Afghanistan News and Discussions

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Paper no. 3576 29-Dec-2009

AFGHANISTAN: INDIA'S CONTINGENCY PLANS FOR "THE DAY AFTER"

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

Strategic objectivity would suggest that India's preference should be for a sustained United States embedment in Afghanistan till such time political democracy takes roots and the Afghan National Army is built upto at least 500,000 strong to take charge of Afghanistan’s security.

Strategic realism would also suggest that India recognize that American commitment to Afghanistan’s stability is dependent on the vagaries of compulsions of United States domestic politics. India also needs to keep in mind that if the situation does not turn around by mid-2011 then the uncertainties of United States sustained commitment to Afghanistan could become diluted by presidential election.

India has legitimate and vital strategic interests in Afghanistan’s stability and emergence as a moderate, democratic Islamic state. India's historical links and cultural ties with Afghanistan pre-date by centuries the emergence of Pakistan. India is currently engaged in extensive reconstruction programs in Afghanistan in tandem with US & NATO Forces military stability operations to checkmate the Pakistan sponsored Taliban attacks against USA.

United States exit from Afghanistan is not a question of “if” but is a question of “when” Pakistan as the “regional spoiler state” of South Asia and a “proven destabilizer of Afghanistan” could boil over the situation in Afghanistan to contrive an American exit from Afghanistan.

India has wrongly shied away from a military commitment in Afghanistan for two major reasons. The first was the American reluctance to permit Indian military involvement in Afghanistan out of deference to Pakistan Army sensitivities. The second reason was the political and strategic timidity of India's political leadership who have yet to recognize that being a big power would involve shouldering military responsibilities to reorder in India's favor the security environment in South Asia.

On United States exit from Afghanistan, whenever it takes place, India would be forced to face some hard options in relation to India's Afghanistan policy on the “day after” of the US exit.

The execution of hard options by India on the “day after” cannot emerge as knee-jerk reactions. India needs to undertake extensive contingency planning exercises at the political, strategic and military levels to secure India's national security interests.

Currently, no indicators are available that the Indian Government has undertaken contingency planning for dealing with Afghanistan’s situation on the day after the exit of the United States form Afghanistan.

This Paper intends to briefly examine the following related aspects to offer some recommendations for India's contingency planning on Afghanistan:

* Strategic Realties Which Should Prod India's Contingency Planning.
* India's Contingency Planning: The Political Initiatives Recommended.
* India's Contingency Planning: The Strategic Steps Recommended.
* India's Military Contingency Plans for Afghanistan on "The Day After".

Afghanistan: Strategic Realties Which Should Prod India's Contingency Planning

India needs to recognize and respect the following strategic realties which suggest that India should undertake post-haste contingency planning on Afghanistan: (1) United States exit from Afghanistan is a certainty with all pointers indicating by and of 2011. (2) USA has not built-up the Afghan Nation Army and by then they would be inadequate to secure Afghanistan in a self-reliant manner. (3) Pakistan would once again re-insert the Afghan Taliban to set up a Pak-friendly Taliban regime in Kabul. (4) A Talibanized Afghanistan would once again emerge as a springboard for Islamic Jihad against India as an adjunct of the Pakistan Army. (5) A Talibanized Afghanistan would pre-empt India's access to Central Asia politically and economically.

India's policy establishment needs to vitally recognize that Pakistan has indulged in active contingency planning for its strategic reestablishment in Afghanistan right from 2002, even as it acquiesced to US pressure. Pakistan Army's double-timing of the United States ever since 2002, its protective sheltering of the Afghan Shura in Blochistan and its refusal to USA of extending US drone operations in Balochistan, are all part of Pakistan's contingency planning for the “day after" of the US exit from Afghanistan.

India's lack of geographical contiguity with Afghanistan and Pakistan’s adversarial stances aggravate the difficulties of India's reactive operations on the day after the US exit. To overcome the problems of geographical contiguity and Pakistan’s anti-India Afghan-centric hostility, India has no choices but to go in for extensive contingency planning on Afghanistan.

The United States if it seriously was committed to a substantive US- India Strategic Partnership could have, and even now, facilitated a graduated Indian military involvement in Afghanistan to secure both US and Indian national security interests after US exit from that nation.

Indian has to face the stark reality that whether the United States goes in for a graduated exit form Afghanistan or a “Saigon-style” exit from Kabul, US strategic preference would still be in favor of Pakistan.

Notably therefore, arises the deduction that India's contingency planning on all its dimensions would have to include seeking the assistance of countries like Iran and Russia to stabilize Afghanistan, the day after.

However, should strategic wisdom dawn an the United States to recognize that the vacuum in Afghanistan after its exit should be filled by India as a stable regional power and not Pakistan as a failing state, India would still require contingency plans to deal with Pakistan Army incensed by denial of what it perceives as its rightful strategic due of Afghanistan falling into its strategic perimeter.

Basically however, India's contingency planning on Afghanistan, perforce has to be pursued on the assumption that the United States would not favor India over Pakistan Army's sensitivity.

India's Contingency Planning: The Political Initiatives Recommended

The four countries which have vested strategic interests in Afghanistan other then USA are Russia, India, Iran and China. China is the odd-man out in this four- some by virtue of her deep strategic nexus with Pakistan. China would continue to view Afghanistan from the Pakistani prism and therefore disqualifies itself as an effective contributor to Afghanistan’s stability, the day after.

In terms of contingency planning political initiatives India needs to undertake substantial negotiations with Iran and Russia over plans to ensure Afghanistan’s stability and security, the day after. India's political contingency planning with Russia and Iran should also aim at political preemptive measures against Pakistan to de-legitimatize the existing elected government in Kabul.

Russia, India and Iran could also take the lead in calling for an international conference which could involve the United Nations in a major peace-enforcing, peace-building and nation-building program in Afghanistan, the day after. All these three nations should agree to make major contributions in this direction.

If such a contingency policy thrust is to be adopted by India, then it would call India to reconsider and correct the deviations that it has lately undertaken in its foreign policy on Iran and Russia.

India's Contingency Planning: The Strategic Steps Recommended

In the strategic sense, Russia and Iran are well-placed geographically for any sustained engagement in Afghanistan to ensure its security and stability. Iran shares a long border with Afghanistan and has may religious and cultural links. Russia was geographically contiguous to Afghanistan earlier, but even now with many inter-dependent linkages with the Central Asian Republics bordering Afghanistan, it can exercise both geo-political and geo-strategic leverages.

India despite its lack of geographical contiguity enjoys political, economic and cultural proximity with the present Kabul regime established under US guidance. India has neglected its psychological warfare to counter-act Pakistani propaganda that India is anti-Pashtun because it is pro-Northern Alliance. India in fact has more historical links with the Pashtuns than Pakistan has and this needs propagation.

Coming back to the point, India to effectively engage itself in Afghanistan, despite its lack of geographical contiguity, would need the strategic assistance of countries like Iran, Russia, Tajikistan etc from whose territories it could ensure both an economic and military presence in Afghanistan till such time it emerges as a secure and stable state.

Iran has already assisted India's reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan by providing passage of Indian reconstruction materials through its territories as Pakistan has presently refused to do so. India had sometime back set up an air-base in Tajikistan and should explore a wider presence in terms of base facilities in the region. India has existing “strategic partnership” agreements with Iran and Russia. What India needs to do now is to widen in tandem with its political initiatives, the scope of existing strategic cooperation to include specific plans for joint engagement in Afghanistan, the day after, to ensure that Afghanistan is secured and stable with in its border.

India's Military Contingency Plans for Afghanistan on “The Day After”.

India's military contingency plans for Afghanistan have to be viewed at two different levels namely (1) Military contingency planning for deployment of Indian military effort in Afghanistan, the day after, to assist the Kabul Government to survive Pakistan- Taliban aggression and (2) Military contingency plans to meet Pakistan aggression on the Western border as a spin-off and also to check-mate China’s military diversions in support of Pakistan, as a consequence.

India's military contingency plans for Afghanistan would necessarily involve sizeable joint Army and Air Force operations for deployment of sizeable forces to assist the Kabul government to survive. Emphasis on the initial insertion of Indian force would have to rely on India's sizeable Air-borne Forces and Special Forces.

Follow-up forces accretion would have to perforce depend on India's strategic cooperation agreements with Afghanistan’s neighbors.

Sizeable Indian Air Force effort would be involved both in terms of transportation and logistics support. Combat air cover for both ground and air effort will be required to be planned.

Indian military contingency plans would require effective coordination with other countries willing to join in for the consolidation of Afghanistan. Should the United Nations get involved, then effective mechanisms exist for planning of UN military operations in which India has much expertise.

At the second level, Indian military contingency planning would have to arrive at realistic assessments of Indian Army deployments on borders with Pakistan and China to ensure a credible defensive posture.

The Indian Navy and specially the aircraft-carrier would have important roles to play.

Since the present Indian government would be in office till 2013, that is much after the estimated 2011/12 US exit from Afghanistan, it is unlikely that it will have the strategic will to use power to secure Indian national security interests.

However, this Indian Government may not be averse to a sizeable UN military intervention to ensure Afghanistan does not fall prey to Pakistan- Saudi Arabia- Taliban machinations.

In such an eventuality, India could be asked and be ready to play a sizeable role militarily in Afghanistan.

So in either eventuality, Indian military contingency planning should be pursued in right earnest by Indian political leadership.

Concluding Observations.

Afghanistan could emerge as a test case for India's strategic will to emerge as a global power. Ascending of the global power ladder does not come cheap. Power will not be bestowed on India. India will have to wrest power by exhibiting a demonstrated will to use power to secure India's national security interests.

To come of age strategically, the Indian policy establishment needs to develop an over-the-horizon strategic vision especially within the South Asian confines and contiguous regions.

Success comes to those who can anticipate developments and devise contingency plans to deal with such developments.

Let this Indian process commence with how to deal with Afghanistan, “the day after”.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email: [email protected])

AFGHANISTAN: India's Contingency Plans for The Day After

 

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No winter lull for Afghan war

Rod Nordland, January 12, 2010

DANGEROUS ROAD: The Taliban has changed its tactics and now rely mostly on roadside bombs which do not require a certain time or a certain season. Photo: AFP

NATO fatalities that used to drop into the single digits in winter rose sharply this time as more troops poured in and the Taliban held its ground.

Afghanistan’s high mountains and harsh weather once meant that winter was a respite from much of the war’s violence, but as the deaths of six Western soldiers in three separate attacks on Monday show, this winter is proving to be different.

U.S. military leaders and Taliban commanders are vowing to carry the fight to each other and skip the traditional winter vacation, and there is every sign that they are doing just that.

Though the trend has been building, in past years, the Taliban generally slipped off to sanctuaries in Pakistan, or just stayed home, while NATO forces enjoyed a drop in attacks and a steep decline in the body count from December through March.

A combination of factors has changed that. U.S. troop levels nearly doubled in 2009, meaning more missions against the Taliban -- and more potential targets for them. Military crackdowns by Pakistan along the border have in some places made it harder for insurgents to flee there.

The Taliban has in any case consolidated its hold over large parts of southern Afghanistan and has less need to fall back than in previous years. Seeking to make a political point, the militants have also stepped up the frequency of their attacks and are now using methods like improvised explosive devices and suicide bomb attacks that are less affected by the weather.

Both sides seem determined to make a larger political point by continuing to fight through the snow season. As General Stanley McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan, said in his report to President Barack Obama in August, the Americans need to show that “it is not a cyclical kinetic campaign based on a set ‘fighting season’; rather it is a continuous yearlong effort” to help the Afghan government win the support of people.

The Taliban hopes to undermine support for the war in western countries before more U.S. forces can arrive this year.

What happens in the winter “shouldn’t say much about the ability of the reinforcements, since most units won’t arrive until spring and summer,” said James Dobbins, an Afghan expert with the RAND Corp. “If the situation seems to be getting worse and worse, it may change public opinion even though it shouldn’t, especially in countries where the war is more unpopular.”

On Monday afternoon, three Americans were killed in a firefight in southern Afghanistan, according to a statement by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, which gave no further details.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, reached by telephone, claimed that the Americans had been killed in an ambush in the Shah Wali Kot district in Kandahar province by a single insurgent named Sardar Muhammad. Ahmadi said the insurgent hid along a path used by a U.S. foot patrol in the heavily mountainous area, and then fired on them with an AK-47 automatic rifle. He claimed that Muhammad killed five U.S. soldiers before the others returned fire and killed him.

The military also said that a member of the international forces was killed in southern Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device on Monday. And coalition forces reported that two service members were killed in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, without specifying nationalities.

Separately, the French government confirmed that at least one of its soldiers was killed and another badly wounded in what was apparently the same episode.

Rear Admiral Gregory J. Smith, a spokesman for the coalition forces, said winter had not slowed the war much this time.

Insurgent activity has stayed at the level it reached in September, when attacks spiked in response to new troop arrivals. “We don’t look at the winter as a time when our activity is less; we intend to keep the tempo up,” he said.

Admiral Smith said the increase in deaths among coalition forces was due to an increase in troop numbers and a resulting increase in contact with enemy forces. Overall coalition fatalities rose from 295 in 2008 to 520 in 2009, according to icasualties.org, an independent organisation that tracks military casualties.

Coalition forces are logging 500 violent encounters with insurgents every week, Admiral Smith said, an increase of 20 per cent over the same time in 2008.

“The difference is we have more forces operating in more places” where insurgents have long had sanctuaries, he said.

The Taliban commander in Kandahar province, Hafizullah Hafi, struck a similar note in a telephone interview. “We are staying in the winter,” he said. “We have more fighters than they do, and they should not think that we are weak and we will not retreat in the winter.”

General Shir Muhammad Zazai, the corps commander of the Afghan National Army in Kandahar, maintained that Taliban attacks had actually decreased against Afghan forces — though not against the Americans.

“This year, winter is the safest time for us,” said General Zazai. “It is calm. Incidents against Americans, though, are not calm. Against the Americans it is strange. It looks like the Taliban are staying to target the Americans and show that they are not weak and disappearing.”

The spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defence, General Zahir Azimi, said it only seemed as if the Taliban was more active this winter because the militants were relying much more on improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs, and other tactics, rather than on carrying out offensives as they had in previous years.

“Two years ago they changed their tactics; now they’re mostly resorting to roadside mines, IEDs, suicide attacks, guerrilla attacks like in Logar and the U.N. guest house,” said General Azimi.

He was referring to an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen on provincial headquarters in Logar province south of Kabul, which killed six Afghan officials in August, and a raid on a U.N. house in Kabul, which killed five of the organisation’s staff members on October 28.

“These sorts of attacks don’t require a certain time or a certain season,” he said. “The winter helps them for planting IEDs; they just have to plant explosives in the snow.”

Over the past year, more than 60 per cent of all fatalities of allied troops were from these explosive devices, compared with 42 per cent in 2007, according to data from icasualties.org.

According to the Brookings Institution’s Afghanistan Index, NATO fatalities dropped into the single digits in the winter, as did Afghan civilian casualties, in every year from 2001 to 2008.

Last December, though, American fatalities were six times as high as in the previous December, and coalition fatalities over all were up 29 per cent. — © 2010 The New York Times News Service

(Reporting was contributed by Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan; Sangar Rahimi from Kabul; employees of The New York Times from Jalalabad and Helmand province; and Nadim Audi from Paris.)

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : No winter lull for Afghan war

 

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Choices before the Afghan conference

M. K. Bhadrakumar, January 13, 2010

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Presidential palace in Kabul. File Photo: AP

According to Gordon Brown, the aim of the international conference in London on January 28 would be to deliver “a new compact between Afghanistan and the international community.”

An international conference in London on January 28 will focus on the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan. Some 70 delegations, including from India, may attend the conference, co-chaired by the Secretaries-General of the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The challenge is daunting as the Afghan war is no more redeemable.

An international conference is always an organic entity that evolves in its run-up, especially when an old warhorse like Britain happens to be the master of ceremonies. What began as an angry demand to rationalise the waywardness of the United States strategy in Afghanistan has transformed beyond recognition. Last September, the German contingents in the Amu Darya region perpetrated a horrific war crime by ordering a NATO airstrike on an impromptu gathering of poor Afghans helping themselves to free fuel from a tanker stuck in a bend in the Kunduz river. The German psyche chaffed, having vowed never again to commit war crimes. Reacting to a public outcry on the eve of a tricky national election, Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded that the international community draw a clear timeline to “Afghanise” the war so that Berlin could contemplate an exit strategy.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy came to Ms Merkel’s rescue and they addressed the U.N. to hold an international conference to set a timeline for the Afghan government to assume the responsibility of the war. It fleetingly seemed as if the tipping point had been reached. Britain promptly appeared on European mainland. Empathising with the German-French demand, it offered to host the conference. Washington seemed disinterested but observers could anticipate that the London conference would be an Anglo-American enterprise.

These footfalls must echo in the memory in order to put the conference in perspective. To be sure, Britain will host a gala event -- “all 43 powers engaged in the international coalition will attend, together with other regional and Muslim partners and international organisations.” Prime Minister Gordon Brown justified that it was “right” for Afghanistan’s regional neighbours (such as India) to attend, since “it is very important to recognise that in the longer term, Afghanistan’s future is dependent on both non-interference by its immediate neighbours and economic and cultural cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours.”

Mr. Brown said the aim of the conference would be to deliver “a new compact between Afghanistan and the international community.” He underscored that “the first of those priorities is security,” which meant expectations that countries like Germany might actually announce “troop deployments building on the total of 1,40,000 troops promised for 2010.” Yes, incredible as it sounds, Ms Merkel might actually end up pledging more deployments on top of the 4,500 troops already serving in northern Afghanistan. The German press is reporting about parleys among Berlin politicians to arrive at a consensus figure.

Indeed, U.S. Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama have introduced a new subplot to Clausewitzean wars — you raise troop level and rev up the war and thereafter decide when to freeze it and on what terms (“the status of forces agreement,” as in Iraq). Mr. Brown said: “I hope the London conference will also be able to set out the next stage in a longer-term plan: the changing balance between [NATO] alliance forces and the Afghan army and defence forces as the number of Afghan forces increases from 90,000 to 1,35,000 next year and possibly to 1,75,000 later.” He touched, en passant, on the core issue of “Afghanisation” which, in his view, would form only the second priority -- setting out an “outline programme for the transfer of the lead responsibility” to the Afghan forces, which he hoped could begin during 2010.

British diplomacy is famous for its tenacity. Mr. Brown said: “London must also encourage a new set of relationships between Afghanistan and its neighbours and, in particular, better joint working with Pakistan.” Thus is born a brand new key theme of the conference -- Britain will actively work on the setting up of a “regional stabilisation council.” After all, as an erstwhile imperial power, that is the least Britain can do for regional stability. The energetic Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, is already trudging the long and lonely diplomatic mill towards the proposed regional council.

Meanwhile, the genie is out of the bottle: Mr. Obama’s December 1 strategy never intended to focus on a U.S. withdrawal plan. The plain-speaking U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke said on December 7 that Mr. Obama’s mind was being widely misinterpreted, in particular the mid-2011 date in his strategy speech six weeks ago. “It’s not a withdrawal, but the start of a responsible transition in which American combat troops will begin to draw down,” said Mr. Holbrooke, adding another review by Mr. Obama would look at the issue again in December.

Mr. Holbrooke was shepherding an attentive gathering of American think-tankers to think straight instead of meandering into silly notions of a U.S. troop withdrawal. He underlined that the U.S. had more important issues to worry about such as promoting reconciliation between the Afghan government and the “relatively moderate” Taliban elements. Mr. Holbrooke, who is in Islamabad for consultations with the Pakistani civilian and military leadership, says the reconciliation process with the Taliban is “high on our personal priority list.” Indeed, he already has an able and highly experienced deputy positioned in Islamabad to assist him — Ambassador Robin Raphel, who as Assistant Secretary of State in the Bill Clinton administration was exceptionally well regarded by the Taliban leadership in Kandahar.

In essence, the idea of the “good Taliban” refuses to go away. Mr. Holbrooke explained: “They [Taliban] fight for various reasons; they are misled about our presence there. They have a sense of injustice or personal grievances. Or they fight because it’s part of the Afghan tradition that you fight outsiders and they have the NATO/U.S. presence conflated with earlier historical events, some of which [read Soviet intervention] are not too far in the past.” Therefore, the U.S. strategy’s priority in 2010 will be to win over the “non-ideological militants” and entice them to quit the fight and instead help the U.S. forces turn the tide of the war. “It’s absolutely imperative that we deal with this issue. If we don’t deal with it, success will elude us.”

Some other templates have also appeared before the London conference. Washington has resumed its covert war of attrition against Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The U.S. has realised that it does not squander much smart power to persuade the inexperienced Afghan parliamentarians to reject those of Mr. Karzai’s Cabinet nominees in Kabul who are not Washington’s blue-eyed boys — and thereby cast the President in the bazaar as a weak leader as well as debilitate him by breaking up his pan-Afghan coalition of supporters. Washington wants the decks cleared for a “regime change” in Afghanistan as soon as the co-option of the Taliban on its terms is completed.

Conceivably, Mr. Obama cannot be a “hands-on” President as regards such political skulduggery in Kabul, but the stench of the eddy is bound to strike his nostrils some day. Mr. Karzai defiantly said last week: “With the international community, I don’t need to have their favour … The international community, especially the West, they must respect Afghanistan and its government, and understand that we are a people, we are a country, we have a history, we have interests, we have pride, we have dignity. Our poverty must not become a means of ridicule and insult to us … We’re not going to ask [the London conference] for more cash. We are going to ask the international community to end night-time raids on Afghan homes. We are going to ask them to stop arresting Afghans. We are going to ask them to reduce and eliminate civilian casualties … the war on terror is not in Afghan villages. It’s not in the pursuit of every man that’s wearing a turban and has a beard.”

Mr. Karzai has reason to be indignant. He just received the report of the Afghan investigation team which looked into the massacre of civilians in two recent U.S. military operations. A statement on Mr. Karzai’s website said: “The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them schoolchildren in grades six, nine and ten, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead.” Mr. Karzai’s call to the U.S. to hand over the killers has fallen on deaf ears.

The non-NATO participants at the London conference such as India will face a tough call as to how far it is in their interest to identify with the patently unilateralist Anglo-American agenda. The bottom line will always be that India should never consider deploying troops in Afghanistan. Fortunately, the U.S. will never disregard Pakistani sensitivities and invite New Delhi, either.

(The writer is a former diplomat.)

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Choices before the Afghan conference

 

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The Growth of the Deobandi Jihad in Afghanistan​

Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 2January 14, 2010 02:13 PM Age: 2 days
By: Arif Jamal

Commander Ilyas Kashmiri
Three students from Karachi’s Jamia Uloom al-Islamia left their Islamic studies half way to completion and took a train to Peshawar on February 18, 1980 to take part in the nascent anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Anti-Russian passion was their only weapon, but they wanted to practice what they had learned in the classrooms of their madrassa. [1] The three students - Irshad Ahmed, Abdus Samad Sial and Mohammad Akhtar - later assumed grand religious titles; the first two became Maulana-s (“Our Master,” a title used for religious leaders with formal qualifications) while the third came to be known as Qari (“Reader,” i.e. one who recites the Quran). His colleagues later gave Qari Akhtar another grand title, “Saifullah” (Sword of Allah). They decided to call their three-member group the Jamiat Ansar-ul-Afghaneen (Party of the Friends of the Afghan people) and chose Irshad Ahmed as their first amir. The three students who formed Jamiat Ansar-ul-Afghaneen while still in their teens would later have a tremendous influence on the rise of Deobandi jihadism in South and Central Asia and beyond.

On their way to Afghanistan the trio joined a small Afghan Deobandi group in Peshawar, the Harakat-e-Inqilab-e-Islami Afghanistan (Islamic Revolutionary Movement of Afghanistan - HIIA) of Maulana Nasrullah Mansoor. Armed by the HIIA, the group crossed the Durand Line into Afghanistan where it became the principal jihadi group for students from the Pakistani Deobandi madrassas. It had already trained some 4,000 Pakistani madrassa students by 1988 when the Soviets started leaving Afghanistan. The Pakistani boys that the HIIA had trained were later organized under the name of Harakat ul-Jihad al-Islami (Islamic Jihad Movement - HuJI) to wage jihad in Kashmir. [2] These 4,000 Deobandi jihadists provided the foundation on which the entire Pakistani Deobandi jihadist movement was founded in later years. Most of the Pakistani jihadist groups, including parts of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), directly trace their roots to the HuJI.

HIIA and HuJI played another more important role, mostly ignored until now, by helping the Deobandi movement grow in largely Barelvi Afghanistan (the Barelvi are a less politicized branch of Muslims who place more stress on rituals). They not only recruited boys from the Pakistani Deobandi madrassas to fight jihad in Afghanistan, but also helped place Afghans in the Pakistani madrassas. These students later founded the Taliban movement. Thanks to HIIA, the Pakistani and Afghan Deobandis built a relationship that has survived against all odds. Interestingly, all the Pakistani Deobandi groups have split several times, but maintain unbreakable bonds with the Afghan Taliban, the main Deobandi group in Afghanistan.

HuJI in Kashmir and the First Split

At the end of the Afghan jihad in 1989, the HuJI looked for another theater of jihad and found one in nearby Kashmir. HuJI temporarily abandoned the Afghan theater of jihad completely and focused on Indian-administered Kashmir, which offered a gateway to India. The beginning was slow as Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was not ready to unleash Pakistani jihadi groups in Kashmir for fear of reprisals from India. Moreover, the ISI was unable even to train and arm the boys crossing into Pakistan from Kashmir until 1991. [3] This period of relative inactivity gave birth to internal frictions in the group, which split in 1991. Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Maulana Masood Kashmiri led the revolt against the founding members and founded Harakatul Mujahideen. It is not clear what really caused the split. The founding members later alleged that Maulana Khalil was too subservient to the ISI and always sought publicity. [4] However, the split was a serious jolt to the HuJI, as the bulk of the mujahideen followed Maulana Khalil, their commander and teacher.

Foundation of Harakatul Ansaar, al-Faran and the Second Split

The split in the HuJI, an important recipient of Saudi money, made the Saudis very unhappy. They deputed a Mecca-based Deobandi alim (scholar), Maulana Abdul Hafeez Makki, to reunite the two groups. Maulana Makki immediately established contacts with an emerging jihadi alim, Maulana Masood Azhar, to fulfill this task (Masood later founded Jaish-i-Mohammad in 2000). Maulana Makki became a regular visitor to Pakistan in this period. [5] Their efforts bore fruit when the two groups reunited in 1993 under the name of Harakatul Ansar. Maulana Sadatullah became the amir of the united group. This is the time when the Kashmiri groups, particularly the Hizbul Mujahideen (the armed wing of Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami and distinct from Harakatul Mujahideen), started showing weakness in the face of atrocities by the Indian security forces. This was also the time when the inflow of Kashmiri boys began decreasing. To keep the pot boiling in Kashmir, the ISI started encouraging Pakistani jihadi groups such as the HuJI to play a bigger role in the jihad in Kashmir.
Harakatul Ansar attracted a lot of attention the following year when, helped by a small group of Hizbul Mujahideen, it occupied the Islamic shrine at Charar Sharif in Indian-administered Kashmir. The event encouraged jihadis fighting in Kashmir and jolted the Indian security forces. After its success in Charar Sharif, Harakatul Ansar organized the kidnapping of some European and American tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir. A previously unknown group, al-Faran, believed to be a front group for the Harakatul Ansar, claimed responsibility. After several months the United States designated Harakatul Ansar as a terrorist group. As U.S. pressure increased on Pakistan to take action against Harakatul Ansar, the ISI apparently asked them to split once more. The group again split into HuJI and Harakatul Mujahideen. [6]

A Failed Coup d’état by Jihadist Major-General Abbasi

The al-Faran episode was a wake-up call for the Benazir Bhutto government, which started putting pressure on the ISI to come clean on the jihadi scene. It also came down a little harder on the jihadis. HuJI decided not to take all of this lying down. In the early second half of 1995, the Pakistani civilian intelligence discovered a plot by a small group of Islamist army officers led by Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi. The officers were accumulating arms to take over command of the army and the government. The intelligence services discovered that the plotters had planned to eliminate the entire military command during the corps commanders’ conference on September 30, 1995. Major General Abbasi’s group was closely affiliated with HuJI and wanted to overthrow the Bhutto government to pave the way for a Taliban takeover similar to Afghanistan. HuJI was to help the rebel army officers. In his first interview with the author, Major General Abbasi denied any plan to overthrow the government but did admit that his group was transporting arms and ammunition from the Afghan mujahideen to the Kashmiri mujahideen. [7] However, in a subsequent interview, he admitted that they were taking action against the Bhutto government and the army command as part of their faith. [8] During both interviews, he admitted his links with the HuJI. However, before the trial of the military began, the ISI asked Qari Akhtar to go to Afghanistan. Qari Akhtar returned to Pakistan only when General Musharraf dismissed Prime Minister Sharif’s government.

9/11 – New Directions

In spite of severe differences amongst them, all of the Pakistani Deobandi groups and political parties maintained close links with the Afghan Taliban. Jihadi groups went further and established links with al-Qaeda after the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Many of them, such as HuJI, trained their cadres in al-Qaeda’s training camps. The U.S. bombing and occupation of Afghanistan enraged the entire Deobandi movement in Pakistan. They turned their guns against General Musharraf when he decided to join the U.S.-led coalition against terror in order to save the Kashmir jihad. Half of the Deobandi jihadi movement decided to fight General Musharraf while the other half would remain in sleeper cells as part of the grand strategy. Qari Akhtar took up arms against his former benefactor, General Musharraf but fled Pakistan after failed assassination attempts on the Pakistani president. Qari Akhtar was arrested in Dubai in August 2005 and extradited to Pakistan. However, under the growing influence of the Islamists, he was never prosecuted. After the suicide attack on the arrival ceremony of Benazir Bhutto in October 2007 (which she survived), she blamed Qari Akhtar and others for planning it. He was arrested but was again let off the hook.

HuJI carried out several high-profile terrorist attacks in the years following 9/11 but claimed responsibility through previously unknown front groups. The attack on the then-finance minister and later prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, was claimed by the Islambouli Brigade; the attack on Lieutenant General Ahsan Saleem Hayat was claimed by the Jundullah of Karachi, and so on. Some of the other terrorist acts were claimed by or blamed on HuJI-al-Almi. It is important to note that most of the terrorists arrested in the post-9/11 period in Pakistan belonged to HuJI or to groups split from HuJI.

Commander Ilyas Kashmiri and al-Qaeda

HuJI ran at least six training camps, three in Pakistan and three in Afghanistan, before the 9/11 attacks forced the terrorists to go underground. These training camps included Ma’askar (“camp”) Mehmood Ghaznavi in Kotli (Pakistan-administered Kashmir), Ma’askar Abu Ubaida bin Jarrah in Gilgit (Northern Areas of Pakistan) and Ma’askar Abu Haneefa in Mansehra (North-West Frontier Province). In Afghanistan, they ran Ma’askar Irshad in Jalaabad, Ma’askar Khalid Zubair Shaheed in Rashkor near Kabul and another camp in Kirgha near Kabul. Ma’askar Mehmood Ghaznavi in Kotli was used by Brigade 313 [9], the wing dedicated to jihad in the Jammu region of Indian administered Kashmir while the remaining five trained jihadis from all over the world, including al-Qaeda cadres. [10] 313 Brigade leader Ilyas Kashmiri was arrested in the wake of the failed assassination attempt on Musharraf in December 2003, while Qari Akhtar succeeded in escaping for a time but was later arrested. Like Qari Akhtar and others, Commander Kashmiri escaped punishment thanks to the growing influence of the Islamists. In 2005, Commander Kashmiri moved to the Waziristan region where he coordinates his group’s activities with the TTP and al-Qaeda. Commander Kashmiri is a prime suspect in coordinating the suicide attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman in the Khost province of Afghanistan in December 2009 that killed seven CIA officers and injured six others. The United States is currently seeking his extradition from Pakistan (The News, January 6).

Notes:

1. Author’s interview with Abdus Samad Sial, July 30, 2001.
2. Ibid.
3. See Arif Jamal, Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir, Melville House, New York, 2009.
4. Author’s interview with Qari “Saifullah” Akhtar, Afghanistan, July 1999.
5. Author’s interview with Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, Rawalpindi, October 2000.
6. Author’s interview with Maulana Ameen Rabbani, Rawalpindi, December 1999.
7. Author’s interview with Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi, Rawalpindi, March 2002.
8. Author’s interview with Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi, July 2005.
9. 313 Muslims won the first jihad under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad against an army 10,000 infidels.
10. Author’s interview with Commander Ilyas Kashmiri, Kotli, June 2000.

 

[bengalraider]

Taliban attacks kabul

About 30 Taliban militants strike Kabul-News-Videos-The Times of India

 

[ppgj]

World rejects India's Taliban stand

ASHIS RAY, TNN, 29 January 2010, 04:13am IST

LONDON: A one-day international conference on Afghanistan on Thursday rejected India's argument that there were no degrees of Talibanism. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, hosting the conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, announced in his opening address the establishment of a $500 million 'trust fund' to buy "peace and integration" with warriors who are engaged in violence for economic rather than ideological reasons. A whopping $140 million has been pledged already for this year.

During his pre-conference discussion with the British foreign secretary David Miliband, external affairs minister S M Krishna had specifically said, "There should be no distinction between a good Taliban and a bad Taliban." But this clearly fell on deaf ears. It was also unclear whether remnants of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, once cultivated by India, would be accommodated in any way. There was also no reference to the erstwhile foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, who put up a spirited fight in the first round of the recent controversial presidential election and exposed fraud before withdrawing from the contest.

Krishna was allocated a seat in the second of three rows of attendees at the conference which in itself reflected India's peripheral role in Afghan affairs in the eyes of the international community. This, despite India being the biggest regional aid-giver to Afghanistan, with a commitment of $1.3 million. Earlier in the week, Turkey, an ally of Pakistan, did not even bother to invite India to a confabulation on Afghanistan.

Krishna was among more than 70 foreign ministers and officials of international organisations who attended the convention at the 185-year-old Lancaster House, a coveted venue for summits and high level interactions.

Pakistan supports a differentiation between Taliban segments, including being generally soft towards the Afghan Taliban, which was sponsored by the Pakistani Army's Inter-Services Intelligence. In an interview to a British daily on Thursday, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi claimed: "Pakistan is perhaps better placed than any other country in the world to support Afghan reintegration and reconciliation."

As a goodwill gesture, the conference was preceded by a lifting of United Nations sanctions on five leaders of the obscurantist Taliban regime, which was ousted by armed forces led by the United States after the 9/11 attack on New York by the Afghanistan-based Al Qaida. Among the beneficiaries is a former foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil.

However, Brown warned, "But those insurgents who refuse to accept the conditions for reintegration, we have no choice but to pursue them militarily." It is widely believed that hardcore elements among the extremists will not accept the amnesty.

In keeping with United States President Barack Obama's plan to start withdrawing American troops in a little over 18 months, Brown also declared that to fill the breach the strength of the Afghan army would be increased to 134,000 by October of this year and to 171,600 by October 2011. Corresponding enlargements would also occur in respect of the Afghan police. The template for Afghanistan is similar to the one utilised in Iraq, that of handover of responsibilities province by province to national security forces.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/World-rejects-Indias-Taliban-stand/articleshow/5511521.cms

 

[ajtr]

Taliban hold secret talks with UN envoy in Dubai’

Officials confirm that there is split in the Taliban with a middle and younger cadre appearing to be ready for reconciliation with Kabul, and the paper said it was not immediately clear which section had taken part in the Dubai meet.

“We believe there are mid-level commanders who are not averse to rapprochement as they feel that the war is dragging too long. And there is a section which is opposed to fighting on behalf of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda,” the officials said.

The Afghan President has already indicated holding of meeting of tribal elders in the next few weeks to put into action his plans to reach out to the Taliban.

“We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers, who are not part of al-Qaeda or other terror outfits, who are ready to accept the Afghan Constitution,” he said.

London Conference not a big success: Maliha

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US Dr Maliha Lodhi on Thursday said the London Conference was not a big success and it could not bring any big change in the given situation. She said if America or Europe thought that the Taliban could be weakened militarily or their loyalties could be bought, it was a mistake.

Talking to ‘Aaj Kamran Khan Kay Saath’, she further said the present conference was the 6th in nine years and the Obama administration had given three Afghan strategies in just one year.

Besides, 2009 proved to be the worst-ever year for America and Nato because record deaths of their personnel took place. Secondly, the Afghan elections were rigged, causing a crisis there. The third aspect is that the public support for the Afghan war was dwindling over the past years in those countries.

It is an important factor, which should be considered vital in analysing the conference, she said. Former finance minister Salman Khan said that Rs 1,250 billion had increased in Pakistan’s loan with the devaluation of the Pak rupee.

While giving details, he said that decrease in foreign exchange and foreign investment had cast negative effect on the economy and resultantly, the rupee was being devalued. He said if dollar went a rupee higher in exchange rate, Rs 56 billion increased in Pakistan’s loans. In this context, dollar had gone up by Rs 27 since the new government came into power and so Pakistan loans had added up by Rs 1,250 billion.

Jurist Babar Sattar said three points regarding the Supreme Court verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) must be understood. He said in the NRO verdict, the explanation of the Article 248 was not an issue for the court, the Supreme Court gave the verdict whether this ordinance was legal or not. “The apex court declared it illegal, ordering to undo all steps taken in line with this ordinance,” he added. He said the Supreme Court, in its verdict, had neither discussed a certain person nor had described how it would implement it in case of a particular person. He said the court had said in its decision that the withdrawal of cases, including the Swiss cases, had no legal authority. He said the court had ordered the government to tell the Swiss government that the Swiss cases had not been withdrawn, adding the court had not ordered the government to file a case against President Asif Ali Zardari in Swiss courts.

Analyst Mohammed Malick said the situation after the statement of the chief justice was very pleasant, but the political situation changed later in the evening when the opposition leader infuriated the prime minister. “The prime minister openly targeted the judiciary. His style seemed very aggressive,” he added. In reply to a question, he said now it seemed that the government would come on the front foot to settle the matter.

Geo News correspondent Awais Yusufzai said the proceedings of three cases against President Zardari were held on Thursday. “In these cases, it has been requested that since President Zardari enjoys immunity, therefore, the hearing on these cases should not be held,” he added. He said the court deferred the hearing on one case of illegal assets against the president.

 

[ajtr]

India needs to relook its Afghan policy

Comments by External Affairs Minister SM Krishna on the eve of the London [ Images ] conference on Afghanistan, that there is little difference between the "good" and the "bad" Taliban [ Images ], are a manifestation of the schizophrenic disconnect within the Indian establishment over its policy on Afghanistan—and its neighbour, Pakistan.

Committing $ 1.2 bn in aid to Afghanistan, which makes India [ Images ] the sixth-largest donor in the world, has created an unprecedented space for manoeuvre in the Hindukush heartland. With projects in every district in Afghanistan, from electricity transmission lines to training women in the SEWA way, India's benign presence has been vindicated by a recent study commissioned by the BBC, ABC and ARD — the British, American and German broadcasters, respectively — which found that 71 per cent of the Afghan population was in favour of India playing a big role. And yet, SM Krishna threw it all away in London.

The West, burnt by the recession and the sight of coffins repeatedly coming home, was determined to announce a reconciliation package for the "moderate" Taliban. As much as $500 million has been allocated for a "reintegration fund", along with promises that Afghans will take charge of their own security over the next five years.

Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai [ Images ], who has pursued reconciliation with Taliban "moderates" like former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil—even persuading Saudi King Abdullah to broker such a peace over Ramzan festivities in 2008—spoke about "disenchanted brothers" returning home.

So, just when India should have soundlessly changed gear, accelerated its profile and announced it believed that there was no alternative to talks, negotiations and persuasion, Krishna fell back into the warmth of his own, risk-averse rhetoric trap. The tragedy is that even as Krishna spoke for the country in London, a change in India's mindset — attitude, policy, strategy, call it what you will—is already under way in Delhi [ Images ]. The establishment core in another part of South Block is preparing to "evolve" its own black-and-white positions on the Taliban and present a more "nuanced" approach to the global community.

The argument behind this significantly sophisticated approach is that India must return to playing a much bigger role in the ever-changing great game in the innards of Asia. Of course, oil and gas and all those crucial transit routes into central Asia over which Afghanistan sits, like a veritable Nandi bull, are terribly important.

But more than all these prosaic pipelines, it is the dramatic pull of those snow-clad ranges that have accommodated scores of foreign powers from Alexander onwards, that draws India into playing just once more on the Afghan high table. Here, the almighty Americans or Russians have been both bloodied and bested; Iran employs old Persian gambits like the smile behind the veil; Pakistan can barely contain its glee over the fact that Nato troops are desperate to leave; while China, with mandarin-like patience, watches the board quietly and in a side move, buys up the biggest copper deposits in that part of the world.

Actually, this strategy is not new. It dates back to the first year of National Security Adviser Shiv Shanker Menon as foreign secretary in 2006-07, when the first ideas of distinguishing between the "good" and "bad" Taliban were floated around the corridors of South Block. Menon had just returned from Pakistan as high commissioner, all hell was breaking loose in the Af-Pak region, and that's when ideas beyond the realm of common thought and speech began to be articulated.

In fact, the evolution of India's strategy on Afghanistan—which Krishna either missed in London or didn't want to talk about—is really its first big strategic move on the international stage, in the wake of the Indo-US nuclear deal, and it's all about announcing that India is now part of the solution in Afghanistan.

Of course, all the western powers in London didn't want to discuss the parameters of such a "regional solution" in public glare, even though Gordon Brown [ Images ] had mooted the idea and US leaders like Hillary Clinton [ Images ], Robert Gates and Richard Holbrooke [ Images ] had confirmed it. All of them had told Delhi that they wanted India to play a bigger role, including training Afghan security forces.

Here is the western argument favouring India: Pakistan is playing fast and loose with the Afghan Taliban, Iran can't be trusted, China is too much of a competitor to also be allowed to win in Afghanistan, while Russia [ Images ] ... well, Russia is already a big power. That leaves India, a benign presence with both civilian and security capabilities, to upgrade its presence, so that the US and NATO forces can go home peacefully.

Except, the Pakistani veto hangs over the West. The Pakistani army and the ISI, which is playing such a crucial role in battling the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat and Malakand valleys and now in South Waziristan, have told the Americans that they would not tolerate an enhanced Indian influence in Pashtun areas like Kandahar and Jalalabad and in the rest of the country.

This is what explains Pakistan's oft-repeated statement that only Afghanistan's "contiguous neighbours" can be allowed to participate in any "regional" mechanism or structure that may be set up to help the Afghans take charge of their own future. (India, to counter this, has now begun saying that it is a neighbour as Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir [ Images ] hugs the Wakhan corridor.) That is why Turkey, under Pakistani pressure, did not invite India to participate in its day-long conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul on Monday (on the eve of the London conference). That is why several influential Pakistani analysts link a resolution of the Kashmir dispute with promises to the US that they will upgrade the fight against the Afghan Taliban.

That is why the Pakistanis won't grant trade and transport access to Afghan trucks that want to cross Pakistani territory to come right up to India. And that is also why the Pakistan army [ Images ] and the ISI have decided, according to Pakistani newspapers like the Lahore-based Daily Times, that only they will make decisions over Afghanistan-related policies.

In the face of this determined Pakistani resistance, western leaders are now asking India to help. How can India help itself by enhancing its own profile in inner Asia as well as help the US and NATO forces? First of all, India could moderate its hardline positions on the Taliban, and secondly, it can start a dialogue with Pakistan so as to try and assuage Islamabad's [ Images ] fears.

The second is easier said than done, but the first is much easier to implement. Especially, since Karzai himself has been pursuing this skein of thought for some time, and in London, the rest of the world followed suit. India, on the other hand, was the only major power which dissented.Perhaps the time has come for SM Krishna to talk to his own establishment on the direction of India's strategy on Afghanistan—and Pakistan.

Not for Sale
Kabul's Western allies want to pay Taliban fighters to quit the insurgency. Lots of luck.

Representatives from nearly 70 countries showed up in London on Jan. 28 for a one-day conference on how to save Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai was there, gamely offering "peace and reconciliation" to all Afghans, "especially" those "who are not a part of Al Qaeda or other terrorist networks." He didn't mention why the Taliban would accept such an offer while they believe they're winning the war. Others at the conference had what they evidently considered more realistic solutions—such as paying Taliban fighters to quit the insurgency. Participants reportedly pledged some $500 million to support that aim. "You don't make peace with your friends," said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. True enough. But what if your enemies don't want peace?

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My NEWSWEEK colleague Sami Yousafzai laughs at the notion that the Taliban can be bought or bribed. Few journalists, officials, or analysts know the Taliban the way he does. If the leadership, commanders, and subcommanders wanted comfortable lives, he says, they would have made their deals long ago. Instead they stayed committed to their cause even when they were on the run, with barely a hope of survival. Now they're back in action across much of the south, east, and west, the provinces surrounding Kabul, and chunks of the north. They used to hope they might reach this point in 15 or 20 years. They've done it in eight. Many of them see this as proof that God is indeed on their side. The mujahedin warlords who regained power in the 2001 U.S. invasion have grown fabulously wealthy since then. The senior Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani could have done the same. Now he and his fellow Taliban are gunning for those opportunists.

Only a few relatively low-level Taliban commanders and fighters have defected, and they rue the day they did. Most of them now live hand-to-mouth in Kabul, exiled from their home villages. Sami has introduced me to some of them. They only wish they could return to the embrace of Haqqani or Mullah Baradar, the Taliban's No. 2 leader after Mullah Mohammed Omar, but they know they'd be killed if they were foolish enough to try. The Taliban don't give second chances. Even if Karzai and his U.S.-NATO allies offer great gobs of money to defecting Taliban, where could they go with it? They couldn't go home for fear of being put to death by their former comrades in arms. They wouldn't want to live in expensive Kabul, where people on the streets would make fun of their country ways, huge black turbans, and kohl eyeliner. They hate everything that Kabul represents: a sinful place of coed schools, dancing, drinking, music, movies, prostitution, and the accumulation of wealth. "Falcons fly with falcons, not with other birds," the Taliban say. In other words, you can't negotiate and live with secular people.

Karzai and his regime have practically no credibility anyway. No one trusts his promises, and they regard his government as an evil thing, a heretical, apostate regime. More than that, however, Taliban tend to take offense at the very idea of a buyout. As one fighter told Sami indignantly, "You can't buy my ideology, my religion. It's an insult." In terms of defection, the closest thing to a "success" story is the former Taliban commander Mullah Salam. He quit the insurgency two years ago, was allowed to keep most of his men and weapons, and was given the governorship of his home district of Musa Qala, in Helmand province. Nevertheless he lives under constant threat of assassination, and Musa Qala remains a very insecure place.


Most Taliban feel comfortable only in the backcountry villages, where their world view is essentially shared by locals. There's a huge and growing disconnect—social, economic, and perhaps even spiritual—between the cities and the countryside. In villages where the Taliban have a strong presence, there is little or no conflict between Taliban virtues and local customs, from the wearing of long beards to heeding the call for prayer, keeping the sexes separate in public, adhering to Islamic law, and not tolerating crime. Especially in the countryside, most ordinary Pashtuns regard themselves as the big losers in the past eight years of Karzai's rule and foreign military presence. As they see it, accurately or not, their ethnic rivals—the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara—have received the spoils of the Taliban's defeat, while Pashtun villages have suffered from official abuse, corruption, neglect, and war.

That's one reason the Taliban aren't as unpopular in the villages as Western-funded polls appear to indicate. Unlike the Karzai government, they have proved their ability to deliver swift Islamic justice and keep their villages free from crime. The respected Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid often says there has been no pro-Taliban uprising because most Afghans dislike the movement. On the other hand, though, few Pashtun villagers have mobilized against the insurgents. Perhaps most important, the Taliban's leadership is confident of the movement's cohesiveness. Although the insurgency lacks a single, unified command, its leaders all fight in the name of Mullah Omar and his defunct Islamic Emirate. "No one," they say, "can fly just on his own wings." The Quetta Shura, its Peshawar offshoot, the Haqqani network in the east, and individual commanders in the north—all different command structures led by different personalities—all derive their spiritual authority and political clout from the "commander of the faithful." If their ranks remained unbroken through years of being hunted, jailed, killed, outgunned, outmanned, and outspent, they feel confident now that their leaders and lieutenants can't be bought, as senior Taliban commander Mullah Nasir recently observed to Sami.

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Most Taliban seem genuinely convinced that they are carrying out the will of God. One sign of that faith is the apparently endless supply of suicide bombers. The Americans still seem not to have grasped the full import of this. The Taliban are not fighting for a share of power; they want to restore Islamic law throughout the country, with no talk of compromise. They despise their nominal ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has said that suicide bombings are not justified under Islam and who talks of possible power-sharing deals with Karzai. A "son of dollars," they call him: someone who cannot be trusted, someone who does not share their goal of reimposing Sharia over all of Afghanistan.

Karzai is hopeless. He reads from a script he knows will please his Western patrons: new drives for good governance, transparency, narcotics suppression, the building of the Afghan security forces, economic development, etc. Nevertheless, for the past eight years he and his appointees have been incapable of delivering a fraction of what he has promised, and there's no reason to think the next year or two will be any different. He's a nice guy, is not corrupt, and doubtless means well. But he is not a leader or a judge of men, and he has no vision. He promises everything to everyone, as he did in the last election, but nothing comes of it. No one in his administration gets fired or jailed for egregious behavior. The harshest punishment for malfeasance is transfer to a perhaps less lucrative position.

The London conference was a futile exercise. Once again Washington and its allies are looking for solutions that don't exist: a new Karzai, bribing the Taliban, negotiating with the Taliban. No Taliban leader of any stature seems to have entered into negotiations thus far. U.N. special envoy Kai Eide reportedly met in Dubai on Jan. 6 with Afghans who claimed to represent the Taliban and said they could pass messages to the Quetta Shura, but it's unlikely that their mission was actually sanctioned by anyone in the senior leadership. (The U.N. says no such meeting took place.) The United Nations has made a big deal of removing the names of five supposed Taliban from its blacklist, but the Taliban couldn't care less. They're not itching to travel to Geneva or New York or open bank accounts. They've got a war to fight at home.

 

[ajtr]

India, Russia talk Taliban & N-tieup

NEW DELHI: India and Russia did a postmortem of the recently held London conference where reconciliation with the Taliban emerged as a key plan.

National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon on Monday held discussions with Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the security council of the Russian Federation, on a wide range of issues, including Afghanistan.

Though India and Russia are not involved in the plan to reconcile the Taliban or are troop-contributing countries, they have a stake in Afghanistan. It is understood that Russia is open to the idea of training Afghan police and willing to undertake reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan with the western funds. Mr Patrushev also brought up the issue of drug production in Afghanistan and is understood to have told Mr Menon that the western countries also needed to address this issue and stop drug production. Neither countries are convinced about the reconciliation plan or with the effort to talk to the moderate Taliban.

The meeting also marked Mr Menon’s first bilateral meeting since taking over as NSA. Mr Patrushev also called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is understood to have told the Russian security chief that Mr Menon would be in frequent contact with the Russian side.

Ahead of the visit, the Russian embassy had said talks between Mr Patrushev and Mr Menon would also focus on the development of Russian-Indian cooperation in bilateral and multilateral formats. The two sides have also agreed to discuss position before going into international forums.

Apart from Afghanistan, the two sides also discussed civilian nuclear energy, cooperation between the intelligence agencies and space cooperation. It has been no secret that Russia has not been thrilled with the choice of West Bengal as site for Russian nuclear reactors. Mr Patrushev after his meeting with Mr Menon said that the Indian side should consider the local political situation before allotting sites.

The audacity of Afghan peace hopes

The London conference on the Afghan problem certainly gives grounds for optimism.
Last Thursday the region took a ride in the raft of optimism to peace. The London conference on the Afghan problem certainly gives grounds for optimism. From the Indian perspective, however, what matters most is to be able to behold just in time that, as the Old Testament says, “there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand.” The little cloud is destined to rise higher and higher and become larger and larger with astonishing celerity and will burst in a deluge of rain on the parched earth. And like Elijah hastening Ahab home, India needs to head for the chariot and “get thee down that the rain stop thee not.” For, once the river Kishon gets swollen from the deep layer of dust in the arid plain being turned into thick mud that impedes the wheels, it becomes impassable.

The fact of the matter is that the decisions of the London conference not only constitute a 5-year road map for conflict resolution in Afghanistan but are destined to impact on regional security and stability for a long time to come. The decisions run on four different but inter-connected templates. First and foremost, what seemed to some a heretic idea until recently has come to habitate the centerpiece of the political agenda, namely, that the war needs to be brought to an end by “reintegrating” and “reconciling” the Taliban in the Afghan national mainstream. Second, whatever residual war effort remains will focus on persuading or coercing the Taliban to negotiate. Third, the so-called “Afghanisation” process will be speeded up so that by July next year the drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan can commence. Fourth, enduring peace in the Hindu Kush can be attained only in a regional environment in which Afghanistan’s neighbours cooperate by setting aside their competing rivalries and by resolving their outstanding disputes.

Clearly, to use the U.S. Defence Secretary’s words, the Taliban now form part of Afghanistan’s “political fabric”. On the eve of the London conference, the United Nations Security Council removed the names of five Taliban leaders from the “black list” of 144 dangerous terrorists figuring in the sanctions regime under Resolution 1267 dating back to the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. Admittedly, the wheel has come full circle. As the U.N. envoy to Afghanistan put it, “If you want results, then you have to talk to the relevant person in authority. I think the time has come to do it.”

For the Pakistan-hating, China-bashing veterans of our strategic community, all this must have come as a stunning bolt from the blue. But they are only at fault. The Indian strategic thinkers should not have been such incorrigible fundamentalists to fail to appreciate the shades of political Islam or discern the western propaganda about the Taliban. Mixing up the Taliban completely with the adversarial mindset of the Pakistani security agencies was equally wrong. Overlooking the indigenous roots of a homegrown movement was always injudicious. The triumphalism over Taliban’s ouster in 2001 was unwarranted, as it was never in doubt that such a grassroots movement cannot be expected to simply fade away in the Afghan-Pakistani political landscape; a return of the native was inevitable. Lastly, the U.S. intervention in 2001 was quintessentially a contrived revenge act on the part of the George W. Bush administration precipitated by a cataclysmic backdrop unparalleled in America’s history; to be sure, the world community condoned it but as time passed, it lost its “raison d’etre” and became hard to justify.

The Indian foreign and security policy establishment too owes an explanation why Prime Minister was misled to make such extremist viewpoints regarding the Afghanistan situation during his November visit to the U.S. Despite our claim to be “natural allies” of the U.S., we were either not taken into full confidence by Washington, or we couldn’t read Barack Obama’s mind. Worse still, we couldn’t fathom the enormity of the drain of U.S. global influence.

Where did the establishment go wrong? First, our flawed Afghan policy stands exposed. It has a thirteen-year old history. It was circa 1997-98 that Delhi probably began sliding into a strategic mistake by regarding Afghanistan as a theatre of India-Pakistan rivalry. That was a reversal of the Indian policy, which was best evident during the 1992-95 period when despite overtures from the Mujahideen, the Narasimha Rao government stubbornly refused to get involved in any form in Afghanistan’s fratricidal strife — although the temptation to pay Pakistan back in the same coin for the low-intensity war in J&K (and the Valley was witnessing incessant bloodshed at that time) was always lurking in the shadows. The level-headed estimation in South Block was that India-Pakistan differences were already far too vexed and blood-soaked to add yet another dimension to them.

Pakistan has special interests in Afghanistan — just as India would have in Nepal or Sri Lanka — with which it shares a 2,500-kilometre-long border with sub-nationalities straddling the border regions inextricably tied by bonds of culture, religion and social kinship. Forever will the Pakistani ties remain the number one foreign policy priority for any government in Kabul. Yet India got so entangled in the Hindu Kush that Pentagon spokesman last week openly demanded “transparency” regarding Delhi’s intentions. We overreached. A good beginning lies in the government picking up the threads of the discussions in Sharm Al-Sheikh and transparently addressing Pakistani concerns regarding Baluchistan. The cornerstones of India’s Afghan policy are unshakeable. The issue at the moment is to introspect whether we unwittingly came to erect a grotesque structure during the past decade.

