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June 5, 2009 

Three children among 30 killed in Afghanistan
by Sharif Khoram June 5, 2009
KABUL (AFP) – Three Afghan children were killed Friday by a mortar left over from a battle between police and Taliban, as bomb attacks and clashes left 28 more people dead, most of them insurgents, officials said.

Security developments in Afghanistan
June 5 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 10:00 GMT on Friday.

U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan is in full force
Most of the 17,000 combat troops ordered by Obama will be in place by mid-July -- nearly all of them in southern Afghanistan, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.
By Laura King Los Angeles Times June 4, 2009
Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan -- It was the moment every commander dreads most: when a new deployment claims its first casualty.

Iraq and Afghanistan to resume ties soon
Fri Jun 5, 3:22 am ET
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to resume diplomatic relations "very soon", 12 years after they were severed during the days of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, a senior Afghan diplomat said.

Officials: Bin Laden Running Out Of Space To Hide
by Mary Louise Kelly NPR - National Public Radio
Morning Edition, June 5, 2009 · On the eve of President Obama's speech in Cairo on Thursday, a recording, believed to be of Osama bin Laden, also made headlines. The message is the latest sign that the al-Qaida leader is alive

Troops face more roadside bombs in Afghanistan
Troops in Afghanistan are facing a major increase in the number of roadside bomb attacks as a surge of reinforcements has forced insurgents to shun direct attacks, commanders have said.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul 05 Jun 2009 Daily Telegraph (UK)
The incidence of improvised bombs hidden to blow apart passing convoys and patrols has jumped 80 per cent since last year Nato figures show.

British deaths in Afghanistan exceed Iraq
LONDON, June 5 (UPI) -- A 19-year-old rifleman from Reading has become the 137th British serviceman to die from hostile fire in Afghanistan, the military says.

German troops: Several insurgents killed in N Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-05 13:11:36
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Several anti-government militants were killed as a clash erupted in Kunduz province north of Afghanistan, German forces based in the province said in a statement received on Friday.

Jihad goes intercontinental
By Walid Phares Asia Times Online June 5, 2009
Since the deadly attacks in Mumbai last November, counter-terrorism experts worldwide, particularly those based in democracies in the crosshairs, have been drawing long-term conclusions as to the forthcoming type of operations

Pakistan wants stable Afghanistan: Ahmed Mukhtar
Associated Press of Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Jun 5 (APP): Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said on Friday that Pakistan wants stable Afghanistan. Talking to a private TV channel, he said, Pakistan wants stability in Afghanistan and hoped that the Afghan government

Bangesh tribes of Kurram Agency decide to move Afghanistan
The News International (Pakistan) June 5, 2009
PARACHINAR: The long time closure of roads in Kurram Agency has forced Bangesh tribes to take refugee in Afghanistan.

Poppy link to Afghan bumper crop
Friday, 5 June 2009 BBC News
The Afghan government has said that the bumper wheat harvest expected this year can be attributed in part to its successful poppy eradication programme.

AFGHANISTAN: Sharp rise in attempted illegal migration to Europe
KABUL, 4 June 2009 (IRIN) - Azizullah Ahmadi told IRIN in Kabul how his son Majid, aged 25, paid US$10,000 to a smuggler to take him to a European country where he wanted to start a better life.

Karzai denies making offer to Abdullah
Pajhwok By Zubair Babakarkhel 06/04/2009
KABUL - The spokesman for President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday brushed aside the allegation that Karzai had offered any bribe or position in government to his rival candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah in return for his withdrawal from the presidential race.

Criticized contractor gets new contract
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 4 (UPI) -- A private American contractor whose work on U.S. funded Afghan projects has drawn criticism is among those benefiting from a new Obama plan, officials said.

Taliban Stir Rising Anger of Pakistanis
By SABRINA TAVERNISE The New York Times June 5, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A year ago, the Pakistani public was deeply divided over what to do about its spreading insurgency. Some saw the Taliban militants as fellow Muslims and native sons who simply wanted Islamic law,

To win, we must separate the Afghan people from the enemy
The Globe and Mail - Opinions David Bercuson 5 June 2009
Wanted in Afghanistan: surprise and innovation
conventional wisdom has developed among some Canadians who follow developments in Afghanistan: There is no military solution.

First Afghan fibre optic cable connects to Tajikistan
The Sydney Morning Herald - Sharif Khoram June 5, 2009
Part of Afghanistan's first international fibre optic cable has opened in a project that will make the country millions of US dollars and boost regional connectivity, a cabinet minister said Thursday.
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Three children among 30 killed in Afghanistan
by Sharif Khoram June 5, 2009
KABUL (AFP) – Three Afghan children were killed Friday by a mortar left over from a battle between police and Taliban, as bomb attacks and clashes left 28 more people dead, most of them insurgents, officials said.

There has been a steady increase in attacks and clashes across Afghanistan in recent weeks as US military reinforcements move into the south and Afghan forces target insurgent hotspots ahead of August 20 presidential elections.

The children, aged four to 10, were killed Friday when they touched a mortar shell left over from an exchange of fire the previous day between Taliban and police in the central province of Ghazni, police said.

Another child was wounded, said provincial police chief Khial Baz Sherbaz.

Two roadside bombs exploded an hour apart in separate areas of the eastern province of Nangarhar on Friday, killing six policemen, provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.

Also in Nangarhar, a man was killed late Thursday by a bomb he was trying to plant inside a university faculty, the official said.

No one claimed the responsibility for the bombings. Most of the almost-daily bomb blasts in the country, however, are linked to an insurgency being waged by the extremist Taliban, who were in government from 1996 to 2001.

Heavy fighting erupted in the troubled eastern province of Khost when militants attacked a compound where foreign troops were based, police said.

The bodies of 15 militants remained at the site in the Sabari district, said the area's counterterrorism chief, named only Ghazoddin.

A policeman and a militia soldier contracted to the US military were also killed, he said.

The international forces sent attack helicopters to the battle, he said.

A Taliban spokesman confirmed the militia was involved, saying 100 men had attacked the district.

Meanwhile, police killed three Taliban militants in the neighbouring province of Paktya overnight, the provincial government said.

Separately, the US military said troops rounded up seven men with suspected ties to Taliban operations in the volatile southern province of Helmand, Afghanistan's number one opium producer.

The target of one operation was a militant who gave financial support to Taliban in exchange for security to operate a narcotics trade, it said.

It did not make clear if the targeted man was among those arrested.
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Security developments in Afghanistan
June 5 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 10:00 GMT on Friday.

KHOST - Fifteen Taliban insurgents were killed in an air strike after they attacked a post manned by Afghan and NATO-led coalition forces in eastern Sabari district on Thursday, NATO and provincial district chief Dawlat Khan Qayumi said.

URUZGAN - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops killed 24 militants during joint operations in two villages of southern Shahid-e- Hassan district on Thursday, a U.S. military statement said. A significant cache of booby-trapped weapons and drugs was also destroyed, it said.

