Hundreds of militants arrested after bomb attack

By Nadeem Afzal

Associated Press

KARACHI, Pakistan – Nearly 300 suspected Islamic militants were arrested Thursday as U.S. and French investigators joined Pakistanis to look for possible links between al-Qaida terrorists and a bombing that killed 14 people, including 11 French engineers.

A top Interior Ministry official, Tasneem Noorani, said “a number” of activists belonging to outlawed groups were arrested throughout the country. President Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler, banned five Islamic groups in January.

“We are expecting more arrests as the raids are still in progress,” he said.

A senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 290 suspected members of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and other groups were arrested in the crackdown that was expected to last several days.

Most of the arrests, he said, were made in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, the country’s biggest with more than half the population.

After Musharraf banned the groups, more than 2,000 militants were arrested but later released. Officials said those militants who had been cleared were not being arrested in the current sweep.

Many Islamic militants inside Pakistan have close links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida organization and have vowed revenge for being banned after Musharraf abandoned Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and sided with the United States in its anti-terrorism campaign.

In the port city of Karachi, three FBI agents spent 90 minutes sifting through the twisted charred hulk of a Pakistan Navy shuttle bus blown apart Wednesday by what Pakistani police believe was a suicide bomber in a nearby car.

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who arrived Thursday to consult with Pakistani officials, said French investigators were already in Pakistan.

The French workers were in Pakistan to help with construction of a French submarine bought by the Pakistani Navy. Alliot-Marie said work on the submarine would continue.

While stressing it was too early to say who was behind the bombing, the French minister said the bombing was “part of the larger terrorist movement against which the international coalition is fighting.”

She praised Musharraf for his “brave choice” to join the U.S.-led war on terrorism after Sept. 11, and said Wednesday’s attack only strengthened France’s resolve.

“We have to fight terrorism until it’s eliminated,” she said.

Alliot-Marie was flanked by scores of heavily armed Pakistan Naval Police as she visited the 12 wounded French engineers at the Aga Khan hospital in the heart of Karachi. The wounded later left Pakistan for France on a German military plane.

Musharraf had ordered his security forces on maximum alert. Police also were erecting cement barricades on the roads outside luxury hotels in the area to try to prevent another attack.

Roads outside the U.S. Consulate were closed to traffic as were streets leading to the residence of the U.S. Consul General.

President Bush condemned the deaths as “terrorist murders” and said the bombing “underscores the dangers all our citizens and societies continue to face from such attacks, and strengthens our resolve to continue working together to fight terrorism at home and abroad.”

Musharraf called the bombing an “act of international terrorism” and convened an emergency national security council meeting Wednesday. An interior ministry official said intelligence agencies suggested “external elements” might have been involved: either al-Qaida and Taliban or agents of Pakistan’s eastern neighbor and archrival, India.

Musharraf ordered heightened security along the border with Afghanistan, where U.S.-led coalition forces are looking for remaining al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in mountain hide-outs.

“We think this bombing was the result of Pakistan’s support for the international community in the war against terrorism,” Information Minister Nisar Memon said, adding that Pakistan would persist in its efforts. “We have taken more measures to combat terrorism.”

It was the third deadly attack this year on foreigners in Pakistan.

In late January, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi and killed by Islamic militants. A March 17 grenade attack on the International Protestant Church in Islamabad killed five people.