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Pakistan: Plot foiled on hotel, diplomats

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-03-23 00:40

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Pakistan: Plot foiled on hotel, diplomats

Pedestrians walk past a soldier on a street in Mingora at Swat region located in Pakistan's restive North Western Frontier Province March 20, 2010. [Agencies]

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police have foiled a plot to blow up a restaurant in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave that is frequented by foreigners, and government buildings, a police official said on Monday.

Militants tied to Qari Hussain, known as the Taliban's "mentor of suicide bombers", were arrested before they could attack the Serena Hotel and the French Club restaurant in the heavily guarded diplomatic zone, Bani Amin Khan, Islamabad's acting police chief, told a news conference.

Taliban insurgents have previously attacked Western targets in a bid to destabilise the US-backed government of President Asif Ali Zardari, part of a violent campaign that has scared away foreign investors.

An alleged militant wearing a black hood stood up beside police officials and told the news conference that he helped carry out the suicide attacks on the U.N. World Food Programme and near Pakistan's Naval Complex in the capital city last year.

"I was part of the planning. I provided logistics and suicide jackets to the bombers and in return, the Taliban paid me," said the man, who said he was a former paramilitary soldier named Noor Jahan.

Police said they arrested two militants, Noor Jahan and a second man, Rehmat Gul, and seized a suicide jacket and pistol from their possession.

The said the militants had planned to carry out attacks on government buildings on March 23, Pakistan's National Day. The targets included courts and a telecommunications office.

Despite major security offensives that have smashed their strongholds and a campaign of US drone strikes that have killed militant leaders, al Qaeda-backed Taliban fighters have managed to carry out suicide bombings across Pakistan.

In the October 2009 attack on the U.N. World Food Programme, a suicide bomber dressed as a paramilitary soldier attacked the office, killing five staff members.

In June that year, two foreign U.N. workers were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar.