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One of Musharraf’s Attackers a Kashmiri
Salahuddin Haider
Arab News
ISLAMABAD, 29 December 2003 — Pakistan yesterday announced the arrest of three people and said Kashmiri and Afghan militants were behind Thursday’s assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf. The men were taken into custody late Saturday in raids on their homes in Androt, a village in the Rawalakot district of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said Abdur Rauf Chaudhry, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Chaudhry would not say how many men were arrested, but a police officer in Rawalakot put the number at three.
“They are being questioned. But they are not suspects or formally arrested,” Chaudhry said. He gave no other details about the men, and did not say which resistance group they are suspected of belonging to.
Information Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said: “It’s a huge network of resistance fighters having tentacles from Kashmir to Afghanistan. They also have international ties.”
In the attempt on Musharraf, suicide attackers tried to ram two explosive-laden pick up trucks into his motorcade while he was on his way home in Rawalpindi. Fifteen people were killed and 46 others injured in the attack. Musharraf escaped unhurt. It was the second attempt on his life along the same road in 11 days.
A senior government official said, on condition of anonymity, that one of the suicide bombers was from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while the other was an Afghan who carried a fake Pakistani identity card.
The fake identity card showed his address to be in a town of North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan, he said.
He did not name either of them, but newspapers identified one as Mohammad Jameel, 31, from Rawalakot. According to intelligence sources, Jameel and those arrested were believed to have once belonged to the banned militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Newspaper reports described Jameel as a “religious fanatic” who had joined the ranks of extremists three years ago after being thrown out by his family.
Jameel was identified from the severed head found at the scene of the attack. The Dawn newspaper said Jameel was suspected to have had links with the Al-Jihad group.
The two pickup trucks used in the attack were purchased in Rawalpindi a month before the attack, and officials say one of the buyers was from Kashmir.
The man apparently led authorities to the three suspects detained in Androt.
Hard-line Islamists are furious with Musharraf for supporting Washington’s crackdown in which Pakistan arrested hundreds of Al-Qaeda fighters and handed them over to the United States.
Musharraf’s recent peace overtures with India and attempts to resolve the protracted dispute with Pakistan’s nuclear-armed rival over Kashmir have also fueled fighters’ anger. Pakistan has banned several Pakistan-based guerrilla groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
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