FAISALABAD, March 29: Thursday’s operation in which 46 wanted people were arrested from here is being termed “most successful hunt” of Al-Qaeda members in Pakistan..

A highly placed source told this correspondent here on Friday that during the main raid conducted at a house in Faisal Town FBI and police succeeded in arresting ‘most-wanted’ Al-Qaeda men, stated to be main characters in regrouping Al-Qaeda command abroad.

The source further revealed that the arrested persons had established a sophisticated “communication network” for passing information to various destinations about their activities, unity and implementing their secret plans. The entire network was taken into custody by the raiding team for scanning some ‘vital information’, source added.

He said the FBI members were happy over the arrest of three suspects they had been searching for. Stated to be Al-Qaeda’s central leaders, two of them were identified as Salar Obu Obaid and Nooruddin son of Saifuddin, who also sustained injuries during the shooting.

The Faisal Town bungalow where the shooting took place was constructed recently by a local travel agent Muhammad Shahbaz, who was later picked up by the raiding team. One of the arrested Arab reportedly introduced himself to Shahbaz as a Syrian-based investor and rented his house.

At the time of the raid, 19 alleged Al-Qaeda members were sleeping in different bedrooms. They woke up when the raiding party forced its entry into the house by scaling the boundary walls.

The raiding team, after an extensive search of the bungalow, took away entire documents, computers, over three dozen discs, a number of telephone sets, mobile phones, and even clothes and other belongings.

A shootout also occurred in the bungalow in which Abdul Hasnat of Syria and an unknown Arab died. The police, however, insists that only one person was killed.

During a visit to the house, this correspondent found 10 names — Dawood, Kamil, Osama, Anees, Lahi, Sabhoo, Murad, Al-Mujahid, Asad, and Badar — written on the wall of one of the rooms. The raiding team reportedly took pictures of this portion of the wall.

During raids in other places in the city, no foreigner was found. In all raids the FBI members reportedly carried photographs of a “most wanted planner of Al-Qaeda”.

According to people who were released shortly after their arrest on Thursday, the photos shown to them by FBI personnel were of one person but in different get-ups.

An insider told this correspondent that the photograph was of Muhammad Zahid. Engineer by profession and Pakistani national, Zahid, it is believed, is passing instructions and messages to some Al-Qaeda members and also making arrangements in various cities of Pakistan for their hiding.

FBI also suspects that Zahid has secretly visited various cities of Pakistan, including Faisalabad, Lahore, Islamabad and Bahawalpur.