Taliban/AQ vs Taliban - sowing discord

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Taliban bitten by a snake in the grass​

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - The Taliban and their al-Qaeda associates, in what they considered a master stroke, this year started to target the Western alliance's supply lines that run through Pakistan into Afghanistan.

Their focal point was Khyber Agency, in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a key transit point for as much as 70% of the alliance's supplies needed to maintain its battle against the Afghan insurgency.

The spectacular blowing up on March 20 of 40 gas tankers at Torkham - the border crossing in Khyber Agency into Afghanistan's Nangarhar province - sent shock waves through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led (NATO) coalition. So much so that it made a deal for some supplies to transit through Russia, a much more arduous route.

The Torkham success was followed by a number of smaller attacks, and the Taliban's plan appeared to be going better than they could have expected.

Then came this week's incident in which the Taliban seized two members of the World Food Program (WFP) in Khyber Agency, and it became obvious the Taliban had been betrayed, and all for the princely sum of about US$150,000.

Their Khyber dreams are now in tatters.

With friends like this ...

When the Taliban's new tactic emerged, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - which Pakistan's intelligence community says maintains its biggest South Asian presence in Pakistan - sprung into action and staged a coup of its own.

But that's getting ahead of the story.

After coming under intense pressure in its traditional strongholds in the North and South Waziristan tribal areas, al-Qaeda and the Taliban staged a joint shura (council). This meeting concluded that they had to be especially careful of local political parties and tribals who were all too ready to sell themselves in the US's quest to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. The council pointed to the example of Iraq, where the US's policy of courting Sunni tribes to turn against al-Qaeda has had marked success.

At this point, the council hit on the idea of taking the initiative and turning Taliban and al-Qaeda attention on Khyber Agency with the aim of bleeding the Western coalition without having to launch major battles.

This was fine in theory, but there were practical difficulties: the agency is the most unlikely place for "Talibanization". The majority of the population is Brelvi-Sufi Muslim, traditionally opposed to the Taliban's Deobandi and al-Qaeda's Salafi ideology. Being an historic route for armies and traders, the population is politically liberal and pragmatist, not easily swayed by idealist and Utopian ideology such as the Taliban's and al-Qaeda's.

So the Taliban sent in its own fighting corps gathered from other tribal areas, and drafted in Ustad Yasir, a heavyweight Afghan commander, from Afghanistan. These predominantly Pashtun fighters consider the Afridi and Shinwari tribes, the natives of Khyber Agency, as materialist and non-ideological, but all the same a local host was essential for their operation.

The Taliban hit on one of the few Salafis in the area, Haji Namdar, as their point man. Namdar is not a traditional tribal, he's a trader who has worked in Saudi Arabia. His Salafi ideology and the fact that he is a practicing Muslim lent him credibility - and trustworthiness - in the eyes of the Taliban.

Namdar came on board, offering to provide the Taliban with sanctuary for their men, arms and supplies along the main road leading to the border area. He gave these assurances to Taliban leaders in his own home.

The Americans were fully aware of the Taliban's designs on Khyber Agency and invested a lot in the tribes to protect the route. In response, the Taliban threatened tribal chieftains, and launched a suicide attack on a jirga (meeting) convened to discuss eradicating the Taliban from the area. Over 40 tribals were killed.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte also visited Khyber Agency to meet with chiefs, but out of fear for the Taliban only six tribal elders showed up. It appeared the Americans had been outwitted, but their game was not over.

Anyway, with the Taliban's arrangement with Namdar, the stage was set and they steadily stepped up their attacks on convoys heading for Afghanistan, leading to the capture of the two WFP members and their vehicle on Monday.

Things start to go wrong

Unlike in previous Taliban attacks in the area, local paramilitary forces chased the Taliban after this incident. The Taliban retaliated and five soldiers were killed, but then their ammunition ran out and they surrendered the two workers and tried to flee, but they were blocked.

The Taliban called in reinforcements, but so did the paramilitary troops, and a stalemate was reached. Eventually, the Taliban managed to capture a local political agent (representing the central government) and they used him as a hostage to allow their escape.

They retreated to their various safe houses, but to their horror, paramilitary troops were waiting for them and scores were arrested, and their arms caches seized. A number of Taliban did, however, manage to escape once word got out of what was happening.