HELMAND - Afghan and U.S. forces detained seven suspected militants during an operation in the southern village of Marja in Nad Ali district overnight, U.S. military said.

(Compiled by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Paul Tait)
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U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan is in full force
Most of the 17,000 combat troops ordered by Obama will be in place by mid-July -- nearly all of them in southern Afghanistan, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.
By Laura King Los Angeles Times June 4, 2009
Reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan -- It was the moment every commander dreads most: when a new deployment claims its first casualty.

"It tears you up every time," said Army Col. Paul Bricker, recounting the death of one of his most experienced pilots, whose Apache helicopter crashed in the southern Afghan desert on May 22, just days after the start of his tour.

Bricker's 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, part of the storied 82nd Airborne Division based in Ft. Bragg, N.C., is the leading edge of the largest U.S. troop buildup since the start of the Afghan war in 2001.

At Kandahar airfield, its new headquarters, the unceasing roar of combat aircraft and the dust-laden din of new construction are testament to a determined push by the Obama administration to alter the course of a troubled conflict.

Most of the 17,000 combat troops ordered here by President Obama will be in place by mid-July -- nearly all of them fanning out across southern Afghanistan, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

The south is also home to punishing terrain and climate conditions, a harsh desert landscape where sandstorms howl and summertime temperatures soar to 120 degrees.

An additional 4,000 American troops, who will be responsible for training Afghan soldiers and police officers, are expected to arrive by August. That will push U.S. troop strength above 60,000, a reflection of the shifting emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan, where Western strategists acknowledge that more than seven years of fighting has essentially yielded a stalemate.

American military officials know full well that the summer could exact a heavy toll in lives, as the arriving forces make it a priority to push into areas where the Taliban has had free rein. But U.S. commanders also view the coming months as a potential "game-changer," as Bricker put it -- an opportunity to not only wrest territory from the insurgents but keep it secure for long enough that Afghanistan's fragile brand of governance can take hold.

That task is seen as particularly crucial before Afghan elections Aug. 20, which are considered by Western observers as a milestone on the country's bumpy road to some semblance of democracy.

American troops, previously concentrated in the east of Afghanistan, are taking up new positions in some of the most volatile areas of the south and west.

A Marine expeditionary brigade from Camp Lejeune, N.C., is now headquartered in Helmand province, which has been the scene of some of the war's fiercest fighting.

Several thousand of those Marines have already arrived, taking over formal command May 29, and their numbers are expected to swell to 8,000 in coming weeks.

Thinly spread British troops had been bearing the brunt of combat in Helmand, which is Afghanistan's biggest opium-producing province. Drug money fuels the insurgency, buying weapons and luring fighters into the ranks.

Helmand is also a prime infiltration route for Taliban foot soldiers who move freely back and forth from bases in southern Pakistan. The Marines, though, hope their numbers will be sufficient to make a difference in districts such as Nad Ali, a Taliban command-and-control hub in Helmand's northwest where Afghan and Western troops have long fought to make headway.

"We know this will be a challenging assignment," said Capt. Bill Pelletier, the Marine brigade's spokesman. "The Taliban are an adaptive enemy force."

Although Western military officials are careful to avoid characterizing the buildup as a "surge," the hubbub of activity in the south has not been lost on the Taliban leadership. But insurgents profess unconcern.

"They must use the roads, and on the roads we will kill them," said a local Taliban commander in Helmand, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location.

He was referring to the insurgents' weapon of choice: IEDs, or improvised explosive devices. Roadside bombs are responsible for about 70% of the Western troop casualties in the south, commanders say.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed Thursday when their vehicle was attacked by a roadside bomb followed by a small-arms attack, a military statement said. On Monday, two roadside bombings in eastern Afghanistan killed four American soldiers.

The Americans, though, hope that the arriving contingents' air power, which represents a quadrupling of aircraft based at Kandahar, will prove a pivotal weapon in the fight against roadside bombs, among other things.

"We've got lots more eyes on them now, and they'll get to understand that very soon," said Bricker, the aviation brigade commander.

A bigger helicopter fleet allows closer surveillance of the south's long stretches of desert roadways, where signs like disturbed earth or nighttime activity can pinpoint the location of bombs.

Still, the presence of such large numbers of troops and aircraft could result in higher casualties, not only for U.S. forces but for Afghan civilians as well. Coalition forces rely on air power, but it can be difficult at times to distinguish civilians from combatants.

Afghans were infuriated last month by what might have been the war's worst instance of civilian deaths caused by Western forces: as many as 140 villagers killed in U.S. airstrikes in Farah province, according to the Afghan government. The American military puts the figure at 20 to 30.

As is always the case with such a sizable deployment, some deaths will occur from causes other than direct clashes with insurgents.

The military is investigating the cause of the May 22 Apache crash in Oruzgan province that killed the highly decorated pilot in Bricker's unit, Chief Warrant Officer Brent S. Cole. The other crew member was seriously injured but survived.

In Kandahar, the south's main city, there is hope and skepticism on the part of Afghans in the face of the new U.S. push. Particularly in outlying areas, residents say, foreign forces often temporarily establish a zone of safety, but the insurgents return when the troops are occupied elsewhere.

"Of course we would like our part of the country to be peaceful, after so much time," said Najib Ali Khan, a wheat merchant in the city. "And, of course, the Taliban will sometimes decide to leave a particular area. But they are never gone for good."

laura.king@latimes.com
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Iraq and Afghanistan to resume ties soon
Fri Jun 5, 3:22 am ET
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to resume diplomatic relations "very soon", 12 years after they were severed during the days of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, a senior Afghan diplomat said.

"We sent a message from our chief diplomat to his Iraqi counterpart about the resumption of diplomatic relations between our two countries and the reopening of our embassies in Kabul and Baghdad," Fazlerrahman Fazil, a senior Afghan consular official, told AFP late on Thursday.

"We have been received very well here, and we will discuss it when we return (to Kabul), and take a joint decision very soon," said Abdulraqeeb Salim, a senior official in the Afghan foreign ministry's Arab countries division.

The Afghan embassy in Baghdad, in the western Amariyah district, is currently in poor condition and is in need of a great deal of renovation.

The two countries have been bound by a treaty of friendship since 1932, the year of Iraq's independence.

The Afghan diplomats said they had also held talks with officials in Iraq's interior and justice ministries over the fate of around 100 Afghans, including three women and a child, imprisoned for illegally entering or residing in Iraq.

Of the Afghans in Iraqi jails, the majority are pilgrims who visited holy Shiite sites between 2004 and 2007 and, having been convicted, face penalties of between six months and six years in prison. Around 15 percent of Afghanistan's population are Shiite.

"They proposed that (Afghan) President Hamid Karzai write to his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani to request an amnesty," Fazil said.

