ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces have arrested an al Qaeda-linked militant wanted in connection with an assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto hours after she returned from exile in October.
Two-time prime minister Bhutto survived the suicide bombingon a procession in Karachi after she arrived home on October18, but nearly other 140 people were killed.
Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and bomb attack blamed onal Qaeda-linked militants in the city of Rawalpindi on December27.
Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz told Reuters the suspect,Qari Saifullah Akhtar, was arrested early on Tuesday, alongwith his three sons, and was being interrogated about theKarachi attack.
"He was involved in the Karsaz bomb blast," the ministersaid, referring to an overpass in Karachi where the attack onBhutto took place.
In her book, Reconciliation, published after her murder,Bhutto identified Akhtar as a "wanted terrorist" who tried tooverthrow her second government in the 1990s.
She also said he was involved in preparing the bomb attackon her procession in Karachi.
Hashmat Habib, a lawyer for Akhtar, said he was arrested ata Muslim shrine near the eastern city of Lahore.
A former chief of the banned Harkat-ul-Ansar militantgroup, Akhtar ran a militant training camp in Afghanistan, asecurity official said.
Akhtar fled from Afghanistan after U.S.-backed forcestoppled the Taliban regime in 2001 and took shelter inPakistan's South Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan borderbefore he fled to the United Arab Emirates.
Akhtar was sent by the UAE to Pakistan in 2004 and wasarrested and detained, but he was released in 2007, the lawyersaid.
Police have arrested four Islamist militants in connectionwith Bhutto's assassination.
(Reporting by Kamran Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel andAlex Richardson)
