Af-Pak -> Pak-Af Watch

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 16 Mar 2013 00:57

ANANTH DURAI 15 March 2013 Subjects:Afghanistan India Security in South and Central Asia Peacebuilding Policing Bordering on Peace?
India must take on a global leadership role, providing both economic and military aid together with regional/global partners, in support of the Afghan government.

The recent visit of Afghan president Hamid Karzai to India has highlighted the strong and growing cooperation between the two countries. Since the toppling of the Taliban regime in 2001, India has offered close to $2 billion in mostly economic and humanitarian aid. The signing of a strategic partnership agreement in 2011 paved the way for deepening bilateral relations. The Indian government's Public Sector Units (PSU) consortium won a large mining concession in Hajigak, an investment that will lead to the construction of a steel mill – and that some estimate in the region of $8 billion. India has also paid in blood for the stability and support of Afghanistan, most recently in an attack on Indian Army doctors.

But what exactly is India’s game plan in Afghanistan? To answer this, we need to understand the regional picture.

All quiet on the northern front

India has had tremendous success in eliminating terrorists inside Jammu and Kashmir state (J&K) over the last five years with intelligence reports appearing to indicate frustration among the ranks of the terrorists at the lack of support by the Pakistani authorities for their war in Kashmir. Terror attacks are at an all time low and have been low in the last three years in J&K. Tourism to the state has reached record levels (9 million visitors as of October 2012) and progress is being made economically in the lives of ordinary citizens in the region.

During 2012, Indian police received over 1000 amnesty applications from youths who had crossed over to Pakistan at the height of the insurgency from J&K for arms training, wishing to return to India and rebuild their lives. This has been encouraged by cutbacks in Pakistani funding for Kashmiri organisations, as well as the futility of terrorist activity.

Unfortunately all this success cannot be attributed to Indian diplomacy, so much as to the regional geopolitical situation. Evidence arising from the interrogation of terrorists under arrest supported by intelligence reports suggest that the Pakistani establishment appears to be encouraging Kashmiri groups to turn their gaze towards fighting US/ISAF troops in Afghanistan. This is supported further by numerous arrests and intelligence reports from the ISAF in Afghanistan. It is no secret that Pakistan continues to provide support/sanctuary to the Taliban and its allies such as the Haqqani network.

We can conclude as a result that Pakistani efforts and priorities appear to be lie in securing its ‘backyard’ and ensuring that the ISAF/US forces vacate Afghanistan, paving the way for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, post 2014.

But why? The main reason appears to be to put a stop to Pashtun nationalism thereby also ensuring that the current Afghan security establishments don’t become a further tool to be used against Pakistan, forcing them to deploy their armies in the defence of two borders.

So what is India doing to prevent a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan?

India is following a three-fold approach:

- Training Afghan National Security Forces to fight the Taliban.
- Encouraging economic investment in the Afghan government to enable them to raise tax revenue to fund the fight against the Taliban.
- Helping support the functioning of the Afghan government in a variety of ways – training officials, building the National Parliament building and many other programmes designed to deliver effective governance to the people of Afghanistan.
India has already trained hundreds of mid-level Afghan military officers according to analysts, and this now appears to be escalating. India has agreed to train 600 officers every year since the visit of President Karzai, and in addition will also help train companies (100 men) of ANA soldiers in order to develop the cohesion of ANA units.

In addition to this, Indian Air Force pilots will help train their counterparts in the ANSF to support operations. Efforts will only increase over the next few years to ensure that a viable and sustainable government stays put in Kabul. But India can and needs to do more in Afghanistan.

Solutions for a global problem

A return of the Taliban after 2014 will mean that jihadis battling US/ISAF troops will now look around for a new focus and this is likely to be regional hotspots – J&K, Chechnya, Iran, Xinjiang amongst others. Of most concern to India is obviously J&K. Thankfully our security establishment is preparing for such a flare up post 2014. However, an escalation in J&K or at the Indian Line of Control will mean all the hard work of improving the economy and weaning away jihadists over the last ten years could go to waste. Perhaps another Kargil could be planned by Pakistan, in which thousands of lives and billions of dollars are spent on fighting each other which could be devoted to improving the lives of citizens.

However, India at the moment has chosen a bilateral approach together with Russia and Iran to discuss Afghanistan at a National Security Council level. But it is important to remind security establishments worldwide that a Taliban return is a problem for everyone. India has an opportunity to lead a regional and even global partnership effort to support the Afghan government. This will have to involve economic and military aid.

Rawalpindi fears

The Pakistani position is that India’s close relations with Afghanistan stems from India’s ambition to encircle Pakistan. But it’s never too late to remind the Pakistani’s that they continue to support terrorist acts in India and have used Afghanistan as a base for attacks against India. Nations have two choices – cooperation or conflict. Despite the continued acts of terrorism supported by the Pakistani military – India has made every attempt to seek cooperation –as is proved by the Sharm El Sheikh agreement delinking terror from bilateral relations (despite lack of support for this from the Indian public). Despite these efforts, we look across the border and we see the terror infrastructure largely intact. To date, the Pakistani Army has not revised its doctrine of ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan – a view we share with the US and its allies.

During the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan years, Pakistan left their northern borders largely undefended while a major proportion of Pakistani military resources were used to support their military on the borders with India.

Eventually, India will be forced to take the view that the continued support of terror by Pakistan will have to be met with a longterm response. That response is likely to involve supporting the Afghan government with military supplies (thus far India has refrained from doing so despite Afghan requests in the hope that Pakistan will maybe opt for cooperation instead of conflict) and even a military presence that ensures that Pakistan will have to guard their northern borders. Guarding their northern borders will mean deploying their meagre resources towards developing new infrastructure, more weapons and leaving the southern borders much less defended. This will make Pakistan vulnerable. This weakness is likely to result in Pakistan having to stop their terror support activities due to lack of resources and also to the absence of resources enabling their defence against any Indian military retaliation.

To conclude, India is likely to revisit their decision not to supply the ANSF with offensive weapons in 2014, if Pakistan continues to support terrorism on Indian soil. In the coming year, the PM of India, Manmohan Singh should also consider having a serious dialogue with the military leaders of Pakistan offering a no-war agreement in exchange for total cessation of support for terror.

This can only be secured with the support of Pakistan’s close allies – the GCC, China and the USA. This is precisely the reason why Indian strategists have done well to open a good line of communication between these three parties. Whether Pakistan will agree to such a proposal remains to be seen. The ball is in Pakistan’s court: will Pakistan decide between cooperation or conflict?

India must also take on a global leadership role, providing both economic and military aid together with regional/global partners in support of the Afghan government. A failure to do this could cost citizens in the region very dearly.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 16 Mar 2013 01:09

It will be lovely to watch the beginning of Afghan Air Force with 2 Squadrons of Mig 29S and Su30 and might as well Single Squadron of Rafales to be handled by IAF.
And 2 new Beeratherly Mountain Strike Corp based in Kandhar and Jalalabad .

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Mar 2013 03:11

Jhujar wrote:It will be lovely to watch the beginning of Afghan Air Force with 2 Squadrons of Mig 29S and Su30 and might as well Single Squadron of Rafales to be handled by IAF.
And 2 new Beeratherly Mountain Strike Corp based in Kandhar and Jalalabad .

India need a big air base in the Northern Afganistan and one near the Iran border in Afghanistan
It should be similar to Baghram AFB

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 16 Mar 2013 04:00

If India can maintain a Siachen base, it should be able to manage an AF base in northeast Afghanistan.

The point is it should lead to recapturing of PoK within set time frame say 5yrs

The current administration will never do that.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Mar 2013 14:35

Acharya wrote:
Jhujar wrote:It will be lovely to watch the beginning of Afghan Air Force with 2 Squadrons of Mig 29S and Su30 and might as well Single Squadron of Rafales to be handled by IAF.
And 2 new Beeratherly Mountain Strike Corp based in Kandhar and Jalalabad .
India need a big air base in the Northern Afganistan and one near the Iran border in Afghanistan
It should be similar to Baghram AFB

India's Afghanistan adventure is over!

Lack of land access and Afghanistan surrounded by countries with their own agendas contrary to those of India and Afghanistan means we can really forget doing anything there.

This was bound to happen! Who knows whether the Afghans would remember what the Indians did in this period (2001-2013) ?!

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 16 Mar 2013 15:52

Whether our Afghan foray will crumble or not only future will tell. However, our strategy will have to change drastically if we are to play any meaningful role in it future. I fully agree with you on the below.

RajeshA wrote:Lack of land access and Afghanistan surrounded by countries with their own agendas contrary to those of India and Afghanistan means we can really forget doing anything there.

Adding a base or troops will only allow Afghanistan's neighbors to squeeze us harder.

Also, a Base or troops location will present an fixed target to our enemies. Rather, we should support forces that would not like to see a return of Pakistani dominance in Afghanistan. Support all such forces with funds, infra, intelligence, etc. It would also make it easier to disengage.

However, the only long term solution is to go to the root of the problem i.e. going after the state/non-state actors inside Pakistan. We have to *persuade* them to realize the folly of their current policy.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 16 Mar 2013 21:25

What Vali Nasr Gets Wrong: A former State Department insider has written a blistering account of the Obama administration’s missteps in Afghanistan. But is he right?

The REAL reason the U.S. failed in Afghanistan

Sushupti · Post by **Sushupti** » 20 Mar 2013 02:41

Af-Pak Debate Across the Border

Amrullah Saleh spoke from Afghan side and rubbed lot of salt to wounded Paki A**.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 22 Mar 2013 13:05

Taliban saying they are slowly losing Panjwai as people rise up against the Taliban in support of the govt.
but the Taliban are infiltrating more for poppy picking season

Raicharan · Post by **Raicharan** » 23 Mar 2013 09:46

India needs to:
1. Prepare militarily to take back NA and POK in a war within 2 weeks (10 years preparation time)
2. Take back what is legitimately her own (no, Pakistan will not use nuclear weapons; no, China will not intervene to face a determined India)
3. Establish strategic relationship with Afghanistan and CA
Any other course of action will be delaying the inevitable.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 28 Mar 2013 05:24

Ready to work for peace without Pakistan help: Afghanistan
Proud Pathan Bitten BY Honorless, Miskeen Pakjabi Black Dog

KABUL: Afghanistan is shocked by “Pakistan’s complacency” in the nascent Afghan peace process and is ready to work without Islamabad’s help on reconciliation, Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin told Reuters on Wednesday.It is the first time Afghanistan has suggested the possibility of going it alone without its neighbour.Regional power Pakistan is seen as critical to stabilising Afghanistan because of its long ties to insurgent groups.Ludin also said the government would look to senior Taliban prisoners recently handed over by the United States in Bagram prison to urge militants to pursue peace. He did not elaborate.Afghan officials had been pushing Pakistan hard to influence the Taliban and other groups to join reconciliation efforts and Kabul had spoken of progress after Islamabad released some Taliban prisoners who could promote peace.But Ludin, who is widely believed to shape foreign policy, told Reuters in an interview that Afghanistan had noted a shift in Pakistan’s position towards peace efforts that are gaining more urgency as foreign forces prepare to leave by the end of 2014.“We here in Kabul are in a bit of a state of shock at once again being confronted by the depth of Pakistan’s complacency, we are just very disappointed,” he said.“But what has happened in the last few months for us, (we) see that Pakistan is changing the goal post every time we reach understanding.”Military trip cancelled
Afghanistan also cancelled a military trip to Pakistan due to what the foreign ministry called “unacceptable Pakistani shelling” of the country’s mountainous eastern borderlands.The Afghan foreign ministry claimed more than two dozen Pakistani artillery shells were fired into its eastern province of Kunar on March 25 and 26.The cancellation of the trip and days of angry diplomatic exchanges have placed further strain on an already fraught relationship.Eleven Afghan National Army (ANA) officers had been due to take part in a simulated military exercise at the Staff College in the Pakistani city of Quetta.“This visit will no longer take place due to the resumption of unacceptable Pakistani artillery shelling against different parts of Kunar province from across the Durand Line on Monday and Tuesday,” the ministry statement said.A Pakistani military official told AFP it had “no details” of the cancellation and declined to give any other immediate response.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 28 Mar 2013 07:50

Richard Holbrooke: The bull in Afghanistan's china shop

Raicharan · Post by **Raicharan** » 29 Mar 2013 08:34

Looks like the net result of Pakistani tactical brilliance of last 30 years is a permanently hostile western neighbor.
Not bad for us, I would say......

Rohit_K · Post by **Rohit_K** » 29 Mar 2013 10:42

Sushupati wrote: Af-Pak Debate Across the Border

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... K0IQ7I6yVk

Everyone, play the video at 47:15 and watch Saleh's reaction at 47:29

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 29 Mar 2013 11:01

53.36 onwards is good. He gives the past and a future

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 30 Mar 2013 07:22

Pakistan denies asking Afghanistan to snap ties with India

Pakistan on Friday rejected Afghanistan’s contention that Islamabad had asked Kabul to sever all ties with New Delhi. On Thursday, an AFP report from Kabul quoted Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi as saying that Pakistan “demanded we cut all ties to India, send army officers to Pakistan for training, and sign a strategic partnership”.

Mr. Faizi had also said the Afghan public would “stone us” to death if “we signed the SPA with Pakistan” as they know the suicide bombers that kill civilians and armed forces in Afghanistan come from Pakistan. Further, he claimed that there is more instability on the “Pakistani side of the Durand Line [the Pakistan-Afghanistan border] than on the Afghan side”.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 30 Mar 2013 09:21

Afghanistan After the War: Is peace possible? -- Ahmed Rashid

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 31 Mar 2013 00:32

Northern Alliance are re-militarizing again.

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Russia may set up new Afghanistan bases – official
March 29, 2013 RT.com
The potential bases would be used for the maintenance of weapons and repair of military hardware.

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Saudi diplomat was engaged in talks with Mullah O 25km outside Karachi.

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A PRC General recently warned Pak Joint Chiefs saying that PRC won't tolerate their duplicity. Pak is deepening coop with PRC - buying most goods from PRC. PRC is worried about Central asia jihadists, af pak jihadists heading to Xinjiang.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 31 Mar 2013 07:03

Karzai in Qatar to discuss Afghan Taliban peace talks
http://dawn.com/2013/03/30/karzai-heads ... ace-talks/

DOHA: Afghan President Hamid Karzai was in Qatar on Saturday to discuss the opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf state for peace negotiations that could end more than a decade of war.Karzai was welcomed at the airport by Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Abdullah al-Attiyah, the Gulf state’s official QNA news agency said, without giving any further details on his talks schedule.Until earlier this year, Karzai was opposed to the extremist militants having a meeting venue in Doha as he feared that his government would be frozen out of any negotiations.The militants refuse to have direct contact with Karzai, saying he is a puppet of the United States, which supported his rise to power after the military operation to oust the Taliban in 2001.
But, with Nato-led combat troops due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, Karzai agreed to the proposed Taliban office in the Qatari capital Doha and is expected to firm up the plan with the emir of Qatar on Sunday.ny future peace talks still face numerous hurdles before they begin, including confusion over who would represent the Taliban and Karzai’s insistence that his appointees be at the centre of negotiations.“We will discuss the peace process, of course, and the opening of an office for the Taliban in Qatar,” presiential spokesman Aimal Faizi told AFP before Karzai left Kabul.“If we want to have talks to bring peace to Afghanistan, the main side must be the Afghan government’s representatives – the High Peace Council, which has members from all the country’s ethnic and political backgrounds,” Faizi added.
A statement from Karzai’s office said he was accompanied on the two-day state visit by Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and Salahuddin Rabbani, chairman of the High Peace Council.Negotiating with the Taliban regime that had harboured al Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks was for many years anathema to countries fighting in the UN-backed coalition against the militants.Kabul has repeatedly stressed that it will only start talks if the militants break all links with al Qaeda and give up violence, and Faizi said that any Taliban office in Qatar must be held to strict conditions.“It can only be an address where the armed opposition sit and talk to the Afghanistan government,” he said. “This office cannot be used for any other purposes.”The United Nations this week welcomed news that Karzai would visit Qatar, and issued another call for the Taliban to come to the negotiating table.“You are Afghans, you care, I assume, about your country, you care about (a) peaceful stable future of the country,” Jan Kubis, the UN envoy to Afghanistan, said.
But the Qatar office could mean little if the Taliban refuse to negotiate with Karzai or the government-appointed High Peace Council.“The opening of the Taliban office in Qatar is not related to Karzai, it is a matter between the Taliban and the Qatar government,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.
“If Karzai visits, it is not our concern. Our representatives who are already in Qatar won’t see or talk to him.”

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 01 Apr 2013 20:30

Handing back Afghanistan to the Taliban?

Top British general warns of dangerous troop cuts in Afghanistan
Cutting the numbers of British troops this summer in Afghanistan would be “unforgivable” and “endanger” hard-won progress at a highly critical time, the most senior UK commander in the country, Lieutenant-General Nick Carter, has stressed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/
Hamid Karzai hopes to open peace talks with the Taliban

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 02 Apr 2013 12:11

@akchishti: Qatar Talks:a delegation headed by a Major General of ISI is in Doha too present on the side-lines of Qatri-US-Karzai-Afghan Taliban's talks

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 03 Apr 2013 06:55

India-China working in tandem to prevent Taliban surge - ToI

With the US withdrawal from Afghanistan looming large, neighbouring countries are hedging against bad outcomes in that part of the world. The jitteriness is palpable, with Afghanistan's neighbours all tying up with each other in different combinations as they scramble to contain what many fear a Taliban surge supported by Pakistan and extremism/terrorism spilling over its borders.

China is teaming up with Russia and Pakistan on a trilateral on Afghanistan, and the first meeting is scheduled in a few weeks. This comes weeks after India, Russia and China sat down in Moscow to craft another trilateral dialogue whereby all the three countries would exchange information and coordinate positions on Afghanistan's future. The new trialateral allows Pakistan and China reaffirm their traditional ties, including showing India that their commitment to each other remains unalloyed.

The Moscow meeting was the beginning of a bilateral track between China and India, a surprising and significant development, given that India and China are generally believed to be on opposing sides of Afghanistan's "Pakistan divide". A bilateral talks between India and China on Afghanistan raised eyebrows within the Indian system since the request came from the Chinese side.

But it showed for the first time, that China too was hedging its bets regarding its "lips-and-teeth" relationship with Pakistan. Pakistan's ties with the Taliban show no signs of abating, despite Islamabad's own travails with them. None of the peace talks with the Taliban are going anywhere because Pakistan's ISI retains a stranglehold on them. And, Pakistan seems to be in a minority that believes the Taliban should be part of the power structure in Kabul.

China's worries are centred on their concerns in the Xinjiang province and the threat of jihadi spillover from Afghanistan.

But also China, like India, wants to protect its considerable investments in Afghanistan. In May China's CNPC will be extracting oil from its wells in northern Afghanistan. This could be the beginning of a resource boom for Afghanistan.

India has theoretically invested in Afghanistan's Hajigak mines, but security concerns persist. An India-China bilateral dialogue could be the precursor of a joint approach to securing their investments in Afghanistan.

China would cooperate just enough with India in its own self interest. By no means, India should assume that China was also against the Taliban take over of Kabul. In fact, PRC would welcome the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan for at least two reasons. One, it would ensure no more US presence in the neighbourhood and two, the Taliban would also expel the potential competitor, India. Pakistan will not give up the Taliban even if they have to offend the Chinese. The Chinese know that too and would not therefore push Pakistan too much on that. The Chinese interests are two fold: protects its investments in Afghanistan and stop jihadi islamist interference in Xinjiang. One can be sure that Pakistan and the Taliban would promise both and largely stick to the promise too. India will derive no benefit in the process. Of course, that does not mean that India should not cooperate with PRC. We do not have many options in Afghanistan after 2014 anyway, but India should know the limits.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 03 Apr 2013 07:10

Is not Mullah Omar being coaxed to run for President? The deal could be a power sharing arrangement that gives Talebs official position. But one way or the other Karazai has been abandoned or is going to be sacrificed. he might be taken off for safety in exile, but Talebs are going to come back to power.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 03 Apr 2013 20:06

Bji, Nightwatch comments on the Omar running for President a la Morsi of Egypt.

Afghanistan: Afghan President Karzai told a German newspaper that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar could run for president in elections next year. Karzai's government has agreed the Taliban can open an office in Qatar if the group breaks all ties with al-Qaida and renounces terrorism. Karzai was in Qatar Sunday to discuss the issue.

Comment: This seems like good press outside Afghanistan, but Omar believes that popular elections are against Islam. The invitation is an insult. However, the Taliban might follow the Muslim Brotherhood strategy in Egypt of winning elections in order to create a caliphate, if they cannot take Kabul by force after NATO departs.

If this happens then it reverses three hundred years of history when west of Indus Pashtun i.e. a Ghilzai has led the state created by Ahemd Shah Durrani!

Won't happen. And if it does then TSP's K-P is history.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 04 Apr 2013 17:17

China-Russia-Pak Discuss Afghanistan Situation - Ananth Krishnan, The Hindu

Officials from China, Russia and Pakistan on Wednesday held talks here {Beijing} to coordinate their positions on Afghanistan and said they would back the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) grouping to play a greater role as Nato forces prepare to withdraw in 2014.

The talks followed a similar meeting India, China and Russia held in Moscow recently, reflecting the delicate balancing act — and increasingly complicated regional dynamics — as different countries look to push their interests in the lead up to 2014.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement here the talks were held to “enhance coordination”. The statement said as “close neighbours of Afghanistan”, they would “make concerted efforts to maintain peace, stability and security” and would “support the reconciliation process of the country run by Afghans themselves”.

They also agreed to support the China and Russia-led SCO grouping “to play a bigger role”, as Nato forces withdraw. India, Pakistan and Afghanistan are observer countries in the grouping, which also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Wednesday’s talks were only the latest of a number of recent regional initiatives to grapple with the situation in Afghanistan.

China recently proposed a bilateral engagement with India on the issue, with talks expected to be held later this month. India, China and Russia also have a trilateral mechanism to coordinate their positions, reflecting the heightened engagement — and sense of concern — in the lead up to 2014.

Role of China

China has so far largely limited its role to investing in infrastructure and resource projects. Last year, however, China signed an agreement to train around 300 Afghan police officers.

The deal was seen by some analysts as an indication of an increasing willingness from China to gradually expand its role, though the agreement’s limited scope reflected Beijing’s hitherto cautious approach.

The security deal was struck during a visit by former Politburo Standing Committee member and security chief Zhou Yongkang, who, last year, became the senior-most official to visit the country in close to 50 years.

China’s primary concern is ensuring stability and the safety of its sizeable investments in mines and oil fields following the 2014 withdrawal. According to Chinese media reports, China’s direct investment exceeded $200 million by the end of 2011, with a further $600 million worth of projects under contract.

A secondary worry is the spread of terrorism and instability to China’s far-western Xinjiang region, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Chinese authorities in Xinjiang recently jailed 20 Uighurs — the local ethnic Turkic Muslim group native to Xinjiang — and claimed that some of them had illegally crossed the border. Chinese officials say some Uighur groups have ties to extremist groups in Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 08 Apr 2013 10:05

Diplomat Killed on Afghan Mission She Coveted

On Saturday, Ms. Smedinghoff, 25, got her chance. She joined a delegation accompanying the governor of Zabul Province to inaugurate a new school in Qalat, the provincial capital. She was to help deliver donated books.

At 11 a.m., a suicide car bomber detonated explosives that ripped into the convoy, killing Ms. Smedinghoff and four other Americans — a civilian and three soldiers — in the deadliest day for Americans in Afghanistan this year. The names of the other four victims had not been released Sunday night.

Samudragupta · Post by **Samudragupta** » 16 Apr 2013 21:48

Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Sunday instructed Afghan defense ministry, interior ministry, foreign ministry and other related organizations to take immediate actions in order to remove security check posts and other military institutions created by Pakistani military on Durand line.
This comes as the delegation appointed to investigate activities of Pakistani military on Durand line on Sunday briefed the Afghan security council regarding the construction of gates and other military institutions near the Goshta district of eastern Nangarhar province.
The delegation was headed by Afghan army chief of staff Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi.
According to reports Pakistani military in cooperation with the coalition security forces moved 11 security check posts from Mohmand Agency to to Gosari area near Durand Line.
In the meantime the delegation added that Pakistan has deployed heavy military equipments and additional troops after receiving reactions from the Afghan border protection forces regarding the construction of gate.
The delegation condemned Pakistan’s unilateral activities and called it violation of standard operation procedures without considering the earlier agreements with Afghanistan.
Afghan defense ministry Gen. Bismillah Mohammadi and commander of Afghan border protection police forces also briefed the national security council regarding the issue.
The national security council meeting chaired president Hamid Karzai also instructed relevant government organizations to ask coalition forces to brief the Afghan government for supporting Pakistani military to construct military institutions in Durand Line.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 16 Apr 2013 22:22

Pakistan removed the gate in one of the provinces disputed

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 17 Apr 2013 02:41

ISAF captures senior Lashkar-e-Taiba leader in Ghazni
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... lashka.php

Coalition and Afghan special operations forces captured a senior leader from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba during a raid today in the southeastern Afghan province of Ghazni. Additionally, special operations forces killed an "insurgent leader" who supported foreign fighters during an operation yesterday in the northeastern province of Kunar.The "senior Lashkar-e-Taiba leader" and "a number of other insurgents" were captured in the district of Andar in Ghazni, the International Security Assistance Force stated in a press release. ISAF did not identify the nationality of the leader or the "other insurgents" captured during the raid.The Lashkar-e-Taiba leader "planned and participated in multiple attacks against Afghan and Coalition forces throughout Kunar, Kandahar and Ghazni provinces" and "was actively planning a high-profile attack at the time of his arrest."He also "is known to have links to multiple foreign fighters." ISAF often uses the term 'foreign fighters' to describe members of al Qaeda and other affiliated foreign terror groups that operate in Afghanistan. ISAF told The Long War Journal today that it "cannot confirm any ties" between the Lashkar-e-Taiba leader and "al Qaeda affiliation with foreign fighters."The Andar district in Ghazni is a known Taliban and al Qaeda hub in the southeast. Since August 2008, the US military has conducted eight raids against al Qaeda cells in Andar, according to military press reports compiled by The Long War Journal. Senior Taliban and al Qaeda foreign fighter facilitators are known to operate in the district. Last September, the governor of Ghazni said the Taliban were bringing in "foreign militants" into the province, and the deputy chief of the Ghazni provincial council said that a large number of Pakistanis are currently fighting in Ghazni [see LWJ report, 'Foreign militants' still present in Ghazni].Also, ISAF announced that it killed an "insurgent leader" who was identified as Rauf during a raid in the Asadabad district in Kunar province. Rauf "facilitated funding for foreign fighters and coordinated operations between the Taliban and other insurgent groups," ISAF stated. He also served as "an operational planner responsible for coordinating attacks on Afghan and coalition forces in multiple provinces throughout Afghanistan."ISAF told The Long War Journal that it "cannot confirm any ties" between Rauf and "al Qaeda affiliation with foreign fighters."Kunar province is a known haven for al Qaeda. Special operations forces have killed multiple senior al Qaeda commanders in Kunar, while the terror group is known to have established training camps there. Al Qaeda also directs operations in Afghanistan from Kunar.Although ISAF declined a recent request by The Long War Journal to discuss al Qaeda and its operations in Afghanistan, US intelligence officials have said the group remains active in the country [see LWJ report, ISAF operations against IMU in 2013 at highest rate since war's start].Raids against the Lashkar-e-Taiba in AfghanistanThe Lashkar-e-Taiba is known to have a presence in several of Afghanistan's provinces, including, Kunar, Nuristan, Nangarhar, Wardak, Laghman, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Kabul, and Kandahar.Four other raids reported by ISAF have targeted the Lashkar-e-Taiba's network since the beginning of July 2010. ISAF operations against the Lashkar-e-Taiba's network have taken place in Kunar, Nangarhar, and Wardak, and ISAF noted in today's press release that the captured commander operated in Kandahar.In July 2010, ISAF noted an "influx of Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters into the province" of Nangarhar, in two separate press releases that announced the capture of Taliban commanders who helped members of the Pakistani terror group enter the country. The July 2010 announcements by ISAF were the first acknowledgements that the Lashkar-e-Taiba was operating in Afghanistan.In November 2010, ISAF captured the commander of "a cell of approximately 50 foreign fighters" which consisted of "Arab and Pakistani al Qaeda operatives, possibly members from Lashkar-e-Taiba, as well as members of the Haqqani Network from North Waziristan."And in June 2012, ISAF killed two senior Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders in an airstrike in Kunar. One of them was Khatab Shafiq, the Lashkar-e-Taiba senior leader in the province who "established multiple insurgent training camps in eastern Afghanistan." The other was Ammar, who led an attack network in Kunar. Both Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders were linked to al Qaeda.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 18 Apr 2013 15:49

India airlifts military hospital to Tajikistan to strengthen geo-strategic footprint in Central Asia
In anticipation of 2014. northern Alliance are getting back together and re-militarising.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 19 Apr 2013 08:24

This thread was named in the fond hope of some that Afghan operation would ultimately turn the full ire of the US on TSP eventually. The WSJ article suggested in 2009 that the new Obama policy of AfPak must be turned around as PakAf because it was "Pakistan which was at the heart of the problem lies in Pakistan."

We have now come a full circle. Kerry now says that India's involvement in Afghanistan is shackled by Pakistan's mistrust. More than that, he equates India and Pakistan and in that too we have now come a full circle after Bush Jr. removed the equation because of 'different histories'.

Says Kerry now, "How much India’s in Afghanistan affects Pakistan’s views, and they each have a capacity to see bad things happening depending on what the other does."

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 19 Apr 2013 10:26

With eye on 2014, India-China Hold Dialogue on Afghanistan - Ananth Krishnan, The Hindu

“The two sides agreed the Afghanistan issue concerns regional security and stability,” Ms. Hua said. “China and India are two important counties in the region, and consultations on Afghanistan help them to coordinate positions, deepen cooperation and contribute to early settlement of the issue.”

Reiterate support

Ms. Hua said both countries “reiterated their support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process, and their commitment to working with regional countries and the international community to help Afghanistan achieve objectives of peace and stability, independence and development.”

The dialogue between China and India follows a number of recent bilateral and multilateral talks on Afghanistan, indicating the heightened engagement in the lead up to 2014. India, China and Russia held trilateral consultations in Moscow recently, which were followed by three-way talks among China, Russia and Pakistan in Beijing.

Zhao Gancheng, a South Asia scholar at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, said it was important for China, India and Russia “to closely watch the situation because the development of Afghanistan will exert enormous impact on all three parties.” “What the final outcome will be after 2014 is not clear,” he told The Hindu in a recent interview. “Pakistan is also a crucial player post-2014. In Pakistan, the terrorism situation is very serious and a lot of extremist forces are very active. Putting all of this together, it is important for China, India and other countries to think about what we are going to do and what kind of cooperative mechanisms will be built up.”

