Pakistan trying to broker Afghan deal

[jha]

Well written article...Region needs more sane people like him...

 

[Saleem]

total and utter nonsense - in line with the current trend of appeasement towards India a la amn ki ashaa.

Taliban were never under "control" of pakistan. I remember once a ?football team went to play there and inadvertently caused some offense - they returned with their heads shaved! pakistan interacted with those who it thought would help further its goals. some ppl on this side got delusions of grandeur and thought they were running the show - they never were and never could. The Taliban were always, and still are, their own masters and did want they thought best interests - all umpteen factions are working towards their own goals.

India has always promoted terror to serve its goals from mukti bahini to the LTTE to the so called sdub' nationalists of the various countries around India.

this does not mean that there should be no peace with India. It is the most desirable goal but must be pursued while protecting pakistan's national interests.

All problems in pakistan are due to dishonesty and corruption - dishonesty has no religion or nationality.

 

[indushek]

@Saleem

Dude don't worry we have people who think in the same way our side too. IT doesn't make an iota of difference just as people expecting aman aur shanti are present both sides. At the end of the day its people like the writer who hold the post to influence the government decisions and the people in power who matter the most. Not u not me. Period.

 

[sparklingway]

Pakistan trying to broker Afghan deal​

By Baqir Sajjad Syed
Wednesday, 16 Jun, 2010

ISLAMABAD, June 15: Pakistan has dived headlong into the Afghanistan reconciliation process by taking on the task of acting as a bridge between the Haqqani network and the government in Kabul, Dawn has learnt.

“Preliminary contacts have been established with Siraj Haqqani and other leaders of his group through intermediaries in a bid to engineer a rapprochement with the Karzai administration,” a senior security official told Dawn.

The intermediaries, the source claims, have presented a roadmap for a political settlement between Kabul and the Haqqanis.

If the plan is accepted by the two sides, it could bring peace to the war-torn country, claim government officials. The Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani group is considered the most potent warring faction in Afghanistan and is viewed as a serious threat by the Karzai regime and also by the American troops there. “Although the future of the initiative is unclear at the moment, the initial signs are encouraging because the leadership of the militant group appears to be willing (to talk),” the security official told Dawn. However, Pakistani officials are reluctant to discuss the matter in detail and hence few details are available about the talks.

The initiative on the part of the Pakistan government has followed overtures from the Afghanistan government. Analysts agree that there has been a change in the attitude of Afghan President Hamid Karzai towards Pakistan in recent weeks.

Karzai’s hostile statements against Islamabad seem to have stopped; in fact he acknowledged Pakistan’s role in the reconciliation process in his visit to Islamabad in March.

In addition, resignations by Afghanistan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh and interior minister Hanif Atmar are also likely to help improve relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Even though Saleh ostensibly quit because of a security failure, a rocket attack during a jirga held in Kabul in the first week of June, observers point out that his departure from the government fulfils a longstanding demand of Pakistan.

In fact, Saleh has been quite vocal in his criticism of Karzai since his resignation; he has alleged that the president is now looking towards Pakistan, instead of the United States, to bring peace to Afghanistan.

Dawn has learnt that Islamabad’s efforts to mediate between the Haqqani group and Kabul were the result of intense pressure from the United States to launch an offensive in North Waziristan.

However, the military is not interested in opening another front in Fata as it is already dealing with active operations in places such as Orakzai and wants to hold off going into North Waziristan.

At the same time, it is no secret that the military’s reluctance stems from a number of other reasons. For instance, army officials have on more than one occasion explained that the Haqqani group has not been involved in attacks inside Pakistan and hence it is not a direct threat to the state as are other militant groups.

But, more importantly, some analysts feel that elements within the military establishment, which still maintain contacts with the Haqqani duo, feel that the father-son team can yield results for Islamabad in future; if the group becomes a part of the future regime in Afghanistan, it can and will provide Pakistan a say in the country’s affairs.

It is against this backdrop that Pakistani civilian and military officials are pushing for a deal between Karzai and the Haqqani network. The biggest challenge in working out a settlement, however, defence analysts believe, is the US reception of such an arrangement.

But officials tell Dawn that the US attitude towards the Haqqani network will become less intransigent with time. Pakistan is aware that the Americans are keen to begin withdrawal by July 2011 – the deadline set by President Barack Obama -- and in order for this to happen, Kabul will have to start a dialogue with some Taliban groups.

American officials have, on more than one occasion, conceded that at some stage the Taliban can be engaged provided certain conditions are met, such as cutting off ties with Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist groups.

That this possibility does not exclude the Haqqani group is clear from the statements of officials within the US administration and military. For instance, US Central Command Director of Intelligence Major General Michael Flynn had been quoted by The Atlantic magazine as saying that Jalaluddin Haqqani was “absolutely salvageable”.

Karzai has in the past tried at least twice – in 2007 and 2009 – to woo the Haqqani group but to no avail. It even refused to attend the recent Kabul peace jirga. But since then Pakistani officials claim that the Haqqanis have been persuaded to talk to Karzai. The Haqqani network, which is operationally headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani’s son Sirajuddin, is believed to have sanctuaries in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region close to the Pak-Afghan border and is viewed as one of the most potent warring groups active in Afghanistan.

Though this group operates largely in the south-eastern provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika, allied forces have accused it of carrying out attacks in Kabul and Kandahar as well, including the one on the Indian mission in Kabul.

However, while military and foreign office officials are willing to talk about this initiative in off-the-record conversations, the official line from the Foreign Office remains ambiguous: “Pakistan will continue supporting Afghanistan-led efforts towards reintegration and reconciliation.”

 

[Fighter488]

Pakistan seethes at bad-boy image​

By Zahid U Kramet

LAHORE - While Pakistan - and even the Taliban - have reacted angrily to a report that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has "strong" ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the sensitive issue highlights Islamabad's growing concerns over losing what has for many years been its key role in Afghanistan as a United States ally.

The London School of Economics (LSE) this weekend released a report that said its research "strongly suggested" that support for the Taliban was the ISI's official policy, adding that the intelligence agency "orchestrates, sustains and strongly influences the [Taliban] movement".

The LSE said that its report, prepared by Matt Waldman, a former Oxfam official, was based on interviews with nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan between February and May of this year. The document also claimed that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari visited senior Taliban prisoners in Pakistan this year and promised their release and help for militant operations.

A spokeswoman for Zardari called the allegations "absolutely spurious" and suggested they were an attempt to derail US-Pakistani strategic talks. Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said, "It's the same old story which provides no credible evidence. It is misleading with malicious intent. We reject it." And Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdus Salam Zaeef called the report "ridiculous and absurd". A senior ISI official simply dismissed it is "rubbish".

An editorial on June 14 by Pakistan's Nation newspaper possibly came closest to the heart of the matter. Under the headline "Pakistan targeted again", it wrote, "There is certainly a double game going on here but it is being played rather skillfully by the US and India with NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] a compliant partner."

In the bloody civil war of the early 1990s that followed the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, Pakistan saw the emerging Taliban as a key strategic asset against bitter rival India, and it encouraged and nurtured the movement.

When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Pakistan was one of only a few countries to recognize the government. Although this support officially ended when the Taliban were driven from power in the US-led invasion in late 2001 and Islamabad signed onto the US's "war on terror", the ties to the Taliban run very deep among sections of the security apparatus.

Footprint in Afghanistan

On Tuesday, two days after the release of the LSE report, America's top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, fainted during a congressional hearing in which he was being questioned by senators about US strategy in Afghanistan.

In particular, he was asked about President Barack Obama's resolve to begin a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in July 2011. Republican Senator John McCain asked, "When you say that you continue to support the president's policy both in terms of additional troops and also the setting of that date to begin the [troop] reduction, does that represent your best professional judgement?"

Petraeus hesitated before replying in the affirmative and McCain responded that the deadline was "convincing the key actors inside and outside of Afghanistan that the United States is more interested in leaving than succeeding in this conflict".

Pakistan sees itself as one of these key actors. And while it roundly rejects accusations such as those made in the LSE report of direct intervention in the Afghan war, it has repeatedly voiced its concern about the expanded Indian presence in that country.

Islamabad has been concerned over the reluctance of the US to press India to work for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan, and it is also upset that the US signed a civilian nuclear deal with India while refusing to do so with Pakistan.

Ultimately, however, Pakistan remains concerned about the US's seemingly ambivalent policy in the AfPak region, with Under Secretary of State William Burns announcing at a seminar in Washington early this month that the US sees "India's continued involvement in there [Afghanistan] as a key part of that country's success, not part of its problems".

Yet a day later, General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the US-led NATO troops in Afghanistan, ventured in a "leaked" report, "Increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate tensions and encourage Pakistani counter measures."
Confusion was compounded when Senator John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reaffirmed in a Times of India article titled "Promoting Strategic Dialogue" that India “will be a defining partnership of the 21st century" to effectively marginalize the significance of Pakistan. [1]

This will not go down well with the Pakistani military, which is still smarting over last year's Kerry Lugar bill that grants Pakistan US$1.5 billion annually for five years. Although it is essentially a non-military aid package granted for Pakistan's efforts in the "war on terror", it imposes some checks on the military. The army's top commanders have officially expressed their "serious concerns" on some of the clauses of the bill that they believe affect national security. The objections center on clauses about the country's nuclear program and suggestions of Pakistan’s support for cross-border militancy.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake recently made an effort to pacify Pakistan. During a web chat with a confrontational Indian press he reminded that "we [the US] will not be able to succeed without the active support of our friends in Pakistan".

But then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up the cudgels on India's behalf, again in the Times of India, in a column on June 4 entitled "Partnership of Democracies" in which she wrote, "Through our strategic dialogue, we are expanding our cooperation on global issues on which India can and must play a leading role." [2]

Meanwhile, this month's peace jirga (council) instigated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai ended with a call to "reintegrate" the Taliban (supported by Pakistan initially) into the political system, but it has drawn little water.

A major offensive planned against the Taliban in their strongholds in Kandahar province has been delayed for several months, causing Obama, in an effort to sustain public support for the war in Afghanistan, to give a December deadline to show progress.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and McChrystal are confident of some success by year's end, but they apparently warned during a closed-door meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels that "gains will not come easily or without high cost".

Karzai's "talking with the Taliban" still appears the best option, but it is clear that this has to be occasioned under the flag of a truce negotiated directly with the Taliban leadership - and this would not go down well in India. Delhi sees the Taliban as a Pakistan by-product and fears integrating them into the Afghan political fold would jeopardize whatever efforts it is willing to make towards Afghanistan's reconstruction.

