2 Lodi residents refused entry back into U.S.(Naturalized citizens from Pakistan)

2 Lodi residents refused entry back into U.S.

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, August 26, 2006

(08-26) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- The federal government has barred two relatives of a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S. citizens in an extraordinary legal limbo.

Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Lodi cherry packer who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp.

Federal authorities said Friday that the men, both Lodi residents, would not be allowed back into the country unless they agreed to FBI interrogations in Pakistan. An attorney representing the family said agents have asked whether the younger Ismail trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan.

The men and three relatives had been in Pakistan for more than four years and tried to return to the United States on April 21 as a federal jury in Sacramento deliberated Hayat's fate. But they were pulled aside during a layover in Hong Kong and told there was a problem with their passports, said Julia Harumi Mass, their attorney.

The father and son were forced to pay for a flight back to Islamabad because they were on the government's "no-fly" list, Mass said. Muhammad Ismail's wife, teenage daughter and younger son, who were not on the list, continued on to the United States.

Neither Muhammad nor Jaber Ismail holds dual Pakistani citizenship, Mass said.

"We haven't heard about this happening -- U.S. citizens being refused the right to return from abroad without any charges or any basis," said Mass, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

McGregor Scott, the U.S. attorney for California's eastern district, confirmed Friday that the men were on the no-fly list and were being kept out of the country until they agreed to talk to federal authorities.

"They've been given the opportunity to meet with the FBI over there and answer a few questions, and they've declined to do that," Scott said.

Mass said Jaber Ismail had answered questions during an FBI interrogation at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad soon after he was forced back to Pakistan. She said the teenager had run afoul of the FBI when he declined to be interviewed again without a lawyer and refused to take a lie-detector test.

The Ismails had been in Pakistan partly so Jaber could study the Quran, Mass said. She said that neither he nor his father had anything to do with terrorism.

"They want to come home and have an absolute right to come home," said Mass, who has filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security and a petition with the Transportation Security Administration.

"They can't be compelled to waive their constitutional rights under threat of banishment," Mass said. "The government is conditioning the return to their home on cooperation with law enforcement."

Aviation watch lists were created in 1990 to keep terrorists off planes and track drug smugglers and other fugitives. But since al Qaeda's attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government has expanded the lists significantly. Members of the public cannot find out if, or why, they are on a no-fly list.

Michael Barr, director of the aviation safety and security program at USC, said the Ismail case appears to be unusual in the realm of federal terrorism investigations.

"You become what is called a stateless person, and that would be very unprecedented," Barr said.

He said U.S. law enforcement agents have understandably been "overly cautious" in recent years. "If they're going to err, they're going to err on the side of caution," Barr said. "What's happened in a lot of these things is that you're guilty until proven innocent."

Jaber Ismail was one of several people mentioned by his cousin, Hayat, during a videotaped interview with the FBI in Sacramento in June 2005 that prompted Hayat's arrest.

Hayat himself had just returned from a two-year trip to Pakistan. His flight, too, had been diverted because Hayat was on the no-fly list as a result of conversations he had with an informant who had infiltrated the mosque in Lodi that Hayat attended.

Prosecutors said Hayat told FBI interrogators that he had trained at a terrorist camp in Pakistan, although defense attorneys argued that the videotaped confession was contradictory and suggested that agents had manipulated the interview.

When agents asked him who else had gone to training camps, Hayat said, "I can't say 100 percent, but I have a lot of, you know, names in my head," according to a transcript of the interview.

Hayat said Jaber Ismail "went, like, two years ago." Asked if his cousin had gone to the same camp he had attended, Hayat said, "I'm not sure, but I'll say he went to a camp."

Hayat later said that Ismail and another relative "didn't talk to me about going to camps or anything. But you know I'm sure they went to the camp ... 'cause they memorize the Holy Quran."

Hayat faces up to 39 years in prison when he is sentenced. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 17 to discuss his lawyers' motion for a new trial on a number of grounds, including juror misconduct.

On Friday, Hayat's father, ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat, 48, was formally sentenced at U.S. District Court in Sacramento.

In a deal with prosecutors, the elder Hayat pleaded guilty in June to charges of lying to customs agents about $28,000 he was carrying during a trip to his native Pakistan. He avoided a retrial on more serious charges of lying to the FBI about his son's training in Pakistan. He was sentenced to the 330 days in jail that he already served.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Umer Hayat said outside the courthouse that he "got screwed" and "hates terrorists." He said he had fabricated his own videotaped FBI confession -- in which he described visiting a militant camp in Pakistan where his son had allegedly trained -- because agents refused to believe the truth and because he was tired.

He said he had borrowed his description of masked terrorists firing guns, swinging swords and pole vaulting in a basement from "the newspaper and the TV," as well as from a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game belonging to his children. He said his ice cream truck bears a photo of one of the turtles, advertising a $1.25 ice cream bar.

"I make a story, that's all," Hayat said.

Scott, the U.S. attorney, said he would "take anything Umer Hayat says with a grain of salt. He seems capable of saying whatever needs to be said at any particular time, whether it's the truth or not."

Pakistan's Awkward Balancing Act on Islamic Militant Groups

Pakistan's Awkward Balancing Act on Islamic Militant Groups

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 26, 2006; A10

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- For the past five years, Pakistan has pursued a risky, two-sided policy toward Islamic militancy, positioning itself as a major ally in the Western-led war against global terrorism while reportedly allowing homegrown Muslim insurgent groups to meddle in neighboring India and Afghanistan.

Now, two high-profile cases of terrorism -- a day of gruesome, sophisticated train bombings in India in mid-July and a plot foiled this month to blow up planes leaving Britain for the United States -- have cast a new spotlight on Pakistan's ambiguous, often starkly contradictory roles as both a source and suppressor of Islamic violence, according to Pakistani and foreign experts.

Moreover, increasing evidence of links between international attacks and groups long tolerated or nurtured in Pakistan, including the Taliban and Kashmiri separatists, are making it difficult for the military-led government here to reconcile its policy of courting religious groups at home while touting its anti-terrorist credentials abroad.

"The conundrum for the military still persists," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani army general. "The question always is, should we totally ban these organizations or keep them for later use?" Although the government has "selectively" prosecuted extremist groups, he said, "at the conceptual level, it has deliberately followed an ambiguous policy."

The basic problem for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is that he is trying to please two irreconcilable groups. Abroad, the leader of this impoverished Muslim country is frantically competing with arch-rival India, a predominantly Hindu country, for American political approval and economic ties. To that end, he has worked hard to prove himself as a staunch anti-terrorism ally.

But at home, where he hopes to win election in 2007 after eight years as a self-appointed military ruler, Musharraf needs to appease Pakistan's Islamic parties to counter strong opposition from its secular ones. He also needs to keep alive the Kashmiri and Taliban insurgencies on Pakistan's borders to counter fears within military ranks that India, which has developed close ties with the Kabul government, is pressuring its smaller rival on two flanks.

"It is clear that our current policy of stout denial fools nobody," columnist Irfan Husain wrote in the Dawn newspaper last Saturday. By allowing Islamic militant groups to flourish while seeking praise for helping to break up the plot in Britain, he said, Pakistani officials are "determined to see only one side of the coin," but "the rest of the world is bent on examining the other side very closely indeed."

Until recently, Musharraf had handled this balancing act with some success, Pakistani and foreign experts said. He formally banned several radical Islamic groups while quietly allowing them to survive. He sent thousands of troops to the Afghan border while Taliban insurgents continued to slip back and forth. Meanwhile, his security forces arrested more than 700 terrorism suspects, earning Western gratitude instead of pressure to get tougher on homegrown violence.

But this summer, a drumbeat of terrorist violence and plotting in India, Britain and Afghanistan have begun to blur the distinction between regional and international Islamic violence. Pakistan, which has a large intelligence apparatus, is now in the awkward position of denying any knowledge of local militants' links to bombings in India and Afghanistan, while claiming credit for exposing their alleged roles in the London airliner plot.

"It is ironic that our very success in thwarting plots and arresting a large number of terrorists reinforces the perception that this country is a bastion of terrorism," said Shafqat Mahmood, a former Pakistani legislator, suggesting that Islamic militancy has been permitted to flourish in Pakistan at the country's peril. "Our triumphs in the war against terror have become advertisements of our failure," he said.

In an interview last week, Riaz Mohammed Khan, Pakistan's foreign secretary, expressed indignation that India had swiftly blamed Pakistani-based groups for the train bombings, saying Pakistan had "no evidence whatsoever" of any such links and that India had ignored its repeated offers to collaborate in any investigation of the attacks, which killed more than 180 people.

