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India-Pakistan

Suspected Marriott bombing 'mastermind' Qari Zafar emerges

2008-09-25

(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - The alleged mastermind of last Saturday's deadly truck bombing of the Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has emerged. The suspect, Qari Zafar, has become part of Al-Qaeda's hardline Takfiri inner circle. He enjoys the protection of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and is believed to be hiding out in the lawless South Waziristan tribal area of North West Frontier Province. Zafar is not only the suspected mastermind of the Marriot bomb blast, but has created a network which will shortly target strategic installations belonging to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, military headquarters in Karachi and police stations across the country, according to security officials. "Zafar is behind the planning, arrangement of transportation and procurement of explosives for the attack against the Marriott Hotel on 20 September," a top security source told Adnkronos International on Thursday on condition of anonymity. "Some of his men have been arrested in Punjab which further confirms his involvement in the whole scheme," the official added. The connection to Zafar was established from phone numbers found on the mobiles of some of those arrested in Punjab. According to security agencies, the chances of arresting Zafar are slim as he rarely moves from his alleged hideout in South Waziristan to visit the various cities of North West Frontier Province. To most Pakistanis he is an obscure figure, and is considered by security agencies to be a ghostlike figure whose trail went cold after he managed to escape from custody last year. But he is known to international intelligence services which credit him with fox-like cunning and great bravery when organising and carrying out attacks against identified targets. Originally from Karachi, Zafar was previously named as the leader of the banned militant Laskhar-i-Jhangvi group. Originally from Karachi, Zafar was previously named as the leader of the banned militant Laskhar-i-Jhangvi group. In 2007, he escaped from the custody of security services in the Punjabi capital, Lahore. The United States government has put a 5 million dollar bounty on Zafar, according to the Rewards for Justice website. Zafar is wanted for questioning in connection with the 2 March, 2006 bombing of the US Consulate in Karachi. The attack killed three Pakistani citizens and US diplomat David Foy. Zafar is suspected of being a key figure involved with this attack.

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India-Pakistan

Court to hear US consulate bombing convict's appeal in three months

2008-03-19

An appeal preferred by Anwarul Haque, convicted and sentenced by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC-III) for a bomb attack on the US consulate, was admitted for regular hearing by an Anti-Terrorism Appellate (ATA) bench of the Sindh High Court Tuesday. The bench of Justice Qaiser Iqbal and Justice Syed Mehmood Alam Rizvi ordered for the appeal to be fixed after three months. The appellant/accused has assailed the death sentence on four counts of murder, life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 500,000. If he defaults on the payment he is liable to serve another three years in prison. Usman Ghani, a co-accused, was exonerated. Accused Zafar is absconding while the suicide bomber was identified as Muhammad Tahir. According to the prosecution, based on a complaint filed by SHO Artillery Maidan police station, SIP Farooq Umar, a blast was heard at 09:05 a.m. at the back of the Marriot hotel. The suicide bomber targeted a station wagon of the US Consulate at Karachi, killing the driver and diplomat David Foy, a security official and a worker at a makeshift canteen. Dozens of vehicles were damaged. The appeal was filed through counsel M. Ilyas Khan and Muhammad Farooq advocates. The appellant maintains that the trial court erred in convicting the appellant on the basis of the most unreliable, unconvincing, untrustworthy chance witnesses who claimed to be available at the scene of the crime while dozens who were genuinely present were not examined as witnesses. The confession by the accused was also not admissible under law and the mandatory requirements for a confession were not fulfilled, maintains the appeal, adding that “the most important eyewitness, Ali Zaman, who claimed to be a waiter at the makeshift hotel failed to prove employment at the outlet. The prosecution also failed to prove conspiracy and common intention of the accused/appellant and alleged suicide bomber,” the appeal maintains.

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India-Pakistan

Man sentenced to death over US consulate attack

2008-03-06

An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday sentenced an accused, Anwarul Haq, to death on four counts of murder, life imprisonment on four counts of terrorism and a total of 40 years in imprisonment in the US consulate suicide bombing case. Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC-III) for Karachi division headed by Judge Ahmed Nawaz Sheikh acquitted co-accused Usman Ghani. The prosecution produced 40 witnesses against accused Anwarul Haq. Haq was held guilty of provoking suicide bomber Raja Tahir to carry out the act. Niamat Ali Randhawa appeared as the special public prosecutor while the accused were represented by Muhammad Ilyas Khan and Muhammad Farooq. On March 2, 2006, US diplomat David Foy, his driver, a security guard and a Rangers sepoy were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his car into Foy’s van exiting the US consulate in Karachi.