Still, the news of a trillion dollars of minerals waiting to be tapped in Afghanistan would have whetted the Indian appetite - more so with Afghanistan reportedly having asked Indian companies to prospect and extract minerals such as copper, lithium, iron ore, gold and precious stones. [3]

But herein lies the rub. A New York Times report by Alissa J Rubin warns that the Laskar-e-Taiba, a "Pakistani-based militant group identified with attacks on targets [in India] has expanded its operations in Afghanistan, inflicting casualties on Afghans and Indians alike, setting up training camps, and adding new volatility to relations between India and Pakistan". [4]

The United States needs to accommodate both Pakistan's and India's interests in Afghanistan, while also trying to tame the Taliban. These complex inter-relationships - and ups and downs like the LSE report - make the likelihood of any US withdrawal most unlikely, let alone showing any progress by December.

Note
1. Promoting Strategic Dialogue Times of India, June 2, 2010.
2. Partnership Of Democracies by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Times of India, June 4, 2010.
3. The Pentagon strikes it rich Asia Times Online, June 16, 2010.
4. Militant Group Expands Attacks in Afghanistan New York Times, June 15, 2010.

Zahid U Kramet, a Lahore-based political analyst specializing in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, is the founder of the research and analysis website the Asia Despatch.

(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

 

[jin]

What then is the alternative for Pakistan? Actually, a fairly simple one and, in the words of Benazir Bhutto: “To let the dust settle in Afghanistan where it will.” In other words, to let the Americans stew in their own mess till eventually they are driven out by American public opinion aided by murderous Taliban attacks. And, meanwhile, to cleanse our lands of the presence of those who use our territory to wage war on the US, India or anyone else. And, if this means that we will have to take on Haqqani and his ilk then to do so, because such is the contagion that they have spread stretching from the furthermost edge of FATA to Karachi, which eventually, as surely as night follows day, we will have to confront or else succumb. Currying support from murderous villains who pose as our well-wishers is delusory. It is a sign of weakness and not strength and casts doubt on our commitment to democracy and progressive Islam.

A very contradictory .As all of the the parties involved will play for

the goals of Pakistan. Pakistan has to play a role rather waiting what

other achieves. He shows his defeated menatality and expect

miraculous outcome in favor of Pakistan while remaining idle, and

converting the proprietorship.

A very poor analysis

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

What then is the alternative for Pakistan? Actually, a fairly simple one and, in the words of Benazir Bhutto: “To let the dust settle in Afghanistan where it will.” In other words, to let the Americans stew in their own mess till eventually they are driven out by American public opinion aided by murderous Taliban attacks. And, meanwhile, to cleanse our lands of the presence of those who use our territory to wage war on the US, India or anyone else. And, if this means that we will have to take on Haqqani and his ilk then to do so, because such is the contagion that they have spread stretching from the furthermost edge of FATA to Karachi, which eventually, as surely as night follows day, we will have to confront or else succumb. Currying support from murderous villains who pose as our well-wishers is delusory. It is a sign of weakness and not strength and casts doubt on our commitment to democracy and progressive Islam.

And perhaps eventual destruction of all these militias is precisely what is planned by Pakistan, though not without extracting its 'pound of flesh' from the GoA in the manner of the removal of certain 'viciously anti-Pakistan elements'. Amrullah Saleh and some others of his mindset would certainly be among those Pakistan would like to see depart.

Dawn today has an article that has now made official the suspicions Jana mentioned in the thread about the missing FC troops in the checkpost attack in Bajaur, that the ANA or Afghan Police were involved in assisting the Taliban.

Once these elements are removed, there should be no reason why Haqqani &Co. and anyone else is not eliminated, if they refuse to disband as a militia.

The really troubling aspect here is that if the US does withdraw from Afghanistan without either a complete defeat of the Taliban movement, without a 'reconciliation plan' and with a weak Afghan government and institutions, it is only a matter of time before the Taliban start taking control of large parts of the rural countryside, at least. And from there shall be planned incessant attacks on Afghan military, police and government targets, and attacks on cities. If the reports of the attack on the Pakistani check post are true, then there will be plenty of defectors joining the Taliban cause from the Afghan security forces, as morale plummets and Taliban attacks increase.

In North Waziristan, where Hekmetyar and Haqqani sheltered the TTP leadership and their foot soldiers despite a 'peace deal' with the PA, and promises to 'prevent outside Taliban from taking shelter', the agency was turned into a TTP have from where multiple terrorist attacks in Pakistan were plotted. That experience would indicate that Taliban control over any part of Afghanistan (in the conditions described in the para above) would have very negative consequences for Pakistan.

I believe for that reason that Pakistan has no interest in seeing the US leave the region with the job not yet done, but at the same time does not see the US ever getting the job done if it sticks to a goal of 'defeating the Taliban'.

Hence 'reconciliation'.

If the Taliban can be co-opted into political process in Afghanistan and renounce their violent 'struggle', then the chance of vast parts of Afghanistan turning into a 'North Waziristan' diminish, as will the strength of the insurgency in Pakistan.

I agree with the author completely - the Taliban as a militia in Pakistan, whether targeting the Pakistani State or Afghan State, cannot be allowed to exist in the long run, as events in North Waziristan have clearly shown.

 

[jin]

And perhaps eventual destruction of all these militias is precisely what is planned by Pakistan, though not without extracting its 'pound of flesh' from the GoA in the manner of the removal of certain 'viciously anti-Pakistan elements'. Amrullah Saleh and some others of his mindset would certainly be among those Pakistan would like to see depart.

