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2008-06-23 India-Pakistan

'Taliban advance only made possible by Al Qaeda's help'

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Posted by Fred 2008-06-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top
File under: al-Qaeda

#1 He is most certainly an expert on al-Qaeda, and he ain't lying about his government contacts. Do the math. Al-Qaeda was founded in 1989, by a Paleoarab, Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden. Azzam was murdered in the same year. When the Soviets pulled out, Arab jihadis settled around Kandahar. They protected Pakistan based Afghans, who sought to build a Pashto state based on the Pushtarun Code, which was a harsh localized sharia. When various Afghan governments proved weak, Taliban created a mass movement that built from its power base until it assumed control of most of the country. It was when it was somewhat consolidated, that they expanded the Al-Qaeda genocide camps, and invited foreign terrorists to train. Pre 9-11 American Muslim websites posted open bragging by trainees.

Although Taliban took UN and US aid money ($43 million in 2001 alone), they never acknowledged same. During their rule they publicized burnings of opium poppy fields in the north, while they allowed a Pashto monopoly in the trade. Taliban took, and is still taking, a 15% cut of said trade, and they now deal Heroin. Karzai allowed the first Heroin factories to go up in Afghanistan. Most of these are visible from Pakistan, which allows provincial exploitation of that trade (there are 2,000,000 heroin addicts in Pakistan).

With Obama having a 15% lead in the presidential polls (of course, it is a bump) it is likely that NATO would effectively hand deliver Afghanistan to the same animals who carried out 9-11. Taliban and al-Qaeda were and are an integral unit. Of course, Karzai told Der Spiegel that he admired their morality. Real moral people; they wouldn't allow single women to work, and shot them when they resorted to begging.

Posted by McZoid 2008-06-23 00:36|| 2008-06-23 00:36|| Front Page Top

#2 I think there is enormous sympathy for the Taliban within the military establishment and there is no doubt that the Taliban do have sanctuaries in Pakistan where they are not affected by any kind of military action.

I wonder what influence Hamid Gul still has over the ISI/Army?

Posted by Paul 2008-06-23 09:57|| 2008-06-23 09:57|| Front Page Top

#3 the US has stepped up its attacks, including attacks by drones, on the Pakistani side of the border and if intelligence indicates that there is a gathering of Taliban or Al Qaeda, the US acts very, very fast and does not always seem to have asked the Pakistanis for permission.

Very good. McZoid, I love your background pieces -- I always learn something new, and see old bits of information in a new perspective. Thank you!

Paul, good question. I look forward to the day when you post well-informed answers. :-)

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-06-23 10:11|| 2008-06-23 10:11|| Front Page Top

#4 That was below the belt trailing wife

What have i done to upset you?

Posted by Paul 2008-06-23 12:38|| 2008-06-23 12:38|| Front Page Top

#5 I am serious, Paul. It was a good question, one of the many (ok, almost all) to which I do not know the answer, but which caused me to stop and think. And I really do think you have the potential to become one of Rantburg's regional experts; look how quickly you responded to usable criticism of the approach you'd taken up 'til yesterday.

Go deep into Rantburg's archives and read what Dan Darling used to post, back when he was still a university undergraduate student. He learnt so much that as soon as he had that bit of parchment with BA on it he was swept into the world of terrorism consulting, far beyond the ken of us open source amateurs. There used to be another Paul, too, who was an expert on Pakistan; I think 'twas he that started posting nuggets from the Urdu press. He dropped away when he got too busy at school, I believe. The nice thing about the internet is that worldly rank is of less consequence than knowledge and understanding. There is no barrier to you achieving that here, irrespective of your chosen field in the analog world. (And for all I know you're an adorably excitable professor of nuclear physics at Cambridge, or a frustrated city grammar school teacher, or a London Bobby. But you know what I am, and yet you value my opinion of you -- life's a funny old thing, eh?)

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-06-23 18:07|| 2008-06-23 18:07|| Front Page Top

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