An Al Qaeda mission tasked with conducting suicide attacks targeting army installations and VVIPs has arrived in Pakistan from Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports submitted to the Interior Ministry. According to the reports, members of Al Qaeda and other banned terrorist groups met in Kabul some time ago and drew up the plan to target army installations in Islamabad and Rawalpindi and VVIPs associated with the government in a campaign to bring down the regime of General Pervez Musharraf. An Arab by the name of Sheikh is said to have chaired the meeting, sources said. Salam Rehmani, a resident of Helmand and former deputy vice-chancellor of Kabul University under the Taliban, was appointed chief of the mission, the sources said. According to the intelligence reports, Rehmani has hired a man named Ajmal alias Riaz, a resident of Bahawalpur, to carry out the operation and Ajmal has been paid one million Afghanis for the purpose. Ajmal is from the same town as Amjad Farooqi, a militant leader killed in a shootout with security forces in 2005. According to the reports, Mohammad Qasim, a resident of Islamabad and a member of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen organisation, has been trained to conduct suicide bombings.
Another intelligence report submitted to the Interior Ministry said aides of Maulana Saifullah Akhtar of Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami and Maulana Fazalul Rehman Khalil of the banned Jamiat-ul-Ansar, have joined hands and formed a new group named Lashkar-e-Umer or Jaish-e-Islami, the sources said. Tahir Sher Mujahid, who reportedly fought jihads in Afghanistan and Chechnya, has been given command of the group, said the sources. They added that the group included Qari Abdul Hafiz, a close associate of Amjad Farooqi, and his associates.