The ‘Quetta shura’?

[Cheetah786]

The intensified focus is justified by the argument that militant leaders based in Quetta supervise the wider insurgency in northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan by raising money from ‘wealthy Persian Gulf donors(Truth finally comes out i new it all along ),’ channeling it into ‘guns and fresh fighters’ on the battlefield. According to the NY Times, one former intelligence official has likened the situation to that faced by American troops in the Vietnam War, when guerillas used Cambodia as a bastion and refuge.

‘We’ve made progress going into the tribal areas and the North-West Frontier Province against al-Qaeda, but we have not had a counterpart war against the Quetta shura,’ one senior Obama administration official told the NY Times.

Till now, Taliban militants in Balochistan have been sheltered due to the isolation of the region and the general lack of an effective government presence within the province. As Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani admitted: ‘the problem is we do not always get actionable intelligence in Quetta in particular. It’s a very messy area.’

However, increased US focus on Taliban forces in the region has coalesced into a greater desire to target high-value individuals within militant organizations. ‘The Quetta shura is extremely important,’ US Lt. Gen. David W Barno, an advisor to CENTCOM chief General David Petraeus, told the NY Times. ‘They are the intellectual and ideological underpinnings of the Taliban insurgency,’ he concluded.
DAWN.COM | Balochistan | US hints at more focus on ?Quetta shura?: NYTimes


wealthy Persian Gulf donors is what osama should go after so finally truth come out bush administration was protetcting these Terror sponsors and blaming it on drug money.

 

[S-2]

There are a ton of people here, if they'd the money, who'd be donating to the militants in Quetta too. Nice cause celebre' for rich arabs to feel they're doing their part against the Americans...the guys who likely made them rich bedouins instead of poor bedouins.

Big deal. It's a source of cash and you had to suspect that, didn't you? The militants will take cash from any and all sources-arabs, dope, racketeering, protection, etc. Any conduit is a good conduit.

The fact that so much supplies comes into Quetta to assist the insurgents in southern Afghanistan again raises the question, "From where?"

Tajikistan?

 

[waraich66]

There are a ton of people here, if they'd the money, who'd be donating to the militants in Quetta too. Nice cause celebre' for rich arabs to feel they're doing their part against the Americans...the guys who likely made them rich bedouins instead of poor bedouins.

Big deal. It's a source of cash and you had to suspect that, didn't you? The militants will take cash from any and all sources-arabs, dope, racketeering, protection, etc. Any conduit is a good conduit.

The fact that so much supplies comes into Quetta to assist the insurgents in southern Afghanistan again raises the question, "From where?"

Tajikistan?

S2,

Do you have believe on Ghoots ,in arabic called Gin , they have nine times more population then humans ,if they are helping Shurah how you can counter them ,they are invissible.

 

[S-2]

"Do you have believe on Ghoots ,in arabic called Gin , they have nine times more population then humans..."

You are an amazing wealth of information and facts. I've never read quoted data on our ghost population but am grateful nonetheless.

Thank you very much.

 

[waraich66]

"Do you have believe on Ghoots ,in arabic called Gin , they have nine times more population then humans..."

You are an amazing wealth of information and facts. I've never read quoted data on our ghost population but am grateful nonetheless.

Thank you very much.

This is new angle of thaught ,Now all those who believe in technology and super powers can see furthure ,there are creators of God who are more power full then humans and their toys.

I dont think your think tank have ever consider this X factor which is helping your poor enemy

 

[Mansanpk2009]

The threat of USA's possible attack on Quetta is increasing. I would like to ask our Military high ups, what are they thinking about this situation. We are unable to knock down any Drone till now!! can we say that we will sit back and see Quetta burning as we are doing on repeated attacks by USA on our tribal areas?Where are we heading to ? I just want to understand.

The article namely "Quetta the next Baghdad" can be read on articlesbase dot com to understand the situation or search the same on google.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Pakistan asks US for details on Taliban ​

Thursday, 01 Oct, 2009

'Osama bin Laden operating from Pakistan'

ISLAMABAD: The United States should provide information about top militants in Pakistan, a government minister said on Thursday, as Washington stepped up pressure on Islamabad to go after Taliban leaders.

The United States, struggling to contain rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan, says top Islamist militants, including Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, are in Pakistan.

US ally Pakistan rejects that.

'They have given only apprehension that some of the Taliban like Mullah Omar and all that, they might be in Quetta,' Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters.

The United States says an Afghan Taliban shura, or leadership council, headed by Omar is centred in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.

'We categorically told them that they are not in Quetta, and if they have any real-time information, they should give it to us and we will take action,' Malik said.

The US commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said in an assessment leaked last week the Afghan insurgency was clearly supported from Pakistan.

'Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan, linked to al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups, and are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI,' McChrystal said, referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

McChrystal identified the Quetta shura as the biggest threat to the US-led mission in Afghanistan.

The Washington Post said this week U.S. officials were expressing concern over the ability of Omar and his lieutenants to launch attacks into Afghanistan from sanctuaries around Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province.

US ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson told the Washington Post this week the Quetta shura was 'high on Washington's list'.

The deputy chief of the US mission in Pakistan, Gerald Feierstein, told a group of Pakistani reporters that Omar and his command centre were in Baluchistan, a news agency reported.

'We have already expressed our reservations to Pakistan. Their movement is unacceptable and we expect full cooperation from the Pakistan government in this regard,' the Online news agency quoted Feierstein as saying.

Feierstein also said al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun lands on the Afghan border, the news agency said.

The United States stepped up its attacks by pilotless drones on militants in northwestern Pakistani border sanctuaries last year as the Afghan insurgency intensified.

But Feierstein said no proposal for expanding drone strikes to Baluchistan was under consideration, Online said. He also said the ISI 'as an institution' had no links with the Taliban but 'some elements' were Taliban sympathisers. – Reuters

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Pakistan asks US for details on Taliban

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

'Osama bin Laden operating from Pakistan' ​

DawnNews report
Thursday, 01 Oct, 2009

Just days after US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson said that Quetta had beomce a major base for the Afghan Taliban, United States Deputy Chief of Mission in Islamabad Gerald Feierstein also stated that Mullah Omar is operating from Quetta.

Feierstein was of the view that Osama bin Laden is operating from the tribal areas of Pakistan and maintains that the control centre of the Afghan Taliban is based in Quetta.

He said that the United Stated has conveyed its concerns to Pakistan government and that both governments are in touch on the matter.

On the issue of Blackwater or any private security company operating in Pakistan, Feierstein said that all such rumours are unfounded.

Feierstein stressed that the security agency Inter-Risk was only providing security to the United States embassy in the federal capital and said that all the dealings of the agency were fair and transparent.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | 'Osama bin Laden operating from Pakistan'

-------------------

Just a 'belief', no evidence - there are lots of people who think it likely he is dead already, given his healthy complications.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Raisani rejects reports about Taliban presence in Quetta ​

By Saleem Shahid
Thursday, 01 Oct, 2009

The people of Balochistan would react strongly to US drone attacks because they would consider them a violation of Pakistan’s territorial integrity, Balochistan Chief Minister Aslam Raisani said.

‘Govt wants to address Baloch grievances’

QUETTA: Balochistan Chief Minister Aslam Raisani has dismissed as baseless western media reports about the presence of Taliban Shura in Quetta.

‘There are no Taliban in Quetta and adjoining areas and western media’s perception in this regard is totally wrong,’ he told this correspondent here on Wednesday.

The US and British newspapers had reported that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is leading a shadowy central council in Quetta.

Mr Raisani said that a US drone strike in Balochistan would endanger supplies of goods from Karachi port to Kandahar and logistics support to Nato troops in Afghanistan.

He said the people of Balochistan would react strongly to US drone attacks because they would consider them a violation of Pakistan’s territorial integrity.

The chief minister said the Baloch people would take up arms in case of such attacks which would be taken as aggression.

He said seven incidents of torching of Nato tankers had already taken place and drone attacks in any part of Balochistan would intensify hatred of the US government.

Mr Raisani said he had held meetings with Pakhtoon and Baloch tribesmen who assured him that they would not allow Taliban militants to use Pakistan’s territory for attacks on US and Afghan forces.

He asked the US and Nato authorities to pay compensation for reconstruction of roads which had been damaged by heavy Nato containers and tankers passing through Balochistan.

DAWN.COM | Metropolitan | Raisani rejects reports about Taliban presence in Quetta

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Mullah Omar not in Pakistan, Taliban commander says​

Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:42am EDT

By Saeed Ali Achakzai

CHAMAN, Pakistan, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is not in Pakistan and the United States is only saying he is there to justify an expansion of its drone missile strikes, a Taliban commander said on Wednesday.

The Washington Post said this week U.S. officials had expressed concern over the ability of Omar and his lieutenants to launch attacks into Afghanistan from sanctuaries around the Pakistani city of Quetta.

Pakistan has long denied that Omar or any of his commanders are based in Pakistan but it has been unable to dispel the suspicion in Washington and Kabul. Several Taliban members have been detained in Pakistan.

Mounting U.S. concern about Omar and his so-called Quetta shura, or leadership council, comes as the United States weighs options on how to deal with an intensifying Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

Possibilities include sending more combat troops and trainers for the Afghan army and stepping up strikes by pilotless drone aircraft on militants on the Pakistani side of the border.

A Taliban commander, Hayatullah Khan, told Reuters by telephone that the entire Taliban leadership was in Afghanistan.

"Pakistan is not safe for us. More of our people have been captured in Pakistan than in Afghanistan so everybody is here including Mullah Omar," said Khan, who said he was speaking from Afghanistan, although he declined to be specific.

"The Americans are making the Quetta shura an excuse for an expansion of their drone strikes to Baluchistan, nothing else," said Khan, referring to the southwestern province of which Quetta is capital, which borders southern Afghanistan.

Pakistan, battling al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban militants in ethnic Pashtun lands to the north of Baluchistan, says the Quetta shura does not exist. ([ID:nLR130511])

But many analysts say Pakistan is acting only against militants which are a threat to itself, like the Pakistani Taliban, while leaving alone those focused on fighting in Afghanistan or on targeting India.

U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson told the Washington Post the Quetta shura was "high on Washington's list".

The United States intensified its attacks by pilotless drones on militants in northwestern Pakistani border sanctuaries last year as the Afghan insurgency intensified. ([ID:nSP456597])

The United States has launched nearly 60 strikes in northwest Pakistan since the beginning of 2008, but none has been in Baluchistan.

The strikes are deeply unpopular in a country where many people are suspicious of U.S. designs in the region.

Pakistan officially objects to the drone attacks, saying they violate its sovereignty and the civilian casualties they inflict inflame public anger.

U.S. officials say the strikes are carried out under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to decry the attacks in public.

Pakistan is already facing a low-level insurgency by separatists in impoverished but gas-rich Baluchistan and has decried any suggestion of an expansion of the U.S. drone war to the province.

The U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said in an assessment leaked to the media last week the Afghan insurgency was clearly supported from Pakistan and senior leaders of insurgent groups were based there.

Analysts say Pakistan is worried about the growing influence of old rival India in Afghanistan and some Pakistani security officials see the Taliban as a tool to counter that influence. (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see:here an) (Writing by Kamran Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Mullah Omar not in Pakistan, Taliban commander says | Reuters

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Editorial: The so-called ‘Quetta shura’​

The US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W Patterson, has told the Washington Post that “the United States has now turned its focus to Quetta”, claiming that the area has now become a major Taliban base from where “Mullah Omar and his commanders plan and launch cross-border strikes into Afghanistan”. The US-NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley A McChrystal, has also raised the matter of the “Quetta shura” as a major command centre for the Taliban bombings and attacks inside Afghanistan in his initial assessment to US President Barack Obama. As if to complete the message, a newspaper in London has hinted that the US could be making ready for drone attacks in Balochistan too.

The military spokesman in Pakistan says there are no Taliban in Balochistan. DG-ISPR Major-General Athar Abbas also says that the names given to Pakistan by Afghanistan under the so-called rubric “Quetta shura” are of Taliban commanders that have mostly been taken out while some are in Afghanistan: “Six to 10 of them have been killed, two are in Afghanistan, and two are insignificant. When people call Mullah Omar the mayor of Quetta it is incorrect”.

Pakistan has always denied the presence of Mullah Umar and his council of warriors in Quetta. The allegations have mostly come from western journalists claiming eyewitness accounts. That of course raises the question of how journalists can be privy to such goings-on even as in the same WP report US officials admit the lack of any credible intelligence on their part. Of course, the area is awash with about 400,000 Afghan Taliban who have been domiciled there since the Soviets walked into that country. These people indulge in smuggling, euphemistically referred to as cross-border trade. Surely, they could not be the “Quetta shura”. The problem is that the city has been a natural “fall-back city” for the Taliban because of its proximity to Kandahar. Even the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, lived in Quetta for many years till his father was killed by Mullah Umar here.

Western accounts regularly allege that Pakistan may not be forthcoming on the Afghan Taliban because it differentiates them from the Pakistani Taliban who make trouble inside Pakistan. This leads to the US “deduction” that since the Afghan Taliban are old clients of Pakistan and are not making trouble here, the “Quetta shura” might enjoy exemption from attack, thus indirectly committing Pakistan to backing the Afghan Taliban in their war against the US-NATO forces in Afghanistan. These accounts also flow from information contained in author Ahmed Rashid’s book Descent into Chaos: How the War against Islamic Extremism is being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia (2008) who notes that Quetta was host to the Taliban till 2006.

The fact is that Quetta is not a city that Pakistan can boast of controlling effectively, leave alone the rest of Balochistan. A VIP of the Quetta government can get killed in front of the assembly building in broad daylight. There is trouble in the province because of Baloch separatists who are supported by hostile intelligence agencies. The political consensus even among the elected members of the assembly (and there is a PPP-led government in the province) is that there should be no new cantonments built in the province, there should be no paramilitary force like the Frontier Constabulary and no police.

