Friday, September 19, 2008

Real News Video with Pepe Escobar: al Qaeda and the jihad's tribal connections

Pakistani analyst Khawar Mehdi: The jihad's ideology and leaders Part 3 of 5



"In the third part of this series, Pakistani analyst Khawar Mehdi tells Pepe Escobar how al Qaeda after 9/11 reorganized and established itself in North Waziristan in the tribal areas. But it's not only Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the historical al Qaeda leadership that enjoys freedom of movement. There is also the Haqqani family, whose stalwart is fabled 1980s Afghan jihad commander Jalaluddin Haqqani; and another notorious old guard mujahid, Gulbuddiin Hekmatyar, very much favored by the Saudis during the 1980s and an avid practitioner of the politics of jihad. Hekmatyar fighters are even closing in on Peshawar, the capital of the Northwest Frontier Province, using the very popular rationale that "the Americans are now attacking us"."

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