LAHORE: The Pakistan-based Islamic Army of Great Britain (IAGB) has
suffered another major setback with the killing of its two more white
commanders, both British nationals, in a US drone attack in North
Waziristan on December 10. The operational chief of the Britons had
earlier been killed in a drone strike in the same area on October 4,
2010.
Well-informed sources in the Pakistani security agencies have
confirmed that the December 10 drone strikes had killed two Britons in
Khadar Khel town of Miranshah in North Waziristan who have been
identified as Stephen and Smith. The white commanders, who were known
in the militant circles with their pseudonyms of Abu Bakar (Stephen)
and Abu Mansoor (Smith), were travelling in a car with two other local
militants when the American drone targeted them. Even though the car
was completely destroyed and little remained of the bodies, local
militants were quick to take out from the burnt car the mutilated
corpses for burial. Stephen alias Abu Bakar, 47, has been identified
as a senior al-Qaeda operative who was imparting terror training to a
group of white jehadis from Great Britain in North Waziristan for
carrying out terrorist activities in Europe and America. Smith alias
Abu Mansoor, 28, has been identified as the right hand man of Stephens
in the Islamic Army of Great Britain.
While the deaths of the Britons have not yet been confirmed by the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which actually runs the deadly drone
programme, it is not for the first time that reports of Muslim
converts from Europe fighting for al-Qaeda and Taliban in the
Pak-Afghan area have emerged. On October 4, 2010, Abdul Jabbar, a
British terror suspect, was killed in a drone attack in North
Waziristan. Later identified as the chief operational commander of the
Islamic Army of Great Britain, he was a British citizen, came from
Jhelum district of Punjab, and had a British wife. Abdul Jabbar had
earlier survived a drone strike on September 8, 2010, targeting a
militant training camp being run by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Pakistani
Taliban commander allied with the Haqqani militant network. Jabbar was
reportedly tasked by the Waziristan-based al-Qaeda leadership to plan
the Mumbai-style fidayeen attacks against targets in the Great
Britain, Germany and France.
Besides Abdul Jabbar, two German nationals were also killed in the
October 4 US drone attack. They were usually known in the militant
circles of North Waziristan with their Islamic names of Imran and
Shahab. According to the intelligence information the British
authorities have shared with their Pakistani counterparts, Jabbar,
Imran and Shahab had been making phone calls to London and Germany to
their contacts in a bid to set off the terror plot by finding
accomplices in Europe. In their conversations, the British and German
jehadis used to talk about facilitators and logistics they needed in
Europe to execute their terror attacks. However, Jabbar’s younger
brother, who is a key leader in the lslamic Army of Great Britain, and
two other most wanted German jehadis were lucky enough to have
survived the October drone hit. The white Germans – 27-year-old
Mouneer Chouka alias Abu Adam and 25-year-old Yaseen Chouka alias Abu
Ibrahim are real brothers. Coming from Bonn, both lead a group of
100-plus German militants who had travelled to the border areas of
Pakistan in recent years, raising the latest security alert in Europe.
The information about the presence and activities of the Chouka
brothers in North Waziristan as well as the hatching of a Mumbai-like
terror plot for Europe actually came from none other than an arrested
German jehadi of Afghan, Rami Mackenzie alias Ahmed Siddiqi. The
36-year-old was part of an 11-member jehadi cell which was to take
part in the European terror plot, but was arrested in the Afghan
capital, Kabul, in the beginning of July 2010. He is reported to have
told his American interrogators that the European terror plot was
approved by none other than Osama bin Laden who had also provided some
funding. Currently being held at the US military airbase at Bagram,
Siddiqi further told his interrogators that small teams of militants
were to model their missions in European countries on the pattern of
Mumbai attacks by first seizing and then killing hostages. The
unearthing of the terror plot soon led to an unprecedented surge in
the drone strikes in North Waziristan, primarily to target the hide
outs of the Islamic Army of Great Britain, thus killing its top
leadership.
Top security officials from UK have informed their Pakistani
counterparts in recent months that many of the planned terror attacks
in Britain in the past had been linked directly or indirectly to
Pakistan, starting with the 7/7 suicide bombings of London’s busy
transport network in 2005. The attacks, which killed 52 people, were
conducted by four British nationals of the Pakistani origin. The UK
officials have further informed that the September 1, 2005 video
message of one of the four bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was
recorded in the Waziristan area during the latter’s November 2004
visit to Pakistan. Through the video broadcast, showing pictures of Dr
Ayman al-Zawahri and the bomber, the al-Qaeda had claimed
responsibility for the July 7, 2005 London attacks. “Until we feel
secure, you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing,
gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this
fight,” said Khan in the video tape.
The recent killings in Waziristan of the white jehadis from Britain
have confirmed the fears of the British agencies that the al-Qaeda
network based in Pakistan now poses the greatest terror threat to the
security of United Kingdom. They believe the threat includes both
terrorist attacks and the financial and ideological networks that
support and inspire such attacks. According to a recent study
conducted by the British home department, three quarters of the most
serious terrorism cases investigated since the 7/7 London attacks have
links to al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Similarly, of the 90 individuals
convicted or punished in Britain for their involvement in jehadi
terror plots between September 2001 and September 2009, 64 were
affiliated with al-Qaeda and 27 were trained either in Pakistan or in
Afghanistan — more than in any other country across the world.
These figures clearly show that al-Qaeda now seeks to employ white men
with Western nationalities to successfully strike in the heart of the
West. Therefore, the Western agencies believe that dismantling of
well-entrenched al-Qaeda network in the Waziristan area is a must to
protect the West from any further act of jehadi terrorism.
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