Bharat Rakshak

this mindless dhoti shivering has to stop.

Marut wrote:wrt to MMS visit to Afg, there has been a lot of commitment from India towards the development of Afghanistan and continued support towards rebuilding and establishment of law & order facilities. Apart from this, there has also been a lot of discussion abt post OBL status of Afg. Afg is sure of US scale down of troops and support. They don't want Pak nosing in. Request had been made for security assistance some time ago. With OBL gone, there was repeat request. khanate has also blessed this. Word is we are seriously considering it - chaiwallah says we won't do token deployment. we are looking at nearly 50k troops at least, mostly RR types and some SF units as well. T55 and some arty will also go. helos and some AF will accompany as well to support the group. Dual purpose - secure Afg and train their troops. khans are providing $$$ and ivan will give supply route. will share more when details come in.

1. The troops should be more or less self-sufficient in Afghanistan and not be dependent on supply lines from India.
2. The supplies should be sourced from either Afghanistan or from various neighboring countries primarily those to the north of Afghanistan or Iran.
3. The troops should be Afghans themselves, who feel at home there, who know the lay of the land, the mentality of the people, the tongues spoken there.
4. The troops should be under Indian command, flag and pay, following directions from Indian Military Command on how to proceed to provide security to Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON — The United States on Friday welcomed India's boost in assistance to Afghanistan and called New Delhi a regional leader, despite expected concerns in Pakistan over the aid.
:
Robert Blake, the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said that Singh "recognized India's enhanced position as a regional leader."

His visit to Kabul "underscored India's strong efforts to support international efforts to rebuild a secure and stable Afghanistan," Blake said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank.

RajeshA wrote:I have been an advocate of raising an Afghan Regiment within the Indian Army, which could be deployed to Afghanistan, and has an independent procurement and logistics network there!

arun wrote:Obama administration is divided over future of U.S.-Pakistan relationship

I wrote:The success that USA gets in cooperation with Pakistan in the short term is outweighed by downside of such a relationship in the long term, simply because Pakistan is made such a relationship - 5% cooperation against terrorists for billions of dollars - into its business model. Every time USA gives money to Pakistan, it confirms Pakistani thinking that it pays to encourage Islamic extremism and Jihadi terrorism. In the end, USA ends up paying for the creation of many many more terrorists than it hunts down.

There are those who say that American involvement in the Muslim world has created terrorists. That is not true. It is American willingness to finance Pakistan - the terrorist breeding factory of the world, that has created terrorists.

It is time that USA got off this dog and pony show.

If USA wants access to Afghanistan, it should give serious thinking of using an air bridge from India to Afghanistan over Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The region is disputed, and Pakistanis cannot legally deny USA access, and they wouldn't dare shoot at any American aircraft.

There are other possibilities. An independent Baluchistan is a possible route.

Google "New Routes for USA into Afghanistan" and read it on BRF, dated Mar 08, 2011 20:22. There are multiple posts by that title in the given forum thread.

Secondly USA should seriously consider giving support to a new nation of Pushtunistan, consisting of Pushtuns from Afghanistan and Pushtuns from Pakistan. The Durand Line dividing Afghanistan from Pakistan is not recognized by the Pushtuns. It would be simply the enhanced Blackwill Plan. This would go a long way in reorienting the passions of the Pushtuns away from war against USA towards nation-building. Pushtunistan and Northern Afghanistan can build a sort of confederation. This would also increase the area over which the Americans can operate.

g.sarkar wrote:http://www.samachar.com/Manmohan-Singh- ... ended_news
Manmohan Singh resets Afghan policy
M. K. Bhadrakumar
It is going to be a long drawn affair.
Gautam

arun wrote:Obama administration is divided over future of U.S.-Pakistan relationship

irfan_kh wrote:Arrogant Americans does not consider scrifices of 5000 soldiers and officers lost lives in this US/Bush led war on terror and 35000 Pakistani ordinary citizens who laid their lives wasted for the nonsensical american war and over 3000 innocent people died due to inaccurate drone attacks ..........i really and especially pity only three of them.....(others as well but these especially)....colonel imam, colonel sultan tarar, and colonel khalid khawja......they were all ISI officers, who were captured by the taliban in waziristan, and then were beheaded in busy markets, their crime.."working for the USA'...alas these fools did not know how ungrateful americans as a nation are ...............

On the day of Judgement, Americans will be also asked about millions of innocent humans which blood on their hands along with their partners in evil plans to destabilize other countries and spread anarchy like they are doing at AFPAK region with the help of India.

I wrote:irfan_kh,

All the Pakistani "soldiers" who lost their lives in "War on Terror" were all Pushtuns - all expendable lives as per Pakistan's Punjabi Army.

