October 17, 2003	Friday	Sha'aban 20, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

PESHAWAR, Oct 16: Pakistani security agencies are looking for a Canadian national believed to be an Al Qaeda financier wanted by the US who had got away from the military dragnet in the semi-autonomous South Waziristan tribal region early this month, an official said.

The Egyptian-born Canadian national identified as Ahmad Said Khadr alias Abu Abdur Rehman Khadr Al-Canadi, was thought to be amongst the Al Qaeda suspects holed up in mud houses in Baghar village in South Waziristan tribal region, the scene of military operation Al-Mizan on Oct 1.

The 6,619-sq km South Waziristan that straddles the Afghan border is the largest among the seven federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan.

The security agencies believe that Abdur Rehman was the main character behind organizing attacks on the US base at Shkin just across the border in Afghanistan.

“They were crossing back and forth. They had retrieved a body of a fellow fighter and had buried him near their hideout and they had attempted to retrieve the body of another Pakistani comrade-in-arm. These guys were crossing the border and firing rockets at the nearby US base,” the official said, requesting anonymity.

Eight Al-Qaeda suspects and two Pakistani soldiers were killed in the operation. “We knew that he was behind those attacks and we were disappointed when we discovered that he had escaped the hunt,” the official said.

“We thought there would at least be one senior Al Qaeda commander. We also expected their strength to be double the number who fought and got killed or gave themselves up,” the official said.

The official noted that the security situation on the other side of the border “has eased considerably” after the operation.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, however, quoting a news release by Islamic Observation Centre in London, said that Khadr and his teenage son were among those killed in the small hamlet near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The security official, on the contrary, said that Canadi’s 20-year-old son, Abdur Rehman, and not Canadi himself, was amongst those killed in Baghar.

His two other sons captured by the US forces and their allies are already in the Guantanamo Bay.

Officials familiar with the case said that Canadi, in his fifties, had been running a Canadian international relief agency Human Concern International in Peshawar before he was picked up by the Pakistani security agencies in 1996 for being a key suspect in the Nov 1995 bombing of Egyptian embassy in Islamabad.

A pickup truck loaded with several hundred kilograms of explosives had rammed into the three-story embassy building killing 18 people and wounding 59.

Khadr was released on the intervention of the then Canadian government. He returned to Pakistan and then slipped back into Afghanistan.

Khadr had denied his involvement in the bombing or terrorist activities. But security officials said the man who had his leg blown up while fighting in Afghanistan, was funnelling money to help run Al Qaeda training camps in Khost, Darunta near Jalalabad and Kabul.

“He was expected to be there in Baghar but somehow got away before the operation was launched,” the official said. “He is not amongst the top-22 Al Qaeda suspects but he is amongst those wanted by the Americans for financing Al Qaeda,” the official said.

Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Information, Sheikh Rashid Ahmad told a news briefing in Islamabad on Tuesday that a senior Al Qaeda |militant, ranking between 10 and 15 was amongst those killed in the operation.

The CBC said the Canadian High Commission in Islamabad was trying to get confirmation of the deaths.

TRIBESMEN FREED: The political authorities set free 30 men of the Desikhel tribe in the South Waziristan Agency on Thursday after the tribe handed over a suspect, Noorul Islam, to the administration.

An official said he was accused of sheltering Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives.  

Officials believe that the accused rented out his house to Al Qaeda  suspects in the Baghar village, where army troops killed eight people during a gun battle on Oct 2.

The agency administration during a crackdown detained some 60 tribesmen early this month under the Collective Responsibility Section of  the Frontier Crimes Regulation, demanding that the tribes surrender Al Qaeda suspects and their supporters.

The official said law enforcement agencies would continue the operation against the Yargulkhel and Karikhel tribes until they handed over the wanted persons.