BY Tariq Fatah ,TORONTO
SUN
 |
| Ramzi Yousuf. |
It seems Israel and America are blind beyond Iran. While
Iran possesses no nuclear warheads, it is considered the primary threat to
world peace. On the other hand, Pakistan, with an arsenal of more than 100
nukes, continues to be fed billions of American dollars while Israel seems
oblivious to Islamabad’s threat.
A catalogue of Pakistan’s role in international terrorism,
much of it long before its territory was used by Osama bin Laden and Khaled
Sheikh Mohammed to plan the 9/11 attack on the U.S., should clarify matters.
1. September 1986: Armed men attempt to hijack a Pan Am jet
on the tarmac of Karachi airport in which 20 people died. Among the arrested
were five Palestinians belonging to the Abu Nidal group and seven Pakistanis.
2. January 1993: The CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia
is attacked, killing two, wounding three. The perpetrator is a Pakistani, Aimal
Kansi. Four years later, in 1997, he is captured by FBI agents and returned to
America. He is executed in 2002.
3. February 1993: The World Trade Center is attacked using a
truck bomb. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, is later arrested in 1995 in
Islamabad, Pakistan.
4. August 1998: American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are
bombed, killing 223 people and wounding over 4,000 others. The planner of this
atttack, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, is arrested in 2004 in Gujrat, Pakistan.
5. October 2000: Jihadi terrorists carry out a suicide
attack on the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Cole while it is harboured
and being refuelled in the Yemen port of Aden. Seventeen American sailors are
killed, 39 injured. The suspected Saudi mastermind behind this attack, Walid
Bin Attash, is later captured on April 29, 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan.
6. May 2002: A suicide bomber kills 11 French naval
engineers outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi, Pakistan. Three years later the
suspected bomb maker, Mufti Muhammad Sabir, is arrested in Karachi, Pakistan.
7. October 2002: Jihadi terrorists attack the Indonesian
tourist resort of Bali, killing 202 people and injuring another 240. Nine years
later, the chief suspect in the bombing, Umar Patek, is arrested in Abbotabad,
Pakistan.
8. July 2005: Jihadi terrorists carry out the now infamous
7/7 suicide bombings in London, UK, killing 52 people and injuring 700. Three
of the four suicide bombers are of Pakistani ancestry. In January 2009, one of
the suspected planners of the London 7/7 bombings, Saudi national Zabi
uk-Taifi, is arrested in a village just outside Peshawar, Pakistan.
9. December 2008: Pakistani jihadi terrorists carry out a
sea-borne suicide attack on Mumbai, India, killing 166 people including a rabbi
and his pregnant wife at a Jewish Centre, and injuring 308 others. The
mastermind of the Mumbai attack was the Pakistani-American David Coleman
Headley (born Daud Sayed Gilani). His alleged Pakistani-Canadian accomplice, Muhammad
Tahwwar Rana, was acquitted in the Mumbai attacks but convicted of working for
the terror group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), long suspected of being supported by
Pakistan’s ISI.
10. May 2010: A bombing at New York’s Times Square is foiled
when street vendors discover smoke coming from a vehicle and alert an NYPD
patrolman. The bomb had ignited, but failed to explode, and was disarmed before
it caused any casualties. Two days later federal agents arrest a man at John F.
Kennedy International Airport after he tried to board an Emirate Airlines
flight to Dubai. He is Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American.
So, what is ground zero of international terrorism? Iran or
Pakistan?
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