In fact, these lowly paid Pushtuns of the Frontier Corps are recruited for the sole purpose of letting them to be slaughtered by the Taliban, so that the Punjabis can say, that they too are losing lives in the WoT. In fact the Punjabis are more than happy that able-bodied Pushtuns are getting killed. The more Pushtuns that get killed, the less there are to challenge Punjabi domination over Pushtun areas.

Where as the Pushtuns are used as cannon fodder in the War on Terror and bear the brunt of this war, the Punjabi Generals grow fat on the money showered on them by the Americans.

So don't come with all these false numbers of how many Pakistanis have lost their lives in the War on Terror!

The Pakistani dog and pony show has reached its end!

drshafiqmd wrote:mister rajesh i am pathan and mojority of the army soldiers are punjabis. We are all Pakistanis. Punjabis, baluchs, pushtuns or sindhis. I know indians cannot see a stable Pakistan and it cannot because it considers Pakistan as a thorn in its hegemonic power in south asia.

I wrote:Dr Shafiq Mohammed ji,

You simply need to look at the evidence available. When there was Army operations in Swat, do you know how many people were internally displaced, mostly due to indiscriminate firing by Pakistani soldiers?! None of the 150,000 IDPs were given shelter or food inside Punjab. The IDPs were directed to go and look for comfort in other places in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and even Karachi, but Punjab did not accept them.

When the Punjabi Chief Minister introduced the subsidies on wheat flour, he made sure that none of that wheat flour was being diverted to the hungry and poor in Pushtun lands.

Every time the Pushtun soldiers of Frontier Corps get taken prisoner by the Taliban-e-Tehreek Pakistan (TTP), one hardly hears of Punjabi Army ever making any substantial efforts to get them released. At the end of the day, either they are murdered by the Taliban or the FC soldiers join them.

Perhaps you may have heard how the Punjabi ISI force Afghan Taliban fighters under their command to bomb schools and kill other Afghans, and not just Americans, even though the Afghan Taliban fighters are not really keen on hurting their own. It is simply because Punjabis don't care about the welfare of the Pushtun.

All you need to do is to really calculate how much money has been spent by Pakistan on the development of NWFP/KP, which does not help the Pakistani Army in one way or another, and to compare that with how much money has flowed into Punjab and to the Punjabi Army! Do the numbers, and everything would be clear to you!

The War on Terror suits the Punjabi Generals well. All the sacrifices are borne by the Pushtuns and all the rewards are scooped by the Punjabis. Of course the Punjabi Generals either directly or indirectly give the Pushtuns the Kool-Aid about Islam, and how the Pushtun are Defenders of Islam, etc. etc. all the time putting Pushtun lives at risk!

The Punjabis are sh*t scared of the Pushtun, so they keep on playing games with the Pushtun

drshafiqmd wrote:Thats why i say indians do not lose an oppurtunity to start blame game. Pakistan is not hiding taliban or Al qaeda operatives . They are hiding in the 20 million afghan refugees living in Pakistan. Its a problem left to Pakistan to deal with since the soviet war. Mister rajesh, how would you know because your country never provided shelter to refugees from afghanistan. ever they.

I wrote:Dr Shafiq Mohammed,

Again you like to fool around with figures. There were never 20 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. They were more of the order of 3 million refugees.

Secondly those refugees never took refuge in Punjab, but only in NWFP, in Pushtun areas, and considering that Afghanistan does not recognize the Durand Line, as far as the Pushtun are concerned they were still in Afghanistan, where they took refuge!

Weren't those refugees used by the ISI, of course with American funding, to train as Mujahideen and go fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1980s? So why deny that ISI were indoctrinating them to do Jihad? Isn't it true, that Pakistan also financed the Taliban and supported them in any way possible to capture Afghanistan in the 1990s?

So why do you play the zero-credibility role that the Islamic radicals came with the refugees. They were radicalized by the ISI to begin with!

As far as India is concerned, we have given refuge to a substantial number of Afghans, considering that we do not border them. We still generously give visas to Afghans to come to India for medical treatment, and education! In fact, Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, himself a Pushtun, did his postgraduate course in India.

Ravi Karumanchiri wrote:ALERT

In the United States, CBS's famed TV News show "60 Minutes" is just now starting (7pm EST - GMT-5).

The second segment features Amrullha Sale, former Afghan Intelligence Chief. He says "Pakistan should be considered a hostile entity....."

You can listen live by going to a Toronto radio station's website at http://www.newstalk1010.com/ and clicking on the "Listen Live" link.

ramana wrote:CRS, There are two main streams of Pathans: Ghilzai and Durrani.

Ghilzai were the prominent ones earlier. Ibrahim Khan Lodi etc were Ghilzai.

Ahmed Shah Durrani was able to create Afghanistan after Nadir Shah's empire collapsed around 1760s.

This made the Durranis' the new royalty. And all Afghanistan accepts it. I talked to Afghans in Fremont (largest Afghan population outside Afghanistan).

After Second Afghan War, the ruler (Abdr Rehman?) ceded the Pathan territories east of Durand Line which are Ghilzai to get rid of his trouble makers just as Nizam ceded the Hindu rajyas(Ceded Districts) to the British in Andhra leading to the current Telangana problem.

What all this did was to make Pakjabis dominant when they got their Pakistan. Hence Pathans are their cannon fodder.

The Taliban are mostly Ghilzai trying to get their historical/numerical primacy so we see the Pakjabis trying to get advantage in the intra-Pathan fight.

Rajesha, Can you blog your views about how Pakjab exploits Pathans all the time?

At minimum write an article and we can have SSridhar host it!

It was within 20 years of fall of Gazni (which was being ruled by Raja Shiladitya), Mehmood invaded the core and consolidated frontier of India along with outer regions. However, it is the trait of power-centre of frontiers to periodically seek expansion into Sindhu basin and vice-versa. Following that trait, Mehmood of Gazni, Muhammad Ghori, subsequent sultans of Delhi until Babar followed that tradition. The rule of the "core" was in hands of people who were ethnically Indians but culturally alienated. This is popularly known as "The Pathan Lobby".The game-changer was First Battle of Panipat when an outsider displaced this entrenched Pathan lobby and consolidated the power of the core.

ramana wrote:RajeshA, Can you blog your views about how Pakjab exploits Pathans all the time?

At minimum write an article and we can have SSridhar host it!

Prasad wrote:I'm not sure this was posted here -
Manmohan Singh resets Afghan policy

M. K. Bhadrakumar

Some nuggets of information that I personally haven't read before about the ouster of Najibs govt. But his views of the events show us why we're still suffering twenty years hence. And as expected, he is doing ching-chak to what our PM is doing now - essentially following the same policy, hence the name of the article. Conveniently forgets that it is the same policy that has given us 20 years of absolutely no influence in afghanistan, kandahar hijacking, terror camps and lack of a pressure point against pakistan.

New Delhi made a leap of faith with regard to the controversial issue of reconciliation with the Taliban. Implicit in this is the awareness that Pakistan enjoys a close relationship with the Taliban.

The year was 1992. Chaotic days in April, as one Sunday morning Benon Sevan, United Nations Secretary-General's special envoy, came to the High Commission in Islamabad straight from a conference with the then Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, seeking political asylum for Afghan President Najibullah in India as part of a deal for the orderly transition of power in Kabul to the mujahideen who had surrounded the Afghan capital. I spoke to the then Foreign Secretary, J.N. Dixit, on open line in Malayalam and sought instructions, which came within the hour: Narasimha Rao ordered that Najib would be our state guest. Najib never made it to Delhi and my subsequent meetings with him used to be in the U.N. compound in Kabul where he was interned till his murder in 1996.

The communist government of Najibullah was overthrown by the mujahideen. A government under Burhanuddin Rabbani got installed in Kabul by June in terms of the Islamabad accord mediated by Mr. Sharif. Mr. Sharif took the mujahideen leaders to Saudi Arabia to pray before they were sent across to Kabul to govern. Pakistani influence on the Kabul government was deemed paramount. Our Mission in Kabul was vandalised and we wound up diplomatic presence. Hardly a few weeks passed; sometime in late August, soon after I was reassigned to South Block, we received a curious “feeler” from Mr. Rabbani's government. Would New Delhi allow a refuelling halt for the presidential aircraft proceeding to Jakarta, ferrying the Afghan delegation to the Non-Aligned summit, on September 1? We figured out that the mujahideen leadership was looking for an alibi to establish contact. Indeed, we warmly hosted Mr. Rabbani and a planeload of mujahideen commanders, including some frightening names vowed to eternal enmity toward India. Thus began a new chapter in the chronicle of India's relations with Afghanistan.

In fleshing out the new thinking fraught with dangers, Rao put down thoughtful markers so that South Block could choreograph a durable policy architecture. One, we should deal with all mujahideen groups without fear or favour and contact should be established with anyone and everyone willing to meet us despite the militancy of their Islamism. Two, we would deal with whosoever was in power in Kabul and focus would be on cultivating a friendly government that was sensitive to India's vital interests and core concerns. Three, dealings would be strictly with the government in Kabul, no matter its proximity with Pakistan or its security agencies. Four, we would neither arm any Afghan group nor ostracise any — not even the Wahhabi group of Ittehad headed by Rasul Sayyaf to which Jalaluddin Haqqani owed allegiance at that time. Five, we would focus on people-to-people relationship, tap into the reservoir of goodwill toward India and meaningfully contribute to Afghanistan's economic welfare within our capabilities and resources (which were limited at that time).