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Home Front: WoT

Blast that killed US diplomat tied to Qaeda

2007-02-25

The suicide bombing that killed an American diplomat in Karachi last March, just before a visit by President Bush, was organised by a small cell of Pakistani militants and masterminded by an operative of Al Qaeda based in the Pakistan’s tribal areas, New York Times quoted Pakistani officials as saying on Saturday. The charge is being made by Pakistani officials as they present evidence — the result of months of investigations by the police, assisted by FBI investigators — at the trial of two men accused in the plot, the newspaper says. The men, Anwarul Haq, 27, and Usman Ghani, 26, both ethnic Pashtuns from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, grew up in the teeming working-class neighbourhoods of Karachi and fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan, the investigators say. On Thursday, they sat behind bars, wearing long beards and knitted prayer caps, at the back of a courtroom in Karachi’s central jail, listening intently to an investigator outline the evidence against them. Publicly, Pakistani leaders have sought to play down the importance of its tribal areas as havens for militants. But the evidence being presented by Pakistani investigators makes clear the threat contained in Waziristan, not only for Afghanistan but also for Pakistan itself, which has suffered six suicide bombings in the last five weeks, the newspaper says. Two assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 were also traced to Qaeda and militants who enjoyed a haven in Waziristan, where the government has little control and foreign and Pakistani militants operate almost unimpeded, according to Sindh Home Secretary Ghulam Mohatarem, a retired army brigadier. Two assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 were also traced to Qaeda and militants who enjoyed a haven in the same region, where the government has little control and foreign and Pakistani militants operate almost unimpeded, according to Sindh Home Secretary Ghulam Mohatarem, a retired army brigadier. “They mostly come from the north,” he said of the bombers that have plagued Karachi and other cities. “But they are provided with logistics from small local cells that come up and then disappear.” US officials in Pakistan declined to be interviewed for this article. Mohatarem said that the police in Karachi tracked down and disrupted the activities of numerous terrorist splinter groups in recent months. “We are slightly more confident because the logistics have become more difficult for them,” he said. Yet the threat of terrorism remains, he and others agreed. “We cannot say it has been wiped out,” a senior police official said of Al Qaeda. Family members denied in interviews that the two defendants had gone to Afghanistan, knew the bomber, Raja Tahir, 23, also from Karachi, or had any jihad links. Both men are pleading not guilty, their lawyers said. But the police say there is little doubt that the suicide bombing of March 2, 2006, which killed the diplomat David Foy, his driver and three others, had a Qaeda connection because of the timing. The mastermind of the plot, Qari Mohammed Zafar, a man from Karachi with known links to Al Qaeda, remains at large in Waziristan, Mohatarem said.

