Militant confesses role in May bombing

A militant, detained earlier this month for planning an attack on U.S.diplomats in Karachi, was formally arrested by police yesterday in connection with the May 8 car bombing outside a hotel which killed 11 French technicians.

Asif Zaheer, a member of the radical militant group, Harkat Jihad-e-Islami, has confessed his involvement in the May 8 bombing outside Sheraton Hotel in which two Pakistanis and the suicide bomber were also killed, Farooq Awan, a senior police investigator, told reporters.

The French technicians were working on a submarine project in Pakistan.

"He admitted his involvement in the Sheraton attack during interrogations," Awan said.

"He is the first person arrested for the killings of the 11 Frenchmen."Sources said he also apologised for killing the Frenchmen, saying that he was told the target were Americans.

The Harkat is one of the several guerrilla groups fighting in Indian part of Kashmir to end Indian rule there.

This is the first time that a Harkat member was arrested in Pakistan for an act of terrorism. The group had long been considered pro-Islamabad, but many of its members, like other hardliners, got disillusioned when President Gen. Pervez Musharraf announced support for the U.S.-led "war against terrorism."

Yesterday, Zaheer was brought in a police vehicle to an anti-terrorist court hand-cuffed and with his face covered with a piece of cloth.

As he stepped down from the vehicle, he shouted "Allah-o-Akbar" but the policemen stopped him from shouting any more slogans, witnesses said.

Dozens of policemen in combat gear surrounded the building as he was taken into the courtroom where he was remanded in police custody until January 6, a court official said.

The remand would give police advocate time to interrogate him and prepare an interim charge-sheet, Habib Ahmed, a state prosecutor, told reporters.

Zaheer was detained on December 14 with two other militants, Sohail Noor and Mohammed Yousuf for planning to ram a vehicle packed with explosives into the car of a U.S. diplomat on the busy Sharea Faisal (road), which connects heart of the city with airport.

The police seized a car packed with more than 10 kilograms of explosives, which was to be used in the suicide attack on the U.S. diplomats.

Zaheer has provided vital clues about other suspects involved in the killing of foreigners in Pakistan, which has been shaken by a series of terrorist attacks in major cities, investigators said.

The extremists targeted Western concerns, religious minorities, especially Christians and government officials in an attempt to undermine the government's cooperation with the United States.

Pakistan has arrested more than 400 militants, including several key Al Qaida operatives, since the start of the war against terror. But investigators say that the many more are still at large and planning devastating attacks in the country.

Security forces are on a high alert for the past several months, which has forced the militants to strike at soft targets including places of worships belonging to the religious minorities.