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India-Pakistan
Two suspected AQIS operatives sent to judicial custody till Feb 10
2016-02-02
[Daily Excelsior] Two suspected operatives of Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), tossed in the clink
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
for allegedly radicalising youths and propagating the terror agenda of the output, were today remanded to judicial custody till February 10 by a Delhi court.

Abdul Sami and Syed Anzar Shah were produced before Additional Sessions Judge Reetesh Singh after expiry of their police custody and the Special Cell of Delhi Police requested the court to send them to judicial custody.

The police told the court that the two accused were not required for further custodial interrogation at this stage and since probe in the case was going on, they should be remanded to judicial custody.

The court after hearing the submissions remanded both the accused to judicial custody till February 10.

Besides Shah and Sami, the other arrested accused in the case are Mohammed Asif, Zafar Masood and Mulana Mohd Abdul Rehman Kasmi.

Police had earlier said that Rahman ran a madrassa in Uttar Pradesh where several students were enrolled and he was allegedly trying to radicalise them for terror activities.

It had claimed that Masood was propagating the terror agenda of AQIS among the youths and trying to attract them towards the outfit.

While Asif (41), was held from Seelampur in north-east Delhi, Rahman (37) was arrested from Jagatpur area of Cuttack in Odisha, police had said. They have been booked under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

According to the special cell, Rahman is suspected to have international links in countries like Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, Pakistain and Dubai.
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India-Pakistan
Madrassa teacher held for al-Qaeda links
2016-01-09
[Daily Excelsior] A madrassa teacher from Bangalore has been tossed in the calaboose
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
by Delhi Police for suspected links with al-Qaeda, making it the fourth arrest in its ongoing operation against the terror outfit.

Maulana Anzar Shah was arrested in Bangalore by a team of Delhi Police's Special Cell on Wednesday following which he was brought to Delhi on transit remand and produced before a court yesterday which sent him to police custody till January 20, said a police official.

In December, Delhi Police had arrested three suspected operatives of al-Qaeda module in the India sub-continent (AQIS).

While Mohammed Asif (41), the first one to be arrested, is believed to be one of the founding members and the Indian head (amir) of AQIS's motivation, recruitment and training wing, was held from Seelampur in northeast Delhi, another operative Abdul Rahman (37) was arrested from Jagatpur area of Cuttack in Odisha.

The third arrest, Zafar Masood, allegedly acted as a financier for the module. He was arrested from mohalla Deepa Sarai in UP's Sambhal district. They were all booked under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Shah, the latest arrest in connection with the module, had met Mohammed Asif at a religious congregation in Bangalore, following which he was introduced to Abdul Rahman and Zafar Masood.

He was asked to act as a provider of logistics support whenever the need arised, said an official privy to the investigation.

The Special Cell has evidence of communication between Shah, Abdul Rehman and Zafar Masood, too, mostly carried out through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. The Sherlocks have also traced a money trail connecting Shah and Masood, the official said.

A few more persons are presently under the police scanner and more arrests are likely, the official added.

AQIS was floated by al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahari himself in September 2014 following a meeting somewhere in Afghanistan-Pakistain region which reportedly had in its quorum the entire Grand Council (Arabian Shura) of al-Qaeda, including al-Zawahiri
... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodx al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...
's son in law.

Despite several Indians being present at the training camp, Maulana Asim Umar
...chief of al-Qaeda's Sharia Committee for Pakistain, named head of al-Qaeda in India. His video appearances are frequently accompanied by clips of al Qaeda's senior propagandist in Pakistan, Ahmad Farooq. Umar the author of The Army of Anti-Christ: Blackwater, Documentation of the Dreadful Terrorist Activities of America's Blackwater in Islamic Countries...
alias Sanaul Haq and Mohammed Asif are believed to be the only Indians present in the council, police said.

After Umar was anointed the chief, it is believed that some unexpected visitors met him, including Indian Mujahideen
A locally recruited auxilliary of Pakistain's Lashkar-e-Taiba, designed to give a domestic patina to Pakistain's terror war against its bigger neighbor...
chief Riyaz Bhatkal, who is still on the lam, and other senior IM commanders like Baba Sajid, who was recently reported to have been killed in Syria, police said.

