Waziristan
militants check their guns: Abdullah Mehsud (Top-R), Pakistan
Army ready
Pakistan
Army Pays More Than Half Million Dollars to Al Qaeda in Bizarre
Deal
Special
SAT Report
PESHAWAR,
February 10: Pakistan
Army has publicly admitted paying Al Qaeda over half a million
dollars in the most bizarre deal it has ever made with militant
Waziristan fighters, battling the Army and the US forces in the
rugged terrain bordering Afghanistan for months .
The
announcement of the payment was made in Peshawar by none other
than the Corps Commander of Peshawar Corps, the man incharge of
military operations in Waziristan, Lt Gen Safdar Hussain, who
said Rs32 million (US$540,000) had been paid to to help four former
wanted tribal militants in South Waziristan "to settle debts
with al-Qaeda."
General
Hussain said the the payments were part of a peace deal signed
on Monday with tribesmen, but the public admission that money
had been paid to be transferred to Al Qaeda stunned analysts and
diplomatic observers in Islamabad.
But
the main militant rebel, an ex-Guantanamo Bay prisoner who was
released some time back, refused to accept the deal.
According
to The Daily Times, which the deal with Baitullah Mehsud
was negotiated by anti-US religious political leader Maulana Fazlur
Rehman of JUI-MMA who had been a stronger sponsor and supporter
of the Taliban. The "peace deal" ceremony ended with
shouts of “Death to America”, The Daily Times reported.
According
to BBC Gen Hussain said four former wanted militants
had insisted they needed the money to pay back huge sums to al-Qaeda.
Haji Sharif and Maulvi Abbas received Rs15 million each, while
Maulvi Javed and Haji Mohammad Omar were each paid one million
rupees.
Gen
Hussain said a sum of Rs20 million rupees was also offered to
tribal leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who signed the peace deal, but
that he rejected it. The commander said the militants had initially
sought Rs170 million.
The peace deal offers an amnesty in return for the tribe's pledge
not to support al-Qaeda and Tale ban militants or attack government
installations.
Editorially
criticizing the deal, Daily Times said It sounded very
much like the “peace” ceremony last year with Nek
Muhammad, the Wazir “Taliban commander” with Al Qaeda
connections; only on that occasion high-ranking Pakistani military
officers were present and there were speeches against America’s
“invasion” of Afghanistan to appease the Wazir jirga.
This time the domination of the ceremony by JUI was obvious. A
tribal representative found occasion to appeal to China to “forgive”
the murder by Abdullah Mehsud and his terrorists of a Chinese
engineer working at the Gomal Zam Dam kidnapped by them and held
for blackmail.
The
“appeal” to China has been published in the national
press. Backed by the MMA, it will be accepted as a ridiculous
application of the law of tribal “honor” on a foreign
country. China is thus supposed to redeem its honor by forgiving
a terrorist who has been an inmate at the Guantanamo Bay prison,
providing justification to a dubious judicial enterprise by America.
The
Times asked: "But where is the honor of the government
of Pakistan and how has it redeemed it in the long drawn out “war
with Al Qaeda” in the Tribal Areas? The “deal”
with Nek Muhammad fell through before the ink was dry on it and
the man had finally to be killed with a missile, but not before
he became a ‘hero’ of sorts despite his not so honorable
personal profile in the area where he operated.
It
said: "The fact is that the government has little public
credibility on its “Wana Operation”. Equally, the
religious parties are in denial and still maintain that there
are no “foreign” terrorists in South Waziristan except
those that came in the 1980s and settled down. Also, the ARD parties
have opposed the “operation” and linked it to the
“operation” in Balochistan and accused Islamabad of
taking dictation from America against its own people. The corps
commander and the governor in Peshawar handle the “operation”
in South Waziristan, but they must be aware that the PR side of
what they have done has not worked at all. The result is that
President Pervez Musharraf has also lost support among the community
of retired generals who usually back him.
The
media’s registration of the strategy of the Wana “operation”
is interesting too. Quoted in the press, the Peshawar corps commander
said on February 7, 2005 that the operation in Wana had killed
over 150 “foreign terrorists” and a large number of
them had been arrested. He said there were still around 100 at
large. In March 2004 there were 600-700 of them there. He said
the survivors had fled in groups of four and were spread around
in the country. There were 70,000 Pakistani troops deployed in
South Waziristan while there were only 18,000 allied and Afghan
forces on the Afghan side of the border. He said he had ordered
44 operations in one year. One might ask: why was he not able
to show the “large number” of foreign terrorists,
captured or dead, to the media? Did he not know that the Wana
Operation had no political credibility? Why did he ignore the
first lesson in such operations: establishing credibility among
the public?
