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Us claims isi spy led attack on musharraf Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/03/02/World/U.Claims.Spy.Led.Attack.On.Pakistans.Leader-620520.shtmlhttp://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/03/02/World/U.Claims.Spy.Led.Attack.On.Pakistans.Leader-620520.shtml
U.S. Claims Spy Led Attack on Pakistan's Leader
Posted Feb. 27, 2004
By Anwar Iqbal
The man who tried to kill Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in December was a spy in Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, a U.S. defense intelligence source told United Press International on Thursday.
Pakistan officials deny the man was a spy. They say he was an extremist freed by U.S. forces once the spy agency said he was not involved in terrorist activities.
Mohammed Jameel, 31, was one of four people who tried to ram two explosive-filled cars into Musharraf's motorcade on Dec. 25 as he was returning to his home near Islamabad. All four are believed to have died in the attempt, along with 12 other people, mostly policemen and Musharraf's bodyguards.
The attack came 11 days after a bomb blew up a bridge in the same area shortly after Musharraf's motorcade passed it. Investigators later said the bodies of three others involved in the attack were mutilated beyond recognition. Jameel, however, was recognized by his severed head, which was discovered near one of the cars the men had used. Investigators said Jameel's face was almost intact, which allowed them to identify him.
A week after the assassination attempt, Pakistan's Information Minister Shaikh Rasheed identified Jameel as a Muslim militant from Rawlakote, a small town on the Pakistani side of the disputed Kashmir region.
Rasheed said Jameel was one of hundreds of Pakistanis who went to Afghanistan to defend the Taliban regime when the United States invaded the country in October 2001. Jameel was later captured and handed over to U.S. authorities in Afghanistan who kept him at Bagram airbase near Kabul along with other prisoners.
"Since there were hundreds of such prisoners, the Americans decided to release those not directly involved with the Taliban or al-Qaeda," said a Pakistani official. "They contacted us for information about Jameel and others and since we had nothing on him, we declared him clean. It was an honest mistake."
A U.S. defense-intelligence source disagrees. He says Jameel was a captain of the Pakistan Army serving in the spy agency. He says Jameel was sent to Afghanistan along with other spies to defend the Taliban.
A Pakistan diplomat in Washington and a Pakistan intelligence official say the U.S. official is wrong.
"It took us a while to find out who he was," said Mohammed Sadiq, deputy chief of mission at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington. "Had he been an ISI officer we would have known."
It took three days to figure out who Jameel was, and he was not a spy-agency operative, the intelligence official said, declining to be named.
Meanwhile, authorities in Islamabad said they have questioned an Islamic militant over his group's possible involvement in the attempt on Musharraf's life. British-born Ahmad Saeed Omar Shaikh was convicted in the murder plot of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Last month, Omar was transferred from Karachi to a prison near Islamabad for questioning. Investigators later said they believe one of the suicide bombers in the Musharraf plot belonged to Harkat Jihad-e-Islami, a group Omar is also involved in.
Last month Musharraf told a news briefing he believed the al-Qaeda terrorist network also was involved in the assassination attempt. CIA Director George Tenet, who Tuesday described Musharraf as "an indispensable ally," said Musharraf has annoyed al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups by deciding to support the United States.
Anwar Iqbal is a South Asian affairs analyst for UPI, a sister news organization of Insight magazine.
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