The militants arrested yesterday on the outskirts of Lahore included a 14-year-old male and a prayer leader from Pakistan’s Khyber tribal area near the Afghan border, said Zulfikar Hameed, a police official.
The prayer leader was wearing a vest packed with explosives. The two told police they were targeting Americans at the Pearl Continental hotel, he said.
“We think they were on their way to launch the attack,’’ said Hameed. “They told us that Americans are responsible for the death of every innocent Muslim in the so-called war on terror.’’
Police seized 26 hand grenades and five detonators from the militants, who were traveling by car and motorcycle, said Hameed. Despite their intentions, the men did not know for certain whether any Americans were staying at the hotel, he said.
The Pakistani Taliban have taken responsibility for a series of terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
A Taliban suicide bomber struck the Pearl Continental chain’s hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar in June, killing nine people. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier that year. And in 2008, a suicide truck attack against the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad killed more than 50 people.
Pakistan suffers from frequent political violence as well.
Yesterday, gunmen attacked a vehicle carrying a former government minister just outside the capital, killing at least three of his aides.
The attack against former information minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad occurred in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, said Atlaf Ahmad, a police official.
He had just finished giving a campaign speech for a vacant Parliament seat.
The former minister hurt his leg as he fell out of the vehicle, said Ahmad’s spokesman, Javed Qureshi.
Ahmad served as information minister under former president Pervez Musharraf but lost his seat in the election held in early 2008.
Investigators said it was too early to know who was responsible for the attack, but many of his supporters said it was politically motivated.
