Al Qaeda a big threat to Afghanistan and the region: UN

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By: Mirwais Jalalzai

Al-Qaeda fighters and supporters are a big threat to peace and stability of Afghanistan and it will affect the region soon. Al Qaeda affiliates from Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, China and Uzbekistan are participating regularly in attacks on Afghan military forces and pose “a direct terrorist challenge” for Afghanistan, south and central Asia and the global community, UN experts said in a new report.

The UN experts says that Afghan and international officials believe these Al Qaeda affiliated groups are unlikely to leave Afghanistan in the near future, which would keep them in the country as the US withdraws most of its troops.

Fighters from several Al Qaeda linked groups in Pakistan “are regularly encountered by the Afghan forces in eastern and – to a lesser extent – in southern Afghanistan,” the experts said.

“In northern Afghanistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan continues to gather strength among local Afghans of Uzbek origin and continues to operate in several provinces including Faryab and Sar-e-Pul.” The Al Qaeda linked groups “therefore present a worrying, long-term security threat” spreading from Afghanistan into the region and beyond, especially for south and central Asia which have already faced terrorist violence from individuals or groups that have trained or planned attacks in Afghanistan.

Report also says that, some hardliner elements from China’s Xinjiang province which are in close contact with Al-Qaida related groups are also active in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan which is in the border with Pakistan, China and Tajikistan. In another development the mastermind of the Karachi airport attack, Abu Abdul Rehman al Maani was killed during the overnight air strikes carried out by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighter jets and the Pakistan Army jointly in North Waziristan early morning Sunday, military sources said.

According to the report Abu Abdur Rehman Almani is considered a key commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), also now famous by the name of Islamic Movement of Turkestan. The IMU, an organization of militants mostly from the central Asian Uzbek state, had claimed that its suicide bombers carried out the attack on the Karachi airport.

There are also reports of some East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) terrorists also killed in the strikes, considered a big blow to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the ETIM network in the North Waziristan Agency. However, there was no confirmation from the military on the identity of the deceased. The ETIM is a separatist militant outfit blamed for numerous terror attacks in China’s restive western region of Xinjiang. On the directions of the government, the Pakistan Army has launched a comprehensive operation against foreign and local terrorists who are hiding in sanctuaries in North Waziristan Agency, a week after a brazen insurgent attack on the country’s busiest airport in Karachi.

“The operation has been named Zarb-e-Azb,” said an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement on Sunday. “Using North Waziristan as a base, these terrorists had waged a war against the state of Pakistan and had been disrupting our national life in all its dimensions, stunting our economic growth and causing enormous loss of life and property.” “They had also paralysed life within the agency and had perpetually terrorized the entire peace loving and patriotic local population,” the statement quoted DG ISPR Maj Gen Asim Bajwa as saying. He said, “Our valiant armed forces have been tasked to eliminate these terrorists regardless of hue and color, along with their sanctuaries.”