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AP: Pakistan Is Still Harboring One of World’s Most Dangerous Terrorists

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — On the outskirts of the Pakistani capital lives a militant considered so powerful that Osama bin Laden consulted with him before issuing a fatwa to attack American interests.

Fazle-ur-Rahman Khalil heads Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, a terrorist group closely aligned with al-Qaida and a signatory to bin Laden’s anti-U.S. fatwa in 1998. Khalil has also dispatched fighters to India, Afghanistan, Somalia, Chechnya and Bosnia, was a confidante of bin Laden and hung out with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

AP: Pakistan Is Still Harboring One of World’s Most Dangerous Terrorists

Fazle-ur-Rahman Khalil.

Pakistani authorities are clearly aware of Khalil’s whereabouts. But they leave him alone, just as they tolerate other Kashmiri militant groups nurtured by the military and its intelligence agency to use against India.

Khalil is also useful to the authorities because of his unusually wide contacts among Pakistan’s many militant groups, said a senior government official who is familiar with the security agencies and who spoke on condition he not be identified fearing repercussions.

Khalil’s presence in an Islamabad suburb, confirmed to The Associated Press by Western officials in the region, underscores accusations that Pakistan is still playing a double game – fighting some militant groups while tolerating or supporting others – even after the solo U.S. raid that killed bin Laden on May 2.

AP: Pakistan Is Still Harboring One of World’s Most Dangerous Terrorists

The house and madrassa, or seminary, where militant Fazle-ur-Rahman Khalil lives stands behind a high wall in the suburb of Golra Sharif outside Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

The U.S. Congress, enraged that bin Laden found refuge for at least five years down the street from Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point, has threatened to cut off the billions of dollars in aid being spent here.

Obama administration officials and U.S. Army officers are trying to rebuild the relationship, considered vital to American hopes of negotiating an end to the Afghan war, but if anything the two sides appear to have drifted further apart in recent weeks.

Pakistan’s intelligence service has arrested five Pakistanis who fed information to the CIA before the American raid that killed bin Laden, according to a Western official in Pakistan.

The group of detained Pakistanis included the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to observe bin Laden’s compound in the military town of Abbottabad, a U.S. official said. The owner was detained along with a “handful” of other Pakistanis, said the official.

Also, CIA Director Leon Panetta confronted Pakistan’s intelligence service about tipping off militants running bomb factories aimed at killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Pakistan denied tipping them off. The militants belong to the Haqqani network, an Afghan Taliban faction that has ties to al-Qaida.

Khalil’s Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, blamed for a deadly attack on the American Consulate in Karachi in 2002, has links to the Haqqanis and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. Hundreds of militants are thought to belong to his organization, though the strength of these groups are the links they share with each other, say analysts.

AP: Pakistan Is Still Harboring One of World’s Most Dangerous Terrorists

Another view of Khalil's compound.

Khalil himself is not on any U.S. wanted list. In the Islamabad suburb of Golra Sharif, he lives in a nondescript two-story compound that includes a seminary or religious school, hidden behind a traditional high wall protected by barbed wire.

Reached by the AP on his cell phone last month, Khalil dismissed suggestions that he may have been in touch with bin Laden while the al-Qaida leader was hiding in Abbottabad.

“It is 100 percent wrong, it’s rubbish,” Khalil said. “Osama did not have contact with anybody.” The AP obtained Khalil’s phone number from a former aide who has since left the terror organization.

The Pakistani senior government official who spoke with AP said Khalil has been arrested twice but each time was released on orders from Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

“He was significant for Osama bin Laden,” the official said. “He has connections with all these groups in Waziristan but he is living here and we don’t go after him. He is the one you go to when you need to get to these groups,” tracking kidnap victims for example.

Khalil was once the boss of terror leader Ilyas Kashmiri, believed killed in a drone strike on June 3.

Like most of the militant groups that get a wink and a nod from Pakistan’s security agencies, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen’s primary focus is Kashmir, a picturesque region divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by each in its entirety. Kashmir has been the cause of two of three wars between the South Asian neighbors and brought them perilously close to a nuclear confrontation in 2000.

Khalil’s group has kidnapped foreigners in Indian Kashmir, killing one. His group also helped in the 1999 hijacking of an Indian airlines plane that resulted in the release of three militants, including Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is now on death row for his part in the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Khalil’s militant ties include the anti-Indian Lashkar-e-Taiba group, blamed for masterminding the November 2008 assault on Mumbai that killed 166 people. The AP learned from the same official that seven training camps are operating in Pakistani Kashmir and most of them are run by Jamaat-ud-Dawwa, the name Lashkar-e-Taiba took after being banned.

“There are seven jihadi camps working in Kashmir right now, giving them explosives training,” the official said. He said military and intelligence agencies say the camps provide Pakistan with “strategic depth.”

“They say we need them, otherwise India will treat us like the rest of South Asia, like they can dictate,” he said. “It is only the military and intelligence. The government has no say.”

Pakistan has said it has severed its links with these Kashmiri militant groups, though many suspect that is not the case. But it does recognize the dangers posed by some militant groups in another corner of Pakistan – near the Afghan border.

Since deploying troops in 2004 to the region near the Afghan border, Pakistan has lost 3,000 soldiers to militant attacks, more casualties than NATO has suffered over 10 years in Afghanistan.

“Our concern at this point in time is our involvement with northwest Pakistan. We cannot manage to open a new front in central Punjab and in south Punjab,” where these groups are headquartered, said a senior military official on condition of anonymity. “Our army is not well trained for counterterrorism in urban centers and we do not have the capacity in our civil law enforcement agencies” to go after these groups.

But many Pakistanis wonder how they got to this place, besieged by militants who bomb them daily while suffering a litany of criticisms and perceived humiliations from their U.S. allies for not doing enough.

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist, columnist and peace activist, recently dubbed his homeland “Jihadistan,” saying it wasn’t always this way. He laid the blame on an array of players for the current state of affairs in Pakistan.

In a recent column, he first pointed the finger at former military dictator Gen. Mohammed Zia ul Haq. Zia made Islamic radicalism the centerpiece of his military and political strategy, launching the country and the security forces on a path of religious extremism.

Hoodbhoy then blamed Washington’s Cold War doctrine that partnered the United States with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Zia’s Pakistan in the 1980s to embrace Islamic radicalism to defeat Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The partnership brought Islamic radicals from across the Middle East to Pakistan.

The strategy worked, and the Russians left Afghanistan. But the cost of victory was a toxic mix of Islamic radicals.

“Jihadistan is a messy place these days, a far cry from the simple bastion of anti-communism in the 1980s,” he wrote. “Today the military must kill some of its former proteges and some radicals even as it secretly supports others.”

A former U.S. ambassador to Islamabad says throwing money at Pakistan won’t wean it off jihadi groups so long as its fear of India dictates its security policies.

“It is the perception of India as the primary threat to the Pakistani state that colors its perceptions of the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s security needs,” Anne Patterson said in a 2009 cable made public by WikiLeaks.

She said the United States should discourage India from excessive involvement in Afghanistan, and scale back American military sales to New Delhi.

“We need to reassess Indian involvement in Afghanistan and our own policies toward India, including the growing military relationship through sizable conventional arms sales, as all of this feeds Pakistani establishment paranoia and pushes them closer to both Afghan and Kashmir-focused terrorist groups while reinforcing doubts about U.S. intentions,” Patterson said in the memo.

—

Kathy Gannon is AP’s special regional correspondent for Pakistan and Afghanistan. AP writer Asif Shahzad in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Comments (38)

  • Link8on
    Posted on June 26, 2011 at 11:49am

    Pakistan
    (music from Toto’s Africa)

    They trained for months to get it right
    while the news did not report the building of his mansion.
    With folks around him, lips are tight,
    the locals pondered about this family’s insulation.
    Their choppers journeyed far that night,
    there would be no marker for his shrine in the ocean
    ten years of searching for this fight
    the win churns up emotions not the same …

    Chorus
    When the towers burned, they vowed that you would too,
    You lied about the mission of your corrupted group.
    You started war, fled to Pakistan,
    Gonna take some blood to do the things we never had.

    The counter options reviewed up high
    many off the table for fearing misaimed damage
    They did not let the ends paralyze
    let our allies worry about their own reelection image
    There is no end to war in sight, ten years to reach this sheltered town

    Chorus

    (Instrumental break)

    the win churns up emotions not the same …

    When the towers burned, they vowed that you would too,

    the extra wife will not protect you from your doom

    after Friday prayers in Pakistan, send our elites down in Pakistan!
    You started war, fled to Pakistan.
    Send our elites down in Pakistan !
    Send our elites down in Pakistan !
    Gonna take some blood to do the things we never had.

    Report Post » Link8on  
  • jessieH
    Posted on June 17, 2011 at 10:13am

    What? Pakistan is pulling the wool over the eyes of our elected morons? Why, we should give them more money! Shure, they’ll give it to the enemy, but, isn’t the whole world our enemy? Reminds me of school bullies, demanding our lunch money. It’s really sad, to think a bunch of camel jockies are smarter than our elected morons.

    Report Post »  
  • Stu Pedaso
    Posted on June 16, 2011 at 9:09am

    Could there not be a gas leak in the neighborhood or something like that? We don’t always need to send in the troops. They want to fight a “terrorist” war. Hell we pioneered that strategy didn’t we? Hit and run is our best tactic. Who cares if another one pops up. Lets play Whack a Mole with live ammunition.

    Report Post » Stu Pedaso  
  • Viking64
    Posted on June 16, 2011 at 6:07am

    These Muslim middle easterners want to destroy our western way of life, but since they are about two thousand years behind us in cultural development , maybe they will just keep taking the billions from Berry!

    Report Post »  
  • S Chopra
    Posted on June 16, 2011 at 12:30am

    Ann Patterson just spits out whatever junk she hears from the ISI and Pakistan generals. India’s involvement in Afghanistan is just an excuse, they hate the USA and Israel and want to destroy both. That is why they support the Taliban. Yes they hate India too and use the policy of “Death by a thousand cuts” against India by supporting terrorism agains it, but that is not the only reason for their support of terrorists. Most importantly there is no way that US can make them happy short of helping muslims wrestle Kashmir from India, Israel from the Jews, Chechnya from the Russians and Andalusia from the Spanish. Even Obama with all his muslim sympathies cant do this in a million years.
    India is building & running infrastructure in Afghanistan (Roads, Hospitals and the Afghan Parliament). And India doesn’t buy much in terms of weapons from USA any way. So tell your Paki friends to get over it.

    Report Post » S Chopra  
  • rightwinglefty
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 11:25pm

    STOP! Giving. Money. To Pakistan. Help India take all of Kashmir and give the Pakis the finger. Time to call for Pakistan to withdraw all troops from Kashmir.

    Report Post » rightwinglefty  
  • the hawk
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 10:27pm

    Pakistan is a SATANIC snake pit ! Burn it NOW !

    Report Post »  
  • nomercy63
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 4:35pm

    Pakistan is doing it’s best Sgt Shultz impersonation!

    Report Post »  
  • tea1776
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 4:12pm

    It amazes me how ignorant the Democrats and Liberals are in this country. Don’t they realize that we are all alike in the eyes of the terrorist. That they want the Democrats and liberals dead as much as the rest of us. You simply cannot talk to these people and reason with them. All they know and want is war. They are just evil and want us all dead. Even after all we’ve done for them.
    Why can’t they see this ?

    Report Post » tea1776  
  • tea1776
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 3:55pm

    All of our leaders know this so why are they sending our tax dollars over there to finance this circus ?
    We need our troops home. All of them. Then we need to nuke the whole middle east. In fact all of them except Israel, they are our only friend.

    Report Post » tea1776  
  • Jim in Houston
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 3:30pm

    Attention Seal Team 6, You are wanted in Pakistan! Send him to be with his 72 virgin pigs.

    Report Post »  
  • pwatkins
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 3:08pm

    Pakistan is harboring the world’s second, most dangerous terrorists, we are harboring the most dangerous in the White House.

    Report Post »  
  • NOBALONEY
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 3:01pm

    If the White House moniters the blaze? They”ll be sending a drone his way soon. or better yet hold another raid so the President can have another victiory tour, and a bump in his ratings.

    Report Post » NOBALONEY  
  • bitter clinger
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 3:00pm

    Sounds like a good place for one of those unmanned democtats to drop a bomb.

    Report Post » bitter clinger  
  • drimmel
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:52pm

    When will our so called leaders figure out that you can’t buy friendship?

    Report Post »  
  • pap pap
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:51pm

    We’re giving these pigs aid why ???

    Report Post »  
  • Bushie
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:37pm

    Muslims and their guttural religion are the ruination of the world.

    Report Post » Bushie  
  • DevotedDad
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:36pm

    We are bombing countries without authorization, that are not even a threat to us, all while we are totally broke.

    All our liberties and freedoms are being stripped away.

    The TSA has turned into a domestic police force that is accountable to no one.

    Gun owners are being targeted.

    Patriotic citizens are being targeted, as well as anyone who speaks against the police state that has been formed right before our eyes…

    And now we are looking for justification to start a war with Pakistan?

    I think we need to start exposing the globalists and the Anti-American forces right here in the United States before we start a propaganda mission to justify yet another war for the globalists and bankers.

    When will enough be enough?

    How much power will they need to satisfy their lust?

    After they get a world order, then what?

    Look at the TSA, the Obama administration, and the Anti-American forces within the Government before you even think about Pakistan.

    Enough already!

    Report Post » DevotedDad  
  • NuffSaid
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:34pm

    If obama is still the komander in cheif, we are in trouble. Does anyone remember if Pakistan was ever a US ally? Pakistool is a welfare state where the backward people do backward things and the military makes the decisions. It’s a joke, and International toilet.

    Obama already shot his total on the Osama loser job. Really botched that one didn’t Hussein?

    Report Post »  
  • historypaper
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:28pm

    There is room for an invasion of Pakistan as it seems we’ve been killing in all the wrong places.
    The great U.S. naval fleet can now in all practical purposes invade Pakistan by air and destroy the terror facilities without dismounting the Marines.
    As Obama the Primitive continues to send billions of dollars to our enemies we must remove Obama who is protecting the capable terror groups in Pakistan, Egypt, Syria and other places around the world.

    Report Post » historypaper  
  • TH30PH1LUS
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:12pm

    Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, while the victim of bad name choice by his parents, is correct in his assesment of the jihad climate there. Jihadistan, or perhaps Rape-istan might be a second option based on the other recent information coming out of this hellhole.

    Report Post » TH30PH1LUS  
  • 13th Imam
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:06pm

    Barry’s newest spiritual adviser. Barry throwing actual Taxpayers money at the union thugs seems to have worked just fine. It brought many of the union radical terrorists, to Wisconsin.

    Report Post » 13th Imam  
  • I.Gaspar
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:05pm

    Was that one of his wives behind him in the first photo?

    Report Post »  
  • justme72
    Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:03pm

    Easy solution……untie Isreal’s hands, allow them to do what they do so well. They can wipe all the terroists out in less than 6 months and we can bring our boys home.

    Report Post » justme72  
    • cheezwhiz
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:06pm

      Pakistan Is Still Harboring One of World’s Most Dangerous Terrorists
      And their enablers are in DC

      Report Post » cheezwhiz  
    • CatB
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:10pm

      Shows that the American dollar can’t buy what it used to.

      Report Post »  
    • Anonymous T. Irrelevant
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:11pm

      Why are we giving Pock-E-Ston money? Why isn’t India helping on the other side? We give most of our damn jobs to India and China, they emulate the West, but we are still the bad guys in Islam’s eyes? When are they going to go after India and China? I guess they DID get India last year.

      Report Post » Anonymous T. Irrelevant  
    • Drum Man
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:11pm

      I like it JUSTME72

      Report Post » Drum Man  
    • Okie from Muskogee
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:27pm

      This had been known for quite some time. 

      Look at the big picture, Pakistan is the problem and has been the problem for the last 10 years. During these 10 years we have tried to “negotiate” thru Pakistan with these terrorists. Pakistan takes the money we GIVE them and finances weapons and groups to be used against the Indians, another “friend” of ours. Pakistan keeps these militant groups to fight India. 

      Stop the aid to Pakistan, every last cent. We are only paying money to create the problem we are fighting. 

      Report Post » Okie from Muskogee  
    • ishka4me
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:37pm

      bet he peeks out the window often. sure we will get him. will he use his wife as a shield too.?

      Report Post »  
    • oldasdirt
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 2:45pm

      Is Pakistan harboring one of World’s Most Dangerous Terrorists? I think we should start with the total poulation of that country,and count backward.Then we would have a better idea of how many terrorist
      that country is harboring.

      Report Post » oldasdirt  
    • cheezwhiz
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 3:01pm

      She said the United States should discourage India from excessive involvement in Afghanistan, and scale back American military sales to New Delhi.
      “We need to reassess Indian involvement in Afghanistan and our own policies toward India, including the growing military relationship through sizable conventional arms sales, as all of this feeds Pakistani establishment paranoia and pushes them closer to both Afghan and Kashmir-focused terrorist groups while reinforcing doubts about U.S. intentions,” Patterson said in the memo.
      ————-
      This woman is the best lobbyist for jihadies I’ve seen so far.
      I hope the pakis pay her good,
      BTW, what exactly is India’s involvement in Afghanistan ? Is it a military involvement ?

      Report Post » cheezwhiz  
    • Robert-CA
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 3:08pm

      How come they left out Syria in harboring the most dangerous terrorists in the world not only they harbor them they have their headquarters in there , you name any muslim terrorist organisation in the world & you’ll find their headquarters in Syria .

      Report Post » Robert-CA  
    • code green
      Posted on June 15, 2011 at 3:30pm

      500 kiloton sound about right ?
      As Sperm Whale Walen said in the book Choir Boys “don’t choke em, smoke em”. Then let God sort it out.

      Report Post »  

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