Asif was Umar's chosen candidate and, with the help of his deputy Qasim, Umar had contacted Asif through a social networking site, a year before he left for Tehran on a 'ziyarat' visa, exclusively meant for visiting a holy shrine in Tehran.

Umar, Asif and Qasim are all natives of Sambhal in UP, police added.
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India-Pakistan
India police bust 'Al-Qaeda cell', three arrested
2015-12-18
[AlAhram] Delhi police have busted a suspected Al-Qaeda cell and placed in durance vile
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
a founder member of the Death Eater group's India wing, officials said Thursday.

Police said they had arrested "radical bad boy" Mohammed Asif, 41, who allegedly led the group's recruitment and training wing in India and was a founder member of Al-Qaeda on the subcontinent.

"Long and intense periods of deploying human sources in the vulnerable pockets of Islamic radicalisation led to the zeroing in on certain suspects," police said in a statement.

"A trap was laid and in a swift and professional operation, accused Mohd. Asif was apprehended" when he went to meet a contact at a flyover in New Delhi, the statement said.

Two others were also arrested in the case, one for allegedly attempting to radicalise students at a madrassa in Uttar Pradesh state and another for financing the group's activities, Press Trust of India reported.

All three have been remanded in jug, according to police and PTI.

In September 2014 Al-Qaeda announced it had set up a new branch on the Indian subcontinent seeking to invigorate its waning Islamist bad boy movement.

India placed several states on high alert after the group launched the new branch to "wage jihad" in South Asia.

Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri
... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodx al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...
said at the time the new operation would take the fight to Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, which has a large but traditionally moderate Muslim population.
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India-Pakistan
Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay pegs out
2013-05-10
[India Express] Six days after he was attacked by a fellow inmate in a Jammu jail, Pak prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay, 52, died at the PGIMER hospital in Chandigarh on Thursday morning. Doctors said he died at 6:56 am due to "multiple organ failure".

The body was handed over to officials of the Pakistain High Commission after completion of post-mortem and various other formalities. By evening, the body was flown back to Pakistain by a special PIA plane.

His two relatives, brother-in-law Mohammed Shehzaad and nephew Mohammed Asif, who arrived in India on Tuesday, also left by the same plane. "Kehne ko kuch raha nahi, sab khatam ho gaya," said Shehzad.

Sanaullah suffered serious head injuries when he was attacked by a fellow prisoner on May 3, a day after Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh died in Pakistain.
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Cue Muslim Rage Boy
2008-07-01
A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.

Tayside Police's new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community.

The choice of image on the Tayside Police cards - a black dog sitting in a police officer's hat - has now been raised with Chief Constable John Vine.

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

Dundee councillor Mohammed Asif said: 'My concern was that it's not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.

'It was probably a waste of resources going to these communities.

'They (the police) should have understood. Since then, the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part, and that if they'd seen it was going to cause upset they wouldn't have done it.'

Councillor Asif, who is a member of the Tayside Joint Police Board, said that the force had a diversity adviser and was generally very aware of such issues...
It is so easy to get their goat, I'm surprised that wits haven't started tacking up pig pictures all over the place.
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India-Pakistan
Bangalore engineer with terror designs held
2008-02-23
BANGALORE: An electrical engineer who was once employed with a leading US multinational and is an active member of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) has been arrested from Bangalore by police who claim the 32-year-old could hold the key to cracking a dangerous terror web that spanned swathes of India, from UP to Kerala.

A native of a village near Kozhikode, Kerala, Yahya Iyash Kamkutty came to Bangalore eight years ago after completing a bachelor's degree in engineering from one of Kerala's best institutes. While working with GE, he kept in touch with terror suspects Mohammed Asif, Asadullah Abubaker and their associates. The gang held several meetings in north Karnataka and were preparing to strike at key installations in the state, police said.

Yahya's arrest late on Thursday once again points to the increasing use of highly-trained professionals being lured into terror groups which have used sophisticated methods and planning in their attacks.

