In the hot seat
Khalid Khawaja, a former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official, and Mahmood al-Samarai, was sent to North Waziristan to explore the opportunities of long-term peace with the militants.
Samarai, an Iraqi and a former Muslim Brotherhood member, was the senior-most person after Osama bin Laden who went to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight against the Soviets and he still lives in the region. Samarai is also known to have contacts in the Saudi Embassy in Pakistan for making contact with al-Qaeda.
Khawaja and Samarai tested the waters in North Waziristan and after believing they had achieved satisfactory results they made another trip in March, taking with them Colonel Ameer Sultan Tarrar, another former ISI official who is known as Colonel Imam. He is also called the father of the Taliban. However, a little-known group calling itself the Asian Tigers abducted them. Khalid was killed this month on suspicion of being a spy while Colonel Imam is still being held by the group.
A member of an al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani group told Asia Times Online, "We appreciated that backchannel move [by Khawaja and Samarai]. All mujahideen groups were happy at the prospect of reconciliation. Nobody would have been happy fighting a war inside Pakistan, but the process was sabotaged by the Asian Tigers. Everybody here is convinced that they were used, either willingly or unknowingly, by foreign powers that want an operation in North Waziristan at all costs."
He added that a gesture to this effect had been conveyed to Islamabad, that is, nobody wants a war with Pakistan, and if it was forced on the militants in North Waziristan it "would be an unfortunate event and it would be fought unwillingly".
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE21Df03.html
I see a connection with all these events where these foreign sponsored assets are trying to sabotage peace efforts in Pakistan. The dubious Asian Tigers killed Khalid Khawaja and then Sher Khan is killed and both were big advocates of doing peace deals with the militants.
Posted 2 years ago on 20 May 2010 11:43
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