ISLAMABAD — Pakistani officials have arrested a retired
Pakistani army major for his suspected role in an alleged plot that was hatched
in the U.S. to assassinate the creator of controversial Danish cartoons of the
Prophet Muhammad, the Pakistani army said Tuesday.
The news will fuel growing fears about the radicalization of
Pakistan’s army, and particularly the links between former army officers and
Islamic extremists.
Two men of Pakistani origin, U.S. citizen David Coleman
Headley and Canadian national Tahawwur Hussain Rana, were charged in Chicago
with planning an armed attack in Denmark. Their target was the cartoonist and
Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons in 2005.
The U.S. indictment said the two had been in contact with
the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and also with Pakistani extremist
Ilyas Kashmiri — the first time that Kashmiri and Lashkar have been firmly
linked to an alleged plot in the West.
The group, which has long had links to Pakistan’s military
and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, is thought to be
responsible for the terrorist attack that killed more than 160 people in the
Indian city of Mumbai last year.
The Pakistani army said the major, who retired two years ago,
was arrested a couple of months ago. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the chief army
spokesman, denied that any others were detained in connection with the Danish
cartoons plot.
“He (the retired major) was in communication with those
guys (Headley and Rana) in the States,” Abbas said, adding: “Once you
leave the army, you become a private citizen.”
The Associated Press reported that five officers were
detained, including at least two serving lieutenant colonels. Abbas called the
AP account, which said that those arrested also included a retired brigadier
general, a “fabrication” by those running a “campaign” to
embarrass the Pakistan army.
The retired major was arrested in Rawalpindi, the garrison
city that houses Pakistan’s military headquarters, according to a Pakistani
security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t
authorized to speak to the media.
Now being held by Pakistani intelligence, the retired
officer may have been taken into custody on information the FBI gathered from
its interrogation of the suspects in Chicago. It appears that he was in e-mail
and telephone contact with the two men in Chicago.
According to the criminal complaint against Headley, he was
in regular contact with an “individual A” and traveled to Pakistan to
meet him, and together they visited Kashmiri in the country’s lawless tribal
area.
While discipline within the ranks of the army has remained
strong, a number of former officers have been involved in terrorist groups,
including some who’ve attacked the Pakistani army. A former army medical
orderly led an assault on the military headquarters last month.
The FBI said Headley traveled to Pakistan this year and was
headed there again when he was arrested on Oct. 3 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
Headley changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006 in order to disguise his
Muslim identity and to make international travel easier, an FBI affidavit said.
He and Rana are charged with conspiring to provide material support to
terrorism and providing material support to terrorism.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
