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Pakistan Air Force's officers tried to kill Musharraf: UK paper

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, Nov 6, IRNA
Pakistan-Musharraf
Several young officers from the Pakistan Air Force with access to President Pervez Gen Pervez Musharraf's innermost security circle were among 50 people arrested for trying to assassinate him soon after he returned from a visit to the US and Britain in late September, according to a report published in The unday Telegraph on Sunday.

According to the Daily Times, The rocket strike was aimed at the president's high-security personal residence-office in Rawalpindi.

About 50 people are being held on suspicion of involvement in the eptember attack, which involved a battery of Russian-made 107 m projectiles launched by a signal from a mobile phone, Pakistani intelligence sources were quoted as saying by The Sunday Telegraph.

Alarmingly, many are understood to be young officers serving in the Pakistan Air Force, some of whom have access to high-security zones of the presidential offices, parliament and the intelligence service, they said.

The report said that although interrogations had not revealed any of them to have links with Al Qaeda or the Taliban, they were nonetheless believed to have acted out of growing anger at Musharraf's alliance with America in its war on terror.

One official said that while the rocket strike itself had been relatively amateurish, it would have probably been lethal had the plotters been assisted beforehand by a terrorist group.

It said that while Musharraf relied on the armed forces to keep him in power, loyalty among the military's lower tiers had become increasingly in doubt because of the perception that he had sold out Pakistan to the US and its western allies.

Publicly, officials close to the president deny that he faces any challenge from within the forces, but privately, they now admit that the personal threat against him is becoming heavier and heavier, and are predicting a serious fall-out from the latest helicopter strike in Bajaur.

The Pakistan Army said the madrassa was an Al Qaeda-linked school, used to train insurgents fighting across the border in Afghanistan.

2024/235/1430/1412