Smoke And Mirrors
Guardian
A journalist's disappearance has exposed America's attempts to assassinate Osama bin Laden's deputies in Pakistan's tribal areas, writes Declan Walsh.
Tuesday March 28, 2006
No one has yet claimed the $25m bounty on Osama bin Laden's head, much to America's disappointment. But in the meantime, Washington is taking matters into its own hands with a campaign to assassinate his top al-Qaida lieutenants in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Now a local journalist has mysteriously disappeared in a case that highlights the murky underbelly of the US "war on terror".
In December, a missile slammed into a mud-walled house in Haisori, a remote hamlet in the north Waziristan tribal agency, killing five people.
The target was Abu Hamza Rabia, a master bomb maker said to be the al-Qaida number three. Minutes later Hayatullah Khan, a 32-year-old correspondent with the Urdu-language daily Ausaf, rushed to the burning house.
Amid the smoking debris he photographed missile fragments, apparently with American markings, and filed them to the European Pressphoto Agency. The photographs contradicted the official version of events.
The Pakistani army had claimed Rabia was killed by a self-inflicted blast. The bomb maker or one of his henchmen, the story went, developed slippery fingers or confused their red and black wires, and blew themselves up.
But local villagers said they saw an air-fired missile shoot towards the house - a version confirmed to The Guardian by a well-informed western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Rabia's house was destroyed by a barrage of US Hellfire missiles, he said, fired from an unmanned Predator drone circling overhead. Days later Khan disappeared.
A gang of unidentified gunmen dragged him into their vehicle as the journalist left his house to cover a protest rally on December 5. Almost four months later, he has not been heard of since.
Worried relatives and fellow journalists have fruitlessly appealed to the Pakistani and US authorities. The International Committee to Protect Journalists has added his name to a list of 23 missing journalists worldwide, some of whom disappeared as long ago as 1982.
Khan's whereabouts have become the subject of intense and wildly varied speculation, fed by few facts and numerous conspiracy theories. Some colleagues believe he was abducted by Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency. Others believe he is dead or being tortured.
His relatives think he has been spirited off to the US. "The Americans may have taken Hayatullah for interrogation to confirm the death of Hamza Rabia," said his brother, Ihsanullah. But nobody can be sure.
"This is a very confusing case," said Sailab Mahsud, president of the Union of Tribal Journalists. "We just want to confirm that he is alive and well."
Apart from being a personal tragedy - Khan has four children, aged four to 11 - the disappearance shines some light on a secretive side to America's war against Islamic militancy.
Impatient with slow progress at flushing al-Qaida militants from the tribal areas, for the past two years the US has carried out several attacks on suspected al-Qaida hideouts.
The strikes - usually Predator-fired missiles - are extremely sensitive. The US is reluctant to claim credit for attacks that often kill as many women and children as militants.
And President Pervez Musharraf, aware that his alliance with America is deeply unpopular, is loath to be linked with its military action on his home soil.
Of the six such attacks local journalists believe have been carried out by the US in the tribal areas, just one has been publicly claimed by Washington. It was the January 13 strike in the Bajaur tribal area that missed its target, bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, but killed another 18 villagers.
So how did Hayatullah Khan get entangled in this troubled campaign? One theory is that someone in authority, embarrassed by his photographs of the missile fragments, wanted to silence him.
Another is that the local Taliban fighters - an increasingly powerful force in the tribal areas - blamed him for the attack. Other facts point to a complicated conspiracy.
The house where Rabia lived, it turns out, belonged to Khan's uncle. Is it possible that Khan knew of the strikes in advance and fled of his own will afterwards? Some say he is in self-imposed exile in Canada or the US.
But for every rumour there is a counter-spin, and others maintain that such stories have been fabricated by Pakistan's security apparatus to cloud the waters. The only truth is that whoever knows simply is not saying - at least for now.
If nothing else, the case confirms the dangers faced by tribal journalists. Foreign correspondents are prohibited from entering the tribal areas without permission, which is rarely granted, and even local journalists blanche at the idea of going there.
Reporters like Khan provide key information about al-Qaida operations that have implications far beyond Pakistan's borders.
Militants linked to the London July 7 bombers, for example, were trained in Waziristan. But the work carries great risks. Several tribal journalists have been killed.
Now, under intense pressure from all sides - militants, the Pakistan army and even local elders - most are quitting the area. "It is impossible to work in Waziristan any more," said Mahsud of the Journalists' Union.
Their fears are understandable, particularly in the light of Khan's apparent abduction. But the cost to our understanding of such an important area could be high.
A journalist's disappearance has exposed America's attempts to assassinate Osama bin Laden's deputies in Pakistan's tribal areas, writes Declan Walsh.
Tuesday March 28, 2006
No one has yet claimed the $25m bounty on Osama bin Laden's head, much to America's disappointment. But in the meantime, Washington is taking matters into its own hands with a campaign to assassinate his top al-Qaida lieutenants in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Now a local journalist has mysteriously disappeared in a case that highlights the murky underbelly of the US "war on terror".
In December, a missile slammed into a mud-walled house in Haisori, a remote hamlet in the north Waziristan tribal agency, killing five people.
The target was Abu Hamza Rabia, a master bomb maker said to be the al-Qaida number three. Minutes later Hayatullah Khan, a 32-year-old correspondent with the Urdu-language daily Ausaf, rushed to the burning house.
Amid the smoking debris he photographed missile fragments, apparently with American markings, and filed them to the European Pressphoto Agency. The photographs contradicted the official version of events.
The Pakistani army had claimed Rabia was killed by a self-inflicted blast. The bomb maker or one of his henchmen, the story went, developed slippery fingers or confused their red and black wires, and blew themselves up.
But local villagers said they saw an air-fired missile shoot towards the house - a version confirmed to The Guardian by a well-informed western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Rabia's house was destroyed by a barrage of US Hellfire missiles, he said, fired from an unmanned Predator drone circling overhead. Days later Khan disappeared.
A gang of unidentified gunmen dragged him into their vehicle as the journalist left his house to cover a protest rally on December 5. Almost four months later, he has not been heard of since.
Worried relatives and fellow journalists have fruitlessly appealed to the Pakistani and US authorities. The International Committee to Protect Journalists has added his name to a list of 23 missing journalists worldwide, some of whom disappeared as long ago as 1982.
Khan's whereabouts have become the subject of intense and wildly varied speculation, fed by few facts and numerous conspiracy theories. Some colleagues believe he was abducted by Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency. Others believe he is dead or being tortured.
His relatives think he has been spirited off to the US. "The Americans may have taken Hayatullah for interrogation to confirm the death of Hamza Rabia," said his brother, Ihsanullah. But nobody can be sure.
"This is a very confusing case," said Sailab Mahsud, president of the Union of Tribal Journalists. "We just want to confirm that he is alive and well."
Apart from being a personal tragedy - Khan has four children, aged four to 11 - the disappearance shines some light on a secretive side to America's war against Islamic militancy.
Impatient with slow progress at flushing al-Qaida militants from the tribal areas, for the past two years the US has carried out several attacks on suspected al-Qaida hideouts.
The strikes - usually Predator-fired missiles - are extremely sensitive. The US is reluctant to claim credit for attacks that often kill as many women and children as militants.
And President Pervez Musharraf, aware that his alliance with America is deeply unpopular, is loath to be linked with its military action on his home soil.
Of the six such attacks local journalists believe have been carried out by the US in the tribal areas, just one has been publicly claimed by Washington. It was the January 13 strike in the Bajaur tribal area that missed its target, bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, but killed another 18 villagers.
So how did Hayatullah Khan get entangled in this troubled campaign? One theory is that someone in authority, embarrassed by his photographs of the missile fragments, wanted to silence him.
Another is that the local Taliban fighters - an increasingly powerful force in the tribal areas - blamed him for the attack. Other facts point to a complicated conspiracy.
The house where Rabia lived, it turns out, belonged to Khan's uncle. Is it possible that Khan knew of the strikes in advance and fled of his own will afterwards? Some say he is in self-imposed exile in Canada or the US.
But for every rumour there is a counter-spin, and others maintain that such stories have been fabricated by Pakistan's security apparatus to cloud the waters. The only truth is that whoever knows simply is not saying - at least for now.
If nothing else, the case confirms the dangers faced by tribal journalists. Foreign correspondents are prohibited from entering the tribal areas without permission, which is rarely granted, and even local journalists blanche at the idea of going there.
Reporters like Khan provide key information about al-Qaida operations that have implications far beyond Pakistan's borders.
Militants linked to the London July 7 bombers, for example, were trained in Waziristan. But the work carries great risks. Several tribal journalists have been killed.
Now, under intense pressure from all sides - militants, the Pakistan army and even local elders - most are quitting the area. "It is impossible to work in Waziristan any more," said Mahsud of the Journalists' Union.
Their fears are understandable, particularly in the light of Khan's apparent abduction. But the cost to our understanding of such an important area could be high.
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