KARACHI - The name of Nek Mohammed made international

headlines in the middle of last month when the charismatic former

Taliban commander was killed in a Pakistani army raid near
Wana, the district headquarters of the South Waziristan tribal
area.

Nek was a key figure in the area, acting as a rallying point for the
Afghan resistance, and as a procurer and facilitator for the many
foreign and al-Qaeda fighters sheltered in the region.

Nek was a wanted man, and his death marked a significant victory
for Islamabad, which is under relentless pressure from
Washington to get rid of the foreign militants from the sensitive
Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas from where they have
declared war on US interests in Afghanistan. The foreigners
include Arabs, Chechens and Chinese Muslims who have set up
base camps in remote areas.

By killing Nek, though, the authorities have not been able to erase
his legacy and the profound influence he has had in the area.

Nek Mohammed belonged to the Ahmed Zai Wazir tribe's sub-

clan, the Yargul Khai. He received his early education at an
Islamic school run by Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam leader Maulana Noor
Mohammed. Nek's father, Nawaz Khan, was a tribal elite and
owned property in the village of Kalosha, South Waziristan, close
to the Afghanistan border.

From childhood Nek showed a tough, rigid personality, which

resulted in him being expelled from the Islamic school. He joined a
regular school and fared much better, before being admitted to a
college run by Pashtun nationalists, the Pakhtunkho Awami Party.

He never completed schooling, though, and started a general

store in Wana's main bazaar. At this time, the region was under
the influence of military leader General Zia ul-Haq's policies to
promote jihad in Afghanistan. In fact, the Pakistani tribal areas
served as base camps for the Afghan resistance movement
against the former Soviet Union, which had began a 10-year
occupation in 1979.

South and North Waziristan agencies - two of Pakistan's seven

tribal areas - were part of a supply line that ran to Paktia to Zabul
across the border to reinforce the positions of Afghan fighters.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence set up exclusive camps in
Wana, where youngsters were recruited, "motivated" and trained
to supply fresh blood to the Afghan resistance movement.

Different commanders of the Afghan resistance belonging to the

Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) and other
organizations established underground bunkers where they stored
their heavy ammunition. The US Central Intelligence Agency,
which had been drawn into Afghanistan's affairs to counter its
Cold War rival, the Soviet Union, financed thousands of Arab
fighters to gather in and around Wana, where many purchased
land and established base camps and training centers.
To reinforce the Afghan jihad, ideological support was as
necessary as military assistance, so policymakers in Islamabad
laid the foundations for dozens of new religious schools. The
young Nek, like many others at the time, was drawn into this
world, and he signed on for a training camp.

And where Nek had been a mediocre pupil, he took to fighting

with the zeal of a leopard, so much so that he rubbed shoulders
with such frontline luminaries of the Afghan war as Saifullah
Mansoor and Jalaluddin Haqqani.

These acquaintances were to bring handsome dividends.

In September 1996, the Taliban captured Kabul, ending several

years of political anarchy in the country after the withdrawal of the
Soviets. On the recommendation of Mansoor and Haqqani, Molvi
Gul was appointed commander of the Kargha garrison, but when
he was killed, 18-year-old Nek took over.

This made Nek a frontline Taliban commander against the

Northern Alliance, which still controlled sections of the country.
Soon he was a veteran, seeing action in the battlefields of
Bagram, Bamyan and Pansher. By now Nek was a key figure in
the Taliban, in charge of 3,000 men and a hero who frequently
interacted with foreign fighters.

During this period Nek met al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at
the Rash Khor training camp, south of Kabul. He also met bin
Laden's deputy, Aiman al-Zawahir, and became friends-in-arms
with Mullah Nazir, a Taliban minister; the leader of the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan, Tahir Yaldevish, and Chinese separatist
leader Hasan Mohsin.

These new friendships were to be critical to Nek, as well as to

developments several years later.

In late 2001, the US bombardment of Afghanistan began in

retaliation for the country harboring the al-Qaeda masterminds of
the September 11 terror attacks on the United States. Kabul soon
fell as the Taliban retreated with hardly a fight, and action
switched to the Tora Bora, near the Pakistan border, which
featured a vast network of tunnels and caves in the mountains.

An Afghan go-between, Haji Zaman, in exchange apparently for

hefty bribes from the US, negotiated a ceasefire under which Arab
fighters were to surrender. During a recent interview, a Taliban
commander, Mohammed Rahim, who was stranded in the Tora
Bora along with 100 other Taliban, revealed that during the
ceasefire more than 1,000 Arabs and the 100 Taliban fled, some
to Shahi Kot and others across the border to the tribal areas.

In early 2002, in a showdown in Shahi Kot, about 18 US soldiers

were killed and the US mobilized heavy land troops as well as air
support and bombed the hideouts of hundreds of Arabs and
Chechen fighters who had made Shahi Kot their hub. As a result,
the militants melted into the mountains, from where Nek helped
them to settle in South Waziristan.

New housing, training camps and recruitment centers for the new
Afghan jihad were established in South Waziristan, which became
the operational headquarters. Money flooded in from al-Qaeda,
and Nek, being the character he was, became rich.

By December 2003, Nek owned more than 40 pickup trucks and

bulletproof vehicles. The Taliban leaders were underground, but
the aid kept on flowing in from around the world, with Nek as the
point man to distribute it.

Training camps and the resistance

By now the scattered Taliban and al-Qaeda had regrouped. They
had restored their supply lines and sources of financial aid, and
had begun to build new bases, hideouts and training camps on
both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

In this process, Nek thrived, utilizing his networks in the Pakistani

tribal areas from which he hailed, especially in South Waziristan.

Nek and his foreign comrades formed a new jihadi outfit called
Jaishul al-Qiba al-Jihadi al-Siri al-Alami. Another group, Jundullah,
two of whose members, Attaur Rehman and Abu Musab al-
Balochi (al-Baloshi), were later arrested in Karachi in connection
with the recent unsuccessful attack on the Corps Commander
Karachi, was formed with members from the Jaishul al-Qibla to
conduct operations all over Pakistan and to "take the battle to all
possible fronts".

Both organizations are aligned with al-Qaeda, but have different

ways of operating.

Jundullah
Jundullah is a purely militant outfit whose objective is to target
Pakistan's pro-US rulers and US and British interests in the
country. Members receive training in Afghanistan and South
Waziristan, and it is now actively recruiting.

The organization produces propaganda literature, including

documentary films, and has a studio named Ummat. It does
similar work for al-Qaeda's media wing, which is called the al-
Sahab Foundation.

These media outlets incite the sentiments of Muslim youths by

producing films showing Western - particularly Israeli and US -
"atrocities" against Muslim communities. This is the basic tool
through which a new generation of jihadis is being raised.

Jundullah was allegedly headed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,

the al-Qaeda operational commander of the September 11
terrorist attack in the US. He was arrested in Pakistan early last
year.

Suspects grilled
The US has exclusive facilities across the world to interrogate
militants, many of them captured in Pakistan. They are believed to
number about 3,000, and they are spread over different areas.
The biggest interrogation center for al-Qaeda detainees is Bagram
Air Base north of the Afghan capital Kabul. Al-Tamara detention
center, eight kilometers out of Rabat in Morocco, houses dozens
of people arrested in Pakistan, while others are kept in Egypt,
Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Soon after the attack on the Corps Commander Karachi, a

number of Jundullah Pakistanis were arrested, as well as four
Arabs, including al-Baloshi. During their interrogation they
fingered two prominent doctors (brothers) from Karachi, Dr Akmal
Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed, who were said to have provided
medical treatment to members of Jundullah. The doctors,
associated with the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association, were
heavily involved in relief work in Afghanistan during the US
invasion of that country. Later they treated several high-profile al-
Qaeda leaders in South Waziristan. They are also said to have
raised funds for al-Qaeda and helped several Arab families return
to their countries of origin.

The doctors have since been arrested.

The interrogators also learned of two girls from Karachi who had
been recruited and trained for suicide attacks against Western
interests in Pakistan. As a result, the United States and the United
Kingdom temporarily shut down their diplomatic facilities for fear
of a terror attack.

Jundullah is now believed to have penetrated deeply into the

Pakistan army, police and air force, with core centers in
Rawalpindi (the twin city to Islamabad), Peshawar and Quetta.

Jaishul al-Qiba al-Jihadi al-Siri al-Alami

This organization prepares literature and films to incite hatred
against the West for a new generation of jihadis. It widely
facilitates training for new recruits, with facilities in South
Waziristan and in the inaccessible regions of North Waziristan,
beside some fresh training centers in Afghanistan in Taliban-
controlled areas.

These centers mostly started operating in the middle of 2003,

after the Taliban and al-Qaeda had regrouped. Initially, camps
were established in Wana, Azam Warsak, Kalosha, Zareen Noor,
Baghar, Dhog, Angor Ada in South Waziristan. In North
Waziristan, camps were established in the border areas of
Shawal, including Darey Nishtar and Mangaroti, where neither
Afghanistan nor Pakistan is in control.

In Afghanistan, Zawar (Khost) was the most protected place

where foreign fighters established their bunkers and hideouts. The
area is under the command of Jalaluddin Haqqani.

In South Waziristan, the centers were under the command of Nek,

and he is known to have hosted bin Laden and al-Zawahir on
numerous occasions.

Information extracted from Jundullah detainees indicates that

most were trained in South Waziristan. They claim that villages
around Kalosha had been handed over to the families of Arab
fighters. From the same training camps, several groups were
raised to fight in Iraq.

PART 2: The US moves on South Waziristan

(Muqadar Iqbal and Zafar Mehmood Shiekh helped research this

article, as well as obtain material from Rawalpindi.)

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and
syndication policies.)