American law enforcement agencies have been working in tandem with the American military in Pakistan in an unusual and sustained effort to hunt down fighters of al-Qaeda who fled their sanctuaries in Afghanistan and are struggling to revive their group. 'The News' reporting today..
In Pakistani cities, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation are helping the local police and providing information - in rare instances even personnel - to break up what senior American intelligence and law enforcement officials regard as a depleted but still dangerous network.
In recent weeks, they say, that network has carried out deadly attacks against Westerners in Karachi and Islamabad. In the barren terrain along the Afghan border, elite American soldiers are using intelligence sent from American reconnaissance units in Afghanistan and high-tech surveillance overhead to track al-Qaeda fighters crossing into Pakistan.
The deployment, which includes intelligence officers, marks a shift in the Bush administration's anti-terror strategy. The new approach is driven by the recognition that after the American military successes in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda's centre of gravity has shifted east, first into the tribal areas of Pakistan, and then into its cities.
Al-Qaeda's movement presents American leaders with new problems, as these terrorists reach out to like-minded Pakistani militants and make extensive use of the Internet and cellphones in densely populated urban areas.
A glimpse into the future came last month, when a Pakistani group, apparently financed by al-Qaeda, carried out a deadly attack just outside the American Consulate in Karachi. "If you don't do anything, you simply risk allowing al-Qaeda to replicate the platform they had in Afghanistan," said a senior American government official, explaining the coordinated effort in Pakistan.
So far, the new strategy's biggest prize is Abu Zubaydah, who was shot and captured in Faisalabad in March. American law enforcement agents played a significant role in the raid that captured Abu Zubaydah, believed to be al-Qaeda's field commander; he has since provided American officials with intelligence on al-Qaeda's activities.
In Karachi and Lahore, Pakistani agents, with Americans in a frequent coordinating role, have detained more than 70 members suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda or other militant groups. In the semi-autonomous tribal areas, Pakistani units have small teams of American Special Forces soldiers embedded with their commanders, and these units have intercepted a number of al-Qaeda suspects. Local residents say more and more al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are fleeing as the pressure increases.
"They thought that with the Americans and the Pakistan army here, they will be captured," said Jamaluddin, a former Taliban soldier who said he recently smuggled 60 al-Qaeda fighters out of Wana in the tribal areas of Pakistan and back into Afghanistan.
In the early months of this year, as an unknown number of al-Qaeda fighters fled Afghanistan, American and Pakistani commanders envisioned "hammer and anvil" operations in Pakistan. The Frontier Corps, capitalising on intelligence gathered by the US military, was to roust al-Qaeda fighters from hideouts in the tribal areas and push them across the Afghan border. But American and Pakistani commanders missed their chance. Along Pakistan's border with India, the crisis over Kashmir diverted Islamabad's attention, as well as many of its troops.
The al-Qaeda fighters used the time to make their escape. The number of al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the tribal areas of Pakistan, estimated previously by American commanders at more than a thousand, shrank to "several hundred straddling the border", one American official said.
Pakistanis living in the tribal areas described a chaotic scene, with hundreds of al-Qaeda and Taliban members spilling across the border in search of refuge from their American pursuers. "A lot of people passed through here, hundreds of them," said Selab Mehsood, a journalist in Wana. "Most of the al-Qaeda did not stay here. They kept going, into the cities."
The presence of al-Qaeda in the cities has been confirmed by intercepts of cellphone, Internet and e-mail traffic. That accounts for the two-pronged strategy: the FBI to the cities, where they gather intelligence and coordinate communications for local raids, and American military forces to the border areas, where they are helping the Pakistanis find the last pockets of al-Qaeda there.
Senior Pakistani officials say FBI agents are taking part in raids with the local authorities. "They help us break down doors," a senior Pakistani law enforcement official said. "They go with Pakistani law enforcement when a raid is necessary, and they carry guns."
But senior American law enforcement officials said the FBI role was far more limited. At any one time, there are about a dozen bureau agents in Pakistan, they said. Primarily, their job is to turn over intelligence about terrorists to the Pakistanis.
So far, the commitment of US troops is relatively light, with no more than two dozen American Special Operations Forces working in the tribal areas, according to a senior Defence Department official. |
