08-04-2004, 08:15 PM
Preparing for a nuclear 9/11 commission unless Paki is denuked
The ironic situation is that USA continues to depend on the only terror state in the world to tackle terror. This terror state is a failed state with an intelligence apparatus called ISI which has close ties with terror operatives. Musharraf is playing a clever game of hide-and-seek with commanders of US Central command and with Pres. Bush.
US electoral politics seems to be playing out on terror alerts hoping that such alerts and change of colours from yellow to orange or red will help focus on Bush as the only salvation to fight against terror.
The next Nuclear 9/11 commission may have a different story to tell, despite all the geiger counters in use at strategic locations, that the policy of dancing with the devil may get some headlines but is counter-productive as a strategy to rid the world of islamist terror. There is every guarantee that are more Khan's operating and that the islamic nukes are already in the hands of terror with little that Uncle Sam can do to denuke them. USA continuing to prop up a failed state is a Munich betrayal being played out all over again.
The class action suit by the victims and families of victms of 9/11 should be not against the Government of Pakistan but against the Government of USA for not denuking Pakistan and for allowing the 9/11 terror to operate from the epicenter of terror, which is Pakistan -- assuming that USA has full control over events taking place for an October election surprise, through military-subcontractors called military rulers in Pakistan. 9/11 commission has erred in supporting the ongoing policy of the state department to continue to ride the tiger of the failed state of Pakistan which is cocking-a-snook at the ineptitude of US geopolitical thinking.
Kalyanaraman
Asia Times On line, 4 August 2004
Pakistan produces the goods, again
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - When US Central Command commander General John Abizaid visited Islamabad last week, his first priority was not Pakistan sending troops to Iraq, but the arrest of high-value al-Qaeda targets.
Almost magically, just days later, a Tanzanian al-Qaeda operative, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, was arrested in the Punjab provincial city of Gujrat. He is wanted in the United States in connection with the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He was one of the United States' 22 most-wanted terrorists, and had a US$5 million bounty on his head.
Security experts close to the corridors of power in Pakistan tell Asia Times Online that as the November presidential elections in the US draw closer, more such dramatic - and timely - arrests can be expected. The announcement of Ghailani's arrest coincided with the Democratic Party's convention in Boston during which John Kerry was confirmed as challenger to President George W Bush.
According to the experts, Abizaid met with all top Pakistani officials and discussed plans to broaden the net for the arrest of foreigners in Pakistan from South Waziristan to all of the other six tribal agencies, as well as to the southwestern province of Balochistan.
The Pakistan army has launched two major offensives in South Waziristan this year in an attempt to capture foreign militants, managing only to stir resentment from the local tribespeople.
Already, though, under intense pressure from the US, Pakistan has handed over as many as 350 suspected al-Qaeda operators into US custody. Most have been low-ranking, but some important names are, according to Asia Times Online contacts, being held in Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) safe houses to be presented at the right moment.
The contacts say that Pakistan's strategic circles see the high-value al-Qaeda operators as "bargaining chips" to ensure continued US support for President General Pervez Musharraf's de facto military rule in Pakistan. Had Pakistan handed over top targets such as Osama bin Laden, his deputy Dr Aiman al-Zawahir, Tahir Yuldash (leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) and others - assuming it was in a position to do so - the military rulers would have lost their usefulness to the US in its "war on terror".
Information accessed by Asia Times Online traces the arrest of Ghailani to the earlier apprehension of one Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, alias Abu Talha. Khan, a computer engineer in his mid-20s, was arrested in Lahore. He had been wanted for some time and was thought to have been hiding in South Waziristan.
Documents, computers and reports allegedly uncovered in Khan's arrest led US officials this week to warn against a possible al-Qaeda attack against financial institutions in the US. However, subsequently some analysts in the US have claimed that much of the information that resulted from the arrest was compiled before the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said Monday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports apparently collected by al-Qaeda operatives had been "gathered in 2000 and 2001". But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January.
As one observer in Karachi commented, "Every second jihadi I know has a computer and is always busy checking information on buildings in the US - their height and width and their possible vulnerable areas - and it is their routine practice to make plans with computer graphics to bring down US buildings to the ground."
Nevertheless, in response to the perceived threat, US authorities have launched a huge search for terrorist operatives who might have helped conduct surveillance of the five main financial institutions in New York City, Newark, and Washington - Citigroup, the New York Stock Exchange, Prudential, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
According to news reports, tens of thousands of delivery records to the buildings in question will be scrutinized. Investigators also will question those who have had access to the architectural plans of the institutions' largest buildings, and former employees.
