Pakistan, Afghanistan: The cauldron of Al-Qaeda
mmorning.com
Abdallah Mahsoud, a one-legged former Guantanamo Bay detainee wanted for the 2004 kidnapping of two Chinese engineers, committed suicide with a hand grenade a day earlier, July 24, to evade arrest by Pakistani troops in a town in the province of Baluchistan, near the Afghan border.
He was laid to rest in Nano, his home town, in the militant-dominated tribal district of South Waziristan, part of the rugged and autonomous tribal zone along the frontier, where the US alleges that the Al-Qaeda network is regrouping.
“Commander Abdallah died a hero’s death”, the local Taliban commander Nour Sayed told the gathering, 40 kilometers from Wana, the main town in the area, according to officials and witnesses.
“He did not surrender to the forces working for the infidels and preferred to die in an honorable way, setting an example for all mujahedin [holy warriors] to follow”.
Mourners carrying assault rifles and rocket launchers chanted “Allahu akbar (God is great)” and “Jihad, jihad!” as the rebel leader’s coffin was lowered into the ground.
Pakistan has been in the grip of growing unrest linked to this month’s siege and assault of the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad, which left more than 100 people dead, most of them militants.
There have been at least 15 major attacks, including 12 suicide bombings, killing 200 people since government forces surrounded the mosque on July 3.
Mahsoud was believed to be linked to the wave of suicide and other militant attacks, which has claimed more than 200 lives since the siege of the Red Mosque.
At least eight people were killed when rockets slammed into the northwestern town of Bannu, bordering the tribal belt, which police said was a possible backlash to Mahsoud’s death.
Violence has also surged along Pakistan’s northwestern border with Afghanistan after pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan scrapped a peace agreement with the government. Suspected militants blew up a security checkpost, a school and a government office last Wednesday in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, and fired a rocket at an army camp, local officials said. No casualties were reported in the attacks.
Residents in the town said all government offices and banks were shut down due to the security situation, while officials said there was a ban on all traffic in the district between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.
The ban followed reports that armed militants were moving around in tinted-glass pickup trucks.
Preemptive strikes?
Relations between Islamabad and Washington have not been easy since the US recently spoke of possible preemptive strikes against Al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas.
But senior State Department troubleshooter Nicholas Burns said Washington would retain the option of targeting Al-Qaeda in Pakistani-Afghan border areas in some circumstances.
“We want to respect the sovereignty of the Pakistani government... we want to work with the Pakistanis”, Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“Are there any scenarios under which the United States might take its own action when we are dealing with Ossama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda? We can foresee some such scenarios.
“But it’s always going to be our preference to work with [Pakistan]... we are partners of them, we don’t want to complicate their internal politics needlessly”.
Burns was replying to a question from Senator James Webb, who expressed concerns about the political impact of any American action in the tribal areas on the position of President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the US’ “war on terror”.
“We would have the potential of causing a ripple effect throughout the country which could truly destabilize the central government”, Webb said.
Burns appeared before the committee several days after Pakistan reacted angrily to threats of action against militant targets in tribal territories, where US intelligence says Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are regrouping. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam called the comments from Washington “irresponsible and dangerous”.
“We have stated in the clearest terms that any attack inside our territory would be unacceptable”, she told a media briefing.
“We do not want our efforts to be undermined by any ill-conceived action from any quarter that is inconsistent with the principles of international law and would be deeply resented in the tribal areas and generally in Pakistan”.
The White House’s top counter-terrorism official Frances Townsend earlier caused a stir by refusing to rule out a military incursion into remote Pakistani regions close to the border with Afghanistan.
“There are no tools off the table, and we use all our instruments of national power to… deal with the problem of Ossama bin Laden and [his deputy Ayman al- Zawahiri] and Al-Qaeda”.
Despite praising Pakistan for its increased military action in the tribal areas in recent weeks, Burns did say however that more needed to be done in the regions of North and South Waziristan.
“We would like to see a more sustained and effective effort by the Pakistani government to defeat terrorist forces on its soil. Al-Qaeda remains a potent force inside Pakistan, as is the Taliban”.
A US commander meanwhile said insurgent attacks along the Afghan-Pakistani border doubled in June over the previous year and foreign fighters have flowed into Afghanistan from the Middle East in greater numbers.
Major-General David Rodriguez, the commander of a US task force operating in Eastern Afghanistan, said the border attacks had subsided somewhat this month due to the Pakistani military offensive on the other side of the border.
“Last month [June] it was about double what it was a year ago the same month, the same time last year”, he said, referring to the cross-border attacks. Rodriguez said Al-Qaeda was exerting an influence in Afghanistan as well, mainly by using its networks to bring foreign fighters into the country from Pakistan.
The flow of foreign fighters “has increased probably 50 to 60 percent over last year. They come from multiple areas in the Middle East”.
He said the increase amounted to fewer than 200 fighters, but would not be more precise.
Foreign fighters accounted for less than five percent of the insurgency in Afghanistan, but brought some leadership skills, he indicated.
There was no specific intelligence that foreign fighters were coming from Iraq, he noted. “But you can see some of the same types of tactics, techniques and procedures that are transferring between Iraq and Afghanistan”.
Rodriguez said the US military in Afghanistan coordinates closely with the Pakistani armed forces, and they had developed good intelligence sharing and communication. “We’ve made no plans to use US forces on their side of the border”, he added.
The Pakistani army has been engaged in heavy fighting in tribal areas along the border to put down unrest that erupted after security forces stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad to end a standoff with armed militants.
The fighting also follows US intelligence warnings that Al-Qaeda is training and plotting new attacks on the west from the safe havens in tribal areas. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this year raised concerns about Iranian-made weapons finding their way into Afghanistan, but Rodriguez said Iran’s involvement had been mainly political.
