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Paper no. 2173
16.03.2007
AL QAEDA: THE REALITY AND THE CHARADE - INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 206
By B. Raman
In many articles written since 9/11, I have been expressing my doubts regarding the manner in which the Al Qaeda was being projected by the US intelligence and the group of Al Qaeda watchers, which has come up. Many of these Al Qaeda watchers, I felt, were just echoing what the US intelligence was saying about Al Qaeda without exercising their independent judgement.
2. I had particularly serious doubts about the manner in which Abu Faraj al-Libi, a Libyan married to a Pakistani woman, who was arrested by the Pakistani authorities in May 2005, was being projected by the Western terrorism analysts----governmental and non-governmental-- as Al Qaeda's No.3 and as the mastermind of the two plots to kill President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December, 2003. In this connection, reference is invited to my article titled THE AL QAEDA STRIPTEASE CONTINUES of May 5, 2005, at http://www.saag.org/papers14/paper1366.html
3. I have been pointing out repeatedly that if he was really the mastermind behind the two plots, one would have expected the Pakistani authorities to detain and interrogate him in order to find out the extent of Al Qaeda's penetration into the Armed Forces and prosecute him. Instead of doing so, they handed him over to the US authorities. The circumstances surrounding his arrest and handing-over to the US authorities and the dramatic projection of this as dealing a deadly blow to Al Qaeda gave rise to a strong suspicion that there was an element of a charade in it. I had stated as follows in my above-cited article: "In my three decades with the Indian intelligence, I have learnt one lesson. Never make a tall claim. Tall claims have a nasty way of coming back to haunt you."
4. The US military authorities at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba took up for hearing his case on March 9, 2007, in order to decide whether his is a fit case for indefinite detention as an enemy combattant. Whereas Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) chose to appear before the military authorities and gave written as well as oral testimonies, Abu Faraj chose not to appear before them and give any testimony. The military authorities, therefore, had before them only a summary of the facts relating to him as presented by those detaining him. An edited version of the proceedings, including the summary of the facts relating to him, which would justify his continued detention, was released to the public by the Pentagon on March 14, 2007. One does not know whether any important facts have been withheld from the public.
5. Three interesting points emerge from a study of the edited version of the proceedings:
- Whereas previously the US and the Pakistani authorities projected him as the No.3 in Al Qaeda, he has now been described as the deputy to the No.3. Who was that No.3 has not been mentioned.
- There is no reference to his role in the two attempts to kill Musharraf.
- The summary of facts says: "The detainee was the deputy to Al Qaeda's third in command and was responsible for Al Qaeda activities and logistics throughout Pakistan. In December 2003, a large group of Islamic extremists, including the detainee, representatives of Hizbe Islami Gulbuddin and Taliban officials met in Raiwind, Pakistan, and discussed operations against the United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan." (Citation ends) Raiwind in Pakistani Punjab is the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), where the TJ holds its annual conventions in November or December every year. This convention is attended by hundreds of thousands of people, including serving and retired military and intelligence officers, nuclear scientists, political leaders etc. I had pointed out in my articles on the TJ in the past how the jihadi terrorist organisations use the TJ for their recruitment and use the cover of its religious preaching missions for their travels abroad. For many years in the early 1990s, Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir, who was the Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence under Nawaz Sharif, functioned as the Amir of the TJ.
6. There is no doubt that Al Qaeda continues to pose a serious threat to international peace and security. At the same time, there is equally no doubt that there has been an over-projection of the contribution of Musharraf to the hunt against Al Qaeda. Many of the arrests of so-called senior operatives of Al Qaeda by the ISI for which Musharraf had claimed credit were nothing but a charade. For every important operative such as KSM arrested by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the US, there were dozens of arrests of dubious nature of persons with no links to Al Qaeda. Many of them were picked up just because the US" National Security Agency, which is responsible for technical intelligence, heard them speak in Arabic over phone or heard them discussing over phone about Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
7. Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury, who has been suspended by Musharraf as the Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court provoking an embarrassing controversy, suspected that there was a large element of charade in respect of the arrests of Al Qaeda suspects and tried to go into it while enquiring into a large number of petitions regarding missing persons. This is not the first time that Musharraf has tried to intimidate Judges. He has done it at least 20 times since he seized power in October, 1999. Whereas in the past he let his subordinates do the intimidation and avoided his personal involvement, this time he personally got involved by calling the Chief Justice to his office and unsuccessfully trying to force him to resign on the ground that he was damaging the reputation of the army and the ISI. His personal involvement this time shows the state of his panic and his anxiety to prevent the truth from coming out.
8. If the truth comes out, his reputation as the world's greatest warrior against jihadi terrorism would be torn to shreds. The US is refraining from criticising his intimidation of the Chief Justice because it would not be in the interest of the US either for the truth to come out.
9. The so-called war against Al Qaeda is not an unadulterated epic battle. It is partly an epic battle and partly a fraud. It would not be in the interest of either the US or Pakistan for the fraudent part of the battle to be exposed. That is what the suspended Chief Justice tried to do and has paid a price for it.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. e-mail: itschen36@gmail.com)
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