Pakistan: Mumbai attacks were planned here

Malik Rehman, head of Pakistan's Interior Ministry, said six people have been arrested in connection with the Mumbai attacks.

Olivier Matthys / EPA

Security chief admits for first time that terror plot originated in country

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan acknowledged for the first time Thursday that the Mumbai terrorist attacks were plotted at least in part on its soil and said it had arrested most of the main suspects. Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik also said that investigators had traced a boat engine used by the attackers to Pakistan and busted two hideouts of the suspects in Pakistan.

"Some part of the conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan and ... according to the available information, most of them are in our custody," Malik said at a news conference.

Pakistan has been under intense pressure from India and the West to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group widely blamed for the November attacks in Mumbai, which killed 164 people.

Pakistani investigators have been poring over an Indian dossier of information about the attacks.

Criminal case opened in Pakistan
New Delhi says all 10 gunmen — only one of whom was captured alive — were Pakistanis and that their handlers in Pakistan had kept in touch with them by phone during the three-day assault.

Malik said a criminal case had been opened in Pakistan against eight suspects on charges of "abetting, conspiracy and facilitation" of a terrorist act.

He said six of them were already in custody.