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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| 6 assassination plots to date against Perv |
| 2005-06-07 |
| There have been six plots to kill President Musharraf since March 2002, says a report in the latest edition of Pakistani magazine, the Herald. Quoting army investigators, the report says there may also have been other "ill-planned attempts" by militant leaders who are now dead or in custody. Some of the attempts were thwarted by tight security or because parades the president was to attend were cancelled. Gen Musharraf survived twin attacks in December 2003 in which 17 people died. The main planners included Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national convicted for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl on 31 January, 2004, the Herald report says. Investigators also point to a possible link with Abu Faraj al-Libbi, an al-Qaeda suspect of Libyan origin arrested in Pakistan on 4 May this year. The network established by these masterminds may have penetrated the lower cadres of the army, investigators say. Nine people - of whom eight, including a woman, are civilians - are currently facing trial for their suspected involvement in these attempts. Two of the nine suspects - Rashid Qureshi and Arshad Mahmood - preached jihad (holy war) to serving soldiers more than once within the garrison limits in Rawalpindi, says the report. The two are also reported to have urged a group of eight soldiers at the Special Services Group camp in Abbotabad, north of the capital, Islamabad, to follow the fatwa (religious decree) of a Saudi cleric who wanted President Musharraf dead. The magazine says details of the investigations into the attempts on President Musharraf's life were made available to it recently. According to these investigations, the first attempt on the president's life dates back to 2002, when a plan was hatched to attack the 23 March Pakistan Day parade with "kalashnikovs and grenades". The Herald says the conspiracy was planned in a meeting in Islamabad in October 2001 called by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Amjad Farooqi, head of Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Rashid Qureshi. The last named is the principal accused in an attempt on the life of Shaukat Aziz, now Pakistan prime minister, last August. Omar Saeed Sheikh is said to have handled the weapons and finances for the plan. Military investigators are quoted as saying that the meeting may have been attended by 20 people. This has led them to believe that the threat to the president's life has not been entirely eliminated. The alleged plan to attack the Pakistan Day parade was abandoned when the parade was cancelled as it coincided with the Shia festival of Muharram, the report says. The next mission is said to have been planned as a suicide attack on 6 December, 2002, when the president was supposed to offer Eid prayers at the Faisal mosque in Islamabad. But the attackers failed to get close to the president because of strict security, investigators found. The third apparent attempt was planned for 23 March, 2003. This time, the Pakistan Day parade was to have been attacked by missiles. The Herald report says four missiles were brought to Rawalpindi for the purpose. But the parade was cancelled again - this time for security reasons. Subsequent plans were hatched by Amjad Farooqi, the report says, as Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh had been arrested in connection with the murder of Daniel Pearl. Another attempt failed because jamming devices preventing an explosives-laden car from blowing up in Karachi as the president's motorcade drove past it, the authorities said. Such a sustained campaign by the jihadis, says the report, demonstrates their resolve to eliminate President Musharraf. It also reflects their ability to penetrate the armed forces using militants disguised as preachers. The extent of such infiltration remains as yet unclear and thus a source of continuing anxiety for the authorities, the report concludes. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |