The man, named as Brigadier Ali Khan, had been stationed at army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and was arrested just four days after Osama bin Laden was shot dead by US special forces in an early-morning raid.
His arrest is the first in a decade for but will raise fresh questions about the Pakistan army's relationship with Islamists.
Major General Athar Abbas said officers were investigating Brigadier Khan's alleged connection to Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical political group dedicated to establishing an Islamic Caliphate.
"The investigation is on and we follow a zero-tolerance policy of any such activity within the army," he said.
Pakistan's military establishment has used militant groups as a tool of foreign policy for decades, nurturing groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba to fight Indian forces in Kashmir or running CIA guns and cash to Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
Related Articles
Pakistan protests against US drone attacks 20 Jun 2011
US: we will kill Zawahiri just like bin Laden 16 Jun 2011
When bin Laden was found last month to be living no more than 30 miles from the Pakistani capital Islamabad, it raised suspicions that the world's most wanted man had been helped by sympathetic security forces.
Since then American officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of tipping off militant groups, allowing them to evacuate bomb factories shortly before they were raided.
The latest arrest will be desperately embarrassing for a military trying to rebuild its reputation at home after failing to spot bin Laden or the US helicopters who came for him, while attempting to deflect accusations from overseas that it continues to harbour anti-Western officers.
In 2009, a senior Obama administration official claimed that Hizb ut-Tahrir was recruiting young officers.
"They've penetrated the Pakistani military and now have cells in the Army," he told The New Yorker.
No comments:
Post a Comment