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August 19, 2006

Pakistan: Father of UK Al Qaeda Suspect Is Also In Custody

During the recent UK police operation, arresting suspects in a drive called Operation Overt, a total of 24 people are now detained at Paddington Green high security police station. Requests are being made to have them detained for as long as possible, under the terms of the Terrorism Act 2006, which is 24 days. Most of those detained were arrested on August 9 and August 10.

One of the suspects was arrested from Birmingham, a 21 year old named Tayyib Rauf. Operation Overt was handled in conjunction with US and Pakistani authorities. In Pakistan, Tayib;s elder brother, 26-year old Rashid Rauf, was detained by Pakistani authorities at around the same time as the police picked up Tayib, and also people in High Wycombe and east London.

Rashid Rauf was accused of being a link between the suspects, who had apparently planned to blow up several US bound planes with liquid explosives, and Al Qaeda. His contact was said to be Matiur Rehman, an Al Qaeda recruiter and explosives trainer. Rehman was employed at the Khalden terror training camp and the Farooq camp at Khost. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is said to have been trained by Rehman.

The Pakistani authorities have said that Rashid Rauf has already confessed to meeting Rehman.

We also stated that money from a UK charity, "Muslim Charity, based in Retford, Nottingham, had been sent to Pakistan to three individuals, ostensibly to assist in relief following the earthquake of October 8, which hit Kashmir particularly severely. It appears that one of these charity payments was made out to Rashid Rauf, one of two British suspects arrested in Pakistan.

Subsequently to the revelations about the money (a total of 50million, or $94 million) coming from UK charity, other charities were said to have also contributed, stated the UK Mirror. According to Associated Press, via Seattle Pi, there were five charities in all who were involved in sending the money. One transaction involved more than $9.4 million.

Rashid Rauf and Tayib Rauf's father, Abdul Rauf, owns a cake-making company in Britain, Classic Confectionery Supplies. Tayib worked as a delivery driver for the company. But Abdul Rauf also is a co-founder of a Muslim charity, called Crescent Relief, which is based in Dagenham, Essex. Abdul Rauf is listed as director of this charity.

The news of the Crescent Relief charity being involved with potentially funding the Al Qaeda plot has been carried by Time and Australia's Sunday Telegraph.

Time also discloses that the Pakistani authorities are refusing to talk about the involvement of Rashid Rauf with the earthquake funds. Tasneem Aslam, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said: "Rashid Rauf had nothing to do with any charity involved in the earthquake relief work or with any relief work as such."

But the involvement of his father, Abdul Rauf, becomes more suspicious, as today's Pakistan Daily Times reports that he is now in custody in Pakistan.

The Interior Minister, Aftab Sherpao, stated that he was not aware of Abdul Rauf being detained. The Daily Times, from AFP sources, quotes from senior officials who say he met Rashid shortly before his son's arrest.

An intelligence source claims: "He (Abdul Rauf) was taken into custody from the airport when he was leaving the country."

We wrote of the problems of charities sometimes acting as "fronts" for terrorist activities. The group Jamaat ud-Dawa is a case in point, as it is said by the US and others to be a front organisation for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). On August 10, the day that news of the Operation Overt terror plot became known publicly, iJamaat ud-Dawah's founder, and formerly the founder of LeT, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, was placed under house arrest in Lahore, though no reason was given by the Pakistani authorities.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 19, 2006 4:57 PM

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Posted by: libya at May 16, 2008 11:36 AM

Posted by: libya at May 16, 2008 11:38 AM

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