Investigators probing the suicide bomb attack on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Christmas Day are expected to make arrests soon, the chief government spokesman said yesterday.
"The progress of investigations has been very positive so far," information minister Sheikh Rashid said.
Those responsible for planning the attacks are expected to be arrested soon, he said.
"We have entered the network of suspects and soon will get everybody."
Rashid said the same teams assigned with the task of investigating a Dec. 14 attack on Musharraf were also working on the latest assassination attempt.
Asked who could be behind the suicide attacks he said: "These could be domestic and international terror networks."
"We will deal with an iron hand with the people playing with the security and solidarity of the country."
Musharraf escaped unhurt on Thursday when suicide bombers driving cars packed with explosives rammed the Pakistani leader's motorcade at a gas station 2km from his residence in Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad.
Officials said 15 people, including the two suicide attackers, were killed and 45 injured. Another victim had died overnight. The dead include four policemen, Rawalpindi police chief Marwat Shah said.
Analysts and commentators suspect that al-Qaeda militants and religious fanatics in Pakistan could be behind an increasingly organized effort to kill Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led war against terror.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said on Friday the bombers in the latest attack had been identified by security agencies, but no further information was immediately available.
"The suicide bombers involved in the attack on Thursday have been identified," he told the upper house of parliament. "The face of one is recognizable."
He would not provide further details, saying this could hamper the inquiry.
"We are also actively pursuing those who are at the back [of the people] committing these crimes."
All possible measures were being taken to safeguard the president's life, he said.
"We are not going to yield to any of these terrorist activities. This government is committed to uprooting terrorism, extremism and sectarian hatred."
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Four days after last scanning in for work, a 60-year-old office worker in Arizona was found dead in a cubicle at her workplace, having never left the building during that time, authorities said. Denise Prudhomme, who worked at a Wells Fargo corporate office, was found dead in a third-floor cubicle on Aug. 20, Tempe police said. She had last scanned into the building on Aug. 16 at 7am, police said. There was no indication she scanned out of the building after that. Prudhomme worked in an underpopulated area of the building. Her cause of death had not been determined, but police said the preliminary
‘DISCONNECTED’: Politics is one factor driving news avoidance, a professor said, adding that people who do not trust the government are more likely to tune it out Hannah Wong cried when the Hong Kong government effectively forced the territory’s Apple Daily and Stand News out of business three years ago. Among the last news firms in the territory willing to criticize the government openly, many saw their end as a sign that the old Hong Kong was gone for good. Today, the 35-year-old makeup artist says she has gone from reading the news every day to reducing her intake drastically to protect herself from despair. Four years into a crackdown on dissent that has swept up democracy-leaning journalists, rights advocates and politicians in the territory, a lot of people
RSS