Author: Kathy Gannon
Publication: The Associated Press
Date: May 27, 2002
Two former high-ranking Taliban
talk of reorganizing their militant religious movement and describe a recovering
al-Qaida - all while they sit secretly inside Pakistan, Washington's front-line
ally in the war on international terrorism.
In an interview with The Associated
Press, they said the Afghan-Pakistan border can't be sealed to stop the
movement of militants. Even more advantageous, they said, is the split
within Pakistan's powerful spy agency between those who share the Taliban's
ideology and those who support Pakistan's alliance with America.
One of the two, Fazul Rabi Said-Rahman,
was the Taliban army corps commander for eastern Afghanistan. During the
last six months of Taliban rule he was chief of police in Paktika province,
an area still considered by the U.S.- led anti-terrorist coalition to be
harboring fugitive Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
The other man, Obeidullah, was an
assistant to the Taliban's intelligence chief Qari Ahmadullah, who was
killed by a U.S. bomb in January in eastern Afghanistan.
Speaking in Pashtu through an interpreter,
they said the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and al- Qaida's
leader, Osama bin Laden, are both alive, but offered no specifics on the
Saudi dissident who leads al- Qaida. They said that they had met with Omar
within the last two months ''in the mountains in Afghanistan.''
They did not claim to have seen
bin Laden or explain how they knew he was alive. ''He is waiting for the
next big attack and then he will show his body,'' Obeidullah said.
Both men warned of suicide attacks
on the United States and Britain in retaliation for the war in Afghanistan,
but again offered no specifics.
In an earlier meeting with AP, Obeidullah
had made a similar vague warning about a suicide attack. He said at the
second meeting that he was speaking of the May 8 bus bombing in Karachi
that killed 14 people, including 11 French engineers who were in Pakistan
to build an Agosta submarine for the Pakistani navy.
''Before the Karachi attack I said
something was being planned, something would happen in Pakistan,'' Obeidullah
said. He said the attack was staged by al-Qaida and Pakistanis opposed
to President Pervez Musharraf's support for the United States.
Said-Rahman said some Pakistani
groups are working with al-Qaida against the coalition and against Musharraf.
''Everyone is working together -
Harakat-ul Jihad, Harakat-ul Mujahedeen, al-Qaida,'' he said, referring
to two Pakistani-based Islamic extremist groups that have been outlawed
by Musharraf. ''People are angry with Musharraf because he is allowing
the kafirs (non-Muslims) to destroy everything in Afghanistan. Muslims
everywhere are angry.''
In recent days, reports have surfaced
in the United States about possible targets of terrorist attacks.
Said-Rahman said the reports were
true, but wouldn't elaborate or say where he got his information.
''We have information that there
will be some big suicide attacks in the United States,'' he said. ''We
know it will happen. We have information. We know the situation. The Americans
and the British are the big enemies. They have destroyed Afghanistan.''
Last Wednesday, the British Embassy
in Islamabad ordered most of its staff to leave because of fears of a terrorist
attack and in less than 48 hours dozens of British nationals were evacuated.
During the weekend the German and
Australian Embassies decided to send their non-essential staff home, again
out of fears of terrorist assaults. Both the United States and Canadian
missions have evacuated all but essential staff.
Both Taliban officials said Omar
is overseeing a reorganization of the religious movement, which Said- Rahman
said was being renamed Al Emarah Islamia Afghanistan or Islamic State of
Afghanistan, which was the name previously used by the Taliban for their
country. Now Said-Rahman said it will also identify their movement.
He said Omar had issued orders appointing
Mullah Usmani, the Taliban's former Kandahar corps commander, as his replacement
should he die. Usmani was chosen ''because right now, ours is a military
battle and Usmani is a military man,'' Said-Rahman said.
He said the Taliban's former finance
minister, Aga Jan Mohtasim, had been named to lead the movement's ideological
revival.
Obeidullah said Omar has been in
contact with Taliban warriors in their mountain hide-outs in Afghanistan
and has addressed small shuras, or councils, in several provinces at secret
locations.
Without offering any details, Said-Rahman
said al-Qaida also is slowly recuperating with an emphasis on a military
and financial resurrection.
The al-Qaida terrorist network is
trying to establish a safe haven in Pakistan, the U.S. Army's second-in-command
Gen. John M. Keane told the troops in Kandahar on Saturday.
''They are trying to establish another
safe haven now in Pakistan, and we will deal with that. When the time is
right, we will deal with that one as well,'' Keane said during an address
to members of the 101st Airborne Division based at Kandahar airport in
southern Afghanistan.
Obeidullah said Pakistan's intelligence
agency, the ISI, has a hard time tracking Taliban and al-Qaida operatives.
''We know the ISI has problems of
its own,'' he said. ''There are some who are with us and some who are against
us. Those who are with us are having a hard time.''
Musharraf has purged some Taliban
supporters from the agency, intelligence sources have said.
The most significant removal was
Mahmood Ahmed, the agency's chief who was fired in October. Ahmed was a
staunch Taliban supporter, and he was a backer of Islamic guerrillas fighting
in the portion of Kashmir controlled by India, a conflict that has Pakistan
and India on the edge of war.
Anwar Sher, a retired Pakistan army
general who worked closely with Afghan insurgents during their war with
an occupying Soviet army in the 1980s, said low-level intelligence agents
may be the ISI's weakness in trying to track down Taliban and al-Qaida
members.
''The higher-ups get their information
from the lower- level operatives. There they may share ideologies, and
also money may exchange hands,'' he said.
