Swan Song for NATO - The Real Cost Of Defeat In Forgettistan

This article by Mike Whitney is reproduced it it's entirety it provides the most powerful and telling argument for UK withdrawal without delay.

"It is our right to defend our country. We are not a threat to other countries. But we have to use our rights when our country is occupied by foreign forces." - Mullah Omar, Taliban leader

It was supposed to be "the good war"; a war against terror; a war of liberation. It was intended to fix the eyes of the world on America's state of the art weaponry, its crack troops and its overwhelming firepower. It was supposed to demonstrate once and for all-- that the world's only superpower could no longer be beaten or resisted; that Washington could deploy its troops anywhere in the world and crush its adversaries at will.

Then everything went sideways. The war veered from the Pentagon's script. The Taliban retreated, waited, regrouped and retaliated. They enlisted support from the Pashtuns and the tribal leaders who could see that America would never honor its commitments; that order would never be restored. Operation Enduring Freedom has brought neither peace nor prosperity to Afghanistan; just occupation. Seven years have passed and the country is still ruled by warlords and drug- merchants. Nothing has gotten better. The country is in shambles and the government is a fraud. The humiliation of foreign occupation persists while the killing goes on with no end in sight.

War is not foreign policy. It is slaughter. Seven years later; it's still slaughter. The Taliban have taken over more than half of Afghanistan. They have conducted military operations in the capital of Kabul. They're dug in at Logar, Wardak and Ghazni and control vast swathes of territory in Zabul, Helmand, Urzgan and Kandahar. Now they are getting ready to step-up operations and mount a Spring offensive. That means the hostilities will progressively intensify.

The Taliban's approach is methodical and deliberate. They've shown they can survive the harshest conditions and still achieve tactical victories over a better-equipped enemy. They are highly-motivated and believe their cause is just. After all, they're not fighting to occupy a foreign nation; they're fighting to defend their own country. That strengthens their resolve and keeps morale high. When NATO and American troops leave Afghanistan; the Taliban will remain, just as they did when the Russians left 20 years ago. No difference. The US occupation will just be another grim footnote in the country's tragic history.

The United States has gained nothing from its invasion of Afghanistan. US troops do not control even a square inch of Afghan soil. The moment a soldier lifts his boot-heel; that ground is returned to the native people. That won't change either. General Dan McNeill said recently that "if proper US military counterinsurgency doctrine were followed; the US would need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in Afghanistan." Currently, the US and NATO have only 66,000 troops on the ground and the allies are refusing to send more. On a purely logistical level; victory is impossible.

The battle for hearts and minds has been lost, too. A statement from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) sums it up like this:

"The reinstatement of the Northern Alliance to power crushed the hopes of our people for freedom and prosperity and proved that, for the Bush administration, defeating terrorism has no meaning at all....The US doesnt want to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, because then they will have no excuse to stay in Afghanistan and achieve their economic and strategic goals in the region....After seven years, there is no peace, human rights, democracy or reconstruction in Afghanistan. The destitution and suffering of our people is increasing everyday. ...We believe that if the troops leave Afghanistan, our people will become more free and come out of their current puzzlement and doubts...Afghanistans freedom can only be achieved by Afghan people themselves. Relying on one enemy to defeat another is a wrong policy which has just tightened the grip of the Northern Alliance and their masters on the neck of our nation." (RAWA www.rawa.org)

Gradually, the Allies are beginning to see that Bush's war cannot be won and that continuing the fighting is counterproductive. There is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and the political objectives are getting murkier all the time. The lack of direction just adds to the growing frustration.

Recently Secretary of Defence Robert Gates tried to bully the allies into sending more combat troops to fight in the South, but he met with stiff resistance . He said:

"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security," Gates said. "We must not become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not. Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would in effect destroy the alliance."

But public support for the war is waning in Europe. This is America's war, not theirs. Europeans don't need to occupy foreign nations to meet their energy needs. Their economies are thriving and they can simply pay for their fuel on the open market. Only America wants the war. It's all part of a crazy geopolitical "grand strategy" to project US power into the region to control its resources. So far, there's no indication that the plan will succeed.

Germany has the third biggest economy in the world. Over the last few years, they have strengthened ties with Russia and made agreements that will satisfy their long-term energy needs. But German involvement in Afghanistan has put a strain on relations with Moscow. Putin thinks that the US is using the war to put down roots in Central Asia so it can control pipeline-routes from the Caspian Basin while surrounding Russia and China with military bases. Putin is right. Naturally, he'd like to persuade German Chancellor Angela Merkel to withdraw from Afghanistan which would strike a blow against the US-led alliance. And, that is the way it will probably turn out, too.

Eventually, German leaders will see that its foolish to tweak the nose of the people who provide them with energy (Russia) just to support Washington's adventures. When Germany withdraws from Afghanistan; NATO will disband, new coalitions will form, and the transatlantic alliance fall apart. The cracks are already visible.

President Bush has said that the war in Afghanistan must continue or the country will become a haven for drugs, terrorism and organized crime. He says we are fighting a "poisonous ideology of Islamic extremism which threatens to become a global movement".

But the Taliban and Pashtun tribesmen see it differently. They see the conflict as an imperial war of aggression which has only added to the suffering of their people. A recent report by the United Nations Human Development Fund appears to support this view. It shows that Afghanistan has fallen in every category. The average life expectancy has gone down, malnutrition has risen, literacy has dropped, and more than half the population is living below the poverty-line. Hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced by the war. The occupation has created plenty of misery, but no democracy. The war was a failure.

Afghanistan now produces 90% of the world's opium; more than any other country. The booming drug trade is the direct corollary of the US invasion. No one even denies this. Bush has created the world's largest narco-colony. Is that success?

Presently, there are no plans to improve the lives of ordinary Afghanis or to remove the warlords. Reconstruction is at a standstill. If the US stays in Afghanistan, the situation 10 years from now will be the same as it is today, only more people will have needlessly died. Most Afghanis now understand that the promise of democracy was a lie. The only thing the occupation has brought is more grinding poverty and random violence.

There's no back-up plan for Afghanistan. In fact, there is no plan at all. The administration thought the Taliban would see America's high- tech, laser-guided weaponry and run for the hills. They did. Now they're back. And now we are embroiled in an "unwinnable" war with a tenacious enemy that grows stronger and more resolute by the day.

Eventually, the Europeans will see the futility of the war and leave. That will be the end of NATO.


On cue the General speaks

Major General David Rodriguez, head of the US-led coalition force, on a trip to meet officials in the town of Maidan Shahr, west of Kabul today said the US military would stay in the country "as long as they are needed."

In answer to a journalists question about the time neeeded to defeat the Taliban-led insurgency he said "We definitely think it will take a few years for the Afghan people and the Afghan leaders supported by the coalition forces to defeat them,"

Deputy US ambassador Christopher Dell, who accompanied Rodriguez said that Taliban had little support among people.

"They are simply trying to terrorise them to play with fear in order to achieve their objectives".(AFP)

Int. Herald Tribune - Feb 7th Afghan poppy set for another big year, UN report warns

Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime presented a UN report at an international donors conference in Tokyo. In 2007, 477,000 acres, or 193,000 hectares, = 745 sq miles (@ 259 hectares to the sq.mile) were under poppy cultivation, yielding an estimated 9,000 tons of opium. This year it will be larger.

Taliban expand grip on Afghanistan and surround Kabul

The Senlis Council , one of the few independent and rational bodies that publishes reports on Afghanistan has decided to become the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS)

They claim this reflects their continuing expansion of programmes and new research platforms in various zones of conflict. They also have a new website and have produced a a report today
Struggle for Kabul: The Taliban Advance (pdf 40 pages).

They claim that the Taliban have rooted themselves itself across increasing swathes of Afghan territory. ICOS have been researching throughout 2008, and say that the Taliban now has a permanent presence in 72% of the country.. up from 54% in November 2007 as outlined in the ICOS (Senlis) report Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the Brink.

They also claim that the Taliban are the de facto governing power in a number of southern towns and villages. This illustrates the Taliban’s political, military and economic strategies are now more successful than the West’s in Afghanistan. Confident in their expansion beyond the rural south, the Taliban are at the gates of the capital and are now infiltrating the city at will.

Kabul is increasingly surrounded

There are four principal routes into / out of Kabul.

