suicide bomber

Pakistani police are investigating whether the suicide bomber who killed three US soldiers on Wednesday had prior insider information on the location of the troops.

Police official Naeem Khan said Pakistani authorities were trying to ascertain whether the suicide bomber knew that soldiers would be passing through Shahi Koto town, a former Pakistani Taliban stronghold in Lower Dir where the attack occurred yesterday. The US soldiers were training Pakistani forces to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. ''We launched a massive search in the area yesterday, and now about 35 suspects are in our custody and we are questioning them in an effort to trace those who orchestrated the suicide attack,'' Khan told The Associated Press.

The blast also killed three girls at a nearby school and a Pakistani paramilitary soldier travelling with the Americans. Two more US soldiers were wounded, along with about 100 other people, mostly students at the school. The soldiers killed on Wednesday were part of a small group of American troops training members of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps, the US Embassy said. Their deaths are the first known US military fatalities in Pakistan's Afghan border region in nearly three years. Two US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity said at least one of the three American soldiers killed was a member of a unit designed to help local authorities publicize positive news in this case, apparently, the opening of a girls school, which the embassy said had been renovated with US humanitarian assistance.

According to a Pakistani reporter from a private television news channel, the US soldiers who were reportedly wearing civilian clothes had been presented as members of the media after a Pakistani soldier had allegedly referred to the Americans as "foreign journalists" at a paramilitary base from which the five vehicle convoy had embarked before being attacked. US Embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire said authorities were also investigating this matter.