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Pak: Bangla turban 'link' to Mumbai attacks
(AKI/DAWN) - Pakistani investigators probing the Mumbai terror attacks are investigating a link to the banned Bangladeshi militant group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), and its possible involvement in training terrorists and planning the three-day assault. Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency is expected to present a report soon and share its findings with India. The report is likely to indicate that the Mumbai attack was conducted by an 'international network of Muslim fundamentalists' that spread from South Asia and to the Middle East and build the case for greater regional anti-terror cooperation. Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which translates as The Islamic Struggle Movement, is a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist paramilitary organisation active in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. It was banned in Bangladesh in 2005. Although the contents of the intelligence report are being kept a tightly-guarded secret by Pakistan's interior ministry, sources have told Pakistani daily Dawn it will reveal the Mumbai incident is not strictly an issue for Pakistan and India. Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Wajid Shamsul Hassan indicated in a recent interview that investigations had revealed the terrorist attack was not planned in Pakistan. "Pakistani territory was not used so far as the investigators have made their conclusions," Hassan said in the interview. "It could have been some other place," he added. He did not identify the "other place" to which he referred. However, his remarks were dismissed by both prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani and foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi as "hasty". The investigators were intensely probing, the sources said, if at least one of the Mumbai attackers was of Bangladeshi origin. A senior western diplomat confirmed the investigation and told Dawn that there was a strong possibility that one of the attackers was a Bangladeshi national. The Mumbai attacks targeted two luxury hotels and other city landmarks in November last year. A total 173 people died and hundreds of others were injured. One of the ten gunman survived the attacks and Islamabad later admitted he was a Pakistani citizen. In January Pakistan bowed to international pressure and arrested 124 militants suspected of involvement in the deadly terrorist attacks. The government said it had closed five training camps and 20 offices belonging to banned charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the outlawed Kashmiri separatist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba. Posted by: Fred 2009-02-06 |
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