The diplomats also met a tourism ministry official to discuss opening air links and the issue of 100 visas a day for Afghan pilgrims.
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Officials: Bin Laden Running Out Of Space To Hide
by Mary Louise Kelly NPR - National Public Radio
Morning Edition, June 5, 2009 · On the eve of President Obama's speech in Cairo on Thursday, a recording, believed to be of Osama bin Laden, also made headlines. The message is the latest sign that the al-Qaida leader is alive, up on current events and communicating with the outside world. But a number of factors may now be combining to make bin Laden's safe haven in Pakistan less so.

"The trail for bin Laden was allowed to get stone cold over seven years," says CIA veteran Bruce Riedel.

The CIA is analyzing the tape closely for clues to figure out if it's really him, where he might have recorded the message, if he sounds healthy and the big question: Where is he?

'The Administration Smells Blood'

Riedel, a career intelligence officer, says the U.S. has not gotten close since bin Laden slipped away in the Tora Bora mountains back in December 2001.

Juan Zarate, the top counterterrorism official in President Bush's White House, says, "The administration smells blood here. I think al-Qaida is on its heels."

Zarate, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, points to three things that show the space where bin Laden can move freely is shrinking.

First is the Pakistan army's offensive against the Taliban in Swat Valley and other areas.

It's too soon to tell how that operation will play out, but Zarate says Pakistan's policy could serve as a "dual anvil along with U.S. activities from the Afghan side, to actually pressure al-Qaida, make them feel uncomfortable and perhaps make the senior leadership make mistakes."

The second element shrinking bin Laden's possible location is the 21,000 additional U.S. troops pouring into Afghanistan. And Zarate points to a third factor: drones.

Predator Strikes

U.S. Predator strikes in Pakistan are controversial; they cause civilian casualties and stoke anti-Americanism.

But in a rare public speech last month, CIA Director Leon Panetta defended Predator attacks as precise and limited in terms of collateral damage.

"And very frankly," he said, "it's the only game in town in terms of confronting and trying to disrupt the al-Qaida leadership."

Predator strikes aren't a new tactic. But the pace and precision of attacks has increased considerably since last summer.

Predator attacks have killed 11 out of 20 on the Pentagon's most-wanted list along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, say U.S. officials.

And it's not just the top leadership, says a U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on condition he not be named. The official says al-Qaida has also lost trainers, explosives experts — people across all levels of the network.

"This is the most pressure they've been under since they left Afghanistan" back in 2001, the official adds.

Hank Crumpton is a career CIA officer who led the agency's Afghan campaign after Sept. 11. He says Predator strikes are useful on two fronts: They have disrupted terrorist attacks, and they help in the hunt for bin Laden.

"Using the Predator and other drones, it gives us an opportunity to create a great deal of uncertainty, a fear among enemy leaders. It forces them to communicate more, forces them to move more, which provides other opportunities," he says.

"Opportunities" for the CIA and other spy agencies to exploit.

But Crumpton cautions that drone strikes are just the first step in what should be a broad counterinsurgency campaign.

Riedel agrees. He led the Obama administration's recent strategy review for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"In the end, they're a tactic," he says. "They can be a very effective tactic, but they're not really a strategy. It's a little bit like going after a beehive one bee at a time. You may be successful, but it's gonna take a long time to go at it that way."

Still, if one of those bees could be Osama bin Laden, that would mark a huge success, says Zarate.

"If bin Laden — the senior leadership of al-Qaida — can be killed or captured, you've really set al-Qaida back," he says. "And you've closed a chapter in the war on terror that al-Qaida, I don't think, can recover from."

Bin Laden, Al-Qaida 'Still In The Fight'

Not everyone agrees that catching bin Laden would cripple the global jihadist movement, but that's another debate.

But what's clear from the new recordings this week from both bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is they are not, as Riedel puts it, "cowering in the back of a cave."

"I've been a student of their statements for well over a decade now," he says, "and I don't see any sign in them that these are individuals who think time is running out for them. To the contrary, much of what they talk about betrays a sense of optimism on their part ... They're still in the fight, that the intel agencies of virtually the entire world have been looking for them, and that they've successfully eluded their pursuers."

But for how much longer?

After so many years of chasing shadows, it's unfashionable for U.S. intelligence officials to betray even guarded optimism.

Still, they say, the combination of Pakistan's military push, the U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan and the stepped-up drone strikes add up to a uniquely promising moment.

Crumpton says he's "cautiously hopeful." Of course, he adds, "I've been cautiously hopeful — for years."
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Troops face more roadside bombs in Afghanistan
Troops in Afghanistan are facing a major increase in the number of roadside bomb attacks as a surge of reinforcements has forced insurgents to shun direct attacks, commanders have said.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul 05 Jun 2009 Daily Telegraph (UK)
The incidence of improvised bombs hidden to blow apart passing convoys and patrols has jumped 80 per cent since last year Nato figures show.

In Helmand province, where British troops have suffered scores of deaths from roadside bombs during a three year stalemate against Taliban fighters, incidents have tripled.

Roadside bombs are the most deadly tactic used by insurgents and last year killed 172 international troops. Hundreds more Afghan police, soldiers and civilians are killed and maimed.

Gen Richard Blanchette, spokesman for the Nato-led forces, said: "This is very serious business for us."

He said the increase was prompted by insurgents changing tactics and an influx of international troops patrolling on the ground. It also included more bombs being found and diffused before they exploded.

With 17,000 extra combat troops arriving in Afghanistan as part of a surge ordered by President Barack Obama, Taliban-led insurgents are increasingly unable to fight in the open he said, and are instead relying on bombs and mines.

Devices are often crudely rigged from the unexploded bombs and mines which litter the country, attached to batteries and detonators. Other explosives are smuggled from Iran and Pakistan or manufactured with agricultural chemicals.

"They are using this as a last measure," he added. The increase in troops to bolster Hamid Karzai's government also meant Nato-led forces are operating and patrolling in areas they have never visited and providing more targets for attacks.

Hundreds of bomb disposal experts have been deployed and the risk is so grave all troops receive training in how to spot devices. Armies including the British have been forced to abandon lightly armoured patrol jeeps and snatch Land Rovers and spend hundreds of millions of pounds on heavier, more cumbersome armoured protection.

However despite these efforts, casualties have still dramatically risen. The number of US combat deaths has increased 66 per cent this year so far compared to last.

In the first five months of last year 11 British troops were killed in action, all by bomb blasts. This year over the same period, 28 British troops have been killed, 21 by bombs.

"The number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) we are encountering is increasing due to excellent detection equipment and an increase in our activity levels," said Lt Col Nick Richardson, a spokesman for British forces in Helmand.

"While coalition forces still suffer some losses, IEDs are an indiscriminate weapon of which 80 per cent of the victims are civilians."
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British deaths in Afghanistan exceed Iraq
LONDON, June 5 (UPI) -- A 19-year-old rifleman from Reading has become the 137th British serviceman to die from hostile fire in Afghanistan, the military says.

The death of Cyrus Thatcher means that Britain has suffered more casualties in Afghanistan than the 136 deaths recorded in Iraq before its combat operations ended there last month, The Times of London reported Friday.

Thatcher, of the 2nd Battalion The Rifles, was killed by an explosion while on patrol in Helmand Tuesday.

"He was one of the best," said his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Rob Thomson. "He was one of those few who genuinely had a rucksack of potential."

Shadow Defense Secretary Liam Fox says coalition forces in Afghanistan are facing a resurgent Taliban.

Britain plans to increase the number of troops on the ground during the summer to 9,000 from 8,300 to help counter the threat.
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German troops: Several insurgents killed in N Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-05 13:11:36
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Several anti-government militants were killed as a clash erupted in Kunduz province north of Afghanistan, German forces based in the province said in a statement received on Friday.

The militants attacked the troops at 06:00 p.m. local time in Chardara district Thursday and troops returned fire, killing several insurgents, said the statement released by German Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

The troops would continue the operation until the area is cleaned up from militants, the statement stressed.

Militants have intensified their activities in the relatively peaceful Kunduz province since the beginning of this year and it has conducted several attacks including roadside bombings so far.

Some 3,800 German forces with majority of them based in Kunduz have been serving in Afghanistan within the framework of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to stabilize security in the post-Taliban country.
Editor: Xiong Tong
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Jihad goes intercontinental
By Walid Phares Asia Times Online June 5, 2009
Since the deadly attacks in Mumbai last November, counter-terrorism experts worldwide, particularly those based in democracies in the crosshairs, have been drawing long-term conclusions as to the forthcoming type of operations which may hit cities and interests on more than one continent.

Today, we are in the post-Mumbai era where the expectation of recidivism and copycats is eerily high. Indeed, the jihadis who seized a few buildings in India's financial center, wreaked havoc at several locations in the city and killed nearly 220 people have brought to the attention of national security analysts a concept for the future: Urban jihad.

I had predicted these scenarios of mayhem perpetrated by determined terrorists in chapter 13 of my first post-September 11, 2001 book, Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against the West, published in 2005.

My projection of al-Qaeda and other jihadi tactics was based on a patient and thorough observation of their literature and actions for decades. By now, the public realizes that such scenarios are not just possible but highly likely in the future. In all countries where jihadi cells and forces have left bloody traces over the past eight years, at least counter-terrorism agencies have been put on notice: it can happen there as well.

But the Mumbai ghazwa (raid) reveals a more sinister shadow hovering over the entire sub-continent, if not also Central Asia. Although a press release was issued by the so-called "Indian Mujahideen", many traces were left - almost on purpose - to show Pakistani involvement, or to be more precise, a link to forces operating within Pakistan, one of them at least being Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Other suppositions left investigators in the region with the suspicion that elements within the intelligence service in Pakistan were involved, even if the cabinet wasn't aware of it. This strong probability, if anything, gave rise to much wider speculation since this attack took place in the midst of dramatic regional and international developments.

In the United States, the Barack Obama administration is gearing up to redeploy from Iraq and send additional divisions to Afghanistan where the Taliban forces have been escalating their terror campaign. In a counter move, the jihadi web inside Pakistan has been waging both terror and political offensives. In Waziristan and the Swat Valley, just prior to the latest attempts to strike deals with local warlords, Pakistani units were compelled to retreat.

A few weeks later, Islamabad authorized the provincial administrators to sign the so-called Malakand agreement with the "Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law", headed by Sufi Mohammad, in which local Taliban would enact religious laws instead of the national secular code.

Across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India it has become clear that the jihadis are acting as an overarching regional force. In short, while Kabul, Islamabad and New Delhi are consumed with domestic challenges such as ethnic and territorial crises, the nebulous beginning with al-Qaeda and stretching to the local jihadi groups across the land is acting ironically as one, though with many faces, tongues and scenarios.

The jihadis have become continental, while the region's governments were forced into tensions among each other and with their own societies. Hence, exploring the regional strategies of the jihadis is now a must.

Pre-9/11 strategies

In the post-Cold War era, a web of jihadi organizations came together throughout the Indian sub-continent from Kandahar to the Bay of Bengal. The nebulous was as vast as the spread of Islamist movements that took root in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

The cobweb is extremely diverse and not entirely coordinated. In many cases, striking competitions and splinters characterize its intra-Islamist politics. But from political parties to student unions to jihadi guerrillas, the main cement of the plethora has been a solidly grounded ideology, inspired by local Deobandism and West Asian-generated Wahhabism and Salafism.

The "jihadi causes" reflect a variety of claims, from political and sharia to ethnic territorial. However, all these platforms end in the necessity of establishing local "emirates", which eventually are building blocks towards the creation of the caliphate-to-come.

Inside Pakistan, the Islamists fight secularism, impose religious laws and crave an all-out "Islamist" - not just "Islamic" - nation. From this country, a number of jihadi groups have been waging a war on India for the secession of Kashmir, but in order to establish a Taliban-like state. The Pakistan-based "Kashmiri jihadis" have connected with their India-based counterparts who in turn have bridges with jihadis operating across India through various networks, including the Islamic Student Union and later the "Indian Mujahideen". The "web" stretches east to Dhaka and south all the way to Malaysia and Indonesia.

Unfortunately, Western and non-Western scholarship in the field didn't recognize the regional dimension of the jihadi threat on the sub-continent before the 2001 strikes in America and the subsequent attacks in Europe and beyond. Jihadism in South Asia has always been conventionally linked to local claims and foreign policies, while in reality the movement has developed a regional war room; even before the US intervention in Afghanistan, the jihadis had been seeking transnational achievements.

The post-Soviet grand design of al-Qaeda was to incite the "national" jihadi entities to act in concert with one another, even if their propaganda machines would intoxicate their foes with different narratives. Based in Kabul since the takeover by the Taliban in 1996, the initial plan was to grow stronger inside Afghanistan, make it a "perfect emirate" model to follow and from there expand in all directions. Evidently, the first space to penetrate was Pakistan, starting with the northwestern regions.

In the book Future Jihad, I have argued that one of the long-range goals of the 9/11 attacks was to provoke massive jihadi uprisings in many Muslim countries, especially in Pakistan, with help from insiders and the armed forces.

The pre-9/11 plan was to infiltrate Islamabad from Kabul and thereafter to penetrate Kashmir and back a massive jihadi campaign inside India. The enormity of developments was supposed to enflame Bangladesh as well. In short, the plan was to "Talibanize" the region from Kabul to the Gulf, slicing many enclaves in northern India with it. Obviously, plan A collapsed as US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces crumbled the Taliban regime and dispersed al-Qaeda.

Post-Tora Bora

As Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar crossed into Waziristan at the end of 2001, the jihadi strategy for the region shifted to Plan B. However, the basic goal didn't change - to establish a series of emirates in the sub-continent.

What changed were the launching pads and the priorities. Now that the epicenter shifted to these valleys inside northwestern Pakistan, the strategic hierarchy imposed a new agenda: First, the tribal areas had to become a no-go zone for Pakistan's armed forces and a new Afghanistan-in-exile was to be established: al-Qaeda's remnants in the centre, surrounded by a belt of Taliban, themselves surrounded by an outer belt of fundamentalist tribes and movements. Former Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf understood that sending the bulk of his forces there meant an all-out civil war, hence he kept a status quo amid Western frustration.

But the jihadi forces moved on the offensive inside Pakistan via bombings and assassinations, including failed attempts against the former president and the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Not only the border areas were falling to the insurgency, but segments of many cities fell under the expansion of urban jihadization. The Red Mosque bloodshed was only an example of the generalized push to seize more power. The minimal goal set by the cohorts of the Islamist and jihadi forces was to immunize Waziristan and the surrounding valleys from any incoming attacks while launching blitzkriegs from these areas in two directions: a comeback of the Taliban inside Afghanistan and strikes inside India.

To the west of Waziristan, the equation was reversed. Instead of a Taliban regime in Kabul spilling over into Islamabad, the post-Tora Bora situation witnessed the emergence of a quasi-Taliban regime inside Pakistan spilling back to Afghanistan, hence the recrudescence of operations in the latter's provinces. Eastbound from Waziristan, the nebulous tasted the Pakistan-based jihadis to serve as strategic decoys.

Indeed, the best way to confuse the Pakistani military is to draw New Delhi into a renewed conflict with its western neighbor. Shrewdly - via Lashar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Kashmiri jihadis and in association with India-based jihadis - many terror attacks were launched inside Indian territories as of 2002, including strikes against the parliament, trains and other targets. The inflaming of the India-Pakistan theatre was and remains a key strategic design in the hands of the regional jihadis. This is why the recent strikes in Mumbai were ordered.

Post-Mumbai

Inside the jihadi war room for the subcontinent, preparations are underway to meet two forthcoming challenges. One is the decision by the Obama Administration to send two additional divisions to Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, chief of Central Command, and his fellow military strategists have recommended a surge-type campaign to eradicate al-Qaeda and its allies from inside most of the country and, with the help of other NATO forces, push the Taliban hordes all the way back to the borders. The second jihadi worry is possible military pressure on Waziristan from the Asif Ali Zardari government.

Logically, the Taliban/al-Qaeda Plan "C" will be to try to crumble both offensives before they happen. Therefore, in war game scenarios, if you are the jihadi, you would put all efforts possible to delay and weaken the forthcoming NATO-led surge. How they will go about accomplishing this is a good question. The terror network has more than one tool at its disposal: rapid deterioration inside Afghanistan, striking at NATO allies, disrupting NATO supply lines originating in Pakistan, assassinations and even possible strikes on the American homeland, if they can.

But one other tool may also be considered: luring Washington into negotiations with the Taliban. Already the propaganda machine of the jihadis from different corners of the planet, including via its tentacles inside the Western media, is pushing the idea that discussions with the "good Taliban" is a viable and pragmatic option. Recently, a particular push for considering radical Islamism as a "fact of life" to be recognized has materialized in a publicized Newsweek article.

Painting the jihadis as credible partners in a peacemaking equation is, in fact, part of a smart maneuver to gain time and delay US-led efforts to defeat the network in Afghanistan. Ironically, similar moves were undertaken in Pakistan. In order to delay Islamabad's new secular government in its preparedness to confront the Taliban once and for all, good cop-bad cop tactics are employed: suicide bombings target officials and civilians alike, while offers for ceasefire from local Islamists shower the authorities.

The recent agreement of Malakand signed between Sufi Islam and Pakistani authorities allowed the implantation of sharia in the province. The agreement could have been used to the advantage of the Taliban to indoctrinate the youth, recruit fighters and suicide bombers, repress civil society movements and eradicate government presence. Just look at the Waziristan accord (2006) as an example.

Another trap we should not allow ourselves to fall into is calling those who are reconcilable the "good" Taliban or the "little" Taliban. We should avoid assigning the label to armed opposition groups or other groups that may associate with the Taliban on a small level. Just as it would have been a strategic mistake to label the members of the Sahwa (Awakening Councils) in Iraq little "q" al-Qaeda or "good" al-Qaeda - it would be quite the blunder to consider as Taliban those who cooperate with the Taliban out of fear or those that seek cooperation as a way to feed their family.

And as the stalling tactics are employed in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, reverse moves will be executed in India. Unfortunately, the regional war room more than likely will order terror activities on Indian soil to diminish the will of the Pakistani government to go to Waziristan. If violence erupts on its eastern border with India, Pakistan cannot be sending troops to battle the Taliban on its western frontiers. Inflaming tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad causes the latter to redeploy forces from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North-West Frontier Province to the border with India, thereby relieving military pressure the Taliban faces in northwest Pakistan. Thus Plan "C" seems to announce waves of happenings in the sub-continent. What can and should be done about it, remains the most important question.

Counter strategies

Any counter strategy design must being with the following affirmations:

- That the threat is strategic and regional, not just local and legitimate.

- That the counter strategies must put the confrontation of the regional threat above all local considerations and issues.

- That the United States and its allies operating out of Afghanistan are determined to engage that threat with all the tools at their disposal and with the largest alliance it can muster.

- That Pakistan and India should realize that they are both targeted by the jihadis regardless of their quarrels over ethno-territorial issues.

With these principles accepted, a global set of counter strategies can be set to deal with al-Qaeda/Taliban and their jihadi nebulous in the sub-continent.

Afghanistan

The US-led NATO coalition should proceed with the reinforcement of the expeditionary force to levels capable of insuring a full control of the country's national soil; and at the same time a gigantic effort must be mustered in three directions: training and equipping the Afghan Army and Police, supporting a vast network of civil society non-governmental organizations (NGOs) countrywide and reaching out to countries that haven't yet participated in the post-9/11 counterterrorism campaign in Afghanistan, such as Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil and Nigeria, and invite them to join the consortium in sectors of their choice. The further the campaign is internationalized, the more jihadis will be isolated.

Engagement strategies

The US and NATO should not be dragged to the path of the so-called partnership with jihadis to defeat other jihadis. In this game, the more ideological and sophisticated factions always win. Instead, the international coalition must engage the democratic forces and sustain them to win the intellectual and political battle.

Pakistan

The present government must undertake a full reassessment of its past strategies and reform its own forces so that it can ready itself to wage a national mobilization, part of which will be on the military level, but the most significant part must be on the popular and political levels. The campaign to counter the terror forces can only be successful if large segments of the population are engaged in the struggle against fundamentalism.

India

New Delhi, too, will have to reshape its plan to counter the jihadi strategies in the region and on its soil. While the military and security engagement against local terror groups will continue, Indian resources in the war of ideas will have to be tapped. As a major economic and technological power in the region, and now worldwide, India has the ability to open a new front against radical ideologies with the help of linguistic, cultural and intellectual skills, crucial to the battle. The establishment of a vast network of television and radio broadcasts, NGOs and intelligence capability based on Indian soil can weaken Islamist radicalism.

Last but not least, the vital cement of all the above strategies is their integration and eventually fusion under one platform. If the United States, NATO and other international partners can bring together the three democratically-elected governments of the subcontinent - Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (and perhaps Bangladesh) - under a unified and coordinated global strategy, the jihadi forces will be isolated and gradually rolled back.

Dr Walid Phares is the director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy and the author of The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad. Dr Phares teaches global strategies at National Defense University.
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Pakistan wants stable Afghanistan: Ahmed Mukhtar
Associated Press of Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Jun 5 (APP): Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said on Friday that Pakistan wants stable Afghanistan. Talking to a private TV channel, he said, Pakistan wants stability in Afghanistan and hoped that the Afghan government enjoy full writ across the Afghanistan. “Stable Afghanistan will be suitable for the Pakistan too”, he added

To a question he said President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister have time and again said that the drone attacks inside Pakistan are proving counter productive.

“The government of Pakistan is consistently convincing US that drone attacks are not helping in eliminating terrorists from the areas” he added.

To a question he said operation in Malakand division will continue 5 to six days and security forces will clear the whole areas from the militants.

He said rehabilitation of displaced persons will take some time. Funds will also be allocated for this purposes, he added.

The Minister said the government has requested the international community for helping for the rehabilitation of the IDPs.

Ahmed Mukhtar said about 1242 militants have been killed while 92 other arrested from the areas.

About Fazalullah, he said the government has no information about him.

However ,he said, there are possibility that Muslim Khan has been killed by the forces but this is not confirmed as yet.
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Bangesh tribes of Kurram Agency decide to move Afghanistan
The News International (Pakistan) June 5, 2009
PARACHINAR: The long time closure of roads in Kurram Agency has forced Bangesh tribes to take refugee in Afghanistan.

The decision was taken in a jirga of Bangesh tribes held today. Talking to Geo News after the jirga, the leader of Bangesh tribe Mir Zaman Bangesh advocate said closure of roads created shortage of food and medicines in the area, which enhanced miseries of Bangesh tribes Many people were died due to shortage of medicines, therefore, more than 500 families of Bangesh tribes have decided to move Afghanistan and they will start migration soon.
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Poppy link to Afghan bumper crop
Friday, 5 June 2009 BBC News
The Afghan government has said that the bumper wheat harvest expected this year can be attributed in part to its successful poppy eradication programme.

Officials say the success of the scheme - especially in Nangarhar province - has helped the country to reap its biggest wheat harvest in 30 years.

However officials say the main reason for the bumper harvest is because of increased snow and rainfall.

They say that the country is now almost self-sufficient in wheat.

Improved yields

An official in the ministry of counter-narcotics told the BBC that increased demand for wheat meant that it was selling for a higher price, in contrast to the the relatively low prices currently being paid for opium.

"Most farmers were not prepared to risk cultivating poppies because they were scared that the government would destroy them," he said.

Agriculture Minister Asif Rahimi said that he was expecting the best wheat harvest for 32 years.

Last year Afghanistan had to import over two million tonnes of wheat to feed it people.

This year's projected yield means the country would only have to import 200,000 tonnes of wheat.

The minister also predicted improved yields of rice and corn.

The main reason for the bumper harvest is increased rainfall, but other factors include more farmland devoted to wheat after last year's high prices for the crop. Improved provision of seeds and fertilisers to farmers has also been cited as a factor.

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says that the government's poppy eradication programme has contributed to better harvests, even if its writ does not extend to areas of the country where the Taliban are active - such as Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Our correspondent says the construction of better roads has also helped farmers to sell their produce more speedily.

Opium 'remains profitable'

However the opium trade remains a highly profitable enterprise for many farmers and is deeply interwoven with the economic, political and social fabric of the country.

Afghan and international authorities are engaged in a campaign to reverse an unprecedented upsurge of opium poppy cultivation and heroin production, but many commentators say that their efforts so far have been inadequate.

The war in Afghanistan over the last three decades has forced many farmers into exile, with land and irrigation systems destroyed in battle or ruined by neglect.

Agriculture is a development priority for foreign aid agencies working in the country, with about 80% of Afghans estimated to live in rural areas.
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AFGHANISTAN: Sharp rise in attempted illegal migration to Europe
KABUL, 4 June 2009 (IRIN) - Azizullah Ahmadi told IRIN in Kabul how his son Majid, aged 25, paid US$10,000 to a smuggler to take him to a European country where he wanted to start a better life. But his son drowned in the Mediterranean before reaching Greece in 2008.

“He was very disappointed here [in Afghanistan] and believed Europe would give him a prosperous life,” Ahmadi said, adding that his son had borrowed a lot of money for the trip.

Facing unemployment, insecurity and lack of socio-economic opportunities at home, many Afghans, mostly young males, have increasingly resorted to costly and perilous illegal migration to European and other industrialized countries.

Over 18,000 Afghan asylum-seekers were registered in 44 industrialized states in 2008 - a significant increase on previous years, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

“With 18,500 asylum applications submitted by Afghans in 2008, the number is at its highest since 2002 [29,400] and is almost double the figure of the year before [10,000],” said a UNHCR report entitled Asylum levels and trends in industrialized countries in 2008.

“The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan is likely to be the main reason, along with lack of economic opportunities,” Ron Redmond, a UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, told IRIN.

Some 80,000-85,000 Afghans applied for asylum in 2000-2001 but their numbers dropped significantly after a new US-backed government, which had inspired hope for a stable and prosperous Afghanistan, was established in 2002.

Smuggling by air - more expensive

Illegal migration and human trafficking from the least developed countries to Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia have become more and more difficult and costly in the past seven years, largely because of stringent border controls.

“Before 9/11 smugglers were taking people by air to any European country for $8,000-10,000, but now prices have increased to $25,000-30,000 per person,” said Naqibullah (who only gave his first name), a local travel agent who also acts as an agent for illegal migrants.

However, nothing seems to be deterring some Afghans, mostly young males, who still pay thousands of dollars to smugglers and/or take the riskiest routes to get to their sought-after destinations.

On 29 May a ship carrying over a dozen of Afghan migrants from Indonesia to Australia capsized near Sumatra. Nine passengers were killed and 11 others were missing, Associated Press reported.

Migrants face trials and tribulations of all kinds: Some end up in prisons and/or border detention centres and reportedly have experienced serious physical and mental violence.

