The Spring Initiative

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040317_193.html

HUNDREDS HIDING

Up to 600 foreign militants are believed to be hiding in the wild tribal belt near the Afghan border, where they are sheltered by Pakistani tribesmen. Kabul says members of the ousted Taliban regime use Pakistan as a base to launch attacks in Afghanistan.

Local people say foreign militants who fought the Soviets in neighboring Afghanistan during the 1980s were hailed by Pakistani authorities as heroes of Islam.

There was bewilderment and resistance among tribesmen after Islamabad, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, suddenly started calling the foreign militants ``terrorists.``

Witnesses said militants were aided by tribesmen during Tuesday`s clashes.

Security officials said 12 troops were missing and there were fears they had been kidnapped.

An official, who asked not to be named, said local authorities had been approached by militants who demanded the release of prisoners in exchange for the missing men.

Witnesses said the area of the fighting, 360 km (225 miles) southwest of Islamabad, was cordoned off and tensions were high.

They explained how paramilitary troops cordoned off two large mud and brick compounds in Kaloosha Tuesday where they suspected foreign militants and local supporters were hiding.

Militants opened fire, inflicting heavy losses on soldiers who did not appear to be prepared for such fierce resistance.

Cemendtaur #31 I appreciate your straight response this time, even if I dont agree fully with it.

I have two specific comments:

a. you write ``Not everything is public, but whatever drama you and I watched made it obvious that the US was not interested in dealing with the Taliban. [Conspiracy theory related to the Central Asian oil is worth analyzing.] ``

If the US was really not interested in dealing with the Taliban, all that the taliban had to do was to hand over ben laden to the US. If Bush was indeed bluffing when he made public his demands, that bluff would have been exposed. And rest assured that the US policy makers are smart enought to have realized this as well. And thus, Bush would never have gone public with his demands of the taliban unless he meant it.

Please review the logic of the above, and you will see that there is absolutely no question that Bush was sincere in his demands, and it was quite clearly the taliban who were neither smart nor sincere in their response (with their nonsense about sending a courier to ``request`` ben laden to leave Afghanistan of his own free will.
All these conspiracy theories (like oil pipelines etc) are exactly that: convenient theories that fall apart if one uses ones God-given faculties of seeing for oneself and reaching logical conclusions (as the Quran instructs muslims to do, and for which we will be held accountable as individuals on the Day of Judgement - and yet it is the muslims who violate this Quranic injunction when they ignore reality, refuse to distinguish between right and wrong, refuse to be fair in their conclusions, and embrace convenient theories).

You write ``It was Pakistan that tried to hammer some sense in the Taliban hardheads. But the people sent to Qun-dahar--this one is through a rumor that seems very plausible--instead of warning them of the imminent danger told the Taliban high command to remain steadfast. Once the war started the Pakistanis wished to see the Taliban replaced by a Pakhtoon group. But the US got impatient, and contrary to the advice of Pakistan decided to use the Northern Alliance. ``

This I think is by and large true, although I dont know to what extent the Pakistani generals talked about replacing taliban with some other pakhtoon group. In any case, the taliban were not about to leave just because some Pakistani general asked them to leave - at most they would have given the impression of handing over power to some other pathan group allied with the Pakistani generals: but it was the Pakistani generals themselves who created the mess in Afghanistan to begin with, and the US knew that.

You wrtie ``But I wonder how, doubting US`s sincerity in dealing with the Taliban makes one a friend or foe of the Muslim world.``

Today, 8 Pakistani soldiers died fighting the Al Qaeda/taliban scoundrels (and dispatched 24 of these terrorists to hell). In the past ten years, hundreds of innocent people in Pakistan have been killed in murderous attacks by mullahs. At the WTC 50 Pakistanis were murdered by these animals. Thousands of innocent people of other nationalities the world over have been killed by the terrorists. If the US had not been sucked in due to 9/11, there is no question in my mind that by now Pakistan would have been fighting a lonely civil war, because the maulvis had been getting ready to take over Pakistan itself (when I was in pakistan in 2001, I could almost sense this civil war coming and even wrote an article on it to chowk that never got publisehed).

I mention the above to explain why it is so important that we muslims start getting serious about this evil in our midst. Just cooking up idle conspiracy theories isnt going to change this ugly reality, unfortunately. By doing so, we shame ourselves as an honorable people, we violate the peaceful teachings of our religion.

#29 by tahmed32 on March 15, 2004 9:46pm PT
Cemendtaur: Thanks for your response. I see that you have evaded my point with a bit of cleverness and a bit of sarcasm. I had a identified a clear and obvious factual misrepresentation in your article. Dont worry about Bush`s sincerity - the US public and the US political process is quite capable of sorting that out.

You need to worry instead, I think, about your own sincerity in responding to questions raised about your article.

So, once again I repeat my question: Was it ignorance, or a mental lapse, or a deliberate misrepresentation of an fact of fundamental importance with respect to your article?

I am sorry if the above sounds hostile to you, but I hope you will understand why it is so important for us muslims to build up the courage to face reality. If not, we are doomed to remain among the most backward people on earth in a number of important ways. In this way, people like you who write articles based on factual misrepresentations are no friends of the muslims world that you think you represent. Indeed, and for the above reason, individuals like you are the worst enemies of the muslims.


*********************

I assume you refer to this earlier question of yours:
Perhaps you have forgotten that the US first tried exactly this, i.e. to secure the help of the taliban in extracting bin laden. Peaceful methods were tried first, including a pakistani delegation that visited kabul to convince the taliban that the US was serious about getting bin laden. When that failed, Bush publicly warned taliban (in a speech before the Congress that I recall watching on TV) to hand over bin laden, or else get ready for war?

My response:
Not everything is public, but whatever drama you and I watched made it obvious that the US was not interested in dealing with the Taliban. [Conspiracy theory related to the Central Asian oil is worth analyzing.]
Pakistan was VERY interested, at least initially, in keeping the status quo in Afghanistan. [Strategic depth argument]. It was Pakistan that tried to hammer some sense in the Taliban hardheads. But the people sent to Qun-dahar--this one is through a rumor that seems very plausible--instead of warning them of the imminent danger told the Taliban high command to remain steadfast. Once the war started the Pakistanis wished to see the Taliban replaced by a Pakhtoon group. But the US got impatient, and contrary to the advice of Pakistan decided to use the Northern Alliance.

``I am sorry if the above sounds hostile to you, but I hope you will understand why it is so important for us muslims to build up the courage to face reality. If not, we are doomed to remain among the most backward people on earth in a number of important ways. In this way, people like you who write articles based on factual misrepresentations are no friends of the muslims world that you think you represent. Indeed, and for the above reason, individuals like you are the worst enemies of the muslims.``

********
No, I didn`t perceive it as hostile.

But I wonder how, doubting US`s sincerity in dealing with the Taliban makes one a friend or foe of the Muslim world.

C.

Ahmed Rashid interviewed by Dawn:

http://www.nirajweb.net/mt/niraj/archives/001682.html

(excerpt)

Q. Why anti-Pakistan sentiments run so high in Afghanistan?

A. There was a cell within the intelligence agency not long ago that was working to justify Pakistan`s support to the Taliban in an academic and intellectual sense. It had retired brigadiers and colonels justifying the Taliban rule: that this was the norm - the Afghans were always brutal to women, the Afghans have always been indulging in sectarian and ethnic conflicts, the Taliban behaviour is the normal Afghan behaviour!

We, in fact, re-wrote Afghan history for the Afghans. At several instances, these retired officers had taken words from my writing to support their policies. I had written that Dostum was a brute. So, to them, it meant that all Uzbeks in Afghanistan were brute and, thus, what the Taliban did to the Uzbeks in Mazar-i-Sharif was justified. I was quite horrified by this.

The re-writing of the history in the last six years by the military and the establishment in Pakistan has put us at odds with the Afghan nation for many years to come. They will not forgive us easily. Afghans do not trust Pakistan - the government, the ISI or the foreign office. And even today, we are not prepared to offer any kind of apology to them. How would we feel if Indians start re-writing our history?

