ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: In a significant breakthrough the investigators of the Marriott blast have traced movement of a key suspect and possible suicide attacker.

Sources told Dawn that the bomber visited the capital twice and stayed with students of a private medical college in a hostel.

Based on interrogation of some religious extremists arrested from Punjab, the investigators got information that the suicide bomber, a young man with beard, visited Islamabad twice and stayed in a hostel’s room of Shifa College of Medicine, which was under the use of two postgraduate students.

The investigators reached the hostel to take the students in custody for interrogation. However, a college professor asked them to interrogate the students in his presence.

The investigators left the hostel after interrogation, but returned after some days and took the students in custody, the sources said.

Later, the students were shifted to an undisclosed location for further investigation which may help in tracing the mastermind and the terrorist group behind the incidents and their possible links with other groups.

During the investigation, it was revealed that the possible attacker stayed with the students twice in August and September, and he seems to be a ‘moulvi’ from his appearance during his first visit to the city.

During the course of interrogation from the arrested students, it was revealed that the suspect on his last visit had shaved off his beard and had started to give a look of moderate person.

The sources said the investigation team headed by the FIA director general got the information about the possible suicide attacker during investigations of score of people picked up on suspicion from different part of the country, including Islamabad, Faisalabad, Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan.

FIA director-general Tariq Pervez said it was premature to comment weather, the man who stayed in the hostel, was suicide attacker or not.

The sources said the investigation revealed that the target of the suicide attack was American Marine, FBI and CIA personnel staying at the hotel.