Islamabad: Pakistan is trying to verify a claim by al-Qaeda that it carried out the recent suicide attack on Prime Minister-designate Shaukat Sultan even as investigators have not ruled out involvement of lower level security officials in the assassination attempt.

The involvement of lower level security officials in the suicide bomb attack against Aziz on Friday last (July 30, 2004) has not been ruled out as it happened in the previous attacks against President Pervez Musharraf, Director of Pakistan's National Police Bureau, Sahoib Suddle, said.

Musharraf had himself said that the investigations into the two suicide attacks against him in December last year revealed the involvement of lower level personnel from Army and Air Force.

Suddle said that personnel from security agencies have been held in connection with murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, attacks on Musharraf as well as a suicide attack in a minority Shia mosque in Karachi recently.

The possibility of the suicide attack on Aziz as a result of fallout of the Army's operations against al-Qaeda in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan was also not ruled out, he said.

The suspicion arose as investigators found that there was an unusual delay in Aziz's black Mercedes moving out of the public meeting at Fateh Jhung soon after he got into it after addressing the meeting, which provided the opportunity for the suicide bomber, believed to be in his 20s, to rush to the car and explode near the driver's seat.