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Afghan prize would reward Pak for terror
SHAUN GREGORY, Jul 18, 2010, 07.20am IST


The US strategy in Afghanistan is in deep trouble. President Obama's December announcement that US forces would begin to draw down from July 2011 is being widely read in South Asia as the beginning of the endgame for the US and Nato in Afghanistan. Regional states are beginning to jostle for influence. They will be left for the second time in less than 25 years to deal with the consequences of a strategic retreat by a major power from Afghanistan. The nature of America's problems and Islamabad's support for the Afghan Taliban has moved Pakistan into poll position to recover its "strategic depth" in Afghanistan. If it does so, the Pakistan Army and ISI will undoubtedly conclude that their support for Islamic extremism and terrorism has been rewarded.

All four strands of the US-led transition strategy are going badly. Efforts to create a powerful Afghan National Security Force to provide security across the country are faltering; the counterinsurgency or COIN strategy has backfired in Marjah and the Kandahar operation has been delayed; the peace and reconciliation process is failing because some of the main Afghan opposition parties have declined to participate and Taliban representatives have insisted they will not negotiate; and the efforts to legitimize the Karzai government have been undermined by fraudulent elections and ongoing allegations of corruption and incompetence. America's hand is being weakened further by the civil-military tensions exposed in the "Rolling Stone" article, which led to the sacking of General Stanley McChrystal. The United States has seen nothing like it since the 1971 publication of "The Pentagon Papers" foreshadowed the ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam.

The dilemma for the United States and the rest of Nato is that with so much blood in the soil of Afghanistan and so much money spent to resource the war, the Alliance needs a success story to provide the political fig-leaf for disengagement and persuade their respective publics that the price has been worth paying. For the leaders of many Nato members, political futures are at stake. Yet the scale of challenge in Afghanistan is so great, and the need to find a resolution to the residual question of al-Qaida so pressing, that neither the US nor Nato can achieve an exit strategy on their own terms.

The most plausible success story, and one which would allow forces to come home with political cover and the al-Qaida issue addressed, is that the US and Nato have achieved a stable transition in Afghanistan to an inclusive Afghan government, that the Taliban have given up support for al-Qaida and come into the political process, and that the US will retain a residual regional presence — as it has in Iraq — to maintain downward pressure on al-Qaida in the theatre. The United States has come to believe that the key to this entire narrative is Pakistan.

Pakistan has resolutely supported the Afghan Taliban since it was forced to flee Afghanistan in late 2001 and it is from Pakistani sanctuaries and the main leadership shuras in Quetta, Gerdi Jangal, Miram Shah, and Peshawar that the Afghan Taliban has staged its comeback. Backed by the Pakistan Army/ISI the Afghan Taliban is now once again in the ascendancy in Afghanistan and is thus key to any US/Nato disengagement. This is why Pakistan's Generals Kayani and Pasha have made a series of recent visits to Kabul in which they have offered to broker deals with the various Afghan Taliban groups and the Karzai regime; it is why Pakistan has now cleared the way for Mullah Baradar to be extradited to Kabul to participate in the process, and it is why secret meetings have been held with Sirajuddin Haqqani, and others to seek to engineer an endgame. Pakistan has simultaneously been pushing its erstwhile proxy Gulbuddin Hekmatyar into the process and quietly boosting militant strength in the Afghan-Pakistan border region by facilitating the movement of Punjabi Taliban into the theatre. Pakistan is also circulating the idea that the Afghan Taliban will give up al-Qaida to reach a deal, even though there are few reasons to believe this is so and no means to enforce any such offer the Taliban might make to ease the US/Nato withdrawal.

Pakistan's price for being helpful to the US is acceptance of Pakistan's primacy in Afghanistan and that it has a strong role in shaping US regional engagement going forward. It is a measure of the desperation of the US that they seem prepared to agree this deal, cede the lead to Pakistan, and condemn the people of Afghanistan to Taliban rule or to civil war.

