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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 22, December 16, 2002
Data and
assessments from SAIR can be freely published in any form
with credit to the South Asia Intelligence Review of the
South Asia Terrorism Portal
|
|
Bomb Blasts in Bangladesh, 2000-2002
|
Date
|
Place
|
Killed
|
Injured
|
2002 |
December 7 |
Mymensingh |
18
|
300
|
|
October 13 |
Khulna |
0
|
1
|
|
October 11 |
Rangmati town |
3
|
2
|
|
September 28 |
Sathkhira town |
3
|
125
|
|
May 1 |
Gurdaspur upzila (sub-district),
Natore |
1
|
25
|
|
April 25 |
Dhaka |
0
|
2
|
|
April 10 |
Kushtia |
0
|
0
|
|
February 27 |
Dhandoba , Barisal
district |
1
|
1
|
|
February 4 |
Chittagong Press Club |
1
|
3
|
|
January 5 |
Barisal |
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
2001 |
October 14 |
Sirajganj |
0
|
2
|
|
September 25 |
Sylhet town |
2
|
0
|
|
September 25 |
Shullah, Sunamganj
district |
4
|
0
|
|
September 24 |
Mollarhat, Bagerhat
district |
8
|
100
|
|
September 3 |
Makahati Bazar, Munshiganj |
0
|
13
|
|
August 25 |
Feni town |
0
|
7
|
|
June 15 |
Narayanganj town |
21
|
100
|
|
June 3 |
Baniachar, Gopalganj
district |
10
|
25
|
|
May 31 |
Duttapara in Tongi |
0
|
5
|
|
April 23 |
Dhaka |
0
|
2
|
|
April 17 |
Rajshahi district |
1
|
0
|
|
April 14 |
Dhaka |
8
|
0
|
|
January 20 |
Dhaka |
6
|
50
|
|
|
|
|
|
2000 |
December 25 |
Dhaka |
0
|
0
|
|
December 24 |
Dhaka |
2
|
18
|
|
November 21 |
Khulna |
0
|
4
|
* Compiled
from English language media sources.
|
Fellow Travellers
of Terrorism
Ajai Sahni
Editor, SAIR; Executive
Director, Institute for Conflict Management
In what was
seen as a dramatic breakthrough by India, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) authorities announced on December 8, 2002,
the arrest of Anees Kaksar Ibrahim in Dubai (He was arrested
on December 3, three days after his reported arrival from
Pakistan). Anees is one of the fugitives on the list of
20 most wanted terrorists that had been handed over to Pakistan
in the wake of the December 13, 2001 attack on India's Parliament.
The news improved on December 12 when UAE authorities asked
New Delhi to initiate extradition proceedings for Ibrahim
against an Interpol Red Corner notice dating back to 1993.
Delhi's confidence that it would, finally, get its hands
on one of the planners of, perhaps, the worst single act
of terrorism in the country - the Mumbai Blasts, a series
of explosions at important commercial centres in the financial
capital of the country, in which 257 persons were killed,
and another 713 injured in 1993 - was strengthened by the
fact that the UAE appeared to have changed its attitude
towards the extradition or deportation of organised criminals
and terrorists operating from its soil. Two prominent fugitives
- Aftab Ansari, an accused in the explosions outside the
US Information Centre at Calcutta, and Muthappa Rai, an
organised crime gang leader - had been deported, on February
9, 2002 and May 29, 2002, respectively, to face Indian justice.
On December 13, however, things began to unravel, with news
reports that Anees had been 'released on bail' and 'deported'
to Pakistan. Official confirmation is still to be received
by authorities in Delhi, but evidence suggests that Anees
has, once again, been allowed to slip away from Dubai into
his safe haven in Karachi. This is at least the third time
this has happened: in January 1996, he was arrested in Bahrain,
but was later shifted to Dubai, allegedly on the intervention
of some of Dubai's ruling notables, and was then allowed
to slip away to Pakistan. He was again arrested in 1998
on charges of having murdered a former associate and then
rival, Irfan Goga, in Dubai, but was freed after two days
for 'lack of evidence'. These are, however, not the only
occasions that Anees has had passage through Dubai, where
he maintains a sprawling establishment, owns a number of
other properties, operates a thriving combination of legitimate
and illegitimate businesses, and where he visits regularly.
