Intelligence

Named: the al-Qaeda chief who ‘masterminded murder’

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Military’s spokesman sparks row over what caused Bhutto’s death Baitullah Mehsud Martin Fletcher

A notorious al-Qaeda leader named Baitullah Mehsud was named by Pakistan’s
Government last night as the mastermind behind Benazir Bhutto’s
assassination.

The security services intercepted a call from Mehsud yesterday morning in
which he “congratulated his people for carrying out this cowardly act,”
Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, the Interior Ministry’s spokesman, announced.

In a transcript of the call released by the Government an interlocutor named
Maulvi Sahib tells Mehsud that three men were involved in the attack and two
— Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah — actually carried it out. Mehsud tells
Maulvi Sahib not to tell the men’s families yet and adds: “It was a
spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.”

But Brigadier Cheema also deepened the confusion surrounding Ms Bhutto’s death
by insisting that she had been killed not by her assassin’s bullets or by
shrapnel from his suicide bomb, but from a fractured skull caused by her
head smashing into the lever of her vehicle’s sunroof following the blast.

This directly contradicted accounts given by doctors and security officials on
Thursday who said that she had died from bullet wounds to her head and
spinal cord.

A senior Bhutto aide last night called the Government’s explanation a “pack of
lies”. “Two bullets hit her, one in the abdomen and one in the head,” said
Farook Naik, her top lawyer and a senior official in her Pakistan People’s
Party (PPP).

“Bhutto’s personal secretary, Naheed Khan, and party official Makhdoom Amin
Fahim were in the car and they saw what happened. It is an irreparable loss
and they are turning it into a joke with such claims. The country is heading
towards civil war.”

Brigadier Cheema was speaking at a packed press conference in Islamabad that
seemed designed to allay suspicion that the Government had colluded in the
assassination, or failed to protect Ms Bhutto.

He argued that the PPP leader had ignored the Government’s security advice,
and seemed to suggest that she would have survived had she followed it. The
vehicle was bomb-proof and bullet-proof.

“If she had not come out of the vehicle she would have been unhurt, as all the
other occupants of the vehicle did not receive any injuries,” he said,
adding: “It pains me, I say with a lot of anguish, that we wish she had not
come out of that vehicle to wave to the people.”

Mr Naik also questioned the Government’s claim that Mehsud ordered the
assassination. “The Government is now claiming that Baitullah Mehsud is
responsible. What is the evidence?” he asked.

Hillary Clinton, the US senator and Democratic presidential contender, waded
into the row last night, calling for an independent, international
investigation of Ms Bhutto's death.

“I don’t think the Pakistani Government at this time under President Musharraf
has any credibility at all,” she said. “They have disbanded an independent
judiciary, they oppressed a free press.”

The Interior Ministry released the transcript of its intelligence intercept,
and said that there was “irrefutable evidence that al-Qaeda, its networks
and cohorts are trying to destabilise Pakistan”.

Brigadier Cheema described Mehsud as an al-Qaeda leader who was also behind
the attack on Ms Bhutto’s homecoming parade in Karachi on October 18, which
killed 140 people, and claimed that he was “responsible for most of the
attacks that have taken place in the country”. Other targets had included
President Musharraf, senior government officials and army and intelligence
officers.

Mehsud is thought to be based in the lawless tribal area of South Waziristan,
near the Afghan border, where Pakistani troops have been fighting Islamist
rebels for several years. He has ties to the Taleban as well as to al-Qaeda,
and was quoted in a Pakistan newspaper last autumn as saying that he would
greet Ms Bhutto’s return from exile with suicide bombers.

Not a lot else is known about the man. He reportedly has close ties to Mullar
Omar, the Taleban leader in Afghanistan. He is said to run a “parallel
government” with a private army of 20,000 that imposes strict Islamic law in
Waziristan. Before he kills proGovernment tribal leaders he allegedly sends
them a 1,000 rupee note, a thread and a needle with instructions that the
recipient should buy himself a shroud.

Asked why Pakistan’s security services could intercept Mehsud’s calls but not
track him down, Brigadier Cheema said that he moved fast and went to ground
very quickly after contacting followers and was therefore hard to pick up.

The Interior Ministry released a grainy video taken of Ms Bhutto just moments
before she was shot as she left a rally in a park in Rawalpindi on Thursday
afternoon.

It shows her standing up through the sunroof of her stationary sports utility
vehicle and confidently waving to supporters. The film ends abruptly as
shots ring out. One, possibly two, guns can be seen above the heads of the
crowd behind the vehicle. Given the crush around the vehicle it seems
impossible that the assailant — or assailants — were on a motorbike as some
early reports claimed.

Brigadier Cheema said that all three shots fired by the attacker missed Ms
Bhutto. She was killed when she tried to duck back into the vehicle and
shock waves from the suicide bomb rammed her head into a lever attached to
the sunroof, he said.

“The lever struck near her right ear and fractured her skull . . . There was
no bullet or metal shrapnel found in the injury.”

Brigadier Cheema said that Ms Bhutto’s husband had refused to permit a
post-mortem examination on her body — Islam discourages desecration of dead
bodies. But he said X-rays and an external investigation showed that “there
was no bullet that hit her . . . there was no splinter that hit her”.

Pakistan’s Government is facing considerable public anger for failing to
protect Ms Bhutto. Brigadier Cheema sought to deflect that anger by
insisting the Government had done everything in its power to protect her.

He said that everybody at the rally in Rawalpindi had been searched, Ms
Bhutto’s rostrum had been bullet-proof, and “all possible security
arrangements were made within the resources of the Government of Pakistan”.
He insisted that “no political leader in this country has been provided with
as much security”.

Brigadier Cheema announced two inquiries into the assassination — one by a
high court judge and the other by the security services. He also said that
several other prominent Pakistani politicians were under threat from Islamic
militants, and named Nawaz Sharif, leader of the opposition Pakistan Muslim
League, as one of them.

The 20 other people who died in the assassination included Tauqee Akram, 35,
the husband of a British woman and active member of Ms Bhutto’s PPP. His
widow, Lubna Akram, lives in Halliwell, Bolton, and the couple have two
children.

‘Congratulations’

This is a translation of the alleged telephone conversation yesterday between
Baitullah Mehsud, a senior al-Qaeda leader, and Maulvi Sahib, another
militant, which the Pakistan Interior Ministry said had been intercepted
after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:

Maulvi Sahib (MS) Asalaam Aleikum (Peace be with you)

Baitullah Mehsud (BM) Waleikum Asalam (And also with you)

MS Chief, how are you?

BM I am fine

MS Congratulations, I just got back during the night

BM Congratulations to you, were they our men?

MS Yes they were ours

BM Who were they?

MS There was Saeed, there was Bilal from Badar and Ikramullah

BM The three of them did it?

MS Ikramullah and Bilal did it

BM Then congratulations

MS Where are you? I want to meet you

BM I am at Makeen [town in South Waziristan tribal region], come over, I am at
Anwar Shah’s house

MS OK, I’ll come

BM Don’t inform their house for the time being

MS OK

BM It was a tremendous effort. They were really brave boys who killed her

MS Mashallah (Thank God). When I come I will give you all the details

BM I will wait for you. Congratulations, once again congratulations

MS Congratulations to you

BM Anything I can do for you?

MS Thank you very much.

BM Asalaam Aleikum

MS Waaleikum Asalaam

December 28, 2007 at 09:14 PM in Al Qaeda, Current Terrorism, Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Authorities point the finger at militant pro-Taliban leader

Authorities point the finger at militant pro-Taliban leader | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Rory McCarthy Saturday December 29, 2007 The Guardian Pakistani officials said last night they already had evidence from "intelligence intercepts" linking a pro-Taliban militant commander to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and several other suicide bombings.

On the intercept the commander, named
as Baitullah Mehsud, was recorded congratulating his men for the attack
on Bhutto, said Javed Iqbal Cheema, Pakistan's interior ministry
spokesman.

He described Mehsud as an "al-Qaida leader". Mehsud,
who is one of Pakistan's most wanted militants, is known to be a
pro-Taliban commander based in the violent tribal region of South
Waziristan. Before Bhutto flew back to Pakistan in October he was
reported as threatening a wave of suicide attacks against her, but he
later denied making the threat.

Pakistani officials said they believed Mehsud was also behind the
suicide bomb attack on the day of Bhutto's return which left 130 of her
supporters dead. Mehsud was "behind most of the recent terrorist
attacks that have taken place in Pakistan," Cheema said.

The
announcement came as police began the gruesome task of trying to
identify the suicide bomber behind the assassination at the start of a
fraught and difficult investigation.

The bomber's badly burned
head was recovered from the scene of the blast. Saud Aziz, the city's
police chief, said investigators would reconstruct the head and take
DNA samples from other body parts found nearby in the hope that they
could quickly identify the killer.

However, there is already deep
mistrust in Pakistan among many, not just Bhutto's supporters, who
doubt that a small cell of extremists alone was responsible for her
death. At the heart of these fears lies the long and dangerous
association of the Pakistani government and its military with Islamic
militants, in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Bhutto herself warned
before her death that there were powerful figures in Pakistan plotting
to kill her. Yesterday disturbing new evidence emerged of concerns that
Bhutto voiced two months ago.

On October 26, a week after her
return to Pakistan was marred by a first suicide bombing which killed
138 of her supporters, she sent an email to her spokesman in the United
States saying she was anxious that she was not being given enough
security. The email was passed to Wolf Blitzer, a CNN presenter, to be
published if she was killed. In the email Bhutto said if she was killed
it would be the responsibility of Pervez Musharraf, the general who
seized power in a coup and became Pakistan's president.

"Nothing
will, God willing happen. Just wanted u to know if it does in addition
to my names in my letter to Musharaf of Oct 16nth, I wld hold Musharaf
responsible," the email said. "I have been made to feel insecure by his
minions and there is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me
from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or
four police mobiles to cover all sides cld happen without him. B."

Two
days before her return, Bhutto sent Musharraf a letter, giving names
and telephone numbers of several men she believed were plotting against
her. Reports in the Pakistani press said the men included an official
in the Pakistani intelligence agencies, a member of the National
Accountability Bureau, which has long investigated corruption cases
against her, and a former provincial government official. Then after
the first attack on the day of her return, Bhutto asked for
international investigators to be assigned to the case. Her request was
rejected.

Al-Qaida, or militants allied to the group, might have
had a lot to lose if Bhutto had as expected, won next month's
elections. She had spoken repeatedly of her plans to take on the tide
of militancy sweeping Pakistan. Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No 2,
spoke out against Bhutto's return in a video this month and called for
attacks on all candidates in next month's election.

Bruce Riedel,
a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former senior director
for south Asia on the national security council, said al-Qaida had been
trying to kill Bhutto for many years. "If it's not them, it's certainly
one of the groups that are sympathetic with them," he said. "They all
work together and share a common antipathy to Bhutto because she's a
woman, an advocate of secularism, a supporter of democracy and
everything they stand against."

Others say it may be more
complex. "It's going to be very difficult to establish the truth of who
was behind this," said MJ Gohel, the executive director of the
Asia-Pacific Foundation, a security and intelligence thinktank in
London.

"As well as the Taliban and al-Qaida elements, there are
many other candidates - there are elements within the military and
elements within the intelligence services, which never had a good
relationship with Bhutto."

The transcript

A
transcript released by the Pakistani government yesterday of a
purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is
referred to as Emir Sahib, and another man identified as a Maulvi
Sahib, or Mr Cleric. The government alleges the intercepted
conversation proves al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir
Bhutto

Maulvi Sahib Peace be on you.

Mehsud Peace be on you, too.

MS How are you Emir Sahib?

Mehsud Fine.

MS Congratulations. I arrived now tonight.

Mehsud Congratulations to you, too.

MS They were our men there.

Mehsud Who were they?

MS There were Saeed, the second was Badarwala Bilal and Ikramullah was also there.

Mehsud The three did it?

MS Ikramullah and Bilal did it.

Mehsud Then congratulations to you again.

MS Where are you? I want to meet with you?

Mehsud I am in Makin. Come I am at Anwar Shah's home.

MS OK I will come.

Mehsud Do not inform their family presently.

MS Right.

Mehsud It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.

MS Praise be to God. I will give you more details when I come.

Mehsud I will wait for you. Congratulation once again.

MS Congratulations to you as well.

Mehsud: Any service?

MS Thank you very much?

Mehsud Peace be on you.

MS Same to you.

December 28, 2007 at 09:07 PM in Al Qaeda, Current Terrorism, Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Al-Qaeda‘planning big British attack’

Dipesh Gadher

AL-QAEDA leaders in Iraq are planning the first “large-scale” terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets with the help of supporters in Iran, according to a leaked intelligence report.

Spy chiefs warn that one operative had said he was planning an attack on “a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki” in an attempt to “shake the Roman throne”, a reference to the West.

Another plot could be timed to coincide with Tony Blair stepping down as prime minister, an event described by Al-Qaeda planners as a “change in the head of the company”.

The report, produced earlier this month and seen by The Sunday Times, appears to provide evidence that Al-Qaeda is active in Iran and has ambitions far beyond the improvised attacks it has been waging against British and American soldiers in Iraq.

There is no evidence of a formal relationship between Al-Qaeda, a Sunni group, and the Shi’ite regime of President Mah-moud Ahmadinejad, but experts suggest that Iran’s leaders may be turning a blind eye to the terrorist organisation’s activities.

The intelligence report also makes it clear that senior Al-Qaeda figures in the region have been in recent contact with operatives in Britain.

It follows revelations last year that up to 150 Britons had travelled to Iraq to fight as part of Al-Qaeda’s “foreign legion”. A number are thought to have returned to the UK, after receiving terrorist training, to form sleeper cells.

The report was compiled by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) - based at MI5’s London headquarters - and provides a quarterly review of the international terror threat to Britain. It draws a distinction between Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda’s core leadership, who are thought to be hiding on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and affiliated organisations elsewhere.

The document states: “While networks linked to AQ [Al-Qaeda] Core pose the greatest threat to the UK, the intelligence during this quarter has highlighted the potential threat from other areas, particularly AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq].”

The report continues: “Recent reporting has described AQI’s Kurdish network in Iran planning what we believe may be a large-scale attack against a western target.

“A member of this network is reportedly involved in an operation which he believes requires AQ Core authorisation. He claims the operation will be on ‘a par with Hiroshima and Naga-saki’ and will ‘shake the Roman throne’. We assess that this operation is most likely to be a large-scale, mass casualty attack against the West.”

The report says there is “no indication” this attack would specifically target Britain, “although we are aware that AQI . . . networks are active in the UK”.

Analysts believe the reference to Hiroshima and Naga-saki, where more than 200,000 people died in nuclear attacks on Japan at the end of the second world war, is unlikely to be a literal boast.

“It could be just a reference to a huge explosion,” said a counter-terrorist source. “They [Al-Qaeda] have got to do something soon that is radical otherwise they start losing credibility.”

Despite aspiring to a nuclear capability, Al-Qaeda is not thought to have acquired weapons grade material. However, several plots involving “dirty bombs” - conventional explosive devices surrounded by radioactive material - have been foiled.

Last year Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq called on nuclear scientists to apply their knowledge of biological and radiological weapons to “the field of jihad”.

Details of a separate plot to attack Britain, “ideally” before Blair steps down this summer, were contained in a letter written by Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd and senior Al-Qaeda commander.

According to the JTAC document, Hadi “stressed the need to take care to ensure that the attack was successful and on a large scale”. The plan was to be relayed to an Iran-based Al-Qaeda facilitator.

The Home Office declined to comment.

April 22, 2007 at 03:44 PM in Al Qaeda, Iraq, UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Pakistani Role Seen in Taliban Surge at Border - New York Times

QUETTA, Pakistan

The most explosive question about the Taliban resurgence here along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is this: Have Pakistani intelligence agencies been promoting the Islamic insurgency?

Source: Pakistani Role Seen in Taliban Surge at Border - New York Times

The government of Pakistan vehemently rejects the allegation and insists that it is fully committed to help American and NATO forces prevail against the Taliban militants who were driven from power in Afghanistan in 2001.

Western diplomats in both countries and Pakistani opposition figures say that Pakistani intelligence agencies — in particular the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence — have been supporting a Taliban restoration, motivated not only by Islamic fervor but also by a longstanding view that the jihadist movement allows them to assert greater influence on Pakistan’s vulnerable western flank.

More than two weeks of reporting along this frontier, including dozens of interviews with residents on each side of the porous border, leaves little doubt that Quetta is an important base for the Taliban, and found many signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if not sponsoring them.

The evidence is provided in fearful whispers, and it is anecdotal.

At Jamiya Islamiya, a religious school here in Quetta, Taliban sympathies are on flagrant display, and residents say students have gone with their teachers’ blessings to die in suicide bombings in Afghanistan.

Three families whose sons had died as suicide bombers in Afghanistan said they were afraid to talk about the deaths because of pressure from Pakistani intelligence agents. Local people say dozens of families have lost sons in Afghanistan as suicide bombers and fighters.

One former Taliban commander said in an interview that he had been jailed by Pakistani intelligence officials because he would not go to Afghanistan to fight. He said that, for Western and local consumption, his arrest had been billed as part of Pakistan’s crackdown on the Taliban in Pakistan. Former Taliban members who have refused to fight in Afghanistan have been arrested — or even mysteriously killed — after resisting pressure to re-enlist in the Taliban, Pakistani and Afghan tribal elders said.

“The Pakistanis are actively supporting the Taliban,” declared a Western diplomat in an interview in Kabul. He said he had seen an intelligence report of a recent meeting on the Afghan border between a senior Taliban commander and a retired colonel of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.

Pakistanis and Afghans interviewed on the frontier, frightened by the long reach of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, spoke only with assurances that they would not be named. Even then, they spoke cautiously.

The Pakistani military and intelligence services have for decades used religious parties as a convenient instrument to keep domestic political opponents at bay and for foreign policy adventures, said Husain Haqqani, a former adviser to several of Pakistan’s prime ministers and the author of a book on the relationship between the Islamists and the Pakistani security forces.

The religious parties recruited for the jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan from the 1980s, when the Pakistani intelligence agencies ran the resistance by the mujahedeen and channeled money to them from the United States and Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Mr. Haqqani said.

In return for help in Kashmir and Afghanistan the intelligence services would rig votes for the religious parties and allow them freedom to operate, he said.

“The religious parties provide them with recruits, personnel, cover and deniability,” Mr. Haqqani said in a telephone interview from Washington, where he is now a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The Inter-Services Intelligence once had an entire wing dedicated to training jihadis, he said. Today the religious parties probably have enough of their own people to do the training, but, he added, the I.S.I. so thoroughly monitors phone calls and people’s movements that it would be almost impossible for any religious party to operate a training camp without its knowledge.

“They trained the people who are at the heart of it all, and they have done nothing to roll back their protégés,” Mr. Haqqani said.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, President Pervez Musharraf, under strong American pressure, pledged to help root out Islamic extremism, and, as both head of the army and president, he has more direct control of the intelligence services than past civilian prime ministers. But according to several analysts, Pakistani intelligence officials believe it is more prudent to prepare for the day when Western troops leave Afghanistan.

Pakistan has long seen jihadi movements like the Taliban as a counter to Indian and Russian influence next door in Afghanistan, the Western diplomat and other analysts said, and as a way to provide Pakistan with “strategic depth,” or a friendly buffer on its western border.

In Pashtunabad, a warren of high mud-brick walls and narrow lanes in Quetta, the links of the government, religious parties and Taliban commanders to a local madrasa are thinly hidden, said a local opposition party member who lives in the neighborhood.

Three students from the madrasa went to Afghanistan recently on suicide missions, he said. The family of one of the men admitted that he had blown himself up but denied that he had attended the school. The man’s brother suggested that he had been forced into the mission and that someone had recruited him for payment.

“Nowadays people are getting money from somewhere and they are killing other people’s children,” he said. “We are afraid of this government,” he said. His father said he feared the same people would try to take his other son and asked that no family names be used.

President Musharraf relies on the religious party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, or J.U.I., which dominates this province, Baluchistan, as an important partner in the provincial and national parliaments.

At a madrasa, called simply Jamiya Islamiya, on winding Hajji Ghabi Road, a board in the courtyard proudly declares “Long Live Mullah Omar,” in praise of the Taliban leader, and “Long Live Fazlur Rehman,” the leader of J.U.I.

Members of the provincial government and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam are frequent visitors to the school, the local opposition party member said, asking that his name not be used because he feared Pakistan’s intelligence services. People on motorbikes with green government license plates visit at night, he said, as do luxurious sport utility vehicles with blackened windows, a favorite of Taliban commanders.

Maulvi Noor Muhammad, a Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam representative from Baluchistan in the National Assembly, recently received a guest barefoot while sitting on the floor of a grubby district office in Quetta, a map of the world above him painted on the wall to represent his belief in worldwide Islamic revolution.

He denied providing the militants any logistical support. “The J.U.I. is not supporting the Taliban anymore,” he said. “We are only providing moral support. We pray for their success in ousting the foreign troops from the land of Afghanistan.”

On a recent morning, the deputy director of the Jamiya Islamiya madrasa, Qari Muhammad Ibrahim, declined to meet a female reporter for The New York Times but answered a question from a local male reporter.

He did not deny that some of the madrasa’s 280 students had gone to fight in Afghanistan. “In the Koran it is written that it is every Muslim’s right to fight jihad,” he said. “All we are telling them is what is in the Koran, and then it’s up to them to go to jihad.”

NATO officials and Western diplomats in Afghanistan have grown increasingly critical of Pakistan for allowing the Taliban leaders, commanders and soldiers to operate from their country, which has given an advantage to the insurgency in southern Afghanistan. In September, Gen. James L. Jones, then NATO’s supreme commander, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Quetta remained the headquarters of the Taliban movement.

Still, Pakistan has insisted that the Taliban leadership is not based in Quetta. “If there are Taliban in Quetta, they are few,” said Pakistan’s minister for information and broadcasting, Tariq Azim Khan. “You can count them on your fingers.”

American officials and Western diplomats noted that, when put under enough pressure, Pakistan had come through with flashes of cooperation. But that only seems to reinforce the view that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies are more in touch with what is going on in the Taliban insurgency than the government lets on publicly.

For instance, a senior Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Osmani, who operated on both sides of the border, was killed in an airstrike in Afghanistan on Dec. 19, after Pakistan helped track him, an American official in Afghanistan said.

At the same time, a kind of dirty war is building between Afghan and Pakistani intelligence agencies. A senior Afghan intelligence official said one of its informers in Pakistan was recently killed and dumped in pieces in Peshawar, a border town. The Afghan intelligence service has also recently arrested two Afghan generals, one retired, who have been charged with spying for Pakistan, as well as a Pakistani suspected of being an intelligence agent.

President Musharraf has acknowledged that some retired Pakistani intelligence officials may still be involved in supporting their former protégés in the Taliban.

Hamid Gul, the former director general of Pakistani intelligence, remains a public and unapologetic supporter of the Taliban, visiting madrasas and speaking in support of jihad at graduation ceremonies.

Afghan intelligence officials recently produced a captured insurgent who said Mr. Gul facilitated his training and logistics through an office in the Pakistani town of Nowshera, in the North-West Frontier Province, west of the capital, Islamabad.

NATO and American officials in Afghanistan say there is also evidence of support from current midlevel Pakistani intelligence officials. Just how far up that support reaches remains in dispute.

At least five villages in Pishin, a district northwest of Quetta that stretches toward the Afghan border, lost sons in the recent fighting in Kandahar between the Taliban and NATO forces, opposition politicians said.

One village, Karbala, is a main center of support for the jihad, local people say. Unlike the other villages, which blend into the stark desertlike landscape with their mud-brick houses and compound walls, Karbala has lavish houses, mosques and madrasas, suggesting an unusual wealth.

Farther on, in the village of Bagarzai, lies the grave of Azizullah, a religious scholar who used only one name and acquired fame as a Taliban commander.

Only 25, he was killed with a group of 15 to 20 men in an airstrike in the Afghan province of Helmand on May 22, said his father, Hajji Abdul Hai. Thousands of people attended his funeral, including senior members of the provincial government, the father said.

Mr. Hai, 50, who is a Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam member, denied that his son had been persuaded to fight by anyone. “From the start it was his spirit to take part in jihad,” his father said. “It’s all to do with personal will. If someone agrees, then he goes. Even if someone wishes to, no one can stop him.”

It is an argument that supporters of the jihad use frequently. But for some of the families mourning their sons, there is no doubt that the madrasas and the religious parties are the first point of contact.

That was the conclusion reached by the family of Muhammad Daoud, a 22-year-old man from Pishin who disappeared more than a year ago.

“In our search we went to many places and everyone said different things,” said his father, Hajji Noora Gul. “We went to the madrasa in Pashtunabad, but no one was ready to tell us his whereabouts.”

“Even the madrasa people did not know,” he added. “Behind the curtain of the madrasa, maybe there are other people who do this. Maybe there are some businessmen who take them.”

Then, he said, a Taliban propaganda CD came out showing his son with a group of others taking an oath before the Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah.

“He had a shawl over his head and was preparing for a suicide bombing,” Mr. Gul said. “He said, ‘I am fighting for God, and I am ready for this.’ ”

His eldest son, Allah Dad, 33, blamed the jihadi groups and the Inter-Services Intelligence. “We don’t know how he made contact with those jihadi groups,” he said. “There are some groups active in taking people to Afghanistan and they are active in Quetta.

“All Taliban are I.S.I. Taliban,” he added. “It is not possible to go to Afghanistan without the help of the I.S.I. Everyone says this.”

David Rohde contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.

January 21, 2007 at 11:16 AM in Al Qaeda, Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

US raid kills 'Taleban commander'

BBC NEWS | South Asia | US raid kills 'Taleban commander'

A senior Taleban commander and associate of al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, has been killed in Afghanistan, the US military has said.

Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani's vehicle was reportedly hit in an air strike in Helmand province in south Afghanistan.

The US said Mullah Osmani was the chief Taleban military commander in southern Afghanistan - scene of heavy clashes between the Taleban and US-led forces.

A Taleban spokesman is said to have dismissed reports of his death.

But Afghanistan's interior ministry confirmed the killing, calling it "a big achievement."

An Islamist insurgency spearheaded by the resurgent Taleban militia is at its strongest in the southern Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan.

'Not present'

US military spokesman Col Tom Collins said Osmani "had been deeply involved in terrorist acts against the people of Afghanistan, Nato and the government".

"He was a top commander of Taleban operations in the south and now he's no more."

Col Collins said Osmani was one of four commanders at the top of the Taleban's hierarchy and had also been in charge of the militia's finances.

He was reportedly close to the Taleban's fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and to al-Qaeda chief, Osama Bin Laden.

Two people travelling with Osmani also died in the air strike on his vehicle on Tuesday, the US military said.

Col Collins said that although nothing was left of Osmani's body, intelligence sources have confirmed his death.

But a Taleban spokesman quoted by Reuters news agency denied the commander had been killed.

"He is not present in the area where American forces are claiming to have killed him," commander Mullah Hayat Khan told the agency by telephone.

"The American and Nato forces from time to time make such false claims. It's just propaganda against the Taleban."

December 24, 2006 at 01:29 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Al-Qaeda's new star raises stakes in spy war

Telegraph | News | Al-Qaeda's new star raises stakes in spy war

By Harry de Quetteville, Middle East Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:14am GMT 10/12/2006

He advocates poisoning enemy agents and infiltrating their organisations, suggests ways to beat lie-detector tests and campaigns for an effective counter-intelligence service.

But he is not working for the Kremlin or the CIA. Instead, according to a new report released by the Combating Terrorism Centre at America's West Point military academy, Abu Jihad Muhammad Khalil al Hakaymah is the first spymaster for al-Qaeda.

Drawing on access to classified information and an analysis of Hakaymah's own writings, the report is the profile of a rising star within al-Qaeda, who has identified people-based intelligence as the crucial battleground of the global jihad.

"The senior level of al-Qaeda leadership has been weakened considerably, captured or killed," the report's author, Brian Fishman, told The Sunday Telegraph. "You have a new generation stepping into those roles and he is part of that."

Hakaymah's significance to al-Qaeda became clear this summer, when he appeared on a video with the group's second in command, Ayman al Zawahiri.

Egyptian-born Hakaymah is thought to have pursued a classic jihadi trail, from Islamic extremism in Egypt to the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Along with many of al-Qaeda's most wanted, he is believed to be hiding in the frontier region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, from where he has been studying Western intelligence services.

His most significant work is a book-length analysis of US intelligence agencies, called The Myth of Delusion, which includes sections on the "tradecraft" of spying such as the spotting and recruiting of agents.

"The Myth of Delusion is an attempt to analyse the US government at a level not seen by jihadis before," said Mr Fishman. "It shows an increased level of sophistication. He is a technical facilitator. He conceives of himself as the al-Qaeda spymaster, and is saying 'Here are my tips on how to do this stuff '. His appearance with Zawahiri shows that the top leadership endorses what he's doing."

Speculation and mistakes led him to be largely written off by Western intelligence agencies when he first emerged, but increasingly they are acknowledging the significance of his tactical impact on al-Qaeda.

"Some tried to dismiss him, but there's been a lasting effect," said John Rollins, a former chief of staff for intelligence at the US Department of Homeland Security.

While he is a keen student of US and British electronic surveillance techniques, Hakaymah insists that spies, not electronic wizardry, will play the main role in the battle between al-Qaeda and Western intelligence.

His writings demand that al-Qaeda create an effective counter-intelligence arm to prevent enemy penetration and conduct detailed background checks on prospective members.

December 10, 2006 at 10:46 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

'Dirty bomb' mastermind plotted wave of atrocities across Britain

'Dirty bomb' mastermind plotted wave of atrocities across Britain - Law - Times Online

By Sean O’Neill
A HINDU convert to Islam admitted yesterday to plotting to build a radioactive “dirty bomb” and carry out a series of attacks in Britain.

Dhiren Barot’s key plan, which he called the Gas Limos Project, was to commit mass murder by packing three limousines with propane gas cylinders and explosives and detonating the giant bombs in underground car parks beneath crowded buildings.

He intended to follow those attacks with a “synchronised” dirty bomb explosion designed to contaminate hundreds of people with radiation sickness and cause nationwide panic.

Barot, 34, from Willesden, northwest London, also admitted to planning a wave of “no warning” attacks against buildings in the United States, including the headquarters of the World Bank and the New York Stock Exchange.

He wanted “to kill as many innocent people as possible”, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

His guilty plea and limited details of his case can be reported only after a joint application by The Times and the BBC to relax reporting restrictions.

The conviction of Barot, the mastermind of a major conspiracy, is regarded by police and the security services as one of their most significant successes in the fight against Islamist terrorism.

There was intensive security around the courthouse in southeast London, with armed police inside and outside the building. Everyone entering had to pass through two search points where they and their bags were checked and X-rayed.

Barot was arrested during a series of anti-terrorist raids in August 2004 and has been held in custody since then at Belmarsh high-security prison.

Wearing a brown cardigan and open-necked black shirt, Barot appeared relaxed and confident in the dock, taking his own notes of the proceedings on a laptop computer.

He stood to enter a plea to the first count on an indictment containing 23 charges.

The clerk of the court read the charge, alleging his involvement in a conspiracy to commit murder conducted between January 2000 and his arrest in August 2004, to which Barot plead guilty.

Edmund Lawson, QC, for the prosecution, informed Mr Justice Butterfield, the trial judge, of the details of the plea.

Mr Lawson said that Barot had admitted planning terrorist murders in the US and Britain.

Many of Barot’s plans for attacks in Britain were written down in notebooks. In one he outlined a “Rough Presentation for Gas Limos Project” which, he wrote, was “the main cornerstone [main target] of a series of planned attacks”.

Mr Lawson said: “The principal planned attack involved packing three limousines with gas cylinders and explosives then detonating the devices in underground car parks.”

There were to be three other attacks which, he wrote, would be “synchronized, concurrent [back-to-back]” with the limousine bombs.

The most important of these was his “Radiation (Dirty Bomb) Project”. Mr Lawson said: “That project was designed to achieve a number of further and collateral objectives such as to cause injury, fear, terror and chaos.”

Evidence from experts concluded that the dirty bomb would not have caused death but, if constructed to Barot’s plan, would have spread enough radioactive material to make 500 people sick.

The intention was to create “fear, panic and social disruption”.

Mr Lawson said the Crown had accepted that the investigation had not found any evidence that Barot had obtained money to finance his plot nor acquired any bombmaking materials or vehicles.

Mr Lawson said: “The parts of the conspiracy relating to the United States are contained in plans found by the police on computers after his arrest.

“Those were plans for attacks on the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington, the New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup headquarters in New York and the Prudential building in Newark.

“They were plans to carry out explosions at all those premises with no warning, plainly designed to kill as many innocent people as possible.”

The judge directed that 12 other charges against Barot — one of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes — be left on file.

Mr Lawson said that by admitting his own guilt Barot, who will be sentenced at a later date, “makes no admission with regard to the involvement of any of his seven co-defendants in the conspiracy”.

They will stand trial next year and deny all allegations against them.

November 6, 2006 at 10:33 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Hindu who became a militant Islamist

Hindu who became a militant Islamist - World - Times Online

By Sean O’Neill
Dhiren Barot's path to terrorism began not in war-torn Kabul or the slums of Karachi, but in Kingsbury, northwest London, where he was brought up as the son of Indian Hindu parents.

He converted to Islam aged 20 and immersed himself in the faith’s political radicalism after attending extremist lectures in London.

Barot was born in December 1971 in Baroda, India, and was brought to Britain by his parents the following year.

He attended Kingsbury High School, but left after studying GCSEs and obtained a City & Guilds qualification in tourism.

Between 1991 and 1995 Barot worked as a ticket clerk at the offices of Air Malta in Central London. He applied unsuccessfully for a transfer to Heathrow. He quit in September 1995 to go on “a long overseas trip”. That journey took him to terrorist training camps, to the guerrilla war in Kashmir, and to a life as a full-time terrorist.

Edmund Lawson, QC, told the court: “Working as a ticket clerk was his last substantial job. From then on, no social security benefits were sought or received. The plain inference is that someone or some organisation was supporting him financially.”

In 1999 a book written by Barot, titled The Army of Madinah in Kashmir, under the nom de guerre Esa al- Hindi, was published in Britain.

It described his adventures in the jihad but also showed that he was thinking of how to carry out terrorist attacks against the West. He wrote that Muslim nations needed “flank protection” against the West and urged attacks on the soil of “interfering nations”.

November 6, 2006 at 10:29 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

'Die Hard' - the evidence against Dhiren Barot

'Die Hard' - the evidence against Dhiren Barot - Law - Times Online

By Adam Fresco
Anti-terrorist police investigating a plot by a British Muslim to explode a series of bombs in Britain found hundreds of computer files about home-made bombs and gas explosions during searches around the country.

Dhiren Barot, 35, wanted to blow up a train while it travelled under the Thames and use a dirty bomb to create "another black day for enemies of Islam".

He appeared at Woolwich Crown Court today after admitting conspiracy to murder between January 2000 and August 2004.

Edmund Lawson QC, for the prosecution, outlined the case against Barot, who grew up in northwest London, saying that he had recorded footage of buildings he planned to blow up on a reconnaissance trip to the United States.

He said that anti-terrorist officers had found hundreds of items of computer material during searches in west London and other parts of Britain, including references to books that dealt with biological warfare and architecture.

Mr Lawson said: "Examination of the deleted material on one of the hard drives revealed literally hundreds of files containing research into topics such as gas explosions, home made explosives, information relevant to arson attacks and fire protection systems and other research which was plainly relevant to the terrorist plans."

Among literature recovered in the police searches was extremist Islamic propaganda and books on explosives, poisons, fire, electronics and the architecture of target buildings. References to books included titles such as ’Chemical and Biological Warfare’ and ’Hazardous Gases and Fumes’.

In a garage of a house in west London the authorities discovered the Bruce Willis blockbuster ’Die Hard With a Vengeance’. But at the end of the film is one hour and twenty minutes of video footage from a hand held video recorder shot in New York.

Mr Lawson said: "The footage is of various buildings in Broad Street, Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange and the like with focus on the entrances, security cameras, barriers, side streets etc.

"There is also footage of Jewish buildings and a synagogue. We know now that this video was made over a weekend of the 7/8th of April 2001."

The court was then shown five short extracts from the video which contained footage of the areas mentioned. But one of the hand held films had been edited after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre and included words scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It said: "This video footage was recorded during a weekend hence it does not accurately reflect a mid-week working day which is significantly busier.....since the collapse of the WTC security is greatly increased."

The clips show Wall Street from several angles as well as side streets. At one point, during the recording of New York, a male figure is seen to stand outside the New York Stock Exchange.

Mr Lawson said April 2001 was during Barot’s second US reconnaissance trip. He said that comparisons taken by facial mapping experts reveal "a number of similarities in the shape and distribution of the facial features and no significant differences." But Barot has denied that it is him.

November 6, 2006 at 10:26 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

He switched trains and cars to throw secret agents off his tail

He switched trains and cars to throw secret agents off his tail - World - Times Online

By Sean O’Neill and Adam Fresco

Dhiren Barot's terrorist “tradecraft” was so expert that police and intelligence surveillance teams lost him on a number of occasions as they tried to track his movements.

When Barot was identified as a terror suspect in June 2004 it was not known that he was an al-Qaeda operative with nine years’ training. But it soon became clear to those watching him that he was an experienced terrorist.

“Surveillance officers described Barot as being ‘very aware’,” Edmund Lawson, QC, told Woolwich Crown Court. “He walked into a cul de sac, hid behind bins, checked behind himself and at a station did not commit himself to any train platform until the very last minute.” Rarely did he spend more than one night at an address and when driving he used a number of different vehicles.

Barot, who was born into a Hindu family and grew up in northwest London, converted to Islam in the early 1990s and became radicalised.

Mr Lawson said that he was “a member or close associate of al-Qaeda” and travelled extensively using false passports and bogus identities. He had spent at least two periods at terrorist camps in Pakistan and the Philippines, and taken extensive notes on making explosives and poisons. But the training had clearly included anti-surveillance techniques.

That meant that even though Barot and his alleged associates all had mobile phones they never used them to speak with each other.

Instead they met in parks or by reservoirs, in shops or on street corners and carried on conversations in places where it was difficult to eavesdrop on or monitor them.

Mr Lawson said that they also set up Yahoo! e-mail accounts and used them to leave coded messages for one another. Barot used the logon “kewl n kini” and two of his alleged associates had the addresses “nightwithkylie” and “bridget_jonesdiaries”.

He added: “From these addresses coded messages were sent. The code has not yet been cracked such as could be used evidentially.

“The messages were written in the style of teenagers discussing music and television and using language and employing sexual references which would not normally be considered appropriate to devout Muslims.”

On one occasion two alleged members of the terror cell drove from London to Swansea just to spend 50 minutes in an internet café.

Among the messages intercepted by the authorities was one that said: “make sure u don’t bring your friend, the one who loves listening 2 red hit chillie. u know i don’t like her at all.” Mr Lawson said that this was a clear reminder to the receipient to make sure that he was not followed to an arranged meeting point.

He said: “Barot and his co-defendants were surveillance-conscious and had obviously received training and/or instruction in the use of anti-surveillance techniques.

“It is clear from their behaviour as witnessed by the surveillance teams that they operated on the basis that their activities during the course of summer 2004 would be of interest to the intelligence agencies and the police.

“While in cars there were instances when the defendants drove around roundabouts more than once, drove illogical routes to their destinations, sometimes turning back on themselves. They left junctions on motorways suddenly and vehicles used by the defendants were, on occasions, parked some distance from their home addresses.”

One time when Barot was lost to his watchers the authorities decided to arrest him when he next appeared because they feared that whatever attack he was planning might be close to execution.

He was apprehended in Willesden, northwest London, on August 3, 2004; his seven co-defendants, who deny the allegations against them, were picked up later that day.

November 6, 2006 at 10:24 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Ayoon Wa Azan (Al Qaeda, As an Organization, Has Expired)

Dar Al Hayat

Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 05/11/06//

America's misunderstanding of what is happening in our country cannot be ascribed to innocence. I know that people are idiots; however, I do not believe that they are that ignorant. I hope the reader will excuse me for repeating an important subject that came back to the fore last week.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Washington last July, and met with President Bush. He addressed a joint Session of Congress that was boycotted by some members, because Mr. Maliki condemned Israel's aggression and refused to condemn Hezbollah.

At the time, I wrote that the Iraqi Prime Minister is a Shiite of the Daawa Party. He spent his years of exile in Iran. He is supported by the young Shiite leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. I said that Mr. Maliki is so close to Hezbollah, that all he lacks is a membership card.

I broached the subject on October 11, after the Iraqi Premier came under the lash for failing to crush the Shiite militias. I reminded the Americans that to begin with, he belongs to that particular Iraqi group.

I neither criticized nor defended Mr. Maliki, but I mentioned a fact that we all know, but that is denied by the Bush administration, which refuses to admit who the Prime Minister is or acknowledge the consequences of the deteriorating disaster in Iraq.

Last week, Mr. Maliki re-affirmed what we all know: he denied that he agreed with President Bush on a timetable for handing over security to the Iraqis. He said that Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had not been accurate when talking about specific dates. Most important, he brushed aside the US' conviction that the Shiite death squads are the greatest danger to Iraq, and said that he and Muqtada al-Sadr agreed that all political groups must focus on the most serious challenge: al-Qaeda and the Baathist Saddamists. This also underpins Maliki's status inside Iraq.

I claim to be more objective than both the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. I would add that the Shiite death squads, al-Qaeda and the Saddamists are a threat to Iraq's future. Nevertheless, I would conclude that Mr. Maliki represents a group in Iraq that has deep-rooted convictions. The Americans, therefore, must stop trying to make him play a role he was not cut out for if they really want to stem the upsurge of violence.

I have other examples to offer:
The Web-based 'Front Page Magazine' is a publication of the extreme right, which includes some of the pro-Israeli warmongers on its staff. A few days ago on the Magazine's Website, I found a news story entitled: 'Symposium: Al-Qaeda's Nukes', which reminded me of the Iraqi 'nuclear weapons'. The article falls in ten pages. I skipped the first page, because it listed the names of the participants. On the second page, the first speaker says that the danger of these weapons is real, and that al-Qaeda purchased them from Chechnya, the Russian Mafia, and black market arms dealers from Ukraine.

