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Swoops, once again, right on
cue
By B Raman
There has been
a pattern in Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf's
cooperation in the war against Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda, which the recently declassified documents of
the US' Defense Intelligence Agency show is Pakistan's
own progeny, and the International Islamic Front (IIF).
The pattern is: Avoid any action against the
dregs of al-Qaeda and the IIF sheltered in Pakistani
territory so long as the US does not come to know of
them; arrest them and hand them over with alacrity to
the US once it comes to know of it.
This seems
to have been repeated in the case of the reported arrest
and handing over of Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan (27), who is
stated to be the brother of Hambali, projected as the
operational chief of the Jemmah Islamiyah (JI) of
Southeast Asia. Hambali was arrested in Thailand on
August 11 and flown to a secret destination by the US's
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for interrogation.
Reports regarding the arrest of his brother in
Karachi coming out of Pakistan are confusing. While
there seems to be no doubt that he was arrested, the
confusion is about when, under what circumstances, and
where he is now.
On September 20, a spokesman of
the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Islamabad
announced the arrest in Karachi of 13 Malaysian, two
Indonesian and two Myanmese students on suspicion of
links with the JI. It was stated that the arrests were
made on a charge of illegally continuing to stay in
Pakistan after the expiry of their visas. They were
reportedly studying in the Abu Bakar Islamic University,
and two other madrassas (religious schools) in
Karachi.
The FIA is Pakistan's equivalent of
India's Central Bureau of Investigation. It was set up
after Pakistan became independent for investigating
cases relating to corruption, terrorism, narcotics
smuggling and other inter-province crime. Over the
years, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which has
been using jihadi terrorist groups for achieving
Pakistan's strategic objectives in India and
Afghanistan, removed from the jurisdiction of the FIA
many of its responsibilities relating to
counter-terrorism.
According to security sources
in Pakistan, after September 11, 2001, the US,
distrustful of the ISI, pressured Musharraf to make the
FIA once again the lead agency for counter-terrorism,
and a sizable portion of the US assistance for
strengthening Pakistan's counter-terrorism capability is
now going to the FIA, and not to the ISI. The US has
also been trying to have all the military officers in
the FIA replaced by police officers in order to totally
"civilianize" the agency once again, as it used to be.
The government-controlled Pakistani State TV
reported the news as follows, "Pakistani security
officials arrested 13 Malaysian and two Indonesian
students in Karachi yesterday for involvement in
activities seen as prejudicial to the interests of
Pakistan. The relevant governments have been informed.
The Malaysian and the Indonesian governments had
withdrawn permission for the students to stay on in
Pakistan. After completing necessary investigations and
legal formalities, they will be handed over to the
concerned countries."
Subsequently, a report
datelined Jakarta carried by the Pakistani media on
September 22 stated as follows, "The Indonesian
government has sent a protest note to the Pakistani
authorities over the arrest in Karachi of two Indonesian
students suspected of being Islamic militants. The
acting ambassador in Islamabad has sent a protest note
to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry because it did not
notify the embassy of the arrest. The Pakistani
ambassador to Indonesia has also been summoned to the
Foreign Ministry," the acting Indonesian Consul-General
in Karachi, Temu Alam, said.
However, the
Pakistani Interior Ministry's National Crisis Management
Cell director, Brigadier Javed Cheema, said that the
"request for their arrest came from their respective
countries, who have sought their deportation. They may
be in a better position to confirm links of some of them
with Jemaah Islamiyah, a terror network thought
responsible for a string of bombings in Indonesia that
have killed around 233 people ... Mr Alam identified the
two arrested Indonesians as Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan (27)
originally from the West Java town of Cianjur, and
Muhammad Saifuddin from the Central Java town of Sleman.
He said the two were arrested at the Abu Bakar Islamic
University in Karachi by police officers, but their
current whereabouts were unknown. Saifuddin was a new
student still on probation, not yet a full permanent
student of the university."
