http://www.pinditube.com/?p=13163
Who is Faisal Shahzad? If you look at his picture, he looks like a pretty normal guy, dressed in western apparel, posing with his wife with a soft smile on his face. The only thing about him that may contribute towards the ‘Muslim terrorist’ stereotype is the outline of a beard around his jawline. It’s not even a long, scraggly beard usually associated with extremist ‘terrorists’ – rather just some facial hair to perhaps give his otherwise boyish face a more mature look. He is said to belong to the Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan, the area which is infamous for harbouring Islamic militants.
According to the officials and their statements, all the evidence is stacked up against him which proves without a doubt that he
was involved in the foiled car bombing. But then, there are always gaping holes of information that all doesn’t seem to fit together, some tight-lipped officials and of course, conflicting statements (about how he was on the No Fly list but still was able to board a plane… that too, from a US airport, especially New York which most Pakistani men would be able to tell you, are really not so easy to let such males go by without further questioning or investigation.) Excuse my cynicism, but I have read enough post 9/11 novels and watched enough post 9/11 movies and documentaries on Guantanamo to question whether, without a doubt, Faisal Shahzad is behind this ‘foiled’ car bombing.
The media is giving all the evidence that makes the case seem rock-solid that Faisal Shahzad is undoubtedly behind what could have been an extremely tragic event. But is it really?
Faisal’s father is said to be a retired Pakistan Air Force official. They have a house in Karachi. Faisal himself got his MBA in 2005 from an American university and has been living in the US since 1998, working on Wall Street. I personally know of so many people in my social circle who could fit the same profile, and quite frankly, none of them seem to be harbouring terrorist instincts. Also, the suicide bombers and terrorists within Pakistan have yet to fit this profile. His neighbours who have been approached by reporters and the press to give statements describe him as “intelligent and diligent” but as if he was always “hiding something”. According to the New York Times, “He was trying to cover his tracks, but he left more clues than a guy walking into a bank to rob it without a mask. This guy left everything here but his wallet.” – a statement given by Kevin B. Barry,who “retired in 2002 as a detective in the bomb squad of the New York Police Department, on the car bomb found in Times Square on Saturday night.”
Someone intelligent and diligent would hardly be dumb enough to leave evidence, or would he? What about his family? What do they have to say about this? Does Faisal have a Facebook profile? Can anyone get some information off that? What about his wife? What about Faisal himself? Has anyone been given the chance to defend him? Has he himself been allowed to face the media’s questions to maybe clear his position? Was he the only one at the airport at that time who belonged to Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and had somewhat of a beard – what could be perhaps taken to be the minimum requirement of a suspect who could be apprehended as a ‘terrorist’? He is said to have made the payment in cash and got the booking done on his way to the airport. What car was he travelling in? Was he travelling alone? Was his wife left behind or had she already left? Was any of the evidence found against him ‘planted’? Has he been tortured into admitting to this act?
In my opinion, all these questions need to be answered as well so that we can have both sides of the story and the complete picture. What I do know, for sure, is that a lot of people in this profile are going to avoid travelling to or from the United States for some time to come, and the ones who are should be mentally prepared to be subjected to even more (if possible) heavier interrogation and humiliation.
The hunt for Faisal Shahzad
Karachi/Peshawar: Baharul Haque, a former vice air marshal with the Pakistan Airforce has been identified as the father of NY car bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad.
It begins in Peshawar:
All day, there was heavy traffic outside house number 139 on Street 6 in Peshawar’s posh locality of Hayatabad.
The gate was padlocked but that didn’t seem to deter visitors. “Security was very tight all day and there were lots of foreigners, policemen as well intelligence agency types in and around the area all day,” says one area resident.
The house is said to belong to Baharul Haque, a former vice air marshal with the Pakistan Airforce. But the interest in Haque stems from the fact that he is the father of Faisal Shahzad, the US citizen being held in America in connection with a failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square.
Leading the investigation is the Special Investigation Group (SIG) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), headed by SIG commandant Khalid Qureshi. Earlier in the day, the US ambassador in Pakistan Anne W Patterson had called the interior minister and asked for help in this case.
Malik assured the ambassador of full co-operation and promptly tasked the SIG. But the details emerging so far are sketchy. Shahzad is said to hail from a village near Pabbi called Mohib Banda (see box). Locals in Pabbi say that Shahzad’s family shifted to Peshawar some 20 years ago.
Shahzad is thought to have pursued graduation studies from the Pakistan Air Force Government Degree College in Peshawar before leaving for the US to pursue business studies.
The US passport (see box) is proof he got naturalised during his stay in the US and he is said to have visited Pakistan several times over the years. (However, immigration authorities claim they have no information on the man.) It was on one of these visits two or three years ago, he’s said to have gotten married to a girl from either Mardan or Charsadda.
His in-laws are said to be resident in Peshawar too. “Shahzad recently came to Pakistan for a month,” says a senior intelligence official privy to the investigations being held throughout the country. “He landed in Islamabad on July 3, 2009 via an Emirates flight and left the country to go back to the US on August 5, 2009,” he said.
The address on the disembarkation card was house number 3, Sector I 8/3 in Islamabad, says the official. Shahzad is said to have travelled to several locations in the country during his brief visit but officials say they don’t have an exact record as he travelled on buses and coaches. He is also said to have visited his wife and child in Karachi.
Times Square bombing:
But intelligence officials are tightlipped when asked about the whereabouts of the family. Understandably, everyone seems to be in a bid to distance themselves from Shahzad. Baharul Haque’s relatives in Hayatabad insist they have no official confirmation that the man arrested in the US is indeed his son. Nor is the airforce willing to confirm that Haque was ever one of them.
The spokesperson for the Pakistan Airforce Air Commodore Tariq Qamar Yazdani said he doesn’t know any air force officer named Baharul Haq and refused to check further.
Meanwhile, the immediate family has disappeared into thin air, even as the security apparatus conducts a crackdown on Shahzad’s friends and suspected collaborators. Two people have been arrested from Karachi in connection with the case. One is Tauseef Ahmed, who’s said to be Shahzad’s cousin and Iftikhar, who’s supposed to be Shahzad’s father-in-law. And another four are said to have been arrested from Islamabad.
There are also reports of another friend, Muhammad Rehan, having been arrested from Karachi. Official sources say Shahzad had stayed with Rehan in Karachi and both had travelled together to Peshawar.
Agencies add:
Meanwhile, in the US, prosecutors have formally filed terrorism charges against Shahzad. The 10-page criminal complaint accuses Shahzad of five charges, including that of attempting “to use a weapon of mass destruction” to kill people in the crowded centre of New York on Saturday. Shahzad was arrested from JFK airport in New York on Monday. He was on an Emirates flight to Dubai after the attempted bombing of Times Square. The plane was taxiing just before midnight when air traffic called it back and the 30-year-old Pakistani-born US citizen was caught.
WITH REPORTING BY SALMAN SIDDIQUI, ADIL JAWAD AND FAWAD KHAN IN KARACHI, ASIM AWAN AND ZIA M KHAN IN ISLAMABAD AND IFTIKHAR FIRDOUS IN PESHAWAR.