Author:
Publication: The Daily Excelsior
Date: November 28, 2001
URL: http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/01nov28/news.htm#12
Washington, Nov 27: For the first
time since September 11 terror strikes in US, Pakistani intelligence agents
have entered Afghanistan with a task to track Osama bin Laden and frustrate
Al-Qaeda's attempts to search for a new base in Pakistan, according to
a senior Pakistani intelligence official.
The official in Islamabad was quoted
by the Washington Post about the new Pakistani operation in Afghanistan.
Another senior Pakistani intelligence
official said: "all our eyes and ears in Afghanistan are currently devoted
to the search for Osama bin Laden and his associates. There is definite
evidence that he has moved close to our borders."
The new Pakistani operation, said
the Post, comes as President Pervez Musharraf's Government has become increasingly
alarmed at the prospect of bin Laden and his heavily armed fighters leaving
Afghanistan in search of a Pakistani safe haven.
"American intelligence has also
received information that Osama and other leading Al-Qaeda fighters were
looking for new hideouts in the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan," said
a third senior Pakistani intelligence official.
While publicly Musharraf and his
top advisers have sought to play down fears of bin Laden or Taliban incursions
into Pakistan, said the paper, "privately, senior Pakistani officials are
not so confident, suggesting there is a serious threat that remnants of
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban could find refuge here (in Pakistan).
And there is significant evidence
that the new security measures at the border have not succeeded in closing
down the traffic between the two countries "Al-Qaeda is on the run, and
it is the most dangerous situation for our own security," said one of the
Pakistani intelligence officials.
Added another: "it is in our security
interest that Osama be caught before he ponders friendly offers from someone
from our side of the borders. Unfortunately, many Pakistanis are known
to have deep ties with Osama and they would be willing to host Al-Qaeda
in Pakistan."
Having lost the best intelligence
sources inside Afghanistan after its alliance with the US against the Taliban,
the Post said, "Pakistan's powerful military Inter-Services Intelligence
agency has conducted intensive secret negotiations with the new rulers
of Pashtun-speaking provinces in Afghanistan's south and east, cultivating
new sources and enlisting them in the hunt for bin Laden." (PTI)