Shock: Pakistan Hotbed For Terrorism

By Peter Goodspeed from the National Post. "The next attack on the United States will most likely be launched by al-Qaeda operating in the 'under-governed regions' of Pakistan,". I don't understand a war when you can't go after the enemy.

For centuries the wild Pakistani tribal area -- stretching 1,000 kilometres along the Afghan border -- has been lawless, violent and remote. Now, it is rapidly becoming a central front in the U.S.-led war on terror.

The harsh mountainous territory, which Pakistan doesn't control and is off limits to U.S. troops, has become a breeding ground for jihad and the chief training centre for al-Qaeda.

Just days before Pakistanis vote in a crucial election, their country is being threatened by a new generation of radicalized Islamist insurgents who have allied themselves with international terrorists.

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Fighters in the tribal areas have been blamed for carrying out more than 60 suicide attacks in Pakistan in the last year, including the Dec. 27 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. But fears are growing another high-profile attack could ignite the sort of chaos Islamic radicals thrive on.

But as al-Qaeda and the Taliban dispatch suicide bombers from the tribal belt to attack Pakistani security personnel and politicians, there are increasing indications Pakistan has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda and the ideological heartland for Islamist terrorists worldwide.

According to top U.S. security officials, South Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan, is the new headquarters for al-Qaeda's global operations and forms the centre of a web of terror plots and assassination attempts that reaches into Europe and the United States.

In testimony before Congress last week, retired admiral Michael McConnell, the U.S. director of national intelligence, stressed al-Qaeda has "regenerated its core operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks."

"Al-Qaeda has been able to retain a safe haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) that provides the organization many of the advantages it once derived from its base across the border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less secure scale," he said.

"The FATA serves as a staging area for al-Qaeda's attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives, for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the United States.

"The next attack on the United States will most likely be launched by al-Qaeda operating in the 'under-governed regions' of Pakistan," he added

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