Afghanistan News & Discussion

[Pranav]

how can india ever build a relationship with the pashtuns if it says taliban is not acceptable?

I doubt there are any Talibs who could win a fair election in any province or district.

Talibs are generally from poor and marginalized families, they do not have the legitimacy of traditional tribal elders. Nor does their conduct inspire any confidence amongst the Afghans.

Yet there must be some amongst them who can be re-integrated, and there is no reason why India cannot maintain a dialogue with them.

[Lalmohan]

^^^ the definition of a 'talib' is quite flexible, in the afghan context this changes on a daily basis

[SSridhar]

how can India ever build a relationship with the Pashtuns if it says taliban is not acceptable?

Whoever says that the Taliban represent the Pashtuns ?

[Pranav]

India should cut Afghan losses

Sunanda K Datta-Ray

The time may have come to take a hard look at geopolitical reality, assess modern security needs and calculate what is possible in Afghanistan. India might stand to gain more by cutting its losses and consolidating economic, technological and strategic ties with the US. If domestic growth is sustained and Americans find India an attractive market, the partnership might be a more effective firewall against depredations than continuing to risk AfPak reprisals. Afghanistan could be unwinnable for India too.

-- [email protected]

It's a moral issue - the Afghans don't want to be slaves of the Paks. They hope that India will help them defend themselves. Russia, Central Asians, and Iran don't want a radical Pak-American puppet regime in Afghanistan. India needs to stand by fellow-Asians, rather than acquiescing in any Pak-American project to destablize India, the CARs and Russia.

If India lets down the Afghans, India will not only lose its honor in Asia for the next century or more, but will also end up paying a big price, itself.

[r_subramanian]

A small report. Quoting in full.

Afghan President to visit India on Monday
Afghanistan's president will visit India next week to strengthen the "strategic partnership" between the two countries, the Indian foreign ministry said Saturday.
President Hamid Karzai will arrive Monday for the two-day trip at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the ministry said in a statement.
"The visit provides an opportunity for both sides to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest," the ministry said

.
link
Is this a hastily arranged trip? Or, is the invitation a long-standing one? Does anyone know?

[Pranav]

x-post from TSP thread:

Afghanistan 'foils Kabul bomb plot'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_yP9xHjgM0

Afghanistan's police force has said that a Pakistani army officer is among the men arrested after it broke up a group planning to carry out suicide attacks in Kabul.

Security has been stepped up in the capital, despite the fact that alleged appears to have been foiled.

"Just a couple of days ago the police arrested 16 people. Nine of them were actually suicide bombers, all trained outside of Afghanistan," Mohammad Hanif Atmar, the Afghan interior minister, told Al Jazeera.

This is a very important development, as important as the arrest of Kasab. The arrested Pak army captain should be tried publicly. This team may have been trying to attack the Indian embassy - there were reports to that effect a few days back.

[surinder]

Interestingly the whole Talibum phenomena formally began over a fight over a boy. Two rival war lords were fighting over a boy.

In a society which has removed women from public life completely, such unnatural acts are natural. In A'stan, women are totally banished from public life. Even among the men who hang out, they hug, hold hands, embrace---clearly sme men take on the role of women in public. I am talking of normal men, not bacha-bazi boys. Such effiminate men are common sight in A'stan. Among a group of friends, or majahideen, some men are noticably effiminate, almost encouraged to be so.

Then there are dancing boys with dancing troupes that tour the country. As night falls, these troups attract men who come to watch boys dance. Often fighting results between patrons over who will take them. Many murders happen this way.

Some powerful men keep them as keeps, as the documentary is also says. Some of the older men fall in love with them. Some men then try to marry this bacha boys to their daughters, as ugly as it sounds.

There is no solution to the problem unless A'stan lets women take on a natural role in society. Not create a women-less utopia. But islaam prevents such changes from occuring. In fact, most of Musim world is afflicted with this gay / men-as-women issues. A dirty secret, the fascination for boy/men is dandourously high among males from Muslims countries, especially the more purtan ones.

[shyamd]

Indo-Pakistan proxy war heats up in Afghanistan

By TIM SULLIVAN

KABUL

Across Afghanistan, behind the obvious battles fought for this country's soul, a shadow war is being quietly waged. It's being fought with spies and proxies, with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money and ominous diplomatic threats.

The fight pits nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan against one another in a battle for influence that will almost certainly gain traction as the clock ticks down toward America's military withdrawal, which President Barack Obama has announced will begin next year.

The clash has already sparked bloody militant attacks, and American officials fear the region could become further destabilized. With Pakistani intelligence maintaining ties to Afghanistan's Taliban militants, India has threatened to draw Iran, Russia and other nations into the competition if an anti-Indian government comes to power in Kabul.

"This is a delicate game going on here," said Daoud Muradian, a senior adviser to the Afghan Foreign Ministry. He spoke wearily about how Afghanistan, a mountainous crossroads linking South Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia, has for centuries often been little more than a stage for other countries' power struggles. "We don't want to be forced to choose between India and Pakistan."

