Karachi: Two men arrested in connection with the June bombing outside the US consulate in Karachi confessed before a magistrate on July 16 to having plotted the attack that killed 12 people, police said.

The suspects, Mohammad Imran Bhai and Mohammad Hanif Ayub, were taken before a local magistrate where they made the confessions, police officer Manzoor Mughal told AFP.

"In their confessional statements they have said they planned and arranged the bombing, but insisted that they did not know about the identity of the suicide bomber," Mughal said.

The statement recorded under Pakistan's Criminal Procedure Code can be used against the suspects in a subsequent trial.

The paramilitary rangers last week announced the arrest of the two suspects and another for planning the June 14 suicide car bomb attack on the US consulate.

All three belong to a group called the Harkatul Mujaheeen-al-Alaami, an offshoot of the banned Kashmiri militant outfit Harkatul Mujahideen, Rangers chief, Major General Salahuddin Satti, said.

Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider has said investigators had evidence that al-Qaida financed the attack.