ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday distanced itself from the issue of the extradition to India of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a suspect in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, saying he was a Canadian national who had not renewed his Pakistani origin documents in the past two decades.
New Delhi accuses Rana, 64, of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or the Army of the Pure, a group blamed by India and the United States for the four-day Mumbai siege in which 160 people, including Americans and other foreigners, were killed in 2008. Rana is accused of assisting his friend David Coleman Headley who was sentenced to 35 years in a US prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants and scouting target locations in Mumbai.
Pakistan has always denied official complicity in the Mumbai attacks.
“On the Tahawwur Rana issue, we have conveyed our position regarding his Canadian nationality,” Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said in reply to a question during a weekly media briefing.
“As far as our record indicates, he did not even apply for renewal for his Pakistani origin documents for the last two decades …I reiterate the position that we will give further updates in due course.”
In February, US President Donald Trump announced the extradition of Rana, calling him “one of the very evil people in the world.”
The US Supreme Court rejected Rana’s plea in February to remain in the country, where he was serving a sentence for planning another LeT-linked attack.
According to a Reuters report, Rana, a former Pakistan Army doctor, immigrated to Canada in 1997 before moving to Chicago to set up businesses. He was arrested by US authorities in 2009, a year after the Mumbai attacks.
In 2013, a US court acquitted him of conspiring in the Mumbai attacks but sentenced him to 14 years for plotting an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper office in Denmark, which had published blasphemous caricatures of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him).
Media has reported that Rana and Headley knew each other from boarding school days in Pakistan. Headley testified as a witness at Rana’s trial, claiming he used Rana’s immigration services business as a cover to scout targets in India.
Rana admitted to visiting Mumbai before the attacks and staying at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, which became the focal point of the deadly siege. However, he denied any involvement in the conspiracy.
Pakistan distances itself from extradition to India of 2008 Mumbai attacks’ suspect
https://arab.news/8k9wn
Pakistan distances itself from extradition to India of 2008 Mumbai attacks’ suspect
- Foreign office says Tahawwur Hussain Rana was Canadian, had not renewed Pakistani origin documents in decades
- 64-year-old is accused of being in LeT group, planning four-day Mumbai siege in which 160 people were killed in 2008
Pakistan says 641 Afghan Taliban members killed, over 855 injured in ongoing conflict
- Both neighbors have been engaged in fierce fighting since Feb. 26 after Afghan forces launched retaliatory attacks against Pakistan
- Pakistan information minister says 243 Afghanistan checkposts destroyed, 65 “terrorists and terror support locations” targeted by air
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has killed at least 641 Afghan Taliban operatives and injured more than 855 in the ongoing conflict between the two sides since last month, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday.
Fresh clashes between the two neighbors began on Feb. 26 after Afghanistan’s border forces launched attacks against Pakistani military installations. Kabul said the attack was in retaliation for Islamabad’s airstrikes earlier in February. Both forces have since then engaged in the worst fighting between them in decades.
Islamabad has said its airstrikes, which have at times directly targeted the Afghan Taliban government, are aimed at ending Kabul’s support for militants carrying out attacks on Pakistan. The Taliban has denied aiding militant groups.
“Summary of Fitna Al Khawarij/Afghan Taliban losses: 641 killed, 855+ injured, 243 check posts destroyed,” Tarar wrote on social media platform X.
https://x.com/tararattaullah/status/2031687512868159638?s=46
The minister said Pakistani security forces have destroyed 219 tanks, armored vehicles and artillery guns in the operation so far, and also decimated 65 “terrorists and terror support locations” across Afghanistan by targeting them with airstrikes.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have remained strained since the Afghan Taliban seized power in August 2021. Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks across the country in recent months that it blames on militants it alleges are based in Afghanistan.
Kabul denies the allegations and insists that its soil is not used by militant groups for attacks against other countries.
While Afghanistan has voiced the desire for dialogue, Pakistan has repeatedly ruled out talks, saying it will continue targeting militant hideouts in Afghanistan through “Operation Ghazab lil Haq” till Kabul desists from supporting militants.
The ongoing conflict between both sides has put the region on heightened alert, as it already suffers from the ongoing US-Israel war against Iran.
