Rashid Rauf 'training dozens of British terrorist recruits in Pakistan'
By Saeed Shah in Bahawalpur and Massoud Ansari in Mirpur | September 14, 2009
Pakistani officials have warned that Rashid Rauf, the terrorist linked to the trans-Atlantic airline bomb plot, bas been involved in grooming two dozen British recruits to carry out new attacks.
Pakistan intelligence said that Rauf, who mysteriously escaped from police custody and was then reported killed by a missile fired by US drone last November, used the name Khalid to recruit fellow Britons for training at a camp in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
One official said that Rauf was involved with a group of Arab and Uzbek terrorists in a camp in Matta Cheena village in south Waziristan.
Rauf is said to be a key lieutenant of the group's leader, explosives expert, Abu Nasir. "He is an explosive expert who has effectively devised methods of explosives using easy-to-get ingredients that are virtually undetectable or can raise no alarms for authorities," said the intelligence source.
"We know that they are planning a very serious attack and it is very important for us to arrest all of them.
"If they are able to strike it is going to give a bad name to Pakistan once again for no reason."
Intercepted emails and text messages between Pakistan and the UK had indicated Rauf's involvement under the name Khalid after the authorities decrypted the communications.
British security and intelligence officials have said they believe Rauf may have survived the missile strike and could be planning further attacks.
A US informant called Bryant Neal Vinas, who has admitted planning a suicide attack, was arrested by the Pakistanis last November and said he had met Rauf shortly before the missile strike.
He gave information that has led to the arrest of two cells allegedly planning attacks during a European summit in Brussels and last Easter in Manchester.
Monitoring of the movements of Rauf's relatives has continued despite claims that he has been killed.
Security officials in Pakistan said that Rauf's wife and in-laws, who are based in the city of Bahawalpur, a dusty backwater in the far south of the country's dominant Punjab province, had made no formal request to the government to collect his remains.
"His family [Rauf's in-laws] are under constant surveillance," said one counter-terrorism official. "So we know that no-one went to receive the body, no-one made contact with anyone in Waziristan to ask about the body."
Other Pakistani sources have said they believe Rauf is probably dead and a senior interior ministry official in Islamabad said "he [Rauf] is not on any list of wanted persons".
Rauf was arrested in Bahawalpur in 2006, where he had married into the city's foremost Islamic extremist family, which was then headed by Masood Azhar, founder of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.
Maulana Suhaib, Rauf's brother-in-law and a teacher at the madrassa attended by the 28-year-old, said Rauf had adopted a fresh identity.
"We were told his name was Khalid, a rich businessman and very religious," he said. "We did not know that his actual name was Rashid Rauf. Even on the marriage certificate he identified himself as Khalid."
Another brother-in-law, Suhaib Ahmed said the family had not received confirmation of his death from the government, an important obligation under Islamic tradition. "We have had no contact, and have no source of information, to verify it," he said. "There are many games being played. We can't understand what the game is, and what its objectives are," said Mr Ahmed.
"The body has not come to us. If he was killed, then the government must give us the body.
"My sister [Rauf's wife] demanded, through the media, that we must be given the body, so we can bury him in the proper Islamic way." Mr Ahmed said.
A relative on Rauf's side of the family also dismissed reports of his death.
