This thing (war) is FAR from over...I say this most unfortunately, but the complexity of this thing, and history- neither of which your average American can begin to understand- would argue it will not be solved soon or easy (However, looks like the markets are ready to declare it over... Article below thanks to Les)
To repeat, I say this all "unfortunately" because I would love nothing better to see this war end tomorrow. But I think reality will set in (in a month/two) for what the Western world is in for, and this will also start to be reflected in the markets (cooinciding with the "5" down?)...the harsh Afghan winter will make things clear(er)..
Mujahideen take up the Taliban fight
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With the dramatic political and military changes in Afghanistan over the past few days it is becoming evident that a new war is beginning in which Afghanistan will be divided among Pastun and non-Pastun warlords, with the Taliban fighting a guerrilla war against the latter, and against any foreign troops that might join them.
This scenario sees the emergence of the warlords and jihadis of the Afghan resistance movement against the Soviets in the 1980s as a new and powerful force against the United States and its allies and the non-Pastun Northern Alliance.
According to well-placed sources, under an accord reached in Pakistan two weeks ago between the Taliban and the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan, a fundamentalist faction of the mujahideen led by Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister in Afghanistan in pre-Taliban days, Hekmatyar's troops have taken control of most of the eastern provinces of Afghanistan. "We asked the Taliban leaders to leave these places, and they left, and now many of their commanders have melted into our forces," Hizb sources claimed.
These Hizb sources said that fighters under many of their former commanders, including the famous Kashmir Khan and Mutiullah, had taken control of Kunar province in the northeast of the country, and that Hekmatyar was expected to arrive soon from exile in Iran to take command.
Hekmatyar is a hard-line Muslim responsible for destroying much of Kabul in the post-Soviet (1989-1996) civil war. He was overthrown when rival militia leader Burhanuddin Rabbini assumed power. Hekmatyar was the strongest force during the years of Soviet occupation, largely because his party was the main benefactor of the seven official mujahideen groups recognized by Pakistan and US intelligence agencies for the channeling of money and arms.
The sources said that another area of Afghanistan is under the control of another faction of the Hizb-i-Islami led by Maulvi Yunus Khalis. The 80-year-old Pashtun leader had been living in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, but he is now said to be in the Jalalabad area to command forces against the Northern Alliance.
A spokesman for the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan in Pakistan, Gharat Bahir, has stated categorically that the group would not tolerate a monopoly of the Northern Alliance in Kabul, nor the return of former monarch Zahir Shah as head of state "at any cost". "Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic country in which Pashtuns represent 67 percent [sic] of the population. Any government in the future should comprise a proportionate representation of all of them," he said.
He added that the Hizb-i-Islami has an Islamic relationship with the Taliban, and that if they become engaged in a struggle against US forces, the Hizb-i-Islami (Hekmatyar) will be with them.
These developments herald the revival of the Hizb-i-Islami, which many people thought was a spent force. Against the Soviets it was the largest fighting force, with an estimated 125,000 troops of various ethnic groups spread all over Afghanistan. The Yunus Khalis faction of the Hizb-i-Islami was the third largest force - the second biggest was the Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, now leading the Northern Alliance.
Large numbers of the two Hizb factions melted into the Taliban when they took power in 1996, while others left for Pakistan and Iran. With this it was considered that both factions were in disarray. Even when, after the US bomb attacks on Afghanistan began and Hekmatyar extended his unconditional support to the Taliban, few believed that he had retained enough support to control the eastern areas, as he does now.
Under the Taliban's present strategy, says a Taliban source, they have vacated a number of areas, including Jalalabad, Logar, Paktia and Kunar, under agreements with local commanders and tribal leaders opposed to either the Northern Alliance or Zahir Shah. They will not launch any attacks on major cities such as Kabul, but they will defend their areas at all cost.
The Taliban, meanwhile, have established pockets around the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, from where they will attack the positions of the Northern Alliance. In the present situation, the Taliban will only retain a single city as their stronghold, such as Kandahar or any other city.
Behind the resurgence of the Hizb-i-Islami is believed to be the hand of Pakistani, which is bent on ensuring that there is a strong representation of pro-Pakistan elements (political and military) in any future Afghanistan setup.
Hekmatyar was among the founding fathers of a campaign to set off an Islamic revolution in Afghanistan. He and Ahmed Shah Masoud, the assassinated leader of the Northern Alliance army, were engineering students at the University of Kabul when they joined with their teacher, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in a campaign to oust the monarchy of Zahir Shah and bring about an Islamic revolution. All three and their associates were influenced by the Islamic movements of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, as well as by the writings of Syed Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan.
Through ties that they developed with the Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan, they made inroads into Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Rabbani and Masoud subsequently parted ways with Hekmatyar.
Masoud and Hekmatyar were both projected in the Western media as charismatic leaders, but after 1986 when Hekmatyar refused to meet with then US president Ronald Reagan - and called US policies in the Middle East tyrannical - he was essentially blacklisted by the West.
However, he remained a favorite leader with the ISI, and continued to receive the lion's share of arms and money from them. However, when Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, a legacy of dictator General Zia ul-Haq, was removed from the ISI by the Benazir Bhutto government, the ISI's Afghan policies changed, which upset Hekmatyar, and he retired to Iran.
But he maintained his good ties with the Jamaat-i-Islami and with Gul, said to be one of the main forces behind the reemergence of the Hizb in Afghanistan.
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atimes.com
(and thanks to Haim)
Central Asia/Russia
British troops face the reality that is Afghanistan
By David Ben-Aryeah
LONDON - At the time that British Prime Minister Tony Blair was addressing the House of Commons in London on Wednesday on the situation in Afghanistan, across the United Kingdom selected military units were preparing to fly to the country to take part in a massive effort to "stabilize" the situation.
Senior military sources have already indicated that the prime units to go will be from the Parachute Regiment, the Air-Mobile Brigade, the Royal Marines (with over 400 in the area already) and specialized units from the Special Air Service regiment (SAS).
Their first responsibility will be to provide security and stability in the areas around the capital Kabul, supervise, possibly with assistance from the Royal Air Force and the RAF Regiment, the reopening of Kabul airport, and provide advice and protection for the massive aid effort about to be put into effect.
The second "wave" of personnel will help repair some of the damage that the United States, assisted by Britain, inflicted in many weeks of air bombings of the country. They will include units such as the Royal Engineers - experienced in mine clearance, bridge-building and the restoration and development of such essential infrastructure as water, power and sewage; the Royal Logistics Corps - experienced in such tasks as the provision of transport of supplies, fighting materials, portable accommodation for troops in the line and all of the many other aspects of military life in the field that require professional tasking; and the Military Police - who will provide infield security and protection for visiting VIPs and operational headquarters.
Add to this a number of specialized units dealing with explosives ordnance disposal (bomb and mine disposal) and also interrogation of prisoners of war and intelligence matters.
The move by Blair to send thousands of British troops to Afghanistan to help establish stability, however, displays a lack of military history that verges on the irresponsible. The British and the Soviets at great and bloody cost have tried to stabilize Afghanistan - it is a task that can envelop as many troops and as much material as a country cares to send, and the relentless "low intensity conflict" (to use the US phrase for non-stop guerrilla war) can totally demoralize even crack troops. The Soviets spent 1979-1989 in Afghanistan losing a war that cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
In the 19th century, the British, who controlled India, and the Russians, who wanted to, angled for advantage in the Afghan terrain separating their empires. In the First Afghan War, which began in 1837 with Britain invading Afghanistan, it make big gains in the first few years. The British, however, had no exit strategy and they couldn't sustain their occupation. Countrywide uprisings kept them under ongoing siege, culminating in 4,500 British and Indian troops and 12,000 civilians fleeing Kabul in January 1842. Afghan soldiers chased them through snow-covered mountain passes, slaughtering them almost to a man, woman, and child.
In 1878, fearing that the Afghan rulers were making diplomatic overtures to Russia, the British invaded Afghanistan again, only to leave a year later after a brief and bloody occupation in the face of an unwinnable conflict.
In the present conflict, despite continuing reports of the collapse of the Taliban, (many in instances where local chiefs have decided to be pragmatic and survive) the situation remains, as they say in military circles, "fluid". There is no doubt that the "fleeing in confusion" is part of a greater plan to withdraw from far-flung areas of the country where logistical support would be impossible in the approaching winter, given the lack of air transport (the US coalition having destroyed most of the tiny Taliban air assets). It will also enable their conventional forces to concentrate in depth around Kandahar, their spiritual capital in the mainly Pashtun area of Afghanistan and where they enjoy strong local support.
And Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar could have moved to any of dozens of tunnel complexes in the area. The myriad "caves" that have been alluded to in the hunt for bin Laden are not the cold and dark natural edifices that one would immediately imagine. During the guerrilla war in the 1980s the mujahideen waged against the Soviet invaders, the elite SAS deployed personnel in secret to train and supervise the construction of several complexes of tunnels near Kandahar, and also in some of the more remote areas of the country where commanders could take refuge to avoid the incessant air pursuit of the Soviets. The tunnels had sound ventilation systems, good protection from even the largest of bombs, excellent storage and accommodation facilities, as well as communication links. It is most probable to assume that the Taliban have used the caves and tunnels and built others in new places.
One of the urgencies of the present situation is for the country, possibly assisted by the United Nations, to reach some sort of an agreement on how the Northern Alliance parts of Afghanistan can be supported, stabilized and organized to face the oncoming winter. December, January, February and March in the mountains can be extremely hazardous, and in many areas the temperature rarely rises above freezing, even during the daytime. Given the emaciated state and poor physical condition of tens of thousands of Afghans, this makes the urgency of getting supplies to remote areas all the higher a priority.
Given the ever-changing network of tribal loyalties, and indeed the survival of various warlords, the prospects of a broad spectrum government do not look good. As one commentator said, "They hate one another with an intensity that is hard to believe ... the only thing they hate more are outsiders trying to run their lives and their country; indeed, the most unifying event in the 150 years since the British in their red coats marched up the Khyber Pass was the Soviet invasion".
The "battle for Kabul" (if it could be described thus) was unbelievably quick and clean (unless you were a "foreign" Taliban fighter where it became terminal).
Quite apart from presenting the coalition with a real problem in respect to law and order, and the establishment of democracy, it also presents a greater problem by far in respect to the wider reaction in both the US and the UK when, on the commencement of actual ground hostilities, the body bags start coming home and people start asking of their leadership apposite and probing questions.
(Asia Times Online/Globalvision News Network) |
