Afghanistan - News & Discussions

nrupatunga

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^^^Somehow i still feel, with or without iraq nato would have gone on a downhill slide.
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Anyway heres an article which tries to debunk the impending civil war in a'stan post the western forces withdrawal.

The un-happening of a civil war
 

TrueSpirit

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^^^Somehow i still feel, with or without iraq nato would have gone on a downhill slide.
--------------------------------------------------------
Anyway heres an article which tries to debunk the impending civil war in a'stan post the western forces withdrawal.

The un-happening of a civil war
@nrupatunga Thanks mate. You share informative & really interesting stuff.
 
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TrueSpirit

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19 true things generals can't say in public about the Afghan war: A helpful primer


Pakistan is now an enemy of the United States.

We don't know why we are here, what we are fighting for, or how to know if we are winning.

The strategy is to fight, talk, and build. But we're withdrawing the fighters, the Taliban won't talk, and the builders are corrupt.

Karzai's family is especially corrupt.

We want President Karzai gone but we don't have a Pushtun successor handy.

But the problem isn't corruption, it is which corrupt people are getting the dollars. We have to help corruption be more fair.

Another thing we'll never stop here is the drug traffic, so the counternarcotics mission is probably a waste of time and resources that just alienates a swath of Afghans.

Making this a NATO mission hurt, not helped. Most NATO countries are just going through the motions in Afghanistan as the price necessary to keep the US in Europe
Yes, the exit deadline is killing us.

Even if you got a deal with the Taliban, it wouldn't end the fighting.

The Taliban may be willing to fight forever. We are not.

Yes, we are funding the Taliban, but hey, there's no way to stop it, because the truck companies bringing goods from Pakistan and up the highway across Afghanistan have to pay off the Taliban. So yeah, your tax dollars are helping Mullah Omar and his buddies. Welcome to the neighborhood.

Even non-Taliban Afghans don't much like us.

Afghans didn't get the memo about all our successes, so they are positioning themselves for the post-American civil war .

And they're not the only ones getting ready. The future of Afghanistan is probably evolving up north now as the Indians, Russians and Pakistanis jockey with old Northern Alliance types. Interestingly, we're paying more and getting less than any other player.

Speaking of positioning for the post-American civil war, why would the Pakistanis sell out their best proxy shock troops now?

The ANA and ANP could break the day after we leave the country.

We are ignoring the advisory effort and fighting the "big war" with American troops, just as we did in Vietnam. And the U.S. military won't act any differently until and work with the Afghan forces seriously until when American politicians significantly draw down U.S. forces in country-when it may be too damn late.

The situation American faces in Afghanistan is similar to the one it faced in Vietnam during the Nixon presidency: A desire a leave and turn over the war to our local allies, combined with the realization that our allies may still lose, and the loss will be viewed as a U.S. defeat anyway.

19 true things generals can't say in public about the Afghan war: A helpful primer
 

nrupatunga

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An Indian pivot in Afghanistan after troop drawdown
Over 90 percent of Afghanistan's budget is funded by other nations. The government in Kabul can survive only if the flow of aid is ensured. The collapse of Mohammad Najibullah's government in 1992 was a direct fallout of Russian aid dwindling.

The Chinese have shunned local Afghan politics so far. Their concerns remain economic and extremist activities in its western Xinjiang region from bases in Afghanistan.

The Russians would not favour Taliban dominance with the possibility of extremism spreading to central Asia. Given their previous experience in Afghanistan, they are unlikely to go beyond training and equipping Afghan forces.

Iran has interests in the Shia population in Afghanistan, while the Afghans need the Iranian port of Chabahar. But to include Iran in the stabilization effort means delinking the issue from Iran's nuclear standoff.

But India enjoys considerable acceptance. Even in the limited sphere of training Afghan forces, the quality and numbers required can only be achieved if Indian training teams are based in Afghanistan from now on and the country ultimately becomes the major training provider. It would need to provide military advisers, fill up current equipment voids as also reinforce Afghan efforts for procurement from other countries.
 

TrueSpirit

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But, the quandary is, how long can the West foot the bill for Af-stan govt.
 

nrupatunga

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Certainly not a good read from desi pov

The End of Afghanistan's War
If there is going to be a peaceful end to the war in Afghanistan unlikely as that may be, it will come when the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan all agree on a rebalancing of the government in Kabul, probably with a new constitution and probably either including the Taliban in the new regime or giving the Taliban effective control of parts of southern Afghanistan in some sort of federal system.

That won't make many people happy. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States and a noted opponent of both Pakistan's military and Pakistan's Islamists, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times on June 27 warning the United States not to commit the "blunder" of talking to the Taliban:

"Unlike most states or political groups, the Taliban aren't amenable to a pragmatic deal. They are a movement with an extreme ideology and will not compromise easily on their deeply held beliefs."
Haqqani may be right. But where Haqqani may be wrong is that the Taliban has from the beginning been a cats'-paw for Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI, and if Pakistan exerts the sort of pressure that it can bring to bear on Mullah Omar, the Quetta Shura leadership, and the so-called Haqqani group—no relation to Ambassador Haqqani—then it's possible that the Taliban will be pragmatic enough to strike a deal. At the very least, the Taliban can make a clean break with Al Qaeda and renounce terrorism.
Is the above bolded portion, a joke?? Can that really ever happen????

"The Americans had three solutions for the Taliban problem. First, the Alpha solution, was to beat them into submission and retard their capacity to fight permanently. This failed. The Bravo solution was to fight them hard through a troop surge and force them to accept Afghanistan's new realities like the present-day Afghan constitution and the leadership of President Karzai. That too did not work. The third, the Charlie solution, was more of a compulsion. Accept Taliban as a legitimate power in Afghanistan, talk to them, accommodate their main demands even it meant abandoning assets like Karzai. I think you are looking at the Charlie solution being played out."
It's long been obvious that a political accommodation with the Taliban is necessary. If it isn't achieved, then either the United States will have to stay engaged in Afghanistan for another ten years or more, continuing to prop up a regime that can't last, or Afghanistan will plunge into an intensified civil war. In such a war, it isn't clear if the Taliban can retake Kabul. Far more likely, it will be a war without end, with the Pakistan-backed Taliban establishing itself in the south and east as India-backed forces control the north and Iran-backed forces control the west.
 
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datguy79

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Insurgents increasing in east Afghanistan, but army sees gains


(Reuters) - Insurgents have stepped up operations in border provinces close to Pakistan, one of Afghanistan's top generals said on Sunday, with militant numbers up on last summer as government forces work to improve security in the volatile east.

Major-General Mohammad Sharif Yaftali, who commands Afghan forces in seven crucial southeast provinces, said insurgent numbers were up around 15 percent on last year's summer fighting months, with an estimated 5,000 insurgents now in his area.

Many were Pakistanis and Chechens, Yaftali said, reinforcing recent assessments by Afghan army chief of staff General Sher Mohammad Karimi that the insurgency's backers in Pakistan had shut Islamic schools to send more fighters across the border.


"They closed them on purpose, to push them to Afghanistan to disrupt security," said Yaftali in a frank assessment likely to raise hackles in Pakistan. "There are 3,500 madrassas in Pakistan and if everyone send five people, well, you can imagine," he said.

Pakistan, which supported the 1996-2001 Taliban government in Afghanistan, is seen as crucial to U.S. and Afghan efforts to promote peace in Afghanistan, a task that is gaining urgency as NATO-led combat troops continue to leave the country.

Karimi, in comments rejected by Islamabad, said in a recent interview that the influential Pakistan military could end the 12-year-old Afghan war if it chose to "in weeks", despite facing a Taliban insurgency of its own.

Yaftali said recent security operations in the east by four Afghan brigades had greatly improved security with only minimal assistance from NATO coalition allies. Major roads were cleared and more than 650 insurgents killed over three months.

