Can the Taliban be toppled ?

[Hung Lo]

Alleged Afghan drug kingpin extradited to N.Y.

Now this is the same thing the CIA did when they helped spread Crack Cocaine into the black neighborhoods.

MSNBC.com

Alleged Afghan drug kingpin extradited to N.Y.
Officials: Taliban-linked figure sought to wage jihad through flood of heroin

The Associated Press
Updated: 6:36 p.m. ET Oct. 24, 2005


NEW YORK - A Taliban-linked drug lord who allegedly sought to poison U.S. streets with millions of dollars of heroin in a deadly “American jihad” has become the first person extradited from Afghanistan to face federal charges, officials said Monday.

Haji Baz Mohammad, one of the world’s “most wanted, most powerful and most dangerous” drug kingpins, had helped finance the Taliban by selling opium since 1990, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Karen Tandy said.

“In return, the Taliban protected Mohammad’s crops, his heroin labs, his drug transportation labs and his associates,” Tandy said after a conspiracy indictment was unsealed accusing Mohammad of smuggling more than $25 million of heroin into the United States and elsewhere.

The defendant was arrested in Afghanistan in January and arrived in the United States on Friday, authorities said.

In his first appearance in court Monday, Mohammad said through an interpreter, “I am innocent.” He was ordered held without bail. His lawyer declined to comment afterward.

Jihad by heroin
According to the indictment, Mohammad told associates at his home in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1990 that selling heroin was a form of jihad, or Islamic holy war, because they were taking money from Americans while giving them something that was killing them.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said drug dealers such as Mohammad seek “to destabilize Afghanistan’s emerging democracy, flood the Western markets with heroin and use their profits to support the Taliban and other terrorist groups.”

The indictment alleged that Mohammad and co-defendant Bashir Ahmad Rahmany had conspired since 1990 with others to violate narcotics laws. Rahmany was arrested in New York in July and is awaiting trial.

The indictment said the two men led an international heroin-trafficking organization responsible for manufacturing and transporting hundreds of pounds of heroin in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The traffickers then arranged for the heroin to be exported to the United States and other countries in suitcases, clothing and containers and sold for tens of millions of dollars, the indictment said.

If convicted, Mohammad and Rahmany face mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years and maximum terms of life in prison.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9807808/

 

[Hung Lo]

Dark Alliance

[FRAME]http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/webb.html[/FRAME]

 

[Hung Lo]

Re: Dark Alliance

[FRAME]http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/121304_gary_webb.shtml[/FRAME]

 

[QueEx]

Re: Dark Alliance

[frame]http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm[/frame]

 

[kingScorpio]

Re: Dark Alliance

how do they file Federal charges against someone who, I assume, has never been in this country?????

 

[African Herbsman]

Re: Dark Alliance

This is America they do what the fuck they want.

 

[Ming Fei Hong]

Re: Dark Alliance

Hmm? Why no mention of Barry Seal in all of this? The cover up continues.

 

[Greed]

Combating Afghanistan's Opium Problem Through Legalization

Combating Afghanistan's Opium Problem Through Legalization
by Corey Flintoff

Morning Edition, December 22, 2005 · The illegal opium trade dominates Afghanistan's economy, enriching drug lords, corrupting officials and weakening the central government. Corey Flintoff looks at a plan that aims to remedy all these problems by licensing growers and making the trade legal. 4 min 4 sec

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5065771

 

[Makkonnen]

LA Times

Data Leaks Persist From Afghan Base
A computer drive sold at a bazaar for $40 may hold the names of spies for the United States who inform on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
By Paul Watson, Times Staff Writer
April 13, 2006

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — A computer drive sold openly Wednesday at a bazaar outside the U.S. air base here holds what appears to be a trove of potentially sensitive American intelligence data, including the names, photographs and telephone numbers of Afghan spies informing on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The flash memory drive, which a teenager sold for $40, holds scores of military documents marked "secret," describing intelligence-gathering methods and information — including escape routes into Pakistan and the location of a suspected safe house there, and the payment of $50 bounties for each Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter apprehended based on the source's intelligence.

ADVERTISEMENT
The documents appear to be authentic, but the accuracy of the information they contain could not be independently verified.

On its face, the information seems to jeopardize the safety of intelligence sources working secretly for U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan, which would constitute a serious breach of security. For that reason, The Times has withheld personal information and details that could compromise military operations.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan said an investigation was underway into what shopkeepers at the bazaar describe as ongoing theft and resale of U.S. computer equipment from the Bagram air base. The facility is the center of intelligence-gathering activities and includes a detention center for suspected members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups flown in from around the world.

"Members of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command are conducting an investigation into potential criminal activity," a statement said.

The top U.S. commander here, Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, has ordered a review of policies and procedures for keeping track of computer hardware and software.

"Coalition officials regularly survey bazaars across Afghanistan for the presence of contraband materials, but thus far have not uncovered sensitive or classified items," the statement added.

The credibility and reliability of some intelligence sources identified in the documents is marked as unknown.

Other operatives, however, appear to be of high importance, including one whose information, the document says, led to the apprehension of seven Al Qaeda suspects in the United States.

One document describes a source as having "people working for him" in 11 Afghan cities. "The potential for success with this contact is unlimited," the report says.

Even the names of people identified as the sources' wives and children are listed — details that could put them at risk of retaliation by insurgents who have boasted about executing dozens of people suspected of spying for U.S. forces.

The drive includes descriptions of Taliban commanders' meetings in neighboring Pakistan and maps of militants' infiltration and escape routes along its border with Afghanistan.

In another folder, there is a diagram of a mosque and madrasa, or Islamic school, where an informant said fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had stayed in Pakistan.

Another document describes in detail how a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the Taliban's former mentors, tried to recruit an Afghan spying for the U.S. by promising him $500 a month.

Some of the documents can't be opened without a password, but most are neither locked nor encrypted.

Numerous files indicate the flash drive may have belonged to a member of the Army's 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), based at Ft. Bragg, N.C. The unit is operating in southern Afghanistan, where a U.S.-led coalition is battling a growing insurgency.

Some of the computer files are dated as recently as this month, while others date to 2004. The clerk who sold the computer drive said an Afghan worker smuggled it out of the Bagram base Tuesday, a day after The Times first reported that military secrets were available at several stalls at the bazaar.

The 1-gigabyte flash drive sold at the bazaar Wednesday is almost full and contains personal snapshots, Special Forces training manuals, records of "direct action" training missions in South America, along with numerous computer slide presentations and documents marked "secret."

There is also a detailed "Site Security Survey" describing the layout of the Special Forces unit's "Low Visibility Operating Base" in southwestern Afghanistan. Another document outlines procedures for defending the base if it comes under attack, and there are several photographs of the walls and areas inside the perimeter.

The drive holds detailed information on a handful of Afghan informants identified by name and the number of contacts with U.S. handlers. In some cases, photographs of the sources are attached.

A report on a spy involved with a code-named operation says the Afghan has been used in "cross border operations." But it cautions that an American officer "has come to the conclusion that Contact may or may not be as security conscious as thought to be or expected."

The report describes a potential "low-level source" who reportedly has "brought in active and inactive Taliban and Al Qaeda associates/operators who have expressed a desire to repatriate/end conflict peacefully."

The man is identified as a former ISI agent in the 1980s, during the U.S.-backed mujahedin war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. He also provided a document on Al Qaeda's cell structure to the CIA, the report adds.

The document also names the man's wife and children and lists his cellphone number.

It describes the informant as very punctual, with a good sense of humor. Politically, it adds, he is "much like a Republican in the United States."

The computer files also provide a rare look at how the U.S. military contracts and pays its Afghan spies, and the commitments they make in signed contracts, written in English.

In a two-page "Record of Oral Commitment," marked "secret" and dated Jan. 28, 2005, a source agreed to work for the U.S. Army by providing information on Al Qaeda, the Taliban and an allied militia, the Hizb-i-Islami, led by fugitive warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

"The source will be paid $15 USD for each mission he completes that has verified information," the agreement stipulates. "This sum will not exceed a total of $300 USD in a 1-month period," the report says. The sum rises to $500 a month for information "deemed of very high importance."

And there are serious consequences for any breaches of the commitment, such as failing to disclose information on the terrorist organizations or missing either of two meetings scheduled for each month.

The penalty for "using his new skills to participate in activities that are deemed" anti-U.S. or against the Afghan government is "termination with prejudice," according to the document.

Another document describes how an Afghan informant for the U.S. military said he was contacted by an official from Pakistan's Embassy, who asked the Afghan to spy for the ISI.

A high-level ISI official then offered the Afghan $500 a month and other incentives, the document says.

The report adds that the ISI official "said that he's looking for an U.S. Embassy employee to aid in the bombing of the embassy that [he] is planning." The ISI official promised he would pay the Afghan $100,000 after the destruction of the embassy in Kabul.

The report concludes: "Everything that [Pakistani] told the Source could be made up or inflated as to look good and exciting to the Source; a possible ploy to get the Source to 'sign up' for the ISI…. However, my 'gut' tells me otherwise, and this guy really is trying to recruit my source for the other side."

*

Special correspondent Wesal Zaman in Kabul contributed to this report.

 

[QueEx]

Re: US Special Forces data on sale at Afghan swap meets for $40

I saw this story in an article yesterday or the day before; intended to post it. Pathethic isn't it?

QueEx

 

[Makkonnen]

Re: US Special Forces data on sale at Afghan swap meets for $40

I saw this story in an article yesterday or the day before; intended to post it. Pathethic isn't it?

QueEx

unless they killed some seal and sold his shit at the swapmeet this is pure fuckin stupidity

shit was jampacked with secret documents from shit they were doing in south america too



did u hear about the state dept travelgate shit? the GAO is rippin them a new asshole

 

[glueguy]

Re: Classified US Special Forces data on sale at Afghan swap meets for $40

LA Times

Data Leaks Persist From Afghan Base
A computer drive sold at a bazaar for $40 may hold the names of spies for the United States who inform on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
By Paul Watson, Times Staff Writer
April 13, 2006

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — A computer drive sold openly Wednesday at a bazaar outside the U.S. air base here holds what appears to be a trove of potentially sensitive American intelligence data, including the names, photographs and telephone numbers of Afghan spies informing on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The flash memory drive, which a teenager sold for $40, holds scores of military documents marked "secret," describing intelligence-gathering methods and information — including escape routes into Pakistan and the location of a suspected safe house there, and the payment of $50 bounties for each Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter apprehended based on the source's intelligence.

ADVERTISEMENT
The documents appear to be authentic, but the accuracy of the information they contain could not be independently verified.

On its face, the information seems to jeopardize the safety of intelligence sources working secretly for U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan, which would constitute a serious breach of security. For that reason, The Times has withheld personal information and details that could compromise military operations.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan said an investigation was underway into what shopkeepers at the bazaar describe as ongoing theft and resale of U.S. computer equipment from the Bagram air base. The facility is the center of intelligence-gathering activities and includes a detention center for suspected members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups flown in from around the world.

"Members of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command are conducting an investigation into potential criminal activity," a statement said.

The top U.S. commander here, Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, has ordered a review of policies and procedures for keeping track of computer hardware and software.

"Coalition officials regularly survey bazaars across Afghanistan for the presence of contraband materials, but thus far have not uncovered sensitive or classified items," the statement added.

The credibility and reliability of some intelligence sources identified in the documents is marked as unknown.

Other operatives, however, appear to be of high importance, including one whose information, the document says, led to the apprehension of seven Al Qaeda suspects in the United States.

One document describes a source as having "people working for him" in 11 Afghan cities. "The potential for success with this contact is unlimited," the report says.

Even the names of people identified as the sources' wives and children are listed — details that could put them at risk of retaliation by insurgents who have boasted about executing dozens of people suspected of spying for U.S. forces.

The drive includes descriptions of Taliban commanders' meetings in neighboring Pakistan and maps of militants' infiltration and escape routes along its border with Afghanistan.

In another folder, there is a diagram of a mosque and madrasa, or Islamic school, where an informant said fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had stayed in Pakistan.

Another document describes in detail how a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the Taliban's former mentors, tried to recruit an Afghan spying for the U.S. by promising him $500 a month.

Some of the documents can't be opened without a password, but most are neither locked nor encrypted.

Numerous files indicate the flash drive may have belonged to a member of the Army's 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), based at Ft. Bragg, N.C. The unit is operating in southern Afghanistan, where a U.S.-led coalition is battling a growing insurgency.

Some of the computer files are dated as recently as this month, while others date to 2004. The clerk who sold the computer drive said an Afghan worker smuggled it out of the Bagram base Tuesday, a day after The Times first reported that military secrets were available at several stalls at the bazaar.

The 1-gigabyte flash drive sold at the bazaar Wednesday is almost full and contains personal snapshots, Special Forces training manuals, records of "direct action" training missions in South America, along with numerous computer slide presentations and documents marked "secret."

There is also a detailed "Site Security Survey" describing the layout of the Special Forces unit's "Low Visibility Operating Base" in southwestern Afghanistan. Another document outlines procedures for defending the base if it comes under attack, and there are several photographs of the walls and areas inside the perimeter.

The drive holds detailed information on a handful of Afghan informants identified by name and the number of contacts with U.S. handlers. In some cases, photographs of the sources are attached.

A report on a spy involved with a code-named operation says the Afghan has been used in "cross border operations." But it cautions that an American officer "has come to the conclusion that Contact may or may not be as security conscious as thought to be or expected."

The report describes a potential "low-level source" who reportedly has "brought in active and inactive Taliban and Al Qaeda associates/operators who have expressed a desire to repatriate/end conflict peacefully."

The man is identified as a former ISI agent in the 1980s, during the U.S.-backed mujahedin war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. He also provided a document on Al Qaeda's cell structure to the CIA, the report adds.

The document also names the man's wife and children and lists his cellphone number.

It describes the informant as very punctual, with a good sense of humor. Politically, it adds, he is "much like a Republican in the United States."

The computer files also provide a rare look at how the U.S. military contracts and pays its Afghan spies, and the commitments they make in signed contracts, written in English.

In a two-page "Record of Oral Commitment," marked "secret" and dated Jan. 28, 2005, a source agreed to work for the U.S. Army by providing information on Al Qaeda, the Taliban and an allied militia, the Hizb-i-Islami, led by fugitive warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

"The source will be paid $15 USD for each mission he completes that has verified information," the agreement stipulates. "This sum will not exceed a total of $300 USD in a 1-month period," the report says. The sum rises to $500 a month for information "deemed of very high importance."

And there are serious consequences for any breaches of the commitment, such as failing to disclose information on the terrorist organizations or missing either of two meetings scheduled for each month.

The penalty for "using his new skills to participate in activities that are deemed" anti-U.S. or against the Afghan government is "termination with prejudice," according to the document.

Another document describes how an Afghan informant for the U.S. military said he was contacted by an official from Pakistan's Embassy, who asked the Afghan to spy for the ISI.

A high-level ISI official then offered the Afghan $500 a month and other incentives, the document says.

The report adds that the ISI official "said that he's looking for an U.S. Embassy employee to aid in the bombing of the embassy that [he] is planning." The ISI official promised he would pay the Afghan $100,000 after the destruction of the embassy in Kabul.

The report concludes: "Everything that [Pakistani] told the Source could be made up or inflated as to look good and exciting to the Source; a possible ploy to get the Source to 'sign up' for the ISI…. However, my 'gut' tells me otherwise, and this guy really is trying to recruit my source for the other side."

*

Special correspondent Wesal Zaman in Kabul contributed to this report.

oh shit i heard this on npr tonight driving home from the gym but I thought maybe I heard the report wrong. well we wanted to bring democracy and capatalism.
fuck it

 

[QueEx]

Re: Classified US Special Forces data on sale at Afghan swap meets for $40

<font size="5"><center>Army Moving to Secure Data at Afghan Base</font size>
<font size="4">After reports of thefts, the chief of staff says troops
are being trained in the proper use and
protection of computer memory drives.</font size></center>

Los Angeles Times
By Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writer
April 27, 2006


WASHINGTON — The Army's chief of staff said Wednesday that he was frustrated by security lapses at Bagram air base in Afghanistan that led to the loss of potentially sensitive data, and that the military must learn how to be more careful with new technology.

Weeks after revelations that flash drives carrying sensitive and classified information have turned up for sale in a bazaar outside Bagram, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said the Army was trying to improve how soldiers used and secured flash drives.

"We have been working hard to educate the force to develop policies to make sure everyone understands what the vulnerabilities are," he said.

A market for used computer memory drives has sprung up outside the Bagram base. On April 10, The Times reported that drives being sold at a marketplace just outside the base gate contained documents and files labeled as secret. Although some of the information had been deleted, it was easily reconstructed with software available on the Internet.

Documents on some of the drives appeared to contain the names, photographs and telephone numbers of Afghan informants aiding U.S. forces.

After the disclosure, the military began a criminal investigation and tightened security at the base. But last weekend, more drives with sensitive data were again being sold at the Bagram bazaar. One smuggler told The Times that he sold four memory drives to a local shopkeeper after a shift change Sunday afternoon.

At the request of military officials, The Times on Wednesday returned the flash drives it had purchased at the Bagram bazaar.

U.S. military officials have been vague about the steps they are taking to improve security practices in Afghanistan and throughout the armed forces.

The military is "making all attempts to protect the identities of people who are helping us to defeat the enemy," Col. Thomas Collins, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, wrote in an e-mail.

Collins and other officers familiar with the situation in Bagram said they believed the security improvements made after the first disclosures of stolen drives were working.

Schoomaker's comments came as members of Congress said this week that they wanted to learn more about what commanders were doing to stop the security lapses. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it was disconcerting to learn information was still being stolen, even after the original security crackdown by the military.

"I have to be concerned," he said. "It seems that materials of varying degrees of sensitivity are being pilfered from the base and sold in the markets of Bagram."

Lawmakers say they are having difficulty assessing the extent of potential damage from the sale of the drives from Bagram, which houses a detention and interrogation center for terrorism suspects flown in from around the world.

Reed said he was waiting to hear more from the military about the steps officials were taking to protect Afghans who had been aiding U.S. forces.

Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the thefts had shown the Army one of the "perils of modern warfare."

"The more you are dependent on computers, the more you are at risk of some of the hazards of computers," he said. "You can really have a lot of stuff walk off in something just 3 inches by an inch [long]."

Flash memory drives, also called thumb drives or jump drives, are as common in the military as they are in civilian life. Soldiers are supposed to treat drives that hold classified information as sensitively as a file folder marked "top secret."

Last year, the Army formed an organization called the OpSec Support Element, which has been assigned to renew attention on security. Army officials said that Schoomaker had begun pushing for a new emphasis on operational security, particularly with electronic data.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting of defense writers on Wednesday, Schoomaker said it was not realistic to stop using technology such as flash drives.

"Cellphones, cellphones that take pictures, all of this stuff including things like thumb drives and flash drives, these are great innovations," he said. "But they have tremendous liabilities."

