Bharat Rakshak

The BRF argument is that when Afghanistan is done, as it will be shortly, the Taliban will turn on the Pakistan Army and the people of Pakistan, and that will be the end of Pakistan.

ramana wrote:The big picture is the US wants to close or reduce its war with Islamism. The questionis will the Islamists allow it or see this as a victory and move into new areas?

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Agencies
Posted: Jul 23, 2010 at 1209 hrs IST

Washington In a move against the Haqqani network, the US has slapped financial sanctions against three top Taliban leaders, including Nasiruddin Haqqani, a brother of key Taliban leader Sirajudin Haqqani.

The sanctions announced by the Department of Treasury, besides Nasiruddin also target Gul Agha Ishakzai, a top aide of the outlawed organisation's chief Mullah Omar and Amir Abdullah, former treasurer to senior Taliban leader Mullah Baradar.

The move could be a big setback to Pakistan army which has been cozying up to President Hamid Karzai to involve the Haqqani faction in the proposed new set-up in Afghanistan, post US and NATO withdrawal from the country.

The Treasury Department's step will freeze the assets of these militants, ban their travel and trigger an arms embargo. The action comes after a senior Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee called for sanctions against the Haqqani network.

Together with US sanctions, the new action prohibits any financial transaction of these terror leaders in member countries of the UN, which is likely to put pressure on Pakistan to initiate operation against the group.

"The sanctions placed on the three leaders as terrorists would deprive them of the assets they need to fund the terror operations," said Adam Szubin, Director, Office of Foreign Assets Control.

"We will continue to aggressively work to expose and dismantle the financial networks of terrorist groups in support of the President's goal of a stable Afghanistan," Szubin said.

Ishakzai is the head of the Taliban's financial commission and is part of a recently-created Taliban council that coordinates the collection of zakat from Baluchistan Province. He has collected money for suicide attacks in Kandahar and has been involved in the disbursement of funds for Taliban fighters and their families.

A childhood friend of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, Gul Agha has served as Omar's principal finance officer and one of his closest advisors. He lived in the presidential palace with Omar during Taliban rule, served as his personal financial secretary and was one of Omar's closest advisors.

At one time, individuals were not permitted to meet with Mullah Omar unless approved by Gul Agha. Gul Agha traveled in late 2006 to obtain weapon parts and in December 2005 facilitated the movement of people and goods to Taliban training camps in Iran.

Amir Abdullah has served as treasurer to senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Barader and was the former deputy to the Taliban governor of Kandahar Province. Abdullah has traveled to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to fundraise and collect money for the Taliban, the Treasury said.

In 2001, Abdullah helped many senior Taliban members who fled Afghanistan to settle in Pakistan. Abdullah also facilitates communication for Taliban leadership and coordinates high-level meetings at the guesthouse of his Karachi residence.

Nasiruddin Haqqani is a key leader of the Haqqani network, the Treasury said. He is the brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, previously designated by US in March 2008.

Nasiruddin functions as an emissary for the Haqqani network and spends much of his time raising money.

From at least 2005 to 2009, Nasiruddin collected funds for the Haqqani network, including during a 2008 fundraising trip to a Gulf state and during regular travel to the (UAE) in 2007.

As of mid-2007, Haqqani reportedly received funding from donations from the Gulf region, drug trafficking, and payments from al-Qa'ida. In 2004, he traveled to Saudi Arabia with a Taliban associate to raise funds for the Taliban. Also in 2004, Haqqani provided funds to militants in Afghanistan for the purpose of disrupting the Afghan presidential election.

PANJSHIR VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN -- The man who served as President Hamid Karzai's top intelligence official for six years has launched an urgent campaign to warn Afghans that their leader has lost conviction in the fight against the Taliban and is recklessly pursuing a political deal with insurgents.

In speeches to small groups in Kabul and across northern Afghanistan over the past month, Amarullah Saleh has repeated his belief that Karzai's push for negotiation with insurgents is a fatal mistake and a recipe for civil war. He says Karzai's chosen policy endangers the fitful progress of the past nine years in areas such as democracy and women's rights.

"If I don't raise my voice we are headed towards a crisis," he told a gathering of college students in Kabul.

That view is shared by a growing number of Afghan minority leaders who once participated fully in Karzai's government, but now feel alienated from it. Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek politicians have expressed increasing concern that they are being marginalized by Karzai and his efforts to strike a peace deal with his fellow Pashtuns in the insurgency.

India has a major role in Afghanistan: U.S.

Mr. Holbrooke also spoke of the “red lines” that would be observed in integrating militant groups and, in an interview to a private TV channel, ruled out accommodating the Haqqani network.

This is music to Indian ears since South Block believes that the group led by Jalaluddin Haqqani (now by his son Sirajuddin) has been close to the Al-Qaeda and other Wahabi groups since the 1980s when it was heavily patronised by the CIA and the ISI and lionised as the “noble savage.” Since then the U.S. has announced a reward on Jalaluddin and killed his sister and a son in separate drone strikes.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/07/23/stories ... 921400.htm

Recent moves by Afghanistan and Pakistan to improve their once-frosty relationship have prompted deep concern in other countries in the region and led some to consider strengthening ties to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's political rivals.e U.S. government considers the Afghan-Pakistan overtures essential to combating insurgencies wracking both nations. But India, Iran and Afghanistan's northern neighbors fear that they are a step toward fulfilling Karzai's desire to negotiate with Taliban leaders and possibly welcome some of them into the government. These nations believe that Karzai's plans could compromise their security and interests by lessening the influence of Afghanistan's Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic minorities with whom they have cultivated close links, diplomats and government officials say. The apprehension, voiced pointedly by senior Indian officials in interviews this week, has emerged as yet another challenge for the U.S. government as it seeks to encourage new initiatives to stabilize Afghanistan while minimizing fallout on the already tense relationship between India and Pakistan. In an attempt to assuage those concerns, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, traveled here Wednesday to meet with India's national security adviser and foreign secretary. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, arrived Thursday for two days of meetings with top military and civilian leaders.

Dilbu wrote:Unkil cannot cut and run that easily from Afghanistan as some of us might be thinking. Unkil is neck deep in af-pak with mounting body count because it serves a purpose.

Prem wrote:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03316.html
NEW DELHI --

Recent moves by Afghanistan and Pakistan to improve their once-frosty relationship have prompted deep concern in other countries in the region and led some to consider strengthening ties to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's political rivals. The U.S. government considers the Afghan-Pakistan overtures essential to combating insurgencies wracking both nations. But India, Iran and Afghanistan's northern neighbors fear that they are a step toward fulfilling Karzai's desire to negotiate with Taliban leaders and possibly welcome some of them into the government. These nations believe that Karzai's plans could compromise their security and interests by lessening the influence of Afghanistan's Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic minorities with whom they have cultivated close links, diplomats and government officials say. The apprehension, voiced pointedly by senior Indian officials in interviews this week, has emerged as yet another challenge for the U.S. government as it seeks to encourage new initiatives to stabilize Afghanistan while minimizing fallout on the already tense relationship between India and Pakistan. In an attempt to assuage those concerns, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, traveled here Wednesday to meet with India's national security adviser and foreign secretary. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, arrived Thursday for two days of meetings with top military and civilian leaders.

Compounding India's pique is the fact that it believed it had cultivated close ties with Karzai. India has opened four consulates in Afghanistan, even though relatively few Indian citizens live there, and invested $1.3 billion in development projects -- far more than Pakistan has.

"The Indians are shell-shocked," said a Western diplomat involved in Afghanistan policy. "They went in with more than a billion dollars, and now Pakistan is eating their lunch."

U.S. officials are trying to persuade the Indians to abandon their traditional zero-sum logic that what's good for Pakistan must be bad for them. "You cannot stabilize Afghanistan without the participation of Pakistan as a legitimate concerned party," Holbrooke said at a meeting with Indian journalists here.

Russia-Afghanistan: Russia and NATO have mutual long-term interests in Afghanistan, Russian Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces General Nikolai Makarov said following talks with Chairman of NATO's Military Committee Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, Interfax-AVN reported.

Both commanders are interested in NATO's success in Afghanistan, Makarov said, adding that Russia will provide assistance by ensuring the transit of military property and personnel through Russian territory.

Comment: Makarov's is the latest in at least a half dozen recent comments professing Russian support to the US effort in Afghanistan. The cumulative significance is that they prove that the Russians smell the US end game in Afghanistan and are determined to be a part of it and the new game that begins when the Americans depart.


Diverging from US policy, the Russians do not intend to transfer to Pakistan responsibility for stability in Afghanistan. They do not expect and will not rely on Pakistani good will. They also do not intend to allow US decisions to go unchallenged. The US Secretary of State's public tilt to Pakistan could not have done more to galvanize Russian and Indian interest and opposition to US schemes. An ascendant or even a healthy Pakistan suits no Russian or Indian interests and does not promote stability in South Asia.

Thus the Russians appear to be sincere in offering assistance by providing a secure, northern, railroad route alternative to the porous over-the-road supply route through Pakistani which appears to be a major source of supply for the Taliban. The Russians are sincere in the sense that helping the US serves Russian long term interest in influencing events in northern Afghanistan, if not in Kabul, and keeps the costs low for now. The new railroad bridges across the Oxus River are major assets in the Russian scheme for supporting the northern tribes.

As for Pakistan, the Pakistanis have made it abundantly plain that Afghanistan remains a secondary and minor concern for Pakistani leaders, provided India has no foothold. For Pakistanis, like General Kayani, they have been raised to perceive India is an existential threat to Pakistan. Thus, no matter what they have promised, US aid will be diverted, substituted and repackaged to support the confrontation with India.

When Afghanistan degenerates into its second civil war, Russia and India will again side with the northern Alliance tribes against Pakistan and the Pashtuns. In that scenario, ten years of US investment, deaths and involvement will have counted for little, but history will have resumed a more normal path. The Carter administration discovered that Afghanistan is just two oceans too far to sustain a US commitment. Astonishing how short some memories can be.

brihaspati wrote:I think this puts Pak under impossible pressures. If they cannot maintain some pretense at stabilizing the "western front", and shows signs of buckling and allowing the Talebs to move up POK, and both USA and PRC do not want to antagonize the Talebs for future negotiations directly - then they may actually tacitly agree to let India occupy POK. Indian occupation of POK provides USA a route to AFG through India, and if India can play smooth with PRC, turn around KKH into a "trade route" through India with China. This sor of finishes off any hope for Islamabad to survive.

Sanjay M wrote:It's ridiculous to think that China will let India have POK - except under a dire situation where POK was in danger of going independent, thus posing the threat of being a US proxy near China's sensitive western borders.

Sanjay M wrote,
It's ridiculous to think that China will let India have POK - except under a dire situation where POK was in danger of going independent, thus posing the threat of being a US proxy near China's sensitive western borders.

Other than that, China would always want POK to stay in Pak's obedient hands.

There are umpteen possible routes for India to trade with China, given the 1500km border.
KKH is more about access to Gulf for them - particularly via Gwadar.

In that case, if Pashtunistan and Baluchistan were to gain independence while being at loggerheads with the Pakjabi rump state, then Beijing would have to walk a tightrope between their competing interests in order to retain access to the Gulf via Gwadar. If they fell back on POK-Pakjab-Karachi as a route, it would be dangerously vulnerable to Indian interference.
It might be safer for them to go through POK-Pashtunistan-Balochistan or POK-Pashtunistan-Iran to get to the Gulf, which would tilt PRC towards having POK in Pashtun hands for simplicity.

The Chinese definitely don't want POK to be independent though - for them, that's the worst of all possible options - because then as a free agent they'll hook up with the US, like Adlai Stevenson wanted.

Sanjay M wrote:^^^ And that's why China would prefer to have POK under Pakjabi control rather than be a free agent for anti-China mischief.

Taliban don't need KKH to wage Opium Wars against China - all they need is a receptive market.

Washington, July 24: As India and Pakistan wearily eye each other on the next steps in their bilateral dialogue, Islamabad has won a round of the new “great game” for control of New Delhi’s strategic backyard.

Through a mixture of deft negotiations with Kabul and considerable arm-twisting of Washington, Pakistan last weekend obtained the Hamid Karzai government’s approval to an agreement that allows Afghanistan’s trucks to carry goods to the Wagah border for onward export to India without allowing similar reciprocal facilities for Indian products.

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When the Soviet Union broke up, India was among the first countries to open embassies in the Central Asian republics, aid the new governments and seek trade and economic co-operation with them under the personal direction of then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao who was acutely conscious of the strategic importance of the former Soviet territories for New Delhi.

But these efforts were hamstrung by the absence of access to Central Asia. Pakistan doggedly opposed allowing its territory for Indian goods’ transit to Afghanistan and onward transport to Central Asia.

On its part, Pakistan was also handicapped by its inability to use Afghanistan as a transit route for exports to Central Asia. But the new treaty with Kabul removes that handicap for Pakistan.


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As part of Rao’s farsighted initiatives, India opened up new areas of co-operation with Iran and worked jointly with Tehran on an India-Iran-Central Asia-sea-rail link which would have allowed New Delhi to tap Central Asian markets.

The link was made feasible at considerable cost and with great fanfare but, subsequently, under pressure from Washington, New Delhi scaled back its engagement with Tehran.

It is not that South Block is unaware that Pakistan is incrementally gaining in its objective of realising the dream of its “strategic depth” in Afghanistan.

The ministry of external affairs is also aware that the only option it has to counter Islamabad’s drive is to return to the arrangements in the 1990s with Iran and Russia to co-ordinate their approach to domestic alliances in Afghanistan.

But even last week, US national security adviser James Jones urged Indian leaders across the board on a visit to New Delhi against recent attempts by the UPA government to revive ties with Tehran.

For more than a year, the Obama administration has been doing some heavy lifting in both Islamabad and Kabul to reach an agreement on their bilateral transit trade treaty.

