PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The international airport here was shut down Wednesday after an intelligence report warned of a possible terrorist attack against civilian aircraft by a militant group based in the adjoining tribal region, officials said.
Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority reportedly cabled all national and international carriers Tuesday night to stop their flights to Peshawar International Airport effective Wednesday.
In another development Wednesday, police announced their first arrest in the March attack on a Sri Lankan cricket team in the city of Lahore.
Lahore Police Chief Pervez Rathore told reporters that the suspect, Mohammad Zubair, was a member of the Punjabi Taliban, an offshoot of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group accused of having ties to al-Qaeda.
Seven players were wounded and six policemen killed when militants attacked the team bus with automatic weapons, a rocket and a grenade at a traffic roundabout.
Rathore said Zubair confessed, adding that the group had planned to take the cricket players hostage. He said six other suspects were identified but have eluded capture, perhaps after fleeing into the Waziristan region over Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s military also said Wednesday that it killed 22 militants in the Swat Valley over the past day, including a local commander, as the army sought to wrap up a weeks- long offensive in that area of northwest Pakistan before an expected push into Waziristan.
