Osama back in the US
crosshairs By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
"According to everything we
know, he [Osama bin Laden] really is living in
Pakistan, near to the Afghan border. Our neighbor
[Pakistan] could certainly catch him and put him
in court. But to our knowledge, their efforts to
do this have always been half-hearted." -
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar
Spanta, May 14
PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN border - The
Pakistani government has dismissed Foreign
Minister Spanta's accusations out of hand, saying
that the problem lies with Afghanistan, which is
where al-Qaeda leader bin Laden his actually
hiding.
The Americans, for now at least,
are keeping their options open in
their quest to hunt down
the world's most wanted man.
Asia Times
Online investigations, after a harrowing journey
to
some of the
most inhospitable territory in the Hindu Kush
mountains, confirm that US and Pakistan forces are
now
preparing for a large-scale operation to track
down bin Laden, or other big fish, on whichever
side of the border they might be.
The
focal point in the "war on terror" has thus firmly
shifted to the maze of mountains and rivers that
stretches from remote Chitral in the northwest of
Pakistan's North West Frontier province to
Nuristan and Kunar provinces in Afghanistan.
The Durand Line, the border, dissects this
region, but it is a barrier in name only: for
those who know their way along tortuous passes,
unrestricted passage between the countries is
possible.
The FBI: Talk of the town The presence of Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in the
Chitral Valley has been the subject of much
discussion recently. From the chief minister of
the province to the man in the
street, the word is that the Americans have
established a vigilance center in Chitral town
after what is said to be a "credible" tip-off of
al-Qaeda activity in the region.
There has
been no official word from the United States on
the speculation of a FBI presence, but feedback
gathered by Asia Times Online from various
quarters confirms frequent visits by Americans to
the Chitral Valley recently. At the same time,
there is an extraordinary large presence of
Pakistani security forces all along the border
area, especially near Arandu, armed with heavy
weapons.
Local residents explain that the
Pakistani military built many bunkers around
Arandu during the 1980s when the Soviet Union
occupied Afghanistan. They abandoned these after
the Soviets pulled out in 1989, but now they have
manned them with Chitral Scouts, a paramilitary
force, along with heavy weapons.
All
quiet on the eastern front? "Compared with
the southern region of Afghanistan, the eastern
region is quiet. There is resistance in Kunar and
Nuristan, but nothing on the pattern of southern
Afghanistan. Perhaps the eastern zone is best
suited to hide instead of carrying out regular
combat operations," a person who only called
himself a mujahid (Islamic fighter,
singular of the Persian/Arabic term mujahideen)
told Asia Times Online.
In support of
this, the mujahid referred to persistent
reports that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan
prime minister and now leader of the anti-US
movement, was hiding in the Kunar Valley.
There have also been any number of wild
guesses about the presence of bin Laden in the
area.
However, the mujahid
dismissed this notion about bin Laden. "There is
no doubt that in places like Nuristan and Kunar
one can easily hide, compared with other parts of
Pakistan and Afghanistan, but there is a special
threat to Osama in this region as the local Afghan
Salafis [80% of the population ] are dead against
the Taliban.
"During the Taliban's rule
[1996-2001] Osama played a role in persuading many
of the Afghan Salafis to pledge their allegiance
to [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar. That created a
lot of bad blood between Afghan Salafis and Osama,
and that is why Osama would not be safe in
Nuristan," the mujahid elaborated.
Nevertheless, many middle-ranking
veterans, such as Commander Faqirullah of the
Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan and Abu Ikhlas of
al-Qaeda, are operative in the Nuristan and Kunar
area and are well placed to orchestrate guerrilla
operations against US-led allied forces.
At the same time, the Taliban-led
resistance has steadily taken over control of some
strategic areas. This indicates another trend, how
the Taliban has blended in with local vested
interests.
Fired by opium The
Pechdara region is a strategic part of the Kunar
Valley, east of Jalalabad and touching Nuristan
province. It has become a nucleus in the hands of
the Taliban, notably the village of Korangal,
where fighters of Chechen, Chinese, Arabic and
Uzbek origin are entrenched and from where they
carry out insurgency attacks.
