The Associated Press Monday, August 23, 2004
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan A group of terrorists linked to Al Qaeda planned suicide attacks on key government leaders and the U.S. Embassy this month, according to a senior Pakistan Interior Ministry official.
The official, Information Minister Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said Sunday that 11 or 12 suspects - one Egyptian, the others Pakistani - were arrested more than a week ago in Islamabad and other parts of the country.
Officials said the plot could have killed hundreds of people, underscoring the deadly stakes in President Pervez Musharraf's aggressive push to defeat violent extremists enraged by his support of the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
Security agencies are hunting for other suspects, including a prominent cleric based in Islamabad, whose car was allegedly used to carry weapons to a safe house that would have been the attackers' base.
"We have infiltrated their network and that is why we have made these arrests," Faisal Saleh Hayyat, the interior minister, said in an interview. "They wanted to destabilize Pakistan, they wanted to create unrest, and they wanted to weaken this government."
Musharraf, who abandoned Pakistan's support of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, has been a target of Al Qaeda before. He narrowly escaped two bombings just 10 days apart in December 2003 that left 17 people dead.
He has since stepped up the fight against terrorists, and over the past five weeks Pakistan says it has captured more than 60 suspects, including Qaeda operatives. Among them was a Pakistani computer expert and a Tanzanian national wanted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa that killed more than 200 people.
Those two arrests also unearthed computer files storing Al Qaeda surveillance of potential targets in the United States and Britain, and led to a dozen additional arrests in Britain.
Last weekend, Pakistan said it had cracked a plot at home to sabotage its Independence Day celebrations on Aug. 14, and this weekend officials finally disclosed some details of what the attackers had planned.
The officials said the suspects were arrested in the cities of Islamabad, Hyderabad and Lahore from Aug. 10 to 15. Hayyat said they were linked to Al Qaeda and wanted to kill "important personalities" including Musharraf and government ministers.
Security agencies seized a huge cache of arms and ammunition, including dozens of bombs, grenades, rocket launchers and detonators and electronic surveillance devices. They also found belts used to strap explosives to a suicide attacker's body.
Among the targets were Musharraf's official residence, the prime minister's house, a convention center, Parliament, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the headquarters of the army in the neighboring city of Rawalpindi.
All but one of 11 or 12 suspects arrested were Pakistani. The other was the alleged Egyptian mastermind, Sheik Isa alias Qari Ismail, whose identity was being checked by intelligence agencies.
"Unfortunately Pakistani people were involved in these plans," Hayyat said. "Our own wanted to kill hundreds of innocent people."
Ahmed, the information minister, told reporters Sunday that the authorities were hunting for four more suspects, including one man who had brought weapons from Afghanistan.
Sunday 22 August 2004, 0:23 Makka Time, 21:23 GMT
A leading Egyptian Islamic leader has warned that a "volcano of anger" could explode in response to US-led military action in Najaf and Falluja.
In a statement on Saturday, Ali Gumaa, the mufti of Egypt and the country's highest authority on Islamic law, condemned the "continuing aggression by US-led forces on the Imam Ali shrine and Islamic holy places" in Iraq.
"After the attack on the shrines of the Prophet's noble companions, after the humiliations and the terrorizing and killing of civilians, the world cannot expect… that a volcano of anger and indignation will not explode," Gumaa said.
Gumaa is second in the Islamic hierarchy only to the shaikh of al-Azhar, Cairo's ancient university and institute of religious learning.
Gumaa said since occupation forces claimed to have saved Iraq from dictatorship, "the Dar al-Ifta cannot accept any justification… that enables them to play this ugly role, rejected by the world's reasonable people and lovers of peace".
"The Dar al-Ifta wonders why the world is seeking the reasons for terrorism, hatred of others and the clash of civilizations," he said.
Gumaa, however, appealed for restraint "so that events do not slip out of control and the situation does not deteriorate into an unjustified sea of blood, since regret would then be futile".
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AA843409-E1C1-47F9-9717-DF04DA8BC53A.htm