ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: The government on Monday identified the outlawed militant network Lashkar-i-Jhangvi as the group suspected of launching two attacks on Christian targets last week in which 11 people died.

“We strongly suspect the attackers to be part of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, one of its main factions,” interior ministry spokesman Iftikhar Ahmed told AFP.

“There are strong connections between those two attacks.”

Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has also been linked to the suicide car-bomb attacks in Karachi outside the Sheraton hotel in May and the US consulate in June, and the murder of abducted US journalist Daniel Pearl this year.

Police have detained “six or seven” people for questioning over Friday’s grenade attack on the Christian Hospital chapel in Taxila, 25km from Islamabad, he said.

“They’ve made different arrests, not of the culprits, but rather their associates,” the spokesman said.—AFP