Security agencies in mad scramble

Washington's decision last month to declare Dawood Ibrahim a specially designated global terrorist with links to two ban-ned militant groups is causing considerable consternation among the Pakistani security agencies, a leading English-language monthly magazine reported in its latest issue.

"Agencies that were earlier turning a blind eye to the Indian underworld don's criminal networks in their countries are now scrambling for cover and contemplating ways and means of taking action," Herald magazine reported in its November issue.

"In a more Pakistan specific context, the US action not only changes the complexion of Washington's relationship with New Delhi, but also forces Islamabad, an ally in the war against terror, to confront certain unsavoury possibilities," it said.

The Pakistan government has been denying reports of Dawood's presence in the country, saying that they are part of Indian propaganda.

But the US move against the terror suspect, the magazine said, "flies in the face of General Pervez Musharraf's statement at Agra that the man accused of engineering the deaths of 200 Indians in the 1993 Mumbai blasts was not hiding in Pakistan," Herald said.

"The US Treasury department notification even provides details of a passport issued to Dawood by the Pakistani government and an address of his alleged Karachi residence."

The magazine said that the prime source for information regarding Dawood's "criminal and terrorist activities was the Indian government which had been sharing intelligence information with the US since the Joint Working Group on Terrorism was set up five years ago."

Herald said that much to Islamabad's embarrassment, the US citied intelligence reports of Dawood's connections with outlawed organisations Al Qaida and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.