MALE (THE MALDIVES): Funds from Islamist organisations based in Pakistan and the United Kingdom, helped finance the September 29 terror bombing in Male, police sources say.
Some $1,000 in cash was recovered from Sultan Park-accused Moosa Inas, but police say thousands more would have been needed to pay for the terror cell’s frequent international movements, proseletysation activism, and recruitment operations. Investigators are, in particular, seeking to identify a United Kingdom national of south Asian origin who identified himself to members of the Sultan Park terror cell as ‘Abu Issa.’ Believed to be of south Asian descent, ‘Abu Issa’ is thought to have arrived in the Maldives soon after the 2005 tsunami, armed with several thousand dollars in cash for victims then sheltered in the premises of a factory in Gan.
| Look around in Pakistan and you might find him. |
Moosa Inas, who police say triggered the explosive device that went off at Sultan Park, was among several local Islamists charged with distributing the relief. Ali Shareef and Mohammad Mazeed, arrested after the Maldives Defence Forces moved against the Islamist base at Himandhoo, also participated in the relief operations. Both men are believed to have earlier participated in an abortive plot to bring about an Islamic revolution.
Recalls Fiyes magazine reporter Ahmed Abdulla, who covered the 2005 disaster: “Basically, Inas and the others made it clear that they would only help those who converted to their particular form of Islam. People were desperate, so many agreed.”
Interestingly, the charitable wing of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, claimed to have spent Pakistan Rs. 17.2 million on tsunami relief operations in the region .
Apart from distributing funds to Islamists in the Maldives, intelligence sources said ‘Abu Issa’ also travelled to Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram. One meeting between the terror financier and operatives in India is thought to have been held six months ago. Indian intelligence services believe Ibrahim Asif, a Maldives national arrested for seeking to procure weapons in Kerala in April 2005, may have also been financed by ‘Abu Issa.’ |