All five youths were on the US FBI's 'watch list', and were nabbed after police received a tip-off about their suspicious activities.
The five "high value" terror suspects arrested in the eastern city of Sargodha are US nationals with links to the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed, and were allegedly planning terror attacks in Pakistan, a senior police official said today.
All five youths were on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's "watch list" and were nabbed after police received a tip-off about their suspicious activities, Sargodha district police chief Usman Anwar said.
The youths had links with the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is blamed for a number of terror attacks in India, and a scrutiny of their laptop computers and email accounts had revealed that they were in touch with militants and were "planning for terror attacks", Anwar said.
Asked if the youths also had links with al Qaeda, Anwar said, "They are high value suspects, but I can’t say anything more at the moment."
Though all five are US nationals, one is of Yemeni origin, one of Egyptian origin, one of Ethiopian origin and two are of Pakistani descent, he said.
They were identified as Ahmed Mani, Ramy Zamzam, Iman Hasan, Omar Farooq and Waqar Khan.
They entered Pakistan through the Pakistani port city of Karachi on November 30 before travelling to Lahore and then to Sargodha earlier this month.
Police registered a case against the youths under the Foreigners Act before handing them over to intelligence agencies.
It is believed they were also questioned by a FBI team this morning. In Islamabad, foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit confirmed the arrest of an unspecified number of US nationals in Sargodha.
Responding to persistent questions on the issue during a weekly news briefing, he said the arrested persons were "of Pakistani origin and other descent".
Basit refused to go into specifics due to "sensitive issues" involved in the investigation, but said Pakistan would continue to cooperate with the world community to root out terrorism.
In response to a query on whether Pakistan would hand over the arrested persons to the US, he said there was no extradition treaty between the two countries.
Meanwhile, Geo News channel reported that police in Sargodha had arrested several other persons after conducting raids on the basis of information gleaned from the US nationals.
Among those arrested were 18 Afghan nationals and Hafiz Saeed Ghani, who was linked to a 2007 suicide attack on a Pakistan Air Force bus in Sargodha that killed eight people.
Authorities had offered a reward of Rs5 lakh for Ghani who was arrested after a gun battle, the channel reported.
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