Pakistan published pictures of six "most-wanted terrorists" on Wednesday and offered rewards for information leading to the arrest of two al Qaeda-linked militants wanted over assassination attempts on the president. In an advertisement printed on the front page of two leading newspapers, the government said the identity of informants would be kept secret and published two toll free telephone numbers and email addresses. | 1-800-MAHMOOD, operators are standing by! |
Five of the suspects were Pakistani and one a Libyan, and the list appeared to feature militants wanted for attacks and crimes inside Pakistan as opposed to terrorism overseas. At least 63 suspected militants, 12 of them foreigners and many with links to the al Qaeda network, have been captured since mid-July in Pakistan's most successful crackdown to date on the shadowy network of Osama bin Laden. Officials say they have narrowed the hunt down to a handful of key "planners," whose capture would sharply reduce the level of attacks. | Run out of "masterminds", now looking for "planners". |
But they have also poured cold water on speculation that the high-profile arrests in recent weeks, which also exposed al Qaeda plans for attacks in Britain and the United States, would lead investigators to bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri. Both men are believed by the U.S. military to be hiding somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. A reward of 20 million rupees ($340,000) each was offered for information leading to the arrest of Amjad Hussain Farooqi and Libyan Abu Faraj, both suspected of involvement in two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in December.
| Pervez has his priorities |
Al Qaeda and its local militant allies in Pakistan are furious at Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terror and his crackdown on radical Islamic groups behind sectarian violence and attacks on political targets, foreigners and Christians. Farooqi, from the radical Pakistani Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami group, has also been linked to the 2002 murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. The sum of $170,000 was offered for information leading to the arrest of Mati-ur-Rehman, alias Samad. Intelligence officials say he is an activist in the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group behind sectarian violence and attacks on Westerners and Christians and with known links to al Qaeda. The equivalent of around $85,000 was offered for information on Mansoor, alias Chota Ibrahim, Qari Ehsan, alias Shahid and Omar Aqdas, alias Sohail. |