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| Terror Networks |
| Rumors of Bin Ladenâs Lair |
| 2003-08-31 |
| Gray-bearded and almost toothless, Khan Kaka lives in a mud house with a weather-beaten pine door beside a little plot of corn and vegetables. But to his neighbors in this corner of Afghanistanâs remote Kunar province, the gangling, tobacco-chewing old man is one of the most respected figures in the Pech River valley. He has his own AK-47 in addition to a Quâran ... ITâS ALL ABOUT connections: since 1996 Kakaâs son-in-law, an Algerian named Abu Hamza al Jazeeri, has been a special bodyguard to the man Kaka calls loar sheikââbig chiefââOsama bin Laden. A very holy man ... so put him in the jug. Snipping through the al-Jazeeri family affairs ... On a visit in January al Jazeeri reported that one of bin Ladenâs daughters-in-law had recently died in childbirth, and that bin Laden spoke at her funeral, blaming America for her death. How sad, thatâs less breeding stock for the Khalifah. Only a few dozen mourners could attend, not the thousands who would ordinarily pay their last respects. Bin Laden blamed America for that, too. âI had enough riches to enjoy myself like an Arab sheik,â bin Laden said, according to al Jazeeriâs account. âBut I decided to fight against those infidel forces that want to sever us from our Islamic roots. For that cause, Arabs, Taliban and my family have been martyred.â Donât worry, youâll be joining them soon enough. Kaka and his neighbors have memorized the eulogy. Asked where bin Laden is now, Kaka grins and waves without a word toward the 12,000-foot peaks surrounding the valley: up there. Sounds like prime MOAB testing ground. No one seems to have a better answer. Two years after the September 11 attacks, the worldâs Most Wanted terrorist remains free. âWe donât know where he is,â says U.S. Army Col. Rodney Davis, spokesman for Americaâs forces in Afghanistan. âAnd frankly, itâs not about him. Weâll continue to focus on killing, capturing and denying sanctuary to any anti-Coalition forces, whether they are influenced by bin Laden or not.â Some U.S. officials speculate that life on the run has made it impossible for bin Laden to communicate with his followers, effectively turning him into a figurehead. âBin Ladenâs operational role is not as important as it was to Al Qaeda and the Taliban,â says a senior U.S. diplomat in Kabul. âBut symbolically he is still very important.â Heâs more than that, according to senior Taliban officials contacted by NEWSWEEK in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hey NEWSWEEK, you wanna give their names and locations over to the CIA? Iâm sure weâd love to get our own interview with these folks ... They say bin Laden remains directly engaged as a strategist and financier for Al Qaeda, the Taliban and related groups. Cause heâs gonna be the Caliph one of these days, donât ya know ... In April, shortly after the collapse of Saddam Husseinâs regime in Iraq, the Qaeda leader convened the biggest terror summit since September 11 at a mountain stronghold in Afghanistan. The participants included three top-ranking representatives from the Taliban, several senior Qaeda operatives and leaders from radical Islamic groups in Chechnya and Uzbekistan, according to a former Taliban deputy foreign minister. He got the details from a Taliban colleague who was there. Bin Laden, in a fiery mood, appointed one of his most trusted lieutenants, Saif al-Adil, to be Al Qaedaâs chief of operations in Iraq. The leader handed the Egyptian-born al-Adel a letter of introduction, asking all religious leaders, businessmen and mujahedin to give him any support possible. Al-Adel left Afghanistan immediately. A few weeks later he was reported to be in neighboring Iran, where he is said to be under house arrest. The Taliban official nevertheless insists, contrary to American intelligence assessments, that al-Adel made it to Iraq and is organizing anti-U.S. operations. The inclusion of Chechens at the summit makes sense, as right after the Riyadh and Casablanca bombings we had a number of rather large suicide bombings in Chechnya. There have been rumors about the IMU regrouping up in the Ferghana Valley over the summer as well, so this could also have been a related development from the summit. I also tend to suspect that al-Adel is being "hosted" rather than "held" by the Iranians, in particular the big boys in VEVAK and IRGC. At the same meeting bin Laden said he was working on âserious projects,â another ranking Taliban source tells NEWSWEEK. âHis priority is to use biological weapons,â says the source, who claims that Al Qaeda already has such weapons. The question is only how to transport and launch them, he asserts. The source insists he doesnât know any further details but brags: âOsamaâs next step will be unbelievable.â The plan was reportedly delayed and revised after the March capture of Al Qaedaâs operations chief, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. U.S. intelligence officials say no one disputes bin Ladenâs interest in germ warfare. Nevertheless, they argue, his main priority is to kill Americans by any means readily at handâand most bioweapons are harder to get and use than many of the alternatives. This may not all be bluster and chest-thumping. Khalidâs computer had some very nasty stuff on it when he was picked up, if I recall correctly. No one but bin Laden himself knows exactly what heâs planning. So where is he? âUp there,â says Pashtun Momand, the police major in charge of Kunar provinceâs counterterrorism office. Heâs pointing at the thickly forested mountains east of the tiny provincial capital. A few people deny that bin Laden is living there. The provinceâs governor, Said Fazel Akbar, insists that U.S. and Afghan forces are in hot pursuit. âHe may come to Kunar,â Akbar says, âbut he canât stay for long.