Analyzing North Waziristan

[ajpirzada]

The south is a different kettle of fish, as any prudent observer will tell you.

No. there is only one difference. south was the centre of TTP whereas north is the centre of afghan taliban and few other groups who are not attacking pakistani army. but this convenience for us doesnt mean convenience for the locals who must obey their laws.
wat Asim meant was the same. that land is ours and does not belong to afghan taliban or any other group. we need to take it back before it explodes lik other areas did.

 

[Musafar]

Get your rifle and your hat if you want to do it. I think Pakistani soldiers blood is worth more than to be wasted on making ANOTHER front for ourselves.

I'll just make one humble request, when the war comes to the streets of major cities as it undoubtedly will, please don't start running your mouth with the "it was RAW, Israel etc that are working alongside them" skit.

Thank you.

 

[ajpirzada]

Get your rifle and your hat if you want to do it. I think Pakistani soldiers blood is worth more than to be wasted on making ANOTHER front for ourselves.

I'll just make one humble request, when the war comes to the streets of major cities as it undoubtedly will, please don't start running your mouth with the "it was RAW, Israel etc that are working alongside them" skit.

Thank you.

very nicely presented. how can you debate so gud with so much facts in it?

firstly pakistani soldiers blood is exactly for this and they are givin it with honour.

well this war came to our cities few months back if you remember correctly and we dont want this to happen again. and the only way to stop that from happening is to make sure that our land and ours and not some extremist group's.

 

[Slides]

So you're ONLY happy if the Pakistani Pashtuns of North Waziristan are to be used as future assets to fill the impending vacuum otherwise we have to colonize them, right?

How did you come to this conclusion from Asim Aquil's post? He is talking about not letting petty warlords rule over areas of Pakistan and saying exactly the opposite of what you seem to want. How is warlordism good for Pushtuns, Pakistanis or Afghans?

 

[ajpirzada]

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: A few miles from the isolated garrison town of Razmak, a shallow, east-west gorge marks the administrative border between South and North Waziristan. In US eyes, it is also the dividing line between the good Pakistan that cooperates with American counterterrorism goals and the intransigent one that charts its own course, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

To launch a major campaign in North Waziristan this spring – as the Obama administration has proposed – would be impractical and strategically unwise, the army says.

US officials have expressed frustration over Pakistan’s reluctance. But a rare visit to the restricted region suggested that the two sides are trying to find common ground in addressing what Washington sees as the epicentre of the terrorist threat.

“There has to be a balance between foreign requirements and the local environment,” said Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Maj Gen Athar Abbas. “I think what the Americans have come to understand is that when (their) options are not working, maybe it is time to try another way.”

US officials continue to think that Pakistan’s reluctance stems largely from its belief that the Afghan Taliban could be useful in influencing future events in Afghanistan. But after months of publicly questioning Pakistan’s motives, Washington appears to have decided to try a different tack, voicing new appreciation for Pakistan’s accomplishments in South Waziristan and other operations last year.

Understanding: “We need to give them credit,” a senior US official said of the Pakistanis, and trust that they understand the “culture, history and geography” of North Waziristan better than Washington does.

The US believes Afghanistan’s Haqqani network – headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani – is based in North Waziristan, along with other such groups, and has urged Islamabad to move against them. “He is on our target list,” an intelligence official said, but “we’ve raided his madrassa five times” and have not found him there.

Besides, Maj Gen Abbas said, “Haqqani is an Afghan. Our intelligence says he spends at least half his time in Afghanistan’s Khost, Paktika and Paktia provinces.” He and other officials question that if Haqqani were so easy to catch, why have the Americans, with their superior surveillance, not found him?

Officials acknowledge a long-standing relationship with Haqqani but deny that they still have control over him.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[ajpirzada]

