Pakistani police detained a Taliban commander who has links to terrorists in North Waziristan and Afghanistan.
Police detained Asmatullah Mehsud during a recent raid in the southern port city of Karachi. Asmatullah is described as a “key commander” who was plotting to attack police officials in the Criminal Investigation Department. The CID is responsible for investigating terrorism cases.
Asmatullah “was involved in providing financial support to the TTP campaign and was providing safe hideouts and medical treatment to injured militants in the city,” Dawn reported.
Asmatullah played a major role in the Oct. 17, 2007, assassination attempt against former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The massive suicide bombing, the largest in Pakistan to date, killed 132 people and wounded hundreds more. Bhutto survived the assassination attempt but was killed two months later in a complex suicide and shooting attack in Rawalpindi.
Asmatullah has links that extend to the Taliban havens of North and South Waziristan and in Afghanistan. His brother is Abdul Wahab Mehsud, a wanted commander of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan who operates in North Waziristan. Abdul Wahab is also said to run a Taliban training camp in Badar in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
Both Asmatullah and Abdul Wahab were among the original group of Taliban commanders who linked up with the radical, anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and expanded the network in Karachi. The two brothers were identified as having allied with Baitullah Mehsud, the previous leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, back in September 2008.
The Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi nexus in Karachi was headed by a commander named Rahimullah, who is also known as Ali Hassan or Naeem, according to a report in Daily Times. Rahimullah also led al Qaeda’s network in the southern Pakistani city. Police captured Raheemullah in September 2008.
5 Comments
CID Karachi police is doing a good job with little resources. US must provide it direct assistance as there are many anti-taliban forces in Karachi, especially MQM, unlike other parts of Pakistan.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/asia_pacific/pakistan+fight+against+taliban+moves+to+karachi/3601687
So how long will they keep him before they throw him back?
Good capture. Hopefully he sings like a canary and we can target additional HVTs as a result.
It is distrssing to see the word “detained”. That implies, he is just held for awhile and then will be released. I like the word “captured” better. That implies he will be in a prisoner of war camp where he can no longer fight on the battlefield. He will be released when hostilities end, which for these guys is never, so he will be held forever.
Unfortunately, detained is the appropriate word. He will be released later so he can kill more people. I quess the lives of the people he kills aren’t as important as his. That is the judgment that will be made if he is released to kill again.
Mr T: Police detain people. The intellignce services and the military capture people. It’s only words. 🙂
Bill: I disagree with your description “Bhutto survived the assassination attempt but was killed two months later in a complex suicide and shooting attack in Rawalpindi” as a “complex” attack.
I’ve linked to the UN report which has the details of the attack and single attacker. He was a 16 year old who fired two or three shots with a pistol and then immediately blew himself up. That’s a straightforward suicide attack with a gun as an “optional extra”.
I’d consider a useful definition of a “complex” attack to require coordination between multiple elements not just have a single attacker doing two tasks about half a second apart. Other suicide bomber/gunmen attacks all involved some fire and maneuver and multiple people working together to accomplish an objective. I think those deserve the “complex” adjective.