Missile kills Pakistan tribal head

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-3-2005_pg7_30

Osama tried to talk with Zarqawi through Pakistani

DUBAI: Osama Bin Laden attempted to communicate with Al Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a month ago through a letter that was seized when a ground courier in Pakistan was intercepted, a counter-terrorism expert said here on Monday.

"About four weeks ago, we intercepted communication between Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi," which occurred when "a ground courier was intercepted," Bob Newman, director of international security and counter-terrorism services with The GeoScope Group, told an Airport, Port and Terminal Security (APTS) Middle East conference.

"We (US intelligence) intercepted the man and looked in his pockets. That's how we found out," he added. Newman, whose Colorado-based organization provides teams to help track down terror suspects at the planning stage, later told reporters the courier was stopped in west Pakistan, "carrying a letter." afp

More news on Newman's Colorado based org.................

125 Al-Qaeda members arrested on dhows stopped in Gulf waters: expert

DUBAI - Fourteen dhows intercepted in Gulf waters since January carried 125 suspected Al-Qaeda members who have been detained by US or other authorities, a counter-terrorism expert in the region said Monday.

The traditional wooden boats "are being used here in the Gulf by Al-Qaeda on a daily basis," Bob Newman, director of international security and counter-terrorism services with GeoScope Group, said on the sidelines of an Airport, Port and Terminal Security (APTS) Middle East conference in Dubai.

"So far this year, 14 dhows have been intercepted in the Gulf region. Many more have been stopped," said Newman, whose Colorado-based organization provides teams to help track down terror suspects at the planning stage.

Their 125 crew members, who he said had all admitted to being "members" of Al-Qaeda, were either sent to the United States "or to countries they were coming from or going to".

The dhows were being used to move personnel, weapons and money, he said.

Maritime authorities are "also finding a lot more drugs. Al-Qaeda are financing weapons and logistics via opium", because the United States has "seized their money" since the September 11, 2001 attacks, he said.

Amid the threat from Al-Qaeda to Gulf countries, "governments in the region are cooperating heavily with each other," Newman told reporters.

Saudi Arabia, which has been battling a deadly wave of violence since May 2003 blamed on Al-Qaeda sympathisers, has thwarted "an incredible number of attacks", he said.

But the threat is "still brewing" in neighbouring Kuwait, the site of four gunbattles in January between Islamist militants and security forces, he said.

"We collect (arrest) people from all over, from taxi drivers in Qatar to janitors in Kuwait," said Newman. Plans for attacks on "governments, embassies and housing compounds in the region" had been uncovered.

The threat in the area is highest in Saudi Arabia, "Kuwait is number two," with Qatar behind, said Newman. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government, meanwhile, "has been very quiet in its counter-terrorism plans."

There have been "between 10 and 12 ... very quiet, major arrests throughout the UAE" since 2002, said Newman, adding that all were allegedly Al-Qaeda members who included Tunisians, Algerians, Iranians, Syrians and Saudis.

"They were not doing operational planning here, but were only here for meetings and just passing through," he said.

US-led forces to pull out of western Afghanistan: commander

KABUL, March 14 (AFP) - The US-led military will pull out its troops from western Afghanistan this summer and move them to the restive south and east to tackle Taliban militants, a US commander said Monday.

NATO-led peacekeepers who arrived early this month will then take over the American operations in the west, said Colonel Phillip Bookert, commander of coalition forces in western Afghanistan.

"I think I'm handing over a very stable situation," the colonel told reporters in Kabul, adding that the new locations for the US troops had not yet been decided.

Washington has strongly pressed for the 8,300-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to expand into Afghanistan's remote and rugged west in a bid to reduce pressure on stretched American forces in Iraq and worldwide.

An initial deployment of Italian troops started to arrive on March 2 in the main western city of Herat, where they will later be joined by soldiers from Spain, Greece and Lithuania.

Bookert's 2,400-strong force, which includes soldiers from Afghanistan's new national army, will hand over of reconstruction teams working in the provinces of Herat, Farah, Ghor and Badghis. All except Ghor border Iran in the west.