The only person aware of the safe houses was Namdar, their supposed protector: they had been sold out.

Their worst suspicions were confirmed when Namdar broke his cover and announced on a local radio station that Taliban commanders, including Ustad Yasir, should surrender or face a "massacre", as happened when local tribes turned against Uzbek fighters in South Waziristan in January 2007.

Namdar said that he had the full weight of the security forces behind him, and he did not fear any suicide attack.

Al-Qaeda and the Taliban immediately called an emergency shura in North Waziristan to review the situation. Al-Qaeda's investigations revealed that the CIA and Pakistani intelligence had got to Namdar and paid him $150,000 in local currency.

The immediate result is that Taliban operations in Khyber Agency have been cut off. This in itself is a major setback, as the attacks on supply lines had hit a raw NATO nerve.

In the broader context, Namdar's betrayal vividly illustrates the dangers of traitors within the ranks of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The fear is that the various peace deals being signed now between the Islamabad government and selected tribal leaders could lead to a whole new batch of betrayals.

The conclusion, therefore, is to go all-out to stop the government's dialogue process with militants and tribals.

Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan

If true, this would explain why Namdar has been targeted so many times by suicide bombers, and it would explain why he was so cocky in his interview with Muhammed Malick - he has the support of both CIA and the ISI.

I am not sure I am comfortable with this policy however, we are supporting militias against other militias...

 

[Neo]

Number of foreign militants in Pak’s tribal areas surge to 8000, Gilani told​

By Sahil Nagpal Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani

Islamabad, July 21 : In a report presented to Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, it has been claimed that there were around 8000 foreign fighters present in the country, mostly in North and South Waziristan and Bajaur agencies.

The report was presented to the Prime Minister in the presence of PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Adviser to the Interior Ministry Rehman Malik.

According to the report, the biggest attraction for these young militants from the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe was the “increase in the number of US troops in Afghanistan”.

“A lot of young Muslims were coming to Afghanistan to fight the US troops who, they believed, had come to Afghanistan not to fight terrorism but to occupy more Muslim lands, including Pakistan, and to plunder their resources,” The News quoted the report as saying.

Quoting Afghan sources, the report said that these foreign fighters were welcomed not only in the Pakistani tribal areas but also in eastern, southern and western Afghanistan. The rising number of civilian causalities had created lot of hatred and resentment against foreign security forces in these Afghan and Pakistani areas. Angry locals believed that the foreign fighters were coming to avenge these killings.

Most of these foreign militants came as tourists and traders directly from Dushanbe, Baku, Istanbul, Dubai, Sharjah, Delhi and Frankfurt to Kabul by different airlines. Many Afghans in Kabul, Karachi, Dubai and Delhi were working for them as travel agents. It’s also very easy to make a new Afghan passport for them in Kabul, added the report.

Through the report, Gilani was also informed that some foreign intelligence agencies were pushing their agents into the Pakistani tribal areas from Afghanistan under the cover of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters. These under-cover agents are trying to instigate the local population to fight against Pakistani forces as part of a “great game” in the region, added the paper.

According to Rehman Malik, Gilani and his key ministers will visit Peshawar today for a special meeting, which could decide the launching of a major operation against foreign fighters in FATA. It would be a short and effective operation like the one in Bara recently, The News quoted official sources as saying.

The report also claimed that these foreign fighters avoided getting in touch with non-tribal Pakistani fighters because they suspected them of having links with Pakistani intelligence. Pakistani officials were putting pressure on the Taliban leadership not to encourage foreigners to cross the border into Afghanistan to fight US and NATO troops. The Taliban were also asking them to put down their guns and register themselves with the local political administration.

While some Taliban leaders in North Waziristan have started discouraging foreigners from crossing the border, some in South Waziristan are not ready to listen to the Pakistani government. Their defiance has created a lot of confusion and resentment in Islamabad because the Pakistan government was already under lot of pressure to use heavy force against the Taliban. (ANI)

Number of foreign militants in Pak’s tribal areas surge to 8000, Gilani told | Top News

 

[muse]

Plot to divide the Taliban foiled
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Along with the Taliban's ongoing progress in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has strengthened its position in Pakistan's tribal areas, reinforced by a steady stream of new recruits from other countries and an expansion of its networks among local tribes.

