NEFA Exclusive: An Interview with Haji Namdar

[tayfah_mansurah]

http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/FeaturedDocs/nefanamdar0808.pdf

[Mas'ood]

On Wednesday morning, Haji Namdar, the chief of the "Vice and Virtue" organization in Khyber Agency, a tribal region on the Afghan border, was gunned down in his office by Baitullah's men.

Although Namdar supported the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, he was a strategic asset for the Pakistani security agencies trying to wipe out al-Qaeda-influenced radicals and the neo-Taliban.

In April, he sold out the Taliban after initially agreeing to help them target the North Atlantic Treaty Organization supply lines passing through Khyber Agency. (See Taliban bitten by a snake in the grass (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JD26Df01.html), April 26, 2008.) Namdar had survived an earlier suicide attack in which about 30 people died.

Namdar's death leaves the Pakistani security agencies and the government with only one "precious asset" - Haji Nazeer in South Waziristan. Other than him, they have no choice but to deal with Baitullah's radical face.