One team, in Farah province, will remain under the control of US forces, the colonel said.

The US-dominated coalition has more than 18,000 soldiers who are hunting down Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants since it toppled the ultra-Islamic regime at the end of 2001.

ISAF has been deployed in Afghanistan under a United Nations mandate for the same period of time, but only came under full NATO command in 2003.

Until now its troops have been deployed in the Afghan capital Kabul and the north of the country. In February NATO defence ministers agreed at a meeting in Nice, France, to move its rebuilding efforts into the west.

Pak's Khan and Mehmood met Osama: Report

Press Trust Of India
Posted online: Sunday, April 03, 2005 at 1331 hours IST
Updated: Sunday, April 03, 2005 at 1335 hours IST

New Delhi, April 3: Pakistani scientists Abdul Qadeer Khan and Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood had held meetings with Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, exchanged letters with militant organisations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and attended their gatherings and rallies, a media report said.

"When the CIA searched Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood's UTN (Umma Tameere-Nau) office in Kabul, they found large amounts of data on the construction and maintenance of nuclear weapons from the Kahuta laboratories. It also found letters exchanged between the UTN and islamist extremist organisations including Lashkar-e-Toiba", a report in Pakistani weekly said.

Mehmood, a close confidante of A.Q. Khan and a former Director of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, was arrested on October 23, 2001, at the headquarters of the UTN which he had set up for 'humanitarian work in Afghanistan, it said.

Quoting the famed journal Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the article said Khan and Mehmood and other scientists of his organisation 'attended Lashkar-e-Toiba gatherings'.

Khan also appeared in the rallies of the LeT headed by Hafeez Saeed. The militant outfit, which later changed its name to Jamaat al-Dawaa after being banned, "is alleged to have helped in equipping Al Qaeda with 'dirty bombs', the article said.

Mehmood, who was used to enrich uranium in Pakistan's Khushab plant, and Khan were also known to have held meetings with top Al Qaeda leaders including Osama bin Laden, the paper said.

The Friday Times said Mehmood "may have been a genius but he was crazy in his religious zeal" and had a firm belief that plutonium enrichment in Pakistan "should not be kept secret and should be passed around to islamic countries to challenge Israel and the West. He also had expert knowledge of the global nuclear black market".

After his arrest, Mehmood had denied he had ever met bin Laden. However, after months of questioning "he admitted to having met Osama, Al Zawhiri and other Al Qaeda members repeatedly, including on the day Al Qaeda struck in New York" (9/11).

The weekly said, "this time he (Mehmood) disclosed that he discussed the bombing of an American city with nuclear weapons. He told the CIA that Osama had obtained fissile material from the islamic movement of Uzbekistan of Tahir Yuldashev, recently said to be in hiding in South Waziristan. Mehmood said he had passed on information on nuclear technology to Osama, but had not discussed creating a Hiroshima-like nuclear blast in America".

When he was thereafter subjected to a lie detector test, he failed it", the weekly said.

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=44314

Note: This is from an Indian newspaper

Has anybody heard from Jeffers lately?

This is important

Back on Osama's trail
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD Both Pakistani and US intelligence believe that they are hot on the heels of Osama bin Laden, after his trail went cold months ago.

"Both the US and concerned Pakistani authorities are positive that in the coming days we shall be around Osama bin Laden," a senior Pakistani official told Asia Times Online in an exclusive interview, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The potential breakthrough in the hunt for bin Laden follows the arrest of al-Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al-Libbi in Pakistan last week, and an important lead he divulged during interrogation. Abu Faraj was interrogated by various agencies, including Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, Britain's MI6 and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This is according to the Pakistani official, who was assigned by Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf - the target of two assassination attempts allegedly masterminded by Abu Faraj - to coordinate and oversee investigations involving recent al-Qaeda detainees in Pakistan.

"The arrest of al-Libbi has only one significance for Pakistan, and that is that he was involved in assassination plots on Musharraf. Apparently there is no way that we will get Osama bin Laden through al-Libbi. MI6 also interrogated al-Libbi separately, and they are also of this opinion, that al-Libbi is little more than a foot soldier and no way eligible to be named as an operational chief. However, US interrogators have a different opinion and they call al-Libbi the catch of the year," the official said.

"Nevertheless," said the official, "the arrest cannot be down-played as insignificant. During interrogation, al-Libbi pointed [out] Bajur Agency, a tribal area situated in North West Frontier Province, where we found an al-Qaeda sanctuary and arrested many important operatives, including an Uzbek."

Despite repeated questioning from Asia Times Online, the official refused to say whether the Uzbek was the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Tahir Yaldevish, who has been widely reported to have been seen in Pakistan's tribal areas. "This is a state secret," the official said.

"Neither will I tell you his name nor give you any hint, but it is true that there is big 'head money' on him, and as a result of interrogations so far we are quite sure that through him we will be getting Osama bin Laden, or at least we will be around his sanctuary and be able to track his area of rotation. At present, we are completely in the dark."

The official believes that a breakthrough will come soon, but this carries problems. "After that [bin Laden's apprehension] a new debate will start on whether Osama should be arrested in Pakistan's tribal areas or not," said the official.

"I am not part of any strategic community, but my political acumen suggests that in the present drive we will find Osama bin Laden in our tribal areas, and I am sure we will soon ... we should try to push him to the other side of the border and then let US troops arrest him. He should not be arrested by or in Pakistan. Because if that happens, I tell you that the Pakistan army will lose its honor among the masses forever, and at the same time there would be retaliation against the government beyond our comprehension, and in that process anything is possible, real terrorism, bloodshed and even revolution," he continued.

Recalling his experience in dealing with the interrogation of the Uzbek, the official maintained that it had been "truly incredible".

"You can differ in ideologies, but it is difficult not to be impressed by conviction. We are politicians - compromise, retreat and lies are part of our business, but believe me, I passed one hour with that Uzbek and I admitted to myself some guilt - his unbreakable conviction for his cause was the reason.

"He was blindfolded, and when an interrogator served him a glass of water, he said, 'Make sure that it is [served] with the right hand, and not the left hand.' [as per Muslim custom] He gave a full lecture on their cause, and said that he had no regrets that he had joined al-Qaeda. He even recognized me from my voice, as he said that he had often heard me on television, and advised that I should take care as soon everybody 'would be accountable before Allah'.

"I am the person who is monitoring things very closely, and I see the arrest of bin Laden not very far away, this is the same opinion of the US authorities following al-Libbi's arrest. But whether it will bury extremism once and for all, or spark it, is a different debate," the Pakistani functionary commented.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GE14Df04.html

ADM.....I read this as someone who is preparing the general population for when Bin Laden is dragged from his spider hole.

They are laying the groundwork it seems.

add this

"While the leadership of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan remains loyal to Bin Laden, many compatriots have formed a splinter group. "These defectors are in regular touch with the Pakistani security agencies and US officials and they are helping us track down the militants," officials said. Divisions within al-Qa'eda have worsened since Arab fighters fled Afghanistan in 2001."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1403462/posts

read this brief: Hizb ut-Tahrir: An Emerging Threat to U.S. Interests in Central Asia

http://www.heritage.org/Research/RussiaandEurasia/BG1656.cfm

here is their official web site http://www.hizb-ut-tahrir.org/english/english.html

Keep an eye on Uzbekistan!

They are laying the groundwork it seems.

Maybe it's for real this time?

I hope Adm....I really hope so.

I guess this is related to the revolt in Uzbekistan. The war of the Caliphate clones (Khilafah State)...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GE14Ag01.html

Afghan violence linked to Hizbut Tehrir
By B Raman

"This is the biggest protest campaign in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban regime [in 2001]. This is bloody, widespread and countrywide.This also shows that they are fed up with the United States and they just needed a spark to vent their feelings."
- Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist who is considered an authority on the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, on May 12.

Yusufzai was talking about the violent anti-US and anti-Hamid Karzai demonstrations sweeping across Afghanistan since May 10, in protest against the alleged desecration of the Holy Koran by US guards at the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba, where about 500 Afghans, Pakistanis and other Muslims have been detained by the US authorities without trial and without giving them any right of access to human-rights organizations.

The demonstrations, often culminating in violence, which started at Jalalabad near the Pakistan border, have since spread to the northern provinces of Parwan, Kapisa and Takhar, Laghman in the east, Logar and Khost in the southeast and the southern province of Kandahar. It also spread to Kabul itself on May 12. According to the latest reports, 10 out of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan have been affected by the demonstrations and the resulting violence. The anger of the demonstrators has been directed not only against the US and President Karzai of Afghanistan, but also against Pakistan and the United Nations and Western non-governmental organizations functioning from Afghanistan. Their offices have been attacked, causing considerable property damage everywhere.

Though no fatalities have been inflicted on the security forces by the demonstrators, seven civilians have so far been killed and over 80 injured as a result of firing by Afghan and American security forces to disperse the demonstrators. Reports of the demonstrations received from several towns indicate the following common features:

The students spearheaded the demonstrations, in which a large number of educated people participated.
The demonstrations were not spontaneous. They had been well-prepared, and were well organized and well orchestrated. Groups of students went from town to town instigating the local students to take to the streets.
The demonstrators were not armed and confined their protests to shouting anti-US and anti-Karzai slogans, burning American and Pakistani flags and effigies of President George W Bush, Karzai and Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and attacking properties like buildings and vehicles.
The demonstrations were not instigated by the Taliban or the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or al-Qaeda. However, elements from the Taliban and the Hizb, who were taken by pleasant surprise by the students taking to the streets, subsequently joined them.
Many members of the police and the newly-raised Afghan army showed sympathy for the demonstrators and were reluctant to use force against them when ordered to do so by their senior officers.

Reports from Afghan sources indicate that the demonstrations have been organized by the Hizbut Tehrir (HT) and not by the Taliban, the Hizb or al-Qaeda. While one was aware of some HT activities in the student community in Afghanistan, the extent of its penetration not only in the student community, but also in the Afghan security forces, has come as a surprise.

In their preoccupation with fighting their so-called "war against al-Qaeda", the Taliban and the Hizb, American intelligence agencies and security forces seem to have remained oblivious of the subterranean activities of the HT, and have consequently been taken totally by surprise.

B Raman is additional secretary (retired), cabinet secretariat, government of India, New Delhi, and, presently, director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and distinguished fellow and convener, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. Email: itschen36@gmail.com

State, time for a decision:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GE12Ag02.html

The 'Talibanization' of Central Asia
By M K Bhadrakumar

Three successive waves of political Islam have swept over Central Asia during the 15-year period since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. They might seem dissimilar. But they have common elements - the most important being that they all had extra-regional profiles, even as they sought a habitation and name in the region. To the naked eye, they appear as interpolators on a civilization that was historically eclectic. They are the monstrous progenies of "foreign devils on the Silk Road" - of Central Asia's globalization.

The first wave of political Islam appeared in Tajikistan in 1992, seeking to make the country an Islamic state. The Islamic rebels were initially concentrated in the southern provinces of Kulyab and Kurgan Tyube, but incrementally linked up with elements in
neighboring Afghanistan. By 1996 they were operating from within Afghanistan. Their leaders were domiciled in Iran and Pakistan.

The Tajik civil war involved factions, but they were ideological overlaps of secular democracy, nationalist reformism and Islamization. A listing of the parties involved in the protracted Tajik peace process under United Nations auspices (1994-96) is revealing - Russia, the United States, Iran, Pakistan, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The American perspective on the Tajik civil war (1992-96) was that it was a power struggle involving clans or regional cliques, and was engineered by Russia with a view to justifying its military presence in Central Asia. But, its reasoning was seriously flawed - that there were no Islamist elements in Afghanistan interested in a spillover into Central Asia; the Taliban was an indigenous Afghan phenomenon who did not have any regional agenda; Afghan fratricidal strife was purely about capturing power in Kabul; and that the Taliban would be ultimately a factor of regional stability. (Americans were not alone living in a different intellectual universe. As late as June 1995, at a conference convened by the US Institute of Peace, French scholar Olivier Roy laughed off the very thought that there could be "revolution-exporting Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan".)