It took just a few months for the Pakistani military to clear the Swat Valley's lush, mountainous tribal terrain of its Taliban usurpers last summer, using some 30,000 troops to dislodge the guerrillas from the once-bustling tourist haven, 80 miles northwest of the capital Islamabad. Now, however, almost a year after winning the war, the same number of troops are still in place in order to hold Swat, rebuild it and prevent a Taliban resurgence — and that may keep Islamabad from going after the extremists in other parts of Pakistan's unruly frontier with Afghanistan.
The U.S. has often appealed to Pakistan to do just that, specifically against elements in North Waziristan. More than 200 miles south of Swat, the tribal territory is a base for militants targeting U.S. troops just across the border in Afghanistan; it is also believed to be a refuge for senior al-Qaeda leaders. Yet the Pakistani military has refused to go into North Waziristan because it says its forces are already stretched thin (the bulk of the country's troops are stationed along the eastern border with India, the nation Islamabad still considers its primary foe).
(See pictures of refugees fleeing the Swat valley in 2009.)
Opening up a new front in North Waziristan now, Pakistani military officials say, could undo the gains achieved in areas like Swat by diverting troops from areas they must continue to control. As one officer said, "To hold the ground, you have to be on the ground." The heavy security footprint, the Pakistanis argue, is aimed at avoiding the U.S. military's experience in Iraq, where some areas like Mosul north of Baghdad, once cleared, saw troops draw down only to have militants return and necessitate the re-insertion of American forces to clear them out again.
(Will Pakistan's victories over the Taliban last?)
Indeed, the Pakistanis say, while they have largely cleared militants from Swat, which is in the North-West Frontier Province, as well as the South Waziristan and Bajaur areas along the Afghan border, the army remains engaged in battles in the Khyber district not far from Swat and nearby Orakzai, where the army claims almost daily double-digit Taliban kill figures (numbers that cannot be independently verified).
The Pakistanis also argue that there's more to holding an area than just boots on the ground. As part of its counterinsurgency strategy, the Pakistani military says it is taking the lead in eliminating the factors that helped the area fall to the extremists in the first place: poverty and bureacractic ineptitude and corruption. In Swat, it has set up joint civilian-military liaison cells, which bring together representatives of the military, provincial government and tribal elders. "There are so many reasons that we fell to them [the Taliban] and they took over, so many reasons," says Bakhd Zada, a tribal elder from Devlai, a town of some 30,000, 13 miles from Mingora in the Swat district. "There's poverty, lack of knowledge, and we were misguided," he says. "We need to educate the people and we need job creation. You know when you are empty minded and you have nothing to do, that is a place for demons to develop."
Lieutenant Colonel Akhtar Abbas, army spokesman in Swat, says the military is taking its cue from the populace. "We listened to them, we tried to solve their problems," he says. "They're our own brothers and sisters, we're not like the Americans in Iraq."
In Swat, the military has surged ahead of an excruciatingly slow civilian bureaucracy. Soldiers are reconstructing roads, bridges, health centers, water systems and libraries across the valley. The Army has recruited and trained thousands of police officers, and rebuilt 217 of the 400 or so schools destroyed by the Taliban. It is also footing the bill, thanks to a nationwide voluntary contribution of two days' pay by the troops themselves, a move that raised more than 100 million rupees (almost $1.2 million). The military is also much more efficient. Lt. Col. Abbas points to the restoration of a historic hostel in Swat as an example: Civil contractors estimate it would cost 80 million rupees for the reconstruction. The army did it for 20 million rupees, of its own money.
Commissioner Fazal Karim Khattak, the administrative head of the provincial government in Swat and seven other nearby districts, rejects criticism that the government isn't doing enough, although he admits that there is a heavy reliance on the military. The destruction is so widespread, he says, that it's "not really possible" for the government to do it alone. "I would recommend that the army stays here in the same numbers for quite some time," he adds, "because the civilian institutions have been ruined so much that it will take some time for them to stand on their own feet."
Still, some people say they are wary of the army's intentions — and its omnipresence. They fear that a military accustomed to being in control is unlikely to relinquish power and give up its space to civilian institutions. Lt. Col. Abbas dismisses such concerns. "Pulling [the military] back is the decision of the political government. Whenever they require us, we're here. If they say we are no more required, again we're happy," he says. "But since we're sitting here in the valley, we are reconstructing." And not going after the extremists in North Waziristan.

Why Pakistan's Military Is Holding Back in North Waziristan - TIME

 

[Pinditube]

Why Pakistan's Military Is Holding Back in North Waziristan | PINDITUBE
It took just a few months for the Pakistani military to clear the Swat Valley’s lush, mountainous tribal terrain of its Taliban usurpers last summer, using some 30,000 troops to dislodge the guerrillas from the once-bustling tourist haven, 80 miles northwest of the capital Islamabad. Now, however, almost a year after winning the war, the same number of troops are still in place in order to hold Swat, rebuild it and prevent a Taliban resurgence – and that may keep Islamabad from going after the extremists in other parts of Pakistan’s unruly frontier with Afghanistan.

The U.S. has often appealed to Pakistan to do just that, specifically against elements in North Waziristan. More than 200 miles south of Swat, the tribal territory is a base for militants targeting U.S. troops just across the border in Afghanistan; it is also believed to be a refuge for senior al-Qaeda leaders. Yet the Pakistani military has refused to go into North Waziristan because it says its forces are already stretched thin (the bulk of the country’s troops are stationed along the eastern border with India, the nation Islamabad still considers its primary foe). (See pictures of refugees fleeing the Swat valley in 2009.)

Opening up a new front in North Waziristan now, Pakistani military officials say, could undo the gains achieved in areas like Swat by diverting troops from areas they must continue to control. As one officer said, “To hold the ground, you have to be on the ground.” The heavy security footprint, the Pakistanis argue, is aimed at avoiding the U.S. military’s experience in Iraq, where some areas like Mosul north of Baghdad, once cleared, saw troops draw down only to have militants return and necessitate the re-insertion of American forces to clear them out again. (Will Pakistan’s victories over the Taliban last?)

Indeed, the Pakistanis say, while they have largely cleared militants from Swat, which is in the North-West Frontier Province, as well as the South Waziristan and Bajaur areas along the Afghan border, the army remains engaged in battles in the Khyber district not far from Swat and nearby Orakzai, where the army claims almost daily double-digit Taliban kill figures (numbers that cannot be independently verified).

The Pakistanis also argue that there’s more to holding an area than just boots on the ground. As part of its counterinsurgency strategy, the Pakistani military says it is taking the lead in eliminating the factors that helped the area fall to the extremists in the first place: poverty and bureacractic ineptitude and corruption. In Swat, it has set up joint civilian-military liaison cells, which bring together representatives of the military, provincial government and tribal elders. “There are so many reasons that we fell to them [the Taliban] and they took over, so many reasons,” says Bakhd Zada, a tribal elder from Devlai, a town of some 30,000, 13 miles from Mingora in the Swat district. “There’s poverty, lack of knowledge, and we were misguided,” he says. “We need to educate the people and we need job creation. You know when you are empty minded and you have nothing to do, that is a place for demons to develop.”


Lieutenant Colonel Akhtar Abbas, army spokesman in Swat, says the military is taking its cue from the populace. “We listened to them, we tried to solve their problems,” he says. “They’re our own brothers and sisters, we’re not like the Americans in Iraq.”

