Pakistan suicide bombing bears stamp of bin Laden
( 2002-05-09 09:49 ) (7 )

The suicide bombing of French naval workers in Pakistan bore many of the hallmarks of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and could mark the group's first major attack since September 11.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, without naming Saudi-born dissident bin Laden or al-Qaeda, said the attack was "perpetuated by someone who wants to destabilise Pakistan internally".

Musharraf earlier told his security chiefs the bombing was direct retaliation for Islamabad's cooperation with the US-led war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Eleven French nationals and three Pakistanis were killed when a man, believed to be Pakistani, rammed a car loaded with high explosives into their minibus at the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi on Wednesday morning.

The Europeans were working with a state-owned French company to help the Pakistani navy build submarines at the southern port city, which is also Pakistan's commercial capital.

Musharraf said the bombing was an attack on Pakistan as well as France.

"By this act of terrorism against the French citizens who were involved in a defence related project the terrorists have clearly tried to weaken the defence of the country," said the statement from Islamabad's information ministry.

Pakistani police and French officials have both named al-Qaeda as a prime suspect. French armed forces chief of staff General Jean-Pierre Kelche said there was a "significant likelihood" that al-Qaeda was responsible.

Analysts said the attack had several al-Qaeda traits, such as the use of a suicide bomber, the targeting of Western civilians involved in defence-related fields, the absence of an immediate claim of responsibility and the devastating amount of high explosives used.

Mohammad Afzal Niazi, a political analyst and writer based in Lahore, said that suicide bombing was almost unheard of in Pakistan, a country wracked by ethnic and sectarian violence.

"The important question is whether the bomber was a Pakistani or an Arab. Arabs have a long established tradition of suicide bombing and it is possible that some al-Qaeda or allied elements may have carried out this attack," he said.

"If Pakistanis are feeling desperate enough to accept certain death to achieve their objective then it is a very, very serious situation. An already pressurised security apparatus will find it very difficult to meet the challenge."

In a clear indication that he suspected those responsible for Wednesday's bombing may have come from Afghanistan, Musharraf said security would be tightened along the border to prevent terrorist infiltration.

But Pakistani security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they already feared the country, and particularly Karachi, was becoming a rallying point for international terrorists.

"Karachi is becoming the hub of terrorist activities. Terrorists are converging here. It is one of the best hideouts in Pakistan at the moment," said a senior police intelligence officer.

"Everything is available here -- sponors, money, targets and hideouts."

Hundreds of fleeing fighters have been captured in Pakistan and turned over to US military in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime last year.

Around 30 al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects were rounded up in US-backed police raids in Lahore and Faisalabad in March, including one of bin Laden's top deputies, Abu Zubaydah.

But Pentagon officials acknowledge that al-Qaeda fighters have been able to move back and forth between eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan through a mountainous border area that has been impossible to seal off.

In January, Islamists kidnapped and subsequently murdered American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi. They demanded the release of Pakistanis captured while fighting with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

In March a man walked into a church in the capital Islamabad and threw several grenades, killing himself, an American diplomat's wife and step-daughter and two others. No one has claimed responsibility for that attack.