KARACHI, 2 April 2004 — Pakistani police arrested a suspected militant with explosives yesterday and some officials said he had been plotting an attack on the prime minister but others denied the premier was a target.

The man, a member of the outlawed militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was found with about six kg of explosives, a hand grenade, several detonators and bomb-making material, said Police Inspector Amjad Kayani.

“The big target was the prime minister,” he told Reuters, adding that the suspect had planned to plant explosives on a bridge. A senior provincial government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali was the suspect’s target.

But provincial police chief Syed Kamal Shah denied the prime minister had been singled out for attack. “This arrest is not connected to any security threat to a VIP,” Shah said. Jamali had arrived in Karachi on Wednesday for a two-day visit.

President Pervez Musharraf survived two bomb assassination attempts in December. Police arrested the suspect, Naeem Baloch, early yesterday, said Muneer Sheikh, a police bomb disposal official.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has ties with the Taleban militia, which ruled Afghanistan, and Al-Qaeda.

A string of high-profile attacks on Western targets, government officials and religious minorities in Pakistan, including Shiite Muslims and Christians, have been linked to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

In February, police said they had foiled an attack by two key Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants, also in Karachi.

Three militants were convicted by a Karachi court in October 2003 over a failed assassination attempt on Musharraf the previous year. They were sentenced to 10-year jail terms.

Musharraf has blamed Al-Qaeda militants with links to the Afghan border area for the two attempts on his life and vowed to flush militant groups from the country. Militants have been blamed for a string of attacks in Pakistan since Musharraf backed the US-led war on terror in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

On March 15 this year, police defused a huge bomb outside the US Consulate in Karachi, minutes before it was timed to explode.