In Swat, the military has surged ahead of an excruciatingly slow civilian bureaucracy. Soldiers are reconstructing roads, bridges, health centers, water systems and libraries across the valley. The Army has recruited and trained thousands of police officers, and rebuilt 217 of the 400 or so schools destroyed by the Taliban. It is also footing the bill, thanks to a nationwide voluntary contribution of two days’ pay by the troops themselves, a move that raised more than 100 million rupees (almost $1.2 million). The military is also much more efficient. Lt. Col. Abbas points to the restoration of a historic hostel in Swat as an example: Civil contractors estimate it would cost 80 million rupees for the reconstruction. The army did it for 20 million rupees, of its own money.


Commissioner Fazal Karim Khattak, the administrative head of the provincial government in Swat and seven other nearby districts, rejects criticism that the government isn’t doing enough, although he admits that there is a heavy reliance on the military. The destruction is so widespread, he says, that it’s “not really possible” for the government to do it alone. “I would recommend that the army stays here in the same numbers for quite some time,” he adds, “because the civilian institutions have been ruined so much that it will take some time for them to stand on their own feet.”


Still, some people say they are wary of the army’s intentions – and its omnipresence. They fear that a military accustomed to being in control is unlikely to relinquish power and give up its space to civilian institutions. Lt. Col. Abbas dismisses such concerns. “Pulling [the military] back is the decision of the political government. Whenever they require us, we’re here. If they say we are no more required, again we’re happy,” he says. “But since we’re sitting here in the valley, we are reconstructing.” And not going after the extremists in North Waziristan.

Why Pakistan's Military Is Holding Back in North Waziristan | PINDITUBE

 

[civilarmy]

waziristan operation and all military operation which r going on in pukhtonkhwa its should be stop bcuz innoicent people r dieing day by day bcuz of these operations.. bcuz of these operations terrorism is growing up..

 

[Ahmad]

waziristan operation and all military operation which r going on in pukhtonkhwa its should be stop bcuz innoicent people r dieing day by day bcuz of these operations.. bcuz of these operations terrorism is growing up..

Terrorism and terrorists were there before the Army operations, army is doing the right things to eliminate these terrorists. It is the terrorits who are killing the innocent people. FATA and NWFP should be cleared of these guys.

 

[Metallic]

Two soldiers killed in North Waziristan clash
PAKISTAN - 28 APRIL 2010

PESHAWAR: Two security personnel were killed and at least 13 injured in the latest clash in North Waziristan on Wednesday.

The casualties took place when militants attacked the ISA check post in North Waziristan. Four militants, which included three Uzbeks and a German, were also killed in the clash.

This is the second attack on Pakistan army personnel in North Waziristan in the past seven days. On Friday, seven soldiers, including an officer were killed and at least 16 injured as militants ambushed an army convoy in North Waziristan

According to local sources, many of the Taliban groups had fled from South Waziristan and moved to North Waziristan. Many of these groups include Chechen and Arab fighters as well.

The situation in North Waziristan is a complicated one with some factions supporting the government and providing safe passage to the Pakistan army.

Meanwhile the operation in the Orakzai Agency is also continuing, with security forces claiming to have killed five militants in the latest phase of the assault.


Source; DAWN Media Group

 

[pakdefender]

already posted in 'miltants find new heaven' thread. Dont go around reposting the same news again and again

 

[EjazR]

Asia Times Online :: Showdown looms in North Waziristan

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - Militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area on Tuesday issued a statement claiming that skirmishes had broken out early in the morning when the military tried to enter Miranshah, the tribal headquarters. There was no official confirmation.

The United States has placed Islamabad under intense pressure to launch an operation in North Waziristan, which it views as the command and control center of al-Qaeda and from where the powerful network of Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani is based for its operations in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has over the past year marched into several other tribal areas to take on militants, including Swat and South Waziristan, but at present a peace agreement is in place between Taliban-led militants in North Waziristan and the military.

However, al-Qaeda linked militants have informed Asia Times Online that a battle in North Waziristan is inevitable to avenge atrocities that the militants claim the military has inflicted on children in the tribal area. The incident took place last week in a brief clash between the army and militants.

The al-Qaeda linked militants are spoiling for a fight even though the chief of the Taliban in North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, has said that last week's contact would not affect the ceasefire.

The militants also want to head off any attempt by the government to create a split in their ranks. In one effort, Islamabad has put in motion an operation that includes a former Iraqi intelligence official who now works for the Saudis, former officials of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and a former Taliban commander who was once a member of parliament.

"It is not an issue of whether the Pakistan army wants a military operation or not. The issue is related to their capacity," Muhammad Umar, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan, told Asia Times Online in a telephone interview. Muhammad Umar is an alias for a non-Pashtun from Punjab province.

"They [the army] are already under siege in North Waziristan. Troops are sitting at checkpoints and cannot even fetch water for themselves from a nearby stream if the militants, positioned all around the mountains, open fire on them."

The situation in North Waziristan is clearly highly volatile as the militants are not united. Many, especially those allied with the predominately Pashtun Haqqani network, want to concentrate all of their efforts on Afghanistan, hence the peace accord with the army. Al-Qaeda-linked militants, including Punjabis, see the state as their enemy, in addition to the foreign forces across the border.
The recent abduction of influential powerbrokers highlights the problem.

On March 25, retired squadron leader Khalid Khawaja, a former ISI official, traveled to North Waziristan to interview Sirajuddin Haqqani and Waliur Rahman Mehsud. He was accompanied by Colonel Ameer Sultan Tarrar, also a former long-time ISI official and once Pakistan's consul-general in Herat in Afghanistan. Tarrar is nicknamed "Colonel Imam" by the mujahideen as he was instrumental in helping raise the Taliban militia.

