Pakistani attacker was "decent cricket fan"

DERA GHAZI KHAN, Pakistan, Feb 15 (Reuters) Hafiz Mohammad Younus was a young, middle-class man, fond of cricket and interested in religion, who left his home in the Pakistani town of Dera Ghazi Khan three months ago.

This week, his family and neighbours saw a photograph of his corpse published in newspapers by authorities trying to identify a man killed as he launched an attack on the airport in the capital, Islamabad, on February 6.

''He had two hobbies: preaching and studying religion and cricket,'' Mohammad Akbar Khan Malkhani, a councillor in Dera Ghazi Khan who knew Younus, said today.

''He was a very decent man. He never talked of jihad. We don't know how was he trapped by militants,'' Malkhani told Reuters.

When he disappeared three months ago there was talk in the town that Younus, who was in his mid-twenties, had joined militants in Afghanistan, he said.

Other residents of the town said Younus was known to sympathise with a banned Sunni Muslim militant group, notorious for its attacks on minority Shi'ites and for its links with the Taliban.

''He wore black turban and belonged to Azam Tariq's school of thought,'' said Hafiz Allah Bakhsh Thahim, a restaurant owner in Younus' neighbourhood, referring to the leader of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) group who was gunned down in Islamabad in 2003.

The militant wing of the SSP is the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, one of Pakistan's most feared militant factions, linked to both the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Three security men were wounded when Younus tried to force his way into Islamabad airport armed with two pistols and three grenades last week.

He was killed when one of his grenades went off as he exchanged fire with police. Authorities initially said he was a suicide bomber but later said the grenade might have gone off accidently.

Whatever his intention, his mission was suicidal.

This week, authorities published a picture of him lying on a slab in a morgue and appealed for help in identifying him.

Younus was born in Dubai where his father worked as an electrician. His family returned to Pakistan when he was 15. He married a cousin but neighbours spoke of a rocky marriage and they divorced after having a daughter.

His grieving mother said she wanted his body sent home.

''I cried for my child for three months after he disappeared. Now he has died, but I can't see his body,'' his mother, Maryum Bibi, told Reuters.

''For the peace of my soul, please send my son's body back.'' REUTERS SP KN2024