Khan said his government "opposes all terrorism" and had worked diligently to expose the role of Pakistanis in the London plot. Pakistan has arrested a British national of Pakistani origin, Rashid Rauf, whom sources described as a member of a banned sectarian group, Jaish-i-Muhammed. Pakistan also placed under house arrest the former head of Lashkar-i-Taiba, another militant group blamed by India in the bombings.

But Khan said the government needed to address the "root causes" of Islamic militancy, such as poverty and lack of education, and could not simply arrest all members of suspect religious groups. He also said that the chronic suppression of Palestinians and other Muslims abroad had created armed struggles that should not be "wholly discredited."

Despite the arrests, Indian officials suggested that Musharraf, after sincere efforts to curb militant groups, was now giving them freer rein in order to secure their electoral support. They said that both the Taliban and some pro-Kashmir militants had now gone beyond their original aims and forged ties to al-Qaeda.

"Whether this is a loss of control by Musharraf or a deliberate shift in strategy, for us the results are the same," said a senior Indian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, in a recent interview in New Delhi. He said India wants to resume stalled peace talks over the disputed territory of Kashmir, but that the recent spread of violence to "the Indian heartland" had provoked enormous public anger. "No government can be immune to public opinion," he said.

In Afghanistan, officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of harboring and aiding the revived Taliban insurgency, which has launched a wave of violent attacks and suicide bombings across the southern part of the country this spring and summer. Pakistan has denied the charges and periodically arrested some Taliban figures, but there are widespread reports of insurgents operating freely on both sides of the border.

As for India, Pakistan is eager to resolve the Kashmir issue, but its relations with New Delhi have been hostile for years and remained captive to the persistent violence in the territory. India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of sending armed insurgents across the border, but Pakistan has insisted it provides only political support to the separatists.

Islamabad's fragile new alliance with the West has developed only since 2001, when Musharraf renounced the Taliban and embraced the anti-terrorist cause. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship has been strained both by Musharraf's foot-dragging on democratic reforms and by India's high-profile rapprochement with Washington, including a controversial new nuclear energy agreement.

Analysts said the Musharraf government may now be playing up its role in foiling the London plot in order to reinforce its importance as a strategic Western ally.

Some observers suggested that in different ways, both Pakistan and India are using the terrorist threat to bolster their competing relations with the West. Just as Pakistan, the regional underdog, may be exaggerating its role as a terror-fighter, they noted, India, the aspirant to global influence, may be exaggerating its role as a victim of terror.

Others suggest that U.S. policy in the Middle East is making it difficult for Muslim countries such as Pakistan to remain peaceful and in control of large, impoverished populations who increasingly turn to religion and identify with the struggles of Muslims in other countries.

But critics said Pakistan's problems with Islamic violence cannot be resolved as long as the military remains in power. In an unusual move last month, a diverse group of senior former civilian and military officials wrote an open letter to Musharraf, warning that the country is becoming dangerously polarized and that a uniformed presidency only exacerbates the problem by politicizing the armed forces. The only solution, the group wrote, is a transition to a "complete and authentic democracy."

Pakistan's F-16s come with severe restrictions

Pakistan to get F-16s, but with a difference

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINTON: Pakistan, according to a senior US official, has agreed to an “unprecedented” security plan, including an “enhanced and end-use monitoring programme”, which obliges Islamabad to “comply” with conditions laid down by Washington for F-16-related bases and facilities before the equipment is supplied.

While Pakistan has made no comment on the July 20 testimony of John Hillen, assistant secretary, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the State Department, before the House International Relations Committee, the conditions Islamabad has accepted would appear to have reduced Pakistan’s ability to use the advanced air defence and assault systems only under given conditions.

Hillen told the House committee, “We, of course, have had a US government security survey of their bases and facilities. We’ve put into the deal that they must comply with the approved security plans for their F-16-related bases and facilities before we’ll release any systems in the sale. We will have a US presence to monitor compliance with the security plan requirements, a very enhanced and end-use monitoring programme. Routine access to F-16 aircraft equipment and munitions is in restricted areas and limited to Pakistan air force personnel that are pre-approved for such. There is a two-man rule, so to speak, for access to this equipment and restricted areas, and F-16 flights outside of Pakistan ... must be approved in advance by the United States government.”

Hillen said he would get into more detail on “this extraordinary security plan” designed to ensure control of “combat unauthorised proliferation we have put into place.”

He added, “We place all sorts of conditionality onto getting arms sales from the United States that protects American security interests and that protects exactly the sort of proliferation problem you alluded to. So I think this (F-16) sale works to exactly the opposite.”

He added, “I think it will give us access and influence in a country and in which we’ll be able to see if there are any dynamics of that sort and be able to be involved in a leadership position, rather than just standing by if this happens.”

Six Jaish men held over US consulate attack

Six Jaish men held over US consulate attack

from SHAFI BALOCH
KARACHI - The Anti Violent Crime Cell and Central Investigation Department of the Sindh Police have arrested six activists of a banned religious outfit who were allegedly involved in a bomb blast near the United States Consulate in Karachi earlier this year, sources in police told The Nation Friday.
A US consulate official and his Pakistani driver were killed in a suicide attack on March 2 when US President Bush visited India and Pakistan.
The sources said that the six accused were linked to the banned organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad and that police have also seized explosives from their custody.
AFP adds: Investigators have identified the suicide bomber as Mohammed Tahir, the official said requesting anonymity. “Tahir used to work with (outlawed) militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed and he was assigned the task by a person directly linked with Al-Qaeda,” a police official, said, while requesting anonymity.
President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz Friday congratulated police and intelligence agencies for the arrests. “Congratulating the law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the president emphasised that credit for this excellent work goes to the combined efforts of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for resolving this high profile case,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Shaukat Aziz also thanked the agencies for their “commendable achievement”, it said.

A Kashmiri Tie to the Terror Plot(Rashid Rauf member of Jaish-e-Muhammad)

Exclusive: A Kashmiri Tie to the Terror Plot
A key suspect in the foiled airline bombing plan who was arrested in Pakistan has links to one of India's most wanted terrorists
By JESSICA CARSEN/LONDON

One of the British suspects detained in Pakistan as part of the investigation into the alleged plot to blow up planes flying from Great Britain to the U.S. is connected to the militant Islamic leader Maulana Masood Azhar, one of India's most wanted terrorists. Azhar family members told TIME that the sister-in law of Rashid Rauf, 25, who Pakistani intelligence officers fingered early on as a "key suspect," is married to Azhar's brother.

In a further link, the father of Rauf's wife and her sister runs Darul Uloom Madina, one of Pakistan's biggest and most hardline seminaries, with some 2,000 students, in Bahawalpur, Azhar's hometown. Rauf's arrest in Bahawalpur was one of the events that prompted British police to swoop in on the suspected London conspirators last Thursday, for fear they would become suspicious if they lost contact with such a central figure in their plans.

Although Azhar, in his late 30s, is now in hiding, he continues to lead the militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad, which is opposed to Indian rule of the disputed region of Kashmir and is said to have been behind the 2004 assassination attempt of President Pervez Musharraf and several other terror attacks. Azhar founded the group after he was released from an Indian prison in December 1999 in exchange for 155 passengers from a hijacked Indian airliner. Another prisoner released at the same time was Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, a militant close to Jaish-e-Muhammad who was subsequently convicted of abducting U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl and sentencing him to death. At a rally in Karachi in January 2000 Azhar exhorted the crowd that "Muslims should not rest in peace until we have destroyed America and India."

While senior Pakistani officials do not believe Azhar is directly linked to recent terrorist activity in Pakistan or to al-Qaeda, it is believed rebel members of his group are now forging links with Osama Bin Laden's Afghanistan-based network.

Rauf, who is believed to have two daughters, aged two and eight months, is known to have shuttled between his base in Pakistan and Kandahar and Paktia in Afghanistan. Until 2002, he lived in Birmingham, England, but left after the murder of his uncle, which was never solved. His younger brother Tayib was one of two suspects arrested in Birmingham last week in the wave of British raids that has netted 24 people in total. U.K. intelligence officers are now expected to fly to Pakistan to interrogate Rauf and hope to bring him back to the U.K.; however there are no formal extradition treaties with Pakistan.

