Pakistan nabs Mumbai plot suspect, begins crackdown

By Simon Cameron-Moore

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces have arrested a suspected planner of last month's militant attack on Mumbai in a raid on a militant camp in Pakistani Kashmir, sources said on Monday.

The Pakistani government has not revealed any details of Sunday's raid at the camp used by Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters in the hills outside the regional capital Muzaffarabad. But the military confirmed a crackdown had started on banned jihadi groups like Lashkar.

India and the United States have pressed Pakistan to act against militants suspected of being behind the Mumbai attack in which at least 171 people were killed.

There were fears that tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan could rise unless Pakistan cooperated and a four-year-old peace process is already in jeopardy.

Intelligence officials, workers with a charity linked to Lashkar and people living nearby say Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a Lashkar operations chief named by India as a suspect, was taken into custody.

"Yes, Lakhvi is among four or five people arrested in a raid yesterday," said an official from the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity, widely regarded as a front for the militant group.

A former militant who now has close ties to the JuD also said Lakhvi had been arrested, as did one intelligence official.

All of them spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of talking about security matters.