London bomber 'linked to al-Qaida in Pakistan'

Authorities in Pakistan are looking into a connection between one of the London suicide bombers and two al-Qaida-linked militant groups there, including a man arrested for a 2002 attack on a church near the US Embassy, two senior intelligence officials said today.

The investigation is focusing on at least one trip 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer made to Pakistan in the past year, said the officials, who work at two separate intelligence agencies and are involved in the investigation.

One of the officials said that while in Pakistan, Tanweer is believed to have visited a radical religious school – or madrassah – run by the banned Sunni Muslim militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

“He only is believed to have spent four or five days there,” he said.

The sprawling school in Muridke, 20 miles north of the eastern city of Lahore, has a reputation for hostility. Journalists who have travelled to the school in the past have been threatened and prevented from entering. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba was banned by Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for alleged links to a 2001 attack on India’s Parliament.

The official would not say when Tanweer is believed to have visited the school, but he disputed reports he studied there. The short nature of the visit could indicate Tanweer went there to meet someone or get instructions.

Tanweer’s uncle, Bashir Ahmed, said his nephew travelled from England to Lahore earlier this year to study Islam.

But the officials said they believed he also made a trip in the latter half of 2004 in which he met with Osama Nazir, a Pakistani militant arrested in November 2004 for helping plan a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad that killed five people, including two Americans, in March 2002.

Nazir, a member of the al Qaida-linked Sunni militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, told authorities from jail yesterday that he met with Tanweer in Faisalabad, 75 miles south-west of Lahore, before his arrest.

It was not clear what the men discussed, or whether there was any connection between that meeting and the July 7 bomb attacks against three trains and a double-decker bus. The attacks were the worst on London since the Second World War, and killed at least 54 people.

Three of the four suicide bomb suspects – Tanweer, 18-year-old Hasib Hussain, and 30-year-old Mohammed Saddiq Khan – were Britons of Pakistani ancestry. Reports say the fourth suspected attacker was Jamaican-born Briton Lindsay Jamal.

Investigators in London believe a Pakistani Briton in his 30s with possible links to al Qaida may have orchestrated the attacks. They believe he arrived in Britain last month and left just ahead of the bombings.

Pakistani intelligence officials said the Interior Ministry have provided photos and profiles of the London bombers to intelligence agencies to help them determine whether they have any links to al-Qaida suspects already in custody.

ABC News, citing unidentified officials, reported yesterday that the attacks were connected to an al-Qaida plot planned two years ago in Lahore.

Names on a computer that authorities seized last year from Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an alleged Pakistani computer expert for al-Qaida, matched a suspected cell of young Britons of Pakistani origin, most of whom lived near Luton, where the alleged suicide bombers met up on their way to London shortly before last week’s blasts, according to the report.

Authorities have now discovered ties between Mohammed Sidique Khan – one of the July 7 bombers – and members of that cell who were arrested last year, ABC said.

Pakistani intelligence officials would not immediately confirm that report, though they said that information taken from Noor Khan’s computer indicated plans for an attack in London, as was reported at the time of his arrest last year.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said on Wednesday that information provided by Pakistan helped thwart an attack timed for before Britain’s May 2005 general elections. But London’s police commissioner yesterday said he was unaware of any such plot.

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, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported.