Bin Laden for Musharraf’s Murder: Mole out of a Mountain

A message in a pamphlet distributed to Pakistani tribesmen and purported to be from Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has prayed for the assassination of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declaring him a ‘slave’ of US President George W. Bush, according to a Story from the A.P., an international wire agency and published in the Khaleej Times of the Middle East. ‘I pray to God, without whom there is no other God, that Bush, Pervez and his army meet the fate that they deserve, and give someone among the lions of God the opportunity to kill this slave of Bush in Pakistan,’ bin Laden purportedly said in the message. The pamphlets were distributed by suspected local tribal extremists recently in Mir Ali, a town in the North Waziristan tribal region in Pakistan that borders Afghanistan. There is a line in the message saying that Muslims who receive it should reprint it and distribute it. This line along is enough to establish that the pamphlet was nothing but a prank aimed at small time commercial activities. Now small time presses will be busy in undertaking lots or order from the gullible population. Such activity is not in now in the Indian subcontinent in South Asia where printing press owners would resort to such business tactics to get more printing work. All such pamphlets also forewarn the readers that if anyone fail to get it printed, published and distributed the offender will be subject to attribution at the hands of the God. Therefore, much should not be read in such pamphlets. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the top spokesman for Musharraf, would not comment on the authenticity of the statement Sunday. But he urged the media not to ‘spread’ it, referring to a line in the message saying that Muslims who receive it should reprint it and distribute it. Pakistan was a key supporter of Afghanistan’s Taliban militia before it was ousted from power by a US military campaign in late 2001 for harbouring Al Qaida. After 9/11attacks in the United States, Musharraf severed ties with the Taliban and allied Pakistan with the US-led war on terror. Islamist extremists have opposed Musharraf for his alliance with the United States and he has survived at least three known assassination attempts – all blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants. The North and South Waziristan tribal regions have been the suspected hideouts of Al Qaeda-linked militants. Military officials have said that Arab, central Asian and Afghan militants are present in the two rugged regions, where bin Laden and his top aide Ayman Al Zawahri are also thought to be hiding. But in recent weeks, local tribal extremists – allegedly linked with the Taliban – have been blamed for deadly fighting with security forces. Some 317 terrorists and 51 soldiers and four police have reportedly died in clashes in the tribal border regions. Pakistan has deployed about 80,000 troops along its border with Afghanistan to track down terrorists.