Pakistan looks ahead to end of Afghan war

[fatman17]

Pakistan looks ahead to end of Afghan war

Published On Wed Nov 3 2010

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier stands guard on a street in Karachi. Talks with Islamabad are ongoing on the use of ports in Karachi for shipping out Canadian troops and military supplies from Afghanistan next year.

By Olivia Ward
Foreign Affairs Reporter

As NATO forces prepare to pull out of Afghanistan, worries about the country falling back to Taliban control are paramount. But in neighbouring Pakistan, where suicide bombings and brazen attacks on security forces have become regular occurrences, the stakes are also high.

“What happens in Afghanistan affects us and vice-versa,” says Akbar Zeb, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Canada. “We have four million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan, and it’s in our interest to have a stable country where we can send them back. A Taliban takeover won’t be just detrimental to Afghanistan. It would harm Pakistan and the whole region.”

Zeb said that under the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari, relations have improved with Afghanistan, and contrary to reports of friction, there are “frequent contacts” between the two countries that would be helpful in creating stability.

But he added that Canada, and other Western countries, should not repeat the mistakes of the post-Soviet era, when the West lost interest in Afghanistan and Pakistan as soon as the Soviet troops withdrew.

During the rule of Pakistan’s military leader, President Pervez Musharraf, groups of Taliban-linked militants got a foothold in Pakistan, but were not seen as a danger to the country until internal attacks began to spread. Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, and suicide bombings took the lives of hundreds of civilians. Under pressure from the U.S., the Pakistani military began a massive campaign against the Taliban along the Afghan border.

“We have managed to clear a lot of areas from the Taliban,” said Zeb. “Military campaigns are the only language they understand. But they alone won’t help to win the war. We have border regions with a lot of poverty, and backward elements that have been ignored for a long time.”

Canada has announced support for road and rail projects linking Afghanistan and Pakistan to speed trade between the two countries.

“It’s a very good initiative, but scope is limited,” said Zeb.”We wish the projects were larger and not just (confined to) those that involve both Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Talks with Islamabad are also ongoing on the use of ports in Karachi for shipping out Canadian troops and military supplies from Afghanistan.

But as the war continues, Pakistan has also been urged to be tougher on the Taliban. In the past two years it has carried out attacks against the militants in its border regions with some success, while American-launched drone strikes have killed high-ranking Taliban. The catastrophic floods that wiped out some of the most important agricultural areas of Pakistan brought a temporary truce, but militant attacks have resumed since the waters receded.

Last week, talk of a peace deal between the notorious Taliban-linked Haqqani network, and an opposing tribe in the remote northwest raised fears that it could open the way for Taliban access to strategic border areas. But the U.S. has also urged a Pakistani offensive against the network in North Waziristan, a volatile region where 400,000 civilians are vulnerable to displacement.

According to Pakistani officials, the country has lost some 7,000 security forces in a decade of fighting the militants — more than three times the coalition deaths in Afghanistan. Meanwhile 30,000 Pakistani civilians have died. The border region, a tangle of mutually hostile tribes, remains a haven for militants.

“It’s a difficult balance for Pakistan,” said Zeb. “Foreign troops may leave, and for them Afghanistan is a distant land. We’re Afghanistan’s neighbours. We helped with the fighting in the decade-long war against the Soviets. And we have to live with the outcome of this war.”

 

[fatman17]

New US approach to Afghanistan insurgency: Vindication for Pakistan?

Afghanistan and the US are showing signs of a new approach to insurgents in Afghanistan. The approach may ultimately allow Pakistan more influence in Afghanistan as the US prepares to leave next year.

A US soldier walks during a patrol, on Nov. 3, in Sangin, south of Kabul. Afghanistan and the US are showing signs of a new approach to insurgents in Afghanistan.

By Issam Ahmed, Correspondent / November 3, 2010

Islamabad, Pakistan
A private meeting recently between a Taliban figure with ties to the militant Haqqani network and Afghan President Hamid Karzai may indicate a new willingness to engage with groups previously thought of as "too extreme," ultimately allowing Pakistan more room to influence events in Afghanistan as the US prepares to leave next year.

US drone attacks bombard Haqqani network in Pakistan Pakistan drone attack, aimed at Haqqani network, kills at least six Key Afghan insurgents open door to talks Maulvi Abdul Kabir, an ex-Taliban governor close to the Haqqani network, which is widely believed to be the US-led coalition’s most fierce enemy, met with President Hamid Karzai just over two weeks ago, the Associated Press reported, citing an unidentified former Afghan official. The meeting was a precursor to ongoing talks with a 70-member council tasked with bringing a close to the Afghanistan insurgency.

According to Brigadier (ret.) Mehmood Shah, a former security chief of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Kabir, who was arrested by Pakistani authorities in February, was likely flown into Kabul with Pakistan’s approval and backing.


The United States has publicly insisted that the Haqqani network based in Afghanistan and Pakistan and led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, should be excluded from talks. In July, US Gen. David Petraeus, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, suggested the group should be blacklisted, a move backed by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the US Senate Arms Services Committee.

The purported meeting with Mr. Kabir, would appear to suggest Afghanistan's desire to take a different direction.

Rifaat Hussain, a militancy expert at the Quaid-i-Azam University, says there now appears to be “an effort to co-opt all those elements who are willing to play ball with Karzai, which include the core Haqqani group and even those who hold a position of influence.”

Such an outcome would be favored by Pakistan, he says, which has long resisted calls to tackle the Al Qaeda affiliated group in its North Waziristan base, partly out of fear of a backlash and partly so it may continue to exert influence by proxy in Afghanistan.

Pakistani vindication

The Pakistani government has called for groups such as the Haqqani network and the forces of warlorld Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to be included in peace talks, and as such may view the move by the US to talk to Kabir as a vindication of its own long-time policy.

“There is a certain duality in the American approach: on the one hand they are talking to Haqqani and on the other they are also asking Pakistan to take them on, which Islamabad finds baffling,” Mr. Hussain says.

“Pakistan favors the government of Afghanistan to talk to the Taliban, and it would like to facilitate that as much as it can. Maulvi Kabir is in custody, so the government of Pakistan would have allowed [the Afghan government] to talk to him,” Brigadier Shah says.

So far, the Pakistan Army has resisted calls to carry out a full blown attack in North Waziristan, an area where the Pakistan Army currently has 34,000 troops.

“What we have to do, we have to stabilize the whole area. I have a very large area in my command. So I must stabilize the other areas, and then maybe look at North Waziristan” Lt. Gen. Asif Yasin Malik, the main military commander in the area, told reporters last week.

What rooting out the Haqqanis will do for Pakistan

Operations against the Taliban are still ongoing in three of the seven Tribal areas, Bajaur, Mohmand, and South Waziristan. The Pakistani Taliban are waging a campaign of terror in Pakistan’s cities. “Committing to fight the Haqqanis at this stage could create a serious internal threat for Pakistan,” says Dr. Hussain, the analyst.

Ultimately, however, it may be the so-called Quetta Shura, which consists of the Taliban leaders who fled from Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in 2001, and not the Haqqani network or other Pakistan-backed warlords who will be crucial to achieving a settlement, according to Hussain.

The Monitor reported a number of the leadership council were arrested in February including the Taliban number two, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, though Pakistan is limiting US and Afghan access to them, according to Ahmed Rashid, author of “Descent into Chaos.”

“They have the legitimacy of leading the Jihad against the foreign occupation,” as opposed to the Haqqani network which is politically weak and unpopular within Afghanistan. “The Quetta Shura is more independent and wants to assert itself. It does not [want] to appear as a stooge for the Pakistanis,” he says.

 

[muse]

“There is a certain duality in the American approach: on the one hand they are talking to Haqqani and on the other they are also asking Pakistan to take them on, which Islamabad finds baffling,”

Will the Afghan war end soon? No, it won't - Why not? Note the bolded part in quotes above - the "duality" referred to in the quote above is not limited to the so called Haqqani network, forum readers will be aware of the news of the decision to delay the Afghan presidential election, is there to more of the above referred "duality" in the presidential election? almost certainly, lets see if the brothers Karzai will be able to out maneuver the radicals in the US camp.

Now if level or scale of hostilities is judged to be lower in the coming weeks, will that not suggest that the US is serious about leaving? No, it won't though 2012 calculations will almost certainly play a major role in such a development.

But doesn't the reduction in the scale and intensity of hostilities suggest that the US and Pakistan are finally on the same page? No, far from it - Why? Because US strategic outlook is intensely hostile towards the stability the Pakistani strategic outlook is centered on -- But, wait why should this be the case?

OK, while many Pakistani readers may wish to seek the US-Pakistan engagement as the entirety of the paradigm the US is operating in, reality is that US policy seems designed to fry bigger fish, while ensuring that the US's strategic ally in the region is positioned such that neither Pakistan, nor the "bigger fish" will be in a position to bring about stability in Afghanistan, or the immediate region -- Will Pakistan and those states and entities that favor tradition and stability then decide that if instability can be imposed on them and be seen as "beneficial", then perhaps such instability may be sauce for the gander as well? Will then long term internal instability come to define the immediate neighborhood and punish "investment" and "investors"? It remains to be seen if such possibilities can bring a sharper focus on traditional stability for US policy makers and those of it's strategic allies in the region.

