A SENIOR Taleban commander in Afghanistan who is thought to have orchestrated one of the country's worst bombing atrocities has escaped from German special forces – because they were not authorised to kill him.
The fiasco highlights the absurd role played in the country by the German military – they are known sarcastically to other nations fighting in Afghanistan as "the bridge builders", as Berlin will not let them fire shots in any situation other than
self-defence.
The man who escaped is called the Baghlan Bomber – he masterminded an attack in November 2007 during a ceremony marking the reopening of a sugar factory in Baghlan province in which 79 people, many of them children, were killed.
According to intelligence sources, he has organised roadside bombs in other areas that have hit British military convoys, and he shelters suicide attackers before they carry out their missions.
Intelligence officials say he has strong links with al-Qaeda leaders based in Pakistan and is one of the top logisticians behind the Taleban's struggle to destroy the fledgling democracy in Afghanistan.
Germany's KSK special forces had been charged with capturing the terrorist, in co-operation with the Afghan secret service and the Afghan army. The elite German soldiers were able to uncover his location and spent weeks on his trail.
At the end of March, they moved into a location near the town of Pol-e-Khomri to seize him. Dressed in black and equipped with night-vision goggles, the team came within a few hundred metres of their target before they were discovered by Taleban forces. He escaped.
The KSK told their commanders it would have been possible to kill him – they literally had him in their sights – but they were not authorised to do so.
The case has caused disgust at the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf] peacekeeping force in Kabul, where the current strategy is to "eliminate" Taleban hardliners through targeted assassinations while attempting to win other fighters over.
And the Baghlan Bomber is a threat once more. The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported yesterday: "Warned of Isaf's activities and intent on taking revenge, the man and his network are active once again."
According to some estimates, close to a third of the Taleban leaders, about 150 commanders, have been "neutralised" – killed or captured – over the past four years. Most of the missions are undertaken by British or US special forces. Why the Germans were sent after the Baghlan Bomber is unclear, but there are more insurgents pouring into the nine Afghan provinces the Germans command.
Maulawi Bashir Haqqani, the Taleban's military commander in Kunduz, said: "The Germans are the most important enemy in the north. If they leave their base, they will find booby traps and bombs waiting for them on every road. They will have to carry many more bodies in coffins on their shoulders if they don't come to the realistic conclusion that their forces must withdraw from our country."
Critics accuse the Germans of achieving precisely the opposite effect to what they claim to be aiming for. A British officer at Isaf headquarters told Der Spiegel: "The Germans are allowing the most dangerous people to get away and are, in the process, increasing the danger for the Afghans and for all foreign forces here."
The full article contains 555 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
