Afghanistan News & Discussion

srin · Post by **srin** » 28 Sep 2015 19:40

I'm not sure if Afghanistan as it stands today can be saved. At the same time, we shouldn't shed tears about it. Our strategic interest in Afghanistan should be to make it hot in Af-Pak border areas.

Looks like we're back 20 years.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 28 Sep 2015 20:02

Maybe via the airport they can make a goal line save like legendary Mehar singh led Dakotas into Srinagar in 1948

RoyG · Post by **RoyG** » 28 Sep 2015 22:45

srin wrote:I'm not sure if Afghanistan as it stands today can be saved. At the same time, we shouldn't shed tears about it. Our strategic interest in Afghanistan should be to make it hot in Af-Pak border areas.

Looks like we're back 20 years.

The majority of Afghanistan can't be saved unless Pakistan as we know it is destroyed. They're simply too ill equipped and unmotivated to fight against such a well supplied and funded proxy war.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Sep 2015 06:18

i hope if we had any consular/medical/civil engineering presence in kunduz we cleared out in time.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... ls/407725/

photos in the link.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 29 Sep 2015 09:56

First Kunduz, and now apparently Helmand. Sweeping victories indicate (a) US is resigned to or actively conniving (b) India should watch out for a terrorist attack/hijacking, etc.

Bhurishrava · Post by **Bhurishrava** » 29 Sep 2015 13:14

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/s ... ban-kunduz

Afghan forces are fighting in kunduz to take back the city. US helping with airstrikes

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 30 Sep 2015 23:17

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as ... story.html

"U.S. troops dispatched to Kunduz to help Afghan forces"

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Oct 2015 00:16

Per BBC, Only thing with US and Afghan forces is the airstrip. Everything has fallen to Taliban who have mined the access roads and captured the hill top fortress. The reporter called it Bala Hissar (which means elevated fort). So there are many Bala Hissars in Afghanistan.

The Afghan forces in the fortress ran out of ammo.

After the Hersh expose on Kunduz airlift its egg on the face of US troops.

If anyone recalls Taliban prisoners from Kunduz were taken to Qalai Jangi in Mazhari Sharif and revolted leading to first US death there.

So Kunduz has a lot of baggage for US.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 01 Oct 2015 06:19

Hekmatyar is from Kunduz.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 01 Oct 2015 06:21

Just tweeted this, thought I'd post it here:

Kunduz' Talibanization once again highlights devastating effect of historical resettlement of Pashtuns in Afghanistan's north & north-east. Resettlement of Pashtuns and their colonization of ethnic Tajik/Uzbek areas created internal animosity & formed the basis of wedge-politics in Afghanistan. In the late 1800's Afghan's Emir Abdur Rehman Khan forcibly resettled thousands of Pashtuns in Kunduz, at the cost of local Tajiks and Uzbeks. This has been called Emir Abdur Rehman's "internal imperialism": using wedge-politics to spread his own influence (though not exactly control) within Afghanistan, while Brits & Czarist Russians drew its external boundaries. Abdur Rehman was ruthless. He massacred Hazaras and sold them to Pashtuns in slave markets in Qandahar, etc. He quelled dissidence within his own Durrani tribe. Known as the 'Iron Emir', Abdur Rehman then uprooted rival Ghilzai Pashtuns along with a few of those dissident Durranis and resettled them in Kunduz and north-east. Apart from using forced resettlement to quell intra-Pashtun dissidence, he now used them as allies to spy on local Tajiks & Uzbeks. Kunduz is fertile, and Abdur Rehman gave Pashtun settlers prime land at cost of Tajiks & Uzbeks, buying their Pashtun loyalty even while uprooting them - to the consternation of the Tajiks and Uzbeks. But he said he was bringing in the Pashtuns supposedly as a bulwark against Russian influence (which he believed Tajiks/Uzbeks were susceptible to). Its ironic that Emir Abdur Rehman is called the "Iron Emir" who made Afghanistan, when he actually accepted foreign boundaries & drove internal wedges. Emir Abdur Rehman was also responsible for forcibly converting 'Kafiristan' into 'Nuristan' using Pashtun jihadis. All in all, he seems to be ISI's guru for Af-Pak influence-mongering and wedge-politics.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 01 Oct 2015 06:27

From Amrullah Saleh's tweet, its seems talibans are now being pushed back

Amrullah Saleh ‏@AmrullahSaleh2 5h5 hours ago
Kunduz cleared of ISI stench. HQ planners might take tranquilizers to cope with depression. Mask of religion nt holding. Stop terror, Pak .

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 01 Oct 2015 07:11

^^ I'm not sure the above is true. I think he tweeted it when Allied reinforcements arrived to protect the airport.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 01 Oct 2015 07:31

Taliban focus on northern Kunduz likely related to new international jihadist hotspot on Afghan-Tajik border:

Jihad's New Frontier: Tajikistan

Taliban invasion of Kunduz comes less than a month after jihadis from southern Tajikistan created disturbances in capital Dushanbe.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 01 Oct 2015 09:08

Afghan forces retake control of Kunduz from Taliban
Harami Link

Kabul: Afghan forces retook control of the strategic northern city of Kunduz on Thursday after a three-day Taliban occupation that dealt a stinging blow to the country´s NATO-trained military.
The fall of the provincial capital, even temporarily, highlights the stubborn insurgency´s potential to expand beyond its rural strongholds in the south of the country.Afghan forces, hindered by a slow arrival of reinforcements but backed by limited US air support, struggled to regain control of the city after three days of heavy fighting.But on Thursday Afghan forces managed to reach the centre of Kunduz where the streets were littered with Taliban bodies, Kunduz residents told AFP, adding that fighting was still ongoing in parts of the city."(Afghan) special forces now control Kunduz City, it is retaken and being cleared (of) terrorists, heavy causality to the enemy," interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter.
Deputy Interior Minister Ayoub Salangi said the city had been recaptured after a "special operation" overnight.Local residents reported deafening overnight bombardments, adding that the Taliban were still resisting Afghan forces in some parts of the city."Afghan soldiers took down the white-and-black Taliban flag in the city square and hoisted the government flag," Kunduz resident Abdul Rahman told AFP."The Taliban suffered heavy casualties last night. Dead bodies are scattered on the streets, and their supporters are carrying them out of the city wrapped in white cloths."Security officials said the militants had slowly infiltrated Kunduz during the recent Eid festival, launching a Trojan horse attack that enabled them to capture it within hours on Monday.The stunning fall of the city sent thousands of panicked residents fleeing as insurgents erected checkpoints across the city and were seen racing stolen police, UN and Red Cross vehicles.The Taliban´s recent gains in Kunduz and neighbouring provinces highlight that a large and strategic patch of northern Afghanistan is imperilled by a rapidly expanding insurgency.The fall of the city coincided with the first anniversary of Ashraf Ghani´s national unity government.It has renewed questions about Washington´s plan to withdraw most US troops from Afghanistan next year.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 01 Oct 2015 09:17

Alhamdullilah, AoA!