I say that this is an impudent lie. Individuals cannot know what the intelligence services in the West and the East are unable to know. The whole issue aims to intimidate people into supporting every future war under the pretext of combating terrorism.

I also say that al-Qaeda, as an organization, has expired, and nothing is left of it except an ideology represented by terrorist cells around the world, most of which we do not know.

Israeli extremists will find al-Qaeda's nukes when they find Saddam Hussein's.

In the last few days, the 'Washington Times' published some despicable articles. I will only speak about two of them on Hezbollah. The paper suffers from nightmares about the Lebanese Resistance, following Israel's military fiasco.

One of these article's says, 'Iran, Syria rebuild Hezbollah'; and the other speaks of 'Hezbollah's Deadly Chess Match'. It claims that Hezbollah deliberately targets civilians - not Israeli, but Lebanese.

The writer of the first article attributes the claim to the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, Shaul Mofaz - as if Mr. Mofaz could have said something else. The writer of the second article tries to hold Hezbollah culpable for all the Nazi-like crimes committed by Israel against Lebanese civilians, and which angered the civilized world. We only have to believe that Israel now knows what the war proved it is ignorant of, and that Hezbollah fighters sacrifice their families and children.

These are not mistakes, but a contribution to Israel's crime by covering it up.

I conclude with a different subject and the reference to more intentional 'ignorance'. The pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) published a feature entitled: 'New Saudi Rules on Succession: Will They fix the Problem?'

What problem? There is a history within living testimony. The kings of Saudi Arabia were rapidly succeeded several times without any problems. Heirs were immediately appointed by kings. The 25-article allegiance Law explains itself. However, some still insist that there is a problem, because having a problem serves their interests, although the problem did not emerge when the founding king passed away more than half a century ago, or when his son, King Fahd, died last year. And there were no problems with all the kings that came in between.

http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/

November 5, 2006 at 08:38 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Britain says Pakistan is hiding Taliban chief

Britain says Pakistan is hiding Taliban chief - Sunday Times - Times Online

Christina Lamb, Kabul

THE British general commanding Nato troops in Afghanistan is to confront Pakistan’s president over his country’s support for the Taliban.

Among the evidence amassed is the address of the Taliban’s leader in a Pakistani city.

Lieutenant-General David Richards will fly to Islamabad tomorrow to try to persuade Pervez Musharraf to rein in his military intelligence service, which Richards believes is training Taliban fighters to attack British troops. He will request that key Taliban leaders living in Pakistan be arrested.

The evidence compiled by American, Nato and Afghan intelligence includes satellite pictures and videos of training camps for Taliban soldiers and suicide bombers inside Pakistan.

Captured Taliban fighters and failed suicide bombers have confirmed that they were trained by the Pakistani intelligence service, known as the ISI. The information includes an address in Quetta where Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, is said to live.

Musharraf had publicly acknowledged “a Taliban problem on the Pakistan side of the border”, said Richards. “Undoubtedly something has got to happen,” he added.

“We’ve got to accept that the Pakistan government is not omnipotent and it isn’t easy but it has to be done and we’re working very hard on it. I’m very confident that the Pakistan government’s intent is clear and they will be delivering on it.”

The initiative emerged as the commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Brigadier Ed Butler, called for more troop-carrying helicopters. He was responding to a promise by Tony Blair that the forces could have whatever extra resources they needed. But a defence source said it was difficult to see where new British transport helicopters could be found.

Political leaders have been reluctant to put pressure on Musharraf for fear of destabilising a nuclear-armed country in which Islamic fundamentalists are strong.

This week’s intervention comes at a sensitive time for Blair after the ISI apparently helped avert the alleged planned bombing of transatlantic airliners flying from Heathrow. But the Taliban’s re-emergence has coincided with mounting evidence of ISI involvement, prompting frustration in Afghanistan, where 30 British servicemen have been killed.

“I feel real vitriol seeing our boys dying because of Pakistan,” said one British officer.

A senior US commander added: “We just can’t ignore it any more. Musharraf’s got to prove which side he is on.”

Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has repeatedly complained of Pakistan’s role in providing a haven for Taliban fighters, saying they have openly run camps in Karachi and Quetta. “There is an open campaign by Pakistan against Afghanistan and the presence of coalition troops here,” he said.

In Washington two weeks ago Karzai handed Pakistan the names and addresses of alleged handlers of suicide bombers using a camp near Peshawar that had been infiltrated by an Afghan informer. Last Wednesday a rubbish bag was discovered in the camp containing his body.

October 8, 2006 at 01:36 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Omar role in truce reinforces fears that Pakistan 'caved in' to Taliban

Telegraph | News | Omar role in truce reinforces fears that Pakistan 'caved in' to Taliban

By Massoud Ansari in Peshawar and Colin Freeman
(Filed: 24/09/2006)

The fugitive Taliban commander Mullah Omar has emerged as the key player behind the movement's controversial peace deal with Pakistan.

The Taliban's one-eyed spiritual leader, who has a $10 million price on his head for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks, signed a letter explicitly endorsing the truce announced this month. The deal between the Pakistani authorities and pro-Taliban militants in the tribal provinces bordering Afghanistan was designed to end five years of bloodshed in the area.

In return for an end to the US-backed government campaign in Waziristan, the tribal leaders - who have harboured Taliban and al-Qaeda units for more than five years - agreed to halt attacks on Pakistani troops, more than 500 of whom have been killed. The deal has been widely criticised as over-generous, with no way to enforce the Taliban's promise not to enter Afghanistan to attack coalition troops.

The disclosure that Mullah Omar personally backed the deal will come as a fresh embarrassment to Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, who met President Bush in Washington on Friday to discuss security in the region.

While officially a US ally in the war on terror, Pakistan has been repeatedly accused by Afghanistan of not doing enough to clear Taliban militants out of its border regions, allegations it denies. However, Mullah Omar clearly felt that the deal benefited the Taliban, adding force to criticisms that it was in effect a cave-in. Tribal elders in south Waziristan said that Mullah Omar had sent one of his most trusted and feared commanders, Mullah Dadullah, to ask local militants to sign the truce. Dadullah, a one-legged fighter known for his fondness for beheading his enemies, is believed to be the man leading the campaign in southern Afghanistan in which 18 British troops have been killed.

"Had they been not asked by Mullah Omar, none of them were willing to sign an agreement," said Lateef Afridi, a tribal elder and former national assembly member. "This is no peace agreement, it is accepting Taliban rule in Pakistan's territory."

Waziristan has a 50-mile border with Afghanistan's Paktika province, long a trouble spot for US and Afghan forces in their battle against al-Qaeda and Taliban renegades. It is home to three tiers of Islamists who operate freely. Of greatest security concern is the al-Qaeda element, followed by Afghani Taliban and then local Taliban.

In return for a reduction in the Pakistani army's 80,000-strong presence and the release of about 165 hardcore militants arrested for attacks on Pakistani armed forces, local Taliban agreed to stop supporting the foreign militants in their midst, and promised not to set up their own fundamentalist administrations.

The government also agreed to compensate tribal leaders for the loss of life and property, and to return all weapons and vehicles seized during army operations.

Critics say the deal is a dangerous climb-down by Gen Musharraf, who is under huge pressure from religious conservatives in his own country to curb his US-backed fight against militant Islam.

September 24, 2006 at 09:54 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

France, US, unable to confirm report bin Laden dead

France, US, unable to confirm report bin Laden dead | Top News | Reuters.com

By Anna Willard and David Morgan

PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France and the United States said on Saturday they could not confirm a report that Osama bin Laden had died and France launched a probe into how a secret document containing the claim was leaked.

French regional daily L'Est Republican, published in Nancy, quoted a document from France's DGSE foreign intelligence service as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced the al Qaeda leader had died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August.

Time magazine separately posted an article on its website citing an unidentified Saudi source, who claimed bin Laden was stricken with a water-borne disease and may already be dead.

President Jacques Chirac told reporters bin Laden's death "has not been confirmed in any way whatsoever, and so I have no comment to make."

"I was a bit surprised to see that a confidential note from the DGSE had been published," he said after a summit with leaders of Germany and Russia.

The Saudi Interior Ministry was not available for comment.

Officials in the United States, which has made capturing bin Laden a priority in its war on terrorism, were unable to confirm the account.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in New York: "No comment, no knowledge," when asked about the French article. A U.S. intelligence source separately said Washington had no evidence this report was any more credible than earlier rumors of bin Laden's demise.

"We've heard these things before and have no reason to think this is any different," said the U.S. intelligence official, who asked not to be named.

"There's just nothing we can point to to say this report has any more credence than other reports we've seen in the past," the official said.

LEAK PROBE

In Paris, Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie ordered an investigation into the leak of the classified DGSE document.

L'Est Republican printed what it said was a copy of the report, dated September 21, and said it had been passed to Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin the same day.

"According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," it read.

"The information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the head of al Qaeda fell victim, while he was in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, to a very serious case of typhoid that led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs."

The report, which was stamped "defense confidential" and with the initials of the French secret service, said Saudi Arabia first heard the information on September 4 and was waiting for more details before making an official announcement.

Time magazine said its source claimed Saudi officials have received a number if reports in recent weeks that bin Laden had been struck by a water-borne illness and was likely dead, but had no solid proof.

"He is very ill. He got a water-related sickness and it could be terminal. There are a lot of serious facts about things that have actually happened. There is a lot to it. But we don't have any concrete information to say that he is dead," Time quoted the source as saying.

There was skepticism about whether Riyadh was well-placed to be the first to pick up on such a development.

"If anyone was in the picture, I doubt it would be Saudi intelligence," a Western diplomat in Riyadh said.

"Even if Saudi Arabia had information, they'd pass it on to the United States, not France. It doesn't ring true."

A senior Pakistani government official said Islamabad had received no information from any foreign government that would corroborate the story.

The Saudi-born bin Laden was based in Afghanistan until its Taliban government was overthrown by U.S.-backed forces after al Qaeda's September 11 attacks on the United States.

Since then, U.S. and Pakistani officials have regularly said they believe bin Laden is hiding somewhere on the rugged border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bin Laden is rumored to have been suffering from kidney ailments and receiving dialysis treatment.

His last videotaped message was released in late 2004, but several low-quality audio tapes have been released this year.

Senior U.S. intelligence figures have cautioned against assuming that bin Laden's death or capture would automatically have a substantial impact in the war on terrorism.

They note that the death in June of al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has failed to lead to any let-up in the violence there.

(Additional reporting by Jon Boyle, Islamabad bureau, Mark Trevelyan in London, Paul Eckert in New York, Alister Bull in Washington, Andrew Hammond in Riyadh)

September 24, 2006 at 09:46 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Details Emerge in British Terror Case

Details Emerge in British Terror Case - New York Times

The blocked article that can't be viewed in the UK.

By DON VAN NATTA Jr., ELAINE SCIOLINO and STEPHEN GREY Published: August 28, 2006 LONDON, Aug. 27  On Aug. 9, in a small second-floor apartment in East London, two young Muslim men recorded a video justifying what the police say was their suicide plot to blow up trans-Atlantic planes: revenge against the United States and its accomplices, Britain and the Jews.
Source: Details Emerge in British Terror Case - New York Times

“As you bomb, you will be bombed; as you kill, you will be killed,” said one of the men on a “martyrdom” videotape, whose contents were described by a senior British official and a person briefed about the case. The young man added that he hoped God would be “pleased with us and accepts our deed.”

As it happened, the police had been monitoring the apartment with hidden video and audio equipment. Not long after the tape was recorded that day, Scotland Yard decided to shut down what they suspected was a terrorist cell. That action set off a chain of events that raised the terror threat levels in Britain and the United States, barred passengers from taking liquids on airplanes and plunged air traffic into chaos around the world.

The ominous language of seven recovered martyrdom videotapes is among new details that emerged from interviews with high-ranking British, European and American officials last week, demonstrating that the suspects had made considerable progress toward planning a terrorist attack. Those details include fresh evidence from Britain’s most wide-ranging terror investigation: receipts for cash transfers from abroad, a handwritten diary that appears to sketch out elements of a plot, and, on martyrdom tapes, several suspects’ statements of their motives.

But at the same time, five senior British officials said, the suspects were not prepared to strike immediately. Instead, the reactions of Britain and the United States in the wake of the arrests of 21 people on Aug. 10 were driven less by information about a specific, imminent attack than fear that other, unknown terrorists might strike.

The suspects had been working for months out of an apartment that investigators called the “bomb factory,” where the police watched as the suspects experimented with chemicals, according to British officials and others briefed on the evidence, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, citing British rules on confidentiality regarding criminal prosecutions.

In searches during raids, the police discovered what they said were the necessary components to make a highly volatile liquid explosive known as HMTD, jihadist materials, receipts of Western Union money transfers, seven martyrdom videos made by six suspects and the last will and testament of a would-be bomber, senior British officials said. One of the suspects said on his martyrdom video that the “war against Muslims” in Iraq and Afghanistan had motivated him to act.

Investigators say they believe that one of the leaders of the group, an unemployed man in his 20’s who was living in a modest apartment on government benefits, kept the key to the alleged “bomb factory” and helped others record martyrdom videos, the officials said.

Hours after the police arrested the 21 suspects, police and government officials in both countries said they had intended to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11.

Later that day, Paul Stephenson, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police in London, said the goal of the people suspected of plotting the attack was “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” On the day of the arrests, some officials estimated that as many as 10 planes were to be blown up, possibly over American cities. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the suspected plot as “getting really quite close to the execution stage.”

But British officials said the suspects still had a lot of work to do. Two of the suspects did not have passports, but had applied for expedited approval. One official said the people suspected of leading the plot were still recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers.

While investigators found evidence on a computer memory stick indicating that one of the men had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to cities in the United States, the suspects had neither made reservations nor purchased plane tickets, a British official said. Some of their suspected bomb-making equipment was found five days after the arrests in a suitcase buried under leaves in the woods near High Wycombe, a town 30 miles northwest of London.

Another British official stressed that martyrdom videos were often made well in advance of an attack. In fact, two and a half weeks since the inquiry became public, British investigators have still not determined whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes was speculative and exaggerated.

In his first public statement after the arrests, Peter Clarke, chief of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, acknowledged that the police were still investigating the basics: “the number, destination and timing of the flights that might be attacked.”

A total of 25 people have been arrested in connection with the suspected plot. Twelve of them have been charged. Eight people were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and preparing acts of terrorism. Three people were charged with failing to disclose information that could help prevent a terrorist act, and a 17-year-old male suspect was charged with possession of articles that could be used to prepare a terrorist act. Eight people still in custody have not been charged. Five have been released. All the suspects arrested are British citizens ranging in age from 17 to 35.

Despite the charges, officials said they were still unsure of one critical question: whether any of the suspects was technically capable of assembling and detonating liquid explosives while airborne.

A chemist involved in that part of the inquiry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was sworn to confidentiality, said HMTD, which can be prepared by combining hydrogen peroxide with other chemicals, “in theory is dangerous,” but whether the suspects “had the brights to pull it off remains to be seen.”

While officials and experts familiar with the case say the investigation points to a serious and determined group of plotters, they add that questions about the immediacy and difficulty of the suspected bombing plot cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the public statements made at the time.

“In retrospect,’’ said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, “there may have been too much hyperventilating going on.”

Some of the suspects came to the attention of Scotland Yard more than a year ago, shortly after four suicide bombers attacked three subway trains and a double-decker bus in London on July 7, 2005, a coordinated attack that killed 56 people and wounded more than 700. The investigation was dubbed “Operation Overt.’’

The Police Are Tipped Off

The police were apparently tipped off by informers. One former British counterterrorism official, who was working for the government at the time, said several people living in Walthamstow, a working-class neighborhood in East London, alerted the police in July 2005 about the intentions of a small group of angry young Muslim men.

Walthamstow is best known for its faded greyhound track and the borough of Waltham Forest, where more than 17,000 Pakistani immigrants live in the largest Pakistani enclave in London.

Armed with the tips, MI5, Britain’s domestic security services, began an around-the-clock surveillance operation of a dozen young men living in Walthamstow — bugging their apartments, tapping their phones, monitoring their bank transactions, eavesdropping on their Internet traffic and e-mail messages, even watching where they traveled, shopped and took their laundry, according to senior British officials.

The initial focus of the investigation was not about possible terrorism aboard planes, but an effort to see whether there were any links between the dozen men and the July 7 subway bombers, or terrorist cells in Pakistan, the officials said.

The authorities quickly learned the identity of the man believed to have been the leader of the cell, the unemployed man in his mid-20’s, who traveled at least twice within the past year to Pakistan, where his activities are still being investigated.

Last June, a 22-year-old Walthamstow resident, who is among the suspects arrested Aug. 10, paid $260,000 cash for a second-floor apartment in a house on Forest Road, according to official property records. The authorities noticed that six men were regularly visiting the second-floor apartment that came to be known as the “bomb factory,” according to a British official and the person briefed about the case.

Two of the men, who were likely the bomb-makers, were conducting a series of experiments with chemicals, said the person briefed on the case.

MI5 agents secretly installed video and audio recording equipment inside the apartment, two senior British officials said. In a secret search conducted before the Aug. 10 raids, agents had discovered that the inside of batteries had been scooped out, and that it appeared several suspects were doing chemical experiments with a sports drink named Lucozade and syringes, the person with knowledge of the case said. Investigators have said they believe that the suspects intended to bring explosive chemicals aboard planes inside sports drink bottles.

In that apartment, according to a British official, one of the leaders and a man in his late 20’s met at least twice to discuss the suspected plot, as MI5 agents secretly watched and listened. On Aug. 9, just hours before the police raids occurred in 50 locations from East London to Birmingham, the two men met again to discuss the suspected plot and record a martyrdom video.

As one of the men read from a script before a videocamera, he recited a quotation from the Koran and ticked off his reasons for the “action that I am going to undertake,” according to the person briefed on the case. The man said he was seeking revenge for the foreign policy of the United States, and “their accomplices, the U.K. and the Jews.” The man said he wanted to show that the enemies of Islam would never win this “war.”

Beseeching other Muslims to join jihad, he justified the killing of innocent civilians in America and other Western countries because they supported the war against Muslims through their tax dollars. They were too busy enjoying their Western lifestyles to protest the policies, he added. Though British officials usually release little information about continuing investigations, Scotland Yard took the unusual step of disclosing some detailed information about the investigation last Monday, when the suspects were charged.

A Trove of Evidence

“There have been 69 searches,” Mr. Clarke, the chief antiterrorist police official from Scotland Yard, said Monday. “These have been in houses, flats and business premises, vehicles and open spaces.”

Investigators also seized more than 400 computers, 200 mobile phones and 8,000 items like memory sticks, CD’s and DVD’s. “The scale is immense,” Mr. Clarke said. “Inquiries will span the globe.”

He said those searches revealed a trove of evidence, and officials and others last week provided additional details.

Four of the law firms that are defending suspects declined to comment.

When police officers knocked down the door to the second-floor apartment on Forest Road, they found a plastic bin filled with liquid, batteries, nearly a dozen empty drink bottles, rubber gloves, digital scales and a disposable camera that was leaking liquid, the person with knowledge of the case said. The camera might have been a prototype for a device to smuggle chemicals on the plane.

In the pocket of one of the suspects, the police found the computer memory stick that showed he had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to the United States, a British official said. The man is said to have had a diary that included a list that the police interpreted as a step-by-step plan for an attack. The items included batteries and Lucozade bottles. It also included a reminder to select a date.

In the homes of a number of the suspects, the police found jihadist literature and DVD’s about “genocide” in Iraq and Palestine, according to British officials. In one house searched by the police in Walthamstow, the authorities found a copy of a book called “Defense of the Muslim Lands.”

A “last will and testament” for one of the accused was said to have been found at his brother’s home. Dated Sept. 24, 2005, the will concludes, “What should I worry when I die a Muslim, in the manner in which I am to die, I go to my death for the sake of my maker.” God, he added, can if he wants “bless limbs torn away!!!”

Looking for Global Ties

In addition, the British authorities are scouring the evidence for clues to whether there is a global dimension to the suspected plot, particularly the extent to which it was planned, financed or supported in Pakistan, and whether there is a connection to remnants of Al Qaeda. They are still trying to determine who provided the cash for the apartment and the computer equipment and telephones, officials said.

Several of the suspects had traveled to Pakistan within weeks of the arrests, according to an American counterterrorism official.

At a minimum, investigators say at least one of the suspects’ inspiration was drawn from Al Qaeda. One of the suspects’ “kill-as-they-kill” martyrdom video was taken from a November 2002 fatwa by Osama bin Laden.

British officials said many of the questions about the suspected plot remained unanswered because they were forced to make the arrests before Scotland Yard was ready.

The trigger was the arrest in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, a 25-year-old British citizen with dual Pakistani citizenship, whom Pakistani investigators have described as a “key figure” in the plot.

In 2000, Mr. Rauf’s father founded Crescent Relief London, a charity that sent money to victims of last October’s earthquake in Pakistan. Several suspects met through their involvement in the charity, a friend of one of them said. Last week, Britain froze the charity’s bank accounts and opened an investigation into possible “terrorist abuse of charitable funds.” Leaders of the charity have denied the allegations.

