File this one under the "Duh" files.
Top Al Qaeda terrorists may have escaped a siege by thousands of Pakistani soldiers through several secret tunnels leading from mud fortresses to a dry mountain stream near the border with Afghanistan, a security chief said Monday. The longest tunnel found so far was more than 1 mile long and led from the homes of two local men —Nek Mohammed and Sharif Khan — to a stream near the frontier, said Brig. Mahmood Shah, head of security for Pakistan?s tribal regions. "There is a possibility that the tunnel may have been used at the start of the operation," Shah told journalists in Peshawar (search), the provincial capital. He said the tunnels began at the homes in the village of Kaloosha and led in the direction of a mountain range that straddles the border.
Typical SW Asia tribal op - bloody, noisy but not all that effective in terms of catching the honchos. |