The general, who is known for occasional folksy metaphors, suggested the military must learn to be more careful with what it puts on the drives, and where the drives are left. "You don't put the family cat," he said, "into the microwave."

Reed, who visited Afghanistan in January, said the military was trying to balance security with economic development. Keeping Afghans off the base would cut them off from an important source of jobs, he said. Nevertheless, Reed said the command needed to find a way to prevent loss of military secrets.

"You have this impetus to employ indigenous workers," Reed said. "But then you have the problem if some of them are engaging in theft. That poses a dilemma. And that is the situation we face right now."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...7,0,2091770.story?coll=la-home-headlines[url]

 

[Greed]

TALIBAN GETS BURY LUCKY
By IAN BISHOP

September 13, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Taliban terror leaders who had gathered for a funeral - and were secretly being watched by an eye-in-the-sky American drone - dodged assassination because U.S. rules of engagement bar attacks in cemeteries, according to a shocking report.

U.S. intelligence officers in Afghanistan are still fuming about the recent lost opportunity for an easy kill of Taliban honchos packed in tight formation for the burial, NBC News reported.

The unmanned airplane, circling undetected high overhead, fed a continuous satellite feed of the juicy target to officers on the ground.

"We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture," one U.S. Army officer told NBC.

But that excitement quickly turned to gut-wrenching frustration because the rules of engagement on the ground in Afghanistan blocked the U.S. from mounting a missile or bomb strike in a cemetery, according to the report.

Pentagon officials declined comment and referred The Post to Central Command officers in Afghanistan, who did not respond to a request for comment or explanation.

Agonizingly, Army officers could do nothing but watch the pictures being fed back from the drone as the Taliban splintered into tiny groups - too small to effectively target with the drone - and headed back to their mountainside hideouts.

Military experts told The Post that rules of engagement are constantly adjusted on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, depending on the severity of the threat posed by the enemy.

In Iraq, gun battles have raged inside cemeteries in Fallujah, and once-off-limits mosques are now subject to U.S. searches.

The lost opportunity in Afghanistan came amid a spike in Taliban activity in Afghanistan - a craggy country roughly the size of Texas that poses problems for U.S. troops hunting fighters in remote mountain areas.

Taliban militants have launched their deadliest attacks since the terrorist regime was toppled by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 for providing a sanctuary for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda camps.

U.S. troops and NATO allies recently reclaimed territory in southern Afghanistan from Taliban fighters following a bloody 11-day operation.

NATO leaders announced yesterday the hard fighting killed at least 510 Taliban insurgents.

And American and Afghan forces stormed a fortified compound in the Wardak province to arrest a dozen Taliban leaders who were planning a new wave of attacks.

"Five years ago, the Afghan national army was zero," Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, who heads the training of Afghan soldiers and police, told CNN.

"We now have sufficient forces - that's why there is some tough fighting down in Kandahar."

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/taliban_gets_bury_lucky_worldnews_ian_bishop.htm

 

[QueEx]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

Video from a drone airplane showed Afghan fighters like
this one in a tightly packed formation at a funeral. "We
were so excited," said one officer - but he was prevented
from wiping out the juicy target. Photo: Reuters

these are people of color, Greed

`

 

[Greed]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

Yes, they are people of color and that's why they didn't do anything and are being framed for 9/11.

These people live in caves, they can't fly planes, much less into buildings.

 

[QueEx]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

`

Interesting questions posed on CNN in this matter:

(a) Opportunity missed; or

(b) Catastophy averted ???

QueEx

 

[Makkonnen]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

`

Interesting questions posed on CNN in this matter:

(a) Opportunity missed; or

(b) Catastophy averted ???

QueEx

how about that great al queda wedding party they blew up in iraq?
in afghanistan?

they've killed a shitload of innocent people while "targeting al qaeda from above"


sounds like bullshit to me- mufuckas burned muslim bodies on a hill while shouting on loudspeaker that the taliban are cowards etc -plus will shoot women and children and will rape little girls or kill them with phosphorous bombs but killin osama and his peeps at a funeral is just out of the question

gtfoh

I am selling stock in the brooklyn bridge on ebay- anyone want a link?

 

[Greed]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

of course the US targeted what they knew beforehand was a wedding and not just a group of people that turned out to be just a wedding.

the US is a malignant imperious force after all.

 

[Makkonnen]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

of course the US targeted what they knew beforehand was a wedding and not just a group of people that turned out to be just a wedding.

the US is a malignant imperious force after all.

Exactly, their Ally Mcqaeda sightings on those occassions proved to be bullshit and yet somehow when they had the actual people they wanted in their sights they couldn't kill them because they were in a cemetery and they have too much respect for Taliban cemeteries to kill Taliban leaders on their "holy ground".




Kill them on their holy ground? Hell no
Piss on their Koran, torture them to death? Hell yeah

Even you aren't stupid enough to believe that bullshit.

 

[Greed]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

of course the US targeted what they knew beforehand was a wedding and not just a group of people that turned out to be just a wedding.

the US is a malignant imperious force after all.

 

[Greed]

U.S. declines Taliban funeral target

U.S. declines Taliban funeral target
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
33 minutes ago

The U.S. military acknowledged Wednesday that it considered bombing a group of more than 100 Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan but decided not to after determining they were on the grounds of a cemetery.

The decision came to light after an NBC News correspondent's blog carried a photograph of the insurgents. Defense department officials first tried to block further publication of the photo, then struggled to explain what it depicted.

NBC News claimed U.S. Army officers wanted to attack the ceremony with missiles carried by an unmanned Predator drone but were prevented under rules of battlefield engagement that bar attacks on cemeteries.

In a statement released Wednesday, the U.S. military in Afghanistan said the picture — a grainy black-and-white photo taken in July — was given to a journalist to show that Taliban insurgents were congregating in large groups. The statement said U.S. forces considered attacking.

"During the observation of the group over a significant period of time, it was determined that the group was located on the grounds of (the) cemetery and were likely conducting a funeral for Taliban insurgents killed in a coalition operation nearby earlier in the day," the statement said. "A decision was made not to strike this group of insurgents at that specific location and time."

While not giving a reason for the decision, the military concluded the statement saying that while Taliban forces have killed innocent civilians during a funeral, coalition forces "hold themselves to a higher moral and ethical standard than their enemies."

