Pakistan Releases 2,500 Prisoners Linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

On Friday, the Telegraph published a distressing story that my intelligence sources have confirmed. Pakistan's descent into chaos (see my coverage of the government's surrender of the Waziristan region) is apparently continuing apace, with the latest incident being the release of 2,500 foreign fighters linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda who were "detained by Pakistan after fleeing the battleground in Afghanistan." My intelligence sources indicate that this is a "done deal," as the prisoners were released early Friday morning.

Some of these foreigners were released to Islamic welfare organizations, such "the al-Khidmat Foundation, a welfare organisation run by the hard-line Islamist party Jamaat-i-Islami." Al-Khidmat's officials make no secret of the fact that many of the released prisoners will return to the jihad. Field officer Hazrat Aman told the Telegraph: "If they react like that [by returning to jihad] it is a natural phenomenon. Some of these people spent two to three years in jail. Some of them will live peacefully and others will join jihad again."

My intelligence sources indicate that this latest incident further demonstrates the weakness of Musharraf's government. Several of the released prisoners were reportedly linked to past assassination plots against Musharraf, so letting them go free is unlikely to buy the Pakistani president the security that he apparently desires. He is "running scared" according to my sources, and is putting very little thought into the various concessions that he's making to militant factions.

Indeed, the released prisoners reportedly represent a broad cross-section of the jihadist movement, including computer experts, WMD experts, and low-level grunts. (See Bill Roggio's excellent post detailing the senior and mid-level Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives who were released.) The only faction that the government did not release is reportedly Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, out of concern that they would carry out attacks inside Pakistan. Another sign of the Musharraf government's blind concessions is my intelligence sources' belief that when militants demanded the release of 2,500 foreign fighters as part of a "prisoner exchange," that was probably a high-ball offer. The militants likely expected to be bargained down, but instead of doing so the Pakistani government immediately agreed to their demands.

The Telegraph does provide some sob stories about foreigners who were unjustly imprisoned, but my intelligence sources believe that many of these stories collapse upon a careful reading. For example, the Telegraph reports, "A third former prisoner, a 37-year-old Algerian, had come to fight the Russian-backed government in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. He married a Pakistani woman and claimed to have settled down and worked in the honey business when he was arrested last year." In fact, my sources believe that this "honey business" was run by high-ranking al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah, and is the same honey business that the U.S. government has tried to shut down. (See the Christian Science Monitor's discussion of al-Qaeda's involvement in the honey business.)

This is the second significant al-Qaeda victory in Pakistan in recent weeks. As one source told me, "This nullifies five years' worth of work in one fell swoop."

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