Arabs Bought Their Way Out of Wana (al Qaeda Alert)

Arab News ^ | 4 April 2004 | Huma Aamir Malik

[AdmSmith]

KARACHI, 4 April 2004. Most Arab Al-Qaeda terrorists fled Wana before the military operation began, buying their exit, highly placed sources told Arab News.

Officials said two low-ranking intelligence officers were taken into custody on suspicion of helping Al-Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri escape.

The sources also said that Shakai village near Wana would be the next target of a military operation for reportedly sheltering Al-Qaeda, Taleban and rebel tribal leaders.

Hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan after heavy bombardment by US coalition forces of their main hideouts in Tora Bora. Around 1,600 with their families are reported to have arrived in groups. One group stayed in Noshera, another in Dera Ismail Khan and a third at the Jalaludin Haqani seminary in Miran Shah. American Taleban John Walker and around 50 British, European and American Al-Qaeda terrorists were among them. Two of the groups were led by Taleban commanders Malik Janan and Sheraz.

According to the sources, the Arabs who had the money settled in these areas, sending their families, especially women and children, to their countries of origin through agents.

The agents from the tribal areas smuggled them out for $2,000 per person. The sources said terrorists from China, Chechnya, Tajikistan and other central Asian states and Arabs preferred to stay in the tribal areas also because local tribes sheltered them, albeit for $100 to 300 a week.

The Arabs settled in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Kashmir and other parts of Pakistan while the Uzbeks, Chechens and Chinese stayed in the tribal areas and paid up to $300 a week. The tribes cooperated with the fighters in sympathy as well as for money. However, not all tribes cooperated with them. When a group of 120 Al-Qaeda fighters entered Khurram Agency from Tora Bora, the Mangial tribe disarmed, robbed and detained them. They were later freed after paying ransom.

Chinese fighters did not have enough money and most of the foreigners killed in the operation were from this group, the sources said.

The sources said a few Arab families were living in the area before the Tora Bora bombings, but they had no direct links with Al-Qaeda. ?There are settlers in tribal areas on both sides of the Durand Line doing charity work, the sources said, but the United States has stopped differentiating between Al-Qaeda fighters and these Arabs after 9/11.

The Arab and Uzbek fighters had also told the tribal jirga that they were ready to go to the militants' hideouts in South Waziristan to negotiate the release of 14 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers and government officers on March 26 and that they were prepared to surrender if the United Nations guaranteed that they would not be handed over to US forces, sources from Wana said. But the Pakistan Army rejected the offer. Pakistani officials believed this to be an Al-Qaeda trap and they knew the United Nations would not get involved in the operation.

Initially, Islamabad did not have enough information about Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters to take serious notice of them because Pakistani intelligence agencies did not have an adequate network of ground intelligence in these areas and depended mostly on their agents in the field. But American intelligence had up-to-date reports from its own sources in the tribes and from Afghanistan that said Al-Qaeda fighters were gathering in these areas.

[AdmSmith]

Follow the money

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[Cap Huff]

FYI

[McGavin999]

They're going to get mighty tired crossing back and forth across that border. BTW, when is the money going to run out. $300 a week is a LOT of money.

[AdmSmith]

Surrender deadline given to killers of Army men

MIRANSHAH, April 03 (Online): Political Agent (PA) of North Waziristan has set April 8 as deadline to Kabulkhel, Janikhel and Bakkakhel for handing over the killers of army personal in an ambush on March 19 otherwise they will have to face the music.

Unidentified assailants in an ambush killed two Army personal, Maj Abdul Waheed and Sipahi Mosa on March 19 while injured three other personnel as well.

Jirga in its deadline till April 8 warned the said tribes to hand over the culprits otherwise grand Lashkar would operate against the said tribes.

Meanwhile, heavy military movements of fresh troops along with automatic weapons was witnessed in North Waziristan agency, a relatively calm region.

The choppers were also hovering in the area creating panic among the locals, who were anticipating this movement as South like operation in the North Waziristan.

Foreign terrorists in Wana will not surrender: Qazi

Former ISI Chief Lt. Gen. (Rtd.) Javed Ashraf Qazi has said that military operation in tribal area is quite a difficult task and foreign terrorists can dejectedly do any thing.

"Foreigners do not want to avail amnesty because they do not want to lay down their weapons. So, either they will flee from the area and take shelter inside Afghanistan or in mountains or they will be killed," he said in an interview with VOG.

