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Wikileaks : Secret Afghanistan War logs

Thank you for posting all these articles Sparklingway.

My initial reaction on reading the NYT headline was, 'oh boy, here we go again. More malarkey along the lines of the LSE report'.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at how the Guardian and even the NYT took time to highlight (though not as much as I would have liked in the case of the NYT) the fact that much of the 'reports' highlighting ISI support for the Taliban were rubbish and fantastic story telling, often sourced from the Amrullah Saleh led NDS.

I would recommend to all members/lurkers that they read the posted articles carefully and sift through all the nuances and details in them.
 
There is some truth there but the diary also carefully avoided some key elements and made us ( Pakistani) the only bad guy. They are totally silent about the role of a key player in the Pak-Afghan drama. That means that they are disseminating selective truth which must be motivated by some vested interests. Telling the truth is noble but telling selective truth underscores one's hidden motive.
 
US condemns leak alleging Pakistan spy-insurgent links

WASHINGTON: The United States on Sunday denounced the release of documents that allegedly show Pakistan's military spy service is guiding the Afghan insurgency, a White House official said.
“The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security,”National Security Advisor James Jones said in a statement.

“Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents —the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted,” Jones said.

“These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.”

According to the New York Times, the documents “suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban.”

Describing the talks as “secret strategy sessions,” the newspaper said they “organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.”

The New York Times said it, along with the Guardian newspaper in London and the German magazine Der Spiegel, had received the leaked material several weeks ago from Wikileaks, a secretive web organization that often publishes classified material.

The new organizations agreed to publish their reports, based on 92,000 documents “used by desk officers in the Pentagon and troops in the field when they make operational plans,” on Sunday when they were to be released on the Internet.

“Most of the reports are routine, even mundane, but many add insights, texture and context to a war that has been waged for nearly nine years,” the Times said in a note to readers describing the leaks.

“Over all these documents amount to a real-time history of the war reported from one important vantage point —that of the soldiers and officers actually doing the fighting and reconstruction.”—AFP

DAWN.COM | World | US condemns leak alleging Pakistan spy-insurgent links
 
There is some truth there but the diary also carefully avoided some key elements and made us ( Pakistani) the only bad guy. They are totally silent about the role of a key player in the Pak-Afghan drama. That means that they are disseminating selective truth which must be motivated by some vested interests. Telling the truth is noble but telling selective truth underscores one's hidden motive.

As I said, many people are only seeing the Pakistani connection and have totally avoided the remaining 99% of documents related to missions, operations and daily activities of ISAF in Afghanistan. Check the diaries or at least the NYT 200 selected ones since they're pretty damn bad for ISAF forces since they tried to rubbish and hide the civilian casualties.
 
Wikileaks is releasing the set of documents under the title Afghan War Diary. It says is has delayed the release of about 15,000 reports from the archive as part of a "harm minimisation process demanded by our source".

BBC News - 'Hidden US Afghan war details' revealed by Wikileaks

Wow - 15,000 reports redacted for 'harm minimisation', as if the ones released were not damaging enough.

Though this report does mention 'delayed release' so hopefully we'll get to eventually see those as well.
 
Wow - 15,000 reports redacted for 'harm minimisation', as if the ones released were not damaging enough.

Though this report does mention 'delayed release' so hopefully we'll get to eventually see those as well.

The the next sentence on the main Wikileaks Warlogs page states:-

After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.

Moreover, since these are logs and their source could only extract the logs and not the ones classified as TOP SECRET. Hence the role of Special Forces is even now quite hidden (even after this TF 373)
 
Whatever the story is , US government is directly behind this leak. This is also solidified by the immediate reaction from the US government that only gave this leak credibility.
 
Leakage timing of these documents as a whole and especially the ISI part is very very disturbing as well as suspicious for the motivation.

As the time of US planned withdrawal from Afghanistan comes near, we are gonna see more and more of such reports, putting the blame on Pakistan and Iran for the failure of the mission in Afghanistan and God knows what will follow later on.

Plus another tactic to put pressure on Pakistan to launch an operation in the NW, as this may lead to less resistance or attacks on the Afghan side on Occupational forces, which will be interpreted as a sign of progress by the US as well as an excuse for them to start withdrawing their forces. Just like Iraq, they had a troop surge, some improvement in the security situation, they start withdrawing and now Iraq is once again in hell with near to daily suicide blasts.
 
Leakage timing of these documents as a whole and especially the ISI part is very very disturbing as well as suspicious for the motivation.

As the time of US planned withdrawal from Afghanistan comes near, we are gonna see more and more of such reports, putting the blame on Pakistan and Iran for the failure of the mission in Afghanistan and God knows what will follow later on.

Exectly right
& this is not a Leakage !
This is pre plan ?
 
Leakage timing of these documents as a whole and especially the ISI part is very very disturbing as well as suspicious for the motivation.

As the time of US planned withdrawal from Afghanistan comes near, we are gonna see more and more of such reports, putting the blame on Pakistan and Iran for the failure of the mission in Afghanistan and God knows what will follow later on.

Plus another tactic to put pressure on Pakistan to launch an operation in the NW, as this may lead to less resistance or attacks on the Afghan side on Occupational forces, which will be interpreted as a sign of progress by the US as well as an excuse for them to start withdrawing their forces. Just like Iraq, they had a troop surge, some improvement in the security situation, they start withdrawing and now Iraq is once again in hell with near to daily suicide blasts.

Of course there is focus on us but as I said earlier people are losing focus and ISI-related documents are reported only 180 out of the 92,000 and even the news agencies that have released them in coordination with wikileaks have expressed their views that they're based on NDS intelligence and the more important ones based on intercepts are not in line with the other ones.

As expected people are seeing this as somehow aimed at us but a lot of other people are actually following the activity log of forces labeled OCF i.e. Other Coalition Forces which is a euphemism for Special Forces and therefore trying to track when and where were the people transferred to Gitmo and other high value prisoners kept and how were they moved.

It's a larger picture here. See these ones marked as important by Guardian as well concerning the Pakistani side :-

Terse meeting between American and Pakistani solidiers | World news | guardian.co.uk

British officer enjoys memorable day | World news | guardian.co.uk

And there are others who're failing to see that Wikileaks is no front organization. The three agencies involved obviously had this data with them for months since the combined reports must have taken time to file and sift through the intels as well.
 
The logs of war: Do the Wikileaks documents really tell us anything new? | FP Passport

Three news organizations -- the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel -- today published explosive reports on a treasure trove of more than 91,000 documents that were obtained by Wikileaks, the self-proclaimed whistleblower site.

I've now gone through the reporting and most of the selected documents (though not the larger data dump), and I think there's less here than meets the eye. The story that seems to be getting the most attention, repeating the longstanding allegation that Pakistani intelligence might be aiding the Afghan insurgents, offers a few new details but not much greater clarity. Both the Times and the Guardian are careful to point out that the raw reports in the Wikileaks archive often seem poorly sourced and present implausible information.

"[F]or all their eye-popping details," writes the Guardian's Declan Walsh, "the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity."

The Times' reporters seem somewhat more persuaded, noting that "many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable" and that their sources told them that "the portrait of the spy agency’s collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence."

Der Spiegel's reporting adds little, though the magazine's stories will probably have great political impact in Germany, as the Wikileaks folks no doubt intended. One story hones in on how an elite U.S. task force charged with hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda targets operates from within a German base; another alleges that "The German army was clueless and naïve when it stumbled into the conflict," and that northern Afghanistan, where the bulk of German troops are based, is more violent than has been previously portrayed.

