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Qari Tahir Yaldash

Qari Tahir Yaldash

Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan

Afghanistan/South Asia

20040320

India-Pakistan

Two men who spied on Shuja Khanzada arrested

2015-08-21

[DAWN] The Counter-Terrorism Department on Thursday took two members of a banned ...the word banned seems to have a different meaning in Pakistain than it does in most other places. Or maybe it simply lacks any meaning at all... organization into custody who allegedly spied on the assassinated home minister of Punjab, retired Col Shuja Khanzada. The suspects, identified as Qari Tahir and Mohammad Zubair, had constantly been following Mr Khanzada over the past couple of weeks before forces of Evil targeted him with a suicide kaboom in Attock on Aug 17. The suspects were jugged You have the right to remain silent... on information provided by intelligence agencies and they were shifted to some holy man's guesthouse an undisclosed location for interrogation, a senior CTD official told Dawn. Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, the pilot and the copilot had both hit the silk. Jack! Cynthia exclaimed. Do you know how to drive one of these things? Jack wiped some of the blood from his knuckles. No, he said. Do you?... seven members of a banned organization were detained from different areas of Lahore. Three of the arrested people were identified as Qari Attiqur Rehman, Mohammad Irshad and Abdul Razzaq. CTD SP Maroof Safdar Wahla told Dawn that his department was carrying out operations against members of banned organizations on a daily basis. He said the arrested people were not hardcore criminals, but they were members of a banned organization.

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Home Front: WoT

Full story of SEAL mission in question (helicopter crash)

2011-10-25

By the time the CH-47 transport helicopter descended to 150 feet above an unprotected landing zone in Afghanistan around 2 a.m. on Aug. 6, the element of surprise had been lost. Hours earlier, two other Chinooks had deposited 47 Army Rangers at another nearby landing site, undetected. The landing triggered a nighttime ground and aerial firefight that raged for several hours as a few Taliban “squirters,” as the military called them, tried to escape from the targeted compound and regrouped with other fighters. A bevy of surveillance and attack aircraft buzzed overhead, telling the Taliban in a collection of mud-brick homes in Tangi Valley that they were suddenly in the middle of Afghanistan’s 10-year-old war. When the third chopper — carrying 38 passengers and crew, and one dog, in a reinforcement known as an “immediate reaction force” — approached, a small group of Taliban on a rooftop stood ready. They fired rounds of rocket-propelled grenades. One clipped a rotary blade, sending the CH-47 into a violent spin and then a fiery crash. All onboard died, including 17 elite Navy SEALs. The loss of so many high-echelon special warriors drew criticism from some in the special-operations community. They said it was a needless waste of lives, a highly risky mission to round up or kill a relatively few enemy forces that the Rangers and air power could have subdued. As funerals for the fallen sailors played out in small towns across America, ArmyBrig. Gen. Jeffrey Colt and a team of specialists had landed in Afghanistan for a full-blown investigation. He would determine the cause of the crash and whether commanders made the right call. In his report summary, Gen. Colt, a helicopter pilot who had served in Army special-operations aviation, disagreed with the mission’s critics and cleared the commanders. He said the decision to load all the reaction force onto a single helicopter was “sound.” He said the “squirters” might have included the mission’s original “Objective Lefty Grove”— a Taliban leader named Qari Tahir. His summary does not tell the whole story. U.S. Central Command released hundreds of pages of interviews and exhibits that showed there were at least two tactical moves that came in for second-guessing.

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Afghanistan

Taliban commander killed after US chopper crash: Nato

2011-09-23

[Dawn] A Taliban capo who was the target of an operation last month in which 30 US troops died in a helicopter crash has been killed in an air strike, the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... -led force in Afghanistan said Thursday. Qari Tahir was killed in an air strike Tuesday in Wardak province, central Afghanistan, six weeks after the helicopter crash caused the biggest single loss of life for foreign forces in ten years of war. Washington has said it had killed those behind the helicopter's downing, but a senior Afghan government official told AFP that it was Tahir who had lured US forces to the scene by tipping them off about a Taliban meeting. "Tahir... was the target of a previous combined operation on Aug. 5, 2011, that resulted in the loss of the CH-47 Chinook last month," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. "He led a group of myrmidon fighters throughout the valley and was known to use roadside kabooms and rockets to intimidate the local populace." The US helicopter was shot down killing 38 people including 30 US troops, 25 of whom were special forces. Many of the victims belonged to the US Navy's "Team Six", the special forces unit that killed the late Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden is dead. He took two shots to the head. That made him frown and he had to lie down. Osama bin Laden is dead. in a raid on his Pak hideout in May. Sources said they were not part of the team that killed the 9/11 criminal mastermind. Days after the crash, General John Allen, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, said that those who shot the Chinook down had been hunted down and killed in a bombing raid by an F-16 fighter jet. This claim was denied by the Taliban and a senior Afghan government official told AFP that it was Tahir who was responsible for luring US forces to the scene. Speaking anonymously, he said Tahir had set a trap for the aircraft to be shot down. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... responded to the crash, which raised doubts over the international mission in Afghanistan, by vowing to "stay the course". The fatal operation had been targeting the leadership of an "enemy network" within the remote and hostile Tangi Valley, southwest of the capital Kabul, Allen said. The Afghan police and army have struggled to counter the Taliban in the Tangi valley, according to officials and local people, with gunnies controlling the area. There are around 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about 100,000 of them from the US, fighting a Taliban-led insurgency. All foreign combat forces are due to leave in staged withdrawals leading up to a deadline at the end of 2014, at which point Afghan cops will assume responsibility for their country. A string of recent spectacular attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul in recent months has highlighted the strength of the insurgency. They include Tuesday's liquidation of Burhanuddin Rabbani ... the late legitimate president of Afghanistan... , a former president tasked with leading Afghan government efforts to talk peace with the Taliban, who was killed by a man with explosives hidden in his turban.

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India-Pakistan

Uzbek militants name Yaldashev's successor

2009-10-03

[Dawn] The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has named a hitherto unknown militant, Usman Jan, as its new 'commander' in place of Qari Tahir Yaldashev, who has reportedly been killed in a drone attack in South Waziristan last month, according to credible sources. Nevertheless, outlawed militant outfit Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has categorically denied the killing of Yaldashev in the drone attack. 'Qari Tahir Yaldashev is alive and safe. Reports about his death in a drone attack are baseless,' Qari Hussain, a spokesman for TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud, told Dawn from an unspecified place on phone on Friday. Officials, however, insisted that Yaldashev had died of injuries he had received in a drone attack at a house in Kani Garam area of South Waziristan on Aug 27. They claimed that two missiles fired from the pilotless US plane had also killed four of Yaldashev's companions. According to a report prepared by intelligence officials, Yaldashev had lost one leg and one arm in the attack and he was rushed to a private hospital in Zhob district of Balochistan where he died on Oct 1. It is yet not known as to where he was buried.

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India-Pakistan

Uzbek militant leader killed in drone attack

2009-10-02

Qari Tahir Yaldashev, a leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, died in a US drone attack in South Waziristan last month, senior government and security officials said on Thursday. 'The man has kicked the bucket,' a senior government official said. 'The man has kicked the bucket,' a senior government official said. Security official said that Yaldashev died in a drone attack in Kanigoram, South Waziristan, on Aug 27. 'The man died on the spot,' the security official said. 'This is a big blow to a violent foreign militant group that had spearheaded the campaign against Pakistan and its state agencies,' he said. An Uzbek, claiming to be the bodyguard of 30-year-old Yaldashev, had called Radio Liberty late last month to report the death of IMU leader. The man, who had declined to give his name, spoke the Uzbek language and said he was calling from somewhere in Pakistan. The IMU leader died of head injury, the man told Radio Liberty. At the time, Pakistani officials had declined to confirm the death of Tahir Yaldashev, though speculations have been doing the round for quite some time. But now a senior security official has said the IMU chief was killed in a drone attack. 'He is dead beyond doubt,' the official said. Tahir Yaldashev, known as Qari Farooq in South Waziristan, was born in Namangan, Uzbekistan, in 1967. His real name was Tahir Abduhalilovich Yoldashev. Together with Jumaboi Ahmadinovich Khojaev he founded the IMU in Kabul in 1998.

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India-Pakistan

Tahir Yuldashev killed in Aug 27 drone attack

2009-10-02

Chief of Islamic movement of Uzbekistan Tahir Yuldashev, also known as Qari Tahir, was killed in a US drone attack in South Waziristan Agency on August 27, a private TV channel reported on Thursday. The channel said Pakistani and American officials had confirmed Yuldashev's death. He was a close aide of former Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud and was involved in several attacks in the country. The Paks never even bothered to deny Tahir was in the country. I'm not sure how the Islamic Movement of "Uzbekistan" manages to justify living in Pakistain, with an entire country between it and the Ferghana valley...

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India-Pakistan

Pakistan: Taliban leader builds new links with Al-Qaeda

2009-09-11

[ADN Kronos] By Syed Saleem Shahzad - On the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Washington and London have signalled a shift in strategy in the South Asian war theatre stressing the need to talk to moderate Taliban leaders. They have also announced a major boost in military hardware to eliminate extremists, particularly in the Pakistani tribal areas, the strategic backyard of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Now Al-Qaeda has revealed a new strategy in Pakistan's tribal areas to confront the new western plans. After the demise of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, killed in an alleged US drone attack in August, veteran Mufti Waliur Rahman Mehsud was brushed aside and cowboy styled Hakimullah Mehsud was installed as leader of the umbrella Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. The TTP, considered an Al-Qaeda franchise in South Asia, is conducting a new offensive in Pakistan to pre-empt the latest action by western powers in the region. The TTP, considered an Al-Qaeda franchise in South Asia, is conducting a new offensive in Pakistan to pre-empt the latest action by western powers in the region. A month has passed since 5 August, the most fateful day in the US-led anti-terror campaign when a drone missile attack eliminated Baitullah Mehsud. Finally the hot blooded, young warlord Hakimullah Mehsud was installed as the figurehead of the Pakistani Taliban and Mufti Waliur Rahman was appointed as the commander of the Taliban in Mehsud's stronghold of South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan. Emissaries of the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's in the tribal areas initially put their support behind Mufti Waliur Rahman, a more sensible and senior candidate, as chief of the Pakistani Taliban but other forces in the tribal areas namely Al-Qaeda were very uncomfortable with that choice. The reason was clear. Mufti Waliur Rahman's affinity with radical Arab camps in the region and with their ideology was ambiguous. Mufti Waliur Rahman was previously a religious scholar and linked to a faculty in a local Islamic school. He was also a member of the Islamist political party, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) led by Fazlur Rahman. The JUI is part of the incumbent coalition government in Islamabad. Mufti was still in contact with several top JUI leaders including Maulana Fazlur Rahman. Since Baitullah Mehsud's death the biggest threat for Al-Qaeda were the 'gimmicks' proposed by the Pakistani army, including monetary compensation and bargaining for limited peace deals to buy time so their intelligence networks could infiltrate the tribal areas and coordinate drone attacks against Al-Qaeda members. Mufti Waliur Rahman was an unacceptable face for Al-Qaeda as militants considered him unreliable and there were fears that if he was appointed chief of the Taliban he might agree to a ceasefire deal with Pakistani security forces, if his former political allies from JUI approach him as guarantors. There was also a risk that Mufti Waliur Rahman would also abandon TTP's ties with Pakistani terror networks like the Islamist Laskhar-e-Jhangvi and restrict the Taliban's role to the tribal area, supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan rather than taking up the arms against the Pakistan army. At a time when the Pakistani tribal areas are a vital link on the strategic front for both the insurgents as well as NATO forces, Al-Qaeda wanted a local partner who would completely support its plans and resources and carry the war to its conclusion. So for Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban the developments which arose after September 11 in Afghanistan would take a decisive turn in 2009. NATO forces in Afghanistan have come under siege as the conflict with militants expanded in northern Afghanistan and forced Washington and London to seek peace talks with the Taliban, without Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists. Recently the Afghan insurgency received a boost when insurgents operating out of Afghanistan's Baghlan district on the highway from Tajikistan launched coordinated attacks threatening to disrupt NATO's new supply route from Central Asia. NATO's supply lines from Pakistan to southern Afghanistan have already come under attack and late last year seriously squeezed NATO resources inside Afghanistan. A substitute route was finalised through the central Asian republics but that is now under attack. The Taliban have also intensified its attacks against NATO and the number of foreign troop casualties has risen to an all-time high this year. In this phase of the Afghan conflict which Al-Qaeda considers decisive, its leaders regard any pause in the violence through a ceasefire or potential peace talks as a trap and its top ideologues understand that welcoming such moves as a clear retreat before a near victory. Shiekh Saeed Al-Misri, emissary of Al-Qaeda's second-in- command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, put Al-Qaeda's weight behind 29 year-old Hakimullah Mehsud, who finally won the backing of all stakeholders as the Pakistani Taliban's new chief. He is the new generation of the Taliban which completely reared under Al-Qaeda's influence and has never communicated with the Pakistani establishment. This is a significant development which makes peace and reconciliation in Pakistan a far more remote possibility. Earlier, 2500 Uzbek fighters loyal to Qari Tahir Yaldeshiv of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who were living in exile in the Pakistani tribal areas became the backbone of slain Baitullah Mehsud, who became the biggest Taliban commander in the region with Al-Qaeda support. Al-Qaeda foresees an identical role for Hakimullah Mehsud through similar support. It is very much apparent that unlike slain Baitullah Mehsud's vertical command structure, the command structure of TTP under Hakimullah Mehsud will be more fragmented. Hakimullah Mehsud will only coordinate activities between pro-Taliban warlords in Pakistani tribal areas like Mullah Fazlullah in Malakand, Maulvi Faqir in Bajaur, Waliur Rahman in South Waziristan, and his own group operating in Derra Adam Khel, Kurram agency, Khyber agency and Orakzai agency. Unlike Baitullah Mehsud, Hakimullah's control will be limited to these commanders but Al-Qaeda envisions Hakimullah's role extending beyond the tribal areas. It aims to establish a nexus with Hakimullah, like the one they had with slain Baitullah Mehsud, through which they would carry out a few big operations in the region of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and possibly outside the region which gives a new twist to the war on terror. Immediately after Hakimullah Mehsud was installed as the chief of Pakistani Taliban, Zawahiri released a powerful video message. "The war in the tribal areas and Swat is an inseparable part of the Crusaders' assault on Muslims the length and breadth of the Islamic world," he said. "The Pakistan army is acting as a fundamental element of the Crusade against Islam and Muslims, and has become a tool in the hands of the global Crusade." Al-Zawahiri said that there was only one means available "to get out of this predicament which Pakistan had found itself: it is through Jihad, and there is no way other than Jihad." This clearly signals that the new nexus between Al-Qaeda and Hakimullah Mehsud will have a special focus on Pakistani cities and involve launching joint high-profile terror operations aimed to outmaneouvre the new regional plans devised by the United States and the United Kingdom. Hakimullah Mehsud fired his first shot on last Wednesday when two gunmen, associated with the Taliban, ambushed the motorcade of Pakistan's minister for the religious affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi. Hamid, a fiercely anti-Taliban cleric, was injured but his driver was killed in the attack. More attacks are being planned and are aimed at keeping Pakistan on the defensive. Al-Qaeda has previously carried out identical plots to counter the western coalition in the region. The murder of former Pakistani prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007 was one example through which Al-Qaeda created chaos and put Pakistan on defensive against the Taliban despite US pressure. The Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008 was another example of Al-Qaeda's plot to undermine the western coalition. It caused so much hostility between India and Pakistan that international attention was diverted from Afghanistan and despite mediation by Washington, relations between Pakistan and India remained tense for months. The Madrid train bombings of 2004 and the London bombings of 2005 were two other examples in which Al-Qaeda sought to exert its power. Pakistan is likely to be the new focus of American and British attempts to quell the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan. Both allies agree on an early exit strategy from Afghanistan and aim to train the Afghan army and police, as fast as possible, to take over the burden of battling the insurgents and in the meantime, western coalition forces aim to strike as many deals as possible with the moderate Taliban. There is speculation that there will be an exodus of top Taliban commanders from Afghanistan who will head to the Pakistani tribal areas to regroup and there is immense pressure from Washington on the Pakistani army to start ground operations in South Waziristan to deprive Al-Qaeda and the Taliban of consolidating its base. However, before that happens, Al-Qaeda's endorsement of Hakimullah Mehsud puts him at the top of the hierarchy to carry out the next phase of the organisation's plans in South Asia.

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India-Pakistan

Yuldashev said injured in northwest

2009-06-19

[ADN Kronos] By Syed Saleem Shahzad - The leader of the Pakistani militant group, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Qari Tahir Yuldashev, has been injured in an attack in the lawless South Waziristan tribal region. Army spokesman Maj.Gen. said late on Tuesday that Yuldashev was injured in the northwest town of Makeen. Shall we pray for sepsis? Yuldashev is believed to be a key ally of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. He also said to be the third in command of the so called international Islamic front based in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The front is said to be headed by Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri. He reportedly lives in South Waziristan which is protected by Mehsud, against whom the army is poised to launch an offensive. Yuldashev commands between 2,000 and 2,500 Uzbeks who whom observers say form the backbone of the Taliban-led insurgency in North West Frontier Province's restive Swat Valley, where militants have been fighting to impose a strict version of Islamic law. He is considered Mehsud's ideologue and his fighters significantly buttress Mehsud's forces in his South Waziristan power base. Previous reports from Pakistani security forces claiming that Yuldashev had been killed or injured turned out to be false. Yuldashev is not considered a real threat for western troops based in Afghanistan as his main area of operations is Pakistan, where he allegedly stages attacks against Pakistani troops. Yuldashev's Uzbek fighters are notorious for their brutality and for releasing to the media gruesome videos showing the agony of victims having their throats cut, typically with rusty knives. They are blamed for having 'trained' militants in such slaughter techniques in Pakistan's tribal areas. Yuldashev and his fighters in 2007 survived an attempted coup against them by a Taliban commander Moulvi Nek Mohammad who was backed by Pakistani forces in South Waziristan. Nek Mohammad received arms and money by the Pakistani security apparatus in January 2007 and carried out a massacre of Uzbeks in which at least 250 were killed. Following the attempted coup, Yuldashev and his comrades fled to neighbouring North Wazirstan's Shawal area. After Nek Mohammad's rival Mehsud rose to prominence as Taliban commander, Yuldashev returned to South Waziristan and reportedly stayed with with Mehsud. A faction of Uzbeks rebelled against Yuldashev's brutal practices but failed to form a breakaway group in North Waziristan as they could not muster enough fighters. But if Yuldashev is killed, it is quite possible there will be a 'diaspora' of Uzbek fighters from South Waziristan, according to observers.

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India-Pakistan

Lashkar chases Uzbeks out of S Waziristan

2007-04-10

A tribal army cleared the town of Azam Warsak in South Waziristan of Uzbek militants and claimed victory in their three-week fight against the militants linked to Al Qaeda, on Monday. “With God’s help, we have forced Qari Tahir Khan and his supporters to flee,” Mullah Owais Hanafi, a spokesman for the tribal army led by Maulvi Nazir, said in a statement. Qari Tahir Khan is a local name for Tahir Yuldashev, leader of the outlawed Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. “By (Monday) mid-day, the tribal army reached the centre of Azam Warsak to hoist a white flag – signifying the return of peace – and Uzbek militants left the area long before our mujahideen’s arrival,” Hanafi said. The tribal army, or lashkar, backed by most Ahmedzai Wazir tribes, launched attacks against the Uzbek militants on March 19 and pushed them out of Wana, Kaloosha, Sheen Warsak and Jaghunda. Sources close to Maulvi Nazir said the Uzbeks were “probably headed for North Waziristan”. The whereabouts of pro-Uzbek Wazir militant commanders Haji Omar, Noor Islam, Javed Karmazkhel and Maulvi Abbas were not known. Some tribal elders said they had gone “underground”. The government says around 250 Uzbeks and 50 tribal militants have been killed in the clashes. Mullah Owais described Yuldashev as an “agent of the CIA and Afghan intelligence” who was responsible for “barbaric injustices” against his hosts, including the murders of some 200 pro-government tribal elders since 2005. He denied that the federal government was helping the tribesmen. “We have no business with the government, nor are we its supporters,” he said. Agencies add: The lashkar found the bodies of eight foreigners killed in the battle to take Azam Warsak overnight, AFP reported. A local administration official said the tribal fighters were now carrying out house-to-house searches for militants and securing other areas. A police van on its way from Tank to Dera Ismail Khan was caught in a remote-controlled bomb explosion close to Ranwala, but no one was hurt, SANA reported.

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India-Pakistan

Pakistan's tribals - who is killing who?

2007-04-05

Pakistan's tribal district of South Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan, is in the throes of turmoil once again. The government says that the local tribesmen have started an armed campaign to expel foreign militants whom it blames for launching cross-border attacks on foreign and Afghan troops in Afghanistan. It says more than 250 people, mostly foreign militants, have been killed in these clashes since early March. Unofficial reports put the casualty figures much lower, and suggest that mixed groups of local and foreign militants are confronting each other in what also appears to be a power struggle within the tribes. Both claims are difficult to verify. Journalists have been denied access. Mobile phones do not work in the area. Landline phone connections remain dead after a robbery in the telephone exchange two months ago. But interviews with truckers and residents who have been moving in and out of the region clearly show that while the above two views may be partially correct, there is also a third dimension to this conflict. Part three is very interesting... The Ahmadzai Wazir tribe dominates the western parts of South Waziristan agency, and as such controls the economically lucrative border trade routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The largest of its nine sub-tribes is the Zalikhel, which controls Wana, the administrative and financial capital of the district, and has traditionally provided leadership to the smaller sub-tribes. Within the Zalikhel, there are three clans of which the largest is the Yargulkhel, the actual harbourers of foreign militants in Wana. The Yargulkhel clan produced a number of Taleban commanders, notably Nek Mohammad, who brought thousands of foreign militants to Wana in 2002-03 and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Pakistan army in fighting in March 2004. He was killed in a US air strike in June 2004, prompting the fractious Yargulkhel commanders, including his brother Haji Omar, to start asserting their authority and open separate Taleban offices in Wana. The present conflict has seen some of these Yargulkhel commanders arrayed against Mullah Nazir, who was appointed by the top Taleban leadership as the chief commander of Ahmadzai Wazirs in November 2006. The Yargulkhels may be upset because Mullah Nazir hails from an obscure sub-clan of the Zalikhel's least numerous clan, the Kakakhel. That appears to be one source of the violence. If this is the case, then where do the foreign militants stand in this free-for-all? The government says that they are being hunted by the local tribesmen, but reports from Wana suggest that only Uzbeks are the target of Mullah Nazir's fighters. The real al-Qaeda - the Arabs - find no mention in either official or unofficial reports from Wana. Other groups that remain quietly in the background are the Chechens, some ethnic Uighur Chinese and a large number Kashmiri and Pakistani sectarian groups known in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas as the 'Punjabi' mujahideen. Until recently, it was believed that the Uzbeks were divided into two mutually hostile groups, one Wana-based and headed by Qari Tahir Yuldashev, and the other led by Nasir Sohail who is based in the town of Mir Ali in the neighbouring North Waziristan tribal district. Officials now say that there is a third Uzbek group in Wana - the so-called 'good guys' who are helping the local tribesmen get rid of Mr Yuldashev's bad guys. Mullah Nazir has accused Mr Yuldashev's men of killing more than 200 tribal elders in the region during the last two years after labelling them as US spies or Pakistani agents. Most local people believe the Uzbeks alone are not to blame, but in some recent cases it became apparent that they had served as hired guns for tribesmen who wanted their enemies eliminated. Matters came to a head on March 6, 2007, when some Uzbek gunmen tried to kill a tribal elder in Azam Warsak, 12km west of Wana, sparking a clash in which 19 persons, including 12 Uzbek fighters, were reported killed. Clashes broke out again on March 20 following the murder of an Arab militant commander which Mullah Nazir blamed on the Uzbeks. Since then, intermittent clashes between the two sides have continued, leaving close to 100 people, including more than 10 military personnel, dead. Now, the new twist on the story.. One major question is, how could a tribally weak person like Mullah Nazir succeed where powerful Yargulkhel commanders have failed? The answer brings us to the third dimension of our story. Beginning late last September, a large number of previously unknown mujahideen (holy fighters) - some sources put their number at more than 2,000 - started to descend on the villages of Wana and took up accommodation, paying generous amounts of rent. The local people initially thought they had come from Turkmenistan, but many now suspect they are linked to the Pakistani military. Members of the 21st Agent Provocateur Battalion The newcomers picked fights with the Uzbeks and created tensions that led to an all out confrontation in November 2006 between different groups vying for the control of Wana. "Hey, Achmed, dat Uzbek has been making google eyes at your favorite ewe." The situation was defused by some top Taleban leaders who crossed over from Afghanistan and appointed Mullah Nazir as the chief commander of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe. The newcomers as well as the Punjabi mujahideen have since thrown their weight behind Mullah Nazir, enabling him to hold his own against powerful Zalikhel and Yargulkhel commanders. Recently, even the top Taleban emissaries failed to force him to agree to a truce with the Uzbeks and their tribal supporters. On Wednesday, his volunteers were able to dislodge their opponents from their well-entrenched positions in Shin Warsak, a village west of Wana, and there is talk that the Uzbeks might decide to surrender over the next couple of days. It appears that the Pakistani government has been able to exploit group differences among the militants and has isolated the Uzbeks. The way ahead lies in two directions. First, the government could try to consolidate its gains and isolate the Arabs and other militants in the region in the next phase. This would also mean initiating similar action against foreign militants and their local supporters in North Waziristan as well. The government would probably only follow this course if it has made up its mind to abandon the Taleban for good and deal a decisive blow to militancy in the region. The other option is to brandish the high casualties among 'foreign militants' to ward off international pressure for some time, without hurting the interests of the Taleban militants beyond repair. So far, the second course has been Islamabad's preferred way of dealing with the western powers whose troops are battling the Taleban in Afghanistan. Will it be different this time?

