Title:
Many Al-Qaida, Taliban fighters may have escaped
Author:
Publication: San Jose Mercury
News
Date: Nov 16, 2001
URL: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/2865099.htm
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence officials believe that as many as 400 Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters may have escaped from ``Operation Anaconda'' into Pakistan because a local Pakistani military commander apparently failed to seal the Pakistani side of the border as he had been ordered to do.
The commander, one official said, appears to have sent false reports to his superiors in Islamabad claiming he had moved his troops into position on the border. The official said senior Pakistani officials in Islamabad, who had assured their American counterparts that they would block Al-Qaida or Taliban fighters from entering Pakistan, are embarrassed by the failure, which he said appears to be the fault of a local commander in the North-West Frontier province, not of the government of President Pervez Musharraf.
However, the U.S. officials, who requested anonymity, said more than 400 other Al-Qaida members are believed to have escaped in fishing boats from Pasni and Gwadar in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Intelligence officials believe that the fleeing Al-Qaida members are trying to get to Malaysia and Indonesia and suspect that they may be transferring from small fishing boats to larger merchant vessels in the Arabian Sea.
The officials said the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia have been alerted, but one official conceded that neither country can effectively patrol its entire coastline. A flotilla of American, Japanese and British warships in the Arabian Sea is also trying to intercept fleeing Al-Qaida members, but so far has found none, one official said.
A senior U.S. defense official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said he doubted that 400 enemy fighters could have escaped from the 60-square-mile Operation Anaconda battle zone.
``We had a pretty good loop'' of forces and surveillance systems around the combat zone, he said, but ``not a complete one.''
``I think we had pretty good eyes on the battlefield,'' he said. ``So I'm not sure that 400 could escape.''
However, the official said it was ``very possible'' that large numbers of Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in other areas along the border with Pakistan crossed over after learning of the intensity of the U.S.-led offensive in Shah-e-Kot.
Intelligence officials also believe that Iran is now helping Al-Qaida members escape from Afghanistan through its territory to Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa. After President Bush publicly accused Iran of being part of an ``axis of evil'' with Iraq and North Korea, the officials said, Iranian officials stopped cooperating with American efforts to trap fugitive Al-Qaida members in Afghanistan and instead began providing them with new travel documents and advice on where to go.
U.S. analysts believe that Bush's speech backfired and strengthened hard-liners in Iran led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who they said appear to be willing to set aside their theological differences with Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and support Al-Qaida's campaign against the United States.
The U.S.-led assault on Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in Shah-e-Kot called Operation Anaconda began March 2.
A senior U.S. military official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity Wednesday, estimated the number of Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters killed at 800. Eight U.S. soldiers and three allied Afghan soldiers were killed in the early days of the offensive.
An estimated 1,000 Canadian, U.S. and Afghan soldiers searched possibly booby-trapped caves Thursday and destroyed Al-Qaida mortar positions in the battle zone, said Lt. Luc Charron, a representative of the Canadian forces. The Canadian Light Infantry's participation was its first such deployment since the Korean War.
U.S. officials said they hoped their searches of caves in the area would help them know which Al-Qaida leaders had been killed. Samples of bodies were collected for possible DNA testing.