TIME: Welcome to al-Qaeda
Town
Monday, November 25, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / ANGURADA with reporting by MARK
THOMPSON / WASHINGTON
On a remote stretch of Afghanistan's border with
Pakistan sits a thriving bazaar crammed with grimy
shops and simple houses. Locals know it as Angurada,
but it might as well be called al-Qaeda Town. In an
audacious show of force by an organization that is
supposed to be on the run, al-Qaeda, according to
U.S. and Afghan officials, has claimed the hamlet as
its own and is using the redoubt as a base for
attacks on U.S. forces. Strangest of all, this is
happening in Afghanistan proper, where the U.S.
military has, in theory, freedom of action to move
against al-Qaeda.
"This is al-Qaeda's strategic place now," says an
Afghan intelligence officer, referring to Angurada.
"From here they are attacking other places." American
military officers operating in the area agree. "What
you can see is that it's a meeting place and
transition point for logistics, information and
people," says paratroop intelligence officer Captain
Patrick Willis.
The odd situation in Angurada has its roots in the
Taliban period. When the Taliban controlled
Afghanistan, one of its regional leaders, for reasons
unclear, allowed Pakistan's Frontier Corps, a poorly
paid militia that operates in the tribal areas
bordering Afghanistan, to set up a checkpoint across
the border. Angurada stands on the Afghan side of the
international border, but it falls on the Pakistani
side of a boundary that Pakistanis tend to prefer:
the Durand Line, which in 1893 separated Afghanistan
from what was then part of British India.
Three months ago, the Frontier Corps went further,
presumably on behalf of al-Qaeda. Its troops moved to
positions on a ridge sloping over the bazaar and dug
eight sandbagged bunkers, fitting each with an
artillery piece and two antiaircraft guns. Angurada
was sealed off. Though woefully underfunded, the
Frontier Corps in this case was able to distribute
thousands of dollars to quell any local opposition.
"Some people wanted to rise up against the militia,
but the tribal elders who wanted to resist were paid
off to stay quiet and accept it. Some elders and
groups got as much as 100,000 rupees [$1,700], and
the rest of us got either 5,000 rupees [$83] or
10,000 rupees [$170]," Shah Hakim Mizhdua, a local
resident, told TIME before another man interrupted,
barking, "Shut up! I haven't been paid yet." Told of
the spending spree, Afghan intelligence officials had
no doubt where the cash came from. "While we're
broke, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are flush," says an
intelligence officer in Afghanistan's Paktika
province, which includes Angurada. Officials in
Islamabad say the Frontier Corps has orders to grab
any terrorist suspects but hasn't seen any.
On the other side of the ridge, U.S. special forces
have established a firebase in the neighboring
village of Shkin. For these men, the Angurada bazaar,
only a few miles away, is treacherous. When they
enter it, they come under fire. The firebase has been
repeatedly rocketed. Laments Afghan Interior Ministry
intelligence chief Niamatullah Jalili: "Al-Qaeda is
using this town, and there's nothing we can do." U.S.
forces are also frustrated at their inability to
strike at the al-Qaeda operatives they know are
inside. Says Colonel Roger King, spokesman for the
U.S. military in Afghanistan: "It's not like they're
wearing uniforms and staying at a base that we can
watch."
--By
Michael Ware/Angurada, with reporting by Mark
Thompson/Washington