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Imran Maqbool in Karachi
Two Pakistanis allegedly linked to Afghanistan's Taliban admitted on Monday that they were behind last month's car bomb attack on the US consulate in Karachi as well as a string of other attacks.
The pair, paraded by Pakistan paramilitary Rangers before a news conference in Karachi, said they had originally planned to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf in late April, but their car bomb had failed to detonate.
Instead, they detonated the bomb outside the US consulate on June 14, killing 12 people and seriously wounding over 20.
"I, along with my other friends, were involved in the US bombing," Mohammad Hanif told the news conference. "We acted in consultation. One of our friends, who was willing to be a suicide bomber, carried out the attack."
Major General Salahuddin, head of the paramilitary Pakistan Ranger force investigating the blast, told the news conference that Hanif and two colleagues had also been responsible for attacks on Western targets such as fast-food chains.
"We were able to nab three main culprits. They were involved in this consulate bombing," he said.
He said those arrested were members of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al-Almi, a group said to have close links to the Taliban.
The faction is also reported to have links to terrorists fighting in Jammu and Kashmir.
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen has long been on a blacklist of organisations deemed 'terrorist' by the United States.
The three arrested in Karachi included the al-Almi offshoot group's head, Mohammad Imran, who was also paraded at the news conference.
Mohammad Hanif was the deputy head and chief of the militant wing, while the third man was named as Mohammad Ahmed.
"Since 1988, I have been involved in jihad (holy struggle) in Kashmir and Afghanistan," Imran said.
Salahuddin said authorities had recovered a substantial quantity of weapons and ammunition, and that the organisation's network had been seriously disrupted.
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