Bomb Found Near U.S. Consulate

Explosive experts on Monday defused a large bomb in a van parked next to the heavily guarded U.S. Consulate in this southern Pakistani city, saving it from "big destruction," police said.

It was not immediately clear who planted the device, though Islamic extremist groups have repeatedly targeted Westerners and minority Christians since the government threw its support behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

Meanwhile, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Monday that a Libyan member of al Qaeda was behind two assassination attempts against him in December.

Musharraf, who escaped the attacks unhurt, did not name the Libyan suspect, who he said funded Islamic militants to carry out the bombings.

The thwarted attack came just two days ahead of a scheduled visit to Pakistan by Secretary of State Colin Powell. He was due to arrive in the country on Wednesday, but was not scheduled to visit Karachi.

"The man or men who left this van near the U.S. Consulate building wanted to blow it up," Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press in Islamabad.

Officials said a paramilitary ranger guarding the consulate had spotted a Suzuki van with one or two people inside parked about 16 feet from its perimeter wall. Before they could be questioned properly, the men were picked up in a car and fled.

The van, which contained a large blue water tank filled with explosives, was moved to a safe place and police bomb experts disconnected a timer and detonators attached to the tank.

Karachi police official Mohammed Irfan said the tank contained about 200 gallons of a liquid explosive material.

Police said it was a mixture of three chemicals, including ammonium nitrate — a fertilizer that can be used as an explosive. The bomb could have caused a huge fireball, and police were investigating when it had been timed to detonate.

"We saved this place from big destruction," Irfan told AP.

Hundreds of policemen and paramilitary troops cordoned off the consulate, on a main road in an upscale neighborhood of Karachi, and checked the area for additional explosives. The building is surrounded by high walls and lies about 40 feet back from the road.

Andrew Steinfeld, the counselor for public affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, said the bomb was discovered between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m before most of the consulate's two-dozen American and Pakistani staff had arrived for work.

After the bomb was found, the consulate was closed for the day, and it wasn't clear when it would reopen. Steinfeld said the embassy in Islamabad remained open and staff were still preparing for Powell's visit — which the government announced would go ahead as scheduled.

Senior investigator Fayyaz Leghari said police have asked the U.S. Consulate for footage from surveillance cameras that could have recorded images of the men who parked the van. Police were waiting for a response, he said. Steinfeld declined to comment.

In June 2002, a suicide bomber blew up a truck in front of the U.S. Consulate, killing 14 Pakistanis. The attack came a month after another suicide attack outside a hotel that killed 11 French engineers.

Islamic militants were blamed in the two attacks.

Also, in February 2003, a gunman opened fire on a police post guarding the consulate, killing two policemen and injuring at least five other people. He was arrested with a note in his pocket saying it was his duty as a Muslim to kill the protectors of infidel Americans.

Leghari said that on Sunday night two armed men had stolen the Suzuki van used to carry the bomb from 17-year-old student Tariq Muneeb, who was shot and injured in the robbery and is being treated in a Karachi hospital.

"He has given us some information about the robbers," Leghari said, adding that police were preparing sketches of the men.

A police investigator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the same type of van was used in the June 2002 bombing, leading him to believe that the same group could be responsible.

Four men, who allegedly belonged to the outlawed Islamic militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen Al-Almi, were convicted last year for the June 2002 bombing. Two were sentenced to death by hanging, and two to life in prison.
Extremists have been angered by Pakistan's support of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, including the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

In his address Monday, Musharraf also made his strongest statement yet about the presence of al Qaeda rebels in Pakistan's rugged mountains bordering Afghanistan — believed to be a possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden.

He acknowledged for the first time that between 500 to 600 foreigners "from different countries" were living in the semiautonomous tribal areas, and vowed to drive them out if they would not surrender.

Pakistan is a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but has faced criticism as rebels of al Qaeda and Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban regime are believed to launch cross-border attacks in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil.

In the past two years, Pakistan's military has deployed 70,000 forces in the tribal areas for the first time since independence, and has launched a series of operations to track down terrorist suspects there.

Musharraf narrowly escaped the two suicide bombings near the capital Islamabad in December 2003. Another attack the previous year in Karachi failed when an explosives-laden vehicle failed to detonate as Musharraf's motorcade passed by.

The president promised that the government would reveal more details about who was behind the attacks. He said the suspects would be shown on television.

Musharraf came to power in a bloodless 1999 coup. His cooperation with the U.S. war on terrorism won Pakistan a reprieve from sanctions imposed after the coup and following Pakistan's 1998 test of a nuclear bomb. It has recently emerged that a Pakistani scientist funneled nuclear know-how to North Korea and Iran.