Verified on kufr link: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/asia/afgh ... an-attack/

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Oct 2015 12:11

https://twitter.com/hashtag/kunduz?f=im ... tical=news

the army of mullah mansoor's emirate seems like a mix of horses, motorbikes, captured hummers and toyota pickups. completely mech.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 01 Oct 2015 12:13

^^only one thing missed - retired and serving ISI officers and ex-servicemen to provide tactical support.

Bhurishrava · Post by **Bhurishrava** » 01 Oct 2015 17:03

The new afghans look shorter, underfed and younger. Or is it just me.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 02 Oct 2015 22:32

Taliban Says It Shot Down Crashed US C-130 In Afghanistan

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 03 Oct 2015 11:14

While the US media were swift with unsubstantiated "wag the dog" news of Russian civilian casualties in Syria,they have reluctantly admitted that "collateral damage",lovely choice of words,"may have taken place" in the Af hospital attack were western docs have been killed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/o ... al-bombing

Three Médecins Sans Frontières staff killed in suspected US airstrike on Afghan hospital

MSF say 30 staff are still unaccounted for after the attack in the war-torn city of Kunduz as the US admits an airstrike may have caused ‘collateral damage’

A Taliban fighter on his motorcycle in Kunduz, Afghanistan. US airstrikes have been used to support Afghan troops in their attempt to re-seize control of the city.

Sune Engel Rasmussen in Kabul
Saturday 3 October 2015

A US airstrike appears to have hit a hospital run by Médecins Sans Frontières in the Afghan city of Kunduz early on Saturday morning.

MSF said its hospital in the war-torn northern city was bombed and badly damaged in an aerial attack that killed at least three staff members.

At the time of the bombing, 105 patients and their caretakers and more than 80 MSF international and national staff were in the hospital, the charity said. Thirty staff were still unaccounted for.

“We are deeply shocked by the attack, the killing of our staff and patients and the heavy toll it has inflicted on healthcare in Kunduz,” says Bart Janssens, MSF director of operations.

The Guardian view on the fall of Kunduz: the high price of international neglect

Editorial: The Taliban recapture of an important northern Afghan town is a major setback for the Kabul government and for western strategies alike

“We do not yet have the final casualty figures, but our medical team are providing first aid and treating the injured patients and MSF personnel and accounting for the deceased. We urge all parties to respect the safety of health facilities and staff.”

A spokesman for the US military admitted they might be responsible.

“US forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), 3 October, against individuals threatening the force. The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility. This incident is under investigation,” said Colonel Brian Tribus, spokesman for international forces in Afghanistan.

The bombardment apparently followed heavy fighting around the hospital. An MSF staff member, who was on duty at the time, told the Guardian: “I was inside my office. Around 2am, the plane started bombing the main building of MSF. It lasted one-and-a-half hours. After 3.30am, I came out from my office and saw all of the hospital was on fire,” the staff member said.

“We couldn’t save our doctors, our nurses, our cleaners, our friends. They burned inside the hospital. We couldn’t save our brothers and friends,” the staff member said, asking to remain anonymous.

Casualty tolls are likely to rise, as MSF gets a clearer view of the damage. One Kunduz resident told the Guardian that he knew four doctors who had been killed.

The accident comes after the Afghan government on Thursday claimed they had regained control of Kunduz, after the Taliban seized the key city in northern Afghanistan on Monday. However, fighting has since endured in pockets around the city, and in surrounding districts, with both sides claiming to be in control.

The capture of Kunduz marks the first time since 2001 the Taliban breach an urban area.

Afghan special forces have been battling to retake the city with help from international special forces advising on the ground, as well as a series of US airstrikes.

Analysis/ However long it lasts, Taliban capture of Kunduz is a major blow to Afghan government

Even if security forces pass their first test and take back the city, the damage is done – militants have once again sparked international concern for Afghanistan

Since fighting broke out on Monday, MSF had treated 394 wounded in Kunduz. When the aerial attack occurred Saturday morning, there were 105 patients with relatives, as well as over 80 MSF international and national staff present, the group said in its statement.

It is the second time in a few months the safety of MSF staff in Kunduz is threatened. In July, the hospital closed down temporarily after armed members of the Afghan security forces physically assaulted three staff members and entered the hospital in search for insurgents.

MSF have worked in Afghanistan since 1980, and their hospital in Kunduz is their only facility in north-eastern Afghanistan.

More "blue-on-blue" from the US.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/j ... e-official
Afghan troops 'killed by US air strike'
At least eight soldiers killed and five wounded after helicopter attack on Afghan army outpost in Logar province

PS:Frankly,unless Ghani cobbles together a new "Northern Alliance" and ropes in India and Russia for covert/overt help,he's going to be a dead duck in the future. He has to tell Pak to shove off or face the consequences of a Vietnam redux in Af. I don't know how much more support he's going to get from a tired US and West.There support too is crucial,but after two decades what do they have to show for it? The US's blind spot,Pakistan is the crux of the matter.It is past time for the US to bomb the smithereens out of the ISI HQ .

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 03 Oct 2015 12:21

Jalalabad was Gul's screwup after the soviets left. Who screwed up Kunduz on the ISI side? Very similar to early 1990s

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 03 Oct 2015 20:55

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 209566.cms?

GENEVA: A suspected US air strike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz that killed nine MSF staff on Saturday was "inexcusable" and "possibly criminal", UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said.

Zeid called for a full and transparent investigation, noting that, "if established as deliberate in a court of law, an air strike on a hospital may amount to a war crime."

Doctors Without Borders — known by its French acronym MSF — said the bombardment continued for more than 30 minutes after Washington was informed and that both Afghan and US officials were given the precise location of MSF facilities.

"This event is utterly tragic, inexcusable and possibly even criminal," Zeid said in a statement.

The Afghan defence ministry said militants were targeting troops from the hospital building.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Oct 2015 12:13

over fresh eggs on the face:

MSF denies Taliban were firing from Afghan hospital hit by air strike
Reuters - ‎22 minutes ago‎
KABUL Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres denied that Taliban fighters were firing from its hospital at Afghan and NATO forces before a suspected U.S.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 04 Oct 2015 18:48

Karlekar in the Pioneer. He wrote an excellent book on Af. a yr ago,predicting just this .

POOR LEADERSHIP TAKING A TOLL ON AFGHANISTAN
Saturday, 03 October 2015 | Hiranmay Karlekar |

The Afghan forces alone cannot be blamed for the fall of Kunduz; there were other factors at play. In most places, the troops remained besieged within the district capitals, while the Taliban ruled the countryside

The fall of Kunduz, an important city in northern Afghanistan, on Monday, was more a defeat for Afghanistan’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation -trained Afghan Army than a victory for the Taliban. A report under the heading, ‘Taliban Fighters Capture Kunduz City as Afghan Forces Retreat’, by Joseph Goldstein and Mujib Mashal in The New York Times of September 29, quoted a security official as saying on the condition of anonymity, that the Taliban numbered 500 in the city, and mentioned a district Governor, Mr Zalmai Farooqi, as estimating that the Government had 7,000 men in the area. The problem was not the lack of security forces, Mr Farooqi stated, but the absence of good leadership.

For over a year, the Taliban had been slowly spreading their tentacles in Kunduz Province, of which the city of Kunduz is the capital. The New York Times report cited above quoted Mr Mohammad Yousaf Abyoubi, head of Kunduz’s Provincial Council, as saying that the Taliban controlled 70 per cent of the Province outside the city. Yet, he added that the Government neither launched an offensive nor sent in reinforcements.

It was not that the Government in Kabul and the United States’ military in Afghanistan did not know. For a year, The New York Times report states, local officials had been expressing alarm over the Taliban’s advance but some Afghan and Western officials had been dismissing these.

Typical of their complacence/ignorance was a remark in May, by the American commander in Afghanistan, General John F Campbell, quoted in Joseph Goldstein’s report in The New York Times(September 30) under the heading “A Taliban Prize, Won in a Few Hours after Years of Strategy.” The General, according to it, had said in response to a question about the Talban’s military strategy, “If you take a look very closely at some of the things in Kunduz and up in Badakhshan, they will attack some very small checkpoints.” He added, “They will go out and hit a little bit and then they kind of go to ground” and then said, “so they’re not gaining territory for the most part.”

One should hardly be surprised, if all this had convinced the defenders that they had little chance of receiving help and reinforcement and, hence, there was no point in their sticking their necks out. As a result, the local police fought the Taliban in some places, in the others, the latter advanced unopposed. Otherwise, Afghans, known for their courage in combat, would not have fled. The point needs to be made because they have showed much better mettle elsewhere.

Consider the case of Kabul, where the Taliban mounted three attacks on August 7. The targets were the Ministry of Defence’s military intelligence headquarters, the Kabul Police Academy’s training facility, and an American and coalition forces military base, camp integrity, just north of Kabul’s international airport. While the attacks, which left 65 dead and 240 wounded, provided an alarming example of the Taliban’s striking power, it also showed the Afghan forces in a favourable light.

In none of the three instances could the Taliban breach the defended perimeters. The casualties occurred mostly outside and, besides one American soldier and eight military contractors and Afghan police cadets, they were civilians, mainly passer-by.

The attacks, however, raised certain questions. The fact that the Taliban could breach Kabul’s outer security ring and strike at the Ministry of Defence’s military intelligence headquarters and the Kabul Police Academy’s training facility, suggests possible internal complicity without which, these could not have happened. It is not just the Kabul attacks. How is it that the Afghan forces, which had a bad year in 2014, when they suffered heavy casualties, have fared worse since the beginning of this year?

In most places, they have remained besieged within the district capitals — rarely venturing out for patrolling — while the Taliban have increasingly dominated the countryside. One cannot blame the troops alone. Joseph Goldstein’s report under the heading, ‘Afghan Security Forces Struggle Just to Maintain Stalemate’, in The New York Times of July 22, quotes a retired Afghan Lieutenant General, Abdul Hadi Khalid as saying, “Units get surrounded, and we don’t send them support, so they are killed.”

Lieutenant General Khalid’s statement underlines the general disarray in Afghanistan’s military establishment. Logistics are poor. Soldiers are often unable to send money home from their pay. Medical supplies are in short supply; reinforcements seldom arrive.

The resultant demoralisation is heightened by the fact that air support, which played a major role when American troops were deployed, is now very rarely received. It is one thing to argue the that Taliban have been gaining ground without ever having it, and another to expect troops used to heavy air support when they fought alongside Western coalition forces, to do virtually without it now.

Such a state of affairs appears hardly strange on recalling that Afghanistan has not had a confirmed Defence Minister for about a year now. The incumbent, Mr Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, serves in an acting capacity as the effort to confirm him was defeated by the Afghan Parliament on July 4, when he received 84 votes against 107 required. Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani’s persistence with Mr Stanekzai, a close confidante, whose performance as Defence Minister has by no account been effective, has been a source of tension, as has been his policy toward the Taliban and Pakistan.

He has sent officer cadets to train in Pakistan, shared information with it and helped hunt down Pakistani terrorists who had taken refuge in Afghanistan, including six involved in the horrific attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. Pakistan has given nothing in return.

President Ghani’s reported willingness to undertake constitutional amendments that would guarantee the Taliban a share of power, and give its clerics the authority to roll back progressive features of the country’s post 9/11 life, has alarmed Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities inhabiting its northern and western regions that had led the resistance to the Taliban before 9/11— as well as youth and women’s groups. These have also raised questions about his seriousness about fighting the Taliban, which in turn is stoking the fear of an inevitable eventual Taliban take-over of Afghanistan and undermining the military and civilian administration’s resolve to defeat the Pakistan-sponsored and supported militia.

Can Mr Ghani be made to change his policies? Can a more widely-accepted and competent leader replace him? Can the Afghan military pull up its socks? What will be the United States’ role after Kunduz? A great deal will depend on answers to these questions.

With the latest US attack on the hospital at Kunduz,killing dozens,which the western media still says is a "suspected US attack",for which the US has already expressed regret but not apologised for,the Ghani regime and US clumsiness is only tilting the future in favour of the ISI/Taliban. The generals in Pindi must be choking with laughter!

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 04 Oct 2015 20:10

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/world/a-taliban-prize-won-in-a-few-hours-after-years-of-strategy.html?_r=0

very sympathetic portrayal of taliban in the racist judeo-christian

mouthpiece of US establishment.

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 04 Oct 2015 20:23

Taliban pose for selfies

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/asia/taliban-fighters-enter-city-of-kunduz-in-northern-afghanistan.html

The articles do not give a very flattering picture of the capabilities and morale of Afghan security forces.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 05 Oct 2015 10:59

Intrigue fuels rise of leader of the Taliban - Joseph Goldstein, NYT News Service, ToI

If ever there was a Taliban bureaucrat who seemed set on a less than stellar career path, it was Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour.

In the 1990s, he was the Taliban government's chief of aviation while Afghanistan had few planes in the air. He also oversaw the tourism department for what was one of the world's most sealed-off countries at the time.

In short, there was little hint back then that he would someday emerge as the Taliban's supreme commander, and the successor to the group's legendary founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

But in the years since the Taliban leadership was driven into exile in Pakistan in 2001, Mansour became central to the group's reincarnation as a powerful insurgency that survived NATO offensives to pose a grave threat now to the Western-backed Afghan government.

The insurgent assault that has swept across northern Afghanistan in recent weeks and for the first time in 14 years planted the Taliban flag in a major city, Kunduz, has cemented Mansour's status as one of the canniest enemies of American interests in decades. Yet he has remained largely a mystery to American and Afghan officials.

Details of his rise - filled in through interviews with current and former Taliban commanders and Western and Afghan officials - paint a portrait of an insurgent leader with a distinct flair for intrigue.

As acting leader of the Taliban over the past few years, he closely kept the secret that Omar had been dead since 2013. And Mansour wielded that edge powerfully, issuing orders in Omar's name, moving against rival Taliban commanders and steadily consolidating power, according to Afghan and Taliban officials.

He has also benefited from a powerful alliance with the Pakistani military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the original sponsor of the Afghan Taliban insurgency. That relationship, along with a hefty dose of cash payouts to fellow commanders, was a crucial factor in his ability to manage the succession crisis this summer after news of Omar's death finally got out, Taliban and Afghan officials said.

Pakistan's role in Mansour's rise and rule has offered a bit of hope to Afghan and Western officials that Pakistani officials might be persuaded to force the Taliban to accept a peace deal.

But it has also sometimes been a political liability for Mansour, embittering some Taliban figures who resent Pakistan's influence on the leadership and who are not likely to forgive his deception about Omar's death. Some alienated commanders have sought a new direction with the Islamic State offshoot that is growing in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Mansour's biggest mystery to Western and Afghan officials is wrapped up in the question of how he will try to shape Afghanistan's future now that he has consolidated power: Will he attempt to return the Taliban to power as conquerors, or will he try to turn military victories into a strong hand in peace talks?

His own words and actions would seem to support either path.

Riches in Exile

Mansour, a stout man believed to be just under 50, does not, unlike his famously reclusive predecessor, live in hiding. His circumstances are not those of a jihadist leader living a fugitive existence, fearing drone strokes and avoiding cellphones in case they are tracked; in fact, one person who knows him says the Taliban leader owns a cellphone company.

Some of the time, he lives in a southern neighborhood of Quetta, Pakistan, known as Satellite Town, in an enclave where he and some other Taliban leaders from the same Pashtun tribe, the Ishaqzai, have built homes, according to interviews with a range of people who know him, including high-ranking Taliban leaders. As with many of the people interviewed about Mansour, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending or prompting revenge.

But Quetta is not his only option. Although he is on the United Nations no-fly list, Mansour has repeatedly taken flights in and out of Pakistan, according to a senior Afghan intelligence official. Often, his destination has been Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where he has a house and several investments under different names, the official said.

That freedom alone would support widespread claims that he enjoys special status from the Pakistani authorities. Also telling is the large detachment of plainclothes security officers in his part of Satellite Town that notably grew around the time he was announced as the Taliban's leader, neighborhood residents say.

Although he has benefited from his Pakistani contacts, they come with strings. Intelligence officials say that Mansour is wealthy by any standard, partly because of his ties to Ishaqzai narcotics traffickers. But some of that wealth has occasionally been frozen by Pakistani officials, the Afghan intelligence official said. One such time came this year when Pakistan was seeking to broker a round of talks between the Taliban leadership and the Afghan government and wanted Mansour to go along with it, the official said.

Such details present, for the Taliban, an uncomfortable contrast to the austere lives their leaders supposedly lived when they governed the country. A biography of Mansour recently issued by the Taliban seemed intent on rebutting that impression.

"He likes and wears loose, neat and clean clothes," the biography reads. "He dislikes and avoids extravagance and prodigality in dressing, eating and all other needs of everyday life."

Mansour is one of the last senior members of Omar's original government still with the insurgency. Of those still alive, some have reconciled with the Afghan government and now live in Kabul. To them, it is surprising that Mansour is what he is today.

Mullah Salaam Alizai, who was close to Omar during the Taliban government in the 1990s and later spent years as an insurgent commander, described Mansour as unpredictable and an opportunist. "The kind of person who doesn't have his own ideology, the kind of person who doesn't care about how much destruction occurs," he said in a phone interview.

"If he is told to destroy one road, he will destroy 10; if he is told to kill one person, he will kill 100," added Alizai, who reconciled with the government about eight years ago.

Maulawi Qalamuddin, who ran the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice in the Taliban government, remembered Mansour as a hardworking administrator.

"Mullah Mansoor was not a notorious figure, and he was not fundamentalist, either," said Qalamuddin, who is now on the Afghan government's peace commission. "People didn't grumble or complain about him."

A Violent Operator

Those seeking evidence that Mansour's priority is to wage war, rather than pursue peace talks will have no difficulty finding it. He was one of the early organizers of the insurgency after the United States toppled the Taliban government in 2001, becoming a major battlefield commander.

