Islamabad, July 25: Pakistani investigators today identified the third suicide bomber responsible for an attack three weeks ago on a Shiite Muslim mosque in southwestern Baluchistan province that killed 48 people. Police named the attacker as 18-year-old Abdul Shakoor from Dera Murad Jamali town in Naseerbabad district of Baluchistan province, a senior security official told a news agency.

Police last week identified the two others as Noor Ahmed and Muhammad Khan, from Mastoong district near the provincial capital Quetta. The official said police had also found a video showing the three attackers in an unknown location and suggested the video was shot minutes before the July 4 attack on the mosque. In the 10 minutes of footage, Shakoor proclaimed his membership in the Sunni extremist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), which was banned by President Pervez Musharraf in August 2001 as part of an effort to rein in sectarian violence.

The group is blamed for killings of hundreds of Shiite Muslims in the past decade. Investigators believe the three bombers were backed, funded and provided with logistics by an organised group, possibly an underground cell of LJ.

LJ was put on Washington's terror watch list early this year. Bureau Report