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| Terror Networks |
| Strategypage: The Al Qaeda Version Of Hell |
| 2009-01-20 |
| January 19, 2009: Pakistan has turned into a dangerous place for al Qaeda. The terrorist organization has been in the region since it moved to Afghanistan in the late 1990s. In late 2001, most surviving al Qaeda members fled to Pakistan. There, many of them married women from Pushtun tribes. While some of the newly married remained in the terrorism business (either in Pakistan or farther away), the rest sought to make a living locally. This brought them into conflict with their new neighbors. Partly because the al Qaeda men sought to impose their Islamic conservative customs on their neighbors, and partly because al Qaeda men were competing with, or stealing from, their neighbors. Over the last three years, this has led to increasing hostility between the al Qaeda foreigners and local Pushtun tribes. Hundreds of al Qaeda men have been killed by angry tribesmen. And then there's the matter of ethnic tensions. One of al Qaeda's weaknesses is that it is dominated by Arabs. This often causes resentment when the non-Arabs find themselves left out of decision making, or on the short end when it comes to distribution of resources. This was first seen in Afghanistan, where the al Qaeda Arabs made themselves very unpopular several years before September 11, 2001. Now the bad feelings have spread to Pakistan. There, the hundreds of al Qaeda members hiding out in tribal areas along the Afghan border, have split along ethnic lines. The Arab al Qaeda, who still have access to lots of cash, have made themselves very unpopular with the al Qaeda members from Central Asia. The Central Asians, particularly Islamic radicals from Uzbekistan, always felt this was their turf, and that the Arab al Qaeda should recognize that, and not throw their weight, and money, around in a disrespectful (to the Uzbeks) manner. Over the last few years, Pakistani and U.S. intelligence operatives were able to use these bad feelings to get information on where al Qaeda leaders were hiding out. These men were either captured in Pakistan, or killed by American UAVs firing Hellfire missiles. The Arabs do have an attitude problem. In Afghanistan, they viewed the Afghans as a bunch of uneducated hicks, and the Afghans picked up on this. It's true that many of the senior Arab al Qaeda were well educated, much better than the average Afghan, but they would have been wise to keep any feelings of superiority to themselves. But they didn't, and while there appear to have been attempts to act more diplomatically after al Qaeda survivors were driven into Pakistan, this didn't last. The basic problem was self-preservation. The Pakistani army and intelligence forces came down hard on al Qaeda after the terrorists declared war on the Pakistani government in 2002, killed hundreds of Pakistanis in terrorist attacks and made several assassination attempts on the Pakistani president. When the Pakistani army showed up in the tribal territories four years ago, many of the tribes were no longer willing to host the terrorists. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |