London bomber visited Pak madrassa: Musharraf

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf confirmed for the first time on Friday that one of the London subway suicide bombers had spent time at a religious school linked to terrorists in Lahore, and he vowed to move against any group that may have helped him.

Musharraf said that two of the bombers, Shahzad Tanweer and Mohammed Sidique Khan, were of Pakistani origin and visited the country last year. But Pakistani officials had maintained that there was no evidence that either had attended religious schools.

Musharraf confirmed on Friday that Tanweer had visited a madrassa with terrorist links, but said that it "would be very naive to believe" that it had greatly influenced his beliefs or motivations, asserting that his "indoctrination" was likely the result of his lack of assimilation into British society.

"We are investigating," the President said. "We would like to move against any organization that helped him in any way."

Musharraf has struggled since the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington four years ago to eradicate Islamic terror networks from his country, but Pakistan came under criticism for failing to curb extremism in religious schools after the July 7 suicide bombings in the London transport system, which killed 56 people, including four bombers.

Musharraf heads to the UN summit in New York following last week's landmark meeting between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Israel, the first formal high-level contact between the Islamic and Jewish states.

First Published: Sep 10, 2005 00:44 IST