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Telegraph.co.uk
The shadow of Pakistan hangs over British-led efforts to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, reports Nick Meo in Nad-e-Ali
Published: 6:00AM BST 01 Aug 2010
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01688/afghan_1688820c.jpg
The district governor of Nad-e-Ali, Habibullah Shamalany, 58, with Britsh commanders in the Lashkar Gah district
The district governor of Nad-e-Ali pointed across parched fields towards a line of trees where the Taliban attacks come from.
"That's where our enemy is," said Habibullah Shamalany, 58, standing outside a police fortress, the ground around his feet littered with discarded cartridge cases from recent battles. "Their shadow government begins over there."
Behind him a teenage police recruit wearing jeans and an Adidas shirt squinted down the gun sight of his machine-gun at imaginary Taliban where the governor was pointing.
Mr Shamalany is a close ally of the British soldiers who patrol the dangerous roads around Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital 20 miles away. The Taliban sow fear in the villages, he said, but it is Pakistan that is the true enemy of Afghans like him.
"Yes, our Afghan village boys join the Taliban," he conceded. "But only because they are scared by Taliban threats to their families.
"It is Pakistan that trains, funds and leads them. When we capture their fighters they confess that they are trained in Pakistan. The Pakistanis find religious boys, give them weapons, and send them across the border into Afghanistan to kill us, and to kill your British soldiers."
Villagers grunted in agreement. "Pakistan is against Afghanistan, they want to destroy us," said Mullah Yar Gul, 29, to approval.
They had gathered to discuss a new "safer fields" scheme, described by the commander of British forces in the district, Lieutenant-Colonel Lincoln Jopp MC, as Neighbourhood Watch, Helmand-style. "The difference is that instead of reporting possible burglars, farmers are encouraged to keep their land free of bombs and landmines by keeping an eye out for suspicious activity," he said.
The colonel arrived with a detachment of 1st Battalion Scots Guards in armoured vehicles to be embraced as an old friend by the governor.
Only a year ago the area was under Taliban control, and it remains frighteningly violent. Last Sunday three Taliban died in a gunfight with police a mile from the fortress, a mudbrick construction festooned with razor wire and with an Afghan flag fluttering over it.
Days before that, two of Colonel Jopp's soldiers died when they came under fire trying to rescue an injured comrade.
At dawn British and American soldiers had launched operation Tor Shezada to push the Taliban out of one of the few pockets of Nad-e-Ali they still controlled, a few miles to the north of the fortress. Two A-10 ground attack aircraft roared in low on their way to the battle as helicopter gunships circled nearby.
The governor had just broadcast a message on the radio urging families in the area where the British were advancing to stay in their homes where they would be safe.
Villagers said they were glad the Taliban were being pushed back again. They queued up to denounce the Taliban, who they said had stolen food and press-ganged their young men when they still controlled their area - which they did until a year ago.
They believed that many of the gunmen, who they were forbidden from talking to, were Pakistani fighters, speaking Pashtun with unfamiliar foreign accents.
The governor was delighted to hear that David Cameron last week accused Pakistan of promoting the "export of terror", insisting that Helmand was one of the places to which it is exported.
"I agree with your Prime Minister," he said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. "I am glad he said this about Pakistan. Almost every day here we see the bloody consequences of their work."
The Prime Minister's accusation, made on a visit to India, was greeted with fury by Pakistan, coming soon after the Wikileaks reports alleging that Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency orchestrated Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. Afghans have long believed they are victims of the ISI, which is also accused by India of supporting a twenty-year campaign of terrorism on its soil.
Pakistan openly supported the Taliban regime before 2001, and Afghans believe it has secretly done so ever since. Afghan police and intelligence chiefs say captured Taliban fighters often have Pakistani rupees and receipts from Pakistani shops in their pockets, or Pakistani phone cards.
For several years they have accused the ISI of helping organise terrorist attacks on Afghan soil, and insist that the Taliban leader Mullah Omar lives in the major Pakistani city of Quetta, where his fighters allegedly go for rest and recreation between bouts of jihad against Afghan security forces and Nato troops.
They are claims which are privately accepted by many Nato officers, but Pakistan is rarely condemned in public because it is officially an ally of the West in the war against terror.
Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, tried to rally support last week for Nato attacks on Taliban based in Pakistan, asking why they had not attacked guerrilla sanctuaries on Pakistani soil.
Enmity between Kabul and Islamabad over a disputed border goes back decades, and no Afghans hate Pakistan more than Helmandis. Hajji Abdul Wahab, 48, the gnarled police chief in charge of the fortress, said: "The Taliban leader here is a man called Pahlawan, he is from the Pakistani Punjab. He is out there somewhere beyond the trees, probably planning bomb attacks as we speak.
"This is a war of Pakistan against Afghanistan. We are determined to resist them. When we find the Taliban we will kill them."
A major concern for many Afghans is that Pakistani jihadists could impede negotiations which they hope will one day end the war.
"Peace with the Taliban is possible," said Hajji Abdul Ajan, 38, a member of the provincial council in Lashkar Gah. "But the Pakisani Taliban won't accept it. They will never reconcile and they will try to stop the Afghan Taliban from doing so."
British soldiers also believe Pakistanis fight alongside the Taliban, although they stop short of accusing the ISI of helping them.
"We do encounter some evidence of Pakistani involvement in the insurgency in Helmand," said Colonel Jopp.
He believes the counter-insurgency strategy his men are following has dramatically improved security in the flat farmlands around Lashkar Gah. It is slow, dangerous and fantastically expensive: Britain alone is now spending about £6bn ammually on the war.
For the Scots Guards, trained as warriors, the new strategy has meant a profound culture shock.
"Before I came here I didn't think I would be interacting with the locals much," said Sergeant Allan Reid, 29, from Ayrshire. "I thought I would be fighting them."
Sergeant Reid was one of a small detachment based at a small fort built just months ago, living alongside a group of Afghan policemen. The Scots have been given the task of getting to know villagers and protecting them from the Taliban.
He said attacks had dropped drastically since the unit was first set up and they hadn't been shot at since last week. "The locals say they don't like the Taliban, but you can't really be sure. I trust the police we work with though, they are good guys," he said.
One of them was Bismillah Khan, 22, the deputy leader of the Afghan police contingent. Mr Khan said he chose to work for the police because the Taliban was against Afghanistan and killed innocent people.
"Friends from my village joined the Taliban, and there is a lot of trouble now at home. My family has been threatened," he said.
Like other Helmandis, he fears what may happen when the British and other Nato troops finally pull out, a process which is expected to begin next year.
"The Afghan security forces are not strong enough by themselves. There will be civil war again," he said.
It is a prospect which haunts Afghans. A British stabilisation advisor said that with deadlines being discussed for withdrawing troops by 2014, villagers are starting to ask if they can arm themselves for their own protection.
"Our withdrawal is being discussed at village meetings," he said. "Afghans are getting worried."
Ironically, Afghan government in parts of Helmand has never looked in better shape. The Army is confident that its counter-insurgency campaign is bearing fruit as intelligence improves and they insist that the quality of Afghan police – once a notoriously corrupt force of hashish smokers – has improved, to the benefit of security.
The Provincial Reconstruction Team – a mix of Foreign Office civilians and servicemen and women on a heavily fortified base in Lashkar Gah - buzzes with a can-do optimism which is a surprising contrast to the gloomy mood about the war in Britain.
British civil servants praise their Afghan government counterparts, who for the first time now have to sit exams, and proudly describe how the Kabul government has a presence in 10 districts in Helmand, up from four in 2008.
The economy is booming and property prices are rising in Lashkar Gah, and travel between central Helmand's towns is said to be faster than ever on new roads, at least for those willing to risk suicide bombs.
Education projects are a major success, but the armoured cars used by the PRT's civilian contractors have cracked bullet-proof windows from rocks thrown by schoolchildren.
The PRT, the nerve centre of Western efforts to stabilise Helmand, is proud of what it has achieved, but its staff know that they are now in a race against time to strengthen the government and security forces enough for them to survive when Nato troops come home.
Afghans fear what could happen then if they are not ready. "In 2008 when they launched an offensive there were real fears that the Taliban was going to overrun Lashkar Gah, and they found a death list of 3000 names of people who worked with the Afghan government or for the British, on the body of a dead Taliban fighter," said one educated Afghan in the city.