Anees' crimes in India do not date back to the terrorist
incidents of 1993 alone. He continues as the operational
head of the notorious D-Company, created and controlled
by his brother Dawood Ibrahim - who tops the Indian 'list
of 20' - which still runs the largest organised criminal
network in India, and whose operations prominently include
contract killing, extortion, the circulation of counterfeit
currency, and the provision of a range of freelance services
to terrorist groups at the instance of Pakistan's Inter
Services Intelligence (ISI). Dawood and the D-Company enjoy
substantial patronage from, and association with, members
of the ruling family in this tiny Shiekhdom. Their entry
into Dubai was, moreover, sponsored by members of the royal
family of Sharjah. It is precisely these associations that
have provided immunity and a secure base to the vast range
of criminal operations - including gun running across Asia
and Africa, international money laundering, drug running
from Afghanistan-Pakistan (before it passed out of the hands
of Pakistan's ISI and into the more direct Northern routes
through Central Asia and Eastern Europe), and a range of
associations with terrorist organisations - including, according
to reliable open media sources, with the Al
Qaeda. Indeed, speculative media reports - as
yet unconfirmed by more authoritative sources - suggested
that Anees Ibrahim's arrest in the present instance was
actually prompted by US suspicions of possible involvement
in the attacks on the Paradise Mombasa Hotel, in which 16
persons (mainly Israelis) were killed, and the abortive
missile attack on an Israeli commercial plane, both in Kenya,
on November 28, 2002.
The D-Company is not the only organised criminal and terrorist
group that thrives in Dubai. In some ways, of course, this
little "shoppers' paradise" projects an image as an unlikely
associate of Islamist extremists and professional assassins.
Extending a bare 72 kilometres along the coast of the Arabian
Gulf, Dubai is a thriving port City State and the largest
free trade zone in all of Arabia. But underlying the glitter
and the conspicuous opulence of Dubai is a permissive regime
that has made it the money laundering capital of the world,
and one of the favoured locations of the commercial and
financial operations of transnational terrorist and organised
criminal groups. It is precisely this pattern of quasi-official
patronage and licentiousness that has facilitated the rise
of a veritable gallery of petty criminals from India to
the ranks of multinational criminal corporations. On a random
sample, Indian Mafiosi, who substantially owe their success
to operations based in Dubai at one time of their career
or another, include Abu Salem currently in custody in Portugal
on charges of travel documents fraud, but wanted by both
the USA and India for involvement with terrorist activity;
Aftab Bhatki, who controls the entire fake currency operations
in India on behalf of Dawood Ibrahim, and who has an Interpol
Red Corner notice against him on India's request; Raju Anadkar,
perhaps the largest money launderer in the region; Babloo
Shrivastava, who controlled his kidnapping and extortion
empire in India from Dubai, till he made the mistake of
travelling to Singapore and was nabbed and extradited to
India, where he currently bides his time in jail; Chotta
Shakeel, another D-Company associate, who controls operations
in Mumbai from Dubai; Chotta Rajan, a former Dawood man,
now a bitter enemy, who the 'Company' tried to assassinate
in Bangkok in November 2000; and, of course, Dawood Ibrahim
himself, though he now finds residence in Karachi, under
the ISI's protection, safer than Dubai. A substantial volume
of illegal trade to and from Russia also passes through
Dubai, and the Russian mafia has now established a significant
presence there. The US is also said to be 'advising' Dubai
on how to prevent the 'abuse' of its facilities as a free
trade zone by criminal and terrorist groups, and US investigators
are currently looking into large volumes of clandestine
(hawala) financial transactions by various terrorist
fronts connected with the Al Qaeda, especially the movement
of escalating volumes of gold in innumerable unaccountable
transactions since the collapse of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan. Indeed, Dubai is a veritable Utopia as a secure
base for criminal and for terrorist financial operations
that target other countries.
Sources indicate that UAE authorities have pleaded helplessness
in the Anees Ibrahim case on the grounds that the country
has a 'loose federal structure' and cannot exercise direct
control over decisions taken in Dubai. The present structures
of international law, moreover, make the Interpol - and
its 'Red Corner notices' - completely toothless tigers when
it comes to uncooperative regimes, as is evident not only
in the Dubai case, but in innumerable cases in Pakistan
as well.
The present Anees Ibrahim case has, however, one positive
aspect: it has demonstrated clearly that Pakistan's President,
General Pervez Musharraf, has lied blatantly, repeatedly,
and on public record. He - and numberless senior officials
of his government - have denied again and again that the
Ibrahim brothers were in Pakistan. UAE authorities, however,
disclosed that Anees Ibrahim's 'port of origin' on his present
journey was Pakistan, that he was in possession of, not
one, but two Pakistani passports, and that he was 'deported'
to Pakistan after his release in Dubai.
