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Al-Qaeda reorganising in Pakistan : Pak troop withdrawal weakens US campaign |
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US-led forces trying to stop Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from reorganising and entering Afghanistan may have to change tactics with Pakistan’s withdrawal of troops from its side of the border. Gen. Musharraf has given a notice to the US that in view of the current military standoff with India, it will be forced to withdraw the forces it has committed to the US-led coalition to help them in the combing operations in the Pushtoon-speaking tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. Lt. Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who has taken over the command of the US-led campaign has admitted that the difficulties will grow because it will enable many, if not all, of the top Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders who are still lying low in small groups in Afghanistan, to flee into Pakistan.
A commander of the US-led forces in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Franklin L. Hegenbeck, said in an interview that virtually the entire senior leadership of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda has been driven out of eastern Afghanistan and is now operating with as many as 1,000 non-Afghan fighters in the anarchic tribal areas of western Pakistan. He claimed on the strength of intelligence reports that the Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders were plotting terrorist attacks, including car and suicide bombing, to disrupt the selection of a new government in Afghanistan this month.
At least two senior Taliban leaders, Fazul Rabi Said-Rehman and Obidullah, have said in an interview that Taliban leaders are reorganising their militant religious movement and the Al-Qaeda was recovering fast. They said there was a split within Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, ISI, between those who share the Taliban’s ideology and those who support Pakistan’s alliance with the US. The two Taliban leaders who claimed that both Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden were alive, warned of some more suicide attacks on the US and Britain in retaliation for the war in Afghanistan.
Senior Pakistani intelligence officials admit to worrisome links between local extremists and fugitive Al-Qaeda leaders in various major Pakistani cities, like Karachi and Lahore, far from being concentrated along the Afghan border, as contented by American officials. One senior official said since they were anti-West and anti-American, they posed a threat not only to individuals but could hit the President or anyone else.
Commenting on the Al-Qaeda skeletons in Pakistan’s closet, Ajay Darshan Behera, a visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institute, Washington D.C., says recent developments do not augur well for the US-led war against terrorism. After seven months into the war, it is becoming apparent that the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda are definitely not “on the run”. It is now revealed that they are reorganising on the quiet in the mountain hideouts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is also suspected that Osama bin Laden and his deputy and some important Taliban leaders may be holed up in the tribal areas of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The resurgence of the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda and their increasing boldness in resorting to guerilla tactics to re-engage US forces has come as a surprise to many. But shouldn’t, as it was inevitable. The irony is that right from the beginning this inevitability has been overlooked.
One of the primary goals of the war on terrorism when it was launched last October was either the capture or extermination of bin Laden and the top Al-Qaeda leadership. When the war was launched many strategic pundits predicted that the US would be locked in a fierce guerilla war with the battle-hardened Taliban. But the script did not unfold in this manner. Having received a battering at the hands of US airpower the Taliban offered least resistance and conserved itself or what was left of it to fight on its own terms and conditions. Fortunately, for them the US tactic in conducting the war had no success in immobilising their leadership and it quietly melted away.
As early as November last year, there were reports that Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters were creeping into Pak’s tribal areas. Instead of plugging their exit routes, the US extended itself to the Philippines, Yemen and Georgia. If the leadership of the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda had decided not to give up its fight and was preparing for a long guerrilla war, it was obvious they would be creating bases for necessary logistical back-up. It was inevitable that it would be in the desolateness of Southern and Eastern Afghanistan and the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the NWFP, where the writ of the Pakistan Government doesn’t run anyway. Increasingly, there is evidence they are organising in the southeastern provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika. The bordering Waziristan agency in the FATA could serve as the main supply line. It has to be remembered that this was the region that played an important role as a base in the guerrilla war that the Afghan Mujahideen waged against Soviet forces.
Further, if there was any place outside Afghanistan where Osama would be welcome, it is in the tribal areas of the NWFP. The Pashtun code of honour - Pashtunwali - would not allow the tribal to betray a guest. One may recall the Taliban’s refusal to hand over Osama to the US on the grounds that he was their guest. Given the porous nature of the Durand Line that divides Afghanistan and Pakistan, which anyway the Pashtuns do not recognize, it was inevitable where the remnants and the leadership of the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda were headed.
As early as November last year itself there were reports that Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters were creeping into the tribal areas of Pakistan. The reports about Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters were vehemently contested by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. He while deploying extra forces on the border declared that no Al-Qaeda fighter would be allowed to enter Pakistan. Nevertheless, there were consistent reports that a large number of survivors had managed to enter Pakistan with the complicity of serving and retired personnel of the Pakistani establishment. On a number of occasions senior officials of the interim administration in Afghanistan had pointed out that the ISI and Islamic clerics had been giving safe haven to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters. All this fell on deaf cars as more faith was placed on the US’s most trusted ally, General Musharraf, who had to be taken at his word that he was doing his best under severe limitations - in policing the borders and cracking down on the Pakistani jehadis domestically. The US is now in an intensified search for Osama and his cohorts in Pakistan. If the fugitives have to be captured the US-led military campaign has to broaden into Pakistan. If the terrorist network has to be broken, it has to begin from Pakistan and not the other way round. Of course, increasingly his efforts were being viewed with scepticism as a pretension. Numerous reports in the US media recently seem to suggest that Musharraf has been playing a double game.
The presence of the Al-Qaeda and Taliban on Pakistani territory is explained off, as it is impossible to seal the border. Why have the terrorists arrested in Pakistan’s anti-terrorist crackdown been released? Because of Musharraf’s inability to hold them for long under the law! Who were the people he managed to evacuate from Kunduz? They were all misguided and misled youth. The US also has not helped its own cause by having allowed the evacuation. The capture of Abu Zubaydah, believed to be number three in the Al-Qaeda and a large number of Al-Qaeda operatives on March 27, of all places from Faislabad and the recent terrorist attack in Karachi which killed 14 French men if actually carried out by the Al-Qaeda, as suspected, would mean that the Al-Qaeda has actually spread its network wide in Pakistan. And to believe that it did this without any support and help from the jehadi groups within Pakistan is to confer magical qualities of astronomical proportions on the Al-Qaeda.
Pakistan-based terrorist groups like the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad who were brothers in arms and had shared training camps with the Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan had facilitated their mobility within Pakistan and probably still do it. General Musharraf by having released their leaders and other cadres is helping them regroup under new names. Also, there is very little evidence to suggest that he has undermined their ability to carry out terrorist activities. Most of his measures have been cosmetic.
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