THE ROVING
EYE The al-Zawahiri
fiasco By Pepe Escobar
It
featured all the trappings of a glorified video game.
Thousands of Pakistani army and paramilitary troops
played the hammer. Hundreds of US troops and Special
Forces, plus the elite commando 121, were ready to play
the anvil across the border in Afghanistan. What was
supposed to be smashed in between was "high-value
target" Ayman al-Zawahiri, as Pakistani President
General Pervez Musharraf enthusiastically bragged - with
no hard evidence - to an eager CNN last Thursday. But
what happened to this gigantic piece of psy-ops?
Nothing. And for a very simple reason: al-Qaeda's brain
and Osama bin Laden's deputy was never there in the
first place. And even if he was, as Taliban-connected
sources in Peshawar told Asia Times Online, he would
choose to die as a martyr rather than be captured and
paraded as a US trophy.
It now appears that
world public opinion fell victim to a Musharraf-inspired
web of disinformation. In the early stages of the battle
west of Wana in South Waziristan, Taliban spokesman
Abdul Samad, speaking by satellite telephone from
Kandahar province in Afghanistan, was quick to say that
talk of al-Zawahiri being cornered was "just propaganda
by the US coalition and by the Pakistani army to weaken
Taliban morale". Subsequently, Peshawar sources were
quoting al-Qaeda operatives from inside Saudi Arabia as
saying that both bin Laden and al-Zawahiri had left this
part of the tribal areas as early as January.
On
the Afghan side, General Atiquallah Ludin at the Defense
Ministry in Kabul was saying that "al-Qaeda cannot
escape or enter Afghan soil". But by this time the
majority of the mujahideen previously based in South
Waziristan had already managed to cross back to Paktika
province in Afghanistan - mostly to areas around Urgun,
Barmal and Gayan. This rugged, mountainous territory is
quintessentially Taliban. Many local Pashtun tribals
don't even know who (Afghan president) Hamid Karzai is.
It would have been almost impossible for the
mujahideen to cross to Paktika after the start of
operation "hammer and anvil". By last Saturday, Mohammed
Gaus, district mayor of Orgun - where the Americans keep
a base - was saying that "the Pakistanis seem to have
closed the border". The Americans have a main base in
the village of Shkin, in Paktika, less than 25
kilometers to the west of the battleground cordoned off
by the Pakistani army in South Waziristan. This base
accommodates not only the US Army, but contingents of
the Central Intelligence Agency and Special Forces, as
well as members of commando 121 itself (the "anvil"
side). On the "hammer" side, the Americans supply the
Pakistani army with satellite photos, intelligence
collected by drones and listening stations, and have
installed electronic sensors and radars along the
border.
All the time the Pakistani government
and army were insisting that the US did not put any
pressure on them to launch operation hammer and anvil.
So according to military spokesman Major General Sultan,
it was "just a coincidence" that US Secretary of State
Colin Powell was in Islamabad at the height of the
operation, and that Pakistan was being rewarded with the
status of major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization
ally.
High-value target Musharraf
swore that his commanders told him a "high-value target"
was in the South Waziristan tribal area, based on
American intelligence. Washington believed it, quoting
Pakistani intelligence. In the end, it was local
intelligence that revealed that the target may in fact
be Tahir Yuldash, who took control of the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan after its leader Juma Namangani
was killed by American bombing in November 2001 in
Afghanistan.
Yuldash may be the man in charge of
coordinating all Central Asian al-Qaeda and/or
affiliated jihadis: Uzbeks, Tajiks, Uighurs from China's
Xinjiang and Chechens. He is suspected of being holed up
in South Waziristan ever since he escaped the American
bombing of Tora Bora in December 2001. Alongside him
there is one Danyar, a Chechen commander, and of course
hundreds of Pashtun tribals.
Sources in Peshawar
told Asia Times Online that the "high value target"
actually managed to escape in the early stages of the
battle last week in a black, bullet-proof Toyota Land
Cruiser with tinted windows from a
fortress-cum-farmhouse right in the middle of the
battlefield, in the village of Kolosha. These sources
also confirm the Taliban claim that al-Zawahiri may have
left South Waziristan as early as January and no later
than early February, when word was rife all over the
tribal areas about the upcoming spring offensive.
The connection in Wana of Cobra helicopters
shooting missiles and a local hospital receiving a
stream of civilian victims, including women and
children, inevitably led the coalition of six religious
parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which won last
year's elections in the tribal areas, to furiously
accuse the Musharraf government. Many people believe
that the operation has been undertaken at the insistence
of the US, and as such it is tearing national unity
apart. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the firebrand leader of
the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), said this would lead to
"more terrorism in reaction to the persecution of
innocent civilians". And Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who
directs one of the most important madrassas
(religious schools) in Karachi and who is close to the
Taliban, added that "it will only create more hatred in
the country, and it won't solve the problem of
terrorism".
The way in which Islamabad has
alienated the Pashtun tribals suggests that the whole
operation may end up as a complete fiasco. The
Pakistanis had to arrest the wives of some mujahideen to
extract some kind of intelligence. Peshawar sources tell
Asia Times Online that average Pashtun tribals have been
the main victims all along. Local trucks and minibuses
have been nowhere to be seen for days. The roads are
sealed. Electricity has been cut off. Families fled
heavy bombing of "strategic targets" - on foot for
dozens of kilometers. Villagers were hit by mortar fire.
The Pakistani army used 15 Cobra helicopters, two F-17
fighters and dozens of artillery batteries. Contrary to
Islamabad's version, the mujahideen were not cornered in
one area - but in eight villages around the cities of
Wana and Azam Warsak: Kluusha, Karzi Kot, Klotay, Gua
Khua, Zera Lead, Sarahgor, Sesion Warzak and Wazagonday.
