Daily Terrorist Round-up 4/29/05 (17 Afghan terrorists surrender; AQ suspect had Saudi Credentials)

17 Afghan militants surrender

SEVENTEEN members of the Hezb-e-Islami militant group have laid down their arms and surrendered to Afghan authorities in the south east of the country, an official said today.

However, it was unclear if any members of the militant organisation would be eligible for a government amnesty offered to the Taliban.

The Hezb-e-Islami is led by former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is on the United States' most wanted list of terror suspects.

"Seventeen commanders of Hezb-e-Islami from different districts of Paktia and Khost provinces returned from Pakistan and joined the political process," Merajudeen Patan, Khost Governor, told reporters today.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai offered an amnesty to rank and file Taliban fighters last year and said all but a hardcore of 150 militants wanted for human rights violations would be able to rejoin the political process.

Mahmood Khan, a 51-year-old commander from Samkay district of Paktia province who headed the group of 17 militants, said he was hoping to play an active role in rebuilding Afghanistan.

He said he had remained in exile in Pakistan since the collapse of the Taliban in 2001 because he was afraid of being arrested.

Three years after the ousting of the Taliban by a US-led international coalition force, the remnants of the regime are still waging a guerrilla insurgency in the south and south east of the country.

Two militants from Qaeda-linked group arrested

KARACHI: Pakistani police have arrested two militants from an Al Qaeda-linked banned militant group in a raid in the port city of Karachi, police said yesterday.

Mohammad Yunus and Nafees Ahmed from the Jaish-e-Mohammad group were arrested late Tuesday at a house in the city’s western district of Orangi as they were making bombs, chief police investigator Manzoor Mughal told AFP.

Police also recovered a large quantity of explosives along with two hand grenades and dozens of toys which police suspect were to have been used to make booby traps, he said.

“They were arrested at a house where they were busy making bombs,” he said.

“It is premature to say what were their immediate targets, but some material including maps of some sensitive places have also been recovered,” Mughal said. Jaish was outlawed by Musharraf in 2002.

The group has been suspected of several terrorist attacks, including a failed suicide attack on Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December 2003.

Pakistani security agencies have said the group was linked to the Al-Qaeda network.

Yunus told interrogators he had been operating under various names, but his real name was Mufti Sanaullah, another police officer said.

Sanaullah was a former activist of Sunni Muslim sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jehangvi and on the Karachi police’s list of wanted people, the officer said on condition of anonymity.

“Mufti Sanaullah was wanted in several criminal cases and carries head money of one million rupees,” he said.

A court remanded both militants in police custody until Saturday, he said. They were brought into the court room under heavy security.

Al-Qaeda suspect had Saudi diplomatic passport
By Stephen Fidler in London

A Swiss-based businessman accused by the US Treasury of providing financial help to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda carried a Saudi diplomatic passport, according to copies of documents contained in a book published on Thursday in Paris.

The documents include a letter from the US Treasury to the Swiss authorities, which says that al-Qaeda and its leader received financial assistance from the businessman Ali bin Mussalim "as of late September 2001". They also include a copy of Mr bin Mussalim's diplomatic passport.

The disclosures, contained in Al-Qaeda Will Conquer (Al-Qa'ida Vaincra), by the author Guillaume Dasquié, will be uncomfortable reading for the Saudi government, which has disputed any suggestions of official complicity in the attacks of September 11 2001.

The January 2002 letter from George Wolfe, then the US Treasury's deputy general counsel, says Mr bin Mussalim "has been providing indirect investment services for al-Qaeda, investing funds for bin Laden, and making cash deliveries on request to the al-Qaeda organisation".

The letter links him to the now defunct Bank Al-Taqwa and its founder, Youssef Nada. Both have been named by the US and United Nations as providers of terrorist finance.

The existence of the letter has been previously reported by some news organisations, but Mr bin Mussalim's diplomatic status was not emphasised.

According to the book, Mr bin Mussalim was found dead in his residence in Lausanne last June, a month after reports of the US Treasury letter first emerged.

