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| Soofi -Yet another militant with Pakistani roots | |
By Manzoor Ahmed
In a repeat, yet another Islamist militant with roots in Pakistan has surfaced on the American scene. The world as a whole will have to take note of NADIR SOOFI, a gunman who was shot dead after opening fire at a Texas exhibition of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Soofi’s notice would need to be taken as he is allegedly part of the first ever attack on the American soil by the Islamic State, (IS or Daa’esh) that has claimed credit for the attack thwarted by the American police.
What marks out Soofi is that he is at least the third such case of a man with Pakistani parent, broken marriage of the parents and later on, their own, living in the US, well educated, but who did not do well in life. And then, they got drawn to Islamist militancy.
The two others are David Coleman Hadley alias Daood Jilani and Faizal Shahzad.
Take Soofi first, since he is the latest. With a Pakistani father and an American mother, he grew up in Pakistan, studying in a good school, where he was a popular boy. With great sense of humour, his friends called him “Goofy’.
He moved to the US with parents, but parents divorced and he lived with his mother. Did not fit into the American society, or so he told his friends back in Pakistan. He tried various trades but failed. Had child from a Bosnian woman, but the relationship did not last.
At some stage, he got attracted to extreme Islam, got into action, or tried to, along with another friend, before he was shot dead.
In a series of tweets, a jihadist named as Abu Hussain AlBritani, which SITE said was British IS fighter Junaid Hussain, claimed that “2 of our brothers just opened fire” at the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) caricature exhibition in Texas.
Now take the case of David Coleman Headley (born Daood Sayed Gilani; 30 June 1960). He is an American terrorist of Pakistani origin, and a spy who conspired with the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist organization and Pakistani intelligence officers in plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Headley has said that he shed his Muslim name at the behest of his Pakistani militant handler of the LET. This, and the American passport, enabled him to travel to Europe and to India, the latter place being to scout for the operation that finally took the form of terror attacks in Mumbai. He photographed, drew maps and scouted the locations, some of which were targeted by 10 Pakistani terrorists in November 2008.
Besides his fair skin (white American mother), he was helped by the fact that he was a double agent, working for the US anti-narcotics administration. He visited Pakistan many times, using the American passport and trained in the tribal areas of Pakistan-Afghanistan.
He reached a deal with the American judiciary and has survived, serving a long jail term.
The third case is of Faisal Shehzad. The Pakistani-American citizen was arrested for the attempted May 1, 2010, Times Square car bombing. He confessed to 10 counts arising from the bombing attempt. Throughout his court appearance, Shahzad was unrepentant. The United States Attorney indicated there was no plea deal, so Shahzad faced the maximum sentence, a mandatory life term.
Shahzad was arrested approximately 53 hours after the attempt by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.He was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport, after boarding Emirates Flight 202 to Dubai. His final destination had been Islamabad, Pakistan. So, no doubts about his Pakistani connections.
Shahzad committed five terrorism-related crimes, including the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Shahzad admitted training in bomb-making at a camp run by a militant Islamist faction in the Waziristan region in Pakistan along the Afghan border.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Shahzad received bomb-making training from the Pakistani Taliban.
After pleading guilty to a 10-count indictment in June, on October 5, 2010, Shahzad was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole; the charges had included conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting an act of terrorism.
Like the other two compatriots who have followed him into the world of Islamist terrorism, Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He was born in Pakistan in either Karachi or Pabbi (a village in Nowshera District east of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan), the youngest of four children. Shahzad comes from a wealthy, well-educated family in northwest Pakistan.
Shahzad's father, Baharul Haq, lives in the Hayatabad suburb of Peshawar. He was a senior official in the Pakistan Air Force, holding the rank of Air Vice-Marshal before leaving the air force in 1992. His children grew up in privilege. Haq is now a deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan.
The New York Times reported that Shahzad's life seems to have followed a "familiar narrative about radicalization in the West: his anger toward his adopted country seemed to have grown in lockstep with his personal struggles. He had lost his home to foreclosure last year. At the same time he was showing signs of a profound, religiously infused alienation."
Nothing more needs to be said for now about the three – till more such Pakistani Americans emerge on the scene.
(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)
Editor, Scoop News
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