|
Arrests blow the lid off Lashkar networks
A still unidentified Jammu and Kashmir-based Lashkar-e-Taiba commander and a complex network of Islamists recruited from across north and west India, worked together to execute two of the most high-profile terror strikes since 2005. Resources for both the Indian Institute of Science and Rampur attacks, investigators believe, were provided by the Lashkars long-serving Pulwama-based commander, so far known only by codenames Sadaaq and Aatif. Described by those who have met him as a Pakistani who speaks Urdu with a Karachi accent, Sadaaq took charge of the Lashkars south Kashmir operations in early 2005. Sabahuddins links with Sadaaq, the investigators say, date back to 2001, when the Lashkar operative was recruited by Mohammad Zubair, an Uttar Pradesh-based cleric. Zubair, operating under the codename Salaar, was among the organisations key assets in northern India. A year later, Sabahuddin dropped out of Aligarh Muslim University and left for Pakistan. For the next three years, Sabahuddin trained in Lashkar-run training camps under the tutelage of a commander codenamed Muzammil,the man believed to have overall charge of the organisations offensive operations outside Jammu and Kashmir. He returned to India in mid-2005, travelling through Nepal with a Pakistani passport. Posing as medical student, he rented a house in Bangalore. Tasked with planning attacks in the city, Sabahuddin was drawn by the publicity surrounding the IIScs 2005 convention. Observing that the institute had almost no security cover, he decided a single terrorist would be able to shoot at delegates. Sadaaq then despatched Hamzawho Sabahuddin had seen working in Muzammils officeto execute the strike. Zubair was killed in mid-2006 by the Jammu and Kashmir Police, near the Line of Control in Handwara. His deputies, however, dispersed, and investigators were unable to locate much of the network. By the end of the year, it regrouped under Sabahuddins command reporting to a Pakistanbased Lashkar-e-Taiba handler its members knew by the codename Yusuf. Sabahuddin drew on his Bangalore experience to execute the Rampur attack. His deputy, Mohammad Sharif, collected the assault rifles used in the attack from a Lashkar sympathisers home in Pulwama. He then ferried them, assembled inside his luggage, to unsuspecting relatives homes in Kunda and Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. When Sadaaq was informed that the weapons were in place, he sent Pakistani operatives Imran Boota and Farooq Azam to execute the attack. Using the aliases, Amar Singh and Ajay Malhotra, both travelled to Rampur by train and bus from Jammu and Kashmir, arriving just hours before the attack. Both men carried legitimate Pakistan passports, to facilitate their escape through Nepal. Interestingly, Sabahuddin and Sharif told the investigators that the operation almost had to be aborted after the group lost its way to the CRPF camp in the darkness. While the attack was scheduled to begin at 10:00 p.m. on December 31, 2007, it eventually commenced at 2:00 a.m. on January 1, 2008an error that ironically facilitated the attack, since even the few guards present had fallen asleep. Police sources say that the group started planning a series of attacks in Mumbaiincluding a possible strike on the stock exchangewhen they were arrested. Fahim Ahmad Ansari, a Mumbai resident who held a Pakistan passport issued under the pseudonym Hammad Hassan, was to act as the local conduit, much as Sabahuddin did in Bangalore. Sundays arrests have demonstrated that the Lashkars global infrastructure in Pakistan remains intact, despite claims that President Pervez Musharrafs regime is working to curtail its operations. In December, the authorities in Singapore arrested four locals who were recruited to train with the Lashkar in Pakistan, while an Indian was arrested in Qatar last year on similar charges. Posted by: Fred 2008-02-11 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=225248 |