Afghanistan News & Discussion

ajit_tr · Post by **ajit_tr** » 12 Jun 2010 18:54

UN report challenges legality of drone strikes in Afghanistan

A UN report has criticised the US government's use of drones in Afghanistan. It raises some interesting points and one section 85 from the report is reproduced here.

"85. Outside the context of armed conflict, the use of drones for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal. A targeted drone killing in a State’s own territory, over which the State has control, would be very unlikely to meet human rights law limitations on the use of lethal force."

The News International (Pak) claims that between 2006 and 2009 the drones killed only 6% militants and the rest 94% civilians. Another website called Pakistan Body Count reports an even lower strike rate at 2.5%. The figures as on 10 Jun 2010 according to the website were "Dead = 1332, Injured = 453, Total = 1785 and Counting…Success Rate of Drone Attacks against Al-Qaeeda ~ 2.5%"

NY Times reports a UN official saying that "ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life".

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 13 Jun 2010 01:14

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/1006 ... fghanistan

WARSAW, Poland - Poland's prime minister says he wants NATO to develop a timetable to end its mission in Afghanistan.

Donald Tusk said Saturday that he plans to raise the issue at the alliance's next summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in November.

Tusk said he wants NATO to work out "a possibly quick plan for ending the mission that should also be as precise as possible."

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 13 Jun 2010 06:10

Pakistan puppet masters guide the Taliban killers

Miles Amoore, Kabul
RECOMMEND? (8)
THE Taliban commander waited at the ramshackle border crossing while Pakistani police wielding assault rifles stopped and searched the line of cars and trucks travelling into Afghanistan.

Some of the trucks carried smuggled goods — DVD players, car stereos, television sets, generators, children’s toys. But the load smuggled by Taliban fighter Qari Rasoul, a thickset Pashtun from Afghanistan’s Wardak province, was altogether more sinister.

Rasoul’s boot was full of remote-control triggers used to detonate the home-made bombs responsible for the vast majority of Nato casualties in Afghanistan. The three passengers sitting in his white Toyota estate were suicide bombers.

The policemen flagged down Rasoul’s car and began to search it. They soon found the triggers, hidden beneath a bundle of clothes in the back of the estate. They asked him who he was and who the triggers belonged to. “I’m a Taliban commander. They belong to me,” he told them.

Instead of arresting him, the elder policeman rubbed his thumb and index finger together and, smiling, said: “Try to understand.”

Rasoul phoned a Pakistani friend. Two hours later he was released, having paid the policemen 5,000 Pakistani rupees, the equivalent of about £40, each.

“That was the only time I ever faced problems crossing the border with Pakistan,” said Rasoul, who is responsible for delivering suicide bombers trained in Pakistani camps to targets in Afghanistan.

Pakistani support for the Taliban in Afghanistan runs far deeper than a few corrupt police officers, however. The Sunday Times can reveal that it is officially sanctioned at the highest levels of Pakistan’s government.

Pakistan’s own intelligence agency, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), is said to be represented on the Taliban’s war council — the Quetta shura. Up to seven of the 15-man shura are believed to be ISI agents.

The former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, Amrullah Saleh, who resigned last week, said: “The ISI is part of the landscape of destruction in this country, no doubt, so it will be a waste of time to provide evidence of ISI involvement. They are a part of it.”

Testimony by western and Afghan security officials, Taliban commanders, former Taliban ministers and a senior Taliban emissary show the extent to which the ISI manipulates the Taliban’s strategy in Afghanistan.

Pakistani support for the Taliban is prolonging a conflict that has cost the West billions of dollars and hundreds of lives. Last week 32 Nato soldiers were killed.

According to a report published today by the London School of Economics, which backs up months of research by this newspaper, “Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude” in Afghanistan.

The report’s author, Matt Waldman, a Harvard analyst, argues that previous studies significantly underestimated the influence that Pakistan’s ISI exerts over the Taliban. Far from being the work of rogue elements, interviews suggest this “support is official ISI policy”, he says.

The LSE report, based on dozens of interviews and corroborated by two senior western security officials, states: “As the provider of sanctuary and substantial financial, military and logistical support to the insurgency, the ISI appears to have strong strategic and operational influence — reinforced by coercion. There is thus a strong case that the ISI orchestrates, sustains and shapes the overall insurgent campaign.”

The report also alleges that Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, recently met captured Taliban leaders to assure them that the Taliban had his government’s full support. This was vigorously denied by Zardari’s spokesman. Pakistani troops have launched offensives against militants in North and South Waziristan.

However, a senior Taliban source in regular contact with members of the Quetta shura told The Sunday Times that in early April, Zardari and a senior ISI official met 50 high-ranking Taliban members at a prison in Pakistan.

According to a Taliban leader in the jail at the time, five days before the meeting prison officials were told to prepare for the impending presidential call. Prison guards wearing dark glasses served the Taliban captives traditional Afghan meals three times a day.

“They wanted to make the prisoners feel like they were important and respected,” the source said.

Hours before Zardari’s visit, the head warder told the Taliban inmates to impress upon the president how well they had been looked after during their time in captivity.

Zardari spoke to them for half an hour. He allegedly explained that he had arrested them because his government was under increasing American pressure to end the sanctuary enjoyed by the Taliban in Pakistan and to round up their ringleaders.

“You are our people, we are friends, and after your release we will of course support you to do your operations,” he said, according to the source.

He vowed to release the less well-known commanders in the near future and said that the “famous” Taliban leaders would be freed at a later date.

Five days after Zardari’s visit, a handful of Taliban prisoners, including The Sunday Times’s source, were driven into Quetta and set free, in line with the president’s pledge.

“This report is consistent with Pakistan’s political history in which civilian leaders actively backed jihadi groups that operate in Afghanistan and Kashmir,” Waldman said.

According to the source, during his visit to the prison Zardari also met Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s former second in command, who was arrested by the ISI earlier this year with seven other Taliban leaders.

Baradar, who is from the same tribe as Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, had allegedly approached the Afghan government to discuss the prospect of a peace settlement between the two sides.

Baradar’s arrest is seen in both diplomatic and Taliban circles as an ISI plot to manipulate the Taliban’s political hierarchy and also to block negotiations between the Kabul government and the Taliban leadership.

Shortly after Baradar’s arrest the ISI arrested two other Taliban members — Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir and his close associate and friend Mullah Abdul Rauf. Both men were released after just two nights in custody.

Following his release, Zakir, who spent years in custody in Guantanamo Bay, assumed command of the Taliban’s military wing, replacing Baradar. Rauf, also a former Guantanamo inmate, was immediately appointed chairman of the Quetta shura.

“To say the least, this is compelling evidence of significant ISI influence over the movement and it is highly likely that the release was on ISI terms or at least on the basis of a mutual understanding,” the LSE report states.

The promotions of Zakir and Rauf will give Pakistan greater leverage over future peace talks, Taliban and western officials said.

To ensure that the Pakistani government retains its influence over the Taliban’s leadership, the ISI has placed its own representatives on the Quetta shura, according to these officials.

Up to seven of the Afghan Taliban leaders who sit on the 15-man shura are believed to be ISI agents. However, some sources maintain that every member of the shura has ISI links.

“It is impossible to be a member of the Quetta shura without membership of the ISI,” said a senior Taliban intermediary who liaises with the Afghan government and Taliban leaders.

The LSE report states: “Interviews strongly suggest that the ISI has representatives on the shura, either as participants or observers, and the agency is thus involved at the highest levels of the movement.”

The two shura members who receive the strongest support from the ISI are Taib Agha, former spokesman for Mullah Omar, the Taliban supreme leader, and Mullah Hasan Rahmani, the former Taliban governor of Kandahar, according to the Taliban intermediary and western officials.

Strategies that the ISI encourages, according to Taliban commanders, include: cutting Nato’s supply lines by bombing bridges and roads; attacking key infrastructure projects; assassinating progovernment tribal elders; murdering doctors and teachers; closing schools and attacking schoolgirls.

ISI agents hand chits to Taliban commanders who use them to buy weapons at arms dumps in North Waziristan.

The Taliban’s “plastic bombs” — the low metal content improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that kill the majority of British soldiers who die in Afghanistan — were introduced to the Taliban by Pakistani officials, according to Taliban commanders, the Taliban intermediary and western officials. The materials allow Taliban sappers to plant bombs that can evade Nato mine detectors.

Rasoul, the Taliban commander from Wardak province, also alleged that the ISI pays 200,000 Pakistani rupees (£1,600) in compensation to the families of suicide bombers who launch attacks on targets in Afghanistan.

“They need vehicles, fuel and food. They need ammunition. They need money and guns. They need clinics and medicine. So who is providing these things to the Taliban if it’s not Pakistan?” a former Kabul police chief said.

In the eastern province of Khost, one commander described how Pakistani military trucks picked his men up from training camps in Pakistan and ferried them to the Afghan border at night.

Once at the border, Pakistanis dressed in military uniform gave the commander a list of targets inside Afghanistan. Taliban fighters then ferried the weapons and ammunition into Afghanistan using cars, donkeys, horses and camels.

