July 7, 2004
By IAN FISHER and NEIL MacFARQUHAR
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 6 — Three days after he was reported beheaded, a United States marine held captive in Iraq has been released, his family said on Tuesday. But the mystery surrounding the marine, Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, was still not fully resolved: his family said they had not spoken with him directly.
"We received a sign that he is alive and he is released and everything is O.K.," his older brother, Sami, 26, said in a telephone interview from Lebanon, where Corporal Hassoun was born and where some of his family still live. "The sign is something that came directly from him. There is something that nobody else could possibly know. It's a certain clue. He is alive and he is released."
The level of violence in Iraq is still high, and at least five people were killed Tuesday when a suicide bomber drove into a funeral service near the restive city of Baquba, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. Some reports put the death toll as high as 13, with more than 30 wounded.
The funeral was for two people killed two days before when gunmen attacked a municipal building in Baquba.
Bombings in which civilians are killed and wounded have outraged many Iraqis, and what may be a dramatic sign of that anger emerged Tuesday when a militant group issued a video threatening to kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who has claimed responsibility for many deadly attacks and beheadings of captives here.
The video, released to Al Arabiya television, had all the trappings of similar taped threats against Western targets in Iraq, but seemed slightly more elaborate: four armed men, their faces wrapped in Arab headscarves, appeared before an Iraqi flag, as one of the men, with an Iraqi accent, read off a statement threatening to kill Mr. Zarqawi unless he left Iraq, and anyone who hid him here. A pistol and a rocket-propelled grenade lay next to a Koran on a table from which the man delivered the statement.
"We have prepared ourselves," he said, identifying himself as part of a previously unknown group, the Salvation Movement. "We swear we will track him down wherever he is and arrest him and his followers or kill them. This is the last warning for those who shelter him."
Iraqi and American officials have contended in recent days that a split has been growing between Iraqi insurgents and fighters who have come from other Muslim countries over the issue of killing innocent civilians. They have offered no hard proof of the claim, and the prime minister of the new interim government, Iyad Allawi, has said his strategy for taming the violence in Iraq is to try to appeal to Iraqis' sense of nationalism to reject the presence of foreign fighters like Mr. Zarqawi.
Even though the United States military recently increased to $25 million the reward on the head of Mr. Zarqawi, who is believed to be linked to Al Qaeda, a senior military official with the multinational force said the military did not condone the group's threats.
The official said that a bombing on Monday on what the military said was a safe house for Mr. Zarqawi's group in Falluja, west of Baghdad, had killed 12 to 15 people, among them suicide bombers. The official denied reports from Falluja that several civilians, among them children, had been killed.
The attack, which involved four 500-pound bombs, was the fifth time in recent weeks that the United States military had bombed targets that it said belonged to Mr. Zarqawi's group. The military said this bombing, the first since sovereignty was turned over to an interim Iraqi government last week, was carried out with coordination by and intelligence from the new government.
Near Falluja, the center of the resistance against American troops and the Iraqi police and government officials, three United States marines were killed on Monday when their armored car was struck by a homemade roadside bomb.
Marine officers said the troops had been searching for roadside bombs in Zeydan, a village south of Falluja. Two of the men were killed at the scene, and another died from wounds, they said. A number of marines were also wounded.ARACHI - The extreme civil strife in Afghanistan of the early 1990s following the vacuum created by the withdrawal of Soviet troops gave rise to the Taliban. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the US Central Intelligence Agency both recognized that in the dire political chaos, the Taliban were the only unifying force, and despite their fundamentalist and rigid religious beliefs they could impose stability in the country.
However, by 2000 there was a renewed realization on the part of the US that the Taliban had turned Afghanistan into a terror sanctuary. Washington pressed Islamabad to withdraw its support of the Taliban. This forced strategic decision-makers in Pakistan to develop a third force, beside the Taliban and the Northern Alliance that controlled the north of the country.
This alternative force, aimed at preventing any possible dominance of the anti-Pakistan Northern Alliance, was centered around the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) led by mujahideen veteran Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and a group from the former communist regime led by ex-defense minister General Shahnawaz Tanai.
The September 11 attacks gave the US the perfect opportunity to strike Afghanistan, as the Taliban had provided Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda sanctuary in the country, and drive the Taliban out of government.
But all did not go according to the Pakistan plan, as their third force was marginalized by the Northern Alliance in the new government of pro-US Hamid Karzai.
Now, though, with a resurgent Afghan resistance and continued instability in the country, in which thousands of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops are bogged down, a third force is once again an option.
This suits the US, which wants to exit the country ahead of planned September elections, and its own presidential elections in November, and Pakistan as well, which would have its people closer to power in Kabul.
This time, though, the third force would, ironically, constitute elements of the Taliban, pro-Taliban tribes and HIA commanders and supporters led by the evergreen Hekmatyar, a man who just refuses to be sidelined and who is a leading component of the Afghan resistance.
Islamic elements
The US has been working on cultivating a "good" Taliban force for many months now, without much success as they have been unable to get people to renounce the leadership of Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
However, efforts have continued, and with the help of the ISI, figures such as Mullah Abdul Wakil Mutawakil, former foreign minister in the Taliban days, and a substantial number of clerics have been separated from the mainstream Taliban movement to stand as candidates in the upcoming elections.
Earlier, with Hekmatyar's approval, representatives of the HIA's political wing (distinct form Hekmatyar's military branch) met Karzai at the latter's invitation. Hekmatyar is reluctant to give up his guerilla struggle without ensuring a role for the HIA in Afghan politics.
Karzai met the HIA delegation with open arms, but NATO officials demanded that if the HIA wanted to establish a political office in Kabul, it would have to separate from Hekmatyar and declare him a terrorist. Unsurprisingly, the HIA delegates returned to Peshawar in Pakistan empty-handed.
Meanwhile, several former HIA leaders of Pashtun origin - the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan, as opposed to the mainly non-Pashtun Northern Alliance - have been given a clean slate by the US despite "criminal records" from earlier days. These include Abdul Waheed Sabaoon, who used to be the intelligence chief of the HIA and who was arrested soon after US forces seized control of Kabul in late 2001. Now he is a powerful member in Karzai's cabinet, as are other former HIA members, Qazi Amin Waqad and Mangal Hussain.
The plan is that these three former HIA commanders will cultivate more HIA commanders from the Pashtun areas to contest the elections.
Return of the reds
In the 1980s, Afghan communists were the main force in Afghanistan's urban centers. But after the fall of the puppet Soviet government led by Mohammad Najibullah (1986-1992) , and in the face of civil war, many reds left the country, contrary to some expectations that they would switch sides.
"Afghans remain loyal to their basic ideologies, whether they are communist, Iqwani [Islamists of Muslim Brotherhood origin like the Jamiat-i-Islami and the Hezb-i-Islami] or Taliban. Thus, it is difficult for the US to find 'pure' loyalty among these ideologically motivated groups," commented the former director general of the ISI, retired Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul.
Now, although Afghan laws prohibit card-carrying communists from taking part in politics, the US is prepared to allow the return of these communist elements, especially those of Pashtun origin.
So in addition to the search for good Taliban, the hunt is on for good communists. This has been a precedent in Afghanistan: in 1989, the ISI courted communist leader General Shahnawaz Tanai to overthrow Najibullah, but the effort failed and Tanai fled to Pakistan. Tanai was defense minister at the time. When the Taliban emerged, Hekmatyar took refuge in Iran.
Spider, spider ...
Now, with the Taliban and the reds back in the frame, the ISI's Afghan cell is spinning a new political web centered on Hekmatyar and Tanai.
Tanai is now the leader of the Peace Movement of Afghanistan, and is actively campaigning for a bigger role for Pashtuns, former jihadi leaders and religious parties, and he openly criticizes US policies that perpetuate the Northern Alliance (Tajik) domination in Kabul.
Tanai's movement is now enrolled as the 29th political party for the elections, and is expected to make a strong showing in the eastern Afghan belt of Paktia, Khost and Gardez, beside his influence in bringing back Afghan communists from Pakistan and elsewhere where they fled to play a political role. Their presence could neutralize the extremist Taliban influence in this region of the country.
Afghanistan's political wheel once again turns full circle with the return of the communists.
The claim by the family of Corporal Hassoun, 24, that he had been released was another turn in an unusual case. Corporal Hassoun, who worked as an Arabic translator, disappeared from his base on June 20.
On June 27, Al Jazeera broadcast a videotape of him blindfolded, with a sword held above his head. In that tape, Islamic Response said it would behead him if the Americans did not release all of their prisoners.
Then, last Saturday, two Islamist Web sites carried a message attributed to the leader of another militant group, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, saying it had beheaded Corporal Hassoun and would shortly release images of his death. That message, addressed to President Bush, also said the corporal had been involved romantically with an Arab woman and had been lured off his base.
But on Sunday, Ansar al-Sunna posted an Internet message saying that it had not killed Corporal Hassoun and that someone had put a phony message on the two Web sites. Then on Monday, Islamic Response issued a statement saying that he had been moved to "a place of safety."
His brother, Sami, would not provide details of the sign he said the family had received that the corporal had been released, but said the family was much more hopeful about his safety than in recent days.
"We are still crossing our fingers and praying to see him again," Mr. Hassoun said in an interview from Tripoli, Lebanon. "It's a much better mood than the last couple of days. We are optimistic."
United States military officials, who said they did not believe that Corporal Hassoun was being held under duress, say he was absent without leave from the base. But his brother said that charge was not important.
"All I care about is that he is alive," he said. "That is worth the whole world."
The military also reported that an American soldier had killed a 4-year-old boy and wounded another child after the car the children were traveling in tried to drive past an American checkpoint in western Baghdad. The military official said the vehicle had approached the checkpoint, turned off its lights, then continued driving, nearly hitting the soldiers. The soldiers fired six shots into the rear of the car, killing the boy.
The driver, who was later released, said his brakes were not working, the official said. Soldiers on the scene tested the brakes, which they said functioned. The official said the military was investigating the incident.
Ian Fisher reported from Baghdad for this article, and Neil MacFarquhar from Cairo. Dexter Filkins contributed reporting from Baghdad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/international/middleeast/07MAYH.html