India-Pakistan |
Man accused of blasphemy after refusing to join anti-Islam film protest |
2012-09-20 |
[Dawn] ![]() Haji Nasrullah, who owns a market at Hala Naka area off National Highway and is the chairman of a local shopkeepers association, originally hails from ![]() ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... According to Munir Abbasi, a police officer at the Hatri cop shoppe, Nasrullah was booked for blasphemy offence under sections 295-B and C on the complaint of Kachkol Khan. Blasphemy is punishable by life in prison or death under Pak laws. Human rights groups and civil society organizations often call for repealing it on the ground that it is badly misused, particularly against religious minorities for settling personal scores. Abbasi explains that the trouble began on Sunday night when the city observed a strike against an anti-Islam film. "Some protesters wanted shops at the Hala Naka area closed in protest against the anti-Islam movie to which Nasrullah objected," he said. According to Azam Jehangiri, some shopkeepers including the president of the association Najeeb Ahmed reported the matter to a mufti in a nearby mosque. "Ahmed alleged that Nasrullah used some very objectionable remarks against the Holy Prophet," said Jehangiri, who is associated with Maulana Fazal Rehman's Jamaat-e-Islam. "Mufti Ashfaq asked whether he has witnesses to substantiate his claim. Ahmed accordingly produced those witnesses," Jehangiri recalled. Subsequently, Abbasi says, after a brief gathering in the area mosque, scores of outraged religious parties activists and seminary students tried to attack Nasrullah's house, leading to a clash. As a result of firing, three persons namely Abdul Baseer and Mohammad Afzal (who were among protesters) and Qamaruzzaman brother of Haji Nasrullah received injuries. "Nasrullah got an FIR of attempted murder lodged against the protesters," he said. Maulana Taj Mohammad Nahyoon, Hyderabad district president JUI (Fazal), is currently spearheading protests against Nasrullah and demanding his arrest. He had an FIR registered against Nasrullah for alleged blasphemy after addressing a presser at the local press club on Monday afternoon. "We want Nasrullah placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! as we have produced our witnesses against Nasrullah and they all have deposed on oath that he did commit blasphemy," Nahyoon said while talking to Dawn.com. Meanwhile, ...back at the sea battle, the Terror of the Baltic's career had come to an abrupt and watery end... Nasrullah has gone into hiding. He has not been placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! nor has he been able to seek pre-arrest bail so far. Although he is not answering his cellphone, he has made an effort to get his point across to the Mufti Ashfaq who was instrumental in getting the FIR registered. On Wednesday, Nasrullah sent Haji Asmatullah Mehsood, who is associated with ANP and runs his business in Hala Naka area, to Jamia Muftahul Uloom. Mehsood met with Nahyoon and Jehangiri as well as other people. "The gathering was chaired by me and it was attended by Sheikhul Hadees Mufti Ghulam Mohammad Junejo, Mufti Habibullah, Mufti Fasih, Maulana Saifur Rehman, Maulana Abdul Salam and others in seminary," said Nahyoon. He added that the purpose of the meeting was to verify the 'involvement of personal enmity'. "This is a sensitive issue. However, denial ain't just a river in Egypt... all of us are satisfied that an FIR was properly lodged with statement of witnesses," he said. "Since the FIR has been lodged after due verification of facts, the issue can't be resolved at this level. Now we want him placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! ," he said. Mehsood, on the other hand, confirms having met religious leaders. "I haven't met Nasrullah...he is not available but someone from his side approached me so that his viewpoint can be presented to the other side," he says, adding: "I have got nothing to do with this issue directly." Majlis-e-Tahfuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat is also actively participating in protests on the issue and demanding arrest of the accused. They said that they will hold a protest on Friday if he is not placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!. |
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India-Pakistan |
Revealed: Pakistan's 'cottage industry' in forged documents sought by terrorists |
2009-04-11 |
Forged degree certificates, fake income tax returns and bogus payslips were on sale in Pakistan yesterday all valuable tools to help terrorists obtain student visas for Britain. An investigation, in the wake of last week's arrests over a suspected terror plot, has revealed that a set of documents could be obtained for less than £100 by anyone seeking to support their application to study in the UK. As concerns grew about the screening processes that allowed 11 of the 12 bomb suspects to enter Britain, self-styled "immigration consultants" in Pakistan were hard at work trying to beat the system. One said he could provide a convincing certificate from a Pakistani university for £100 on a while-you-wait basis. A corrupt "cottage industry" has grown up to serve a huge market in young men desperate to find a way of working overseas in the Gulf, North America and Europe, with Britain the favourite destination. Terrorists can also, however, take advantage of any lax checking procedures. Many