The photo shows what NBC News says are 190 Taliban militants standing in several rows near a vehicle in an open area of land. Gunsight-like brackets were positioned over the group in the photo.

The photo appeared on NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders' blog. Initially military officials called it an unauthorized release, but they later said it was given to the journalist.

NBC News had quoted one Army officer who was involved with the spy mission as saying "we were so excited" that the group had been spotted and was in the sights of a U.S. drone. But the network quoted the officer, who was not identified, as saying that frustration soon set in after the officers realized they couldn't bomb the funeral under the military's rules of engagement.

Defense Department officials have said repeatedly that while they try to be mindful of religious and cultural sensitivities, they make no promises that such sites can always be avoided in battle because militants often seek cover in those and other civilian sites.

Mosques and similar locations have become frequent sites of violence in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they have often been targets of insurgents and sectarian fighting in Iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060913...SsYRXZK2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

 

[neo_cacos]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

MAN...These AFGAN warriors define the word 'TOUGH'.

THEY'RE STILL HANGING ON AFTER ALL THIS TIME.

I SHOULND'T BE SURPRISED...THEY FOUGHT THE SOVIETS FOR SO LONG.

NEO

 

[QueEx]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

<font size="5"><center>
Abu Laith al-Libi, al-Qaeda chief in
Afghanistan, killed in missile attack</font size></center>

Abu Laith al-Libi, who led Osama bin Laden's terror network
in Afghanistan, was reportedly killed by a US Predator drone
in a tribal area of Pakistan



Times (London) Online
February 1, 2008

A senior al-Qaeda commander who led Osama bin Laden’s terror network in Afghanistan is believed to have been killed by an unmanned Predator missile during a US airstrike on his hideout in Pakistan, officials said today.

Abu Laith al-Libi was reportedly No 5 on a most wanted list drawn up by the CIA. He is said to have masterminded a deadly bombing at an American military base in Afghanistan during a visit by the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, last year.

Pakistani security officials reported that the Libyan commander was one of 13 al-Qaeda militants at a compound in the country’s North Waziristan region when it was destroyed by a missile fired by a US Predator drone early on Tuesday.

American personnel are officially barred from conducting operations in Pakistan, where many of the senior al Qaeda commanders are thought to be based.

Western officials could not confirm that al-Libi, 41, had been killed, but an Islamist website announced his death, saying he had "fallen a martyr on the soil of Muslim Pakistan”.

It is understood that a dozen other people were killed in that attack.

One intelligence official based in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan said: “Al-Libi was there at the time of the strike. No-one survived, we believe he was killed."

The influential commander, who is said to have been behind a series of suicide bomb attacks, had a five-million-dollar bounty on his head.

Al-Libi appeared in several propaganda videos distributed on the internet by al-Qaeda, most recently in April. He has acted as a spokesman for the group, announcing in 2002 that Bin Laden and the Taleban leader Mullah Omar had survived the US invasion of Afghanistan.

The American military offered a $200,000 reward last October for information leading to his capture. It was not the first time he had been targeted by a US rocket attack. In June, he was at the centre of a missile attack on a Taliban compound in Afghanistan's Paktia province. Seven children died, but he survived.

The announcement on Al Fajr Information Centre site said: “We announce the good news to the Islamic world: Sheikh Abu Laith al-Qassimi al Libi has fallen a martyr on the soil of Muslim Pakistan.”

“The sheikh’s martyrdom will only strengthen our fire and burn the enemies of our people,” it said. “We tell the nation of unfaithfulness and the Crusader army that [the Mujahidin] do not die but are killed" in battle.

Al-Libi was at a guesthouse attached to the home of a local Taleban commander, 3km (two miles) from Mir Ali, the second biggest town in North Waziristan, when the missile hit, Pakistani officials said.

Armed militants had prevented local tribesmen from attending the funerals of those killed, and were still blocking off the thickly forested blast site in a sign that a high-profile target was among the dead.

According to Noman Benotman, a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who knew al-Libi, he "became one of the real leaders for al-Qaeda", over the last two or three years.

The Taliban commander who owned the compound, 45-year-old Abdus Sattar, was loyal to one of Pakistan’s most wanted men, Islamist tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud, the sources said.

Pakistani and US officials have blamed Mehsud, who is based in neighbouring South Waziristan, for orchestrating the assassination of the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in December.

Major General Athar Abbas, a Pakistani military spokesman, said earlier today that he could neither confirm nor refute reports about al-Libi’s death, nor could he say where the missile originated from.

“We cannot negate nor confirm because the moment it happened, they removed the bodies and buried them. So, how would anybody confirm who got killed?” Mr Abbas said.

In Washington, a Western official who asked not to be identified said there were“very strong indications” that Libi had been killed but provided no further details.

Asked about the reports, the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said: “I don’t have anything definitive for you on that."

Al-Libi is the first senior al-Qaeda leader to be killed in two years, and his death will be seen as a boost to the flagging US campaign in the region. Previous US missile attacks have claimed the lives of several high-up militants in Pakistan.

In December 2005, a senior operational planner, Abu Hamza Rabia, was killed in a Predator attack in North Waziristan, not far from where al-Libi is believed to have died.

In January 2006, a US Predator targeted al-Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, number two on the most wanted list after bin Laden, killing several rebels and civilians but missing him and sparking protests in Pakistan.

The country has repeatedly complained of foreign military action on its territory.

A longtime jihadist, al-Libi was also leader of the now-defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, opposed to the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. He was named in al-Qaeda videos as a senior field commander in Afghanistan and linkman with Taliban insurgents.

According to the American authorities, he masterminded the suicide bombing that killed 23 people outside Bagram air base in Afghanistan during a visit by Mr Cheney in February 2007.

He also appeared in a video posted on the internet last May to say that al Qaeda was prepared to consider exchanges of prisoners with Western nations, singling out radical clerics under arrest in the UK.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3287583.ece

 

[QueEx]

Re: Taliban Gets Bury Lucky

<font size="3">
Is the reported killing of Abu Laith
al-Libi just a PR stunt by the US ?
</font size>

[WM]http://publish.vx.roo.com/g6publish/common/playlist/asxgeneratorportal.aspx?siteId=353a7de1-1ffc-407c-a7ef-b1d0a78f0fd7&clipId=1152_timesonline0414&channel=Times%20Online%20News&Bitrate=300&ads=&rowCount=60&v=2806&thumbnailtypecode=&relateLink=&CutomTitleInfoDateFormat=[/WM]

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
Fears rise that key Pakistani city
will fall to Islamic militants</font size></center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Saeed Shah
Friday, June 27, 2008

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Heavily armed Islamic militants have massed on the outskirts of Peshawar, the strategic provincial capital in northwest Pakistan, and the Pakistani government has dramatically stepped up security around the city amid fears that it could fall.

Taliban groups and other extremist warlords now threaten Peshawar from three sides. Should they take over Peshawar, the rest of the North West Frontier Province could follow, leaving Islamic extremists in control of a region that borders Afghanistan and sits astride one of the main supply routes to U.S. and coalition troops there.

Residents of Peshawar, a city of 3 million, have become alarmed at recent developments. Militants have begun entering Peshawar to threaten record shops and other businesses of which they disapprove. Last week, a band of warriors loyal to warlord Mangal Bagh arrived in Peshawar in pick-up trucks and kidnapped a group of Christians, whom they released 12 hours later.

The government has deployed a paramilitary force to guard Peshawar's boundaries, sent in police from other provinces and put the army on standby.

Malik Naveed Khan, the provincial police chief, acknowledged in an interview that "no-go" areas for police had sprung up around some major cities, but he said the situation had been brought "under control" this week.

Khan said the new security arrangement for Peshawar includes 27 platoons of a paramilitary force called the Frontier Constabulary — around 800 men drafted from other provinces — new vehicles and armored personnel carriers.

Rehman Malik, who runs Pakistan's Interior Ministry, has held two emergency meetings with provincial officials and Pakistan's top political and military leaders. On Wednesday, General Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief, was authorized to direct any military operation, including police and paramilitary forces, in the Frontier Province or the tribal belt that borders Afghanistan.

"The civilians (government) will give the go-ahead. Whenever an operation starts, the army chief will be overall in charge," said Maj. Gen Athar Abbas, the spokesman for Pakistan's army.

The situation in Peshawar, a two-hour drive from the national capital of Islamabad, is challenging the new Pakistani government's controversial policy of pulling back the army and seeking peace deals with the militants. Until a few weeks ago, Islamabad had been caught up in its own political crisis, according to provincial government officials who said their pleas for help had fallen on deaf ears.

"(The central) government has not got to grips with the problem," said one provincial government official who decline to be quoted, because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. "Things have moved fast and unpredictably. Last month we drew up a plan for the defense of Peshawar. We have a vast area to defend, and our forces are thinly spread. They (the militants) have mobility and guerrilla tactics."

Provincial government officials point to the fate of Swat, a valley in the Frontier Province that extremists overran for several months last year, requiring a full-scale army operation to dislodge them. Peshawar, which has an army garrison, would be a much greater challenge for the insurgents.

The provincial government is now considering arming local citizens' groups to act as the first line of defense against extremists, one official said.

Baitullah Mehsud, based in South Waziristan in the tribal areas, heads Pakistan's version of Afghanistan's Taliban, with a following of warlords across the tribal belt and in Swat, but some Islamist militants such as Mangal Bagh are independent operators.

Mangal Bagh and his Lashkar-e-Islam movement, which appears to have thousands of militia members, most immediately threatens Peshawar from the Khyber area to the West, while the Taliban-infested districts of Mohmand and Darra Adam Khel lie to the city's north and south.

Until the bolstering of security this week, 25 villages around Shabqadar, that lie between Peshawar, Mohmand and Charsadda, had become too dangerous to patrol, said Khan, the police chief.

"We sensitized the government to the problem. We told them that, if we don't take action, things can get bad. Now we have charted a plan, and beefed up security," said Khan.

"They (the militants) were testing our mettle. But we will strike back and strike them very hard. We are now firmly entrenched on the ground."

Earlier this week, Baitullah Mehsud's fighters swept into Jandola, a town just inside tribal areas, kidnapped 30 members of a peace meeting and murdered them. In Bajaur, another part of FATA, Friday, hundreds of Taliban assembled to watch the execution of two "American spies." National television showed the militants using a knife to decapitate one man.

(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent)

McClatchy Newspapers 2008


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/42511.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Taliban on verge of capturing Pakistani city

Analysis:

<font size="5"><center>Resurgent Taliban in twin threat to
Afghanistan and Pakistan</font size></center>

Taliban Guerrillas

DEBKAFile
June 28, 2008

Friday, June 28, the Pentagon in Washington warned that “Islamist guerrillas” had “coalesced into a resilient insurgency” in Afghanistan and are likely to “maintain or even increase the scope and pace of their terrorist attacks.”

DEBKAfile’s military sources note that this assessment flies in the face of the CIA director’s optimistic remarks a month ago.

In its first comprehensive report on Afghan security, the Pentagon said insurgent violence had continued to climb despite efforts to capture and kill Taleban leaders. The Afghan army and police were nowhere near able to shoulder the brunt of the war on terror. As of March, only one battalion and one command center were capable of operating independently without US-led NATO support.

Defense secretary Robert Gates again blamed the Pakistan government for fueling the violence by holding talks with Taliban chiefs and their Pashtun tribal sympathizers in the border districts. “Taliban and al Qaeda are freer now to cross the border,” he said. They can build new terrorist units and arm and train them undisturbed in their tribal sanctuaries.

Also Friday, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden announced a $15 billion aid bill for Pakistan over 10 years to promote further steps on the road to democracy.

Simmering Afghan-Pakistan animosity took a turn for the worse this week when Afghan intelligence officials accused the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) of planning and funding the Taliban assassination attempt against Hamid Karzai at a military parade in Kabul on April 27.

Islamabad denied the charge, but the facts drawn by DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources from this and other allegations, which prompted Karzai’s threat to send troops across the border to kill terrorists, point to a new development: The ISI’s support for the Taliban – with or without sanction from the powers-that-be in Islamabad – has returned to its old level. Seven years ago, before the US-led invasion of Afghan deposed the Taliban rulers, Pakistan intelligence backed the Islamist extremist rulers and their allies, al Qaeda.

At the same time, a Pakistan army spokesman announced Saturday, June 28, that a military operation by the paramilitary Frontier Corps is “imminent” against Taliban extremists threatening their main northwestern city Peshawar in the Khyber tribal region.

Khyber is also the main route for US military supplies to neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan therefore faces an acute Taliban peril of its own.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5380

 

[African Herbsman]

Re: Taliban on verge of capturing Pakistani city

Where the U.S. goes, chaos soon follows. Wow.

 

[BlackRob]

Re: Taliban on verge of capturing Pakistani city

Also Friday, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden announced a $15 billion aid bill for Pakistan over 10 years to promote further steps on the road to democracy.

whoa, whoa wait a minute. And the Democrats criticize Bush for wasting money. He wants to give $15 BILLION FOR WHAT??!!

What has Pakistan done to stop the flow of terrorist/Taliban from running across the border committing terrorist acts in Afghanistan all these years?

And how is this $15 billion going to be spent? who monitors it??

Taliban on verge of capturing Pakistani city

Thanks for posting this article. It gives a better idea why US/NATO is having so many problems with the Taliban. They're rearming, resupplying and gaining more men and taking whole cities unfettered by the Pakistani army.

 

[African Herbsman]

Re: Taliban on verge of capturing Pakistani city

And how is this $15 billion going to be spent? who monitors it??

CIA and Pakistani intelligence will funnel the money to the Taliban and give the US more justification to continue this protracted clusterfuck. It's like a revolving door.

 

[QueEx]

Re: Taliban on verge of capturing Pakistani city

<font size="5"><center>Why hasn't the U.S. gone
after Mullah Omar in Pakistan?</font size><font size="4">

For 7 years the Bush administration has pursued al Qaida
but done almost nothing to hunt down the Afghan Taliban
leadership allowing the Taliban to regroup, rearm and recruit
at bases in southwestern Pakistan </font size></center>

McClatchy Newspapers
By Jonathan S. Landay
Sunday, November 16, 2008

WASHINGTON — For seven years, the Bush administration has pursued al Qaida but done almost nothing to hunt down the Afghan Taliban leadership in its sanctuaries in Pakistan, and that's left Mullah Mohammad Omar and his deputies free to direct an escalating war against the U.S.-backed Afghan government.


Taliban Regroup

The administration's decision, U.S. and NATO officials said, has allowed the Taliban to regroup, rearm and recruit at bases in southwestern Pakistan. Since the puritanical Islamic movement's resurgence began in early 2005, it's killed at least 626 U.S.-led NATO troops, 301 of them Americans, along with thousands of Afghans, and handed President-elect Barack Obama a growing guerrilla war with no end in sight.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its highest levels since 2001; the Taliban and other al Qaida-allied groups control large swaths of the south and east; NATO governments are reluctant to send more troops; and Afghan President Hamid Karzai faces an uncertain future amid fears that elections set for next year may have to be postponed.


Is Pakistan Protecting the Taliban?

Nevertheless, a U.S. defense official told McClatchy: "We have not seen any pressure on the Pakistanis" to crack down on Omar and his deputies and close their arms and recruiting networks. Like seven other U.S. and NATO officials who discussed the issue, he requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

"There has never been convergence on a campaign plan against Mullah Omar," said a U.S. military official. The Bush administration, he said, miscalculated by hoping that Omar and his deputies would embrace an Afghan government-run reconciliation effort or "wither away" as their insurgency was destroyed.

Many U.S. and NATO officials, in fact, are convinced that while Pakistan is officially a U.S. ally in the war against Islamic extremism, sympathetic Pakistani army and intelligence officers bent on returning a pro-Pakistan Islamic regime to Kabul are protecting and aiding the Taliban leadership, dubbed the Quetta shura, or council, after its sanctuary in the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta.

Wounded Taliban fighters are treated in Pakistani military hospitals in Baluchistan, and guerrillas who run out of ammunition have been monitored dashing across the frontier of sweeping desert and rolling hills to restock at caches on the Pakistani side, the U.S. and NATO officials said.

"They have free rein down there," said a senior NATO official.

Omar, the one-eyed founder of the Taliban movement that imposed puritanical Islamic rule on Afghanistan with Pakistani and al Qaida support during the 1990s, and bin Laden fled to Pakistan after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Bin Laden and his followers crossed into the Federally Administered Tribal Area, which borders eastern Afghanistan. Omar and his lieutenants crossed into Baluchistan, which abuts the southern Afghan provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, the heartland of the Taliban insurrection, U.S. officials said.

From Baluchistan, Omar and his council are believed to direct the Taliban's broad military and political strategies and to arrange arms and other supplies for their fighters in southern Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

They preside over military, intelligence, political, and religious committees, and also oversee a fund-raising operation in the Pakistani port city of Karachi that raises money across the Muslim world, said a Pentagon adviser on the region, who asked not to be further identified.

Baluchistan also is a major corridor through which Afghan opium, which is refined into heroin, is smuggled to the outside world, providing the Taliban with $60-$80 million a year.


Prioritization

The Bush administration, however, has focused virtually all of its attention, funds and energy on routing al Qaida in the FATA because it considers bin Laden and his organization the main terrorist threat to the United States and its allies, U.S. officials said.

Ronald Neumann, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, said that while the Bush administration urged Pakistan to arrest Taliban leaders, "it did not differentiate" between those in the FATA and those in Baluchistan.

"We did not go after Baluchistan as a separate policy issue," he said.

"The U.S. is still focused primarily on this as a counter-terrorism mission, not a counterinsurgency mission," said the Pentagon advisor. "The primary focus of the United States is still the top threat to the U.S. homeland, and that means al Qaida."

Moreover, the FATA is the base of a bloody insurrection by al Qaida and its Pakistani allies that's increasingly destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan, U.S. officials said.

"There has to be at some point a prioritization of effort," said an official with U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the region. "And right now you have insurgents within FATA who by their own admission are absolutely hell-bent on waging a war against Pakistan."

"So much of our strategy on Pakistan has been settling for the less-than-optimal solution, and this is just one more element of that," said a State Department official.

A senior administration official denied that the administration has ignored the Quetta shura, saying it's pressed Islamabad to act at every high-level meeting. Pakistan has cooperated in operations that killed three top Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, he added.

Yet he conceded that the United States hasn't been "consistent" in pressing for action against the Quetta shura.

The senior NATO official said that while U.S. and European officials routinely demand the arrest of Omar, who has a $10 million bounty on his head, and the Quetta shura, they've never threatened Pakistan with serious consequences if it fails to act.

"All they've done in the last two years is arrest one Taliban leader," he said.

Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the former Taliban defense minister, who was thought to have been close to bin Laden, was placed under house arrest in Quetta in February 2007. It's not known, however, if Akhund, the only top Taliban leader that Pakistani authorities have ever detained, is still being held.

