Demand is hugh.
Posted on 08/20/2006 6:52:28 AM PDT by Valin
London, Aug 20: Rashid Rauf, regarded as one of the prime suspects in the terror plot to blow up the US-bound planes from Britain, may be the pivotal figure linking senior al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan to the alleged plotters.
Rauf, arrested in Pakistan, was the Pakistani equivalent to the Avon Lady. A successful cosmetics salesman who traveled frequently on business, Rauf was above suspicion in his middle-class neighbourhood, 'The Sunday Times' said in a report today.
According to the report, the man now considered one of the prime suspects in the plot, moved into a smart area of Bahawalpur in Pakistan's southern Punjab just three months ago.
Like a social climbing yuppie he even gazumped a bidder for his new house by offering Rs two lakh on top of the asking price. The purchase allowed Rauf to rub shoulders with lawyers, doctors and other professionals in the dusty cotton town's smartest neighbourhood.
This weekend a clearer picture was emerging of Rauf's life in the four years after he left his home town of Birmingham to start a new life in Pakistan.
His arrest in Pakistan began an unprecedented manhunt in Britain with 25 young Muslims being hauled into custody by anti-terrorist police. Two have been released while the rest are still being questioned.
Intelligence officials in Pakistan have claimed that Rauf may be the pivotal figure linking senior al-Qaeda figures in neighbouring Afghanistan to the alleged plotters in Britain.
The report quoting sources close to the investigation claimed that the contact in Afghanistan may have been a son-in-law of Ayman al-Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama Bin Laden.
In Britain, one of the common factors linking several of the alleged plotters is that they attended seminars run by Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary group.
Rauf moved to Pakistan as a 21-year-old following the murder of his uncle in Birmingham in 2002. He had apparently prospered, marrying into a family that was the nearest thing Bahawalpur has to royalty.
His wife is the daughter of Ghulam Mustafa, who founded the Radical Madrassa, Darul Uloom Madina, in 1965. It is one of Pakistan's most controversial fundamentalist seminaries, teaching the Deobandi Muslim philosophy - espoused by Bin Laden - to more than 1,000 boys at a time.
When Rauf became Mustafa's son-in-law, one of Pakistan's top terrorists Masood Azhar, the Chief of banned militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), became his brother-in-law.
Azhar had been jailed in India for leading terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s. But he was released in 1999 after his colleagues hijacked an Indian airliners Jet from Kathmandu to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
He was freed alongside a comrade, Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British militant who was later to be convicted for taking part in the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, the murdered American journalist.
Like his brother-in-law, Rauf joined the "family firm" JeM, the notorious group based in Bawahalpur. He had been introduced to its leaders and senior clerics at the Darul Uloom Madina soon after he arrived in the country.
The report quoting JeM sources said Rauf impressed them with his devout manner. Maulana Soheib, a teacher at the Madina who was to become his brother-in-law, said he was introduced to the family under a different name.
"We were told his name was Khalid, a rich businessman and very religious," he said. "We did not know that his actual name was Rashid Rauf. Even on the marriage certificate he identified himself as Khalid."
JeM has its roots in the afghan 'Mujahedin' who fought soviet occupation but turned their attention to Kashmir after Russian withdrawal. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, a faction within JeM allied itself with al-Qaeda to adopt a wider global 'jihad' rather than concentrating on militancy in Kashmir.
Rauf became a leader of JeM but sided with the new faction. This is how he may have come into contact with al-Qaeda, the report said. His brother-in-law said that Rauf was rarely in Bahawalpur. His wife lived with her parents until he bought the three-storey house in model town in May.
Neighbours rarely saw the family. Rauf kept his wife and two daughters indoors in line with his religious beliefs. While women in staunch Sunni neighbourhood visited each other for tea and gossip, Rauf's wife was banned from socialising.
Last week his family was away "travelling". The house was locked up and neighbours said they have not been seen since Rauf was arrested. The precise date of Rauf's arrest is a subject of dispute. Soheib said his brother-in-law was seized two weeks ago but Pakistan maintains that the arrest took place on August 9, hours before police raids in Britain.
His brother Tayib was also arrested in Birmingham and his father Abdul, 52, who had been visiting relatives in Pakistan, was reported to have been detained before boarding an international flight in Islamabad. He is thought to be being questioned as a witness.
I wonder what percent of doctors in the US are muslim? Can you imagine the damage they could do to our nation? My mother's doctor is muslim and she is totally enthralled with him. She would trust him whatever he said. They could do way more damage internally to our nation than most or...than an "Avon Lady".
Hopefully Rauf is in a place that does not exist conversing with men who leave no footprints right now.
Anyone have a picture of this guy???
Nope...Of the percent that are muslim, what percent do buy into it? That's the question we should be asking. Hopefully it is a low number, but think of the damage a low number could do... or in a pharmacy...Both are major places of trust, where trust is assumed.
Demand is hugh.
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