Q. The Time magazine wrote that Hamid Karzai is the only Afghan leader with vision. Do you agree?

A. No. There are other Afghan leaders with vision. There are a lot of Afghans outside Afghanistan who are not coming back, who also have a vision.

Q. What challenges the Karzai administration and the Afghan society is facing today?

A. Uniting the warring factions and bringing peace to the country are probably the most arduous challenges to the Karazai administration. Lack of funds for reconstruction is the biggest disaster for his government. The injection of money and reconstruction is indispensable to empower his very weak government and extend its writ in the interior of Afghanistan.

The Afghan society has this issue of warlordism. There is anarchy and disarray in the Pashtoon area because of the lack of a good leadership among them. There is the very disturbing factor of the growing power of the Panjshiri faction in Kabul.

Afghanistan may face a situation where disparate Pashtoon forces may unite with other minorities - Uzbeks, Turkmens, Hazaras, Heratis - against the Tajiks. So they could have the reverse of what went in the Taliban period. This will be very tragic.

Q. Have Afghans succeeded on any front under Karzai`s leadership?

A. Yes. The most important element is, at present, none of the warlords are prepared to take on the central government. The Afghans are trying to institutionalize the traditions of democracy. This is the process that 90 per cent of the population supports. Some warlords and other elements don`t support it. To institutionalize the legitimate traditions of democracy, to rebuild them from scratch and enthrone them as the legitimate mechanism of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled; this is what the Afghans are trying to do.

I think it will work because the population is fed up with war. People are exhausted and they want to see the fruits of peace and stability. The really interesting aspect is the speed with which they have dropped the Taliban politics and culture. As many as 1.5 million children were back to schools and 50,000 women were back to work soon after the Taliban`s fall. The enthusiasm for education is so momentous that Karzai believes Afghanistan will attain 80 per cent literacy rate in the next five years. ...``

Cemendtaur: Thanks for your response. I see that you have evaded my point with a bit of cleverness and a bit of sarcasm. I had a identified a clear and obvious factual misrepresentation in your article. Dont worry about Bush`s sincerity - the US public and the US political process is quite capable of sorting that out.

You need to worry instead, I think, about your own sincerity in responding to questions raised about your article.

So, once again I repeat my question: Was it ignorance, or a mental lapse, or a deliberate misrepresentation of an fact of fundamental importance with respect to your article?

I am sorry if the above sounds hostile to you, but I hope you will understand why it is so important for us muslims to build up the courage to face reality. If not, we are doomed to remain among the most backward people on earth in a number of important ways. In this way, people like you who write articles based on factual misrepresentations are no friends of the muslims world that you think you represent. Indeed, and for the above reason, individuals like you are the worst enemies of the muslims.

This book was written by a former official of Taliban`s foreign ministry:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0301AfghanBook01-ON.html
Bumbling Taliban almost comical at times, insider says
Washington Post
Mar. 1, 2004 08:50 AM


KABUL, Afghanistan - To the outside world, the Taliban was a forbidding, mysterious clique of Islamic militiamen who shut women away, enforced puritanical rules with whips and crushed all military rivals until U.S. bombers drove them from power in 2001.


But as seen from the inside, the Taliban`s five-year reign over most of Afghanistan was also one of bumbling comedy, fatal military mistakes, disabling preoccupation with minor religious matters, deep internal splits and awkward relations with the Arab fighters who flocked to the movement`s aid.

Waheed Mojda, a former official in the Taliban Foreign Ministry, has written a 40,000-word account of the Taliban years that provides both hilarious and painful insights into a short-lived Islamic regime that left no written records, rarely explained its actions and shunned contact with outsiders.

According to Mojda`s account - published in Iran last year and written in Dari - the Taliban`s extreme notions of Islam led to many bizarre moments. When Mohammad Omar, the movement`s religious leader, was offered a toy camel by visiting Chinese diplomats, he recoiled like ``someone holding a piece of red-hot coal,`` because he believed all likenesses of living creatures to be un-Islamic.

