At least three of the four suspects named in the Istanbul bombings, had spent up to two years in Pakistan, attached it is to be assumed to one of the militant Islamic outfits that flourished in Punjab and Azad Kashmir until recent crackdowns by the government.
| Really? Well, that's never happened before... |
Disclosures such as these further deepen the widely-held belief abroad that Pakistan has acted as the hothouse where such desperate and suicidal creeds have grown or taken their final, lethal shape. As the Washington Post put it Monday, âNotably religious, each of the suspects bore that markers of Islamic militancy familiar in biographies of suicide bombers, including travel to Pakistan for âreligious training.ââ
| Pick a holy man. My guess is Hafiz Saeed, but it could be Masood Azhar. They're both very devout... |
When two of the bombers â Azad Ekinci and Mesut Cabuk - returned from Pakistan to their hillside home town of Bingol, they were wearing beards and they had traded their jeans for the Pakistani shalwar qameez. A local architect who knew both boys said they were âreligious before but not like after Pakistan.â |