Missile kills Pakistan tribal head

ISLAMABAD (CNN) -- A tribal leader accused of harboring Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan's western border region was killed Thursday night in a targeted missile strike, according to Pakistan intelligence sources. The Associated Press quoted an army spokesman Friday as identifying the tribal leader as Nek Mohammed, a former Taliban fighter.

He was killed late Thursday at the home of another tribal chief, the spokesman said.

"We were tracking him down and he was killed last night by our hand," Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press.

Expect more rabbits from the wizard's hat:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH04Df03.html

Pakistan produces the goods, again
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - When US Central Command commander General John Abizaid visited Islamabad last week, his first priority was not Pakistan sending troops to Iraq, but the arrest of high-value al-Qaeda targets.

Almost magically, just days later, a Tanzanian al-Qaeda operative, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, was arrested in the Punjab provincial city
of Gujrat. He is wanted in the United States in connection with the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He was one of the United States' 22 most-wanted terrorists, and had a US$5 million bounty on his head.

Security experts close to the corridors of power in Pakistan tell Asia Times Online that as the November presidential elections in the US draw closer, more such dramatic - and timely - arrests can be expected. The announcement of Ghailani's arrest coincided with the Democratic Party's convention in Boston during which John Kerry was confirmed as challenger to President George W Bush.

According to the experts, Abizaid met with all top Pakistani officials and discussed plans to broaden the net for the arrest of foreigners in Pakistan from South Waziristan to all of the other six tribal agencies, as well as to the southwestern province of Balochistan.

The Pakistan army has launched two major offensives in South Waziristan this year in an attempt to capture foreign militants, managing only to stir resentment from the local tribespeople.

Already, though, under intense pressure from the US, Pakistan has handed over as many as 350 suspected al-Qaeda operators into US custody. Most have been low-ranking, but some important names are, according to Asia Times Online contacts, being held in Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) safe houses to be presented at the right moment.

The contacts say that Pakistan's strategic circles see the high-value al-Qaeda operators as "bargaining chips" to ensure continued US support for President General Pervez Musharraf's de facto military rule in Pakistan. Had Pakistan handed over top targets such as Osama bin Laden, his deputy Dr Aiman al-Zawahir, Tahir Yuldash (leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) and others - assuming it was in a position to do so - the military rulers would have lost their usefulness to the US in its "war on terror".

Information accessed by Asia Times Online traces the arrest of Ghailani to the earlier apprehension of one Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, alias Abu Talha. Khan, a computer engineer in his mid-20s, was arrested in Lahore. He had been wanted for some time and was thought to have been hiding in South Waziristan.

Documents, computers and reports allegedly uncovered in Khan's arrest led US officials this week to warn against a possible al-Qaeda attack against financial institutions in the US. However, subsequently some analysts in the US have claimed that much of the information that resulted from the arrest was compiled before the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said Monday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports apparently collected by al-Qaeda operatives had been "gathered in 2000 and 2001". But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January.

As one observer in Karachi commented, "Every second jihadi I know has a computer and is always busy checking information on buildings in the US - their height and width and their possible vulnerable areas - and it is their routine practice to make plans with computer graphics to bring down US buildings to the ground."

Nevertheless, in response to the perceived threat, US authorities have launched a huge search for terrorist operatives who might have helped conduct surveillance of the five main financial institutions in New York City, Newark, and Washington - Citigroup, the New York Stock Exchange, Prudential, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

According to news reports, tens of thousands of delivery records to the buildings in question will be scrutinized. Investigators also will question those who have had access to the architectural plans of the institutions' largest buildings, and former employees.

Khan, from Karachi, initially belonged to the banned Jaish-i-Mohammed, a militant outfit fighting in Kashmir. As a Jaish member, he went to Afghanistan during the Taliban period (1996-2001), where he acquired extensive military training in Arab camps and became acquainted with several prominent Arab fighters. He also met Amjad Hussain Farooqui, a member of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, a banned group of sectarian assassins who target Shi'ite Muslims. At this point Khan entered the underworld.

After the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, many foreign al-Qaeda members such as Ghailani fled to Pakistan's tribal areas, where they either made their way on to their home countries or decided to stay.

Ghailani ended up in South Waziristan, where he remained, but in the face of the two Pakistan army operations there, he was forced to flee, and with the help of Khan and others ended up in Gujrat. Khan's attempts to contact a travel agent in Lahore to smuggle Ghailani and his family out of the country apparently led to his arrest - his satellite telephone calls were intercepted by intelligence agencies. After two weeks of interrogation, Khan pointed the way to Ghailani's hideout.

The next 'target'?
Dr Aafia Siddiqui, in her mid-30s, has a PhD in neurological sciences from the US. She is believed to have Pakistani and US nationality. She is wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as an "al-Qaeda operative and facilitator" and in connection with "possible terrorist threats" in the US. September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (caught in Pakistan) is believed to have told authorities about Aafia.

She disappeared, with her three children, a few months ago in Pakistan. Asia Times Online sources claim that she is in the custody of the ISI. All calls by her family and humanitarian groups for her to be produced in court have been ignored.

Acquaintances of Aafia say she was an ISI contact and played an active role as a "relief worker" in Chechnya and Bosnia - a role the government now does not want to reveal. She has also been connected with different Arab non-governmental organizations in the US, through which she also helped to supply aid and funds to Chechens.

However Aafia's case turns out, doubtless a number of al-Qaeda operators are already in detention in Pakistan to be produced when and as necessary.

http://www.dawn.com/2004/08/04/top8.htm

Forces gain control of Shakai, says ISPR

By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Aug 3: The Pakistan Army on Tuesday claimed that security forces had gained control of Shakai and adjoining areas in the South Waziristan Agency.

A press release issued by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Tuesday said that during recent operations in Shakai, Santoi, Mantoi and Khamrang valleys,
the security forces not only flushed out terrorists and gained control of the area but also seized a huge quantity of arms and ammunition.

It said the arms captured by the security forces included cannons, mortars, rocket-launchers, grenades, recoilless rifles, fuses, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines as
well as a huge quantity of ammunition, explosives with electrical circuits, communication gadgets, medicines and foodstuff.

The press release said that investigations carried out by intelligence agencies showed that the arms cache captured from these areas was identical to the kind of
weapons used in various terrorist acts in different parts of the country.

The terrorists had been using these weapons indiscriminately that often hit civilian population in the South Waziristan Agency, the press release said. The military's
public relations department said a free-flight rocket fired by the terrorists had landed on the house of Mir Afzal Khan on July 12, killing his two sons.

It said there had been numerous instances where mines planted by terrorists killed innocent civilians and personnel of security forces and caused heavy loss to
vehicles.

The press release said the operations had eliminated main strongholds of miscreants in the South Waziristan Agency and also helped political work which resulted in
the surrender of several wanted men.

"So far the security agencies have cleared Shakai and its adjacent valleys, including Khamrang Santoi and Mantoi, of the terrorists with the active cooperation of local
tribesmen," the press release said.

Meanwhile, militants continued night attacks on security forces in Wana and fired rockets and missiles at the scouts camp and civilian population on Monday night,
Dilawar Khan Wazir adds from Wana.

Residents said that a woman and a man were wounded when free-flight rockets and missiles hit three houses at about 3am. They said militants fired rockets on the
scouts camp in which one person received injuries while a portion of the paramilitary barrack was partially damaged.

A few rockets also hit the houses of Karim Khan, Mohammad Iqbal and Taj Mohammad in Wana. The mother of Mohammad Iqbal sustained injuries and was
admitted to a local hospital. Witnesses said that an exchange of fire between security forces and militants lasted more than an hour.

FBI and CIA in Pakistan

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_4-8-2004_pg7_2

WASHINGTON: “Under procedures agreed to by the US and Pakistani governments, agents from the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency have been allowed to eavesdrop and conduct wiretaps on terrorism suspects in Pakistan, a cabinet minister said on condition of anonymity,” reports the Washington Post Tuesday.