For both India and Pakistan, Afghanistan is an exceedingly valuable prize.

To India, ties with Kabul mean new trade routes, access to Central Asia's vast energy reserves and a way to stave off the rise of Islamic militancy. It means the chance for New Delhi to undermine Islamabad as it nurtures its superpower aspirations by expanding its regional influence.

While Pakistan is also desperate for new energy supplies, its Afghan policy has been largely shaped by the view that Afghanistan is its natural ally. The two countries share a long border, overwhelmingly Muslim populations and deep ethnic links.

Then there is fear. Pakistan and India have already fought three wars over the past seven decades, and Pakistani military leaders are terrified of someday being trapped militarily between India on one border and a pro-India Afghanistan on the other.

"We can't afford an unfriendly government in Afghanistan," said Mohammad Sadiq, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan.

The shadow war began in earnest in the wake of the 2001 U.S. invasion, when the Taliban government was forced from power and New Delhi began courting Afghanistan's new leaders. It was a move into a country that Islamabad, a fierce supporter of the Taliban government, had seen as its diplomatic territory for two decades. But New Delhi quickly became a close ally of President Hamid Karzai, who will travel to India early next week for talks aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries.

On the surface, both India and Pakistan are bringing help to a country that desperately needs it.

New Delhi has built highways in the western deserts and brought electricity to Kabul. It is constructing a new Parliament building and offers free medical care in clinics across Afghanistan. Despite its immense spending needs -- India has widespread poverty and staggering infrastructure problems despite its rapidly growing economy -- it has given more than $1.3 billion in development aid.

That, in turn, has sparked Pakistani efforts, with Islamabad spending about $350 million on everything from school textbooks to buses.

But this is far from pure humanitarianism.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, laid out the situation bluntly: "While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures," he warned in a report late last year.

Heightened tensions are the last thing the U.S. wants. The Afghan war has killed more than 1,800 coalition soldiers -- more than 1,100 of them Americans. More than 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed just last year.

If the competition over Afghanistan is rooted in a cocktail of issues, much of it revolves around the Taliban.

New Delhi's perceptions of modern Afghanistan have been molded by its memories of the 1996-2001 Taliban government, the fundamentalist Muslim regime which rose to power with Pakistan's help.

It was a time when New Delhi was openly despised in Kabul, when anti-India insurgents trained in Afghan camps and the hijackers of an Indian airliner were welcomed here as heroes. Even after the Taliban government fell, Pakistan's powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, retained links to the Taliban insurgency now battling the American-led forces and the Karzai government, in case the Taliban ever return to power.

But if there's one thing New Delhi does not want, it's another militant Islamic government in Kabul.

"We want the stabilization of Afghanistan because it is directly related to our security. Plain and simple," said Jayant Prasad, the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, speaking inside his heavily guarded Kabul residence.

India has paid heavily for its Afghan involvement. The Indian Embassy was bombed in 2008 and again last year, leaving 75 people dead. Six Indians were killed by militants during the construction of an India-funded highway.

Two Kabul guest houses popular among Indians have been attacked. The last attack, in February, left at least six Indians dead and forced New Delhi to temporarily close its medical and teaching missions in Kabul. India blamed that attack on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, the same group believed to be behind the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

India and the United States have both said the embassy attacks were carried out by militants allied to Pakistan's ISI.

The Pakistanis "are bringing the proxy war to Afghanistan and we are the targets," said Prasad.

It's an accusation that Pakistan angrily denies.

"India has always used Afghanistan against us," said Sadiq, the Pakistani ambassador.

Karzai has made little secret of his preference for India. The president, who was educated in India, has loudly welcomed New Delhi's assistance while rarely mentioning Pakistan's aid.

Other Afghan officials barely disguise their distrust of Pakistan.

Pakistan wants "a puppet state in Kabul, a subservient state," said Muradian, the foreign ministry adviser. "India wants a stable, pluralistic Afghanistan."

Certainly, India has shown it is willing to play diplomatic hardball.

Even India's allies say New Delhi has a large presence in Afghanistan from its foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW. At least one victim of the February guest house attack was an undercover RAW agent, a senior Afghan official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

According to Islamabad, many of those agents are providing support to separatist militants in Pakistan's Baluchistan province -- an accusation New Delhi denies.

The reality remains murky. Pakistan keeps Baluchistan largely sealed off to outsiders. Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Indian intelligence is believed to be in contact with the Baluchi separatists, though it's unclear if they provide any support.

India also is keeping in reserve its longtime links to Afghan warlords, in case Afghanistan is again divided by violence.

For years, New Delhi supplied the leaders of the Northern Alliance, the collection of ethnic militias that battled the Taliban (and often one another), with food, intelligence and medical care. Later, after the Alliance helped the U.S. oust the Taliban in 2001, the warlords scattered into government and business -- and sometimes into crime or exile.