"That really makes us worry about the future."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...mand-despatch-Pakistan-is-the-true-enemy.html
The shadow of Pakistan hangs over British-led efforts to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, reports Nick Meo in Nad-e-Ali
Published: 6:00AM BST 01 Aug 2010
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01688/afghan_1688820c.jpg
The district governor of Nad-e-Ali, Habibullah Shamalany, 58, with Britsh commanders in the Lashkar Gah district
The district governor of Nad-e-Ali pointed across parched fields towards a line of trees where the Taliban attacks come from.
"That's where our enemy is," said Habibullah Shamalany, 58, standing outside a police fortress, the ground around his feet littered with discarded cartridge cases from recent battles. "Their shadow government begins over there."
Behind him a teenage police recruit wearing jeans and an Adidas shirt squinted down the gun sight of his machine-gun at imaginary Taliban where the governor was pointing.
Mr Shamalany is a close ally of the British soldiers who patrol the dangerous roads around Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital 20 miles away. The Taliban sow fear in the villages, he said, but it is Pakistan that is the true enemy of Afghans like him.
"Yes, our Afghan village boys join the Taliban," he conceded. "But only because they are scared by Taliban threats to their families.
"It is Pakistan that trains, funds and leads them. When we capture their fighters they confess that they are trained in Pakistan. The Pakistanis find religious boys, give them weapons, and send them across the border into Afghanistan to kill us, and to kill your British soldiers."
Villagers grunted in agreement. "Pakistan is against Afghanistan, they want to destroy us," said Mullah Yar Gul, 29, to approval.
They had gathered to discuss a new "safer fields" scheme, described by the commander of British forces in the district, Lieutenant-Colonel Lincoln Jopp MC, as Neighbourhood Watch, Helmand-style. "The difference is that instead of reporting possible burglars, farmers are encouraged to keep their land free of bombs and landmines by keeping an eye out for suspicious activity," he said.
The colonel arrived with a detachment of 1st Battalion Scots Guards in armoured vehicles to be embraced as an old friend by the governor.
Only a year ago the area was under Taliban control, and it remains frighteningly violent. Last Sunday three Taliban died in a gunfight with police a mile from the fortress, a mudbrick construction festooned with razor wire and with an Afghan flag fluttering over it.
Days before that, two of Colonel Jopp's soldiers died when they came under fire trying to rescue an injured comrade.
At dawn British and American soldiers had launched operation Tor Shezada to push the Taliban out of one of the few pockets of Nad-e-Ali they still controlled, a few miles to the north of the fortress. Two A-10 ground attack aircraft roared in low on their way to the battle as helicopter gunships circled nearby.
The governor had just broadcast a message on the radio urging families in the area where the British were advancing to stay in their homes where they would be safe.
Villagers said they were glad the Taliban were being pushed back again. They queued up to denounce the Taliban, who they said had stolen food and press-ganged their young men when they still controlled their area - which they did until a year ago.
They believed that many of the gunmen, who they were forbidden from talking to, were Pakistani fighters, speaking Pashtun with unfamiliar foreign accents.
The governor was delighted to hear that David Cameron last week accused Pakistan of promoting the "export of terror", insisting that Helmand was one of the places to which it is exported.
"I agree with your Prime Minister," he said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. "I am glad he said this about Pakistan. Almost every day here we see the bloody consequences of their work."
The Prime Minister's accusation, made on a visit to India, was greeted with fury by Pakistan, coming soon after the Wikileaks reports alleging that Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency orchestrated Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. Afghans have long believed they are victims of the ISI, which is also accused by India of supporting a twenty-year campaign of terrorism on its soil.
Pakistan openly supported the Taliban regime before 2001, and Afghans believe it has secretly done so ever since. Afghan police and intelligence chiefs say captured Taliban fighters often have Pakistani rupees and receipts from Pakistani shops in their pockets, or Pakistani phone cards.
For several years they have accused the ISI of helping organise terrorist attacks on Afghan soil, and insist that the Taliban leader Mullah Omar lives in the major Pakistani city of Quetta, where his fighters allegedly go for rest and recreation between bouts of jihad against Afghan security forces and Nato troops.
They are claims which are privately accepted by many Nato officers, but Pakistan is rarely condemned in public because it is officially an ally of the West in the war against terror.
Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, tried to rally support last week for Nato attacks on Taliban based in Pakistan, asking why they had not attacked guerrilla sanctuaries on Pakistani soil.
Enmity between Kabul and Islamabad over a disputed border goes back decades, and no Afghans hate Pakistan more than Helmandis. Hajji Abdul Wahab, 48, the gnarled police chief in charge of the fortress, said: "The Taliban leader here is a man called Pahlawan, he is from the Pakistani Punjab. He is out there somewhere beyond the trees, probably planning bomb attacks as we speak.
"This is a war of Pakistan against Afghanistan. We are determined to resist them. When we find the Taliban we will kill them."
A major concern for many Afghans is that Pakistani jihadists could impede negotiations which they hope will one day end the war.
"Peace with the Taliban is possible," said Hajji Abdul Ajan, 38, a member of the provincial council in Lashkar Gah. "But the Pakisani Taliban won't accept it. They will never reconcile and they will try to stop the Afghan Taliban from doing so."
British soldiers also believe Pakistanis fight alongside the Taliban, although they stop short of accusing the ISI of helping them.
"We do encounter some evidence of Pakistani involvement in the insurgency in Helmand," said Colonel Jopp.
He believes the counter-insurgency strategy his men are following has dramatically improved security in the flat farmlands around Lashkar Gah. It is slow, dangerous and fantastically expensive: Britain alone is now spending about £6bn ammually on the war.
For the Scots Guards, trained as warriors, the new strategy has meant a profound culture shock.
"Before I came here I didn't think I would be interacting with the locals much," said Sergeant Allan Reid, 29, from Ayrshire. "I thought I would be fighting them."
Sergeant Reid was one of a small detachment based at a small fort built just months ago, living alongside a group of Afghan policemen. The Scots have been given the task of getting to know villagers and protecting them from the Taliban.
He said attacks had dropped drastically since the unit was first set up and they hadn't been shot at since last week. "The locals say they don't like the Taliban, but you can't really be sure. I trust the police we work with though, they are good guys," he said.
One of them was Bismillah Khan, 22, the deputy leader of the Afghan police contingent. Mr Khan said he chose to work for the police because the Taliban was against Afghanistan and killed innocent people.
"Friends from my village joined the Taliban, and there is a lot of trouble now at home. My family has been threatened," he said.
Like other Helmandis, he fears what may happen when the British and other Nato troops finally pull out, a process which is expected to begin next year.
"The Afghan security forces are not strong enough by themselves. There will be civil war again," he said.
It is a prospect which haunts Afghans. A British stabilisation advisor said that with deadlines being discussed for withdrawing troops by 2014, villagers are starting to ask if they can arm themselves for their own protection.
"Our withdrawal is being discussed at village meetings," he said. "Afghans are getting worried."
Ironically, Afghan government in parts of Helmand has never looked in better shape. The Army is confident that its counter-insurgency campaign is bearing fruit as intelligence improves and they insist that the quality of Afghan police – once a notoriously corrupt force of hashish smokers – has improved, to the benefit of security.
The Provincial Reconstruction Team – a mix of Foreign Office civilians and servicemen and women on a heavily fortified base in Lashkar Gah - buzzes with a can-do optimism which is a surprising contrast to the gloomy mood about the war in Britain.
British civil servants praise their Afghan government counterparts, who for the first time now have to sit exams, and proudly describe how the Kabul government has a presence in 10 districts in Helmand, up from four in 2008.
The economy is booming and property prices are rising in Lashkar Gah, and travel between central Helmand's towns is said to be faster than ever on new roads, at least for those willing to risk suicide bombs.
Education projects are a major success, but the armoured cars used by the PRT's civilian contractors have cracked bullet-proof windows from rocks thrown by schoolchildren.
The PRT, the nerve centre of Western efforts to stabilise Helmand, is proud of what it has achieved, but its staff know that they are now in a race against time to strengthen the government and security forces enough for them to survive when Nato troops come home.
Afghans fear what could happen then if they are not ready. "In 2008 when they launched an offensive there were real fears that the Taliban was going to overrun Lashkar Gah, and they found a death list of 3000 names of people who worked with the Afghan government or for the British, on the body of a dead Taliban fighter," said one educated Afghan in the city.
"That really makes us worry about the future."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...mand-despatch-Pakistan-is-the-true-enemy.html
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