Author: Amir Mir
Publication: Mid Day
Date: November 9, 2003
Washington's decision last month
to declare Dawood Ibrahim a specially designated global terrorist with
links to two outlawed militant outfits, al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT), is causing considerable consternation amongst security agencies
in Pakistan, the UAE and south-east Asian countries such as the Philippines,
Malaysia and Singapore. Agencies that were earlier turning a blind eye
to the Indian underworld don's criminal networks in their countries are
now scrambling for cover and contemplating ways and means of taking action.
In a more Pakistan-specific context,
the US action not only changes the complexion of Washington's relationship
with New Delhi but also forces Islamabad, an ally in the 'war against terror',
to confront certain unsavoury possibilities. After all, it is widely conjectured
that Dawood Ibrahim resides in opulence in Karachi.
Soon after the October 16 announcement,
the US treasury department asked the United Nations to place Dawood Ibrahim's
name on the latter's terrorist watch-list in accordance with relevant Security
Council resolutions.
A UN listing, which is highly likely,
will require all member states to freeze Ibrahim's assets and bank accounts
and slap a travel ban on the master criminal.
This would mean that Pakistan and
Gulf states such as the UAE would also be required to initiate action against
'D-Company', the working name for the Dawood network. The UAE is regarded
as the hub of the Dawood syndicate - its operations Dubai, for instance,
have been well-entrenched for over a decade.
"We are calling on the international
community to stop the flow of dirty money that kills. For the Ibrahim syndicate,
the business of terrorism forms part of their larger criminal enterprise,
which must be dismantled," said Juan Zarate, deputy assistant secretary
for terrorist financing and financial crimes, in a statement accompanying
the US treasury department's notification on Dawood Ibrahim.
Dawood subsequently joined the long
list of 321 individuals and organisations designated as terrorists by the
US since September 11, 2001. The US treasury department notification even
provides details of a passport issued to Dawood by the Pakistani government
and an address for a Karachi residence.
However, the prime source for information
regarding Dawood's criminal and terrorist activities was the Indian government,
which had been sharing intelligence information with the US since the Joint
Working Group on Terrorism was set up five years ago. New Delhi has described
the US decision as a victory of the Indian intelligence agencies, which
had submitted a dossier to the Bush administration during Deputy Prime
Minister L K Advani's Washington yatra earlier this year.
The US action also flies in the
face of General Pervez Musharraf's categorical statement at Agra that the
man accused of engineering the deaths of 200 Indians in the 1993 Bombay
blasts was not hiding in Pakistan.
Much to Islamabad's embarrassment,
the US cited intelligence reports of Dawood's connections with al Qaeda
and the LeT amongst its reasons for putting him on the list of the world's
most-wanted terrorists.
A relevant fact sheet, which can
be found on the US treasury department's website, holds Dawood Ibrahim,
"the son of a police constable," guilty of financially supporting "Islamic
militant groups working against India, such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)
(sic)." Citing information as recent as autumn 2002, the fact sheet further
claims that "Ibrahim has been helping finance increasing attacks in Gujarat
by LeT. (which is) the armed wing of Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irsha (sic) - a
Sunni anti-US missionary organization formed in 1989."
The Lashkar, led by Professor Hafiz
Mohammad, was last year placed on the state department's list of officially
designated terrorist outfits.
Washington's decision is said to
be largely motivated by the arrests in the US and Saudi Arabia of an Islamist
paramilitary unit which is said to have received training in small arms,
machine guns and grenade launchers at a LeT camp in north-east Pakistan.
The group, it is said, operated
in the Washington DC area and nearby Virginia. Documents released by the
FBI on June 30, 2003 state that some of those arrested even fought against
Indian troops in occupied Kashmir and were funded by the Dawood syndicate
to conduct terrorist activity in the Indian state of Gujarat.
In an earlier raid in April 2003,
US authorities arrested an Ohio truck driver of Kashmiri origin, Iyman
Faris alias Mohammad Rauf, who is supposedly connected to al Qaeda. Reports
of Faris's arrest appeared in American newspapers on June 20, the day General
Musharraf arrived in Boston and the indictment in Virginia of 11 militants
came on June 27 when the Pakistani president was in Los Angeles.
An upgraded indictment carrying
far more serious charges - ranging from plotting to wage war against the
US and aiding the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi - was later returned
against seven members of the group by a Virginia federal grand jury on
September 25 (see box).
When General Musharraf again visited
the US in October 2003, he was asked in Los Angeles to comment on the Virginia
indictments. The general responded: "We need to see who they are, where
they were trained and how they were organised."
The US treasury department's fact
sheet goes on to state that "Ibrahim's syndicate is involved in large-scale
shipment of narcotics in the UK and Western Europe.