Otherwise, I'd say that so far the documents confirm what we already know about the war: It's going badly; Pakistan is not the world's greatest ally and is probably playing a double game; coalition forces have been responsible for far too many civilian casualties; and the United States doesn't have very reliable intelligence in Afghanistan.

I do think that the stories will provoke a fresh round of Pakistan-bashing in Congress, and possibly hearings. But the administration seems inclined to continue with its strategy of nudging Pakistan in the right direction, and is sending the message: Move along, nothing to see here.

A U.S. military official in Islamabad told the American Forces Press Service: "The Pakistani military deserves our respect, and frankly, they deserve our support." Special Representative Richard Holbrooke endorsed the recent warming of ties between Islamabad and Kabul. In his statement condeming the leak of the documents, National Security Advisor Jim Jones said, "[T]he Pakistani government – and Pakistan’s military and intelligence services – must continue their strategic shift against insurgent groups." And finally, the White House sent around an eight-page document containing examples of President Obama and other U.S. officials urging Pakistan to turn decisively against the militants.

The other message coming from the administration, as noted in an email from White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, is: It's not our fault. "The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy," Vietor wrote in an email published by the Times.

In this case, I'd say that's spin I can believe in.
 
W.H. condemns 'irresponsible' leaks, dismisses stories


The White House responded swiftly and sharply to publication Sunday evening of more than 91,000 secret documents painting a bleak picture of the Afghanistan war, calling the leak “irresponsible” and saying that the source – the whistleblower website WikiLeaks — “opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan.”

WikiLeaks said its "Afghan War Diary" consists mostly of reports "written by soldiers and intelligence officers ... describing lethal military actions involving the United States military." WikiLeaks gave three news organizations – The New York Times, The (British) Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel – advance access to the "war logs" trove.

White House National Security Adviser James Jones issued a statement that begins: “The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.

“Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents – the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted. These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.

“The documents posted by Wikileaks reportedly cover a period of time from January 2004 to December 2009. On December 1, 2009, President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al Qaeda and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years.”


An administration official went further in an e-mail to reporters: “I don’t think anyone who follows this issue will find it surprising that there are concerns about ISI and safe havens in Pakistan. In fact, we’ve said as much repeatedly and on the record. …

“The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy.”

The official added: “t’s worth noting that WikiLeaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan."

The official highlighted this passage in The Guardian’s coverage: “[F]or all their eye-popping details, the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity. Most of the reports are vague, filled with incongruent detail, or crudely fabricated. The same characters – famous Taliban commanders, well-known ISI officials – and scenarios repeatedly pop up. And few of the events predicted in the reports subsequently occurred.

“A retired senior American officer said ground-level reports were considered to be a mixture of ‘rumours, [baloney] and second-hand information’ and were weeded out as they passed up the chain of command. ‘As someone who had to sift through thousands of these reports, I can say that the chances of finding any real information are pretty slim,’ said the officer, who has years of experience in the region.

“If anything, the jumble of allegations highlights the perils of collecting accurate intelligence in a complex arena where all sides have an interest in distorting the truth.”

Read more: W.H. condemns 'irresponsible' leaks, dismisses stories - Mike Allen - POLITICO.com
 
Turns out “Collateral Murder” was just a warmup. WikiLeaks just published a trove of over 90,000 mostly-classified U.S. military documents that details a strengthening Afghan insurgency with deep ties to Pakistani intelligence.

WikiLeaks’ release of a 2007 Apache gunship video sparked worldwide outrage, but little change in U.S. policy. This massive storehouse taken, it would appear, from U.S. Central Command’s CIDNE data warehouse — has the potential to be strategically significant, raising questions about how and why America and her allies are conducting the war.

Not only does it recount 144 incidents in which coalition forces killed civilians over six years. But it shows just how deeply elements within the United States’ supposed ally, Pakistan, have nurtured the Afghan insurgency. In its granular, behind-the-scene details about the war, this has the potential to be Afghanistan’s answer to the Pentagon Papers. Except in 2010, it comes as a database you can open in Excel, brought to you by the now-reopened-for-business WikiLeaks.

