PART 1: The legacy of
Nek Mohammed By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
KARACHI - The name of Nek
Mohammed made international headlines in the middle of
last month when the charismatic former Taliban commander
was killed in a Pakistani army raid near Wana, the
district headquarters of the South Waziristan tribal
area.
Nek was a key figure in the area, acting
as a rallying point for the Afghan resistance, and as a
procurer and facilitator for the many foreign and
al-Qaeda fighters sheltered in the region.
Nek
was a wanted man, and his death marked a significant
victory for Islamabad, which is under relentless
pressure from Washington to get rid of the foreign
militants from the sensitive Pakistan-Afghanistan border
areas from where they have declared war on US interests
in Afghanistan. The foreigners include Arabs, Chechens
and Chinese Muslims who have set up base camps in remote
areas.
By killing Nek, though, the authorities
have not been able to erase his legacy and the profound
influence he has had in the area.
Nek Mohammed
belonged to the Ahmed Zai Wazir tribe's sub-clan, the
Yargul Khai. He received his early education at an
Islamic school run by Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam leader
Maulana Noor Mohammed. Nek's father, Nawaz Khan, was a
tribal elite and owned property in the village of
Kalosha, South Waziristan, close to the Afghanistan
border.
From childhood Nek showed a tough, rigid
personality, which resulted in him being expelled from
the Islamic school. He joined a regular school and fared
much better, before being admitted to a college run by
Pashtun nationalists, the Pakhtunkho Awami Party.
He never completed schooling, though, and
started a general store in Wana's main bazaar. At this
time, the region was under the influence of military
leader General Zia ul-Haq's policies to promote jihad in
Afghanistan. In fact, the Pakistani tribal areas served
as base camps for the Afghan resistance movement against
the former Soviet Union, which had began a 10-year
occupation in 1979.
South and North Waziristan
agencies - two of Pakistan's seven tribal areas - were
part of a supply line that ran to Paktia to Zabul across
the border to reinforce the positions of Afghan
fighters. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence set up
exclusive camps in Wana, where youngsters were
recruited, "motivated" and trained to supply fresh blood
to the Afghan resistance movement.
Different
commanders of the Afghan resistance belonging to the
Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar)
and other organizations established underground bunkers
where they stored their heavy ammunition. The US Central
Intelligence Agency, which had been drawn into
Afghanistan's affairs to counter its Cold War rival, the
Soviet Union, financed thousands of Arab fighters to
gather in and around Wana, where many purchased land and
established base camps and training centers.
To
reinforce the Afghan jihad, ideological support was as
necessary as military assistance, so policymakers in
Islamabad laid the foundations for dozens of new
religious schools. The young Nek, like many others at
the time, was drawn into this world, and he signed on
for a training camp.
And where Nek had been a
mediocre pupil, he took to fighting with the zeal of a
leopard, so much so that he rubbed shoulders with such
frontline luminaries of the Afghan war as Saifullah
Mansoor and Jalaluddin Haqqani.
These
acquaintances were to bring handsome dividends.
In September 1996, the Taliban captured Kabul,
ending several years of political anarchy in the country
after the withdrawal of the Soviets. On the
recommendation of Mansoor and Haqqani, Molvi Gul was
appointed commander of the Kargha garrison, but when he
was killed, 18-year-old Nek took over.
This made
Nek a frontline Taliban commander against the Northern
Alliance, which still controlled sections of the
country. Soon he was a veteran, seeing action in the
battlefields of Bagram, Bamyan and Pansher. By now Nek
was a key figure in the Taliban, in charge of 3,000 men
and a hero who frequently interacted with foreign
fighters.
During this period Nek met al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden at the Rash Khor training camp,
south of Kabul. He also met bin Laden's deputy, Aiman
al-Zawahir, and became friends-in-arms with Mullah
Nazir, a Taliban minister; the leader of the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan, Tahir Yaldevish, and Chinese
separatist leader Hasan Mohsin.
These new
friendships were to be critical to Nek, as well as to
developments several years later.
In late 2001,
the US bombardment of Afghanistan began in retaliation
for the country harboring the al-Qaeda masterminds of
the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
Kabul soon fell as the Taliban retreated with hardly a
fight, and action switched to the Tora Bora, near the
Pakistan border, which featured a vast network of
tunnels and caves in the mountains.
An Afghan
go-between, Haji Zaman, in exchange apparently for hefty
bribes from the US, negotiated a ceasefire under which
Arab fighters were to surrender. During a recent
interview, a Taliban commander, Mohammed Rahim, who was
stranded in the Tora Bora along with 100 other Taliban,
revealed that during the ceasefire more than 1,000 Arabs
and the 100 Taliban fled, some to Shahi Kot and others
across the border to the tribal areas.
In early
2002, in a showdown in Shahi Kot, about 18 US soldiers
were killed and the US mobilized heavy land troops as
well as air support and bombed the hideouts of hundreds
of Arabs and Chechen fighters who had made Shahi Kot
their hub. As a result, the militants melted into the
mountains, from where Nek helped them to settle in South
Waziristan.
New housing, training camps and
recruitment centers for the new Afghan jihad were
established in South Waziristan, which became the
operational headquarters. Money flooded in from
al-Qaeda, and Nek, being the character he was, became
rich.
By December 2003, Nek owned more than 40
pickup trucks and bulletproof vehicles. The Taliban
leaders were underground, but the aid kept on flowing in
from around the world, with Nek as the point man to
distribute it.
Training camps and the
resistance By now the scattered Taliban and
al-Qaeda had regrouped. They had restored their supply
lines and sources of financial aid, and had begun to
build new bases, hideouts and training camps on both
sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
In
this process, Nek thrived, utilizing his networks in the
Pakistani tribal areas from which he hailed, especially
in South Waziristan.
Nek and his foreign
comrades formed a new jihadi outfit called Jaishul
al-Qiba al-Jihadi al-Siri al-Alami. Another group,
Jundullah, two of whose members, Attaur Rehman and Abu
Musab al-Balochi (al-Baloshi), were later arrested in
Karachi in connection with the recent unsuccessful
attack on the Corps Commander Karachi, was formed with
members from the Jaishul al-Qibla to conduct operations
all over Pakistan and to "take the battle to all
possible fronts".
Both organizations are aligned
with al-Qaeda, but have different ways of operating.
Jundullah Jundullah is a purely
militant outfit whose objective is to target Pakistan's
pro-US rulers and US and British interests in the
country. Members receive training in Afghanistan and
South Waziristan, and it is now actively recruiting.
The organization produces propaganda literature,
including documentary films, and has a studio named
Ummat. It does similar work for al-Qaeda's media wing,
which is called the al-Sahab Foundation.
These
media outlets incite the sentiments of Muslim youths by
producing films showing Western - particularly Israeli
and US - "atrocities" against Muslim communities. This
is the basic tool through which a new generation of
jihadis is being raised.
Jundullah was allegedly
headed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda
operational commander of the September 11 terrorist
attack in the US. He was arrested in Pakistan early last
year.
Suspects grilled The US has
exclusive facilities across the world to interrogate
militants, many of them captured in Pakistan. They are
believed to number about 3,000, and they are spread over
different areas. The biggest interrogation center for
al-Qaeda detainees is Bagram Air Base north of the
Afghan capital Kabul. Al-Tamara detention center, eight
kilometers out of Rabat in Morocco, houses dozens of
people arrested in Pakistan, while others are kept in
Egypt, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Soon
after the attack on the Corps Commander Karachi, a
number of Jundullah Pakistanis were arrested, as well as
four Arabs, including al-Baloshi. During their
interrogation they fingered two prominent doctors
(brothers) from Karachi, Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad
Waheed, who were said to have provided medical treatment
to members of Jundullah. The doctors, associated with
the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association, were heavily
involved in relief work in Afghanistan during the US
invasion of that country. Later they treated several
high-profile al-Qaeda leaders in South Waziristan. They
are also said to have raised funds for al-Qaeda and
helped several Arab families return to their countries
of origin.
The doctors have since been arrested.
The interrogators also learned of two girls from
Karachi who had been recruited and trained for suicide
attacks against Western interests in Pakistan. As a
result, the United States and the United Kingdom
temporarily shut down their diplomatic facilities for
fear of a terror attack.
Jundullah is now
believed to have penetrated deeply into the Pakistan
army, police and air force, with core centers in
Rawalpindi (the twin city to Islamabad), Peshawar and
Quetta.
Jaishul al-Qiba al-Jihadi al-Siri
al-Alami This organization prepares literature
and films to incite hatred against the West for a new
generation of jihadis. It widely facilitates training
for new recruits, with facilities in South Waziristan
and in the inaccessible regions of North Waziristan,
beside some fresh training centers in Afghanistan in
Taliban-controlled areas.
These centers mostly
started operating in the middle of 2003, after the
Taliban and al-Qaeda had regrouped. Initially, camps
were established in Wana, Azam Warsak, Kalosha, Zareen
Noor, Baghar, Dhog, Angor Ada in South Waziristan. In
North Waziristan, camps were established in the border
areas of Shawal, including Darey Nishtar and Mangaroti,
where neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan is in control.
In Afghanistan, Zawar (Khost) was the most
protected place where foreign fighters established their
bunkers and hideouts. The area is under the command of
Jalaluddin Haqqani.
In South Waziristan, the
centers were under the command of Nek, and he is known
to have hosted bin Laden and al-Zawahir on numerous
occasions.
Information extracted from Jundullah
detainees indicates that most were trained in South
Waziristan. They claim that villages around Kalosha had
been handed over to the families of Arab fighters. From
the same training camps, several groups were raised to
fight in Iraq.
PART 2: The US moves on
South Waziristan
(Muqadar Iqbal and Zafar
Mehmood Shiekh helped research this article, as well as
obtain material from Rawalpindi.)
(Copyright
2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
PART 1: The legacy of
