[Mb-civic] 'I Will Go to Do Jihad Again and Again' - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

'I Will Go to Do Jihad Again and Again'
Prisoner's Story Highlights Pakistan-Based Training Network for Insurgents

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 21, 2005; Page A17

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The prisoner perched on a metal chair, hugging his 
knees to his chest and rocking slightly, like a nervous child.

But his expression relaxed into a blissful smile as he described what he 
would do if released from his cell in the headquarters of the national 
intelligence service.

"When I get the chance, I will stick to my promise," said Sher Ali, 28, 
a Pakistani man with cropped black hair and a long beard. "I will go to 
do jihad again and again."

Ali said he took his vow to wage holy war against U.S. forces in 
Afghanistan earlier this summer, just before embarking on what he 
described as a 20-day weapons training course at a secret mountain camp 
in northeastern Pakistan.

He was captured by Afghan police about three weeks ago, shortly after 
crossing into Afghanistan's rugged, northeastern Konar province. The 
area has been a haven for armed renegades from an assortment of groups, 
including al Qaeda, the Taliban and backers of former Afghan leader 
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is now a fugitive.

Over the last several months, insurgents have killed hundreds of people 
in Afghanistan, including aid workers, religious and tribal leaders, 
government officials, and Afghan and U.S. troops, many in ambushes and 
bombings apparently aimed at derailing parliamentary elections scheduled 
for Sept. 18.

American and Afghan forces have countered with an aggressive effort to 
flush the fighters from their remote mountain hideouts, killing several 
hundred in operations in border provinces from Konar in the north to 
Kandahar in the south. They have also taken several hundred suspected 
insurgents prisoner and allowed a few to speak to journalists.

Ali's story, which could not be verified independently, offered a 
glimpse of what Afghan authorities charge is a shadowy Pakistani network 
that continues to fuel the insurgency with fresh recruits as fast as 
U.S. and Afghan forces kill or capture their predecessors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001002.html?nav=hcmodule
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