In Pakistan, dead men tell no
tales By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Pakistan's establishment recently labeled
Amjad Farooqi as al-Qaeda's mastermind in the country.
However, Asia Times Online contacts vigorously dispute
this claim ... and they suspect that Farooqi has already
been arrested in Karachi and that he will be "presented"
at a later date. - Twin hot spots near boiling point,
Asia Times Online, Jun 5
KARACHI - Even as
President General Pervez Musharraf played to the
international gallery on his trip to the United Nations
and beyond, at home, Pakistan was cooking up another
treat to be served on the tour.
On Sunday,
Pakistan announced that paramilitary police had killed
Amjad Farooqi, a suspected top al-Qaeda operative wanted
in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Wall
Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl two years ago, as
well as for two assassination attempts against Musharraf
last December.
Asia Times Online contacts,
however, are adamant that Farooqi was in fact arrested
some months ago, and that the "incident" resulting in
his death in the southern Pakistani city of Nawabshah
was in fact stage-managed by Pakistani security forces.
Pakistan's establishment recently labeled
Farooqi al-Qaeda's mastermind in the country. However,
Asia Times Online contacts say that, certainly, Amjad
was wanted in connection with the murder of Pearl in
Karachi in 2002. The contacts claim, though, that Amjad
was in fact a "stand-alone" operator who did not draw
support from any one organization as he was able to
gather his own manpower and financial resources. Senior
intelligence officers told Asia Times Online that while
Farooqi was a stand-alone operator, he carried out
specific operations in conjunction with local and
foreign elements.
In the Punjab police criminal
investigation department's "red book", Farooqi is
serialized as No 1497 under the name of Amjad Hussain
alias Farooqi, alias Haider Ali, son of Mohammed Afzal,
a 30-year-old standing five feet seven inches (170
centimeters). He is listed as coming from Toba Taik
Singh, but southern Punjab has been his main playing
field. He was last seen in Karachi's Quaidabad suburb in
the Tariq Hotel, on the same day that Mufti Nizamuddin
Shamzai, a leading Sunni cleric, was assassinated.
Farooqi was at some stage a member of the
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, a banned group of sectarian assassins
who target Shi'ite Muslims.
After Riaz Basra,
Farooqi is the second high-profile wanted person to have
died with his secrets, especially in relation to the
murder of Pearl, in which he is said to have been
involved directly. Pearl had became deeply involved in
investigations into the arrest of Abu Zobaida, a chief
al-Qaeda operator, in Faisalabad. He was in the process
of making a connection between Pakistani Inter-Services
Intelligence-backed groups and the seminaries of
Faisalabad when he was abducted and murdered. Farooqi,
incidentally, comes from the same area.
Basra,
the founder of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, moved to Kabul in
Afghanistan after police stepped up their hunt for him
during Nawaz Sharif's government in connection with the
murder of Iranian diplomats and officials in Pakistan in
the 1990s. After the Taliban retreated from Kandahar in
early 2002, he tried to sneak into Pakistan through the
Chaman border, but was caught by Pakistani security
agencies. He was kept in secret detention without news
of his arrest being officially released. He was
subsequently shown killed in an encounter with police in
Punjab.
Even though it runs contrary to Asia
Times Online's information, Farooqi has been widely
touted as a significant figure in the "war on terror"
and was the only Pakistani desperately wanted by many
Western intelligence agencies. He was recently named as
one of the four top al-Qaeda wanted operators, and his
head carried a handsome bounty.
Farooqi,
according to security sources who spoke to Asia Times
Online, had worked hand-in-glove with army officials in
the attack on Musharraf's motorcade in Rawalpindi last
year. Had he stood for trial, some interesting
information might have been released. An expert on
jihadi groups, Mohammed Tahir, editor of a local weekly,
maintains that Farooqi's death is meant to close the
files on the conspiracy to kill Musharraf, as well as
the Pearl case.
And give the "war on terror" a
boost. Recently, several characters wanted in this have
been arrested in Pakistan. However, contacts say their
arrests were revealed only when it suited the
authorities. For instance, in late July, the US
confirmed the capture in Gujrat, a town in Punjab
province, of Tanzanian al-Qaeda suspect Ahmed Khalfan
Ghailani, even though he was arrested many weeks earlier
in the capital Islamabad.
Syed Saleem
Shahzad is Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times
Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
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