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THE ROVING
EYE
Bring me the head of Osama bin
Laden
By Pepe Escobar
The war
in eastern Afghanistan and the tribal areas in Pakistan
is barely on, but the Pentagon's spinning machine is in
high gear. Who will prevail: al-Qaeda's number two,
Ayman "The Surgeon" al-Zawahiri, or Commando 121?
The Pentagon's creative directors ruled that
Commando 121, or Task Force 121, of General William
Boykin - a self-described Islamophobe and a known
Christian fanatic - was responsible for the capture of
Saddam Hussein, when in fact the former dictator was
arrested by Kurdish peshmerga (paramilitary)
forces acting on a tip by one of his cousins and then
sold to the Americans, according to Asia Times Online
sources in the Sunni triangle. This week, without a blip
in many a strategic radar screen, Commando 121
transferred from Iraq to Pakistan. On October 25 of last
year, Asia Times Online reported that Boykin had been
appointed in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It's snowing on Rumsfeld's
parade.
European intelligence sources
tell Asia Times Online to expect the same scenario
"Saddam" for the eventuality of the capture of bin Laden
and Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Omar. Bin Laden will
be "smoked out", probably on a tip by an Afghan tribal
leader willing to make a cool US$25 million. And all
credit will go to the secretive Commando 121, which is
known to comprise navy Seals and commandos from the
army's Delta Force.
The Pentagon has fired its
first rhetorical Tomahawks of the season - via a leak
this past weekend by a "US intelligence source" that bin
Laden, al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and about 50 top
al-Qaeda operatives had been located in Pakistan's
Balochistan province. Pakistani President General Pervez
Musharraf was said to be on the brink of authorizing an
American intervention. According to the Pentagon script,
the fugitives are "boxed in", packed in a tight group,
surrounded by an array of US and British special forces,
and apparently with no chance of escaping.
This
sounds like a replay of Tora Bora in December 2001, when
US-led forces were convinced that they had bin Laden
trapped in the mountainous range of that name in
Afghanistan, only to learn that he had moved on long
before the worst of the massive US assault on the area.
The difference this time is that the fugitives are now
said to be in the "isolated" Toba Kakar mountains in
Balochistan, northeast of the provincial capital Quetta,
and very far from the Afghan province of Zabol, on the
other side of the border.
The fugitives are
supposed to be in an area between the villages of
Khanozoi and Murgha Faqizai. There is a road between
both villages - and not much else. The average altitude
in these mountains is 3,000 meters. There is an obvious
escape route: a tortuous mountain trail towards the
Afghan border village of A'la Jezah. And there are the
not-so-obvious routes, known only to bin Laden and a few
Arab-Afghans familiar with the country since the early
1980s.
According to the Pentagon leak, the
fugitives were found through "a combination of CIA
[Central Intelligence Agency] paramilitaries and special
forces, plus image analysis by geographers and soil
experts". Predictably, local Balochistan authorities
deny everything. But even if bin Laden and the whole
al-Qaeda leadership are in fact encircled in this area -
and not further north, between the provinces of Kunar in
Afghanistan and Chitral in Pakistan, where they were
supposed to be hiding - what's the point of telling the
whole world about it?
CIA vs Pentagon
It's no less than a coincidence, then, that a
new Ayman al-Zawahiri tape surfaced on Arab networks
only one day after these Pentagon leaks claimed that
they had al-Qaeda surrounded, with the Americans just
waiting for some "authorization" to capture them.
Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld will be in Afghanistan
this week. Exasperated diplomats suggest to Asia Times
Online that he may have personally negotiated the terms
of the "authorization" with Musharraf. After all, these
are the stakes that really matter for the Bush
administration: when, where and how to spin the capture
of bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
The CIA is already
covering its back - just in case. CIA supremo George
Tenet was on a secret mission to Islamabad in early
February - arguably to discuss the modalities of
spinning concerning bin Laden's whereabouts. Tenet will
do anything to help George W Bush and Vice President
Dick Cheney as the president has firmly kept Tenet in
his job, even after the "intelligence failure" before
September 11 and the "intelligence failure" concerning
the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To
further fireproof his cover this time, Tenet told the US
Senate Intelligence Committee that al-Qaeda was capable
of more September 11-style attacks inside American
territory, citing evidence that al-Qaeda was planning to
recruit airline pilots for such missions.
