| Yes, let us announce it in advance so that everybody gets a chance to flee through the tunnels when Pakland's Keystone Cops arrive ... |
Most Arab Al Qaeda terrorists had fled Wana before the military operation began, buying their exit with dollars, sources told Daily Times.
| The surprise!... My heart!... [Thud!] |
Sources said an Arab named Abdullah, the declared Al Qaeda intelligence head - killed during the operation - was the money transfer agent for his organization.
| Oh, is that why they were so upset? |
But as far as Al Qaeda top leader Ayman al Zawahri was concerned, sources told Daily Times, two low-ranking intelligence officials were taken into custody on suspicion that they had helped him escape.
| They got Mahmoud the Weasel! |
| More likely the guy that drove the getaway car and the guy that gassed it up... |
Official, jihadi and local sources also told Daily Times that Shakai village near Wana would be the next target of a military operation for reportedly sheltering Al Qaeda, Taliban and rebel tribal leaders. Hundreds of Qaeda and Taliban fighters had crossed into the Pakistan from Afghanistan after the heavy bombardment by the US coalition forces of their main hideouts in Tora Bora. Around 1600 terrorists and their families are reported to have arrived in groups. One group stayed in Noshera, another in Dera Ismail Khan and the third at the Jalaludin Haqqani seminary in Miran Shah. American Taliban John Walker and around fifty British, European and American Qaeda terrorists were among them. Out of four that came, two groups were led by Taliban commanders Malik Janan and Commander Sheraz.
| Not too sure how accurate that is. Johnny Jihad was captured at Konduz, before the Tora Bora operation. |
According to sources, the Arabs who had the money managed to settle in these areas while sending their families, especially women and children, to their native countries through agents. Mostly these agents were from the tribal areas and they provided this facility for US$2000 per person. Qaddafi International Foundation and Javed Ibraheem Paracha, a Muslim League leader from NWFP, are alleged to have helped send the Arabsâ families abroad. Sources said terrorists from China, Chechnya, Tajikistan and other central Asian states and Arabs preferred to stay in the tribal areas also because local tribes sheltered them, albeit for US$100 to 300 a week. The Arabs scattered in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Kashmir and other parts of Pakistan while the Uzbeks, Chechens and Chinese stayed in the tribal areas. Khalid Al Zawahri stayed here near âRed Mountainâ in Waziristan for around a year with his companions. âTribes cooperated with the fighters in sympathy as well as for money. However not all tribes cooperated with them. When the forth Qaeda group of 120 fighters entered Kurram Agency from Tora Bora, the Mangial tribe arrested these fighters and robbed them of their valuables and weapons, while they later returned in exchange for large sums of money. Chinese fighters did not have enough money and most of the foreigners killed in the operation were from this group, sources said.
| Life's tough. It's tougher when you're broke. |
Sources said there were a few Arab families already in the area but these had no direct links with Al Qaeda. âThese are settlers in tribal areas on both sides of the Durand Line doing charity workâ, sources said. They were not militant in the Taliban era either, but the US is not differentiating between Al Qaeda and these Arabs after 9/11â, sources said.
| Assuming there's an actual difference. The Khadr clan, remember, was big into "charity work." That's a wheeze that's pretty ripe by now. |
The Arab and the Uzbek fighters had also told the tribal jirga that they were ready to go to the militantsâ hideouts in South Waziristan to negotiate the release of 14 Pakistani government personnel on March 26 and that they were prepared to surrender if the United Nations guaranteed that they would not be handed over to the US forcesâ, sources from Wana said, but the Pakistan Army had rejected the offer. âPakistani officials believed this to be an Al Qaeda trap and they knew the UN would not get involved in the operationâ, sources referring to the talks with an Army official said.
| And likely it was a ruse. They used the same one at Konduz and at Tora Bora. It's pretty well worn out by now, too. |
Initially Pakistan did not have enough information about Qaeda and Taliban fighters to take serious notice of them because Pakistani intelligence agencies did not have an adequate network of ground intelligence in these areas and depended mostly on their agents in the field. But American intelligence was continuously getting reports from its own sources in the tribes and from Afghanistan that Al Qaeda fighters are gathering in these areas. The Pakistani government did not relish the idea of stern action against the Al Qaeda fighters in the area because of the sensitivity of the area but to please the US, the Pakistani government distributed huge sums of money on the recommendation of the political agents to the Maliks (leaders) of the tribes as bribes to families to betray the Al Qaeda fighters they sheltered, sources said. But the Maliks kept the money for themselves.
| Guess there's no honor among thieves and banditti, is there? |
Things became serious with reports that Qaeda and Taliban leaders had converged on Waziristan. Osama Bin Laden, Mulla Omar, Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbadin Hekmatyar and other top leaders were reportedly seen in this area while Pakistani and Afghan jihadi organizations had begun recruiting men from these areas and establish mobile training camps. The first camp was in Kuram Agency, in the area âHaji Maidanâ, by the Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Isalmi (HJI) from where on November 4, 2002 a rocket was fired at the American base in Afghanistan near the border and a US helicopter struck the area with rockets. On September 5, 2002 a tribe in Bannu forced the Pakistani army to release 6 prisoners arrested for alleged links with Al Qaeda. This was alarming enough for the Pakistan Army but when from Dara Aka Khel in North Waziristan a Wazri sub tribe helped Al Qaeda fighters attack an American forces camp in Dara and kidnapped 5 American troops in July 2003, the Pakistan Army launched its first major military operation against the tribes. This operation took three days but the Inter Services Public Relation (ISPR) declared the operation âroutine military exercises," sources said. The need for action against these elements saw Operation Mountain Lions put into action in October 2003, in which 13 Qaeda fighters, tribesmen and Frontier Constabulary (FC) men were killed. The first solid information about the presence of foreign militants came to the surface when a lady from an NWFP government department, one tehsildar and an intelligence official visited Azam Warsik and they saw a Chechnyan women in a veil with a hand-grenade.
| Chechnyan women and explosives just seem to go together, don't they? |
Sources also claimed that the militants did not in fact dig the Kaloosha village tunnels to escape. âSuch tunnels are everywhere in Wana. Only those who donât know our area could make such funny claims,â sources said. Local sources say American forces did not participate in the operation but had a satellite center in Wana operated by 12 Americans. |