Pakistan takes issue with Negroponte over al Qaeda
12 Jan 2007 14:52:14 GMT Source: Reuters
(Updates with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State quotes) By Zeeshan Haider ISLAMABAD, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Pakistan said on Friday the United States had not given it any information about the presence of al Qaeda leaders, following remarks from U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte that they were holed up in Pakistan. "We have no such information nor has any such thing been communicated to us by any U.S. authority," Pakistan's military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan told Reuters. Washington's ally has always contended that Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri could be either side of the rugged, porous border with Afghanistan. But in an unusually direct statement, Negroponte on Thursday named Pakistan as the centre of an al Qaeda web that radiated out to the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. In a testimony to a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Negroponte wrote, without naming bin Laden or Zawahri, that al Qaeda leaders are holed up in a secure hide-out in Pakistan. He said they were rebuilding a network that has been decimated by the capture or killing of hundreds of al Qaeda members since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Negroponte acknowledged Pakistan's efforts in the fight against terrorism but said it was a "major source of Islamic extremism". Pakistan's foreign ministry issued a response to Negroponte's comments, saying he should have mentioned that successes against al Qaeda were made possible by Pakistan and the focus should "remain on cooperation instead of questionable criticism". It also contradicted Negroponte's assertion that al Qaeda operatives elsewhere were being controlled from Pakistan. "In breaking the back of al Qaeda, Pakistan has done more than any other country in the world," spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. Richard Boucher, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, walked into the controversy when he met President Pervez Musharraf and other Pakistani leaders on Friday for talks on the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Boucher poured balm over the issue, saying Negroponte also spoke of Pakistan's role as a key partner fighting terrorism. "So the fact that there continue to be radical extremists like Taliban, al Qaeda types who have been able to find places to operate here and find places they can have refuge here is not any contraction to saying that there has been a major effort here," Boucher told journalists at a briefing in the U.S. embassy. Negroponte noted the dangers Musharraf faced using force in the tribal areas, as well as the political risks of a backlash from Islamist political parties, especially as national elections are due in Pakistan this year. SCOURING TRIBAL LANDS Most security analysts suspect that bin Laden is likely to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal regions or neighbouring districts of North West Frontier Province. There has also been speculation that he may have died, though intelligence agencies say they have not picked up any supporting evidence. A half-dozen audio tapes of bin Laden were circulated in the first half of 2006, but the al Qaeda leader last appeared in video tape in late 2004. Subsequent tapes released were identified as old footage. Zawahri, meantime, has had several tapes released. On Jan. 5, an audio-tape was posted on the Web by al Qaeda's media arm al-Sahab, exhorting Somalian Islamists to attack Ethiopia. The authenticity of the tape could not be verified, but correspondents familiar with Zawahri's voice said it was his.
