Pakistan denies Taliban link to Times Square bomb suspect

[CHIMO]

Pakistani investigators have found no evidence to support American claims that the failed Times Square bomber was working under the direction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Guardian has learned.

Senior officials in Washington – including the attorney general, Eric Holder, and John Brennan, the White House's special adviser on counterterrorism – have said that the suspected bomber, Faisal Shahzad, conspired with militants in Pakistan, but a Pakistani security official with knowledge of the investigation said: "No Taliban link has come to the fore."

The interrogation of Muhammad Rehan, a friend of Shahzad who was arrested last week outside a radical mosque in Karachi, has not yielded a link to the Pakistani Taliban or any other militant group. Rehan, a member of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad extremist group, remains the only suspected link found between 30-year-old Shahzad and the militant underworld in Pakistan.

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.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/11/pakistan-taliban-times-square-bomb