Dawn today has an article that has now made official the suspicions Jana mentioned in the thread about the missing FC troops in the checkpost attack in Bajaur, that the ANA or Afghan Police were involved in assisting the Taliban.

Once these elements are removed, there should be no reason why Haqqani &Co. and anyone else is not eliminated, if they refuse to disband as a militia.

The really troubling aspect here is that if the US does withdraw from Afghanistan without either a complete defeat of the Taliban movement, without a 'reconciliation plan' and with a weak Afghan government and institutions, it is only a matter of time before the Taliban start taking control of large parts of the rural countryside, at least. And from there shall be planned incessant attacks on Afghan military, police and government targets, and attacks on cities. If the reports of the attack on the Pakistani check post are true, then there will be plenty of defectors joining the Taliban cause from the Afghan security forces, as morale plummets and Taliban attacks increase.

In North Waziristan, where Hekmetyar and Haqqani sheltered the TTP leadership and their foot soldiers despite a 'peace deal' with the PA, and promises to 'prevent outside Taliban from taking shelter', the agency was turned into a TTP have from where multiple terrorist attacks in Pakistan were plotted. That experience would indicate that Taliban control over any part of Afghanistan (in the conditions described in the para above) would have very negative consequences for Pakistan.

I believe for that reason that Pakistan has no interest in seeing the US leave the region with the job not yet done, but at the same time does not see the US ever getting the job done if it sticks to a goal of 'defeating the Taliban'.

Hence 'reconciliation'.

If the Taliban can be co-opted into political process in Afghanistan and renounce their violent 'struggle', then the chance of vast parts of Afghanistan turning into a 'North Waziristan' diminish, as will the strength of the insurgency in Pakistan.

I agree with the author completely - the Taliban as a militia in Pakistan, whether targeting the Pakistani State or Afghan State, cannot be allowed to exist in the long run, as events in North Waziristan have clearly shown.

Well said Agno,

 

[Kabir Panthi]

Pakistan trying to broker Afghan deal​

By Baqir Sajjad Syed
Wednesday, 16 Jun, 2010

ISLAMABAD, June 15: Pakistan has dived headlong into the Afghanistan reconciliation process by taking on the task of acting as a bridge between the Haqqani network and the government in Kabul, Dawn has learnt.

“Preliminary contacts have been established with Siraj Haqqani and other leaders of his group through intermediaries in a bid to engineer a rapprochement with the Karzai administration,” a senior security official told Dawn.

The intermediaries, the source claims, have presented a roadmap for a political settlement between Kabul and the Haqqanis.

Here is some information about the Haqqani gang which Pakistan is seeking to promote:

Recently, this mid-level Taliban commander shared a chilling story with me. He told me it was a scandal that would rock the Muslim world like nothing before and that it would “devastate” the Haqqani network. “What Abu Ghraib was for you Americans,” he said, “this will be for the Haqqanis; only worse.”

A Muslim Abu Ghraib? Considering the horrific violence that the Haqqanis had perpetrated to date, I had trouble imagining what they could have done now that would suddenly have the power to enflame the Muslim world. After all, that kind of outrage is normally reserved for terrible insults by the West, like cartoons, operas, or free speech. Then, my contact told me his story. It made me absolutely sick to my stomach.

As Siraj Haqqani moved from village to village, rounding up the sons of poor Muslim families to fight for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, he offered the villagers free medical care. He even sent his physician, Dr. Hassan Duraz to conduct the clinics. There was a horrific catch, though. Duraz was a monster.

He arrived in each village with Siraj Haqqani’s uncle, Ibrahim, and Siraj’s cousin, Ishak, in tow. With them, the Haqqanis brought along their own very special tools of terror – a video camera and an eye for human flesh. You see, with Haqqani healthcare, you not only received a medical exam, if you were an attractive young girl, you also got a screen test. And heaven forbid you passed.

For those women and girls unfortunate enough to catch the good doctor’s fancy, it was show time. The Haqqani uncle and cousin would be brought into the exam room, they would set up their video equipment, and Duraz would drop his trousers and go to work.

The Haqqanis and Duraz sexually assaulted poor women throughout the tribal regions and captured every moment of their degradation and humiliation on video to enjoy over and over again.

Times were good for the Haqqani pornography ring. Their enterprise thrived until someone slipped up and word leaked out. In the blink of an eye, Siraj Haqqani was in big trouble.

And what’s a good and pious Muslim warrior to do when his moral authority and the very existence of his terror network are at stake? There’s only one answer of course. Kill everyone involved. (Everyone that is, except for family.) And that’s exactly what Siraj Haqqani did.

Haqqani not only killed the women in the video, but he also killed his own physician, Dr. Duraz. After all, dead men (and dead women for that matter) tell no tales, right?

The only thing left to do was to visit the Haqqani home theater and destroy all the evidence. With that task complete, Siraj Haqqani could sit back and relax. There was just one problem. He didn’t get all of the tapes. My contact managed to rescue some.

With the help of a prominent Pakistani Mullah, he put together the video we have linked here, extolling all Muslims to condemn and abandon the Haqqanis. In Islam, there is only one thing worse than the sins the Haqqanis committed – Siraj Haqqani’s sin of trying to cover it all up.

