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Was Khalid Arrested Where The FBI Said He Was?

THE NATION 
MARCH 10, 2003

LONDON -- Inside the villa in Rawalpindi where police
say they arrested Khalid, an old woman sobbed
gently, shoulders shaking, as she gathered a black
shawl around her head and across her mouth and
nose so that only her eyes were visible, writes
Christina Lamb.

Mrs Mahlaqa Khanum is the mother of Ahmed Qadoos,
the 42-year-old Pakistani accused of sheltering
the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Qadoos
was arrested in the raid on the house that police
say netted Khalid and another top Al-Qaeda
suspect.

The family is no stranger to controversy. Qadoos
is a cousin of Dr Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani heart
surgeon with whom Diana, Princess of Wales, was
said to be in love. But Khanum said any idea that
her son was sheltering terrorists who are on the
FBI's most wanted list was "impossible".

Pointing at a large cage of blue and green
budgerigars on the terrace, she said: "These are
his life. Ahmed is a very simple person. He had no
job, he hardly went out, just to the mosque to
pray. He never travelled and his main thing was
pets. He loved pets. We wouldn't let him have a
dog because we're an Islamic family, but he loved
his budgies."

Qadoos would watch the army dog-training centre
behind the house for hours. His mother produced a
medical report describing him as a "low IQ person"
and a letter about his condition from the Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for which her
husband, Dr Abdul Qadoos, a microbiologist, worked
for 30 years in several countries.

A heart bypass operation forced the doctor to
retire in 1985 while he was in Zambia. Now he is
managing director of Hearts International, a
cardiac hospital in Rawalpindi, although his own
heart condition has made him frail.

The description of Qadoos as a simpleton is
supported by the family's neighbour, Colonel
Shahida of the Pakistani army.

"Ahmed can't be a terrorist," he laughed. "He's a
goof, simple in the head. Once he shot himself in
the hand because he was cleaning a gun with the
barrel against his palm. They are a
purdah-observing household. We never saw anyone
strange enter the house."

Kkanum and her husband were at a wedding in Lahore
when their house was raided. Ahmed Qadoos, his
wife and their two children Aisha, 12, and Bilal,
8, were sleeping in a downstairs room when they
were woken by a loud bang. The door was forced
open and about 25 police officers rushed in.

Qadoos's wife said she and the children were
pushed into a spare room and told to remain
silent, guarded by an armed policeman, while for
more than an hour officers ransacked the house.

"We were petrified," she said.

When they left she called her cousin, Dr
Surbuland, who lives in the next street. "It was
about 4.15am. She was very confused and at first
we thought Ahmed had been kidnapped because they
had taken some dollars," he said. "Everything had
been turned upside down."

The family have been given no information since
then and were horrified to read in newspapers that
Qadoos had been charged with sheltering a
terrorist. "I'm so worried for him," said his
mother. "He was taken in his vest with no shoes,
nothing – and he had flu."

American and Pakistani intelligence officials say
items including a laptop computer, a satellite
phone, letters, cassettes of Osama Bin Laden and
documents were seized during the raid.

"That's ridiculous," said Qadoos's mother. "They
took my diaries and address book, a box of family
photographs, tapes of the Koran that I like
listening to and a computer we bought last month
for the children."

Qadoos's daughter Aisha said: "It was our
computer. We didn't even have the internet. It
just had some games – Aladdin and The Lion King."

It certainly seems an unlikely hideout for a
terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list –
although, of course, that could make it ideal. Not
only is the suburb of Westridge mostly inhabited
by army families, but it is less than a mile from
the headquarters of Pakistan's army, which has
ruled the country for more than half the time
since it became independent. The peaceful streets
could not be more different from the teeming
bustle of Rawalpindi.

Ahmed Qadoos's mother is an activist for the
ladies' wing of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Pakistan's
biggest religious party – an allegiance noted by
Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the information minister, who
announced the arrests.

"There is definitely a pattern here," Rashid said.
"This is the third time Al-Qaeda big fish are
being picked up from the house of a
Jamaat-e-Islami supporter."

He pointed out that both Ramzi Binalshibh, the
suspected 20th hijacker arrested in Karachi last
September, and Abu Zubaydah, arrested last March,
were discovered in houses belonging to JI
members.

Qazi Hussein Ahmed, leader of the party, which is
part of the opposition and is engaged in a
campaign for General Pervez Musharraf either to
step down as army chief or to renounce the
presidency, is furious at the allegation.

"We're an open organisation," he said.

"We will give shelter to womenfolk and orphans,
but not to anyone violent or to wanted persons."

Intelligence officers say another pattern that
seems to be emerging is the use of doctors' houses
as hideouts. In a war in which 1.5m people were
killed and at least as many lost limbs, hundreds
of thousands of mujaheddin fighting in Afghanistan
were treated by Pakistani doctors and
relationships may have developed.

While there is no doubting the huge importance of
the capture of Khalid, last week's raid does leave
many unanswered questions. Would he really be
travelling with phones, laptop computers,
documents and lists of names in an organisation
that for the past two years has relied on foot
messengers, knowing that phone calls can be
intercepted and used to trace their position? The
Qadoos family point to the photo of Khalid
released by Pakistani authorities, purportedly
showing him under arrest in the house, looking fat
and dazed in a baggy vest as he stands against a
wall of peeling paint. A thorough search of the
house shows there is no such wall.

"The family is lying," insisted the information
minister. However, he admitted that it was
"perhaps unlikely" that Ahmed Qadoos was mixed up
with Al-Qaeda, suggesting the real link was to
another family member. 


Courtesy The Sunday Times