Waziristan militants check their guns: Abdullah Mehsud (Top-R), Pakistan Army ready

Pakistan Army Pays More

Than Half Million Dollars to
Al Qaeda in Bizarre Deal
Special SAT Report
 PESHAWAR, February 10: Pakistan Army has publicly
admitted paying Al Qaeda over half a million dollars in the
most bizarre deal it has ever made with militant
Waziristan fighters, battling the Army and the US forces in
the rugged terrain bordering Afghanistan for months .

The announcement of the payment was made in Peshawar by

none other than the Corps Commander of Peshawar Corps, the
man incharge of military operations in Waziristan, Lt Gen Safdar
Hussain, who said Rs32 million (US$540,000) had been paid to to help four former wanted
tribal militants in South Waziristan "to settle debts with al-Qaeda."

General Hussain said the the payments were part of a peace deal signed on Monday with
tribesmen, but the public admission that money had been paid to be transferred to Al Qaeda
stunned analysts and diplomatic observers in Islamabad.

But the main militant rebel, an ex-Guantanamo Bay prisoner who was released some time
back, refused to accept the deal.

According to The Daily Times, which the deal with Baitullah Mehsud was negotiated by anti-
US religious political leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI-MMA who had been a stronger
sponsor and supporter of the Taliban. The "peace deal" ceremony ended with shouts of
“Death to America”, The Daily Times reported.

According to BBC Gen Hussain said four former wanted militants had insisted they needed
the money to pay back huge sums to al-Qaeda. Haji Sharif and Maulvi Abbas received Rs15
million each, while Maulvi Javed and Haji Mohammad Omar were each paid one million
rupees.

Gen Hussain said a sum of Rs20 million rupees was also offered to tribal leader, Baitullah
Mehsud, who signed the peace deal, but that he rejected it. The commander said the
militants had initially sought Rs170 million.

The peace deal offers an amnesty in return for the tribe's pledge not to support al-Qaeda
and Tale ban militants or attack government installations.

Editorially criticizing the deal, Daily Times said It sounded very much like the “peace”
ceremony last year with Nek Muhammad, the Wazir “Taliban commander” with Al Qaeda
connections; only on that occasion high-ranking Pakistani military officers were present and
there were speeches against America‟s “invasion” of Afghanistan to appease the Wazir jirga.
This time the domination of the ceremony by JUI was obvious. A tribal representative found
occasion to appeal to China to “forgive” the murder by Abdullah Mehsud and his terrorists of
a Chinese engineer working at the Gomal Zam Dam kidnapped by them and held for
blackmail.

The “appeal” to China has been published in the national press. Backed by the MMA, it will
be accepted as a ridiculous application of the law of tribal “honor” on a foreign country.
China is thus supposed to redeem its honor by forgiving a terrorist who has been an inmate
at the Guantanamo Bay prison, providing justification to a dubious judicial enterprise by
America.
 The Times asked: "But where is the honor of the government of Pakistan and how has it
redeemed it in the long drawn out “war with Al Qaeda” in the Tribal Areas? The “deal” with
Nek Muhammad fell through before the ink was dry on it and the man had finally to be killed
with a missile, but not before he became a „hero‟ of sorts despite his not so honorable
personal profile in the area where he operated.

It said: "The fact is that the government has little public credibility on its “Wana Operation”.
Equally, the religious parties are in denial and still maintain that there are no “foreign”
terrorists in South Waziristan except those that came in the 1980s and settled down. Also,
the ARD parties have opposed the “operation” and linked it to the “operation” in Balochistan
and accused Islamabad of taking dictation from America against its own people. The corps
commander and the governor in Peshawar handle the “operation” in South Waziristan, but
they must be aware that the PR side of what they have done has not worked at all. The
result is that President Pervez Musharraf has also lost support among the community of
retired generals who usually back him.