â His opinion is not widely held. Bin Laden seems to be in good health, according to both the former Taliban deputy foreign minister and an Afghan named Haroon, who claims to have visited the Qaeda leader in June. Three of bin Ladenâs sons are said to be with him, sworn to kill their father rather than let him be captured alive. Two of his wives are said to be living nearby in the mountains, but not with him; he visits them when security allows. Taliban sources say the Qaeda leader communicates with his friends and followers via handwritten letters and computer disks delivered by relays of messengers. Each carrier knows only where to find the next link in the chain. The system is slow, but it keeps the Americans from using electronic intercepts to find him. Bin Laden could hardly ask for a better hiding place. Even some American officials agree that Kunar is a likely refuge. The sparsely populated province isnât bigâless than two thirds the land area of Connecticutâbut it offers more comfort and protection for bin Laden than any other part of Afghanistan. âThere is no effective central government control in the mountains beyond the capital,â says Kunarâs chief of police, Col. Abdul Saffa Momand (no relation to the major). The mountain roads are almost impassable; his men have no radios, and their families barely survive on their monthly salary of $14âwhen the paychecks come at all. âA soldier on patrol at night is risking his life for nothing,â the colonel says. âItâs impossible to access the areas where Al Qaeda is hiding,â he adds. âEven from a helicopter you only see mountains, rocks and trees.â Unlike the desert ranges that are typical in Afghanistan, Kunarâs mountains are covered with evergreens and shrubs, and the terrain is crisscrossed with smugglersâ trails leading over the border into Pakistan. Kunarâs population is, likewise, congenial to bin Laden. In recent decades the province has become home to more than a thousand Arab men, many of whomâlike bin Ladenâs bodyguard al Jazeeriâhave intermarried with local Afghans, gaining strong family ties in the region. At the height of the war against the Soviets in the 1980s, the CIA effectively ceded Kunar to the Arab volunteers who were pouring in to join the mujahedin. âWe preferred that they operate in their own fief, and out of our way,â says Edmund McWilliams, a retired State Department officer and Congressâs special representative to the mujahedin during the late 1980s. In the last two years the mujahedin veterans have been joined by hundreds of Qaeda members and supporters uprooted from other parts of Afghanistan. Bin Laden and his followers are living in relative comfort, officials in Kunar believe. Some may be huddled in the caves that honeycomb the mountains, but Major Momandâs intelligence sources say others live openly in stone and mud houses built against the steep slopes, hidden by the trees and underbrush. Many of the dwellings have been renovated in the last two years. The Arabs share the mountains with Afghan nomads whose flocks of sheep and goats graze there. Shali Khan, together with his wife and two children, tends a herd of 150 sheep and goats, and often encounters columns of heavily armed Arabs traveling on horseback or on foot. He says heâs glad to see them. âThese Arabs are good people fighting the jihad,â says Khan, who takes evident pride in his pointed mustache, despite his tattered clothes and mended sandals. âThey pay me well for my animals and milk.â Bin Laden apparently feels safe enough to receive visitorsâwith precautions. In May an Afghan named Haroon asked permission to see the Qaeda leader. The young man is active in the Talibanâs anti-U.S. resistance, and he had guided bin Laden from the besieged cave complex at Tora Bora to safety in the Shahikot Valley during the U.S. bombing in late 2001 (âHow Al Qaeda Slipped Away,â Aug. 19, 2002). The month after sending his request, Haroon got a message directing him to a place in the mountains north of his home in Paktia province. From there, he was taken higher into the mountains by a series of guides, each one greeting the next with a whispered password. After three days he was turned over to a group of Arabs. They strip-searched him, placed his ring, watch and shoes in a bag and closely inspected the buttons on his shirt. He spent the night barefoot in a nearby cave. At sunrise two armed Arabs, their faces covered by scarves, escorted him to an old mud-and-rock house and told him to sit there and wait. Haroon says he felt afraid. Suddenly bin Laden arrived and spoke in Arabic, slowly and quietly, urging the young man to keep fighting. âThe deserts of Afghanistan are being irrigated with the blood of mujahedin,â he told Haroon. âBut the jihad will never dry up.â After about 15 minutes the visit ended. âPlease donât try to see me again,â bin Laden said. Or something ... bad might happen to you. Just ask my old mentor, Abdullah Azzam. Such a tragedy, what happened to him ... |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Unlike the desert ranges that are typical in Afghanistan, Kunarâs mountains are covered with evergreens and shrubs If it was me, there'd be one helluva forest fire in Kunar. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-8-31 9:56:58 PM |