But India remains in close contact with a range of the former militia leaders, according to people with close ties to New Delhi's foreign policy elite, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

New Delhi's biggest worry is that U.S. forces will withdraw from Afghanistan before Karzai's government is in full control of the country. An early withdrawal, India fears, could allow Islamabad and the Taliban militants to gain more power in Afghanistan and potentially even usher in another government hostile to New Delhi.

While a full American pullout appears unlikely anytime soon, U.S. military officials have angered New Delhi by talking about the possibility of allowing some Taliban to join the Afghan government.

India warns it could form a coalition with Iran -- an alliance that would infuriate Washington -- if the Taliban appear poised to return to power. The "self-interested coalition" could include Russia and several Central Asian states that would also fear a Taliban return, according to an Indian with knowledge of the diplomatic maneuvering.

For now, though, India's program to win Afghan hearts and minds is clearly working.

Take the three Indian doctors working in the dusty northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif, dispensing prescriptions and performing surgeries in a faded colonial-era hospital that somehow survived the years of fighting.

Every morning, clusters of women in blue burqas gather in the narrow hallway outside the clinic, while men wait in the parking lot. They are the poorest people in one of the world's poorest countries: widows, the unemployed, the elderly. They measure the distance to the clinic by the cost of getting there -- and a 10-cent bus ride is a painful investment.

About 150 arrive every day for free care and medicine.

An old man named Myagul -- he has only one name, and didn't know his age -- had been coughing badly, he said, and growing dizzy when he stood up. The doctors prescribed blood pressure medicine and cough syrup. He'd already been to a handful of doctors, but they had all asked for fees he couldn't afford.

But on a warm Afghan morning, the old man with the greasy beard and the torn blazer left the clinic clutching a handful of medicines, weary but pleased.

"Finally it was these Indians who helped."

[CRamS]

Comparing India & TSP and doing an equal equal is like comparing a cheat and a hard-working student; both are "competing" to come on top of the class. No matter what India does, good or bad, it has to be India bTSP equal equal.

[abhishek_sharma]

Elite U.S. Units Step Up Drive in Kandahar Before Attack

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/world ... dahar.html

[shaardula]

at this point, any sunni pashtun militia can claim to be taliban. but the original, in-doctrinaire taliban remains the one created by tsp to colonize afghanistan. the rest are all localized opportunists. i think just looking at islamist rhetoric, kafir, murat etc etc is not sufficient. beyond their tribal culture, islam is the only other influential world view. so islamic rhetoric is par. but if shia and sunni and sikhs could flourish then it was perhaps good neighborliness and pragmatism. the kind of evil manufactured by tsp is something else. that version is not afghan.

[putnanja]

DIFFICULT GAME - India must protect its interests when the US exits Afghanistan by BRIJESH D. JAYAL

...
In all fairness, the US has never pretended to be sensitive to our security concerns if they clashed with its national interests. That is why it was not the least apologetic about denying our agencies access to David Headley, who is the self-confessed mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Although that situation has changed since, it can be asked whether the US would have taken kindly to being denied access to Ajmal Kasab, the lone survivor of the Mumbai attackers. Would India have had the courage to deny it access? Since Headley has named serving Pakistan army officers as responsible for planning and executing the Mumbai carnage, the least India expected was a US censure of Pakistani military and intelligence establishments, if not out of conviction then at least out of form.

Instead, it appears that praise was showered on General Kayani and the Pakistan army for their efforts on the AfPak front and commitments extracted that the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban and al Qaida — all organizations targeting the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan — would be tackled. No such assurance was considered necessary for Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Haqqani network, both of which are considered Pakistani strategic assets to target India. This in spite of their also featuring on the US president’s list of those to be dismantled and defeated. Aware of these double standards and so to appease Indian sentiment, the US promptly announced the conclusion of the nuclear reprocessing agreement with India, hailing it as further consolidation of a strategic partnership.
...
...
It is not this writer’s intention to join political issues or defend the person of Narendra Modi who, as an elected representative from Gujarat and holding the constitutional post of chief minister, must abide by the law of the land and face the consequences. But surely, like every citizen, he must be presumed innocent until proven guilty and surely a constitutional authority needs more respect than to be subject to sustained media trial?

The issue that concerns one is the inability to separate the personality of an individual holding a constitutional post from the dignity and sanctity of the post itself and, by extension, the equation of the person rather than the position with the State. Some years ago, Modi, as chief minister of Gujarat, in which constitutional post he would carry a red Indian diplomatic passport, was denied a visa by the US authorities. Denial of a visa to an Indian diplomatic passport holder was a rebuff to the Indian State. The Central government should have strongly reacted to this slight to an Indian diplomatic passport holder. That it failed to do so and in fact relished Modi’s discomfiture speaks poorly of our national pride. Perhaps a counter-question would make the point. Would the US have tolerated such a slight at Indian hands to one of its diplomatic passport holders?
...
...
This brings us to the media, which of late have been in the news in the context of paid media reporting prior to the last elections with some electronic media channels reportedly offering paid news packages to political parties. A cynic could well conclude that the hype in the media over the Modi-Bachchan issue was to camouflage the far more serious ramifications for our future security that were unfolding in Washington under the patronage of our avowed strategic partner, the US. In this age of information warfare and commercialization, one wonders if such cynicism amounts to letting imagination run wild.

The author is a retired air marshal of the Indian Air Force

[Prem]

India offers strong support to Afghan president

NEW DELHI: India offered its unambiguous support to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday as the embattled Afghan leader comes under increasing international pressure over his plan to include some Taliban leaders in reconciliation talks to end the nearly nine-year-old war in Afghanistan.An estimated 1,400 Afghans representing Afghanistan's myriad of ethnic, regional and political factions are scheduled to gather for a so-called ''peace jirga'' next month to reach a national consensus for talking with the Taliban insurgents.Although India has deep reservations about what have come to be known as the differentiation between ''good Taliban'' and ''bad Taliban,'' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured Karzai about India's support.''I conveyed to President Karzai our deep admiration for his courageous leadership in difficult times and our support to the government and people of Afghanistan,'' Singh said, reading a prepared statement to reporters following the meeting.Singh's unstinting backing for Karzai, despite New Delhi's misgivings about talking to the Taliban, stems from India's fears that a Taliban comeback in Kabul could give rival Pakistan enormous influence in Afghanistan as well as undo nearly a decade of development and reconstruction work that India has been carrying out in the war torn country.On Monday, Karzai reiterated his position that Afghanistan's future had to be decided by the people of Afghanistan ''in keeping with the principles of national sovereignty, independence and noninterference in internal affairs.''New Delhi appeared to support his position

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... alks-zj-01

[abhishek_sharma]

Afghan crunch time: Obama must decide whether to talk to the Taliban
By Ahmed Rashid

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03020.html

[abhishek_sharma]

Afghans Die in Bombing, as Toll Rises for Civilians

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/world ... fghan.html

[abhishek_sharma]

Afghan Taliban getting stronger, Pentagon says

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/29 ... n-20100429

The new report offers a grim take on the likely difficulty of establishing lasting security, especially in southern Afghanistan, where the insurgency enjoys broad support. The conclusions raise the prospect that the insurgency in the south may never be completely vanquished, but instead must be contained to prevent it from threatening the government of President Hamid Karzai.

[sum]

Inside info on Karzai's Indian visit by MKB:
India closes ranks with Hamid Karzai

The Afghan President Hamid Karzai's two-day visit to New Delhi last week took place at a defining moment in the Afghan civil war. Mr. Karzai is about to embark on a crucial peace and reconciliation project. He just completed talks in three important regional capitals — Islamabad, Tehran and Beijing — explaining his strategy, for the success of which he needs the understanding from the regional powers. Tehran and Beijing were forthcoming in their support of the Afghan government whereas Islamabad views him as a rival claimant to piloting the peace process.

Secondly, “Afghanisation” is set to surge to the centre stage. The foreign minister-level meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) held in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, on April 23 officially set in motion a process to roll back the alliance's operations in Afghanistan. While this would be a natural process and not a “run for the exit,” as NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen put it, the political reality is that the western allies have reached agreement on basic guidelines for commencing the hand-over of responsibility for security to the Afghan forces on a case-by-case basis within this year. The international conference, slated to be held in Kabul in June, will further “tweak” the NATO's approach. Mr. Karzai formally invited India to take part in the conference.

The talks in Delhi have made it quite clear that India will remain an effective partner for the Afghan government in the difficult period ahead no matter the vicissitudes of the United States' AfPak diplomacy; the worsening security situation inside Afghanistan; the Pakistani military's undisguised power projection for “strategic depth”; and, least of all, the physical threat from Pakistani agents to the Indian presence in Afghanistan.

Dr. Singh summed up that his discussions with Mr. Karzai were “extremely productive.” Delhi underlined their strategic character by including Defence Minister A.K. Antony in the Indian delegation at the talks. Dr. Singh pointedly articulated India's “deep admiration” for Mr. Karzai's “courageous leadership in difficult times,” probably administering a word of advice to the Barack Obama administration to have a sense of proportions in judging the highly complex Afghan political situation. Broadly speaking, the Indian viewpoint has been consistently that there is an organic linkage between creating an enabling security environment and setting high yardsticks about an expansion of the footprint of the Afghan government or its accelerated progress on governance issues.

Interestingly, a lowering of the anti-Karzai rhetoric and grandstanding is of late visible in certain quarters within the Obama administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conspicuously voiced a rethink recently. The big question, however, is how far down the ladder Ms Clinton's fair-minded estimation trickles down. Delhi would very much hope that her helpful words translate as U.S. policies on the ground in the aftermath of Mr. Karzai's visit to Washington on May 10-14 — although a systematic Pakistani attempt to queer the pitch of the visit is already afoot.

Two topics dominated Mr. Karzai's talks in Delhi — placing India's development and strategic partnership with Afghanistan within the “Afghanisation” process and, secondly, India's perspectives on the “reintegration” and reconciliation of the Taliban. Dr. Singh said, “India is ready to augment its assistance for capacity building and for its skills and human resource development to help strengthen public institutions in Afghanistan.”

India's assistance for Afghanistan already touches a massive figure of $1.3 billion. India can train Afghan specialists in various fields, provide training and equipment to the Afghan army and cooperate in a range of counter-terrorism and counter-narcotic activities. However, Delhi would be aware that any military deployment in Afghanistan is bound to be a potentially exhausting military mission and needs to be avoided. The Indian stance is strikingly similar to that of Russia or China, which also refuse to get militarily involved in Afghanistan. The challenge facing Indian diplomacy will be to figure out how economic expansion can be the key element of India's security strategy in Afghanistan. Arguably, emulating China's model, which places emphasis on making investments in resource-based projects will be a step forward for India. This could be done in collaboration with Afghan partners.

Without doubt, Mr. Karzai's visit helped to further refine the Indian thinking apropos the contours of an Afghan settlement. The Indian thinking rests on the following assessments. One, India regards the forthcoming jirga (tribal assembly) in May in Kabul and the Afghan parliamentary elections in September to be “important milestones.” Delhi agrees with Mr. Karzai's stance that in order for these processes to be legitimate and enduring, they should be Afghan-led. Two, these political processes can be optimal only if they go hand in hand with the international community's long term commitment to stability, peace and development in Afghanistan.

Three, the deterioration in the security situation is a hard reality and it needs to be firmly tackled on a priority basis within Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan, where the syndicate of terrorist organisations and other extremist groups operating in the region enjoy support and sustenance. Towards this end, apart from the NATO's surge, the Afghan security forces should be enlarged and developed in a professional manner and provided with adequate resources, combat equipment and enablers and training.

It would appear that Mr. Karzai allayed the Indian apprehensions regarding the strategy of “reintegration” of the Taliban. Delhi takes a cautious view of the process since in its view the Taliban may exploit the political space to capture power with Pakistani support, creating a fait accompli for the region, which was how the ISI implemented a phase-by-phase agenda of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan during 1994-97. Therefore, Delhi would expect the reintegration process to be “tackled with prudence, the benefit of hindsight, foresight and caution.” Also, Delhi stresses that any integration process should be “inclusive and transparent,” which is predicated on the assessment that Afghanistan is a plural society and the majority opinion is not only vehemently against the Taliban's extremist ideology but also staunchly opposes any role for the outsiders to covertly dictate peace.

Mr. Karzai shared his thinking apropos the upcoming jirga with Dr. Singh and it appears that there are no serious contradictions between the two sides. Significantly, Mr. Karzai made it a point to underline “our common struggle against terrorism and extremism.” The joint statement also underlined the two countries' “determination…to combat the forces of terrorism which pose a particular threat to the region.”

There has been a latent sense of uneasiness among sections of the Indian strategic community that Mr. Karzai appeared to be in a mood to “compromise” or “appease” the Taliban in a self-seeking manner in anticipation of a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Much of this misperception stemmed from the western propaganda — often pre-cooked in the ISI's kitchen — intended to dissimulate or to create an impression that Mr. Karzai is raring to go to accommodate the Taliban leadership and if anything at all is holding him back, it is only Mr. Obama's scepticism about the reconciliation strategy.

Delhi seems to understand well enough that what is unfolding is rather a grim struggle for the control of the Afghan peace process itself. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Karzai insists on his prerogative as the elected head of state to lead his country's peace process. On the contrary, Pakistani military would like to cast Mr. Karzai as merely one of the Afghan protagonists. Ostensibly, the Pakistani military wishes to work exclusively with the U.S. to reconcile the Taliban but in reality it wishes to seize control of the peace process or to dominate it, while extracting concessions from Washington in the form of military and economic aid. The Pakistani military banks on exploiting Mr.Obama's haste to effect a drawdown of the U.S. combat troops by mid-2011.

The ISI has not only shed its “strategic ambiguity” regarding its nexus with the Taliban but of late openly flaunts its influence with the hardline “Quetta Shura” and the Haqqani network, making it clear that Rawalpindi is capable of torpedoing any peace process which is left to the Afghans. Ironically, this nexus with elements expressly banned by the United Nations (at the instance of the George W. Bush administration) ought to make Pakistan a rogue state but the U.S. has been pragmatic about it and instead chooses to solicit the Pakistani military's help. An added factor is that influential figures within Mr. Obama's AfPak team who are vestiges of the Afghan jihad, enjoy old links with the Pakistani security establishment and willingly subserve the ISI's agenda pitting Mr. Karzai as the “problem” in any national reconciliation process.

Curiously, this political theatre is unfolding against a backdrop where “almost all Afghans, including Karzai's Pashtun supporters, the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance and even the Taliban oppose any major role for the ISI,” to quote Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani commentator, in a recent article in the Washington Post. ......

[ramana]

If US is serious why doesn't it target the Quetta Shura or the Haqqani network?

