Bharat Rakshak

Saving Afghan Treasures
In the midst of the Afghan war, Indians have been conserving pre-Islamic art, Buddhist monuments and Mughal gardens, even tracing links back to the Bronze Age.
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BY Pramila N. Phatarphekar EMAIL AUTHOR(S)


A jangling phone shattered the cultivated silence in The British Museum’s office in London. A curator’s hand hovered over it, and then picked it up slowly. It was late 2001. Over the sound of howling jets came the voice of The Observer’s war correspondent in Afghanistan: “I’m calling from the Bagram airfield control tower. A squadron of stealth bombers is about to raze it. Your comments on Bagram’s significance?” Bagram, quite simply, was the site of the world’s greatest art treasures. And Naman Ahuja, curator of South Asian Sculpture, felt his blood run cold. Buried deep was a shard of personal history—both his grandparents were born in Bannu, Afghanistan. Those bombers were about to obliterate a country where “India has had a civilisational stake which dates back to the Bronze Age”.

Just north of Kabul, Bagram was the summer capital of the Kushan Empire that traced an arc up to Mathura (now in Uttar Pradesh) during 1st–3rd century CE. Spices and textiles used to cross between Mathura and Bagram, even as spirituality hitchhiked unseen along this Silk Route. It’s what gave us Gandharan art that’s endured for millennia. Long before Afghans held AK-47s, some 2,000 years ago, their hands cradled delicate Roman glass goblets. In the 1930s, French archaeologists found an entire stash of these world treasures, ready for shipping in a merchant’s strong room, along with Indian ivory thrones carved with Buddhist Jataka Tales. It was priceless evidence of how Bagram’s cosmopolitan trade was flourishing as Rome crumbled. “Archaeologists rarely unearth objects as fragile as glass, ivory and jewellery,” says Ahuja. Yet, Bagram, home of spectacular antiquity, could do nothing to stop itself being battered by the coalition of the war-willing. Again.

Since 1979, Afghanistan’s most enduring sound has been the boom of war. From Russian missiles and Talibani rocket launchers to Nato’s attack drones, continual combat for 30 years has ravaged homes down to their last mud-brick. For ordinary Afghans who’ve grown up on conflict, peace is an idea that’s lobbed about as carelessly as a grenade. Bread, clothes and shelter are desperately needed. But holistic healing might require memories. So, beyond the $662 million of reconstruction aid, India is making a discreet effort to conserve Afghanistan’s heritage. Before and during the recent wars, Indian hands have been conserving pre-Islamic art, Buddhist monuments, Mughal gardens and mosques, all in a land now thought to be the Ground Zero of Fanaticism.

It was back in 1971 that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) did its restoration job on the Buddhas of our distant suburbias, so to speak: Bamiyan. Alongside excavations of nearby pilgrim caves, conserving the towering twin 5th century sandstone sculptures was part of “a challenge thrown to us by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi”, in the words of Balbir Singh, an ASI engineer who spent five years in Bamiyan (which means ‘coloured’ in Sanskrit).

US military in Afghanistan uncovers sadistic death squad in ranks
FIVE American soldiers who formed themselves into a “death squad” go on trial this month for the murder and dismemberment of Afghan villagers.

By Ben Farmer, Kabul
Published: 9:37AM BST 19 Sep 2010

A US military investigation reported that the group randomly targeted civilians for sport. In one incident, a soldier is alleged to have thrown a grenade to feign an ambush as a pretext to shoot dead an innocent villager. Bodies were cut up and photographed and the soldiers are said to have kept bones and a skull as trophies.

A military pretrial hearing will review evidence later this month and decide how to proceed with the case, which could see the men jailed for life. All the accused deny any wrongdoing.
Afghanistan: rogue soldier who killed British troops says he acted alone

Bullets fly in Cheshire to support Afghan warAmerican commanders fear details of the incidents could cause widespread anger in Afghanistan, where civilian deaths have fostered deep resentment against coalition forces.

The five soldiers are accused of forming a “kill team” and murdering three people in Kandahar province between January and May this year.

Seven others are charged with attempting to impede the military investigation, as well as assaulting a private who blew the whistle on their activities.

The first alleged murder was on Jan 15 while the platoon was guarding a meeting of tribal elders in the village of La Mohammed Kalay, according to case files.

When an Afghan man called Gul Mudin approached the soldiers on foot, one threw a grenade to simulate an attack and several soldiers opened fire, killing him.

Further murders followed in February and May. Marach Agha, the second victim, was shot and killed and a Kalashnikov assault rifle was reportedly placed next to the body to justify his shooting.

The third victim, Mullah Adadhdad, died after being shot and attacked with a grenade.

The relatives of one of the accused have said that the US military failed to prevent the later killings. Christopher Winfield, father of Specialist Adam Winfield, said his son told him of his comrades’ actions and warned they were looking for another victim.

RajeshA, I like the idea of creating an Afghan Regiment in Indian Army along with other sub-continental areas. It will be similar to Gurkha Regiment.

RajeshA, I like the idea of creating an Afghan Regiment in Indian Army along with other sub-continental areas. It will be similar to Gurkha Regiment.

Now, an India-Iran-Afghanistan tri-summit

After months of under-the-radar discussion, India will be part of a regional initiative on Afghanistan along with Iran. It’s learnt that foreign ministers of India, Iran and Afghanistan are working on meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York to signal the start of this trilateral.



Significantly, the formal proposal for the meeting came from Iran last week and, sources said, the three countries have agreed and officials are busy setting it up. Also, Tehran has sent a letter supporting New Delhi’s candidature for a non-permanent member in the UN Security Council.

Tajikistan Says Militants Were Behind Attack on Troops
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: September 20, 2010

MOSCOW — Tajikistan on Monday blamed Islamic militants, some with ties to Afghanistan and Pakistan, for an assault on a military convoy that killed at least 23 soldiers in the nation over the weekend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/world ... tajik.html

US wants to get out of this long war
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/20 ... e_frontier

All the arithmetic aside, fact remains that American people are tired of this long war and want to get out and leave hapless Afghanistan to the tender mercies of Pakistan.

So the chorus has started to compromise with Taliban so that US can get out of Afghanistan. Never mind the death of US/NATO soldiers until now. Never mind the pouring of billions of dollars in US resources and cash infusion over ten long years. Never mind the eventuality of Al Qaeda/Taliban terror network returning to Afghanistan with vengeance.

Most important thing is that US electorate is fed up with this never ending war and so it is time to get out and leave hapless Afghanistan to the tender mercies of Pakistan.

Obama administration has continued Bush policy of ignoring Afghan Taliban’s Pakistani connections in fueling and sustaining Afghan insurgency as reported by Matt Waldman in ‘The sun in the sky‘ on 6/13/2010, corroborated by WikiLeaks leaks on 7/25/2010 and then further corroborated by Chris Alexander, Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009 in his article on 7/30/2010 titled ‘The huge scale of Pakistan‘s complicity‘.

Obviously Karzai is frustrated by Obama also giving a free pass to Pakistan just like Bush as he told a news conference in Kabul on 7/29/2010 after WikiLeaks leaks, “The time has come for our international allies to know that the war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan’s homes and villages. But rather this war is in the sanctuaries, funding centers and training places of terrorism which are in Pakistan. Our international allies have the ability to destroy these Pakistani sanctuaries, but the question is why they are not doing it?“

Even Afghanistan’s national security advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta has asked the same question in a Washington Post article on 8/23/2010: “While we are losing dozens of men and women to terrorist attacks every day, the terrorists’ main mentor (Pakistan) continues to receive billions of dollars in aid and assistance. How is this fundamental contradiction justified? Despite facing a growing domestic terror threat, Pakistan “continues to provide sanctuary and support to the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network, the Hekmatyar group and Al Qaeda. Dismantling the terrorist infrastructure “requires confronting the state of Pakistan that still sees terrorism as a strategic asset and foreign policy tool”.

Poor Karzai’s call to his Western allies ‘to destroy Islamist militant sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan’ is falling on deaf ears in Washington where powers to be are hell bent on sacrificing Afghanistan to mollycoddle Pakistan.

Pakistan just has to advise its Afghan Taliban protagonists to wait out until US troop withdrawal in the hope that US military will follow the policy established by civilian leader.

Only two questions left unanswered are
1. Will US continue to pour billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan as ransom money so that Pakistan will prevent Pakistan-based Al Qaeda from carrying out any more attacks against US and US only?
2. If Obama’s US refuses to pay such ransom money, will Pakistan use that as an excuse to repeat the history of master-minding terror attacks on US soil, claiming that US walked away from the area once again?

How the CIA ran a secret army of 3,000 assassins

By Julius Cavendish in Kabul
Thursday, 23 September 2010

The US Central Intelligence Agency is running and paying for a secret 3,000-strong army of Afghan paramilitaries whose main aim is assassinating Taliban and al-Qa'ida operatives not just in Afghanistan but across the border in neighbouring Pakistan's tribal areas, according to Bob Woodward's explosive book.

Although the CIA has long been known to run clandestine militias in Afghanistan, including one from a base it rents from the Afghan president Hamid Karzai's half-brother in the southern province of Kandahar, the sheer number of militiamen directly under its control have never been publicly revealed.

Woodward's book, Obama's Wars, describes these forces as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qa'ida and Afghan Taliban havens there. Two US newspapers published the claims after receiving copies of the manuscript.

The secret army is split into "Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams", and is thought to be responsible for the deaths of many Pakistani Taliban fighters who have crossed the border into Afghanistan to fight Nato and Afghan government forces there.

There are ever-increasing numbers of "kill-or-capture" missions undertaken by US Special Forces against Afghan Taliban and foreign fighters, who hope to drive rank-and-file Taliban towards the Afghan government's peace process by eliminating their leaders. The suspicion is that the secret army is working in close tandem with them.

Although no comment has been forthcoming, it is understood that the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, approves of the mission, which bears similarities to the covert assassination campaign against al-Qa'ida in Iraq, which was partially credited with stemming the tide of violence after the country imploded between 2004 and 2007.

The details of the clandestine army have surprised no one in Kabul, the Afghan capital, although the fact that the information is now public is unprecedented. There have been multiple reports of the CIA running its own militias in southern Afghanistan.

The operation also has powerful echoes of clandestine operations of the 1990s, when the CIA recruited and ran a militia inside the Afghan border with the sole purpose of killing Osama bin Laden. The order then that a specially recruited Afghan militia was "to capture him alive" – the result of protracted legal wrangles about when, how and if Osama bin Laden could be killed – doomed efforts to assassinate him before 9/11.

Al Jazeera television on Thursday accused NATO of trying to suppress its coverage of the war in Afghanistan after two of its cameramen were arrested by foreign forces this week.

The Doha-based television network, which has been critical of NATO and the Afghan government, said the two Afghans were detained as part of "an attempt by the ISAF leadership to suppress its comprehensive coverage" of the conflict.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said earlier this week that it had "captured a suspected Taliban media and propaganda facilitator, who participated in filming election attacks".

Al Jazeera accused ISAF, which has almost 150,000 NATO and US troops in Afghanistan fighting the insurgency, of targeting the network and threatening staff in Afghanistan "to change the editorial line".
The network said it was committed to covering all sides of the story in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, ISAF and the Afghan government.

A US official has told that the CIA has assigned an Afghan paramilitary unit to hunt down Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in secret operations in Pakistan. Responding to claims made by renowned news reporter Bob Woodward in his new book, the official told that these counter terrorism teams were extremely effective but didn't provide any further details.

These explosive revelations are sure to strain America's relations with Pakistan as well as Kabul's complicated ties with Islamabad. The Pakistani government said that it didn't know anything about such force while the military strongly rejected its presence.

Commenting on the revelations about a US-backed unit operating in Pakistan, military spokesperson Major General Athar Abbas said: "No foreign body, no foreign militia, no foreign troops are allowed to operate on our side of the border. Anyone found doing so will be fired upon."

Karzai votes for female Hindu candidate - sources
http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-51589320100918

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL | Sat Sep 18, 2010 7:19pm IST

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai chose a female, Hindu candidate when he voted in Saturday's parliamentary election, two palace officials close to him said.

Just two Hindu candidates were on the list of about 600 vying for parliamentary seats in the Afghan capital. Karzai's choice could annoy supporters in deeply conservative, Muslim Afghanistan.

His backers include powerful ex-warlords who were fielding their own candidates and religious conservatives who are opposed to female politicians and unlikely to be happy Karzai is backing a non-Muslim.

"It was Anar Kali Honaryar," one palace official told Reuters, giving the name of a female activist who largely relied on Muslim supporters during her campaigning.

Hindus and Sikhs lived in Afghanistan and dominated trade long before the advent of Islam in the 7th century.

Their numbers shrank over the centuries and tens of thousands of those who remained fled Afghanistan after civil war broke out in 1992, leaving just a few thousand behind.

Women are a minority in Afghan public life, although 25 percent of the 249 seats in parliament are reserved for them.

Many of the 406 female candidates running in the election have been a particular target for threats and intimidation, and overall women's grip on rights won since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban -- like education and the vote -- remains tenuous.

Karzai's wife joined the millions of Afghans who did not make it to the polls -- although not because of the security concerns or frustration about corruption that kept others away.

The couple's only child is sick and she did not want to leave him alone, Karzai told a female election worker who later recounted the conversation to a Reuters reporter.


Afghan President Hamid Karzai casts his vote at a school next to the presidential palace during parliamentary election in Kabul September 18, 2010. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

As winter approaches, Bibiasha travels the same route as Taliban insurgents heading to Kandahar to fight coalition soldiers. She sees the insurgents passing through the villages late at night.
"Yes, I see them often," said the grandmother from her weather-worn, patched tent. She is a Kuchie tribeswoman, part of a nomadic group of people, similar to Gypsies, whose migratory patterns have been greatly disrupted by years of conflict.

"If you ask anyone, the problem is coming from Pakistan," said Shah Baran, one of the eldest tribal leaders in the area. "When the tribes or families in our area have disputes, they do not go to the Afghan government -- they travel to Quetta. They meet with the Quetta Shura, the Taliban leaders, to resolve their problems. That is were the leaders are -- they do not trust the Afghan government."

Another tribal elder, who asked not to be named, said members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency are aiding the Taliban.

We see Chechens, Arabs, Uzbeks and others pass through here," said another elder. "They threaten the villagers. Still, the villagers don't know where to turn. They don't trust the government."

Zabul province is a vital area in the fight against the Taliban and foreign fighters. U.S. military and civilian aid presence is minimal, other than Special Forces operations and small coalition bases scattered in the province

With Pakistan's border to the east, Sha Joy is the main transit route between the two nations across the Tarnak River. Insurgent fighters moving to and from Pakistan use a makeshift dirt bridge, known as the Pasani crossing, just east of the Sha Joy bazaar.
"It is the connection to Pakistan that makes this province so vital in the war," said a U.S. official who asked not to be named. "The insurgency has their safe haven there, and they move with impunity through the district."

The Afghan-Pakistan border region is widely believed to be the front line in the war against Islamic militants. Click on the provinces or the links below the map to see how militants operate on either side of the border.

...
This illusion of Indian helplessness, paradoxically, enjoys greater currency in India than it does abroad. While Pakistan realises how much India’s influence is expanding, New Delhi focuses on the negatives: there is no Ahmed Shah Masood, around whom anti-Taliban forces can coalesce, 1990s-style, nor for that matter a coherent Northern Alliance. With the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) controlling swathes of northern and central Afghanistan, India has little opportunity for resuscitating Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara militias. And while Moscow and Teheran still share India’s revulsion to a resurgent Taliban, they are less willing now to work jointly in undermining the Taliban. 2010, New Delhi concludes, is very different from 1996.
...
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Indian confidence in this intangible, but nevertheless real, asset must guide our strategy in Afghanistan. Our alternative to Blackwill’s Plan B is Plan E — Exit Now. Counter-intuitively, India has more to gain than lose from an immediate US withdrawal.

America’s pullout from Afghanistan will immediately deprive the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, Al Qaeda, and a smorgasbord of other radical groups of the glue of a common enemy. Inevitably, driven by the contradictions within their unholy alliance, they will turn their hostility upon one another. A key loser in this fratricidal game will be the traditional referee, the Pakistan Army.
...
...
A popular argument from India’s strategic elite is that Afghanistan would provide a training ground for India-bound terrorists. This is outdated; today, Pakistan is the terror training academy not just for India-focused jehadis, but for a wide assortment of Islamist radicals with grievances against the US, Europe, Russia, Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan, even China. A resurrected Taliban regime could hardly offer better-located training grounds than those around Sialkot and Peshawar.
...
...

^^ How do the Amirkhans control and maintain discipline in these guys given the kind of "disciplinary" problems IA/Indian agencies had with the Ikhwanis and the SSB ( when it was a pure intel gathering agency staffed by diverse civilians of the NE)?

The problem is clear and the solutions vague. This may explain the pessimism that infuses the book, which Woodward wrote on page 282 that he considered calling "No Exit." One particularly striking passage contrasts the views of Gen. Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the "war czar" for Presidents Bush and Obama. As Woodward writes, confronted with the formidable impediments that Lute saw facing the mission (Pakistani safe havens, bad government in Afghanistan, the poor state of the Afghan security forces and declining international support for the military mission), Petraeus argued that battlefield success would buy more time for the military to extend the surge. Lute on the other hand is said to have concluded that "Obama had to do this 18-month surge just to demonstrate, in effect, that it couldn't be done" (page 338). Neither of them, then, appears to believe that the mission can in fact be achieved in its defined timescale.

Nor do special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke ("it can't work"), or ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry ("we're screwed") or perhaps even Defense Secretary Robert Gates ("we're not ever leaving at all"). The assessment criteria set out in the President's memorandum -- merit-based appointments in Afghan ministries, increased Afghan civilian capacity, an effective Afghan reconciliation program with the Taliban -- are bound to turn out negative in the administration's upcoming review scheduled for December, and very probably the same will happen in a further review halfway through next year. The question is only whether this will again lead to an extension of the mission, or instead to the victory of the strategy's skeptics.

NEW DELHI: Pakistan's semi-official terror group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has increased its targeting of Indian citizens and Indian interests in Afghanistan.

Credible intelligence with the Indian government has it that LeT has in fact become the principal dispenser of instructions from Pakistan on Indian targets. Pakistan's army-ISI establishment continues to direct operations and even pay for the attacks while LeT is in charge of executing the attacks. Even though there has been no major attack against Indians since February, the attempts by Pakistan-sponsored LeT are relentless.

The recent attacks against Indians have all been orchestrated by LeT, said sources. They said that LeT sometimes teams up with the Haqqani network, but is not averse to using other terror assets against India. The fact of Indians being LeT targets was also discussed during the recent visit of CIA chief Leon Panetta.

The bottomline here, both Indian and western agencies say, is that the terror groups in Pakistan -- ranging from al-Qaida to Taliban, LeT, Tehreek-e- Taliban etc -- are bleeding into each other. No longer are there distinctions between the various groups. For instance, the Haqqanis have moved beyond their favourite north Waziristan into Pakistan's Kurram agency.

The terror groups are now working together much more than ever before, which means Pakistan can actually get many more terrorists to target Indians in Afghanistan.

