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Friday, May 02, 2008
Now in Pakistan, Al Qaeda is still ‘greatest threat’: US
* US State Dept report says Al Qaeda exploits grievances for its own agenda
* Number of attacks in Pakistan soared last yearWASHINGTON: The West faces its “greatest terrorist threat” from Al Qaeda in Pakistan, the United States government warned on Wednesday. Al Qaeda and its affiliates have recovered some of their pre-September 11, 2001, “operational capabilities”, in part by using the new sanctuary in Pakistan, the US State Department said in a report. Attacks in Pakistan more than doubled last year, and rose in Afghanistan, officials said. The militants have also been benefiting from havens in east Africa and east Asia, including in the southern Philippines and parts of Indonesia, according to the State Department’s 2007 annual “Country Reports on Terrorism”. “Al Qaeda and associated networks remained the greatest terrorist threat to the United States and its partners in 2007,” the report said. Al Qaeda is rebuilding with the “exploitation of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the replacement of captured or killed operational lieutenants, and the restoration of some central control by its top leadership,” it said. It said parts of FATA and “the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan have become a haven for Al Qaeda terrorists, Afghan insurgents, and other extremists.” The report said Al Qaeda uses the Tribal Areas “to launch attacks in Afghanistan, plan operations worldwide, train, recruit, and provide propaganda.” The Taliban and other extremists find havens there and “share short term goals” of driving out US and NATO forces. Exploit: Al Qaeda and its affiliates seek “to exploit local grievances for their own local and global purposes,” even while claiming many victims among the civilian Muslim population they proclaim to fight for, it said. Al Qaeda leaders have found “greater mobility and ability to conduct training and operational planning, particularly that targeting Western Europe and the United States,” despite a crackdown by both Afghan and Pakistani security services. They have benefitted from both instability and a ceasefire that was in effect for the first half of 2007 along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier. It said last year was “marked by the affiliation of regional insurgent groups with Al Qaeda,” particularly in Algeria but also in Libya. Number: The US National Counter-terrorism Centre, which helped compile the report, said the number of attacks in Pakistan rose to 887 last year from 375 the previous year and the number killed soared to 1,335 from 335 in 2006. The US State Department said that attacks in Afghanistan rose to 1,127 in 2007, up from 969 the previous year. Lieutenant General Carter Ham, director for Operations at the US Joint Staff, told reporters that violence continued. “The number of (violent) incidents in Afghanistan are slightly higher than they were from the same period a year ago,” he said. And with warming weather, he said to expect an “increase in particularly Taliban activities in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.” In the Sulu archipelago and Mindanao island of the southern Philippines, the State Department said there are terrorist safe havens existed for the Jemaah Islamiya (JI) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which are affiliated with Al Qaeda. “JI and the ASG pose a threat to US interests, including the US military forces supporting the Philippine Armed Forces that are conducting counterinsurgency operations in Jolo Island,” the report said. In Indonesia, JI “poses the principal threat to US and other Western interests in Indonesia,” it said. But it said the Indonesian authorities “scored several successes” against the group in 2007, such as the June arrest of the former acting JI emir Muhammad Naim and the former JI military commander Abu Dujana. “JI’s leadership operates largely in west and central Java where the group recruits, funds, trains, and plans operations, which in the past have included attacks on Western targets,” it said. The report said a “small number of Al Qaeda operatives remain in east Africa, particularly Somalia, where they pose a serious threat to US and allied interests in the region.” The US said it is trying to remove safe havens by encouraging regional cooperation to fight corruption and poverty as well as build better legal and other government institutions that cannot be exploited by militants. afp
Courtesy Daily Times