Afghanistan News & Discussion

[satya]

A major power shift is happening in Great Game being played in Afghantistan btw US and UK on one side against Russia & China and Iran ( wild card ) . I have tried to connect a few articles together to make some sense :

http://www.usiofindia.org/frame.htm

This is from a link of USI where its eminent members visited Russia and below is their assessment of Russian Posture

Code: Select all

[b]Other issues that were raised included :

(a) how far the US policies in Afghanistan were facilitating the reassertion of Pakistani interests in Afghanistan. 
 
(b) The possibility of Pakistan and Afghanistan becoming bases for the US to pursue long-term goals to gain a foothold in Central Asia.
 
(c) The degree to which the US regional policies are being conditioned by efforts to contain China.  
(d) The nature of American, Chinese and Russian competing interests to control Central Asian gas and oil resources.
 
(e) The security role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).  
(f) The role other economic and security organisations, promoted by Russia would play in stabilising the Region. 
(g) Why Russia wants Central Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to cooperate with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
 

[/b]

This was an interesting session which highlighted the Russian military perceptions of the direction in which Indo-Russian security and defence ties were shaping, their particular concern related to the military dimension of the Indo-US relations, in particular US emerging as the main armament supplier to India. It was clarified that India will take an independent decision on arms procurement in relation to its technological and strategic requirements. Other issues included the following :-

(a) SCO appears to be the vehicle through which Russia wants to keep an economically strong China engaged. Russia has a huge border with China but does not have the capacity and capability to defend it.

(b) Russia's own economic might rests only on three pillars namely energy reserves, natural and raw materials and military hardware itself. It does not have any industry and infrastructure to boast of. Its transition from Soviet days to market economy and globalisation has ensured that most of its consumer goods requirements have to be met through imports. China did not shed its communistic hold while opening its markets and got into a massive manufacturing potential and creation of infrastructure in industrial belts along the eastern seaboard. Russia is yet to gain direction and be in a position to boast of any fresh infrastructure or manufacturing capacity.
(c) Exploration of oil and natural gas particularly in Western Siberia is very capital intensive and it needs investment which the Chinese are very eager to provide. Going whole hog with China would, however, be foolhardy. It finds that equal investment from India will provide a safeguard against loosing major control to the Chinese.
(d) Russia perceives numerous pressures from China in the not too distant future, be it population influx or Chinese influence in CAR.
(e) On the issue of arms supply and joint design and development, Russia was keen to maintain existing relationships but continued to harp on Intellectual Property Rights (IPP) related constraints.

Session IV: "Challenges to Peace and Stability in Central Asia-Afghanistan Region in the Coming Decade

This session was devoted to dealing with regional security issues of common concern. The Russians laid great stress on the SCO as a model for multilateral cooperation particularly from the point of view of maintaining military and political stability in Central Asia. Some of the important perspectives emerging out of this session are discussed in subsequent paragraphs.

First and foremost there was a three way power play underway in Central Asia. The American foothold in Central Asia has helped accentuate Western soft power through colour revolutions, friendship for peace programmes etc. Russia, on the other hand has always seen the region as a strategic buffer against outside threats. Consequently, many strategic interests compel Russia to retain Central Asia within its sphere of influence. Further, Russia was attempting to regain its leverages through both bilateral and multilateral instrumentalities such as CSTO and the SCO, apart from a plethora of economic cooperative arrangements. There are four major strategic interests driving Russian interests in CAR. One, transform Central Asia into a politically and economically viable entity that is friendly towards Russia. Second, secure Russian economic interest in the region particularly the regional energy resources including transportation corridors. Third, to counter the threat of religious extremism while encouraging the prevention of drug trafficking and arms smuggling. Fourth, secure the rights of the large Russian diaspora living in the region. China believes that the region holds the key to maintaining momentum of its economic growth as also security of its troubled periphery. Development of economic, political and security relations remain an important construct of its "Look West" policy, for which SCO remains its principal instrument.

Second, there was a growing strategic convergence between China and Russia and increasing isolation of the US – made imminent in the withdrawal of troops from bases in CAR. Nonetheless, the consequence of unease was being felt, both, by political elites of CAR as also Russia and China over the inroads and democratisation drive being made by the US and NATO. Interestingly, despite the utility of the US forces being limited in local political conflicts, the US was in no mood to downgrade its engagement. It was in fact impervious to such involvement.

In contrast, the growing Russian engagement promised investment and creation of a collective security force to deal with internal security issues. This was seen in the attempts at resurrection of CSTO and creation of a standing force to deal with regional conflicts.

China is clearly attempting to enhance its strategic influence, through military cooperation, and infrastructural and trade linkages. It is the leading force in pushing the SCO agenda, transcending to full fledged security outfit with military connotations. It was also seeking bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Some interesting facets of our interaction are discussed below:-

(a) There appeared to be an apprehension in the mind of Russians that growing Indo-US bilateral relations could in the long run impact bilateral arms sale relationship. This correlation is looked upon as the major plank of overall defence relationship. For the Russian military, sustenance of strong buyer and seller relationship appeared important even if these were subsumed within joint production or design and development like the fifth generation transport plane programmes.
(b) Strengthening of bilateral trade and economic relationship was something that was not discussed. They remain Eurocentric in their thinking on trade and related issues. However, in private interaction our Ambassador remained upbeat about the inevitable growth of Indo-Russian trade relations from its present level of close to just over two billion dollars.
(c) On joint exercises and greater military to military interaction, certain amount of reticence was noticed. They appear to be quite impressed by Chinese technological and force modernisation strategies. In private, they acknowledged that while major wars were unlikely, border and regional conflicts are a distinct possibility. Therefore, the current military transformation effort is linked to developing capabilities to fight such wars.
(d) In private conversation they acknowledged the declining edge of their conventional capabilities, which is something they are looking forward to address through structured modernisation programme. Interestingly, great emphasis was placed on nuclear deterrence which was being maintained at relatively advanced levels, inspite of financial constraints.
(e) Prominance was accorded to the SCO as a model of regional cooperation, where the interests of all the three major Asian powers coincide. It appeared that Russia was keen on India coming on board in the regional framework essentially to contain growing Chinese influence.
(f) On the issue of joint Indo-Russian-Chinese interaction, often speculated by media, Russians were categorical that these were unlikely in the near future. However, they were keen to promote such interaction within the framework of the SCO.

1. Russians are counting clearly on China to counterweight US in its expansion in CAR . The recent dip in Indo-Russia relations didnt happen overnite .They started well over 2 years ago as can be gauged from this report since the above visit happend in 2005 !

Note : For Russians arm exports ,its imp. to export arms manufactured in Russia ( Chinese realize this much earlier hence less stress on deep ToT ) unlike India .



http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IL15Ad01.html

China has never been a player in Afghanistan in modern history. Indeed, it is a needless provocation on the part of the Chinese to be so utterly fearless of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. While India prides itself as a major donor for Afghan reconstruction - building roads, bridges, hospitals, a Parliament building and even, intriguingly, public toilets - China marches ahead and wins the tender for the Aynak cooper deposit in Afghanistan's Logar province bordering Kabul, which is billed as one of the world's largest copper mines.

The project involves US$4 billion in investment by China Metallurgical Group, which will be by far the biggest foreign investment in Afghanistan and is estimated to provide employment for 10,000 people. Significantly, the project includes the development of a railway system linking Afghanistan to China. (Nepal also has sought the extension of China's railway system from Lhasa to Kathmandu.)

Beijing-Tehran oil deal
These audacious Chinese are pole-vaulting across the impenetrable Himalayan ranges with merry abandon in their zest to globalize and integrate.

But the mother of all Chinese encirclement of India still remains largely unnoticed in Delhi - the Beijing-Tehran axis. There is wide recognition that if the United States hasn't been able to push through another tougher United Nations Security Council resolution against Iran over its nuclear program, that has been largely because of China's reluctance to concur.

But what happened last Sunday still came as a bolt from the blue. China Petroleum Corporation, better known as the Sinopec Group, signed a contract with the Iranian Oil Ministry for the development of the Yadavaran oil and gas fields in southwestern Iran.

The current estimation is that the project cost will be $2 billion. Under the contract, China will make the entire investment necessary to develop the fields. The first phase is to produce 85,000 barrels of oil per day and the second phase will add another 100,000 barrels. According to Iranian estimates, Yadavaran has in place oil reserves of 18.3 billion barrels and gas reserves amounting to 12.5 trillion cubic feet.

2. Enter Dragon in Afghanistan and Iran opens its doors

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA03Df02.html

Bhutto's death a blow to 'war on terror'

3. US loses a vital card to keep TSP in check against China

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA05Df02.html

A commentator for Stratfor, a think-tank closely linked to the security establishment, says, "In this endgame, all that the Americans want is the status quo in Pakistan. It is all they can get. And given the way US luck is running, they might not even get that."

4. Pawns are being positioned



http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA19Df06.html

When the blame-game begins in an indeterminate war, it is time to sit up and take note. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' interview with the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday rings alarm bells.

5. Too late .

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA29Df02.html

He will be justified in estimating that Washington is desperately keen to regain influence in Tashkent so it can effectively counter Russian and Chinese influence in Central Asia. He sizes up that the medium-term US objective will also be to consolidate a permanent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) presence in Central Asia. In short, the Bush administration has learnt the hard way that Uzbekistan is a key country in Central Asia.

But in immediate terms, US Central Command is badly in need of Tashkent's cooperation for operating a second air corridor to Afghanistan so that the heavy dependence on Islamabad gets somewhat reduced.

6. Fall back option ?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JB06Df01.html

Dostum, who leads the political party Junbish-i-Milli and holds the symbolic post of chief of staff to the commander in chief, has an uncanny knack for appearing on the center stage whenever Afghan politics is at a crossroads. Of course, the most famous instance was in 1990.

That was also in Kabul in another extraordinary tension-filled time when the blame game had already begun, the Soviet Union was on the wane as a superpower, Mohammad Najibullah's regime was on its last legs and the Afghan mujahideen forces were stealthily advancing on their capital city - like the Taliban today. In the summer of that fateful year, Dostum, who was the Praetorian Guard of Najibullah's regime, began negotiating with Ahmad Shah Massoud, blurring enemy lines, possibly with Soviet encouragement, and paved the way for the mujahideen takeover in Kabul. The rest, as they say, is history.

The protagonists of the erstwhile Northern Alliance are coming out of the woodwork. But are they being encouraged to do so? Even though the presidential election is due only in end-2009, an element of uncertainty has gradually come to envelop the Afghan political landscape - the sort of haze that one associates with long sunsets. Former Afghan Interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, who fell out with Karzai, is also being lionized in Western capitals as a potential candidate in the presidential race.

The friends of Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the United Nations and an ethnic Pashtun, have launched an altogether independent campaign sponsoring his candidacy to the post of president. From all appearances, the search has begun for a worthy successor to Karzai.

If i am not wrong trying to connect all these dots plus a few others :

1. Russian supply of nuclear fuel to Iran ( Nov.-Dec )

2. Insurgency in NWFP / Pasthun war of independence

There's a tectonic shift happening in Great Game with far reaching consequences for US , China & Russia . Should Russian-Chinese alliance succeed , it will kick the Anglo-US alliance out of not only CAR but also change the power equation in Persian Gulf with Iranians as major card .

All these reports of Brits talking and training Tailbunnies in Afghanistan is a desparate act not to loose its foothold in Afghtanistan .

If Pasthuns play their card rite , they may alter alter balance in either Chinese or US way ( there was a recent sacking of a Tailbunny commander by one eye Omar )

So far Bear-Dragon have a clear upperhand .

[ramana]

From Nightwatch site:
http://nightwatch.afcea.org/NightWatch_20080206.htm

Afghanistan: At the request of NATO, Germany will replace Norway as the leading nation of the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) in Afghanistan beginning in summer 2008, according to a statement by German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung. Jung said about 200 German combat forces will join the QRF after the handover of a 250-strong Norwegian contingent. The details of the German QRF are still in development, Jung added.


Jung rejected a US request for Germany to increase the size of its contingent and to change its rules of engagement to permit offensive operations. This change will at least give a part of the German force some combat experience, though the QRF is not an offensive force. Germany has about 3,250 forces in northern Afghanistan, the least troubled region.

Tonight’s Good News is that Norway and Denmark will shame Germany by adding soldiers to their contingents. The Danes are part of the British-led Regional Command South and are based in the heart of Taliban country at Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province.

There are 40 or so members of the Coalition in Afghanistan but those doing the fighting are from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia and Romania, about 26,000 soldiers or half the total of foreign forces in Afghanistan, according to the NATO home page.

Comment: Afghanistan needs more forces because the force ratios favor the Taliban. In NightWatch research of nearly 60 internal crises and insurgencies in the past 40 years, force ratios more than any single other factor dictate the outcome of an insurgency.

Many will disagree and cite the need for development projects, or the value of higher weapons technology or the need for programs to win the hearts and minds or at least enlightened self interest of the locals. Even with such programs, the successful counterinsurgencies maintained at least a 10:1 ratio in favor of the combat forces of the forces of order. In Indian Kashmir the ratio is closer to 400: 1. With that ratio India has managed over a 15 year period to reduce the Kashmir Islamic separatist insurgency to a police – law and order --problem.

One of the reasons for high force ratios is that the insurgents in Afghanistan and in Iraq have a different operational tempo than the forces of order. The forces backing the government must patrol every day and must maintain a presence after the combat units clear an area. The insurgents walk to work and to fight and need not fight more than once in three to six months. In fact, good security requires them to not fight often and thus draw attention to their neighborhood.

It takes only 300-500 fighting men to mount 100 attacks in a month or 30 to 50 fighters per day. Those guys can rest most of the rest of the year before their turn in the rotation comes up again. Insurgency in is a leisurely affair. A debriefing of a mortar man captured in Iraq, for example, disclosed that the man fired his mortar twice in a year. He was not lying; he was describing a different optempo. The rest of the year he was a mechanic.

The best estimate NightWatch ever saw was that the Taliban had 8,000 fighters, all part time. That means the Allies, including the Afghan National Army in that term, need 80,000 combat soldiers full time to even stand a chance of reversing Taliban gains. The French experience in Algeria, the British in Malaya and the Japanese experience in fighting the US insurgency in the Philippines in World War II showed that the combat force also requires support by an even larger loyal militia whose duty is to hold cleared ground. The much maligned Afghan police are barely fulfilling that responsibility, as the only government entity with a presence in all of the 398 districts of Afghanistan and often the only government presence in most of them.


NightWatch puzzler: Police are tempted to be corrupt everywhere, as an occupational hazard. If the Afghan police are as bad as outsiders insist, why do they fight the Taliban so often instead of just run away? The police are corrupt, to be sure, but they fought more often and took more casualties in 2007 than any other force working for the government.

In J&K India also faces an enemy at the border. So not all the forces are for counter insurgency. Take a chill.

[Rudranathh]

Turmoil in Pakistan helping NATO in Afghanistan
Fri Feb 8, 2008 4:59am IST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Political turmoil in Pakistan may have stemmed the flow of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters into neighboring Afghanistan, as militants shift their focus to the government of President Pervez Musharraf, U.S. officials say.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress this week that the Pentagon is trying to determine whether a drop in the number of fighters crossing into Afghanistan is a by-product of a suicide bombing campaign in Pakistan run by al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

"They (militants) are now facing the other direction and sending some resources to try and attack, to try and undermine Pakistani stability," Gates told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

The top commander of NATO troops in the eastern region of Afghanistan that borders Pakistan agreed, saying the number of fighters crossing into his area was down due in part to increasing security problems in Pakistan.

"Right now, as far as the infiltration, it's actually been a little bit down lately," Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez said.

"That's due to several reasons. One, of course, is the instability and what's going on in Pakistan and some of the challenges that are going over there, going over in Pakistan."

The reduced flow of fighters -- down as much as 40 percent since November, according to U.S. officials -- could mark a significant opening for the Afghan government, some officials said.

It could allow NATO troops and the Afghan government to bring reconstruction dollars to that area and build loyalty among the local population, they said.

"It does open up a good opportunity," said one U.S. official, adding that development activities could accelerate quickly if al Qaeda and Taliban fighters "leave us alone."

Violence has soared in Afghanistan over the past two years, with the most attacks occurring in the east and south. NATO has about 15,000 troops, mostly Americans, in Afghanistan's east.

DIVIDED OVER ROLE
Still, defense officials are divided over how big a role events in Pakistan are playing in the drop in Afghan border incidents.

Some say they think militant groups in Pakistan shifted their strategic focus away from Afghanistan after Musharraf ordered a bloody crackdown on Islamabad's Red Mosque last summer. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden vowed retaliation over the killing of the mosque's rebel cleric.

The danger to Pakistan's stability was brought home to the Bush administration by the December assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, which Pakistan blames on al Qaeda-linked militant commander Baitullah Mehsud.

But others argue that border crossings and incidents may be down because of winter weather as well as NATO military operations that killed or captured Taliban leaders in 2007.

"My view is different. I think they're down because, you go back to December 2006, the force there is twice the size it was," said U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, in Pakistan.

Officials say they won't know for sure until the spring, when snow-clogged routes through the mountainous border are once again passable. Fighting has traditionally surged then.

"It's getting worse in Pakistan," said Michael Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. "I think it's fair to say. And there's been some turning inward."

[Gus]

Sarkozy is to send French troops to assist Canadian troops in the south following the Canadians threatening to withdraw if they don't get any help.

How realistic is the "west will withdraw from Afg" thinking?

[satya]

How realistic is the "west will withdraw from Afg" thinking?

It took West a century to be back at helm in Afghanistan . Not going to withdraw not knowing when they can be back if at all .

All this talk of NATO expansion eastwards and overtures to India to join NATO in some sort of alliance signals towards long stay .

[Lalmohan]

came across this... seems to be a series of clips from a documentary about british troops on active duty in helmand. real war up close and personal

Ross Kemp in Afghanistan

worth looking through them to get a sense of what's happening on the ground

[Rudranathh]

Afghan conflict solution vital for Asian security

Thu, Feb 14 07:45 PM

New Delhi, Feb 14 (ANI): The growth of extremism in different countries of the Asian continent has been a cause of concern. This was evident at the recently held Tenth Asian Security Conference here.

The instability in Afghanistan is a living example of the emerging security risk, which was debated by security analysts, scholars and diplomats at the conference.

