Pakistani police said they arrested a prominent terrorist on Thursday who trained thousands of fighters in Afghanistan during Taliban rule.

Abdul Hayee, alias Asadullah, was identified as the head of a splinter group of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been linked to the 2002 murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl and a Karachi car bombing that same year that killed 14, including 11 Frenchmen.

The police said he was arrested in Muzaffargarh town, about 25 km west of the central city of Multan.

"He had imparted militant training to some 2,000 people including Pakistanis, Arabs and others," Salman Chaudhry, police chief of Muzaffargarh, told Reuters.

"He was the mastermind of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi," he added.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi had close ties with the Taliban, ousted from power by the US military in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.