10,000 foreigners terrorising tribal belt, admits ISI

LAHORE: The repeated assertions by the American and Afghan officials that the tribal areas of Pakistan have turned into a safe haven for Al Qaeda militants have finally been endorsed by the Pakistani intelligence agencies in their recent report to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, admitting for the first time that the number of the ‘foreign fighters’ present in the Pak-Afghan tribal belt is around 10,000.

According to sources in the PM Secretariat, the revelation has been made in a classified report submitted to PM Gillani recently by the ISI, ahead of his upcoming visit to the US during which he is scheduled to meet President Bush.

The sources said an unusually large numbers of the foreign fighters have set alarm bells ringing in Islamabad as pressure from Washington and Kabul could intensify for launching a joint Pak-US military operation in the tribal areas on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border. The report states that a majority of the foreign fighters are living in the North and South Waziristan tribal agencies which could not have been possible without the consent and help of the Pakistani Taliban.

The report states the number of the foreign fighters in the tribal areas started increasing in 2007. “The biggest attraction for these young militant guests from the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe was the increase in the number of US troops in Afghanistan. A lot of young Muslims are coming to Afghanistan to fight the US troops who, they believe, have come to Afghanistan not to fight terrorism but to occupy more Muslim lands,” the report states.

“Most of them come as tourists and traders directly from Dushanbe, Baku, Istanbul, Dubai, Sharjah, Delhi and Frankfurt to Kabul by different airlines. Many Afghans in Kabul, Karachi, Dubai and Delhi are working for them as travel agents”, the report added.

The report adds two US-born Qaeda operators Adam Gadhan alias Azzam al Amriki and Abu Ahmad alias Amir Butt are known in the Afghan Kunar province for making travel arrangements of these young and educated Muslims from the US, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Canada and Australia.