Are The Pakistanis Aiding Al Qaeda?

by Steve

Several days ago, I wrote a piece suggesting that Pakistan was gaming us over our hunt for the Al Qaeda leadership. According to developments in the search for Al Qaeda's second in command today, it now looks like Ayman al-Zawahiri is not to be found, and very possibly escaped days if not weeks ago.

And how did he or other top-level Al Qaeda operatives escape? Through a mile-long tunnel emptying out near the Afghan-Paki border discovered today by the Paki military. Western diplomats seem to be more savvy in analyzing this situation than our own Paki-fed military.

A senior US commander, General John Abizaid, visited Islamabad yesterday, raising speculation that the Pakistani army could be on the verge of capturing a major al-Qaida prize. But western diplomats in Islamabad were sceptical. The mud fortresses would be too obvious a hiding place, they said.

"It's very hard to believe al-Zawahiri has been hiding in what amounts to a military camp," said one European diplomat. "Or if he is there, it's impossible to believe that the Pakistani intelligence services didn't know about it a long time ago."

Can someone tell me how it would be possible for Al Qaeda to build a mile-long tunnel in a region supposedly under Pakistani scrutiny for several years without the Pakistani ISI (their CIA) knowing about it? And wouldn't our CIA want the answer to that same question?