As the video is disseminated throughout the bazaars of Pakistan and Afghanistan, I can only hope that it will result in a death sentence for the Haqqanis and their entire terror network.

Link: Taliban Rape Tapes: A ?Muslim Abu Ghraib? - Big Journalism

 

[Marxist]

(Reuters) - Pakistan has an important role to play in brokering talks between Afghan militant factions and President Hamid Karzai's government, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday.

World

Hague also said London agreed with Washington that the Haqqani network, a particularly brutal faction of the Afghan Taliban, was probably irreconcilable with the Afghan government and unlikely to give up its al Qaeda ties.

"We see Pakistan as a partner in fighting violent extremism," Hague told reporters.

Hague was making his first official visit to Pakistan since Britain's coalition government took power in May. He said he hoped Pakistan and Britain would boost trade and ties and establish a "tremendous U.K.-Pakistan relationship."

He declined to criticise Pakistan for allegations its intelligence service has deep, active links with the Haqqanis and other elements of the Afghan Taliban, meaning it is working against its ally, the United States.

"There is a complex relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan. We've come to Pakistan to work with the ministers of Pakistan, not to criticise them," he said. "We feel we are in a shared fight."

Pakistan is believed to be using the Haqqanis to strike a deal with Karzai's government to gain influence and keep Indian sway to a minimum should the United States begin drawing down troops in July 2011 as planned.

The Haqqani network, led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin, is one of three main factions of the Afghan Taliban.

Based mainly in Pakistan's North Waziristan region, it is blamed for some of the most daring and brutal attacks against coalition and Afghan forces.

It is allied with both Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

On Sunday, the U.S. regional envoy, Richard Holbrooke, said it was "hard to imagine" the Haqqani network renouncing al Qaeda and peacefully participating in the Afghan political process, the U.S. conditions for reconciliation.

"There is no difference between us and the United States," Hague said when asked if he thought the Haqqani network would opt for peace. "We've been absolutely together on this and we're not going to differ with the United States."

Britain just suffered its 300th death in the Afghan war, which it entered alongside the United States and other NATO allies after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Pakistan can help broker Afghan talks - Hague | Reuters

 

[GUNNER]

ISLAMABAD, June 24, 2010 (AFP) - Pakistan on Thursday called for early finalisation of a transit trade agreement with landlocked neighbour Afghanistan, hoping for a major increase in bilateral trade.

"The early finalisation of Afghan Transit Trade Agreement is in our mutual interest," Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a joint press conference with Afghan counterpart Zalmai Rasoul.

Qureshi said that there could be a significant boost to bilateral trade between the neighbours during the next five years.

"Currently the bilateral trade is around 1.5 billion dollars, and with this new arrangement in place we can easily enhance our bilateral trade to five billion dollars by 2015," Qureshi said.

"The relevant ministers will be meeting in Pakistan shortly," he added.
Qureshi said that the both sides agreed during talks to increase high-level interaction and set up joint commissions on matters including education.

Pakistan also offered Afghanistan training for its soldiers, police and diplomats and proposed to set up a commission on border security, he added.

Rasoul said he briefed Qureshi about the security situation and peace efforts in Afghanistan.

"It is in the interest of both the countries to commit each other together for the fight against terrorism and extremism and my brother agreed to the concept," he said.

Rasoul also said he was pleased that Pakistan was supporting the peace process.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have been marked by distrust, but there have been growing signs of rapprochement and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in March welcomed an offer from Pakistan to help with peace efforts.

 

[Nahraf]

'A lack of fire in the belly,' concludes Pakistan -- by Daniel Twining | Shadow Government

'A lack of fire in the belly,' concludes Pakistan on Obama's war strategy
Posted By Daniel Twining Friday, June 25, 2010 - 12:47 PM Share

"Pakistan is said to pursue a foothold in Afghanistan," reads today's headline. Breaking news? Old news, rather.

Nonetheless, the New York Times has done its readers a service by laying out clearly the danger the Pakistani military's intentions pose to the project of democratic state-building and security in Afghanistan. It has also reminded us, yet again, how President Obama's July 2011 date for the start of a U.S. troop drawdown has created a perverse incentive structure that encourages both the Afghan and Pakistani governments to hedge against the United States in this vital region. No matter how talented General David Petraeus proves to be commanding American and NATO forces, it is hard to see how our Afghan strategy can be successful absent a strategic reorientation by the Obama administration that creates a different calculus for leaders in Kabul and Rawalpindi (headquarters of the Pakistani armed forces) with regard to the Afghan endgame.

Pakistan's military intelligence establishment continues to define national security with reference to the weakness and pliability, rather than the strength, of its Afghan neighbor. There is both an external and an internal logic to this construction of national security.

Externally, Pakistan seeks "strategic depth" against India, whose influence and friendly relations with the government of President Hamid Karzai threaten the Pakistani nightmare of strategic encirclement. Moreover, the Pakistani security establishment's sponsorship of the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba is today what Pakistan's sponsorship of Kashmiri militants was in the 1980s and 1990s -- a strategic tool to target and weaken India through terrorist attacks while enabling Rawalpindi to claim plausible deniability. At the same time, Pakistan's close relationship with the forces of Sirajuddin Haqqani (an important al Qaeda ally) and the Afghan Taliban give it critical leverage in its dealings with Washington.

