Pakistani police investigating a bombing last week outside an Anglican cathedral said today they had foiled "a major terrorist strike" by seizing a huge stock of bomb-making material.
More than 500 kilogrammes of chemicals used to make fertiliser bombs were found in an abandoned house last night raid in a poor neighbourhood in Karachi.
The raid was conducted on information obtained from Shamim Ahmed, an Islamic militant arrested in connection with last Thursday's car bombing outside the city's Anglican cathedral that wounded 11 people.
Police describe Ahmed as the operations chief of the outlawed Sunni Muslim group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been blamed for a series of deadly attacks on Westerners and religious minorities in Pakistan.
The blast outside the cathedral was the first attack on a Christian target in Pakistan in many months. The wounded included two Christians as well as six paramilitary soldiers and policemen who had arrived to investigate a blast caused by a small grenade moments earlier.
Karachi saw several deadly strikes by militants targeting Westerners, religious minorities and officials after Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war on terror following the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Last month President Pervez Musharraf survived two attempts on his life blamed on Muslim hardliners opposed opposed to his policy of helping the West fight Islamic militants.