This policy continued till the Taliban captured power in 1996. In essence, what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh achieved during his visit to Kabul last week was to reset India's Afghan policy to its pristine moorings. Dr. Singh did this with great diplomatic aplomb and intellectual sophistication and it has come not a day too soon. There is always the possibility that he has again outstripped the opinion-makers in our country. Some uncharitable criticism can already be heard. Therefore, we need to ponder over what Dr. Singh achieved.

Most important, Delhi has made a leap of faith with regard to the controversial issue of reconciliation with the Taliban. In essence, Delhi feels that if reconciliation is the collective Afghan wish, India would go along with it. India would, however, wish that the peace process is “Afghan-led.” Dr. Singh declared support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reconciliation programme. This, in my view, is an eminently realistic position. It brings the Indian stance in line with the mainstream Afghan thinking. In any case, it was an aberration that a civilisation like India with such insight into the shades of political Islam had a mental bloc about the Taliban. No country today questions the wisdom of reconciling with the Taliban.

Implicit in this “leap of faith” is the awareness that Pakistan enjoys a close relationship with the Taliban. This brings us to a template that is going to be very crucial. The government has done extraordinarily well in doing all that is possible to dispel the cloud of suspicion in the Pakistani mind about India's intentions in Afghanistan — that our two countries needn't be locked in a zero-sum game. Our hope is that there could be a new calmness in the Pakistani eye as it scans the horizon and surveys India's activities. This approach must be counted as singularly imaginative on the part of the Indian policymaker. It is audacious, since there is no illusion that Pakistani policies in Afghanistan may still move on the same hackneyed, extravagantly wasteful and futile track of the past quarter century and more.

Of course, Pakistan would have lingering suspicions; and India's security worries, too, are profound. And it is going to be a long way down the line before India and Pakistan can actually think of cooperating in the stabilisation of Afghanistan. But the incremental removal of the “Afghan contradiction” from the cauldron of India-Pakistan differences itself would have a positive impact on the climate in which India-Pakistan dialogue is currently proceeding. Second, it will make a little bit lighter the burden of working out an enduring Afghan settlement.

Neither Dr. Singh nor Mr. Karzai showed the least bit of interest in rhetoric or grandstanding vis-à-vis Pakistan. Delhi knows Mr. Karzai can't do without Pakistan to steer the peace process forward but that doesn't discourage it from cooperating with him. On his part, Mr. Karzai underscores the willingness to be mindful of India's legitimate interests and concerns. It has been agreed that the key policymakers at the level of national security advisors will work together. Both Dr. Singh and Mr. Karzai seem to hope that in the downstream of the killing of Osama bin Laden, there could be a new awareness among regional powers, especially Pakistan, about the dangerous ramifications of terrorism. Dr. Singh called for a thorough probe into bin Laden's scandalous stay in the cantonment town of Abbottabad, but he also drew a distinction between India's approach to tackling terrorism and America's methods. This must be counted as one of his most significant remarks made from Afghan soil. Its resonance for regional security cannot be overlooked.

Dr. Singh conclusively buried the notions regarding Indian military involvement in Afghanistan. This may trigger despondency among our chest-thumping hard line pundits but Afghanistan is a classic situation where fools rush in, while angels fear to tread. Below the threshold of military involvement, India can help stabilise the Afghan situation. The primary benchmark ought to be the needs and demands of the Kabul government for “capacity-building.” India's offer to provide training for Afghan police officers is a big initiative, as in a post-settlement scenario, the police force is going to play an even more important role in enhancing security than the standing army.

Dr. Singh's decision to have an overnight stay in Kabul was imbued with the political symbolism that India has the grit to follow-up on its commitments. It would have gone down well in the local perceptions of India as a benign neighbour and steadfast ally who cares deeply for the sufferings of the Afghan people. Equally, his address to the Afghan parliament was a reiteration of the bonds with the Afghan nation that transcend the ebb and flow of current history and politics. The announcement of a $500-million aid package is a timely gesture to reiterate India's abiding interest in the stability and progress of that country on the path of development.

The only missing link in Dr. Singh's visit is that Delhi hasn't spoken a word about Afghanistan's “neutrality.” The big question remains unanswered: is Delhi for or against a long-term western troop presence in Afghanistan? This question will loom large in the coming months. The consensus opinion in the region is against foreign military presence. But the United States is working toward winding down the tempo of the war so that a troop drawdown is possible, while envisaging a long-term military presence. The pattern is the same as in Iraq where Washington is making desperate efforts to extract from the Baghdad government a framework agreement that allows U.S. troops to somehow remain in Mesopotamia beyond end-2011. Mr. Karzai is also coming under U.S. pressure. In the Hindu Kush, woven into this question is the U.S.'s regional policies toward China, Iran, Pakistan and Russia — what passes under the rubric of the “new great game.” It will be extremely unwise for India to be impervious to the tide of regional consensus. Let the native genius of the region guide the moving finger of history.

