From China Radio International:

Al-Qaida Links with London Bombs?
2005-7-16 7:15:38

Pakistani intelligence agents believe one of the London suicide bombers visited a school run by an al-Qaida-linked group, and met with the mastermind of a 2002 grenade attack.

Pakistani intelligence agents believe one of the London suicide bombers visited a religious school run by an al-Qaida-linked terror group, and met separately with the mastermind of a 2002 grenade attack on a church near the U.S. embassy.

The investigation focuses on at least one trip that 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer made to Pakistan in the past year.

Intelligence agency said that Tanweer is believed to have visited a radical religious school run by a banned Sunni Muslim militant group with alleged links to a 2001 attack on India's Parliament.

Pakistani officials believed Tanweer also met with Osama Nazir, a Pakistani militant arrested for helping plan a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad that killed five people in 2002.

Three of the four suicide bomb suspects, Tanweer, 18-year-old Hasib Hussain, and 30-year-old Mohammed Saddiq Khan, were Britons of Pakistani ancestry.

In London, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair confirmed police believed they would discover an al-Qaida connection to the London blasts.

"I've said before this explosion has the hallmarks of al-Qaida, the simultaneous explosions, the fact that the dead appear to be sort of foot soldiers."There is nothing wrong with being a fundamentalist Muslim, there is nothing wrong with being a fundamentalist Jew, there is nothing wrong with being a fundamentalist Christian. The key issue is the slide into extremism.".

Pakistani intelligence officials said the Interior Ministry has provided photos and profiles of the suspected London bombers to intelligence agencies to help them determine whether they have any links to al-Qaida suspects already in custody.