AL QAEDA IN GHQ,RAWALPINDI
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.335
B.RAMAN
Since 9/11, there has been hardly any jihadi terrorist strike anywhere in the world in which there was no Pakistani connection.
2. Since 2002, there has been hardly any jihadi terrorist strike in Pakistani territory in which there was no connection of the GeneralHeadquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army. By GHQ, one does not mean the entire army. One means some elements in the GHQ.
3. The first wake-up call about the possible presence of one or more sleeper cells of Al Qaeda in Rawalpindi came in March,2003, whenKhalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), who allegedly orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, was found living in the house of a woman'swing office-bearer of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Rawalpindi. She had relatives in the army, including an officer of a Signal Regiment.
4. The second wake-up call came after the two attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003.ThePakistani authorities have not so far taken their public into confidence regarding the details of the two plots.All that they admitted wasthat four junior officers of the Army and six of the Air Force were allegedly involved. One of the army officers named Islamuddin wascourt-martialed and sentenced to death even before the investigation was complete. Another army officer named Havaldar Younis wassentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment. Much to the discomfiture of the authorities, one of the Air Force officers, a civilian,who wasbeing held in custody in an Air Force station, managed to escape.
5.There are still many unanswered questions about the conspiracy to kill Musharraf. Who took the initiative in planning this conspiracy? Thearrested junior officers of the Army and the Air Force or the leaders of the suspected jihadi organisations? When was the conspiracyhatched? How did Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Intelligence Directorates-General of the Army and the Air Force remainunaware of this conspiracy despite the fact that the conspirators had allegedly held some of their preparatory meetings in their livingquarters in military cantonments and Air Force stations? Was there a complicity of some in the intelligence establishment itself? If so, atwhat level? Why was the Government unable to identify those in the intelligence establishment involved in the conspiracy? Was there aninvolvement of the Hizbut Tehrir?
6.These questions re-surfaced in the wake of the arrest of Abu Faraj al-Libi of Al Qaeda and the re-arrest of the civilian employee of the AirForce involved in the conspiracy, who had managed to escape from custody in November,2004, while under interrogation. That there wereapprehensions in the minds of those close to Musharraf over the role of sections of the intelligence establishment in the entire conspiracyand over the failure of the investigating agencies to unravel the entire conspiracy became evident from an interview given by Dr.AamirLiaqat Hussain, the then Minister of State for Religious Affairs, to the "Daily Times" on May 5,2005.
7.The Minister warned that Musharraf had a lot of enemies ‘within’ who could make an attempt on his life again at any time. He said thatthere were certain elements within the forces who could attack the General. He added: “No common people could attack PresidentMusharraf, but certainly there are elements in the forces who can launch yet another attack against him. There is an ISI within the ISI,which is more powerful than the original and still orchestrating many eventualities in the country.” He added that he feared a threat to hisown life because he supported Musharraf's call for an enlightened and moderate Islam and had been given the task of preparing the textsof sermons advocating enlightened and moderate Islam to be used at all mosques of the Armed Forces.
8.Well-informed sources in Pakistan said that apart from the failure of the intelligence establishment to identify and weed out the pro-jihadielements in the Armed Forces and the intelligence establishment, another cause for serious concern was the continuing failure of theintelligence establishment to identify all the Pakistani leaders of the highly secretive Hizbut Tehrir (HT) and its supporters in the ArmedForces and arrest them.The HT ideology and operational methods were imported into Pakistan from the UK by its supporters in thePakistani community in the UK in 2000. It was said that within five years it was able to make considerable progress not only in setting up itsorganisational infrastructure, but also in recruiting dedicated members in the civil society as well as the Armed Forces. It was also reportedthat no other jihadi organisation had been able to attract as many young and educated members and as many supporters in the ArmedForces as the HT.
9.Physical security regulations in an office of the ISI at Rawalpindi exempt officers of the rank of Brigadier and above coming in their ownvehicle from frisking at the outer gate. They undergo a frisking only after they have entered the premises, parked their car in the spaceallotted to them in the garage and then enter the building in which their office is located. Officers below the rank of Brigadier undergofrisking twice, whether they are in their own vehicle or in a bus ----at the outer gate and again inside before they enter the building. At theouter gate, they have to get out of their vehicle, undergo frisking and then get into their vehicle and drive in.
