More on the links between the London bombers and the LeT/JeM + link to church bombers

Pakistan Examines London Bomber's Travels

Friday July 15, 2005 11:01 AM

By PAUL HAVEN

Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Authorities in Pakistan are looking into a connection between one of the London suicide bombers and two al-Qaida-linked militant groups here, including a man arrested for a 2002 attack on a church near the U.S. Embassy, two senior intelligence officials said Friday.

The investigation is focusing on at least one trip that 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer made to Pakistan in the past year, said the officials, who work at two separate intelligence agencies and are involved in the investigation. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of their jobs.

One of the officials said that while in Pakistan, Tanweer is believed to have visited a radical religious school - or madrassah - run by the banned Sunni Muslim militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

``He only is believed to have spent four or five days there,'' he said.

The sprawling school in Muridke, 20 miles north of the eastern city of Lahore, has a reputation for hostility. Journalists who have traveled to the school in the past have been threatened and prevented from entering. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba was banned by Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for alleged links to a 2001 attack on India's parliament.

The official would not say when Tanweer is believed to have visited the school, but he disputed reports that he studied there. The short nature of the visit could indicate that Tanweer went there to meet someone or get instructions.

Tanweer's uncle, Bashir Ahmed, said from England that his nephew traveled to Lahore earlier this year to study Islam.

But the officials said they believed he also made a trip in the later half of 2004, in which he met with Osama Nazir, a Pakistani militant arrested in November 2004 for helping plan a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad that killed five people, including two Americans, in March 2002.

Nazir, a member of the al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, told authorities from jail on Thursday that he met with Tanweer in Faisalabad, 75 miles southwest of Lahore, before his arrest.