Dirty Game Of Pakistan in Afghanistan: A Look From Inside

Author Amir Khan Maseed

The ISI, the Intelligence agency of Pakistan, has played a very dangerous role in Afghanistan, from arming unsavoury figures to flooding the country with weapons during the civil war. The ISI has done all it can through any means to keep Afghanistan weak and on its knees. The ISI is the main obstacle in the way of progression in the region; it has interfered, meddled and forced its way into Afghan affairs right from the beginning. The author will discuss the role of the ISI in Afghanistan in more detail.

The ISI has always favoured the Islamists in Afghanistan over any other dissident faction or group because Pakistan was founded on Islamist ideals; having political Islamists running Afghanistan would allow the ISI to meddle more easily in Afghanistan under the pretext of the Muslim brotherhood.

Since the 1970s, Pakistan has protected the Islamists in Afghanistan and provided them with shelter, training and weapons. At that time, Afghanistan was slowly changing into a modern progressive society; women were beginning to show their faces, there was more equality between the genders and cities were being modernised through development. The ISI on the other hand, were planning new tactics to counter this progression, and so the “Peshawar Seven” were born.

The Peshawar Seven, aided by the ISI and the Islamic Middle East, started to promote the “Islam is in danger” war cry just as Afghanistan was leaving behind the backwardness and tribalism that had plagued its society since its creation as a state. The ISI knew very well that a radical form of Islam could counter a strong Afghanistan so they worked on people’s emotions and spread propaganda such as “Afghan women are wearing skirts and not wearing the Burqa” through radio, mosques and loudspeakers all over the refugee camps in Pakistan.

While Pakistan enjoyed a secular lifestyle with a moderate Islamic law system, under which women were permitted to sing songs about Pakistan and promote Punjabi Pakistani culture and arts, the ISI had other plans for the people of Afghanistan; these plans were not nice and were extremely two faced.

On 27th November, 1979 a call for jihad was made by the ISI-led “resistance parties”. The ISI had run out of patience, and wanted to start the war quickly while there were no Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan. The ISI wanted to start some form of rebellion in the name of Islamic Jihad because they knew full well the Afghan government would call upon Soviet assistance, as it had done in the past, especially when Pakistan blockaded Afghan trade routes.

Pakistan sidelined any groups opposed to the Socialist Government of Afghanistan that did not hold or follow an Islamist belief; and that is how the Peshawar Seven came into being. All the members of this group were chosen by ISI/Islamabad. The groups within the Peshawar Seven were all radical Islamists; they were as follows:-

· Hizbul-Islami-Afghanistan led by Hekmatyar
· Hizbul-e-islami Afghanistan led by Maulvi Younas Khalis
· Jamiet-e-Islami Afghanistan led by Prof Burhan Ud Din Rabbani
· Ittehad-e-Islami Afghanistan led by Abdul Rabb Rasool Sayaf
· Mahaz-e-Millie e Islami Afghanistan led by Syed Ahmed Gilani
· Jabha De Nijat e Milli-e-Afghanistan led by Prof Sibghatullah Mujaddidi
· Harkat-e-Inqilab e Afghanistan led by Maulvi Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi
The Peshawar Seven were opportunists who were looking for any opportunity to enter Afghan politics, and they were assisted by the ISI who felt it would benefit them. Take the example of Daud’s coup in 1973; at the time, Burhan ud Rabbani offered Daud assistance from the Islamic movement on the condition that he left his communist comrades. Daud knew that this was an attempt by Pakistan to place their proxies in the Afghan government; Daud refused and many Islamists were arrested.

Afghanistan was constantly attacked by a revolution that was started in Pakistan and funded by the ISI. The Arab world also wanted a piece of the pie, and found the idea of an Afghanistan under Islamists quite attractive; that’s why the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader, Umar Salasani, visited Peshawar in October 1982 to show his support for the likes of Hekmatyar and for the Islamic revolution in Afghanistan.

The Islamists, had always turned to the Pakistanis for help and assistance; even during the rule of Sardar Daud, Younis Khalis, the leader of the Khalis group, would visit ISI-led Islamic Madrassahs such as the Darol Ul Haqqania in Akora Khattak, Nowshera district, to seek knowledge and education in implementing what the author would refer to as “Arabisation through radical Islamic doctrine”. In addition Younis Khalis formed a group that was against obscenity that went the name of “Hebz-Tawabin” in Ningrahar and Kabul. Younis Khalis also had a weekly magazine entitled “Gaheez” in 1968, which was used to produce materials in support of a radical Islamic system. Again, he was funded by and linked with the Aala-Al Maudoodi, then the Chief of Jama at-e-Islami in Pakistan.

The ISI knew very well, that if other Islamist groups were to emerge, they would find it very difficult to control and organise them, so they gave ultimatums that a failure to join one of the recognised Peshawar Seven groups would mean no weapons, and, without weapons and funding, the Islamists would be powerless in their Jihad against Afghanistan. The ISI developed a special cell by the name of the Afghan Bureau, which assisted and helped Islamist fighters in Afghanistan, provided those arms and weapons, and forged links with warehouses to provide constant supplies to bring about a radical Islamist revolution in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has two faces and suffers from self-denial; there have been countless times that Pakistan has denied any link or connection with Islamists in Afghanistan but then has been exposed. Pakistan would always deny it was arming Afghan refugees, and state that the fighters were in the tribal areas just to prevent it being seen to break any UN rules; however, everyone knew the Pakistanis were arming the Islamists, recruiting and brainwashing them in refugee camps through scare mongering tactics, and funding Islamists to spread propaganda. However, according to Brigadier Mohammed Yousaf of the Pakistani Army:

“During my four years some 80,000 Mujahedeen were trained, hundreds of thousands of arms and ammunition were distributed, several billion dollars were spent on this immense logistic exercise and ISI teams regularly entered Afghanistan alongside the Mujahedeen”. [1]

Pakistan remains a corrupt double dealer and two-faced hypocrite to this day. It is double dealing its own allies, on one hand taking dollars from the Americans, but on the other hand using those dollars to train suicide bombers to kill innocent Afghans through the Haqqani network and so to get even with India on Afghan soil.

Pakistan’s main goal in Afghanistan was to create a Pan Islamist entity, and a federation for which Pakistan’s Punjab would be the capital. US representative Wilson stated that the Pakistanis were committed to Hekmatyar as they predicted, just like Zia ul haq did, a world conflict between Muslims and Hindus. However, what makes the author astonished but not surprised is Zia Ul Haq’s plans to turn Afghanistan into another province. Wilson recalls Zia Ul Haq giving him a map “in which overlays indicated the goal of a confederation embracing first Pakistan and Afghanistan and eventually Central Asia and Kashmir”. [2]

The ISI was instrumental in forming these plans for a Pakistani-led confederation that would imperialise other countries in the region and radically Islamize their societies as a counter-strike against any rebellion against Pakistani control. Pakistan has a very long record of using Islam as a shield for its strategic interests in the region, and Afghanistan is a very good example of this.

The whole anti-Soviet war was not a war for the liberation of the Afghan people, but a war for ISI/Pakistan’s Islamic interests. Dr Marwat recalled an Islamist Afghan refugee leader stating the following:-

“We will try to make Pakistan and Afghanistan one country with a new name of Islamistan, and if not possible, then we will make a confederation of the two countries”[3]

Pakistan used radical Islamic beliefs and teachings to turn Afghanistan into a province so that if an attack by India occurred the Pakistanis would have easy access to station its troops and citizens in Afghanistan. The author feels that another reason why Pakistan required a defenceless Afghanistan to exploit was so that it could use the terrain and the people as proxies, or allow the establishment of militant groups for the liberation of Kashmir from India.

The traitorous and backward-minded sell-out Mullahs, not only supported taking anti-progressive measures, but also sold Afghanistan piece by piece to the Pakistanis. Even in May 1991 when the UN produced a five point peace plan for Afghanistan that promoted a ceasefire, fair elections and an end to all arms supplies, the bickering Mullahs and their Islamist supporters rejected the plan, and Hekmatyar requested the Pakistani government to formulate a new plan to satisfy the Mujahedeen. As usual, the Islamists begged Pakistan to defend them and their criminal ways.

To save its Islamist assets and secure Pakistan’s dominance over a future Afghanistan, in April 1992 Nawaz Sharif made the Peshawar Seven sign an accord to create a Mujahedeen government in Kabul. Nawaz Sharif, ISI general Nasir Ahmed, Army Chief of Staff General Asif Nawaz Janjuwa and Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal all came to show their support to this interim government.

The real reason for this interim government was to secure both Pakistani and Radical Wahabist Arab interests in Afghanistan. The ISI knew that uniting the factions under a pan-Islamist ideology with allegiance to Pakistan would prevent the bickering Mullahs from fighting one another. However, as usual, the author feels the Mullahs were only interested in money, as Nawaz Sharif gave President Mujaddedi a cheque for 250 million rupees.

As time progressed, the accord failed due to infighting and constant bickering on who should be involved in sharing power; the Islamists had no idea nor knowledge of how to run a country, in the same way the Taliban had no understanding nor knowledge of how to run Afghanistan during the 90s. Due to this disturbance, on 7th March 1993 the Pakistanis, Saudis and Iranians brought all the Mujahedeen leaders to Islamabad, Pakistan to sign a power sharing plan called the Islamabad accord.

The Peshawar Seven/Islamists proved to be useless leaders and men of no value with regard to making Afghanistan stable and strong. The Afghan people, especially the refugees, were mistreated and forced to join the Peshawar Seven. People in most camps were required to become a member of one of the Peshawar Seven groups to be entitled to an identity and ration card from the Afghan refugee’s commissionrate. These were later called the “ration card parties” and they were led by Maliks/Mullahs who made money on the miseries of the Afghan people.

Pakistan’s intentions towards Afghanistan have always been cruel and self-centred. According to Dr Qaudir Amiryar, a professor at George Washington University, Pakistan supported the radical islamization of Afghanistan and favoured the Islamists, while rejecting the Secularist/Nationalists; they resorted to rejecting their visas and even denied a visa to King Zahir Shah.

The ISI could not see Kabul in peace or modernised. Most of the American aid destined for the Islamists went straight into the pockets of the Punjab/ISI elite in Islamabad/Rawalpindi. Zia Ul Haq made it quite clear, that all American assistance to the Mujahedeen/Islamists should go directly through Pakistan alone. Pakistan used the aid first to modernise and strengthen its army along the Indian-Pakistani border and secondly to provide a share of the aid to its most favoured Islamist elements in Afghanistan.

The ISI was never an organisation that wanted to see Afghanistan in peace; in fact the same General Akhtar Abdur Rahman of the ISI stated that “Kabul must burn”.[4] The ISI’s intention was to secure a future Islamist Afghanistan that would be recruited to serve the interests of Pakistan in the name of Islam and Al Jihad, even though most of Pakistan was living a different lifestyle to the one proposed and promoted by the ISI in Afghanistan. The ISI needed its Islamist assets to counterattack Secularism/Pashtun Nationalism in Afghanistan. It supported Islamist culture, such as suicide bombing camps, public lashings for minor crimes and the abolishment of indigenous culture and music, while Pakistan itself promoted a different kind of lifestyle on its own soil, with hardly any rebellion or objection from the Islamist parties, such as JUI which was more focused on destroying the well-being of Afghans than Pakistanis.

More years went by and peace was never brought to the land of Afghanistan. The same Mujahedeen, which had claimed at the start that is was bringing liberty to the Afghan people, started fighting one another for power. The ISI and other agencies were the main orchestrators of the mess, especially during the civil war. Pakistan’s Afghan policy started to face many problems, one being unaccomplished missions and another being the expense of funding particular under-performing proxies.

Hekmatyar and Dostum failed to capture Kabul and it eventually became too expensive for the Pakistanis to fund their activities. Rabbani become difficult to overthrow in Kabul and had sided with the Iranians, Russians and India. With the Kashmir front also being fought for by the ISI and the Pakistanis, the ISI found it difficult to organise its proxies and keep them intact due to the fact that most of the aid from the West stopped after the end of the Cold War. Pakistan had successfully destroyed Afghanistan, dismantled its infrastructure and turned its people into its “Jihadis of fortune”.

With the on-going dispute between Ahmed Shah Masood and Pakistan over aid and arms, the Pakistanis were in desperate need to formulate a new strategy to keep its influence intact in Afghanistan. This new strategy was the Taliban. The ISI, with the assistance of the JUI party, started to recruit young boys from well-known Islamist Madrassahs all over Pakistan; Darol ul Haqqani/Binori Masjid being one of the main recruiting centres.

Pakistan also started creating divisions by ethnicity and couldn’t resist turning the conflict into a Pashtun vs. Tajik war. The author can recall how Pakistanis used false propaganda and scare mongering tactics about a decline in Pashto usage in Afghanistan and the country being ruled by minorities. This spread into the minds of gullible Pashtuns all over the Pashtun region, but in fact it was Pakistan that had reduced Pushto’s importance by replacing it with Urdu in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. This is the same Pakistan that armed the non-Pashtuns under Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Masood to counter Pashtun Nationalism. Now the tides had turned in a different direction and the ISI took full advantage of it.

The Taliban followed a radical Islamist ideology that brought Afghanistan back into Pakistan’s sphere of influence. Most of the Northern Alliance realised, regardless of its Islamist past, that Pakistan was a double dealer and an untrustworthy friend. Former assets of Pakistan within the Peshawar Seven started to turn their guns on Pakistani interests, which led to Pakistan’s ISI trying to find some way to take control once again. The Taliban, under the pretext of “bringing peace and order”, was assigned the likes of Col Imam and Col Faizan by the ISIS to assist Taliban military gains and to take control of the Afghan capital of Kabul.

However, the author feels, there was another reason why the ISI and the Pakistanis invented the Taliban that the media and most readers never discuss; to show this, the author would like to point out the events that took place after Kandahar was taken by the Taliban. During the Zia Ul Haq government, Zia himself had always dreamed of an Islamist union with Pakistan as the leader, as mentioned earlier. Zia ul Haq really wanted to provide Pakistan with access to Central Asia, especially through the trade that goes through Afghanistan. The author feels the purpose of the Taliban was to secure this trade route through Afghanistan, as well as bringing order and preventing attacks from rivals or enemies of Pakistani interests.

General Babar, who was a Pakistani commander in the frontier corps, was the man who developed the Afghan trade development cell that had the task of facilitating a trade route to Central Asia. However, the author feels that Pakistan favoured its own economic interests over the so called peace they claim to have brought to Afghanistan through the Taliban. Pakistan was very much involved in projects in Afghanistan such as Pakistani Telecom setting up a microwave telephone network for the Taliban in Kandahar, which then became part of the Pakistani telephone grid.

Civilian Pakistani engineers from the Public Works Department and the water/power development authority worked on making road repairs and supplying electricity to Kandahar. Pakistan was once again, working to integrate Kandahar as a Pakistani city by providing development packages; however, the Pakistan Army was also involved, and was tasked to help the Taliban set up an internal wireless network for its commanders in the field. The PIA (Pakistani International Airlines) and the PAF (Pakistani Air Force) sent technicians to Kandahar airport to repair it along with the MIG fighter jets and helicopters captured by the Taliban.

When the Taliban captured Herat, the Pakistanis became joyful and decided to send a ten-man team led by the Director-General of the Afghan Trade Development Cell by road from Quetta to Turkmenistan. Those with him included men from the civil aviation, Pakistan Telecom, PIA, Pakistan Railways, Radio Pakistan and the National Bank of Pakistan. The individuals and their ministries were encouraged to fund and support the Taliban from their budgets.

The author feels the Pakistanis used the Taliban to extend their influence into Central Asia through an Islamist ideology. The Pakistanis knew very well that the society would become weak due to religious conflict, and with a Pakistani presence in the region they could somehow enter the politics and social life of the inhabitants through the name of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the Pakistanis have their own interests, and couldn’t care less whose lives they destroy. Pakistan aimed to imperialise Afghanistan, and make Afghanistan dependent on its projects and development packages, and sooner or later planned to fully integrate it as a province led by Islamists.

Those vile and gullible supporters of Taliban must realise the Taliban were/are proxies of the Pakistani ISI and government. If NATO had not disrupted the Taliban network and operations in the region, the whole of Afghanistan would have become another province of Pakistan flooded by Islamist elements from abroad.

Pakistan armed, supported and provided assistance to the Taliban from its creation and throughout its time ruling Afghanistan; now one must ask what if NATO had not attacked the Taliban? What would the policy of the Taliban towards Pakistan be? Pakistan infected the fabric of Afghan society with the poisonous Islamist Ideology and anti progressive militancy. The Taliban supporters can use all the justifications they can come up with, but the fact remains that it was due to Pakistan that the Taliban become what they are today.


By

Amir Khan Maseed

References

Dr Fazal-Ur-Rahim Marwat. (2005). The Illusory "Peshawar Seven" Tanzimat (Parties). In: Dr Marwat From Muhajir to Mujahid. Peshawar: University of Peshawar. 59-99.

M. Hassan Kakar, Mohammed Kakar (1997). Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982. USA: University of California Press. 291.

William Maley (2001). Fundamentalism reborn?Afghanistan and the Taliban. UK: C. Hurst and Co Ltd. 84-86.


[1] Dr Fazal-Ur-Rahim Marwat. (2005). The Illusory "Peshawar Seven" Tanzimat (Parties). In: Dr Marwat From Muhajir to Mujahid. Peshawar: University of Peshawar. 59-99.


[2] Dr Fazal-Ur-Rahim Marwat. (2005). The Illusory "Peshawar Seven" Tanzimat (Parties). In: Dr Marwat From Muhajir to Mujahid. Peshawar: University of Peshawar. 59-99.


[3] Dr Fazal-Ur-Rahim Marwat. (2005). The Illusory "Peshawar Seven" Tanzimat (Parties). In: Dr Marwat From Muhajir to Mujahid. Peshawar: University of Peshawar. 59-99.


[4] M. Hassan Kakar, Mohammed Kakar (1997). Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982. USA: University of California Press . 291.

Private Contractors Swindled 60 Billion USD Meant For War Effort In Afghanistan And Iraq

Read the full and final report of commission for wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It clearly mentions how inefficient was the wartime system adopted by the Americans in its war on terror when it came to private firms.

CWC Final Report Lowres

Pakistani Troops Massacred By The Talibs

At least 200 Taliban fighters crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan and killed more than 25 soldiers and police, Pakistan's military says.

The fighters launched an early morning attack on seven military checkpoints in north-west Chitral district.The military said its troops fought off the attackers, killing 20 of them while the rest fled back into Afghanistan.

It is the latest in a series of cross-border raids that have raised tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.Pakistani officials said that these recurrent attacks have been launched from an area of eastern Afghanistan where the US has largely pulled out its troops.

The raids have increased tension between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US.

Armed with heavy weapons, the militants seized control of a local village after attacking the security checkpoints in Chitral district, said local police official Nizam Khan. Pakistani forces responded to the raid and killed nine insurgents, he said.

In its statement, the Pakistani military blamed the attack on Pakistan and Afghan Taliban-linked fighters who have sought refuge in the Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan, from which the US largely pulled out of a year ago.

It said the "scanty presence" of Nato and Afghan forces in the border areas allow "terrorists" to use those areas as "safe havens", from which they "have mounted repeated attacks against... security forces posts and isolated villages".The militants chanted ”God is great!” and ”Long live jihad!” as they fought, said Capt. Abdul Ghani, another member of the paramilitary forces.

Chitral is located across the border from the Afghan districts of Nuristan and Kunar, both of which house significant numbers of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban fighters.

The military said 25 paramilitary soldiers and police had been killed in Saturday's attack, but a local officials put the death toll at around 36.

US Army Realizes The Futility Of Keeping Pakistan As An Ally

It seems the US army has finally come to the conclusion that many of us already knew. The assumption is quite simple, depending on Pakistan for any help in war efforts is like inviting the wolf to guard the hen-house. After the convoy controversy in which Pakistan made USA grovel, US army has decided to find alternative routes to supply its men in Afghanistan.

As per reports in 2009 upto 90% of US army supplies for Afghanistan went through Pakistan specifically through Karachi port. Now 40% of these supplies are being routed through what is knows as the "Northern Distribution Network", this is a collection of road and rail networks across Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

According to Pentagon sources , US army wants to send 75% of all its supply through the Northern Distribution Network.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced last month that 10,000 troops would leave this year and all 33,000 personnel sent as part of a surge ordered in late 2009 would be home by next summer, leaving a U.S. force of some 65,000.

There are currently up to 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, including about 99,000 from the United States. Obama has indicated a series of drawdowns until Afghan forces assume security responsibility in 2014.

Heavily Armed Afghanistan Militants Attack Pakistan Village

Huge number of heavily armed militants attacked a village in Bajaur tribal region in northwest Pakistan, they had crossed the border from Afghanistan on Thursday and stormed the village, killing five civilians, Pakistani officials said.

The militants targeted this village in Bajaur district, which borders the Afghan province of Kunar, despite the presence of Pakistani security checkpoints erected to check Taliban militants.

“Some 250-300 militants targeted civilians in Mamond. At least five civilians, including two women were killed,” according to local government official Fazle Akbar.

Akbar said three women were also wounded in the attack, which took place about 65 kilometres northwest of Khar, the main town in Bajaur.

