A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

[RabzonKhan]

U.S. Resumes Surveillance Flights Over Pakistan

By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: June 29, 2009

WASHINGTON — As Pakistan escalates military operations against a top Taliban leader, the United States has resumed secret military surveillance drone flights over the country’s tribal areas to provide Pakistani commanders with a wide array of videos and other information on militants, according to American and Pakistani officials.

The sharing of real-time video feeds, communications intercepts and other information with Pakistan’s military is considered essential in the country’s campaign to help hunt down the Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and destroy his hideouts and forces in the country’s northwest, the officials said.

The increased intelligence cooperation comes as the Obama administration is also speeding the delivery of transport helicopters, body armor and other equipment that Pakistan’s military has requested to help combat Mr. Mehsud and to prepare for a major offensive in the militant leader’s stronghold in South Waziristan, a mountainous region abutting the border with Afghanistan.

The noncombat surveillance flights along the border are different from the flights of armed C.I.A.-operated drones that have attacked several Taliban targets in recent months and days. Last Tuesday, an American drone strike on a funeral in Pakistan’s tribal areas missed Mr. Mehsud by hours, a Pakistani security official said.

Responding to Pakistan’s renewed request for sophisticated surveillance information gets around, at least for the moment, the tensions surrounding the administration’s refusal to grant repeated requests by President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan that his country be given its own armed Predator drones to attack fighters of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the mountainous tribal areas.

American intelligence operatives who conduct the armed drone flights inside Pakistan remain opposed to joint operations with Pakistani intelligence services, pointing out that past attempts were failures. Several years ago, American officials gave Pakistan advance word of planned Predator attacks but stopped the practice after the information was leaked to militants.

Under the intelligence-sharing arrangement, which resumed in the past few weeks but has not previously been made public, Pakistani ground forces receive direct support for several hours a day, though not necessarily every day, from remotely piloted American military aircraft based in Afghanistan, a senior American defense official said.

The agreement allows the Pakistani military to request that the American military drones fly noncombat surveillance missions over certain swaths of territory in South Waziristan where it suspects militant activity, the American official said. Video feeds from the drones are relayed to a joint coordination center at a border crossing at the Khyber Pass, where a Pakistani military team monitors the video and sends it to command centers in Pakistan, the official said.

“There has been a lot of improvement in I.S.R.-related U.S. support to Pakistan,” said a senior Pakistani security official, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. But, he acknowledged, the technical connections have not been completely worked out.

American and Pakistani officials are still installing equipment to enhance and expand the flow of information from the joint coordination center to Pakistani security databases across the border, the Pakistani official said.

But Pakistani commanders have used the surveillance and communications information from the American drones to track cross-border movements of militants and to monitor specific areas for insurgent activity that can be attacked by Pakistani helicopter gunships or F-16 attack planes.

The Pakistani and American militaries agreed to the surveillance flights earlier this year as a way to lend American technology to Pakistan’s efforts against militants. The drone missions were also seen as an incremental step in building trust between two militaries long suspicious of each other’s motives.

The Pakistanis authorized drone missions over Bajaur and surrounding locations near the Afghan border, but the requests ended abruptly when Pakistani troops launched offensives in Swat and Buner, areas deep inside Pakistani territory just dozens of miles from Islamabad.

Pakistani officials worried about the risks of flying American drones so far from the border, and they feared that if a Predator were shot down or crashed, it might set off public anger about American involvement in domestic Pakistani matters.

Now, with Pakistani troops preparing for an offensive in South Waziristan, these concerns have receded and the drone missions have resumed.

American and Pakistani officials said that the intelligence sharing has helped in going after Mr. Mehsud’s fighters and confederates. They said that American drone operators were now concentrating on militants who were of interest to the Pakistanis, like Mr. Mehsud, and not just foreign fighters and Al Qaeda operatives who posed more of a direct threat to the United States and American interests abroad.

Spokesmen for the White House’s National Security Council, Defense Department and United States Central Command declined to comment for this article. Four American and Pakistani officials provided general details of the military surveillance flights, but only on condition of anonymity because of the continuing operations and because the United States remains very unpopular in Pakistani public opinion polls.

President Obama’s national security adviser, James L. Jones, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the military’s Central Command, have visited Pakistan recently to discuss security arrangements. Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is expected in the next several days to make his fourth trip to the region since assuming his role earlier this year.

Pakistani officials say that they have continued to express frustration in private that the United States is not sharing the targets of the armed drone attacks in advance — revealing lingering distrust on both sides — and that the C.I.A. is not sharing the assessments of their strikes in a timely way, often giving them to Pakistani officials days after an attack.

 

[RabzonKhan]

British and U.S. troops launch massive assault on Taliban

By David Gardner
Last updated at 7:13 AM on 02nd July 2009

British and American troops launched a huge offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan last night. Thousands of U.S. Marines in helicopters and armed convoys led the attack along a rebel-held valley in the southern Helmand province. British soldiers were also involved in fierce fighting around Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital in one of the Taliban's key heartlands in the region.

The assault was being seen as the first major test of President Barack Obama's new counter-insurgency strategy.There were no confirmed details of casualties early today. The valley of irrigated wheat and opium fields along the Helmand River was largely in the hands of militants who have resisted British-led Nato forces for years.

But the U.S. has sent 8,500 Marines to the region in the last two months in preparation for the biggest American combat operation since the 2004 invasion of Fallujah in Iraq. About 4,000 from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, were involved in last night's mission, which took months of planning, according to U.S. reports.

The build-up of U.S. troops is part of a surge that will see American forces in Afghanistan rise from 32,000 at the beginning of this year to 68,000 by the end of the year.

The strategy is to drive out insurgents and then place U.S. Marine units in small outposts in towns and villages to keep peace in the troubled province.

Helmand province produces the largest share of the country's opium crop, which supplies about 90 per cent of the world's heroin.The Afghan operation was launched just hours after the U.S. handed over control to the authorities in Iraq, sparking a day of celebrations on Tuesday.

It represents a crucial shift in tactics by the Obama administration, which has made turning around the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan a top priority. If the Helmand valley sweep succeeds, it is seen as a critically important first step. Up until now, British troops have lacked the resources to maintain a permanent presence in most parts of the province. British soldiers were deployed in a complimentary role to the Marines around the capital.

The assault is codenamed Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword), a U.S. Marines press statement said.'What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert and the fact that where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold ...' said Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commanding officer of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade - Afghanistan.

Attacks by Taliban fighters are at their highest levels since the strict Islamists were driven out of Kabul by U.S.-backed Afghan opponents in 2001 after refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States. U.S. and Nato commanders have said they intend to deploy American reinforcements to seize Taliban-held territory in the south in time for Afghanistan to hold a presidential election on August 20.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: NATO gets its supply route from Russia

The summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev at the Kremlin on Monday has produced an agreement that will let the NATO-US forces fly their troops and weapons across Russian territory. The agreement allows 4,500 US military flights annually over Russia “at no extra charge”. A White House announcement stated: “This agreement will enable the United States to further diversify the crucial transportation routes used to move troops and critical equipment to re-supply international forces in Afghanistan”.

The joint statement issued after the summit had the following comment bearing on the situation in Afghanistan: “The two countries will work together to help stabilise Afghanistan, including increasing assistance to the Afghan army and police, and training counter-narcotics personnel. They will work together with the international community for the upcoming Afghan elections and they will help Afghanistan and Pakistan work together against the common threats of terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking.” President Obama’s own comment after the summit made it clear that the two countries had resolved “to reset US-Russian relations so that we can cooperate more effectively in areas of common interest”.

The highlight of the summit, of course, was the supply route for NATO which Russia had opposed in the recent past. The next highlight of the summit, not spelled out but certainly a subject of mutual understanding, was NATO policy towards Russia, especially its US-led move to include under its umbrella those states that Russia considers within the orbit of its own influence. The Americans may therefore have agreed to soft-pedal on the Ukraine front, and policy rollback in Georgia, also a former member republic of the USSR, which Russia had attacked last August to target the military installations the Georgians had built according to NATO standards.

The transit route issue has clearly forced the Obama administration to step back from the Russia policy of the Bush administration, signalled by the Monday summit’s new agreements on nuclear arms cuts and replacement of a key disarmament treaty, including figures for reduction in nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years. This came under the unspoken rubric of undoing the Bush administration’s decision to renege on disarmament with Russia.

Before the summit Kyrgyzstan had already indicated that it would “renegotiate” the American bases on its soil and will not insist on their immediate removal. Russia had been mollified and this mollification must have embraced Russia’s complaints in relation to the expansion of NATO in particular and the general feeling in Russia that America was spreading its tentacles eastward after destroying a Slav state in the Balkans in 1999. The consequent thaw will have direct bearing on the situation in Afghanistan; and it will include a nod from China which fears the terrorists more than the expansion of American influence in the region.

Will this mean a reduction of Pakistan’s leverage in any way? Islamabad remains important because of the land route it provides for NATO supplies. If there is any reduction it will be bought by the US only at a big financial cost. But far more than that is the developing consensus in the neighbourhood of Pakistan behind the NATO presence in Afghanistan and the success of its mission against terrorism. This development will affect Pakistan’s policy of assistance to this mission conditional to rolling back the Indian encroachment in Afghanistan and resultant interference inside Pakistan. No one at the international level seems to worry about Governor NWFP Owais Ghani’s warning about “dangerous” American activities across the Durand Line.