British universities have representative offices in Pakistan's main cities through which they recruit students. At least one of the suspects arrested last week obtained a student visa after applying to John Moores University in Liverpool through its Peshawar representative office, according to one of its managers. This newspaper can also disclose that deep diplomatic tensions have arisen over the arrest by Britain of 11 Pakistani nationals suspected of planning a terror attack. According to Pakistani officials, their country is angry and puzzled that the British Government and its police forces have not provided information on the arrested men. They say that the reluctance to hand over the names, addresses, telephone records and other information on the suspects to Pakistan indicates a lack of trust. On Friday, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, was dragged into a row over the flawed student visa system that allowed the 11 Pakistanis suspects to arrive in Britain unnoticed. Mr Brown had said that Pakistan "has to do more to root out terrorist elements in its country." But Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the Pakistan High Commissioner in London, hit back at Britain by saying: "It is at your end you have to do something more." Police forces arrested 12 men on Wednesday in a series of raids across north-west England. Officers are investigating to see if there are further members of the alleged plot team beyond the 11 on their initial wanted list who are still in Britain. The 12th man arrested is British-born. Detectives are confident that any threat of an imminent terror plot has been foiled. In the words of one senior investigator, officers swooped on 14 addresses because they believed that "sometimes disruption is better than cure". Anti-terror officers were forced to bring forward their arrests by up to nine hours because details of the raids were inadvertently leaked by Bob Quick, Britain's most senior anti-terrorism officer. He resigned on Thursday morning from his post as an Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard after he was photographed walking into Downing Street with an exposed briefing paper giving secret details of Operation Pathway. In the wake of the arrests, The Sunday Telegraph carried out inquiries in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar to see how easy it is to obtained forged documents. The paperwork is designed to convince British immigration officials that applicants want to learn and can pay for their courses, even though some are virtually illiterate and only want jobs. Britain has a reputation for being easy to get into: the United States, whose immigration officials imposed tougher security rules post-9/11, is most likely to reject applications. Nearly 4,000 immigration consultants are thought to be operating in the capital Islamabad and its twin city Rawalpindi. Officials for the British High Commission in Islamabad face a stream of visa applications and they play a vital role in judging whether applicants are genuine students, would-be illegal immigrants, or terrorists trying to trick their way in. Every year 10,000 student visas are granted in Pakistan, including many for genuine British universities who have set up offices in the country to attract students. Up to 20 times as many, however, are rejected. Visa applications for students mean big money for some companies. "It is a roaring business," said Siddiqa Awan, 40, a consultant at International Centre for Study Exchange (ICSE), whose legitimate office was in a cramped basement in an Islamabad shopping centre. A sign outside boasted that the business was British Council-certified and affiliated to Grafton College of Management Science and King's College of Management in the UK. "On average we process the applications of nearly 100 students for the UK alone every month," she said. ICSE was not offering forged documents,. Ms Awan said students would pay a £150 deposit once accepted at Grafton College Pakistani consultants have become notorious for tricks. British officials have noticed on occasion the same pile of dollar bills being presented by several applicants. It means an agent has lent the wad of cash to a series of applicants to "prove" that they had the cash to come to Britain. Another consultant, Major Najeeb Ahmed, admitted that the business has lost its respectable image. "When I started eight years ago there were only a few consultants who had been authorised by colleges to work on their behalf. Now people who are in the property business or run grocery shops are also working for UK colleges," he said. Some agents were surprisingly candid. "Colleges back in London can be a scam, they are just one-room colleges," one said. Under the controversial points-based system, visa applicants are not routinely interviewed. Biometric checks - fingerprinting and iris scans - are made, but that is no deterrent to so-called "clean skins" with no terrorist records. Like most British universities, John Moores University has subcontracted representative offices in all of Pakistan's main cities, including Peshawar where Taliban influence is growing. The university has offices in some of the world's most unstable and dangerous countries, including Iran, Nigeria, and Libya. Many other legitimate British universities have offices in Pakistan. As well as providing lucrative earnings, attracting Pakistani students to Britain is regarded as a way of winning over young Pakistanis in the battle for hearts and minds against terrorism. Many of the forgeries are crude and unlikely to fool immigration officers. But others are sophisticated. And the size of the industry shows how much effort is put in to thwart the system at every stage. |