The Kunar
Valley, unlike many other parts of Afghanistan, is
devoid of poppy fields, except for the Pechdara
area. Buyers converge here every day to buy small
quantities of poppy, ranging from 5-10 kilograms
at a cost of about US$233 per kilo.
Although the Taliban have a strong
foothold, some of the main players (warlords) in
Pechdara are in fact non-Taliban, with ties to
Kabul. These include Commander Najamuddin, once of
Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan, Jahandad, a
former governor of Kunar, and Malik Zarin Khan,
who was an aide of slain Ahmad Shah Masoud, the
legendary Tajik leader in northern Afghanistan.
These players initially helped allied
forces carry out operations against the Taliban.
However, subsequently they struck a deal with the
Taliban, who in turn stopped harassing the
warlords. Pechdara became relatively peaceful,
with the warlords growing poppy and sharing the
proceeds with the Taliban.
As mentioned
above, though, relative to the south of
Afghanistan, the Kunar Valley is quiet in terms of
the insurgency.
During the Soviet
occupation, the belt was a strategic high point
and key supply line of the resistance up to the
Panjshir Valley. Nuristan was a real tough nut as
the mujahideen had seized complete control and
never allowed the Soviets a foothold.
"This is not the case today. The Soviets
were brutal. Every family in Kunar and Nuristan
complains that at least one of their members was
butchered by the Russians," another person
associated with the Taliban-led resistance told
Asia Times Online. He identified himself only as a
"Servant of Allah".
"This is not the case
with the Americans," he said. "They are not
tyrants as the Russians were. On the contrary, the
Americans have bribed locals and bought their
cooperation. As a result, there is no open
revolt-like situation.
"Nevertheless, the
resistance is all over, up to Nuristan," the
"Servant of Allah" said. "For instance, on
September 18, 2005, we attacked an American convoy
in Mudagal, Nuristan. We stormed the convoy with
rockets and then surrounded it from all four sides
and sprayed bullets. We witnessed eight bodies
before we fled from the scene. The next day in the
media, we heard of only two casualties," the
person maintained.
"Similarly, in Bazgal
near Nuristan, two vehicles were destroyed with
IEDs [improvised explosive devices] in which 10
soldiers were confirmed dead. The incident
happened in December 2005. The media only reported
a few injuries," the "Servant of Allah" said.
Asia Times Online learned that local
support, after being neutral for some time, is now
in favor of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, which have
comfortable places to hide and carry out random
attacks at their convenience.
The blame
for this, from the US perspective, lies largely
with the Afghan National Army (ANA), which has
turned out to be untrustworthy.
Two years
ago, US forces received confirmed information,
with photographs, of the presence of high-profile
al-Qaeda and Afghan operatives in Bazgal near
Nuristan. It was impossible for US troops to take
the risk of going after them alone in the maze of
jungle and mountains, so they asked the ANA for
assistance.
After many hours, the forces
reached the area, but all the suspects had fled.
Ground inquiries showed that they had left
immediately after the Americans shared information
with the ANA. To improve the situation, the US
is developing a special "Peace Force" in which the
benchmark for recruitment is not military aptitude
but staunch anti-Taliban tendencies. Many of the
news force's members are either former communists
or local villains. Perhaps they are attracted by
the extremely generous pay - US$500-$1,000 a
month.
The situation on the east remains
in this state of balance, with the Taliban and
some al-Qaeda operatives well bedded with a
sympathetic local population, but in essence lying
low.
A massive operation, such as one in
search of the elusive bin Laden, could ignite the
tinder, and open up another front, as in the south
of the country. All the pieces are already in
place.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is
Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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preparing for a large-scale operation to track
down bin Laden, or other big fish, on whichever
side of the border they might be. 
street, the word is that the Americans have
established a vigilance center in Chitral town
after what is said to be a "credible" tip-off of
al-Qaeda activity in the region. 
