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Show a smokescreen

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   http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=20026

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=20026

ISI Khalid show a ‘smokescreen’
Simon Denyer

Islamabad, March 11: A Grainy video purporting to show the arrest of two Al-Qaeda leaders has done little to deflect accusations that Pakistan may have staged this month’s raid to give it leeway to abstain in a UN vote on an Iraq war.

On Monday, the powerful military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) held an unprecedented news conference to show foreign journalists what it said were images of a March 1 raid in Rawalpindi that netted Al-Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.


But few of journalists present were convinced the video — which did not show Mohammed’s face nor any sign of a struggle — was genuine. Many said it looked like a crude reconstruction.

On Tuesday, a former ISI chief said he believed Mohammed was actually arrested some time ago in a different city. ‘‘They are trying to cover up,’’ Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul said. ‘‘I believe he was arrested before, probably in Karachi.’’

One intelligence source said Mohammed had been arrested three days before, from the Tench Batta suburb of Rawalpindi. Rumours of Mohammed’s arrest had circulated in Pakistan for months, but were consistently denied.

Gul said news of the arrest appeared to have been leaked at a critical time, just as Pakistan was facing huge US pressure to support a UN Security Council vote authorising war on Iraq.

On Monday night, a senior ruling party official said the government, under massive domestic pressure to oppose war on a fellow Muslim state, had decided to abstain in the vote, news that shocked British and American diplomats in Islamabad.

Gul said the raid may have been staged — and news of the arrest leaked — for the same reason, against the backdrop of the UN vote.

Gul, who ran the ISI from 1987 to 1989, said the raid was conducted too casually to have been real, with police failing to properly surround or secure the house in Rawalpindi.

Relatives of Ahmed Quddus, the son of the house owner, have maintained he was the only man in the house at the time of the raid. Neighbours said they heard no sound of gunfire — contradicting the official account, which maintains that Mohammed shot one intelligence agent in the foot with an AK-47 rifle.

Within hours, news of the raid and arrest was leaked to foreign news agencies, something Gul also found incredible. ‘‘He has to be questioned, before you present him to the public eye,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t present news like that.’’

In the video, an ISI officer is seen briefing agents about the raid — in English, as opposed to Urdu. Officials explained this was a reconstruction of the Urdu briefing, but said the rest of the video was genuine.

But journalists were unconvinced as a cameraman shone his lights on the raiding party, and followed agents as they broke into the house. (Reuters)





Accused of staging arrest reuters { March 11 2003 }
Accused staging binladen aide arrest { March 11 2003 }
Gul doubts arrest episode
Isi shows faceless arrest tape
Pakistana isi attempts save face
Show a smokescreen

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