Author: Our Political Bureau
Publications: The Economic Times
Dated: October 4, 2001
Introduction: Gen foiled Clinton's'99
Plan to Capture Or Kill Osama
New Delhi, Oct 3: GENERAL Pervez
Musharraf's attempt to drape himself in the "anti-terrorism" fatigues seems
to have hit a bump with the US media revealing his role in sabotaging a
US plot to capture or kill Osama bin Laden just two years ago.
The expose which hit the stands
today in the Washington Post under the by-line of Bob Woodward of Watergate
fame and Thomas E Ricks, reveals that General Musharraf put an end to the
operation that the Clinton administration had arranged with the then Pakistan
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The Post reveals, quoting official
sources, that the CIA secretly trained and equipped approximately 60 commandos
from the Pakistani intelligence agency to enter Afghanistan for capturing
or killing bin Laden.
This was part of a deal struck between
Sharif government and his chief of intelligence with the Clinton administration
which, the leading US daily reports, "promised to lift sanctions on Pakistan
and provide an economic aid package".
The clandestine operation was part
of the plan, set in motion less than 12 months after the US cruise missile
struck against bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan. It, however,
had to be aborted when Sharif was ousted in military coup.
"The Pakistani commando team was
up and running and ready to strike by October 1999. The operation was aborted
on October 12, 1999, when Sharif was overthrown in a military coup led
by Gen Pervez Musharraf, who refused to continue the operation despite
substantial efforts by the Clinton administration to revive it,'' reports
the US daily.
The revelation should cause no surprise
to India, which has been too well aware of the intimate links of General
Musharraf as well as his colleagues, notably, General Aziz, with the Taliban
regime. As a matter of fact, even the US, particularly the CIA, has a huge
body of evidence tying the two leading lights of Pakistan's army to Islamabad's
gameplan of raising the Taliban; helping it capture Afghanistan; and protect
it through all those years when it sheltered a deadly network of Islamic
terrorists.
Still, the detailed disclosure of
General Musharraf's playing the saviour of bin Laden only two years ago
may create problems for him at a time when he has painted himself as a
partner in the fight against terrorism.
As it happens, the Post's report
comes close on the heels of publication of the 11-volume Encyclopedia of
Jihad, the how-to manual for activists of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida. Genereal
Musharraf and Pakistan army may find the contents of Mouswada al Jihad
Al Afghani terribly embarrassing. Each of the 11 volumes of the Encyclopedia
begins with dedications to, among others, bin Laden.