At any rate, alarmed by the ascendancy of the Taliban (leading to the capture of Kabul in 1996) and signs that the Tajik Islamists were increasingly coming under the influence of rival benefactors, Russia and Iran swiftly closed ranks to bring about a Tajik settlement, giving Tajik Islamists a role in the government in Dushanbe. Ironically, the regional rivalries hastened the Tajik settlement. The US, predictably, debunked the settlement and continued to move on the old track, encouraging Central Asian states to forge cooperative links with the Taliban regime in Kabul. This line continued almost right up to the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.

No sooner than the Tajik settlement came about, the Uzbek militants who fought alongside the Tajik Islamists broke away and linked up with the Taliban. The period from 1996-2001 saw the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) operating from Taliban-ruled areas within Afghanistan and stepping up violent activities inside Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in particular.

The IMU was the second wave of political Islam to appear in Central Asia. Unlike the Tajik Islamists, the IMU assumed distinct Wahhabi trappings, and called for jihad against the established secular regimes. The US approach was once again imbued with regional rivalry with Russia - that Russia was "exploiting" a non-existent threat of militant Islam for the sake of dominating Central Asia.

Washington proceeded to adopt an ambivalent attitude toward the regional initiative involving Russia and Central Asian states (and subsequently including Iran and India) for the strengthening of anti-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan. The American stance finally took a u-turn only with the September 11, 2001, attacks. The US went on to secure military bases in Central Asia on the new imperative to forge a common front against "Islamic terror".

The collaboration with al-Qaeda was certainly the IMU's (and Taliban leadership's) fatal mistake. In the American military intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001, the IMU's cadres retreated to Pakistan's tribal agencies - along with the Taliban. No one knows what happened thereafter. According to some Western media reports, the IMU leaders are in American custody.

At any rate, in the void left by the IMU, a third wave of political Islam has appeared in Central Asia - Hizbut Tehrir (HT - Party of Islamic Liberation). Unlike the earlier manifestations of political Islam, HT claims to be a pan-Islamic movement. HT subscribes to the goal of establishing a Sharia-based caliphate in Central Asia and "dividing Russia along the line of the Volga" so as to liberate the "originally Muslim lands".

HT remains in many ways an enigma wrapped in mystery - much like the Taliban. American media organs periodically interview HT spokesmen, but no one says where its leadership is based. HT is believed to be getting its financing from "Arab charities" and its "branches" in some Western countries. HT resembles a hierarchical pyramid consisting of five-member cells at its base, each with a leader. No two cells interact directly. Leaders of every four cells are grouped as a local body under a naquib who, in turn, belongs to a regional council headed by a muta'amad (head of a region). The muta'amads work independently under the amir's (supreme leader's) supervision. The entire arrangement is on a "need-to-know" basis.

The recruits are not required to have any detailed knowledge of Islam but must be committed to the jihad and the Sharia-based goals of the party. They attend clandestine "study classes" stretched over months that can extend up to 18 months. The curricula ranges from religion to world politics.

Without doubt, the great social and economic upheavals in the Central Asian region provide a fertile ground to HT. To quote the well-known scholar, Anatol Lieven, "In depressing circumstances, adherence to a radical Islamic network provides a sense of cultural security, a new community and some degree of social support - modest, but still better than anything the state can provide." Thus, American specialists on Central Asia have begun describing HT as the region's "most popular radical Islamic group".

The HT spokesmen openly acknowledge that the present "revolutionary climate" in Central Asia works to their advantage. Associated Press news agency reported on May 1 that, "according to Dr Imran Waheed, HT's London-based spokesman, the region remains a fertile recruiting ground, with local membership soaring". Western think-tanks estimate HT's hard core to be in the region of 20,000 cadres. Central Asian security agencies put the figure as 60,000. By any reckoning, HT would be the single-biggest cadre-based political movement today in the region. HT professes non-violent methods. But it is believed that HT has a parallel military structure. It is an intriguing thought how exactly HT co-relates with the dormant IMU cadres in Central Asia, estimated by Western intelligence agencies to be in the region of 3,000-5,000 militants.

