Pakistan & the Taliban

[GAP]

President George W Bush needs to tell Musharraf that US support will be jeopardized if he does not do more to curb the Taleban.

And if Musharraf call George's bluff, what then? Musharraf already has enough trouble in Balochistan area, he's not inclined to stir up a hornets nest by actually doing something.

 

[Bigmac]

Here is a little fuel to the fire for Musarraf.

NATO commander to confront Musharraf on Taliban


LONDON (AFP) -- The commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan is to fly to Islamabad on Monday and confront President Pervez Musharraf over Taliban operations in Pakistan, The Sunday Times newspaper said.

Britain's Lieutenant-General David Richards was to meet Musharraf in the Pakistani city of Quetta where deposed Taliban leader Mullah Omar is said to be living openly, and ask for his arrest, said the British weekly.

Richards was also to try to persuade Musharraf to rein in his military intelligence service, which the NATO commander believes is training Taliban fighters to attack British forces.

Richards says he has videos and satellite pictures of Taliban training camps inside Pakistan, according to The Sunday Times.

He has also compiled the addresses of other senior Taliban figures.

Musharraf has publicly acknowledged "a Taliban problem on the Pakistan side of the border", Richards said, according to the broadsheet.

"We've got to accept that the Pakistan government is not omnipotent and it isn't easy but it has to be done and we're working very hard on it. "I'm very confident that the Pakistan government's intent is clear and they will be delivering on it."

Saturday marked the fifth anniversary of the start of operations to oust the Taliban regime from power in Afghanistan and stop the country being used as a terrorist training camp by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror network.

NATO commanders from five countries who have troops stationed in Afghanistan -- the United States, Britain, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands -- are demanding their governments get tough with Pakistan over its support for the Taliban militia, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.

 

[vonGarvin]

As an initial side note, I found this line interesting:
But even 70,000 troops would not be enough to protect a nation of 31 million.

Funny, where have I heard those numbers before?

Anyway, Pakistan should be looked at long and hard re: Taliban.  If I understand things correctly, the Taliban was able to do as well as they did due to influence from Pakistan in the first place, no?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

   It is interesting how the timing of renewed attacks on troops and an upsurge in the number of Taleban closely followed the release of prisoners from Pakistan. But perhaps I am wrong as well??

Pakistan feels it has absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose should Afghanistan become a full blown prosperous democracy. It SEEMS pretty obvious they're subverting any attempt to have that become a reality.

 

[Bigmac]

This is an article from earlier this year. Pakistan is going to continue to support the Taleban while claiming they aren't. By playing both sides of the political fence Pakistan's President is ultimately sealing his fate. But if he prefers the devil he knows then maybe he should come out and say it so the international community can deal with his country. Do you think India would be interested with that plan?

Where the Taleban train
Quetta serves as training ground and staging post for insurgents on their way to Afghanistan.

By Abdullah Shahin in Quetta for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (2/3/06)

The turbans in black or white, the long beards and the omnipresent "pirhan-tunbon", the baggy trousers and long shirts that are the traditional Afghan dress, tell me I'm in Afghanistan in the late Nineties, during the Taleban regime.

But this is 2006, and I am in Quetta in Pakistan.

Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, lies about 200 kilometres southeast of Kandahar, across a porous border. Many of my fellow countrymen have made the journey here. In fact, some sections of the city seem to be populated almost entirely by Taleban who fled after the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Now they lie in wait in Quetta, plotting their return.

Over the last year, Kandahar has seen an alarming rise in suicide bombings and attacks on troops and government installations. In the past three months alone, there have been more than 20 acts of violence, leaving dozens dead, hundreds wounded, and an entire province terrorised.

Quetta provides a ready supply of young men prepared to wreak havoc in Afghanistan, local observers tell me. There are eight major madrassas or Muslim religious schools in Quetta, each with over 1,000 students or "taleban" in the original sense of the word. In addition, there are hundreds of private madrassas, some with just 100 students, often occupying unmarked, rented houses.

It is these private schools that are a major source of the fighters who are now carrying out insurgent operations inside Kandahar, according to these observers.

One 23-year-old madrassa student, wearing the characteristic black turban of the "taleb", spoke to me on condition of anonymity.

“I am preparing for jihad here, until I am sent to Afghanistan,” he said. “Jihad is my duty and martyrdom my hope.”

Another Taleb, 25-year-old Saadullah, explained why he had decided to wage jihad in his homeland.

“I was recruited by one of my friends who told me terrible things about the Afghan government,” he said. “I was also told that the Americans were always abusing people, killing them, going into their homes and insulting their religion.”

Mullahs did their part, too, he added, preaching fiery sermons against the Afghan government and the American occupiers during Friday prayers.

Saadullah said he was dispatched on a mission to Kandahar to fight both Afghan and foreign troops.

“I was to carry out a suicide attack on an Afghan National Army base in Kandahar,” he said.

But at the border, the friend who was supposed to be accompanying him on the mission gave him 30 US dollars, wished him luck, and headed back to Quetta.

“I thought, ‘Why am I to die while you go back to Quetta?’” Saadullah recalled. “Why are these people not doing jihad themselves? They're just taking advantage of the emotions of young people. They are liars.


"I came back and I will never have anything to do with them again.”

With Pakistani police a rare sight in much of this city, Quetta residents say that the Taleban operate with impunity. They run offices and openly recruit candidates for insurgent operations in Kandahar.

One resident called Abdullah, 40, said the city contains a number of prominent Taleban leaders such as military commanders Mullah Dadullah and Mullah Abdul Ali Dubandi.

“The whole world knows that the Taleban are trained in Pakistan but they ignore it. The Taleban are all over Quetta,” he said.

When you walk through the streets of Quetta, you hear Taleban religious songs blaring out of music stores. These incendiary chants, called "tarana", call on youths to join the jihad, kill infidels and repel the occupiers. Such recordings were banned a few years ago, but now they are back.

“Pakistani police used to close down shops that played Taleban songs, but now no one is afraid. The mullahs are very strong,” said one shop owner.

A bookseller who did not want to be named said, “The Taleban are putting out magazines. These publications used to be banned, but now they're published openly and we sell them in our stores.”

The magazines, like the songs, contain open calls to violence.

“When you read them, you just want to grab a gun and go to jihad,” said the bookseller.

Mullahs here openly incite their followers to attack the current Afghan government. In Friday sermons, they encourage the congregation to join the struggle.

“These attacks should continue. Our struggle is legal. We want to install an Islamic regime in Afghanistan,” said one mullah in the Chawlo Bawlo area of the city.

Some city residents claim that the Pakistani military is playing a role in training the would-be insurgents.

“The Pakistani military headquarters in Quetta is the main Taleban training base,” said Tariq, 31, a resident of the Askari Park area. “I've seen with my own eyes that Taleban were taken there for training. One of my relatives was among them.”

Military officials refused to comment on the allegation. Governor Owai Ahmad Ghani, speaking on Pakistani television, flatly denied that the Taleban were operating in Quetta and rejected claims that Pakistan was interfering in Afghanistan.

“The Afghan government is weak. It can't control the remote areas of its country, so it accuses Pakistan of meddling in its affairs,” he said.

Taleban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, in an exclusive interview with IWPR, said the stories of Taleban bases inside Pakistan were just propaganda.

“People think Pakistan is our friend, but it is not true,” he said. “Pakistan is an ally of America, not of the Taleban.”

The Taleban had no need of foreign bases, he insisted, adding, “The Taleban are sons of Afghanistan. They are in Afghanistan and they will fight in Afghanistan.”

But Afghan officials remain convinced that Pakistan is serving as a major operations base for the increasingly frequent insurgent attacks that threaten to destabilise the southern part of their country.

In mid-February, Afghan president Hamed Karzai led a high-ranking delegation to Pakistan, telling officials there that Afghanistan would no longer tolerate support for terrorists from across the border. While he stopped short of outright accusations, Karzai made it clear that he expected Pakistan to make serious efforts to halt the flow of personnel and weapons across the border.

“If [the attacks] don’t stop, the consequences… will be that this region will suffer with us, exactly as we suffer. In the past we suffered alone. This time everybody will suffer with us,” Karzai told reporters.

Assadullah Khalid, governor of Kandahar province, has repeatedly alleged that Pakistan is behind the recent wave of attacks. In particular, he blamed Pakistan for a suicide bombing that killed 27 and wounded 40 in Spin Boldak in January.

“Pakistan is responsible for the past two decades of war,” he said. “Pakistani police are guarding the houses of the Taleban. We have evidence indicating that memorial services for the suicide bombers are being held in Pakistan.”

Even some Pakistani politicians and analysts agree that their country is heavily involved in creating mayhem on its neighbour’s territory.

“Pakistan does not want stability in Afghanistan,” said Hasel Bizenjo, leader of the Baluch National Party, which represents ethnic Baluchis. “Pakistan wants Afghanistan under its influence.”

Awrangzeb Kasi, a Pakistani political analyst in Quetta, said he believes that there are special terrorist training camps in Pakistan.

“There have been terrorist camps in Pakistan for 26 years, where Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] provides training” he said. “The Pakistani government is always saying that it supports peace in the region, and that it will arrest al-Qaeda leaders, but it is really not doing anything.”

Abdul Rahim Mandokhel, the Quetta-based deputy leader of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami, an ethnic Pashtun party in Pakistan, agrees.

“It is clear that these terrorists are trained and supported by Islamabad,” he said. “Pakistan can stop these terrorists, but it doesn’t want to.”


This article originally appeared in Afghan Recovery Report, produced by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). Iraqi Crisis Report is supported by the UK Foreign Office and the US State Department.

 

[Kirkhill]

“People think Pakistan is our friend, but it is not true,” he said. “Pakistan is an ally of America, not of the Taleban.”

The Taleban had no need of foreign bases, he insisted, adding, “The Taleban are sons of Afghanistan. They are in Afghanistan and they will fight in Afghanistan.”

Perhaps this isn't a lie.  The Pashtuns/Taleban believe that the hill country of Pakistan is also Taleban country and that Taleban country is Afghanistan. They don't recognize the Durand Line border.
Nor do they necessarily believe that all of Pakistan is with them.  Therefore, from their point of view they are still in their country fighting against both Pakistan and the Karzai government.

 

[tomahawk6]

Musharraf lucked out. A Pakistani Air Force officer caused a premature launch of a rocket aimed at his home.
Security forces located the rocket and found the cell phone number in the activating mechanism causing the officer to be arrested. No doubt some ISI elements were involved.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HJ14Df02.html

Musharraf also instructed that a list be compiled of all retired officers who had been involved in any significant intelligence operations and who were suspected of still being sympathetic towards the Taliban.

At the same time, he began to backtrack from an agreement Islamabad had made with the Pakistani Taliban in the Waziristan tribal areas for the release of al-Qaeda-linked people detained in Pakistan. Instead, more were arrested, including Shah Mehboob, a brother of former jihad veteran and member of parliament, Shah Abdul Aziz. Also arrested was a British-born suspected member of al-Qaeda, known as Abdullah.

http://inbrief.threatswatch.org/2006/10/nato-pakistani-intelligence-ai/

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Hopefully this will give him an excuse to clean out the worst of the rats nest called ISI.

 

[Zell_Dietrich]

Kind of off topic but,

    You know a country has issues when it reverts into a dictatorship and civil rights increase!  According to Pakistani friends Musharraf has done more to promote woman's rights, civil order and basic human dignity in Pakistan than anyone else.  I'm heard them imply that his fundamental nature makes him ideologically opposed to the Taliban.  Personally I think he is simply grinding down the undesirable elements in his country slowly,  controllably. 

    Think of it like letting the air out of a balloon slowly insted of popping it.  Remember who does better in civil disorder?  Who would benefit by regions of Pakistan suddenly becoming not just unstable but riotous. 

    Personally I feel allergic to any dictatorship that has the bomb,  epically unstable dictatorships with run away inflation and crumbling infrastructure. *meh* there are scarier things in the world. (but not many)

 

[tomahawk6]

This could be an encouraging sign in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

From strategypage.

Jihadi Go Home!

October 18, 2006: In Afghanistan, staunch Islamic conservative tribes that formerly welcomed al Qaeda's "foreign fighters" into their regions, appear to be having second thoughts. Most religiously conservative tribes just want to be left alone to do things the way they've always done them. If this means fighting the government (as in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or elsewhere) then so-be-it. But so long as the government doesn't meddle in local affairs, the tribesmen generally aren't particularly interested in whether or not the rest of the country adheres closely to Islamic tradition or is wallowing in sin. Al Qaeda's "Global Caliphate" agenda thus often clashes with that of the local tribes. Lately there's been some evidence that the tribes are getting annoyed.

In the Waziristan region of Pakistan, al Qaeda seems to have committed two particular blunders. The first was trying to take on the Pakistani government, which led to retaliation in force, most of which ended up landing on the tribes rather than al Qaeda's minions. At the same time, some al Qaeda, apparently unhappy over the lack of enthusiasm displayed by the tribes for global jihad,  tried some strong-arm tactics. This included harassing, and in some cases killing, tribal leaders. These actions annoyed the tribes. One result was the recent agreement between the Pakistani government and tribal leaders, that left the latter in charge of policing their own areas, if the government agreed not to harass them. In addition, some of the tribes have been taking action against "foreigners." How much action, is as yet unclear, but regional al Qaeda leaders reportedly "apologized" for the actions of some of their followers.

A similar situation is unfolding in Iraq's Anbar province. There, the pro-Baathist, or merely nationalist, Sunni tribes were rather heavily defeated by government and coalition forces earlier this year, and decided to lay low. This pretty much left the terrorist activity in the hands of al Qaeda. Miffed at being left to fight on alone,  al Qaeda initiated a program of intimidation and murder against tribal leaders. This led to the recent agreement between the Sunni tribes and the government that established a tribal elders council to help police the province. As a result, Sunni tribesmen are now working with government police to patrol roads.

 

[a_majoor]

More on the Madrasses from Strategy Page:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20061006.aspx

The Untouchables
October 6, 2006:

The most frequent source of Islamic terrorists is a place that counter-terrorism organizations have a very difficult time reaching. That would be the thousands of madrasses (religious schools) that teach the Wahhabi (and related) interpretation of Islam. Wahhabi's believe that infidels (non-Moslem's) are the cause of all the world's problems. The solution is to convert or kill all the infidels. That's it. A simple message. All the rest is just lots of anecdotes reinforcing the basic message. The radical madrasses don't teach terror, which makes them hard to shut down, but they do emphasize the need to struggle, even die, in order to serve Islam as best you can. Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism developed in the 18th century, tries to get the madrasses faculty to lighten up a bit, and at least point out that terrorism is un-Islamic. Not surprisingly, many of these madrasses teachers refuse to back down when it comes to delivering a hard core message. They are on a mission from God. Saudi Arabia has dismissed some of the more extreme teachers, and even jailed a few. But those who can no longer teach openly, while on the government payroll (Saudi Arabia pays the salaries of all clergy and religious teachers), do it on the sly. In other countries, attempts to shut down pro-terrorist madrasses has been difficult, because the religious teachers scream persecution, and accuse the government of being an enemy of Islam. Since these madrasses don't teach logic or critical thinking, they can usually get their students out in the streets, to protest the closure efforts.

Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars to export this type of religious school. Government supported religious charities have built thousands of mosques, which often have madrasses attached, and subsidized the living expenses of religious teachers. Often, the madrasses hire radical teachers from other Moslem countries. The Taliban started out as students in Pakistani and Afghan madrasses, with many of their teachers leading them in battle. The madrasses teachers tend to believe in what they are preaching, which makes them even more dangerous.

While this Islamic radicalism is a fringe movement, with only a few percent of Moslem's really into it, that's still over 30 million people who believe in this sort of thing. And since the Islamic radicals are encouraged, by their interpretation of the Koran, to use violence in defense of their beliefs, they often intimidate more moderate Moslem's into either supporting them, or just standing aside. Governments have to be rather brutal to keep the local Islamic radicals under control. Europe, which is quick to condemn such tactics, is discovering that the radicals among its own 20 million Moslem's, are very difficult to deal with.

Mainstream Islam disagrees with the radical version taught in these Wahhabi madrasses, but there has been no widespread effort to crack down on these schools. There is the belief that eventually the radical madrasses will go away. But the history of Islam shows that these radicals have always been around, and every few generations they get really violent. While that violence may pass, the radical tradition that brought it about is still there, and will surge again in the future.

Some form of counter message is needed which is more attractive than Wahhabi Islam, and just as satisfying for the people. Islamic scholars and clerics will have to take the lead on this, with the full support of Ilamic leaders, tribal chiefs, community groups etc. The alternative is they will end up swinging from lamp posts as the hard liners convert a larger and larger fraction of the local population base, so there are very big incentives for them to get on board.