Pakistan boosted security in the capital Islamabad and neighbouring Rawalpindi today where three vehicles laden with explosives were intercepted just days after a deadly attack on the Danish embassy.
"We have recovered three vehicles with a large quantity of explosives from the Dhok Kala Khan area," Rawalpindi police chief Rao Iqbal said, referring to a congested neighbourhood in a city that is also the headquarters for the military.
"We have made some arrests," he said, but gave no other details.
A day earlier, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide car bomb attack on the Danish embassy that killed six people, all of them Pakistanis.
Security in the capital was tighest along Constitution Avenue the broad duel carriageway leading to the presidency building, National Assembly, Supreme Court, various ministries and the diplomatic enclave where many embassies are located.
Concrete barriers were placed across the broad avenue, and regular entry points to the enclave were closed, while razor wire was laid around the perimeter of key buildings.
A Danish team has arrived in Pakistan to work with agents investigating the attack on its embassy.
The Danish mission, which had been under threat ever since the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed by Danish newspapers in 2005, was located in a plush residential neighbourhood.
Foreign envoys met yesterday with Rehman Malik, the advisor to the prime minister on the Interior, and he told them that the Islamabad police were being reinforced with paramilitary troops.
Malik assured those ambassadors whose embassies were located outside the diplomatic enclave that he would take up issues regarding the provision of land for them to relocate.
The Netherlands mission has moved to a hotel with tight security, having come under a similar threat to the Danes because of a film made by a Dutch anti-immigration politician that is deemed offensive to Muslims.