though there is no hard intelligence on his whereabouts.
Wow, that sentence sure added a lot to the article.
Here's one for Al Jazeera.
Posted on 06/17/2004 11:16:30 PM PDT by AdmSmith
ISLAMABAD (CNN) -- A tribal leader accused of harboring Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan's western border region was killed Thursday night in a targeted missile strike, according to Pakistan intelligence sources. The Associated Press quoted an army spokesman Friday as identifying the tribal leader as Nek Mohammed, a former Taliban fighter.
He was killed late Thursday at the home of another tribal chief, the spokesman said.
"We were tracking him down and he was killed last night by our hand," Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2004/September/subcontinent_September835.xml§ion=subcontinent
Pakistan battling sophisticated, brutal Al Qaeda-linked fighters: general
(AFP)
26 September 2004
ISLAMABAD - Al Qaeda-linked fighters battling Pakistani troops along the border with Afghanistan are sophisticated and brutal combatants who carry satellite phones and mutilate their enemies' corpses, according to a profile unveiled by an army commander.
Major General Niaz Khattak, field commander in the mountainous frontier district of South Waziristan, said fighters hiding there had falsely convinced local tribes that they were waging a "jihad," or holy war, against "infidels."
In the first-ever profile presented to journalists, the general who has led several offensives against Al Qaeda-linked militants this year painted a picture of hardened, well-trained, and brutal fighters with little adherence to Islamic values.
Pakistani troops have killed some 150 Al Qaeda-linked militants in a series of offensives in South Waziristan since last October, destroying Al Qaeda sanctuaries and training camps.
Officials suspect some 600 to 700 mainly Uzbek and Chechen fighters allied to Al Qaeda are still hiding in the area out of those who fled Afghanistan in late 2001 when the Taleban were toppled.
Some of those already killed and captured had Uzbek, Turkmen and Chechen features, he said.
Khattak dismissed claims by opponents of the operation that the central Asians are veteran fighters of the 1979 to 1989 battle to oust occupying Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
"Among them are some genuine believers who may have been here during the Afghan jihad, but they are few," the general said.
"Most of them are aged 18 to 25. Where were they during the Afghan jihad?," he pointed out during a briefing to reporters in South Waziristan's main town Wana.
"They are not remnants of part of jihad against Russians, they are a new influx."
Khattak described the militants as "very advanced, educated and militarily well-trained" fighters who had overpowered local Wazir tribesmen.
"They started proving their dominance intellectually, socially, physically over the Wazirs and the Wazirs had to take them inevitably as their military leaders," he said.
The fighters eat sardines and drink canned juice, carry military maps and sophisticated military literature, suggesting they were "trained militants," the general insisted.
Inside captives' rucksacks soldiers have found, along with canned food and drinks, high quality life-saving medicines, first aid kits, compasses, binoculars, GPS (global positioning system) and Thuraya satellite phones.
"It is surely not an ordinary Wazir (local tribesman) who carries a military map that only some people can understand," Khattak said.
They also carry explosives, detonators, and clocks for timing the launches of rockets, their favoured weapon.
The foreign militants are physically strong, do a lot of exercise, and carry a lot of communications equipment.
"In the kind of attacks that they have been launching against Pakistani troops, they do not hold their positions too strongly, they are mostly on the move but they protect their bases very, very strongly," he said.
Khattak said Al Qaeda-linked militants and their local supporters had mistreated hostages and mutilated their corpses during one of the biggest Al Qaeda offensives in March.
"I have never heard of normal human beings mutilating dead bodies and cutting off their organs and doing something which is unheard of," he said.
May we always be blessed with opponents stupid enough to carry their explosives and detonators in the same rucksack!
(Take the door off a microwave oven, defeat the door safety interlock, turn the oven on, point it in the general direction of the rucksack and poof, another idiot terrorist disappears in a pretty pink spray!)
