KARACHI: Counterterrorism authorities in Pakistan said on Thursday a suspect in an attack in the port city of Karachi last week had been trained in Iran and was receiving instructions from the Iran-based commander of a Pakistani separatist group.
One person was killed and several were injured in a bomb blast late on May 12 in the Saddar neighborhood of Karachi. The assault was claimed by the little-known Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army (SRA), a dissident faction fighting for independence in the province of Sindh.
The attack came two weeks after a female suicide bomber killed four people, including three Chinese nationals, in an attack on a minibus carrying staff from a Beijing cultural program at Karachi University.
In a press release on Thursday, the Counterterrorism Department for Sindh said special investigation teams formed by the CTD in the wake of the latest spate of attacks were able to identify a number of suspects through intelligence sources and the use of technology.
Based on the information, police on Wednesday traced three suspects in the Saddar attack as they traveled by motorcycle to transport explosives in Karachi on the instructions of what the CTD said was an Iran-based SRA commander called Asghar Shah. In a gunbattle with the three suspects, two identified as Allah Dino and Nawab Ali were killed while a third suspect fled the scene.
“The accused [Allah Dino] had been taking instructions from Asghar Shah, who operates his group [of the SRA] from Iran,” Syed Khurram Ali Shah, a senior CTD official, told reporters on Thursday.
“The eliminated terrorist Allah Dino was a master of bomb-making and he got his military training from neighboring country Iran,” the CTD press release said.
Iran and Pakistan regularly accuse each other of harboring militants that launch attacks on the neighboring country. Both nations deny state complicity in such attacks.