Pakistan Taliban vow to attack US targets overseas

Top Taliban commander Omar Khalid Khorasani says death of Osama bin Laden has given his fighters ‘new courage’ A senior commander from Pakistan’s Taliban, an ideological ally of al-Qaida, has said the movement plans to attack US targets abroad to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, first threatened to avenge Bin Laden immediately after the raid by US special forces in the northern Pakistani town of Abbottabad on 2 May in which the al-Qaida leader was killed. Since Bin Laden’s death, militants from the group, possibly in alliance with other extremist organisations, have attacked repeatedly in Pakistan, bombing an American consulate convoy, laying siege to a naval base and blowing up cadets from the paramilitary Frontier Corps. However, the Taliban, like several other militant groups, appear to be increasingly adopting at least the language of “global jihad” popularised by al-Qaida. Omar Khalid Khorasani, the top Taliban commander in Mohmand, one of Pakistan’s restive tribal agencies, told Reuters that recent TTP attacks in Pakistan were only the start of bloody reprisals after Bin Laden’s death. “These attacks were just a part of our revenge. God willing, the world will see how we avenge Osama bin Laden’s martyrdom,” said Khorasani. “We have networks in several countries outside Pakistan.” Though counter-intelligence officials believe such claims are exaggerated, the TTP has already been linked to two overseas failed attacks. One, in Spain, never went beyond planning stages. However a second saw a Pakistani-American place a large bomb in Times Square last year. It failed to explode because the timer had been wrongly set. Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the TTP, appeared in a video with the Jordanian double agent who blew himself up in a fortified US base in Afghanistan last year, in the second most deadly attack in CIA history. Seven CIA officials were killed. “Our war against America is continuing inside and outside of Pakistan. When we launch attacks, it will prove that we can hit American targets outside Pakistan,” said Khorasani. Khorasani said the death of Bin Laden would not demoralise the Taliban but had injected a “new courage” into its fighters. “The ideology given to us by Osama bin Laden and the spirit and courage that he gave to us to fight infidels of the world is alive,” said Khorasani. In what may be a significant move, he described Ayman al-Zawahri, the veteran Egyptian militant who is the likely successor to Bin Laden at the head of al-Qaida, as the Pakistani Taliban’s “chief and supreme leader”. Khorasani is a minor figure but several affiliates of al-Qaida have come out in support of Zawahiri in recent weeks, despite the reservations and ambitions of other senior figures within the group. Nato officials in Afghanistan told the Guardian that the death of Bin Laden had led to an increase in the number of insurgents in that country looking to lay down their arms. A series of contacts are under way between insurgents fighting in Afghanistan and the Afghan and US governments though none appear likely to result in any breakthrough soon. The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said on Saturday there could be political talks with the Afghan Taliban by the end of this year if Nato made more military advances. This would not alter the strategy of the TTP, Khorasani said. “Even if some rapprochement is reached in Afghanistan, our ideology, aim and objective is to change the system in Pakistan,” he added. The vast bulk of the victims of the TTP have been other Pakistanis. The coalition of varied and fragmented militant groups in the tribal agencies of Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan was formally founded in late 2007. However many of the groups drawn together under its umbrella existed long before. Taliban Pakistan al-Qaida Global terrorism Osama bin Laden US foreign policy US military United States Jason Burke guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 7, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.