In another passage of Mojda`s account, a Kabul man desperately tries to secure a religious order from the Supreme Court to have his teeth pulled because he had his cavities filled by a dentist but was told by a Taliban cleric that having filled teeth ``would make my prayers and ablutions invalid.``

Mojda also wrote about how an internal split between the moderate and fundamentalist camps deepened in early 2001, when officials began destroying historic art objects they viewed as un-Islamic. A dispute over whether to destroy a valuable European painting of a hunting scene became a tug of war among officials in five separate ministries.

He described the crisis that erupted when Omar ordered the demolition of two majestic Buddhas carved into the cliffs of central Afghanistan.

According to Mojda, many officials were unhappy about the order. Some tried to warn foreign conservationists, while others ducked responsibility.

Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil was ``depressed`` over the demolition but had to defend it to the foreign media.

``A great tragedy occurred,`` Mojda wrote. Military explosives were transferred to Bamian, where the Buddhas had been carved 13 centuries before, and the statues were rendered faceless. Not even senior Taliban officials had dared defy Omar, whose spirit, Mojda wrote, ``always hung over meetings like a shadow.``

While much of the outside world recoiled, Mojda noted, the symbolic smashing of the Buddhas attracted secret donations from foreign Muslim sympathizers and a fresh flow of Arab fighters eager to join the struggle against the oppressive West.

Mojda, 48, a conservative, scholarly Muslim who is now a senior aide in the Supreme Court, never joined the Taliban, but he was an activist with other Afghan Islamic groups that fought Soviet forces in the 1980s.

In an interview, Mojda said he had no desire to make fun of the Taliban, but rather sought to point out the flaws and fanatical aberrations that gradually disillusioned him - and ultimately alienated many other Afghans from the initially popular movement.

``In Afghanistan, history is never written soon enough, and no one is neutral,`` he said. ``I felt I needed to write what I had seen of the Taliban, both bad and good.`` Friends told him he was taking too great of a risk, but Mojda said several former Taliban leaders who read his book privately acknowledged he had ``said some true things.``

Mojda`s book contains observations previously made by several foreign experts, but his firsthand descriptions and anecdotes contribute new and colorful detail to the emerging history of the reclusive Taliban`s rule.

The most serious Taliban mistake, Mojda writes, was the arbitrary power given to its religious police, mostly illiterate village gunmen who had neither the legal nor Islamic knowledge to carry out such work. In one incident, he recounted, a police squad forced a Sikh man to pray in a mosque, insisting that ``whatever else he was, he was still a Muslim.`` Sikhs, have their own faith, known as Sikhism.

The Taliban`s obsessions with religious litmus tests and personal loyalty repeatedly undermined its administrative competence, according to Mojda. The ability to ``recite verses from the Koran beautifully`` was enough to obtain senior administrative posts, while transferred officials took along large coteries of followers, known as ``andivalis,`` forcing agencies to start from scratch.

The Taliban`s permanent conflict with ethnic militias from northern Afghanistan also prevented it from evolving into a real government. Senior officials were ordered to the front lines, leaving their ministries drifting and leaderless. Military commanders wielded far more power and enjoyed greater perquisites than their civilian counterparts.

``The Taliban leadership had no plan but war,`` wrote Mojda, and yet its battle plans often went awry. Even seasoned commanders had to wait to make field decisions until they obtained permission from Omar, who was usually incommunicado in his southern headquarters. Planning was so haphazard that large numbers of troops were sent into battles in which massive casualties were inevitable.

Mojda told the story of a man who dined with several Taliban commanders near Kabul and was then invited on a joyride in a caravan of pickup trucks. As they gained speed, shots rang out, and the man realized they were racing through enemy lines. ``There were many dead and captured, but the commanders didn`t care,`` Mojda said. ``Their only idea was to drive fast and break through the line.

By his account, the Taliban initially sought only to disarm and pacify the lawless, war-torn country and had no desire to take power. Their crackdown on crime and abuses by other militias, beginning with the punishment of a commander who raped a bus passenger, was greeted with public relief. ``From the Iranian borders to the remote reaches of Badakhshan, all were ready to welcome them,`` he wrote.

