ISLAMABAD, 10 August 2004 — Pakistan has protested to the United States about an FBI sting operation involving a fake plot to kill Pakistan’s UN ambassador, describing it yesterday as a mind-boggling and dangerous mission.
The FBI set up the sting to try to snare Mohammed Hossain, founder of a mosque in Albany, New York, and its prayer leader Yassin Aref after surveillance beginning about a year ago.
The operation involved money laundering, a shoulder-fired missile and the fake plot to kill the Pakistani ambassador.
An FBI informant in the case told Hossain and Aref he was working with Jaish-e-Mohammed, an extremist group in Pakistan, and said the missile would be used to assassinate the envoy, said an affidavit filed by an FBI agent.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said it was a bizarre move that could have endangered the life of Muneer Akram.
“It is mind-boggling why they could not use the name of an American functionary,” Khan said at a weekly news conference.
“We have made a demarche to the US Embassy here. We hope that the United States will realize its mistake and give instructions for rectifying this faulty methodology.”
Aref and Hossain were arrested after raids earlier this month on houses and the Masjid As-Salaam, Deputy Attorney-General James Comey has said.
US authorities said the arrests were unrelated to the recently raised terror threat level about possible attacks on financial buildings in New York, Washington and Newark, New Jersey.
“At one level this is a bizarre story, at another quite dangerous,” Khan said.
“This has increased our ambassador’s and our mission’s vulnerability. This technique and methodology is tantamount to auto suggestion and could have endangered the life of our ambassador,” Khan added.
Pakistan is a close ally of the United States in its war on terror and has handed over hundreds of Al-Qaeda suspects and Taleban remnants to Washington since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Pakistan is currently questioning a key operational chief from Al-Qaeda who knew Osama Bin Laden and is suspected of involvement in attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf.
Qari Saifullah Akhtar was seized in Dubai on Friday and handed over to Pakistan the following day, the latest major Al-Qaeda scalp claimed in a month-long swoop by Pakistani intelligence agencies that has netted around 20 suspects so far.
Intelligence sources say Akhtar’s capture was linked to information gleaned from top Al-Qaeda suspect, Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, and Pakistani computer engineer Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, seized in separate raids in July.
But Pakistan’s information minister has denied any link.
Akhtar, described by the sources as Al-Qaeda’s operational chief in Pakistan, is suspected of links with two assassination attempts on President Musharraf in December.
The prime suspect in the attacks, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, comes from the militant group Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami headed by Akhtar.
The intelligence sources, who all declined to be named, said Akhtar, in Afghanistan with Bin Laden and Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar at the time of the US-led war in 2001, was being held by intelligence agencies in the Pakistani capital.
Pakistan says it is searching for four or five more important Al-Qaeda “planners”, including an Egyptian known simply as Hamza and a Libyan called Abu Faraj.
“We are looking for four or five other planners of terror attacks,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Reuters on Sunday.
“If we are successful in getting them, it will be a big blow to their network and there will be a sharp drop in terrorism.”
Officials said the planners were being more actively sought than Al-Qaeda chief Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahri, believed by US authorities to be hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.
Information from computer expert Khan led to the United States issuing a high alert at financial institutions against a possible Al-Qaeda attack and to the arrest of 12 Al-Qaeda suspects in Britain.
British newspapers said one of the 12 was believed to have been plotting an attack on Heathrow airport.
According to one Pakistani intelligence source, Khan was involved in a sting operation against Al-Qaeda when his name was confirmed by US officials, thereby compromising his cover.
Asked about the leak, Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told a regular news briefing: “This issue is being dealt with by the agencies.” He did not elaborate.
