| That's it? Only two dozen? |
Some two dozen Al-Qaeda-trained militants are still hiding in Pakistan's restive port city of Karachi which has been hit by a series of deadly attacks over the past two years, a top police official said. They plot attacks while their subsidiary cells provide logistical support and identify targets, police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief Javed Ali Bukhari told AFP. "They do not operate as a single group but they may be heading small cells of 10 to 20 people each," Bukhari said in an interview in the Pakistani commercial capital. Security forces have so far arrested some 200 suspects in an ongoing crackdown since late 2001, Bukhari said. "Our investigations with the arrested people and our own intelligence reports suggest the presence of these 24 Al-Qaeda trained terrorists operating in Karachi."
| That must be upper management. The muscle boyz must number in the thousands. |
He said the 24 were the top of a three-tier operational hierarchy.
"The second tier provides logistic support and pinpoints potential targets while the third tier is made up of extremely motivated executioners." He said the cells operated in small groups and had no central command structure. Security officials are unable to determine the strength of the second and third tiers but Bukhari said they were all believed to be "well trained in using explosives in telephone sets, mobile phones and video cassettes by improvising available remote systems for cars and televisions sets."
| Assuming half the high command directly controls a second-level operation, they'd have from three to five groups apiece, which'd be anywhere from 36 to 60 mid-level groups. If each of them control three to five strike cells, that'd be somewhere between 108 and 300 strike cells. |
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