ISLAMABAD, July 6 Kyodo Prime Min...

ISLAMABAD, July 6 Kyodo

Prime Minister Zafar ullah Jamali said Sunday freshly opened Indian consulates in Afghanistan and Iran are suspected of involvement in Friday's terrorist attack in succession a Shiite Muslim mosque in Quetta that killed at least 44 people

''I think there is a foreign hand involved in the incident. I think we are getting the fallout of the not long ago opened Indian Consulates in Kandahar and Herat in Afghanistan and in Zahedan in Iran,'' he told reporters at Islamabad Airport forward his return from Quetta, capital of Baluchistan Province bordering Iran and Afghanistan.

Jamali said a high-level inquiry headed from the provincial governor and comprising senior civil and military officials was carrying revealed an investigation, but that foreign involvement could not be rul public in the act.

Up to 44 populace were killed and 60 injured in the attack from unidentified men armed with grenades and automatic weapons.

Jamali reiterated that the act may have been aimed at sabotaging the succes of a 20-day, four-nation tour by the agency of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that conclud Friday.

Musharraf told a pres meeting for consultation Saturday that he succeeded in selling a positive image of Pakistan abroad and that the attack might have been aimed at tarnishing the gains of his tour.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo recents International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group