Several senior British officials said the Pakistanis arrested Rashid Rauf without informing them first. The arrest surprised and frustrated investigators here who had wanted to monitor the suspects longer, primarily to gather more evidence and to determine whether they had identified all the people involved in the suspected plot.

But within hours of Mr. Rauf’s arrest on Aug. 9 in Pakistan, British officials heard from intelligence sources that someone connected to him had tried to contact some of the suspects in East London. The message was interpreted by investigators as a possible signal to move forward with the plot, officials said.

“The plotters received a very short message to ‘Go now,’ ” said Franco Frattini, the European Union’s security commissioner, who was briefed by the British home secretary, John Reid, in London. “I was convinced by British authorities that this message exists.”

A senior British official said the message from Pakistan was not that explicit. But, nonetheless, investigators here had to change their strategy quickly.

“The aim was to keep this operation going for much longer,” said a senior British security official who requested anonymity because of confidentiality rules. “It ended much sooner than we had hoped.”

From then on, the British government was driven by worst-case scenarios based on a minimum-risk strategy.

British investigators worried that word of Mr. Rauf’s arrest could push the London suspects to destroy evidence and to disperse, raising the possibility they would not be able to arrest them all. But investigators also could not rule out that there could be an unknown second cell that would try to carry out a similar plan, officials said.

Mr. Clarke, as the country’s top antiterrorism police official in London with authority over police decisions, ordered the arrests.

But it was left to Mr. Reid, who has been home secretary since May and is a former defense secretary, to decide at emergency meetings of police, national security and transport leaders, what else needed to be done. Mr. Reid and Mr. Clarke declined repeated requests for interviews.

Prime Minister Tony Blair was on vacation in Barbados, where he was said to have monitored events in London; Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott did not attend the meeting.

“While the arrests were unfolding, the Home Office raised Britain’s terror alert level to “critical,” as the police continued their raids of suspects’ homes and cars. All liquids were banned from carry-on bags, and some public officials in Britain and the United States said an attack appeared to be imminent. In addition to Mr. Stephenson’s remark that the attack would have been “mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” Mr. Reid said that attacks were “highly likely” and predicted that the loss of life would have been on an “unprecedented scale.”

Two weeks later, senior officials here characterized the remarks as unfortunate. As more information was analyzed and the British government decided that the attack was not imminent, Mr. Reid sought to calm the country by backing off from his dire predictions, while defending the decision to raise the alert level to its highest level as a precaution.

In lowering the threat level from critical to severe on Aug. 14, Mr. Reid acknowledged: “Threat level assessments are intelligence-led. It is not a process where scientific precision is possible. They involve judgments.”

Reporting for this article was contributed by William J. Broad from New York, Carlotta Gall from Pakistan, David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

August 31, 2006 at 01:45 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Details Emerge in British Terror Case - New York Times

The blocked article that can't be viewed in the UK. 

August 31, 2006 at 01:43 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Mullahs, knickerwallahs and Vande Mataram

Mullahs, knickerwallahs and Vande Mataram- The Times of India

It once galvanised Indians to gang up against the colonisers' pernicious plan the first partition of Bengal. Braving Britishers' brutality, singing the soul-stirring song, nationalists banished the firangs. But Vande Mataram, India's premier national song, never threw one thing off its back: controversy.

A central government directive wanted all schools to recite the first two stanzas of the song at 11 am on September 7 to mark the completion of the centenary celebrations commemorating adoption of the national song

However, it has snowballed into a controversy after some Muslim clerics in Uttar Pradesh opposed the order as, according to them, Vande Mataram's singing amounted to worshipping the motherland and Muslims cannot worship any other than Allah.

Soon HRD minister Arjun Singh retracted, making the song's recitation voluntary. Significantly, Singh's volte face came at a function in a madrassa in Uttar Pradesh, a state scheduled to go for polls in a few months.

Predictably, the BJP, desperate to polarise UP's voters along communal lines, raised its old, tired slogan: "Is desh mein rahna hai to Vande Mataram kehna hoga (If you want to live in this country, you will have to sing Vande Mataram)."

The media went to Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari whose kingdom doesn't stretch beyond the walls of Delhi's Jama Masjid. Bukhari, as is his wont, didn't disappoint the sensation-seeking newswallahs and called Vande Mataram "anti-Islamic"

A few years ago, on a television programme, Bukhari had shown sympathy with the Talibans and opposed American invasion of Afghanistan. To which Shabana Azmi had said that Bukhari should be airdropped to Kandhar if he so loved Osama bin Laden.

Tragically, Vande Mataram is being victimised mostly because of the controversy that surrounded it during the communally charged 1930s and 1940s.

It suited the Muslim League's propaganda that Muslims would get further subjugated in Hindu India because they would be forced to sing a song that alluded to Hindu religion. Idol worship is anathema to Islam.

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee would not have imagined that his simple paean to rural Bengal, composed in 1876, would be a national debate over a century later.

Vande Mataram painted a beautiful portrait of an exotic rural landscape, with the sun shining on lush green fields, the moonlight glistening on gently rippling rivers and flowers dancing on trees.

Subsequently, Chatterjee included this patriotic paean in his 1882 controversial novel Anandamath. Some critics dismissed it as anti-Muslim as Anandamath glorified "the annihilation of Muslims and not the British rule in India."

Gurudev Tagore set Vande Mataram to tune and also recited it at the 1896 Bombay Congress session. But the song's golden moment was yet to come. When Viceroy Lord Curzon ordered the division of Bengal in 1905. Overnight, the hitherto little-known song became a national mantra.

Streets of Bengal reverberated with the cries of Vande Mataram as thousands opposed the "Banga bhanga" (Bengal's partition) tooth and nail. The British banned the song.

But, as a Bengali journal reported in May, 1906, "An unprecedented procession of Hindus and Muslims singing Vande Mataram passed through all the principal streets of the town." Next, the Congress adopted it as national song at the Varanasi session on September 7, 1905.

Soon it became the opening note of all the Congress meetings in future. Its powerful patriotic lines stirred the whole nation. Even Subhash Chandra Bose made it the Indian National Army's song and his Singapore-based radio station regularly broadcast it.

However, some Muslims objected to the song as the Congress planned to make Vande Mataram the national anthem.

Responding to the objections, the Congress Working Committee appointed a sub-committee in 1937 comprising Maulana Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and Acharya Narendra Dev to review the eligibility of Vande Mataram to become the national anthem.

The committee suggested that only the first two stanzas should be sung as they had no religious allusions and only these two stanzas were commonly sung even in Bengal. The Congress implemented the suggestion at its next convention in 1938. Mostly, the first two stanzas of the national song are sung at all functions since then.

Despite its popularity, Vande Mataram lost the race for national anthem to Tagore's Jana Gana Mana. According to historical accounts, some powerful members of the Congress thought Tagore's poem was easier to compose as a song and that for an anthem, the tune was more important than the words.

That the Congress subcommittee passed such observations could not be independently verified. Hindu communalists have pitted Vande Mataram against the Muslims as if the only test of patriotism is to sing this song. Muslims' narrow interpretation of the word vande as worship too, has come in for sharp criticism.

Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer concedes that point. He says that vande need not mean only worship, an aspect that bothers Muslims.

He says, vande could also mean, "Bow or respect. I don't think Muslims would lose their religious identity if they use it as a respect to the motherland, not worshipping it." Interestingly, many Muslim poets, including Allama Iqbal, have eulogised the motherland using Hindu symbols.

Addressing the Hindus, Iqbal, in his famous poem Naya Shivala (New Temple), says: "Pathar ki moorton mein samjha hai tu khuda hai/ Khak-e-watan ka mujhko har zarra devta hai (You think your god resides in a stone idol/ To me every particle of the country's soil is a deity)." Yet no Muslim accuses Iqbal of apostasy.

"Muslims go to Allah in the namaaz but they also touch their foreheads to the land where they live in. This way they show respect to the country," Sanskrit scholar Pandit Ghulam Dastagir.

Interestingly, A R Rahman, a practising Muslim, cut the Vande Mataram album in 1995 to commemorate 50 years of India's independence. Rahman certainly doesn't wear a badge of patriotism on his chest as some communalists would like every Indian Muslim to.

August 27, 2006 at 10:42 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Pakistan eyes Afghan link in foiled London plot

Pakistan eyes Afghan link in foiled London plot | csmonitor.com

Suspect Rashid Rauf said he had connections to an Afghan national with Al Qaeda ties.
By David Montero | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
LAHORE, PAKISTAN – More than a week after the foiled London terror plot, investigators in Pakistan say they have shifted their sights to Afghanistan, after the prime suspect in custody, Rashid Rauf, divulged his liaison with a high-level Al Qaeda operative possibly based in Afghanistan's Kunar Province.

"So far, all agencies have failed to break [Mr. Rauf] in identifying the Afghan national who works as a frontline man of Al Qaeda," says an intelligence official, speaking anonymously. The official added that Rauf admitted to traveling to Afghanistan several times since 2002 to meet with the operative, who conveyed commands on Al Qaeda's behalf.

Against the backdrop of the investigations, evidence suggesting the role of Pakistan-based militants in the terror plot has sparked a fresh round of soul searching here in Pakistan. Over the weekend, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf reiterated a call for cracking down on extremism, and the federal government has reportedly put 400 alleged extremists linked to banned organizations on a watch list. Amid the debate by analysts and religious leaders, many are questioning the efficacy of such measures, calling them cosmetic solutions that only fan extremism while failing to address root causes.

Investigations into the alleged plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic took a new turn over the weekend. Intelligence sources say Rauf admitted to having an Al Qaeda liaison who is an Afghan national, purportedly a wealthy businessman with a high rank in the organization. Other news agencies, quoting intelligence sources, have identified the operative as an Arab who works out of Kunar Province, where US and coalition troops are battling Taliban forces. He is said to be a close associate of Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Despite repeated interrogations, intelligence officials say, Rauf would not disclose the operative's true identity.

Pakistan's Interior Ministry would neither confirm nor deny these reports. "We have said that this has got an Al Qaeda connection to Afghanistan," says Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao.

Afghan officials have repeatedly rejected such claims, characterizing them as diversionary tactics. Casting some doubt on any Afghan connection are the facts that Pakistan and Afghanistan frequently exchange accusations and the possibility that Rauf may be saying what his Pakistani interrogators want to hear.

London investigators are also facing skepticism over the magnitude of the alleged plot given the paucity of hard evidence made public during what is still an ongoing investigation. The BBC reported, quoting unnamed police sources, that laptops were found with martyrdom tapes, and that a bomb kit was found as well, but the police have refused to comment on this.

