WHERE THE WAR ENDS:

Pakistan gains in Al Qaeda hunt: Foreign fighters flee their village hideouts as Pakistani soldiers step up their crackdown. (Owais Tohid, 3/16/04, CS Monitor)

Many Al Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas in Waziristan are fleeing their village hideouts and heading up into the mountains along the Afghan border, according to tribal sources in the area.

Shunning their conspicuous Land Cruisers, the militants are camouflaging their movements by journeying with local woodcutters and shepherds, who head into the mountains to earn their livelihood.

Officials here say the fighters are being squeezed by the government's recent crackdown in the tribal region. Pakistan has deployed 12,000 military and paramilitary soldiers, and demanded help from tribal leaders, to round up Al Qaeda and Taliban elements.

"Our strategy against foreign terrorists is working very well," says Rehmatullah Wazir, a senior government official in South Waziristan. "They feel unsafe here. They are feeling the pressure, and we are coming down hard on their local supporters as well."

US forces in Afghanistan, meanwhile, have stepped up their hunt on the other side of the border, announcing over the weekend a new operation named Mountain Storm. US military officials have said they are coordinating their efforts with the Pakistanis to rid the region of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

"It seems a part of the strategy of Pakistan and US-allied forces to herd them onto the mountains [for] a final battle there," says Sailab Mehsud, a writer and sociologist of South Waziristan.

Is this not Spain's fight either?

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 15, 2004 8:23 PM