2022
Januaryay 15: On January 15, Malik Faisal Akram, a British citizen of Pakistan origin, took four people hostage in Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville city, Texas, US during Sabbat services. After a ten-hour standoff and negotiations, FBI personnel entered the synagogue and killed Faisal, who was armed with a pistol. Hostages were rescued unharmed. Al-Qaeda supporters have praised Malik Faisal Akram in their posts on social media platforms. The latest issue of Al-Qaeda-linked magazine ‘Wolves of Manhattan’ has praised Faisal, calling him a ‘martyr’ and giving him a name ‘Malik al-Britani’.
February 21: On February 21, 2022, Spain’s National Police, in a joint operation with Europol, arrested five Pakistan nationals in Barcelona, Girona, Ubeda and Granada, for inciting their compatriots through social media, to target individuals on the issue of blasphemy, as well as praising the action of terrorists who had carried out attacks in Europe and Pakistan on the same issue. The detainees, all in their twenties, are believed to be followers of the radical Islamic Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, which advocates the implementation of Sharia law and execution of those who are labelled blasphemers. According to Spanish authorities, investigations against the detainees began after an attack in September 2020 by a Pakistani national, Zaheer Hassan Mahmood, who injured two people with a meat cleaver in front of a building where the 2015 attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo took place. Mahmood, arrested after the attack, was unaware that the Charlie Hebdo office had shifted to a different location.
May 7: On May 7, 2022, the anti-terrorism police of Italy and the European Counter Terrorism Centre of Europol, along with the anti-terrorism police of Spain and France, carried out a counter terrorism operation and detained 14 individuals, including a number of Pakistani nationals linked to a Pakistani cell operating in Italy and other European countries. This cell was part of a wider network called ‘Gabar Group’ associated with Zaheer Hassan Mahmoud, the 27-year-old Pakistani national who had attacked the former office of the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in September 2020.
May 15: A 28-year-old Pakistani doctor on H-1B visa has been indicted by a federal grand jury on pledging allegiance to the Islamic State/Islamic State of Iraq and Levant/Daish (ISIS) and expressing his desire to carry out "lone wolf" terror attacks in the US. According to the indictment, Muhammad Masood, a licensed medical doctor from Pakistan, was formerly employed as a research coordinator at a reputed medical clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The indictment against Masood was announced on May 15 by US attorney Erica MacDonald. Masood was initially charged by criminal complaint and has been in custody since his March 19 arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Between January and March this year, he made several statements to others, including pledging his allegiance to the ISIS and its leader, and expressing his desire to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS. Masood also expressed his desire to conduct "lone wolf" terrorist attacks in the United States, the court papers said. On February 21 this year, Masood purchased a plane ticket from Chicago to Amman, Jordan, and from there planned to travel to Syria. On March 16 this year, Masood's travel plans changed because Jordan closed its borders to incoming travel due to the coronavirus pandemic. He made a new plan to fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to meet up with an individual who he believed would assist him with travel via cargo ship to deliver him to ISIS territory. On March 19, Masood travelled from Rochester to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) to board a flight bound for Los Angeles, California. Upon arrival at the MSP, Masood checked in for his flight and was subsequently arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force. This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. Masood is in custody at the Sherburne County Jail.
April 23: Baloch journalist Sajid Hussain, who was living in exile in Sweden and had been missing since March 2, has been found dead on April 23. “His body was found on April 23 in the Fyris river outside Uppsala,” Police spokesperson Jonas Eronen said. Hussain, hailing from Balochistan, was working part-time as a professor in Uppsala, about 60 kilometres north of Stockholm, when he went missing on March 2.He was also the chief editor of the Balochistan Times, an online magazine he had set up, in which he wrote about drug trafficking, forced disappearances and a long-running insurgency. According to the Reporters without Borders (RSF), Hussain was last seen getting onto a train for Uppsala in Stockholm. Hussain came to Sweden in 2017 and secured political asylum in 2019. “As long as a crime cannot be excluded, there remains the risk that his death is linked to his work as a journalist,” Erik Halkjaer, head of the Swedish branch of RSF said. The Pakistan Foreign Office declined to comment.
2019
August 30: A 19-year-old man of Pakistani origin was on August 30 charged for plotting a "lone wolf" attack inspired by the terror group Islamic State (ISIS) in New York City, reports ANI. According to a criminal complaint filed against Awais Chudhary, a United States (US) naturalised citizen born in Pakistan, the suspect was planning to carry out a knife attack in Queens area on behalf of the ISIS and wanted to record his attack to inspire others to commit such violent acts. The suspect allegedly ordered a tactical knife, a mask, gloves and a cell phone chest-and-head strap to record the attack. He was arrested on August 29- night while trying to pick up those items from an online vendor's retail location.
2017
September 19: The Interior Ministry of Spain said that the Police have arrested a Pakistani man suspected of "promoting terrorism and militant propaganda" on social media networks. A Ministry statement said that the 25-year-old resident of the northern Catalan city of Lleida was part of a cell partially dismantled with the arrest of three Pakistani brothers in Lleida in 2016. The Ministry said that the man detained on September 19 had become "more engrossed in radical activities" in recent weeks.
January 21: The number of Pakistanis under detention in Saudi Arab jails on terror charges reached 69 with the arrest of a woman in Jeddah's Al-Naseem District during a security operation. According to a report in Saudi newspaper Arab News, Fatima Ramadan Balochi Murad was arrested along with her Saudi husband from an apartment in Al-Naseem District by security agencies after a tip-off. A recent statement issued by the Interior Ministry through its Tawasul (communications) portal said that 5,085 terror suspects from 40 countries are in detention in five intelligence prisons in the Kingdom.
2016
December 20: A Baloch person of Pakistani origin, Naveed Baloch, who was an asylum seeker, suspected of ploughing a lorry into a Berlin Christmas market was released for lack of evidence. "The accused, detained over the attack on the Berlin Christmas market on December 19, 2016, was let go on this evening on the orders of the federal prosecutor," prosecutor's office said in a statement. "The forensic tests carried out so far did not provide evidence of the accused's presence during the crimes in the cab of the lorry." German authorities had earlier said that the Pakistani asylum seeker may not be the right man, sparking fears the real killer could be on the run.
August 4: An Oslo court sentenced a Pakistani-origin man Hasan Ahmed (46) to six years in prison for joining the ISIS. Hasan Ahmed, a Norwegian citizen of Pakistani origin, was found guilty of vowing allegiance to ISIS and taking part in ISIS training programmes. Ahmed's son Ishaq was also sentenced to eight years in prison by a Norway court 2015 for joining the jihadist group.
August 4: A Pakistani-Italian, Aftab Farooq has been deported from Italy for allegedly plotting to join ISIS in Syria, the Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said. According to reports, Farooq (26), was captain of the Italian youth cricket team and had captained the Italian Under-19 cricket team back in 2009. Farooq had reportedly been living in a town near Milan with his family for 13 years..
July 7: Nineteen people, including 12 Pakistani nationals, have been arrested in Saudi Arabia following suicide attacks on July 4, including one near Islam´s second-holiest site in the city of Medina, the Saudi Arabia Interior Ministry said. Seven people are believed to have been killed and two wounded in the Medina attacks, at a mosque in Qatif and in western Jeddah, the economic capital, not far from the US consulate. A 26-year-old Saudi man, Naer Moslem Hammad al-Balawi, who had a "history of drug use" had been identified as the perpetrator of the Medina attack, the Ministry said in a statement. Four people were killed in the Medina explosion near the Prophet´s Mosque, which came as Muslims prepared for this week´s Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. The body parts of three people were found after another suicide bombing in the Shiite-populated Gulf city of Qatif, the Ministry said earlier. Two police officers were wounded the Jeddah attack. The US embassy in Riyadh reported no casualties among consulate staff during the attack, which coincided with the US July 4 Independence Day holiday.
July 4: A suicide bomber who blew himself up near the United States consulate in Jeddah has been identified as a Pakistani citizen, the Saudi Arabia Interior Ministry said. The Ministry identified the man as 35-year-old Abdullah Gulzar Khan, who worked as a driver in Saudi Arabia. Khan had been living with his wife and her parents in Jeddah for 12 years, the Interior Ministry said in a tweet. Security Officers became suspicious of a man near the parking lot of Dr Suleiman Faqeeh Hospital in Jeddah, which is directly across from the US diplomatic mission. When they moved in to investigate "he blew himself up with a suicide belt inside the hospital parking". Two security officers were slightly injured in the incident.
2015
December 29: Turkish authorities have arrested three suspected members of the Islamic State (IS/ also known as Daesh) group in Istanbul, including two Pakistanis and a Briton. According to media sources, the Pakistani suspects had been detained last week in a raid on their homes in Mecidiyekoy District.
December 27: A Pakistani man from South Africa on his 'dream vacation' to New York City was arrested for describing his suitcase as a 'bomb' while checking in at a Sheraton hotel in Brooklyn, US media reported. According to New York Daily News, Jhanzaib Malik is facing criminal charges after he pointed to his suitcase and said, "There's a bomb in there" when he got frustrated with the check-in process. However, his lawyer, Roger Asmar, claims that Malik only referred to his luggage as 'bomb', slang for cool, to impress the female concierge. "The FBI checks the whole thing, and clears him and leaves, and yet he still gets arrested. Now, this poor kid is sitting in jail. It's ridiculous. It's discrimination against Pakistanis," Asmar said. Malik, who works for his uncle as a fraud manager in the technology department of Skywise Airlines, a domestic carrier in South Africa, is currently spending his vacation on Rikers Island on USD 100,000 bail, according to Correction Department records. The 24-year-old's uncle, Javed Malik, told the Daily News from Johannesburg that his nephew had been saving money for a year to be able to afford the trip.
November 24: A man of Pakistani origin, identified as Abid Naseer (29), was jailed for 40 years in the US on November 23 for plotting to bomb a British shopping center with al Qaeda. Naseer was first arrested in 2009 in Britain with 11 other men suspected of preparing to attack the mall in Manchester, and was extradited to the US from Britain in 2013. "You are not a typical criminal," Judge Raymond Dearie told Naseer in the US Federal Court in Brooklyn. "You are a terrorist." A US jury found him guilty of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda and with conspiring to use a destructive device.
July 22: Italian police said that they have arrested two people, including a Pakistani and a Tunisian, suspected of being behind a Twitter account that carried threats in the name of Daesh or the self-styled IS group against some of the country's most famed monuments. The Police said they had arrested the two men on suspicion of terror association and subversion and the two are IS-backers and used social networks to threaten violence. The threats in the name of Islamic State carried on the Twitter account "Islamic State in Rom" featured images of the Roman Colosseum and Milan's Duomo Cathedral, with a warning that they were identifying targets and preparing to strike. The suspects were arrested in the northern city of Brescia and searches were being carried out throughout the Lombardy region.
June 11: A federal judge imposed the maximum possible prison sentences on two Pakistan-born brothers who admitted trying to pull off a terrorist bomb attack against New York City landmarks and later assaulted two deputy US marshals while in custody. District Judge Beth Bloom compared the plot, which never got past the planning stages, to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings in which the two attackers used commonplace pressure cookers. In the Florida case, evidence shows the younger brother, 22-year-old Raees Alam Qazi, researched how to make bombs on the Internet using readily available items such as Christmas tree lights and chemicals.
March 4: A Pakistani national, identified as Abid Naseer (28), was convicted on US charges of conspiring with al Qaeda to bomb targets in Europe and the US. Naseer was found guilty by a Federal Jury in Brooklyn for providing material support to al Qaeda and conspiring to use a destructive device. Naseer remained expressionless as the jury returned the verdict after less than two days of deliberations. He faces life in prison.
US prosecutors said Naseer led an al Qaeda cell plotting to bomb a shopping center in Manchester, England, in April 2009. The proposed attack was one of three plots affiliated al Qaeda cells were working on, along with attacks against the New York City subway system and a Copenhagen newspaper, prosecutors said.
Naseer was convicted nearly six years after he was first arrested in a British anti-terrorism operation. While British authorities never charged Naseer, he was later indicted in the US and extradited in 2013. Naseer represented himself at trial. Representing himself in the trial, Naseer, a self-described semi-professional cricket player, denied any affiliation with al Qaeda or any plot. His court-appointed legal adviser said he would appeal.
Prosecutors said Naseer, who wrote in coded emails, using women's names for bomb ingredients and describing the attack as a wedding. Prosecutors used never-before publicised documents seized from the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as part of their case against Naseer and testimony from British MI5 officers who conducted surveillance on him.
2014
May 27: British Police investigating the September 16, 2010, murder of the founding member of MQM, Imran Farooq in Edgware, London, named two Pakistani men, identified as Moshin Ali Syed (29) and Muhammad Kashif Khan Kamran (34), who they want to trace in connection with the killing and are living in Pakistan. The two men left Britain hours after the murder, said Scotland Yard Police Headquarters in a statement.
April 19: Jurors in the New York trial of British hate preacher Abu Hamza aka Mustafa Kamel Mustafa found him guilty of kidnapping and terrorism offenses. The former Imam of the north London Finsbury Park mosque, showed no reaction to the verdict, which carries a possible life sentence. He is to be sentenced on September 9, 2014. The charges against him pre-dated the 9/11 attacks on New York and were over the 1998 abduction of 16 Western tourists in Yemen, four of whom were killed in a military rescue operation. He was also accused of trying to set up a terrorist training camp in the United States in 1999, and of promoting "violent jihad" on a global scale. The jury deliberated for 12 hours over two days before reaching a verdict, after a four-week trial in which Abu Hamza took the stand for three days of testimony in his own defence.
April 17: A Pakistani immigrant, identified as Mohammad Hassan Khalid (20), who was convicted of US terror charges was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to taking part in a plan to kill a Swedish artist. Khalid, who committed the crime when he was 15 and has been in custody for three years for his role in the "Jihad Jane" conspiracy, will receive credit for that time and serve an additional two years in prison to finish his sentence, said the sentencing judge, Petrese Tucker, of US District Court in Philadelphia.
2013
November 11: A Pakistani native living in the US, identified as Basit Javed Sheikh, alias Abdul Basit (29), from Cary is facing federal charges that he sought to join an al Qaeda-linked militant group fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Sheikh is charged in a federal criminal indictment with attempting to provide material support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization. He was arrested on November 2, 2013 before boarding the first of a series of flights that would take him to Lebanon. Sheikh told FBI informant that he was going to join the group called the Nusrah Front in Syria, an FBI agent said in a sworn affidavit obtained by Associated Press.
October 8: A Frenchman held in Pakistan for months on suspicion of training militants was detained for questioning by French Police on his return home, an official at the Paris prosecutor's office said. Naamen Meziche was arrested on a bus along with three other French nationals in south-western Pakistan in May, 2012, on suspicion of training militant networks and preparing terrorist attacks, the official said. Pakistan deported them all to France in April, except Meziche, who was deported on October 7-evening. The men have been held on suspicion of conspiring to commit terrorist acts. Meziche, who is of Algerian origin, is suspected by French security officials of being a member of al Qaeda. "We hope that confronting Meziche with the three others will enable us to find out more about this cell and its exact role within al Qaeda," the prosecutor's office aide said, declining to give further details. No lawyer for Meziche could immediately be reached for comment.
January 17: US District Judge handed Pakistani Canadian Tahawwur Rana a 14 year jail term for providing material support to LeT and for conspiring to provide material support for a plot involving attacks on the office of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The sentencing includes an additional five years of supervised release. According to a statement issued by the US Attorney's office in Chicago, the Judge said, "This certainly was a dastardly plot."
2012
July 20: A British Pakistani woman hairdresser, charged for helping her husband in a bomb plot against the Jewish community in Manchester, was jailed for eight years. Shaista Khan (38), born in Pakistan, became a fanatic within weeks of marrying car cleaner, a converted Muslim, Muhammad Khan (33). The couple planned to build a DIY bomb using chapatti flour, hairdressing chemicals and a set of Christmas tree lights to launch a terror attack on the Jewish communities in Manchester. According to the crown prosecution service, they also carried out reconnaissance missions on possible targets, including a synagogue. Moreover, Shaista used her home-based hairdressing business called 'Sassy Hair Studio' as a front to seek targets as part of a "personal jihad". Shaista, who pleaded not guilty, was convicted of three terrorism offences at Manchester Crown Court. Her husband had earlier admitted a terror charge.
July 19: Four British Pakistanis and a well-known Muslim convert were charged with planning terrorist attacks in London. Richard Dart (29) is one of the five people - four men and a woman - arrested in London on July 5, 7 and 18, who were charged with terrorist offences by the Metropolitan Police. Imran Mahmood (21), from Northolt, West London, and Jahangir Alom (26), understood to be a former Metropolitan Police community support officer, from Stratford, East London, have also been charged with preparing for acts of terrorism. Dart, Mahmood, and Alom are alleged to have travelled to Pakistan for terrorism training, travelled abroad to commit acts of terrorism and advised and counseled the commission of terrorist acts between July 25, 2010 and July 6, 2012.
A fourth man, Khalid Javed Baqa (47), from Barking, East London, was charged with three counts of possession of terrorism-related material. The material included a CD containing 39 ways to support and participate in jihad and three issues of an al Qaeda inspired magazine.
A fifth, Ruksana Begum (22), from North London, has been charged with possession of a micro memory card likely to be of use to a terrorist.
July 18: Three British Muslims - including a convert who was featured in a documentary about radical Islam and a former London Police support officer - have been charged with travelling to Pakistan for terror training, Police said. Scotland Yard said in a statement that Richard Dart (29), Imran Mahmood (21), and Jahangir Alom (26), had travelled to Pakistan between 2010 and 2012 "with the intention of committing acts of terrorism or assisting another to commit such acts." The statement also alleges that the three provided others with advice and counseling about how to travel to Pakistan, find training, and how to stay safe while there. Two others, 22-year-old Ruksana Begum and 47-year-old Khalid Javed Baqa, were charged with having material likely to be useful for terrorism. All five had been arrested earlier this month, and at least two of the accused had previously come to public attention. Dart was featured in a recent BBC documentary, "My Brother the Islamist," which chronicled the efforts of his filmmaker stepbrother Robb Leech to understand why the former had rejected his family and embraced an uncompromising form of Islam.
July 6: The British Police and secret service MI5, in a joint operation, have arrested seven people believed to be of the Pakistani origin on suspicion of terror offences after firearms and other weapons were found in a car. One man is from West Yorkshire and six from Birmingham, West Midlands. They are being questioned on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism following a series of arrests this week, Police said. News of the arrests came a day after six people, including a white Muslim convert, were detained over an alleged plan to carry out a major terrorist attack, possibly during the Olympics. Items found in the vehicle were undergoing forensic analysis, and searches were carried out at the addresses of those in custody. A West Midlands police spokesman said that officers found material including firearms following a routine stop on the M1 in South Yorkshire last weekend.
June 26: Uganda Police arrested five Pakistanis suspected of terrorist links, two weeks before the second anniversary of a bombing attack in Kampala for which Somali rebel group al Shabaab claimed responsibility. Officials said the country was vulnerable to further attacks from al Shabaab who has vowed to keep striking until a Ugandan army contingent, leading an African Union mandated force protecting Somalia's Government, withdraws. The area where the five men were arrested was formerly a base for now-dormant rebel group, ADF-NALU, which officials say has links to al Shabaab.
MAy 4: A Pakistan-born US teen pleaded guilty to terror charges for offering assistance to a woman who called herself "Jihad Jane" and supported a terror cell bent on waging a jihad in Europe. The 18-year-old, Mohammad Hassan Khalid, faces a 15-year prison sentence for a single count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists for his offer to raise money and recruit terrorists. Khalid, then 17, was arrested in July 2011 after he corresponded with a woman who later admitted plotting to kill a Swedish artist who had offended Muslims. He was 15 when he began online chats with Colleen LaRose, the US woman calling herself Jihad Jane. She now faces life in prison. Khalid was held in FBI custody as a juvenile before being indicted after turning 18. Khalid and his family are legal immigrants from Pakistan, and he could be deported following completion of his prison term. A sentencing date wasn't immediately set.
May 1: Four Pakistani-Britons were charged with taking inspiration from al Qaida magazine 'Inspire', and plotting to use a toy car to attack a base of the Territorial Army in Luton town of Britain. The plot was, however, foiled. Zahid Iqbal (30) is accused of leading the terror network. He was joined by Mohammed Sarfaraz Ahmed (24), Umar Arshad (23), and Syed Farhan Hussain (21). The gang is accused of working to recruit others for jihad and raising funds. The accused were arrested at their homes in Luton on April 24. The Westminster magistrates' court heard the accused bought survival equipment, downloaded al Qaida terror manuals and discussed methods and targets. Two of the arrestees were caught discussing how to build explosive devices from instructions in Inspire magazine. It was also claimed the gang planned to attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Ahmed is accused of acting as a recruiter and making an "explorative visit" to Pakistan where he may have undertaken terrorist activities. Hussain allegedly specialised in the distribution of funds and provisions, while Arshad allegedly provided practical guidance on activities abroad, what to wear to fit in and lead the outdoor training. All four were accused of possessing editions of Inspire, and a terrorist book called "44 Ways to Support Jihad".
April 13: A United States national of Pakistani origin, Jubair Ahmad (24), was sentenced to 12 years in prison and five years of supervised release for providing material support to the LeT. Jubair Ahmad, who lived in Woodbridge, Virginia, received the sentence after being found guilty of promoting and urging recruitment for the LeT, designated by Washington as foreign terrorist organisation, the Justice Department said.
April 2: A 50-year-old Pakistani-Canadian was sentenced to 14 years in jail in US for providing material support to the Sikh militant group Khalistan Commando Force, blamed for carrying out assassinations and bombings in India. During sentencing proceeding, the US district court found that all three of Awan's crimes intended to promote crimes of terrorism, and imposed a prison sentence of 14 years. Khalid Awan was convicted in 2006 by a US federal jury in Brooklyn for providing financial aid to KCF.
In a statement, the FBI said KCF comprises Sikh militants seeking a separate Sikh State in Punjab and has been responsible for thousands of deaths in India since it was founded in 1986. The organisation has engaged in numerous assassinations of prominent Indian government officials - including that of Chief Minister Beant Singh of Punjab in 1995 - and hundreds of bombings, acts of sabotage, and kidnappings.
February 10: Nine British-Asians of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin have been jailed in the UK over an al Qaeda-inspired plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange and to organise a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. The men, who were convicted last week, were described by the judge at the Woolwich Crown Court as 'Islamic fundamentalists'. They hail from towns in England and Wales such as Stoke-on-Trent, Cardiff and London. Usman Khan (20), one of the nine jailed, was involved in organising a training camp on his family land in PoK, and to encourage a 'significant' number of British Muslims at attending it. Justice Wilkie said this was a 'serious, long-term venture in terrorism' that could also have resulted in atrocities in the UK. All nine men were arrested in December 2010. He said, "It was envisaged by them and the other recruits may return to the UK as trained and experienced terrorists available to perform terrorist attacks in this country, on one possibility contemplated in the context of the return of British troops from Afghanistan." The nine included one Bangladesh-origin man who had changed his name to 'Gurukanth Desai' before the arrest.
Shahjahan (27) was jailed for a minimum term of eight years and 10 months. Usman Khan and Nazam Hussain (26) were ordered to serve at least eight years. Justice Wilkie said that the three were 'the more serious jihadis' and said they should not be released until they were no longer a threat to the public. Four others, who all pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism by planning to plant a bomb in the toilets of the London Stock Exchange, included: 'Gurukanth Desai' (30), 12 years Abdul Miah (25), 16 years and 10 months Mohammed Chowdhury (22), 13 years and 8 months Shah Rahman (28), 12 years. Omar Latif (28), who admitted attending meetings with the intention of assisting others to prepare or commit acts of terrorism, was given 10 years and 4 months. Mohibur Rahman (28), was given a five-year sentence after he admitted to possessing two editions of an al Qaeda magazine for terrorist purposes.