At a special session, which discussed the situation in Afghanistan, analysts, in their research papers, debated Afghanistan's history, rising insurgency, Taliban, governance, drug problem, the role of US and NATO forces in the reconstruction and much more.

Professor Ali Ahmad Jalali, a former Interior Minister of Afghanistan, was concerned that many independent but interlinked actors are challenging the Afghan Government and its international allies.

"Taliban and other insurgents have safe heaven in Pakistan. The entrenchment of extremist forces - al-Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan --actually created a new source of threat not only to Afghanistan but the whole region. Therefore security is a major concern in Afghanistan. To address this, I think, we need unified strategy by the international community" Prof Jalali said.

Afghanistan's major concern is the revitalized Taliban-led insurgency with its stronghold in the southern parts bordering Pakistan.

Reports suggest that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), still has links with the rebels who are creating havoc.

Professor Rasul Baksh Rais of Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan said, "Today, people are fighting in Afghanistan for different reasons; some for Islam, some for ethnicity and some for nationalism and some for being more sovereign than they seemed they are."

Dwelling on developments since 9/11 and the deployment of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Professor Rasul Baksh Rais said that things were not going very well for the coalition forces in Afghanistan, as they have wrong allies.

"American forces have been relying on warlords," Professor Rasul Baksh Rais said.

Over 40,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan have failed to provide security cover to Afghans.

There is apprehension that many member-nations pulling are likely to pull out their troops.

"The key problem is the role of international forces which are insufficient in numbers especially in the south. US is trying to increase its number of forces in the south with marine contingent that is now going to Kandhar. But the Germans, and the Swiss are not providing forces for the South. That is the biggest problem with NATO," said Professor Seth Jones, a political scientist at Rand Corporation, USA.

Many participants spoke of the achievements of the Government of Afghanistan. The war-torn country has been able to rebuild its state institutions. Afghanistan has adopted a modern constitution, created national security institutions, improved women's rights and expanded its educational facilities.

Since 1999, when the conference was first held, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) has become an important forum for debating issues relating to Asian security.

[svinayak]

How realistic is the "west will withdraw from Afg" thinking?

It took West a century to be back at helm in Afghanistan . Not going to withdraw not knowing when they can be back if at all .

All this talk of NATO expansion eastwards and overtures to India to join NATO in some sort of alliance signals towards long stay .

They need troops from the local region to do the job. This is one form of neo-colonialism. After the end of colonialism the major powers are able to justify their intervention because of anarchy. But it also needs manpower to keep the region under status quo.

They are not sure of India - if India wants to be in their camp.

[ramana]

What modernization and globalization have done is to reassert the force of demographics. Its no longer possible to hold colonial positions without demographics. Acharya is right in calling this neo-colonialism masked as globalization. And like the former wont work without collobarators. Unfortunately the collaborators have figured out the game and the price they want to pay is too little.

[satya]

If so then west definitely wants India to act both as firefighter and fire-catalyst in Afghanistan . I cant think of any other nation tht fits this definition.

But wht if India refuses ? Is there a long term alternative ( if tailbunnies and co. fill the void for near to medium term ) ?

[Rudranathh]

Governor of Kandahar accuses Canadian troops for latest suicide attack

Feb 19 : In Afghanistan, Governor of Kandahar Asadullah Khalid accused the Canadian troops for the latest suicide attack in the province in which over 35 people were killed.

Khalid said the Canadians did not heed to his warnings and went on a patrol at Spin Boldak bordering Pakistan when a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into the convoy killing many civilians and local police.

This is the second suicide attack in 24 hours in Kandahar. Sunday's attack on the outskirts of the Kandahar city, killed more than 100 people and injured as many people.

Meanwhile security all around the national capital Kabul had been tightened with barricades put up at several places and traffic diverted with reports of an imminent suicide attack.

Police and Security forces are running extra patrols and most of the vehicles are being searched especially in the diplomatic area.

[Rahul Shukla]

Helicopter carrying Sen. Kerry, Biden and Hagel makes emergency landing in Afghanistan. (MSNBC)

[Sanjay M]

Too bad the senators didn't crashland in Korengal:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/25/ ... istant.php

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/0 ... index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=587BoPsTHa4

[Sanjay M]

Here's an interesting interview with Sarah Chayes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX5rV3EaRrM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76h3P3vYZ5Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEqfT5JqPu8

Note her comments on Pak.
Obviously Afghan govt aren't very rosy either.
Too bad India is stuck with "allies" like these. Motley crew.

[Sanjay M]

Here's another good piece by the CBC, featuring British forces:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm1bpwDzfQg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEK9bIEMDUs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE1rAriw-IY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGyRco6TxmI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dEviyiGIzU

[Sanjay M]

Americans Sometimes Reduced to Using Captured Weapons

[Sanjay M]

Taliban Knock Down More Cell Towers

[Sanjay M]

Russia to Offer NATO a Route into Afghanistan

Good, that will make them less captive to Pak's whims and demands

[shyamd]

President Hamid Karzai plans to call on militia's to help restore security in Afghanistan. The Afghan army itself counts only 30,000 troops instead of the 86,000 it was supposed to number by the end of 2007. Organising the Afghan National Army(ANA) into five army corps has fallen largely behind time and the government’s inability to meet with its targets both with regards organization and training has prompted president Hamid Karzai to resume talks with local warlords.

[Sanjay M]

Afghan Cellphone Co's Bow to Taliban Threats With Curfew

[Omar]

Emirati troops help win Afghan minds

Posting in full

The BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, can reveal that Arab soldiers have been taking part in dangerous missions alongside US troops in Afghanistan.

Troops from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been delivering humanitarian aid to their fellow Muslims and, on occasion, fighting their way out of Taleban ambushes. Though Jordanian forces have been carrying out some base security duties, the UAE's troops are the only Arab soldiers undertaking full-scale operations in the country.

Until now, their deployment has been kept so secret that not even their own countrymen knew they were here.


In a windowless room, surrounded by sandbags, the Emirati patrol commander briefs his troops for tomorrow's mission: a hearts-and-minds visit to an Afghan village.



We try to convince the people about the US, about British. They came here to give you peace.


His troops are dressed in desert fatigues, topped with sand-coloured shemaghs, the traditional wrap-around headdress of the Gulf.

When the patrol moves out through the mountain valleys, it looks exactly like any other convoy from the US-led coalition.

The Emiratis are on their guard, wary of ambush, alert for roadside bombs.


At the last minute, the village they had originally planned to visit was deemed too dangerous: the Americans could not guarantee to provide air cover.

So they travel instead to one they have been to before, to hand out gifts and discuss what projects need building.

As fellow Muslims, they get a warm reception from the villagers.

"At first I thought these were American soldiers and I wanted them to leave but when they said they were Muslims I knew they were our brothers," a young Afghan man says.

Hajji Fazlullah, another Afghan villager, says: "The Arab troops come in our country and our village, we are very happy."

Riot risk

Of course, these are not the only coalition troops giving out aid to Afghans. But what is really winning hearts and minds is the Islamic connection.


The Arabs use a shared Islamic faith to bond with the Afghans

In a sunlit courtyard, a small boy recites the Koran from memory, watched by his proud father, and by the UAE's Maj Ghanem Al-Mazroui.

Unlike most western military officers, he has spent over two years getting to know these villagers, eating and praying with them.

But handing out humanitarian aid in Afghanistan is not as easy as it sounds.

As the crowd builds up rumour spreads that there is not enough to go round and people surge forward.

The Afghan police wade in, pushing and hitting the villagers.

More than once, Maj Ghanem has to restrain them. Without sensitive handling, the situation could easily descend into a riot.

There is even a scramble for the empty cardboard boxes.

But eventually the Arab troops manage to restore order and they leave without a shot being fired.

'Here to help'

Still, it is going to come as a surprise to most people that for the last five years, an Arab Muslim army has been operating here in Afghanistan, alongside the Americans as part of the coalition.


Afghans seem to respond well to UAE troops efforts' to help them

So I asked Maj Ghanem whether he was worried about how some people in the Arab world might react to this.

"We have an answer for that. Even if you are asking back in the UAE or in the Gulf, or you asking here, we have the same answer," he said.

"We make a contract with the US Army to help the people down here, not to fight".

But I put it to him that in fact his troops have been fighting insurgents as well as handing out aid.

"If we have any types of personal attacks we react with fire. And after that we go to the elders in this area: 'Why are you shooting us? We came here to help you.

"'If you have the same picture of all coalition forces, we are different. We came here to help you.'

"And we try to convince the people about the US, about British. They came here to give you peace."

Blueprint for Afghanistan

The man who kick-started the Arab humanitarian effort in Afghanistan five years ago is Hamad al-Shamsi, the UAE's humanitarian aid co-ordinator.

A devout Muslim, a father of 10, and a former fighter pilot, he has been travelling all over Afghanistan, often at great personal risk.


The UAE troops in convoy look much like the other coalition forces

He believes his country's efforts are smoothing a path for the rest of the coalition.

"If we are visiting [somewhere] like this village and we do some service for them, then the coalition will know when they are approaching that there is somebody from their side who is coming here who has done something for us," Mr Shamsi says.

"So the relations will be easier than if they come directly with no first approach".

His words are born out by some of the Afghans we meet, including Governor Merajudeen Patan, who was instrumental in getting UAE's money invested in the troubled province of Khost.

"People are not afraid that Emiratis will harm their religion, or disrespect the mosque or burn the mosque, things of this nature," Governor Patan says.

"People are very friendly with them. Everybody will drag them in for lunch or for dinner."

These are hearts-and-minds operations at their most effective - drinking tea with Afghans, discussing what help can be provided.

The Emirati approach is to meet their fellow Muslims' religious needs first, then build schools and clinics later.
But for this to have a wider, lasting, and national effect, the blueprint would need to be repeated and expanded by others, many times over and throughout Afghanistan.

And that is not likely to happen in the near future.

[Gerard]

Indian soaps face Afghanistan ban

[Vivek_A]

Border Complicates War in Afghanistan
Insurgents Are Straddling Pakistani Line

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2008; A01

SPERA DISTRICT, Afghanistan -- As a cold darkness enveloped the tiny U.S. military camp just inside Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, word spread that Taliban fighters were on the move nearby, planning an attack.

Capt. Chris Hammonds expected it. In a mud-brick command center, the 32-year-old Army Ranger pivoted between a radio and a map, tracking reports of approaching Taliban. Several explosions soon ripped through the night as U.S. forces hit the suspected Taliban positions, including a cross-border guided-munitions strike on a compound about a mile inside Pakistan where senior associates of Siraj Haqqani -- considered one of the most dangerous Taliban commanders -- were thought to be meeting.

The U.S. military usually strikes across the border only when taking accurate fire from Pakistan, and standard practice calls for informing the Pakistani military about threats from its side. But Hammonds argued that the Pakistani military checkpoint was "under siege" from the Taliban and that Pakistani officers -- fearful of retaliation -- could tip off the insurgents.

The rare strike averted an imminent Taliban attack, Hammonds said, but across the border a starkly different account emerged. "Two women and two children got killed, so whatever was assessed was not correct," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistani army. No Taliban were meeting in the family compound, he said. The Pakistani government issued a protest, and demonstrations erupted. "We were never informed about the strike," Abbas said. "This has serious implications for operations."

The March 12 incident highlights how, more than six years into the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, efforts to stabilize the country increasingly focus on the rugged frontier area straddling the border with Pakistan. Over the past 18 months, Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters have exploited peace deals by Pakistan's government to create an unprecedented haven in the region, U.S. officials said. From there, insurgents have escalated attacks in Pakistan and in eastern Afghanistan, leading the United States last year to double its troop presence along more than 600 miles of frontier.

Recent high-level talks among the three countries have called for more intelligence-sharing and coordinated operations along the border. Last Saturday, the first of six new border coordination centers -- with officers from the three nations -- opened at Torkham at the Khyber Pass, a "giant step" forward, said Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan.

But despite such efforts, front-line commanders such as Hammonds still grapple with key obstacles -- including unreliable Afghan and Pakistani soldiers, ambivalent villagers, and even disputes over where the true border lies. Commanders said they need at least 50 percent more U.S. troops and more reconstruction money. At current levels, they said, it will take at least five years to quell insurgent attacks, which increased nearly 40 percent in eastern Afghanistan last year, including a 22 percent rise in attacks along the border.

