Posted on 04/18/2010 4:59:20 AM PDT by csvset
Pakistani prosecutors claim that five Americans currently on trial for attempting to join al Qaeda were in contact with a top leader of the terror group.
The five Americans are said to have made contact with Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of the radical Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and the commander of al Qaeda's Brigade 313. Prosecutors presented evidence, including phone calls, emails, and other documents that linked Akhtar and the five would-be terrorists, according to Dawn.
Akhtar recruited the five Americans after watching their videos posted on YouTube, according to Pakistani police officials. Akhtar was able to obtain emails through the YouTube postings and encouraged the men to travel to Pakistan to join the jihad.
The five American Muslim men were detained in the city of Sargodha in Punjab province in December 2009 after a family member discovered they were missing and contacted the FBI. The five Americans have been identified as Umar Farooq, Waqar Hussain, Rami Zamzam, Ahmad Abdullah Mini, and Amman Hassan Yammer.
The Americans were attempting to enter North Waziristan to join al Qaeda. They arrived in Karachi in November 2009; their passports stated they entered the country to attend a wedding. They traveled to Lahore to meet their al Qaeda contact, but he never appeared. The five men then traveled to Sargodha in an attempt to reestablish contact and make their way into North Waziristan. The men stayed at a home owned by Farooq's uncle. Pakistani police arrested the five Americans after being tipped off about their whereabouts.
Al Qaeda has sought to recruit operatives holding Western passports, which enables the men to move more freely to carry out activities in the West. These recruits are trained in camps operated by al Qaeda's external operations network, which is tasked with carrying out attacks in the US and other Western countries.
Other high-profile al Qaeda operatives detained over the past year who have trained in al Qaeda camps in Pakistan include Bryant Neal Vinas, David Coleman Headley, and Najibullah Zazi.
Vinas is a convert to Islam who is also known as Bashir al Ameriki. He trained in al Qaeda camps in North Waziristan in 2007 and helped the group plot an attack on a train inside Penn Station in New York City. He was detained by Pakistani troops in November 2008 and pled guilty in January 2009 to the charge of providing material support to al Qaeda. He has since cooperated with the FBI by divulging information on al Qaeda's activities.
David Coleman Headley is a Pakistani American who worked closely with al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He had direct contact with Ilyas Kashmiri, Akhtar's former deputy who is now the head of the Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, al Qaeda's military wing. Headley acted as a scout for the 2008 terror assault in Mumbai, India, which resulted in the deaths of 165 Indians and foreigners after the city was under siege for 60 hours. Headley also plotted to kill a Danish cartoonist who had drawn an image of the Prophet Mohammed.
Zazi traveled to Pakistan in August 2008 to join the Taliban, but was recruited by al Qaeda in Peshawar. After spending nearly four months in an al Qaeda camp in Miramshah in North Waziristan, Zazi returned to the US to carry out suicide bombings on New York City trains with two accomplices in September 2009. Zazi was arrested and pled guilty to plotting to carry out attacks in the US and aiding a terror group.
Background on Qari Saifullah Akhtar and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami
Qari Saifullah Akhtar and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI, or the Movement of Islamic Holy War) have worked with the Taliban and al Qaeda for more than a decade. In 2002, The Friday Times described the HUJI as "the biggest militia we know nothing about."
HUJI was formed by Islamist extremists inside Pakistan’s Punjab province in the early 1980s to help battle the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. After the defeat of the Soviets in 1989, HUJI turned its focus to fighting the Indian Army inside Jammu and Kashmir. The group maintained camps throughout Pakistan. The largest camp, in Kotli in Azad Kashmir, had "a capacity for training 800 warriors." As of 2002, more than 650 HUJI fighters had been killed fighting the Indian Army.
Like many Pakistani-based jihadi groups fighting in Kashmir, the HUJI received support from Pakistan’s military and the Inter-Services Intelligence. The group has offices in more than 40 locations inside Pakistan and maintained "organized seminaries in Karachi, and Chechnya, [Xinxiang], Uzbekistan and Tajikistan." Its members have participated in attacks and fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The leader of the Bangladeshi branch of HUJI was one of the original signatories of Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa against the West. This fatwa, or religious ruling, established the International Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders and officially incorporated various Islamic terror groups such as Ayman al Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
Akhtar took control of the HUJI after the group's leader was killed fighting the Soviets in 1985. He expanded HUJI's infrastructure throughout Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Akhtar largely stayed off the radar until he emerged as being part of a plot to overthrow the Pakistani government in 1995, when he was implicated along with Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi and three other senior officers in an attempt to assassinate senior military leaders during a Corps Commanders Conference at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. Charges against Akhtar were dismissed after he testified against his conspirators. Abbasi was released from detention after President Musharraf took power in a coup in 1999.
The Pakistani government released Akhtar in 1996, and he promptly fled to Afghanistan, where he became a close confidant and adviser to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Three members in the Taliban's cabinet and 22 judges were members of HUJI. Akhtar has been described as a "crucial figure" in the efforts to unite Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden.
HUJI established training camps in Kandahar, Kabul, and Khost. Taliban military and police forces were also trained at HUJI camps. HUJI became a critical force in the Taliban’s efforts to consolidate power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and more than 300 HUJI fighters were killed fighting against the Northern Alliance. HUJI also used its bases in Afghanistan to conduct operations in Chechnya, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
Akhtar accompanied Mullah Omar as he fled the US onslaught during Operation Enduring Freedom after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Omar moved his operations to Quetta in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. Akhtar took shelter in South Waziristan, where he was born, and established links with Baitullah Mehsud, the former commander of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan who was killed in a US Predator strike in August 2009.
After being implicated in two attempts to assassinate Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, Akhtar fled to Saudi Arabia, ultimately taking refuge in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE arrested Akhtar in August 2004 and deported him to Pakistan, where he was held for more than two years without trial. The Pakistani security services released Akhtar in May 2007 after the Supreme Court began inquiring about a number of missing persons.
Pakistani security forces detained Akhtar once again in February 2008 after he was implicated in several bombings, the most prominent being the October 2007 suicide attack in Karachi that aimed to assassinate former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as she returned from exile to begin her political campaign.
Bhutto, who was later assassinated in an attack in Rawalpindi in December 2007, implicated Akhtar in her posthumously released book. "I was informed of a meeting that had taken place in Lahore where the bomb blasts were planned. However, a bomb maker was needed for the bombs," Bhutto wrote. "Enter Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a wanted jihadi terrorist who had tried to overthrow my second government in the 1990s. He had been extradited by the United Arab Emirates and was languishing in the Karachi central jail. According to my sources, the officials in Lahore had turned to Qari for help. His liaison with elements in the government was a radical who was asked to make the bombs and he himself asked for a fatwa making it legitimate to oblige. He got one."
The Pakistani government released Akhtar from jail on bail in June 2008 after claiming insufficient evidence existed to link him to recent attacks. Akhtar is believed to be in North Waziristan.
Akhtar is one of the main leaders of the September 2008 suicide attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Akhtar acted in concert with Qari Zafar, the leader of the al Qaeda and Taliban-linked Fedayeen-i-Islam. Zafar was killed in the Feb. 24, 2010, airstrike in the town of Dargi Mandi near Miramshah in North Waziristan.
Pakistan terrorist ping
Thank you for the ping csvset.
LONG WAR JOURNAL.org: "TOP AL QAEDA LEADER LINKED TO 5 AMERICANS ON TRIAL IN PAKISTAN" by Bill Roggio (SNIPPET: "The five Americans are said to have made contact with Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of the radical Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and the commander of al Qaeda's Brigade 313. Prosecutors presented evidence, including phone calls, emails, and other documents that linked Akhtar and the five would-be terrorists, according to Dawn. Akhtar recruited the five Americans after watching their videos posted on YouTube, according to Pakistani police officials. Akhtar was able to obtain emails through the YouTube postings and encouraged the men to travel to Pakistan to join the jihad.") (APRIL 17, 2010, 4:42 pm)
DAWN.com: Islamabad - "AMERICAN SUSPECTS LINKED TO MILITANTS: PROSECUTOR" (SNIPPET: ""They wanted him to say he was there for terrorist reasons," Khalifa said in an interview with The Associated Press. She said she did not believe her son gave a confession, but that others did. She said her son was in Pakistan to attend a wedding.") (April 17, 2010)
DAILY MAIL NEWS.com: Sargodha - Detained US citizens' case adjourned" (SNIPPET: "The next hearing of the bail petition of five detained US citizens will be heard in the Anti-terrorism Court on February 16.") (February 8, 2010)
JIHAD WATCH.org (AP): Sargodha, Pakistan - "U.S. JIHADISTS IN PAKISTAN: "We are not terrorists. We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism."" (SNIPPET: "The U.S. is also looking at charging the men -- Umar Farooq, Waqar Khan, Ahmed Minni, Aman Hassan Yemer and Ramy Zamzam...") (January 4, 2010)
DNAINDIA.com (PTI): "ARRESTED AMERICANS SHOW NO REMORSE ABOUT THEIR TERROR PLANS" (SNIPPET: "Lahore: Five American Muslim youth arrested by Pakistani authorities on suspicion of terror links have shown no remorse about their plans to commit terrorist acts and one has even said they should be hanged so that they could become martyrs, a senior police official said today." SNIPPET: "Zamzam, Waqar Hussain Khan, 22, Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20, Iman Hasan Yemer, 17 and Omar Farooq, 24, were arrested in Sargodha, located 200km from Islamabad, on charges of planning terror attacks in Pakistan and abroad.") (December 21, 2009, 14:44 IST)
SOFIR.org: "THE DC FIVE" (SNIPPET: "Along the way one of them made a friend on YouTube who provided a degree of guidance as they cobbled together a scheme to travel to Pakistan for training and ultimately combat. The YouTube relationship moved to a shared Yahoo email account and messages in the Drafts folder, the latter being a tried and true method for evading detection that actually worked in this case. That one of the guys had family in Pakistan helped, if only by providing them with a bit of reassurance - they would not be entirely strangers in a strange land.") (December 13, 2009)
CITY-JOURNAL.com: "APPLE-PIE JIHAD Homegrown terror takes root." by Judith Miller (SNIPPET: "They are clean-shaven dental students and attendees of community colleges. They study hard, play sports, and open Facebook accounts. Their friends call them "normal Joes." And they’re being arrested in ever-growing numbers, would-be terrorists plotting to kill their fellow Americans and conduct "holy war" at home and abroad. Wednesday's arrest in Pakistan of five Muslim-American men attests to a growing phenomenon: the radicalization of young American Muslims on American soil.") (December 11, 2009)
THE JAWA REPORT - blog: "IMAGES: FIVE AMERICANS IN PAKISTAN FOR JIHAD N.C. Jihad Plot Connection?" -Posted by Rusty (SNIPPET: "Saifullah helped Minni plan the trip for the five would-be jihadist to Pakistan. It is not clear how long this trip has been planned. One has to wonder whether this "Saifullah" may be Daniel Patrick Boyd who also used the name for his online persona?") (December 11, 2009)
ASSOCIATED CONTENT.com - News: "5 MALE STUDENTS FROM VIRGINIA ARRESTED IN PAKISTAN..." by Julia Bodeeb (SNIPPET: "Newsweek also notes that one of the men allegedly attended the same mosque, Dar Al_Hijrah, that Major Nidal Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood murdered, attended when he lived in the Washington, DC area.") (December 9, 2009)
INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT.org: "Breaking News - PAKISTAN REPORTEDLY DETAINS FIVE D.C.-AREA MUSLIMS ON SUSPICION OF TERROR" (SNIPPET: "A Pakistani newspaper reports the arrest of five foreign nationals after a raid in a town called Sargodha. The raid took place at the home of a member of the Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistani movement designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2001. According to the report, "The DPO told that these people had been living in Sargodha since Nov 30 and it was quite a possibility that they were engaged in acts of terrorism." It names the five as Ahmed Abdullah, Waqar Hassan Khan, Eman Hassan, Yasir and Rami Zamzam and describes them as two Yemenis, an Egyptian, a Swede and a U.S.-born Pakistani.") (December 9, 2009, 9:00 am EST)
DAWN.com: Pakistan: Islamabad - "FIVE AMERICANS DETAINED IN SARGODHA RAID" (SNIPPET: "The men were picked up in a raid on a house in Sarghoda in the eastern province of Punjab, police officer Tahir Gujjar said, adding that three of the men are of Pakistani descent, one is of Egyptian descent and the other is of Yemeni heritage. Regional police chief Mian Javed Islam told The Associated Press that the men were between the ages of 18 and 20 and had spent the past few days in the city, which is near an air base about 125 miles south of the capital, Islamabad.") (December 10, 2009)
INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT.org - IPT News: "AUTHORITIES SEARCH FOR FIVE MISSING D.C.-AREA MUSLIM MEN" (SNIPPET: "Federal investigators are searching for a Howard University dental student and four other missing Muslim men reported missing from the Washington, D.C. area, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has learned. There is concern they may have been sent abroad to train for jihad. The five were last seen November 29. The identities of two of the missing men, Howard student Ramy Zamzam and Waqar Khan, have been mentioned in online postings, including a Facebook page that was set up Monday for friends to offer their support. Some of those pages, however, appear restricted to friends and associates. It is not clear where the men are believed to have gone, but an informed source told the IPT that at least one left behind a farewell video.") (December 8, 2009)
LONG WAR JOURNAL.org: "PAKISTAN RELEASES TOP AL QAEDA-LINKED TERRORIST LEADER" by Bill Roggio (SNIPPET: "Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI, or the Movement of Islamic Holy War), was released in early December after being taken into protective custody in August 2010. HUJI is closely linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Ilyas Kashmiri, the operational commander for HUJI, also serves as al Qaeda's military commander and is a senior leader on al Qaeda's external operations council. HUJI is also supported by Pakistan's military and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate." SNIPPET: "Akhtar was placed into custody at the same time that five Americans who were recruited by the HUJI leader were convicted in a Pakistani court of attempting join al Qaeda to carry out attacks for the terror network. The five Americans were recruited by Akhtar via the Internet and traveled to Pakistan in November 2009. They were arrested...") (January 4, 2011)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.