Asia Security
Monitor
No. 8, January 3, 2003 UN report reveals al Qaeda resurgence;
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December 18: Waves of volunteers are boosting al Qaeda's membership and capabilities, reports the Washington Post. According to a United Nations report, al Qaeda continues to command an extensive network of terrorist operatives in 40 countries. The report reveals that training camps in remote eastern Afghanistan have reopened to prepare a new generation of terrorists for attacks against the West. Michael Chandler, chief author of the report, emphasized al Qaeda's success in developing alliances with national and regional terror groups. Chandler also raised the concern that al Qaeda may be able to obtain biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. The recent seizures of black market raw uranium in Tanzania has raised the possibility that such illegal materials could reach al Qaeda and their associates in East Africa. The Agence France-Presse reports that Pakistan's religious party alliance, the Mutthahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), is strongly pushing for the nation-wide institution of Sharia law. The MMA, which is openly sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the exiled Taliban government, has already begun instituting Sharia law in its stronghold, the North West Frontier Province. MMA Secretary General Liaqat Baloch states, "It is clear that Pakistan was created for the implementation of Sharia law." The MMA has also begun pressing for Sharia law in neighboring Baluchistan province, where the party is in a power-sharing coalition. December 29: North Korea successfully acquired equipment from Pakistan for its nuclear arms program back in 1998, reports the Agence France-Presse. The equipment, which included a sample gas centrifuge used to enrich uranium, was hidden in the coffin of the murdered wife of a North Korean diplomat and secretly carried from Islamabad to Pyongyang on a special flight in June 1998. While Pakistan denies it provided North Korea with designs for its enriched uranium nuclear arms project, it is believed the chief of Pakistan's nuclear development organization and other researchers in Pakistan were directly involved in the transport. January 2: Tensions are rising between the U.S. and Pakistan after a weekend gun battle and air strike, reports the Washington Times. U.S. and Pakistani patrols were working together on the Afghan border to blow up a cache of weapons when, after being asked to leave the area, a Pakistani soldier opened fire and shot an American soldier. The U.S. Air Force immediately dropped a retaliatory bomb as it pursued the Pakistani patrol. The U.S. maintains the bomb landed in Afghanistan, but the incident caused uproar in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where the provincial assembly claimed the bomb fell in Pakistani territory and was thus "a severe blow to [their] sovereignty and independence." A senior U.S. military officer in Kabul complained, "Ninety percent of the attacks we face are coming from groups based in Pakistan, and there is very little we can do about it." This Friday's anti-U.S. demonstrations called by the NWFP's MMA party may further strain relations between the two nations. |
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Copyright
© 2003, American Foreign Policy Council.
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