POREG VIEW: It is known for long that several Chechens, Uzbeks, Arabs and Turks, one of whom was a former F-16 pilot in Turkey’s air force, have been working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Taliban and its variants in northwestern Pakistan and that they have been mounting attacks on targets in Afghanistan. There have also been reports from time to time about the presence of a German or a British citizen amongst the Jihadi militants. But this is for the first time we are face-to-face with concrete evidence about dozens of Muslim militants with European Citizenship on terror training in Pakistan.
Kathy Gannon, the Associate Press correspondent, who broke the news, has quoted Pakistani and Western intelligence officials saying that training missions could include terror attacks in European capitals. American and European security experts are concerned naturally that terrorists based in Pakistan may be plotting attacks in Europe with assault weapons, similar to the 26/11 mayhem perpetuated by Lashkar-e-Toiba and its allies on Mumbai in 2008.
May be coincidence or design, Osama bin Laden has resurfaced just now with his new video messages. Promptly, the State Department has put out an advisory that Americans traveling in Europe to be vigilant. This word of caution applies to all travellers as well.
What could be the number of European jihadi militants in the making? It may not be a very big number since the followers of Islam are not many in Europe. Most of these prospective jihadis could be Pakistanis who have domiciled in Europe.
An unnamed ISI official quoted in the AP despatch has put the number of such expatriates on training mission at several dozen. Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office has concrete evidence that 70 people have traveled from Germany to Pakistan and Afghanistan for paramilitary training, and that about a third of them have returned to Germany.
These facts puncture the argument hitherto heard that poverty and ignorance are turning Muslim youth towards al-Qaida adventures. The new recruits from the West are well settled in life. For instance, Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American, who has confessed to the May 1 failed car-bombing in New York’s Times Square, has no reason to complain. He was living in the Big Apple and had all the material benefits that he needed to make life comfortable.
Like Shahzad, Britain born Pakistanis enjoying hardships in North Waziristan have no reason to leave their Midlands homes. Like the Turks and the European- Pakistanis, these children of Pakistani immigrants to England, are well educated. It is clear that they are brainwashed to believe that jihad is the sine qua non of Islamic ideology that they are seeking.
The British, German, and American intelligence officials have zeroed on the new threat using voice-printing software. A month ago U.S. intelligence heard of a European plot and immediately stepped up drone attacks in North Waziristan in a bid to disrupt the plot.
This is at best a knee-jerk reaction. It doesn’t speak highly of American determination to smoke out Mullah Omars and bin Ladens from their pigeon holes.
Washington must live upto its promise since its own intelligence has been pointing to the presence of leadership of al-Qaeda, Taliban and their local clones in North Waziristan and Balochistan.
Otherwise, the US war against terror will end up antagonizing the average law abiding Muslim everywhere. As a corollary, the US will become the hate symbol of Muslim world.
