A militant, Amjad Farooqi, wanted over US reporter Daniel Pearlâs murder and mastermind of two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf, is Al Qaedaâs kingpin in Pakistan, according to security officials.
| The regional manager, eh? |
âIf we catch him we will succeed in breaking the nexus between Al Qaeda and local jihadi groups,â said a senior officer in security services. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described Farooqi, 30, as an âextremely intelligent and elusive terrorist operativeâ. President Musharraf said in a television interview on Thursday that the âvery clever mastermindâ of the attacks against him was a Pakistani, who was prompted and assisted by a foreign Al Qaeda operative. He did not name either man. Intelligence officials late last week said the president was referring to Farooqi. Farooqi, from the remote rural town of Toba Tek Singh in central Punjab province, joined the Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami militant group as a teenager.
After the Taliban conquered most of Afghanistan in 1996 the young fighters contacts with Osama Bin Laden and his closest lieutenants deepened. âHe became an Ustad (master) at one of the key training camps near Kabul,â the official said. The title won him respect among various militant groups. Farooqi had close contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Al Qaedaâs number three and the alleged chief planner of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was also intricately involved in the elaborate plot to abduct and murder Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl in early 2002. Farooqi provided the militants who kept Pearl in a shed on Karachiâs outskirts after the reporter was abducted on January 23, 2002, a police officer who investigated the case said. He was âvery closeâ to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British-born militant convicted of plotting Pearlâs abduction and murder. âOmar told us when he thought of kidnapping Pearl, the first man he contacted for help was Farooqi,â the police investigator said. âOmar lured Pearl into the trap and rest of the job was done by Farooqiâs men. This man is so sharp and secretive that he kept Omar Sheikh in the dark about the real identities of those whom he recruited for carrying out Pearlâs abduction.â In February Omar was shifted from Hyderabad jail to a prison in Rawalpindi for interrogation after investigators had traced Farooqiâs involvement in President Musharrafâs assassination bid. âWe grilled Omar for more than two months but even he did not know Farooqiâs possible whereabouts,â the security official said. Investigators said Farooqiâs real value was that he was one of the very few militants who still have the lists and addresses of all those who trained in Afghanistan camps. |