“We have sent army and paramilitary troops to the area as we got reports that militants are still present there,” according to a security official. “Some militants were also killed when troops in the area responded, but we do not know the number of casualties yet,” the official said.

On June 1 and June 3, hundreds of militants besieged an area in Pakistan’s northwestern district of Upper Dir on the Afghan border, sparking prolonged fighting that killed at least 34 people.

Earlier in the day, a bomb attack on security forces severely wounded at least two security personnel in Upper Orakzai Agency, DawnNews reported. The bomb was said to be detonated through a remote-controlled device.

The militants also destroyed several schools, government buildings and mosques in the area. Pakistan has conveyed "strong concern" to the Afghan government over the cross-border attacks. During his recent visit to Islamabad, President Hamid Karzai said Pakistan and Afghanistan need to act "aggressively and effectively" to root out terrorists and their sanctuaries from both countries.

Six Killed In Afghanistan Car Bombing

A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives in central Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two policemen and four civilians, a spokesman for interior ministry said.

The attack happened in Kapisa province, northeast of the capital Kabul, spokesman Najib Nikzad said.

“A suicide attacker in a car wanted to attack the education department of Kapisa province, but he was stopped at a checkpoint, where he detonated his vehicle,” Nikzad said.

“Two policemen and four civilians have been martyred and three civilians and two policemen injured,” he added.

Can India Keep Ignoring Taliban After The Retreat Of Coalition Forces

Excellent article by Mr Shukla on the limited options India will be left after the retreat of the American led coalition troops.

© Broadsword Ajai Shukla

US Special Counter Espionage Spies In Afghanistan

In one of my earlier reports you may have read about the wide spread infiltration by Taliban in Afghanistan military and police force. This has made the job of Taliban easier and they have attacked high profile targets quite easily. The situation has become so critical that US government is sending 80 counter-intelligence agents to stem this tide.(Read More About Taliban Infiltration)

Some military sources have told that these agents will enhance the vetting of recruits, review profiles of soldiers being trained.A part of this team has already arrived in Afghanistan.

This decision was taken to bolster the Afghanistan Security forces, who will be responsible for controlling the country once 130,000 US troop start withdrawing this July. Unfortunately till now US and allied armies have failed miserably in destroying the war waging capabilities of Taliban. This is to a large extent result of their over dependence on Pakistan.

Pakistan has successfully pulled a fast one on the western powers, while making them pay for its military modernization and miserable economy on the other hand using these funds to keep the Taliban movement alive and ready to take over one the western armies leave.

General David Petraeus Planning A Retreat From Afghanistan

This news has been discussed quite often but more like conjunctures, rumors. Finally it is out in the open that General David Petraeus is giving the final shape to the retreat of Americans troops.(Do I see another Vietnam). Even though Taliban and AL-Qaeda remain undefeated in this region. The exact nature of this retreat is not clear to anybody because it is being guarded zealously by the General himself.

When asked about it he jokingly said that there is only one officer working on this project and you are looking at him.(Wry humor). The press was agog with news that around 5,000 to 10,000 troops will be removed in the first phase. This was dismissed by the General as rubbish because he said that he is the only person with the plans so how come the press knows about it.

It is expected that these plans will be presented to the President this June before he becomes the Director of CIA.So deep is the insecurity that Generals own staff have been kept out of it and some of them have been fed with false information to keep everybody confused. General believes this the best way to plug any leak which might give Taliban time to prepare and attack the retreating forces.

The General is a classic case of once bitten twice shy adage. This happened to his report of a troop surge in 2009. His report was meant for the President only got leaked to the press leading to a PR disaster and giving the enemy time to reposition assets and chalk out new strategies. The speculations became so much that President was forced to add that these new troops will start withdrawing within 2 years.

"What a commander in my position should do is to provide the chain of command and president with options to implement the policy … at a pace determined by conditions on the ground," said Petraeus, who led CENTCOM during deliberations over the troop surge.

Afghanistan War Story From The Taliban Side

Afghanistan War has been raging for several decades now, it seems as if there is no other way than the constant fighting, killing and bombings. Amongst all this war stories we forget the men fighting against us. Who are these so called Taliban, who are the Mujahids. We cannot win any war unless we know our enemy better than our friends.

I believe Americans before that the Russians and before that the British failed to understand men and women living there. The way they think, the things they aspire for are completely different from ours. Before you think it is one of those pacifist blogs, no that is not true. In the following video we see human beings not super-human villains as they are made out to be. The cost of war a father has to pay. The evil that lies beneath. I think you shall like this video immensely.

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Can The Afghan National Army Survive NATO Exit

In public, Nato commanders are quick to praise the progress made by the Afghan National Army (ANA), whose numbers and training have undoubtedly increased and improved in recent years.

This is thanks mainly to a renewed focus on the urgent need to produce Afghan security forces to take over and allow Nato's own combat troops to leave.

The UK has made clear its combat forces will be out by the end of 2014, albeit with a commitment to further training the ANA.

That there has been progress in that training is not in doubt, not least when compared with the kind of kit and training received by the gloriously named 1 Bang (1st Battalion the Afghan National Guard) back in the early days of 2002.

British and US commanders in Afghanistan are keen to describe most recent operations as "Afghan-led", while doing their best to play down the problems that remain.

However, in private, few working on the training mission underestimate the challenges of trying to produce a professional Afghan army that will survive Nato's departure, and be able to operate on its own, from planning and launching operations to providing logistical support.

Recruitment Targets

On the ground, it is clear that the soldiers and the officers of the ANA are a mixed bunch.

Out on patrol with British forces working alongside ANA units, there are indeed some committed, brave, decently trained and well-motivated young soldiers amongst the ANA, as well as some fearsome and hardened generals who have spent a lifetime fighting.

And the soldiers themselves are welcomed more warmly by Afghans in Helmand and Kandahar than their counterparts in the Afghan police, who are often still feared or hated as corrupt and lawless.

Afghanistan War Stories In Video

Great documentary on the devastation war brought to Afghanistan much before the American Army. Once Kabul used to be a just like any other busy capital city but after the soviets left, and the Mujahid's took over it fell into ruins. Then came the menace called Taliban armed,trained and funded by Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan with the sole purpose to make Afghanistan a strictly Islamic state ruled by Shriah and a satellite state or ally of Pakistan for war with India . They utterly ruined any chance of restoring order. Northern Alliance led by Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud held on for as long as they could but at the end had to flee North to make their stand. It is an old documentary by BBC and it brings out the problems faced by the people due to the continuous fighting, invasion, conflict and war that Afghanistan has seen over the past 40 years or so. The video is in six parts.

BBC NewsNight Afghanistan Video Part 1


BBC NewsNight Afghanistan Video Part 2

India Commits To Help Afghan Security Forces

NEW DELHI - India pledged to help strengthen the capabilities of Afghanistan's security forces after a meeting between the defense ministers of both countries in New Delhi on June 1.

Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony "conveyed the government of India's willingness to work with the Afghan government in building the capabilities of Afghan security forces," a statement said. Mr. Antony said during the delegation level talks: “As a longstanding friend of the Afghan people, India remains fully committed to supporting Afghanistan in its reconstruction and development efforts.”The Defence Ministry said that Mr. Antony also conveyed New Delhi's willingness to work with the Afghan government “in building the capabilities of the Afghan security forces in accordance with the priorities of the Afghan government.”

His Afghan counterpart Abdul Rahim Wardak is on a three-day visit to India accompanied by a seven-member team.

Afghan-Indian ties have raised hackles in Islamabad, where the Pakistani government and military establishment has long considered Afghanistan its own strategic asset to offset the perceived threat from India in the east.

India last month pledged $500 million in fresh aid to Afghanistan, raising New Delhi's contribution to $2 billion, to be spent mainly on development projects.

India's military assistance has so far been limited to training Afghanistan's security personnel and investing in small infrastructure projects. Any greater involvement of Indian forces in Afghanistan would likely face objections from Pakistan, India's regional adversary.

President Hamid Karzai's government has stepped up training of Afghan troops ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of NATO troops by 2014 from the country, where the Islamist Taliban has waged an insurgency since 2001. U.S.-led international troops are due to start handing over control of security in limited areas to Afghan forces in July.

Wardak said ahead of his talks with Antony that Kabul welcomed Indian security assistance."We will welcome any cooperation in the field of training and helping of Afghan national security forces so that they are able to secure and defend the country," he told reporters, according to PTI news agency. "There is a very genuine interest in strengthening our relations in all sectors including defense," said Wardak, the first top Afghan official to visit India since Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by U.S. troops on May 2.

After more than two decades without influence in Kabul, New Delhi swiftly established ties with Karzai's regime after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion deposed the Taliban, which was allied to Pakistani elements.

UK General Warns Against Afghanistan Pullout

Britain's most senior general in Afghanistan says that there must be no significant pullout of troops from the country until late 2012.

Gen. James Bucknall said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph that U.S. reinforcements that arrived last year should stay for two more summer fighting seasons to hold gains against the Taliban.

He said any significant withdrawal of troops would send conflicting signals on commitment to the campaign there.

Prime Minister David Cameron recently said that Britain will pull out 450 troops from Afghanistan in the next year.

Bucknall predicted heavy fighting this summer in places like Helmand, where British troops are stationed.

Some argue that Osama bin Laden's death means that allied forces should speed up the pullout from Afghanistan.

On the other hand the news is Americans are holding truce negotiations with Taliban in Germany, the idea is to allow America to withdraw honorably and Taliban to take over the administration after a cooling down period so that it does not look like a disaster.

NATO Team Attacked In Afghanistan

At least five people were killed and about 30 wounded after twin bomb blasts struck the Afghan city of Herat.

The fatalities occurred after a roadside bomb in the centre of the city, which is not far from the western border with Iran.

In the second assault, a suicide bomber attacked the Nato-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) base on the outskirts of the city.

The Taliban recently declared a "spring offensive" of attacks in Afghanistan.

'Several attackers'

An Afghan intelligence official in Herat said the first attack was a "powerful" bomb blast.

"It happened at a busy place at a busy time. The windows of nearby buildings were broken. I was nearby when the explosion took place," he said.

Witnesses at the scene of the PRT base said gunshots could still be heard. It is not yet clear if there are more casualties.

At least two suicide bombers were said to have attacked the compound, while a number of insurgents tried to get inside.

''The attack on the PRT is still going on. We know there are several attackers. Helicopters are hovering overhead," a senior police official told in an interview.

He said shops had been closed and that police and army officers had been deployed across the city.

PRTs are typically joint military and civilian operations designed to help build up Afghan government capacity in a province. There are 28 of them across Afghanistan.

Most foreign reporters says Herat - a relatively peaceful city - is due to be soon handed to Afghan control, and so the attack is quite significant.

Earlier, Nato generals in Afghanistan apologised after civilians were killed in an air strike on Sunday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai had criticised the coalition for the attack, which killed nine people.

Afghan Security Forces Infiltrated By Taliban

For the past few months it has become increasingly clear that the Taliban has changed tact. It has realized that it is no match for the fire power of NATO forces. Thus it has started avoiding large scale fire-fights except in one or two cases. Even then they picked up the fight in the province of Nuristan where the coalition troop have no permanent base.

They have lost the two main opium producing provinces of Kandhar and Helmand which were their seat of power and generated cash through drug sales to keep them going. If they are to sustain themselves it is imperative that they do something to win it back.

Thus military and NATO officials, including the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, have predicted heavy fighting this summer. They have also predicted the Taliban will continue its campaign of terror and assassination. That campaign targets anyone who backs the Afghan security forces, peace talks with insurgents, or the Afghan government's reintegration program designed to lure Taliban foot soldiers back into their communities with offers of economic development for their villages.

"This is going to be a tough fighting season. The Talibs are not going to take these security gains laying down, and we have already seen them trying to come back. There are no certainties here," said British Maj. Gen. Phil Jones, a veteran of four tours in Afghanistan and NATO's point man on efforts to reintegrate Taliban fighters back into society.

To make high profile but small scale attack they have to get near high value targets. To do so they need to infiltrate the rank and file of the new Afghan National Army. Indications are that they might have already achieved this goal. Here is an example of what happened a few months back. A car with the license plate of a high-ranking Afghan general approached the gates of the Defense Ministry in Kabul last month. A special "A" pass also was on its windshield, so guards quickly waved it through.

Once inside, a man in an army uniform jumped from the car and stormed the ministry's main office building, an Afghan government official said. He gunned down two Afghan soldiers before being killed. The gunman also wounded an Afghan army officer, who died later at a hospital.

The man who drove the car with heavily tinted windows into the facility was the nephew of the general, the government official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

The Afghan army would never stop or search a vehicle driving into the ministry with a special pass on its windshield, the official said, adding that the general had not yet been told about the car or the involvement of his nephew, who is believed to have fled to Pakistan where many insurgent groups have safe havens.

The official said the investigation was still under way, and he would not elaborate as to why the general had not been questioned, or whether he even knew that a vehicle assigned to him by the ministry was used in the attack.

Another classic example of people inside the force helping and supporting Taliban effectively happened on the 21st of May, Afghan intelligence service said a soldier serving with the security unit at the main military hospital in Kabul picked up a Pakistani national and drove him to a mosque in the capital. There, inside a restroom, the man slipped an Afghan army uniform over a suicide explosives vest and got back into the soldier's official vehicle.

He was then easily driven through the gates. The attacker blew himself up in a tent being used as a cafeteria. The explosion killed six Afghan students and wounded 23 others. No foreigners were injured.

Police later arrested the driver - a soldier who had been in the army for eight months. NATO said the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network was responsible.

"The enemy is making huge efforts to infiltrate Afghan security organizations," Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defense minister, recently told parliament.

The Taliban claim that indirect tactics, such as suicide attacks, assassinations and infiltration, are part of their new strategy against the government.

"The mujahedeen are able to infiltrate into the ranks of the enemy and are using these opportunities to attack," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said after the attack.

Since September 2007, the coalition has recorded 21 incidents in which a member of the Afghan security forces - or someone in a uniform used by them - have killed coalition forces. Forty-nine coalition troops, including at least 35 Americans, have been killed. At least six members of the Afghan security forces also died in the incidents.

Now it remains to be seen as to the way Taliban takes on Coalition troops this spring because it is quite clear that the Americans have failed to annihilate or reduce the fighting ability of the Taliban and it is believed they are lying low for the time being waiting for the Americans to move out . The second part of the strategy is to dis-credit the Afghan government by hitting high value targets, thus the general public will believe that the Afghanistan government is not in control and Taliban is the main power which can stabilize Afghanistan.

U.S.A Exploring Alternatives To Pakistani Supply Routes

A shutdown of the supply routes that run through Pakistan would pose problems for the U.S. military but would not halt Afghan operations, according to the Army's chief logistics officer.

"We would overcome it," Army Lt. Gen. Mitchell Stevenson, deputy chief of staff for logistics, told the Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee during a May 18 hearing. "It would not stop Afghanistan operations, but it would be a challenge."

Several lawmakers have voiced concern about the U.S. relationship with Pakistan following the capture of Osama bin Laden. A key part of that relationship is Pakistan's permission for the U.S. to move supplies for Afghanistan through the country. If those supply routes were shut down for any reason, lawmakers wanted to know what would happen.

The Army keeps 45 days worth of fuel on the ground in Afghanistan so that operations can withstand severe disruptions to its supply lines, Stevenson said.

If the southern routes were shut down, the U.S. would increase its use of airdrops and flow more in from the north. However, that route takes much longer and is more expensive, Stevenson said.

Smaller disruptions already frequently delay the delivery of supplies. For example, a sit-down strike in Karachi is keeping supply trucks from getting to the port, Stevenson said. He expects the strike to last a couple of days.

Of the supplies it delivers by land, the U.S. brings in 60 percent to Afghanistan from the north through Central Asia and the Baltic states and 40 percent from the south through Pakistan. There, supplies arrive in the port of Karachi and travel over land by contractor-driven trucks.