Leaked US military intelligence logs present a snapshot of him sowing violence across southern Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007. They show that he attended strategy sessions where suicide bombings were planned, back when that was still a relatively new tactic for the Taliban.

If the boundaries between the Taliban and opium and heroin traffickers in Afghanistan are now blurred, that is in no small part because of Mansour. He was among the first major Taliban officials to be linked to the drug trade, according to a 2008 United Nations report, and later became the Taliban's main tax collector for the narcotics trade - creating immense profits for the Taliban as opium and heroin exports soared.

The Taliban biography of Mansour on its English website relishes in tracing how the ferocity of the Taliban's war against American and coalition forces seems to track each of Mansour's promotions up the group's ranks.

Despite his rising profile within the Taliban, Mansour remained something of an unknown to his enemies. Of that there is no better measure than a bizarre episode in 2010, when an impostor claiming to be Mansour sought to engage in secret peace talks.

The Afghan government and the American-led military coalition were hopeful, especially when they heard the man's modest demands for an end to the war: amnesty for Taliban leaders and jobs for Taliban soldiers. The military showered the man with money, flew him to Kabul for meetings and struggled to keep expectations in check.

Then he simply disappeared, and both Kabul and Washington concluded they had been duped. And the real Mansour's star continued to rise.

In 2010, Pakistani ISI officials arrested Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Omar's top deputy. Afghan and Western officials later said he was detained because he had been negotiating with Afghan officials without Pakistan's involvement.

Two commanders rose to more prominence in the wake of Baradar's arrest: One was Mansour, the other was Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, a young former detainee at the American prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who had a reputation as a tough commander in southern Afghanistan.

For a while, the two coexisted uncomfortably as co-deputies. But Mansour clearly gained the upper hand, becoming the acting leader of the Taliban, said Rahmatullah Nabil, the head of the Afghan intelligence agency, in an interview last year.

Afghan and Western officials said Mansour had become the sole supposed conduit to Omar, in whose name annual announcements were made, but whom even senior Taliban commanders had not seen in years — to their growing anger and skepticism.

But Mansour was confident enough to begin placing his loyalists in important spots, and to move against those who doubted him.

In spring last year, Mansour served notice to Zakir that he was being fired because Omar was dissatisfied with the commander's military strategy. But Zakir called his bluff, demanding proof that Omar was both alive and did in fact want him gone, three Afghan and Western officials said. Mansour showed a letter attributed to Omar, but could not produce compelling evidence. The gamble had failed, and the issue festered, giving wider circulation to rumors that Omar was dead and Mansour was deceiving his comrades.

A Power Struggle

Those rumors dogged Mansour through the first half the year, when Pakistan began pushing the Taliban leadership to officially meet for the first time an Afghan government delegation, as a prelude to peace talks.

Until that meeting, in early July near Islamabad, Pakistan, the Taliban had long refused to meet with the Afghan government. But diplomats in attendance at the Pakistani-brokered talks were told that Mansour, himself, had authorized the meeting, one of the Afghan delegates, Hekmat Karzai, later said.

The senior Afghan official said the Mansour had, in fact, acquiesced to sending a delegation to the meeting, under heavy pressure from Pakistani officials. But as the talks were being prepared, Mansour suddenly shifted tack, instructing several possible Taliban emissaries that they should refuse to attend. Then Mansour disappeared for a while.

"Mansour's phones were turned off; he went missing," one senior Afghan official said.

Why Mansour tried to sink the talks is unclear, but the Afghan intelligence official and a Western diplomat who had read intelligence reports on the issue said Mansour was probably worried he would lose the loyalty of Taliban commanders.

"It is not that Mansour is not obedient to Pakistan; it's just that he is afraid of the movement falling apart," the senior Afghan official said.

Pakistan was left scrambling to find Taliban figures who were willing to participate, leading to a smaller and less impressive delegation than the Afghan government had hoped for at the July 7 meetings. Still, the talks were hailed as the historic beginning of a long-sought peace process.

But Mansour's apparent concerns were coming true. Within the Taliban, the talks - and Mansour's perceived acquiescence to them - had cleaved the senior ranks. Senior Taliban figures began discussing the need for guidance from Omar, which in turn provoked renewed questions about whether he was even alive, two Afghan officials and a Western envoy said.

Deception Ends

In July, word that Omar had long been dead suddenly began to circulate among commanders, according to Afghan officials. Precisely how the news broke was unclear, but one theory is that with peace talks looming, Omar's son, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoub, began to confide to other senior Taliban leaders, according to an Afghan and a Western official.

On July 29, the Afghan government made it public, proclaiming that Omar had in fact died two years earlier in a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.

Mansour immediately tried to get ahead of a potential succession struggle. In a few days of masterful constituency building - with the help of cash payouts and Pakistani influence, according to Afghan and Western officials - Mansour secured the loyalty of possible rivals. In a series of shuras - consultative councils that his detractors claimed had been packed with his friends and tribesmen - he manufactured consent.

But others rallied behind Omar's son, Yaqoub. Those supporters included Zakir and, reportedly, the leadership of the Haqqani network, an influential wing of the Taliban known for its brutal terrorist tactics and fundraising mastery, according to members of the Taliban leadership council.

Then, Mansour let the world know that he had cut the heart out of his opposition.

The Taliban announced on July 31 that not only had Mansour been officially declared the new supreme leader, but that both of his deputies had been chosen from the Haqqani network's leadership, some of Yaqoub's supposed backers. Two weeks later, the Taliban released a statement that Yaqoub and his family members had agreed to pledge their loyalty to Mansour's leadership.

Zakir, however, would not go easily.

Officials with the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service, said they had intercepted a message in which Mansour offered more than $14 million to Zakir through an intermediary in Helmand province. The senior Afghan intelligence official claimed that after a payoff was made, of an unknown sum, Zakir demanded that he lead the Taliban military commission and that Mansour pledge not to engage in peace talks. However, those claims could not be confirmed in interviews with Taliban officials.

In any case, after he was anointed as Omar's successor, Mansour had some consolidating to do. He disowned the July 7 peace meeting with the Afghan government, telling his supporters that they should dismiss talk of a peace process as propaganda - "the words of the enemies," according to a recording the Taliban released.

Yet even then Mansour's speech was met with some degree of hope in Kabul, where diplomats noted that he had not explicitly ruled out future negotiations with the Afghan government.

"The doors of indirect meetings with the enemy in regards to independence of Afghanistan and the end of occupation were and still are open," the Taliban said in another statement on their website.

Uncertainty Ahead

The deftness with which Mansour emerged as the new leader speaks to his political talents. But some Taliban leaders see it more as evidence of Pakistan's support.

One of the insurgency's most senior officials, Tayyeb Agha, resigned in August, saying he was dismayed that Mansour's selection occurred outside Afghanistan.

In a lengthy statement, Agha, who was the Taliban's chief foreign emissary, said choosing a leader in Pakistan was "a great historical mistake" and that Taliban leaders should relocate to Afghanistan from their exile in Pakistan to "preserve their independence." Within the insurgency, an aversion to peace talks and Mansour's close ties with Pakistan remain potent issues for those who have not yet accepted his leadership.

But in recent days, Mansour has swept aside attention from internal tensions by presiding over the Taliban's most consequential military victory since their government was ousted in 2001. After two years of steady infiltration into the north, and a patient encirclement campaign in Kunduz province, Taliban fighters planted the white Taliban flag in the heart of Kunduz on September 28.

The changes on the Afghan battlefield have for now made peace talks almost an afterthought. Afghan and Western officials hope that will not always be the case. But even those who have examined Mansour's statements and career closely for clues are hard pressed to say what his long-term intentions might be.

"I'll tell you who he isn't," Barnett Rubin, a scholar of Afghanistan who has worked in the US government on Afghanistan policy, said in an interview. "He is not a moderate or extremist Talib, because his life is not lived according to our categories. People are trying to pigeonhole him into something they understand."

Mujib Mashal, Ahmad Shakib and an employee of The New York Times contributed reporting. Alain Delaqueriere contributed research.

Falijee · Post by **Falijee** » 05 Oct 2015 20:11

ndia, Iran and Afghanistan come together for international transit corridor

India is looking to step up the pedal over its ambitious Chabahar port project in Iran by signing an international transit corridor agreement with Iran and Afghanistan.

One of the reasons why the port project is important for India as it will facilitate access to Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan. Over the past 2 days, officials from the 3 countries have met to finalize agreement for a Chabahar transit corridor.

When the Chabahar port project comes into operation, Pakistan will not be able to blackmail Afghanistan and India and will surely reduce Pakistan's strategic location argument vis-a-vis being on the "cross roads of Central Asia"

"We are looking at a trilateral transit corridor MoU," India's ambassador to Afghanistan Amar Sinha told TOI.

While India and Iran are developing the Chabahar port jointly, Sinha said, Afghan businesses are investing in the attached free trade zone where Iran has allotted land for Afghan investors.

Indian officials said though that the primary motivation for the port and transit corridor was not bypassing Pakistan.Diplomatese at work here We are actually hoping that Pakistan too at some stage will join all trade and transit agreements being negotiated under Saarc by all other member nations?," said an Indian official.

The talks for trilateral transit corridor had started in 2013. Afghanistan is looking at the Chabahar port and the trilateral transit corridor to reduce its dependence on pakistan.

Falijee · Post by **Falijee** » 05 Oct 2015 20:36

Paul wrote:Hekmatyar is from Kunduz.

Hekmatyar, being from Kunduz has not being mentioned in this latest flare-up in Northern Afghanistan; there were earlier reports that he may have had a fallout with Taliban and was considering to join ISIS; anyone has any further information on this ?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 05 Oct 2015 23:13

svenkat wrote:Taliban pose for selfies

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/asia/taliban-fighters-enter-city-of-kunduz-in-northern-afghanistan.html

The articles do not give a very flattering picture of the capabilities and morale of Afghan security forces.

Who was training the Afghan national forces?

Looks like same curriculum as for Iraqi national forces.

Shanu · Post by **Shanu** » 05 Oct 2015 23:14

Not much recent news about Hekmatyar.. the latest info was about him declaring his allegiance to the Caliphate.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/afghan ... sCatID=359

srin · Post by **srin** » 05 Oct 2015 23:26

What the Kunduz episode has shown is the sheer ineptness of the US Generals. I read orbat.com regularly and the Editor has been warning about the incompetence of Afghan (and Iraqi) troops trained by Americans, but I never expected it to be so bad. What did the Americans do for so long training the Afghans ?

US seems to be a vet-crazy place and I would really love to understand the psyche of a vet who was injured or seen his comrades killed in Afghanistan and now watches all of it go in the drain. Will it lead to a new crop of people rising through the US bureaucratic and political circles, who would hate Pakistan ?

krishna_krishna · Post by **krishna_krishna** » 06 Oct 2015 05:55

FYi, afghans have taken back majority of kundooz back. Keep popcorn waiting see the jernails of birathers bloated by pindi chana gas effects

manjgu · Post by **manjgu** » 06 Oct 2015 06:46

i was recently reading LP Sens book on kashmir operations 1947/48. He says the brits never tooks the pathan tribes of todays paksitan/afghanistan into the regular army as they never made good soldiers.. lacked discipiline and cohesion. talk abt not learning from history...

arun · Post by **arun** » 06 Oct 2015 20:40

X Posted from the “Pakistani Role In Global Terrorism’ thread”

The nefarious activities of the Intelligence Arm of the Uniformed Jihadi’s of the Punjabi dominated Military the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate aka ISI aka ISID..

New Taliban leader Mullah Mansour 'is businessman protected by Pakistan' :

Telegraph, UK

The New York Times Article cited by the Telegraph:

Taliban’s New Leader Strengthens His Hold With Intrigue and Battlefield Victory

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 07 Oct 2015 14:36

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive". US stories about their disastrous and tragic attack on the hospital in Kunduz,change with the day.Here's the latest "truth" .

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015 ... nges-again

Doctors Without Borders airstrike: US alters story for fourth time in four days

Commander of war in Afghanistan tells Senate panel that US forces had called in airstrike at Afghan request – ‘an admission of a war crime’ says MSF chief

General John Campbell says the airstrike was the result of a ‘US decision’. Link to video

Spencer Ackerman in New York
Tuesday 6 October 2015

US special operations forces – not their Afghan allies – called in the deadly airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, the US commander has conceded.