1. To the West, towards the Afghan National Ring Road through Wardak to Kandahar become unsafe for Afghan or international travel by the time travellers reach the entrance to Wardak province, which is about thirty minutes from the city limits.
2. To the South the road to Logar is no longer safe for Afghan or international travel.
3. To the east the road to Jalalabad is not safe for Afghan or international travel once travellers reach the Sarobi Junction which is about an hour outside of the city.
3. There are 2 northern routes ;

a) The road North towards the Bagram Air Base is frequently used by foreign and military convoys and subject to insurgent attacks.

b) The road North towards the Panjshir valley, Salang tunnel and Mazar – is considered safe for Afghan and international travel.

As the noose tightens around Kabul the Taliban have established bases close to the city from which to launch attacks inside it. Using these bases, the Taliban and insurgent attacks in Kabul have increased dramatically – including kidnapping of Afghans and foreigners, various bomb attacks and assassinations.

This dynamic has created a fertile environment for criminal activity, and the links between the Taliban and criminals are increasing and the lines between the various violent actors becoming blurred.

As this report is published the BBC report that the Taliban have attacked another depot in Peshawar and destroyed a further 50 vehicles in addition to the 100 destroyed at another depot on Sunday.



US Marines get ready to deploy to Afghanistan

Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, is reported today by AP (Marines will shift to Afghanistan) that Marine units tentatively scheduled to go to Iraq next spring are already incorporating some training for Afghanistan into their preparations.

He said he has had discussions with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and believes the Pentagon chief "would not object to the idea of a fairly strategic shift of focus of Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan."

"I just see that people have, over time, understood we don't want to take over Afghanistan, such as was rumored when we first started talking about a shift of forces,"

Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, has said he needs up to 20,000 additional troops, including four combat brigades and thousands of support troops.

Conway said several Marine units will be moving into Iraq in January and February, and it is too late to redirect them to Afghanistan. Instead, he said another large turnover of units in Anbar around April could be shifted to Afghanistan if they are notified soon.

A DoD News Briefing with Maj. Gen. Tucker (Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations for ISAF, Deputy Commander for Operations, U.S. Forces ) from Afghanistan at the Pentagon Briefing Room, Arlington, Va. on the 5th December makes interesting reading in view of the above.

Especially in relation to the need for helicopters.

Afghanistan Five Years Later - The Return of the Taliban

The Senlis Council is an international policy think tank with offices in Kabul, London ( 17, Queen Anne's Gate London SW1H 9BU), Paris and Brussels. The Council’s work encompasses foreign policy, security, development and counter-narcotics policies and provides innovative analysis and proposals.

The opium poppy is the traditional crop and the raw material for essential medicines such as morphine and codeine. Senlis say therefore there is a huge potential to be re-directed into legal channels becoming a major driver for Afghanistan’s rural development and addressing the global shortage of opium-based medicines. This would be done by licensing the growth of poppies and controlling the legal distribution for medecines.

Senlis today launched a new report with a press conference (Press release here)
The report, "Afghanistan Five Years Later - The Return of the Taliban" can be downloaded here (PDF alert)

They highlight the fact that 900% more has been spent on military affairs than reconstruction, that there is widesrpead suspicion and disenchantment, especially with the US.For example Marvin Weinbaum, a former analyst with the U.S. State Department who now works with the Middle East Institute is quoted in the Toronto Star "We were trying to get rid of the bad guys and said, once we do that, we'll get around to doing development. It never happened. ...The credibility ... was lost when they got neither the security they expected nor the reconstruction that they were hoping for. "

The Senlis Council report reaches some conclusions about the last 5 years.

Ignoring extreme poverty is destroying nation-building efforts

The prioritisation of Western domestic security needs in Afghanistan translates into dead Afghans. The success of the initial invasion in 2001 has not been followed by real changes in the everyday lives of most Afghans.

Futile counter-narcotics policies intensify the security and poverty crises

Failing counter-narcotics policies driven by the international community intent on pushing its War on Drugs in Afghanistan are inflaming poverty and worsening the security crisis in the country. Farmers seeing their livelihoods destroyed by international forces fail to see the benefits in their country. Eradication policies generate local hostility and suspicion towards the designs of the international community in Afghanistan... which leads to ..

Failure of nation-building project makes fertile ground for Taliban revival

The results of the international community’s nation-building efforts in Afghanistan are largely symbolic for Afghans and are more in line with the ‘homeland security’ objectives of the foreign forces rather than the real needs of Afghans. A rejuvenated, re - armed Taliban is exploiting such widespread resentment to stir up instability."They are not fighting for us, they are fighting for themselves".

Total military spending vs. total development spending in Afghanistan. 2002-2006

Despite the extreme poverty in Afghanistan, the majority of spending by the international community is on military rather than development and poverty relief projects.

More comment here and a previous post from Lord Patel Tuesday, July 4 2006 Afghanistan - Stalky & Co Redux

Update Wednesday
The photos and the videos from the Senlis Afghanistan Report Afghanistan Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban are now available online:

To view the Video Report, go to:
http://www.senliscouncil.net/modules/publications/014_publication/dvd_extracts
To view the Photo Report, go to:
http://www.senliscouncil.net/modules/publications/014_publication/dvd_extracts/photo_library

John Reid : “We hope we will leave Afghanistan without firing a single shot” 100 dead,unknown shattered limbs and broken lives , children + women dead

When Britain deployed 3,300 troops to Helmand province in June 2006, then Defence Secretary John Reid said: “We hope we will leave Afghanistan without firing a single shot.”

Earlier on February 27th , Anne Milton MP (Guildford, Conservative) asked John Reid if he was satisfied that there are enough troops in Afghanistan, bearing in mind the lessons from Iraq that ground troops are essential in order to complete missions adequately?

John Reid (Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence; Airdrie & Shotts, Labour) answered ..."Yes, I am satisfied. The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that the Chiefs of Defence Staff fully endorse the force package we are sending. One of the three or four criteria that I laid down before the move south was that the military configuration and size desired by the Chiefs of Staff should be provided, and that was done."

Let us remember the first troops the UK sent to operate outside Kabul was early in 2003 when 60 troops were sent to Mazar-e-Sharif, working as a "provincial reconstruction team". The then Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon said the team would , "focus on improving dialogue between local warlords and politicians."

Since the success n creep has set in and troop deployment soared.

The first move into Helmand by UK forces was in February 2006. An advance party of 850 personnel from 39 Regiment, Royal Engineers and 42 Commando, Royal Marines, with three Chinook helicopters presence.

On July 2006 it was announced that 900 extra military personnel would be deployed to Afghanistan increasing the size of the UK taskforce in Helmand province to around 4,500 by October, from the (then) current level of 3,600.

On the 1st February last year the part Time Defence Secretary Des Browne , ordered out more troops for southern Afghanistan, so that the total UK forces in Afghanistan under ISAF would be 6,300 by April. Less than 4 weeks later on February 26th he ordered a further 1,400 troops bringing the total up from 5,500 in February to 7,700 by .."the summer".

It is worth remembering that John Reid, when asked by Ann Milton in February 2006 to"list the aims of the UK deployment to southern Afghanistan", answered :

"The international community's involvement in Afghanistan is aimed at ensuring that Afghanistan will never again...
1. Become a breeding ground for international terrorism,
2. (and will do this) By helping the Afghan people to rebuild their
3. Democracy
3. Security
2. Economy

United Kingdom deployment to southern Afghanistan is part of the UN-mandated, NATO - led international security assistance force, which is expanding across the country in support of this commitment.

Let's hope that the grandparents, parents, brothers, wives, children, friends, sweethearts think that the the sacrifice of 100 dead, the maimed, crippled and damaged survivors has been worth helping the corrupt and criminal gangsters who run this country desolated by war.

Who is more of a threat - John “We hope we will leave Afghanistan without firing a single shot.” Reid or the mythical international terrorists?


UPDATE 8.30 am 9th June - BBC4 Today prgramme had Professor Michael Clarke big cheese at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and prominent member of the (recently very quiet) Lady Dame Baroness Jane Pauline Neville-Jones Fan Club. He described the position in Afghanistan as "a stalemate".

He was followed by the blathering Scots solicitor who ,when he is not Minister for Scotland, gets involved in muddling through at the Ministry of Defence. He said "we are making progress" many times and said ,"we have the Taliban on the back foot".

When it was put to him by Mr Stourton that people described the President Mr Karzai as "The Mayor of Kabul" whose writ ran no further than his Palace and who headed a corrupt Government. he replied he was glad that Mr Stourton talked about the "challenges that lie ahead" and repeated that "progress was being made" .. 3 mn Children in school, some of them girls, roads built ("the Taliban start where the road ends")and a "democratic Government".

