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| India-Pakistan | |
| Animal Skins -- and The Guy Who Missed the Paris-LA Flights | |
| 2004-02-08 | |
| Donating skins of sacrificed animals for charity is big in Pakistan, where over three million animals were sacrificed during the Islamic festival of Eid, but jehadi groups are cornering a large number of the hides and selling them to bankroll the "holy war." Despite a ban on seeking donations for jehad, several organizations display banners and posters across the country, asking citizens to donate hides so that the "holy war" in Kashmir and Afghanistan can continue. Many of the groups involved in the hides-for-money campaign are nongovernmental organizations and Islamic charities and at least two of them - the Al-Akhtar Trust and the Al-Rashid Trust - were recently designated terrorist groups by the US. Workers of several jehadi outfits, including banned groups such as the Tehrik-e-Khuddam-ul-Islam (formerly the Jaish-e-Muhammad), which is believed to have launched the suicide attacks on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, also collected skins from sympathizers on Eid... The Al-Rasheed Trust, a welfare organization not banned in Pakistan but on the US "terror list," collected about US $500,000 worth of hides last year. This year, the collection hasn’t been bad at all, says an official. Chennai man suspected of al-Qaeda links A Chennai-based businessman, Abdul Haye Mohammed Illyas, has been catapulted into media spotlight after reports that the US and French intelligence agencies had him under surveillance during his visits abroad for nearly three weeks, suspecting him to be a Al-Qaeda activist... Interestingly, while reports said that Abdul Haye was a leather exporter, the official denied they were into leather. "We don’t deal with leather products. We deal with knitted garments," he said. But when contacted as a buyer, a company executive said they dealt with knitted garments and leather garments. "Leather jackets cost $60 and above, depending on the design," he said. In Get It Yellow pages, the company was listed in the categories of ‘shipping agent, textile merchant, and garment exporter.’ Meanwhile, none of the leather exporters based in the city seem to know Abdul Haye. "I have not heard of him," said an exporter, who has been in the business for nearly 20 years. Leather exporters’ and tannery associations, too, were of little help. "We have no idea about this person," said an official at the Council for Leather Exports. The company, though, has been a member of Garment Exporters Association for the last three years. "The company representative is one Raphael Elango," a source in the Association said. The sources did not relate the name Abdul Haye Mohammed Illyas to the company. According to reports, Abdul Haye came to the notice of US intelligence agencies when he missed an Air France Paris Los-Angeles flight on Christmas Eve, last year... The issue cropped up one more time after Haye made a booking on January 7, on an Air France, Paris-Los Angeles flight, and failed to show up on the date of journey yet again.
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| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #1 Insert Skins Game joke. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-2-8 9:20:25 PM |