December 13, the day Anees Ibrahim was released by Dubai,
gifted another victory to the forces of Islamist terrorism
in the region, this time in Pakistan. Maulana Masood Azhar,
the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM),
a group on the US list of international terrorist organisations,
and which is also banned in both Pakistan and India, was
released from jail by a 'Court order'. The Jaish remains
among the most active terrorist organisations on Indian
soil, and has been closely associated with the Al Qaeda
in Afghanistan, and is believed to be an active facilitator
in the rehabilitation and resurgence of Al Qaeda survivors
currently in Pakistan.
Clearly, the current international legal regime is not equipped
to deal with the scourge of international terrorism. All
the benefits of the entire range of modern facilities -
travel, banking, documentation, finance and communications
- are made available to the forces of disorder by collusive
regimes that wink at, or actively support their activities.
As one American investigator looking into terror-linked
hawala transactions in Dubai is reported to have expressed
it, "there is a wilful blindness there". The growth and
persistence of terrorism is a deeply collusive activity,
and many regimes - not just the active sponsors of terrorism
and transnational crime - are deeply implicated. Among these,
Pakistan and Dubai - certainly for different reasons - merit
(dis)honourable mention.
The international community will have to devise new legislative
and enforcement measures if the movement of terrorist cadres,
weaponry and finances is to be choked off. Otherwise, the
civilised world will find itself at a growing disadvantage
against what Bernard Lewis has aptly, though in another
context, described as "a string of shabby tyrannies, ranging
from traditional autocracies to dictatorships that are modern
only in their apparatus of repression and indoctrination."
Biswa Ijtema
and Bombs
Guest Writer: Bertil
Lintner
Senior Writer, Far
Eastern Economic Review (FEER)
More than
three million Muslim devotees from 52 countries gathered
along the bank of the Turag river, 30 kilometres north of
Dhaka, at Tongi, Gazipur, for the three-day annual Biswa
Ijtema (World Congregation) between December 14 and
16, 2002. The significance of the event was underlined by
the profile of political leaders who attended: present at
the concluding prayers were Bangladesh President, Prof Iajuddin
Ahmed; the Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia; Leader of
the Opposition in Parliament, Sheikh Hasina and other political,
civil and military leaders. The Ijtema is organised annually
by the Tablighi Jamaat.
The Biswa Ijtema, the second largest congregation
of Muslims in the world after the Hajj, ended peacefully
despite rumours that some international terrorist groups
may have planned to disrupt the event. But, the fact that
millions of Muslim devotees from across the world gathered
in Bangladesh emphasises the role the country has come to
play in the context of international Islamic brotherhood.
Although the government in Dhaka has reacted fiercely to
any suggestion that the country is becoming a haven for
Islamic extremists, reports from Asian and Western intelligence
services suggest otherwise.
Shortly after the fall of Kandahar in late 2001, several
hundred Taliban
and Al
Qaeda fighters escaped by ship from Karachi to
Chittagong. They were then trucked down to hidden camps
in the Ukhia area, south of Cox's Bazaar. Local people report
seeing heavily armed men, with a few Bangladeshis among
them, in those camps. They were told that they would be
killed if anyone told 'outsiders' about this regrouping
of ex-Afghanistan fighters in this remote corner of southeastern
Bangladesh.
According to other reports from Asian security services,
militants from the Jemaah Islamiah - which is connected
to the Al Qaeda and wants to set up a gigantic Islamic state
encompassing Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and southern
Philippines - are also hiding out in these camps, which
were set up in the early 1990s to train rebels from the
Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar's Rakhine State. In
more recent years, these camps are in effect, run by Bangladesh's
most extreme Islamic outfit, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami
(HuJI),
which was set up in 1992, reportedly with financial support
from Osama bin Laden.
The Jemaah Islamiah is suspected of being behind a number
of planned - but foiled - attacks against Western targets
in Singapore, as well as the devastating bomb blast on the
Indonesian island of Bali on October 12, 2002, in which
nearly 200 people were killed, most of them Western tourists.
The Jemaah Islamiah militants in hiding in southeastern
Bangladesh are believed to be mostly Malaysian and Singaporean
citizens. It is, however, uncertain to what extent the Bangladeshi
security services have been involved in their relocation.
