^Border crossings are easily preventable by mining the border routes that are difficult to man. I think this is an option for Pakistan still to do, and in the worst eventuality it will do it with or without consent of Karzai.

Pakistani Taliban commended by Pakistan and the Taliban

More than 170 Taleban fighters from Pakistan's South Waziristan district have been killed in Afghanistan since 2005, BBC News has learned.

Families of the dead fighters were recently awarded certificates of commendation by the Taleban.

The Pakistani army has signed deals with pro-Taleban leaders in this area aimed at stopping cross-border raids.

But critics say the deals have given the Taleban safe havens from which to launch attacks.

The ceremony of commendation was held on 28 December in the village of Spinki Raghzai, eyewitnesses said.

It was presided over by Baitullah Mahsud, a pro-Taleban commander who signed one of the peace deals with the Pakistani army.

The witnesses said the families of 175 militants killed in Afghanistan since February 2005 were handed certificates by Mr Mahsud.

Of these, 50 militants belonged to his own Mahsud tribe while the rest were Ahmedzai Wazir tribesmen from the Wana region of the district.

Official sanction?

Some members of Pakistan's parliament, who hail from South Waziristan, also attended the ceremony.

Maulana Abdul Malik, national assembly member from the Wana area, and Senator Maulvi Saleh Shah Qureshi confirmed to the BBC that they attended the ceremony.

However, they said that they were only guests and had no role in organising the event.

The Pakistan army lost hundreds of troops in battles with pro-Taleban militants in South Waziristan before signing peace deals with the militant leaders.

Since then, the local administration and the army have claimed that militancy has decreased and peace has returned to the region.

Many analysts, however, disagree and believe that the accords have given a free rein to the Taleban.

U.S. Gen.: Insurgent chief in Pakistan

Jalaluddin Haqqani

By RAHIM FAIEZ
Associated Press / January 13, 2007

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - An Afghan insurgent leader operating from inside Pakistan sent some 200 ill-equipped fighters, some wearing plastic bags on their feet, into Afghanistan where most were killed in a major battle this week, a top U.S. general said Saturday.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley said that Jalaluddin Haqqani recruited and sent unemployed and untrained men to fight in Afghanistan.

U.S. forces killed about 130 fighters moving in two groups in the eastern province of Paktika late Wednesday and early Thursday, one of the largest winter battles in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

"There's Taliban leaders in Pakistan," Freakley said. "We know that this group ... were from Jalaluddin Haqqani and we believe, though we don't know exactly where, that Jalaluddin Haqqani is operating from inside Pakistan and sending men to fight in Afghanistan."

Western and Afghan officials accuse Pakistan of not doing enough to stop Taliban fighters using Pakistani soil as a training ground from crossing the border into Afghanistan. Pakistan says it does all it can to stop the fighters.

No officials in Pakistan could immediately be reached for comment.

Freakley said that one of the enemies in the Afghan-Pakistan border area is unemployment.

"It is clear to me that some of these men were just either collected in a poor part of a village or perhaps from a madrassa or perhaps from a refugee camp and told to come fight," he said. "The message to the enemies of Afghanistan and the enemies of world peace would be that you can come at us with two people, 20 people, 200 people, 2,000 people, you'll be defeated and your young men will needlessly be killed."

Freakley said it was likely the insurgent fighters meant to attack a new military outpost near the village of Marghah that has affected insurgent infiltration routes.

In southern Afghanistan, meanwhile, NATO troops fought insurgents Saturday in a battle that left one Western soldier dead — NATO's first fatality of the year.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said the soldier died during an operation and that air support was used against insurgent positions. NATO refused to release any other details until the next of kin were notified.

Taliban militants stepped up attacks last year, and insurgent-related violence killed some 4,000 people in the bloodiest year since the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban in late 2001.

Bodies of 25 killed in NATO strike brought to Pakistan

Source:  The News International (Pakistan) / January 13, 2007

ISLAMABAD: The bodies of 25 militants killed in a fierce battle with Nato-led troops in Afghanistan were repatriated on Friday to their tribal villages in Pakistan, where Taliban activists urged mass attendance at their funerals, residents said.

On Friday, the bodies were brought to Miranshah. Funerals were to be held in different villages in the region later, according to local intelligence officials and residents. “The Taliban asked everyone to attend the funerals of these martyrs,” a local resident told The Associated Press.

About 25 other militants wounded in the fighting were being treated at private clinics in Miranshah and another 25 were being treated elsewhere in the region, the residents said. Our Ghalanai correspondent adds: Bodies of the two labourers, belonging to Mohmand Agency, who were killed in an air attack by Nato forces in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, were brought to the Kandhari village of Safi sub-division and laid to rest at their ancestral graveyard on Friday. Identified as Anas and Abdul Wadood, the two tribesmen had gone to Afghanistan for work. They were working in Paktika, when killed in the night-time air attack by Nato forces.

Intelligence service spokesman Sayed Ansari named him as Dr Muhammad Hanif, who has been speaking for Afghanistan's former rulers since October 2005.

Mr Ansari told the Associated Press the spokesman had been detained on Monday. He did not say where he is being held.

Dr Hanif's capture, if confirmed, would be a notable success for the Afghan government as it battles the Taleban.

Mullah Omar Hiding in Pakistan

 

 

 

The spokesman, Muhammad Hanif, made the apparent confession to Afghan agents who videotaped the questioning.

Mr Hanif is seen sitting in a dimly-lit room telling agents that Mullah Omar is in the city of Quetta. Correspondents confirm the voice is his.

Mullah Omar has not been seen since 2001. Pakistan rejected the claims.

More evidence of Taliban leader hiding in Pakistan

By David Montero
Christian Science Monitor
January 19, 2007

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - Mullah Muhammed Omar, the Taliban's one-eyed leader, eluded capture when American bombs ended his fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan in 2001. But a new report of his location is stirring an international uproar.

A captured Taliban spokesman says Mr. Omar is hiding in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan Province, under the protection of Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Abul Haq Haqiq, also known as Dr. Mohammad Hanif, made the statements in a video-taped interrogation released by Afghan intelligence on Wednesday, following his arrest while crossing from Pakistan into the Afghan province of Nangarhar.

Hanif's claims are the latest in a stream of international criticism of Pakistan. Afghanistan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, have accused Pakistan of harboring Omar, and news of his whereabouts - credible or not - is amplifying questions about Pakistan's commitment to the war on terror, analysts say.

Hanif's remarks come after the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion removed the Taliban from power in 2001. Some 4,000 people died in insurgent-related violence in 2006. During a visit to Kabul Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he would consider sending more US troops to bolster the 22,500 already posted in Afghanistan.

Omar carries a $10 million bounty on his head and, like Osama bin Laden, is believed to be hiding somewhere in the remote areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Hanif also told Afghan interrogators that the Taliban, with help from the ISI, were responsible for more than 100 suicide attacks that left 270 civilians and 17 international soldiers dead.

"It's extremely important news. When we add all these accusations together, they pose a real problem for Pakistan's credibility, that it is playing a double game," says Rasul Bahksh Rais, a political analyst at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Omar has barely been heard from since he disappeared, leading many to wonder if he is dead or inactive.

But before he was arrested, Hanif told the Monitor in mid-December that Omar remains a central pillar in Taliban operations. He is not always present at meetings of the upper leadership, but all decisions are conveyed to him for approval, Hanif claimed.

"Without Mullah Omar we would not be able to reorganize and have this intensity of our attacks," Hanif said by telephone last month from an undisclosed location.

Earlier this month, Omar was heard from for the first time in years when he told Reuters, through Hanif, that he hadn't seen Osama bin Laden since 2001.

If true, Hanif's taped confession would constitute the highest level official statement from the Taliban that Omar is in Quetta. It would also verify that the operational center of the movement is in Pakistan. Many have long claimed this, chief among them Mr. Karzai, who last February delivered a series of dossiers to Islamabad detailing the addresses of Taliban leaders in Quetta.

Pakistan rejected the validity of those files, just as they immediately rejected Hanif's claims, calling it another salvo in Afghanistan's escalating blame game.

"This is the most absurd statement that can come out," says Maj. Gen. Shaukut Sultan, the spokesman for the Pakistani military. "Pakistan is fully committed to fighting terrorism."

Hanif's accusations against Afghan intelligence officials may have been coerced, some observers say. They also directly contradict statements Hanif made earlier to the Monitor.

"Mullah Omar is in Afghanistan and all [Taliban] leaders, too. There is no Taliban in Quetta," Hanif said at the time.

But Quetta has long been considered a logical place for Omar to seek refuge. The city lies near the border with Afghanistan, and has historical ties to Kandahar, Omar's home and the birthplace of the Taliban. International media reports have repeatedly highlighted the presence of Taliban fighters in the city.

Residents of Quetta remain divided over Hanif's statement. "This is completely propaganda," says Maulana Nur Mohammed, a parliament member from Jamiat-Ulema-Islami, a hard-line Islamist party that openly supports the ideology of the Taliban. "Because of all the intelligence agencies present here, it is not possible for the Taliban to stay in Quetta."

Others in Pakistan hailed Hanif's claim as proof of an open secret. "As the captured person said, [the Taliban] are in the protection of the ISI. In Quetta city, anybody can see that [the Taliban] are living here," says Akram Shah Khan, general secretary of the Pashtunkhwa Mili Awami Party, a Pashtun nationalist party in Quetta.

Many have also suspected that when he fled, Omar sought protection from the ISI, once his closest ally. In the mid-'90s, the ISI provided Omar's fledgling movement with the operational prowess needed to seize power, but denied doing so to American authorities.

Speaking to the Monitor last month, Hanif dismissed reports that Pakistan is providing aid to the Taliban. "Pakistan is not helping. We don't want their help either. Basically the Afghan people help, themselves," he said.

But he contradicted himself again in Thursday's taped interrogation, claiming that a former ISI chief, Hamid Gul, was providing financial and logistical support to the Taliban, principally in the form of suicide bombers.

Mr. Gul, who ran the ISI during the Afghan war against Russian forces in the 1980s, is known to have cultivated support for the Taliban in their early days. But he denies any involvement with them now.

"This is nonsense. Afghan intelligence is totally groping in the dark," says Gul, who is retired and living in Rawalpindi, near Pakistan's capital. "The real cause is that America is failing in Afghanistan and therefore putting pressure on Karzai...."

On Saturday, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, a top US commander, said that Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban commander, was orchestrating large-scale attacks against Afghanistan from a base in Pakistan's tribal zone. His remarks came days after NATO forces killed 150 Taliban militants infiltrating Afghanistan from Pakistan, one of the single largest such engagements in the conflict.

Suzanne Koster contributed to this report from Islamabad.

Afghanistan dismisses Taliban vow to open schools

by Bronwen Roberts
January 22, 2007

KABUL (AFP) - The Afghan government dismissed as ridiculous a Taliban vow to open schools in Afghanistan, saying this was likely a pretext for moving "hate madrassas" into the country from Pakistan.

The United Nations also said it did not take seriously the announcement Sunday by the leadership council of the extremist Taliban movement that was driven from government in 2001 and is now waging a vicious insurgency.

Education Minister Hanif Atmar scoffed at the claim, telling AFP the

Attacks by the insurgents had also closed down nearly 400 schools, most of them in the areas where they said they would open them up, he said in an interview.

Atmar also questioned the claim they would allow girls to go school.

"During the years of their power in Afghanistan they did not allow even a single girl to go to public schools. How come their policy has now dramatically changed?"

The United Nations mission was also dismissive. "I don't think we see this as being serious," spokesman Adrian Edwards said.

"The Taliban's record on education is a tragic one and I think speaks quite adequately for itself," he told reporters.

A statement read to AFP Sunday by a Taliban spokesman said the movement would from March set up schools in areas "under its control" and had started publishing textbooks. The drive would cost one million dollars, it said.

"To boost their morale they are spreading ridiculous rumours that they have control over certain places," the minister said. "There is no territory, no province under their control."

Atmar said the Taliban appeared to be using education as a front for setting up conservative religious schools, called madrassas, that teach the Islamic extremism feeding the insurgency.

"They are doing this in order to pave the way for the shift of hate madrassas to Afghanistan in order to train terrorists," he said.

To "reduce pressure on Pakistan and themselves in terms of hate madrassas across the border, they want to find a way to move those madrassas into Afghanistan," he said.

Pakistan is under huge pressure to act against madrassas said to train Taliban rebels and send them across the border to fight.

A Taliban spokesman told AFP the planned schools were be different from madrassas, which mostly teach Islamic studies.

"They are going to be schools where science and other subjects will be taught," spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said when contacted by telephone.

He said the Taliban leadership had never adopted a policy of destroying schools and there were "other causes" for the attacks that had occurred, although he did not elaborate what these might be.

"In the present curriculum (in Afghan schools) there are some issues which we are against. For example jihad (holy war) is referred to as terrorism. But in general we are not against education," Ahmadi said.

Again claiming the Taliban had control of some parts of the country, he that while the movement had agreed to allow young girls to attend school, it had not decided what to do when they became teenagers.

During its five-year grip on power, the Taliban brutally enforced a strict Islamic code of behaviour, for example beating women in public if they did not wear a top-to-toe burqa that hid their faces.

The group, whose leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is said to be illiterate, stopped girls from going to school and women from working, which meant most teachers had to give up their jobs.

There has been a fivefold increase in enrollment since the hardliners were forced out, the education minister said, with about 5.4 million students this year, of which 1.6 million were girls.

The British charity Oxfam said in November that nearly seven million children were still not in school.

^ I have the feeling you're incessant obsession with Pakistan is beginning to pay off ! Posting rabidly on a single topic day in day out at the very least deserves some form of recognition. It's a shame you're smarter than the CIA and MI5, that you know ISI's every movement and they do not  

If you compare me to an investigave journalist...that would make you the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. :)

Welcome to Taleban country

By Haroon Rashid
BBC News, Mir Ali
Tuesday, 23 January 2007

A red truck comes to a screeching halt next to our vehicle.

Its heavily-tinted windows are lowered to reveal an interior packed with more men than can possibly fit in a vehicle that size.

All have beards and long hair. Another bunch is huddled against each other in the open back of the four-wheel drive.

"Wait for us here. We will come back," the young driver issues us with a curt order.

Seconds later he is gone - bewildered tribesmen in the main bazaar try to make sense of what is going on.

Welcome to Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan's restive tribal area of North Waziristan often frequented by local pro-Taleban militants.

'Judge for yourself'

Our hosts are Baitullah Mehsud's group, their leader a local equivalent of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taleban.

Baitullah is believed to head the pro-Taleban militants in the half of South Waziristan dominated by the Mehsud tribe.

He is generally referred to as ameer (chief) sahib and his influence, it seems, spreads far beyond the Mehsud territory.

The militants return after a while. "Ameer sahib sends his greetings too," they inform us, asking the small media group to follow them.

Baitullah had invited a group of journalists to visit the site in South Waziristan bombed by the Pakistani military last week. The army says the place was an al-Qaeda hideout.

Pakistan's military and the local tribesmen agree that the early morning operation took out eight people and injured several others. But they strongly disagree on who the victims were.

The government says they were foreign terrorists, while the militants say they were innocent local wood-cutters.

"Our ameer wants you to see the truth and judge for yourself," says Zulfiqar Mehsud, the youngish leader of the militants packed in the vehicle.

"We want you to see the injustice Pakistan is doing to us."

'War booty'

In this mountainous region - where the tribes people used to enjoy virtual autonomy - Pakistani security forces fought fierce battles with local militants until a peace deal in September last year.

We dutifully followed the militants on a road heading south from Mir Ali.

Our vehicle zigzagged over a bumpy road through dry plains and green valleys. I asked and was allowed to switch over to the militants' truck.

They were travelling with two rocket launchers, a heavy machine gun and an AK-47 assault rifle each with no dearth of ammunition. Two bags full of ammunition and hand grenades hung from the back of the front seats.

One of the militants pulled out an American AK-47. "It's war booty. We seized it in Afghanistan," he said proudly.

Looking around, I felt I could have been in an arms depot.

"We've to carry all this stuff around all the time. You know the situation. Anything can happen any time," explained an older-looking militant called Malaka by his colleagues.

Another militant, Khan Sher, sitting next to me had been shot in the leg in Afghanistan. He was operated upon but still had a limp. Not that it seemed to affect his active participation in militant activities.

The atmosphere in the vehicle was a bit stiff and hostile in the beginning but we all relaxed after a brief chat in Pashto.

On the way, they stopped to demonstrate their firing skills. We were also offered the chance to try our hands at a heavy machine gun.

The next stop was for afternoon prayers on the bank of a stream. Everyone had to pray.

Under a heavily overcast sky, the noise of a spy drone broke the silence as the prayers ended. "An American drone," Zulfiqar Mehsud told us.

Back on the road, the militants put on a cassette with nothing but noise and screeches on it. They claimed it helped avoid detection by American spy planes.

The small speaker on the vehicle's roof was deafening and we immediately requested that the cassette be stopped. It was replaced with Pashto chants eulogising jihad and cursing infidels.

'Revenge'

The three-vehicle convoy arrived three hours later at Kot Kalay, a small hamlet of high mud houses perched on a hilltop in South Waziristan. Journalists were taken to the main mosque to see the waiting relatives of the people who had died in the attack.

All of them, in the presence of the militants, described the attack as cruel.

"We don't demand any compensation or anything. They have killed innocent people, we will not spare them. We will take revenge," said an agitated Mir Shah Azam Khan, whose 16-year-old son was among the dead.

After a cup of extremely sweet tea, we headed for the site of the raid. In the barren landscape around, the compounds that the Pakistan army had bombed were the only settlements.

Three of the five houses stood on a hill surrounded by higher mountains on all sides - a scene typical of tribal territory.

Local traders told us that only wood-cutters working in the surrounding forests used to spend nights in these high-walled compounds.

The remains of an unexploded 500-pound missile and other bombs were shown to the media. Body parts of the dead were also on display.

Some reports suggest the raid was conducted on the basis of information that a senior al-Qaeda leader Abu Nasser, and some other foreigners, were present in the village.

He is reported to have been wounded but still managed to escape. No official confirmation was available.

Pakistan Taleban vow more violence

BBC News / Monday, 29 January 2007

Pro-Taleban militants have been strengthening their hold in Pakistan's tribal areas following controversial peace deals with the authorities. Haroon Rashid of the BBC's Urdu service is one of the few reporters working for a Western media organisation with access to the area.

Local militants took journalists to see the site of an air raid by Pakistan's armed forces in troubled South Waziristan region. Here, our reporter describes his meeting with the militants' leader.

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

After visiting the site of the bombing, we were done with the basic purpose of the trip. I asked the militants if I could see their leader, Baitullah Mehsud.

"For that, you will have to spend the night here. We will have to track him down. He is extremely busy these days," said one of the militants, Zulfikar Mehsud, who carried a powerful walkie-talkie.

The journey back to the town of Mir Ali from the site of the attack in a hamlet called Kot Kalay was eventless, except for the speed at which Zulfiqar drove the four-by-four. He said driving at 100kph was the norm on these dodgy tracks.

Given the battering the Toyota truck was taking, I asked them how long such trucks last? Eight to nine months only, I was told.

Close to midnight, we approached a check point but the paramilitary soldier removed the road blockade without even throwing a cursory glance at us.

The Taleban, too, looked neither too concerned at the check posts or security forces on the ground, or about the spy planes hovering overhead.

Since the controversial peace accords, they say they are able to move around the area freely.

In Mir Ali, we bade farewell to the rest of the journalists since the interview with Baitullah was for the BBC only.

After spending a night in a room with at least 10 militants, I headed for Baitullah's base somewhere in South Waziristan.

This was to be my second meeting with the militant leader in almost two years. Our first encounter was in February 2005 during the signing ceremony of the peace deal at Sararogha.

But my current meeting was to take place at a time when the deal is under intense pressure.

'Jihad'

Many say Baitullah Mehsud and the supreme leader of the Taleban, Mullah Omar, have several similarities. Both have fought against the Soviet occupation, both are against photographs, both vow jihad and both keep moving from one hideout to another.

As we were preparing to leave to meet Baitullah, a man came to the militants and handed over a small blue plastic bag.

"This is how Allah takes care of our needs. This is money. Half a million Pakistani rupees [more than $8,200]," Zulfiqar said. I asked who gave it to him. "Someone," was his brief answer.

Baitullah's private army along with other militant groups have imposed a strict Islamic code in North and parts of South Waziristan.

They run a parallel government here. Music and videos are banned while militants claim people approach them for settlement of their disputes.

With a black-dyed beard, 34-year-old Baitullah greeted us in a big room with several of his armed men beside him. We sat on a new colourful quilt spread on the ground.

Baitullah seemed a man with only jihad (holy war) on his mind. During the interview he quoted several verses from the Koran to defend his stance that foreign forces must be evicted from Islamic countries.

"Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfil God's orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world," he says.

The militant leader on several occasions in the past had openly admitted crossing over into Afghanistan to fight foreign troops.

"We will continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out. Then we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept Islam or agree to pay jazia (a tax in Islam for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state)."

Suicide bombers

Baitullah predicted an even bloodier year for foreign forces in Afghanistan.

"The mujahideen will carry out even more severe attacks. If they [the West] have air power we have fidayeen [suicide bombers]... They will leave dishonoured."

The militant leader, who is suffering from a chest infection, denied an American general's claim that a Taleban leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was present in the tribal region and was organising attacks across the border. "This is all lies. They don't have any evidence."

The militants say they don't wish to fight Pakistani security forces because it only benefits the Americans.

"[Pakistan army spokesman] Shaukat Sultan holds the key to this issue," a smiling Baitullah said when asked what they would do if Pakistan continued to bomb them.

After an hour-long discussion and a sumptuous tea, we headed back to Peshawar.

Before we left, Baitullah gave us perfume and a book in Urdu on 'Why Jihad is a must'. On our way back, we saw newly built white graves on the roadside.

White Taleban flags fluttered over several of them. "These graves are of martyrs from Afghanistan," Zulfikar said as we said goodbye.

Musharraf finally admits Paki militants collusion

By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad

Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, admitted yesterday that border guards had turned a "blind eye" towards Taliban militants crossing into Afghanistan to launch attacks on coalition forces.   Gen Musharraf: 'a blind eye was being turned' The admission came after senior American officials publicly urged Pakistan to do more to curb infiltration. "We had some incidents I know of that in some posts, a blind eye was being turned," Gen Musharraf told a press conference when asked to comment on criticism of Pakistan's co-operation in the US-led war on terror. "So similarly I imagine that others may be doing the same." The government has been stung by claims that its Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) has aided Taliban militants whose logistical headquarters is widely-believed to be in the south-western Pakistani border province of Balochistan. A senior US general in Afghanistan, Maj Gen Benjamin Freakley, angered Pakistani officials last month when he claimed that a notorious pro-Taliban warlord, Jalalludin Haqqani, was based in Pakistan's tribal areas. Pakistan has come under additional pressure to prove its worth in the war on terror since a bill was passed by the American lower house of representatives last week that calls for an end to US military aid to Pakistan if it fails to stop the Taliban operating from its territory. Gen Musharraf also disclosed that Pakistani forces had on three occasions located and tried to kill a senior Taliban leader who is in charge of militants fighting against British soldiers in southern Afghanistan. It was the first time that Pakistan has acknowledged that the one-legged Mullah Dadullah was on its territory. Gen Musharraf said that Pakistan would fence 22 miles of its disputed 1,300-mile border with Afghanistan but had deferred a plan to lay mines. Source:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/03/wafg203.xml - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/03/wafg203.xml

A political curtain-raiser for the Taliban

By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times Online
February 3, 2007

KARACHI - The Olsi Jirga, the Afghan lower house of parliament, has granted immunity to all Afghans involved in the country's 25 years of conflict, despite calls by human-rights groups for war-crimes trials.

The decision will cover fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar and former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who now heads his own militant group. The decision is just another dent in the US-led "war on terror" campaign at a time when the Taliban-led spring uprising is imminent and the Taliban show no desire to initiate dialogue for peace.

As the temperature has risen in Kabul to 1 degree Celsius - from minus-13 only two weeks ago - reconciliatory efforts on the part of Kabul have gained momentum.

The purpose of the initiative is to split opinion within the Taliban-led resistance, which has increasingly drawn in warlords across the country. From the tone of President Hamid Karzai's statements, though, it is clear that he does not intend to go as far as power-sharing; he talks of dialogue with "an enemy who is after our annihilation and is shedding our blood".

The amnesty decision, nevertheless, is significant. The overwhelming majority in the Olsi Jirga is former mujahideen, including Speaker Younus Qanooni and Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf. The single largest group is Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami, besides a sizable presence of former Taliban, including diehards such as Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, whose "defection" from the Taliban was made under considerable duress.

In early 2006, politicians in Kabul would have learned of the jump in support for the Taliban and their planned spring offensive for that year, which many believed would be successful. As a result, politicians drew up a political blueprint premised on the Taliban capturing Kabul and other key cities. In effect, they were acting as the Taliban's political wing. The latest act of granting immunity can be viewed as a continuation of this, and it sends a very strong message to all segments of Afghan society.

Spring sprung

The Taliban's plan for a mass uprising has now become an issue of honor, and this year it is many times better prepared than last year.

It is estimated that last year

Thousands of others are ready to go from Pakistan's Bajaur agency into Kunar,  

In addition, there is a strong presence of Taliban in the Afghan provinces of Paktia, Paktika, Khost and Ghazni - possibly as many as 100,000. The Taliban have also regrouped in the western provinces of Faryab, Herat, Ghor and Baghdais, where they have sizable forces.

Within the next few weeks, Mullah Omar is expected to make major decisions on the appointment of new commanders and also make changes in command structures.

The roadmap for 2006, which centered on the fall of Kandahar and mobilization of Taliban forces to Kabul, is also likely to be altered, possibly allowing for an assault on an eastern city. This happened in 1991 when Khost was the first city to fall to the Taliban, followed by Jalalabad and finally Kabul in 1996.

Nonetheless, whether the Taliban move first on the east or the southwest, Kabul is clearly reading the signs, and preparing for the possibility of the Taliban entering Kabul.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

I doubt the ISI would turn on itself.  I think the recent suicide bombings and car bombings are a result of Pakistan's recent action in the border areas.  Last time I checked, the Pakistanis were still researching what the motive was in the last suicide attack at the hotel.

So are you trying to justify the Taliban/Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan because some extremist Pakistanis or Al Qaeda terrorist have terrorized your country now? 

So your answer to terrorist attacks in Pakistan is Xenophobia.  I don't understand why it's so hard to understand this, it's quite simple...

Quetta MIGHT be a Hub?  ...just admit it Maqsad, it's not that hard.

Militants put squeeze on Musharraf

M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Karachi
Wednesday, 7 February 2007

Islamic militants have struck in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, for the second time in a fortnight, bringing a feeling of déjà vu.

In December 2003, two attacks in as many weeks on the country's president and army chief, Gen Pervez Musharraf, shook Islamabad and the world.

But analysts believe recent attacks foreshadow worse times ahead than did the previous ones.

Three years ago, the militants were still struggling to consolidate their position and needed a high-profile target to establish their credentials.

Those attacks propelled Gen Musharraf into a position of strength, with Western powers lining up behind him to prevent the anarchic Islamist forces from capturing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

This goodwill enabled Gen Musharraf to authorise a series of peace deals with the militants in 2004-05, thereby creating room for Islamabad to win back its estranged former allies in Afghanistan and the border region.

'New breed' of militant

The present attacks come at a time when Gen Musharraf is under increasing Western pressure to eliminate militant sanctuaries that have come to exist as a result of those deals.

A frequently-asked question in Pakistan is; is the peace deal with the militants still on?

While both Pakistani officials and the militant leaders insist that they want the deal to work, the situation on the ground tells a different story.

Since 22 January, militants have hit eight targets in northern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people.

Among the attackers are five suicide bombers, and their victims include five military personnel and nine personnel from other security units including the police.

Police investigators say the attacks were launched by a "new breed" of militant linked to Baitullah Mehsud, a Taleban commander from South Waziristan and a signatory of one of the peace deals.

Mr Mehsud vowed revenge following a Pakistani air strike that killed eight people in South Waziristan's Zamzola area on 16 January.

He called it a breach of the peace deal and said its future now depended on the actions of the Pakistan army.

'Safe havens'

Analysts believe the attacks are a warning that if Pakistan scuttles the peace deal, it will have to suffer the consequences.

But can Pakistan withstand Western pressure and hold peace in the tribal region?

Although President Musharraf has been defending the peace deals as a means of isolating al-Qaeda and Taleban militants, he has also shown occasional signs of cracking under Western pressure.

During his visit to the US late last year, he said that while the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI was not helping Taleban, some former ISI officials may have done so.

More recently, he has further conceded that he knew of some incidents at some Pakistani border posts where a "blind eye was being turned" to Taleban movements.

Apparently, Gen Musharraf is trying to come clean with the Western powers on the issue at a time when the US administration is upping the ante.

Pakistani officials were ruffled when John Negroponte, the director of US national intelligence, told a Senate intelligence committee on 12 January that al-Qaeda was re-establishing its global network from safe havens in Pakistan.

Further pressure came in the shape of a new US Congress bill linking military assistance for Pakistan to its commitment to fighting terrorism.

There may be some bargaining positions involved, but the bottom line seems to be a hammer-and-anvil operation involving Nato and Pakistani troops to crush tribal militants.

Pressure

This will entail grave political risks for Gen Musharraf and his regime. A similar operation in June 2004 led to upwards of 300 military casualties and made the army permanently unpopular in the region.

But skirting commitments on the "war on terror" may create its own set of problems.

Western officials believe that in economic terms, various aid and arms agreements between the US and Pakistan are crucial for the survival of the regime.

A harsh Congress law requiring annual waivers by the US president would therefore put a squeeze on the Pakistan military's supply line.

This could lead to political problems for Gen Musharraf, who observers say is surrounded by a group of political turncoats that are likely to melt away at the first sign of trouble.

And as the spring approaches, there is a sense of urgency in the air.

The Americans have already shown their resolve to carry the war into Pakistani territory by bombing suspected militant hideouts in the border regions.

To prevent that, Pakistan is likely to try harder to meet the demands of Nato troops.

Pakistan's willingness to accept responsibility for the strikes in Bajaur last November and in South Waziristan's Zamzola area on 16 January may be an indicator of which way the air is going to blow in the coming weeks and months.

Haji Asadullah Wafa, who has been in his job just a few weeks, told the BBC foreign fighters were among them.

He said their intention was to disturb a major dam project being protected by British troops.

The UK taskforce in Helmand said it was aware of reports that insurgents had moved into the Sangin area.

Taliban flee battle using children as shields: NATO

By Terry Friel
February 14, 2007

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban fighters used children as human shields to flee heavy fighting this week during an operation by foreign and Afghan forces to clear rebels from around a key hydro-electric dam, NATO said on Wednesday.

The Taliban have used human shields before, but never children, local residents say.

The fighting occurred during Operation Kryptonite on Monday, an offensive to clear insurgents from the Kajaki Dam area in southern Helmand province to allow repairs to its power plants and the installation of extra capacity.

