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5 held in Karachi for plotting to kill Musharraf

The suspects belonged to an outlawed Islamic militant outfit, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Al-Almi, which was also responsible for the car bomb attack on the US consulate in Karachi in June 2002, the report said.

The newspaper said the plot, planned as a suicide mission, was revealed when police arrested five men for smuggling assault rifles and hand-grenades to a venue where General Musharraf was to lay the foundation stone for the Lyari Expressway outside the Karachi naval base on April 27.

The plan was aborted after the president showed up three hours late for the event, investigators were quoted as saying.

Four of the five men arrested were from Orangi Town, a western suburb of Karachi. The fifth was a naval employee working in the fire department at the naval dockyard in Karachi.

The same group had planned to assassinate Musharraf with a car bomb a day before the foundation stone-laying ceremony, but had aborted that plot after the president delayed his programme.

Gen Musharraf was in Karachi in the last week of April to address a rally on his referendum to get elected for a five-year term.

The militants reportedly then used the same explosives-packed vehicle to bomb the US consulate on June 14.

PTI

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