The fighting in Afghanistan

Poh Ah Pak SG

Death by the light of a silvery moon
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

NAWA PASS, Pakistan border with Afghanistan - Sitting with four key Taliban commanders deep in a labyrinth of lush green mountains, I could see the Sarkano district of the Kunar Valley in Afghanistan, which is the provincial hub of the American military and a base for the Afghan National Army and Afghan intelligence.

Scores of guerrilla groups, each comprising a few dozen men, hide on the fringes of the Kunar Valley and launch daily operations into Kunar and Nooristan provinces, and with each passing day they receive new recruits and their attacks grow in intensity.

A year ago, I spent two weeks with the Taliban in Helmand province (including a few days in captivity - see A 'guest' of the Taliban, Asia Times Online, November 30, 2006 ), but since then there has been a sea-change within the Taliban.

Without legends such as the slain Mullah Dadullah and Mullah Akhtar Osmani, and with an extremely ill Jalaluddin Haqqani, a neo-Taliban movement has emerged with a new leadership, new zeal and new dynamics. The revitalized and resupplied Taliban are geared to enter a new phase of war without borders to fight coalition forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistan army.

In a way, all that has gone before in the "war on terror" in the past six years since the Taliban were ousted from Kabul has been a dress rehearsal.

For its part, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders are preparing to take up the fight. According to Asia Times Online contacts familiar with developments, a joint Pakistan-NATO operation was approved at a meeting of Pakistan's corps commanders at the weekend. Significantly, they agreed that the boundaries would not necessarily be drawn between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Whether a conventional force such as NATO can contain the Taliban is another matter. Obviously, the Taliban are confident. I asked Shaheen Abid, the Taliban's head of guerrilla operations in the strategic Sarkano district, what was behind the group's revitalization.

Shaheen smiled in response and turned his gaze to three of his subordinate commanders - Zahid of the Nole region, Mohsin of the Shonk Karey district and Muslim Yar of the Barogai region.

"I only know how to fight. Answering complicated questions is beyond my ambit," Shaheen said apologetically, and immediately signaled for the Taliban's media relations officer of the Kunar Valley, Dr Jarrah (a jihadi name), to respond.

Jarrah began, "Before answering you, I will ask you a question. Who is qualified to claim that he has actually seen world?" Before I could reply to this rather strange question, Jarrah answered himself, "The one who has experienced true love, the one who has lived in an alien atmosphere and place, and the one who has spent time in captivity.

"The mujahideen have experienced all three things in the past seven years. We have been reared on a true love for our global struggle, we were forcibly displaced from one place to another and we spent lots of time in the detention centers of Cuba [Guantanamo], in Pakistan, Bagram [Afghanistan] and Abu Ghraib [Iraq] and braved the brutalities of the CIA [US Central Intelligence Agency], the ISI [Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence] and Afghan intelligence," Jarrah said.

"We actually see the world now. We are seasoned and therefore you will see actual fireworks against the one which claims to be the global superpower."

Shaheen then excused himself and joined his subordinates Zahid, Mohsin and Muslim Yar, all in their early 20s. "Please don't mind them, they are discussing their previous operations and planning fresh ones," Jarrah told me.

"We carried out attacks on a daily basis until last Thursday [November 8]. We assign a particular group for a particular assignment. There are different sorts of attacks. We do send attackers called fedayeen in which fighters loaded with rockets and hand grenades and AK-47 guns attack an American base or the Afghan National Army or the intelligence headquarters in Sarkano.

"In such fedayeen attacks, there is zero chance of survival [for the attackers].

"Then we carry out specific attacks based on precise information provided by pro-Taliban elements within the Afghan establishment or by local people. And then the third and the most expensive attacks are those in which we fire missiles on an enemy position from a distance. It costs us 250,000 Pakistani rupees [about US$4,000] per operation.

"We launch all three kinds of operations many times a month. At present, due to the dim moonlight, operations have stopped for few days. We only launch operations during moonlight because Kunar is all jungle and mountains and without such light there is a strong chance of falling into the crevasses," Jarrah explained.

Jarrah said that the Taliban's operations are based on various tactics and are not only asymmetric attacks. "We have tribes and people who live in particular places. They openly resist foreign troops in the Kunar Valley. Then we have organized guerrilla groups - we use them as our special forces - and finally we have a missile battery. Not a single day passes without the enemy facing several of our attacks in various parts of Nooristan and Kunar provinces.

"The fighters have acquired a lot of confidence due to their successes and now they confidently play tricks. Recently, we used Afghan National Army uniforms and laid siege to American troops in Nooristan and killed and wounded many of them. In return, the Americans threatened to bomb a whole village. That's why the local people didn't spy on the Taliban's positions," Jarrah said.

Suddenly, in the far distance, we saw the dark skies of Kunar light up.

"That is a light bomb used by the enemy to trace the Taliban's positions. That is approximately 10 kilometers from here, and obviously a battle is going on between the enemies and the Taliban. We are not necessarily aware of such battles every time," Jarrah said.

After a dinner of rice and chicken curry and saying the final prayers of the day, we all slept in an isolated mud house of the village. The call to morning prayers marked the start of a new day and a new struggle. After saying prayers and eating breakfast, the men who had accompanied us the previous evening left, but within two hours a new group joined us.

"They rotate throughout the day and night. Some of the people will go back to Pakistan to stay with their families and new ones will join us. Some will finish their guerrilla operations in the Kunar Valley and join us here to rest, and then a new guerrilla group will be launched," Jarrah said.

"But do you sometimes have a serious dearth of fighters?" I asked.

"Not at all," said Jarrah, laughing. "Instead, the real issue remains how to accommodate all the guerrilla groups because people are flooding to us to join the jihad and we don't always have enough resources to provide for them all at the same time. But I think we will increase our resources soon, and then you will see a flood of fighters finding its way against the foreign occupying forces."

Before I could ask any further questions, a tall man who introduced himself as Maroof asked me, "What is your name, Mr Journalist?" "Saleem Shahzad," I answered. "What?" I repeated my name. "Aren't you the one who was detained by the Taliban last year in Helmand? I listened to your interview on radio after your release," Maroof said with excitement.

"He is with us now, what happens if he is killed?" I heard Maroof inquiring of Jarrah in a loud whisper. Jarrah chuckled, "If he is killed, it would be the will of God."

Maroof was in the Afghan National Army and was once detained by the Americans for being in the army but "facilitating" the Taliban. He says he did not cough up anything during interrogation, but when he was released he promptly joined the ranks of the Taliban.

"The mujahideen have now acquired such strength that neither Pakistan nor NATO can fight against us. The Taliban are standing on both sides of the border. More operations breed more Taliban, and this time the Taliban will rule the whole region," Maroof said confidently...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK13Df01.html

00011000 SG

The Afghanistans are born fighters with the potent mix of religion and fighting in their own land…..........give them edges like no other.

frakfrakfrak SG

Afghans and Palestinians are all cut from the same cloth. They are freedom fighters.

http://sabbah.biz/mt/my-occupied-land/

Poh Ah Pak SG

It seems that the americans are digging their own graves by invading Afghanistan.

There are no signs of victory for the americans in Afghanistan.

They are slowly bleeding to death there.

This is ironic since the USA played a role in instigating the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979:

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979.

But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise.

Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

Tang Yong: January 18, 1998, you were interviewed by the French newspaper, Nouvel Observateur on the topic of Afghanistan. In that interview you revealed that CIA support for the mujaheddin started before the Soviet invasion, and was indeed designed to prompt a Soviet invasion.

Brzezinski: I didn't say it was designed to prompt a Soviet invasion. That was a very sensationalized and abbreviated version of an interview. What I did say was that we did help mujaheddin to resist the Soviet. At the time the Soviet already had political control over Afghanistan but had not yet invaded militarily.

Tang Yong: Given the rising influence of Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, Do you feel it is worthwhile to do all this?

Brzezinski: Absolutely! The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan...

http://english.people.com.cn/200603/20/eng20060320_251953.html

USA used the strategy of "Lure the Tiger Down the Mountain" in order to drag the Soviets into a bloodbath with the Afghans in order to weaken the Soviet Union :

Lure the Tiger Down the Mountain

Never directly attack a well-entrenched opponent. Instead lure him away from his stronghold and separate him from his source of strength.

http://www.chinastrategies.com/List.htm#Strategy%2015

Now the americans have fallen into their own trap.

Sad, history repeats itself.

xjxjxj SG

Serve the US right for its failure in the middle-east!
May the Arabs kick them back where they belong!

Throughout the 20th century, the US has been crossing oceans and mountains interfereing in other nations' affairs. And most of the time they lost!

The Korean war, Vietnam war, and now its middle east campaign says it all!

Poh Ah Pak SG

'Pain has become the remedy'
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

NAWA PASS, Pakistan border with Afghanistan - While I was waiting in a village mud mosque, several motorbikes emerged from the evening darkness along a dirt track.

Four strongly built men stopped in front of me and alighted, their faces flushed from their ride. They each gave me a hug, and their traditional Punjabi greeting was music to my ears after listening to a lot of Pushtu.

I asked the obvious question: "Are you Punjabi?" The concern on their faces was immediately noticeable. "No! We belong to this land and like many Afghans we were settled in Punjab [in Pakistan] and therefore learnt Punjabi and forgot Pashtu, but now we are back in our land and have learnt our language again," one of the men explained.

This is perhaps somewhat romantic. Although such Punjabis might have romantic ties with Afghanistan, they actually come from Pakistani Punjab. Before the partition of British India in 1947, Punjab was seen as a loyal colony of the British and their recruits fought against the Afghans. After partition, Punjabis were seen as usurpers who divided the Pashtun tribes in the name of a new country called Pakistan. To many Afghans, Punjabis are opportunists and while they claim to be Muslims, their culture is a blend of Hinduism and Sikhism.

