LJ Forming New Militant Cells--Daily Times, Pakistan (Pearl link)

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In the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
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//The Daily Times, Pakistan Monday, October 02, 2006

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\10\02\story_2-10-2006_pg1_1



LJ FORMING NEW MILITANT CELLS

By Shahzad Malik

ISLAMABAD: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), a banned sectarian militant group, has started a recruitment drive and is forming new cells at the district and provincial levels, Daily Times has learnt.

Intelligence agencies have reported to the Interior Ministry that “notorious terrorist” Matiur Rehman had been tasked with reorganising Lashkar cells, sources told Daily Times.

Rehman is believed to have links with Al Qaeda and is one of the prime suspects in the London airline plot. He is also believed to have been involved in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, the multiple assassination plots on President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, and the attack on the US Consulate in Karachi in March 2006.

The report added that drug money “from the Taliban” was being used to fund the recruitment drive and reorganisation.


(SNIP)



The Interior Ministry has asked the home secretaries and the Islamabad chief commissioner to use “all possible resources” to foil the LJ attempt to recruit new members, the sources said. They added that the police had been asked to form raiding parties to track down the LJ activists.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was formed in 1996 by a breakaway group of Sipah-e-Sahaba. It is banned in Pakistan and internationally as a terrorist group.