Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi says the alleged mastermind of last week’s deadly suicide bombing in Islamabad is now in custody along with his facilitators following coordinated raids in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Peshawar and Nowshera districts. The attack at the Tarlai imambargah mosque during Friday prayers killed at least 33 worshippers and left dozens more injured. Naqvi told reporters the arrested suspect is linked to the banned Daesh group and said that intelligence suggests the bomb plot was planned trained and coordinated from Afghanistan. Security forces also seized individuals believed to be connected to the network in the swift operations. At the same press briefing Naqvi accused India of funding and providing targets to militant groups claiming that militant financing has increased in recent months remarks that India has rejected as baseless and without evidence. The government has pledged to pursue all leads as part of its counter‑terrorism efforts urging social media platforms to shut down accounts used by extremists and warning that militant networks operating across borders remain a serious threat. Meanwhile China has condemned the Islamabad mosque attack expressing solidarity with Pakistan and support for efforts to safeguard national security and stability against terrorism. The arrests represent a major development in the investigation into one of the deadliest attacks in the capital in years as authorities intensify operations against militant networks implicated in the surge of violence.