 

[muse]

I would also request readers attention to the following quote, which, I think, relates to efforts bring about the realization the Afghan problem has "regional" aspects which "AfPak" by US definition seeks to immunize it's strategic ally from making difficult choices and which is an aspect of US policy's "duality" but which Pakistani policy makers seem determined not to allow.

Canada has announced support for road and rail projects linking Afghanistan and Pakistan to speed trade between the two countries.

“It’s a very good initiative, but scope is limited,” said Zeb.”We wish the projects were larger and not just (confined to) those that involve both Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

 

[TOPGUN]

Yes plzz send them back the afghan's no offence to any one but its so hard to tell who is good and who is coward terrorist we have prob's & issues of our own seems as been have a good deed in the past we are now paying for it .. its time to send them packing enough is enough.

 

[CENTCOM]

It will only end when the US and other forces pull out, and then Faghanistan has to be broken up into pieces.

Dear Aashiq,

Do not conspiracy theories lead to conspiracy conclusions? The truth remains; As the US and Coalition Forces have made progress in Afghanistan and people in the region have begun to experience life in a free society the Taliban are losing their grasp. Farm communities in Marjah, Nad-e Ali, Nawa and Gereshk districts now have access to a facility capable of processing an estimated 4,000 metric tons of cotton this year. The factory’s reopening restores 175 jobs, and is expected to create up to 225 more new jobs in the coming months. The teacher training college in Lashkar Gah, one of 42 across Afghanistan, is now offering teaching certification programs to certify Afghans as professional teachers. This new effort by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education is designed to help rebuild the nation’s education infrastructure Uruzgan Province is experiencing tremendous growth in education opportunities, with 250 schools now open and more than 1,100 teachers and 425 trainees. In 2006, only 36 schools were operating in the province. Is not Afghanistan uniting and building towards prosperity? Of course the extremists and their allies would like you to believe otherwise and will do anything to disrupt any developments even it requires killing innocents and creating fear. Their failures in Afghanistan have force them to attempt to create instability in Pakistan, create fear among civilians and force a break in allegiance among US and Pakistani governments. Pakistani government realizes the problem is regional and that they must eliminate homegrown insurgency. Forming a strategic partnership, which in your eyes is US forcing “duality,” prevents extremism from spreading its wings and does not leave them any room to breathe. Whether it’s the recent bombings in Peshawar or the recent attack at the Sufi Shrine, wouldn’t you agree the threat posed by the Taliban is the same on both sides of the border? Is it not true that progress in Afghanistan is occurring with the help if the US and its partners and in spite of the Taliban’s burning of schools and Qur’ans.
As our president has made clear, the US is committed to leaving a more secure and stable environment, as we begin to turn over security responsibility to Afghan forces. We do not seek to keep forces any longer than is necessary, but our current effort demonstrates that we are committed to this mission. The efforts of US in the region show Afghanistan will continue to prosper once the region is completely free from the grip of Taliban. The thought of “Afghanistan being broken into pieces” is without basis, and our actions should tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.

LCDR Bill Speaks
DET, United States Central Command
www.Centcom.mil

 

[muse]

SIZE="5"]Some Skeptics Questioning Rosy Reports on War Zone[/SIZE]
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: November 7, 2010


WASHINGTON — The recent reports circulating in Washington’s national security establishment about the Afghan battleground of Marja show glimmerings of progress: bazaars are open, some 1,000 children are in school, and a new (and only) restaurant even serves goat curry and kebabs.

In Kandahar, NATO officials say that American and Afghan forces continue to rout the Taliban. In new statistics offered by American commanders in Kabul, Special Operations units have killed 339 midlevel Taliban commanders and 949 of the group’s foot soldiers in the past three months alone. At the Pentagon, the draft of a war assessment to be submitted to Congress this month cites a shift in momentum in some areas of the country away from the insurgency.

But as a new White House review of President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan gets under way, the rosy signs have opened an intense debate at the Defense Department, the White House, the State Department and the intelligence agencies over what they really mean. Are they indications of future success, are they fleeting and not replicable, or are they evidence that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top United States and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is simply more masterful than his predecessor at shaping opinion?

At the White House, so far there is uncertainty and skepticism. “There are tactical cases which seem promising as discrete bits of evidence,” a senior White House official said in an interview over the weekend. “What’s not clear is whether those cases can be put together to create a strategic trend.” Marja, he added, “looks a lot better than two years ago. But how many Marjas do we need to do and over what time frame?”

