The Comings and
Goings of Dawood Ibrahim, the Wanted, Unwanted Don
By
Amir Mir
LAHORE:
Washington’s decision last month to declare Dawood Ibrahim
a specially designated global terrorist with links to two outlawed
militant outfits, al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), is causing
considerable consternation amongst security agencies in Pakistan,
the UAE and south-east Asian countries such as the Philippines,
Malaysia and Singapore.
Agencies
that were earlier turning a blind eye to the Indian underworld
don’s criminal networks in their countries are now scrambling
for cover and contemplating ways and means of taking action.
In
a more Pakistan-specific context, the US action not only changes
the complexion of Washington’s relationship with New Delhi
but also forces Islamabad, an ally in the ‘war against terror’,
to confront certain unsavoury possibilities. After all, it is
widely conjectured that Dawood Ibrahim resides in opulence in
Karachi.
Soon
after the October 16 announcement, the US treasury department
asked the United Nations to place Dawood Ibrahim’s name
on the latter’s terrorist watch-list in accordance with
relevant Security Council resolutions.
A
UN listing, which is highly likely, will require all member states
to freeze Ibrahim’s assets and bank accounts and slap a
travel ban on the master criminal.
This
would mean that Pakistan and Gulf states such as the UAE would
also be required to initiate action against ‘D-Company’,
the working name for the Dawood network. The UAE is regarded as
the hub of the Dawood syndicate — its operations Dubai,
for instance, have been well-entrenched for over a decade.
“We
are calling on the international community to stop the flow of
dirty money that kills. For the Ibrahim syndicate, the business
of terrorism forms part of their larger criminal enterprise, which
must be dismantled,” said Juan Zarate, deputy assistant
secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, in a statement
accompanying the US treasury department’s notification on
Dawood Ibrahim.
Dawood
subsequently joined the long list of 321 individuals and organizations
designated as terrorists by the US since September 11, 2001. The
US treasury department notification even provides details of a
passport issued to Dawood by the Pakistani government and an address
for a Karachi residence.
However,
the prime source for information regarding Dawood’s criminal
and terrorist activities was the Indian government, which had
been sharing intelligence information with the US since the Joint
Working Group on Terrorism was set up five years ago. New Delhi
has described the US decision as a victory of the Indian intelligence
agencies, which had submitted a dossier to the Bush administration
during Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani’s Washington yatra
earlier this year.
The US action also flies in the face of General Pervez Musharraf’s
categorical statement at Agra that the man accused of engineering
the deaths of 200 Indians in the 1993 Bombay blasts was not hiding
in Pakistan.
Much
to Islamabad’s embarrassment, the US cited intelligence
reports of Dawood’s connections with al Qaeda and the LeT
amongst its reasons for putting him on the list of the world’s
most-wanted terrorists.
A
relevant fact sheet, which can be found on the US treasury department’s
web site, holds Dawood Ibrahim, “the son of a police constable,”
guilty of financially supporting “Islamic militant groups
working against India, such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) (sic).”
Citing information as recent as autumn 2002, the fact sheet further
claims that “Ibrahim has been helping finance increasing
attacks in Gujarat by LeT… (which is) the armed wing of
Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irsha (sic) — a Sunni anti-US missionary
organization formed in 1989.”
The
Lashkar, led by Professor Hafiz Mohammad, was last year placed
on the state department’s list of officially designated
terrorist outfits.
Washington’s
decision is said to be largely motivated by the arrests in the
US and Saudi Arabia of an Islamist paramilitary unit which is
said to have received training in small arms, machine guns and
grenade launchers at a LeT camp in north-east Pakistan.
The
group, it is said, operated in the Washington DC area and nearby
Virginia. Documents released by the FBI on June 30, 2003 state
that some of those arrested even fought against Indian troops
in occupied Kashmir and were funded by the Dawood syndicate to
conduct terrorist activity in the Indian state of Gujarat.
In
an earlier raid in April 2003, US authorities arrested an Ohio
truck driver of Kashmiri origin, Iyman Faris alias Mohammad Rauf,
who is supposedly connected to al Qaeda. Reports of Faris’s
arrest appeared in American newspapers on June 20, the day General
Musharraf arrived in Boston and the indictment in Virginia of
11 militants came on June 27 when the Pakistani president was
in Los Angeles.
An
upgraded indictment carrying far more serious charges —
ranging from plotting to wage war against the US and aiding the
Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi — was later returned against
seven members of the group by a Virginia federal grand jury on
September 25 (see box).
When
General Musharraf again visited the US in October 2003, he was
asked in Los Angeles to comment on the Virginia indictments. The
general responded: “We need to see who they are, where they
were trained and how they were organised.”
