Operation Wild Goose Chase

The various operations mounted by the US and allied forces in Afghanistan under the umbrella of OP EnduringFreedom such as OP Anaconda, OP Mountain Lion, OP Snipe and OP Condor are turning out to be a farce, whichwould have been laughable but for their tragic consequences for the so-called war against internationalterrorism. OP Enduring Freedom is threatening to degenerate slowly into OP Enduring Farce.

The US claims of having killed hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda dregs during OP Anaconda (March, 2002) inEastern Afghanistan were not corroborated by subsequent ground evidence, which led to not more than 50 deadbodies, many of them of innocent villagers who fell collateral victims to the US air strikes on supposedly AlQaeda concentrations.

Following reports that the Al Qaeda/Taliban survivors of the OP Anaconda battle, led by Jalaluddin Haqqani,a Mujahideen commander who subsequently joined the Taliban, had taken shelter in  Waziristan andadjoining areas of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan , the US and the British forcesmounted OP Mountain Lion to smoke them out with the help of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment.Over a thousand American and British commandoes were deployed on the Afghan side of the border and nearly 8000Pakistani troops, including many from the Special Services Group (SSG) trained by the USA's Green Beretsduring the Afghan war of the 1980s, were deployed in the Waziristan area.

Little did the US seem to have realised that it was the SSG, then headed by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, whichhad trained  Osama bin Laden and other Arabs of the Al Qaeda during the Afghan war of the 1980s and usedthem against the Soviet troops and that Musharraf had also used bin Laden and his tribal hordes for brutallysuppressing a Shia revolt in Gilgit in 1988 and for occupying the Kargil heights in 1999 before sending acrossregular Pakistani Army troops to replace them. It was also the SSG which had trained the Taliban inAfghanistan.

Thus, taking the assistance of the SSG to smoke out bin Laden, Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban,Jalaluddin Haqqani and other Al Qaeda/Taliban dregs was the height of folly in view of the close links whichthe SSG has always had with bin Laden and his murderous hordes. Under the pretense of helping the Americans tosmoke out the dregs, the SSG troops and other Pakistani military personnel have been taking the about 50officers in civvies from the USA's National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) andthe covert action division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attached to them on a wild goose chase allover Waziristan, after having helped the dregs to escape from there.

The only result of the Operation so far has been a series of anti-US demonstrations in the tribal areas. InMiranshah in Waziristan, the tribals demonstrated in protest over the action of the American experts inentering a local mosque without removing their shoes and covering their heads. They were searching forJalaluddin Haqqani, who used to come to that mosque for his prayers.

Apart from their close links with the dregs, there is another reason for the SSG and the other elements ofthe Pakistani military-intelligence establishment avoiding helping the Americans in their search for thedregs. The FATA has a large concentration of ex-servicemen and many of the tribals of the area have relativesserving in the military in the lower and middle ranks. They are generally known for their anti-Americanism andMusharraf does not want to provoke their anger by really helping the US in its search for the dregs.

OP Snipe was mounted by the British Marine Commandoes to unearth the arms caches supposedly left behind bythe dregs in the caves of Eastern Afghanistan. Brig. Roger Lane, who co-ordinated the operation, claimed tohave discovered in the caves 22 truckloads of rockets, rocket-propelled grenades and other arms and ammunitionbelonging to the dregs and destroyed them. He then made another claim that the war against the dregs was overon the Afghan side of the border.

It turned out subsequently that the arms and ammunition destroyed by him did not belong to the dregs, butto the Pashtun supporters of Hamid Karzai, the head of the interim administration in Kabul, to whom the CIAhad issued them when Karzai and his supporters were inducted into Eastern Afghanistan post-October, 2001.

OP Condor involved a joint force of Australian and British commandoes. Following a reported ambush of theAustralian commandoes by supposedly large numbers of the dregs, again in Eastern Afghanistan, the Britishrushed to their rescue and Brig. Lane claimed that a major battle was on in which 10 of the dregs had alreadybeen killed. The British Government had to suffer a serious embarrassment when it was found that theAustralian  and British commandoes were fighting not the Al Qaeda, but a group of Afghan expatriates fromthe West whom the CIA's covert action division had recruited, trained and infiltrated into Eastern Afghanistanto help the US in the hunt for the dregs. The British Government has since reportedly transferred Brig. Laneout of Afghanistan.

All this while, bin Laden, Mullah Omar and the other dregs have been sitting safely in their sanctuaries inPakistan and giving interviews and releasing video cassettes to tell the Americans that they are alive andkicking and that the world, particularly the USA, has not seen the last of them.

They must be having a hearty laugh at the way Tricky Mush and their other Pakistani handlers have beensending the Americans on a wild goose chase under the pretense of assisting them in hunting for the dregs.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)