"This combat outpost will get attacked within the next week or so, with rockets or small-arms fire," said Hammonds, commander of Attack Company, 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment. "They can't stand that we are in this location."

The U.S. outpost -- which Hammonds and his forces set up a month ago in an insurgent safe house nicknamed the "Taliban Hotel" -- is part of an effort to stem the flow of fighters moving along routes from Pakistan's North and South Waziristan and other Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Collaboration is growing between Taliban commanders in Afghanistan such as Haqqani, who has tribal roots in Paktika province, and Pakistanis such as Baitullah Mehsud, a commander in South Waziristan who is reorganizing the Taliban with help from agents in Pakistan's intelligence service, according to U.S. military officials. Mehsud, the CIA has said, is responsible for the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December.

Taliban fighters and facilitators plan and resupply in Waziristan towns and then move across the border to launch attacks as far inside Afghanistan as Kabul. Overall attacks in eastern Paktika province rose about 30 percent last year, and have more than quadrupled since 2003, according to military data. Attacks by improvised explosive devices have risen tenfold since 2003, and suicide bombings, unseen before 2006, numbered seven last year.

"The threat of suicide-borne IEDs and IEDs are everywhere. It's far more significant than in the past," said Lt. Col. Michael Fenzel, commander of the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Roadside bombs killed 10 of the battalion's 12 soldiers lost since May. The insurgents "have an IED division, a suicide-bombing division, and everything else supports those two things," he said.

Throughout last fall and winter, Fenzel's battalion conducted operations in eastern Paktika and southern Khowst province to establish closer ties with villagers and to help block the influx of fighters with the spring thaw. His troops are building several outposts, already pushing the fighting closer to the border and away from populated areas.

A new outpost two miles from Afghanistan's border with South Waziristan has drawn a large volume of mortars, rockets and small-arms fire away from a base in a large town farther inland. On the night of Nov. 24, Capt. Rob McChrystal recalled, he and his infantry company were manning the outpost when scores of Taliban converged on them. McChrystal, of Charleston, S.C., said he waited until the insurgents came within 200 yards before he attacked with artillery and aircraft fire.

"I expect a lot more of the same this spring," he said. "They'll attempt another direct-fire attack because the [outpost] is a thorn in their side."

In the latest operation, in the Kowchun Valley just north of Paktika, Hammonds's company staked out a position above a narrow streambed that snakes through a gorge into North Waziristan, the scene of dozens of firefights between U.S. troops and the Taliban. From his base, Hammonds can see for miles into Pakistan. Haqqani "is extremely upset and can't get anything through," said Fenzel, citing U.S. intelligence.

But because of a shortage of U.S. troops, Hammonds's company can stay in the area only for several weeks. He doubts that Afghan and Pakistani soldiers will be able to control the route once he leaves.

"You're in the middle of an ANA mutiny," Hammonds said one afternoon, referring to the Afghan National Army, as Afghan soldiers from the 203rd Battalion piled into pickup trucks and quit the camp. The Afghans left after learning that the operation, originally to last nine days, would continue for weeks. The exodus underscored Hammonds's belief that Afghan army units cannot guard the border because they rotate every three to six months and they lack enough local knowledge. "The key to securing the border is to remove the ANA completely," he said.

Instead, Hammonds favors the Afghan border police, but eastern Paktika now has only 66 percent of its 857 authorized border police officers and, until December, they were led by a corrupt commander who colluded with the Taliban.

A greater frustration, he and other U.S. troops said, is that they cannot trust their Pakistani counterparts. "The Pakistan military is corrupt and lets people come through," Hammonds said. Pakistani forces reportedly told insurgents the location of his observation post, and when U.S. troops in a firefight call the Pakistani military for help, he said, "they never answer the phone."

Pakistan's Frontier Corps, which mans several border checkpoints, is viewed as nearly an enemy force. "The Frontier Corps might as well be Taliban. . . . They are active facilitators of infiltration," said a U.S. soldier who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Last May, after Maj. Larry J. Bauguess Jr. of the 82nd Airborne Division attended a meeting to ease frictions between Afghan and Pakistani forces in the Pakistani frontier town of Teri Mengel, he was shot dead by a Frontier Corps guard, military officials said. The U.S. military in Pakistan is funding a multimillion-dollar program to train and equip the Frontier Corps.

U.S. troops face a mixed reception as they offer aid and seek intelligence from local villagers. In the town of Potsmillah, residents spat at Hammonds's soldiers, while in Sra Kunda, they accepted shoes, prayer rugs and offers of a new porch for their mosque.

But in the Kowchun Valley, where there are few roads and no electricity or schools, villagers are loyal to their tribes, which straddle the border. Sra Kunda's 50 families survive by gathering wood and selling it in Pakistan, or tending meager plots of rain-watered wheat. Residents keep Pakistani time on their watches, use Pakistani rupees and frequent markets across the border. "We don't know whether we're from Pakistan or Afghanistan," said Nakib Balibi, 18. "So we just go on Pakistan time."

[Dilbu]

Afghan govt bans 'un-Islamic' Indian serials

The Afghanistan government has ordered private TV stations in the war-ravaged country to stop broadcasting popular Indian soap operas by April 15, a move that apparently reflected the growing influence of hardliners who criticised the serials as being 'un-Islamic'.

A spokesman for Afghanistan's Culture and Information Ministry said the decision followed a meeting with Parliamentarians and clerics. He said there were numerous complaints about the shows, BBC News reported.

There are six Indian soap operas running in Afghanistan, providing vital revenue for TV stations, but they have been criticised for being un-Islamic by hardliners in the country.

Several private Afghan TV channels, including Tolo, Ariana and Shamshad, broadcast the Indian soap operas dubbed in Pashto and Persian.

The first Indian serial to be aired in Afghanistan was the hit soap opera Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, which was launched by Tolo channel in 2005. Among other Indian soaps aired in Afghanistan are Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki and Kasauti Zindagi Ki.

Afghan Information and Culture Minister Abdul Karim Khurram has said that action will be taken against TV channels that do not stop airing the Indian serials by April 15.

Afghanistan's Parliament recently passed a resolution seeking to bar TV programmes from showing dancing and other practices that are un-Islamic.

