Posted on 06/12/2005 5:46:19 PM PDT by SmithL
Political leaders in Pakistan and Islamic scholars in the United States have questioned an FBI claim that "terrorist training camps" operate on the outskirts of Pakistan's capital city.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz denied Saturday there is a jihadist training center outside Islamabad near Rawalpindi, where federal agents say a 22-year- old Lodi man was taught "how to kill Americans" over a six-month period in 2003 and 2004.
"There are no such camps," said Aziz, who said at a news conference in Islamabad that he has asked Pakistan's embassy in Washington for details of the FBI allegations.
Anita Weiss, a University of Oregon professor who has done extensive research on Muslim movements in Pakistan, also questioned the details in an FBI affidavit about the alleged activities of Hamid Hayat, the Lodi man at the center of a widening federal investigation.
"There are mosques with fiery preachers ... but there is no way there is a terrorist training camp near Rawalpindi," said Weiss, who was in Pakistan on Sept. 11, 2001, and as recently as last October.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Weiss noted that Rawalpindi is just outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and "in the backyard of the Pakistani security forces."
Experts say terrorist camps do exist in other parts of Pakistan and in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Actually, I also doubt that there are terrorist training camps just outside Islamabad. Maybe safe houses or something like that, but there is no way the Pakis would not have found and taken action against a terrorist training facility right next to their capital city and biggest military bases.
There are camps all over Pakistan that the Pakistan military uses to train terrorist that they send to Kashmir. This one was probably sublet for Al Qaeda. Pakistan is in reality one big terrorist camp of a country.
Right OK it wasn't a jihadi camp.
It was an official Paki military training ground.
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