Pakistan nabs 97 al-Qaeda men, foils jailbreak

A planned jailbreak, to free US journalist Daniel Pearl’s imprisoned killer was also foiled, the army said on Friday.

The men are accused of involvement in major attacks on two Pakistani air bases, the Karachi airport, several regional intelligence headquarters and on police installations between 2009 and 2015, the military said. 

The LeJ’s Naeem Bokhari and Sabir Khan, as well as Farooq Bhatti, deputy chief of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), were captured by Pakistani forces in recent raids, military spokesman Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa said. 

“Our conclusion is that all of the terrorist groups are trying to cooperate with each other in order to carry out terrorist attacks,” he told a news conference. 

The LeJ and AQIS had been working “in collusion” with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is an Islamist group whose sectarian ideology is closely aligned with Islamic State.