The men have not been seen since and Punjabi militants calling themselves the "Asian Tigers" said they had seized the men. Subsequently, Asia Times Online received several video clips of Khawaja speaking. (See Confessions of a Pakistani spy Asia Times Online, April 24, 2010.)

The militants believe Khawaja was a part of a joint international operation trying to isolate the al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Asia Times Online has leaned that Khawaja and Colonel Imam wanted to hammer out a formula of peaceful coexistence between militants and the military in North Waziristan, and in the broader context to seek a way for the US to withdraw from the region in such a manner that the Taliban would have a role to play in Afghanistan and Pakistan would have a friendly government in Kabul.

The initiative was stopped in its tracks with the abduction of the peacebrokers and in the video clips Khawaja, most likely under duress, spoke out against Pakistan's military establishment.

The message between the lines from the militants is that the role of the Pakistan army in Afghan affairs through any Islamist or non-Islamist cadre is over; that is, the war is exclusively between the West and Muslim militants, and no "referee" is required.

Two sides of the story
Khawaja was retired from the air force in the late 1980s after he wrote a letter to the then-president, General Zia ul-Haq, in which he called him a hypocrite for not enforcing Islam in Pakistan. He then went to Afghanistan and fought alongside Osama bin Laden. He was a recruiter and trainer of Pakistani fighters for the resistance against the Soviets.

After his forced retirement, Khawaja was active in politics, from trying to stitch together an Islamic election alliance in 1988 against the Pakistan People's Party's government to the so-called Operation Khilafat, an alleged plot of some military officers and jihadis to stage an Islamic revolution in Pakistan in the mid-1990s.
Khawaja and former US Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey worked unsuccessfully after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US to prevent the invasion of Afghanistan.

Khawaja tricked a radical cleric into being arrested during the crackdown on the Taliban-sympathetic Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in the capital, Islamabad, in mid-2007. Yet he has been active in providing support to the families of members of al-Qaeda who have been arrested or killed. Earlier this year he filed a case that prevented captured Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar from being handed over to the Americans or the Afghan government.

Depending on the issue, Khawaja is clearly not afraid to act in the establishment's interests, or against them, and he is equally comfortable speaking to Americans or with the ISI.

Along with an American friend, Mansoor Ejaz, who was close to right-wing Republicans, Khawaja worked on a project for peace in South Asia. In this regard he gave a detailed interview to Asia Times Online to promote his theme that the international proxy war in the region should be stopped. (See The pawns who pay as powers play June 22, 2005.)

Before his ill-fated trip to North Waziristan, Khawaja spoke to Asia Times Online, saying that a few veterans of the Afghan jihad (against the Soviets) were now coming together.

"It would be premature to tell you the details, but I will soon give you a breaking story about a mechanism under which these suicide attacks in Pakistan will be stopped completely," Khawaja said. He also pointed to the involvement of a renowned Arab, Mehmud al-Samarai, earlier wanted by the Americans for financing militants in Iraq but now known to be helping Saudi Arabia's peace efforts in Afghanistan.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Umar gave his version of Khawaja's trip to North Waziristan.

"Khalid Khawaja, Colonel Imam and a [former] Iraqi intelligence agent [Mehmud al-Samarai] and Shah Abdul Aziz [a commander during the Taliban regime and a former member of parliament] visited North Waziristan about a month and a half ago. They were all old mujahids who fought against the Russians, therefore they were all treated with respect. However, everybody noticed their suspicious activities," Muhammad Umar told ATol.

"They met the chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan [Pakistani Taliban] Hakeemullah Mehsud, Mufti Waliur Rahman Mehsud [chief of the Taliban in South Waziristan] and the Khalifa Sahib [Sirajuddin Haqqani]. Khawaja brought with him a list of 14 commanders and he tried to convince Hakeemullah Mehsud and Waliur Rahman Mehsud that all those commanders, including Qari Zafar [a leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi] and others are Indian plants among the mujahideen and the Taliban should get rid of them. Both Hakeemullah and Waliur Rahman were tolerant of those allegations against their own commanders and they were silent. However, these people did some other things which made them suspicious," Umar said.

"They tried to convince Hakeemullah Mehsud and Waliur Rahman Mehsud to stop attacking the Pakistan army and discussed a mechanism to target NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] supply lines only. They offered to help Hakeemullah set up pockets in different parts of the country from where they could attack NATO supplies going to Afghanistan.

"Shah Abdul Aziz was then spotted asking people the names of the militants who [last December] attacked the Parade Lane Mosque in Rawalpindi [several army officers were massacred along with 17 of their children]. At the same time, the visiting group met with Khalifa Sahib and urged him to keep his connection with the army. They asked him what kind of weapons he required and they would arrange it for him," Umar said.

Umar said that during Khawaja's first visit, he used Mufti Mehsud's four-wheel drive vehicle. A few days after Khawaja and the others returned to Islamabad, the same vehicle was hit by a drone.

"You know that the Pakistan army aims to keep the Taliban divided as good and bad Taliban. The Afghan Taliban are good for them and the Pakistani Taliban are bad. We don't have such distinctions. If we get proof that a person has a connection with the ISI, whether he is bad or good, he is an enemy. As far as Khawaja is concerned, he confessed that he was sent by an ISI officer. We have reports that he frequently meets with the CIA and arranges meetings of other people with the CIA in return for money," Umar said.

"Khawaja and the others left North Waziristan with assurances that he would soon come back with a British journalist. We all compared notes and concluded that he had come with an agenda and he would come back again. As was expected, he came back and we caught him immediately. The journalist he brought with him also worked for the ISPR [Inter-Services Public Relations) for documentary-making projects. Therefore, they were all the Pakistan army's assets and our enemies and they will be dealt with according to their crimes. It has been decided," Umar said.

The Pakistan army, the Americans and the militants each have their own plans, and they are all at a critical juncture.

Pakistan's military anticipated that the US would be defeated in Afghanistan and therefore there was no need to wage all-out war in the Pakistani tribal areas. Rather, they wanted to keep operations at a level where hostilities would remain minimal and once the Americans left, Pakistan and the militants would restore their traditional strategic relations.

"That illusion went away under General Kiani's command," a senior US official told Asia Times Online in reference to Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani.

"The militants showed so much hostility that the military had to wage an all-out war against them. However, the situation in North Waziristan terrifies them [the army]. Sirajuddin Haqqani has a strong 4,000 armed militia [besides Hafiz Gul Bahadur's men, al-Qaeda, Uzbeks, Chechens and other militias]. The army thinks that if they launch an operation in North Waziristan, the militants will occupy South Waziristan again and the military will be unable to fight them," the official said.

However, the Americans aim to provide full support through their unmanned drones, which target militant leaders, as they have been doing for some while. The aim is to eliminate the major Taliban networks and support bases and then make preparations for a US withdrawal from the region.

However, as illustrated by the Khawaja case, sections of the militants are in no mood to talk, other than through the barrels of their guns.

 

[EjazR]

Kahlid Khwaja is certainly an interesting character. Here is the 2005 interview with Shazad of AToI referred to above.

Asia Times Online :: The pawns who pay as powers play
KARACHI - In the complex undercurrents that dictate the ebb and flow of Pakistani politics and policy, yesterday's hero can very quickly become today's scoundrel. Just ask Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

Sheikh Rashid is leader of the Pakistan Muslim League and minister for information in the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf, with whom he enjoys a very cozy relationship.

Sheikh Rashid's world was rocked recently when Kashmiri militant leader Yasin Malik, on a visit to Pakistan, praised Sheikh Rashid's services for the mujahideen fighting in Kashmir and recalled that he used to provide military training to militants.

Sheikh Rashid strongly denied running any such training camp and maintained that he was only running a humanitarian camp for refugees from Jammu & Kashmir.

In an effort to throw some light on these startling revelations, and equally strong denials, Asia Times Online spoke to Khalid Khawaja, a former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official who was dismissed from the service by the late dictator General Zia ul-Haq because of his outspoken nature.

Khalid subsequently became a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and played an important behind-the-scenes role in both regional and national politics. Before the US attack on Afghanistan in late 2001, he was a part of the back-room diplomacy between the US and the Taliban, which failed miserably.

Asia Times Online:The heroes of the past are the terrorists of the present. Everything changes dramatically, so that someone like Sheikh Rashid, who was once proud to take part in Kashmir's struggle, is now afraid he will be labeled a terrorist if he admits that he ever supported armed struggle in Kashmir. Why? [Sheikh Rashid and Khalid were interviewed together on television and Rashid not only denied that he had ever run a training camp, but also refused to identify Khalid as an old friend.]

Khalid Khawaja: In fact, the issue is terrorism. It is states and governments which sponsor terrorism to begin with, and subjects become the ultimate victims, and then a vicious cycle of terror rotates. In this state-sponsored crime there is no exception, and Pakistan, India, the US and Israel all have the same role.

Many of us call it a battle between East and West, between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world, but it is neither of these. It is in fact the ruling regimes that want to dictate their will, and then they exploit [people] in various ways. Sometimes in the garb of monarchy, sometimes for democracy, and sometimes for dictatorship.

Ninety percent of people accept to be ruled, but there always remain some elements who refuse to succumb. They fight for freedom and resist till their last. However, in this conflict of two minorities - those who impose their will and those who resist it - the majority remains the sole victim. Yet people talk about Islam versus Christianity or Judaism. The basic theme remains the same. There is a group of people who want to impose their will, whether they happen to be Christian or Muslim, and there is a group of people who want to resist, and there is a silent majority which is trampled in between.

This is exactly the interpretation when we talk about Pakistan and India in the perspective of Kashmir. In fact, Pakistan was never sincere with Kashmiris. It was a selfish military strategic maneuver to bleed India. Whatever was done, it was for "Pakistanism". Meaning to impose Pakistan's strategic agenda in the region. We just used religion and jihad. It was just a ploy to engage Indian forces in Kashmir and keep their financial resources squeezed.

ATol: Did not Pakistan morally support the Kashmiri struggle so that the Muslim population would get its rights?

KK: What are you talking about? Indian Muslims enjoy more rights than Muslims enjoy in Pakistan. There are hundreds of Pakistani people, including army-men, clerics, scholars and common people, who have been missing from their homes for over two years. It is a known fact that they were picked up by intelligence agencies. They were never tried in any court of law. Several of them were killed without any trail. Even the British system of justice during British India days was better, when nobody was kept in detention without trial. We ask, okay, don't give us the rights that free nations have, but at least give us those rights people had during the time of the British Raj.

A few years ago, a Muslim was picked by an Indian intelligence agency. Prominent Muslim leader and scholar Maulana Asad Madani met the governor of the province and protested. The governor said that this kind of interrogation was common in Pakistan, "So why do you protest in India?" Asad Madani reminded the governor in very strong words that this was not Pakistan, but India, and one had to produce a person in court, so eventually the Muslim was produced.

The biggest curse in Pakistan is things done in the name of patriotism. I do not buy this theory. Patriotism is a vague term until it is allied with a proper ideology. I remember Colonel [Syed] Farooq's words [Farooq was a Bangladeshi officer who took part in the killing of Sheikh Mujib Rehman - Bangladesh's founding father - and his family in 1975] when he visited Pakistan in the late 1980s. He said that before the partition of British India [1947] he was a loyal citizen of the East India Company, then Pakistan, and even joined the Pakistan army. Then he became a loyal citizen of Bangladesh, and he said he may become loyal to something else in the future. Therefore, patriotism for a piece of land is nonsense.

