Bharat Rakshak

The assertions of success are tempered by two National Intelligence Estimates - one on Afghanistan and one on Pakistan - that were delivered to the White House and Congress shortly before Thanksgiving.
One U.S. official who has read the documents said the Afghanistan estimate warns that it will be difficult for the United States and its allies to prevail unless Pakistan roots out militant groups that take sanctuary within its borders. The Pakistan estimate concludes that it is unlikely the government in Islamabad will do so. "So you're left with the question: Is the conclusion that we're going to lose?" the official said. Senior U.S. military officials have played down the estimates, whose existence was reported Friday by the Associated Press, saying that they were based on intelligence gathered months ago. U.S. intelligence officials rejected the criticism, saying that the CIA and other agencies have delivered a stream of reports in recent weeks to senior policymakers, including the president, that reflect more recent developments but have generally reinforced the conclusions of the two national estimates

Current U.S. policy toward Afghanistan involves spending scores of billions of dollars and suffering several hundred allied deaths annually to prevent the Afghan Taliban from controlling the Afghan Pashtun homeland -- with little end in sight. Those who ask for more time for the existing strategy to succeed often fail to spell out what they think the odds are that it will work in the next few years, what amount of casualties and resources they think the attempt is worth, and why. That calculus suggests that it is time to shift to Plan B.

The United States and its allies are not on course to defeating the Taliban militarily.

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Washington should accept that the Taliban will inevitably control most of Afghanistan's south and east.

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The Pakistani military, driven by its perception of India as the enemy and its perceived requirement for strategic depth, will not end its support for and provision of sanctuary to its longtime Afghan Taliban proxies or accept a truly independent Afghanistan.

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WITHDRAW IN ORDER TO STAY

Washington would concentrate its efforts, meanwhile, on defending the areas in the north and west of Afghanistan not dominated by the Pashtuns, including Kabul.

The Afghan Taliban would be offered a modus vivendi in which each side agreed not to seek to enlarge the territory it controlled, so long as the Taliban stopped supporting terrorism -- a proposal that they would probably reject. The United States would make clear that it would strike against any al Qaeda targets anywhere, any Taliban encroachments across the de facto partition line, and any sanctuaries along the Pakistani border. No terrorist safe havens would be exempt from intensified U.S. attacks on either side of the Durand Line.

The United States cannot kill the Taliban into meaningful political compromise.


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It would reduce Islamabad's capacity to use the U.S. ground role in southern Afghanistan to extract tolerance from Washington regarding terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

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Might this course lead to the emergence of an irredentist Pashtunistan and undermine the stability of Pakistan? Managing Islamabad's reaction to a de facto partition would be a daunting challenge, because such a course would indeed stoke Pashtun separatism on both sides of the Durand Line. But the Pakistani military is already contributing to such problems through its cross-border support for the Afghan Taliban, so in truth Islamabad has little grounds for complaint . If anything, the emergence of a clear division in Afghanistan might provide just the sort of shock the Pakistani military apparently needs in order to appreciate the dangers of the game it has been playing for decades.

Would this course lead to a proxy war in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan or destabilize the region more generally? At this point, intensified competition between New Delhi and Islamabad in Afghanistan is probable no matter what policy the United States pursues. But so long as Washington maintains a long-term military commitment there, India will not put troops on the ground, and so the possibility of a major or direct conflict between India and Pakistan will be reduced.

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Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s steadfast support for India is being apparently overtaken by his growing alignment with Pakistan. This despite New Delhi backing Karzai’s political ambitions and the $1.3-billion developmental aid programme for Afghanistan.

The signals were unmistakable at a just-concluded “track two” India-Pakistan-Afghanistan trialogue, organised this week in Kabul by an Indian think tank, the Delhi Policy Group. After strongly supporting the first three rounds of the trialogue, over the last two years, the Government of Afghanistan effectively ignored the fourth round, as did the Pakistani embassy.

“Karzai has clearly decided that his survival depends on hedging his bets with Pakistan,” said an Afghan foreign ministry official in Kabul. “He believes his support from America is running out, and New Delhi is unwilling to go beyond humanitarian aid and provide a more muscular presence.”

The Afghan sources described an insecure and frightened Karzai who is worried that, with India having decided to confine itself in Afghanistan to soft power and developmental aid, the American troop pullout would see him isolated and at the mercy of the Taliban. His post-American survival, therefore, depends on building good relations with Pakistan and Iran.

“Every Afghan president is haunted by the spectre of Najeebullah,” explained an Afghan official. Mohammad Najeebullah, who was the president of Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, was captured by the Taliban when they swept into Kabul in 1996. He was tortured, brutally murdered and his mutilated body was hung from a light post at Aryana square in Kabul by the Taliban.

Foreign ministry sources realised Karzai’s first major pro-Pakistan gesture with the sacking of Amrullah Saleh, head of the Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, on June 6. Saleh, an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s backing for the Taliban, was ordered to resign after an abortive rocket attack on a peace jirga (conference) that met to approve negotiations with the Taliban. Interior Minister, Hanif Atmar, was also asked to resign.

The move gave him the opportunity to hand over charge of the Afghan National Army (ANA) to a Pakistan-friendly officer, said Indian officials in New Delhi. The stridently anti-Taliban and anti-Pakistan ANA chief, General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi was asked to hand over command of the army and take over the interior ministry.

At that time, Karzai’s spokesperson, Waheed Omer, insisted that the only reason for Saleh’s removal was a security lapse at the jirga. But most Afghans perceived it as a sop to Pakistan in exchange for “facilitating” a dialogue with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, India continued diplomatically, but firmly, to oppose Karzai’s key internal initiative — a dialogue with the Taliban. “There is no moderate Taliban just as there is no good terrorist,” remained India’s official position voiced by numerous officials in multiple forums worldwide.

In retrospect, said Afghanistan experts in New Delhi, Karzai’s evolving approach towards Pakistan was evident even before Saleh’s removal. In January this year, when Karzai excluded his longstanding foreign minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, who had been unsparing in his criticism of Pakistan, from his new cabinet. Zalmai Rassoul, who had been far friendlier towards Pakistan, was Spanta’s replacement.

Two months later, during a visit to Islamabad in March, the Afghan president said: “India is a close friend of Afghanistan but Pakistan is a twin brother.”

The Indian government continues to rely on the United States and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which currently maintain security across Afghanistan to build Afghan capabilities. New Delhi is keen to provide training assistance for the ANA and the police, but Washington has resisted an Indian military presence, in deference to Pakistani fears.

This evening, the US government is scheduled to announce a major policy review on Afghanistan, which will indicate whether the US troop surge of 30,000 additional soldiers over the past year, has been able to weaken the Taliban insurgency. If the review is pessimistic, New Delhi would conclude that Obama’s promised US “drawdown” will begin in earnest from July 2011. If, on the other hand, the review sees an improvement in the security and political situation, New Delhi will conclude that the drawdown will be much slower.

dinesha wrote:Ajai Shukla / Kabul December 18, 2010, 0:00 IST
Afghan president seems to favour Pakistan over India

brihaspati wrote:Karazai's shift ultimately to Pak was predicted here long ago. It is only partly out of India's supposed refusal to put in a more muscular presence. But it has also to do with the reality of the growing strength of the Talebs and the semiindependence of the frontierland between AFG and Pak.

brihaspati wrote:Karazai's shift ultimately to Pak was predicted here long ago. It is only partly out of India's supposed refusal to put in a more muscular presence. But it has also to do with the reality of the growing strength of the Talebs and the semiindependence of the frontierland between AFG and Pak.

RajeshA wrote:India spends so many billions on all sorts of weapon systems to countenance Pakistan. All India needs to do is to invest 10-12 billion USD in Pakiban and Pushtun Nationalists and see how they bring down Pakistan. Americans pay the Pakistani Army to kill Al Qaeda. India can pay Jihadis of all types to take down Pakistani Army. Depending on the seniority, relevance and number of TSPA soldiers taken down, the Jihadis can be given bonuses. The point is such services from groups in Pakistan are up for sale.

Some Afghan Pushtun elite would be more than willing to serve as brokers and conduits of such special services.

In Afghanistan, India has a ready made proxy. After all, one needs to look at how much terrorism the ISI has sponsored in Afghanistan alone. Afghanistan has every right to retaliate. India can financially support Afghans' endeavors.

Afghanistan is India's strategic backyard, not Pakistan's. Why else do you think, Kiyanahi pisses in his khakhis when he talks about Indian consulates in Afghanistan. Only we have been very reluctant in exploring all the possibilities.

In the end, India salvages Gilgit-Baltistan, Baluchistan and Sindh, supports Pushtunistan's self-determination and let Pakistan sink into the dark ages for the next 30 years.

brihaspati wrote:Karazai's shift ultimately to Pak was predicted here long ago.

Chinese advisers are believed to be working with Afghan Taliban groups who are now in combat with NATO forces, prompting concerns that China might become the conduit for shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, improved communications and additional small arms to the fundamentalist Muslim fighters.

A British military official contends that Chinese specialists have been seen training Taliban fighters in the use of infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles. This is supported by a May 13, 2008, classified U.S. State Department document released by WikiLeaks telling U.S. officials to confront Chinese officials about missile proliferation.

China is developing knock-offs of Russian-designed man-portable air defense missiles (manpads), including the QW-1 and later series models. The QW-1 Vanguard is an all-aspect, 35-lb. launch tube and missile that is reverse-engineered from the U.S. Stinger and the SA-16 Gimlet (9K310 Igla-1). China obtained SA-16s from Unita rebels in then-Zaire who had captured them from Angolan government forces. The 16g missiles have a slant range of 50,000 ft. The QW-1M is a variant that incorporates even more advanced SA-18 Grouse (9K38 Igla) technology.

So far, there has been a curious absence of manpad attacks on NATO aircraft in Afghanistan. One reason is that the Russian equipment still in place is out of date and effectively no longer usable, the British official says. Another may be that the possession of such a weapon is a status symbol, so owners are reluctant to use it. However, the introduction of new manpads could change that equation.

Although there have been no attacks using manpads, “we act as if they exist,” notes the British officer. “We know they are out there,” he says, alluding to the proliferation of increasingly advanced missiles on the black and gray markets.

In fact, NATO officials know they exist, at least in Iraq, according to the classified U.S. State Department document. U.S. officials were instructed to provide the Chinese government with pictures of QW-1 missiles found in Iraq and ask how such missiles were transferred.

“In April 2008, coalition forces recovered from a cache in Basra, Iraq, at least two Chinese-produced Iranian-supplied QW-1 manpads that we assess were provided by Iran to Iraqi Shia militants. The date of production for the recovered QW-1 systems is 2003, but it is not known when these particular launchers were transferred by China to Iran or when the launchers entered Iraq,” the cable says. “Beijing has typically responded by asserting that its sales are in accordance with international law, that it requires end-users to sign agreements pledging not to retransfer the weapons, or—disingenuously in the judgment of [U.S. government] technical experts—that it cannot confirm that the weapons recovered by coalition forces in Iraq are actually Chinese in origin.”

Talking points in the cable allege that Chinese-origin weapons have been sent to Afghanistan.

“Iran is the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism,” the cable says. “We know that Iran has provided Chinese weapons to extremist groups in Iraq and Afghanistan that are using these weapons to kill Americans and Iraqis, something we take very seriously. Iran is not a responsible purchaser of military equipment. There is an unacceptably high risk that any military equipment sold to Iran, especially weapons like manpads, that are highly sought-after by terrorists, will be diverted to non-state actors who threaten U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Other U.S. officials are less sure about the Chinese missile threat. Army officials told Aviation Week of an unsuccessful, multi-manpad attack against a U.S. helicopter in Iraq last year, but a senior intelligence official expressed doubt that Chinese aid to the Taliban has included weaponry. But he acknowledges that Chinese activities most certainly include intelligence gathering that could be of use in China’s own internal conflicts with its restive Muslim populations. That analysis could project U.S. hopes, whether well-founded or not, that China will not become involved in weapons trade to insurgent groups.

“[China] would not be doing something directly that involves weapons used in the fight against the U.S.,” the U.S. official says. “If they got caught, it would bring down a pall on all their dealings with the U.S.—that they are trying to cultivate—and it would stoke the far right to portray China as the bad guys and raise the flag of the evil PRC.

“There’s also the question of why would they want to alienate the U.S. when it’s doing their work of trying to keep a militant Islamic group from destabilizing Afghanistan,” he says. “There probably are Chinese there among the Taliban. They may even be offering help of some sort, but they are actually there to gather information and knowledge about the Taliban. It’s just good basic intelligence work.”

That kind of Chinese intelligence involvement has surfaced in Kyrgyzstan where U.S. officials say China has an impressive presence. In fact, the Wiki­Leaks trove of State Department documents reveals a confrontation between the U.S. and Chinese ambassadors in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. official, Tatiana Gfoeller, asked Zhang Yannian in early 2009 about a covert attempt by China to bribe the Kyrgyz government with $3 billion in cash to close the U.S. military base at Manas, which is a primary logistics center for operations in Afghanistan.

Zhang did not expressly deny the bribe, but said the idea was impossible because China was a staunch opponent of terrorism. He said that China had actually rejected offers from locals to set up a military base to counterbalance Russian and U.S. influence.

“[China] is not concerned about the base in Kyrgyzstan because of [U.S. operations in] Afghanistan but because it is a U.S. presence on the western border of China,” says the U.S. intelligence official. (Kyrgyzstan borders China’s Xinjiang province.)

Other analysts believe that China is playing a deeper game than intelligence gathering and is actually involved in or facilitating international arms proliferation to Iran and other mineral-rich countries in the Middle East and Africa.

This is borne out by yet another leaked cable, posted in mid-2008, that asked U.S. officials to ask several governments to help stop a North Korean flight to Iran. They were told to encourage the nations to deny overflight of the aircraft or “require that it land and be subjected to inspection.”

The flight came to light when the Kyrgyz government denied permission for overflight and notified the U.S. The flight, from Pyongyang to Tehran, was described as a “proliferation concern” and “may be carrying [North Korean] personnel involved in ongoing cooperation with Iran on ballistic missiles” (AW&ST Oct. 18, p. 24).

The aircraft had been scheduled to overfly China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The U.S. also asked that the return flight, three days later, be denied or subjected to inspection.

“Alternatively,” the cable says, “if this aircraft requests a fueling stop in your country, we request that you grant this permission and promptly search the aircraft upon its arrival for evidence of prohibited items or activities.”

Of particular concern was the “transfer of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] components or delivery systems, certain military goods and related materials including spare parts [and] transfers from or to North Korea of technical training, advice, services or assistance related to WMD, their delivery systems and certain conventional arms.”

The U.S. is currently asking the International Atomic Energy Agency to take a closer look at North Korea’s sharing of nuclear technology. It is investigating the transfer of a nuclear reactor to Syria that was destroyed by an Israeli air force strike in early 2007 (AW&ST Oct. 8, 2007, p. 28). Washington is expressing concern about transfers of centrifuges to Iran and Myanmar in the wake of Pyongyang’s recent unveiling of a new uranium enrichment facility and growing suspicion that others remain hidden.

Military leaders of the nations in the Persian Gulf region called for a shared missile defense system to counter the spread of ballistic missiles and to balance the concern that non-state groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas are acquiring more advanced weaponry.

The U.S. has Patriot missiles stationed in a number of countries in the region. The United Arab Emirates is buying its own Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense system to complement a Patriot deployment in 2012. In addition, the UAE and U.S. have created a missile defense training center at Al Bateen AB to parallel the Air Warfare Center at Al Dhafra AB. The relationship between the two bases is expected to expand as anti-missile weapons—such as Raytheon’s Ncade variant of the AIM-120 Amraam—that can be carried by fighter aircraft are fielded.

An interlocking air defense system for the region is crucial because an enemy ballistic or cruise missile may fly through the airspace of several countries to reach its target.

darshhan wrote:This is big if true.China supplying and advising Taliban in afghanistan.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/jsp_incl ... fghanistan

RajeshA wrote:China doing an America on America with the same Mujahideen using same Pakistan!

SSridhar wrote:

RajeshA wrote:China doing an America on America with the same Mujahideen using same Pakistan!

And, the same shoulder-fired missiles too.

shyamd wrote:PRC is playing a very dirty role lately in Helmand. I think they are trying to accelerate NATO withdrawal. Or it could be via Iran with PRC facilitation.

RajeshA wrote:

SSridhar wrote:And, the same shoulder-fired missiles too.

Just underlines that Chinese are masters at copying!

