Pakistan & the Taliban

[The Bread Guy]

Good tidbits on how well prepared the bad guys were, too!  Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act - http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33409

Nato's top brass accuse Pakistan over Taliban aid
Ahmed Rashid in Kabul, Telegraph.co.uk, 6 Oct 06
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/06/wafghan06.xml

Commanders from five Nato countries whose troops have just fought the bloodiest battle with the Taliban in five years, are demanding their governments get tough with Pakistan over the support and sanctuary its security services provide to the Taliban.

Nato's report on Operation Medusa, an intense battle that lasted from September 4-17 in the Panjwai district, demonstrates the extent of the Taliban's military capability and states clearly that Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) is involved in supplying it.

Commanders from Britain, the US, Denmark, Canada and Holland are frustrated that even after Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf met George W Bush and Tony Blair last week, Western leaders are declining to call Mr Musharraf's bluff.

"It is time for an 'either you are with us or against us' delivered bluntly to Musharraf at the highest political level," said one Nato commander.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001 America gave Mr Musharraf a similar ultimatum to co-operate against the Taliban, who were then harbouring Osama bin Laden.

"Our boys in southern Afghanistan are hurting because of what is coming out of Quetta," he added.

The Taliban use the southern province of Balochistan to co-ordinate their insurgency and to recuperate after military action.

The cushion Pakistan is providing the Taliban is undermining the operation in Afghanistan, where 31,000 Nato troops are now based. The Canadians were most involved in Operation Medusa, two weeks of heavy fighting in a lush vineyard region, defeating 1,500 well entrenched Taliban, who had planned to attack Kandahar city, the capital of the south.

Nato officials now say they killed 1,100 Taliban fighters, not the 500 originally claimed. Hundreds of Taliban reinforcements in pick-up trucks who crossed over from Quetta – waved on by Pakistani border guards – were destroyed by Nato air and artillery strikes.

Nato captured 160 Taliban, many of them Pakistanis who described in detail the ISI's support to the Taliban.

Nato is now mapping the entire Taliban support structure in Balochistan, from ISI- run training camps near Quetta to huge ammunition dumps, arrival points for Taliban's new weapons and meeting places of the shura, or leadership council, in Quetta, which is headed by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the group's leader since its creation a dozen years ago.

Nato and Afghan officers say two training camps for the Taliban are located just outside Quetta, while the group is using hundreds of madrassas where the fighters are housed and fired up ideologically before being sent to the front.

Many madrassas now being listed are run by the Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam, a political party that governs Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province. The party helped spawn the Taliban in 1994.

"Taliban decision-making and its logistics are all inside Pakistan," said the Afghan defense minister, General Rahim Wardak.

A post-battle intelligence report compiled by Nato and Afghan forces involved in Operation Medusa demonstrates the logistical capability of the Taliban.

During the battle the Taliban fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,000 mortar shells, which slowly arrived in Panjwai from Quetta over the spring months. Ammunition dumps unearthed after the battle showed that the Taliban had stocked over one million rounds in Panjwai.

In Panjwai the Taliban had also established a training camp to teach guerrillas how to penetrate Kandahar, a separate camp to train suicide bombers and a full surgical field hospital. Nato estimated the cost of Taliban ammunition stocks at around £2.6 million. "The Taliban could not have done this on their own without the ISI," said a senior Nato officer.

Gen Musharraf this week admitted that "retired" ISI officers might be involved in aiding the Taliban, the closest he has come to admitting the agency's role.

fpress@telegraph.co.uk

 

[Trinity]

Couldn't we just do the occasional strike on key areas in Pakistan.

If Pakistan gets mad at us for doing it they'd have to admit that
there was a legitimate Taliban target that they either failed to
take out or were promoting.......

of course the media would say the target was all civilians  :

 

[dglad]

Musharraf truly is between a rock and a hard place.  If he leans too far one way, his government--a relatively small minority of secular power-mongers--gets toppled by an impoverished and undereducated majority whipped into a frenzy by extremists.  Too far the other, and he's suddenly isolated from Western support and, worse, may find Western interests lining up more firmly behind the great Pakistani rival, India.  Either way, a nuclear power is potentially destabilized, dramatically threatening (at the very least) the entire region.

Either way, Musharraf will need better moves than Tony Hawk to avoid a really nasty spill...

