ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security forces on Friday arrested two would-be suicide attackers in Islamabad, which Interior Minister Rehman Malik said thwarted attacks on parliament and a mosque.

“We have foiled a plot to attack parliament and surrounding buildings, and a mosque and arrested two militants,” Malik told state television.

The minister said one of the men came from the northwestern town of Bannu and intended to carry out a suicide attack on a mosque in the upmarket F8/1 residential neighbourhood, home to Westerners and wealthy Pakistanis.

Senior Islamabad police official Bani Amin confirmed the arrests and the intention to attack the mosque.

“The arrests were made today in Islamabad. They had suicide jackets. Their target was a mosque in Islamabad.”