Gulf News : Terror suspect related to top militant

Terror suspect related to top militant

By Amir Mir | August 18, 2006

Lahore: The Pakistani security agencies have arrested from the Bahawalpur city of Punjab two of the five younger brothers of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar and two of his six brothers-in-law.

They are being held as part of the investigations into the alleged terror plan to blow up 10 US-bound airliners.

District Police Officer (DPO) of Bahawalpur, Arif Nawaz, confirmed that the relatives of Masood Azhar have been arrested from the Model Town area of the city.

However, he added that the Bahawalpur police have nothing to do with these arrests and these should have been made by a sensitive agency, probably the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which is dealing with the Heathrow bombing plot.
According to well placed intelligence sources, the arrests were made on Wednesday night after it was established that Rashid Rauf, the main suspect in the alleged bomb plot, was a relative of Maulana Masood Azhar.

The sources said that the two arrested younger brothers of Masood Azhar include Mohammad Tariq, the brother-in-law of Rashid Rauf, and Abdul Rauf, the Jaish spokesman who uses the pseudo name of Sehrai Baba to issue statements on behalf of the JeM.

The intelligence sources further added that the arrested brothers-in-law of Masood Azhar include Abid Hussain and Mohammad Yousaf.

Newsmen in Bahawalpur said they spoke to Hafiz Allah Bukhsh, the father of Maulana Masood Azhar, who said that Rashid Rauf was a member of the Jaish but left the movement to join its rivals who were more interested in promoting Al Qaida's anti-Western agenda.

However he later denied speaking to the reporters. "I swear by God that I did not meet any journalist. I never said that Rashid Rauf was member of my son's party. I have never seen or met Rashid, I do not know what he looked like," his father said, adding that he had not seen his son for four years.

The brother of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar said Rauf wedded one of his in-laws about three years ago and went by the false name Khalid in Bahawalpur, a city in central Punjab province.

"Rashid Rauf was married to the sister of the wife of my elder brother, Tahir," Abdur Rauf whose family name is the same as Rashid's by coincidence said.

Jaish-e-Mohammad, or "Army of the Prophet Mohammad" (PBUH), has been banned by key US ally President Pervez Musharraf.