<An hour after the assassination attempt, he was at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad to attend the wedding ceremony of daughter of a former colleague."Will he be extra-cautious in future?" Many friends who know Musharraf will say " No!">
Al-Qaeda chief suspect in bid on Musharraf’s life
By Kamran Khan
KARACHI: An initial probe and some raw intelligence reports are strengthening investigators’ view that the attempt to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi was an al-Qaeda brainchild.
Senior security officials, in the knowledge of the investigation, have described the incident as "the closest call yet". "The intensity of the blast was enough to blow up the entire convoy," a senior official said. This was the third known attempt on President Musharraf’s life since September 11, 2001.
"The sad part is that it didn’t come as a surprise, we knew that al-Qaeda was taking aim at him," according to a security official who added: "Enough is not being done to protect the president being sought by the world’s most feared terrorist organisation."
Another official said, "This appears to be a follow up of direct threats made to President Musharraf by al-Qaeda two months ago." He was referring to two successive audio taped statements of Osama bin Laden’s deputy Aymen al-Zawahiri aired by Arabic television news channels in a space of three weeks in September.
In his audio taped messages, condemned also by Pakistan’s main religious parties, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command Zawahiri called upon Pakistani security forces to "topple" President Musharraf for what he called "betraying" Islam and for letting the Americans kill thousands of Afghans.
Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya channels aired the two audio messages on September 10 and September 28. The first audio message also contained some fresh video images of Osama and Zawahiri.
Jamaat-i-Islami’s Qazi Hussain Ahmed, JUI’s Maulana Fazlur Rahman and the top leadership of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad did not mince words in condemning Zawahiri’s statement. President Musharraf had refused to comment, dubbing Zawahiri as a "mad man".
An official has now acknowledged that the relevant security agency had determined that the tapes were genuine and current. The United States intelligence services had also made similar determination and shared the information with their Pakistani counterparts.
At the time Al-Jazeera channel had said the audiotape was received by telephone from Pakistan. "An anonymous caller from Pakistan contacted us to offer Aymen al-Zawahiri’s message," said Al-Jazeera. "The message was recorded by telephone and broadcast immediately."
Security officials have revealed that joint Pak-US efforts, launched soon after broadcast of Zawahiri’s last messages on Al-Jazeera channel on September 28, US intelligence traced Zawahiri’s satellite telephone calls to Angoorada in South Waziristan tribal agency of the NWFP.
A Pakistani military operation launched, at a short notice, caused a major gunfight between al-Qaeda suspects and a unit of Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group at Angoorada on October 2. Eight al-Qaeda suspects and two Pakistan Army personnel were killed, but not before Zawahiri made good his escape. Initial reports after the military operation spoke about killing of Zawahiri. The incident probably taught him not to use his satellite phone again to contact the outside world.
Pakistani intelligence community has sound evidence to suggest that Zawahiri, and not Osama, was always al-Qaeda’s principal contact with Pakistani jihadi community which had cultivated strong contacts in Taliban’s Afghanistan where al-Qaeda held tremendous influence till the US-led coalition forces’ attack in October 2001.
Al-Qaeda’s connections with the local Islamic militant groups were significantly highlighted during the investigation of Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case. Pakistani and US investigators now agree that the Wall Street Journal reporter lost his life in a joint operation of Pakistani militants and the al-Qaeda.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the most important al-Qaeda operative to be arrested in Pakistan, is believed to have provided insight about al-Qaeda’s penetration into local groups to Pakistani and American interrogators. His interrogation by American intelligence officials at a still undisclosed location, a well informed official said, provided the most definite information yet on al-Qaeda’s ties to Pakistani militant groups.
Before being extradited to US custody after his arrest from the residence of mid-level Pakistan army officer in Rawalpindi in March, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was questioned by Pakistani military security officials. The interrogation had revealed al-Qaeda’s perception about President Musharraf and the organisation’s determination to target him.
Interestingly, no al-Qaeda links were found to two separate groups of accused arrested in Karachi last year for trying separately to target President Musharraf on his way from the airport to a public rally in Karachi in 2000 and to target his motorcade with rocket launchers and mortars near the defence equipment exhibition - Ideas 2002 - in Karachi last year.
"There are still a few loose ends in both investigations," according to a Karachi police official. "Al-Qaeda’s footprints were there but we failed to trace the real people or the mastermind."
Two days after another attempt on President Musharraf’s life on Sunday night, the presidential security codes were being redrawn as a result of consensus in senior military commanders that the security measures did not match the looming threat to his life.
The Special Services Group serves as personal bodyguard to the president, but the overall responsibility of his security is governed through the Blue Book and in case of travel outside the capital also by the relevant corps headquarters.
For security reasons president’s itinerary is never publicly disclosed and decoy cars and aeroplanes routinely escort him on all road and air journeys. Musharraf, a commando, usually carries a pistol, officials said.
After the latest assassination attempt, Pakistani security officials were more worried. It proved the terrorists had an access to top-secret information about the president’s movement including the timings for his arrival and departures to and from Chaklala military base in Rawalpindi.
"The sophisticated laying of explosives below the culvert would have easily taken at least an hour, yet the terrorist did that without being noticed by anyone in this purely military neighbourhood," remarked a security official.
New security parameters were being hurriedly drafted till Tuesday night, but some officials feared they might still be difficult to enforce, because the president has a deep passion to visit restaurants, friends and relatives almost every evening and that too without the reasonable security arrangements.
In the official capacity also, he dismisses caution for public image. A few hours before the Sunday night bid on his life, President Musharraf had travelled to a remote village near Ghotki in Sindh to attend a launch in the company of no less than 2,000 people. An hour after the assassination attempt, he was at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad to attend the wedding ceremony of daughter of a former colleague."Will he be extra-cautious in future?" Many friends who know Musharraf will say " No!" |
