'Al-Qaeda' claims embassy blast

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad which left at least six people dead, according to an internet site purporting to represent the network.

According to a statement on the site on Wednesdsay, the attack in the Pakistan capital two days earlier was a reprisal against the republication in Danish newspapers of cartoons insulting the prophet Mohammed.

"One of the heroes of 'Qaedat al-Jihad' carried out a suicide operation on the morning of Monday," said the statement, signed by Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, one of Al-Qaeda's leaders.

'Infidel state'

The attack was "in revenge against the state of infidelity, called 'Denmark', that posted cartoons hostile to the messenger of Allah," the statement read, according to an English translation provided by Site, a US-based group which monitors Islamic militant internet websites and chat rooms. "This operation is a warning to the infidel state and those who ride with it, so that they are deterred from their sin ... and so that they apologise for what they did," Yazid added.

Site said the message was posted across several forums.

Danish intelligence officials said earlier on Wednesday that the attack had been meticulously planned for a "long time and with precision".

Denmark's secret services have sent three experts to Islamabad as part of their investigation.

Victims of attack

One Danish citizen of Pakistani origin and two Pakistani employees were among the dead in the blast that badly damaged the embassy and the offices of a UN-backed aid agency.

Al-Qaeda called for attacks on Danish targets after Danish newspapers ran caricatures of the prophet Mohammed.

Danish newspapers first published the controversial cartoons in 2005, sparking violent protests in Pakistan and other Muslim countries. Several dailies reprinted the sketches in February this year.

Yazid said al-Qaeda congratulated "the Pakistani mujahideen ... the pioneers of the religious fervor and Islamic zeal, who participated" in the attack.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

When the attack first happened, I strongly suspected that al-Qaeda was behind it, though I unfortunately did not have time to put together a post to that effect. At the time, one of Al Jazeera's political analysts had been quoted as saying, "The timing is very strange ... It is not an issue right now, it's over. No one, not even in the tribal areas, is talking about the cartoons."¹ To me, however, this explained the situation, rather than confusing it. Al-Qaeda doesn't want people to forget about it; it wants to keep them riled up. To this end, it organized a not so subtle reminder.

What is really interesting to me, though, is that Mustafa Abu al-Yazid is the one taking responsibility for this. He is the Emir of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, so you'd think that Islamabad would be somewhat outside his area of operations. It would be expected that one of the Pakistani hirabis, such as Jalaluddin Haqqani or Baitullah Mahsud (or perhaps the Emir of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, except that, curiously, there does not appear to be one). This is not the first time that al-Yazid has been connected to attacks in Islamabad, either; when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, he allegedly claimed responsibility. I had expressed a great deal of skepticism at the time, but this seems to reinforce the notion that he is involved in attacks in both nations. It would certainly make sense for al-Qaeda to combine Afghanistan and Pakistan into a single administrative region; the fact that many of their operations take place in the area around the border means that such an arrangement would eliminate frequent jurisdictional conflicts.