Author: Amir Zia
Publication: Reuters
Date: September 20, 2003
URL: http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3478556
Pakistani security officials detained
15 Southeast Asian Islamic students in Karachi on Saturday, saying they
had ties with Muslim militants and were involved in activities damaging
to Pakistan's interests.
Interrogators wanted to determine
if the suspects had links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and if
they were plotting attacks, an intelligence official said.
"Thirteen of the suspects are Malaysian
and two are Indonesian," Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, chief of the crisis
management cell of the Interior Ministry told Reuters.
"They were arrested at a seminary
in Karachi...for their involvement in undesirable activities aimed against
the interests of Pakistan," he said
He declined to give details but
a senior official of the Federal Investigation Agency in Karachi, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity, said they were arrested in raids on several
seminaries, or Islamic places of study.
"We arrested them on the request
of their respective governments," the official said. A senior intelligence
official, who also asked not to be identified, said the men were linked
to Islamic militants but it was too early to say if they had ties with
the al Qaeda network. Interrogators wanted to find out if they had been
planning attacks, the official said.
"Once the interrogation is complete
they will be deported to their respective countries," Cheema said. "The
process will take a week or so."
Militants from Southeast Asia, including
some from Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, were trained
at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan before the U.S.-led invasion of that country
in late 2001.
Some of them went home and joined
the Jemaah Islamiah group, which was responsible for the bomb attacks on
the Indonesian resort island of Bali last October that killed more than
200 people.
TEEMING, VIOLENT CITY
Karachi, a teeming port city of
more than 14 million people, has a history of attacks on Westerners, religious
minorities and government officials.
On Friday, a bomb exploded in an
office building in the business heart of Karachi. It caused no casualties
but led to the South African cricket team canceling its Pakistan tour.
Islamic militants angered by Pakistan's
support for the U.S.-led war on terror have been blamed for such attacks.
Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants
fleeing from the U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan took refuge in Karachi
where hardline Islamic groups provided them with shelter.
Pakistan has arrested several senior
members of the al Qaeda, blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on
the United States, as well as several hundred more junior members and supporters.
Cheema said Malaysia and Indonesia
had withdrawn permission for the 15 students to stay on in Pakistan. "We
are grateful to both the Malaysian and Indonesian governments for their
cooperation," he said.
Hundreds of foreign students are
studying in Karachi's Islamic seminaries.
Pakistan has cracked down on the
seminaries and many foreign students have been forced to leave because
they did not have permission from their governments to study in Pakistan
but hundreds of seminaries still operate.
