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Chasing shadows in South Waziristan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - A United States-initiated operation led by Pakistan's army in South Waziristan Agency in search of high profile al-Qaeda members has ended with no significant captures, and now Pakistani authorities and the local tribal administration are looking for culprits.

At the same time, with all routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan from South Waziristan Agency sealed off to isolate the al-Qaeda suspects between Shakin (Afghanistan) and Angorada (Pakistan), US-led coalition forces came under their most deadliest attack yet in two years in Khost, Afghanistan.

The latest operation in the South Waziristan Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in the west of Pakistan began after the US received a strong tip off that Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's righthand man, along with other top al-Qaeda operators, had taken refuge in the mountains of Shakin and Angorada. In the past six months, this region has been a constant thorn in the US flesh as resistance fighters attack US bases in Shakin and Ghazni in Afghanistan and then disappear into the mountains leading to the Pakistani border areas.

But once the latest operation began, with the US lending strong technical assistance, word filtered through that a number of foreign fighters had been given safe passage by the tribals and fled. Also, several Pakistani troops were injured in clashes.

The operation then turned from one of a high profile search for a global terror ring into one of finding the tribals who had aided the fugitives and attacked the Pakistanis. As a result, about 15 tribesmen accused of sheltering al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been turned over to the authorities over the past few days. This followed an ultimatum by the political administration to the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe to surrender the wanted men or face the consequences.

The US has put considerable effort into establishing networks in the region in an attempt to track down fugitives and to weed out their sympathizers. But every time it calls for the Pakistan army to launch an attack, the result is the same: no catches, and the Pakistanis come under attack, at which point the operations are abandoned, or slide into hunts for local criminals.

The failure of the latest South Waziristan operation heralds more difficulties for the United States in spring and summer as it had hoped to break the Afghan resistance during this winter period. The stage is now set for the resistance to regroup and plot for its assault on the major cities of Afghanistan.

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