Shortly before General John Campbell, the commander of the US and Nato war in Afghanistan, testified to a Senate panel, the president of Doctors Without Borders – also known as Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) – said the US and Afghanistan had made an “admission of a war crime”.

Shifting the US account of the Saturday morning airstrike for the fourth time in as many days, Campbell reiterated that Afghan forces had requested US air cover after being engaged in a “tenacious fight” to retake the northern city of Kunduz from the Taliban. But, modifying the account he gave at a press conference on Monday, Campbell said those Afghan forces had not directly communicated with the US pilots of an AC-130 gunship overhead.

“Even though the Afghans request that support, it still has to go through a rigorous US procedure to enable fires to go on the ground. We had a special operations unit that was in close vicinity that was talking to the aircraft that delivered those fires,” Campbell told the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday morning.
Analysis MSF hospital airstrike: who are the victims?
Among up to 20 people killed in US strike that hit Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Afghanistan are young doctors and patients
Read more

The airstrike on the hospital is among the worst and most visible cases of civilian deaths caused by US forces during the 14-year Afghanistan war that Barack Obama has declared all but over. It killed 12 MSF staff and 10 patients, who had sought medical treatment after the Taliban overran Kunduz last weekend. Three children died in the airstrike that came in multiple waves and burned patients alive in their beds.

On Tuesday, MSF denounced Campbell’s press conference as an attempt to shift blame to the Afghans.
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“The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition,” said its director general, Christopher Stokes.

Campbell did not explain whether the procedures to launch the airstrike took into account the GPS coordinates of the MSF field hospital, which its president, Joanne Liu, said were “regularly shared” with US, coalition and Afghan military officers and civilian officials, “as recently as Tuesday 29 September”.

AC-130 gunships, which fly low, typically rely on a pilot visually identifying a target.

It is also unclear where the US special operations forces were relative to the fighting, but Campbell has said that US units were “not directly engaged in the fighting”.

Campbell instead said the hospital was “mistakenly struck” by US forces.

“We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility,” Campbell told US lawmakers, declaring that he wanted an investigation by his command to “take its course” instead of providing further detail.

But Jason Cone, Doctors Without Borders’ US executive director, said Campbell’s shifting story underscored the need for an independent inquiry.

“Today’s statement from General Campbell is just the latest in a long list of confusing accounts from the US military about what happened in Kunduz on Saturday,” Cone said.

“They are now back to talking about a ‘mistake’. A mistake that lasted for more than an hour, despite the fact that the location of the hospital was well known to them and that they were informed during the airstrike that it was a hospital being hit. All this confusion just underlines once again the crucial need for an independent investigation into how a major hospital, full of patients and MSF staff, could be repeatedly bombed.”

Campbell suggested but did not say that the Afghans were taking fire from the Taliban from within the hospital grounds, a claim the Afghan government has explicitly made. MSF unequivocally denies that the hospital was a source of fire. It has also noted the precision of the strike that hit only the main hospital building and not its adjuncts.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of international law at the University of Notre Dame, said that according to international humanitarian law, the critical question for determining if US forces committed a war crime was whether they had notified the hospital ahead of the strike if they understood the Taliban to be firing from the hospital.

“Any serious violation of the law of armed conflict, such as attacking a hospital that is immune from intentional attack, is a war crime. Hospitals are immune from attack during an armed conflict unless being used by one party to harm the other and then only after a warning that it will be attacked,” O’Connell said.

The US account has now shifted four times in four days. On Saturday, the US military said it did not know for certain that it had struck the hospital but that US forces were taking fire in Kunduz.

On Sunday, it said that the strike took place in the “vicinity” of the hospital and suggested it had been accidentally struck. On Monday, Campbell said that the Afghans requested the strike and said US forces in the area were not “threatened”.

On Tuesday, he clarified that US forces called in the airstrike themselves at Afghan request.

Meanwhile, the defense secretary, Ashton Carter, said in a statement on Tuesday, that the Department of Defense “deeply regrets the loss of innocent lives that resulted from this tragic event”.

Doctors Without Borders has demanded an independent inquiry, rejecting the three current investigations – by the US, Nato and the Afghans – as compromised by their partiality.

“This attack cannot be brushed aside as a mere mistake or an inevitable consequence of war. Statements from the Afghanistan government have claimed that Taliban forces were using the hospital to fire on coalition forces. These statements imply that Afghan and US forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital, which amounts to an admission of a war crime,” Liu said on Tuesday.

In the past, the US has upbraided both allies and adversaries over the indiscriminate use of aerial strikes.

On Thursday, the US defense secretary said Russia was pouring “gasoline on the fire” of the Syrian civil war after it launched a campaign of airstrikes against opponents of Moscow’s ally Bashar al-Assad.

A day later, the National Security Council spokesman, Ned Price, said the White House was “deeply concerned” that its Saudi ally in the Yemen conflict had bombed a wedding party, something the US itself did in Yemen in 2013.

When Israel shelled a UN school in Gaza housing thousands of displaced Palestinians in August 2014, a State Department spokesman said the US was “appalled” by the “disgraceful” attack.

Addressing Tuesday’s committee hearing, Campbell confirmed that he has recommended to Obama that the US retain thousands of troops in Afghanistan beyond Obama’s presidency – reversing a plan to reduce the force to one focused on protecting the US embassy in Kabul.

He argued for “strategic patience” in the longest war in US history, which has now stretched five years longer than the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Oct 2015 00:22

So those USSF did not know it was MSF hospital?
Or was it deliberate for they thought it harbored Taliban?

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 08 Oct 2015 10:14

Noted scribe,Pioneer columnist,Karlekar, expert on foreign/security affairs has a take on Afghanistan and India's involvement.

NO IGNORING INDIA’S STAKES IN KABUL
Thursday, 08 October 2015 | Hiranmay Karlekar | in Oped
New Delhi needs partners to help it counter the Pakistani influence in Afghanistan’s affairs. Iran and Russia should be tapped for the purpose

The Kunduz battle has once again focussed on the situation in Afghanistan and reminded India of its massive security and economic stakes there. A Pakistan-sponsored Taliban Government in Kabul would severely undermine both, as would a nominally-independent Taliban-dominated dispensation. His periodic verbal salvoes against Pakistan and the Taliban notwithstanding, Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani remains keen on an Islamabad-brokered peace with the Taliban. To please Pakistan, he has sent officer cadets to train there, shared information with it and helped in ferreting out Pakistani terrorists who had taken refuge in Afghanistan, including six involved in the horrific attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. He is reportedly willing even to undertake constitutional amendments enabling the Taliban to share power, besides empowering its clerics to dismantle the gains in gender justice and human rights made the post-9/11 liberation. He is also a party to excluding India from the present peace process.