10. Since all officers travel in civilian clothes in unmarked vehicles, which cannot be identified with the Army or the ISI, there is a special hand signalling system for Brigadiers and above by which the security staff at the outer gate can recognise their rank and let them drive inwithout undergoing frisking. This hand signalling is changed frequently.
11. On the morning of November 24, 2007, a car reached the outer gate and the man inside showed a hand signal, which was in use till theprevious day. It had been changed on November 23 and a new signal was in force from the morning of November 24, 2007. He was notaware of it. The security staff got suspicious and did not allow the car to drive in. They asked the man driving it to get out for questioningand frisking. He blew himself up.
12. As he did so, an unmarked chartered bus carrying over 40 civilian and junior military employees of the ISI reached the outer gate andstopped so that those inside can get out for frisking. The bus bore the brunt of the explosion, which caused the death of about 35persons---- from among those inside the bus as well as the security staff. The Pakistani authorities admitted the death of only 18 persons.
13. Around the same time, a man driving a vehicle towards the premises of the GHQ in another part of Rawalpindi was stopped by thesecurity staff at a physical security barrier. He blew himself up killing two of the security staff. These two well-synchronised suicide strikesin Rawalpindi, the sanctum sanctorum of Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment, came about six weeks after a similar attacktargeting the ISI and the Army at Rawalpindi at the same time. On September 4, 2007. a suicide attacker blew himself up after boarding abus carrying ISI employees. A roadside bomb went off near a commercial area in Rawalpindi, while a car carrying an unidentified seniorArmy officer to the GHQ was passing. Twenty-five persons died in the two attacks. The Army officer escaped unhurt. On October 30, 2007, asuicide bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint several hundred yards from the GHQ killing seven persons, most of the from the securitystaff.
14.The two attacks directed at the ISI and another at a Pakistan Air Force bus at Sargodha were based on inside information. In the case ofthe explosion at the outer gate of the ISI complex on November 24, 2007, the suicide bomber was aware of the hand signalling code forBrigadiers and above. However, he was not aware that the signal code had been changed the previous day. Since these codes arecommunicated personally to Brigadiers and above, their existence is supposed to be known only to Brigadiers and above and the physicalsecurity staff. The suicide bomber's inside accomplice was either an ISI officer of the rank of Brigadier or above or a member of the physicalsecurity staff.
15. There are two alarming aspects of the security situation in Pakistan. The first is the upsurge in acts of suicide terrorism directed againstsecurity and intelligence personnel and their establishments. These give clear evidence of the penetration of pro-Al Qaeda jihadi elementsinside the Armed Forces, the intelligence agencies and the Police. The second is the inability or unwillingness of the Police to vigorouslyinvestigate these incidents, including the attempt to kill Mrs. Benazir Bhutto in Karachi on October 18,2007. Nobody knows definitively tilltoday who are responsible for these suicide attacks---- tribal followers of Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan or those of Maulana Fazlullahof the Swat Valley or the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the anti-Shia sectarian organisation, or Al Qaeda and its Uzbek associates or the angrystudents of the two madrasas run by the Lal Masjid in Islamabad?
16. The Rawalpindi cantonment where the headquarters of the Army and other sensitive units of the Pakistan Army and the ISI are located,and the adjoining Islamabad, the capital, where the headquarters of the federal Government and the National Assembly are located, hadseen terrorist strikes even in the past. Amongst them, one could mention the 1989 explosion in the Rawalpindi office of Dr. Farooq Haider,the then President of one of the factions of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which was attributed to a rival faction led byAmanullah Khan; the explosion outside the Egyptian Embassy at Islamabad in the 1990s, which was attributed to some Egyptian opponentsof President Hosni Mubarak; the grenade attack inside an Islamabad church frequented by the diplomatic community in March 2002 inwhich the wife of a US diplomat and their daughter were killed; the unsolved assassination of Maulana Azam Tariq, the Amir of theSipah-eSahaba, Pakistan, the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, at Islamabad in 2003, the terrorist attack on a a group of workers ofthe Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto in Islamabad earlier this year, the alleged firing of a rocket on Musharraf's plane fromthe terrace of a house in Islamabad again earlier this year and the alleged firing of rockets by unidentified elements from a park inIslamabad last year.
17. If one leaves aside the JKLF factional politics, the only terrorist organisations which had operated in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi area inthe past (before July 2007) were the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), which was blamed for the church grenade attack; the Sipah Mohammad, theShia terrorist organisation, which was suspected in the murder of Azam Tariq; and Al Qaeda. Many Pakistani and Kashmiri jihadiorganisations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Hizbul Mujahideen, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) etc have their offices in Rawalpindi, butdo not indulge in terrorist activities there.
18. There was no evidence to show that the Egyptians responsible for the explosion outside the Egyptian Embassy were then the followersof Osama bin Laden. The first indication of some local support for Al Qaeda in Rawalpindi came in March, 2003, when Khalid SheikhMohammad (KSM), supposedly the man who co-ordinated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, was arrested from the house of a women's wingleader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) in Rawalpindi by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI).
19. KSM was living in Karachi till September, 2002, when he fled from there to Quetta in Balochistan following the arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh,another Al Qaeda operative there. From Quetta, he shifted to Rawalpindi in the beginning of 2003, fearing betrayal by the Shias of Quetta. After his arrest, no thorough enquiries would appear to have been made either by the ISI or the Police to determine why he took shelter inRawalpindi, a highly guarded military cantonment. Did he and/or Al Qaeda have any other accomplices in Rawalpindi, in addition to the JEIleader and the members of her family, who included one junior Army officer belonging to a signals battalion, who was also detained forinterrogation? Did Al Qaeda or the Pakistani organisations allied to it in the International Islamic Front (IIF) have a sleeper cell or cells in thecantonment? If they had, the sleeper cells could have functioned undetected only with the complicity of at least some in the Armed Forces.
20. After the arrest and the handing-over of KSM to the US, anti-Musharraf and pro-jihadi pamphlets typed on the official letter-head used inthe army offices in the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi started circulating in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The ISI and the Policewere unable to determine who was circulating these pamphlets and no arrests were made in this connection. Instead, a leader of the NawazSharif-led faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, who drew the attention of the Parliament and the public to these pamphlets, was orderedto be arrested by Musharraf on a charge of treason.
21. After the April, 2003, arrest in Karachi of Waleed bin Attash of Al Qaeda, one of the suspects in the case relating to the Al Qaeda attackon the US naval ship USS Cole at Aden in October, 2000, many of the Al Qaeda members living in Karachi were reported to have shifted tothe North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Balochistan , the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Rawalpindi.
22. Their shifting to Rawalpindi and taking shelter there would not have been possible without the complicity of not only the Pakistani jihadigroups, but also supporters in the Armed Forces and the police. The Pakistani security agencies have not been able to identify anddismantle Al Qaeda and IIF cells in the Rawalpindi cantonment. The fact that the perpetrators of the two attacks of December,2003, onMusharraf , whether they belonged to Al Qaeda or to any of the Pakistani components of the IIF, chose to act on both the occasions fromRawalpindi instead of Karachi where Musharraf was before the first attack on December 14 showed their confidence in being able tooperate undetected from Rawalpindi rather than from Karachi.
23. I do not believe Musharraf had prior knowledge of the plot to kill Benazir in Rawalpindi. But he has to be held responsible for failing toprovide effective physical security to her. He and his officers kept disregarding her growing fears about threats to her security. He failed toensure a vigorous investigation of the first attempt to kill her at Karachi on October,18,2007.
24. The infiltration of traditional fundamentalist political parties into the GHQ started under the late Zia-ul-Haq. Since Musharraf took over,there has been an infiltration of Al Qaeda into the Pakistani Armed Forces and into their sactum sanctorum in Rawalpindi. These elementsare against Musharraf too, but they were much more against Benazir because of the fact that she was a woman and she had been sayingopenly that she would allow the US to hunt for bin Laden in Pakistani territory and the International Atomic Energy Agency at Vienna tointerrogate A.Q.Khan, the nuclear scientist. Al Qaeda and the pro-Al Qaeda jihadis wanted to eliminate both Musharraf and her because theywere seen as apostate and as collaborators of the US.
25. They have succeeded in killing her. They will now step up their efforts to eliminate Musharraf. Whoever was responsible for killing hercould not have done it without inside complicity. If Al Qaeda is already having sleeper cells in the GHQ, there is an equal danger that italready has sleeper cells inside Pakistan's nuclear establishment too.
