Mustafa Qadri » Hamid Karzai

Taliban: the indistinguishable enemy

mustafa — Sun, 16 May 2010 09:00:09 +0000

The US-led occupation of Afghanistan has transformed the once-reviled Taliban into freedom fighters for the Pashtun people

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 16 May 2010 13:00 BST

They may be repressive fanatics who enslave women and give sanctuary to al-Qaida, but the US-led occupation of Afghanistan has transformed the Taliban into Pashtun freedom fighters. There are two principal reasons for this.

First, despite our best attempts, the foreign troops and the state they prop up are viewed as outsiders who have come not to liberate the country but subjugate it.

Second, so long as our presence in Afghanistan is primarily military, our relationship to ordinary Afghans will be based primarily on violence. Armies, by their very nature, must intimidate and coerce the population into accepting their authority. Despite the talk of winning hearts and minds and civilian surges, much of what we do in Afghanistan creates fear and hostility. It should not surprise us, then, to hear allegations of US and Afghan forces committing “battlefield executions“.

As to the first point, the sense of subjugation by foreign powers is exacerbated by the Karzai administration’s inability to provide effective governance. Why should we expect a regime built on foreign military intervention and local warlords to have popular support? Locked in understandable revulsion towards the Taliban, the US and its allies forgot they had to offer a better alternative. A revolutionary guerrilla movement, the great intellectual dissident Eqbal Ahmad wrote, concentrate on “out-administering”, not on “out-fighting” the enemy.

Although harsh and primitive, the insurgency has gained a reputation for speedy justice that is juxtaposed against the western-backed Karzai regime’s endemic corruption. Insurgencies swell, one leader of the Algerian revolution noted in the early 1960s, “where foreign rule is resented, where acute grievances exist and institutional channels for ventilating and satisfying them are ineffective”. By that measure, the Afghan insurgency can be expected to grow.

For ordinary Afghans, especially in the Pashtun heartlands of the south and east where the Taliban predominate, US-led forces are feared just as the insurgents are. One key difference, however, is that the Taliban are not foreigners but, as Karzai once remarked, “sons of the soil”.

Matthew Hoh, a former US diplomat in Kabul who resigned in protest over the war, noted, correctly, that what we face in Afghanistan is a “Pashtun insurgency … composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups … fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies”.

That makes it difficult for Isaf forces to distinguish between friends and foes. “It’s a mix of different forces that leads [ethnic Pashtuns] to fight,” says Fakir Kakakhel, a young but already experienced war correspondent based in Peshawar. “It is what we call gahirat-a-Pashtoon,” he adds, “a term referring to our honour, religion, economic and political independence.” Not everyone accepts this premise, but that is not the point. What matters is that our foreign armies can never hope to match this natural home advantage.

The US-led forces, with their vast armoury and an equally vast disconnect from the people they are purportedly trying to protect, have always found it easier to treat everyone as an enemy. That is why the conflict has resulted in a steady stream of civilian casualties. Under pressure to sell this as a noble war, Nato has, as a result, consistently tried to cover up atrocities that are all but inevitable.

There should be no illusions about the Taliban either. Who can forget the destruction of the priceless Buddhas of Bamiyan? Afghans have not forgotten their own atrocities either. All of that was washed away, however, with America’s unilateral decision to invade Afghanistan in late 2001. Almost overnight the Taliban were transformed into freedom fighters, as the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, and pressure on Pakistan to use its blunt military that has led to thousands of deaths, stoked incalculable resentment amongst Pashtuns in both countries.

As Wazma Frogh pointed out, the main alternative to all-out conflict, the opening of peace negotiations, is also fraught with dangers and obstacles. The problem for foreign powers in a foreign land is their limited interest in the welfare of the people whose lands they occupy. There can be no sustainable resolution of the current violence, however, unless and until the locals take the lead in looking for political solutions.

[This article was first published at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/16/taliban-indistinguishable-enemy-afghanistan]

Why Did Pakistan Help Capture Baradar?

mustafa — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:37:21 +0000

With the recent capture of three high profile Taliban commanders, is Pakistan’s relationship to the insurgency changing, asks Mustafa Qadri

In what appears to be a major shift in the war against the Taliban, a joint raid by Pakistani and American security forces has captured the insurgents’ most senior military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in the Pakistani port city of Karachi.

