Pakistan announces arrest of extremist leader

Associated Press WriterISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pushed by India and the United States, Pakistan said Monday it had arrested a longtime leader of an Islamic militant group accused of attacking the Indian Parliament and nudging the rivals toward war. India called the arrest "a step forward."

Scattered violence and military action left at least three soldiers and nine militants, including three Pakistanis, dead in the disputed region of Kashmir, Indian security officials said.

Hafiz Saeed, until last week the leader of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba organization, was arrested Sunday night in Islamabad while attending a meeting, Interior Ministry officials said. He was charged with making inflammatory speeches and inciting people to violence.

It was Pakistan's most significant arrest of a militant since fresh tension with India began earlier this month and came at a pivotal moment, with thousands of troops from both nations massed at their shared border, poised for conflict.

The two countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998, raising the stakes in their long-standing rivalry, but both have said there is no possibility that the current squabble will escalate into a nuclear war.

After a Dec. 13 suicide attack on India's Parliament killed 14 people, India blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency and two Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Pakistan says India has offered no evidence and is fabricating the charges to malign the secessionist movement in its disputed Kashmir region, but that if India presents credible evidence, it will take action to rein in any militants involved.

Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh described the arrest of Saeed and other militants as "a step forward in the right direction" but said more action was necessary.

"We want Pakistan to pursue it vigorously until cross-border terrorism is eliminated," he said Monday after a security meeting in New Delhi.

On Monday, Indian officials gave Pakistan a list of 20 other suspected terrorists it wants arrested and handed over to India.

Those listed include Dawood Ibrahim, chief suspect in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in Bombay; Masood Azhar, a terrorist suspect released from an Indian prison in exchange for hostages aboard an Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked on Christmas Day 1999; and those allegedly involved in terrorism in Punjab and Jammu-Kashmir states.

No deadline was given, but India said it expected action "as soon as possible," according to Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao.

Gen. Rashid Quereshi, spokesman for Pakistan's military-led government, said Saeed's arrested was not a result of pressure from India but part of "an ongoing process" to curb violence and extremism.

Last week, Pakistan arrested Jaish-e-Mohammad's leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, and the government said he remained in custody Monday. Meanwhile, 22 followers of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed were arrested in southern Pakistan overnight, said Tariq Jamil, deputy inspector general of police in Karachi.

Saeed quit the leadership of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba a week ago, saying he didn't want India to have "malicious propaganda" to use against Pakistan. He promptly took the helm of the group's non-militant wing, Jamaat ud Daawa, which called the arrest "a great injustice."

It was unclear whether Saeed was in jail or under house arrest, which the Pakistani government has often used to restrict militant leaders' movements without unduly angering their constituencies.

The global crackdown on terrorists -- and, by extension, on many Islamic extremists -- places Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a delicate situation.

In October he saw the disarray sown by militant leaders who organized mass protests against his government and his decision to help the United States in its war in Afghanistan, whose Taliban had close ties to Pakistan.

Musharraf already has arrested dozens of militants and frozen the bank accounts of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

"I want to eradicate militancy, extremism and intolerance from Pakistani society. I would like to eradicate all kinds of terrorism from the soil of Pakistan ... and avoid this extremism and intolerance in our society," Musharraf said.

But he said India was "creating obstacles and hurdles."

Last week, the United States designated both Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed supporters of terrorism. It has asked Musharraf to crack down on such groups as part of the global anti-terrorism campaign.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars since British rule ended on the subcontinent in 1947, and two have been over predominantly Muslim Kashmir, where Islamic guerrillas are fighting for independence or merger with Pakistan.

Hindu-dominated India accuses overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan of fomenting violence in Kashmir, while Pakistan says it gives only political support to militants there.

In Kashmir on Monday, cross-border shelling resumed, leaving at least two Indian soldiers dead, an Indian security forces official said on condition of anonymity. Police and residents reported new exchanges of artillery fire, and some residents left their homes for safer areas.

Indian officials said nine suspected Islamic militants and a soldier were killed in two separate incidents Sunday and Monday near Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state.