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Pakistan’s navy guards the PNS Zulfiqar, a naval ship targeted by al Qaeda, in this June 23, 2011 file photo. Security officials on Thursday said they captured operatives of the militant group allegedly planning a raid on a Karachi naval base. REUTERS
By
SAEED SHAH And
SYED SHOAIB HASAN
Dec. 11, 2014 4:50 p.m. ET
1 COMMENTS
KARACHI, Pakistan—Pakistani police have arrested the alleged Karachi-area chief of al Qaeda’s newly formed wing for South Asia, heading off a planned assault on a naval base, Pakistani security officials said, as the militant group shifts attention and resources to the region.
Security officials said police in Karachi detained Shahid Usman, whom they characterized as the Karachi-area head within the group calling itself al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. Mr. Usman was apprehended along with several of his alleged accomplices.
Security officials told The Wall Street Journal that members of militant group were planning to carry off an attack on the main Karachi naval dockyard. Police found 10 kilograms of explosive material on the men, along with rifles and pistols, a security official said.
Mr. Usman doesn’t fit the traditional profile of an al Qaeda militant sheltering in a lawless region. Security officials described him as a wealthy car-parts dealer who lived in a large house in the city’s most upmarket area, called Defense.
Security officials said members of his group had also orchestrated the attempted assassination with a roadside bomb in late September of Farooq Awan, a senior Karachi counterterrorism police officer.
A key focus for the interrogators of the men arrested in Karachi is to figure out how far al Qaeda has penetrated Pakistan’s armed forces, security officials said.
The new al Qaeda wing in South Asia would operate in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar and be an official branch sanctioned by the group’s top leadership. The wing is headed by Asim Umar, who experts say is an ideologue who has called for Indian Muslims to take part in a modern-day jihad.
‘Al Qaeda is seeking to deepen its base in South Asia...And the top personnel of [the] al Qaeda core have inevitably become more anchored there over time. ’
—Alexander Evans, coordinator of the monitoring team of the United Nations al Qaeda Sanctions Committee
Al Qaeda’s global leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, announced the formation of this new regional arm in September to “raise the flag of jihad” across the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Analysts said the move was aimed at bolstering al Qaeda’s position in the region to counter the influence of its rival movement, Islamic State, which has seized territory in Syria and Iraq and has drawn recruits from around the Muslim world.
Jihadist activity is often carried out in al Qaeda’s name by independently founded franchises, over which the group’s central command exercises little control. Unusually, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent was formed by the core al Qaeda as an official chapter.
“Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent is al Qaeda now, to a large extent,” said Baker Atyani, an expert on militant groups. “Al Qaeda has shrunk and is now confined to having regional interests.”
September’s raid on the PNS Zulfiqar was carried out in part by radicalized naval personnel who had been recruited by al Qaeda. Militants succeeded in boarding the vessel, and the raid ended after a lengthy gunbattle. The latest planned Karachi attack, security officials said Thursday, would have been launched by suicide bombers.
“Al Qaeda is seeking to deepen its base in South Asia,” said Alexander Evans, coordinator of the monitoring team of the United Nations al Qaeda Sanctions Committee, a body charged with overseeing the implementation of sanctions against the terrorist group. “And the top personnel of al Qaeda core have inevitably become more anchored there over time, with some of them coming from South Asia.”
Al Qaeda is dependent on Pakistan as a sanctuary. Mr. Zawahiri, an Egyptian, is thought by counterterrorism officials to be most likely hiding in Pakistan, just as Mr. bin Laden spent a decade here before being killed in a raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in 2011. This month, a high-ranking al Qaeda member, Adnan Shukrijumah, wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly planning attacks in the U.S., was killed by the Pakistani military in the country’s tribal areas.
Meanwhile, Mr. Umar, a militant since the late 1980s, passed through several other groups before joining al Qaeda. He is reputed to be close to Mr. Zawahiri, and analysts believe he has been a part of the al Qaeda inner circle since 2009.
Some of Mr. Umar’s beliefs are unorthodox, particularly his obsession with the paranormal. In his book “The Bermuda Triangle and the Antichrist”, Mr. Umar expounds a thesis that the Antichrist is hiding in the Bermuda Triangle and preparing for Armageddon and that the Antichrist has flying saucers and extraterrestrials working for him.
“He is not a scholar,” said a teacher at a radical religious school in Karachi, who has met Mr. Umar. “His knowledge is gleaned from the Internet.”
Mr. Umar may be more of a figurehead, however. Security officials in Karachi believe that Pakistani militant Atta ur Rahman, also known as Naeem Bukhari, serves as the bridge to al Qaeda’s core leadership.
Mr. Rahman is believed to have been involved in masterminding the attack in 2011 on another Karachi naval base, Mehran, in which at least 18 security personnel were killed and two sophisticated surveillance aircraft destroyed.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/pakista...es-ahead-of-planned-naval-dockyard-1418334599