--Boot Hill
Musharaf did an interview the other day. When asked about binLaden and whether he thought he was running things out of Pakistan, Musharaf said something like, 'no, how could he? If he used a phone we'd know where he is.' Don't know what he was trying to say by that. At the time it seemed the reporter was tying to downgrade the importance of binLaden, or maybe Musharaf was. I don't know. But Musharaf was not happy with Bush's policies in Israel and with the effect that fighting in Iraq was having on muslims in the midddle east. He didn't sound firmly behind
the President.
A recent article on the operations in the region is here
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/secwatch/index.cfm?service=cwn&parent=detail&menu=8&sNewsID=9784
an excerpt:
Spread over 6,619 square kilometers, the South Waziristan Agency is the largest and poorest of Pakistan's seven tribal agencies, which were the brainchild of British colonizers. The agency consists of three sub-divisions: Ladha, Sarokai, and Wana, the latter serving as the capital and the center of the military's operations. According to census documents and tribal elders, the Mehsud tribe largely inhabits the former two sub-divisions, while the Wazir, Dotana, and Sulaimankhel tribes inhabit Wana. The Wazir tribe is further divided into nine sub-tribes, of which the Zalikhel tribe is the largest. The Yargulkhel tribe is a clan of the Zalikhel tribe, and has been a thorn in the government's side, showing firm resistance to law-enforcement agencies during the security sweeps. They live mostly in Kaloosha, Azam Warsak, and Daja Ghundai, some 10km from the capital. There are only two main roads, the Wana-Azam Warsak Road, which is about 20km long and was constructed after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Wana-Wakhwa road, which was built with US aid in the 1990s. The Wazir tribe possesses inherited lands in Afghanistan's Paktika, Shakeen, Bermal, Zabal, and Kandahar provinces, as well as property in Pakistan's Dera Ismail Khan district.
Wow, that sentence sure added a lot to the article.
Here's one for Al Jazeera.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FI29Df05.html
Pakistan gets its man ... sort of
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Two days after Pakistani officials announced the death of Amjad Farooqi, the circumstances surrounding the killing of the person who is being billed as the country's most wanted man as well as a senior al-Qaeda figure remain murky.
Farooqi had been indicted in connection with the beheading of US journalist Daniel Pearl in early 2002 and named by President General Pervez Musharraf as a mastermind of two bomb attacks against the president's motorcades in December last year. Officials had published a picture of Farooqi, with a reward of $330,000 for information leading to his arrest.
The official version runs something like this: Farooqi was tracked through his mobile telephone to a hideout in Nawabshah, a town 170 miles north of the port city of Karachi. Security forces surrounded the house and met heavy automatic gunfire from within. During the firefight, Farooqi and two others were killed, and three alleged accomplices were arrested. According to official leaks, Farooqi might have been close to Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a Libyan alleged to be al-Qaeda's head of Pakistan operations, who could now also have been arrested.
"Farooqi's elimination is a crushing blow to the al-Qaeda network in Pakistan because he was the man who had been providing al-Qaeda terrorists with the manpower to carry out attacks," a senior Pakistani security official was quoted by the French news service Agence France-Presse as saying.
Certainly, this is the view now widely disseminated in the international media, and used as proof that Musharraf is keeping up his side of the bargain in hunting down al-Qaeda operatives in the US's "war on terror".
However, extensive Asia Times Online research throws up a different picture.
Before the "war on terror" was launched after September 11, 2001 - when Musharraf threw in his lot with the US - Farooqi was an impoverished foot soldier in a jihadi organization. It is only in the past six months that he has suddenly emerged as a "kingpin" and super villain, with the source invariably being from the official side.
Farooqi never got to tell his side of the story. His last words, as he lay mortally wounded, were, "Oh God, you are the only one who sees." He then recited a few verses from the Koran and died.
Apart from a few paragraphs in the Punjab police's "red book", Farooqi led a largely insignificant life, until, overnight almost, he was elevated to being close to Khalid Shiekh Mohammed, mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
According to information gathered by Asia Times Online from various sources, including his native villagers, jihadi friends and security files, Farooqi was born in the early 1970s in Chak 487 GB. Tehsil Samoundri, District Faisalabad, to a family that had migrated to Pakistan at independence in 1947 from Indian Punjab's Houshyarpur district.
Farooqi's childhood was passed in extreme poverty, and in need of a better life his family sent him to an uncle's home in Toba Tek Singh, where he completed his intermediate studies. Amjad had three brothers and three sisters. The most educated in the family is brother Javaid Iqbal, a graduate who now runs a private school. The other brothers are Fida Hussain, 28, and Amir, 22. The sisters, Zahida Parveen, Shahida Parveen and Khalida Parveen, are all married in different villages in Shiekupura and Faisalabad.
Farooqi married his maternal uncle's only daughter, Shabana Kausar, six years ago. They have a daughter. Shabana Kausar has lived at her father-in-law's residence since October 2001, when the US attacked Afghanistan. Since about that time, Farooqi had been in hiding as he was wanted in connection with the Pearl murder. Shabana Kausar has two brothers, Shebaz and Aqlak.
Different sources in his native town of Toba Tek Singh told Asia Times Online that Farooqi collected funds for jihadis in the 1980s, and he was known to have taken part in the Afghan jihad against the Soviets in 1987. Later he made many visits of Kashmir and Afghanistan, like thousands of other jihadi foot soldiers. He was also associated with the Harkatul Ansar (HA). The HA emerged from the Harkat-i-Jihad-i-Islami, which was declared a terror organization by the US in the 1990s. The HA is led by Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil. Later he was thought to have been in contact with the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), a banned Pakistani outfit involved in sectarian killings.
Punjab police intelligence departments files mention Farooqi as active with the LJ's commander, Shakil Ahmed, who was later killed in a police encounter near Wehyari (Punjab). Soon after Farooqi's name appeared in these files, intelligence organizations, including Inter-Services Intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau, studied his files, but failed to definitively link him to any organization. Several called him a stand-alone operator.
Subsequently, a high-profile official report allegedly based on investigations from several intelligence sources maintained that he was in contact with militants in South Waziristan, and that he also acted as a go-between for Khalid. The same report said that Farooqi was a lieutenant of the founder of jihadi outfits in Pakistan, Saifullah Akhtar, who was recently arrested in the United Arab Emirates and handed over to Pakistan.
Along with his alleged connection with Pearl's murder and the assassination attempts on Musharraf, in which junior army officers were also said to be involved, the heat was on Farooqi now.
Different proxy intelligence networks informed the security agencies about his presence in Faisalabad, Kamalia, Karachi and Waziristan. In a matter of a few months, about 50 raids were conducted to find him. According to Criminal Investigation Department records, on January 11 this year a raid was conducted on Farooqi's father-in-law's house, number 687/27 GB, Tehsil Kamalia district, Toba Tek Singh. Six people were arrested, including his brother-in-law Aqlak and cousin Attaul Manan.
After this raid, there is no record of any further ones, although police and security agencies from time to time claimed that they were near to arresting Farooqi. Asia Times Online reported on September 28 that Farooqi was probably arrested some months ago (In Pakistan, dead men tell no tales).
Identity crisis
According to Asia Times Online sources, Farooqi's death did not play out as planned. The authorities wanted to keep the encounter - which could well have been staged - a secret until Musharraf returned from his overseas visit to the US, at which time Farooqi's body would be produced.
However, a Dubai-based television channel broke the news of the encounter just a few hours after it took place. The Ministry of Information immediately intervened and ordered all stations to remove the clip. But Reuters news agency had already picked up the item and distributed it all over the world, although quoting senior officials who would not confirm Farooqi's death.
By Tuesday morning the media were full of reports on Farooqi's death, and the establishment reacted by releasing what it claimed was Farooqi's computerized identity document. No one is questioning that Farooqi is the one who was killed in the shootout - it was him.
