Pakistani police were interrogating yesterday a man arrested at Karachi airport trying to board a plane for the Middle East with batteries and an electrical circuit hidden in his shoes.
The 30-year-old civil engineer, who was detained Sunday when a scanner sounded an alarm as he proceeded towards boarding a Thai Airways flight to Muscat, allegedly told police that his footware was an inbuilt massage system.
The bearded man, who was not carrying explosives, allegedly told interrogators he came from the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Taliban and Islamist militants have a presence.
The suspect was named as Faiz Mohammad.
Airport Security Force spokesman Mohammad Munir termed as “worrying” the discovery of four batteries, a circuit and an on-off button secreted in his shoes, which he said could easily have triggered a bomb.
“The devices found from the suspect suggested that if he was carrying explosive material, he could have easily blown the explosives up in the plane,” Munir said.
Strict security arrangements are in place and flights now operating normally from Karachi, Munir said.
Karachi chief police investigator Niaz Khoso said Mohammad had been handed over to his department and had described the batteries and circuit as a vibrating foot-massage contraption.
“During preliminary investigation, he told us that the circuit in his shoes was for vibration to give him a comfort massage and that he wears such shoes to ease fatigue he usually suffers due to work,” Khoso said.
Police sent the shoes for expert analysis to verify the claim while the man is questioned by police investigators and other agencies, he said.
“We have not yet cleared the man and he will be questioned by a joint investigation team to ascertain whether he is innocent,” he said.
The suspect allegedly told investigators that he lived in Karachi, but was planning to return to Muscat, where he had previously worked for a construction company, to set up his own business.
A British man, Richard Reid, tried to blow up a transatlantic jet in December 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes.
Sunday’s arrest comes a week after US agents arrested a Pakistani-American man, Faisal Shahzad, for allegedly attempting to blow up a car bomb in New York.
The US has accused the Pakistani Taliban of being behind the plot to detonate a car bomb in Times Square on May 1 and has ratcheted up pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist havens along the Afghan border.
“We’ve now developed evidence that shows that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said on ABC television.
“We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it, and that he was working at their direction,” he said.
US General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, has reportedly urged Pakistan’s army chief to launch an operation in the tribal district of North Waziristan, an al-Qaeda and Taliban stronghold.
Shahzad, who was arrested in New York on Monday last week on board a plane as it was about to take off for Dubai, has reportedly told investigators he was trained in bomb-making in Waziristan.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel