Osama Bin Laden likely in Afghan: Rahman Malik
Sunday, July 12, 2009 at 3:27 pm
ISLAMABAD: Osama bin Laden and the top Al-Qaeda leadership are not in Pakistan, making US missile attacks against them futile, according to the country’s interior minister.
“If Osama was in Pakistan we would know, with all the thousands of troops we have sent into the tribal areas in recent months,” Rehman Malik said while talking to The Sunday Times. “If he and all these four or five top people were in our area they would have been caught, the way we are searching.”
He added, “According to our information Osama is in Afghanistan, probably Kunar, as most of the activities against Pakistan are being directed from Kunar.”
CIA officials claim these attacks have been highly effective in disrupting Al-Qaeda’s ability to operate. However, Malik insists they are a waste of time because the Al-Qaeda leadership is on the other side of the border in eastern Afghanistan.
“They’re getting mid-level people not big fish,” he said. “And they are counterproductive because they are killing civilians and turning locals against our government. We try to win people’s hearts, then one drone attack drives them away. One attack alone last week killed 50 people.”
US officials in Islamabad say Pakistan’s government is being disingenuous, claiming to oppose the drone attacks to win domestic support, while being quite happy to benefit from them.
The army has not yet caught the leaders of the Swat Taliban though the interior minister claims that the main leader, Maulana Fazlullah, has been hit twice and is badly wounded. “I’m quite confident we’ll get them,” he said.
“Not only have we killed most of them but we’ve also destroyed their hideouts and arms depots,” he added. “We discovered long, wide tunnels they were using for weapons.”
According to Malik, the families of the militant leaders had been discovered hiding in the refugee camps. Fazlullah’s family was found in a camp in Haripur and taken into custody.
“Wherever these militants are, we’ll get them out,” said Malik. “The decision of the government is very firm – no mercy, no negotiation. They must surrender or die.”
For all Washington’s talk of an “AfPak strategy”, he said, Pakistan’s efforts to take on the Taliban their side of the border are being hampered by the failure of American and British troops in Afghanistan to monitor their side.
“Two years ago we were being criticised by the West for our ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence agency] helping the Taliban cross into Afghanistan,” he said. “We have stopped the border crossing. Now we’re finding the same situation – they’re coming from the other side, bringing arms and fighters from Helmand into Baluchistan and into Waziristan. Should we say it’s Afghan or western intelligence helping them?”
He argued that Nato troops in Afghanistan should have first sealed the border before stepping up the fighting. “If we can’t seal it totally we should seal it as much as possible,” he said. “If we can’t have a wall, at least let’s put up barbed wire.”
“They should replicate what we’ve done,” he added. “We have 1,000 checkpoints on our side – they have only 100, of which only 60 are working. It makes no sense to both be fighting either side of the border without stopping the militants crossing.”
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