While local people in Paktia province say the Taliban-allied Haqqani network still influences at least five of 14 districts, Yaftali said around 150,000 girls attending school in his command were proof the insurgency was on the back foot and its leaders were now throwing everything possible into the fight.

As evidence, Afghan commanders organized a media conference with a Pakistani insurgent captured after being shot in the leg and who was handcuffed to a bed as he recovered at the military's Paktia Regional National Hospital.

"The people told us there are infidels and to go and fight against them. That's why I came," said the fighter, who gave his age as around 22 and his name as "Hezbollah", after the Lebanon-based Islamic militant group and political bloc.

Hezbollah, captured with a radio and AK-47 rifle and whose name is unlikely to be genuine, said he had received minimal training and was the youngest of a group of 13 fighters who had made their way over the mountains into Afghanistan, staying for 15 days before being shot.

"The people did not help us. But there was a mosque and that was like our base station. We had food and water and sleep," he said. "I don't know where I was captured, because I am not from this country. We were ambushed."

Rapid improvements in the ability of the army to operate independently of NATO forces has raised hopes among coalition commanders that Afghan security forces will be able to match the insurgency after the 2014 exit of most Western troops.

Paktia is one of three provinces fiercely contested by the militant Haqqanis, blamed for several prominent attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan.

The province, while less violent than neighboring Paktika and Ghazni provinces, in a frequently used insurgent run on the approach to the capital Kabul due to its areas of thick forest and rugged mountain terrain.

The Taliban and its allies have also been accused there of shutting down girls' schools, as in many other provinces of the still deeply conservative and male dominated country.

Yaftali said foreign insurgents, often used to coordinate and lead anti-government operations, were increasingly ill-trained, despite being pushed out in greater numbers across the border to face improving Afghan troops and police.

"We used to get involved in some tough fights," he said, referring to his 19,000 soldiers of the Afghan army's 203rd Thunder Corps. "Now all the highways are open. We have focused on the insurgent leaders."
 

MLRS

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Afghanistan begins to export products directly to India for the first time in its history

Afghanistan's export activities through the ChabaharPort in southeastern Iran officially began on Saturday.

The port serves as the best alternative to the Pakistan's Karachi Port where export activities were constantly interrupted by political restrictions and high storage cost.

"But it doesn't mean an end to exports via the Wagah border between Pakistan and India. However, the Chabahar option is more economical and profitable for Afghanistan," Pajhwok Afghan News quotes Abdul Qadeer Mustafa, spokesman to the Export Promotion Agency of Afghanistan (EPAA).

The Port of Chabahar is a seaport in Chahbahar in southeastern Iran. Its location lies on the border of Indian Ocean and Oman Sea. It is the only Iranian port with direct access to ocean.

Afghanistan will be able to export its products directly to India, Kazakhstan, Gulf and European states in an efficient manner.

According to Mr. Mustafa, this would be Afghanistan's first time in its history to directly dispatch products to India.

Located 72km west of Pakistan's Gwardar port, Chabahar port holds immense strategic and economic significance for India.

India's interest in Chabahar came after China had expressed interest in taking the Gwadar port in Pakistan.

In a trilateral meeting last year, India, Afghanistan and Iran discussed ways to expand trade and economic ties among the three countries starting, with Chabahar being the main focus.
 

nrupatunga

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@datguy79 @MLRS
What exactly is being taught in histroy books of a'stan currently. Esp I am interested in early 19th century period i.e. 1800 - 1850. If possible entire 19th century. How are anglo-afghan wars treated??
 
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nrupatunga

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Taliban spin? Mullah Omar supports education, respects other religions
In an apparent attempt to rehabilitate the Taliban's image - Omar issued a statement Tuesday that struck a more conciliatory, inclusive approach. However, he stressed his followers should not take part in the proposed election in Afghanistan next year.

The Taliban leader has never expressed support for modern education, but in the statement he said it was "a fundamental need of every society in the present time." An Afghan Taliban official, speaking anonymously after the statement was issued, said that girls would be allowed to go to school if the Taliban returned to power. However, he said they would oppose co-education and would build separate institutions for the girls where they would be taught according to Islam's Shariah.
Does he mean then, females would be taught only islam while males would be taught modern education along with islam?????

Omar also said the Taliban would not take revenge against people who had sided with the U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan if they admitted they had made a mistake. Omar also made clear that they will not accept any foreign military base in Afghanistan after 2014.

But he stressed the Taliban would not take part in democratic elections, planned for next year following the final withdrawal of foreign forces. "Our pious and Mujahid people know that selection, de facto, takes place in Washington. These nominal rulers are not elected through the ballots of the people. Rather they are selected as per the discretion of Washington," the Taliban leader said.
 

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Pakistan's fears over India's Afghan role not groundless: US
By GHANIZADA - Thu Aug 08, 11:12 am



U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins on Wednesday acknowledged Pakistan's concerns over India's presence in Afghanistan and said that the fears by Islamabad in this regard are not "groundless."

While speaking during an interview with the BBC Urdu, James Dobbins said, "The dominant infiltration of militants is from Pakistan into Afghanistan, but we recognise that there is some infiltration of hostile militants from the other direction as well. So Pakistan's concerns aren't groundless. They are simply, in our judgement, somewhat exaggerated."

The comments by the U.S. special envoy James Dobbins is followed by growing concerns voiced by Islamabad regarding Indian moves to establish consulates in Afghanistan's cities Jalalabad and Kandahar, close to Pakistani western border.

In the meantime James Dobbins said that the presence of India in Afghanistan was "perfectly reasonable"considering the economic and cultural ties between the two nations.

He said the Indian presence in Afghan cities was minuscule. "We believe that Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US need to collaborate much more closely to deal with this threat of cross-border infiltration," Dobbins said.

In regards to the Afghanistan peace process, James Dobbins said that President Hamid Karzai was "quite warm" to the idea of talking to the Taliban and had asked Pakistan to facilitate contact between the Afghan High Peace Council and the insurgents.

Dobbins also added that Washington is hoping that the talks could begin within the next three months.
 

nrupatunga

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^^^^ With increasing number of attacks over LOC, JnK and now statements like this
Pakistan's fears over India's Afghan role not groundless: US
This is green signal for all anti-india forces in the region. Much darker days maybe in the offing for india. :sad::sad::sad:
 
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datguy79

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Economic Sanctions on Iran Won't Affect Trade Ties: ACCI

According to Mohammad Qurban Haqjo, the head of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI), spoke at a press conference in Kabul on Sunday and assured that the economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. and its allies would not affect newly improved trade relations between Afghanistan, India and Iran.

One of the new trade operations Mr. Haqjo's comments were most pertinent to is the Chah Bahar port project, which the ACCI has focused much of its energy on in recent months. The Chah Bahar port, located within Iran on the cost of the gulf of Oman 700km from Afghanistan's southwestern Nimruz province, could provide a hub for Afghan traders to import and export goods.

Afghanistan, a landlocked country, is currently restricted to shipping goods to sea ports via Pakistan, which imposes severe restrictions that cost traders considerable time and money. Therefore, the help Iran has offered the Afghan government in expanding the port and making it more accessible to Afghanistan is considered both an immense economic opportunity as well as a strong showing of diplomatic good-will. Amidst the news of increased economic sanctions on Iran imposed by Western nations seeking to derail its nuclear program, however, Afghan traders have expressed concerns that the port project will suffer.

While officials of the ACCI expressed their confidence on Sunday that trade ties in general will not be adversely affected by the sanctions, they did urge the Iranians to begin work on the Chah Bahar port promptly.

"The sanctions will not have affect trade. But Iran should start investing in infrastructure at the Chah Bahar port," Mr. Haqjo said.

