Two Turkish al Qaeda members involved in a bomb attack on a Jewish target in their home country and who fought with rebels in Chechnya have been captured in Pakistan, intelligence officials said late today.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the information, said that the men were detained in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday.
A laptop computer, several compact discs and literature were found in their possession. The authorities discovered the suspects after interrogating Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a top al Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan last month.
Car bombs exploded outside two synagogues in Istanbul in November last year, killing 25 people.
Sunday's arrests were the latest in a month-long operation against the al Qaeda network which has netted more than 20 al Qaeda operatives and led to a security alert in the United States and the arrest of 13 suspects in Britain under
anti-terror laws.
Pakistani officials say they have dealt the shadowy network a major blow, but they warn of further attacks by al Qaeda and its local Islamic militant allies in Pakistan who are incensed by the country's decision to back the US-led war on terror.