Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Amjad Farooqi" in English language version.
An alleged terrorist, who was later identified as an Al Qaeda kingpin Amjad Farooqi, was killed and seven other people, including two women and three children, were arrested after security forces raided a house in Ghulam Hyder Shah Colony here on Sunday.
An alleged terrorist, who was later identified as an Al Qaeda kingpin Amjad Farooqi, was killed and seven other people, including two women and three children, were arrested after security forces raided a house in Ghulam Hyder Shah Colony here on Sunday.
Asia Times Online contacts, however, are adamant that Farooqi was in fact arrested some months ago, and that the "incident" resulting in his death in the southern Pakistani city of Nawabshah was in fact stage-managed by Pakistani security forces.
However, extensive Asia Times Online research throws up a different picture. Before the "war on terror" was launched after September 11, 2001 - when Musharraf threw in his lot with the US - Farooqi was an impoverished foot soldier in a jihadi organization. It is only in the past six months that he has suddenly emerged as a "kingpin" and super villain, with the source invariably being from the official side.
All accounts from Nawabshah indicate that if the Pakistani authorities had wanted they could have caught him alive and questioned him about the role of Pakistani civilian and military officials in various terrorist incidents of the past three years, including the kidnapping and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, the attempts to kill Musharraf himself and Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister, and the attacks directed against US and French targets in Pakistan. But they did not want him alive.