The early days of Taliban rule in Kabul were marked by mishaps as well as cruelty. Village mullahs lost their way in the capital, and the Taliban radio station issued bulletins asking people to help locate them. Newly named ministers went barefoot as they sat in ornate office chairs.

So many Taliban officials were war cripples, missing eyes or limbs, that Mojda said he developed a theory about repressive rule as a form of physical revenge. Omar, who had one eye, enjoyed absolute power as the movement`s chosen emir, yet he resorted to ``dreams and auguries`` and was often unreachable when major decisions had to be made.

But over time, Mojda wrote, the Taliban leaders grew more ambitious and defiant of their mentors in Pakistan, while moving closer to their wealthy backers from the Middle East. Mojda describes these Arabs as both shrewd and deadly. At first, they ingratiated themselves with Omar and his aides by giving them expensive vehicles. Later, they set up training camps where Afghan fighters were taught to make explosives from common objects ``like hockey balls`` and to extract poison from cucumbers.

And yet the rustic Afghan militiamen never meshed with the more fanatical fighters from Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Iraq who flocked to assist their ``holy war.`` The Arabs, Mojda said in an interview, looked down on Afghans as vulgar and impure, especially because they smoked cigarettes and hashish, and found even the stern Taliban cadres insufficiently pure.

Some more progressive Taliban officials did, in fact, oppose their leaders` most extreme policies, and over time a deep internal split developed between the moderate and fundamentalist camps. Inside the Foreign Ministry, one of the few departments with educated employees, Mojda observed this struggle firsthand.

His boss, Muttawakil, was known as a Taliban moderate despite his close relations with Omar. Mojda wrote that the minister owned a television and liked to watch Arab news channels, but kept it locked and under guard in the basement so it would not be smashed by the religious police.

Today, Omar is a fugitive, believed to be hiding along the Pakistan border. Muttawakil, who turned himself in to U.S. officials, was recently released from over a year in U.S. custody and is now living quietly in Afghanistan.

As for Mojda, who once wore a bulky turban and long beard to work, he now sports the same jacket-and-tie uniform as most former employees of the Taliban. At night, he writes in his home study on a computer that once even his boss would have had to hide in the basement.

#20 by tahmed32 on March 13, 2004 12:27pm PT

Thanks for writing. The US was as sincere in working with the Taliban as it was working with Saddam Hussain before the first Gulf war. [The Taliban were asking for proof (that the US didn`t have.]

RE: my ignorance
Yes, I am a very ignorant man.

#26 by Ras on March 14, 2004 5:12pm PT

Dear Ras Siddiqui,
You always take time to comment.
Aap kee mohabbat saay zindah hoon.
Nawazish.
C.

Yeh kaisa mausam-e-bahaar hai?

Spring is certainly in the air but

Love is not what appears to be

blooming....


Ras

hossp #23
``Their hearts and Minds are sealed``

Precisely.The other day Pakistani women were talking on TV about the hardships of women in areas of conflict like Kashmir, Palestine and Iraq, and strangely the situation prevailing in neighbouring Afghanistan for last 25 years was not mentioned even once.

And Cowasjee reports :
``According to a news item of March 10 in this newspaper (`Qazi sets terms for cooperation`), Qazi Hussain Ahmed has announced that Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali has assured the MMA that ``his government will not repeal the Hudood Ordinances or effect any changes in the law.`` ``

There seems to be a `conspiracy of silence` about the various dimensions of involvement of Pakistani government, Army, religious parties and ordinary Pakistanis in Afghanistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda and until these are discussed in the open, a lot of related things will continue to defy rational explanation.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

This is a part of the series of childish articles that appear in several Pakistani Urdu newspapers with regularity. This article seems like a direct translation of several of them.

This religious bunch has selective memory. These were the same guys who were shouting “Allah hoooo (Shoaib) Akhtar” from the top of their lungs when the first Afghan crisis was on. It was great to have Kalashnikovs then. Now blame every thing on Kalashnikov culture. I find it even more childish to show them mirror.

The Quran says “Their hearts and Minds are sealed”. I say “their hearts and minds have been plugged with the most famous plug of all -the butt plug”.

