Al-Qaeda 're-emerging' in Pakistan sanctuaries: US military

WASSHINTON: The US military said Tuesday it expected Al-Qaeda to continue its "re-emergence" in sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas from where it supported attacks in Afghanistan. Sanctuary was provided to Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels after Islamabad signed a peace deal with militants in a desperate attempt to quell the unrest in its federally administered areas in September 2006, a US military official said. The militants called off the deal in July this year after Pakistani security forces raided a radical mosque in Islamabad where rebels had massed. Dozens were killed in those raids. "This area remains a support and sanctuary area for the insurgency as results of those peace accords," US Major Tim Williams, future operations intelligence planner, told reporters at Bagram Air Field, the main US base in Afghanistan. He said the Islamic rebels were likely to maintain their presence in those areas despite apparent efforts by Pakistani army to root them out. "In the federally administered tribal areas, we anticipate sanctuary in this region to continue the Al-Qaeda re-emergence," Williams said. "What we're looking into over the next 12 months ... is the ability and the capability of the enemy to attempt to retain the success, some of the successes, that they have had in that area." This "sanctuary" could shelter the fugitive Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban's supreme chief, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the officer said. Most Taliban leaders fled to the Pakistan's mainly Pashtun tribal belt following the 2001 US invasion which toppled the largely Pashtun group from power for sheltering Al-Qaeda, which had training camps here. Asked if there was an increased Al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan, Williams said Al-Qaeda operatives did not normally cross into this country to carry out operations but provided the necessary resources and training. The Taliban's insurgency has grown steadily, particularly in the past two years, with suicide bombings in a hallmark of the violence.