“We post our men along our supply routes to protect the convoys once they are on Afghan turf,” said the Khost commander. “The [US] drones sometimes bomb our convoys and many times they have bombed our ammo stores.”

Camps within Pakistan train Taliban fighters in three different sets of skills: suicide bombing, bomb-making and infantry tactics. Each camp focuses on a different skill.

Pakistan’s support for the Taliban has sparked friction between the home-grown Taliban groups and those who are bankrolled to a greater extent by the ISI.

Many lower-level commanders in Afghanistan are angered by the degree to which the ISI dictates their operations.

“The ISI-backed Taliban are destroying the country. Their suicide bombings are the ones that kill innocent civilians. They are undoing the infrastructure with their attacks,” said a Taliban commander from Kandahar province.

Most commanders said they resented their comrades who received the largest slice of ISI support. They also said they knew about the ISI’s influence over their senior leadership. “There is already mistrust among the low-level fighters and commanders,” the Taliban intermediary said. “But they don’t really know the extent of it. They don’t believe that our leaders are ISI spies.”

Major-General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s senior military spokesman, called the claim that the ISI has representatives on the Quetta shura “ridiculous”. He said: “The allegations are absolutely baseless.”

Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for the Pakistani president, said: “There’s no such thing as President Zardari meeting Taliban leaders. This never happened.”

To see the full London School of Economics report, go to thesundaytimes.co.uk/world

The key player

Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) became enmeshed in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979. The CIA used it to channel covert funds and weapons to Afghan mujaheddin groups fighting the Soviet army during the 10-year conflict.

A decisive factor in the Soviet defeat was the CIA’s decision to provide surface- to-air Stinger missiles.

Saudi Arabia, which, from the mid-1980s matched American funding for the insurgency dollar for dollar, also used the ISI to channel funds to the mujaheddin.

The American effort was promoted and supported by the late Texas congressman Charles Wilson, who fought to raise awareness and cash for the Afghan cause in the United States. His role was portrayed by Tom Hanks in the movie Charlie Wilson’s War.

The ISI continued to support groups of Afghan fighters long after the Russian withdrawal in 1989, often providing backing for brutal warlords in an attempt to install a pro-Pakistani government in Kabul.

The ISI backed the Taliban during their rise to power between 1994 and 1996. Pakistan’s prime minister at the time, Benazir Bhutto, believed the Taliban could stabilise Afghanistan.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 13 Jun 2010 08:06

shyamd wrote:Pakistan puppet masters guide the Taliban killers

That was a damning report by LSE, no doubt. But, one does not foresee any change in the policies of the 3½ Friends. The Friends are well aware of what is going on. These reports are plants to help get more concessions from Pakistan which they proceed to do by throwing more money and goodies at her. Normally such reports alone would be enough to extract concessions but Pakistan is of a different mettle. It is never shamed and can not be easily threatened. So, more goodies need to be pumped in. OTOH, Pakistan gets involved even more to secure even more from these Friends. The Kerry-Lugar Law was supposed to break this vicious cycle but with the recent concerns expressed by John Kerry about the distribution of funds, effectively, it appears that the US Administration and Pakistan together have found a way to defeat the Law as usual.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 13 Jun 2010 09:37

Hah, Obama is looking more and more like the American Gorbachev, the smiling and waving fellow who is presiding over the decline of his country's superpowerdom, and is more loved abroad than at home.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 13 Jun 2010 10:05

United Nations Could Hasten Removal of Taliban Leaders From Terror Blacklist

derkonig · Post by **derkonig** » 13 Jun 2010 10:54

Sanjayji, Gorby was atleast liked by some civilized people, Hussain Omaba is liked only by terrorists.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 13 Jun 2010 11:08

Karzai thinks the Americans attacked the peace jirga last week - NY Times

Two senior Afghan officials were showing President Hamid Karzai the evidence of the spectacular rocket attack on a nationwide peace conference earlier this month when Mr. Karzai told them that he believed the Taliban were not responsible.

“The president did not show any interest in the evidence — none — he treated it like a piece of dirt,” said Amrullah Saleh, then the director of the Afghan intelligence service.

Mr. Saleh declined to discuss Mr. Karzai’s reasoning in more detail. But a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Karzai suggested in the meeting that it might have been the Americans who carried it out.

Minutes after the exchange, Mr. Saleh and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, resigned — the most dramatic defection from Mr. Karzai’s government since he came to power nine years ago. Mr. Saleh and Mr. Atmar said they quit because Mr. Karzai made clear that he no longer considered them loyal.

But underlying the tensions, according to Mr. Saleh and Afghan and Western officials, was something more profound: That Mr. Karzai had lost faith in the Americans and NATO to prevail in Afghanistan.

For that reason, Mr. Saleh and other officials said, Mr. Karzai has been pressing to strike his own deal with the Taliban and the country’s archrival, Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime supporter. According to a former senior Afghan official, Mr. Karzai’s maneuverings involve secret negotiations with the Taliban outside the purview of American and NATO officials.

Karzai is simply pre-empting, or at least trying to, the Americans in collaborating with the Talibans and the Pakistanis. He knows that if the Americans strike the deal, he will be the first victim.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 13 Jun 2010 13:38

But underlying the tensions, according to Mr. Saleh and Afghan and Western officials, was something more profound: That Mr. Karzai had lost faith in the Americans and NATO to prevail in Afghanistan.

Its not a question of being able to prevail, but rather, that Americans do not want to previal as stated post 9/11. As I mentioned many times before, that "war" romance post 9/11 has dissipated, and Americans, paragmatic as they are, are wondering what the hell they are doing in Afganisthan. As long as they can bottle up so called Al Queda, and this is where TSPA/Taliban become lynch pins, their objectives are met. This is a far cry from defeating Taliban, and this is what rubs Karzai the wrong way, as it should.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 13 Jun 2010 16:31

Paki links is making headline news in the BBC. But the TSP has rubbished it saying, there is no evidence of it.

BBC interviewed mullah zaeef, who denied it too - funny considering he is linking KSA and taleban, in an effort to undermine ISI role.

The excuse for extensive support by pak is indian influence. This is india's chance to come out with a big PR campaign to show our role in afghanistan.
India should come on TV and show evidence of ISI involvement in attacks.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 13 Jun 2010 17:07

^^^ TSP-Talib links have not been secret to anybody. The question is why this is getting media attention now? Is there any fundamental shift?

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 13 Jun 2010 17:36

Just some random thoughts...

Wonder which idiot in Washington is it that made so-called corruption a big thing with Karzai, as if that is new to the subcontinent. Strange that Unkil is okay with one ally that is not only corrupt but also diverts its own money to kill its soldiers, but has problems with some siphoning off on the side by Karzai that probably ends up in their banks/stocks/property etc.. anyway

You would almost think the most silly suicide bomber in this whole matter is Unkil. At least the Abdul gets his 72...

Problem is what we can do about all this. Rely on TSP to take control of Afghan thru Taliban and screw up again? Having learnt lessons from version 1.0 they will be careful about it, so there wont be provocations like Bamiyan etc., TSP will control Afghan, life will go on, so what if yet another state in ME is controlled by fanatic barbarian animals that too when there is no oil? India will be out in the cold...

Or go back all the way to 90s, supporting Northern Alliance version 2.0 with Iran/Russia? Perhaps Russia does not care any longer having no big stake unlike SU. If TSP can square Iran (the arrest of Rigi and others are cases in point) then we are screwed. The only ally we will have in that direction will be as far away as Tel Aviv..

It may finally play into our hands even by default if TSP takes Afghan thru Taliban but finds that Taliban ends up taking over TSP or declares independence and tries to 'unite' Pashtuns across border. Then we can be on Taliban's side...

Finally it may boil down to how much Taliban is appreciated by Afghans and not hated by them. We could be on surer grounds there, just dont know...

sum · Post by **sum** » 13 Jun 2010 18:24

Pranav wrote:^^^ TSP-Talib links have not been secret to anybody. The question is why this is getting media attention now? Is there any fundamental shift?

Maybe the MI5/MI6 have read some tea leaves and found out that the ISID is planning a "thank you" attack for the British in Londonistan/A'tan...Hence, the flood of articles about the big bad ISI?

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 13 Jun 2010 23:14

Read US local politics written all over the Af-Pak scenario. 2011 is the targeted date for start of withdrawal. 2012 is a Presidential election year.

Shri Ombaba campaigned as a no war President. He knows what he needs to do to get out. The best chance for the US is to rely on the generals of TSP. Karzai knows this. Without direct US presence, the only other power that he can deal with to ensure Pashtun dominance in Afghanistan is the TSP or its back to civil war.

If one has followed Saleh then it is amply clear what he thinks of TSP. Geography and demographics cannot be wished away.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 13 Jun 2010 23:49

Any link to the actual report? Haven't found it anywhere...

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 14 Jun 2010 00:04

^
THE SUN IN THE SKY:THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PAKISTAN’S ISI AND AFGHAN INSURGENTS --- Matt Waldman

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 14 Jun 2010 00:08

thanx a million pgb

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 14 Jun 2010 05:36

The Afghan War nears end with Pakistan-aided Taliban victory

The allies owe their reverses to five factors: Postponement of the Kandahar offensive, Taliban's acquisition of anti-air missiles and ability to strike anywhere in Kabul, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency's extensive support for the Taliban, and a UN proposal to "de-list" some key Taliban and al Qaeda figures designated as terrorists. debkafile elaborates on these factors:

1. The big Kandahar offensive in southern Afghanistan this month, the centerpiece of the new strategy President Barack Obama approved last December along with a 40,000-troop surge, has been postponed until the fall - at the earliest. With the participation of American, British, Canadian and Afghan forces, this offensive was billed as the operation for turning the tide of the Afghanistan war.

Washington was understandably reluctant to announce the postponement although, according to debkafile's military analysts, it was unavoidable after the disappointment of Operation Mushtarak in Marjah, which was to have been a dress rehearsal in another part of the South, Helmand Province, for the big show in Kandahar.
In Marjah, the combined US-UK force and the Afghan army, which most of the time refused to fight, were unable to loosen the Taliban's grip on the town or prevent the insurgents from using it as a springboard for grabbing the whole of southern Afghanistan.
Sunday, June 13, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal paid a visit to Kandahar to assure the local tribes they had not been abandoned. Karzai spoke with gusto about the coming offensive; he only "forgot" to mention a date.
With the Kandahar delay, the bottom is about to drop out of Obama's overall war strategy.
2. Another deadly turning-point in the conflict was marked last week with the discovery that Taliban had acquired the missiles for downing Western helicopters and low-flying aircraft.
The British Prime Minister David Cameron had to cancel his helicopter flight to the main British base of Camp Bastion on June 12 after receiving intelligence that the Taliban was preparing to shoot it down.
Three days earlier, on June 9, an American Chinook crashed near Sangin in the Helmand Province killing all four US servicemen aboard. It was then that US and NATO commanders first realized that an unknown party had given the Taliban those anti-air missiles and instructed them in their use.
This means that US helicopters can no longer provide ground forces with close air support and must fly at higher altitudes out of missile range.

3. In their White House talks of May 10-14,Karzai and Obama glossed over their differences by agreeing that the Afghan president would convene a "peace jirga" (a conference of tribal leaders) that would include chieftains and commanders associated with the Taliban as the first step toward national reconciliation.
The conference did take off in Kabul on June 2, attended by 1,400 heads of tribes and factions. But when President Karzai's speech was in full flow, Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen burst in, hurling rockets and grenades. The President just managed to finish his speech before being whisked off the platform by security guards and driven away in a convoy of armored cars.
The tribal chiefs saw for themselves that neither Afghan nor American forces were capable of promising security for any peace conference, whereas the Taliban were clearly able to operate freely in the Afghan capital and any other part of the country.
4. At the same time, Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. representative in Afghanistan, put in a good word for the Taliban when he told reporters Saturday, June 12. "The U.N. is listening to what the peace jirga is saying. Some of the people in the list may not be alive anymore. The list may be completely outdated."

Fueling momentum for a political solution to the nearly nine-year-old Afghan war, a U.N. committee is reviewing whether certain people could be removed from blacklist that freezes assets and limits travel of key Taliban and al-Qaida figures, the top U.N. representative said Saturday.
5. On Sunday, June 13, The Sunday Times of London ran a long article under the heading: Pakistan puppet masters guide the Taliban killers. It was based on a new report by the London School of Economics according to which Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency is providing extensive funding, training and sanctuary to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The report cites concrete evidence suggesting that support for the Taliban is the "official policy" of the ISI, which not only trains and funds the Afghan insurgents, but is officially represented on the their leadership council.

Washington was shocked by this evidence so soon after President Asif Ali Zardar assured President Obama when they met in Washington last month that he could count on the commitment of the Pakistani government and intelligence resources to fight Taliban and al Qaeda, as a solid prop of US strategy for the Afghan war.
But all the time, it transpired, behind their false face to US military and intelligence chiefs, the ISI has been collaborating with Taliban commanders in their operational planning and selection of targets, supplying them with weapons, explosives and roadside bombs and making grants to the bereaved families of suicide killers who murdered American and British troops.

