Updated February 13, 2008:
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, the Number 4 ranking Taliban leader, has been killed, along with 2 of his deputies, Haji Mullah Abdul Zahir Baloch and another man, via a precision strike by a US aircraft as his vehicle drove alone in the desert wilds of southern Helmand Province near the border with the Balochistan region of Pakistan.
Two separate news reports, one out of Pakistan and one out of Afghanistan from Pawjok News, said Osmani was killed in the Dishu District of Helmand as he was entering Afghanistan from Pakistan. The Dishu District was the first in Helmand to fall to the Taliban, falling in February 2006.
The Pakistan report said he was killed near the town of Bahram Chah, which is in the Garmser District, not the Dishu District. The Garmser District is totally Taliban-controlled, except for one bridgehead on the Helmand River outside Garmser city, which is controlled by NATO and Afghan forces.
On my National Geographic Atlas, Bahram Chah (listed as Barabcha) is a significant enough town to appear on the atlas, but the atlas places it in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Obviously, this town straddles the border. A map of Bahram Chah is here. The town lies 8 miles north of the Mazari Pass. This region is a profoundly isolated and barren desert.
It was near here, actually on the border with Pakistan and Iran, in early March 2003, that US forces felt that they had Osama bin Laden isolated in a huge Balochi camel and donkey caravan moving along the border.
US and Pakistani agents felt that they were only a few hours behind bin Laden's footsteps. However, when commandos raided the caravan, they found only opium smugglers and no bin Laden, and the caravan moved across into Iran.
The town of Ribat, on the border of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran (it has versions of itself on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border) is a known hideout for Al Qaeda. In September 2003, Mohammad Sarwar Kakar, a Pashtun tribal leader in Balochistan, said he thought that bin Laden was in Ribat. The town is vigorously defended by armed heroin and opium smugglers.
According to Robert Young Pelton, author of The World's Most Dangerous Places, this region is one of the most remote and dangerous on Earth. In fact, it is so dangerous that Pelton felt it warranted a designation as a "forbidden place" instead of a "dangerous place". A good description of the region is given in this Guardian article here.
In early March, 2003, US and Afghan forces reportedly raided a safe house in Ribat. In the shootout, two of bin Laden's 14-18 sons (out of his 27 children by 4 wives), Hamza, 19 and Saad, 23, were wounded and captured where they were being sheltered by the Zehri tribe who live in the area. 9 other Al Qaeda suspects were killed in this shootout.
Saad bin Laden is the oldest son and is considered Osama's spiritual and ideological heir. Hamza is also reportedly an emerging leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The two sons reportedly stay in close proximity to bin Laden.
Bin Laden was a devoted father in Kandahar, taking his sons hunting and riding and sending them on military missions with the Taliban to fight the Northern Alliance. He encouraged them to write poetry and read classical Arabic literature, and they were taught in modern subjects by Al Qaeda teachers in schools in the compounds where they lived. Bin Laden always tried to eat meals with his sons.
In return, his sons doted on him, often standing armed guard over him while he slept.
US and Pakistani forces subsequently said that no prisoners were taken in this raid, and that it was conducted only by Afghan forces. However, those denials should be taken with a grain of salt.
Ribat is reportedly used by Al Qaeda to move between Iran and Pakistan. A recent report described the town as little more than a dusty bazaar around an oasis where drug smugglers stop to refuel as they move opium and heroin from Afghanistan to Iran. A Time Magazine report on this wild town is here.
The area of Iran just across the border near Ribat is also Ground Zero for Jundallah, a radical Sunni extremist group with ties to Al Qaeda which has fought repeated battles with the Iranian government. A report on Ribat and Jundallah is here.
Despite the fact that commandos were not able to capture bin Laden during this period, there is good evidence that he was actually in the area during early March 2003 around the time of the camel caravan report and the raid in Ribat wounding 2 of his sons, so intel reports were not far off.
At the time, according to captured Taliban diplomat Nasser Ahmed Roohi, bin Laden was reportedly in the Saikoh Mountains on the border of Helmand and Nimroz Provinces in Afghanistan and Balochistan (not far from the strike that killed Osmani), where he was meeting with Taliban officials.
He left quickly with his reported 200 bodyguards (!) after hearing of Khalid Sheik Mohammad's arrest on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Sheik Mohammad was captured due to his contacts in Balochistan, where he was born and raised.
