September 26, 2004 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
In his jihadi career, Amjad Hussain Farooqi fought alongside al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists in Kashmir, with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Pakistan. He is believed to be the mastermind behind the killing of Daniel Pearl, as well as the attempts to assassinate General Musharraf late last year. Farooqi’s most infamous exploit remains the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814, which forced India to release Masood Azhar and Omar Saeed, two of the most dangerous terrorists in the Pakistani jihadi firmament.
He was killed by Pakistani security forces in a shoot-out in the Pakistani city of Nawabshah. Three of his accomplices were arrested.
The timing of Farooqi’s killing is tantalisingly close to Musharraf’s major diplomatic engagements. Reports of Farooqi’s arrest had come in as early as June this year along with a suggestion that he would be ‘presented’ at a later date. In the end, the story of Farooqi’s killing may just be another case of Pakistani ISI writing off one of its assets.
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