The report filed by the newspaper’s Pakistani stringer says that “for its part, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence service, has designated special units to collect counterterrorism intelligence through hundreds of newly recruited agents and state-of-the art surveillance equipment provided by the US government. ‘There is almost daily exchange of information between the CIA and ISI. The cooperation is even better than the Afghan war days,’ said the minister.”

Pakistani police and intelligence officials, continues the report, say that once a target is tracked down, any raid is always conducted by local law enforcement agencies “under the direct supervision of senior ISI officials, many of whom have taken training courses with the FBI and the CIA.” All key al Qaeda suspects arrested in Pakistan have been “handed over to US authorities for broader investigation.” In each case, Pakistani intelligence officials have been called in by their US counterparts for coordinated follow-up, according to the report.

The correspondent writes that the intelligence information that led to an orange alert being declared in New York and Washington came from the al Qaeda oprative, Musaad Aruchi, who was arrested on 12 June by “Pakistani paramilitary forces in an operation supervised by the CIA.” Aruchi told his interrogators that al Qaeda would hit New York or Washington “pretty soon.” He had street maps of New York City and addresses of some important buildings. Some CDs containing data were also recovered from him.

According to the report, Aruchi was handed over to American authorities three days later and he has been flown out to an undisclosed location.

More on the South African Connection

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_4-8-2004_pg7_3

ISLAMABAD: Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian Al-Qaeda operative, has told Pakistani interrogators he plotted suicide attacks against important Pakistani personalities and sensitive installations, a security official said on Tuesday.

Ghailani, indicted in the United States over 1998 bombing of American embassies in Dar es Salam, was captured on July 25 in Gujrat.

Khalfan said he had prepared plans for attacks on key figures and installations around Islamabad.

The official quoted him as telling interrogators he had planned the attacks to avenge Pakistan’s crackdown on Al Qaeda particularly in the northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan, to please the Americans.

“He was imparting training to suicide human bombers who were to be used against important Pakistani personalities and installations around Islamabad airport,” said the official who asked not to be named.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday declined comment on reports that two nationals in Pakistani custody had been planning terror attacks in Johannesburg, saying they would first have to meet the two men. “At this stage our focus of our intervention is to seek consular access to the South Africans being held in Pakistan,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said.

“So far we have not gained consular access due to the fact that the Pakistanis are still debriefing the prisoners and therefore I am unable to comment on the suggestions being made in the media,” he said.

A Pakistani security said on Tuesday that South Africans Abu Bakar and Zubair Ismail — who were arrested last week in the eastern Pakistani city of Gujrat along with Tanzanian Al-Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani — had planned attacks on tourist sites in South Africa’s main city.

“They had hatched a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on Johannesburg’s main tourist sites,” he said.

Bakar, a doctor, and Ismail, described as new recruits to Osama bin Laden’s terror network, had arrived in Pakistan’s second largest city of Lahore early July, the official said on condition of anonymity.

They joined Ghailani in Gujrat, 160 kilometres southeast of Islamabad, and together hid out in a rented house.

Maps, foreign currency, computers, computer discs and Arabic-language documents were found in his hideout, another security official said. agencies

Aruchi Arrest Disputed
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_4-8-2004_pg7_20

KARACHI: The arrest of Abu Musaab Aruchi, nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attack in the US, was disputed in the Sindh High Court on Tuesday by Jamila Khatoon, who claimed that the government had mistaken her husband Abdul Karim Mehmood for Aruchi.

She said the police raided her house in Federal B Area on the night of June 12 and arrested her husband. The next day, she said, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told a news conference in Islamabad that the government had arrested Abu Musaab Aruchi, quoting her address, the Jamila told the court.

The government media, she said in her constitutional petition, also described her husband as Aruchi who carried a $1 million bounty on his head.

Jamila said her husband was a Pakistani with an identity card issued from Turbat. She said the police arrested her husband because he spoke Arabic besides Urdu and Balochi. She said her husband had been living in Karachi since 1988. They had three children who were attending school in Karachi.