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto,
chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party, grumbled
that elected tribal leaders were not consulted about an
operation which had been planned for three months:
"Every high value target was allowed to escape months in
advance while the tribal population was used as a
sacrificial lamb to satisfy the power lust of the
regime." Benazir added that "even the international
media were duped into believing that al-Qaeda number two
Ayman al-Zawahiri was besieged, when in fact Chechen and
Uzbek fighters were said to be holed in the area".
The roughly 100 "suspects" captured so far by
thousands of Pakistani troops amount to an overwhelming
majority of Pashtun tribesmen - with a few low-ranking
Chechens and Uzbek fighters and certainly no high-value
Arab jihadis thrown in the mix. Word in Peshawar is that
the Pashtun fighters and jihadis had much better
intelligence than the Pakistani military. Peshawar
sources estimate that less than 10 jihadis were killed,
as opposed to almost 70 Pakistani soldiers and
paramilitary troops.
A graphic sign of failure
is that Islamabad was actually forced to negotiate after
a de facto ceasefire. Three-hundred to 500 mostly
Pashtun tribals, along with some low-level jihadis and
Taliban, do remain surrounded. Islamabad's line is that
tribes protecting "foreign terrorists" have no option
but to surrender them, or else die fighting.
Coincidentally, General John Abizaid, head of the US
Central Command, happens to be in Islamabad at the
moment on a semi-secret visit.
Any remaining
"high value target" in Wana may have escaped by now - in
a scheme not totally dissimilar to bin Laden's
spectacular escape from Tora Bora in December 2001. At
that time, hundreds of Arab and Chechen mujahideen put
up very strong resistance in the frontline, while the
"Sheikh" escaped to the Pakistani tribal areas using,
among other means, a few tunnels. So it's no surprise
that the Pakistanis have now also "discovered" a two
kilometer long tunnel under the houses of the
most-wanted tribal, Nek Muhammad. The tunnel may be
instrumental in covering the Pakistani army's backs.
An occupation army As Islamabad has
declared the tribal areas a no-go area for the foreign
press - unless in short, highly-choreographed escorted
tours - it's crucial to get a feeling of the terrain.
There's no "border" to speak of between both Waziristan
tribal agencies, North and South, and the Afghan
province of Paktika. During the anti-Soviet jihad in the
1980s, Waziristan was a prime mujahideen base. Afghan
jihadis married locally and became residents, along with
their families. During the Afghan war in 2001, al-Qaeda
jihadis also took local Pashtun wives. This means that
every mujahideen - Arab, Afghan and Arab-Afghan - enjoys
popular support.
As in most latitudes in the
tribal areas, most people carry a tribal-made
Kalashnikov and have been raised in madrassas
maintained by the JUI. Musharraf may now call them
terrorists, but the fact remains that every mujahideen
is and will be respectfully regarded by the locals as a
soldier of Islam. Moreover, al-Qaeda jihadis who settled
in Waziristan have managed to seduce tribals young and
old alike with an irresistible deluge of Pakistani
rupees, weapons and Toyota Land Cruisers.
The
Pakistani army is regarded as an occupation army. No
wonder: it entered Waziristan for the first time in
history, in the summer of 2002. These Pakistani soldiers
are mostly Punjabi. They don't speak Pashto and don't
know anything about the complex Pashtun tribal code. In
light of all this, the presence of the Pakistani army in
these tribal areas in the name of the "war on terror"
cannot but be regarded as an American intervention.
These tribes have never been subdued. They may even
spell Musharraf's doom.
What disappeared from
the news Musharraf's version of "wag the dog" -
call it "wag the terrorist" - may have served to divert
world attention from the tragedy in Iraq to the real
"war on terror". It was great public relations for
Washington, as the hunt for the invisible "high value
target" buried the fact that two Iraqi journalists
working for the al-Arabiya network were killed by the US
military; it buried Amnesty International reminding
everyone that 10,000 Iraqi civilians have died because
of the war; and it buried weekend protests against the
war in the US and Western Europe.
Musharraf
himself has a lot to answer for. Why did his government
and the Pakistani army not arrest al-Qaeda jihadis after
Tora Bora in December 2001, when everybody knew they
were in the tribal areas? It could have been only a
matter of military incompetence. But the word in
Peshawar is different: then, this was part of an
American-organized covert ops destined to keep the
al-Qaeda leadership alive, the main reason for the "war
on terror". Today, the "war on terror" still has no
credibility in these parts because it allows civilians
to be terrorized - just as has happened in Wana.
As Asia Times Online has warned ( More fuel to Pakistan's simmering
fire) what Islamabad has bought with hammer
and anvil is not just the resentment of a particular
tribal clan, but a full-fledged tribal revolt. Without
the support of tribal leaders and mullahs, there's no
way that Musharraf can play George W Bush's local cop in
the "war on terror" to Washington's satisfaction. Yet he
risks civil war in trying to do just this.
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It
featured all the trappings of a glorified video game.
Thousands of Pakistani army and paramilitary troops
played the hammer. Hundreds of US troops and Special
Forces, plus the elite commando 121, were ready to play
the anvil across the border in Afghanistan. What was
supposed to be smashed in between was "high-value
target" Ayman al-Zawahiri, as Pakistani President
General Pervez Musharraf enthusiastically bragged - with
no hard evidence - to an eager CNN last Thursday. But
what happened to this gigantic piece of psy-ops?
Nothing. And for a very simple reason: al-Qaeda's brain
and Osama bin Laden's deputy was never there in the
first place. And even if he was, as Taliban-connected
sources in Peshawar told Asia Times Online, he would
choose to die as a martyr rather than be captured and
paraded as a US trophy. 
