Saturday, December 02, 2006

Pakistan's Chitral District: A Refuge for al-Qaeda's Top Leadership? / Global Terrorism Analysis, November 2006

http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370220
Hassan Abbas
"In the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders, security services continue to focus on Pakistan's Chitral district in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Chitral became a concern after the release of a bin Laden videotape from September 2003 in which trees native to the Chitrali mountain range were evident. [..] Other links to the district include Abu Khabaib, an Arab explosives expert who has been spotted several times in the hills of Chitral. He is known to have helped Sheikh Ahmed Saleem, an Arab member of al-Qaeda. Saleem has been giving money to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi for recruiting militants for al-Qaeda in Pakistan (Daily Times, October 2). Finally, because Chitral is adjacent to Afghanistan's Nuristan province, there is concern that Taliban and al-Qaeda militants are crossing the border between the two countries. "