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East Afghanistan is 'Al Qaeda and Taliban Central'

The world's most technologically advanced security forces are unable to control entire afghansitan, but still ask Pakistan to 'do more'.
Hypocricy has some level, but there seems none.

Its so true, I'm disgusted that we can't even control our borders with Mexico. Too soft. Need to put landmines there.
 
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Afghans are our brothers and I would say that in a free vote they would choose to be part of a greater pakistan and probley choose to have a flat in islamabad. Its only puppets of america and india we have aproblem with. In fact look s like americans have had enough and they are leaving or running away we will become one again.

Hahahaha, wow, you are on some of the good stuff. The Afghans hate our guts, they live in Pakistan and yet grace it with verbal abuses every moment of the day. They don't want to be part of "Greater Pakistan", they want KP, Balochistan and South Punjab to be part of "Greater Afghanistan" or Pakhtoonistan as it is often named...............
 
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if pakistan feel threatened by open border with afg. then pak should build a fence & properly secure it. but i think this step is also not feasible because it requires huge money & it will also offend pashtuns of pakistan.

Tried it in 2005, mismanaged, Afghans tore it down for scrap during the night.............. as for Pakhtuns of Pakistan, they will be happy. Although they all have family in Afghanistan, even they are upset with unchecked migration, or rather invasion of Pakistan by Afghans.
 
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if pakistan feel threatened by open border with afg. then pak should build a fence & properly secure it. but i think this step is also not feasible because it requires huge money & it will also offend pashtuns of pakistan.

Thats what Paervez Musharif tried to do and was not allowed by Karazai and Amercians. Still goverment is crap and just busy with filling there pockets since they know this is there last time. I know big fishes in PPP and they say that openly :( They gona move to Dubai and give about Pakistan. Son of these h***** politicans have alot of sports cars and a VIP sports club. These are same ppl who were involved in killing ppl in car race in Islamabad. Guess what every one is free for these killings.
 
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No no, all the Taliban is in NWA, Afghanistan has Elizabethan era style gentry and aristocrats sipping tea.

---------- Post added at 12:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:31 PM ----------

Afgh-attacks-map-end-2010-ANSO.bmp
 
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My friend, A.M. is untrained in the military arts. As such his rants about the border region of eastern Afghanistan are poorly articulated.

The border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is physically rugged and very isolated. Much of it is heavily forested. These physical constraints are daunting to any military force. The numbers of troops required to secure such an area is beyond the capacity of any nation or even group of nations. Evidence of such can be found just to the east where the Pakistani army has proved incapable of exerting control over its own lands of FATAville.

As that is the case it is, therefore, little wonder that American forces and/or a new, very young and malformed Afghan army face similar problems. Fortunately for Afghans there are very few of their citizens in these remote areas.

A.M. likes to call the Afghan portion of this border area "sanctuary". It is a play on words by a slippery-tongued devil to do so. The article makes clear that Afghan forces operate there with intent to capture and/or kill taliban/A.Q. forces. They do so without making distinction between "good" and "bad" taliban.

This is to their credit. The same cannot be said of the mighty Pakistani army along its side of the border. There, vast swaths of Pakistani tribal land have been utterly ceded to certain favored elements of the Afghan taliban to assure their sustenance for future use. As these Afghan taliban elements have NEVER been attacked by Pakistani forces one can appreciate the distinction between a battlefield assembly area and SANCTUARY.

As example, Haqqani forces remain utterly safe from Pakistani military forces in the Miran Shah/Mir Ali region despite the presence of a large Pakistani cantonment in their midst. Not once have those Haqqani elements been attacked by Pakistani forces. It is not a question of resources, of course, but policy. As such, those Haqqani elements are utterly safe but for American drone attacks.

Qari Ziaul Rehman and others cannot say the same in Kunar. While possessing great advantages by local knowledge and difficult terrain, his forces are under constant threat of attack. Informed readers know so by virtue of Rehman's own words to the recently-murdered journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad.

A.M., of course, knows this. He's also well aware of U.S. combat forces fighting in Kunar and has even commented upon such in the past. His current inclinations to disavow knowledge of these past and present (six U.S. soldiers died in May during an operation in Kunar) operations is simply his usual obfuscating dissemblance for the local audience of sheep here at def.pk.

One read of the constantly-updatedAfghanistan Order Of Battle-Institute For The Study Of War June 2011 clearly shows a large component of U.S. combat units operating in Paktika, Nangahar, Kunar and Nuristan.

Recently the Afghan Independant Commission For Human Rights and U.N.A.M.A presented their findings regarding Afghan civilian casualties. 85% of all Afghan civilians killed this year have been by the hands of the Afghan taliban. This is an increase of 10% from 2010 findings.

Taliban Behind Most Civilian Casualties-USA Today June 2011

Afghanistan Annual Report: Protection Of Civilians In Armed Conflict-March 2011 U.N.A.M.A./Afghan Independant Commission On Human Rights

"...Of the total number of 2,777 civilians killed in 2010, 2,080 deaths (75 per cent of total civilian deaths) were attributed to Anti-Government Elements7, up 28 per cent from 2009. Suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) caused the most civilian deaths, totaling 1,141 deaths (55 per cent of civilian deaths attributed to Anti-Government Elements)..."

While U.S./ISAF/GoA responsibility for deaths has consistently fallen, the afghan taliban have increased their murderous ways. Please note that in too-many instances these deaths are absolutely intentionally-targeted.

Of course, the above-mentioned organizations COULD be lying. Then again, if not, would it be fair to say that the Pakistani government shelters by policy intent these killers of the afghan people? Of course. In those same forested-valleys and difficult terrain where Qari Ziaul Rehmen's men can be found-excepting one notable difference- Pakistan, where sanctuary, true sanctuary abounds for the taliban leaders and men.

American soldiers have fought and continue to fight hard 6,000 miles from home on behalf of the afghan people. We've publically and deeply regreted every instance where we've mistakenly taken the lives of those people while engaged in combat. The Afghan taliban have not once apologized for their wanton slaughter. Nor has the Pakistani government/military for a policy encouraging the murder of the afghan people.

You have the facts before you. The reports are real enough and there's little excuse for those who wish to otherwise hide in ignorance. Afghan/ISAF/American forces seek out the enemy at every opportunity. We provide no state-sponsored sanctuary inside Afghanistan to the TTP. Not a single foreign government, NGO or news organization has remotely suggested as much.

The same cannot be said of Pakistan.
 
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My friend, A.M. is untrained in the military arts. As such his rants about the border region of eastern Afghanistan are poorly articulated.

The border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is physically rugged and very isolated. Much of it is heavily forested. These physical constraints are daunting to any military force. The numbers of troops required to secure such an area is beyond the capacity of any nation or even group of nations. Evidence of such can be found just to the east where the Pakistani army has proved incapable of exerting control over its own lands of FATAville.
Stop right there - my 'training in the military arts' has nothing to do with my analysis of the situation in Eastern Afghanistan. I am merely regurgitating the same arguments the Western media, governments and commentators like yourself like to throw around while ignoring the GoP and Pak Mil arguments on 'resource constraints, difficult terrain, troop requirements etc.' that you have provided here to excuse the US/ISAF's inability to control terrorists in Afghanistan.

I have no problem accepting your explanation for the unhindered operation of terrorists in Eastern Afghanistan, provided the same understanding is also extended to Pakistan.

A.M. likes to call the Afghan portion of this border area "sanctuary". It is a play on words by a slippery-tongued devil to do so. The article makes clear that Afghan forces operate there with intent to capture and/or kill taliban/A.Q. forces. They do so without making distinction between "good" and "bad" taliban.
The article only suggests that the Afghans and US issue 'rhetoric' about preventing terrorist operations in Eastern Afghanistan - the facts on the ground, the multiple large scale terrorist attacks out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan in the last several weeks alone, killing far more Pakistanis (troops and civilians) than the alleged attacks out of North Waziristan kill US/Afghan troops, clearly demonstrate that the 'US/Afghan rhetoric' is a bald faced lie - or at best, a claim with absolutely minimal to non-existent tangible resources provided on the ground to support said claim.
 
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U.S. Afghan Pullback Lets Taliban Open New Bases, Pakistan Military Says

By Haris Anwar and James Rupert - Jun 30, 2011 11:29 PM ET

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A U.S. pullback of troops from northeastern Afghanistan over 20 months has let Islamic guerrillas establish bases in the area and carry out unusually large attacks on Pakistan in recent weeks, the Pakistani military said.

Several Pakistani Taliban groups moved fighters into Nuristan and Kunar and used those Afghan provinces five times in the past month to send forces numbering in the hundreds to attack Pakistani border posts or police stations, said military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas.

“In the past we never had this kind of experience, where 200 to 300 militants attacked us,” Abbas said yesterday in an interview at Pakistan’s army headquarters in Rawalpindi. “It’s a big body in this mountainous terrain” and shows that the militants have established bases in northeastern Afghanistan that can house, feed and transport such groups, he said.

Pakistan’s complaint about the Taliban filling a power vacuum in Afghanistan comes as President Barack Obama pledged June 22 to withdraw 33,000 U.S. soldiers between this month and the end of next year, replacing them with Afghan troops and police the U.S. is helping to train. The U.S. government contends that Pakistan has failed to eliminate similar safe areas for the guerrillas in its border districts, especially North Waziristan.

The complaints on both sides underscore the need and the difficulty for Pakistan and Afghanistan to maintain control all the way to the isolated, mountainous border between them, Abbas said.

Escape Route


Pakistani officials say the U.S. pullback from northeastern Afghanistan since late 2009 has given the Taliban an escape route from the Pakistan army’s offensives to clear the militants from two adjacent Pakistani districts, Bajaur and Mohmand.

“The best economy of effort is by conducting joint operations” to trap the guerrillas between U.S. and Pakistani forces, Abbas said.

“We know the border is very porous and the insurgents are using the terrain to their advantage,” said U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Kaye Sweetser, a spokeswoman for the U.S.- led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. “We’re constantly trying to deal with that.”

While ISAF “is aware of media reports from Pakistan” saying the Taliban have carried out attacks from Afghanistan, Sweetser said she didn’t immediately have independent information on the incidents.

Laying Blame

Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry spokesman, General Zaher Azimi, denied that any Pakistani Taliban maintain bases anywhere in Afghanistan. Pakistan is “trying to blame Afghanistan,” Azimi said in a phone interview.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters crossed the border from Kunar on mountain ridges as high as 3,700 meters (12,000 feet) to attack police stations in Pakistan’s Dir Valley on April 22 and on June 1, Abbas said. About 300 fighters crossed into Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal district last month and seized two border posts, killing 15 Pakistani security officers, he said.

As the Pakistani army has undertaken offensives since 2007 to re-capture districts taken over by the Taliban, the surviving Taliban forces have moved to Kunar and Nuristan to regroup, Abbas said. These include Taliban commanders Hakimullah Mehsud from South Waziristan, Faqir Muhammad from Bajaur and Abdul Wali from Mohmand, he said.

The U.S. military made its most prominent advance into Nuristan after 2006, establishing several small outposts to interdict guerrillas crossing into the province from Pakistan. After repeated Taliban attacks on the camps left dozens of U.S. soldiers dead, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, ordered a shift of troops from rural outposts to population centers, and the Nuristan bases were abandoned in 2009.

“ISAF posts were vacated and that created a void,” Abbas said. “Unless we resolve this, it will not allow the whole effort of bringing stability in the region.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Haris Anwar in Islamabad at hanwar2@bloomberg.net; James Rupert in Islamabad at jrupert3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg in Hong Kong at phirschberg@bloomberg.net

U.S. Afghan Pullback Lets Taliban Open New Bases, Pakistan Military Says - Bloomberg
 
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Monday, July 04, 2011


* Kunar situation suggests future challenges for Pakistan, Afghanistan and NATO forces

* Afghan general admits his forces not strong enough to assault Taliban positions

SIRKANAY: On a mountain trail toward the border with Pakistan, the explosions became louder, more constant and finally visible as puffs of smoke on distant peaks and rising from valleys.

