PAKISTAN: France yesterday repatriated survivors of a suicide bombing that killed 11 of its nationals as Pakistani police arrested hundreds of men with suspected links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Interior ministry sources said nearly 300 people had been rounded up after Wednesday's car bombing outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi, when a man rammed a car loaded with explosives into a minibus carrying French naval workers.
The French Defence Minister, Ms Michele Alliot-Marie, yesterday visited 12 of their colleagues who were injured in the blast. They were later evacuated for Paris on a German medical aircraft. "We have been shattered by this odious attack," the minister told a group of French expatriates at the French consulate after visiting the bomb site and paying her respects to the dead.
"The entire French community shares this emotion and this pain."
Three Pakistanis were also killed in the massive blast and more than 20 people were wounded.
An interior ministry source said the arrests came during raids throughout Pakistan on President Pervez Musharraf's direct orders.
"Police have taken into custody 298 people as part of a new crackdown against terrorism and the action will continue," the source said.
"The majority of these people belong to sectarian and jihadi [holy warrior\] parties who are suspected of having links with the Taliban and al-Qaeda."
Officials said many of the raids were launched on the basis of information gathered after the arrest of suspected al-Qaeda members in Faisalabad and Lahore in March during a joint US-Pakistan operation.
Those raids netted Mr Abu Zubaydah, a key lieutenant of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Officials said so far police had found no solid evidence linking bin Laden's network to the Karachi bombing, despite the security agencies' strong suspicions. - (AFP)
The CIA fired a missile from a drone aircraft in an attempt to kill Mr Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister andfaction leader who is suspected of plotting to attack western troops and overthrow the interim government of Mr Hamid Karzai, US reports said yesterday.
If confirmed, the attack would mark the first time the US has used its firepower to try to resolve continuing factional conflict in post-Taliban Afghanistan. (Guardian service)