|
Terrorist summit held in Waziristan in March, el-Shukrijumah in attendance
It was a gathering of terrorism's elite, and they slipped silently into Pakistan from all over the world in order to attend. From England came Abu Issa al-Hindi, an Indian convert to radical Islam who specializes in surveillance. From an unknown hideout came Adnan el-Shukrijumah, an accomplished Arab Guyanese bombmaker and commercial pilot. And from Queens in New York City came Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani American who arrived with cash, sleeping bags, ponchos, waterproof socks and other supplies for the mountain-bound jihadis. The March 2004 terrorist summit in the lawless province of Waziristan, described to TIME by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last week and expounded on by U.S. officials, has become a subject of obsession for authorities in both countries. "The personalities involved, the operations, the fact that a major explosives expert came here and went back," Musharraf said, "all this was extremely significant." Although some summit participants have been arrested, others are still at large and are considered very dangerous. At least two are believed to have done some of the surveillance of targets in New York City and elsewhere that authorities found out about last month. Some U.S. officials fear that the meeting may have been a pivotal planning session, much the way a 2000 meeting in Kuala Lumpur was for the 9/11 attacks. "This was a meeting of a bunch of cold-blooded killers who are very skilled at what they do and have an intense desire to inflict an awful lot of pain and suffering on America," says an official familiar with the summit. A senior counterterrorism official said analysts are scrutinizing the recent pattern of enemy activity against timelines of previous attacks. This, he said, has contributed to the worry that at least some members of a strike team are already in the U.S. Musharraf told TIME that the discovery of the March meeting has exposed the "second string" leadership of al-Qaeda. Summiteer Mohammed Babar, 29, was arrested in Queens in April, shortly after returning from Pakistan. He has been charged with trying to buy materials to make bombs for use in attacks in Britain. Al-Hindi, who is in his mid-30s, is also in custody, in England, having been picked up two weeks ago. U.S. officials say he was in e-mail contact with Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, 29, the Pakistani techie whose computer contained much of the material about staging attacks with helicopters and limousinesas first reported in TIMEthat led to the decision by U.S. officials two weeks ago to raise the alert level at financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington. Al-Hindi had been sent to the U.S. to case economic and "Jewish" targets in New York City, the 9/11 commission stated in its report last month. He also passed along several contacts in the U.S. to senior al-Qaeda leaders in case they "needed help," the commission reported. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-08-15 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=40693 |