‘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