By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Pakistani investigators say there is no evidence so far that the New York car bomber Faisal Shahzad was carrying out the bombing on behalf of the Pakistani Taliban, contrary to American claims, the Guardian newspaper of London.
The London paper quoted an unnamed Pakistani security official with knowledge of the investigation as saying: “No Taliban link has come to the fore.”
Pakistani authorities have questioned Muhammad Rehan, a friend of the NY bomber Shahzad. Rehan, a member of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad radical group, was arrested last week outside a radical mosque in Karachi, the paper reported.
The paper reported that Rehan remains the only link to Shahzad at this time.
“Officials in Islamabad are perplexed and angry at statements from Washington about Shahzad’s links with the Pakistani Taliban, believing that the US is exploiting the issue to apply pressure for new military offensives in Pakistan’s tribal border area with Afghanistan, in the north Waziristan region,” the paper reported.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday expressed some skepticism about the links to the Pakistani Taliban, saying the claims were based on “suspicious and tenuous connections”.
To read more click here