Popular destinations

The UK appeared to be the most popular European Union (EU) destination, with 3,730 Afghan applicants seeking asylum in 2008, according to the Statistical Office of the European Commission. Turkey, Italy and Greece were the next most popular, according to the UNHCR report on asylum levels in industrialized countries.

About 12,600 Afghans sought asylum in EU countries in 2008 - the fifth largest group after Iraqis, Russians, Somalis and Serbs.

By contrast, the USA only had 72 Afghan asylum-seekers in 2008. Fewer still migrated illegally to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, apparently because of the cost of getting there (about $35,000 to fly to Canada) and/or geography.

Plea not to deport Afghans

It is unclear how many of the 18,500 Afghan asylum-seekers were granted protection in developed countries in 2008.

However, of the 240,000 asylum applicants (5 percent of them Afghans) registered in 27 EU member countries in 2008, at least 141,730 (73 percent) were rejected and only 24,425 applicants (13 percent) were granted refugee status, according to a statement by the Statistical Office of the European Commission.

At least 560 Afghans whose asylum applications were rejected in EU member countries were forced back to Afghanistan in 2008, according to the Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR). In addition, over 545 unsuccessful applicants voluntarily returned to Afghanistan from the EU last year.

“The situation in Afghanistan is not suitable and we call on European and other countries not to forcefully deport Afghan refugees,” Noor Mohammad Haidari, a senior MoRR adviser, told IRIN, adding that the government had requested all host countries to treat Afghans based on the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
MoRR estimates about 500,000 Afghan refugees live in EU countries and over three million in Pakistan and Iran.
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Karzai denies making offer to Abdullah
Pajhwok By Zubair Babakarkhel 06/04/2009
KABUL - The spokesman for President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday brushed aside the allegation that Karzai had offered any bribe or position in government to his rival candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah in return for his withdrawal from the presidential race.

According to a report published in the foreign news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), the former foreign minister Abdullah alleged that Karzai tried to bribe him for his withdrawal from the presidential election bid.

However, Hameedzada said the president had only an ordinary meeting with Abdullah as part of his contacts with prominent people to discuss the issues facing the country.

He added the meeting between Karzai and Abdullah was about the US proposal for a prime minister in the new government, as well as other issues of mutual interest.

The spokesman said that the president had made no offer to seek Abdullah's pullout from contesting the presidential elections.

Abdullah and Karzai are among 43 candidates for the presidency in the August 20 elections. An independent candidate Daud Mirkai from central Wardak proinvce announced his withdrawal on Monday.
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Criticized contractor gets new contract
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 4 (UPI) -- A private American contractor whose work on U.S. funded Afghan projects has drawn criticism is among those benefiting from a new Obama plan, officials said.

The U.S. Agency for International Development recently awarded a $150 million cooperative agreement to a partnership led by DAI despite the Maryland company's unsuccessful Afghan history. The program is aimed to promote alternatives to poppy crops.

An inspector general's audit released May 11 criticized DAI's performance on a $164 million contract to promote local governance. The audit called the contractor's success "highly questionable "with no "overall strategy."

The Obama administration's plan to boost aid to Afghanistan is shaping up as a boon to private contractors, USA Today said.
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Taliban Stir Rising Anger of Pakistanis
By SABRINA TAVERNISE The New York Times June 5, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A year ago, the Pakistani public was deeply divided over what to do about its spreading insurgency. Some saw the Taliban militants as fellow Muslims and native sons who simply wanted Islamic law, and many opposed direct military action against them.

But history moves quickly in Pakistan, and after months of televised Taliban cruelties, broken promises and suicide attacks, there is a spreading sense — apparent in the news media, among politicians and the public — that many Pakistanis are finally turning against the Taliban.

The shift is still tentative and difficult to quantify. But it seems especially profound among the millions of Pakistanis directly threatened by the Taliban advance from the tribal areas into more settled parts of Pakistan, like the Swat Valley. Their anger at the Taliban now outweighs even their frustration with the military campaign that has crushed their houses and killed their relatives.

“It’s the Taliban that’s responsible for our misery,” said Fakir Muhammed, a refugee from Swat, who, like many who had experienced Taliban rule firsthand, welcomed the military campaign to push the insurgents out.

The growing support for the fight against the Taliban could be an important turning point for Pakistan, whose divisions about its Islamic militancy seemed at times to imperil the state itself.

But it is an opportunity that could just as quickly vanish, analysts and politicians warn, if Pakistan’s political leaders fail to kill or capture senior Taliban leaders, to help an estimated three million who have been displaced, or to create a functioning government in areas long ignored by the state. “This is a profound moment in our history,” said Javed Iqbal, the top bureaucrat in the North-West Frontier Province, the area of fighting. “My greatest fear is whether there is sufficient realization of this among people who make decisions.”

On Wednesday, in an audiotape, Osama bin Laden specifically cited the fighting in Swat and Pakistan’s tribal areas, blaming the Obama administration for the campaign and for sowing “new seeds to increase hatred and revenge on America.”

American officials are keenly aware of the potential of the refugee crisis to spawn militancy. Less than a quarter of the $543 million the United Nations has requested for refugees has arrived, according to Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry.

On Thursday, Richard C. Holbrooke, the American special envoy, visited refugee tents as part of a three-day trip to spread the message that the United States was trying to help. The Obama administration had requested an additional $200 million, he said, noting that it was providing more aid than all other countries combined.

Even so, anti-American feelings still run high in Pakistan. Many Pakistanis blame the United States and the war in Afghanistan for their current troubles.

Pakistanis have long supported the Taliban as allies to exert influence in neighboring Afghanistan. Unlike Afghans, they have never lived under Taliban rule, and have been slow to absorb its dangers.

But that is changing, as the experience of those Pakistanis who have now lived under the Taliban has left many disillusioned.

Over more than a year of fighting, the militants moved into Swat, by killing or driving out the wealthy and promising to improve the lives of the poor. Finally, the military agreed to a truce in February that all but ceded Swat to the Taliban and allowed the insurgents to impose Islamic law, or Shariah.

The prospect of Shariah was alluring, said Iftikhar Ehmad, who owns a cellphone shop in Mingora, the most populous city in Swat, because the court system in Swat was so corrupt and ineffective. But the Taliban’s Shariah was not the benign change people had hoped for. Once the Taliban took power, the insurgents seemed interested only in amassing more, and in April they pushed into Buner, a neighboring district 60 miles from Islamabad.

“It was not Shariah, it was something else,” Mr. Ehmad said, jabbing angrily at the air with his finger in the scorching tent camp in the town of Swabi. “It was scoundrel behavior.”

Daily life became degrading. A woman was lashed in public, and a video of her writhing in pain and begging for mercy stirred wide outrage. Taliban bosses ordered people to donate money. Cosmetics shops and girls’ schools were burned.