His visit to New Delhi on April 30, which yielded little, was yet another indication that Pakistan will dominate any dispensation established in Kabul through the current negotiations, and will whittle down India’s presence in Afghanistan. A section in India, however, remains unconcerned and argues that we should leave Afghanistan alone and concentrate on our own development since we can do little about a process blessed by both the United States and China.

This is a preposterous suggestion. India’s stakes in Afghanistan, to which it has committed assistance amounting cumulatively to two billion dollars — a very large amount for this country— are considerable. It covers a wide terrain including large infrastructural —and small developmental — projects, capacity-building initiatives and humanitarian assistance. Besides, there is the question of Afghanistan’s untapped mineral deposits worth one trillion dollar. The biggest ones are of iron ore and copper while lithium, niobium, cobalt and gold finds are very considerable. A Kabul dispensation that is Pakistan’s proxy will shut the door on Indian firms keen on exploiting these and end or substantially reduce this country’s trade with Afghanistan.

Even if India is prepared to accept such a huge, humiliating setback there remains the question of its security. The section of the Taliban, which is now fighting the incumbent Government in Afghanistan, will become unemployed once Pakistan has achieved its goal. Trained for fighting and nothing else, they will have problems finding openings in civilian life where opportunities are hardly abundant in Pakistan. They will become a large, heavily armed force, turning the country’s near-anarchy situation into complete one, unless they are unleashed against another target, India.

Those dismissing the idea should note the sharp heightening of Pakistan’s aggression-level against this country since the beginning of 2014. This is a reflection of its increased self-confidence resulting, first, from the huge and sophisticated arsenal it has piled up against India by misusing American aid which Washington has done little to stop and, second, from the feeling of power it has gained by acting as the arbiter of Afghanistan’s destiny. This combination of compulsion and over-confidence will invariably propel it to escalate its proxy war to a point where a conventional war becomes inevitable.

Equally, there may be a civil war in Afghanistan as ethnic minorities and others who had constituted the pre-liberation Northern Alliance, resist a Taliban or a pro-Taliban takeover and ask New Delhi for financial, logistical and arms aid. Will India turn them down, knowing full well the consequences of having an adverse dispensation in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan and Pakistan’s geo-strategic positions, and the fact that a fight against the Taliban, and its brand of Islamist fundamentalism, will have to be transnational, requires that India has allies. Since it cannot expect America, which has made Pakistan the fulcrum of the Afghan peace talks, to join, it must have Russia and Iran as coalition partners. Explorations must begin immediately. Detailed plans will have to follow.

PSA:Karlekar's last book on AFghanistan,"Endgame in Afghanistan: For Whom the Dice Rolls ..." is a must read.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 08 Oct 2015 11:03

Falijee wrote:
Paul wrote:Hekmatyar is from Kunduz.
Hekmatyar, being from Kunduz has not being mentioned in this latest flare-up in Northern Afghanistan; there were earlier reports that he may have had a fallout with Taliban and was considering to join ISIS; anyone has any further information on this ?

The Kunduz operation was planned by PA/ISI and involved the Taliban, Haqqani elements, LeT, Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks and some say even Uyghurs. The planning etc was possibly by the PA. This is the new combination of AQIS that the ISI has formed and Kunduz is the first operation. Hekmatyar is no longer under ISI patronage and there have been rumours that he has already pledged Hizb-e-Islami's support to IS.

IMO, the Kunduz operation sends multiple signals, to Pres. Ghani of Afghanistan, to the IS and to India.

Ghani has to know the formidable combination he is up against and also the ineffectiveness of the ANSF. The reality is that without the US help, the AQIS combination would overrun Afghanistan very quickly.

Though the IS is an American creation, either by design or by accident or both, the fact is that the former is now on its own, has been so for nearly two years now. Again, IMO, the PA/ISI do not want IS to become influential in Af-Pak because the latter would completely subsume the former and decimate them. All said and done, the PA/ISI is not so foolish as to cut down the very branch it is sitting on. PA/ISI believes that the AQIS would be the force to resist the IS.

Of course, for India the message is always stark. One is that Afghanistan is effectively out of reach for India and Pakistan would be the predominant proxy there. Two, the threat of AQIS.

member_20385 · Post by **member_20385** » 09 Oct 2015 16:08

http://nation.com.pk/columns/09-Oct-201 ... -of-kunduz

The consequences of Kunduz: Retd. Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg

The Taliban have shown a great deal of flexibility of manoeuvre, by shifting their pivot of resistance to the North of Afghanistan, because the Pakistan military had dismantled their support base and sanctuaries in the FATA region. Their new support base now is well-established in the provinces of Badakhshan, Takhar, Faryab, Zabul, Baghlan, Jozjan, Baghdiz and Kunduz. With every passing day, their fighting strength is increasing, as the Movement for Independence of Uzbekistan (MIU), Mujahedeen from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Xingjian and from within Afghanistan, the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras continue to join them. Their new support base is safe and secure, because none have the will to venture towards this base.

It is not difficult to understand the operational strategy Taliban are likely to follow in the near future. They will continue to expand their control over the interior areas, thus limiting the space for maneuver to the defenders. They will not capture towns and cities, to avoid fighting positional defense. They occupied Kunduz because the defenders had abandoned their posts.

Taliban have captured enough weapons, ammunition and equipment at Kunduz, and more they will retrieve from 500 plus truck-loads, such military hardware at Sher Khan dry port. Thus, they will be able to arm and equip a reckonable fighting force, for the impending battle next year. In fact the picture that is emerging appears very similar to the happenings in Iraq that led to rise of Daesh. However, the situation in Afghanistan is different as the Taliban have been able to maintain unity of command and control of the politically conscious leadership, seeking peace and harmony for the people of Afghanistan, who are the most tortured and brutalised people, at the hands of the civilised world, which owes a heavy debt to them, for the losses suffered by the two generations of Afghans, of death, destruction and deprivation, during the last thirty five years of war.

He is casually predicting capture of military hardware from Sher Khan dry port.