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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Al-Qaida draws more foreign recruits to Afghan war
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-18 11:47 One example was Cuneyt Ciftci, the German-born son of Turkish immigrants, who took the Arabic nom de guerre of Saad Abu Furqan. In a video obtained last March by the AP, the 28-year-old was shown giving a final hug goodbye to some friends before blowing himself up outside a US military base in eastern Afghanistan. A Turkish news website, Uslanmam, said an Uzbek militant group called Islamic Jihad Union claimed responsibility and eulogized Ciftci as "the brave Turk who has left his luxury life in Germany and came here to go to paradise." Just a couple of weeks later, newspapers in Pakistan reported that four Turkish nationals with suspected links to al-Qaida had been arrested by authorities on a bus. They were found with explosives, ammunition and jihadi sites on their laptop computers. A senior official in Turkey's Interior Ministry said it has no information to corroborate claims of an increase in the number of Turks fighting in Afghanistan. The official asked not to be identified because Turkish rules bar civil servants from making statements to the press. Al-Qaida's recruitment drive stems from a slow and steady resurgence that started in 2002, according to Taliban sources. "They are awake," said Qari Mohammed Yusuf, who Afghan authorities confirm is a senior Taliban. "They have people going by different names to other countries. They are coming and going easily. In the last year, they have been organizing more day by day." Al-Qaida has financed the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, Yusuf said. In the chaos created by the Taliban groups, al-Qaida has been able to steadily recruit, re-establish its public relations wing, plot new attacks and re-establish areas of operation on both sides of the border. Some new recruits cross into Afghanistan's northern Balkh province or through Iran into Herat province in western Afghanistan, said Nangyal Khosti, a commander loyal to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a wanted terrorist. Those from Iran have often trained in Iraq and are hardened insurgents. The recruits, Yusuf said, head to Afghanistan's Paktika province, where there are roughly 150 Arab militants. In Pakistan, al-Qaida recruits are sent to Waziristan and the lawless regions of the northwest along Afghanistan's eastern border, Yusuf said. Afghan and Western officials say a key route for al-Qaida recruits is from Central Asia into northeastern Kunar and Nuristan provinces, where former US intelligence officials suspect Osama bin Laden is hiding. Both provinces border Pakistan's Bajaur tribal area, where the Taliban hold sway and where the US has targeted al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri. The hulking mountains of Kunar and Nuristan soar thousands of feet and are heavily forested, giving militants good cover. Kunar was the location of the war's two deadliest attacks on US soldiers -- on Sunday, with the killing of the nine Americans, and in June 2005, when militants shot down a helicopter and killed 16 soldiers. Kunar and Nuristan are also the only areas in South Asia where the Wahhabi or Salafi strain of Islam dominates. Wahhabism is the main sect in Saudi Arabia and is followed by al-Qaida, while Afghanistan's Islamic traditions are more Sufi and mystical in nature. Naseer Ahmed al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's bodybuard until 2000, told the AP in Yemen last year that al-Qaida has field commanders in countries from Indonesia to Senegal. While al-Qaida may be sending most of its trainees to Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is probably also creating cells with the mission of attacking Western countries, including the United States, warned Erich Marquardt, senior editor with the Combating Terrorism Center. "I think we have to accept the fact that al-Qaida has not taken its sights off the far enemy," he said. "Al-Qaida recognizes that it is fighting in multiple theaters and is therefore likely training fighters for different areas of operation." |
