PAKISTAN: TWO AL-QAEDA SUSPECTS ARRESTED OVER U.S. CONSULATE BLAST

Karachi, 22 August (AKI/DAWN) - Two Al-Qaeda-linked suspects — Anwarul Haq and Usman Ghani — suspected of planning a suicide car bomb attack which killed a US diplomat in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, have been arrested in a raid on their hideout. "But the group’s ringleader, Qari Zafar, is still at large," according to the police chief of the Sindh province, Jahangir Mirza. Mirza added that the name of the suicide bomber was Raja Mohammad Tahir and that the car used in the attack on the US consulate on March 2 had come fitted with explosives from Waziristan.

"It was Haq who informed Tahir about the movement of the slain US diplomat, David Foy. The terrorists had fought in Afghanistan earlier. In fact, Haq had lost his leg in battle," he explained.

The provincial police chief said the attackers had hid the Composition C-4 explosives — weighing over 400 pounds — in the car’s CNG cylinder, seats and other hollow spaces.

A major property of the Composition C-4 explosives is that they can easily be moulded into any desired shape.