Lashkar-e-Jhangvi blamed for Marriott hotel blast

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday blamed outlawed terror group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi for the deadly suicide attack on Marriott Hotel that killed nearly 60 people.

"Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was behind the suicide truck bombing," Interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told the parliament.

Malik said the explosive-laden truck used in the attack was brought to Islamabad from Jhang city in Punjab province. Two persons, who facilitated the attack were arrested from Toba Tek Singh city in Punjab, he said.

A hitherto unheard of group called the Fidayeen-e-Islam had claimed responsibility for the attack on the Marriott in September and warned of more such attacks on foreigners.

Around 60 people, including Czech ambassador, two US Marines and several other foreigners, were killed and more than 260 injured when a suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with 600 kg of explosives into the hotel's gate.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim extremist group, has been accused of killing hundreds of Shiite Muslims.

Authorities in Pakistan recently claimed to have cracked a clandestine terror network set up under which Lashkar-e-Jhangvi operatives had been directed by Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, the jailed killer of American journalist Daniel Pearl, to assassinate former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf either in Rawalpindi or in Karachi.

Sheikh was released by India along with Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar and another terrorist in exchange for passengers on an Indian Airlines flight hijacked in 1999.

Attaur Rehman alias Naeem Bukhari, who was arrested in Karachi in June 2007 in connection with Pearl's murder in 2002 is also a key Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant.