Author: Liz Sly
Publication: The Seattle Times
Date: November 15, 2002
URL: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134576618_pakistan15.html
Afghanistan's government is growing
increasingly alarmed that the political ascendancy of pro-Taliban Islamic
fundamentalist parties in neighboring Pakistan will significantly increase
the ability of the former Taliban to reorganize and regroup.
A year after the Taliban were driven
out of Kabul, most of their senior leaders are still at large and continue
efforts to challenge the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and the
U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, Afghan and U.S. officials
say.
Many of those leaders live openly
in Pakistan's cities, and some are wanted by the Afghan government for
alleged war crimes, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad.
"There are so many of them. Almost
the whole Taliban Cabinet is in Pakistan," he said. "There's a whole list
of bad guys who need to be brought to justice."
There have been repeated reports
during the last year that the Taliban are seeking to reconstitute themselves,
but there has been little evidence that they are succeeding. U.S. forces
still regularly come under attack from small-arms fire, but the attacks
are ill-coordinated.
In an unusual attack Sunday, 10
to 15 107-mm rockets were fired at a U.S. base in Lwara, in eastern Afghanistan
near the Pakistan border. The attack was different, said U.S. military
spokesman Col. Roger King, because the base was targeted simultaneously
from four or five locations. All of the rockets missed the base and there
were no casualties, he said.
In six months with two or three
attacks a week against bases around Afghanistan, only one rocket has hit
a U.S. position, and it was unoccupied at the time, King said.
"We feel that they don't have the
capability to do larger, more coordinated operations," said King. "We still
have evidence that people are trying to regroup, but these efforts are
not necessarily being brought to fruition."
Afghanistan's government is nonetheless
worried that the recent victory of Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist parties
in provincial elections in border areas will give a vital boost to the
Taliban's efforts. The leaders of the Islamic alliance that stunned Pakistan's
political establishment by sweeping the vote in provincial elections in
the North West Frontier Province and winning the largest number of seats
in neighboring Baluchistan are close friends and allies of Taliban leaders,
many of whom are living in Pakistan.
The alliance also secured enough
seats to hold the balance of power in the nation's new national assembly
and may play a leading role in forming a new government. A month after
the election produced no clear victory for any party, the three parties
with the most seats are still haggling over who will lead the next government.
The Islamic Alliance is being wooed
both by the pro-military party, the Pakistan Muslim League, which won the
most seats, and the Pakistan People's Party of Benazir Bhutto, which came
in second. As a condition for forming a coalition with either party, the
alliance is insisting that its candidate, Fazl-ur Rahman, be appointed
prime minister.
Rahman is an old friend and ally
both of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the former Taliban leader who is also at
large, and Osama bin Laden, whose voice is reportedly heard in a recently
made audiotape. The Afghan government is extremely concerned at the prospect
that Rahman may lead Pakistan's next government, Samad said. "These people
were the mentors of the Taliban," he said.
Even if the alliance does not play
a leading role in the next government, its hold over the provinces bordering
Afghanistan, which provide key transit routes for al- Qaida and Taliban
members moving in and out of Afghanistan, will help former Taliban officials
to move and operate more freely than they have in the past.
Among those reportedly living in
Pakistan are Nuruddin Turabi, the former justice minister; Obeidullah,
the former defense minister; Mullah Beradar, the former governor of Herat
and a top front-line commander; and Mullah Dadullah, whom Afghans say oversaw
the massacre of hundreds of ethnic Hazaras in the central province of Bamiyan
as well as the destruction of the giant Buddha statues.
U.S. officials say their intelligence
supports the contention that most former Taliban officials are in Pakistan.
The U.S. has no interest in tracking down Taliban leaders who have gone
into retirement, and the U.S. military effort is still focused on the remnants
of bin Laden's al-Qaida. Nonetheless, many of these figures are suspected
of actively supporting efforts to stage attacks against American forces,
U.S. officials say.
Also high on the U.S. wanted list
is Mullah Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader who slipped away from his stronghold
in Kandahar last December. He is believed to be hiding in a remote network
of canyons along the border. U.S. forces are searching for him.
There are credible reports, American
and Afghan officials say, that Omar regularly travels from his hideout
to Pakistan to meet with former Taliban officials.
The biggest concern for coalition
forces now is not the Taliban, however, but renegade warlord Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, who is rallying opposition in Pakistan's border regions and
within Afghanistan to the U.S. presence, officials say. It is believed
he has struck an alliance with former Taliban leaders and is enlisting
their supporters.