Although the news was broken in the New York Times on Wednesday — and initially denied by Pakistani officials — Baradar was actually detained a week earlier. Such is the sensitivity and secrecy of this war that Washington officials requested a media blackout of Baradar’s capture because, they claimed, other senior Taliban were not aware of it, even days after it occurred.

Baradar was effectively the day-to-day commander of Taliban forces in Afghanistan — in charge of everything from tactics to paying fighters and appointing field commanders. He is also considered to be the mastermind behind the Taliban’s improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs, that have been the biggest killer of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

In another apparent major success, a further two senior Taliban commanders from northern Afghanistan were captured in similar raids inside Pakistan yesterday. Their capture is not believed to be directly related to Baradar’s in Karachi.

For Western leaders — and especially for US President Barack Obama — the capture of such senior Taliban leaders, and particularly that of Baradar is a welcome publicity coup. It will no doubt hasten claims across Western news media that victory is on the horizon in Afghanistan.

Described as a “cunning and dangerous” commander, Baradar was nevertheless seen as a future interlocutor in any future negotiations with the Taliban because of his apparent centrality to the insurgency. His health failing, Taliban founder and spiritual leader Mullah Omar had, for practical purposes, given management of the insurgency to Baradar in recent years.

It is probably no coincidence that his capture occurred just as US-led forces in Afghanistan commenced a major operation to conquer Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan, an operation that has already claimed at least 17 lives. Although Baradar’s capture is not expected to lead to an immediate loss of morale among the insurgents, Pentagon planners hope that it will nevertheless disrupt overall Taliban strategy.

Beyond that, the capture is a symbolic blow to Taliban prestige. Like any successful insurgency, the Taliban’s greatest skill has been the capacity to melt into the countryside after hit and run attacks against more powerful adversaries. The fact that their leaders have generally remained at large has added to their mystique. Baradar’s capture humanises the Taliban in a way that will give their opponents confidence.

The capture of Baradar also signals a potential shift in Pakistan’s 16 year relationship with the Taliban. The capture of senior commanders in the Pakistan heartland sends a clear message that it is no longer a safe haven for the Taliban, argues veteran journalist Zahid Hussain.

Ever since the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, the Pakistan Army, which controls the state’s regional foreign policy, has looked to Islamists like the Taliban as their only viable ally in neighbouring Afghanistan. Even at the height of the current war against the Taliban, Pakistan forces have mainly targeted militants seeking to overthrow the government and those aligned with Al Qaeda — and not those fighting US-led forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

US security analysts have for years accused Pakistan of harbouring Afghan Taliban commanders as potential assets in the event that foreign troops withdraw from the devastated country. Baradar’s arrest suggests that Pakistan has now categorically shifted away from this policy.

There have been other signals too. Pakistan’s Army Chief Pervez Kayani, generally a media-shy individual, made a public statement and declared categorically that military forces did not want a “Talibanised” Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Beneath the surface, however, these high profile captures raise more questions than they answer. Will other Taliban commanders be open to dialogue if they are approached by the three who have just been caught? And who facilitated their capture? According to the rumour mill, Baradar was considered a traitor by some factions of the Taliban insurgency because he may have opened back channels with the pro-US Afghan President Karzai over a possible future ceasefire. If that were the case, Taliban commanders less inclined to negotiate could have tipped off authorities as to Baradar’s whereabouts.

Other reports claim that Pakistan captured Baradar to increase its stake in talks with the Afghan Taliban because the US has hitherto cut it out of its own informal discussions with the insurgents. Pakistan authorities have in the past surrendered high profile insurgents when facing US pressure to crack down on militancy, as was widely believed to be the case with the arrest of alleged 11 September architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in 2007.

The big test for Pakistan is whether it will now target senior field commanders like Sirajuddin Haqqani, and Mullahs Nazir and Bahadur who are believed to be based in Waziristan.

Baradar is understood to be undergoing “intense interrogation” by Pakistani and American authorities that will almost certainly involve torture. It is certain that they will try to convince him to join their efforts to make the Taliban lay down their arms.

This effort, and his capture, may backfire in the long run. The Taliban are a military and security threat — but only because they are a product of the corruption, chaos and foreign interference that has plagued Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas for over three decades now. Recent history suggests that new commanders will rise to replace those already captured or killed unless these deeper problems are not honestly tackled.