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India-Pakistan

Qaeda-LJ link in terror attacks

2007-01-01

After investigating the three bomb blasts that took place in Karachi in 2006, the police have come to the conclusion that terrorist groups with different priorities have ganged up. They are specifically worried about the Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, Al Qaeda and the Abdullah Mehsud-led group of Afghanistan. That'd be the Wazoo branch of the Taliban. The first suicide bombing took place on March 3 behind the US Consulate, killing diplomat David Foy and three others. Two men, Anwarul Haq and Usman Ghani, are being tried in an anti-terrorism court for the attack. The alleged suicide bomber was identified as Raja Mohammad Tahir, a resident of Karachi, who had spent time in Afghanistan and Wana and had alleged links with Al Qaeda. The car that was used in the attack had been fitted with the explosives in Wana, the police claim. The second suicide bombing took place about a month later, on April 11, at Nishtar Park at an Eid Miladun Nabi prayer congregation. More than 60 people died, including the entire top hierarchy of the Sunni Tehreek (of the Barelvi school of thought). During investigations, the police, who termed it the biggest terrorist attack of the year, began to suspect that it was sectarian. “Up till now this case could not be solved completely,” said a senior CID investigator, who did not wish to be named. “But what has surfaced is that the Nishtar Park bombing was about a sectarian clash.” Not sectarian in the Sunni versus Shia sense, but sectarian in the Deobandi versus Brelvi sense. The third suicide attack was on July 14 in which Allama Hasan Turabi was killed along with his nephew outside his house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. During investigations, the police caught a group from Karachi and identified the suicide attacker as a 16-year-old of Bengali origin named Abdul Karim from Karachi. The police followed clues that took them to Wana in this case, leading them to conclude that the LJ, Al Qaeda and the Abdullah Mehsud-led group of Afghanistan were behind the job. I think of the three as a single entity, which we could define as al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The Qaeda boyz are the Arab master race overlords, the Jhangvi thugs the Punjabi muscle, and the Mehsud hard boyz the Pashtun local police force. Investigators told Daily Times that some LJ men with links to Karachi went to Wana where they got in touch with the Abdullah Mehsud-led group. They then befriended Abdullah Mehsud’s cousin, Abid Mehsud. Through Abid they developed more links with Al Qaeda in Karachi and upon Abid’s advice roped in some young men from Orangi Town. The Orangi fellows are probably free-lancers used as throw-aways, a dime a dozen in any Deobandi madrassah. The jacket that was used in the Turabi suicide attack had been prepared in Darra Adam Khel by a man the investigators called Hazrat Ali, who was found dead after an explosion in a house in the area. CID investigators said that for the first time it has been proved that LJ and Al Qaeda worked together in the sectarian case. Karim, who allegedly killed Turabi, was, however, neither linked to the LJ nor Al Qaeda, investigators pointed out, saying that they believed he was brainwashed into doing the job.

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India-Pakistan

Witness identifies Al Qaeda suspect

2006-12-01

An eyewitness in the trial for the killing of US diplomat David Foy identified on Thursday an al Qaeda suspect before an anti-terrorism court (ATC) as the man who came with the alleged suicide bomber in a car right before the bomb blast. Osman Ghani and Anwarul Haq are charged with preparing a plot for a car bombing near the US consulate in Karachi on March 2, 2006 in which four persons, including US diplomat David Foy and three Pakistanis, were killed and 48 others were injured. According to the prosecution, the alleged suicide attacker, who was later identified as Mohammad Tahir, rammed a car packed with explosives into a vehicle carrying the US diplomat as soon as it left the consulate’s gate. Prosecution witness Ali Zaman, who identified Anwarul Haq as the man who came with the alleged suicide bomber, was examined before the court. The witness said he was standing outside the canteen on the morning of March 2 when two persons came in a white Toyota car and stopped near the Naval surgical hospital. He said one person stepped out of the vehicle and went to the parking side of the Marriot hotel while the other man parked the vehicle at the parking lot of the hospital. The witness said that he saw the man getting back into the vehicle and starting it after receiving a signal from the person standing near the hotel parking lot. The witness said that after a short while he heard the sound of the blast outside the canteen and later saw that the blast had occurred in the same white vehicle. The witness also identified the alleged suicide bomber Tahir by his photograph before a judicial magistrate during an identification parade. The ATC headed by Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch, who is conducting the trial inside jail, fixed December 2, 2006 for the cross-examination of the witness on the request of the defendant counsels Mushtaq Ahmed and Mohammad Farooq. Special Public Prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa represented the state. The court has already declared absconding co-accused Mohammad Zafar alias Qari Zafar, the main mastermind of the case, as a proclaimed offender.

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India-Pakistan

Qaeda men convicted for bombing US Consulate

2006-10-11

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court on Tuesday indicted two Al Qaeda activists for masterminding a car bombing near the US Consulate in Karachi on March 2, 2006 which killed four people, including US diplomat David Foy and three Pakistanis and left 48 injured. Osman Ghani and Anwarul Haq - the two convicts - however, denied the charges and pleaded not guilty. According to the prosecution, the alleged suicide attacker, later identified as Mohammad Tahir, rammed a car packed with explosives into a vehicle carrying a US diplomat soon after it left the consulate. The court already declared absconder Mohammad Zafar alias Qari Zafar, the alleged brains behind the operation, a proclaimed offender.