The book draws attention to Mr bin Mussalim's role as intermediary in negotiations over the €4.3bn ($5.56bn, £2.9bn) Sawari 2 contract, signed in 1994 between the French and Saudi governments to supply frigates to the Saudi navy and for which it says he received €50m in commissions.

Mr bin Mussalim's role in controversial financial dealings goes back to the early 1980s, when US prosecutors accused him and others of attempts to corner the silver market.

Other documents cited in the book include a flight manifest of the so-called bin Laden flight, in which members of the bin Laden family were flown out of the US in the days after the September 11 attacks.

The manifest shows 29 people aboard the flight that flew to Le Bourget airport from Boston on September 20, after originating in Los Angeles and then flying to Orlando and Washington Dulles airport. This contradicts the number cited in the report of the 9/11 Commission published last year, which said there were 26 people aboard.

The manifest shows the aircraft flew on from Le Bourget to Geneva and Jeddah.

FRANCE: ISLAMIC SUSPECTS DETAINED

Paris, 28 April (AKI) French police have announced that they have arrested two alleged Islamic activists in a probe led by anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguière into the "Iraq connection". One of them, Saïd Al Maghrebi, 39, had been wanted by police for several years for alleged involvement in other illegal activities. Five people were detained earlier in the week but three have since been released.

Anti terrorism police confirmed that Al Maghrebi was arrested in the Paris region and is suspected of belonging to the French Jihadist structures which encourage and dispatch combatants to Iraq.

Al Maghrebi, a Moroccan without a residence permit in France, is believed to have frequented al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and had reportedly tried unsuccessfully to reach Chechyna in 2002. Since his return to France he is suspected of having encouraged and prepared young Muslims to go to Iraq, via Syria, to join insurgents fighting the US-led coalition forces.

The French daily Le Figaro said on Thursday that Al-Maghrebi was preparing to depart for Iraq. He is also reportedly linked to the "Frankfurt cell", now dismantled, which was planning an attack in Strasbourg on New Year's Eve 2000.

The identity of the second man, arrested in Marseilles, has not yet been revealed. He is believed not to be directly linked to Al Maghrebi, though involved in similar activities and having links with Islamic cells in Italy.

Two "Islamic militants" blow selves up in Pakistan (In area known as "Paradise")

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A powerful bomb exploded in Pakistan's remote northwestern region on Thursday killing two men, believed to be Islamic militants, police said.

Officials were unsure whether the men had been planting or carrying the bomb when it went off early in the morning in Matta, a town near the Swat valley, 150 km (95 miles) north of the capital, Islamabad.

"Both bodies are badly mutilated. One had his torso blown up, while the other lost his limbs," said deputy inspector general of police Attaullah Wazir, adding that the men were believed to be local militants.

Until recently, the Swat valley, a scenic region popular with tourists, has had little history of Islamist militancy.

But intelligence officials say they have information that more militants are hiding out in the mountains of Swat to escape security forces combing neighbouring tribal areas.

In January, security forces arrested a militant who was wanted for his role in a failed plot to kill President Pervez Musharraf in 2002. The previous month, police shot dead two suspects in a gunbattle in the Swat region.

Hundreds of militants have been killed or arrested in Pakistan since the country joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and many al Qaeda members have been handed over to the United States.

Indian army claims breakthrough against militants in Kashmir

NEW DELHI - Indian security forces have dealt a major blow to almost all militant groups active in Jammu and Kashmir state, the Indian army claimed on Friday.

A total of 152 militants, including 38 top commanders, have been eliminated since January, according to statistics compiled by the army, the PTI news agency reported.

The Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen groups bore the brunt, losing 24 commanders. The Al Badr militant outfit lost 10 men, including five top commanders in encounters with the security forces.

Army officials said the recent successes were largely due to the cooperation of local people.

There are several militant groups operating in Kashmir. Some are fighting for an independent nation, others for secession from India in favour of Pakistan.

India accuses Pakistan of financing, arming and training these groups. One of India’s demands in the ongoing bilateral negotiations with Pakistan is that the latter should stop aiding and abetting these groups.

