Terror suspect Swedes still detained: Pakistan

SNIPPET: "The Swedes being held in Pakistan include Mehdi Ghezali, who spent two years in Guantánamo Bay following his 2001 arrest in Afghanistan, as well as 28-year-old Munir Awad and 19-year-old Safia Benaouda, and their two and a half-year-old boy.

Awad and Benaouda, who was pregnant at the time, were arrested in Kenya in 2007 after fleeing Somalia following the invasion of troops from Ethiopia.

They were held in an Ethiopian prison for three months on suspicions of being connected with Somali jihadists fighting against Ethiopia, but no formal charges were ever brought against them." SNIPPET: "Police say they got the impression that the group of foreigners, which included the Swedes, were in the company of a Pakistani man with military training who was suspected of involvement in terrorism.

His alleged mission was to take the foreigners from the city of Quetta to Miranshah, the main city in the lawless region of northern Waziristan, where they were to meet an alleged Taliban leader named Zahir Noor."

SNIPPET: "The suspicions against Ghezali are said to be stronger than those against the other Swedes.

He is reported to have said that the group was on its way to Lahore to attend a harmless meeting with a Muslim revivalist movement, Tablighi Jamaat."

An interesting angle on this story reported in Svenska Dagbladet today (Swedish only):

German group also imprisoned in Pakistan. Six adults ans Arrested in May this year when they entered Pakistan via Iran without any passports or visas. The group contained a mother (according to media sources from Eritrea) and her four year old child. The five adults claimed they were Turkish citizens who had lost their passports. The fact that they had German citizenship was not revealed until the Pakistani security police took over the investigation in August. The German authorities have since tried to obtain the release of the woman and her child it was reported in Der Spiegel on Monday. One of the men is rumoured to have connections to a radical islamist sect in Uzbekistan. Possibly the group will be deported back to Germany.

Interesting - another group of middle eastern descent with alleged connections to radical islamist groups (re the "Swedish group" there is no doubt regarding the connections) from a European country enters Pakistan via Iran without any official documents. Each group contains at least one small child. Just a coincidence? Don't think so. Why the child? Maybe just as alibi, but initially there were rumours that the "Swedish" group was preparing terror attacks against western embassies in Pakistan. Of course a woman with a small child would have least problem gaining access to their possible targets.

(Too far fetched? I have some German friends who have served on the German military hospital in northern Afghanistan. Twice they had to "disarm" babies who were taken to the hospital by their purported parents, swaddled in "homicide" bomb belts. They have lost all their illusions and so have I.)

Thanks for sharing that with me ScaniaBoy.
That’s interesting.

Link referenced in post no. 8:

http://www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/artikel_3546785.svd

Du är här:SvD.seStartsidanUtrikesTyskar fängslade i Pakistan
Tyskar fängslade i Pakistan
Publicerad: 19 september 2009, 20.23. Senast ändrad: 19 september 2009, 20.37

“Pakistan har fängslat sex tyskar som misstänks ha varit i landet för att ta kontakt med en extremistgrupp. En av de tillfångatagna är en fyraårig flicka.”

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