[chetak]

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2010/may/03 ... m-away.htm

Sniper kills guerrillas two-and-a-half km away
By: IANS Date: 2010-05-03 Place: London

A British Army sniper in Afghanistan has found a place in military history by shooting dead two Taliban guerrillas who were over two-and-a-half kilometers away.

Corporal Craig Harrison killed the two insurgents, who were armed with a machine gun, with consecutive bullets that were fired nearly 3,200 feet beyond the official range of his rifle.

His kills beat the previous record held by a Canadian soldier by 150 feet.

Harrison was so far away that the bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target.

The sniper fired at the Taliban guerrillas after his commander and Afghan soldiers were attacked during a patrol in Helmand in November last year.

His vehicle was further back on a ridge, with his sights trained on a Taliban compound.

"We saw two insurgents running through its courtyard. They came forward carrying a machine gun and opened fire on the commander's wagon. Conditions were perfect, no wind, mild weather, clear visibility.

"The first round hit a machine gunner in the stomach. He went straight down and didn't move. The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and my second shot hit him in the side," Harrison was quoted as saying.

From Wiki

Longest recorded sniper kills

The longest range recorded for a sniper kill currently stands at 2,502.4 m and was achieved by CoH Craig Harrison, a sniper from the Household Cavalry of the British military. It was accomplished in an engagement in November 2009 in which two Taliban machine gunners were killed south of Musa Qala in Helmand Province in Afghanistan with two consecutive shots by CoH Harrison using a L115A3 Long Range Rifle chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum.[18][19][20][21][22]

According to JBM Ballistics[23], using drag coefficients (Cd) provided by Lapua, the L115A3 has an approximate supersonic range (speed of sound = 340.3 m/s) of 1,375 m (1,504 yd) under International Standard Atmosphere conditions at sea level (air density ρ = 1.225 kg/m3) and 1,548 m (1,693 yd) at the 1,043 m (3,422 ft) altitude or elevation (air density ρ = 1.1069 kg/m3) of Musa Qala. This illustrates how environmental condition differences can significantly affect bullet flight.

This external ballistics computer program predicts that the bullets of British high pressure .338 Lapua Magnum cartridges using 16.2 g (250 gr) Lapua LockBase B408 bullets fired at 936 m/s (3,071 ft/s) muzzle velocity under International Standard Atmosphere conditions at 1,043 m (3,422 ft) elevation (air density ρ = 1.1069 kg/m3) arrive at 2,475 m (2,707 yd) after approximately 6.017 s flight time at 251.8 m/s (826 ft/s) velocity and have dropped 121.23 m (4,773 in) on their way.

CoH Craig Harrison mentions in reports that the environmental conditions were perfect for long range shooting, no wind, mild weather, clear visibility. Mr. Tom Irwin, a director of Accuracy International, the British manufacturer of the L115A3 rifle, said: “It is still fairly accurate beyond 1,500 m (1,640 yd), but at that distance luck plays as much of a part as anything.”

The record of CoH Craig Harrison is 45 m (49 yd) further than the previous 2,430 m (2,657 yd) record accomplished in 2002 by Master Corporal Rob Furlong, a sniper from Newfoundland, Canada, during the war in Afghanistan. For his record Furlong used a .50 BMG (12.7x99mm NATO) chambered McMillan TAC-50 bolt-action rifle.[24]

By contrast, much of the U.S./Coalition urban sniping in support of operations in Iraq is at much shorter ranges, although in one notable incident on April 3, 2003, Corporals Matt and Sam Hughes, a two-man sniper team of the Royal Marines, armed with L96 sniper rifles each killed targets at a range of about 860 metres (941 yd) with shots that, due to strong wind, had to be “fire[d] exactly 17 meters (56 ft) to the left of the target for the bullet to bend in the wind.”[25]

[Pratyush]

If US is serious why doesn't it target the Quetta Shura or the Haqqani network?

Sar jee, bls tell me that you meant this as jest. if they do as suggested then TSP looses the Strategic Depth (SD) NO..........

Which (SD) must be protected even at the risk of 911 repeating it self.

Brings me to, "History repeats it self, those who don't learn form it repeat it".

PS can I take a TM for SD??

[Philip]

The Privatization of war.How the US is using the most venal of mercenary forces like Blackwater to fight its dirty wars.This why the US does not want India to train the Afghan Army because its "dirty tricks dept.",Blackwater is doing the same for massive fees! The "privateers" have got the US administration by the balls,because vested interesta are making so much of money on UAS defence/war contracts.Nobody seriously gives a care about the Afghans,Pakis,Indians,as long as Uncle Sam rules the roost and there's money to be made.War is immensely profitable!
The "Prince" of Blackwater now XE, interviewed.

"Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani “barbarians” fighting against the United States “crawled out of the sewer.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... ote]Secret tape of Blackwater founder exposed

Matt Spence in Washington
Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, the American private security organisation, has claimed that his employees have called in airstrikes in Afghanistan.

