Chicago
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says it would like
suspected Indian crime boss Dawood Ibrahim to be arrested, but it is
not clear if the agency has officially sought his custody.
"The FBI would like to see the arrest of Dawood Ibrahim," Special
Agent Richard Kolko, who is unit chief at the FBI's National Press
Office, told IANS.
Kolko was responding to questions in the aftermath of media
speculation that Dawood Ibrahim may have been arrested in Pakistan.
The FBI official did not comment on the reports nor did he respond
to a question if Pakistan might have acted under mounting US
pressure.
Asked what the US was pursuing Dawood Ibrahim for, Kolko said: "The
US Department of the Treasury designated him a 'Specially Designated
Global Terrorist' on Oct 16, 2003. (Dawood) Ibrahim has shared his
smuggling routes with Al Qaeda and funded attacks by anti-Western
Islamic groups. He is also accused of masterminding the 1993 Bombay
bombings."
Kolko added: "(Dawood) Ibrahim's criminal syndicate aids terrorist
groups ranging from Al Qaeda to Lashkar-e-Taiba."
In the past four years since he was named a specially designated
global terrorist, not much has been heard about Dawood Ibrahim
within the US.
His emergence on the US radar has been a gradual, almost tentative
process. Notwithstanding his designation, Dawood Ibrahim is not
considered a particularly high value target.
If at all Dawood Ibrahim is being quietly held by the Pakistani
authorities, the primary motivation for Islamabad could be to offer
any scalp to a restive Washington.
There is a perception among experts that Pakistan cannot possibly
hand over Dawood Ibrahim and at the same time play the innocent
saying it never harboured him. Handing him over even via Kazakhstan
would be an implicit admission that they knew all along where he
was.
While Dawood Ibrahim may not be a high value target for the US, his
alleged role as a facilitator to Al Qaeda and other terror networks
is likely to keep him in Washington's crosshairs. There is nothing
to indicate whether, if and when Pakistan arrests him, the US would
in fact seek his custody.
Not much is known about the specific anti-Western attacks he is
accused of having funded. Other than the general belief that Dawood
Ibrahim could have sought to give his criminal enterprise some
ideological underpinning by reportedly helping out Al Qaeda, not
much is known about his motivations.
As far as crime sagas go, Dawood Ibrahim's has been a spectacular
rise. In the early 1980s he was but an underling on the margins of
the Mumbai underworld controlled by the likes of Haji Mastan,
Varadaraja Mudaliar and Karim Lala.
The irony of him being a son of a police constable crossing over to
the wrong side of the law was a source of some mirth among the mob
bosses then. However, many established names did see early signs of
a powerful crime career in him.
In a rare unguarded moment, Haji Mastan once told this writer: "Yeh
ladka (Ibrahim) kuch bada karega. (This young man will do something
big)."
Not wanting to commit himself to whether he meant something in the
world of crime, Mastan did not specify any particular career path
but it was understood what he was implying.
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