By Noor Khan
Associated Press, 16 January 2006
NAVA PASS BORDER CROSSING, Afghanistan - Just a few hours walk from where a U.S. missile strike targeted al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, soldiers lounge on the ground, looking bored and taking no notice of people who stroll across the border into Afghanistan.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan say they have stepped up security along this front line in the war on terror, but an Associated Press reporter who went to the region Monday saw little scrutiny of travelers' bags or IDs — suggesting there's not much to stop al-Qaida militants from slipping across.
No fence separates Afghanistan from Pakistan along much of the 1,470-mile-long frontier. At the border post at the top of Nava Pass, in Afghanistan's Kunar province, a rusting gate is all that divides the two countries.
Up to 1,000 people go through the checkpoint daily, and about 400 more are believed to cross along numerous tiny paths that wind their way through the rugged mountains, said Mohammed Akbar Ahamadwal, Kunar's border security commander.
Most of those who cross illegally are merely herding flocks of sheep between pastures or tribesmen with relatives in both countries, he said.
But not all are harmless.
"Our forces have had many gunbattles with terrorists we have caught sneaking across the border," Ahamadwal told the AP on a border tour in a heavily armed convoy. "Al-Qaida and Taliban come across, launch attacks then flee back."
Kunar and the neighboring Bajur region of Pakistan have long been militant hideouts because of their inaccessible mountains and caves — and the sympathies of residents. Many are Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. Some are Wahhabis, followers of a strict brand of Sunni Islam.
Kunar is where U.S. forces suffered their deadliest blow in Afghanistan since they ousted the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden. Last June, three Navy SEALs were killed in an ambush and 16 troops sent to rescue them died when their chopper was shot down — attacks claimed by the Taliban.
An Afghan army commander in Kunar, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media, said he often gets intelligence reports that Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's top lieutenant, and "other big al-Qaida people are in these mountains."
Al-Zawahri is believed to have been the target of a CIA-directed missile attack from a Predator drone Friday across the Pakistani border in the village of Damadola. Pakistani intelligence officials say he'd been invited to a dinner there, but didn't show up. Three houses were destroyed and 17 people killed, sparking angry protests in Pakistan.
The village is just four miles from the Afghan border — seven hour's walk from the border crossing at Nava Pass.
There are about 20,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and they often patrol Kunar with Afghan soldiers and go on joint operations against suspected militant bases in the mountains.
Yet most of the border-watching is done by Afghanistan and Pakistan, which in the past year have both dispatched extra troops.
Pakistan now has more than 70,000 forces in its tribal regions — although few were in evidence in Bajur after Friday's missile strike.
A senior army official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, maintained troops were working undercover because of residents' anger over the airstrike.
"People's sentiments are high. Can they go there wearing uniforms and camouflage?" he said.
In Kunar, a 1,000-member tribal militia force was established last month to patrol the frontier, provincial Gov. Assadullah Wafa told AP in the regional capital Asadabad, near a large U.S. military base that houses hundreds of Marines and commandos.
He said the new Afghan force, made up of young villagers, would "hopefully make it harder for the militants" to cross the border.
But there was little checking of travelers at Nava Pass on Monday until this AP reporter pulled out a video camera.
The guards, both Pakistani and Afghan, who had been sitting on the ground, their AK-47 assault rifles at their sides, jumped up and ordered the travelers to enter the border posts to have their IDs and bags examined.
Men were patted down for weapons, but women, all of whom were in flowing burqas, were allowed to pass unchecked.
Associated Press writer Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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Citation: Noor Khan. "Pakistani-Afghan Border Security Seems Lax," Associated Press, 16 January 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060116/ap_on_re_as/porous_border
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