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Islamic Elvis and the Fighters Who Wait to Strike Again
Friday, January 4, 2002
By Craig Nelson
Herald Correspondent

Support for bin Laden and the Taliban also remains fervent among the more than 600,000 boys and young men -- including 34,000 foreigners -- who attend fundamentalist religious schools, or madrassas, across the country.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
The signs are that al-Qaeda and Taliban supporters are probably regrouping in Pakistan.

Stop wondering, at least for a moment, where Osama bin Laden might be and consider the following numbers:

The Saudi dissident's al-Qaeda network had roughly 6000 members. Pakistani intelligence sources say there were no more than 3500 members of the network in Afghanistan when US air strikes began on October 7, the rest having fled the country in anticipation of retaliation for the September 11 attacks.

As of this week, the US has taken into custody 180 reputed al-Qaeda members and Taliban officials, while Pakistan has detained about 200 al-Qaeda cadre alone. The number of bodies so far recovered following the eight weeks of bombing and sporadic fighting is believed not to have exceeded a thousand.

Conservatively, that leaves as many as 4620 al-Qaeda fighters who are in hiding or have gone underground.
(More: SMH.com News Source)
2002 © The Sydney Morning Herald.

Dan