Posted on 01/09/2003 11:51:32 PM PST by Stultis
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Pakistani Cops Nab 3 al-Qaida Suspects
Pakistani Police, Working With FBI, Arrest 3 Suspected al-Qaida Operatives After Shootout
The Associated Press
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| KARACHI, Pakistan Jan. 9 — Pakistani police working with the FBI raided a home on the outskirts of Karachi early Thursday, arresting three suspected al-Qaida operatives and several other people after the surrounded fugitives threw grenades and opened fire with automatic weapons, police said. None of the security officials were injured. Police said at least two foreigners, both apparently of Middle Eastern origin, were among those arrested in the raid. Officials said they had received a tip about the home and had had it under surveillance for a month. "Three suspected al-Qaida men, including two foreigners, are now in our custody," said Aslam Sanjrani, the top law-enforcement official in the southern province of Sindh. He said it remained unclear whether they were high-level members of the terrorist network. A woman and a child who apparently lived in the home were also taken into custody, said Iftihar Ahmad, a spokesman for Pakistan's Interior Ministry. The identities of the suspects were not immediately released. The two foreign men were believed to be from the Middle East, but their exact nationalities were not clear, Ahmad said. The suspects were at a detention center in Karachi and were being interrogated Thursday afternoon. Witnesses said security agents stormed the house before dawn. Sanjrani said at least one suspect escaped, but police believe he was injured during the shootout. Authorities were searching for him. The house where the raid was conducted is less than a half-mile from a plot where authorities last year found the remains of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was abducted and killed while working on a story about Islamic militants. Four people have been convicted in his killing. There was no indication that Thursday's arrests were linked to his death. Intelligence officials say Karachi Pakistan's largest city, its former capital and the site of a spate of attacks on foreigners last year has become a haven for al-Qaida terrorists who have fled U.S. operations in neighboring Afghanistan. In September, U.S. and Pakistani authorities in Karachi captured Ramzi Binalshibh, suspected of helping to plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Pakistan has been a leading ally in the U.S. effort to track down al-Qaida fugitives. More than 400 suspected al-Qaida members have been arrested in Pakistan and handed over to U.S. authorities. The biggest catch so far was the arrest in March of al-Qaida's suspected financier, Abu Zubaydah, who was taken into custody in the central Pakistani city of Faisalabad. |
Throwing grenades and shooting automatic weapons? They were probably just celebrating a wedding.
Pakistan Police Interrogate Al Qaeda Suspects (Reuters via ABC News)
Jan. 10
— By Amir Zia
KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani officials interrogated two foreign al Qaeda suspects on Friday after freeing seven local people who shared the house on the outskirts of Karachi where they were seized after a half-hour battle.
Interior Ministry spokesman Iftikhar Ahmed declined to give the names or nationalities of the foreigners, but police said after their arrest on Thursday that one was Yemeni and the other Egyptian, and they had been hiding for two and a half months.
"Our security officials are interrogating the two foreigners," Ahmed told Reuters. "But at this stage we won't like to disclose their names or nationalities."
Pakistani newspapers quoted police sources as saying that one man had given his name as Abu Hamza and the other as Abu Umar. Witnesses said one was bearded and in his mid-40s.
Police and paramilitary rangers arrested the men after a grenade and gun battle before dawn on Thursday.
They also detained seven Pakistanis, including former international field hockey star Shahid Ali Khan. The Pakistanis, mostly members of Khan's family, were released overnight after questioning.
Police said they had leads suggesting the two foreigners were linked with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, which is blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, but declined to give details.
The Interior Ministry's Ahmed called the arrests another success in Pakistan's campaign against terror.
HUNDREDS THOUGHT HIDING
Hundreds of al Qaeda members are thought to have taken refuge in Pakistan after the collapse of their Taliban allies in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Pakistan says it has arrested more than 400 suspects from hardline groups since Washington launched its war on terror.
In September, it detained key al Qaeda member Ramzi Binalshibh and 11 others in different raids in Karachi. Abu Zubaydah, an important aide of bin Laden, was arrested in Faisalabad in March.
Police say scores of al Qaeda members could be in hiding in Karachi, a teeming port city of more than 12 million people.
Khan's family said U.S. FBI agents had directed the raid on the house, but Ahmed denied this, saying only Pakistanis were involved. "We only share information with the Americans. They don't go out with us in raids."
Khan's wife is a senior official of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, a major component of the hardline Islamic alliance that made big gains in Pakistan's October elections and counts pro-Taliban clerics among its leaders.
"I rented out the portion of the house around two and a half months ago to a Pakistani from Lahore," Khan told reporters. "I did not give it to any foreigner," he said adding that the name of the Pakistani with whom he was sharing the house was Adnan.
JI supporters held demonstrations in the cities of Peshawar, Karachi and Multan to condemn the raid on the house of their party official, shouting slogans against the United States and President Pervez Musharraf.
Hundreds of activists from JI's student wing participated in a "Death to America" rally and burned an effigy of President Bush in Peshawar, close to the Afghan border.
Ayesha Munnawar, a leader of the party's women's wing, warned of more protests if the crackdown on Islamists was not stopped.
"We have been peaceful so far. But we can resort to big protests if such raids continued," she told a news conference in Peshawar.
Suspected Muslim militants, angered by Islamabad's policy of siding with the United States in its war on terror, have carried out a series of deadly attacks in Pakistan, targeting Westerners, Christians and government officials in the past year.
Check the update above. The poor innocent landlord didn't know that he was hosting armed al Qaida! I'm sure this peaceful ex-soccer star will be adding a rider to future leases limiting tenants to one case of grenades and 3K rounds of ammo. As a senior official with the hardline Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami Party, his wife can probably help draft the language.
I did NOT know that. Interesting.
Ah, saving guilty lives so that innocent ones may be taken. How noble.
WWHD: What would Hippocrates do?
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