Category Archives: Taliban

NEWS: Time to talk to the Taliban

Brown: ‘It’s time to talk to the Taliban’
By Colin Brown, The Independent, December 12, 2007

As the deadliest year in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001 comes to a close, Gordon Brown is ready to talk to the Taliban in a major shift in strategy that is likely to cause consternation among hardliners in the White House.

Six years after British troops were first deployed to oust the Taliban regime, the Prime Minister believes the time has come to open a dialogue in the hope of moving from military action to consensus-building among the tribal leaders. Since 1 January, more than 6,200 people have been killed in violence related to the insurgency, including 40 British soldiers. In total, 86 British troops have died. The latest casualty was Sergeant Lee Johnson, whose vehicle hit a mine before the fall of Taliban-held town of Musa Qala.

The Cabinet yesterday approved a three-pronged plan that Mr Brown will outline for security to be provided by Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and the Afghan national army, followed by economic and political development in Afghanistan.

But the intention to engage Taliban leaders in a constructive dialogue, which Mr Brown will make clear in a parliamentary statement today, will be by far the most controversial element of the plan. A senior Downing Street source confirmed the move last night and one Brown aide who accompanied the Prime Minister on his recent visit to Kabul, said: “We need to ask who are we fighting? Do we need to fight them? Can we be talking to them?” [complete article]

Pentagon critical of NATO allies
By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, December 12, 2007

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sharply criticized NATO countries yesterday for not supplying urgently needed trainers, helicopters and infantry for Afghanistan as violence escalates there, vowing not to let the alliance “off the hook.”

Gates called for overhauling the alliance’s Afghan strategy over the next three to five years, shifting NATO’s focus from primarily one of rebuilding to one of waging “a classic counterinsurgency” against a resurgent Taliban and growing influx of al-Qaeda fighters.

“I am not ready to let NATO off the hook in Afghanistan at this point,” Gates told the House Armed Services Committee. Ticking off a list of vital requirements — about 3,500 more military trainers, 20 helicopters and three infantry battalions — Gates voiced “frustration” at “our allies not being able to step up to the plate.” [complete article]

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NEWS & ANALYSIS: Exchanging Musa Qala

Taliban loses grip on last major town
By Taimoor Shah and Abdul Waheed Wafa, New York Times, December 11, 2007

Afghan and NATO troops retook the town of Musa Qala in southern Afghanistan on Monday, forcing the Taliban to withdraw from the only sizable town they hold in the country, Afghan and NATO officials said. There was no clear picture of casualties, but the Taliban and civilians said there had been heavy bombardment overnight.

The news came as Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain made a surprise visit to Afghanistan and met with President Hamid Karzai. About 7,000 British troops are deployed in Helmand Province, in southern Afghanistan. Retaking Musa Qala, which they abandoned more than a year ago, has been one of their main objectives in the province, which has the highest level of Taliban activity as well as illicit opium production. [complete article]

The war in microcosm
By Jason Burke, The Guardian, December 11, 2007

The Taliban, the Afghan army and the Nato-led forces recognise there is a stalemate in the battle for Afghanistan. Neither side appears in a position to win and impose terms, so they search for a symbolic victory that will signify the course of the war.

Now that Musa Qala has been retaken, the international forces and the Kabul government can claim, once again, that victory is not far off – bolstering shaky domestic public support and encouraging locals to consider them as probable eventual winners.

The Taliban will wait to see what the spring brings. After all, they just have to avoid defeat. The losers, of course, are the villagers. Not much of Musa Qala is likely to have survived the fighting. [complete article]

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NEWS: In Afghanistan “things are looking decent” for the Taliban

U.S. notes limited progress in Afghan war
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, November 25, 2007

A White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan has concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush administration set for 2007 have not been met, even as U.S. and NATO forces have scored significant combat successes against resurgent Taliban fighters, according to U.S. officials.

The evaluation this month by the National Security Council followed an in-depth review in late 2006 that laid out a series of projected improvements for this year, including progress in security, governance and the economy. But the latest assessment concluded that only “the kinetic piece” — individual battles against Taliban fighters — has shown substantial progress, while improvements in the other areas continue to lag, a senior administration official said.

This judgment reflects sharp differences between U.S. military and intelligence officials on where the Afghan war is headed. Intelligence analysts acknowledge the battlefield victories, but they highlight the Taliban’s unchallenged expansion into new territory, an increase in opium poppy cultivation and the weakness of the government of President Hamid Karzai as signs that the war effort is deteriorating. [complete article]

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NEWS: Taliban active in over half of Afghanistan

Afghanistan ‘falling into Taliban hands’
By Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, November 21, 2007

The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into the group’s hands, according to a report by an independent thinktank with long experience in the area.

Despite the presence of tens of thousands of Nato-led troops and billions of dollars in aid, the insurgents, driven out by the US invasion in 2001, now control “vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries,” the Senlis Council says in a report released today.

On the basis of what it calls exclusive research, it warns that the insurgency is also exercising a “significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people, who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change”. [complete article]

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FEATURE: Is the return of the Taliban inevitable?

A mullah dies, and war comes knocking
By Sarah Chayes, Washington Post, November 18, 2007

The only reason Pakistan’s invasion-by-proxy has morphed into something even vaguely resembling an insurgency is that the Afghan people are at the limit of their endurance with a government that pillages and brutalizes them and lies to them barefaced. Judges demand fortunes for positive verdicts. Customs agents expect kickbacks for every transaction. Police officers shake people down or kidnap them for ransom. Six years of depredations by the government have led to its rejection — and to resentment of the international community that installed it and then refused to supervise it. From those feelings of anger have spread pools of collaboration with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, have the Taliban changed their approach to the exercise of power? Not in the least. They still seek to gain control via terror — by hanging bodies upside-down from trees, by placing pieces of men in gunny sacks like quarters of meat to horrify their neighbors.

So what has changed in six years, except the West’s failure to provide a palatable alternative? Is this to be the world’s response to that failure? “Oh, we weren’t able to do any better for the Afghans than the Taliban, so we may as well bring them back in and get the place off our hands.” [complete article]

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NEWS: The Taliban continues to advance

Taliban stage a coup of their own
By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, November 8, 2007

While the world’s attention focused on the troubles of President General Pervez Musharraf following his declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan at the weekend, the Taliban have launched a coup of their own in Afghanistan and the Pashtun areas of Pakistan.

Pakistani troops had prevented the Taliban from launching their planned post-Ramadan (Muslim holy month) offensive into Afghanistan by invading the Pakistani North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal areas on October 7.

The Taliban managed to set up a counter engagement by stirring their network in the Swat Valley in North-West Frontier Province, which took the pressure off the Waziristans. The November 4 declaration of an emergency and the preparations before it was enforced distracted the military. As a result, several villages and towns in the Swat Valley, only a drive of four hours from Islamabad, have fallen to the Taliban without a single bullet being fired – fearful Pakistani security forces simply surrendered their weapons. [complete article]

See also, Afghan suicide blast ‘kills 40’ (BBC).

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NEWS: Taliban make territorial advances

Taliban capture third western Afghan district
By Sharifuddin Sharafiyar, Reuters, November 5, 2007

Taliban insurgents have captured a third district in western Afghanistan, local officials said on Monday, defying Western assertions the rebels are unable to mount large military offensives.

The hardline Islamist Taliban relaunched their insurgency two years ago to topple the pro-Western Afghan government and eject the 50,000 foreign troops, expanding their operations further from the mainly Pashtun south where they are strongest.

Western forces say the Taliban’s greater reliance this year on suicide and roadside bombs is a result of heavy battlefield casualties they and Afghan troops have inflicted on the rebels and the insurgents’ inability to hold ground.

But in the last week, the Taliban have captured three districts in the western province of Farah, bordering Iran, forcing lightly armed Afghan police to flee and defying Afghan and foreign forces to retake the lost ground. [complete article]

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FEATURE: The Taliban’s confederation of warlords

The new Taliban
By Jason Burke, The Observer, October 14, 2007

The bomb was far from the biggest seen on the North-West Frontier but it did its job well. Placed in a water cooler, it ripped through the Nishtar Abad music market, sending shards of glass and splintered CDs in all directions. ‘Miraculously, no one was killed,’ said Mohammed Azam, who was shopping for presents for the Muslim holiday of Eid this weekend. Twenty people were injured, three seriously, and a dozen shops gutted.

For the police chief of Peshawar, the dusty Pakistan city 40 miles from the Afghan border, it was clear who planted last Tuesday’s bomb. ‘We suspect the involvement of those people who in recent months had sent letters to the CD and video shops, warning them to shut their businesses, saying it is against Islam,’ Abdul Majid Marwat said.

The ‘Pakistan Taliban’ – or one of the various groups claiming the name – had struck again. Within hours the debris was being cleared away and the blood wiped off the walls. ‘This is the life we lead,’ said Azam.’ We have no choice but to continue.’

The Pakistan Taliban’s campaigns go way beyond bombing music shops. Fifty miles south of Peshawar last week, a full-scale pitched battle, complete with air strikes and artillery barrages, raged between the Pakistani army and local and international militants dug into fortified positions in remote tribal villages. By the time a fragile calm had settled on the rocky hills, scattered palm trees and desiccated fields of Mir Ali, 50 soldiers, a 100 or so militants and around 100 civilians had died. Given the inaccessibility of the battlefield and the conflicting claims of the military and their opponents, accurate casualty figures are simply not available.

What is not in doubt is the scale of the fighting. It was a bloody week for everyone as half a dozen ragged conflicts raged across a stretch of land the size of Britain, from the Indus river to the central highlands of Pakistan. [complete article]

Terrorists in training head to Pakistan
By Dirk Laabs and Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2007

As Al Qaeda regains strength in the badlands of the Pakistani-Afghan border, an increasing number of militants from mainland Europe are traveling to Pakistan to train and to plot attacks on the West, European and U.S. anti-terrorism officials say.

The emerging route, illuminated by alleged bomb plots dismantled in Germany and Denmark last month, represents a new and dangerous reconfiguration. In recent years, the global flow of Muslim fighters had shifted to the battlefields of Iraq after the loss of Al Qaeda’s Afghan sanctuary in late 2001. [complete article]

See also, Taliban use hostage cash to fund UK blitz (The Telegraph).

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ANALYSIS: The impossible opening between Kabul and the Taliban

Afghanistan: necessity and impossibility
By Philip Jakeman, Open Democracy, October 12, 2007

According to sources inside Afghanistan, Taliban leader ‘Mullah’ Mohammed Omar sent a secret envoy to President Hamid Karzai earlier this year to discuss his possible entrance into the Afghan government. This remarkable move culminated in Karzai’s recent offer of talks with the elusive cleric, followed by a Taliban announcement that the group would consider speaking with Kabul.

The moment is ripe for negotiations; diplomacy promises benefits to both Kabul and the Taliban’s political leadership. Unfortunately, this window of opportunity will most likely be squandered. For talks to succeed, Mullah Omar must play a central role in discussions between the Taliban and the Karzai government. But it is his centrality to any peace deal that sets a number of key external and internal actors against talking with the Taliban, making negotiations impossible. [complete article]

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NEWS & ANALYSIS: Talking to the Taliban; Karzai loses friends; Al Qaeda’s coalition plans to take over Pakistan

Taleban ‘needed for Afghan peace’
BBC News, September 26, 2007

The Taleban “will need to be involved” at some stage with a peace process in Afghanistan, UK Defence Secretary Des Browne has said.

At a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference, he said a solution would have to be “Islamic based”.

Mr Browne said Taleban involvement would happen “because they are not going away” any more than Hamas was from the Palestinian territories. [complete article]

In Afghanistan, anger in parliament grows as Karzai defies majority’s wishes
By Kirk Semple, New York Times, September 26, 2007

In May, the lower house of the Afghan Parliament voted overwhelmingly to oust the country’s foreign minister on the grounds of incompetence. In a different time and place, the matter might have been over as quickly as it began.

But this is Afghanistan, still in the tense, halting infancy of a new democratic era. And more than four months after the vote, much to the anger of the parliamentary majority, the minister remains in his post, protected by the man who appointed him: President Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Karzai said the vote was illegal and motivated simply by politics. The legislators have accused the president of snubbing the Constitution and undermining the democratic foundations of the republic.

The dispute is the most serious manifestation of the long-simmering tension between the Karzai administration and the warlords and former mujahedeen in the legislature, who want more control over policy making. It threatens to bring Parliament to a halt and pitch Afghanistan into a political crisis. [complete article]

Military brains plot Pakistan’s downfall
By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, September 26, 2007

The Saudis are concerned that should their erstwhile son bin Laden succeed in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia would be one of the next logical targets. So a joint strategy was devised to confront the threat.

According to a witness who spoke to Asia Times Online, last month a Saudi consul visited North Waziristan in the first such interaction with the al-Qaeda command since the US invasion on Afghanistan in 2001. The consul was meant to meet Zawahiri or bin Laden, but he was not allowed to see them and instead met second-tier al-Qaeda leaders. [complete article]

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NEWS: Taliban raise poppy production to a record again

Taliban raise poppy production to a record again
By David Rohde, New York Times, August 26, 2007

Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday.

The report is likely to touch off renewed debate about the United States’ $600 million counternarcotics program in Afghanistan, which has been hampered by security challenges and endemic corruption within the Afghan government.

“I think it is safe to say that we should be looking for a new strategy,” said William B. Wood, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, commenting on the report’s overall findings. “And I think that we are finding one.” [complete article]

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