According to the LSE report, half at least of the 15 members of the Taliban's Quetta Shura (the council which runs the war from its seat in Quetta, the capital of Pakistani Baluchistan) are active officers of Pakistani military intelligence.
"It is impossible to be a member of the Quetta Shura without membership of the ISI," said a high-ranking Taliban fighter.
Given the depth of the ISI's integration in the Afghanistan Taliban's war effort against NATO, the US military might as well drop their efforts to cut the Afghan Taliban's weapons supply route from Pakistan.
The revelations of the LSE are not new, debkafile reports, except for the fact that a prominent Western publication was willing to print them.
They were covered fairly exhaustively in previous issues of DEBKA-Net-Weekly in the past two years.
Most recently, on February 28, 2010, DNW 434 exposed a shady Pakistan intrigue behind the handover to the Americans of Abdul Ghani Baradar, whom they represented as Mullah Omar's first lieutenant the lost of whom would seriously impair Taliban's fighting ability - so they claimed
It was in fact an ISI trick. Baradar was no longer important to the Taliban and his handover no great loss because he had turned coat and was looking for an opening for peace talks with the Americans. The ISI needed to get rid of him before he succeeded to keep the Afghan War on the boil, because as long as it lasts, both the Taliban and the Americans will be dependent on Islamabad and the Pakistanis will carry on pulling wires and playing one side against the other.

The longer the Obama administration clings to the assumption that cooperation with Pakistan and its intelligence agency is the only course for beating the Taliban and al Qaeda, the more elusive an Afghanistan triumph will be for the US and its allies.

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 14 Jun 2010 06:44

Dont worry guys, all is not lost. Unkil is not going to leave Afghan anytime soon....

Unkil discovers $1 TRILLION worth of minerals in Afghanistan...

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 14 Jun 2010 06:52

More hope guys...Talibarbarians do not like ISI, this has been confirmed in numerous other reports, this is on top of non-Taliban Afghans who hate Pak even MORE...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... nce-unease

Nuggets:

Whoever disrespects your country and interferes in it is your enemy, but sometimes you need to ask for help from your enemies..

so one day India can be a friend of Taliban if they agree to leave us alone and destroy TSP.

But there are different types of Taliban – there are those like me and there are those that follow direction from the ISI. Those are the kind that kill elders and attack schools. They don't want to have schools in this society. They want to keep Afghanistan in the darkness of no education.

so it seems there are barbaric animals and then then are wilder barbaric animals...of the Paki kind..

They handed over one of best operations people in exchange for lots of dollars

On the one side they are helping us, but on the other side when the Americans pay more money they hand him over

so the double cross is on both sides...but this side is right next to you and is not going to forget it soon...and some more, not a wimp or WKK or bleeding heart like Ombaba &Co.

Me thinks TSP Pakbarians have painted themselves into a corner. They think because they can fool Ombaba & Americans they can fool whole world but the Afghans seems to be smart....watch the space...

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 14 Jun 2010 07:09

He said: "We do everything we can to avoid civilian causalities. But there are different types of Taliban – there are those like me and there are those that follow direction from the ISI. Those are the kind that kill elders and attack schools. They don't want to have schools in this society. They want to keep Afghanistan in the darkness of no education."

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 14 Jun 2010 07:42

pgbhat wrote:^
THE SUN IN THE SKY:THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PAKISTAN’S ISI AND AFGHAN INSURGENTS --- Matt Waldman

From the article:

The only sure way to secure such cooperation is to address the fundamental causes of Pakistan’s insecurity,
especially its latent and enduring conflict with India.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 14 Jun 2010 08:16

U.S. adopts reintegration strategy to subdue Afghan insurgency

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04374.html

You can't kill or detain your way out of an insurgency," said Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, deputy commander of Joint Task Force 435, which was created last fall to oversee U.S. detainment operations in Afghanistan. "For us, reintegration is the new center of gravity." ew facility, approach
Until late last year, most suspected insurgents captured in Afghanistan were housed in a converted hangar known as the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, on the grounds of one of the largest U.S. air bases in the country. Bagram, home to more than 600 detainees, had been tarnished by repeated allegations of abuse, including accounts of fatal beatings of two Afghan men in 2002. In recent years, American commanders had begun to question whether U.S. policies at Bagram were feeding the insurgency, rather than weakening it. It was partly at the direction of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, now the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, that Bagram was ordered closed and another facility, known as Parwan, built at the edge of the airfield a few hundred yards away. Parwan can hold up to 1,000 inmates, and although it also has interrogation cells, guard towers and razor-wire fencing, it differs starkly from its predecessor.

mnag · Post by **mnag** » 14 Jun 2010 11:09

Reported in NY Times: U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world ... erstitial.

Based on the article, itseems this is significant and worth $1 Trillion. Would this mean the occupation will last far longer?

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 14 Jun 2010 15:55

mnag wrote:Reported in NY Times: U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world ... erstitial.