Even the simple detail of where the central suspect, Rashid Rauf, was arrested remains unclear. Mr. Sherpao maintains that Rauf was arrested in Bahawalpur, his family's hometown in southern Punjab and the alleged headquarters of Jaish-e Muhammed, a banned militant group. Intelligence sources, however, allege that Rauf was in fact detained in Zhob, near the Afghan border. Wearing a shalwar kameez and looking disheveled, according to investigators, he spent five hours on the Internet at a cafe, where he also made two phone calls to England. The phone calls roused the suspicion of the owner, who called the police, intelligence officials say.

After his arrest, Reuters identified Rauf as a member of Jaish-e Muhammed, notorious for extremism. The group, however, has denied that Rauf was ever a member, or that it had any role in the plot. Still, Rauf himself has admitted to investigators that he is connected by marriage to the group's leader. "As far as the family relationship, we admit it," says Talha Saif, a family spokesman. "But as far as Rauf's link to Jaish-e Muhammed, we deny that."

As these details continue to unfold, analysts here are compelled once again to question the extent of extremism on Pakistani soil, and the government's tactics in addressing it.

Some eight or nine months ago, the police began a sweeping crackdown on religious hatred here, marshaling police forces and government agencies to monitor the activities of the city's 5,000 mosques. Approximately 900 religious leaders in Lahore have been arrested so far, many allegedly for using their loudspeakers to spread sectarian hatred, and more than 2,000 in Punjab Province as a whole, according to police.

Police officials trumpet the measure as a resounding success, citing an absence of sectarian violence or militancy in Lahore. "I'm very satisfied with the campaign," says Aamir Zulfikar, chief of operations for the Lahore city police. "In 14 months, there has not been a single sectarian killing."

In Lahore's religious community, however, there is a growing tide of resentment toward such policies. "It is a wrong policy," says Mohammed Sarfaz Naeemi, general-secretary of Tanzeemul Madari, a congregation of Sunni religious schools. "[People] will simply turn against the Musharraf government," he says.

Many analysts agree, saying that while crackdowns may prove effective in the short term, they mask the inherent inability of a military-run government to harness public support for its efforts.

"It's a lack of political capacity. That political capacity comes from legitimacy and popular support, and this government does not have that," says Rasul Bakhsh Rais, head of social sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. "They're more concerned with the political mechanisms of survival. They cannot really look deep down into the society and see the problems."

Those problems, other analysts add, are festering at the expense of political cohesion, creating pockets of sympathy for extremists groups.

"I for one don't drink water," says Sajjad Naseer, a political science professor at the Lahore School of Economics. "I have to put a filtration system in my house or buy a bottle of [mineral water]. The state can't even provide basic services."

The absence of a strong state, he argues, compels the alienated and the disenfranchised to seek support from nonstate actors, including extremist groups.

August 27, 2006 at 06:14 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Bad times follow Taliban back to town

TheStar.com - Bad times follow Taliban back to town

A letter from kandahar | After a brief taste of prosperity, the provincial capital is once again a place of fear and suspicion, writes author Nelofer Pazira
Aug. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
NELOFER PAZIRA
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Only a few months ago, the city of Kandahar seemed to be on the road to prosperity.

Newly paved streets with proper signs (one named for Queen Soraya, wife of 1920s Afghan reformer King Amanullah Khan), a park with a children's playground, and several smart guesthouses were part of the provincial capital's new image.

Near the Kandahar market, the foundation of many new modern buildings and houses had been laid.

But now, fear permeates the city. Suspicious eyes watch every passerby and every car is scrutinized.

People shrink from me when I ask for an interview; they run away when they see a camera.

But a few brave souls are still willing to talk to a journalist, among them Mohammad Hikmat.

Hikmat and his younger brother bought land here — $45,000 for 400 square metres — to build a home.

Over the last five years, they'd made good money working with foreign reporters and aid agencies. But six months ago, it all came to an end. The Taliban was coming back — and fear of reprisals spread like a fire.

Then came a series of suicide attacks and printed decrees, often hung on the walls of mosques, ordering the people to stop supporting the government.

The construction company for which Hikmat worked as an engineer laid off most of its staff.

He decided to shelve his dream of owning a house and pack his family off to safety in Quetta, a six-hour drive across the Pakistan border.

His brother, who'd worked as a cameraman for foreign television reporters, destroyed all the press cards and letters of recommendation he'd collected. He erased all the images he'd recorded — footage of the city, interviews with American soldiers — for fear of punishment by the Taliban.

An Indian company that built the road between Kandahar and Spin Boldak withdrew when rumours spread about the Pakistani army helping Taliban forces reach Kandahar.

"The Americans abandoned Afghanistan," says Hikmat. "When they were around, people were making money. The Taliban had run away, but they were not all defeated and the Americans knew that, too. Yet the U.S. decreased the number of its troops."

People here say the Taliban was well positioned when NATO troops — mostly from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands — replaced American forces in the region last month.

Maiwand district — an hour's drive southwest of the capital and the site of a great British military defeat during the Second Afghan War in 1880 — is now the seat of resistance to the government and NATO forces.

"I can't go home because I know the Taliban will kill me," says a Maiwand resident who is hiding in Kandahar and working at a hospital here.

"From our entire village there are only two educated people. It's not hard for the Taliban to find us there. They have continued to issue decrees announcing that the killing of all those working with the current government or any of the foreign agencies — especially the military — is an Islamic duty."

Taliban forces control most of neighbouring Helmand province, where some 4,000 British troops are stationed.

In Helmand, a sinister note, which I recently saw pinned to the wall of a mosque, proclaimed that the Taliban would award $1,000 to anyone who brings in the head of a government worker or foreigner.

"Now, the Taliban is everywhere," says Alia, a nurse in Kandahar's Polyclinic Hospital.

She and her family returned from Pakistan four years ago and now live in the Khoshal Mena neighbourhood, a short distance from the city centre.

"There was a doctor called Aziz in this building who received a threat" she says. "The Taliban hung a leaflet on his door, telling him that if he didn't stop working for the government and didn't take his children out of school, he would be killed."

The doctor and his family fled immediately.

Now, Alia has taken down the sign on her door that carried her name and occupation.

"My children are also in school and I'm worried that I may face a similar threat," she says.

Kandaharis have strong opinions on whom to blame for the Taliban's resurgence.

Wakil Sahib, a member of the Religious Council of Kandahar, says Pakistan doesn't want its neighbour to be economically independent.

"They want to keep Afghanistan as their market. They want us to continue to go to their doctors, buy their medicine, use their products. To serve their own interests, the Pakistani intelligence service funds the Taliban."

Saifullah, a man too frightened to identify his job, agrees.

"Pakistan, with the help of the U.S., originally created the Taliban," he says. "And to this day they are providing them with weapons and money."

Rafi, an unemployed engineer, points a finger at both the United States and the Kabul government.

"After the U.S., the responsibility lies with our own government, which has also failed to deliver," he says. "But I wonder if the war in Afghanistan is less about the Taliban and Pakistan, and more about the rivalry between America and Europe. Afghanistan has become a victim once again, just like it was during the Cold War.

"It would be easier to live under the full control of one or another government, be it the Taliban or a U.S.-supported Afghan government. But this is like living in purgatory."

Nelofer Pazira, 33, was raised in Kabul. She fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with her family in 1989 and settled in Canada a year later. She is the star of the movies Kandahar and Return to Kandahar, and the author of A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan.

August 27, 2006 at 12:37 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Jill Carroll - Part 1

The Jill Carroll Story - Introduction | csmonitor.com

Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, was held hostage in Iraq for 82 days. This is her story.

Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped by Sunni Muslim insurgents in Baghdad on Jan. 7, 2006.

Over the next 82 days, she was shuttled blindfolded among at least six safe houses and had closer contact with Sunni insurgents than any American who has lived to tell the tale.

She cooked with the women. She played with the children. She was locked away in rooms to the sound of cocking guns.

Deprived of control over the smallest aspect of existence, she feared for her life every day.

Her chief captor required his journalist hostage to "interview" him for hours at a time. He would expound on the insurgent worldview and the ruling council set up by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Ms. Carroll stared at the floor. She was afraid to meet his gaze, lest he decide that she knew too much about his features.

In her last hours of captivity this man told her: "Forget about the council. You can only say I am a member of a medium group. You can't talk about the women or the children. You have to say you were in one room the whole time. Everything is forbidden. You must forget it all."

My chief captor had an idea about how to prod the US government into action: another video.

He said this one would be different, and left.

I turned to the two guards sitting on cushions a few feet away and started to panic. Really, really panic.

"Oh my God, oh my God, they're going to kill me, this is going to be it. I don't know when but they're going to do it," I thought.

I crawled over to Abu Hassan, the one who seemed more grown-up and sympathetic. His 9mm pistol was by his side, as usual.

"You're my brother, you're truly my brother," I said in Arabic. "Promise me you will use this gun to kill me by your own hand. I don't want that knife, I don't want the knife, use the gun."

I started to cry hysterically. By now I'd been held captive by Iraqi insurgents for six weeks. They'd given me a new hijab, a new name (Aisha), and tried to convert me to Islam. They'd let me play with their children - and repeatedly accused me of working for the CIA.

At night I'd fall asleep and be free in my dreams. Then I'd wake up and my situation would land on me like a weight. Every morning, it was as if I was kidnapped anew.

That particular morning I'd received a visit from Abu Nour, the most senior of my captors. As usual, the distinctive scent of his spicy cologne had announced his presence. As usual, I'd snapped my eyes to the ground to avoid seeing his face.

"We need to make a new video of you," he'd said, in his high-pitched, yet gravelly voice. "The last video showed you in good condition, and that made the government move slowly."

The British government had moved quickly, he'd said, after a video had shown hostage Margaret Hassan in bad condition. They wanted to push the US in the same way.

Margaret Hassan! An Irish aid worker married to an Iraqi, she'd been seized in Baghdad in October 2004, while on her way to work. Less than a month later, she was killed.

After the leader left, I sat and stared into the glowing metal of the propane heater, my knees drawn up under my red velveteen dishdasha. I was completely terrified.

If it was going to happen, I wanted it to be quick. So I crawled over to Abu Hassan and begged.

"I don't want the knife!" I sobbed.

Neither Abu Hassan nor his fellow guard - the blubbery, adolescent Abu Qarrar - really knew what to do about my outburst.

"We're not going to kill you. Why? What is this?" said Hassan.

His voice was flat and sounded insincere.

"Abu Qarrar, you speak English. You have to tell my family that I love them and that I'm sorry," I implored.

I sat against the wall of a house whose location I didn't know, under a window to an outside I couldn't walk through, and cried and cried.

• • •

In Baghdad, Jan. 7, 2006 was a sunny Saturday. For me it promised to be an easy day.

Not that my life in Bag