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Strategies & Market Trends : Coming Financial Collapse Moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (698)	5/9/2002 11:37:22 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 974

... It is doubtful that robot planes are useful to do what 118k soviet soldiers could not, but I suppose try one must, killing yesterday's friends who are today's enemies. stratfor.com U.S. Fears Agitator in Sensitive Afghan Border Province 9 May 2002 The Central Intelligence Agency tried to kill former Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar May 6, using a Hellfire missile fired from an unmanned Predator aircraft, according to U.S. media reports. Hekmatyar survived the attack, but several of his top lieutenants were killed. The attack is likely the same one that was reported by the Afghan Islamic Press earlier in the week. According to AIP, at least 30 people were injured when a bomb or rocket was fired on the village of Dabarey in the Shegal Gorge, in Afghanistan's Konar province. AIP cited witnesses in the Shegal Gorge that said a U.S. surveillance aircraft was seen circling the area before the attack. The Shegal Gorge is the stronghold of Kashmir Khan -- a former commander for Hekmatyar's forces in the fight against Soviet occupation -- who now claims allegiance to the Northern Alliance and Afghanistan's interim government. Hekmatyar's presence in Konar province could prove troubling to U.S. defense and intelligence officials, particularly as the United States is planning sensitive military operations in association with Pakistani forces in the border region. Hekmatyar, once one of the most powerful warlords in Afghanistan and a former recipient of U.S. military hardware and funding, is an ethnic Pashtun who vehemently opposes foreign interference in Afghanistan's affairs -- at least when he doesn't benefit from it. He consistently has criticized the government of interim leader Hamid Karzai as being a U.S. puppet and has called on all Afghan forces to unite and drive the United States out of the country. In the early stages of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, Hekmatyar -- then in self-imposed exile in Iran -- offered to join his forces with the Taliban and others to repel Washington's aggression. He later was kicked out of Iran and returned to Afghanistan in March. Washington's biggest concern with Hekmatyar is his potential to act as a rallying point for anti-U.S. forces inside Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan. Konar province borders Pakistan's tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province, both Pashtun areas where former Taliban and al Qaeda members readily can find refuge. They also are areas where mistrust -- not only of the United States but also of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf -- runs high. Hekmatyar's presence in the border area, then, could signal the early stages of a more unified opposition to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such opposition not only would jeopardize Washington's anti-terrorism campaign, but the stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. With U.S. and Pakistani forces preparing coordinated operations in the region soon, Hekmatyar represents a very real and pressing threat to U.S. operations in South Asia, and he quickly could complicate matters inside Afghanistan and Pakistan.