By the time the military entered Swat last month, local people began leading soldiers to tunnels with weapons and Taliban hiding places in hotels, the military said. “These people, six months back, weren’t willing to share anything,” said a military official who was involved in planning the campaign. “Gradually they’ve been coming out more and more into the open.”

There has also been a change in other parts of Pakistan, like Punjab, the most populous province, where people used to see the problem of militancy as remote, said Rasul Baksh Rais, a professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences. Now the province has become a target of suicide attacks, most recently last week in Lahore. Mr. Rais cited changes in news coverage of the military campaign and a strong stand by the political parties, even some of the religious ones, as evidence of the shift. “The tables are turned against the Taliban now,” he said. “They are marginalized.”

But the underlying causes that have allowed the Taliban to spread — poverty, barely functioning government, lack of upward mobility in society — remain. Mr. Iqbal is now working frantically to fill those gaps. New judges have recently been identified for Swat, he said, and about 3,000 new police officers will be selected this week.

The Pakistani military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss future operations, said troops would have to remain in Swat for at least six months. Support for the Taliban has not evaporated entirely.

Early this week, on a searing hot street in Mardan, a town south of Swat that has absorbed many of the people churned up in the fighting, a tall man with a long beard, Muhammed Tahir Ansari, grew angry when asked whether the refugees approved of the military operation. “It is illogical to think that people would be happy about this tense situation,” he said curtly.

He was from a charity run by Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the principal religious parties that tacitly support the Taliban, and was directing a frenzied effort to distribute water and hand-held fans.

The government, meanwhile, was nowhere in sight.

Irfan Ashraf contributed reporting from Swabi, Pakistan, and Mardan, Pakistan.
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To win, we must separate the Afghan people from the enemy
The Globe and Mail - Opinions David Bercuson 5 June 2009
Wanted in Afghanistan: surprise and innovation
conventional wisdom has developed among some Canadians who follow developments in Afghanistan: There is no military solution.

This belief is simplistic. It does not take into account the nature of the struggle, the aims of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, or even the meaning of the word “solution” in a counterinsurgency campaign.

And although it is absolutely true that those who aim to win a war such as this one must blend smart “soft” power with “hard” military operations, the enemy must be dominated by armed force and rooted out before co-ordinated soft-power strategies can have a chance to work.

There is no complete military solution to the war in Afghanistan because the enemy is not trying to win the allegiance of most Afghans. Instead, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are trying to destroy those security forces - ours and those of the current government of Afghanistan - who stand in the way of their attempt to force a religious dictatorship on a population that mostly doesn't want it.

This means that, for the most part, the “enemy” in Afghanistan, even in most parts of the country's south and east, isn't the people.

In such situations, there's no great secret about how a counterinsurgency can be won; dozens of military analysts and historians have studied counterinsurgencies dating back to biblical times. The elements that always emerge as necessary factors for success are to separate the people from the enemy, to protect them, to treat them with respect and to help them get on their economic feet.

The first two steps in this process can be accomplished only by military power. And that power must rest on intelligence, destruction of the insurgents' command structure (including their operational leadership), disruption of the insurgents' logistical and communications networks, and systematic elimination of the insurgents' bases of operation inside Afghanistan and disruption operations (by air, if necessary) directed at their bases in Pakistan.

This sort of a military campaign must be pursued with both special operations forces and highly mobile regular troops. It must be conducted in such a fashion that every significant move seizes the initiative, forces the enemy to respond, keeps the enemy off balance. Surprise and innovation are the keys to success.

Repeating the same old thing - the same patrols, the same tactics, operating from the same bases, using the same size units, deployed in the same way - means failure. Most important, the soldiers and their leaders must keep reminding themselves that the enemy is smart, has a very good intelligence system, knows the ground and has proved time and again that he can innovate. They must also remember that any army, regular or guerrilla, must have a command and control system, an intelligence system and a supply system, even if those systems bear little resemblance to those used by a modern technologically advanced army. And they are vulnerable.

The problem isn't that these challenges are unknown; it's that a very divided allied force has largely failed to meet them. Counterinsurgency can't be done on a part-time basis, with divided leadership and contingents restricted by caveats, and without complete co-ordination and planning in the use of both hard and soft power.

From the split NATO-U.S. command on down, unity of effort driven by a single commander's intent and intelligence-based aggressiveness has been sorely missing in Afghanistan. Even American troops in the eastern part of the country have been content to stay on their side of the valley - as their forebears did in Korea more than 50 years ago - and watch the enemy through binoculars.

There are many signs that the Americans are taking control of the war and shifting tactics. The United States will soon have double NATO's troops in-country - soldiers who will pursue the war with singleness of purpose and far more aggression.

After 2011, when Canada's combat mission ends in Afghanistan, Ottawa can turn its attention to building schools and digging wells - worthy in themselves - but only under the protection of a U.S. military effort that is pledged to seize back the initiative from the Taliban and al-Qaeda no later than the fall of 2010.

David Bercuson is director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.
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First Afghan fibre optic cable connects to Tajikistan
The Sydney Morning Herald - Sharif Khoram June 5, 2009
Part of Afghanistan's first international fibre optic cable has opened in a project that will make the country millions of US dollars and boost regional connectivity, a cabinet minister said Thursday.

President Hamid Karzai tested the cable with Tajikistan on Wednesday in a video conference call with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, Communications Minister Amir Zai Sangin told reporters.

The link is one of five with neighbouring countries that can transform Afghanistan into a regional hub for Internet, telephone, television and other services, he said.

For the first time, it will connect Central Asia to Southeast Asia through an underground cable, with previous connections mostly via satellites in Europe and the United States, the minister said.

"Through this network most of the provinces (in Afghanistan) will be connected and at the same time Afghanistan will be connected... with its neighbouring countries," Sangin said.

The country expected to earn three to four million US dollars a month from transit fees and subscriptions to the service, he said.

The project, worth roughly 70 million US dollars, was started two years ago and is around 80 percent complete.

Uzbekistan will be the next country connected to the cable, which is 1.65 metres (5.5 feet) underground and runs the route of a planned ringroad that connects major cities near the border.

The portions yet to be finished are in parts of Afghanistan where insurgent violence is the strongest, including in the southern and eastern areas.

Asked about potential sabotage of the cable by insurgents who have already targeted mobile-phone towers, the minister said security posts would be established every few kilometres (miles) to guard the cable.

It was estimated that any cut could be repaired in two hours, he said.

Sangin said there had been attacks on workers involved in the project but this would not stop the work.

"Even though there are problems and risks, we cannot delay our work. If we delay this and wait, the country will never be built," he said.

The minister said he expected the new cable would see an 80 percent cut in Internet prices in Afghanistan and boost the quality of service.

It was expected to raise Internet access from a current four percent in the largely illiterate nation to 20 percent in three years, he said.

The Internet was introduced in Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime.

Prior to that, the telephone service was so poor that some Afghans would travel to neighbouring Pakistan to make a international call.
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