UK-Pakistani terror suspect Rashid Rauf is still alive, his lawyer told the BBC yesterday, saying reports that he had died in a US missile attack in Pakistan were “fake.”
The alleged al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic jet bombing conspiracy was reportedly killed on the weekend in a US raid in the northwestern border district that is a known stronghold of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
“We don’t believe that this story is true ... It is a fake story,” lawyer Hashmat Ali Habib told BBC radio, adding: “We still believe that my client, Rashid, is alive.”
He noted that requests for Rauf’s body to be returned to his family had not been answered.
“This is a new technique of the government to dispose of the cases like Rashid or other missing people,” he said.
A Pakistani security official said Rauf died on Saturday when a missile hit a tribesman’s house in the village of Alikhel in North Waziristan.
The strike site was in a lawless tribal territory and militants there usually surround the place after such attacks, preventing access of government representatives or the army, before burying the bodies themselves.
Rauf was arrested in 2006 in Pakistan over the bomb plot and 24 people were detained in the UK in a major swoop.
A day later a massive security operation at London Heathrow Airport resulted in mass cancellations for several days amid fears of a terrorist attack using liquid explosives on London flights bound for North America.
The Foreign Office said on Saturday it was probing reports that Rauf had been killed.
“We are currently investigating this at the moment, but we do not have any information,” a spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Pakistanis on Sunday protested the suspected US missile strike, saying their Western-allied government must stop the cross-border attacks.
Rauf’s death would be a major blow to al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists sheltering in the lawless region. It would also bolster US claims that missile strikes on extremist strongholds in northwestern Pakistan were protecting the West against another Sept. 11-style terrorist attack.
About 100 people in the eastern city of Multan demonstrated against the strike, chanting “Down with America” and burning an effigy of US President George W. Bush.
“The government should take concrete measures to protect the country’s sovereignty instead of just paying lip service,” one demonstrator, Arif Fasihullah, said.
Information Minister Sherry Rehman reiterated her government’s complaint that missile attacks are fanning anti-Americanism and Islamic extremism tearing at both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“It would have been better if our authorities had been alerted for local action,” Rehman said. “Drone incursions create a strong backlash.”
Taliban spokesman Ahmedullah Ahmedi insisted only civilians and no foreigners were killed in the pre-dawn missile attack in the village of Alikhel, which lies in an area long reputed to be a militant stronghold.
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