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Mix-Ansicht- Will The Real Osama Please Stand Up? - RK, 28.02.2004, 20:07
Will The Real Osama Please Stand Up?
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IQBAL: Will The Real Osama Please Stand Up?
Feb 28, 2004
By Anwar Iqbal, UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst
Bin Laden Look-a-Likes Fill Lawless Region
Ask any farmer in Pakistan's Khyber tribal region,"Have you seen Osama bin Laden?" and he's likely to say you'll find similar tall, bearded men at the restaurants of Landi Kotal, the area's main bazaar.
Ask a tribesman in Darra Adam Khel, the region's largest arms bazaar and the main source of homemade and smuggled weapons in South Asia, and he'll tell you,"Shut up, you son of Satan."
Brig. Mahmud Shah, chief administrator of the region, suggests asking a tribal leader about bin Laden may get you shot.
Warriors and renegades have hidden in the mountains and valleys of the rugged frontier that divides Pakistan and Afghanistan throughout history. Now, U.S. officials believe this century's biggest terrorist, Osama bin Laden, also has taken refuge here.
Dozens of the fiercely independent Pashtuns live in the region. Most of them are tall and bearded. They wear the shalwar-qamis -- the loose trousers and long shirts that bin Laden adopted when he moved to Afghanistan in 1995. If bin Laden is hiding among them, it will be difficult to single him out from other bearded tribesmen, all of who carry guns.
Pashtun tribes have an arrangement with Pakistan -- originally negotiated by the British before they left the area in 1947 -- that prevents the government from sending troops and policemen to the remote region.
That's why there are no trained law enforcement agents to spot and catch bin Laden and his men who, U.S. officials say, are conducting raids deep into Afghanistan from their hideouts. U.S. officials in Afghanistan say Taliban forces and affiliated fighters associated with Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar also participate in these raids.
Last month, U.S. military and civilian officials in Iraq intercepted a courier carrying a 17-page letter they said was written by Abu Mussab al-Zarkawi, a convicted Jordanian terrorist. It was allegedly intended for his al-Qaida contacts in Pakistan's tribal belt.
The discovery added urgency to a U.S. plan to drive al-Qaida from the area. Late last month, Washington said it would launch a major military offensive in the spring to flush out terrorists from the region.
On Tuesday, Gen. David Barno, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said Pakistan had already launched an offensive in the region. Now"U.S. and Afghan forces will be waiting on the other side to catch them." Bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar still may not be in custody by the end of this year, Barno said.
Barno is not the first man to have backed off his predictions about bin Laden. Despite the presence of thousands of U.S., Pakistani and Afghan troops in the region, nobody seems to know where the al-Qaida leader is.
The tribal belt is an almost thousand-mile-long stretch across a mountainous region peppered with hundreds of gorges. Fugitives can easily move in and out of the area. It is inhospitable, tribesmen are suspicious of outsiders, and tribal caravans have moved across the border without any documents for centuries. U.S. officials worry any effort to impose travel restrictions may be fiercely resisted.
"We believe that bin Laden is being very careful," says administrator Shah."He does not move with large groups, if he moves at all."
Shah, a Pashtun who maintains close ties to local tribal chiefs, says his sources tell him that bin Laden has about"about 100 to 200 diehard followers who have built a protective net around him. They do not get close because that would draw attention."
Although Shah insists bin Laden spends more time on the Afghan side of the border, he said the al-Qaida chief might have fled to the Pakistani side two years ago when U.S. forces bombed his hideouts in the eastern Afghan valley of Tora Bora.
"Pakistani troops are confronting the tribal elders and making them accountable for the behavior in their area," Barno said."Tribal chiefs who do not comply could face destruction of homes and things of that nature."
Pakistan troops recently detained hundreds of tribesmen for cooperating with the Taliban and al-Qaida forces and destroyed their homes and schools. Pakistan is also trying to establish permanent military posts in these areas. It has built roads and schools with U.S. money.
Many in the region still sympathize with the Taliban, if not al-Qaida, for religious and ethnic reasons, however. Like most Taliban, the tribesmen also are staunch Muslims and ethnic Pashtuns.
"They feel that the Pashtuns have been treated harshly in Afghanistan, where they are a majority but are being ruled by a minority," says Behroze Khan, a supporter of the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party.
Religious sentiments are strongest in northern tribal regions. In the south, Pashtun nationalism is stronger. Pashtun clerics operate freely in both the regions and do not hide their sympathy for the Taliban.
"The Taliban are a reality in Afghanistan... and they should be recognized as such," says Mufti Kifayatullah, information secretary for a seven-party religious alliance, which controls the provincial government in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.
"The Taliban was an ideological force, and an ideological force can be beaten but it cannot be rooted out," said Kifayatullah.
Aware of these sentiments, the Americans are encouraging moderate Taliban leaders, such as Mullah Sabir and Mullah Jalil, to replace the old guard.
"The Taliban should be aware of these new leaders being created by unseen forces... they will deceive them," warned Kifayatullah.
Despite financial assistance from the United States, anti-U.S. sentiments remain strong. Even those opposed to the Taliban and al-Qaida do not openly associate themselves with the United States.
In a pamphlet distributed recently, elders urge the tribesmen not to hide terrorists because it could bring U.S. troops to their homes.
"And if U.S. troops enter the tribal areas, nobody's honor will be safe... so do not shelter foreign terrorists," warns the pamphlet.
With such strong anti-American sentiment, bin Laden and his associates will always find sanctuary among Pashtun tribes.
"It will require a major operation to flush him out of hiding," says a Western diplomat based in Islamabad.
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