Pakistan Holding Seven in London Probe

LAHORE, Pakistan – Pakistan police said Tuesday they were holding seven Islamic militants with possible links to the London suicide bombers, as the investigation focused on the eastern city of Lahore. In a nationwide sweep, authorities also detained another 82 people suspected of ties to militants.

Security officials believe one of the London bombers – Shahzad Tanweer, 22 – spent a few days at a religious school in Lahore, an eastern city where many militant groups have clandestine operations.

“We are holding a few militants who are suspected of having links to the London suicide bombers,” said the police chief, Tariq Saleem. He did not name the suspects.

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

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

Five of the detained men were picked up in Punjab in recent days, and two were caught overnight in southern Sindh province, the officials said.

Saleem said officers were trying to find out if the “London bombings have any tentacles in Pakistan, especially in Lahore.” Specifically, investigators are trying to establish whether the bombers received training, encouragement or other assistance from extremists in Pakistan, or even if the plot was hatched here.

In the July 7 attack, the four men set off bombs on three subways and a double-decker bus, killing 56 people including themselves.

The news of detentions in Lahore came a day after a senior immigration official said three of the four suspected bombers – Tanweer, Hasib Hussain and Mohammed Saddiq Khan – traveled last year to the southern city of Karachi. All three were Britons of Pakistani origin.

Pakistani intelligence officials have said 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.

Pakistan has said it will extend full support to Britain to find clues related to the London attacks. 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.

Pakistani intelligence agents have questioned students, teachers and administrators at a school in central Lahore and at least two other radical Islamic centers. The agents distributed photographs of and documents about Tanweer, who is believed to have twice attended madrassas.

In London on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he had spoken to Musharraf about the need to address radicalism in madrassas.

“I believe it is important, and I know the Pakistani government believe this, that steps are taken to try and root out those things that are giving rise to this extremism,” Blair said at a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

“We have been working with the Pakistani government,” he said. “We will continue to do so and obviously we are very anxious to make sure that the measures are taken that do deal with the extremist teaching in these places.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a telephone call to Musharraf on Tuesday, praised Pakistan’s role in the fight against terrorism, according to Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, and Rice’s call came hours after the chief of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, met with Musharraf near the capital, Islamabad.

Over the past several days, police and other security agencies have detained 82 men on suspicion of links to militant groups and attacks following an order from Musharraf to curb militancy, an Interior Ministry official in Islamabad said on condition of anonymity.

Police raided a religious school and a mosque in Islamabad on Tuesday and arrested prayer leader Abdul Aziz and six other people.

Also Tuesday, intelligence agents raided an Afghan refugee camp and arrested two foreigners on suspicion of links with al-Qaida, a security official said.

Another two dozen men were arrested in overnight raids in the southwestern city of Quetta as part of an investigation into the slaying of a Shiite school teacher on Monday, said Salman Sayed, the city’s police chief.

And in Karachi, police shut the offices of four militant magazines on Tuesday and arrested five journalists for publishing material inciting hate, said Tariq Jamil, the city police chief.