Secondly, the impasse of India’s current near-total isolation as the international community surges ahead with the engagement of the Taliban exposes a few highly disturbing salients regarding our recent foreign policy postulates. One, contrary to our claim, Pakistan’s geopolitical positioning is superb, as testified by the star participants at the regional conference hosted by Turkey on January 26 from which India was pointedly excluded at Islamabad’s instance — Afghanistan, Russia, China, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the U.S. and Britain. The London conference underscored that the prospects of the reconciliation with the Taliban critically depended on Pakistan’s cooperation. It couldn’t have been otherwise.

Two, Delhi is paying a price for putting all eggs in the American basket. The U.S. is entitled to look after its national interests. The spectre that is haunting Washington today cannot be overstated: a prolonged war in Afghanistan is unsustainable financially, materially and politically; the NATO allies lack faith in the U.S.’s war strategy; domestic public opposition to the war is cascading in the western countries; the war has become an Albatross’ cross hindering the optimal pursuit of U.S. global strategies in a highly volatile international situation posing multiple challenges; the war radicalises the Muslim opinion worldwide and pits America against Islam. India could have anticipated that the U.S. was reaching the end of the tether and was pondering what lay ahead.

What lies ahead? Make no mistake that the Taliban are returning to Afghanistan’s power structure — quite plausibly, under Mullah Omar’s leadership. The U.S. expectation to “split” the Taliban will likely prove misplaced. As months ebb away, fighting intensifies and Omar in no particular hurry, Washington’s pleas to Islamabad will become more and more insistent to bring the so-called Quetta Shura to the negotiating table. Pakistan (or, more appropriately, Pakistani military) will have the option to cooperate or lapse into sophistry and claim helplessness. How the Pakistani military chooses to play will almost entirely depend on the pound of flesh it can extract from the U.S. At a minimum, there will be an India-dimension to it — thanks to our flawed Afghan policy and our failure to develop diversified consultations with like-minded countries such as China, Iran and Russia that have high stakes in regional security and stability. The silver lining is that once in power, the “Afghan-ness” of the Taliban is bound to surface.

Finally, it all boils down to one single core issue. There is no alternative to the “Sharm Al-Sheikh approach” to address the India-Pakistan relationship. The government got unduly fazed by the charge of the Indian light brigade and valuable time was lost. When it is clear that jingoism is a road to nowhere, the leadership should have drawn the line. The London conference underlined that international opinion is heavily weighed against waging wars — leave alone simultaneous wars on two fronts. India can learn lessons from the annals of modern diplomacy: how adversaries incrementally became joint stakeholders in cooperation by pursuing creative ideas and initiatives. France and Germany; Germany and Russia; Turkey and Greece — they were locked in deathly embraces one way or another in modern history. The best way ahead for India is to emulate their example, which is that when erstwhile adversaries become stakeholders in shared enterprise, it renders obsolete their historical antipathies and autarchic mentalities.

(The writer is a former diplomat.)

 

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A Profile of the Taliban's Propaganda Tactics

"The latest sad news is that the Christian Crusaders (Americans) have burned a copy of the Holy Quran in Wardak province and have thus shown their enmity with Islam and the Muslims... The saddest aspect of this incident is that the American invaders have committed this heinous crime in a province (Wardak) that has been known for long as home to mujahedeen (the holy warriors). The people of this province have taken active part in past and current jihadi movements. The people of this province have always defended their country bravely and heroically. The people of this province had played a historical role in the war against British occupiers..."

The quote above comes from an article published in the latest issue of Shahamat (The Bravery), a Taliban propaganda magazine in Pashto -- a language spoken by the ethnic Pashtuns across Afghanistan and Pakistan, particularly the ungoverned tribal areas, now allegedly home to Al Qaeda, Taliban and other extremist networks of the region. The article is an example of how the Taliban's propaganda tactics exploit a particular incident or issue by elevating it with seemingly related background information to provoke the local people to stand up for violence.

This example as well as numerous other tactics using traditional and modern media and effectively exploiting the religious, social, political, and tribal ties worked very well for the Taliban-led insurgents during their eight year long insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They (propaganda tactics) enabled the extremist groups to attract wider local and international support in terms of heavy recruitment and financial help and undermine the authority of both the governments. This turned out to be a headache for the international community which has now launched a multi-pronged strategy of launching an all-out campaign by adding more troops, arming and supporting the Pashtun tribes to fight against the Taliban, and devising a reconciliation and reintegration plan to peel away some mid level insurgent commanders and foot soldiers. Following is a look inside the Afghan Taliban's successful propaganda tactics.

Mufti Latifullah Hakimi was the first full time and very active Taliban spokesman after the hardcore Islamic group fell from power and launched the bloody insurgency. When Pakistani security forces arrested him in October 2005, it was widely believed that this will significantly weaken the group's propaganda against US forces and the Afghan government, but the Taliban were very quick in appointing two more spokesmen, Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi and Dr. Mohammad Hanif, who did not allow the propaganda war to slow down. Before Hakimi, Ustad Mohammad Yasir acted as head of the Taliban's Information and Culture wing, but he was better known as a commander than a spokesman.

It is interesting that after coming into power in 1996 until their collapse in 2001, Taliban militants had banned all types of media except their propaganda Voice of Sharia radio and very few newspapers and magazines run under strict state control. The Supreme Leader, Mullah Omar, in his decrees had declared that using photographs and videos of human beings and animals was un-Islamic. But, after their collapse, when they re-organized their groups in Pakistan and the tribal areas and launched a guerilla war against the international forces and the Afghan government, they started using colorful magazines full of photographs of human beings and videos of fighting to reach out to the public in order to denounce the international presence in Afghanistan as 'occupiers' and the Afghan government as a 'puppet.'

Surprisingly, the Taliban fighters proved more capable and their efforts more strenuous than the international forces and the Afghan government in reaching out to the people and improving their propaganda tactics beside a successful guerilla war. Mufti Latifullah Hakimi first appeared on the scene on January 28, 2004 after a suicide attack killed a British soldier in Kabul. From January 2004 till the writing of this piece, the insurgents have not only successfully kept their voice raised and messages heard, but they were also able to establish advanced measures to widen their propaganda for more effective results on the international as well as local level.

Danish Karokhel, Director of the first internationally recognized independent news agency of Afghanistan, Pajhwok Afghan News, told me, "90 percent of the information that the Taliban provide to the media is false: when only one Afghan soldier gets killed in an attack, the insurgents call the media and claim that 10 foreign soldiers are killed. They are not responsible to anyone for their false claims and misinformation while, on the other side, the government and the international forces have many responsibilities and obligations and can't give false information." Yet, he emphasized on the need of a plan to counter the false propaganda of the Taliban.

Talking about a plan, I must refer to a New York Times report about a US mission against Taliban propaganda. The newspaper reported on August 15, 2009, that: "The Obama administration is establishing a new unit within the State Department for countering militant propaganda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, engaging more fully than ever in a war of words and ideas that it acknowledges the United States has been losing."

What happened to this plan? On the ground, there are no visible effects so far. When an official of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan was asked about this, he, on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media, said: "I don't know if there is any such plan here. We have to make a plan for this purpose, but we need resources and technical support."

Formal spokesmen

Quoted in the media as "purported," the formal spokesmen of the Taliban insurgents are the most active and effective measure of the group's propaganda front. They are appointed by Mullah Omar through a formal decree or statement, delivered to the media by a top aide. This was not the case with Mufti Latifullah Hakimi, the first full time Taliban spokesman, but all the later spokesmen were appointed this way. After his arrest on October 4, 2005, the number of spokesmen was increased to two: one for their activities in the southern and western provinces (Kandahar, Zabul, Oruzgan, Helmand, Herat, Nimroz, Farah, Badghis, Ghor and Sar-e-Pul) and the other for eastern, central and northern provinces (Badakhshan, Baghlan, Balkh, Bamiyan, Daykundi, Faryab, Ghazni, Jowzjan, Kabul, Kapisa, Khost, Kunar, Kunduz, Laghman, Logar, Nangrahar, Nuristan, Paktia, Paktika, Panjsher, Parwan, Samangan, Takhar, and Wardak). Currently, Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi acts spokesman for the former provinces and Zabiullah Mujahid for the latter.

These spokesmen never provide regular and exact information about their fighters' casualties nor their attack tactics, operations, commanders' whereabouts and their own identities. But they are very fast in contacting local and international media for taking responsibility of attacks, claims of successes, formal statements, rejecting government officials' and international forces' claims, and other such issues. For this purpose, they call reporters, send them mobile messages, email them and some times even use faxes. Though they change their mobile numbers now and then to avoid being tracked, most of the time they keep them on to receive calls from media. At the same time, they post all their claims and statements on a number of websites in five different languages (Pashto, Dari, Arabic, Urdu, and English). Some times they even use internet forums for interaction and communication. Recently, members of a popular Pashto internet forum felt their presence was increasing. In fact, accessing a Taliban spokesman for information about incidents and issues is far much easier and useful for getting information than contacting a government or NATO/Coalition spokesman.

After the arrest of Mufti Hakimi and later on Dr. Hanif, which created problems for the insurgents in introducing their new spokesmen to the media, they are believed to have adopted a new tactic: never acknowledge the arrest or murder of the spokesmen; the new spokesmen should use the same old names. Hence, it is believed, even observed, that there are many Qari Yousufs and Zabiullah Mujahids.

But it is not limited to this point. Within the Taliban there are other groups who have their own spokesmen. For example, the Salafi (Wahhabi) Taliban in the eastern Kunar and Nuristan provinces, the Tora Bora Front in Nangrahar, and the Haqqani Network in the provinces bordering Waziristan (Khost, Paktia, Paktika) have their own spokesmen who contact the media on their own. Sometimes field commanders also contact the media for immediate effects of their attacks because they believe in the importance of a propaganda war. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami, which associates himself and cooperates with the Taliban because of the "common enemy," has its own spokesman and it is observed, particularly in the case of major attacks, for example, the attack on French troops in Sarobi and the attack on a new year's celebrations in Kabul, that both Taliban's and Hekmatyar's spokesman claimed to have them carried out. Though he was member of the Taliban's leadership council, Mullah Dadullah, who was killed by the coalition forces in May 2007, had his own spokesman.

Propaganda at the village level

As the propaganda front through formal spokesmen is vital to undermine the government and reach out to the world, the propaganda campaign at the village level is important for recruiting youths and acquiring local support. Mosques are favorite places for the Taliban propagandists who always seek to convince the villagers that the international forces are fighting against Islam and it is their holy obligation to stand up for jihad. Quoting from different religious sources and fatwas (Islamic decrees), they describe the international sources as 'occupiers' and the Karzai government as their 'puppet' and tell the local population that providing them support at any level is an un-Islamic act, hence punishable by the 'holy warriors.'

In areas where the Taliban fighters don't have strong presence, they use night letters for propaganda purpose as well as for threatening local people. For example, if they want to close down a school, clinic, or suspect that a local elder or some villagers provide support to the 'occupiers' or the government, they throw warning night letters at a known place of the village, such as a mosque, school, clinic or the village center. Several such incidents have taken place in which the victims were warned beforehand through night or direct letters by the insurgents.

Internet Propaganda

Internet has proved the fastest and the most useful propaganda tool for the Taliban during these years. They have their own websites which are designed attractively and are full of all kinds of content such as news stories, statements, religious sermons, photos, videos, audio messages, guerilla war guidelines and training manuals. They update the websites regularly and post all these data in five languages: Pashto, Dari, Urdu, Arabic and English. When any of the websites gets closed by CIA or the coalition forces, they shift it to another server and put it online with a slightly different name. Al-emarah, Shahamat, and Tora-Bora are the main Taliban websites.

Email is another way of effective communication for the Taliban insurgents. Through email, they communicate with reporters, news agencies, newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV channels for taking responsibility of attacks and providing official statements and other information. Email interviews are also provided. Some times clarifications and statements about some issues are sent to Pashto websites through email.

Online internet forums and social networks are also used as part of this propaganda network. All the content posted on official websites is subsequently posted on Pashto and Dari forums for a wider audience and lengthy discussions. Videos are shared on youtube and other information on facebook, etc. As certain members of these online networks forward the videos and information to other groups and people, the propaganda content reaches to hundreds of thousands of people inside and outside Afghanistan and Pakistan and becomes part of the global campaign for jihad and, as a result, attract youths to join the insurgent forces or support it financially.

Traditional methods of propaganda

Traditional methods of propaganda include traditional print and electronic media -- newspapers, magazines, news agencies, books, radio channels, pamphlets etc. According to news reports, several times the Taliban established its Voice of Sharia radio which aired propaganda programs at least two hours a day and was listened to on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border from Waziristan to Khost and as far as Ghazni and Logar. There is so far no official Taliban newspaper (though there are two Hizb-e-Islami newspapers: Shahadat and Tanveer openly published and distributed in Peshawar and the adjacent areas) after the group fell from power in 2001, but many Pakistani newspapers volunteered to fill this vacuum. The Urdu media of Pakistan in particular has been observed as pro-Taliban. They publish the group's baseless claims with great exaggerations and pose them as heroes and liberators of Afghanistan in special editions and color pages. As Pakistan provides the main base for Taliban recruitment of fighters and suicide bombers, and majority of the target audience reads these newspapers, this propaganda helps it a great deal to achieve its goals in Afghanistan and the border areas. Readers of these newspapers, fed with romantic stories and exaggerations and untrue claims of the group's successes and achievements as well as lengthy articles about "brutalities against Muslims by the Americans," easily fall to the extremists and become very aggressive fighters.

The Taliban have several Pashto, Urdu and Arabic magazines openly published and distributed in Peshawar and the adjacent areas. These colorful magazines are often printed on expensive foreign paper and distributed free. They are published by different groups within the Taliban and are full of extremist propaganda, distorted facts, photos of victims, lengthy interviews with insurgent commanders, and articles on different political and religious topics. These magazines publish only news stories and newspaper articles that back their own claims.

The people behind these magazines also publish propaganda books and pamphlets. Most of these books are jihadi propaganda translated from Arabic and other languages into Pashto. But some times they publish books that provide information about bomb-making techniques. Two years ago, the Taliban published a book called 'Nizami Darsoona' (Military Courses) which was widely distributed in Peshawar and the tribal areas. The book provided information about making IEDs, suicide vests, and the use of different weapons.

But the most favorite of the young extremists are the fighting videos and cassettes of jihadi anthems openly sold in the tribal areas, Peshawar, Quetta, and other major cities in Pakistan. These videos consist of scenes of direct attacks on foreign forces and Afghan soldiers, scenes of beheadings of "American and Afghan spies," scenes from training camps, scenes from suicide attacks and testimonies of the suicide bombers, and speeches by well-known insurgent commanders.

Fatwas (decrees) by religious figures to wage jihad against the invaders and their supporters are also part of the insurgent propaganda. Due to lack of proper educational opportunities, majority of the people residing on both sides of the Durand Line believe in these fatwas and respect the clerics who issue them. The insurgents take advantage of people's ignorance and use the fatwas to achieve their goals. So far, they seem to have been succeeded in this.

Basis for propaganda

The post-2001 wave of terrorism and insurgency in Afghanistan has become a complicated issue. The motivation behind the Afghan insurgency is to defeat the international forces and overthrow the Karzai-led government while Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda want to establish a caliphate or Islamic state in the region from where they could continue their agenda for global jihad. On the other hand, the elements within the Pakistani government which support the Afghan Taliban and in some cases Al-Qaeda too, seek their strategic depth in Afghanistan. There are other regional actors who have problems with the US presence in the region; hence they support the Taliban or other anti-US groups.

So the goal for the Afghan Taliban somewhat differs from the Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The Afghan Taliban wants to put an end to the present system and take control of Afghanistan and eventually impose their strict Sharia laws. They receive support from the Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda but they have their own strategy and tactics. They try to avoid killing civilians (but they still get killed), do not take responsibility for the suicide attacks and bomb blasts that result in civilian casualties, and often provide protection and financial incentives to the local population. They have their shadow ministers, governors, district chiefs, judges, and directorates. And they are told to act according to a detailed Layeha (code of conduct) issued by Mullah Omar. The Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda, however, believe that killing anybody inside the borders of Afghanistan is a legitimate goal because, in their view, the country is occupied and the local people either should fight against the occupiers or be killed by the holy warriors.

However, the propaganda base for all of them is the same: they want to achieve their goals by all available means and propaganda is one among them. The main things that provide base for effective propaganda are using the history of wars between Christians and Muslims, using religious and cultural differences between the West and the East, the idea of the clash of civilizations, by denouncing the West as oppressive against Islam, by calling the War on Terror a War against Islam, by condemning the international forces as "occupiers and invaders," the government of Afghanistan as its puppet, and the reconstruction works as "efforts of Christianizing Afghanistan," by using civilian casualties of air strikes and using media reports of prisoners' abuses and mistreatment in their favor. In some cases, some people believe, that the insurgents and terrorists use brutal military tactics to use them in propaganda. For example, attacking the coalition forces from villages where villagers get killed in crossfire and then then using the killing of the same innocent villagers in the propaganda campaign.

 

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India, Iran discuss Afghanistan

India and Iran have held extensive discussions on the developments in the region including Afghanistan as part of their annual diplomatic consultations.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao headed the Indian delegation, while Mohammad Ali Fathollahi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia and Oceania led the Iranian side during the two-day dialogue.

Diplomatic sources told The Hindu that substantial discussions were held on “regional issues” including the recent developments regarding Afghanistan and the transit route from Iranian port of Chabahar to Afghanistan, which Iran and India have jointly developed.

In the past, both India and Iran have been wary of engaging the so called “moderate Taliban” in Afghanistan. However, last month’s conference in London, in which Iran did not participate, has decided to create a fund in anticipation that resources would be needed to draw a significant number of Taliban into the Afghan mainstream.

Discussions were also held on transit, including further activation of the North-South corridor which has been a joint initiative of India, Iran and Russia.

Sources said Ms. Rao had an “excellent” meeting, which lasted for more than an hour on Tuesday, with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

She also met Iran’s point person on nuclear talks, Saeed Jalili, widely known as a confidant of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Jalili had led the Iranian delegation for talks, held last year in Geneva, in which the Americans had also participated.

He also led the Iranian side to talks held in Autumn in Vienna, where a deal was proposed to swap Iran’s stocks of lightly enriched uranium with atomic fuel rods for use in a Tehran research reactor engaged in producing medical isotopes.

 

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In Dostum’s Debt

When the Karzai government announced last week that it would be reinstating Abdul Rashid Dostum, the controversial Uzbek general, as Chief of Staff of the Army, the cries of foul and protest rang loud. Though the position is largely symbolic, critics of the Karzai government openly accused the president of making a deal with the "notorious warlord."

When it comes to Afghan politics there is usually more than meets the eye, and Dostum's case is no exception. As usual in Afghanistan it involves some back room deals. The roots of which go back to August 2009 when President Karzai allowed Dostum, the paramount head of Afghanistan's Uzbek community (which accounts for 10 percent of the country's population), back into the country after several months of exile in Turkey. Dostum had been expelled (if only briefly) for kidnapping Akbar Bey, a political rival who had betrayed him. Akbar Bey who had previously worked for Dostum turned on him in 2006 and created his own party which aimed to steal members from Dostum's Jumbesh Party.

The condition of Dostum's return to the country was that he would bring tens of thousands of Uzbek votes for Karzai with him. The Uzbeks are intensely loyal to Dostum whom they see as an ethno-secular defender of their rights vis-a-vis the Taliban and Pashtun-Tajik-dominated central government. It was Dostum who rode on horseback alongside mounted U.S. Special Forces and brought down the oppressive Taliban regime in November 2001. Most Uzbeks see him as a milli kahraman (national hero). The Uzbeks tend to vote as a block as they are told to by Dostum and, upon his return, he urged them to vote for Karzai. By all accounts the Uzbeks came out in large numbers and voted for the incumbent president in last summer's election.

In return, Dostum's Jumbesh Party selected several Uzbeks for positions in the Cabinet Karzai was to choose in the fall. But then, in a surprise demonstration of its independence, on Jan. 2, 2010, parliament rejected 17 of Karzai's 24 nominees, two of which were Uzbeks. (Of those nominees that were approved, only one was an Uzbek, Wahidullah Sharani, an independent Uzbek unaffiliated with Dostum's Jumbesh Party. Ismail Khan, a Tajik warlord from Herat was similarly rejected as Minister of Power and Water.)

Several of those who were nominated for the Cabinet have been described as representatives of ethnic jang salaran (warlords). One member of parliament claimed that in rejecting the nominees of men like Dostum or Ismail Khan himself, they were freeing Karzai up to choose more qualified candidates who did not have allegiance to provincial power brokers.

This recent move by Karzai to reinstate Dostum to the position of Chief of Staff of the Afghan Army is an obvious effort to placate his warlord supporter who was obviously angry at not having a greater say in the government that he helped instate in 2001. The Afghan president still needs Dostum to continue his efforts to keep the Taliban out of the increasingly unstable flatlands of Afghan Turkistan, the northern third of the country.

For the time being at least Karzai has brought Dostum and his Uzbek coalition into his political fold. The president would seem to be continuing this delicate balancing act which has been described as "caving in to warlords" by outsiders who might not have his understanding of the importance of keeping the Afghan factions that destroyed Afghanistan in the 1990s in check. If Karzai had not reestablished his alliance with Dostum, he may have lost the trust of the strategically located Uzbeks who have supported his government thus far. As for the future, Dostum who was once an opponent of Karzai seems to have tested the winds and found that he gains more from working with the president, while Karzai is happy to keep his former enemy close at hand.

 

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U.S. Announces Helmand Offensive

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—In a rare break from traditional military secrecy, the U.S. and its allies are announcing the precise target of their first big offensive of the Afghanistan surge in an apparent bid to intimidate the Taliban.

Coalition officers have been hinting aloud for months that they plan to send an overwhelming Afghan, British and U.S. force to clear insurgents from the town of Marjah and surrounding areas in Helmand province, and this week the allies took the unusual step of issuing a press release saying the attack was "due to commence."

Senior Afghan officials went so far as to hold a news conference Tuesday to discuss the offensive, although the allies have been careful not to publicize the specific date or details of the attack.

"If we went in there one night and all the insurgents were gone and we didn't have to fire a shot, that would be a success," a coalition spokesman, Col. Wayne Shanks, said before the announcement. "I don't think there has been a mistake in letting people know we're planning on coming in."

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The risks could be substantial, however. By surrendering the element of surprise, the coalition has given its enemy time to dig entrenched fighting positions and tunnel networks. Perhaps worse for the attacking infantrymen, the insurgents have had time to booby-trap buildings and bury bombs along paths, roads and irrigated fields. Such hidden devices inflict the majority of U.S. and allied casualties.

Over the past few months, the new allied commander in southern Afghanistan, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, has revamped NATO's coalition strategy in a region that is home to the Pashtun tribes and opium poppy fields that form the ethnic and financial foundations of the Taliban insurgency.

With the first of 30,000 new U.S. troops already on the ground in Afghanistan, Gen. Carter's plan is to focus on two population centers—Kandahar city, in Kandahar province, and central Helmand province to the west. Combined, they are home to about two million of the estimated three million residents of southern Afghanistan.

Still, the military has taken an unusual step by broadcasting its imminent intention to assault a particular town, Marjah, and its environs. During World War II, civilians and servicemen were frequently reminded that "Loose lips sink ships" and "Enemy ears are listening." For months leading up to the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, the Allies went to great lengths to disguise their target.

Similarly, the coalition in Afghanistan normally forbids—at the threat of expulsion—embedded reporters from writing about events before they take place. In this case, though, officials even released the name of the offensive, Operation Moshtarak, and said it would be a joint Afghan-coalition attack. Moshtarak means "together" in Dari, although the bulk of the population in southern Afghanistan speaks Pashto.

"This combined force will strike a victory for the future of Afghanistan," the coalition release said. It ended with the Arabic phrase "En shallah," or "God willing," a traditional refrain among Muslims.

At times, the U.S. took a similar tack in Iraq, signaling in advance that the 2007 troop surge there would focus on Baghdad. Likewise, Pakistan's military telegraphed its intention last year to attack insurgents in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan.

"It is a fascinating tactical decision to advertise an assault openly before it commences," said Michael O'Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The foreshadowing has potential benefits, Mr. O'Hanlon says. If a substantial number of insurgent fighters choose flight over fight, the coalition and Afghan government score a relatively easy win—and the opportunity to brag about it to a public skeptical of its achievements.

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"We're saying it out loud because of the strength of the inevitability of it," said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marine task force that will form the backbone of the U.S. contingent.

Gen. Nicholson said the drumbeat of public comments about the impending attack has already persuaded community leaders in Marjah to meet with Afghan government and coalition officials. "People of influence don't want to be on the wrong side of this," he said.

Commanders would have liked to take control of central Helmand earlier, but they say they lacked sufficient forces to hold the terrain they might have won. Coalition officials say they aren't sure how many insurgents are in the Marjah area; they believe there are enough, however, that they have treated it as a no-go zone. As such, both sides know it is an obvious target for the new troops, Gen. Nicholson said.

With the surge forces in place, officials believe the coalition is strong enough to seize and hold the ground in central Helmand and help the Afghan government establish a toehold of legitimacy.

Limiting civilian casualties is a key objective of Afghanistan's top U.S. military man, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Even if the Taliban choose to fight, the public warnings could give civilians a chance to evacuate the area, leaving a clearer field of fire for the Americans, British and Afghans.

That is what happened in 2008 in Garmsir, a Taliban-held town further south in Helmand province. The locals fled to the desert during a month of fighting between a Marine battalion and dug-in insurgents. With little reason to worry about civilian casualties, the Marines were able to use their superior firepower, including helicopter gunships and mortars, to oust the insurgents.

The battle left some buildings in ruins but gave rise to few claims of civilian deaths. As soon as the fighting stopped, the Marines set up an office to compensate civilians whose homes had been damaged, a practice likely to be repeated in Marjah.

Said Mr. O'Hanlon: "One advantage is that local populations will have been alerted to what we're doing, perhaps making them more understanding of the subsequent fighting—and more prone to share intelligence, if they believe we are planning to stay awhile after the assault."

 

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Special forces assassins infiltrate Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan

AMERICAN and British troops poised to assault the Taliban stronghold of Marjah have begun targeting insurgent leaders for assassination.

Military sources said special forces had been infiltrating the town on “kinetic” missions — jargon for armed attacks. “Special forces guys have been going in on assassination missions with the aim of decapitating the Taliban force,” one said.

At the British base of Camp Bastion and the adjoining Camp Leatherneck, the US marine base, troops and munitions have been airlifted in by night to avoid enemy rockets. It is clear that international forces are on the brink of a big battle. All yesterday morning, the thud-thud-thud of heavy machineguns and the crump of mortars filled the air.

In a break from traditional military secrecy, American, British and Afghan commanders have announced that Marjah, the last town in Helmand under Taliban control, will be attacked.

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Operation Moshtarak (“Together”) will be by far the largest offensive since General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, instigated his counter-insurgency strategy, backed by President Barack Obama’s 30,000-troop “surge”.

About 1,000 Taliban, mostly Afghans but with some foreign fighters in their ranks, are believed to be in Marjah, an opium centre and local headquarters for bomb-making and sending out suicide bombers.

Military sources described the use of publicity as a psychological tactic to intimidate the Taliban into laying down their weapons or fleeing.

The risks are huge. By surrendering the element of surprise, the coalition has given the insurgents time to dig in and expand an already extensive tunnel network. Taliban diehards are known to have been placing bombs along alleyways, roads and in a network of irrigation canals.

“Around Marjah is a mass of canals in a neat grid, the kind of terrain that’s difficult to clear, easy to defend,” said a military source.

There was little evidence of a Taliban retreat this weekend. Reached by satellite telephone, a Taliban commander expressed defiance. Said Mawlawi Abdul Ghafar vowed he would never lay down his arms.

“We’ve got experts and brave fighters who have fought and killed the infidels,” said Ghafar, 38, who commands 120 fighters in what he called the “first battle circle”.

With overwhelming force and air power on the allies’ side, the outcome is in little doubt.

Success in Marjah, however, will not be judged on who wins the battle. Late in the day, military commanders have accepted that the solution to the eight-year war will be political, not military.

According to McCrystal’s strategy, clearing the Taliban from strongholds such as Marjah is only the first step towards “clear, hold and build”.

In the past, Nato would clear Taliban fighters from towns, but without sufficient troops to remain and secure it. The Taliban simply returned, flushed out any hapless police and seized back control. It was deeply dispiriting to troops who paid a high price in deaths and injuries, and it instilled a deep streak of scepticism in ordinary Afghans.

“For now, the local population is sitting on the fence,” said Frank Ruggiero, the senior American civilian representative in southern Afghanistan, who has hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal. The money is to implement Washington’s plan to make Afghanistan sufficiently stable for it to begin to withdraw troops by the summer of next year.

“They’ve seen us come and make promises before, and then [we] leave,” Ruggiero said. “They’re not coming down off that fence until they are sure that they are secure, that a local policeman is going to be at his post in the morning and that the Taliban are not coming back.”

In Marjah, the plan is to move quickly to set up a local administration and to provide jobs such as clearing roads and canals. “You have to give people something they can see,” said Ruggiero.

The question being asked is whether the Taliban will choose to slink away and wait 18 months for an American withdrawal to begin. It is a high-stakes game, and the people of Marjah are expected to be at the heart of it this week.

 

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Taliban dig in for big assault in Helmand

* US Marines set to launch operation in Marjah in Helmand province
* Taliban commander says they will not back down in face of US-led forces

LASHKAR GAH: The Taliban are massing and preparing for a big fight ahead of a major NATO offensive in an insurgent stronghold in southern Afghanistan, villagers fleeing the area said on Sunday.

US Marines are set to launch a massive operation within days to take Marjah, a dense warren of canals and lush farmland in the centre of Helmand, the country’s most violent province.

Dubbed: Military commanders are dubbing the area the last big Taliban enclave in the province. The offensive, one of the biggest of the eight-year-old war, will mark the first major show of force since US President Barack Obama ordered in 30,000 extra troops.

Washington hopes the Marine operation will help decisively turn the momentum this year in a war that commanders accept has not been going their way. They have also not kept the planned offensive a secret, hoping the militants will give up the fight. “It has to do with letting people know what’s coming in the hope that the hardcore Taliban, or a lot of the Taliban, will simply leave, and maybe there will be less of a fight,” US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Turkey on Saturday.

According to some of the villagers escaping Marjah in fear of their lives, fighters are digging in rather than fleeing. “The Taliban are not going to leave Marjah. We have seen them preparing themselves,” said Abdul Manan, a man from Marjah who had fled to Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah.

“The Taliban are very active in Marjah. They are planting mines there and in the surrounding areas,” said another villager, Abdul Khaleq, after arriving in Lashkar Gah with his family.

Not backing down: Abdullah Nasrat, a Taliban commander in Nad Ali district where Marjah is located, told Reuters by telephone there were some 2,000 insurgents there ready to fight to the death. “We are well prepared and will fight until the end. We don’t have sophisticated weapons like the Americans with tanks and airplanes, but we have zeal. That is the power we have to fight against the infidels,” he said. reuters

 

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The good, the bad, and the ugly

There is a widespread impression in India that this country was marginalised in the London conference on Afghanistan and the Indian view, that there were no good and bad Taliban, was ignored. It was decided to negotiate with the Taliban that will come forward to collaborate with the Karzai government, and substantial funds were earmarked to win over the possible collaborative sections of the Taliban. This course of action was advocated jointly by leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey who met earlier to finalise the recommendation. The idea also had the support of the British and the European Union countries. While the US strategic establishment was not united on the issue, the Iraqi model of winning over the Anbar Sunnis very much influenced the thinking of the US commanders. It is to be recalled that Vice-President Biden was a strong advocate of counter-terrorism strategy focused on Pakistan, with the underlying assumption that counter-insurgency was relatively manageable in Afghanistan territory. While the categorisation of Taliban into those that can be absorbed in the mainstream and others beyond the pale is yet to begin, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made it clear that Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura are not acceptable. They figure in the list of five entities which are to be disrupted, dismantled and defeated.Therefore the question arises: who are the acceptable Taliban? A number of journalists, observers and even military officials have asserted that a majority of people who fight as Taliban in Afghanistan, are not necessarily motivated by the extremist religious ideology of Mullah Omar and his associates. It is said that the majority of the Afghans are not in favour of the Taliban. Yet they fight along with Taliban and go under the name of Taliban for a number of reasons. While the Afghan army pays only six dollars a day, the Taliban gives its fighters twenty dollars a day — which is a lot of money in a country with high unemployment. The tribal chieftains command the loyalty of the tribe and they are prepared to align themselves with the Taliban opportunistically for pecuniary considerations. The same applies to drug-lords who need Taliban support to ply their trade. These categories of people who go under the label Taliban are purchasable. In fact, when the Taliban — supported by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) — overran Afghanistan during 1994-96, they were able to purchase most of the governors and tribal chieftains and they had to do very little fighting in those days. It is therefore logical for those who are planning the new surge of US forces to fight the main campaign against the five jihadi organisations to try out the strategy of buying out the pseudo-Taliban who are fighting mostly for monetary gain and as a tribal way of life and go by the label of Taliban. If the decision is understood against this background, India has no cause to complain that it has been marginalised.

The real issue is whether this will work. Will the Pakistani army and the ISI permit it to succeed? That depends on the course of the campaign the US will launch on completing the surge operation.The purpose of buying up the pseudo-Taliban is to pacify the Afghan territory as the US forces will move closer to the Durand line and intensify their attacks on the jihadis on the Pakistani side with their drones. In his latest State of the Union speech, Obama has asserted he is not a quitter. For him this is a just war which no previous war was since the end of the Second World War. He has also made it clear that if after getting actionable intelligence Pakistanis do not take action against the jihadi elements, then the US will. He has also warned that any ambiguous relations between the Pakistani army and the five jihadi groups will not be ignored. That moment of truth is not far away — just three months off. The latest US Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR) says “The first (objective) is to prevail in today’s wars — the first time this objective has appeared in a QDR. Achieving our objectives in Afghanistan and Iraq has moved to the top of the institutional military’s budgeting, policy, and programme priorities. We now recognise that America’s ability to deal with threats for years to come will depend importantly on our success in the current conflicts.”

When that moment of truth arrives, the Pakistani Army and the ISI have to decide whether they will go along with US or stay out. If they stay out, the US drone offensive will intensify against all five jihadi elements. The latest QDR also mentions stepping up the armed drone effort by 75 per cent. That may unleash jihadi anger against the Pakistani army and the state, as it did in respect of the Pakistani Taliban for permitting US logistics through Pakistani territory and the operation of drones. If the Pakistani army opposes US action, that will result in a break-off of US aid, both civil and military as well as from the international community. If the army decides to go along with the US, the jihadi groups are likely to target the Pakistani cities and the army itself. There are reports of a successful drone strike killing the new Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud — as it did his predecessor — and there are expectations of a serious retaliatory strike on a Pakistani city or army target. Faced with these alternatives, there is a distinct possibility of the Pakistani army getting yet another terrorist act perpetrated in India to provoke an Indian military response which can be used as an excuse to dodge responding to the US demand for action against the jihadis.That is why US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned about an Indo-Pakistan war being provoked. Though he attributed it to the Lashkar-e-Toiba, he is quite aware that LET operates under the direction of the Pakistani army and the ISI.

The most important issue for India today is not the purchasing campaign for the pseudo-Taliban, but how to deal with the likely Pakistani provocation to trigger an Indo-Pakistan war in order to dodge action against the jihadis. The recent US travel advisories are indications of this rising risk. On this it is to be hoped that consultations at the highest levels, along with follow-up collaborative action at security services levels with US are taking place without publicity. Unfortunately in India, emotional conclusions based on past memories tend to override sober and sound assessments based on careful analysis of current facts carried out by professional intelligence specialists.

The writer is a senior defence analyst

 

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U.S. should build Afghan agriculture

Here’s a critical piece of President Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan that you probably never heard of: fighting the Taliban with saffron, pomegranates, and wheat.

The Obama administration regards agriculture as its top non-security priority in Afghanistan. Restoring the country’s once-vibrant agricultural sector would create jobs that undercut Taliban recruitment. It would give farmers an alternative to growing opium poppies and shrink the Taliban’s profit from the drug trade.

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U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack toured Afghanistan last week, stressing the U.S. commitment to aid agriculture — a pledge made repeatedly by Obama’s special emissary to the region, Richard Holbrooke.

But can a troubled U.S. aid program figure out how to help poor, rural Afghans? In mid-November, I sat down in Kabul with Afghan Agriculture Minister Mohammad Asif Rahimi, an impressive technocrat who did postgrad work at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and asked him what he needs.

Rahimi, one of a handful of ministers who survived a messy cabinet reshuffle by President Hamid Karzai, has extensive experience in development and humanitarian relief. When he took over the agriculture ministry in October, however, he found a dysfunctional office with four staff members and no Internet access, files, light bulbs, or projects in the field.

So it’s no surprise that he stresses one message: Instead of using international contractors with hefty overhead costs, whose movements are often restricted by security concerns, U.S. programs should train Afghans to deliver technical aid to dicey areas of the country.

“Our priorities,” he said, “are the building of capacity and resources in the ministry, nationally, in the provinces, in the districts and locally. Our government was drained of good people. If the United States continues to give big contracts (to international contractors), we can never grow.”

Rahimi says contractors create structures parallel to the government that pay higher salaries and drain talent from the ministries. Those structures are not sustainable. “If the United States left today,” he said, “we’d be no better off.”

The Obama administration recognizes this problem, and Holbrooke is trying to limit contractors’ role. An effort is under way to rebuild the cadre of experts within the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was drastically downsized in recent decades. Vilsack is sending 64 specialists from his department to Afghanistan, and several teams of agriculture experts from American land-grant universities have been collected into military reserve units that will do multiple tours in the country.

And Rahimi is pleased at the new U.S. emphasis on helping farmers boost food production, a shift from the Bush years, when the focus was mainly on promoting agriculture exports. The minister cites an urgent need to rebuild the country’s irrigation system (which was destroyed by the Russians and the Taliban), restart agricultural extension services and start a credit system for farmers, who are now forced to turn to poppy merchants for small loans.

Rahimi added, “Agricultural development is the solution to poppy. Helmand province (the world poppy capital) has wheat, melons, pomegranates. Saffron in Helmand is more valuable than poppy.” Indeed, in the past year, help with wheat seed and cultivation has led to a 30 percent drop in Helmand’s poppy crop (aided by a drop in poppy prices due to overcultivation).

But Rahimi insists that the key to boosting farm production is helping Afghans build up their technical expertise. He would like to see more U.S. experts seconded to Afghan ministries, both in Kabul and in rural districts, training Afghans to take over. As of November, only one U.S. expert had appeared at his ministry, he said.

“The Indian government,” he told me, “is working to establish an agricultural university, based on the concept of U.S. land grant colleges. Why didn’t the U.S. come up with this?” Rahimi fondly recalls attending an Afghan technical institute in the early ’70s — “built by the Peace Corps and taught in English.” He also recalls the glory days of USAID experts, who were hugely popular in Afghanistan in the ’60s.

“Lashkar Gah (Helmand’s capital) was little America, with lots of U.S. agronomists,” he said. “There were mountains of wheat, melons, grapes, and not even a kilo of poppy. The State Department should look back at the time when everyone was in love with American agricultural teachers.”

I think the State Department gets Rahimi’s message. Now the question is whether it can build the capacity Afghanistan needs.

 

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Afghan mission 'gone well' but real battle to come

Sir Jock Stirrup said the first phase of the operation had "gone really well"

On a visit to Helmand, the head of the armed forces has said that British troops have performed superbly in Operation Moshtarak, and that the initial phase has gone well.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup was speaking as he flew in to Showal, formerly the heartland of the Taliban's shadow government.
He said there were still pockets of resistance further south in Marjah, where the Americans have been fighting, and some resistance in Nad Ali, but that levels had eased considerably over the last few days.
Security was tight for Sir Jock's visit.
In the skies, an Apache attack helicopter was visible as it circled above, while soldiers from the 1st Battalion the Royal Welsh kept watch as the head of the armed forces came to talk to British and Afghan forces involved in Operation Moshtarak.
Speaking at a patrol base in the town, which appeared relatively quiet, he thanked British and Afghan forces for their work.
"Op Moshtarak is just the initial phase, and the clear phase went extraordinarily well, and it was a professionally-executed operation that went very smoothly. Our forces performed superbly."
However, he told the BBC that the coalition was not complacent.
"This is a tough fight, and it is a hard campaign, and you have got some pretty determined and quite clever opponents. They have a vote in this, and we have to be able to react to that, to enable us to keep them on the back foot," he said.
'Test the ground'
Just two weeks ago, the Taliban flag flew over this town; as the coalition moved in, it was replaced with the Afghan national flag that now flies from a tall white crane, visible from the low reinforced mud walled compounds that surround it.

The impression was of people waiting warily, wondering which side it will prove safest to support
However, soldiers here say that although many of the insurgents melted away after 4,000 coalition and Afghan troops launched the overall operation - 1,200 of them dropped in by air on D-Day - many insurgents remained to watch and test the ground.
Three British soldiers died during the "clear" phase of the operation.
Outside the military compound in Showal, young men from the town sit on the riverbank.
Some covered their faces as we passed; a few of the younger children smiled.
But the impression was of people waiting warily, wondering which side it will prove safest to support.
Last week, insurgents managed to place an IED makeshift bomb beneath a British truck, 20 yards from the crane. Nobody was hurt; only part of the charge went off.
"The Taliban haven't left - they're always looking for weaknesses, and they'll come back when they get the manpower again. But we're prepared for that," says Fusilier Dave Rollings, 24, from Cardiff, of the 1st Battalion the Royal Welsh.
Cpl Spiros Parry, 28, from Penygroes in Wales, agrees.
"It wasn't as heavy as we thought it would be, but it's still been eventful. Everyone's aware of the threat from IEDs, but the boys are doing well finding them, and the teams have cleared the routes for the convoys. So far, so good."
'Cautious'

Some 4,000 British personnel have been involved in the offensive
More than 2,000 Afghans in the area covered by Operation Moshtarak have signed up for "cash for work" schemes.
They represent one method that the coalition and the Afghan government hope will wean some of the younger and less ideologically-driven Taliban fighters to lay down their arms.
An Afghan National Army colonel was cautious today about signs of Taliban fighters being "reconciled" with the Afghan government, but many hope the momentum generated by this operation will speed that possibility.
At the patrol base, Maj Shon Hackney, of the 1st Battalion the Royal Welsh, is optimistic.
"It's been very positive so far, and local people were keen to see us, although wary about where the Taliban were. Slowly, they are beginning to trust us and the Afghan National Army."
He admits that the threat from roadside bombs remains high.
"We have found three IED factories in Showal, and we've witnessed attempts by the Taliban to attack us and intimidate the locals. But there are visible signs of normality returning."
In the two weeks of this operation, the British counter-IED task force led by Col Gareth Bex has dealt with and recovered 40 roadside bombs in situ, and destroyed more than 80 items of unexploded ordnance.
Other finds have included 300 components for making IEDs, recovered from caches or bomb factories, including pressure plates and main charges that could be used to kill and maim.
'Hearts and minds'

What we were after was an operation that was not about fighting the enemy, but about winning the people
Brigadier James Cowan
Commander of Task Force Helmand
The sheer scale of the threat remains hard to tackle, even with sophisticated surveillance in the skies above and troops with metal detectors on the ground.
Overall, though, British forces are quietly pleased with the way the operation has gone so far.
Brigadier James Cowan, the overall commander of Task Force Helmand, accompanied the Chief of the Defence Staff as he visited British forces across Helmand.
"What we were after was an operation that was not about fighting the enemy, but about winning the people.
"And in some ways, I suppose it's been a bit of an anti-climax, but that is exactly what we planned for: for it to be anti-climactic, so that we could come in with enough troops to make sure there wasn't a fight at all," he says. "I think that is what we've achieved."
Both sides, though, know that the real battle will be less for the physical territory than the hearts and minds of the people of Showal and the surrounding areas.
The Afghan government and its local representatives will have to deliver on their promises of better governance and less corruption.
While reconstruction will need to be faster than it has been in the past if local people are to be persuaded to throw in their lot with Kabul - and resist the Taliban's return.

 

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AFPAK CUL DE SAC​

1. The Mislaid ‘Strategic Shift’

1. It was as far back as 1999 that the US Patterns of Global Terrorism report spoke of a "shift of the locus of terrorism". Building on the observations of the report on July 12, 2000, the then US Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, Michael Sheehan, in his testimony to the House International Relations Committee, emphasized a "geographical shift of the locus of terror from the Middle East to South Asia,"1 A decade later, a new US Administration is rediscovering this ‘locus’.2 US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, thus announced that, while fighting "isn’t over" in Iraq, Afghanistan would now be the military’s "main effort".3 This was quickly followed by the broad sweep of President Barack Hussein Obama’s new ‘AfPak’ policy and, for the first time, a much larger proposed military budget for Afghanistan than for Iraq.4 President Obama has also announced a progressive draw-down of the present 142,000 US troops in Iraq, culminating in a withdrawal of ‘all combat personnel’ from the country by August 31, 2010, to leave behind between 35,000 and 50,000 troops to ‘train, equip and advise Iraqi security forces’.5 On the other hand, the promise is to ‘more than double’ US Forces in Afghanistan in a purported replication of the ‘surge’ that secured a turnaround in Iraq.

2. The first point regarding this ‘strategic shift’, consequently, is that it is no more than the belated acceptance of a reality that was abundantly recognized more than a decade ago, and that had been deliberately suppressed by the perversity of US policy that was deflected, in 2003, into an unnecessary and unjustifiable war in Iraq.

3. The new ‘shift’ is now justified by improvements in the Iraq theatre, and continuous deterioration in the AfPak complex. There is no doubt that circumstances in Iraq have improved dramatically, after the peak of violence in 2006-07. It is necessary, however, to recognize that, the ‘peace’ in Iraq is, even now, bloodier than the ‘war’ in Afghanistan. Data for 2008 indicates that total fatalities for US forces in Iraq in 2008 stood at 314 out of a coalition total of 322, significantly down from a peak of 904 and 961, respectively, in 2007. In Afghanistan, by comparison, US military fatalities in 2008 were 155, and total coalition fatalities stood at 294, up from 117 and 232, respectively, in 2007. Data for the first four months of 2009 does, of course, demonstrate a change in this trend, with a coalition total of 62 fatalities in Iraq, as against 91 in Afghanistan. This impression of ‘stabilization’ may, however, be misleading. Iraq saw 5,929 Iraqi SF and civilian deaths in 2008 and the first four months of 2009 have already seen 1,014 Iraqi SF and civilian fatalities. According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, ‘Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded’.6 In Afghanistan, Afghan Police, Military and Private Military Contractor fatalities were 1,241 in 2008 and 368 in 2009.7 No authoritative data for civilian fatalities is currently available, but a UN report put total civilian fatalities in Afghanistan through 2008 at 2,118.8 Data on civilian fatalities in Afghanistan may also be severe underestimates, since a significant, though indeterminate, proportion of those reported as Taliban militants killed in interior areas are also believed to be civilians.

4. As the US and Coalition presence in Iraq is diluted – most participating countries have announced time-bound plans for force reduction – there is reason to believe that militant violence in the country could rise again. Indeed, the architect of the ‘successful’ strategy in Iraq, General David H. Petraeus, has repeatedly warned that the gains in the country are "fragile and reversible".9 President Obama has also underlined this assessment, stating, "Let there be no doubt: Iraq is not yet secure, and there will be difficult days ahead. Violence will continue to be a part of life in Iraq." 10

5. Indeed, there is much that suggests that what we are witnessing in Iraq is a manifestation of America’s progressive historical proclivity to prematurely ‘declare victory and run’.

6. In sum, the Afghanistan-Pakistan complex has, for more than a decade now, been the principal source of the global crisis of Islamist terrorism;11 the crisis in Iraq was created by unmitigated American adventurism and its dangers are yet to be effectively neutralized; while Afghanistan-Pakistan certainly demand more attention, a ‘shift’ at the cost of efforts to stabilize Iraq will prove counter-productive in both theatres. The imperatives of the situation demand application of sufficient force and resources to both theatres and not premature withdrawal from one, and merely incremental efforts in the other.​

2. The Sophistry of the Surge

1. The surge, in contemporary mythmaking, has been conferred an almost metaphysical stature. It is, indeed, astonishing, and a testament to the superficiality of the global security discourse, that this notion has been projected and widely accepted as a brilliant and unique strategic innovation. This is, bluntly, nonsense. The surge is, in fact, no more than a belated recognition that the past assessments of force requirement in a particular theatre were wrong, that the existing force disposition is inadequate; and it is a tardy corrective to the failure to provide a sufficiency of force at the outset.

2. The surge, in other words, is not a strategy. It is simply the provision of additional force to a particular theatre to offset past failures. The quantum of force existing, and of additional force provided, in proportion to objective assessments (and not the fantasies that may have prevailed in the past) of the challenges and requirements, define the probabilities of securing success. All ‘surges’, in other words, are not equal.

3. To address the hard core of numbers first: Iraq has a total area of 437,072 square kilometers and a population of 28.95 million; Afghanistan has a territory of 647,500 square kilometers and a population of 33.6 million. Both in area and population, consequently, Afghanistan is significantly larger.

4. Since July 2003, the strength of Coalition forces in Iraq had remained at roughtly 176,000, with US troops fluctuating between 108,000 and 168,000, before recent draw-downs commenced.12 The ‘surge’ in Iraq comprised an addition of some 30,000 troops after February 2007,13 at a time when violence was peaking (December 2006 and January 2007 saw about 4,000 fatalities a month). US troop strength stood at 137,000 in February 2007, when the surge was initiated, and rose to a peak of 168,000 by September 2007. Crucially, however, this strength was backed up by a 600,000-strong Iraqi security force.14 While much of this is of indifferent quality, a significant proportion has been trained by, and has been deployed in joint operations with, Coalition Forces, and has now been thought to be sufficiently capable to take over the tasks of national security management, as the US and various other Coalition partners progressively draw down their strength in Iraq.

5. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, the strength of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF, including NATO) Forces stood at 55,100 as of January 2009, with the US Forces accounting for just 23,220 of this number.15 The ‘surge’ in Afghanistan, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has clarified, will not exceed an additional 30,000 US troops.16 In the meanwhile, a number of participating nations have declared their intentions to phase out their Forces in Afghanistan, and it is not clear whether the augmentation of US troops will substantially exceed the Forces withdrawn by other ISAF partners. Several member countries, certainly including Canada, France and Germany, are facing rising domestic pressure to abandon their military commitments in Afghanistan. In any event, an addition of 30,000 soldiers could easily be swallowed by Afghanistan’s harsh terrain, and by a marginal escalation of the Taliban’s campaigns of terror. Critically, Afghanistan has a much smaller – and far more poorly equipped and trained – local Force available to share the burden of the war. As of February 2009, the Afghan National Army (ANA) had a total strength of 79,000.17 This is to be raised, on an accelerated timetable, to 134,000 by 2011. In addition, the Afghan National Police (ANP) currently accounts for 76,000 personnel, with a target strength of 82,000.18 At full target strength, consequently, the ANA and ANP would provide a total of 216,000 personnel – considerably less than domestic forces in Iraq. Crucially, General Petraeus has "acknowledged that the ratio of coalition and Afghan security forces to the population is projected through 2011 to be significantly lower than the 20 troops per 1,000 people prescribed by the Army counterinsurgency manual he helped write." 19

6. The most cursory examination of the comparative figures for Iraq and Afghanistan would demonstrate the acute paucity of Force, in comparison to the much larger population and total area in the latter. It is significant, moreover, that the insurgency in Afghanistan has a multiplicity of compounding factors and, that the Taliban are estimated to have achieved a permanent presence in as much as 72 per cent of the country’s territory by December 2008 (up from 54 per cent the previous year).20 Indeed, according to a report by The International Council on Security and Development, the Taliban has some influence across the whole country, with an additional 21 per cent categorized as having ‘substantial Taliban presence’, and 7 per cent with ‘light Taliban presence’.21​

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[Rage]

<In continuum>​

7. The sheer and acute deficit of Force is compounded by a wide range of qualitative factors that make the situation in Afghanistan far more intractable. It is useful to recall General Petraeus’ warning in this context:

In many respects, Afghanistan represents a more difficult problem set… It does not have a number of the blessings that Iraq has, in terms of the oil, gas, land of two rivers, the human capital that Iraq built up over the years, the muscle memory of a strong government, albeit one that was corrupted over time… These kinds of difficulties make Afghanistan very, very hard. We have seen that and we will continue to see that. That's why, up front, I've said this is going to take sustained, substantial commitment.22

Afghanistan, General Petraeus notes, further, is landlocked, rural and has a high illiteracy rate.


8. Many of these difficulties threaten to worsen. Population growth is a crucial source of future difficulties. With a 2005 population of 24.5 million, Afghanistan is already estimated to have grown to over 33.6 million, and has among the highest rates of population growth in the world. It is useful to recall, in this context, former CIA Director General Michael V. Hayden’s observation that rapid population growth "in poor, fragile states… will create a situation that will likely fuel instability and extremism – not just in those areas, but beyond them as well." Afghanistan is one of the states he identifies among those where "population is expected to triple by mid-century".23

9. Afghanistan’s institutional structures have also been "unhinged by war for nearly 30 years".24 Despite the past eight years of liberal – though often misdirected – US and international support, the capacities for Governance remain abysmal. Worse, the destruction of infrastructure, the systematic slaughter or flight of educated elites, and the crisis of national leadership, place rigid constraints on the very possibility of rapid augmentation of capacities – even with significant infusion of foreign financial resources. The profile of educational capacities is a telling index of this collapse:

Higher education in Afghanistan has deteriorated dramatically over the past 2 decades. From 68 colleges with well-equipped campuses in all major cities, the higher education system has been reduced to empty campuses with no faculty, students, or equipment… Decades of war and refugees have almost destroyed Afghanistan’s professional and technical base of educated people, including teachers, administrators, managers, engineers, doctors, and other technocrats and professionals.25

…By any measure, the education system in Afghanistan has collapsed… In secondary education, the estimated current GER (Gross Enrolment Rate) for boys is 5–11% and for girls as low as 1–2%. Indeed, the numbers of children in school declined dramatically in the 1990s because of the civil war, the destruction of education infrastructure, and the hostility of the Taliban to secular education—particularly the education of girls and female teachers.26

Just 19 higher education institutions currently operate in Afghanistan, though enrolment had increased from 4,000 students in 2001 to 37,000 by 2007.27 Despite the tremendous decline in Iraq as well, it is useful to note that the country’s higher education system currently comprises as many as 20 Universities and 47 technical research institutes, under the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, which oversees 200 colleges, 800 departments and 28 research centres.28 Higher education enrolment in Iraq in 2008 stood at 370,000 – ten times the figure for Afghanistan in 2007.29 [There are, of course, tremendous concerns about the content and quality of education in both countries, but these cannot detain us here].

10. President Obama’s AfPak policy, of course, purports to address many of these concerns. Michele Flournoy, the Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, thus asserts, "In Afghanistan, we are pursuing – really for the first time – a fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy on the ground and civilian experts as well30." Regrettably, there is little within the outlined AfPak policy that inspires confidence that this is, in fact, the case. Indeed, AfPak merely regurgitates the failed policies of the past seven years; the "policy framework and the importance it attaches to this region have not changed dramatically from the previous administration.31" The essence of this strategy is summed up by Brahma Chellany as "surge and bribe"32, preliminary to an accelerated withdrawal. Obama’s AfPak strategy, consistent with that of the previous administration, seeks to weaken the Taliban militarily and later strike a political deal with them from a position of strength. This experiment involves a continuation of the futile search for the ‘moderate Taliban’, the working out of unprincipled deals with fanatical warlords, and the raising of private armed militia, each of which has proven to be tragically counter-productive in the past. Given the fractious tribal politics of Afghanistan, and the limitless sanctuaries provided by its terrain, as well as the current and rising disruptive dominance of the Taliban, any deal-making with particular groups "will only strengthen the global jihadists’ cause"33. What we have, here, is another attempt by "‘limp liberals’34 – who seek to purchase peace by offering concessions to those who systematically use the murder of civilians to secure their political or ‘celestial’ ends35". Past experiments in Afghanistan justify little optimism regarding the success of this renewed attempt. In any event, the tiny ‘surge’ that is being attempted lacks the potential of creating even the transient dominance that would be necessary to negotiate, from a position of strength, even with the more opportunistic elements within the Taliban.​

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