But, well-placed local sources say that it would have been
impossible without at least some tacit agreement with the
Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Bangladesh's
chief intelligence agency, which is closely connected with
Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Security concerns heightened over the holding of the Biswa
Ijtema in Tongi only a week after at least 18 persons
were killed and 300 injured in bomb blasts in four cinema
halls in the central Bangladeshi town of Mymensingh on December
7. Without being specific, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia described
these as a "planned terrorist attack", while Opposition
leader Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, claimed that an
"identified fanatic terrorist group within [the ruling]
alliance is behind these heinous bomb blasts." The international
news agency, Reuters first reported that Home Minister
Altaf Hossain Chowdhury had said that bin Laden's Al Qaeda
network was behind the blast, but later had to retract the
report after denials from the Minister.
Subsequently, the police raided the local office of Reuters
in Dhaka. Dozens of opposition activists were also arrested,
but no link to them could be established. The raid on Reuters
and the arrest of opposition politicians came only days
after a British TV team and their local helpers had been
arrested for trying to document the rise of Islamic fundamentalism
in Bangladesh and its possible consequences on the country's
non-Muslim minorities.
Many foreign observers may contend that the Bangladeshi
authorities are simply overreacting to international press
coverage, but it could also be that the DGFI has too much
to hide, and therefore wants to silence any reports suggesting
that their country has become a hot-bed of Islamic fundamentalism.
The four-party alliance that won the Bangladeshi elections
in October 2001 includes the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami,
which has two Ministers in the present government. Its youth
organisation, the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS),
was behind Bangladesh's most devastating bomb blast before
the cinemas in Mymensingh were hit - an explosion on June
15, 2001, at the Awami League office in Narayanganj, in
which 21 persons were killed and over a 100 others injured.
The same government-connected outfit is also suspected of
being behind several other bomb blasts as well as attacks
on secular Bangladeshi politicians, journalists and writers.
The ICS is closely connected with the most militant of the
Rohingya organisations along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border,
the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), which also has
links to the Al Qaeda. Video
footage released by the American cable television network
CNN in August this year and obtained from Al Qaeda, shows
Rohingyas as well as Bangladeshis training in camps near
the country's southeastern border, but well inside Bangladesh.
Al Qaeda's involvement in Bangladesh was confirmed in September
this year, when the police in Dhaka arrested seven 'aid
workers' working for the Saudi-based Al Haramain Islamic
Institute. The men, who came from Libya, Algeria, Sudan
and Yemen belonged to an organisation that had first come
to Bangladesh to help Rohingya refugees, but later became
involved in running Islamic centres all over the country.
The so-called Institute has been named by several sources
as a front for the Al Qaeda. Perhaps not surprisingly, nothing
came out of the arrests and the whole affair was quickly
hushed up by the Bangladeshi authorities, suggesting that
the 'arrests' were a mistake by some local police officer.
The United States has so far accepted the Bangladeshi government's
assurances that the country is not playing host to international
terrorist movements, and that it is a reliable partner in
the global war on terror. But this ostrich-like mentality
may change as more evidence to the contrary comes to light.
The arrests of foreign journalists and the raid on Reuters
in Dhaka are worrying signs of increasing intolerance in
Bangladesh. And the hosting of the Biswa Ijtema is
bound to attract the attention of 'friendly' Islamic organisations,
which see the country as a perfect place to hide out when
international attention is focused on events in more high-profile
countries such as Pakistan and Indonesia.
The Church: Tackling Politics in
the Northeast
Wasbir Hussain
Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New
Delhi; Consulting Editor, The Sentinel, Guwahati.
Christmas
is approaching, but that's not the only reason why the powerful
Church in India's Northeast is busy. Church leaders are
involved in the extremely delicate task of brokering peace
in insurgency-hit States like Nagaland, Manipur and even
Meghalaya, and are also taking on the challenge of 'cleaning
up' the electoral system and keeping 'bad elements' out
of politics in the turbulent region. With elections to the
State Legislatures in Nagaland and Meghalaya due early next
year, Church organisations in these two states have come
out with a set of 'commandments' that includes asking insurgents
to keep away from the polls and calling upon the voters
to elect such politicians who are 'guided by values.'
An estimated 12 per cent of the 39 million people in the
seven Northeastern Indian States are Christians, but they
dominate some of the States more completely. Christians
account for nearly 90 per cent of Nagaland's population;
about 65 per cent in Meghalaya; and over 85 per cent in
Mizoram. It is not surprising, consequently, to find the
Church actively involved in the social and political life
of these areas. On and off, there are calls from various
quarters demanding that the Church should not interfere
in politics. But, as one Church leader in Nagaland remarked,
the Church is also often held responsible for being unable
to correct or prevent the wrongs in society. Trapped in
a mesh of contradictory expectations, the Church in the
Northeast appears to have decided on playing a proactive
role in the urgent crises of the region.
The role of the Church as a peace broker in Nagaland has
been well documented in the past and Church leaders continue
to take the message of peace from the Naga people to the
leaders of the warring Naga insurgent factions, urging the
latter to end their bloody internecine feuds and solve contentious
issues amicably. The Church has also been a bridge between
the Naga rebel groups and the Indian government, helping
both sides approach an acceptable solution to the 55-year-old
Naga insurrection. If the Isak-Muivah faction of the National
Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM)
is engaged in peace negotiations with New Delhi today, this
is largely due to the untiring efforts of the Church in
the State, as also of other non-governmental organisations
(NGOs). The Church has also been inadvertently drawn into
the politics of the State and of insurgency, in a situation
where rebel groups like the NSCN claim to be fighting for
a 'Nagaland for Christ.' Under the circumstances, the Church
could in no way have remained a passive observer.
The Government of India removed a 12-year-long ban on the
NSCN-IM on November 26, 2002, conferring legitimacy on the
organization. Speculation is, as a result, rife that the
rebel group would interfere directly or indirectly in the
approaching State Assembly elections in Nagaland. The State's
Congress party Chief Minister S.C. Jamir, the NSCN-IM's
bete noire, has already urged Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee to extract an assurance from the rebel group that
it would not threaten or intimidate voters or candidates
during the polls. Jamir is whipping up fears, claiming that
the NSCN-IM is likely to back non-Congress candidates or
field 'proxy candidates' during the elections in the State.
Jamir's fears may not be without reason. Ironically, separatist
rebel groups in the Northeast fighting for sovereign homelands
are avowed opponents of the Indian Constitution and insist
that they do not believe in the 'Indian electoral system.'
More often than not, however, they are found to play an
active role during almost every election, either calling
on the voters to boycott the elections, or backing candidates
of their choice, and in the process threatening their rivals.
This has been the case in States like Assam, Nagaland, Manipur,
and now, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. The separatists
give a great deal of importance to the elections under the
'Indian system' that they love to hate.
The 'code of conduct' for elections, issued by the Church
in Nagaland and Meghalaya, needs to be assessed against
this backdrop. On November 28, the Nagaland Christian Forum
(NCF) convened an all-party meeting in the State capital,
Kohima, where it finalized its 'poll guidelines' for the
people, the most important of which was a call to the 'Naga
national workers', the term ordinarily used by the Nagas
to refer to the insurgents, to stay away from the poll process
in Nagaland. NCF president Zhabu Therhuja has been quoted
as saying, "The Naga national workers (insurgents) are striving
for a nobler and higher status for the Nagas. It would be
an unpardonable compromise on their part to be involved
in the elections." The Forum's 'guidelines' are meant to
create an atmosphere for a free and fair election. The NCF
made it clear that it was not trying to impose its diktat
on the people, but sought to urge them to "allow each voter
to vote freely without inhibition, intimidation and obligation."
In Meghalaya, it is the Roman Catholic Church that has taken
up the task of enforcing discipline during the forthcoming
elections to the State Assembly. On December 8, the Archbishop
of Shillong, Dominic Jala, unveiled the Church's 'ten-commandments'
for the elections, which exhort voters to vote for candidates
who are, among other attributes, guided by societal values;
protect rights as enshrined in the Constitution; are pro-poor
and impartial; stand for peace and harmony; fight corruption
at all levels; and are 'God-fearing'.
The codes of conduct issued by the Church have generally
been welcomed in the region, though there are some who wonder
why the Church has decided to enter the sensitive arena
of electoral politics. The answer, however, is not difficult
to find. The rapid deterioration in human values in the
Northeast, the instability and ineffectiveness of the region's
legislative politics (legislators defect parties at the
drop of a hat in States like Manipur and Meghalaya, bringing
down governments), rampant corruption and the culture of
the gun are some of the issues that trouble all of civil
society, and that naturally agitates the Church. Clearly,
religious leaders in the region have realized that the Church
cannot contribute sufficiently to the restoration of a fast-degenerating
society through simple sermonizing about spiritual duties
or life after death. There was, consequently, a certain
inevitability about the Church's new role as a watchdog
of political values in a society where the secular leadership
appears to be failing with distressing regularity.
|
Weekly Fatalities: Major conflicts in
South Asia
December 9-15, 2002
  |
Civilian
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorist
|
Total
|
BANGLADESH
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
INDIA
|
9
|
8
|
42
|
59
|
Assam
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
9
|
Delhi
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
2
|
Jammu &
Kashmir
|
3
|
4
|
29
|
36
|
Left-wing
Extremism
|
3
|
0
|
3
|
6
|
Manipur
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
Meghalaya
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
2
|
Tripura
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
NEPAL
|
7
|
1
|
33
|
41
|
* Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
|
BANGLADESH
Muslim
scholastics claim responsibility for Mymensingh-serial
blasts: Unidentified Muslim scholastics, who called
themselves as "Students of Madrasa", claimed responsibility
for the December 7-Mymensingh serial blasts that killed
18 persons and injured 300 more, media reports said
on December 12, 2002. The group claimed responsibility
in an e-mail sent to the vernacular 'Prothom Alo' newspaper,
and also said they received Bangladesh Taka one lakh
(hundred thousand) each for carrying out the blasts
at four cinemas, from an unnamed Islamic student's organisation.
While investigations by police into the blasts are on,
a one-member judicial committee headed by a retired
Judge has also launched its inquiry on December 11.
Some 50 persons, including leaders and workers of the
Opposition Awami League, have so far been arrested in
this connection. Indian
Express, December 12, 2002.
INDIA
Two suspected
Pakistani terrorists killed in Delhi: Delhi Police on December
14, 2002, killed two suspected Pakistani terrorists, while they
were moving near some offices of the Indian Air Forces (IAF)
and paramilitary forces, including that of the Border Security
Force (BSF), in the suburbs in south Delhi. Police recovered
two AK-47 rifles, some hand grenades, magazines and other documents
from the car in which they were travelling. Reports indicated
that documents recovered indicted the terrorists belonged to
a hitherto unknown organisation called Tehreek-e-Ghaznavi, and
according to Delhi Police Joint Commissioner Niraj Kumar, it
could be a cover for the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Hindustan
Times, December 15, 2002.
Mafia don Anees Ibrahim deported to Pakistan after Dubai
Court grants bail: Mafia don Anees Ibrahim, a key accused
in the 1993-Mumabi serial blasts and brother of the Pakistan-based
Mafia don Dawood Ibrahim, was deported to Pakistan after being
released on bail by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities
on December 14, 2002. Anees had been arrested on December 3
in connection with a murder committed in Dubai. On December
12, the UAE, through the Interpol, had asked India's Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to apply for the extradition of
Anees. Times
of India, December 15, 2002.
PAKISTAN
Lahore High
Court releases Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar:
A three-member Review Board of the Lahore High Court on December
14, 2002, ordered the release of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief
Maulana Masood Azhar. The Review Board observed that the Punjab
government had not provided sufficient material to continue
his detention and further stated that the state had failed to
establish that during his one-year long detention, Azhar had
ever indulged, directly or indirectly, in any activity which
could lead to a law and order situation. The government is required
by law to secure permission of a three-member review board for
extension in any detention beyond 90 days. Azhar was arrested
in December 2001 and had been under detention since then. The
review board had extended his detention for three months on
September 16, 2002, and this extension was to expire on December
15. Dawn,
December 15, 2002.
Suicide squads being trained in Pakistan to hit Afghan targets:
Suicide squads are reportedly being trained in Pakistan by Al
Qaeda operatives to hit targets in Afghanistan and the bombers'
families are being promised $50,000, the Associated Press quoted
Afghan and Pakistani sources as saying on December 13, 2002.
The report said Pakistani terrorists and Taliban sympathisers
in the Pakistan military are providing bomb training to suicide
squads. The nephew of Maulvi Abdul Kabir, a front ranking Taliban
operative, was quoted as saying that the training camps are
located in Bajour and Mansehra, North West Frontier Province
(NWFP). However, the Pakistani government has denied the presence
of any training camps in the country. "Nobody will ever be able
to either hide here or establish training camps in Pakistan,"
said Interior Ministry spokesperson Iftikar Ahmed. Daily
Times, December 14, 2002.
SRI LANKA
War will resume
if federal solution is rejected, says government chief negotiator:
Cabinet spokesperson and government chief negotiator in the
peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),
G L Peiris, warned at a press conference on December 9, 2002,
in Colombo that war could resume if a political solution based
on federal framework was not accepted. Some powerful sections
in the country are opposing the LTTE--government agreement to
work for a federal solution, added Peiris. Daily
News, December 10, 2002.
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