The father of a terrorist faced up to 40 years in prison after his conviction on charges that he destroyed evidence and lied to investigators to cover up his son's plot to attack the New York City subways in 2009. Mohammed Wali Zazi (55) remained free on bail after his conviction in July 2011. His son, Najibullah Zazi, admitted that he returned from a trip to Pakistan to his family's Colorado home to practice concocting homemade bombs using chemicals extracted from common beauty supplies. He drove to New York City in September 2009 with plans to attack the subway system in a 'martyrdom operation' before he learned he was being watched by the FBI and fled back to Colorado. The plot was sanctioned by Al Qaeda. The elder Zazi, an Afghan-born US citizen, was found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Lawyers for Dr Aafia Siddiqui, serving an 86-year prison sentence for shooting at US soldiers in Afghanistan, told an appeals court that she was so mentally ill, she should have been barred from testifying at her own trial. Dr Aafia's lawyer, Dawn Cardi, told a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday that even though her client was judged competent to stand trial, she was so disabled by paranoid schizophrenia that the court should have taken the unusual step of barring her from testifying. "She had no intelligent understanding of what was going on," Cardi said. "She was not rational." Cardi also argued Dr Aafia was in the throes of mental illness when she made incriminating statements to FBI agents at a hospital in Afghanistan following the shooting. Dr Aafia, once a bright young student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University, was branded a fugitive terror suspect after she left the US in 2003 and married a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the master planner behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Her whereabouts were a mystery until she was detained in Afghanistan in 2008. A day later, she was wounded during a confrontation with US authorities who had gone to interrogate her. Six witnesses testified that she had grabbed a rifle and fired at the Americans.
February 6: Thomas Durkin, an attorney for Raja Lahrasib Khan, a Pakistani-born American taxi driver accused of attempting to send money to al Qaeda, said that his client will change his plea to guilty. Khan's lawyer said his client would change his plea in court after reaching an agreement with federal prosecutors. Khan is charged with attempting to provide material aid to terrorism by sending cash to the al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri.
January 30: An Oslo court sentenced two suspects to prison for planning to bomb the Danish Newspaper that published drawings of the Prophet Mohammed in Norway's first-ever guilty verdict for "plotting to commit a terrorist act". According to Norway's Intelligence Service, Police Security Service (PST), Davud, a short, bearded man received training in making and using explosives from al Qaeda members and sympathizers in Pakistan's region of Waziristan between November 2008 and July 2010. Norwegian national Mikael Davud (40), a member of China's Uighur minority considered the mastermind behind the plot against the Jyllands-Posten Daily, was sentenced to seven years behind bars. Meanwhile, Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd residing in Norway received a three-and-a-half-year prison term.
According to the prosecution, the two men had in liaison with al Qaeda planned to use explosives against the offices of the Danish Newspaper and to murder Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the most controversial of the 12 drawings of the Prophet published in September 2005. "There is no doubt that it was Davud who took the initiative in the preparations for a terrorist act and that he was the central character," the three judges said in their ruling. "The court also believes that it was he himself who would have carried out the terrorist attack since he has explained that he planned to lay out the explosives himself," they added.
January 9: A Melbourne-based Pakistani student, Salman Ghumman (23), was deported on security grounds after being questioned by Australian security intelligence officials over his suspect phone calls to Pakistan. Ghumman was detained last month by immigration officials after several months of questioning by Australian Security Intelligence Organisation officials over suspect phone calls made to Pakistan and why he was in Australia. His father Manzoor Hussain Ghumman, a retired Pakistani Air Force officer, was quoted by the paper as saying that the family was concerned about his son's fate if he be picked up and questioned by Pakistani security services. Ghumman said he feared his son had been unfairly targeted because the family had donated money to JuD, a frontal organisation believed to be the charity arm of LeT. Ghumman, who arrived in Australia in July 2010 to study accounting at the Melbourne Institute of Technology, said he was mortified at his situation and was determined to clear his name and return to Australia to complete an accounting degree at La Trobe University.
January 6: A Pakistani national, identified as Irfan ul Haq (37) was sentenced to 50 months in prison for conspiring to smuggle a member of the TTP outfit into the US. "Irfan conspired with others to smuggle into the US an individual who was believed to be a member of a Foreign Terrorist Organisation," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A Breuer, after the sentencing was announced by a US District Court.
Two other Pakistani nationals Qasim Ali (32) and Zahid Yousaf (43) were sentenced respectively to 40 months and 36 months in prison in the same incident. The three were arrested in Miami in March 2011 after accepting payment and procuring a fake Pakistani passport for the TTP member. FBI Special Agent in Charge Gillies said that Haq and his co-conspirators sought to smuggle men into the US and did not care if they came here to "blow up" something as long as they got paid. Haq told the federal informants it was not his concern what the purported member of the TTP wanted to do in the US, saying if they want to do " hard labor, sweep floors, wash dishes in a hotel, or blow up. That will be up to them," court documents said. "Today's sentence successfully brings to a close our prosecution of three criminals who aimed to use their human smuggling network to help a person who they believed to be a terrorist infiltrate our homeland," said US Attorney Ronald Machen, adding, "We have demonstrated our ability to dismantle human smuggling operations throughout the world when they threaten our national security".
Another Pakistani national, Nadeem Akhtar (46) who lives in Maryland outside Washington was sentenced to 37 months in a US prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to illegally transfer nuclear-related materials to Pakistan from the US. Akhtar took direction from the owner of a trading company in Karachi who had business relationships with a Pakistani Government entity. He admitted that he and his conspirators from the UAE and New York used his company to obtain or attempt to get various nuclear-related devices and equipment from 2005 to 2010 and he misrepresented what they were and to whom they would be sold, the Justice Department said. The items, which included radiation detection devices, resins for coolant water purification and calibration and switching equipment, had a value of more than USD 400,000.
2011
December 20: British Police arrested a Pakistani student at Birmingham Airport on suspicion of a terrorism offence. West Midlands Police said the 22-year-old man was arrested after arriving at the central England airport on a flight from Dubai. He was being questioned on suspicion of possessing "a document likely to be of use to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism." Police said the document was found on the suspect.
December 2: Mohammad Younis, unwittingly swept up in a failed terror plot to bomb Times Square on May 1, 2010, was sentenced to three year's probation. Mohammad Younis had pleaded guilty to charges he arranged an illegal transfer of USD 7,000 to Faisal Shahzad - money Shahzad claimed that the TTP provided to fund his one-man strike against New York City. Younis and his brother in Pakistan were part of underground money transfer system known as Hawala, authorities said. When the Times Square attack was in the planning stages, Younis` brother sent him the cash that he delivered to Shahzad at a Long Island railroad station. Prosecutors in federal court in Manhattan acknowledged that Younis never knew about Shahzad's plot. But they argued that a potential sentence of up to six months would be appropriate to deter money transmissions that could fund terrorism.
A Pakistani man living in the United States faces up to 15 years in jail after pleading guilty Friday to providing material support to the feared Islamist militant outfit LeT. US justice officials said Jubair Ahmad (24), posted a propaganda video for LeT "glorifying violent jihad" in 2010, three years after he arrived in the United States with his parents and two younger brothers. "Foreign terrorist organizations such as LeT use the Internet as part of well-orchestrated propaganda campaigns to radicalize and recruit individuals to wage violent jihad and to promote the spread of terror," said US Attorney Neil MacBride.
November 15: British Police working on a major counter-terrorism operation linked to Pakistan said that they arrested four suspects in Birmingham for fundraising in Britain and travelling to Pakistan for terrorist training. Three men aged 19 and one aged 24 were detained by officers from the West Midlands Counter-Terrorism Unit at their homes in the Sparkhill area of England's second city. Three men are charged with "planning a bombing campaign" and "stating an intention to be a suicide bomber". Other charges the suspects face include collecting money for terrorism, travelling to Pakistan for training in bomb making and making a "martyrdom" film.
September 14: The FBI and Department of Justice said that three Pakistani citizens, arrested in Miami, have pleaded guilty to providing material support to the TTP. In a statement issued by the FBI, the three accused, named Irfanul Haq, Qasim Ali and Zahid Yousuf, pleaded guilty before a US district judge in Washington to the count of "conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation." The three were accused of trying to smuggle a "purported TTP member" into the US. In March 2011, the three were arrested in Miami on the count of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling. According to the FBI, "Haq, Ali and Yousaf admitted that between January 3 and March 10, 2011, they conspired to provide material support to the TTP in the form of false documentation and identification, knowing that the TTP engages in terrorist activity and terrorism. "According to court documents, Haq, Ali and Yousaf conducted a human smuggling operation in Quito, Ecuador, that attempted to smuggle an individual they believed to be a member of the TTP from Pakistan into the US."
September 2: A man of Pakistani origin has been arrested and charged in the US with supporting LeT, FBI officials said. Zubair Ahmad (24), of Woodbridge, Virginia, allegedly received religious training from the terrorist group as a teenager in Pakistan and later attended one of its training camps. Zubair came to the United States in 2007 with his family. He's been under investigation for two years, ever since the US Federal Bureau of Investigation got a tip that he might be connected to the group, the officials said. An affidavit submitted in a Virginia court claims that in September 2010, Zubair produced and uploaded a propaganda video to YouTube on behalf of LeT, after communications with a person named "Talha". In a subsequent conversation with another person, Zubair identified Talha as Talha Saeed, the son of LeT 'chief' Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. Talha and Zubair allegedly communicated about the images, music and audio that Zubair was to use to make the video. The final video contained images of LeT leader Hafiz Saeed, so-called jihadi martyrs and armoured trucks exploding after they were hit by improvised explosive devices. In October 2010, Talha allegedly contacted Zubair and requested that he revise the LeT propaganda video, giving Zubair specific instructions. Zubair allegedly revised the video and posted it on October 16, 2010. In August 2011, FBI agents interviewed Zubair, but he denied any involvement with the October 2010 video.
August 26: The FBI has secretly arrested a Pakistani juvenile, Mohammed K. (15), from Maryland for allegedly participating in a terrorism plot with an American woman, Colleen LaRose aka Jihad Jane, relatives of the juvenile said. Family members said Mohammed was lured by an adult and was too young to understand the consequences. "Some 47-year-old woman was taking advantage of a kid who was just 14 or 15 years old, someone who's easy to brainwash," a relative alleged. Mohammed K's family emigrated from Pakistan four years ago, and had received a full scholarship from Johns Hopkins University for further studies. They also say he was questioned by the FBI, without a parent or lawyer present, at least eight times.
Mohammed K. (15), of Ellicott City, a Maryland suburb near Washington, allegedly conspired with Colleen LaRose aka Jihad Jane, of Pennsylvania to solicit money and recruits for a jihad, the prosecution claimed. He is now 17.
July 27: A federal judge in Miami denied bail to a young Muslim cleric, Izhar Khan (24), arrested in May on charges of financing and supporting the TTP. The judge cited flight risk and a potential threat to community safety in rejecting bail for Izhar Khan, who has been charged along with his father and brother with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The three Pakistani-born US citizens are among six charged in a US indictment with "supporting acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming in Pakistan and elsewhere" carried out by the TTP.
July 21: A US court remanded Kashmiri propagandist Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, accused of lobbying for Pakistan, to FBI custody till next week. A prosecution lawyer appeared in the court and requested more time to study this "complicated case". The lawyer said the defence also needed more time to prepare their case.
July 19: Two US citizens have been charged with illegally lobbying the United States for the Pakistan Government and ISI over the Kashmir, US authorities said. FBI agents arrested Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai (62), in Virginia on charges that he failed to register as an agent of a foreign Government. Zaheer Ahmad (63) was also charged but is believed to be in Pakistan. Both are naturalized US citizens. Pakistan has spent at least USD four million since the mid-1990s lobbying the US Congress and the White House through Fai and the Kashmiri American Council, also known as the Kashmir Center, where Fai served as Executive Director, according to an FBI affidavit filed in US court. An FBI affidavit detailed the alleged scheme in which Fai's organization received up to USD 700,000 annually from Pakistan to make campaign contributions to US politicians, sponsor conferences and other promotions. "Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose - to hide Pakistan's involvement behind his efforts to influence the US government's position on Kashmir," said Neil MacBride, US Attorney for Eastern Virginia.
The Pakistan Embassy in Washington issued a statement denying any Government knowledge of such an arrangement. "Mr Fai is not a Pakistani citizen and the government and embassy of Pakistan have no knowledge of the case involving him," the statement said.
July 1: Two Pakistani-Muslim clerics, Hafiz Muhammad Sher Ali Khan and his son Izhar Khan, accused of providing financial support to a TTP are seeking release on bail in a Miami Federal Court in South Florida in US. According to details, both are imams in mosques in South Florida and have been in solitary confinement since their May 14, 2011 arrests. A second son charged in the case, Irfan Khan, will have a bail hearing July 15. Three other people, including a daughter and grandson are also charged but remain in Pakistan.
May 14: Two imams (prayer leaders) of Pakistani origin and a relative were arrested in Florida of US for their alleged links to the TTP. FBI agents arrested Hafiz Mohammed Sher Ali Khan and his son Izhar Khan in South Florida. They will appear before a federal court in South Florida on May 16. The US FBI, which arrested them, is also looking for three other people who are believed to be in Pakistan. Another of Hafiz Khan's sons, Irfan Khan, was arrested in Los Angeles and will appear in court there. Also charged are three Pakistani residents: Ali Rehman, Alam Zeb and Amina Khan. Ms Amina is Hafiz Khan's daughter, and Alam Zeb is her son. The four-count indictment alleges that the three defendants arrested in the US planned to provide 'material support' to a conspiracy to kill, injure and kidnap people abroad. They also allegedly provided support to the TTP. Hafiz Khan is the imam at Flagler Mosque in Miami. Izhar Khan is an imam at the Jamaat Al Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate of Florida.
May 08: Czech Police arrested a Pakistani national wanted on an international warrant for murder and terrorism.
April 25: Four more Pakistani conspirators have been charged by US prosecutors with carrying out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks on behalf of LeT. In a second superseding indictment filed by the federal prosecutors before a court in Chicago, the four were identified as Sajid Mir, Mazhar Iqbal, Abu Qahafa and one by the name of 'Major Iqbal'. Besides, the indictment mentioned an unnamed individual "Lashkar Member D." All are residents of Pakistan. The four persons identified were previously mentioned but not named in the indictments that charged Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley and Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana in connection with the Mumbai attacks which killed 166 people, including six Americans. Sajid Mir was associated with LeT and supervised others linked with the outfit. He served as a "handler" for Headley, who has confessed to his involvement in Mumbai attacks, and others who were directed to carry out actions relating to planning, preparing for and carrying out the terrorist strikes on behalf of LeT. While Abu Qahafa was an associate with LeT who trained others in combat techniques for use in terrorist attacks Mazhar Iqbal and 'Lashkar Member D' were LeT commanders. An individual known as 'Major Iqbal' participated in planning and funding attacks carried out by LeT in Mumbai, federal prosecutors said. According to the indictment, Sajid Mir, Abu Qahafa and Mazhar Iqbal conspired with each other, Headley, 'Lashkar Member D' and others known and unknown to the grand jury, to deliver, place, discharge and detonate explosives and other lethal devices in, into and against places of public use, state and government facilities, public transportation systems and infrastructure facilities in India.
April 11: A Pakistan-born computer engineer, Farooque Ahmed (35), sentenced to 23 years in prison by a US court after he pleaded guilty to charges that he tried to assist suspected members of al Qaeda in planning bombings at Metro rail stations in the Washington area. A resident of Virginia, Farooque Ahmed pleaded guilty to the charges of attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organisation and collecting information to assist in planning an attack on a transit facility. He was arrested by the FBI on October 27, 2010.
2010
December 28: Two Pakistani brothers, accused of collecting money and recruiting jihadis for al Qaeda, have gone on trial in the UAE. The Pakistanis appeared in court on December 27.
December 20: Police arrested 12 suspected persons aimed at thwarting a major new terrorism plot against Britain. The arrested suspects are British nationals but have with links to Bangladesh and Pakistan, according to a counter-terrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
December 9: British Police arrested a 34-year-old man on suspicion of murdering MQM leader, Imran Farooq, who was attacked in London on September 17. "He has been taken to a North London Police Station where he will be interviewed by detectives," the Police headquarters said in a statement. The personnel from Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command had taken charge of the murder inquiry due to fears that the killing may be politically motivated.
December 3: Two Pakistanis were arrested from Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus on suspicion of having links to radical Islamic outfits after a tip-off from a foreign intelligence agency. "The information we have, suggests that they are linked to terrorist organisations," said Police spokesman. The suspects had been under surveillance for several weeks. Police said the suspects had arrived on the Mediterranean island legally but their residence permits expired three months ago.
December 1: Spanish Police arrested six Pakistanis and a Nigerian suspected of providing forged passports to outfits linked to al Qaeda, including the outfit accused of plotting the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks (also known as 26/11), the Interior Ministry said.
October 27: A Pakistan origin American national, Farooque Ahmed (34) was arrested for plotting attacks on subway stations in and around Washington. Farooque Ahmed is believed to be tied to al Qaeda, US officials said. Farooque Ahmed, who lived in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, had been allegedly casing and photographing subway stations since April to plan simultaneous bomb attacks. "Farooque Ahmed is accused of plotting with individuals he believed were terrorists to bomb our transit system, but a coordinated law enforcement and intelligence effort was able to thwart his plans," David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said.
October 22: A Pakistani national, Adnan Mirza (33), who moved to Texas in US on a student visa, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for conspiring to provide material support to the Taliban and illegal gun possession. Adnan Mirza was among several men arrested by the FBI in 2006 for engaging in at least six terrorism training sessions during weekend camping trips near Houston. The FBI also uncovered evidence that Mirza, who was attending a local community college, and the others were planning to send money to the Taliban. Mirza, who has been in custody since his arrest, was convicted in May 2010 of nine conspiracy and weapons charges.
October 21: Yemeni SFs arrested 10 persons, among them five Pakistanis, for spreading extremist religious ideas in the outskirts of the capital Sanaa. The 10 persons, whose ages ranged from 27 to 65, were spreading extremist ideas among the population of the Dilaa Hamdan area, the Yemen’s Interior Ministry posted on its website.
October 5: Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-born US citizen who tried to set off a car bomb in New York's Times Square was sentenced to life in prison. Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty in June to a failed May 1 bombing in Midtown Manhattan. He admitted to investigators he received bomb-making training from the TTP, and funded the bomb plot. He was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by US District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum to life with no chance for parole.
August 26: A US Federal Official, Ross Feinstein, said that a Pakistani man from Maine was released from jail 15 weeks after he was arrested on an immigration violation while police were investigating the failed Times Square car bombing. Ross Feinstein of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Mohammad Shafiq Rahman was released from federal custody in Boston after posting USD 10,000 bail. Rahman, a computer programmer from South Portland, and two men from Massachusetts were arrested on immigration violations on May 13 as investigators probed the May 1 car bomb attempt in New York’s Times Square.
August 25: A Pakistani origin suspect and contestant of Canada's version of American Idol were among three people arrested as part of a major al Qaeda terror plot to bomb targets within and outside the country. Misbahuddin Ahmed, believed to be born in India, and Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh, both from Ottawa (Canada), and Pakistani origin Khurram Syed Sher of London were accused of conspiring with three others - James Lara, Rizgar Alizadeh and Zakaria Mamosta - in a terror plot Police traced back to Pakistan, Iran and Dubai. The trio was charged with conspiring to build bombs for attacks in Canada and raise money to fund IED attacks on Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Khurram Syed Sher is believed to be arrested in southwestern Ontario (Canada) where he recently moved. In 2006, Sher was in Pakistan during the relief efforts after an earthquake in PoK.
August 23: A US Federal Court sentenced Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national, to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder of US officers in Afghanistan. Aafia, 38, a neuroscientist trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was found guilty by the US court of grabbing a rifle at an Afghan Police station in the town of Ghazni where she was being interrogated in July 2008 and trying to gun down a group of US servicemen. Siddiqui featured on a 2004 US list of people suspected of al Qaeda links.
July 7: British Police arrested a Pakistani national suspected of being an al-Qaeda operative in north-eastern England after US authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. Abid Naseer (24) is sought by the United States on charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, conspiring to provide material support, and conspiracy to use a destructive device. He was arrested by British counter-terrorism Police in 2009 on suspicion of plotting mass casualty attacks in England and of being an operative of al-Qaeda, although he was never charged. The British government subsequently tried to deport him but while an immigration court acknowledged he was "an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat," it ruled his safety could not be guaranteed in Pakistan. Naseer was due to appear in court on July 7 in connection with the US arrest warrant, Police said. "Naseer has been arrested in the UK pursuant to a provisional arrest warrant issued on July 7, 2010, at the request of the US Government."
July 7: Al Qaeda’s top leadership in Pakistan directed confessed agent Najibullah Zazi in his plot to bomb the New York subway, US officials said. In an indictment against five alleged terrorists, the US Justice Department revealed Zazi’s plan was "directly related to a scheme by al Qaeda plotters in Pakistan to use Western operatives to attack a target in the UK". Earlier this year 2010, Zazi pleaded guilty to the three charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support to the al Qaeda. He had told the federal court in Brooklyn in February that the plans to blow up New York targets just after the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks included "mortal operations" in the underground train system.
June 25: Two Pakistani nationals heading to South Africa were arrested by the Police in Zimbabwe. One of the arrestees is under an international arrest warrant for terrorism. The state-owned Herald newspaper reported the two flew from Saudi Arabia to Tanzania where they fraudulently acquired Kenyan passports before travelling to Zimbabwe by road last weekend. The Herald also quoted unnamed security officials as saying the wanted terrorism suspect was based in the Chilean capital Santiago.
June 24: Five American nationals alleged to have been involved in terrorist activities were convicted by ATC Special Judge Mian Anwar Nazir in Sargodha in Punjab. They were sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison and fined PNR 70,000 each. The judge handed down two prison terms for each person, one for 10 years on a criminal conspiracy charge, and the other for five years on the charge of funding banned outfits. The terms are to be served concurrently. The convicts, Rami Zamzam, Ahmed Manni, Aman Abdullah, Umar Farooq and Waqar Hussain were acquitted of three charges, including planning to wage war against the US and Afghanistan. Earlier, the court had acquitted one of the accused Khalid Farooq, the father of Umar Farooq convicted in the same case. Meanwhile, it has emerged that the five Americans were actually hired by Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the Ameer of the Al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani jehadi group HuJI.
June 21: Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American terror suspect accused in the failed New York car bombing case, pleaded guilty. Faisal Shahzad entered the plea in US District Court in Manhattan just days after a federal grand jury indicted him on 10 terrorism and weapons counts, some of which carry mandatory life sentences. He pleaded guilty to them all and warned of further terrorist attacks in unless US left the Muslim lands alone.
June 18: Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistan-born American national arrested over the botched car bombing in New York’s Times Square, was formally charged with 10 terrorism and weapons counts including attempted use of weapon of mass destruction. The charges included attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, attempted act of terrorism transcending national boundaries, attempted use of a destructive device in a terrorist conspiracy and other conspiracy, explosives and weapons related charges.
June 9: A Pakistani-born American man accused of providing support for Al-Qaeda's efforts to combat US forces in Afghanistan was sentenced on June 9 to 15 years in prison. A Justice Department statement said Syed Hashmi (30), who pleaded guilty on April 27 to a charge of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to the terror network, received the maximum sentence under law from US District Chief Judge Loretta Preska. Hashmi, born in Pakistan and educated in New York, was accused of letting a terrorism suspect stay in his student apartment in London and allowing the man to use his cell phone to call other suspects.
