Posted on 02/27/2004 10:02:22 AM PST by swarthyguy
NEW DELHI - While all attention is focused on Osama bin Laden and his cohorts allegedly cornered in western Pakistan, in India there is an equal amount of interest in the one man who is wanted just as desperately - Dawood Ibrahim.
Reports quoting intelligence sources and independently confirmed by home ministry officials say that India's most wanted criminal - thought to be hiding in Pakistan - is facing the heat at the instance of none less than Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. The reports say that Dawood's personal security guards, derived from the cream of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, have been removed. Ibrahim is now said to be on the run, and some reports say that he has shaved his mustache and is contemplating plastic surgery to take on a new identity and passport.
Following last week's foreign-secretary-level India-Pakistan talks, which ended with a clear time-frame and a positive roadmap for future dialogue, this crackdown on Dawood is music to India's ears. Such is the keenness in India that Pakistan nab Dawood that officials say that this one step by the Pakistan establishment could propel Indo-Pak relations to levels that have never been witnessed since the time of partition in 1947, during which the two countries have fought three wars and one near-war at Kargil in 1999.
The hunt for Dawood is taking place following Pakistan's realization that flushing out terrorists and jihadi elements has become a necessity for its own survival. Pakistan has currently amassed 20,000 troops along the Afghanistan border for what is being believed to be a decisive battle against bin Laden and al-Qaeda militants. But what might be more than a coincidence is that Pakistan's sudden willingness to flush out Dawood comes amid reports in the Indian media that a timely tip-off by the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) helped foil a third assassination plot against Musharraf. Two abortive attempts have been reported in the past few months. There is, however, no doubt in anyone's mind that Dawood is indisputably the number one criminal wanted by India, and what has rankled is that he has for long used Pakistan as a base.
"If Dawood is nabbed, it will be the biggest step Pakistan undertakes to curb cross-border terrorism on the eastern side of the border," said an official with the Foreign Ministry. India Defense Minister George Fernandes has already hinted that India has some information about the Pakistan army dismantling terror camps and infiltration along the India-Pakistan border.
Dawood's alleged dirty deeds It is the nature of the crimes attributed to Dawood that place him at the top of India's most wanted wish list. The son of a police constable, he is the prime suspect in masterminding a series of bomb blasts that occurred in a single day in 1993 in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the financial heart of India, killing 260 people and injuring 1,000.
Dawood figures in a list of 20 fugitives that India wants Pakistan to hand over and is suspected to be the prime player used by Pakistan's ISI to foment cross-border terrorism in India. Ever since September 11, India has been trying to impress on the United States Dawood's links with al-Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Toiba - one of two groups India blames for a bloody 2001 raid on its parliament that triggered a military standoff with Pakistan and brought the neighbors close to a fourth war.
It is estimated that in Mumbai alone, Dawood and his family own assets worth US$430 million. This includes several buildings at prime locations such as Colaba, Crawford Market, Bhendi Bazar, Bandra, Oshiwara and Versova. Many of these are benami (fictitious names), which makes it difficult to seize them. The family has several builders, stockbrokers and jewelers fronting for it. Apart from this, Dawood has vast business interests in the hospitality industry in the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia and India. Several shopping malls in the West and Australia are also reportedly owned by the family. Dawood has also allegedly began operating an airline from a Central Asian republic.
India has made a strong effort to convince the US of the complicity of Pakistan allowing Dawood, as well as others such as Masood Azhar, to flourish. Azhar is the founder of the Islamic extremist group, the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed that is accused of leading several terror attacks in India. Azhar was released by India in exchange for the lives of 150 passengers traveling on Indian Airlines flight IC 814 from Kathmandu in Nepal that was hijacked in December 1999 by Pakistani nationals with links to the ISI.
Pakistan has always denied that Dawood resides in the country, though several Indian journalists have reported on his lavish lifestyle in the port city of Karachi. But, as the global consensus against terrorism has grown post-September 11, the US has taken notice of India's apprehension. Last year, the US labeled Dawood a "global terrorist". The US Treasury department linked Dawood to al-Qaeda and backed India's claim that he was hiding in Pakistan, listing his address as Karachi and holding a Pakistani passport.
The US notification had in one stroke nailed as a lie Pakistan's repeated assurance, until the recent turnabout, that it had not provided a safe haven for the fugitive terrorist. The citing of his Pakistani passport also suggested official complicity. "This designation signals our commitment to identifying and attacking the financial ties between the criminal underworld and terrorism," Juan Zarate, deputy assistant secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said in a statement.
Indeed, the designation was the result of close and painstaking cooperation between the top leaderships in India and the US, as well as the intelligence agencies. The fact sheet on Dawood on the website of the US Department of Treasury sounds as if it has been drafted after close consultation with India. Ultimately, it took a personal meeting between Indian Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and US President George W Bush in June last year to impress on him the links of Dawood with the al-Qaeda.
Belated as this American "discovery" of Dawood was, it nonetheless exposed Pakistan's duplicity about Dawood's notorious "D-company" and, by implication, the role of both in sponsoring trouble in India. The Musharraf regime is under pressure now and undergoing a change of face and hopefully heart. Reports suggest that Dawood might be trying to leave Pakistan - but he may be running out of options. Dubai, the one safe haven of several terrorists wanted by India, where Dawood was holed up for some time, will no longer welcome him. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India have signed an extradition treaty with several wanted men already being sent back to India. The UAE government considers terror outfits holed up in Dubai as inimical to its business interests that rest largely on tourist shopping.
At a briefing to the press this week, home ministry officials in Delhi said that the Indian government does not want to reveal too much information about the ground level operations that are in place, to prevent jeopardizing the process, as well as in keeping with the new diplomatic understanding of keeping relations subtle and understated.
But, everybody agrees that nailing Dawood will be one feather in the cap of the ongoing Indo-Pak peace process that can never be removed. He is India's Osama.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist
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I'm not very familiar with Dawood, and the article doesn't fully explain his background. It sounds as if he might be an Indian national, presumably muslim. Or is he a native Pakistani?
Dang, we live in interesting times. The world completely changes in just a few months.
The Pakistanis must be spooked like crazy. Seriously, because doing this must be causing significant pain to their ego (the ego that no muslim nation, especially a 'powerful' one like Pakistan, should be made to do anything by an external non-Islamic power). Hence, for them to go against the grain and do the bloodhound job for the US and India, something must have happened to neuter the blokes!
Geez, i wish i knew what it was. Honestly i wish i could look inside Tenet's head and read his mind. The dude must know a whole lot of interesting stuff.
ROFL
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