Pakistani troops battling suspected al-Qaeda fighters in Pakistan’s lawless north this week discovered a 1,6km-long tunnel running through the battlefield, through which senior al-Qaeda members may have escaped, officials said.
Several tunnels were discovered leading from a huddle of fiercely defended mud fortresses near Afghanistan’s border, that have been besieged by a force of 7 000 Pakistani troops for almost a week. The tunnels were said to have led to a nearby dry riverbed running along the border.
Brigadier Mahmood Shah, security chief of Pakistan’s northern tribal region, said the longest tunnel was more than 1km long. ”There is a possibility that the tunnel may have been used at the start of the operation,” he said.
Senior Pakistani officials have suggested that al-Qaeda’s second- in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, could be among the hundreds of besieged fighters. Seeking to explain the ferocity of resistance, President Pervez Musharraf said last week that a ”high-value” target was probably among them.
United States intelligence operatives are assisting the Pakistani army in the battle, in which more than 40 suspected terrorists, soldiers and civilians have been killed.
A senior US commander, General John Abizaid, visited Islamabad this week, raising speculation that the Pakistani army could be on the verge of capturing a major al-Qaeda prize. But Western diplomats in Islamabad were sceptical. The mud fortresses would be too obvious a hiding place, they said.
”It’s very hard to believe al-Zawahiri has been hiding in what amounts to a military camp,” said one European diplomat. ”Or if he is there, it’s impossible to believe that the Pakistani intelligence services didn’t know about it a long time ago.” — Â