Top UK aide to share details with Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: A recently uncovered al Qaeda plot to launch attacks in key European cities similar to the 26/11 Mumbai siege will be at the heart of conversations when a top British official meets Pakistan’s political and military leadership on October 25 (today).

Officials at the foreign ministry said British Home Secretary Theresa May is expected to share the details of intelligence findings on Monday suggesting that the terrorists’ plans are allegedly being prepared in the country’s tribal regions close to the Afghan border.

“This will definitely be at the top of the agenda,” the official told The Express Tribune on the eve of May’s crucial interaction with President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. May will also be meeting Interior Minister Rehman Malik. There is also a possibility that she might call on Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, but there is no such confirmation yet.

The secretary’s visit comes within a month of Western intelligence agencies uncovering the al Qaeda plot to launch attacks in Britain, France and Germany by Pakistan-based militants. “The threat is very real,” a security official based in Europe had told AFP after British and US media reported that militants were planning simultaneous strikes in London and in cities in France and Germany.

The official had confirmed that France and Britain were target, explaining that orders had been given at the highest level of al Qaeda to punish Europe, France in particular.

“This was what had sent a wave of panic across Europe…

they seem really concerned about that and had already raised the issue with Pakistani leadership through diplomatic channels,” the official at the foreign ministry said.

According to Western intelligence services, at least 20 Britons are among several dozen Europeans undergoing terrorist training in Pakistan to launch Mumbai-style shootings and suicide attacks in Britain, The Daily Telegraph has reported.

The young Muslims, who all hold British passports, are said to have travelled into the tribal areas of Pakistan to join training camps run by al Qaeda and their associated militant groups while MI5, the British secret service, is hunting a cell of terrorists connected to an al Qaeda commander who boasted of attacks in Europe. It is investigating a network connected to Ilyas Kashmiri, a senior al Qaeda commander who sparked an alert over commando-style attacks in Europe and had also threatened the recently-concluded Commonwealth Games.

Express Tribune sources in the restive North Waziristan agency, a region where Kashmiri’s Harkat Jihad-e-Islami (HJeI) is based, had also confirmed the presence of at least two Britons of Pakistani origin who were among several being trained. One of them reportedly died in a strike by US-operated drone recently however his death was denied by Taliban associates.

These claims are impossible to verify and the exact number of Europeans being trained there is also a mystery. According to Taliban claims, there are over 200 trainees but independent sources put the figure at a few dozen.

A spokesperson for the British high commission in Islamabad also confirmed that counter-terrorism is one of the subjects to be discussed in the meetings. “The meetings will cover many issues, including British assistance for Pakistan to overcome flood losses, counter-terrorism, immigration and problems women are faced with here,” spokesperson George Sherriff told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune,October 25^th, 2010.