Pakistan is increasingly revealed as a nexus for terrorist activity. What a tinderbox -- barely governed, filled with Islamic fanaticism, and armed with nuclear weapons by China, North Korea, and others. But these arrests sound like progress being made.
The recent arrests of 19 Southeast Asian seminary students in Karachi has sent a tremor through Pakistan's security agencies, and is triggering concerns that these students could be the first trace of a sleeper cell run by the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network.Posted by Alan at September 27, 2003 07:26 AMSince Islamabad sided with the American-led war on terror after Sept. 11, Pakistani security agencies have rounded up around 500 suspected Al Qaeda fugitives mostly from Arab and North African countries. But this is the first time Pakistani authorities have found imprints of the JI, a Southeast Asian extremist group linked to Al Qaeda, on Pakistani soil.
The discovery means that uprooting Islamic terror networks within Pakistan will require investigators to expand their scope beyond Arab militants. It also brings renewed attention to the nation's more than 10,000 madrassahs, or Islamic seminaries - many of which are believed to serve as breeding grounds for extremists.
Among the arrested students is the Indonesian student Rusman Gunawan, who has been identified as the brother of Hambali, a key Al Qaeda operative accused of being involved in the Bali bombings.
via the Christian Science Monitor