Lashkar e Jhangvi: In the News
2009
August 23: The Karachi Police have arrested seven members of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a proscribed Sunni militant group. The suspects were arrested in the Defence View area in the night of August 22, the DIG Saud Mirza said at a press conference. According to him, the accused surrendered themselves to law-enforcement agencies without putting up a resistance. The DIG said one of the accused, Shahzad, was a close associate of Amjad Farooqi and was involved in attacks on former President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf and former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. Police also seized three suicide jackets, 15 kilograms of explosive material, four AK-47 rifles, four pistols, two gas masks, five kilograms of ball bearings, 200 rounds of bullets, electric wires, remote controls and batteries. Police is also reported to have found about one and half kilograms of heroin. The accused allegedly smuggled drugs to foreign countries to generate funds for purchasing arms and ammunition and supporting families of their accomplices who were killed or were under detention. They also used to provide money to the Quetta-based Taliban commander Abdul Samad.
May 13: Security agencies arrested three key accused of the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. A private TV channel reported that the arrested suspects were members of the banned Sunni group LeJ and hail from southern Punjab. Two of the arrested men were directly involved in the attack on the Sri Lankan players while the third provided logistic support to the attackers in the city, the channel's sources said. The channel also said the assailants had received training in a militant camp at Wana in South Waziristan.
April 8: Police said they had arrested five members of the banned Sunni group LeJ for allegedly plotting to bomb sensitive areas in Karachi. "We have arrested five terrorists and seized... weapons, explosives and chemicals required for bomb-making," Karachi city Police chief Waseem Ahmed told a press conference. He also confirmed the suspects belonged to the LeJ group.
March 22: The intelligence agencies probing the March 3 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore have named the banned LeJ as the group behind the incident. A detailed report of the findings has been submitted to the Government. A senior official involved in the probe revealed that certain important arrests had been made in Karachi and other parts of the country in connection with the attack which killed eight persons. The unnamed officer maintained that during the course of investigations, it has emerged that Matiur Rehman of the LeJ was the mastermind of the terrorist attack, while Mohsin (who was involved in the Rawalpindi attack on General Pervez Musharraf, also attributed to the LeJ was present during the Lahore attack. The senior official believes that the attack was planned with the coordination of the Baitullah Mehsud group.
March 3: Five Shias were killed in Quetta, capital of Balochistan, when unidentified assailants attacked members of a family in the city - taking the death toll from sectarian attacks in a single week to 12. According to Police, the assailants ambushed a van carrying the Shia family on the eastern bypass of Quetta – killing five people on the spot. The slain civilians were returning to Quetta from the Mach area when they were targeted. "It is a target killing," Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations) Wazir Khan Nasar said. Although no group claimed responsibility for the incident, the killings are reported to be part of a series of sectarian attacks that started in Quetta a couple of months ago. The banned Sunni terrorist group, LeJ, has accepted responsibility for most of the recent attacks.
2008
December 22: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior, Rehman Malik, revealed that the banned LeJ carried out the terrorist attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Answering a question in the National Assembly, he said investigations into the Marriott attack had been completed. He said the truck used in the attack was loaded with ammunition in Jhang and it entered Islamabad via Rawat. Two boys from Toba Tek Singh, who had been arrested, facilitated the terrorist act and a charge-sheet against them had been submitted in court. On September 20 2008, a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives at the Marriott Hotel, killing at least 60 persons, including the Czech Ambassador, and several other foreigners. At least 200 people, including a Pakistan People’s Party legislator, were injured in the explosion, which ruptured a gas pipeline and triggered a huge blaze. A group calling itself Fedayeen-i-Islam claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.
December 17: Authorities discovered that a plot had been hatched by Omar Sheikh to kill Musharraf with the connivance of some LeJ militants, with whom he had in contact for a long time over the phone. Three mobile phones, six batteries, 18 SIMS of almost every cellular company and chargers were seized from Omar’s cell. Further scanning of his telephone records revealed he had been making calls all over Pakistan to former jihadi and relatives in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. LeJ militants had allegedly been monitoring Musharraf’s movements to target him while traveling between his Army House residence in Rawalpindi and his Chak Shehzad farmhouse on the 1-A Park Road in the suburbs of Islamabad or to blow up the bridge on Shara-e-Faisal during his next visit to Karachi.
November 23: The Taliban are present in Karachi and have links with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and other banned religious organisations, but they have no intention of carrying out attacks in the provincial capital if not provoked by a political party or the Government, said Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Maulvi Omer.
November 21: The banned Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) may strike in Karachi and "we need to discourage them and increase the vigil," said Adviser on Interior Affairs, Rehman Malik. He reportedly said this in a meeting to review law and order in Karachi and Sindh with President Asif Ali Zardari in the chair at the Governor’s House in Karachi. He stated that al Qaeda was using the LeJ, SSP and TTP for carrying out its activities.
October 15: The staffs of the CID have arrested two criminals who were allegedly supplying automatic weapons to various militant outfits, including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Taliban. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Mohammad Fayyaz Khan of the CID, Sindh, said that the Police arrested the two persons, identified as Omer Hayat and Amjad, along with 6,000 Sub-Machine Gun rounds and two foreign-made pistols from their possession. During the investigation it was discovered that the two arms suppliers were the associates of Noor Sharif (an arms supplier from Dara Adam Khel recently caught by the CID). SSP Khan said that the accused had links with various militant outfits, including the LeJ and the Taliban.
September 26: Three would-be suicide bombers, suspected to be cadres of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), were killed along with a handcuffed hostage when one of the bombers blew himself up following a police raid on a house in Karachi.
July 27: A top leader of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) was arrested from Quetta for his alleged involvement in several acts of sectarian terrorism. Shafiq-ur-Rehman was involved in suicide bombings on a mosque in 2003 and on an Ashura procession in 2004. The two attacks left over 100 people dead and about 180 injured, Capital City Police Officer Mohammad Akbar told a press conference.
July 14: Security agencies arrested a top al Qaeda operative along with his two accomplices in Punjab's southern city of Multan. Tanzanian national Muhammad Al Misri, Anwar Muawiya and Muhammad Shahid were arrested from a shutdown 'Neel Wali Factory' located on the Abdali Road. Unnamed officials said that Al Misri is closely linked with al Qaeda's top hierarchy and is also suspected to be behind the series of suicide attacks in Pakistan following the crackdown on the Lal Masjid (Red mosque). Anwar, a resident of Abbotabad, belongs to the banned Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), the sources said, adding Shahid, another LeJ activist, is a local of Multan.