Al-Qaida 'plotting terror in Pakistan'

The al-Qaida leadership has been driven out of Afghanistan and is now plotting terror strikes from within Pakistan, a US military commander said today.

Most surviving members of the network are holed up in the tribal areas of western Pakistan preparing car and suicide bombings aimed at disrupting the selection of a new national government in Kabul next month, said Major General Franklin Hagenbeck.

They are believed to be working with Taliban fighters who have also been forced to flee their homeland, and up to 1,000 non-Afghan fighters, including Chechens, Uzbeks, and Uighurs from western China, he told the New York Times.

‘‘We know that they are there and have a capability to do harm to Afghanistan. Our job is to deny them the freedom of movement and sanctuary.’’

Until recently al-Qaida and Taliban forces had believed to have been operating on both sides of the mountainous Afghan border.

British and US forces are unlikely to cross the frontier in pursuit of the fighters because Pakistan has developed a plan to flush them out from their mountain hideouts, General Hagenbeck, the commander of the US-led forces in Afghanistan, told the newspaper.

Pakistani authorities have traditionally preferred to leave policing in the border area to the local tribal authorities.

The area is heavily populated by Pashtuns, the ethnic group from which the Taliban came, and is a strong base of support for terror chief Osama bin Laden.

General Hagenbeck voiced concerns that tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could delay Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas.

The Pakistan government said last week that it intended to move some of its troops from the Afghan border to the Kashmir region.

General Hagenbeck said he was confident that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf would keep his promise to strike against the al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in his country.

But he added: ‘‘With what is currently going on in India, I don’t know what the timing’s going to be.’’

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that the tense situation over Kashmir could undermine efforts to destroy the remainder of al-Qaida’s leadership.