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Dawood Ibrahim a global terrorist: US
The United States has named fugitive smuggler and drug lord Dawood Ibrahim as a "global terrorist" and in the process exposed Pakistanâs links with the man India has sought for nearly a decade. The US Treasury Department, which announced Dawoodâs terrorist designation late on Thursday, cited his Pakistani passport number in its notification. In this one single stroke, Washington has robbed Pakistan of the deniability it had maintained so far about its links to Dawood. The ISI has made use of Dawoodâs "D-Company" crime syndicate for the past decade as part of their proxy war against India. Indiaâs RAW intelligence agency managed to recruit one of Dawoodâs Hindu lieutenants to serve as one of their agents, but D-Company seems to have been a lot more useful to Pakistan. The ISI allows his syndicate to operate openly in Pakistan, but takes a cut of his finances, which they use to partially finance the Kashmir insurgency. And perhaps the Taliban resurgance too? It has also, knowingly or otherwise, nailed as a lie Pakistanâs military leader Pervez Musharrafâs assurance that Pakistan had not provided a safe haven for the fugitive terrorist. The citing of his Pakistani passport would suggest official complicity. "This designation signals our commitment to identifying and attacking the financial ties between the criminal underworld and terrorism." Juan Zarate, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said in a statement accompanying the notification. "We are calling on the international community to stop the flow of dirty money that kills. For the Ibrahim syndicate, the business of terrorism forms part of their larger criminal enterprise, which must be dismantled," he said. The US notification also connected the dots between Dawood Ibrahim and terrorist organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Al-Qaeda. Washington had long ignored this despite the similarities between the first WTC attack and the Bombay blasts and also the Kandahar hijacking and the 9/11 hijackings. It said the Indian crime lord "has found common cause with Al-Qaida, sharing his smuggling routes with the terror syndicate and funding attacks by Islamic extremists aimed at destabilising the Indian government." A fact sheet issued with the notification also said Ibrahim is involved in shipment of narcotics to the UK and western Europe. He shared these smuggling routes with Osama Bin Laden and his network and there existed a financial arrangement between the two for use of this network. Ibrahim, it said had travelled to Afghanistan in the late 1990s under the protection of the Taliban, when the latter was still a proxy set up by ISI and was under Islamabadâs patronage. Ibrahimâs syndicate has consistently aimed to destabilise the Indian government through inciting riots, acts of terrorism and civil disobedience, it said. The Treasury Department notification comes following Washingtonâs own investigations into the Karachi-based Dawoodâs activities, intelligence supplied by India, and some courageous journalism by Pakistani media which outed the fugitive despite denials by Pakistanâs military establishment. One of those journalists reported on the fact that Dawood was living in a huge mansion in an upmarket suburb in Pakistan, while Musharaff was denying his presence in the country. Since Interpol put out a wanted notice against him, for his involvement in terrorist attacks in India that killed over 200 people, he has had to follow the orders of his hosts, rather than just continue his criminal enterprises. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-10-17 |
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