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Pakistan tightens security amid Al-Qaeda backlash fears
Pakistan has bolstered security ahead of its independence day celebrations amid fears of a violent backlash to an Al-Qaeda crackdown
Pakistan has bolstered security ahead of its independence day celebrations amid fears of a violent backlash to an Al-Qaeda crackdown which has netted top operatives in the throes of plotting fresh terror attacks here and abroad.
Even horse-drawn carts and rickshaws were being stopped and searched for bombs on Thursday as Pakistan's 150 million people braced for more violence, which President Pervez Musharraf said should be expected after the wave of high-profile Al-Qaeda arrests.
"They will set off bomb blasts, they will create problems for you. Because we are arresting them and ... we are eliminating masterminds," he told the local Dawn daily last week.
Pakistan marks 57 years since Britain ceded independence to the subcontinent on Saturday, closely followed by two sensitive by-elections on August 18 to allow prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz to enter the lower house to take up his post.
In Islamabad, where Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat is to hoist the national flag outside parliament on Saturday morning, police have set up special checkpoints and increased their numbers at state installations.
His appointed successor Aziz narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by a suicide bomber as he campaigned in Attock west of the capital on July 29, less than 24 hours after the announcement of the capture of Tanzanian terror suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.
Ghailani, who is wanted by the US for the 1998 East Africa US embassy bombings, was training a squad of suicide attackers in the eastern town of Gujrat when he was caught, according to investigators.
They were being trained to kill Pakistani leaders, with Islamabad airport and the nearby Chaklala airforce base picked out as assassination venues, intelligence officials said.
In the southern commercial hub Karachi, used as a hideout by scores of fugitive terrorists including alleged September 11 planners Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Ramzi bin al-Shaibh, security forces were on top alert.
"We are on red alert. We have deployed forces at all important buildings and around diplomatic missions," Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil said.
Police helicopters will conduct "aerial surveillance" across the city, he added.
In the eastern city of Lahore police checked roads and bridges for bombs and tightened security at places of worship and public gathering sites, city administrator Farooq Amjad said.
In the central city of Multan police said they had reports that militants may use independence day to stage high-profile attacks.
Special checkposts have been set up at the airport, railway station, and bus stands, while police searched taxis, rickshaws and even horse-drawn carts for explosives, residents said.
"Special arrangements to protect life and property have been made after intelligence reports that terrorists may try to disrupt the independence day programs," city police chief Hamid Mukhtar Gondal said.
Musharraf was targeted twice by assassins last December.
Pakistan has arrested more than 20 Al-Qaeda suspects since mid-July.
