Af-Pak -> Pak-Af Watch

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 17 Jun 2011 20:16

Rocket fired from Pakistan kills 4 children in eastern Afghanistan, part of barrage over days

KABUL, Afghanistan — A rocket fired during fighting Friday in Pakistan’s tribal region landed in eastern Afghanistan, killing four children in an area where militants launch attacks on U.S.-led forces, officials said.

The rocket landed in Sirkanay district of Kunar province, an area where more than 100 rockets have landed in the last few days from across the border, provincial police chief Gen. Ewaz Mohammad said.

It was unclear who fired the rocket, though Mohammad said there had been Pakistani military airstrikes in the region.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 17 Jun 2011 21:47

ramana wrote:
shyamD, you could have something there.

ISI thought S^3 was part of the chefs group in TSP. They killed him and arrested the other five.

Who is Ali Chisti?

Chishti is a TFT journo, close friend to SSS.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 19 Jun 2011 06:38

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2011_pg1_2
UN splits Taliban, Qaeda sanctions list

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council, on Friday, split the UN sanctions list for Taliban and al Qaeda figures into two, which envoys said could help induce the Taliban into talks on a peace deal in Afghanistan. The move comes as Washington prepares to start pulling out its 97,000 troops in Afghanistan next month as part of a process to hand over all combat operations against Taliban insurgents to Afghan security forces by 2014. “The United States believes that the new sanctions regime for Afghanistan will serve as an important tool to promote reconciliation, while isolating extremists,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement. reuters

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 19 Jun 2011 06:39

KABUL: The United States is holding talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday, in the first official confirmation of such contacts after nearly 10 years of war.
Although diplomats and officials say the talks are at a very early stage, Karzai’s remarks highlight the increasing focus on finding a political settlement in Afghanistan as foreign combat troops prepare to pull out by 2014.
“Talks with the Taliban have started... the talks are going on well,” Karzai said, addressing a conference in Kabul. He, however, said that an Afghan push towards peace talks had not yet reached a stage where the government and insurgents were meeting, but their representatives had been in touch.
“Also foreign forces, especially the United States, are carrying out the talks themselves.” Afghan attempts to pursue talks with the Taliban have been public for months.
Karzai last year set up a High Council for Peace to look at the issue, which visited neighbouring Pakistan – seen as key to establishing communication channels – last week.
But Western officials are more tight-lipped about any conciliatory moves from their side. The US embassy in Kabul did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Karzai’s remarks.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this year called on Taliban members to split from al Qaeda, renounce violence and accept the constitution so they can be re-integrated into society. And US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on a visit to Kabul this month that there could be talks with the Taliban by the end

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2011_pg1_1

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 22 Jun 2011 03:58

Published on Jun 21, 2011
By Scott Malcomson
The End of AfPak: New York Times Blog: The 6th Floor

After 10 years, it seems, the time has come to go home. Troops are and will be coming back to the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan. The military budget will be cut.

That isn’t quite how it looked when I was in Washington a few weeks ago and spoke with about a dozen current and former American officials and with Pakistanis. The impression they each gave was that American withdrawal would be speeded not because of Bin Laden’s death but because of Pakistan’s reaction to it. After the initial shock, Pakistan’s (government-influenced) press latched onto a narrative of “national humiliation” as a result of the American raid, rather than, say, one of jubilation at the demise of a killer whose fantasies have brought Pakistan nothing but misery. A younger generation of military officers — Pakistan is dominated by its military — seemed at times about to revolt in reaction to the insult to Pakistan’s sovereignty.

In short, the U.S. and Pakistan are really not getting along. Among members of Congress, beating up Pakistan has become ritualized; Senators McCain and Rogers were doing it again on the Sunday programs. I wondered: How many times can Pakistan be abandoned?

Now, after almost 10 years of intense engagement, Pakistan and the U.S. appear set for another split; at least that was the consensus among the officials I spoke with. There was a pervasive sadness in these conversations. It was due in part to the sheer human effort that has gone into the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. A lot of spies and soldiers and diplomats and politicians have put years of their lives into making “AfPak” work, which requires making Pak work. A lot (not all) of that effort seems to be going down the drain, along with much of the billions of taxpayer dollars that financed it.

Finally, there is the tremendous sadness of Pakistan itself. The country doesn’t have enough water. It lacks the electricity to develop its industries. Literacy, by some reckonings, is actually declining. Democracy has been restored but the government is hardly stable. The one truly semi-stable institution, the military, is struggling against itself, just as Pakistanis are dividing, and attacking each other on an increasing scale (which is saying something).

The U.S. will leave them to it — abandonment again — and choose the happier relationship with India. Secretary Clinton will be at the regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in late July, helping to take her longtime initiative of eastward Indian engagement, and the integration of the United States into East Asian political structures, to a new level. This is part of a long-term strategy of accommodating the rise of China and of India.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Jun 2011 17:07

I hope we have only one year left then to build a better fortification on the yellow sea. IA better prepare for these events ahead.

Manny · Post by **Manny** » 23 Jun 2011 06:49

Can anyone make sense of this

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MF23Df03.html

If what he says is true that the Aglo American plan is to break up Afghanistan on ethnic lines, why is he getting his Chaddi in a knot? Is that not a good thing breaking the Pasthoons away from Porkistan wanting to join the Afghan Pashtoons?

kasthuri · Post by **kasthuri** » 23 Jun 2011 07:37

Okay...the countdown has begun...

Obama announces plan to bring home 33,000 ‘surge’ troops from Afghanistan

Mee thinkin US-TSP 'cooperation' officially ended.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 23 Jun 2011 16:11

"Beating the Retreat"! So France is now going to follow the US in another inglorious "white-man's" retreat ,that will once again engulf the nation into another round of civil war.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... istan.html

France to follow US out of Afghanistan
France is to follow the US in starting a gradual troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Nicolas Sarkozy has announced, in a move that could boost his popularity before a 2012 election.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 23 Jun 2011 19:50

MKB's...Losers and winners in Obama's Afghanistan

The stark reality is that Obama's speech will send shivers of fear down the spine of the non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan. There is nothing worse than offering someone protection and support and then walking way at the heat of the moment. Central Asians will worry how the triumphal return of the Taliban will play out among the forces of Islamism in their countries, which are already bracing for the arrival of the Arab Spring.

India will feel badly let down. Iran will be pleased to no end. So may Russia to the extent that history will record that it wasn't the only superpower that failed to win a war in the Hindu Kush. China's dependence on Pakistan increases by leaps and bounds to ensure that the Taliban keep their word that they have no agenda beyond Afghanistan's borders.

How the unpalatable truth sinks in will be Pakistan's formidable challenge. Like the witches told Banquo in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, it is a mixed blessing. He may be about to lose his own life, but his progenies will live in regal glory - "Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none." Can there be a greater satisfaction?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Jun 2011 19:54

When Obamaji got elected the politicial expectation was that troops were going to be drawdown from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iraq surge under Gen Petraus succeded along with an Iraqi resolve to govern themselves.

In Af-Pak the same forumal was tried. US increased the troops by 30K in 2009 and now is announcing an annual 10k drawdown (mostly support/non-combat troops). It will take three years to bring the troop level to before the surge.

I understand the security situation is not yet stabilised (listen to NPR report) and this should have been explained to ensure public buy-in. Instead the drawdown is being announced as a result of gains in the security situation in Af-Pak.

The net result is both liberals and conservatives are disappointed in the plan.

Conclusion its polticial ploy/stunt and doesn't effect the ground situation nor the DoD budget.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Jun 2011 21:05

Nightwatch 22 June 2011

Afghanistan: Special Comment. Longtime Readers know that NightWatch has had a continuing project to monitor the security situation in Afghanistan since mid-2006, using a consistent sample of unclassified reporting. In 2006, when the Taliban resurgence was just beginning, NightWatch began publishing monthly summaries of the security situation.

In the past three years, the number of incidents per month has increased so that compiling and analyzing monthly reports threatened to become a full time job.

NightWatch has continued to track data in detail for all 400 districts of Afghanistan every other month and spot checked fighting reports in between. Preliminary analysis of the data for May 2011 was completed today. The table below shows the data from three tracking measures since last November.

table...

What do these data signify?

First the "media expert" thesis that the Taliban have a fighting season that ends in winter is a fantasy. During each of the past three winters Taliban and other anti-government fighters increased their level of activity, reducing their operations only briefing for weather, as in January 2009. Winter weather imposes no lasting impediment to anti-government operations in the core provinces of the insurgency.

The Taliban did begin an offensive in May 2011, as announced. The number of security incidents in May reached an all-time high despite a brief dip in activity in late May apparently because of rumors that Mullah Omar was missing or deceased.

The number of districts experiencing security incidents was at an all-time high, despite the increase in US forces. The mix of districts has changed, indicating the anti-government fighters moved, rather than confront overwhelming US force. This explains the multiple reports of successfully cleared districts that have returned to normality while the overall number of security incidents increased.

About 200 of the 400 Afghan districts have Pashtun majorities or significant Pashtun minority populations. Any monthly total number of districts experiencing security incidents that exceeds 200 means the Taliban have acquired support or tolerance from non-Pashtun populations.

The May 2011 number of districts experiencing security incidents represents two-thirds of all districts, and is the highest number since the Taliban resurgence began in 2006. Much of this increase in reach is in districts north of Kabul.

The number of incidents is partly a function of increased US operations during the surge, but the Taliban are almost always present to shoot back. There also has been a noticeable spike in the use of improvised explosive devices, the most effective Taliban weapons.

The anti-government fighters waste lots of ammunition and explosives, but never seem to lack for supplies for long. Afghanistan makes no ammunition and no explosives. Almost all come from Pakistan or from leakage from US and Afghan supplies. The increase in security incidents always is matched by an increase in logistics for NATO and anti-government fighters.

The analysis continues, but the reports since November show no significant Afghan army involvement in combat operations. The May reports contained a single operation that clearly was Afghan army initiated. Afghan soldiers accompany NATO forces on operations, but seldom take casualties except from careless driving.

The Afghan police continue to sustain more casualties than any other armed entity. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates Afghanistan has more than 30,700 villages. NightWatch security incident data indicates up to two-thirds harbor or tolerate anti-government fighters in them.

The data show the Afghan government cannot survive without NATO support, especially logistics and tactical air support. More on casualties, later.

All this contradicts the tenor of BO's speech last night.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 24 Jun 2011 14:30

Published on Jun 24, 2011
By C. Raja Mohan
Great Game in new phase, India needs new plan: Indian Express

Obama’s assertions provide the flip side to the widespread perception that a weakened US is simply retreating from the Afghan arena. While the US will indeed stop fighting in Afghanistan by 2014, it wants to retain the ability to target terror hideouts in Pakistan.

The effect of the new approach will have a great bearing on India’s security in the coming years. Yet, unlike the Indian consternation at Obama’s announcement in December 2009 that he would draw down in Afghanistan from July 2011, there is a measure of calm this time around.

In 2009, the dominant sentiment in India was that US forces must stay until the Taliban were defeated. Since then, there is a clear recognition that the American people are tired of the war.

For India, the real question is what happens between now and 2014, when the US plans to complete the handover of security and governance responsibilities to the Afghanistan.

India will need a sophisticated policy to deal with the shifting great power alignments among the US, China and Russia, manage the regional contradictions, cope with greater internal turbulence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and engage all the major ethnic groups across the Indus.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 24 Jun 2011 15:01

Published on Jun 25, 2011
By Karamatullah K Ghori
Obama puts the heat on Pakistan: Asia Times Online

Pakistan is wary of the talks that Washington has been carrying on for some time with the Afghan Taliban behind its back. Keeping Pakistan out of the loop has only one meaning for Islamabad: the Obama administration doesn't trust it enough to make it a party to the parleys, which could have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan, more than any other neighbor of Afghanistan.

Islamabad is also feeling increasingly leery of the traction that the so-called Blackwill formula - to divide Afghanistan along ethnic lines into a Pashtun south and a non-Pashtun north - is apparently receiving in top echelons of the Obama administration.

There's near-consensus in Pakistan's intellectual community, and policymakers, that the author of this prescription, Robert Blackwill, has absorbed a lot of Indian input into his brain wave. Blackwill was George W Bush's ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003.

Pakistan's intellectual community also fears Obama's drawdown of forces, spread over three years, is calibrated to allow the Blackwill plan ample opportunity to take root in Afghanistan.

A divided Afghanistan would not only denude Pakistan of its strategic depth, vis-a-vis India, but may also become a cause for the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, the poorly marked border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, to unite. Such unity could only mean further dismemberment of Pakistan and open up a Pandora's box. Pakistan simply can't countenance such an outcome and will pull no punches to thwart it.

Karamatullah K Ghori is a former career ambassador of Pakistan whose diplomatic assignments took him to the United States, Argentina, Japan, China, The Philippines, Algeria, Kuwait, Iraq, Macedonia and Turkey.

Ambassador Robert Blackwill and Col. Ralph Peters seems to be two guys who really make Pakis sh*t bricks!

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 24 Jun 2011 20:29

This is good news, because either way TSP is screwed. What would I do if I was ISI to prevent break up of pakhtunistan? I would keep mullah O and top leadership of taliban. But the majority pakhtun people are slowly waking up to reality that they are just being used.
So TSPA may be forced to occupy the southern districts along with Pak, to maintain control - or integrate southern afghan districts into Pak.
Depends on the taliban leadership and if they play to the tune in islamabad (which they probably will). But at the moment there is resentmment in talib ranks.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Jun 2011 21:16

RajeshA, Re the Rajamohan article:
- The drawdown plan calls for 10K troops/year. The surge was 30k troops. So even three years later from 2011 the troop level will be same as that in 2009.
- Am surprised India was surprised at the Obama plan in Dec 2009. On this thread we discussed the rationale for such a plan in Aug-Oct 2009. What other choice did US have then face financial ruination and worse malaise in the armed forces?

Next regarding the K Ghori's article:
- Defacto division of Afghanistan into Pashtun and non-Pashtun areas while keeping the federal structure is the inexorable path set in motion due to Ahmed Shah Durrani's creation of Afghanistan and Abdr Rehman's consolidation of modern day Afghanistan.

The reason is Afghanistan was organised as multi-ethnic state with Pashtun majority in which the minority Durranis rule. However the number of Pashtuns in TSp out number the ones in Afghanistan. Modernism, unless thwarted by religious forces(important point here), forces an agglomeration of kindered ethnicities. So Durand line will be defacto erased with or without Blackwill plan.

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 25 Jun 2011 04:50

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1K1UVF.DTL
U.S. generals' Afghanistan pullout advice rejected
Washington --
"The nation's top military officer and its top diplomat made clear Thursday that President Obama rejected the advice of his generals in choosing a quicker path to winding down the war in Afghanistan.
The Obama troop withdrawal plan, widely interpreted as marking the beginning of the end of the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan, drew criticism from both sides of the political aisle on Capitol Hill. Some Republicans decried it as undercutting the military mission at a critical stage of the war, while many Democrats called it too timid.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., questioned the timing of his troop pullout plan.
"Just when they are one year away from turning over a battered and broken enemy in both southern and eastern Afghanistan to our Afghan partners - the president has now decided to deny them the forces that our commanders believe they need to accomplish their objective," McCain said......."
___________________________________________________________________
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/23/137376161 ... fghanistan
Shadow Of Vietnam May Impact Tactic In Afghanistan
June 23, 2011

President Obama announced Wednesday plans for reductions of American troops in Afghanistan. It's seen as a major first step in reducing U.S. involvement in that war. For Americans of a certain generation, it brings to mind another long and frustrating foreign conflict that ended over three decades ago: the Vietnam War. Robert Siegel talks with journalist and author Marvin Kalb about how the shadow of Vietnam affected Obama's approach to Afghanistan. Kalb co-authored the book, Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
For Americans of a certain age, President Obama talking last night about troop levels for a long and frustrating foreign war inevitably sets off memories of a conflict that ended more than 35 years ago: the war in Vietnam.
In a new book about the influence of the war on subsequent presidents, Marvin and Deborah Kalb write this about President Barack Obama and Afghanistan: He fancied himself post-Vietnam, but the war that was lost so many years before he assumed office still hovered over his presidency like Banquo's ghost -unwelcome but unwilling to release its grip.
Marvin Kalb, longtime correspondent for CBS and NBC News, joins us now.
Welcome to the program.
Mr. MARVIN KALB (Co-Author, "Haunting Legacy"): Thank you, sir.
SIEGEL: And first the notion that Barack Obama is post-Vietnam is not just an observation about his age, it's something he said about himself?
Mr. KALB: Absolutely. And he has always considered himself on a rhetorical level to be post-Vietnam, but the ghost of Vietnam continues to hover over him. And one of the ways of understanding that, I think, is to take a look at his speech and to analyze it from the point of view: What are the major points the man wanted to make?
The U.S. now has an exit strategy...
SIEGEL: We didn't in Vietnam.
Mr. KALB: And we did not in Vietnam. But he's trying to say I'm not going down that path again. We have a clear mission, he said. By implication we didn't have that in Vietnam......

Gautam

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 25 Jun 2011 11:19

One can't beat the colonial b#stards writing in the Economist when it comes to equal equal; I mean India's only requirement of stability and peace in Afganisthan is the equivalent of TSP sponosoring barbarians to keep Afganisthan unstable in perpetuity according to these farts

A vacuum in Afghanistan threatens the entire region. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, an incendiary couple, risk a proxy war through the different ethnic groups they sponsor in the country

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 25 Jun 2011 13:27

CRamS wrote:One can't beat the colonial b#stards writing in the Economist when it comes to equal equal; I mean India's only requirement of stability and peace in Afganisthan is the equivalent of TSP sponosoring barbarians to keep Afganisthan unstable in perpetuity according to these farts

Every single policy of UK, be it in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, or in Britain itself we need to criticize heavily as being anti-Muslim!

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 25 Jun 2011 15:18

The new ISI mouthpiece - Qaiser BUTT

Trilateral dialogue: Tehran talks to focus on US bases in Afghanistan

By Qaiser Butt
Published: June 25, 2011

‘Pakistan reluctant to take up matter at international level’. PHOTO: REUTERS
ISLAMABAD:

The United States’ decision to set up six permanent military bases in Afghanistan will be the focus of talks when the presidents of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan meet in Tehran on June 25, an official told The Express Tribune on Friday.

Washington’s attempt to strike a strategic military pact with Kabul to build permanent bases in Afghanistan is opposed by Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries, China and Russia, including Pakistan.

“The trilateral talks will also discuss the implications of US and Nato forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan scheduled to begin next month,” the official said.

Karzai had publicly opposed the US move. He believed that the permanent presence of US forces in his country would be worrisome for Afghanistan’s neighbours. The Afghan president, however, left the issue to be resolved by the Afghan Parliament.

Islamabad is also opposed to the idea of permanent US bases in Afghanistan, and describes the move as a new “Great War in Afghanistan”, but it is not prepared to discuss the issue at the international level, a senior Foreign Office official told The Express Tribune.

Officials learnt at the eleventh hour that President Asif Ali Zardari will also have to attend trilateral talks on the Afghan issue on the sidelines of the conference.

The decision was astonishing for the ministry of foreign affairs as it had no prior knowledge that Tehran would make such a major change in the schedule, which originally included just the conference.

Some foreign office officials were even irked by the move as they considered Tehran’s move to be motivated.

“This (seems to be) an attempt on the part of Tehran to gain undue importance on the Afghan issue,” a senior official at the ministry of foreign affairs told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity .

The Iranian decision has forced Islamabad to reconstitute its delegation, which now includes the state minister for foreign affairs, Hina Rabbani Khar in the President’s entourage.

Banned outfit: Noose tightens on Hizb activists

By Qaiser Butt
Published: June 24, 2011

Arrests made both before and after the detention of Brigadier Ali Khan and four army majors earlier this week.
ISLAMABAD:

Security agencies have started moving against activists of the banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir outfit, sources told The Express Tribune on Thursday.

Many of the activists have gone underground after raids on their houses in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

The arrests are said to have been made both before and after the detention of Brigadier Ali Khan and four army majors earlier this week, for suspected links with the Hizb.

The Hizb’s cadre, comprising professionals like engineers, doctors and educated youth, had been distributing leaflets, brochures and pasting stickers in public places calling for action over the past month.

The Hizb also launched a similar campaign when the US called for a full-scale military assault on North Waziristan, urging the people to resist. The HT kept in touch with media outlets via SMS
on the terrorist attack on
the PNS Mehran in Karachi, accusing the US of masterminding the attack.

It regularly issued press releases urging people to “topple the government (and clear it) of traitors, conspirators and the American agents”.

The organisation also organised rallies “for establishing the rule of Khilafah in Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world”.

Meanwhile, a press release issued by the Hizb said that officials of a secret agency had “kidnapped” two of its activists named Naeem Younas and Fahad from Rawalpindi last week. Naeem was arrested distributing a leaflet on the Abbottabad incursion, while Fahad was arrested from his house in the Bahria Town.

“(Plainclothesmen) took Younas, a telecom engineer to an unknown location,” the press release said.

Security officials, the Hizb said, started rounding up its people after it issued a pamphlet on the US raid in Abbottabad in which Osama bin Laden was killed.

According to the Hizb, it has filed a writ petition against the kidnapping of its activists and it plans to hold demonstration in Islamabad at Zero Point outside the press offices.

Kabul’s cash-for-peace plan paying off

By Qaiser Butt
Published: June 15, 2011

Afghan spy agency claims that 15,000 Taliban surrendered in the last 2 months.PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:

As the US-led Nato forces in Afghanistan are preparing for a scheduled drawdown next month, President Hamid Karzai’s administration has stepped up its efforts to win over Taliban insurgents as part of its ‘reconciliation and reintegration plan’.

Over the last eight years, hundreds of insurgents have renounced violence for a financially-stable and peaceful life under the Kabul initiative, which has the full backing of the United States, according to the Afghan media.

Thirty to 50 insurgents, including key commanders surrender to the authorities every day in return for lucrative financial packages that also include jobs in the Afghan security forces and livelihood projects in their own areas.

Most of the militants joined the peace process after they gave in to the authorities in the provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan.Samangan, Nuristan, Herat, Ghor, Helmand, Badakhshan and Baghlan.

A spokesperson for the Afghan spy agency said earlier this month that about 15,000 Taliban have surrendered in the last two months. “The militants have realised that they are not going to win,” said Lotfullah Mashal, the spokesperson for the Afghan National Directorate of Security. “We are providing jobs and security to those who are giving up and switching sides,” he said. “We are committed to protect those who surrender.”

Karzai’s ‘pay-for-peace plan’ was launched last year with $140 million in the July 2010 London Conference on Afghanistan, where Saudi Arabia had also pledged $150 to finance efforts for restoring peace in the war-torn country.

After the conference, President Karzai set up a 70-member Afghan High Peace Council, headed by former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, to negotiate terms of surrender plan with the Taliban. And it has been doing this successfully since. Other than this, tribal elders have also been hired by the government at the local level to help with the peace process.

The US-led Nato troops are also contributing to the peace process by convincing the Taliban to surrender and take part in vocational training in return for $88 a week, reported UPI on January 5. “The military commanders in the north of Afghanistan said that US and Nato war planners have placed reintegration of Taliban foot-soldiers at the top of their strategy for Afghanistan,” the agency said.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 26 Jun 2011 17:04

Published on Jun 24, 2011
By John Kerry
The Road Home from Kabul: Foreign Policy

We brought Osama bin Laden to justice and defeated al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It is now time to reduce the U.S. footprint and for Afghans to take charge of their country and its future. It is time to focus on the real threats in the region: those that emanate from Pakistan.

The other war is against those who are likely irreconcilable and dedicated to attacking us, chiefly the Haqqani network and its allies in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. As our troops shift from the south to the east, their mission should shift accordingly from counterinsurgency to counterterrorism. It's the job of the Afghan security forces to win hearts and minds. Along the border with Pakistan, where insurgent groups pose a major threat, we should continue to train and work closely with elite Afghan units and the Pakistani military to root them out once and for all. There will be no rest for those who seek to do us harm.

saadhak · Post by **saadhak** » 26 Jun 2011 18:01

Suicide car bomber kills 35 at Afghan clinic

KABUL, Afghanistan: A suicide car bomber blasted a small clinic in eastern Afghanistan, causing the building to collapse as mostly women and children lined up for vaccinations, maternity care and other services. At least 35 people were killed in one of the deadliest attacks against civilians this year.

Guards saw a sport utility vehicle charging toward the Akbarkhail Public Medical Center, a compound that provides health care for the mountainous area in the Azra district of Logar province. But before anyone could shoot the driver or blow out the tires, the SUV smashed through a wall and exploded, local officials said.

Wary of being blamed for civilian casualties, the Taliban denied it was behind Saturday's bombing. Violence has been on the rise since the Islamic movement launched its spring offensive and promised retaliation for the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

"This attack was not done by our fighters," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Survivors of the blast and others who heard the explosion frantically dug through the rubble with shovels and bare hands. At least 35 bodies were pulled from the debris and 53 other people were wounded, provincial public health director Dr Mohammad Zaref Nayebkhail said.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 26 Jun 2011 18:30

Intelligence shift shows change in Afghan war aims
http://www.ksro.com/news/article.aspx?id=3124026

By KIMBERLY DOZIER AP Intelligence Writer

Military intelligence officers were scrambling a year ago to collect and analyze the social, economic and tribal ins and outs of each valley and hamlet in Afghanistan.

This information wasn't the kind of secret or covert material many military intelligence specialists were used to. But it was seen as crucial to helping commanders tell the good guys from the bad, learn what Afghans really needed from their government and undermine the Taliban-led insurgency by winning hearts and minds over time.

Since last fall, top intelligence leaders in Afghanistan shifted their focus back to targeting the enemy in the more traditional way, by mapping their networks and analyzing what made the Taliban tick.

They didn't stop collecting the other information. But their goal now was helping tell commanders what they needed to know to kill insurgents and drive the enemy to the negotiating table.

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the United States will start bringing home U.S. troops next month. His announcement is part of a gradual scaling back of American operations and ambitions in Afghanistan that's expected to emphasize raids over governance, making tracking Afghan culture and bolstering the government less important, three current officials in Afghanistan said.

The White House has been frustrated by Afghanistan's corruption and President Hamid Karzai government's inability to provide competent officials to serve far-flung provinces. That has helped shrink U.S. goals, and the new bottom line is a government strong enough to prevent terrorists' safe havens from returning.

Targeting insurgent leaders and their support networks is seen as an important part of the U.S. exit strategy. The thinking is that Taliban leaders will be more ready for a deal if they feel threatened personally.

The U.S. has confirmed preliminary outreach to the Taliban, but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week that fruitful talks probably are a long way off.

These developments come as the man in charge of military intelligence in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Steve Fogarty, has shifted his focus to how the U.S. gathers social, economic and tribal data, and how troops are getting access to it.

But he may now face a closing window of opportunity to bolster those programs, with the looming drawdown of manpower and resources as ordered by an administration fed up with the war's $10 billion-a-month cost.

A secret U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan issued in February said raids and small-scale special-operations-led stability operations were showing progress, but projects meant to bolster Afghan governance were not yet taking hold, according to the officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

That assessment was one factor in Obama's decision to withdraw all but a small contingent of the current approximately 100,000 forces by 2015, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic discussions.

In early 2010, now-retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal's mission was to keep the population safe, in addition to the traditional hunt-the-enemy role. That meant understanding enough about a town or village to know whether the insurgency was best combated by killing a key leader, giving out loans to build a factory and provide jobs, or in many cases both, according to a senior intelligence official in Afghanistan.

The drawbacks of focusing solely on the enemy were laid out in a paper published by then-senior intelligence officer in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn. He called his work "Fixing Intel" and he bypassed traditional Pentagon channels to get it published by a Washington think tank.

After publication, Flynn put in place new layers of collection and analysis that included the Stability Operations Information Centers, whose staff members function like news reporters. They travel to field locations to collect intelligence that others didn't have time to share with the rest of the NATO-led effort.

Analysts also gathered "atmospherics." They asked Afghans what the man on the street was talking about, trying to get a sense of everything from sentiment about Karzai to whether they believed NATO troops were staying beyond 2014.

Flynn also championed the Human Terrain System, which uses anthropologists to study village and social networks throughout Afghanistan.

Most important, intelligence officials say, was his move to build district-by-district assessments to provide an encyclopedia of information readily available to the troops in the field.

Flynn left last fall. His predecessor, Fogarty, reorganized those three components _ the information centers, atmospherics, and human terrain _ into one location, at a base outside NATO headquarters.

That move was seen by some who had helped Flynn establish those operations as a rejection of the need for social, civil and tribal intelligence. They also pointed to a turnover in leadership at some of the stability centers and the dismantling of one center in eastern Afghanistan.

Two senior intelligence officials involved in the reorganization it was simply a response to Gen. David Petraeus' priorities, when he took over from now-retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Knowing the White House clock was running out, Petraeus knew he had limited time to show his troops had weakened the Taliban.

The top U.S. commander did try to send the message that social intelligence was important in tracking enemy networks, and he asked officers to count things such as the number of cellphone towers in an area, as a measure of success equal to the number of insurgents killed, the official said.

But some military intelligence teams in the field still interpreted the change in leadership from Flynn to Fogarty and the reorganization of some of Flynn's top projects as a shift back to what they had studied in school: targeting the enemy over protecting the population.

In parts of Afghanistan, they embraced the shift wholeheartedly, two U.S. officials say.

For instance, Kandahar's military intelligence center merges social and cultural data, satellite weather data and information gleaned from special operations raids. But the focus on the enemy is reflected in the souvenir coins the center hands out. Beneath the traditional counterinsurgency slogan, "Winning hearts and minds," is a picture of an armed insurgent, with a rifle-sight superimposed on him.

"People are still comfortable with what they know," said Douglas Ollivant, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, who just returned from a year serving as the senior counterinsurgency adviser in eastern Afghanistan.

"There's a level of synchronization between unmanned aerial vehicles, aircraft, and forces on the ground when it comes to targeting the enemy that simply isn't there, when we talk either about knowing which key leaders to talk to, or aid is needed and where," he said.

That doesn't mean leaders don't want or need the more detailed information, Ollivant said, "just that they haven't yet perfected the best way to get it."

Flynn remains influential. He was just promoted to the three-star rank and appointed to a high position advising the director for national intelligence. One of Flynn's co-authors, Marine Corps Capt. Matt Pottinger, says his paper "Fixing Intel" is all but required reading at military intelligence courses.

For those who think Fogarty's focus excludes social intelligence, a senior intelligence official points out that he set up his own version of human terrain analysis of Afghanistan two years ago, when he was Petraeus' intelligence officer at U.S. Central Command in Tampa.

In Fogarty's previous time in Afghanistan, he didn't have the staff to gather the kind of data Flynn advocated because the bulk of the resources were going to Iraq, according to a senior official in Afghanistan, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

With Petraeus on the way to being confirmed as CIA director, 33,000 U.S. troops headed from Afghanistan over the next 12 months, and a new focus on pounding the Taliban into peace talks, he may be facing that fight for resources all over again.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 27 Jun 2011 00:06

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 27 Jun 2011 00:42

Published on Jun 26, 2011
By Rajeev Sharma
India and the Taliban Talks: The Diplomat Blogs

There are two reasons why the Afghan peace talks may yield positive results. One, the US publicly joining these talks indicates that enough groundwork, going on for well over a year, has been done and so now only the final details need to be settled. Two, there are indications that this internal dialogue is bolstered by regional support, with Pakistan and even Iran on board.

India, though, has concerns over the Taliban gaining a foothold in the Afghan government, refusing to believe in the ‘good Taliban’ theory. History is witness to the fact that terrorism in India was at its peak when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, the period during which Pakistan effectively saw Afghanistan as its fifth province. However, India won’t mind saying ‘aye’ to the Afghan reconciliation process as long as its interests in Afghanistan are protected.

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 27 Jun 2011 02:16

Pakistan firing missiles into Afghanistan: Karzai

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai accuses Pakistan of firing 470 rockets into two of its eastern border provinces in a three-week barrage.

Afghan security forces said Sunday that 36 people have died in the barrages, which hit civilians in areas where Nato forces have withdrawn.

After the civilians fled, Pakistani Taliban came in and occupied the cleared areas, Afghan border officials said.

Afghan security officials say joint Nato and Afghan border units have fired back into Pakistan. Nato and Pakistan military officials, however, have denied any knowledge of border skirmishes.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 27 Jun 2011 20:10

MKB's commentary on the Iran-Af-Pak summit in Tehran:

Tehran's calculations based on:
- Blackwill
- Jundullah (Baluchi Freedom)
- Transformed Taliban? (talks with US excluding TSP, etc)
- TSP's weakening independent influence
- Consolidation of NA forces, recession of Pashtun domination in Af
- Saudi

Iran carves out an AfPak hub

One main focus of the conference was to highlight that the United States has been using international terrorism as the pretext to intervene in Afghanistan and in the Middle East and to interfere in their internal affairs. Khamenei's message to the conference, in a nutshell, highlighted the "calculations of satanic world powers, which use terrorism in their policies and planning to achieve their illegitimate goals".

Khamenei alleged that the US finances and arms terrorist groups in the region and, most interestingly, he singled out for reference the "crimes" by the Blackwater (Xe Services) group of "assisting terrorist groups" in Pakistan as "part of this shameful and unforgettable list of American acts of terrorism".

[..]

{Pakis play the victimhood act} Zardari highlighted at the conference that Pakistan had suffered immensely during the decade of the US-led war in Afghanistan. He said over 5,000 Pakistani security personnel had lost their lives and the estimated damage in financial terms amounts to US$37 billion for the Pakistani economy. Zardari stressed the importance of the "vital need for a collective campaign" by the regional states in the "war on terror".

Karzai, on the other hand, said, "I believe that the campaign against terrorism is not possible through merely military means." He called for unity, a firm stand and "collective cooperation" by Muslim states in the fight against terrorism.

[..]

Khamenei sought an "all-out expansion of ties" between Iran and Pakistan and cautioned Zardari that "Washington is trying to sow seeds of dissension in Pakistan to meet its illegitimate goals". He expressed his appreciation that the Pakistani people were well aware of the US's "ominous intention" and are resisting the US's "hegemonic plots".

Khamenei's reference went beyond the earlier allegation by Ahmadinejad that Tehran had "specific evidence" of a US conspiracy to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Khamenei seemed to imply that the US plans to destabilize the Pakistan' state in order to weaken it and to break its resolve to resist US dominance, as well as to hamper its capacity to play an effective role in the region.
[..]
Zardari's delegation included Interior Minister Rehman Malik, which suggests the Pakistani expectation of Iran sharing details of its perception regarding the security implications of the US's regional policies.

Malik indeed had a separate meeting with Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, who was previously Iran's defense minister and belongs to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Iranian account of the meeting suggested that it was mainly concerned with the activities of the terrorist group Jundallah, which operates out of Pakistan in Iran's eastern border province of Sistan-Balochistan.

"We discussed ways to collaborate on the fight against extremists and terrorists who use Pakistani soil for actions against Iran's interests," Mohammad-Najjar said. Significantly, Tehran is making a distinction between Jundallah and the Pakistani state, whereas there have been earlier allegations of Pakistani complicity. Whether Malik (who was a former head of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency) also met with Iran's powerful Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi remains unclear.

At his meeting with Karzai, Khamenei frontally attacked the US plans to set up military bases in Afghanistan. "The Americans are after permanent bases in Afghanistan, which is a dangerous issue because as long as US troops are in Afghanistan, there would be no real security. The Afghan people are suffering from the US military presence in their country and this presence is a great pain for them and the entire region", he said.
[..]
all indications are that in the Iranian assessment, the US may be compelled to abandon its earlier plans to set up military bases in Afghanistan due to a combination of circumstances - the Taliban's uncompromising opposition, the US's economic crisis and overall war weariness and the urgency to concentrate on the Middle East and Africa.