The media‟s registration of the strategy of the Wana “operation” is interesting too. Quoted
in the press, the Peshawar corps commander said on February 7, 2005 that the operation in
Wana had killed over 150 “foreign terrorists” and a large number of them had been
arrested. He said there were still around 100 at large. In March 2004 there were 600-700 of
them there. He said the survivors had fled in groups of four and were spread around in the
country. There were 70,000 Pakistani troops deployed in South Waziristan while there were
only 18,000 allied and Afghan forces on the Afghan side of the border. He said he had
ordered 44 operations in one year. One might ask: why was he not able to show the “large
number” of foreign terrorists, captured or dead, to the media? Did he not know that the
Wana Operation had no political credibility? Why did he ignore the first lesson in such
operations: establishing credibility among the public?

"We fear that the truth might turn out to show the latest peace deal as another dead-on-
arrival achievement of the government. The JUI has got its Banuri Masjid graduate Abdullah
Mehsud off the hook without surrendering a single killer. If the troops go after him now,
Baitullah Mehsud will call it a breach of faith and declare war once again, just like Nek
Muhammad did. Meanwhile, the Wazirs have not appreciated the “deal” with the Mehsud
jirga and have killed two journalists who were returning from the peace ceremony. Both the
journalists were Wazirs: hence the tribal disapproval of “joining in with the enemy”.
Therefore if “peace” with Baitullah Mehsud was a tactic of relieving the mounting pressure
from Balochistan, it may turn out to be another dud," the Daily Times said

As predicted by the Daily Times, on Wednesday tribal militant Abdullah Mehsud, wanted for
kidnapping two Chinese engineers last year, told the BBC he did not support the deal signed
by Baitullah Mehsud. He said only a holy war would evict "US agents" from Pakistan.

Abdullah Mehsud speaking to the BBC's Haroon Rashid in Peshawar by phone from an
undisclosed location, said: "Baitullah's thinking might be that he can achieve his aims by
signing the peace agreement, while mine is that only a holy war against the US and
Pakistani government could achieve this."

Abdullah Mehsud spent about two years in US custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before
being released. He fought for the Tale ban in Afghanistan, losing a leg in a landmine
explosion a few days before the Tale ban took Kabul in September 1996. He is wanted for
masterminding the abduction of two Chinese engineers in South Waziristan last year, one of
whom was killed in a rescue attempt.
 The incident was highly embarrassing for the Pakistani government, which has close ties
with Beijing. Abdullah Mehsud, condemning those who appealed to China to grant him
amnesty, accused Beijing of killing Muslims.

Shortly after Monday's accord, two journalists who attended the signing were killed when
gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in Wana. Abdullah Mehsud said on Wednesday: "My
people are not responsible for the killing of the two journalists." Pakistan believes hundreds
of militants, including Arabs, Afghans and Central Asians, are holed up in the South
Waziristan region.

Abdullah Mehsud, the commander of the Islamic militants who kidnapped two Chinese
engineers in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, spent 25 months in custody at the US base
in Guantanamo Bay before his release in March.

According to well known Peshawar journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, as a young man, Mehsud,
now 29, fought for the Tale ban against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. He lost a leg
in a landmine explosion a few days before the Tale ban took Kabul in September 1996. He
surrendered along with several thousand fighters to the forces of Uzbek warlord, Abdul
Rashid Dostum, in December 2001 in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan, and was later turned
over to the US military authorities.

Mehsud studied at a government college in Peshawar before attending a seminary where he

befriended Afghan Tale ban members and joined their movement. Mehsud, whose real
name is Noor Alam, is a Pashtun, the same ethnic group as the Tale ban and belongs to the
Mehsud tribe that inhabits South Waziristan on the Afghanistan border. Mehsud has
declared holy war on President Musharraf. His long hair and daredevil nature has made him
a colorful character.

Since his return from Guantanamo Bay, Mehsud has become a hero to anti-US fighters
active in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was a comrade of another tribal militant
commander, Nek Mohammad, who was killed by a Pakistani army missile in June.

Mehsud sometimes rides a camel or horse while visiting his fighters in his mountainous
abode. On other occasions, his men drive him in a vehicle and protect him round-the-clock.
In a recent telephone interview with the BBC, Mehsud said he led his fighters by example by
taking risks and surviving in tough conditions.

Criticizing US policies toward Muslims, he said the American occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan was a provocation for the followers of Islam and must be avenged. He said he
did not want to fight the Pakistan army but had declared jihad, or holy war, against the
government of President Pervez Musharraf, who he accused of carrying out US policies in
the region.