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Killing of IJT activist in drone hit raises alarm
Amir Mir
Thursday, December 05, 2013
From Print Edition
560 235 189 1
ISLAMABAD: The November 29 killing of an Islami Jamiat Tuleba (IJT) activist in a US drone attack in the North Waziristan agency has reinforced the concerns of the security agencies about the alleged links of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing with al-Qaeda-linked terrorists who operate from the lawless Waziristan tribal region on Pak-Afghan border.
Identified as a former student of the Industrial Manufacturing Department of the NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Abdur Rehman, the elder son of Shujaat Hussain, was a resident of the North Karachi, sector 11/A. He was killed [along with three other Punjabi Taliban] on November 29 in a US drone attack that targeted a residential compound in North Waziristan.
Abdur Rehman was a known activist of the Islami Jamiat Tuleba before being expelled from the NED University a few years ago due to his extended absence. His killing in an American drone attack and that too in North Waziristan, which headquarters the Tehrik-e-Taliban and the Haqqani Network, has given credence to the findings of security agencies that hundreds [if not thousands] of the IJT activists have joined the al-Qaeda-run training camps in the North Waziristan over the past five years.
As per the findings of the security agencies, it was Dr. Arshad Waheed, the president of the Islamic Medical Association (an offshoot of the JI) who actually began recruiting IJT activists for training at al-Qaeda run camps in Waziristan in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan.
Arshad and his younger brother Dr Akmal Waheed, who were ideologically inspired by the Jamaat-e-Islami, were arrested from Karachi in July 2004 in connection with a bomb attack on the convoy of the then Corps Commander Karachi Lt Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat which killed ten security personnel. The interrogation of the doctor brothers - cardiac surgeon Dr. Akmal Waheed and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Arshad Waheed - prompted the security agencies to literally charge sheet the strongest political voice of Islamists in Pakistan with having links with al-Qaeda.
Those who interrogated the doctors had in their possession a videotaped confession by the two, admitting that they had recruited a large number of the IJT activists from different educational institutions of Karachi and taken them to the Waziristan tribal region. They also confessed having raised funds for the Pakistani Taliban besides treating al-Qaeda-linked Arab fighters in Waziristan.
However, the doctor brothers were set free by the courts due to lack of evidence. They instantly travelled to Wana in South Waziristan where Dr Arshad was killed in a drone strike on March 16, 2008, thus confirming their al-Qaeda links. Dr Arshad was the first Pakistani al-Qaeda sympathizer to be featured by the terrorist group’s media wing As-Sahab in a long
documentary, in which he was described as a role model for young jehadis.
Arshad’s death was announced in a 40-minute videotape in which he was eulogized by Abu Mustafa Yazid, the then chief operational commander of al-Qaeda who had earlier claimed responsibility for the December 2007 killing of the twice-elected Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. While Ameerul Azeem, a central leader of the JI, strongly refutes the presence of any IJT activist in the al-Qaeda-run terror camps in Waziristan, sources in security agencies say the late JI ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmed knew about the dangerous development and had even tried to bring the IJT activists back. Qazi Hussain Ahmed had sent Hafiz Waheedullah Khan, the father of the doctor brothers, to Wana, to prevail upon his sons. Waheedullah, an educationist who used to run a vast network of private schools, was a founder of the JI-backed Teachers’ Association of Pakistan, the largest in the country. However, the mission failed as Dr Arshad and Dr Akmal simply refused to listen to their father.
By that time, the security agencies had been keeping a close eye on the activities of the Jamiat and the JI activists, especially following the March 2003 arrest of al-Qaeda’s chief operational commander and the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad from the Rawalpindi residence of a JI leader, Farzana Qudoos. It was on March 1, 2003 that an FBI-guided raiding party broke into the modest brick house in the West Ridge area of Rawalpindi and arrested Khalid Sheikh.
Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, the owner of the house who was sheltering Khalid, was also arrested during the raid.
A few months after the arrest, the then interior minister, Faisal Saleh Hayat, had asserted while speaking in the National Assembly on August 13, 2004 that the JI had been supporting the al-Qaeda. At a press conference on August 16, 2004, Faisal listed a number of incidences in which members of the JI had been tied to the al-Qaeda, and called on its leadership to explain these links.