The goal is to increase supplies coming in from the north to 75 percent, Stevenson said. "We're not there yet."

The U.S. relies on airlift for all of its "sensitive" and "high-tech" equipment, Stevenson said. This is due to restrictions placed on the U.S. by countries along the northern route, as well as frequent attacks on supply trucks.

To keep supplies off the roads, the U.S. also relies on a large pool of "theater-provided" equipment. The challenge there is that the equipment requires major overhaul and refurbishment about every two years. The capability to do that in Afghanistan is now available, the three-star said.

The Army is also experimenting with shipping more supplies to a nearby "friendly country" and then flying them into Afghanistan using C-17s. The Army is examining whether this route is cheaper in the long run because it avoids pilferage and other kinds of attacks, Stevenson said.

The general did not name the country. However, Stars and Stripes reported last spring that Bahrain served as a staging area to ship MRAP all-terrain vehicles into Afghanistan. The new vehicles were transported by ship to Bahrain and then flown to theater.

Young Children Taught To Hate USA In School

Six year old children taught by their teacher to hate USA in the same country which USA is fighting to save. These boys are brainwashed in believing that all the evil of Afghanistan is due to the US.(Please note CNN has toned down the headline from 'hate' to 'not like')

MQ-8B Fire Scouts Sent To Afghanistan

A Navy Fire Scout unmanned aircraft system has been shipped to the Central Command operating area to support Army and coalition forces in Afghanistan, the Navy announced last Thursday.


The system, under development by the Naval Air Systems Command to operate from ships, will be land-based in CENTCOM for about a year. The Fire Scouts “will provide hundreds of hours of full motion video,” NAVAIR said in a press release, in support of the Pentagon’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance task force.

A wide variety of UAS have been deployed over Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in CENTCOM at least since 2003, performing high-, medium- and low-altitude missions ranging from surveillance to strike. Most of the UAS are fixed-wing, whereas the Fire Scout is a small helicopter able to stay aloft more than eight hours, fly at altitudes up to about 17,000 feet and travel about 115 knots.

Each Fire Scout system consists of up to three MQ-8B aircraft, at least one ground control station and other hardware. For the CENTCOM mission, three Fire Scouts are being used along with two ground control stations. NAVAIR employees travelled with the system to perform set-up, but the system will be operated in theatre by Northrop Grumman contract personnel, NAVAIR said.

Two ground control stations were loaded on an Air Force C-5 transport at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., and shipped out on April 8. A smaller C-17 transport flew out the three Fire Scout vehicles on April 13. Fire Scouts have been deployed to sea twice, first on the frigate McInerney in 2009-2010, and currently on the frigate Halyburton.

Although the system is intended for use on other ships, the Navy plans to make it a centrepiece of the mission modules under development for the littoral combat ship. Trials were carried out last November on board the first LCS, the single-hull Freedom, and tests are now being carried out aboard the multihull LCS Independence.

Afghanistans Second Largest City Kandahar Under Taliban Attack

Intense fighting has taken place in Afghanistan&s second city of Kandahar amid co-ordinated militant attacks, including at least six suicide bombs.

The Taliban said it was behind the triple assault on the provincial governor's office, the Afghan spy agency and a police station. At least two people were killed and 23 injured in the fighting, which spread panic on the streets. One official linked the attack to the recent escape of hundreds of prisoners.

Gunmen in a four-storey shopping centre exchanged fire with security forces in a compound belonging to Governor Tooryalai Wesa. "This clearly was intended to be a spring offensive spectacular attack which was thwarted by Afghan National Security Forces," said US Marine Maj-Gen James Laster, a spokesman for the international coalition in Afghanistan. Firing continued until late on Saturday, but officials told Reuters news agency that this was mainly from clearing operations.

Earlier, a spokesman for the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security, told that the attack on the governor's compound was now over and two Taliban fighters had died. He added: "But they are still attacking my office from a nearby Kandahar hotel. Fighting is still intense.
"They are using heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and AKs [AK-47s].

"The Taliban could use the cover of darkness to launch more attacks. "They planned this well in advance. They wanted to take control of government offices and take senior Afghan officials hostage. There were at least seven explosions, paralysing the city.

At least two suicide bombers who tried to attack police were shot dead before they could reach their targets. Witnesses described civilians running through the streets for safety and shopkeepers closing their stores in case of looting.

Military helicopters were hovering above the city. "Forget human, even the birds have fled the city," a shopkeeper in Kandahar's Chowke Madad district told our correspondent. Two schools and a municipal traffic office were also reported to have been attacked.

Amid the fighting, Governor Wesa appeared on private Shamshad TV to say: ''I am alive and well, sitting with my friends here in my office."No matter how many fighters the Taliban have got in the city, they will be killed one by one.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the militants were attacking civilians to hide their defeat, caused by the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

But Taliban spokesman Yusuf Ahmadi said the Kandahar attacks had been planned for some time as part of the insurgents' annual "spring offensive", announced last week, and had nothing to do with Bin Laden's death.

Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban and a hotbed of the insurgency, has been the focus of military operations by the Western-backed government over the past year.

A senior Kandahar police official blamed the attacks on last month's escape by about 500 prisoners, many of them Taliban, from the main jail in the city.

The official, who did not want to be named, told our correspondent: "If 106 Taliban field commanders - some of them the very backbone of the insurgency - had not escaped from the prison, attacks like this would have not occurred."

Also last month, Kandahar's police chief was killed by an attacker in a police uniform, while in January the provincial governor's deputy was killed.