The debate centers on the resiliency of the Taliban and the extent to which the group can rebuild from the hammering it is taking. Most involved say that there are positive trends for the Americans, but that the real answer will not be clear until a new fighting season begins as the weather warms next year.

“The fundamental question is how deep is their bench,” said Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. official and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who led last year’s extended White House review of Afghan strategy that resulted in Mr. Obama’s ordering 30,000 additional United States forces to the country. “By next summer we should have a pretty good idea. If they’re having trouble replacing people that we’re killing on the battlefield, then we’re on the right track. But if by next summer they’re producing new cadres that are on the same order of quality, then we’re in deep trouble.”

A related variable is the uneven quality of more than 250,000 members of the Afghan Army and police. “There’s absolutely no question that where Petraeus’s troops have moved, they have done the Taliban immense damage,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “What is not yet clear is whether it will be sustainable, and that will depend on the success of the effort to train the Afghan security forces.”

Another question is what impact killing so many midlevel Taliban commanders will have on American efforts to pressure the group’s top leaders to negotiate an end to the war. United States commanders are encouraged by radio intercepts showing Taliban fighters demoralized and angry that their senior leaders remain in havens in Pakistan, which theoretically could make the Taliban more willing to make a deal. But intelligence experts view the intercepts as anecdotal at best.

The White House official said that wiping out midlevel Taliban fighters might have unintended consequences. “Are these guys being replaced by guys less beholden to the senior leaders in Pakistan?” the official said. If that is the case, in any future peace talks, “it’s possible that the leaders at the top could not deliver.”

Military officials for the most part take a more optimistic view and intelligence officials a more pessimistic view of recent developments in the war. In part the difference is cultural — the job of the intelligence analyst is to not be surprised by bad news — but deep doubts about the war remain imbedded in the spy agencies.

In the past year the C.I.A. has delivered a number of sober assessments about worsening violence in Afghanistan and the growing strength of the Taliban. Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., has been dismissive in public statements about nascent peace talks, saying that Taliban leaders have no incentive to strike a deal because they believe they are winning the war.

A senior United States official familiar with intelligence on Afghanistan reflected that view last week. “The Taliban have shown an ability to adapt their tactics quickly and are a very patient bunch,” he said. “They sometimes fan out when the going gets tough for them and then coalesce to mount resistance.”

A former C.I.A. official with longtime experience in Afghanistan said that the recent statements about American progress in Afghanistan reminded him of what was sometimes written about the Russians before they began withdrawing from Afghanistan in defeat in 1988, when they had been at war there for nearly 10 years.

“I don’t find many people I talk to who really believe any of this,” he said.

The military’s more positive view is hardly monolithic; doubts also exist within its ranks. The Defense Department’s coming war assessment says that violence once again increased in Afghanistan in the past year, in large part because of the aggressive American military operations in the south, while Pentagon officials readily acknowledge that security has deteriorated in previously quiet areas of the north.

But commanders on the ground in the south repeatedly say they have seen tactical progress in recent months. “There’s no safe location in Marja where you can say, 100 percent, I’m not going to get shot at,” Lt. Col. Kyle Ellison, commander of the Second Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment, said in an interview in September at a base in Marja, a 75-square-mile swath of farming villages in Helmand Province that was the site of a major NATO and Afghan offensive in February. “But when we first got here, you couldn’t walk outside this gate without getting a shot.”

Last week a team led by Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the president’s Afghanistan adviser at the White House, returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan with data that will serve as a basis for Mr. Obama’s review of the war next month. General Petraeus is also assembling masses of data.

“It is certainly true that Petraeus is attempting to shape public opinion ahead of the December review,” said an administration official who is supportive of the general.

“He is the most skilled public relations official in the business, and he’s trying to narrow the president’s options.”

But national security officials across Washington are already saying that the December review will only tweak the policy, not change the strategy, and that the real assessment will come in July 2011, the deadline for the beginning of the withdrawal of American troops.

“The bidding is still out,” the White House official said.



Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.

