The Forgotten War

Afghan Surveys

2009-11-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

Today (er, yesterday) I came across two extremely interesting surveys of Afghanistan that were conducted earlier this year and released in the last few weeks, both of which had surprising results. The first was conducted in June and July (before the botched election) by the Asia Foundation, and was impressively comprehensive, featuring interviews in every single province and coming in at 231 pages. Needless to say, I have not read all, or even a substantial portion, of it yet. There are a few things that jump out at me from what I've read so far, though:

•First of all was the way the numbers stacked up against the US. 42% of Afghans thought the country was going in the right direction; Real Clear Politics has us at 37.8%. 68% of Afghans approved of Parliament's performance, compared to only 27% for Congress.

•Ironically, there was great faith in the electoral process; 64% thought that the election would be free and fair. I rather suspect that number has since changed.

•Security in the west of the country has decreased dramatically; see next item. I suspect that part of this is due to the militants having been flushed out of Helmand earlier this year.

•There were a number of villages that the surveyors were unable to visit, usually because of insecurity, inaccessibility (e.g. due to flooding), or there just not being any village by that name (maps of Afghanistan are absolutely awful; I would know). Of the 102 data points (12% of the total) that could not be visited due to insecurity, four were in Kabul (Province), two were in Kapisa, two were in Wardak, five were in Logar, two were in Nangarhar, eleven were in Kunar, one was in Daikundi (the Taliban were also present), eleven were in Ghazni, three were in Paktia, two were in Paktika, two were in Khost, eleven were in Qandahar, one was in Zabul (the Taliban were also present), four were in Uruzgan, seven were in Badghis, three were in Herat, four were in Farah (one of which had a Taliban presence), three were in Baghlan (two with Taliban presences), eight were in Kunduz (where the Taliban is currently trying to shut down an alternate supply line we're establishing so that we don't have to rely so much on the Khyber Pass), three were in Balkh, and ten were in Faryab. Additionally, one data point in Nimroz could not be visited due to the presence of the Taliban but not insecurity. Tomorrow or Saturday I will put together a map depicting this information.

The other poll was by Oxfam; the BBC has a nice summary here. I personally view this one as being less interesting because it was not nearly as comprehensive and was done all the way back from January to April. Additionally, the way in which the data is presented is not very clear, and from what I've been able to garner from it in my current half-asleep daze, I have some serious reservations about its accuracy.

However, some of the questions it asked were extremely interesting, especially what the respondents considered to be the main causes of the present conflict. The answers both give and take hope: On the one hand, only 18% identified the presence of foreign forces as a major factor, on the other hand, the economy (70%) and corruption (48%) were both considerably higher than the Taliban (36%). While I don't think anyone was seriously expecting the Taliban to be number one, it still would have made things infinitely simpler. This is of course assuming that the results are reliable, which I will have to determine at a later date.

Rah-e-Nejat Update

2009-10-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

I have compiled a basic map showing Operation Rah-e-Nejat (click for larger version). Green icons indicate cities held by the Pakistani Army and black icons those held by the Taliban. The three red lines are the three "axes" referred to in news reports: the Razmak-Makin Axis, the Shakai-Kaniguram Axis, and the Jandola-Sararogha Axis. Note that while Kaniguram is still held by the Taliban, it has been surrounded by Pakistani forces and will probably soon fall.

Pakistan begins Taliban operation

2009-10-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

The Pakistani military has begun a ground offensive against Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan.

The ground operation began early on Saturday, advancing from at least three directions - Zhob to the south, Razmak to the north and Jandola from the east. Air power was also put to use.

About 28,000 troops are to be employed in the offensive against about 10,000 Taliban.

The move followed crisis-talks and a meeting headed by Yousuf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, on Friday in which it was decided to launch the operation against Taliban.

The drive comes after continued bomb attacks in the country over the past two weeks that have killed more than 150 people.

[More.]

Waziristan offensive "imminent"

2009-10-11T23:46:00.000-07:00

Pakistani jets bomb S Waziristan

Pakistani aircraft have attacked suspected Taliban fighters in South Waziristan near the Afghan border, in advance of an imminent ground assault.

The air raids on Sunday night came less than 24 hours after commandos stormed an office building and rescued dozens of security officials taken captive after an attack on the general army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

"The jets hit and destroyed two of their hideouts in Makeen and Ladha and we have a total of about 16 militants killed," a unnamed Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters news agency.

But the military has been conducting air and artillery strikes in South Waziristan for months, while moving troops, blockading the region and trying to split armed opposition to Islamabad's authority.

However, a ground offensive has yet to begin and may prove to be the army's toughest test since fighters turned on the state.

Imminent attack

Nevertheless, Rehman Malik, the interior minister, in an interview in Singapore said a ground offensive was "imminent".

"There is no mercy for them because our determination and resolve is to flush them out," he said.

"They have no room in Pakistan, I promise you."

Malik said members of the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda were suspected to have been behind Saturday's attack on army headquarters, which ended a week when suicide bombers struck in the capital Islamabad and Peshawar, killing more than 50 people.

He also said the offensive against the fighters in South Waziristan was no longer a matter of choice.

"It is not an issue of commitment, it is becoming a compulsion because there was an appeal from the local tribes that we should do the operation," Malik said.

Provincial links

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Imtiaz Gul, a political analyst, said he agreed that the government was correct to commence an offensive against South Waziristan.

"A lot of al-Qaeda and ideologically tainted people belonging to the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan under the patronage of the Taliban are sheltering there," he said.

But not everyone agrees. Zafar Jaspal, a Pakistani analyst, believes that Islamabad has concentrated too much on the Swat valley and South Waziristan.

"Till today, the government has no clear strategy on how to deal with the militants who are residing in southern Punjab," he told Al Jazeera.

"The person who was captured alive after [the GHQ attack] comes from Punjab, and other members of that group are also from Punjab ... certainly the government needs to have a parallel strategy - for Punjab as well as South Waziristan."

Al Jazeera

Comment:

And so it begins.

This is not quite the final push — Orakzai is still in the Taliban's hands — but it might as well be. Once Waziristan has been won, the fate of the Pakistani Taliban will have been sealed. Most surviving militants will probably flee into Afghanistan, in a remarkable mirroring of the events eight years ago. This time, though, the US military will be there to meet them. The tactical imperative of increasing the number of troops in eastern Afghanistan is more clear now than ever: a Taliban surge is coming, and there must be an American surge to counter it.

Remembering

2009-09-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

9/11 Tribute Video
Uploaded by generalmeldor. - See the latest featured music videos.

So who is this guy?

2009-08-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hakimullah Mehsud, who the Taliban say is their new leader in Pakistan, came to prominence in 2007 after a number of spectacular raids against the army.

At that time he was one of several commanders under Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who the militants have admitted was killed in a US drone strike in early August.

When I met Hakimullah - a nom de guerre, his real name is Zulfiqar - in South Waziristan in October 2007 he had just been appointed Baitullah's chief spokesman.

His audacious capture of 300 Pakistani soldiers had led to us travelling to meet the kidnapped troops.

Still only 28 at the time, Hakimullah was clearly someone to be reckoned with.

Despite his pleasant demeanour and cheeky smile, danger radiated from the man.

The kidnapping incident added to his prestige. Pakistan's government eventually released several high-profile militants in line with Taliban demands.

Since then, Hakimullah Mehsud's star has continued to rise.

Battle skills

But his beginnings were hardly auspicious.

Born in the region of Kotkai near the town of Jandola in South Waziristan, Zulfiqar Mehsud's only schooling was at a small village madrassa in Hangu district.

One of the other students at the time was Baitullah Mehsud, but he dropped out.

Zulfiqar Mehsud later joined up with his fellow clansman in jihad (holy war), initially acting as bodyguard and aide to the older militant.

Baitullah's consolidation of most of Pakistan's Taliban groups into a single entity provided growing opportunities for his talented young friend.

Zulfiqar Mehsud was already famous within the Taliban for his skills in battle - his ability to handle a Kalashnikov and a Toyota pick-up were legendary.

"He is the best after Nek Mohammad," our Taliban driver told us during a hair-raising journey before the meeting in 2007.

Nek Mohammad was the founder of the Taliban movement in Pakistan.

He was killed in a suspected US drone attack in 2004, but not before he had made the Pakistani Taliban a force to be reckoned with.

Reckless

The comparison with Hakimullah Mehsud sits well - both handsome young men with that extra aggressive instinct.

But Hakimullah Mehsud also has a wild streak which borders on the reckless.

When we met on that autumn day in 2007, he took us for a drive.

To demonstrate his skill with the vehicle, he drove like a man possessed, manoeuvring around razor sharp bends at impossible speeds.

He finished the demonstration by braking inches short of a several hundred foot drop.

While the rest of us sat in stunned silence, he just laughed chillingly and stuck the car in reverse to smoothly continue the journey.

"I went to Karachi once when I was a small boy," he told me when I asked how and where he had travelled in Pakistan.

"But I used to go to Punjab quite often, and have been to Islamabad several times, though not recently."

I asked him when he was last in Islamabad.

"It was in 2005," he answered, before adding spontaneously: "I was looking for [former President Pervez] Musharraf, but I couldn't find him."

He then rattled off the names of a number of Islamabad landmarks which he had scouted during his trip.

"I looked all over, but he was not around so I came back."

Convoy attacks

Our second meeting was in May 2008, at the now famous press conference organised by Baitullah Mehsud.

Hakimullah Mehsud had become a commander in his own right - masterminding the campaign against the Nato convoys in the Khyber tribal region and Peshawar.

He was later appointed Taliban commander for the regions of Khyber, Kurram and Orakzai.

In these areas, he has played a key role in a campaign of attrition against the Pakistani army.

In this respect he remains true to Baitullah Mehsud's ideology - carving out a Taliban emirate in Pakistan and taking on the army to defend it.

His appointment will be seen as confirmation that hardliners are in the ascendancy in the Pakistani Taliban.

It remains to be seen, though, whether he can actually bring all the Taliban factions under his control.

If he can, then Pakistan's security establishment's recent claims of victory may have come a bit too soon.

Via BBC.

Comment:

This may not have been that smart a move on the part of the TTP. While this Mehsud certainly seems like a highly competent commander on the ground, it remains to be seen what sort of grasp he has on overall campaign strategy, let alone running an organization (the TTP is not in firm control of the regions he was in charge of, except possibly Orakzai). In particular, I suspect his youth and recklessness, which benefit him so much when chasing down a convoy in the Khyber Pass, will be potentially disastrous in the politico-military game the Taliban is playing with Islamabad.

Pakistan 'expands war on Taliban'

2009-06-12T23:37:00.000-07:00

Pakistan's military is beginning a significant move into South Waziristan, where the
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan - or the Pakistani Taliban - are based, US officials have said.

The operation is said to be targeting Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, and will be carried out with greater support from the US.

Witnesses and intelligence officials said Pakistani aircraft had bombed a stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud on Saturday, the Pakistani Taliban leader, in the South Waziristan.

"Four fighter jets bombed parts of Makken early on Saturday but we don't know about the extent of damage or any casualties," Mohammad Khan, a shopkeeper in the area said.

Pakistan's Geo TV reported that large numbers of people were migrating from South Waziristan to North Waziristan.

"Operations that appear to be under way now would be the largest operations that have been undertaken in Waziristan," a US defence official said on Friday.

"We think that the initial phases of that operation have already begun."

Pakistan says it has almost completed an offensive to drive Taliban fighters out of the Swat Valley, an area to the north of Waziristan in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Fight 'to the end'

Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, said on Saturday he would fight the Pakistani Taliban "to the end".

"This war has the support of parliament, the support of the political parties as well as the people of Pakistan," he said in a televised address to the nation broadcast after 1am (1900 GMT on Friday).

"We are fighting a war for our sovereignty. We will continue this war until the end, and we will win it at any cost," he said.

"These people want to capture the institutions of Pakistan by spreading terrorism and by intimidating the people.

"They have killed thousands of innocent people."

Zardari's comments came after two suicide bomb attacks on Friday, claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, in Lahore and Nowshera, in NWFP, killed at least eight people, including a pro-government religious leader.

Maulana Sarfraz Naeemi, known to oppose the Taliban, had condemned the use of suicide bombings.

The US defence official said on Friday that the Pentagon expected Pakistan to conduct "fairly significant combat operations in South Waziristan".

Another US official said Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders were "under very significant pressure", while a third US official said the US would be providing increased intelligence and surveillance support to Pakistan.

Taliban 'resistance'

Pakistan's recent operations have been under way for six weeks, taking the military first into Buner and Upper Dir districts, then into the Swat Valley.

The first US official warned that "isolated pockets of resistance still remain" in parts of the Swat valley as the Pakistani army worked to finish the two-month campaign, and that Islamabad needed to brace for more attacks.

"[Mehsud] has turned suicide bombing into a production output not unlike Toyota outputs cars," the official, who described the Mehsud as leading an extensive network of religious schools that sold or bartered child suicide bombers in NWFP, said.

The key element of the US Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, the defence official said, is to have troops put pressure on al-Qaea and Taliban fighters believed to be operating out of safe havens in Waziristan.

From Al Jazeera.

Comment:

First a president was elected who is extremely popular in the Muslim world, then that president gave a speech that surpassed their wildest hopes, then al-Qaeda announced that it's broke, and now Pakistan has finally, at long last, taken the fight against the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan and its allies to Waziristan itself. Meanwhile, troops and development projects pour into Afghanistan, and public opinion in Pakistan turns against the TTP.

Could this be the beginning of the end?

Taliban again fails to kill a single hostage

2009-06-02T00:28:00.000-07:00

Pakistan rescues abducted students

The Pakistani military has rescued 80 students and teachers taken captive by Taliban fighters in the country's northwest tribal region.

The military launched a pre-dawn raid on Tuesday in a bid to end the hostage drama, military and government officials said.

Major-General Athar Abbas said that 80 people, 71 of them students, were recovered by forces in the Goryam area as their convoy of vehicles was heading towards South Waziristan.

"Everyone is safe and sound," Abbas said.

The release of the hostages was confirmed by Sardar Abbas Rind, chief of the administration in the northwestern town of Bannu.

Earlier, officials had said police were negotiating with the Taliban via tribal elders for the captives.

[More]

Comment:

First the Afghan Army (not NATO) rescued those forty hostages in Khost a few weeks ago, now the Pakistani Army rescues eighty hostages in Waziristan, and the Taliban isn't able to take out a single one, as you would normally expect. Not as strategically important as the reclamation of Mingora, but still perhaps indicative of a larger process.

Russia ends Chechnya operation

2009-04-16T10:37:00.001-07:00

Russia says it has ended a decade-long operation against separatist fighters in Chechnya, in a move that could see thousands of troops withdrawn from the territory.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, ordered the move, which took effect on Thursday, Russia's anti-terror committee said.

About 20,000 troops are expected to pull out.

A committee statement read: "The decision is aimed at creating the conditions for the future normalisation of the situation in the republic, its reconstruction and development of its socio-economic sphere."

Chechnya has been badly damaged during two wars with Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The population is regularly subjected to curfews, roadblocks, limitations on journalists, spot searches and detentions.

Critics argue that major violations of human rights have been carried out in the former breakaway republic under the auspices of the military presence.

People living in Grozny, Chechnya's capital, cheered and waved Russian and Chechen flags in reaction to Thursday's news.

Nikolaus von Twickel, a reporter from the Moscow Times, told Al Jazeera that while the decision to end the operation was likely to be welcomed by most people in Chechnya, it was not unexpected.

"The situation on the ground has become relatively stable. So the news this morning wasn't that much of a surprise really," he said.

Road to peace

The "counter-terrorist operation" was approved in 1999 by Boris Yeltsin, the former Russian president, who sent troops in to end the Muslim-majority region's short-lived independence.

There are still sporadic clashes between separatists and troops, but the opposition has largely been silenced under the local leadership of Ramzan Kadyrov.

Kadyrov, who abandoned the separatist cause to become president, is alleged to have allowed the kidnap, torture and murder of opponents and is seen as a brutal stooge of the Russian leadership.

Kadyrov, who is backed by the Kremlin, expressed "great satisfaction" over the announcement.

"Today Chechnya, as thousands of guests can testify, is a peaceful developing area and the cancellation of the operation will only encourage its economic growth," he told Russia's Interfax news agency.

"The militant leaders, on whose conscience lies the pain and suffering of thousands of people, have been eliminated, captured or taken to court."

Russia has withdrawn most of its army units from Chechnya, but thousands of police from other Russian regions and scores of special service units still patrol there.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Chechnya has been one of al-Qaeda's biggest recruiting tools. This most likely represents a major defeat for them.

Swat Taliban extends ceasefire

2009-02-24T17:58:00.000-08:00

Taliban fighters in Pakistan have declared an indefinite ceasefire in the Swat valley in the northwest of the country, the group's spokesman has said.

Tuesday's announcement came after the army said it was suspending operations in the troubled region.

"We have agreed on an indefinite ceasefire," Muslim Khan, the Taliban spokesman in Swat, said.

"We are releasing all prisoners unconditionally. Today we released four paramilitary soldiers and we will release all security personnel in our custody as a goodwill gesture."

Khan said the Taliban in the valley, led by Maulana Fazlullah, also decided to release three people, including two politicians, as a "goodwill gesture".

'Optimism and hope'

The fighters had earlier announced a 10-day truce in Swat which the latest announcement extends indefinitely.

Tayyab Siddiqui, a Pakistani political analyst, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday there is "a lot of optimism and hope" that the ceasefire would hold.

He said the military option had not been as successful at it was anticipated and that both sides were "exhausted".

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, said details about the ceasefire were yet to emerge.

"The Taliban have been steadfast in their demands, saying they want to be in control of the type of sharia that's introduced," he said.

"They want a release of all Taliban prisoners, and they want the Pakistani army to leave the area."

Maulana Fezlullah the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, is due to give a radio address on Tuesday evening where he'll clarify all these details.

The developments come after the Pakistani government signed a controversial deal with a pro-Taliban cleric to enforce sharia law in Swat in an effort to restore peace.

The Pakistani authorities had been negotiating with Maulana Sufi Mohammad, Fazlullah's father-in-law and leader of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz Shariat Muhammadi, regarding the implementation of sharia in the region.

On Monday, the Pakistani Taliban announced a separate ceasefire in the Bajaur region, neighbouring Swat.

Criticism

Bajaur is a major transit route for the fighters travelling to fight US and Nato forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The US and other Western governments had criticised the Swat truce and negotiations, saying they could create a safe haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban in the region.

Unlike in Swat, the Taliban in Bajaur had been losing ground in recent months, most analysts say.

The Pakistani military began its offensive against fighters in Bajur in September last year and claims to have killed around 1,500 Taliban fighters.

Fighting began in Swat in late 2007 after hundreds of fighters infiltrated from Afghan border enclaves to support Fazlullah and his drive to introduce hardline Islamist rule.

From Al Jazeera.

Note:

I have been extremely busy lately, and probably will be for the rest of the semester.

The radical Islamist who came in from the cold

2009-02-19T01:59:00.000-08:00

Ghaffar Hussain was once a radical Islamist with the group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Now he is part of the Quilliam Foundation, a British think tank seeking to combat extremism. He spoke with Der Spiegel about the Islamist worldview and the pleasant feeling of omniscience.

Some of those who have become radicalized have not been very successful in their former lives. It's like they are losers who seek to transform themselves into winners...

Yes, and the elite factor definitely plays a role as well. I have met many radical people who wouldn't want to discuss their ideas with someone knowledgeable, because they knew they would not win that debate. But for them their mind-set is very comfortable. They are the vanguard, everything makes sense for them. They have a network, a group of friends. It can be very attractive to suddenly be convinced that you alone now know what's really going on. You are a real Muslim, the others have been infiltrated by the West and are corrupted. Certainly you are better than your parents so you don't have to listen to them anymore.

But to leave your country, join a terrorist organization and live in Waziristan with no prospect of ever returning to a normal life in the West is also a risk?

Those types of people think that there is nothing worthwhile left for them to come back to. There are others, of course, who have families and prefer to live in the West and be armchair radicals...

Like you, when you were a member of the Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir?

In a way, yes. I was a political activist, and Hizb ut-Tahrir didn't advocate that we join the battlefield.

From your experience, once you really enter that Islamist ideology, how does it change you?

It gives you moral and political certainty. Understanding geopolitics for a 15-year-old is very difficult -- but all of a sudden everything is very easy: Ah, this is why they are all fighting against us!

Radicalization is a process. It's not like you are a moderate on Monday, but wake up on Tuesday as a would-be-terrorist. Can this process be stopped once it has started?

Yes, the process can be stopped, if these people are exposed to alternative points of view before it's too late. Before they will only socialize with people who supply them with radical answers to the questions that drive them. Basically these people are looking for answers and they often find radical answers most convincing because they seem to explain everything. This is the point where they need to be confronted with information that contradicts the Islamist narrative. There's also a scriptural aspect to this: You have to show to them that Islam as such does not support many of the Islamists' arguments.

Generally, what role does religious knowledge play in the process of radicalization? A lot of jihadist leaders, for example, talk a lot about faith without having much in the way of a theological education. Even Osama bin Laden and Aiman al-Zawahiri fall into that category.

Religion is not what motivates people. They don't pick up the Quran and say: Ah, this is what I've got to do! They are motivated by politics. But when Islamists show their worldview they always provide some scriptural justification. As a rule, 90 percent of their speeches are political, but they will also say: And the Quran supports this, and the Prophet supports this, so as to make the argument look Islamic.

What were the main factors that made you turn away from radical Islamism?

I managed to keep an open mind even when I was an activist for Hizb ut-Tahrir. That allowed me to analyze different perspectives. I also read a lot about history independently, I analyzed politics independently and I kept speaking to Muslims who followed different ideas. So I had access to quite a wide variety of information, which eventually made me realize that I was following a very narrow interpretation at best. But a lot of people won't expose themselves to all that; they feel too comfortable with their new truths and new friends.

Was this narrowness of interpretation decisive for you? Or was it also a matter of truth and historical accuracy?

Some of what I used to believe was definitely false. Islamism is a modern idea, and it was influenced by European movements like Marxism and Socialism. Islamists reinterpret Muslim history according to their ideology. And that leads to a complete misreading of, for example, the Ottoman Empire's history.

At the Quilliam Foundation you are looking at ways to counter radicalization. You also make use of religious authorities. How does that work?

We will take up a specific issue and then we'll try to get respected scholars to take a clear position in opposition. We have done this, for example, with suicide bombings or the concept that all Muslims must be united under one leadership. We want to show that what radicals believe is in fact a very narrow politically motivated religious standpoint that needs to be exposed for what it is. We don't want to unite everyone under one alternative idea, though.

When the Quilliam Foundation was set up, as a think tank staffed with former radical Islamists, did you find it difficult to enter the public debate? Or was yours a voice that all sides were eager to listen to?

It was actually quite easy to enter the public debate. People were definitely looking for new and original voices on this topic.

Since you started the project, have you actually managed to convince radical Islamists to break away from their groups and their ideology?

Yes. We have individually spoken to people we knew and managed to take away between 30 and 40 from these organizations, some even from senior positions. We have also tried numerous times to engage these organizations in public debates with us, but they haven't accepted the offer. But I think we are on the right track. They are definitely not as confident anymore as they used to be.

The Quilliam Foundation is unique in the sense that there are no comparable institutions outside the U.K. Do you have plans to expand?

On the long term, yes. First we want a solid base in Britain that will be a working model that we can then export to Europe and the U.S.

Der Spiegel, via Salon.com.

Pakistan to allow sharia in Swat

2009-02-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

Pakistan's government has agreed to restore sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley and neighbouring areas of the country's northwest as part of a peace deal with local pro-Taliban fighters.

The agreement was reached after talks in Peshawar between members of Tahrik-e-Nafiz Shariat Muhammadi and officials of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government on Monday.

Announcing the decision to restore sharia, a spokesman for the NWFP government said Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, had already agreed in principle to this concession to the region's religious conservatives.

"All un-Islamic laws related to the judicial system, those against the Quran and Sunnah, would be subject to cancellation and considered null and void," a NWFP spokesman said in a statement following the talks.

Officials gave few details of the kind of sharia they were planning to implement in the Malakand region, which includes Swat Valley, but said that laws that fail to comply with Islamic texts would be suspended.

The Pakistani government has also agreed its troops will refrain from launching military operations in Swat as part of the deal.

Religious conservatives

The Tahrik-e-Nafiz Shariat Muhammadi, or the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, has long demanded the implementation of sharia in the region.

"This is not the first time Sharia law has been imposed in this area," Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder said, reporting from Pakistan.

"In the mid 90s it was imposed following violent protests by the movement for the implementation of sharia law there.

"The majority of people in that area are very conservative. They have been demanding the implementation of sharia law because they say the other law takes far too long to dispense justice, and the demand is for swift justice.

"However, this will not mean that the groups opposed to the government will be dispensing that justice. The government of Pakistan will appoint the judges."

Shuja Nawaz, a strategic analyst with the South Asia Centre , told Al Jazeera that the agreement could prove problematic for Pakistan in future.

"It will mean that the government is ceding territory to the Taliban, which will be a repeat of what happened when prime minister Benazir Bhutto was in power in 1994 and a number of districts in Swat and Malakand were handed over to essentially the same group so they could impose their rather convoluted view of sharia on those districts.

"The moment you cede space to them, the Taliban will want to extend that control and then the government will have to go through this business of sending in the military yet again to clear and hold the territory."

[More]

Comment:

The most important thing here is that the government will be the one appointing the judges. We shall have to see what kind of judges the government will appoint.

Homegrown Jihad

2009-02-13T01:15:00.000-08:00

These camps have been operating for quite some time. Hopefully the Obama administration will do a better job with them than the Bush administration did.

H/T Blogs For Victory.

Taliban mounts deadly Kabul raids

2009-02-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

At least 20 people have been killed and several others wounded after suicide bombers and armed men attacked government offices in the Afghan capital Kabul, officials say.

Wednesday's attacks on buildings of the justice ministry and the department of prison affairs took place near the presidential palace and the US embassy.

Two suicide bombers were shot inside the ministry during a gun battle, and a third suicide bomber was shot later, an official said.

At least four Afghan security personnel were killed in the fighting, with 13 more injured.

A separate suicide blast took place in the north of Kabul, killing another 10 people.

Suicide bombers

Dhabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, told Al Jazeera by telephone that the group was behind the Kabul assaults.

Witnesses said the attackers opened fire indiscriminately in front of the justice ministry headquarters.

Officials said five men stormed the building equipped with AK-47s, grenades and wearing suicide vests.

At least two suicide bombers separately attacked the prison affairs department in the same complex.

Security forces said they prevented another possible raid by shooting a suicide attacker next to the buildings of the foreign-affairs and education ministries.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a French military officer and an Afghan interpreter were killed, and a French soldier seriously wounded, in a gun battle following a landmine blast on Wednesday.

The men were on security patrol in Logar province when the explosion occurred, a French military spokesman said.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

'New tactic'

Describing the co-ordinated attacks in Kabul, Qais Azimy, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Kabul, said: "It is a success for them [the Taliban] ... It shows that they are still powerful."

Azimy said that the attacks so close to the presidential palace showed that the Taliban can still hit any location.

"Over a year ago that kind of attack could be a surprise, but not anymore" he said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Faheem Dashty, chief editor of the Kabul Weekly, said: "The Taliban is choosing a new kind of tactic, which is a chain of attacks on the same day.

"This was a lapse in the security belt around Kabul. We have security on main roads entering Kabul but in other areas we don't have enough [measures] to stop people carrying out an attack [of the kind] that happened today."

Al Jazeera's Hamish Macdonald, also in Kabul, said that the justice ministry and prisons department appeared to have been deliberately targeted by the Taliban, in response to the alleged mistreatment of Taliban prisoners.

The attacks occurred on the eve of a visit to the country by Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Taliban, which once ruled Afghanistan, was driven out of Kabul following a US-led invasion in late 2001.

However, Taliban fighters have since regrouped, launching attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan from bases in the region between the two countries.

Al Jazeera

US spy planes hover over Chitral

2009-02-02T21:01:00.000-08:00

CHITRAL: Extending violations of country’s air space, CIA-operated US spy planes were seen flying over the area of Chitral, causing panic among the locals.

According to the media reports, US spy plane hovered over the area of Chitral town at very low altitude for more than 1 hour and retuned to Afghanistan without taking any action.

The flight of US spy planes frightened the local people who came from their houses, offices and shops to see the politesses plane. When contacted Chitral Police confirmed flying, however, reluctant to tell it was US spy planes.

Via Online INN.

Comment:

WTF?! The Taliban isn't even active in Chitral! Why in God's name are we terrifying the locals there?

Al Jazeera discovers Swat

2009-02-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

About time. Swat fell to the Taliban late last year, and Mingora, the capital, has already been retaken.

As a side note, the reporter has a very peculiar accent that I can't quite place.

Map update

2009-01-31T12:37:00.000-08:00

The Pakistani government claims to have regained control of a number of areas. I'm somewhat skeptical of this, and indicated the government's claims only as much as is tactically reasonable.

Progress is slowly being made in Swat, with the capital city of Mingora being retaken recently.

Ghazni is still out of date, and I want to check Loghman and Kapisa as well. My complete district level base map of Pakistan is nearing completion; I'll include it while I work on the individual tehsils (Pakistani tehsil ≈ Afghan district).

Yemen and Saudi al-Qaeda arms merge

2009-01-28T21:55:00.000-08:00

Al-Qaeda groups in Yemen and Saudi Arabia have announced they are merging their operations, raising fears of new attacks in the region.

The organisation said on Tuesday that the joint forces would carry out operations across the Arabian peninsula and beyond.

Nasir Wuhaishi was named as the head of the new combined al-Qaeda unit.

Wuhaishi's appointment was confirmed by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the deputy al-Qaeda chief, in a video posted online.

The group's deputy was named as Said Ali al-Shihri, a former prisoner at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention facility, who was released from Saudi custody in 2007.

Yemeni authorities said they had stepped up security following the announcement.

'Huge significance'

Analysts say Yemen is of huge significance to al-Qaeda.

"Weapons, training, crossing points and the launch of operations have all come from Yemen," Abd Alelah-Haidar, a "terrorism" specialist who has met Wuhaishi, told Al Jazeera.

"This country is seen as having strategic significance, not only by al-Qaeda, but also by others. [However,] their operations are not confined to the Arabian peninsula but also include Iraq, Afghanistan, Nahr al-Bared [in Lebanon], and Palestine."

The announcement follows a number of attacks by al-Qaeda in Yemen.

An attack outside the US embassy in Sanaa earlier in the week is believed to have been carried out by the group.

Yemeni police arrested three men on Monday after they fired on security forces near the embassy. No one was hurt in the incident.

Nineteen people died in an attack targeting the US embassy last September for which al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.

Via Al Jazeera.

Map update

2009-01-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

NATO has launched an offensive in the Baluchi Valley, and Pakistan has launched one in Mohmand Agency. I'm currently working on showing the districts in the rest of Pakistan. Ghazni still needs to be updated.

Also, what will hopefully be my final semester at Berkeley has begun.

Map update

2009-01-10T16:35:00.000-08:00

Still some updating left to do, especially in Ghazni. Additionally, the fighting in Bajaur has gone down due to Pakistani troops being redeployed to the border with India.

The Future of Afghanistan

2009-01-09T15:57:00.000-08:00

As you may have heard, the United States Institute for Peace has released a major report on Afghanistan, which can be downloaded here. I have not yet had the chance to read it, but have heard good things about it.

Map update

2009-01-02T13:59:00.001-08:00

Because I had been spending so much time on the map itself (along with other school things), it seems I let my data get pretty badly out of date. This version has been corrected to account for the falls of Logar and Wardak provinces, with a few other corrections. Note, though, that it is still not completely up to date.

Pakistan closes Afghan supply route

2008-12-30T21:53:00.000-08:00

Pakistan has suspended supplies to US and Nato forces in neighbouring Afghanistan as security forces launch a major offensive against suspected pro-Taliban fighters.

The Khyber Pass supply route in the troubled northwest tribal belt was closed on Tuesday, as Pakistan sent tanks, helicopter gunships and artillery units into the region.

Tariq Hayat, the Khyber region's top administrator, said a curfew had been imposed in the region and the main road leading to the Afghan border had been sealed.

"Supplies to Nato forces will remain suspended until we clear the area of militants and outlaws who have gone out of control," he said.

Hayat confirmed Pakistani security forces had launched "an operation against militants and armed groups in Jamrud" - the gateway to the Khyber Pass.

'Giant operation'

Pro-Taliban fighters have carried out a string of attacks in recent months aimed at choking off supplies transported to foreign forces in landlocked Afghanistan through northwest Pakistan.

Hundreds of Nato and US-led coalition vehicles were destroyed in a series of raids earlier this month.

"This is a giant operation. It will continue until we achieve our objective," Hayat said, adding that the operation could be extended beyond the Jamrud region if deemed necessary.

Alongside putting a stop to attacks on Nato and US supply vehicles, Hayat said the operation had been launched to tackle a spate of kidnappings for ransom in the tribal belt that straddles the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Hayat said: "We have 26 targets, we will eliminate their [pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters] hideouts."

Two weeks ago, several haulage companies in Pakistan refused to undertake journeys along the 50km route, saying the security of their drivers could not be guaranteed.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

The pass being closed will pose a very large problem, as most of our supplies go through it. It is, however, nice to see Pakistan going on the offensive after losing three districts the way they have.

Taliban ‘enforce sharia’ in lower Orakzai Agency

2008-12-28T01:18:00.000-08:00

HANGU: The Taliban have announced the enforcement of sharia in the lower parts of Orakzai Agency, Taliban sources said. The Taliban announcement follows the ‘enforcement of sharia’ in the upper parts of the agency seven days ago. Sources said the Taliban were using loudspeakers in mosques to announce the decree and were asking the people to bring their issues to ‘Taliban Islamic courts’, which have been set up in Mashti Meela and Feroze Khel, for their resolution according to Islamic law. The Taliban have banned women from visiting bazaars and have imposed a complete ban on TV and CDs and video centres in the agency. They have, however, allowed women to visit bazaars for medical treatment, but that too if they are accompanied by a male elder of the family. There are 21 tribes in Orakzai and the Taliban have imposed Islamic law on 16 tribes. The other five tribes reside in areas where the Taliban have not announced sharia enforcement as yet. The tribal traditions earlier did not require women to veil their faces, but the Taliban decree has asked them to cover their bodies at all times. The Taliban have also established complaint cells in Ghiljo and Kandi Mishti (Upper Orakzai), and Mamoozai and Feroze Khel (Lower Orakzai).

Via the Daily Times.

Comment:

This conflict with India could not be happening at a worse time.

Ethiopia set for Somalia pull out

2008-12-23T19:11:00.000-08:00

Ethiopia has refused to reverse its decision to withdraw its forces from Somalia by the end of the year, despite a plea from the African Union (AU) to delay the move which it fears may result in a security vacuum inside the country.

The government in Addis Ababa said last month that it would pull its troops out by the scheduled time amid fears the war-torn country could descend into further anarchy unless more peacekeepers are sent.

"We appeal to Ethiopia to consider phasing out withdrawal, until such time [when] more troops from Nigeria, Uganda and Burundi are deployed in Somalia," the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the AU said in a statement at a meeting in the Ethiopian capital on Monday.

"The security situation in Somalia is alarming ... piracy is escalating against the background of weakening leadership and insurgents control nearly all the country with the exception of Mogadishu and Baidoa."

There are currently some 3,000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia supporting the embattled Transitional Federal Government [TFG], which is based in the southern town of Baidoa.

A further 3,400 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi make up the AU mission in the country.

That number is well below the 8,000 troops pledged by the AU two years ago.

But despite the shortfall Ethiopian officials said the pullout of their forces would go ahead.

"The decision to withdraw troops from Somalia was a commitment made by the country's authorities to parliament and will not be changed," said Tekeda Alemu, Ethiopia's minister of state.

About 850 Nigerian troops are expected to join the AU peacekeepers already stationed in the country.

Rift

Adding to the fragility of Somalia's TFG government is a growing rift between Abdullahi Yusuf, the president, and Nur Hassan Hussein, the man he sacked as prime minister.

The AU and the US government have backed Hussein and have so far refused to recognise Mohamud Mohamed Guled, the new Somali prime minister, who was selected by the president.

The TFG is also facing an escalation in attacks from opposition fighters, that threatens to reach Mogadishu, the capital.

Fighters from al-Shabab, a group which split from the armed Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), have control of several town and cities across Somalia.

The opposition controls the south of Somalia and has launched a series of raids on Ethiopian forces which have tried to defend the government.

At least 10,000 civilians have been killed in two years of fighting, while a million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Ever since the Ethiopian invasion (and indeed beginning prior to it), the remnants of the Islamic Courts Union have been becoming increasingly radicalized; this is particularly true of the successor/splinter group Al-Shabaab. Although I used to be very well informed on the situation in Somalia, I more or less gave up on it in disgust two years ago when Ethiopia invaded, and am therefore unsure how (or if) this will affect the War on Terror. I'm going to see if I can contact James Dahl, the online community's foremost expert on the matter, to see what his take on it is.

US to bolster force in Afghanistan

2008-12-20T12:35:00.000-08:00

The US is planning to send between 20,000 and 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan by next summer, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, has said.

The planned deployment follows a request of the US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, for more than 20,000 extra US soldiers.

US troops are battling rising violence in Afghanistan, seven years after they first invaded the country to oust the Taliban from power.

"The troops that were asked for in joint discussions with General McKiernan is what we're going to need for the foreseeable future. So I don't see an increase any higher at this point than 20 to 30,000," Mullen said.

Mullen said he hoped the extra troops - including four combat brigades, an aviation brigade and other support forces - could be deployed by mid-2009.

"We're looking to get them here in the spring, but certainly by the beginning of summer at the latest," he said.

The build-up could nearly double the US military presence in Afghanistan, which currently stands at 31,000 soldiers.

Cautionary note

Mullen said he could not give the "exact number" of troops that would be sent, but said 20,000-30,000 represented "the window of the overall increase where we are right now".

But he cautioned against thinking that a massive influx of US forces would automatically bring peace to Afghanistan.

"It isn't going to make a difference after those troops get here, if we haven't made progress on the development side and on the government side," Mullen said.

Some 70,000 foreign troops are already in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban with little success.

Bloodiest year

This year has been the bloodiest for international forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban fell, with nearly 290 soldiers killed.

About 1,000 Afghan troops and police, as well as more than 2,000 civilians, have also been killed in 2008.

George Bush, the outgoing US president, who made a surprise farewell visit to Afghanistan on Monday, acknowledged the difficulty of restoring peace to the country, warning that it would take time.

"This is going to be a long struggle. Ideological struggles take time," he said in Kabul.

Via Al Jazeera.

Explosives discovered in Paris shop

2008-12-16T07:56:00.000-08:00

Explosives have been found in a central Paris department store following a bomb warning apparently from a group demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan, French officials have said.

Sticks of dynamite tied together but with no detonators were found in the Printemps department store on Tuesday following a warning from the group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, speaking in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, urged caution but said France would "not negotiate with terrorists".

"At this point in time I would call on everyone to be very prudent and very moderate," he said.

Warning letter

The five sticks of explosives did not have detonators attached and French anti-terrorist police believe the devices had been placed as a warning.

The warning, sent to a French news agency by letter, said the explosives were in the men's restrooms on the third floor of the Printemps store in the city centre.

"If you do not send someone to intervene before Wednesday December 17, they will explode," said the letter, which was taken by police investigating the explosives.

"Send the message to your president that he must withdraw his troops from our country before the end of February 2009 or else we will take action in your capitalist department stores and this time, without warning," the letter said.

Explosives 'old'

The area where Printemps is located is crowded with large department stores which are normally packed with Christmas shoppers at this time of year.

Michele Alliot-Marie, the French interior minister, said the explosives were "relatively old" and had been hidden in the cistern of one of the lavatories.

"The explosives had not been primed which indicates there was no risk of explosion," she said outside the store on Boulevard Haussmann.

France has some 2,600 troops stationed in Afghanistan and has received threats of terrorist attacks in mainland France unless it removes the soldiers.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Probably the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades.

In other news, I'm about to take my last final.

Look on my works ye mighty and despair!

2008-12-11T09:13:00.000-08:00

(Click for full size image.)

At long last, Tʜᴇ Mᴀᴘ is complete.

Due to the narrow width of Blogger's columns, I'm almost certainly going to have to migrate to WordPress.

9/11 suspects ask to 'plead guilty'

2008-12-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks, and four other suspects have asked to plead guilty to the charges they face at a Guantanamo Bay tribunal.

"We all five have reached an agreement to request from the commission an immediate hearing session in order to announce our confessions," said a note said to be from the five read out by the judge, Army Colonel Steven Henley, at a hearing on Monday.

The note said the confessions were being made "without being under any kind of pressure, threat, intimidations or promise from any party," Henley said.

Mohammed, a Pakistani, and four others - Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali - were charged earlier this year with conspiring with al-Qaeda to kill civilians.

The judge also allowed defendants Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali to withdraw all their motions and go to pleas, but he refused to allow the same for two other defendants saying he had concerns over their mental competence, AFP reported.

All five face the death penalty if convicted.

[More]

Comment:

I have been unable to determine why the mental competence of bin al-Shibh and Hawsawi is in question.

Crunch time

2008-12-04T01:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the extreme dearth of posts; this is end of the semester crunch time. I'm working pretty much full time on my cartography final project, which is to be the first of the long awaited Afghanistan maps for this site.

Karzai urges Afghan war timeline

2008-11-25T22:08:00.000-08:00

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for a timetable for ending the war against the Taleban in his country.

Mr Karzai made the call in a speech to a visiting UN Security Council team.

He said if Afghans had "no light at the end of the tunnel" they had the right to pursue other options, such as peace negotiations with the Taleban.

Mr Karzai also demanded an end to arrests of Afghans "in their homes, in the roads" by international forces, saying it was the job of Afghan police.

[snip]

Mr Karzai said there were two options.

First would be to set a timeline, saying that what had not been achieved in the past seven years would be achieved in the next "four years, five years or another seven years".

But he added: "If we cannot give a light at the end of the tunnel to the Afghan people, [do] the Afghan people have a right to ask for negotiation for peace? [Do] the Afghan people have a right to seek other avenues?"

Mr Karzai said he would continue to fight al-Qaeda and Taleban members "who are ideologically against the rest of the world".

However, he said Taleban members who were "part of the Afghan community" could be brought back to serve Afghanistan.

[More]

Comment:

That last part is the crux of the matter. Karzai has been (rightly) calling for negotiation with the reconcilables for quite some time now — indeed, he has actually engaged in some negotiation with the mediation of King Abdullah. His borrowing of the words "timeline" and "withdrawal" from Iraq is blatant electioneering, and nothing more.

The fact that he felt it would be beneficial to say it, however, is emblematic of a real problem, which is that we are running out of time. The good will of the Afghan people cannot last forever, and it is beginning to wear thin.

Zawahiri on Obama's election

2008-11-19T15:41:00.000-08:00

Before anyone asks, the term that he used for "house negro" was zanujī al-beit, a word for word translation. The text under each of the pictures reads, from left to right, "Barack Hussein Obama", "Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri", and "Malcolm X Rahimatu'llah (mercy of God be upon him)".

This is a very worrying video. It's primary purpose seems to be to drive a wedge between Obama and the Black community, or at least elements thereof. Why on earth would al-Qaeda attempt something that obviously hopeless? Well, the only explanation that comes to my mind is that al-Qaeda has been making inroads into parts of the Black Muslim community, and that they're worried about losing them due to Obama's election. This would also explain why it took so long for them to respond; they probably wanted to very carefully gauge what their quarries responses would be— long term as well as the initial jubilation— so that they could act accordingly. It is, of course, impossible to tell which part of the Black Muslim community they've been working on— the focus on Malcolm X would initially suggest Nation of Islam, but when you think about it there aren't very many prominent Black Muslim civil rights activists they could have chosen.

The most interesting part of the video, in my opinion, was the subtitles, or, more precisely, the lack thereof during the first set of excerpts from Malcolm X's speeches. Obviously, American Muslims would not need the subtitles, but the Arabs, Pashtuns, etc. who would also be watching would, and they are provided during the rather lengthy explanation of the term "house negro" (which I suspect would be something of a nonce-word to the Arab audience). They were not, however, provided during the first set. Indeed, this is the only part of the video that lacks subtitles. This suggests that it was intended for the American Muslims, and explicitly not for the others. The reason for this becomes evident once the excerpts in question are considered. Of the three, only the last one has anything to do with the point Zawahiri was making about the global revolution. The other two are about the importance of those in America accepting help from their bretheren across the sea. Al-Qaeda seems to be trying to sell different jihads to different audiences— for the Black Muslims, it's about race, protecting the blacks from their white oppressors; for the others— especially the Arabs, who do not have a very amicable history with the blacks— it's about Islam.

Will this apparent attempt at damage control be successful? As I do not know who the Black Muslims in question are it is difficult to say, but I doubt it; indeed, I'm more inclined to think that it will backfire. Azzam al-Amriki, the presumed mastermind behind this video, has been away from his homeland for far too long; he is beginning to forget what it's like here. He does not seem to have fully understood the pure, unadulterated joy African Americans felt.

Captured battle plan shows strength and training of Taleban forces

2008-11-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

The map tells a war story of its own. Sketched by a Taleban commander, it is of a stretch of territory fought over in Bajaur between the Pakistani Army and the insurgents. The ground has been neatly divided into specific areas of responsibility for different Taleban units.

Weapons caches, assembly areas and rendezvous points have been carefully marked and coded. This is not the work of a renegade gunman resistant to central authority; it is the assessment of a skilled and experienced fighter, and begins to explain how more than 400 Pakistani soldiers have been killed or wounded since August in Bajaur, the tribal district agency that is said to be the haunt of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Discovered along with the map in a series of recently captured tunnel complexes are other documents - radio frequency lists, guerrilla warfare manuals, students' notes, jihadist propaganda and bombmaking instructions - that provide further evidence of the Taleban's organisation and training. They prove that the Taleban in Bajaur, one of Pakistan's seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), were planning not only to fight, but also to disseminate their fighting knowledge.

“They were training people here,” Colonel Javed Baluch, whose troops seized the village of Tang Khata in an early stage of the autumn fighting, said, as he thumbed through the captured literature. “This was one of their centres. There were students here taking notes on bombmaking and guerrilla warfare. They were well trained and well organised.”

But training whom and to do what? Despite the documentary evidence in Bajaur, the Taleban's ultimate aims - and the nature of their relationship with al-Qaeda - remain contentious issues.

America and Britain claim that the terrorist network and affiliated organisations are being hosted by the Taleban in the tribal areas, which they use as a base for training camps, refuge and recruitment. This, they say, extends the threat from the tribal agencies to the rest of the world.

“If I were going to pick the next attack to hit the United States, it would come out of Fata,” Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recently. A Western diplomat in Islamabad claimed last month that among those killed by a Predator drone strike in the tribal area - there have been at least 18 drone attacks there in the past 12 weeks - were members of a terrorist cell planning an attack on Britain.

One eminent Pakistani political figure, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that al-Qaeda and the Taleban had set up a joint headquarters in 2004 as an “Islamic emirate” in North Waziristan, headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan Taleban commander. (His father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, a veteran of the fight against the Soviet Union, was funded by the CIA 30 years ago and was once fêted at the White House by Ronald Reagan.)

“Sirajuddin ... connects the Taleban with al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban with the Afghan Taleban,” the source said. “It basically runs the war and has made Fata today the same as Afghanistan was before September 11 - controlled by foreign and local militants who fight a war on both sides of the border.”

Such claims, which have been circulated widely in Pakistan, are denied strongly by the military. Many officers describe the Taleban in Fata as a disparate group of home-grown militants with little vision beyond the affairs of their own district, and claim that al-Qaeda's involvement is negligible.

“There was an al-Qaeda presence here but it didn't include their training bases or headquarters,” Colonel Nauman Saeed, commander of the Frontier Corps garrison in Khar, Bajaur's capital, said. “They [al-Qaeda] were as a pinch of salt in the flour.”

General Tariq Khan, the officer commanding the Bajaur operation, said: “I do not see a coherent stategy in any of these militants. I don't see any Islamic movement of Waziristan or an Islamic emirate ... I think that everyone is in it for himself.”

The Pakistani military claims to have killed more than 1,500 insurgents in Bajaur, and General Khan admits that many foreign fighters - “Uzbeks, Chechens, Turkmen, some Afghans” - have been among them. Of al-Qaeda's top leadership, however, not a trace has been found. “We've hit some Arab leadership there but not of a very high level,” he said.

It could be that the leaders have withdrawn to the two valley strongholds still held by the Taleban in Bajaur, or that they have escaped to Afghanistan or to a neighbouring tribal area.

Or were they ever in Bajaur at all? Shafirullah Khan is the savvy political agent in the area, himself a Pashtun and a long-term veteran of tribal affairs. “At first I would never have believed that al-Zawahiri was here,” he said of the rumours that bin Laden's deputy had been a visitor.

“But now that I have seen those tunnels and hidden shelters, I am not so sure.”

Via the Times.

CIA head says bin Laden isolated, fighting to survive

2008-11-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. intelligence agencies believe Osama bin Laden is isolated from al Qaeda and spending much of his energy merely surviving, the head of the CIA said on Thursday.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said hunting down bin Laden remains his agency's priority.

"He is putting a lot of energy into his own survival -- a lot of energy into his own security," Hayden said in a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

"In fact, he appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he nominally heads," he said.

In recent weeks, there have been several U.S. missile strikes by unmanned drones around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The United States maintains that Taliban and al Qaeda forces operate with relative impunity in tribal areas along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and use those areas as staging grounds to attack U.S. forces and their allies inside Afghanistan.

Hayden said al Qaeda has been hurt by a sustained fight with the United States and its allies, but remains a threat.

"Al Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks, but it remains a determined, adaptive enemy unlike any our nation has ever faced," Hayden said. "The war is far from over."

Regardless of whether bin Laden is actively helping lead the terrorist organization, the CIA believes capturing or killing him would be a huge blow to al Qaeda, according to Hayden.

"This is an organization that has never been through a change at the top," he said. "For 20 years, bin Laden has been the visionary, the inspiration or harmonizing force behind al Qaeda."
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Hayden said it remained to be seen whether bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, could maintain unity in the ranks without him.

"The truth is, we simply don't know what would happen if bin Laden is killed or captured. But I'm willing to bet that whatever happens, it would work in our favor," Hayden said.

Via CNN.

Comment:

I have already put down my thoughts on this matter here.

Pakistanis Mired in Brutal Battle to Oust Taliban

2008-11-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

LOE SAM, Pakistan — When Pakistan’s army retook this strategic stronghold from the Taliban last month, it discovered how deeply Islamic militants had encroached on — and literally dug into — Pakistani territory.

Behind mud-walled family compounds in the Bajaur area, a vital corridor to Afghanistan through Pakistan’s tribal belt, Taliban insurgents created a network of tunnels to store arms and move about undetected.

Some tunnels stretched for more than half a mile and were equipped with ventilation systems so that fighters could withstand a long siege. In some places, it took barrages of 500-pound bombs to break the tunnels apart.

“These were not for ordinary battle,” said Gen. Tariq Khan, the commander of the Pakistan Frontier Corps, who led the army’s campaign against the Taliban in the area.

After three months of sometimes fierce fighting, the Pakistani Army controls a small slice of Bajaur. But what was initially portrayed as a paramilitary action to restore order in the area has become the most sustained military campaign by the Pakistani Army against the Taliban and its backers in Al Qaeda since Pakistan allied itself with the United States in 2001.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to make the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan a top priority. The Bajaur campaign serves as a cautionary tale of the formidable challenge that even a full-scale military effort faces in flushing the Taliban and Al Qaeda from rugged northern Pakistan.

Pakistani officials describe the area as the keystone of an arc of militancy that stretches across the semiautonomous tribal region of Pakistan and into Afghanistan.

Under heavy pressure from the United States, Pakistani officials are vowing to dislodge the Taliban fighters and their Qaeda allies who have taken refuge in the tribal areas.

But a two-day visit to Loe Sam and Khar, the capital of Bajaur, arranged for foreign journalists by the Pakistani military, suggested that Pakistan had underestimated a battle-hardened opponent fighting tenaciously to protect its mountainous stronghold.

Taliban militants remain entrenched in many areas. Even along the road to Loe Sam, which the army laboriously cleared, sniper fire from militants continues.

The Pakistanis have also resorted to scorched-earth tactics to push the Taliban out, an approach that risks pushing more of their own citizens into the Taliban’s embrace.

After the Frontier Corps failed to dislodge the Taliban from Loe Sam in early August, the army sent in 2,400 troops in early September to take on a Taliban force that has drawn militants from across the tribal region, as well as a flow of fighters from Afghanistan.

Like all Pakistani soldiers, the troops sent here had been trained and indoctrinated to fight in conventional warfare against India, considered the nation’s permanent enemy, but had barely been trained in counterinsurgency strategy and tactics.

[More]

Aṭ-Ṭaríq ilá 11 Sibtimbir — The Road to September 11

2008-11-09T23:33:00.000-08:00

Back in 2002, Al Jazeera cooperated directly with al-Qaeda to make what is easily one of the most remarkable documentaries of all time — "The Road to September 11" (not to be confused with "The Road to 9/11"). After roughly a year of searching for it, I finally had the (in retrospect quite obvious) idea to search in the Arabic script, and not only did I immediately find it, the version that I found has English subtitles. So, without further ado, here is the story of September 11, told with the aid of those who committed it.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Bali bombers killed by firing squad

2008-11-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

Three men sentenced to death for a deadly bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002 have been executed by firing squad.

Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, who is also referred to as Ali Ghufron, and Imam Samudra, 38, were killed on Sunday, Jasman Pandjaitan, a spokesman for the attorney-general's office, said.

"At around 00:15 am [1715 GMT Saturday] the three convicted men on death row, Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, were executed by firing squad. The autopsy results show that all three are dead," Panjaitan said.

The twin bomb attacks on Bali nightclubs in October 2002 killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists including 88 Australians.

Appeal fails

The family of Amrozi and Mukhlas also confirmed that the men had been executed on the prison island of Nusakambangan in central Java.

"Our family has received news of the execution... May our brothers, God willing, be invited by green birds to heaven now," Mohammad Chozin, a brother of the men, told reporters in Tenggulun, the men's home village in east Java.

Step Vaessen, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tenggulun, said the farming village has a "very hardline" school in its centre.

"The school was founded by the father of the bombers. It is where the bombers grew up," she said.

"At the moment there are a lot of guests from hardline groups gathering at that school - they are waiting to attend the funeral. The police have cordoned off the whole village and they are stopped more hardliners from coming in. They are concerned about rioting and revenge bomb attacks."

The execution of the three convicted bombers is an attempt by the Indonesian government "to show that they are serious in their fight against terrorism," Vaessen said.

"The Bali bombers, who have always said they were happy to die as martyrs, have tried endlessly to postpone their execution with several appeals, even up to the constitutional court," she said.

"They have tried to escape the firing squad because they said that was against their human rights and they wanted to be beheaded instead. But they lost all appeals."

Two days ago the families of the men sent a letter to the Indonesian president to ask to for the execution to be delayed.

Tight security

Security has been boosted across Indonesia amid fears of a backlash from a small minority who support the bombers.

"A lot of hardline groups have come to Tenggulun over the last couple of days to show their support and to be there at the [mens'] funeral," Vaessen reported.

"There is a lot of security. There are concerns about bomb threats and rioting taking place later in the day."

In recent days, police have investigated bomb threats received this week against the US and Australian embassies, and an internet letter purportedly written by the bombers threatening the life of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president.

The convicted bombers had warned of retribution in a string of authorised media appearances from prison.

The condemned men had said they wanted to die as "martyrs".

The Indonesian anti-terrorist unit Detachment 88 was credited with capturing leaders of the Jemaah Islamiyah group - allegedly linked to the al-Qaeda network -and its military wing in a series of raids last year.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

The relationship between al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah is quite similar to the one between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi group Ansar al-Islam. Neither group is officially a part of al-Qaeda, but they are ideologically and militarily aligned with it, and are thus part of the same phenomenon, the Apostasy.

Meanwhile, here's a status report on which of the perpetrators of our own country's worst terrorist attack have been brought to justice:

Osama bin Laden
✔Khalid Sheikh Muhammad
✔Abu Zubaydah
✔Muhammad Atef (Abu Hafs al-Masri)
✔Ramzi bin al-Shibh
✔Muhammad Haydar Zammar
✔Mounir El Motassadeq
Said Bahaji
Zakariya Essabar
✔Mustafa al-Hawsawi
✔Yazid Sufaat
✔Zacarias Moussaoui
✔Muhammad al-Qahtani
Mushabib al-Hamlan
✔Khalid al-Zahrani

'US missiles' hit Pakistan village

2008-11-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

A suspected US drone has launched a missile strike into northwest Pakistan, reportedly killing at least 10 people.

The attack on Friday targeted a town in North Waziristan, a tribal region on the Afghan border, security officials said.

"It happened close to the border," a Pakistani military officer said.

"We have reports of 10 dead but it will take time to get more information."

The North Waziristan region is a reputed stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda linked fighters.

Other Pakistani officials told the AFP news agency that up to 14 fighters were killed when the missile strike destroyed an al-Qaeda training camp.

Four missiles

Four missiles are thought to have been fired at the camp, in Kum Sham village, some 35km south of Miranshah in North Waziristan.

Security sources said the village is dominated by Wazir tribes and is near the border with South Waziristan, another hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives.

"Between 11 to 14 militants, mainly foreigners, were killed in the strike," a senior military official said.

It was not immediately clear if there were any high-value targets among those killed, sources said.

An intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "The strike successfully destroyed the camp."

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, speaking from the Pakistani capital Islamabad, said: "At the moment we are being told by sources in the area that the attack took place in the Razmak village [of North Waziristan].

"We are told that up to 17 people were also wounded in this attack.

"Just a few days ago we were in this region. And we were able to observe that even at nighttime the drones have been flying over this area.

"It has also causing considerable anger in that region because the Pakistani military forces have been deployed in very large numbers along this border and every time there is a strike deep into Pakistan it creates more public resentment. Not just against the Americans but also the local forces which are not able to stop these attacks.

"In spite of opposition by the Pakistani government, the Americans have been buzzing the Pakistani tribal territories ... and they have been picking out targets with impunity."

Sovereignity violated

At least 18 such attacks by unmanned US aircraft have occured since September.

However, this is the first since General David Petraeus, the US Central Command chief, took charge of the war in Afghanistan.

[More]

Comment:

I had been hoping that Petraeus would put an immediate end to the strikes, but I guess not. At least no civilians were killed this time.

In map-related news, I have finally found Tehsil-level maps of FATA. They turned out to be hiding in the 1998 Pakistani Census, which UC Berkeley has a copy of. This means that I can at last begin work on the base map.

US commander visits Pakistan

2008-11-02T23:38:00.000-08:00

General David Petraeus has arrived in Pakistan on his first international trip as head of US Central Command.

Petraeus, who is responsible for conducting the the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, will meet military and government officials on Monday, with relations strained over cross-border raids by US forces.

In a sign of the challenge facing Pakistani and US forces along the border with Afghanistan, just hours before his visit, eight Pakistani paramilitary soldiers were killed in a blast in South Waziristan.

The suicide attack at a Frontier Corps checkpoint in Zalai came after two targets in Pakistan were hit by suspected US missiles on Friday.

At least 12 suspected fighters were killed by two missiles fired by a suspected US drone near Wana.

That raid followed an attack in neighbouring North Waziristan, where two missiles killed 20 suspected Arab fighters, including al-Qaeda's propaganda chief, security officials said.

Sovereignty 'violated'

US forces or intelligence agents are suspected of carrying out at least 17 missile attacks in Pakistan since August. Pakistan has condemned them as violations of the country's sovereignty, but the raids have continued.

Petraeus's trip signals Pakistan's crucial role in Washington's so-called "war on terror", particularly in the escalating conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Pakistan has deployed security forces throughout the northwest of the country in an attempt to combat fighters sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, which Washington says are crossing the porous border to attack US and Nato-led troops.

Petraeus is accompanied by Richard Boucher, the US assistant secretary of state, on the visit.

"They are here for previously scheduled meetings with government and military officials," Lou Fintor, US embassy spokesman, said.

The defence ministry said the two Americans would meet Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhta, the defence minister, on Monday. While Petraeus would also hold talks with General Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's army chief, a military spokesman said.

Another topic that could come up during Petraeus' visit is negotiations with the Taliban. Pakistani and Afghan leaders recently vowed to seek talks with elements of the movement in an attempt to stem the surging violence.

Petraeus, previously the senior US commander in Baghdad, has indicated support for efforts to reach out to members of the Taliban considered moderate enough to co-operate with the Afghan government.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Hopefully Petraeus will understand the utter folly of Bush's new plan and be able to convince him to abandon it. If anyone can do it, it's him.

Fatal clashes in northwest Pakistan

2008-10-26T09:12:00.001-07:00

At least 15 people have been killed in clashes between suspected pro-Taliban fighters and members of an armed tribal group in northwest Pakistan, officials said.

Up to 80 members of the so-called tribal Lashkar, a group raised to tackle fighters loyal to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, were also abducted amid the fighting in the Matt area of Pakistan's Swat valley on Sunday, sources told Al Jazeera.

Three local commanders were killed in the clashes, while 12 tribal leaders were hanged, they said.

Fighting broke out when supporters of Maulana Fazlullah, a local religious leader with links with to the Pakistani Taliban, tried to abduct Pir Samiullah, leader of the Lashkar in Matta, a military official said on condition of anonymity.

"Scores of Taliban raided Mandal Daag village in the Matta district of the valley to abduct Pir Samiullah," the official told the AFP news agency.

Samiullah, who leads a 500-strong armed group of local people, and his supporters have demanded that the Taliban leave the valley.

Fazlullah has campaigned for a stricter interpretation of sharia in the Swat valley region.

Bajaur clashes

The fighting in Swat came as fresh fighting was reported in the Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistani forces had claimed a rare succes in the region by retaking the town of Loi Sam, but on Sunday fighting continued with helicopters and artillery pounding targets in Bajaur.

Jamil Khan, a Pakistani official, said that eight anti-government fighters had been killed in the latest fighting in Bajaur.

Khan said reports from the region indicated several others had suffered injuries in the latest assault, but he gave no information about troop or civilian casualties.

Major-General Tariq Khan, a spokesman for the military, said government forces captured Loi Sam earlier this week "and killed the militants who were hiding there".

Reports said that nearly 200,000 civilians have fled the fighting in the town.

Civilian casualties

Kamal Matinuddin, a retired general and former ambassador to Thailand, said that there was a prospect of civilians being hurt by the fighting.

"It so happens that the militants that are in these tribal areas, particularly in Bajaur, are finding some shelter in the houses there. The job is becoming very difficult for the Pakistan army to avoid civilian casualties," he told Al Jazeera.

"Although the Pakistani army has called for civilians to leave the area so that they can carry put their military operations more successfully, unfortunately there are some civilian casualties occurring even now.

"But the fact remains that the Pakistan army has the support of the elected government and is determinted to carry out its objective in eliminating the militants from the tribal areas. They have achieved a certain amount of success."

Pakistan's tribal regions are considered a stronghold for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The army launched its offensive in Bajaur in early August, saying the region had become a "mega-sanctuary" for fighters who had set up a virtual mini-state.

Khan said troops had by Saturday overrun the area and were in "complete control" of the town, though he forecast it could take between six months and a year before authorities could gain complete control of Bajaur.

But some analysts criticised the military move.

"This is not the first time that the military or the Pakistani government has claimed that they have captured an important person or claimed to have attacked and been successful in destroying the sanctuary of the Taliban," Khalid Rahman, the director general of the Institute of Policy Studies in Islamabad, told Al Jazeera.

"Perhaps the whole strategy is not correct ... I am really afraid that this military strategy is going to increase the problem, unless it is accompanied by a genuine, sincere dialogue."

'Mini-jirga'

Talks are meanwhile expected to take place in Islamabad on Monday between Pakistani and Afghan political leaders with an aim to end violence in the border regions. Ethnic Pashtun tribal chiefs are also expected to participate.

The meeting, dubbed a Pakistan-Afghanistan "Jirgagai", or mini-jirga, is a follow-up to a grand assembly in Kabul last year in which delegates called for talks with Taliban fighters.

Around 50 political leaders, Pashtun elders and Muslim clerics from both countries will discuss growing violence by al-Qaeda and the Taliban fighters on both sides of their disputed border.

"The two main objectives of the jirgagai are to expedite the ongoing dialogue process with the opposition and monitor implementation of decisions of the (Kabul) jirga," Mohammad Sadiq, a Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman, said.

But critics say the mini-jirga will be little more than a talking shop without the participation of representatives of the Taliban.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Sorry about the lack of posts; I've been busy (and still am, which is why there's no commentary).

Dozens killed in Afghan bus ambush

2008-10-19T08:12:00.000-07:00

About 30 Afghans have been killed by the Taliban after it stopped a bus travelling from Kandahar to Helmand province, according to officials and the Taliban.

General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the defence minsitry spokesman, said on Sunday that 31 civilians were killed in the attack in the Maiwand district, a Taliban-controlled area just west of Kandahar city.

But a Taliban spokesman said that 27 Afghan army personnel had been killed.

Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said that Taliban fighters had checked the documents of the passengers and released all the civilians before killing the soldiers.

Azimi denied the Taliban claims saying: "Our soldiers travel by military convoy, not in civilian buses. And we have military air transportation."

Taliban ambush

Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan, reporting from Kabul, the capital, said that there were several different versions of events and it was difficult to verify the truth as journalists are unable to travel to the area because of poor security.

"The police chief in Kandahar says that two buses were attacked on the way from Kandahar to Helmand a few days ago," Nolan reported.

"He says it was a Taliban ambush, that the first bus was able to escape with minor casualties, but the second bus was not. It was hijacked by the Taliban and 50 passengers were taken hostage.

"Now they have reports of 24 dead bodies, that another 18 are still missing. They believe that there are another 18 bodies still to be found," Nolan said.

"A Taliban spokesperson gives a very different version of events ... he told Al Jazeera that they did hijack a bus but they took 27 hostages and they were all Afghan national army soldiers.

"The spokesman for the Taliban said that they were travelling on a civilian bus because they were too scared to travel through this area in an army convoy."

'Soldiers captured'

On Wednesday, Taliban spokesman Ahmadi told Al Jazeera that the group had captured "at least 180 Afghan soldiers".

He said the the soldiers were seized while travelling in three buses on their way to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province.

Ahmadi said that the soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and were on a mission to reinforce government troops in the area, "to prevent the fall of Lashkar Gah into the hands of the Taliban".

Violence in Afghanistan this year has killed more than 5,100 people, mostly suspected Taliban fighters, according to an Associated Press news agency count of figures from Afghan and Western officials.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Due to Al Jazeera's recent lackluster performance, I verified this story with other news sources.

More propaganda

2008-10-17T08:11:00.000-07:00

"Afghan mayor turns Taliban leader," announces Al Jazeera's top headline. But the man in question had not been mayor since the Taliban came to power, and had defected well over a year ago after being fired from his job as head of Herat's Department of Public Works. This story is not news by any stretch of the imagination, yet Al Jazeera considered it to be more important than the current financial Armageddon the planet is facing. I am apalled at this recent spate of pro-Taliban articles, and am very seriously considering finding somewhere else to get my news.

In other news, Hekmatyar has indicated that he would not be averse to switching sides (something he has a great deal of experience with), and the TTP is saying "uncle." I doubt that anything will come of the first (though I wouldn't put it past him), but it will be interesting to see what, if anything, will come of the second, especially inasmuch as the tribes are concerned.

Taliban propaganda on Al Jazeera

2008-10-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

Defections hit Afghan forces

After fighting the Taliban for the past seven years, many working for the Afghan security forces are now switching sides.

Sulieman Ameri and his 16 men were until a month ago serving the Afghan government as police patrolling the border with Iran.

Now they answer to the Taliban and their goal is to drive all foreign troops out of Afghanistan.

Ameri, now a Taliban commander, told Al Jazeera that he joined the Taliban because of what he called anti-Muslim behaviour by international soldiers.

"I have seen everything with my own eyes, I have seen prostitution, I have seen them drinking alcohol. We are Muslim and therefore jihad is our obligation," Ameri said in the mountains south of Herat.

"Our soil is occupied by Americans and I want them to leave this country. That is my only goal," he added.

'Respectful behaviour'

Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said Isaf troops were "behaving in the most respectful way".

"I have no specific information about any activity that would have happened in Herat but I know for sure that the Taliban and other insurgents are conducting a propaganda campaign against us. And I can confirm to you that our troops are behaving in the most respectful way," he told Al Jazeera.

"Anytime that I would hear that somebody is joining the insurgency I think it is bad news because we know the Taliban are offering nothing for the future of this country," he said.

But Ameri and his men are not the only renegade government forces – some 70 police and soldiers have switched allegiances across the western region in the past two months.

Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan, reporting from Afghanistan, said "low wages for a dangerous jobs" did not seem to be the reason behind the desertions.

Instead, they deserted for ideological reasons, Nolan explained.

"When Russia came it was only one country, today we have 24 foreign infidel countries on our soil. All our men and women should come and join the jihad," Fida Mohammad, a new Taliban recruit, told Al Jazeera.

'Infidel' training

But though they reject the "infidels", they are not averse to receiving weapons or military training from them.

The recruits - so fresh that many have not yet grown their beards, while some are still smoking, a practice banned by the Taliban - carry weapons provided by the Afghan government and certificates for weapons training by the US.

Abdul Rahim, another new recruit, said he received training from American military contractor Blackwater for 45 days.

"I can use the training to save my life in these mountains and I can also use it to fight them," he said.

The switch in allegiances comes as the UN special envoy to Afghanistan warned on Tuesday that the Taliban's influence continues to spread beyond traditional strongholds to provinces around the capital, Kabul.

Kai Eide also told the UN Security Council that Taliban attacks - at a six-year high – would probably grow in the coming weeks instead of easing, as they have in previous winters.

"We should be prepared for a situation where the insurgency will not experience the same winter lull, the same reduction in hostilities we have experienced in past winters," he said.

Eide added that attacks against humanitarian workers had also increased.

Abdul Hakim Ashir, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, denied that a high number of police officers had defected.

"I strongly refuse that 70 people [have defected to the Taliban] because this year we lost only 10 officers who maybe joined the Taliban,"

"We have increased the number of officers from 61,000 to 82,000 this year. The police recruitment process is going very well. Those from the young generation especially are joining the police forces.

"Over the last month, we have graduated 2,000 non-commissioned officers. That means there has been an increase and not a decrease in the police force."

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

70 is less than one tenth of one percent of 82,000. That's not exactly what I'd call "many". I'm pretty disgusted with Al Jazeera on this one.

We gain one, we lose one.

2008-10-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

There's a lot to talk about today, so I'm going to depart from my usual format.

According to Al Jazeera:

In a second battle in Helmand province, Afghan and international troops retook the Nad Ali district centre - which had been held by fighters - during a three-day fight, Ahmadi said.

That battle, which also involved airstrikes, ended on Saturday and resulted in the death of 40 Taliban fighters, officials said.

Afghan police and soldiers were now in control of the district centre.

Nato said its aircraft bombed fighters after they were seen gathering for a major attack, killing "multiple enemy forces".

"If the fighters planned a spectacular attack prior to the winter, this was a spectacular failure," Richard Blanchette, an Isaf spokesman, said.

Although I was somewhat disappointed to learn that there had been a district that I had not known was held by the Taliban, this is of course good news, as is the news, also reported in the article, that NATO had repulsed a major attack on Lashkar Gah. However, AJ did not mention this somewhat less cheerful development, which I found out about via Quqnoos:

Taliban claim to have forced NATO-led troops from a remote district

THE NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has withdrawn from a district in the north-eastern province of Nuristan, the international force said.

ISAF said it retreated from its forward operating base in the Kamdish district on Friday following advice from Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry.

But the Taliban claimed that it forced ISAF troops in the district to retreat after engaging them in fierce fighting in the district, one of the country’s most insecure.

The situation in Nuristan has been growing increasingly worrying. According to my current map prototype, the Taliban currently controls three of its eight districts, as well as the Dara-ye Pech District just across the border in Kunar Province, and a fourth district, Bargomatal, was attacked by Tehrik-i-Taliban-i-Pakistan back in July. I still have been unable to determine the outcome of that battle, but am inclined to think that, even if the TTP did manage to take it, which I don't think they did, their forces have since been withdrawn to fight the Pakistani security forces in Bajaur, which would leave the district only nominally in the Taliban's hands, just as so much of the rest of the province is only nominally in the hands of NATO and the central government. I have seen reports that some of the forces currently fighting in Bajaur had previously been fighting in Afghanistan, which lends some credence to this theory.

Nuristan, for those of you who are not familiar with it (i.e. pretty much all of you), is one of the most isolated inhabited regions on the face of the Earth. Its terrain is nearly impassable, and it is so out of the way that Islam didn't reach it until the end of the 19th century. Before then it was known as Kafiristan (land of the unbelievers) and its inhabitants as the Red Kafirs; their cousins, the Black Kafirs, or Kalasha, live on the Pakistani side of the Durand line and still practice their age-old pagan religion. The Nuristanis speak languages that are unusual even for Mianistan; while most languages in the region are either Iranian (e.g. Pashto, Wakhi, Yidgha) or Indo-Aryan (e.g. Khowar, Kalasha, Torwali) (although this "Dardic" sub-group of the Indo-Aryan branch is pretty weird), the Nuristani languages form a group all of their own.

There is, however, yet another major development regarding Afghanistan in the news today. Quqnoos reports:

US wants to reduce dependence on government by arming militias

THE UNITED States plans to arm tribal militias against the Taliban, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said at a NATO summit in Hungary.

As part of a plan to create greater co-operation on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, the US wants to train tribal militias in an attempt to reduce its dependence on the central government in Kabul.

Parliament members had already suggested arming the tribes, but the idea was not given any currency at the time.

This is a superb idea. Working with the tribes worked in Iraq, is working in Pakistan, and, unlike McCain's bizarre idea to "clear and hold" some of the most impassible terrain on Earth, it would also work in Afghanistan. In case you haven't noticed, I am strongly pro-tribe, not only because of my own tribal identity (Stewart of Bote FTW!), but also simply because it works. Indeed, in regions such as Mianistan I would venture to say that it is the only strategy that will work. My friend Woke at News Hounds has often said that it is impossible for a conventional army to defeat a popular insurgency. Although it is possible to do it if you brutally punish the civilian population, as Genghis Khan did, that's not really an option if you're the good guys, so it's true so far as we are concerned. This means that if you are faced with an insurgency, the only way that you can win is if it stops being popular. The psychopathic, woman-oppressing, elder-beheading Taliban are already helping us out on this one. However, their antisocial ways can be counteracted by the collateral damage we often inflict when we fight them directly. This means that there needs to be a popular insurgency against the unpopular one. We can then support the locals rather than killing them. And in the tribal reality of Mianistan, supporting the locals means supporting the tribes.

Blast hits Pakistan tribal meeting

2008-10-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

An explosion at a meeting of tribal elders in northwest Pakistan has killed at least 20 people and wounded 70 others, an official said.

The suspected suicide bombing happened on Friday in the Orakzai district, one of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal regions, security officials said.

"We were busy in raising a lashkar [a tribal militia] to evict Taliban from the region when this attack took place," Qeemat Khan Orakzai, a member of the council, told the Reuters news agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The members of the Alizai tribe had met in the town of Ghaljo in mountainous Orakzai, which is the only one of the tribal regions that does not border Afghanistan.

'Hideouts' destroyed

A security official said that the attack came a day after tribesmen had targeted two hideouts belonging to pro-Taliban groups operating in the area.

"The tribesmen blew up two hideouts of the militants a day earlier and it is possible this attack was in revenge for their actions," a security official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.

The bombing came a day after four tribal elders in Bajaur, a tribal region north of Orakzai, were abducted and beheaded after attending another pro-government meeting, officials said.

"People will tell you that Pakistan is already in a state of war. Every day there are suicide bombings," Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from the North West Frontier province, said.

"The violence is escalating at a time that the national assembly is not able to come to grips with the situation.

"The death toll could rise further," he said.

Violence has intensified across Pakistan in recent months since the army began an offensive against the pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the Bajaur and Swat regions.

Orakzai, near the main northwest city of Peshawar, has been relatively peaceful compared to the other tribal regions.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

The stupidity of the Taliban is breathtaking. I am at a loss as to how a Californian suburbanite has a better understanding of tribal politics than a group that's based in a heavily tribal region. When the tribes told the Taliban that they should leave because of the effect that their war with the Pakistani security forces was having on civilians, they should have done so. They should have pulled back to Waziristan, where the Pakistani government still has little inclination to fight them. Then, once the security forces had been withdrawn, they should have begun re-infiltrating the northern districts and agencies. That was their only real option, because the tribes are the reality, and you cannot declare war on reality and win.

Of course, the Taliban should never have let it come to this in the first place. From the very beginning, they should have been trying to bring tribal elders over to their side— through bribery, conversion, or what have you. They should have jockeyed for power within the tribes, perhaps poisoning the odd rival, or having a rival group take him out. When they did take such action towards an elder, it should never have been direct; proxies, or even false flags, should always have been used. They should have formed alliances, exploited old feuds, and arranged strategic marriages to solidify these networks of support. This would have established themselves as a major, if not the major, political power. This was the logical, reasonable thing to do. It's what the Prophet Muḥammad did. If they had done it, the security forces would have been the ones to receive the ultimatum, not them.

But they did not do it, and they did receive the ultimatum, and they are responding to it in the worst conceivable way. Beheading elders? This sends a very clear message, not only to the tribesmen of the elders in question, but also to all of the other tribesmen. If I were a Waziri elder, I would be getting very nervous right about now.

Pakistan tribes attack Taliban

2008-10-06T08:09:00.000-07:00

Tribal volunteers in Pakistan have threatened to destroy the house of Maulvi Omar, a senior Pakistani Taliban spokesman, in the north of the country.

The volunteers surrounded Omar's house on Monday and also said that the homes of other Taliban supporters would be targeted.

The threats are part of a crackdown on the Taliban some tribes people are launching in the Bajaur Agency.

The volunteers' commander says they have 20,000 men ready to carry out the campaign and that they are not asking for any government help.

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said that a military operation in Bajaur had made it the scene of heavy fighting and displaced tens of thousands of people from the area.

"[This] caused considerable anger at both the, so called, Taliban in the region for destabilising the region, and the military coming.

"That disillusionment now seems to have turned against the fighters who have been fighting the military."

Hyder said that the locals have been burning the houses of senior commanders who have allied themselves to the Taliban and surrounded the house of Omar.

"There was some desperate attempts by the pro-Taliban elements to try and prevent the destruction of Maulvi Omar's house, but the tribals have said that they will go ahead anyway."

However, Hyder said that Afghan refugees and some Afghan commanders in the area were still attempting to resist the tribal volunteers.

Rocket attack

The attacks came a day after opposition fighters fired rockets at the home of a politician in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan.

Two rockets damaged three homes in the town of Marden on Sunday.

The rockets failed to hit the home of Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the North West Frontier Province's chief minister and the intended target.

No one was injured in the attack. Hoti was said to be in Peshwar, the provincial capital, at the time.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister, said: "We expect more such incidents."

"They are not going to be stopped here. We are facing a war-like situation."

The strike followed a number of attacks targeting politicians in the lawless border area.

A suicide bomber detonated a bomb outside the house of a leading pro-government politician last week, killing four people.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

This is only one example of a number of tribal activities currently underway against the Taliban.

In other news, I have finally found highly detailed maps of the border region, which I am working on integrating into a single very high quality reference map.

Afghan victory hopes played down

2008-10-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

The UK's commander in Helmand has said Britain should not expect a "decisive military victory" in Afghanistan.

Brig Mark Carleton-Smith told the Sunday Times the aim of the mission was to ensure the Afghan army was able to manage the country on its own.

He said this could involve discussing security with the Taleban.

When international troops eventually leave Afghanistan, there may still be a "low but steady" level of rural insurgency, he conceded.

He said it was unrealistic to expect that multinational forces would be able to wipe out armed bands of insurgents in the country.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says Brig Carleton-Smith's comments echo a view commonly-held, if rarely aired, by British military and diplomatic officials in Afghanistan.

Many believe certain legitimate elements of the Taleban represent the positions of the Afghan people and so should be a part of the country's future, says our correspondent.

'Taken the sting out'

Brig Carleton-Smith is the Commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan.

He paid tribute to his forces and told the newspaper they had "taken the sting out of the Taleban for 2008".

But he stated: "We're not going to win this war.

"It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army."

Brig Carleton-Smith said the goal was to change how debates were resolved in the country so that violence was not the first option considered.

He said: "If the Taleban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this.

"That shouldn't make people uncomfortable."

Since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001, 120 UK military personnel have been killed.

Via the BBC.

Comment:

This is actually what I've been expecting to happen for a while. Provided that they hand over bin Laden, Zawahiri, etc., I don't have that much of a problem with the actual rank and file of the Taliban. It's moot at the moment, though, since the Taliban are still too strong to be willing to negotiate.

Interview with Waziri soldier

2008-09-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Very, very interesting.

U.S., Pakistani troops exchange fire

2008-09-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — U.S. and Pakistani ground forces exchanged fire across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border on Thursday, the latest in a string of incidents that has ratcheted up diplomatic tension between the two allies.

No casualties or injuries were reported after Pakistani forces shot at two U.S. helicopters from a Pakistani border post. U.S. and Pakistani officials clashed over whether the American helicopters had entered Pakistan.

The incident follows a U.S. campaign of attacks on militant targets inside Pakistan, including a September 3 U.S. commando raid on a village compound in South Waziristan. Islamabad has protested those strikes and warned it would defend itself.

"Just as we will not let Pakistan's territory be used by terrorists for attacks against our people and our neighbors, we cannot allow our territory and our sovereignty to be violated by our friends," Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in New York on Thursday.

But in Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman insisted the helicopters had not entered Pakistan. He described the incident as "troubling" and called on Islamabad for an explanation.

"The flight path of the helicopters at no point took them over Pakistan," he said. "The Pakistanis have to provide us with a better understanding of why this took place."

According to Pakistan's military, its soldiers fired warning shots at two U.S. helicopters after they intruded into Pakistani airspace. The U.S. military said the helicopters were protecting a patrol about one mile inside Afghanistan when Pakistani forces opened fire.

UNCERTAIN BORDER

"The (helicopters) did not return fire but the ground forces fired suppressive fire at that outpost. The Pakistani forces then returned that fire. The whole exchange lasted about five minutes," said an official with U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in Afghanistan.

The U.S. forces were operating under NATO command.

Thursday's confrontation followed a dispute earlier this week over reports of a downed U.S. drone in Pakistan. Pakistani officials said a small unmanned American aircraft crashed in Pakistan, but U.S. officials denied it, saying a drone went down in Afghanistan and was recovered.

The rugged border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is seen by Washington as critical to its fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Bush administration considers Pakistan an ally in counterterrorism but U.S. officials say Islamabad has not done enough against militants there.

The uncertain border also complicates efforts, making it difficult for forces to determine when they are in Afghanistan or Pakistan, both U.S. and Pakistani officials concede.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, after meeting Zardari on Thursday, said she believed he was strongly committed to fighting militants.

"We talked about how we might assist Pakistan in doing what it needs to do, but I think there is a very strong commitment. And after all, it is the same enemy," she said in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Via Comcast.

Comment:

The US military had better get to the bottom of this, or it risks completely alienating the tribes.

US, Pakistan, Afghanistan to create joint military force

2008-09-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON: The US is discussing with Pakistan and Afghanistan to create a joint military force to combat insurgents in the two south Asian nations, a senior US official confirmed Tuesday.

"We’re obviously taking a good look at it. We’re going to analyse it and see where we go from here," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said, adding that "We will probably have something to say once we’ve done a thorough analysis of it."

Last month, officials from the three countries began discussing the creation of a joint military force for anti-insurgency operations on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Washington Post quoted Afghan Defence Minister Rahim Wardak as saying Tuesday.

"The terrorists have not recognised any boundaries. So to fight them, we have to eventually come up with some arrangement, together with our neighbour Pakistan," Wardak said.

"Pakistan’s government is considering the plan. They say they are looking at it," he added.

Via OINN.

Comment:

This is more like it. The recent unilateral attacks on Pakistan have been nothing short of catastrophic.

Pakistan troops 'repel US raid'

2008-09-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

Pakistani troops have fired warning shots at two US helicopters forcing them back into Afghanistan, local Pakistani intelligence officials say.

The helicopters flew into the tribal North Waziristan region from Afghanistan's Khost province at around midnight, the reports say.

Tensions have risen after an increase in US attacks targeting militants.

The incident comes amid mounting security fears after a militant bomb attack on the Islamabad Marriott hotel.

Pakistan's army has said it will defend the country's sovereignty and reserves the right to retaliate to any border violations.

The government has said it will take targeted action against the militants, promising raids in some "hotspots" near the border with Afghanistan.

[snip]

The latest confrontation between US and Pakistani forces took place in North Waziristan's sparsely populated Ghulam Khan district, west of the main town in the region, Miranshah, local officials say.

They told the BBC that troops at border posts in the mountainous region fired at two US helicopters which crossed into Pakistani territory.

The helicopters returned to Afghanistan without retaliating.

A senior security official based in Islamabad told the AFP news agency that the helicopters had been repelled by both army troops and soldiers from the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC).

"The helicopters were heading towards our border. We were alert and when they were right on the boundary line we started aerial firing. They hovered for a few minutes and went back," the official said.

"About 30 minutes later they made another attempt. We retaliated again, firing in the air and not in their direction, from both the army position and the FC position, and they went back."

A Pakistani military spokesman, Maj Murad Khan, said he had no information "on border violation by the American helicopters".

The US military in Afghanistan also said it had no information on the incident.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says after increased American incursions this month, the army stressed that it reserved the right to retaliate.

Our correspondent says standard procedure would be to first fire warning shots.

[More]

Comment:

I'm not sure how much credence to give this. The sources are either local or anonymous, and the governments of both nations deny it— unlike the ground assault earlier this month. On the other hand, the politics of the situation are extremely complicated, and it may well be that the two governments are trying to minimize the incident in public while duking it out behind closed doors.

What it really comes down to, though, is the description of the event itself. We are fully aware that Pakistan has troops stationed along the border. I find it to be unlikely that our method of getting past these troops would be to bumble around in helicopters.

Pakistan Marriott blast shows signs of al-Qaida

2008-09-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Taliban militants based near the Afghan border and their al-Qaida allies are the most likely suspects behind a massive truck bombing at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel, officials and experts said Sunday. At least 53 died in the explosion, including two U.S. Defense Department employees and the Czech ambassador.

The truck sat burning and disabled at the hotel gate for at least 3 1/2 minutes as nervous guards tried to douse the flames before they, the truck and much of the hotel forecourt vanished in a fearsome fireball on Saturday night, according to dramatic surveillance footage released Sunday.

The attack on the American hotel chain during Ramadan, among the deadliest terrorist strikes in Pakistan, will test the resolve of its pro-Western civilian rulers to crack down on growing violent extremism which many here blame on the country's role in the U.S.-led war on terror.

While no group has claimed responsibility, the scale of the blast and its high-profile target were seen by many as the signature of media-savvy al-Qaida.

Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said "all roads lead to FATA" in major Pakistani suicide attacks — referring to Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where U.S. officials worry that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri are hiding.

Mahmood Shah, a former government security chief for Pakistan's tribal areas, said that while the attack had "all the signatures" of an al-Qaida strike, homegrown Taliban militants probably had learned how to execute an attack of such magnitude.

Al-Qaida was providing "money, motivation, direction and all sort of leadership and using the Taliban as gun fodder," he suggested.

A Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record to media, said investigators were examining just that theory.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the attack was an attempt to "destabilize democracy" in Pakistan, which this year emerged from nine years of military rule, and destroy its already fragile economy.

Gilani also claimed that the bomber attacked the hotel only after tight security prevented him from reaching Parliament or the prime minister's office, where President Asif Ali Zardari and many dignitaries were gathered for dinner.

[More]

Comment:

I had not realized how close to the seat of government the blast was. In this map, the hotel is in the upper left corner of the screen, and the two square buildings on the right are the cabinet and the parliament; just beyond them is the palatial residence of the president.

Ironically, I had just been thinking to myself that it had been a while since al-Qaeda had done anything.

A look at the Afghan frontier

2008-09-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

This clip gave me a much better understanding of why the region has been so hard to control.

Report Says Pakistan Troops Fire on US Helos

2008-09-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

Islamabad - Pakistani security forces and armed tribesmen on Monday foiled an attempt by US troops to enter Pakistani territory by firing shots at them, security officials said.

The attacks came as Pakistani forces killed up to 20 Taliban militants in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Two US military helicopters crossed into Pakistan and tried to land near Angor Adda area of South Waziristan tribal district along the Afghan border before dawn, a local security official said.

"But our security forces and the tribesmen who were alert opened fire at them and forced them to flee back to Afghanistan," added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

There were conflicting official versions of the attempted US strike.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied the attack on U.S. forces had occurred, saying the Pakistani security official’s statement “didn’t appear to be accurate,” wire reports said.

A senior official in the country's foreign ministry said American ground troops, which were backed by US helicopter gunships, tried to cross over border, but were forced to flee by the tribesmen.

"Pakistani troops did not take part in the action," he said seeking anonymity.

No one was hurt in the incident, which an army spokesman denied took place.

"We completely deny the incident. There was no violation of our border from the Afghan side and therefore there was no question of any firing from our side," Major Murad Khan insisted.

However, he said firing was heard in the area but the army did not know where it had come from and where it was aimed.

A local resident, Sher Ali, said the tribesmen in the Angor Adda area had been on alert since September 3 when US special forces dropped by US helicopters killed more than 20 civilians.

"People had information since Sunday night that the US forces were gathering across the border so thousands of armed tribesmen were guarding their area," he added.

"Good for them (Americans) that they turned back. Otherwise, people were ready to give them the sort of welcome they deserve."

Tension has been brewing between Islamabad and Washington in recent weeks as US forces have increased missile attacks, mostly carried out by drones, at the suspected hideouts of militants who launch cross-border raids on international forces in Afghanistan.

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told the US Congress last Wednesday that Washington was planning military operations to eliminate militant sanctuaries in Pakistan.

In response, Pakistan's military chief General Ishfaq Parvez Kayani has vowed to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country "at all cost."

The US attacks have also fuelled anger among the Pakistani public which is now demanding the new government in Islamabad abandon cooperation with the US in the international fight against terrorism.

But there are no indications that the government, led by the widower of slain Benazir Bhutto, President Asif Ali Zardari, intends to do that. The government has vowed to resolve the issue through diplomacy.

On Tuesday Zardari will meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London to discuss the matter and next week he is expected to see US President George W Bush after he arrives in Washington on an official visit.

Meanwhile, in Bajaur tribal district up to 20 militants died as Pakistani jets, helicopters and artillery pounded positions in Kamangar, Loi Sum and Banda, according to a local security official.

Army spokesman Major Murad said several militant positions were attacked on Monday but the losses had yet to be ascertained.

Via Military.com.

Comment:

At this point, it is extremely difficult to determine what, if anything, happened. In addition to the versions reported above, it has also been claimed that "Pakistani paramilitary soldiers at a checkpoint opened fire into the air and the US troops decided not to continue forward."¹ Sher Ali's claim that the tribesmen had received reports that the US was preparing to launch an attack is almost certainly false, as there isn't anything to speak of on the other side of the border that they could have observed. The BBC version linked to above, which describes the troops as arriving in Chinook helicopters, is more likely to be correct, but even it makes very little sense, as it also says that the Chinooks were accompanied by helicopter gunships, which then just sat there during the actual incursion. The big problem with all of these versions, however, is that they claim that the troops ran away rather than fight. If you're engaging in a military incursion, you're probably ready for some combat.

Arrests over Afghan civilian deaths

2008-09-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

Afghan police have arrested three men alleged to have provided "wrong information"
which led to the deaths of scores of civilians in a US air raid.

More than 90 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the village of Azizabad in western Herat's Shindand district on August 22, according to the Afghan government.

Police began an investigation into the incident on September 4 after villagers said US-led forces in Afghanistan had been fed false information about the presence of Taliban members in Azizabad following a tribal dispute, the interior ministry said.

A statement said: "After examining all the police reports and direct claims made by people in the area, three suspects who are said to be key people in giving false information regarding the bombardment of Azizabad, have been arrested in a police operation."

The three were on a list of people provided to Hamid Karzai, the president, by the villagers. Karzai visited relatives of the victims earlier this month and pledged to punish those responsible.

Karzai has already sacked two senior army commanders over the incident.

Tribal dispute

Locals told Al Jazeera that the air raid hit a memorial service at a compound belonging to Reza Khan, a tribal leader who had been in dispute with Nader Tawakal, another local leader.

"We were holding a prayer ceremony when the bombs started to fall ... it was heavy bombardment. The whole village was on fire and about 90 were killed," Abdul Rasheed, the brother of one of the dead, said.

Villagers have denied that the gathering was a meeting of the Taliban, which has been fighting Afghan and international forces since being forced from power in 2001. They said that Khan, who died in the raid, was a businessman with security contracts at a nearby US base.

"Nader gave the US special forces wrong information," Gullah Ahmed, one villager, said.

"But instead of surrounding the village they just started bombing."

Nader was not among those arrested on Friday.

The US military maintains that between 30 and 35 Taliban fighters were killed, but has agreed to reopen the investigation after a mobile phone video emerged showing bodies of people said to have been killed in the attack.

It says the original investigation found that a senior Taliban commander was among the dead in the air raid, which was called in after Afghan army US-led ground forces came under intense fire.

Civilian casualties

One resident of Azizabad said that US forces raided his house after the bombing and demanded to be shown the bodies of the dead Taliban fighters.

"I said there were no Taliban here," he told Al Jazeera. "I saw their facial expressions when they realised that civilians had been killed."

More than 500 civilians have been killed during military operations by foreign and Afghan forces so far this year, according to the Afghan government and some aid groups.

Daoud Sultanzoy, an Afghan MP, said that such incidents were destroying people's faith in the Afghan government and international forces in the country.

"The weak Afghan government and weak leadership is trying to take advantage of this and trying to deflect attention from their own problems that are the root cause of these kind of things," he told Al Jazeera.

"Lack of co-ordination of our intelligence, lack of co-ordination of our security forces and lack of co-ordination of our leadership have led to these kind of problems ... if we are not careful we will cross a threshold and alienate the civilian population."

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

This is turning out to be quite the fiasco. I had initially not covered it because the differences between the numbers provided by the military and those provided by the locals had led me to believe that it was primarily, though not necessarily entirely, an attempt by Taliban sympathizers at propagandizing. It turns out, though, that the military's figures were based on an embedded FOX news reporter, who turned out to be, almost unbelievably, Oliver North.

Al Jazeera has suggested elsewhere that Bush is apparently ratcheting up efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan in hopes of capturing Osama bin Laden before his term expires. I hope to God that this is not true. Everything that Bush has ever tried to do has failed. If he attempts to, as an American commander put it, "kill [his] way to victory," we might as well just start paying bin Laden a pension right now.

The centrality of bin Laden

2008-09-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

On News Hounds, I had said, "just as Hitler was Nazi Germany, so too is bin Laden al-Qaeda. So long as he is free, it is free; capture him, and it will be broken." Another poster expressed doubt that this was the case, and I composed a detailed response for him. Since I've been meaning to put together a post on this topic for quite some time, I am posting it here as well.

Osama bin Laden is the lynchpin that holds al-Qaeda together. Even before 9/11, al-Qaeda was very strongly focused on him; his lieutenants swore an oath of fealty to him personally, which is unheard of in other such organizations. After 9/11 seared his name into history, he became almost mythical. His immense prestige is what prompted other such organizations to join forces with him.

It is important to remember that al-Qaeda is organized in a very unusual way. It does have a very firm, hierarchical structure, but the nature of that structure is very different from that of, say, a military. In militaries, location in the hierarchy is based solely on authority; in al-Qaeda, it is based primarily — though not exclusively — on deference. In other words, the various components of al-Qaeda work together not because they have to, but because they want to. Now, this does not mean that you can just change your mind and go your own way — just ask Zarqawi — but such insubordination is usually not an issue. Furthermore, individual components are autonomous, and are thus not often called upon to show deference.

In the al-Qaeda of today, there is no question that the regional commanders defer to bin Laden. To suggest otherwise is just silly. Whether or not they would show the same deference to bin Laden's successor, though, especially if we had already gotten Zawahiri, is another matter entirely. It is entirely possible that al-Qaeda would break up into its component organizations, and even if it didn't, the inability of its new leader to gain such unquestioning authority would mean that the whole system would eventually break down. Even if it remained intact, though, it would lose most of its momentum.

'US drone' fires on Pakistan target

2008-09-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

A suspected US drone aircraft has left at least eight people dead in northern Pakistan, while dozens of suspected fighters have been killed in the Bajaur region, Pakistani officials say.

The drone aircraft on Friday fired on a house near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, leaving another 10 people injured.

North Waziristan, seen by the US as a safehaven for supporters of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, is part of a belt of tribally governed territory where Pakistan's government has little control.

Residents said two missiles were fired at a former government school where suspected fighters and their families were living in Tul Khail village, 5km east of Miran Shah.

Those killed were members of Al Badar, the armed Afghan group of veteran leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, according to an unnamed Pakistani official.

Heykmatyar is an Afghan leader who fought against Soviet occupation in the 1980s and against the Taliban in the 1990s. He reportedly allied with the deposed group after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, demanding the withdrawal of foreign forces.

US tensions

Friday's missile attack brings to five the number of such raids in the past two weeks.

Thirty-eight people, including women and children, have been killed in the past week's missile attacks.

Both the US military and the CIA operate drone aircraft armed with missiles of the type believed to have killed two senior al-Qaeda commanders in Pakistani territory earlier this year. Pakistan says it does not have missile-equipped drones.

Tensions between the US and Pakistan have further risen after a raid last week in which helicopter-borne US commandos landed in Pakistan's South Waziristan - the first known incursion into Pakistan by US troops since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's military chief, on Wednesday denounced the apparent US raids, saying unilateral actions risked undermining their co-operation.

He warned that "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost. No external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan."

A day later, The New York Times reported that George Bush, the US president, had secretly approved orders in July to allow US special forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government.

Bajaur fighting

Concurrent with the attack in North Waziristan, Major Murad Khan, a Pakistani military spokesman, announced 32 fighters had been killed, as well as two soldiers, over the last day during violence in the Bajur region.

Pakistani officials say hundreds of fighters have been killed there during a week-long offensive, which has forced 500,000 people to flee their homes. Officials acknowledge that civilian have been killed and villages badly damaged in the fighting.

Rehman Malik, the Pakistani interior minister, had previously announced a government ceasefire with fighters in Bajaur and other tribal areas in honour of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

First off, a note on the article itself. As is mentioned, only militants were killed in the raid. Nevertheless, Al Jazeera decided to include a picture of a wounded child, the explanation given being that "Earlier air raids, which have killed and wounded civilians, have angered Pakistanis." This is blatantly biased, the sort of thing I'd expect from FOX, and if it continues I may have to reconsider using Al Jazeera as my primary news source.

As for the raid, ordinarily I would not have objected to it, because if Pakistan wants to claim that it has sovereignty over Waziristan, then it needs to actually exercise that sovereignty. However, it has now begun to do just that. With Pakistan finally taking the threat from TTP seriously, there is no need for us to intervene directly. Doing so, especially against their expressly declared wishes, is foolish.

Apologies on not posting more often. I have my hands full with my Persian lit. class.

September 11

2008-09-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

May we remember this day, and understand who was truly responsible for it.

Zardari takes Pakistan presidency

2008-09-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister assassinated last year, has become the president of Pakistan.

Zardari took 481 votes out of 702, needing only 352 votes to guaranteed him victory, according to provisional election results.

The PPP said Zardari's win was "a victory for democracy".

Sherry Rehman, the country's information minister, said: "It is an historic win. This man suffered jail for more than 11 years for the sake of democracy and today he is elected as the president of the country.

"It is a sign of the strengthening of democracy."

Votes from the four provincial assemblies are yet to be fully counted.

Zardari will succeed Pervez Musharraf, who resigned on August 18 under threat of impeachment.

[More]

Comment:

Insofar as this blog is concerned, this is probably good news, as it means that operations against the Taliban will most likely continue. However, it remains to be seen what sort of a leader Zardari will be, as there are substantial allegations that he is corrupt and mentally ill.

Ground assault by US-led forces: Women, children among 20 killed in Waziristan

2008-09-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

WANA, Sept 3: At least 20 people, most of them women and children, were killed in an assault by US-led coalition forces on a village near the Afghan border on Wednesday.

According to people in Musa Neka Ziarat, three US helicopters landed in the plains at around 4am, troops disembarked from them and attacked a house, killing 10 people.

They said that two children, three women and five men were killed in the attack on the house of one Payo Jan Torjikhel. A woman survived the indiscriminate shooting, they said.

The troops then opened fire on villagers who had come out of their homes, killing another 10 people. The victims, including three children and two women, belonged to the families of Faiz Mohammad and Nazar Jan.

Payo Jan and Nazar Jan were also killed.

Local people said Payo Jan and the two other families had no association with militants.

“The Americans came in helicopters, landed, walked up to the houses, started shooting and then flew back towards Afghanistan,” a villager told Dawn.

“It is an outrage,” NWFP Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani said in a statement. “This is a direct assault on the sovereignty of Pakistan and the people expect that the armed forces of Pakistan will rise to defend the sovereignty of the country and give a befitting reply.”

The attack comes amid an increase in the number of missile and predator attacks on suspected Al Qaeda hideouts in Waziristan in recent days.

It was the first known ground assault of its kind.

A security official said the Americans no longer shared information with Pakistan before launching missile or predator attacks in the tribal region. “They are not sharing any information with us. These are all totally unilateral actions.”

Our Reporter in Islamabad adds: Inter-Services Public Relations chief Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said, “In the wee hours of the morning on Sept 3, Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) troops in two helicopters landed at a village near Angoor Adda, South Waziristan Agency, and as per reports received so far, killed seven innocent civilians.”The army spokesman condemned the “completely unprovoked act of killing” and regretted the loss of precious lives.

He blamed the coalition forces for the violent act and said that such acts of aggression would not serve the common cause of fighting terrorism and militancy in the area.

He said the Pakistan Army had lodged a strong protest with the Office of the Defence Representative in Pakistan and said that “we reserve the right of self-defence and retaliation to protect our citizens and soldiers against aggression”.

There were unconfirmed reports that the Isaf troops had also captured some people and taken them to Afghanistan.

Via Dawn.

Comment:

Hmm. I smell something here. According to Al Jazeera, "Both the US-led forces operating in Afghanistan and the separate Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) have said they have no knowledge of the incident."¹ Ordinarily I wouldn't attach too much importance to this, but the only sources for this raid are South Waziri locals, who are not exactly impartial, and the account of the raid simply doesn't make sense. Why on earth would they have gotten out of their helicopters? Why would they have even left the country? We have Predators for that sort of thing. South Waziristan is an extremely dangerous place, and I can't imagine us needlessly risking our troops lives like that.

Taliban claims Pakistan attack

2008-09-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibilty for an assasination attempt on Yousuf Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister.

Shots were fired at the pime minister's motorcade on Wednesday near Islamabad's international airport, but officials and police said Gilani was not in the car at the time.

The Taliban said it was behyind the attack and said it was targeting Gilani because he was responsible for offensives against their fighters in the country's northwest.

"We will continue such attacks on government officials and installations," Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the group, said.

The prime minister's office said multiple sniper shots had been fired at the prime minister's car and television pictures showed two bullet marks a couple of inches apart on the cracked bullet-proof window.

Some reports suggested Gilani's son, Moosa, and Qamar Zaman Kaira, the federal minister for Kashmir and Northern affairs, were in the motorcade at the time, travelling to the airport to pick up the prime minister.

Officials said a formal investigation into the incident had been launched.

In the past, suspected al-Qaeda fighters have launched attacks on Pervez Musharraf - who stepped down as Pakistan's president last month - attacks the former president only narrowly survived.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

It looks like the Taliban has opted for the John McCain approach of victory through force and force alone rather than the Barack Obama approach of victory pursued on all fronts. Had the Taliban just sat back and let Pakistani politics do its thing it would be in pretty good shape, as Khalid Aziz notes:

when the government is near success the old game of using parliament as a prop to defeat the will of the state is brought into play. Any revision of policy at this stage will be a great blow to the government. At the same time Pakistan is in the midst of a severe political crisis. This has occurred due to a breakdown of the coalition at the time of a Presidential election. The tribal areas have 20 electoral votes in this contest. The tribal MNAs and Senators have said that they would like the military activity stopped in Bajaur as a precondition for casting their votes for the PPP candidate. In short the Presidential contest has become a negotiable item in the path of security operations. The JUI (F) which has more than 30 Electoral College votes has categorically asked for a halt to all military operations.

This foolish strike on the Prime Minister's convoy will have the dual effect of hardening him against any compromise and of shoring up public sympathy for him and his party.

Pakistan army 'just miss' Zawahiri

2008-09-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

Pakistan's security forces have missed the opportunity to capture al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior government official has said.

Rehman Malik, the adviser to Pakistan's prime minister on security affairs, said on Monday they also received a report al-Zawahiri's wife had been in the tribal region of Mohmand.

Pakistani forces stormed the location but did not find the couple, he said, without indicating when the raid took place.

He said al-Zawahri moved between Mohmand and the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Paktika.

"We certainly had traced him at one place, but we missed the chance. So he's moving in Mohmand and, of course, sometimes in Kunar, mostly in Kunar and Paktia."

Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda's leader, have been in hiding since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

They are both believed to be in tribal region that straddles northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.

According to Malik, three weeks of fighting in the Pakistani-Afghan border district of Bajur had killed a number of civilians and badly damaged several villages.

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad quoted a tribal and security sources as saying 15 Pakistani civilians were killed in tribal area of Bajaur when two shells fell on their two homes.

Of about 500,000 people who fled, many of them to government relief camps, about 30,000 had returned by Monday.

Hand in glove

Malik said the Pakistani Taliban were working directly with Al-Qaeda, providing them with shelter and acting as their mouthpiece.

"They have not only connections, I would say Tehrik-e-Taliban is an extension of Al-Qaeda," he said, referring to a Pakistani Taliban umbrella group which authorities blame for a string of bomb attacks over the past year that have killed hundreds of people.

Pakistan last month banned the Taliban group, which was also accused of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister, in December.

The US says Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are based in sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas where they orchestrate attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and plot
violent attacks in the West.

The resignation of Pervez Musharraf, the former president and staunch US ally, last month raised questions about the government's commitment to the unpopular US-led "war on terror" campaign.

But US Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US armed forces, said last week he was encouraged by recent Pakistani action against fighters, while adding both Pakistan
and the United States needed to do more to shore up security.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

The article confuses the similarly named Paktia and Paktika provinces. Paktia is probably the one that is meant, because of its proximity to the other two and the Taliban's strong presence there.

While I can easily understand Zawahiri moving between Mohmand and Kunar (which are right next to each other), I'm not sure what he's doing in Paktia. There is a relatively safe corridor connecting it to Mohmand via the Khyber and Kurram Agencies, but it is still a little out of the way.

If the article did mean Paktika, it would be extremely interesting, because Paktika borders the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. I can definitely imagine Zawahiri and bin Laden being hidden in the Apostasy's two principal strongholds in Pakistan, and meeting with each other in Paktika.

Pakistani tribesmen organize private armies to fight Taliban

2008-09-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

Pakistan's Taliban might be getting stronger, wreaking havoc along the country's border with Afghanistan, but they are also growing wildly unpopular, inciting their own tribesmen to turn against them.

In the latest of a series of incidents, a lashkar, or private army comprised of Pakistani tribesmen, torched the houses of Taliban commanders in Bajaur, near the Afghan border, vowing to fight them until they are expelled, the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reports.

Tribesmen in Bajaur Agency's Salarzai tehsil on Sunday formed a private army (lashkar) of around 30,000 people against the local Taliban. A local jirga decided to form the lashkar in the wake of the increasing presence of the local Taliban in the area. The lashkar torched 14 houses, including the house of a local Taliban commander. Tribal elder Malik Munsib Khan, who heads the lashkar, said tribesmen would continue their struggle until the Taliban were expelled from the area, adding that anyone found sheltering Taliban militants would be fined one million [rupees] and his house would be torched. The tribesmen also torched two important centres of the Taliban in the area and gained control of most of the tehsil.

Dawn, another English-language daily in Pakistan, cited the lashkar at a much lower number.

The tribe has raised a lashkar of more than 4,000 volunteers. Malik Munasib Khan, who is leading uprising against the militants, said that the houses destroyed by the volunteers included one of militant leader Naimatullah, who had occupied several government schools and converted them into seminaries.

The development comes in the midst of the Pakistan Army's bombardment campaign, which has been unfolding for weeks in the tribal agency of Bajaur, a militant stronghold where some top commanders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding. The bombardment, which has left some 400 militants dead according to The New York Times, highlights the rising power of the Taliban some seven years after they were first ousted from power in Afghanistan. But it also showcases why the Taliban are highly unpopular: Some 200,000 people have been displaced because of fighting, while dozens of citizens have been killed in clashes between the militants and military.

The Bajaur lashkar might be the largest of its kind, but it is not the only such force to have turned against the Taliban, according to recent reports. The News, a leading Pakistani daily, reported two weeks ago that several such lashkars have arisen throughout the North West Frontier Province, where the Taliban are increasing their hold.

[More]

Comment:

Khalid Aziz, in a blog post linked to from the main article, strongly suspects that political considerations will force the government to end the current campaign, which

will not only letdown the military but all those who have accepted the challenge to fight the militants at the community level. We have seen that while the government adheres to cease fires the militants do not. Under the excuse of cease fire the militants retaliate against those who risked attacking the militants. The government’s ascendancy that now prevails would be lost.

However, this would violate the number one rule of tribal politics: Never kill the elders. Slaughter babies, rape and pillage, but do not harm the elders. Once you do that, you're in deep trouble. Killing elders is what started the Anbar Awakening, and what prompted the elimination of a very large number of Uzbek militants back when this blog was just beginning. When you target tribal elders, you target the tribe, and when you target the tribe, you target a fundamental component of society, a component that, in this part of the world, is very heavily armed.

I do not know how this will play out. The tribes may be instrumental in the Taliban's defeat; they may play no role at all. However, that defeat will never come unless the tribes allow it.

Afghan family killed in house raid

2008-09-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

A family of four, including two children, have been killed in an overnight raid by international troops, a police official and witnesses said.

Residents in Hud Kheil in the east of the capital said one of the two children was eight months old and grenades killed the family members during a joint Afghan-US special forces operation.

US special forces said they were not involved. Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said they were investigating media reports.

The deaths are likely to further strain relations between Afghanistan and the US and other foreign forces in the country, who have been accused of using excessive force in civilian areas.

Hundreds of people blocked a road in Kabul, protesting against the raid.

"It was past one o'clock when the troops came and surrounded our houses," said Sulaiman, one resident.

"They threw hand grenades in one house and killed three family members," he said.

Some locals told Al Jazeera there was an exchange of fire, and that the family may have been caught in the crossfire.

Damaged building

"Are these two children Al Qaeda?" an angry resident asked, as the bodies were taken for burial.

"We don't expect anything from the government because we don't have a government," Sulaiman said.

Several US and Nato military bases are located in the area. Three people were taken away by the troops, residents said.

The operation came a day after Nato said it received information from a "reliable source" that pro-Taliban fighters may be planning to falsely claim that international forces killed up to 70 civilians in southern Afghanistan.

The operation also comes Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, sacked an Afghan army general and a major after more than 100 civilians were reported to have been killed in an attack by US-led coalition forces.

Eyewitnesses and local people said more than 100 civilians, many of them women and children, were killed in the attack.

US officials, who said only three civilians were killed along with 25 Taliban fighters, have agreed to take part in a joint investigation with Afghanistan into the attacks.

Ground and air

Afghanistan's cabinet demanded last week a change in the rules governing international troops in the country, after the claims that more than 100 Afghans died in air attacks.

Despite Monday's deaths being caused by a ground operation, Daoud Sultanzoy, an Afghan MP, told Al Jazeera last week that it was air raids by Nato and US-led troops in villages and civilian areas that were causing the most damage.

The cabinet said that a review should focus on the "authorities and responsibilities" of troops and demand an end to air attacks in civilian areas, illegal detentions and unilateral houe searches.

"The authorities and responsibilities of the international forces in Afghanistan must be regulated through a "status of force agreement" consistent with both international and Afghan laws.

"Air strikes on civilian targets, unco-ordinated house searches and illegal detention of Afghan civilians must be stopped," a government statement said.

"With either good or bad intelligence, the most important lesson to learn from this is that we need to rely more on ground troops.

"Since Nato and the coalition don't have these troops, the reliance on air support is greater.

"If [Nato and the US] can increase their ground operations it would probably alleviate some of these problems."

The United Nations says that 255 of the almost 700 civilian deaths in fighting in Afghanistan this year have been caused by Afghan and international troops.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Fun fact: As of July, there were 162,000 US troops in Iraq.¹

Pakistan halts fighting for Ramadan

2008-08-31T08:16:00.000-07:00

Pakistan has announced a suspension of military operations against fighters in the tribal regions during the month of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

But a senior official said on Saturday that security forces would respond if attacked.

Rehman Malik, an interior ministry official, said that security forces would suspend operations from Sunday night for the month of Ramadan, which ends at the beginning of October.

"If militants take any action the security forces will respond with full force," Malik told reporters in the eastern city of Lahore.

"It is not a ceasefire," he stressed, "if they fire a single bullet we will respond with 10 bullets."

Military campaign

Violence has intensified in Pakistan in recent weeks with the military battling armed groups in three different parts of the country's northwest.

Troops backed by helicopter gunships and heavy artillery have for weeks been pounding what they say are pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda strongholds in the area, killing more than 560 people, according to officials.

The US says that al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are based in sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal areas on the Afghan border.

The suspension of military operations comes a day after Pakistan's army said it had killed 40 fighters in an air strike that targeted a rebel stronghold in the country's Swat region.

Deteriorating security in Pakistan has coincided with a faltering economy and political upheaval, with the resignation of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, last week.

That was quickly followed by a split in the ruling coalition.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Hopefully the Taliban will pause the fighting, but I doubt it.

In other news, I have recently begun a course on cartography, so my eternal dream of having a good map depicting the current situation in Afghanistan at a glance will hopefully become a reality.

Pakistan outlaws TTP

2008-08-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD (PAN): The government, hours after rejecting a truce offer from militants active in the volatile tribal region near the border with Afghanistan, outlawed on Monday an umbrella insurgent group called Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Speaking to journalists in Islamabad, the advisor to prime minister on interior announced the ban on TTP, formed in December 2007. Rehman Malik, promising punitive action against militant leaders, said bank accounts of the outfit had been frozen.

Activities of the extremist organisation, led by Baitullah Mehsud who has been linked to the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto, have touched off a series of military operations in Waziristan, Swat, Bajaur and other regions of the NWFP.

On Sunday, Malik scorned a Taliban offer for a ceasefire in tribal areas and said if the militants were serious about peace talks, they should first surrender their weapons. The TTP had earlier declared a unilateral truce, expressing its willingness to enter dialogue with the government if an ongoing military operation was halted.

In response to the proposal, Malik said: We will not consider it until the Taliban renounced recourse to arms. He went on to reaffirm his resolve to establish the governments writ all over the country. We will not back down from our principled decision.

The ban came soon after the group asserted responsibility for one of the country's worst-ever terrorist attacks that left ten people dead in the restive Swat Valley, the stronghold of firebrand cleric Maulana Fazlullah and a former tourist attraction.

"The TTP is a terrorist organisation which has been killing innocent people, the advisor remarked, accusing the fighters of continuing attacks on security forces, burning schools and damaging public buildings in violation of a much-maligned peace deal.

Anyone aiding the TTP, lending it financial assistance, having other links to it and spreading its night letters or literature would be dealt with according to the law, warned Malik. Under Pakistan's anti-terrorism laws, supporters of insurgents could be jailed for up to 10 years.

But political analysts here blame the governments lenient attitude for the increasing influence of Pakistani Taliban. The proscription should have come about long ago, believes leading commentator Shah Jehan Wagarpal. If Islamabad had taken this action in time, the guerrillas could have been prevented stepping up their activities in Bajaur, Swat and elsewhere.

Senator Raza Muhammad Raza, welcoming the announcement, hoped the government would not shrink from taking practical steps to eliminate the terrorists. In a chat with Pajhwok Afghan News, the nationalist lawmaker said the Taliban were raising anti-US slogans but killing innocent civilians. What kind of jihad it is, he exclaimed.

A day earlier, Co-Chairman of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Asif Ali Zardari called for an immediate ban on the radical group. He told an English TV channel the Taliban were a headache for the entire world, not Pakistan alone.

Via Pajhwok Afghan News.

Comment:

About time.

Scores killed in Algeria attack

2008-08-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

At least 43 people have been killed in a suicide attack on an Algerian police school, the country's interior ministry has said.

The attack occurred in the town of Issers, in the Kabylie region of Algeria, 60km east of Algiers, the capital, on Tuesday, wounding 38 others.

The attacker drove a car packed with explosives at the main entrance to the school as candidates for an entry exam were waiting outside, witnesses said.

Civilians as well as police officers were among the victims, they said.

Carnage

The casualty figures were still provisional, the ministry said in a statement.

But it is already the deadliest attack in the country in several months, worse than the December 2007 attack in Algiers against government and UN buildings, which killed at least 41 people and injured many others.

The explosion left a crater several metres across.

"It's utter carnage," said the father of one of those killed in the attack.

"It's a catastrophe. May God punish them for the crime they have committed against these youngsters, and their country."

Another candidate survived because he went to buy cigarettes but his father, mother and brother were killed in the blast, witnesses said.

As well as devastating the entrance to the school, the blast destroyed several nearby houses and blew out windows in nearby shops.

Emergency workers gathered up the remains of the dead, wrapping them in blankets and placing them in waiting ambulances.

[More]

Comment:

It's things like this that really make me think that Apostasy must be some sort of disease. The actions of whomever is responsible for this (possibly al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, though I suspect it may have been someone acting independently) have nothing to do with tactics, or strategy, or reason. This was not a part of any jihad, holy or unholy. It was an act of hate, pure and simple, of an immense loathing and a desire to cause as much suffering as possible. They have certainly succeeded.

American terror

2008-08-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

Most of you probably already know that Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney was recently murdered. What you do not know is that there appears to be something darker going on.

Gwatney's killer, Tim Johnson, was a follower of Neo-Nazi talk radio host Hal Turner. Turner had recently called for the assassination of county and state chairmen, and is taking credit for having inspired the killing.

Turner has recently cancelled his radio show, and his website goes offline tomorrow. On a temporary site, he has this to say:

"I decided in early July 2008 that I would end the show because the time for talking is over. The time for action is here.

"Instead of telegraphing my thoughts in public, I now move to the shadows with my bretheren to take sudden, dramatic, irreversible, direct action.

"Let us be like surgeons; carving out the cultural, religious, social and political cancer which is killing our nation.

"Let us enjoy the hunt as we make trophies of 'men' who are little more than beasts infesting urban Serengetis that used to be our cities.

"It is time once again for Whites to rule the night."

However, it has been alleged that Hal Turner is in fact an FBI informant, and this may well just be him being retired in an attempt at damage control now that his cover has been, if not blown, then at least compromised.

However, Bill Gwatney is still dead.

Hmm...

δβ’t x’ šyrt ’yδyt prδβnw kwn'nd w’nw ’ty wyšnt γnd’kryty prkyš'nd.

Thousands flee Pakistan tribal belt

2008-08-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

Around 135,000 residents have fled a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan to escape ongoing clashes between troops and pro-Taliban fighters, officials said.

Half of the population of some villages in the Bajaur tribal district had reportedly moved on Thursday.

There have also been reports that fighters were stopping people from leaving some areas.

"We have around 135,000 people who have left their homes there," said Habibullah Khan, the additional chief secretary for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Rising death toll

"We have directed officials in adjoining districts to provide shelter, food and health care to the migrating families. We are setting up more camps to help these people just like refugees."

More than 460 suspected fighters and 22 army troops, have died since Pakistani forces started military operations in Bajaur a week ago, officials say.

Abdul Rehman Malik, the head of Pakistan's interior ministry, said intelligence sources claim that about 3,000 fighters remain in the northwestern region of Bajaur. He also said they included Pakistanis, Afghans and Central Asians.

Malik also vowed to "wipe out" the fighters.

Witnesses said that thousands of families had arrived in Shabqadar, a small town adjoining the tribal belt. Local residents and welfare groups were raising funds and cooking food for them, they said.

Local residents in the Mammoond area of Bajaur have said that pro-Taliban fighters had banned people from migrating, saying that if they left the area it would be a sign of defeat.

[More]

Comment:

Bajaur is (or at least was) one of the Taliban's principal strongholds in Pakistan.

I'm back from vacation.

'Split verdict' on bin Laden driver

2008-08-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

A US military jury at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has reached a split verdict in the trial of Osama bin Laden's former driver, clearing him of some charges but convicting him of others.

Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni citizen, was cleared on Wednesday of conspiracy to commit war crimes but was found guilty of providing material support to terrorism.

He had been held at the detention centre for more than six years and faced 10 specific charges.

Hamdan had denied the allegations against him, saying he worked for bin Laden only as a driver and had no knowledge of al-Qaeda attacks.

The trial is first US war crimes tribunal since the second world war.

Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman, who is at the trial in Guantanamo Bay, said that the jury, comprised of US military officers, has since retired and is to resume deliberations on Hamdan's sentence on Thursday.

The jury had deliberated for about eight hours over three days following the two-week trial.

Hamdan, wearing a white turban and long white robe, stood tensely in the courtroom beside his lawyers as the verdict was announced, listening via headphones to the tribunal's English-Arabic interpreter.

He later wept into his hands when the guilty verdict was announced.

War crimes charge

The Bush administration has faced heated criticism over the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and the special tribunals, which operate under different rules to other military courts or civilian ones.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said after the verdict that the Bush administration was pleased that Hamdan had received a "fair trial".

However our correspondent says the prosecution is likely to be disappointed by the verdict.

Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001, allegedly with two surface-to-air missiles in his car but was cleared on conspiracy to commit war crimes.

"The jury had apparently heeded the defence's contention that it cannot be a war crime to intend to use weapons against soldiers on the field of battle," Ackerman said.

[More]

Comment:

Now the question is, will the time he's spent in Guantánamo count towards his sentence?

Al-Qaeda's chemical 'expert' dead

2008-08-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

Abu Khabab al-Masri, described as al-Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons expert, has been killed with three other fighters in a suspected US bombing in Pakistan's border region last week.

Al-Masri, who carried a $5m bounty on his head, had been earlier identified as the likely target of the attack on a house in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, according to Pakistani officials.

An al-Qaeda statement posted on a variety of websites on Sunday said al-Masri, referred to as the chemical "expert", had left behind him a generation of students who would avenge his killing.

The statement, signed by al-Qaeda's leader in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, named three other fighters killed alongside al-Masri on July 28. It said some of their children also died.

Abdel Bari al-Atwan, editor-in-chief of al-Quds Al Arabi newspaper, said al-Masri "represented the old guard of al-Qaeda, so it is going to be very difficult to replace him".

"This was a huge success for the Americans in their pursuit of al-Qaeda leaders," he said.

"Al-Qaeda usually replace these people in this situations, but actually, they won't have the people with the determination and expertise of this man.

"He managed to experiment a lot with chemical and biological weapons in the Tora Bora area.

"Maybe he has disciples, but there's no one with his skills. He knows the ideology of al-Qaeda very well and I don't believe he will be easily replaced by other people."

Senior bomb maker

Al-Masri, a 55-year-old Egyptian chemist, was regarded as one of the group's senior bomb makers.

The statement said he had left behind him a generation of so-called students who would avenge his killing.

On Saturday, a Pakistani Taliban spokesman denied a US media report that Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's deputy leader, had been wounded or killed in what was believed to be the same US missile strike that killed Masri.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Kabul, said: "Afghanistan is seeing the worst violence since the Taliban was ousted in 2001.

"The killing of Masri also comes at a time when there have been increasing reports that a number of al-Qaeda fighters are now infiltrating into Afghanistan and working here alongside the Taliban."

Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani journalist and author, told Al Jazeera: "Masri has left behind a new generation of people that he did train."

"It is quite possible that his death could spark retaliation outside the region ... inside the region, in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, we are seeing an all-out offensive."

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

This is good news. Chief bomb maker is a very high level position.

On a personal note, later today I'm leaving to visit with family in Maine for a few weeks.

No let-up in Pakistan fighting

2008-08-02T08:53:00.000-07:00

Fighting in Pakistan's Swat valley has continued into a fourth day between government forces and pro-Taliban fighters in the former popular tourist resort.

Pakistan's military information office said on Saturday that the clashes had so far left 45 pro-Taliban fighters and 11 soldiers dead.

The resurgence of unrest in the mountainous Swat region, 140km from the capital Islamabad, comes despite a May peace deal reached by the fighters with the government.

The current spell of fighting began when pro-Taliban groups abducted 35 Pakistani policemen, apparently responding to the arrest of six fighters, including two commanders, by Pakistan security forces.

Besides soldiers and fighters, 34 civilians have also died and 70 more seriously wounded in the clashes, as shells and mortars hit houses, gardens and even a golf course.

Policemen killed

Police said a bomb exploded at a bridge in Swat valley late on Saturday, killing at least eight police and wounding five others.

The AFP news agency quoted Bashir Khan, a police officer, as saying that the remote-controlled bomb hit a vehicle travelling from the police headquarters in Mingora, the main town in Swat valley, carrying money to pay the salaries of the staff in the nearby town of Kabal.

Khan said the bomb was planted at a bridge between the two towns and that some of the wounded policemen are in serious condition.

At least 12 civilians, including seven members of the same family, were killed on Thursday alone.

Residents said shells hit a house in the Deolai area, killing five children and their parents.

A man was also killed in the crossfire between fighters and security forces at a golf course in the town of Kabal, officials said on Thursday.

The previous day, five soldiers and 25 fighters were killed in a gun battle sparked by an attack on a security checkpoint.

The same day, mortars fired from a Pakistani force helicopters landed on a house.

[snip]

Taliban threat

Even as its intelligence services face accusations of complicity, Pakistan's government forces are battling pro-Taliban groups in the Swat area.

The military has used helicopter gunships to pound Taliban fighter positions, while Taliban fighters have set fire to government buildings.

Two girls' schools were attacked on Thursday night by the fighters, who threatened to expand their onslaught on government-linked installations.

Haji Muslim Khan, the spokesman for one of the largest pro-Taliban groups in the Swat valley, said that the trend would continue throughout Pakistan.

"Who killed the innocent people they are bombing and they are shelling from helicopters? It is the Pakistani army," he told Al Jazeera.

"I don't want America in my country and I don't want our soldiers to work for America and I want the rules and regulations of Islamic sharia.

"Our government are following rules and regulations of America and we want to change it."

The warning follows a statement by Maulana Fazlullah, the Pakistan Taliban's leader in Swat with a four million rupee ($56,000) bounty on his head, that the group has an army of suicide bombers that could strike across the country at any moment.

He told Al Jazeera that the Taliban has the capacity to take control of the entire Swat valley.

Peace deal collapse

The intense fighting has brought the May peace agreement between the Pakistani government and pro-Taliban fighters to the brink of collapse.

Under the deal, the Pakistan government agreed to gradually pull out troops and introduce an Islamic justice system.

In exchange, the Taliban said they would halt attacks and surrender arms.

Zahid Hussain, an expert on Pakistani religious groups, told Al Jazeera that the deal was born of failure.

"I think from the beginning it was very clear that it would not work," he said.

"While the deal was signed in May, there has not been a cessation of hostilities, and I think this period only displayed the fighters' capability to further arm and organise themselves."

Al-Qaeda rumour

In other news from the region, US television channel CBS said it had obtained an intercepted letter from a pro-Taliban commander urgently requesting a doctor to treat Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's deputy leader, following an attack in northwest Pakistan last week.

A senior military official based in the area said he was checking the CBS report.

"We have seen the media report that al-Zawahiri was killed or wounded in the July 28 strike. We are investigating the authenticity of the report," the official said.

Major-General Athar Abbas, the chief Pakistani military spokesman, said that the military had no information about the report.

"There is no evidence or information in this regard. We have no reliable information," told the AFP news agency on Saturday.

CBS said the July 29 letter, written by Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban leader, carried his seal and signature, saying Zawahiri was in "severe pain" and his "injuries are infected".

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

There is a bit more to the story than this article lets on.

Although Pakistan has made deals with the Tehreek-i-Taliban-i-Pakistan (TTP) in several regions, no such deals exist in the rest. Since no deal existed with the TTP's forces in Hangu, the government launched a campaign to drive them out of that district. The TTP, which, like HAMAS, apparently cannot be bothered to actually read the treaties it signs, claimed that the government was breaking the deal, and issued the provincial government an ultimatum: end the attacks and resign, or all peace deals throughout Pakistan will be null and void and we will take Peshawar. The day before the TTP's deadline elapsed, they kidnapped 25 cops in Swat.¹ This, along with the ultimatum, prompted the government to launch the operation described in Al Jazeera's article.

As for the report of Zawahiri being injured, I very much doubt that it is true. If it was, then the letter requesting a medical assistance would have been sent by whomever Zawahiri is staying with (or near). I have a rather hard time believing that this person would be Beitullah Mehsud, because the Apostasy would have to be insane to keep two people of such importance anywhere near each other. Also, Beitullah Mehsud would presumably already have a skilled medic stationed with him.

Tʜᴇ Mᴀᴘ: Rough Draft

2008-07-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

Finally.

This is a provisional map of who controls which districts in Afghanistan, as of 26 July 2008. The blue icons indicate control by NATO, the United States, and/or the central Afghan government. In order to avoid clutter (and crashing Google Earth), not all of these districts are shown; those that are shown are typically provincial capitals (especially those with Provincial Reconstruction Teams) or districts that the Taliban had controlled in the past. The black icons indicate districts and (and tribal agencies) held by the either the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan itself or the closely related Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan. This set is to the best of my knowledge complete, but bear in mind that this map is a rough draft. The green icons indicate districts and agencies that are held by Pakistan; obviously most such districts are not marked. The red icons indicate districts and agencies that are contested.

For the main image page on Flickr, click here.

Pakistani Taliban swarm into remote district

2008-07-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

14 July 2008

Clashes come days after official says Nuristan may fall into rebel hands

A GROUP of Pakistani Taliban have crossed over the Afghan border and attacked a remote district in the north-eastern province of Nuristan, the Interior Ministry said.

The fighting, which began on Saturday, came days after the head of the provincial council warned that the entire province could fall into Taliban hands unless the government sent troops to stave off the Taliban assault in the Baga Matal district.

Five militants were killed and seven injured in the heavy fighting between police and Pakistani Taliban, the ministry said.

Extra troops have been sent into the district after several days of clashes, which saw residents take up arms against the rebels.

One of Nuristan’s Members of Parliament said the recent clashes had called into question the government’s ability to make swift, decisive decisions.

In the neighbouring province of Kunar, rebels killed nine US soldiers in one of the bloodiest attacks suffered by American troops since the US-led invasion of 2001.

Via Quqnoos.

Comment:

This means that the Taliban now potentially controls at least three of Nuristan's eight districts, as well as the district of Pech in neighboring Kunar province (which has apparently still not been retaken). It is good that the Nuristanis are (or at least have been) resisting, but still, this is very, very bad.

Ajristan districit of Ghazni retaken by government

2008-07-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

24 July 2008

The district in Ghazni which fell to Taliban recently is recaptured by Afghan government forces

Authorities in Ghazni province says that Ajristan district has been recaptured by Afghan forces.

The spokesman for Ghazni governor said that this district was taken on Wednesday during a joint Afghan and coalition operation and is once again under the control of the government.

According to the spokesman, 15 Taliban were killed and about 20 were wounded in the operation.

The Taliban captured Ajristan district 3 days ago. Ajristan is one of Ghazni’s remotest districts which neighbours Daykundi province.

Via Quqnoos.

Comment:

Specifically, it neighbors Gizab district, which is one of the Taliban's major strongholds.

Taliban fighters 'killed' in battle

2008-07-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

Afghan army troops killed at least 34 Taliban fighters in a firefight after an army convoy was ambushed in the south of the country, a defence ministry spokesman said.

According to Zahir Azimi, the clash erupted after "enemy elements" attacked Afghan forces in Zabul province on the main highway between the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar on Thursday. "A fierce battle started and the enemy were caught between the Afghan army on both sides," Azimi said.

"At least 34 enemy dead bodies are at the battlefield, but we believe there are many more killed." More Taliban fighters have reportedly been killed in a district that the anti-government group captured three days ago, a defence ministry spokesman said.

Afghan soldiers backed by Nato ground and air support launched an offensive in the remote Ajristan district of central Afghanistan's Ghazni province, killing at least 15 fighters, during an operation to retake control of the area, an Afghan official said on Thursday.

Ismail Jahangir, a government spokesman, said: "At least 15 Taliban have been killed and several others are wounded since [Wednesday]." The operation continued for a second day on Thursday, with the troops able to recapture the district headquarters compound but still fighting for wider control, Jahangir, a government spokesman said. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said: "The joint operations began with a co-ordinated air strike on Taliban fighters, inside Ajiristan. Several insurgents have been killed and wounded."

Remote districts

Ajiristan was previously captured by the Taliban in October 2007, and was retaken the following day when at least 300 security forces moved into the district centre.

The Taliban have captured several mainly remote districts in the past but have not been able to retain hold of them for long, although there are a handful in the southern Helmand province, that security forces admit are in rebel control.

The fighting in Afghanistan meanwhile continued to take its toll on international forces. In the latest loss, a British soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan, the UK defence ministry said on Wednesday.

A ministry spokesman said no further details were immediately available.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Al Jazeera does not appear to have even mentioned this district's fall. This is what I'm talking about when I call Afghanistan "the forgotten war".

As for AJ's statements about where the Taliban holds districts, it is true that Helmand has more than any other province, but at least half of the Taliban's districts are nonetheless in other parts of the country. I hope to have at least a rough draft of the map I've been working on available later today.

Taleban set up 'Pakistan courts'

2008-07-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

Taleban militants in Pakistan's north-western Mohmand tribal area have set up permanent Islamic courts, they say.

The districts have been divided into four judicial zones, each having two judges and a permanent court address.

The Taleban have up until now used mobile courts - with no permanent offices or judges - to settle criminal and financial disputes.

They say the permanent courts show the diminishing authority of the central and local governments.

The Taleban currently control large areas of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) along the border with Afghanistan.

[More]

Comment:

Strange how Pakistan objects so vehemently to our infringing on their sovereignty, but has no problem when the Taliban does it.

US Troops Leave Base Where 9 Died

2008-07-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. and Afghan troops have abandoned a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine American Soldiers this week, officials said July 16.

Compounding the military setback, insurgents quickly seized the village of Wanat in Nuristan province after driving out the handful of police left behind to defend government offices, Afghan officials said.

Some 50 officers were headed to the area to try to regain control, said Ghoolam Farouq, a senior provincial police official.

The July 13 attack by some 200 militants armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars was the deadliest for the U.S. military in Afghanistan in three years. Rebels fought their way into the newly established base, wounding another 15 Americans and suffering heavy casualties of their own, before the defenders and warplanes could drive them back.

The assault underlined how Islamic militants appear to be gaining strength nearly eight years after the ouster of the Taliban, and the difficulties facing foreign and Afghan forces trying to defeat them.

NATO said the post, which lies amid precipitous mountains close to the Pakistan border, had been vacated, but insisted that international and Afghan troops will "retain a strong presence in that area with patrolling and other means."

"We are committed, now more than ever, to establishing a secure environment that will allow even greater opportunities for development and a stronger Afghan governmental influence," NATO spokesman Capt. Mike Finney said.

Omar Sami, spokesman for the Nuristan provincial governor, said American and Afghan soldiers quit the base on July 15. He said they took the district mayor with them.

Sami said U.S. troops armed local police with more than 20 guns before they left, but that the officers had fled the village and crossed into neighboring Kunar province when 100 militants moved into Wanat.

Via Military.com, H/T Robrob.

Comment:

Great. Another black pin on the map. (I've been using blue and black placemarks in Google Earth to try to determine who controls what.)

I sure hope this is temporary.

Update:

Although Wanat is just a stone's throw from Nuristan, it's actually located in the Pech district of Kunar province (though it could be culturally Nuristani). My understanding is that not only Wanat, but also Dara-i-Pech (the district center) have fallen. Some sources indicate that reinforcements are en route to retake the district, or even that they already have retaken it, but there aren't enough for me to consider them credible (at least not yet). Also, it seems that this base was still under construction when the Taliban attacked.

Radical web of Islam's Terror

2008-07-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

A new generation of Islamist terrorists is connecting through the Internet, not al-Qaeda. Their lack of central organization makes them even more terrifying than their forebears

The world's most dangerous jihadists no longer answer to al-Qaeda. The terrorists we should fear most are self-recruited wannabes who find purpose in terror and comrades on the Web. This new generation is even more frightening and unpredictable than its predecessors, but its evolution just may reveal the key to its demise.

[snip]

WHY THEY FIGHT

Any strategy to fight these terrorists must be based on an understanding of why they believe what they believe. In other words, what transforms ordinary people into fanatics who use violence for political ends? What leads them to consider themselves special, part of a small vanguard trying to build their version of an Islamist utopia?

The explanation for their behaviour is found not in how they think, but rather in how they feel. One of the most common refrains among Islamist radicals is their sense of moral outrage. In the 1980s, the most significant source of these feelings was the killing of Muslims in Afghanistan. In the 1990s, it was the fighting in Bosnia, Chechnya and Kashmir. Then came the second Palestinian intifada beginning in 2000. And since 2003, it has been all about the war in Iraq, which has become the focal point of global moral outrage for Muslims all over the world. Along with the humiliations of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Iraq is monopolizing today's conversations about Islam and the West. On a more local level, governments that appear overly pro-American cause radicals to feel they are the victims of a larger anti-Muslim conspiracy, bridging the perceived local and global attacks against them.

In order for this moral outrage to translate into extremism, the frustrations must be interpreted in a particular way: The violations are deemed part of a unified Western strategy, namely a "war against Islam." That deliberately vague worldview, however, is just a sound bite. The new terrorists are not Islamic scholars -- jihadists volunteering for Iraq are interested not in theological debates but in living out their heroic fantasies.

How various individuals interpret this vision of a "war against Islam" differs from country to country, and it is a major reason why homegrown terrorism within the United States is far less likely than it is in Europe. To a degree, the belief that the United States is a melting pot protects the country from homegrown attacks. Whether or not America is a land of opportunity, the important point is that people believe it to be. A recent poll found that 71% of Muslim Americans believe in the "American Dream" -- that's more than the American public as a whole (64%). This is not the case in Europe, where national myths are based on degrees of Britishness, Frenchness or Germanness, and non-European Muslim immigrants do not truly feel they belong.

Feeling marginalized is, of course, no simple springboard to violence. What transforms a very small number to become terrorists is mobilization by networks. Until a few years ago, these networks were face-to-face groups. They included local gangs of young immigrants, members of student associations and study groups at radical mosques. The group acted as an echo chamber, amplifying grievances, intensifying bonds to each other and breeding values that rejected those of host societies. These natural group dynamics resulted in a spiral of mutual encouragement and escalation, transforming a few young Muslims into dedicated terrorists willing to follow the model of their heroes and sacrifice themselves for comrades and cause. Their turn to violence was a collective decision, rather than an individual one.

During the past two or three years, however, face-to-face radicalization has been replaced by online radicalization. The same support and validation that young people used to derive from their offline peer groups are now found in online forums, which promote the image of the terrorist hero, link users to the online social movement, give them guidance and instruct them in tactics. These forums have become the "invisible hand" that organizes terrorist activities worldwide. The true leader of this violent social movement is the collective discourse on half a dozen influential forums.

At present, al-Qaeda Central cannot impose discipline on these third-wave wannabes, mostly because it does not know who they are. Without this command and control, each disconnected network acts according to its own understanding and capability, but their collective actions do not amount to any unified long-term goal or strategy. These separate groups cannot coalesce into a physical movement, leaving them condemned to remain leaderless, online aspirations. Such traits make them particularly volatile and difficult to detect, but they also offer a tantalizing strategy for those who wish to defeat these dangerous individuals: The very seeds of the movement's demise are found within the movement itself.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END?

There has been talk of an al-Qaeda resurgence, but the truth is that most of the hard core members of the first and second waves have been killed or captured. The survival of the social movement they inspired relies on the continued inflow of new members. But this movement is vulnerable to whatever may diminish its appeal among young people. Its allure thrives only at the abstract fantasy level. The few times its aspirations have been translated into reality -- the Taliban in Afghanistan, parts of Algeria during its civil war and, more recently, in Iraq's Anbar province -- were particularly repulsive to most Muslims.

What's more, a leaderless social movement is permanently at the mercy of its participants. As each generation attempts to define itself in contrast to its predecessor, what appeals to the present generation of young would-be radicals may not appeal to the next. At present, the major source of appeal is the anger and moral outrage provoked by the invasion of Iraq. But as the Western footprint there fades so will the appeal of fighting it.

The U.S. strategy to counter this terrorist threat continues to be frozen by the horrors of 9/11. It relies more on wishful thinking than on a deep understanding of the enemy. The pursuit of "high-value targets" who were directly involved in the 9/11 operation was an appropriate first step to bring the perpetrators to justice. And the United States has been largely successful in degrading the capability of al-Qaeda Central. But this strategy is not only useless against the leaderless jihad, it is precisely what will help the movement flourish. The main threat to radical Islamist terrorism is the fact that its appeal is self-limiting. The key is to accelerate this process of internal decay.

Terrorist acts must be stripped of glory and reduced to common criminality. Most aspiring terrorists want nothing more than to be elevated to the status of an FBI Most Wanted poster. "[I am] one of the most wanted terrorists on the Internet," Younis Tsouli boasted online a few months before his arrest in 2005. "I have the Feds and the CIA, both would love to catch me. I have MI6 on my back." His ego fed off the respect such bragging brought him in the eyes of other chat room participants. Any policy or recognition that puts such people on a pedestal only makes them heroes in each other's eyes -- and encourages more people to follow the same path.

It is equally crucial not to place terrorists who are arrested or killed in the limelight. The temptation to hold press conferences to publicize another "major victory" in the war on terror must be resisted, for it only transforms terrorist criminals into jihadist heroes. The United States underestimates the value of prosecutions, which often can be enormously demoralizing to radical groups. There is no glory in being taken to prison in handcuffs. No jihadi Web site publishes such pictures. Arrested terrorists fade into oblivion. Only martyrs live on in popular memory.

This is very much a battle for young Muslims' hearts and minds. It is necessary to reframe the entire debate, from imagined glory to very real horror. Young people must learn that terrorism is about death and destruction, not fame. The voices of the victims must be heard over the bragging and posturing that go on in the online jihadist forums. Only then will the leaderless jihad expire, poisoned by its own toxic message.

Via the National Post. H/T Muslims Against Sharia.

Comment:

While I'm not by any means convinced of their explanation of the source of Apostasy, they do still make a number of good points.

Al Qaida groups 'leaving Iraq for Sudan, Somalia'

2008-07-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

Baghdad: Some groups of Al Qaida terror network in Iraq have started leaving the country towards other hot spots in Africa like Sudan and Somalia, security sources tell Gulf News.

A key reason behind the change in strategy by the so-called Al Qaida Organisation in Mesopotamia is the intensity of the latest military strikes launched by Iraqi and US forces against the network, which has been the major challenge to restoring the stability of Iraq, the sources said.

"Our intelligence information indicates the withdrawal of certain groups of Al Qaida from Iraq because of the military strikes. Many of them have escaped through the borders with Syria and Iran to hotter zones such as Somalia and Sudan," Major General Hussain Ali Kamal, head of the Investigation and Information Agency at the Interior Ministry, told Gulf News.

"I believe this is the beginning of the complete withdrawal of Al Qaida from Iraqi territory."

A source at Iraqi Ministry of National Security said that documents and letters found in hideouts of "some elements of Al Qaida" during search operations in Sunni suburbs in Baghdad, which were previously under the control of Al Qaida, "prove these elements left Iraq for Somalia and Sudan".

The information, which could not be confirmed by independent sources, could represent a victory for the Iraqi government, headed by Nouri Al Maliki.

The number of bloody attacks by Al Qaida has declined remarkably in Baghdad in the past 12 months, an indication the terror network faces a difficult situation on the ground, said Major General Abdul Jalil Khalaf, former police commander in Basra province.

"This also highlights the increasingly improving performance of the Iraqi armed forces and the speed by which they can operate in different places," Khalaf told Gulf News.

Khalaf, who is said to be considered for a top post at the Ministry of Defence, said the recent campaign against the Shiite militias in Basra negatively affected Al Qaida.

"Al Qaida began to lose a lot of sympathy on the Sunni streets after realising that Al Maliki government launched a war against the Shiites fighters, believed to be backed by Iran."

The latest political rapprochement between Iraq and other Arab states has also led to the weakening Al Qaida and "its gradual withdrawal from Iraq", he explained. But Khalaf warned that Al Qaida will not withdraw fully from Iraq. "This will take years," he said.

Via Gulf News.

Comment:

I admit to having been vehemently against Maliki's crackdown, but it seems to have paid off. I appear to have underestimated him.

US and Iraqi forces drive al-Qa'ida from stronghold

2008-07-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

AMERICAN and Iraqi forces are driving al-Qa'ida in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, al-Qa'ida's dwindling band of fighters had made a defiant "last stand" in the northern city of Mosul. A huge operation to crush the 1200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.

Operation Lion's Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the US 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the al-Qa'ida leader, and the capture of more than 1000 suspects.

The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen at the weekend, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians.

Even in the district of Zanjali, which was previously a hotbed of the insurgency, it was possible for reporters to accompany an Iraqi colonel on foot through streets of breeze-block houses studded with bullet holes. Hundreds of houses were searched without resistance.

US and Iraqi leaders believe that while it is premature to write off al-Qa'ida in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul, and its remnants have been driven into countryside to the south.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has also led a crackdown on the Shia Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his Government had "defeated" terrorism.

"They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it," he said. "But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them."

The number of foreign fighters coming over the border from Syria to bolster al-Qa'ida's numbers is thought to have significantly declined.

Brigadier General Abdullah Abdul, a senior Iraqi commander, said: "We've limited their movements with check-points. They are doing small attacks and trying big ones, but they're mostly not succeeding."

Major-General Mark Hertling, US commander in the north, said: "I think we're at the irreversible point."

Mr Maliki was speaking at ceremonies marking the fifth anniversary of the 2003 assassination of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, a leading opponent of Saddam Hussein who was killed in a truck bombing in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf after returning from exile in Iran.

Such attacks plagued Iraq following the US-led invasion, but violence in the country has fallen to its lowest level in four years. The change has been driven by last year's build-up of American forces, the Sunni tribal revolt against al-Qa'ida in Iraq and Mr Maliki's crackdowns, among other factors.

Mr Maliki plans to visit the United Arab Emirates today and also Italy and Germany later in the month - hoping that improved security at home will lead to greater international support.

Iraq is enjoying a surge in oil revenue driven by record crude prices and the highest production levels since Saddam's ouster. The Government expects to earn $73 billion from oil this year if prices remain high.

Putting some of this money to work, the Iraqi Government held a groundbreaking ceremony at the weekend for a project to refurbish the main road to the Baghdad airport.

Via The Australian. H/T Muslims Against Sharia.

Comment:

Hallelujah. If Bush manages to avoid screwing things up in the next 197 days, we will essentially have won — a Pyrrhic victory, to be sure, but victory nonetheless. Hopefully, once President Obama is debriefed by the brass, he'll accelerate the withdrawal, and we can finally turn our attention to bin Laden. In fact, Bush could probably start withdrawing now, and have all of our troops out before the election, but, having refused to heed calls for withdrawal for so long, he is now invested in an eternity of war, as is John McCain. It's ironic: the Right accuses us of being invested in defeat, but in reality it's the other way around.

Believe Me, It’s Torture

2008-07-02T23:36:00.000-07:00

What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.

by Christopher Hitchens August 2008

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.

[snip]

Which returns us to my starting point, about the distinction between training for something and training to resist it. One used to be told—and surely with truth—that the lethal fanatics of al-Qaeda were schooled to lie, and instructed to claim that they had been tortured and maltreated whether they had been tortured and maltreated or not. Did we notice what a frontier we had crossed when we admitted and even proclaimed that their stories might in fact be true? I had only a very slight encounter on that frontier, but I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words “waterboard” and “American” could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath.

[More]

Comment:

Were it any president other than Bush, this would result in instantaneous impeachment.

Pakistan forces 'clear' Khyber town

2008-06-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

Pakistan has claimed success after a major military offensive cleared anti-government fighters from a town in the northwest of the country and troops returned to abandoned outposts.

Paramilitary troops were on Sunday seen patrolling Bara in the Khyber region in tanks had set up sand-bag checkpoints. "The government has been successful in the operation in Khyber which was carried out to safeguard Peshawar," Rehman Malik, the interior ministry chief, told a high-level meeting in Peshawar.

He did not say when the offensive would end. The government launched the operation after attacks on supply convoys for the US-led force in Afghanistan and reports of fighters threatening the city of Peshawar.

There has been growing concern about threats to Peshawar since a Taliban force from Khyber entered the city two weeks ago and seized 16 Christians, before later releasing them.

Around 1,500 troops and police commandos were deployed along the Peshawar border with the Khyber tribal region and its suburbs to protect the city's more than 1m populace.

Buildings destroyed

Muhammad Siddiq Khan, a local official, said that a tribal force that had been forced to abandon its posts in the region several months ago returned to the checkpoints on Sunday, he said.

In a nearby village on Sunday, soldiers blew up a building belonging to the Ansar-ul-Islam group, which is purportedly linked to the Taliban and has been accused of sending fighters across the border into Afghanistan.

"There was no resistance as the building used by Ansar-ul-Islam as their centre was empty," a security official said.

The previous day troops had demolished the house and headquarters of Mangal Bagh, head of the separate Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) group, which officials have said is not linked to the Taliban.

Bagh's group has been accused of robbing vehicles on the Khyber Pass, although officials said his men were not responsible for cross-border attacks on the US-led forces in Afghanistan.

Bagh told a newspaper that he did not know why he was being targeted and said his men had never attacked security forces.

"I have told LI volunteers to go home and not to resist any action," he was quoted as saying by The News, an English language newspaper.

Peace talks halted Baitullah Mehsud, a senior pro-Taliban leader in Pakistan, has reportedly called off peace talks with the government following the start of the offensive.

"The talks will remain suspended until the government stops talking about operations and attacks against us," the Reuters news agency quoted Mehsud as saying.

A large military contingent was also reported to have reached the Jandula area in South Waziristan.

Another armed group said that an offensive in the area would only create further problems. "If the government thinks there is any issue to address, that should be resolved through talks not by the use of force," Munsif Khan, spokesman for the Virtue and Voice organisation, said.

"We are ready for talks with the government."

Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, denied that the government had launched the offensive after pressure from Washington and said negotiations with armed groups in the northwest would continue.

"This is our war and it is for our own survival," hei told reporters after a meeting of former premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party in Lahore.

"Nobody will be allowed to execute others publicly, kidnap minorities, set fire to girls' schools and barber shops in Pakistan. "We do not take any pressure and I have also explained my policy to US President Bush that we believe in dialogue and want development, health, education and to eliminate terrorism from the country." Gilani was in Peshawar on Saturday but insisted that his trip was not related to the military operation.

Via Al Jazeera.

Saudi crackdown on terror suspects

2008-06-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

Saudi Arabia has over the past six months arrested 701 people suspected of plotting attacks, officials have said. Releasing the information, the country's interior ministry said in a statement the fighters had plotted attacks against oil installations in the kingdom. Among those arrested, 520 are still in detention. The interior ministry statement read out on Saudi television said those detained were of various nationalities and were part of a wider plot managed from abroad. The statement said: "Security forces managed to arrest one cell in the Eastern Province led by African residents ... their concern was to get close to people working in the oil sector in order to find work in oil installations. "They planned in fact to attack an oil installation and security target with rigged cars [car bombs]." Other cells were said to have been broken up which planned attacks on economic targets in the world's largest oil exporter.

Foreign co-ordination

Some of the plots were said to have been hatched in co-ordination with Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda second-in-command. The statement said that those organising people to come from abroad had taken "advantage of the facilities granted to the Muslim faithful to come to Mecca for the annual pilgrimage or to do the omra," or minor pilgrimage". One cell member was said to have been found with a taped message from al-Zawahiri. The kingdom has suffered several attacks blamed on al-Qaeda and mainly targeting westerners since 2003, but a crackdown has quelled attacks over the past two years.

Via Al Jazeera.

Government's writ extended to 95% of Afghanistan: Saleh

2008-06-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Ahmad Khalid Moeed - Mar 3, 2008 - 12:03

KABUL (PAN): The intelligence department head considered eight districts in various provinces paralyzed and said that Taliban were moving in those districts in group.

Amrullah Saleh, told a press conference on Monday that Khak-i-Afghan district of Zabul province, Gizab of Daikundi, Disho, Khanshin, Bughran, and Washer of Helmand, Manawal and Dawaba of Nuristan province were the districts where governance is paralyzed.

He added that no group had captivity on these districts, but Taliban can freely move there.

Amrullah also considered the recent remarks of CIA head as base less.

Michaal Mekonil, head of CIA, recently told the US senate that Karzai government has control only on 30 per cent of the country.

He added that 10 per cent was under control of Taliban and 60 per cent was controlled by local power holders and tribal elders.

However Amrullah said that 95 per cent of land was under control of Afghan government and only 2 per cent population was not controlled by Afghan government.

Amrullah reminded that 18 per cent of people live in areas where the security is not safe, but the government controls it.

According to Amrullah, during last 12 months the districts of Mai nashin and Ghorak of Kandahar, Jani khil and Mangal of Paktia, Giro, Rashidan and Arjistan of Ghazni, Gomal, Yahya khil, Dila of Paktika, Bala murghab of Badghis, Kajran of Daikundi were among the districts which were recaptured by government and currently administrations are active in these districts.

He said seven people involved in Baghlan bloody suicide attack has been identified and five of those have been arrested.

On November 7, 2007 a blast killed over 90 school children including six MPs.

Amrullah said Mula Salih Muhammad, an official of Taliban intelligence and Mir Hairder master minded Baghlan attack, but they have not been arrested yet.

He informed reporters that Musa Kalim and Dil Muhammad who were involved in Kandahar recent suicide attack have been arrested.

He said the two people had prepared explosive vests and helped suicide attackers to cross border from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

Amrullah said all suicide attacks are conducted by Muhammad Arif in Kandahar city

He said the recent suicide attacks launched in Kandahar which were aimed to kill Commander Abdul Hakim, one of the government supporters in Kandahar province was also conducted by Muhammad Arif.

Amrullah added that Qahir who kept the suicide attacker of Kabul Serena at his house was also arrested.

Amrullah Salih, said according to a survey during last five month 27 abductions have taken place in Kabul and 101 in the country

The survey showed that most abductions were in Farah, Helmand and Herat provinces and were on criminal basis.

Via Pajhwok .

Comment:

Saleh is not exactly an unbiased observer, but this is still the most detailed account of who controls what in Afghanistan I've come across.

Taliban targeted near Kandahar

2008-06-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

At least two Afghan soldiers and about 20 Taliban fighters have been killed after Afghan and Nato forces launched an operation near the southern city of Kandahar.

The fighting in Arghandab province on Wednesday came after Taliban fighters staged a raid on Kandahar jail freeing hundreds of prisoners and took control of a number of villages.

"A group of enemies of the people was targeted by Nato air force in Ta-been village in Arghandab [district]," an Afghan defence ministry statement said. "Based on information received, 20 local and foreign terrorists were killed."

Another statement said two Afghan soldiers were "martyred".

Meanwhile, four Nato soldiers died and two were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in Helmand province.

The British defence ministry confirmed the deaths on Wednesday, saying that one of those who died was a female soldier.

She would be the first British female soldier to die in Afghanistan.

Roads blocked

The Arghandab operation began at 8am local time [0300 GMT], the deffence ministry said.
Mark Laity, a Nato spokesman in Kabul, told Al Jazeera: "The operation is pretty much on track.

"There have been a number of engagements with the insurgents, but they have been minor rather than major battles. "We have killed some insurgents but we have not yet suffered any Isaf [the International Security Assistance Force] casualties." The number of troops involved in the operation is "substantial", he said. "The bulk of the troops are from the Afghan army. They are leading that operation and we are backing them," said Laity. Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kandahar, said that the main road leading to Arghandab was blocked and that more army reinforcements were heading towards the district, including tanks, armoured vehicles and soldiers. "The threat from the Taliban in Arghandab is being taken very seriously by the Afghan army and the coalition forces," he said. "They are concerned that with the military operation going on, the Taliban could retaliate using suicide bombers and attack inside [the city of] Kandahar."

'Made progress'

Zemarai Bashari, spokesman for Afghanistan's interior ministry, said "the operation is going very well". "Afghan security forces have made progress … the initial reports are stating that 16 enemies have been killed and around four others are injured." He said that Afghan and Nato troops were carrying out the operation as a joint force with neither leading the other. "This is a joint operation … everyone is playing their role and we are seeing very good co-ordination and implementation of this operation," Bashari said. However, Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, denied that his group's fighters had been dislodged by the Afghan-Nato offensive. "The fighting started today in the morning but they have not been able to take a metre of the land under our control. We do not intend to leave Arghandab at all," he said. "We will use Arghandab for specific attacks with motors and cannons on targets in Kandahar city. We have also planned a suicide attack which will be carried out in Kandahar."

'No resistance'

Afghan and soldiers from the multinational force soldiers sealed off the Arghandab district on Tuesday, after the Taliban claimed its fighters had taken control of 10 villages. The Taliban said it met no resistance as it took control of the villages. Ahelbarra said on Tuesday that hundreds of Taliban fighters had taken up positions in the area.

It was unclear if the group was just trying to make a statement as it did late last year when it captured the same area for just a few days before retreating under heavy bombardment, or if it would try to take back control of large swaths of the country.

As soon as news of the Taliban takeover circulated, residents fled their villages, some of them with cattle and all their belongings. The Taliban encouraged them to leave.

"We left the area to protect ourselves from the bombing and the risks of a military confrontation. There are many Taliban fighters - some told us they are more than 800," one resident said. Gholam Razeq, the district chief of Arghandab, said "the enemy wants to create insecurity in Arghandab which was the most secure area". Haji Ikramullah Khan, a tribal leader from the region, cautioned that the Taliban fighters could use the cover of the district's grape and pomegranate orchards to mount an attack on Kandahar itself. "All of Arghandab is made of orchards. The fighters can easily hide and easily fight," he said. "It is quite close to Kandahar. During the Russian war, the Russians didn't even occupy Arghandab, because when they fought here they suffered big casualties."

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

The location of the village mentioned, together with the mention of closing off "the main road leading to Arghandab", effectively confirm my suspicions that the Taliban struck from Khakrez district, which borders Arghandab to the northwest. The two districts are divided by a small mountainous region traversed by a single major road, the terminus of which is in the vicinity of Ta-Been. This indicates that Khakrez is held by the Taliban. I suspect Ghorak district is (or was) as well, as that would result in a continuous swath of Taliban or formerly Taliban territory stretching from Khakrez to Sangin and Musa Qala (which were retaken during Operation Achilles).

Kandahar braces for Taliban battle

2008-06-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

Afghan and Nato forces are redeploying troops around the southern city of Kandahar in preparation for a possible large-scale battle with the Taliban. The soldiers have sealed off the Arghandab district just 30km north of Kandahar where the Taliban claims around 500 of its fighters are now in control of 10 villages.

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kandahar, said the authorities had imposed a curfew and soldiers were building defensive lines, taking up positions on rooftops and patrolling just about everywhere as they await reinforcements for a counterattack on the areas taken by the Taliban.

Mark Laity, a Nato spokesman, said Nato and Afghan troops were being redeployed to the region to "meet any potential threats".

The Taliban offensive comes just few days after a suicide attack on Kandahar's main jail freed more than 1,000 prisoners. "It's fair to say that the jailbreak has put a lot of people [fighters] into circulation who were not there before, and so obviously you're going to respond to that potential threat," Laity said.

'Message'

And with hundreds of its fighters controlling a large area north of Kandahar, the Taliban seems to be sending a message that seven years after being toppled, it is still a major force in Afghanistan.

The Taliban said it met no resistance as it took control of the villages and announced plans to march towards Kandahar city. Our correspondent said that hundreds of Taliban fighters had taken up positions in the area and taken over villages in a well organised manner.
But it was unclear if the group was just trying to make a statement as it did late last year when it captured the same area for just a few days before retreating under heavy bombardment by international forces, or if it would try to take back control of large swaths of the country.

Villagers flee

Local residents were paying a heavy price for the instability. Mohammad Farooq, a government official in Arghandab, said on Monday that around 500 Taliban fighters moved into the area and took over the villages. As soon as news of the Taliban takeover circulated, residents in Arghandab fled their villages, some of them with cattle and all their belongings.

The Taliban also told residents to leave. "We left the area to protect ourselves from the bombing and the risks of a military confrontation. There are many Taliban fighters some told us they are more than eight hundred," one resident said. Gholam Razeq, the district chief of Arghandab, said "the enemy wants to create insecurity in Arghandab which was the most secure area". But while he said the Taliban takeover of the whole area was just a matter of time, he also vowed that "as soon as we get reinforcements we will attack". However, Haji Ikramullah Khan, a tribal leader from the region, warned that the fighters could use the cover of the district's grape and pomegranate orchards to mount an attack on Kandahar itself. "All of Arghandab is made of orchards. The fighters can easily hide and easily fight," he said. "It is quite close to Kandahar. During the Russian war, the Russians didn't even occupy Arghandab, because when they fought here they suffered big casualties."

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

According to my topographical maps, Arghandab contains approximately 50 settlements, of which the Taliban has captured only ten. If my memory serves me correctly, the last time they captured this district, they took the whole thing (though I may be wrong). This leads me to suspect that this is just a show of force on their part, though NATO seems to be taking the threat fairly seriously.

Taliban seize Afghan villages

2008-06-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Taliban fighters have taken control of 10 villages in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province in Afghanistan, and have said they plan to march towards Kandahar city.

Mohammad Farooq, a government official in Arghandab, said on Monday that around 500 Taliban fighters moved into the area and took over the villages.

Arghandab lies 30km north of Kandahar city. Haji Ikramullah Khan, a tribal leader from the region warned that the fighters could use the cover of the district's grape and pomegranate orchards to mount an attack on Kandahar itself.

Launching pad

"All of Arghandab is made of orchards. The fighters can easily hide and easily fight," he said. "It is quite close to Kandahar. During the Russian war, the Russians didn't even occupy Arghandab, because when they fought here they suffered big casualties."

The Taliban offensive follows the escape of more than 1000 Taliban and other prisoners in a suicide attack on the main jail in the southern city of Kandahar on Friday night, which also left many prison guards dead.

Mark Laity, a Nato spokesman, said that Nato and Afghan military officials were redeploying troops to the region to "meet any potential threats".

"It's fair to say that the jailbreak has put a lot of people [fighters] into circulation who were not there before, and so obviously you're going to respond to that potential threat," he said.

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kandahar, said that hundreds of Taliban fighters are taking up positions in the area and taking over nearby villages.

"Ultimately, it is local residents who are paying a heavy price for this increasing instability," he said.

"The Taliban are showing impressive capability in manoeuvring in and around the area."

[More]

Talks on US-Iraq pact at 'dead end'

2008-06-13T09:27:00.000-07:00

Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, says talks with the US on a new long-term security pact have reached a "dead end". The US and Iraq are negotiating a new agreement to provide a legal basis for US troops to stay in Iraq after December 31, when their UN mandate expires.

They are also negotiating a long-term strategic framework agreement on political, diplomatic, economic, security and cultural ties.

"We have reached a dead end, because when we started the talks, we found that the US demands hugely infringe on the sovereignty of Iraq, and this we can never accept," al-Maliki said during a visit to Jordan on Friday.

[More]

Comment:

Thank God. If Bush had successfully been able to push this through, it would have been a catastrophe. Not only would it have tied up the troops that are so badly needed in Afghanistan, but it would have eliminated any credibility that the Iraqi government may have had, almost certainly throwing the country into turmoil as the current fragile political coalition disintegrates. This would have made it immensely more difficult for President Obama to redeploy.

Speaking of Afghanistan, I am making progress on figuring out which districts are currently held by the Taliban. Most of the country is actually much quieter than I had realized, with almost all of the fighting being confined to a relatively small area.

US court deals blow to Bush

2008-06-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

The US Supreme Court has said foreigners held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison have the right under the US constitution to challenge their detention in US civilian courts. The court ruled on Thursday that detainees in the US jail in southern Cuba "have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus".

The ruling, passed by a vote of five to four, is a setback to the administration of George Bush, the US president.

"It's a very significant milestone in this very long running battle," Rob Reynolds, Al Jazeera's senior Washington correspondent, said.

"Really its a victory for the proper system of justice. The reason that Guantanamo was chosen was because it was not on American soil ... the White House believed that because they would be on foreign soil they would be beyond the reach of American justice," he said. "It's been a very long process but through a series of lawsuits ... the justices have chipped away at the unusual means under which these individuals are being detained."

Constitutional rights

The court ruled that even if the base was officially on Cuban territory, it was in fact operating as if it were on American soil and therefore detainees had the same constitutional rights as all Americans. The ruling is the third on Guantanamo that has gone against the Bush administration. Detainees and their legal teams could now demand that the government reveal the evidence against them to justify their continued detention. The government has refused to do this arguing it would be against the interests of national security. Detainees have long protested that they had been mistreated, and rights groups have questioned the legality of the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Hallelujah. Justice returns to America.

Fact is far stranger than fiction

2008-06-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Oil barons court Taliban in Texas

12/14/1997

THE Taliban, Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist army, is about to sign a £2 billion contract with an American oil company to build a pipeline across the war-torn country.

The Islamic warriors appear to have been persuaded to close the deal, not through delicate negotiation but by old-fashioned Texan hospitality. Last week Unocal, the Houston-based company bidding to build the 876-mile pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, invited the Taliban to visit them in Texas. Dressed in traditional salwar khameez, Afghan waistcoats and loose, black turbans, the high-ranking delegation was given VIP treatment during the four-day stay.

The Taliban ministers and their advisers stayed in a five-star hotel and were chauffeured in a company minibus. Their only requests were to visit Houston's zoo, the Nasa space centre and Omaha's Super Target discount store to buy stockings, toothpaste, combs and soap. The Taliban, which controls two-thirds of Afghanistan and is still fighting for the last third, was also given an insight into how the other half lives.

The men, who are accustomed to life without heating, electricity or running water, were amazed by the luxurious homes of Texan oil barons. Invited to dinner at the palatial home of Martin Miller, a vice-president of Unocal, they marvelled at his swimming pool, views of the golf course and six bathrooms. After a meal of specially prepared halal meat, rice and Coca-Cola, the hardline fundamentalists - who have banned women from working and girls from going to school - asked Mr Miller about his Christmas tree.

"They were interested to know what it was for and what the star was," said Mr Miller, who hopes that Unocal has clinched the deal. "The first day, they were stiff and cautious. But before long they were totally relaxed and happy," he said. Unocal, which heads an international consortium of companies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Japan, has been bidding for the contract since vast oil and gas reserves were discovered in Turkmenistan, one of the southernmost states of the former Soviet Union, in 1994. The fuel has so far been untapped because of Moscow's demands for high transport fees if it passes through Russian-controlled territory. The quickest and cheapest way to get the reserves out is to build a pipeline through Afghanistan.

It will supply two of the fastest-growing energy markets in the world: Pakistan and India. The Unocal group has one significant attraction for the Taliban - it has American government backing. At the end of their stay last week, the Afghan visitors were invited to Washington to meet government officials. The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children "despicable", appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract. The Taliban is likely to have been impressed by the American government's interest as it is anxious to win international recognition. So far, it has been recognised only by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Unocal has promised to start building the pipeline immediately, despite the region's instability. There is fighting just 87 miles from the planned entry point of the pipeline in the northwest of the country. The Taliban has assured Unocal that its workers and the pipeline will be safe, but it cannot guarantee that it will not be attacked by opposition forces.

The consortium has also agreed to start paying the Taliban immediately. The Islamic army will receive tax on every one of the million cubic feet of fuel that passes through Afghanistan every day. Unocal has also offered other inducements. Apart from giving fax machines, generators and T-shirts, it has donated £500,000 to the University of Nebraska for courses in Afghanistan to train 400 teachers, electricians, carpenters and pipefitters. Nearly 150 students are already receiving technical training in southern Afghanistan.

But it was the homely touches which swayed the Taliban. When the delegation left Texas, one of their entourage stayed behind. Mullah Mohammad Ghaus, the former foreign minister and a leading member of the Taliban ruling council, remained in Texas for medical treatment. Years on the front line damaged his eyesight. Unocal bought him a battery-powered magnifying glass and are paying for him to go to an optician.

Via MapCruzin.com.

Pakistan blames US for border raid

2008-06-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

Pakistan has blamed US-led forces in Afghanistan for an "unprovoked and cowardly" air raid near the border that killed at least 11 Pakistani soldiers.

However, the US military on Wednesday has said that the air and artillery assault was aimed at Taliban fighters and had been co-ordinated with Islamabad.

"...Coalition forces informed the Pakistan Army that they were being engaged by anti-Afghan forces," the US military said in a statement.

It said the operation "had been previously co-ordinated with Pakistan".

The alleged attack came after Pakistani paramilitary troops in the Mohmand tribal area clashed with Afghan forces in an area fought over by the two countries, Pakistani officials said. "The spokesman condemned this completely unprovoked and cowardly act on the FC [Frontier Corps] post and regretted the loss of precious lives of our soldiers," a Pakistani military statement said on Wednesday. "A strong protest has been launched by the Pakistan army and we reserve the right to protect our citizens and soldiers against aggression.

"The incident had hit at the very basis of co-operation and sacrifice with which Pakistani soldiers are supporting the coalition in the war against terror," the statement said. The Afghan military has not yet responded to the allegations.

Afghan operation

The Afghan army, backed by the US military, is understood to have entered the area in an attempt to secure the release of seven soldiers held by the Taliban in Pakistan. But Pakistani officials said Afghan forces tried to capture parts of the Soran Dara area, which borders the Afghan province of Nangarhar and which Pakistan claims is its own territory. "There is confusion over what happened," Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said. "Officials have confirmed that Pakistani troops were killed … in an area where Americans and Afghans were conducting joint operations."

Another Al Jazeera correspondent based in Islamabad said that military sources had told him that a US spy plane was used in the air raid.

'Spy plane' spotted

Damagh Khan Mohmand, a local tribesman who witnessed the outbreak of fighting late on Tuesday, said that the clashes lasted for four hours. He said that Afghan and foreign forces traded fire with both Pakistani tribesmen and troops.Two aircraft then bombed several locations, hitting two Frontier Corps posts, Khan Mohmand said.

Hyder said the incident is not the first attack on a Pakistani military post. "A little over a month ago there was an attack at a post not far from Chopara checkpoint," he said. "Al Jazeera sources in Kabul say that the Nato-led coalition is investigating. The coalition has not released any official statements; nor has the Pakistani military.

"There has been anger from the tribal groups, who have an armed group. They are now saying they will retaliate across the border for the strike."

Pakistan's foreign office issued a statement condemning the "senseless use of air power" urging the US-led international force to hand over the results of its investigation into the incident.

"The attack also tends to undermine the very basis of our co-operation with the coalition forces and warrants a serious rethink on their part of the consequences that could ensue from such rash acts," it said. Border dispute A series of missile attacks have been attributed to US-led forces in Afghanistan in recent months. More than a dozen people were killed in one such incident in the tribal region of Bajaur in May. There have been several disputes over the 2,500km Pakistan-Afghanistan border recently.

Both countries, whose governments are both allies of the US in its so-called "war on terror", have also argued over how to tackle fighters loyal to the Taliban. Foreign forces within the Nato-led coalition and the government in Kabul have alleged that Pakistan is not being tough enough on the opposition fighters. Pakistan's new government entered peace talks with Taliban loyalists shortly after allies of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, were beaten in recent elections.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

This is bad. It's too early to know for sure what happened, but I suspect that the attack was indeed coordinated. I could see the Afghan military carrying out a mission in disputed territory, but the US has a little more common sense than that. I would be very surprised if we hadn't alerted the Pakistani government before, or at the very least during, the operation.

So what does that leave us? An error in communication on the Pakistanis' part? I sure hope so, because if they are intentionally trying to create an international incident, there's going to be serious trouble, for everyone involved.

9/11 Trial Begins

2008-06-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

So. This is Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the man who bears the single greatest responsibility for the horrors of September 11.

I'll have a more detailed analysis of the trial later on, when I'm more awake.

'Al-Qaeda' claims embassy blast

2008-06-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad which left at least six people dead, according to an internet site purporting to represent the network.

According to a statement on the site on Wednesdsay, the attack in the Pakistan capital two days earlier was a reprisal against the republication in Danish newspapers of cartoons insulting the prophet Mohammed.

"One of the heroes of 'Qaedat al-Jihad' carried out a suicide operation on the morning of Monday," said the statement, signed by Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, one of Al-Qaeda's leaders.

'Infidel state'

The attack was "in revenge against the state of infidelity, called 'Denmark', that posted cartoons hostile to the messenger of Allah," the statement read, according to an English translation provided by Site, a US-based group which monitors Islamic militant internet websites and chat rooms. "This operation is a warning to the infidel state and those who ride with it, so that they are deterred from their sin ... and so that they apologise for what they did," Yazid added.

Site said the message was posted across several forums.

Danish intelligence officials said earlier on Wednesday that the attack had been meticulously planned for a "long time and with precision".

Denmark's secret services have sent three experts to Islamabad as part of their investigation.

Victims of attack

One Danish citizen of Pakistani origin and two Pakistani employees were among the dead in the blast that badly damaged the embassy and the offices of a UN-backed aid agency.

Al-Qaeda called for attacks on Danish targets after Danish newspapers ran caricatures of the prophet Mohammed.

Danish newspapers first published the controversial cartoons in 2005, sparking violent protests in Pakistan and other Muslim countries. Several dailies reprinted the sketches in February this year.

Yazid said al-Qaeda congratulated "the Pakistani mujahideen ... the pioneers of the religious fervor and Islamic zeal, who participated" in the attack.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

When the attack first happened, I strongly suspected that al-Qaeda was behind it, though I unfortunately did not have time to put together a post to that effect. At the time, one of Al Jazeera's political analysts had been quoted as saying, "The timing is very strange ... It is not an issue right now, it's over. No one, not even in the tribal areas, is talking about the cartoons."¹ To me, however, this explained the situation, rather than confusing it. Al-Qaeda doesn't want people to forget about it; it wants to keep them riled up. To this end, it organized a not so subtle reminder.

What is really interesting to me, though, is that Mustafa Abu al-Yazid is the one taking responsibility for this. He is the Emir of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, so you'd think that Islamabad would be somewhat outside his area of operations. It would be expected that one of the Pakistani hirabis, such as Jalaluddin Haqqani or Baitullah Mahsud (or perhaps the Emir of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, except that, curiously, there does not appear to be one). This is not the first time that al-Yazid has been connected to attacks in Islamabad, either; when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, he allegedly claimed responsibility. I had expressed a great deal of skepticism at the time, but this seems to reinforce the notion that he is involved in attacks in both nations. It would certainly make sense for al-Qaeda to combine Afghanistan and Pakistan into a single administrative region; the fact that many of their operations take place in the area around the border means that such an arrangement would eliminate frequent jurisdictional conflicts.

9/11 'mastermind' to face tribunal

2008-06-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001, is set to face a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay on nearly 3,000 counts of murder. Mohammed and four other detainees will be arraigned for the first time on Thursday inside a high-security courthouse at the US naval base.

The United States claims Mohammed confessed to masterminding the September 11 attacks but his lawyers say the confession was extracted by torture. Mohammed, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003, will be given the chance to address the tribunal, officials said.

Death penalty

All five suspects could face the death penalty if convicted. They were transferred to Guantanamo in Cuba in September 2006 after spending about three years in secret CIA prisons. Thursday's arraignment poses the highest-profile test yet of a US military tribunal system that faces an uncertain future. The US supreme court struck down an earlier system as unconstitutional in 2006, and is to rule this month on the rights of Guantanamo prisoners, potentially delaying or halting the proceedings. With less than eight months remaining in office for George Bush, the US president, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both say they want to close the military's offshore detention centre.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

Nobody tortured him into starring as himself in an Al Jazeera documentary on the attacks.

Iraqis rally over US security deal

2008-05-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia have taken to the streets of Baghdad and other cities to protest against a long-term security deal with the US. The rallies after Friday prayers follow a call by Muqtada al-Sadr for weekly protests against the deal that could lead to more US troops and a long-term US presence.

Washington wants the Iraqi government to provide a legal framework for US troops to remain in Iraq beyond the expiration of a UN mandate in December. Officials from the administration of George Bush, the US president, told Al Jazeera they expect to finalise the deal by the end of July.

A statement from al-Sadr's office called the negotiations "a project of humiliation for the Iraqi people".

Sheikh Salah Obaidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr's bloc in parliament, said the call for protests is not a "threat" to the Iraqi government, but a "warning". Al-Sadr, a Shia leader who has the backing of the al-Mahdi Army militia, called for the weekly protests on Tuesday and warned the government against signing the agreement, saying "it is against the interests of the Iraqi people".

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, another leading Shia figure, spoke out against the agreement, saying it would violate Iraq's sovereignty.

Last week, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, also reportedly expressed his anger, saying he would not permit the Iraqi government to sign a deal with "US occupiers" as long as he lived.

Via Al Jezeera.

Comment:

Why is the Bush administration so averse to victory? Once we finally reduce al-Qaeda in Iraq to utter insignificance — and I would be absolutely flabbergasted if that still had not happened by the time the mandate expires in December — our job will be complete. We will be able to withdraw; when we do so, the attacks against our troops will obviously stop, and Iraq will have become as stable as can reasonably be expected for a country in the Middle East. If, however, we do make this deal, then the current fragile peace that exists between the government and the Shia (and, most likely, the Sunni as well) will be broken. If we make the deal, we will have needed to make it; if we do not make it, we will not have needed to make it.

We must withdraw, not only for Iraq, but for us as well. I have calculated that by freeing up all of the troops who are currently deployed in Iraq, and allowing them sufficient time between deployments, we would be able to triple, if not outright quadruple, the size of the Coalition forces in Afghanistan. President Obama will then be able to show Bush what a real surge looks like.

Taliban captures Afghan district

2008-05-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

Taliban fighters have captured a remote district in central Afghanistan, taking prisoner the police and administration chiefs, officials and the Taliban have said. The fighters attacked the district of Rashidan in the central province of Ghazni in a night attack, the provincial governor and a Taliban spokesman told the AFP news agency on Friday.

"Last night, Taliban attacked Rashidan district and it fell," Jan Mohammad Mujahed, a provincial police chief, said. Mujahed said the plight of the seized officials was unknown.

'Under control'

Zabihullah Mujahed, a spokesman for the Taliban, confirmed the fighters were in control and said the district chief, acting police chief and eight policemen had been taken prisoner. "They are alive and we have captured them. The district is totally under our control," he said. Rashidan is a small district about 120km southwest of Kabul. Teresa Bo, reporting for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, said Ghazni - located along a major highway from Kabul, the capital, to the south - is one of the most complicated areas where fighting between Afghan, US and Taliban forces takes place almost every day. She said the Taliban holds power in strategic locations, adding: "Some of the police officers working here say they are afraid they will be the next target. "Security is one of the major concerns for every one in the area; the soldiers know they can be attacked any minute."

Vicious circle

Bo said a vicious cycle of violence continues as the Taliban fights for the control of the country and the US-led coalition struggles between re-construction and war.

The Taliban, in government between 1996 and 2001, last year overran several districts in remote parts of Afghanistan, but in most cases were ejected by government troops and soldiers attached to Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and a separate US-led military coalition is fighting Taliban militants. Taliban officials say they control a handful of districts, mostly in the south of the country. Nato military force officials said in December that the Taliban held not more than five districts.

Via Al Jezeera.

Comment.

This is a good example of the media blackout of the war in Afghanistan. I run a blog that is devoted to the War on Terror, and even I didn't know the exact number of districts held (though I knew there were several). I'm going to see if I can figure out which districts they are.

US ambassador: al-Qaida close to defeat in Iraq

2008-05-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

BAGHDAD — The U.S. ambassador to Iraq said Saturday that al-Qaida's network in the country has never been closer to defeat, and he praised Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his moves to rein in Shiite and Sunni militant groups.

Ryan Crocker's comments came as Iraqi forces have been conducting crackdowns on al-Qaida militants in the northern city of Mosul and on Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra. Thousands of Iraqi forces also moved into the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad last week imposing control for the first time in years.

[snip]

Al-Qaida fighters or other Sunni insurgents struck back in Mosul on Saturday. A roadside bomb in the city's Sumer neighborhood hit an Iraqi army patrol, destroying a vehicle and killing four soldiers, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Near Baqouba — where a U.S. offensive last year targeted al-Qaida in Iraq — gunmen assassinated a member of the local Awakening Council, a U.S.-backed group of Sunni tribesmen who are fighting al-Qaida. The attack occurred in the village of Had, north of Baghdad, police said.

U.S Ambassador Crocker spoke as he visited reconstruction projects in the southern city of Najaf.

"There is important progress for the Iraqi forces in confronting the Sunni and Shiite militias," he said, speaking Arabic to reporters. "The government, the prime minister are showing a clear determination to take on extremist armed elements that challenge the government's authority ... no matter who these elements are."

"You are not going to hear me say that al-Qaida is defeated, but they've never been closer to defeat than they are now," Crocker said.

The U.S. military says attacks have dropped dramatically — down to an average of 41 a day across the country, the lowest rate since 2004 — amid the crackdowns and truces. The U.S. military, backed by Sunni Arab tribal fighters, have scored successes in battling al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents in western parts of the country.

The Mosul sweep aims to dislodge the terror network from its most prominent remaining urban stronghold. The operation has met little opposition, suggesting that many al-Qaida militants fled, intending to regroup elsewhere as they have in past crackdowns.

Via Comcast.

Comment:

This is good news. Now if Maliki can avoid starting another civil war in the south, things might be looking up.

Osama Comes Out of the Closet

2008-05-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

MIR ALI, Pakistan (SNN) - In a surprise move, Osama bin Laden has announced that he and Ayman al-Zawahri plan to wed in one months time. "I am a gay Muslim," he announced in a newly released video, proudly displaying his engagement ring. "I want to show my support for my brothers and sisters in California. Stay strong!"

Seriously, though, you'd think that the folks at As-Sahab would know better than to use such an effeminate color scheme. I realize that this particular tape was intended primarily for an Arab audience, but they must have known that it would reach the West as well, and that it is difficult to terrorize somebody when your communiqués look like advertisements for Mattel's new Jihadi Barbie. They're usually a pretty professional outfit; I'm not sure what went wrong this time.

Regarding the message's actual content, the focus on Palestine is consistent with what appears to be a trend by al-Qaeda to portray itself as a more mainstream terrorist organization, dedicated to defending Muslims from their wicked oppressors, rather than as a bunch of frothing psychopaths out to destroy civilization. I doubt that this represents an actual change in priorities, but the Iraq debacle has forced al-Qaeda to accept that it has a major PR problem. It remains to be seen how effective this rebranding will be.

Hundreds held in Mosul crackdown

2008-05-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

About 1,100 people have been arrested during the first four days of an Iraqi military operation in the country's main northern city of Mosul, the defence ministry says.

Major-General Mohammed al-Askari, the ministry spokesman, said on Saturday there had been no clashes or killings during the mission, which is ongoing.

The military said al-Qaeda operatives who had regrouped in the region were the target of the arrests. Al-Askari said 530 of those being held, three of them senior al-Qaeda members, were wanted by the authorities.

He said security forces had recovered 1,400kg of explosives, 45 missiles, 263 mortar bombs and 175 assorted weapons.

Fighters disperse

Iraqi leaders said many of the fighters had fled to nearby areas, where troops were hunting for them. However, the operation is being described as successful in depriving the fighters of their urban stronghold. But the flight of al-Qaeda fighters to nearby areas raises the concern they can regroup elsewhere, as has happened in the past. Yassin Majid, an adviser to Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, said most of the group's leaders had fled to the outskirts of Mosul or to a neighbouring country. He did not name the country, but Mosul is about 96km from the Syrian and Turkish borders. Major-General Mark Hertling, the senior US commander in northern Iraq, whose forces are working with the Iraqi troops in the operation, said he did not believe significant numbers of fighters had escaped. He said Iraqi forces had surrounded the city with barriers and checkpoints controlling entry and exits. "It's been very successful," he told the Associated Press. "I think the combination of the arrests plus the uncovering of a number of weapons caches will reduce the number of attacks in Mosul."

Arms amnesty

On Friday, al-Maliki had announced a 10-day amnesty for those surrendering weaponry, but officials said there had been no response to an offer of cash in exchange for heavy and medium weapons. "Any house in Mosul has the right to have only one small weapon - a pistol or rifle," al-Askari said on Friday.In February, al-Maliki unveiled plans for a campaign against al-Qaeda in Iraq and in March was involved in an assault on Shia militias in the southern city of Basra. This crackdown prompted fighting in other urban areas between the Iraqi army and members of the al-Mahdi Army militia loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, a populist Shia leader. Hundreds of people have been killed in seven weeks of battles, which saw the US military stepping in to support the Iraqi army. Despite a truce being agreed last Saturday one woman was killed and two children were wounded in overnight violence, medics in the Baghdad district of Sadr City said on Friday.

Via Al Jazeera.