U.S. officials said that Pakistani authorities might be reluctant to pursue Omar to avoid fanning further unrest and lawlessness in Baluchistan, Pakistan's least-developed and most sparsely populated province, where a low-level tribal insurrection has flared for years.

Pakistani security forces have been overstretched by the Islamic insurgency being waged by al Qaida-allied Pakistani extremists based in the remote tribal area north of Baluchistan, they noted.

Some experts, however, said that Pakistan could neutralize Omar and his council by arresting several prominent members and ordering the rest back to Afghanistan.

"It would be relatively easy for the Pakistani authorities to quietly arrest some of the leading members. I don't think you need major military offensives," said Ahmad Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and authority on the Taliban. "Everybody knows where they are."

The senior administration official, however, said that Omar's location is uncertain, and that it would be difficult for Pakistani authorities to arrest him or his deputies because that likely would mean raiding Afghan refugee camps controlled by heavily armed Taliban supporters.

Obama has pledged to give top priority to ending the bloodshed in Afghanistan and stabilizing Pakistan. He's said that he'll boost the 61,000-strong U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan by as many as 20,000 more U.S. troops and pursue al Qaida more aggressively.

U.S. officials and other experts, however, warned that no Afghan strategy can succeed unless the United States and its allies do more to convince Pakistan to arrest or expel the Taliban and close its bases in Baluchistan.


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/55947.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Taliban on verge of capturing Pakistani city

<font size="5"><center>
Taliban send a bloody warning</font size></center>


Asia Times
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
February 13, 2009


ISLAMABAD - The Taliban made their bloody presence felt in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday with a daring attack that claimed the lives of at least 26 people, with up to 60 injured.

Suicide bombers and gunmen, reminiscent of the Pakistan-linked terror attack on the Indian city of Mumbai last November, stormed heavily guarded government ministries near the presidential palace, making an unequivocal statement that they are a factor to be reckoned with as Western-led nations scramble to contain the Taliban insurgency and find a way to protect supply lines into Afghanistan.

The attack, the most complex and brazen in the capital since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, involved five armed militants storming the Ministry of Justice building in a crowded downtown area, killing some workers and taking others hostage. Afghan security forces exchanged gunfire for hours before freeing the hostages and killing all of the insurgents. At the same time, suicide bombers attacked a Prison Affairs office in the north of the city, while a gunman opened fire outside the Education Ministry before being killed by police.

The attack came a day ahead of a visit by Richard Holbrooke, the new United States special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and can be seen as a clear statement that even while furious diplomatic activity is taking place involving among others Washington and Moscow, the Taliban voice will be heard.


Obama Administration Response

The administration of US President Barack Obama, along with Britain, which has appointed Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles as its envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, are attempting to strengthen Pakistan's role against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as trying to bring India into the fold of their strategic partnership.

A spokesman for the Taliban was reported to have claimed responsibility for the incident, saying it was revenge for the mistreatment of Taliban prisoners by Afghan authorities.

Initial inquires point towards Sirajuddin Haqqani, along with other groups including Arab and Pakistani militants. Haqqani's network is the most resourceful and the strongest component of the Taliban-led Afghan resistance with long-standing links to Pakistan.

The attack comes as something of a surprise as it was widely believed that the Taliban would lie relatively low ahead of this year's spring offensive. In the meanwhile, various diplomatic initiatives are underway for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces to be fully prepared come April.


Russian connection

The Obama administration went the extra mile to achieve this task by unofficially using the services of veteran Henry Kissinger, a former US national security advisor and secretary of state, to deal with Russia. Kissinger has been dealing with Moscow on START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) negotiations as the accord expires in December this year.

On the sidelines of this past weekend's 45th Munich Security Conference, Kissinger was instrumental in making a deal with Russia under which the most Russian-influenced Central Asian republic, Kazakhstan, agreed to refine and supply 100% of the oil needed for NATO in Afghanistan. Currently, 90% of the oil is supplied by Pakistani refineries, with 5% coming from Azerbaijan and the rest via other Central Asian sates.


The Coming Offensive?

Russia has also tacitly agreed to allow NATO's military supplies to pass through its territory as routes through Pakistan are being severely disrupted. In return, Moscow would expect NATO expansion into Europe to stop and that other defense-related issues in Europe would take into consideration Russian demands.

On the battlefields in Pakistan and Afghanistan, meanwhile, plans are afoot to launch the strongest offensive yet against militants. This could begin once Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani returns to Pakistan from the United States where he will discuss in detail the dynamics of the militancy and enhanced cooperation between Islamabad and Washington.

Holbrooke has already met with the leadership of the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif and is expected to persuade Sharif from supporting a potentially politically destabilizing lawyers' movement in March against the government.

Pakistan is continuing its efforts to curtail militants in Khyber Agency, where they are causing havoc with the bulk of the NATO supplies that pass through the area on the way to Afghanistan. The next plan is to target the Taliban in Mohmand Agency, Bajaur Agency and the Swat Valley, as well as in North Waziristan and the South Waziristan, which serve as vital bases for the Taliban's efforts in Afghanistan.

In recent weeks, the Pakistani Taliban have stepped up attacks on Pakistani cities as advance warning to the Pakistani security apparatus not to implement any joint US-Pakistan operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. These are expected to reach deep inside Pakistani territory.

In this vicious cycle, new responses could emerge in coming days, such as attacks in Islamabad, where security has been tightened to unprecedented levels. Such a development in the capital of the most important non-NATO ally would be devastating.

Across the border in India, there are also murmurings of al-Qaeda terror cells exploding into action to deter India from aligning with Western forces against the Taliban-led resistance in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda assesses 2009 as the year in which it could fight its fiercest - if not decisive - battle: the flames of war could flare at any time, anywhere.


Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KB13Df01.html

 

[Makkonnen]

Re: Taliban on verge of capturing Pakistani city

anyone gettin the vietnam vibe yet?

stupid shit

they shoulda just periodically bombed the fuck out of the whole country- cheaper and safer
nuke em and say the taliban did it

 

[MASTERBAKER]

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Can the Taliban be toppled ?

CLOSE [X] Featured on Morning Joe on Mar 13th 2009.

What will unfold in Afghanistan and Pakistan ... ?

Dexter Filkins of the NY Times why Pakistan is the key in defeating the Taliban and whether or not US can win the war in Afghanistan.


Source LINK:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/29675416#29675416

 

[Lamarr]

Bring the troops home NOW! The more important question is: How long will China continue to finance our increasing debt?