Posted on 11/27/2001 10:07:59 AM PST by codebreaker
DEBKAfile's military sources after checking on this lead with army intelligence sources in the Indian subcontinent, present this explanation of the mystery (of the missing al Qaeda troops not found by U.S. Marines in the plains or mountain hideouts) as the most plausible. Those Anatovs (transport planes) were chartered by the Pakistani ISI- Inter-Service Intelligence to lift the al Qaeda contingents together with a few Taliban units out of Konduz in north Afghanistan to north Pakistan.
And that was not the end of the transfer. It is still going on. Our sources report that al Qaeda and the Taliban allies are streaming out of Kandahar in the south and crossing east into Pakistan. The two forces have thus far grouped 4,000 fighting men on the Pakistani side. According to DEBKAfile's intelligence sources, the United States hurriedly injected Marines to the south on Monday in direct response to the enemy's redeployment. That too is why the first US troop engagement was with a Taliban convoy approaching the Pakastani frontier. For the U.S. Marines' immediate objective is not to join the Northern Alliance offensive for the capture of Mullah Omar's bastion of Kandahar, but to block off the continuing passage of Taliban and al Qaeda units across the highly porous frontier.
Sounds like we are taking a side trip to the Pakistani border...
Think about the logic of this. Does it make sense given the pervasive surveillance?
DEBKA is less credible than PRAVDA at the height of the Cold War.
Fun to read though.
No, smells like more Debka-ka-ka. I'm really sure that the United States, with air supremecy, would allow several Pakistani flights to land in Afghanistan to remove Al Queda members. This one is the most ludicrous Debka-ka-ka claim yet, and that's saying something...
I guess that DEBKA must believe that Antonov transport planes are now painted in stealthy "invisible paint", and are able to sneak out under the gaze of JSTARS etc.
I think we've narrowed their sources down to two possiblities - bird entrails or tea leaves.
If DEBKA says it, the opposite is always true. Always.
Debka's going downhill. They used to at least attempt to make their stories believable. Now it seems they don't even bother. Maybe BatBoy was flying one of the planes.
Could the Paks be flying low to the ground to avoid radar?
The magic 8-ball does not lie. Its internal fluids is imbued with the all-knowing accuracy of the mighty DEBKA.
I think we've narrowed their sources down to two possiblities - bird entrails or tea leaves.
Hey, Mon!! Someone call muh nyme?
No.
They mangled the details, and it was hardly a scoop to claim that the Russians were going to assist the Northern Alliance. So far there have been very, very few Russian troops - what ever happened to the million troops that Debka claimed were going to be sent?
Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . hold it right there.
Their "call" was that Russia was mobilizing 100,000 troops in order to invade Afghanistan. What actually happened was that the Russian military advisers everyone already knew were working with the NA have now set up a base of operations in a vacant lot in Kabul. They're about 80 strong, not 100,000.
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