Security forces arrested a retired soldier and his two brothers on Friday for suspected links to the suicide attack on the Special Service Group commandosÂ’ mess in Tarbela Ghazi, their father told Daily Times.Ghulam Ghafoor, father of the suspects, said an army and police team raided their house and arrested Ameer Muhammad and his two brothers, Salim and Arif, at 1am on Friday, in Topi, Swabi. The local administration and police neither confirmed nor denied the arrests. A police source said Salim and Arif were being detained in Topi police station while Ameer had been taken to Tarbela Ghazi. Ghafoor said his son Ameer retired from the army 16 months ago, and was employed as a security guard at a WAPDA warehouse in the locality where the suicide attack occurred.
Meanwhile, intelligence sources told Daily Times a single group was behind the suicide attack in Tarbela Ghazi and those perpetrated in Dera Ismail Khan and Rawalpindi over the last eight days. The modus operandi of the attackers and the forensic evidence collected from the blast scenes were very similar, sources said: all three bombers used six to eight kilogrammes of explosives and MUV-5 devices were recovered from all blast sites.
The sources also said Military Intelligence was investigating the Tarbela blast without coordinating with federal and provincial agencies.
Agencies add: Investigators suspect the Tarbela Ghazi suicide bomber had insider help, a military official said, adding that he would not have been able to enter the dining hall without help. Army spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad confirmed the blast was a suicide attack.