Asia Times: India/Pakistan


	June 21, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

New phase in Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Under a twofold strategy to pin down US forces in Afghanistan and to strengthen the hand of dissident forces in Pakistan, al-Qaeda fighters have refined their operations to deepen the crisis in South Asia.

Well-placed intelligence sources confirm the strong presence of Arab (al-Qaeda) fighters all along the Pakistan-Afghan border near Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces in eastern Afghanistan. These fighters have recently been engaged in heavy strikes on US forces, inflicting some casualties.

In one of the most recent forays near Khost, US marines chased Arab fighters, but they disappeared across the mountainous border into Pakistan's northern Waziristan tribal agency. The marines did succeed in recovering some rocket launchers, light machine-guns and hand grenades, which had been stashed in a cave.

The marines, believed to number more than 200 and equipped with heavy and light weapons, tried to follow their attackers into the tribal area, but elders there denied them entry. They promised that no infiltrators from Afghanistan would be granted refuge in the tribal areas, but at the same time they would not allow US forces to enter into their area.

Although largely unreported, sources within Afghanistan say that in the past few weeks guerrilla strikes against US forces have visibly increased. The shattered al-Qaeda and Taliban groups have begun to restore communications, which has allowed them to implement their new strategy against US forces.

Asia Times Online reported that after their retreat from the Shah-e-Kot region of Gardez in eastern Afghanistan in the face of Operation Anaconda in March, that the next theater of conflict between US forces and al-Qaeda would be in southern Afghanistan. This is now happening, with fighters emerging from Pakistan, where they had taken shelter with the help of the local population.

The US-based Christian Science Monitor published a story on April 1 about the southern village of Zerok, where Taliban and al-Qaeda members had infiltrated. The villagers were at first in their favor, but they became afraid that US military strikes would devastate their crops (poppy) and their houses. As a result, the villagers refused to cooperate with their foreign visitors.

This forced the Taliban and al-Qaeda to rethink a new strategy under which they gave up all activities for a while and quietly worked to restore their communication links. They agreed that all future activities would be coordinated with the aim of engaging US forces in many areas at the same time.

In terms of this plan, any one action will serve as a signal for another action elsewhere. For instance, it has been agreed that a bomb blast in Khost will be the signal for a rocket attack on a US base in Paktia. These activities were decided after reviewing US air force and army movements for some time, and indeed, in the past week in Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Hilmand and Kandahar exactly this has happened.

Sources said that the same plan had been adopted for Pakistan, aided by disgruntled former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officials who have tapped into their underworld links to offer protection to many prominent al-Qaeda fighters. And as in Afghanistan, all actions will be carefully scripted.

For instance, a high-profile murder in Karachi will be the signal for al-Qaeda to detonate bombs in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The motive is to destabilize the country and give room for the anti-Musharraf lobby to grow in strength. Many in Pakistan bitterly resent that President General Pervez Musharraf sided with the US in its war in Afghanistan, at the expense of the Taliban, which the ISI had nurtured into power.

About three days ago, a notorious sectarian killer and chief of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Akram Lahori, was rounded up in Karachi. This group has risen to infamy by killing Shi'ite Muslims, but after the rout of the Taliban they changed their mission and sided with al-Qaeda people.

Talking to Asia Times Online, a senior police investigator revealed that these developments had become known following the imprisonment of a member of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Ahmed Omar Sheikh. Omar revealed that dozens of the group's activists had been prepared for suicide missions under the guidance of top al-Qaeda leaders holed up in different parts of the country.

Omar is also believed to have pointed investigators in the direction of Lahori, who has been implicated in many high-profile killings in Punjab, including that of a top Iranian diplomat. Whether Lahori in turn will be able to assist law-enforcing agencies against the creeping al-Qaeda presence in Pakistan remains to be seen.

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