MAY NEVER KNOW WHY UKBORN KHALID MASOOD ATTACKED PARLIAMENT: SCOTLAND YARD
KEY FIGURE Behind attacks on Sri Lankan cricketers, Marriott hotel bombing
WASHINGTON : The US military said it had killed a Pakistaniborn top al Qaeda operative behind the Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad in 2008 and the attack on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in 2009, after which most cricketplaying nations stopped touring Pakistan.
Depending on the extent of his role in the 2009 attack, Qari Yasin could be the man responsible with is other accomplices, for Pakistan’s isolation in the world cricketing community. Most nations have not toured Pakistan since.
In a statement announcing Yasin’s death, the Pentagon described him as “responsible” for the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Three men suspected of involvement in the same attack were killed by Pakistani police in Lahore in August, 2016. And an alleged mastermind Qari Ajmal was killed in Afghanistan, in the same province as Yasin, Paktika.
Yasin was killed in an airstrike in Afghanistan’s restive Paktika province on March 19, the US department of defense said in a statement. “The death of Qari Yasin is evidence that terrorists who defame Islam and deliberately target innocent people will not escape justice,” secretary of defense Jim Mattis said.
The Pentagon called Yasin a senior terrorist figure from Balochistan, Pakistan with ties to Tehrik-e Taliban. Among the attacks he had “plotted” was the Marriott Hotel bombing.
A truck packed with explosives had been blow up outside the hotel on 20 September, 2008 killing 54 people. The victims were mostly Pakistanis and included two Americans military personnel.
The Pentagon statement gave no details of Yasin’s precise role in the bombing, but called him a plotter.
About the attack on the Sri Lanka team, the Pentagon agave no details once again. And his links to the three killed in 2016, if at all, could not be confirmed either, or to Ajmal, the alleged mastermind. In that attack, a convey carrying the players to the stadium for a test match was attacked by 10 terrorists.
Six Pakistani policemen and two civilians were killed and six cricketers were injured: Mahela Jayawaredene, Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilan Samaraweera, Tharanga Paranavitana and Chaminda Vaas.