May 28: A Pakistani college student, Adnan Babar Mirza (33), living in Texas was convicted of conspiring to help the Taliban and fight US troops. A federal jury convicted Adnan Babar Mirza of two conspiracy counts and seven firearms violations after a three-day trial held in Houston. He faces up to five years in prison on each conspiracy count and 10 years on the weapons counts when he is sentenced on September 10, 2009. Mirza, who remains in federal custody, was one of four men arrested in 2006 for alleged participation in paramilitary training exercises at campsites around the Houston area so they could engage in a "holy war". Mirza’s attorney, David Adler, told jurors that Mirza went on camping trips but denied they involved paramilitary training exercises. Prosecutor Jim McAlister told jurors that the activities of Mirza and the other three men came to authorities’ attention after another of their friends, James Coates, decided, "things were getting out of hand" and became an FBI informant. Mirza claimed Coates was the one who was militant and promoted violence. An undercover officer taped conversations with Mirza and the other men in which they allegedly talked about ambushing US soldiers and triggering a bomb with a cell phone, according to court documents. FBI Special Agent John McKinley, the prosecution’s first witness, told jurors that Mirza can be heard on the taped conversations talking about sending money to support Taliban families. Prosecutors have said Mirza collected about $900 for Taliban fighters and their families. Prosecutors also said Mirza, who was attending Houston Community College, was in the country illegally because he violated his student visa by working. The three other men who were arrested have pleaded guilty or been convicted. Kobie Diallo Williams, a US citizen, was sentenced four and a half years in prison for conspiring to join the Taliban and fight against US forces. Syed Maaz Shah, a former Pakistani engineering student at the University of Texas at Dallas, was sentenced in 2007 to six and a half years in prison on federal firearms charges. Shiraz Syed Qazi, also a Pakistani student and Mirza’s cousin, received a 10-month prison sentence in 2007 on a firearms charge.
May 22: A Chilean court ordered back to jail a Pakistani man, Mohammad Saif Ur Rehman Khan, who had been briefly detained and charged after being found with traces of explosives at the US embassy in Santiago, the capital of Chile. The court designated 28-year-old Mohammad Saif Ur Rehman Khan "a danger to society" and revoked his freedom after he was released on May 16 on probation following charges of illegally possessing weapons, but not of violating an anti-terror law. Khan, an intern at a Santiago hotel, had gone to the embassy on May 11 after being called in for a discussion about his US visa, which had been revoked. As he went through a security check, embassy officials discovered traces of a TNT explosive on his hands, cell phone, bag and documents.
May 16: A Pakistani national detained with suspicious chemical residues at the US Embassy in Chile was set free. Mohammad Saif-ur-Rehman Khan was ordered to stay in Chile and check in with authorities once a week. Prosecutors have three more months to develop their case, Judge Maria Carolina Herrera ruled. Defence attorney Gabriel Carrion said the judge declined to charge Saif with associating with terrorists for lack of evidence.
May 11: A Pakistani national, identified as Mauhannas Saifur Rehnab Khan, was arrested after traces of explosives were detected on his body and belongings during a visit to the US embassy in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Experts found traces of a TNT explosive derivative on the 28-year-old suspect’s hands, cell phone, bag and documentation after he went through a security checkpoint, prompting the embassy staff to notify the Police. However, Saif Khan said he did not know where the traces had come from and that he was only at the embassy to renew his visa. The US Ambassador to Chile, Paul Simons, said that the affair was in the hands of Chilean lawyers. Chilean prosecutor Mario Schilling said that a probe was underway after the Police interrogated the man and raided his home. Mauhannas arrived in Chile around three months ago on a visa and had sought work at a hotel in the capital and to practise his fluency in Spanish language. The Chilean authorities said that they extended Pakistani national’s detention for five days. His detention was being extended under anti-terror laws, the authorities said.
May 5: The Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, confessed of his involvement and is cooperating with investigators who are seeking details about his contacts in Pakistan, postponing indefinitely any court appearance, said law-enforcement sources. The focus of investigations shifted to Pakistan and a US FBI team visited Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to gather evidence. Faisal Shahzad (30) stands formally charged with five terrorism-related counts, and faces life in prison if convicted. He was not yet assigned a defence lawyer and no court appearance has been scheduled, said a law-enforcement source. Shahzad accepted that the TTP financed Shahzad’s training in bomb making, the law enforcement source added. Pakistani officials said several of Shahzad’s relatives were arrested in Pakistan after he was removed from the plane.
May 4: The Law-enforcement officials arrested the Pakistani-born US citizen, Faisal Shahzad (30), suspected in the failed attempt to explode a bomb-laden car in Times Square of New York on May 2. Faisal Shahzad was arrested late on May 3 aboard a flight that was headed to the Middle East. US authorities brought terrorism and weapons of mass destruction charges against him on May 4.
May 2: An Internet video purportedly from Pakistani Taliban group, TTP, claimed responsibility for the car bomb attempt in Times Square in New York, the US monitoring service SITE said. Posted on YouTube, the video said the attempted bombing was in revenge for the recent killing of two top al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq, US drone strikes in Pakistan and US treatment of a Pakistani neuroscientist, Aafia Siddiqui, SITE said. "Congratulations to the Muslim Ummah (world) on the jaw-breaking blow to Satan’s USA. We, Tehreek-e-Taliban, with all the Pride and Bravery, TAKE full responsibility for the RECENT ATTACK IN THE USA," an English message on the video said. The group said the attempted attack was to avenge the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri, the top two leaders of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, in an air and ground assault in April near the city of Tikrit, SITE added. It also said it was in revenge for "the recent rain of drone attacks in the tribal areas and the abduction, torture and humiliation of our most respected & innocent sister Dr. Aafia Siddiqui."
April 6: A Pakistan-born Chicago cab driver on April 5 pleaded not guilty to charges that he attempted to aid al Qaeda by sending money to Ilyas Kashmiri, a terrorist leader believed to be in Pakistan, reports IANS. Raja Lahrasib Khan (56), a naturalised American citizen, appeared briefly before US District Judge James B. Zagel to enter his not guilty plea then returned to the Metropolitan Correctional Centre where he is being held without bond at Government request. The judge set May 5 as the date for next hearing. Khan claims to have known HuJI ‘chief’ Ilyas Kashmiri for 15 years. Kashmiri in turn is linked with Mumbai terror suspect David Coleman Headley.
February 19: The South Korean Police claimed to have arrested a Pakistani national, who was allegedly a member of the Taliban, on charges of using a fake passport. The 31-year-old, who said he was a Muslim cleric, was arrested at his home in the southeastern city of Daegu, where he lives with his family, Police sources said. "His claims have yet to be verified," an investigator said. "The man had used the passport of another Pakistani to enter and/or leave South Korea 17 times since August 2003", the investigator added further.
February 24: A Taliban 'commander', Mohammed Qari Zafar, wanted in connection with the 2006 bombing of the US consulate in Karachi, was among 13 persons killed in a suspected missile strike in the Dargah Mandi area of North Waziristan of FATA near the border with Afghanistan.
February 8: Police arrested six suspected militants, including a would-be suicide bomber who was allegedly plotting to attack a five-star hotel and kill US nationals, from Grand Trunk Road in Shahdara area of Lahore.
February 3: Three US troopers and four female students were among nine persons killed when a blast targeted a military-led convoy in Lower Dir of NWFP. At least 115 persons, including 95 schoolgirls, were also injured in the attack. The TTP claimed responsibility for the bomb attack that killed three US troopers, a spokesman for the network claimed in a telephone call.
February 2: Al-Qaida can be expected to attempt an attack on the US in the next three to six months, senior US intelligence officials told Congress.
January 26: Taliban militants in North Waziristan claimed to have shot down another US drone in Boya village of Dattakhel tehsil near the border with Afghanistan but failed to provide any proof in this regard.
January 24: Taliban militants claimed to have shot down a US drone in Hamzoni village near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan. Government and Military officials confirmed the plane crash but were not sure about the cause of the incident.
January 14: The JuD, front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Toiba has declared suicide bombings un-Islamic and said those involved in killing of Muslims were playing in the hands of the US, India and Israel.
January 1: The TTP claimed that they used a turncoat CIA operative to carry out a suicide bombing that killed seven American CIA employees in Afghanistan as revenge for a top militant leader's death in a US missile strike.
2009
December 30: The TTP claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 43 people in Karachi, and threatened more attacks on "the US ally". "My group claims responsibility for the Karachi attack and we will carry out more such attacks within 10 days," said Asmatullah Shaheen, one of the TTP ‘commanders’, who spoke by telephone to a Reuters reporter.
December 23: The TTP ‘deputy chief’ Waliur Rehman said he has sent thousands of fighters to neighbouring Afghanistan to rebuff incoming US troops. Waliur Rehman said the TTP remains committed to battling the Army in South Waziristan, but they are essentially waging a guerrilla war. "Since Obama (President Barack Obama) is also sending additional SFs to Afghanistan, we sent thousands of our men there to fight NATO and American SFs," Rehman said. While the military estimated it had killed around 600 Taliban militants, Rehman claimed that he had lost fewer than 20. He also said his group would stop attacking Pakistan’s SFs if the country would sever its ties with the US. He claimed the Taliban only attacked SFs and did not believe in any strikes on civilian targets.
December 26: The top leadership of al Qaeda and Taliban is in Pakistan and planning to kill "as many Americans as they have" in the past, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said. "The indication that I have is that they (al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leadership) are here [Pakistan] and are actually protected by others, particularly, by the [local] Taliban. This is our information, we operate under it and it’s the focus of our strategy," he said in an interview at the US embassy in Islamabad. Mullen said both al Qaeda and the Taliban had their "resource" and leadership in Pakistan and are "still planning to kill as many Americans as they have killed before". Mullen said the US was determined not to let the terrorists use Pakistan as staging ground to launch attacks in the future. "We are going to do everything we possibly can do to make sure that it does not happen again," he said. Mullen avoided questions on possible US drone attacks in Balochistan.
December 15: One Pakistan origin American national, Syed Haris Ahmed (25) of Atlanta, and one Bangladesh origin American national, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee (23) of Georgia, were sentenced to 13 and 17 years in prison respectively by a United States court, for their link to Pakistan-based LeT and JeM and providing them with material aid and support for attacks in the U.S. and abroad, according to The Hindu. District Judge William Duffey Junior of Federal Court in Atlanta sentenced Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, following their convictions in 2009 in separate but related criminal trials. Like David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana, Sadequee and Ahmed too were in contact with the LeT and the JeM. However unlike Headley, who sent video footage and photographs of possible LeT targets in India, Sadeequee and Ahmed sent video clips of possible LeT targets in the US. "This is not about your faith," Judge Duffey Junior. told them. "This is about your conduct. This is about the rule of law in this country that you have decided does not apply to you."
December 8: The United Sates intelligence personnel stationed in Pakistan are trying to ascertain whether Abdur Rehman alias Pasha, a retired major of the Pakistan Army, who has recently been named by the FBI as a key link between the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack suspect David Headley and his LeT handlers, is the brother-in-law of Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the absconding Ameer of the pro-Taliban Pakistani Jehadi outfit HuJI. Rehman has been charged in a Chicago court by the FBI on allegations of conspiring terrorist attacks in association with Headley, a US national of Pakistani-origin, who is already in the FBI’s custody. According to diplomatic circles in Islamabad, the United Sates intelligence personnel are trying to determine if Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed is the same person who had filed a petition in the Supreme Court on October 12, 2004, challenging the arrest of Qari Saifullah Akhtar and seeking his production in the apex court. The petitioner had also sought a court order to prevent possible deportation of Qari Saifullah, his brother-in-law, to another country. The petition was thrown out on January 18, 2005. Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the Ameer (chief) of the Pakistan chapter of the HUJI, who had been arrested in 1995 for conspiring to topple the second Government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, had been named by the slain PPP leader in her posthumous book -- Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West - as a principal suspect in the October 18, 2007 attempt on her life in Karachi.
November 24: Five Pakistani Army officers have been detained for questioning over possible links to the two US terror suspects of the LeT, who are accused of plotting an armed attack on a Danish newspaper, intelligence officials said. LeT militants, David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, were arrested in Chicago during October 2009. US prosecutors said the two men were believed to be working with an unidentified senior member of the outfit and a senior Al Qaeda operative. Two Pakistani intelligence officials said phone records showed the five Pakistani officers had contacted Headley and Rana. They say the five include a retired brigadier general and two active lieutenant colonels, but did not provide more details.
October 30: Pakistan’s Consul General in Chicago personally knew both David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, arrested by the FBI for planning to carry out a major terrorist attack in India at the behest of the LeT, the US authorities have claimed, according to Times of India. The FBI in its revised charge-sheet filed before a Chicago court said the Consul General of Pakistan in Chicago personally knows both Rana and Headley a.k.a. Daood Gilani, as all three of them are from the same high school. According to the Website of the Pakistan Embassy in US, Dr Aman Rashid is the Consul General in Chicago. "On or about September 25, 2009, Rana spoke by telephone with the Consul General at the Pakistani Consulate in Chicago in an effort to obtain a five-year visa for Headley to travel to Pakistan. It is clear from the email traffic unrelated to terrorist plotting that the Consul General knows Rana and Headley personally as all three attended the same high school," the FBI claimed. However, the affidavit, does not say anything if the Consul General was aware or had any inclination of the terrorist connection of Rana and Headley. Rana (48) and Headley (49) are residents of Chicago and also alumni of the same military school.
October 27: US investigating agencies have neutralised a plot by the Pakistan-based LeT to use an American national for terrorist attacks in Denmark and India. The man, identified as David Coleman Headley, was one of two suspects arrested early in October 2009 by FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport before he boarded a flight to Philadelphia, from where he was intending to travel to Pakistan to meet Pakistani terrorist handlers, including the fugitive Ilyas Kashmiri. Headley's partner in the terror plot, which included plans to attack the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, was a Pakistani-Canadian named Tahawwur Hussain Rana, also a resident of Chicago who was arrested by the FBI on October 18.
October 22: SFs were put on high alert in Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu, and its suburbs following a letter received at the Adyar Police Station that warned of attacks on important targets. Though the letter did not specify any date or time for an attack, it named the Tamil Nadu Police Academy, Chennai Airport, Officers Training Academy and the "American Embassy" (U.S. Consulate) among others as its targets and challenged the Police to avert the sabotage if they could, Police sources said.
September 25: A suspected aide of underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim, identified as Naresh Jain, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate from the residence of his brother Shyam at Pitampura in north Delhi. He was accused by the United States (US) for funding terrorist activities and running a hawala (informal money laundering system) operation over INR 50 billion.
July 14: A German court jailed for eight years a German man of Pakistani origin on July 13 for helping to fund and supply Al Qaeda in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Dawn reported. The 47-year-old, identified only as Aleem N., was arrested in February 2008 and charged with giving 27,000 euros (38,000 dollars) as well as materials, including night-vision equipment, to the group. The court in Koblenz found him guilty of belonging to a foreign terrorist organisation receiving explosives training at an extremist camp and of helping recruit volunteers to go to Pakistan.
April 28: Evidence is reportedly growing that Taliban are filtering out of havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terror tactics including suicide attacks. The shift, according to US military and counter-terrorism officials, fuels worries that Somalia is on a path to become the next Afghanistan, a sanctuary where Al Qaeda-linked groups could train and plan their attacks against the West. So far, officials said the number of foreign fighters who had moved from southwest Asia and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region to the Horn of Africa was two to three dozen. "There is a level of activity that is troubling, disturbing," US Gen William "Kip" Ward, head of US Africa Command, told, adding that American officials already were seeing extremist factions in East Africa sharing information and techniques.
April 21: The Netherlands' national intelligence agency is reported to have stated that a growing number of West Europeans are attending terror training camps in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The General Intelligence and Security Service chief Gerard Bouman said Al Qaeda is boosting its capacity to carry out attacks by increasing co-operation with other extremist groups. He also said there is still a real threat of attacks in the region.
April 08: 12 persons, including 10 Pakistanis, were arrested on suspicion of having links with al Qaeda in a series of raids in northwest England, the Police said. Reports said those arrested included two students who were surrounded by armed Police at John Moores University in Liverpool. Ten of the men were reportedly from Pakistan and in Britain on student visas.
March 27: Germany is home to several hundred "potentially dangerous Islamists", including a hard core of around 100 people classed as dangerous, a senior Interior Ministry official said. Between 60 and 80 "jihadists" out of some 140 have returned to Germany, who had undergone training in camps in the Tribal Areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, State Secretary August Hanning said. "The danger should not be underestimated. The 60 to 80 who have returned make up the overwhelming majority of up to around 100 people whom we class as dangerous," Hanning told the Tagesspiegel. "On top of that there are about another 300 potentially dangerous Islamists. All in all we are talking about a circle of around 1,000 people," said Hanning, who used to head German foreign intelligence agency, the BND. He added he was worried about the possibility of attacks in the run up to this September’s general election in Germany. "The threats do not mention the elections directly. But in the view of jihadists in Pakistan the election is important because it will determine Germany’s foreign policy in the future," he said.
March 24: The Australian Government on March 16 re-listed six groups as terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code, following advice from Australia’s security agencies. The re-listing ensures that it remains an offence to associate with, train with, provide training for, receive funds from, make funds available to, direct or recruit for these organisations. The outfits that have been re-listed are: Ansar al Islam (formerly Ansar al-Sunna); Asbat al Ansar; Islamic Army of Aden; Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; JeM; and LeJ.
March 24: Pakistan has informed the British Government about more than 20 Britons believed to have spent time with radical militant groups and then returned to the UK. A Sky TV report said the tracked men may have trained with extremist outfits. A dossier is likely to be handed over to British anti-terrorist teams ‘soon’. The suspects – aged between 17 and 23 – have created "sufficient suspicion" for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to believe they pose a ‘potential danger’ to Britain. At least four are thought to have been fighting in Afghanistan, and intelligence officials say they have heard ‘English accents’ while listening to satellite and mobile phone chatter between the UK and the Tribal Areas.
March 13: 29-year old Mohammed Momin Khawaja, the first Canadian tried and found guilty under Canada’s anti-terrorism law, was sentenced to 10.5 years in prison on March 12 for his role in a foiled plot against British targets, Dawn reported. The Ottawa software developer of Pakistani descent had been found to have "knowingly participated" and "knowingly facilitated" a terrorist group’s plan to attack a popular London nightclub, a shopping mall and a gas network. However, he may not have known the specific details of the plot itself, Justice Douglas Rutherford said in his 52-page decision in October 2008. At sentencing, the judge noted Khawaja showed no remorse throughout the trial and had chosen not to speak at his pre-sentencing hearing, while his family seemed oblivious to his actions, said public broadcaster CBC.
February 3: The Spanish Police arrested 13 people on suspicion of links to organised crime and terrorism groups. A Police statement said the detainees - 11 Pakistanis, a Nigerian and an Indian - were suspected of belonging to an international crime gang involved in passport forgery, drug trafficking and people-smuggling. Police said they were investigating whether the group might also have supplied forged documents to international terror groups.
January 20: Six Pakistanis have been arrested on suspicion of a tax fraud and are being investigated for diverting funds to terrorist groups, said the Spanish Police. Police said the six men were arrested in Barcelona on orders from Judge Baltasar Garzon, who often investigates terrorism. The Civil Guard said in a statement that the alleged fraud was carried out through telecommunications companies and officials were investigating whether any money went to ‘armed groups’. The six along with five others arrested by the Spanish Police, were suspected of financing terrorist activities by carrying out thefts and sending the money they raised from their criminal activities to Pakistan.
2008
December 19: A British Pakistani, accused of being a high-profile al Qaeda activist, was on December 18 found guilty of "directing terrorism." The police claimed this was the first time that someone in the U.K. had been convicted of such an offence, The Hindu reported. Rangzieb Ahmed (33) was described by prosecutors as a key link between British recruits and al Qaeda leaders. He and co-defendant Habib Ahmed (29) were found guilty of possessing diaries which had names and phone numbers of suspected leading al Qaeda operatives, including Hamza Rabia, believed to be a former top al Qaeda leader. It was stated that they were part of an active al Qaeda cell working on an unknown foreign mission.
December 4: Philippine security forces seized crude bombs and materials used for making explosive devices from a suspected Pakistani man during a raid on in the southern island of Mindanao, Dawn reported. Locals led a team of elite army and police officers to the hideout of the Pakistani suspected of supplying explosives to Muslim militants, said Francisco Villaroman, head of police intelligence in Mindanao, on December 3.
September 5: A German man of Pakistani origin suspected of raising money and recruiting fighters for al Qaeda has been charged with membership in the terrorist group, federal prosecutors said in Berlin on September 4, Dawn reported. The suspect, identified as 46-year-old Aleem Nasir, was arrested in February 2008 at his home in the southwestern state of Rheinland-Palatinate and was charged on August 19. According to a statement from German prosecutors, Nasir traveled "regularly" to Pakistan and "by summer 2004 at the latest" he had agreed with al Qaeda leaders in the Pakistani-Afghan border region "to take part in al Qaeda activities." His attorney, Manfred Gnjidic, said at the time of Nasir's arrest that his client had not confessed to anything. But prosecutors said that between April 2005 and June 2007 he made at least four trips to Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan, in one case handing over $21,732 to al Qaeda and on another at least 5,795.20 in cash. He is also alleged to have provided al Qaeda with additional equipment such as binoculars, night-vision goggles, laser range-finders, digital compasses and radios. "His duty is suspected to have been to acquire money and equipment in Germany for military use and recruit further members as well as fighters for the organisation," prosecutors said in their statement.
August 19: The Chinese Government detained 35 Pakistanis visiting China that they suspect of planning to attack proceedings of the Olympic Games, Daily Times reported. China has asked the Pakistani Government for details of the arrested in a letter that alleged 35 suspected Pakistani militants had arrived in China to attack proceedings at the Games.
Aabid Khan, Sultan Muhammad and Hammad Munshi, all three Britons of Pakistani origin, were sentenced by a British court to serve varying prison terms for possessing or preparing documents promoting terrorism, Dawn reported. Khan, 23, a former fast food restaurant worker from Bradford described as a 'key players' in radicalisation of the youth, was arrested at Manchester Airport in June 2006 on his return from a trip to Pakistan. He has been sentenced to serve a 12-year prison term. Sultan Muhammad, 23, Khan's cousin and also from Bradford, was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Hammaad Munshi, 18, from Dewsbury, Britain's youngest convicted terrorist will be sentenced next month. Prosecutor Simon Denison said evidence showed Khan had a "deep commitment to and involvement in violent jihad". This included "inciting others to take part in it and arranging for himself and others to attend military training in Pakistan in preparation for going to fight and, inevitably, to kill". He said all the men had amassed computers, CDs and books that "were the necessary tools of their trade, possessed to be used in furtherance of that violent cause".
August 10: Islamic extremists who trained at terrorist camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan may be plotting attacks in Germany, the head of the German federal crime office said, according to a newspaper interview released on August 10, The News reported. Joerg Ziercke, head of the Bundeskriminalamt - Germany's FBI equivalent - told the daily Tagesspiegel that some 50 aspiring militants from Germany had been trained in camps run by al Qaeda, the Taliban or the Islamic Jihad Union. "In light of statements from al Qaeda and (the Islamic Jihad Union), we are certain that a decision has been made to conduct attacks in Germany," Ziercke was quoted as saying in the interview.
June 6: Dutch police arrested a 26-year-old Pakistani man wanted in Spain on terrorism charges, according to the Netherlands' prosecution service. "Aqueelur Rehman Abbasi was arrested on Friday in his prison cell in Vught where he was being held by the immigration and naturalisation services, at the request of Spanish authorities," said prosecution spokesman Frank Wattimena.
June 5: A judge in Spain filed terrorism charges against nine Pakistanis and two Indians suspected of planning suicide attacks in Barcelona and elsewhere in Europe. Ten persons were arrested in Barcelona in January 2008 during raids in which police also recovered bomb-making equipment. It was not immediately disclosed where the 11th person was arrested. All were charged with belonging to a terrorist group, and eight were additionally accused of possessing explosives. The charges were based on the declarations of a witness who is a former member of the cell, which is suspected of planning suicide attacks on the Barcelona metro and other European cities. Three of those arrested, Pakistanis Mohamed Shoaib, M. Khalib and Imran Cheema, had been tasked with carrying out the suicide bombings, and had recently arrived in Barcelona, the judge said. Three others, Hafeez Ahmed, Qadeer Malik and Sahib Iqbal, were allegedly explosives experts.
March 15: Dutch police have arrested a Pakistani man who they say is linked to a jihadi network which was largely dismantled after raids in Barcelona during January 2008, Dawn reported. The 26-year-old suspect was detained on March 13 in the south-western Dutch town of Breda, the public prosecutor's office said in a statement on March 14. The detainee was "suspected of belonging to a global jihadist network which prepares attacks in western Europe", the statement said. The police had been investigating the suspect, who was not identified by name, since late January 2008 acting on information of the security services in The Hague. The suspect, who had been in the Netherlands since September 2007, was enrolled as a student but mostly worked as a house painter, AFP reported.
February 15: A German man of Pakistani origin has been arrested in southwestern Germany on suspicion of working for al Qaeda, the office of the federal prosecutor said on February 15, according to Dawn. The suspect, identified as Aleem N., made four trips to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan where he handed over at least 4,000 euros to al Qaeda operatives each time, it said in a statement. The trips took place between April 2005 and June 2007, and also served to smuggle radio equipment and binoculars to the organisation, AFP reported. During the last trip, Aleem N. asked to become an al Qaeda fighter and was subsequently sent to a camp in Pakistan where he was trained to use explosives.
January 22: The group of alleged Islamist extremists arrested in Barcelona at the weekend were planning suicide attacks on Spanish soil allegedly under orders from al Qaeda in Pakistan, AFP quoted press reports as saying. Citing sources close to the investigation, the daily El Periodico de Catalunya said "the terrorist action averted on Saturday ... was decided several months ago by the central al Qaeda network in Pakistan… Those who gave the order are to be found in Pakistan. They were preparing suicide attacks. Those that came here were ready to commit suicide." The 12 Pakistanis arrested had made recent trips to Pakistan, according to the report. The group received an order to carry out an attack in Barcelona from figures high up within al Qaeda hierarchy during a meeting at a training camp in Waziristan. Announcing the arrests on January 19, Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba declared that an imminent attack by "highly organised radical Islamists" had been foiled.
2007
November 23: According to The News, a Pakistani man, who pleaded guilty to distributing terrorist propaganda and helping a terrorism suspect breach a control order, was jailed for six years on November 22 in Britain. 25-year old Abdul Rahman was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court to six years for dissemination of a terrorist publication and three years for aiding contravention of a control order, making him the first person to be convicted in Britain of such offences. He was also sentenced to six years for possession of an article for a purpose connected with the commission or instigation of an act of terrorism. Rahman was arrested in January 2007, two-and-a-half years after arriving in the country from Pakistan on a student visa to do a biotechnology course at university which he quit within days.
September 20: Two Pakistani nationals accused of channelling 1 million euros ($1.40 million) to Islamist militants were arrested in Spain, Reuters reported. A. Muhammad Shan and P. Mehmood Sandhu used money from drug trafficking to fund radical groups in Spain and abroad, a police statement said. They were detained in Madrid and Barcelona after a three-year operation by the Spanish National Police and the US Federal Bureau of Intelligence.
September 4: Three suspected Islamic militants were arrested in the afternoon for allegedly plotting attacks on Ramstein Air Base, a key U.S. and NATO military hub, and Frankfurt International Airport, one of Europe's busiest, German authorities said on September 5, according to an AP report. The Sudwestrundfunk public broadcaster, citing unnamed security officials, reported that two suspects had German citizenship while the third was Pakistani. Authorities closed in on the men after they were seen moving possibly dangerous chemicals, the Der Spiegel reported, citing unidentified investigators.
Danish police arrested eight young Muslims during pre-dawn raids in central Copenhagen and its suburbs on suspicion of plotting a bomb attack and having links with al Qaeda, according to The News. The arrested ranged from 19 to 29 years old. They were of Afghan, Pakistani, Somali and Turkish backgrounds and six were Danish citizens, Jakob Scharf, director of the Danish police's Security Intelligence Service said. He said it was the first such direct al Qaeda connection discovered in Denmark and that Danish intelligence had cooperated with unnamed foreign security services during an investigation that lasted several months. "These are Islamist militants with connections to high-ranking members of al Qaeda," Scharf told a press conference.
July 27: Five British Pakistani youths, accused of being "intoxicated" by extremist propaganda, were on July 26 jailed for planning to go to Pakistan to train as "jihadis" in order to fight British forces in Afghanistan, according to The Hindu. Four were university students, identified as Aitzaz Zafar (20), Awaab Iqbal (20), Usman Ahmed Malik (21) and Akbar Butt (20) - and the fifth a schoolboy, Mohammed Irfan Raja (19). All were found guilty of possessing terrorist material. They are to serve jail sentences ranging from two to three years each. During their trial at the Old Bailey, the prosecution claimed that the material seized during the investigation included an al Qaeda manual and diagrams of explosive devices. Their conversations on the net contained passages justifying suicide bombings, it was alleged. But the defendants denied these charges.
The alleged plot reportedly came to light when Raja ran away from his east London home in February 2006 leaving behind a note telling his parents that he would now meet them in "jannat" (paradise). In the note, he assured them that he was not going to do "something in this country". "Just in case you think I am going to do something in this country you can rest easy that I am not. The conventional method of warfare is safer," he reportedly wrote. Prosecution said Raja was recruited by the other four - all students of Bradford University - on the Internet.
July 26: More than a dozen Muslims, including at least one Pakistani and several US citizens of Pakistani-origin, have been sentenced to imprisonment for their association with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and for conspiracy to wage jihad against India, according to Dawn. A statement issued by the US Department of Justice on July 25 noted that the State Department designated LeT a terrorist organisation in December 2001. Although one of the convicts, 32-year old Sabri Benkahla, of Falls Church, Virginia, became a state witness, he too was sentenced this week to 121 months in federal prison, and ordered to pay a $17,500 fine. He was found guilty of perjury before the grand jury and of making false official statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including his denial of involvement with an overseas jihad training camp in 1999, as well as his asserted lack of knowledge about individuals with whom he was in contact.
Most of the convicts attended the Dar al Arqam Islamic Centre in Falls Church, Virginia. In June 2003, Benkahla and 10 others were indicted by a grand jury in Alexandria for conspiring to attack Indian troops in Kashmir and the Russians in Chechnya in the course of training for jihad in Virginia and Pakistan. Among the defendants, Masaud Khan, Seifullah Chapman, Randall Royer, Ibrahim Al-Hamdi, Muhammed Aatique, Yong Kwon, and Khwaja Hasan, were alleged to have attended jihad training camps operated by the LeT in 2000 and 2001. In September 2003, Khan and Royer were charged with conspiring to wage war against the United States, aid the Taliban, aid al Qaeda, and Khan, Royer, Chapman, and Hammad Abdur-Raheem were charged with providing assistance to the LeT.
July 21: According to a Reuters report, German authorities believe al Qaeda is targeting Germany for possible attacks and that German Islamists have been travelling to Pakistan for "terrorist training." Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, "The danger that there could be terrorist attacks here is very real… We have many indications that al Qaeda is targeting Germany and German installations abroad, such as embassies." Hanning, a former head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency, also said German Islamists were being trained in Pakistan. Three German Islamists who trained there returned to Germany at the beginning of June 2007, he disclosed. "We have to assume that the people who returned from Pakistan are planning attacks," he informed.
He said the Interior Ministry was aware of 14 Islamists who went to Pakistan, some of whom were still there. He added that Berlin believed that there were more Germans who had gone to "terrorist training camps" in Pakistan. In recent months, Pakistani authorities have detained at least seven German Islamists "who could have been involved in planning attacks", he disclosed. "We need to do everything possible to find out who went to Pakistan and was trained there," Hanning said.
July 12: Britain is investigating how the ringleader of a failed 2005 London bombing plot, identified as a possible terrorist, went to Pakistan for terror training, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on July 11, according to Dawn. Brown confirmed reports of the investigation after it emerged that Muktar Said Ibrahim, who was convicted along with three other defendants, had made the trip barely six months before the attacks, although he was on bail. The Woolwich Crown Court in London heard during the trial that Ibrahim travelled to a militant training camp in Pakistan in December 2004. He was there at the same time as Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the four British nationals who later blew themselves up on the London transit system on July 7, 2005, killing themselves and 52 commuters.
May 29: : Spain's High Court convicted three Pakistanis for sending money to al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, but cleared them and eight others of preparing terrorist attacks in Barcelona, according to AFP. The suspects had faced up to 32 years in jail for alleged involvement with al Qaeda, drug trafficking and planning attacks on a shopping centre and other targets in the city, where they lived and were arrested in 2004. Following a three-month trial, the Madrid-based tribunal on May 29 acquitted them of terrorism charges for lack of evidence. The three men who sent money to al Qaeda operators received jail terms of five-and-a-half years for terrorist collaboration. Two others received six months each for falsifying documents. All of them were Pakistani nationals. One of the three found guilty of collaboration, Mohammad Afzaal, received an additional four years for drug dealing. The other two, Shahzad Ali Gujar and Chaudhry Mohammad, were found guilty for transferring more than 800,000 euros to radical Islamists in Pakistan.
May 28: A Pakistan-born US national accused of supplying military equipment to al Qaeda was extradited to the US on May 25, AFP reported. Syed Hashmi, aged 27, now faces a trial in the US over allegations that he was a "quartermaster" and supplied al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Syed Hashmi, an American national, has been extradited this evening from Gatwick airport to America," said a spokesperson for London's Metropolitan Police. Hashmi, who was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport in June 2006 as he boarded a flight to Pakistan, came to Britain on a student visa in 2003 and joined the Islamist group al Muhajiroun, which has now been disbanded. His extradition warrant alleged that he had received "military gear" for use in committing terrorist acts between January and March 2004. The United States District Court for the southern district of New York indicted him.
April 19: China for the first time publicly acknowledged the existence of terrorist camps within the territory of its 'all-weather' ally, Press Trust of India reported. It said that some East Turkistan separatists, who have been fighting for decades to make northwest China's Xinjiang province an independent state, received training at the terrorist camps in Pakistan. The damning confirmation came in a court document in the trial of 37-year-old Huseyin Celil, a China-born Uygur-Canadian, who was on April 19 sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chinese court in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, for "taking part in terrorist activities and plotting to split the country." According to court documents, Celil joined the East Turkistan Liberation Organisation (ETLO), a listed terrorist group active in central Asia, in November 1997 and was appointed as a senior instructor in Kyrgyzstan. While there, Celil allegedly recruited several people to the ETLO and sent them to terrorist training camps on the Pamir Plateau in Pakistan, the court documents said.
April 6: Three Pakistanis are facing life imprisonment after they were on April 5, 2007, charged in connection with the suicide attacks on London’s transport system on July 7, 2005, in which 52 persons were killed, according to The News. Mohammed Shakil, 30, of Beeston, a suburb of Leeds; Sadeer Saleem, 26, also of Beeston; and Waheed Ali, 23, who recently lived in London but was originally from Beeston, were arrested on March 22, 2007. Saleem was reportedly arrested in Leeds and the other two men were detained at the Manchester airport as they were preparing to board a flight to Pakistan. The three were charged under the Explosive Substances Act (1883) for "unlawfully and maliciously" plotting with the suicide bombers "to cause explosions on the Transport for London System and/or tourist attractions in London." "The allegation is that they were involved in reconnaissance and planning for a plot with those ultimately responsible for the bombings on July 7 before the plan was finalised," said Sue Hemming, head of the Counter Terrorism Commission of the Crown Prosecution Service.
April 4: A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, US and Pakistani intelligence sources told ABC News reporters Brian Ross and Christopher Isham. The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Balochistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran. The group has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. US officials said US relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that US provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as Congressional oversight. Tribal sources told ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states. Jundullah has produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan.
January 10: A Pakistani immigrant was sentenced to 30 years in prison for hatching an unsuccessful plot to blow up a busy Manhattan subway station as revenge for wartime abuses of Iraqis, AP reported. Shahawar Matin Siraj, aged 24, was arrested on August 27, 2004, on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Though there was no proof that Siraj ever obtained explosives or was linked to any terrorist groups, prosecutors said his intentions were dangerous since he wanted to blow up the Herald Square subway station. "I apologise for all the stuff I said on those tapes," Siraj said before he was sentenced. "I'm taking responsibility for 34th Street, but I was manipulated by this person." Siraj was convicted of conspiracy last year based partly on the testimony of a police informant, Osama Eldawoody, who was recruited to monitor Muslims at mosques and elsewhere following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
2006
November 30: A 29-year old Pakistani, with an expired student visa, and a US citizen were charged in Texas with conspiring to train with firearms to fight with the Taliban against coalition forces in the Middle East and providing $350 to support terrorist groups, according to Daily Times. The detained Pakistani was identified as Adnan Babar Mirza, while the 33-year old American has been identified as Kobie Diallo Williams a.k.a. Abdul Kabeer. The four-count indictment was returned by a Houston grand jury on November 22 and unsealed this week after the appearance of both men before a US magistrate judge. "While these subjects did not operate at a high level of sophistication in comparison with the 9/11 hijackers, the expressed goal was to aid the Taliban by training for jihad against coalition troops in the Middle East," according to FBI Special Agent Roderick Beverly.
According to allegations in the indictment, Williams and Mirza, a citizen of Pakistan who entered the US on a student visa on August 15, 2001, viewed the US and coalition military forces on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq as invaders, and in April 2005, agreed that they should travel to the Middle East to fight with the Taliban to engage in battlefield Jihad. To hone their skills in anticipation for battlefield Jihad, the indictment alleged that Williams and Mirza agreed to train with firearms at various locations.
November 7: Troops in eastern Afghanistan captured a "known Al Qaeda terrorist" who has ties to the network's leadership, and five other extremists, including Saudis and Pakistanis, on November 6, said the US-led coalition, according to AFP. The force would not identify the captured men who were arrested in an early morning operation by Afghan and coalition troops in Khost. "The detainee, who has known ties to Al Qaeda leadership, was taken into custody along with five other terrorists found in the compound, including Saudi and Pakistani nationals," said the force in a statement. The troops also found grenades, military equipment, armour-piercing rounds and AK-47 assault rifles during a search of the compound where the men were arrested.
August 23: A Pakistan-born architect accused of plotting a "jihad" or holy war bombing campaign in Australia was sentenced to 20 years in jail, according to Daily Times. Faheem Khalid Lodhi was convicted of planning to blow up the electrical grid in Australia's biggest city, Sydney. Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy said the attack, if carried out, would "instill terror into members of the public so that they could never again feel free from the threat of bombing attacks within Australia."
August 11: Pakistan said on August 11, 2006 it had arrested 24 people, including an Al Qaeda operative with links in Afghanistan, in connection with the alleged UK terror plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners. Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said the foiling of the terror plot was the result of close cooperation between Pakistan, the United States and the United Kingdom. She told the media that 24 people have been arrested in connection with the terror conspiracy and those arrested would be handed over to the UK for investigations. “There are indications of Afghanistan based Al Qaeda connection,” she informed, adding “The case has wider international dimensions ... the intelligence cooperation and coordination at the international level to get to the bottom in this case are continuing.”
Further, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said Pakistan had arrested an Al Qaeda operative who had played a key role in the terror plot. “He is a British citizen of Pakistani origin. He is an Al Qaeda operative with linkages in Afghanistan,” Sherpao told Reuters. He said the arrest of the man, identified as Rashid Rauf, had led to a wave of arrests in Britain that headed off the alleged plot to blow up as many as 10 aircraft flying from Britain to the US. “We arrested him from the border area and on his disclosure we shared the information with British authorities, which led to further arrests in Britain,” he told Associated Press.
Newspapers in London cited British Government sources as saying the police launched an operation after a message was sent from Pakistan, following the arrests there apparently urging the plotters to go ahead. “An intercepted message from Pakistan telling the bombers to ‘go now’ had triggered the arrests, reported London’s Guardian. ABC News quoting Pakistani officials identified the ringleader of the bomb plot as Matiur Rehman, said to be a 29-year-old Al Qaeda ‘commander’ accused of involvement in plots to kill President Pervez Musharraf. He was said to be missing along with five others, ABC News said, adding that Rehman was known to be planning a “terror spectacular” to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11.
August 2: US intelligence agency expert told a US court in the last week of July 2006 that Pakistan is still running a terrorist training camp at Balakot in the North West Frontier Province, according to Dawn. Eric Benn, a terrorism expert for Defence Intelligence Agency, told the district court in California that there was 70 per cent ‘probability’ the satellite images of a place near Balakot were that of a militant training camp. The US intelligence agent showed the jury satellite images taken between 2001 and 2004 but he claimed that the facility in question seemed to have expanded since then. “It may have become less temporary and more permanent,” he testified. The images showed a 3km trail linked to the main road and dotted with several structures that seemed to reflect a guard house, barracks with a tin roof and perhaps some mud houses as well, the reports said. The court is hearing terrorism charges against two Pakistani-Americans, 23-year old Hamid Hayat and his father Umer Hayat. Hamid’s sentencing has been postponed by four months to November and his father Umer Hayat, charged with lying to federal authorities, is being retried after the first round ended in a hung jury.
June 30: Afghan officials claimed on June 29 that they had captured two Pakistanis who were part of a 20-member team that entered southern Afghanistan to carry out suicide attacks. Two other men from the same group were killed a day earlier when they detonated a car bomb near a US-led coalition convoy in southern Zabul province, while 16 other Pakistani nationals were still at large, a police official said.
June 20: A Pakistan-born Australian citizen, Faheem Khalid Lodhi, who was accused of plotting a Jihad bombing campaign in Australia, was convicted on three terrorism-related charges on June 19 and could face life in jail. He had been accused of planning to blow up the electrical grid in Sydney as well as several defence sites in 2003. The indictment said that Lodhi, who denied four counts of preparing to commit a terrorist act, had “the intent of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, namely violent jihad”.
June 7: A federal jury in the United States of America convicted a Maryland man of plotting to assist the Pakistan-based outlawed group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), according to The News. Ali Asad Chandia, aged 29, was found guilty on three counts of terrorism-related charges, including providing material support to the LeT, which is designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US Government. Prosecutors linked Chandia, who lives in College Park, Maryland, to a British national, Mohammed Ajmal Khan, who pleaded guilty to terrorism offenses in a British court. The US Department of Justice said in a statement the case, which included evidence from British authorities and testimony from British investigators, showed the importance of cooperation with foreign law enforcement agencies.
June 4: Police have arrested 17 people, including five teenagers, on terrorism-related charges, a senior Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer told a televised news conference in Toronto on June 3-morning, according to Dawn. All the men arrested were residents of Canada and most were Canadian citizens, said Mike McDonell, Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP. The 12 adults and five youths were reportedly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. McDonell said it was a "home-grown terror cell intent on launching attacks against targets in Southern Ontario" which would have been more devastating than the Oklahoma City bombing. "This group presented a real and serious threat. They had the capacity and intent to carry out a terrorist attack," he added. Police said they recovered three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a quantity three times the amount used by Timothy McVeigh to destroy the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
April 27: A Pakistani-American man was found guilty in a California court on April 25 of undergoing Al Qaeda training just hours after a mistrial was declared in his father’s trial in the same case. Jurors declared Hamid Hayat guilty of providing “material support” to the enemy by training in Pakistan as a terrorist and of lying about it to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, according to the US Attorney’s Office. “Since the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, the number one priority of the Department (of Justice) has been to detect, disrupt and prevent terrorist acts,” said US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. “In this particular case, justice has been served against a man who supported and trained with our terrorist enemies in pursuit of his goal of violent jihad.” Hayat faces up to 39 years in prison and is to be sentenced on July 14, according to Dawn. The verdict came just hours after the judge in the Sacramento, California district court dismissed a separate panel of jurors who couldn’t agree whether Hayat’s father, Umer, lied to the FBI about his son attending an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan. Hamid Hayat, 23, trained with terrorists in Pakistan and planned an attack in the United States, Assistant US Attorney Laura Ferris argued at his trial.
April 26: A police informer told a US Federal District court in Brooklyn on April 24 that a Pakistani immigrant, angered by the war in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, wanted to punish Americans in 2004 by bombing one of New York City’s busiest subway stations, according to Dawn. The Pakistani, Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23, and alleged co-conspirator James Elshafay were arrested on August 27, 2004 on the eve of the Republican National convention. They drew diagrams of the subway station before being arrested, the New York City’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said shortly after their arrests that the men never obtained explosives and had not been linked to known terrorist groups. The informant Osama Eldawoody, an Egyptian national, told the court that Siraj vowed to "teach these people a lesson".
April 25: A Pakistani-born architect accused of plotting to bomb Sydney’s power grid and other sites wrote a "terrorism manual" and inquired about chemicals used in home-made bombs, prosecutors told the Supreme Court in Sydney on April 24, according to Dawn. On the first day of his trial, prosecutors told the Supreme Court in Sydney that Faheem Khalid Lodhi plotted to bomb Sydney’s electricity grid and various defence sites in October 2003. The indictment said Lodhi, who denied four counts of preparing to commit a terrorist act, had "the intent of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, namely violent jihad". Prosecutors have previously linked Lodhi, also known as Abu Hamza, to Frenchman Willie Brigitte, who was deported from Australia in late 2003 and has been accused in a leaked French intelligence dossier of planning a terrorist attack "of great size". Both Lodhi and Brigitte are alleged to have trained with the Lashkar-e-Toiba.
April 22: Agents of Atlanta’s Joint Terrorism Task Force have arrested a 21-year-old mechanical engineering student on a charge of material support of terrorism, as part of an investigation that federal authorities describe as ongoing and international in scope, New York Times reported on April 21, 2006. The student, Syed Haris Ahmad, who attends the Georgia Tech University, was born in Pakistan and is a naturalised American citizen. On March 23, 2006 a grand jury in Atlanta indicted Ahmad and charged him with undisclosed violations of two sections of the United States Code: Section 956, which deals with conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country; and Section 2332b, which covers acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries. Ahmed reportedly told the police in March 2006 that he had met with extremists and plotted how to disrupt military and commercial communications and traffic by disabling the Global Positioning System.
April 6: On April 5, Canada deported three men with links to a Pakistan-based terrorist group and considered ‘a security risk’ who had earlier been convicted of trying to bomb a Hindu temple, according to Dawn. Barry Adams and Amir Mohammed Ahmed — both from Trinidad and Tobago — and Dominican Republic-born Abdul Baqqer were arrested in 1991 while trying to enter Canada from the United States. All three are believed to be members of Jamaat-ul-Fuqra (JuF), "an extremist Pakistan-based religious sect," Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman Anna Pape said. "This clearly shows that terrorists are not welcome in Canada," she added. Border guards discovered bomb materials during a search of their car in October 1991, she disclosed. The three were convicted in 1994 of conspiracy to commit mischief and endanger lives in relation to the attempted bombing of a Hindu temple and a theatre showing Indian films in Toronto. "They were deported last night with a police escort after serving 12 years in a federal penitentiary," Pape said.
April 3: A Pakistani man was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for his role in a plot to obtain and sell Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, AP reported. Muhamed Abid Afridi reportedly pleaded guilty in federal court in March 2004 to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin and hashish. Two other men pleaded guilty to the same charges. Sentencing for Syed Mustajab Shah, also from Pakistan, is set for June 19, 2006. Ilyas Ali, a naturalised US citizen born in India, is to be sentenced on April 10, 2006. Afridi admitted that he tried to sell five tonnes of hashish and a half-tonne of heroin to undercover US law enforcement officials in exchange for cash and four shoulder-fired Stinger missiles, which he and the other defendants intended to sell to members of the Taliban.
March 18: A British man, who bought equipment, which might have been used in attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan, was jailed for eight years on March 17 after he admitted being a "terrorist quartermaster", UK police said. He was also given a further year in jail for being in contempt of court, according to Reuters. Mohammed Ajmal Khan bought material that was sent to and used by the proscribed Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) group. London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court heard that Khan had access to more than $35,000 to buy equipment, including 1,000 square-metre of Kevlar — a material used to make armour plating for vehicles and for bullet-proof armour. British police said Khan had provided material for the group when it was planning and conducting operations in Afghanistan in 2002-3.
March 16:The US State Department has sought confirmation from Pakistan of the arrest of an Al Qaeda leader believed to be the mastermind of the Madrid bombings in March 2004, according to Daily Times. CNN and NBC News reported in November 2005 that Mustafa Setmariam Nasar was captured after a gun battle in a remote area of Kohat in the North West Frontier Province. CNN also reported that one of Nasar’s aides was killed in the incident. Sources in the Interior Ministry told Daily Times on March 15 that the State Department recently sent a letter to Federal Investigation Agency Director General Tariq Pervez through the US Embassy in Islamabad, seeking information about Nasar’s arrest. The letter, referring to various reports in the American and Spanish media about the arrest, asks the Pakistan Government to confirm whether the Syrian fugitive was being held in Pakistan and inquires about his latest status. Syrian-born Nasar is considered the mastermind of the Madrid bombings, a series of coordinated attacks on March 11, 2004, which killed 192 people and wounded 2,050. The US State Department announced a $5 million reward for Nasar’s capture in July 2005, saying that he was believed to have fled either to Iraq or Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
March 3: According to Daily Times, immigration officials arrested a Belgian national on terrorism charges at Lahore Airport while he was trying to board a plane for Islamabad. Micha Ballen is wanted by Belgium for involvement in several crimes and is believed to be a terrorist. He came to Lahore from London on February 7 by a Gulf Air flight and was staying at a seminary near the city. Ballen is originally from Rwanda but is also a Belgian national, a security official told Daily Times. The Belgian embraced Islam a few years back after establishing links with a religious outfit in Pakistan, he said. "Intelligence agencies intercepted his e-mails which showed that he is connected to militant outfits and wanted to join in their activities."
February 16: Security forces in Afghanistan have arrested "a large number" of Pakistanis and others linked to a recent spate of suicide attacks, according to The News. Many of the detainees have admitted during questioning that they received training at terrorist bases in Pakistan and were given money, explosives and other equipment while there, to launch attacks in Afghanistan, Interior Ministry spokesperson Yousuf Stanezai said on February 15. "The terrorists who come here for suicide attacks are attending training bases in Pakistan and are getting all their equipment there… We’ve arrested a large number who are either Pakistani or came from Pakistan," Stanezai said. He also said some of the leaders of the Taliban are now living in Pakistan and are orchestrating the attacks.
January 20: Three of the foreign terrorists killed in the January 13, 2006-air strikes in the Bajaur Agency have been identified, ABC News said on January 19. One of the dead was said to be 52-year-old Midhat Mursi, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, a top Al Qaeda bomb maker with a five million dollar reward on his head. Another was reported to be Abu Obaidah al-Masri, Al Qaeda’s chief of operations for the eastern Afghan province of Kunar and the third was Abdur Rehman al-Maghribi, the Moroccan son-in-law of Osama Bin Laden’s top lieutenant Ayman Al-Zawahri and the head of Al Qaeda’s media operations. The fourth has not been identified but reports said that he may have been an Egyptian national named Mustafa Usman. A Pakistani intelligence official said that Khalid Habib, head of Al Qaeda’s operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, may have also have been among the dead.
2005
December 31: Police believe a member of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), an outlawed Sunni extremist group, has entered Japan with the aim of setting up a base in that country, a report said on December 30. A male member of the SSP entered Japan in 2003, according to documents from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper said. Police have discovered that this man in his 30s frequented mosques in the Tokyo area and that he told other people that he came to Japan to set up a launch pad for the group, the report said. Japanese police are on heightened alert for possible terrorist activities and fear a move by the militant group to recruit members from Japan’s Muslim community and create a support network, the newspaper added.
December 17: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States acknowledged on December 15 that "remnants" of the Taliban and Al Qaeda continue to operate in Afghanistan and his country’s border, but insisted they are not resurging significantly. In an interview with Reuters, Jehangir Karamat claimed Osama bin Laden has lost effectiveness, that his Al Qaeda organization has no overarching leadership capable of directing attacks worldwide and that it would be unwise to become "obsessed" with capturing him.
November 16: Pakistan continues to be a sanctuary and training ground for terrorists, a report on the status of recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission on terrorist attacks in the US has said, asking Washington to put pressure on Islamabad to counter terrorism. "Pakistan remains a sanctuary and training ground for terrorists," said a report by Vice-Chairman Lee Hamilton of the 9-11 Public Disclosure Project, which examined action taken by US administration on the recommendations of the Commission that probed the September 11, 2001, attacks. "(Pakistan President Pervez) Musharraf has made significant efforts to take on the threat from extremism... yet we are disappointed that he has not done more," said the former Congressman, pointing out that Gen. Musharraf has not lived up to his promises to regulate the Madrassas properly.
October 19: A Pakistani and three Americans have been charged with plotting terrorist attacks on military facilities and synagogues in the United States, according to Dawn. Pakistani national, Hammad Riaz Samana, and three American-born Muslim converts, Levar Haley Washington, Gregory Vernon Patterson and Kevin James, have been accused of conspiring to wage war against the US Government through terrorism, kill armed service members and murder foreign officials. Their trial will start on October 24 in a California court. Prosecutors contend the plot was orchestrated by Washington, Patterson and Samana at the behest of James -— an inmate at the California State Prison, Sacramento — who allegedly founded the radical group Jamiyyat ul-Islam-us-Saheeh.
September 26: An official of the ousted Taliban regime, Mullah Hamidullah, is reported to have been arrested from Bannu district in the North West Frontier Province on September 24. Hamidullah was in charge of the Taliban’s Department for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Khost, according to Dawn. An unnamed security official said that the arrest occurred when troops raided a house in the remote Basya Khel town of Bannu district. Hamidullah was wanted for allegedly mobilising tribesmen for terrorist activity, he said.
September 24: US prosecutors on September 22 reportedly charged a California Muslim of Pakistani origin with providing material support for terrorists by attending an Al Qaeda-linked training camp. According to Dawn, Hamid Hayat was charged in an indictment with offering himself as personnel for Jehadi training in Pakistan and then returning to the United States to wage Jehad, federal prosecutors said. The suspect attended a camp with "ties to Al Qaeda" between March 2003 and June 2005 where he received training in "physical fitness, firearms, and means to wage jihad," prosecutors from the California capital of Sacramento said. Hamid allegedly admitted in a June 4 interview that he had attended a camp in Pakistan for three to six months "to teach people to kill those who work against Muslims" and receive training in weapons, explosives and hand to hand combat.
September 16: US authorities said that they arrested a man on charges of providing support to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a designated terrorist organisation in the United States, according to The News. Ali Asad Chandia was arrested a day earlier at College Park in the Maryland suburbs, said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher in a statement. Chandia and a British national, Mohammed Ajmal Khan, face a four-count indictment on charges of providing support to the LeT. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Khan, who has been detained in Britain, is believed to be a top recruiter for the LeT and Fisher’s statement said Chandia and Khan met during late 2001 in Pakistan.
September 13: According to British newspaper The Telegraph, one of the four London suicide bombers made several calls to a stolen mobile phone in Pakistan up to three days before the July 7, 2005 attacks. Pakistani officials claimed that they have traced the stolen phone after receiving requests from Britain’s MI5 to investigate and they suspect that it was used by terrorists linked to the bombers, and then discarded after the London attacks. The phone number was rung several times - as late as July 4 - by Shehzad Tanweer, one of the bombers who visited Pakistan more than six months ago along with Mohammad Sidique Khan, the cell’s suspected ringleader.
August 24: In an interview to the Japanese news agency Kyodo, President Pervez Musharraf confirmed that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan provided centrifuge machines and their designs to North Korea, but said these transfers did not help North Korea acquire a nuclear weapons capability. Gen Musharraf said Khan could not have been of immense help to North Korea nuclear weapons programme because his laboratory had engaged in uranium enrichment, and not involved in the other steps needed to make a nuclear bomb such as conversion of uranium into gas and development of the trigger mechanism and delivery systems, according to Dawn.
August 22: The United Nations Security Council Special Committee on Prevention of Terrorism has confirmed that Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami and two other parties links with the Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are being investigated. The spokesperson of the Security Council Committee 1267 also said that if allegations against the parties were proved after the investigation, the Pakistan Government would be requested to ban these parties, according to The News.
August 17: A Pakistani has been arrested as part of a probe into a possible terrorist plot targeting Southern California locations, the Los Angles Times reported on August 16. Twenty-one year old Hamad Riaz Samana of Los Angeles was detained last week as part of an investigation that began with the arrest of two men in Torrance suspected of robbing gas stations, the newspaper reported.
August 9: A judge in San Francisco is reported to have refused bail for a Pakistani Imam (priest), Shabbir Ahmed, detained in a terrorism-related probe. Shabbir Ahmed is "both a flight risk and a danger to the community," Judge Anthony Murry said after a four-hour hearing, according to media reports. Ahmed, a citizen of Pakistan, is accused of violating the terms of his religious-worker visa and is fighting deportation to Pakistan, according to San Francisco Chronicle. FBI lead case agent Gary Schaaf said in testimony that Shabbir Ahmed and others wanted to form a Lodi religious school where individuals will be taught a very conservative brand of Islam, and students will be spotted and assessed to commit violence. The 39-year old Ahmed was arrested in June 2005 on immigration charges along with Mohammad Adil Khan, who was leading the effort to build a Muslim school in Lodi, as well as Khan's son. Adil Khan and his son agreed in July 2005 to be deported to Pakistan rather than fight the charges.
August 7: The Pakistani Government is deceiving the US and the West by helping militants freely enter Afghanistan from Waziristan, said Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Secretary General, Maulana Fazlur Rehman. He told a press conference in Lahore that the Government should give the identity of the infiltrators and its (government's) motives for helping them enter Afghanistan. "They must also give the nation the identities of the men being moved from Waziristan to militant camps in Mansehra. This is hypocrisy. The rulers are not only trying to deceive the US and the West, but also hoodwinking the entire nation," he claimed.
August 6: A Maryland resident, Mahmud Faruq Brent alias Mahmud Al Mutazzim, was arrested on August 5, 2005 in Newark, New Jersey, and charged with conspiring to aid terrorism by training to become a Jihadi fighter in camps in Pakistan, said a report in New York Times. Brent was accused of traveling to Pakistan after 9/11 to receive training in camps operated by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), the report said. Brent was an associate of Tarik Shah, a New York jazz musician who was arrested on May 28 on terrorism charges, according to the newspaper. Brent, in telephone calls and at least one meeting, had described his stay in the camps to Shah. He had also told Shah that he had been in the mountains in Pakistan training with "the Mujahideen, the fighters."
August 4: An unnamed official in Islamabad was quoted as saying in The News that authorities were trying to determine whether Ethiopian-born Muktar Said Ibrahim, alleged ringleader in the failed attacks in London on July 21, 2005, had visited Pakistan. Investigators reportedly believe that any confirmation of a visit by Ibrahim to Pakistan would strengthen the theory of a link between the two groups of bombers.
August 1: According to The Sunday Times, "One of them [London bombers], Shehzad Tanweer, from the Leeds suburb of Beeston, is said by relatives in Pakistan to have spent time there with militants from the banned extremist Jaish Mohammad organisation… Efforts were under way to arrest Jaish Mohammed leader Masood Azhar, whom Tanweer is believed to have contacted."
July 28: A Pakistani national suspected of involvement in terrorist activities has been arrested from the eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan, said Governor Asadullah Wafa. According to the Governor, the arrested man was identified as Sher Ali, hailing from Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.
July 26: The Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Syed Safdar Hussain admits that some pro-Taliban elements from Pakistan were crossing into Afghanistan and that some Pakistani religious groups were offering support and cooperation to them. Speaking to a private television channel, Hussain disclosed "They [Taliban] are getting public support in Pakistan, especially from some Pakistani religious parties."
July 19: According to Daily Times, Kenya has arrested five men on suspicion of terrorism links after they were seen taking photos from a ferry. Police sources said the men, believed to have come from Pakistan, had no legal travel documents in their possession.
July 18: According to Statesman, a key aide of the Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar and four other Taliban cadres were arrested from Akora Khattak in the North West Frontier Province. Sources said that a deputy of Mullah Omar, Maulvi Abdul Kabir, two other leaders of the Taliban militia, identified as Maulvi Abdul Haq and Maulvi Abdul Qadir, and two associates were arrested from a refugee camp. Kabir had served as Governor of Nangarhar and Kunar during the Taliban era. He is also reportedly on the list of the most-wanted persons of United States.
July 17: Daily Times, quoting security officials in Islamabad, reports that three of the four London suicide bombers had recently visited Pakistan and investigators are probing whether they met with Al Qaeda-linked militant groups. Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer arrived together at Karachi Airport in November 2004 and returned to Britain in early February. Hasib Hussain came separately at an undisclosed time last year, also to Karachi, and went back to Britain shortly afterwards.
July 15: The British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw expresses concern over what goes on in some Madrassas in Pakistan, after it emerged that one of the London bombers had attended a seminary. According to The News, Shahzad Tanweer, who bombed an underground subway train at Aldgate in London, had gone to a Madrassa in December 2004 to become a Hafiz (someone who has memorized the Holy Koran). "We are concerned about what goes on in some of the Madrassas in Pakistan," Straw told reporters in London.
July 14: News reports identify three Britons of Pakistani descent, the alleged suicide bombers, as Shahzad Tanweer, a 22-year-old cricket-loving sports science graduate; Hasib Hussain, aged 19; and Mohammed Sidique Khan, the 30-year-old father of an 8-month-old baby.
July 12: The Police said that at least three of the bombers who carried out the July 7 terrorist attacks in London are believed to be British males of Pakistani origin who lived in West Yorkshire in Leeds. Police said they believe four men, including the three Pakistani origin persons, who arrived at King's Cross on July 7-morning on a train from Leeds were behind the terrorist attacks that killed at least 52 people and injured 700 on three tube trains and one bus. CCTV footage at King's Cross station showed the four suspected bombers together at 8.30am, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan police's anti-terrorism branch, told a press conference.
July 11: According to Daily Times, Afghan authorities said that they had arrested five men, including a Pakistani national, and foiled a series of planned bombings across the country. Police arrested the Pakistani national from Kunduz, where he planned to attack German troops from a Provincial Reconstruction Team, said Interior Ministry spokesperson Lutfullah Mashal. On the same day, police from Kabul’s Quick Reaction Force arrested a man armed with weapons, explosives, a radio and propaganda tapes. He is reported to have studied at two Pakistani religious schools and planned to bomb electoral centres and offices as part of a five-man team, the other members of which escaped, said Gen. Mahboob Amiri.
June 30: Five Pakistanis suspected of planning terrorist attacks in the south of Afghanistan have been arrested, said Afghan police. They had crossed from Pakistan into the Afghan province of Zabul and were arrested on June 29 while traveling by bus to the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, provincial police chief Allahyar told AFP. They were arrested on a tip-off from the US-led coalition forces who had kept them under surveillance, added Ghulam Mohammed Aka, chief of police in Shahr-e-Safa district, where the arrests were made.
June 24: The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is reported to have said in Moscow that terrorists from Afghanistan and Pakistan were training for attacks against Russia and the former Soviet Central Asia and that they periodically cross into Central Asian territory. "On the territory of Afghanistan and on the territory adjacent to the Afghan border with Pakistan, training is going on of terrorists, with the participation of Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan... for conducting terrorist attacks, including on the territory of the Russian Federation," disclosed Lavrov.
June 23: The Interior Minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, says that the Al Qaeda had established a strong nexus with outlawed extremist groups in Pakistan. "There is a nexus of Al Qaeda and extremist elements in Pakistan. Whenever they feel hurt, they react. But it will not decrease our resolve against terrorism," he told Daily Times in an interview. Without naming any organisation, the minister said outlawed groups were facilitating Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.
June 20: According to Daily Times, Afghan intelligence officials have foiled a plot to assassinate the former US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and arrested three Pakistanis armed with rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles. An Afghan presidential spokesperson said that the men were arrested from Laghman province a day earlier. Afghan television is reported to have subsequently broadcast a video of the suspects identifying them as Murat Khan, Noor Alam, and Zahid. While two of them claimed they came from Peshawar, the other said he was from Mansehra.
The President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, on June 20 accused Pakistan of interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. Radio Tehran quoted Karzai as telling a religious council that Islamabad was backing the anti-Kabul elements. The President alleged that Pakistan had threatened the Taliban with handing over their families to the US if they did not fight against Afghanistan.
June 18: The United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, suggests that the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has been hiding in Pakistan and criticised Islamabad’s failure to act against Taliban leaders. In an interview with Afghanistan’s Aina Television, Khalilzad said that a Pakistani TV channel had interviewed a senior Taliban commander, Mullah Akhtar Usmani, at a time when Pakistani officials claimed they did not know the whereabouts of Taliban leaders. "If a TV station can get in touch with them, how can the intelligence service of a country, which has nuclear bombs and a lot of security and military forces, not find them," Khalilzad said. "Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders should have been in Pakistan," he added.
June 16: A Pakistani and two Frenchmen were given three-to-five-year prison sentences by a Paris court which found them guilty of aiding convicted "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid, who attempted to blow up a Paris-Miami flight on December 22, 2001 in the United States, according to AFP. The three were convicted of associating with criminals in relation to a terrorist enterprise, three years after being arrested for their ties to Reid. Ghulam, a 64-year-old Pakistani and president of a charity association called Chemin Droit (Right Path), received a five-year sentence for helping orient Reid on French soil and recruiting Jehadis. The two Frenchmen, Hassan el Cheguer and Hakim Mokhfi, were groomed by Ghulam to fight abroad, the court found.
June 10: An investigation into an Al Qaeda cell in the US city of Lodi, California, in which a man and his son and two Muslim religious leaders were held earlier, led to the arrest on June 8 of another Pakistani, Mohammad Hassan Adil. A US immigration and customs enforcement official said Adil, was detained for violation of immigration rules. He is son of Mohammed Adil Khan, who was recently taken into custody along with Lodi mosque Imam Shabbir Ahmed under same charges.
June 9: According to Daily Times, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested a father and son of Pakistani origin in the Californian town of Lodi for their alleged links to the Al Qaeda. Both were American citizens and along with them two other Pakistanis, one an Imam (priest) of the local mosque and the other his likely successor, were arrested on immigration charges. Umer Hayat, an ice cream truck driver had migrated from Pakistan, but his son Hamid Hayat was born in the United States and a FBI official said "the Hayats have been on the radar for a while and this case has more to it than just these two guys."
May 23: Security forces in Peshawar arrest two Arabs for their alleged links with the Al Qaeda from the Charsadda area. According to Nation, the troops launched an operation against some four Arab families at Dosehra in the Charsadda area and subsequent to an exchange of fire between the two sides for about three hours, while two suspects managed to escape, two others were arrested.
May 20: During his visit to South Waziristan, the Corps Commander Peshawar, Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, claims that at least 100 foreign terrorists, still hiding in the area, were no longer able to plan and execute terrorist attacks. "We are hunting them. They cannot operate now," said Hussain.
May 16: Afghan guerrillas are still launching attacks from the safety of Pakistan despite the Pakistani military’s battle against Islamist terrorists, said a US army officer. "My base, where I live, is in Khost province, and I will say, absolutely, there are insurgents coming across the border from Pakistan attacking into Khost, then returning back into Pakistan," Colonel Gary Cheek told a news conference. Cheek is commander of approximately 4,000 US-led troops in 16 eastern Afghan provinces, including Khost, according to Reuters.
May 13: According to Dawn, the Kenyan police on May 13 arrested 63 Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals in the port city of Mombassa and said they were investigating them for possible links to terrorism. "We are investigating their presence here and terrorism could be a possibility," an unnamed police official said. But the suspects could also be linked to money laundering, drugs trafficking or being in the country illegally, he added.
May 11: A suspected Al Qaeda operative, identified as Salah Muhammad, is arrested from Ghallanai at Mohmand Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A raid was conducted based on information provided by the intelligence reports that some people belonging to the Al Qaeda were hiding at the village Pir Makay.
A Pakistani and two Frenchmen of North African origin reportedly went on trial at a criminal court in Paris on May 11 on terror charges for their suspected roles in a recruiting network providing Jehad fighters. The trial will last until May 27. They were arrested in 2002 for allegedly giving logistical support to the would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid, a British national and self-proclaimed disciple of Osama bin Laden. French suspects Hassan el-Cheguer and Hakim Mokhfi, both aged 31, told investigators they had been recruited for Jehad by a 67-year-old Pakistani Ghulam Rama, who heads the ‘Chemin Droit’ (Straight Path) humanitarian group in France, according to The News.
May 4: A leader from the defunct Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Tariq Javed, is arrested in New York, according to New York Post. Javed was seen snapping photos last year of the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges in New York city and was arrested for allegedly lying on his immigration papers about his terror links, the paper quoted officials as saying. He had declared jihad against Americans, according to the complaint issued by Manhattan US Attorney David Kelly.
Security forces have arrested top Al Qaeda terrorist, Abu Faraj Al Libbi, who was allegedly behind two assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf in 2003, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said in Islamabad on May 4. Addressing a press conference, the Minister said the Libyan national had been arrested a few days back. However, he declined to give details about how and from where Abu Faraj had been arrested.
May 1: According to Daily Times, security agencies raided a seminary in Karachi and arrested a Taliban activist wanted by the Afghan Government in the killing of a prominent pro-US Afghan leader. An unnamed official said Sirajul Haq and another unidentified man were arrested during a raid in the Malir area. Haq is wanted in the murder of Abdul Haq, who was killed by the Taliban in 2001.
April 28: According to Dawn, a local Muslim scholar has been convicted of encouraging his followers to join the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and to do Jehad against the United States. Ali Tamimi of Fairfax County faces a mandatory life imprisonment for preaching Jehad soon after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Tamimi was reportedly convicted of inspiring a group of his Northern Virginia followers to attend terrorist training camps abroad and to prepare to battle American troops. The prosecution claimed that many of his followers practiced for Jehad by playing paintball in the Virginia countryside while some others trained with the LeT.
According to Daily Times, Pakistan on April 28 deported two Tanzanian nationals arrested more than two years ago on suspicion of having links with the Al Qaeda. Moso Muhammad and Taha Yalfan were sent to Dubai from Peshawar for their onward journey to the Tanzanian capital Dar Es Salaam, an unnamed security official told AFP. The two were reportedly arrested during November 2002 from the tribal areas while sneaking in from Afghanistan.
April 23: Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is alive and is hiding somewhere in the inaccessible Pakistan-Afghan tribal belt, said President Pervez Musharraf. "Osama is alive and I am cent per cent sure that he is hiding in the Pakistani-Afghan tribal belt," Gen. Musharraf said in an interview to the CNN. The President said the tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border stretched to difficult mountain ranges where it would be very hard to locate Osama bin Laden due to the lack of communication infrastructure.
April 14: Spanish authorities have reportedly charged 11 Pakistani nationals over suspected links with Al Qaeda operatives who carried out the Madrid train bombings in March 2004 which killed nearly 200 people. One of the eleven, Shahzad Ali Gujar, is suspected of having transferred funds to Al Qaeda cadres, including Amjad Farooki, whom Pakistani security forces killed during September 2004 and who was implicated in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. According to Dawn, investigators believe Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan received some 800,000 euros ($1 million) in funds from Spain. Mohamed Afzaal, believed to have headed the Pakistani cell in question, is suspected of sending money in September 2004 to Rabei Ousman Sayed Ahmed alias "Mohammed the Egyptian", who is currently in custody on suspicion of involvement in the train bombings.
April 12: Security forces in Peshawar are reported to have arrested four Iraqi nationals for their suspected links to the Al Qaeda. They were detained on April 10 during two separate raids on the outskirts of Peshawar. An unnamed official said one of the detainees, identified as Abdul Aziz, is a fluent speaker of the local Pashtu language and was caught with computer discs and other documents.
April 9: According to Asia Pulse, Australia has re-listed six groups as terrorist organisations, warning that anyone associated with them faces up to 25 years in jail. Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, named the six organisations as Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Mohammad, both Pakistan-based and Asbat al-Ansar, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and the Islamic Army of Aden. The six groups were originally listed as terrorist organisations in April 2003, but Australian laws provide that the listing of a terrorist organisation expires after two years. "The government has decided to re-list these groups as I continue to be satisfied on reasonable grounds that they are directly or indirectly engaged in, preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the doing of a terrorist act," said Ruddock.
April 8: Pakistan will deport 17 Afghans, including a former Kabul police chief, who were arrested in January 2005 for their alleged links with the Taliban, said Balochistan police chief, Choudhury Mohammed Yaqub, on April 7. Twenty-three Afghans were arrested from the provincial capital, Quetta, on January 27, but six were later released, according to Daily Times. The 17 reportedly include an alleged former Taliban deputy governor and Kabul’s former police chief.
April 1: Six foreigners, suspected to be Afghans and Central Asians, were reportedly arrested from Abdara in Peshawar on March 30 for their alleged links to the Al Qaeda. "Two hand-grenades, a pistol, computer disks and literature glorifying militancy were seized during the raid," an unnamed official told Daily Times. "These people have been under surveillance for some time and we have credible information that they are linked to Al Qaeda… They had been living in a rented house in Peshawar’s University Town neighbourhood for a few weeks," said the official.