I often feel that we should all blame the former Soviet Union for landing us poor ignorant Pakistanis with the most vicious criminal enterprise of Islamic Jihadi.

What is the harm with the US going in the tribal area and taking care of these low life sheepherders hiding in the Pakistani tribal belt? If the Pakistani Army can’t do it then let the US army do it. The problem with the US army is that once it finds the scary face otherwise known as Osama bin Ladoo, it will leave the area. I just wish the US army move a little further east and takes care of the Jihadi sitting in the President House in Islamabad and Army GHQ also.

inquilaabi says OBL might be already in. I don’t doubt him at all. OBL may be sitting in the Army Head Quarter in Rawalpindi. Let’s bomb the hell out of it.
Of course inquilaabi is on Bhang and I am not! Still, I say get them all at one time and cleanse the world. Good riddance.

At least after that we will not see Sadna’s ridiculous cut and paste operations. That may also give Arjun some respite from his ongoing cut and paste job. How long can he do that pro bono?

It is time to end Arjun’s personal crusade. (Shiat! I am going to be in the doghouse now!!!)

Post Sept 11
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2002/05/06/spies.html

``Of more concern than these outbursts was Ahmed`s sympathy for the Taliban. When the President sent him to Kandahar six days after Sept. 11 to persuade Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar to hand over bin Laden, the spymaster instead secretly told Omar to resist, an ex-Taliban official told TIME. Word of this double cross reached Musharraf, who on Oct. 7 replaced Ahmed as ISI boss..``



``..The Pakistanis provided al-Qaeda agents a network of safe houses in Pakistan to facilitate their transit in and out of Afghanistan. They also vetted new recruits for al-Qaeda and laundered terrorist funds through a global network of illegal money changers. It was no surprise to foreign spooks that the ISI let the Egyptian-Canadian Khadr escape from Peshawar. He knew too much, they say, about the ISI`s alleged ties with al-Qaeda.

Similarly, the ISI had no interest in catching bin Laden before Sept. 11. According to U.S. officials, in early 1999 the U.S. pressed the Pakistanis to establish a snatch team that could go into Afghanistan to grab the al-Qaeda chief. The Pakistanis did set up a commando unit, under the aegis of the ISI and with training by the cia. But a U.S. official familiar with the operation says that in the end the Pakistanis didn`t do ``squat.``

Even after Sept. 11, Pakistani loyalties were still divided. According to Western diplomats, at least five key ISI operatives--some retired and some active--actually continued helping their Taliban comrades prepare defenses in Kandahar against the Americans. Even now, with all the ISI`s changes, none were punished for their disobedience. Midway into the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, the Pakistanis were still allowing military and nonlethal supplies to flow across the border to the Taliban. ``

Dejavu all over again. From August 2001(pre-9/11):

http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CH22Df02.html

Osama bin Laden: The thorn in Pakistan`s flesh
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Saudi Arabian exile Osama bin Laden, who lives in Afghanistan with the protection of the Taliban government, is at the center of intense negotiations between those who want to see him brought to trial, and those who want him protected from the reaches of the United States.

The US government has offered a reward of up to US$5 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of bin Laden, a multimillionaire businessman. He is wanted on charges of international terrorism in connection with the 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in which more than 200 people died.

With a United Nations sanctions enforcement support team due in Pakistan soon to monitor the extent to which Pakistan implements UN sanctions against Afghanistan, it has been learnt that the US government has requested Pakistan provide active support, including the secret deployment of US special forces in northern areas, for an operation inside Afghanistan to apprehend bin Laden ``dead or alive any time soon``. The UN sanctions against Afghanistan include handing over bin Laden, a travel ban on senior Taliban officials, an arms embargo (which has not yet been monitored) and a ban on international flights.

Sources say that Pakistan has not as yet rejected the request to be used as a base, but that the US has two ``arguments`` to strengthen its case. The first is the large amount of assistance Islamabad receives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to prop up its ailing economy, and the sanctions the US imposed on the country in the wake of its nuclear tests in May 1998.

Pakistan needs to satisfy the IMF about the state of the economy so that the existing $596 million Standby Arrangement can be replaced with a $2 billion to $2.5 billion new funding line in the shape of a Poverty Reduction Growth Facility before the end of this year.

