Pakistan said on Monday a nephew of top Al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and eight members of a new militant group were behind a bid to kill a senior general and a double car bomb attack in Karachi. The nine were among 11 militants arrested in Karachi at the weekend. The operation came as Pakistani fighter jets and helicopter gunships bombed an Al-Qaeda training camp near the northwest border with Afghanistan. Sindh Police chief Kamal Shah identified the new terror organisation as Jund Allah, meaning ‘God’s Brigade,’ and said its members had trained at an Al-Qaeda camp near Wana. It was not clear whether the camp was the same as that targeted in air raids. The nephew of Khalid Sheikh, one of the chief planners of the September 11, 2001 attacks who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003, was identified as Musabir Urumchi but his nationality was unclear. He was handed over to an unnamed intelligence agency while the Jund Allah members were produced before an anti-terrorism court on Monday and remanded in custody for another fortnight. ‘The Jund Allah group is a new group which has links with Al-Qaeda, and their members have been trained in Wana,’ Shah told reporters.
| They said on the radio a little while ago that there are actually two nephews of Khalid in the bunch. No word on how many uncles, aunts, half-sister, and great-grandparents. I don't think they got his Mom, though... |
The Pakistani military meanwhile said the operation in Shakai had ended after troops took control of the area. ‘The operation in Shakai area culminated Sunday evening. The forces have taken control of the area,’ military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told PTV late Monday. ‘The miscreants have been flushed out, either they have been killed or dispersed and their hideouts destroyed.’
| "Dispersed" means "got away to fight again next Thursday." |
Sultan earlier said the government would resume a ‘political process’ originally launched in April after winding down an earlier offensive at the end of March. Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat trumpeted the weekend arrests as a ‘major breakthrough’ in Pakistan’s bid to stamp out Al-Qaeda and other militants. ‘This is breaking the back of the Al-Qaeda-linked network in Pakistan,’ Hayat said on Sunday.
Police accused the Jund Allah members of the failed attempt to kill Karachi’s Corps Commander Lieutenant General Ahsan Saleem on June 10 and the May 26 double car bomb attack near the US consul-general’s residence. But outside the court the group’s leader Attaur Rehman told reporters that he had ‘admitted nothing.’ Attaur Rehman told interrogators the Jund Allah militants were targeting Westerners, foreign missions, army and police officers to avenge the government’s campaign to eradicate Al Qaeda-linked fighters from its northwest border regions, Shah said. ‘You have sold your pride and honour to please the Americans and we will take revenge from you and your masters,’ chief police investigator Fayyaz Leghari quoted Attaur Rehman as saying. At least 20 members of Jund Allah had been identified and there could be more, Leghari said. ‘They are all from Karachi,’ he told AFP. |