Islamabad: More than a dozen Pakistani Air Force (PAF) personnel executed two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in league with the al-Qaeda terror outfit, a media report said today (May 28, 2004).

A day after Musharraf said on television that several low-ranking Army and Air Force officers had taken part in the assassination attempts conceived by an al-Qaeda foreigner and masterminded by a Pakistani, the report said that the Air Force technicians planted powerful C4 explosives on a bridge and blew it up as Musharraf's car drove over it on December 14.

Musharraf escaped death by a matter of seconds, only to be targeted in a second attempt on Christmas Day, this time by two suicide bombers who rammed explosives-laden trucks into his motorcade.

"We can say that the first attempt was a near exclusive job of more than a dozen Pakistan Air force brainwashed technicians who lived nearby in a PAF residential facility," an official was quoted as saying by the daily.

The PAF technicians were directed, motivated and armed by the Pakistani contact person of the al-Qaeda, he told 'The News' daily.

The military investigation of the two successive attempts on Musharraf's life was headed by Lt Gen Ashfaq Kiyani, who had marshalled dozens of military investigators for about four months until the President was informed about the completion of the probe and identification of all suspects last month.