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Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist under house arrest after confessing in 2004 to assisting the nuclear weapons programs of Iran, Libya and North Korea, will soon be released, according to Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid Secretary General Syed Mushahid Hussain. The Asian News International reports Hussain’s remarks were made on the BBC Urdu’s program Talking Point.

The next day, according to Pak Tribune, S.M. Zafar, Khan’s former lawyer and a Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid senator, reported that President Pervez Musharraf has lifted some restrictions on Khan, who is now permitted to meet with some close friends and colleagues.

In his memoir In the Line of the Fire and in subsequent interviews, Musharraf alleged that Khan provided nearly two dozen prototype centrifuges suitable for uranium enrichment to North Korea. The alleged existence of a secret DPRK weapons-grade uranium-enrichment program has been a key argument of former U. N. ambassador John Bolton against the denuclearization agreement reached nearly one year ago with Pyongyang.

North Korea’s U.N. representative Kim Myong Gil’s response to these allegations was reported (in "What A. Q. Khan Knows", Washington Post, January 31, 2008) to be: "Why don’t you invite A. Q. Khan to join the negotiations?" If Musharaff’s purpose for Khan's house arrest was to shield him from foreign interrogation, it is imperative, as Khan's restrictions are loosened, that the U.S. press Islamabad for more access to the man. Answers from A. Q. Khan, however unlikely, are long overdue.

Labels: A. Q. Khan, DPRK, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf

Amjad Hussain Farooqi, 30, said to be running Al Qaeda operations in Pakistan, was killed on Sunday after a shootout in southern Sindh province. Farooqi was said to be the right-hand man of Abu Faraj Farj, the Libyan who took over as third-in-command after the arrest in March 2003 of the 9/11 "architect" Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

"I can confirm that Amjad Farooqi has been killed in an encounter with security forces and we have also arrested three important terror suspects." Information Minister Sheikh Rashid

Farooqi was suspected of involvement in the 2002 throat-slitting murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. He was also the "mastermind" of the lethal suicide bombing of the U.S. consulate in Karachi in 2002. Farooqi was also believed to be behind two attempts to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. Reportedly, Farroqi recruited and trained 24 Pakistani Air Force technicians from Chaklala Air Base, who then spent two days strapping plastic explosives to pillars of a road bridge in the city of Rawalpindi. The bombs were detonated on December 14, just minutes after Musharraf's convoy had crossed the bridge. Reportedly, radio interference devices in the convoy prevented the detonation signal from getting through on time. A second assassination attempt on Musharraf occurred on December 25, 2003, with suicide bombers as the means. Again, Musharraf escaped harm, though there were serious casualties to his security contingent.

Farooqi (alias Imtiaz Farooqi, alias Haider, alias Mansoor Hussain) was born in Toba Tek Singh in Punjab province. He became an activist of the banned militant group Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami. He later visited Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. He is also suspected of taking part in the 1999 hijacking of an Indian airliner to Kandahar, Afghanistan, that resulted in an exchange of hostages-for-prisoners that freed Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh from an Indian prison. Sheikh has been sentenced to death for complicity in the Pearl abduction. Just this year, Pakistan placed a $345,000 bounty was placed on Farooqi's head.
SOURCES:

• Daily Times [Pakistan]
• Khaleej Times
• Biohazard News

Labels: Abu Faraj Farj, al Qaeda, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, Daniel Pearl, Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Omar Saeed Sheikh, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf