Islamic school link to London attacks suspect

Investigators are looking into a tip that one of the suspects in the London bombing may have visited Pakistan last year and spent time at an Islamic school, according to a senior intelligence official.

Authorities are also investigating whether the other suspects in last week’s bombing at three underground stations and on a bus had links with militants in Pakistan, he said. Three of the suspects are Britons of Pakistani descent.

The comments came a day after Pakistan Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said information Pakistan gave Britain thwarted a terrorist strike in the UK before May’s general election.

London’s Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair today said he was not familiar with any such case or plot, and didn’t understand what Shepao was referring to.

Britons Shahzad Tanweer, 22; Hasib Hussain, 19, and Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, as well as a Jamaican-born Briton, have been named as the suicide bombers who set off the July 7 explosions that killed more than 50 people.

Intelligence officials are trying to verify whether Tanweer travelled to Pakistan last year and stayed at a religious school in the eastern city of Lahore, the official said.

After a four or five day stay at the madrassa, Tanweer is believed to have travelled to Faisalabad, an industrial town in the same province, but his reasons were not clear.

The official had no other details.

Pakistani authorities have stressed they are co-operating with Britain.

In a telephone call late yesterday, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf assured British Prime Minister Tony Blair of “Pakistan’s fullest support and assistance” in the investigation into the London attacks.

Blair thanked Pakistan for its “unequivocal support,” reports said.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said: “We have co-operated in the past and we would continue to extend our maximum cooperation to the British government.”

Jilani said Pakistan had no information that any of the suspects in the bombings in Britain had travelled recently to Pakistan.

“No evidence has been provided to us with regard to the travel of any of the alleged attackers to Pakistan,” he said.

Many Pakistanis have relatives in Britain, and ties between the nation and its former colonial ruler are still strong. Many dual citizens split time between the two countries. Others send back money every month to help support family members.