ATol: What happened in Afghanistan?

KK: In Afghanistan's case, a similar game was carried out on a massive scale when Muslim youths from all over the world were brought in by Pakistan and the US [to fight against the Soviets in the 1980s]. They were tools for the empires' proxy war. The name of jihad was used. The state religion in those days supported jihad against India [in Kashmir] and the USSR [in Afghanistan]. However, once jihad was established, the states did not have any way to convince Muslims that jihad was only against the USSR and India, and not against the US.

Now, again, it is a question of a state imposing its will. The message is clear: if you are against us, we will kill you and your sympathizers. In this state terrorism, there is no exception, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Pakistan, India, the US or Israel. All are the same.

You talk about terrorism by individuals, but you do not discuss what they were in the past and why they became terrorists. In fact, it is state terrorism which starts it all. A state recruited Muslim fighters all across the world and gathered them in Afghanistan. The US tried to kill them with a cruise missile attack in 1998 [in retaliation for terror attacks on US embassies in Africa]. That terrorism was unaccounted for, yet several innocent women and children were killed by a proven US attack. It had yet to be proven that the 9-11 incident was carried out by Osama, but the US attacked Afghanistan and targeted all. When the reaction came, and helpless people became suicide bombers, they were called terrorists.

I have the example of Ahmed Saeed Khadr's family. The whole family was Canadian, and they came to Afghanistan to take part in the country's rehabilitation. First his 14-year-old son Omar Khadr was arrested in Afghanistan. He was taken to Guantanamo Bay. It is narrated in the US media and all information is available on the world-wide web how he was sexually abused in prison by US soldiers. His second son Abdul Karim was shot in the back by US soldiers, and was paralyzed. Another son, Abdul Rahman, agreed to become a US informer. The stories were published by the US media that despite his services, he was also shabbily treated. Ahmed Saeed Khadr and his family, including his wife, granddaughter and two daughters, took refuge in South Waziristan [in Pakistan]. They were not spared by Pakistani authorities. Ahmed Saeed was brutally killed. His wife and daughters were brought to Islamabad and then set free. They were homeless. Nobody was ready to give them a house for rent.

The families of the worst kind of criminals are not deprived of this basic right. Our government did so. Ahmed Saeed's family demanded his body be handed over. The government of Pakistan even refused that demand. Now just get into the shoes of the victim and think how many options you would have if you faced such consequences.

Now Minister of Information Sheikh Rashid comes on TV every day and proudly announces that we have killed so many foreign militants. This is the same minister who privately ran a similar military training camp in the past and prepared militants. Had he been out of government, he would have been labeled a terrorist, but since he is part of the government agenda, he is okay. In this fight of interests, only pawns are crushed. India and Pakistan fought proxy wars, the victims were innocent Kashmiris who were raped, detained and killed, or those who sacrificed their lives in armed struggle. Now the two countries are friends and the victims are those who sacrificed their lives for armed struggle. Now they are terrorists.

When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets crushed. When two elephants make love, it is again the grass that gets crushed. Whether states fight with each other or make friendships, it is only the tools who became victims.

ATol: Explain how Sheikh Rashid started the training camp.

KK: The story starts in 1986-87, when out of emotion I wrote a letter to General Zia ul-Haq saying that he was a hypocrite and he was only interested in ruling Pakistan, rather than imposing Islamic law in the country. General Zia immediately ordered my dismissal from my basic services in the Pakistan air force, where I was a squadron leader, and from the ISI, where I was deputed at the Afghan desk. I went to Afghanistan and fought side-by-side with the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet troops. There I developed a friendship with Dr Abdullah Azzam [a mentor of bin Laden], Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani [another mentor of bin Laden's]. At the same time, I was still in touch with my former organization, the ISI, and its then DG [director general], retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul.

After General Zia's death in a plane crash [1988], elections were announced and there was a possibility that the Pakistan People's Party [PPP] led by Benazir Bhutto would win, which would be a great setback for the cause of jihad. We discussed this situation, and all the mujahideen thought that they should play a role in blocking the PPP from winning the elections. I joined my former DG Hamid Gul and played a role in forming the then Islamic Democratic Alliance comprising the Pakistan Muslim League and the Jamaat-i-Islami. The PPP won the elections by a thin margin and faced a strong opposition. Osama bin Laden provided me with funds, which I handed over to Nawaz Sharif, then the chief minister of Punjab [and later premier], to dislodge Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with the "Sheikh", which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz met thrice with Osama in Saudi Arabia.

The most historic was the meeting in the Green Palace Hotel in Medina between Nawaz Sharif, Osama and myself. Osama asked Nawaz to devote himself to "jihad in Kashmir". Nawaz immediately said, "I love jihad." Osama smiled, and then stood up from his chair and went to a nearby pillar and said. "Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much." He then pointed to a small portion of the pillar. "Your love for children is this much," he said, pointing to a larger portion of the pillar. "And your love for your parents is this much," he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. "I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life."

These sorts of arguments were beyond Nawaz Sharif's comprehension and he kept asking me. "Manya key nai manya?" [Agreed or not?] He was looking for a Rs500 million [US$8.4 million at today's rate] grant from Osama. Though Osama gave a comparatively smaller amount, the landmark thing he secured for Nawaz Sharif was a meeting with the [Saudi] royal family, which gave Nawaz Sharif a lot of political support, and it remained till he was dislodged [as premier] by General Pervez Musharraf [in a coup in 1999]. Saudi Arabia arranged for his release and his safe exit to Saudi Arabia.

That was a typical situation, when Osama was famed for his generosity, and even politicians like Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, who was president of the National People's Party and president of the Islamic Democratic Alliance, and then interim prime minister, were also after me to arrange meetings with the "Sheikh".

Then Nawaz Sharif introduced me to Sheikh Rashid, and he took me to his Freedom House camp near Fateh Jang Road near Rawalpindi. He asked me to get support from Arabs. I took several of my Arab friends to his training camp, and they provided him with some money, though they were not satisfied with the environment.

The youths were mostly trained to fire AK-47 rifles, but there was no arrangement for the ideological training of youths. That was the point on which the Arabs objected, that it is ideological training that makes a difference between a mercenary and a mujahid. Rashid was the least bothered about ideological training, he was interested in money - Rs50,000 per person. Some money was provided to Rashid, and he claimed that he procured AK-47 guns with that money. How many, I do not remember.

ATol: What you are saying means that it was all a fraud in the name of jihad?

KK: Jihad needs strong justification, and when it is launched it requires piety in character. We as Muslims believe that if a person is wrongly killed it amounts to the killing of entire humanity.

ATol: What do you say about suicide bombers who carry out random attacks?

KK: They are reactionaries whose reactions are illustrations of anger and frustration, but we cannot call it Islam at all. In their behavior, although they are Muslims, they are the same as [Pentagon chief Donald] Rumsfeld, [President George W] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney, who, in reaction to 3,500 killed people in New York, made a full season of killing people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The way the US imposed war on Afghanistan, the real mujahids, like [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar and Osama went into the background, and the leadership is in the hands of those who do not know what jihad is all about. They are just venting their frustration against the US.

 

[EjazR]

In Shift, Pakistan Considers Attack on Militant Lair - NYTimes.com

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani military, long reluctant to heed American urging that it attack Pakistani militant groups in their main base in North Waziristan, is coming around to the idea that it must do so, in its own interests.

Western officials have long believed that North Waziristan is the single most important haven for militants with Al Qaeda and the Taliban fighting American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan has nurtured militant groups in the area for years in order to exert influence beyond its borders.

The developing shift in thinking — described in recent interviews with Western diplomats and Pakistani security officials — represents a significant change for Pakistan’s military, which has moved against Taliban militants who attack the Pakistani state, but largely left those fighting in Afghanistan alone.

That distinction is becoming harder to maintain, Pakistani and Western officials say, as the area becomes an alphabet soup of dangerous militant groups that have joined forces to extend their reach deeper inside Pakistan.

“This is a scary phenomenon,” one Western diplomat said. “All these groups are beginning to morph together.”

The consensus is gathering against a background of improved United States-Pakistan relations. The Obama administration’s efforts with Pakistan are beginning to bear fruit, officials said, while the countries’ armies have begun working together more closely, particularly since Pakistan stepped up its military efforts, according to a Pentagon report to Congress released this week.

Even so, any operation in North Waziristan by Pakistan’s badly stretched military would still be months away, Pakistani and Western officials said. And even if it is undertaken, the offensive may not completely sever Pakistan’s relationship with the militants, like Sirajuddin Haqqani, who serve its interests in Afghanistan.

The area has long been a sanctuary for Mr. Haqqani, a longtime asset of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services who is also one of the most dangerous figures in the insurgency against American forces.

In recent months, however, it has also become home to Hakimullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s enemy No. 1, who is now believed to have survived an American drone strike in January, according to the Western diplomat and Pakistani intelligence officials.

He and his supporters fled a Pakistani military operation in South Waziristan that began last October. Though Pakistan’s military said the operation was completed last month, its soldiers are still dying there in rising numbers, as Mr. Mehsud and his forces strike at them from their new base. In recent weeks, at least 19 soldiers have been killed in areas where the military had all but claimed victory.

To make matters worse, families who left during the operation are reluctant to return to their homes, saying they are afraid of vengeful leaders still at large.

“They know a lot of these guys have fled to North Waziristan,” said a Western diplomat in Islamabad. “That’s patently obvious. And sooner or later,” the diplomat continued, “they’re going to have to go in there.”

In a separate interview, a senior Pakistani official concurred. “The source of the problem is in North Waziristan, and it will have to be addressed,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, because he was not allowed to speak publicly.

The growing consensus on North Waziristan comes after a year in which the Pakistani military has opened several fronts against the Taliban in Pakistan, beginning with a campaign in the Swat Valley last spring.

The fighting has cost Pakistan about 2,700 soldiers since 2001, nearly triple the total number of Americans killed in Afghanistan in the same period.

Militants struck back, hitting the military’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, a mosque where military families prayed, and the offices of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in three cities. The number of Pakistani civilians killed last year in Taliban attacks exceeded civilian deaths even in Afghanistan, helping shift public opinion against the militants.

“I think it has become very dramatic that these people are out after them,” the diplomat said.

The fighting — coupled with intense American drone strikes in the western tribal region — has splintered the militant groups, which are now a poisonous mix of Pashtun tribesmen, Arabs, Uzbeks and ethnic Punjabis, known for their brutality against Shiites and their close links to Al Qaeda.

The fracturing is so profound that one Pakistani government official in the tribal region said that the Pakistani Taliban now consisted of several parts operating independently, and that the groups “do not necessarily take orders from Hakimullah Mehsud.” But the widening military campaign has also given them common cause. Operations by the militants have become more fluid. “All these groups are helping each other out and selling their services to the highest bidder,” the diplomat said.

Pakistani officials recognize that the evolving nature of the militants has made them more dangerous — and made the necessity of going after them in North Waziristan increasingly unavoidable. “Their nexus with the Punjabi Taliban have given them greater reach,” a Pakistani law enforcement official said.

But even as there is a growing consensus that North Waziristan is now the source of the problem, there is a continuing debate in the military over when and how to tackle it. Publicly the Pakistani military is saying that it is already fighting on several fronts, and that it does not have the resources to push into North Waziristan for at least several months. Western officials say they believe that the Pakistani military is doing as much as it can under the circumstances.

There is also an understanding that opening a new front in North Waziristan — with its tangle of tribes, Qaeda militants, antistate groups and Haqqani supporters, thought to be in the thousands — will be a formidable task. “To go after Haqqani, it takes a very sizable military operation,” the diplomat said.

But some officials say an operation could come sooner, not least because officers on the ground are calling for it. More frequent attacks emanating from North Waziristan “are likely to lead to a reaction sooner rather than later as field commanders feel the pressure to protect their troops,” said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia program at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Others argue that Pakistan should wait and see how the American-led military offensive in southern Afghanistan plays out this summer. One senior military officer who favors Pakistani military action sooner derisively called that option “sitzkrieg,” Mr. Nawaz said.

Whatever the case, the military would most likely avoid a frontal invasion, some officials suggested, and instead bolster the forces it already maintains in the area, about 10,000 soldiers. Pakistani forces in North Waziristan, which include the paramilitary Frontier Corps, are mostly confined to their barracks.

Despite the prospect of a shift on North Waziristan, there is no apparent change in Pakistan’s attitude toward the leadership council of the Afghan Taliban, which manages the insurgency from in and around the city of Quetta, in southwest Pakistan, several diplomats said.

The Afghan Taliban, under Mullah Muhammad Omar, remains Pakistan’s main tool for leverage in Afghanistan. The arrest of the Taliban’s top operational commander, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in January has not led to a broader crackdown against the Afghan insurgents. “Does it indicate a shift in policy?” the Western diplomat said, referring to the arrest of Mr. Baradar. “No. But it’s still a good thing.”

Sabrina Tavernise and Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan. Pir Zubair contributed reporting from Islamabad.

 

[Bang Galore]

By Ahmed Rashid
Wednesday, May 5, 2010


Information is still emerging about suspected Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen who apparently spent time here from July until February. Court documents indicate that Shahzad received bomb-making training in Waziristan, the known haven of numerous groups and extremists.

Over the past 18 months, Pakistan's army has conducted major offensives in six of the seven tribal agencies that border Afghanistan. But the seventh agency -- North Waziristan -- has been left alone. In part, that is because it is home to the Afghan Taliban networks of Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who have close relations with the military and the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI). It has also been left alone for good tactical, if poor strategic, reasons -- the army has struck deals with the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan not to attack Pakistani forces. Until recently, these deals have held.

But Pakistan's counterterrorism strategy, which has been extensively praised by American generals, is now coming apart at the seams -- all because of North Waziristan.

A sense of despair and helplessness has come to grip the Pakistani public, which faces more suicide bomb attacks each day than even the Afghans next door. Major cities like Peshawar, where more than 100 police officers have been killed this year, are under siege by the Pakistani Taliban. Now it seems Pakistani militants are also involved in global jihad

North Waziristan is the hub of so many terrorist groups and so much terrorist plotting and planning that neither the CIA nor the ISI seems to have much clue about what is going on there. A year ago, the Pakistan Taliban under Baitullah Mehsud ran a semi-disciplined terrorist movement from the tribal areas that bombed and killed Pakistanis with dastardly methodicalness. Mehsud was killed last year in a U.S. drone strike. What is left is anarchy, as groups and splinter groups and splinters of splinters operate from North Waziristan with no overall control by anyone, not even Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Hakimullah Mehsud, a ruthless leader of the Pakistani Taliban pronounced dead by authorities after a U.S. drone strike in January, has turned up alive and well. He was probably hiding out in North Waziristan all these months and nobody knew. In videos released Monday, he promises that "the time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in the major cities." He is ominously flanked by two armed and masked men.

Punjabi extremist groups that were once trained by the military to fight Indian forces in Kashmir have splintered from their mother groups and operate out of North Waziristan in alliance with the Pashtun Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda. Inexplicably, one of these Punjabi groups last week executed Khalid Khawaja, a former ISI officer known for his sympathy for al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Who killed Khawaja and why is still a huge mystery. Was it a case of terror eating its own?

Other militant groups operating out of North Waziristan include vehemently anti-Shiite groups, several Central Asian and Chechen groups, and, by some accounts, Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for the deadly 2008 attack in Mumbai. Training is available for Pakistanis and foreigners who come and go at will. Five young Americans are on trial in Pakistan for trying to reach North Waziristan.

Pakistan's army says it cannot open another front in North Waziristan because it is overstretched and is focusing on its offensives in other agencies. Yet the army just held exercises with 50,000 troops on the Indian border to signal to the international community that it still considers India its main enemy.

In the tribal agencies, the army is also dealing with a quarter-million internal refugees and is engaged in humanitarian relief, reconstruction and the maintenance of supply lines that are regularly ambushed by militants. The tragedy is that the civilian government hasn't offered to take over these tasks -- which it should -- and the army isn't encouraging it to do so. Counterterrorism without a civilian "hold and build" component is meaningless.

What is happening in North Waziristan is having a global impact. Something has to be done about a region that has become an even greater terrorist hub than Afghanistan was before 2001. Pakistan's leaders -- both civil and military -- should take the lead in finding solutions to the problem, as the international community helps Islamabad implement a policy that will clear out this lethal terrorism central.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and a fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy, is most recently the author of "Descent Into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia."

washingtonpost.com