(The writer is a former diplomat.)

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - Relations between the United States and Pakistan are at a "make or break" stage, John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, said during his fence-mending trip to Pakistan on Monday.

For now, a break appears to have been averted with the opening of a "new phase" of American operations in the region under a fresh agreement between Washington and Islamabad for the routing of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In a joint statement issued in Islamabad, the countries agreed on Monday to work together in any future actions against "high-value targets" in Pakistan.

Details of the accord, like all past accords, are unwritten. What will happen though is that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mark Grossman, will soon visit Pakistan to make the political environment conducive for the next phase.

Relations between the two nations were severely strained at the beginning of the month when US Special Forces assassinated al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the military town of Abbottabad, 60 kilometers north of Islamabad. Pakistan was embarrassed and angered when the US claimed sole responsibility for the operation in defiance of an agreement between the countries.

Contrary to all previous rhetoric by the Pakistani military establishment and briefings they delivered to a joint session of the Pakistani parliament last week, Monday's joint statement proved that Pakistan had always been onboard to work with the US and that statements issued by the military establishment were posturing.

Last Friday, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani and the Inter-Services Intelligence head Ahmed Shuja Pasha appeared in a historic joint session of parliament, the first time in 63 years that an army chief and the top man of the ISI had presented themselves before the legislature.

The joint statement pointed out that "all tracks of US-Pakistani engagement need to be revisited to assure that the countries can continue to cooperate on counter-terrorism", yet deeper problems remain, most notably among middle cadre of the military.

This was emphasized by Kiani, who told Kerry that there were "intense feelings" in the military over the raid to get Bin Laden, according to a statement issued by the army.

Many in the army still want alliances with Sunni Islamist elements in the region as leverage against India and Iran. As a result, a backlash within the military establishment against the forthcoming new phase in the war against the Afghan Taliban is inevitable. Once again, Pakistan will be caught in the middle between the US and militants, with interests on both sides.

Kerry is one of the initiators of the Kerry-Lugar bill that envisages US$1.5 billion yearly in aid to Pakistan for five years. Pakistan has already received $14.6 billion in economic and military assistance from the US since 2005. Kerry arrived in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday with a clear message that a conclusive war against Islamic militancy is wanted, and all his statements reflected this decisive theme and uncompromising stance.

"Yes, there are insurgents coming across the border," he said at the US Embassy. "Yes, they are operating out of North Waziristan [tribal area in Pakistan] and other sanctuaries, and yes, there is some evidence of Pakistan government knowledge of some of these activities in ways that is very disturbing," Kerry said.

The senator also pointed a finger at the presence of the powerful Haqqani network in North Waziristan as one of the key drivers of the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan. The US tried to tighten the noose around the network when it slapped sanctions on leader Jalaluddin Haqqani's younger son, Badruddin Haqqani, last week. His name was added to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists that allows the US to freeze his assets, prevent him from using financial institutions and prosecute him for terrorist activities.

Kerry said there were "deep reservations" among some American lawmakers about whether Pakistan shared Washington's goals in the region, but said, "Pakistan has supported our efforts to diminish the capacity of al-Qaeda over the last several years. Pakistan has allowed us to have intelligence personnel operating in Pakistan in ways that helped us to capture Osama bin Laden."

Opening of the next phase
Now that Bin Laden is dead - the pinnacle of the American-led war against militancy - the next logical targets inside Pakistan include his deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani as well as other top militants.

However, after the Abbottabad incident, the role of the nuclear-armed nation's military establishment is a real question mark, both domestically and internationally. The fact that statements by the armed forces during the briefing to parliament last week were rigged with contradictions does not help their image.

On Saturday, parliament condemned the Bin Laden raid and termed it an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty and urged for an end to unilateral action within its borders, including attacks on suspected militants by US drones. It said logistical support for North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan could be withdrawn if the strikes continued.

Even as the armed forces were briefing the joint session, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) predator drones struck North Waziristan again and parliamentarians questioned the top brass over not doing enough to prevent drone attacks inside Pakistan.

It was reported that the closed-door session was told that drones flew from Pakistan's Shamsi air base in Balochistan province, but that this facility was owned by the United Arab Emirates. This armed forces statement contradicted an ISI official spokesperson's statement published last month that Pakistan had closed Shamsi to drone flights. Later, when the strikes continued, an ISI spokesperson said the drones were coming from Afghanistan.

Some parliamentarians then objected that even if Pakistan did not own Shamsi, the drones were still using Pakistan's air space and should therefore be shot down.