Its smuggling routes from South
Asia, the Middle East and Africa are shared with Usama bin Laden (sic)
and his terrorist network.. A financial arrangement was reportedly brokered
to facilitate the latter's usage of these routes. In the late 1990s, Ibrahim
travelled to Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban." Vindicating
the Indian position that Pakistan shelters Dawood, the fact sheet claims
that he lives in Karachi and holds a Pakistani passport (G-869537).
During the much-trumpeted 2001 Agra
summit, Musharraf had vehemently denied that Dawood, one of India's most
wanted underworld dons, had sought and been given refuge in Pakistan. The
Vajpayee administration believed otherwise.
Musharraf was actually right, albeit
in a purely technical sense, since Dawood left Pakistan prior to the Agra
summit. According to the FBI, Dawood went to Singapore in early July, 2001
on a fake Pakistani passport and then proceeded to Hong Kong.
He eventually returned to Karachi
from Dubai on the night of July 18 and 19. The FBI claims that Dawood,
who according to the US agency lives in Moin Palace opposite Abdullah Shah
Ghazi's mazar in Karachi's upmarket Clifton area, travelled as Mohammad
Anis on a fake passport (no 11-123259). While Musharraf was conferring
with Vajpayee in Agra, Dawood left Singapore for Hong Kong on July 15 on
a Singapore Airlines flight which ultimately took him to Dubai.
Taking strong exception to US assertions
that Dawood holds a Pakistani passport and is hiding in Pakistan, foreign
office spokesman Masood Khan said in Islamabad recently that the US had
been asked to rectify its mistake. "Dawood Ibrahim is not in Pakistan.
I would like to point out that we do not have any Indian suspects on our
soil.
Second, India has not provided any
evidence or proof of their presence on Pakistani soil. This story, or this
controversy, was re-ignited by a determination made by the US treasury
department," insisted Khan.
"Fresh inquiries have revealed that
the Pakistani passport allegedly in possession of Dawood Ibrahim (actually)
belongs to Imtiaz Hussain. Similarly, (92-21) 5892038 (the telephone number
cited by the US) does not belong to any person named Dawood Ibrahim or
Sheikh Dawood Hussain."
The FBI sleuths already stationed
in Pakistan clearly do not buy the foreign office view. According to diplomatic
sources, FBI operatives in Pakistan are convinced that Dawood moved house
in Karachi to stay out of trouble ever since the US unleashed its 'war
on terror' following the September 11 attacks on American soil.
There are also reports that Dawood
is trying to dispose of his properties in Karachi and elsewhere and has
taken up residence in Islamabad, along with a few close associates. Some
well-placed sources in the Pakistani intelligence establishment now admit
that they would like the Dawood saga to end as quickly as possible. Besides
the Washington-related fallout, the recent bomb blasts in Karachi's Kawish
Crown Plaza - which is reportedly owned by Dawood - are raising troublesome
domestic security issues.
FBI investigators maintain that
the impunity with which Dawood's men used to operate in Karachi prior to
9/11 is a thing of the past anyway. Now, when there is every likelihood
that his assets will be frozen and travel curbs implemented, the FBI believes
that Dawood's operations will take a serious body-blow.
The finances of the D-Company will
also be hurt if lieutenants are unable to contact the frontline hit men
who carry out orders. Even havala is under intense scrutiny now, what with
the recent meetings between US treasury representatives and Indian officials.
Suspected financing from Dubai and
the UAE, it is said, was item number one on the agenda. Significantly,
Dawood's trips to the Gulf are expected to end. "We are making Dubai a
clean place.
There is little chance that the
underworld can operate here. We are on the lookout for unusual activity,"
said a Dubai police official recently.
But at the same time, there are
those in Pakistani intelligence who insist the ongoing US 'war on terror'
and crackdown on al Qaeda is short on real targets. They point out that
not a single member of the D-Company has been nabbed in recent years in
connection with any plot against the US. "Had D-Company been engaged in
a terror campaign against the US it could have found many soft bellies
in the Asia-Pacific region and in South Africa, where it is strong enough
to carry out small-scale attacks, such as planting bombs or trafficking
al Qaeda members to carry out attacks," says a leading Pakistani spook.
"There are many other big mafia
gangs in Thailand, Hong Kong and South Africa. Compared to them, D-Company
is nothing. Yet the US deemed it fit to portray Dawood as a terror ringleader
under Pakistan's protection merely to oblige India."
While India hopes that the net is
fast closing in on Dawood Ibrahim, the man who can still call on friends
in high places may well have a few more cards up his sleeve.
Courtesy Herald, Pakistan
