Posted on 09/15/2002 11:49:22 AM PDT by snippy_about_it
KARACHI, September 15 (PNS): Sitting in a black sedan, four agents of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) watched intently as a posse of Pakistan military intelligence and police officials climbed a narrow staircase to enter a second floor apartment of a four-apartment building in Karachi's posh residential district of Defence Society early morning on September 11.
The raiding party had specific information from two Yemenis arrested in another raid a few hours earlier that a "bunch" of al-Qaeda suspects was hiding in the Defence Society apartment. As the uniformed and plain clothes intelligence operatives and policemen barged into the apartment, six Arabic-speaking men and a woman immediately offered themselves for arrest, according to the Pakistani official sources who participated in the operation.
The trouble erupted when a young man holding a grenade in one hand and an automatic weapon in the other suddenly emerged from the adjacent flat and lobbed the grenade at the security personnel, who were guiding the arrested men towards the staircase.
The surprise attack created a commotion in which injured military and policemen ran down to take positions, while four of the six arrested Arabs freed themselves and rushed back into the apartment.
At this juncture the black sedan, carrying the American intelligence agents immediately left the scene. They returned once the situation had been contained and the suspected al-Qaeda men had been moved to an undisclosed military facility near the Karachi airport, according to an informed official. "While we were making calls for ambulances and reinforcement the al-Qaeda men took strategic positions on the building's rooftop and a window that provided a wide view of the area," according to an official present on the scene.
"Casualties from our side only occurred due to the surprise grenade attack," said a senior Karachi police official, who also confirmed that among the wounded security personnel were an colonel and a major of the country's military intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The ISI officials were the first to be wounded, because they were leading the operation from the front, said an official and added that an injured ISI colonel stayed on the scene for three hours after being hit by several pieces of shrapnel from the hand grenade.
During the firefight, six al-Qaeda men armed with a pistol and an AK-47 assault rifle resisted about 200 Karachi policemen for three hours and surrendered only after a volley of teargas shells suffocated them in their apartment.
Senior police sources confirmed on Saturday that among the two al-Qaeda suspects who died in the gun battle was one Pakistani associate of the suspected terrorists. "The Pakistani was such a motivated extremist that he inscribed Allah o' Akbar with his blood on the wall before he died of bullet wounds on the chest and the neck," according to a police official who confessed that the scene disturbed him emotionally.
The other man, an unidentified Yemeni who fell prey to a police sniper on the building's rooftop, was initially identified by a Karachi police investigator as Khalid Mohammad Sheikh. Latter reports said that Khalid Mohammad Sheikh was being held by the police for his direct role in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and therefore rejected that the idea that the dead man was Khalid Mohammad Sheikh, one of the most wanted man on the FBI list. Khalid Sheikh is believed to be a key conspirator in the September 11 terrorist attack case.
A senior intelligence official in Karachi said that on the basis of statements and evidence gathered from the key suspects in the Daniel Pearl case the civil and military investigators firmly believed that Khalid Sheikh was actually the Yemeni who had slit Pearl's neck before the camera.
Karachi police and other security officials suspect that the eight Yemenis arrested during the recent anti al-Qaeda crackdown may include the two Yemenis who are believed to have aided Khalid Sheikh in the killing and subsequent decapitation of Pearl's body.
Most police officials said that they had reason to believe that Khalid Sheikh was still hiding in Karachi and he was "definitely" in touch with some renegade elements of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a banned jihadi organisation.
Pakistani security officials privately conceded that Pakistani law-enforcement agencies had no independently authenticated pictures of either Ramzi bin al-Shibah or Khalid Mohammad Sheikh, hence they had no choice but to rely on the press photographs or the pictures provided by the Americans of the most wanted al-Qaeda pair.
Pakistani officials have said that the recent raid in Defence Society was actually one of the three raids conducted with an active "American technical and intelligence support" in 48 hours between September 9 and 11. "Ramzi was arrested in one of the three raids conducted in quick succession, but he was not netted in the raid that involved the gun battle," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official who admitted that Ramzi was "conclusively" identified by the American intelligence officials once the crackdown was completed.
"This was the most coordinated strike against al-Qaeda sleep cells in Pakistan since September 11," claimed a Pakistani intelligence official. "Without doubt these people were interconnected and have ties with al-Qaeda, but our reasoning is that they were all on the run from Afghanistan."
Growing evidence, officials said, suggested that most al-Qaeda suspects after fleeing Afghanistan took shelter in major Pakistani cities and in the tribal areas. "Nothing is available so far to suggest that either Ramzi or any of his associates were planning a terrorist action in Pakistan," an official said.
Officials said that in the three days of investigation they had not been able to find the answer for the most important questions regarding the financial sources of Ramzi or any of his associates. "You need solid steady income to maintain boarding and lodging for at least a dozen people in the best residential district of Karachi," according to an official source.
Initial investigation, police sources said, showed that Ramzi bin al-Shibah and his associates were living in the raided Defence Society apartment since he was interviewed there by an Al-Jazeera TV channel correspondent in mid-June.
Pakistani officials said on Saturday that the decision had already been taken at the highest level to hand over the recently arrested suspected al-Qaeda members to the US authorities and not to the German government which had issued an international arrest warrant for Ramzi bin al-Shibah for being an active associate of Mohammad Atta, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attack on America.
"The Americans can sort the matter out with the Germans, both are our active partners in the war against terrorism," according to a senior Pakistani official who informed that Ramzi was being kept at a secret military location near Karachi airport and they were ready for his quick transfer to a US plane for onward journey to an undisclosed location within the next 24 hours.
I have trouble believing the FBI didn't stick around to watch.
Destination: Hell, with a brief stopover in Tel Aviv for a chat with Mossad.
Standard CYA mode, we ain't there they can't blame use for it going wrong.
IRA connection.....................;-)
Must be a gnome d'plume.
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