A charity called Crescent Relief founded by the Rauf's father, Abdul, which collected money for last year's Pakistani earthquake relief, effort is also under the microscope. A London-based independent security analyst said money was transferred from Crescent Relief late last year into three accounts in three separate banks in the Mirpur region of Kashmir. The accounts belonged to suspects arrested in the U.K. and Pakistan in the past week, the source said.Officials at Crescent Relief were unavailable for comment, and Pakistan's Foreign Ministry has dismissed reports that a tie to earthquake relief funds is being investigated. "Rashid Rauf had nothing to do with any charity involved in the earthquake relief work or with any relief work as such," said Tasneem Aslam, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

In a separate development, Tuesday evening a senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters in Islamabad that an al-Qaeda leader based in Afghanistan masterminded the British plot. While he did not identify the leader, the official suggested he was close to the rank of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a Libyan said to have been a high-ranking operative arrested in Pakistan in May last year and later turned over to the U.S. But the direct involvement of Osama Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri on this particular plot was ruled out by the official.

At the same time, investigators are examining links between the British detainees and known Islamic extremists in Germany. Counter-terrorism officers there are trying to ascertain the connection between at least one of the London suspects and the wife of a Hamburg al-Qaeda cell fugitive linked to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York.

The international dimension of the investigation has mobilized European politicians eager to present a united front against terrorism. Wednesday morning, British Home Office minister John Reid, who earlier this week warned that another 24 plots had been detected in the U.K., briefed his E.U. counterparts on the London investigation and urged them to ensure security measures were consistent across the Continent. "We face a common threat and must respond in common fashion," Reid told them, warning that threat was evolving all the time.

He didn't have to do much to convince them. Near the end of the meeting Franco Frattini, vice president of the European Commission on Liberty, Justice and Security mapped out the enhanced practical measures that E.U. leaders will announce in a formal plan over the next few days. They include extending existing research on explosives (particularly liquid explosives), a tougher crackdown on inflammatory websites or those that detail bomb-making expertise, and encouraging security officials to share biometric data of suspected persons more often and more rapidly.

Nicolas Sarkozy, French Interior Minister, also suggested the establishment, at an E.U. level, of counter-terror expert teams ready to help member states when needed. These would be similar to the "rapid reaction teams"at the disposal of the E.U. under its solidarity agreement, which aid member states in preventing illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, police in London Wednesday asked the courts for more time to question the suspects in their custody, who include at least one woman. New powers granted under the 2006 Terrorism Act allow the police 28 days to detain the suspects without charge, subject to request. Some 46 properties and 20 vehicles have already been searched and vast swaths of woodland near High Wycombe, scene of six of the first wave of arrests, are currently being combed for evidence of stashed explosives.

- with reporting by Ghulam Hasnain/Bahawalpur, Aryn Baker and Syed Talat Hussain/Islamabad and Adam Smith/London.

Pakistan let al-Qaida front fund UK plot(Jamaat-Ud-Dawa)

GLOBAL INSECURITY
Pakistan let al-Qaida front fund UK plot
Terror war 'ally' didn't outlaw 'charitable' group even after U.S. blacklisted it

---

Posted: August 16, 2006
10:55 p.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

WorldNetDaily has learned that ally Pakistan failed to outlaw an al-Qaida charitable front after it was tied to last year's London bombings, and the inaction allowed the charity to finance the new London-based plot to bomb U.S.-bound jetliners.

On April 28, the U.S. Department of State added Pakistan-based Jamaat-Ud-Dawa to its blacklist of Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organizations. But the Pakistani government did not follow suit.

Islamabad neglected to blacklist Jamaat-Ud-Dawa (JUD) or freeze its assets, allowing the al-Qaida front to continue to operate legally inside Pakistan's borders.

Authorities have traced money for the British sky terror operation back to the JUD charity. Funds were funneled through three separate bank accounts in Pakistan. The money was to be used by the Pakistani-British suicide bombers to buy plane tickets for dry runs and the final targeted flights.

JUD is based in Lahore, where at least one of last year's London bombers received aid, and maintains branches in Karachi and Peshawar. Ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan visited a madrassa (Islamic school) run by JUD in Lahore just before the July 2005 attacks.

Sources say Scotland Yard is furious that terror-war partner Islamabad failed to dismantle the Pakistan-based terror infrastructure that supported the London bombings. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vowed to crack down on militant groups in Lahore and Karachi in the wake of last year's attacks.

U.S. authorities, meanwhile, are pressing Musharraf to close at least four known al-Qaida training camps operating inside Pakistan.

Experts say Al-Qaida's inner circle has found sanctuary in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is "hiding in Pakistan in the northern tribal areas above Peshawar," says recently retired CIA officer Gary Schoen.

‘UK terror plot suspect was Jaish member before joining Al Qaeda’

‘UK terror plot suspect was Jaish member before joining Al Qaeda’

BAHAWALPUR: Rashid Rauf, identified by Pakistan as a key suspect in the alleged plot to blow up airliners bound for the US, was a member of a banned Pakistani militant organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad, before he joined Al Qaeda, said a senior member of the organisation said on Wednesday.

The father of Maulana Masood Azhar, head of the banned militant organisation fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, said that Rauf left Jaish-e-Mohammad to join rivals more interested in Al Qaeda’s anti-Western message.

“He was member of our group, but he left us and joined our rivals,” Hafiz Allah Buksh said at Jaish’s headquarters in Bahawalpur. “Our cause is Kashmir and their main cause is Afghanistan. They are anti-American, but we are not,” Buksh added.

Pakistani intelligence officials said Rauf was arrested in Bahawalpur on August 9, hours before British police detained 24 people suspected of being part of the alleged plot.

A phone call by Rauf from Bahawalpur triggered the decision made by the Pakistani, British and US intelligence agencies to launch raids to foil a conspiracy they had been monitoring since late last year, according to officials.

Under pressure from Washington, President Pervez Musharraf banned several militant groups, including Jaish in 2002. Officials said they were now hunting for an Al Qaeda operations commander who planned the attacks. reuters

UK police probe terror money trail(Jamaat al-Dawat)

UK police probe terror money trail

Investigators believe alleged plot tied to Asian quake relief

LONDON, England (CNN) -- British investigators believe some of the money raised to help victims of last year's earthquake in Pakistan may have been used to fund the alleged airliner terror plot.

In a separate development in the case, another man was arrested Tuesday in connection with the alleged plot to blow up commercial jetliners over the Atlantic, bringing the number in custody to 24, according to London's Metropolitan Police.

A U.S. government official said Tuesday that money trails have been a "major help" in several probes.

The official said the money was collected by a front group for the Pakistani charity Jamaat al-Dawat, which supports Islamic militants. A spokesman for the group has denied the allegations.

The funds are believed to have come from the group's network in Britain, and was not sent from Pakistan, British and U.S. investigators said.

The U.S. official also said it was his understanding that the charity being investigated by the British is a front for Jamaat al-Dawat, previously known as Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Twenty-four suspects in custody in Britain are being questioned about the alleged plot to use liquid explosives to blow up commercial airliners.

Jamaat al-Dawat provided aid and relief camps for victims of the October 8 earthquake that killed more than 73,000 in northwest Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

The United States deems Jamaat al-Dawat to be a terrorist organization because it is considered a successor to Lashkar-e-Taiba, labeled a terrorist group by the United States, Pakistan and India.

Lord Nasir Ahmed, a leader among British Pakistanis and a member of Britain's Parliament, told CNN that at least four of the alleged plotters traveled to Pakistan, telling their families they were going to help the quake victims.

When questioned, the relatives denied that any members of their families had links to any extremist group, Ahmed said.

New suspect

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Police said the new suspect was detained about 1 p.m. (8 a.m. ET) Tuesday in the Thames Valley area near London.

He was taken into custody under the Terrorism Act of 2000, which allows arrests of anyone suspected of being involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

Earlier Tuesday, British anti-terror investigators were given another day -- until Wednesday -- to hold 22 of the suspects; an extension for the 23rd person was granted Monday, a statement from New Scotland Yard said.

The extensions are procedural; police can hold terror suspects up to 28 days without filing formal charges.

"In all operations, some people may be released early without charge while others may remain in custody for further investigation," according to the statement.

"This is not unusual and is to be expected in large and complex criminal enquiries where a number of arrests have taken place."

Forest search

As part of the probe, investigators are searching for evidence of explosive tests in woods in High Wycombe, west of London, near where they arrested some of the suspects.

British security sources with knowledge of the investigation have revealed details about the alleged plot, and expressed confidence their searches would yield results that would stand up in court.

The British security sources told CNN they are confident evidence of explosives will be found, even as police conducted a detailed forensic examination of one suspect's residence. Photographs taken by a neighbor showed police removing plastic containers from the flat.

The security sources said the alleged plotters intended to use an electrical charge to detonate liquid explosives in planes as they flew at maximum cruising altitude over the Atlantic Ocean, thereby ensuring that investigators would have a tough time retrieving evidence.

The source described Rashid Rauf, who is being held without charge in Pakistan, as a leader of the group, and said that others being held in Pakistan played lesser roles.

