August 15, 2004
By Paul Watson, Times Staff Writer
LA Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Despite a surge in arrests of al-Qaida suspects, a senior Pakistani anti-terrorism official said Friday that investigators still had not found the trail of their main target, Osama bin Laden.
"You can only be sure you're closing in on someone when you at least have a hint of his whereabouts," Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema said. "With regard to Osama bin Laden himself, I would say that we are not getting any substantial leads as yet."
Cheema, head of the National Crisis Management Cell at the Interior Ministry, said Pakistan was "working hand-in-glove with the U.S. government" in a sweep that had netted more than a dozen suspects in the last two weeks. Among those detained is Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Pakistani intelligence sources say FBI agents are playing a crucial role in tracking suspects by intercepting cell phone calls and other actions.
One source familiar with the investigation said Washington had stepped up pressure on Pakistani authorities to turn their latest leads into the capture of more high-level targets before the U.S. presidential election in November.
U.S. officials have warned that intelligence indicates al-Qaida might be planning an attack before the election.
"The next month and a half is absolutely crucial," said the Pakistani source, who spoke on condition that he not be identified. "The way the Americans are pressuring Pakistan, they want Osama bin Laden."
Bush administration officials have denied media reports that the United States was pressuring Pakistan to capture or kill bin Laden and other al-Qaida fugitives before the election. National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack told The New Republic, which published one such account, that U.S. policy on pursuing those fugitives was unchanged by the election schedule.
Last month's capture of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old Pakistani computer specialist suspected of acting as an information hub for al-Qaida, set off the latest wave of arrests, including 13 in Britain. U.S. investigators also are pursuing leads based on his computer files.
A Western diplomat confirmed reports that laptop computers and dozens of computer disks contained surveillance reports and apparent plans for new attacks in the United States.
Cheema confirmed news reports that after his arrest, Khan worked undercover with Pakistani authorities, sending e-mails to al-Qaida members in several countries. But Khan's cover apparently was blown when his name was leaked to the media in the United States.
Pakistani officials have made conflicting statements about the importance of Khan's arrest in the broader war against the terrorist network. Some raised expectations of a breakthrough in the nearly three-year hunt for bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman Zawahiri. Others have been more cautious.
In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday, Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told Arab satellite television that investigators had "penetrated deep inside this network." He also seemed to suggest that recent arrests had brought bin Laden and Zawahiri closer to capture.
"Undoubtedly, we have received some information, and all the arrests at the al-Qaida leadership level bring us closer toward reaching the desired objective," Hayat said.
Cheema, who is one of Hayat's top aides, said the interior minister had been quoted out of context. Although Khan's arrest was "a significant success," it did not generate new momentum in the search for bin Laden and his deputy, Cheema said.
"We should not be very optimistic," he said. "Yes, we got 13 to 14 (al-Qaida) people in the last two weeks' time, but there is no reason for euphoria."
Arrests of mid- and low-ranking al-Qaida members such as Khan usually lead to more arrests over a period of 10 to 15 days, Cheema said. But then the surge slows, and investigators have to force new breaks in al-Qaida's defenses. The terrorist network's cell structure isolates units from one another, limiting the damage when one is broken up.
Bin Laden was last heard in public on an audiotape broadcast in April. His last videotape was broadcast in September 2003, on the eve of the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The satellite television station Al-Jazeera, which broadcast the video, said it was produced in late April or early May 2003.
The al-Qaida leader appeared gaunt and tired in the videotape. Cheema would not say whether there was any recent information on bin Laden's health, but he said investigators were working on the assumption that he was alive.
Pakistan's crackdown on al-Qaida is complicated by another conflict: the 57-year dispute with India over the territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Several militant groups allegedly trained and armed by the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to fight in Kashmir are allied with the terrorist network.
Shedding those ties and removing al-Qaida sympathizers from Pakistan's security and intelligence services are among President Pervez Musharraf's biggest and most dangerous challenges.
Some of the militant groups are splintering or spawning "freelance terrorists who are drifting away from the established organizations and setting up shop on their own," said the Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The groups have been involved in high-profile attacks in Pakistan, including at least one of two assassinations attempts against Musharraf in December and an attempt in June to kill an army corps commander in the southern port city of Karachi.
The diplomat said Musharraf needed significant concessions from India to dismantle the militant groups. India and Pakistan are negotiating a possible bus link across the cease-fire line in Kashmir that would make it easier for Kashmiri families to reunite, but Musharraf needs much more than that, the diplomat said.
India's government appears to believe it doesn't need to meet Musharraf halfway with a compromise on Kashmir because a new security fence and pressure from the United States are limiting militant infiltrations, the diplomat added.
"The Indians are asking, 'Why should we settle for a tie when we can win?' " the diplomat said. "That's seriously not good. ... It will horribly undermine Musharraf. It will horribly undermine rapprochement with India."
Last weekend, the United Arab Emirates returned militant leader Qari Saifullah Akhtar to Pakistan. He is suspected of masterminding last year's assassination attempts against Musharraf and a suicide car bomb attack in July on Prime Minister-designate Shaukat Aziz.
Declared a terrorist group by the United States, Harkat Ansar renamed itself Harkat Mujahedin, whose leader was Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil. He was also detained in Pakistan last weekend.
Khalil co-signed bin Laden's 1998 decree declaring it a Muslim's duty to kill Americans and Jews. He also provided training camps for bin Laden in Afghanistan, which the U.S. struck with cruise missiles after the 1998 embassy bombings.
During testimony in March to the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, former national security adviser Samuel R. Berger drew a link between Pakistan's military intelligence and Khalil's operations in Afghanistan.
The cruise missile barrage in Afghanistan "killed, apparently, a number of Pakistani ISI -- Pakistani intelligence officials who were at the camps at the same time," Berger said.
The timing of Khalil's detention, on suspicion that he trained guerrillas to attack U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, suggests that Musharraf's government may be taking a more aggressive line against militant leaders, whom many Pakistanis consider heroes.
Seven months ago, responding to a Los Angeles Times report that Khalil and his outlawed group were recruiting and training militants, Hayat, the Pakistani interior minister, dismissed him as a "small fish" who was being carefully monitored.
Musharraf has detained Khalil and other leaders of militant groups fighting in Kashmir before, only to release them. Without a settlement in Kashmir, the Western diplomat said, it would be impossible for Musharraf to accuse militants fighting there -- with Pakistan's support -- of a crime.
Los Angeles Times special correspondent Mubashir Zaidi in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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