Arnaud de Borchgrave
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, July 26, 2002

Dressed in a one-piece dishdashi, this tall, Spartan chief of a Pathan tribe receives his visitors in a small dusty room under a flickering, low-voltage, naked light bulb. He does not wish to be quoted by name, but the CIA knows who he is and where he lives. He is an old and trusted contact of this writer, and this is the third time that we have mentioned his claim to know the details of bin Laden's escape from the Tora Bora mountain range into Pakistan.

He is the antithesis of flamboyant, not given to hyperbole and not interested in financial reward. After dusk he sits in his small courtyard near Peshawar, sipping tea and chatting late into the night with tribal elders, messengers with news from parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the border with Afghanistan and out-of-town visitors: politicians and journalists. But neither the CIA nor the FBI has contacted him to get the bin Laden story first-hand.

There are, admittedly, lots of rumors about bin Laden sightings. But this man is also a national political figure who has visited the United States and Europe and speaks English. He is well-read and a moderate in his political views, but he maintains cordial relations with Pakistan's politico-religious fundamentalists.

Soft-spoken, he is adamantine, firmly immovable in purpose, and sticking to his guns about bin Laden. His story is that the Saudi dissident made it out of Tora Bora last Dec. 9 on horseback with about 50 men through the Tirah Valley. They dismounted near the main road through the tribal areas that connects Parachinar with Peshawar and finished the journey in sports utility vehicles.

Pentagon officials assume that if the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency knew that bin Laden was in Peshawar, they would go over the sprawling slum city of 3.5 million people "with a fine-tooth comb." This would be a faulty assumption.

Bin Laden has many friends and admirers in ISI. A majority of the population, in Peshawar and in smaller towns in the tribal areas, are pro-bin Laden and anti-American.

A walk through the labyrinthine city would convince any observer that there are thousands of places to hide, above and below ground; that every conceivable weapon (including shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles) is for sale; that bin Laden, if indeed he is in the city, is well-protected by thousands of sympathizers; that President Pervez Musharraf is seen as the villain who sold out to the Americans; and that a hovel-by-hovel search would result in large casualties.

The tall, gaunt tribal leader speculates that bin Laden is a "tar baby" for President Bush and Musharraf. A U.S. trial for bin Laden could be a long, drawn-out spectacle a la Milosevic with embarrassing disclosures. A Pakistani trial could prove equally embarrassing for Musharraf, e.g., his long-standing relationship with ISI.

For five years prior to Sept. 11, Pakistan was a state that openly supported the Taliban and surreptitiously provided aid and comfort to bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization. An ISI officer was assigned to bin Laden.

In addition to a score of now-destroyed terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda enjoyed privileged sanctuaries and safe houses throughout Pakistan. These were managed by Pakistan's many extremist organizations. Most foreign recruits for al-Qaeda used Pakistan's madrassas - religious schools - as way stations as they made their way to Afghanistan. London's Sunday Times recently published an exclusive article based on documents captured in Afghanistan: Some 3,000 men holding British passports have passed through al-Qaeda's Afghan camps in recent years.

His network has yet to be dismantled. Musharraf's much-publicized crackdown against Islamist extremists simply resulted in name and address changes. In fact, Musharraf sought to dispel rumors he was seeking to transform Pakistan into a secular country following national elections scheduled Oct. 10.

Faced with a delegation from the "alliance of mainstream religious parties" led by two leading firebrands - Fazalur Rehman and Qazi Hussain Ahmed - the president assured them "Pakistan was born as an Islamic state, and nobody has the authority to change its Islamic character."

Benazir Bhutto, one of the country's two best-known secular political leaders, let it be known she plans to return from government-imposed exile at the end of August to get ready for the October elections. Musharraf has said publicly she will be arrested on charges of corruption the minute she sets foot back on Pakistani soil.

Fired as prime minister and then sentenced on charges of corruption, Bhutto (whose father was executed by the previous military dictator) opted to live close by in Dubai. Her husband is in prison in Pakistan on similar charges to those of his wife. Between Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif (also exiled by Musharraf), on the one hand, and the extreme religious parties on the other, Musharraf's road back to democracy is strewn with axle-deep potholes.

Copyright 2002 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

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Bush Administration

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