Now, obviously, it’s not news that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligences has ties to the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami. That’s something that pretty much every observer of the Afghanistan war and the Pakistani intelligence apparatus has known for the better part of a decade.

But as the early-viewing New York Times reports, WikiLeaks presents a new depth of detail about how the U.S. military has seen, for six years, the depths of ISI facilitation of the Afghan insurgency. For instance: a three-star Pakistani general active during the ’80s-era U.S.-Pakistani-Saudi sponsorship of the anti-Soviet insurgency, Hamid Gul, allegedly met with insurgent leaders in South Waziristan in January 2009 to plot vengeance for the drone-inflicted death of an al-Qaeda operative. (Gul called it “absolute nonsense” to the Times reporters.)

Other reports, stretching back to 2004, offer chilling, granular detail about the Taliban’s return to potency after the U.S. and Afghan militias routed the religious-based movement in 2001. Some of them, as the Times notes, cast serious doubt on official U.S. and NATO accounts of how insurgents prosecute the war. Apparently, the insurgents have used “heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft,” eerily reminiscent of the famous Stinger missiles that the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan provided to the mujahedeen to down Soviet helicopters. One such missile downed a Chinook over Helmand in May 2007.

Typically, NATO accounts of copter downings are vague — and I’ve never seen one that cited the Taliban’s use of a guided missile. This clearly isn’t just Koran, Kalashnikov and laptop anymore. And someone is selling the insurgents these missiles, after all. That someone just might be slated to receive $7.5 billion of U.S. aid over the next five years.

That said, it’s worth pointing out that the documents released so far are U.S. military documents, not ISI documents, so they don’t quite rise to smoking-gun level.

Not that that’s so necessary. The ISI’s quasi-sponsorship of the Afghan insurgency is pretty much an open secret. Most Washington analysts take it for granted that at least some aspects of the Pakistani security apparatus retain ties to the Taliban and affiliated extremist groups as an insurance policy for controlling events inside Afghanistan. That’s why some thought it was a positive sign in February when the Pakistanis captured Mullah Baradar, a senior Afghan Taliban leader — including (cough) too-credulous journalists.

WikiLeaks has freaked out the White House, though, by clearly raising questions about whether Pakistani aid to the Afghan insurgency is far deeper than typically acknowledged — something that would raise additional questions about whether the Obama administration’s strategy of hugging Pakistan into severing those ties is viable. Retired Marine General Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, e-mailed reporters a long statement denouncing the leaks and pledging continued support for Pakistan.

“The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security,” Jones said in a statement. “Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents — the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted. These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.” So much for a shift in course.

Is there a silver lining to Pakistan’s relationship with the insurgents? On the one hand, it’s possible that the extent of those ties might amount to leverage over the insurgents to cut a deal with Hamid Karzai’s government to end the war. But there was a lot of talk about that when Baradar was captured, and none of it has panned out. And in the meantime, the first batch of expanded U.S. aid to Pakistan — $500 million worth — arrived on July 18. Who knows how much of that money will end up in the Afghan insurgents’ pockets.

We’ll have additional reports on this as we go through the trove, as will our sister blog, Threat Level. There’s stuff in here about the use of drones, the deadly Kunduz airstrike last year and much, much more. In the meantime, tell us what you find in the WikiLeaks trove, either by leaving a note in the comments, or by dropping us a line. Either way, include the document number so we can keep track of it all.

WikiLeaks Drops 90,000 War Docs; Fingers Pakistan as Insurgent Ally | Danger Room | Wired.com
 
"[F]or all their eye-popping details," writes the Guardian's Declan Walsh, "the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity."

Ouch! But still every one is specifically pointing fingers at ISI, I have a feeling that this leak is a deliberate one, How can US let go of 92,000 Documents huh!!!
 
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