Pakistani authorities investigate why London suicide bombers travelled there last year

THREE of the four suspected suicide bombers in the July 7 attacks in London travelled to Karachi in southern Pakistan last year, an immigration official said yesterday, as authorities tried to determine whether extremists in Pakistan had aided the deadly attacks.

Shahid Hayyat, a deputy director at the Federal Investigation Agency, said one of the men arrived in Karachi in July 2004, though details of when he left the country were unclear.

Two other men arrived in the same city on November 19 and returned to London in February this year, according to Mr Hayyat.

The three men were Britons of Pakistani origin, and authorities are trying to find out whether radicals in Pakistan provided them with training or other assistance in the London attacks that killed 55 people.

The four attackers blew themselves up on three Underground trains and a double-decker bus.

Karachi has been the scene of several terrorist attacks against foreigners, as well as minority Shi’ite Muslims and Christians.

Pakistani security officials in the city have arrested several al-Qaida operatives, including Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was caught after a shoot out in September 2002.

Mr Hayyat said London bombing suspect Hasib Hussain, 18, arrived a year ago aboard a Saudi airline. Two other suspects, 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer and 30-year-old Mohammed Saddiq Khan, arrived in Karachi in November aboard a Turkish Airlines flight.

Hayyat said he did not know what the men did during their visit, nor whether they stayed in Karachi or travelled to other parts of Pakistan.

“I have no such information, but I know that our security agencies are trying to get those details,” he said.

This weekend, Pakistani intelligence agents questioned students, teachers and administrators at a religious school in Lahore that was allegedly visited by Tanweer during his visit to Pakistan. A school spokesman denied Tanweer had been there.

The disclosure by Hayyat came a day after a Pakistani intelligence official involved in the investigation said authorities questioned a businessman whose mobile telephone number was listed on the phone records of one of the alleged suicide bombers.

The unnamed businessman was not taken into custody but told investigators that he had many business contacts in England, the official said.