PAKISTAN: Pakistani police hunting for an unidentified assailant who lobbed a grenade at a bus full of foreign tourists detained about a dozen suspects, police said yesterday.
"We have detained 10 to 12 suspected people from the surrounding areas during our day-long hunt," Mr Chaudhry Sadiq Hussain, a police officer in Mansehra, said yesterday.
Police said an assailant hurled a home-made explosive device at the tourists visiting Ashoka sites, relics of an ancient Hindu civilisation near Mansehra.
They were on their way to the country's scenic northern areas when the assault took place.
Among those injured were seven Germans, an Austrian, a Slovenian, and three Pakistanis.
This was the fifth attack on Westerners in Pakistan since the President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, abandoned Afghanistan's vanquished Taliban and joined the US-led coalition in the war against terror following September 11th.
Many countries have advised their nationals to avoid travelling to Pakistan.
Islamabad has been helping the United States in hunting fugitive Taliban and al-Qaeda militants who may have crossed into neighbouring Pakistan to escape Afghanistan.
That co-operation has drawn the ire of militant Islamic groups.
Meanwhile, fearing a violent backlash if a guilty verdict is handed down tomorrow in the murder trial of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, authorities in Pakistan have deployed unprecedented security measures in the southern city of Hyderabad, where the verdict will be announced.
The trial of four men accused of kidnapping and murdering Pearl began in the violence-hit port city of Karachi on April 22nd, but was moved on April 30th to a prison in Hyderabad, 160 kilometres to the north-east.
Security was also tightened in Karachi, from where Pearl was abducted on January 23th.
Investigators said they were anticipating a guilty verdict for chief suspect Sheikh Omar on abduction charges. Prosecutors have sought the death penalty on these charges.
The continuing absence of any confirmed body has, however, dimmed the prospects of a murder conviction. Police did discover body parts believed to be Pearl's in Karachi on May 17th, but DNA tests have yet to be announced. - (Reuters/AFP)
One of Osama bin Laden's top deputies, Abu Zubaydah, is being held at a US naval facility on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, Time magazine reported yesterday.
American officials, who have been interrogating him for months, have steadfastly refused to disclose where he was being held. - (Reuters)