Despite the billions of dollars of assistance the United States provides its South Asian ally, many members of Pakistan's strategic elite believe that, as a result of the influence Rawalpindi derives from its friendship with our enemies, the United States needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs the United States. In this view, if Pakistan severed its close links to selected militants, closed down their sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal regions, and fully endorsed the Western project in Afghanistan, Pakistani leaders might no longer enjoy the red-carpet treatment from Washington. Pakistan therefore derives strength in its dealings with America by pursuing differentiated strategic objectives rather than similar ones. This is a different conception of the notion of "ally" than applies to American relations with other key partners.

This reality, in turn, leads to the internal logic of Pakistani statecraft in Afghanistan. The military intelligence establishment's position at the core of Pakistani society and politics has been strengthened, not weakened, by Western intervention in Afghanistan over the past 9 years (though the opposite would have been true had the West and our Afghan partners succeeded in building a functioning and accountable Afghan state that highlighted Pakistan's own political deficiencies). The war against al Qaeda and the Taliban made General Pervez Musharraf's military dictatorship appear indispensable to the United States. Following Pakistan's democratic transition (which Washington supported, though not soon enough) and the subsequent U.S. presidential succession, Obama forged a new Afghan strategy that has increasingly come to rely on Pakistan to deliver the Afghan Taliban (and perhaps also the militant networks run by Siraj Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) for an Afghan political settlement that would give these forces -- each currently allied in various ways with al Qaeda -- positions of power in a new Afghan constitutional settlement so that Western forces could come home.

This U.S. policy has further elevated the position of the Pakistani armed forces chief of staff and his corps commanders in Pakistani politics, as demonstrated by the way General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani openly coordinated the positions of Pakistan's civilian ministries before the last U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue. Moreover, Obama's declared exit strategy starting in July 2011 has more widely opened the playing field in Afghanistan to Pakistan's military and intelligence services. They are further empowered internally by the decisive influence they now derive, with Washington's consent, in determining the Afghan endgame in a way that "defeats" India and America and therefore "strengthens" Pakistan. These developments do not bode well for the future of either Pakistani or Afghan democracy.

Obama's flawed and half-hearted Afghan strategy has also created incentives for Karzai to look for new friends in a dangerous region -- leading to the Faustian bargain he risks making with Pakistan over political reconciliation that brings the Afghan Taliban into government without committing it to uphold the Afghan constitution, and gives Rawalpindi a guiding hand in determining Afghanistan's future internal and external orientations. Karzai's recent firing of his interior minister and intelligence chief, both proponents of "hardening" Afghanistan against Pakistani influence, pleased Rawalpindi and worrisomely revealed a tendency in this direction. If American and allied forces are headed for the exits before Afghan security and political institutions are mature enough to hold the country together and shield it from predation by its powerful neighbors, Karzai justifiably sees cutting a deal with Pakistan as a preferable option to hanging from a lamppost -- as did President Najibullah some years after Soviet forces departed (though the parallel is imprecise since the Karzai government enjoys a genuine measure of popular legitimacy its predecessor did not).

The tragedy here is that the United States and its allies went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 to oust a Taliban government with links to al Qaeda and that was sponsored by Pakistan. A decade and thousands of lost allied and Afghan lives later, it is hard to believe that President Obama is really going to preside over a premature military drawdown leading to a political transition that restores a Taliban-dominated government, some of whose constituent parts have ties to al Qaeda, that is sponsored by Pakistan.

 

[Nahraf]

Pakistan Is Said to Pursue an Afghan Foothold - NYTimes.com

Pakistan Is Said to Pursue Foothold in Afghanistan
By JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMITT and CARLOTTA GALL.
Published: June 24, 2010

This article is by Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt and Carlotta Gall.
Orlin Wagner/Associated Press

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief, who has offered to broker a peace deal with the Taliban leadership.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan is exploiting the troubled United States military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there but is likely to undermine United States interests, Pakistani and American officials said.

The dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will almost certainly embolden the Pakistanis in their plan as they detect increasing American uncertainty, Pakistani officials said. The Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, preferred General McChrystal to his successor, Gen. David H. Petraeus, whom he considers more of a politician than a military strategist, said people who had spoken recently with General Kayani.

Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans. Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement.

In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership.

Washington has watched with some nervousness as General Kayani and Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, shuttle between Islamabad and Kabul, telling Mr. Karzai that they agree with his assessment that the United States cannot win in Afghanistan, and that a postwar Afghanistan should incorporate the Haqqani network, a longtime Pakistani asset. In a sign of the shift in momentum, the two Pakistani officials were next scheduled to visit Kabul on Monday, according to Afghan TV.

Despite General McChrystal’s 11 visits to General Kayani in Islamabad in the past year, the Pakistanis have not been altogether forthcoming on details of the conversations in the last two months, making the Pakistani moves even more worrisome for the United States, said an American official involved in the administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan deliberations.

“They know this creates a bigger breach between us and Karzai,” the American official said.

Though encouraged by Washington, the thaw heightens the risk that the United States will find itself cut out of what amounts to a separate peace between the Afghans and Pakistanis, and one that does not necessarily guarantee Washington’s prime objective in the war: denying Al Qaeda a haven.

It also provides another indication of how Pakistan, ostensibly an American ally, has worked many opposing sides in the war to safeguard its ultimate interest in having an Afghanistan that is pliable and free of the influence of its main strategic obsession, its more powerful neighbor, India.

The Haqqani network has long been Pakistan’s crucial anti-India asset and has remained virtually untouched by Pakistani forces in their redoubt inside Pakistan, in the tribal areas on the Afghan border, even as the Americans have pressed Pakistan for an offensive against it.

General Kayani has resisted the American pleas, saying his troops are too busy fighting the Pakistani Taliban in other parts of the tribal areas.

But there have long been suspicions among Afghan, American and other Western officials that the Pakistanis were holding the Haqqanis in reserve for just such a moment, as a lever to shape the outcome of the war in its favor.

On repeated occasions, Pakistan has used the Haqqani fighters to hit Indian targets inside Afghanistan, according to American intelligence officials. The Haqqanis have also hit American ones, a possible signal from the Pakistanis to the Americans that it is in their interest, too, to embrace a deal.

General Petraeus told Congress last week that Haqqani fighters were responsible for recent major attacks in Kabul and the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, adding that he had informed General Kayani.

Some officials in the Obama administration have not ruled out incorporating the Haqqani network in an Afghan settlement, though they stress that President Obama’s policy calls for Al Qaeda to be separated from the network. American officials are skeptical that that can be accomplished.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said on a visit to Islamabad last weekend that it was “hard to imagine” the Haqqani network in an Afghan arrangement, but added, “Who knows?”

At a briefing this week at the headquarters of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistani analysts laid out a view of the war that dovetailed neatly with the doubts expressed by Mr. Karzai. They depicted a stark picture of an American military campaign in Afghanistan “that will not succeed.”

They said the Taliban were gaining strength. Despite the impending arrival of new American troops, they concluded the “security situation would become more dangerous,” resulting in an erosion of the American will to fight.

“That is the reason why Karzai is trying to negotiate now,” a senior analyst said.

General Pasha, the head of the intelligence agency, dashed to Kabul on the eve of Mr. Karzai’s visit to Washington in May, an American official said. Neither Mr. Karzai nor the Pakistanis mentioned to the Americans about incorporating the Haqqanis in a postwar Afghanistan, the official said.

Pakistan has already won what it sees as an important concession in Kabul, the resignations this month of the intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar. The two officials, favored by Washington, were viewed by Pakistan as major obstacles to its vision of hard-core Taliban fighters’ being part of an Afghanistan settlement, though the circumstances of their resignations did not suggest any connection to Pakistan.

Coupled with their strategic interests, the Pakistanis say they have chosen this juncture to open talks with Mr. Karzai because, even before the controversy over General McChrystal, they sensed uncertainty — “a lack of fire in the belly,” said one Pakistani — within the Obama administration over the Afghan fight.

“The American timetable for getting out makes it easier for Pakistan to play a more visible role,” said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the spokesman for the Pakistani Army. He was referring to the July 2011 date set by Mr. Obama for the start of the withdrawal of some American combat troops.

The offer by Pakistan to make the Haqqanis part of the solution in Afghanistan has now been adopted as basic Pakistani policy, said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of international relations at Islamabad University, and a confidant of top military generals.

“The establishment thinks that without getting Haqqani on board, efforts to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan will be doomed,” Mr. Hussain said. “Haqqani has a large fighting force, and by co-opting him into a power-sharing arrangement a lot of bloodshed can be avoided.”

The recent trips by General Kayani and General Pasha to Kabul were an “effort to make this happen,” he said.

Afghan officials said General Kayani had offered to broker a deal with the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and had sent envoys to Kabul from another insurgent leader and longtime Pakistani ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, with the offer of a 15-point peace plan in March.

As for the Haqqanis, whose fighters stretch across eastern Afghanistan all the way to Kabul, they are prepared to break with Al Qaeda, Pakistani intelligence and military officials said.

The Taliban, including the Haqqani group, are ready to “do a deal” over Al Qaeda, a senior Pakistani official close to the Pakistani Army said. The Haqqanis could tell Al Qaeda to move elsewhere because it had been given nine years of protection since 9/11, the official said.

But this official acknowledged that the Haqqanis and Al Qaeda were too “thick” with each other for a separation to happen. They had provided each other with fighters, money and other resources over a long period of time, he said.

Also, there appeared to be no idea where the Qaeda forces would go, and no answer to whether the Haqqanis would hand over Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, the official said.

The Haqqanis may be playing their own game with their hosts, the Pakistanis, Mr. Hussain said.

“Many believe that Haqqanis’ willingness to cut its links with Al Qaeda is a tactical move which is aimed at thwarting the impending military action by the Pakistani Army in North Waziristan,” he said.

 

[Nahraf]

Understanding Russia?s Approach on Afghanistan, Pakistan | EurasiaNet.org

Understanding Russia’s Approach on Afghanistan, Pakistan
June 25, 2010 - 3:15pm, by Mark N. Katz

* Afghanistan
* Pakistan
* Commentary

US President Barack Obama’s June 24 meeting in Washington with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, focused mainly on trade and economics. They did not spend much time on security issues, such as Afghanistan. That means an opportunity to gain better mutual understanding about a crucial strategic matter may have been missed.

It is important for American policy planners to understand that the Kremlin approach toward Afghanistan and Pakistan has undergone a dramatic shift in recent years.

Back in 2001, in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist tragedy, the United States and its NATO allies established military bases in Central Asia and quickly drove the Taliban from power in Kabul. These developments were unsettling to Russian planners, who worried that Washington was gaining influence in the region at Moscow’s expense.

In recent years, Russian thinking has adjusted to the reality that the United States and its allies could not easily contain the Islamic insurgency in Afghanistan. By 2009, Russian leaders even started to grow concerned that the Obama administration might suddenly withdraw American forces from Afghanistan, thus leaving Russia alone to deal with the threat that a resurgent Taliban would pose to Central Asia and Russia itself. Accordingly, Moscow helped the United States put together the Northern Distribution Network, a re-supply route that facilitates the overland transit of non-lethal goods from Europe to Afghanistan. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].

While Moscow now supports the US/NATO position in Afghanistan, the Kremlin nevertheless is striving to differentiate Russia from the West in ways that Moscow hopes will boost its standing in the eyes of President Hamid Karzai’s administration in Kabul. US relations with Karzai have experienced a marked change in recent years. The Bush Administration strongly promoted Karzai, but the Afghan leader’s relations with President Obama have often been tense. Over the same period, Russian policy has sought to emphasize Moscow’s long-term interest in a stable Afghanistan. As Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Andrei Avetisyan, stated in December 2009; “Many of your friends will have to go sometimes because they came from far away to help you. But when they go, we stay—together with your neighbors, we stay.”

There have been great changes in Russian-Pakistani relations in recent years too. Pakistan had long been a country that Moscow had antagonistic relations with. During the Cold War, sources of tension between the two countries included Pakistan’s close relations with both the United States and China; the Soviet Union’s close relations with Pakistan’s main rival, India; and Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Mujahedeen fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

After most outside powers, including the United States and European nations, lost interest in Afghanistan following the Soviet troop withdrawal, Pakistan remained engaged in Afghanistan, eventually becoming the chief sponsor of the Taliban—something that Moscow found threatening. Indeed, Russia supported anti-Taliban forces in northern Afghanistan long before the United States and NATO did after the September 11 terrorist tragedy. More recently, Moscow—along with many others—grew agitated about the continued Taliban presence in Afghanistan. Russian leaders also worried about Pakistan’s seeming inability—or even unwillingness—to defeat Islamic militants.

But over the past few years, Russian-Pakistani relations have improved, in part as a reaction to warming Indian-American relations. Another important factor is the fact that Russia has discovered Pakistan to be a lucrative market for arms exports.

How long, though, is this friendly Russo-Pakistani relationship likely to last? There is reason to believe that the withdrawal of US/NATO forces from Afghanistan (now tentatively scheduled to begin in mid-2011) could lead to renewed tension between Russia and Pakistan over Afghanistan.

Three decades of hostility cannot be easily ignored. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, Pakistan served as the conduit for external assistance to the Mujahedeen fighting against both Soviet forces and the Afghan Marxist regime. During this period, Moscow mainly supported the Uzbeks and Tajiks in the north of the country, while Pakistan mainly supported the Pashtuns in the south.

After Soviet forces withdrew in 1989 and the Marxist regime they left behind fell in 1992, it was replaced by a self-proclaimed Islamic regime that was also dominated by northerners. Pakistan backed the predominantly Pashtun Taliban which overthrew this regime in 1996 and overran most of Afghanistan. From the early 1990s until just after 9/11, then, Russia tended to back Uzbek and Tajik forces in the North that resisted the advance of the Taliban.

The US-led invasion in Afghanistan beginning in October 2001 sought to overcome Afghanistan’s North-South divide by creating a government that appealed to both. This effort was exemplified by the promotion of Karzai—a Pushtun with strong northern ties—as Afghanistan’s post-Taliban president. In time, though, the Karzai government came to be seen as not only corrupt and ineffective, but as serving the interests of northerners—who were especially prominent in its ranks. This increasingly led many Pashtuns to regard the Taliban as the defenders of Pashtun interests. While Pakistan has cooperated with the United States in Afghanistan to some extent, elements within its government in Islamabad have continued to support the Taliban. Russia, as noted above, has largely backed the Karzai government and the American-led effort to prop it up.

The pattern, then, of Russia backing the northerners (Uzbeks and Tajiks) and Pakistan backing the southerners (Pashtuns) that existed both during the 1980’s and 1990’s is continuing today. Thus, a US withdrawal from Afghanistan could be expected to result in Russia and Pakistan both continuing—indeed, probably increasing—their support for their traditional Afghan allies. If this occurs, then the Russian-Pakistani relationship would most likely return to its accustomed mutual antagonism.

The implications of this are that after an American departure from Afghanistan, Russia (probably along with India and Iran) can be expected to work to prevent the Pakistani-backed Taliban from reasserting control over all Afghanistan, just as they did in the 1990’s. How successful they can be in achieving this aim, though, may well depend on whether the United States abandons Afghanistan altogether as it did during the 1990s, or whether Washington actively works with Moscow and others to contain the Taliban and its Pakistani supporters.
Editor's note:
Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.

 

[IceCold]

The tragedy here is that the United States and its allies went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 to oust a Taliban government with links to al Qaeda and that was sponsored by Pakistan. A decade and thousands of lost allied and Afghan lives later, it is hard to believe that President Obama is really going to preside over a premature military drawdown leading to a political transition that restores a Taliban-dominated government, some of whose constituent parts have ties to al Qaeda, that is sponsored by Pakistan.

Funny thing in the article is that the author feels his duty to mention the number of allied soldiers that lost their lives yet so casually forgets to mention the lives of Pakistani soldiers lost which by the way exceeds way over the combine number of the allied soldiers. Hypocrisy at its best.