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Pak terrorism base news
From: jperry@pipeline.com (John Perry, News India-Times)
Peshawar Base For Terrorists: Report
By Our Staff Reporter
NEW YORK: An Islamic university in Peshawar, Pakistan is under
investigation as a training site for terrorists who have struck in
the Philippines, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and,
possibly, in the 1993 explosion at the World Trade Center in New York.
A March 20 New York Times report, "Terror Network Traced To
Pakistan," quotes investigators and diplomats as saying the
University of Dawat and Jihad and other centers in Peshawar had
been training militants for a jihad, or holy war, against
governments and other targets they see as enemies of Islam.
Al Dawat, as the university is known, was founded by Abdul Rab
Rasool Sayyaf, a militant Muslim with strong anti-American
leanings, in the mid 1980s, The Times said.
During that period, a large number of foreigners, mainly Arabs,
came to Pakistan to volunteer with Afghan mujahideen battling
Soviet troops in their country.
The Times quoted an unnamed Pakistani military official as saying
25,000 such volunteers were trained with help from the Inter-
Services Intelligence, Pakistan's military spy agency.
"Some died in Afghanistan and some went home after Soviet troops
withdrew in 1989, but others remained in and around Peshawar or
across the border in Afghanistan, `looking for other wars to
fight,' as Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said," the
article said.
The Times quoted intelligence reports as suggesting that militants
trained in Al Dawat and other camps in Peshawar have taken part in
almost every conflict in which Muslims have been involved: Kashmir,
Mindanao (the largest of Philippine islands), Tajikistan, Bosnia,
Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria.
Western diplomats familiar with the investigations, the newspaper
says, estimate the number of Arabs, Asians and others active in
terrorist groups with bases in Pakistan run to about 1,000. "Of
these, some are believed to have taken sanctuary inside
Afghanistan, with Afghan armed groups that have Muslim
fundamentalist leanings, including Mr. Sayyaf's.
"But many, according to diplomats and police officials, still live
in and around Peshawar, using as cover some of the 18 Arab
educational and relief organizations that registered with the
Pakistani authorities during the Afghan war, among them Al Dawat
University," The Times said.
The newspaper said that like previous governments, Bhutto's has
responded to Western pressures cautiously, fearing a backlash from
powerful Muslim groups within Pakistan.
"But many senior Pakistani officials resent Western pressures,
saying that the terrorist groups that became established here got
their start under policies that Western countries eagerly
supported, as long as the target was the Soviet Union," the article said.
"The Afghan war was a holy war for everybody, including the
Americans, and nobody bothered to think beyond it," The Times
quoted an unidentified senior Pakistani official as saying.