Based on the article, itseems this is significant and worth $1 Trillion. Would this mean the occupation will last far longer?

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.

Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts.

This is certainly an interesting piece.

It mentions several stakeholders - Americans, Karzai, Taliban, Pakistan, Chinese, Russians, etc.

I would like to pose the question of what is it that binds the Taliban to the ISI? Is it the invaluable safe haven, logistical, military and/or financial support? Is the problem that the Taliban coming from a tribal society does not know the ways of the world and feel insecure in this globalized world with its financial transactions and technology? Is it, that the Taliban are impressed with ISI's record on double dealings and keeping the Americans in check?

Why does Taliban play to the tune of the ISI?

I can understand that the Taliban can not have enough Islam and public hangings and women beatings, but do they really love poverty?

Is it, that ISI has a few Taliban networks under its control, and through them keeps most others also in control, and the few under their control are there simply because of old traditions of patronage, trust, operations? Is there too much lethargy in changing this basis of the relationship?

I am not sure whether the nature of the relationship between ISI and the Taliban could change after the discovery of these minerals and the new possibilities? The ISI belong to a beggar country, whereas Taliban are the prospective rulers of a mineral rich country with a potential to really strike it rich. Would a continued dependence of the Taliban on the ISI and ISI's influence on the Taliban square off with this bright new mineral-rich Afghan world? Wouldn't the ISI be looked upon as hyenas out to steal the lion's kill?

It is indeed interesting that the mineral riches were found are in the southern and eastern Afghanistan, a place under siege and war, where for the time-being hardly any mining can take place.

Can one convince the Taliban that they do not need the ISI or Pakistan? Can the world offer the Taliban other options? Can the Afghan Taliban, from the areas in Afghanistan, where the minerals were found, attain a level of confidence that they are willing not only to keep out the ISI and Pakistan from any revenues from the new find, but also to throw out Pakistan from FATA and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa?

Let's not forget that up till now, it is the Pakistani Pushtun which have been more in numbers and influence in the grander scheme of things. Would the new found wealth in Pushtun areas of Afghanistan tip that balance and make Afghan Pushtuns the bearers of the flag of the Pushtun nation? ISI has basically been able to exert influence over Afghanistan through Pakistani Pushtuns. This could change.

India has built roads and hospitals in Afghanistan. Can India also show the Afghans how to manage and exploit the new found mineral wealth? Perhaps through the offices of the Afghan Government! Karzai is trying to strike his own deal with the Taliban. If Afghanistan becomes richer, it would definitely break up Pakistan. Which Afghan or Pushtun would want to take orders from some beekhmanga Pakjabi?

Perhaps new routes could be found to transport Afghanistan's mineral wealth out of Afghanistan without going through Pakistan!

At this moment in time, we hardly know whether this wealth is real or a chimera! Is this story a trap to set a cat amongst the pigeons?

Or is it that the Americans are trying to convince the Taliban to let the Americans stay on in Afghanistan even after a peace deal with them, so that the Taliban have the best consultants on how to get rich quickly - the Americans? But first the Taliban have to come to the peace table, and lots of biryani and gosht are just the right thing to get them there. The longer the Taliban wait, the longer they remain poor.

Were the Americans to say that they would pay the Taliban to come to the peace table, the Taliban may look upon the Americans suspiciously, because they know, 'who parts with their money, just like that', but if it is Pushtun's own treasure just out of their reach, then it all sounds a lot more credible.

Just some speculation!

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 14 Jun 2010 17:47

So now Pak has even more interest in seizing control of the country, since that would revive their "Silk Roa" dreams.

India could probably become a big customer for Afghan minerals, since we're a large market nearby.

This discovery could keep the Afghans well-employed for quite some time, given their already low population levels. Gee, I wonder if they'd even have to import foreign workers, like Kuwait?

Will this latest mineral find influence the views of major powers towards Afghanistan? I assume that terrorism will still continue to be the main issue. But China is very resource-hungry, so they might now take increasing interest in the place. Would China's natural desire to insulate their sensitive western flank be overcome by their desire to transport in minerals from Afghanistan?

ajit_tr · Post by **ajit_tr** » 14 Jun 2010 18:35

Insurgent attacks kill 18 Afghan policemen

KABUL: Taliban insurgents killed 18 policemen in a series of attacks across Afghanistan in recent days, the interior ministry said on Monday.

Ten police were killed in an attack on Sunday on an outpost in Dai Kundi province in central Afghanistan, the ministry said, while six officers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in southern Kandahar on Saturday.

Two others died in an attack in the south.

Some 21 militants were killed in the Dai Kundi clash, the ministry said. The Taliban could not be reached for comment.

The Taliban insurgency is at its strongest since the hardline group was overthrown in 2001 and 38 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan this month alone.

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 14 Jun 2010 18:38

Reported in NY Times: U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world ... erstitial.

Based on the article, itseems this is significant and worth $1 Trillion. Would this mean the occupation will last far longer?

Not sure if looking at everything thing very soospiciously has become part of me, but I find this outright news article quite puzzling. Is this real info or some cooked up myth. In the article, meelitary people are talking about mineral deposits, WTF? Through, this article, what kind of shignals unkeel is trying to send and to whom?

Is this their way of saying that they are running out of money to fund the war and now bhikhmanga Abduls should stop fighting.....now that huge cache of money is waiting to be dug out of Afg soil? ..OR..

Are they sending signals to resource hungry Chindia, to enter the country for minerals, so they can get the F^*#^c out...

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 15 Jun 2010 00:16

Afghanistan is no longer a "Restroom" on ones journey; it has become THE destination.

Here are couple of good pictures

The boots are in for a long stay.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 15 Jun 2010 00:20

chanakyaa: Our IRS satellites can gather evidence, no? We have 10 Earth Observation Satellites in operation. Mineral prospecting is just one of their abilities. Rest assured, we would know about these two - that is if we are looking there.

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 15 Jun 2010 01:16

If the mineral wealth of Afghanistan has indeed been determined by satellite surveys, there is no question that the US has known about it for years... very likely before even 9/11. I mean, surely their sats were looking at Afghanistan since the time OBL was invited there from Sudan, and in great detail since the US cruise missiles hit "Al Qaeda training camps" in retaliation for the 1998 African embassy bombings.

Therefore: the US knew about the mineral wealth of Afghanistan (or had a fairly damn good idea) for a long time. But they have chosen to make this information public now.

So here's something else that the US has known for a long time but has chosen to make public only now: the news of ISI cooperation with the Taliban. Surely it was all described in detail in the missing pages of the 9/11 Commission's Report; but it is only now that the depth of this collaboration has been stated, publicly and unequivocally, in a document with semi-official veneer (rather than "unnamed diplomats say in private that rogue elements of the ISI may be involved with the Taliban" and other such coy references in news articles.)

Interesting eh? This very week, the US has chosen to make public two things it has known for a very long time. Coincidence?

CTs, anyone?

satyam · Post by **satyam** » 15 Jun 2010 01:25

Hi I am new to this forum. I am from IIT kharagpur.

Can you please tell me what is so great about 900 billion $ mineral in Afghanistan? India alone has mineral of about 8 trillion $ at current price. It will take Afghans atleast 40 to 50 years to exploit them.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Jun 2010 01:28

Its still being evaluated.

No matter could give the US more reasons to slow down their withdrawl plans if they were ever true at all.

satyam · Post by **satyam** » 15 Jun 2010 01:30

Thanks.

So this is an execuse to stay in Afghanistan.

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 15 Jun 2010 01:33

Uh....why would the US want to stay in Afghanistan? US is looking for excuses to get out not stay. ------> Rather this may be a bounty the US can offer as an incentive for the Taliban to cooperate.

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 15 Jun 2010 01:36

It could also be a carrot dangled in front of the Afghans to show them that there is potential for making more money than is made from their current driver of gross national product: opium.

satyam · Post by **satyam** » 15 Jun 2010 01:36

And what would Taliban do of the minerals ? And who will teach mining to Afghans ?

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 15 Jun 2010 01:37

sell contracts to US.

satyam · Post by **satyam** » 15 Jun 2010 01:39

US can get contract from OZ. There is no lack of minerals on this planet( apart from oil)

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 15 Jun 2010 01:49

satyam wrote:Hi I am new to this forum. I am from IIT kharagpur.

Can you please tell me what is so great about 900 billion $ mineral in Afghanistan? India alone has mineral of about 8 trillion $ at current price. It will take Afghans atleast 40 to 50 years to exploit them.

So America is planning to stay in Afghanistan for the next 40 -50 years ?

Philip wrote:Afghanistan conflict could last 40 years, says new head of British Army
General Sir David Richards, the new head of the British Army believes the West's mission to stabilise Afghanistan might take as long as 40 years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -Army.html

Sat Aug 08, 2009

This is advance notice to all that the "Empire is striking back" and has returned for a long haul,to try and retreive its lost "jewel in the crown"!
There is no role for either the UK or the US or NATO forces to squat in the sub-continent and the longer they do willl destabilise the entire region,the aim being to bring war to the rest of the world ,keeping it as far away as posisble from their own lands.