The Taliban

[Su-47]

This article is a little old (Early April), but worth a read nonetheless.

Plight of Pakistan's displaced

ast year Pakistan finally closed camps that had housed Afghan refugees for three decades. During the past six months it's been forced to reopen them, this time for its own people.

In the Katcha Ghari camp near Peshawar, at the edge of abandoned and crumbling Afghan homes, row after row of tents stretch into the distance.

They are divided into clan and family groupings and separated by neatly packed dirt roads, lending an air of permanence to a temporary village.

This is the other side of Pakistan's battle against the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

Huge cost

More than half a million people have been displaced by the fighting in the tribal belt near the Afghan border. And American plans to intensify the conflict in the border region could deepen the crisis.

Already the government is struggling to cope.

Thousands of homes have been destroyed by military operations, particularly in the tribal area of Bajaur.

The army has declared victory, saying it has won back territory from the militants. But this has been at a huge cost to civilians.

Many have fled to the camps, many more have squeezed in with relatives or rented cheap accommodation. They are not sure it's safe to return, and few have anything left to go back to.

Some of the tents in Katcha Ghari serve as makeshift classrooms. These provide a refuge from the conflict for children. Their schools have been targeted by militants, and used as bases by the army.

For girls especially, school is the plus side of homelessness. Bound by the conservative tribal culture, they are rarely educated.

But 12-year-old Samina Khanpur has just had the opportunity to finish kindergarten and enter first grade.

She remembers bombing raids, and cowers in her tent when planes fly overhead, but comes eagerly to learn her lessons.

Flattened

"I miss my home," she says, "but the school is the one good thing about this place."

Otherwise camp life can be very difficult for women, accustomed to strict segregation from men who are not family members.

United Nations agencies have set up canvas walls around clusters of tents to give women more privacy.

We enter one of these with Zaman ur Rehman, a subsistence farmer who has two wives, 16 children and 20 grandchildren.

There are men in our party, so the women conceal themselves in one of the tents for the duration of the visit.

Mr Rehman tells us his home has been flattened. He considers himself lucky because it was bombed after he left, although one of his children died during the family's flight from Bajaur.

Camp life is hard, but he is not moving unless he gets government help.

"If there's peace we'll go back," he says, "but after all we've suffered, we should be compensated, so we can go and rebuild our houses."

That is the consensus in the camp.

"We can't do anything else," says a teacher, Abdul Haleem. "They've destroyed the whole village, the whole market. There are no hospitals, no schools, no teachers in Bajaur. They're all here."

Mr Haleem and the camp dwellers are angry with the military and confused. They tell me they do not understand a war that punishes civilians. They want the army to make peace with the Taleban, even defend the militants against the Americans.

"The Taleban have stood up against bombardment by US missile strikes, and the army should tell the Americans to stop this!" says Mr Haleem.

The government of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has appealed to the federal authorities and international donors to supply funds not only for relief, but return and rehabilitation.

Crime rate

Currently it is planning to provide services for the displaced until the end of the year, but by then, others could swell their ranks.

US President Barack Obama has declared Pakistan's border region the most dangerous place on Earth. It seems likely that conflict there will increase in the coming months, including more American missile strikes.

If so, "there will be more displaced people coming to this region", says the province's Social Welfare Minister Sitara Ayaz.

"We know how difficult it was when they first came and it still is for us. So it's a concern for us, if more people come here and if they are not going back, then it will be a very big problem. The crime rate could increase. When you don't have food and shelter, a lot of things happen."

It's already a big problem: recent clashes at another camp between police and protesters demanding compensation left one person dead, raising fears of further unrest if the displaced do not get money soon to rebuild their homes.

Mr Obama calls Islamic militancy a cancer that is destroying Pakistan from within. But for many of the tribespeople, the cure seems as deadly as the disease.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Plight of Pakistan's displaced

 

[A.V.]

all taliban news and developments here STRICTLY

 

[yuebaili]

Does anyone have an idea about the Chinese view upon the Taliban threat? Why are Chinese troops not participating in the war against the Talibans? After all China is a neighbour of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I have a feeling NATO and USA are not very fitted to fight against Talibans, because Muslims generally see USA as an enemy. So the US war against terrorism may create even more Muslim terrorists. Maybe Muslims would easier accept Chinese troops. What do you think?

How would China react if NATO withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. Would China just passively watch the Talibans taking over Afghanistan and Pakistan?

 

[Known_Unknown]

There are many Central Asian and Uighur fighters amongst those fighting the US in Afghanistan. China would not want to risk an increase in jihadist insurgency in it's Xinjiang province by sending troops to fight the Taliban.

 

[yuebaili]

There are many Central Asian and Uighur fighters amongst those fighting the US in Afghanistan. China would not want to risk an increase in jihadist insurgency in it's Xinjiang province by sending troops to fight the Taliban.

I believe you are right about that. But if NATO withdrew its troops maybe China would have to react. Why must NATO do the dirty job? There are even Swedish troops cooperating with NATO. I think we should bring our troops home. This is not our business.

 

[Known_Unknown]

Isn't there a clause in the NATO agreement that says that if one state is attacked, it is considered to be an attack on all? That's the logic the US used and since there wasn't a clearly defined enemy, and because they couldn't say they were going to war against Bin Laden, they coined the word "War on Terror".

I think that countries that are geographically distant and affluent should exactly be the ones who play a major part in this. India and China re limited in their ability to support NATO because they are situated close to the conflict region, and have problems of their own with jihadist groups. Besides, neither would be able to conduct the kind of military operations that NATO has because they don't have those kind of monetary resources, international influence or military muscle.

 

[Known_Unknown]

delete double post.

 

[yuebaili]

Isn't there a clause in the NATO agreement that says that if one state is attacked, it is considered to be an attack on all? That's the logic the US used and since there wasn't a clearly defined enemy, and because they couldn't say they were going to war against Bin Laden, they coined the word "War on Terror".

I think that countries that are geographically distant and affluent should exactly be the ones who play a major part in this. India and China re limited in their ability to support NATO because they are situated close to the conflict region, and have problems of their own with jihadist groups. Besides, neither would be able to conduct the kind of military operations that NATO has because they don't have those kind of monetary resources, international influence or military muscle.

I don´t know who invented the idea of "War on Terror" ? Was it Bush? Anyway it was idiotic. Americans have a advanced technology. But when it comes to ideology and understanding of other cultures Americans (and other native english speakers) are generally barbarians.

I do not think the solution to the problem of terrorism is military. It has to do with education and distribution of the worlds resourses. The US usurpation of the worlds resources makes USA unqualified to be the leading nation of the world. Although I do not sympathise with terrorists, I can understand their anti-American feelings. And i am rather anti-American myself.

 

[Su-47]

Pakistan army 'in Taliban city'

Pakistani forces have clashed with Taliban fighters after entering the main city in the militant-controlled Swat Valley, the military has said.

At least 17 militants have been killed in street fighting in Mingora, it said.

The push into the city is the latest phase of an offensive aimed at crushing the militants, whose influence extends across a wide area of the north-west.

The army has been fighting the Taliban in Swat and other areas since a peace deal broke down earlier this month.

Street fights have begun," Maj Gen Athar Abbas told reporters.

"It is a difficult operation because we have to make a house-to-house search. We have cleared some of the area in the city."

The BBC's Shoaib Hassan in Islamabad says this is the most important battle yet in the army's offensive against the Taliban in Swat.

Capturing the city is critical if the military is to regain control over the valley.

The military said they had destroyed most of the Taliban's ammunition dumps.

Gen Abbas said Mingora had been surrounded and supply routes to the militants cut off.

Mingora residents say the Taliban are putting up fierce resistance and are still in control of the city.

Exodus

Nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced by this month's fighting in the north-western region, and about two million since last August, the United Nations refugee agency says.

On Friday, the UN appealed for $543m in humanitarian aid to help those displaced by the conflict.

Pakistan's army began an offensive against the Taliban on 2 May after the peace deal broke down and the militants began expanding their area of influence.

A recent investigation by the BBC suggested that less than half of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which contains Swat Valley, and the neighbouring Federally Administered Tribal Areas is under full government control.

In Swat, the army says that about 15,000 members of the security forces are fighting between 4,000 and 5,000 militants.

It says more than 1,000 militants and more than 50 soldiers have been killed since the offensive began.

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Pakistan army 'in Taliban city'



The offensive seems to have gathered some momentum. Lets hope this is a serious attempt and not a show for the US.

 

[Su-47]

Pakistan army vows Swat victory

A large Pakistani flag flaps in the wind atop a tree-covered mountain.

Just metres away, soldiers are crouching behind sandbags to command a view of the stunning Swat valley - a river winding past green orchards and golden wheat fields, surrounded by snow-capped peaks.

The army has brought journalists to this 7,000-foot ridge known as Baini Baba Ziarat to showcase what it says is a major victory in its battle against Taliban militants who had overrun Pakistan's north-west Swat region.

In the past two years the army has twice failed to defeat the Taliban of Swat. But this time will be different, it says.

We are told these heights were a strategic location for guerrilla fighters.

"It was important to deny them the vantage point from where they had uninterrupted communications," says Brig Ajab Khan, brigade commander for a part of northern, or upper, Swat.

"The ridge also dominated the area as an observation point. In addition it was a safe haven, so it had to be taken and destroyed."

We are shown a sophisticated network of bunkers and tunnels, supplied with electricity and water. One soldier points out two flat green patches of grass as the places where the Taliban trained.

Earlier the army had presented a frightened, 15-year-old school boy. He told journalists he had been forcibly recruited as a Taliban fighter and ordered to become a suicide bomber.

He said he had escaped during the military operation.

Mingora offensive

We skirt around craters punched into the earth by heavy artillery, fired from nearby mountains as troops scaled the heights to capture the ridge in "less than a day".

The commanding officer in charge of the Upper Swat operations, Maj Gen Sajjad Ghani, is upbeat about the army's achievements.

He says troops have secured the town of Matte, the Taliban's administrative centre, and are closing in on a key militant stronghold in the remote Peochar Valley.

Further south, we were told, soldiers had encircled the main city of Mingora, the Taliban's urban base, and are poised to start the offensive. It began less than 24 hours after our visit.

The army acknowledges there can be no purely military victory against the Taliban.

In the past, the militants exploited a weak civil administration and judiciary to ride to power on popular calls for Islamic law.

Peace deals with the government had interrupted two previous army operations, providing "the other side with time to rearm, reassert, reorganise, and return to the valley", says Maj Gen Athar Abbas, an army spokesman.

"That created problems for the military in the subsequent phases of the operation."

He notes that lack of public support, due to "death, damage, destruction and displacement", had created a political consensus in favour of peace talks.

But now, the Taliban have been "politically disarmed and isolated", Gen Abbas says.

People "saw their real face, and realised their aims" when they continued to challenge the state, even after the introduction of Islamic law in Swat, he adds.

'Small steps'

Clearly, the army has been bolstered by political support.

"There is a national will," Maj Gen Ghani said. "The operations have been endorsed by parliament, the entire nation is behind this operation."

And this time the army will stay to provide a security umbrella so that the police and civil administration have time to recover.

But public support is fragile. In previous military actions in Pakistan's northwest it was lost by army measures that left many dead and whole villages destroyed.

This time too, fleeing residents describe seeing unburied bodies in fields and ditches.

The generals dismiss these reports. They insist they are taking great care to avoid civilian casualties. As much as 90% of Mingora's population fled ahead of the fighting, they say.

Still, surveying the Swat valley from the ridge, Brig Khan is cautious about issuing any claims of victory.

"In an insurgency environment it's always small, small steps which ultimately lead to the resolution of the problem," he says.

"I can say the Taliban have suffered a serious setback, but the threat is dynamic and it keeps evolving."

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Pakistan army vows Swat victory

They have made much more progress than they did the last two times. Lets hope the offensive goes on.

 

[nitesh]

Taliban stuck between anvil and hammer

In going on the offensive toward Islamabad, the TTP had to forego the advantages of insurgents and, to some extent, fight in a conventional manner. They had to concentrate forces, hold positions and organize supply systems - often in areas where they did not have local support or intimate knowledge of terrain. Such quixotic attacks play into the hands of all but the most inept conventional armies and lead to failure :blum3: :113:

 

[nitesh]

The fight is clearly becoming on racial lines now see no mention of Karachi

TTP claims Lahore bombing, threatens more attacks

‘Residents should leave the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Multan,’ he was quoted by the BBC as saying.

 

[Daredevil]

The fight is clearly becoming on racial lines now see no mention of Karachi

TTP claims Lahore bombing, threatens more attacks

TTP is predominantly composed of Pakhtuns, then how come they will not target Karachi, which is where they are hated the most by the Sindhis and Mohajirs. There is something amiss here, may be some kind of omission by dorky media.

 

[nitesh]

In the shadow of Pakistan's Taliban war

But the local tribes do not want either the army or the Taliban in the area.

"If the army comes in, the Taliban will follow, and vice versa," :blum3: says an influential tribal elder and former member of parliament, Malik Saeed Ahmad.

"In either case, it threatens our way of life."

There is also a widespread belief that the Taliban are the creation of the army and are being used for the army's "secret" aims.:mornin::sharabi:

The tribes are proposing to raise their own tribal force to check possible incursions by the Taliban, who have bases in the neighbouring Swat district to the west.

But officials think such a force is unlikely to match the Taliban's equipment, training and discipline. :blum3:

 

[johnee]

^^^ If PA comes Taliban follows and vice versa. Further, Taliban's equipment, training, and discipline are unmatchable by the local tribals.

That makes a few things clear.
Taliban= PA= well funded by American taxpayer money.

 

[johnee]

Double Post.

