Pakistan Taliban Chief threatens Washington: it's only words they tell us

April 1, 3:14 PMForeign Policy ExaminerAimee Kligman

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Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who has a five-million-dollar US bounty on his head, claimed responsibility for a deadly assault on a police academy in Lahore on Tuesday and threatened to attack Washington. But according to at least one report in the L.A. Times, an unnamed a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said: 'He is a tribal leader that has probably some regional influence, beyond that, I think it's a lot of boasting on his part'.

Something here doesn't add up.

I had the opportunity to watch a most interesting video produced by Al Jazeera, called 'Dining with terrorists' a few weeks ago. Author and journalist Phil Rees traveled to Pakistan and actually sat down 'to dinner' with Taliban leaders. This type of raw video footage is the closest one can get to being there, and I wonder if this anonymous American counter-terrorism official would have had the same opinion he delivered yesterday, had he participated in the discussion.

The video will take you to the birthplace of al-Qaeda twenty years ago. As Phil learns, the people 'inside', whether called Taliban, al-Qaeda, freedom fighters, extremists, are all here to stay and are not going anywhere soon. Phil also gets to talk to American forces on the ground who say that if they cannot get the local people's cooperation in Afghanistan, they will be there forever. The second part of the video is key, as Phil visits and learns about the 'valley of death' in Afghanistan with US forces. He also spends time with former Northern Ireland freedom fighters to illustrate a point he's trying to make. And of course, he talks about the pivotal 9/11 attacks which redefined the word 'terrorism'. If you can spare 20 minutes,  I urge you to view the footage.

Let's review now some of the 'regional influence' of this unimportant figure whom the US has deemed valuable enough to put a $5M bounty on his head.

Yesterday, we updated a slide show showing resulting deaths and mourning of the latest Taliban attack on a Pakistani police academy. Baitullah Mehsud proudly takes credit for the attack, adding that this is the response to American drone attacks on Pakistani civilians, and more of these are to be expected. Mehshud is also suspect #1 for having masterminded the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007.Pakistani Taliban are also responsible for the recent September 29, 2008 attacks on India's Taj and Mariott Hotels which left over 200 people dead. A Jewish synagogue was also hit whereby its occupants were tortured and then murdered.

On March 3, 2009, the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team was ambushed in Lahore by a gunman, resulting in the death of six policemen and several wounded on the cricket team. Another attack on a mosque occurred on March 27, 2009 when a suicide bomber killed dozens of worshippers.

According to a report in Cyberpresse, Baitullah Meshud is the country's most wanted man. IPSnews listed other relevant attacks in the not so distant past killing hundreds and leaving hundreds more wounded.  Meshud has apparently created a 'Mujahideen Council' whose mission is to regroup different insurgent factions in order to intensify attacks against American troops and NATO in Afghanistan.

Forewarned is forearmed. Let us not repeat the catastrophic mistake of weeks preceding 9/11 when Condoleeza Rice dismissed a letter saying that al-Qaeda was planning attacks on US interest using airplanes, because it was not 'specific'.

A UN backed international conference at the Hague on the subject of Afghanistan, in which 80 countries, including Iran,  parricipated has come to a close. Marjan Lucas of the Dutch Peace Organisation was quoted as saying:

"It is important that America understands what they’ve done to the region and develop partners with civil society and elected representatives rather than the army as they have been doing."

For more info:

Pakistan in photos: the bad, the worse and the ugly

Iran and US have preliminary talks on sidelines

Foreign Policy: The war in Afghanistan is not winnable