Pakistan holds militants possibly linked to London bombers

Police in Lahore today said they were holding some Islamic militants who may have had links with the suspects in the London suicide bombings, as investigators try to assess whether extremists in Pakistan were involved in the July 7 attacks.

The revelation came a day after a senior immigration official said three of the four suspected bombers travelled last year to the southern port city of Karachi. All three were Britons of Pakistani origin.

Security officials believe one of the bombers spent time at a seminary in the eastern city of Lahore, and the police chief there, Tariq Saleem, said some people were in custody.

“We are holding a few militants who are suspected of having links to the London suicide bombers,” said Saleem, who did not name the suspects. He said officers were trying to find out whether the “London bombings have any tentacles in Pakistan, especially in Lahore.”

Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, lies near the border with India. Many militant groups maintain clandestine offices there, and some al Qaida operatives have been arrested in the city.

Other police officials said the detained men were from two outlawed militant groups, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Both groups are linked to al Qaida, and some of their supporters have been arrested for trying to assassinate President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistani intelligence officials have said bomber Shahzad Tanweer met Osama Nazir, a Pakistani arrested in November 2004 for helping plan a 2002 grenade attack on an Islamabad church that killed five people, including two Americans.

Nazir, a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, told officials he met Tanweer last year in Faisalabad, south-west of Lahore. It was not clear what they discussed.

Pakistani immigration officials have said bomber Hasib Hussain, 18, arrived in Karachi on July 15, 2004, though details of when he left the country were unclear. Two other bombers – 22-year-old Tanweer and 30-year-old Mohammed Saddiq Khan – arrived in the city on November 19 and returned to London in February 2005.

Officials are trying to find out whether any militant group or individual provided the three men with training or other assistance in the London attacks that killed 56 people and injured 700 others. The fourth bomber has been identified as Jamaican-born Briton Lindsey Germaine.

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

Pakistan is a key ally of the US in its war on terror, and Pakistani leaders have said they will extend full support to Britain to find clues related to the attacks in London. However, some Western officials say Pakistan has not done enough to crack down on militants who are believed to seek shelter and inspiration in religious schools, or madrassas.

Since the London attacks, Pakistani intelligence agents have questioned students, teachers and administrators at one school in central Lahore and at least two other radical Islamic centres. The agents showed photographs of and documents about Tanweer, who blew himself up on a London Underground train. He is believed to have twice attended madrassas.