The recent string of high-profile arrests in Pakistan of Al Qaeda operatives accused of plotting against financial institutions in the United States resulted not from a meticulously planned counterterrorism operation but from a lucky break, according to Pakistani police.
It was the kind of break investigators dream about: A cellular phone that was to trigger an explosion on a busy road in Karachi failed to detonate.
The phone, connected to 18 pounds of explosives, led Pakistani police in the crowded port city to the bombmaker’s house. There, police expected to find a local “jihadi group” plotting violence against Pakistan, one police officer said. Instead, police found Musaad Aruchi, thought to be the nephew of a top Al Qaeda operative, who helped unravel the most comprehensive discovery of a terrorist plot against the United States since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush administration officials have touted the snowballing of arrests as proof of the president’s success in the war against terrorism.
But Pakistani police give the credit to Pakistan’s internal war against extremists.
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“Frankly, I think it is a mistake to think that Pakistanis are doing this for us, at our bidding,” a State Department official said. “They recognize that these groups are a threat to them.”
Aruchi’s arrest–reportedly carried out with CIA assistance–led Pakistani investigators and their U.S. counterparts to Al Qaeda computer operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. Khan then led police to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who in turn led them to Abu Eisa al-Hindi, also known asAbu Musa al-Hindi, arrested last week in London, as well as to evidence of Al Qaeda’s surveillance of financial targets in New York and Washington.