<The US' most promising Afghani friend, the NA, is a Pakistani enemy. We help the NA and we upset the Pakistanis.>
Diplomacy and war strategy being planned.
There are intense negotiations between Pakistan and
Hidayat Amin Arsalan, former Afghan foreign minister,
acting as a special envoy of Afghanistan's former
monarch, Zahir Shah on future of Afghanistan. The
march of Northern Alliance towards Kabul has been
postponed by at least for several weeks. Until final
road map is prepared.
It is now known that Pakistan reservations on imposing
an Alliance government has been partially agreed by
the relevant quarters, quietly even Saudi has shown
its unhappiness over imposition of an alliance
Government according to well placed sources. The
Northern Alliance would not be allowed to takeover
Kabul until alternate broad based governance is
agreed.
Arsalan is holding intensive discussion with Pakistani
Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar on the future make up of
the Afghan Government, on the other hand Powell
negotiates with President Pervez Musharraf on many
aspects of military cooperation -- from arms sales to
personnel exchanges -- although weapons transfers are
still barred by sanctions. A growing consensus in
President Bush administration that Pakistan -- through
its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) assets in
Afghanistan -- holds the key for success of the United
States political and military objectives is the centre
piece of talks between the US Secretary of State Colin
L Powell and President General Pervez Musharraf in
Islamabad on Monday, according to Pakistani and other
diplomatic sources in Islamabad and Washington.
The clock is ticking as the diplomatic and strategic
show down is given final touches, the increase in
intensity of the diplomatic and ongoing war campaign
points to certain very concrete steps that are to be
achieved soon. The rule of the games to govern post
Taliban Afghanistan are clearly being set and
redefined, it is not a coincidence that King Zahir
Shah representative and Colin Powell are present in
Islamabad on a same day.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the
United States was open to expanding its military ties
with Pakistan and hinted that an announcement on a new
joint training program was imminent. With King Zahir
Shah emissary putting the final touches to the plans
being formulated in Islamabad. India feeling a loss
of importance on the murky chess board of global arena
missed no chance to remind the visiting dignitaries
that they have also some scores to settle with
Pakistan. Indian artillery today unexpectedly launched
a barrage against Pakistani military posts across the
Kashmir border, sparking retaliatory fire, Indian
artillery barrage which killed one woman and injured
25 civilians.
According to a Pakistani General who refused to be
named, India are stepping efforts to control what they
term cross border terrorism is actually a message to
Powell that ‘your newly discovered ally is not
necessarily our friend.’ That barrage of artillery by
India as added a new dimension to already very
complicated scene in the regional politics.
Along with diplomacy that is taken new turn by minutes
the US in a change of tactic that initially called for
massive attacks on Taliban it is now learned that over
the next couple of weeks, the U.S. military will
hammer the Taliban militia's 55th Brigade, a seasoned
assault force made up mainly of several thousand Arabs
and other foreigners, sources said. Some experts see
destroying that unit as crucial to undermining Taliban
rule in Afghanistan and crushing the terrorist network
led by Osama bin Laden; to a great extent, the 55th
Brigade represents bin Laden's organization in
Afghanistan.
Military planners are operating under some time
constraints as they plan the next phase of the war.
Shirin Tahir-Kheli, a South Asia expert who previously
served on the National Security Council staff,
believes that the Pentagon has "a one-month window,"
from the middle of this month until mid-November, when
the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins, to take apart
terrorist networks and undercut the Taliban.
The Pentagon is planning an extensive range of actions
during the next phase of the war in Afghanistan,
including covert raids, continued bombing and
large-scale helicopter attacks conducted partly to
signal that the U.S. military is engaged on the ground
in pursuing terrorists, defense officials and outside
military experts said.
Analysts and other informed Pakistani official sources
informed me that before the advent of Ramazan and
winters, the US government wants to see Taliban
military defeated, at least in capital Kabul coupled
with the formation of a broadbased 'interim council'
that may convene a Loya Jirga in the Afghan capital
some time late next month. During his stay in
Islamabad Secretary Powell will explore the extent to
which Gen Pervez Musharraf was ready to accommodate
Northern Alliance's political and military leadership
in the future government of Afghanistan.
In the future set-up currently being debated in
Washington, US officials have spoken of giving no less
than 40 per cent representation to political and
military commanders who now represent Tajiks, Uzbeks
and Hazara in the anti-Pakistan Northern Alliance.
"Somehow US officials feel that the ISI can provide
vital assistance to them in a range of political and
military areas," informed a Pakistani official
speaking by phone from Washington."
The US is clearly seeking to revive Cold War era ties
with Pakistan, particularly with ISI. As a gesture of
its intention to cooperate with the Bush
administration, Pakistani authorities have already
allowed anti-Taliban Afghan leaders and groups to
establish contact points and offices, reasonably
funded from unknown sources, for Taliban dissidents in
the cities of Peshawar and Quetta.
Along with this flurry of diplomatic activity the US
military plan appears designed, at least in part, to
reassure Americans that the government is going after
terrorists. It will be a total effort," according to
Defense officials here familiar with military
planning. "It will be an air assault with attacks from
bases near by on flushing out the terrorist from their
nests, and it will be real visible. I think the US
administration will want to show that things are being
done."
The 55th Brigade is believed to number well over 1,000
fighters, and has grown more powerful and more
politically significant inside Afghanistan over the
last year as more foreigners have come into the
country. According to Ali Ahmad Jalali, a former
colonel in the Afghan army who was a planner for the
resistance after the 1979 Soviet invasion. "The
brigade was specifically formed under the Taliban to
arrange, train and control the participation of Arab
volunteers," he said. "The Taliban relies heavily on
it." The unit spearheaded the Taliban takeover of
Mazar-e Sharif, the major city in the north, several
years ago, and reportedly was active in attacks on the
opposition Northern Alliance last week.
Even other experts who disagree with the view of the
55th Brigade as the keystone of Taliban power say they
expect it will be a major target of U.S. attacks in
the coming days, because it is an easily targeted
conventional military unit that is associated both
with bin Laden and the Taliban, and is believed to
have sent some of its trainees outside Afghanistan as
members of the al Qaeda network.
The strategy is to crush the 55th brigade, according
to a former Special Forces officer experienced in
Afghanistan. He says that 55th brigade is symbolic --
they are interlopers in Afghanistan."
Destroying the brigade might take months, the experts
also warned. Tahir-Kheli, the former National Security
Council staff member, believes that the unit appears
to be spread out across the country, with a hard core
of several hundred protecting bin Laden.
She predicted they are likely to fight to the death.
"They have nothing to lose," she said. "They took over
a country by force, and they've got nowhere else to
go."
It is believed that 55th brigade will be followed by
special forces, however one question facing the U.S.
military is that historically it does not have a good
track record -- at least in public -- with such secret
raids. In 1970, a group of U.S. troops on helicopters
flew to the Sontay prisoner-of-war camp just west of
Hanoi, only to find it empty. A decade later, Navy
RH-53D helicopters trying to rescue American hostages
in Iran crashed while refuelling, killing eight. In
1993, 18 U.S. troops were killed during a Special
Operations raid in Mogadishu, Somalia, that was
carried out by some of the same units deployed to
Uzbekistan.
On the other hand, experts say, the quality of Special
Forces troops and training improved radically in
response to some of those failures.
The events are moving towards a clear cut objective
much as many think that present crisis is becoming a
new quagmire for the anti terrorist alliance. |
