Malik Faisal Akram, killed in Texas on January 17 after he took four hostages at a synagogue joins a long list of people of Pakistani origin involved in acts of terrorism in the United States and Britain.

From Omar Sheikh, the most notorious Briton in 1994 to Usman Khan in 2019, the migrants from Pakistan, including those living and educated there and although enjoying freedom in the West, have taken to terrorism.

Reasons for their acts include lack of education, jobs, disorienting from family, romanticism and being heavily influenced by propaganda, available in English and several European languages, from proponents of Al Qaida and the Islamic State (IS). Some of them have gone to Pakistan-Afghanistan to be trained and indoctrinated by outfits based in Pakistan. 

A court in the US is hearing extradition case of Dr Tahawur Husain Rana, a Canadian of Pakistani origin who is accused of arranging visa and travel facilities of another Pakistani American, Dawood Jilani, to visit India and prepare for the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai.

Malik Faisal Akram’s family, also hailing from Pakistan, has told authorities that Faisal did not visit Pakistan and was radicalized in Blackburn, Britain. Based on further information from the family, British authorities have detained two young Pakistani Britons.

The family has denied that he is related to Dr Afia Sheikh, the Pakistani-American neurosurgeon serving 85 years in jail term for attacking American officials.

But the American authorities have not withdrawn or denied earlier reports that Malik Faisal was wanting freedom for Dr Afiia and that he wanted to speak to her.

Both the US and Britain have said Malik Faisal had no record of past crime or terror connections when he arrived in the US last month. But Pakistani newspaper The News International (January 17, 2022) carried a hazy photograph of him carrying placards, seeking “end of imprisonment” at a public place.  

The Malik Faisal case is likely to keep on alert security network across the US, Europe and Asia, especially Pakistan. And since a synagogue was the venue of the incident, there is a security alert across Israel.

Some of the Pakistan-origin militants in the West are:

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, most dreaded and famous of them all, both convicted and acquitted by Pakistan’s highest court and in a Pakistani jail for the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. He was arrested in 2002 by Pakistani police and was sentenced to death on 15 July, 2002 for killing Pearl. His murder conviction was later overturned by a Pakistani court in April 2020.

A British citizen by birth, Sheikh was involved in terrorist activities since as early as 1994 when he was arrested and served time in India for kidnapping western tourists.

He found his way to Afghanistan in 1999 after being released from prison in exchange for passengers aboard hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814.

Hasib Hussain

A British citizen of Pakistani descent, Hussain was one of the four Al Qaeda suicide bombers who were responsible for series bombing in three trains and one bus in London on 7 July, 2005.

Hussain denoted a bomb on a bus in Tavistock Square that killed 13 of the 52 people, including himself, who were killed in the bombings that day. At the age of 18, Hussain was the youngest in the group.

Two other bombers in the group, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Siddique Khan, were also of Pakistani descent.

Usman Khan

Also known as Abu Saif, a British terrorist of Pakistani descent, was shot dead by London police after he attacked the public with a knife near London Bridge on 29 November 2019. In the knife attack, he killed two people and injured three others. Khan was earlier convicted for plotting a terrorist attack in 2010 on the London Stock Exchange.

Khan was later allowed to leave the prison on temporary release licence in 2018. He was attending Cambridge University’s Learning Together event when he stabbed two of the organisers in the chest.

Khurram Shahzad Butt

Butt, a 27-year-old British national born in Pakistan, died in police firing on 3 June 2017 after he along with two others drove into pedestrians on London Bridge and also stabbed people in and around the Borough Market area, killing eight and injuring 48 people in the attack, according to BBC.

Naveed Afzal Haq

An American of Pakistani descent, Haq was arrested and convicted in the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting that occurred on 28 July, 2006. He was sentenced for life plus 120 years for the attack that killed one and injured five, according to the Associated Press.

The police classified the shooting as a “hate crime” as investigation showed Haq targeted the victims after searching “something Jewish” on the internet, according to a report by CNN.

Farooque Ahmed

Ahmed, a Pakistani American, was arrested by the FBI for plotting to bomb four Washington Metro stations in 2010. According to Xinhua news agency, he was charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, collecting information to assist in planning a terrorist attack on a transit facility, and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2011.

Faisal Shahzad

This is among the most evocative cases of May 2010.  Then 30, this Pakistan-born American citizen was accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in New York.

Son of retired air vice-marshal Bahar-ul-Haq of the Pakistan Air Force, he had a sheltered life, studying in Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and later in the United States, where he earned a management degree.

He married an American girl of Pakistani descent, also educated. It was a marriage arranged by their respective parents who live in Pakistan.

They have two children and everything seemed fine till the global recession took away his job. While people across America and the world suffered the recession, Shahazad sought refuge in militancy. It was a considered decision that was not taken on the spur of the moment. He sought his father’s permission to join al-Qaeda and fight in Afghanistan against the Western forces.

The father, according to reports, refused. But he did not inform anyone in authority of his son’s plans.

Shahzad told investigators that he drew inspiration from Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American ulema whose militant online lectures have been a catalyst for several recent attacks and plots.

Awlaki, 39, now hiding in Yemen, has emerged as perhaps the most prominent English-speaking advocate of violent jihad against the US.

Investigators say he was trained by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Shahzad met its operatives in North Waziristan in north-west Pakistan in December and January. Later, he received training in the use of explosives from the same operatives.

America’s counter=terrorism officials want to know how Shahzad, a naturalised American citizen with an MBA who is married and has children with a fellow American and who has worked in several corporate jobs, came to embrace violence.

All these Pakistan-origin youths living in the West have embraced violence. The British have traced 70 per cent of such youths to Pakistan. The US has outlawed TTP and threatened “dire consequences” to Islamabad. The West as a whole must pay a price for hosting them in good faith and intention, but failing to curb or prevent their radicalization. (POREG)