Meanwhile, Tehran keeps urging Karzai not to give in to the US plans. What worries Iran most is that the planned US military bases include Herat and Shindand in western Afghanistan on the border with Iran.

The big question is how tangible will be an Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan regional axis over the Afghan problem. The short answer is that the axis is both a matter of appearance as well as of some substance and how the proportion works out will depend on the acuteness of the situation in Afghanistan and the regional milieu.

At this point in time, the varying degrees of antipathy felt toward the US on the part of Pakistan and Afghanistan on the one hand and Iran's inveterate standoff with the US on the other give impetus to the three neighboring countries drawing closer.

Both Zardari and Karzai undertook the visit to Tehran with the full awareness that it signified an act of "strategic defiance" of the US - and more important, they knew that Washington would get the message as well. That is to say, the "Iran connection" gets them some room to maneuver vis-a-vis the US.

But then, there are also specific interests for Kabul and Islamabad to forge an understanding with Iran. Karzai would like to secure all the political support that Iran can provide that enables him to press ahead with the reconciliation with the Taliban.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-i-Islami, which is represented in Karzai's government, lived in exile in Iran for five years. Iran also wields influence over a variety of non-Pashtun forces that happen to harbor misgivings about Karzai's peace plans of reconciling the Taliban.
[..]
In the past, Iran's and Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan often proved to be at loggerheads. But a qualitative change has taken place. For Pakistan, gnawed by apprehensions of the US's intentions toward it, Iran as a friendly neighbor becomes a critically important asset today.

Especially so, as Iranian inputs regarding the US's covert activities inside Pakistan will be of invaluable use and solidarity with Iran helps mitigate the US pressure. For Tehran, too, it is important that Pakistan does its utmost to ensure that Jundallah activities from its soil are curtailed and the possibility of third countries exploiting Jundallah as a means to destabilize Iran is excluded.

Equally, Pakistan is a major Sunni country and Iran's interest lies in ensuring that it does not become part of the Saudi-led alliance against Iran in the Middle East. Iran can flaunt its friendship with Pakistan to expose the Saudi campaign to whip up the phobia of a Shi'ite-Sunni schism in the Middle East today by way of branding Tehran as the leader of the Shi'ite camp and rallying the Sunni Arab opinion.

The Taliban used to be a divisive issue in the Iran-Pakistan relationship. But this is no longer the case, as the cutting edge of the Afghan situation today for both countries lies in regard to the US's military presence. Both Iran and Pakistan agree that a long-term US presence in Afghanistan should be somehow scuttled. Also, the Taliban have transformed, which is what the direct contacts between them and the US (without Islamabad's knowledge) suggest.

Above all, Iran's comfort level is much higher today regarding a fair deal in an Afghan settlement for the Afghan groups with which Iran has enjoyed historical and cultural links. The old-style Pashtun dominance of Afghanistan is a non-starter as there has been a sort of "political awakening" among the Afghan people.

Iran also would factor in that the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the ensuing downstream consequences have greatly reduced the capacity of the Pakistani state to dictate an Afghan settlement unilaterally.

Iran will have the maximum interest in forging a regional axis out of this broad convergence of interests and concerns and making it a real driving force that shapes events to come rather than acts as a mere catalyst. But it takes two - or in this case three - to tango.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Jun 2011 20:15

Iran getting into Af-Pak is related to the recent WANA (West Asia- North Africa) Arab spring shaking up dictators. Add to this the US creating Arab Shia power center in WANA. So Iran is reaching into Af-Pak to see how it can leverage/meddle. Add PRC to the mix.

Ravi Karumanchiri · Post by **Ravi Karumanchiri** » 27 Jun 2011 21:33

Afghan general claims fresh Pakistan shelling
Pakistan denies accusation that hundreds of its mortars and rockets were fired into eastern Afghanistan provinces.

Mujib Mashal Last Modified: 27 Jun 2011 15:29

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/ ... 49794.html

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 28 Jun 2011 01:41

Qaiser Butt says the Army is undecided on what to do with these army officials arrested for HuT links, probably because it means more taleb attacks.

A must read article by Amir Mir.

The real face of Hizbul Tehrir

By Amir Mir

ISLAMABAD - The shadow of militant group Hizbul Tehrir (HuT) looms large in the interrogations of Pakistan army Brigadier Ali Khan and four majors who have revealed senior military officers planned to lead a coup against the government in Islamabad in an attempt to convert the country into a pure Islamic state by reviving the Khilafat (caliphate) system envisaged by the al-Qaeda-linked organization.

The officers are being interrogated in the garrison town of Rawalpindi by the Special Investigation Branch of the Military Intelligence (MI) after their arrest for suspected ties to militant organizations, reinforcing fears that the Pakistan's armed forces have been infiltrated at all levels by al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked Islamic extremists.

The detained officers have conceded that they were in touch with the HuT, which had incited them to launch a rebellion against the country's military and political leadership over what they see as pro-American policies. Investigators have concluded that HuT has the same objectives as al-Qaeda - the enforcement of Islamic rule in accordance with sharia(Islamic laws) in Muslim-majority countries and the restoration of an Islamic caliphate.

A group of junior army officers linked to HuT had previously tried to stage a military coup against the regime of Pervez Musharraf regime in 2003 with the help of their moles in uniform. However, the plan was foiled and the plotters were court-martialed, followed by a government ban on the activities of the HuT in Pakistan. The authorities had also arrested Omar Khan, a British-born Pakistani who was identified as the person enlisting and indoctrinating the men in uniform on behalf of the HuT.

Islamic groups and parties have been striving since the inception of Pakistan to Islamize the country in accordance with the Objective Resolution, adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, which stated that Muslims living in Pakistan would be enabled to mould their lives in line with the teachings of Islam. HuT is one such Islamic group and presents itself as a global revolutionary movement with branches in over 50 countries across the globe, including the United Kingdom and the United States.

HuT claims to be a political party with Islam as its ideology. It was actually established in Jerusalem in 1953 by Shaikh Taqiul Deen al-Nabahani (1909-1977), a cleric and a judge in the sharia court. The stated goal of the HuT at that time was to establish an expansionist super-state called the Khilafah, initially consisting of Muslim-majority states and finally expanding to the rest of the world.

Following the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden in an American military raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, HuT activists had been distributing leaflets, urging army officers to rise up in revolt against their leadership.

"It is a slap in the respected officers' faces that American helicopters intruded in the dark of night and barged into a house like thieves. Remember, it could not have been possible without the acquiescence of your high officials," one such the pamphlet read.

The contention of the Pakistan chapter of the HuT is that the current rulers of Pakistan, civilian as well as military, are agents of the United States and their only agenda is to protect American interests.

The group propagates that the American and the Pakistani governments are responsible for the killing of innocent men, women and children in drone attacks and military operations which are being conducted in the tribal areas in the name of the "war on terror".

According to the manifesto of the Pakistan branch of the HuT, following the establishment of Khilafah, part of the second phase will be to spread the borders of the state through offensive jihad or aggressive warfare.

The HuT's focus on Pakistan was motivated by the nuclear tests carried out by the country in 1998, as the group wanted to facilitate the acquisition of nuclear technology for the Khilafah state. Secondly, the HuT considers Pakistan's strategic location, particularly its proximity with Muslim-majority countries including Central Asian states, suitable for implementing its agenda.

Being a proscribed organization, the HuT does not have any offices in Pakistan and its organizational affairs are mainly looked after by its office bearers from their homes. However, the problem for Pakistani agencies is that the actual leadership of the group in Pakistan remains undisclosed, even to members, due to security fears.

The Pakistan chapter of HuT was established in December 2000 when a group of British youth of Pakistani descent (headed by Imtiaz Malik and guided by British-Pakistanis Dr Abdul Wajid in Lahore and Dr Abdul Basit Shaikh in Karachi among others) decided to use Pakistan as the base camp for their movement to re-establish an Islamic caliphate.

While Imtiaz is considered the underground leader of the HuT in Pakistan, his deputy, Naveed Butt, a graduate of University of Illinois in the United States, remains the most vocal group leader in Pakistan who is assisted by two youngsters, Imran Yousafzai and Shahzad Sheikh, both British nationals of Pakistani origin.

The first national-level conference of HuT was organized in Lahore in November 2003, two-and-a-half years after it was formally launched in Pakistan. The conference was attended by over 2,000 members. Hardly three days later, the group had been banned by the Musharraf regime.

HuT's challenge to the ban in the Lahore High Court was dismissed. Another petition filed in 2006 is still pending before the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court. Since its inception in Pakistan in 2000, however, the HuT has been able to make considerable progress in recruiting dedicated members in the civil society as well as the armed forces of Pakistan.

Those investigating Brigadier Ali Khan and several other senior officers of the Pakistan army for their HuT links say despite claiming to be a non-violent political party, the HuT had a violent jihadi agenda to overthrow the government and remove the military top brass.

Investigators say the HuT leadership had actually marked Pakistan as a base from which it wanted to spread Islamic rule across the world. Pakistani intelligence sleuths responsible for monitoring HuT activities say the group is working in tandem with al-Qaeda under the garb of pan-Islamism.

They reminded that 35 HuT members were arrested in June 2009 from an Islamabad residence that was allegedly being used as a base to plan a coup. A few weeks before these arrests were made public, the Pakistan chapter of the HuT had talked about spilling blood to stage an Islamic revolution.

At the same time, Tayyab Muqeem, a London-based key HuT leader, declared in July 2009 that many HuT activists had been sent to Pakistan to bring about Islamic sharia by force. He claimed that HuT had successfully converted four senior officers of Pakistan army during their training at Sandhurst elite military training academy in the United Kingdom.

According to an October 2010 report by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, far from being deterred, the HuT has continued efforts to infiltrate the high echelons of the Pakistan army and Pakistani social elite.

The report titled "Hizbul Tehrir in Pakistan: Discourse and Impact", quoted Shahzad Sheikh, a Karachi-based HuT leader, as saying that the group had been persuading the Pakistan army to stage a bloodless coup to overthrow the government in Islamabad.

The report observed that apart from the failure of the Pakistani intelligence establishment to weed out pro-jihadi elements in the military and intelligence establishment, another cause of concern was the continuing failure of agencies to identify the current leaders of the highly secretive HuT and its "supporters in uniform".
According to Maajid Nawaz, a former HuT member now serving as director of the United Kingdom-based think-tank Quilliam, the menace of the HuT infiltrating the Pakistani armed forces was exported from Britain:

Hizbul Tehrir advocates violent overthrow of democratic states through military coups in order to enforce a single interpretation of Islam. Recruiting from the world's Muslim-majority armies is a fundamental tenet of their call. Groups such as HuT do not seek to launch a mass movement; rather they specifically target the intellectual elite and the military apparatus of the countries in which they operate.

For years, leading journalists and the intellectual elite of Pakistan have been targeted by highly educated English-speaking Islamists from Hizbul Tehrir. They have been seeking to convert prominent opinion shapers to their supremacist ideology. Once this sector is taken, a military coup can be staged by key officers sympathetic to the cause, who would in turn face minimal resistance from society. After the coup, the military would be capable of establishing the authority of Islam. Hence a coup d'้tat would be the manifestation of a political change, as per the HuT dream.

But the HuT's tactics to achieve its objectives differ from place to place. For instance, the group had for some time followed the "keep your ideology in your heart" strategy in the United Kingdom, without vocally or tacitly supporting any of the violent acts being carried out by militants.

But in Pakistan, the group not only accuses Pakistani and Western governments of involvement in acts of terrorism but also extends its sympathies and support to militant groups that, according to HuT, are sincerely fighting to establish Islamic rule and strongly resisting the "nefarious designs of the infidels against the Muslims of Pakistan and Afghanistan".

The HuT approach to such issues in the UK will be totally different. There, after the July 2005 London suicide attacks that killed 55 people, it increasingly disguises its support for jihad, anti-Semitic beliefs and intolerant ideologies. The London bombings were carried out by four British nationals of the Pakistani origin who were indoctrinated in the British capital by extremists belonging to al-Mohajiroun and HuT.

Still, despite being a banned organization in Pakistan, HuT members can be seen at key mosques on Fridays in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi, openly distributing volatile literature propagating the revival of the caliphate.

Apart from organizing secretive meetings and seminars, the HuT has used text messages on cell phones and social networking sites to spread its message. An open letter dated June 3, 2011, addressed to the "sincere officers" of the Pakistani armed forces, and posted on the website of the Pakistan chapter of the HuT (www.hizb-pakistan.com), called for removal of the "traitors" among the civilian and military leadership of the country for their alliance with the United States.

The letter, titled "O Muslims! Deliver this letter to all the sincere ones whom you know in Pakistan's armed forces", accused Pakistani rulers of bowing before the US and India. The letter was published simultaneously in English and Urdu on the HuT website. It read:

You are currently leading the largest and most capable Muslim armed forces in the world. The Muslim armed forces alone have the material strength to establish the Khilafah. As such, you are duty bound to establish an Islamic state in Madinah [the Saudi city]. You must move now to uproot Pakistan's traitor rulers. For even though the weaknesses of America and India are more evident than ever before, Pakistan's traitor rulers are racing to extend support to them, using the considerable resources of the Muslims to do so ...

The traitor rulers are allying with the infidels, as if this was the source of strength and well-being for the Muslims. In reality, their alliance with the infidels is a source of fragility, weakness, despair and humiliation. Allah said, "The tale of those who seek allies other than Allah is that of a spider who builds a house; but indeed, the weakest of houses is the spider's house - if they but knew." (Surah al-Ankaboot 29:41).

Amir Mir is a senior Pakistani journalist and the author of several books on the subject of militant Islam and terrorism, the latest being Talibanisation of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 28 Jun 2011 03:17

There is one parallel, I must say equal equal between India & US when dealing with TSP.

In India's case, unable or unwilling to take TSP head on for its state sponsorship of terror, conveniently invents "Hindu terrorism" as a way to whitewash TSP terror and feel self saisfied that both sides are wrong. So no loss of H&D to MMS & co.

Likewise, US knows the real villian in AfPak is TSP. But once again, its willing to do what it takes, and instead harps and obsesses on the self-satisfying phony bogey of corruption in Afganisthan and Karzai.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 28 Jun 2011 03:34

CRamS ji, what do you mean when you say "take pak head on state sponsorship of terror"?

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 28 Jun 2011 03:48

shyamd:

Its stockholm syndrome, or dishonest piskological syndrome I don't know, but it roughly translates to if you can't beat em, join em. Point being that instead of displaying guts and forthrightness to confront TSP on terror, its so easy to say we are also like them onlee (we have col ProHit and they have Hafeez Saeed, they did 26/11, we did Samjotha) and so no harm in being nice and making up and making love. It also makes our leadership look "statesmanlike" to the ruling policemen of the world.

raajneesh · Post by **raajneesh** » 28 Jun 2011 04:07

In an interview with Amy Goodman on March 2, 2007, U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.), explains that the Bush Administration planned to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Lybia, Somalia, Sudan, Iran

sum · Post by **sum** » 28 Jun 2011 08:44

Another MKB article. Seems more sensible this time but two things caught my eye:

Taliban's return and India's concerns

And, our “dialogue” with the Taliban must go hand in hand with a policy to do all we can by word and deed to instil confidence in the Pakistani mind about our intentions that for the foreseeable future, Afghanistan's stabilisation can become a shared concern for the two countries.
There is actually no scope for zero-sum games, since Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan are legitimate — and are reconcilable with India's concerns.

Is this guy for real?

As India and Pakistan move to a new trajectory of growth, a favourable regional environment becomes the imperative need. India can learn a lot from the Chinese “technique” of creating synergy between the SCO track and Beijing's bilateral track with the Central Asian capitals — and with Moscow — which till a generation ago were weaned on unalloyed anti-China dogmas of the Soviet era. Indian diplomacy can do one better. It can adapt this “technique” to normalisation with Pakistan — and with China.

India AND Pakistan on growth trajectory?

Seems MKB's only mantra for everything is : follow China, accpet their greatness and make love to Pak which has lots of legitimate needs!

sum · Post by **sum** » 28 Jun 2011 08:58

Will Obama Fall Between Stools?

Obama dwells at length on the “terrorist safe – havens in Pakistan”. And he leaves no one in any doubt that “so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve”. Notice, only those in Pakistani safe havens who “kill us” are the objects of the President’s ire.

In his speech delivered on December 1, 2009 at the Military Academy at West Point, Obama promised an induction of 30,000 additional troops. That surge did take place. So, on the induction of troops Obama was able to keep his word. But on the drawing down of troops? Let us wait and see.

Surely, between now and 2014, another script will be written, most certainly after the results of 2012 election is known.

US diplomats in Islamabad were pretty frank in 2008 – 2009. “It will take atleast 10 years to train the Frontiers Guard.” Clearly all this training was focused on Afghanistan. A more straightforward statement was: “We are here for the long haul”.

This “long haul” becomes quite transparent when you travel in Afghanistan. The huge block which passes for the US embassy in Kabul, with 700 hands, is being doubled. In Mazar-e-Sharif the US Consulate under construction would dwarf large embassies elsewhere. Not quite the looks of folk saddling up to leave!

The current “talk-to-the-Taleban” incantation also resonates differently with ethnic groups and regions. The Rais or the Chief Priest of Mazar-e-Sharif, Atiq Ullah Ansari, abruptly ends his conversation on mystic elements in Hindustani classical music at the very mention of Taleban. Mention Serajuddin Haqqani, Taleban leader in Pakistan, to Hamid Karzai, and he sees red.

Pakistanis insist on inserting themselves as interlocutors with the Taleban, something the entire spectrum of opinion in Afghanistan firmly resists, the Afghan Talebans most of all.

“Talk-to-Taleban” has another dangerous dimension. During my stay in Kabul a riot broke out between the “Hazaras”, a Shia sect and nomadic Pushtoons called Koochis. Where would the Koochis turn for protection – Hamid Karzai or the Taleban who are being projected as the future rulers?

All Taleban are Pushtoons. Further, Pushtoon is synonymous with “Afghan”. Herein lies another potential for future conflict. Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmans constitute 60 percent of the population. Consider the complications.

For instance, any talk of regional conference to address the Afghan problem is anathema to the Taleban (Pushtoon) because Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will never accept Pushtoon dominance. Also, Pushtoon dominance conceptually opens up a cross border Pushtoon link up which is neither totally under the control of Kabul nor of Islamabad.

And yet it need not be a tidy tie up. King Amanullah, greatly influenced by Mustafa Kemal Pasha Ataturk’s strategy of submerging all ethnicities under the over arching Turkish identity, tried to knit a Pushtoon nation by transferring Pushtoons to regions dominated by other identities. Likewise, minorities were transferred to Pushtoon dominated areas. Pushtoons coming on top can lead to retaliation against them in the regions. Ethnic cleansing and civil war could follow.

Outsiders do not notice that history was made in a sense that seers Afghan memory. Daud was the last in the chain of Durranis, the ruling class from among the Pushtoons, who ruled Afghanistan without a break for 200 years. Taraki, who broke this chain, was from another line of Pushtoons called Ghilzais. The Talebans, including, Mullah Omar, are Ghilzais. The Bonn Conference on Afghanistan, proposed a “provisional” government under Karzai, who is a Populzai, from the Durrani line. He was imposed, in a manner of speaking.

Will the Taleban (Pushtoons) of their own free will, settle under a Durrani?

These are just some of the complications. And I haven’t dwelt on Pakistan yet.

Naqvi feels US is going nowhere since Afg will fall apart without them...

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 28 Jun 2011 09:23

Man, oh man, breathtaking arrogance from Jihadi Lodhi

Only by finding common ground with Pakistan and accommodating its interests rather than targeting it can the US really elicit the cooperation it needs for a ‘dignified’ retreat from Afghanistan and the achievement of its strategic objective: defeat of Al-Qaeda.

Imagine her arrogance when India demands that LeT be dismantled. You guessed it, her answer would be "only by accomodating TSP's interests", meaning hand over Kashmir valley on a silver platter for a start. What a sense of entitlement; bloody thugs.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 28 Jun 2011 11:34

Guardian Cartoon

it seems that Steve Bell of the Guardian might be a visitor to BRF... (material is slightly risque)

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 28 Jun 2011 23:43

Two Key Afghanistan Advisers Quit Obama Administration Now That Troop Withdrawal Is Set

Gen. Douglas Lute, currently the White House point man on Afghanistan, and Maj. Gen. Frederick Hodges, head of the Pentagon's Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell, are both stepping down now that the administration has finalized its short-term policy for combat troop withdrawals.Lute, probably the president's closest adviser on the Afghan war, has been one of the most consistently pragmatic voices in the White House in recent years, arguing against the troop levels requested by generals for the 2009 surge, and, more recently, siding with Vice President Joe Biden's call for a speedier drawdown of troops.

The two resignations come just days before the Obama war cabinet is set to undergo its most dramatic change yet. The retirement of Defense Secretary Robert Gates becomes effective Thursday. He will be replaced by current CIA head Leon Panetta, who will himself be replaced Gen. David Petraeus, currently

http://www.businessinsider.com/two-key- ... z1Qb8TLPjB

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 28 Jun 2011 23:59

CRamS wrote:shyamd:

Its stockholm syndrome, or dishonest piskological syndrome I don't know, but it roughly translates to if you can't beat em, join em. Point being that instead of displaying guts and forthrightness to confront TSP on terror, its so easy to say we are also like them onlee (we have col ProHit and they have Hafeez Saeed, they did 26/11, we did Samjotha) and so no harm in being nice and making up and making love. It also makes our leadership look "statesmanlike" to the ruling policemen of the world.

CRamS ji, what do you propose we do wrt 26/11 and TSP?