US policy toward Afghanistan involves spending scores of billions of dollars and suffering several hundred allied deaths annually largely to prevent the Afghan Taliban from controlling the Afghan Pashtun homeland.

But the United States and its allies will not defeat the Taliban militarily. President Hamid Karzai's corrupt government will not significantly improve. The Afghan National Army cannot take over combat missions from ISAF in southern and eastern Afghanistan in any realistic time frame. And on December 15, the New York Times assessed that "two new classified intelligence reports offer a more negative assessment and say there is a limited chance of success unless Pakistan hunts down insurgents operating from havens on its Afghan border". That won't happen.

With these individual elements of US Afghanistan policy in serious trouble, optimism about the current strategy's ability to meet its objectives reminds one of the White Queen's comment in Through the Looking Glass: "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

De facto partition offers the Obama administration the best available alternative to strategic defeat. The administration should stop setting deadlines for withdrawal and instead commit the United States to a long-term combat role in Afghanistan of 35,000-50,000 troops for the next 7-10 years.

Concurrently, Washington should accept that the Taliban will inevitably control most of the Pashtun south and east and that the price of forestalling that outcome is far too high for Americans to continue paying. The United States and its partners should stop fighting and dying in the Pashtun homeland and let the local correlation of forces take its course - while deploying US air power and Special Forces to ensure that the north and west of Afghanistan do not succumb to the Taliban. The United States would make clear that it would strike al-Qaida targets anywhere, Taliban encroachments across the de facto partition line, and sanctuaries along the Pakistani border using weapons systems that were unavailable before 9/11.

Accepting a de facto partition of Afghanistan makes sense only if the other options available are worse. They are.

One alternative is to stay the current course in Afghanistan. The United States deploys about 1,00,000 troops in Afghanistan, yet there are now only 50-100 al-Qaida fighters there. That is 1,000-2,000 soldiers per al-Qaida terrorist at $100 billion a year - far beyond any reasonable expenditure of American resources given the stakes involved. And even if many of the roughly 300 al-Qaida fighters now in Pakistan did move a few score miles north across the border, it would not make much of a practical difference - surely not enough to justify an indefinite major ground war.

Another alternative is for the United States to withdraw all its military forces from Afghanistan over the next few years. But this would lead to a probable conquest of the entire country by the Taliban. It would draw Afghanistan's neighbours into the fighting. It would raise the odds of the Islamic radicalisation of Pakistan, which would in turn call into question the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It would weaken the budding US-India strategic partnership, undermine Nato's future, and trigger a global outpouring of support for Islamic extremist ideology and increased terrorism against liberal societies. And it would be seen around the world by friends and adversaries alike as a failure of international leadership and strategic resolve by an ever weaker America.

A third alternative is to achieve stability in Afghanistan through successful negotiations with the Taliban. As CIA director Leon Panetta has said, however, so long as the Taliban think they are winning, they will remain intransigent. Despite the major intensification of drone attacks, the US cannot kill the Taliban into meaningful political compromise.

The analogy most cited to justify the current Afghanistan policy is the 2007 "surge" in Iraq. Yet as former US envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins has pointed out, by 2007, the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq had been decisively beaten by majority Shia militias, and it was only after this defeat that the Sunni Arabs turned to American forces for protection. The Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, in contrast, is rooted in that country's largest ethnic group, not its smallest.

These Pashtun insurgents have been winning their civil war for the last several years, not losing it. In Iraq, by 2007 al-Qaida had made itself unwelcome among its Sunni Arab allies. In Afghanistan, al-Qaida is hardly present, and presents no comparable threat to the Afghan Taliban leadership. Pashtun elders are less influential than the Iraqi sheiks that brought their adherents over with them when they decided to switch sides. In short, the Iraq surge has little application to Afghanistan.

Historians may puzzle over why the president, despite his deep agonising as described in Bob Woodward's book on the war, deployed 1,00,000 troops into Afghanistan nearly 10 years after 9/11, why US policy makers spoke as if the fate of the civilised world depended on the pacification of Marja and Kandahar. Accepting the de facto partition of Afghanistan is hardly an ideal outcome in Afghanistan. But it is better than the alternatives.

The writer is a senior fellow at the US Council on Foreign Relations and former US ambassador to India.

WASHINGTON — Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas, a risky strategy reflecting the growing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts to root out militants there.

The proposal, described by American officials in Washington and Afghanistan, would escalate military activities inside Pakistan, where the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of fears of provoking a backlash.

The plan has not yet been approved, but military and political leaders say a renewed sense of urgency has taken hold, as the deadline approaches for the Obama administration to begin withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan. Even with the risks, military commanders say that using American Special Operations troops could bring an intelligence windfall, if militants were captured, brought back across the border into Afghanistan and interrogated.

The Americans are known to have made no more than a handful of forays across the border into Pakistan, in operations that have infuriated Pakistani officials. Now, American military officers appear confident that a shift in policy could allow for more routine incursions.

America’s clandestine war in Pakistan has for the most part been carried out by armed drones operated by the C.I.A.

Additionally, in recent years, Afghan militias backed by the C.I.A. have carried out a number of secret missions into Pakistan’s tribal areas. These operations in Pakistan by Afghan operatives, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, have been previously reported as solely intelligence-gathering operations. But interviews in recent weeks revealed that on at least one occasion, the Afghans went on the offensive and destroyed a militant weapons cache.

wig wrote:U.S. Military Seeks to Expand Raids in Pakistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/world ... el.html?hp

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis October 2, 2010, 11:59 AM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Haqqani network North Waziristan US air strikes US-Pakistan
Blocked US convoys ablaze

Has the nine-year deal for Pakistan to serve US-led NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan as their primary logistics and supply base - while pursuing competing goals - run aground? This may be so after US officials intimated in the last three days that more remote-controlled aircraft and helicopters were being relocated from other Afghan sectors to the new front opening up now against Taliban strongholds in the Pakistan tribal area of North Waziristan.

Islamabad has responded by blocking the main frontier crossing to NATO supply convoy on Oct. 2, for the second day and refusing to stop armed Taliban fighters torching the trucks after a US cross-border air strike killed three Pakistan soldiers at a frontier post Thursday.

Even after some 30 Afghanistan-bound oil tankers were set ablaze Friday, Oct. 1, US air strikes over North Waziristan were redoubled that night and early Saturday, destroying a stronghold of the highly effective Haqqani network and killing at least six of its members.
debkafile's military sources do not rule out the US drive into North Waziristan escalating into ground incursions, especially if it is proved that Islamist terrorists are being trained and directed to carry out strikes inside America from networks sheltering in northwest Pakistan.

Thursday, Sept. 30 debkafile reported:
A new crisis in relations between Islamabad and Washington was triggered by the recent US tactical escalation from drones to helicopters for destroying insurgent and terrorist concentrations in Pakistan's lawless North Waziristan province, debkafile's military sources report. Pakistan had accepted the drone attacks but, even after they were nearly doubled to 21 this month, the high-flying unmanned aircraft were not up to their mission - especially against the Haqqani network.
Early Thursday, Sept. 30, Islamabad was angry enough to block a convoy of dozens of NATO trucks at the Torkham check post on the Khyber pass into Afghanistan, accusing NATO of killing three Pakistan frontier troops in a helicopter strike against a military checkpoint close to the border. The "hot pursuit" pretext was roughly rejected.
Through their many ups and downs during the nine-year Afghanistan war, Pakistan has served as NATO's main supply base for fuel, ammunition, spare parts and other provisions. An average 580 trucks with goods imported through Karachi and other Pakistani ports roll through Torkham west of Peshawar every day.

The resort to helicopters was ordered by the new Afghanistan commander, Gen. David Petraeus. He soon saw that the 30,000-troop surge was not up to turning the tide of the war against the Taliban - mainly because the bulk of its men, supplies and training facilities are located on the Pakistani side of the border in North Waziristan. He therefore petitioned President Barack Obama for permission to shift the brunt of combat into Pakistan and begin using helicopters against these targets.

The general explained that the Predator and Reaper drones were unequal to the task of demolishing large bases or catching insurgent forces on the move into Afghanistan or on their way back to their Pakistani havens. The capabilities of these high-tech weapons are limited. Needed now were droves of conventional helicopters able to scatter and fly close enough to the ground to chase and pin down small groups of insurgents on the move.

Before assenting to Gen. Petraeus' request, the White House made a final effort to persuade the Pakistani government and its military commanders to go into decisive action against the Taliban concentrations sheltering in North Waziristan.

They had little hope of a positive reply because the foremost US war target is the Haqqani network, the largest and best organized insurgent militia fighting NATO today. This militia's 12,000 men fight under the command of Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani. It maintains independent sources of supply, funding and recruits and is protected by its close operational and intelligence links with Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence - ISI - service.
The Haqqani network enjoys ISI protection as Islamabad's trump card for guaranteeing Kabul is governed by a pro-Pakistan regime after US troops start pulling out of Afghanistan in August 2011.

An ally\ied Afghanistan would give Pakistan the military edge over India, its strategists calculate, whereas its loss would be an unacceptable strategic setback.

At the same time, no one in Islamabad sneezes at the great benefits gained from good relations with the United States. Washington keeps Pakistan safe from war with India and a good flow of some $2 billion per year to keep its economy from breaking down. So when American drones attacked the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, its rulers gritted their teeth and kept quiet for as long as the damage was small enough for the Haqqanis to sustain.

But American cross-border Apache raids were another matter. The first helicopter attack over Pakistan on Monday, Sept. 27, killed 50 Taliban fighters, most of them members of the Haqqani network. The second, the following day, hit a Haqqani base in the Kurram district of North Waziristan. The third hit the wrong target, killing three Pakistani soldiers at a military check point near the Afghanistan border.
That was too much for Islamabad. Without even a word to the visiting US Central Intelligence Agency chief Leon Panetta, the NATO convoy was blocked at the border and the supply route threatened until the Americans promised to give up using helicopters and targeting the Haqqani network for "hot pursuit" operations.

Washington has not reacted publicly to the Pakistan demand. But Saturday, Oct. 2, US military sources disclosed that more troops were being piled up on the frontier against North Waziristan. Islamabad does not look like taking increased US encroachments of its territory lying down for now. The US command's promise of a joint probe with Pakistan to assign guilt for the killing of three Pakistani frontier will not be enough to keep Pakistani tempers at bay.

shyamd wrote:True. TSP will be forced to give up something to stop further hits on taleb or haqqani faction. Will giving up OBL and Ayman be enough for US objectivs in afghanistan to be achieved?
Will it enable a pull out?

Pakistani security forces have detained a top commander of the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network as he was returning from Saudi Arabia to the network's headquarters.

Nasiruddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin, the patriarch of the Haqqani Network, was detained along with a Haqqani Network leader known as Mullah Muhammad Jan and three others, according to Newsweek. Nasiruddin was captured as he was traveling by car from Peshawar to Miramshah in North Waziristan, the headquarters of the Haqqani Network.

"Nasiruddin and his four traveling companions were arrested just as they were returning from the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, a trip that also had included substantial fundraising activities," Afghan Taliban sources told Newsweek.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directory has reportedly moved Nasiruddin and the four other Haqqani Network members to a safe house.

