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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Pakistan widens the scope of Aziz investigation |
| 2004-08-02 |
| Pakistan has broadened the scope of search for criminals who planned last week's assassination attempt on Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz and law-enforcement agencies have been directed to probe into links between militant groups and the Islambouli Brigade of Al Qaeda. This was stated on Sunday by Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat talking to Dawn, he said he would not rule out Al Qaeda's possible involvement in the attack and said that law-enforcement agencies were also looking into possible involvement of other militant groups including 'Arab-Afghans' allied to Al Qaeda and having links in Wana. When asked about Islambouli's linkages, the interior minister said: "Islambouli, the terrorist group which claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on Shaukat Aziz in Attock was also involved in the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981." Mr Hayat said the government of Egypt, Pakistan's embassy in Cairo and other concerned quarters were being contacted to get information about the terrorist group and its linkages. He said that Islambouli had become an ally of Al Qaeda some time in the 90s. According to US State Department's 'Patterns of Global Terrorism' reports, the Islambouli Brigade of Al Qaeda is an offshoot of Egypt's terrorist group Al Jihad with several hundred 'Afghan' guerillas. The group is headed by Mohammed Shawqi al Islambouli, brother of Khalid al Islambouli who assassinated Anwar Sadat in October 1981. The Al Islambouli established a base in Jalalabad, from where hundreds of its operatives participated in the Afghan Jihad. The US 'Patterns of Global Terrorism' reports cite linkages of Osama bin Laden and Afghan militant groups to Egypt's Gamaa al-Islamiyyah, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the the Islambouli Brigade of Al Qaeda. Sources said Egypt and Pakistan signed an extradition treaty in 1994 after Cairo's request for help in the hunt for 'Arab-Afghans' believed to number some 1,200 in mid-1990s. A high-profile extradition by Pakistan in 1994 included 26-year-old Ali Eid who represented the Al Jihad group of Egypt in the region. However, an interior ministry spokesman said: "Our intelligence agencies have found no evidence about involvement of any Egyptian group in terrorist activities in Pakistan, except a suicide attack on Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad in 1995." The spokesman said a top Al Qaeda leader, Egyptian-born Canadian national, Ahmed Saeed Khadr, was involved in the embassy bomb blast which had claimed nine lives. The attack on the embassy was the first suicide bombing in Pakistan. It is confirmed that Ahmed Saeed Khadr was killed by the Pakistan Army in a military operation in Wana in October 2003. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 I keep hearing about these clowns for the "So and so angry Arab Brigade" and the "Abu Hafs al get you my pretty . . . and your little dog, too, Brigade." What does it take to become a brigade these days? Now that the US Army is The Army of One, why don't we just change the nomenclature to declare each soldier a brigade of one? This would give us an astonishing 1.4 million active duty brigades and another 1.1 million reserve and national guard brigades. That ought to strike fear into our enemies. Just picture the headlines -- "300 Army Brigades Surround al-Sadr's House" or "Army Brigade Beats the P*ss Out of Michael Moore After Moore Attempts to Steal Brigades's French Fries and Blame Bush." |
| Posted by: Tibor 2004-08-02 2:32:34 PM |