He also mocked Afghan military recruits for needing lessons in how to use a toilet, and questioned the value and quality of other countries’ troops in the country.

In a speech in January at the University of Michigan which was secretly recorded, he questioned the will to fight of many Nato troops in Afghanistan, saying that “a lot of them should just pack it in and go home”.

Blackwater, now renamed Xe Services, has been a lightning rod for controversy surrounding America’s use of private contractors in war zones since its personnel killed 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square in 2007.

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Mr Prince rarely makes public appearances but in an recording of a recent, private address to a “friendly audience” obtained by The Nation magazine, he can be heard criticising the quality of the Afghan army’s raw recruits but claims his company’s instructors have turned them into “the most effective fighting force in Afghanistan.”

He also singles out the Canadians for their sacrifices and military prowess, but offers no praise for Britain’s troops.

The Nation said that he described a operation in July last year in South East Afghanistan, when Blackwater employees discovered an a huge cache of drugs. He said they had called in Nato airstrikes to destroy it.

“When the guys found it, they didn’t have enough ammo, enough explosives, to blow it, they couldn’t burn it all, so they had to call in multiple air strikes. Of course, you know, each of the Nato countries that came and did the air strikes took credit for finding and destroying the cache.”

The issue of airstrikes has been particularly contentious in Afghanistan where mistakes have inflamed local sentiment against Nato forces.

Mr Prince went onto to urge the US Government to send private contractors fight “terrorists” in Yemen, Somalia and Saudi Arabia, where he claims a “sinister” Iranian influence is growing. He also suggests that Blackwater contractors could be used in Nigeria to protect America’s oil interests from what he describes as “organised crime.” He called Iran “the absolute dead centre of badness”.

In response to questions of Blackwater contractors being potentially classified as “unlawful combatants” under the rules of the Geneva Convention, Mr Prince dismisses the idea, saying that Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani “barbarians” fighting against the United States “crawled out of the sewer.”

“They don’t know where Geneva is, let alone that there was a convention there,” he says.

Mr Prince went on to speak glowingly about the Blackwater’s achievements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He claimed it was a Blackwater guard who takled an Iraqi journalist who assaulted President George W Bush with his shoes in December of 2008. Mr Prince called him a “shoe-bomber” and described the US Secret Service response as “flat-footed”.

Addressing the failure of Blackwater security detail to prevent the December 2009 bombing of a CIA office that killed 8 in Khost, in Afghanistan, Mr Prince said the loss of life was “the cost of doing that work.”

[/quote]

[Airavat]

Floods in Afghanistan

[Sanjay M]

India Sponsors a Park for Women in Afghanistan

"Our classes and our park are so busy - but only because India went to the Kabul slum areas and talked to the women about coming," said Tamana Ghaznewil, 19, an Afghan who works at the park. "For many women, having someone come from another country and offer this little garden was really new. Some asked me, 'Why would they see me, an Afghan woman, as important?' "

[CRamS]

India Sponsors a Park for Women in Afghanistan

And TSP & USA say good boy and pats MMS on his back. And the ppark sure will be guarded by LET waiting for the green signal from Rawilpindi.

[svinayak]

Sethi: 9-11, Taliban & Pakistan -4/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-FsOAY8mQ
This is good take on the relationship of AfPak , AfPak and US , between India and Pakistan.

At some point Sethi takes the line of US govt policy and thinks that it is the only way. These guys have become client state of US not only in terms of army and economic needs but also mentally.

Sethi actually gives away the line that Pakistan has let US drive the policy and negotiate with Taliban and and all other Islamists. Pakistan may also have US drive the negotiation for Pakistan with Indian govt.

[RamaY]

CRamS-ji

India Sponsors a Park for Women in Afghanistan

Let Pakis be pakis and Yankees be yankees. That doesn't mean Indics have to stop being Indics.

[kmkraoind]

Kabul suicide car bombing 'kills at least 19

[VinodTK]

China and India try to fill Afghan gap left by US withdrawal

Although there has been no official confirmation, Paris-based Intelligence Online reported recently that General Ma Xiaotian, the deputy of the Chinese army, discussed having the Chinese train Afghan army and security forces during a meeting with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, in Beijing last month.

New Delhi is also actively discussing its role in Afghanistan once Nato departs. Most Indian analysts reject the idea of training Afghan troops inside India, or perhaps in partnership with one or more Central Asian countries.

[sanjaykumar]

"Our classes and our park are so busy - but only because India went to the Kabul slum areas and talked to the women about coming," said Tamana Ghaznewil, 19, an Afghan who works at the park. "For many women, having someone come from another country and offer this little garden was really new. Some asked me, 'Why would they see me, an Afghan woman, as important?' "


You have no idea how proud that makes me of India.

