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Bomb jitters in Pakistan,
too
By B Raman
Between 4 and
5 in the morning of May 15, unidentified elements caused
minor explosions at 19 retail outlets of Shell and two
of Caltex in different parts of Pakistani's port city of
Karachi. There were no serious casualties or property
damage. According to police, the low intensity bombs
were locally assembled with 15-minute timers.
Motorcyclists placed the explosives in dustbins placed
outside the outlets.
A police spokesman has been
quoted as telling the media, "Nothing could be ruled
out: an act of sabotage, a rift between oil transporters
and the petroleum company, an act of terrorism by jihadi
or al-Qaeda elements, or some other possibility. We are
investigating from all angles, but so far we have not
reached a conclusion."
On May 17, newspaper
offices in Karachi reportedly received copies of a
statement purported to have been issued by an
organization called the "Muslim United Army" (MUA)
claiming responsibility for the explosions and warning
of future attacks on US interests in Pakistan. It said
that the MUA had been formed by one Shaikh Ahmed, who
was described as its amir, to continue the mission of
Asif Ramzi. On October 15 of last year some police
officers and other government officials of Karachi
received by post parcels which were found to contain
explosive devices. The Lashkar-e- Jhangvi (LEJ), a Sunni
extremist organization, which is a member of Osama bin
Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF), claimed
responsibility for the parcel bombs in an email sent to
newspaper offices. That message, which was signed by
Asif Ramzi of the LEJ, also claimed that all the jihadi
organizations of Pakistan had joined hands to form the
MUA. According to the Karachi police, Ramzi was
subsequently killed in an accidental explosion in a
house on December 19 last year.
Though there
appears to be no evidence so far to show that the
explosions at the petrol outlets were the work of
al-Qaeda or any of the Pakistani members of the IIF, the
Pakistani authorities have further stepped up security
measures all over the country fearing fresh strikes by
al-Qaeda or the IIF against US nationals or interests.
The security precautions had already been strengthened
outside US establishments and particularly outside the
US consulate in Karachi after the arrests on April 29 of
three hardcore members of al-Qaeda in a Karachi hideout.
The arrested terrorists were Waleed Muhammad bin
Attash alias Tawfiq bin Attash alias Khalid al-Attash,
described as a Yemeni suspect in the attack on the US
naval ship USS Cole at Aden in October, 2000, Ali Abd
al-Aziz also known as Ammar al-Baluchi - said to be a
nephew of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, supposedly the
operations chief of Osama bin Laden who was arrested at
Rawalpindi on March 2 and handed over to US officials -
and Abu Ammar. Aziz and Ammar are said to be
Yemeni-Balochis, born of mixed Yemeni and Balochi
parentage.
After initial interrogation by the
Pakistani authorities, they were handed over to the US's
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which flew them
out of the country. A substantial quantity of explosives
was recovered during the arrests from their hideout. The
police also arrested three or more Pakistanis who were
assisting them. It was said that before coming to
Karachi, they had participated in jihad in Afghanistan
and in Jammu & Kashmir in India.
During the
initial interrogation by Pakistani officials, Waleed is
reported to have told them that last year about 75 Arab
operatives of al-Qaeda had fled from Afghanistan and the
bordering areas of Pakistan and taken shelter at
different places in Karachi. According to him, of these,
about 50 are still in hiding in Karachi. However, he
denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of bin Laden. He
is also reported to have stated that he and his
associates were recruiting Pakistani volunteers for
undertaking suicide missions against American targets
and that they had already recruited 12 persons from the
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), a member of the IIF.
The
explosions of May 12 in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, which
has a strong presence of al-Qaeda and the LET, and of
May 16 at Casablanca in Morocco in which al-Qaeda and
the local Salafi Jihadi movement are suspected have
added to the concerns of the Pakistani authorities.
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Morocco were among those
described as apostate by bin Laden in his message of
February 11. He called for their "liberation" by waging
a jihad against them. He has also called for the
"liberation" of Jordan, Nigeria and Yemen.
Ahmed
Raffiki, the supreme amir of the Salafi Jihadi movement
of Morocco, has had a long history of contact with
Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, the amir of the LET. In the late
1980s and the early 1990s, he visited Pakistan and
Afghanistan and attended the annual conventions of the
LET and the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ).
The Pakistani
authorities are reportedly worried that al-Qaeda or the
Pakistani constituents of the IIF may launch a major
terrorist strike against US and other Western targets
before President General Pervez Musharraf's forthcoming
visit to the US in the second half of June in order to
create an embarrassment for him. It may be recalled that
they kidnapped and murdered Daniel Pearl, a journalist
of the Wall Street Journal, before Musharraf's visit to
the US at the invitation of President George W Bush in
February last year.
In addition to strengthening
security precautions, Pakistani officials they have also
reportedly established contacts with the leaders of the
Pakistani constituents of the IIF to request them not to
attack any Western targets. In this connection, Major
General Ehtesham Zamir, the head of the political
intelligence division of the Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), is believed to have met Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai,
Maulana Azam Tariq and Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
Shamzai, the head of the Binori madrassa
(religious school) of Karachi, is reputed to be the
mentor of Mulla Omar, the amir of the Taliban, and bin
Laden. Before the US-led war against the Taliban and
al-Qaeda started on October 7, 2001, Musharraf had sent
a team of mullas led by Shamzai to Kandahar in
Afghanistan to persuade Mulla Omar to hand over bin
Laden to the FBI. He refused. Lieutenant-General Mahmood
Ahmed, the then chief of the ISI, accompanied the
mullas.
Maulana Azam Tariq is the head of the
banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (it has since changed its
name), which is the political wing of the LEJ. In
October last, Musharraf ordered the withdrawal of the
cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act against him to enable
him to contest successfully the elections to the
National Assembly.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman is the
amir of the Jamaat-ul-Ulema Islam Pakistan. He is the
mentor of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which is also a
member of the IIF, and is a close personal friend of bin
Laden and Mulla Omar.
B Raman is
Additional Secretary (ret), Cabinet Secretariat,
Government of India, and presently director, Institute
For Topical Studies, Chennai; former member of the
National Security Advisory Board of the Government of
India. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com. He was also head of the
counter-terrorism division of the Research &
Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency,
from 1988 to August, 1994.
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