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| India-Pakistan |
| SIMI did legwork for LeT, Jaish, HuJI |
| 2008-03-28 |
| NEW DELHI: The arrest of SIMI's national general secretary Safdar Nagori from Indore is a major breakthrough for the security agencies banking on his interrogation to help unravel the mystery surrounding many of the recent terror attacks. Senior intelligence officials say Nagori was responsible for setting up terrorist sleeper cells for Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba by reorganizing SIMI's cadre, driven underground by police pressure, in the northern and southern states. He enjoyed good working relationship with other Pakistan and Bangladesh-based terror outfits such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI) though officials rule out his direct linkage with the Pakistan intelligence agency ISI. The upwardly mobile cadres of SIMI, many of them trained engineers, doctors and IT professionals, have been arranging logistical support to the terrorists, lodging Pakistani and Bangladeshi terrorists of LeT, Jaish and HuJI in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, UP, Bihar and West Bengal where the outfit(SIMI) now has a significant presence. SIMI activists also acted as guides to jehadis coming to India from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Nagori, on the run since 2001 when SIMI was banned and its headquarters sealed at Zakir Nagar in Delhi, swears by Osama bin Laden and finds jehad as the only means to achieve the goals of a pan-Islamic nation. SIMI's links had appeared in the July 11, 2006 serial blasts in suburban trains in Mumbai and the serial blasts in Malegaon on September 8 the same year. Over 250 were killed and at least 800 injured in the Mumbai and Malegaon serial blasts. The probe trail in the Shramjeevi Express blasts of July 28, 2005, in which 12 persons were killed, had also put the needle of suspicion on the outfit. Sources said SIMI inducted many IT professionals and engineers in its ranks and spread the reach of the organisation in the southern states. Despite being under the scanner of the security agencies, Nagori had reorganised the banned outfit in a corporatised manner creating several wings within the outfit such as the publicity wing, weapon procurement and financing branches. Nagori's arrest in Madhya Pradesh indicates that he was making inroads in the BJP-ruled state. Its leaders had gathered in the state earlier also, at Ujjain. His deputies were, meanwhile, active in other states organising regular meetings and sending new recruits for arms training in camps in J&K and at other makeshift sites elsewhere in the country. The arrest of a software engineer, Yahya Kammakutty, by the Karnataka police last month had revealed SIMI's rising clout among educated Muslim youths in southern states of Karnataka and Kerala. Among the half-a-dozen persons arrested in Karnataka for suspected SIMI links, at least four were found to be medical students and some IT professionals. SIMI's major funding source is suspected to be charities in Saudi Arabia. I know, I'm suprised too. Interrogation of Yahya had revealed that he had made several trips to the Middle-East. These visits were probably made in connection with raising funds. The banned outfit operates through several front organisations registered as NGOs and has several publications, printed regularly, professing its ideology. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 Frankly, I am Shocked!!! |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Texas 2008-03-28 22:32 |