Pakistani police arrest suspect in Thursday’s twin suicide bombings

Pakistani police said Friday they have arrested a would-be suicide bomber after two others blew themselves up Thursday outside the country’s main army munitions complex, leaving 70 persons dead.

Police said the young man was caught when he was trying to escape in a taxicab from the scene of Thursday’s blasts outside the complex at Wah, about 30 kilometres west of Islamabad 

Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered Friday to attend funeral prayers for the victims amid tight security while markets and shops in the town as a protest against the attack.

Soon after the bombings, police had recovered a jacket packed with explosives that the suspect had left in a toilet at a mosque close to the factory.

A police official disclosed on condition of anonymity that during initial interrogation, the arrested suspect who identified himself as Hamidullah Khan, admitted he desired to blow himself up at the arms factory but lost heart at the last minute.

The official said the three suspects reached the mosque in a taxicab and wore suicide jackets in toilets of the mosque. He said Khan, who stayed back, tried to escape from the scene of the crime but was caught. He the bombers came from Khyber Agency, a tribal district that lies on the main road linking Afghanistan and Peshawar city of Pakistan.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an organisation of Pakistani tribal militants, has already claimed responsibility for the attack, second since former president Pervez Musharraf resigned as head of the state on August 18 afternoon.