October 17, 1995, New York Times, Pakistan Arrests 40 Officers; Islamic Militant Tie Suspected, by John F. Burns,

October 17, 1995, New York Times, Pakistan Arrests 40 Officers; Islamic Militant Tie Suspected, by John F. Burns,

In a move that has underscored growing political tensions in Pakistan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Government has disclosed that it secretly arrested 40 army officers last month, one of them a two-star general, on suspicion that they were linked to Islamic fundamentalist groups.

Since confirming the arrests in a meeting with Pakistani newspaper editors on Saturday, Ms. Bhutto has imposed an official silence. But newspapers in Pakistan, citing Government officials, have said the officers were rounded up in Islamabad, the Pakistan capital, on Sept. 26, and taken to a military prison in the city of Quetta for questioning.

Some newspaper reports in Pakistan have said the officers are suspected of plotting to overthrow the Bhutto Government. But Western diplomats in Islamabad said a more likely explanation was that the Government, eager to enhance its ties with the United States and promote possible American arms deliveries, was responding to pressures from Washington for a crackdown on Islamic terrorist groups that have used Pakistan as a base.

For years, there have been allegations that officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency have been involved in arming and training Islamic fundamentalist groups that have mounted terrorist attacks outside Pakistan. Some Pakistan newspaper reports have said the most senior officer seized in the September roundup, Maj. Gen. Zahirul Islam Abbasi, who was the army's director general of infantry at the time of his arrest, previously served in the intelligence agency.

Diplomats who suggested that Ms. Bhutto's purpose in ordering the arrest had been to strengthen ties with the United States noted that in February she approved a joint operation in Islamabad by United States and Pakistani intelligence agents that captured Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a prime suspect in the World Trade Center bombing in New York in February 1993 that killed six people and wounded more than 1,000. Mr. Yousef is now awaiting trial in New York.

The arrest of the officers is the latest in a series of developments that have underlined growing political instability in Pakistan. In recent months, the Bhutto Government has been arresting opposition leaders and placing new constraints on Pakistan's newspapers, and otherwise acting in a fashion that has caused critics to suggest that Pakistan's fragile democracy could be at risk.

In a new blow to the Government on Sunday, Nasir Hussain, the husband of Ms. Bhutto's sister, Sanam, was arrested at Karachi airport on suspicion of involvement in the slaying that day of a dissident member of the governing Pakistan People's Party. Ms. Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was Prime Minister in the 1970's, was hanged in 1979 after being convicted by a military court of involvement in the killing of a leading People's Party dissident.

According to published reports in Pakistan, those arrested last month included, besides General Abbasi, a colonel and at least 38 other officers. The arrests had been rumored in Islamabad for some time, but Pakistani newspapers ran no reports about them until Ms. Bhutto's remarks on the weekend.

Even then, the Prime Minister was elusive. "Some individuals are under investigation, but it is premature to say anything," she said. "When the investigations are completed, details will be known, and the nation will be taken into confidence."

One newspaper, The Daily News, said today that the officers had been arrested on suspicion of "violating service discipline" and "hatching a conspiracy to overthrow the Government by capturing the command of the Pakistan Army." The army has seized power on several occasions, ruling directly for 25 of the 48 years of Pakistan's existence.

But officials of the Bhutto Government who discussed the issue guardedly on the telephone played down the reports of a coup plot, saying an attempt to topple the Government would have required more than 40 officers, and more than one general.

But diplomats said Ms. Bhutto was more likely to have been prompted by events in Washington, where a joint House-Senate conference will shortly take up a measure passed by the Senate last month that would allow the first military sales in five years to Pakistan. An amendment to the foreign aid appropriations bill that was introduced by Senator Hank Brown, a Colorado Republican, would allow the United States in the coming year to deliver $368 million in military equipment that Pakistan bought in 1990, before the passage of the so-called Pressler amendment that banned military and economic aid to Pakistan until it abandons its covert nuclear weapons program.

Under the Brown amendment, Pakistan would get three Orion anti- submarine aircraft, air-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, radar equipment and parts for Cobra helicopters, as well as parts and equipment for F-16 fighter-bombers that are part of Pakistan's front-line arsenal. The amendment would also make possible millions of dollars in direct economic aid to Pakistan.

But the measure is expected to face stiff opposition in the House-Senate discussions, and could be vetoed by President Clinton for other reasons even if it survives in the final version of the appropriations bill approved by the two houses.