Simply put, the United States seems ready to reward Pakistan's duplicitous support for militant Islamic extremism with the huge geostrategic prize of Afghanistan. The implications of this for India are grave indeed and it is difficult to believe that a White House friendlier to Delhi would ever have countenanced such a deal. India is emerging as a great power and with great power come commensurate obligations. India must take a stronger hand in Afghanistan and find a response which provides the United States and Nato with another way forward, which offers the people of Afghanistan an alternative to the Taliban or civil war, and which denies Pakistan a strategic victory which will surely resonate across the region for generations to come.

The writer is founder-director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at the University of Bradford, UK

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...reward-Pak-for-terror/articleshow/6182620.cms
 

Neil

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Afghan manhunt for missing US servicemen

Allied forces have begun a widespread search for two US servicemen who went missing in Afghanistan on Friday, reportedly snatched by the Taliban.

Local official Din Mohammed Darwish told the BBC that the men were alive and were being held in Logar province, south of Kabul.

He said local elders were trying to negotiate their release

Military officials have released few details. The US earlier offered $20,000 (£12,956) for information on the pair.

Allied forces have been using helicopters and troops on the ground to search for the men.

The BBC's David Loyn in Kabul says it is not clear whether they are being held by the Taliban or by local bandits.

Mr Darwish, a spokesman for Logar province's governor, told the BBC that they were involved in a shoot-out before they were captured.

He said the two Americans had ignored warnings and set out on their own from their base on Friday evening into a known Taliban-held area.

A guard in Charkh had spotted the pair driving through the bazaar and had tried to stop them, but they had carried on going, said Mr Darwish.

One unconfirmed report later said that one of the captives had been killed.

On Saturday, local radio stations aired US statements offering the reward for the safe release of "two coalition personnel".

"They are believed to have been captured by insurgents somewhere in Logar province," the broadcasts said, according to Reuters news agency.

"They may have been separated from one another or maybe in the process of being moved to another location."

The incident comes as allied forces are suffering their highest casualties than in any summer since the 2001 invasion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10753381
 

Pintu

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hX8kR8sEIx3oB5iiNncrpmvXZ3nAD9HKJA1G2

Taliban stone couple for adultery in Afghanistan

By AMIR SHAH (AP) – 1 hour ago

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban militants stoned a young couple to death for adultery after they ran away from their families in northern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

The Taliban-ordered killing comes at a time when international rights groups have raised worries that attempts to negotiate with the Taliban to bring peace to Afghanistan could mean a step backward for human rights in the country. When the Islamist extremists ruled Afghanistan, women were not allowed to leave their houses without a male guardian, and public killings for violations of their harsh interpretation of the Quran were common.

This weekend's stoning appeared to arise from an affair between a married man and a single woman in Kunduz province's Dasht-e-Archi district.

The woman, Sadiqa, was 20 years old and engaged to another man, said the Kunduz provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Raza Yaqoubi. Her lover, 28-year-old Qayum, left his wife to run away with her, and the two had holed up in a friend's house five days ago, said district government head, Mohammad Ayub Aqyar.

They were discovered by Taliban operatives on Sunday and stoned to death in front a crowd of about 150 men, Aqyar said.

First the woman was brought out and stoned, then the man a half an hour later, Aqyar said. He decried the punishment, which he said was ordered by two local Taliban commanders.

A spokesman for the provincial government also condemned the act.

"It is against all human rights and international conventions," said spokesman Mabubullah Sayedi. "There was no court. It was cruel."

A Taliban spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

The ancient practice of death by stoning has been abandoned in all but a handful of countries. It is still a legal punishment in some countries, like Iran, which justify it under Shariah, or Islamic law, although human rights activists say the Quran never specifically prescribed stoning for adultery.

Last month, Iran's religious authorities called off the planned stoning of a woman convicted of cheating on her husband. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's sentence — which would have been Iran's first stoning since 2008 — was lifted following a campaign by politicians, rights groups, diplomats and celebrities around the world.
 

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