Jamila said her husband had not been produced in any court of law since he was arrested, nor was the government saying where he was detained.

Citing the interior secretary and the Sindh home secretary as respondents, she asked the court to direct the Interior Ministry to disclose where her husband was, produce him in court and provide details of charges against him.

A division bench of Justice Anwer Zaheer Jamali and Justice Gulzar Ahmed issued notice to the advocate-general of Sindh and Deputy Attorney-General for Aug 8, observing: “ They are expected to make a definite statement about the whereabouts of Abdul Karim Mehmood, the husband of the petitioner.”

http://thepakistaninewspaper.com/news_detail.php?id=1084

Hundreds of US soldiers based in S. Waziristan: Omar

WANA, Aug 3: Tribal leader Haji Muhammad Omar has blamed that hundreds of US troops were engage in operation against tribesmen under the guess of operation against Al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects.

Haji Muhammad Omar, the successor of tribal leader Nek Muhammad who was killed in missile attack recently, said that recent attacks on Pakistan Army were in retaliation of ongoing operations in the area. He warned that if the operations were not haled immediately, the tribesmen will target other areas of Pakistan, BBC reported.

He said that efforts would continue until US troops were expelled from area.

He said that they were Mujahideen and Taliban fighting against US troops. He said Pakistan Army was not operating in the areas; therefore the issue will not remain confined to South Waziristan alone rather will spill over to other areas of Pakistan. However, he did not say that Kohat bomb attack and assassination attempt on Shaukat Aziz were carried out by them. He said that US troops were already present in South Waziristan but their number has increased now.

Omar said that their supporters were attacking those military camps of Pakistan Army where Us troops were present as well as avoiding clashes with Pakistan Army and militia.

The trial leader said that they were ready to abide by the Shakai agreement reached between Pakistan Army and Nek Muhammad in April. However, he said that Pakistan government did not implement the agreement under the pressure of US.

He said that situation in the area became worsen due to failure of the agreement.

He admitted that the foreigners were earlier present in the area but now they have moved to Afghanistan. He said that local Mujahideen are offering resistance and carrying out rocket attacks on Pak Amy and militia. He said that attacks would continue unless the military operations stopped and US soldiers left the area.-NNI

Comment: moved to A-stan and were "Nek-ed" by B1 and A10.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/99162/1/.html

China, Pakistan kick off anti-terror drill on Afghan border

BEIJING : Chinese and Pakistani soldiers began a three-day anti-terrorism exercise on 4,000-meter (13,000-foot) mountains near the border with Afghanistan, state media reported.

The drill, the first of its kind between the two countries, was held in the Taxkorgan Tajik region in the south of China's predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region, the Elite Reference newspaper said on Wednesday.

Codenamed "Friendship 2004," the exercise took place in secrecy, with no details emerging about the nature or number of the participating troops.

According to reports in the Pakistani media, the soldiers would conduct live-fire operations, employing their most advanced weapons.

Chinese state media recently said the drills would help "maintain security and stability in the region".

China and Pakistan are traditional close allies. Islamabad relies heavily on Beijing for its defense equipment.

The western region of Xinjiang is home to China's Uighurs, a Muslim people speaking a Turkic language, and has spawned what many reports say is a strong independence movement.

China calls them terrorists, and, according to human rights groups, has used the global war on terror to justify their repression.

Many Uighurs have fled to neighboring countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan and China routinely pressures them for their return, Amnesty International said in a recent report.

Last year China published its first ever list of 11 ethnic Uighur Muslim separatists from Xinjiang and claimed some had links to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, and had established bases in Afghanistan.

In October Pakistani troops shot one of them dead in a raid on a suspected Al-Qaeda hideout in mud-walled tribal homes in its South Waziristan tribal district.

Here's an article with a South African focus.

Hunt on for alleged al-Qaeda recruiter in SA

August 04 2004 at 11:25AM

By Jawad Naeem in Islamabad and Graeme Hoskens in Pretoria

Disclosures of al-Qaeda targets in South Africa involving two alleged South African terrorists have turned attention on their mystery recruiter, named as Ahmed, somewhere in South Africa.