March 27: A suspected Al Qaeda operative was reportedly killed on March 25 in the Hangu district of North West Frontier Province. "We suspect Farooq may be an Al Qaeda man but we have not reached any conclusion as yet," District Police Officer, Zebullah Khan, told Daily Times. Sources said that Farooq was staying with local resident Rafiq in the Zarguri area, 25 kilometers from Hangu city, as a guest when another guest killed him on March 25-night.
March 21: The AFP has reported that a suspected Pakistani suicide bomber, who planned to target foreign troops and senior Afghan officials, has been arrested in the southeastern Khost province of Afghanistan. "We arrested a Pakistani national Shahbaz on Friday [March 18] near Khost city after a tip off that some foreign suicide bombers have entered the province," Khost border forces commander, Almar Gull Mangal, told AFP. "Shahbaz has confessed coming to Afghanistan with a five-member group four days prior to his arrest and was looking for coalition and high-ranking Afghan targets to carry out suicide attacks," Mangal said.
March 19: Terrorists in Pakistan remain committed to attacking US targets and it is a matter of time before the Al Qaeda or another group uses chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, said the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director, Porter J. Goss, on March 18, reported Daily Times. He said this while talking to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in his first public appearance as the Director.
March 15: An Anti-terrorism court in Karachi convicted, on March 14, Dr. Akmal Waheed and his younger brother Dr. Arshad Waheed and sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment totaling 18 years on charges of causing disappearance of evidence by harbouring and providing medical treatment to Al Qaeda terrorists. According to Dawn, the brothers, one a cardiac specialist of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and the other a kidney physician of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, were prosecuted on charges of sheltering and training Al Qaeda terrorists, providing them funds and medical treatment, under Sections 212, 216, 201 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Sections 21-J, 21-C, 11-N of the Anti-terrorism Act, 1997.
Osama Bin Laden attempted to communicate with Al Qaeda’s front-man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a month ago through a letter that was seized when a ground courier in Pakistan was intercepted, a counter-terrorism expert reportedly said in Dubai on March 14. "About four weeks ago, we intercepted communication between Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi," which occurred when "a ground courier was intercepted," Bob Newman, Director of international security and counter-terrorism services with The GeoScope Group, told an Airport, Port and Terminal Security Middle East conference. Newman, whose Colorado-based organization provides teams to help track down terrorist suspects at the planning stage, later told reporters the courier was stopped in west Pakistan, "carrying a letter."
March 8: According to The News, the four foreign terrorists arrested during a military operation at Dewgar village in North Waziristan on March 5 include one each from Qatar, Albania, Somalia and Tajikistan. Official sources said that the four men, along with seven Pakistanis, were being interrogated at a military station. One of the two foreigners killed in the operation reportedly belonged to Sudan. The troops had also seized three rocket-launchers, 28 grenades, two RPG-7 rockets, eight sub-machineguns, one light machinegun and five anti-tank mines from the incident site.
Three senior Taliban officials, arrested in Pakistan, have reportedly been handed over to the US military at the Bagram base in Afghanistan. The Pajhwok Afghan News agency quoted an Afghan intelligence source as saying that the officials in the US custody were Maulvi Mohammad Taha, former Nangarhar Province chief of police, Mulla Abdul Razzaq, Taliban’s top military commander and Syed Akbar Agha, leader of a Taliban splinter faction, Jaish-e-Muslimeen. The Kabul-based news agency said Agha was suspected of being involved in the abduction of three United Nations elections workers in Kabul during October 2004.
February 13: Dawn reports that a Pakistani citizen, Salahuddin Amin, arrested in London after his arrival from Pakistan, was charged under the British anti-terrorism law on February 12 for planning an explosives’ attack. Amin, who was detained on February 8 at London's Heathrow airport under the Terrorism Act of 2000, was alleged to have conspired with others, between Oct 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004, to explode a bomb, which was likely to endanger life and cause serious property damage.
February 12: Farhat Paracha, wife of Pakistani businessman Saifullah Paracha who has been held captive at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for the past 19 months by the US authorities for his suspected terrorist ties with Al Qaeda, disclosed on February 11 that her husband had met Osama bin Laden twice. Speaking at a news conference at the Karachi Press Club, she, however, denied that Saifullah had any links with terrorism. She claimed that as the head of a 65-member business delegation, Saifullah went to Afghanistan and had business meetings with a small number of people there, but he had nothing to do with the charges framed against him by the US administration.
February 7: According to Time magazine, a recent investigation has revealed that Pakistan’s A Q Khan network played a larger role in helping Iran and North Korea acquire material for a nuclear bomb. According to US intelligence officials, the magazine said, Khan sold North Korea much of the necessary material to build a nuclear bomb, including high-speed centrifuges used to enrich uranium and the equipment required to manufacture more of them. They, along with officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also believe that Iran may have bought the same set of goods — centrifuges and possibly weapons designs — from Khan in the mid-1990s. The IAEA investigators have revealed that Iran privately confirmed at least 13 meetings (from 1994 to 1999) with representatives of the Khan network. "Nothing has changed… The hardware is still available, and the network hasn’t stopped," Time quoted one of Khan’s former aides as saying.
February 2: Security agencies in Peshawar are reported to have arrested a Tunisian national for his alleged links to the Al Qaeda. The suspect, identified as Abdul Qayum, was arrested while shopping at a market in Peshawar, an unnamed intelligence official told AFP.
January 27: Twenty-three Afghans were reportedly arrested in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, on suspicion of their links with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The suspects, who included a former deputy governor and ex-police chief of Kabul, were arrested from three places in Quetta, said Balochistan Police chief, Mohammed Yaqub. He said the detainees had held "important positions during Taliban’s tenure" in Afghanistan, and "we suspect that some of them have close links with Al Qaeda." Yaqub disclosed that the suspects were detained during raids in Kharotabad, Pashtun Abad and Nawan Kili.
January 25: A top Al Qaeda operative from Tanzania was handed over to US authorities shortly after his arrest in Pakistan last July, stated a senior intelligence official. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa that killed more than 200 people, was arrested after a shootout in Gujarat on July 27, 2004. "A week after the arrest, he was handed over to the Americans," a senior intelligence official said. However, no senior government official has confirmed if Pakistan had handed over Ghailani to the US authorities last year.
January 18: The News reports that bodies of two foreign militants, who appeared to be Uzbeks, were delivered to officials in Makeen in South Waziristan by a pro-government tribal elder who claimed he killed them on January 17-night outside his home. Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, senior vice-president of the pro-government Amn (Peace) Committee, Makeen, met Colonel Fayyaz Iqbal Khattak and informed him that he had shot the two militants down before they could throw hand-grenades into his house. He claimed to have recovered two AK-47 rifles, four magazines, four hand-grenades, and a wireless from the slain militants.
January 7: According to Daily Times, three suspected Al Qaeda terrorists, including a Yemeni national Shaikh Yousuf, were arrested from the Super Highway area of Karachi city. A lap top computer, a satellite phone and a Russian-made weapon were recovered from their possession.
January 2: Pakistan extradites two Turks suspected of links to the Al Qaeda network who were immediately arrested and charged by the Turkish authorities in Ankara. The Anatolia news agency reported that Mehmet Yilmaz and Mahmut Kaplan, who were arrested in Lahore in August 2004, were brought before a court in Gaziantep, where they are wanted for "membership of a clandestine Islamist organisation." According to Dawn, Pakistani authorities suspect Yilmaz of having fought alongside the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
2004
December 27, 2004: AFP has reported that security forces arrested an Uzbek national with suspected Al Qaeda links close to the Afghan border although his five Chechen associates managed to escape.
December 20: The Lahore Police is reported to have arrested at least six associates of the Libyan Al Qaeda operative, Abu Al-Faraj, who carries a Rupees 250 million bounty on his head for his suspected involvement in the two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.
December 18: According to Dawn, military sources have indicated that during the first week of October 2004, Rupees 60 million was distributed through the Al Qaeda network to its three key operatives in the Waziristan area. One of the recipients was fugitive tribal militant leader, Abdullah Mehsud, said sources. The cash, mostly in dollars, comes generally from countries in the Middle East and Central Asia and large amounts are distributed among local people to provide refuge to foreign militants. It was found that in one particular case, a Madrassa (seminary) was paid Rs100, 000 for providing shelter to militants for one month.
November 29: Police arrests an alleged Chechen terrorist who had attacked police and other people with a hand-grenade after failing to rob a money-changer in the Qandahri bazaar. "The Chechen national came from Wana along with other companions," Balochistan IGP Chaudhary Yaqoob told Dawn. Abdul Ghafar along with other Chechens had escaped from South Waziristan and taken shelter in Quetta, after the military action in the tribal area
November 23: Two foreign terrorists, hailing from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, are arrested after being overpowered by members of a tribal peace committee in the Makeen area of South Waziristan.
November 10: Spanish police indicate that they had arrested two Pakistanis overnight in Barcelona for alleged membership of an Islamist terrorist group, which they said they had broken up in a September raid in the northeastern city. Spanish judge Ismael Moreno had ordered the operation, which nabbed 10 other Pakistani suspects on September 15. Police did not name either of the latest two suspects, nor their alleged role in the group.
November 9: The influx of foreign militants into Wana is continuing from neighbouring countries, making it difficult for Pakistani security forces to combat terrorism, says Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao.
November 2: Dawn reports that security agencies have arrested two Al Qaeda suspects, including a foreign national, from the Satellite Town area in Quetta. The "suspects include an Iraqi national," sources said, identifying him as Khaled. The nationality of the other suspect could not be ascertained. They were in Quetta in connection with an arms deal, the report added.
November 1: Daily Times, quoting the Spanish newspaper El Pais, reports that the ten Pakistanis arrested in Barcelona in mid-September this year were believed to have funded Al Qaeda operatives by transferring money to Pakistan from Spain. The paper, citing sources close to the investigation, reported that the men had wired money earlier this year to three collaborators of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was suspected of planning the September 11 attacks. The report did not name the collaborators but said that they had been arrested in a raid earlier this year in Pakistan, which had left one of them dead.
October 20: Two foreign Al Qaeda activists, a Yemeni and an Egyptian from Lahore and Peshawar respectively, are arrested. The Yemeni, identified as Saleh Nauman, was arrested in Lahore about 10 days ago while trying to slip out of Pakistan, Daily Times reported quoting an intelligence official.
October 6: Three persons, including an Arab national, are arrested for their alleged links to the Al Qaeda near Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province.
October 3: Two Afghan nationals, identified as Abdur Rashid and Muhammad Rahim, are arrested for their alleged links with the Al Qaeda network from a mosque in the suburbs of Mingora in Peshawar.
October 1: Armed men from the Mehsud tribe, allied to the Government, kill a foreign terrorist and capture another after a brief encounter in the Sarwakai area, according to Dawn. While the deceased was stated to be an unidentified Turkmen, the detained terrorist belongs to Tajikistan and was identified as Muhammad Khalid.
September 30: A Libyan national, identified as Ahmad Abdullah, is arrested from the suburbs of Peshawar for his alleged links with the Al Qaeda. According to The Nation, he has been living in the Matani area since long.
September 28: The News, quoting unnamed western diplomatic sources, said that some valuable ‘Arab targets’ do exist in the Pakistani tribal areas, including Abu Faraj al Libbi, who is believed to be head of the Al Qaeda operations in the country. These sources believe that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had gathered valuable evidence through satellite images and radio equipment that suggested presence of some of the most-wanted men there.
September 27: Al Qaeda is helping Taliban terrorists to disrupt the presidential elections in Afghanistan, says the US Commander of the coalition forces in the country, Lt. Gen. David Barno. Gen. Barno said in the Afghan capital Kabul that most of the network’s operatives were in Pakistan and it was more likely that key figures such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahri were there instead of Afghanistan. Barno also said it would take time to assess whether this year’s Pakistani intelligence breakthroughs against Al Qaeda would lead to bin Laden, Zawahri or Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.
September 22: Nazarkhel Mahsud tribesmen, on voluntary guard duty at night, fire at three men allegedly trying to plant missiles in the Manzarkhel Zhay area, according to The News. One of the men, suspected to be from Uzbekistan, reportedly died and the other two, believed to be local tribesmen, were arrested.
September 20: The senior leadership of Al Qaeda could be hiding in the tribal area near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, says a US military spokesperson. "The borders remain very porous between both countries, is it possible that senior leadership of Al Qaeda is hiding... in Pakistan or Afghanistan," said Major Scott Nelson during a news briefing in Kabul
September 19: An Algerian national identified as Ibrahim alias Ali, was reportedly arrested along with a Pakistani from the Spina Warai village near Peshawar.
September 15: The Spanish police arrest 10 Pakistanis suspected of involvement in Islamic extremism during an operation in the northeastern region of Catalonia, reported AFP. Judicial sources in Madrid said the suspects were arrested ‘for Islamic terrorism’ and said all were of Pakistani origin. A police spokesperson said the Pakistani suspects "could have financed radical organisations outside Spain’s borders." Five of the Pakistanis were detained in the northern Barcelona district of Trinitat Vella and five more in the central ‘Barrio chino’ or Chinese district, where there is a concentration of Pakistanis. Foreign Office spokesperson Masood Khan said in Islamabad that those arrested by the Spanish police also included some Pakistani citizens.
September 13: Cambodian police arrested four men believed to be of Pakistani origin over the weekend in connection with terrorist activities, a Government spokesman confirmed on September 13. Government spokesperson Khieu Kanharith told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) that Cambodian police had arrested four men, but refused to confirm Radio Free Asia reports that they were of Pakistani origin.
September 9: At least 50 terrorists, including some Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs, are reported to have been killed and 120 others were wounded during an aerial raid on their training camp at Bad Awaz Garang in the Kaikhel area of South Waziristan.
September 7: An Al Qaeda-linked Saudi terrorist, identified as Abdullah, is arrested from a house at Shakas village in the Jamrud district, about 25 kilometers west of Peshawar. According to Dawn, he had lived in the area for many years and that he had been arrested once before, in the late 1990s.
September 1: The security agencies are reported to have arrested two foreigners, including a man believed to be a senior Al Qaeda operative, during a raid in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, said official sources. The suspects, an Egyptian identified as Sharif Al Misri and Saudi national Abdul Hakeem, were arrested on August 29 from the Ghausabad area of Quetta.
August 30: Two Arabs were reportedly arrested from the Hayatabad area in Peshawar on suspicion of being Al Qaeda operatives.
August 28: Daily Times reported that a Pakistani national and a US citizen were arrested over an alleged plot to blow up a subway station in New York. City police commissioner Raymond Kelly said that "it is clear they had the intention to cause damage and kill people". But he said there was no immediate evidence that they were connected to Al Qaeda or any international terrorist groups.
August 26: Sajjad Nasser, a Pakistani national accused of attending a terrorist training camp, is deported from the United States to Pakistan. Nasser was deported under a section of the Patriot Act that expands the legal definitions of terrorist organizations and acts, said Corina Almeida, chief counsel for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Nasser was arrested in March 2003 on charges of conspiring to harbour an illegal resident. Immigration authorities accused him of attending a training camp run by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed.
August 24: Four Uzbek nationals were arrested for alleged terrorist links during a raid in South Waziristan, said Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat.
August 23: Security forces are reported to have killed four Uzbek terrorists during an encounter in the Miranshah area of North Waziristan.
Separately, seven Afghan nationals were arrested for their alleged links to the Al Qaeda in Malakwal on the same day.
August 22: President Pervez Musharraf discloses that a Libyan Al Qaeda suspect masterminded the two assassination attempts on him during December 2003. He is "the mastermind behind the two plots," Gen. Musharraf said this in an interview to the Time magazine, to be published on Aug 30.
August 20: An Uzbek terrorist and a member of the Zalikhel sub-tribe were reportedly killed during the ongoing clashes between terrorists and troops in the Santoi and Mantoi mountains of South Waziristan.
August 19: Two foreign nationals allegedly linked to the Al Qaeda were arrested after a brief encounter with the security force personnel in the Hayatabad township of Peshawar. While one of the suspects was identified as Mohammad Fauzi, an Algerian national, the other is reportedly an Iraqi national.
August 17: Security agencies in Lahore have reportedly arrested two more Al Qaeda suspects for their alleged involvement in a suicide attack on Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz. Muhammad Shafiq is suspected to be Taliban chief Mulla Mohammed Omar’s close aide while Abu Hamza is an Al Qaeda operative from Myanmar.
August 11: Four Turkish nationals are reported to have been arrested from Lahore over the weekend for suspected links to the Al Qaeda. While their identities were not officially disclosed, The Nation reported that two of them were ‘diehard’ operatives of Al Qaeda and fought with the Taliban against US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
A Pakistani man, arrested from Long Island in New York, has reportedly admitted to smuggling money, night vision goggles and other military gear to a senior Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a report in the New York Times said on August 11. Mohammed Junaid Babar allegedly made the confessions to the Federal District Court in Manhattan on June 3, 2004. He pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, according to a transcript of the court proceedings made public on August 10, the report said.
August 9: Two top Al Qaeda suspects have reportedly been arrested from Karachi and Peshawar on August 9. Mohsin, a Pakistani national who is allegedly linked to the assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf, was arrested from Karachi, an unnamed official was quoted as saying in an AFP report. The Uzbek national, identified as Mansoor, was arrested in Peshawar.
Security agencies in Lahore are reported to have arrested three foreigners for their alleged links to the Al Qaeda. According to Dawn, they were arrested during separate raids at a seminary and a rented house in the city. Two of the foreigners are said to be of Turkish origin and the third from an unnamed African country. However, Lahore police chief Tariq Saleem said "Neither any such raid nor is any arrest in our knowledge."
August 8: According to Daily Times, a senior Al Qaeda operative, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, leader of Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islami (HuJI), has been arrested in Dubai and handed over to Islamabad. Qari was linked to two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf and has been described by one source as "an operational head of al-Qaeda in Pakistan". He was reportedly with Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar in Afghanistan at the time of the US-led war against the Taliban late in 2001 and fled first to Saudi Arabia and subsequently to United Arab Emirates.
August 5: Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said in Islamabad that security agencies have arrested 20 suspected terrorists, including Al Qaeda operatives, during the last three weeks. While indicating that some high-value Al Qaeda targets were among those detained, he refused to disclose the identities of these persons.
August 3: Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat disclosed in Islamabad that two more "high value" Al Qaeda terrorists of African origin were arrested from Punjab. "The head money on these terrorists was also in millions of dollars," he said while addressing a press conference. He also said that the latest arrests were based on information secured from the interrogation of Tanzanian Al Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, arrested earlier from Gujarat.
According to Daily Times, a police constable in Punjab Chief Minister Choudhury Pervaiz Elahi’s security squad has been arrested for allegedly passing on information to Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits on the movement of important persons.
July 31: A group claiming to be linked to the Al Qaeda network said that it had tried to assassinate Pakistan’s Prime Minister-designate Shaukat Aziz and warned of more attacks against 'pro-US' officials. The Islambouli Brigades did not name Shaukat Aziz in the statement posted on an Islamist website, but said it had targeted one of the men of the "American infidel in Pakistan". Lt Khaled Islambouli was the leader of the group of soldiers, who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during a military parade in Cairo in 1981.
July 29: Pakistan disclosed that it had arrested a senior Al Qaeda terrorist wanted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people. Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat identified the man as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and said he was a Tanzanian national carrying a head money of $25 million. The Minister stated Ghailani was one of the 12 persons arrested on July 27 when security forces raided a suspected terrorist hideout in the city of Gujarat, about 175 km southeast of the capital Islamabad.
July 25: Security forces arrested 13 suspected terrorists, including four foreigners and some members of their families, from a house in Gujrat after a 14-hour gunfight that left at least one police personnel wounded. However, there was no official confirmation on the nationalities of the foreigners and if the arrested men belonged to the Al Qaeda network. "Yes, (I can only confirm that) they are terrorists," Punjab Law Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja told Dawn. Referring to their nationalities, he said: "At this moment I can only say that they are foreigners."
July 16: At least twenty-four Al Qaeda-trained terrorists are still hiding in Karachi, said a top police official, Tariq Jamil, on July 16. They plot attacks while subsidiary cells provide cover in Karachi city, Jamil was quoted as saying in Daily Times, adding that the 24 were the top of a three-tier operational hierarchy. "The second tier provides logistic support and pinpoints potential targets while the third tier is made up of extremely motivated executioners," he said. The official also said the cells operated in small groups and had no central command structure. Security agencies are reportedly unable to ascertain the strength of the second and third tiers.
July 12: The Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview that terrorists trained in Pakistan were crossing over into his country, adding that his regime was raising this issue with Islamabad on a "daily basis". Karzai told New York Times that he was concerned about the training in Pakistan of terrorists, who then cross over and carry out attacks in Afghanistan.
July 9: Cyprus is reported to have deported ten Pakistanis for suspected terrorist links. According to Daily Times, ten Pakistani students were deported after being detained by Cyprus police on suspicion of belonging to the Al Qaeda network. One of the suspects, reportedly trained in avionic engineering, had arrived in Cyprus to pursue a course in Hotel Management. "I can’t tell you whether they are members of al-Qaeda, we are not sure of that, but it is certain that they fit the profile of terror suspects," an unnamed Cypriot security source told Reuters. The men, who were enrolled at a private Cypriot college in the holiday resort of Larnaca, were arrested on July 7.
July 1: An Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) in Karachi on July 1 indicted nine activists of the proscribed Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Al-alami (HuMA) for their involvement in the Macedonian consulate bomb blast case. According to prosecution, the accused killed three persons on December 5, 2002, in premises of the Macedonian consulate in Karachi and later blasted the office with explosives. The Macedonian police on May 1, 2004, had acknowledged that the killing of Pakistanis was staged to win United States’ support and that the victims were innocent illegal immigrants.
June 30: According to Daily Times, the Special Investigation Group (SIG) of the police in Islamabad conducted a raid on a house at Mullaha Rajagan on June 30 and arrested three Iraqi nationals and later recovered some weapons, explosive material and building maps. SIG sources were quoted as saying that certain Iraqi nationals had been planning terrorist activities in Pakistan.
June 29: Taliban-led terrorists are still launching operations against American and other forces from safe havens in Pakistan, said US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad. While stating that a Pakistani military operation in South Waziristan during this month in which at least 100 foreign terrorists and allied tribesmen were killed "really has disrupted" Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives there, he added there were other areas of Pakistan from which Taliban crossed into Afghanistan. "In that regard, there hasn’t been any change. They’ve dealt with part of the problem, but the problem is obviously larger than that," said the Ambassador.
June 27: According to Daily Times, security forces in South Waziristan arrested an important Al Qaeda ‘commander’ and his two associates. Muhammad Nazir and his two aides were arrested at Zalai check-post when they were coming from Angoor Ada to Wana.
June 25: Security agencies in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) are reported to have arrested a Saudi national and a Pakistani in Chitral, some 230 kilometers north of Peshawar, for suspected terrorist links. The arrested Saudi national, identified as Abdur Rehman, according to Daily Times, has not yet been confirmed as an Al Qaeda operative. The two were arrested from the Bamborete area in Kalash, close to the Afghan border.
June 24: According to The News, two suspected Al Qaeda operatives, identified as Abdur Rahman alias Abu Obaida and Suleman Tahir, were arrested in Chitral.
June 16: A US court sentences three persons for conspiring to aid the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Federal Judge Leonie M Brinkema imposed life imprisonment on Masood Khan, an 85-year term on Seifullah Chapman and a 97-month sentence for Abdur Raheem. All three were members of the 'Virginia jihad network'. Judge Brinkema said she was bound by federal sentencing guidelines that imposed mandatory multi-year terms on Chapman and Khan for weapons counts, but she found them "appalling" and urged the prosecutor to request reductions. US Attorney Paul J McNulty, in a statement, said the sentences "are appropriate and reflect the seriousness of the offences." The 11 defendants in the case, most of them reportedly hailing from the Washington suburbs, were indicted in June 2003 on weapons counts and charges of training with the LeT. Khan and another defendant were also charged with conspiring to provide material support to the Al Qaeda and Taliban.