The Haqqani network is Pakistan's favourite Taliban group in Afghanistan, and for the past many months Pakistan has been trying to get the Haqqanis to be part of a reconciliation package with the Afghan government and the US.

In July, even US special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, was quoted as saying, "LeT is co-equal threat along with al-Qaida. The LeT, al-Qaida and Taliban are all working closer together than ever before."

Guards at US bases in Afghanistan are linked to Taliban
US Senate investigators said private security firms relied on warlords to find local guards, including the uncle of a known Taliban commander, known as "Mr. White" after a character in the violent movie "Reservoir Dogs."

Published: 7:54AM BST 08 Oct 2010

U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin Photo: GETTY The report by the Senate Armed Services Committee follows a separate congressional inquiry in June that concluded that trucking contractors pay tens of millions of dollars a year to local warlords for convoy protection.

Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate panel, said he is worried the U.S. is unknowingly fostering the growth of Taliban-linked militias and endanger U.S. and coalition troops at a time when Kabul is struggling to recruit its own soldiers and police officers.

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Afghanistan election: what is at stake in the presidential polls?"Almost all are Afghans. Almost all are armed," Levin said of the army of young men working under U.S. contracts.

"These contractors threaten the security of our troops and risk the success of our mission," he told reporters. "There is significant evidence that some security contractors even work against our coalition forces, creating the very threat that they are hired to combat."

"We need to shut off the spigot of U.S. dollars flowing into the pockets of warlords and power brokers who act contrary to our interests and contribute to the corruption that weakens the support of the Afghan people for their government," he added.

The Defense Department doesn't necessarily disagree but warns that firing the estimated 26,000 private security personnel operating in Afghanistan in the near future isn't practical.

This summer, U.S. forces in Afghanistan pledged to increase their oversight of security contractors and set up two task forces to look into allegations of misconduct and to track the money spent, particularly among lower-level subcontractors.

She estimates that for every $1,000 her company is paid for work in such places, some $600 often ends up in the hands of the Taliban. “Sometimes, it’s even more,” she added.

It’s the same with all contractors, and the upshot is that the American taxpayer has become a significant source of financing for the Taliban

One security expert here did the math for me. A single American soldier in Helmand Province, he estimated, causes enough money to leak to the Taliban to recruit another 10 fighters trying to kill that American.

Several men say that they were recruited by the Taliban with a pitch that was partly ideological — “we must fight the infidels who have invaded our land!” — but also partly capitalist, promising hundreds of dollars a month and fringe benefits of free food, tea and sugar.

“America does development projects,” acknowledged Hajji Gulamullah, a brigadier general in the police force in Kabul. “But not as many as the Russians did.”

And we’re more eager to rescue the Afghans than the Afghans are to be rescued.

General Sher Muhammad Karimi, Chief of General Staff of the Afghan National Army, along with a delegation of three senior military officers visited the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakwasla, on Saturday.

The General is on an official visit to India andwill visi various important military establishments ,said a press release issued by NDA.

General Karimi interacted with the 34 Afghan National Army Cadets undergoing training at the NDA. He said the standard of training imparted to the Afghan cadets at the NDA would also help to increase mutual confidence amongst the military leadership of both countries and would pave the way for strengthening military ties between India and Afghanistan. The General was briefed by Vice Admiral Satish Soni, Commandant, National Defence Academy about the training curriculum at the NDA.

The bag of money is part of a secret, steady stream of Iranian cash intended to buy the loyalty of Mr. Daudzai and promote Iran’s interests in the presidential palace, according to Afghan and Western officials here. Iran uses its influence to help drive a wedge between the Afghans and their American and NATO benefactors, they say.

“Karzai knows that without the U.S., he is finished,” an associate of the president said. “But it’s like voodoo. Daudzai is the source of all the problems with the U.S. He is systematically feeding him misinformation, disinformation and wrong information.”

The payments to Mr. Daudzai illustrate the degree to which the Iranian government has penetrated Mr. Karzai’s inner circle despite his presumed alliance with the United States and the other NATO countries, which have sustained him with military forces and billions of dollars since the Taliban’s ouster since 2001.

Mr. Daudzai is part of a group of Afghans around Mr. Karzai whose members once belonged to Hezb-i-Islami, a hard-line Islamist group that fought the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The group, loosely allied with the Taliban, is still fighting NATO forces and the Afghan government.

Hezb-i-Islami’s leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, was one of the most brutal of Afghan warlords. During the civil war in the 1990s, his forces conducted an extended bombardment of Kabul, killing thousands of civilians. Since 2001, Mr. Hekmatyar has spent at least part of the time living under the protection of the Iranian government. The group also has long-standing ties to Pakistan’s intelligence services, which maintain links to the Taliban.

Russia has agreed to return to the war in Afghanistan at the request of the Western states which helped the mujahedin to drive its forces out of the country 21 years ago.

The Independent has learnt that Moscow is engaged in training the Afghan army and counter-narcotics troops and has agreed in principle to supply Nato with helicopters for use in Afghanistan.

A number of aircraft have already been sold to Poland, a member of the US-led coalition, for use in the conflict. Now Nato is in talks with the Russians over direct supplies of more helicopters, training the pilots, and allowing arms and ammunition to be transported through Russian territory as an alternative to a Pakistani route which has come under repeated Taliban attack.

A groundbreaking agreement with Russia on the issue is likely to be announced at the Nato summit next month in Lisbon, which is due to be attended by President Dmitry Medvedev.

In return for help in Afghanistan Moscow is seeking what it terms as more co-operation from Nato. President Barack Obama has already scrapped missile-defence shields in Poland and the Czech Republic, proposals for which had led to prolonged protests from Moscow, and Nato has agreed that Russia will be consulted on the replacement system.

Moscow would also like Nato to accept a fait accompli over Georgia, where Russian troops remain in South Ossetia and Abkhazia after the war of two years ago. American and European officials maintain that the occupation of a member state's sovereign territory is not a matter for compromise.

The helicopters are needed for the use of Afghan forces which Isaf (International Security and Assistance Force) is training to take over security as part of the West's exit strategy from the war.

It was the supply of American Stinger missiles by US and British intelligence to Afghan rebels, enabling them to shoot down Russian helicopters, which changed the course of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and helped to hasten the collapse of the Communist government in Moscow.

That war, with its acts of brutality committed by both sides, has left bitter memories among many in the country, and the news that the Russian military is playing a part in the war is likely to be exploited by the Taliban.

The former Cold War enemies have been drawn together by the common threat of Islamist terrorism, some of it directly spawned from Western aid to jihadists in the 1980s.

Moscow is also concerned about a flow of heroin through central Asia to its cities from Afghanistan. And it urgently wishes to reassert its influence in the region.

The Nato secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, asked for helicopters during a visit to Moscow last year. "Russia has reflected on that and there are now bilateral talks between Russia and the United States on such helicopters," Mr Rasmussen said on Monday in Brussels. He added that he "would not exclude that we could facilitate that process within the Nato-Russia Council", a body which acts as a discussion forum with Moscow.

Russian and Western defence sources told The Independent that Moscow has provided five Mi-17 military helicopters to Poland for Afghanistan, with the first two to be delivered by the end of the year.

Afghan military officers are already being trained in a number of Russian defence institutes, according to the Russian deputy foreign minister Aleksander Grushko. Mr Grushko underlined that Moscow wanted a binding mutual restraint agreement with Nato and an agreement to delink the Georgia crisis from an arms treaty. He added: "We are ready to co-operate with Nato, because we think we are doing a common job."

Anatoly Serdyukov, who became the first Russian defence minister to visit the Pentagon where he met the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, last month, said that Russia was willing to sell or lease Mi-17s for use by Afghan forces, and will countenance similar deals with Nato member countries.

"It is a matter of several dozen Mi-17s that Nato will purchase from us," Mr Serdyukov said.

"I hope that Western peacemaking troops will not withdraw before they have fulfilled their mission. We are watching things in Afghanistan very closely and we are exchanging our experience with the Americans. Russia is ready to pass on to America the experience gained by our veterans of the war in Afghanistan.

"Withdrawal of the [Western] troops would naturally affect the situation in central Asia, we currently cannot even imagine how. For this reason we want to help the West, among other things with helicopters, whose delivery we are now discussing."

Securing new supply routes for Nato forces in Afghanistan – which now number more than Russian troops during their war – has become urgent for the West with attacks on convoys in Pakistan by insurgents, some of which, claim Western officials, are instigated by members of the Pakistani military and intelligence service.

Russia allows some movements of supplies along its territory, but restricts the types of weaponry being moved. Nato would like this removed. According to defence sources, Moscow has indicated that it may agree to this after carrying out security checks along the route, which starts at the all-weather Latvian port of Riga and arrives in Afghanistan through Russia, and the former Soviet territories of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Russia's changing role

July 1979 Operation Cyclone launched by the CIA, using US and Saudi money and help of the Pakistani military regime to start arming the mujaheddin.

December 1979 Soviet intervention at request of Afghan government. Moscow falls out with President Hafizullah Amin, his palace in Kabul is attacked and he is killed.

March 1980 to April 1985 Soviet forces begin offensives, especially near the Pakistani and Iranian borders. US and British supply Stinger missiles enabling mujaheddin to shoot down Russian helicopters. New Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev increases troop levels to 110,000.

April 1985 to January 1987 Russian exit strategy based on training up Afghan security forces to take on insurgency. Rebels are still aided by the West.

January 1987 to February 1989 Soviet forces withdraw from Afghanistan with loss of 14,427.

While Gen. David Petraeus and NATO officials are offering safe passage for Taliban leaders to meet for reconciliation talks with President Hamid
Karzai's government officials, Taliban leaders are still initiating relentless attacks on U.S. troops in the region, soldiers and military officials said.
American troops in Afghanistan are angry that the Pentagon and State Department are backing Karzai's attempts at reconciliation withoutorcing the Taliban to back off their continuous strikes on NATO troops stationed in some of Afghanistan's most volatile regions.
"We're pissed. Guys are pissed, but I'll break (the rules of engagement) when we need be to protect our soldiers," said an officer, whospoke to The Examiner via telephone from Afghanistan on Friday. "The fact that the Army will not let us use artillery and airstrikes as often as we need to due to (concern over) collateral damage is unbelievable." Petraeus, who took command in June, promised Congress that he would review the rules for engaging enemy fighters in Afghanistan. Troopstell The Examiner that has not happened.

It called for al-Qaeda to focus on "the greater objective, which is the establishment of a state". The new attrition strategy marks the triumph of a minority faction within al-Qaeda who had opposed the September 11 attacks, arguing that the inevitable US retaliation against Afghanistan would cost the jihadist movement its only secure base.

American and Pakistani sources have disclosed that al-Adel is running several similar operations as part of a war of attrition to persuade Western public opinion that the war against terrorism is unwinnable. This would clear the road for al-Qaeda to capture power in fragile states such as Somalia and Yemen.{So TSP is expanding its foot print westwards into the ME and Africa?}

"His strategy is to stage multiple small terror operations, using the resources of affiliates and allies wherever possible," said Syed Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani expert on al-Qaeda.

A US counter-terrorism official said the idea was for "small but often attacks" that would hurt the West more than a "one-off terror spectacular".

But in March this year he was released [by Iran] along with Iman bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's daughter, and senior al-Qaeda operatives Suleiman al-Gaith and Mahfouz al-Walid. Iran swapped the terrorists for Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, a Pakistan-based diplomat kidnapped by al-Qaeda last year.

Born in Egypt, he is said to have served as a colonel in its special forces.