|
Religious pressure and cash protect al-Qaeda in Pakistan
From a mosque high on an Afghan border mountain, tribal elder Mohammed Safai pointed Sunday to what he said was an Al Qaeda training camp, on Salor Gai mountain, he said - just across the frontier in Pakistan. One by one, fellow Afghan tribal leaders around him ticked off the names of surrounding Pakistani villages that they say are sheltering Al Qaeda and Taliban: Bahna village. Shakul. Mangadthai. Their Pakistani Pashtun brothers across the way know the terror camps and hiding places just as well, the Afghan Pashtun elders said. But the tribal elders in Pakistan will likely never tell â silenced by the Pashtunwalli code of honour, by Al Qaeda money, and by a fierce distrust of the far-off Pakistani government with its different ethnic groups, Pashtun leaders said. âThe Pakistani forces are doing operations against Al Qaeda and Taliban, but I donât think they will be successful,â Safai said. âThe tribal area people, they are sympathizers with Al Qaeda and Taliban. They are not showing the exact location where Al Qaeda is hiding.â âYou know the Al Qaeda people, they are so rich - they are giving so much money to the people who are giving shelter to Al Qaeda and Taliban,â added Mirowgain Khan, like Safai, an Afghan elder of the Pashtun Kharoti tribe. Pakistanâs influential and virulently anti-American Jamaat-e-Islami religious party is helping seal the silence, circulating among Pakistani border villages to encourage the Pashtun there to be faithful hosts to their Al Qaeda and Taliban guests, say the Afghans, who have lived out their lives within sight of the tribal areas, crossing over to them at will. In South Wazirstan, local officials and residents said they had no idea whether there was an Al Qaeda camp on Salor Gai, as the Afghans charge. On Thursday, Safai said, six Al Qaeda fighters seeking escape from the Pakistan operation fled here, to these villages around a US military outpost at Shkin. Safai sent tribal gunmen, chasing off five of the men, and capturing a sixth, he said. The man was Al Qaeda, a Chechen, speaking a little Pashto and Dari, the two leading languages in Afghanistan. Tribal men took an AK-47 and seven grenades off the fugitives, and turned the Chechen over to the US military at Shkin. Around Shkin, tribal elders were worried Sunday after they were warned in an anonymous letter passed to them that their villages would be rocketed if they failed to release the Chechen. The elders repeat a common complaint of Afghans here in Paktika province, on the border - that neither side, Pakistan or Afghan, does anything to close the frontier to Taliban and Al Qaeda, crossing freely. In two days in the border mountains of Paktika, an Associated Press reporter saw no Afghan troops in the countryside, and only one or two vehicles of American forces. Afghans here insist they welcome the American forces, seeing them as the promise of reconstruction, aid and security - but said they needed to seek help from locals who know the hundreds of cross-border trails. âIf they want to stop the Al Qaeda, they have to get support of the local people, living and belong to this area. They know all the ways,â Safai said. Pakistan says its paramilitary and soldiers are alert against any âmiscreantsâ crossing the border. âOur people, who are guarding the border, know these tribesmen very well,â Abdul Rauf Chaudhry, spokesman for Pakistanâs Interior Ministry, said in Islamabad, the Pakistan capital. Looking at Salor Gai mountain, Safai scoffed. âIf you wanted to, you could walk from there to Kabul, and not hit a single checkpoint,â he said. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-03-21 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=28759 |