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| Afghanistan/South Asia | |
| Indian arrested in raid | |
| 2004-08-14 | |
Ten members of Jundullah, or "Allah's Army", have been captured so far, including Rao Mohammed Khalid, who was arrested in Karachi on Thursday and found in possession of weapons. Police believe there are around 20 Jundullah members. Khalid appeared before an anti-terrorism court yesterday and was remanded in custody for 10 days. Among those arrested since July 12 are top Al Qaeda figures, including a Tanzanian wanted for the 1998 attacks on US embassies in east Africa and a Pakistani computer engineer who revealed plots to attack the United States and Britain. But the swoop has also revealed more evidence of links, some of them fairly recent, between Al Qaeda and local rebel groups who share its anti-US agenda and want to topple President Pervez Musharraf, who has supported the war on terror. Some of the network's foreign operatives in Pakistan fought in the anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan during the 1980s and then trained in Al Qaeda's camps there in the 1990s. Many fled Afghanistan when the United States launched a war on the Taleban in 2001 and moved to Pakistan, hiding in lawless tribal regions in the west or seeking refuge in crowded cities. In the last few weeks, Pakistan has captured two Turks, a Tanzanian, an Uzbek, an Indian, a man from the United Arab Emirates and several Pakistanis, all with direct links to Al Qaeda or local sympathisers. A computer seized from engineer Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan last month showed the network was at least considering attacking financial institutions in the United States and Heathrow airport in London, intelligence officials said. Now authorities are bracing for a backlash inside Pakistan, and security is tight in Islamabad and Karachi ahead of Independence Day. | |
| Posted by:Fred |