“There has been some militarily insignificant arms, ammunition and explosives that have been moved through Iran, but there has been no specific tie to the leadership of Iran”.
On July 26, a day after Rodriguez made his remarks, the US-led coalition announced that Afghan and coalition forces had killed more than 50 Taliban militants in a fierce 12-hour battle ending last Thursday in the country’s opium-growing heartland.
Coalition warplanes were also called in to bomb rebel hideouts in the fighting, which broke out late Wednesday in the insurgency-hit southern province of Helmand, it said in a statement.
“More than 50 insurgents were confirmed killed with an unknown number wounded. Sixteen Taliban compounds, three enemy motorcycles and five enemy trucks were destroyed as well”, the statement said.
In a related development, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband wrote in The Daily Mirror that success in establishing democracy in Afghanistan would help in the fight against extremism around the world.
Miliband, who made his first visit to the country in his new role last Wednesday, said Britain’s 7,000-strong presence as part of the NATO force in Afghanistan was essential because Afghanistan was “unique” and “it matters to Britain”.
“We need to be engaged there because we know from bitter experience that a lack of governance in that part of the world -- more than anywhere -- can result in a fertile breeding ground for the terrorists who seek to make us at home change our way of life”, he wrote in the paper, published on July 26.
“Because of the enormous cost of heroin use and the related crime on our streets. Because if this new democracy can succeed in defeating extremism, as I believe it can, then it is a blow against extremism everywhere”.
Not intervening in Afghanistan would be more costly in the long-run, added Miliband, who also visited Pakistan for talks with Musharraf on combating Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants along the Afghan frontier.
The newspaper suggested that Miliband’s comments -- although similar to those under the previous Administration of Tony Blair -- and visit so soon into his role are a sign he sees Afghanistan as a priority.
‘The gift of death’
Islamist militants have warned Pakistani soldiers to quit fighting or face more suicide attacks, as tribal envoys sought to salvage a tattered peace accord in an Afghan border region.
The pro-Taliban hard-liners threatened that bombs would bring soldiers the “gift of death” in a pamphlet entitled Till Islam Lives in Islamabad, distributed in the town of Miranshah in the North Waziristan tribal district.
The chilling warning came as Washington reiterated that it reserved the right to launch unilateral strikes against targets in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
The militants’ pamphlet, issued by a group calling itself the Mujahedin-e-Islam (Islamic holy warriors), meanwhile accused Pakistani troops of doing the bidding of the United States and leading impure lives.
“Return to your homes and earn halal [pure] income for your families... instead of serving the Americans”, the pamphlet said.
It warned that its suicide attackers “love death more than you love your 5,000-rupee salary, nude pictures of Indian actresses and liquor.
“We know that you have become America’s slaves and are serving the infidel Musharraf and have become a traitor to your religion for food, clothes and shelter”.
Michael McConnell, the US director of national intelligence, has said he believes Bin Laden is alive and sheltering in the lawless frontier zone where pro-Taliban tribal leaders hold sway.
South Korean hostages
Among the foreign civilians caught up in the fighting in Afghanistan are 22 South Korean hostages abducted by the Taliban, who last Thursday said the hostages were still alive despite an overnight deadline to start killing them.
Hours after killing one hostage on Wednesday, the militants had set what they called a “final” deadline for a prisoner swap, but a spokesman said no others had been slain.
“Since the last deadline no more Koreans have been killed”, spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told journalists in a telephone call from an unknown location. “They are all alive so far”.
It was the first word on the fate of the remaining Christian aid workers since the 1:00 a.m. (2030 GMT Wednesday) deadline, which was fixed after the bullet-riddled corpse of one hostage was found.
South Korea identified the dead man as 42-year-old Bae Hyung-Kyu, a Presbyterian pastor and the leader of the aid mission, which was reportedly in the country to provide free medical services.
The rebels said they had executed him because talks with the government to secure the release of eight insurgent prisoners had stalled.
“We killed one of the Koreans today because the government is not being honest in talks,” Ahmadi said on Wednesday.
The South Korean government, which has 200 troops serving with coalition forces in Afghanistan, bitterly denounced Bae’s murder.
“The organization responsible for the abduction will be held accountable for taking the life of a Korean citizen”, South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun said in a statement. “The killing of an innocent citizen cannot be justified under any circumstance or for any reason, and any such inhumane act cannot be tolerated”.
The South Koreans, reportedly being held in Ghazni Province about 140 kilometers south of the capital Kabul, were seized while travelling on the road from Kabul to Kandahar on July 19.
At the time, the Taliban demanded that Seoul withdraw its troops. South Korea responded by saying it would pull them out as previously scheduled by the end of the year.
The Taliban were also holding a hostage from Germany, which also has troops in Afghanistan, and had demanded the withdrawal of all German forces from the war-torn country as well.
But the issue of the troops had not figured in later demands by the militants, who controlled the country until being toppled from power by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
They have instead pressed for the release of insurgents in exchange for the South Koreans -- the biggest group of foreigners to be abducted during the Taliban’s nearly six-year insurgency.
Any prisoner exchange would run counter to President Hamid Karzai’s pledge not to allow the practice after his government in March freed five Taliban militants in exchange for an Italian reporter.
Mansour Dadullah, the militia’s new military commander, who took over from his slain brother in May, said in an interview with British television at an undisclosed location that he had ordered his men to take more foreigners.
“Of course, kidnapping is a very successful policy and I order all my mujahidin to kidnap foreigners of any nationality wherever they find them and then we should do the same kind of deal”, he said, referring to the March swap. |
