Nayan kidnapping ‘brains’ arrested

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistani security forces have arrested an Afghan militant leader who allegedly masterminded the month-long kidnap ordeal of three UN workers, officials said yesterday.

Syed Mohammad Akbar Agha, head of Jaishul Muslimeen (Army of Muslims), was captured in a raid in the southern port city of Karachi, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told Agence France Presse without giving details.

"Agha was arrested from a flat in central Karachi early last week," a senior security official said, adding that he "put up no resistance when the security forces raided his flat."

The official said efforts were under way to arrest some of Agha’s accomplices.

The minister said no decision had been taken on whether to hand Agha over to Kabul.

"Our agencies are perfectly capable of interrogating him," he said.

The Jaish claimed the abduction of Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo, Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland and junior Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan from a busy Kabul street on Oct. 28.

The three, who were overseeing Afghanistan’s first presidential elections in October, were released unharmed on Nov. 23 after prolonged negotiations with the Afghan government during which the abductors set several deadlines to kill the hostages.

The Afghan government insisted no agreement was reached with the abductors and no ransom was paid for the freedom of the UN hostages.

Agha has told interrogators he slipped across the border into southwestern Pakistan from where he managed to reach Karachi to escape a manhunt in Afghanistan, the official said.

Afghan government welcomed Agha’s arrest.

"This is very good news," Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP in Kabul.

"We appreciate efforts of the government of Pakistan to arrest these terrorists who are launching attacks on Afghanistan from Pakistani soil," he said.

He said Agha who had openly claimed to have kidnapped the UN workers.

"We have indication that half of the (Jaishul Muslameen) group are still in Pakistan, and so we hope that this arrest means that those people who are in Peshawar might be arrested," he said referring to the Pakistani border city.

Afghan officials earlier said that Jaishul Muslameen militants carried out the hostage-taking in league with a criminal gang in Kabul.

"Besides Jaishul Muslameen, there might have been some people in Kabul who helped them. The investigation is going on and there were about a dozen people arrested in Kabul," the interior minister said.

A senior Pakistani government official said Kabul had not yet requested Agha’s extradition.

"Even if a request comes, it will not be an instant extradition," said the official, who did not want to be named.

The kidnapping was the first in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban regime three years ago and had sparked fears Afghanistan may follow Iraq, where at least 30 people have been killed by hostage-takers.

Agha set up Jaish after the Taliban’s ouster by US-led forces in 2001, recruiting former Taliban fighters to resist the country’s occupation by foreign forces, according to sources associated with the group.