ISLAMABAD: Police arrested two would-be suicide bombers in Pakistan's capital Friday who they said were planning to attack the parliament building and a mosque. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said one of the arrested men came from the northwestern town of Bannu and intended to carry out a suicide attack on a mosque in the upmarket F8/1 residential neighborhood, home to Westerners and wealthy Pakistanis. “We have foiled a plot to attack parliament and surrounding buildings, and a mosque and arrested two militants,” Malik told state television. Senior Islamabad police official Bin Yamin confirmed the arrests and the intention to attack the mosque. “The arrests were made today in Islamabad. They had suicide jackets. Their target was a mosque in Islamabad.” Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants seeking to topple the US-allied government have carried out scores of attacks in recent years, killing thousands. The state has responded by launching offensives in the remote northwest where the insurgents are based. Police officer Bin Yamin said the detained men were linked to the Pakistani Taliban in the South Waziristan region, where the Pakistani army has been fighting the militants since last year. He said one of the arrested men was wearing an explosives vest and was on his way to attack an Islamabad mosque during Friday prayers when officers seized him. He did not say why the militants would target the mosque. Most attacks have been on government, security or Western targets, though there have been seemingly indiscriminate blasts in public places presumably to spread terror and undermine confidence in the government.
