Terrorism came to Karachi long before September 11, 2001, much before Maulana Masood Azhar stood in the courtyard of Binori Mosque complex and announced jihad against India in January 2000. The year was 1986. Azhar was around eighteen and a student of the Jamia Islamia madrasa at the mosque (where one of his friends was Mohammad Omar who later went on to become the Taliban chief) when a group of Palestinians hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 with 379 passengers and crew to Karachi. After the security agencies stormed the hijacked plane and captured some of the terrorists, a reporter asked one of them, "Why did you do it?" The hijacker replied, "It’s so easy here!" Seventeen years down the line, Al Qaida terrorists fleeing the US manhunt in Afghanistan found Karachi no different. Peeling off layers of sheen and gloss from the city that the British preferred as the capital of Pakistan, the book examines the underbelly of a city which houses the country’s elite, both famous and infamous, and reveals the shocking truth: Karachi would be tomorrow’s Kandahar, the hub of terror.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Wilson John
Wilson John is a Senior Fellow with Observer research Foundation, New Delhi. His areas of research include India's neighbourhood policy, Pakistan and terrorism. He has four books to his credit -An Admiral's Fall (1999), Karachi: An International Terrorist capital in the making (2004), Pakistan's Nuclear Underworld (2005), and Terrorism in South Asia-edited with Swati Parashar (2005). His articles are regularly published both in India and abroad. He has contributed a chapter, Pakistani Under Islamist Siege, in India's National Security: Annual Review 2004 -edited by Professor Satish Kumar, India research Press, 2005. His chapters on Pakistan have been published in Unmasking Terror: A global review of terrorist activities published by The Jamestown Foundation, Washington, 2005. His recent article in The Washington Times was on Inside Political (March 22, 2007). Recently, a chapter on Islamic terrorism in South Asia: Trends and Challenges is included in South Asia Defence & Strategic Year Book 2007 published by Pentagon Press, new Delhi. An edited volume on Pakistan: Future tense is under publication. His latest publication is a Brief on lashkar-e-Tayyeba published by University of Bradford in may 2007.
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