The Pakistan army is questioning four more officers about suspected links with a banned extremist group that has called for the military to oust the country's government, the army spokesman said Wednesday.

A day earlier, the army said it detained a senior officer working at army headquarters, Brig Ali Khan, for suspected links with the group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The four army majors who are being questioned have not been detained, said army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas.

Khan's lawyer, retired Col Inam Rahim, claimed his client was arrested for demanding that someone within the military be held accountable for the covert US Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden last month in the army town of Abbottabad not far from Islamabad.

The raid humiliated the Pakistani military, which didn't know about it beforehand, and raised questions about how Osama could have lived in Abbottabad for five years without authorities knowing.

The Pakistan military has repeatedly denied that it supports extremist groups, and investigations into suspected militant sympathisers are usually conducted in secret. The army's decision to acknowledge it is investigating officers over links to Hizb-ut-Tahrir could be an attempt to counter Western suspicions that it tolerates bad actors within its ranks.

The army did not reveal the names of the four majors who are being questioned.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir is an Islamist organisation that wants to re-establish the caliphate, the administrative structure that once governed a large section of the Muslim world. It insists it has rejected violence, although observers say the group promotes an intolerant mindset that can ultimately lead some followers to embrace militancy.

Although it is banned in some countries, including Pakistan and parts of Central Asia, the group is active in Western countries such as the US, where it finds protection under free speech laws.

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