26. Musharraf is either knowingly dishonest or is living in a make-believe world of his own, unaware of the ground realities. Only a few daysbefore Benazir's assassination, he was bragging to officer trainees in the Defence Services Staff College in Quetta that he had defeated theterrorists outside the tribal belt and would soon be defeating them in the tribal belt too. His reluctance to order an enquiry into the extent ofinfiltration of Al Qaeda into the GHQ is disturbing. He has convinced himself that not only he is the most popular leader of Pakistan, but alsothat the entire Armed Forces are devoted to him. Anybody who says otherwise is treated by him as a traitor, arrested and harassed.
27. It is high time he and the US realise that Al Qaeda is not just in the tribal belt. It is right under their nose in Rawalpindi. (28-12-07)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Thursday, December 27, 2007
US Paradrop Lands Benazir in the Midst of Jihadis
International Terrorism Monitor--- Paper No. 289 http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers25/paper2419.html
By B. Raman
(This article was written by me after the first attempt to kill Mrs.Benazir Bhutto at Karachi on October 18,2007)
"The much talked about US plans for a political paradrop of a neo Benazir Bhutto into Pakistan in the hope of providing the badly-needed oxygen to President General Pervez Musharraf and saving the country from Al Qaeda, the Neo Taliban and an assortment of other pro-Al Qaeda and anti-US jihadi terrorist groups is likely to create a third mess in a row for the US after the earlier two in Afghanistan and Iraq." So I wrote in my article of September 2, 2007, titled "US PARADROP FOR A NEOBENAZIR", which is available at http://www.saag.org/papers24/paper2353.html.
2. The US paradrop seems to have landed her right in the midst of jihadis of various hues. It was due to God's grace ----and not due to the skills of Pakistan's police and intelligence agencies---- that she escaped the two explosions on the night of October 18, 2007, which were meant to kill her, but killed instead over 130 persons---members of her party, police personnel and innocent civilians The world only saw on the TV the huge crowds, mobilised by her party, which greeted her after she arrived in Karachi ending eight years of political exile with the blessings of the US. It could not have seen the thousands of invisible enemies she has. No other political leader of Pakistan has as many personal enemies as Mrs. Benazir. Her support is confined to Sindh and to the Seraiki areas of Southern Punjab. In the rest of the country, she has as many enemies as she has friends. Even in Sindh, the Mohajirs and the Sindhi nationalists dislike her. Even in her own Pakistan People's Party (PPP), she is strongly disliked by the supporters of her brothers Shah Nawaz Bhutto, who was allegedly poisoned by the Inter-Services Intelligence in Southern France in 1985, and Murtaza Bhutto, who was allegedly killed by the Karachi Police in a staged encounter in September, 1996, when she was the Prime Minister.
3. There are many in Pakistan----not just Al Qaeda--- who would be happy to see her killed. She was lucky on October 18. She has to be lucky every time a plot is hatched to kill her by some group or the other, by some individual or the other. Many commentators---including some in India---have described her as a brave woman, who dared to return to Pakistan as scheduled on October 18 without worrying about the threats held out against her. Brave, she was, but wise, definitely not.
4. Any wise leader would have noticed the widespread anti-Americanism in Pakistan and realised the importance of not projecting himself or herself as a leader blessed by the US and as the US choice to facilitate the transition of Pakistan back to democracy. He or she would have also realised the importance of keeping one's thoughts to oneself at a time when widespread anger against the US and Gen. Pervez Musharraf in the wake of the commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad from July 10 to 13, 2007, has let loose a wave of suicide terrorist attacks, many of them directed against the security forces and other public servants.
5. Many of her statements were like the red rag to the jihadi bulls---- that she would hand over A. Q. Khan, Pakistan's nuclear scientist, to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna for interrogation, that she would co-operate with the US in the war on terrorism, that she would hand over Dawood Ibrahim, the Indian mafia leader living in Karachi, to India etc etc.
6. Benazir and Musharraf have many things in common. One of them is an inability to keep their mouth shut. The second is a weakness for the TV cameras. The third is an eagerness to be liked by the Americans. The result: All anti-American groups in Pakistan were waiting for an opportunity to kill her.