Pakistan said Tuesday it may extradite Rauf to Britain, although no request had been received, according to The Associated Press.

But the British security sources also cast doubt on British and Pakistani media reports that the suspects have links to Matiur Rehman, one of Pakistan's most wanted men because of his explosives expertise and his alleged links to al Qaeda.

The British security sources suggested that some of the suspects being held may be released without charge. The sources said there may not be sufficient evidence to justify holding them. One person has already been released, leaving 23 people in British custody.

Level at 'severe'

On Monday British authorities lowered the terrorist threat alert by one level to "severe," but the security sources said it is unlikely that the level will soon drop further.

They said there is great concern about "copycats" attempting similar attacks.

The British security sources said the foiled plot was one of about a dozen that investigators were following, and that it got their undivided attention six weeks ago, when they determined that the attack plans were advanced.

MI5 officers who were following the movements of the suspects have already been redeployed to monitor dozens of other suspected terror cells around Britain, sources said.

The security sources estimate there are more than 1,200 individuals of concern across Britain.

According to a British intelligence official, the planned near-simultaneous attacks -- which one top U.S. official said were intended to be "a second September 11th" -- were foiled when a member of the country's Muslim community noticed an acquaintance acting suspiciously and went to authorities.

An undercover British agent then infiltrated the group to gather information, U.S. government officials told CNN.

The decision to lower the terrorist threat level from "critical" to "severe," came as London's Heathrow Airport, the world's busiest international airport, struggled to restore normal service after delays and cancellations caused by heightened security measures.

Airport delay problems stretched into their fifth day in Britain, prompting further frustration among airlines which accused the British government and airport authorities of mishandling the new security measures.

As cancellations and delays gripped Britain's major airports for a sixth day, the head of British Airways threatened to sue BAA, the country's largest airport operator, for financial compensation. (Full story)

CNN's Dan Rivers, Henry Schuster, Deborah Feyerick and Kelli Arena contributed to this report

New York Times: Pakistan safe haven for terrorists attacking Afghanistan

August 15, 2006

In Afghanistan, Lamenting Refuge for Militants Across Border

By CARLOTTA GALL

SHARANA, Afghanistan, Aug. 11 — In the memorial garden at the American military base in this dusty provincial town, the names of four Afghans — a soldier, two policemen and an intelligence officer — were recently added to the list of American soldiers who have died here since 2002.

The names are a sign that Afghan government forces are now bearing more of the burden for security in this eastern province, Paktika.

But they are also an indicator of how, in the nearly five years since Al Qaeda and the Taliban were chased from Afghanistan, the groups have continued operating from bases just across the border in Pakistan.

While the terrorist scare in London last week provided a fresh reminder to the United States and its allies of the threat from militant groups that have made Pakistan their home, the soldiers here did not need reminding. That threat has been constant, and it has largely frustrated American efforts to rebuild the country and bring peace and stability.

In Paktika itself, there are a few remote places where the Taliban have a foothold. Most of the insurgents filter across the border repeatedly from Pakistan, military commanders here said.

[On Sunday, five soldiers of the Afghan National Army were killed and six wounded in fierce fighting on Paktika’s border, the United States-led coalition reported. The clash, with a group of up to 20 insurgents occurred at Bormol, a frequent crossing point for insurgents.]

“The enemy is fighting hard, and we have to fight harder,” the commander of the American-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, told a unit of Afghan National Army soldiers on Friday as he toured their new, half-built barracks here.

“Since the fall of the Taliban, things have got better, but they are still hard,” he added. “In the next 10 years things will get better, but things will still be hard.”

Military and government officials in Afghanistan say they are resigned to the fact that establishing security and defeating the insurgency is going to take years, partly because the insurgents continue to enjoy a refuge in Pakistan’s turbulent tribal areas. Pakistani government efforts to combat them have largely failed.

“There is deep concern about the cross-border insurgency among Afghans and the international community,” said Samina Ahmed, the director of the International Crisis Group in Pakistan, an independent policy analysis group.

For their part, Afghans see that they still have much left to do, such as setting up and improving government administration in the rural areas and furthering reconstruction and security. But they also want to see more pressure on Pakistan, Ms. Ahmed said.

The issue has created tensions between Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, and Pervez Musharraf, the leader of Pakistan, who accuse each other of not doing more to contain militants in the region.

General Eikenberry would not comment on the cross-border problems because of the political nature of the issue.

During a day visit by helicopter to Sharana, the provincial capital, he pushed the mixed strategy that has been the hallmark of his two years in command in Afghanistan: encouraging American and Afghan soldiers who are doing the fighting and training, while urging Afghan government officials to do a better job in serving their people.

As much the politician as the military commander, he brought a group of Afghan ministers and communications officials with him. He shook hands and chatted with shopkeepers in the bazaar and spoke at the opening of a new government communications department.

“Now there is a cellphone service, you should ask the ministers here for their telephone numbers so that you can call them directly,” he told assembled elders during a visit to Sharana, the provincial capital. “But make sure you get the correct telephone numbers.”

“In four years the amount of change here is extraordinary,” he told them. He promised continued American commitment to bringing security and development to the province, which is one of the most impoverished in Afghanistan.

In an interview afterward, he conceded that one of Paktika Province’s 22 districts still remained outside government control, and that Taliban insurgents had the run of remote mountain areas where the rugged terrain and lack of roads have made it virtually impossible for the government to establish a presence.

“Where there are no roads, and no current funding, that is exactly the area where the Taliban is,” he said.

The provincial governor, Muhammad Akram Khapalwak, 35, in the job for only five months, said that two months ago things were far more perilous. American military units had been diverted to Helmand, new Afghan army units were rotating in and the police were still weak.

“We suffered a lot of problems two months ago,” he told General Eikenberry in a meeting. “Now we are stronger. We are able to attack the Taliban.”

There are other provinces in the south where the government’s hold remains precarious, General Eikenberry conceded.

Taliban insurgents have swarmed in large numbers into neighboring Ghazni, which lies just three hours from the capital, Kabul, and in the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan, where newly arrived NATO forces have taken casualties from a stronger-than-expected insurgent force.

“In those hard-to-get-to areas, we need a security presence and then good governance,” General Eikenberry said. The money, men and time needed to bring just this one province to order are significant, he said.

“But ask me, ‘Is the government of Afghanistan winning?’ I’d say ‘Yeah, there is steady progress.’ ”

Pakistani Charity Under Scrutiny in Plot(Jamaat ud Dawa, Lashkar-e-Toiba front)

New York Times

Pakistani Charity Under Scrutiny in Plot

By DEXTER FILKINS and SOUAD MEKHENNET

LONDON, Aug. 13 — British and Pakistani investigators are trying to determine whether the group of Britons suspected of plotting to blow up as many as 10 commercial airliners may have received money raised for earthquake relief by a Pakistani charity that is a front for an Islamic militant group.

The charity, Jamaat ud Dawa, which is active in the mosques of Britain’s largest cities, played a significant role in carrying out relief efforts after last October’s earthquake in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

It is one of the most militant of the groups battling the part of Kashmir controlled by India. In May, it was labeled a terrorist organization by the United States government.

British and Pakistani investigators are looking into the possibility that the group, whose name means the Association of the Call to Righteousness, passed the earthquake donations raised in British mosques to the plotters, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

One former Pakistani official close to the intelligence officials there said Jamaat ud Dawa provided the money that was to be used to buy plane tickets for the suspects to conduct a practice run as well as the attacks themselves. The money is believed to have come directly from the group’s network in Britain and was not sent from Pakistan, the former official said.

“The Pakistanis have been asked by the British to examine the links between Jamaat ud Dawa and the suspects in the airplane attack,” the former Pakistani official said.

According to a former British security official familiar with the investigation, some of the money raised in British mosques also went to the group’s militant activities in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Both the former Pakistani official and the former British official spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

On Wednesday, Pakistani officials detained Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the head of the organization.

On Sunday, a senior American law enforcement official said that the British police and intelligence officials had identified several suspected accomplices of the plotters who were believed to have provided support to the plot outside Britain. The new suspects were identified by checking the arrested men’s computers, the official said.

After the earthquake, which killed some 73,000 people, Jamaat ud Dawa raised funds in British Pakistani areas in London, Birmingham and Manchester. The group also urged British people of Pakistani origin to go to the region to help in the relief efforts, and hundreds did.

Several of the 23 suspects still in custody after the arrests by British police on Thursday — most of them Britons of Pakistani descent — traveled to Pakistan last year, ostensibly to help with earthquake relief efforts, said Nasir Ahmed, a leader among Britain’s Pakistanis and a member of the House of Lords.

Mr. Ahmed said he was not sure how many of the suspects rounded up last week had gone to Kashmir to help, but among those who had gone were the suspects arrested in High Wycombe, west of London. The former Pakistani official said several of the suspects had gone to Pakistan at the time of the earthquake.

The official declined to say whether the suspects were believed to have been organizers or people who had provided support, like passports and safe houses.

Mr. Ahmed said it was possible that those who went came into contact with the militant Islamic organizations that were doing the relief work on the Pakistani-controlled side of Kashmir, where most of the casualties were. Indeed, at the time, Jamaat ud Dawa was welcomed by people in the area for stepping in where the Pakistani government had failed. The group was praised as one of the few providing aid efficiently, while Muslims around the world complained that Pakistanis had been abandoned.

“In the first few days, it was only religious organizations, the militant organizations, that were prepared to dig out people and provide relief supplies,” Mr. Ahmed said. “It is possible that young people, many people, who have gone from U.K., may have fallen into hands of organizations like Jamaat Ud Dawa.”

As both a militant group and a social welfare organization, Jamaat ud Dawa resembles its brethren in other parts of the Muslim world, like Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States government shut down many Muslim charities that it said were financing militant activities.

No one from Jamaat ud Dawa could be located Sunday in Britain. Its Web site says the organization has provided food to some 54,000 families who were struck by the earthquake. It also claims to be “one of the most feared militant groups fighting in Kashmir.” The Web site displays a photograph of Mr. Saeed leading a demonstration protesting the United States government’s designation of his group as a terrorist organization.

The details of the suspected plot to blow up the airliners began to emerge Thursday, when the police in Britain detained 24 people. The authorities said the suspects, most of them British-born young men of Pakistani descent, intended to smuggle liquid-based explosives onto 9 or 10 commercial airliners headed for the United States and detonate them as they approached. British officials said the plot, had it been successful, could have killed thousands.

The day before, on Wednesday, the police in Pakistan had arrested a British-born man they said was linked to Al Qaeda. They say they have at least one other British man in custody and are looking for at least one other suspect.

American and Pakistani officials have long believed that Jamaat ud Dawa is the successor organization to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was banned in 2002 by the Pakistani government, under American pressure, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

It has called for holy war against the United States, India and Israel. Although it has avoided direct association with Al Qaeda, links between the groups have often surfaced. Abu Zubaida, the senior Qaeda member captured by Pakistani forces in the city Faisalabad in 2002, was found hiding in a safe house for Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Don Van Natta contributed reporting from New Jersey for this article.

Ahmed Rashid: Musharraf tries to appeal to both sides in Pakistan's war against the terrorists

Musharraf tries to appeal to both sides in Pakistan's war against the terrorists


By Ahmed Rashid in Lahore

(Filed: 12/08/2006)

First the good news: Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) co-operated for several months with MI5, monitoring the British-born Muslims allegedly involved in a plot to blow up transatlantic planes in mid-air.

ISI arrested at least seven suspects - five Pakistanis and two Britons - a week ago in Karachi and Lahore, which could well have alerted others in Britain to bring forward the timing of the alleged plot.

The bad news: five years after September 11, Pakistan's military regime has still not dealt with extremist Islamic groups that launch terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Kashmir and beyond.

President Pervez Musharraf's promise in 2001 to crack down on extremism has only been partly fulfilled. The madrassas that housed foreign militants five years ago have still not been tamed.

The good news: Pakistan helps to re-supply and support 4,300 British troops in Helmand, Afghanistan. Supplies of food, water, fuel and ammunition are shipped to Karachi port and then trucked to Quetta, from where they are put on Afghan trucks for the journey to Helmand.

Pakistan has not lost a single container belonging to the British army.

The bad news: Pakistan has still not clamped down on the Taliban leadership which is operating from Balochistan province, from where it recruits hundreds of fighters to kill British troops in Helmand.

In Balochistan the Taliban arranges to receive weapons and supplies paid for by the drugs trade. Meanwhile, on Pakistan's eastern border, groups of Kashmiri extremists banned after the al-Qa'eda attacks on America, have lately turned themselves into relief charities and continue their operations despite Pakistan's attempts to broker peace with India.

Pakistan's stop-start policy is a result of the military's long standing alliance with militant Islam that goes back to the war that liberated Bangladesh in 1971. In the 1990s with ISI working closely with the Taliban and Kashmiri extremists, elected governments floundered and al-Qa'eda established itself in Afghanistan.

Today the army is allied to Islamic parties, who have spawned these militant groups. Gen Musharraf will most likely ally with them again before elections are held in 2007.

The problem for agencies such as MI5 and the CIA is that Pakistan's co-operation on single cases such as the suspected Heathrow bomb plot is hugely welcome and productive. But with their intelligence agencies seduced by such assistance, Western governments are then reluctant to urge Gen Musharraf to carry out wider reforms that would slow down the spread of extremism in Pakistan.

After September 11 Gen Musharraf promised to dismantle the infrastructure that supports extremism in Pakistan and terrorism abroad, but only a few steps were taken.

That infrastructure run by groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed provides safe houses, cash, travel documents and other facilities to al-Qa'eda and the Taliban and sets up meetings with potential recruits, such as young men visiting from London

That was the case last year when at least two of the London Tube bombers may have got in touch with al-Qa'eda through Pakistani surrogates.

Pakistan is now awash with far more dangerous forms of Islamic extremism than ever existed before September 11. The leadership of al-Qa'eda, the Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and groups from Chechnya to Indonesia live along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

These groups have declared a large chunk of tribal territory a "sharia" state - that is a state practising Islamic law outside Pakistan's jurisdiction.

Anything goes here from stoning women to smashing TV sets. This Taliban style justice is spreading.

Pakistan needs to end extremism for the sake of its own population and so that it can become a genuine ally in the war on terrorism.

Intercepted call from Pakistan prompted UK arrests in terror plot

Intercepted call from Pakistan prompted UK arrests in terror plot

By The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - An intercept of a telephone call made from Pakistan to Britain that urged plotters to go ahead with attacks on U.S.-bound jetliners played a crucial role in foiling the alleged terror plan, Pakistani officials said Saturday. The arrest in Pakistan of a key suspect with alleged Al-Qaida links, British national Rashid Rauf, prompted an unidentified associate of his to make the call from Karachi to one of the suspects subsequently arrested in Britain, the officials said. "This telephone call intercept in Karachi and the arrest of Rashid Rauf helped a lot to foil the terror plan," a senior Pakistani security official said on condition of anonymity.

It wasn't clear exactly when the call was intercepted, but officials have said Rauf - one of at least two Britons of Pakistani descent arrested here - was nabbed about a week before the plot was busted in Britain on Thursday.

British security agency's informer in Pakistan with contacts with Rauf provided a tip that helped Pakistan arrest him, a Pakistani intelligence official also speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive subject matter.

A U.S. official disclosed, on condition of anonymity, that after the first arrests in Pakistan, word went from Pakistan to the London plotters to move ahead quickly, a message intercepted by an intelligence agency. That prompted British police to move in on the conspirators, long under watch.

The plotters allegedly planned to blow up as many as 10 jetliners flying to the United States from Britain. Pakistan says it played an "important role" in breaking the conspiracy in cooperation with British and U.S. agents.

Pakistan's government has confirmed the arrests of seven suspects here, and intelligence officials say 10 other people were detained Friday and were being questioned Saturday to determine their links to the alleged plot and where they had received financial support or any training.

An intelligence official familiar with the investigation confirmed the communication intercept, and said British agents had been monitoring the activities of Rauf's family since December. The official said one of the suspects caught in Britain and named by British authorities, Tayib Rauf, is a close relative of Rashid Rauf.

The man who made the call was "inexperienced" and he "alerted his associates about the arrest of Rashid Rauf, and asked them to go ahead" with the attacks, said the intelligence official, without confirming who the caller was and whether he too had been caught.

But the intelligence official said most men linked to the plot in Pakistan had been arrested, and only two or three suspects were still at large.

He said among them was Matiur Rahman, a senior figure in the Al-Qaida-linked Pakistani militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose name was mentioned by one of the detainees during interrogation. His possible role remains unclear.

Authorities in Pakistan have sought Rahman in connection with sectarian attacks on minority Shiite Muslims in Pakistan, in two failed attempts on the life of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, and attacks in Karachi against Westerners, the official said. Rahman is believed to have met with some Al-Qaida operatives in recent years, he added.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao on Saturday refused to share any information about Rahman's possible links to the failed London terror plot.

Pakistan government in a statement Friday described Rashid Rauf as a "key person" in the plot. It said there were "indications of Afghanistan-based Al-Qaida connection" in the case, but it did not give supporting evidence.