Sadiq is not a commander: he cannot be, because whatever he might say about his ethnicity, for Afghans he is a Punjabi. I watched as he spoke fluent Pashtu to his Afghan comrades, moving from one group to another with a permanent smile on his face. Clearly, he is the natural leader of the diaspora of Punjabi guerrillas now in Afghanistan.

Sadiq was in the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistani jihadi group focused on the struggle to regain Indian-administered Kashmir. He was trained by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to conduct guerrilla operations all across India. He knows how to generate resources and lead sorties.

He joined the Taliban in late 2004 as an ordinary fighter, but because of his skills he quickly rose through the ranks. He became a trainer and honed his men's battle skills. And although he is not a commander, he is more respected and important than many of them. He is the mastermind of all guerrilla operational plans in Afghanistan's Kunar Valley.

An emirate in the making
I said my final prayers of the day and had my dinner. It was tolerably cold, and I sat back and by the light of a gas lamp watched and listened to tired guerrillas discussing their day.

"I was thinking before coming here, how do you say your Friday prayers in the battlefield - I noticed you did not say any today?" I started the conversation with Sadiq.

"First, we are all travelers, so Friday prayers are not compulsory. But most importantly, this region has been declared darul harb [enemy country], so Friday prayers are suspended until it becomes darul Islam [abode of Islam]," Sadiq replied.

I continued this discussion with Sadiq on prayers and the circumstances in which they are suspended and restored, and soon all the people in the mud hut had gathered around and the conversation turned to the new dynamics of the Afghan resistance.

So I launched a series of questions. "It is still not clear who is in whose command. What is the command of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar [leader of the Hezb-i-Islami]? Is [veteran Afghan resistance figure] Jalaluddin Haqqani under [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar, or is he commanding separately? Who do the Pakistan Taliban answer to? To Mullah Omar? And what are Pakistani jihadis up to?

Sadiq smiled at the barrage of questions and responded with some breaking news, "Mullah Omar, the Taliban shura [council], al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban have resolved this issue once and for all. Soon the mujahideen will announce the revival of a [region-wide] Islamic emirate, and after this - like all fighting groups gathered under a single command in Iraq - all commanders in Afghanistan will fall under the umbrella of the Islamic emirate.

"The Islamic emirate will govern [operations in] Afghanistan and Pakistan, and whether it is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or any other, they will be under a single command and will not be able to defy the emirate because this is Islam," Sadiq said.

The pronouncement of an emirate would be a major development, and I jumped to my feet. "Are you sure that an Islamic emirate will be announced soon?"

"Yes, indeed," said Sadiq smiling.

"Sadiq, you know what this means? It would challenge both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Are the Taliban capable of doing this?" I asked.

"Of course we are," Sadiq replied calmly.

"How?" I asked.

"Three years ago, it was actually a dream, but now circumstances have enabled such an environment. Apart from North Waziristan and South Waziristan [tribal areas in Pakistan], the mujahideen used to move in Bajaur [Agency] and Mohmand Agency as if they were moving in [the Pakistani cities of] Karachi or Lahore. We were terrified of being arrested and of the fact that somebody would be spying on us.

"We used to make secret trips to Afghanistan to conduct occasional raids. On the one side the Americans were after us, and on the other side our own Pakistani army was tracking us. We didn't want to fight the Pakistan army, after all, they are Muslims. We tried our best to avoid fighting them, and still hardly 3% of the mujahideen are fighting against them. However, Pakistan did not think the way we were thinking. They were more cruel and gruesome than the Americans.

"We had a companion who had fought alongside us in Kashmir. His name was Umer, and he was dead against fighting the Pakistani army. Whenever the military conducted operations, he used to desert his companions, saying he could not fight against Muslims.

"One day, he was arrested by the ISI. They hung him by one hand from a roof, and carved stars on his thighs with daggers...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK14Df04.html

elias1987 SG

amen to that!! down with US Imperialism under the pretext of freedom and democracy!!

the Bear SG

just coz the americans are asswipes, doesn't mean the arabs aren't....

LazerLordz SG

For God’s sake, everyone’s an asswipe. It’s just which asswipe you think helps your cause best.

kengkia SG

to think of it....campaigns and names of armies that have self-labelled 'liberation' 'freedom' words into them who are usually not so of what it's name imply.....like "People Liberation Army" of PRC......"Fatherland Liberation War" which Korean war known as in North Korea. In Vietnam war also the US claimed that it's fighting for freedom of South Vietnam but was actually using it as a puppet state in a way same as South Korea. the point is..whatever superpower wants to do something to gratify itself it will coin in nice nice terms but all in the end are of their won benefits... Neutral

Arapahoe SG

how fast did we forget how the Taliban treats its own women and children.

qpicanto SG

the one notable aspect of US military in Afghan/Taleban is be the refraining of the use of Agent Orange which was used on the Vietnamese and Koreans during the military aggression against their nations which had and still has a diff. ideology as the Americans.