Ike: Do you anticipate that Pakistan's leadership will move to arrest (or kill) the key members of the radical terrorist group discussed below...?
I heard on Fox News that the Harakatul Mujahideen group was protesting in Pakistan today -- I'm sure they are upset that some of their people have been killed near Kabul BUT they are terrorists and linked to Bin Laden. My hunch is that they also pose a threat to Musharaf...Any thoughts on this? Thanks.
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Tuesday October 23 4:15 PM ET
US Strike Kills 19 From Pro-Kashmir Group-Sources
By Tahir Ikram
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A U.S. strike on the Afghan capital on Tuesday killed at least 19 members of a Pakistani group listed by Washington as a terrorist organization, sources close to the group said.
They said the 19 were members of the Harakatul Mujahideen group from the Pakistani city of Lahore and included a senior leader known as Ustad Farooq.
Harakatul Mujahideen group fights against Indian rule of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir (news - web sites) and has long been believed to send its guerrillas into Afghanistan (news - web sites) for training at the many camps there.
The group had been staying in a house in a military compound in Kabul that was bombed by U.S. forces early on Tuesday.
The sources said that by early evening eight bodies had been dug out of the rubble of the building, flattened by the early morning bombing raid.
The group was formerly known as Harkatul Ansar, which was declared a terrorist group by the United States for its alleged involvement in the kidnapping of four Westerners in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
After being listed as a terrorist outfit, the group renamed itself Harkatul Mujahideen.
It was named as one of the entities whose assets were frozen by Washington due to its alleged connections with the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) following the deadly September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Sources in the group have said the group's main leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, has not been seen or been in contact since Washington put the group's name on the list of 27 entities whose assets were frozen.
Among the 19 killed in the Kabul bombing was a man known as Chacha Lahori, a middle-aged man who left a middle-class life in Lahore to participate in jihad, or holy war.
In an interview with Reuters last year, Lahori, who asked not to be identified, said he wanted to fight the forces of evil and had left his children and family for an opportunity to give his life for the cause of Islam.
``He has met his dream,'' said a source close to the group.
Harakatul Mujahideen was accused of being involved in the hijacking of an Indian airliner in December 1999. It denied the charge, but the hijacking ended when India released Harakatul Mujahideen member Maulana Masood Azhar in exchange for the passengers.
Azhar later broke away and formed Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant organization that supports Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and has also been placed on Washington's list of individuals and groups suspected of having links with al Qaeda.
Jaish-e-Mohammad initially took responsibility and later denied involvement in the October 1 bombing of the state legislature of Srinagar, summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, in which 38 people were killed. |