What is at issue is the identity card shown to the media. A number of significant details indicate that it could not have been Farooqi's legitimate one - from the fonts used in its design to the data it carried, and importantly, that it was computerized - such cards only came into force after Farooqi had been declared a wanted man. How, then, could he have obtained an official ID? It appears that having been forced into making a hasty announcement, the establishment did a poor job on faking the ID.
In the end, though, the officials produced their "high value" target, which pleases the US, and with the murder of Pearl and the assassination attempts on Musharraf pinned on Farooqi, awkward questions over these issues can be laid to rest.
Remember Farooqi's dying words," Oh God, you are the only one who sees."
(Mohammed Tahir, editor of Weekly Wajood, also contributed to this report.)
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=78837
Does Bin Laden still count?
Wednesday September 29, 2004 (1417 PST)
KABUL: What has happened to Osama Bin Laden? Is he dead? On the run? Or readying for new attacks on the US?.
These are questions that have been asked almost constantly for the past three years, but have a particular resonance now.
On the two previous anniversaries of the 11 September attacks, Bin Laden made some kind of appearance.
In 2003, it was video footage of him walking in the mountains, although it was unclear when it was filmed.
In 2002, his voice was heard on a video praising those who had carried out the attacks on New York and Washington.
But so far this September, we have yet to hear from him.
Jihadist insurgency
The last statement which is believed to have come from Bin Laden himself was the audio message of 15 April.
In it, he gave Europe three months to consider an offer of a truce if it committed to not attacking Muslims or interfering in their affairs.
There have been no major attacks in Europe since the end of that deadline.
A video did appear from Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's deputy leader, on 9 September which was designed to boost the morale of jihadis by playing up America's problems in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course, Bin Laden's non-appearance cannot be read in itself as a sign that he has died or is no longer hard at work - he could well be biding his time waiting to appear to gloat after a major attack on the US, an attack that American officials say could come in the next few months around election time.
However, his non-appearance still raises important questions about what exactly his role is in al-Qaeda and the broader global jihadist insurgency.
Pulling the strings?
Since 2001, there has been a tendency from both the media and some politicians to personalise the conflict, setting up Osama Bin Laden as an all-powerful puppet master, pulling the strings of a global network that reports to him, and is responsible for every attack.
Before September 2001, there was some evidence to back up that view.
In the case of the 11 September plot itself, the recently released US independent report makes clear that Bin Laden was involved in the plot to a greater level than thought before, actually making changes to details of the plans and intervening over when the attacks should take place.
But things have changed over the past few years. The US has been saying that three-quarters of al-Qaeda's known leadership has been captured or killed.
The core of its leadership is undoubtedly under pressure and having to take extreme care over movements and communications, limiting its ability to direct plans - video messages can provide many clues on location which may be one reason they do not appear so often.
But the problem is that Bin Laden's jihadist ideology has spread like a virus around the world.
Mystique of invincibility
Many of the attacks, like those in Madrid and Jakarta this year, almost certainly were not centrally directed by al-Qaeda but launched by groups and individuals who follow Bin Laden's ideological agenda.
In some cases, individuals and networks have been inspired by Bin Laden but may never have trained at his camps in Afghanistan.
In other cases, existing regional groups have adopted al-Qaeda's narrative of needing to target the "far enemy" of the US and western interests rather than just the local state which they have always been fighting.
New leaders are emerging on the local level, sometimes with limited links to Bin Laden, who can build their own networks and stage their own attacks.
The best example of this is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in Iraq who has never been formally part of al-Qaeda itself, and has built his own parallel network.
There has, of course, been speculation that there will be particularly strenuous efforts to find Bin Laden in the run-up to the US presidential election in November.
Personification of the threat
On one level, this would be a huge morale boost for the US and a blow to al-Qaeda's supporters, undermining Bin Laden's mystique as some invincible leader.
But some analysts believe Bin Laden's departure from the scene would have only a limited impact on the overall level of violence.
"In reality it's going to make no difference whatsoever, because his ideology has now infected individuals and groups right across the globe," says MJ Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation.
"From the very beginning, there has been a mistake in understanding the terrorist threat we face. We're not dealing here with a single organisation, a single command and control structure. We're dealing with an ideology and an ideology is very difficult to defeat."
Getting rid of Bin Laden might simply reveal the complex reality of local conflicts, with their roots in specific ethnic, regional issues, and the ideology will live on after its propagator has passed from the scene.
With the personification of the threat gone, it may also make it harder for American politicians to generate the kind of domestic support needed to continue the fight.
'Strategic guidance'
Others disagree, arguing that even though he is unlikely to have been involved in planning and executing most of the attacks since 11 September, 2001, Bin Laden still plays a central role in communicating broad strategic objectives which others will then carry out in their own time and manner.
"There's a conventional wisdom that it doesn't matter if Osama Bin Laden is captured or killed, which I think is erroneous," argues Peter Bergen - one of the few western journalists to have interviewed the al-Qaeda leader.
"Both Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri continue to influence the broader al-Qaeda movement, giving them broad strategic guidance via the medium of these audio tapes.
"For instance Bin Laden called for attacks on members of the coalition in Iraq, there were then attacks on Italian police barracks in southern Iraq; there were attacks on the British bank and consulate in Turkey, there was the attack in Madrid."
Capturing or killing Bin Laden remains a key goal for the United States. Doing so would undoubtedly be a major morale booster and would also have some impact on the direction of the struggle - but it almost certainly would not end it.
http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=78731
Pentagon to field more sophisticated surveillance on Pakistani border
Tuesday September 28, 2004 (1448 PST)
ISLAMABAD, September 29 (Online): The Pentagon is considering to add more sophisticated surveillance equipment to trap Osama bin Laden and his top aide, Aimen Al-Zawahri along Pakistani border, reported CNN quoting official sources.
E-8 Joint Stars, the long-range, aerial surveillance aircraft can locate, classify and track ground targets in any type of weather and it also can receive a video feed from a Predator drone and then mark targets for attack, it said.
RC-135 Rivet Joint, another sophisticated a long-range, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft that can travel more than 500 mph, sources added.
The decision to send the RC-135 and E-8 Joint STARS to the Pakistan-Afghan border region hasn't been made yet, but sources said the capabilities of both aircraft would be crucial to the strategy of tracking down Osama bin Laden in the area.
Besides Unmanned Predator drones, U-2 spy plane, Satellite communication, Unattended ground sensors (UGS), Satellite communication, Border search, the couple of E-8 Joint Stars and RC-135 Rivet Joint would supplement the ground forces to trap down the OBL and his top aides who, according to US reports were hiding in Pakistan tribal belt.
Unmanned Predator drones, equipped with cameras that can spot vehicles and people, will fly at 25,000 feet. Predators are equipped with special radar that enables them to fly through clouds. Some of the drones may also carry Hellfire missiles.
U-2 spy planes will fly at 70,000 feet, taking photographs, using radar and intercepting communications. The United States designed the U-2, which can fly at a speed of 475 mph (Mach 0.68), in 1955 to spy on the Soviet Union.
Data from both the planes and sensors will be sent nearly instantaneously via satellite to analysts.
Ground sensors may be placed -- either buried by troops or dropped from a plane -- along mountain passes to listen for vehicles. The sensors detect sound and motion and communicate that information to military analysts via satellite.
Data from both the planes and sensors will be sent nearly instantaneously via satellite to analysts.
The search is concentrated on the mountains along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States does not have any troops in Pakistan, but the Pakistani military is cooperating and conducting its own hunt for bin Laden.
http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=78718
Man who arranged house for Farooqi arrested
Tuesday September 28, 2004 (1439 PST)
NAWABSHAH, September 29 (Online): Security agencies Tuesday arrested Maulvi Muhammad Younis, who allegedly harbored slain terror suspect, Amjad Farooqi.
Maulvi Muhammad Younas reportedly provided guarantee of Farooqi to property dealer Hafiz Nisar in hiring a house at Ghulam Haider Shah Colony. Farooqi was killed by security troops in the same house.
Hafiz Nisar told the law enforcement agencies that Maulvi Muhammad Yunas introduced Amjad Farooqi to him and on his personal guarantee, he arranged house for suspect.
Secret agencies raided a house of Qari Muhammad Yusnas, a teacher at Madras Dar-ul-Uloom, Nawabshah and shifted him to some unidentified destination.
Spree of arrests continuing following Farooqi killing
The law enforcement agencies have made more arrests from all the four provinces on the information of arrested accomplices of Amjad Farooqi, a top al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan who was killed in a shoot out on Sunday in Nawab Shah.
All the people picked up police are believed to be involved in terrorist activities. A huge quantity of arms has also been seized from their possession.
Sources from National Crisis Management Cell informed Online that majority of the suspect terrorists were captured from Sindh and NWFP on Tuesday. Militants in small number have been apprehended from Punjab and Balochistan. The arrests of remaining alleged terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda are expected within twenty-four hours.
Sources told that Farooqi was number one leader of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and was directly linked to Faraj and Hamza Rabia, who were involved in terrorist activities in and outside Pakistan.
It was also learnt that Farooqi was hiding in tribal areas for the last ten months and was sponsoring terror offensives there.
Farooqi was killed in gun battle the same day he returned from NWFP to Nawab Shah.
As per information provided by the detained accomplices of Farooqi, he was planning to kidnap very important personality of the country and he had also devised scheme to murder leading personalities through remote control plane.
Sources further told that the personalities who were playing key role in elimination of terrorism from the country were on the hit list of Farooqi.
Sources disclosed that the information rendered by accomplices of Farooqi were also shared with the provincial governments in the inter-provincial meeting held in interior ministry on Tuesday. Directives have been issued to concerned quarters to beef up security in the light of these information.
If this is true then we can close this thread:
http://www.novinite.com/newsletter/print.php?id=39788
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor believed to be the second-in-command of terror network Al Qaeda, has reportedly been captured.
Arab media report that Osama bin Laden's top deputy has been arrested by Pakistani soldiers
"Pentagon is considering to add more sophisticated surveillance equipment to trap Osama bin Laden and his top aide, Aimen Al-Zawahri"
Glad everyone has been informed.........
But, will this thread still be active in November?
However, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-9-2004_pg7_24
Families of arrested army officers appeal to MMA for help
LAHORE: The families of six army officers arrested last year for having links with Al Qaeda contacted the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) to help them get the officers released, a source in the religious parties alliance told Daily Times on Wednesday.
The army officers were also accused of involvement in plots to kill General Pervez Musharraf last year. Major Adil Qadoos was arrested on March 1, Col Abdul Ghaffar and Major Roheel Faraz on March 4, Col Khalid Mahmood on March 30, Major Ataullah Watoo on May 26, and Captain Dr Usman Zafar was arrested in August 2003.
According to the MMA source, the families of these officers are not allowed to meet them and officials have been pressurising them not to protest their arrests. The families told the MMA that the officers were suffering from serious ailments. "Col Khalid has kidney problems and Major Adil is a heart patient. No allegation and charge sheet has been presented so far. The MMA must play an active role to release the detainees."
According to the source, MMA leaders told the families that they should wait patiently while the case is in court, but that the matter would be taken up at their next supreme council meeting. It remains to be seen whether the MMA is in a position to help these families or is willing open a new front against the government. staff report
I want nothing more than Adm to post that Zawahiri and Bin Laden have been captured so we can close this thread for good.
Amazing how only 4 or 5 people can post a 1,000+ post thread...old Nek is moldering in his grave and we are using him like the dude from Weekend at Bernies.
LoL.
That bit of "news" has been reposted several times via several sources over the past 2wks. And I think it enjoyed some attention about a month prior and then a month or 2 prior still.
It's a popular post. Unfortunately, the U.S. denies it every time.
Hey, we'd been on Nek's trail a long time. Remember this?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1137369/posts?page=51,10
;~ )
Pakistani Authorities Arrest Libyan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1231687/posts
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