Posted on 03/20/2004 6:09:54 PM PST by blam
Trapped al-Qa'eda leader is Uzbek mullah
(Filed: 21/03/2004)
Bin Laden's number two is no longer believed to be the man cornered in Pakistan. Massoud Ansari and Philip Sherwell report on the other leading al-Qa'eda figure suspected of leading the resistance.
A tribal family flees from their home as Pakistani troops intensify their hunt for militants in Wana
A radical Uzbek mullah who is one of Osama bin Laden's most important lieutenants is believed to be the senior al-Qa'eda figure leading the resistance to a ferocious five-day Pakistani offensive in Waziristan, the Telegraph has learned.
As heavy artillery and Cobra helicopter gunships were deployed yesterday against an international brigade of Islamic fanatics, officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan identified Tahir Yuldash, the leader of several hundred Central Asian Islamic fundamentalist fighters, as the key figure being protected by up to 400 al-Qa'eda militants.
Yuldash, a founder of the hardline Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, teamed up with bin Laden in Afghanistan but has been based in Pakistani tribal areas since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. His cordon of bodyguards is fighting the Pakistani onslaught with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
While Yuldash would be a prized captive, Pakistan faced criticism last night for at first suggesting that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who is bin Laden's right-hand man, was trapped in the vicious firefight being waged along a chain of mud fortresses in the lawless border terrain of South Waziristan.
In an interview last Thursday, the Pakistani president, Gen Pervaiz Musharraf, said that a "high value target" was believed to be encircled. Pakistani military officers later identified the target as al-Zawahiri.
As they backed away from their claims yesterday, it was unclear whether al-Zawahiri - one of the suspected masterminds of the September 11 attacks - had been at the scene and managed to escape, or whether he was not there at all. Western officials were concerned that senior al-Qa'eda figures - a Chechen rebel leader known only as Daniar is also believed to have been embroiled in the fighting - may have slipped through the Pakistani security cordon.
Yet their disappointment with the Pakistanis will be tempered by the knowledge that the CIA apparently identified the area as a likely hide-out for al-Zawahiri as long ago as December, but Washington took the decision to hold off from mounting an immediate operation.
The battle is the fiercest yet waged against fighters who sought refuge on Pakistani soil after the US-led attack toppled the Taliban, the hosts for bin Laden's terrorist network. Under pressure from the US, Gen Musharraf sent 70,000 troops into the semi-autonomous tribal territories.
Just across the border in Afghanistan, 10,000 US troops have massed for Operation Mountain Storm, a mission intended to hand President George W Bush the scalp of bin Laden before November's presidential elections. About 100 SAS troops arrived in Kabul last week to join the operation.
According to villagers, the ranks of fighters in Waziristan included Arabs, Chechens, Afghans, Uzbeks and Chinese Uighurs. "There has been deafening firing every day," Dilawer Khan, a resident of the nearby town of Wana, told The Sunday Telegraph. "Helicopter gunships have been dropping bombs all morning at Kaloosha and Zaragandai."
Maj Gen Shoukat Sultan, a Pakistani army spokesman, said: "The mission is to get these people dead or alive." Lt Gen Safdar Hussain, who is in charge of the sweep, added: "These have been here for a long time. They are extremely professional fighters."
Thousands of villagers have fled while some of those who remain complain that they are effectively being held hostage by the Pakistani forces. "The soldiers know that they could be ambushed out in the open so they have sought refuge in local houses, holding the villagers as human shields," said a tribal elder.
The Pakistanis also claimed to have taken 100 prisoners during the offensive, although it is unclear how many are suspected al-Qa'eda operatives and how many are local tribal allies. "Many suspects who have been in the area a long time know the local language so we cannot immediately ascertain their nationalities," said Brig Mehmood Shah, the senior security commander for the border zone.
The joint squeeze on both sides of the border is being termed a "hammer and anvil" operation by the Americans. An unknown number of US and British special forces are operating in Pakistan.
As a result, bin Laden is facing the most sustained threat to his liberty since he was targeted in the siege of Tora Bora in December 2001. Then, despite a massive American aerial bombardment and supposed stranglehold by local US-backed fighters, he escaped from the eastern Afghan mountain range.
One intelligence official said that last week's events would have troubling echoes of Tora Bora for President Bush if it transpired that al-Zawahiri had been in the area.
The Telegraph has learned that the battleground - about 10 square miles of remote villages and mud compounds - came to the CIA's attention last December. Local tribesmen told US operatives on the ground that al-Zawahiri was sheltering near the settlements of Kaloosha, Azam Warsak, Shin Warsak and Zarangadai.
The information was backed up by at least one electronically-intercepted message indicating that al-Zawahiri was in the area.
Yet intelligence officials said that a decision was made in Washington not to take any immediate action. "The atrocious weather meant that any attack would be difficult and slow, giving al-Zawahiri plenty of chance to escape," said one official. "Secondly, plans were already being finalised for the current spring offensives.
"Thirdly, the CIA hoped to hear through local contacts that bin Laden had arrived in the area to meet his deputy. They wanted the chance to kill or capture both."
Talk about an oxymoron. Well, I can't believe we weren't expecting this and planned accordingly...
There are about 10,000 US troops in ALL of Afghanistan...maybe the author means US, Coalition and Afghan troops...
According to the Left, all Muslim grievances have to do with Israel and American imperialism. The Big Lie lives.
Maybe. But one thing I found interesting was yesterday's denial by a Taleban official that AZ was ever in the area. While mocking the Paks and their offensive the official said that OBL and AZ were in Afghanistan and therefore couldn't be the HVTs the Paks were boasting about.
Makes you at least wonder if the goal of the assault was not to force this kind of a slip-up by the Taleban.
This entire Islamic enterprise is based on disinformation and the news media is it's mouthpiece.
All media.
My chain cannot be jerked any further.
I think that's the best we can hope for, just keep killing them, everywhere.
What I read is that he is an "orphan" of the jihad, a leftover from the fall of the Taleban. In that regard, I suspect nobody gives a damn about him on either side. That is why the Paks chose to take him out. They can be seen by the Americans as doing something without being directly responsible for undoing the jihadi big boys.
I suspect that if we get really good intelligence about OBL or AZ we will be handling it ourselves. I doubt that it will matter which side of the border they are on. We are going to wax them by any means necessary.
It's a funky party going on up there. Strange bedfellows with a common goal: Your slavery to ALLAH and the mullahs who decree in their interests. Kill them.
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