7. The Karachi blast highlights once again the poor state of Pakistan's counter-terrorism and security apparatus. It also shows the extent of the penetration of terrorist elements into all parts of Pakistan---tribal as well as non-tribal, urban as well as rural. Pakistan is a society inextricably caught in the clutches of the jihadis. The jihadis are not yet in a position to capture power, but they are in a position to keep the country bleeding and targeting its leaders and public servants.
8. Extricating Pakistan from their clutches and defeating them will be a long drawn-out process. It can be done only by a leader, who is genuinely convinced of the need to defeat them and tries to do it on his or her own instead of seeming to do so to please the US. What Pakistan needs at this critical hour in its history is a leader, who is widely perceived as independent and not an American stooge. Neither Musharraf nor Mrs. Benazir is such a leader. Mr. Nawaz Sharif, if he is able to come back to power, could turn out to be such a leader. He has maintained a distance from the US. He does not fawn on the US like Mrs. Benazir does. Pakistan needs Mr. Nawaz Sharif more than it needs Musharraf or Benazir.
9. If the US really wants to save Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal from the clutches of the terrorists, it would be wise enough to encourage a genuine transition to democracy without any favourites. Let the people of Pakistan ----and not the US policy-makers and academics---decide whom they want to be their leader in free and fair elections. Let the leader so chosen deal with the terrorists in his own independent manner.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For topical studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
International Terrorism Monitor--- Paper No. 289 http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers25/paper2419.html
By B. Raman
(This article was written by me after the first attempt to kill Mrs.Benazir Bhutto at Karachi on October 18,2007)
"The much talked about US plans for a political paradrop of a neo Benazir Bhutto into Pakistan in the hope of providing the badly-needed oxygen to President General Pervez Musharraf and saving the country from Al Qaeda, the Neo Taliban and an assortment of other pro-Al Qaeda and anti-US jihadi terrorist groups is likely to create a third mess in a row for the US after the earlier two in Afghanistan and Iraq." So I wrote in my article of September 2, 2007, titled "US PARADROP FOR A NEOBENAZIR", which is available at http://www.saag.org/papers24/paper2353.html.
2. The US paradrop seems to have landed her right in the midst of jihadis of various hues. It was due to God's grace ----and not due to the skills of Pakistan's police and intelligence agencies---- that she escaped the two explosions on the night of October 18, 2007, which were meant to kill her, but killed instead over 130 persons---members of her party, police personnel and innocent civilians The world only saw on the TV the huge crowds, mobilised by her party, which greeted her after she arrived in Karachi ending eight years of political exile with the blessings of the US. It could not have seen the thousands of invisible enemies she has. No other political leader of Pakistan has as many personal enemies as Mrs. Benazir. Her support is confined to Sindh and to the Seraiki areas of Southern Punjab. In the rest of the country, she has as many enemies as she has friends. Even in Sindh, the Mohajirs and the Sindhi nationalists dislike her. Even in her own Pakistan People's Party (PPP), she is strongly disliked by the supporters of her brothers Shah Nawaz Bhutto, who was allegedly poisoned by the Inter-Services Intelligence in Southern France in 1985, and Murtaza Bhutto, who was allegedly killed by the Karachi Police in a staged encounter in September, 1996, when she was the Prime Minister.
3. There are many in Pakistan----not just Al Qaeda--- who would be happy to see her killed. She was lucky on October 18. She has to be lucky every time a plot is hatched to kill her by some group or the other, by some individual or the other. Many commentators---including some in India---have described her as a brave woman, who dared to return to Pakistan as scheduled on October 18 without worrying about the threats held out against her. Brave, she was, but wise, definitely not.
4. Any wise leader would have noticed the widespread anti-Americanism in Pakistan and realised the importance of not projecting himself or herself as a leader blessed by the US and as the US choice to facilitate the transition of Pakistan back to democracy. He or she would have also realised the importance of keeping one's thoughts to oneself at a time when widespread anger against the US and Gen. Pervez Musharraf in the wake of the commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad from July 10 to 13, 2007, has let loose a wave of suicide terrorist attacks, many of them directed against the security forces and other public servants.