Central Asian countries and Russia have proscribed HT as a terrorist organization. Uzbekistan has blamed HT and/or IMU for several incidents of violence. But the US refuses (unlike Germany) to list HT as a militant organization, apparently for want of evidence. Conceivably, the US's regional policy considerations would explain this differentiated approach. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization's lead role in combating religious extremism in the region after all makes this Russia and China's "crusade" against militant Islam.

Indeed, the leader of the Islamic Party of Tajikistan, Deputy Prime Minister Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, has alleged that HT is a Western-sponsored bogeyman for "remaking Central Asia". He said, "A more detailed analysis of HT's programmatic and ideological views and concrete examples of its activities suggests that it was created by anti-Islamic forces. One proof of this is the comfortable existence this organization enjoys in a number of Western countries, where it has large centers and offices that develop its concept of an "Islamic caliphate".

Osh and Jalalabad, the cities which spearheaded the regime change in Kyrgyzstan, happen to be HT strongholds. HT will hugely gain in an entire belt stretching from the Fergana provinces of Namangan, Andizhan and Kokand (contiguous to Osh and Jalalabad) to the adjacent Penjekent Valley (Uzbekistan) and Khojent (Tajikistan).

Similar to the early 1990s when the Taliban seemed an alternative to mujahideen misrule, it is tempting to view HT as a counterpoint to Central Asia's political elites. But can that be the whole picture? The Afghan experience should offer sobering thoughts. Afghanistan too, like Central Asia, had its history - into which Islamists were introduced as agents of change. Many thought that these Islamists would be birds of passage for a time of transition. Instead they settled in. So much so that Afghan President Hamid Karzai faces an existential dilemma distinguishing the good, bad and the ugly among them.

M K Bhadrakumar is a former Indian career diplomat who has served in Islamabad, Kabul, Tashkent and Moscow.

I did some reading up on Uzbekistan yesterday, and posted an alqeada story link very similar to yours. Did a little reading on Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, too. I believe there was mention of Tahir Yaldevish possibly being given safe haven in Iran.

Daily Terrorist Round-Up 5/14/05 (Zarqawi is Dead-Again, The New #3 in AQ is Killed)

Posted by nuconvert to Straight Vermonter
On News/Activism 05/14/2005 4:35:30 AM PDT · 14 of 32

"The official told Asia Times Online that Libbi’s arrest was not insignificant, since he highlighted Bajur Agency in the North West Frontier Province during interrogation and intelligence agencies found an Al Qaeda camp and arrested many important operatives, including an Uzbek.

However, the official refused to say whether the Uzbek was Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader Tahir Yaldevish, who has been reportedly seen in Pakistan’s tribal areas."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,156412,00.html

Where have you been lately?

I wonder if some of the Uzbeks from the Afghan-Pakistan border have found think to be a little too unpleasant there and have gone home? Could they be behind some of the trouble in Uzbekistan?

Islam Karimov is of the opinion that the rebellion is instigated by Washington to replace him. He also thinks that the Saudi government is working with Washington in this project.

I anticipate that the rebellion is mainly due to the Karimov-clan trying to take control of the economy in Uzbekistan and that the other clans said enough-is-enough.

We should support the eradication of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and the sharing of power among the clans and an end of the corruption.

informative piece

I think he has the Saudi part right

Yes, Saudi is active there, but probably not working on our side.

We should support the eradication of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and the sharing of power among the clans and an end of the corruption.

We are at an interesting crossroads in the WOT. In his inaugural address Mr Bush spoke about the need to promote democracy as a means to limit terrorism. We seemed to have moved Egypt in that direction but are we going to be willing to push allies in the WOT to do the same? Will we urge Musharraf to hold presidential elections in Pakistan? Will we press Karimov to do the same? Will we support democratic elections in west African states like Mauritania where Islamists will likely win?

Doing so may hurt us in the WOT but not doing so will undermine our reputation irreparably and incite more to oppose us.

I take the longer view and say we must support democratic reforms even if it means pulling our support (and our troops) out of a country like Uzbekistan.