(Washington Times) Arnaud de Borchgrave - Pakistan is the new Afghanistan, a privileged sanctuary for hundreds of al Qaeda fighters and Taliban operatives. Some estimates go as high as 5,000. Most al Qaeda fighters slipped out of the Tora Bora trap last December and into the mountainous Pakistani tribal areas. Indian intelligence has verified the claim of a prominent Pakistani tribal leader that Osama bin Laden and some 50 escorts escaped in the second week of December and moved into Peshawar, the teeming capital of the Northwest Frontier Province. In the past two weeks, according to the same sources, bin Laden and several members of his family moved to Karachi, the sprawling port city of 12 million 900 miles to the south on the Arabian Sea. Bin Laden's second in command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, is still with him. The man orchestrating hostile extremist forces is the ubiquitous former Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) chief Hamid Gul, who is an admirer of Osama bin Laden and a friend of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the former Taliban leader.
2002-09-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive