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Pak arrest of Al-Qaeda suspects : Sends US to heightened security

	August 09, 2004

Yet again, the international terror trail has been traced back not to Iraq or Iran but the likeliest of all countries - Washington’s frontline ally in the war in terrorism - Pakistan. US Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge has raised the alert level to Code Orange, or high risk, after information gleaned by some top Al-Qaeda operatives captured in Pakistan that the terrorist group had done surveillance of some key financial institutions in Washington, New York and New Jersey, including the IMF and World Bank buildings in Washington and the New York Stock Exchange complex as well as the Citigroup building in New York’s Manhattan district and the Prudential building in New Jersey. Truck bombs were supposed to be used for the attacks.



Security alert in Washington and New York

Among those arrested in Pakistan is a key Al-Qaeda operative, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national suspected of involvement in the two US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, but US officials are saying that their decision to raise the terror alert in New York and Washington was based on information from Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, a Pakistani computer engineer who was apprehended in Gujrat, Pakistan, on July 13. The information provided by Naeem Noor Khan was so specific that it threw US intelligence and security officials into a tizzy over the week-end. They ratched up the terror warning from Code Yellow [elevated] to Code Orange [high risk] in both Washington and New York. Police and security officials began round-the-clock patrols around the financial districts in both cities last Sunday itself. Officials said the new intelligence showed in excruciating detail how terrorists had been measuring the security around the financial sites, including access, when most people are present in the building, how much explosives were needed to bring down a building, the damage an attack could cause, escape routes etc. A Government official identified truck bombs as the likely mode of attacks by the Al-Qaeda on American financial institutions, and not a chemical or biological or radiological “dirty” bomb. Employees, customers and visitors to Wall Street, Manhattan and downtown Newark and Washington’s government district were warned to expect tightened personal screening, closer scrutiny of bags and packages and more parking and traffic restrictions, although the authorities went ahead with the reopening of the Statue of Liberty for tourists on Aug 3, for the first time since the 9/11 attacks.

Intelligence warnings of Al-Qaeda threats to attack the New York Stock Exchange, the World Bank and the IMF sent a shiver through global markets after the US issued a high level threat alert and reminded the Americans they were the target.



Arrests in Pak : Noor Khan’s role

In the last few days, Pakistan security forces, sometimes tipped by the US intelligence services, have captured at least 20 Al-Qaeda suspects including Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian under indictment in New York for the 1998 Embassy blasts that killed 224 people and five other Al-Qaeda operatives following a 12-hour shoot-out . But, it is the other operative, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan who was more significant with regard to the latest alert, according to the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS. The paper said he carried with him frighteningly detailed information about potential targets in Manhattan, New York and Washington, described as a treasure trove of information that led to warnings about plans to bomb targets in the US. Washington Post claimed it was a joint operation by Pakistani and US forces. The paper cited a report from Pakistan to say that Pakistani intelligence agents found plans for new attacks against the US and Britain on a computer seized during the arrests of Ghailani and Noor Khan. Khan, alias Abu Talha, with a $5 million bounty was arrested from Lahore. He is said to be in the top hierarchy of Al-Qaeda’s external operations wing, a security official closely involved in Pakistan’s anti-Al-Qaeda operation said.

The subsequent interrogation of Khan and a deciphering of the computers and disks recovered from him show that he had assisted in evaluating potential US and Western targets for terrorist attacks. Khan has detailed an elaborate communication system being used by Al-Qaeda, breaking into which helped US officials discover a mother lode of information. Khan told investigators that he had received a 25-day training at a militant camp in Afghanistan in June, 1998. Al-Qaeda leaders arranged his marriage and were paying him $170 a month for rent for his house in Lahore.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is said to be upset over the revelation of the identity of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan by the US authorities which they did even as Pakistani authorities were interrogating him and he was fully cooperating. He was arrested as far back as on July 13 and the US officials revealed his name in anonymous briefings with journalists after New York and Washington were put on high alert for a possible Al-Qaeda attack.

In addition, a cousin or nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Musaab Archi, was arrested in Pakistan last week in connection with plans to attack more US financial institutions. More information was yielded from a woman of Pakistani origin carrying South African passport while trying to illegally crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States. The woman named Farda Goolam Mohammed was arrested on 19 July. Back in Pakistan, a key Sept. 11 suspect, who disappeared eight days before the attack on the World Trade Center, has been traced to be living in that country. His presence was confirmed after an e-mail he sent to his wife in Germany was intercepted. He is named as Said Bahaji, 29, a German of Moroccan origin and is alleged to have been the link between the Hamburg al-Queda cell, which masterminded the 9/11 attacks - and Osama bin laden. He is said to be hiding in Pakistan and Afghanistan ever since the attacks.

