LONDON • The rebel clerics, Ghazi brothers of Pakistan, and the Al Qaeda number two Ayman Al Zawahiri were secretly writing to each other to unleash a storm of suicide bombings in Pakistan before the start of the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa operation in Islamabad.

Zawahiri is learnt to have dispatched 18 foreigners, including Uzbeks, Egyptians and Afghans to train the madrassa students in fighting battles with security forces. Western diplomatic sources have claimed here that Al Qaeda also sought martyrdom of Ghazi to unleash a storm of suicide bombings in Pakistan.

“They wanted a poster boy for Pakistan and Ghazi was the perfect guy,” said one Western diplomat. A startling report in The Times has disclosed that the Al Qaeda’s leadership was secretly directing the Islamist militants.

Quoting senior intelligence officials, the report said the troops who finally took control of the mosque discovered letters from Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman Al Zawahiri written to Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Maulana Abdul Aziz.

Times quoted the government sources as saying that up to 18 foreign fighters, including Uzbeks, Egyptians and Afghans, had arrived weeks before the final shootout and set up firing ranges to teach students, including children, as to how to handle weapons.

It said the Al Qaeda wanted to open a Pakistan front in its global jihad since President Pervez Musharraf sided with America after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The report said even diplomats were surprised by the speed with which the Al Zawahiri condemned the raid and called on Pakistanis to rise up against Musharraf.

The response to his appeal was equally swift. Twenty-seven soldiers were killed when a suicide attacker struck a military convoy in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border on Saturday. At least, 100 have been killed in bombings and shootings since the mosque crisis began 12 days ago.