The Washington Post
07/26/2010
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Need to get the link for this but posting it now because I don't want the report to get lost in my file cabinet.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Much of Pakistan's water shortage their own making
Associated Press via The Washington Post; July 26, 2010
ISLAMABAD -- Besides grappling with insurgents, suicide bombers and deep poverty, Pakistan is facing a severe crisis as a ballooning population and inefficient farming combine to reduce the availability of water.
Up to a third of Pakistan's 175 million people lack safe drinking water and nearly 630 children die each day from diarrhea, according to a study done last year by the U.S.-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Water availability per person in Pakistan has fallen from about 5,000 cubic meters (175,000 cubic feet) in 1947, when the country was founded, to around 1,000 cubic meters (35,000 cubic feet) today.
Most of the drop is the result of a population that has more than quadrupled since independence, but many scientists predict global warming could have a significant impact by shrinking the glaciers that feed Pakistan's rivers.
Experts also point to inefficient irrigation methods in Pakistan as a key factor.
At least 90 percent of Pakistan's water is used for farming, and around 25 percent is wasted by farms that use flood irrigation, according to last year's study.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Allegedly some Taliban now calling themselves emirs; plus, summary of Obama's Af-Pak strategy
Anything AQ collaborator ex-ISI chief Hamid Gul says has to be taken with a grain of salt but for what it's worth:
ANI
07/17/2010
ANI
07/17/2010
A former director-general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has said that U.S.President Barack Obama will pull out American troops from Afghanistan for economic reasons rather than for strategic ones because his administration would find the ongoing surge unsustainable.
Speaking in an interview to ANI, Hamid Gul, who was the ISI chief from 1987 to 1989, said: "I think by the end of the year Obama will come up with another policy, and they are going to pull out of Afghanistan because it is not sustainable economically, casualty-wise and Taliban are winning on every front."
Gul further opined that those fighting the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan, should not be referred to as the Taliban, but as champions of a national resistance.
"They are not Taliban, this is Afghan national resistance, and any case, they have dropped the word Taliban already. They call it the Emirate of Islamic Afghanistan. So, that is what their official name is," he said.
So, when that thing happens, that monumental, historical event takes place, then we will be left with no choice, both India and Pakistan, to remove our friction and all these things," he added.
President Obama's AFPAK strategy was announced in 2009, and the cornerstone of it is adopting a regional approach.
The strategy aims to treat Afghanistan and Pakistan as two countries, but with one challenge in one region.
The strategy focuses more intensively on Pakistan than in the past, and calls for more significant increases in U.S. and international support, both economic and military, linked to performance against terror.
It also intends to pursue intensive regional diplomacy involving all key players in South Asia and engage countries in a new trilateral framework as - at the highest levels of the countries, being Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States.
Together, this trilateral format hopes to enhance intelligence sharing, military cooperation along the border, and address common issues such as trade, energy and economic development.
From a military aspect, the strategy has approved the sending of an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, besides deploying approximately 4,000 more U.S. troops to help train the Afghan National Security Forces so that they can increasingly take responsibility for the security of the Afghan people themselves, which is Washington's ultimate goal.
Ethnic divide threatens in Afghanistan
Ethnic divide threatens in Afghanistan
Memories of a devastating civil war along ethnic lines have been heightened and fears raised by President Hamid Karzai's bid to reach out to the largely Pashtun Taliban.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times
July 17, 2010
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — The sunbaked, shell-pocked ruins of west Kabul stand as silent testament to what happened the last time Afghanistan splintered along ethnic lines.
The country's disastrous civil war in the early 1990s — a conflict that killed at least 100,000 people and helped set the stage for the Taliban's rise to power — reduced whole swaths of the capital to rubble, leaving scars on the landscape that reconstruction efforts have yet to erase.
Memories linger too — stirred, these days, by steadily rising ethnic tensions amid President Hamid Karzai's bid to reach out to the Taliban.
Unconvinced of the United States' staying power in Afghanistan, Karzai is seeking a rapprochement with the Taliban movement, with the ultimate goal of drawing it into the political process. But his overtures have raised alarm among those who fear such a result could realign power along ethnic lines.
The Taliban movement is drawn almost solely from Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. And leaders of the country's other significant minorities — Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras — are worried they may be left out in the cold as Karzai moves to woo insurgents and consolidate his base of support among fellow Pashtuns.
"I think Karzai feels that his power is not 100% stable anymore, and for that reason, he needs to reach out to the armed opposition," said lawmaker Shukria Barakzai. "That seems to be the motivation."
It is a change in strategy for the Afghan leader who, last summer, sought reelection by trying to forge alliances across the ethnic spectrum. But massive election fraud tainted his victory, and in his weakened state, he has found himself unable to deliver on campaign promises.
Some of those allies are now distancing themselves — or breaking outright with the Afghan leader. This month, the influential Hazara politician Haji Mohammed Mukhaqiq, a onetime backer, delivered a blistering condemnation of Karzai at a rally, calling his presidency illegitimate.
Mukhaqiq's immediate ire was raised by Karzai's inability to push through the confirmation of two Hazara Cabinet nominees. But Hazaras, who were the target of communal massacres during the Taliban's reign, have for months listened with alarm to the president's increasingly conciliatory references to the Taliban as "disaffected brothers."
The Afghan leader has promised to seek talks only with insurgent figures who renounce violence, reject ties to groups such as Al Qaeda and pledge to respect the Afghan Constitution and its enshrinement of principles such as the rights of women.
But Western diplomats question whether those tenets are enforceable in the type of back-channel contacts that have been taking place for at least a year, and it is widely recognized that a Western troop drawdown will probably hinge on movement toward some kind of political settlement with the Taliban.
American influence over Karzai's actions has been weakened by a perception that the U.S.-led military effort is floundering, as exemplified by delays in a much-vaunted effort to reassert government authority in the key southern city of Kandahar, and the abrupt change in command of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces.
Amid a growing sense of a power structure in flux, ethnic politics have moved to the fore. One pointed recent example was Karzai's ouster of intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, who was well regarded by the West. Saleh, an ethnic Tajik, had voiced serious qualms about Karzai's courting of the Taliban with measures such as releases of jailed Taliban suspects, a plan that won the endorsement of a peace jirga, or assembly, convened last month.
Those prisoner releases, which have begun, horrified many in Afghanistan's security establishment, who believed that Karzai was granting the insurgents a major concession while getting nothing in return. Moreover, some of those who have walked out the prison gates, or are slated to do so soon, were captured at considerable risk to the lives of Afghan and coalition forces.
Another leading critic of Karzai's reconciliation strategy is Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister who is now the informal leader of the opposition. Abdullah, the second-place vote-getter in August's polling, qualified for a runoff with Karzai, but quit the race in disgust, declaring there was no way the presidential balloting could be conducted fairly.
On Karzai's recent visits to Kandahar, his home province, the president's references to the Taliban had gone well beyond the fraternal, Abdullah said.
"It's not just the language he has used for months about 'disaffected brothers'; now he says, 'Talib-jan,' which is like calling them 'darling,'" said Abdullah, who is half-Pashtun but has a primarily Tajik political identity. "To me, it shows the lack of a sense of direction and vision."
Just as the Karzai-Abdullah election struggle had ethnic overtones, tensions may reemerge with the current campaign for parliamentary elections, which are to be held in September. This month, an oversight body ejected 31 candidates from the races because of ties to armed groups.
Some, like Pashtun lawmaker Daoud Sultanzoy, believe ethnic-based electioneering is a cynical ploy by power brokers eager to exploit divisions to claim a share of patronage spoils for themselves.
"Much of the time, ordinary Afghans from different groups, different tribes, can get along, because there is a sense of commonality in the hardship of their lives," Sultanzoy said. "But there is what I call a 'merchant class' of politicians who want to fan the ethnic fires for their own benefit."
Ethnic rivalries are mirrored too in the ranks of the country's armed forces, which are crucial to Western hopes that Afghanistan can one day assume responsibility for its own security and foreign troops can withdraw.
The Afghan army's officer corps is dominated by Tajiks, who made up the core of the Northern Alliance, the U.S.-allied group that helped bring down the Taliban — and to this day are deeply mistrustful of Pakistan, whose intelligence service helped create and nurture the Taliban movement.
Many see the hand of Pakistan in Karzai's efforts to bring the Taliban to the bargaining table, and believe the Islamabad government is meddling in policy decisions, such as Karzai's removing of Saleh, the intelligence chief, who was a harsh critic of Pakistani ties to insurgent figures.
The wariness is particularly pronounced among non-Pashtuns, who fear that Pakistan will try to broker a peace deal with the Taliban that will guarantee its own continuing influence and counter that of India.
"Mr. Karzai has been unable to reduce Pakistani interference, and now it seems he welcomes it," said lawmaker Fazal Karim Aymaq, a member of the minority Aymaq ethnic group in northern Afghanistan. "So once again we will see Afghanistan used as a pawn."
laura.king@latimes.com
Memories of a devastating civil war along ethnic lines have been heightened and fears raised by President Hamid Karzai's bid to reach out to the largely Pashtun Taliban.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times
July 17, 2010
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — The sunbaked, shell-pocked ruins of west Kabul stand as silent testament to what happened the last time Afghanistan splintered along ethnic lines.
The country's disastrous civil war in the early 1990s — a conflict that killed at least 100,000 people and helped set the stage for the Taliban's rise to power — reduced whole swaths of the capital to rubble, leaving scars on the landscape that reconstruction efforts have yet to erase.
Memories linger too — stirred, these days, by steadily rising ethnic tensions amid President Hamid Karzai's bid to reach out to the Taliban.
Unconvinced of the United States' staying power in Afghanistan, Karzai is seeking a rapprochement with the Taliban movement, with the ultimate goal of drawing it into the political process. But his overtures have raised alarm among those who fear such a result could realign power along ethnic lines.
The Taliban movement is drawn almost solely from Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. And leaders of the country's other significant minorities — Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras — are worried they may be left out in the cold as Karzai moves to woo insurgents and consolidate his base of support among fellow Pashtuns.
"I think Karzai feels that his power is not 100% stable anymore, and for that reason, he needs to reach out to the armed opposition," said lawmaker Shukria Barakzai. "That seems to be the motivation."
It is a change in strategy for the Afghan leader who, last summer, sought reelection by trying to forge alliances across the ethnic spectrum. But massive election fraud tainted his victory, and in his weakened state, he has found himself unable to deliver on campaign promises.
Some of those allies are now distancing themselves — or breaking outright with the Afghan leader. This month, the influential Hazara politician Haji Mohammed Mukhaqiq, a onetime backer, delivered a blistering condemnation of Karzai at a rally, calling his presidency illegitimate.
Mukhaqiq's immediate ire was raised by Karzai's inability to push through the confirmation of two Hazara Cabinet nominees. But Hazaras, who were the target of communal massacres during the Taliban's reign, have for months listened with alarm to the president's increasingly conciliatory references to the Taliban as "disaffected brothers."
The Afghan leader has promised to seek talks only with insurgent figures who renounce violence, reject ties to groups such as Al Qaeda and pledge to respect the Afghan Constitution and its enshrinement of principles such as the rights of women.
But Western diplomats question whether those tenets are enforceable in the type of back-channel contacts that have been taking place for at least a year, and it is widely recognized that a Western troop drawdown will probably hinge on movement toward some kind of political settlement with the Taliban.
American influence over Karzai's actions has been weakened by a perception that the U.S.-led military effort is floundering, as exemplified by delays in a much-vaunted effort to reassert government authority in the key southern city of Kandahar, and the abrupt change in command of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces.
Amid a growing sense of a power structure in flux, ethnic politics have moved to the fore. One pointed recent example was Karzai's ouster of intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, who was well regarded by the West. Saleh, an ethnic Tajik, had voiced serious qualms about Karzai's courting of the Taliban with measures such as releases of jailed Taliban suspects, a plan that won the endorsement of a peace jirga, or assembly, convened last month.
Those prisoner releases, which have begun, horrified many in Afghanistan's security establishment, who believed that Karzai was granting the insurgents a major concession while getting nothing in return. Moreover, some of those who have walked out the prison gates, or are slated to do so soon, were captured at considerable risk to the lives of Afghan and coalition forces.
Another leading critic of Karzai's reconciliation strategy is Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister who is now the informal leader of the opposition. Abdullah, the second-place vote-getter in August's polling, qualified for a runoff with Karzai, but quit the race in disgust, declaring there was no way the presidential balloting could be conducted fairly.
On Karzai's recent visits to Kandahar, his home province, the president's references to the Taliban had gone well beyond the fraternal, Abdullah said.
