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CRIME: TERRORISM
Sudanese Mission Acts As Base
It was Raouf who
provided the next break. Raouf's Pune-based group, the Islamic Movement
of Sudanese Students, receives funds from the Sudanese Government and
is considered by the
IB to be one of 20 foreign student outfits based in India which
are sources of potential trouble. Raouf's movements were monitored and
after a scrutiny of his telephone records the Operations Branch of the
IB believed and alleges that the plot to blow up the US Embassy was developing
inside the Sudanese mission in Delhi.
Detailed reports on the interrogation of Dongola-born
Raouf available with India Today suggest that he started interacting with
Sudanese diplomats (see interview) in early November 2000. The Udaipur-based
doctorate student of agricultural economics was hired as a translator
in the Delhi mission, allegedly, to provide him official cover for his
activities. He also moved into the south Delhi residence of a Sudanese
embassy official, Esmail M. Ali Babiker, a first secretary and intelligence
officer with the embassy. The Delhi Police allege that Babiker was the
motivator working on behalf of bin Laden's men in India. "We do not
have the slightest doubts in our minds that there was active diplomatic
support to carry out the plan," says ACP Rajbir Singh of the Special
Cell.
Within a month of his arrival in the Sudanese
Embassy, Raouf was gathering his troops. He had run into the car mechanic
Hussain during his "student" days in Udaipur. The Patna "sufi"
Sarwar, armed with a post-graduate degree in Persian and Urdu, met Raouf
after giving a religious discourse in Udaipur. Mocked by Raouf for being
a "soft" Muslim, Sarwar was slowly drawn towards the doctrine
of jihad (see interview). He was then brought into contact with Babiker
and, according to interrogation reports, also introduced to Sudanese Deputy
Minister for Political Strategies Abdul Rahim Umar in a south Delhi hotel.
The links to bin Laden in the case became more
pronounced when Raouf and Sarwar said-during interrogation-they were introduced
by Babiker to a man called Abdul Rahman Al Safani, said to be a bin Laden
henchman. Al Safani is allegedly a key figure in bin Laden's global agenda
of "destroying the American infidels".
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HATE CRIMES
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On August 7, 1998 bombs allegedly planted
by bin Laden's men devastated two US missions in Africa.
NAIROBI EXPLOSION: In Nairobi,
Kenya, a truck carrying 600 pounds of TNT slammed against the wall
of the US Embassy at 10:30 a.m. and killed 249 people.
DAR-ES-SALAAM BOMB: Four minutes
after Nairobi was devastated, another pick-up truck carrying TNT
drove into the American Embassy wall in the Tanzanian capital, killing
11.
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Babiker completely denies making the introductions.
"I have not come in contact with any Yemenese national called Abdul
Rahman Al Safani. Sudan has no links with any terrorist group. It is ridiculous
to say that a Sudanese minister is involved in a plot against the US Embassy
in Delhi. I had never received a Sudanese minister in my office. The alleged
plan is a mere fabrication and cheap attempt to damage strong Indo-Sudan
ties," he told India Today. Investigators maintain that the Sudanese
minister, Umar, had indeed arrived in India in the last week of January.
Intelligence dossiers available on Safani say
he is a 47-year-old Saudi-born Yemenese national who has been operating
out of Afghanistan alongside bin Laden for several years. Well-built and
bearded, Safani is known to travel under numerous aliases-Omar al Harazi,
Abdul-al Nassir, Abu al Mohsin and Abu al Hasan among them-and has acquired
a plethora of passports. When he came to India earlier this year, Al Safani
travelled on a Pakistani passport.
Brought up in the rugged Haraz mountain region
of west Sana'a, Al Safani is suspected to be behind at least two attacks
on US troops, including the October 2000 suicide-boat bombing of the USS
Cole in Aden which killed 17 sailors and a failed attempt on the lives
of US soldiers in an Aden hotel en route to a peace mission to Somalia
in 1992. The US believes that Al Safani is known to provide financial
and logistical support wherever an anti-American attack is to be carried
out.
The Delhi Police's interrogation reports say
Safani spelt out the game plan to Raouf and Sarwar on February 20: not
only would the US Embassy be bombed in Delhi but parallel options were
also to be kept ready for a similar strike in Dhaka. The student and the
sufi were to get in touch with explosive experts, mechanics and car dealers,
and survey the embassy area discreetly. They were also required to carry
out (in Raouf's words) the somewhat "embarrassing and difficult task"
of finding two young women motivated enough to drive cars laden with explosives
and then park them close to the visa section. Al Safani, they said, was
ready to cough up anywhere around Rs 1 crore, telling them that he would
arrange the explosives himself, possibly from contacts in Nepal. Says
DCP Ashok Chand of the Special Cell: "The level of motivation was
in direct proportion to the amount of money promised for the blast."
After an advance of Rs 5 lakh was paid to Raouf
and Sarwar, both men began work. Raouf made several trips to the Pakistani
Embassy in March but it is not clear whether it was to discuss his plans
with Al Safani. He worked his contacts in Delhi (mainly Iranian and Kazakh
nationals, say the police) and spoke to explosive experts and even a nuclear
engineer in the US to make his requirements known.
Sarwar, meanwhile, coerced Hussain to arrange
a Tata Sumo within a budget of Rs 1 lakh and change its registration plate,
engine and chassis number. Clearly, operational costs were being kept
low so that personal profits could be high. Hussain, a father of four
girls, was promised a mechanic's job in West Asia. When he declined to
change the chassis number, he was threatened with dire consequences. "I
couldn't risk the lives of my near and dear ones by telling the police.
I felt scared," he sobbed, when talking to India Today.
However by the time it came to the task of handing
over the explosives and the devices, the police were on the trail of Raouf
and Sarwar and the plan was foiled. A US State Department spokesman, Richard
Boucher, told agencies last week in Washington that "we are confident
that the Indians are doing the utmost to protect our embassy and other
US Government facilities". The strike at Delhi may have been smartly
foiled and the Americans reassured. But the arrests could only make the
resolve of the terrorist elements stronger. The intensity of the blood
feud between the US Government and its enemies will no doubt still keep
spilling over into countries outside its immediate orbit.
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