WASHINGTON, April 17: One of the objectives of the new military operation launched in south-eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday is said to be to deter a spring-time influx of militants from Pakistan who are allied with Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The operation, spearheaded by British troops, is the largest since the Shahikot action four weeks ago, and its primary aim is to search and destroy Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants.
But, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, quoting Pentagon sources, it is also aimed at deterring Pakistani sympathizers from crossing into Afghanistan and further agitating that country at a crucial time. Former King Zahir Shah is scheduled to return to Kabul on Thursday, and his visit is to be followed by the convening of a loya jirga leading to the formation of a new government in June.
In addition, the Post said, “Pakistan itself is expected to become more politically turbulent” with the approach of the April 30 referendum.
The paper says concern about “jihadists” entering Afghanistan as the secondary mountain passes open in spring points to a contradiction in Pakistan’s conduct over the last six months —— “it has done better in cracking down on foreign terrorists, such as members of Al Qaeda, than it has in reeling in its own extremists”. Over the last month, the paper adds, Pakistan conducted high-profile raids that netted more than two dozen suspected foreign terrorists, including Abu Zubaiydah, but it also quietly released about 1,000 Pakistani extremists who were in detention.
Pakistan says it has only freed those who were found to be benign and against whom no case could be established.
OSAMA: In another report on Wednesday, the Post says Osama bin Laden was present during the battle of Tora Bora late last year and managed to escape because of the failure of the US to commit its own ground troops to the search and destruction of the region’s caves. The US had depended on local Afghan militias to spearhead the campaign, and some of them may have colluded in the escape of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.
According to the Post, intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that Osama began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan’s eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that Osama slipped away in the first 10 days of December.
The report does not speculate on Osama’s present whereabouts, though it implies that the Tora Bora operation had provided the best opportunity so far to capture or kill him. US officials in repeated briefings since have said they don’t know whether the Al Qaeda leader is dead or alive.
