LAHORE: The five Americans convicted by an anti-terrorism court in Sargodha on Thursday to 10 years in prison on terrorism charges were actually hired by Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the ameer of the al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani jehadi group Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HUJI) who had earlier been accused of masterminding the October 18, 2007 twin suicide attacks on the welcome rally of Benazir Bhutto in Karachi.
According to the evidence presented against the five young Americans by the Punjab police, the accused were in contact with Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the ameer of the Pakistan chapter of the HUJI who had encouraged them to travel to Pakistan to wage jehad. The evidence presented against the American nationals included phone calls, emails, and other documents that linked them to Qari Saifullah Akhtar. The charge sheet filed against them said the fugitive HUJI ameer had recruited them after watching their videos posted on YouTube. Qari Saifullah Akhtar was reportedly able to obtain emails through the YouTube postings and encouraged the five men to travel to Pakistan so that they could wage jehad against those who they believed were siding with the forces of the infidel. Waqar Hussain Khan, Ahmed Minni, Ramy Zamzam, Aman Yemer and Umar Farooq were each charged by the Pakistani authorities with five counts of conspiracy, raising funds for terrorist acts, planning war against Pakistan, directing others to launch attacks and attempting to cross the Afghan border illegally.
The five Muslim Americans were detained in Sargodha on December 9, 2009 during a police raid on a house with links to Jaish-e-Mohammad. They departed from the Dulles International Airport and travelled to Karachi, and then Hyderabad, to Lahore, spending five days there, and finally to Sargodha. The trial was closed to journalists and observers and was heard by a single judge in a special anti-terrorism court. According to the prosecution, one of the men had left an 11-minutes-long video expressing his view that Muslim lands must be defended against western invaders. According to the Pakistani authorities, the five Americans from Washington D.C had planned to meet a contact close to the Pak-Afghan border between Punjab and the Frontier provinces, and then to proceed to the stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And during the course of investigations, that contact turned out to be Qari Saifullah Akhtar, whom Ahmed Minni had met on the internet after the latter posted remarks praising video footage on Youtube showing attacks on American forces.
Largely considered to be a tool of the Pakistani intelligence establishment in the past, Qari Saifullah Akhtar has worked with the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda for more than a decade. He was last named by Benazir Bhutto in her posthumous book as a principal suspect in the October 18, 2007 attempt to kill her in Karachi a few hours after her homecoming from exile. Shortly before her assassination, Benazir was putting the final touches to her hard-hitting memoirs entitled, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, which was published six weeks after her tragic murder. She had made some shocking allegations from her grave.
Benazir Bhutto wrote in her book: ‘I was informed of a meeting that had taken place in Lahore where the bomb blasts were planned. However, a bomb maker was needed for the bombs. Enter Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a wanted jehadi terrorist who had tried to overthrow my second government in 1990s. He had been extradited by the United Arab Emirates and was languishing in the Karachi central jail. According to my sources, the officials in Lahore had turned to Qari for help. His liaison with elements in the government was a radical who was asked to make the bombs and he himself asked for a fatwa making it legitimate to oblige. He got one.’
On 26 February 2008, exactly two weeks after Bhutto’s revelations, the Musharraf regime had arrested Qari Saifullah Akhtar for the purpose of interrogations, although there were many in the establishment circles who believed that Qari has actually been taken into protective custody by his spy masters. Qari was seized by the security agencies along with his three sons (Asif Ali, Abdul Rehman and Mureed Ahmad) in Ferozewala, near Lahore. He was grilled by a joint interrogation team comprised of operatives from the Punjab Police, Inter Services Intelligence and the Special Investigation Group of the Federal Investigation Agency. On 20 March 2008, Qari was produced before an anti-terrorism court in Karachi for his involvement in the October 2007 attacks on Benazir’s welcome procession in Karachi. However, he was released five days later, on March 26, 2007 after the investigation officer reported to the court that no evidence had been found to link him with any terrorist activity.
amir.mir1969@gmail.com