Khan, from Karachi, initially belonged to the banned Jaish-i-Mohammed, a militant outfit fighting in Kashmir. As a Jaish member, he went to Afghanistan during the Taliban period (1996-2001), where he acquired extensive military training in Arab camps and became acquainted with several prominent Arab fighters. He also met Amjad Hussain Farooqui, a member of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, a banned group of sectarian assassins who target Shi'ite Muslims. At this point Khan entered the underworld.
After the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, many foreign al-Qaeda members such as Ghailani fled to Pakistan's tribal areas, where they either made their way on to their home countries or decided to stay.
Ghailani ended up in South Waziristan, where he remained, but in the face of the two Pakistan army operations there, he was forced to flee, and with the help of Khan and others ended up in Gujrat. Khan's attempts to contact a travel agent in Lahore to smuggle Ghailani and his family out of the country apparently led to his arrest - his satellite telephone calls were intercepted by intelligence agencies. After two weeks of interrogation, Khan pointed the way to Ghailani's hideout.
The next 'target'?
Dr Aafia Siddiqui, in her mid-30s, has a PhD in neurological sciences from the US. She is believed to have Pakistani and US nationality. She is wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as an "al-Qaeda operative and facilitator" and in connection with "possible terrorist threats" in the US. September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (caught in Pakistan) is believed to have told authorities about Aafia.
She disappeared, with her three children, a few months ago in Pakistan. Asia Times Online sources claim that she is in the custody of the ISI. All calls by her family and humanitarian groups for her to be produced in court have been ignored.
Acquaintances of Aafia say she was an ISI contact and played an active role as a "relief worker" in Chechnya and Bosnia - a role the government now does not want to reveal. She has also been connected with different Arab non-governmental organizations in the US, through which she also helped to supply aid and funds to Chechens.
However Aafia's case turns out, doubtless a number of al-Qaeda operators are already in detention in Pakistan to be produced when and as necessary.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH04Df03.html
Aug 2, 2004
Arrests in Pakistan Show Progress, but Also That the Country Remains a Refuge for Terrorists By Paul Haven Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Vital information gleaned from the arrests of a senior al-Qaida terrorist and a militant computer expert highlights the progress Pakistan is making in the fight against terrorism. But it also illustrates that this Islamic nation remains a refuge for Osama bin Laden's group, where the most wanted men in the world can hide out for years.
"We know that al-Qaida is here. They have their sleeper cells in Pakistan, and we are trying to eliminate them," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat told The Associated Press.
Intelligence agents found plans for new attacks in e-mails on the computer of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian arrested July 25 after a 12-hour gunbattle in the eastern city of Gujrat, said Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.
"We got a few e-mails from Ghailani's computer about (plans for) attacks in the U.S. and U.K.," he told the AP, adding that the information has been shared with Pakistan's allies - a reference to the United States.
Officials also are getting a wealth of information from a militant computer and communications expert arrested in an earlier raid in July. The man would send messages using code words to al-Qaida suspects, a Pakistani intelligence official told the AP on condition of anonymity.
Ahmed confirmed the arrest but refused to give details.
"He is a very wanted man, but I cannot say his name now," the information minister said. He said the man was a militant, but refused to say if he was part of al-Qaida.
Pakistani officials would not speculate on whether the information from Ghailani and the computer expert is what prompted Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to issue a warning Sunday about a possible al-Qaida attack on financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J.
However, a U.S. counterterrorism official said Sunday's warning stems in large part from Pakistan's capture several weeks ago of an al-Qaida operative.
The operative was privately identified as Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, also known as Abu Talha, said to be a communications expert. The Pakistani intelligence official said, however, that the name was an alias; he would not say what the man's real name was.
At his news conference, Ridge specifically thanked Pakistan for its help in the war on terror.
The arrests of both men have raised hopes that more top suspects might soon fall. Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed hiding in the mountainous no-man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But a second Pakistani intelligence official who was involved in the arrest of Ghailani cautioned against unrealistic expectations.
"Naturally, these interrogations help to gain an understanding of their network ... but that doesn't mean that we are closing in on bin Laden," he said.
Bin Laden and his deputy have spent nearly three years avoiding a dragnet by the 20,000-strong U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan and a 70,000-member Pakistani force on this side of the border.
Pakistan has arrested more than 550 al-Qaida suspects since the Sept. 11 attacks, turning most of them over to the United States. Among the higher-profile arrests are Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - all senior aides to bin Laden.
