Leaked NATO report claims to expose direct links between ISI, Taliban

[CENTCOM]

Dear readers,

The classified document in question was compiled from statements made by Taliban commanders and fighters while in detention. It is important to understand the context of this document, and extremely important not to draw firm conclusions based on the musings of detained Taliban. These detainees include some of the most motivated and ruthless of the INS who are inspired to play up their success, support, and morale. Their words must be taken in context. This document aggregates the comments of Taliban detainees in a captive environment, without considering the validity of, or motivation behind their reflections. Any conclusions drawn from this would be questionable at best. We understand there might be public interest in a classified document being exposed, but it is critically important to understand the context of what this document is. The insurgency has not had a track record of unbiased, balanced, or transparent reporting. We continue to see evidence that fighters are ignoring the orders of absentee commanders, and joining the reintegration and reconciliation process.

MAJ Nevers,
DET, United States Central Command
U.S. Central Command |

 

[TaimiKhan]

Because the leaks are indicative of future directions of US policy, and are not intended to be used as incriminatory evidence. The leaks herald alignments in the powers-that-be to be ready for implementation of said policies.

That is why, Sir.

I have no idea what new policies are now gonna be formulated or implemented as such BS things are being heard for the last decade or so, nothing concrete has come out of it.

So now what left.

 

[VCheng]

I have no idea what new policies are now gonna be formulated or implemented as such BS things are being heard for the last decade or so, nothing concrete has come out of it.

So now what left.

But it only takes an astute person familiar with the ways of US politics to see which way policies might be heading decisively this time. Please note that these policies and their implementation will continue across administrations should a change occur.

 

[TaimiKhan]

But it only takes an astute person familiar with the ways of US politics to see which way policies might be heading decisively this time. Please note that these policies and their implementation will continue across administrations should a change occur.

I highly doubt anything is new this time, nearly everything has been tried, even Pakistani soldiers were murdered very recently, with no positive outcome, rather they are pushing the people of Pakistan & its armed forces away from themselves and if that is what the US wants, well then they are succeeding, spreading hatred among Pakistanis.

 

[VCheng]

I highly doubt anything is new this time, nearly everything has been tried, even Pakistani soldiers were murdered very recently, with no positive outcome, rather they are pushing the people of Pakistan & its armed forces away from themselves and if that is what the US wants, well then they are succeeding, spreading hatred among Pakistanis.

I can understand your doubts, but please think about who actually gets to bear the brunt of all this increased hatred? Why would USA need to do that at all?

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

i read this headline this morning, over an extra-strong coffee and copious amount of marlboros.....first things first --- US military analysts and all those people are becoming more political than the politicians in Washington.

I laughed when I put the newspaper down. This report was less ''offensive'' than the other ones not because we've become de-sensitized to all these accusations on us. We are used to sensationalist half-truths and strong allegations for past 3-4 years now, it's become more of a broken record than anything else.


now to get into the report itself -- well basically there's a new train of thought going around perhaps.......now its the talebans who have been abused by the evil Pakistanis. The Americans must save the taleban from evil Pakistan.


the taleban has become so influential in Afghanistan (which it always was in more than half the country anyways)....even those in the ANA, even ''rogues'' in the NA --even some of Karzai's closest --are warming up to taleban.

So what a news that is. AFGHANS are going to take Afghanistan when the US/NATOs leave. Must blame Pakistan for that horrible development too! Even though they (the goras) are talking and maintaining the same contacts as we.




height of absurdity, if you ask me

 

[Donatello]

i read this headline this morning, over an extra-strong coffee and copious amount of marlboros.....first things first --- US military analysts and all those people are becoming more political than the politicians in Washington.

I laughed when I put the newspaper down. This report was less ''offensive'' than the other ones not because we've become de-sensitized to all these accusations on us. We are used to sensationalist half-truths and strong allegations for past 3-4 years now, it's become more of a broken record than anything else.


now to get into the report itself -- well basically there's a new train of thought going around perhaps.......now its the talebans who have been abused by the evil Pakistanis. The Americans must save the taleban from evil Pakistan.


the taleban has become so influential in Afghanistan (which it always was in more than half the country anyways)....even those in the ANA, even ''rogues'' in the NA --even some of Karzai's closest --are warming up to taleban.

So what a news that is. AFGHANS are going to take Afghanistan when the US/NATOs leave. Must blame Pakistan for that horrible development too! Even though they (the goras) are talking and maintaining the same contacts as we.




height of absurdity, if you ask me

Caffeine and Marlboros? Seriously Abu?

Get em rollin....the Js.

 

[RazPaK]

Objectively, Instead of spending billions on their troops in Afghanistan, the US could have bought out the entire taliban with a third of that money and further their geo-political cause in the region. But alas, the American think-thanks are stupid and only realizing their childish mistakes now, when it is too late in the game.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Caffeine and Marlboros? Seriously Abu?

Get em rollin....the Js.

that was last night.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Objectively, Instead of spending billions on their troops in Afghanistan, the US could have bought out the entire taliban with a third of that money and further their geo-political cause in the region. But alas, the American think-thanks are stupid and only realizing their childish mistakes now, when it is too late in the game.

well one thing about the taleban --- they can't be bought..... if you're forced to list their admirable traits, at least that would be one of them....quite stubborn too. We begged them to relinquish the foreign fighters and deport them from Afghanistan. The Saudis did the same. Painful hours were spent with them to convince them to do so.

of course western media never points that out.....


in the beginning this wasnt even about taleban....it was about al qaeda, but media --which is supposed to inform people -instead misleads them. In that sense, the US admins one after the other have always had the luxury of having the corporate media toe the administration's official lines.

 

[Donatello]

Objectively, Instead of spending billions on their troops in Afghanistan, the US could have bought out the entire taliban with a third of that money and further their geo-political cause in the region. But alas, the American think-thanks are stupid and only realizing their childish mistakes now, when it is too late in the game.

They are not stupid. Anyone who buys this war stories from CNN/Fox news/abc is the one who is stupid.

Americans didn't go to war because some clowns flew planes into WTC. They went to war because of the massive War empire that needed to be fed.

When we say 1Trillion $ has been spent, where did that money go? Yes, a part of it went to pay the salaries. Remaining went to those defense firms, lobbying firms, security firms like Xe and Blackwater and what not. So they basically printed their own money and injected into their own firms to make more money.


They can do that as long as they print dollar and dollar remains the reserve currency. They can fight wars as long as they have the weapons.

 

[RazPaK]

well one thing about the taleban --- they can't be bought..... if you're forced to list their admirable traits, at least that would be one of them....quite stubborn too. We begged them to relinquish the foreign fighters and deport them from Afghanistan. The Saudis did the same. Painful hours were spent with them to convince them to do so.

I agree that the ones that are loyal to Mullah Omar would never, but I'm talking about all the other clowns.

 

[VCheng]

from: Pakistan's security state: Reading the Taliban | The Economist

Pakistan's security state
Reading the Taliban
Feb 1st 2012, 16:21 by M.S.

The secret NATO report on the Taliban leaked to the BBC is full of fascinating stuff, but it mostly confirms what was already known rather than shedding new light on the conflict in Afghanistan. The report, called “The State of the Taliban” and based on interrogations with more than 4,000 Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees is, however, rich in anecdotal evidence about the way that Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, controls and sustains the Taliban and other extremist groups in Afghanistan.

The semi-comforting belief that only “rogue elements” in the ISI have close connections to the Taliban never had much basis in fact and it has less now. A senior al-Qaeda commander in Kunar province (in the wild north-east of the country) says: “Pakistan knows everything. They control everything. I can't [expletive] on a tree in Kunar without them watching. The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad.” The report also states: “Senior Taliban representatives, such as Nasiruddin Haqqani, maintain residences in the immediate vicinity of ISI headquarters in Islamabad, Pakistan.” Nasiruddin, a son of the Haqqani clan’s leader, Jalaluddin, and its most prominent fund-raiser, was arrested by Pakistani agents in December 2010 as a sop to American pressure to take action against Taliban leaders in Quetta. If Nasiruddin is indeed free and living in the same neighbourhood as the ISI, suspicions that his detention was a sham will be confirmed.

Gauging how seriously to take the bullish view of the Taliban’s prospects reflected in the report is a bit more difficult. In an unusually direct response to the leaking of a secret document, Colonel Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for ISAF (the NATO-led international coalition in Afghanistan), said: “This document aggregates the comments of Taliban detainees in a captive environment without considering the validity of or motivation behind their reflections. Any conclusions drawn from this would be questionable at best.” It is hardly surprising that the detainees want to project an air of confidence in their cause. But some of the things they say are hard to argue with. The report states: “Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over GIRoA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan], usually as a result of government corruption, ethnic bias and lack of connection with local religious and tribal leaders.” Particularly in Pashtu-speaking areas in the south, swift (and often brutal) Taliban-administered “traditional” justice is sometimes deemed preferable to the sluggish and corrupt courts provided by the state.

Other claims are more questionable. For example, the statement that “almost without exception Taliban members do not receive salaries or other financial incentives for their work”, directly contradicts the experience of Afghan and ISAF officials working with the (admittedly not hugely successful) reintegration programme. They find that even low-level Taliban fighters get a salary of around $120 a month, which is not bad by Afghan standards. Nor is the boast that despite the heavy losses the Taliban have suffered over the past 18 months in Helmand and Kandahar, “commanders and fighters are easily replaced, at least initially, with minimal impact on operations”. The evidence is that the attrition of mid-level commanders has had an effect, with a big decline in complex attacks on security forces, both local and ISAF, and an increase in the indiscriminate laying of roadside IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that kill and wound civilians disproportionately—a tactic that does little to sustain local support for the Taliban.

The report is, however, a timely reminder that despite the mood of (contained) optimism over peace talks, the insurgency remains resilient and confident and is likely to remain that way for as long as Pakistan believes it is in its interest to lend material and moral support. That does not mean that a Taliban victory, in the sense of Taliban-dominated government returning to Kabul, is inevitable once the bulk of ISAF combat forces have departed after 2014, as many of the interviewees claimed to believe. Most of Afghanistan remains firmly opposed to such an outcome. But it does mean that the strength of the Taliban’s negotiating position should not be underestimated. It also means that Western leaders, above all Barack Obama, should resist strengthening it further by speeding up an already risky rush for the exit.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

So what a news that is. AFGHANS are going to take Afghanistan when the US/NATOs leave. Must blame Pakistan for that horrible development too! Even though they (the goras) are talking and maintaining the same contacts as we.




height of absurdity, if you ask me

you said it all.


waiting for the next leak now

Both Pasha and Mullah Omar use Nokia mobiles.... "compelling proof".

 

[Vassnti]

Given the choice between Afghan Government and Taliban, it is obvious Pakistan will choose them. If in 13 years the US would have put in place an Afghanistan that was prosperous, stable and friendly to Pakistan we would have chosen different.

The problem with your statment is the implication that this was a choice made recently.

Its not well we gave them 13years they failed so last week we rang up Omar and told him Paksitan has his back.

Rather continuous support over the time Nato has been in Afghanistan which hindered the establishment of a stable and prosperous Afghanistan. Maybe they would have failed any way trying to direct Afghans is like herding cats but you cant claim the failure of Nato as the excuse for support of the taliban when the choice was made before Nato failed.