PAF Chaklala Personnel Attempt to Assassinate General Musharraf

[Kevin Fenton]

The story:
“On December 14, 2003, attackers – identified as being low-level technicians of the Pakistan Air Force – had blasted the Lai Bridge seconds after Musharraf¨s car on its way from the airport to Army House passed over it in Rawalpindi… The investigators describe the first attempt as an exclusive job of more than a dozen brainwashed technicians of the Pakistani Air Force. The air force technicians were reportedly directed, motivated and armed by the Pakistani contact person of the al-Qaeda.” Another suicide attack 11 days later was arranged by the same contact person.

So who was the man?
“In a televised interview with ARY on June 4, 2004, General Musharraf identified Amjad Farooqui, the man who had allegedly masterminded the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, as the chief plotter of the two assassination attempts.” Farooqui was “the right hand man for Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed and a close associate of the al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.” Saeed Skeikh is the 9/11 paymaster and KSM is the 9/11 mastermind.

Where were the technicians who tried to kill Musharraf based?
“The Air Intelligence, the intelligence wing of the PAF, surprisingly had no wind that its personnel – about two dozen at the Chaklala air base – had been attending meetings with religious extremists and in the first week of December 2003, were making active preparations at the Pakistan Air Force base to bomb the presidential motorcade.”
All quotes taken from Chapter II of “The True Face of Jehadis” by Amir Mir.

Three things are worth noting:
(1) The following squadrons were based at Chaklala:
“Squadron No 6 at PAF Base Chaklala equipped with C-130 aircraft.
Squadron No 41 at PAF Base Chaklala equipped with Cessna 172, Aero-Commander, Beach Travel aircraft.
Squadron No 12 at PAF Base Chaklala equipped with Boeing 707, Falcon, Fokker aircraft.”
http://www.pakistanidefence.com/PakAirForce/PAF_Air_Bases.html
Boeings, eh?

(2) A member of Mohamed Atta’s Hamburg cell, Squadron Leader Atif bin Mansour, was stationed at Chaklala after returning from Germany.

(3) One of the plotters, Mushtaq Ahmed, was arrested after the assassination attempt, but escaped custody by jumping out of a toilet window. Guess which air base he was being held at.
http://nation.com.pk/daily/may-2005/9/editorials3.php

To summarise: there was a radical Islamist cell at Chaklala air base run by a close associate and right-hand man of the 9/11 plotters. Further, one of the Hamburg cell members was stationed there and it’s home to the PAF’s Boeings. I’m almost moved to start drawing conclusions.