It was a pity that Mr Stourton didn't ask about the democratic policy of excludimg elected members such as Malalai Joya Wednesday, June 04, 2008 Malalai Joya - telling it like it is in Afghanista. President Karzai - telling lies, more lies and getting unqualified support from the West or the activitoes of the Presidents brothers Mahmoud Karzai ,Qayum and Ahmed Wali who are as he would say "meeting challenges and making progress" in the international drugs trade.

It was also a pity that Mr Stourton didn't ask about the much delayed Minrod replacement which limits the troops ISTAR capabilities - much reduced by the crashing of one of the 2 replacement Reapers - 7th June Grim future for the Reaper - crashed in Afghanistan, short of money in Whitehall- Watchkeeper along real soon now

It ws a pity he didn;t ask about ISTAR capability and the remarks of the coroner at the inquest on the crashed Nimrod - Friday, May 23, 2008 Coroner grounds entire RAF Nimrod Fleet Des Browne another Scots politician , part time Defence Minister ready for a lonely walk in the countryside ?

It was also apity that Mr Stourton didn't ask about his remarks about Dickie Dannatt 's remarks about his brave soldiers being paid less than traffic wardens, and his own unfortunate remarks last year explaining that they were so low paid they couldn't get decent jobs like traffic wardens in civvy street - 6th June Sir Richard Dannatt - War Criminal - Sunday, June 08, 2008
Running the Armed Forces and insulting them simultaneously - a Politicians trick

It was a pity that Mr Stourton didn't ask about sending ships with nothing to launch but a book because their missiles had been stored to "save money" - Saturday, June 07, 2008 Royal Navy ships at sea without Sea Dart guided missiles - to save money - but helping Sebastian Faulks to make lots of it

Nor did he ask any unwelcome questions about replacement tankers ( whose PFI funding is threatened even further by the unwelcome news that "monoline" insurers Ambac and MBIA who insure such PFI projects lost their "AAA" rating from Standard & Poor's last week) - Wednesday, January 30, 2008 AirTankers - MOD PFI financing suffers from Ambac credit rating downgrade - will / can the banks agree a financing deal ?

Nor was he asked about the aerial war and the loss of civilian lives and maiming of women and children as a result of the intensive bombing / strafing ... Saturday, December 22, 2007 Massive escalation in aerial bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan. and see Tuesday, February 19, 2008 Bomb,Bomb,Iran ! Why bother there's plenty of Iraq and Afghanistan left yet

Nor was he asked about the unbeleivable cock up over supply of helicopters and pilots and the massive and incredibly costly shambles of supplying Chinooks - which will happen ..er... well probably ..er.. next year Chinook - National Audit Office - yet more MOD procurement shambles exposed Helicopter suppotr for lifting men and material forcing troops on to roads (leading to looses from mines and IED's has not improved since 2006 - Wednesday, June 04, 2008
We need more, newer helicopters, say stressed pilots (2006)

Professor Clarke and Secretary Browne had 15 minutes running time and blathered, Stourton gave them an easy ride except from asking about the Mayor of Kabul.

Rentagob Howells ... Poppy Day will be early this year...

Foreign Office Minister, accident probe, Welsh windbag Kim Howells, in an interview with BBC Radio Four's Today programme, visiting Afghanistan ahead of the UK assuming control of operations from the US next month in Helmund , said that he expected that poppy cultivation in the country could even be higher again this year following recent record harvests after the overthrow of the Taliban regime.

"I don't think it has got worse," the minister said, adding that Britain, which is lead G8 country with responsibility for combating drugs in Afghanistan, was "learning much."

"We don't know how much opium and harvest was produced" under the Taliban regime, he insisted. The country was "completely lawless" and no one could find out, he said.... as distinct from now when the country is "completely lawless".

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said earlier this year that the eradication of Afghanistan's poppy fields would be a much longer process than first thought.... which is surprising because his Kandahar based brother Ahmed Wali Karzai is heavily involved in the business.... and helped finance Hamid's election.

The admission of a further bumper crop came as the Ministry of Interior's counter narcotics forces conducted their first ever drugs raid into Zaranj, capital of Nimruz Province, on the border with Iran.

"Whilst other forces are attacking the big opium dealers in Helmand, (ie the real heavy lifting) in Nimruz we are attacking other parts of the opium snake that is trying to poison the nation of Afghanistan," the spokesman said.

Howells was visiting British civilians and troops in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan the centre of opium and heroin production in Afghanistan.

Defense Minister John Reid told the Commons that he would "not hide" the "difficulties and risks of this deployment". A former Foreign Office adviser, now a consultant in the United States, described Reid's comments as "delusional". He said: "Reid makes it sounds as though Afghanistan is a unified, well-policed, controlled country that is facing some imminent terrorist threat or a return of the Taliban. Someone should tell him there is no unified or controlled Afghanistan .... and someone should tell him the Taliban never really left.

Richard Haass, George Bush's head of policy planning in his first term, he also co-ordinated policy on the future of Afghanistan and knows both the Iraq and Afghanistan policies inside out, being an architect and adviser on both.

"A barely functioning Iraq, with a weak central government and highly autonomous regions, such as a secular Kurdish-dominated north; a religious, Shi'ite-dominated south, a Sunni-dominated west; and a demographically mixed and unsettled centre that takes in Baghdad." Haass said: "Think of it as a version of today's Afghanistan - minus the poppy fields."


The 6000 ill equipped British troops (taxpayer cost £1Bn.), at the end of a very long and stretched supply chain, with a dangerous and and ill defined war against the opium trade , whilst a fully stretched US force elsewhere tries to keep the peace, contains a much wider significance than John Reid might care to admit.Yorkshire Ranter has some well informed information about aerial support etc.,

LATE GOOD NEWS IN THE WAR ON TERROR

Delivering his address on the GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR at the Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte in North Carolina, Bush commended President Pervez Musharraf for making a choice to side with the international community in the fight against terrorism in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. “Colin Powell did a wonderful job of talking to President Musharraf in a very respectful and dignified way,” he said.

Musharraf is of course a military dictator who declared himself President after a military coup and amended the Constitution so that he could make any law, and the courts and Parliament cannot change any such law.

Which is why perhaps the President went on to say there had been 4 attempts on President Mushariff's .... and maybe this is why he holding him back from following his example.

Good to have such friends.

Major Taliban leader killed .... or not killed

Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, (AKA Usmani) the Taliban treasurer, chief of military operations in the provinces of Uruzgan, Nimroz, Kandahar, Farah, Herat and Helm and a chap played a central role in facilitating operations involving Taliban, al-Qaeda and a group led by Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani (also chum of Mr Hekmatyr) was on his satellite telephone when an RAF R1 monitoring aircraft tracking him down. Working with an elite US special operations team, including members of the elite Delta Force, plus elite intelligence specialists from an elite unit known as elite Task Force Orange were able to call in a US elite plane (A-1o, Predator drone ?) to drop a smart bomb (missile?) onto his 4 x 4 as it left a village in the Zahre area.

This killed him, and 2 deputies with him.

The Kuwait News Agency say Coalition spokesman in Kabul Colonel Tom Collins claimed Usmani was a senior member of the Taliban inner circle,a member of the Taliban's Shura Majlis, or executive council, and the former foreign minister for the Taliban. He said, this was ,"a major achievement in the fight against extremists and their terrorist networks". CNN report that The military is "very sure" it killed Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani although it can't provide visual proof as his body was "obliterated" in Tuesday's attack on the vehicle .

"He was hit by a precision air strike. The vehicle was destroyed and all the occupants were obliterated," Tim Collins said. "We had him under observation for a good while, we knew he was in the vehicle. When that vehicle moved out of that built up area he was in, that's when we hit it."

Collins said Osmani was identified through forensic analysis, but not through DNA tests. He said the type of analysis performed was classified information.

Confusingly al Jazeera report that "Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Osmani was really killed with his companion Maulavi Abdul Zahir Baloushi and a third unidentified person."

The Taliban through Qari Yousef Ahmadi deny reports of Osmani's death but not the incident, when they claim a low-ranking commander Mullah Abdul Zahir had been killed with 3 other Taliban fighters.

Osmani was captured in 2002 but was released by "mistake" 4 weeks later.

Osmani is from from the Taleban spiritual capital Kandahar, and taught in the same madrassa that Mullah Mohammed Omar used to teach in before the emergence of Taliban in 1994.

Mullah Akhtar Usmani appeared (see pic) on Pakistani television, on June 15th, 2005 and claimed he was in touch with Mullah Omar and he said bin Laden was, "thanks be to God … absolutely fine, in good health and fit," Usmani also said the Taliban is reorganized and it,

"is in all areas [of Afghanistan]. In some areas, it is working more; in some areas, it is working less. However, it is present and working in all provinces… Almost 80 percent of the [Afghan] people are with us; they were not in the past, but now they are because when they consider U.S. atrocities and actions, they come to understand the United States is their enemy… Now our fighting is increasing. It may increase manifold this year... We also have weapons. We do not need anything."

His aide Abdul Latif Hakimi frequently gives interviews from the Pakistani city of Quetta. This has caused the US Ambassador in Kabul Zalmay Khalilzad to ask rhetorically why , “If GEO TV can get in touch with them, how can the intelligence service of a country, which has nuclear bombs and a lot of security and military forces, not find them?” [Reuters, 6/18/2005]





Students of the writings of Osama bin Laden will recall his words published in the Al-Jihaad Newsletter, Issue No. 4, 22 June 2000.

"Any aggression by the United States today against Afghanistan would not be against Afghanistan itself, but against the Afghanistan that hoists the banner of Islam in the world, the true, mujahid Islam, which fights for the sake of God… Allah has blessed Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan… They were able to unify the country under the Taliban and under the leadership of Amir ul-Mu'mineen [Commander of the Faithful] Mulanna [our Mullah] Omar. So today, Afghanistan is the only country in the world that has the Shari'ah. Therefore, it is compulsory upon Muslims all over the world to help Afghanistan. And to make hijra to this land, because it is from this land that we will dispatch our armies to smash all kuffar all over the world."

bin Ladin said Afghanistan would be the site of "one of Islam's immortal battles." "Under the leadership of our mujahid Amir … Mullah Muhammad Omar," bin Laden wrote, "we are firm on the path of jihad for the cause of God. The United States was(is) not against me. It was not even against the Taliban. It was(is) against Islam."(see PBS interview......)

Do you have a message for the American people?

"I say to them that they have put themselves at the mercy of a disloyal government, and this is most evident in Clinton's administration ... . We believe that this administration represents Israel inside America."

Earlier this week the French government announced that it would withdraw its 200 special (elite?) forces (FFL) from Afghanistan at the start of 2007 . This coincides with the announcement of a TV documentary,"Bin Laden, the failings of a manhunt", by Emmanuel Razavi and Eric de Lavarene to be aired on cable TV in March 2007. It is claimed this film shows French special forces in Afghanistan had al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in their sights twice about three years ago, but their U.S. superiors never ordered them to fire.

French armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck said "that never happened" when asked about the bin Laden sightings.

Emmanuel Razavi is French (pere) / Iranian and left Teheran with the Shah, he published by Paris Match,(pic) "Afghanistan, the French on the track of Bin Laden" for which he was nominated for the prestigious Prix Bayeux Calvados of the War Correspondents in 2004. He has also published "Moslem Brothers: the threat " Editions Jean Cyril Godefroy December 31, 2004

Pic of FFL Para regiment with camouflage painted M82A2 Barrett specially adapted sniper rifles which use 1/2 " BMG (12.7 x 99mm)rounds and is lethal over 1800 metres.

UPDATE 27/12

Robert Lindsay has more information here but the proof of Osmani's death still relies on unconfirme claims by US forces.

Afghan woman MP assaulted in Parliament.

An outspoken and extraordinaryily brave female legislator was physically and verbally attacked by her colleagues after saying on the parliament floor that some of Afghanistan's mujahedeen leaders were criminals who shouldn't now be lawmakers, officials said Monday.AP

Malalai Joya, (website)elected to the Afghan Parliament for the remote western area of Farah said when elected "When those people put their trust in me and elected me as their representative, I decided to bring their suffering to the world's attention - so that the world would know that even though the men and women of Afghanistan have had to live in ignorance and poverty for many years, they don't trust the mujahideen."

Ms Joya said the government with the support of international forces should "tackle the warlords with great determination".

Yesterday she was physically and verbally attacked after saying on the parliament floor that some of Afghanistan's mujahedeen leaders were criminals who shouldn't allowed to be lawamakers. The Times reports that Omid Yakmanish, a television cameraman, was hit as he filmed the uproar, and dropped his camera. He said: “The MP (Al-haj Khyal Mohammad Husaini, from Ghazni) said in an interview, ‘I have the right to beat people up if I want to’.”

Parwin Durranai, a woman MP for the nomadic Kuchi people, who charged at her, said: “I am not regretful. She spoke against 90 per cent of Afghanistan’s people. She is rude in the way she speaks.”

Several female lawmakers hit her with empty plastic water bottles and male lawmakers made death threats and lobbed insults at her after her speech on Sunday.

"I said there are two kinds of mujahedeen in Afghanistan. One kind fought for independence, which I respect, but the other kind destroyed the country and killed 60,000 people," Joya told AP.

This is not the first time (nor will it be the last) that Joya, has spoken out against warlords and drug lords . At the first loya jirga, a council of leaders that helped establish the interim government in 2002 after the U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001 and in December at the full first session of parliament (Wolesi Jirgashe) called for all of Afghanistan's human rights abusers and "criminal warlords" to be brought to justice. Delegates responded by pounding their fists on the tables to demand she sit down. But she refused, shouting that she had a right as an elected official to speak her mind.

On Monday, she again said Afghanistan's parliament has former warlords and members loyal to the Taliban. She said death threats would not quiet her.

"They may kill me, they may slash my neck. I will never stop my words against the criminals, against the drug dealers," she said.

The spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, Karim Rahimi,said , "The lawmakers are the representatives of the Afghan people. We are sure they will solve their own difficulties," and then sneaked off..

Ms Joya has argued against the former rulers of Afghanistan - last year she, together with a delegation of 50 tribal elders, persuaded President Hamid Karzai to dismiss Bashir Baghlani as the governor of Farah province by him as he was a well-known criminal commander of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and a former Taliban leader (and man with close contacts with the CIA) . Diplomats see her very vocal and expressive interventions as unhelpful... which is hardly surprising.

Assassination attempted

She has survived at least 4 assassination attempts since her speech at the constitutional convention. Ms Joya employs armed guards and travels incognito where possible.

"I know that if not today, then probably tomorrow, I will be physically annihilated," Ms Joya told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

Ms Joya has said she is used to intimidation after being threatened "again and again" by the Taleban when she started her work in the country in 1998 after returning from Pakistan and Iran where her family had emigrated during the civil war.

During that time she established an orphanage and health clinic, and was soon a vocal opponent of the Taleban.

"These people are snakes in the sleeves of the government. Only if the government tackles them head-on will we see a brighter future." says this remarkable woman,"If they don't there will be more bitter and dark days ahead."

Malalai Joya, recently visited Yale University in the US to speak on foreign policy. At the end of her lecture, she criticized Harvard for admitting Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi as a special student. Hashemi was the deputy foreign minister for the Taliban at the time of the September 11th attacks.He was the chief translator for Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. Harvard apologists said and that excluding him would “ takes us one step closer into the Taliban-like suppression of views that challenge the party line.”

Malalai Joya has received a 1/2 share in the S Korean annual Human rights 2006 Gwangju Prize for human rights.(Pic Hamburg 2002)

Elsewhere in Afghanistan today the U.S. reported airstrikes on a cave complex near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan killed four Taliban militants and destroyed a truck loaded with rockets.

Malalai Joya - telling it like it is in Afghanista. President Karzai - telling lies, more lies and getting unqualified support from the West

Mohammed Sarwar became Britain's first Muslim MP and the first to swear his Oath on the Koran in 1997. He has decided he will not stand again and has probably obtained most attention since his son Athif Sarwar, was found guilty of laundering various sums of money between 24 February and 25 April 2003 while working as a cash-and-carry manager at United Wholesale (Scotland) Ltd based in Maxwell Road, Glasgow which was part of a major VAT carousel fraud.

He has been a bitter and frequent critic of Labour Party Foreign Policy although recently was supportive of the Prime Minister at Question Time on the 14th may when he asked "“Will my right hon. Friend join me and the House in wishing every success to Rangers football team, which is proud to be Scottish and British, in bringing the UEFA cup to Glasgow? " .

Perhaps more interesting is a Question (208568) he has placed today to the Boy David Miliband AKA Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs... "..what reports he has received on the continued suspension from the Afghan parliament of Malalai Joya; and if he will make a statement. "

Malalai Joya was first elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 when she was only 25. Last year she was indefinitely suspended from the post when she compared the legislature in a TV interview (not unreasonably) to a zoo .

She also said in the interview on private Afghan station Tolo TV, "Since I've started my struggle for human rights in Afghanistan, for women's rights, these criminals, these drug smugglers, they've stood against me from the first time I raised my voice at the Loya Jirga,"

Ron Moreau & Sami Yousafzi " A Harvest of Treachery" Newsweek 21/1/ 2006 reported that the President’s brother is “alleged to be a major figure by nearly every source who described the Afghan network… including past and present government officials and several minor drug traffickers.” One Interior Ministry official says, “He is the unofficial regional governor of southern Afghanistan and leads the whole trafficking structure.” Newsweek adds that, “Diplomats and well-informed Afghans believe that up to a quarter of the new Parliament’s 249 elected members are linked to narcotics production and trafficking.” One especially controversial figure is Arif Noorzai, **** (As General he was jihad-era commander against the Soviets )who has won the post of deputy speaker of Parliament (naturally he denies any wrongdoing.) the body that threw Malali Joya out on the prestext of insulting her colleagues.

It was not the first time she got in trouble for criticizing the powerful in Afghanistan. Beginning in 2003, she emerged as a leading politician fighting for women's rights and called for the expulsion of warlords from the national government at the Loyal Jirga - which resulted in many of them , armed customarily with guns attacking her. In the firestorm that erupted from her criticisms, Joya has endured threats of rape, made even by fellow elected officials, and has (so far) survived four assassination attempts.

Now flanked by a large security detail provided by UN and still hounded by critics in Afghanistan, Ms Joya has taken her message of progressive reform around the world. Today, she works for The Organization for Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities, arguing with dramatic force and reason that the situation for women has not improved greatly since the fall of the Taliban regime. Today, she notes,

"In some big cities, women have access to jobs and education. But in faraway provinces, the situation of Afghan women is worse than ever."

The United States-led coalition doesn't escape her tongue lashing either. She ssays the Western powers have "betrayed" supporters of democracy in Afghanistan by allowing Northern Alliance warlords into the government and by legitimising Islamic religious practices that she sees as promoting violence against women and children.

"We believe the US and their allies of the US have pushed us from the frying pan into the fire."

Now on an international tour , Joya has become, to her supporters, a symbol of the precarious democracy in Afghanistan. In a brief report about the Afghan parliament last summer, the European Union parliament cited Ms Joya's suspension as part of a troublesome trend on the part of the Afghan government of shifting away from "an open democratic system". As long ago as February 2003, Sen. Joseph Biden (D) said, “I think [the Bush administration has] already given up the ghost in Afghanistan. They’ve basically turned it over to the warlords.”

Along with the recent passage of an amnesty law, preventing prosecutions of people for war crimes in past Afghan conflicts, and codified restrictions on freedom of the media, Ms Joya's suspension has demonstrated that democracy in Afghanistan has taken a huge step backwards.

This has not stopped her from fighting for greater protection of human rights in Afghanistan.

"I strongly believe that they will destroy all of the flowers, but they cannot stop the spring. One day we will have everything in our country."

Hamid Karzai interviewed in der Spiegel

Yesterday President Hamid Karzai was interviewed and his remarks present a stark contrast to the views of his youthful Afghani patriot. Readers are best consulting the original text but some remarks are worth repeating.

SPIEGEL: Some of your closest aides are suspected of stealing land, drug smuggling and having illegal militias, among them respected governors and police chiefs. Your attorney general, Abdul Jabar Sabet, just named a few of them, including the governor of Nangarhar. Why do you still protect these people?

Karzai: I am not protecting anybody.

SPIEGEL: During the Taliban times there were no checkpoints at all.

Karzai: That was the best aspect of the Taliban. They did a lot wrong, but they also did a few things right. I wish I had the Taliban as my soldiers. I wish they were serving me and not people in Pakistan or others. When we came back to Afghanistan, the international community brought back all those people who had turned away from the Taliban …

SPIEGEL: Dirty deals are still necessary for the stability of Afghanistan?

Karzai: Absolutely necessary, because we lack the power to solve these problems in other ways. What do you want? War? Let me give you an example. We wanted to arrest a really terrible warlord, but we couldn't do it because he is being protected by a particular country. We found out that he was being paid $30,000 a month to stay on his good side. They even used his soldiers as guards …

SPIEGEL: That sounds like the story of Commander Nasir Mohammed in Badakhshan, a province where German soldiers are based.

SPIEGEL: There is a list of high-level drug lords and smugglers, and a number of well-known figures in the establishment. Some are your advisors and some are even alleged to be part of your cabinet. Why haven't we seen the trial of a single prominent person?

Karzai: This list is a myth. ***I have never received such a list. I have asked the international community to deliver this supposed list to me, but it has never been presented.

SPIEGEL: Your former interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, claimed to possess such a list. ***

SPIEGEL: Since you became president, your family has become highly successful in the business world and also in politics. Your brother Mahmoud Karzai is currently CEO of a cement plant in Pul-i-Khumri in the northeast that was the envy of many competitors. Two other brothers, Qayum and Ahmed Wali, are powerful politicians in the southern part of the country. Many there say that no decisions can be made without the approval of the Karzais. Is there a grain of truth to that?

Karzai: This is really a lot of rubbish.

SPIEGEL: The south is the hub of drug smuggling. Is it possible that Ahmed Wali Karzai,(his brother - named in the New York Times 2004 as a drug smuggler) one of the most influential politicians in Kandahar, who leads the provincial council, doesn't have the slightest idea what is going on or has nothing to do with it?

Karzai: Yes, it is very much possible.

PS ***Ali Jalali, former Interior minister , who quit summer 2005 has repeatedly said he has a list of more than 100 high-ranking Afghan ----officials he suspects of involvement in the drug trade. A source close to him, fearful of being killed if identified, says Jalali's unpublished list includes at least 13 former and present provincial governors and four past or present cabinet ministers. The source adds that one of the minister's chief reasons for resigning was his frustration over President Hamid Karzai's failure to sack and prosecute crooked officials. Newsweek

In a study for the independent Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, Afghan expert Andrew Wilder concludes that at least 17 newly elected M.P.s are drug traffickers themselves, 24 others are connected to criminal gangs, 40 are commanders of armed groups and 19 face serious allegations of war crimes and human-rights abuses.

**** It may be of interest that General Arif Noorzai accompaniedAhmad Shah Masood, The Lion of Panjsher as a very close aide on his trip to Europe, with meetings with the US and UK staffs at the Plaza Athene Hotel In Paris, and helped in press conferences and tried to inform western leaders about the growing power of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan's secret assistance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

September 9th 2001 Masood was Killed by (allegedly Al Quaeda) suicide attackers. Interestingly enough, after this, suicide attacks become very common in Afghanistan.

The Boy David's response is waited with keen anticipation..perhaps he could explain the objectives of the current military mission of UK /NATO focres in Afghanistan for a start.

UPDATE :Kim Howells took on the job for the Boy David ...Kim Howells (Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Pontypridd, Labour)

In May 2007 Malalai Joya was suspended for three years (until the end of the legislative term) by her peers in the Afghan parliament for contravening Article 70 of the Afghan parliament's rules of procedure. Article 70 states that members of parliament who insult others are subject to disciplinary action. Action was taken against Ms Joya after a media interview in which she said that the Afghan parliament was worse than a 'stable or zoo'. Ms Joya has the right to challenge the decision and has indicated her intention to do so. Together with EU partners, we regularly raise the issue of freedom of expression in Afghanistan and look forward to Ms Joya and the Afghan parliament resolving this internal parliamentary issue.

A member of our embassy staff met with Malalai Joya on 1 May 2008. Ms Joya gave an account of her suspension by the Afghan parliament and discussed Afghan politics.

So that's alright then. Article 70 (which was especially promulgated to deal with Ms Malali Joya) can stand then. We, who pour Billions into this sordid corrupt country run by warlords , gangsters and drug dealers can carry on.

Afghanistan ... the centre cannot hold.. things fall apart

Why It's Not Working in Afghanistan
By Ann Jones posted at Tom Dispatch


Remember when peaceful, democratic, reconstructed Afghanistan was advertised as the exemplar for the extreme makeover of Iraq? In August 2002, Rummy was already proclaiming the new Afghanistan "a breathtaking accomplishment" and "a successful model of what could happen to Iraq." Everybody now knows, the model isn't working in Iraq. Don't be surprised. It's not working in Afghanistan either.

The Afghanistan success story was always more fairy tale than fact -- one lie used to sell another. Now, as the Bush administration hands off "peacekeeping" to NATO forces, Afghanistan is the scene of the largest military operation in the history of that organization. Today's personal email brings word from an American surgeon in Kabul that her emergency medical team can't handle half the wounded civilians brought in from embattled provinces to the south and east. American, British, and Canadian troops find themselves at war with Taliban fighters -- which is to say "Afghans" -- while stunned NATO commanders, who hadn't bargained for significant combat, are already asking what went wrong…. Read on ...highly recommended.

Not if you are Tony Blair or his successor John Reid...

At the other end of the highway, in Kandahar city -- President Karzai's home town – and in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, and Uruzgan, Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah is reported to have more than 12,000 men under arms and squads of suicide bombers at the ready. They ambush newly arrived NATO troops. The embattled British commander, Lieutenant-General Richards, recently issued a warning: "We need to realize that we could actually fail here."


Journalist and photographer Ann Jones spent much of the last four years in Afghanistan working as a human rights researcher and women's advocate with international humanitarian agencies and teaching English to Kabul high school English teachers. She writes about her Afghan experience for the Nation magazine and notably in a new book Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan (Metropolitan Books, 2006). For more on her, check out her website.
Copyright 2006 Ann Jones

See also Legal Alien @ New York for news of Dutch efforts by Huib Riethof.

Lord Patel in February 2006 posted this about the Dutch army contribution and the drug smuggling Government ministers

Also Lord Patel last Labor Day posted this about building roads in Afghanistan

Afghanistan failure and dead Ipswich druggie whores

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution established and funded by Congress which most people had never heard of before the report by the Iraq Study Group - better known as the Baker report.

A meeting organised by the Afghan group on "November 8th was led Beth Ellen Cole, coordinator of the Afghanistan Working Group at the U.S. Institute of Peace and by featured presentations by Hekmat Karzai, director of the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul, Afghanistan; Peter Bergen, author of the best selling book Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden; and Seth Jones, a senior political scientist and expert on the insurgency at the RAND Corporation.

Seth Jones identified several anti - US forces and their objectives ;

The resurgent and apparently well financed Taliban , allies of the West against the Russians, now dominate the struggle, with their message to Afghanis of "the clash of civilizations" as the forces of Islam wage war for control against the "anti Muslim" United States it's Western allies in NATO.

The Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) is determined on installing its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, as the ruler of Afghanistan. A 3 minute video surfaced on December 12th (similiar to one in Jan 2006 just prior to Eid) in which Hekmatyr claimed that the failures of the US in Afghanistan had caused the democrat victories in the mid term elections and claimed , "Very soon we will see that, God willing, American troops will leave Afghanistan and Iraq with their heads bowed down,”

See 22/12/04 “Official” Terrorist lights fires of resistance in Afghanistan Investigating Imperialism

"His forces were a main beneficiary of the 7 mujahideen groups recognised by Pakistan and US intelligence agencies for the channelling of money and arms during the 1979-89 war. Among those arms were Stinger surface-to-air missiles.....On February 19, 2003 American tolerance snapped and the US DOS designated Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a Terrorist."

As the article prophetically said after a meeting at Mazur al Sharif in November 2004 of Hekmatyr and his pals...

"Watch this space for an announcement about troop movements from the Scotsman John Reid AKA Minister of Defence – augmenting NATO forces (now approx 500) – beefing up the response – sharing the burden – spreading the load – part of a widening response in the War on Terror – blah blah … pulling US chestnuts out of the fire – re-run history reel .. Terrorist aided by US bites the hand that feeds … Osama ? Hekmatyar ?"

For regular postings by Lord Patel on the advance of Hekmatyr and his forces in Afghanistan simply enter "Gulbuddin Hekmatyar" in the top left search box. ditto Reid, Afghanistan

Al Qaeda's foreign fighters supported by Tribal groups on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and other allied groups seek broader objectives, including complete U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East.

Criminal gangs are using the chaos caused by the insurgency and the freedom to operate the production of poppies, heroin base and increasingly pure heroin which winds it's way to the streets of Europe.

These forces operate both independently but also jointly in a confused brew of tribal, religious, criminal and regional cliques - opaque to the military mind and US and NATO forces.

Getting the Muslim's message across

Hekmit Karzai identified the increasing sophistication of the message and its transmission and promotion. The Taliban, whilst in theory espousing the modern world has readily adopted media campaigns using DVDs and websites.he Taliban have developed a video production arm equivalent to Al Qaeda's video production center, As-Sahab, which has turned out dozens of statements by Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri this year. Although distinguishing them from the products of the CIA is impossible.

Suicide terrorism

Suicide terorism , an import from Iraq has grown, and Karzai's Center has documented 83 this year, compared with 21 in 2005 and only one in 2001/2002. There were 21 in September 2006 alone. Whilst there have been successes against military forces the majority of victims are said to be Afghan civilians.

A major loyal jirga is planned for January which it is hoped will draw hundreds of Afghans and Pakistanis from the state parliaments, civil society, and tribes on both sides of the border. Both Presidents Mushariff and Karzai are scheduled to attend and the UN is supposed to monitor the event. Don't hold your breath.

Meanwhile US and NATO forces die, the poppies grow unhindered, as do the drug cargoes which finally end up being pumped into the tired limbs of young whores in Ipswich .... near the major ports of Felixstowe and Harwich, apparently @ £15 a baggie the 2nd cheapest source of heroin in the UK.

KIm Howells is both mad and ignorant ... Taliban triumphant

British Minister hails Pak-Taliban deal in Waziristan Sept 9th 2006 ZeeNews

The peace deal between the Pakistan government and pro-Taliban militants which it is claimed will end 5 years of unrest in the tribal area bordering Afghanistan is a "great step forward" and could be a "future model" for insurgency-ridden Kabul,Foreign Minister Kim Howells told reporters during his visit to Peshawar yesterday.

"I am absolutely certain if there is possibility for negotiations which are constructive and not just a gesture... If it is likely to throw up the kind of results which the negotiations in Waziristan have thrown up, then it could be a future model for Afghanistan," he was quoted as saying by Daily Times.

Howells went on to say that Pakistan was "not a source of terrorism" and was not responsible for the unrest in southern Afghanistan.

He said there had been much unrest in Balochistan, saying the area "has been controlled by warlords and drug barons" and had been infiltrated by Taliban militants from Afghanistan.

Well that is not a universal view indeed our friend Rick Moran who fills the idle hours of Wide Awake Radio writes in the curiously titled American Thinkerof "Musharraf's Deal with the Devil" (September 7th, 2006)

It is, he says, an apparently equitable arrangement that addresses the serious problems of Taliban and al-Qaeda incursions across the border into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops as well as bringing an end to the fighting between Pakistani forces and the fierce, independent tribesman in the region.

President Musharraf, he points out that in the presence of Afghan President Karzai he boasted that the treaty was a boon to the embattled Afghanistan government.

“No militant activity, no training activity, they have accepted this,” General Musharraf said. “This is the bottom line of the peace agreement.”
Rick Moran points to Bill Roggio , at the Fourth Rail who claims in a piece cunningly entitled ... "Talibanistan: The Establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan" that the “truce” is in fact a surrender. According to an anonymous intelligence source,(now who on Earth could that be ?? Hmmmm ...so ... no guarantee of the truth, authenticity or accuracy of this information is provided) ...the terms of the truce are said to include:

1. The Pakistani Army is abandoning its garrisons in North and South Waziristan.
2. The Pakistani Military will not operate in North Waziristan, nor will it monitor actions the region.
3. Pakistan will turn over weapons and other equipment seized during Pakistani Army operations.
4. The Taliban and al-Qaeda have set up a Mujahideen Shura (or council) to administer the agency.
5. The truce refers to the region as “The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.”
6. An unknown quantity of money was transferred from Pakistani government coffers to the Taliban. The Pakistani government has essentially paid a tribute or ransom to end the fighting.
7. “Foreigners” (a euphemism for al-Qaeda and other foreign jihadis) are allowed to remain in the region.
8. Over 130 mid-level al-Qaeda commanders and foot soldiers were released from Pakistani custody.
9. The Taliban is required to refrain from violence in Pakistan only; the agreement does not stipulate refraining from violence in Afghanistan.

He further claims that “Taliban commanders” in attendance include Jalaluddin Haqqan, military commander of the Taliban in Afghanistan (see Footnote), and Tahir Yuldashev, the commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.(Wikipedia Yuldashev biog.) Pic = Jalaluddin Haqqan foreground and son Nazruddin.

The Pakistani government he says (despite what Rentagob Howells says) has ceded a region the size of New Joisey, with a population of about 800,000 to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

An intelligence source ( who again we wonder ? Hmmmmm .. same caveats apply as above but other sources indicate this is so) indicates similar negotiations between the Taliban and the Pakistani government are being held in the agencies of Khyber, Tank, Dera Ishmal Khan and Bajaur. The jihadi dreams of al-Qaeda's safe havens in western Pakistan may become a reality. So any gains made by the Coalition / NATO in Afghanistan (at huge cost) have now officially been wiped away with the peace agreement in the newly established Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.

Moran goes on to say that the war against the Taliban in North Waziristan was forced on Musharraf by the United States, when terrorists were using the region as a staging ground for attacks in Afghan. Sending 80,000 troops to patrol the borders. The tribes rose up and in a series of fierce, small unit engagements inflicted many casualties on the Pakistani forces. It became clear that the historically independent-minded tribes would not submit and in June, a cease fire was declared so that a deal could be hammered out.

He points to the limits of American power Musharrif sees as the Taliban grow stronger in Afghanistan as well as the slow progress (?) of American and Coalition forces in Iraq. Perhaps he doesn’t feel quite as secure and believes that a deal with the Taliban in North Waziristan (and other tribal areas as well) is better than relying on the American military to defeat the terrorists.

Secondly, and more significantly, Parvez Musharraf created a huge problem for himself on August 26 when he ordered the killing of aged Nawab Akbar Bugti, the tribal leader and former governor of Balochistan (although educated at the Sorbonne).Troubles which have been increased by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (in Paris) elaborating on the decision and method of killing him. In a bizarre twist his sons want him exhumed to test his DNA because they claim he escaped, although over 40 died in the attack on him.

Balochistan is the largest province in Pakistan and also its most troublesome. There has been an independence movement in existence even before partition, with 4 major rebellions since the 1950’s. Each insurrection was brutally suppressed by the government along with a crackdown on Baluchi traditions and culture. With abundant natural resources as well as some large natural gas fields, the province has proved to be virtually ungovernable. Some Baluchis resent the government taking so much wealth from the province and putting very little back in the form of government services, while others agitate for outright independence.

The killing of Bugti set off a wave of unrest all across Pakistan, but especially in the rebel leader’s home province. If another uprising is in the offing, Musharraf may have need for many of those 80,000 troops he sent to North Waziristan. As it stands now, Bugti’s militia and other tribal forces have carried out a few attacks against the gas pipelines ( a constant occupation in the area) but have not directly challenged government troops in the area ...yet. The prospect of another rebellion could have spurred Musharraf to make peace with the Taliban so that he could turn his attention to the growing insurgency nearer at home in Balochistan.

Moran goes on to identify what Frederic Grare, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has to say ..

"The killing of Bugti has exposed a Pakistani President both unable to fulfill his commitments in the War on Terror and only able to act decisively against his own people. Musharraf’s actions have reversed decades’ worth of slow progress toward national integration."

With elections scheduled for next year, it is unclear whether Musharrif will allow a vote - the alternative – an extremist Islamic regime with its hands on nuclear weapons is too awful for Washington and Tel Aviv to contemplate.

One thing is certain...Parvez will need to keep his personal Glock pistol ready to hand for a long time.... even then it doesn't hurt to imagine the consequences of his early death.

Expect a few good trade deals / dollars and military hardware winging their way from Uncle Sam in the near future, and maybe the fleeting sight of Condi on a fly by / drive by diplomacy trip.

FOOTNOTE

Jalaluddin Haqqani served as Taliban tribal affairs minister. He had been a prominent leader in the 1980's struggleagainst the Soviets. Haqqani is a northern Pashtun with his power base in Khost, Paktia and Paktika. Haqqani has long-standing ties with Pakistan's intelligence services (SIS). The center of Taliban power was/is in Kandahar, home of the southern Pashtuns.

WMIK - Patrolling Afghanistan in a convertible

Lord Patel brought reader's attention to the nosey Nick Harvey on Tuesday, June 12, 2007- Nick Harvey MP asks about WMIK . Ill equipped UK forces in Afghanistan Part 17.

Nick Harvey MP (Lib Dem North Devon) Question 142524 :will today ask The Secretary of State for Defence, how many weapons mounted installation kits and general purpose machine guns are in theatre in (a) Iraq and (b) Afghanistan.

It now appears that when Lord Drayson answered a not dissimiliar question From Lord Astor on the Monday of that week (18th July) he had answered "I am withholding detailed information on the availability of the combat vehicle fleet in Afghanistan, as this is sensitive operational information."

Bernard Jenkin (North Essex, Conservative) pointed out to Adam Ingram Minister for mumbling excuses about Forces Equipment shortages, on the 21st June that 16 Air Assault Brigade had already starting its training for its second tour in Helmand, which he understood will be deployed some time in the spring of 2008.

He had when meeting some of their officers, asked , "What equipment are you training with?" he went on to explain to the Hapless Scotsman (another of the buggers !) "The mobility and firepower of a vehicle known as WMIK, which is an open Land Rover with a .50 calibre machine gun strapped to its top, are vital to operations in Afghanistan. Almost all the vehicles are deployed in Afghanistan, so the entire brigade has one WMIK vehicle for training purposes in the UK and will not be able to do any training until it returns to Afghanistan.

The fact that the Government appear to have been reduced to buying and providing equipment for the front line only, because they cannot afford enough equipment for the front line and for training, is affecting morale and the effectiveness of our armed forces personnel."

On Tuesday 19th in answer to a question to Ann Winterton (Conservative Congleton) Adam Ingram had already stated that the MOD had 5 WMIK vehicles available in the UK for training.

Anyway , no doubt stung by all this detailed, and informed criticism on Monday 25th June the MOD announced that under an Urgent Operational Requirement for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan , (which as Lord patel's old batman pointed out they don't hand out with the rations.Sir.) 130 new new MWMIK 's , will begin deploying out to operational theatres "early in 2008", Lord Drayson, Minister of State for explaining shortages, overunning costs, and delays in Defence Equipment and Support, said:

"These vehicles are well armed, swift, and agile and will boost our capability with some serious firepower. MOD and the Treasury have worked hard to get these powerful vehicles to our troops in quick time, and they will start going out to theatre early next year."

So that's alright then , we send our troops to war in a convertible - this stripped down 50 year old Land Rover is useless as a patrol vehicle . Indeed why buy an open top patrol vehicle?

These vehicles are claimed to have, Longer range, Greater payload, Greater mobility (?) and a take your breath away top speed of "up to 80mph (130km/h)" - now how does that compare with a Toyota land Cruiser ute ?- a WMIK weighs nearly 4 tonnes all up, powered by a 4.2 litre engine. Keen observers will however note that the picture accompanying the MOD article is somewhat short on firepower , which can include "a .50 calibre machine gun or an automatic grenade launcher and a general purpose machine gun, as well as carrying up to four troops with their own individual weapons." let's hope they have ordered some guns as well. Note that no costs are mentioned.

It is encouraging to see from the picture that seat belts are provided, meaning the vehicles can be used on Public Highways throughout Europe. The Road Traffic Act as it applies to Afghanistan is not a subject upon which we can claim any knowledge, but presumably these brand spanking new WMIK's will be fully street legal in Kabul .

Big problem is of course, patrolling all day in the poppy fields , the thing will get mucky and dusty - how do you put it through the car wash

Nick Harvey MP asks about WMIK . Ill equipped UK forces in Afghanistan Part 17.

Nick Harvey MP (Lib Dem North Devon) Question 142524 :will today ask The Secretary of State for Defence, how many weapons mounted installation kits and general purpose machine guns are in theatre in (a) Iraq and (b) Afghanistan.

There is a very good but (unstated by Nick) reason for asking this seemingly innocuous question. First a litle background to what a "weapons mounted installation kit " is.

The Land Rover Wolf is the primary utility vehicle of the British Army. Used initially as a project name, "Wolf" is still the troops generic name for a Land Rover - it is available in many variants.

Currently the term applies to what military johnnies officially call "the Truck Utility Light or Truck Utility Medium or by the engaging acronym (TUL / TUM (HS))" the most common of which is the "Weapons Mount Installation Kit (WMIK, pronounced ‘Wimik’.)" ... which is used for reconnaissance and as a close fire support vehicle.

WMIKs are manufactured jointly by Land Rover and Ricardo Vehicle Engineering.They have a strengthened chassis, stripped (and therefore lighter) bodywork and fitted with roll cages and weapons mounts. Typically the vehicle will carry one 12.7 mm Heavy Machine Gun, 7.62 mm General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) or on occasion the MILAN ATGM, on the rear ring-mount, with an additional pintle mounted GPMG on the front passenger side.

