Posted on 08/23/2002 10:29:15 AM PDT by blam
Pakistani Tribesmen Hid Hundreds of Fleeing Al Qaeda
Fri Aug 23,12:42 PM ET
KOHAT, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two Pakistani tribesmen have confessed to sheltering hundreds of foreign members of Osama bin Laden 's al Qaeda network and their relatives who fled the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan , investigators said on Friday.
The Pakistani investigators, who did not want to be identified, said the men from the Sarki Khel tribe told them militants arrived in October after the U.S. bombing began. They said hundreds of militants were sheltered in South Waziristan, a northwestern tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
The tribesman told investigators the al Qaeda members had since been moved to other "safer places" without making clear whether these were in Pakistan, Afghanistan or elsewhere.
"We helped the al Qaeda members and their families because they were our guests and we performed our religious obligation to save the lives of Muslims in trouble," an investigator quoted one of the recently arrested tribesmen, Haji Zaman, as saying.
The investigators said Zaman had told them he was instructed by local elders to take care of groups of men who were arriving in great numbers from across the border.
"I only arranged a safe and free shelter for them, whereas the rest of the expenses of food, medicines, telephone and other utility bills were borne by them," he was quoted as saying.
The investigators said they suspected other tribesmen could be sheltering al Qaeda members in far-flung parts of the tribal territory.
They said a second tribesman, Maulvi Attaullah, was arrested after sleeping bags and other belongings of al Qaeda members were discovered at his house. Attaullah, who ran the tribe's mosque, said he would rather die than give information about the whereabouts of al Qaeda men, the investigators said.
Earlier this month, investigators said Zaman's younger brother, Haji Abdul Khaliq, had admitted providing shelter to three batches of al Qaeda members who killed 10 Pakistani soldiers when their hideout in Pakistan was raided on June 25.
All the al Qaeda suspects escaped and investigators later discovered they had taken refuge in specially dug wells capable of hiding groups of 20.
Large numbers of militants from Afghanistan's former Taliban regime and al Qaeda are thought to have crossed into Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region after a major ground battle with U.S-led forces in Eastern Afghanistan in March.
Pakistan's army has been trying to track them down with the help of a small number of U.S. personnel.
Many tribesmen still sympathize with the Taliban and some joined their ranks to fight international forces in Afghanistan.
They are fiercely opposed to the presence of U.S. personnel on their territory, and there have been several rocket attacks on a vocational school used as a U.S. base in neighboring Northern Waziristan. No one has been injured.
Al Qaeda leader bin Laden is the prime suspect behind the September 11 attacks on the United States. His whereabouts are unknown.
U.S. and allied forces launched another hunt for Taliban remnants and al Qaeda fighters in Eastern Afghanistan this week.
They are doing the same in this country.
He should be given an opportunity to prove this.
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