KARACHI: Pakistani security forces have arrested a senior al Qaeda Yemeni operative in the city of Karachi, the military said on Tuesday.
The army identified the man as Muhammad Ali Qasim Yaqub, alias Abu Sohaib al Makki, and said he had been “working directly under al Qaeda leaders along (the) Pak-Afghan border”.
Faisal Shakeel, correspondent for Express 24/7, said the arrest of al Makki by security agencies may help ease tensions between Pakistan and the US.
According to an update on Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) website, al Makki is a Yemeni national and has been working directly under the al Qaeda leaders along Pak-Afghan borders.
It also says that the arrest of Al Makki is a “major development” in unraveling the Al Qaeda network operating in the region.
The arrest followed a US covert operation in the garrison city of Abbottabad near Islamabad on May 2 that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and comes after US senator John Kerry visited Pakistan on Monday to smooth a damaging row caused by the raid.
The raid rocked the country’s powerful security establishment, with its intelligence services and military widely accused of incompetence or complicity over the presence of bin Laden in a suburban house in Abbottabad.
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