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India-Pakistan

Man declared absconder in US consulate blast case

2006-09-19

KARACHI: Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch of Anti-Terrorism Court-V (ATC-V) declared Monday Qari Mohammad Zafar, one of the accused in the US consulate suicide bomb blast case, an absconder and directed for copies of the witnesses to be provided to the lawyers of the accused. Accused Anwarul Haq and Usman Ghani were arrested five months after the incident that killed four people, including US diplomat David Foy, and injured 48 in March this year on the eve of US President George W Bush’s visit to Pakistan. In the charge sheet, the police have shown accused Anwarul Haq and Usman Ghani in custody, identified the suicide bomber as Mohammad Tahir and Mohammad Zafar as the accused still at large. Declaring Mohammad Zafar as an absconder, the court directed the investigation officer to arrest him and present him before the court at the next hearing on September 25. The suicide bomber had on March 2 rammed his explosives-laden car into a diplomatic vehicle of the US Consulate just in front of its back entrance, killing Foy and three security personnel. According to the charge sheet, the investigation officer of the case, Inspector Mohammad Tariq, received a tip-off during the investigation that Mohammad Tahir (son of Raja Afzal), a resident of Future Colony, Landhi, had been missing since the day of the suicide attack. When the IO interviewed Raja Afzal, he said that his son had fought in Afghanistan against American forces and had also been held for some time in Shabargan Jail. He said Mohammad Tahir had left home on March 2 early in the morning and when he did not return, the family thought that he had gone to Afghanistan again. In June, an invalid man had come to meet him and said that Mohammad Tahir was in Afghanistan, Raja Afzal told the police. In July, Tahir’s brother Idrees, a student at Binori seminary learnt through the same person that Tahir had died in Afghanistan. According to the IO, however, when Raja Afzal showed him the photograph of Mohammad Tahir, his faced bore a great resemblance with the suicide attacker’s. The IO submitted in the charge sheet that he then took samples of the suicide attacker and Raja Afzal and Idrees and sent them for DNA testing which later proved that the suicide attacker was indeed Mohammad Tahir. Later, the police arrested Anwarul Haq, who used to visit Tahir’s family after his disappearance, and on his indication arrested the other accused Usman Ghani. According to the charge sheet, both the accused confessed that they along with absconder Mohammad Zafar had planned and executed the suicide attack and brought the explosives-laden car from Waziristan.

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India-Pakistan

Four arrested for terror links

2006-08-22

Four suspected militants were arrested on Monday for alleged involvement in terror plots in the country. Two suspected militants, Anwarul Haq and Usman Ghani, were arrested for their alleged involvement in a suicide attack on the US consulate on March 2 that killed US diplomat David Foy, his driver Iftikhar Ahmed, Rangers official Zafar and security guard Hasan Shehzad. Forty-nine other people were injured in the attack. “The car used in the bomb attack was packed with explosives and transported from Waziristan to Karachi...” The car used in the bomb attack was packed with explosives and transported from Waziristan to Karachi, sources told Daily Times after the police held a press conference to announce the identity of the suicide attacker and the arrests of the two accomplices. Addressing a press conference, Sindh Inspector General of Police Jehangir Mirza said the suicide bomber had been identified earlier as Raja Mohammed Tahir. Mirza said that the mastermind of the plot, Qari Zafar, was still at large. Police sources said that Anwarul Haq and Usman Ghani told the police during interrogations that all of them had fought against the coalition forces in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the men developed links with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Qari Zafar of Waziristan led the group and planned the attack. Mirza said the attackers had monitored the movements of all diplomats stationed at the consulate for quite some time. He said the accused had filled 200 kg of C-4 and TNT explosives in the CNG cylinder and inside seats and mudguards. He said the accused reached the scene a little before 9:00 am and Tahir parked his car in the parking area while Anwarul Haq kept watch for Foy’s arrival. As soon as the diplomat’s car came into sight, Haq made a gesture to Tahir who reversed and rammed his car into Foy’s.