[shaardula]

India Sponsors a Park for Women in Afghanistan

"Our classes and our park are so busy - but only because India went to the Kabul slum areas and talked to the women about coming," said Tamana Ghaznewil, 19, an Afghan who works at the park. "For many women, having someone come from another country and offer this little garden was really new. Some asked me, 'Why would they see me, an Afghan woman, as important?' "

for some reason, i'm reminded of tagore's kabuliwala. there is a loose analogy even. we let one of our lawyers off the leash. his illlegitimate children wrecked havoc in your home. a piddly park doesnot even begin to compensate your losses. mini does not remember but she understands.

[abhishek_sharma]

Afghanistan: A Look Ahead
A Conversation with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah

http://www.newamerica.net/events/2010/a ... look_ahead

[Neshant]

What is the Maldives govt doing with the Taliban on its soil ?

This sounds like a move by the US to ressurect the so called moderate Taliban theory so it can exit Afghanistan. Taliban terrorists will be back in power once US has exited Afghanistan.

------------

Second Afghan peace meeting in Maldives: government

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100520/w ... y_maldives

COLOMBO (AFP) - Afghan government envoys and Taliban representatives will hold a second meeting at a holiday resort in the Maldives later Thursday, a spokesman for the president of the Indian Ocean nation said.

Envoys for Afghan President Hamid Karzai were due to meet with several members closely connected to the Taliban to discuss national reconciliation,

[A_Gupta]

US rifles not suited to warfare in Afghan hills
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100521/ap_ ... ullet_wars

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. military's workhorse rifle — used in battle for the last 40 years — is proving less effective in Afghanistan against the Taliban's more primitive but longer range weapons.

As a result, the U.S. is reevaluating the performance of its standard M-4 rifle and considering a switch to weapons that fire a larger round largely discarded in the 1960s.

[abhishek_sharma]

Afghan Government and Taliban Deny Formal Talks

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world ... fghan.html

[svinayak]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 80687.html

A shift in UK government policy was outlined by Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, on Friday, when he said that Britain was not a "global policeman", that he would like to see troops return "as soon as possible", and that Britain needs to "reset expectations and timelines". He added: "We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy of a broken, 13th-century country. We are there to see our global interests are not threatened."

What British interest in Afghanistan and the region is being threatened.

[abhishek_sharma]

U.S. Tries Luring Taliban Foot Soldiers Back to Society

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world ... ncile.html

[abhishek_sharma]

HAGUE ON AFGHANISTAN

Steve Coll

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/s ... istan.html

... I report that officials in the previous British government, including David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had urged the Obama Administration to open up a direct line of communication with Taliban leaders. In general, the British government under Labor had been more forward-leaning than the Obama Administration on negotiations with the Taliban in particular and on the need to improve political strategies toward Afghanistan (as opposed to military, development, and governance strategies) more generally.

Even before the British results were in, there was reason to believe that a Conservative-led government would continue down this policy path and perhaps even accelerate

[Airavat]

Problems of poppy substitution

Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock, a bureau that was reinvigorated 18 months ago with the naming of its new chief, Mohammad Asif Rahimi. The first thing Rahimi did in his post was put together a viable new national agriculture plan focusing on four components: natural-resource management, production, postharvest handling and marketing.

The key to the ministry's success, according to Dwyer and many other experts involved, lies in the development of what are known as high-value, high-volume orchard crops. What makes products like pomegranates, almonds and especially grapes so exciting, experts say, is that a plot of these legal gems can be five times more profitable than an equivalent-size plot of poppies.

To the impoverished farmer, it's no contest. Poppies, which are cultivated to produce opium, are an annually harvested crop. The establishment of a grape vineyard could take three to five years. Basic infrastructure including roads, electricity and packaging centers is also essential if high-value crops are going to reap any real profits.

Saffron is also a high-value crop: one kilogram can fetch $2,000 to $3,000 in the local market, says Aslami. That compares to just over $90 a kilogram for poppies.

[ramana]

An NGO doing similar stuff:

http://www.rootsofpeace.org/

[Prem]

Haqqani Network executed Kabul suicide attack
By Bill RoggioMay 24, 2010

The Pakistan-based Haqqani Network carried out last week’s deadly suicide attack in Kabul that killed 18 people, including six Coalition soldiers.US military intelligence officials said the deadly, al Qaeda-linked Taliban group run by Siraj Haqqani planned and executed the May 18 attack on a Coalition convoy that killed a US and a Canadian colonel, two lieutenant colonels, two US soldiers, and twelve Afghan civilians.This one, like past attacks in the capital, can be traced back to Siraj,” a US military intelligence officer told The Long War Journal. “It was his cell, and the attack was hatched across the border in Pakistan.”The US officials disclosed the information after a briefing today by the spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s top intelligence service. Saeed Ansari, the NDS spokesman, claimed the attack was organized in Pakistan with the help of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI.“All the explosions and terrorist attacks by these people were plotted from the other side of the border and most of the explosives and materials used for the attacks were brought from the other side to Afghanistan,” Ansari said, according to a report in The New York Times.“Of course, when we say that those attacks were plotted from the other side of the border, the intelligence service of our neighboring country has definitely had its role in equipping and training of this group,” Ansari said, referring to the ISI without directl

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... z0p3OizZ1C