BJP dissidents are raking up the Kandahar skyjacking. They allege that the NDA government paid money to release the hostages. The real Kandahar mystery lies elsewhere.
Giori’s firm supplied printing machines to India for over a hundred years. The government terminated its services in favour of Komori from Japan. Swiss authorities could have been concerned for Giori’s safety among the terrorists. They may have intervened. So what?
The real Kandahar mystery lies elsewhere. Consider some tantalising facts. Then connect the dots. A strange picture emerges. Questions rise. Answers are not available.
Foreign minister Jaswant Singh first learnt of the skyjacking from the Chinese government. How did China know? Beijing said a passenger told them over internet. How could a passenger operate a computer while terrorists surrounded him?
The skyjacking occurred 20 months before 9/11. One of the three terrorists released in exchange of hostages was Omar Saeed Sheikh. An LSE student from London, Omar played a crucial role in 9/11. He bankrolled the operation. He worked under Pakistan’s ISI chief General Mahmud Ahmad. General Ahmad spent the morning of 9/11 in conference with Senator Bob Graham and Congressmen Porter Goss. Subsequently both became co-chairmen of the investigation into 9/11.
On October 6, 2001, CNN quoted a US official to report that Omar Sheikh was involved in funding the 9/11 attacks. One month later, General Ahmad resigned. Pakistan claimed he was purged for being pro-Taliban. Not a word about his role in the 9/11 money trail! America asked no questions. The Times of India and Daily Excelsior claimed that the FBI had linked him and Omar to the funding of the 9/11 operation. The Wall Street Journal followed their lead.
On January 23, 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi. On February 5, Pakistani authorities nailed Omar as the kidnapper. Actually Omar only lured Pearl into the terrorist trap. He never kidnapped or killed Daniel Pearl. This was confirmed by Pearl’s widow and by Bob Baer, a former CIA case officer. UPIi reported this. The real kidnapper and murderer was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who personally masterminded 9/11.
Omar was sentenced to death in 2002. He still survives in jail. Is he too valuable to hang? As the conduit for 9/11 funds, whom can he expose? Is he Musharraf’s trumpcard? Is that why America can’t lift a finger against Musharraf?
These are the questions. Any convincing answers?