ISLAMABAD, Aug 9 (AFP) - Pakistan Monday questioned a top Al-Qaeda suspect over his alleged role in attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf, as police ruled out Al-Qaeda's hand in deadly bomb blasts in Karachi at the weekend.
Qari Saifullah Akhtar, who is also said to have run Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan during the Taliban's regime, was seized in Dubai last week and handed over to Pakistani authorities for questioning.
"He is under questioning by Pakistani investigators," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP. "He is required in many terrorist cases for interrogation."
US President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser Frances Townsend said Akhtar was suspected of a role in two attempts to assassinate Musharraf last December.
"He's wanted in connection with the two assassination attempts on President Musharraf. He was also involved in the training camps in Afghanistan," Townsend told FOX News Sunday, adding that he was "absolutely" currently operational.
Rashid however refused to comment on Akhtar's alleged link to the assassination bids, which Musharraf has several times accused Al-Qaeda of masterminding.
Akhtar's capture was the latest in a string of high-level Al-Qaeda arrests since mid-July.
But investigators ruled out the terror network's involvement in twin bombs which tore through a religious school in Karachi on Sunday night.
The blasts killed eight people including at least six students in the crowded port city where scores of terror suspects have hidden.
"Al-Qaeda will not target religious students," Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil told AFP.
"The main possibility on which we are working is sectarianism," he said, referring to rivalry between extremists in the majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslim sects.
Akhtar's capture is the latest blow to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, coming on the heels of Pakistan's penetration of an active Al-Qaeda cell accused of plotting fresh attacks in Britain and the United States.
The hunt is still on for other top operatives hiding out in the rugged borderlands and crowded cities of Pakistan, the world's second largest Muslim nation.
Security forces are targetting two masterminds, identified by intelligence officials as Libyan national Abu Farj and an Egyptian known only as Hamza. Both are believed to be close associates of bin Laden.
"We are searching all the time. We are looking for these people who are on wanted lists, or who are involved in terrorist activities," Rashid said.
Akhtar headed Pakistan's top Taliban ally, the militant organisation Harkat Jihad-e-Islami, a senior Pakistani intelligence official who asked not to be named told AFP.
Rashid said Akhtar's arrest could "lead to the arrests of other members of his group."
The July arrests of alleged key Al-Qaeda operatives Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani of Tanzania and Pakistani computer whizz Naeem Noor Khan led to the capture of Al-Qaeda suspects in Britain and to a heightened security alert in the United States.
Computer files and email records seized from Ghailani and Khan showed they were communicating with Al-Qaeda operatives in Britain, the US, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal, intelligence officials have said.