The Afghan government's move came days after Tolo channel showed men and women dancing together at a movie awards ceremony.

The Afghan channels often blur images of statues of Hindu gods in the Indian serials and even the uncovered necks and shoulders of actresses.

Afghan clerics have also objected to a pop music programme titled Hop and Afghan Star, the local version of American Idol. Hardline clerics have alleged that beaming of the soap operas was part of a 'conspiracy by infidels' to convert Afghans to Hinduism and told the government to act against TV channels airing Indian serials.

[Rudradev]

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2008/04/10

This morning on the Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC, New York Public Radio) they were talking about worldwide food shortages and the implications for governance, law-and-order, etc.

At the end of the segment (visit the link above, scroll down till you see the heading "Rice Riots", and listen to it from the player there) was something very interesting.

An Afghan woman called into the show to say that even though Afghanistan is facing an acute food shortage, the new Paki govt. has blocked the entry of food trucks into Afghanistan as a means of bringing political pressure on the Karzai government.

Even while she is on the phone, one filthy lying Pakpig calls into the show. Brian Lehrer, being an equal-equal NPR host, puts the Pakpig on the air along with the Afghan woman.

The Pakpig tries to make the claim that no no no, Pakistan is only preventing food trucks from leaving its own territory because it has its own food shortages and the government has clamped down on exporting food, it is nothing to do with political pressure, etc. etc. Unfortunately there was no one to contradict him.

Apparently these filthy Paki pieces of dung, who would cry bloody murder if India abrogated the Indus water treaty, are actually using food shortages as a weapon against the Afghan people.

It seems that these swine, who claim helplessness to control cross-border transit even as they aid, abet, fund and facilitate the movement of Taliban terrorists and weapons, are perfectly capable of stopping the passage of food trucks across that same border.

[satya]

first visit to India by an Afghan defense minister in over 20 years.

In managing the Kashmir insurgency, India is one of the few countries, possibly the only country, in the past quarter century to reduce an insurgency to a law and order problem. It is the only country to do this to an Islamic terrorist insurgency. Thus, it has abundant experience to share. Among the key lessons the Indians might teach Minister Wardak is that success requires the full cooperation of neighboring states; requires about 400 mobile combat and stationary security personnel for every insurgent to secure the gains of counterinsurgency sweeps … and almost 20 years if the population is hostile.

India along with Iran assisted the Afghan Northern Alliance in preventing the Taliban from controlling the non-Pashtun tribes in central and northern Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001. Its leaders remain determined to help prevent a Taliban comeback, but will not provide aid that could be construed as building an Indian military threat to Pakistan from Afghanistan. Most of its assistance has been humanitarian and civil construction.

Nevertheless, some arch-nationalists in Pakistan remain wary of any Indian involvement in what they consider their strategic rear. For now, the new Pakistan government has more pressing concerns.

[Kalantak]

A blast has occurred in southern aghanistan, Indian engineers are said to be injured.

More news awaited.

[shyamd]

NDTV reporting 5 BRO personel injured

[Gerard]

Afghan suicide blast kills 3 Indians, 1 Afghan

[Tilak]

US think tank urges India to tailor Afghan policy to Pak situation
10/4/2008 7:38:19 PM(IST)

Washington, DC: A leading Washington, DC think tank, which is a repository for erstwhile senior administration officials and policymakers, has called on India to ''tailor its Afghan policy to the new situation in Pakistan' in order to alleviate the decades-long competing strategic agendas between New Delhi and Islamabad vis-a-vis Afghanistan.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a report titled India and Pakistan in Afghanistan: Hostile Sports, said that if New Delhi 'can find even modest ways of working in harmony with the Pakistani government, it could reap substantial benefits in its relations with both countries', even as it acknowledged that the new 'great game' may continue, 'but it will be more of chess, less of tug-of-war'.


The report said that besides the deep cultural and historic ties with Afghanistan that both India and Pakistan have had for decades, there had been competing strategic agendas.

'For India, Afghanistan was an important albeit passive geopolitical on Pakistan, as well the gateway to Central Asia. Pakistan saw Afghanistan as part of a threatening Indian pincer movement, a source of fuel for Pushtun separatism inside Pakistan, and during the Taliban years, a source of 'strategic depth' against the Indian threat,' the report stated.

The report said that the Indian presence in Afghanistan has 'stoked Pakistan's fears', and Islamabad believes that 'the Indian consulates provide cover for Indian intelligence agencies to run covert operations against Pakistan'.

It said that in recent years, 'Pakistan has accused India of intriguing in collusion with the Afghan ministry of tribal affairs and the Afghan intelligence agencies to fund and arm rebels of the Baloch Liberation Army, who are carrying out a separatist insurgency in Pakistan'.

The report recalled that when Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Pakistan in 2007, President Musharraf had 'presented him maps of locations with suspected Indian activity and urged him to rein in the Indians'.

'Pakistan's fears of encirclement by India,' it added, 'have been compounded by the Indian Air Force's new facility in Farkhor, Tajikistan, which may house MI-17 helicopter gunships. The air base follows up on hospital and logistics depot constructed by the Indians in the region some years ago'.

Iraq snubbed Britain and calls US into Basra battle
April 10, 2008

Relations between Britain and Iraq suffered “catastrophic failureâ€

[Kalantak]

The Indians hurt in the suicide blast by islamic terrorists are being shifted to an hospital in Iran.

Latest investigations reveal that the suicide bombers were pakistanis and there were atleast 2 of them and both spoke punjabi and knew no pastho.

[shyamd]

India running out of options in Afghanistan
[quote]14 Apr 2008, 0231 hrs IST,Rajeev Deshpande,TNN
NEW DELHI: India’s vulnerability in Afghanistan, where it has launched a major effort to be part of the stabilisation process, has been cruelly exposed by Saturday’s suicide attack on a BRO convoy with a resurgent Taliban threatening New Delhi’s hard-won gains in the land-locked nation.

With developments in Afghanistan having a direct bearing on India’s security situation, the killing of two engineers and injury to five workers is a grim reminder that New Delhi’s toehold in the region remains quite precarious. Maintaining a presence amid highly unsettled conditions is becoming a taxing task for India.

