WASHINGTON (CN) — President Trump announced in a tweet Wednesday that the man behind a series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, in 2008 has been arrested.
Pakistani authorities arrested Hafiz Saeed on terror-finance charges surrounding the 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks that took place across the span of four days and killed roughly 160 people.
“Great pressure has been extorted over the last two years to find him!” Trump tweeted, crediting his administration for Saeed’s capture.
This is not the first time Saeed has been arrested on terrorism charges. Exiled Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui criticized the arrest Wednesday as a political tactic to better relations with the U.S. before Khan’s visit to Washington. “Arrest. Free. Repeat,” Siddiqui tweeted.
Saeed denies being involved with terrorist regimes but both the United States and the United Nations have designated the militant group he founded, “Army of the Pure” (Lashkar-e-Taiba), as a terrorist organization. Pakistani courts have dismissed previous cases against Saeed for the Mumbai attacks due to a lack of evidence, although India and the U.S. maintain his guilt.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has said he hopes to weed out militant groups in his country, is set to visit Washington in the coming days.
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