Almost a decade later, concerns about the alleged al-Qaeda links of the Jamaat and its student wing have grown manifold, amid a statement by the JI ameer Munawwar Hasan, describing Hakeemullah Mehsud as a martyr and deriding the Pakistani soldiers who are being killed by the militants. The security agencies’ concerns about the links of JI and its student wing with al-Qaeda have been heightened in recent months especially after the September 2013 arrest of a six-member team of al-Qaeda’s suicide bombers along with their local handler from a boys’ hostel of the Punjab University in Lahore. Those arrested from the hostel allegedly had the support of the Islami Jamiat Tuleba. The documents recovered from Room No237 of the Punjab University’s Hostel No.1 also included a list of the key members of the Jamiat who are students of the University.
One of those arrested from Hostel No 1, an Arab fighter from Waziristan tribal region, has confessed to be the mastermind of the June 2, 2008 suicide attack on the Denmark embassy in Islamabad which killed five people. It is pertinent to mention that al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the Embassy attack on June 5, 2008, saying that it was a reaction to the publishing of some blasphemous cartoons in a Danish newspaper against the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and the presence of the Danish troops in Afghanistan. Just a month before the Danish embassy attack, al-Qaeda’s No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had urged Muslims to strike against Danish targets.
That the IJT harbours militants in the university hostels has already been confirmed by the PU Vice Chancellor Dr Mujahid Kamran in a recent statement made on September 18, 2013. The VC further said in the same statement that illegal occupants were living in the Punjab University hostels against whom a major operation will be launched to get rid of the elements involved in militant activities. He further confessed that the police have already arrested several IJT activists from the university hostels for their alleged militant links. Although the IJT spokesman has refuted any link with the six students who had been charged with al-Qaeda links, the law enforcement agencies insist that they were al-Qaeda operatives who were being provided shelter in the hostels by the JI’s student wing.
Although an IJT spokesman disowned Abdur Rehman last week after his al-Qaeda links were made public by the agencies, the NED Registrar Javed Aziz confirmed that he was an active member of the Islami Jamiat Tuleba. Abdur Rehman’s death first became viral over the social media, where his dead body was shown along with the details of his links to NED University and the Jamiat. He was involved in the operational planning of several terrorist attacks, especially the one targeting Pakistan’s only naval air base in the port city of Karachi (Mehran Naval Base) on May 22, 2011. The brazen PNS attack had destroyed a precious PC Orion aircraft which was used by the Pakistan Navy for crucial sea surveillance.
A subsequent video titled ‘Revenge of Sheikh Osama bin Laden’, released by al-Qaeda-linked Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, had claimed responsibility for Mehran Base attack. Four attackers were shown in the video reading out from a written statement before carrying out the attack. One of the terrorists said the attack was a revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden [who was killed in a secret raid by US commandos in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011]. Terrorists shown in the video were the same whose dead bodies were found at the end of the 17-hour siege of the PNS Mehran.
Coming back to Abdur Rehman, he was not the only IJT activist to have been droned to death by the American CIA in Waziristan. MQM Chief Altaf Hussain has named the other day several IJT activists who, he claims, had lost their lives in drone attacks in the Waziristan tribal region. Those named included Tanveerul Islam, a former Nazim of IJT in Karachi University, Kashif Hussain, Shabbir Hussain, Naeemul Haq, Zohair Imtiaz Qidwai and Sanaullah, all belonging to different educational institutions of Karachi.
Accusing the Jamaat-e-Islami of being in covert partnership with the al-Qaeda, Taliban and other anti-state outfits, Altaf called for an immediate ban on the JI and trial of its leaders for treason. He said the establishment had made the JI its ‘B team’ but now the same party in connivance with internal and external elements was plotting against the country.
However, refuting the allegations leveled by Altaf, the Secretary General of Jamaat-e-Islami Liaqat Baloch has said that the Islami Jamiat Tuleba and the Jamaat-e-Islami were peaceful religious parties and all the allegations about their al-Qaeda links were simply baseless.
