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Pakistanis in Bed with Al Qaeda?

By John

Bill Roggio seems to think so:

It appears, like in the North and South Waziristan deals, that the government has openly negotiated with the Taliban and al Qaeda. “We hope that a North Waziristan-like deal is also reached between the government and tribal militants, led by Faqir Mohammad,” sources told Dawnon condition of anonymity. Faqir Muhammad is a senior leader within the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM, or Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law), the “Pakistani Taliban” who has sent over 10,000 foot soldiers to fight alongside the Taliban during the U.S. invasion in 2001.

TNSM is a banned terrorist movement inside Pakistan, and has been implicated in terrorist activity inside the country, including a suicide attack on Pakistani Army training base in Dargai in the Northwest Frontier Province in October of 2006. The attack killed over 45 soldiers. Faqir Mohammad is believed to have sheltered none other than Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second in command. An attack in Damadola in January of 2006 on Faqir's compound was aimed at Zawahiri, but killed upwards of 5 senior al-Qaeda leaders, including Abu Khabab al-Masri, al-Qaeda's chief of its weapons of mass destruction program.

Read the whole thing.

March 19, 2007 12:14 PM    The Long War