The situation reached a point where the Pakistani security agencies, in connivance with the Saudi establishment, felt they had to act. They hatched a plot to establish a proxy network in a newly formed Taliban group that rivals the anti-state al-Qaeda franchise of Baitullah Mehsud's Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban.

Al-Qaeda was wise to the ploy, though, and the proxies were last Friday wiped out before they could even gain a toehold.

A senior Pakistani militant affiliated with al-Qaeda's setup told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, "Pakistan and the Saudi establishment tried to create a conspiracy, taking advantage of some tribal feuds between Taliban commanders coming from [tribal] Wazir and Mehsud backgrounds, and planted their proxy network to hijack the whole Taliban movement.

"But on Friday there was a clash in Mohmand Agency in which Taliban commanders close to Baitullah Mehsud terminated the leadership [of the proxies], including Shah Khalid, the local leader of the pro-government Taliban. The move to hijack the Taliban movement vanished into smoke," the militant said.

At least 15 people, including Khalid, the chief of a militant outfit known as the "Shah group", and his deputy, Qari Abdullah, were killed in the fighting. (State-run PTV, however, reported that Khalid had been killed after surrendering to militants loyal to Mehsud.)

Khalid's group had previously been involved only in fighting United States-led forces in Afghanistan and was not interested in local Pakistani affairs. But it recently became a part of a newly formed group headed by North Waziristan's Wazir tribal commander, Gul Bahadur, to rival al-Qaeda's franchise - Mehsud's network.

The roots of the group's formation were originally the result of ethnic differences between the Wazir tribe and the Mehsud tribe, but Pakistani security agencies took full advantage of the situation and encouraged known Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) contacts in the Taliban, such as Haji Nazir from South Waziristan and Haji Namdar from the Khyber Agency, beside Khalid from Mohmand Agency, to be a part of this new Shah group.

Mehsud is now on the offensive, all too aware of the establishment's schemes to undermine him and al-Qaeda.

Since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Pakistan has tried to drive al-Qaeda from the seat of the ideological throne of the Afghan resistance against Western armies by encouraging local Afghan commanders to structure the resistance on tribal lines.

In the broader picture, Pakistan envisaged this would improve the chances of reconciliation between the tribal movement and the Western armies, and the tribals would eventually be tolerated as the rulers of Afghanistan. Pakistan's connections would in the process remain intact in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda would be alienated.

Tribal tribulations
The story of the current infighting in the Taliban starts in the labyrinth of the regional war theater with the emergence of one Aminullah Peshawari, a well-respected Salafi academic whose influence spread from the Pakistani city of Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), the tribal areas of Mohmand and Bajaur to the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nooristan.

Aminullah was a known anti-establishment figure and used to meet Osama bin Laden, but he was neither a militant nor operated any militant group. He was a credible anti-American voice in the region.

After the US invasion of Afghanistan and the defeat of the Taliban, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation started operations in Pakistan against al-Qaeda's sympathizers. The Pakistani security apparatus was aware that it had to play its cards very cleverly in its newfound role as a partner in the "war on terror". Pakistani officials thus approached Aminullah and warned him of possible arrest and of being sent to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The noose was tightened so much that the respected Salafi academic was left with no choice but to blindly follow the footsteps of the Pakistani security agencies, which were desperate that he announce his support for the Laskhar-i-Taiba's commander in Mohmand Agency, Shah Khalid.

Previously, Khalid's group had been banned from operating inside Afghanistan because of his closeness with the Pakistani security agencies. Aminullah's support allowed Khalid to operate in the region freely. Both Aminullah and Khalid were now on the payroll of the ISI and Saudi intelligence.

Aminullah moved around with armed guards and a string of four-wheel drive vehicles in the city of Peshawar. The same protocol was given to Khalid. These sort of allowances and the money helped their networks thrive and they boasted of several successful operations in Afghanistan.

This month, North Waziristan's Gul Bahadur made public his differences with Baitullah Mehsud and summoned a meeting at which he (Gul) was appointed as the chief of Pakistani Taliban. Khalid emerged as one of Gul's main followers.