"I don't think majority of them will surrender," he added.

He maintained that the Wana operation against Al-qaeda had definitely caused human loss to the military.

"The terrain there is quite difficult and such loss can occur in guerrilla war. But neither there is any expectation nor possibility for this organized stiff resistance," he said.

To a question he said it seems that the foreign elements will not surrender because scores of their people are now involved in different cases.

They have murdered soldiers and Tehsildars. So, the people who are involved in such kinds of acts will not surrender, he said.

"The Jirga will hang them even if they hand over themselves to it," Qazi added.

NWFP govt. not taken into confidence on Wana operation: Siraj

Jammat-e-Islami provincial Amir and senior minister Siraj ul Haq said on Friday that provincial government of Muttahida Majlis-I-Amal has not been taken into confidence about Wana operation.

"Neither the central government has taken MMA into confidence about Wana operation nor facts are being provided in this regard," he said in a statement after arriving here.

Provincial minister rejected interior minister's statement in which he said the government had taken MMA into confidence before launching Wana operation.

Siraj ul Haq claims that the federal cabinet including the interior minister was also not aware about the operation in South Waziristan. He said the government has realized its blunders and losses caused due to Wana operation and now it (government) is trying to blame MMA.

He said the religious alliance had suggested to the government to resolve the matter through consultation and traditional jirga system but it preferred military action, which was a wrong step, he added.

Earlier talking to reporters at Karachi Airport he urged government to stop crushing Muslims on the behest of foreign powers. He said government should devise policies in the best national interest instead of targeting its own people.

End.





http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=60438

[marron]

Most Arab Al-Qaeda terrorists fled Wana before the military operation began, buying their exit, highly placed sources told Arab News... Officials said two low-ranking intelligence officers were taken into custody on suspicion of helping Al-Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri escape...

...Chinese fighters did not have enough money [to pay the tribes for protection] and most of the foreigners killed in the operation were from this group, the sources said.

[Grampa Dave]

What a surprise.

I was surprised at all of the publicity before these actions were started. Those articles served as an early warning to the Islamonazis in the Wana area.

[Dog]

I suspected this is what had happened.

You know what....I think we had Zawahiri located as soon as I heard about that secret Tenet visit.

All the hard work that went into zeroing in on the AQ leadership hideout was wasted.

What makes me sick....is knowing we had HIM.

Mush was going to gift wrap him and present him to Colin Powell.....I hope those two who sold us out.......are having a painful stay in a Pakistani prison.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Officials said two low-ranking intelligence officers were taken into custody on suspicion of helping Al-Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri escape.

Check their bank accounts and seize their assets. That will send the message needed in that part of the world.

[nuconvert]

Frustrating

[Dog]

Frustrating isn't the word.

Ask Cap Huff.....you could see the capture of Zawahiri or Bin Laden.... building since January of this year. It started with a raid in Karachi nabbing 5..... and the noose kept getting tighter and tighter. Raid after raid until......the Tenet visit.......then a little known raid in Islamabad capturing a guy who was in computer contact with the AQ leadership.......then the rumblings started about Wana.

Mush goes on CNN said there was a big AQ leader trapped....then THIS.

If you paid attention to this like I do ........you could sense something big was about to happen.

Thanks for letting me vent here..

[nuconvert]

Lol.

No problem

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Mushie another Clinton type:

A Must Read:

Who Lost Osama? : Richard Clarke is far tougher on the Clinton failures than advertised.

[Cap Huff]

I don't know what to say about all of this. It certainly is frustrating. I'm just trying to keep my eye on the goal. There will be some new pressure. Around the middle of the month Rumsfeld is scheduled to pay a visit to Pakistan. I don't think that will necessary get anything fixed, but I am hoping that we will see which way the wind is blowing after his visit.

[AdmSmith]

Please note what is brewing among the tribes in Wana. I expect the Jirga to come out strongly against the foreigner.

When the money dries up for the Arabs they will be delivered to Musharraf.

[AdmSmith]

By Saeed Ali Achakzai

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan and U.S. forces will soon launch an attack on al Qaeda militants who fled from an offensive in Pakistan's tribal lands into Afghanistan, an Afghan official said Sunday.

Pakistani troops fought a 12-day battle against about 500 al Qaeda fighters and their Pakistani tribal allies on Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan last month. The Pakistani military said about 200 were captured or killed.