Families escaping the fusillade led donkeys strapped with mattresses and bags of clothes the other way, down the steep footpaths. They passed crippled trees, cratered houses and empty villages. Some of the villagers had shrapnel scars and described seeing relatives blown apart during a five-week artillery barrage from Pakistan.

“My grandson was nine years old,” said Juma Gul, a 60-year-old village elder in the Sirkanay district in eastern Afghanistan. “He and three other children were herding our goats when a rocket came. All four were killed. We could not find most of their bodies.”

A loud crack sounded and rolled over the peaks. Gul swept his hand toward the mountain range rising toward Pakistan. “Still the rockets are landing here,” he said.

The shelling in Kunar province is taking place along one of the most strategically important fronts of the war — a haven for hardcore insurgent groups fighting in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan has been so stung by insurgents’ recent cross-border attacks, they launched an offensive that also highlights NATO’s struggles to pacify the area and the lack of cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan against their common foes.

NATO officials, in fact, say they were unaware of the extent of Pakistan’s artillery barrage across Afghanistan’s border until last week because Western troops have been pulled back from more remote outposts in Kunar.

Afghan government officials suspected that Pakistan had launched more than 761 rockets over the border into Kunar province since May and causing the deaths of at least 40 people and injuring 51. Pakistan has denied hitting Afghanistan intentionally, but acknowledged its military has been targeting terrorists to halt cross-border raids and that some rockets may have strayed off course.

Last month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai complained about the shelling to the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, US Gen David Petraeus, US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and President Asif Ali Zardari.

Since those meetings, however, the assaults appear to have intensified in Kunar, about 205 kilometres east of Kabul.

Coalition officials acknowledged that recent tensions along Kunar’s border has festered for weeks without an adequate response from the international alliance, in part because they consolidated troops from scattered valley and border outposts to centralised bases after coming under relentless attacks from militants.

The redeployment reflects a tactical shift from counterinsurgency operations — emphasising development projects and regular contacts to win over local populations — to counter-terrorism operations that emphasise killing militants.

Last week, US forces launched an offensive in Watapoor district in northeastern Kunar province, said US Army Lt Col Chad Carroll, a spokesman for the 1st Calvary Division at Regional Command East. Carroll said the objective of the operation was less to take strategic terrain than to target insurgents.

“It’s more about enemy locations than it is about a spot on the ground,” he said. US soldiers have killed 80 to 100 militants in the district, Carroll said. But Taliban fighters still manage to stage attacks on both sides of Kunar’s border, Afghan officials say.

“There are only finite resources, manpower,” said British Maj Tim James, a NATO spokesman.

The situation along Kunar’s border suggests the kind of future challenges Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO will face as US forces leave according to President Barack Obama’s schedule for the withdrawal of combat troops by 2014, when security will transition to Afghan control.

During two days in Sirkanay district, Afghan border police were the most conspicuous forces on the roads, where they appeared to operate with a degree of autonomy from NATO. Only two other security units were seen: An armored NATO patrol and a newly established local police unit. Two new border police camps built next to NATO bases housed a well-maintained fleet of new Ford pick-up trucks and young policemen carrying AK-47s.

The border police’s movements, however, were severely limited by shelling from Pakistan and by Taliban hiding in mountain villages.

“The withdrawal of NATO forces has had a direct effect on insecurity,” said Gen Aminullah Amerkhail, the eastern region commander of the Afghan border police, who added that his forces were not strong enough to assault known Taliban positions. “I will not go to those villages without air support from the Americans.”

Amerkhail offered his resignation to the Afghan interior minister to protest NATO’s and Pakistan’s response to the problems along the border.


Pakistani officials, too, have complained about NATO inaction in southeast Kunar.

Five times in June, militants based in Kunar and Nangarhar massed up to 300 fighters to stage cross-border attacks against Pakistani security checkpoints, killing 55 paramilitary soldiers and tribal police, Pakistani army officials said. Pakistani air and ground assaults drove the insurgents back.

