US Enters Pakistan On Bin Laden Hunt
Ed Morrissey
The US has sent CIA special operations units into Pakistan to hunt down fresh leads on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, the London Telegraph reports. The action comes just a few weeks after American officials presented Pervez Musharraf with evidence of AQ's growing presence in Waziristan and demanded action to destroy them:
America is stepping up its hunt for Osama bin Laden by dispatching additional CIA operatives and paramilitary officers to Pakistan to kill or capture the al-Qa'eda leader.
US officials said that the mission is intended to intensify the pressure on the terrorist leader, who turns 50 tomorrow, and perhaps force him into making a mistake. He is widely believed to be hiding in the region bordering Afghanistan. ...
Intelligence officials believe that Osama normally goes on the move in March, when the bitter winters in that region finally dissipate and travel can resume. Movement makes people more vulnerable, and the US wants to catch him in transition. They believe that he has built the camps with the aim to run the Taliban and AQ operations directly and in person, and hope to catch him either at the camps or on his way to them. ...
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Musharraf Deal Bad For Pakistanis, Too
Ed Morrissey
With the deal between Pervez Musharraf and the Waziris widely acknowledged as a problem for the US and NATO in Afghanistan, some forget that Pakistanis also suffer from its effects. The Los Angeles Times reports on the ascendancy of the extremists and terrorists in Pakistan since Musharraf signaled a retreat on his prosecution of the war on terror, and what that means for moderates opposed to jihadism:
For weeks, there had been whispers that Akhtar Usmani, a young teacher at a Muslim religious school, was speaking out against the growing presence of Islamic militants in his home in the tribal area of Waziristan.
Then one day last week, the schoolteacher's corpse, with the head severed from the torso, was found in a bloody sack dumped beside a desolate road. A note on his mutilated body called him a spy for America.
Such grisly reprisal killings have become a recurring feature of life in Waziristan, a rugged border zone that is in the global spotlight because of U.S. intelligence claims that elements of Al Qaeda are regrouping there. ...
Musharraf's retreat wasn't just a betrayal of his allies in the war on terror, but also a betrayal of the moderate Muslims he claims to lead. The Waziristan deal has allowed the extremists out of the shadows and into the open, and they have predictably acted to impose their religious tyranny on everyone in sight. Just as the Taliban did in Afghanistan, they have banned music, threatened barbers, shuttered movie theaters, and forced schools that teach girls to close.
It's not just Taliban fanily values that have afflicted Waziris and others in the region. They have also started conducting kidnappings to bolster terrorist finances, another form of terrorism on the local civilians. The Taliban have turned themselves into an Islamic Mafia, conducting protection rackets, truck hijackings, and the ubiquitous drug smuggling that occurs in the region regardless of who is in charge.
The civilians have not quietly accepted their fate as Mullah Omar's vassals. They have organized their own response to Islamist terrorists, conducting attacks on their own. A gang of tribal warriors attacks Uzbek terrorists last week in a battle that left 19 dead.
[Read the whole thing here.]
