Pakistan Nabs Terrorists in London Blasts

From AP, "Pakistan Nabs Militants in London Blasts"

LONDON - Police rounded up seven Islamic militants in Pakistan to determine whether the London bombing plot stretched to South Asia and Prime Minister Tony Blair asked British Muslim leaders Tuesday to weed out extremists blamed for radicalizing their young followers.

Investigators are trying to find out whether any militant group or individual provided three of the four London suicide bombers who visited Pakistan last year with training or other assistance in the July 7 bombings aboard three subways and a bus that killed at least 56 people and injured 700.

``We are holding a few militants who are suspected of having links to the London suicide bombers,'' said Tariq Saleem, police chief in the town of Lahore. Officials want to determine whether the ``London bombings have any tentacles in Pakistan, especially in Lahore,'' he said...

On Monday, Shahid Hayyat, deputy director at Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, told The Associated Press that three of the London suspects traveled to the southern port of Karachi last year - Hasib Hussain, 18, in July 2004, and Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, and Shahzad Tanweer, 22, in November. All three were Britons of Pakistani origin. Hayyat said the purpose of their trip was still unclear but authorities were investigating it.

Pakistani intelligence officials have said Tanweer, born in Britain to Pakistani parents, stayed briefly at a religious school in Lahore. They 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. Nazir, a member of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed, told officials he met Tanweer last year in Faisalabad, southwest of Lahore.

Many militant groups maintain clandestine offices in Lahore, near the border with India in eastern Punjab province, and some al-Qaida operatives have been arrested there.

In Britain, the Times of London reported Pakistani authorities know the identity of a British-born man whom London investigators believe may have masterminded the bomb plot.

Al-Qaida organizers around Europe may also have provided organizational help...