Who is Dawood Ibrahim?

By Douglas Farah

The chief suspect in the Mumbai train attacks is one of the most fascinating characters in the nexus of terrorism and organized crime. This is true even if he was not involved it what appears to be a well-coordinated, sophisticated attack of the type he has been involved in before. Indian authorities are naming his as the primary suspect in the bloody attacks of yesterday.

A criminal kingpin, ally of al Qaeda, large-scale drug runner and financer of some of Bollywood's biggest movies, Ibrahim loves to hang out with movie stars and live the good life. Not exactly a natural ally of radical Islamist groups, but he appears to provide the muscle and know-how to attacks, rather than being the intellectual author of the violence he has pariticpated in. His ideology seems more firmly wedded to his financial well-being than to his religious beliefs.

Ibrahim has a enormous mansion in Karachi, Pakistan, but spends a great deal of time in Dubai, UAE. He has a long history of violence. His flamboyant life style made it difficult to believe that he was not protected by the Pakistani intelligence services for whom he worked, or officials in the UAE.
My friend David Kaplan did one of the best looks at him in U.S. News.

When the Treasury Department designated him in October 2003, hardly anyone paid attention. He had come across my radar screen, however, because of his reported role in the gold trade and in helping al Qaeda and the Taliban ship their money and gold reserves out of Afghanistan as the U.S. invaded in 2001. My full blog is here.

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