Source URL: http://newmatilda.com/2010/02/19/why-did-pakistan-help-capture-baradar

Empty diplomacy in Afghanistan

mustafa — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:53:07 +0000

Negotiating with the Taliban is too little, too late – western allies need to fix the socioeconomic mess started long before 9/11

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 February 2010 08.00 GMT

Memory spans are short in modern politics, but even by those standards the relative ease with which the discourse on Afghanistan has shifted from fighting the Taliban to negotiating with them is remarkable.

Even more incredible is our collective refusal to admit the obvious. The Taliban are stronger than ever because the US chose a heavy-handed, unilateral military response to the 9/11 attacks. What’s more, the insurgency is now more ideologically aligned with al-Qaida than ever before. Thanks to bin Laden’s network, the Taliban have changed from rag-tag army to deadly insurgency and, most ominous of all, they believe they are more than a match for the world’s only superpower.

Some will say that the climate following the deadly attacks on the US nearly nine years ago made it impossible to take the more nuanced approach now being attempted. Diplomacy back in 2001 was left to the Taliban. As the US began its carpet bombardment of Afghanistan, however, Mullah Omar expressed a willingness to hand bin Laden over provided the US gave evidence of his culpability. Any extradition, he added, would have to be to a neutral country and not the US.

The offer was flatly rejected in October 2001, along with an earlier suggestion to try bin Laden in a domestic or international tribunal. It is impossible to judge in hindsight the veracity or practicality of these overtures. But as US-led foreign and Afghan forces meander through an increasingly violent and destabilising war that has killed thousands of Afghans and hundreds of foreign nationals, including 253 British soldiers, the decision to favour unilateral war over diplomacy has proved disastrous.

The Afghan war is also a political liability for foreign governments embroiled in it. A majority of voters in most countries involved in the International Assistance Force for Afghanistan, including Britain, want their troops to return home. Western planners have realised that there can be no hope of a withdrawal in the foreseeable future unless there is dialogue with the Taliban.

This is no simple task. On the one hand, negotiating with the Taliban is a victory for realism. They may represent one of the most fanatical and oppressive streams of Islam, but the Taliban are now the dominant social movement in Afghanistan’s Pashtun population, the country’s largest ethnic group who inhabit the regions of the south and east – major frontlines in the current conflict. Support for the Taliban among Pashtuns, far from universal before 2001, has increased because the US and its allies decided to invade their country.

But these facts should not detract from other truths. There can be no doubt that the Taliban and the warlords backing the pro-US regime in Kabul pose a long-term threat to the development of Afghanistan, particularly for its women and minorities. New research suggests that support for the Taliban is based not on ideology but social ties, cultural affinities and the hope that the insurgents can improve living conditions more than President Karzai’s hopelessly corrupt administration.

Karzai is a product of the US decision to unilaterally invade Afghanistan. Along with resentment towards the US for installing the Karzai regime, however, many Afghans are also openly hostile to regional powers, especially Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, for promoting conflict in their country even after the Soviets left in 1989. Interestingly, Afghans view India more favourably than any other foreign presence in their country – up to 71% of them according to one recent opinion poll – including the UN. It cannot be a coincidence that there are no Indian soldiers in Afghanistan. India has invested billions of dollars in developing the country’s civil infrastructure. India’s involvement in Afghanistan is not an act of charity and it has a long history of supporting former Northern Allies warlords widely implicated in atrocities. But in post-2001 Afghanistan, the soft power of Indian development assistance has accrued enormous goodwill.

An extensive survey carried out by the Asia Foundation last year found that the central thing on Afghan minds is not the Taliban or the US, but access to education and employment for both men and women. And as Khalid Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, points out, poverty is a far greater cause of death in Afghanistan than war.

In the rush to end our participation in the Afghan war it is important to remind ourselves that what Afghanistan needs is not an end to foreign involvement but an acceptance that it was a victim of the international community’s collective interference long before bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks.

Talking to the Taliban should not mean appeasing extremists in exchange for a quick withdrawal. Rather, solving this morally ambiguous conflict will require a commitment to engage with all Afghans over a long period of time.

Afghan Election Backfires On NATO

mustafa — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:04:49 +0000

If the West needed a credible election in Afghanistan to help prove that its war there is a good idea, it sure didn’t get it, writes Mustafa Qadri

In the wake of last week’s seriously flawed election in Afghanistan, NATO staff have expressed their “desperation” to pull out of the country.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an analyst with close contacts inside NATO headquarters in Brussels cited plunging domestic support within member countries for the war, as well as the worsening violence inside Afghanistan as factors contributing to their desire to end military involvement.

