Pakistani police catch 3 would-be suicide bombers

Karachi, Feb 16: Pakistani police arrested three al Qaeda-linked would-be suicide bombers following a shootout in the southern city of Karachi today, a senior police official said.

''We have recovered a jacket used in suicide bomb attacks, hand grenades and pistols from them,'' Fayyaz Khan, a senior official in the Crime Investigation Department (CID), told sources.

''Now we are carrying out raids to arrest 10 more members of this group,'' he said.

Khan said the three militants had been trained in Wana in South Waziristan, a restive tribal region on the border with Afghanistan, and a hotbed of support for the Taliban.

''They have admitted getting training in Wana, and we have also recovered a list of potential targets from them,'' Khan said.

He said the captured men belonged to a faction known as the Qari Zafar group, which had links with Al Qaeda and the Taliban had been involved in previous suicide attacks in Pakistan.

''They had plans to carry out attacks in Karachi and Jehlum (in Punjab province),'' said Khan.

He described the Qari Zafar group as a splinter group of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant organisation that has targeted Pakistan's Shi'ite minority, and has forged strong ties with al Qaeda.

The police official also said the Qari Zafar group had been behind the a bomb attack on the US consulate that killed 12 people in June, 2002.

Islamist militants, angered by President Pervez Musharraf's support for the United States in a war against terrorism, have sought to destabilise the government by carrying out attacks.

There has been a series of bomb blasts, including a number of suicide attacks since the start of 2007.

A suicide attack in the capital Islamabad, and another in the northwestern city of Peshawar raised fears that unrest in the tribal regions was spilling over into Pakistan's cities as a result of the government confronting Taliban militants.

Reuters