"During this action ... Taliban extremists resorted to the use of human shields. Specifically, using local Afghan children to cover as they escaped out of the area," Colonel Tom Collins, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told reporters in Kabul.

The Kajaki Dam fighting was in an area where 700 mainly foreign fighters, including Chechens, Pakistanis and Uzbeks, arrived from Pakistan this week to reinforce Taliban guerrillas.

NATO also said it killed a senior local Taliban commander and several comrades in a pre-dawn air-strike on Wednesday between the dam and the rebel-held town of Musa Qala to the west, but denied residents' accounts civilians were also killed.

TARGETING REBEL LEADERS

The leader, identified by police and tribal elders as Mullah Manan, was involved in the capture of Musa Qala 13 days ago and clashes around Kajaki.

NATO said its soldiers saw 11 bodies, all fighting-age males, dragged from the wreckage by Taliban fighters. Provincial police said Manan and at least eight more Taliban were killed and that they had no word of civilian casualties.

But local residents and elders said civilians also died.

"It is a well-known enemy tactic to try to blame civilian casualties on ISAF forces," Collins said in a statement.

"We continue to conduct specific shaping operations -- to go after specific Taliban extremists, the leadership who are impacting the enemy's operations," he told reporters later.

The Interior Ministry said it has also arrested a Taliban leader in the province of Khost.

The Kajaki dam has seen major fighting in recent weeks between the Taliban and NATO forces, mainly British and Dutch.

NATO-led forces have been conducting operations in the area for several months to allow reconstruction on the dam and the power transmission lines to boost output, after fighting halted repair and development work last year.

The Taliban cannot destroy the dam, which would also flood a large area of the Helmand Valley, but its tactics are aimed at making it too unsafe for work to go ahead.

The dam was first built on the Helmand river in the 1950s.

Its hydroelectric plants, with a generating capacity of 33 megawatts, were installed in 1975. Once fully operational, the dam will bring electricity to 1.8 million people, NATO says.

Suicide bomber kills at least 15 in Pakistani court

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber in Pakistan killed 15 people, including a judge, in a courtroom in the city of Quetta on Saturday, the latest in a series of suicide blasts to have sent shudders through the country.

Intelligence officials have attributed other attacks to sectarian Sunni militants linked to al Qaeda and groups operating from tribal areas, regarded as hotbeds of support for the Taliban.

Police made a string of arrests this week, including two suicide bomb teams caught in southern Pakistan.

The bomb in Quetta exploded while a lower court was in session. A senior judge and six lawyers were among those killed, police in the capital of Baluchistan province said.

"According to our reports a man entered the room and blew himself up. A head has been found," Baluchistan province Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf said.

"It could be a continuation of what is happening in other parts of the country."

The suicide attacks started after an army air strike on a militant base in South Waziristan tribal region in mid-January.

Including the death toll from Quetta, nearly 45 people have been killed in bomb attacks since then, as militants have sought to destabilize President Pervez Musharraf's government and weaken his resolve to confront the Taliban, al Qaeda and their allies.

ARRESTS TARGET AL QAEDA ALLY

Police arrested two suicide bomb teams in southern Sindh province on Friday, and identified them as factions of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim sectarian militant group that has established ties with al Qaeda.

"We found explosives, splinters, circuits and jackets used in suicide bombings, as well as Jihadi literature on them," district police officer Mazhar Nawaz, told Reuters from Sukkur.

Police said the militants arrested in Karachi and Sukkur had been planning attacks on Pakistan's Muslim Shi'ite minority at the end of the holy month of Muharram, which falls in the first week of March.

Road blocks had been set up in Islamabad, and police were stopping and questioning drivers of small cars, taxis and trucks. Foreign embassies have told their staff to limit their travel in the capital.

Officials in Quetta were unsure who carried out Saturday's blast.

"Initially we suspect nationalist extremists, as well as Afghan Taliban could be behind the attack," Razak Bugti, a spokesman for the Baluchistan government, said.

Television footage from the wrecked courthouse showed people and police walking through pools of blood, collecting belongings. Body parts and torn clothes could be seen all around.

Pakistan has been under mounting pressure from the United States and Afghanistan to tackle Taliban sanctuaries on its territory.

Taliban leaders are widely believed to be operating from in and around Quetta, capital of the restive province of Baluchistan, though Pakistan consistently denies their presence.

Baluchistan is also beset with unrest due to ethnic Baluch militants, who are fighting for greater autonomy.

Where the Taliban breeds

Analysis | The porous Afghan-Pakistani border has been lawless since being imposed on Pashtun tribes in 1893. But this wild frontier must be tamed if Afghanistan is to flourish.

Olivia Ward
The Toronto Star
February 18, 2007

When Hassan Abbas, then a Pakistani police chief, went on a raid in the country's lawless border region, he was surprised to find himself outside his territory – and inside Afghanistan.

"We weren't the only ones who were confused," says Abbas, now a fellow of the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"For hundreds of years, people have been living on both sides of the border, and when it was divided they found it inconceivable that they should suddenly be residents of another country."

The story illustrates how porous is the wild, mountainous frontier that separates the two countries along the 2,400-kilometre line, which is still in dispute more than a century after it was negotiated by British diplomat Sir Henry Mortimer Durand.

But for Canadian and other NATO troops – and the traumatized people of southern Afghanistan – the border is real and menacing as they anxiously await a predicted spring onslaught of Taliban fighters and suicide bombers from Pakistan.

The coming battles are said to be crucial for peace and stability in Afghanistan.

"Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership presence inside of Pakistan remain a very significant problem," said the outgoing American commander in Afghanistan, Lt.-Gen. Karl Eikenberry, urging a "steady, direct attack" on their operations bases in the border areas.

But those who are familiar with the turbulent border regions say the realities there are far more complex than Western policy-makers believe. And they warn that putting a stop to the "Talibanization" that is threatening both Afghanistan and Pakistan will not be accomplished by military means alone.

"The Pashtuns are the historically dominant group in the area, and they have been split by the Durand Line, so that there is a feeling their destiny has been interrupted," says Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy and author of five books on the border regions.

Moreover, he says, no foreign army has ever subdued the fierce border tribes.

The Durand Line, which divided Pashtun tribes between British India and Afghanistan in 1893, is viewed with resentment by people on both its sides and many of them of them consider it irrelevant.

"When you look at the partition today, it doesn't make a lot of sense," says geography professor Jack Shroder of University of Nebraska, Omaha, who has mapped the rugged areas.

"In the time of the British Raj, it was a ploy to divide and rule, and they put down white rocks to mark it. But people move the rocks around, because the border doesn't exist for them."

Like the border, law and order is a fluid concept in the tribal lands.

Pakistan has never managed to take control of the largely Pashtun area and created seven semi-autonomous units – Bajaur, Momand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram and North and South Waziristan – administered by federally appointed political agents.

Six smaller Frontier Regions provide a buffer between the agencies and the North West Frontier Province to the east. To the south is the large but sparsely populated province of Baluchistan, whose capital, Quetta, is said to be a Taliban command centre.

In the tribal regions, Pakistani courts and law enforcers have almost no sway, and the real power are the jirgas, or assemblies of elders, says Abbas, author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror.

The border regions have a population of some 38 million, including members of 60 Pashtun tribes and 400 sub-clans. With a literacy rate of little more than 10 per cent, few job opportunities beyond subsistence farming, deeply conservative religious views and an abundance of guns, the regions are a staging ground for militancy, drug trafficking and numerous smuggling rackets.

All these factors give the Taliban a head start in recruiting.

"The Taliban are sons of the soil, not foreigners," says Kamran Bokhari, a Toronto-based senior analyst for Strategic Forecasting Inc. "Over the past two decades, there has been a drift toward their kind of conservative Islam. An Islamist wave has hit the region, and there are many people who don't believe 9/11 happened and are convinced that there is a war going on against Muslims."

The tribal areas also have sheltered foreign and Afghan fighters fleeing previous wars in Afghanistan, and some of them have married local women and settled there.

Abbas says the Taliban was encouraged by "the Pakistani military's hidden alliance with religious political parties," in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. When the United States urged Pakistan to attack the militants, the campaign was brutal but disastrous. In a territory where revenge is part of the traditional code, secular parties lost out and Islamists gained ground.

But pockets of secular Pashtuns who oppose extremism still remain, with little support from the government and constant threats from Islamist groups.

Some analysts point to these secularists as the hope for future peace on the borders. A leader of the nationalist Pashtun Awami National Party, Asfandyar Wali, recently defeated pro-Taliban politicians in an election in Bajaur Agency.

Nevertheless, Islamists in Bajaur have threatened local men against shaving their beards, and while some men have protested, Abbas says, the episode demonstrates the strength of extremism even in opposition areas.

But even among the Taliban, there are divisions and opportunities for negotiation, says veteran Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of several books on militancy in the borderlands.

"Negotiating with the present leadership (Mullah Omar, Mullah Dadullah and others) is not acceptable," says Rashid, adding that there are "moderate elements" who are willing to talk to the Afghan government and have met with the secular and nationalist Pashtun groups.

Rashid points out that the Pakistani government is deeply suspicious of those groups, fearing a new secession movement if they gain support. Pakistan rejected a recent peace plan put forward by Wali – and approved by Afghan President Hamid Karzai – to hold a jirga of tribal leaders from both sides of the border.

"Wali believes it's the last hope for the region," says Abbas. "But in Pakistan, it is difficult to challenge the military intelligence establishment."

Bokhari, who had a recent meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, says the Pakistani leader admitted he had "no magic wand" for solving the crisis on the borders but was open to political negotiation, as well as fencing and mining the frontier (the latter opposed by Canada). And Musharraf denied reports that the Pakistani intelligence service was supporting militants, saying that creating an unstable neighbour was against his country's interests.

But as the countdown to a predicted spring offensive continues, so will pressure on Musharraf to shut down Taliban bases in Pakistan's borderlands.

Says Harrison: "Since the economic viability of Pakistan depends on continued aid, a credible threat to cut it off would alarm the armed forces and other sectors of the Pakistani business and political establishment, forcing Musharraf to tack with the wind."

But most analysts agree that force alone will not be effective on the frontier. They say that tightly targeted attacks against the hard core of the Taliban, avoiding civilian casualties, should open the way for negotiations with those who are willing to lay down their arms.

"People who want to fight can be tackled militarily, and NATO must not allow (the militants) to believe they will just leave the area," says Abbas.

But Pakistan, he adds, is only part of the problem.

"It's crucial to support development of Afghanistan. A person with a job, and kids in school, will think twice before picking up a gun."

The Problem With Pakistan

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
The Washington Post / February 28, 2007

In the you-are-either-with-us-or-against-us paradigm, the Bush administration has always had a difficult time dealing with Pakistan, a country that just happens to be both with us and against us.

In testimony before the Senate yesterday, the new Director of National Intelligence retired Admiral John M. ("Mike") McConnell, was as careful as all U.S. officials, lauding Pakistan's "ongoing efforts," but also highlighting many of America's concerns and disappointments.

One can't help but read the annual "threat" assessment from the intelligence community and come to the conclusion that for all of the American honor involved in "victory" in Iraq, the real danger of terrorism, and the country with the greatest potential for a world-shattering implosion, is not Iraq or Afghanistan or even Iran: it is Pakistan.

Saying that 2007 will be a "pivotal year" for Afghanistan, as well as raising concerns that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leadership are rebuilding and that the Taliban is in resurgence, retired Vice Adm. McConnell, Director of National Intelligence for just a week, had some special words about Pakistan.

Any new attack on the United States, McConnell said, is "most likely" to emerge from Pakistan, which hosts the al Qaeda leadership and other international terrorists in the ungoverned northwest region, and which serves as the breeding ground for broader Islamic radicalism.

"Many of our most important interests intersect in Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qa'ida maintain critical sanctuaries," McConnell said in his written report. The country, McConnell said "is our partner in the war on terror and has captured several al-Qa'ida leaders. However, it is also a major source of Islamic extremism."

The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, agreed with McConnell. In his written testimony to the same committee, Maples said that the "Afghanistan Pakistan border area remains a haven for al-Qaida's leadership and other extremists."

Maples said that despite a September 2006 accord between Islamabad and North Waziristan tribes to curtail attacks into Afghanistan, "the tribes have not abided by most terms of the agreement," leading to increased "freedom of movement and operation" for al-Qaeda's network.

Pakistan's internal inaction against terrorists and other militants, Maples and McConnell both agreed, also threaten stability in Afghanistan and India. "Afghanistan's relations with Pakistan are strained due to continued Taliban reliance on safe-haven in Pakistan," Maples said. "Pakistan-based militants continued attacks against India undermine Pakistan's ability to make lasting peace with its neighbor," he continued. McConnell spoke of the need to eliminate the "safehaven" that the Taliban and others have found in Pakistan's tribal areas, but he also bent over backwards to explain the country's failure to bring the region under central government control:

"We recognize that aggressive military action, however, has been costly for Pakistani security forces and appreciate concerns over the potential for sparking tribal rebellion and a backlash by sympathetic Islamic political parties. There is widespread opposition among these parties to the US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. With elections expected later this year, the situation will become even more challenging--for President Musharraf and for the US."

Democracy in Pakistan, McConnell also said, "has not been fully restored since the Army took power in 1999." It has, he meant to say, not been restored. Upcoming elections are not expected to change Musharraf's status: He will continue to be President and commander-in-chief and head of the Army and hold all of the actual power.

So, here is the American contradiction: Al-Qaeda is the greatest threat to the United States, at least according to the U.S. intelligence community and conventional wisdom. The terrorist organization is headquartered and lodged in northwest Pakistan, where it has virtual impunity. It operates within a country that has nuclear weapons and is labeled "a major source of Islamic extremism."

And yet the United States excuses and explains away a military dictatorship for eschewing a "costly" battle that might weaken it? Isn't the very core argument of the Bush administration in Iraq that we need to accept the cost and sacrifice -- no matter what -- in the name of our future security? But Pakistan doesn't? No wonder the Bush administration's worldview is so questionable.

Our Pals in Pakistan

Charles Peña / antiwar.com

February 28, 2007

Making an unannounced stop in Pakistan on Monday, Vice President Cheney "expressed U.S. apprehensions of regrouping of al-Qaeda in the tribal areas and called for concerted efforts in countering the threat" according to an aide to Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. According to Musharraf, Pakistan "has done the maximum in the fight against terrorism." Furthermore, Musharraf contends that there is no evidence that either Osama bin Laden or the Taliban's Mullah Omar are hiding out in Pakistan. But if bin Laden and company are not in Pakistan, where does Musharraf think they are? Did they flee Afghanistan to sip piña coladas on the beach in Fiji?

Pakistan is supposed to be an ally in the war on terrorism. The United States should not have to plead with an ally to go after public enemy number one. Nor should the United States have to put up with constant excuses for why the man responsible for ordering the Sept. 11 attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon remains at large.

To be sure, some of the bigger successes in the war on terrorism have come in Pakistan. The biggest success being the March 2003 capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. In each of these successes, the U.S. military or intelligence was involved in some way. But when left to their own devices, there has been a Keystone Kops-like aspect to Pakistani efforts. For example, in March 2004 the Pakistani military claimed they had surrounded several hundred al-Qaeda fighters, including a "high value target" thought to be Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second in command. But when the dust settled from the pounding by helicopter gunships and artillery in southern Waziristan, Zawahiri was nowhere to be found. Despite Pakistani military claims to have sealed off a 20-square-mile area that no one could have escaped from, Zawahiri either slipped the noose or was never there to begin with.

Another farce also occurred in March 2004 when Pakistani intelligence claimed that al-Qaeda spy chief Abu Mohammed al Masri (AKA Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists for his involvement in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya) was killed. The next day, however, the Pakistanis admitted to a case of mistaken identity – the slain militant was only a small fry local operative and not an al-Qaeda big fish. To add insult to injury, not only did the Pakistanis come up empty-handed during their March 2004 terror sweep, but they also had 12 soldiers killed and 15 wounded when a convoy was ambushed.

Although capturing or killing bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda leadership will not put an end to the terrorist threat facing America, they are nonetheless important targets – too important to be delegated to the Pakistanis if they are unable or unwilling to mount a serious effort to hunt them down. Gary Schroen – a former CIA officer who oversaw agency operations in the region until August 2001 – believes Musharraf is willing to hand over lesser al-Qaeda figures, but unwilling to go after any of the big fish because he fears a horrendous Islamic backlash if he is seen as capturing or killing a man viewed as Robin Hood by many Muslims around the world. According to Newsweek's Michael Hirsch:

"As evidence, Schroen says that it took the Pakistanis five months to act against [Abu Faraj] al-Libbi [thought by many analysts to be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's successor] after the Americans delivered intelligence on the whereabouts of an al-Qaeda suspect who could not, at the time be specifically identified; Schroen believes the Pakistanis acted only after determining that the suspect was not bin Laden but a smaller fish. 'We gave them information on Libbi back in December [2004 – al-Libbi was captured in May 2005],' says Schroen…. 'They didn't want to do it.'"

Lack of seriousness on the part of the Pakistani government is further evidenced by all their deals to halt or curb military operations in southern Waziristan, the very area where bin Laden and al-Qaeda's senior leadership are thought to be in hiding. For example, in April 2004 the Pakistani military announced it had reached an agreement to halt military operations against tribesmen in return for a pledge not to harm Pakistan's interest. Yet, at the same time, the tribesmen announced they were ending their hunt for al-Qaeda militants. The most recent deal was struck with tribal leaders last September, in which they are supposed to take responsibility for curbing militant activities. As with past deals, critics believe that the Musharraf government has abdicated its responsibility and that the deal essentially cedes control of the area to militants, allowing them to step up recruitment and cross-border attacks into Afghanistan.

But if Pakistan is going to claim to be an ally in the war on terrorism – and be treated as such – such folly cannot be allowed to continue. If – for whatever reasons – the Pakistani government is not willing or able to go after al-Qaeda with a vengeance, then the U.S. government must be willing to take matters into its own hands. This does not mean a large-scale military incursion of Pakistan. Rather, it means that U.S. special forces must be allowed to act in discrete operations against al-Qaeda targets when there is reliable, actionable intelligence. Officially – for understandable reasons – the Musharraf government may not be able to sanction U.S. military operations in Pakistan. But unofficially, the Pakistani government needs to allow U.S. forces to conduct covert operations into Pakistan against al-Qaeda.

Admittedly, this is easier said than done. On the one hand, the United States does not want to take actions that would destabilize the Musharraf regime because a likely successor government could be radical Islamists who would inherit Pakistan's nuclear weapons. But at the same time, the United States cannot continue to embrace Musharraf as an unequivocal ally in the war on terrorism if his government is not willing to do more to find bin Laden and other important al-Qaeda figures hiding out in Pakistan.

Perhaps most importantly, the United States cannot afford to turn a blind eye (as it seemingly does to Saudi Arabia – has anyone noticed how the U.S. government doesn't complain about all the Saudi money being used to fund the Sunni insurgency in Iraq?) to the possibility that Pakistan may be enabling and facilitating al-Qaeda. Although it is important to consider the source, India has previously claimed that the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI is aiding al-Qaeda. Given the ISI's involvement aiding the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s and their previous support for bringing the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, such accusations cannot be blithely ignored.

Sanobar, 11-years-old girl is abducted and raped by warlords

Malom Zafar Shah, the district chief, and powerful warlord Mehmood, both from the “Northern Alliance”, are accused of this crime

Sanobar, 11-years-old daughter of Gulsha, an Afghan widow, has been abducted, raped and then traded in exchange for a dog by warlords in Aliabad district of Kondoz province in North of Afghanistan.

The suffering mother, while crying, says: "a month ago at 11 o'clock of night armed men entered my house and after beating and threatening me by gun, abducted my only daughter."

She accused the district chief Malom Zafar Shah and a powerful warlord Commander Mehmood to be responsible for this crime.

Gulsha says later it was found that her daughter has been raped and exchanged with a dog and a sum of money to another person but her whereabouts are still unknown.

While crying she told journalists: "I approached human rights office and police but none of them could help to find my daughter. The district chief himself has 4 daughters but he sold my daughters to others. With many difficulties and problems I grown up my 2 daughters, one was previously sold [by him] to a Kandahari man and taken to Pakistan and another was exchanged with a dog. Please bring them to justice." 

Both Malom Zafar Shah and warlord Mehmood are from the "Northern Alliance" and members of Jamiat-e Islami Afghanistan led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (currently member of the Parliament). They have a long record of such crimes and brutalities against people of Kondoz. Malom Zafar has been appointed as district chief directly by Qasim Fahim the former defense minister and vice President and now member of Senate.

In an interview with Ariana TV, Malom Zafar rejected all charges against himself and Commander Mehmmod telling "no Jehadi brother is involved in such crimes."

Mohammad Zahir Zafari, chief of the human rights office in Kondoz says, they have tried since a month to find the child but police is also unable to do anything as powerful people have link to the crime. He also exposed that his office was threatened a number of times to stop following of the case.

Pajhwok Afghan News quoted Zahir Zafari on Nov.7, 2006: "The only person responsible for the abduction of Sanobar is the warlord Mehmood, who exchanged the girl with a dog which he got from Nimatullah and then sold it for 150,000 Afghanis (US$3000)."

Such crimes happen on daily bases in Kundoz and other parts of Afghanistan where warlords have established jungle law and have all the key positions in their possession.

Unfortunately only few of such cases find its way to the media, most journalists are too afraid to report it as it can have dangerous consequences for them.

Malom Zafar Shah, the District Chief, a warlord of the "Northern Alliance" is involved in many such crimes.

http://www.rawa.org/gulsha.htm

2,000 illegal armed groups active in northern Afghanistan.

By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago

PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan - The disarmament of Afghanistan ‘s illegal private militias has ground to a halt and the price of weapons in the country‘s relatively quiet north is skyrocketing — a sign of the embattled central government‘s failure to assert its control, Afghan and Western officials say.

This mountainous, ethnically diverse region has been spared the intense violence in the past year that has rocked the south and the east, where the Taliban has staged a violent comeback, launching scores of suicide bombings and brazen guerrilla attacks on Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces.

"No (provincial) governor has stayed for more than three or four months in the job because there are powerful people and networks" who force them out, said Habibullah, a car mechanic in Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital of Baghlan, where the top Kabul-appointed administrator was replaced three times during 2006.

The price of a Russian-made AK-47 assault rifle has risen in the past three years from $100 to $400, officials and local commanders said.

"Everybody is looking after themselves," said Malek, who today heads Afghanistan‘s Liberty Party.

That was supposed to support a parallel effort to build a strong national army and police force.

A subsequent U.N.-Afghan effort then was launched to disarm and disband illegal armed groups with up to 120,000 members involved in crime, extortion and drug smuggling.

Some 2,000 illegal armed groups — each with at least five fighters — remain active, including new groups that have popped up across the country, said Ahmad Jan Nawzadi, a spokesman for the disarmament program. It originally hoped to disarm all fighters by the end of 2007.

That has worrying implications for the Western-backed project to rebuild a country scarred by the civil war between rival mujahedeen factions that broke out after the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

A new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based on more than 1,000 interviews with Afghans and 200 experts, says that northern militia commanders who took part in the initial disarmament drive have begun to rearm, and former warlords retain de facto control, blunting Karzai‘s influence in the region.