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Terror Networks |
Sheikh Said: Al Qaeda's financier |
2008-08-29 |
Mustafa Abu Al Yazid, or Mustafa Ahmed Mohamed Osman Abu Al Yazid, also known as Sheikh Said, commander of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization in Afghanistan, was a familiar face in Egypt in the 1980s. He fled to Afghanistan after security operations against the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement, to which he belonged, intensified. He may still be remembered in Egypt but not nearly as well as he is known today in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There have been recent reports claiming that Al Yazid had been killed during raids against fundamentalist strongholds along the Pakistani-Afghan frontier. But who is Al Yazid? And what role has he played within the Al Qaeda organization? Al Yazid could be described as Al Qaedas financier. He was chosen for this role due to his intellect and his theological knowledge of Islam but he lacked knowledge and interest in the military aspects of the Al Qaeda organization. Like many other members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al Yazid made a fresh start in Afghanistan. They destroyed their old passports and forged new ones and changed their names so that they could not be traced even by the countries they were born in. Yasser Al Sirri, Director of the Islamic Observation Centre in London told Asharq Al-Awsat that he was certain that Mustafa Abu Al Yazid otherwise known as Sheikh Said, Al Qaedas third man, survived the rocket attacks on the Pakistani-Afghan border last month. He added, Since Al Qaeda has not made a statement or announced his death, it is obvious that Al Yazid is still alive. There are strong indications that Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had knowledge of al Yazids whereabouts. Sheikh Said is Al Qaedas current Commander of Operations in Afghanistan; he is an Egyptian national who was imprisoned for a while with Ayman al Zawahiri, Al Qaedas second man, following the assassination of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Sheikh Said is currently referred to as the third most important member of Al Qaeda, after Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, since the five men who have held this position since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 have been killed or detained. Yasser Al Sirri revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that al Yazid and Sheikh Said were in fact the same person; the man who was responsible for the finances of one of Osama Bin Ladens Khartoum-based companies and who is now Al Qaedas Commander of Operations in Afghanistan. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, al Yazid was mentioned as part of the US investigation of Osama Bin Laden but the Americans have only recently come to know the importance of this man. Initially, the US government believed that al Yazid was of Saudi nationality but he is from the Egyptian region of Ash Sharqiyah. An accountant by training, he fled Egypt for Afghanistan in 1988. At present, Sheikh Said is not wanted in Egypt on any charges but he is sought by the USA on charges of sponsoring terrorism. He ranks fifteenth on the most wanted list signed by the US President George W. Bush in 2002. Al Sirri told Asharq Al Awsat that upon his arrival to Afghanistan, Sheikh Said joined Al Qaeda in 1988 and became a member of its Shura Council along with Abu Hafs al Masri and Abu Obeida. Sheikh Said is said to be popular within the Council and able to reconcile conflicting trends of Islamic fundamentalist thought. He is fluent in Pashto and has strong ties with the Afghans, not to mention with other members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group who also fled Egypt for Afghanistan. The news that Sheikh Said is a pseudonym for Mustafa Abu Al Yazid is important because Sheikh Said is reportedly responsible for financing the 9/11 attacks in the United States. His pseudonym is included in the US congress investigation into the attack as the man responsible for funding the operation via accounts based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Sheikh Said travelled to Qatar then to the UAE as part of his role in financing the 9/11 attacks. Mohamed Atta, who led the 9/11 hijackers, returned a surplus amount of US $26,000 to Sheikh Said two days before the attacks took place. It is interesting that Sheikh Said agreed to help finance the 9/11 attacks since he and a number of other high ranking Al Qaeda members, including Mullah Omar, opposed the attacks. Despite his objection the Sheikh acceded to the wishes of Osama Bin Laden, and transferred the funds. Sheikh Said was named Commander of Operations for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in June 2007, taking over the role of Abdel Hadi al Iraqi who was arrested in Turkey and handed over to the US forces in Iraq. He was then transferred to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. But what of Sheikh Said? Islamists in Britain claim that he is a spiritual figure, rather than a military commander. Sayyed Imam al Sharif, known