The governor of Afghanistan's Paktika province, Haji Gulab Mangal, said a large number of militants had escaped from the fighting in Pakistan's South Waziristan and taken refuge in Afghan mountains.

"Afghan forces have been told to be ready and soon an operation along with allied forces will be carried out against these elements," Mangal told Reuters by telephone.

Pakistan has mounted its biggest ever campaign to pacify its lawless and largely autonomous tribal region on the Afghan border and clear the area of foreign fighters.

As Pakistani forces hunt on their side, U.S. forces have mounted an operation on the Afghan side of the border in what the Pentagon has called a "hammer and anvil" action to catch al Qaeda leaders, possibly Osama bin Laden.

About 2,000 U.S. Marine reinforcements have been arriving in Afghanistan to intensify the hunt while Pakistan has been moving fresh troops up to its side of the border.

Mangal said the militants were in Saroza district. Uzbeks, Chechens, Tajiks and Afghans were among them. Pakistani forces had to watch the border closely because the militants might try to escape back into Pakistan, he said.

A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul said operations were going on in the south, southeast and east but he declined to comment on future operations.

U.S.-led forces had not seen large numbers coming across the frontier from Waziristan, but cross-border movement continued as it had in the past, he said.

Twenty militants have been killed and 41 captured in Afghanistan since U.S. and Afghan troops launched Operation Mountain Storm to clear Afghan border areas on March 7, an Afghan defense official said.

Two Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded in a Taliban attack on Afghan and U.S. forces in Zabul province on Saturday, a witness said. A Taliban spokesman said fighters under commander Haji Mullah Usman carried out the attack.

In Pakistan, more than 120 people were killed in the 12-day offensive in South Waziristan and troops have been moving into the rugged North Waziristan area in recent days. Pakistani troops moving into North Waziristan area came under fire Saturday but no one was hurt in the exchange of fire about 13 miles from the district capital Miran Shah.

Fighting flared again in South Waziristan Sunday when gunmen hiding in an orchard attacked a paramilitary checkpoint near the district capital of Wana, residents said. There were no reports of casualties.

Government representatives have been urging tribal elders to push foreign fighters out of their lands and hand over tribal militants who give the foreigners refuge.

The conservative ethnic Pashtun tribes who live on both sides of the border have given refuge to foreign Muslim fighters since volunteers turned up from around the world to battle Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, has vowed to clear foreign militants out.

Musharraf has blamed al Qaeda for two attempts to kill him in December and said the people responsible for those and other attacks across Pakistan had links to the tribal areas.


http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4744041

[Coop]

I was surprised at all of the publicity before these actions were started. Those articles served as an early warning to the Islamonazis in the Wana area.

IMHO that wasn't by mistake.

[Grampa Dave]

"IMHO that wasn't by mistake!"

I have the feeling that you are correct here.

[swarthyguy]

Looks like our collective speculation about the telegraphing of this op combined with jihadi symps in the military was on the money.

[AdmSmith]

Please note what is brewing among the tribes in Wana. I expect the Jirga to come out strongly against the foreigner.

Mehsood tribes to help government capture suspected militants

Monday April 05, 2004 (1633 PST) PESHAWAR: Pledging their cooperation to government in its bid to purge tribal areas of suspected militants, including foreigners Mehsood Wazir Tribes Monday said they would extend every possible help to the government, saying they would not let foreign militants use Pakistan soil for any terrorist activity.

The decision was taken in a Jirga comprising of about 200 tribal elites which was held here at governor house. Participants of Jirga including Malik Asad Khan, Malik Inayatullah Mehsood, Malik Bakhan and Khan Marjan.

Speaking on the occasion the said tribal elites said they would not let Pakistani soil be used for any terrorist activity. Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shahd said that militants thought to be sheltering in the tribal areas have been given some15 days to surrender themselves to the government.

If you have any information regarding Jirga then furnish government with the information, he urged Jirga. The governor said if the militants did not surrender by April 20 then military offensive would be launched.

Flaying political and religious parties the governor said they were politicizing the issue to gain political mileage from the issue.

Operation in tribal areas is not against tribesmen rather suspected militants most of whom are foreigners are bringing bad name to country.

About killings of innocent civilians the governor said President General Pervez Musharraf has directed that the victims be given compensation and their houses be reconstructed.

comment: I anticipate that we will have a nice catch-of-the-day in about 2-3 weeks time.