Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 10, 2001
Although Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) has claimed that its former director-general Lt-Gen
Mahmoud Ahmed sought retirement after being superseded on Monday, the truth
is more shocking. U.S. authorities sought his removal after confirming
that $100,000 had been wired to Mohammed Atta, the mastermind of the September
11 attacks, from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sayed Sheikh at the instance of
Gen Mahmoud Ahmed.
Senior government sources confirmed
that India had contributed significantly towards establishing the link
between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief
While they did not provide details, they said that the Indian inputs, including
Sheikh's mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing
the link.
A direct link between the ISI and
the September 11 attacks could have enormous repercussions. The U.S. cannot
but suspect whether or not there were other senior Pakistani army commanders
who were in the know of things. Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake
U.S. confidence in Pakistan's ability to participate in the anti-terrorism
coalition.
For this reason, the U.S. is waiting
to see just how rapidly Gen Pervez Musharraf is able to purge the jehadi
elements from the army and, more importantly, the ISI, whose charge has
now been given to Lt-Gen Ehsanul Haque, the former Corps Commander in Peshawar.
Lt. Gen Haque, a Pathan, is considered a moderate.
Indian officials say they are vitally
interested in the unravelling of the case since it could link the ISI directly
to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Kathmandu-Delhi flight to Kandahar
last December. Ahmad Umar Sayed Sheikh is a British national and a London
School of Economics graduate who was arrested by the police in Delhi following
a bungled 1994 kidnapping of four Westerners, including an American citizen.
He planned to trade the foreigners for Maulana Masood Azhar, the Harkat
ul-Mujahideen chief who had been arrested a year-and-a-half earlier in
Anantnag.
Both were released along with Kashmiri
militant Mushtaq Zargar following the hijack of the Indian Airlines flight
to Kandahar. India had claimed then that the ISI was involved, but the
international community paid little attention.
