Taliban links to Pakistan blasts probed

Pakistan yesterday probed suspected links between pro-Taliban militants and the twin suicide blasts that killed 31 people and heightened the crisis facing President Pervez Musharraf.
The bombings on Tuesday in Rawalpindi, a city near Islamabad where the army is based, added to insecurity in the country as military ruler Musharraf seeks re-election as president in the face of mounting opposition.
One bomber blew himself up on a bus carrying defence ministry workers and another struck on a route used by army officers to travel to the military headquarters in the sprawling but heavily-secured city.
Interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said there were suspected links to pro-Taliban militants backed by Al-Qaeda who are fighting military operations in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Investigators are focusing on Baitullah Mehsud, one of the most senior militant commanders in the region, who is based in the semi-autonomous district of South Waziristan, he said, an area largely contemptuous of Musharraf's rule.
"No one has claimed responsibility but the previous several attacks were linked to Baitullah Mehsud," Cheema told AFP. "The investigations are continuing."
Officials have previously connected Mehsud with the radical clerics who ran the Red Mosque in Islamabad, which government forces besieged and stormed in July in an operation that cost more than 100 lives.
Mehsud has reportedly claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on military and government targets since then, including what he claims is the abduction of around 150 soldiers in South Waziristan last week. The army insists the soldiers are stranded in the area due to a tribal dispute.