Muslim Cross-Dressing Suicide Bombers

Burqa time in old Islamabad. Muslim terrorist killers were about to attack. But police stopped them. And guess what? Yesterday there was a terrorist bust in Queens. A bust of five Afghans.

Connection? Absolutely.

What's next here? No doubt the muslim killers will try the burqa disguise.

Pakistan Police Thwart Attack on Karachi Oil Facility

ISLAMABAD -- Islamic militants clad head-to-toe in women's burqas attempted to attack an oil storage facility in Karachi, raising fears that insurgents are fleeing northwestern Pakistan and infiltrating the nation's main business hub.

Three gunmen, disguised as women, tried to enter the high security facility used by oil companies, late Monday night, Waseem Ahmed, the city police chief, told Pakistani television on Tuesday. When stopped by security guards, militants opened fire, killing one of the guards. The assailants fled during a gun battle, leaving behind their burqas, purses and hand grenades.

"We suspect they wanted to carry out a big terrorist attack which our prompt police action thwarted," said Mr. Ahmed, the police chief, in an interview with the Geo TV Pakistan.

Later Tuesday, police arrested four men suspected to have been involved in the attack. During a house raid in Karachi, Mr. Ahmed said in the television interview that police found additional burqas, women's handbags and weapons. Police suspected the assailants disguised themselves as women to try to slip past security check points.

The arrested men were suspected to have been linked to the militant group led by Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader who was killed last month in a U.S. missile attack in South Waziristan. A large number of militants from Waziristan and other areas fleeing army attacks have been taking sanctuary in Karachi, according to Zulfikar Mirza, the Sindh provincial home minister

One sign of the rising level of insurgent activity, say police and government officials, is the marked increase in bank robberies and kidnapping of wealthy businessmen. They say these activities are carried out by the Taliban to finance their war against Pakistani forces in tribal regions. Most of the bank robberies in the recent months involved militants coming from tribal regions, said Mr. Ahmed, the police chief

Karachi's size -- about 16 million people live in the city -- helps insulate insurgents, providing a degree of anonymity not found in Pakistan's small towns and villages. Those fleeing the fighting in northwestern Pakistan, areas dominated by the ethnic Pashtun, are often taken in by those in the city's sprawling Pashtun neighborhoods. Another potential refuge for fleeing militants: the thousands of madrassas, or Islamic seminaries, spread across the city.

The local city government, which is run by Muttehida Qaumi Movement, a secular political party, has warned against the danger of the city turning into a new base for Taliban. MQM officials have called for screening people coming entering the city from the country's northwest.

Also on Tuesday, police recovered rocket launchers, hand grenades and suicide-bomb jackets from a water drain near a police training institute in Karachi.