NEW DELHI: Al-Qaida leader and one of ISI's top terrorists against India, Ilyas Kashmiri, who was supposed to have been killed in a US drone attack on September 14, did not die after all.
Kashmiri, who is known to be the operational chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI), apparently survived the air strike in village Turrikhel, near Mir Ali in North Waziristan. About 10 days ago, he gave an interview to a Pakistani reporter from Asia Times Online to promise further attacks against the west, saying chillingly that the Mumbai attacks would pale in comparison to what they had planned.
In his interview, Kashmiri reportedly said, "Those who planned this battle actually aimed to bring the world's biggest Satan (US and its allies) into this trap and swamp Afghanistan... However, the great Satan was full of arrogance of its superiority and thought of Afghans as helpless statues who would be hit from all four sides by its war machines, and they would not have the power and capacity to retaliate. This was the illusion on which a great alliance of world powers came to Afghanistan, but due to their misplaced conceptions, they gradually became trapped in Afghanistan. Today, NATO does not have any significance or relevance. They have lost the war in Afghanistan."
He reserved special venom for India. "The RAW has detachment command centres in the Afghan provinces of Kunar, Jalalabad, Khost, Argun, Helmand and Kandahar. The cover operations are road construction companies. For instance, the road construction contract from Khost city to the Tanai tribal area is handled by a contractor who is actually a current Indian army colonel. In Gardez, telecommunications companies are the cover for Indian intelligence operations. Mostly, their men operate with Muslim names, but actually the employees are Hindus."
When the reporter asked him if there could be more Mumbai-like attacks against India, Kashmiri said it was "nothing" compared to what had been planned for the future.
According to terrorism analyst Bill Roggio, Kashmiri could be linked to last week's terror attacks against the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi. Pakistan's interior ministry has labelled Kashmiri the fourth most wanted terrorist. However, Indian security offcials aver that Kashmiri retains his close links with the Pakistani intelligence and military establishment.
Roggio quotes US intelligence officials in his website `The Long War Journal' as saying, "Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and several other Pakistani terror groups have merged with Al Qaeda in Pakistan, and operate under the name of Brigade 313. This group is interlinked with Pakistan's Taliban and also recruits senior members of Pakistan's military and intelligence services."
Kashmiri, who is known to be the operational chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HuJI), apparently survived the air strike in village Turrikhel, near Mir Ali in North Waziristan. About 10 days ago, he gave an interview to a Pakistani reporter from Asia Times Online to promise further attacks against the west, saying chillingly that the Mumbai attacks would pale in comparison to what they had planned.
In his interview, Kashmiri reportedly said, "Those who planned this battle actually aimed to bring the world's biggest Satan (US and its allies) into this trap and swamp Afghanistan... However, the great Satan was full of arrogance of its superiority and thought of Afghans as helpless statues who would be hit from all four sides by its war machines, and they would not have the power and capacity to retaliate. This was the illusion on which a great alliance of world powers came to Afghanistan, but due to their misplaced conceptions, they gradually became trapped in Afghanistan. Today, NATO does not have any significance or relevance. They have lost the war in Afghanistan."
He reserved special venom for India. "The RAW has detachment command centres in the Afghan provinces of Kunar, Jalalabad, Khost, Argun, Helmand and Kandahar. The cover operations are road construction companies. For instance, the road construction contract from Khost city to the Tanai tribal area is handled by a contractor who is actually a current Indian army colonel. In Gardez, telecommunications companies are the cover for Indian intelligence operations. Mostly, their men operate with Muslim names, but actually the employees are Hindus."
When the reporter asked him if there could be more Mumbai-like attacks against India, Kashmiri said it was "nothing" compared to what had been planned for the future.
According to terrorism analyst Bill Roggio, Kashmiri could be linked to last week's terror attacks against the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi. Pakistan's interior ministry has labelled Kashmiri the fourth most wanted terrorist. However, Indian security offcials aver that Kashmiri retains his close links with the Pakistani intelligence and military establishment.
Roggio quotes US intelligence officials in his website `The Long War Journal' as saying, "Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and several other Pakistani terror groups have merged with Al Qaeda in Pakistan, and operate under the name of Brigade 313. This group is interlinked with Pakistan's Taliban and also recruits senior members of Pakistan's military and intelligence services."
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