'Taliban using maulvis to brainwash Pak youth'

The arrest of four militants, including two young suicide bombers, in Karachi has once again highlighted the dangerous trend of how the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is using local maulvis and handlers to poison the mind of innocent youngsters and send them to the tribal Waziristan mountainous region to become suicide bombers.

"Not only are the TTP brainwashing the minds of our youth with the help of some maulvis of mosques but in some cases we have also learnt that they have forcibly kidnapped and transported some youth to the tribal regions to convert them into suicide bombers," a senior police official said.

The police managed to arrest TTP activists Waqar and Arshad after deadly clashes in Frontier colony on Sunday after getting a tip that some TTP suicide bombers were preparing for attacks in the city.

The police produced the duo in a magistrate's court on Monday and got a four-day remand of them. "These two youngmen are giving us a lot of details about how the Taliban convert innocent youth into suicide bombers," said senior official Fayyaz Khan of the Sindh Police's Crime Investigation Department.

The significant arrests were declared at a press conference on Sunday by Anti-Extremism Cell chief Chaudhry Aslam.

It was a big bust for Aslam as the young men are a treasure trove of information into the Taliban network. They were found with 20 kilograms of explosives, two hand grenades, two TT pistols, 20 feet of detonating wire, 200 bullets and bombing equipment.

Also significant for the police is that two names from this group have been linked to the deadly CID building bombing earlier this year in which over 50 people were killed.

Waqar Ahmed, Arshad Khan and Abdul Razzak, their handler, and Rashid Iqbal were swept up in a raid between Saturday and Sunday night in the graveyard in Frontier Colony.

Some of their companions took off under cover of night. Razzak has told interrogators that he was affiliated with the commander Wali Mehsud, who is a successor of Qari Hussain, a suicide bombings mastermind.

He was tasked with roping in young men in Karachi and prepping them for suicide bombings and sectarian target killings.

Kidnapping for ransom and robberies were also part of the deal. In July 2009, he took six of them from Karachi to Waziristan. Four of them Ibadullah, Arif, Abdul Qadeer and Hazrat Ali were killed in a drone attack. Twenty-two-year-old Waqar Ahmed the youngest of seven children.

His father used to work in a private company while his brothers worked at clinics and medical stores.