London bombers 'didn't receive training in Pakistan'

Pakistan today denied any of the London transport bombers received training or support during visits to the country, including the suicide bomber who appeared in a new video warning of further attacks.

Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said there has been no connection proven between Pakistan and the July 7, 2005, bombings that killed 52 people and four bombers, including three British Muslims of Pakistani origin.

“Let me tell you with full confidence that there is no evidence that any suicide bomber had received training or any other support from militants in Pakistan,” Durrani said.

Durrani’s comments came a day after Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera aired a video showing one of the suicide bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, warning of further attacks. The tape also included a still image of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden who was paraphrased praising the London bombers.

“What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a series of attacks that will continue and increase in strength until you withdraw your soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq, and until you (the British government) stop your financial and military support for America and Israel,” Tanweer said, speaking in English.

The 22-year-old suicide attacker killed seven people and himself aboard a London Underground train.

Authorities in Islamabad say that the Pakistani origin of three of the bombers did not mean anyone in the Islamic nation helped in the attacks.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official today said that British agents had been working closely with authorities since the bombings to trace those behind the attacks, but “so far there has been no luck”.

“It is purely a domestic issue of Britain, but we have given them good support,” said the official.

The official said some suicide bombers did go to Pakistan before the attacks, but there was no evidence that they met militants here.

Pakistan is a key US and British ally in the war on terror, but international concern was raised when it was revealed that the London bombers had visited Pakistan.

Tanweer met clerics at a pro-Taliban seminary in the eastern city of Lahore before the blasts.