According to the CIA chief, bin Laden has "gone
deep underground". He was not specific, and unlike the
Pentagon, he did not point to the exact global
positioning satellite coordinates of bin Laden and his
crew of 50. Rumsfeld clearly knows something that Tenet
does not.
Another key actor, Musharraf, is duly
following his script - stationing "tens of thousands" of
Pakistani army troops in the tribal areas and vigorously
trying to "smoke out" the usual al-Qaeda and Taliban
suspects. But sources tell Asia Times Online that very
few Afghan-Arabs remain active in the Afghan resistance
movement - only the ones who fought in the jihad of the
1980s against the Soviets, speak local Pashtun dialects
and know each piece of rock in the Afghan and tribal
area mountains. Musharraf's job is much easier now that
the whole porous area has been declared off limits to
the foreign press. Moreover, any Pakistani official
source insists on strictly denying the presence of any
American troops of any size, color or structure
operating inside Pakistani territory.
But
where are they?
Sources in Peshawar confirm to
Asia Times Online that Pakistani and American forces are
raising hell on both sides of the porous Pak-Afghan
border, with Islamabad contributing with helicopter
gunships, paramilitary forces and regular ground troops.
This is the hors d'oeuvre for the already well-flagged
upcoming spring offensive by the resistance. The
American offensive at first will be concentrated in
North and South Waziristan, on the Pakistani side, and
the provinces of Paktia and Paktika on the Afghan side.
Pashtun tribals in the Afghan province of Khost
confirm that after a bombing campaign, American forces
and local Afghan allies brought with them the usual
suitcases full of dollars and are now involved in
house-to-house searches. This area used to be a
stronghold of famous former Taliban minister and
commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. The Americans will soon be
forced to start a real war in Paktika - as the Hamid
Karzai government in Kabul has admitted losing nine
districts in the province, and running the risk of
losing the rest. Some of the Paktika districts are now
ruled by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan
party, others by tribal leaders simply hostile to the
American-backed Karzai regime. The Taliban also say that
they now control several districts in Zabul province.
Islamabad is taking no prisoners. Now, Pashtun
tribals cannot even indulge in their favorite pastime:
to roll in their beloved Toyota Land Cruisers with
tinted windows. Anyone not removing the tinted glass
faces three years in jail, confiscation of the vehicle
and a $1,200 fine.
Pakistan's information
minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, confirms that the army is
now deployed "all over the tribal areas". "Our rapid
action forces are there, they have sealed the border."
The information minister's assurance that "no one is
allowed to come in from Afghanistan" is part of the new
official spin from Islamabad, "part of Pakistan's
commitment to the international community against
terrorism".
The information minister insists
that Pakistan has not received from Washington any
satellite pictures of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri or the
al-Qaeda top 50 hiding in Pakistani territory. But much
more interesting is his current estimation that US
forces "would never enter Pakistan". Pakistan may have
"sealed the border" with Afghanistan, but how to unseal
it for the Americans is a matter to be discussed
face-to-face by Rumsfeld and Musharraf this week. For
this meeting, Rumsfeld can draw on his experience of
discussing touchy issues with former CIA asset Saddam
back in Baghdad in 1983.
The previous, official
Pakistani script that its army could not legally enter
in the semi-autonomous tribal areas has been reduced to
dust. Hardline Islamist, anti-American sectors in
Pakistan will not be amused. While the Musharraf system
sells to Washington once again the idea they are trying
to help the Americans to fight "the terrorists", nobody
can tell with any degree of certainty what exactly
Musharraf's game is, the Inter-Services Intelligence's
game or the army's game.
And what if bin Laden
decides not to follow the script? According to sources
close to the Pakistani newspaper Khabrain, bin Laden has
made his seven bodyguards take an oath to kill him in
the event that he is in any danger of being arrested. He
will try to blow himself up. Western diplomatic sources,
on the other hand, prefer to insist that if bin Laden is
arrested according to the current Pentagon plan, the
whole operation will be kept secret - to be disclosed
only a few weeks or days before the American
presidential election in November.
(Copyright
2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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