By Mubasher Bukhari
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) -Pakistani counter-terror officials have arrested an Al-Qaeda leader, Amin ul Haq, who figures on a U.N. sanctions list, they said on Friday, describing him as a close associate of the dead Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
Pakistan’s first Al-Qaeda arrest in many years comes as the counter-terrorism department (CTD) in its most populous province of Punjab registered a legal case against Haq, accusing him of planning to sabotage key installations there.
It did not identify his exact plans or the installations.
“In a significant breakthrough in the fight against terrorism, CTD, in collaboration with intelligence agencies, successfully apprehended Amin ul Haq, a senior leader of Al-Qaeda,” the department’s spokesperson said in the statement.
“His name is included in a U.N. list of terrorists,” it added.
Pakistan’s interior (home) ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On its list dating from Jan 2001, the United Nations’ sanctions panel on ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaeda identifies the arrested man as Amin Muhammad ul Haq Saam Khan, calling him a security co-ordinator for bin Laden.
He figured on the list for his association with the Al-Qaeda bin Laden or Taliban groups, contributing to or supporting activities such as “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel” to them, the panel said.
Bin Laden was killed in 2011 during a U.S. raid on his hideout in Pakistan’s northern city of Abbottabad.
(Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore, Asif Shahzad and Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