"It's not just the language he has used for months about 'disaffected brothers'; now he says, 'Talib-jan,' which is like calling them 'darling,'" said Abdullah, who is half-Pashtun but has a primarily Tajik political identity. "To me, it shows the lack of a sense of direction and vision."
Just as the Karzai-Abdullah election struggle had ethnic overtones, tensions may reemerge with the current campaign for parliamentary elections, which are to be held in September. This month, an oversight body ejected 31 candidates from the races because of ties to armed groups.
Some, like Pashtun lawmaker Daoud Sultanzoy, believe ethnic-based electioneering is a cynical ploy by power brokers eager to exploit divisions to claim a share of patronage spoils for themselves.
"Much of the time, ordinary Afghans from different groups, different tribes, can get along, because there is a sense of commonality in the hardship of their lives," Sultanzoy said. "But there is what I call a 'merchant class' of politicians who want to fan the ethnic fires for their own benefit."
Ethnic rivalries are mirrored too in the ranks of the country's armed forces, which are crucial to Western hopes that Afghanistan can one day assume responsibility for its own security and foreign troops can withdraw.
The Afghan army's officer corps is dominated by Tajiks, who made up the core of the Northern Alliance, the U.S.-allied group that helped bring down the Taliban — and to this day are deeply mistrustful of Pakistan, whose intelligence service helped create and nurture the Taliban movement.
Many see the hand of Pakistan in Karzai's efforts to bring the Taliban to the bargaining table, and believe the Islamabad government is meddling in policy decisions, such as Karzai's removing of Saleh, the intelligence chief, who was a harsh critic of Pakistani ties to insurgent figures.
The wariness is particularly pronounced among non-Pashtuns, who fear that Pakistan will try to broker a peace deal with the Taliban that will guarantee its own continuing influence and counter that of India.
"Mr. Karzai has been unable to reduce Pakistani interference, and now it seems he welcomes it," said lawmaker Fazal Karim Aymaq, a member of the minority Aymaq ethnic group in northern Afghanistan. "So once again we will see Afghanistan used as a pawn."
laura.king@latimes.com
Sunday, July 11, 2010
"US military begins to link Afghan Taliban to Pakistani terror groups"
US military begins to link Afghan Taliban to Pakistani terror groups
By Bill Roggio
Long War Journal
July 11, 2010
Within the past several days, the US military has begun to publicly identify the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other foreign fighters based in Pakistan, as well as a Pakistani Taliban group, as constituting direct threats to Coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.
In what may be a dramatic shift, the official press releases from the US-led International Security Assistance Force and other Department of Defense outlets published on US military websites are starting to mention specific links between insurgents in Afghanistan and their sponsors in Pakistan.
The shift began on July 3, when ISAF announced that it had captured a Taliban commander, a Taliban facilitator, and two fighters during a raid in the eastern province of Nangarhar. "The commander is directly linked to the Taliban emir of Khugyani district and assisted with the recent influx of Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT) insurgents into the province," ISAF stated in the press release.
Four days later, ISAF reported the capture of another Taliban commander who is tied to Lashkar-e-Taiba operations in Khugyani district in Nangarhar province. "The commander had direct contact with a Taliban commander detained by the security force July 3," ISAF reported on July 7. "He was also directly linked to the overall Taliban emir of Khugyani District and associated with the recent influx of Lashkar-e Tayyiba operatives into the province," ISAF reported on July 7.
In all, two initial press releases and four related stories from ISAF and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs discussed the capture of the two Taliban commanders linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Prior to these six recent press releases, there have been only three official releases that discussed the Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the archives of official military press releases stored at the DVIDS website. Two were issued in December 2008 and one in January 2010. All three releases discussed Lashkar-e-Taiba in relation to the threat to India, however, and not Afghanistan.
Just one day after the US military issued its latest press release on the Lashkar-e-Taiba, it issued another unprecedented press release, this time mentioning a Taliban commander in Ghazni province linked to Pakistani, Arab, and Chechen fighters.
"An Afghan-international security force detained two suspected insurgents in Ghazni province this morning while pursuing a Taliban commander who is responsible for smuggling Pakistani, Chechen and Arab fighters and improvised explosive device materials into Shah Joy District from Pakistan," ISAF stated in a press release.
And today, the US military issued another press release linking Taliban fighters to al Qaeda and a Pakistani Taliban leader coddled by the Pakistani government.