Other local Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders, however, suspected that Khalid had links to the state apparatus. A respected Taliban deputy commander in Nooristan province in Afghanistan and Kunar province's Mufti Yousuf advised Khalid to submit to the local discipline of the Taliban instead of operating a separate jihadi network. The advice went unheeded. As a result, tension mounted between Khalid and Omar Khalid, alias Abdul Wali, the regional commander installed by the Taliban.

As for Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan, the Taliban did not want to challenge him as he is a grandson of the legendary anti-British resistance fighter, Faqir of Ipi, and they were not sure he was an ISI proxy.

However, Omar Khalid suspected a few ISI-backed Taliban commanders in the Pakistani tribal areas would aim to take advantage of his and Gul Bahadur's differences, and Khalid was one of them, in addition to Haji Nazeer of South Waziristan.

So the decision was taken to confront the pure proxies of the ISI, Khalid being the first. He was advised by Omar Khalid to leave the area at once. Khalid agreed, and one of his comrades, Haji Namdar from Khyber Agency, provided him with a base in the agency. But last Tuesday, one of Khalid's men killed a deputy of Omar Khalid's group.

This situation in the most important strategic backyard of the Taliban, which guarantees them access to Nooristan and Kunar provinces across the border, was of major concern to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who also wanted to clarify just who the ISI's contacts were.

Mullah Omar assigned two of the Taliban's most respected regional commanders to intervene. They were Ustad Yasir of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and Pakistan's Khyber Agency, and Qari Ziaur Rahman of the Afghan provinces of Nooristan and Kunar and the Pakistani agencies of Mohmand and Bajaur.

These commanders arrived in Mohmand Agency on Friday, but on that day the Taliban's local commander had already begun fighting Khalid, conclusively beating him and capturing his network's arsenal and assets.

As a follow up, Mullah Omar's delegates, including Ustad Yasir and Qari Ziaur Rahman, issued a strict warning that such intra-Taliban bloodletting was not acceptable and that in the future all fighters would work under one umbrella with no stand-alone activities tolerated. This is a clear message to the rivals of Baitullah.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani government has tried to play the killing of Khalid and his fellow jihadis to its advantage. The bodies were taken to Peshawar in a procession arranged by various Salafi organizations. The highest political figure of a Salafi political party to have received direct patronage from Riyadh, Allama Sajid Mir, attended prayers in Peshawar and held a press conference in which he maintained that the majority of the Taliban were deviants, terminology generally used by the Saudi religious apparatus against al-Qaeda.

The Pakistani national press played up the incident under banner headlines of discord among the supporters of the Afghan battle against coalition forces.

Baitullah Mehsud hit back by announcing a deadline for NWFP's secular and liberal government, which signed a peace deal with the Taliban, to resign within five days or face the consequences. But at the same time the Taliban resumed operations in NWFP - a clear aggressive gesture against the state's writ.

The Taliban and al-Qaeda have come out of this sideshow in the tribal areas as strong as ever, and more recruits keep pouring in.

The Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan is viewed by global militants as a part of the promised battles of Khurasan (ancient Khurasan comprising mostly Afghanistan, the Pakistani tribal areas and parts of Iran), hinted at in the Prophet Mohammad's sayings concerning the End of Time battles.

It is believed the militants of Khurasan will eventually win this battle and then go to the Middle East (the Land of Two Rivers is said to be Iraq and Syria) to support the armies of the promised Mehdi to fight against the anti-Christ in Palestine. Based on this theory, jihadi websites are calling on Muslims to support the Afghan jihad instead of going to Iraq.

But the revival of al-Qaeda in the Pakistan region will provide a new lifeline for the Iraqi resistance as newly trained fighters from Afghanistan can go to Iraq when fighting slows in the winter months in Afghanistan.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

 

[Cheetah786]

Syed Saleem Shahzad i give him 10 out of 10 to right fiction this guy is so good about all the B.S he writes.

 

[muse]

lol

I tend to agree that he's shady - but check out the articles below and note these are from a few days ago - Also recall a taliban commander and his deputy dying in a auto accident just a couple of days ago -- so while it may be fiction, there may be just be something to it:


Baitullah orders inquiry into Taliban groups’ clash

* 10 militants killed by rival group had formally joined TTP only a few days earlier

GHALANAI: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud on Sunday expressed sorrow over the killing of 10 people of the Shah group in Mohmand Agency by local TTP members, and asked local TTP commander Dr Umar Khalid to explain his position, and also form a committee to investigate the incident.