Pakistani army spokesman Maj Athar Abbas said that no rounds have been fired into Afghanistan intentionally, although it is possible that “a few” rounds may have accidentally fallen over the border. Abbas defended the assaults.

“There is no effort to act against these strongholds or sanctuaries,” he said. “Many terrorist leaders are gathered there, and there is no pressure on them to leave.”

Whatever Pakistan’s defensive rationale, Afghanistan views the border attacks as an infringement on its sovereignty.

Afghan security officials have warned Pakistan that continued artillery fire into its territory would be met with a response that could include Afghan military action.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
 
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I love how US news articles always claim US when it's a plus, but NATO when the action can be criticized -- NATO has never been in Eastern Afghanistan nor in Kunar - it's been US forces
 
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Cross-border attacks: ‘Kunar and Nuristan are terrorist havens’

Published: July 15, 2011

The Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan have become the sanctuary and launch pad for attacks into Pakistan by a host of terrorist groups and their leaders including Maulana Fazlullah, Faqeer Muhammad, Abdul Wali and Hakeemullah, said a Pakistani military spokesperson.

These groups are now conducting cross-border attacks into Pakistani territory, said Major General Athar Abbas in an interview with BBC Urdu.
The spokesperson said that Pakistani army had expressed its apprehensions when Nato and Afghan forces were abandoning their checkposts from Kunar and Nuristan.

The apprehensions have proven to be true, he said.

While Pakistan cannot take direct military action against terrorist sanctuaries in Afghanistan, a joint commission has been formed in Peshawar to address the issue of cross border attacks, the spokesperson said. The commission will decide how to deal with the militants, he added.
Detailing Pakistan’s engagement on the Pak-Afghan border, the spokesperson said that Pakistan has 147,000 troops deployed at 900 posts along the Afghan border.

Troops deployed on the other side are comparatively fewer, making it difficult to restrict the movement of terrorists across the border, he said.
Talking about videos of torture and killing of apprehended ‘terrorists’ by army personnel, the spokesperson said that the Army has little tolerance for such practices.

Action has been taken, and people have been suspended, when found involved in such acts, he said. Some of these videos have proven to be fabricated as well, he said, adding that details of internal inquiries within the armed forces are not made public because there’s a fear of ‘more harm than good’ being caused as a result.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2011

Cross-border attacks:
 
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the poor people cannot fight them they are leaching on poor afghans
 
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US authorities identify five next-generation al Qaeda leaders



WASHINGTON - American counter terrorism experts have identified at least five potential next-generation leaders of al Qaeda, including three with US connections, according to a report.

Experts believe that after the death of al Qaeda No 2 Abu Yahya al-Libi in a US drone attack in Pakistan, the terrorist group’s highest councils once again face the daunting task of filling a leadership void and selecting a next-generation jihadist capable of succeeding current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. “It would be a mistake for anyone to conclude there is no one on the bench,” an anonymous US official familiar with counter-terrorism strategy told NBC.

“It’s a thinning bench, but there are still bad guys, with bad aspirations in al Qaeda’s core group in Pakistan,” the official added.
According to The New York Post, the five potential next-generation leaders identified by the officials include Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah, a 36-year-old Saudi who reportedly is director of operations for al Qaeda who spent his teenage years in Brooklyn and Florida.
He was reportedly involved in a 2009 plot to bomb the New York City subway. The second potential successor is Jaber A El-Baneh, a 45-year-old Yemeni who lived for a time in Buffalo, and was viewed as the mastermind of the Lackawanna Six plot in 2003. Other three potential leaders are Adam Gadahn, a 33-year-old American and al Qaeda strategist, Sheikh Khalid Abdur Rahman al-Hussainan, a 45-year-old Kuwaiti who is a cleric and teacher, and Ali Sayyid Muhamed Mustafa al-Bakri, a 46-year-old Egyptian with explosives and chemical weapons expertise.


a saudi
a yemeni
a american
a kuwaiti
a egyptian
 
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