Chicago: Ilyas Kashmiri, the dreaded
Pakistani terrorist, belonging to the radical Harakat-ul Jihad
Islami (HUJI), has been indicted in a US court for the first
time in connection with a plot to target a Danish newspaper
which had published offensive cartoons of Prophet Mohammad.
Kashmiri was charged along with former Pakistani Army
major Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed had conspired with David
Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussein Rana for conspiracy to
target Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
While Rehman was arrested by Pakistani intelligence
agencies and later let off, Kashmiri, said to have close links
with al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban is believed to be
sheltered by them in the lawless Waziristan region.
A recent Pakistani media report said Kashmiri had a hand
in coordinating the suicide strike on the top secret CIA base
in Khost eastern Afghanistan that killed eight operatives.
US authorities, the report said, have asked Pakistan to
hunt down and extradite the dreaded terrorist.
Kashmiri, who belongs to kotli district of Mirpur in PoK
was during the 1990s apprehended by the Indian Army in Poonch
and was jailed for two years, before he escaped.
On return to Pakistan, he floated his own faction of HuJI
and was arrested in 2003 in the wake of an attempt to
assassinate then President Pervez Musharraf, but was released
in 2004.
PTI
