Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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1 0 <strong>Frontline</strong> <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong><br />
the Afghan mujahidin in the jihad against the Soviet forces. 24 <strong>The</strong>re he<br />
also befriended bin Laden.<br />
<strong>The</strong> two worked closely for many years. After the withdrawal of<br />
Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989, the war-hardened and more<br />
radical al-Zawahiri returned to Egypt to wage a new struggle for <strong>Islam</strong>ic<br />
revolution in his home country. He tried to reorganize his <strong>Islam</strong>ic<br />
jihad group, bringing into its fold the Afghan war veterans. Increasing<br />
government pressure, however, forced him to leave Egypt again. In<br />
1992, he joined bin Laden in Sudan and later, in 1996, followed the<br />
Saudi militant to Afghanistan. In 1999, an Egyptian court sentenced al-<br />
Zawahiri to death in absentia, for his alleged involvement in a series of<br />
terrorist attacks, including the 1997 massacre of more than 58 mostly<br />
western tourists in the Egyptian town of Luxor. 25<br />
In Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri had developed the idea of an<br />
international terrorist network. In June 2001, he formally merged his<br />
<strong>Islam</strong>ic jihad group with al-Qaeda and became second-in-command<br />
in the organization. <strong>The</strong> Egyptian fugitive has often been described<br />
as a terrorist ideologue. Many analysts have described al-Zawahiri as<br />
the primary intellectual force behind al-Qaeda. He played a key role<br />
in consolidating al-Qaeda’s alliances with other terror groups and was<br />
believed to be a master of operational planning for terrorist attacks.<br />
In 1998, al-Zawahiri was indicted, along with bin Laden, for his<br />
alleged role as mastermind of the 1998 bombings of US embassies in<br />
Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. 26 He is believed to have<br />
played a significant role in the September 2001 attacks in Washington<br />
and New York. After the 9/11, the US State Department offered a<br />
$25 million reward for information leading to his apprehension. Al-<br />
Zawahiri’s influence on bin Laden has been profound; he helped him<br />
become more radical, more anti-American and more violent.<br />
<strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i army commandos came very close to seizing al-Zawahiri<br />
in mid 2004, when they raided an al-Qaeda safe house in South<br />
Waziristan. <strong>The</strong> vast mud compound was used as the group’s hidden<br />
command centre. Buried was a huge cache of weapons, radios and<br />
sophisticated electronic equipment, including a video-editing machine.<br />
<strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i intelligence officials believed the place had been used by al-<br />
Zawahiri, but he had apparently fled days before the raid.<br />
In April 2004, the catastrophic failure of the <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i army’s<br />
operation in Waziristan forced the authorities to make a truce with the<br />
militants who were led by a young Waziri tribesman. <strong>The</strong> 27-year-old<br />
Nek Mohammed, with his flowing, long hair and beard and piercing