The summit will disabuse a lot of Pakistani analysts who have been hoping that Russia would defeat America, now that it is stuck in Afghanistan, the same way America had defeated Russia when it was stuck in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The other jolt the development will deliver is to the strategists who think nothing of the regional consensus gelling against Pakistan’s lingering policy of “strategic depth” and its permanent posture of deterring and challenging India. The general feeling in Pakistan is that if the NATO-US forces leave Afghanistan, the power vacuum thus created would be filled by Pakistan. That may be an erroneous conclusion.

 

[muse]

may be an erroneous conclusion

???

It most certainly is erroneous? And even if Pakistan could fill such a void, it must not.

We can help the Afghan,All Afghans, lets focus only on that.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Pakistani leadership afraid to confide in nation: US senator

By Anwar Iqbal
Sunday, 12 Jul, 2009

WASHINGTON, July 11: A senior US lawmaker says that he has expressed his concerns to President Asif Ali Zardari and Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani over Pakistan’s refusal to “accept responsibility for its role in the drone attacks”.

Carl Levin, Chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, said while the Pakistan army appeared ready to combat the militants, the country’s political leadership lacked the courage to share political responsibility for the drone attacks.

A report released on Saturday quoted Senator Levin as saying that recent events had proved the Pakistan army was “showing a much greater willingness to take on the enemy for their own sake”.

The army realised it was not fighting this war for America or because “we are paying them, but because from their national security perspective, it is in their interest”, he said.

But “I do not know how much that has been transmitted to the Pakistan people. I know it is transmitted through interviews in the London papers, but that is not the same as the president and the head of the army in Pakistan transmitting that to the Pakistani people themselves”, he said.

The senator said he believed the Pakistani leadership lacked “political steel in their backbone” and that’s why they were reluctant to tell their people about the US-led anti-terror operations in the same rhetoric they were telling the outside world.

“They politically do not have it inside themselves to tell the Pakistani people why we are doing it and that they are aware of it. They do not have that kind of political steel in their backbone. I have been in politics long enough to understand that. I do not condone it,” Senator Levin said.

Another thing which troubled him, Mr Levin said, was the constant criticism of the US for its drone attacks inside Pakistan.

“I guess yesterday, the day before, we got a number of very high-level targets. There are civilian casualties, which obviously are to be minimised and regretted. But when we knock out high-level targets, terrorist targets, Taliban targets that are out to destroy the government of Pakistan, the least we can expect, I believe, from the Pakistan government is silence,” Mr Levin said.

“What I can’t understand and do not accept is the attacks on us, the criticism on us, because what that does is undermine the effort. Every time they attack us as being foreigners attacking their sovereign soil, they are creating another generation that is after us instead of after the terrorists,” he argued.

The senator said he was willing to support the Pakistan government by providing some economic wherewithal so that they could address the needs of their people.

“I’m for that, providing I believe that they have got the same goal we do, which at least their recent actions suggest they do,” he noted.

“But what I do not have yet is assurance that their statements publicly, the rhetoric about the need for them to go after the terrorists, serves their national interest. I am not sure that’s done internally yet, in terms of their rhetoric. And I sure as heck deeply object to their criticism of us for using attacks by UAVs, which they obviously acquiesce in, condone and accept, or else we wouldn’t be doing them,” Senator Levin added.

 

[RabzonKhan]

The Pakhtun conundrum

Tuesday, 14 Jul, 2009

IT was not empty talk — pure electioneering, as many believed — when Barack Obama declared that he would treat Afghanistan differently if he were to win the election and become America’s next president. He had rejected his predecessor’s approach.

For George W. Bush, the war in Afghanistan was a sideshow; for him the real war was in Iraq. His administration had only limited goals in Afghanistan. After having quickly overrun the country in the fall and winter of 2001, and placed Hamid Karzai as the liberated country’s president, the administration thought the job was done. The main objective then was to keep Karzai in place in the hope that the Afghan president would be able to create an environment in which a limited number of western troops would be able to keep the Taliban at bay.

For some time the strategy seemed to work and Afghanistan — at least compared to Iraq — was in relative peace. There were bombings, killings and kidnappings but these were seen as the products of a violent society learning to adjust to a different way of living and a different way of being governed. The economy began to revive with GDP increasing at double-digit rates. The Afghans once again began to trade with the world outside their borders. The long-standing transit arrangement with Pakistan began to work once again as the traditional route that connected the landlocked country through Karachi with the outside world was revived. The term normal has always been difficult to apply to Afghanistan but the country seemed to be returning towards some kind of normal functioning.

While the central government’s power was limited to Kabul and while the provinces were largely in the hands of powerful chieftains to whom the epithet ‘war lords’ could be comfortably applied, this way of governing was not much different from what the country had known for centuries.

And the Taliban were lurking in the wings. At one time Pervez Musharraf, then Pakistan’s president, had suggested that not all those who chose to call themselves the Taliban should be painted with the same brush; not all Taliban were terrorists. Many were the Pakhtuns who were not happy with the way Hamid Karzai was managing the country. Because of the circumstances of the liberation of Afghanistan from Taliban rule, the share of power held by non-Pakhtuns far outweighed their proportion in the population and their economic strength.

Musharraf argued for separating the Pakhtuns opposed to the Karzai government in two groups: the Taliban whose ideology was clearly not acceptable to any civilised society, and those who could be made to work in the system that was evolving. But by then Washington was accustomed to looking at the world from the perspective of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. This approach only helped strengthen the diehard elements in the Taliban community.

By the time the American election campaign was entering its final phase, Afghanistan had begun to unravel. More foreign troops were dying in that country than in Iraq where the counter-insurgency strategy developed by Gen David Petraeus had begun to work. The main component of this approach was to give space within the new system to elements in the Sunni community, in particular those who had violently opposed the occupation of their country by the Americans.

Once this approach was accepted, it became clear that a large number of Sunni insurgents were prepared to cross the line and come over to the American side. Once the switch was made, the level of violence in Iraq began to decline rapidly.

The same approach could have worked in Afghanistan but for the long-enduring problems between the Afghan governing elite and the political elite in Pakistan. The two had always pursued different objectives. Kabul, under the traditional elite, wished to bring the Pakhtun living on the Pakistani side of the border — the Durand Line — under its control. Pakistan, always fearful of India’s designs with respect to its integrity as a nation state, wished to end the old Afghan-India entente in its favour. This conflict, therefore, gave the Kabul regime under Hamid Karzai the excuse to use Pakistan as an explanation for its own failures.

There was some substance in the Afghan belief that unless the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was not sealed they would not be able to win the escalating war against the resurgent Taliban. The sealing of the border was needed to stop the Taliban insurgents being pursued by the Americans from withdrawing into their sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border. Once there, they could rest, regroup, rearm and attack. But there were elements within the Taliban community that Pakistan did not wish to give up since it was one way of retaining influence in the country against what were perceived as India’s designs.

There are, therefore, four features of the Pakhtun conundrum that need to be addressed in order to bring peace to this area. The first is to recognise that there are many genuine grievances felt by this community concerning the way power has been apportioned by the Karzai regime among different segments of the Afghan society. Second, Pakistan has to show resolve that it will not allow those now generally referred to as stateless actors to pursue their own agendas against the country’s neighbours. Third, it also needs to make sure that the law of the land is respected by all segments of society. This means that the country will not allow itself to be fragmented to accommodate those not happy with the current political and legal orders.

Finally, there must be a clear understanding with India on what are its legitimate interests in Afghanistan. Pakistan has to recognise that India is a regional power with regional interests. At the same time India has to pay heed to Pakistan’s security interests.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: After US exit from Afghanistan

July 21, 2009

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has repeated what has been said by professional American soldiers about the war in Afghanistan. He wants the NATO-US forces to win effectively against the Taliban by next winter or the US will think of quitting. He put it differently: “The troops are tired. The American people are pretty tired”. Somewhere in Washington someone is planning how to get the US forces out of Afghanistan in short order. The NATO countries would want to get out now if given a choice.

Wars have hurt the US in these past years because Washington fought them all wrong. The Iraq war was not on at all. And the internationally favoured war in Afghanistan was badly and belatedly fought and allowed to go in favour of the Taliban. After 4,300 troops dead in Iraq, no one in America wants to hear the fresh tally of death in Afghanistan which has broken past records. President Obama has sought to set the priorities right by sending 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan while the NATO forces will augment the entire international force of 70,000 with 3,000 more troops.

The Taliban will be heartened by this news. But it is important that Pakistan should draw the right conclusions from the situation. Under no circumstances should Pakistan revert to the policy of “strategic depth” dependent on the Taliban. In fact, it should overpower the Taliban on its soil to be secure against the next crisis caused by the Afghan meltdown after the American exit.

Pakistan should coordinate with regional powers, including China and India, to arrive at a “post-invasion” joint policy towards the country. All the regional powers with interests in Afghanistan have more economic muscle and less internal disorder than Pakistan. A common strategy may succeed where pursuit of separate policies has failed.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Pakistan’s action against Taliban unprecedented

July 25, 2009



WASHINGTON: Applauding Pakistan’s recent anti-Taliban actions as serious and unprecedented, US President Barack Obama on Thursday said Washington was helping country to stabilise its northwestern regions.

