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View Full Version : Pakistanis kills 12 al-Qaida suspects



Sgt Sostand
10-02-03, 08:32 AM
ANGORE ADDA, Pakistan, Oct. 2 — Pakistan’s army launched a large-scale offensive against al-Qaida and other militants in a rugged tribal region bordering Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least 12 suspects and arresting 10, military officials said.

AN ASSOCIATED PRESS reporter at the scene saw four bodies, and Maj. Gen. Ameer Faisal, the commander of the operation, said eight others were lying in an area about 100 yards away that was too dangerous to enter.
Ten al-Qaida suspects, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs, were led away from the area.
Faisal said most of those killed and captured appeared to be foreigners. It was not immediately clear if any top-ranking al-Qaida operatives were among them.
At least two Pakistani troops were wounded in the operation, Faisal said, and the battle was ongoing.
Gunfire could be heard coming from a group of compounds where Faisal said other al-Qaida suspects had taken refuge. At least four Pakistani helicopters circled the area.
“Al-Qaida people have taken refuge in these five big compounds. We do not know how many people are hiding there,” Faisal told AP.
Osama bin Laden and his alleged number two, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding somewhere along the long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Army helicopters and soldiers were organizing the operation from a base camp at Angore Adda, just a half-mile from the fighting and the last Pakistani town before the border with Afghanistan. The army brought several journalists to the camp by helicopter to observe the operation, then took them to the fighting area.
The troops moved into South Waziristan early Thursday after receiving word that al-Qaida operatives had sneaked into the area from Afghanistan, the army said in a statement.
“The operation commenced early this morning and is progressing smoothly,” the statement said.
The areas of North and South Waziristan, both in Pakistan’s ultraconservative North West Frontier Province, have long been suspected as a possible hideout for al-Qaida fugitives, as well as remnants of the ousted Taliban regime of Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden and his alleged number two, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding somewhere along the long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Waziristan area is home to Pashtun tribesmen who have for centuries maintained a fierce independence and who share the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islam.
Gen. Shaukat Sultan, an army spokesman, told AP that the “operation is part of Pakistan’s effort at combating terrorism.”
The army said no foreign troops took part in the operation. Residents in the tribal areas have reported seeing U.S. special forces operatives in the past, but the presence of American forces has always been denied by Islamabad and Afghanistan.


U.S.-PAKISTANI OFFICIALS MEET

The operation came on the same day that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca had been due to arrive in Pakistan for talks on the war on terrorism, but Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry announced the visit had been postponed for “scheduling reasons.” Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali is in the United States to meet with senior U.S. officials.
Several high-profile al-Qaida arrests in Pakistan have coincided with major international diplomatic events.
Exactly a year after Sept. 11, 2001, a suspected planner of the attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh, was captured in the southern city of Karachi. In June — three days after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf met Bush in the United States — another al-Qaida operative was arrested and a videocassette seized that purportedly showed bin Laden warning of attacks against U.S. interests.
Afghan and Western officials complain that Taliban fighters have received a safe haven in Pakistan and frequently cross the porous border to carry out attacks.
Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told AP in a recent interview that he had received intelligence that al-Qaida fighters were in the tribal areas.
“We have intelligence that the areas of Waziristan — North and South Waziristan — are being mostly used by al-Qaida,” he said.
On Monday, a U.S. soldier was killed in a gunbattle with anti-coalition forces near a base at Shkin, a town in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, just across the border from South Waziristan. The base and several others along the border come under frequent attack.
Several hundred Afghan troops moved earlier this week into Paktika, in apparent response to the soldier’s killing.
Many areas in the Waziristan tribal region are extremely remote, requiring hours of travel by camel or four-wheel drive vehicle.