The US treasury department’s fact sheet goes on to state
that “Ibrahim’s syndicate is involved in large-scale
shipment of narcotics in the UK and Western Europe.
Its
smuggling routes from South Asia, the Middle East and Africa are
shared with Usama bin Laden (sic) and his terrorist network….
A financial arrangement was reportedly brokered to facilitate
the latter’s usage of these routes. In the late 1990s, Ibrahim
traveled to Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban.”
Vindicating the Indian position that Pakistan shelters Dawood,
the fact sheet claims that he lives in Karachi and holds a Pakistani
passport (G-869537).
During
the much-trumpeted 2001 Agra summit, Musharraf had vehemently
denied that Dawood, one of India’s most wanted underworld
dons, had sought and been given refuge in Pakistan. The Vajpayee
administration believed otherwise.
Musharraf
was actually right, albeit in a purely technical sense, since
Dawood left Pakistan prior to the Agra summit. According to the
FBI, Dawood went to Singapore in early July, 2001 on a fake Pakistani
passport and then proceeded to Hong Kong.
He
eventually returned to Karachi from Dubai on the night of July
18 and 19. The FBI claims that Dawood, who according to the US
agency lives in Moin Palace opposite Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s
mazar in Karachi’s upmarket Clifton area, traveled as Mohammad
Anis on a fake passport (No 11-123259). While Musharraf was conferring
with Vajpayee in Agra, Dawood left Singapore for Hong Kong on
July 15 on a Singapore Airlines flight which ultimately took him
to Dubai.
Taking
strong exception to US assertions that Dawood holds a Pakistani
passport and is hiding in Pakistan, foreign office spokesman Masood
Khan said in Islamabad recently that the US had been asked to
rectify its mistake. “Dawood Ibrahim is not in Pakistan.
I would like to point out that we do not have any Indian suspects
on our soil.
Second,
India has not provided any evidence or proof of their presence
on Pakistani soil. This story, or this controversy, was re-ignited
by a determination made by the US treasury department,”
insisted Khan.
"Fresh
inquiries have revealed that the Pakistani passport allegedly
in possession of Dawood Ibrahim (actually) belongs to Imtiaz Hussain.
Similarly, (92-21) 5892038 (the telephone number cited by the
US) does not belong to any person named Dawood Ibrahim or Sheikh
Dawood Hussain.”
The
FBI sleuths already stationed in Pakistan clearly do not buy the
foreign office view. According to diplomatic sources, FBI operatives
in Pakistan are convinced that Dawood moved house in Karachi to
stay out of trouble ever since the US unleashed its ‘war
on terror’ following the September 11 attacks on American
soil.
There
are also reports that Dawood is trying to dispose of his properties
in Karachi and elsewhere and has taken up residence in Islamabad,
along with a few close associates. Some well-placed sources in
the Pakistani intelligence establishment now admit that they would
like the Dawood saga to end as quickly as possible. Besides the
Washington-related fallout, the recent bomb blasts in Karachi’s
Kawish Crown Plaza — which is reportedly owned by Dawood
— are raising troublesome domestic security issues.
FBI
investigators maintain that the impunity with which Dawood’s
men used to operate in Karachi prior to 9/11 is a thing of the
past anyway. Now, when there is every likelihood that his assets
will be frozen and travel curbs implemented, the FBI believes
that Dawood’s operations will take a serious body-blow.
The
finances of the D-Company will also be hurt if lieutenants are
unable to contact the frontline hit men who carry out orders.
Even havala is under intense scrutiny now, what with the recent
meetings between US treasury representatives and Indian officials.
Suspected
financing from Dubai and the UAE, it is said, was item number
one on the agenda. Significantly, Dawood’s trips to the
Gulf are expected to end. “We are making Dubai a clean place.
There
is little chance that the underworld can operate here. We are
on the lookout for unusual activity,” said a Dubai police
official recently.
But
at the same time, there are those in Pakistani intelligence who
insist the ongoing US ‘war on terror’ and crackdown
on al Qaeda is short on real targets. They point out that not
a single member of the D-Company has been nabbed in recent years
in connection with any plot against the US. “Had D-Company
been engaged in a terror campaign against the US it could have
found many soft bellies in the Asia-Pacific region and in South
Africa, where it is strong enough to carry out small-scale attacks,
such as planting bombs or trafficking al Qaeda members to carry
out attacks,” says a leading Pakistani spook.
“There
are many other big mafia gangs in Thailand, Hong Kong and South
Africa. Compared to them, D-Company is nothing. Yet the US deemed
it fit to portray Dawood as a terror ringleader under Pakistan’s
protection merely to oblige India.”
While
India hopes that the net is fast closing in on Dawood Ibrahim,
the man who can still call on friends in high places may well
have a few more cards up his sleeve.- Courtesy Herald, Pakistan
