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| Afghanistan |
| About the Talibs in the NWFP... |
| 2002-03-26 |
Not the first time these charges have been made. Anything new? Any details? Pakistan has consistently denied funding the Taliban, both at the height of the fundamentalist regime, when the links between Pakistan's intelligence services and the Taliban were well documented and widely accepted, and in the aftermath of Sept. 11, when Pakistan President Musharraf swiftly sided with the United States against his former allies in Kabul. Well, the Afghans have got a really good point there. If they deny doing it when we know absolutely they were doing it, why should we believe them when they deny doing it now? "The Pakistanis are not any longer sending their own troops [to help the Taliban], because they are under pressure from the US," Zadran said. Instead, he said, Pakistani intelligence agents who remain sympathetic to the Taliban are helping Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar "to destabilize Afghanistan. These people have offices in Pakistan." They've got a big support group going in the Pak-Afghan Defense Council. That's Maulana Samiul Haq's job. The money's funneled through Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and raised through its compenent organizations of raving religious fanatics. Zadran said the Afghan government is "100 percent sure" that Osama bin Laden, the suspected terrorist mastermind, fled the Tora Bora onslaught last December into the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan and Pak-occupied Kashmir, and that Pakistani officials have done little to try to track him down - allegations the Pakistanis deny. Mullah Omar is hiding in southwestern Afghanistan, according to Afghan intelligence reports, Zadran said. Can't recall any reports of house-to-house searches in NWFP by the Paks. The impression we've gotten has been that the Paks are afraid to go in there for fear of being beaten up by raving Pashtuns. Either that, or they have much more important things to do, like washing their turbans or talking seriously about getting ready to hold a meeting to come up with a commission to formulate a plan to catch the guys slaughtering Shiites and Christians and reporters. The frontiers minister, who is responsible for maintaining security along the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, insisted that there are no forces from Al Al-Qaeda left in the Shah-e-Kot valley after a US campaign to roust them from mountain caves, because "every one of these people - including Arabs from Dubai, Qatar, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi - have either been killed or withdrawn to Pakistan." Apparently taking their dead with them, like the Viet Cong used to do. He said the Al-Qaeda forces are active in the semiautonomous and loosely policed tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, and warned that "after 30 days, some Al Al-Qaeda members may pop up somewhere else.... Al Al-Qaeda is not 100 percent eliminated and they could still destroy the democratic system in Afghanistan or the world." "Hey, I've got an idea. Let's pretend we're Cambodia and Afghanistan's Vietnam. We can cross the border and kick thehell out of somebody, then go back across and they won't be able to come after us." Zadran said that because of the proximity to Pakistan of Khost, the lawless Afghan border city that was the site of the most recent attack on a US special forces base by suspected Al-Qaeda members last week, "those Al-Qaeda can spend two hours in Pakistan, one hour in Khost." Both foreigners and Afghans, he said, "are being paid to fight in Afghanistan, though they live in Pakistan." Commuting mercenaries, with the little woman packing a lunch for them as they leave to spend the day on jihad and then make it home in the evening for dinner. Zadran said his border guards intercepted a convoy of six trucks several weeks ago that were carrying medicines and essential supplies to Al-Qaeda forces from Peshawar, Pakistan, to Sarana, in the bordering province of Paktia - proof, he asserted, that some elements in Pakistan are helping the enemy forces. Yep. That's pretty hard proof. Now do something with it. Lemme know if you need a plan. Musharraf has taken public steps since Sept 11 to crack down on Islamic extremists and to shut down the cells of his intelligence agencies that previously aided the Taliban. But sources in the Pakistani armed forces acknowledge that some elements of the ISI remain sympathetic to the Taliban and believe that the government that replaced it is the least friendly to Islamabad in years - and they are quietly mobilizing to undermine it. Because of its volatile relationship with India to the east, Pakistan has long believed it needs an unquestioned ally to the west. Of course it's the least friendly government to Pakistan in years. Pakland and its proxies raped the country and turned it into an international pariah. The way to win its friendship is not to offer aid and shelter to its enemies, domestic and foreign. But Pakland doesn't seem to have any idea of how to be a friendly neighboring government. The senior Afghan intelligence officer said his agency has evidence that "Taliban and Al Al-Qaeda have left Paktia and are preparing themselves in remote areas of Pakistan" for a comeback. Ten days ago, he said, 100 Al-Qaeda troops crossed from Pakistan into Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, to accompany senior Taliban commander Jalahuddin Haqqani through mountain ranges about 500 kilometers northeast to Chamkani, a town in Paktia province hard on the border with Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province. Haqqani's the Big Cheese commander of the Bad Guys since Binny's either dead or admitted that he's better qualified to move money and make home videos. If Chamkani's going to be the new TaliCenter, we'll have to take it out. Too bad for the Chamkani civilians. Guess they'll have some real reason for being anti-American, those of them that aren't dead. "All the funding came from Pakistani fundamentalists who are funneling money to Al Al-Qaeda since their bank accounts have not been frozen," unlike bin Laden's. "ISI provided security and intelligence for them so they could pass through the area safely," the senior official asserted. There's the crux of the whole matter, right there. Perv has backed off on his crackdown and is now trying to make nice with the Unholy Trio of Qazi, Sami and Fazl. Had he continued on the track he took when he was afraid India was going to nuke him, he'd on top now. Instead, possibly as a result of Haider's brother being assassinated, he backed off. Qazi thinks he has the whip hand, the terror orgs are kissing his ring, and Fazl and Sami are holding his train. How to fight this? It won't be pretty. If they ignore the border, we have to ignore the border. If their proxies come into Afghanistan to kill people, our proxies - what the hell, they're all Pashtuns, like the Paks keep telling us - should be roaming around NWFP killing anyone who looks remotely anti-Karzai, if not everybody who's anti-American. When the Paks bitch, we scratch our collective head and look stupid - I'm a parent; I can help with that if need be. "Bands of vicious killers running around NWFP? Do tell? Don't know anything about it - not ours. If we hear anything, we'll let you know." Shortly after Sami, Fazl, Qazi and Gen. Hamid ("It's not that difficult to obtain a suitcase-size nuclear weapon. Just the thing for retaliation against London or New York.") Gul are found iced by person or persons unknown, preferably on the same day at the same hour, the cross-border violence will back off, on both borders. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |