Author: Times News Network & Agencies
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 14, 2006
A man claiming to represent Osama bin Laden's
Al Qaida said the terror network had set up a wing in J&K and appealed
to Indian Muslims to take up jehad, a Srinagar-based news organisation said
on Thursday.
In a statement read over the phone, the caller
- who identified himself as Abu al-Hadeed - reportedly said, "Whoever
has carried out the attacks in Bombay, we express our gratitude and happiness."
As word of the announcement spread, intelligence
sources said the call had been placed from a local landline that authorities
were trying to trace. "Our immediate effort is to locate the caller,"
an official said. "The government is taking it very seriously"
The caller claimed that bin Laden had appointed
a person called Abu Abdul Rehman Ansari as his J&K chief, and added that
group would be known as J&K AI Qaida.
Police said they were aware of the phone call
and were investigating. "We are working on it and trying to establish
if their claim is authentic," said Kashmir's inspector-general of police
SM Sahai.
Another senior intelligence officer pooh-poohed
it as a hoax, saying that Al Qaida almost never calls local publications,
preferring to go through the Middle-East TV channel Al-Jazeera to broadcast
their threats and claims.
Rashid Rahi, the Srinagar journalist who received
the phone call, said the call was made from somewhere in Srinagar. He told
TOI that at 12.15 pm, a man called him claiming that he was an official spokesman
of Al Qaida.
The man said that he had wanted to fax a written
message by his group but could not do so since all public fax booths were
shut because of a bandh across Srinagar on Wednesday called by separatist
groups.