It was from Bangalore that Glasgow bomber Kafeel Ahmed, a PhD scholar in aeronautical engineering and his brother, Sabeel Ahmed, went to UK.

Police said Yahya became more active in SIMI after he lost his job at GE while trying to steal data to set up his own firm.

It was another arrested terror suspect, Mohammed Asif, who revealed the name of Yahya and his association with SIMI. Thereafter, the cops, who were investigating recent terror cases in north Karnataka, started questioning Yahya. Finally, on Thursday night, he was arrested.

Police have seized a laptop, hard disc, jihadi material and hundreds of books from Yahya's house. They would be sending the hard disc for decoding information. They are hoping to get his contacts, communication and plans from the email communication.

Karnataka sleuths took Yahya to Hubli to produce him before a magistrate because the case is registered there. They plan to take him in their custody and put him through polygraph tests, brain mapping and narcoanalysis
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India-Pakistan
Terror kingpin has cops on toes
2008-02-16
Leader of banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) Adnan alias Hafees, the man who allegedly planned and coordinated terror activities in North Karnataka, has escaped with arms and explosives, giving the state police sleepless nights.

Investigation into the terror cases has revealed that Adnan played a crucial role in organising terror activity in the region. The police are clueless about his whereabouts. A resident of Station Road in Bijapur, Adnan is the son of a KSRTC driver. His brother stays in Annasandrapalya in Bangalore.

Adnan’s role
He organised and motivated several youths including arrested terror suspects Mohammed Asif, Asadullah Abubaker, Shakeel and Allabaksh to take up jihad; organised regular meetings; introduced Pakistan-trained Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Riyazuddin Nasir alias Mohammed Ghouse to the arrested terror suspects and to other people; and supplied explosive materials to the activists.

Based on the information of Asif, the police recovered a hand grenade, 100 gelatin sticks and 100 electrical detonators from the Dharwad-Uttara Kannada forests. Adnan had given them to Asif and helped him hide them in the forests. Asif has told the investigators: "He gave me the explosives and told me that it was my share. I do not know how many people he has distributed it to." Besides, he had hidden four pistols in Asif’s hostel room (58) at KIMS in May 2007.

Adnan is missing after the arrest of Ghouse and Abubaker at Honnali in Davangere. Before fleeing, he went to Asif’s room and collected the pistols. "His phone is switched off from January 14. We do not know where he is," said a CoD officer.

How he organised
Adnan had taken Asif to Madhya Pradesh and introduced him to SIMI leaders. During April-May 2007, Adnan had organized a meeting at Castle Rock, a picnic spot on the Karnataka-Goa border. Thirty two members from Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala attended the meeting. Iqbal from Uttar Pradesh and Sibli from Kerala, both national-level leaders of the banned SIMI, attended the meeting along with Asif, Asadullah Abubaker, Mirza, Shakeel and Munna. The leaders spoke on total Islamisation of the world and how it can be started from India. The provocative speeches focused on the plight of Muslims in Palestine, the Gujarat riots in India and the Babri Masjid blast and asked for defying man-made laws.

During the meeting, Iqbal was elected the national president of SIMI, while Adnan was made in charge of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The meeting resolved to go in for vigorous recruitment, which everyone took and pursued seriously. Adnan along with his friends organised the second meeting in October 2007 in the farmhouse of arrested terror suspect Shakeel on Haliyal road.

Around 15 to 20 members attended it. Third meeting was held during the end of October at a dargah on Dharwad-Savadatti road. This time there were around 15 members. During the same time, Adnan brought Riyazuddin Nasir alias Mohammed Ghouse and introduced him to his members. It was the confluence of SIMI and LeT. The trained Ghouse planned to send these youth to Pakistan for training.
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India-Pakistan
Hunt on for ex-SIMI leader; police raid house in Bangalore
2008-02-07
The State police have launched a hunt for Adnan, former regional convenor of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), who is suspected to be one of the key persons in the terrorist module recently busted by the Davangere police.

As part of the operations, the staff from the Anti-Terrorist Squad searched a house in HAL police station limits in Bangalore. However, they could not find Adan there, sources in the police told The Hindu on Tuesday.

