Would-be suicide bomber sheds light on suspected Pakistani militant web

A policeman (L) and residents walk past a shop displaying the pictures of men, who were killed in a suicide blast on January 2015, in a Shi'ite mosque in Shikarpur, Pakistan March 19, 2017. Picture taken March 19, 2017. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

SHIKARPUR, Pakistan - The confession of a Pakistani teenager who was captured moments before carrying out a suicide attack has given police a rare glimpse into a militant network they say is behind the recent surge in sectarian violence.

Usman's testimony, a copy of which has been seen by Reuters, describes a web of radical seminaries and training and bomb making facilities stretching from eastern Afghanistan, where the young man was recruited, to Pakistan's southern Sindh province.