Arab News : Man ‘Related’ to UK Plot Suspect Held

Man ‘Related’ to UK Plot Suspect Held

Rana Jawad | Agence France Presse | August 17, 2006

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan is holding a man who is “apparently related” to a British suspect in the jet-bombing plot, officials said yesterday.

They also said a senior Al-Qaeda figure in Afghanistan, who is still at large, is now thought to have planned the attacks on US planes flying out of Britain. The man now under detention was held early this month while crossing the border from Afghanistan, two senior security officials said.

They said his detention led to the arrest a few days later of Rashid Rauf, a British national of Pakistani descent described by Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry as a “key man” in the plot with ties to Al-Qaeda.

“In early August Pakistani authorities picked up a man apparently related to Rashid Rauf when he was crossing the border into Pakistan from Afghanistan,” one of the officials said.

“Rauf himself was caught and his interrogation revealed the plan prepared in Afghanistan by Al-Qaeda,” a security official said. The officials said documents appeared to show the man was related to Rauf — who was arrested in Bahawalpur city in the central province of Punjab — but they had not fully confirmed his identity or the exact link between them.

They said he was still in custody.

Tayib Rauf, 22, from Birmingham, reportedly Rashid’s brother, is one of around two-dozen people arrested in Britain last Thursday for conspiring to blow up US-bound passenger airliners with liquid explosives.

Pakistani officials said they were also investigating whether any of the suspects seized in Britain traveled to Pakistan in recent months and are checking with authorities in London.

Rashid Rauf was in a Pakistani militant group before he joined Al-Qaeda, a group member said yesterday. The father of Maulana Masood Azhar, head of the banned militant organization Jaish-e-Mohammad fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, said that he left the movement to join rivals more interested in Al-Qaeda’s anti-Western message.

“He was member of our group but later he deserted and joined our rivals,” Hafiz Allah Bukhsh said at Jaish’s headquarters in Bahawalpur. Sources in Pakistani intelligence meanwhile said the UK plan was prepared and formalized by a senior Al-Qaeda figure hiding in Afghanistan, where the network was once based. They did not identify him or have any details of how the Al-Qaeda planner had been in contact with the rest of the conspirators.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has said Rauf was a “key man” in the conspiracy who gave details that allowed Britain to smash the plot. It also says he had connections to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, although it did not give details.

On Tuesday Islamabad said it could extradite Rauf to Britain. Reports say Rauf is also wanted for questioning over the 2002 death of an uncle in Britain.

“Rashid Rauf is a British national. We do not have any extradition treaty at the moment, but yes, because he is a British national the possibility of his extradition remains there,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam.

Tasnim said Rauf remained under interrogation. Britain’s The Times newspaper reported that officials at the British High Commission in Islamabad had begun the process of bringing Rauf, 25, back to Britain. A High Commission spokesman told AFP they were still waiting for an official response to a query about British nationals in custody, so it was too soon to discuss extradition proceedings.