"An Afghan and international security force killed several insurgents and detained two suspected insurgents in Ghazni province yesterday while pursuing a Taliban commander in direct contact with Taliban leadership in Pakistan and associated with al Qaeda and Commander Nazir Group," an ISAF press release stated.
Commander Nazir is none other than Mullah Nazir, the leader of the Wazir Taliban in South Waziristan. Nazir is considered a "good Taliban" leader despite his open support for al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Nazir's own forces carry out attacks inside Afghanistan. Nazir does not support attacks against the Pakistani state but backs terror groups that do, including the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has cut several peace deals with Nazir in the past.
The US military has never mentioned Mullah Nazir before in any of its press releases on Afghanistan.
In the past, the US military has occasionally mentioned Pakistani links to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. For instance, in early 2009, there was a big push to directly name top Afghan Taliban leaders based in Pakistan. But up until today, the US military had yet to officially acknowledge the presence of Chechens in Afghanistan in its press releases. There has been only one mention of Chechens in the military's press releases prior to July 10, and that was related to Chechens in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Although the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Chechen fighters have been operating against Coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan for years, the US military has been hesitant to directly identify these groups. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is supported by Pakistan's military and intelligence services, and Chechen fighters are known to have carried out multiple attacks against Coalition and Afghan forces in northern and eastern Afghanistan for years. In addition, Chechen fighters have been identified in Taliban propaganda videos as carrying out attacks against US combat outposts in Kunar and Nuristan.
While US military and civilian leaders previously have publicly identified Pakistan-based terror groups, such as the Haqqani Network, the Quetta Shura Taliban, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami faction as being direct threats to Afghanistan's security, the recent identification of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups in the official military press releases is significant because it indicates that the military views these groups as a direct threat and has now begun to openly target them.
Sources: [see the site for list of sources and links]
By Bill Roggio
Long War Journal
July 11, 2010
Within the past several days, the US military has begun to publicly identify the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other foreign fighters based in Pakistan, as well as a Pakistani Taliban group, as constituting direct threats to Coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.
In what may be a dramatic shift, the official press releases from the US-led International Security Assistance Force and other Department of Defense outlets published on US military websites are starting to mention specific links between insurgents in Afghanistan and their sponsors in Pakistan.
The shift began on July 3, when ISAF announced that it had captured a Taliban commander, a Taliban facilitator, and two fighters during a raid in the eastern province of Nangarhar. "The commander is directly linked to the Taliban emir of Khugyani district and assisted with the recent influx of Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT) insurgents into the province," ISAF stated in the press release.
Four days later, ISAF reported the capture of another Taliban commander who is tied to Lashkar-e-Taiba operations in Khugyani district in Nangarhar province. "The commander had direct contact with a Taliban commander detained by the security force July 3," ISAF reported on July 7. "He was also directly linked to the overall Taliban emir of Khugyani District and associated with the recent influx of Lashkar-e Tayyiba operatives into the province," ISAF reported on July 7.
In all, two initial press releases and four related stories from ISAF and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs discussed the capture of the two Taliban commanders linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Prior to these six recent press releases, there have been only three official releases that discussed the Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the archives of official military press releases stored at the DVIDS website. Two were issued in December 2008 and one in January 2010. All three releases discussed Lashkar-e-Taiba in relation to the threat to India, however, and not Afghanistan.
Just one day after the US military issued its latest press release on the Lashkar-e-Taiba, it issued another unprecedented press release, this time mentioning a Taliban commander in Ghazni province linked to Pakistani, Arab, and Chechen fighters.
"An Afghan-international security force detained two suspected insurgents in Ghazni province this morning while pursuing a Taliban commander who is responsible for smuggling Pakistani, Chechen and Arab fighters and improvised explosive device materials into Shah Joy District from Pakistan," ISAF stated in a press release.
And today, the US military issued another press release linking Taliban fighters to al Qaeda and a Pakistani Taliban leader coddled by the Pakistani government.
"An Afghan and international security force killed several insurgents and detained two suspected insurgents in Ghazni province yesterday while pursuing a Taliban commander in direct contact with Taliban leadership in Pakistan and associated with al Qaeda and Commander Nazir Group," an ISAF press release stated.