Specifically, a raid in Quetta, a large city in Balochistan, in mid-February 2003, netted Mohamed Abdel Rahman (nom de guerre "Assadullah"), son of the "Blind Sheik", Omar Abdel Rahman, imprisoned in the US for his role in bombing the World Trade Center in 1995. Traces on Rahman's phone led to Sheik Mohammad's residence in Rawalpindi, which was then raided.
Khalid Mohammad reportedly said that he had met bin Laden in this same general area, between Chaman in Balochistan (across from the Spin Boldak in Kandahar, Afghanistan) and the Iranian border in December 2002.
Bin Laden has been known to move along the Afghan-Pakistan border from Ribat along the border up to the Dir District of Pakistan, where he spends a lot of time, and possibly up to the Chitral District and further north.
Journalists have termed this area along the border as bin Laden's "friendship zone". Few Muslims in this area would turn him in, even for the $25 million reward.
Osmani was actually killed four days ago, but US officials waited until they were sure that Osmani himself had actually been killed in the strike to announce it to the press. US forces said that the kill had been confirmed via "various sources" but due to the total destruction of the vehicle by the airstrike, there was no longer any corpse to produce as evidence.
Although US forces did not use DNA evidence to determine Osmani's identity, they did use "forensic evidence" and intelligence information.
This undated photo of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani was released by the US military after US forces announced his death.A spokesman for the Taliban, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, initially denied the claim and insisted that Osmani is still alive. They did however admit that Haji Mullah Abdul Zahir Baloch and 2 other fighters were killed instead in the strike.
Later, according to an article by Rahimullah Yusufzai, one of Pakistan's top journalists known for his excellent Taliban contacts, the Taliban admitted that Osmani was killed in the strike.
The news of Osmani's death is reportedly slowly filtering down through the organization. According to Yusufzai, Osmani's demise is a significant blow to the Taliban. How much of a blow will be seen in coming months. I do not think that the Taliban is like Peru's Shining Path, which was significantly decapitated by the capture of Abimael Guzman, the leader of the group.
Osmani is the highest ranking Taliban leader yet killed by Coalition forces since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Amazingly, this is not the first time that the US has had Osmani in its sights.
According to a December 18, 2002 Washington Times piece by R. Scarborogh, a US Special Forces Green Beret A-team along with 20 Afghan troops raided the town of Sangin in Helmand Province in July 2002 and arrested Osmani as he left his compound at daylight and spirited him off to the prison at the US Bagram Airbase north of Kabul.
The Special Forces team had been tipped off by informants that Osmani had returned to his home in Sangin, where he was being protected by local Helmandi power brokers. The team traveled via trucks at night and kept the compound under surveillance until daylight, when it was raided.
Although the age of the captured man did not match intel data, scars on his chest and a Taliban-era ID card with the name Osmani on it told another story. Adding weight to the theory that the captured man was indeed Osmani, all of the Afghan forces participating in the capture and transportation of Osmani to prison kept their faces covered with masks the entire time. Apparently they had an idea who this man was.
To due a mix up, he was released a few weeks later by officials in Task Force 180, who oversee all US Special Forces operations in Afghanistan. He immediately hightailed it to Pakistan, where he set up shop in Quetta and soon rose high in Taliban ranks.
Scarborogh noted that most US officials denied that he had ever been in custody in an apparent cover your ass attempt, but the soldiers involved and an unnamed Administration official admitted to the screwup. Thanks to page 195 of Marc Herold's Afghan Daily Body Count for this scoop.
We now have some specifics on precisely how Osmani was killed. The Taliban commander was tracked by a British RAF R-1 monitoring aircraft which was working with a US Special Forces Delta Force team and an intelligence team known as Task Force Orange that was tracking him on the ground. The British plane tracked him via his satellite phone.
As he left a town called Zahre via a 4 X 4 vehicle, a US aircraft dropped a smart bomb on his vehicle. The town of Zahre could not be located anywhere in Helmand, much less in Southern Helmand, nor in neighboring Kandahar. The word just means desert, and that's a good description of the land on the Helmand/Balochistan border region all right.
Osmani was the Taliban leader in charge of operations for Helmand, Kandahar, Oruzgan, Nimroz, Herat and Farah Provinces. All of these provinces, with the exception of Nimroz, have seen quite a bit of fighting lately.
In Helmand, 80% of the population supports the Taliban and the Taliban control at least the Dishu, Bagran, Garmser, Sangin, Kajaki, Nahri Sarraj, Now Zad and Musa Qala Districts. Many of these districts are discussed in depth on this blog. Use the search function to search for articles.
The Taliban are still very strong in Uruzgan. In the Tirin Kot District, they control the entire district outside of the main town. Recently, they have moved into the town itself and fought battles with Afghan police there. The Taliban have been strong in the Deh Rawood District for some time now, especially around Cahar Cineh near the Helmand border.
Fighting has recently moved to the Khas Uruzgan District, where the Taliban overran the district capital for a few days. In the Chora District, the Taliban recently overran the district capital there too. In Kandahar, the Panjwayi District has been a continuous source of conflict. Despite Operation Medusa that reportedly killed over 400 Taliban, the Taliban still seem to be in control of that district.
The district capital, Kandahar, is being besieged, and there have been a terrifying number of suicide car bomb attacks on the Airport Road against Canadian troops lately. Other districts such as Maiwand and Shah Wali Kot have long had a strong Taliban presence but they seem to be laying low there lately.
The Taliban presence in Farah is much less than in Kandahar, Helmand or Uruzgan but recently they have made a big play for various districts here, including the Gulistan, Bala Buluk and Bakwa Districts. In Nimroz, the main Taliban presence has been in the Dilaram District in the far northeastern corner of the district. Hundreds of Taliban fighters recently cut the Kandahar-Herat Highway there for a few days.
Osmani was interviewed by Pakistan's Geo TV in June 2006, with his face covered by a black turban. In the interview, he said that bin Laden and Mullah Omar were still alive, and that he was in direct contact with Omar, who was giving him directions on how to fight the insurgency.
Osmani reportedly had close contact with bin Laden, Omar, and a group led by Jalaluddin Haqqani (which includes the Pakistani Taliban) and Hezb-i-Islami commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
A photo of Mullah Akhtar Osmani during his June interview with Pakistan's Geo TV. In the interview, Osmani said that he was in personal contact with Mullah Omar, who was giving him instructions on the Taliban insurgency.The #4 ranking commander designation is somewhat misleading, as there are a number of "co-equal" Taliban commanders directly under Mullah Omar. The 2 other top Taliban leaders are Mullah Dadullah, Taliban senior military commander for the south and southeast of Afghanistan and Mullah Obaidullah, top Taliban policymaker.
Bill Roggio reports that Osmani was a member of the Taliban's Shura Maglis, or Executive Council. Most of the 10 members of the leadership council are from Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan. The remaining nine members Mulla Ubaidullah, Mulla Biradar, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Saifur Rahman Mansoor, Mulla Dadullah, Mulla Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, Mulla Mohammad Rasul and Hafiz Abdul Majeed.
Osman is the second member of the Taliban Shura to be killed since the US invasion. Adbul Razzaq Nafiz was killed earlier during fighting in Zabul Province, which is almost totally Taliban-controlled.
He was also in charge of Taliban finances. During the Taliban's reign, he was the corps commander of the Taliban's 2nd Army Corps in Kandahar and is said to be a good friend of Mullah Omar's. In fact, in his role as corps commander in Kandahar, he was directly responsible for security for Mullah Omar. Osmani received a great deal of Arab money to build up his force in Kandahar.
Other reports say he was the former Foreign Minister for the Taliban. Yet another report says he was a former governor of Uruzgan Province under the Taliban. He also served as head of the entire Afghan Army itself under the Taliban.
Under the Taliban, Osmani played important roles in two of the most notorious excesses of the fundamentalist idiot regime.
Those incidents were the insane and criminal destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas (I think a UN force should have invaded right after the Taliban did that) and a grotesque incident whereby Christian aid workers who may or may not have been proselytizing Muslims in Afghanistan were threatened with the death penalty for "trying to convert Muslims".
The aid workers were released soon afterwards on promises that they would leave Afghanistan.
Osmani was also one of the first Taliban leaders to support Osama bin Laden.
As of 2003, Osmani was working under Mullah Baradar, who was running all Taliban operations out of the Uruzgan town of Deh Rawood, capital of the Deh Rawood District in the southwestern part of Uruzgan, bordered by northwestern Kandahar and northeastern Helmand Provinces.
In October 2004, Osmani was said to be in headquartered in the Pakistani city of Quetta, where many Taliban and their leaders are said to be holed up. Quetta is not far from where he was killed.
Osmani played an important role in the recent truce negotiated between the Pakistan government and the Taliban and Al Qaeda in North Waziristan. In a prior post on this blog, it was noted that Latif Afridi, a top official of the Awami National Party, said he received a letter written by Osmani containing Omar's stamp of approval, sealing the deal between the state and the insurgents.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
No comments:
Post a Comment