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Terror Networks

Local jihadis claim Binny's influence waning before takfiri al-Qaeda leaders

2006-05-20

"Qari Tahir Yaldevish" is Tahir Yuldashev, the IMU supremo. No clue who "Sheikh Essa" is supposed to be but my guess is another Learned Elder of Islam. Whether he is viewed as a living legend for jihadis or as a reviled terrorist, the mere mention of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's name provokes strong reactions, and is an invaluable tool in the propaganda war between the two sides. On the ground, though, at least in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains that span Pakistan and Afghanistan, the reality is that bin Laden, while remaining a source of inspiration in the anti-West struggle, is acknowledged as no longer being in command of al-Qaeda's operations. In that role, he has been superseded by Taliban leader Mullah Omar, according to investigations and interviews conducted by sia Times Online in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Indeed, in the four years since the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda, after years of financial blockades and arrests, has emerged more as a loose (and ideologically divergent) grouping of mujahideen waging open jihad - especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It would be absolutely wrong to say that al-Qaeda has evaporated into the air," a man from the Pakistani tribal areas of Waziristan told Asia Times Online. "The organization is very much active on the ground, but the sharp edges of circumstance have modified it into a new shape and it is now part of mainstream jihadi activity. The ultimate goal of the [jihadi] organization is to launch jihad from Khorasan [Afghanistan] to Jerusalem." Calling himself Nasir ("supporter"), the man claimed to have intimate knowledge of Taliban and al-Qaeda activities in the region, where the Taliban have gained a strong foothold for their insurgency in Afghanistan and where al-Qaeda operatives are known to have taken shelter since being driven out of Afghanistan in 2001. "It is true that Osama's activity has not been heard of for a long time, but Dr [Ayman] al-Zawahiri [al-Qaeda deputy leader] is active and moves all over and is now the main engine behind a lot of activity, even outside Afghanistan," Nasir asserted. Another man, whom Asia Times Online had met in the northern mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and who just called himself a mujahid, said, "The al-Qaeda command structure, as it was known at the time of September 11, which carried out specific missions to target US interests, has largely been abandoned, but it has quickly been replaced. "Nowadays, Arabs go straight into Afghanistan and join various Taliban commanders. At the same time, the Pakistani Taliban have formed bases in North and South Waziristan. All of them pledge their allegiance to Mullah Omar," the mujahid said. "All global operations have been shunned for now. Sheikh [bin Laden] is inactive. Actually, Sheikh does not have any money left," a colleague of the mujahid said. Introducing himself as Abdullah ("Servant of Allah"), he was from the Afghan province of Nuristan and said he was part of the Taliban-led resistance. He also described himself as a "host", a term generally used for those who provide shelter to Arab-Afghans - those Arabs who have joined the insurgency and spent time in Afghanistan. "He [bin Laden] kept changing his location; he spent a lot of money on his people and associates, and of course for his survival. The channels of money kept choking one by one and finally dried up," said Abdullah with a forlorn look on his face. "This was a strange situation in which everybody [Arab-Afghan] was striving for survival, and once Osama's shelter [money] was off, they were scattered," Abdullah explained. The most significant result of this was a sharp turn by al-Qaeda toward mainstream jihadist activity, mainly against allied forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. The switch, though, carries with it inherent dangers, both for al-Qaeda and for some Muslim countries. The Taliban, and to a lesser extent al-Qaeda, have established a de facto Islamic state in the North Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan. In effect it is beyond the control of Islamabad. This correspondent planned to travel there, but was warned that it would not be "fruitful", presumably in terms of life expectancy. Instead, some contacts from North Waziristan traveled to the city of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, to speak to Asia Times Online, including Nasir. They related that about two weeks ago, three men representing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in charge of Iraqi operations, were summoned from that country. The men met with Zawahiri in South Waziristan and were bluntly told to "immediately stop attacking Shi'ites in Iraq" and to "bring about [Sunni] reconciliation with Shi'ite groups" in Iraq. Further, they were ordered to "develop a common anti-US strategy along with the Shi'ites in Iraq". This development is significant in the context of the vacuum that now exists within al-Qaeda, given bin Laden's reduced influence. In essence, three forces are in play: the jihadis in Pakistan and Afghanistan who answer to Mullah Omar; the jihadis centered in Iraq under Zarqawi; and the "traditional" al-Qaeda represented by Zawahiri (and bin Laden). The first two forces are moving further away from the core of al-Qaeda, largely over the issue of takfiri (a belief that sects that are not Wahhabi-based are infidel and apostate). Bin Laden has opposed this concept, arguing that al-Qaeda should not attack other Muslims, but takfiris see anyone beyond their beliefs as fair game, hence Zawahiri's advice to Zarqawi's men that they stop attacking Shi'ites in Iraq and concentrate on driving out the US-led forces, the "true" infidel. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, powerful figures such as Qari Tahir Yaldevish of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Sheikh Essa (an Egyptian) are very well respected among the al-Qaeda leadership, but they have been at the head of a successful drive to expand the influence of takfiris in Waziristan. They have found comrades in the likes of Moulvi Sadiq Noor and Abdul Khaliq, who are committed to waging pitched battle against Pakistani military forces in what they call a "real" jihad as the troops represent the Pakistani administration, which they say has become a facilitator of the Americans. From the wounded body of al-Qaeda, underground networks have largely been abandoned and replaced by open jihad. This jihad, though, has a deadly twist, especially for Pakistan: although Muslim, it's now a fair target.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Pakistani security forces kill suspected militant near Afghan border