“I think that at this point what you’ve seen is the Pakistani military step up in a way that we have not seen. I mean, they are engaged in a battle against Al Qaeda allies in that region and are trying to reassert control in areas that have become lawless.” Obama told ABC News in an interview.

Keep it coming: Obama said he wanted to see the international community continue its support for Pakistan as the country makes efforts to rehabilitate millions internally displaced persons (IDPs). He said Islamabad must be supported for the well being of the IDPs to make sure they were not inclined to become militant sympathisers in the future.

“There are downsides to that. You’re seeing the displacement of a lot of people in those battle zones. And I’m very worried that are we, as an international community, adequately helping Pakistan to deal with those people who’ve been displaced because we don’t want that to be a new recruitment tool for radicals saying that, you know, you’ve been chased out of your home because of Pakistan. We have to be very careful about the potential use of that kind of propaganda,” Obama said.

The US president described Al Qaeda as a “non-state actor, a shadowy operation” and told the channel that he would not use the term ‘victory’ against the organisation as a US goal in Afghanistan.

“I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur. “You know, we’re not dealing with nation-states at this point. We’re concerned with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. So when you have a non-state actor, a shadowy operation like Al Qaeda, our goal is to make sure they can’t attack the US,” he said.

Its noticeable: Obama acknowledged a turnaround in Pakistani attitude to the Taliban and felt the country no longer saw militants to their “strategic advantage”.

“I think that the Pakistani government in the past has tried to take the tiger by the tail and in some cases use militants to their strategic advantage. And I think they now realize that that was a mistake and my hope is that we’re going to see them continue to seriously take the threat as a danger to Pakistan,” he added. app

 

[RabzonKhan]

A war that cannot be won or lost

By Irfan Husain
Saturday, 25 Jul, 2009

We should be careful of what we wish for. For years now, there has been a chorus from the right as well as the left in Pakistan, calling for foreign troops to pull out of Afghanistan.

There are indications that they might get their wish before too long.Although July is still not behind us, Britain has already lost 19 soldiers killed in combat, while 150 have sustained serious injuries in this month alone. The war in Afghanistan has already lasted longer than the Second World War, and has cost the British government £5.6bn. And the military still cannot give any timeframe for the duration of the campaign.

No wonder, then, that ordinary people are growing weary of the conflict, especially in the wake of the recent spike in casualties. These days, it’s hard to pick up a newspaper, watch a TV chat show, or listen to a newscast without some criticism of the government’s conduct of the war. In a recent poll, the majority of Britons wanted the troops back by the end of the year.

Although Americans are more used to having their troops fighting in distant lands, fatigue with this unending war is setting in. As Robert Gates, the American secretary of defence, said recently, US citizens as well as the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are getting sick of their involvement there.

Even though Barack Obama has made Afghanistan the centrepiece of the American battle against Islamic extremism, things can shift quickly in Washington if rising costs and casualties sway public opinion.

More and more pundits and military experts in London and Washington are stating the obvious: the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. Already, military and political goals have been scaled back to lower public expectations. One of the stated aims of the current ‘surge’ is to stabilise the most violent provinces in order to prevent the Taliban from disrupting next month’s presidential elections. However, all indications are that the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, will win easily.

The question being asked is whether four more years of Karzai will put the country on the path to stability. Judging from his track record, there will be little change. The corruption, poppy production and violence will continue, and the war-torn country will be just as wretched in 2013 as it is today. So what, western critics ask, are allied forces doing, propping up a weak, useless leader who lacks the will and the ability to improve things to the point when western forces can leave?

It is this absence of an exit strategy that is causing sleepless nights for politicians and generals in the West. In Iraq, there was a structure and institutions to build on. These are sadly lacking in Afghanistan. Another big difference is the porous border with Pakistan that allows easy cross-border movement. This gives the Taliban bases to withdraw to. Iraqi insurgents did not have such safe sanctuaries across their borders.

Yet another qualitative difference is the changing nature of the conflict: collateral damage is less acceptable now in Afghanistan than it was in the earlier phase of the conflict. The Americans were thus able to use massive firepower to obliterate their enemies, even if hundreds of non-combatants were killed. This is politically less palatable now, especially under Obama. By relying more on boots on the ground rather than shock and awe, the number of casualties is bound to go up.

So what happens if public opinion forces western governments to pull their troops back from Afghanistan? A resurgent Taliban would be quickly back in Kabul, probably supported by Pakistan. India and Iran would help the Northern Alliance in the ensuing civil war. Relations between Pakistan and Iran would deteriorate, while we would be eyeball-to-eyeball with India.

In other words, we would be back to the pre-9/11 situation. The only difference would be that the Taliban would be viewed as the force that had defeated the mighty Americans. This would give them an aura of legitimacy and invincibility that would win them many recruits and financial backers.

