American intelligence has finally found a link between the World Trade Center attacks and Pakistan-based Kashmiri terrorists.
On September 11, the British police detained Mufti Mohammad Jameel on arrival in London from the US at Heathrow airport. Jameel is a leading member of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, a terrorist group whose members have often been involved in suicide attacks in Kashmir.
The British police picked up Jameel, on the basis of an Indian terrorist alert, just before the World Trade Center attacks. Later in the day, after the terrorist strikes, they considered his background in organising suicide squads and took him for interrogation to Paddington police station.
Jameel's story was that he had come to Britain to attend the annual Khatm-e-Nabuwat conference in Birmingham. But the police regarded the timing of his arrival as suspicious.
It is typical of Osama bin Laden's organisation that the masterminds of all attacks leave the country the day before the strikes are due. This was the modus operandi of the attackers of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. There, too, the attackers left the countries on the eve of the attacks.
The British police were intrigued that Jameel left the US just before the planes rammed into the World Trade Center. After two days of sustained interrogation, the British Police handed him over to US intelligence who later put him on a US-bound plane for further interrogation and investigation.
At present, Jameel is being held at an undisclosed location in the United States. American authorities are tightlipped about the details of the interrogation in keeping with their policy not to reveal anything about the interrogation at this stage.
Indian intelligence agencies are believed to have handed over all the information they have about Jameel to US authorities.
Indian intelligence knows that he is among the leaders of the Jaish-e-Mohammad. Some reports also refer to him as Secretary General of the Jaish-e-Mohammad but there is no confirmation of this designation.
According to Indian intelligence, Jameel had visited the US and Canada before flying to London. He had last visited the UK in June, 2000. On that trip, he had been accompanied by Maulana Nizamuddin Shamzai, head mufti of the Jamaat-ul-Uloom Islamia at Binouri town, Karachi.
Maulana Shamzai, who is still in Pakistan, issued a fatwa on September 18 asking for a jehad to defend Afghanistan against the US. On September 20, he called on Pakistanis to seize airports and take revenge if US planes were allowed to land.
Indian intelligence believes that there are strong links between the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Maulana Shamzai's Binouri town seminary. Shamzai is regarded as the spiritual mentor of Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the entire upper echelon of the Taliban has attended the seminary.
Indian intelligence has told the US that it is not possible to distinguish between Kashmiri terrorism and 'global terrorism'. As the examples of Jameel and Shamzai demonstrate, the same Afghanistan and Pakistan-based organisations foment trouble everywhere.
So far at least, the US has conceded
that Jameel may have links to the WTC attacks but has made no comments
about Bin Laden's links with Kashmiri terrorists.