 

[couchcommander]

Unfortunately, from watching the interviews recently, I've gotten the distinct impression he is no longer afraid of western power. Right after 9/11, as has been heavily publicised, and according to him, he was threatened into action. One has to wonder, 5 years later, how big that threat is in his mind? He sees us ("the west") stretched thin over Afghanistan and Iraq, and knows we are in no position to open up another front without drastically escalating the war.

Of course we could always put pressure on him via India or airstrikes, but then it becomes a question of who can do the most damage, him to our goals or us to his goals?

On the other hand, as was pointed out, he does have an immediate and real threat internally.

.02 anywho

 

[Jarnhamar]

We should promote you Trinity

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Time to say, take control of the Tribal areas or we will use force to destroy any infastructure used to support the Taliban. Drop leaflets in the tribal areas so they also know.

 

[Bigmac]

South Asia

Oct 7, 2006 
 
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - With trouble on the battlefield, US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has recommended, for the first time since September 11, 2001, the need to bring the Taliban into the Afghan government. At the same time, Pakistan is secretly playing its own game of carrot and stick in Afghanistan to influence events to its liking.

However, two quick warning signals to Islamabad this week convey the unmistakable message that regardless of what Washington or Islamabad might desire, the Taliban are the ones who will decide which carrots and which sticks to play.

Last month could prove to be pivotal in determining the ultimate fate of the Taliban and Afghanistan, and even the United States' "war on terror".

The Taliban, after the success of this year's spring offensive, have drawn up a blueprint for an Islamic intifada in Afghanistan next year in the form of a national uprising and an internationalization of their resistance.

This followed a "peace" deal between the Pakistani Taliban in the Waziristan tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan in which Islamabad agreed to release some al-Qaeda suspects in return for the Taliban stopping cross-border activities.

President General Pervez Musharraf then went to Washington, where he announced that foreign forces in Afghanistan would be given the right of hot pursuit into the tribal areas. He also said the authorities would take action against former army officials associated with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for supporting the Taliban.

That all is not well with this agreement is illustrated by two events this week. First, a missile landed in Ayub Park, the highest-security zone in Rawalpindi, just a few hundred meters from Musharraf's official residence at Army House. The next day, several rockets apparently linked to a mobile phone for firing were found near parliament in Islamabad.

Asia Times Online has learned that the incidents were a clear show of disapproval in Waziristan over Musharraf's basking in "Washington's charm", and that he had not implemented a key aspect of the peace accord - the release of al-Qaeda suspects - despite numerous promises.

In other words, the Pakistani Taliban are using their own stick to keep Islamabad in line.

The sore point, as mentioned, was the release of "al-Qaeda-linked" Pakistani militants arrested in Pakistani cities. The Pakistani authorities did release many, but a few, whose arrest was also known to US intelligence, were not. Musharraf said they would be freed once he returned from Washington, but this did not happen. Negotiations were still taking place when an incident happened that angered the Pakistani Taliban.

Progress arrested Shah Abdul Aziz of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a six-party religious alliance, is a member of the National Assembly from Karak in North-West Frontier Province. Though his direct party affiliation is with the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam led by Maulana Samiul Haq (the father of the Taliban), his real status derives from his being a veteran mujahideen from the days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He vocally supports the Taliban, Arab militants and Osama bin Laden, and his fiery speeches on these topics are compiled into compact discs that are popular among the Pakistani Taliban.

Shah Mehboob Ahmed is a younger brother of Shah Abdul Aziz and also enjoys a great deal of respect among local as well as Afghan Taliban for helping the mujahideen.

The story starts when Mehboob hosted a British-born Pakistani, known only as Abdullah, who was on a list of wanted people. Abdullah then went to Islamabad and met with the biggest Taliban-supporting cleric, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, at Lal Mosque. As Abdullah left the mosque, he was picked up by intelligence agencies. One of the leads acquired from Abdullah was that he had been hosted by Mehboob. So Mehboob was also detained.

Shah Abdul Aziz, the member of parliament, contacted ISI high-ups about his brother's arrest and was informed that he would be released soon after formal investigations. However, neither Abdullah nor Mehboob was released.

This took tension between the Pakistani Taliban and the authorities to boiling point, with the former charging that not only had Islamabad not fulfilled its promises to release all Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees, but it was violating the agreement and arresting such people as Mehboob and Abdullah.

Islamabad responded that the two were part of Indian intelligence's proxy network, and that was why they had been held - not because of any possible links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban did not buy this and made it clear that as the authorities had violated the agreement, they should be ready to face the Taliban's music.

At this point Musharraf said in an interview in the US that some retired ISI officials could be assisting Taliban insurgents, adding: "We are keeping a very tight watch and we will get hold of them if that at all happened. I have some reports that some dissidents, some retired people who were in the forefront in the ISI during the period of 1979 to 1989, may be assisting the links somewhere here and there."

This set off heated debate in Pakistan, leading some people to speculate that Hamid Gul, one of the most popular Islamist generals and Musharraf's immediate boss and close associate before September 11, 2001, might be arrested. Speaking to Asia Times Online, Gul termed Musharraf's statement a reflection of his "impulsive nature" and said he was in danger of opening up a "Pandora's box".

The upshot of all this, according to signals reaching this correspondent, is that Musharraf has been put on notice. The first two incidents this week caused no damage. That was possibly the intent. This is unlikely to be the case with the next ones.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.

 

[Blakey]

Link http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HJ07Df01.html

 

[Babbling Brooks]

Time to say, take control of the Tribal areas or we will use force to destroy any infastructure used to support the Taliban. Drop leaflets in the tribal areas so they also know.

My gut agrees with this sentiment - stop giving safe haven to these creeps or we'll deal with them ourselves.  But my head says Karzai's idea about a bi-national jirga drawn from the tribal areas in question makes more sense, at least as a first step - any victory or even concession achieved voluntarily in this type of conflict will always be more long-term effective than a coerced one.

 

[Zell_Dietrich]

It is funny how well people can try to play both sides of the fence.  The leaders inside of Pakistan are on the edge of a rather large cliff,  if they openly fight against the Islamic militants they will plunge their country into civil war.   If they openly support them  they will quickly be over run by fanatical jihads who would topple the government and plunge the country into civil war. (civil war being good for a group of thugs that do well in anarchy) So what do they do,  they crack down on the ones they have to, the ones that threaten them and the ones that will make them look good, while making sure they're not enough of a nuisance to incur full infidel status.  I can't blame them one bit for walking carefully in a mine field.  I think they are likely doing more to help us than most of us know.  I think they are doing their best to root out elements in their country that are supporting the Taliban while keeping some semblance of civil order.

Edited to apologise for using to many analogies in one paragraph
Sorry.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

It is a very tough call, but from what I see, the Taliban/AQ control the tribal areas and have effectively silenced the tribal leadership. It has to be shown that support the Taliban and AQ comes with a heavy cost, without them having to pay that cost, they will not come to the table.

Give the Pak government the winter to meet our demands, drop the leaflets telling the tribes, stop the support or pay the price. If they don't.

Step up aerial attacks on all known Taliban infrastructure in the tribal areas..
Increase the amount of long range artillery that can fire into the Tribal areas, use it to pound any suspected position.
Only cross into the tribal area's in force and with short ranged objectives, they will fight and fight hard, you don't want people getting cut off or overwhelmed.
Step up Border controls, reduce traffic flow, hire local labour to build obstacles to prevent smugglers from using vehicles to cross the borders, start on the most comman areas close to main roads communities first.

The above steps will have a severe economic impact on the tribal areas and may create a groundswell of resentment against the Taliban/AQ. It may also backfire and make things worse, but with the present situation it is impossible to win against the Taliban as long as they have a safe haven. It will also force the Taliban/AQ to move their infrastructure away from the border, making life a bit more difficult for them.
I hope that our troops are capable of carrying on the fight throughout winter, allowing the fight to dwindle is more in their favour than ours.

Ah, yes life in the Command Couch where all is clear!!! Now if I can just get the wife to stop nagging me, I can control the world from it!!  ;D

 

[Lost_Warrior]

The Taliban, after the success of this year's spring offensive, have drawn up a blueprint for an Islamic intifada in Afghanistan next year in the form of a national uprising and an internationalization of their resistance.

