Al-Qaeda trying to influence political policies through assassination? Don’t they know jihad is an inner spiritual struggle? From AP, with thanks to DC Watson:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network may have been behind the failed attempt to assassinate the country’s prime minister-designate, a senior Cabinet minister said Saturday, though investigators are still poring over the evidence.
The death toll from the suicide bomb attack Friday against Shaukat Aziz, meanwhile, rose to eight, with about three dozen injured, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. Among those killed was Aziz’s driver, who had not yet closed the bulletproof door on the car when a man approached and detonated a bomb.
“Al-Qaida may be behind it,” Ahmed told The Associated Press, before adding that there is no hard evidence linking the group to the attack.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has said he believes al-Qaida was involved in two attempts to kill him in December, the last of which killed 17 people. He was unharmed.