U.S. and Pakistani officials have not yet approached Afghan authorities on a possible link with al-Qaida in Afghanistan, said Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmed Baheen.

He said the government did not think it was necessary to investigate inside Afghanistan although it would cooperate if asked by the United States or Pakistan - its eastern neighbor which it accuses of harboring Taliban rebels.

"The source of terrorism is outside the country, and this means the international community and our neighbors, particularly Pakistan, should do more against terrorism," Baheen said.

Pakistan is a key ally of Britain and the U.S. in the war on terrorism and renounced its ties with the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks on America. In the past five years, it has captured hundreds of Al-Qaida fighters and arrested key figures in Osama bin Laden's terror network, but it remains of a hotbed for Islamic radicals.

Three of the four suicide attackers in the July 7, 2005, bombings on the London transport system that killed 52 people were British Muslims of Pakistani origin and had visited Pakistan before the attacks.

Terror pipeline flows to Pakistan

By Cam Simpson

Chicago Tribune

(MCT)

WASHINGTON - A small group of American "jihadists" uses paintball guns to conduct weapons training in the woods of northern Virginia. A 23-year-old Lodi, Calif., man is convicted of providing material support to terrorists. Extremists are arrested in raids across Australia before they can allegedly stage attacks in Sydney and Melbourne, the nation's two largest cities.

Increasingly, such seemingly disparate cases involving "homegrown" terror groups, share connections to one place: Pakistan.

The alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound, trans-Atlantic jetliners foiled by British officials adds another, and potentially more significant entry to the growing list. It could also add a dimension not seen since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in terms of scale, sophistication and leadership being provided from abroad for a seemingly local group of terrorist "self-starters," according to senior U.S. intelligence officials.

Until recently, many counterterrorism officials believed that extremist enclaves in Pakistan largely offered inspiration, ideological inculcation or even limited training for a new generation of militants living in the West who became radicalized or inspired by al-Qaida propaganda.

The potential lethality of these cells ranged from the apparently innocuous, such as the so-called paintball jihadists in Virginia, to the extreme, including the London transit bombers who killed themselves and 52 others last year.

But the nature of the alleged trans-Atlantic plot foiled last week, a scheme that appears to have required substantial technical expertise and detailed planning, suggests the "homegrown" groups that pose the greatest terrorism threat may now be receiving more significant support, if not direct coordination, from within Pakistan.

While much is still unknown, including whether there were any substantive ties between the alleged trans-Atlantic plotters and senior al-Qaida leaders hiding in Pakistan, current and former senior U.S. intelligence officials say Pakistan clearly serves as a bridge.

On one side are militants from the West who want to join the global jihad. On the other are more experienced extremists who can help fulfill those wishes, offer guidance, or even serve as conduits for senior al-Qaida lieutenants.

Pakistani officials alleged Friday that a key operative they arrested about one week earlier, whose capture helped unravel the plot, is linked to al-Qaida. But in making that claim about Rashid Rauf, a British national of Pakistani descent, officials in Pakistan did not provide details of his alleged connections.

A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Rauf's ties to al-Qaida were still being assessed, but determining the strength of the alleged link was of paramount importance.

"He's spoken to somebody, but we are not sure who," the intelligence official alleged of Rauf's communications with al-Qaida.

With or without direct ties to Osama bin Laden's terror network, Pakistan's status as a seemingly unshakeable haven for militants taking aim at targets in the West is likely to complicate the already delicate relationship Washington maintains with the regime of President Pervez Musharraf.

As the recent arrests of Rashid Rauf, a British national of Pakistani descent, and others show, Musharraf has been a key ally in fighting extremists. But those same arrests also prove his nation continues to offer redoubts for terrorists.

U.S. officials also are well aware that their support for Musharraf can endanger his power, or even his life. Extremists have twice tried to assassinate him since he began targeting militants inside Pakistan.

Citing a Pakistani connection to virtually every so-called homegrown terror cell that has recently come to light, a second senior intelligence official in Washington said one significant mystery remained: Are al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan recruiting would-be terrorists, or are the would-be militants going to Pakistan on their own to find guidance?

Clearly, the senior intelligence official said, there is evidence of a "reverse underground railroad" of militants flowing into Pakistan before returning home with a desire to sow mayhem.

But this senior intelligence official, who also agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, said there is still a possibility that "a trusted (al-Qaida) lieutenant" is actively seeking middlemen in Pakistan and beyond who can in turn feed the organization with willing operatives from the West.

The first intelligence official alleged that Rauf was clearly commanding the foiled London plot from within Pakistan, using computers and other means of communication. This intelligence official alleged that Rauf provided "direction, guidance, responsibility and authority."

This intelligence official also said the foiled plot might blur the lines investigators have constructed around terrorist cells - defining them as commanded by a traditional terror group, or as spontaneous and homegrown, inspired to answer bin Laden's call for global jihad within their communities.

"Are they homegrown if they are directed by somebody out of Pakistan versus them actually coming out of Pakistan?" the official asked. "It's a matter of how you define that."

Officials worldwide have been preoccupied for more than two years by a fear of terror groups consisting of "self-starters" - men who become radicalized on their own and decide to conduct operations without the support of an extremist network, or with only tenuous connections. Instead of taking orders from al-Qaida leaders, these terrorists act on what they believe is al-Qaida's behalf.

Although bin Laden has always seen the incitement of terrorism as one of his primary roles, al-Qaida has been viewed for the past couple of years as more of a global ideology than an actual terror network.

The March 11, 2004, synchronized bombings of trains at the height of rush hour in Madrid, attacks that left 192 people dead, were generally viewed as the first significant such assault.

Whether there was direct al-Qaida involvement in the foiled trans-Atlantic plot, the growing sophistication of the new terror cells holds frightening potential, said Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA unit assigned to hunt bin Laden.

"I really do think that that's one of the most disturbing things - that these homegrown cells obviously have had a learning curve," Scheuer said in a phone interview. "This was a very, very well thought-out plan. . . . It wasn't a pickup squad. There were a lot of moving parts."

John McLaughlin, the Bush administration's former acting chief of Central Intelligence, said in a phone interview that he believes there is a viable al-Qaida network existing along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan - and that it's drawing militants from across the globe.

"There is still a place where these local guys can go - whether they are from Toronto or Madrid or London - someplace where they can go and . . . come into contact with people who work for al-Qaida," McLaughlin said of the border area.

He said he is persuaded by recent evidence that two of the four London transit bombers received more than basic training at militant camps in Pakistan.

Martyrdom videos capturing the last wishes of two of the bombers were released by al-Qaida in July, to coincide with the one-year-anniversary of the attack. They strongly suggested to McLaughlin "that there was some role of central leadership for al-Qaida" in the plot, he said, adding: "They were in touch with someone in Pakistan who was able to help them think through and carry out the plot."

Musharraf has repeatedly dismissed ties between his nation and global terror plots, although current and former intelligence officials say his claims are politically based and demonstrably false.

In the wake of London's train bombings he declared that his security services had "completely shattered al-Qaida's vertical and horizontal links and smashed its communication and propaganda setup. Therefore, it is absolutely baseless to say that al-Qaida has its headquarters in Pakistan, and that terror attacks in other parts of the world in any way originate from our country."

But several homegrown plots also have been uncovered or alleged by authorities around the globe with links to Pakistan.

Eleven men were charged in the Virginia case for allegedly training with Laskar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group long designated as an al-Qaida affiliate by the U.S. Nine were convicted and two were acquitted.

Hamid Hayat, of Lodi, Calif., was convicted in April of providing material support to terrorists after training with militants in Pakistan. At least one of 17 suspects arrested late last year in Australia, during raids in which authorities seized precursor chemicals and instructions for manufacturing explosives similar to those suspected in the transatlantic plot, also allegedly trained with Pakistani militants.

---

© 2006, Chicago Tribune.

Lashkar-i-Taiba implicated in UK terror plot

UK national gave lead to thwart plot By Syed Irfan Raza, Munawer Azeem & Ismail Khan
ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR, Aug 11: A British national, Rashid Rauf, who was arrested by an intelligence agency provided a lead to thwart the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights, sources said.

The sources said Rashid Rauf was father of Tayyab Rauf, a suspect who was arrested in United Kingdom last year in connection with 7/7 London train blasts.

During interrogation, the suspect unveiled the terrorism plot aiming to destroy at least ten passenger aircraft in the UK, the sources said.

They said the information was shared with the UK Home Land Security department that resulted in a raid in which 21 suspects were arrested in London on Thursday.

The links of the arrested suspect could not be confirmed, but the sources said intelligence agencies had put four Islamic organisations on the watch list, they included two UK-based outfits Al Mahajroon and Hizbul Tehrir, and two Pakistani organisations Lashkar-i-Taiba and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

The arrested suspect was stated to be under surveillance and his telephones calls and internet communications were being monitored for the last six months, the sources said.

The security agencies have so far arrested nine suspects and seven of them were netted on Friday from different parts of the country, including Islamabad, for their alleged links with the London terrorism plot. Three of the suspects were caught from Islamabad Airport on Friday morning, but their identification and details of their destinations could not be ascertained.

The sources said four suspects were apprehended from a village near Jhelum in a raid that was conducted on the information of the British High Commission in Islamabad.

Out of the seven suspects, two have been identified as Mohammad Al Ghadar and Ahmed Al Khan.

The UK government had arrested some 21 suspects from London on Thursday allegedly involved in the plot.

Sources said that several of plotters had travelled to Pakistan within the last couple weeks and had met at least one suspected Al Qaeda operative, most likely Mr Rashid Rauf.

Sources said the MI 5, which is responsible for operations within the UK had identified the suspect and his trail was later picked up by the ISI and Britain’s external espionage service MI 6, when he left the UK and was put under surveillance.

These sources said that the plotters were planning to carry out a dry run of the operation in the next days when they were rounded up. Had the dry run that included an attempt to board the flights at the same time proved successful, they were to carry out the real attacks within days of the dry run, these sources said.

Sources added that some Pakistanis had also been detained in connection with the airline terror plot and efforts were being made to get others still at large.

They said they were also trying to figure out who were the others the plotters or the key suspect got in touch with during their stay in Pakistan and retrace their steps. “It has all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda and Mr Rauf has had linkages across the border in Afghanistan,” the source said.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, while talking to a group of reporters on Friday, confirmed the arrests of some suspects but he was reluctant to disclose their identifications and links. “If we disclose their names at this stage, it would harm the investigations,” he said.

He said Pakistan was fully cooperating with the UK in the arrests of suspects and investigation of the case to shatter the network involved in the UK terrorism plot.

Wall Street Journal: Pakistan Stays a Terrorism Source

Airline Terror Plot: Pakistan Stays a Terrorism Source --- Extremist Islamic Groups Rooted in Kashmir Dispute Join Attacks Against West

By Jay Solomon

12 August 2006

The Wall Street Journal

Five years after the U.S. began counterterrorism operations inside Pakistan, the country remains a principal center for terrorist training globally, say intelligence and counterterrorism officials in the U.S., Central Asia and Middle East.

Over the past year alone, the U.S., Lebanon, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom have arrested suspected militants who either had trained in Pakistan, or were preparing to do so -- most recently in what British authorities said was a London-based plot they interrupted that would have attacked U.S.-bound airliners.

British officials have categorized 24 suspects they arrested Thursday as "homegrown" terrorists radicalized while living inside the U.K. But there is evidence the suspects had ties to Pakistan, and some had traveled there recently. A U.S. official said some of the conceptualizing for the plot had occurred in Pakistan.

Pakistan is a nexus for extremist Islamic groups, many of which grew out of militant groups active in Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region Pakistan and India have fought over since 1947. "If you're in southeast London, who is your first point of contact if you want to get into terrorism?. . . . You make contact with Kashmiri groups," said Hussain Haqani, a Boston University expert on Pakistan who has advised three Pakistani prime ministers.

Pakistan's role as a terrorist breeding ground is a legacy of both tensions with its neighbor and rival, India, and of the distortions that the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union forced on the region. In recent years, groups that emerged from those conflicts appeared to blur with al Qaeda and assume its mission of attacking the West. They also have helped to fracture Pakistan, an autocracy that Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, attempts to rule without a popular mandate.

Pakistan's troubles mirror in many ways the role Lebanon has played in destabilizing the Middle East in recent months. In both countries, pro-Western governments have been undercut by militants largely operating outside their direct control. In Pakistan's case, the main forces are the Taliban, the Islamists who once ruled Afghanistan, and al Qaeda; in Lebanon's, it is Hezbollah. In both countries, as well, elements in the security services have sympathized, if not cooperated, with these extremist groups.

Mr. Haqani and other Pakistan experts also say they believe elements of the country's intelligence service keep in contact with militant groups. Those links came under scrutiny in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. The Bush administration showered Pakistan with aid and military hardware, including recently approved F-16 fighter jets, in exchange for Gen. Musharraf's tolerance of U.S. military activities in Afghanistan and help in arresting al Qaeda operatives in his country.

But despite Islamabad's arrest of more than 600 militants over the past five years, Pakistan keeps producing extremists.

Last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that it broke up a seven-nation al Qaeda cell that was plotting to bomb underground subway stations and other infrastructure inside the U.S. Among the masterminds of the plot, said the FBI and Lebanese government, was a 31-year-old Beirut-based economics teacher, Assem Hammoud, who was detained in Lebanon with detailed maps of U.S. infrastructure. Lebanese officials say Mr. Hammoud was communicating with operatives ranging from Syria to Iran via the Internet and was set to fly to Pakistan for munitions training.

"We arrested him two days before he was supposed to begin" in Pakistan, said the chief of Lebanon's police forces, Major Gen. Achraf Rifi, in an interview. "He was then to move to Canada" to begin executing the plot, he said.

Another alleged terrorist plot involving the Internet and multiple countries also was tied directly to training camps in Pakistan, say counterterrorism officials in the U.S. and the U.K. In June, Canadian authorities arrested a cell of alleged Islamist militants in Toronto after monitoring the Internet traffic they posted through a London-based Web-site operator. The Toronto arrests were tied to a global investigation that also involved suspected militants operating in Bosnia, Denmark, the U.K. and Atlanta.

As the investigation broadened, U.K. police arrested two ethnic-Pakistani men in Manchester airport on terrorism-related charges in June. One of the men, 21-year-old Abed Khan, was charged with threatening to use explosives and poisons as part of a terrorist plot. An official working on the investigation said Mr. Khan had been trained in Pakistan's tribal areas. "More and more we're seeing people going to Pakistan for munitions training," said the official. "The camps that were in Afghanistan have moved to Pakistan."

Members of President Hamid Karzai's government in Afghanistan also assert that militants operating inside their country are trained in Pakistan. They apparently draw inspiration from another theater of violence: Their attacks have grown increasingly lethal, as Pakistan-based militants employ many of the same suicide attacks that are common in Iraq. They also have been developing the same improvised-explosive devices that Sunni militants have been using against U.S. military targets in Iraq.

"Pakistan needs to do a lot more to combat the activities of the Taliban" and other groups, said Afghanistan's ambassador to Washington, Tayeb Jawad, in an interview last month. "Pakistan is also a victim of this . . . I hope the generals of Pakistan realize this."

Pakistani officials, in turn, say it is Afghanistan that remains the terrorist breeding ground. Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., told reporters Friday that he thought that the London terrorist plot had roots in al Qaeda affiliates in Afghanistan. "There are no training camps in Pakistan for jihad," he said.

The continuing links to terrorism in Pakistan draw sharp criticism from many counterterrorism officials and South Asia experts. Gen. Musharraf has constantly stressed that his government has done more than any other country to combat al Qaeda, and cites the numbers of arrests and the fierce battles waged by Pakistani troops against militants in the tribal areas. He also has described how difficult it is for Islamabad to fully control some border areas, which have traditionally been autonomously run under tribal law.

Gen. Musharraf himself has been the victim of two attempted assassination attempts since 2003. In both cases, elements of Pakistan's armed force conspired with militant Islamist groups, say Pakistani officials.

Still, many counterterrorism officials say Islamabad's failings against terrorism stem from its continuing attempt to differentiate between al Qaeda and the Kashmir-focused groups it has trained to fight against India for decades.

Letting these groups flourish inside Pakistan, say counterterrorism officials, has served as a magnet for self-starting militants from Europe and the Middle East that continue to seek out training. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri group, often trains these aspiring terrorists themselves, or puts them directly in contact with al Qaeda. This is seen as the process that brought some of the July 7, 2005, London bombers in contact with al Qaeda militants last year.

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Shahid Shah contributed to this article.

Pakistan can’t start direct flights to US(US doesn't trust security arrangements)

Pakistan can’t start direct flights to US

By Irfan Ghauri

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan cannot start direct flights to the United States because the US has reservations about security arrangements at Pakistani airports, Parliamentary Secretary Syed Tanveer Hussain told the National Assembly during the Question Hour on Friday.

Although Pakistan has made elaborate security arrangements at all airports, US authorities are not satisfied with them, he said, adding that the US would help Pakistan enhance security at all Pakistani airports.

