ISLAMABAD, 1 August 2004 — Pakistan began investigating yesterday a suicide bomb attack on prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz, which he survived but killed his driver and seven others, including the attacker.

Islamabad said it was also looking into a claim on a website by an Al-Qaeda-linked group that it was responsible for the attack, which came about a day after Pakistan announced the capture of a key member of Osama Bin Laden’s terror network.

“We have launched thorough investigations into the attack on Shaukat Aziz,” a senior Interior Ministry official said of the late Friday bombing, in which Aziz, 55, escaped unhurt.

“It was an act of terrorism meant to create widespread disturbances and instability,” he said. Pakistan’s Information Minister Sheikh Rashid added investigators were also examining the claim on an Al-Qaeda-linked group’s website.

“We are looking into the Al-Qaeda aspect also in the investigations into attack on Shaukat Aziz,” Sheikh Rashid said.

“It is too early to say that Al-Qaeda was behind the attack on Shaukat Aziz at this point as investigations are under way,” Rashid said.

“We are trying to examine the website on which the claim has been posted. It is the first time that an Al-Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for attack on a Pakistani leader.”

The body of the attacker was blown into several pieces. Police have found his head, hands, legs and mutilated parts of his torso, and say he was clearly a strong, well-built man.

“His face has been damaged, but it is still intact,” Zafar Iqbal, senior superintendent of police, said. “The bomber was a young man in his early twenties.”

After his near escape, political colleagues said Shaukat recounted to them how a bearded man had run up against the driver’s door of his car and blown himself up.

“We have found an unexploded hand grenade at the site,” Iqbal said. “Apparently the suicide bomber was carrying it with other explosives. The bomb disposal squad has defused it.”

The previously unknown Islambouli Brigades of Al-Qaeda said in a statement posted on an Islamist website yesterday the attack was a message to the “treacherous” Musharraf.

“Yesterday’s attack will be followed by more painful blows if you do not stop blindly obeying the orders of that lowlife (US President George W.) Bush. If you don’t stop, the mujahideen will ... wage a bloody war in Pakistan,” it said. Shaukat, the finance minister, is a close ally of President Pervez Musharraf, who himself was the target of two assassination attempts last December which he later blamed on Al-Qaeda and local militants.

The PM-designate had just finished addressing an election campaign rally in Attock when a man walked toward his car and blew himself up at about 7:15 p.m. (1415 GMT) Friday.

“A man approached Shaukat’s car by foot and blew himself up,” senior Interior Ministry official Javed Cheema said.

The blast killed the driver, the attacker and five other people who have not been identified but were believed to be Shaukat supporters. Seven policemen and 23 other people were injured, police said.

Attock Mayor Tahir Sadiq was in the car with Shaukat. “We had just started moving when suddenly a car appeared on the driver’s side and exploded,” Sadiq said on Friday, saying it was a miracle he and Shaukat were not injured.

The attack came after Pakistan announced Friday that it had captured a key suspect in the 1998 Al-Qaeda bombings of two US embassies in east Africa.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian on the FBI’s most-wanted list, was arrested after an eight-hour shootout with security forces on Sunday last week, officials said.

Shaukat is in the middle of a campaign in two by-elections to be held Aug. 18 in Attock and the southern Sindh province seat of Tharparkar. He has since canceled a planned trip to Tharparkar.

The ruling party in June chose Shaukat, the finance minister for the past four years after a distinguished career in global banking, to take over from Zafarullah Jamali, who had resigned as prime minister.

But the senator must first win election to the lower house in order to become prime minister. Shaukat went on national television after the attack declaring his “determination to serve Pakistan and the Islamic world has enhanced.”

Musharraf expressed his outrage at the bomb blast and said “such cowardly attacks will not deter Pakistan from its fight against terrorism”.

“Such dastardly acts are against the tenets and the teaching of Islam,” a national television report quoted him as saying. The president said in May that Al-Qaeda-linked extremists had infiltrated his military to try to kill him.

Shaukat, meanwhile, visited a hospital to inquire about those wounded in the attack and met members of his ruling party and its allies. “There is no sign of fear on his face,” said one leader of coalition partner the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).