Elsewhere the message being sent by governments participating in the war has shown a continued determination to see their military presence in a positive light with Western diplomats quick to call last week’s election a “success”. But deep misgivings have already been aired by a wide range of observers and participants, including presidential hopeful and likely runner up Abdullah Abdullah; by foreign officials (generally off the record); and by Afghans themselves.

There is widespread cynicism around the country over what level of authority Afghanistan’s next President will actually have over the country following the recent poll.

“Everything has already been decided by the US and NATO and the real winner has already been picked by the White House and Pentagon,” notes the courageous Afghan parliamentarian and campaigner for women’s rights Malalai Joya. “[Incumbent President] Hamid Karzai has cemented alliances with brutal warlords and fundamentalists in order to maintain his position,” she adds.

The Western countries with armed forces in Afghanistan desperately needed a credible result at the polls to shore up support at home for their presences, but as more evidence comes in of serious flaws in the conduct of this election, it seems certain that, whatever the result, this exercise will have actually weakened support for the war rather than strengthened it.

Early fears of widespread electoral fraud are increasingly being confirmed. Karzai, seeking his second five-year term in these elections, is expected to be declared the winner, at least of the first round of the voting, with the possibility that there will be no further rounds if he wins more than half the votes in the first round. But his main challenger accused him of being heavily involved in rigging the vote, as have many independent observers.

Karzai is increasingly unpopular at home and abroad because of his administration’s rampant corruption. It now appears that his handling of the election is emblematic of this.

According to the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FFEFA), a non-governmental organisation that monitored voting wherever limited security and resources permitted, thousands of voting cards, necessary for citizens to cast a vote, were stolen, perhaps helping to explain why so many votes were apparently cast at stations without voters almost before the polls even opened.

FFEFA also noted instances of men voting for women. Few women have managed to vote, let alone partake in parliamentary politics because of limited female election staff necessary to supervise the segregated polling booths. The story of women is central to the plight of Afghanistan, yet in this election they are noticeable primarily for their absence.

Last week it was revealed that Karzai approved a new law, applicable to Afghanistan’s minority Shite Hazara community, that would enable men to effectively imprison their wives should they refuse to have sex. The move is widely seen as an attempt to secure votes from Shia Islamists and parallels similar overtures by Karzai to Sunni conservatives like Abdul Rasul Sayyaf whose political and religious views are practically identical to those of the Taliban.

Although Karzai clearly still enjoys the support of the West, his deals for the support of local and sectarian leaders have done much to erode the credibility of the Western rationale for war as a way of improving the freedoms of Afghans, especially women.

Karzai has also courted the Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum. The feared Dostum, implicated in a wide range of atrocities before and since the American occupation of Afghanistan commenced in October 2001, was specially flown into the country from Turkey to shore up support for Karzai among Uzbeks, one of the seven main ethnic groups in Afghanistan that live primarily in the north of the country.

Early fears of a low voter turnout have also been confirmed, further undermining the vote as a legitimate expression of the will of the Afghan people. One of the reasons for this is that Afghans have little confidence in Karzai, or any of the other 41 candidates in a total that includes former planning minister Ramzan Bashardost and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani .

Another reason Afghans stayed away was fear of violence, including attack by the Taliban which distributed leaflets throughout Afghanistan — from the slums of Kabul to remote regions of Helmand in the south and Kunduz in the north — threatening civilians with dire consequences if they voted.

The fears of locals were a realistic assessment of the security situation they are facing. According to Human Rights Watch, “there were at least 13 politics-related killings and at least 10 abductions of Electoral Commission officials, candidates, and campaign workers” from 25 April to 1 August. It adds that pro-Karzai bureaucrats have also intimidated other presidential candidates and their campaign staff.

As well as these incidents, a string of daring attacks in the heavily fortified capital of Kabul, including a suicide bombing outside NATO headquarters, have also horrified ordinary Afghans. Their concern is shared by voters in NATO countries and Australia as public support for the war continues to plunge.

The analyst who spoke with newmatilda.com told us that NATO planners are acutely aware that the war is losing support. The Afghan conflict has been marketed as the “good war”, a war of necessity to establish democracy in a troubled Central Asian nation and prevent it from becoming a haven for international terrorists.

Yet the process of occupying the country has deepened ethnic divisions while fostering a powerful anti-occupation sentiment, especially among the largest and heavily marginalised Pashtun population in the south and east of the country.

So far, there is little sign that the various ethnicities have taken to the democracy that the West’s armies have brought, at least in its current form. Few Pashtuns have voted, either out of fear or protest. Most of the voting has occurred in the northern, non-Pashtun parts of the country.

Meanwhile, disaffection with the pro-US regime has been fuelled by its failure to deliver any of the basics, like security, jobs and civil infrastructure, ordinary Afghans desperately need.

That the Taliban is predominantly formed from the Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan and bordering parts of Pakistan is no coincidence. Although Pashtuns constitute just over 40 per cent of the population, ethnic Tajiks dominate army and security authorities. That situation is due mainly to the fact that recruitment has been difficult in the unstable and Taliban-friendly Pashtun regions. Another factor is the legacy of the American-led occupation of Afghanistan that commenced almost eight years ago.

That began the current ascendancy of ethnic Tajiks, who are also known as “Panshiris” because they belong to the Pansher Valley to the north-east which for centuries has bred feared warriors. Much of the Afghan National Army officer corps and soldiers engaged in operations in the Pashtun areas are Tajiks.

Taliban commanders have ably capitalised on the resentment held by Pashtuns who see the Tajik-dominated army, and not just Western forces, as foreign interlopers.

Meanwhile, adding to the West’s woes is the mounting death toll of the violence in the country. The UN estimates that 1000 have been killed in the first seven months of this year alone, up 24 per cent from 2008. Most of those deaths have been caused by the Taliban but many locals blame foreigners, not the Taliban, for the violence.

When will that violence end? No one knows.

Whatever the result of the election and the effect it has on NATO member populations, it is already clear that it will have no bearing on US power in Afghanistan. That means the current escalation of war under the Obama Administration will continue although the ultimate aim may no longer be to defeat the Taliban so much as to force them to the negotiating table.

Whatever this election has achieved, it won’t result in a government that represents its people and acts as a sovereign state.

Source URL: http://newmatilda.com/2009/08/25/afghan-election-backfires-nato

‘Collateral damage’ in AfPak hurts the US too

mustafa — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:57:58 +0000

The following report for The Guardian, published today, looks at the recent meetings between the Presidents of the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Washington D.C. and the risks to civilians caught up in the war with the Taliban. It was reprinted in The Khaleej Times on May 12, 2009.

‘Collateral damage’ in AfPak hurts the US too

The bombardment of civilians in Afghanistan undermines the security credentials of western forces in the region

o Mustafa Qadri
o guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 May 2009 16.30 BST

The timing may have been a disaster for Washington, but for villagers in Afghanistan’s south it was far worse. A day after a US bombing killed up to 120 civilians in Afghanistan’s southern Farah province, President Obama asked the visiting presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari, to step up their attacks on Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, expressed “personal regret” for the loss of lives as she looked in the direction of Karzai who, along with Zardari, addressed the media in the White House last Wednesday.

But in Afghanistan there were howls of condemnation and protests.

Bodies were being piled into trucks near the Bala Boluk district in Farah where the bombing occurred. If estimates of more than a hundred fatalities prove accurate, it will represent the greatest loss of life in a single day since the US invasion of Afghanistan commenced in October 2001.

Casualties are inevitable in any war. But, as with Iraq since 1990, it seems those directing the conflict from western capitals are not the ones whose societies are bearing the greatest losses. That price is paid by ordinary Afghans and Pakistanis.

According to US airforce figures, 438 bombs were dropped over Afghanistan by American planes last April – a record number.

Last year was the worst for civilians caught up in the war against the Taliban that started in 2001. According to the Afghanistan Rights Monitor, 3,917 civilians were killed, more than 6,800 wounded and 120,000 were forced to leave their homes.

In neighbouring Pakistan, the conflict has proved a humanitarian catastrophe for villagers along the tribal belt that hugs the Durand line and the lower Himalayas in the north-west. It is estimated that up to a million have been displaced by the conflict with the Taliban in Pakistan, while unknown thousands of civilians have been killed. Pilotless US aircraft have killed around 700 of them. Only a handful of those – around 14 – were militant leaders.

For years now Afghan officials have been asking American forces to take greater care in their operations to prevent civilian casualties. Their Pakistani counterparts have constantly warned against military operations which, by harming so many civilians, stoke greater support for the Taliban.