Amir Mir
Thursday, December 05, 2013
From Print Edition
560 235 189 1
ISLAMABAD: The November 29 killing of an Islami Jamiat Tuleba (IJT) activist in a US drone attack in the North Waziristan agency has reinforced the concerns of the security agencies about the alleged links of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing with al-Qaeda-linked terrorists who operate from the lawless Waziristan tribal region on Pak-Afghan border.
Identified as a former student of the Industrial Manufacturing Department of the NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Abdur Rehman, the elder son of Shujaat Hussain, was a resident of the North Karachi, sector 11/A. He was killed [along with three other Punjabi Taliban] on November 29 in a US drone attack that targeted a residential compound in North Waziristan.
Abdur Rehman was a known activist of the Islami Jamiat Tuleba before being expelled from the NED University a few years ago due to his extended absence. His killing in an American drone attack and that too in North Waziristan, which headquarters the Tehrik-e-Taliban and the Haqqani Network, has given credence to the findings of security agencies that hundreds [if not thousands] of the IJT activists have joined the al-Qaeda-run training camps in the North Waziristan over the past five years.
As per the findings of the security agencies, it was Dr. Arshad Waheed, the president of the Islamic Medical Association (an offshoot of the JI) who actually began recruiting IJT activists for training at al-Qaeda run camps in Waziristan in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan.
Arshad and his younger brother Dr Akmal Waheed, who were ideologically inspired by the Jamaat-e-Islami, were arrested from Karachi in July 2004 in connection with a bomb attack on the convoy of the then Corps Commander Karachi Lt Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat which killed ten security personnel. The interrogation of the doctor brothers - cardiac surgeon Dr. Akmal Waheed and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Arshad Waheed - prompted the security agencies to literally charge sheet the strongest political voice of Islamists in Pakistan with having links with al-Qaeda.
Those who interrogated the doctors had in their possession a videotaped confession by the two, admitting that they had recruited a large number of the IJT activists from different educational institutions of Karachi and taken them to the Waziristan tribal region. They also confessed having raised funds for the Pakistani Taliban besides treating al-Qaeda-linked Arab fighters in Waziristan.
However, the doctor brothers were set free by the courts due to lack of evidence. They instantly travelled to Wana in South Waziristan where Dr Arshad was killed in a drone strike on March 16, 2008, thus confirming their al-Qaeda links. Dr Arshad was the first Pakistani al-Qaeda sympathizer to be featured by the terrorist group’s media wing As-Sahab in a long
documentary, in which he was described as a role model for young jehadis.
Arshad’s death was announced in a 40-minute videotape in which he was eulogized by Abu Mustafa Yazid, the then chief operational commander of al-Qaeda who had earlier claimed responsibility for the December 2007 killing of the twice-elected Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. While Ameerul Azeem, a central leader of the JI, strongly refutes the presence of any IJT activist in the al-Qaeda-run terror camps in Waziristan, sources in security agencies say the late JI ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmed knew about the dangerous development and had even tried to bring the IJT activists back. Qazi Hussain Ahmed had sent Hafiz Waheedullah Khan, the father of the doctor brothers, to Wana, to prevail upon his sons. Waheedullah, an educationist who used to run a vast network of private schools, was a founder of the JI-backed Teachers’ Association of Pakistan, the largest in the country. However, the mission failed as Dr Arshad and Dr Akmal simply refused to listen to their father.
By that time, the security agencies had been keeping a close eye on the activities of the Jamiat and the JI activists, especially following the March 2003 arrest of al-Qaeda’s chief operational commander and the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad from the Rawalpindi residence of a JI leader, Farzana Qudoos. It was on March 1, 2003 that an FBI-guided raiding party broke into the modest brick house in the West Ridge area of Rawalpindi and arrested Khalid Sheikh.
Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, the owner of the house who was sheltering Khalid, was also arrested during the raid.
A few months after the arrest, the then interior minister, Faisal Saleh Hayat, had asserted while speaking in the National Assembly on August 13, 2004 that the JI had been supporting the al-Qaeda. At a press conference on August 16, 2004, Faisal listed a number of incidences in which members of the JI had been tied to the al-Qaeda, and called on its leadership to explain these links.
Almost a decade later, concerns about the alleged al-Qaeda links of the Jamaat and its student wing have grown manifold, amid a statement by the JI ameer Munawwar Hasan, describing Hakeemullah Mehsud as a martyr and deriding the Pakistani soldiers who are being killed by the militants. The security agencies’ concerns about the links of JI and its student wing with al-Qaeda have been heightened in recent months especially after the September 2013 arrest of a six-member team of al-Qaeda’s suicide bombers along with their local handler from a boys’ hostel of the Punjab University in Lahore. Those arrested from the hostel allegedly had the support of the Islami Jamiat Tuleba. The documents recovered from Room No237 of the Punjab University’s Hostel No.1 also included a list of the key members of the Jamiat who are students of the University.
One of those arrested from Hostel No 1, an Arab fighter from Waziristan tribal region, has confessed to be the mastermind of the June 2, 2008 suicide attack on the Denmark embassy in Islamabad which killed five people. It is pertinent to mention that al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the Embassy attack on June 5, 2008, saying that it was a reaction to the publishing of some blasphemous cartoons in a Danish newspaper against the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and the presence of the Danish troops in Afghanistan. Just a month before the Danish embassy attack, al-Qaeda’s No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had urged Muslims to strike against Danish targets.
That the IJT harbours militants in the university hostels has already been confirmed by the PU Vice Chancellor Dr Mujahid Kamran in a recent statement made on September 18, 2013. The VC further said in the same statement that illegal occupants were living in the Punjab University hostels against whom a major operation will be launched to get rid of the elements involved in militant activities. He further confessed that the police have already arrested several IJT activists from the university hostels for their alleged militant links. Although the IJT spokesman has refuted any link with the six students who had been charged with al-Qaeda links, the law enforcement agencies insist that they were al-Qaeda operatives who were being provided shelter in the hostels by the JI’s student wing.
Although an IJT spokesman disowned Abdur Rehman last week after his al-Qaeda links were made public by the agencies, the NED Registrar Javed Aziz confirmed that he was an active member of the Islami Jamiat Tuleba. Abdur Rehman’s death first became viral over the social media, where his dead body was shown along with the details of his links to NED University and the Jamiat. He was involved in the operational planning of several terrorist attacks, especially the one targeting Pakistan’s only naval air base in the port city of Karachi (Mehran Naval Base) on May 22, 2011. The brazen PNS attack had destroyed a precious PC Orion aircraft which was used by the Pakistan Navy for crucial sea surveillance.
A subsequent video titled ‘Revenge of Sheikh Osama bin Laden’, released by al-Qaeda-linked Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, had claimed responsibility for Mehran Base attack. Four attackers were shown in the video reading out from a written statement before carrying out the attack. One of the terrorists said the attack was a revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden [who was killed in a secret raid by US commandos in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011]. Terrorists shown in the video were the same whose dead bodies were found at the end of the 17-hour siege of the PNS Mehran.
Coming back to Abdur Rehman, he was not the only IJT activist to have been droned to death by the American CIA in Waziristan. MQM Chief Altaf Hussain has named the other day several IJT activists who, he claims, had lost their lives in drone attacks in the Waziristan tribal region. Those named included Tanveerul Islam, a former Nazim of IJT in Karachi University, Kashif Hussain, Shabbir Hussain, Naeemul Haq, Zohair Imtiaz Qidwai and Sanaullah, all belonging to different educational institutions of Karachi.
Accusing the Jamaat-e-Islami of being in covert partnership with the al-Qaeda, Taliban and other anti-state outfits, Altaf called for an immediate ban on the JI and trial of its leaders for treason. He said the establishment had made the JI its ‘B team’ but now the same party in connivance with internal and external elements was plotting against the country.
However, refuting the allegations leveled by Altaf, the Secretary General of Jamaat-e-Islami Liaqat Baloch has said that the Islami Jamiat Tuleba and the Jamaat-e-Islami were peaceful religious parties and all the allegations about their al-Qaeda links were simply baseless.