June 15: According to The News, security forces’ killed a suspected Chechen terrorist during an encounter at Jandola check post in South Waziristan. The Chechen was killed and four persons were arrested after an encounter that ensued after troops checked them at Jandola post.
Muhamad Syaifudin, an Indonesian student charged with involvement in terrorist activity, claimed on June 15 that he met Osama bin Laden in Karachi before the September 11 attacks, reported The News. Syaifudin was one of the six students deported from Pakistan in December 2003 due to their alleged links with the South-East Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah. "I and my friends had a meeting with Osama bin Laden at Al Farouq mosque in Karachi. The meeting was before the September 11 incident," Syaifudin told reporters before the start of his trial at the Central Jakarta District court.
June 13: According to Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat, security forces have arrested a nephew of a top Al Qaeda operative and several other foreigners blamed for a series of attacks including the June 10-assassination attempt on the Karachi Corps Commander. They were arrested over the weekend during separate raids in Karachi, said Faisal, adding "They have confessed to a key role in the attack. They have a direct link to al-Qaeda." The Al Qaeda operative, identified as Musabir Urumchi, is reported to be the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and had a $1 million reward on his head, said the Minister.
June 12: The Hindu reports that Lashkar-e-Toiba has set up a full-blown unit in Pakistan for suicide squad operations against Western forces in Iraq. Up to 2,000 men, mainly between the ages of 18 and 25, are believed to have signed up for the armed operations in Iraq. Most Lashkar suicide squad volunteers come from the ranks of seminary students at Muridke in the Pakistani province of Punjab, which is the LeT's overground political patron organisation, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa's main centre. However, some have also been raised from the Binori Town seminary in Karachi, which used to be run by the fundamentalist cleric, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, until he was assassinated.
June 6: Security forces are reported to have arrested a Russian national from a tribal region, bordering Afghanistan, for his alleged links to the Al Qaeda. The 23-year-old Caucasian, who claimed to hail from a village near Moscow, was arrested at a military checkpoint outside Miranshah. According to The News, he was carrying a fake Pakistani identification card and during interrogation said that he had lived in the tribal region for the past four years.
June 3: A suspected Uzbek operative of the Al Qaeda and a soldier of Shawal Scouts were killed in a suspected suicide attack, while two soldiers sustained injuries at a check-post in the North Waziristan agency, close to the Afghanistan border.
May 28: A Sri Lankan businessman accused of brokering clandestine deals in nuclear technology was reportedly arrested in Malaysia. Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, who allegedly worked with Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to sell nuclear secrets to "rogue states", was detained for threatening Malaysia’s national security, unnamed officials told The Associated Press.
Some terrorists from the Chinese province of Xinjiang are hiding in Lahore and Rawalpindi, Chinese Deputy Director of Public Security, Ma Mingyue, said in Urumqi on May 28. Talking to a group of visiting journalists from Pakistan, Mingyue claimed that members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) have mixed up with the Chinese community in the two Pakistani cities, according to Daily Times.
May 27: According to Daily Times, the US-educated Pakistani woman who is among seven "dangerous" Al Qaeda suspects identified on May 26 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was already in the custody of US intelligence agencies for the last one year. Aafia Siddiqui, reportedly an award-winning Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student, according to intelligence sources had come to Pakistan in January 2003 and stayed with her friend in Islamabad for a few days and later went to Karachi to see her mother. Immediately after landing at Karachi airport she was detained by intelligence personnel and later handed over to the FBI.
May 26: A Pakistani woman with a doctorate in neurological science is reportedly among the seven "dangerous" Al Qaeda suspects identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as planners of new terrorist attacks on the United States. Like the other suspects, the 32-year old Aafia Siddiqui, once an award-winning Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student, has the ability to "undertake planning, facilitation and attack against the United States whether it be within the United States itself or overseas," FBI director Robert Mueller told a news conference in Washington. She is the only woman among the seven named on May 26 and whose photographs were posted on the FBI website, according to AFP.
May 25: Said Tayeb Jawad, Afghan Ambassador to the United States, reportedly said in Washington that the search for Osama bin Laden should be centred in Karachi or Quetta as the chances of his being found in an isolated area were negligible.
May 19: Security agencies in Peshawar are reported to have arrested five Al Qaeda suspects who had allegedly escaped during the Pakistan Army operation in the South Waziristan tribal area. According to Dawn, two Arab nationals, two ethnic Uzbeks and an Afghan were arrested during a raid in the Sultan Colony area.
May 18: Authorities in NWFP, according to The News, are pursuing the widow of an Uzbek Islamist terrorist after an intelligence report suggested that she was training women suicide bombers. The intelligence report indicated that Aziza, widow of Obaidullah, who was a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, would launch attacks in Pakistan in May.
May 11: In a video posted on an Islamist militant website showing the beheading of an American civilian in Iraq, an Al Qaeda-affiliated group said it is ‘ready to take on Pakistani soldiers on the borders with Afghanistan’, according to reports in The Associated Press. In the video, titled ‘Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American’, a masked man reads a statement with a message for President Pervez Musharraf. "Another message to the agent traitor Pervez Musharraf, we tell you that we are eager to meet your soldiers. By God, we seek them before the Americans and we will avenge the blood of our brothers in Wana and others," the masked man said.
May 4: According to Dawn, a group of alleged terrorists arrested in Turkey on suspicion of planning an attack on a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting were trained in Pakistan and were planning to carry out a suicide mission against US President George W. Bush. Turkish press reports said that the suspects were allegedly in possession of Turkish-subtitled video cassettes attributed to Osama bin Laden calling for a Jehad against America. They were allegedly planning to bomb the NATO Summit scheduled for June 28 and 29 in Istanbul where Bush and other world leaders will attend, according to police sources quoted by the papers. The suspects were arrested in the northwestern city of Bursa, though no dates were disclosed. The Hurriyet and Vatan newspapers said that several suspects underwent physical and psychological training in Pakistan to prepare them to carry out a suicide attack.
April 29: Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov said in Tashkent that terrorists responsible for the coordinated series of attacks during March 2004 that killed at least 47 people were based in Pakistan along that country’s border with Afghanistan. "The main base where the terrorists found refuge is South Waziristan," Karimov told a press conference. Suspects detained after a series of suicide bombings, explosions and assaults in the capital Tashkent and the central region of Bukhara had confessed that they had been in South Waziristan and that they had links to people operating there, said the President.
April 23: A suspected Pakistani terrorist, arrested in Australia, was reportedly plotting to black out the nation’s largest city Sydney with a bomb attack on power supplies. Faheem Khalid Lodhi, arrested on April 22, planned to use a home-made bomb made of ammonium nitrate fertiliser to attack the electricity grid and was ordering the required chemicals under bogus company names. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Lodhi hoped to disable the grid in Sydney, creating a blackout that would cause chaos in the city of four million people. Lodhi is the second member of a suspected terrorist cell arrested in a week after 21-year-old Pakistani-born medical student Izhar-ul-Haq. Both Lodhi and Haq were arrested as a result of investigations into terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte, a French national who was deported from Australia late last year, and is being detained by authorities in France who believe that he was setting up a terrorist cell in Sydney. Both Brigitte and Haq allegedly have links to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which was designated as a terrorist organisation in Australia during November 2003.
April 18: US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in Kabul that Al Qaeda, Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami elements were still in Pakistan and blamed them of cross-border terrorist activities. According to Khalilzad, "These elements attack the American forces, the Afghan forces and the NGOs working in Afghanistan… But it will not be good for Pakistan to become sanctuary for these people to plan, get training and come to Afghanistan with weapons." The envoy alleged that Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists were in the Baluchistan area around Quetta while individuals were also in cities like Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar.
March 30: Police in London arrested eight Muslims believed to be of Pakistani origin along with a cache of explosives during raids on March 30. The eight men, all British citizens, were detained under the Terrorism Act 2000 for suspected involvement in planning a terrorist attack, said Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch.
March 25: Daily Times reported that 163 terrorists had been arrested thus far in the ongoing military operations in Waziristan Agency. Interior Minister Hayat said that Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens were among the foreign terrorists detained.
March 22: According to Dawn, the Polish police said that they had arrested two Pakistanis and a Ukrainian amid fears of a terrorist attack. "We have arrested two Pakistanis and one Ukrainian," police spokesperson Pawel Chojecki told AFP.
March 21: Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, said in Kabul that the Taliban are still plotting attacks on Afghan and US targets from safe havens in Pakistan. "We know several key Taliban figures are there and there is some sense that some of the remaining Al Qaeda leaders are in the border area on the other side," said Khalizad.
March 20: Security forces have reportedly arrested at least 100 "foreign" terrorists and the local Pashtuns sheltering them in the Waziristan agency on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the ongoing offensive in search of Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects. Unconfirmed reports indicated that dozens of Al Qaeda suspects and their supporters were killed during the operations. "Over 100 people have been arrested including a certain number of foreigners," Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Safdar Hussain told reporters in Wana.
March 15: President Pervez Musharraf said in Peshawar that the masterminds behind terrorist attacks in the country and the suicide attempts on his life were hiding in the tribal belt along the Afghanistan border. "We have busted a complete network and found leads that a Libyan national was involved in the suicide attempts on my life. He has not been arrested so far and we also still don’t know who ordered the attacks," said the President. He also said that Pakistanis were being recruited, trained in terrorism and offered millions of rupees by these elements to carry out suicide missions. According to Musharraf, "We have information that 500 to 600 foreign nationals were staying in our country, especially in South Waziristan."
March 4: Three American Muslims belonging to what the US Government calls a "Virginia jihad" were convicted of conspiracy to wage war on America and provide material support to the Taliban, charges that carry possible life imprisonment. US Attorney General John Ashcroft said in Washington that the convictions were handed down against Masoud Khan, Abdur Raheem and Seifulla Chapman in US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, by Judge Leonie Brinkema. "The defendants convicted today were associates of Lashkar-e-Taiba," said Ashcroft.
March 1: Security agencies in Peshawar are reported to have arrested eight Al Qaeda suspects over the past two days. While two suspects were arrested from Zangali Police Checkpost in the Badabeer area after a brief encounter, at least six more, including three Algerians and three Afghans, were arrested at the Kacha Ghari refugee camp.
February 28: According to Nation, the United States has handed over to Pakistan a list of 53 Al Qaeda suspects believed to be hiding in South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan. "The Bush administration has extended a list to Pakistani authorities which contain the names of 53 al-Qaeda suspects who, it said, have taken refuge in South Waziristan Agency. This US contention is based on intelligence reports gathered from Afghanistan that these suspected terrorists have sneaked into the Pakistani side a couple of months ago," the report indicated.
February 25: Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said in Lahore that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman-al-Zawahri were in Afghanistan or in the area of Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
February 24: Pakistani security agencies launched an operation against suspected terrorists taking shelter in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. At least 20 Al Qaeda suspects, including some foreign nationals, are reported to have been arrested during these raids. Director General of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj. Gen Shaukat Sultan said that foreign nationals were among those captured in the Azam Warsak and Shkai areas.
Benazir Bhutto claimed in London on February 24 that she was approached several times when she was Pakistani Prime Minister by military officials and scientists seeking permission to export nuclear technology, but she had turned down their requests. In an interview to the Financial Times, Bhutto said she and senior military officers had agreed to bar the export of nuclear technology in December 1988.
February 18: Zalmay Khalizad, US Special Envoy to Afghanistan, has reportedly charged that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Gulbuddin Hikmatyar’s supporters keep "coming across from Pakistan" into Afghanistan. He was speaking by a satellite phone from Kabul to a conference on Afghanistan organised by the US Institute for Peace.
February 13: Three Al Qaeda suspects were arrested consequent to a shootout in the Jamrud tribal area near the Afghan border, in which three persons were injured. The arrests come after security agencies captured an equal number of suspects, including two Arabs, on February 12. During the shootout, an Arab suspect was injured when he attempted to blow himself up with a grenade, said local official Riaz Khan. He added that the arrests were made at the house of a tribesman, identified as Mohammad Amin, who was also among those arrested.
February 11: During a testimony before the House International Relations Committee, on President’s Budget Request for 2005, US Secretary of State Colin Powell indicated that Pakistan has arrested more than 500 Al Qaeda terrorists and members of the Taliban militia through support from President Musharraf, stronger border security measures and law-enforcement co-operation.
February 10: The Washington Times reported that the Al Qaeda is training hundreds of Islamist radicals in Pakistan and Kashmir to send them to "sleeper cells" in the US. Quoting unnamed American and foreign officials, the report said that at least 400 radicals have been trained or are in training in special camps, and many have already been routed through Europe to Muslim communities in US. US intelligence officials were quoted as saying that the camps operate in remote regions of western Pakistan and in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and are financed by various terrorist networks, including the Al Qaeda and sources in Saudi Arabia. Training camps in PoK were reportedly being operated by the Harkat-ul-Ansar and Lashkar-e-Toiba.
January 27: According to Dawn, a close aide to the Taliban leader, Mulla Mohammad Omar, was arrested in Chaman, a town near the Afghan border. Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said that the man arrested near the border town of Chaman, some 470km southwest of Islamabad, was Abdul Mannan Khawajazai, a former provincial governor during Taliban rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
January 22: Intelligence agencies arrested Al Qaeda operative, Ibad Al Yaquti Al Sheikh Al Sufiyan, at Rabia City apartments in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Karachi. Two satellite phones, one mobile phone, one laptop computer and two passports were recovered from Al Yaquti’s possession. Al Yaquti is a resident of Dammam in Saudi Arabia.
January 21: According to the Daily Times, members of the intelligence agencies raided a flat in a residential project in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar and arrested Walid bin Azmi, an Al Qaeda operative. Azmi is believed to be one of the four suspects involved in the bombing of US navy ship USS Cole on October 12, 2000.
January 18: Police arrested seven people in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar area on suspicion that they were linked to Al Qaeda or another terrorist organisation, the Daily Times reported. The arrested persons include two Egyptians, three Afghans and two women along with three children. The report added that the police recovered 11 hand grenades, four handguns, ammunition and maps of Afghanistan and Pakistan from the possession of the arrested persons.2003
December 17: A Pakistani national, who received training to join the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, has reportedly been sentenced in the United States to 10 years and six months in prison. Mohammad Aatique, was the first to be sentenced among a group of 11 people indicted in Pennsylvania and Virginia in July 2003 for training with assault rifles. Aatique had entered into a plea bargain with the prosecution under which he pleaded guilty of going to Pakistan after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to train with the LeT. A US Federal Court in Pennsylvania on December 17 sentenced Aatique to the mandatory 10 years for firearms violations and six months for conspiring to violate the US Neutrality Act. Among the remaining suspects, three have pleaded guilty to weapons charges and the trial is expected to commence in February 2004.
December 10: After the recent suicide attacks in Turkey, the United States has asked the Government of Pakistan to add names of 15 more people to the consolidated list of people and entities belonging to Taliban and al-Qaeda, Dawn has learnt. The source said the government had been provided with the list endorsed by the United Nations and asked to freeze the assets of the people included in it, seal their offices and prevent their entry or transit. The 15 people to be added in the list are Al-Ayashi Radiabdul Al-Sami (Egypt), Cabullah (Somalia), Hamid M Tahir (Iraq), Mustafa Muhammad Amin (Iraq), M Daki (Morocco), Al-Sadi Furgh Hassan (Libya), Sadi Nasir (Tunisia), Ben Abdul Hakim (Tunisia), Reham Lutfi (Tunisia), Bouyahia Hamadi (Morocco), Rown lazher Bin Khalifa Bin Ahmed (Tunisia), Zarkavi Imed Bin Maki (Tunisia), Murad Trablsi (Tunisia), Kamal Bin Mauldi (Tunisia) and Nauriddi Drissi (Tunisia).
November 29: Afghan President Hamid Karzai claimed that Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar was seen at Quetta in Pakistan last week. Karzai told London-based The Times that he had received information that Mullah Omar was spotted praying in a mosque in Quetta. Karzai also said that Quetta was a stronghold for Islamist extremists opposing the coalition forces in Afghanistan.
November 20: According to The Turkish Daily News, Turkish police have indicated that three of the four suicide bombers who carried out the November 15, 2003, blasts at two synagogues had received training in Pakistan during the nineteen nineties. The report said that the police found pieces of a Pakistani passport suspected to belong to one of the attackers. At least 23 persons were killed in the attacks.
November 14: Abdul Qadir, a close associate of the Taliban chief Mullah Omar, is arrested from his residence at the University Town area in Peshawar.
November 7: Australian Parliament passes a bill to outlaw the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba. The move to designate LeT as a terrorist outfit came after allegations that a French terror suspect deported to Paris in October 2003 had trained with the group.
November 3: Two suspected Uzbek terrorists are killed during an encounter with Pakistani troops in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan Agency.
October 25: Security agencies arrest two Yemenis and a Pakistani from Faisalabad for suspected links to the Al Qaeda network.
October 16: The United States designates Pakistan-based Indian Mafia don Dawood Ibrahim as a global terrorist having links with the Al Qaeda and financing activities of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorist groups.
October 14: Karachi-based Al Akhtar Trust is designated as a Global Terrorist entity by the US Treasury.
October 8: US Federal prosecutors formally charge a Pakistani national with providing material support to the Al Qaeda, more than six months after his arrest in New York City.
October 2: At least 12 Al Qaeda terrorists are killed and 18 others arrested during an operation launched by the Pakistan Army in the remote South Waziristan Agency (SWA), close to the Afghanistan border. Two Pakistani soldiers were also reportedly killed and two others injured during the encounter.
September 22: Media reports indicate that Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan, younger brother of Hambali, chief of the Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyyah, was arrested from the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area in Karachi a month back.
September 20: Security agencies reportedly raid two Madrassas (seminaries) in Karachi on and arrest 16 foreigners for suspected links to various extremist groups. The raids occurred at the Jamia Abi Bakar and Madrasa Dar-ul-Islam seminaries in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area of Karachi. Among those arrested were 13 Malaysian, two Indonesian and a Burmese.
September 15: Declassified US intelligence documents reportedly reveal that Pakistan helped Al Qaeda terrorists launch their operations in Afghanistan in the 1990s and also clandestinely ran a major training camp used by Osama Bin Laden's network.
September 12: Islamist separatists in China's Muslim northwest are securing assistance from international terrorists, including instruction in "several training camps in Pakistan," claims Wang Lequan, the region's Communist Party secretary.
August 8: US authorities charge Uzair Paracha, a Pakistani national, with conspiring to provide financial and other assistance to the Al Qaeda.
July 15: Suspected Al Qaeda terrorist, Adil Al-Jazeeri, arrested in June 2003, is handed over to American authorities in Peshawar.
July 4: Security agencies raid a village in the coastal area of Ghorabari in the Thatta district and arrest six persons, including the head of a Madrassa (seminary) and a woman, on suspicion of their links with the Al Qaeda. A wireless set, sensitive maps of the coastal area and sea routes, a rifle and two life jackets were recovered from the incident site.
June 27: Eight persons, accused of planning terrorist acts in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, are arrested during a series of raids around the US Federal Capital of Washington, the US Justice Department said in a statement. Three other persons, reportedly living in Saudi Arabia, were also named in a 42-count Justice Department indictment. Initial appearances are to commence in the US Federal Court in Alexandria, Virginia, before Judge Rawles Jones, said US Attorney Paul McNulty. The accused have been indicted on conspiracy, firearms and other charges for alleged roles in a conspiracy to train and participate in Jehad in Kashmir in support of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). They have also been accused of conspiring to prepare for and engage in Jehad in Chechnya, the Philippines and other countries. The group reportedly obtained AK-47 rifles and practiced small-unit military tactics in Virginia using paintball weapons and items to simulate actual combat in preparation for Jehad, said the Justice Department.
The indictment said that some of the defendants traveled to Pakistan and trained with the LeT, listed by the US among terrorist organisations. The suspects were arrested in the States of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, an unnamed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official said adding they were named as Randall Todd Royer; Yemeni national Ibrahim Ahmad al-Hamdi; Masood Ahmad Khan; naturalized US citizen Yong Ki Kwon; Pakistani national Muhammad Aatiq; Hammad Abdur-Raheem; Donald Thomas Surratt; and Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur Raheem. Three others - Khwaja Mahmood Hasan, a Pakistani-born US citizen; Sabri Benkhala; and Seifullah Chapman - are believed to be in Saudi Arabia.
June 17: Security agencies arrest an Arab national along with three Afghans suspected of having links with the Al Qaeda from Peshawar. Official sources were quoted as saying in reports that Adil al-Jazeeri, an Algerian national, was arrested from Peshawar's Hayatabad locality along with three others. "He is a big catch. He is known among the Arabs for his close links with al-Qaeda," said an unnamed official. Adil al-Jazeeri is reportedly on the US list of wanted Arab nationals believed to be close associates of bin Laden.
June 5: Michael Evanoff, Regional Security Officer of the US Embassy in Islamabad told the Christian Science Monitor that, "This [Pakistan] is now the epicentre of terrorism. It really is. This is the only country I know in the world that has so many groups that are against the US or Western ideals. Last year alone, these groups pulled off seven strikes against the US community here, including a March church bombing in Islamabad that killed five - among them an American woman from the embassy and her daughter - and a June truck bomb at the Karachi consulate that killed 14 Pakistanis."
June 1: Daily Times reports that Pakistan’s security agencies are hunting for an Afghan national Hamdullah, popularly known as Mufti Inaam, who was the head of the intelligence agency under the erstwhile Taliban regime and has close contacts with bin Laden. Mufti Inaam reportedly distanced himself from the government shortly after the 9/11 attacks and consequent to the US military campaign in Afghanistan, he crossed the border and hid in the northwestern region of Pakistan. He is suspected to have remained underground in Peshawar for quite some time and also helped many of his friends and colleagues in Afghanistan enter Pakistan through safe routes before the fall of Kandahar. He is also believed to have assisted many Arab families migrate to Pakistan and arranged their safe settlements in various parts of the country. In Pakistan, Mufti Inaam remained in contact with certain terrorist groups and Al Qaeda operatives for many months.
May 27: Security agencies arrest a suspected Afghan Al Qaeda operative during a raid in the northwestern tribal territory bordering Afghanistan. The suspect, identified as Abdullah, was apprehended in a pre-dawn raid in Shahkas village near the border town of Jamrud, 25 km west of Peshawar, an unnamed official was quoted as saying in a media report.
May 15: Three suspected Al Qaeda operatives, including an Arab, are arrested in Karachi. The foreign national, identified as Iffan-ul-Hassham, was detained during an overnight raid at a hideout on the outskirts of Karachi during which a laptop computer and a satellite phone were seized. Two more men, both Pakistanis, were later detained based on information provided by Hassham.
May 11: Police in Peshawar unearth a passport-selling racket that was supplying stolen Pakistani passports to Al Qaeda suspects. An unspecified number of arrests were made on May 11 in Peshawar, said Inamullah Khan Gandapur, an Assistant Director with the Federal Investigations Agency, which polices immigration. "We had seen information that these people were involved in providing Pakistani passports to al-Qaeda suspects," Gandapur said. Police seized 100 blank Pakistani passports, which were earlier stolen from a government office in Swat.
May 8: Taliban sources in Pakistan and Afghan intelligence sources indicate that the Taliban currently has a recognizable hierarchy of leaders - some operating from Afghanistan and some from the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). In Pakistan, Taliban commanders are reportedly working in alliance with like-minded leaders of Islamist extremist parties who now control two provinces along the Afghan-Pakistan border. In the NWFP, Qari Akhtar is the chief operations commander; in the Tor Ghar mountains near the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak, Mullah Mohammad Ibrahim is the Taliban's top leader. Shahzada Zulfikar, a Quetta-based political analyst, says that Taliban commanders continue to receive support from Pakistan's intelligence agencies, as they did more openly during the Taliban government. "The Taliban were and are still friends of Pakistan," says Zulfikar. "Pakistan ditched the Taliban due to American pressure, for a while, but now there are fears that their relationship might be restored due to the increasing presence of Indians in Afghanistan."
Taliban activists in Pakistan and Afghanistan claim that they are receiving direct assistance from Pakistan's Islamist parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam. "We are at home as we were before (President) Musharraf hatched a conspiracy against us at the behest of the Americans," says Mir Jan, a Taliban fighter in Quetta. "But our brothers [the mullahs] are in power, so it means we are in power."
