F-16 aircraft are used in wars, not in counter-terrorism operations. But the same U.S. embassy cable confirmed that Pakistan does use the F-16s in counter-terrorism operations in the Pakistani tribal region.
Senior police investigator Zulfikar Hameed said that the police force reported its suspicions to the ISI, which told him that the major was not involved in the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers and that, therefore, Haq was no longer wanted by the police. Haq is now aligned with the Tablighi Jamaat, a revivalist Islamist movement.
In the months after the 2003 assassination attempts on Pakistan army chief and president General Pervez Musharraf, at least 57 employees of the PAF were arrested by Pakistani authorities on charges of contact with terrorists and involvement in antistate activities.
The website of the Pakistani daily The Nation noted that six Pakistani military officials were sentenced to death, adding: “Six officials, including Khalid Mehmood, Karam Din, Nawazish, Niaz, Adnan, and Nasrullah were sentenced to death, while 24 were arrested and dismissed from service for opposing [anti-terror] policies of the then-President [Pervez] Musharraf and his government.”
“The arrested, accused, and the convicts had been working at various airbases, including Pakistan Aeronautical Complex Kamra, Minhas Airbase, Sargodha Airbase, Lahore Airbase, Faisal Airbase, and Mianwali Airbase,” the report said, adding that 26 of the 57 officials were sentenced to 3 to 17 years of imprisonment by a military court.
David Headley and Tahawwur Husain Rana—who are jailed in the U.S. over an international terror plot involving Denmark and the 26 November 2008, terror attacks in Mumbai—are both graduates of a military academy based in the Pakistani town of Hasan Abdal. David Headley, who changed his name from Daood Gilani, is a Pakistani American and Tahawwur Husain Rana is a Pakistani Canadian.
| Editor’s Pick |
After the arrest of Headley and Rana in Chicago, pressure mounted on Pakistan over the involvement of the Pakistani military’s ISI in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. In the summer of 2009, the Pakistan military reportedly arrested five people, including “some former or current Pakistani military officials.” The former Pakistani military graduates were also accused in the U.S. prosecution complaints of reporting to Ilyas Kashmiri, an al-Qaeda commander.
In July 2010, based on the information revealed by David Headley to the U.S. authorities in Chicago, a court in New Delhi issued nonbailable arrest warrants against two serving officers of the Pakistan army and three LeT commanders. The two Pakistan army officers were identified as Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali. The arrest warrants were sought for Interpol to issue red corner notices for their arrest in connection with the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks case. The Indian government has named at least five “serving” members of the Pakistani armed forces—Major Sajid Majid, Major Iqbal, Major Sameer Ali, Sayed Abdul Rehman (aka Pasha), and Abu Hamza—for their role in the Mumbai terror attacks.
“¦Dawn TV broadcast an investigative report revealing that Jundallah, a Sunni jihadist organisation, was formed in 2000 by two officers of the Pakistan army at a military camp in Quetta”¦
In May 2009, Colonel Shahid Bashir, commanding officer of the Shamsi air force base in Baluchistan, was arrested by military police for his links with Hizbut Tahrir. Along with him, two others arrested included retired Pakistan air force fighter pilot squadron leader turned lawyer Nadeem Ahmad Shah and a U.S.-educated mechanical engineer and visa holder, Awais Ali Khan. According to a Pakistani media report, Colonel Shahid Bashir was court-martialed on charges of spying and provoking Pakistani armed forces personnel to get involved in terrorist acts.
In July 2010, Pakistan’s independent television channel Dawn TV broadcast an investigative report revealing that Jundallah, a Sunni jihadist organisation, was formed in 2000 by two officers of the Pakistan army at a military camp in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. Dawn TV reported: “Two [Pakistan] Army junior officers laid the foundation of the terrorist organization named Jundallah within the military, in February 2000 at the Quetta military camp. After the foundation of Jundallah, i.e. ‘the Army of Allah,’ the two officials declared jihad to be their organization’s prime objective, and also started propagating their militant ideology.“
| Also read: |
According to Dawn News investigations, 30 officers from different Pakistani Army units based in the Quetta military camp soon joined Jundallah, after being impressed by the jihad ideology. Written orders, with preparations for jihad at the top, were circulated to the members of the organization after they took an oath for jihad on the Holy Koran. Meanwhile, the work of collecting donations from different units [of the Pakistan Army] was also taken up, for various necessities and for publishing jihadist literature. Parts of these donations were being provided to the Afghan Taliban. To spread the activities of Jundallah throughout other departments of the army, some army officers who were members of the group allied with junior officials of the [Pakistan] Air Force deployed at the PAF Base Samungli (near Quetta). This group planned assassination attempts on two occasions against Gen. (Ret.) Pervez Musharraf, along with the 2003 attack at Jacobabad Airbase.
Please wait...
