ISLAMABAD, July 31: The leadership of the parties in the ruling coalition on Saturday condemned the suicide bomb attack on Shaukat Aziz and issued a call for chalking out strategy -with the support of the opposition - to foil the designs of terrorists against the solidarity of Pakistan.

Speaking at a joint news conference at PML House, the second line leadership of the coalition, including MQM's Minister Syed Sifwanullah, PPP's Minister of State Rais Munir Ahmed and PML's Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed declared that the election campaign of Mr Aziz will go ahead according to plan.

Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain who along with family members and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi remained in Murree according to their scheduled programme, while other frontline coalition leaders like Aftab Sherpao, Rao Sikandar Iqbal, Dr Farooq Sattar and others were conspicuous by their absence.

They said that both the government and opposition parties should join hands and to chalk out a joint strategy to combat the wave of terrorism which was in their opinion aimed at destroying the country's unity by so-called terrorists.

Responding to a query about the similarity in the suicide attacks on General Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz which killed scores of innocent people, but in which in both attacks both the main targets survived, Mushahid said, "it was Allah's mercy that he wanted to let both the leaders live for long."

To another query he said there was a big difference in past incidents of terrorism, and the ones in which General Musharraf, Corps Commander Karachi and Shaukat Aziz were targeted was part of a wave of well-planned suicide attacks which Pakistan has never witnessed before.

Hence, he said, there was a need to draw up a national strategy to counter such acts of terrorism. He refused to be dragged into any further discussion over the failure of the agencies to prevent the attack, as mentioned by the information minister.

Rais Munir termed the terrorist attack on the finance minister as an attempt to sabotage a smooth and successful election campaign of Shaukat Aziz, adding that no such conspiracies could stop him succeeding.

Syed Sifwanullah said, the attack on Shaukat Aziz was part of an international agenda to weaken and destabilise Pakistan and said that efforts must be made to nab the culprits early.

He said those who were doing such heinous crime in the name of Islam were distorting the face of their religion and doing no good to it.

He said Shaukat Aziz was a national asset who had turned into a seasoned politician in a short span of time and was not afraid of cowardly attacks on his person.

US REACTION: The United States on Friday strongly condemned the attack on Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, our correspondent from Washington adds.

"It demonstrates Pakistan's stand as a frontline state on the war on terrorism," said a State Department official.

"We understand that Mr Aziz was unharmed, but we have seen reports about death of six persons and injuries to dozens of others.

"We express our condolences to the families of the victims."

Asked to comment on the arrest of a key Al Qaeda suspect, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, in Gujrat on Thursday, the State Department official said Pakistan has conveyed the arrest to the US government. He offered no further comments.