Female bombers hit Pakistan police at blast site

A female suicide bomber detonated her explosives near police guarding the scene of an explosion earlier Thursday in this northwestern Pakistani city, a rare double-pronged attack that killed four officers and a boy.

Police said a second female suicide bomber is also believed to have been killed in the second explosion

before she could detonate her vest. At least 30 people were wounded in both attacks.

The blasts ended weeks of relative calm in Peshawar, a frequent target of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters hiding in the nearby tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. No group claimed responsibility, but the attacks suggested that militants remain able to strike, despite army operations against them.

Attacking the same area twice — with the second attack targeting police, rescue officials and other first-responders — is a rare, but not unprecedented, tactic in Pakistan. Such double-bombings are more common in Iraq.

In the first incident, a remote-controlled bomb exploded in the Lahori Gate area of the city as a police truck carrying constables about to start their shift drove by. Four police officers and a boy passing by were killed, while 22 people were wounded.

Roughly an hour later, two women approached police guarding the area, officials said. One of the females first threw a grenade, then was able to partially detonate her suicide vest, said Shafqat Malik, a police official with the bomb disposal unit. She appeared to be just 16 or 17 years old, he said.

"We're trying to remove the remainder of the jacket from the body very carefully," he said.

Eight people were wounded in the second attack, including six civilians, police official Tariq Khan said.

While suicide bombings are common in Pakistan, the use of women in the attacks is unusual.

In June, the Pakistani Taliban said they had sent a husband and wife suicide squad to a police station in another northwestern town. That attack killed 10 people. Late last year, a female suicide bomber attacked a World Food Program food distribution center in the region, killing 45.

Miami imam, 2 sons charged with supporting Taliban

MIAMI - A 76-year-old Miami imam and two of his sons have been arrested on federal charges they provided some $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban, while three others in Pakistan have been indicted on charges of handling distribution of the funds, authorities say.

Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, was arrested Saturday at the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, where he is an imam. One of his sons, Izhar Khan, 24, an imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in nearby Margate, Fla., was arrested there. Another son, Irfan Khan, 37, was detained at a Los Angeles hotel. The men are U.S. citizens. Their mosques are not suspected of wrongdoing, officials said.

Also named in the indictment are three others at large in Pakistan - Hafiz Khan's daughter, grandson and an unrelated man, all three charged with handling the distribution of funds, authorities said. The Pakistani Taliban are designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization.

Attempts to reach the men's attorneys and families were unsuccessful on Saturday. However, another son of Hafiz Khan, Ikram Khan, told The Miami Herald that his father was too old and sick to be involved in the plot.

"None of my family supports the Taliban," he told the newspaper. "We support this country."

If convicted, the South Florida men face 15 years in prison for each of the four counts listed in the indictment. All three are expected in court Monday.

U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said suspicious financial activity triggered the investigation three years ago. "This is based on the defendant's words, actions and records," Ferrer said at a news conference Saturday.

The indictment lists about $50,000 in transactions.

According to the indictment, the funds were used to buy guns, support militants' families and promote the cause of the Pakistani Taliban. It also alleges that Hafiz Khan owns a madrassa, or religious school, in his native Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan that shelters members of the Pakistani Taliban and trains children to become militants.

The indictment recounts recorded conversations in which Hafiz Khan allegedly voices support for attacks on the Pakistani government and American troops in the region, officials said.

The Pakistani Taliban is a wing of the terrorist group that originated in Afghanistan. It claimed responsibility for a pair of suicide bombings Friday that killed 87 people in what it said was vengeance for the killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. The group has also been linked to the Times Square car bombing in New York in May 2010.

The Pakistani militant group is allied with al-Qaida, is based in the northwest of Pakistan near the Afghan border and has links to that country's Taliban insurgency.

The Miami Mosque - a small, white house in a crowded residential area - was founded in 1974 and is the oldest mosque in the city, according to Mohammad Shakir, a local Muslim community leader. Hafiz Khan has been leading prayers at the mosque for about 14 years, Shakir added.

Hafiz Khan has been suspended indefinitely as imam, said Asad Ba-Yunus, a spokesman for the Muslim Communities Association of South Florida, which runs the mosque. He said his organization is not aware of any attempts to raise funds for illegal activity that took place on its properties.

Nezar Hamze, executive director of the South Florida chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights and advocacy group, described the father and son imams as "very quiet individuals" who seemed pious. He said he never heard them preach extremism.

"I was very shocked, just as others in the community were shocked," Hamze said. "We absolutely don't support terrorism or support of terrorism."

Muslim leaders said they were reluctant to speculate about whether the alleged financial support to the Pakistani Taliban did in fact take place and whether it was intentional.

"I think it's important to get all the facts before any decisions or statements are made," Hamze said.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, said in a statement late Saturday that the indictments show the U.S. must be vigilant in dealing with extremist threats.