Afghan held over Peshawar bomb blast.

PESHAWAR -- The counter terrorism department on Wednesday claimed to have arrested the main accused, an Afghan national, over the Monday bomb blast near the entrances to the Peshawar High Court and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

The Justice Rustam Kiyani Road blast had injured 11 people, including a police official, and damaged 22 vehicles.

CTD DIG Tahir Ayub told reporters at the Malik Saad Shaheed Police Lines that initial investigations into the blast led to the arrest of the prime accused, Ikramullah.

Accompanied by spokesman for the government Ajmal Wazir, capital city police officer Mohammad Ali Gandapur and SSP (operations) Zahoor Babar Afridi, Mr Ayub said the accused, who belonged to Serkano area in Afghan province of Kunar, was taken into custody with the help of security forces and intelligence agencies.

He said the accused carried out the bomb blast at the behest of a commander of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan based in Afghanistan.

'The TTP commander had paid a huge sum of money to the accused to carry out the bomb blast,' he said.

The CTD official said the accused came to Pakistan via Chaman border in Balochistan and travelled to Peshawar to do a recce of the area and returned to Afghanistan, while he used the same border on Dec 12 to come to Pakistan.

He said the accused stayed in a hotel near Haji Camp bus stand in Peshawar and went to the high court area in a rickshaw from Hashtangri area on Dec 16.

Mr Ayub said the accused met his accomplice near the high court building after making a call and went back to Hashtangri in the same rickshaw telling the accomplice that he would send him some goods by the same rickshaw.

He said he used the rickshaw to return to Hashtnagri and handed over two cartons to...