Pakistani security forces have arrested seven militants during a raid on a militant hide-out in Peshawar, including a senior al Qaeda operative allegedly involved in the July 7 bomb attacks in London in 2005.
The arrested militant, Zabi ul-Taifi, was among seven fighters surrounded by Pakistani forces as they met in a house on the outskirts of Peshawar, The Telegraph reported.
"He's been arrested in the northwestern city of Peshawar this morning. It was a well-planned raid carried out against a militant den. The men were caught off guard and captured without resistance," a Pakistani security official said.
The raid was carried out at the house of a man called Bakshi Khan in the lawless suburb of Bara Qadeem on the edge of Peshawar.
A resident said he saw Westerners observing the operation from a car with tinted glass and local officials said American investigators were present at the time.
The men - a mixture of Afghans and Arabs - are thought to have been planning attacks on trucks taking supplies through the Khyber Pass.
It was not immediately clear what role ul-Taifi allegedly played in the London bombings and sources at the Scotland Yard said they had no knowledge of the suspect.
British and American intelligence officials say they have accounted for most of the senior al-Qaeda operatives allegedly involved in planning the July 7 attacks from Pakistan.
Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, the man said to have planned the attacks, was captured in Turkey in 2006 as he was travelling to Iraq in a bid to improve relations with terrorists there.
His associate, Abu Munthir, who acted as a contact between terrorist groups and al-Qaeda's senior command, was detained in Pakistan in 2004.
The bomb-maker is said to be a man called abu Ubaida al-Masri who is thought to have died from hepatitis C last year, the paper reported.
The July 7 bombers - Mohammed Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain from Leeds along with Jermaine Lindsay from Huddersfield - killed 52 people on three tube trains and bus and injured more than 700 when they blew themselves up four years ago.
