Warning Signs

The operation, code-named OP Anaconda by theUS, in the Shah-e-Kot area (Armamountains) near Gardez in thePaktia province of eastern Afghanistan involved a major confrontation betweenthe allied forces led by the US and a mixed group of determined guerillafighters, operating from inside a cave complex in the area.

On the side of the international coalitionwere about 1,200 US troops and 200 from Australia, Canada,the UK and other WestEuropean countries, reportedly assistedby about 800 Pashtuns of the area. These were subsequently joinedby about 1000 Tadjiks of the Northern Alliance rushed to the area from Kabul,resulting in a strong criticism by the local Pashtun warlords of the inductionof the Tadjiks into a Pashtun area. They interpreted this as an insult totheir fighting prowess.

Who were pitted against the coalitiontroops? The answer to this is not clear. American spokesmen havedescribed them as a mix of the remnants of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's AlQaeda. However, other reports, considered more independent, describe themas a moderate sized contingent of Pakistanis led by Arab instructors of the 055Brigade of the Al Qaeda.

The Pakistanisinvolved in the fighting were themembers of the Sunni extremist Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), theHarkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad(JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). They had survived the US air strikesin Afghanistan and had managed to return to Pakistani territory. They havebeen re-grouped and re-trained by a team of retired officers of the Pakistanimilitary-intelligence establishment and many of them re-inducted into EasternAfghanistan (Gardez, Wardak, Ghazniand Khost ) to resume the fight against the US troops.

One of their majorobjectives was to show to the Afghan people as well as to the rest of the worldthat contrary to the American claims of having vanquished the Taliban anddamaged the Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan, they werestill alive and kicking.

In a reportcarried on March 13, 2002, the "News" of Islamabadhas quoted an Afghan commander in the area as saying that most of theguerillas involved in the fighting were Pakistanis and Arabs. Thefighting, often bitter, lasted 11 days at the end of which the Afghan troopsclaimed to have captured the area from the Pakistanis and Arabs on March 12,2002. The "News" has quoted General Abdullah Joyenda, an Afghancommander assisting the US troops, as saying that most of the survivingPakistanis and Arabs retreated towards the Pakistani border. The reportdoes not say whether they have re-entered Pakistan.

For want ofadequate information, it is difficult to find an acceptable answer to manyquestions such as: How did the fighting erupt? Did the Pakistanis and Arabssurprise the Americans or did the Americans surprise them in their hide-out? Howwas it that during the earlier electronic and ground sweep during and after thefighting in the Tora Bora area the presence of these remnants in this area(Shah-e-Kot) escaped notice? If they were not present in this area at that time,wherefrom did they infiltrate into this area now? From some other area ofAfghanistan or from Pakistan?

There is acloak of secrecy about the nature of the fighting and the ultimate results too.From the details filtering out of Pakistan, one could assess, with some measureof conviction, that the Americans, who suffered fatal casualties of eight oftheir personnel due to enemy fire directed at their helicopters, relied as theyhave been doing since October 7,2001, on air power, precision-guided fire powerof tremendous destructive capability and long-range ground firing capability.They avoided any ground action, which might have brought their troops into closeproximity of the guerillas.

For closeproximity action such as that undertaken on March 12, 2002, they depended on theAfghans in order to avoid heavy casualties for their own troops. Afterhaving softened the guerilla position on the ground through air strikes andlong-range firing, they used the Afghans for finally capturing the cave complexfrom the control of the jehadi guerillas and for the mopping-up.

Figures ofthe strength of the jehadi forces pitted against the Americans and of thecasualties inflicted on them widely vary. The American claim of having killedover 500 fighters of the Al Qaeda and the Taliban during the 11-day action arenot corroborated by the accounts of the Afghan allies of the US who put thenumber of dead bodies recovered during their mopping-up on March 12 at less than50.

Despitethe paucity of reliable information filtering across the curtain imposed by theAmericans, it would appear till now that Anaconda was more an embarrassingsurprise for the Americans than a famous victory.

Embarrassingsurprise because it proved the earlier American belief or claims of havingdefeated the mix of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda to have been premature.Also because Anaconda has shown, if proof was needed, that the entire waragainst terrorism could come unstuck if they do not deal with the dregs of thepresent Afghan war, who are now operating from Pakistani territory.

Duringthe 1980s, the Pakistani territory in Balochistan, the North-West FrontierProvince (NWFP) and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) functionedeffectively and devastatingly as the rear base for the Afghan Mujahideen andforeign,essentially Arab, mercenary groups which made the Soviet troops bleed.The very same Pakistani sanctuaries are now sought to be used by the survivingdregs of the Taliban, the Al Qaeda and the Pakistani jehadi conglomerate tofrustrate the US-led campaign in the Pashtun areas of southern and easternAfghanistan.

Insteadof focussing on this, the Bush Administration is letting its attention and thatof its allies be diverted to the more alluring task of turning the guns onPresident Saddam Hussein of Iraq. If not bin Laden, let us at least getthe head of Saddam Hussein as our trophy. That seems to be the cry inWashington DC.

Theymay be able to get the head of Saddam, but that would not be the end of theterrorism directed against homeland America. The key to the end of the AlQaeda-inspired terrorism against homeland America and the rest of theinternational community lies in the Pakistan-southern/eastern Afghanistan regionand not in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Georgia or SouthernPhilippines. Till the Pakistan/Afghanistan region is totally cleared ofand sanitised against the terrorist infection, more September 11s are likely.

Thewarning signs are there, loud and clear, for the Americans to read if only theyopen their eyes fully instead of fighting the war against terrorism with theireyes half open/half closed as they have been doing till now, for, if they open themfully, they will see Pakistan for what it reallyis, the snake pit of internationsl terrorism.

Shah-e-Kotwas only one of these warning signs, but not the first. There were othersbefore it:

The kidnapping and brutal murder of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's suspension of his actions against the terrorist groups after the kidnapping.
The release of 600 of the 2,000 arrested extremists by him on the ground that there was no evidence of their involvement in terrorism.
The offer of an amnesty by Lt. Gen. (retd) Moinuddin Haider, Pakistan's Interior Minister, to the remaining 1,400 if they give in writing that they would not re-join the banned terrorist organisations---the easiest thing for them to do.
The revival of sectarian violence in different cities of Pakistan despite Musharraf's ban on the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah Mohammad on August 14, 2001 and on five other terrorist organisations on January 15, 2002 including the Sunni extremist SSP and the Shia extremist Tehrik Jaffria Pakistan.
The continuing collusion of Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment with terrorists of various hue as so vividly brought out by the Daniel Pearl case, the arrest of Omar Shaikh and Musharraf's pussy-footing on the question of his extradition, the failure to act effectively against the dregs from Afghanistan re-grouping in Pakistani sanctuaries etc.