Al-Qaeda Link?

Police in Pakistan are investigating a possible link between the killing of a leading Al-Qaeda militant last week and a bomb attack yesterday in Punjab which killed more than 20 people. “The attack took place in Dera Ghazi Khan, a large city in southern Punjab, near the home of a provincial minister. It came a week after Saleh al-Somali, a prominent Al-Qaeda planner, was killed in an attack by a pilotless US drone close to the Afghan border in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. ‘We are looking strongly in to the possibility of the suicide attack being on retaliation for al-Somali’s killing,’ a police officer in the Punjab told the FT. Tuesday’s attack followed warnings of more violence when the Islamic month of Muharram begins at the end of this week. Muharram is observed mainly by members of the Shia minority, who mourn the death of Imam Hussain, the prophet Mohammad’s grandson in a massacre in Kerbala, southern Iraq, more than 1,400 years ago.”