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Breakaway factions of Pakistan-based militant groups Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad are on a coordinated campaign with Al Qaeda and Taliban for attacks on westerners and Christians, Pakistani officials said.
"There seems to be some coordination in the recently reported hit-and-run operations in Afghanistan and the terrorist strikes in Pakistan. There is a Karachi-Kabul connection, and it is becoming clearer every day," an official was quoted by the Washington Post as saying.
The top leaders of the Harkat and Jaish voluntarily informed Pakistani intelligence officials that some of their 'trained elements' have broken ranks to form 'anti-Christian, anti-West strike groups', the daily said.
"A full-fledged local Al Qaeda is now active in Pakistan. We have got it from the horse's mouth," an official said.
"A group of between 15 to 20 terrorists is actively trying to kill Christians and Westerners to express their anger against Pakistan's support for the US in the war against terrorism," Chief Police Inspector Raja Mumtaz Ahmad was quoted as saying.
"It looks to be the same chain of terrorists," said S K Tressler, the government minister for minority affairs. "It is clear the terrorists are targeting the Christian community in Pakistan."
President Pervez Musharraf was informed of this by his top security aides, after the grenade attack on a Presbyterian hospital in Taxila town on Friday morning killed five people.
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