LAHORE: The pattern of the Marriott Hotel suicide bombing in Islamabad suggests the possible involvement of the Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HUJI), led by Qari Saifullah Akhtar, and not the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), headed by Baitullah Mehsud, which was held responsible for most recent suicide bombings across Pakistan.
According to intelligence circles in Islamabad, which are probing the latest suicide attack, the method of the bombing and the nature of explosives resemble four previous vehicle bomb attacks, carried out by suicide bombers in Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi – the March 4, 2008 attack on the Naval War College building in Lahore; the March 11, 2008 suicide bombings targeting the headquarters of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Lahore; the June 3, 2008 attack outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad and the December, 25, 2003 twin suicide attacks targeting former President General Pervez Musharraf’s cavalcade in Rawalpindi.
The bombers used different types of vehicles, laden with high-intensity explosives to hit their targets. The investigators say about 600 kilograms of explosives were used in the Marriott Hotel attack which created a 25 feet deep and 50 feet wide crater.
They have concluded that the material used in Saturday’s attack was a mix of cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine or RDX and trinitrotoluene or TNT explosives. RDX is used as a major component in many plastic bonded explosives to increase their intensity while TNT is usually used to shatter concrete structures and hillocks. he investigators say the similar mix of RDX and TNT explosives had been used in the four earlier attacks in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore, which were carried out by operatives of the Harkatul Jehadul Islami.
The first such attack was carried out on March 4, 2008, when a suicide bomber forced entry into the Navy War College on The Mall, Lahore, by ramming his explosive-laden vehicle into the main gate and blowing himself up, killing eight navy employees on the spot.
The second attack was carried out six days later on March 11, 2008, when a human bomb rammed his explosive-laden Shahzore truck into the main gate of the Federal Investigation Agency headquarters in Lahore, killing 33 people. Hardly a few minutes later, yet another bomber ripped through an advertising agency’s office in Model Town, Lahore, confusing it for an undercover office of the Special Investigation Authority (SIA), killing two children and their father.
The agencies investigating the two attacks had concluded that both bombings had been carried out by an al-Qaeda linked jihadi group – Harkatul Jehadul Islami, following the arrest of its ameer Qari Saifullah Akhtar from the Ferozwala area, close to Lahore, in February 2008.
As a matter of fact, six suspects of the HUJI, who had been arrested after the March 4, 2008 Naval War College suicide attack, were kept at the FIA regional headquarters in Lahore and grilled by a joint investigation team of several intelligence agencies.
The investigators were of the view that the attacks were actually meant to pressurise the government over the February 26, 2008 arrest of Qari Saifullah in connection with the October 18, 2007 suicide attack on the procession of PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto in Karachi that killed over 140 people.
On March 15, 2008, four days after the FIA headquarters’ suicide attack, terrorists targeted an Islamabad restaurant – a popular hang-out of foreign nationals, by hitting the place with a powerful explosive device, killing a Turkish woman and injuring over a dozen American nationals, including three FBI agents who had come to Pakistan to investigate the FIA attack.
Subsequent investigations showed the involvement of HUJI operatives, putting further pressure on the Pakistani authorities. Ten days later, on March 26, 2008, Qari Saifullah was released on bail after the investigation officer of the case reported to the court that no evidence had been found that the detained Jihadi leader was linked to any terrorist activity. Investigation officer Nawaz Ranjha submitted a report to the court, stating that during initial investigations he did not get enough evidence to file a charge-sheet against Qari.
The judge accepted the report of the investigation officer and ordered Saifullah’s release on bail, but he was rearrested under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) and shifted to a Karachi safe house. On June 2, 2008, a suicide car-bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle some 30 feet from the main gate of the visa section of the Denmark embassy in Islamabad, killing eight people and wounding 20 others. Five days later, on June 8, 2008, Qari Saifullah was released by the Sindh Home Department, stating that the term for his detention had expired. “He is a free man and there is no case pending against him anywhere in Pakistan,” Qari Saifullah’s lawyer Hashmat Habib told media people, quoting the orders of the provincial home department.
However, there are many among official circles who believe that the release was actually facilitated by the intelligence agencies in an apparent bid to stop the deadly wave of suicide bombings which had been let loose by the followers of Qari Saifullah.
He was one of few Jihadi leaders from Pakistan who had escaped with Taliban Ameer Mullah Omar after US-led allied forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. He first took shelter in South Waziristan, then moved to Peshawar and eventually fled to Saudi Arabia, from where he decided to move to the UAE.
Three years later, on August 6, 2004, he was arrested by the UAE authorities and handed over to the Pakistan government, only to be deported. He was arrested following revelations during investigations of the December 25, 2003 twin suicide attacks on former President General Musharraf, when two suicide bombers tried to ram their cars, packed with explosives, into his cavalcade. Investigations revealed that one of the suicide bombers, Khalique Ahmed alias Hazir Sultan, belonged to the Harkatul Jehadul Islami, and was hired by Qari Saifullah’s right-hand man Amjad Hussain Farooqui to target Musharraf.
Asked about the motive of targeting the Marriott Hotel, the investigators maintain the hotel, a favourite spot for westerners in the federal capital, is seen as a US symbol and the attack could have been carried out as a reaction to recent American attacks in border areas of Pakistan.
They pointed out that Marriott International had about 3,000 lodging properties in the United States and 67 other countries around the globe. Even otherwise, they added, over a dozen American Marines had been staying at the hotel when it was attacked, in what was described as Pakistan’s 9/11.
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* Lahore