Afghanistan Times
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Afghanistan still remains in the throes of a bitter conflict. And the bitterness led to a new wave of tensions between Kabul and Islamabad.
When the Pakistan-brokered peace talks faltered after the death reports of Mullah Omar and the situation turned more tense after a deadliest spate of attacks in Kabul, now foreign press has unrolled the al-Qaeda fiasco once again. One of the article published in an Americn paper, says al-Qaeda is operating out of Taliban territory in Afghanistan, 14 years after the US launched Operation Enduring Freedom. Quoting Bruce Reidel, a counter-terror expert at Brookings, the paper adds that al-Qaeda’s production team As-Sahab moved to Afghanistan from Pakistan and the team is currently operating from Helmand province. The government and its intellegence agency must try tro know if al-Qaeda has really started operating from Afghanistan or it is just a media hype and a just the first brick of a new game? Can al-Qaeda and the Taliban dare to station inside Afghanistan given that there are hundreds of military operations on weekly basis. Afghanistan like Pakistan is not a safe haven for terrorists. Moreover, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri announced his support for the new Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor in an audio message this week. With this audio he broke nearly a year of silence to reaffirm the allince between the two groups. In Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has become a myth. Even in the days of the Taliban regime, al-Qaeda has many problems with the Taliban, but the al-Qaeda leaders couldn’t move outside Afghanistan; therefore, reluctantly they had to stay in Afghanistan as at that time the situation was not conducive for the Arab militants to carry out the activities at their home countries.
Al-Qaeda’s defiance to negotiate with apostate governments and the West has frustrated Tailban leaders and commanders. Egyptian-born Abu Walid al-Misri and a former Tailban commander who had close contacts with bin Laden, was one among such leaders who opposed al-Qaeda’s defiance. In December 2009, he said that he believed that al-Qaeda’s global designs were detremental to Afghans and if the link between the Taliban and al-Qaeda was not broken the aftermath will be disastrous for the taliban and Afghaistan. When the Taliban and al-Qaeda were already frustrated, al-Zwahiri’s audio is not worth buying for Afghans. Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is a dead horse. Perhaps, those who support the Taliban and al-Qaeda, want to save the Taliban from biting the dust and complete sinking. Therefore his audio message is a saving attempt. And those who support the Taliban and al-Qaeda are none but the miltary generals of Pakistan. When the coaltion troops and Afghan forces were figting both al-Qaeda and the Talban as well as thousands of Pakistani troops in disguise, the then President Bush sought assitance from former Pakistan President Musharraf to close all possible escape routes for bin Laden and associates from the Tora Bora region into Pakistan. However, latter CIA confirmed that bin Laden paid $15 million to Pakistan army and bought his way out of Afghanistan. Whenver the United States and Afghanistan have given tough times to terrorsits, Pakistan has very much cleverly protected them. Is the new audio of al-Zawari an attempt by Pakistan to save the Afghan Taliban movement from a caving in?
