THE CHANGING FACE
OF TERROR Al-Qaeda takes hold of tribal
regions By Ihsanullah Tipu
Mehsud
Although a number of senior
al-Qaeda leaders hiding in Pakistan have been
eliminated by United States drone strikes and
Pakistani Army ground operations, the terrorist
organization's ideology today holds sway over most
jihadi outfits in the Pakistani tribal belt and
across the border in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda's ideology has deeply penetrated
the Pakistani Taliban rank and file, and is now
also influencing the Afghan Taliban. This
correspondent was recently granted exclusive
access to a training camp in which al-Qaeda and
Taliban fighters openly dined under the same roof,
even attending Sharia law classes together.
It seems predictions made in the book
An Enemy We Created are coming true. In
that work, authors Alex Strick van Linschoten and
Felix Kuehn maintained
that several aspects of the war in Afghanistan -
indiscriminate aerial bombardments, night raids
and the mutilation of dead Taliban fighters -
would gradually increase al-Qaeda's appeal to the
Taliban.
Financial and organizational
links between al-Qaeda and the Taliban can be
traced back to the mid 1990s, when al-Qaeda leader
Bin Laden extended his group's full support to the
newly emerging Taliban militia in its fight
against mujahideen warlords across Afghanistan.
Some analysts believe that the foundations
of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani
Taliban, or TTP) were laid by the fleeing
leadership of both the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda
in the wake of the American onslaught in 2001.
Al-Qaeda has been particularly efficient
in bridging differences between heterogeneous
Pakistan-based militant outfits to stop
infighting. A militant source told this
correspondent in 2009, when Pakistani Army
launched operation "Rah-e-Nejat" (Path to
salvation) against the very bastion of the TTP in
South Waziristan, that it was al-Qaeda who
persuaded Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban warlord in
neighboring North Waziristan, to give refuge to
fleeing members of the TTP.
Al-Qaeda
wields more influence over the Pakistani Taliban
than the latter's Afghan counterparts.
Pakistani militant Ilyas Kashmiri, chief
of the 313 Brigade operational arm of al-Qaeda in
Pakistan and who is believed to have been killed
in US drone strike last year, was once touted as a
possible successor to Bin Laden. One of Pakistan's
top anti-Shi'ite, Sunni sectarian outfits,
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi, is an ideological
compatriot of al-Qaeda and has carried out
numerous sectarian attacks against rival sects
across Pakistan.
Al-Qaeda increasingly
uses local militants in its operations. It is no
longer exclusively an Arab organization - that
image has largely faded with the demise of its
core leadership. Al-Qaeda in AfPak now heavily
relies on local franchises to evade lethal drone
strikes, spread its ideology and orchestrate
attacks.
Many analysts envisaged a prompt
demise for al-Qaeda after Bin Laden's death, but
experts on the movement and its various
insurgencies say the group has instead
strengthened itself by spreading its influence
across violence-plagued parts of the Muslim world.
The Arab Spring has provided ample space for the
group to gain a foothold and organize itself
outside the AfPak region.
In a sign that
this is also influencing the Pakistani Taliban's
outlook, the TTP recently criticized the victory
of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi in
Egyptian elections as a "deception".
The
statement, forwarded exclusively to Asia Times
Online by a TTP spokesman, classed Morsi's win as
a victory for secular forces "because a huge
section of the Muslim Brotherhood has been
secularized and now deviates from the ideology of
its founders".
The Pakistan Taliban has
previously described the democratic process as
un-Islamic and said that any party that takes part
in elections loses its Islamic identity. "As
democracy is one of the most important pillars of
secularism - so no Islamic party can be Islamic
anymore after accepting democracy."
In
contrast, the Afghan Taliban have welcomed Morsi's
victory, describing it as a "great change" at both
a regional and international level that would
hopefully pave the way for positive changes for
the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
The
Afghan Taliban, also known as Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan, has posted on various Jihadi websites
that Morsi's victory underlined the success of
"Islamic Government" and was a "historical
victory".
"The success of the Islamic
Government in Egypt is considered to be the
strongest blow in the Middle East and the whole
world to American and Zionist expansionism. May
the Muslim Nation of Egypt and their newly elected
government take good advantage of this important
occasion and historical victory in the defense and
achievement of the interests of the Islamic
Ummah," the statement reads.
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud is
Islamabad-based investigative journalist.
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