It has been alleged in some circles in the US that much of the information obtained by the recently arrested Al-Qaeda activists that led the US to raise terror alerts in Washington and New York was at least three years old. The WASHINGTON POST and NEW YORK TIMES reported that the officials were still analyzing the documents seized late last month after a raid in Pakistan and had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way. The White House and US officials have, however, defended the decision to raise the terror alert saying intelligence information was updated as recently as January this year. The officials continued to regard the information as significant and troubling because the reconnaissance already conducted has provided Al-Qaeda with the knowledge necessary to carry out attacks against the sites in Manhattan, Washington and Newark. They said Al-Qaeda had often struck years after its operatives began surveillance of an intended target. Taken together with a separate, more general stream of intelligence which indicates that Al-Qaeda intends to strike in the US this year, possibly in New York or Washington, the officials said even the dated but highly detailed evidence of surveillance was sufficient to prompt the authorities to undertake a global effort to track down the unidentified suspects involved in the surveillance operations.



US’s Delhi Embassy under threat of bomb attack

The US security alert was not confined to the US alone. In New Delhi, the US Embassy remained close on Aug 4 following intelligence reports that Al-Qaeda militants and its sympathizing groups in the Indian sub-continent might carry out an attack on the embassy and other American installations in the Capital. Confirming an alert notice, Delhi Police sources said, the Embassy received the intelligence reports directly from the CIA which spoke of the threat of a “bomb-like explosion” at the US embassy. Security near the embassy premises was tightened following discussions between Police, intelligence officials and the embassy staff.

The security around the Pakistan High Commission, the Kuwaiti mission and the residence of the Pakistan High Commissioner was also beefed up following intelligence inputs suggesting real time action by militant organisations based in Pakistan.



British arrests

In Britain, police arrested 13 men on Aug 3 in a series of anti-terror raids across the country one day after the US issued a high alert warning. A police statement said, they have been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. A Police spokesman, however, declined to say if there was a link between intelligence from Pakistan and the raids. The arrests of the men in their 20s and 30s were made in north-west London and in the southern English counties of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire as well as the north-western areas of Lancashire. All of them were of Asian origin, British Police sources said, but did not reveal how many of them were of Pakistani origin.

Other reports said the arrests were made after Pakistan provided Britain information. Their arrests may also have thwarted a plot to attack London’s Heathrow airport. Some British newspapers have said the 12 arrested men included a senior al-Queda figure named either Abu Musa al-Hindi or Abu Eisa al-Hindi. The newspapers said he was believed to be plotting an attack on Heathrow airport. A senior Pakistani Government official said, maps of Heathrow were found on computers of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, arrested three weeks ago and described by intelligence sources as an Al-Qaeda communications expert. The Police in London have also arrested a British citizen, Babar Ahmed, who may be extradited to the US. Police found in his possession military plans about a US Navy battle group in the Gulf. The documents described the Group’s vulnerability to an attack and provided examples of how the ships might be attacked.

Worried over the embedded Al-Qaeda operatives, Britain has decided to form a new “X-men” Unit to infiltrate and destroy Osama bin Laden’s outfit in the country.

The precise role of Pakistani intelligence in the British arrests is, however, far from clear. The British police has refused to comment on the source of intelligence that prompted the arrests. The Pakistan Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat, has also dismissed any linkage between arrests in Pakistan and the arrests in Britain. But the role of Pakistani intelligence in Britain’s arrests goes to the heart of a political debate in the US where the White House has defended its decision to launch the disruptive “range alert” in three metropolitan areas. Of special interest to the US is the arrest of a senior Al-Qaeda figure named Abu Musa al-Hindi.

Near home, reports from Singapore and Jakarta say Islamic militants are plotting more attacks in South East Asia and may be planning to kill officials involved in the war on terror in addition to hitting Western targets. Singapore’s Home Minister, Wong Kan Seg has warned that the Jemaah Islamiah group, linked to the Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, was plotting new attacks in South East Asia and may be activating dormant agents or cells. He said Jemaah Islamiah has replenished its leadership and there are indications that the Al-Qaeda linked organisation is planning fresh attacks. Political observers say, the stark message echoes recent warnings from other officials in Singapore that despite action by anti-terror forces around the region, the terror network, which intends to create a pan-Islamic State across South East Asia, has yet to be broken.

In Riyadh, security forces have arrested the most wanted militant leader in the Kingdom, Faris Ahmed Jamaan al Showeel al-Zahrani. He was arrested with another person on Aug 6 whose identity has not been disclosed. Al-Zarani was No. 12 on the Kingdom’s list of the 26 Most Wanted terror suspects. About half of those on the list have either been killed or captured.



