Pakistan officials say another Afghan Taliban leader captured

Pakistan: Another Taliban leader captured

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani intelligence officials say have arrested another Afghan Taliban leader.

The arrest of Agha Jan Mohtasim is the latest step in an apparent crackdown against a movement that has long enjoyed relative safe haven in Pakistan.

The officials said Thursday that Mohtasim was arrested in the southern city of Karachi, but did not say when. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give their name to the media.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

KHAR, Pakistan (AP) — Dozens of militants armed with assault rifles attacked a security checkpoint in Pakistan’s volatile northwest, sparking a gunbattle that left 30 insurgents and one soldier dead, officials said Thursday.

The battle occurred overnight in the Chamarkand area of the Mohmand tribal region near the Afghan border, said government and military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Chamarkand borders the Bajur tribal region, where the army said Tuesday it had finally defeated Taliban and al-Qaida militants after more than a year and a half of fighting. The army made a similar declaration of victory in Bajur a year ago only to see violence continue, and officials acknowledged some of the insurgents may have fled to other areas.

It was unclear if the militants involved in the checkpoint attack came from Bajur.

A similar dynamic occurred when the army staged a massive ground offensive last year in the South Waziristan tribal area, the main stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban. Many of the militants fled to North Waziristan and other areas of the northwest, leading a wave retaliatory attacks that killed more than 600 people.

But there have been relatively few attacks in recent weeks, a possible sign the military’s continued offensive against the militants is having some success.

Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan, commander of the paramilitary Frontier Corps who announced the army had wrapped up military operations in Bajur, said other offensives will be staged in the tribal region where militants have fled, including Orakzai and Kurram.

Washington has praised Pakistan for its recent military operations but wants the government to do even more to target militants using its territory to stage cross-border attacks against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has also suffered many attacks far from the militants’ main sanctuary in the northwest.

A suicide bomber accidentally detonated his explosives outside a shop in central Pakistan on Thursday, killing himself but causing no other injuries, said police official Manzoor Sarwar. The incident occurred in Muzaffargarh, a small city in Punjab province.

Also in Punjab, robbers kidnapped a 5-year-old British boy from a house in Jhelum city, George Sherriff, the press attache at the British High Commission in Islamabad, said Thursday.

“The kidnappers held the family at gunpoint overnight and left with household possessions as well as taking the boy with them,” Sherriff said. The family had been scheduled to return to Britain on Thursday.

The boy’s father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, told Sky News that the kidnappers have demanded 100,000 British pounds ($150,000) for the boy’s return.

“I told them I don’t have that much money … I can’t afford that,” Saeed said.

Associated Press writers Khalid Tanveer in Multan and Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad contributed to this report.