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| India-Pakistan |
| Al-Qaida Supporter Says Arrests Won't Cripple It |
| 2003-03-03 |
| Osama bin Laden's terrorist network lost a key operative with the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, but Taliban fugitives and al-Qaida allies said Sunday the arrest will not cripple the organization. "There is not just one person there. For every one Khalid Shaikh there are 10 others. There are lots of people who can do his work," said an Afghan rebel who gave his name as Ahmed but who also goes by Abu Bilal. Yeah, yeah. And for every bin Laden we kill, ten will rise up. Cannon fodder, like Ahmed or Abu Bilal or Clifford, or whatever his name is, is cheap and easily replaceable. International criminal masterminds aren't... Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Mohammed's main work for al-Qaida was to move money and recruit operatives, said Ahmed, a fund-raiser for the Afghan rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Ahmed said he had known Mohammed since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s. Back then, Mohammed and his brother ran a Saudi-funded Islamic charity in Peshawar, Ahmed said. Ahmed said Mohammed never would have been arrested had he stayed along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. On the Afghan side are mountains with plenty of places to hide. On the other is a semiautonomous region known as Pakistan's tribal region. That's where the Paks keep their subversive groups that they use against Afghanistan... Another man interviewed in this northwestern city on the edge of the tribal region said there were several Arabs in the area. The man, Qayyum, described himself as loyal to the Taliban. He said he did not know if any of the Arabs were top al-Qaida suspects but he is sure bin Laden is not among them. Qayyum said al-Qaida and its allies continue running small training camps in the rugged peaks of eastern Afghanistan and he recently returned from one of them. He quoted others at the camp as saying bin Laden is hiding in the mountains, changing locations daily and traveling with only four or five confidants. Everybody's heard about it, nobody's seen it... Qayyum also handed over a recording of a voice purported to be that of bin Laden. He offered the cassette as proof bin Laden is alive and active. The tape was a sermon given by bin Laden last month to mark the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. He got it in Afghanistan from his al-Qaida instructors, he said. "More than 100 percent I know that Osama Sheikh is in Afghanistan. Listen. This is his voice," said Qayyum, a native of Afghanistan's eastern Paktia province. Qayyum popped the audiocassette in the tape player of a white pickup truck as the vehicle weaved past stubborn donkeys and motorized rickshaws blocking the narrow streets of ancient Peshawar. Qayyum said both the Taliban and Hekmatyar recently received a large sum of money from bin Laden. In a soft whisper he calculated: $1.8 million for the Taliban. I wonder if that came direct from Soddy Arabia, or through some intermediaries... It was impossible to independently confirm the information but Western intelligence sources say al-Qaida, Hekmatyar and the Taliban are aligned. A European intelligence agent said more money has been coming into Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent months, which would corroborate Qayyum's claim. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 Although it could be confirmed by reading Rantburg. Rantburg: Doing the CIA's job on a shoestring budget. |
| Posted by: Brian 2003-03-03 17:11:31 |