Mohammad Zamir, a 25-year-old shopkeeper, said people in Baghlan dare not go out after nightfall.

"Even in my house I have weapons to ensure the security and dignity of my family," Zamir said.

But rising weapons prices in the north, where there are large arms stockpiles left over from the civil war, are not just stimulated by local demand.

Arms dealers are "buying and smuggling to the Taliban areas in the south," according Bashir Khan Baghlani, a former senior commander of the Islamist militant group Hezb-i-Islami.

"These smugglers buy from the locals, put them in their vehicles and pay off the corrupt local police, who turn a blind eye to the trade," Baghlani said.

Western officials confirm that trend, which presents a threat to the 47,000 U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces that are bracing for a surge in Taliban attacks this spring. Thousands of people were killed in violence last year that shook confidence in Karzai‘s weak government.

"The north is a place from where the weapons go to the south," said 1st Lt. Laslo Tor, safety and security adviser to the Hungarian Provincial Reconstruction Team in Baghlan province.

___

Associated Press Writer Amir Shah contributed to this report.

http://localnewsleader.com/jackson/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=68402

What does that have to do with the Taliban existing in Pakistan?

Post what you want but NOBODY disagrees that the Taliban exist in Afghanistan, it is a irrelevant discussions since everybody and their grandmother knows that Afghanistan is openly at war with them.

Completely irrelevant.  Everybody knows the Taliban operate in Afghanistan, the question is , why are they operating in Pakistan?

Pakistan makes a deal with the Taliban

By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times Online / March 1, 2007

KARACHI - The Pakistani establishment has made a deal with the Taliban through a leading Taliban commander that will extend Islamabad's influence into southwestern Afghanistan and significantly strengthen the resistance in its push to capture Kabul.

One-legged Mullah Dadullah will be Pakistan's strongman in a corridor running from the Afghan provinces of Zabul, Urzgan, Kandahar and Helmand across the border into Pakistan's

Balochistan province, according to both Taliban and al-Qaeda contacts Asia Times Online spoke to. Using Pakistani territory and with Islamabad's support, the Taliban will be able safely to move men, weapons and supplies into southwestern Afghanistan.

The deal with Mullah Dadullah will serve Pakistan's interests in re- establishing a strong foothold in Afghanistan (the government in Kabul leans much more toward India), and it has resulted in a cooling of the Taliban's relations with al-Qaeda.

Despite their most successful spring offensive last year since being ousted in 2001, the Taliban realize they need the assistance of a state actor if they are to achieve "total victory". Al-Qaeda will have nothing to do with the Islamabad government, though, so the Taliban had to go it alone.

The move also comes as the US is putting growing pressure on Pakistan to do more about the Taliban and al-Qaeda ahead of a much-anticipated spring offensive in Afghanistan. US Vice President Dick Cheney paid an unexpected visit to Pakistan on Monday to meet with President General Pervez Musharraf.

The White House refused to say what message Cheney gave Musharraf, but it did not deny reports that it included a tough warning that US aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy.

A parting of the ways

The Taliban saw that after five years working with al-Qaeda, the resistance appeared to have reached a stage where it could not go much further.

Certainly it has grown in strength, and last year's spring offensive was a classic example of guerrilla warfare with the help of indigenous support. The application of improvised explosive devices and techniques of urban warfare, which the Taliban learned from the Iraqi resistance, did make a difference and inflicted major casualties against coalition troops.

However, the Taliban were unable to achieve important goals, such as the fall of Kandahar and laying siege to Kabul from the southern Musayab Valley on the one side to the Tagab Valley on the northern side.

Taliban commanders planning this year's spring uprising acknowledged that as an independent organization or militia, they could not fight a sustained battle against state resources. They believed they could mobilize the masses, but this would likely bring a rain of death from the skies and the massacre of Taliban sympathizers. Their answer was to find their own state resources, and inevitably they looked toward their former patron, Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda does not fit into any plans involving Pakistan, but mutual respect between the al-Qaeda leadership and the Taliban still exists. All the same, there is tension over their ideological differences, and al-Qaeda sources believe it is just a matter of time before the sides part physically as well.

Pakistan only too happy to help

Ever since signing on for the US-led "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, Pakistan has been coerced by Washington to distance itself from the Taliban. The Taliban were, after all, enemy No 1 for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's training camps.

So when the opportunity arose, Islamabad was quick to tap up Mullah Dadullah. This was the perfect way in which Pakistan could revive its contacts in the Taliban and give the spring uprising some real muscle, so the argument went among the strategic planners in Rawalpindi - in fact, so much muscle that forces led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would be forced into a position to talk peace - and who better than Pakistan to step in as peacemaker and bail out its Western allies?

The next logical step would be the establishment of a pro-Islamabad government in Kabul - delivering a kick in the strategic teeth of India at the same time. After all, Pakistan invested a lot in Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation in the 1980s yet it received little in return. Whether it was former Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or Taliban leader Mullah Omar, they refused to be totally Pakistan's men.

A man for all seasons

Mullah Dadullah, 41, comes from southwestern Afghanistan, so he is "original Taliban", and has a record of being a natural leader in times of crisis.

Mullah Dadullah made a name for himself during the Soviet occupation, during which he lost a leg. And with victories against the Northern Alliance after the Taliban took over Kabul in 1996, he pushed the alliance into the tail end of Afghanistan. This made him Pakistan's darling from Day 1.

He was Mullah Omar's emissary in the two Waziristan tribal areas before the spring offensive of last year. Here he brokered a major deal between the Pakistani armed forces and the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan had lost more than 800 soldiers in operations against the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda and it needed a face-saving way to extricate itself from the mess.

Mullah Dadullah's peace deal provided this, and the army made an "honorable" withdrawal from the volatile semi-independent region. Whenever the ceasefire was violated, Mullah Dadullah would settle things down.

The 2006 spring offensive was veteran mujahideen fighter Jalaluddin Haqqani's show. Nevertheless, the main areas of success were not Haqqani's traditional areas of influence, such as southeastern Afghanistan's Khost, Paktia and Paktika. The Taliban secured major victories in their heartland of the southwest, Helmand, Zabul, Urzgan and Kandahar. And their leader was Mullah Dadullah, whose men seized control of more than 12 districts - and held on to them.

Pakistani strategic circles are convinced that as a proven military commander, Mullah Dadullah will be able to work wonders this spring and finally give the Taliban the edge over the Kabul administration and its NATO allies.

This, ultimately, is Pakistan's objective - to revive its role in Kabul - and Islamabad is optimistic that Dadullah's considerable diplomatic skills will enable him to negotiate a power-sharing formula for pro-Pakistan Afghan warlords.

Even if Mullah Omar disagrees about any major compromise, Islamabad believes that Dadullah would by then have made such a name for himself in the battle against NATO that Omar would have little option but to accept whatever terms were agreed on.

A new string in the Taliban bow

A notable addition to what can only be described as a limited Taliban arsenal this year is surface-to-air missiles, notably the SAM-7, which was the first generation of Soviet man-portable SAMs.

The Taliban acquired these missiles in 2005, but they had little idea about how to use them effectively. Arab al-Qaeda members conducted extensive training programs and brought the Taliban up to speed. Nevertheless, the SAM-7s, while useful against helicopters, were no use against the fighter and bomber aircraft that were doing so much damage.

What the Taliban desperately needed were sensors for their missiles. These detect aircraft emissions designed to misdirect the missiles.

And it so happened that Pakistan had such devices, having acquired them from the Americans, though indirectly. The Pakistanis retrieved them from unexploded cruise missiles fired into Afghanistan in 1998, targeting bin Laden. They copied and adapted them to fit other missiles, including the SAMs.

Now that the Taliban and Pakistan have a deal, these missiles will be made available to the Taliban. Much like the Stingers that changed the dynamics of the Afghan resistance against the Soviets, the SAMs could help turn things Mullah Dadullah's, the Taliban's and Pakistan's way.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.