Re: Two Pakistani Jihadis arrested
Amir Mir (Herald guy), has written a god article. He has discussed Khalil guy at the end
http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=65&num=16994
Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM)
Led by Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil till recently, the HuM has regrouped and is working in a low-key manner under the name of the Jamiatul Ansar, but insisting that it has a non-militant agenda. As the Government’s anti-extremism drive brought into sharp focus Maulana Khalil’s alleged al-Qaeda links, he had to resign from the top slot of the organization in January 2005, as advised by his spy masters.
Khalil, who was released in December 2004 after an eight-month detention in a seven by seven foot cell, submitted his resignation at a January 2005 meeting of the ‘executive committee’ of the HuM and asked the committee members to elect Maulana Badar Munir from Karachi as the new chief. Khalil was reportedly interrogated on the charge of sending trained fighters to Afghanistan even after the 9/11 terror attacks. The second allegation was that some militants involved in the suicide attempts on Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December 2003 belonged to his organization. Intelligence sources, however, insist that Khalil remains in the good books of the establishment and would continue calling the shots from behind the scene, despite his resignation as the Harkat chief, which was nothing more than an eye wash.
Since early 2002, the Harkatul Mujahideen Al-alami (HuMA) - an offshoot of the HuM, has been accused of mounting several deadly attacks in Karachi, including two abortive attempts on General Musharraf’s life and a number of suicide bombings in the port city of Karachi. On September 29, 2001, the Government had banned the HuM following the Bush Administration’s September 24, 2001, decision to freeze HuM assets along with those of 26 other organizations and individuals in connection with a worldwide campaign against the possible sources of al-Qaeda-sponsored terrorism.
According to intelligence sources, about 50 highly trained operatives of the Harkatul Mujahideen, using the cover of the Harkatul Mujahideen Al-alami, are bent on targeting Musharraf and US interests in Pakistan. HuM’s association with Osama bin Laden was established on August 20, 1998, when US planes bombed the al-Qaeda training camps near Khost and Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan in retaliation to US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The US bombs destroyed two HuM training camps and killed 21 of its activists. As of today, the US intelligence agencies believe the Harkat still retains links, like most other jehadi groups, with the Taliban remnants and al-Qaeda operatives hiding on the Pak-Afghan border. They recall that Khalil took hundreds of his men to Afghanistan after the US-led Allied Forces had launched operations in the country in 2001.
Despite enthusiastic applause from the West for anti-militancy efforts of Pakistan’s ‘visionary’ military ruler, it is evident that much remains to be done on the ground before these efforts will actually bear fruit. With changing scenarios all over the world, there has been a change of minds, yet what is required is a change of hearts.