WORLD / Asia-Pacific

Suspects questioned over Pakistan airport attack

(AFP)
Updated: 2007-02-07 10:48

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani investigators have been quizzing two suspects after
an Islamic militant was killed by his own hand grenade in a brazen attack
on Islamabad international airport, according to officials.

Pakistani security officials whisk away a suspect who alledgely drove a
suicide bomber into the Islamabad International Airport, in Islamabad.
[AFP]

The attack late Tuesday was the fifth in less than two weeks in Pakistan,
raising fears that Taliban militants fighting Pakistani troops near the
Afghan border are trying to embarrass President Pervez Musharraf.

The two suspects were in a car which drove the attacker to the airport
car park, where he exchanged gunfire with security forces after they
stopped him at a security checkpost, injuring three police. He then died
in the blast.

"We are interrogating two people - one of them is a driver and the other
one was also said to be travelling in the same car," a senior security
official told AFP.

Officials hoped they could provide leads to the group behind the attack
amid fears the militants are "desperate" to send a message to military
ruler Musharraf's government.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao confirmed there were three men in the car
but gave no further details.

He however said the incident was no longer being considered as a suicide
attack because "when we searched the body we did not find any explosive
belt on him."

"The circumstantial evidence does not suggest that it was a suicide
attack. He might have come for a hit and run attack," Brigadier Javed
Cheema, head of the interior ministry's national crisis management cell,
told AFP.

"When police tried to check the car he pulled a mask on his face and
started firing. He ran towards the car park and threw a grenade which did
not explode. Three bullets hit him in the chest and one grenade was found
on his body."

The bearded bomber's bloodstained body, with the legs mangled by the
blast, was shown to journalists after the explosion. Several cars were
also damaged in the blast and the exchange of fire.

The airport was briefly closed and several flights were delayed or
diverted.

Cheema said security had been further beefed up at other airports.

Musharraf flew in to nearby Chaklala Airbase hours after the attack
following a trip to Iran and Turkey.

The president angered Islamic hardliners by abandoning Pakistan's support
for the Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United
States and launching a crackdown on militants.

He has escaped two assassination attempts blamed on Al-Qaeda in 2003.

This is a message to the government that they can strike at the most
sensitive areas," a top intelligence official told AFP on condition of
anonymity.

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