generalspeaking

Reaping The Whirlwind

"Between 1954 and 2002, the United States provided a total of $12.6-billion in economic and military aid to Pakistan, of which $9.19-billion was given during twenty-four years of military rule, while only $3.4-billion was provided to civilian governments over a nineteen-year period. Between 2001 and 2007 the United States gave more than $10.0] billion to the Musharraf regime. Yet what has been the gross profit of this aid?
"Today, seven years after 9/11, Mullah Omar and the original Afghan Taliban Shura still live in Balochistan province. Afghan and Pakistani Taliban leaders live on farther north, in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) as do the militias of Jalaluddin Hazzani and Gulbuddin Hikmetyar. Al Qaeda has a safe haven in FATA, and along with them reside a plethora of Asian and Arab terrorist groups who are now expanding their reach into Europe and the United States. The United States and NATO have failed to understand that the Taliban belong to neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan, but are a lumpen population, the product of refugee camps, militarized madrassas, and the lack of opportunities in the borderland of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They have neither been true citizens of either country nor experienced traditional Pashtun tribal society. The longer the war goes on, the more deeply rooted and widespread the Taliban and their transnational milieu will become."
Ahmed Rashid -- Descent Into Chaos, 2008, The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia

The use of killing drones, operated from halfway across the world, has helped the United States since the time that book was written, in removing some of the top members of the Taliban. There is a civilian-led government now in Pakistan, attempting to come to the bargaining table with the Taliban. The recent strike by an American drone killing the Pakistani Taliban former emir, Hakimullah Mehsud, praised by the al-Qaeda-linked group for "the consolidation of the idea of a global Jihad and the Caliphate" has assured that he will be revenged.
 
An official statement was released by its official media outlet, Umar Media: "We say to the enemies of Allah, the Americans and their allies, that the blood of our Emir Mullah Hakeemullah Mehsud ... will not be wasted, and we will take revenge for him and his blood as soon as possible. This is a promise from us and a debt around our necks. We are not exempt, nor released from it with Allah's permission until we fulfill it. The war between you and us is a rivalry, and you will see infidels with your own eyes the consequences and victory that will be for the Mujahideen of Islam."


American Navy SEALS eliminated Osama bin Laden from the threat equation, to the fury of the Pakistan government. Ostensibly for not giving them a heads-up, which was denied them for the very practical reason that the U.S. administration now knows of a certainty that there remains a deep collaboration between the government and its Taliban, knowing also that bin Laden could not have been present at Abbottabad without the knowledge of the country's Secret Service and military.

Now, word that a senior leader of one of the most feared al-Qaeda-linked groups doing combat with U.S. troops in Afghanistan is dead. Not a drone attack. He was killed as he exited a bakery in Islamabad a mere few kilometres from the U.S. embassy. The Haqqani network is known as a key alley of the Afghan Taliban, pledging allegiance to Mullah Omar, its leader and the protector of Osama bin Laden, who refused to surrender his guest to the CIA, initiating the NATO-US invasion of Afghanistan.


That Nasiruddin Haqqani, a key financier of the Haqqaniu network was in the Pakistani capital is as evidential as the presence of bin Laden in Abbottabad that there is collusion between Pakistan's intelligence agency and the key proxy in the Afghan war, despite Islamabad's denials. The Haqqani network is led by Nasiruddin Haqqani's brother Sirajuddin who took over from his father, Jalaluddin who mounted an offensive against the Soviets after the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

The  Haqqani was listed as a global terrorist network by the U.S. administration. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates aided the network, along with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, by funding them handsomely. Of course Saudi Arabia and the UAE are themselves allies of the United States -- or they most certainly have been for a very long time, though those relations have been strained of late. And they are themselves struggling with jihadis from within their own borders.

Nothing in the Middle East, east Asia and within Islam is ever straightforward or seems to make much sense if logic is being sought. And while Pakistan has agreed verbally with American demands that it target the Haqqani network along with other North Waziristan militants carrying out cross-border attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan, it's clear enough that on a practical level there's another story altogether.

Even though the Haqqani group is held to blame for high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, including within the capital Kabul, Pakistan claims its troops are already stretched beyond endurance fighting their own domestic militants - with whom they have plans to reach some kind of agreement -- yet again, to concentrate on Afghanistan and let Pakistan be; agreements that come with a stale-date to the great frustration of the Pakistan administration, military or civil.

A year ago a drone strike killed Badruddin Haqqani. Pakistan is definitely not pleased. Pakistanis in general are outraged at this unforgivable series of violations of their country's sovereignty. Which may explain in part why their private and public school system has seen fit to outlaw the recently published tell-all book about the Taliban war on little girls written by Malala Yousafrani, who proved more resilient to death than the Taliban leaders. A lot more attractive, too.
Despite the courageous child's trivialization at this latest of events to honour her.

Labels: Afghanistan, Conflict, Islamism, Pakistan, Taliban, United States

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, November 13, 2013