Commander Nazir is none other than Mullah Nazir, the leader of the Wazir Taliban in South Waziristan. Nazir is considered a "good Taliban" leader despite his open support for al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Nazir's own forces carry out attacks inside Afghanistan. Nazir does not support attacks against the Pakistani state but backs terror groups that do, including the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has cut several peace deals with Nazir in the past.
The US military has never mentioned Mullah Nazir before in any of its press releases on Afghanistan.
In the past, the US military has occasionally mentioned Pakistani links to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. For instance, in early 2009, there was a big push to directly name top Afghan Taliban leaders based in Pakistan. But up until today, the US military had yet to officially acknowledge the presence of Chechens in Afghanistan in its press releases. There has been only one mention of Chechens in the military's press releases prior to July 10, and that was related to Chechens in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Although the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Chechen fighters have been operating against Coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan for years, the US military has been hesitant to directly identify these groups. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is supported by Pakistan's military and intelligence services, and Chechen fighters are known to have carried out multiple attacks against Coalition and Afghan forces in northern and eastern Afghanistan for years. In addition, Chechen fighters have been identified in Taliban propaganda videos as carrying out attacks against US combat outposts in Kunar and Nuristan.
While US military and civilian leaders previously have publicly identified Pakistan-based terror groups, such as the Haqqani Network, the Quetta Shura Taliban, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami faction as being direct threats to Afghanistan's security, the recent identification of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups in the official military press releases is significant because it indicates that the military views these groups as a direct threat and has now begun to openly target them.
Sources: [see the site for list of sources and links]
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Former Pakistani PM urges Pakistan neutrality on Afghanistan
Sharif urges Pakistan neutrality on Afghanistan
By ASIF SHAHZAD - Associated Press via Dawn, 6 July 2010:
By ASIF SHAHZAD - Associated Press via Dawn, 6 July 2010:
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan should stop trying to influence affairs in Afghanistan, the opposition leader said Tuesday, while admitting that the pro-Afghan Taliban policy he pursued when he was prime minister in the 1990s was a failure.
Nawaz Sharif's comments come as he tries to gain political traction and deflect criticism that his party is beholden to extremist elements. Just last week, he pushed the government to open talks with elements of the Pakistani Taliban, and the ruling party agreed to his proposal to hold a national conference on stopping terrorism.
The remarks also come as Pakistan tries to weigh in on reconciliation efforts between Afghanistan's government, the U.S. and the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan's historical interest in Afghanistan is largely a result of its desire to assert itself in the region and attain a strategic advantage over archrival India.
In an interview with Pakistan's Dunya TV that aired Monday and Tuesday, Sharif appeared to renounce a policy he pursued with vigor while twice prime minister in the 1990s. Back then, Pakistan openly supported the Afghan Taliban movement as it pushed out other armed factions such as the Northern Alliance and gained control of Kabul.
"Pakistan should abandon this thinking that Pakistan has to keep influence in Afghanistan," said Sharif, who heads the Pakistan Muslim League-N party. "Neither will they accept influence, nor should the pro-influence-minded people here insist on it."
"Our policy in the past has failed. Neither will such a policy work in future. We have a centuries-old relationship, and we can maintain this relationship only when we remain neutral and support the government elected there with the desire of the Afghan people."
It was unclear where Sharif would stand on the reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan. The role Pakistan would play will likely fall primarily to its military, which operates largely independent of the civilian government anyway and which could be instrumental in bringing some armed Afghan factions to the table.
Sharif's party, which controls the government of Punjab province but sits in opposition in the federal government, is considered more conservative and aligned with pro-Taliban parties than the national ruling Pakistan People's Party.
The PML-N has been criticized in recent months for not going after militant outfits in Punjab, a stance analysts say is driven by its reliance on banned militant groups to deliver key votes during elections. The frustration over the party's dawdling has grown more acute since a bombing at a popular Sufi shrine in Punjab's capital, Lahore, last week killed 47 people.
During Sharif's tenure as prime minister, he not only supported the Taliban regime in Afghanistan but also tried to vastly increase the powers of his office while pushing aside Pakistan's penal code in favor of an Islamic justice system. Many saw these ill-fated moves as an attempt to "Talibanize" Pakistan, and they eroded his popularity further.
Sharif was overthrown in a 1999 coup by then-Gen. Pervez Musharraf. As the leader of the opposition now, Sharif has tried to walk a careful line, making it hard to pin him down as being either pro- or anti-Taliban or pro- or anti-American.
While proposing Saturday for peace talks with militants in Pakistan, Sharif said Islamabad should take the initiative instead of waiting for directives from Washington. But he also said the negotiations should be with militants "who are ready to talk and ready to listen."
The government has brokered peace deals with Taliban fighters along the Afghan border in the past, but they have usually collapsed and have often given the militants time to regroup and consolidate their control.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced later Saturday that he'd agreed to Sharif's proposal that an all-parties conference be held on ways to defeat militancy. No date has been announced, and the potential impact is unclear. At least one past such gathering has already been held.
Afghanistan urges Pakistan to act against terrorist groups
H/T Huffington Post
Afghanistan urges Pakistan to act against terror groups
By AFP, July 06, 2010:
Afghanistan urges Pakistan to act against terror groups
By AFP, July 06, 2010:
: Afghanistan’s national security adviser has called on the Pakistani government to “take serious measures” against militant groups launching attacks on Afghan targets from secure havens inside Pakistan.
Rangin Dadfar Spanta spoke to AFP in an interview a week after the Al-Jazeera television network said Afghan President Hamid Karzai had met the man who runs the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network in talks mediated by Pakistan.
Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Taliban all deny any such meeting. Spanta’s comments signal an about-turn by the Afghan government after months of overtures to Islamabad in efforts to prompt Pakistan to deal with militant groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban based along the Afghan border. Spanta told AFP on Monday that Afghanistan had “tremendous evidence” that Pakistani authorities allowed al Qaeda and other terror organisations to operate on the country’s soil and had presented it to Islamabad “many times”.
Islamabad had failed to act against the groups based in Pakistan’s tribal areas on the Afghan border, he told AFP. “My expectation is that Pakistan after nine years — because theoretically Pakistan is part of the anti-terror alliance — they have to begin to take some serious measures against terrorism,” he said. “They have to hand over the leadership of the terrorist groups, they have to give a list of the people they have arrested and are holding in the detention centres in Pakistan. “We have evidence that the terrorists from Pakistan are involved in daily attacks against our people and international ‘jihadi’ groups are active here. They have their base and sanctuaries behind our border and this is a serious problem. We have to address the menace of terrorism,” Spanta said.
Karzai had been seen as trying to reach an arrangement with Pakistan — possibly including a power-sharing deal with the Taliban — that would help bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, now in its ninth year.
This was also seen as a way of giving Pakistan a stake in Afghanistan’s future, despite broad opposition among the Afghan politicians and public. Senior Pakistani military and intelligence officials had visited Kabul in recent months on goodwill visits, Spanta said. “I hope we can begin a constructive dialogue with a serious agenda during the next meeting in Islamabad, or in Kabul… maybe next month,” he said.
Spanta said Pakistan had failed to act against al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban leadership known as the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network, the minor Hekmatyar group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, as well as “Uzbek and Chechen terrorist groups”.
“It is not a particular secret that the terrorists have sanctuaries in Pakistan, that they have training centres, that they have the possibility to come to Afghanistan, attack us and go back,” said Spanta. He denied that Karzai had met Sirajuddin Haqqani, who runs the Haqqani network which often launches attacks in Afghanistan, or the Taliban, “through mediation of Pakistan forces or otherwise”.
Pakistani security officials indicated last month, however, that they were planning to help broker peace efforts in Afghanistan by acting as a bridge between the Kabul government and powerful Haqqani network.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Newsweek 2009: A timeline of U.S. aid to Pakistan
See the Newsweek site for numerous links they've added to the text. The aid mentioned in the timeline does not include aid funneled to Pakistan by U.S. controlled or influenced institutions such as the World Bank -- aid that includes low-cost loans -- and U.S. charitable giving. Also, the timeline begins in 1950; Pakistan's military received U.S. aid earlier than that.
October 21, 2009
October 21, 2009
About Those Billions
Over the years, the U.S. has unloaded massive amounts of aid to Pakistan, including $7.5 billion more earlier this month. But the money doesn't always wind up where it's supposed to.
