Daily News - New York - A year ago, the Daily News reported that the hunt for Al Qaeda kingpin Osama Bin Laden had focused on a vast swath of mega mountains in Northwest Pakistan called Chitral. Not only did dozens of sources pinpoint Chitral as his most likely hideout, many said it’s where the CIA had been hunting him using contractors disguised as adventure tourists in a region renowned as a trekkers’ paradise. The drone fly-bys were also a hint.
On Sunday, Gary Brooks Faulkner, 50, was arrested in the woods of Chitral near Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, reportedly armed with a 40-inch blade, a loaded pistol and night-vision goggles — and looking for Bin Laden. Faulkner is a construction worker and a devout Christian, his family told The News.
Reports in Chitral’s two English-language news services today say Faulkner was apprehended by Chitrali police or scouts in the Bumburet Valley after he went missing from a nearby hotel. Bumburet is inhabited by the Kalash, ethnic caucasians tracing their lineage to Alexander the Great, who are not practicing Muslims in the largely Islamic nation. Their women are known for colorful outfits and often draw attention because they do not cover their faces.
Here’s how close the Kalash village is to the neighboring war across the border: Earlier this month, 15 Afghan National Army soldiers were arrested there by Pakistani forces after fleeing fighting in Nuristan, the Chitral News reported.
Could the top terror leader with a $25 million bounty still be in Chitral? Probably not. After thousands of years as a hideout for brigands, something has changed in the past year that makes Chitral’s valleys and soaring peaks (ranging from 5-25,000 feet) much less secure as a hideout. A travel route was created that established, in effect, an I-95 superhighway into the once isolated landscape.
The Pakistani government has all but completed a vehicle tunnel through the Lowari mountain pass, which has made Chitral accessible to the rest of Pakistan during the long winter months for the first time in history. Typically snowfall atop the 10,000-foot overland Lowari Pass cuts off the district from the rest of the country for half the year — making Chitral virtually impenetrable.
Despite putting out several dozen audio and videotapes since Sept. 11, 2001, an exhaustive review by The News had found relatively few that appeared to have been recorded by Bin Laden during winter months, suggesting to experts that he had been unable to dispatch couriers carrying thumb drives during the heavy snow season. Though unable to communicate to the outside world, conceivably Bin Laden was also safe during winter by being snowed in. The same high-altitude snow drifts that prevented his couriers from moving also would have kept out potential assassins.
But the Lowari Tunnel may have changed all that by opening up a travel artery that would make Chitral open year ‘round. The completion of the Lowari Tunnel was conveniently delayed by fighting that spilled over from the Swat Valley southeast of Chitral last year. Foreign construction firms refused to work on the tunnel project while Taliban extremists were roaming the Dir Valley due south of Chitral (where three U.S. Special Forces troops were recently killed in a suicide bombing). But once the fighting in Dir subsided, Chitral was not as isolated during the past winter.
And Bin Laden? He’s produced only two tapes so far this year. But he’d be a fool to stick around Chitral.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/06/hunting-bin-laden-in-chitral-m.html#ixzz0r0Y4NvPT
إرسال تعليق
Thank you for your valuable comments and opinion. Please have your comment on this post below.