"Pakistan has the capacity to strike down CIA predator drones, but then the government and the parliament should order us [to do so] and also make a commitment to stand behind the armed forces when the fierce American reaction came," air chief Rao Qamar Suleman reportedly told the joint session that continued for 10 hours.

During the session, ISI head Pasha, the person blamed for most intelligence failures, insisted that it was a collective failure of all the civilian and military law-enforcing agencies and the ISI should not be singled out. However, he offered that if parliament and the government demanded, he would resign.

What has become clear in the past few weeks is that the US wants results in a short space of time, and Pakistan has no option but to collaborate in the hunt for Taliban bigwigs hidden in Pakistan.

This would be the beginning of real fireworks within the military establishment should mid-level cadre - rogue elements - aligned with Sunni militants instigate attacks along the lines of the militant assault on the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008 that resulted in the deaths of more than 150 people. (See Al-Qaeda 'hijack' led to Mumbai attack Asia Times Online, December 2, 2008.)

After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, Pakistan's top brass took a policy turn and joined in the US's "war on terror", but a large chunk of officers took retirement and with serving colleagues they helped the Taliban. This changed the dynamics of the Afghan war theater (see Military brains plot Pakistan's downfall Asia Times Online, September 26, 2007).

This collection of former and serving officers was responsible for a number of attacks on the military, including on military headquarters in 2009 and against ex-president General Pervez Musharraf.

Kerry's visit to Pakistan was made to open a new phase of the war in South Asia and the whole exercise of the Pakistani armed forces appearing in front of parliament was not intended to show accountability but to pave the way for this stage.

This is also the time when a nexus of serving and retired soldiers could become active again to revive regional operations, in addition to a possible mutiny against the top military brass.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief and author of upcoming book Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 published by Pluto Press, UK. He can be reached at [email protected]

- Is it fair to say that Mullah Omar still retains some operational control and is the uniting factor?
- Is it fair to say that the reason why TSPA is so miffed is because US is removing TSPs chances to control its backyard? No wonder Kayani is escalating, he knows that Talebs will turn on the TSPA if Omar is given up (he is probably a red line).

Oh well TSPA is screwed either way.

Kayani must be having sleepless nights. Domestic pressure -> trying to divert this by attack on LoC.
Taleban pressure -> kayani will ask mullah omar to bail him out and tell his forces to stand down. I doubt omar will do anything.
International embarrasment -> Kayani is defeating this by blackmailing US. Relelase of those photo's was planned.

See ex ISI guy Durrani's comments. He said they knew at some level, the army chief was in his office and knew that US was in position. So to put an end to the conflicting events, pak is blackmailing the US by releasing these pictures of dead paki's with no weapons.
So it looks like US killed these guys in cold blood. Makes you question who these guys were and a host of other things.

There are 2 lines pakistan has. For domestic consumption: we didn't know about the operation, as selling out OBL would cause talebans to launch war.
For international consumption: Of course we knew about the operation, we were a part of it!

All this means is more international embarrasment and domesitically kayani is screwed.

Let see if US will back off. But anyway, kiling of OBL is a part of handing over power in the ME to the muslim brotherhood.

So what is kayani's game plan to regain some pride?
Start a war with India to divert domestic attention - hence why you had an RPG attack on the LoC. MMS pllayed his card right - reiterated peace.
Kayani will use more LoC strikes or terror. If I was in the home ministry I would be on alert.

Apparently western intel believes pak was onboard, but not clear on what level. I think this is part of US guaranteeing Pak interest in afghanistan and kiling OBL means Obama's afghan mission accomplished. Pak wil get taleban to the table to negotiate.

ramana wrote:Expect a jihadi coup soon.

By Karen DeYoung

The administration has accelerated direct talks with the Taliban, initiated several months ago, that U.S. officials say they hope will enable President Obama to report progress toward a settlement of the Afghanistan war when he announces troop withdrawals in July.

A senior Afghan official said a U.S. representative attended at least three meetings in Qatar and Germany, one as recently as “eight or nine days ago,” with a Taliban official considered close to Mohammad Omar, the group’s leader.

State Department spokesman Michael A. Hammer on Monday declined to comment on the Afghan official’s assertion, saying the United States had a “broad range of contacts across Afghanistan and the region, at many levels. . . . We’re not going to get into the details of those contacts.”

The talks have proceeded on several tracks, including through nongovernmental intermediaries and Arab and European governments. The Taliban has made clear its preference for direct negotiations with the Americans and has proposed establishing a formal political office, with Qatar under consideration as a venue, according to U.S. officials.

An attempt to open talks with the insurgent group failed late last year when an alleged Taliban leader, secretly flown by NATO to Kabul, turned out to be a fraud. “Nobody wants to do that again,” a senior Obama administration official said.