US sanctions against Pakistan restrict the provision of credits, military sales, economic assistance and loans to the government. The October 1999 overthrow of the democratically elected Nawaz Sharif government triggered an additional layer of sanctions under Section 508 of the Foreign Appropriations Act, which include restrictions on foreign military financing and economic assistance. Presently, US government assistance to Pakistan is limited mainly to refugee and counter-narcotics assistance.

According to sources, the situation regarding bin Laden crystallized after his camp in Afghanistan was bombed by US cruise missiles in August 1998 in retaliation for the embassy attacks in Africa. Bin Laden escaped injury after apparently changing his dinner plans at the last minute, but the incident sent shockwaves through international Islamic movements in which bin Laden has a strong following.

As a result, a very strong Muslim lobby emerged to protect his interests. This includes Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, as well as senior Pakistani generals. Prince Abdullah has good relations with bin Laden as both are disciples of slain Doctor Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar and former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Organization (Al-Iqwanul Muslamoon). Azzam was the main motivational force in the Arab world for the Afghan jihad (holy war) against the former Soviet Union. Bin Laden fought, and helped finance, opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Focus has been on Pakistan as a staging ground for a mission to arrest bin Laden since US Central Command Chief General Tommy R Franks met President General Pervez Musharraf and other senior Pakistani military officials in Rawalpindi in January of this year. This and subsequent meetings were used to remind Pakistan of its obligations in compliance with UN resolution 1333 that require the Taliban to immediately surrender bin Laden to a third country. Pakistan, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are the only countries to recognize the Taliban government.

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah, meanwhile, wants bin Laden to stand trial in his country. He is said to believe that any trial against the fugitive would see him acquitted as no case has been registered against him in Saudi Arabia. In addition, there is no precedent of Saudi Arabia ever handing over one of its citizens to the United States (even though bin Laden has technically lost his Saudi citizenship), so the crown prince considers that bin Laden will be safer in Saudi Arabia than in Afghanistan. Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia in 1991. He was asked by the Saudi government to return, but he refused, so they withdrew his citizenship, cancelled his passport and froze his assets. Bin Laden is believed to have amassed a fortune with his family`s construction business.

Prince Abdullah made a clandestine visit to Pakistan a few months ago and met senior army officials, and he visited Afghanistan with the director-general of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant-General Mehmood. According to sources, Prince Abdullah met Taliban strongman Mullah Omar and tried to convince him that the United States was likely to launch an attack on Afghanistan and insisted bin Laden be sent to Saudi Arabia, where he would be held in custody and not handed over to any third country. Mullah Omar apparently rejected the crown prince`s proposal, saying that despite the threat of US attacks the question of bin Laden had become one of honor and he would not be handed over in any circumstances.

As an alternative to snatching him, the US, too, would appear to support the idea of bin Laden going to Saudi Arabia. Although aware that Prince Abdullah is almost certain to take over from the ailing pro-US King Fahad, who suffered a stroke in 1995, when he dies, US authorities believe that there is a sufficiently strong US lobby within the country - and sufficient palace intrigues - for them to have their way with bin Laden.

Fahad and Abdullah are from the same father, but have different mothers. Abdullah was appointed crown prince only because he was next in line, and after his appointment King Fahad posted his brothers (King Fahad`s mother`s family is known as Sudari and he has seven blood brothers) to important positions to counter Abdullah`s authority as crown prince.

The governor of the capital Riyadh, the defense minister, the minister of the interior and the minister of foreign affairs are all Fahad`s brothers. Abdullah`s only power within the Saudi establishment is with the national Baduvian Guards, which is headed by Abdullah`s blood brother. Outside the country, though, there is a strong body of support for Prince Abdullah among those who opposed the US using Saudi Arabia as a base during the Gulf War in 1991.

