LONDON: A Sri Lankan defence spokesman and cabinet minister on Tuesday said that Al Qaeda had borrowed the idea of the massive truck bombing at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).Addressing a press conference at the Sri Lankan High Commission at Hyde Park Gardens, Keheliya Rambukwella said, "The Pakistani bomb is very similar in style to Colombo's Central Bank truck bomb [in 1996], which was only lesser in strength.”

Rambukwella said there is a constant sharing of technology between terrorist groups. Terrorism experts have previously indicated that the use of suicide jackets by Al Qaeda was also pioneered by the LTTE, he said.