LAHORE: The Gujranwala Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) handed down on Thursday 16 year imprisonment each to five Al Qaeda militants for terror financing and keeping explosives.

The punishment was handed down on Thursday after trial in a case registered and investigated by the CTD.

The court found Abdullah Umair, Ahmadur Rehman, Asim Akbar Saeed, Muhammad Yaqoob and Muhammad Yousaf guilty of the offences.

Each convict was handed down five years in prison for terrorism financing, seven years for keeping explosives, three years for supporting proscribed Al Qaeda and one year imprisonment for keeping literature of Al Qaeda.

The personal properties of convicts were confiscated and fines were also imposed on them.

“It is a very important verdict where Al Qaeda operatives have been convicted after terrorism financing charges proved true against the convicts,” a spokesperson for the CTD Punjab said.

Convicted terrorists were running a media cell of the AQIS in Gujranwala.

They were arrested in a joint operation by the CTD Punjab and an intelligence agency in December 2019, he said, causing a major blow to the terrorist organisation.

“The cell was also involved in financing terrorist operations of the AQIS,” he said, adding that officers of both agencies (the CTD and the ISI) had been working on the cell for quite some time on the basis of intelligence reports.

“The AQIS had been running its propaganda campaign online and physically from a secret location in Karachi,” the spokesperson said.

After focus of both the law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) on the terrorists in Karachi, they had shifted the set-up to Gujranwala.

As LEAs continued their surveillance, they arrested these terrorists (important members of the AQIS) when they planned a terrorist activity there. Asim Akbar, alias Saeed, alias Baba, alias Bazurg, alias Jaffer, was a resident of Lahore. During investigations, the CTD Punjab found that he had been associated with Al Qaeda since 2005. He was in charge of the media cell. He trained many activists of the AQIS in media graphics and animations with Abu Hasham who was killed in Afghanistan a few months back.

In addition to online material, he was running a printing press where the AQIS literature was being published and disseminated. The printed material was disseminated to various parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan through couriers.

Other terrorist Abdullah Umair, aka Hanzala, aka Basit, aka Rab Nawaz, of Karachi, joined the organisation in 2010.

He remained a close aide of the present operational/militant commander of AQIS Atif Ghauri, alias Yahya, who was in Afghanistan. He was coordinating activities of the AQIS in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Similarly, Ahmadur Rehman, of Karachi, joined the AQIS in 2015 and was trained for urban ambush operations.

He was trained by previous emir of the AQIS, Asim Umar, who was recently killed in Afghanistan. He was planning an attack on an LEA personnel in Punjab at the time when arrested.

He said Yousaf, of Karachi, was the brother of AQIS commander Yaqoob. He had also been trained in urban terrorist warfare and was assisting Ahmad in launching attacks on LEAs.

Muhammad Yaqoob, alias Gora, was also of Karachi, he said, adding that he joined the AQIS in 2014.

He was a social media blogger of the AQIS and an expert in making forged documents. He was instrumental in running propaganda campaigns, the spokesperson for the CTD Punjab concluded.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2020