In this scenario, can advocates of the Taliban like Imran Khan and Hamid Gul seriously think the region would be better off? Elements of the Pakistan Army and intelligence agencies are already ambivalent about the need to fight extremism. If foreign forces were to pull out from Afghanistan, they would stand vindicated. One reason they have been reluctant to completely cut off their links with jihadi groups is that they have never been convinced that the West had the political will to stay the distance. A western retreat would rekindle the old dream of strategic depth in Afghanistan that our generals have long harboured.

However, the victorious Taliban would have their own agenda, and would not be the puppets the ISI think they would be able to manipulate. An earlier generation of jihadis drove out the Red Army, and after defeating the US-led coalition, it is unlikely that Mullah Omar would accept dictation from our generals in Islamabad. Chances are that he and his Pakistani allies would seek to extend their writ across large swathes of Pakistan.

Encouraged by the success of the holy warriors in Afghanistan, groups like the Lashkar-i-Taiba would step up their jihad against India in Kashmir. A re-Talibanised Afghanistan would once again become a magnet for young jihadis from across the world. Al Qaeda would emerge from hiding and renew its war against the West and modernity. Rapidly, Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan would become the epicentre of the global jihad to an even greater extent than the region is now.

Already, there is said to be a strong nexus between the Taliban and the Muslim Uighur separatist movement. The Chinese government is highly suspicious of these links, but if, with or without Pakistani support, the Taliban provoke separatist, Islamic sentiments in China’s Xinjiang province, Beijing is likely to take a distinctly jaundiced view of the situation. Pakistan would be put on the spot, and asked to rein in the Taliban. Sooner or later, our Chinese allies would demand that we ‘do more’, a somewhat familiar refrain.

The Taliban, ignorant as they are of how the world works, would provoke Russia by openly supporting the Chechen rebels. In short, they would quickly antagonise India, Iran, the West, Russia and China. And as Pakistan would once again be sucked into supporting Kabul, we would be tarred with the same brush as the Taliban. This is the scenario that we and the West need to keep in mind as the war against the Taliban drags on.

This is a war that cannot be won. But equally, it is a war that cannot be lost.

 

[ARSENAL6]

“I think that the Pakistani government in the past has tried to take the tiger by the tail and in some cases use militants to their strategic advantage. And I think they now realize that that was a mistake and my hope is that we’re going to see them continue to seriously take the threat as a danger to Pakistan,” he added. app

??

i like it when the US passes the buck on to someone else.
what about the arming of Afgan farmers against soviet troops back in the eighties.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: Mystery of Taliban funds

July 30, 2009

The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mr Richard Holbrooke, says that Taliban militants are receiving more funding from their sympathisers abroad than from Afghanistan’s illegal drug trade. This statement contradicts the sole Pakistani source that has been forthcoming on the subject: Governor NWFP Mr Owais Ghani thinks that the Taliban in FATA and other tribal areas are spending a budget of Rs 14 billion annually, and the money comes, primarily, from drugs smuggling from Afghanistan.

Mr Holbrooke says: “More money is coming from the Gulf than is coming from the drug trade to the Taliban”. He didn’t say it but he must mean: Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. He is clearly relying on what NATO military officials in Afghanistan think: the Taliban raise USD60-100 million a year from the trade in illegal narcotics. He says: “What I believe happens is that the Taliban fund local operations in the Pashtun belt out of drug money, but the overall effort gets massive amounts of money from outside Afghanistan”.

He thinks the governments in the Gulf are not involved, but that sympathisers from all over the world are — “with the bulk of it appearing to come from the Gulf”. When a Pakistani representative says the Taliban are getting drug money there are layers of meaning in it. First of all, it is a matter of record that during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, the militia had successfully curbed poppy cultivation in many parts of the country under their control. The arrival of the Americans in Afghanistan has strengthened the warlords and their “business” of poppy cultivation in the country. What is also on record is the fact that the family of the Afghan president Mr Karzai is involved in the drug trade.

The fact is that the insurgency is very likely to have multiple sources of funding, not just one. Not even one source which caters to the bulk of funds being used to sustain the insurgency and terrorist operations across the region. It is difficult to estimate how much of the money is coming from what source. What makes eminent sense though is to have more than one channel to ensure that the supply doesn’t dry out if one particular source is detected.

Also, we may be forgetting Al Qaeda in all this. Al Qaeda has its old “gold stream” coming into Pakistan and Afghanistan from the UAE in general and Dubai in particular. It started with the purchase of gold and diamonds all over the world — Aafiya Siddiqi was allegedly a part of that network — and then converting them into whatever currency was needed in the area of operation. The half a million dollars supposed to have been spent on the 9/11 operation had allegedly gone to the US from Dubai via Pakistan. Carrying large amounts of currency on flights to and from the UAE is more dangerous than carrying gold. And the institution of hawala is not dead yet.