2005-10-04

Pakistani security forces Monday claimed killing alleged guard of leading Al-Qaeda figure, Tahir Yuldashev, in North Waziristan tribal agency, bordering Afghanistan, as latest spate of violence claimed six casualties, said security sources. Late Sunday, suspected Islamic militants fired several rockets on a military checkpost on Till Mir Ali road near Mir Ali village, where forces were engaged in an operation, security sources told KUNA. They said militants encircled the checkpost at the time when troops were asleep. Sources said there was heavy exchange of fire and forces also used fired mortar and shells. They added that more than three hour long exchange of fire killed at least four militants. They said rest of the militants fled and that forces could hold of only one militant. Sources said according to initial investigative reports, the dead militant has been identified as Abdul Rehman, a Spaniard. They said he is suspected guard of Tahir Yuldashev, a leading Al-Qaeda figure. More from Pak Daily Times... 6 militants killed in attack on military Six militants were killed in an attack on a military checkpoint on Monday. The insurgents were among a group of up to 30 who on Sunday surrounded the Zara Mela checkpost in North Waziristan. That seems to have worked well... “Six of them were killed when soldiers returned fire, but they managed to escape with five bodies,” said a military official. Security forces killed around 60 to 70 militants, including 35 foreigners and a senior Al Qaeda leader from Chechnya, during an operation in the Khatti Kalli village in North Waziristan last week, military sources told Daily Times. Uzbek militant Qari Tahir Yuldeshev’s lieutenant nicknamed “Chamak” from Chechnya was killed in the operation on Saturday, sources said speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Chamak was the commander of militants from Central Asian states – Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya,” they added. Sources said that Chamak received multiple bullet injuries on October 1 and was shifted to the compound of Haji Malik Muhammad Alam in Machikhel, about 12 kilometres northeast of Mir Ali town, in critical condition for treatment, but he succumbed to his injuries. "Rosebud!" "He's dead, Jim!" “There are three close associates of Tahir Yuldeshev – local cleric Maulana Sadiq Noor provides him with logistic support in North Waziristan, Malik Khandan is the Uzbek leader’s commander in Afghanistan, while Chamak commanded the foreign militants in North Waziristan,” sources said. Information about the militants killed in the operation was gathered through the local population. “Militants do not leave bodies behind. They retrieve and bury them quickly,” they said. "Mahmoud! Hurry with that shovel! He's startin' to stink!" "He smelled that way before he was dead!" “Five militants killed on September 30 were buried in a single grave in Khatti Kalli village whereas another eight militants killed on October 1 were buried at four different places in Machikhel,” said the sources. However, they added that the alleged “Al Qaeda facilitator in North Waziristan”, Maulana Sadiq Noor and his deputy Malik Khandan, escaped during the operation. "Curly-toed slippers, don't fail us now!" Sources said that the security forces demolished Noor’s hideout on Sunday after evacuating the women and children living inside the compound. Tribal sources in Miranshah told Daily Times that the militants suffered heavy casualties in the search operation in which gunship helicopters and fighter jets were used. Meanwhile, a tribal jirga pledged conditional support to the government, asking the army to involve the political administration and tribal elders whenever a military operation was planned. "Yeah, just give our military operations coordinator a call!" "Who's that?" "Mahmoud the Weasel." The jirga also demanded a ceasefire from the army during Ramazan, tribal Senator Mateen Shah told Daily Times by phone from Miranshah. He said that resistance to Khatti Kalli operation was an “accident” due to a “misunderstanding”.

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