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India-Pakistan
Pakistan: Hambali’s Brother Was Watched
2003-09-23
Security agents had been watching the younger brother of Hambali, al-Qaida’s alleged top agent in South Asia, for weeks before arresting him and 16 others over the weekend.
Good idea, keep notes on who he met with, bet his phone was tapped as well.
The man, Rusman Gunawan, was being interrogated at an undisclosed location in Pakistan, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat told The Associated Press. Gunawan was arrested in the southern port city of Karachi on Saturday along with 16 Islamic students from Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar. "Hambali’s brother was under surveillance for weeks," Hayyat said. "Perhaps he was not aware that he was being watched."
If he didn't expect to be, he's not Hambali's smarter brother...
"We are interrogating Gunawan to determine if he had any plan to harm Western interest. I think he will remain in our custody for some time," he said.
He said with a sneer while twirling his moustache.
Hayyat said the interrogation was already yielding some results, and that Pakistani authorities had picked up several more foreign Islamic students based on Gunawan’s screams statements. He would not elaborate, but a Pakistani intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity said at least four more Indonesian students were arrested Monday in a raid in Karachi.
"I can say no more!"
That’s nice.
Pakistani intelligence officials believe Gunawan, 27, was running Jemaah Islamiyah’s branch in this Islamic nation. Many Jemaah Islamiyah leaders, including Hambali, were allegedly trained at al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan.
Who didn’t?
Authorities in Indonesia are believed to have uncovered an elaborate network of links between the two groups following the arrests of top militants. Indonesian authorities said Monday they had no charges pending against Gunawan and would not seek his extradition.
"We don’t want him, let the CIA have what’s left after the Paks are done with him."
Indonesian Vice President Hamzah Haz, who has appeared in bed with sympathetic to fellow Muslim militants, said the government would send a team of lawyers to meet with Gunawan. "I ask the Foreign Affairs Ministry to use its diplomatic channels to monitor the problem and find out the reasons behind the arrest," Hamzah said on the sidelines of a Jakarta conference on Islam and terrorism. However, Hayyat said it was a tip from Indonesia that first alerted them to Gunawan’s presence in the country and which led them to put the man under surveillance.
Theory - Pakistan is taking the hard line with foreign islamic students to stay in good favor with the U.S. in the WOT. The JI groups from the far east don’t have the pull in Pakistan that the Arab groups do, so they make good scapegoats. The local mullahs are mostly interested in Afghanistan and India, so they don’t put up much of a fuss. Discuss.
Posted by:Steve

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