Pakistan Occupied kashmir: Timeline (Terrorist Activities) -2008

Security forces arrested an alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terrorist attacks during a raid on a militant camp, two officials said on December 8, The News reported. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was among at least 15 people detained on December 7 after the raid on the camp run by the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), the officials said. "Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi is under arrest. He was an operational commander of the Lashkar-e-Toiba," a senior security official told AFP. Troops backed by a helicopter overran the camp close to Muzaffarabad, the PoK capital, briefly exchanging fire with militants there, a senior intelligence official said. He said more than 12 detainees were being questioned over any possible links to the multiple terrorist in Mumbai. Read less...

Security forces have launched a ‘quiet’ crackdown on activists belonging to the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT, also known as Jama’at-ud-Da’awa) in different parts of the country and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), Dawn reported. In Muzaffarabad, capital of the PoK, a major army operation was under way in the city suburbs on December 7 against a site being used by the Jama’at-ud-Da’awa, which is headed by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. Sources said that more than 20 members of the banned organisation and LeT ‘commander’ Zakiur Rehman Lakhwi had been arrested. There are reports that similar action is planned in some cities and towns of Punjab province. However, reports of the crackdown could not be confirmed from the interior ministry or the Inter-Services Public Relations. Local residents in Muzaffarabad, however, said they had seen army personnel taking control of the area along Shawai Nullah, some five kilometers northwest of Muzaffarabad, where the organisation possesses a large plot of land on which several buildings had been built. There were unconfirmed reports of an exchange of fire. In Chehla Bandi, soldiers are reported to be checking vehicles bound for the Neelum Valley. However, a Jama’at-ud-Da’awa office-bearer denied that a crackdown had been launched on his organisation in other areas. Read less...

Authorities in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) have released four detained workers of the Jama’at-ud-Da’awa (JuD) and have also withdrawn Police guards from the residence of the group’s regional head, Dawn reported. Chaudhry Imtiaz, Deputy Commissioner of Muzaffarabad, the PoK capital, told Dawn on December 14 that Police guards had been removed from the residence of Maulana Abdul Aziz Alvi but he had been asked not to leave the area without informing the administration. Maulana Alvi, who heads the PoK chapter of Jama’at-ud-Da’awa, was put under house arrest in his Karyan village, some 19 kilometers north of Muzaffarabad, on December 11. "He had been placed under house arrest for security reasons. He is still under surveillance and cannot leave the station without prior intimation to the authorities concerned," the Deputy Commissioner (DC) said. Similarly, the DC said, four people taken into custody from a mechanical workshop run by the Jama’at-ud-Da’awa in Muzaffarabad had also been released because they were merely mechanics. In response to a question, he said there were no instructions from the federal Government to detain the regional or second-line leadership of the JuD. They were concerned about the ‘top brass’ and not the regional leadership, he said. Read less...

In a suspected sectarian incident, unidentified gunmen shot dead five persons, including a senior Government official, in the vicinity of Gilgit town on December 26, The News reported. Abdul Wahid, the Director of Agriculture Department, one of his associates, his wife and a child and his driver were killed in the ambush after more than one of the assailants opened indiscriminate firing on his vehicle. The deceased director was reportedly on his way to office in the morning when his vehicle came under fire from both sides of the road in an apparently sectarian motivated but highly organised target killing near Naikoi area, about 10 kilometers from Gilgit town. A senior Government official confirmed the deaths, saying at least three suspects had been arrested. Read less...