Pakistan Arrests Cleric Linked to Mumbai Terrorist Attacks

Pakistan has arrested the reputed head of the Islamic extremist group accused of carrying out last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, hours after the firebrand leader gave a press conference where he lashed out at UN sanctions imposed on him and his organization.

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was placed under house arrest for three months yesterday, as Islamabad issued warrants for the detention of eight other leaders of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, sealing some of its offices across the country and freezing Pakistani banks associated with the outfit. The move risks a violent backlash by the group but it eases the massive international pressure on Islamabad to act against militants based on its soil.

"The government has decided to proscribe Jamaat-ud-Dawa," said information minister Sherry Rehman. The Pakistani authorities were reacting to a UN security council decision passed late on Wednesday to put Jamaat-ud-Dawa on a terrorist list, along with Saeed and three other members. The group claims it was an Islamic charity unrelated to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant organization that is blamed for the Mumbai carnage, but the UN dismissed this as a ruse.

According to most independent accounts, Saeed left Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group he founded in 1990, days before it was banned by Pakistan in 2002, though he now says he never had any relations with it. India believes the Mumbai assault was planned in Pakistan and all 10 gunmen came from there, although it has been careful not to implicate the Pakistani state.

"This [UN announcement] is an attack on Pakistan, on Islam and on religious organizations," Saeed told journalists at the Jamaat-ud-Dawa office in Lahore. "We cannot accept something done on the basis of Indian propaganda."

Saeed insisted that Jamaat-ud-Dawa was not involved in terrorism, and was against suicide bombings. He said he was "willing to go before any court to prove we are innocent" and they would write to the UN in protest.

Pakistan arrested some 20 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba this week, including a supposed mastermind of the Mumbai attack. India continues to increase the demands on Pakistan. Yesterday New Delhi said it had given a list of 40 wanted people to Pakistan, double the number it has previously produced.