5. Many of her statements were like the red rag to the jihadi bulls---- that she would hand over A. Q. Khan, Pakistan's nuclear scientist, to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna for interrogation, that she would co-operate with the US in the war on terrorism, that she would hand over Dawood Ibrahim, the Indian mafia leader living in Karachi, to India etc etc.
6. Benazir and Musharraf have many things in common. One of them is an inability to keep their mouth shut. The second is a weakness for the TV cameras. The third is an eagerness to be liked by the Americans. The result: All anti-American groups in Pakistan were waiting for an opportunity to kill her.
7. The Karachi blast highlights once again the poor state of Pakistan's counter-terrorism and security apparatus. It also shows the extent of the penetration of terrorist elements into all parts of Pakistan---tribal as well as non-tribal, urban as well as rural. Pakistan is a society inextricably caught in the clutches of the jihadis. The jihadis are not yet in a position to capture power, but they are in a position to keep the country bleeding and targeting its leaders and public servants.
8. Extricating Pakistan from their clutches and defeating them will be a long drawn-out process. It can be done only by a leader, who is genuinely convinced of the need to defeat them and tries to do it on his or her own instead of seeming to do so to please the US. What Pakistan needs at this critical hour in its history is a leader, who is widely perceived as independent and not an American stooge. Neither Musharraf nor Mrs. Benazir is such a leader. Mr. Nawaz Sharif, if he is able to come back to power, could turn out to be such a leader. He has maintained a distance from the US. He does not fawn on the US like Mrs. Benazir does. Pakistan needs Mr. Nawaz Sharif more than it needs Musharraf or Benazir.
9. If the US really wants to save Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal from the clutches of the terrorists, it would be wise enough to encourage a genuine transition to democracy without any favourites. Let the people of Pakistan ----and not the US policy-makers and academics---decide whom they want to be their leader in free and fair elections. Let the leader so chosen deal with the terrorists in his own independent manner.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For topical studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
BENAZIR'S ASSASSINATION
B.RAMAN
The shocking assassination of Mrs.Benazir Bhutto at Rawalpindi on December 27,2007, is likely to have been the outcome of a conspiracyinvolving anti-US, pro-Al Qaeda jihadi elements, the Zia-ul-haq loyalists and junior members of the Army and possibly the Air Force.
2. Since 2003, there have been a number of terrorist incidents in Rawalpindi----including the two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharrafin December,2003, the firing of rockets by unidentified elements from a park last year, the attempt to fire at Musharraf's plane with ananti-aircraft gun earlier this year from the terrace of a building, two suicide attacks at the Army's General Headquarters and two outside theoffices of the Inter-Services Intelligence after the commando raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July,2007. The two attempts to killMusharraf were found to have been the result of a conspiracy involving Al Qaeda (Abu Faraj al-Libi, now in the Guantanamo Bay detentioncentre), the Jaish-e-Mohammad and junior officers of the Army and Air Force. In the other incidents also, involvement of junior officers of theArmy and Air Force was suspected. In connection with the rocket attacks, the son of a retired Brigadier was arrested.
3. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, was arrested in the Rawalpindi house of a womanoffice-bearer of the Jamaat-e-Islami, having a relative in a Signals regiment of the Army, who was arrested. All these incidents indicated astrong penetration of Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations into the lower and middle levels of the armed forces personnel stationed inRawalpindi. Rashid Rauf, a Mirpuri resident of the UK, who was a prime suspect in the case involving an Al Qaeda attempt to blow up 10-USbound planes in the UK last year, escaped last week while being taken from a court in Rawalpindi to his jail. Complicity of security personnelin his escape was suspected.
4. Neither the ISI nor the IB nor the Police had been able to thoroughly investigate these cases and establish the identities of thoseinvolved. Only the identities of the junior officials involved in the attempts to kill Musharraf were established. They were arrested andcourt-martialled. But the authorities were not able to establish the extent of the penetration of Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda elements into theArmed Forces.
5. Since Benazir returned ftrom exile on October 18,2007, the Zia loyalists in the Government and among the retired officers of the army andthe ISI were carrying on a bitter campaign against her. They were determined to see that she did not return to power in the elections ofJanuary 8,2008. Benazir herself was worried that Brig. (retd) Ijaz Shah, the Director of the IB, was ill-disposed towards her and hadrepeatedly complained in public that there could be a threat to her security from the IB.
6. All the jihadi organisations were opposed to her coming to power firstly, because she was a woman and secondly, because of herstatements that she would allow US troops to hunt for Osama bin Laden in Pakistani territory and let the International Atomic EnergyAgency interrogate A.Q.Khan, the nuclear scientist.
7. Only on December 26,2007, after her visit to Peshawar, where there were some explosions coinciding with her visit, she had expressedher dissatisfaction with the security arrangements for her. She complained that the electronic jammers issued to her staff for protectionagainst remote-control devices were faulty.
8. Her repeated pleas to seek the help of Western intelligence agencies for the investigation into the blast at Karachi on October 18,2007,from which she narrowly escaped and to let her hire private security guards from the West were turned down by Musharraf.
9.There is likely to be widespread anti-Musharraf and anti-Army disturbances in Sindh and possibly southern Punjab, her traditionalstrongholds, which may make it difficult to hold the elections and for Musharraf to continue in power for long.
B.RAMAN
The shocking assassination of Mrs.Benazir Bhutto at Rawalpindi on December 27,2007, is likely to have been the outcome of a conspiracyinvolving anti-US, pro-Al Qaeda jihadi elements, the Zia-ul-haq loyalists and junior members of the Army and possibly the Air Force.
2. Since 2003, there have been a number of terrorist incidents in Rawalpindi----including the two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharrafin December,2003, the firing of rockets by unidentified elements from a park last year, the attempt to fire at Musharraf's plane with ananti-aircraft gun earlier this year from the terrace of a building, two suicide attacks at the Army's General Headquarters and two outside theoffices of the Inter-Services Intelligence after the commando raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July,2007. The two attempts to killMusharraf were found to have been the result of a conspiracy involving Al Qaeda (Abu Faraj al-Libi, now in the Guantanamo Bay detentioncentre), the Jaish-e-Mohammad and junior officers of the Army and Air Force. In the other incidents also, involvement of junior officers of theArmy and Air Force was suspected. In connection with the rocket attacks, the son of a retired Brigadier was arrested.
3. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, was arrested in the Rawalpindi house of a womanoffice-bearer of the Jamaat-e-Islami, having a relative in a Signals regiment of the Army, who was arrested. All these incidents indicated astrong penetration of Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations into the lower and middle levels of the armed forces personnel stationed inRawalpindi. Rashid Rauf, a Mirpuri resident of the UK, who was a prime suspect in the case involving an Al Qaeda attempt to blow up 10-USbound planes in the UK last year, escaped last week while being taken from a court in Rawalpindi to his jail. Complicity of security personnelin his escape was suspected.
4. Neither the ISI nor the IB nor the Police had been able to thoroughly investigate these cases and establish the identities of thoseinvolved. Only the identities of the junior officials involved in the attempts to kill Musharraf were established. They were arrested andcourt-martialled. But the authorities were not able to establish the extent of the penetration of Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda elements into theArmed Forces.
5. Since Benazir returned ftrom exile on October 18,2007, the Zia loyalists in the Government and among the retired officers of the army andthe ISI were carrying on a bitter campaign against her. They were determined to see that she did not return to power in the elections ofJanuary 8,2008. Benazir herself was worried that Brig. (retd) Ijaz Shah, the Director of the IB, was ill-disposed towards her and hadrepeatedly complained in public that there could be a threat to her security from the IB.
6. All the jihadi organisations were opposed to her coming to power firstly, because she was a woman and secondly, because of herstatements that she would allow US troops to hunt for Osama bin Laden in Pakistani territory and let the International Atomic EnergyAgency interrogate A.Q.Khan, the nuclear scientist.
7. Only on December 26,2007, after her visit to Peshawar, where there were some explosions coinciding with her visit, she had expressedher dissatisfaction with the security arrangements for her. She complained that the electronic jammers issued to her staff for protectionagainst remote-control devices were faulty.
8. Her repeated pleas to seek the help of Western intelligence agencies for the investigation into the blast at Karachi on October 18,2007,from which she narrowly escaped and to let her hire private security guards from the West were turned down by Musharraf.
9.There is likely to be widespread anti-Musharraf and anti-Army disturbances in Sindh and possibly southern Punjab, her traditionalstrongholds, which may make it difficult to hold the elections and for Musharraf to continue in power for long.
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