Author: Rashmee Z Ahmed
Publication: The Times of India
Date: June 25, 2002
British Muslims are the main-funding
force behind an opportunistic anti-Western alliance between Al Qaida commanders
and Pakistani militants, according to Pakistani intelligence sources quoted
by a British newspaper.
The alleged alliance is planning
to topple Pakistan President General Musharraf's administration, the paper
said. The Sunday Times report, datelined Islamabad, coincides with a televised
message purporting to have come from Al Qaida second-rung leader Sulaiman
abu Ghaith and FBI warnings of further attacks on Western targets.
The report, which is filed by the
newspaper's award-winning, war correspondent Marie Colvin, says the exact
sums dispatched from the UK are unclear but that "Pakistani militants and
Indian intelligence alike estimate British donations to groups fighting
the Indian army's presence in Kashmir at more than two million pounds a
year."
Sunday's report quotes an unnamed
senior Pakistani intelligence official to say that the cash arriving from
Britain for militant groups was "one of our big concerns".
The report says that the militants
want to "hit the Pakistani government as hard as possible" and the ultimate
dream is the control of the Pakistani army, "an organised 600,000 soldiers
and nuclear weapons".
It says that the control of the
Pakistani Army would allow the radicals to "implement Islam without compromise".
The report said that last week,
a British Muslim in Pakistan claimed to have smuggled tens of thousands
of pounds into Pakistan to fund, "the emerging alliance of local radicals
and remnants of Al Qaida".
The British Muslim is described
as a bearded man, in his thirties, with a northern English accent and clad
in the Pakistani national dress of salwar. The paper said he refused to
reveal his identity.
It said that the man claimed to
have delivered cash, converted into dollars, to a remote Pakistani border
camp two weeks ago.
The cash was to be used to fund
weapons training for scores of Muslims recruited to Al Qaida cause in Britain,
Germany, America and Bangladesh, the newspaper said.
Ms Colvin's report is supplemented
by chilling news that British Muslims now account for the single largest
group of Western foreign nationals incarcerated as Al Qaida allies at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.