WHEREABOUTS OF BIN LADEN: An Analysis One of the priority tasks
of the reshuffled ISI is going to be to pressurise the
Taliban to throw Bin Laden out
of Afghanistan. Nawaz Sharif
is under tremendous pressure from the US to
make the Taliban moderate its anti-woman policies and
to hand over Bin Laden to the US, failing which the US
reportedly wants the ISI and the IB to co-operate with the
CIA and the FBI in having him captured from his hide-out
in Kandahar and flown to the US in a Noriega-style operation.
Nawaz is apparently in a dilemma. Bin Laden is a
hero figure to large sections of Pashtoons, not only of Afghanistan,
but also of Pakistan. Any suspicion that he colluded
with the US in the capture of Bin Laden could turn
the Pashtoon public opinion in general and the Islamic
extremists in particular against him. At the same time,
failure to act on the repeated US requests could delay the
lifting of the US sanctions against Pakistan even if he
gives satisfaction to the US on the non- proliferation issue. Pakistani
authorities, therefore, seem to be trying to explore the possibility
of helping Bin Laden to escape to the Southern Philippines
where the Abu Sayaaf group might give him shelter
in the territory under its control or to Chechnya. No Government
of any Islamic State would accept him lest they fall
foul of the US. The only way out, in Pakistani calculation, is
to help him to flee to a country where Muslim insurgent elements
control some territory.
Assessment
in our paper of December 18,1998, titled “Revamp
Of Pakistani Intelligence”.
For nearly a year now, the US authorities have been pressing Pakistan to
help them in mounting a Noriega-style operation to have Bin Laden whisked
out of his hide-out in Kandahar and flown to the US for interrogation and
prosecution.
After the bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August last
year, large sections of the Pakistani press were feverishly speculating
about the imminence of a helicopter-borne US raid into Kandahar to
capture Bin Laden and take him away.
Instead, the US retaliation came in the form of Cruise missile attacks
on some of the training camps of Bin Laden’s organisation and the
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in Afghan territory. The attacks were not as successful
as hoped for by US officials.
On the night of the Cruise missile attacks, Gen. Joseph Ralston, Vice-Chairman
of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has reportedly been closely involved
in the planning of the operation to capture Bin Laden, paid a lightning
visit to Islamabad and dined with Gen.Jehangir Karamat, the then Chief
of the Army Staff. It was given out by the Pakistani and the US authorities
that Pakistan had no prior intimation of the Cruise missile attacks and
that Ralston’s visit was to tell the Pakistani authorities that the missiles
had been fired by the US Navy, to avoid any panic in Pakistan under the
mistaken impression that they had been fired by India.
However, critics of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan had been alleging that Pakistan
was privy to the bombings much before the Cruise missiles were launched
and that the real purpose of Ralston’s presence in Pakistan was to ensure
that there was no last-minute co-ordination problem.(US
Bombing in Afghanistan)
The Taliban authorities, who had initially imposed movement and communications
restrictions on Bin Laden after the missile attacks, subsequently removed
them, thereby enabling him to again contact the international press, directly
through the satellite telephone as well as indirectly through Peshawar-based
Pakistani journalists, and utter threats against the US. These threats
became more hysterical after the US-UK bombings of Iraq in December.(Osama
Bin Laden-update)
Despite Nawaz’s revamping of the ISI and the Intelligence Bureau, his hand-picked
chiefs of these organisations were unable to prevent Bin Laden from
using the Peshawar-based journalists to utter threats against the US and
to persuade the Taliban Amir, Mullah Omar, to expel Bin Laden from Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s demand for expelling Bin Laden was supported by a section of
the Taliban leaders based in Kabul, but Mullah Omar remained defiant in
his refusal to do so.(Rumblings
in Afghanistan)
It was in this context that the “Guardian” of the UK, quoting US intelligence
and anti-Saddam Hussain political exile sources, reported in the first
week of February that Farouk Hijazi, Iraq’s Ambassador to Turkey,
who, according to the “Guardian”, belongs to the Iraqi intelligence, had
visited Kandahar in the last week of December,1998, and conveyed to Bin
Laden an offer of shelter in Iraq in return for the assistance of
his organisation in Iraq’s campaign against the US and Saudi Arabia.
Since then, similar reports of the likelihood of Bin Laden shifting
his headquarters to Iraq had been circulating, most of them apparently
originating from the US intelligence community.
During the visit to Pakistan in the first week of February by Strobe
Talbott,
the US Deputy Secretary of State, his delegation included not only Gen.
Ralston, but also reportedly senior CIA and FBI officers handling the Bin
Laden operation. While Ralston accompanied Talbott on his visit to New
Delhi too, which preceded his visit to Islamabad, the intelligence officers
were believed to have directly flown to Islamabad and joined the Talbott
delegation there.
While it was given out by the US officials that the purpose of the inclusion
of Ralston was to discuss the possibility of the resumption of the normal
interactions of the US armed forces with their Indian and Pakistani counterparts,
it is believed that another purpose was to again press the Pakistani authorities
to give clearance for a joint operation to capture Bin Laden.
In addition to the non-proliferation question, the Bin Laden issue also
figured prominently in the discussions of Talbott , his No.2, Karl Inderfurth,
Assistant Secretary of State, and Ralston in Islamabad.
On February 1, Maulvi Jalil
Akhund, the Taliban’s Deputy Foreign Minister,
was flown to Islamabad from Kandahar in a special plane. He met Nawaz Sharif,
Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, and then Inderfurth, reportedly
at Aziz’s residence.
Nawaz had also presided over a high-level meeting attended, amongst others,
by Gen. Pervez Musharaf, the chief of the army staff, and Lt. Gen.Ziauddin,
the new Director-General of the ISI, to discuss about Bin Laden
During the stay of the Talbott delegation, Inderfurth also visited
Peshawar and reportedly sought the understanding and co-operation of the
moderate, anti-Taliban Pashtoon leaders in the USA’s efforts to bring Bin
Laden to justice.
It was reported that the US officials made clear to their Pakistani and
Afghan interlocutors the USA’s determination to capture Bin Laden and bring
him to justice with their co-operation, if possible, and without it, if
left with no other option.
Initially, Maulvi Akhund and other Taliban leaders remained as defiant
as ever in their refusal to hand over Bin Laden either to the US or to
Saudi Arabia, but as fresh speculation flared up in Pakistan about the
likelihood of a new US attack on Afghanistan, including a possible raid
on Kandahar itself to capture Bin Laden, the Taliban authorities re-imposed
the movement and communications restrictions on Bin Laden.
Subsequently,
they announced that while they would not betray Bin Laden and expel or
extradite him, if he wanted to leave Afghanistan on his own, they would
allow him to leave. Since February 13, Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders
have been claiming that Bin Laden has disappeared from Afghanistan.
Mohammed
Tayyab, a Taliban spokesman, told journalists at Kandahar on February
13: “He has disappeared. We didn’t ask him to leave. We don’t know where
he is.”
Presuming that the Taliban’s claim that Bin Laden is no longer in Afghanistan
is correct, there are five places where he could have found fresh shelter:
the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, Southern Philippines,
Chechnya, Yemen and Iraq.
The Pakistan Government’s control over the FATA is very weak and the inhabitants
of this area are quite loyal to him. However, the US might find it much
easier to mount an operation in FATA than in Kandahar.
While admitting past contacts with and financial assistance from Bin Laden,
the Islamic extremists of Southern Philippines have recently denied any
present links with him, thereby distancing themselves from reports of a
likelihood of his fleeing to Southern Philippines
His ability to get across to Chechnya undetected and unintercepted by the
US and Russia is poor. He is of Yemeni origin with many relatives and supporters
in Yemen, but the attitude of the local Government to him would be uncertain.
This
leaves, for the present, only Iraq where he might be welcomed and helped
in order to use him and his set-up in Iraq's stepped- up campaign against
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the US. If it turns out to be correct that he has
fled to Iraq, he could not have gone there, or for that matter, anywhere
else, without the connivance of the Pakistani authorities.
In 1996, the Pakistani authorities had allowed him to go to Jalalabad from
Sudan through Peshawar. Without felicitation by the ISI, it would have
been almost impossible for him to fly out.
There has been some speculation of his having crossed over to Iran. This
is doubtful because of his close association with the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba
of Pakistan which has been responsible for the deaths of many Iranian officials
in Paki