To a question, the secretary said that one ATR plane had arrived to replace Pakistan International Airlines’ (PIA) grounded Fokker planes, while six more ATR planes would arrive by June 2007.

Agencies add: Hussain also told the assembly that steps had been taken to make the PIA a profitable organisation.

To another question, Hussain said the government would encourage private sector to set up cold storages at major airports of the country to facilitate exports of agricultural products.

Quake money used to finance UK plane bombing plot

Quake money’ used to finance UK plane bombing plot

* Funds given to two British citizens of Kashmiri origin and an Islamabad-based Kashmiri builder
* ‘Earthquake relief’ money remitted to individuals alarmed British agencies

By Sarfaraz Ahmed and Maqbool Ahmed

KARACHI: A UK-based Islamic charity organisation remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, in December last year with the sole purpose of helping its recipients and their organisations carry out the aircraft bombing plan in the UK, insider sources told Daily Times yesterday.

An investigation carried out by Daily Times showed that Muslim Charity of UK remitted not so long ago a huge amount of money under the head of “earthquake relief” to the accounts of three individuals in three different banks — Saudi Pak Bank, Standard Chartered and Habib Bank Ltd. One of these banks is UK based and has its presence in Azad Kashmir because of a huge number of British citizens of Kashmir origin in UK. The money was transferred from UK to banks in Azad Kashmir through Barclays Plc..

Two of the recipients of the transaction are British citizens of Kashmir origin while the third is an Islamabad-based builder, also of Kashmir origin. They were arrested in the last two weeks at three different places in the country. One of them was arrested in Karachi, the “builder” was arrested in Islamabad while the place of the arrest of the third suspect is still not known. There are no available details about these three suspects with regard to their links with organisations such as Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba or both.

Pakistani FIA investigators were apparently tipped off by the British authorities about the fund transfers and asked to investigate. Following their arrests the three suspects revealed some key elements of the aircraft bombing plan during interrogations by various agency personnel, who were also aided by at least one expert specialising in money laundering. The Pakistani and British investigators were able to discover how operatives at both ends had raised and moved their funds around. These investigations also established that it was due to the prompt and successful operation of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, particularly the FIA, that the world was saved from a fate worse than 9/11.

“Had we been even slightly complacent, the perpetrators of this plot might have been able to carry out their operations without little or no problem in the UK because of two broad reasons,” said a senior government official, who was privy to the inquiry carried out by Pakistani agencies following the receipt of a tip from UK’s National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit in June this year.

First, he said, “Pakistani anti-terrorism agency counterparts abroad have been showing a lot of trust in our skills and abilities and none of our reports has so far been challenged by them.” Second, he added, any delay on the part of the Pakistan agencies in acquiring and relaying this information would have cost the NTFIU dearly for it was desperate to know the outcome of Pakistan’s inquiry report in order to determine whether or not to ask the UK authorities to declare a “red alert” in the country. Giving details, the official said the NTFIU, which reportedly plays a central role in informing and implementing British government policy on terrorist finance and is an integral part of the UK’s intelligence structure targeting terrorist finance, had asked Pakistani authorities to carry out a “highly discreet” inquiry on some money transfers.

According to the NTFIU, a huge amount of money had been transferred from Britain to Azad Kashmir for quake relief efforts two months after the quake caused devastation. “Neither the amount nor the purpose for which money was sent caused any concern in the British investigation unit,” said the senior official. “What raised alarm among British sleuths specialising in finances was the fact that the entire money was remitted to three individuals, not to any organisation or organisations involved in the relief work.”

The official, who refused to disclose the amount, however said that the entire transaction was in pound sterling. “It is up to you to deduce. What I can say is that it was a huge amount. Had it not been gone into the accounts of individual, nobody would have been bothered,” he said.

A senior Pakistani banker who has successfully dealt with a number of money laundering cases told Daily Times on condition of anonymity that the UK has had extensive experience of tracking, disrupting and undermining the finances of terrorist networks and continues to develop new ways in which such targeting and disruption can be effectively achieved. In this case too, the UK Unit’s expertise provided immense guidance to Pakistani sleuths to uncover the plot, he added. Another senior official told Daily Times that the Pakistani agencies have in recent months been able to effect significant seizures of terrorist cash and identify and disrupt terrorist fundraising activity.

According to him, all banks, including multinationals, and financial institutions have been cooperating fully in seeking out sources of terrorist funding since 9/11. “This was mainly due to the cooperation of the three banks through which money was transferred to these suspects,” the official said, and added that one of the most significant features contributing to the success of this case was increased integration between key bodies involved, ranging from government, law enforcement and regulatory bodies at home and abroad.

Italy arrests Pakistanis for funding Lashkar-e-Toiba

Italy Arrests 40 in Security Crackdown

By FRANCES D'EMILIO
Associated Press Writer

August 11, 2006, 4:14 PM EDT

ROME -- Police raided Internet cafes, money-transfer offices and long-distance phone call centers catering to Muslims and arrested 40 people in a crackdown linked to Britain's announcement it had thwarted an alleged terror plot, authorities said Friday.

The arrests in Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence, Naples and other cities on Thursday and Friday were "part of an extraordinary operation that followed the British anti-terrorist operation," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

More than 4,100 people were stopped for identification checks, the ministry said.

Twenty-eight people were arrested for violating rules on residence permits and 12 were arrested for property crimes, the statement said, without giving details. The raids resulted in 114 expulsion orders.

A year ago, a similar security sweep in Italy at money transfer centers, Muslim butcher shops and similar places resulted in 141 arrests. Those raids came a few weeks after the London subway attacks.

On Friday, police also searched 15 homes occupied mostly by Pakistanis in several Italian cities as part of a Belgian police probe into suspected financing of terrorism, the ministry said.

That operation captured documents and led to three expulsion orders of foreigners who had irregular residence papers.

Italian authorities said Belgian police are investigating a group of Pakistanis suspected of financing Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a Pakistan-based terrorist group believed to have ties to al-Qaida.

The latest raids targeting Muslims in Italy triggered the ire of a spokeswoman for the Islamic Anti-Defamation League in Italy.

"More than 4,000 people were stopped and humiliated to allow police to arrest 12 chicken thieves and 28 clandestine" migrants, the Italian news agency Apcom quoted spokeswoman Dacia Valent as saying.

F-16s sold to Pakistan will be without technology to to penetrate the airspace of another country which was highly defended

Defence deal emerges unscathed from congressional review period

Published: Monday, 31 July, 2006, 12:59 PM Doha Time

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration’s plan to sell 36 F-16 jets and other equipment to Pakistan has emerged unscathed from a congressional review period.
The $5.1bn package, officially notified to Congress on June 28, is considered the largest US arms sale to Pakistan.
The lawmakers had 30 days to reject the offer. The deadline expired on Friday.
Without a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to kill the sale, it is automatically approved under the laws governing international arms sales.
“We’ve worked closely with Congress and we think we’ve smoothed out a few of the difficulties that we’ve faced there on procedures that we use,” said US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher.
“We’re moving ahead with the sale which we think is very important to our ties and to Pakistan’s needs.”
The deal can now only be blocked if it is a two-thirds vote against it in the House and Senate. Otherwise, it will stand automatically approved under US laws governing international sales.
The challenge by two Democratic House members who introduced legislation to scuttle the deal did not gather much support.
The 36 aircraft worth $5bn are manufactured by the Lockheed Martin Corp, but the transaction will also benefit a number of other companies, including Raytheon, Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
During last week’s hearing on F-16s to Pakistan, State Department Assistant Secretary John F Hillen said the aircraft being given to Pakistan will not have the capability to be used in offensive ways to penetrate the airspace of another country which was highly defended, nor will the aircraft be “nuclear capable.”
The official’s answer, which went largely unnoticed by the media, was made to a question from California congressman Dana Rohrabacher. It showed that the F-16s being sold to Pakistan would be stripped of key technologies.
Rohrabacher asked what would happen to the US-supplied high-tech equipment if Pakistan falls like the Shah of Iran.
In response, Hillen noted that despite the public notification, US F-16 Block C/D approved for the Pakistan Air Force would be stripped of several key technologies that would otherwise be part of the package to prevent the aircraft from being used for “offensive purposes.”
He essentially said that the F-16s sold to Pakistan would basically be unable to launch attacks into well-defended foreign airspaces.
Hillen said: “I would note, Mr Rohrabacher, that in our structure of the sale, I referred to before a set of documents never before shared in an arms notification process, between the executive branch and Congress that I made the decision to share.
“And it enumerated the technologies were not that would usually go with an F-16, that are not part of this deal. And they include ones that would allow the F-16 to be used in offensive ways to penetrate airspace of another country that was highly defended. So, I think that’s worth noting.” – Internews