Archives

The capture of Osama bin Laden's key aide Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the third big blow against the al-Qaeda network landed by controversial joint US-Pakistan forces but Islamists here were Sunday furious at US involvement in the manhunt.

Mohammed's arrest follows the capture of al-Qaeda's top operators Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin al-Shaiba in Pakistan last year.

"No American agency people should be allowed to conduct operations in Pakistan," Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) party leader Qazi Hussein Ahmed said on hearing of the raid that netted Mohammed, believed to be the key mastermind of the suicide plane attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in the United States on September 11, 2001.

"Our government has sold our sovereignty," he said, demanding an immediate end to the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives.

Ahmed's anger underlines the intense resentment of many Pakistanis, particularly the hardline Islamists, at the involvement of US agents in the manhunt for al-Qaeda fugitives hiding in Pakistan.

Washington and Islamabad officially admit to the presence of 12 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, but insist they only provide expertise in communications intercepts and intelligence gathering.

Since the crushing of the Taliban, who harboured al-Qaeda, in Afghanistan in late 2001, US and Pakistani intelligence agents have been waging a nationwide manhunt for fugitives in this Islamic republic, storming homes and apartments in its crowded cities and remote border regions.

The latest raid in pre-dawn darkness Saturday netted their biggest fish yet: Mohammed, who was on the FBI's list of 22 most wanted terrorists and is credited with masterminding the September 11, 2001 atrocities.

He was found asleep in a house belonging to a JI activist in the northern city of Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, and was arrested with a Middle Eastern al-Qaeda suspect and a Pakistani JI activist.

A leader of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami party Sami ul-Haq railed against the arrests during a massive rally in Karachi Sunday against possible war on Iraq.

"These people are our brothers and they have no place to go," he said.

"They are here for the past several years and fought during the war against former Soviet Union. How can they be terrorists? They are mujahedin."

About 450 al-Qaeda suspects have been arrested since late 2001, according to interior ministry spokesman Iftikhar Ahmed. The majority have been handed over to US custody without charge or trial in Pakistan, and shipped out to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba or Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

"If they were involved in any criminal offense committed in Pakistan they should be tried here. They (US agents) are treating every Arab as al-Qaeda," the JI's Ahmed said.

Washington and Islamabad say the Americans have no combat role and do not take part in the raids, simply guiding their Pakistani counterparts to the hideouts.

But witnesses to the raids invariably recount seeing Western-looking, English-speaking agents storming a house or apartment.

"Some of them were speaking English and were looking like foreigners from their accent and fair complexion," the wife of Ahmed Qadoos, who owned the house, told The Nation daily of Sunday's raid.

Mohammad, who has used multiple identities, giving his nationality as Omani, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Egyptian and Qatari, has also used multiple birthdates, putting his age between 38 and 45.

He is believed to have been born to Pakistani parents native to the tribal-dominated south-west province of Baluchistan, but Pakistani officials disown him.

The US-Pakistani manhunt has fuelled the tide of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and been the subject of several protests and court petitions.

But Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat dismissed the Islamist criticisms and hailed Mohammed's arrest as "an excellent achievement."

"We are acting in the supreme interest of Pakistan to root out terrorism and extremism in Pakistan," he told AFP.

"Credit goes to Pakistani agencies for doing a difficult task with determination."

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager