ISLAMABAD - One of the London suicide bombers met in 2003 with a man later arrested for a church bombing in Pakistan, an intelligence official said on Friday. Pakistani security agencies are investigating possible links between militant groups based in Pakistan and Shehzad Tanweer, a Briton of ethnic-Pakistani origin who was one of four bombers in the July 7 attack that killed at least 54 people. One of the groups being checked is Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad), linked to Al Qaeda and banned by Pakistan in 2002. The other group is Lashkar-e-Taiba, which like Jaish has a record of fighting in Indian Kashmir, but unlike Jaish has a reputation for tight discipline and is not known to have any operational ties with Al Qaeda.
| They're just close friends |
| Bullshit meter's pegging here... |
One Pakistani intelligence source said Tanweer visited Pakistan in 2003 and 2004. During the first visit, the source said, Tanweer met Osama Nazir, who was arrested last December for the 2002 bombing of a church in Islamabad that killed two Americans among others. âHe met Osama Nazir in a mosque in Faisalabad,â an intelligence official said. Tanweerâs family comes from Faisalabad, a city in eastern Pakistan. Nazir was a member of Jaish, and security agents called in Jaish supremo Maulana Azhar Masood on Thursday for questioning. âSo far all leads are heading towards Jaish-e-Mohammad,â an intelligence official said. British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, now under sentence of death for the murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, was also believed to be a member of Jaish.
| I've come to the conclusion Omar's an independent operator, with his own pickup team for the Pearl killing. His minions came from a half dozen different groups. |
Another intelligence official said Tanweer, 22, had made a second visit to Pakistan in late 2004 and had stayed in the city of Lahore from December until last February, during which he visited several mosques and madrassahs, or religious schools. One madrassah was in Muridke, on the outskirts of Lahore and home of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a hardline Islamic charity organisation made up of cadres of Lashkar-e-Taiba. âWe are looking into whether Tanweer had any links with these people,â the second intelligence official said. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf banned both Jaish and Lashkar but they later resurfaced under new names.
| Lashkar remains the ISI's jihadi "strategic reserve." |
On Friday, after promising British Prime Minister Tony Blair Pakistanâs âfullest support and assistanceâ in the investigation into the London bombings, Musharraf ordered police chiefs to launch a new campaign against the radical groups. He instructed them to crack down on banned groups collecting donations, displaying arms, holding of gatherings and to confiscate all pamphlets and videos inciting hatred. âPakistan ... stands at a crossroads in its history and there is an urgent need to address extremism existing on the fringes of its society,â an official statement quoted Musharraf as saying. |