Meanwhile, India has expressed interest in cultivating trade relations with Iran and Afghanistan. Amar Sinha, the Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan, recently spoke about his governments' efforts to strengthen trade ties between Afghanistan, Iran and India. He spoke specifically about the Chah Bahar project as an example of this initiative.

"India is committed to creating alternate access and outlets for Afghanistan. We have committed with the Iranian government that we will develop the Chah Bahar port," said Amar Sinha.

There are reports that Pakistan would attempt to prevent Afghan traders from using the Chah Bahar port if it diverted trade activity away from Pakistan. Additionally, some economic experts have speculated that Pakistan is intentionally destabilizing the area around the Delaram-Zaranj highway, which links Afghanistan with Iran.

The Chah Bahar port is expected to cut down the import and export costs of Afghanistan, India and Iran, as well as strengthen diplomatic ties between them.
 

datguy79

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300 Pakistani Websites Defaced by Afghan Cyber Army in Response to Rocket Attacks


Hackers of the Afghan Cyber Army continue their attacks against Pakistan. Over the weekend, they've defaced around 300 websites, including ones belonging to government organizations and educational institutions.

Most of the websites are owned by various businesses. The affected government domains are ajklgrd.gov.pk, lg.gok.pk, lgrdd.gok.pk and lgrd.gok.pk.

It's worth noting that the gok.pk domains are registered by Azad Kashmir government organizations.

The website of the International Islamic Grammar School (iigs.edu.pk) has also been defaced.

"This hack is a response to the rocket attacks of Pakistan military on Kunar and Jalalabad Provinces of Afghanistan! Next time wait for...bigger damage. We will not let any torture and overtaking on our land unanswered," the Afghan Cyber Army wrote on the defaced websites.

At the time of writing, many of the Pakistani sites are still defaced.
 

BangersAndMash

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"This hack is a response to the rocket attacks of Pakistan military on Kunar and Jalalabad Provinces of Afghanistan! Next time wait for...bigger damage. We will not let any torture and overtaking on our land unanswered," the Afghan Cyber Army wrote on the defaced websites.

At the time of writing, many of the Pakistani sites are still defaced.
@datguy79.

What do Afghan Pashtuns think about pakis?
 
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IBSA

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US to deliver 24 C-130 aircraft to Afghan Air Force: MOD
By GHANIZADA - Sat Aug 10, 8:25 pm



Afghan defense officials on Saturday announced that the Air Force of Afghanistan will soon receive fighter and drone aircraft from the United States of America, in a bid to boost the capabilities of the Afghan security forces.

The defense officials also said that the Afghan Air Force provided satisfactory close air support to ground forces during the "Simurgh" military operations in eastern Afghanistan Afghanistan.

Deputy spokesman for the ministry of defense of Afghanistan, Dawlat Waziri quoted by Deutsche Welle said that Afghan security forces managed to take full control of Azra district from Taliban militants without the support of coalition security forces.

Mr. Waziri further added that militants suffered heavy casualties during the operations and several of them were also arrested.

He also praised Afghan air force for their effective close air support to Afghan national army and Afghan national police during the operations, despite the air force of Afghanistan still require more training and equipment.

According to Dawlat waziri, United States will provide 24 C-130 aircraft to Afghan Air Force in the near future, besides the purchase of 20 super Tucano aircraft which have already been purchased and will be delivered to the air force.

Dawlat Waziri said that United States will also provide small drones to Afghan air force, which will be used by Afghan army for reconnaissance missions.
 

MLRS

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@datguy79.

What do Afghan Pashtuns think about pakis?
I am not Pashtun, but from what I have picked up:

Afghan Pashtuns see the common tribal "Pathan" (non Sarkari/ISI/Urdu speaker) on the other side of the Durand Line as their brothers. They have the same language, culture, ethnicity.
The refugees are hosted mainly in their areas, since the invasion by the Soviet Union. But this love is not extended to the rest of Pakistan however.
 
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