標題:Pakistan Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud is alive, says spy agency
特務機關宣稱巴基斯坦的塔利班領袖未被炸死
新聞來源: (須有正確連結)
http://tinyurl.com/3334rxo 引自英國衛報
The Taliban leader in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, survived an American drone
strike in January and is alive and well, a senior official with Pakistan's
Inter Services Intelligence agency told the Guardian today.
Mehsud was reported to have died in a CIA drone strike in South Waziristan in
January but, although Pakistan's interior minister claimed he had been
killed, the death was never confirmed by either US or Pakistani intelligence.
Today the senior intelligence official said he had seen video footage of the
missile attack on Mehsud but other intelligence had since confirmed the
insurgent leader survived. He declined to elaborate further.
"He is alive," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He
had some wounds but he is basically OK."
Mehsud's apparent survival will be a blow to the CIA, which intensified
efforts to kill the flamboyant young Taliban leader early this year after he
appeared in a video alongside an al-Qaida operative who killed seven American
spies at a base in southern Afghanistan in late December.
The failed attack on Mehsud came at the start of an unprecedented onslaught
by CIA-controlled unmanned aircraft in the tribal belt. The CIA has carried
out 38 attacks so far this year, the official said, compared with 49 in the
whole of 2009.
"The US government is under pressure because it is unable to achieve much in
Afghanistan. This is one way of hitting their al-Qaida enemies, as they
define them," the official said.
Drone strikes are deeply unpopular in Pakistan because of civilian
casualties. The New America Foundation recently reported that between January
2009 and March 2010 the drones killed 690 alleged insurgents and 181 innocent
villagers. CIA figures put the civilian tally for the same period at 20.
The Pakistani official estimated the civilian toll was "between the two
figures" but insisted that targeting had improved. "For the Americans, this
is an effective way of doing things from a distance with little collateral
damage. I give full credit to the CIA for this."
The Washington Post reported this week that the CIA has started using more
compact drones and smaller missiles in an effort to reduce civilian
casualties.
The intelligence official denied reports that the Taliban deputy leader,
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had been captured in Karachi last January "by
accident".
US intelligence pinpointed Baradar in a housing estate in a well-to-do part
of Karachi, he said, but the raid to capture him was entirely Pakistani.
"There was no American around," he said.
Baradar was being jointly interrogated by CIA and ISI agents and had yielded
useful information, he said. For example, he claimed to have last met the
Taliban leader in Afghanistan, Mullah Muhammad Omar, two years ago.
He also rejected claims that Pakistan had captured Baradar to scupper nascent
Afghan peace talks, saying that Baradar had disdained President Hamid Karzai
as "not even a real Pashtun".
In March, Kai Eide, the UN's former special representative to Afghanistan
said he believed Pakistan wanted to prevent talks between the UN, the Afghan
government and the Taliban, to retain control of the process.
The senior official said the ISI would be "very, very willing" to play a role
in negotiations with the Taliban, but only if called upon by both the Afghan
and US governments. For now, he said, Pakistan's spies are "sitting on the
sidelines, watching".
"There are a number of different efforts and nobody knows what anyone else is
doing. It's a very fragmented effort." He added that "if it's meant to
confuse the Taliban, it's working".
One stumbling block, he said, was the clashing policies of Britain and the
US. "The British are more amenable to negotiations and talking," he said.
"The Americans are attempting to create conditions where the Taliban will be
forced to come to the table. In my opinion they will never achieve that."
A western diplomat in Islamabad said British officials were more inclined to
talks than their US couterparts, but said policy had not been fixed in either
country because "otherwise things would be happening".
The ISI official denied his agency retains close ties with Jalaluddin
Haqqani, an al-Qaida-linked warlord whom America blames for recent mayhem in
Afghanistan, including a suicide attack on the Indian embassy.
He admitted the agency had once been close to Haqqani but insisted that
recent US allegations came from people who "lived in the past". He regretted
that Pakistan had broken its links with the warlord because "otherwise,
resolution of the problems in Afghanistan today would be so much easier for
all of us".
The ISI was heavily criticised in a recent United Nations report into the
death of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. The official described the report
as a "sub-standard work with a clear agenda".
He said: "In the report, statements are made and inferences drawn on
condition of anonymity and hearsay. Who in God's name does that?"
Charmed life
Hakimullah Mehsud's apparent survival represents a second miraculous escape
in the career of a youthful, ruthless militant leader.
The Pakistani government previously reported that the flamboyant tribesman,
thought to be about 30 years old, was killed during a leadership struggle
last August.
Despite his remarkable good fortune, however, Hakimullah's days as a Taliban
leader may be numbered. According to a senior ISI official, his
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan organisation has been weakened by a sweeping army
assault on its South Waziristan stronghold.
Mehsud's leadership has been challenged by other figures, too, including his
rival Wali-ur-Rehman. "He may not be in the leadership position," the
intelligence official said. "His rise was accidental. He was mister nobody,
people found it difficult to accept him."
Mehsud rose to militant fame on the back of his ambition and showy cruelty.
He sprang to prominence in 2007 with the humiliating kidnapping of over 200
Pakistani soldiers in South Waziristan.
A year later, he led dozens of ambushes on Nato supply convoys as they passed
through the Khyber Pass; in one instance he invited reporters to film him at
the wheel of a looted American Humvee.
Hakimullah became Taliban leader in August after a CIA drone killed the
Tehrik-i-Taliban founder, Baitullah Mehsud. He also became known for cruelty.
In Orakzai tribal agency, which was under his sway, Taliban fighters preyed
on minority Sikhs and carried out bloody sectarian attacks on Shias.
Whatever Mehsud's fate, the Taliban remain a potent force. Yesterday, a
suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar,
killing five policemen. In North Waziristan, a clash at a checkpoint left
four militants dead and injured one soldier.
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個人評論：
巴基斯坦的年輕塔利班頭子，哈基穆拉·馬哈蘇德，原本據稱在今年一月被美國的
無人飛機炸死，但如今傳出來他仍健在，且繼續規劃數起恐怖攻擊。個人認為重點不是
此人未死，而是背後的反恐行動陷入膠著。美國與UN部隊不但不知道塔利班與蓋達組織
間的關係，也不瞭解為什麼他們仍能躲過如此多的軍隊掃蕩，結果駐阿富汗的前聯合國
大使提出一個新的理論，就是巴基斯坦想擔任阿富汗、UN與塔利班之間橋樑，並且主導
和平談判的進程。言下之意就是巴基斯坦想站在美國頭上，事實上，美國幾次捕獲塔利
班領袖的計畫都有巴基斯坦的特務機構在背後幫忙。換言之若無當地盟邦協助，美國想
要快速撤離中東戰場的願望是不可能實現的，如今阿富汗政府難堪以大任，巴基斯坦則
比美國想像中的來的有自主性，這也是反恐行動中需要觀察的形勢之一。
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