Recently the MOD announced the purchase of 40 new belt fed Automatic Lightweight Grenade Launchers (ALGL) made by Heckler and Koch (HK GMG) for Afghanistan WMIK's that can fire up to 360 grenades per minute up to 1.5 km away.

BBC correspondent Alastair Leithead spent a period as an "embedded" journo in Afghanistan and as a result filed a BBC Online report.... This was headlined 'Lack of vehicles' in Afghanistan.

Lack of heavily armed Land Rovers was a particular problem explained Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Mayo, spokesman in Helmand province, told Alastair that of 170 WMIL's needed only 126 in working order.

Any observer of the MOD's press department will be unsurprised that the MOD insistedthat troops were properly equipped to do their job when asked to comment and added that huge investments had been made in equipment for the Army.

Alastair reorted from personal experience that on average 1 WMIK was being lost a week and replacements sent from the UK often arrived late.

Lt Col Charlie Mayo said the WMIKs were taking "a hell of a hammering" in the hot and dusty conditions and said the situation was "tight, but not critical yet".

Another vehicle, the air cooled engined lightweight Pinzgauer (named after an Austrian Pony) carrier , has been fitted with extra armour to try to cover the shortfall. Consequently this has affected carrying capacity limiting the number of men and the amount of equipment they can carry. These vehicles have the driver over the front wheels which is not ideal when drivingh over mines /IED's - well not for the driver. Lord Patel reported (Sept 6th 2006) on these "coffins on wheels" when their purchase was announced...at something of the order of £250,000 each (not including armour).

Those with long memories (well that go back to November '06) will remember the arrival of Brigadier Lorrimer in Afghanistan who famously sent a "shopping list" to the MOD - reported in the Mail on Sunday - with the banner headline reproduced above.

Army fury as chief in Afghanistan is told he won't get vital armour
By CHRISTOPHER LEAKE, Mail on Sunday 18th November 2006

The senior Army officer who will command British troops in Afghanistan next year is embroiled in a furious row with the Ministry of Defence after learning he will be denied vital armour to protect his men.

The MOS countered this experience by the Brig. with what the Prime Minister said earlier ..

The MoD snub comes just six weeks after Tony Blair promised on TV: "If the commanders on the ground want more equipment, armoured vehicles for example, more helicopters, that will be provided. Whatever package they want, we will do."

Nick Harvey's question today, Mr Leithead's report 6 weeks ago suggest things haven't changed. QV Lord Patel January 27th 2006 -

Friday, January 27, 2006

Reid sends ill equipped troops to certain deaths in S Afghanistan

O'Bombers Afghan surge hits logistics / supply problems on several cold fronts

O'Bombers promised withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by 2010, (still ending out 50-60 bombing missions per day) doesn't mean troops returning but being re-deployed to salvage a failed and failing war in Afghanistan and insreasingly in Pakistan.

Only hours after taking office O' Bomber had personally approved air strikes into Pakistan, and in so doing wasted no time in establishing himself as the new warmonger in chief.

Now it is evident that the new "surge" in Afghanistan is meeting tough supply problems both on the ground and in the air suply routes .

1. The Russian Government has long ago indicated that supplies across their territory for military purposes will not be allowed and are not a topic for discussion. Recent announcements confirm this. 26/1/09 " Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Maslov told Itar-Tass, “No official documents were submitted to Russia's permanent mission in NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] certifying that Russia had authorized the United States and NATO to transport military supplies across the country."

2. The Khyber Pass - subject of a continuing war of attrition over several months has suffered a massive breakdown with the bombing of a bridge on the single road into Afghanistan from Peshawar. Asian Times 26/1/2009 "The Peshawar bazaar is doing a roaring business hawking stolen US military ware, as in the 1980s during the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. This volume of business will register a quantum jump following the doubling of the US troop level in Afghanistan to 60,000. Wars are essentially tragedies, but can be comical, too. "

3. Our Mole in Moscow was present when Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev ((he took office in 2005 after replacing Askar Akayev in the so called US sponsored TULIP revolution.) made his way in a vast motorcade to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev - who has announced Russia was providing the poor ex-Soviet country with billions of dollars in aid (AP). The upshot was that Manas airport in the capital Bishkek , which has been home to a thousand-strong American airbase operated by Air Force's 376th Air Expeditionary Wing since 2001 after Kyrgyzstan joined the anti-terror coalition set up in the wake of 9/11 is to close (real soon). The facility was unofficially renamed Ganci Air Base, after Chief Peter J. Ganci Jr., chief of the New York City Fire Department who gave his life Sept. 11 during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. (There are reports of Russian based servers fucking about with Kyrgyz links but we get messages / links without problems)

Our other Mole in Manas points out that this has been a focal point for discussions within the Moscow-Beijing led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) who have been insisting on its closure since 2005. --- see post Wednesday, August 15, 2007 Russia / China join in Anti-American Summit and Wargames, Bishkek and an earlier post Saturday, June 10, 2006 -
The Great Game - Bishkek centre stage

On Monday U.S. regional military chief General David Petraeus was in talks with President Kurmanbek Bakiyev when in the Manas base during a visit to Bishkek on Monday. Reuters report In Bishkek, the U.S. Central Command chief said the possibility of closing the base did not figure in his meetings with the Kyrgyz leaders. gen. Petraues also made his first ever visit to Manas 1th Jan 2009 - General Petraeus visits Manas Air Base (Air Force Link) describing how how the ..."376th AEW is currently supporting operations in Afghanistan as the premiere air mobility hub for Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force. The wing also serves as a main transit point for cargo and coalition personnel passing in and out of Afghanistan."

By an odd coincidence (perhaps) a meeting of deputy foreign ministers from the SCO member countries (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) met in Moscow on January 14 th.... and the The SCO will have Afghanistan high on the agenda at their annual beanfeast / summit scheduled for August in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

4. All this time Russia has also operated Kant airbase near the Kyrgyz capital, just 15 km from the US base which has persistently been upgraded and improved.

5. Friday, August 12, 2005 -Russian Roulette in Central Asian republics. On July 29 2005 the Uzbek Government formally gave the U.S. 180 days to evacuate their Karshi-Khanabad (also written Qarshi-Xonobod) air base on which the the Pentagon has spent huge sums improving and upgrading the base.In the short term the closure of the Karshi-Khanabad air base, loss of jobs and U.S. money would damage the Uzbek economy. The Pentagon had spent huge sums improving and upgrading the base.

However President "Boil in the Bag" Karimov and has beautiful and very rich daughter have had an on / off sly game with both Putin and Bush and some US presence is still allowed - but German planes are still allowed to be based and overfly Uzbekistan on the way to re-supply Afghanistan.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Tashkent 2 weeks ago. Medvedev characterized Russian-Uzbek relations as a "strategic partnership and alliance" and said that on matters relating to Afghanistan, Moscow's cooperation with Tashkent assumed an "exceptional importance". He said he and Uzbek President Islam Karimov agreed that there could be no "unilateral solution" to the Afghan problem and "nothing can be resolved without taking into account the collective opinion of states which have an interest in the resolution of the situation".

Moscow cozies up to Karzai

On top of this Medvedev's remarks coincide with reports that Washington is cruelly cutting Afghan President Hamid Karzai adrift. the Us is apparently planning to install a new "dream team" in Kabul.

Medvedev has written to Karzai offering military aid.

Karzai apparently accepted the Russian offer. Such an acceptance is an implicit breach of US objections that in terms of secret US-Afghan agreements, Kabul needed Washington's prior consent for such dealings with third countries.

... and not forgetting the other players in the region and the importance of energy pipelines to / from fabulously oil / gas rich Caspian to Russia / China ...



By all means consult the posting Sunday, December 16, 2007 How do you solve a problem like Dariga Nazarbayeva ? daughter of Pres. Nazarbyev fro the odd marital relationships between the Kygryz and Kazakh Presidential families. Or see BBC Biog of Kazakh President here.

UPDATE : 4/1/09 Good BBC Online report Wednesday about moves to close base ,""A draft decree on terminating the agreement on the US airbase has been sent to parliament," said Gubment spokeman Aibek Sultangaziyev, he told the BBC that the United States would have six months to close down operations after the measure was approved.

Rather forlornly Colonel Greg Julian, US spokesman in Afghanistan, told the Associated Press that Mr Bakiyev's statement was "political positioning". Jason Straziuso of AP reports under headline 17 hrs ago - US supply routes in Afghanistan squeezed 2 ways -
which sounds an awful lot like whistling in the wind.