attempt," a senior police official said.

He said the second plot was also planned for April, when Musharraf was in Karachi to address a public rally in connection with a referendum on extending his rule.

In fact, the attempts on Musharraf's life took place on two consecutive days on April 26 and April 27. Both failed. The five men whose arrest became public yesterday have been implicated for the second failed attempt.

The official said the second plot to kill Musharraf failed because he arrived late to inaugurate the Lyari expressway in the city. "The arrest was made on a tip-off and we have also seized weapons which were to be used in the planned attempt," the official said.

The four men arrested in July were accused of parking an explosive-laden car along a route that Musharraf's motorcade was to take during a visit to Karachi. The bomb's remote control detonator failed.

Three of them were charged with using the same explosive-laden car for a bombing outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi on June 14 that killed 12 people. Twenty people were wounded in the explosion in front of the consulate. All those killed and injured were Pakistanis.