*Warning Terrorism related Topic* - Bin Laden's right-hand man slips net

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By Rodney Dalton, New York correspondent and Agencies
March 20, 2004
A BULLETPROOF LandCruiser at high speed bursting out of a tribal compound in Pakistan's South Waziristan region was just the latest infuriating setback in the US's quest to bring down the top of the al-Qa'ida tree.

The car, followed by two armoured vehicles and a phalanx of heavily armed militants able to wipe out dozens of crack troops sent to blast the terrorists from their nest, is believed to have contained Ayman al-Zawahiri, right-hand man to Osama bin Laden.

After mounting speculation that US and Pakistani forces ranged on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border were about to pounce on al-Qa'ida's key planner, a senior Taliban spokesman yesterday made the claim Washington least wanted to hear - that both Zawahiri and bin Laden were safe in Afghanistan.

"He may have slipped the net," the official said.

Al-Zawahiri, a 52-year-old Egyptian doctor, is one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists and has a $US25million ($33.4million) price on his head. So desperate is Washington to nail the pair, the House of Representatives yesterday doubled the reward for bin Laden's capture to $US50million.

Stiff resistance from about 200 well-armed fighters holed up in fortified mud huts early in the week -- in the onslaught of Operation Mountain Storm, designed to rid the lawless border area of foreign fighters -- had led Pakistani officials to conclude they were close to a "high-value" target.

Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, told CNN exactly that, and said the fighters "are not coming out in spite of the fact that we pounded them with artillery".

He did not refer to al-Zawahiri by name, but officials later said that was who they believed the President meant. The White House, keen not to raise false hopes, sought to play down the significance of the strategist's scalp.

"It would be of course a major step forward in the war on terrorism ... but I think we have to be careful not to assume that getting one al-Qa'ida leader is going to break up the organisation," US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said.

It now appears it was not to be. While it is still not certain al-Zawahiri was in the car, one Pakistani security official said the presence of high-powered bulletproof vehicles, and the high level of force used to provide covering fire for their getaway, supported that theory.

The battle against militants dug into the 30km-diameter region continued yesterday, with hundreds more troops joining the thousands already engaged, and mortars and helicopter gunships laying down a barrage of fire.

Hundreds of al-Qa'ida fighters are believed to be hiding in South Waziristan, the remotest and most conservative of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal districts.

The Bush administration sees Pakistan -- an overwhelmingly Muslim country -- as an invaluable ally in the war on terrorism. This has come at great personal risk to General Musharraf, who has narrowly escaped two recent assassination attempts.

Former al-Qa'ida No 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was caught in Pakistan in March 2003 and the US has maintained pressure for further victories.

During a visit to Islamabad on Thursday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell praised General Musharraf for his country's help and announced Washington now regarded it as a "major non-NATO ally".

In recent broadcasts, al-Zawahiri has described the war on terrorism as a war on Islam, and criticised Islamic leaders who co-operated with the US.

"(George W.) Bush appoints corrupt leaders and protects them," he said in a tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television.

[Mavdog]

This Reuters story says those reports are wrong...guess we'll find out when the smoke (literally) clears.
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Pakistan Army Pounds Encircled Militants
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By Hafiz Wazir

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani forces said they were fighting a fierce battle Friday with 300-400 foreign militants and Pakistani tribal allies after encircling them near the Afghan border.

Troops pounded the besieged militants, who might include Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri as well as many other al Qaeda fighters, with artillery for most of the day while helicopters attacked them from above.

"They are surrounded and they are trying to break the cordon and get away," military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan told a news briefing in the capital, Islamabad.

He dismissed reports Zawahri had managed to get away. "From the cordon we have put around these places, we are certain nobody would have escaped," he said.

A security official said the militants had been surrounded in a valley not far from the border and had no way of getting fresh ammunition. With intense fighting going on, he predicted Friday night's battle could be decisive.

President Pervez Musharraf said Thursday the ferocity of the resistance led generals to believe the rebels were shielding a "high-value target."

Government officials have said the prominent figure might be Zawahri. But Sultan said authorities had been unable to determine if Zawahri was actually there.

Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor, is regarded as the brains of al Qaeda. He is believed to be one of the key figures behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The fighting, pitting thousands of government troops against several hundred militants, is in the remote, often lawless and largely autonomous region of Waziristan, centered on an area to the west of the town of Wana.

Western intelligence sources say Zawahri and bin Laden are believed to be close to each other, somewhere in Waziristan.

Just across the border lies what the American military describes as "the most evil place in Afghanistan (news - web sites)."

A U.S. base near the village of Shkin has come under frequent attack over the last two years from militants who are believed to cross back and forth across the frontier.

CLOSING IN?

A government official in the border region who asked not to be named said 15 soldiers had been killed in the fighting since Thursday.

"There's ferocious resistance but a house-to-house search has started on the outskirts of Shin Warsak," the official said.

Sixteen soldiers and 24 suspected militants, including some foreigners, were killed Tuesday, the first day of fighting. There was no word on casualties among the militants Friday.

"We are closing in on them. Their defense seems to be dying down," said senior security official Brigadier Mehmood Shah.

"Either they've run out of ammunition or they want to surprise us when we get closer," he told Reuters.

Shah denied that 15 more Pakistani soldiers had been killed, saying the government side had suffered no losses since Tuesday.

U.S.-led troops are also striking from the Afghan side in what the Pentagon (news - web sites) is calling a "hammer and anvil" operation, and Afghanistan has sent extra troops to the border to stop militants crossing over to escape the onslaught.

Hopes of catching a senior al Qaeda leader have come to nought several times in the past, but given the ferocity of the present battle, analysts say at the very least some senior militants could be among the defenders.

But an official of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime said Friday he doubted Zawahri, or bin Laden, was there.

"According to my information Dr Ayman al-Zawahri is not in that area," a former Taliban defense minister, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Another Taliban spokesman denied having threatened revenge on Pakistani forces for carrying out the operation.

"I have not given any such interview," Abdul Latif Hakimi said after Al Jazeera television broadcast a video in which a man with the same name made the threats. The man's face was covered.

"It is up to Pakistan wherever it wants to conduct an operation," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. "What objection can we have, we have our own country."

A Pakistan army officer said government forces had arrested 26 suspected militants, many of whom appeared to be foreigners from central Asia, since Thursday.

The FBI (news - web sites) lists Zawahri among its "Most Wanted Terrorists" with a bounty of $25 million on his head. He has been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. (Additional reporting by Amir Zia, Tahir Ikram and Robert Birsel in Islamabad)