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Islamabad, Monday (AFP) Pakistani police said they had arrested three Islamic extremists with a massive stash of explosives who were preparing a suicide attack against US diplomats and were involved in a May bombing that killed 11 French people.

The three men were arrested with 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of explosives packed into a Volkswagen that they planned to use in an attack on two US diplomats in the southern port city of Karachi, Sindh province's police chief Kamal Shah told reporters.

Shah said the arrests led police to a warehouse in the east of Karachi where the extremists had kept 250 sacks of explosives -- a total of up to 10,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds). Police were looking for the warehouse's owner.

The trio were members of the extremist movement Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami and had received training in Afghanistan, he said.

He said the extremists had planned to kill the diplomats by blowing up their explosives-laden car in the city's Shara-e-Faisal area.

"He wanted to hit them at Shara-e-Faisal as this is the normal route used by diplomats in Karachi," Shah said.

The revelation came on the eve of a visit to Pakistan by US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca, expected to arrive in the capital Islamabad early Monday.

A spokesman for the US consulate in Karachi said he was not aware of the arrests.

"This is being handled by the Pakistani authorities and is in the preliminary stages of investigation," the spokesman told AFP.

Shah identified the three would-be attackers as Asif Zaheer, Sohail Noor and Mohammad Yusuf.

Zaheer, 28, had been the intended suicide bomber in the May 8 suicide attack outside Karachi's Sheraton Hotel that killed 11 French engineers and three Pakistanis, Shah said.

"But this time he wanted to go himself for the suicide bombing and his target was two US diplomats," he said.

"They are highly committed people whose targets are foreigners, particularly Americans in the post-September 11 scenario," he said.

Shah said police were still searching for six people in the anti-French attack, including three who allegedly bought the car and one who is believed to be the mastermind of the anti-Western violence that has plagued this city for the past year.

"There is one person who we believe is the mastermind in all major terrorist attacks in Karachi, from Daniel Pearl to the Sheraton blast including this incident, and he is the one who provides suicide bombers," he said.

"We are on it and pretty soon we will be able to arrest him."

Shah said there was no immediate evidence to link the blast to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

"But maybe if we get evidence and arrest its (the group's) ringleader I may be in a position to say something." 

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