Bush nod for intelligence czar : 9/11

Acting on the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, President Bush has meanwhile endorsed the creation of an intelligence czar and a counter-terrorism centre - his first steps in revamping the US intelligence-gathering system to help prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks. The bipartisan panel had made some forty recommendations, but the White House’s immediate focus was on two - a new National Counter-terrorism Centre and the proposal for a new Cabinet level Director of National Intelligence. Bush, however, did not agree to give a Cabinet level status to the proposed head of the National Intelligence.



Abortive bid to nab Osama

According to the 9/11 commission report, in May 1998, the CIA Director, George Tenet, scrapped a heavily rehearsed raid to snatch Osama bin Laden from his compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The Commission said, under the plan developed from satellite photographs and on-the-ground intelligence, Afghan operatives would have executed a daring kidnapping and then hand Bin laden over to the CIA. The tale of the cancelled raid, as described in the commission’s report, shows senior CIA and security officials balancing the operation’s risks against jeopardizing the lives of operatives and the repercussions of failure. Ultimately, the CIA senior management declared the plan too dangerous. The report said the site was identified as Tarnak Farms, with about 80 concrete or mud brick buildings surrounded by a three metre high wall on a vast stretch of isolated and treeless desert on the outskirts of the Kandahar airport. CIA which had mapped up the entire site had even identified houses that belonged to bin Laden’s wives and the one where he would most likely sleep. It was planned that a group of Afghan operatives would subdue guards at the compound, then enter to grab bin Laden by stealth, the Commission report said. The tribal members then would take him to a site in the desert outside of Kandahar and hand over bin Laden to a second group of tribal members who would take him to a desert landing zone for a handoff to a CIA plan. The plan was ultimately abandoned because of several possible hitches.

The CIA is now said to have some intelligence agents inside bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network but they are not within the terrorist leader’s inner circle where key information about any future attack would be discussed, senior intelligence officials said.

Al-Queda meanwhile has threatened to destroy European cities and “create waterfalls of blood” because the continent has failed to respond to Osama bin Laden’s truce offer. A statement posted on the Internet in the name of Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade condemned the Europeans for not withdrawing their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and warned, ‘We will create waterfalls of blood that will drag you to their depths.”



Pakistan’s ambiguous role : US praise

The United States, meanwhile, is praising Pakistan for its support to fight Al-Qaeda terrorism in spite of widespread reports of its connivance with it and the Taliban even now. In its fact-sheet detailing actions taken consistent with the 9/11 report related to Pakistan, the White House has said the US and Pakistan are working closely in the fight against terror and that Pakistani forces are rounding up terrorists along its Afghan borders.

The 9/11 Commission report said that if Gen. Musharraf stands for enlightened moderation in its domestic policies, the US should be make “hard choices” and make the “difficult and long term commitments to the future of Pakistan.” The Commission said the US should support Pakistan’s struggle against extremists and extend military aid. The commission report which recalled that in August 2001, President Bush personally wrote to Gen. Musharraf calling for Pakistan’s active engagement against Al-Qaeda, said, “President Musharraf is a friend of our country and has taken out of commission over 500 Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational planner behind he 9/11 attacks.”

Strange enough while the 9/11 commission praised Gen. Musharraf’s cooperation in the fight against terrorism, according to US media, on the eve of the publication of the 9/11 report, the Commission was given a “stunning document” from a Pakistani source which claimed that Pakistani intelligence officers knew in advance of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington and other possible attacks. The Washington Times reported the documents also said that Al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden had been receiving periodic treatment for dialysis in a military hospital in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s NWFP province adjacent to the Afghan border, a claim denied by Pakistan. The Washington Post said the document, sent by an anonymous Pakistani source, was received by the Commission as its own report was already coming off the process.

In a related development, security forces in Afghanistan have arrested a young Pakistani boy of 17 years hailing from Karachi named Muhammad Sohail during an encounter with the Taliban activists. He told his interrogators that Pakistan was allowing militant groups to train and organize insurgents to fight in Afghanistan. Sohail described his recruitment through his local mosque by a group listed by the US as having terrorist links, his military training in a camp not far from the capital, Islamabad, and his dispatch with several other Pakistanis to Afghanistan.

No wonder, at a time when senior administration officials have been going out of their way defending Pakistan in the war on terrorism and dismissing reports of Taliban activity inside that country, a US Democratic Congressman, Frank Pallone has written to President Bush expressing concern over the Pakistan-Taliban nexus. He said in his letter to the President, “Pakistan has been declared an ally in the global war on terror but Pakistan’s protection of the Taliban is counter-productive to the efforts to end terrorism. In fact, President Musharraf’s support and training of the Taliban has led to increased militant insurgency at the Line of Control in Kashmir”, he said.