May 9: Security agencies in Karachi arrest two suspected members of the Taliban militia, including a close associate of the ousted regime's former Ambassador to Pakistan, during a raid. The authorities also seized a satellite phone, a sub-machinegun and an unspecified amount of foreign currency from their possession.
May 3: Police in Karachi arrest two Egyptian Al Qaeda suspects from Surjani Town and seized three AK-47 assault rifles, two TT pistols, two satellite phones, some transmitters and refined explosives from their possession. The two suspects, Abdul Khaliq Muhammad and Abi Abdullah, were reportedly planning to attack the US marines at Shahbaz airbase in Jacobabad, Miran Shah Airport and other sensitive installations in Gwadar.
May 2: Pakistani authorities handed over three Arab Al Qaeda suspects, including prime suspect in the October 2000-USS Cole bombing, Waleed Muhammad Bin Attash alias Khalid Al-Attash, to the US officials. Although the government did not officially confirm the extradition, an unnamed official was quoted as saying that "the foreigners including Al-Attash are not in our custody. They were handed over to the Americans." Bin Attash is a nephew of front ranking Al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who was arrested on March 1, 2003, from Rawalpindi. Official sources claimed that Al-Attash and other suspects were not wanted by Pakistan in any criminal case and they were handed over to the US owing to the fact that the suspects were reportedly involved in terrorist acts aimed at the US establishments.
May 1: President Pervez Musharraf said in Islamabad that there were indications that Osama bin Laden was alive, and may be hiding in the tribal territory on the Pakistani-Afghan border. In an interview to a private television channel he said, "some indications are there that he is not dead but where is he? Nothing can be said about that… If they are in a small group, two, four, eight or 10 people, then they can hide in this side, our side of the tribal area, or hide on the Afghan side. I cannot say with surety."
April 30: Eleven Al Qaeda suspects, including three Arabs, were arrested from different parts of Karachi. Police also seized a large cache of arms, ammunition and explosives from their possession. An unnamed official was quoted as saying that the arrested men were reportedly planning to attack the US Consulate, American establishments and government installations. An Interior Ministry statement issued from Islamabad said "six suspects have been arrested which include Waleed Muhammad Bin Attash alias Khalid Al-Attash, a Yemeni national, who is suspected to be involved in the US Ship Cole incident." According to the statement, some 200 detonators, one wrist watch timer switch, five touch switches, capacitors of various types, 20 diodes, 46 transmitters, 20 variable controls, Kalashnikovs, hand grenades, pistols, ammunition and a truck load of sulphur, gunpowder and urea bags were recovered.
April 23: Afghanistan has begun submitting lists of wanted "war criminals and terrorists" to Pakistan in an effort to stamp out Taliban and Al Qaeda cadres lurking along the neighbours’ mountainous border, said Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Islamabad. "We are going to come up with a more specific list of names who will be considered criminals of war against the Afghan people. There are people who are definitely terrorists." He named Akhtar Mohammad Usmani, a deputy of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban’s intelligence chief, Mullah Biradar, the militia’s internal security chief and Hafiz Mujeeb, a lower-ranking commander. Many Afghan officials, suspicious of Pakistan for its previous nurturing and support of the Taliban regime, have accused it of allowing sanctuary for fugitive extremists in its remote tribal border regions.
April 18: Ugandan military intelligence chief Colonel Nobel Mayombo was quoted as saying in the Daily Times that "All along even before the US-led war in Iraq, we had intelligence reports that Ugandan terrorist groups were sending their recruits to centres in Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan."
April 16: According to a media report, pamphlets urging Afghan refugees to wage Jehad against US forces and their "hireling" government in Afghanistan have been circulated at camps in northwest Pakistan. Entitled "Declaration by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" (IEA) the leaflets, written in Pushto, were distributed this week at refugee camps in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan. The erstwhile Taliban regime had ruled Afghanistan under the rubric of IEA, headed by Mullah Mohammad Omar. "Ulema, tribal leaders and Mujahideen of IEA call upon you to wage jihad against the hireling government in your motherland. It is your duty to rise...and direct your swords against the infidels and their puppets," said the leaflets.
April 8: Pakistani security agencies arrested a medical practitioner and his son for suspected links to the Al Qaeda network. M Khan Mahmood Ahmed Kathia and his son were reportedly arrested from Banni Qasim area, in Harrapa.
April 7: According to a media report, two Pakistani Al Qaeda suspects were arrested from a village near Sahiwal in Multan. The Interior Ministry, however, claimed it was unaware of the arrests.
April 3: Pakistani security agencies, in association with US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, arrested two suspected Al Qaeda operatives in Peshawar. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the arrested "have been identified as Abdullah and Abdul Karim." Officials in Peshawar were quoted as saying that both came from Middle Eastern countries. They are also allegedly linked to the killing of Sher Nawaz Khan, an officer of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, in March 2003 at Wana, 180 miles south of Peshawar.
March 28: A Pakistani woman, who was on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) list for suspected links to the Al Qaeda, was arrested from the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area in Karachi. According to a media report, Dr Aafia Siddiqui was allegedly working with the 'Chemical Wire Group' of the Al Qaeda. Recently, the FBI had placed the photograph of Aafia Siddiqui at its website stating "Although the FBI has no information indicating this individual is connected to specific terrorist activities, the FBI would like to locate and question this individual." As reported earlier, Aafia having a doctorate degree in neurological sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was living in Boston along with her spouse and three children. She is alleged to have provided logistical support to a Saudi Al Qaeda operative Adnan G El Shukrijumah.
March 27: The Supreme Court of Pakistan held that the country lacks a law declaring Al Qaeda a terrorist organization and, consequently, no one could be detained simply for having links with the organization. The Supreme Court made the observation in a judgment on the Federal Government’s appeal against an earlier Lahore High Court order of releasing three Al Qaeda suspects. "Our security laws and anti-terrorism enactments are silent to the affect that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization, having its network at global level and that it is a furious threat to national/international peace, security and tranquility," said the apex court.
March 18: Two suspected Al Qaeda operatives of Arab origin are arrested from the campus of Peshawar’s main university.
March 17: Six suspected Al Qaeda operatives are arrested in Lahore. Among those arrested were Yasir al Jaziri’s brother-in-law, a Qatari national and at least three Afghans.
March 15: Pakistani authorities arrested a leading Al Qaeda terrorist, Moroccan national Yasir al-Jaziri, in Lahore.
March 9: An Iraqi and two Afghan nationals were arrested in Hyderabad, Sindh province, for suspected Al Qaeda links.
March 1: Three Al Qaeda terrorists, including the suspected mastermind behind 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were arrested in Rawalpindi on March 1.
February 17: Ali Imron, a key suspect in the Bali bombings, reportedly confessed that he spent 18 months at a Madrassa in Peshawar before entering Afghanistan to conduct "jihad."
February 13: An Egyptian national was arrested from the Wahadat colony in Quetta on charges of having links with the Al Qaeda network.
January 17: Two Tajik and two Arab operatives of the Al Qaeda are arrested in Karachi.
January 12: A ‘military commander’ of Afghanistan's former Prime Minister and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, was arrested from his residence in the Baghgai village, approximately 15km away from Wana in Peshawar, for suspected links with the Al Qaeda.
January 8: Abu Omar, hailing from Morocco, and Abu Hamza, belonging to Yemen, were arrested after an encounter in the Gulshan-i-Maymar area of Karachi.
January 4: Jack Thomas, a 29-year-old Australian convert to Islam, was arrested in Karachi for suspected links to the Al Qaeda.
2002
December 21: According to Major Stephen Clutter, a US military spokesperson at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, suspected Al Qaeda terrorists who killed a US soldier on December 21 near the village of Shkin, about 60 km south of Gardez, Afghanistan, had fled across the eastern border into Pakistan.
December 18: Ahmed Javed Khawaja, a medical practitioner, is arrested along with four of his relatives for harbouring Al Qaeda terrorists at his residence in Lahore.
December 4: Pakistani security agencies arrested two Al Qaeda suspects in South Waziristan Agency, and have reportedly handed them over to American intelligence agencies for interrogation. They have been arrested for alleged involvement in an attack on a US military camp in southern Paktika province of Afghanistan.
November 29: Canadian government, acting on sustained pressure from the parliamentary Opposition, designated the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) as terrorist groups.
November 26: French Police claim arrest of several Pakistani nationals during a raid in Paris. They are suspected associates of shoe-bomber Richard Reid. They were reportedly arrested at a Pakistani cultural center as well as at a restaurant and a mosque. Meanwhile, during a parallel raid at the Reunion Island, a French department located in the Indian Ocean, a former Imam (priest) of the Ali Mosque, also a Pakistani national, was also arrested and is scheduled to undergo questioning by French police.
November 18: Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), an international Non-governmental Organisation (NGO), with offices in Islamabad and Peshawar was officially declared as a terrorist group by the US authorities. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) USA said, on November 18, BIF has been officially listed as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist."
November 10: The French police indicated that order was given in Karachi for the April 11, 2002-suicide attack on a synagogue in Djerba, in Tunisia. The attack resulted in the death of 21 persons, including two French and 14 German tourists.
November 8: The US State Department added nine more groups suspected of terrorist links to a visa blacklist that will keep their members or affiliates out of the country. Among the newly named entities is the Pakistan-based Ummah Tamir-e-Nau (UTN), an organisation whose chief Dr. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, former Director General of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, was arrested on October 23, 2001, in Islamabad along with his associate Abdul Majeed (arrested in Lahore) for their alleged links to the Al Qaeda.
November 6: Three Pakistani men have been arrested in California for attempting to supply US-made Stinger missiles to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, US Attorney General John Ashcroft said on November 6. Ashcroft said the three were trafficking 600 kilos of heroin and five tonnes of hashish to purchase the shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. "Three individuals have been indicted for conspiring to trade heroin for anti-aircraft missiles which they said they intended to sell to Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan," said Ashcroft.
October 30: A report indicated that of the six new Al Qaeda leaders, who the United States believes are currently in active command of the group, one is said to be residing in Pakistan and two in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The three terrorists are Saif al-Adel alias Makkawi, an Egyptian, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah alias Abu Mohammed al Masri, Al Qaeda’s ‘financial officer’ and Tawfiq bin Atash alias Khallad, Al Qaeda’s ‘senior operational planner’. While the first two are believed to be in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, the last is reportedly in Pakistan.
October 18: Islamabad police and FBI agents arrested Iranian lecturer Habibullah Zaiee of International Islamic University for his alleged links with the Al Qaeda. A media report indicated that Zaiee was suspected of involvement in co-ordinating the attacks on US installations in the country in the recent past.
October 15: Four Afghan refugees were arrested in a joint raid conducted by local police and US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents at the Jalozai Refugee Camp, Peshawar, on the suspicion that they had links with the Al Qaeda. The Jalozai Refugee Camp is run by the Ittehad-e-Islami Afghanistan, a group consisting of erstwhile Afghan fighters who fought against the erstwhile Soviet Union in the 1980s.
October 8: Two Afghans are arrested from the Shamshato refugee camp on the charge of providing shelter to some Al Qaeda suspects.
September 22: Police arrested five Al Qaeda suspects in Peshawar and Mianwali. Of them, an Al Qaeda member and two others were arrested by a joint-team of Crime Investigation Department (CID) and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sleuths from Peshawar's Jehangirabad area, while two others were arrested from Mianwali. Official sources in Peshawar said, of the three-arrested, one is a Tunisian, one belongs to the Nooristan province of Afghanistan while the third is a Pakistani.
September 12: Italian police working with US naval intelligence said they had arrested 15 Pakistanis, suspected to be members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. They were reportedly taken into custody in August 2002 after arriving in the southern Sicilian port town of Gela on a merchant cargo ship from Morocco. They have been charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts. "We are certain that these people are part of a terrorist organization, and we are almost certain that that organization is Al Qaeda," said Santi Giuffre, chief of police for the Sicilian province of Caltanissetta. He also said police had seized telephone numbers, including several in Spain and France, which linked these men to the Al Qaeda. Notes and documents referring to the Al Qaeda were reportedly found on-board their Romanian-registered vessel, which set sail from Casablanca in mid-July and was scheduled to visit Tunisia, Malta and the Libyan capital of Tripoli. All men were carrying an open, return air ticket from Karachi to Casablanca, he added.
September 11: Ramzi Binalshibh, Al Qaeda terrorist and a 9/11 prime suspect was detained in Karachi. Two suspected Al Qaeda terrorists were killed and five others, including Binalshibh, were arrested after a three-hour encounter at Defence Housing Authority in Karachi. The encounter ensued when security forces raided an apartment C-63 of a complex on 15th Street, Phase II Extension. Binalshibh, a Yemeni, was arrested with assistance from the FBI.
August 30: According to a report in Dawn, a Pakistani daily, one of the most-wanted men in Uzbekistan is in hiding near the Pakistan border but cannot be extradited despite a treaty between the two countries.
August 18: Police in Peshawar arrested five Somalis near the Afghanistan border for suspected links with the Al Qaeda.
August 17: The then Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said that "58 prisoners of Pakistani origin are at present registered to be at the Guantanamo Base in Cuba." They were arrested in the wake of a crack-down by United States in the post-9/11 operations targeting persons linked with the Al Qaeda.
August 2: US authorities placed six Pakistanis on the list of suspected terrorists, businesses and organisations that are suspected of supporting terrorism. The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued a new list of specially designated nationals and other persons, whose property is blocked worldwide, in order to assist the public in complying with various sanctions and programmes undertaken by the US government.
One of them, Zia Ahmad, was linked to the multiple terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA.
July 27: A FBI team along with Pakistan Rangers raided a house in Luqman Mohallah in Khairpur and arrested four foreigners, suspected to be linked with the Al Qaeda.
July 18: Security agencies in Peshawar arrested 12 foreigners, suspecting them of having connections with the Al Qaeda.
July 15: An Anti-Terrorism Court in Hyderabad awarded death sentence to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life term to co-accused––Syed Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem and Sheikh Adil––in the Daniel Pearl abduction-cum-murder case.
July 12: Pakistani authorities in Karachi arrested an alleged financial adviser of Osama bin Laden and two other terrorists believed to be from the Al Qaeda.
July 7: Eleven Al Qaeda suspects were arrested from the Clifton area and Shah Noorani area of Baluchistan.
July 3: Four Al Qaeda terrorists and two security force personnel were killed and two police personnel injured in an encounter near Jarma bridge in Kohat.
June 30: Pakistani authorities arrested a suspected Arab Al Qaeda terrorist in the tribal territory bordering Afghanistan.
June 26: Ten Pakistan security force personnel and two Chechen Al Qaeda cadres were killed in an encounter in South Waziristan Agency.
June 23: Two Arabic-speaking men, two Afghan nationals and a Pakistani were arrested in a raid on the Afghan Support Committee (ASC)––a non-governmental organisation in Pabbi, Peshawar.
June 12: The French police claimed that they have arrested five persons, including two Pakistani nationals, in a raid in two suburbs of Paris for suspected links to the Al Qaeda.
June 17: Judicial authorities in France decided to place under detention a Pakistani national, Ghulam-Mustafa Rama, for allegedly having provided logistical support to Richard Reid, the British national who is known as the ‘shoe-bomber’, for having attempted to set off an explosive concealed in his shoe during a flight on December 22, 2001 to Miami.
June 11: According to New York Times, Pakistan has arrested several US citizens linked to the Al Qaeda near the Afghanistan border, including a suspected associate of suspected ‘dirty bomb’ builder Jose Padilla.
March 4: At least two of the seven persons killed by Macedonian police in a weekend clash were Pakistani nationals who fought in Afghanistan, said Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski.
March 3: Director of the CIA, George J. Tenet, reportedly briefed President Bush on the accumulation of fresh evidence regarding Al Qaeda's nuclear ambition. Tenet reportedly told Bush that Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme was more deeply compromised than either government has acknowledged publicly.
November 13, 2001: Spanish authorities arrest ten persons suspected of having links to the international network of bin Laden. Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy was quoted as saying that the arrested were considered to be "the leading members of the Spanish infrastructure of the mujahideen movement...which forms part of the network of Osama bin Laden." Europa Press cited police officials as saying the detainees were responsible for the group's international relations and had held meetings in Pakistan, Yemen, the Philippines, Qatar and Afghanistan as well as in Europe.
September 29, 2001: Uganda's Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce arrest seven Pakistanis and a Zambian at Entebbe. The suspects – thought to be both drug traffickers and members of bin Laden's terror network – were en route from Rwanda to Europe, The Post, a daily in Lusaka, Zambia, reported on October 2. Circumstantial evidence pointed out that drug traffickers based in Afghanistan and Pakistan have established hubs in the predominately Muslim coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, and in the two islands comprising Zanzibar, Tanzania, where hundreds of Pakistani nationals and their East African counterparts are arrested for drug smuggling each year, according to the United Nations and government agencies.
September 16, 2001: A government source in the Chinese territory of Macau said that police had arrested seven Pakistani nationals after finding documents apparently containing instructions to attack US targets there and in Hong Kong if there were a strike on Afghanistan.
Macau government sources said that the men were arrested after US authorities provided names to security forces in Macau and Hong Kong of people to watch for following 9/11.
September 2001: Israeli security officials arrested 23 persons belonging to various Islamist groups. Officials said that a Gaza resident who was the cell leader was sent by Hamas to Pakistan in 1998 to study terror techniques with bin Laden's network.
December 2000: Khalil al-Deek, a Jordanian, allegedly a front ranking terrorist of the Muslim Brotherhood is arrested in Peshawar, near the Afghan border with Pakistan, and extradited to Jordan.
In September 2000, three Pakistani men were arrested in southern Philippines on suspicion they had been smuggling weapons to the Abu Sayyaf terrorist outfit. Quoting official sources, the Herald said, "since the Abu Sayyaf has been getting millions of dollars in ransom payments during the past five months they have gone on a weapons buying spree and we know that a lot of the weapons have come from Pakistan."
In year 2000, Israel arrested a Hamas cadre named Nabil Aukel who was trained in Pakistan and then moved to Afghanistan and Kashmir to put that training into practice.
December 1999: Some members of a terrorist cell are arrested in Jordan. The terror network was composed mostly of Jordanians of Palestinian origin, as well as an Iraqi, an Algerian and Palestinians with American passports. The detainees admitted during interrogation that they had been trained in Afghanistan in a training camp financed by bin Laden, and were assisted by contact members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The group planned to carry out mass attacks against Jewish and American tourists and Christian pilgrims at the Radison hotel in Amman, at Mount Nevo, at the checkpoints on the Israeli-Jordanian borders, and at the place where Jesus was baptized. The central activists responsible for the logistics and religious authorization for the attacks were three Palestinians who operated from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the UK.
June 1999: Eight persons of Pakistani origin are arrested in Yemen. Although they claimed that they had come for a holiday, security sources indicated that these men aged 17 to 33, were Islamist terrorists on a mission to kill fellow Britons. They were reportedly trained and armed in the mountains of Abyan by an obscure terrorist group called the Islamic Army of Aden (IAA), which wants Yemen to become an Islamic state.
Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali, wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, lived in Kenya until fleeing that country on August 2, 1998, to Karachi.
Jamal Ahmed Fadl, 38, a one-time grocery store clerk from Sudan, and L'Houssaine Kherchtou, 37, a former catering student born in Morocco testifying before a 12-member federal jury in New York, investigating the 1998 embassy bombings, admitted to the existence of Al Qaeda's training at camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan in firearms, explosives, computers, electronics, passport forgery and surveillance.
December 23, 1998: Seven men, including three Britons of Pakistani origin, are arrested in Yemen. The Yemeni government claimed they were carrying plans to blow up a church, a hotel and the British consulate.
In July 1997, two Palestinians and a Pakistani were arrested on a tip-off to New York City police and were found to have suicide bombs and a note indicating they intend a terrorist attack in the city's subways. Lafi Khalil, the Pakistani, entered the country on a tourist visa and stayed on illegally.
In 1995, Abdul Hakim Murad, a Pakistani citizen, was arrested in Philippines following an abortive bomb explosion. Consequent to interrogation, Murad told the story of "Bojinka" – "loud bang" – the code name bin Laden operatives had given to an audacious plan to bomb 11 U.S. airliners simultaneously and fly an air plane into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. – all after attempting to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Investigators also found a stack of passports – Norwegian, Afghan, Saudi, Pakistani – from the apartment from which he was arrested. Codenamed "BOJINKA," the plot involved using a timing device made from an altered Databank watch. Flight schedules and a decrypted letter found on the computer indicated that five participants were to simultaneously plant devices on flights to the United States.
After the bombings, four of the participants were to return to Karachi, Pakistan. The fifth was to return to Doha, Qatar.
Jamaat-ul-Fuqra (JuF), a terrorist outfit operating in Pakistan and North America, was formed by a Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, in the early 1980s. In the 1980s, they carried out various terrorist activities, including murders and fire-bombings, across the United States. Although Gilani, the chief of Fuqra resides in Pakistan, most of his group’s cells are located in North America. JuF is allegedly linked through court documents to ‘Muslims of Americas’, a tax-exempt group established in the United States in 1980 by Gilani, who was taken into Pakistani custody in connection with the abduction of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl. ·Although dormant in terms of real activity, it has an active link with terrorist groups in Pakistan and provides both moral and material assistance to these groups.
South East Asia
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) dispatched a first group of trainees to Pakistan in 1980.
The origins of Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) can be traced to Afghanistan. In the early-1980’s approximately 200 Moro fundamentalists arrived in Peshawar to serve with the Mujahideen.
Ramzi Yousef moved to Manila in September 1994 to begin planning a second round of attacks on American targets.
On December 10, 1994, a Philippines Airlines 747-200 flight 434, carrying 273 passengers and 20 crew, en route from Cebu to Tokyo was forced to make an emergency landing after a bomb went off in the cabin, killing a Japanese businessman.
Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi aka abu Saad, an Indonesian national arrested on January 15, 2002, is linked to the Al Qaeda network.
As of December 2001, there were an estimated 200 undocumented Filipinos in Afghanistan and 600 ‘Islamic scholars’ of Filipino origin in Pakistan. Of those in Pakistan, some 200 are ‘missing’ according to the Philippine Embassy at Islamabad.
According to Malaysian academic Farish Noor, who studies the growth of Islamicism in Malaysia, "I’ve visited a school in Peshawar that was officially listed as having three Malaysian students. In one class there were 50." He is estimated that some 300 students return annually after such ‘education’ in Pakistan.
Parti Islam SeMalaysia, (PAS) suffered a serious blow when 10 cadres of the Kampulan Mujahideen (seven of whom were also PAS members) were detained on August 4, 2001 for attempting to violently overthrow the Malaysian regime and establish an Islamic state. Most of the members arrested had spent time in Pakistan.
Riduan Isamuddin alias Hambali, a long time Al Qaeda operative and accused in Bali bombings, was a close associate of Ramzi Yousef and Wali Khan Amin Shah. He is known to have sent large number of young radicals to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In October 2001, two foreigners arrived in Singapore to assist in the planning of a series of attacks on US, British, Australian and Israeli diplomatic, military and commercial interests. One of them was a Pakistani named Muhammad Aslam Yar Ali Khan alias Sammy. He abruptly left Singapore for Pakistan on October 4, 2001, and has remained at large there (unconfirmed).
The Maktab al Khidimat Lilmujajidin al Arab (MAK), founded by Abdullah Yousuf Azzam, Palestinian Hamas leader, connects to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Indonesian media has reported that a Pakistani citizen identified as Havis Muhammad Saad Iqbal was deported to Egypt at that government's request on January 11, 2002, in connection with suspected terrorist activities.
Iqbal is suspected of involvement in the ‘shoe bomb’ attempt by Richard Reid on the American Airlines jet en route from Paris to Miami, and other terrorist activities in Egypt, Indonesian daily Suara Pembaruan quoted Mahmud Hendropriyono, chief of the National Intelligence Agency, as saying.
Pakistani support has been extended to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – a number of MILF leaders and members have lived in Pakistan and claim to have offices there.
Official sources in Philippines have said that the ASG was receiving funds from among others the League of Pakistani Islamic Propagation.
Three foreigners tagged as members of an international extremist group were arrested in the Philippines in November 2001.