Newsweek reported that "it is unlikely that US intelligence will get access to Nasiruddin, largely because he could reveal just how closely the Haqqanis are linked to the ISI and other Pakistan intelligence agencies."

US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal agreed, and stated that any access given to Nasiruddin would be closely monitored and scripted.

"By the time we get access to him, if that even happens, he'll be well prepped by the ISI," one intelligence official said. "The Haqqanis are as important to the ISI as the Lashkar-e-Taiba. I don't expect we'll get any meaningful intel from him."

Another intelligence official said Nasiruddin's detention is designed to deflect US demands that the Pakistani military take on the Haqqani Network in North Waziristan.

"This is a show capture; you can be sure Nasiruddin isn't languishing in a prison," another intelligence official said. "With Nasiruddin's capture, the Pakistanis can tell us their so-called offensive in North Waziristan is having an impact."

Top Pakistani military officers have claimed that the military is waging a stealth campaign in North Waziristan, using "surgical" strikes. The Pakistani military claims there are 40,000 troops in North Waziristan conducting operations. But there is no evidence to support these claims, and the US has been forced to launch Predator and Reaper strikes in North Waziristan to disrupt the Taliban and al Qaeda's operations.

Background on Nasiruddin Haqqani

The Haqqani Network has extensive links with al Qaeda and the Taliban, and its relationship with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has allowed the network to survive and thrive in its fortress stronghold of North Waziristan. The Haqqanis control large swaths of the tribal area and run a parallel administration with courts, recruiting centers, tax offices, and security forces. They have established multiple training camps and safe houses used by al Qaeda leaders and operatives, as well as by Taliban foot soldiers preparing to fight in Afghanistan.

The Haqqani Network has been implicated in some of the biggest terror attacks in the Afghan capital city of Kabul, including the January 2008 suicide assault on the Serena hotel, the February 2009 assault on Afghan ministries, and the July 2008 and October 2009 suicide attacks against the Indian embassy. American intelligence agencies confronted the Pakistani government with evidence, including communications intercepts, which proved the ISI's direct involvement in the 2008 Indian embassy bombing. [See LWJ report Pakistan's Jihad and Threat Matrix report Pakistan backs Afghan Taliban for additional information on the ISI's complicity in attacks in Afghanistan and the region.]

Nasiruddin is a key financier and "emissary" for the Haqqani Network. He is one of several brothers of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the overall operational leader of the Haqqani Network as well as the leader of the Miramshah Regional Military Shura, one of the Afghan Taliban's four regional commands. Siraj was designated by the Treasury Department as a terrorist in March 2008; and in March 2009, the State Department put out a bounty of $5 million for information leading to his capture. US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal that Siraj is a member of al Qaeda's top council.

The US Treasury Department added Nasiruddin to its list of specially designated global terrorists in July 2010. According to the Treasury, he traveled to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates between 2004-2009 to carry out fundraising for the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, and the Taliban.

"As of mid-2007, [Nasiruddin] Haqqani reportedly received funding from ­donations from the Gulf region, drug trafficking, and payments from al Qaeda," Treasury stated. "In 2004, he traveled to Saudi Arabia with a Taliban associate to raise funds for the Taliban."

Nasiruddin is based out of Miramshah in the tribal agency of North Waziristan in Pakistan. He is known to speak Arabic and is also a close aide to his father.


Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... z197y9hmTY

The Afghanistan issue is poised to take a new turn, with the USA and NATO in a withdrawal mood, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai caught in crossfire, and China declaring its intention to involve itself with Pakistan in Afghanistan.

The (US)aim now was to concentrate attention on the Al Qaida bases in Pakistan, dismantle them and eradicate them from the Pak-Afghan border on the Pakistani side where they enjoy safe haven, thanks to Pakistan’s army and its powerful intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The Pakistani army Chief, Gen. Parvez Asfaq Kayani had made it clear that Pakistan had an abiding interest in establishing a Pakistan friendly government where the Afghan Taliban had a dominating role, and counter India’s influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s determination to create Afghanistan as a “strategic depth” remains non-negotiable.

Even after withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, American presence in civilian and military sphere in Af-Pak will remain. Presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is of high strategic importance for the US in the context of China and Central Asia, and future terrorist surge against it and its allies.

The US surely understands that anti-US and anti-European terrorism centres in Pakistan’s northern region is difficult to eradicate unless the Pakistan army decides to do so. And there is no sign that Gen. Kayani is in any mood to act on it. Despite all American assistance, military and civilian, Pakistan’s army remains committed to China.

On his recent visit to Pakistan (Dec. 17-19), Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made it very clear that China’s relations with Pakistan was enduring and unbreakable. The agreements and the MOUs signed amounting to $20 billion during the visit marked a new high in Sino-Pak “all weather” relationship covering civilian and military assistance, and humanitarian aid. Premier Wen made it abundantly clear that China supported Pakistan’s approach to counter-terrorism actions, thereby meaning it was one with Pakistan protecting and supporting the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani clique and the like. He also stated that China will continue to work with Pakistan in Afghanistan, meaning that they support the Taliban’s role in Afghanistan. China has established a good relationship with the Karzai government but more importantly, it has a close relationship with the Taliban from the Soviet invasion era.

China has decided to prop up Pakistan’s economic and military strength to make Islamabad less dependent on the US. It also aims to help promote Pakistan as a major player irritant in South Asia, something that India needs to take note of. This will also impact on India’s position in Afghanistan. It is, however, unlikely that China will actively try to break Central Asian economic relations with India through Afghanistan and Pakistan as that would impact on China’s relation with these countries. It is evident, however, that Pakistan consults China on all these issues. After all, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari has paid five visits to China since he took over his position in 2008.

TAPI is in actuality a Silk Road project connecting Central Asia to the West via Gwadar, which will make Pakistan the U.S.'s gateway to Central Asia. Mr Bhadrakumar

The significance of the signing of the intergovernmental agreement on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project (TAPI) on December 11 in Ashgabat cannot be overstated. It can only be captured if one says with a touch of swagger that TAPI has been the most significant happening in the geopolitics of the region in almost a decade since America invaded Afghanistan.

The heart of the matter is that TAPI is a Silk Road project, which holds the key to modulating many complicated issues in the region. It signifies a breakthrough in the longstanding U.S. efforts to access the fabulous mineral wealth of the Caspian and the Central Asian region. Afghanistan forms a revolving door for TAPI and its stabilisation becomes the leitmotif of the project. TAPI can meet the energy needs of Pakistan and India. The U.S. says TAPI holds the potential to kindle Pakistan-India amity, which could be a terrific thing to happen. It is a milestone in the U.S.' “Greater Central Asia” strategy, which aims at consolidating American influence in the region.

The proposed commissioning of TAPI coincides with the 2014 timeline for ending the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's “combat mission” in Afghanistan. The U.S. “surge” is concentrating on the Helmand and Kandahar provinces, through which TAPI will eventually run. What stunning coincidences!

In sum, TAPI is the finished product of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Its primary drive is to consolidate the U.S. political, military and economic influence in the strategic high plateau that overlooks Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan and China.

But Turkmenistan sits on the world's fourth-largest gas reserves and has its own plans to increase production to 230 bcm annually by 2030. It desperately needs to find markets and build new pipelines.

The projected 2000-km pipeline at an estimated cost of $7.6 billion will traverse Afghanistan (735 km) and Pakistan (800 km) to reach India. Its initial capacity will be around 30 bcm but that could be increased to meet higher demand. India and Pakistan have shown interest in buying 70 bcm annually. TAPI will be fed by the Doveletabad field, which used to supply Russia.

On the map, the TAPI pipeline deceptively shows India as its final destination. What is overlooked, however, is that it can easily be extended to the Pakistani port of Gwadar and connected with European markets, which is the core objective. The geopolitics of TAPI is rather obvious. Pipeline security is going to be a major regional concern. The onus is on each of the transit countries. Part of the Afghan stretch will be buried underground as a safeguard against attacks and local communities will be paid to guard it. But then, it goes without saying Kabul will expect the U.S. and NATO to provide security cover, which, in turn, necessitates a long-term western military presence in Afghanistan. Without doubt, the project will lead to a strengthening of the U.S. politico-military influence in South Asia.

The U.S. brought heavy pressure on New Delhi and Islamabad to spurn the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project. The Indian leadership buckled under American pressure while dissimulating freedom of choice. Pakistan did show some defiance for a while. Anyhow, the U.S. expects that once Pakistanis and Indians begin to chew the TAPI bone, they will cast the IPI into the dustbin. Pakistan has strong reasons to pitch for TAPI as it can stave off an impending energy crisis. TAPI is in actuality a Silk Road project connecting Central Asia to the West via Gwadar, which will make Pakistan the U.S. gateway to Central Asia. Pakistan rightly estimates that alongside this enhanced status in the U.S. regional strategy comes the American commitment to help its economy develop and buttress its security needs in the long-term.(prevent its impending collapse and hold of TSPA on pakiabduls, and ability to play spoilsport in the region)

Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh found time to visit the drab Turkmen capital in a notable departure from his preoccupations with the Euro-Atlantic world. The wilful degradation of India-Iran ties by the present government and Dr. Singh's obstinate refusal to visit Iran also fall into perspective. Plainly put, our leadership decided to mark time and simply wait for TAPI to pop out of Uncle Sam's trouser pocket and in the meantime it parried, dissimulated and outright lied by professing interest in the IPI. The gullible public opinion was being strung along.

To be sure, TAPI is a big-time money-spinner and our government's energy pricing policies are notoriously opaque. Delhi will be negotiating its gas price “separately” with Ashgabat on behalf of the private companies which handle the project. That is certain to be the mother of all energy “negotiations” involving two countries, which figure at the bottom of the world ranking by Transparency International.

TAPI is being touted as a regional project by our government but it is quintessentially a U.S.-led project sheltered under Pax Americana, which provides a political pretext for the open-ended western military presence in the region. As long as foreign military presence continues in India's southwestern region, there will be popular resistance and that will make it a breeding ground for extremist and terrorist groups. India is not only shying away from facing this geopolitical reality but, in its zest to secure “global commons” with the U.S, is needlessly getting drawn into the “new great game.” Unsurprisingly, Delhi no more calls for a neutral Afghanistan. It has lost its voice, its moral fibre, its historical consciousness.

Finally, TAPI is predicated on the U.S. capacity to influence Pakistan. Bluntly speaking, TAPI counts on human frailties — that pork money would mellow regional animosities. But that is a cynical assumption to make about the Pakistani military's integrity.

Former Afghan Security Director Amrullah Saleh gave the keynote address at the Jamestown Foundation annual conference on terrorism. In his remarks he advocated an aggressive stance against the Taliban and terrorists in Pakistan. He also talked about critics of his views in both Pakistan and the U.S. He also responded to questions from the audience.

Diplomats point out that India's guarded approach in dealing with Iran is evident in virtually all areas of potential cooperation, not just oil imports — and the costs are beginning to be felt in Afghanistan. The Iran-India-Pakistan (IPI) pipeline that seems to have been trumped by the U.S.-backed TAPI (Turkmenistan-India-Afghanistan-Pakistan) pipeline is a celebrated case. But talks without results have been the hallmark in developing the Iranian port of Chabahar.

