Pakistani raid killed senior al Qaeda figure, official says

LAHORE: The head of al Qaeda in Pakistan was among four militants killed in a police raid near the eastern city of Lahore this week, a provincial official said on Wednesday.

Shuja Khanzada, home minister for Punjab province, named the al Qaeda leader only as "Abdali" in a news conference and said he and three other operatives were planning an attack on government figures.

"Their leader who was giving them the briefings, who was leading the entire team, was the head of al Qaeda in Pakistan. His name was Abdali," he told reporters.

The minister later confirmed by telephone that Abdali was one of the four killed on Monday when Pakistani forces raided a hideout in the small town of Ferozwala a few kilometres outside Lahore.

A huge cache of weapons including AK-47s, rocket launchers and suicide vests and laptops was seized in the raid, police said at the time.

An al Qaeda presence remains in Pakistan since the killing of top leader Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid by U.S. forces in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

Many Islamist militants from the western region near Afghanistan have fled to other parts of the country, officials say, as security forces press on with ground and air offensives in North Waziristan.

The army says hundreds of militants have been killed.