Success?  Last I heard, NATO killed thousands of them, took major strong holds and ran them back into Pakistan for the winter.  Am I missing something here?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Yeah, there's a new paradigm.  Strategically, it's always been a "success" for irregulars if they repeatedly survive to fight another day.  Now that concept has been pushed down to the tactical level: if they pick a fight and lose without being killed to a man, it's a "success".

 

[Lost_Warrior]

Then I guess they really showed us...  :

 

[Kirkhill]

Lost Warrior:

Ask GAP and Tomahawk6 about Tet.  The only thing that matters is what comes over the boob tube.

The good news?  Fewer people are watching.

 

[dglad]

Unfortunately, from watching the interviews recently, I've gotten the distinct impression he is no longer afraid of western power. Right after 9/11, as has been heavily publicised, and according to him, he was threatened into action. One has to wonder, 5 years later, how big that threat is in his mind? He sees us ("the west") stretched thin over Afghanistan and Iraq, and knows we are in no position to open up another front without drastically escalating the war.

I'm not suggesting overt military action against Pakistan.  That would be risky in the extreme, given that they're an Islamic nation with nuclear weapons.  Rather, there are other levers that can be pushed...particularly diplomatic and economic.  The mere fact that he recently did the talk show circuit in the West to promote his book shows how westernized he is and, in a strange way, how much he seems to crave Western approval.  If you check out the CIA World Fact Book, you'll find that the US is Pakistan's major trade partner for exports; 23% of the country's exports are to the United States.  Given the fragile state of the Pakistani economy (it's growing at a remarkable 7%, but that's not likely sustainable without massive inflation--already running at 9%--and serious environmental problems; 32% of the population lives below the poverty line, while its public debt is 54% of the country's GDP), alienating the West would be an economic disaster.  So Musharraf has to continue playing ball with the developed world, simply to maintain the current standard of living in Pakistan.

 

[Babbling Brooks]

So Musharraf has to continue playing ball with the developed world, simply to maintain the current standard of living in Pakistan.

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment: that assumes he gives a rodent's hindquarters about the average Pakistani's standard of living.  Examples abound of dicators around the world who care nothing about alienating the U.S. to the detriment of their own populations' economic health.  No matter what the West does to them, they remain the big fish in their own little pond, and it's good enough for them.

Besides, what if he plays ball with the West, and it gets his domestic opponents angry enough to unify against him and topple him?  Then you have a bunch of Islamist fanatics controlling nuclear weapons.

Again, I don't know that any of that is the case, but if we're going to try to pressure him, we have to look at what his real pressure points are, not just what they'd be for us.

 

[dglad]

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment: that assumes he gives a rodent's hindquarters about the average Pakistani's standard of living.  Examples abound of dicators around the world who care nothing about alienating the U.S. to the detriment of their own populations' economic health.  No matter what the West does to them, they remain the big fish in their own little pond, and it's good enough for them.

I don't for a moment believe he has much emotional energy invested in the well-being of the average Pakistani.  But that's not the point.  More to follow...

Besides, what if he plays ball with the West, and it gets his domestic opponents angry enough to unify against him and topple him?  Then you have a bunch of Islamist fanatics controlling nuclear weapons.

And that's kinda my point.  To stay in power, he both HAS to play ball with the West AND appease his domestic opponents.  Hence my original statement, about rock-and-hard-place.

Again, I don't know that any of that is the case, but if we're going to try to pressure him, we have to look at what his real pressure points are, not just what they'd be for us.

I'm not sure what you mean by that.  The West's best leverage is economic and diplomatic, because it's easier to apply and escalate in a controlled fashion.  If fully one-quarter of Pakistan's export market is the U.S., then sudden application of duties to certain goods applies pressure, but doesn't necessarily destabilize the country.  More duties, more restrictions on imports from Pakistan...more pressure.  If the Pakistani economy collapses under a sudden surge of recession, then there's a good chance Musharraf will be ousted--and he's not a stupid man, he knows that.  Hence, incentive to give some consideration to Western demands (but, I admit, not to simply cave in.  That will bring him down as well).

Immediate resort to military action against Pakistan would, I think, be much riskier and carry a much greater opportunity for backfire.  If Musharraf puts up a front of nationalist outrage as a response, he could actually rally the country around him.  I'm not a despotic dictator, myself (and I don't even play one on TV), but I'd wager it's easier to whip up support from people who see U.S. bombs falling on their soil, than people who have lost their jobs because of convoluted supply-chain issues related to export tarrifs, countervailing duties, GATT disputes, blah-de-blah-de-blah.

 

[Kirkhill]

Further to dglad's point about putting pressure on -

Two other pressurizing alternatives:

NATO to invite India to offer troops for service in Afghanistan.
NATO/UN to offer to relieve Musharraf of his burdens by supporting the creation of new borders along the lines of the "logical" "blood" borders suggested by Ralph Peters.  How much more restless can the tribal areas become?

And an incidental - is there any cultural affinity between the Balochis and the Omanis across the Arabian Sea?  I ask that because apparently a good chunk of the Sultan's forces were/are Balochis and he has proven a good friend to the west and fairly moderate by the standards of the region. 

 

[Bigmac]

by Max Boot - LA Times

Monday, October 09, 2006

Key to success lies in US aid and Pakistan action.

Not long ago, Afghanistan appeared to be doing much better than Iraq in spite of getting much less US help. But in the last year, a surge in Taleban activity has endangered the hard-won achievements of the 2001-2004 period.

Not long ago, Afghanistan appeared to be doing much better than Iraq in spite of getting much less US help. But in the last year, a surge in Taleban activity has endangered the hard-won achievements of the 2001-2004 period.
Roadside bombings and suicide attacks are up. Parts of the countryside are in the Taleban's grip. Opium production is hitting record levels. Already this year coalition forces have suffered more fatalities in Afghanistan (163) than they did all of last year (130) as well as in 2004 (58).

The situation is still not as dire as in Iraq, but the trends are ominous.

A large part of the fault lies with Pakistan. After making some efforts to curb Taleban activity, President Pervez Musharraf seems to have thrown in the towel. He has agreed to withdraw troops from Waziristan, turning over this vast frontier area to Taleban supporters. He also released from prison about 2,500 foreign fighters linked to the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

Since those actions, US officials report that Taleban attacks in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan have tripled.

Pakistan is not just turning a blind eye to Taleban activity. Its Inter- Services Intelligence agency seems to be increasing the amount of training and logistical support it provides to Islamist militants - and not just in Afghanistan. While Musharraf was promoting his book in the United States recently, Indian police announced that they hold Pakistani intelligence responsible for the Mumbai train bombings that killed 186 people in July.

Musharraf claims to know nothing about what is going on under his nose, but his denials are not terribly credible. More likely, he has calculated that his own interests will be better served by a truce - or perhaps even an alliance - with the extremists.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai deserves some blame for not doing more to spread good governance to the southern and eastern provinces, where many people are so fed up with corrupt, incompetent administrators that they are not doing much to resist Taleban incursions.

What should the US do? Sending more troops is not on the cards. The coalition troop presence in Afghanistan - 20,000 US troops and 20,000 NATO soldiers - is already at an all-time high, and no one has soldiers to spare. Instead of sending more GIs, the US should send more greenbacks. US financial assistance to Afghanistan has never been adequate. The US has spent more than twice as much per capita in Iraq.

This anemic level of support makes it impossible to address Afghanistan's drug problem, which would require subsidizing farmers to plant alternative crops. It also makes it difficult to build up indigenous security forces to stop the Taleban.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon suggested that the goal for the Afghan National Army would be downsized from 70,000 troops to 50,000. But even 70,000 troops would not be enough to protect a nation of 31 million. The Bush administration should announce that it will dramatically increase assistance with the goal of creating an Afghan army of, say, 150,000 troops. More money and more US advisers also should go to the Afghan police force, which is larger but considerably less capable than the army.

To help ensure that its assistance is used wisely, Washington needs more active representation in Kabul. When native son Zalmay Khalilzad was US ambassador between 2003 and last year, he pushed Karzai to curb the power of the warlords and to make other difficult reforms.

The current ambassador, Ronald Neumann, is a capable diplomat but does not exercise as much influence in either Washington or Kabul as Khalilzad did.

President George W Bush needs to tell Musharraf that US support will be jeopardized if he does not do more to curb the Taleban.

LOS ANGELES TIMES Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in the US 

  It is interesting how the timing of renewed attacks on troops and an upsurge in the number of Taleban closely followed the release of prisoners from Pakistan. But perhaps I am wrong as well??