But that success is the silver lining to a dark cloud - this nation of 150 million remains a favorite hiding place for terrorists - from the teeming metropolis of Karachi, to the tribal regions along the Western border with Afghanistan, to towns like Gujrat in eastern Punjab.
Al-Qaida is believed behind the Friday attempt to assassinate prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz, as well as two bids to take out Musharraf in March. Both men survived, but more than two dozen Pakistanis died.
"When they tried to flush the terrorists out of Afghanistan they came to Pakistan. When they flushed them from the tribal regions, they spread all over the country," said Talat Masood, a security analyst and former Pakistani general. "What we are facing now is very complex. It is one of the greatest terrorist challenges and it is not going to end soon."
Despite the government's strong support of the United States, the nation is home to dozens of homegrown militant groups - some with roots in the Kashmir conflict, others that sprung up during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
They and their sympathizers have helped al-Qaida fugitives hide, sometimes for years.
Ghailani arrived in Pakistan on a Kenyan Airlines flight to Karachi on Aug. 6, 1998, a day before the bombs went off in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. He was a ghost until his arrest nearly six years later, apparently as he was planning to flee the country.
----
AP reporter Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Zarar Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.
AP-ES-08-02-04 1338EDT
This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBQM3ZVEXD.html
See also: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/s...sp?story=547431
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/internat...print&position=
August 4, 2004 Pakistan Allows Taliban to Train, a Detained Fighter Says By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 3 - For months Afghan and American officials have complained that even while Pakistan cooperates in the fight against Al Qaeda, militant Islamic groups there are training fighters and sending them into Afghanistan to attack American and Afghan forces.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5594697/site/newsweek/
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/internat...sia/03laho.html The failure of Pakistan to act in the tribal areas until recently has led some Pakistani and American analysts to question the seriousness of General Musharraf's efforts, but Pakistani officials insisted Monday that the two recent arrests were evidence of their commitment and success in fighting terrorism.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1091397...2779893,00.html Take a Hard Look at Terror Allies By KATHY GANNON August 2, 2004 While its Pakistani partners keep the U.S.-led coalition busy hundreds of miles to the south, Taliban and al Qaeda move with relative freedom further north, and in some of Pakistan's most congested cities, including Quetta and Karachi.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/s...sp?story=547641 Then there are those who argue that Bin Laden may be being protected by rogue elements within Pakistan's own security forces. Recent press reports in Pakistan pointed out the disturbingly high number of militant attacks in which members of the security forces have been involved. The Pakistani military and intelligence establishment worked for years alongside Bin Laden's organisation in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and if the current leadership is thought to be sincere in the hunt for Bin Laden, some of the lower ranking are believed to remain highly sympathetic to his cause.
Bin Laden is still a popular figure in Pakistan. T-shirts bearing his picture are still on sale. Karachi's second-highest-selling Urdu language newspaper, the Daily Ummat, prints his picture on its masthead every day, together with an extract from one of his speeches. "If Bin Laden is caught or killed in Pakistan, he will be taken to Afghanistan and they will say it was done by the American forces," says Yusufzai, adding that President Musharraf could face serious unrest if Bin Laden were known to have been caught in Pakistan.
But there are those in Pakistan who suggest it is not even in Musharraf's interest to capture Bin Laden, if he is in the country. "There is a view among some that they don't really want to pick OBL up, because if they do, then Musharraf would lose his utility to the US," says Sherry Rehman, an opposition member of parliament.
American funds are flowing to Pakistan. The country has even been named as a major non-Nato ally. Find Bin Laden, the argument goes, and all that could dry up. But Pakistan is facing problems. The pressure from the US is increasing. Pakistan got some 200 mentions in the September 11 commission's report - more than Iran and Iraq combined. Congress is putting Pakistan's efforts in the "war on terror" under scrutiny.
And now it seems that al-Qa'ida is declaring war on Pakistan, with last week's attempted assassination of the prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz, in a suicide bombing that a group claiming to be affiliated to al-Qa'ida said it carried out. Are the hunted becoming the hunter? Shortly before his death, Nek Mohammed threatened attacks inside Pakistani cities. President Musharraf has accused al-Qa'ida of being behind two of the recent assassination attempts against him, and Dr Zawahiri called for his killing in his own recent tape recording.
And all the while the world's most wanted man remains silent, hidden. The only thing for sure is that if he has been killed or captured, we'll hear of it well in time for November's elections. But don't bet on it yet.
The ironic situation is that USA continues to depend on the only terror state in the world to tackle terror. This terror state is a failed state with an intelligence apparatus called ISI which has close ties with terror operatives. Musharraf is playing a clever game of hide-and-seek with commanders of US Central command and with Pres. Bush.
US electoral politics seems to be playing out on terror alerts hoping that such alerts and change of colours from yellow to orange or red will help focus on Bush as the only salvation to fight against terror.
The next Nuclear 9/11 commission may have a different story to tell, despite all the geiger counters in use at strategic locations, that the policy of dancing with the devil may get some headlines but is counter-productive as a strategy to rid the world of islamist terror. There is every guarantee that are more Khan's operating and that the islamic nukes are already in the hands of terror with little that Uncle Sam can do to denuke them. USA continuing to prop up a failed state is a Munich betrayal being played out all over again.
The class action suit by the victims and families of victms of 9/11 should be not against the Government of Pakistan but against the Government of USA for not denuking Pakistan and for allowing the 9/11 terror to operate from the epicenter of terror, which is Pakistan -- assuming that USA has full control over events taking place for an October election surprise, through military-subcontractors called military rulers in Pakistan. 9/11 commission has erred in supporting the ongoing policy of the state department to continue to ride the tiger of the failed state of Pakistan which is cocking-a-snook at the ineptitude of US geopolitical thinking.
Kalyanaraman
Asia Times On line, 4 August 2004
Pakistan produces the goods, again
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - When US Central Command commander General John Abizaid visited Islamabad last week, his first priority was not Pakistan sending troops to Iraq, but the arrest of high-value al-Qaeda targets.
Almost magically, just days later, a Tanzanian al-Qaeda operative, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, was arrested in the Punjab provincial city of Gujrat. He is wanted in the United States in connection with the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He was one of the United States' 22 most-wanted terrorists, and had a US$5 million bounty on his head.
Security experts close to the corridors of power in Pakistan tell Asia Times Online that as the November presidential elections in the US draw closer, more such dramatic - and timely - arrests can be expected. The announcement of Ghailani's arrest coincided with the Democratic Party's convention in Boston during which John Kerry was confirmed as challenger to President George W Bush.
According to the experts, Abizaid met with all top Pakistani officials and discussed plans to broaden the net for the arrest of foreigners in Pakistan from South Waziristan to all of the other six tribal agencies, as well as to the southwestern province of Balochistan.
The Pakistan army has launched two major offensives in South Waziristan this year in an attempt to capture foreign militants, managing only to stir resentment from the local tribespeople.
Already, though, under intense pressure from the US, Pakistan has handed over as many as 350 suspected al-Qaeda operators into US custody. Most have been low-ranking, but some important names are, according to Asia Times Online contacts, being held in Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) safe houses to be presented at the right moment.
The contacts say that Pakistan's strategic circles see the high-value al-Qaeda operators as "bargaining chips" to ensure continued US support for President General Pervez Musharraf's de facto military rule in Pakistan. Had Pakistan handed over top targets such as Osama bin Laden, his deputy Dr Aiman al-Zawahir, Tahir Yuldash (leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) and others - assuming it was in a position to do so - the military rulers would have lost their usefulness to the US in its "war on terror".
Information accessed by Asia Times Online traces the arrest of Ghailani to the earlier apprehension of one Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, alias Abu Talha. Khan, a computer engineer in his mid-20s, was arrested in Lahore. He had been wanted for some time and was thought to have been hiding in South Waziristan.
Documents, computers and reports allegedly uncovered in Khan's arrest led US officials this week to warn against a possible al-Qaeda attack against financial institutions in the US. However, subsequently some analysts in the US have claimed that much of the information that resulted from the arrest was compiled before the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said Monday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports apparently collected by al-Qaeda operatives had been "gathered in 2000 and 2001". But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January.
As one observer in Karachi commented, "Every second jihadi I know has a computer and is always busy checking information on buildings in the US - their height and width and their possible vulnerable areas - and it is their routine practice to make plans with computer graphics to bring down US buildings to the ground."
Nevertheless, in response to the perceived threat, US authorities have launched a huge search for terrorist operatives who might have helped conduct surveillance of the five main financial institutions in New York City, Newark, and Washington - Citigroup, the New York Stock Exchange, Prudential, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
According to news reports, tens of thousands of delivery records to the buildings in question will be scrutinized. Investigators also will question those who have had access to the architectural plans of the institutions' largest buildings, and former employees.
