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| Afghanistan |
| Northwest Frontier the new capital of the Talibs |
| 2002-03-19 |
| Sorry this is so much longer than my usual posts. There wasn't much to cut out. This is a surprise? But wait, there's more... Many of the Taliban fugitives remain convinced that interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai's hold on power depends on U.S. support and once the Americans are gone, they will have little trouble dealing with Afghans who are now allied with Washington. "I am waiting for the big war," said Mullah Towha, former chief of security for the Taliban governor of Afghanistan's Nangharhar province. "America and Britain will have to leave one day, and then we will have a jihad against those Afghans who fought with them against other Muslims." No doubt about that. The idea's to set up a government with some claim to legitimacy, which will lead to the nation not wanting to be governed by crazed killers, but then did they want to before? I'd feel a lot more secure if Gen. Dostum was in charge. The mullah, who has trimmed his beard and abandoned his distinctive Taliban turban for a white skullcap, lives in an Islamic shrine protected by a "pir," or holy man. In that area, a "holy man" is a thug whose beard's turned gray. When they start getting on, they need other people to do their killing, rather than doing it themselves. It's kinda neat, though, that they're running around wearing false moustaches and that sort of stuff. That's a sure way to outfox the Pak intel guys. Pakistan has repeatedly denied knowingly harboring al-Qaida and Taliban renegades and has insisted that intelligence service links to extremists were severed after President Pervez Musharraf threw his support to the U.S.-led war on terrorism last year. "There is absolutely no truth in these reports," chief government spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi told AP on Tuesday. He called the idea that Pakistani intelligence was still supporting Taliban fugitives "nonsense" and "part of a malicious campaign against Pakistan." The world contains liar, damned liars, statisticians, and Pakistani pols, in ascending order of despicable. Does he really believe he's fooling anybody? The Associated Press can find them, but not the Pak intel people, who pretend they're too inept to find toilet paper on a roll. Nonetheless, the Taliban fugitives living in Pakistan include some of the most high-profile and influential members of the Islamic movement. All once worked closely with Pakistan's powerful intelligence service and have close ties to influential figures in the Pakistani military and government establishment. According to Taliban and other sources, they include former Defense Minister Mullah Obeidullah, former Interior Minister Abdul Razzak, former Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Hasan Akhund and Amir Khan Muttaqi, spokesman for the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. All the Dillingers, Capones and Bugsy Siegels of Afghanistan, along with the occasional Ted Bundy. They get together Fridays, after mosque, to beat each other's wives, count the donations of the It is unclear why the Pakistani government has made no move to round them up. Local chiefs in the border area wield considerable power and tracking them down would take time and resources and doubtless meet local resistance. It would really be too much effort, wouldn't it? And there were all those small fry who were bumped off, so isn't that enough? Also, before Sept. 11, top fugitives were close to powerful figures in Pakistan, who may be protecting them. The list also includes Jalaluddin Haqqani, who several Afghans say was the mastermind of al-Qaida and Taliban efforts to regroup [at Shah-i-Kot]. The police chief of Paktia's provincial capital Gardez, Haji Mohammed Ishaq, said Haqqani lives in Pakistan's South Waziristan region along the Afghan border, supported by former leaders of Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI. He'll probably give you the guy's phone number, if you ask him. Since most of the Taliban were ethnic Pashtuns, they have little trouble blending in with the mostly Pashtun population of the Pakistani border areas. For al-Qaida fugitives, the situation is more complicated. Pakistanis who joined al-Qaida-affiliated movements such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat ul-Mujahedeen returned freely to their own country. A Muslim leader in Karachi, Hasan Turabi, said many of those Pakistani al-Qaida fighters have since turned to acts of violence in Pakistan, directing their anger at Musharraf for abandoning the Taliban after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Don't go accusing them of being prone to violence. They'll kill you for that. Just because they're running around the country waving guns and rolling their eyes and screaming jihad! doesn't mean they're doing anything unlawful. Not in Pakistan, anyway. However, Arabs, who formed the core of the al-Qaida terror network's leadership and are easily identified as outsiders, must rely on the protection of Pakistanis who fought with them in Afghanistan. The Arabs also have the support of Pakistan's hard-line clerics and tribal leaders who supported the Taliban. Luckily there are lots of them who're willing to help. Fat and prosperous, living on the donations of the faithful and the largesse of the Saudis, there's lots of room to take in a few well-armed "guests." Sources familiar with al-Qaida said several key al-Qaida figures slipped into Pakistan last year and may still be here. They include Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian (what else?) who contacts here say is the key figure trying to reorganize and revive al-Qaida after the collapse of Taliban rule. This is the thug who was named as Mohammad Atef's successor. He's just walking around, buying groceries, taking his turban out to be dry-cleaned and mowing his grass, and nobody notices him. Just another honest citizen. Zubaydah has close ties to Azhar Mahmood, the imprisoned leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed. Because of those ties, he can rely on the movement's extensive network inside Pakistan. Azhar is Omar Sheikh's good buddy. They were Zubaydah is trying to revive al-Qaida's financial network to support operations both in Afghanistan and abroad. Yeah. We reported that the other day. U.S. officials have acknowledged that al-Qaida has stepped up its financial activity and communications in recent weeks, suggesting some leaders are reasserting control. U.S. officials said much of the activity is centered in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, near the Afghan border. Well, that's strange. Why would they do that? That's where the leadership is holed up, and that's the jumping off area for the targets, and that's where the money and arms are. So why not New Jersey? Moving back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan has proved little problem for Taliban and al-Qaida figures, despite claims by both the Pakistani government and the U.S. military that the border is closely guarded. Towha said that on the night he fled Jalalabad last November, he and the Nangharhar governor, Mullah Abdul Kabir, drove to Tora Bora along with one of bin Laden's interpreters, Khair Mohammed, and Ahmed Saeed al-Kadr (Mr. Chretien must be so relieved to know he's okay!), a Canadian of Egyptian origin and one of the 10 most-wanted al-Qaida leaders. Al-Kadr is reportedly hiding in Lahore, sources familiar with al-Qaida said. Hey, doesn't Gen. Hamid Gul live there? The guy who used to run the ISI and who owned Nawaz Sharif? The guy who said "It's not that difficult to obtain a suitcase-size nuclear weapon. Just the thing for retaliation against London or New York." Shucks, they might even meet on the street someday. Maybe they'll get together, talk over old times, have a few brewskis. From Tora Bora, Towha said, they hiked to Paktia province and then crossed the border at Ghulam Shah after bribing Pakistani tribal militiamen. Kabir, once the third-most powerful man in Afghanistan, regularly moves between Pakistan and his homeland, Towha said. The Paks never notice, of course. They're busy doing... Oh, other stuff. Important stuff. Other Taliban and al-Qaida figures fled to Iran, Afghan sources say, despite Iranian denials that it is harboring any fugitives. None we'd be concerned with, anyway. And they're all women and children. And puppies and kittens. And baby ducks. According to Towha, the Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives still receive money and support from members and former members of the Pakistani spy agency ISI, which nurtured extremists for years. Another former Taliban member and an aid worker of Middle Eastern origin who works closely with Afghan refugees and Arabs who lived in Afghanistan, also spoke of clandestine ISI support, despite Musharraf's shake-up of the agency last year. But Perv told us they weren't involved with that stuff anymore. They're gonna fight terrorism in every form. Really. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |