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Al-Qaeda being aided by tribals, Ayman may not be there
Several thousand Pakistani army troops have surrounded between 150 and 400 tribal fighters and foreign Islamic guerrillas, some of them associated with al Qaeda, as heavy fighting continued in a remote area near the border with Afghanistan, military officials said Friday. Senior officials said Friday that the foreigners include Chechens, Uzbeks and some Arabs, but they said they had no specific evidence that either bin Laden or Zawahiri was in the area. "Most recent intelligence inputs do not support the perception that either Osama or Ayman are holed up in that vicinity," said a senior military intelligence officer in Peshawar, the capital of the province in northwestern Pakistan that includes the semi-autonomous tribal area of South Waziristan. "The idea is to send the strongest message yet to the al Qaeda supporters, but who knows? We may hit the jackpot in the process," the official added. Pakistan's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, told reporters at a news conference in Islamabad that the guerrillas "are surrounded and they are trying to break the cordon and get away." Based on "an assessment from the fire we are receiving," Sultan said, military commanders estimated guerrillas' strength at 300 to 400. A military officer in Peshawar put the number at about 150. Besides ridding the area of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, the immediate goal of Friday's operation was to free about a dozen Pakistani paramilitary solders and two civilian officials who had been taken hostage by the foreign fighters on Tuesday, when the army launched its sweep in South Waziristan, according to the two military officers in Peshawar. "The Chechens basically want free passage and an immediate end of the military operation in exchange for the release of the hostages," the intelligence officer said. Although he said there would be "no bargaining," he noted that Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, has already pledged that any foreign fighters who surrender to Pakistani security forces will not be handed over to U.S. custody. On Friday, Pakistani forces surrounded guerrillas who had taken refuge in mud-walled compounds scattered among several villages west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan. The operation is centered on an area a few miles from the border with Afghanistan, the officials said. Helicopters attacked the guerrillas' compounds with rockets while ground troops pounded the besieged fighters with artillery. A Pakistani army officer said there was "considerable coordination" with U.S. ground forces operating nearby in Afghanistan. Witnesses in Wana reported that artillery fire continued through the night and that fighter aircraft were visible overhead as the fighting spread on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Families in the village of Shin Warsak, five miles southeast of Wana, fled in overloaded pickup trucks after helicopter gunships fired rockets at houses. Army trucks loaded with soldiers and weapons rolled out of Wana in the direction of the fighting. Pakistani army officials and a senior civilian official in Peshawar said Friday night that some influential tribal leaders of South Waziristan were active throughout the day trying to broker an agreement between security forces and the trapped guerrillas. "The terrorists have been given an unambiguous message that their failure to surrender would invite wrath of the army," according to the aide to the governor of North-West Frontier Province. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-03-20 |
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