In Pakistan, there is also a very strong lobby within the army not to assist in any US moves to apprehend bin Laden. These include Rawalpindi Corps Commander Lieutenant-General Jamshed Gulzar, one of the coup leaders of October 12, 1999, Lahore Corps Commander Lieutenant-General Aziz Khan and Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant-General Muzzaffar Usmani. This was the strong army backing that enabled a Pakistani religious scholar, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who is well respected among the Taliban leadership, to put pressure on Pakistan`s Minister of the Interior, a retired lieutenant-general, Moinuddin Haider, not to deport any more Arabs from Pakistan.

In the past, Pakistan has deported known associates of bin Laden from Jordan, Algeria and Egypt to their mother countries, which in turn have handed them over to the US or other Western countries where they have stood trial for terrorism.

According to sources, Mufti Shamzi threatened the interior minister that if any more Arabs were deported from Pakistan, what the jihadi groups did in Pakistan would not be his or anyone else`s responsibility.

Knowing the support Shamzai has, and the vulnerability of the government if they were to retaliate against jihadi forces in the country, the interior minister has subsequently not sanctioned the deportation of Arabs.

This is a strong example to the government of the opposition it will face should it allow Pakistani soil to be used for a raid into Afghanistan to capture bin Laden.

atifhussain: in your article you write ``I am sure I am not the only one who strongly believes that Osama Bin Laden could be extracted from Afghanistan WITH the help of the Taliban, and with time the Taliban because of their anachronistic policies would have vanished by themselves.``

Perhaps you have forgotten that the US first tried exactly this, i.e. to secure the help of the taliban in extracting bin laden. Peaceful methods were tried first, including a pakistani delegation that visited kabul to convince the taliban that the US was serious about getting bin laden. When that failed, Bush publicly warned taliban (in a speech before the Congress that I recall watching on TV) to hand over bin laden, or else get ready for war?

I assume you are merely ignorant about all this, or perhaps you had a memory lapse, or perhaps you are merely lying. Which one is it??

jay #13
You are right on the money on this:

http://www.dawn.com/2004/03/13/top1.htm
Govt apologises over remarks in NA


By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, March 12: An opposition protest walkout from the National Assembly on Friday forced a government apology in what seems to be brewing controversy over how much jihad should be taught in the country`s schools and colleges.

All opposition parties, despite their own known differences over Islamization, joined the MMA-led walkout to protest against a parliamentary secretary`s remarks during the question hour, which was followed by more opposition criticism of army interference in politics on the second day of a debate on President Pervez Musharraf`s Jan 17 address to parliament.

While members of the ARD and its allies returned after a few minutes, those of the MMA stayed away until Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed persuaded them back into the house to hear his apology for the remarks by education parliamentary secretary Dewan Syed Jafar Hussain justifying the omission of some Quranic verses from biology textbooks.

``The inclusion of Quranic verses is not a requirement of curriculum,`` said a written reply from Education Minister Zubaida Jalal in reply to a question from Laiq Khan (MMA, Sindh) about whether and why Quranic verses had been omitted from biology books for the intermediate first year.

``However, in this case, the Sindh Textbook Board has shifted Quranic verses from the book of biology for classes XI-XII to the book of biology for classes IX-X,`` the minister said.

While answering supplementary questions from MMA members, parliamentary secretary Jafar Hussain denied their charge that the government was omitting verses about jihad and Christians and Jews to meet what they called US conditions for helping the country`s education sector.

The walkout was provoked by one of his remarks that questioned the relevance of certain verses to biology.

``I seek apology if their sentiments are injured,`` the information minister said after the MMA members returned to the house following a blistering attack on the president`s policies by PML-N`s Khwaja Asif at the start of the debate on presidential address.

MMA`s Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said the minister had assured the protesters that the objectionable remarks by the parliamentary secretary would be expunged from the house proceedings and that his colleagues reserved the right to move a privilege motion on the issue.

Sheikh Rashid said no true Muslim could renounce jihad ``which is a must for Muslims when the time comes``. But he did not say if he had assured the protesters about expunction of the remarks nor did the speaker issued any such order. ..``

My guess is that Osama banana has already been found and that Dubya is holding out until the very last moment to claim his crowning glory and achievement on the road to re-erection, because Lord knows he hasn`t done much else.

But then I surmised this during a bhang-filled night, so I could very well be wrong.