Afghans: Enemies Fled to Pakistan
By Chris Tomlinson
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; 6:02 PM
JALALABAD, Afghanistan –– Hundreds of al-Qaida members and their families – possibly including some top commanders – escaped the U.S. onslaught at Tora Bora and reached Pakistan with the help of senior Afghan tribal leaders, two eastern alliance officials said Tuesday.
Many senior Taliban officials also have slipped into Pakistan, where they were being protected by Pakistani authorities, a top government official in southern Afghanistan charged.
Pakistan called both allegations nonsense.
In Jalalabad, the eastern alliance's governing council, or shura, met Friday to discuss the reported escape of al-Qaida officials and rebuked two senior tribal leaders who some shura members accuse of helping al-Qaida fighters flee, according to a top official who attended the meeting. The official asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
He said hundreds of al-Qaida family members escaped, and top al-Qaida commanders may have been among them.
Sorhab Qadri, an intelligence officer in one of the three militias that makes up the shura's fighting force, also reported escapes – possibly even including top terror suspect Osama bin Laden. He said the meeting discussed the escapes but he wasn't aware of the details.
"There is no question that some members of the shura helped al-Qaida, I'm just not sure exactly who," said Qadri, who works for Hazrat Ali, a veteran anti-Taliban militia commander and shura member.
In southern Kandahar, where Taliban rule collapsed on Dec. 7, the provincial intelligence chief said many top Taliban leaders had fled to Pakistan and accused Pakistani officials of sheltering them.
"I know the authorities and institutions that are supporting them. I know where they are staying and who is giving refuge to them," said Haji Gulalai, intelligence chief for Gov. Gul Agha. He said some al-Qaida members in the area also fled to Pakistan.
The Taliban leaders Gulalai listed included much of the Islamic militia's Cabinet, including Nooruddin Turabi – the one-eyed, one-legged justice minister who imposed some of the Taliban's harshest edicts – and Syed Tayyab Agha, spokesman for Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
If true, their flight would mean that Omar, who Gulalai said is hiding in the mountains of south-central Afghanistan, is isolated with few of his lieutenants by his side.
Pakistan, a U.S. ally that has increased security along its 1,340-mile border with Afghanistan, vehemently denied both reports. In Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan called the accusations "utter nonsense" fabricated to slander his country.
"We have deployed additional security all along the border, including, for the first time, military troops," he said. "We are looking for each and every one who is crossing the border illegally. As far as we are concerned, the border is completely sealed."
James F. Dobbins, the United States' top envoy to Afghanistan, said he discussed the matter with Pakistani officials in Islamabad and they "reaffirmed their commitment to us in regard to strict border controls."
"I don't think it's possible to prevent individuals from crossing the border," Dobbins said in Islamabad. "I think it is possible once they've done so to apprehend them over time and then to ensure that they're dealt with appropriately."
The question of whether it was proper to help in the escape of members of al-Qaida – foreigners who came to Afghanistan with bin Laden's terrorist network – goes to the crux of why Afghan militias have been fighting in eastern Afghanistan. Almost all say their primary goal is to drive out al-Qaida, not necessarily to destroy it.
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many Afghan fundamentalists – some of whom are members of the post-Taliban shura – saw al-Qaida members as honored veterans of the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s. They became liabilities only when the United States launched its military campaign.
Relations between shura members, tribal leaders chosen to govern four provinces in eastern Afghanistan, have been weakened by arguments between those who fought the Taliban and those who cooperated with them.
Qadri said the wives and children of al-Qaida members escaped into Pakistan with the help of Amin, the main liaison between bin Laden and two of the region's most respected tribal elders, Din Mohammed and Yunnis Khalis. Amin, an Afghan who uses only one name, was close to bin Laden and a member of Mohammed and Khalis' Islamic fundamentalist party that cooperated with the Taliban.
The report of an organized escape route would reconcile repeated sightings of Arab women and children in the Tora Bora region with the fact that none were captured when eastern alliance forces took the area. The bodies of some, killed by U.S. airstrikes, were found Monday.
Qadri said he did not have any information about al-Qaida leaders, but that forces loyal to Mohammed and Khalis did help smuggle some families out of Afghanistan. Amin is now on the eastern alliance's most-wanted list and was last seen in the White Mountains, he said. Mohammed's younger brother, Abdul Qadir, is governor of Nangarhar province.
The shura official said one of Khalis' commanders was responsible for bringing the al-Qaida families and leadership down from the Tora Bora area and delivering them to homes at a former al-Qaida training camp south of Jalalabad, known as Farmhada. Then, men working for Mohammed and Khalis ensured their safe passage to Pakistan, he said.
Both Mohammed and Khalis declined repeated requests for interviews. |