Pakistan says it gives only diplomatic and political support to the separatists groups and calls their members freedom fighters.

More than 70,000 people - militants, security forces personnel, politicians and civilians - have died in India-administered Kashmir since the militant movement began in 1989.

SV-Half of the terrorist incidents in the world occur in the Kashmir region. The downfall of these groups will also go a long way towards ending the Pak-India proxy war. Of course to the liberal mindset this is just another recruiting opportunity for the terrorists.

MAURITANIA: Terrorist cell said linked to Al Qaeda dismantled, police (Non al-Jazeera version)
NOUAKCHOTT, 28 April (IRIN) - The government of Mauritania claims to have arrested the leaders of a terrorist cell that the US military has linked to Al Qaeda.

The detainees are allegedly part of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), close to the outlawed Armed Islamic Group (GIA) that has operated in neighbouring Algeria for more than a decade, said a government statement issued this week.

"The dismantling of this structure has entered a new phase with the arrest on Monday ... of the main leaders of the organisation," read the statement.

The statement said seven people had been arrested but police sources said 18 suspects had been placed under arrest in two days of raids against alleged Islamists.

According to police, the detentions followed the departure a few weeks ago of 20 Mauritanians sent to train in guerrilla camps in the remote southern Algerian desert.

Seven of them were arrested on their return to Mauritania, the others were on a wanted list, the statement added.

According to US military intelligence, the GIA is close to Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda movement, blamed for the 11 September 2002 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York.

Sources close to the Islamists told IRIN that the government has drawn up a wanted list of some 70 people that police have been given a special mandate to arrest.

However, some on the list are political figures who were released from prison earlier this year after being implicated in a failed coup in June 2004.

Since the failed rebellion against President Maaouiya Ould Taya, scores of political opponents have been arrested.

The think-tank, International Crisis Group, said in a report early this month that Ould Taya had used the terrorist threat as a thinly veiled pretext to persecute his political opponents, but this had only served to fuel instability in the country.

Oil has recently been discovered in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and diplomats say Ould Taya is keen to foster closer relations with the United States.

Washington in 2004 launched a Pan-Sahel initiative to strengthen the anti-terrorist capacity of regional security forces. The United States began to regard the Sahel as a new breeding ground for Islamic terrorists three years ago, when the Salafists kidnapped two groups of European tourists in southern Algeria and held them for ransom.

The Hezb-e-Islami is led by former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is on the United States' most wanted list of terror suspects.

If anyone is interested in more about Hezb-e-Islami and Hekmatyar.

Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Paperback)
by Gilles Kepel
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674010906/qid=1114788084/sr=2-6/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_6/103-7990942-7680624

From Publishers Weekly
In this history of fundamentalist Islam, Kepel stands conventional wisdom on its head, asserting that the spate of Islamist violence during the last few years is a result not of the movement's success, but of its failure. A professor at Paris's Institute for Political Studies, Kepel clearly traces the rise of the contemporary Islamist movement from its origins in the mid-20th century through its later appearance in countries such as Malaysia, Algeria and Turkey, as well as in Western Europe. Its apogee, he argues cogently, was the 1979 revolution in Iran that brought about the defeat of the Shah and the rise of a fundamentalist Islamic regime. But while ideologies that fused Islam with political power gained adherents throughout the world in the ensuing 20 years, says Kepel, in no other country were Islamists able to seize and hold power for more than a few years, a factor that he attributes to the ideology's inability to attract both the middle class and the poor. "Muslims no longer view Islamism as the source of utopia, and this more pragmatic vision augurs well for the future," he writes. Despite some outpourings of support, he believes, Osama bin Laden and his followers squandered much of the movement's political capital with its attacks on American institutions, most notably the World Trade Center. Kepel's approach is not without weaknesses in many places around the globe, fundamentalist political Islam has transformed society and politics, even if Islamists have not been able to attain political rule. But amid the plethora of books on Islam released since September 11, this work stands out, both for its erudition and its provocative thesis.

I'm in the middle of reading it now and would HIGHLY recomend it.

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