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Topic: Al Qaida no 2 may be surrounded (Read 139 times)

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Al Qaida no 2 may be surrounded
« on: Mar 18^th, 2004, 2:00pm »

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Pakistan: Al-Qaida No. 2 may be surrounded
Officials believe al-Zawahri trapped near border with Afghanistan

BREAKING NEWS
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 2:40 p.m. ET March 18, 2004WANA, Pakistan - Pakistani officials said Thursday that they believed their troops had surrounded the No. 2 leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network, Ayman al-Zawahri.

A spokesman for the Pakistani army told NBC News, quoting the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, that a “high-value target” was cornered in South Waziristan, along the Afghan border, based on the level of resistance Pakistani forces were encountering.

Musharraf said the identity of the target was unknown, but three other senior government officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that intelligence indicated that the figure was al-Zawahri.

A senior U.S. official in Washington told NBC News that while “we are not certain who it is,” it did appear that “the Pakistanis have surrounded a very senior al-Qaida figure.”

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that thousands of Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships came under heavy attack from militants Thursday morning. U.S. officials told NBC News that about 100 militant fighters were “fighting to the death.” They said U.S. troops were not involved.

Al-Zawahri, 52, an Egyptian physician, first came to international attention in 1981 when he was charged as part of the plot to assassinate Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He merged his own militant group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, into the al-Qaida network led by Osama bin Laden in August 1998, becoming bin Laden’s deputy and chief ideologist.

The FBI has offered its highest reward, $25 million, for the arrest of al-Zawahri, who was indicted for his alleged involvement in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in August 1998.

The development grew out of a new offensive that Pakistani troops and paramilitary forces launched Thursday against al-Qaida and Taliban suspects in a tribal region near Afghanistan, two days after a fierce assault in which dozens of people died.

The new push began in the villages of Azam Warsak, Shin Warsak and Kaloosha in South Waziristan, the tribal region that borders Afghanistan, said Brig. Mahmood Shah, chief of security for the area. The Army spokesman, Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said there had been casualties in the new offensive, but he said he had no details.

The operation follows a clash between security forces and suspected Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts in a fortress-like compound in Kaloosha, just miles from the border. At least 41 people, including 15 troops, died in the raid Tuesday, the military said Thursday in a statement. Eighteen other suspects were captured.

The statement said that most of those killed Tuesday were foreigners, but it gave no details of nationalities and acknowledged that only two of the bodies had been recovered. No senior al-Qaida figures were believed to have been among those who were killed or captured.

One of the two dead militants whose bodies were recovered was a, Chechen and the other was believed to be of Middle Eastern origin, a military official said on condition of anonymity.

In North Waziristan, another part of the tribal region, attackers launched a rocket and fired gunshots at a Pakistan army post before dawn Thursday, Sultan said. Two soldiers died and several others were injured, an intelligence official told the AP.

The official said that assailants threw a hand grenade at an army truck heading to Miran Shah, the main town of North Waziristan, and that several soldiers were injured. Sultan, however, denied that the incident occurred.

Powell meets with Musharraf
The operation in South Waziristan got under way as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell began talks Thursday with Pakistani leaders in the capital, Islamabad. He announced that Washington was bestowing the status of “major non-NATO ally” on Pakistan, which he praised for its help in the war on terrorism.

Early morning calls from mosques warned residents in Azam Warsak, Shin Warsak and Kaloosha to leave the area, apparently to give the troops more room to operate.

About a dozen helicopters buzzed over Wana on Thursday morning, flying toward the operation zone about 6 miles to the west.

A convoy of army trucks carrying soldiers also passed Wana hours before the raid started. Later, mortar booms could be heard in the town, from the direction of the battle zone.

Abdur Rauf Chaudhry, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told the AP that reinforcements had been sent to the area.

He said “a few” paramilitary troops were missing since the operation Tuesday in Kaloosha, with rumors in the region that they may have been kidnapped by the suspected militants.

The raid in Kaloosha sparked outrage in the tribal region, which fiercely covets its autonomy and has resisted foreign intervention for centuries.

After the battle, attackers set fire to several military vehicles, some of them containing weapons and munitions.

Powell, who left the country shortly before the announcement of the raids Thursday, said he believed that there was evidence that bin Laden was still alive and hiding in the rugged border area.

“No one has seen him, so how can one be sure?” Powell told Geo TV. “But he has certainly given evidence that he is alive and active. But we can’t be sure. And if he is alive and active, and the evidence suggests that he is, and if he is in the area of the Pakistan-Afghan border, that’s a very difficult area to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

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