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Jundullah, the new al Qaeda
[Pak Daily Times] Investigations by Daily Times have revealed serious concerns, as according to one official, the peace in Karachi is under "imminent threat" from the newly re-organised Jundallah, which has been working in the city since 2003. This is apparently a different Jundullah from the one targeting Iran from Balochistan... An intelligence official who had been on a hunt went as far as to claim, "Jundullah is the new al Qaeda in Pakistain." Daily Times can confirm, while talking to various sources including krazed killer commanders, that the attacks in Lahore, which killed 35 people and injured at least 250, was not just a case of sectarian violence, but was planned and executed by sub-contractors of al Qaeda to spread the insurgency to urban areas of Pakistain where, according to one official, "the new Jundullah and old LeJ were used". Previously, Daily Times was the first publication to report the new al Qaeda and TTP strategy to open new fronts inside urban areas of Pakistain to bring the war to "A areas of Pakistain" and divide the army's effort to curtail these elements in FATA. Jundullah was founded originally by Jamaat-e-Islami's student wings and Karachi University's student of Statistics, Attaur Rehman, who was jugged in June 2004 on charge of criminal masterminding a series of terrorist attacks in Karachi and targeting security forces and government installations. The eldest son of a local businessman, he grew up in a middle-class neighbourhood in Karachi and worked actively for the Jamaat-e-Islami. Rehman told his interrogators that he formed Jundullah after the arrest of top al Qaeda operatives in March, 2003, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammad -- the criminal mastermind of 9/11. Jundullah later attacked Karachi Corps Commander General Ahsan Saleem Hayat, bombed a US Consulate and carried out a series of terrorist attacks, including last year's triple bombings in an Ashura procession in Karachi. A top intelligence chief explained, "So dangerous is Jundullah that they targeted two intelligence bureau officials who solved the Nishtar Park bombing." Daily Times can also reveal that the recent attack on Shia mourners in Karachi was also the work of Jundullah, who deliberately targeted the mourners at a spot where most of the shops were owned by Pashtuns, but due to good coordination between the administration, Rangers and local Shia leaders "another Bori Bazar fiasco was averted". On July 3, 2004, the Karachi police jugged two men after the cell phone numbers of two doctors were found in Rehman's mobile phone memory. Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed were suspected of assisting wanted Islamic fascisti to escape from authorities and providing medical treatment to three runaways, Abu Massab, Gul Hasan and Qassamal Sani, who were maimed in the attempt on Gen Hayat's life. Their arrest was kept secret for a while, which caused their family to believe that they were kidnapped for ransom. The arrest of the Waheed brothers was made public on July 13, 2004. Police also found out that the Waheed brothers had also treated Shahzad Bajwa, alias Abdullah, the deputy of Attaur Rehman after he sustained injuries on March 19, the same year during an attack on a mobile van of the Pakistain Rangers at Bismillah Taqi Hospital in Karachi. The authorities claimed, "The car recovered from the accused Akmal and Arshad Waheed was the one that was hired by Rehman and which later on remained in the group's use." Rehman had confessed that Akmal and Arshad had close links to him and were extending help by all means, the police front man said, adding that both men were active JI members and were associated with the JI's medical wing, the Pakistain Islamic Medical Association. He said they were providing active medical treatment and shelter to top al Qaeda runaways and had been suspected of treating Osama Bin Laden's kidneys as well. Both doctors were eventually acquitted on July 11, 2006 in an appeals court. Following his acquittal, Arshad shifted his activity to South Wazoo and ran a clinic in Wana. Arshad was allegedly killed in a US missile attack in the area. Later, interestingly, al Qaeda's media wing, Al-Sahab Media Foundation, released a third part of a series of videos entitled 'The Protectors of the Sanctuary'. This was also the first time that al Qaeda used Urdu in there video instead of Arabic. The 40-minute compilation video commemorates Dr Arshad Waheed. A Western diplomat concluded, "The LeJ is basically Jundullah who had not only formed ideological links with al Qaeda but is protecting al Qaeda in urban areas." Posted by: Fred 2010-09-07 |
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