Security sources in Islamabad said the South Africans arrested after a Pakistan shootout, Zoubair Ismail and Feroze Abubakar Ganchi, both from Gauteng, were apparently initiated into the Osama bin Laden jihad by this "teacher".

Emerging from the latest arrests, key landmarks in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town have been identified as targets of a huge al-Qaeda terror blitz on South Africa.

'South African police sources said they had known for a year-and-a-half'

However, South African police sources said they had known for a year-and-a-half about their alleged al-Qaeda activities and targets, and had had the pair under constant surveillance.

Information obtained on Tuesday night was that both Ismail and Ganchi allegedly had several meetings with three alleged al-Qaeda operatives in South Africa - Syrian and Jordanian citizens - arrested by South African police earlier this year.

Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi announced the arrest and deportation of the three men in April.

They are believed to have been in South Africa for nearly a year when they were arrested.

Selebi said at the time that the three men had been planning to disrupt the elections in April by detonating explosives at several Western-linked targets in South Africa.

'Their mission was to carry out attacks at some important tourist sites'

Top South African police sources name possible terror targets in coming weeks as:

Parliament and the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town
The Carlton Centre, JSE Securities Exchange and Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg
The Union Buildings, the US embassy and the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria

In Islamabad, sources said the two South Africans had travelled to Pakistan after months of motivational lecturing and encouragement by "teacher" Ahmed to do something practical for the "holy war against the infidel United States".

After 10 days of grilling, Pakistani interrogators have compiled a dossier on the two South Africans held in the Gujrat raid and their grooming there by an al-Qaeda expert for terror missions.

Competent sources familiar with the ongoing investigation said the two were fairly new recruits of the al-Qaeda network.

According to information, Ganchi, a qualified doctor, and his companion arrived in the eastern city of Lahore early in July. Their passports and other documents apparently aroused no suspicions.

But in fact Ismail and Ganchi, who were due to return to South Africa at the end of this month, had used exact copies of two passports that were part of a haul during an anti-terrorism raid in London earlier this year.

The sources said the pair had received logistical help from local contacts in Pakistan to reach their destination - a two-storey house in a residential suburb in the small industrial town of Gujrat, 160km south-east of the capital, Islamabad.

Equipped with maps, manuals, computers and other training material as well as an undisclosed amount of foreign currency, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national on the FBI's "most wanted" list for bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, set about teaching the South Africans.

"Ganchi and Ismail have given interrogators an adequate preview of the task they had been assigned," a security official said.

"Their mission was to carry out attacks at some important tourist sites and resorts in the South African capital, especially targeting places frequented by Americans," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity and withholding any information considered sensitive.

But on July 25, Pakistani intelligence, tipped off by a delivery man, raided the house in the early hours.

The men inside resisted with automatic weapons, wounding at least one police officer in a firefight that lasted 18 hours. Finally they ran out of ammunition and surrendered. A total of 14 were held.

Pakistan officials confirmed Pretoria has contacted Islamabad about the South Africans, but Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said handing them over would have to await completion of the investigation in Pakistan.

Under Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Law, terrorists face the death penalty on conviction.

Jail terms can be imposed for lesser roles in terrorism.

Senior police intelligence agents in South Africa have revealed that Gauteng was to have been the first centre to be attacked in the carefully orchestrated terror campaign.

Pakistani authorities recovered several AK-47 assault rifles, handguns, explosives, computers, maps, foreign currency and Arabic-language documents during the arrest of the 15 people.

It is believed that the documents included blueprints of numerous buildings and landmarks in South Africa and Pakistan.

The documents are believed to contain information on security at the buildings, and to include routes to gain key access to and escape from targets.

Ismail apparently was also in the UK three to four years ago to meet fellow Islamists in London and Manchester.

The recovery of hundreds of blank South African passports in London came shortly before Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils's spokesman, Lorna Daniels, said this year: "The government is well appraised of the situation.

"We are currently involved in an investigation and therefore have no further comment."

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