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| Europe |
| Italy: Pakistani leader says 'no surprise' in link to terror attacks |
| 2009-02-25 |
| (AKI) - A Pakistani community leader said on Tuesday he was not surprised to hear of a link between Pakistani immigrants in Italy and the deadly Mumbai terrorist attacks. Ejaz Ahmad, spoke to Adnkronos International (AKI), after media reports alleged that a man who collaborated with the Mumbai terrorists used a Western Union agent in the northern Italian city of Brescia to pay for telephone numbers used to make untraceable international calls via the Internet. "I am not surprised that the telephone cards of the Mumbai terrorists were charged by a Brescia call centre," said Ejaz Ahmad, director of the Urdu-language monthly, 'Azad'. "Italians do not know that here among the diverse immigrant communities, the Pakistanis are number one in the telecommunications sector. I spoke about exactly this in the last issue of my magazine which is targeted at Pakistanis in Italy. It all began years ago, when several Pakistanis were managing telephone networks for foreigners. It was because of this contact that Pakistanis became involved in the call centre business and all of them threw themselves into this work. Today there are around 4,000 Pakistanis that run call centres or shops in Italy from where you can send money abroad." Ahmad, who is also the Pakistani community representative on an Islamic consultation committee set up by the Italian interior ministry, said he was not surprised to learn that the Pakistani allegedly involved in the telephone registration scandal was a resident of the Spanish city of Barcelona. "There is a strong rapport between Pakistanis in Italy and those in Spain, particularly in business," he said. Ahmad said many of the Pakistanis in Brescia had come from the Punjab region of Pakistan, and many had also migrated to Spain. He also said several investigations carried out since 9/11 have spoken of the fund-raising inside the community for Laskar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant group linked to the November attacks in Mumbai. In Italy there are several Islamic groups that control a large sector of the Pakistani community. The most important is the predominantly Sunni Minhaj al-Quran which controls 17 mosques in the northern regions of Lombardy and Emilia Romagna. There are also Muhammadiya members and Shias who have a strong following in certain areas such as Brescia. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 WAFF > TELEPHONE CALLS LINKED TO MUMBAI ATTACK TRACED TO USA, ITALY. **cough** **cough**.... |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-02-25 18:08 |