"We
fear that the truth might turn out to show the latest peace deal
as another dead-on-arrival achievement of the government. The
JUI has got its Banuri Masjid graduate Abdullah Mehsud off the
hook without surrendering a single killer. If the troops go after
him now, Baitullah Mehsud will call it a breach of faith and declare
war once again, just like Nek Muhammad did. Meanwhile, the Wazirs
have not appreciated the “deal” with the Mehsud jirga
and have killed two journalists who were returning from the peace
ceremony. Both the journalists were Wazirs: hence the tribal disapproval
of “joining in with the enemy”. Therefore if “peace”
with Baitullah Mehsud was a tactic of relieving the mounting pressure
from Balochistan, it may turn out to be another dud," the
Daily Times said
As
predicted by the Daily Times, on Wednesday tribal militant
Abdullah Mehsud, wanted for kidnapping two Chinese engineers last
year, told the BBC he did not support the deal signed by Baitullah
Mehsud. He said only a holy war would evict "US agents"
from Pakistan.
Abdullah Mehsud speaking to the BBC's Haroon Rashid in
Peshawar by phone from an undisclosed location, said: "Baitullah's
thinking might be that he can achieve his aims by signing the
peace agreement, while mine is that only a holy war against the
US and Pakistani government could achieve this."
Abdullah
Mehsud spent about two years in US custody in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, before being released. He fought for the Tale ban in Afghanistan,
losing a leg in a landmine explosion a few days before the Tale
ban took Kabul in September 1996. He is wanted for masterminding
the abduction of two Chinese engineers in South Waziristan last
year, one of whom was killed in a rescue attempt.
The
incident was highly embarrassing for the Pakistani government,
which has close ties with Beijing. Abdullah
Mehsud, condemning those who appealed to China to grant him amnesty,
accused Beijing of killing Muslims.
Shortly after Monday's accord, two journalists who attended the
signing were killed when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in
Wana. Abdullah Mehsud said on Wednesday: "My people are not
responsible for the killing of the two journalists." Pakistan
believes hundreds of militants, including Arabs, Afghans and Central
Asians, are holed up in the South Waziristan region.
Abdullah Mehsud, the commander of the Islamic militants who kidnapped
two Chinese engineers in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, spent
25 months in custody at the US base in Guantanamo Bay before his
release in March.
According
to well known Peshawar journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, as a young
man, Mehsud, now 29, fought for the Tale ban against the Northern
Alliance in Afghanistan. He lost a leg in a landmine explosion
a few days before the Tale ban took Kabul in September 1996. He
surrendered along with several thousand fighters to the forces
of Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum, in December 2001 in Kunduz,
northern Afghanistan, and was later turned over to the US military
authorities.
Mehsud
studied at a government college in Peshawar before attending a
seminary where he befriended Afghan Tale ban members and joined
their movement. Mehsud, whose real name is Noor Alam, is a Pashtun,
the same ethnic group as the Tale ban and belongs to the Mehsud
tribe that inhabits South Waziristan on the Afghanistan border.
Mehsud has declared holy war on President Musharraf. His long
hair and daredevil nature has made him a colorful character.
Since
his return from Guantanamo Bay, Mehsud has become a hero to anti-US
fighters active in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was a comrade
of another tribal militant commander, Nek Mohammad, who was killed
by a Pakistani army missile in June.
Mehsud sometimes rides a camel or horse while visiting his fighters
in his mountainous abode. On other occasions, his men drive him
in a vehicle and protect him round-the-clock. In a recent telephone
interview with the BBC, Mehsud said he led his fighters by example
by taking risks and surviving in tough conditions.
Criticizing US policies toward Muslims, he said the American occupation
of Iraq and Afghanistan was a provocation for the followers of
Islam and must be avenged. He said he did not want to fight the
Pakistan army but had declared jihad, or holy war, against the
government of President Pervez Musharraf, who he accused of carrying
out US policies in the region.
