Pakistani forces foil plot against university, kill 17 militants

Pakistani forces killed 17 militants allegedly planning to attack a university campus in the central province of Punjab, officials said on Friday.

The militants from al-Qaeda, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar cell of the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group were killed in three separate raids over the past 36 hours, a counter-terror official told newsmen.

The official said that eight were killed when the commandos stormed their forest hideout in the eastern city of Multan on Wednesday.

No fewer than six of their accomplices were killed in another raid on a highway the next night.

Three militants had already been killed in a separate raid earlier in the week.

Another official, also asking not to be named, said the militants were part of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell that was planning the university attack.Security forces have been combing Pakistan for al-Qaeda sleeper cells after a two-year military offensive against Islamist militants.

The military in April said it had completed its operation to regain control of the mountainous border tribal areas from militants, and was now sweeping the rest of the country for extremists.