Author: B. Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis
Group
Date: July 15, 2005
URL: http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers15%5Cpaper1458.html
As I watched on the TV an announcement
by the BBC that the British Police have identified Jamaican-born Lindsey
Germaine, who lived in Buckinghamshire, as one of the bombers responsible
for the terrorist strikes in London on July 7,2005, I could not help thinking
of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist working for the "Wall Street Journal",
who was kidnapped and brutally killed by a group of jihadi terrorists belonging
to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM---previously known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar
HUA ) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) in January-February,2002.
2. Pearl 's kidnapping and murder
was orchestrated by Omar Sheikh, a British citizen of Pakistani origin,
who had studied for some time in the London School of Economics.
He discontinued his studies and joined the HUA during the war in Bosnia
, where the HUA had sent a contingent to help the Bosnian Muslims in their
fight against the Serbs. This contingent was sent by the Government of
Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, who was then the Prime Minister, at the request of
the Clinton Administration.. The contingent, which was raised and got trained
by Lt.Gen.(retd) Hamid Gul, former Director-General of Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who himself used to visit Bosnia, had
a large number of British Muslims of Pakistani origin.
3. According to reliable estimates,
about 200 Muslims of Pakistani origin living in the UK went to Pakistan
, got trained in the camps of the HUA and joined the HUA's contingent in
Bosnia with the full knowledge and complicity of the British and
American intelligence agencies. These intelligence agencies raised a large
corps of jihadi terrorists of Arab origin to help the Afghan Mujahideen
in their jihad against the Soviet troops. They similarly raised a large
corps of jihadi terrorists to help the Bosnian Mujahideen in their fight
against the Serbs.
4. By then, the Arabs of Afghan
vintage had already started creating mayhem across the world after the
end of the Afghan jihad., So, these agencies wanted to avoid the
use of the Arabs in Bosnia . They turned to Pakistanis, particularly Pakistanis
living in the UK and other countries of West Europe . Thus began the radicalisation
of the Muslim youth of Pakistani origin living in West Europe .
5. After having fought against the
Serbs in Bosnia , Omar Sheikh infiltrated into India and participated in
some acts of terrorism. He was arrested and jailed by the Indian authorities.
In December,1999, he had to be released following the hijacking of an Indian
Airlines plane to Kandahar by the HUM. From Kandahar , Omar crossed over
to Pakistan , joined the Al Qaeda and opened its office in Lahore .
6.In the beginning of 2002, Pearl
, then posted in Mumbai( Bombay ), had heard that the instructions to Richard
Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, whose father was a British resident of
Caribbean origin, to carry out his terrorist strike had come from an unidentified
source in Karachi belonging to an organisation called the Jamaat-ul-Fuqra
(JUF), based in Lahore . Its leader Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani had four wives,
two of them Afro-Americans.
7. The JUF differed from the other
Pakistani jihadi organisations in some respects. It focussed its activities
on the Muslim communities in the US , Canada and the Caribbean . Its membership
consisted largely of blacks recruited in the US , Canada and the
Caribbean . It laid emphasis on the need to penetrate the armed forces
of the US and the Caribbean by recruiting blacks serving in them. It was
a highly secretive organisation. Not much was known about its leaders other
than Gilani. It never issued any statements. It never circulated any pamphlets
or ran any web sites.
8.It became a jihadi organisation
of major concern to the intelligence agencies of the US and Canada after
its members in the US were involved in a series of attacks on Hindu and
Jewish targets and its supporters in the armed forces of the Caribbean
almost successfully staged a coup to capture power in the late 1980s.
9. In 1995, the HUA also started
focusing on the black community in the US . It recruited nearly a dozen
blacks in the US and brought them to Pakistan for jihadi training in its
camps and sent them back to the US . While the HUA and the JUF kept away
from each other in Pakistan , they co-operated with each other in the US
and built up a network of sleeper cells. The HUA did not show much interest
in the Caribbean and left that area to the JUF.
10.Daniel wanted to visit Pakistan
to enquire about any links between Reid and the JUF and interview Gilani.
From Mumbai, he established E-mail contacts with some friends in
Karachi in order to explore the possibility of an interview
with Gilani. One day he received an E-mail from an individual, who later
turned out to be Omar Sheikh. This individual claimed he knew Gilani well
and offered to organise an interview with him.
11. Without establishing the identity
of this individual and without enquiring about his background, Daniel went
to Karachi , agreed to a clandestine meeting and fell into a trap organised
by Omar Sheikh. He was kidnapped and ultimately killed. While it was established
that the HUM and the HUJI had a leading role in the kidnapping and murder,
it was not clear whether the JUF had any role in it.
12. Omar Sheikh surrendered to a
former officer of the ISI and a close personal friend of Gen.Pervez Musharraf,
who was posted as Home Secretary in Lahore , was tried along with other
accomplices and sentenced to death by a lower court. The sentence has not
so far been carried out. An appeal against the sentence filed by Omar is
pending before a higher court, which has been adjourning the hearing
again and again. On July 14, the hearing was adjourned for the 32nd time.
13. In the meanwhile, Omar continues
to be as active from jail as he was when he was a free man. He reportedly
keeps in touch with his friends and followers in the UK , advising them
on their future course of action. Statements purported to have been issued
by him from jail calling upon the Muslims of the world to retaliate against
the US for its desecration of the Holy Koran are being disseminated every
Friday in many Pakistani mosques controlled by jihadi terrorist organisations.
14. In the meanwhile unhindered
by the Pakistani authorities. the JUF continues to recruit volunteers from
the USA and the Caribbean, bring them to Pakistan and train them in its
camps before they are returned to their place of origin.
15.On June 20, 2003 before the arrival
of Musharraf in the US for his Camp David meeting with President George
Bush, FBI officials had disclosed that they had arrested in April Lyman
Faris, also known as Mohammad Rauf, originally a resident of Pakistan-Occupied
Kashmir (POK), who had migrated to the US in 1994 and was working as a
truck driver in Ohio and charged him with having links with Al Qaeda and
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, said to be Osama bin Laden's operations chief,
who is believed to have co-coordinated the terrorist strikes of September
11, 2001, in the US. Khalid was arrested in the house of a women's
wing leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Pakistan at Rawalpindi in March,2003,
by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the FBI.
16. According to FBI officials,
as quoted in the US media, Faris had visited Afghanistan and Pakistan a
number of times between 2000 and 2002, met Osama bin Laden and worked
with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, in organising and financing jihad causes.
After returning to the US from Pakistan in late 2002, officials said, he
began examining the Brooklyn Bridge and discussing via coded messages with
Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan ways of using blow torches to sever the suspension
cables.
17.Sources in Pakistan described
Faris, aged 34, as a Punjabi ex-serviceman settled in Pakistan-Occupied
Kashmir, before he migrated to the US . They also said that
he was associated in the past with the Jamaat-ul-Fuqra (JUF).
18. Reports on the investigation
into the London blasts available so far point the needle of suspicion at
the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the JUF. Pakistani sources say that while
Shehzad Tanweer, one of the bombers, was trained in two LET camps at Muridke,
near Lahore , and in Karachi , Lindsey Germaine has had a history of association
with the JUF. There are also grounds to suspect that the blasts were orchestrated
by Omar Sheikh from his jail in Pakistan .
(The writer is Additional Secretary
(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently,
Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai and Distinguished Fellow
and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter. E-mail:
itschen36@gmail.com )
