Militants who attacked a minority sect, killing 93 people in the country's east, belonged to the Pakistani Taliban and were trained in a lawless border region where the U.S. wants Islamabad to mount an army operation, police said Saturday.

The revelation could help the U.S. persuade Pakistan that rooting out the various extremist groups in North Waziristan is in Islamabad's own interest. Up to now, Pakistan has resisted, in part because it says its army is stretched thin in operations elsewhere.

The attacks — the deadliest ever against the Ahmadi sect reviled by mainstream Muslims — occurred minutes apart Friday in two neighborhoods in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city and a key political, military, and cultural center.

Two teams of gunmen, including some in suicide vests, stormed two mosques and sprayed bullets at worshippers while holding off police. At least two of the seven attackers were captured, while some died in the standoff or by detonating their explosives.

Militants have used such tactics in attacking Pakistan's U.S.-allied government and foreign and security targets often in the past, but violence against religious minorities had previously not been waged in such a large-scale, sophisticated fashion.

Local TV channels had been reporting that the Pakistani Taliban, or one of their affiliates, had claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Senior police officer Akram Naeem in Lahore said the interrogation of one of the arrested suspects revealed that the gunmen were involved with the Pakistani Taliban. The 17-year-old suspect told police that the men had trained in the North Waziristan tribal region.

"Our initial investigation has found that they all belong to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan," or Pakistani Taliban movement, Naeem said. He said the suspect, "Abdullah alias Mohammad, was given terrorism training in Miran Shah" — the main city in North Waziristan.