Punjab Home Minister Shuja Khanzada named the Al Qaeda leader only as "Abdali" in a news conference and said he and three other operatives were planning an attack on government figures.
"Their leader who was giving them the briefings, who was leading the entire team, was the head of Al Qaeda in Pakistain. His name was Abdali," he told news hounds.
The minister later confirmed by telephone that Abdali was one of four killed on Monday when Pak forces raided a hideout in the small town of Kala Shah Kaku, a few kilometres outside Lahore.
Officials said they were acting on a tip-off when they raided the Lion of Islams' hideout and had received intelligence that the group was planning an attack on the provincial headquarters of the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
Al Qaeda's South Asian branch leader, Maulana Asim Umar
...chief of al-Qaeda's Sharia Committee for Pakistain, named head of al-Qaeda in India. His video appearances are frequently accompanied by clips of al Qaeda's senior propagandist in Pakistan, Ahmad Farooq. Umar the author of
The Army of Anti-Christ: Blackwater, Documentation of the Dreadful Terrorist Activities of America's Blackwater in Islamic Countries...
, was the "criminal mastermind of the plan," Khanzada said.
The claims could not be independently verified.
A bigwig, who did not want to be named, had earlier told Dawn that four bad boyz were potted in the encounter. One, identified as Abdali of Muridke, went
kaboom!to avoid arrest, while three others were killed in a heavy exchange of fire, the official had said.
A huge cache of weapons including AK-47s, rocket launchers and boom jackets and laptops was seized in the raid, police said at the time.
An Al Qaeda presence remains in Pakistain since the killing of top leader the late Osama bin Laden
... who is no longer with us, and won't be again...
in a 2011 raid by US forces in the Pak city of Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
Many Islamist murderous Moslems from the western region near Afghanistan have fled to other parts of the country, officials say, as security forces press on with ground and air offensives in North
Wazoo.Pakistain Army has killed more than 2,700 murderous Moslems during Operation Zarb-e-Azb
..the Pak offensive against Qaeda in Pakistain and the Pak Taliban in North Wazoo. The name refers to the sword of the Prophet (PTUI!)...
in North Waziristan since June last year, following a deadly attack on Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
's Jinnah International Airport, destroying more than 800 of their hideouts.