It was with the best of intentions that the U.S. funneled nearly $5.3 billion to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. After all, that money helped strike down a Cold War adversary. But there were unintended consequences too—namely, the Taliban. Since 9/11, the U.S. has turned on the spigot again, sending more than $15 billion in assistance to Pakistan. President Barack Obama just approved another $7.5 billion this month, which triples aid while committing to another five years of funding. It also bolsters development efforts, which, according to bill coauthor Sen. John Kerry, will "build a relationship with the people [of Pakistan] to show that what we want is a relationship that meets their interests and needs."
But how effective will this round of money be? Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad have alleged that Pakistan misspent some 70 percent of the U.S. funds that paid the Pakistani military to run missions in the unwieldy provinces along the Afghan border. U.S. officials accuse Pakistan of running a double game with the money, keeping the Taliban at bay just enough to persuade American benefactors to keep their wallets open, thereby ensuring a lifeline for the country's mangled economy. All of which raises the question: will any amount of money produce results?
A big part of that answer lies in determining how much bang the United States has gotten for its buck so far—whether or not some of the money was siphoned off along the way to fund Army generals' new houses or Taliban elements. Here's an accounting of aid sent over from the United States to Pakistan in recent decades, divided into eras based on the ebbs and flows of assistance. (Figures are in historical dollars.)
1950-1964: As the Cold War heated up, a 1954 security agreement prompted the United States to provide nearly $2.5 billion in economic aid and $700 million in military aid to Pakistan.
1965-1979: With the Indo-Pakistani hostilities in the late 1960s, the United States retreated. Between 1965 and 1971, the U.S. sent only $26 million in military aid, which was cut back even further to $2.9 million through the end of the decade. Meanwhile, economic aid kept flowing, totaling $2.55 billion over the 15 years. Everything came to a halt in 1979, however, when the Carter administration cut off all but food aid after discovering a uranium-enrichment facility in Pakistan. Pakistani leader Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq refused $400 million, split for economic and military aid from President Jimmy Carter, calling it "peanuts." The following year, he was rewarded with a much more attractive offer.
1979-1990: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed everything. Pakistan's ISI security apparatus became the primary means of funneling covert U.S. assistance to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan. From 1980 to 1990, the United States ramped up its contributions for both development and military purposes, sending more than $5 billion over the course of the decade.
1991-2000: But even while Pakistan was serving a strategic Cold War purpose, concerns persisted about the country's nuclear ambitions. That gave President George H.W. Bush an easy out from the massive funding commitments in 1990, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Aid over the next decade withered to $429 million in economic assistance and $5.2 million in military assistance, a drop-off Pakistanis still cite bitterly, accusing the United States of leaving them high and dry during the decade.
2001-2009: Since 9/11, the United States has once again bolstered its funding commitments, sending nearly $9 billion in military assistance both to aid and reimburse Pakistan for its operations in the unwieldy border regions with Afghanistan. Another $3.6 billion has funded economic and diplomatic initiatives. But U.S. officials and journalists' accounts have raised concerns that such funds are not being used as intended, and not just because of the typical concerns about corruption. Documented military and civilian government deals with Taliban elements, like a 2004 agreement with Waziri militant leader Nek Mohammed, have confirmed that money intended to fight the Taliban is, in many cases, being used instead to pay them off. (Islamabad is currently battling Taliban fighters in Waziristan.) When the deals fall through, as rapidly shifting alliances in Pakistan's tribal regions often do, that money ultimately ends up funding the insurgency. U.S. officials have expressed particular concerns about the Pakistani government's links to the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, which reportedly has ties to Al Qaeda. At the same time, former president Pervez Musharraf has recently admitted to using U.S. military funding to strengthen defenses against India.
2009-2014: A new five-year, $7.5 billion assistance package was passed by Congress in September and signed by President Obama in October, with stipulations explicitly prohibiting funds from being used for nuclear proliferation, to support terrorist groups, or to pay for attacks in neighboring countries. It also puts a new emphasis on the bottom line, reserving the right to cut off aid if Pakistan fails to crack down on militants. Those restrictions have opened a rift between the military and the civilian government in Pakistan, which maintain an uneasy relationship following nearly a decade of military rule under Musharraf. Military leaders worry they are being sidelined by the increased U.S. emphasis on development and accountability, claiming the bill threatens Pakistan's sovereignty. But supporters of the bill say the restrictions are no more stringent than previous ones, and accuse Pakistani military leaders of manufacturing a crisis to undermine the civilian government.
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