Afghanistan violence points to al-Qaida growth
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Afghanistan has been drawing a fresh influx of jihadi fighters from Turkey, Central Asia, Chechnya and the Middle East, one more sign that al-Qaida is regrouping on what is fast becoming the most active front of the war on terror groups.
More foreigners are infiltrating Afghanistan because of a recruitment drive by al-Qaida as well as a burgeoning insurgency that has made movement easier across the border from Pakistan, U. S. officials, militants and experts say.
For the past two months, Afghanistan has overtaken Iraq in deaths of U. S. and allied troops, and nine American soldiers were killed at a remote base in Kunar province Sunday in the deadliest attack in years.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned this month about an increase in foreign fighters crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan. Two U. S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press the U. S. is closely monitoring the flow of foreign fighters into both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Jihadist Web sites from Chechnya to Turkey to the Arab world featured recruitment ads as early as 2007 calling on the “Lions of Islam” to fight in Afghanistan, said Brian Glyn Williams, associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts. Williams has tracked the movement of jihad-is for the U. S. military’s Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
Afghan and Western officials say a key route for al-Qaida recruits is from Central Asia into northeastern Kunar and Nuristan provinces, where former U. S. intelligence officials suspect Osama bin Laden is hiding. Both provinces border Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal area, where the Taliban hold sway and where the U. S. has targeted al-Qaida’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Meanwhile, U. S. Special Forces and Afghan troops called in airstrikes during a raid on a militant cell in western Afghanistan on Thursday, killing 15 insurgents while freeing 15 hostages, officials said. NATO said its troops in the south have killed a senior Taliban commander, while the U. S.-led coalition reported its forces along with Afghan security forces killed “several militants”.
