Pakistan hunts for pro-Taleban clerics who were at Al Qaeda dinner

(AP) 20 January 2006 PESHAWAR - Pakistani agents continued their hunt for two pro-Taleban clerics who dined with top Al Qaeda operatives the night of last week’s US missile strike, hoping to determine who was killed in the attack.

Pakistani officials say Faqir Mohammed and Liaqat Ali were likely responsible for burying - and concealing - the bodies of as many as four Al Qaeda operatives killed in the US assault that targeted, but missed, the network’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Mohammed reportedly returned near the scene of the attack in Pakistan’s tribal region two days later to lead an anti-US protest.

“The government is actively hunting for them,” a senior government official with high-level access to information on the Damadola attack said on Thursday.

“Once we have them in custody, more will definitely be revealed” about that night, said the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.

Officials have said four or five foreign militants were killed in last Friday’s attack in Damadola, a village near the Afghan border. They say the airstrike targeted - but missed - al-Zawahri. It also killed 13 local people, outraging many in the Islamic country.

Chemical weapons expert Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar may be among the senior Al Qaeda operatives killed in the attack, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao, who was in New York with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, said the bodies may have been removed by Mohammed - who was born in the small hamlet of Sewai just a few kilometers (miles) from Damadola.

The official said a count of hastily dug graves after the airstrike generated new information. At least two of the graves had no bodies, but were filled in with dirt anyway.

Three other graves were dug and left empty, apparently because those initially thought to have been killed were later discovered alive.

“The search for people, dead or alive, is still ongoing,” said Shah Zaman Khan, the government’s top spokesman for the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

Mohammed and Ali’s movements since the attack make them prime suspects in the supposed concealment of the bodies, officials say.

They were both in Damadola at the time of the pre-dawn assault, but escaped unscathed, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Soon after, the clerics returned to lead funeral rites for the victims. Then they came back again to lead a large protest against the allegedly CIA-led sortie.

Mohammed and Ali mobilized around 8,000 armed men to fight US forces after its invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Pakistani officials said.

The two are already wanted for harboring terrorists, and the government has outlawed their Islamic group, Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi, or Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law.

In May last year, security forces raided their homes in Hewai, arresting at least a dozen suspected terrorists from Uzbekistan. They were not present then.

The News, a widely circulated Pakistani national newspaper, quoted Mohammed as saying earlier this week that he “would offer refuge” to al-Zawahri “if he made a request.”

“It is my wish to meet al-Zawahri because he is a soldier of Islam,” it quoted him as saying.