Police commandos acting on a tip killed one militant and arrested five others Sunday in a raid against a bombing cell accused in recent attacks around the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Police said they encountered fierce resistance when they stormed the compound in the village of Kaka Khel near Peshawar, the largest city in the northwest and the main gateway to the Afghan border region where many al-Qaeda and Taliban are based.
Militants have carried out a wave of deadly attacks in and around Peshawar in apparent retaliation for an army offensive in the tribal area of South Waziristan.
Three suicide jackets as well as a number of bombs, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons were seized from the compound, regional police Chief Liaquat Ali Khan said.
He said one suspect was killed and five others arrested following a gun-battle that lasted more than two hours. A search operation for more militants continued in the area, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Peshawar.
The militants were suspected of involvement in recent bombings and other attacks not only in Peshawar but in Islamabad and its sister city of Rawalpindi, Khan said, declining to be more specific.
Police have been on high alert since Friday’s bombing-grenade attack in Rawalpindi that left 37 people dead, including several senior army officers.
Pakistani security forces also killed five militants, including a prominent commander identified as Gul Maula, in a shootout in Swat Valley, the site of an offensive this summer.
Maj. Mushataq Ahmed, a military spokesman, said the fighting occurred in the Dangram area where the militants were spotted trying to sneak through the mountains into the region’s main town of Mingora.
