By DPA
Islamabad : A top militant leader commanding pro-Taliban fighters in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan Tuesday blew himself up to evade arrest in southern Balochistan province, officials said.
Security forces laid siege to a house in the town of Zhob after receiving information that rebels having suspected links with the Taliban and al-Qaeda were present inside the compound, Balochistan government's spokesman Raziq Bugti said.
The raiding team directed the inmates to surrender but one of them, who was identified as the militant commander, Abdullah Mehsud, blew himself up to avoid arrest, Bugti said.
Three other men were also arrested in the raid.
Military authorities have taken the body into their custody and shifted it to some undisclosed location, local police sources said.
Mehsud, who lost one leg in a landmine explosion, was detained in the US military's Guantanamo Bay prison for 25 months after he surrendered along with scores of his fighters in Afghanistan's northern province of Kunduz in 2001.