Despite a crackdown involving tens of thousands of troops and a pledge by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to do all he can in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Afghans say a steady stream of Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives are finding a safe haven on Pakistan’s side of the 3,200-kilometre border.
The Afghan border chief gestures toward a fresh spray of bullet holes across his pickup truck, then points toward the place he says the Taliban attackers came from: Pakistan. "See the trees? They started from that border post," said Palawan, his head shaved. Afterward, "the vehicles came from there, and took the Taliban away."
Sealing the border is vital if a promised spring offensive by American troops is to succeed in its main goal, crushing Taliban resistance and capturing al Qaeda leaders like bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, both believed in hiding somewhere along the porous frontier. But Palawan and other Afghan security officials say they aren’t convinced, insisting Pakistan’s security and intelligence services are rife with Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers. "They are living there, they are coming to do the terror attacks, and they are going back," Palawan said, gun at his side as he drives along the barren border.
Pakistani officials scoff at the charges and say they are doing everything they can to arrest Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives. "This is nonsense," Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said in Islamabad. "We are fighting against terrorists, not sheltering them."
"Without Pakistan, the Taliban would be finished. Without the Taliban, al Qaeda would be finished," Gen. Khan Mohammed, regional commander of the Afghan militia, said in Kandahar, capital of the southern province that includes Spin Boldak. Some Afghans say Pakistan’s security and intelligence services make a distinction between turning away al Qaeda members -- many of them Arabs foreign to the region -- and turning away their former Taliban allies seeking shelter. "I don’t think there’s been a fundamental shift in the perception of the Taliban in the Pakistan military," said Vikram Parekh, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Kabul, the Afghan capital. "That’s going to be the big problem," whether Pakistan’s military "draws a line between al Qaeda and the Taliban." Afghan intelligence officials say they have intercepted phone conversations from Taliban commanders in Quetta, the largest Pakistani city near the southern border. The bullet holes in his pickup-truck door come from a Taliban attack 10 days ago, said Palawan, whose nom de guerre means "strongman."
How often does a border chief have a nom de guerre, I ask you?
Later, he showed the graves of what he said were 15 of 45 Taliban killed in an attack in June. Burial flags - green, white or embroidered with flowers - and ceremonially broken dishes marked visits to the alleged Taliban graves by loved ones. Afghan border officials said the June battle began when alleged Taliban ambushed an Afghan official. Palawan said he watched the night of the attack as vehicles came from the Pakistani side of the border to retrieve Taliban survivors. Later, he said Afghans laid out the bodies of the Taliban dead - young- to middle-aged men in bushy beards and turbans, with old weapons - on the border. People from the Pakistan side collected all but the 15, he said.
Pakistan dismisses the Afghan account of the battle, saying there was no cross-border involvement from its side. But immediately after the battle, Pakistan began fortifying 90 miles of border stretching south and north from Spin Boldak. Over eight months, Pakistan border Col. Abdul Basit began installing berms, barbed wire, security lighting, video cameras, and far more guards along the border and checkpoints leading to it. Shoot-to-kill orders went out to Pakistan border guards for anyone seen crossing illicitly. The Spin Boldak crossing, opening to the Pakistan town of Chaman, today stands as a showcase for visiting dignitaries. On Friday, when The Associated Press made a scheduled visit, sentries armed with rifles stood astride the mud berms, staring resolutely into Afghanistan. "If not 100 percent, 99 percent we have been able to seal" Basit said of the border area, though he acknowledged "undesirable elements" have simply shifted to more remote, less policed mountains to the north. |