Pak probes militant link to bombing of MP's house
Pakistani police yesterday said a Shiite lawmaker whose house was targeted in a suicide attack had earlier received threats from a sectarian militant group linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Police are pursuing DNA tests to identify the suicide bomber who wounded a lawmaker and killed 16 people in eastern Pakistan, an official said yesterday.
Also Monday, the government said it was expelling all Afghan refugees in the northwest Bajur tribal region, alleging many of them have links to militant groups.
The attack on the politician's home in the Bhakkar area in Punjab province was the latest in a string of bombings against government, military and Western targets in the front-line state and ally in the US-led war on terror.
Pakistani leaders insisted the attack would not deter them from eliminating the militant threat facing their country. Parliament is to get a private briefing today from intelligence agencies about domestic insurgent activity, which has mostly been concentrated in the Muslim nation's northwest.
The death toll from the bombing rose to 19 overnight, while 60 people were injured including minority Shiite Muslim MP Rashid Akbar Nowani.
"It appears to be a sectarian attack, because the Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is active in the neighbouring Dera Ismail Khan district," senior police officer Iqbal Mahmood told AFP.
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