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| Afghanistan |
| Binny in Kunar? |
| 2002-08-30 |
| By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times... Al-Qaeda, "the base", is now extinct. Al-Qaeda has a brand new name: Fath-e-Islam (Victory of Islam). And Fath-e-Islam's leader, none other than Osama bin Laden, is very much alive. But not anymore in Pakistan. Osama has returned to Afghanistan. More precisely, the Kunar province. Christian Science Monitor had a similar report on August 9th... Key players in the ultra-complex Pakistan-Afghanistan game had been saying that since the fall of Kabul in November 2001 that "the last battle" in this ongoing war would be in Kunar. The scenario now seems more than likely. The Taliban and the rebranded al-Qaeda have full tribal support in Kunar — where everybody seems to know someone who died from the American bombing of Afghanistan. A Pashtun notable puts the issue succinctly, "If the Americans are serious about grabbing Osama, they will have to put up a fight. On the ground. Man to man. There will be a lot of body bags." Ummm... Probably not. That's the Pashtun way, as long as they have the other side outnumbered, anyway. If we could get a fix on him, rather than sending in lots of young fellows to do battle with the turbans on the ground it's more likely we'd level everything for a couple miles in either direction and then poke through the rubble. And if everyone knows someone who died in the bombing, guess everyone was pretty closely involved with the Taliban in one way or the other, so my sympathy meters still snoozing... On August 10, the Daily Ummat, the number one Urdu-language paper in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, published a front-page story filed from Asadabad, Afghanistan (the capital of Kunar). The story did not appear in other Pakistani English-language papers, nor in the international media, for that matter. The story was headlined "Osama spotted in Pakistani area - Dir". Dir, in the northern strip of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) is about 80 kilometers from the Afghan border in Kunar province. The story also said that Ayman al-Zawahiri, aka "The Surgeon", was reorganizing al-Qaeda something like 50 kilometers west of Chitral. Chitral, north of Dir, is at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains. The article wasn't all that ignored. It formed the base for the al-Quds al-Arabi story on Binny being back at the helm... This is a pretty long article. Rather than take up the entire page, I've stashed the whole thing in core dump%. (No, it's not the premium version of Rantburg. That's where I keep the ones that get really verbose.) If you've got the time and the attention span to spend, it might be worth a read. Dan Hartung and Alicia both jumped on this one. I think it was the guy with the sore shoulder... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 "If the Americans are serious about grabbing Osama, they will have to put up a fight. On the ground. Man to man. There will be a lot of body bags." Your right, buddy. Lots and lots of body bags. Real small ones -- about the size of a ziplock sandwich bag. And all of them containing Pashtun meat paste. Isn't it amazing? I'm referring to all these folks out there who are convinced that if they bluster enough, we'll fight them the way THEY want us to fight instead of the way WE choose to fight? |
| Posted by: Patrick Phillips 2002-08-30 12:11:49 |