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Besides, Pakistan wants to keep its cards in future negotiations with India so as to be able to dangle the carrot of access to Afghanistan through its land route.

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The treaty poses a dilemma for India. It cannot refuse Afghan goods through Wagah except by risking Kabul’s displeasure and accusations of hampering mitigation of Afghanistan’s grinding poverty.

brihaspati wrote: Well the idea behind sticking like a glue behind Pak is if Pak satisfies all that is required by the PRC geopolitical vision. If Pak does not exist as a functional entity to ensure that, why should PRC keep on dishing money into that bottomless basket? What is it that Pak can give to PRC that PRC values so much?
(1) nuisance value to prick India
(2) access to IO and Gwadar
(3) have a handle on US antics in AfPak
(4) a good market for Chinese arms industry and somewhat limited market for Chinese industry
If Islamabad loses control over access to the sea, (2) and (3) and (4) goes out of reckoning. Is the nuisance value to India of such great value that it can prompt no-returns investment and possible complete loss of all investments in an unproductive small rump state at war with everyone around itself? That will depend on the political maturity of the then PRC leadership. I see the greater likelihood of the CPC leadership seeing the obvious benefits in cutting deals with India and ditching Islamabad altogether.

The "trade angle" was suggested by me as a means of providing the right excuses for deal-cutters from the Chinese side to convince or neutralize pro-Pak hawks within CPC. India can provide the same access to IO over land in geographical parallel to th existing rout to the sea - hain ji?!

In both the above "vulnerable scenario" the calculations will have to be based on a "reliable" Pashtunistan. Once badly burnt in the POK investment scenario about Islamist states "promises" why should China go for the extended and extremely volatile POK-Pashtunistan-Iran route? Another round of huge investments and all for nothing. For that matter how long do we think the present Iranian regime is going to be there? I have grave suspicions that it will not last very long. Iran will change its colour over the next two decades.

Lets put our hunches together : if POK gets "independence" it will turn to India. It is the "valley" which will get isolated.

Acharya wrote:It will not remain that way since Pakjabi does not know how to rule. It is a miracle that 60 years have passed without much disaster.

Taliban is a ragtag group and does not have the capability to do beyond a small region let alone China.
China can crush lot of internal market when it needs to do.

NATO commanders are convinced the Pakistani militant group behind the Mumbai massacre has joined forces with the Taliban.

The group has formed a new alliance to kill Western soldiers in Afghanistan.

In the past few weeks, NATO command has accused Lashkar-e-Toiba of being behind a string of attacks and an influx of fighters into eastern Afghanistan.

In Delhi last Thursday, Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, described the group as "terribly dangerous" and a "co-equal threat as the Taliban and al-Qa'ida".

The issue was raised over the weekend by Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military commander, after he arrived in Islamabad for meetings with General Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's powerful army chief, whose term has just been extended by three years.


The matter is highly sensitive because of the organisation's close links to Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI.

Officially outlawed under US pressure in 2002, the LET has continued to operate under different names. LET camps have long been used by al-Qa'ida for training.

After initial denials, Pakistan has admitted that LET played a part in the November 2008 massacre in Mumbai in which 173 people were killed. Last week, the Indian government accused the ISI of being the real masterminds.

US officials are concerned that LET has expanded its focus to Afghanistan and a global agenda.

The Obama administration had refrained, until now, from going public, but the matter has become more urgent after a sharp increase in the death toll of NATO troops in Afghanistan. Last month was the deadliest of the nine-year war and coalition fatalities in the first six months of the year were more than double last year's.

"Lashkar has been operating not just in India but in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and more globally and has linked up with other organisations such as al-Qa'ida," said Admiral Mullen. "I see them as starting to emerge as a larger regional threat and at least an aspirational global threat."

While the Pakistani military has taken action against terrorist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, it has refused requests from Washington to move against the Afghan Taliban or LET.

LET enjoys widespread support in Pakistan through its charitable arm. It is well funded by backers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

Before flying to Islamabad, Admiral Mullen held meetings in Delhi where the Indian army leadership voiced fears that the LET may attempt to strike at October's Commonwealth Games.

"I worry a great deal about a repeat attack," said Admiral Mullen. "Those 10 terrorists (in Mumbai) were able to bring two nuclear-capable countries if not to the brink (then) to the possibility of some kind of response."

Senior Indian officials, including Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, and national security adviser Shivshankar Menon, claimed last week that David Headley, a Pakistani-American who was allegedly involved in the Mumbai attacks, had revealed that the ISI had a direct role in the Mumbai attacks.

In January, authorities in Bangladesh arrested a number of LET operatives whom they had believed were planning to attack the US embassy and the British high commission in Dhaka.

"Very few things worry me as much as the strength and ambition of LET," said Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's top counter-terrorism official.