Author: A Chalomumbai Correspondent
Publication: Mid-Day
Date: October 19, 2001
URL: http://www.chalomumbai.com/asp/article.asp?cat_id=29&art_id=16596&cat_code=2F574841545F535F4F4E5F4D554D4241492F5441415A415F4B4841424152
Over 600 Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT)
militants have been placed at strategic locations to guardinternational
terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, Janes Defence Weekly has reported.
In a dispatch on Afghanistan, the
Weekly said, that the Bagrame airbase, under the command of General Babajan,
is still compromised. The Taliban holds the heights to the South and East
of the ex-Soviet airbase.
Radio intercepts from the command
bunker in the old control tower regularly pick up the commands of the foreign
cadres operating along the frontline, half a kilometre away, the Janes
report said. "Babajan and other senior commanders have confirmed that over
600 Kashmiri militants, most notably units of LeT, have been placed along
the main Taliban strategic stronghold of Mount Sufi which lies three kilometers
south of the airbase," the report said.
Janes further said it is believed
that these militia were "personally placed there by Osama ! Bin Laden two
weeks before the September 11 attacks."
Earlier, during the visit of US
Secretary of State Colin Powell, India had sought co-operation in blocking
the flow of funds to some militant outfits including LeT.
A note, highlighting the activities
of these groups, was handed over to the team accompanying Powell during
his visit here on October 15, informed sources said. The report laid emphasis
on the activities of Jaish-e- Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the
US was told that these "two groups were two different sides of the same
coin" following the common ideology of Deobandis and were funded by a common
trust "Al-Rasheed", the sources said.
The officials also gave a sketch
of Jaish-e-Mohammed and its leader Maulana Masood Azhar, who was one of
the three militants released in exchange for passengers of the hijacked
Indian Airlines plane in 1999.
The Indian officials gave a thorough
report about Azhar's links with Osama Bin L! aden and termed the Jaish-e-Mohammed
leader as an ideologue of Taliban and international terrorist mastermind
Bin Laden, the sources added.
They said Azhar, who has been named
by the Jammu and Kashmir Police as being responsible for the October 1
blast at the Jammu and Kashmir assembly, had been given money by Bin Laden
to start his own outfit after his release in 1999.
