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Terrorist mastermind traced to US – President

Nov 06, 2009 News

By Leonard Gildarie
Wednesday morning’s brazen attack in the city, which saw a school and the High Court Registry fire-bombed, and police stations damaged by gunfire, is believed to have been masterminded by someone based in the United States.
Investigators have reportedly made the link using telephone records, and according to President Bharrat Jagdeo, the telephone number in question had surfaced way back when Guyana was facing the “Buxton situation”.
Expressing concern over the attacks, which also saw a vehicle hijacked on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway by gunmen posing as policemen and which left one man dead, the President warned that the security forces will “go after them with all the vigour and we will get these people.”
According to Jagdeo, the people involved in the attacks are “not ordinary criminals. They operate with high-powered weapons.”
While it is believed that there are also local organizers, investigators are working on an angle “that there is a foreign “terrorist mastermind” who lives in the US.”
Explaining, Jagdeo said that after the fire at the Minister of Health, several people were charged and telephone records indicated that one of the suspects placed calls to the United States before and after the fire. It is believed that the last call was made to report that the fire was lit.
This particular number had cropped up when police were investigating criminal elements in Buxton sometime back.
Jagdeo revealed that two weeks ago he met US officials, and in addition to asking for information on this connection, had also requested information on convicted drug trafficker, Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan and the infamous spy equipment, among other things.
According to the Head of State, had someone set fire to a federal building in the US and been linked to an individual in Guyana, FBI agents would have been swarming all over the country.
With Guyana cooperating with the US in the fight against terrorism, there is all the more for a need to focus on the symmetrical sharing of information, Jagdeo said.
Questioning why it would take months to get such information from the US, the Head of State said that he had expressed fears to the US officials that a possible attack may happen again.
“It did happen again,” he said.
According to Jagdeo, two of the men held for questioning in the Ministry of Health fire were part of the gang of men who carried out the attacks in the city on Wednesday morning last.
He urged all the various groups that condemned the torture of 14-year-old murder suspect at Leonora Police Station, to “also condemn with equal vigour”, the attacks on the city.
“We just cannot have double standards in this society,” the Head of State emphasized.
Questioned yesterday whether government could think of any motives for the attack, Jagdeo stated that shooting up police stations or torching state facilities have only one aim – that is to create terror. “And it comes at a time when Guyana is poised for a takeoff,” the President stressed.
He concluded: “We are going to get them, nothing lasts forever. Everyone thought that the group in Buxton would not change. They ran away when the security force descended on them.”

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