Captured bomber spills the beans
shikarpur — The confession of a teenager who was captured moments before carrying out a suicide attack has given police a rare glimpse into a militant network they say is behind the recent surge in sectarian violence.
Usman’s testimony, a copy of which has been seen by Reuters, describes a web of radical seminaries and training and bomb making facilities stretching from eastern Afghanistan, where the young man was recruited, to Pakistan’s southern Sindh province.
Hundreds of people have been killed in sectarian attacks in Pakistan, heightening fears in the country of an escalation in bloodshed that has been a persistent threat for decades.
Pakistani police believe the network, which Usman says aided him on his 2,000km journey, has also helped Daesh spread its extremist agenda in South Asia, even without proven operational links with its core in the Middle East.
The Pakistani network brings together several known militants belonging to extremist groups that have targeted religious minorities for decades, police said, providing fertile ground for Daesh’s ideology to spread.
Usman’s confession does not name Daesh directly, but police say they believe the network that recruited and trained him was behind five deadly sectarian bombings in Pakistan, four of which have been claimed by the group based in Syria and Iraq.
“Daesh has no formal structure (in Pakistan). It works on a franchise system and that is the model that is being used in Pakistan,” senior Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) officer Raja Umer Khattab said.
By that he said he meant Daesh could claim attacks as its own, even if it had no direct role in coordinating them.
Usman, 18 at the time of the thwarted attack, is currently on death row in the town of Shikarpur, where he was caught.
Reuters was unable to contact him for this story, but Usman’s court-appointed lawyer said the family had shown no interest in the case.
“I am not sure if an appeal has been filed against the sentence, since no one from his family ever turned up to even meet Usman,”
daesh has no formal structure (in Pakistan). It works on a franchise system and that is the model that is being used in Pakistan Raja Umer Khattab, a CTD officer
advocate Deedar Brohi told Reuters, adding that his client had been sentenced by an anti-terrorism court in March.
Police say the network emerged relatively recently — the main suspects became known to police over the last two years — but it is not clear whether it is acting alone or on the orders of other groups like Daesh.
Under interrogation, Usman, arrested last September, described his recruitment in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, where US and Afghan forces have been fighting a local offshoot of Daesh estimated to number a few hundred fighters. Originally from the Pakistani valley of Swat, his family fled to Nangarhar after his father, a member of the outlawed Pakistani Taleban, was killed in a drone strike.
Usman told investigators he came home one day to find his brother sitting with an older man.
“My brother said that you should join jihad ... you should become a suicide bomber,” Usman said in the confession. He left that day and travelled with the older man by bus to the Afghan province of Kandahar, where they crossed into Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
From there, they rode a motorcycle to the remote desert town of Wadh in southern Balochistan, where Usman began his training and stayed at the home of a man called Maaz. “In our room, Maaz took out explosives from a bag and prepared two suicide jackets,” Usman told investigators.
I came home one day to find my brother sitting with an older man. My brother said that you should join jihad ... you should become a suicide bomber Usman, the captured bomber
Police suspect Wadh is where several terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taleban and other local banned outfits, have been active.
The media wing of Pakistan’s military did not respond to requests for comment for this article, including how militants could use Wadh as hub.
An intelligence official, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the Press, denied Wadh was part of a militant network. — Reuters