Police were on red alert in the southern city of Karachi yesterday, fearing a militant backlash after a top Pakistani al-Qaeda suspect wanted for two assassination attempts against President General Pervez Musharraf was killed in a paramilitary raid.
Amjad Hussain Farooqi, also accused in the 2002 slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, died in the shootout Sunday at a house in the southern town of Nawabshah. Two or three other men, one of them an Islamic cleric, were arrested.
Fayyaz Leghari, deputy chief of police in Karachi, said security was on "red alert" in the city -- known as a hotbed for Islamic militants -- with increased patrols around foreign consulates and key government offices, and more plainclothes officers at sensitive locations.
Farooqi, a Pakistani aged about 32, was one of the most wanted men in the country after security officials revealed in May that he had helped plan two bombings against Musharraf near the capital in December last year that narrowly missed the general. Alleged co-planner, Libyan al-Qaeda suspect Abu Faraj al-Libbi, remains at large.
In Washington, a US official said intelligence services had been unable to obtain full confirmation that Farooqi had been killed although that appeared to be the case. The Americans consider Farooqi "a key al-Qaeda figure," the official said, speaking on condition he not be further identified.
Pakistani officials say they are certain that the dead man is Farooqi, although DNA tests have yet to be completed to confirm the identity of the body.
Farooqi is believed to have been an associate of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the reputed al-Qaeda No. 3 captured in Pakistan last year.
Pakistan has burnished its credentials as a key US ally against al-Qaeda in recent months. The government says it has arrested more than 70 terror suspects since mid-July, including an alleged Pakistani computer expert for al-Qaeda and a Tanzanian wanted for the US embassy bombings in east Africa in 1998.
Authorities hailed Farooqi's killing as another breakthrough, and information gleaned from the suspects captured in Sunday's raid led to the arrest of another Islamic militant early yesterday, police said.
Paramilitary police raided a home around dawn in Sukkur, 350km northeast of Karachi, arresting Khalid Ansari, known for links with Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Sunni Muslim militant group, a local police official said on condition of anonymity. Two of Ansari's brothers were also arrested.
The security forces had blared warnings over loudspeakers to residents in the poor residential neighborhood not to come out of their homes. The three men were blindfolded and led away by intelligence officials, he said.
It was unclear whether Ansari or his brothers faces any charges.
Officials have yet to formally identify the suspects who were arrested in Sunday's raid in which Farooqi was killed, but say they are all Pakistanis.
An intelligence official in Nawabshah, speaking on condition of anonymity, named one as Abdul Rehman, whom he said was a teacher at a local Islamic seminary and had rented the house for Farooqi two months ago.
Another intelligence official named a second suspect as Yaqoob Farooqi. It was unclear if he was related to the dead suspect.
Authorities also seized from the house a laptop computer, CDs, militant literature, some grenades, a wire cutter and several photos, the intelligence source in Nawabshah said.
He did not disclose who was in the pictures.
Zainul Abideen, who lived on the same street in Nawabshah -- where dozens of police and paramilitary rangers blocked access yesterday -- recounted seeing Farooqi before.
"He is the same man whose pictures we saw today in the newspapers. I have seen him going and coming on his bicycle," he said.
Farooqi's family say that he had been missing since Pearl was abducted in Karachi in January 2002.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
RSS