Pakistani police arrest senior local militant

KARACHI, June 21 (Reuters) Pakistani police arrested a Islamist militant leader today who is accused of being involved in the killing of at least 150 minority Shi'ite Muslims, a police official said.

Usman Saifullah, arrested in a pre-dawn raid on the outskirts of the city of Karachi, was the latest of several leaders of the outlawed Lashkar militant group, which has links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, to be captured.

''He is among the top terrorists in the country,'' senior Karachi police official Fayyaz Khan told Reuters.

''He was involved in the killing of at least 150 Shi'ites.

He was involved in several attacks on mosques and processions in Quetta,'' Khan said, referring to the capital of Baluchistan province.

The Sunni Muslim Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, one of Pakistan's most feared militant groups, has been blamed by police for much of the sectarian bloodletting in Pakistan in the past decade and a half.

While most members of Pakistan's Sunni majority live in peace with Shi'ites, militants from both sects have been responsible for attacks in which hundreds of people have been killed in recent years.

Among the attacks Saifullah was implicated in was a raid on a Shi'ite mosque in Quetta in 2003 in which 53 people were killed, Khan said.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has also been implicated in attacks on Western targets in Pakistan, including the murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, and in two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf.

Several top members of the group have been arrested in recent months and two sentenced to death.

Khan said police seized guns and explosives in the raid on Saifullah's hideout, and said he was planning attacks in Karachi.

REUTERS SHR PC1810