This report did not
identify Gunawan as the younger brother of Hambali. The
identification came separately from a report
disseminated by the Associated Press (AP). There have
been contradictory official versions regarding his
arrest, as indicated below:
That of Brigadier
Javed Cheema, "Reports of the arrest of Hambali's
brother Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan in Karachi were being
investigated. It is too early, as our Foreign Office
spokesman said in today's briefing."
Foreign
Ministry spokesman Masood Khan, "It is too early to
determine whether the Indonesian student was Hambali's
brother. No final determination has been made.
Investigations are under way so it is not proper to jump
to conclusions."
An unidentified senior official
(not clear whether he is of the Karachi administration
or of the Federal government), "We have not arrested
Indonesian terrorist Hambali's brother and we are
preparing documents for their deportation in
consultation with Indonesian and Malaysian authorities.
I don't think Hambali's brother is among them."
Iftikhar Ahmed, spokesman of the Federal
Interior Ministry, "The man identified as Rusman Gunawan
was arrested on the weekend along with 15 Malaysian and
Indonesian students suspected of terrorist activities.
Yes, the brother of Hambali is among the 13 Malaysian
and two Indonesian students who were detained in
Karachi."
However, the prestigious daily The
News claimed in its issue dated September 23 that
Hambali's brother had actually been arrested a month ago
and handed over to the US. That is, if this version is
correct, he was not among those arrested on September
20. It quoted Yaqoob Tahir, the registrar of the Jamia
Abu Bakar Islamic University situated in the
Gulshan-e-Iqbal area of Karachi, as stating as follows,
"Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan was taken into custody from the
Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station by the army a month back.
About a month ago, the SHO [station house officer]
Gulshan-e-Iqbal police station summoned one of our
Indonesian students, namely Abdul Hadi, whose name was
written on his passport as Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan, for
questioning. At the police station, he was questioned by
an army colonel and later was taken towards an
undisclosed location.
"Since then we have no
information regarding his whereabouts. We have informed
his government, but so far we did not receive any
response. Gunawan was known as Abdul Hadi in the
institution as his name was very difficult to pronounce.
Hadi possessed all documents. Gunawan came here to
acquire religious education on a scholarship about five
years ago and he had no links with any extremist outfit.
On the morning of September 20 some persons in plain
clothes came to the institution and asked the
administration to produce six students, namely Ahmed
Maaz, Muhammad Razi, Amin, Akhwan, Firdous [all
Malaysians] and Saifuddin [Indonesian]. The management
produced them before the officials who claimed to be the
personnel of the Federal Investigation Agency.
"The officials checked the luggage of the six
persons and their travel documents. Later, the officials
told the administration that the governments of these
students gave their names to the Foreign Ministry, and
requested to send them back. In order to deport them,
the officials took the students along with them and
since then we have no information regarding our innocent
students. We immediately informed the Malaysian and
Indonesian governments through their Consuls-General
regarding the arrest of their nationals, and now they
are dealing with the Pakistani government. Some 147
students were studying in Jamia Abu Bakar. The students
belong to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Uganda,
Djibouti, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, the Philippines,
Maldives, Australia, Ghana, Somalia, Cambodia, Cameron,
Kenya, Senegal and Afghanistan. Some 270 Pakistanis are
also studying in the institution."
The version
given out by the registrar of the madrassa, where
Hambali's brother was reportedly studying on a
scholarship of the Pakistan government since 1999,
appears to be more reliable than the official ones. If
the registrar's version is accepted, an interesting
question arises: Did the US come to know of the presence
of Hambali in Thailand from the interrogation of his
brother in Pakistan, or vice versa? The Malaysian
authorities seem to believe that it was Hambali's
interrogation by the US which led to his brother and
others in Karachi.
Another unanswered question
is: Did the Pakistani authorities know of the presence
of Hambali's brother in Karachi and his reported
activities there since 1999 as the coordinator of the
visits of JI recruits from Southeast Asia to Pakistan
and Afghanistan for training? If so, why they did not
act against him until the US made them to?
B Raman is Additional Secretary
(ret), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, and
presently director, Institute For Topical Studies,
Chennai; former member of the National Security Advisory
Board of the Government of India. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com. He was also head
of the counter-terrorism division of the Research &
Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency,
from 1988 to August, 1994.
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