Pakistan Tells U.S. to Look Harder for Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan
"We don't think that putting an estimate of 1,000 could be anywhere near correct," military spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi told AFP.
Qureshi was responding to estimates by the American general heading the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan that there were now "hundreds, maybe even a thousand" Al-Qaeda fighters at large in neighboring Pakistan, while less than a thousand were left in Afghanistan.
Lieutenant-General Dan McNeill, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, made the comments in an interview with AFP at the weekend, but added that he had no "substantive information" to back up his figures.
Pakistan's Qureshi rejected McNeil's estimates as a "guestimate" without any evidence, and said the United States should look closer for Al-Qaeda in the original theater of its operations in Afghanistan.
"What he (McNeil) is basing his assessment on is the fact that the U.S. forces have been unable to find Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
"It doesn't mean they are not there (in Afghanistan), it's just that the U.S. forces haven't scoured every inch and corner of the country's very difficult terrain. "Neither the coalition nor ISAF have much presence across the countryside. There is very difficult terrain that they haven't visited."
Hundreds of Al-Qaeda fighters are thought to have crossed the border into Pakistan from the southeastern border province of Paktia in the aftermath of operation Anaconda in March, the largest coalition offensive of the 10-month campaign.
Pakistan has since been conducting its own operations against the extremist fighters, using some 6,000 of its own troops assisted by at least a dozen U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation intelligence and communications experts.
Witnesses have recounted seeing U.S. agents taking part in some of the raids on suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts, including the raid that netted Al-Qaeda Chief Osama bin Laden's key Lieutenant Abu Zubayda in February.
However, Islamabad says there are no U.S. combat forces operating in Pakistan.
Qureshi said the majority of Al-Qaeda fighters who had slipped over the porous mountainous border in the wake of U.S.-led operations had either been arrested or killed in raids.
Pakistani forces had arrested "about 400" Al-Qaeda fugitives from Afghanistan since the U.S.-led campaign to wipe out the militant network began in October, he said.
Qureshi declined to put his own estimate on the number of Al-Qaeda fighters still at large in Pakistan, but said "even estimates of hundreds" were too high.
"We can't be 100 percent certain that everyone of Al-Qaeda who slipped over into Pakistan are under arrest," Qureshi added. "But to make estimates... I don't think (McNeil) is basing it on anything other than the fact they've been unable to find them in Afghanistan." "If I were in his position I would keep searching and finding Al-Qaeda rather than giving estimates."
McNeil complained that efforts to wipe out Al-Qaeda were now more complicated because of "indicators" of sympathy for the militants in parts of Pakistan, where the U.S.-led coalition does not have the right to conduct combat missions.
Qureshi conceded that tribal residents were supportive of fleeing Afghans, including ex-Taleban, because of their shared Pashtun ethnicity, but insisted that there was virtually no support for "foreigners" escaping into Pakistan.
"If they're non-Afghans, foreigners, straight away to the best of my knowledge most of the tribal people have assisted our troops in arresting them and handing them over," he said. "We have had one or two who were not arrested and were given protection, by some tribal people."
Those people, he said, had since had their houses demolished by authorities in accordance with local tribal laws.