ISLAMABAD -- A gang of Pakistani sectarian hitmen blamed for a chain of deadly attacks on foreign targets is accused of wreaking a vicious cycle of terror against domestic targets since the mid-1990s.

The outlawed militant Sunni group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) was named by police at the weekend as "one of the gangs" behind a May 8 car bomb attack outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi and a similar attack outside the U.S. Consulate in the volatile southern port city on June 14.

Eleven French nationals and three Pakistanis died in the May attack, and 12 Pakistanis were killed in the June blast.

LJ activist Asif Ramzi was also named by police for involvement in the murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, who was abducted in Karachi on January 23.

Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, "the warrior of Jhangvi", sprouted in the early 1990s from the ranks of another Sunni extremist outfit Sipah-e-Sahaba, a group reputed to be motivated by deep hatred of followers of Shia Muslims, a minority in Sunni-dominated Pakistan.

LJ's membership is estimated at 300 to 500. Dozens of LJ activists were rounded up last week as police set out to "rattle" LJ and other militant networks believed to have teamed up with Al-Qaeda fugitives to kill foreigners.

LJ was founded in the mid-1990s by notorious hitman Riaz Basra, who is accused of assassinating Iranian diplomat Sadi Gunji in Lahore in 1990. Basra named his group after radical Sunni leader Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, whose murder was blamed on Shias.

He vowed to eliminate the Shia rivals.

The group has been blamed for thousands of hit and run attacks on mosques and religious gatherings, and the assassination of prominent professionals, police and businessmen.

There is strong evidence to suggest that LJ forged links with the hardline Taleban militia after they rose to prominence in Afghanistan in late 1994.

LJ leaders apparently moved to Afghanistan and set up military-style training camps in Afghanistan under the Taleban's protection. Repeated attempts by Pakistani authorities to get them extradited fell on deaf ears in the Taleban administration.

The authorities say their stay in Afghanistan brought them close to followers of the Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, the guests of the Taleban.

The group is also thought to have formed alliances with other militant Pakistani groups who supplied the Taleban with volunteer fighters and sent militants to battle Indian control in Kashmir.

President Pervez Musharraf banned LJ in August 2001 along with the extremist Shia group Sipah-e-Mohammad as he moved to stamp out sectarian bloodshed.

After the Taleban collapsed late last year under attack from the U.S. and Afghan fighters, LJ and other groups lost their safe haven and many slipped back into Pakistan, investigators say.

The hunt for LJ activists was intensified after the killing of the French nationals in May and security forces nabbed several members considered to be the group's top hitmen.

In May, founder Basra was gunned down in a police encounter.

Demoralised and leaderless, the LJ members holed themselves up in Karachi and parts of central Punjab Province with support from other militant networks.

Police say Karachi, a volatile city of 12.5 million people, became a secret hub of LJ, fellow militants and Al-Qaeda fugitives from Afghanistan.

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