 

[nitesh]

Group of 400 abducted in NW Pakistan

 

[nitesh]

Pakistan Marches On in Bastion of Taliban

But the areas have been largely off limits to reporters, and it has been impossible to corroborate assertions by the military, which have been overly optimistic in the past. The International Committee of the Red Cross gained access to the area for the first time on Saturday, when it evacuated three severely wounded people from a hospital in Mingora, which had been closed for weeks. Red Cross officials described a grim humanitarian picture for those who stayed in Swat through the fighting.

There has been no count of civilian casualties during the conflict.

 

[Sridhar]

Spy Chips Guiding CIA Drone Strikes, Locals Say

* By Noah Shachtman
* June 1, 2009, 3:14 pm

It sounds like a tinfoil hat nightmare, come to life: tiny electronic homing beacons, guiding CIA killer drones to their targets. But local residents and Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal wildlands say that’s exactly what’s happening. Tribesman in Waziristan are being paid to “plant the electronic devices” near militant safehouses, they tell the Guardian. “Hours or days later, a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles.”

Ever since 9/11, locals in Central Asia and the Middle East have spread tall tales about American super-technology: soldiers with x-ray glasses, satellites that can see into homes, tanks with magnetic, grenade-repelling armor. But small radio frequency or GPS emitters have been commercially available for years. A veteran spy tells Danger Room that the use of these Taliban-tracking devices entirely plausible.

“Transmitters make a lot of sense to me. It is simply not possible to train a Pashtun from Waziristan to go to a targeted site, case it, and come back to Peshawar or Islamabad with anything like an accurate report. The best you can hope for is they’re putting the transmitter on the right house,” says former CIA case officer Robert Baer.

Herndon, Virginia-based defense contractor EWA Government Systems, Inc. is one of several firms that boasts of making tiny devices to help manhunters locate their prey. The company’s “Bigfoot Remote Tagging System” is a “very small, battery-operated device used to emit an RF [radio frequency] transmission [so] that the target can be located and/or tracked.”

Quote:
The tag has sophisticated power management features to allow use over a long period of time (months)… Each tag can be installed on a witting or unwitting person, material, vehicle, ship, etc. Power is supplied by installed battery or host power source. The tag can be augmented with GPS to allow data logging for later exfiltration or geo-fencing functions (on/off when inside defined geographic boundaries). Bigfoot provides the warfighter with real-time tracking intelligence on potential adversaries conducting threat activities.
Word of these tiny transmitters has been circulating in militant circles for months. In early April, the Pakistani Taliban leader Mullah Nazir said he had caught “spies” who were inserting into militants’ phones “location-tracking SIMs” — Subscriber Identity Module cards, used to identify mobile devices on a cellular network.

Ten days later, 19 year-old Habibur Rehman made a videotaped “confession” of planting such devices, just before he was executed by the Taliban as an American spy. “I was given $122 to drop chips wrapped in cigarette paper at Al Qaeda and Taliban houses,” he said. If I was successful, I was told, I would be given thousands of dollars.”

But Rehman says he didn’t just tag jihadists with the devices. “The money was good so I started throwing the chips all over. I knew people were dying because of what I was doing, but I needed the money,” he added. Which raises the possibility that the unmanned aircraft — America’s key weapons in its covert war on Pakistan’s jihadists and insurgents — may have been lead to the wrong targets.

One much-disputed Pakistani media report claimed that the drones have killed hundreds of civilians, just to take out a few militants. That’s unlikely. But what’s indisputable is that the robotic planes (and the innocent deaths they’re alleged to cause) have become increasingly controversial, both in Pakistan and in America.

“Anti-U.S. sentiment has already been increasing in Pakistan… especially in regard to cross-border and reported drone strikes, which Pakistanis perceive to cause unacceptable civilian casualties,” Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, wrote in a secret assessment, obtained by the Washington Post. “Thirty-five percent say they do not support U.S. strikes into Pakistan, even if they are coordinated with the GOP [government of Pakistan] and the Pakistan Military ahead of time.”

But Pakistani and American intelligence officials swear the drones are getting more accurate. “There are better targets and better intelligence on the ground,” on Pakistani official tells the Post. “It’s less of a crapshoot.”

– Noah Shachtman and Adam Rawnsley

Spy Chips Guiding CIA Drone Strikes, Locals Say | Danger Room | Wired.com

 

[johnee]

TTP is predominantly composed of Pakhtuns, then how come they will not target Karachi, which is where they are hated the most by the Sindhis and Mohajirs. There is something amiss here, may be some kind of omission by dorky media.

Maybe TTP has made greater inroads into Punjab than Sindh. Punjabis depend on PA to protect them, Sindhis depend on MQM to defend them. My bet is PA and TTP are just chaddi buddies so, TTP finds it easier to work in Lahore and Islamabad then Karachi. Just my 2 paise......