The search for Adnan, a native of Bijapur, has been intensified mainly to ascertain the whereabouts of the consignment of firearms that was supplied to the terror module by its handlers in Pakistan and also to unearth the terror network in the State, the sources said.

The police learnt about the activities of Adnan after they arrested his accomplice and a SIMI activist Mohammed Asif, a final year MBBS student of Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences in Hubli. But Adnan had gone underground by then. After scanning the mobile phone details of Asif, the investigators found that Adnan had spoken to him from a public call office in Annasandrapalya in HAL police station limits in Bangalore. The police squad questioned the phone booth owner and traced the house of Adnan’s brother who lives in Annasandrapalya. The search of the house did not yield anything significant, the sources said.

The arms consignment, which was reportedly in Asif’s possession, was shifted to an undisclosed place following the arrest of the alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Riyazuddin Nasir and his aide Asadullah Abubaker in Honnali in Davangere district last month, they said.

According to the sources in the Bijapur district police, a police team from Davangere visited Bijapur city four days ago and searched for weapons at a house situated near Remand Home in Gol Gumbaz police station limits. The house belongs to an engineering graduate who lives in Bangalore. The Bijapur police said they had no clues about the terror suspect Adnan, though three persons with the same name were studying in a local medical college.

Meanwhile, the Judicial Magistrate First Class Court in Honnali on Tuesday permitted the police to subject the arrested persons to narco analysis.

They will undergo brain mapping and polygraph tests also at the State Forensic Science Laboratory in Bangalore. The court has remanded the two in the custody of the Corps of Detectives (CoD) till Sunday.

Hubli-Dharwad Police Commissioner Narayana Nadumani said that a CoD team, led by Inspector-General of Police M.R. Pujar and Deputy Inspector-General of Police Alok Kumar, arrived in Hubli on Tuesday.
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India-Pakistan
Kandahar hijack financiers set to walk free
2007-11-07
MUMBAI: Two Pakistanis who robbed a bank to allegedly finance the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to Kandahar are going to walk free next month without facing a trial. The duo had submitted a guilty plea before a Mumbai sessions court and were sentenced to eight years in jail recently. Since they have been in custody through their arrest in December 1999, their sentence will be set off against the period they served as undertrials.

Mohammed Asif alias 'Babloo', a resident of Karachi and Mohammed Rafiq Haji, a resident of Multan, were picked up by the Mumbai police on December 30, 1999 for robbing a bank at Borivali along with two other Pakistani nationals on October 6, 1999.

In October 1999, the four accused first stole a Maruti van at Orlem in Malad and later used it for the bank robbery at Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank in Borivali. More than seven lakh rupees were stolen but only Rs 1.72 lakh were recovered at the time of the arrest in December 1999 — the rest of the money having been already transferred to the hijackers. The accused were also found in possession of two AK-56 rifles, seven grenades and four rocket launchers. According to the crime branch, Asif, Haji, Abdul Latif and Bhopal Mal were arrested after an incriminating phone call made to Pakistan by Latif was intercepted.

The trial of the four suspects was separated. Latif and Bhopal Mal were sent to Patiala to face trial before a special anti-hijacking court as they were seen to have a direct role in the Kandahar episode; Asif and Haji remained in custody at Arthur Road jail.

In an application moved before judge S D Agrawal last month, Asif and Haji sought to benefit from the concept of plea bargaining introduced in India in 2005. The duo said that eight years after their arrest their trial was yet to commence and hence, they were willing to plead guilty to the crime provided the court sentenced them to jail for the time they had already spent in custody.
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Down Under
Haneef colleague to leave Australia tonight
2007-08-16
INDIAN doctor Mohammed Asif Ali will fly out of Australia tonight after his passport was returned by the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

Dr Ali, who was recruited to Queensland from the UK, was last month questioned by the AFP over his links to former terror suspect Dr Mohamed Haneef. Dr Ali is currently being investigated by Queensland Health after he admitted to lying on his resume.
Should be an automatic free pass to home.
His lawyer Simone Healy told reporters in Brisbane today that Dr Ali wanted to return to India to see his controller family in Bangalore. But she said he wanted to return to his job at the Gold Coast Hospital.

She said the AFP had returned his passport today and he had decided to vamoose go on the lam head home on a midnight flight tonight.

Brisbane Acting director-general of Queensland Health Dr Andrew Wilson said Dr Ali would continue to be investigated. He said if Dr Ali chose to resign he could be required to serve out up to four weeks' notice. "We would require him to serve notice until the report into matters about his resume was finalised,'' Dr Wilson said. "Queensland Health has no power to prevent Dr Ali from leaving Australia if he should choose to do so.''

Dr Ali is currently suspended and will not be given any other form of leave while the investigation is ongoing, Dr Wilson said.
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Down Under
Haneef's smashing time in Harbour City
2007-07-09
It is a photo similar to thousands taken of tourists during a visit to Sydney Aquarium.

But this holiday image confirms for the first time that Indian-born doctor Mohamed Haneef detained in Brisbane over his alleged links to the botched UK car bomb plots also spent time in Sydney.

The photo of Dr Haneef and his wife Firdous Arshiyu was taken at the popular Darling Harbour attraction, a souvenir from one of a few trips they are understood to have made to NSW. The manipulated image shows the couple in a rowboat on the Harbour about to be attacked by a shark. The photo emerged as Dr Haneef's Gold Coast home was again searched yesterday as the AFP and a British counter-terrorism chief finally prepare to interview him later today over his alleged links to the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

Also searched yesterday was the Southport unit of Dr Mohammed Asif Ali, a second Gold Coast Hospital doctor questioned by police and released. Dr Haneef's blue Honda Jazz, which had been garaged at Dr Ali's unit block, was taken away on a tow truck for tests. "They (the search warrants) were required as a result of analysis of material seized during search warrants executed last week," an AFP spokesman said last night.
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India-Pakistan
Failed assasination attempt at Musharraf
2007-07-06
Gunners fired after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's plane took off from a military base on Friday in what one official described as a failed assassination attempt.

Security forces quickly raided a nearby home with anti-aircraft guns on the roof, taking the owner in for questioning and searching for a couple who rented the property this week, officials said.

A senior security official said Musharraf was aboard when the plane came under fire, but insisted the aircraft was not within range of the attempt in Rawalpindi, a garrison city south of the capital where Musharraf narrowly escaped two attempts on his life in 2003.

Television footage from an overlooking building showed a large gun pointed skyward next to a satellite dish as security officials rushed around. Two anti-aircraft guns and a light machine gun were found on the roof and the homeowner was taken in for questioning, three officials told The Associated Press.

"It was an unsuccessful effort by miscreants to target the president's plane," the senior security official told AP. The official, like those who described the raid on the house, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. "They fled quickly, and our security agencies are still investigating."

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad denied local news reports that the president's plane was targeted by a rocket, but provided no further details.

A resident in the neighborhood, Mohammed Asif, 31, said that he heard two loud bangs about "a minute or less than a minute" apart and then saw a man firing an AK-47 rifle from an off-white Suzuki car passing by his home.

"A small plane was flying at that time," Asif, a worker in Rawalpindi's fruit market, told an AP reporter.

According to state-run Pakistan Television, Musharraf flew from the air base Friday and later safely landed in Turbat, a remote southwestern town where he was to inspect efforts to bring relief to hundreds of thousands of people affected by recent catastrophic flooding.

Khan Mohammed, a road construction worker, who was in a nearby street, said he heard someone fire single shots and then a burst from an automatic weapon but he said he didn't know where the gunfire originated or what it was aimed at.

"It lasted for about five minutes," Mohammed said.

Mohammed said that he heard the roar of a flying plane when the firing occurred.

In northwestern Pakistan, a suicide attacker on a bicycle rigged with explosives struck a military convey and killed four soldiers Friday, officials said. And a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a military convoy in Dir, in the same area.

In North Waziristan, elsewhere in the Afghan border region, tribesmen chased militants who had kidnapped an army instructor, sparking a shootout that left six people dead and the soldier injured, officials said.

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