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 22 Apr 2013 00:59

A Finnish look at Taliban and the Af-Pak mess:

http://samvak.tripod.com/pp100.html

Afghan Myths

A.K. Kullberg

Anssi Kristian Kullberg is presently employed as a researcher for the Legal and Country Intelligence Service, Western and Central Asia Desk, at the Finnish Directorate of Immigration. This interview represents his personal views only and not those of his employer. On Black Tuesday, 11th September, he was in Kyrgyzstan, on his way to the notorious Ferghana Valley, in a reconstruction of the late Finnish Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim's intelligence expedition to Turkistan and China in 1906-1908.

Question: Was the Taliban the creation of Pakistan? Can you tell us about its formation and how was Russia involved in it?

Answer: The Taliban was not a creation of Pakistan, although Pakistan was among several states that contributed to the genesis and development of this peculiar movement. It is true that the Taliban (which was established only as late as in 1994 as a religious movement) had a significant influx from Pakistani madrassas. But the Taliban is not only an extreme religious movement, but also an ethnic Pashtun one. The Pashtuns are a bit less than half of Afghanistan's population, but in Pakistan there are 16 million resident Pashtuns plus 3 million as refugees. There are more Pashtuns in Pakistan than in Afghanistan nowadays. The "Pakistanis" involved in Afghanistan are in fact Afghans.

The role of the Pakistani Islamist opposition in the formation and support of the Taliban is widely recorded. But more important are those who made it a military power. This is where Russia enters the game, too. In order to understand the Taliban, we must recall the background situation in Afghanistan ever since the events in 1970s.

The Taliban is not monolithic. Even less so is the Northern Alliance. Neither were the Afghan communists united. This was made evident by the internal power struggles following the ousting of King Zahir Shah in 1973. Daoud was overthrown and killed by communists in 1978. But the communists were divided into the Khalq faction, favored by China, and the Parcham faction, favored by the Soviet Union. In 1978 it was the Khalq faction that took over, but their more moderate leader Nur Mohammed Taraki was overthrown and killed by the hardliner Khalq communist Hafizullah Amin. In 1979, the Soviet Spetsnaz murdered Amin and replaced him with the Parcham follower Babrak Karmal, who was close to the KGB. Then the Soviet army invaded.

The communist secret service Khad (KhAD), whose leaders were Karmal and Sayid Mohammed Najibullah, was actually an Afghan branch of the KGB. It had been preceded by the communist secret services of Taraki and Amin (AGSA, KAM), but from 1979 onwards this organization of terror was instructed and trained by the KGB. The culture of terror and the horrible persecution of the civil population continued without a pause from the communist takeover up until the overthrowing of Najibullah's regime in 1992 when Massoud liberated Kabul. Western minds seem to implicitly suppose that when the Cold War was over, the communists and the structures they had created just suddenly disappeared. This is a recurrent fatal misperception especially of the Americans.

According to Professor Azmat Hayat Khan of the University of Peshawar, when Ahmad Shah Massoud's mujaheddin liberated Kabul in 1992, and Najibullah gave up power, the communist generals of the army and of Khad agreed to prolong the Afghan civil war in order to discredit President Burhanuddin Rabbani's mujahid government and prevent Afghanistan from stabilizing. The Uzbek communist General Abdurrashid Dostum continued the rebellion against Rabbani and Massoud in Mazar-i-Sharif, massively backed by the Soviet Union and later by Russia and Uzbekistan. Another rebellious general was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Most of the ethnic Pashtun Khalq army generals as well as those of the Khad defected to Hekmatyar's troops. A decisive role was the one played by General Shahnawaz Tanai, the communist commander of the artillery, who defected to Hekmatyar's side as early as in 1990. Later in 1995, when Hekmatyar's rebellion was losing strength, Tanai defected to the Taliban. So did many other communist army and Khad officers.

It was Tanai's defection that provided the Taliban with Soviet artillery, Soviet air force, Soviet intelligence and Soviet technical and military knowledge. The American Anthony Arnold argued already then that Tanai's moves were a KGB-inspired provocation. The former KGB General Oleg Kalugin said that it was Moscow who trained most of the terrorists the US is now chasing.

As regards the Taliban, it was nothing special when they took over Kandahar in 1994. Kandahar was a Pashtun city and the strict interpretation of Islam the Taliban propounds is not so much based on the Qur'an but on the narrow-minded social norms of an agrarian Pashtun village. Mullah Omar is often described as having the background of a relatively simple-minded rustic mullah, although he was also politically active in Mohammed Nabi Mohammadi's Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami (Revolutionary Islamic Movement), which later opposed the Taliban.

But apart from Mullah Mohammed Omar and some other leaders who seem to have truly religious backgrounds (and no other education), the Taliban's military and intelligence are dominated by Soviet-trained communists.

Besides Tanai, there is for example the late first Taliban military commander and one of its founders, "Mullah Borjan", whose real name was Turan Abdurrahman, a prominent communist military officer. Many Taliban "mullahs" have no religious training at all. They are former communist military and security agents who have grown up beards and adopted new names and identities replete with the title "mullah". The Taliban artillery commander was the former Soviet Army's Afghan military intelligence officer Shah Sawar. The Taliban intelligence service chief Mohammed Akbar used to head a department of the Khad. And the Taliban air force commander Mohammed Gilani was a communist general, too. Perhaps because of this immensely influential influx into the Taliban, their interpretation of Islam is quite alien for most of the world's Muslims, but closely resembles the interpretation of Islam that the communists and Russia have traditionally espoused in their anti-Islamic propaganda.

The decisive strengthening of the Taliban took place in 1995-1996, when it was seen as a "stabilizing" force in Afghanistan. This was a great fallacy based on the Taliban's success in Kandahar, which was indeed their "home field". Anywhere else the Taliban did not bring about stability, but quite the opposite. Among those with a rising interest in the Taliban forces, were all the main players: Russia and its satellite regimes in Central Asia, the US, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. At the initiative of the Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, the Russian energy giant Gazprom, headed by the then Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, and the US firm Unocal, contracted to lay a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, circumventing Iran and crossing the Afghan territory that the Taliban had supposedly "stabilized". For Pakistan, it has been a traditional national interest to secure energy supplies from Central Asia, since it is sandwiched between two vehemently hostile great powers, India and Iran. For Russia, this was seen as a way to control Central Asian energy resources and to extend its influence towards the Indian Ocean. Two Saudi Arabian oil companies were also involved.

During the same years, the Taliban received sizable armed support. It did not come mainly from Pakistan. Financial succor came from Saudi Arabia. But the most decisive increase in the Taliban's strength came from Russia: the defections of the Khalq and Khad generals directly into the Taliban's leadership, vast amounts of Russian weaponry in several mysteriously "captured" stashes, including a very suspicious "hijacking" and escape of a Russian jet loaded with weapons that ended up in the hands of the Taliban's ex-communist leaders. With these new weapons, the Taliban marched on Herat in 1995, and finally managed to capture Kabul in 1996. Najibullah was hanged, but Najibullah's hanging by his former Taliban-turned protégés seems to have camouflaged the actual developments in the Afghan power struggle.

Russia had an interest to cut the strong ties between Massoud's mujaheddin and the Tajik opposition that Russia had crushed since it attacked Tajikistan in 1992 and backed the communists into power there. The old provocateur Hekmatyar was by then defeated and had finally given up his fight - after losing his men and arms by Tanai's defection to the Taliban - and accepted a seat in the government in compensation. Since Hekmatyar was finished, a new Pashtun force was needed in those years. Taliban was a rising force that various external players tried to exploit by infiltration, support and manipulation.

When the Cold War was declared over by the West, it did not stop elsewhere. After 1989 the West really lost interest in Afghanistan and until some months before his death Massoud was trying to appeal to it in vain. The West was uninterested, but others were. Pakistan, of course, was interested in the goings on in its unstable neighbor. Saudi Arabia was financing and supporting dangerous Sunni fundamentalist groups, and later the Taliban. The Saudis also provided them with their own Saudi fanatics that had become troublesome at home. Iran was supporting its own agents within Afghan Shia groups. And the Soviet Union and later Russia continued to provide massive armed support to the last communist dictator of Afghanistan, Najibullah, and later to the notorious General Dostum.

The Russian principle was "divide and rule", with the basic idea of keeping the West out and assuring that the region would not strengthen so that the Soviet empire could return once it has regained its military might. Because of this stratagem, Russia has supported the Tajiks of the Northern Alliance through Tajikistan - only sufficiently to form a buffer zone against the Taliban, but without being able to gain substantial victories or to intervene in Tajikistan. Moreover, Russia has been arming and supporting the Uzbeks under the command of Dostum and General Malik who later defected to the Taliban's side. This support has been directed through Uzbekistan and still continues - ironically, with the West's full blessing. Less known has been the Russian support directed through Turkmenistan to the Taliban, and to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan that is said to threaten Karimov's rule there.

Question: What was and is the role of the CIA in all this? Was Pakistan's ISI the CIA's long arm? Was bin Laden a CIA agent?

Answer: A chronic feature of American intelligence policy seems to be historical amnesia and inability to see the complex nature of conflicts and local relationships. This was also manifested during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. British intelligence and part of the Pakistani intelligence community clashed with the US already during the Cold War period, because they wanted to support Ahmad Shah Massoud, the "Lion of Panjshir". It was Massoud and his mujaheddin who finally, after getting Stingers from the British, managed to make the war too expensive for the Soviets, forcing them to retreat in 1989.

Meanwhile, the CIA was incompetent enough to be dependent on the Pakistani intelligence services that, especially in Zia ul-Haq's period, favored Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a pompous figure who claimed to have extensive contacts throughout the Islamic world. He indeed had some contacts, including with Osama bin Laden, but he was considered to be a KGB provocateur by Massoud and many others, and was never of any help in the Afghan independence struggle.

Instead of fighting the Soviet occupants, Hekmatyar preferred to fight other Afghans, and to conspire with suspicious Arab circles imported by his contact bin Laden to Peshawar. The Stingers that the CIA had provided to Hekmatyar, were not used to liberate Afghanistan. Instead, Hekmatyar sold them to Iran, and they were later used against the Americans in a well-known incident.

When the Soviet troops moved out, Hekmatyar pursued a bloody rebellion against the legal Afghan government, devastating the country along with another rebel general, Dostum. (Though they were not aligned.) In 1993, Hekmatyar supported the KGB general and spymaster Haidar Aliyev's coup in Azerbaijan and, in 1994, Hekmatyar was involved in supporting pro-Russian Lezghin terrorists in the Caucasus. Hekmatyar is still active. He lives in Teheran, and has recently finally revealed his true colors by siding with the Taliban.

As far as I know, Osama bin Laden was never a CIA agent. However, there are relatively plausible claims that he was close to Saudi intelligence, especially to the recently fired intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faizal, until they broke up. Osama first appeared in the Afghan War theater either in 1979, or, at the latest in 1984. But at the beginning he was first and foremost a businessman. He served the interests of those who wished to construct roads accessible for tanks to cross through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. This might also explain his characteristic opportunism - quite atypical for a self-proclaimed warrior of faith.

International jihadists surely want to portray him as a religious fighter or Muslim hero, but this is not the true picture, but, mostly, a myth created by the Western media. This is where Arab, Pakistani and Indonesian teenagers learn that Osama is a fighter in a universal struggle of Islam against its oppressors.

But bin Laden never fought the Soviets to liberate Afghanistan. For most of this period, he was not even in Afghanistan. He was managing an office in Peshawar, and the only credible claim about him being in a battle has been made by the former CIA official Milton Bearden concerning a minor skirmish that took place in spring 1987.

Bin Laden's first significant contact in Peshawar was the Palestinian Professor Abdullah Azzam, whom bin Laden has later described as his mentor. Azzam was an Arab idealist, who wanted to concentrate on the liberation of Afghanistan, and who wanted to support Massoud, whom he correctly regarded as being the right person to uphold. Bin Laden disagreed. He wanted to support the disloyal Islamist fanatic Hekmatyar. As a result, Azzam and his son were blown up in a car bomb in 1989, and consequently, bin Laden took over his organization and transformed it into Al-Qaida (the Base). Already before these events, he started to transform the agency by flooding it with his Arab contacts from the Middle East. These Arabs were not interested in liberating Afghanistan as much as in hiding from the law enforcement agencies of their own countries, most of all Egypt's.

When Russia attacked Tajikistan, bin Laden and his folks were by no means interested in liberating Tajikistan from a new communist yoke. Instead, bin Laden left Afghanistan and dispersed his terrorist network, directing it to act against the West. It is bizarre that a man claiming to be an Islamic fundamentalist supported the invasion by the Arab socialist (and thereby atheist) Iraq against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, both with conservative Islamic regimes.

Al-Qaida's supported all causes and activities against the West: the US, Turkey, Israel, and any pro-Western Muslim regime like Pakistan. Robbers on the island of Jolo in the Philippines qualified for Al-Qaida's support although they hardly knew anything about the Qur'an. They were immediately they were portrayed as "Islamic fighters". Even the strictly atheist anti-Turkish terrorist organization PKK has been welcomed. At the same time they definitely have not supported Muslims advocating Turkish-modeled moderate independence, like the Chechens, the original Tajik opposition or the Azeri government under President Abulfaz Elchibey.

As concerning Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, I think it would be gross underestimation of a potential regional great power and its British colonial traditions of military and intelligence to describe it just as an arm of the CIA or of the Islamists. These are widespread myths. The ISI is neither the hero nor the villain of this story. I think the ISI is interested simply in the national interest of Pakistan, which consists of four main elements: security against the hostile strong neighbors India and Iran, security against the instability and uncontrolled forces ravaging Afghanistan and infiltrating Pakistan through the large Pashtun population, the conflict over Kashmir, and Pakistan's own international status.

Afghanistan is an historical buffer zone in the ancient Great Game of Central Eurasia. It is the gateway through which Pakistan's enemies can attack or destabilize it, and it is equally the buffer that stops these enemies. Pakistan's is interested in regional stability while its enemies seek to use any instability against it. There is a great divide within Pakistan between Pakistani nationalists and internationalist Islamists. Pakistan is relatively democratic compared with its neighbors - even including India, considering its treatment of minorities and the Kashmir issue. It, thus, has the problems of a democracy. Pakistan has quite free and critical press, local administration and intellectual opposition, the Islamists included. It is not, and has never been, an Islamist dictatorship like Saudi Arabia.

Question: Can you chart the relationship between the ISI and the Taliban?

Answer: The policy of the ISI was strongly correlated with developments in Pakistan's leadership. The main divide concerning the ISI's Afghanistan policies did not concern religious issues as it did the ethnic question related to the political and military aspirations of the Pashtun people in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Actually one of the greatest dangers to Pakistan's national existence would be the emergence of the idea of Greater Pashtunistan, splitting Pakistan in two.

This was an idea favored and agitated by the pro-Soviet Pashtuns - many of whom are now influential in the Taliban. The Pakistani researcher Musa Khan Jalalzai noticed this and described these people as "enemies of Pakistani interests".

India and Iran would like to split Pakistan and destroy it, and Russian geopolitics is still based on a "final thrust to the South". Iran and India equally fear that Baluchistan, Kashmir and Punjab would finally be united under Pakistani rule. Incorporating Pashtunistan, Pakistan has the potential to become a South Asian superpower with plausible expansionist chances. Yet this has never really been an aspiration of Pakistan. Like Turkey under Ataturk, Pakistan under such leaders as Ayub Khan and now Pervez Musharraf has been introverted in its nationalism and based on constitutional and national ideas similar to those of present day Turkey and France.

During the military dictatorship of Zia ul-Haq the policy turned more Islamist, and during this period the ISI strongly supported Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar proved disloyal and finally defected to Iran. During Benazir Bhutto's government, support has shifted to the Taliban. This was decided by the Interior Minister Nasirullah Babar. It is history's irony that the first female prime minister of Pakistan helped to strengthen the misogynist Taliban regime. The ISI started to get disillusioned and disappointed with the Taliban during the thoroughly corrupt "democracy" continued under Nawaz Sharif. There have been rumors that the ISI wished to influence the Taliban and to empower "a third force" among the more moderate Taliban leaders to take over it. It is in connection with this that Shahnawaz Tanai actually defected to Pakistan, and the ISI was dealing with the former communists who were so powerful within the Taliban.

Luckily for Western interests, General Pervez Musharraf took over. This takeover was the best event in Pakistani history as far as the West is concerned, although it was sadly ignored in the West during the Clinton administration. Musharraf was portrayed as a military dictator and a supporter of the causes of the Taliban and of an alliance with China (all sins of his predecessors). Musharraf is profoundly pro-Western, secular in mind and pragmatic in foreign policy. He in fact tried to form constructive relationships with all the neighboring countries (Iran, India and Afghanistan). His peace initiatives in Kashmir were stalled by Indian arrogance, and the West turned a cold shoulder to its old ally, which has been a source of great bitterness in Pakistan, especially since the West has been very inconsistent in choosing when to support Pakistan and when not to. But during the Musharraf reign, human rights and the position of women in Pakistan have improved considerably.

Constructive relations with whomever rules Afghanistan have been Realpolitik for Pakistan. Although Musharraf, immediately after seizing power, started to undermine the support for the Taliban, he could not remove the recognition given to the Taliban government, as there was no other Afghan government - the Rabbani government having been ousted and categorically hostile to Pakistan, partly for legitimate reasons. Pakistan has been trying ever since to construct new anti-Taliban alliances, as well as trying to find intra-Taliban frictions to exploit. But the West should be very careful and measured in its pressure on Pakistan. The Taliban is really not under Pakistan's thumb, and never was.

I think the ISI first saw the Taliban as a potential instrument. Then it saw it as a threat that had to be infiltrated and controlled. Then they saw it as a burden. Surely the ISI wished to control and contain the Taliban, but their success has been rather doubtful (as has been others'). Many analysts have paid attention to the fact that Afghan as well as non-Afghan adventurers like bin Laden, have always been very talented at exploiting the surrounding states as well as both superpowers.

Another distorted myth is propagated by India. It is that the Kashmiri secessionism is terrorism and a Pakistani creation. This is very far from reality. More than 80% of Kashmiris would probably prefer independence, but at the same time they reject the Islamist model. There are several small but media-visible Islamist groups operating in Kashmir, or at least proclaiming the Kashmiri cause. But these people are not really interested in Kashmiri independence. They are interested in jihad. Such Islamists appear wherever there is a war (during Bosnia's struggle for independence and in the Albanian civil war, in Chechnya, Kashmir and so on). Their "help" is usually just an added burden to the ones they purport to help, since they are seldom fighting for any liberation. These "professional" jihadists also seem to be more common in internet cafes and among Arab diasporas in the West than in places where Muslim nations face real oppression.

We must remember that Musharraf cannot possibly surrender to India in the Kashmir dispute. This would not only be political suicide, but it would not end the Kashmir conflict - quite the contrary. It would mean importing the Kashmiri conflict into Pakistan, and against Pakistan. What happened in Afghanistan, with millions of refugees flooding to Pakistan, should not happen with Kashmir. This would be an outright catastrophe for both Pakistan and India, let alone the Kashmiri people. Therefore it is the most crucial interest of the West to prevent India from escalating the Kashmir conflict and turning Kashmir into another weapon against Pakistan's stability.

Question: The "Arab" fighters in Afghanistan - are they a state with a state, or the long arm for covert operations (e.g., the assassination of Massoud) for the Taliban? Who is the dog and who is the tail?

Answer: The dog and tail can get very entangled here. Everybody is exploiting everybody, and finally all organizations and states are tools which consist of individuals and used by them. The Arabs in Afghanistan are indeed Arabs. There are also lots of "Pakistani" volunteers on the Taliban side, but these are mainly Pashtuns, that is, Afghans.

The mentioning of Chechens, Uighurs and so on is more designed to satisfy the propaganda purposes of Russia and China. There are less than one million Chechens and they have a very harsh war going on in Chechnya. Chechens who choose to go to Afghanistan instead must be quite unpatriotic.

The Arabs form the hard core of Al-Qaida. They are the Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi etc. professional revolutionaries and terrorists who have gathered around the figurehead of Osama bin Laden. Many of these share the same old background in Marxist-inspired revolutionary movements in the Middle East. Ideology and facade have changed when green replaced red, but their methods as well as foreign contacts have mainly remained the same. This is why they are much more interested in attacking the West and pro-Western Muslim regimes than in supporting any true national liberation movements. Even if they try to infiltrate and influence conflict outcomes in the Balkans, the Caucasus, East Turkistan and Kashmir, they are set against the nationalist and secular - and usually pro-Western - policies of the legitimate leadership of these secessionist movements. So the people whom Al-Qaida may support and try to infiltrate are usually exiled or otherwise opposition forces acting in fact against the idea of independence. This has been the case in Chechnya, Dagestan, Bosnia, Kashmir and so on.

And this has been the case in Afghanistan as well. Osama bin Laden and his Arabs never contributed to the actual Afghan national liberation struggle. Instead they acted against it by infiltrating Afghan circles and turning them against each other. Their jihad is not intended to defend the Muslims against infidel oppressors, but to cause chaos and destruction, in which they apparently hope to overthrow Muslim regimes and replace them with the utopia of Salafi rule. It is not hard to see how this set of mind was inherited from the communist utopian terrorist movements that preceded the present Islamist ones. They had the same structures, the same cadres, the same leaders, the same sponsors and the same methods.

The Arabs in Afghanistan have feathered their nests, though. Osama bin Laden and his closest associates have all married daughters of Afghan elders - from different factions and tribes - and their sons and daughters have, in turn, married the off-spring of eminent Afghan leaders. This is how they secured their foothold in Afghan social networks - something neither the West nor Pakistan succeeded to do. When issues are reduced to family relationships, it is not to be expected that the Afghans would hand over the Arabs to the West or to Pakistan. Al-Qaida is not only fortifying itself physically, but also socially. At the same time their cells and countless collaborating agencies - some of whom are clearly non-Islamist, and some of which are government agencies of certain hostile states - are hoping to escalate this "war against terrorism" and to exploit it for their own purposes.

Question: Do you believe that the USA had long standing designs to conquer Afghanistan and used the September 11 atrocities as a pretext?

Answer: I would rather say that somebody else had long standing designs for a major conflict in which it was necessary to get the US involved. Those who wiped out Mr. Massoud a couple of days before the terror strikes in the US probably knew that the terrorists will be hunted in Afghanistan.

It is clear that the US, among many others, has long desired to overthrow the Taliban, and I see nothing wrong with it. Afghanistan was the easiest target, because the Taliban was not internationally recognized (except by three countries at the beginning of the war), and because there was nobody strong enough to really side with the Taliban. There was no special need to demonize them, as they seemed to have done a good job demonizing themselves. The West was more concerned with the blowing up a couple of Buddha statues than with the thousands of victims of the Taliban's tyranny and of the civil war that continued to rage in Afghanistan all this time totally ignored by the Western media until the US got involved again. The US can, of course, be blamed for hypocrisy, as always, but the truth is that getting the US involved has greatly helped those in Afghanistan who had hoped for decades to overthrow the Taliban.

It is also quite surprising that even Musharraf's Pakistan seems to have actually benefited from the present course of affairs, since terrorism has given Musharraf the pretext of openly siding with the West, and abandoning all remnants of Pakistan's tolerance of the Taliban.

Still I would be inclined against any conspiratorial depiction of the recent events that would blame the US for all that happened. The US had to react, and Afghanistan was a logical target. In this sense, the US did what the terrorists wanted. But they did so in a much more moderate way, and after much longer preparations than their enemies had probably hoped for. One reason is that in the Bush administration there seems to be significantly more foreign political expertise than in the Clinton administration that hastily bombed a couple of targets, including a factory in Sudan, but always failed to respond to the real challenge.

In the long run, the threat posed by terrorism will not be defeated by military operations and not in Afghanistan. What can be done there is just the removal of the Taliban regime and helping to construct a stable and recognized Afghan government. It is important to give security guarantees to Pakistan and to support the development that is transforming Pakistan into a strong and relatively stable pro-Western Muslim country that can play a similar role in Central and Southern Asia as Turkey does in the West and Middle East. At best, this could even encourage a Musharraf to rise in Iran, which would yield ultimate benefits to Western interests in Asia.

But then, terrorism must be fought by other means.

This means that Western intelligence must rise to the level of the Cold War to face challenges by terrorist organizations as well as by colluding governments. The West must also resist Huntington's vision coming true, since this is exactly what the terrorists want: a clash of civilizations. And we must keep in mind that there are also many others who would like to see a worldwide conflagration between the West and Islam.

Question: What is the geostrategic and geopolitical importance of Afghanistan?

Answer: Afghanistan is not so significant in itself, if we only consider economic interests. Of more importance are some countries situated near Afghanistan, especially those in Central Asia and Azerbaijan. Afghanistan is also a traditional buffer zone, since its landscape is hard to penetrate for tanks and modern armies. It has prevented the expansion of the Eurasian Heartland Empire towards Eurasia's southern rim lands for centuries. It has protected the areas included in Pakistan and India today, but on the other hand, turning Afghanistan into a politically or militarily active area was used to destabilize Pakistan, or Central Asia, in order to alter the status quo, whatever it was.

Regarding oil, Afghanistan again forms a bridge or a barrier. As long as Iran is regarded as a hostile country by the US, Afghanistan forms an oil transport route from Central Asia to Pakistan. As long as there is war in Afghanistan, it remains a barrier preventing the countries of the Caspian Sea from benefiting from their oil. Wars in the Caucasus have exactly the same outcome. While this is the case, only Russia and perhaps China will have access to and hegemony over the energy resources in the vast Eurasian heart-land.

I think this is the main geopolitical importance of both Afghanistan and the Caucasus. It is the question of Russia monopolizing the geopolitical heartland, first and foremost. Considering the colossal weight of geopolitics and geopolitical thought in present Russian security thinking, these implications cannot be overestimated.

Question: Can Turkey be drawn into the conflict and, if yes, what effect will this have on Iran, Central Asia, and NATO?

Answer: It seems Turkey has been drawn into it already. Or rather, Turkey has volunteered to be drawn into it. Iran and Russia, of course, share a very hostile attitude towards any expansion of Turkish influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Turkey and Pakistan, on the other hand, may finally find each other after a long period of mutual hostility. They both share a similar geopolitical importance as potential guardians of the West. They are among the most important rim land nations, to borrow a phrase from classical geopolitics. This means that they are also the most important barriers on the way of a heartland empire to aspire to sole Eurasian hegemony.

Turkey has sought to advocate its interests in Central Asia, where most of the Turkistani nations are ethnically Turkic (that is, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Uighurs, while Tajiks are Persian). At the beginning of the 1990's Turkey tried to play the ethnic and linguistic cards and the Central Asians were quite enthusiastic to embrace "the Turkish model" - that is, a Western orientation and secular state. But the Central Asian states are still dominated by communist nomenclatures with strong ties with Moscow.

Turkey's economic problems and generally overly cautious foreign policy have greatly undermined its capacity to advocate its own and Western interests in Central Asia. Moreover, the Central Asian dictators have interpreted the "Turkish model" in most peculiar ways, being often closer to the Chinese model than the Turkish one.

I think Turkey is again trying to prove how pro-Western it is and how loyal it is to NATO. The West has usually been much less loyal to Turkey. When it comes to NATO's influence in Central Eurasia, once Afghanistan is pacified and US presence probably strengthened through Uzbekistan (though it is one of the notoriously disloyal allies of any Western interest, much resembling the role played by Saudi Arabia), it is time to come to Georgia's rescue again. The West had better not be too late in coming to the aid of Georgia and Azerbaijan, which are both under serious Russian pressure right now. If the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline can be completed, then it could be time for a major reform in Iran as well.

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Looks like Pak and Islamist supporters are there in Scandinavia. Its possible this writer is clouded by Finnish experience with Imperial Russia.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 22 Apr 2013 04:51

This Finnish 'look at Pakistan' seems like a plant by the US and its allies to rehabilitate TSP and target India.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 22 Apr 2013 21:26

Afghanistan is not so significant in itself, It has prevented the expansion of the Eurasian Heartland Empire towards Eurasia's southern rim lands for centuries. It has protected the areas included in Pakistan and India today, but on the other hand, turning Afghanistan into a politically or militarily active area was used to destabilize Pakistan, or Central Asia, in order to alter the status quo, whatever it was.

This is a false information and false image being given to the region.
These regions were never controlled by other powers and always had to vacate. Sikh empire was the only one in the modern times which has controlled this region.

This kind of image is built so that they can justify foriegn intervention

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 23 Apr 2013 04:13

Acharya, why are you picking up only a few lines from the Finnish Q&A ? The entire article is frivolous, falsehood and is published with an ulterior motive.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 23 Apr 2013 04:18

There are some few point. I will elaborate it later.
It has some insights into future plans. This region will become the focus and may mae or break the global economy
Iran/Af Pak area will become the hotspot

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 24 Apr 2013 12:04

A secret Nato report on Islamabad's links to the Afghan Taliban is leaked. http://t.co/7Rgd114LkF

Leaked on the eve of US John Kerry and Kayani talks. Afg US TSP will also have a trilateral. Funny it even mentions that senior Haqqani lives next to ISI HQ in Islamabad

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 24 Apr 2013 12:55

shyamd wrote:A secret Nato report on Islamabad's links to the Afghan Taliban is leaked. http://t.co/7Rgd114LkF

Leaked on the eve of US John Kerry and Kayani talks. Afg US TSP will also have a trilateral. Funny it even mentions that senior Haqqani lives next to ISI HQ in Islamabad

The report was however leaked as far back as in January, 2012! In News

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 25 Apr 2013 01:29

KKK ka Kangna
Kenny, Kerry, Bhai Bhai :Karzai KI Tanhai

BRUSSELS: Pakistan’s Army chief Assfaqe Pervez Kayani was in Brussels Wednesday to meet Afghan president Hamid Karzai and US Secretary of State John Kerry for talks over the Afghan peace process as Nato prepares to withdraw its troops next year.The Army chief was accompanied by Foreign Secretary Jalil Jilani.Earlier on, Kerry told reporters at the start of the meeting at the residence of the US ambassador to Nato on the outskirts of the Belgian capital, that Afghanistan was in “a critical transformational period”.Jilani called it a very important meeting, adding: “We are looking forward to a very productive and forward-looking discussion.”The talks come after a day after a gathering of Nato foreign ministers in Brussels at which Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Pakistan must crack down on militants who use the country as a sanctuary to launch attacks in Afghanistan.The meeting follows weeks of tension with Pakistan over their 2,600-km border and stalled peace efforts.Afghan officials allege Pakistan has a long history of supporting Afghanistan’s Taliban and other insurgent factions.Pakistan has in turn accused Afghanistan of giving safe haven to militants on the Afghan side of the border.US officials hope that Kerry, who has a good relationship with Karzai, can bring the parties back to the negotiating table and make constructive progress on an issue that has long-term security implications for Washington.Rasmussen held talks with Karzai at Nato headquarters on Tuesday which he said focused on the legal framework for Nato’s presence in Afghanistan after 2014.Nato-led forces are expected to cede the lead role for security in Afghanistan this spring to Afghan soldiers, 12 years after the United States invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban government harbouring Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader.