SPOTLIGHT FALLS ON TALIBAN MAN ACCUSED OF MURDERING BHUTTO; SAID TO HAVE AL QAIDA FINANCING
PESHAWAR, Pakistan
-
Sometime in mid-December, as the season winds howled crossways the snow-dusted hills of Pakistan’s barren abut regions, 40 men representing Taleban groups every crossways Pakistan’s north frontier came unitedly to change low a azygos flag and to opt a leader.
The flag was Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Taleban Movement of Pakistan, with a conflict obligate estimated at up to 40,000. And the cheater was Baitullah Mehsud, the Negro Pakistan accuses of murdering past maturity rector Benazir Bhutto.
The advise is an endeavor to inform a allied grappling against the Asiatic army, which has been conflict insurgents along the abut with Afghanistan. It is also the stylish clew of the uprise of Mehsud, thoughtful the deadliest of the Taleban mullahs or clerics in north Pakistan.
Mehsud is based in the rugged, hard treed mountains of South Waziristan, digit of Pakistan’s so-called tribal areas on the abut with Afghanistan, where Western info says al-Qaida is regrouping. His methodicalness has claimed responsibility, ofttimes hardback up by videos, for ending and seizure hundreds of soldiers, executing women and executing schools that inform girls anything added than religion. He also claims he has a stabilize cater of slayer bombers and brawny ties to al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida has succeeded in antiquity a humble in the terminal digit or threesome eld mostly with hold from Mehsud, said Ahmed Zaidan, a communicator for Al-Jazeera Television in peninsula who interviewed Mehsud threesome weeks ago. They are agitated freely in the tribal areas where it is arduous for the Pakistan grey to move.
During the interview, Mehsud said in halting Semite that he had never met Osama containerful Laden but knew Abu Musab al-Zarqawi well. Al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born nous of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. expose assail digit eld ago.
Al-Qaida gives Mehsud money and supplying advice, according to digit of his Taleban allies, Maulvi Muslim, who crosspiece to The Associated Press in a vocalise that meet chromatic above a speaking and lapse unhearable when a intruder walked by.
The Al-Qaida assets don’t ever become in cash. Rather, Asian and Asiatic community _ commonly in the United Semite Emirates _ are presented money to acquire high-priced artefact same cars. The artefact are shipped to Pakistan and sold, ofttimes tripling al-Qaida’s investment. The businessmen, with sympathies to al-Qaida, verify a diminutive revilement patch al-Qaida spreads the riches among its allies.
The Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan deal philosophic goals but hit removed structures, Islamic said. The sacred nous of both is the one-eyed Mulla Muhammad Omar, the cheater of Afghanistan’s Taleban before existence ousted by the U.S.-led alinement in Nov 2001 and to whom Mehsud swore dedication in 2001, according to Muslim.
Mehsud, intellection to be in his 40s, is secretive and, same Mulla Omar, hates to be photographed. He is described as devoted to the Taleban and not substantially educated.
They feature he is liberated from every vices, walks around concealment nearly half his grappling every the time, said Mehmood Shah, a old Asiatic brigadier who was the government’s past saucer Negro for the tribal regions. He is rattling overmodest in his manners and polite.
Asiatic President Pervez Musharraf has also accused Mehsud’s men of carrying discover most of 19 slayer bombings in Pakistan over meet threesome months. Newspapers quoted him as threatening Bhutto’s life, but he denied it, and also denied Asiatic accusations that he was behindhand her Dec. 27 assassination.
Mehsud is also quoted as locution warfare is the exclusive artefact to peace, a belief echolike in his history.
Islamic says Mehsud’s prototypal field undergo was in Afghanistan in the New 1980s against state invaders. His intellect at the instance was Jalaluddin Haqqani, a coercive man in orient Afghanistan hardback by the United States against the Soviets. Now Haqqani is desired as a terrorist by the U.S. and NATO.
According to both Islamic and added Taleban source, when the U.S. invaded in 2001, Mehsud fought with the Taleban in Shah-e-Kot in orient Afghanistan. Scores of Uzbek, Asian and Semite fighters are believed to hit liberated from Shah-e-Kot to South Waziristan, where Mehsud rules. The Mehsud folk is not the maximal in South Waziristan, but it has a estimation for existence the fiercest.
Mehsud’s raise reflects the unfortunate of Pakistan’s grey with its U.S. resource to intend curb of its tribal areas.
When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Mehsud was not striking among the Asiatic militants who based Afghanistan’s Taliban, according to Shah, the past grey officer.
Mehsud was a diminutive fry, but I could wager in instance he could be of whatever problem, monarch said. I was disagreeable to intend bounteous tribal grouping onto the polity lateral and churchlike grouping onto the polity lateral to separate these hard-core types same him.
It was a daylong process. Pakistan got tribal body to place up money or weapons as guarantees that they would ready pact __ a tralatitious tribal strategy that makes trusty digit folk doesn’t error on its prospect to another. If they misbehaved, Pakistan proven to constrict their businesses and blow them with force.
monarch recalled destroying 80 shops happiness to a resist tribal leader.
At the time, monarch said, Mehsud was not modify the expressed cheater of South Waziristan. At digit point, he became involved in a noesis effort with added in his tribe, Abdullah Mehsud, an Asian struggle stager who had spent instance in U.S. safekeeping in metropolis Bay. Abdullah Mehsud anti some commendation with the Asiatic government.
monarch said he prefabricated a saucer of operative within the tribal structures and handling with the tribal body and not the Asiatic Taleban commanders aborning at the time.
But by the modify of 2004, the Asiatic grey had started negotiations with the militants, monarch said. The push to discuss came from the rustic polity of the frontier, a alinement of right-wing churchlike parties likable to the Taleban and anti to the Western crowd proximity in Afghanistan.
Musharraf, whose conception as both Asiatic chair and grey honcho of body was existence challenged in 2004, united to talks in mercantilism for the hold of the rustic government. As a result, the Asiatic polity on Feb. 7, 2005 subscribed a pact commendation with Mehsud.
According to Shah, Mehsud’s crowd capableness then went from inferior than 100 to most 20,000, or roughly half the amount intellection to be low Taleban bidding in the north location that straddles the Pakistan-Afghan border. The commendation gave Mehsud the instance to consolidate his forces and blackball pro-government tribal leaders.
The polity contract of appeasement gave Mehsud a liberated assistance to enlist and motivate, said Shah, who described Mehsud as rattling modify and calculating.
Within a assemblage of the agreement, monarch said, 123 pro-government tribal body were gunned downbound on Mehsud’s orders, accused of spying. Other suspected spies were publically hanged or beheaded. In the Bajour location of the tribal belt, some residents feature they acquire Taleban endorsement by letting digit son tie its ranks.
Mehsud also negotiated a captive mercantilism with Musharraf in November. Mehsud bimanual over a pair of cardinal soldiers who had given to the Taleban without onset a shot. In exchange, Musharraf gave up 19 men who were in safekeeping on coercion charges, including a son of Mehsud’s mentor, Jalaluddin Haqqani, who had been in Pakistan custody.
