Spanish arrests expose nexus between underworld and terror groups

26/11 Taj under attack. Photo courtesy: The Express Tribune

The arrest of the Al Qaeda operatives in Spain and Thailand is an indication that terror groups and criminals work hand in hand.

Even though it is not clear as yet that these were the same men who provided fake documents to the 10 terrorists who carried out 26/11 sources both in the Mumbai police and the Intelligence bureau told rediff.com that they were following up the investigations. The NIA too has been looking closely at the developments and a member of the IB or the police department may go to Spain to get more details about these men.
The IB says that this is a clear nexus between the underworld headed by the D gang and the terror groups. Although investigators had claimed that there was no Dawood angle to the attack, arrests such as these show how much of a part the underworld has played in an attack such as this one.
Coming back to Dawoods operations, the IB says that his drug market is extremely strong in countries such as Spain and more so Thailand.
Information that is now trickling in to the Indian agencies suggest that the gang that has been busted specifically deals with forging passports, forging documents and also providing sim cards to anti social elements. For instance Athar Butt a Pakistani who was also arrested is not a member of any of these terror groups. He has been creating documents for the D gang, the LTTE and also the Al Qaeda and the Lashkar E Tayiba. He operates out of Bangkok and has been into the business for the past two  decades. The IB says that these men do not play any direct role with the big operatives and are contacted through middle men when documents are required. This could have been the case during the Mumbai attack as well. The Mumbai crime branch will be looking closely into this angle.
The IB says that these persons originally started off as small time touts and were first brought into the business when they came in contact with the underworld. At first this gang created fake documents to help members of the underworld travel between countries and later they were roped in to do the same job for the terror outfits as well. Today this gang is well connected and operates between countriess such as Thaand, Belgium, Spain and Dubai.
This gang also employs small time thieves to steal passports and other documents mainly from tourists and based on what they get they create fake documents. The IB says this is a very important part of any terror operation since forging of travel documents helps terrorists enter other countries abd carry out an attack. The gang in question has created fake documents for both the Al Qaeda and the Lashkar for nealry ten years now and their operatives have used these documents to enter various countries such as the US, India and Britain.
The IB further points out that the documents created by them are precise in nature and more than often they manage to get away without any suspicion.
In the case of the Mumbai attack this gang could have used Indian documents as this was precisely what was told to them. The Laskhar and the ISI wanted the operation to look like an India originated one and hence the documents forged originally belonged to Hyderabad and Bangalore.
A similar gang had been busted in Italy a year back, but no connection was found to the 26/11 attack. Indian agencies are hppeful that they may get something concrete from these arrests and they would probe deep since this could fill a major void. Indian agencies also suspect that this gang could have been in contact with some local thieves in India to provide them with stolen documents and this once again shows that there was very much local help in these attacks.
The IB further points out that the arrest of these persons is a big blow to terror outfits since documentation is a crucial part of any terror operation. Although there are many more such persons based in india and other countries the busting of this group is a shake up without any doubt.