as Dr Fadl, the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement to which Sheikh Said belonged, objected to his appointment as a military commander. Dr Fadl, who is currently imprisoned in Tora Prison in Egypt and who recently recanted the theological basis for Jihad and renounced violence, says Sheikh Saids appointment as Commander of Operations for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan signals an end to Al Qaedas cadres due to imprisonment or death. Sources close to Dr Fadl in Europe attribute his opposition to Sheikh Saids new position to the latters lack of experience in military command. Muntassir al Zayat, an Islamist lawyer, told Asharq Al-Awsat that he personally met Sheikh Said on more than one occasion in Egypt and knew him personally as a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement. He described him as a popular figure, a spiritual leader and a theologian, but he does not have military expertise or command. Therefore we can understand Dr Fadls objection to him being given the position of a military commander in Al Qaeda. In his last public appearance Sheikh Said appeared in a rare television interview with journalist Najeeb Ahmed from a secret location in Afghanistan that was broadcast on the Pakistani Geo TV channel in July 2008. Sheikh Said revealed in this interview that he was angered by the publication of the Danish cartoons that depicted Prophet Mohammed in 2005. He confessed that the 9/11 attacks were indeed carried out by Al Qaeda, and criticized former Pakistani President Musharrafs pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States. He also expressed his confidence that Al Qaeda would triumph in Afghanistan. This interview preceded the broadcast of a video by Al Qaedas production house, As Sahab, and only a few days before Sheikh Said appeared in a video in which he elegized the Al Qaeda commander Abu Hussein Al Saidi and commended him for his courage. Abu Hussein Al Saidi was also a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement and fled to Afghanistan to join Al Qaeda. In the video, Sheikh Said also spoke about the merits of suicide bombing operations as a military tactic. The US Congressional 9/11 Report revealed that Bin Ladens main objective was to attack the USA, but others within the Al Qaeda organization held different viewpoints. The Taliban command was focusing military attacks on the Northern Alliance. The Taliban believed that any attack on America would result in a negative reaction and would drag the Americans into war just when the Taliban was within reach of a decisive victory over Ahmed Shah Massouds forces. There is evidence that Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, objected to any Al Qaeda operations against the USA in 2001. There were disputes between the leaders of Al Qaeda who wanted the attack on the USA to go ahead and others who supported Mullah Omars position opposing an attack on the USA at that time. Mullah Omar attributed his objection to ideological reasons, rather than due to fear of Americas response; he wanted Al Qaeda to attack Jews. Mullah Omar was also facing increasing amounts of pressure from the Pakistani government to prevent Al Qaeda from carrying out operations on foreign land. Despite helping to finance the operation, Al Qaedas banker, Sheikh Said also adopted the same opinion as Mullah Omar due to his apprehension of Americas response to any attack. Abu Hafs al Mauritani, one of the more prominent members of Al Qaeda also opposed the attacks, which he outlined in a letter to Osama Bin Laden. Even after the Al Qaeda Shura Council had convened to discuss the matter, and the majority of its members objected to any planned attacks, Bin Laden remained insistent that the 9/11 attacks would go ahead as planned. The full story about the disputes within the Al Qaeda organization regarding the 9/11 attacks is unknown and perhaps will never be fully discovered as the sources from which information can be derived are far from reliable. Yet there is no doubt that Sheikh Said played a part in preparation for the attacks. |
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India-Pakistan |
Al-Qaeda commander claims responsibility for Danish embassy bombing |
2008-07-23 |
(Xinhua) -- The attack on Denmark embassy in Islamabad in June was made by al-Qaeda, said an al-Qaeda commander in an interview with Pakistan's private TV channel late Monday night. A car bomb was detonated in front of the Danish Embassy in Islamabad on June 2, killing at least eight people and injuring 24 others. The commander of al-Qaeda Mustafa Abul Yazid, 53-year-old commander also known as Sheikh Saeed, made the remarks in an exclusive talk with journalist Najeeb Ahmed in a Geo TV program. The text story about the interview, considered as the first detailed one of any al-Qaeda leader during the last five years, was posted on the Geo's website on Tuesday. The al-Qaeda commander's interview with Geo was said to have been conducted at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan. Yazid told the TV channel that his organization is being organized in Afghanistan and would very soon capture all Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda is doing jihad against America as it is murdering the innocent Muslims, Yazid said. Yazid is an Egyptian Islamic militant and the current al-Qaeda commander of operations in Afghanistan. |
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