The Taliban on Friday threatened to launch reprisals against United States and Pakistani forces if they did not call off their pursuit of the Afghan militant movement and its al-Qaeda allies in the mountains of Pakistan’s South Waziristan region.
The threat came as Pakistani artillery pounded a stronghold thought to be defended by up to 400 al-Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas. ”They are surrounded and they are trying to break the cordon and get away,” military spokesperson Major-General Shaukat Sultan told a news briefing in the capital, Islamabad.
He dismissed reports that al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had managed to get away. ”From the cordon we have put around these places, we are certain nobody would have escaped,” he said.
A security official said the militants had been surrounded in a valley not far from the border and had no way of getting fresh ammunition. With intense fighting going on, he predicted Friday night’s battle could be decisive.
Earlier the Pakistani army appeared to hedge assertions that Zawahiri was hiding in the encircled compound’s mud forts. Asked about the Egyptian fugitive, Major General Sultan said: ”Your guess is as good or bad as mine.”
But other Pakistani intelligence sources continued to insist that they believed that Zawahiri was trapped in the region. An Afghan government spokesperson in Kabul said US forces had picked up some ”semi-senior” al-Qaeda members fleeing back into Afghanistan from the tribal regions. Major General Sultan displayed pictures of dead fighters who he said were foreigners. The Pakistani authorities claim the guerrillas are members of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s international terrorist group, but the first response to the Waziristan siege came on Friday from al-Qaeda’s Afghan allies and former protectors, the Taliban. ”We will carry out more attacks against international coalition forces if they continue to chase us,” a Taliban spokesperson said in a videotaped message, broadcast on al-Jazeera television.
The Taliban was driven from power by a US-led offensive in late 2001 but continues to mount attacks on coalition troops along the Afghan-Pakistan border. In an operation codenamed Mountain Storm, US forces have flooded into the frontier region. The Pakistan government has insisted that no American troops have crossed the border to take part in the Waziristan battle, but that claim was contradicted by US sources.
One intelligence source said that Task Force 121 — a joint team of army and CIA special forces trained to track down fugitives that helped corner Saddam Hussein — was involved in the siege. ”There are people there directing fire, and providing overhead intelligence,” the source said. US officials would not confirm the presence of Task Force 121, but said American intelligence was providing pictures from Predator drone aircraft and high-altitude U2 spy planes.
Major General Sultan said that Pakistani forces stumbled on the Waziristan stronghold on Tuesday, while they were in pursuit of a handful of local tribesmen suspected of sheltering foreign militants. ”They barged into a hardened terrorists’ den and are now battling an estimated 300-400 heavily armed militants,” he said.
He said at least 26 militants, mostly believed to be foreigners, and 15 Pakistani forces were killed in the violence. The military spokesperson also accused militants of using women and children as human shields, preventing the troops from using artillery. – Guardian Unlimited Â