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CTD claims emergence of new group of assassins in Karachi

By Salis bin Perwaiz
April 17, 2017

A senior official of Sindh’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) claimed on Sunday that a new group of assassins had emerged in Karachi and might be behind some instances of this year’s spate of targeted attacks.

According to some investigators in the loop, the responsibility of recent murders of law enforcers and people from minority sects claimed by some terrorist groups was bogus, leading to the idea of a new group’s hand in the incidents.

Karachi has been in the grip of lawlessness for the past many years. It found respite after an operation against criminals and terrorists was launched in 2013. But a new wave of “professional hits” has caused the CTD to mull over the notion of a new player.

Raja Umer Khattab, chief of the CTD’s Transnational Terrorists Intelligence Group, told The News that the number of targeted attacks in the city was brought down considerably, but such incidents had not been stopped completely.

Khattab said that in the past the targeted attacks were carried out on the basis of political affiliation, ethnicity or sect, but after the launch of the Karachi operation such incidents decreased in number, especially after Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s (LeJ) Ishaq alias Bobby and others were arrested, adding that the arrests also brought down the number of attacks on police, Rangers and other law enforcement and security agencies.

However, he said, people belonging to Shia, Ahmadi and Bohra communities were still being targeted, and the attackers’ modus operandi (MO) hinted towards the involvement of a new group.

Khattab suspected that the group was not as organised as other known terrorist outfits, saying that LeJ al-Alami’s Abu Sufian and Daesh might have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks carried out by the new group, adding that Daesh’s claims could be authentic but not Sufian’s, because the latter had no functional network in Karachi. The official believes that the new group will be dismantled sooner rather than later.

On a query about the recent killing of Col (retd) Qaiser in Bahadurabad, Khattab said the murder was not an ordinary targeted attack because none of the gunshots seemed to have missed the target, which points towards the new group’s MO.

In response to a question about Jundullah’s presence, the official said most of the terrorists associated with the outfit had been either killed or arrested, adding that its main leader Arif alias Haris, who earlier operated out of Wadh in Balochistan, was killed in Hub, while the militants who had escaped from the city courts a few years ago were killed in Afghanistan in a drone strike.

Khattab said Jamaatul Ahrar had no network in Karachi and was operating out of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but while some Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan terrorists were located in Karachi, they had shown no signs of regrouping.

He said LeJ’s Naeem Bukhari group was involved in most of the terrorism cases in Karachi, including attacks on important government installations and at the Karachi airport, adding that the group was almost finished after Bukhari’s arrest, the killing of the group’s sleeper cell incharge Dildar alias Chacha in Korangi and the killing of another important member Kamran Jamshed Bhatti in a CTD encounter in Sukkur.

Earlier, a senior police official had said the CTD Sindh had arrested terrorists identified as Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) Karachi chief Faizur Rehman alias Abdullah alias Danial, deputy chief Mustafa alias Shahzad, target killer Mohammad Feroz alias Lambu and Ibrahim alias Sajid.

Other arrested terrorists belong to the LeJ: the group’s chief for Orangi Town Mohammad Saeed alias Kalu alias Abbas alias Farrukh Abbas, Ahmed Sadiq alias Zeeshan, Furqan Alam, Zainul Abideen alias Zain and Abdul Bari Usman.

During interrogation the detainees confessed to murdering people affiliated with political parties and members of the Shia community. They also confessed to attacking the Orangi Town, Mominabad and Gulshan-e-Iqbal police stations with hand grenades in March last year.

They also admitted to their involvement in the bomb blast outside an internet café in Baldia Town in 2009 and another explosion outside a video centre in North Karachi the same year.

Sharing details of the AQIS Karachi chief, the official said the accused was arrested from Orangi Town in 2010 with three associates while making a bomb, adding that he later managed to get bail and went missing, while his associate Maulvi Ishtiaq was killed in Afghanistan last year.

The official said that of the 10 terrorists killed during the attack on the Karachi airport, two were associated with the same group.

He said LeJ and AQIS militants were jointly operating out of Orangi Town and its adjoining areas, adding that the AQIS chief and the entire command were operating out of Afghanistan’s Baramcha area.

The official said the Karachi setup of AQIS was being operated by Naseem Bhai alias Hanif and Kamran alias Atif, who were formerly associated with the Harkatul Mujahideen al-Alami, adding that due to an operation against terrorist outfits, they were facing financial problems and their communication network had also been dismantled.