TTP spokesman Maulvi Umar told reporters from an undisclosed location that Baitullah had formed a committee to probe the incident.

In case of an unsatisfactory outcome of the probe, the spokesman added, action would be taken against Dr Umar Khalid.

Joined: He said the killed members of the Shah group had taken an oath of loyalty to Baitullah Mehsud and formally joined the TTP only a few days ago. He said the “Taliban emirate” has formed a jirga to end the conflict between the two groups. Baitullah has expressed sympathy with the families of those killed in the clash, he added.

It was reported that 10 Taliban militants of the Shah group were killed at the hands of another Taliban group led by Dr Umar Khalid some days ago in the Mohmand Agency area. The Taliban spokesman told BBC that Khalid was suspected to be responsible for the killing of the 10 Taliban militants. staff report/daily times monitor


Taliban kill rival group leaders

GHALANAI/PESHAWAR: The Umar Khalid group of Taliban killed two top leaders of a rival militant group in Mohmand on Saturday. Taliban spokesman Dr Asad said that the chief of Shah group, Muslim Khan, and his deputy, Maulvi Obaidullah, were shot dead after a Taliban court ordered their executions. Meanwhile, Baitullah Mehsud called an immediate meeting of Taliban Shoora to hold accountable Khalid for the killings, Geo TV quoted Maulvi Umer as saying. staff report/daily times monitor

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

SS has written an earlier article that follows the same theme, and the events and figures he mentions are the same, as are the respective loyalties and reported causes of friction between the various groups determined from news reports from the area from non Asia Times sources.

Its an interesting dynamic, and I'll create a separate thread to follow any developments in this regard.

 

[BATMAN]

A CIA lesson from the field: Never trust another spy

By Mark Mazzetti
Sunday, July 20, 2008

WASHINGTON: As they complete their training at "The Farm," the CIA's base in the Virginia Tidewater, young agency recruits are taught a lesson they are expected never to forget during assignments overseas: There is no such thing as a friendly intelligence service.

Foreign spy services, even those of America's closest allies, will try to manipulate you. So you had better learn how to manipulate them back.

But most CIA veterans agree that no relationship between the spy agency and a foreign intelligence service is quite as byzantine, or as maddening, as that between the CIA and the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

It is like a bad marriage in which both spouses have long stopped trusting each other but would never think of breaking up because they have become so mutually dependent.

Without the ISI's help, U.S. spies in Pakistan would be incapable of carrying out their primary mission in the country: hunting Islamic militants, including top members of Al Qaeda. Without the millions of covert U.S. dollars sent annually to Pakistan, the ISI would have trouble competing with the spy service of its archrival, India.

But the relationship is complicated by a web of competing interests. First off, the top U.S. goal in the region is to shore up the Afghan government and security services to better fight the ISI's traditional proxies, the Taliban, there.

Inside Pakistan, the primary U.S. interest is to dismantle a Taliban and Qaeda haven in the mountainous tribal lands.

Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan, and especially the ISI, used the Taliban and militants from those areas to exert power in Afghanistan and block India from gaining influence there. The ISI has also supported other militant groups that carried out operations against Indian troops in Kashmir, something that complicates Washington's efforts to stabilize the region.

Of course, there are few examples in history of spy services really trusting one another. After all, people who earn their salaries by lying and assuming false identities probably don't make the most reliable business partners. Moreover, spies know that the best way to steal secrets is to penetrate the ranks of another spy service.

But circumstances have for years forced successful, if ephemeral, partnerships among spies. The Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA, worked with the predecessors of the KGB to hunt Nazis during World War II, even as the United States and the Soviet Union were quickly becoming adversaries.

These days, the relationship between Moscow and Washington is turning frosty again, over a number of issues. But, quietly, U.S. and Russian spies continue to collaborate to combat drug trafficking and organized crime, and to secure nuclear arsenals.

The relationship between the CIA and the ISI was far less complicated when the United States and Pakistan were intently focused on one common goal: kicking the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. For years in the 1980s, the CIA used the ISI as the conduit to funnel arms and money to Afghan rebels fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

But even in those good old days, the two spy services were far from trusting of each other - in particular over the Pakistani quest for nuclear weapons. In his book "Ghost Wars," the journalist Steve Coll recounts how the ISI chief in the early 1980s, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, banned all social contact between his ISI officers and CIA operatives in Pakistan. He was also convinced that the CIA had set up an elaborate bugging network, so he had his officers speak in code on the telephone.

When the general and his aides were invited by the CIA to visit agency training sites in the United States, the Pakistanis were forced to wear blindfolds on the flights into the facilities.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, CIA officers have arrived in Islamabad knowing that they will probably depend on the ISI at least as much as they have depended on any liaison spy service in the past. Unlike spying in the capitals of Europe, where agency operatives can blend in to develop a network of informants, only a tiny fraction of CIA officers can walk the streets of Peshawar unnoticed.

And an even smaller fraction could move freely through the tribal areas to scoop up useful information about militant networks there.

Even the powerful ISI, which is dominated by Punjabis, the largest ethnic group in Pakistan, has difficulties collecting information in the tribal lands, the home of fiercely independent Pashtun tribes. For this reason, the ISI has long been forced to rely on Pashtun tribal leaders - and in some cases Pashtun militants - as key informants.

Given the natural disadvantages, CIA officers try to get any edge they can through technology, the one advantage they have over the local spies.

For example, the Pakistani government has long restricted where the CIA can fly Predator surveillance drones inside Pakistan, limiting flight paths to approved "boxes" on a grid map.

The CIA's answer to that restriction? It deliberately flies Predators beyond the approved areas, just to test Pakistani radars. According to one former agency officer, the Pakistanis usually notice.

As U.S. and allied casualty rates in Afghanistan have grown in the last two years, the ISI has become a subject of fierce debate within the CIA. Many in the spy agency - particularly those stationed in Afghanistan - accuse their agency colleagues at the Islamabad station of actually being too cozy with their ISI counterparts. There have been bitter fights between the CIA station chiefs in Kabul and Islamabad, particularly about the significance of the militant threat in the tribal areas.

Veterans of the CIA station in Islamabad point to the capture of a number of senior Qaeda leaders in Pakistan in recent years as proof that the Pakistani intelligence service has often shown a serious commitment to roll up terrorist networks.

And, they point out, the ISI has just as much reason to distrust the Americans as the CIA has to distrust the ISI. The CIA largely pulled up stakes in the region after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, rather than staying to resist the chaos and bloody civil war that led ultimately to the Taliban ascendance in the 1990s.

After the withdrawal, the U.S. tools to understand the complexity of relationships in Central and South Asia became rusty. The ISI operates in a neighborhood of constantly shifting alliances, where double-dealing is an accepted rule of the game, a phenomenon many in Washington still have problems accepting.

Until late last year, when he was elevated to the command of the entire army, the Pakistani spymaster who had been running the ISI was General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. U.S. officials describe Kayani as at once engaging and inscrutable, an avid golfer with some odd affectations. He will spend several minutes carefully hand-rolling a cigarette, then, after taking one puff, he stubs it out.

The grumbling at the CIA about the ISI comes with a certain grudging reverence for the spy service's Machiavellian qualities. Some former spies even talk about the Pakistani agency with a mix of awe and professional jealousy.

One retired senior CIA official said that of all the foreign spymasters the CIA had dealt with, Kayani was the most formidable and may have earned the most respect at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The soft-spoken general, he said, is a master manipulator.

"We admire those traits," he said.

I think it's a good read for those who don't know the history and difficulties in co-operation and FATA.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Already posted Batman - merging with Taliban vs Taliban thread..

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Taliban split into two factions in Bajaur Agency​

By Hasbanullah Khan

KHAR: Taliban in the Bajaur tribal district split into two factions after infighting between two militant organisations in Mohmand Agency led to the killing of eight members of one group on July 18.

Pro-Baitullah Mehsud Taliban leader Umer Khalid killed eight members from the Shah Sahib militant group, including its chief and deputy chief, on July 18.

“We, four commanders, are resigning from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) over the killing of mujahideen in Mohmand Agency,” Salar Masood, a spokesman for the four commanders, told Daily Times on Monday. “We will form our own group – Tehreek-e-Taliban Al Jihad – to continue jihad against the United States,” Masood said on the phone from an undisclosed location in the Bajaur region. Maulvi Munir, Dr Abdul Wahab and Maulvi Abdul Hameed are the three other commanders who left the TTP.

“Innocent mujahideen were killed in Mohmand. This is against shariah. Mujahideen do not kill innocent people,” Masood said. He charged the Baitullah Mehsud-led TTP with “deviating” from the real cause of fighting the Americans inside Afghanistan. “We took up the matter with Baitullah Mehsud but he did not take our concern seriously,” he said.

The rift between the Taliban, according to observers, would weaken Baitullah Mehsud. They believe the infighting among militant organisations would help the government exploit the situation.

“Taliban leader in Bajaur Maulvi Faqir must be upset at this development because the four commanders are quite influential,” the observers said on condition of anonymity.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

Excellent!

Keep the suitcases full of cash flowing!

Going by Hussain Haqqani's comments in the US, Pakistan has about a year to break the back of anti-state Taliban/AQ groups by using the anti -occupation an Taliban groups, and then somehow move the insurgents towards a process of dialog on both sides of the Durand that results in the violence abating....

Tall task.

 

[muse]

Excellent, indeed. Now if, some unfortunate Talib or Tulaba (kin) should exercise themselves on Baitullah Masood in keeping with Pashtunwali - well... time will tell.

 

[muse]

How Harvard students want to fight terrorism
Disappointing views from the best and brightest.
By .By Iason Athanasiadis
from the July 29, 2008 edition



Cambridge, Mass. - A course about Al Qaeda taught by Peter Bergen, the British journalist who bagged Osama bin Laden's first face-to-face interview on CNN, became last semester's must-attend event at Harvard's elite Kennedy School.

The international students crowding into the school's largest auditorium were a cross-section of Americans, Europeans, and Middle Easterners, including current members of the US Army and intelligence community on sabbatical leave. Attending it gave me a fascinating window into the mind-set of the young, global elites who will lead the next generation's fight against terrorism.

How do these best and brightest view the "long war"? And do they have what it takes to win it? The last class of the course was the most instructive in how elite Americans' perspectives on the war against terrorism have matured. Mr. Bergen paced the auditorium, asking the students for their recommendations on defeating Al Qaeda.

From horror, incomprehension, and the rush to conclude that "They hate us for our freedoms" – typical of the post-Sept. 11 response – there is now a shift toward viewing Al Qaeda as a fractious group that can be subverted and defeated by manipulating its internal divisions.

Intelligence reform and the restructuring of the bureaucracy topped the discussion. Some suggested that the analyst shortage currently afflicting intelligence agencies could be overcome by scrubbing top-secret evidence pointing to sources (in order not to jeopardize the safety of field agents) and by inviting nonsecurity cleared analysts in the commercial intelligence arena to mull the information over.

Others felt that America's Arab immigrants should be seen as a strength rather than a liability, as the security clearance program currently tends to classify them. A student of Lebanese origin suggested that Homeland Security deploy a network of informants drawn from immigrant communities because "these guys have come over here and benefited from the bounty, so they should put something back."

A diplomat wearing a US-Kuwait friendship T-shirt stamped with a government seal suggested that Pentagon employees with 20-plus years of service should be recycled into the State Department and the CIA to help rejuvenate these institutions.

Generally, the American students tended toward recommending superficial solutions for winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. A deft repackaging of the war on terror or the realigning of bureaucratic entities in the Departments of Defense and State would do it, they seemed to think.

One American student took this syllogism to an extreme conclusion when he proposed that the US government confront Al Qaeda with "brand denial" by banning spokesmen and officials from referring to the organization by its name.

He reasoned that, deprived of the oxygen of publicity, the terrorists would shrivel up and die. Bergen asked the student whether the Bush administration should also ban the domestic press from referring to Al Qaeda. The student stammered in indecision and the auditorium exploded in laughter.

Slicker packaging will not make American policies more palatable to Middle Eastern audiences or improve Washington's image in the region. The debacle of Al-Hurra, the State Department-funded Arabic-language news network is one example. But such shallow reasoning echoes at the very highest levels of the Bush administration.

In a speech in November, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates expressed embarrassment that "Al Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America." What seems to elude US policymakers is the truth that Al Qaeda's anti-Western, anti-interventionist message resonates with Arab and Muslim audiences sick of what they view as neocolonial meddling in their region.

These views are fed by daily television coverage of US-led occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, American support for unpopular governing elites, and the stymieing of popular political movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas when they win elections.

Back in Bergen's auditorium, a lone European student ventured that only a substantive shift in Washington's policy toward the region could bear true fruit and boost the US quest to succeed in the war against terrorism. Ceasing uncritical support for Israel, the student proposed, might overcome the impression in the Arab world that the US is not an "honest broker." Silence greeted his comments.

Will a new generation of Kennedy School graduates become effective bureaucratic and military foot soldiers in the "long war"? Can they provide America with the cultural awareness it needs if it is to vanquish its foes in the Middle East's battlegrounds?

The rush to study Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages has abated, with university departments reporting reduced applications compared with the initial post-Sept. 11 spike. ******** of celebrity news, cost-cutting in the media industry, and a gripping presidential campaign have crippled the burst in foreign coverage that accompanied the 2001 and 2003 military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Aspiring Kennedy School graduates looking for professional involvement in the "long war" will probably have their newfound expertise channeled into the same molds carved out already by diplomacy, intelligence analysis, and war. Sitting in on Bergen's class revealed that the shift in thinking implicit in the generational hand over will not be spectacular.

American elites still nurture a certainty that they are on the side of perfect right against perfect wrong in their struggle with Muslim militancy. But fighting a global guerrilla conflict against highly motivated irregular forces and without defined targets has condemned the US to a war with no expiration date.

The rumblings of doubt over how America's strength-sapping campaigns will conclude have still not gone mainstream. But frank classroom discussions about the true nature of jihadis, downward estimates that only 10 to 20 percent of them might be irreconcilable, and brazen proposals to adopt more consultative and multilateral approaches in tackling them reveal that members of the Western establishment will approach the conflict armed with newfound sensitivities and subtler understandings.

• Iason Athanasiadis just completed a 2008 Nieman fellowship at Harvard University. A journalist who covers the Middle East, he is writing a book on the third generation of the Iranian Revolution titled, "Children of the Revolution: Khomeini's Unintended Legacy."

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

As it appears Taliban is King!

Introspection is the answer.

None else is to blame!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Salim,

As you have said repeatedly, "ideology cannot be killed" - isolating the most virulent forms of this ideology by using other Taliban and local groups is a sensible approach in the short to medium term.

If the main issue that the groups left over have is "NATO occupation", rather than imposing a worldwide caliphate at all costs, then that is something that can be worked with, and a process of dialog started.

 

[Spring Onion]

Salim,

As you have said repeatedly, "ideology cannot be killed" - isolating the most virulent forms of this ideology by using other Taliban and local groups is a sensible approach in the short to medium term.

If the main issue that the groups left over have is "NATO occupation", rather than imposing a worldwide caliphate at all costs, then that is something that can be worked with, and a process of dialog started.

It was not separating the groups rather it was long over due which the elected government faild to see.

there are two kinds of Taliban


1. US backed Baitullah led Taliban
2. Pro-Pakistan Taliban.


The baitullah led US backed Takfiri Taliban are against the state. they are being used to carry on suicide attacks in Pakistan and against law enforcement agencies.

they are being used for creating chaos in Pakistan.

The pro-Pakistan taliban do not support this Takfiri ideology and they also refused to fight against the state.

After much and wise efforts they were united agains US-backed Baitullah led Takfiris.

The US agent Baitullah and his men killed pro-Pakistan Taliban beacuse they were not supporting their ideology of suicide attacks and US agenda.

 

[roadrunner]

^^Does the pro Pakistan Taliban call themselves Taliban? Who named them as Taliban?

One thing that did strike me as odd, was when another Mehsud, Abdullah was released from Guantanamo so easily, whilst innocent men were kept there much longer. It could be the Mehsuds have a deal with the US. But why harbour Al Q? This then enters the realms of conspiracy.