One cannot ignore the “income” the Taliban count on through criminal activities. Not only do they allow criminal groups to kidnap people for huge ransoms, they levy their own taxes and “protection money” in the areas where they have replaced the writ of the state. And that includes Peshawar itself where the Governor NWFP has his residence. One reason the “emirate” took shape under Baitullah Mehsud was the need to create his own source of revenue through taxing the transporters of the area. Warlord Fazlullah was tolerated by the Taliban and Al Qaeda even when he became “excessive” — which finally led to his ouster from Swat — because he had a good source of revenue from the state-owned emerald mines he had taken over.

Opposition to the Taliban among the local influential groups in Pakistan has grown because of the need of the Taliban to extort money from them to make up the funds for the purchase of weapons and explosives, paying off its foot-soldiers and compensating the families of the “martyr” Taliban.

 

[fatman17]

Afghan war spreads to residential areas’

* UN report says more than 1,000 Afghan civilians killed this year

GENEVA: The Afghan battlefield is spreading into residential areas where more people are being killed by airstrikes, car bombs and suicide attacks, according to a UN report published on Friday.

The UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan said that 1,013 civilians were killed on the sidelines of their country’s armed conflict from January to the end of June, compared to 818 in the first half of 2008 and 684 in the same period in 2007.

Commenting on the report, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said it was critical that steps be taken to shield Afghan communities from fighting.

“All parties involved in this conflict should take all measures to protect civilians, and to ensure the independent investigation of all civilian casualties, as well as justice and remedies for the victims,” the South African said.

Taliban fighters and their allies were named responsible for 59 percent of bystander deaths, caused mainly by roadside blasts, and Afghan government and international forces were also faulted for errant airstrikes that claimed hundreds of lives.

“Both anti-government elements and pro-government forces are responsible for the increase in civilian casualties,” the human rights report said, arguing that tactical changes in the war had put more innocent people in the cross-fire.

Insurgents, who previously targeted the Afghan military and NATO troops with frontal attacks and ambushes, are now employing “guerrilla-like measures” in residential zones “to deliberately blur the distinction between combatants and civilians”.

This shift, it said, is “what appears to be an active policy aimed at drawing a military response to areas where there is a high likelihood that civilians will be killed or injured”.

Afghan and international forces have launched more operations in areas where ordinary Afghans live, killing people and damaging homes, assets and infrastructure, the report said.

The United Nations warned that resistance to a US troop surge and efforts to disrupt August elections could lead to more loss of life in Afghanistan, where war has been waged since US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for having sheltered Al Qaeda militants.

“Given the pattern of the conflict so far, further significant civilian casualties in the coming months are likely,” the human rights report concluded. The UN tolls are based on witness testimonies, military and local leader interviews, hospital visits, and photographic and film evidence as well as media and secondary-source reports.

The latest report said 200 civilians have been killed since the start of the year in 40 airstrikes by pro-government forces. May was especially bloody, with 63 civilian deaths in one aerial bombardment and a total of 81 deaths over the month.

“While the number of deadly airstrike incidents remains low overall, when they do occur they can claim a significant number of lives,” the UN study found. reuters

 

[RabzonKhan]

Back to square one?

By Huma Yusuf
Monday, 03 Aug, 2009

FOR the past few days, Pakistan has been so concerned about its neighbour to the east that it hasn’t glanced in the other direction to see what’s happening in Afghanistan.

Up to now, the global conversation about terrorism has emphasised that the key to crushing the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is eradicating militant safe havens in Pakistan.

However, as Afghanistan gears up for its second-ever presidential election on Aug 20, our government should attempt to reframe this discussion. After all, the ultimate success of our ongoing military operation depends on how things work out across the Durand Line. Without clear thinking on Afghanistan, there is a danger that Pakistan will end up right where it started with regard to militancy.

Pakistan currently finds itself with (almost) national consensus against militancy and some understanding at the official level about the importance of sustained involvement — in terms of military presence and economic development — in Fata and Malakand. Across the border, however, there seems to be some confusion about how best to proceed.

This year, the US deployed extra military personnel in Afghanistan and plans to have at least 60,000 soldiers on the ground by election day. Overall, too, the US army recently announced that it would temporarily expand by 22,000 troops to accommodate for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last week, the US Central Command dispatched another dozen drones to Afghanistan with the aim of targeting Taliban militants in Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan.

At the same time, the governments of the US, UK and Afghanistan are going blue in the face insisting that a political strategy — and not a military surge — is the only thing that can bring peace to Afghanistan.

At a recent talk at the Nato headquarters, British foreign secretary David Miliband stressed the need for an “inclusive political statement”. According to his outline, the plan is for the new Afghan government to distinguish between hard-line terrorists who want to wage global jihad and Taliban foot soldiers who want local Islamic rule and can thus be reintegrated into society and invited to join the government.

For his part, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is likely to win a second term in office, has long been advocating for talks with the Taliban, and even encouraged militants to vote in the upcoming elections.

The new policy to engage with the Taliban is off to a bad start. Recently, the Afghan government struck a ceasefire with Taliban leaders in Badghis. But within hours, clashes erupted as insurgents attacked local police. Since then, reports have also emerged suggesting that the Afghan government ‘bought’ the ceasefire by paying £20,000 to the Taliban leaders. Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, the Taliban have called for an election boycott and plan to block all roads and prevent voters from going to polling centres.

The fallout of the conflicting efforts in Afghanistan can have a major impact on the precarious struggle against militancy in Pakistan. Firstly, the US army’s military push in the region threatens to drive more Afghan Taliban into Pakistan, particularly during the current lull in fighting to allow for the repatriation of the internally displaced.

More problematic is the renewed international excitement about engaging in talks with the Afghan Taliban. A controversy erupted over a CNN interview with military spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas when an impression was created that the intelligence maintained links with militant commanders. Not surprisingly, the ISPR denied these claims.

This much is true, however, that if the US and Afghan governments want to talk to the Taliban, Pakistan will certainly be involved. And even if we are to believe that the ISI is no longer in touch with the militant leadership, there can be no doubt that multilateral engagement will be just the fillip our agencies need to revive old friendships.

Renewed interaction with militant groups in exchange for the US addressing Islamabad’s concerns about India — doesn’t that sound familiar? The Pakistani public should demand that a new security policy in Afghanistan does not cause Pakistan to return to where it started: nurturing militants while maintaining the perception that India poses the greatest threat to our national integrity.

On a side note, if the Afghan government succeeds in its goal of having ‘moderate’ Taliban participate in the political process, there is a high likelihood that the hard-line terrorists no one is willing to negotiate with will end up in Pakistan. From here, they may launch attacks against the Taliban-inclusive government in Kabul, since militants are not known to forgive and forget defectors (take the example of Malakand, where local informers and supporters of the government forces have been killed by lingering militants). The return of Afghan militants to our soil would also signal a complete regression of Pakistan’s war against terror.

Finally, political developments in Afghanistan will do little to interrupt the flow of terror-financing in Pakistan. US special envoy Richard Holbrooke recently discussed the fact that the majority of funds for terrorism come from the Gulf states. But he also pointed out that about $60-100m from the drug trade are used to finance militant operations in the Pakhtun belt, which includes Pakistan’s tribal and northwest areas. In other words, clamping down on Afghanistan’s drug trade would help choke funding for Pakistani terrorists.

But it seems unlikely that the new Afghan government will address the narcotics trade. Many provincial-level politicians in Afghanistan have pointed out
that people running for the elections at the local level are backed by drug money. Significantly, Ahmad Wali Karzai, the president’s brother, has also been repeatedly accused of drug trafficking, though he denies the charge. Even if Afghanistan’s elected officials are not personally benefiting from the sale of narcotics, they will be hard-pressed to shut down a trade that generates one-third of the country’s gross domestic product. That means terrorists based in Pakistan can count on uninterrupted finances.

In this context, our government should take a break from India-related fretting to ensure that elections and post-polling policy in Afghanistan are not detrimental to security and development in Pakistan.

 

[muse]

Ms. Yusuf point in the present circumstance is persuasive, however; there is a missing ingredient for the Pakistani state - so long as it continues to imagine that the US or the Afghan or the Indian can deliver it security, the Pakistani state will remain illegitimate in the eyes of Pakistanis, especially those who now opt to side with any other than the Pakistani state. Fact of the matter is that the consensus against insurgency has to be converted into a consensus for the total recovery of every inch of Pakistani territory and for the presentation of government services to those regions.

As long as the Pakistani state hope to be left alone and will in turn leave parts of Pakistan unserviced by the Pakistani state, others will fill that vacuum and Pakistanis can forget about peace.

The bottom line is that Pakistan, if there is to be a Pakistan, must make war and must be completely victorious over it's internal enemies - that's how external security is earned -- there really is no other way around it - and on this idea, there is yet to be any consensus.

 

[waraich66]

US is more concern about Pakistan 's nukes , new strategy is formulated to get control of our nukes,that is reason is 1998 US put santions and then planned to attack Afghanistan to drop forces in our back yard now trying to internally weaken our defence through insurgencies, but Allah is protecting Pakistan that is reason all strategies are failing one by one.

We should not afraid of any super power as long our courts are providing justic and amir bil marouf nahi munkir is continued .