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India-Pakistan

Pakistanis arrest two over US consulate blast

2006-08-21

KARACHI - Two al Qaeda militants suspected of planning a suicide car bomb attack that killed a US diplomat earlier this year have been arrested, Pakistan police said on Monday. The March 2 blast near the gates of the US consulate in the southern city of Karchi killed the bomber, US diplomat David Foy and three other people on the eve of a visit to Pakistan by US President George W. Bush. Jahangir Mirza, police chief of southern Sindh province, said the suspects—Anwar-ul-Haq and Usman Ghani—were arrested in a raid on a hideout in the city on Monday. ‘Both of them belong to al Qaeda and have no links with any local militant group,’ Mirza told a news conference. ‘They are trained militants and have fought against US forces in Afghanistan.’ Last week, a senior government official said police had arrested six militants involved in the same attack. None of those suspects was identified. Following those arrests, the government said the case had been resolved. Mirza said the two militants arrested on Monday were among key suspects in the case. ‘Some other suspects are also being interrogated and more arrests are expected soon,’ he said. Police said at the time of attack they suspected Islamist militants opposed to President Pervez Musharraf’s support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism were responsible. They said the blast, which wounded 49 people, was aimed at disrupting Bush’s visit to Pakistan, but the president went ahead with his trip to the capital, Islamabad, as scheduled.

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Terror Networks

The Man Who Is Planning the Next Attack on America

2006-08-11

Pakistani officials tell ABC News a new terrorist plan to attack the United States and Europe is being organized by a shadowy Pakistani, who is the keeper of the log of recruits who attended al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Pakistani police and military officials identify the man as Matiur Rehman, whose role as al Qaeda's planning director was first revealed by ABCNews.com earlier this year. U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News Rehman is now the "leading suspect" in the attack earlier this year on the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed a State Department Foreign Service officer, David Foy. Officials say the car bomb attack was planned by Rehman. The officials say Rehman was spotted within the last month in the slums of North Karachi but escaped capture. The Pakistani government has posted a reward of 10 million rupees for the capture of Rehman, who also uses the aliases "Akeel Khan" and "Sadamd Sial." U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News there has been great concern since last March about a "Pakistani" network that could attempt multiple international attacks. Rehman, along with his deputy, another Pakistani named Qari Hassan, are believed to be keepers of the "Directory of Jihad," which officials say contains "thousands of names" of young militants who trained at al Qaeda camps and have since dispersed around the world. U.S. law enforcement officials confirm al Qaeda kept extensive recruitment records, many of which were recovered after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Rehman, now in his mid-30s, worked as an explosives instructor in the al Qaeda camps, according to Pakistani officials, who say he has been deeply involved in most of the major terror attacks in Pakistan in the last few years. Officials say they disrupted yet another Rehman plot last month to assassinate Pakistani President Musharaff at a summer festival. Pakistan intelligence officials tell ABC News that Rehman moves between between Karachi, Waziristan and South Punjab, where he was born. He is in "constant communication" with al Qaeda's top leaders, according to the officials. A former militant of the Pakistani terrorist groups Harakat ul Jihad ul Islami and Lashkar e Jhangvi, Rehman rose to prominence in the late 1990s by setting up elaborate networks in Pakistan through which he recruited young men to be trained in al Qaeda's camps. Pakistani intelligence officials tell ABC News that between 10,000 and 50,000 militants received basic training in these camps, where the best recruits were directly "hired" by al Qaeda. The rest was used by Pakistan's most violent terrorist groups such as Lashkar e Jhangvi, Harakat ul Mujahideen and Jaish e Muhammad, either to fight in Kashmir or India, or conduct sectarian attacks within Pakistan. U.S. officials say there is no information that any attack on the United States is imminent.

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India-Pakistan

Matiur Rehman masterminded Karachi consulate bombing

2006-05-10

Senior Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News that they have been able to trace the terrorist attack against an employee of the U.S. consulate in Karachi back to senior al Qaeda operatives. According to the same sources, the operation was ordered and prepared by al Qaeda officials in North Waziristan and carried out by local militant networks. There are "strong suspicions" that the key operative in this operation is a 29-year-old militant named Matiur Rehman, already identified by ABC News as a "key interface" between Al Qaeda's senior leadership and the Pakistani terrorist underworld, which Pakistani sources confirm is increasingly providing the "muscle" behind al Qaeda operations. You heard read it here first... The powerful car bomb attack occurred in March of this year just one day before President Bush arrived in the country for a diplomatic visit. At least 4 people were killed and more than a dozen were injured. The dead American, 52 year-old David Foy from North Carolina, had worked at the consulate since September.

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