 

[illuzioN]

why is PAK even thinking about Afganistan where it should be thinking about killing all the terrorist thats in PAK.
Let us worry about Afgan

 

[unicorn]

Dear Aashiq,

Do not conspiracy theories lead to conspiracy conclusions? The truth remains; As the US and Coalition Forces have made progress in Afghanistan and people in the region have begun to experience life in a free society the Taliban are losing their grasp. Farm communities in Marjah, Nad-e Ali, Nawa and Gereshk districts now have access to a facility capable of processing an estimated 4,000 metric tons of cotton this year. The factory’s reopening restores 175 jobs, and is expected to create up to 225 more new jobs in the coming months. The teacher training college in Lashkar Gah, one of 42 across Afghanistan, is now offering teaching certification programs to certify Afghans as professional teachers. This new effort by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education is designed to help rebuild the nation’s education infrastructure Uruzgan Province is experiencing tremendous growth in education opportunities, with 250 schools now open and more than 1,100 teachers and 425 trainees. In 2006, only 36 schools were operating in the province. Is not Afghanistan uniting and building towards prosperity? Of course the extremists and their allies would like you to believe otherwise and will do anything to disrupt any developments even it requires killing innocents and creating fear. Their failures in Afghanistan have force them to attempt to create instability in Pakistan, create fear among civilians and force a break in allegiance among US and Pakistani governments. Pakistani government realizes the problem is regional and that they must eliminate homegrown insurgency. Forming a strategic partnership, which in your eyes is US forcing “duality,” prevents extremism from spreading its wings and does not leave them any room to breathe. Whether it’s the recent bombings in Peshawar or the recent attack at the Sufi Shrine, wouldn’t you agree the threat posed by the Taliban is the same on both sides of the border? Is it not true that progress in Afghanistan is occurring with the help if the US and its partners and in spite of the Taliban’s burning of schools and Qur’ans.
As our president has made clear, the US is committed to leaving a more secure and stable environment, as we begin to turn over security responsibility to Afghan forces. We do not seek to keep forces any longer than is necessary, but our current effort demonstrates that we are committed to this mission. The efforts of US in the region show Afghanistan will continue to prosper once the region is completely free from the grip of Taliban. The thought of “Afghanistan being broken into pieces” is without basis, and our actions should tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.

LCDR Bill Speaks
DET, United States Central Command
www.Centcom.mil

Sir!
Do you think Taliban will just vanish?
If not than what will USA do or plans to do in the near future?
What USA has achieved in these long tiring ten years?
In my opinion I simply do not see the direction in which USA plans to move...

 

[muse]

why is PAK even thinking about Afganistan where it should be thinking about killing all the terrorist thats in PAK.
Let us worry about Afgan

Because US policy has been a mess for the last 10 years and Pakistan ought not trust US policy - US policy has been a dismal failure in Iraq, where in the principal adversary, Iran is today king maker in Iraq. The same amateur hour disaster awaits Pakistan should it not seek to pursue and secure her interests with the exclusion of the US.

The Duality (read Duplicity) built into US policy is a danger to the US and also to Pakistan - and any way, Afghanistan is Pakistan's neighbor, not the US's , the primary fallout of instability in Afghanistan, which US policy is a prime promoter of, is and will be, Pakistan.

 

[silent hawk]

why is PAK even thinking about Afganistan where it should be thinking about killing all the terrorist thats in PAK.
Let us worry about Afgan

The Afghan problem is closely linked with the terrorist problem in Pakistan. Some of the groups are carrying out terror attacks so that the goverment stops supporting NATO troops in Afghanistan. With the Afghan problem solved at least these groups shall no longer bother Pakistan.

Secondly although we may have to kill the terrorists but this is not the preffered solution. We intend to aceive our objective of eliminating terrorism with minimum bloodshed.

 

[Spring Onion]

With republicans' win there are prospects that this war might not be ending soon and Obama also might be forced/pressurised to go back on the dates earlier US officials gave for withdrawal.


We have to wait and see

 

[illuzioN]

The Afghan problem is closely linked with the terrorist problem in Pakistan. Some of the groups are carrying out terror attacks so that the goverment stops supporting NATO troops in Afghanistan. With the Afghan problem solved at least these groups shall no longer bother Pakistan.

Secondly although we may have to kill the terrorists but this is not the preffered solution. We intend to aceive our objective of eliminating terrorism with minimum bloodshed.

That makes sense....

hard for us to see the point of view for PAK.... I guess if we where in your situation we would also attack them with less bloodshed...

Hate for see these terrorist thinking they have the upper hands in things

 

[Omar1984]

I dont know how much longer U.S. will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a country like Afghanistan.

And it's happening as the cumulative cost of the two wars surpasses $1 trillion, including spending for veterans and foreign aid. Those costs could put increased pressure on President Obama and Congress, given the nation's $12.9 trillion debt.

Afghan war costs now outpace Iraq's - USATODAY.com


Can someone tell me what's so special about Afghanistan that U.S. (a country with a 12.9 trillion dollar debt) is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the poorest most backwards country on earth?

 

[silent hill]

why is PAK even thinking about Afganistan where it should be thinking about killing all the terrorist thats in PAK.
Let us worry about Afgan

and you have been worrying for 10 years, and how much more long that does gonna take???