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Newsbeat A Chink in the Armour Rifts between the Arab and Central Asian militants of Al-Qaeda may prove to be the undoing of its Pakistan-based network. By Massoud Ansari
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Differences between Al-Qaeda's Arab members and those belonging to the former Russian states are proving invaluable in the fight against the terrorist network in Pakistan. "Some of our recent major breakthroughs, including the arrest of Abu Faraj al-Libbi as well as the death of Haitham al-Yemeni in a missile attack near the Afghan-Pakistan border, were only possible as a result of information passed on to us by the militants, especially those of Uzbek descent, who were former members of Al-Qaeda," a senior intelligence official told Newsline. While the information obtained from these disgruntled elements is not necessarily enough to point the way directly to the militants, it is, they assert, always reliable and can be further developed to lead investigators to their main hideouts. A case in point is when intelligence personnel managed to obtain a mobile phone number of Abu Faraj al-Libbi - purportedly number three in Al-Qaeda's hierarchy - from these militants. "This was a crucial nugget of information, the only one in fact, that led us to him," he said. Intelligence officials kept this number under surveillance, listening in to the Libyan's conversation and tailing him. They heard him inform fellow militants about his movements in coded language. According to sources, they raided a house in Mansehra just a week before al-Libbi's arrest but were unable to capture him then because of operational errors. As luck would have it however, they managed to intercept another call from al-Libbi to his fellow militants in which he conveyed his plans to come to Mardan from where he was finally arrested. Al-Libbi's capture was soon followed by the death of Haitham al-Yemeni, a leading al-Qaeda bomb-maker, in the tribal areas. The US military decided to strike against al-Yemeni, whom they had been tracking in the hope that he would lead them to bin Laden, because they feared he would go into hiding after al-Libbi's arrest. He was killed by a missile near the Afghan-Pakistan border. Pakistan has denied that he was killed on its soil, although details of his death were confirmed by US security officials. The latter also stated that an Al-Qaeda training camp at Shakai, on the Afghan border, was destroyed several months earlier after fighters from the former Soviet territories of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya revealed its whereabouts. The capture of al-Libbi, the death of al-Yemeni and the attack on a training camp at Shakai illustrate how ethnic fissures are affecting Al-Qaeda. Evidently, pragmatism has won over idealism, at least in some instances. Uzbek and other Central Asian extremists, it is said, are co-operating in return for cash and permission to stay in Pakistan. While Tahir Yuldashev, who is leading the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and some of his associates, are still loyal to Al-Qaeda, dozens of other Uzbeks have developed differences with him and launched their own faction of IMU. "The defectors are in constant touch with Pakistani security agencies as well as US officials and are assisting us in tracking down these militants," said a senior intelligence official. According to security personnel, the IMU members developed differences with Tahir Yuldashev because they disagreed with him on various counts. First, they had not been in favour of carrying out terrorist activities on Pakistani soil, while Tahir and his associates harboured plans of terror attacks against western interests in the country. Sources maintain that Tahir had, in fact, prepared suicide squads, which also incidentally included women, towards this end. "They were unable to carry out the attacks after differences within the IMU came to the fore," says one official. Sources described Tahir as a ruthless and single-minded individual who has no qualms about murdering innocent people and, apparently, the not-so-innocent as well. "He [Tahir] killed nearly a dozen of his own Uzbek compatriots after they fell out with him," another official said. His companions are heavily involved in drug-trafficking and other criminal activities. According to some estimates, between 7,000 to 8,000 immigrants from various central Asian countries, including Chechens and some 1,500 Uzbeks, have been settled in Pakistan for over two decades. Although the tribal areas are home to the vast majority, some are believed to be in hiding in urban areas of the country, particularly Karachi. Intelligence personnel contend that Chechen Al-Qaeda members, who are led by one Daniar, are cooperating with the government for more or less the same reasons as the Uzbeks. "The principal bone of contention is their reluctance to carry out terrorist attacks in Pakistan, while the Arabs are determined to do otherwise," they said. According to them, since the operation to flush out foreign militants from the tribal areas was launched in 2003, the Pakistan government has been paying hundreds of informers up to 100,000 pounds sterling a month in this region alone. So far however, they said, they had achieved little success, managing to arrest only some low-tier militants. Moreover, the lookouts were never of any help to them beyond the tribal areas. This explained why, despite the massive amount of money poured into human intelligence, conceded the officials, they suffered a large loss of life during operations in the area, with dozens of army officials killed in various ambushes. Likewise, they said, dozens of their informants were killed by the militants. Having spent years together fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, the ties between the Arabs and the Central Asian militants go back a long way. Al-Qaeda operatives had initially planned to hide bin Laden, Dr. Al-Zawahiri and other important Al-Qaeda personnel in the Ferghana valley in Uzbekistan, but had to drop the plan and consider other alternatives after Djumma Namangani, leader of the Islamic Union Movement, died while fighting the US soldiers in Kunduz in November 2001. Intelligence officials revealed that the opportunity to divide and rule came to their knowledge when a full-fledged operation was launched in the lawless tribal zones. "We got the intimation that differences had developed between these militants and we tried to create further divisions to our advantage," said an official. According to him, the two groups fell out after October 2001 when Arab militants, in the wake of the US bombing of Afghanistan, crossed over into Pakistan and began to grease the palms of the local tribesmen to buy their services and seek shelter with them. This created manifold problems for the Central Asians who had been living in this area since the '80s. These immigrants, virtually all of whom were militants on the run from their countries, were themselves heavily dependent on Arab handouts for their survival and could not match their largesse towards the tribals. "As a result," says a senior security official, "local tribesmen began to favour the Arabs while the Central Asians had to appeal to the Arabs if they wanted any assistance in the area." This was the time when Al-Qaeda employed hundreds of local youth in these tribal areas as guides as well as hosts while they remained in hiding. "They would pay between 300 to 400 dollars for each individual they [the tribesmen] led from the Afghan border through the tribal areas and into Pakistan and another 500 to 1,000 dollars per month per person to those who provided them safe houses or shelters," says an official. The
major dent within the terror network was exposed when the Pakistan
army launched a major operation in the area. During this period
the Pakistan government announced a scheme whereby all the foreigners
living in the region were asked to register. Failure to comply would
lead to repatriation to their home countries. "The government's
tactic of pressurising these foreigners worked like a charm,"
asserts a source. "They had their differences with the Arabs;
now they had an opportunity to settle the scores with them for taking
over these tribal areas which they had used as their base for over
two decades." |
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E-mail: newsline@cyber.net.pk
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