The alleged Al-Qaeda No. 3 Abu Al-Faraj Al-Libbi has confessed to masterminding two assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to derail his peace moves with India, a report said. Libbi, who was arrested two weeks ago in Mardan, told his interrogators that he worked with a group of Pakistani militants belonging to different jehadi groups to carry out suicide bombings against Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December 2003, The News said, quoting sources privy to the investigations.The first bomb went off after Musharraf's cavalcade passed over a bridge. The president narrowly escaped the second attempt on Christmas Day, in which 17 people, including the two bombers, were killed. One bomber was identified as Muhammad Jameel of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group that is active in India's Jammu and Kashmir and the other was said to be an Afghan. "Preliminary investigation suggests that Libbi's motive was specifically to target Musharraf, whose initiatives were aimed at uprooting extremism from Pakistan and bringing peace with India," The News said. "Though it is difficult to glean information from a trained militant like Libbi, he is cooperating with the interrogators," it quoted an official as saying.
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Following Libbi's capture, 24 local militants have been rounded up from different parts of the country, including from Islamabad and Peshawar, and more arrests are expected. However, it is yet to be ascertained whether the attempts on Musharraf's life were Libbi's brainchild or came on orders from Osama Bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman-Al Zawahiri.
Libbi, a 40-year-old Libyan, exploited the anger of local jehadis who were upset with Musharraf's ban on Kashmiri groups. He had also met Amjad Farooqi, who headed the militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and was killed last year after a gun battle with security forces. Farooqi introduced Libbi to several local militants who agreed to be part of assassination plots against Musharraf, the newspaper said. Libbi and his group of militants also carried out sectarian attacks, especially in Quetta, in which dozens of people were killed in a series of bombings in July 2003. The group spread rumors that India and Iran were behind the attacks. This was meant to create unrest in Pakistan and to harm Musharraf's peace initiatives, The News said.