Posted on 08/11/2006 1:32:24 PM PDT by Mount Athos
Pakistani intelligence agents have arrested as many as 17 people, some of them British nationals, in the plot to blow up jetliners flying from Britain to the U.S.
Britain hailed Pakistan's help in thwarting the planned attack, but the arrests on Pakistani soil showed that despite its successes against al-Qaida, the country remains a fertile ground for Islamic militancy.
British authorities arrested 24 people Thursday in what they said was a scheme to bring down as many as 10 jetliners in a nearly simultaneous strike. The suspects were believed to be mainly British Muslims, at least some of Pakistani ancestry.
The Foreign Ministry said that acting on information received from Britain, Pakistan had made arrests that triggered the arrests in Britain. It named British national Rashid Rauf as a "key person" who had been nabbed in Pakistan.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao alleged that Rauf has ties with the al-Qaida terror network.
"We arrested him from the border area and on his disclosure we shared the information with British authorities, which led to further arrests in Britain," the interior minister told The Associated Press.
Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri, in an interview with CNN, confirmed the arrests of seven suspects in Pakistan, including Britons. He said the suspects "had been monitored for quite some time" before they were arrested.
Another senior government official said they included two Britons of Pakistani origin who were arrested about a week ago, and five Pakistanis detained in the eastern city of Lahore and the southern city of Karachi. The Pakistanis were arrested on suspicion that they served as the Britons' local facilitators, the official said.
An official at the British High Commission in Islamabad said he could not confirm the arrests of any Britons in Pakistan.
A Pakistani intelligence official said 10 Pakistanis were arrested Friday in Bhawalpur district, 300 miles southwest of Islamabad, in connection with the terror plot. A second intelligence official confirmed there were arrests in Bhawalpur, but did not know how many. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of their jobs.
A Foreign Ministry statement said the arrests in Pakistan underscored "the very important role that has been played by Pakistan in breaking this international terrorist network." It said there were "indications of an Afghanistan-based al-Qaida connection," but offered no details or supporting evidence.
Pakistan, a key ally of Britain and the U.S. in the war on terrorism, has been long been regarded as a center of Islamic militancy, much of it linked to events in Afghanistan. Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United State, Pakistan has captured hundreds of al-Qaida fighters and arrested key figures in Osama bin Laden's terror network.
Talat Masood, a former Pakistani general, said the developments show that officials are cooperating in the war on terror, but also send another message.
"It has pluses and minuses. The minuses are that it shows many active terrorists have links with Pakistan and people are visiting Pakistan for this purpose," Masood said.
Three of the four suicide attackers in the deadly July 7, 2005, bombings on the London transport system were British Muslims of Pakistani origin and had visited Pakistan before the attacks.
One bomber visited a seminary run by a hard-line Islamic group, but officials in Islamabad say none of the bombers received militant training or support during their visits.
Sounds like the British turned up a bunch of names in this investigation. Pakistan, Turkey...lots of arrests going down.
There could be more to come.
More to come, just watch...
I'm betting Pakistani interrogators will not make the fringe-left democrats happy.
Musharraf, despite his many faults, is imperiling his life with these strong moves against the jihadis. I wish him well.
gee, they seem rather bunched up, or thick as rats on this thing ... not that we are surprised, or should not be, anyways ...
I certainly hope and pray that they catch a whole lot more of these scum.
He is and I, too, wish him wll.
I believe he's done about as much as he can and still stay alive.
This is great. Picking terrorists off left and right :)
I know that more will spring up, but we have to just keep on making sure their plans all fail!
A lot of info has come from The NSA intercepts.What will the DemonRats have to say about this????????
Of course, what are the chances that the Democrats will keep saying that the War on Terror has done no good? After all, we haven't gotten Osama!
ok .. now I'm confused
The AP is also reporting there is no evidence of a threat
I sure wish the AP would make up their minds
No evidence of U.S.-based threat found
AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/11/06 | Larry Margasak - ap
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1682042/posts
Don't forget Specter's stupid lawsuit against the President
They will say "their rights were violated", leading up to the arrests.
That's because we can't find ours.
Roundups of plotters in Britain, Italy, and Pakistan, but not in the US, even though we are the number one target. That actually may be an ominous sign.
One can only hope that the courts, Specter, and the Dems don't soon end up with American blood on their hands.
When the ISI itself aids, abets and protects terrorists, this is the result. Musharraf is a back stabber. He is the faux good cop facing the West meanwhile the real fiends are still just as evil as ever. Not only are they still accomodating the terrorists, they are in bed with Beijing / the PLA, helping the PRC gain entree to the Indian Ocean.
"Pakistani intelligence agents have arrested as many as 17 people, some of them British nationals, in the plot to blow up jetliners flying from Britain to the U.S.
...... the country remains a fertile ground for Islamic militancy."
"British authorities arrested 24 people Thursday....Seems England is more fertile then Pakistan."
I need a scorecard.
"I'm betting Pakistani interrogators will not make the fringe-left democrats happy."
...but you'll hear nary a peep from Human Rights Watch.
Give me a break. You must be of Indian ancestry. Pakistan just prevented something worse than 9/11 and this is what you come up with?
"Musharraf, despite his many faults, is imperiling his life with these strong moves against the jihadis. I wish him well."
I'm concerned about Musharraf, wondering how many assassination attempts he'll be able to dodge. His number will eventually come up, because these goons are persistent.
This is a truly awesome development.
For President Bush to have enlisted this much cooperation in this WoT is truly of historic consequence.
fyi
ping
Yay, for Pakistan. Many thanks for their help...
After giving props, we must ask ourselves why terrorists from the US, UK, Canada and Australia want to go to Pakistan to train, if that country is fighting terror effectively. They don't go to Afghanistan anymore do they?
We played effective defense this time. But playing defense may not work in the long run.
Your comment is based on the premise that Pakistan can immidiately wipe out all domestic terrorists when they have never in their history been able to fully conquer their whole country.
The Frontier Territories are only marginally under federal control.
They have made huge leaps in the right direction in the past 5 years. Do they have more they need to accomplish? Certainly.
But to trash them while they're doing that, especially when this terrorist plot would have been worse than 9/11 is stupid and potentially counterproductive. We owe them our gratitude.
If we can't even be grateful to muslims when they do good, then they deserve to hate us. The concept of rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior is not complicated.
"You saved my life, but that's not good enough" as a message isn't going to get your life saved next time.
Now the question is whether the Pakis will really put these guys away for a long time, and in isolation, or will it simply be like the Yemeni revolving prison door that has short sentences and "escapes" before many months have passed.....
Of course I'm advocating "persuasion" over "coercion." I'm not talking torture here. Oh no! I'm talking ice cream cones with extra scoops and jimmies on top. I'm talking extra TV privileges down at the jail--oops, I mean the dorm. Yes, the dorm. That's the ticket. We right proud of our humane treatment of our prisoners--oops, I mean our cooperating witnesses and we aims to please.
"You saved my life" is big stretch here because the Pakistanis seem to be doing a lot more "taking credit" here than what seems to be due. The people who busted this are the Brits and if the Pakistanis arrested some people based on intel, it is creditworthy but definitely not much more than the minimum that is expected in return for the billions they are getting.
Whatever the Pakistanis did now is primarily because of the asswhipping they got from us and the Brits after 7/7. Taking the heat off now will only encourage them to slack off and not earn their keep. So praise them if you want to but I'll save my kudos for a time when terrorists no longer go to Pakistan to train in the first place. As a first step, let Musharraf keep his broken promise to expel all foreigners from Pakistani madrassas.
I have been lying in wait for some time now for one of the lib coworkers of mine to try this line. Here in CentralNY (& PA) state there has been a massive manhunt for an escaped murdurer/prisoner "Ralph Bucky Phillips" since April this year. ( http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=39219 )
They keep announcing 'we've got him cornered' but he continues to elude escape. This in our own country! What should we expect to see in the wilds of Pakistan and Iraq? We have good pictures, a good ID, a fairly confined area, and the best trained and very loyal police forces, and a population that will help --- but he's free.
The Unabomber eluded capture in this country for on the order of ten years - again, in our country, and even though his family was (proved) willing to turn him in.
OBL hiding among friends in the wilds of Pakistan with the help of friends, family, local leaders, poorly trained policing forces of questionable loyalty. . .many years
Much MORE than he can and stay alive.
Love him or hate him, he is one brave dude.
If you want to point fingers at a country, which one is the only one whose citizens are attempting to blow up transatlantic flights?
It's not as clear a picture as some here might like to think.
That every terror attack since 9/11 has involved people born in, trained in or moved from Pakistan is a clear fact. Fawning over the people who stopped one attack while turned a blind eye to 10 others is not foresight. As I said, I'll save my praise for the day when Pakistani cities and madrassas stop being a chosen training and funding destination for jihadists across the world.
I was thinking the same thing. Our laws are much more strict when it comes to being able to stop these kind of attacks. We can thank the democrats for that.
So true, although the MSM keep telling us that President Bush has NO allies with him on the WOT.
Well, they get my praise now because without their help, we'd have thousands of bodies of innocent victims somewhere in the Atlantic.
The Brits arrested, by and large, were born and raised in England. Pakistan's past actions are certainly partly to blame, but in the WOT, it's what have you done for me lately....
With a "what have you done for me lately" attitude, if I were a Pakistani, I'll set more fires and claim credit for putting them out. That's because they know that for every 10 terrorists they let loose, they just have to catch one to get their pay.
"[Pakistan] remains a fertile ground for Islamic militancy."
In comparing the number of arrests made, Britain is even worse.
That's an incredibly cynical attitude. I'm curious, do you want Pakistan as an ally, or would you prefer that we kill everyone there?
That's an observation based on facts. Every few months they seem to catch a guy and sell him as AQ #3. Yet the number of terror attacks and threats tracing back to Pakistan are increasing by the day. I have lived in Pakistan and know a lot of people in our govt who work with the Pakistanis and I know what they think of us. The "they" here is the govt, not the fundies.
That goes back to the enormous job Musharraf has to do. I applaud him for his efforts so far while insisting that he continue on that course.
I don't think it's realistic to expect the job to be completed within the next decade. It's that entrenched.
But, the progress that has been made is startling. We wouldn't have had this cooperation pre 9/11.
Where do you live? I grew up in your area, and when I visited my parents over the 4th, we heard all about Bucky.
I wouldn't trust em as far as I could nuke em.
For crying out loud.....be thankful for every little help we can get. Stop trying to find something wrong in their actions or second guess their motives.
Sounds like a huge plot to destroy thousands.
Most people seem to have forgotten that 9/11 was designed to kill many more (perhaps by a factor of 10 or 20) than what happened.
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