Other earlier meetings between Afghan government representatives and Taliban delegates faltered when the self-professed insurgents could not establish their bona fides as genuine representatives of the group’s leadership.

But the Obama administration is “getting more sure” that the contacts currently underway are with those who have a direct line to Omar and influence in the Pakistan-based Quetta Shura, or ruling council, he heads, according to one of several senior U.S. officials who discussed the closely held initiative only on the condition of anonymity.

The officials cautioned that the discussions were preliminary. But they said “exploratory” conversations, first reported in February by the New Yorker magazine, have advanced significantly in terms of the substance and the willingness of both sides to engage.

Rumors of the talks have brought a torrent of criticism in recent weeks from Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s political opponents, who say that he will ultimately compromise Afghan democracy. In one indication of U.S. eagerness to get negotiations moving, however, administration officials described the criticism in positive terms as evidence that Afghans were starting to take the idea of negotiations seriously.

The Taliban, one U.S. official said, is “going to have to talk to both the Afghans and the Americans” if the process is to proceed to the point that it would significantly affect the level of violence and provide what the Taliban considers an acceptable share of political power in Afghanistan.

Such an outcome is likely to be years away, officials said. They said that the United States has not changed its insistence that substantive negotiations be Afghan-led. “The Afghans have been fully briefed” on U.S.-Taliban contacts, an American official said, and “the Pakistanis only partially so.”

Officials said representatives from the Haqqani network, a group of Afghan fighters based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region whom the administration considers particularly brutal and irreconcilable, have had no part in the discussions.

Although U.S. officials have said that Osama bin Laden’s killing by American commandos early this month could facilitate progress, initiation of the discussions predate bin Laden’s death. During a Feb. 18 speech, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States and the Afghan government would no longer insist on a public break between the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda as a precondition for talks. Instead, such a declaration could be made at the end of negotiations.

The U.S. and Afghan governments also insist that any settlement process result in an end to Taliban violence and a willingness to conform to the Afghan constitution, including respect for the rights of women and minorities and the rule of law.

Asked what Obama hoped to announce in July, an official said the president would not offer details of any talks. “It would be something like this,” the official said. “ ‘Here’s my plan on troops, here’s my overall vision for Afghanistan. The secretary [Clinton] said we were going to produce some diplomacy and laid out our desire to speak to the enemy. . . . I want to tell the American people . . . we’re making that policy real.’ ”

The Taliban has transmitted its own list of demands, most of them long-standing, another official said. They include the release of up to 20 fighters detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — eight of whom are thought to be designated “high value” by the United States and two of whom have been designated for trials by military commissions — withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan, and a comprehensive guarantee of a substantive Taliban role in the Afghan government.

The Taliban proposal of a formal office has raised two immediate questions, one U.S. official said. “One, where is it? Second, what do you call it? Does it say ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ across the door? No. Some people say you can call it a U.N. support office and the Taliban can go sit there.’ ”

“If the Afghans want it in Kabul, that’s okay,” the official said. “If they would support it in Qatar, that’s fine.”

Events over the past six months have contributed to the administration’s determination to get substantive talks underway as well as its belief that a successful political outcome is possible, even if still years away.

In a November meeting, NATO contributors to the 140,000-troop coalition in Afghanistan — all under economic and political pressure to end the long-running war — set the end of 2014 as the deadline for a complete withdrawal of combat troops. By that time, they said, enough Afghan government forces would be recruited and trained to take over their country’s security.

Obama had announced that he would begin drawing down U.S. forces, who form about two-thirds of the international coalition in Afghanistan, in July. The U.S. budget crisis, which prompted the election of more deficit hawks last fall, brought increasing political pressure on the administration to decrease the $10 billion monthly bill for the war.

On the ground in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the coalition military commander, has cited increasing progress against Taliban fighters in the south, although there is some disagreement with the U.S. military’s conclusion that heavy losses have made the Taliban more amenable to negotiations. U.S. intelligence officials have offered a slightly different interpretation, saying that replacement commanders inside Afghanistan have made the Pakistan-based leadership nervous of losing control over its fighters and more anxious to make a deal. (Ultimate doomsday scenario for Kiyani)

Officials said senior diplomat Marc Grossman, who was appointed as the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan after Richard C. Holbrooke’s death in December, was told that the White House expected him to concentrate his efforts on a negotiated settlement.

At the same time, U.S. relations with Pakistan — the home base for the leading Afghan Taliban groups — have become increasingly frayed. The endgame in Afghanistan clearly requires Pakistani cooperation, and Grossman began trilateral discussions on the subject with top Afghan and Pakistani diplomats in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, this month. Officials said that he has also visited other regional players interested in talks, including India and Saudi Arabia, and that Iran has been approached through intermediaries.

The administration now thinks that talks with the Quetta Shura and other groups do not necessarily require Pakistan’s cooperation.

“Some people who have met with the Taliban say that among the reasons [the insurgents] want to establish their own office is so they can get out from under the Pakistanis,” one senior administration official said.

Correspondent Joshua Partlow in Kabul and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

last update: May 17, 18:49


Islamabad, 17 May (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - During US senator John Kerry's visit to Pakistan this week, it was agreed with top Pakistani officials to conduct joint military operations against 'high value' militants inside Pakistan. The move is an apparent sign the two nations remain allies despite tensions caused by the recent US helicopter raid during which Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed north of Islamabad on 2 May, and by US doubts over the level of Pakistan's commitment to eradicating terrorist havens on its soil.

Individuals to be targeted by the joint military operations include senior Al-Qaeda members like its new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Afghan Taliban leader Mohammad Omar and members of the Haqqani network, a group of Afghan fighters based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, unnamed members of Pakistan's security forces told Adnkronos International (AKI).
The joint military operations were announced in a statement issued after a meeting between Kerry and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and army chief of staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Monday.
“The most important understanding was on cooperation to hunt down the Haqqani network operating from Pakistan's North Waziristan region and commanded by Sirajuddin Haqqani and his father Jalaluddin Haqqani," security sources told AKI, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The mechnics, however, will be discussed in meetings by the military commanders,” the sources added.
The visit to Pakistan by Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday and Tuesday was the first by a senior US official since Bin Laden's killing. US analysts said it was intended to send a firm message to Islamabad that if it is to remain a US ally it must show it is serious about fighting terrorism on Pakistani soil and in the region
In the coming weeks, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Mark Grossman will also visit Pakistan and hold meetings with politicians from all of Pakistan's political parties, a senior official in the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs confirmed to AKI.
The purpose of those meeting is to gain as broad support as possible from Pakistanis for the planned joint military ventures with the US against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, the official said.
Kerry's visit was also intended to ease tensions over shortfalls in the 1.5 billion dollars of funding the US in 2009 pledged annually to Pakistan and to remind Islamabad the funds are conditional on it battling terrorism, according to the official.
"John Kerry’s visit was also vital to restoring Pakistan and US relations, which were primarily damaged due to the unsteady supply of funds from the United States of America," the official told AKI.
"Under the Kerry-Lugar Bill (signed in late 2009) Pakistan was pledged 1.5 billion dollars in annual aid for five years, but so far only 500 million dollars were delivered to Pakistan."
The officials said US auditors have also refused to authorise large sums due to Pakistan as reimbursements for expenses incurred by Pakistani army operations against militants and for logistic support provided to American operations.
Pakistan’s past agreements with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, renewed after the terror network's 11 September 2001 attacks on US cities, allowed many senior Al-Qaeda figures to steal into Pakistan and live there undisturbed, in comfort.
It remains to be seen if Pakistan will retain loyalties both to the US and militant groups with whom it has signed ceasefire agreements or if it will begin an all-out war against all.

The joint statement pointed out that "all tracks of US-Pakistani engagement need to be revisited to assure that the countries can continue to cooperate on counter-terrorism", yet deeper problems remain, most notably among middle cadre of the military.

This was emphasized by Kiani, who told Kerry that there were "intense feelings" in the military over the raid to get Bin Laden, according to a statement issued by the army.

Many in the army still want alliances with Sunni Islamist elements in the region as leverage against India and Iran. As a result, a backlash within the military establishment against the forthcoming new phase in the war against the Afghan Taliban is inevitable. Once again, Pakistan will be caught in the middle between the US and militants, with interests on both sides.

CRamS wrote:RudraJi,

What the reason, historical?, cultural? why do the Pashtuns willingly serve as cannon fodder for the Pakijabis? And can the cannon fodder turn cannon against the Pakijabis?

Also, general ethnological question? Are Pathans and Pashtuns the same? For e.g., Imran Khan is a Pathan, so is Afridi. And they do appear to be hardcore TFTA Pakis and don't come across as Pakijabi vassals.

Samudragupta wrote:Who Yindu will choose? Pustun or Pakjab? The fact of the matter is destruction of Pakjab brings Pustun right in contact with the Yindoos?then what?Final showdown with the HinduKush?

Rudradev wrote:

Samudragupta wrote:Who Yindu will choose? Pustun or Pakjab? The fact of the matter is destruction of Pakjab brings Pustun right in contact with the Yindoos?then what?Final showdown with the HinduKush?

We must take inspiration from the immortal Ajit and ensure that Pakistan remains in "liquid oxygen." Pashtun usey jeena nahi dega, aur Pakjabi usey marna nahi dega...