Some see al-Qaida, Taliban rift

WASHINGTON – A growing number of Taliban militants in the Pakistani border region are refusing to collaborate with al-Qaida fighters, declining to provide shelter or assist in attacks in Afghanistan even in return for payment, according to U.S. military and counterterrorism officials.

The officials, citing evidence from interrogation of detainees, communications intercepts and public statements on extremist Web sites, say that threats to the militants’ long-term survival from Pakistani, Afghan and foreign military action are driving some Afghan Taliban away from al-Qaida.

As a result, al-Qaida fighters are in some cases being excluded from villages and other areas near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where they once received sanctuary.

Al-Qaida’s attempts to restore its dwindling presence in Afghanistan are also running into problems, the officials say. Al-Qaida was forced out of Afghanistan by the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban in 2001, and it re-established itself across the border in Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden and other leaders are thought to have taken refuge.

Al-Qaida is believed to have fewer than a hundred operatives still in Afghanistan. Though mounting attacks there is not the network’s main focus, it remains interested in striking U.S. and other targets.

But its capabilities have been degraded in recent years, and such attacks now require assistance from the Taliban or waiting for fleeting opportunities, such as the suicide bomber attack against a CIA base in Khowst in December by a Jordanian double agent who had promised U.S. officials intelligence about al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Last year, the organization began offering stipends to Afghans who would escort its operatives into Afghanistan, but there are indications that many Taliban are refusing this inducement, one U.S. official said.

“The Afghan Taliban does not want to be seen as, or heard of having the same relationship with, AQ that they had in the past,” said the senior official, who is familiar with the latest intelligence and used an abbreviation for al-Qaida.

Indications of al-Qaida-Taliban strains are at odds with recent public statements by the Obama administration, which has stressed close connections among militant groups to help build support from the Pakistani government and other allies to take them on all at once.

U.S. officials remain unsure whether the alliance between al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban is splintering for good, and some regard the possibility as little more than wishful thinking. A complete rupture is unlikely, some analysts say, because al-Qaida members have married into many tribes and formed other connections in years of hiding in Pakistan’s remote regions.

Officials acknowledge there is little evidence to suggest Mullah Mohammad Omar, the top Taliban leader, favors cutting ties with bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders, relationships that go back nearly two decades.

Unease with the continuing relationship is most apparent among the Taliban’s mid-level commanders and their followers, the U.S. officials said.

Though they have a common enemy in the United States and a common interest in maintaining their sanctuary, al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban have seen their goals diverge somewhat. The Taliban have focused on moderating their image as part of their campaign to retake power in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has drawn closer to other militant groups in Pakistan’s tribal belt that are seeking to overthrow the Pakistani government.