The Afghanistan outreach is part of India’s bid to ensure that it did not get locked out of the region as was the case when Pakistan’s ISI used the area to achieve “strategic depthâ€

[ramana]

One thing to understand till 1584 when Akbar lost Kandahar, the frontiers of ancient and medieval India were with Persia and not the modern truncated borders.

[satya]

Musharraf asks SCO to play active role in Afghanistan

Musharraf apparently has encouraged Russia and China to assert interests in Afghanistan, a neighboring country. The media coverage did not disclose whether he had approval from Afghan or NATO authorities.

In my previous posts , i have tried to connect dots where Russia in alliance with China wants to assert control over Afghanistan . This news seem only to verify tht hypothesis.

[satya]

Aghanitan political moves

Agence France-Presse reported today that a committee in Afghanistan's Islamist-dominated parliament has written a draft law that would impose Taliban-style restrictions on clothing, media broadcasts, video games and weddings, among other strictures, banning activities considered "against Islamic morals." The bill needs to pass both houses of parliament and be signed by President Hamid Karzai to become law.



The Associated Press reported that a parliamentary opposition group spokesman said its leaders, who include parliament member and former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, have been meeting with the Taliban and other anti-government groups in hopes of negotiating an end to rising violence in Afghanistan. The contacts have taken place between leaders of the opposition National Front and "high level" militant leaders during the last few months, party spokesman Sayyid Agha Hussain Fazel Sancharaki said in an interview on 13 April.



Rabbani said Afghanistan's six-year war must be solved through talks, echoing a view held by many in the country. "There's no doubt that some inside the Taliban are not willing to negotiate, but there are some Taliban who are interested in solving problems through talks," Rabbani was Afghanistan's president from 1992 until 1996, when the Taliban ousted him and he fled to Pakistan.



The Taliban denied contacts are taking place.



The two items are manifestations of widely held attitudes in the Afghan political elite: that as an Islamic republic, Afghanistan should enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic practices and that the Taliban will negotiate.



Both the parliament and the Supreme Court of Afghanistan and most of the rural Pashtun village leaders and imams favor and practice fundamentalist Islamic observances. They are not much different in this from the Taliban who are the product of the strict religious observances in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As long as Karzai is President a Taliban-style Islamic emirate will not be legislated. However, the strength of these views six years after the ouster of the Taliban attests to their permanence.


The Taliban could find amnesty and welcome in a fundamentalist regime in Kabul of the kind that the parliamentary committee envisions, but they would never accept partnership except as an expedient and avenue for complete takeover. Involvement in talks would be consistent with one of the three pillars of the Taliban survival strategy: infiltrating the government to subvert it; keeping up the fight in the field; and outlasting the Westerners while waiting in Pakistan for them to tire and leave.



Rabbani and company are maneuvering to undermine Karzai in advance of the next presidential election in 2009. They are primarily interested in building constituencies and causing defections from Karzai’s base. However, mismanagement and the inability of the Rabbani and his fellow opposition leaders to build a functioning government -- which ultimately degenerated into lawlessness and civil war -- were the proximate causes for the formation and broad appeal of the Taliban in 1995 and 1996 – to stop the lawlessness.


If the Taliban enter talks, their purpose is to take power from within. They already beat Rabbani once.

[ramana]

X-Posted...

If only India had the foresight to send a few thousand soldiers to Afghanistan. More diplomatic support for all.

There has been noise lately that evil yindoos of the 15th Corps (Srinagar) are going to be training the Afghan Army and the IAF's Western Air Command will train the Afghan Air Force personnel. A good start that is a few years too late.

Also, one of the conditions for Pakistan's fake cooperation in WOT/GOAT was that India's footprint in Afghanistan will be very 'limited' and preferably non-existent. So, a major SDRE deployment in Afghanistan depends on NATO willingness to seriously piss off Pakistan. That may happen when NATO logistics reach Afghanistan through Russia instead of NWFP.

But the real issue is that Afghanistan is stable only as long as Uncle+NATO are there. Once they leave/draw down, ISI+Napak Army will go right back to shafting their pious Islamic bretheren for 'strategic depth' and peace, progress and welfare of Afghans be damned.

Given the desperation of Obama/Hillary to draw down forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, yindoos do have a few foreign policy cards up their sleeve that may prove critical to the success of any such initiative and spell the doom for Pakistan IF uncle wants to really fix the problem. Alternatively, Billary might just surrender Afghanistan to Pakistani army under 'assurances' of restoring peace and call it a foreign policy success. But then she better get out of NY and move to Montana because JDAM will be coming to NY - courtesy of Islamabad but sponsored by Dupleecity...

Yindoo options in Afghanistan were limited during GB-deux's terms in office due to Uncle's reliance on Pakistan. Now there is a change of guard in Washington and India and Russia is possibly back in the game. Yindoos need to wait and see which side the camel sits on before announcing major policy descisions wrt Afghanistan.

However, that doesn't mean we can't play the dirty game on our side of the fence in the meantime! Only if someone really chanakyan gets elected this time, times will be so good...

[ramana]

One more report from Nightwatch

[quote]
Afghanistan: The Taliban official web site this week contains numerous references to “The Lessonâ€

[Sanjay M]

Son of Dutch Defense Chief Killed in Taliban Bomb Attack

[Gerard]

Afghan Commandos Emerge

[Kalantak]

India committed to the reconstruction of Afghanistan

Apr 19, 2008

Notwithstanding militants' attacks on its nationals in Afghanistan, India said it was committed to the reconstruction of the war ravaged nation.

"Our commitment is quite clear. I think what is important in Afghanistan is we should not look at it as a mere law and order situation," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said at the India Global Forum.

Noting that India has committed over 850 million dollars in terms of assistance to Afghanistan, he said the real challenge for the international community is to enable creation of plural group and a stable society and economy in the restive nation.

"We have presence all over Afghanistan -- almost 4,000 Indians working there," Menon said pointing out that India's work in Afghanistan is truly crucial for the international effort.

On Sri Lanka, Menon said India wanted to help the situation in the island nation to create an involvement conducive for a negotiated political settlement without interfering in its internal affairs.

"We haven't succeeded yet and we will keep trying. The way forward, I think, is to keep trying to create an environment but we cannot be seen as trying to interfere in the internal politics," he said.