“Afghans are human beings, too,” President Karzai remarked at a media conference two years ago. That applies equally to Pakistanis caught in the conflict, but the fact is often lost in the heady rhetoric about defeating extremism and keeping our western borders secure from terrorism.

As usual, US officials announced an investigation into the Farah bombing. Whether it will lead to a demonstrable reduction in civilian casualties is uncertain. US military officials were quick to claim that the bombing was called in by Afghan National Army forces and could not be compared to the devastating aerial attack in Azizabad that claimed 90 civilian lives last August. The US had earlier said that a handful of Taliban fighters had been killed during the raid, only to later acknowledge that civilians had died, albeit far fewer than the 90 claimed by the Afghan government and an independent UN investigation.

In the meantime, the war talk has reached fever pitch. Despite calls for increased non-military aid aimed at improving socioeconomic conditions in areas most at risk of Taliban infiltration, the key thrust will be massive military operations by US and Pakistan forces.

In Congress last week, US defence secretary Robert Gates requested $400m for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund aimed at training and arming Pakistani soldiers. The fund is effectively Centcom commander David Petraeus’s money tin and would give the general a freer hand in directing operations by Pakistani forces.

A further $1bn in immediate or military aid has been proposed for Pakistan from a pool of requested “emergency” funds.

The Obama administration has praised Pakistan’s recent return to military operations against the Taliban. The army is presently engaged in massive operations in the north-west of the country where militants had infiltrated into the Buner valley, a few hours’ drive west of the capital Islamabad, and Dir, further west towards the Afghan border.

In Dir, like Kohat and Dera Adam Khel to the south, districts to which I travelled recently, popular support for the Taliban is high thanks to ethnic loyalties and simmering resentment over inequality and civilian casualties. The Taliban derive mostly from the Pashtun communities indigenous to Pakistan’s tribal areas, but non-Pashtun recruits, particularly from poor rural communities in southern and western Punjab, are believed to be increasing.

Fighting has recommenced in the Swat valley after Taliban militants who spilled out into neighbouring districts – like Buner and Dir – failed to abide by the terms of a recent peace agreement between the provincial government and a local pro-Taliban religious movement.

The situation is precarious for “AfPak”. To avoid international isolation, governments from the two nations must continue the American agenda of overwhelming military response to the Taliban problem. But as these operations continue to claim lives, support for the Taliban can be expected to grow.

For Obama and his western allies in the region, failure to bring stability could have serious political consequences. The consequences for ordinary civilians, however, are already far more dire.

Election Commission overrules Karzai

mustafa — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:53:44 +0000

A senior UN official says it will be nearly impossible to hold credible elections in Afghanistan in April, as ordered by President Karzai.

“It’s like fighting quick sand”

mustafa — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:49:02 +0000

Here, published in NewMatilda.com today, is an analysis of the recent Taliban suicide attack on Kabul and the build of US troops in the country.

“It’s Like Fighting Quick Sand”

As Obama commits another 17,000 US troops to the flagging US war effort in Afghanistan, a commando-style attack by the Taliban in Kabul serves as a reminder of the challenges that lie ahead, writes Mustafa Qadri

“It’s like fighting sand. No force in the world can get the better of the Afghans,” said Oleg Kubanov, a Russian veteran of the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan at a commemoration of the communist regime’s withdrawal from the country in Moscow last Sunday.

It isn’t only foreign armies who are having difficulty confronting violence in the region.

For the second time in three months a devastating suicide commando-style attack on a major foreign city has been linked to Pakistan. Last Wednesday morning a handful of gunmen with explosives strapped to their chests stormed two government ministries and a prison complex in central Kabul, killing 26 and leaving many others injured. Another was killed trying to enter the Ministry of Education. One of the attackers blew himself up inside the prison complex, leaving a gruesome trail of bloodied glass, concrete and body parts.

Afghanistan’s intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh immediately blamed Pakistan for the attacks. Associated Press quoted Saleh as stating that the attackers sent text messages to their “leader” in Pakistan just prior to the attack. The claim bears a striking resemblance to that made by Indian officials last December, when a dossier sent to Pakistani authorities mentioned records of phone conversations between the Mumbai attackers and people in Pakistan.

But the alleged links back to Pakistan are not the only similarity. The fidayeen attacks on key areas of the Afghan Government, in which a few well-armed gunmen seek to maximise casualties and continue to fight until killed, mirrored the attacks on Mumbai in November last year as well as an earlier attack on the Indian parliament quarter in New Delhi in December 2001.

One of the common aims of these assaults was to paralyse the cities thereby spreading fear and magnifying the sense that the militants are capable of striking at the heart of their enemies’ power-base.

Even though (according to a US Army spokesperson) the attacks were “poorly executed”, this most recent attack left central Kabul paralysed for over two hours. The last, equally daring, attack on Kabul was a suicide attack on India’s embassy in July 2008 which killed 58 people, including the Indian defence attache. US intelligence officials have accused Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence of assisting that murderous assault.

The most recent attack on Kabul appears to have been timed to coincide with a visit by Richard Holbrooke, US President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke arrived for his first visit to Afghanistan as special envoy last Thursday, the day after the attacks. While stamping out the Taliban insurgency was the primary purpose of his visit, few could have expected this type of introduction.

The ostensible reason for the attacks, the Taliban declared in a prepared statement widely distributed to the media, was to protest the treatment of its captured fighters. “We wanted to teach them a lesson,” said spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahed. But the attacks were more likely calculated to prove the powerlessness of the Afghan Government at a time when its key supporter, the United States, is very publicly seeking to ramp up its presence in the country. It was no coincidence that the Taliban chose to attack key government ministries a mere block away from President Hamid Karzai’s official residence.

The attacks were also a reminder to all — not least ordinary Afghans who remain sceptical about foreign troops and their government’s capacity to govern them — that the Taliban is still a force to be reckoned with. A recent poll of ordinary Afghans by ABC News America found that support for the Karzai Administration and particularly the foreign military presence has diminished considerably in recent times. Support for President Karzai has reduced to 63 per cent from 85 per cent in 2005, while only 42 per cent view US efforts in Afghanistan favourably, down from 57 per cent last year.

Such polls bode ill for Obama, who has just committed an extra 17,000 US troops to the war. “This increase is necessary to stabilise a deteriorating situation
in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention,
direction and resources it urgently requires,”
the President said in an apparent backhander to George W Bush, whom Obama has accused of
ignoring urgent security needs in Afghanistan in favour of the war in
Iraq.

Last Thursday Afghan and US officials announced an agreement whereby Afghan forces would take on more responsibility for the planning and conduct of specific operations with a view to reducing civilian casualties. This announcement came on the same day that Australian forces were implicated in the killing of up to five children during a fire fight with Taliban militants last week.

The agreement between Afghanistan and the US is one part of a decision to include the troubled central Asian country in at least part of a series of reviews the US is currently undertaking of its presence in the region. It is a small coup for President Karzai, who is considered to have a poor relationship with the Obama Administration.

Pakistani officials will also be taking part in the US reviews. Earlier last week, before travelling to Afghanistan, Holbrooke spent three days speaking to Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership.

Perhaps to coincide with his visit and show its resolve to tackle extremism, Pakistan officially accepted that the Mumbai attacks were at least partially planned in the country. Pakistan has arrested six men it claims planned the attacks, including one described as the ringleader.

It was perhaps no coincidence, however, that Holbrooke chose to visit Pakistan before Afghanistan or India, where he is currently spending the next few days. Pakistan’s ability to curtail Islamic militancy, or lack thereof, featured prominently in his recent discussions with Indian officials, as it did during his visit to Pakistan. For its part, Pakistan is desperate for continued military and economic aid from the United States.

In truth, Washington can ill-afford to neglect its relationship with Pakistan. Despite talk of a tripling in non-military aid to Pakistan being tied to its successfully curtailing Islamic militancy — $US1.5 billion a year for 10 years in socio-economic assistance — the US will have to continue to fund the Pakistan army.

Afghan elections postponed again

mustafa — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:08:08 +0000

The credibility of the international mission in Afghanistan was dealt a blow yesterday with the announcement that presidential elections have been put back by three months.

From War on Terror to Plain Old War

mustafa — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:42:50 +0000

My latest article, on US policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan under President Obama, was published in NewMatilda.com today:

From War on Terror to Plain Old War

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Early signs suggest an escalation of the Bush administration’s policies on Afghanistan and Pakistan under the new President, writes Mustafa Qadri

It didn’t take long for President Barack Obama to resume the United States’ unilateral strikes into Waziristan, the most lawless region of Pakistan that is a key base for Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Last week two missile strikes in North and South Waziristan, along the Pak-Afghan border, killed 22 and injured several others. Foreign militants, their local hosts and their immediate family members were believed to be the casualties.