Balochistan was in fact the first territory in Pakistan to become like Afghanistan with hardly any writ of the state there. And that is over 40 percent of Pakistan’s total territory. But there was a time when Quetta at least was orderly, mainly because of presence there of Pakistan’s prestigious Command and Staff College. Now the army keeps strictly out of the city and the police is regularly targeted by terrorists. Also targeted are the Hazaras, a part of the old Afghan exodus, ghettoised in the city.

Pakistan cannot give the go-ahead to US drones. Even if a joint strategy is drawn up for their use, it is going to be very difficult for Pakistan to allow attacks on cities. Neither will it be easy for Pakistan to clean up Quetta. Every time Pakistan has tried to control the border, Afghanistan has objected to it. We have had to remove the biometric system at Chaman because of such objections. Similarly, Kabul has objected to Pakistan sending back the Afghans to their own country. The US must keep all of these factors into mind before embarking on a policy based on journalistic accounts with obvious slants. *

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Taliban presence in Quetta: no truth in US charges: FO

Updated at: 1640 PST, Thursday, October 01, 2009
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan brushed aside as ‘baseless speculation’ the accusations leveled by the US regarding the presence of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leadership including Mullah Omar in Pakistan’s city of Quetta.

Talking to Geo News on Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said if there are any evidence that US has, it should hand them to Pakistan; however, he termed the US allegations in this connection as unfounded speculations.

It should be mentioned here that Deputy Chief of the Mission, US Embassy Gerald M. Feierstein alleged earlier today that Osama is present in Pakistan, adding the command system of Taliban is based in Quetta and they are launching their activities from the suburbs of the city.

Taliban presence in Quetta: no truth in US charges: FO

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The Quetta shura​

​

Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 27 Sep, 2009

AN article in The New York Times has revealed that tensions between the Pakistan and the US are increasing once again on account of Pakistan’s alleged support for the Afghan Taliban leadership taking refuge in Balochistan: ‘The issue of the Taliban leadership council, or shura, in Quetta is now at the top of the Obama administration’s agenda in its meetings with Pakistani officials.’

In addition to the long-standing American and Afghan complaint that Pakistan-based Afghan militants are creating trouble in the south of Afghanistan, the article also quotes unnamed officials linking the worsening security situation in parts of northern and western Afghanistan to the so-called Quetta shura. Is the American perception correct?

The matter is not as straightforward as American and Afghan officials appear to believe. First, it is true that Quetta and the areas around it and parts of the Pak-Afghan border in Balochistan have become safe havens for some among the Afghan Taliban. But is there such an entity as the Quetta shura and is it playing a central role in the insurgency inside Afghanistan? On the existence of the Quetta shura, the Times story quotes a western official as saying: ‘It’s much more of an amorphous group that as best we can tell moves around. They go to Karachi, they go to Quetta, they go across the border.’ So there are clearly uncertainties about the nature of the Quetta shura.

Second, the insurgency in Afghanistan draws its strength primarily from inside Afghanistan. The McChrystal report has noted: ‘While the existence of safe havens in Pakistan does not guarantee ISAF failure, Afghanistan does require Pakistani cooperation …. Nonetheless, the insurgency in Afghanistan is predominantly Afghan.’ So does that mean Pakistan doesn’t need to do more to clamp down on Afghan militants operating from Balochistan? No. But there is a problem with the ‘do more’ demand, one that is purely pragmatic. The Pak-Afghan border in Balochistan is remarkably porous, with an estimated 50,000-60,000 people crossing it every day. Stopping that flow is beyond the capabilities of the security forces on either side of the border at the moment.

Also, with a low-level local insurgency continuing in Balochistan and the state’s resources stretched thin by operations against militants elsewhere, there is reason to be cautious in opening another front at the moment. American and Afghan officials, therefore, need to understand the very real constraints that the Pakistan security forces are operating under. Equally, however, the Pakistani state must not be complacent. After all, there is no guarantee that in the long term the Afghan militants taking refuge inside Pakistan will not turn their guns on Pakistan.

DAWN.COM | World | The Quetta shura

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Oh, and all these accusations from US officials, and here is what Anne Patterson has to back it up:

"As Patterson put it, bluntly: "Our intelligence on Quetta is vastly less. We have no people there, no cross-border operations, no Predators.""
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR2009092803751.html

Yup - very little intelligence, no people there, but lets shoot off our mouths any way and accuse Pakistan.

And everyone that actually is on the ground there - the GoP, the Baluchistan government, heck even the Taliban, all claim the leadership is not in Quetta, and in fact the Taliban claim is in Afghanistan.
What else is new ... US failure - deflect, deflect, deflect ..

 

[pakdefender]

Its very simple , the Americans are looking to blame someone else for their failures in Afghanistan.