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IN OCTOBER 16, 2002, THE international media flashed the name Muslim United Army (MUA) around the globe. The name came up in connection with a series of parcel-bomb attacks in Karachi that left eight persons injured, including six policemen. The deadly letters were sent to the office of the provincial home secretary and some key police officials closely connected with the operation against sectarian and jihadi groups. After the first three attacks, the self-styled supreme commander of his own faction of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Asif Ramzi, sent emails to news agencies and national newspapers in which he claimed responsibility for the attacks. Ramzi is believed to have been killed along with three accomplices in a mysterious bomb blast at a warehouse in Karachiâs Korangi area on December 19 last year. In an email message sent at 10 pm on October 16, Ramzi wrote: ââŠall the rightwing organisations, including the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have formed the Muslim United Army to organise the groups against the United States. We are going to launch a war againstâŠanti-Islam forces, police and other non-Muslims on [sic] the platform of the MUA.â
| Two months later he blew up. See? There is a God. |
The message also made an appeal to Muslims living in the United States to leave that country since âthe Mujahideen have completed preparations to strike the United States again in which more than 3.5 million people could be killedâ.
| "Yup. Yup. Us sophisticated Paks're gonna blow them infidels away. Wanna see my turban? Huh huh!" |
Then came the news of Ramziâs death in a mysterious blast at a warehouse in Korangi. But the MUA, nonetheless, came on-line again. Another email message sent to various newspapers resolved that Ramziâs followers would take revenge from those involved in killing him.
| "Yeah! They oughta put warning labels on them wires or somethin'!" |
Earlier, after the bodies of four persons were found at the warehouse, investigators had brought in Ramziâs wife and mother who âidentifiedâ him from some birthmarks on a leg of one of the four deceased. The police also sent the limbs to a Lahore laboratory for DNA testing but the results of the test have yet to be made public.
| Getting the feeling he's not quite as dead as we thought? |
Interestingly, the investigators were still averse to adding the MUA as another militant outfit to a growing number of such groups. Most police officers TFT [The Friday Times] spoke to at the time believed that MUA was a fake name being used by one of the banned outfits to mislead the police. This theory did not hold water for too long. On May 15, 21 gas stations owned by the Anglo-Dutch Shell Company in Karachi were attacked with bombs of minor intensity. The bomb disposal squad officers told TFT the devices were slightly more powerful than firecrackers. However, officials admitted that the attacks showed a level of coordination and organisation and could well have been a test run for a bigger coordinated attack.
| Half a dozen guys in turbans whizzing around on motorcycles tossing M80s at gas pumps is a major terrorist enterprise? |
The letter referred to Sheikh Omar (Omar Saeed Sheikh, the main accused in the Daniel Pearl case), Mohammad Imran, Amir of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al Aalmi, his deputy Hanif, Akram Lahori, supreme commander of his own faction of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as the âgreatest leaders of the Ummahâ. It also warned that authorities should let go LeJâs Qari Asadullah, Naeem Bokhari and Faisal alias Zubair, who had been under arrest for the past 11 months without a judicial trial; indeed, authorities had failed to notify that any such persons had been arrested as part of the operation against militant groups.
Things began to unfold when police chanced upon a militant Mohammad Riaz, an LeJ activist, after he injured himself while placing a time-device on June 10 outside a KFC outlet at Aladdin Park, Karachiâs frequently visited picnic spot. Riazâ arrest led the police to five of his accomplices from Korangi and other parts of Karachi. The police also recovered a sizable quantity of explosives and bomb-making paraphernalia during the raid at Riazâ house in Korangi. The material included 12 bags of urea fertiliser, a time-bomb in a cigarette packet, two packs of fuses, two battery plugs, four complete explosive batteries, 10 timers, one plastic bomb-holder, a complete set of bomb-making equipment, a pack of 100 battery cells, eight wrist watches without chains, a handful of switches, three wire coils, one test-board, one packet of shoulder-wire, one compass, a drill machine and 13 live bullets of .30 calibre pistol. Further interrogations led the police to more members of the group in Korangiâs 100 Quarters area. There the police unearthed a bomb factory and arrested five activists of Harkatul Mujahideen al Aalmi making bombs in the shape of childrenâs pianos. They told investigators they had plans to leave the pianos at public places as traps for children who were bound to pick them up and press the keys connected with detonators.
| "We like dead kiddies. It makes us feel Islamic. It says you're supposed to kill them right in the Koran someplace. You could look it up." |
âThese men are HMA activists, which is also a part of the MUA,â chief of the Sindhâs Criminal Investigation Department, Javed Shah Bokhari told TFT. He said the police had been taking the MUA as a stunt of terrorist outfits but detailed investigations showed it was a reality. âIt is an alliance of a number of jihadi and terrorist outfits including the HMA and the LeJ,â Bokhari said.
Most of these splinter groups are formed by the 2nd or 3rd level of leadership in the main Pak Jihadi outfits. While the leaders of the LeT, JeM, HuM etc are willing to do the bidding of the ISI, their subordinates are less 'pragmatic' and actually believe all that Jihad stuff, rather than just using it to send poor madrassa students to quick deaths while living a life of luxury, like all the Emirs of the Jihadi groups do. |
âThere are reports that some new terror outfits are active in different parts of the country which can launch terror attacks anytime if they are not tackled efficiently,â an Islamabad-based official dealing with terrorism-related matters said. He said Islamabad had asked all provincial governments to take the reports seriously and activate mechanisms dealing with terrorism to unearth any such groups or individuals. The sources said that past incidents showed that some major terror attacks were launched by similar obscure outfits about whom no one knew until their leaders or front-men were arrested.