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THE ROVING
EYE
OSAMA
AT LARGE, 5: Intelligence matters
By Pepe
Escobar
 Part
1: Get him before Sept 11
Part
2: What he's up to
Part
3: The sheikh against the Saudi
Part
4: Tracking al-Qaeda in Europe
PARIS -
Ghasub Al-Abrash Ghalyoun, alias Abu Musaf, the
super-tourist who used his camcorder to film all
possible angles of the Twin Towers and also the Golden
Gate bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the Sears Tower in
Chicago and Disneyland, is the latest suspected al-Qaeda
big fish arrested in Spain in sweeping investigations
conducted by the relentless, media-darling judge
Baltazar Garzon.
Along with Abu Obed, also
arrested in Madrid, and Abu Aldar, arrested in
Castellon, Abu Musaf was presented by Spanish Interior
Minister Angel Acebes as a nearly-certified top al-Qaeda
operative. The Spanish government's case basically rests
on the fact that the three men are linked to Abu Dhadah,
arrested last November and suspected of being Osama bin
Laden's top man in Spain.
While intelligence
services in Europe keep nabbing the odd presumed
al-Qaeda member, in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of
Pakistan the story is completely different. Another
e-mail from a key intelligence-related source inside
Pakistan once more sends the message: "The new theater
of war is here." The Pentagon keeps hinting almost on a
daily basis at the presence of "international
terrorists" in the tribal areas. But a combination of
elite American soldiers, ultra-high-tech aerial
surveillance and close cooperation between the FBI and
the Pentagon has yielded absolutely no concrete
intelligence so far on the whereabouts of bin Laden,
Taliban leader Mullah Omar and other senior al-Qaeda
leadership.
According to the Pakistani source,
Afghans in Kabul are convinced that al-Qaeda was behind
the assassination of Afghan vice-president Haji Qadir,
the powerful former Pashtun governor of Nangarhar
province and brother of the famous mujahideen Abdul Haq,
trapped and killed by the Taliban last November. Even
Karim Khalili, one of the other Afghan vice-presidents,
said on the record that "we cannot reject al-Qaeda's
role". Afghan Defense Minister General Fahim and Foreign
Minister Abdullah Abdullah - both Tajiks - have already
stated that unspecified "terrorists" did it.
The
investigation in Kabul is being run by Hamid Karzai's
government in conjunction with the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF). According to the
Pakistani source, Pashtuns in the tribal areas don't
believe that this will be a neutral investigation: they
believe that the team will do everything in its power to
implicate al-Qaeda, even without evidence.
Meanwhile, everybody and his neighbor keeps
guessing the whereabouts of bin Laden - from the editor
of the London-based Al Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, Abdel
Bari Atwan, to the president of Germany's Foreign
Intelligence Service (BND), August Hanning. Bin Laden
may be "somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistani border",
according to Hanning. According to Asia Times Online's
sources, he may actually be hidden in the bowels of a
big Pakistani city. American so-called intelligence is
spreading everywhere in the tribal areas - especially in
the ultra-sensitive Waziristan agency, and also in
Khyber agency, operating with the Pakistani army and the
Pakistani Frontier Corps. But one wonders whether the
deadly combination of summer heat, endless kebabs,
endless cups of green tea, no Bud light and no babes is
actually sapping American will.
The Pakistani
source also adds that the Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh saga
is far from over - even with a verdict of death by
hanging. Saeed - who was sentenced on Monday for his
part in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl in January - was tried in a secret
Pakistani court in the bunker basement of Hyderabad
prison, far away from Karachi. Everybody involved -
especially the judges - feared a terrorist attack.
Daniel Pearl's body was never positively identified. The
DNA analysis of the remains was sent to Pakistani and
American labs. The result was kept top secret.
Moshi Imam, Saeed's lawyer, said that his client
was condemned to death by hanging only because "Pakistan
wanted to appease the US". He is appealing the verdict,
a process that could take many years. The US wanted
Saeed extradited because the CIA badly wanted to know
about his ties with al-Qaeda. Pakistan firmly denied the
request. Why? The Pakistani source is adamant: "Saeed
would tell the Americans everything about the
compromising links between al-Qaeda and the ISI
[Inter-Services Intelligence.]"
George Joffe, a
researcher from the Center of International Studies in
Cambridge, England recently warned in a seminar in Paris
that "the Americans are bungling up causes and effects".
American national interests are being justified on a
"moral" basis - and nobody is paying any attention to
the deep causes of "international terrorism". According
to Joffe, "Whatever he engineers short term, [President
George W] Bush risks long term to amplify the
instability he is committed to erase."
That's
exactly what bin Laden is betting on. His operatives
seem to have suggested to Al Quds Al-Arabi newspaper
that they would soon strike again at the US to
capitalize on Arab resentment and anger concerning
unlimited American support for Israel and the Pentagon's
plans to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Joffe, in
Europe, agrees: an attack on Iraq would be "the ideal
fuel to increase anger, and this is exactly what
al-Qaeda wants. Its actions would be even more justified
than before September 11. So we are working against our
own interests, while we should be convincing Muslim
populations not to follow bin Laden."
As
American intelligence finds nothing in the tribal areas,
al-Qaeda prepares another hit. We have been warned: bin
Laden will be back, on video, on Al Jazeera. But, as his
operatives stressed, "only when he has something to
discuss".
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
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