India Daily : American bigger stick has bigger command on Pakistan

Sunday, August 20, 2006

American bigger stick has bigger command on Pakistan

Islamabad has put over 400 members of banned terrorist groups suspected of US-UK terror plot on a ''watch list''

by Balaji Reddy | August 20, 2006

American bigger stick has bigger command on Pakistan - Islamabad has put over 400 members of banned terrorist groups suspected of US-UK terror plot on a ''watch list''and proceeded to detain them.

The same Musharraf who refused India any cooperation on terror is now ready to surrender its terror command - the shadow ISI of Pakistan!

This will be US President George Bush's biggest achievement. Finally America understood the ''Musharraf Game'' and have reached the core of Pakistan terror base to dismantle world's worst ever terror infrastructures.

According to media reports from Pakistan, The Inter-Provincial Coordination Committee (IPCC), which met on Saturday, has put 400 ''alleged extremists'' on a watch list.

They would be proceeded against under the Anti-Terrorist Act and detained for a year. However, their cases would be reviewed every three months, local daily The News quoted officials as saying.

There was no official confirmation whether these 400 have been detained. The IPCC also decided to put Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) headed by former Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader Hafeez Saeed and Sunni Tehrik, a sunni extremist outfit on the "watch list and keep a close eye on their activities." JuD has been kept under watch list since 2005.

Besides JuD and LeT, the names of other banned outfits like Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) figured prominently in the local and foreign media.

While JuD was accused of using the funds for the earthquake relief to finance the plot, the key suspect, Rashid Rauf arrested for the plot was closely connected with JEM. Rauf is married to JeM chief Masood Azhar's close relative and was arrested from Bahawalpur, the headquarters of JeM.

Pakistan officials claimed the plot appeared to have been hatched by top Al-Qaeda terrorists holed up in Afghanistan. The newspaper said Pakistan government also blocked six websites promoting sectarian hate.