The Pakistan Government has continued to publicly plead with the United States to stop the missile attacks, but there are doubts as to its sincerity. Although Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi has denied the claim, murmurs of a secret agreement between the two countries to permit the strikes, possibly signed late last year, are getting louder.

Whether or not such an agreement exists, the reality is that the US will continue to largely do as it pleases. Pakistan is arguably in the weakest position it has been in for decades. Widely implicated in the November Mumbai attacks in India and facing persistent militant attacks and economic woes, authorities can ill-afford to upset the country whose military and economic support they depend upon for survival.

That, ironically, should give President Obama significant leverage to reshape US relations with Pakistan, and some believe this is precisely what will happen.

Much has been made of Barack Obama’s first sit-down interview as President. The interview, on the Saudi-backed Al Arabiya satellite channel, was hailed as a welcome early step in bridging the gap between the United States and Arab and Muslim societies. “Americans are not your enemy,” Obama said on the show, while in his inauguration speech the President claimed that his administration would “seek a new way forward [with the Muslim world], based on mutual interest and mutual respect”.

But for the starved, traumatised, predominantly Muslim population of Gaza, Obama’s silence during and after Israel’s deadly invasion resonates more powerfully than any of his words.

Obama has also promoted leaders like Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who have actively colluded with Israel in its siege of Gaza, particularly in the Jewish State’s attempts to destroy the Palestinian Hamas movement.

And then, of course, there are the continued missile strikes in Pakistan.

The disparity between his rhetoric and these acts is glaringly obvious throughout the so-called Muslim world. Here in Pakistan, the recent missile strikes, as well as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, have been denounced in rallies in every major city.

It is, however, early days. And it is arguable that Obama has very little choice at this point but to maintain the status quo, even if he hopes to eventually change the disastrous course of US foreign policy in the Middle East and South and Central Asia.

The Obama Administration is set to undergo a major review of US policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has also said it will treble non-military aid to Pakistan to $US7.5 billion over five years, and attach its delivery to Pakistan’s “performance” in dealing with the Taliban and other militant groups.

Richard Holbrooke, the Clinton-era diplomat who brokered the Dayton Accords between the warring armies of the former Yugoslavia, has been named the new administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Whereas the former Bush administration largely entrusted the management of Pakistan’s role in the “war on terror” to client dictator Pervez Musharraf, Holbrooke represents a more hands-on approach from Washington.

However, despite such developments, US engagement in the region will continue to emphasise military options.

During hearings in the US Senate this week US Defence Secretary Robert Gates described the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan as “our greatest military challenge right now”.

Before taking office, Obama promised to increase US troop levels in Afghanistan to as much as 60,000. Already the figure has swelled to 36,000 while a further 10,000 is expected in the near future. The US is expected to request other foreign troop numbers to increase, too.

Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon told ABC radio that the Australian Government is willing to consider an increase in its commitment, but only if it is part of a shift in the “overarching plan” for the troubled nation. Australia currently has over a thousand service men and women in the country.

In theory, beefing up the number of soldiers to defeat the militants appears to be a sound approach. Afghanistan is arguably the most lawless country in the world, perhaps rivalled only by Somalia and the Congo.

Yet little of the Taliban’s support in recent years has stemmed from ideological sympathies among the ethnic Pashtun tribes of the south and east where it first rose to prominence. In fact, all Afghanis have an age-old tradition of resisting foreign occupiers. That the US-led force and the Karzai Administration that it backs have failed to improve governance and reduce warlordism in the country has helped the Taliban’s cause. It has also helped paint the Taliban, who are well versed in the region’s traditions and tribal politics, as a local resistance movement.

On 18 January, an official from the Afghan Foreign Ministry made a surprisingly direct public statement against “the international community, including some powerful NATO member countries” for supporting certain warlords over the Government in Kabul.

For its part, the Taliban have welcomed the Obama presidency in so far as he has already decided to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camps. But as Reuters reported, the jihadi militants have declared that peace is only possible if the US withdraws its forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.

It might still seem unthinkable, but there is a message in that for Obama.

NATO vs Karzai

mustafa — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:13:42 +0000

Mr Baheen said the Afghan government was committed to establishing rule of law. However, its efforts were being undermined as “the international community, including some powerful Nato member countries, has their own favourite warlords” who they back against the Karzai government, he charged.