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US fighters flew mission over Pak, Afghanistan

Josy Joseph in New Delhi

American fighter planes flew over Pakistan and, presumably, Afghanistan last month. But the purpose of the mission, unprecedented in the region's recent history, is not yet known.

The flight, say reliable sources, took place on October 23, the day Taliban leaders in Kabul expressed willingness for talks with Washington, DC, on handing over Saudi millionaire turned terrorist leader Osama bin Laden to the US.

Just two days earlier, US Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth and Taliban representative Abdul Hakeem Mujahid had failed to arrive at any decision on bin Laden. On November 15, the United Nations announced several sanctions against Afghanistan for failing to hand over bin Laden.

According to authoritative sources, at least nine naval aircraft flew over Pakistan and, apparently, Afghanistan. The sources said the fighters might have been high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft rather than bombers. The latter, which fly at a lower level, face the risk of attack from the ground.

Though it is unclear where the planes took off from, the sources believe they took off from an American carrier stationed off Karachi. They believe the aircraft carrier could have come from the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, stationed off Bahrain. The Fifth Fleet normally has an aircraft carrier leased on rotation from the Sixth Fleet located in the Mediterranean Sea or the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific.

The Fifth Fleet also has more than 20 other ships at any given moment, besides fighters and reconnaissance aircraft, most of them at the cutting edge of technology.

Besides the Fifth Fleet, the only other American military presence in Asia is at Diego Garcia, the staging base for B-52 bombers. The tiny island lies around 1000 nautical miles south-west of the Indian coast. There are no aircraft carriers at this base, but about a dozen pre-positioning ships that supply arms and other equipment to the army.

Authoritative sources said an aircraft carrier could only have come from the Fifth Fleet off Bahrain. In August 1998, when the US launched missile attacks on bin Laden's hideouts in Afghanistan and Sudan, it was an aircraft carrier from the same fleet that came close to Karachi and fired Tomahawk cruise missiles that narrowly missed the terrorist. Bin Laden, who got wind of the plan, left his INMARSAT mini-satellite phone, which was being used to track him, with one of his deputies minutes before the attack.

According to the sources and available indication, the October 23 mission must have been a reconnaissance mission to locate bin Laden, whose extradition is being pressed for by the US and several other members of the UN.

The US's search for bin Laden entered the final phase with the UN sanctions, including economic, coming into effect on November 15. The sanctions have also prevented any foreign flights from entering Afghanistan, where the Taliban rulers are now talking of reconciliation while still refusing to deport bin Laden. America demanded his deportation after a US court indicted him on charges of alleged involvement in terrorist activities against the State.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Security Council Sergey Lavrov, who chairs the Council now, has supported the American demand.

According to authentic information, bin Laden is still living in Farmihadda, beyond Jalalabad, his permanent hideout. There are no indications of him having shifted his base, but there are indications of him having increased his personal security.

The US planes are believed to have flown over Farmihadda for extensive photographic reconnaissance and electronic intelligence.

But Indian sources doubt if the Saudi fugitive will be nabbed or killed despite all this. "The US forces are closing in on him and can discover his hideout any time now. But our indications are that he will not be eliminated so soon," the sources said.

They believe that bin Laden could well be used as a front by the US to build up pressure on Islamic fundamentalist movements and establish a presence in regions crucial to them. A key area where the US is keen to have a permanent presence is in the crucial north Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. From here, it is possible to keep tabs on Sinkiang in China to the east, Kashmir in Pakistan and India to the south, Afghanistan to the west, and Central Asia to the north and north-west.

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