Khan, from Karachi, initially belonged to the banned Jaish-i-Mohammed, a militant outfit fighting in Kashmir. As a Jaish member, he went to Afghanistan during the Taliban period (1996-2001), where he acquired extensive military training in Arab camps and became acquainted with several prominent Arab fighters. He also met Amjad Hussain Farooqui, a member of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, a banned group of sectarian assassins who target Shi'ite Muslims. At this point Khan entered the underworld.
After the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, many foreign al-Qaeda members such as Ghailani fled to Pakistan's tribal areas, where they either made their way on to their home countries or decided to stay.
Ghailani ended up in South Waziristan, where he remained, but in the face of the two Pakistan army operations there, he was forced to flee, and with the help of Khan and others ended up in Gujrat. Khan's attempts to contact a travel agent in Lahore to smuggle Ghailani and his family out of the country apparently led to his arrest - his satellite telephone calls were intercepted by intelligence agencies. After two weeks of interrogation, Khan pointed the way to Ghailani's hideout.
The next 'target'?
Dr Aafia Siddiqui, in her mid-30s, has a PhD in neurological sciences from the US. She is believed to have Pakistani and US nationality. She is wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as an "al-Qaeda operative and facilitator" and in connection with "possible terrorist threats" in the US. September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (caught in Pakistan) is believed to have told authorities about Aafia.
She disappeared, with her three children, a few months ago in Pakistan. Asia Times Online sources claim that she is in the custody of the ISI. All calls by her family and humanitarian groups for her to be produced in court have been ignored.
Acquaintances of Aafia say she was an ISI contact and played an active role as a "relief worker" in Chechnya and Bosnia - a role the government now does not want to reveal. She has also been connected with different Arab non-governmental organizations in the US, through which she also helped to supply aid and funds to Chechens.
However Aafia's case turns out, doubtless a number of al-Qaeda operators are already in detention in Pakistan to be produced when and as necessary.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH04Df03.html
Aug 2, 2004
Arrests in Pakistan Show Progress, but Also That the Country Remains a Refuge for Terrorists By Paul Haven Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Vital information gleaned from the arrests of a senior al-Qaida terrorist and a militant computer expert highlights the progress Pakistan is making in the fight against terrorism. But it also illustrates that this Islamic nation remains a refuge for Osama bin Laden's group, where the most wanted men in the world can hide out for years.
"We know that al-Qaida is here. They have their sleeper cells in Pakistan, and we are trying to eliminate them," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat told The Associated Press.
Intelligence agents found plans for new attacks in e-mails on the computer of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian arrested July 25 after a 12-hour gunbattle in the eastern city of Gujrat, said Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.
"We got a few e-mails from Ghailani's computer about (plans for) attacks in the U.S. and U.K.," he told the AP, adding that the information has been shared with Pakistan's allies - a reference to the United States.
Officials also are getting a wealth of information from a militant computer and communications expert arrested in an earlier raid in July. The man would send messages using code words to al-Qaida suspects, a Pakistani intelligence official told the AP on condition of anonymity.
Ahmed confirmed the arrest but refused to give details.
"He is a very wanted man, but I cannot say his name now," the information minister said. He said the man was a militant, but refused to say if he was part of al-Qaida.
Pakistani officials would not speculate on whether the information from Ghailani and the computer expert is what prompted Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to issue a warning Sunday about a possible al-Qaida attack on financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J.
However, a U.S. counterterrorism official said Sunday's warning stems in large part from Pakistan's capture several weeks ago of an al-Qaida operative.
The operative was privately identified as Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, also known as Abu Talha, said to be a communications expert. The Pakistani intelligence official said, however, that the name was an alias; he would not say what the man's real name was.
At his news conference, Ridge specifically thanked Pakistan for its help in the war on terror.
The arrests of both men have raised hopes that more top suspects might soon fall. Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed hiding in the mountainous no-man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But a second Pakistani intelligence official who was involved in the arrest of Ghailani cautioned against unrealistic expectations.
"Naturally, these interrogations help to gain an understanding of their network ... but that doesn't mean that we are closing in on bin Laden," he said.
Bin Laden and his deputy have spent nearly three years avoiding a dragnet by the 20,000-strong U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan and a 70,000-member Pakistani force on this side of the border.
Pakistan has arrested more than 550 al-Qaida suspects since the Sept. 11 attacks, turning most of them over to the United States. Among the higher-profile arrests are Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - all senior aides to bin Laden.
