Author: James Dao
Publication: The New York Times
Date: May 28, 2002
Virtually the entire senior leadership
of Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been driven out of eastern Afghanistan
and are now operating with as many as 1,000 non-Afghan fighters in the
anarchic tribal areas of western Pakistan, the commander of American-led
forces in Afghanistan said today.
The commander, Maj. Gen. Franklin
L. Hagenbeck, said in an interview that intelligence reports indicated
that the Qaeda and Taliban leaders now in Pakistan were plotting terrorist
attacks, including car and suicide bombings, to disrupt the selection of
a new national government in Kabul next month.
"We know that they are there and
have a capability to do harm to this country," General Hagenbeck said.
"Our job is to deny them the freedom of movement and sanctuary."
Though he suggested two months ago
that coalition forces might cross the border in pursuit of Qaeda and Taliban
fighters, General Hagenbeck said today that he did not expect that to happen,
largely because Pakistan had developed its own plans to drive Al Qaeda
and the Taliban from their mountain sanctuaries.
But he echoed a concern voiced in
Washington that tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could
delay Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas. The Pakistan government
said last week that it intended to move some of its troops from the Afghan
border to the Kashmir region.
General Hagenbeck also said several
recent raids on compounds in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban's spiritual
base, had been intended to break up groups that had been plotting terrorist
attacks against coalition forces and their Afghan allies.
Residents of those villages have
asserted that the American forces were mistaken about the presence of terrorist
groups, and say innocent people have been killed or taken into custody
in the raids.
General Hagenbeck, the commander
of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, would not say whether Pakistan had
begun pulling back troops from the border. But he expressed confidence
that President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan would fulfill a pledge to eliminate
the Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries in the tribal region, which historically
has resisted the rule of Islamabad.
"I have no concern that they are
not going to do what they've said they will do," General Hagenbeck said
in his office at this former Soviet base, now the headquarters for more
than 10,000 allied troops in Afghanistan. "They are interested in ridding
western Pakistan of Al Qaeda." He added, "With what is currently going
on in India, I don't know what the timing's going to be."
There have been reports from Pakistan
that Osama bin Laden, the head of Al Qaeda, has been seen in the tribal
areas as recently as last month. But General Hagenbeck said he had no solid
information on the whereabouts of Mr. bin Laden or Mullah Muhammad Omar,
the Taliban leader.
In making his remarks today, General
Hagenbeck was sending two messages. One is that he believes that the American-led
coalition, which includes British, Canadian and other forces, has effectively
cleared the rugged mountains southeast of Kabul of all but the smallest
groups of Taliban and Qaeda fighters.
A major offensive into the Shah-i-Kot
Valley in March killed as many as 700 Taliban and Qaeda fighters, the Pentagon
says, though Afghan officials have said the number may have been lower.
But on a second level, General Hagenbeck
was expressing the view, widely held in Washington, that it is up to Pakistan
to move more aggressively against the Qaeda forces, which are considered
particularly fierce and well disciplined.
He estimated that 100 to 1,000 non-Afghan
Qaeda fighters were in the tribal areas, including Chechens and Uzbeks,
as well as Uighurs from western China.
Northwestern Pakistan, which is
heavily populated by Pashtuns, the ethnic group from which the Taliban
came, is a semiautonomous region that has long been hostile to attempts
by the central government to police, regulate or tax it.
Officials in Washington have said
they are deeply concerned that tensions between India and Pakistan may
severely disrupt the American campaign to destroy the remnants of Al Qaeda's
leadership, which until recently had been thought to be operating on both
sides of the porous Afghan border.
"We could be getting a lot more
help from the Pakistanis if there were not the tense situation with respect
to the two countries," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week.
"They have forces along the Indian borders that we could use along the
Afghan border."
Before tensions with India increased
recently, Pentagon officials said the Pakistan military seemed to be gradually
building up its troop presence in the tribal areas. There was also talk
of a coordinated operation in which Pakistani forces would push Qaeda and
Taliban fighters westward toward waiting American-led forces at the border.
In June, General Hagenbeck will
be relieved as commander of ground forces in Afghanistan by one of his
superiors, Lt. Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the commander of the 18th Airborne
Corps at Fort Bragg, N.C. General Hagenbeck, who has been in Afghanistan
for six months, will remain in Bagram for a while to assist in the transition,
military officials said.
Though much of the senior Taliban
leadership seems to be operating in Pakistan's tribal areas, General Hagenbeck
said intelligence reports showed that a few Taliban leaders had returned
to Afghanistan to try to establish guerrilla operations. Their goal, he
said, would be to undermine a meeting of elders in Kabul next month that
is to select a permanent national government.
"They are looking for something
that will gain them a lot of publicity," he said. "They are looking to
do something violent that would be, in their eyes and internationally,
so spectacular that it would convince the local populace who are now sitting
on the fence or supporting us that they need to re-embrace the Taliban."
General Hagenbeck said recent raids
by special operations forces on compounds in southern Afghanistan were
intended to break up groups that were thought to be plotting just such
attacks.
But residents in one of those villages,
Bandi Temur, said that a raid last Friday caused a 3-year-old girl to plummet
to her death down a well while trying to flee and that a tribal elder had
died in American custody. More than 50 villagers were taken into custody
in that raid.
General Hagenbeck said American
forces had shot and killed three men who had fired on them first and that
he knew of no other casualties in that raid. He said about half of the
detainees had been released, while the rest were still being interrogated.
At least two of the prisoners have been found to be Taliban or Qaeda officials,
he said.
General Hagenbeck acknowledged that
civilians might sometimes be killed. But he asserted that Taliban and Qaeda
officials had gone into villages after American raids and exaggerated civilian
casualties to sow discontent against the American forces and their allies
in Kabul.
