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MUMBAI:
52 commuters were killed and London was in shock after the deadliest
attack on British soil since World War II. Three of the four suicide
bombers were British-born and of Pakistani origin.
In
CNN’s Pakistan: The Threat Within, Nic Robertson tracks the
footsteps of one of the bombers from the UK to Pakistan and uncovers
how groups in Pakistan have become support centers for terrorists.
Along with another of the bombers, 22-year old Shehzad Tanweer visited
Pakistan months before the suicide attacks in July 2005.
After
9/11 Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was quick to sign up as
an ally in President Bush’s war on terror. Now Musharraf appears
to be involved in a near impossible juggling act – trying to
combat terrorism while not appearing to Pakistanis to be a creature
of the West.
 Twelve
months after the bombing Al-Qaeda released Tanweer’s suicide
message. It included words from Ayman al Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s
number two, and revealed that Tanweer not only attended a madrassa
– a religious school - but also an Al-Qaeda training camp where
he was tutored in terror and sent back to Britain to complete his
mission.
The
evidence is that Al-Qaeda is alive and well and recruiting in Pakistani
madrassas, which attract hundreds of thousands of children each
year.
This
worries former Pakistani police officer and current Harvard fellow
Hassan Abbas who said that “According to all accounts, about
10 to 15 per cent of madrassas in Pakistan are involved in militancy,
support of the Taliban, terrorism and religious extremism.”
After
the London bombings then British Prime Minister Tony Blair called
on President Musharraf to crack down on the militant madrassas.
But Pakistan’s former Interior Minister Aitazes Ahsan tells
CNN it was “an entirely half-hearted initiative, one step forward
and a step back.”
One
of Musharraf’s steps was to send troops to Mullah Abdul Rashid
Ghazi’s madrassas in the Pakistani capital. Ghazi told CNN:
“It was just to please [America]…please Blair. He’s
an agent of the United States…he is doing all kind of things
against the Pakistanis just to please America. Although with the
passage of time, I have realized that he is not sincere to even
America.”
Ghazi
is not the only one who believes that Musharraf is playing both
sides in the war on terror with the apparent aim of staying in power.
Ahsan also told CNN that “When [Musharraf] goes to the United
States he convinces the Americans there that if I do not remain
the mullahs will take over. And he comes back to Pakistan and he
convinces the mullahs that if I do not remain then the Americans
will come and take over.”
Airtimes:
Indian Standard Times
Saturday, July 7 at 1130 & 1930
Sunday, July 8 at 1130
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