But that success is the silver lining to a dark cloud - this nation of 150 million remains a favorite hiding place for terrorists - from the teeming metropolis of Karachi, to the tribal regions along the Western border with Afghanistan, to towns like Gujrat in eastern Punjab.
Al-Qaida is believed behind the Friday attempt to assassinate prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz, as well as two bids to take out Musharraf in March. Both men survived, but more than two dozen Pakistanis died.
"When they tried to flush the terrorists out of Afghanistan they came to Pakistan. When they flushed them from the tribal regions, they spread all over the country," said Talat Masood, a security analyst and former Pakistani general. "What we are facing now is very complex. It is one of the greatest terrorist challenges and it is not going to end soon."
Despite the government's strong support of the United States, the nation is home to dozens of homegrown militant groups - some with roots in the Kashmir conflict, others that sprung up during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
They and their sympathizers have helped al-Qaida fugitives hide, sometimes for years.
Ghailani arrived in Pakistan on a Kenyan Airlines flight to Karachi on Aug. 6, 1998, a day before the bombs went off in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. He was a ghost until his arrest nearly six years later, apparently as he was planning to flee the country.
----
AP reporter Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Zarar Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.
AP-ES-08-02-04 1338EDT
This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBQM3ZVEXD.html
See also: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/s...sp?story=547431
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/internat...print&position=
August 4, 2004 Pakistan Allows Taliban to Train, a Detained Fighter Says By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 3 - For months Afghan and American officials have complained that even while Pakistan cooperates in the fight against Al Qaeda, militant Islamic groups there are training fighters and sending them into Afghanistan to attack American and Afghan forces.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5594697/site/newsweek/
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/internat...sia/03laho.html The failure of Pakistan to act in the tribal areas until recently has led some Pakistani and American analysts to question the seriousness of General Musharraf's efforts, but Pakistani officials insisted Monday that the two recent arrests were evidence of their commitment and success in fighting terrorism.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1091397...2779893,00.html Take a Hard Look at Terror Allies By KATHY GANNON August 2, 2004 While its Pakistani partners keep the U.S.-led coalition busy hundreds of miles to the south, Taliban and al Qaeda move with relative freedom further north, and in some of Pakistan's most congested cities, including Quetta and Karachi.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/s...sp?story=547641 Then there are those who argue that Bin Laden may be being protected by rogue elements within Pakistan's own security forces. Recent press reports in Pakistan pointed out the disturbingly high number of militant attacks in which members of the security forces have been involved. The Pakistani military and intelligence establishment worked for years alongside Bin Laden's organisation in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and if the current leadership is thought to be sincere in the hunt for Bin Laden, some of the lower ranking are believed to remain highly sympathetic to his cause.
Bin Laden is still a popular figure in Pakistan. T-shirts bearing his picture are still on sale. Karachi's second-highest-selling Urdu language newspaper, the Daily Ummat, prints his picture on its masthead every day, together with an extract from one of his speeches. "If Bin Laden is caught or killed in Pakistan, he will be taken to Afghanistan and they will say it was done by the American forces," says Yusufzai, adding that President Musharraf could face serious unrest if Bin Laden were known to have been caught in Pakistan.
But there are those in Pakistan who suggest it is not even in Musharraf's interest to capture Bin Laden, if he is in the country. "There is a view among some that they don't really want to pick OBL up, because if they do, then Musharraf would lose his utility to the US," says Sherry Rehman, an opposition member of parliament.
American funds are flowing to Pakistan. The country has even been named as a major non-Nato ally. Find Bin Laden, the argument goes, and all that could dry up. But Pakistan is facing problems. The pressure from the US is increasing. Pakistan got some 200 mentions in the September 11 commission's report - more than Iran and Iraq combined. Congress is putting Pakistan's efforts in the "war on terror" under scrutiny.
And now it seems that al-Qa'ida is declaring war on Pakistan, with last week's attempted assassination of the prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz, in a suicide bombing that a group claiming to be affiliated to al-Qa'ida said it carried out. Are the hunted becoming the hunter? Shortly before his death, Nek Mohammed threatened attacks inside Pakistani cities. President Musharraf has accused al-Qa'ida of being behind two of the recent assassination attempts against him, and Dr Zawahiri called for his killing in his own recent tape recording.
And all the while the world's most wanted man remains silent, hidden. The only thing for sure is that if he has been killed or captured, we'll hear of it well in time for November's elections. But don't bet on it yet.