A larger and more modern port would have allowed India to make better use of a road it built in Afghanistan.

A vital road

Besides developing the Iranian port, India is keen on laying down a rail link to the edge of this Zaranj-Delaram road. Goods would then be transported into Pashtun areas of Afghanistan by an alternate route than the one through Pakistan's Karachi port. Using Afghanistan's garland highway, goods transported via Zaranj-Delaram road could even be sent to Central Asia.

The road was built by Indians who braved multiple attacks by the Taliban, who did not want the shorter route to Pashtun areas to go through. Though several Indians died or were injured in the attacks, the road was finally completed.

The strategic aspect was underlined by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao during a recent lecture. The Zaranj-Delaram road had revived the economy in Afghanistan's Nimroz province and the link-up with Chabahar would enable India send goods to Central Asia, she had added. But as is the case with considering a new mechanism for setting bilateral trade, Indian plans for enlarging Chabahar five times and constructing a railway line to Bam on the Iran-Afghan border continue endlessly to be discussed and talked about, without any progress on the ground.

Islamabad: Taliban have set up all women suicide squads to carry out deadly terror mission on both sides of the Afghan-Pak border, a captured 12-year-old girl has revealed.

Meena Gul, trained to be a 'human bomb' was apprehended from the Munda area, in Dir close to the Afghan border in January, and her disclosures have sent shivers down the spine of Pakistani security establishment. Gul said that women suicide bombers were trained for their deadly task in small cells on both sides of the porous border and were dispatched to their missions with a sermon, "God will reward you with a place in heaven". The 12-year-old Afghan girl was quoted by the Express Tribune as having told the police that she trained in a group which was headed by her sister-in-law Zainab and she battled Pakistani troops dressed as a man. She claimed that her younger sister blew herself up in a suicide attack in Afghanistan, but she had managed to escape as she was too scared to die.

Nato trucks attacked in Pakistan, driver killed: Taliban militants in Pakistan attacked two Nato supply trucks, killing a driver and wounding two others. Half a dozen militants launched the attack in Landikotal, in Khyber district bordering Afghanistan.

MARTY MARTEL

1:55 PM ET

December 29, 2010

Narrow, misplaced focus on Pakistan
International Crisis Group (ICG) looks at Pakistan with a grossly misplaced focus, totally missing the fact that Pakistan projects sympathetic image as a victim of terror, even as it is, in fact, the creator of terrorism. Pakistan continues to shelter, nurture, support and protect innumerable terrorist outfits on its soil.
Nobody forced Pakistani government to facilitate relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996. Benazir Bhutto’s democratic government of Pakistan chose to do so of its own will.
Nobody forced Pakistani Army and Intelligence to create what ex-CIA official Bruce Reidel called ‘this jihadist Frankenstein’ monster in 1990s. Pakistani Army and Intelligence chose to do so with the full financing provided by Pakistan’s democratic governments at the time.
Pakistan boldly holds the Western world to ransom. It garners generous financial aid and military supplies from the US and has successfully projected itself as recourse of last resort in its geographical theatre. It runs circles around international sanctions and bans by nurturing a large number of home-grown terrorist outfits forever changing nomenclature. In addition, it maintains seemingly endless supply of freelance non-state actors that allow it the fig-leaf of plausible deniability.
And in a masterful demonstration of how to manage chaos, Pakistan keeps its domestic situation in destabilized ferment and flux by stoking sectarian, that is, Sunni versus Shiite violence, and religious tensions between Islamic progressives and fundamentalists.
For the further bamboozling of the West, Pakistan uses its blow-hot-blow-cold relationship with the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and its hosting of the Al Qaeda as adroit bargaining chips.
Pakistan blackmails international community in coughing up ever increasing doses of foreign aid by maintaining innumerable terrorist outfits on its soil just as Pakistan blackmails international community by hinting at the possibility of its nuclear weapons falling in the hands of Taliban/Al Qaeda axis while it was Pakistani Army that created Taliban to begin with. Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton’s national security advisor told 9/11 Commission in March, 2004 that ’Pakistani Army was the midwife of Taliban’. UN report on Bhutto killing published in April, 2010 confirmed this fact when it stated that "The PAKISTANI MILITARY ORGANIZED AND SUPPORTED THE TALIBAN TO TAKE CONTROL OF AFGHANISTAN IN 1996“.
Declassified DIA Washington D.C., "IIR (intelligence Information Report) Pakistan Involvement in Afghanistan," dated November 7, 1996 states how "Pakistan's ISI is heavily involved in Afghanistan," and also details different roles various ISI officers play in Afghanistan. Stating that Pakistan uses sizable numbers of its Pashtun-based Frontier Corps in Taliban-run operations in Afghanistan, the document clarifies that, "these Frontier Corps elements are utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary combat“.
Declassified U.S. Department of State, Cable "Pakistan Support for Taliban" from Islamabad dated Sept. 26, 2000 states that "while Pakistani support for the Taliban has been long-standing, the magnitude of recent support is unprecedented." In response Washington orders the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to immediately confront Pakistani officials on the issue and to advise Islamabad that the U.S. has "seen reports that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance and military advisors. [The Department] also understand[s] that large numbers of Pakistani nationals have recently moved into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban, apparently with the tacit acquiescence of the Pakistani government." Additional reports indicate that direct Pakistani involvement in Taliban military operations has increased.
Pakistan created these terrorist outfits and so is in NO danger from these outfits. Sooner ICG discards such misconceptions, the better.