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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan arrests two over US consulate bombing |
| 2006-05-04 |
| KARACHI - Pakistani police have arrested two people over a deadly suicide bombing at the US consulate in the southern city of Karachi in March, a provincial governor said. The blast on March 2 killed five people including an American diplomat a day before US President George W. Bush visited the country, a key ally in Washington’s “war on terror”. “We have got two” people in custody in connection with the attack, Ishratul Ibad, the governor of Sindh province told AFP in an interview late Wednesday at his official residence in Karachi. He said they were being questioned about their links to the bombing, but did not elaborate on their identities or on any group that they might be affiliated with. The bomber had not yet been identified, he added. The governor said Pakistani authorities were still investigating a recent statement purportedly by Al-Qaeda that claimed responsibility for the attack, but said the claim was ”questionable”. “That needs to be carefully checked. There is one common sense reason that claim is questionable because it is a long time after the attack,” Ibad said. “We have kept all options open.” The Internet statement, signed “Al Qaeda, of the Afghanistan Jihad (holy war)”, also promised a “summer of hell” for US troops in Afghanistan. “Dozens of suicide operations have been carried out in Pakistan and Afghanistan within the large Al-Qaeda campaign against Zionists and Crusaders, including the attack against the US consulate in Karachi a day before the arrival of the biggest Crusader (Bush),” it said. Karachi police chief Niaz Siddiqui said earlier this week that he seriously doubted the authenticity of the claim. No organisation had previously claimed responsibility for the blast, the latest in a series of attacks on the US consulate. A suicide car bomb outside the building in June 2002 killed 12 Pakistanis. |
| Posted by:Steve |