Captured suicide bomber talks
Released in July 2009 in Pakistan, with an un-identified male prsioner, shown in shadow, which was on Geo-TV (IIRC an independent station); a stunning and depressing film clip:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq88egK755k&feature=fvw
davidbfpo
Waziristan report and some "spin"
Again thanks Abu M spotting a UK Daily Mail reporter on the Pakistani campaign, under the hopeful IMHO headline 'Why Pakistan is winning ITS war against the Taliban'.
As always there is a "sting" at the end:
Quote:
Meanwhile, General Abbas cited a further stupefying sign of Nato’s apparent absence of strategic co-ordination.
In the name of the new ‘protection’ strategy, the US has this autumn been withdrawing from its posts on the Afghan side of the frontier, including those in Paktika, the province next to South Waziristan.
‘It will create a vacuum,’ he said, ‘and if militants escape from Waziristan, what can we do? We cannot fire on them when they cross the border.’
For years, Nato chiefs have accused Pakistan of failing to deal with the Taliban’s safe havens in Pakistani territory. Now, in one of the more bitter ironies of this ever-lengthening war, that role has been reversed.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...#ixzz0XFwBOxbn
Pakistan insurgency: war or "policital solution"
If you go to this link and scroll down the comments, you can see a discussion about the ongoing war in Pakistan (I am a participant and have the longest final comment, so this is also a plug). I thought some of you may be interested.
http://www.chapatimystery.com/archiv...comment-158346
also check out Pakistani blogger Hakim Hazik's latest at
http://justicedeniedpk.com/JDP/post/....aspx#continue
http://pakistankakhudahafiz.wordpress.com/
I spoke with someone in Pakistan recently (someone who eagerly supports what one may call the ISI version of recent events) and his vision was as follows:
1. The US and Israel and maybe India want to destroy Islam and to do this, they understand that they must destroy Pakistan.
2. Using 9-11 as the excuse, an invasion was launched.
3. Our army has managed, in very adverse circumstances, to keep Pakistan intact until now and protected our nuclear assets.
4. Terrorism that you see is basically mercenary jihadis acting on the instructions of America, Israel and Zionist Brahmins (I kid you not).
5. The army is united, and every officer knows that this is the final battle for Pakistan. We will defeat these mercenary terrorists, safeguard our nuclear assets and inshallah win the war after the coming global collapse destroys America's ability to impose its will on us. India will be the first to fall> Already, our Red chinese friends have green lighted the naxalites and when we unleash the jihadis, the brahmins will fall in one day...
and so on. This is NOT a fringe view. He gets this from TV 21, which is owned by interflo, which is the largest ad agency in Pakistan and the largest civilian asset used by the army in its PR moves. I highly recommend visiting paknationalists.com or http://pakistankakhudahafiz.wordpress.com/ to see for yourself.
Anyway, I wrote the following on the Pakistani blog chapati mystery today (or Pakistani-German, as the owner is a pakistani historian working in Germany). Its in response to comments that questioned the existence of an international jihadi threat. Some of it is relevant to your question.
http://www.chapatimystery.com/archiv....html#comments
The army armed and trained half a million terrorists. It encouraged an entire cultural shift towards Jihadism and extremism. It then lost control of the situation after 9-11. BUT instead of stepping back and saying we were wrong (not necessarily publicly, I am just speaking of saying it to themselves) and need to do many things now to fix the mess, they have always pursued a schizophrenic policy where they will abandon some of their former proxies and kill them, while keeping others for future use AND retain crucial parts of the previous paradigm of zero-sum competition with India, playing profitable games with America, retaining monopoly over most of Afghanistan and so on.
As a result, there is continued confusion within Pakistan about who is fighting who and for what reason and this confusion is hampering the war effort. A good section of the military is still working on the Zaid Hamid and Ahmed Qureshi paradigm without noticing that Zaid Hamid and company themselves believe that the future consists of massive and extremely violent wars against India and other powers...wars they hope to win, but wars which to any sane person must seem MUCH worse than the current mess. The army high command may or may not all be in the Zaid Hamid mould, but their continued short sighted encouragement of this line of psyops is creating massive confusion and will make their job harder, not easier.
The army itself will be better off if it faces the facts and changes some of its fundamental assumptions. Let us, for the sake of argument, accept that all these attacks are carried out by jihadis acting on the orders of India, Israel and America. What is the army doing to clarify the situation and fight back? What is the plan by which these three great powers and their jihadi agents are to be defeated? I submit that no coherent plan can be made because the accusation itself is incoherent.
I am not saying the US or India could not be involved in any terrorist acts. Pakistan is not a total outlier in its use of terrorism as a tool of policy. Others can and do play this game. But the question remains, what is the policy? why do these powers oppose the army? What can be done to stop them? What is in the best interests of the people of Pakistan? on all these questions, the army's response has been and remains unclear. And it remains so because they insist on having their cake and eating it too. Either they throw in their lot with the jihadists and the taliban and deal with USA and India as best as they can, or they fully switch sides and try to find a way to cooperate WITH the US and India AND with civilian politicians, against the jihadi worldview. There is no middle way that is going to work....
Pakistan's Security Paradox
JSOU, Dec 09: Pakistan’s Security Paradox: Countering and Fomenting Insurgencies
Quote:
Most American and Pakistani political and military leaders agree that without a credible U.S.-Pakistan partnership, victory against Taliban and Al Qaeda is impossible. For such a partnership, shared goals must be matched by shared threats, and perceptions must follow demonstrable action. Washington and Islamabad agree that Al Qaeda must be defeated. Pakistan’s national security calculus—based on India’s influence in Afghanistan—however, treats Afghan Taliban as leverage and Pakistani Taliban as enemies of the state. Consequently, Afghan Taliban are provided asylum in Pakistan while they wreak havoc in Afghanistan, and Pakistani Taliban are attacked. While Pakistan has countered and fomented numerous insurgencies, this is the first time that it has done both to achieve its national security goals. This dual policy and disconnect between American and Pakistani threat perceptions is at the heart of Pakistan’s security paradox. Pakistan continues to indirectly counter (COIN) and foment (FOIN) insurgency in Afghanistan. Without acknowledging, explicating, and eventually changing this paradox, Afghanistan and Pakistan will continue to descent into chaos.....
Pakistanis learn from the past
I was bemused to learn from a Pakistani military contact, who has visited the FATA recently, that he was reading 'The Frontier Scouts' by Charles Chevenix-Trench and learning that the old methods did indeed offer an answer to today's problems.
I too from an armchair recommend the book.
After the Pakistani "surge" the situation is bad
Hat tip to:http:/watandost.blogspot.com/ for this story on the ground in South Waziristan: http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=221823
From the start:
Quote:
the militants, following classic battle tactics, would stand their ground and fight head-on in the open, and be overwhelmed by a superior force. They did not take into account the likelihood of the militants’ following hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, melting into the familiar terrain after a strike, and then trying to win over the relatives of the civilian casualties of this war. We forgot that the operation was not launched against the entire population of Waziristan, after all, but a limited number of militants.
Concludes
Quote:
Waziristan has suffered long enough. We cannot afford to ignore it any more if we are concerned about the future of our younger generation. We have to replace the “dismantled training camps” with good schools and hospitals. We have to provide basic facilities and means of livelihood to the people. Only then can we hope to achieve a permanent end to militancy. Banking on the military operation alone as a cure for militancy is tantamount to following a tunnel-vision approach on a road leading nowhere.
Yes the military operation started in October 2009 and follow-on civil action takes time - as we all too well know over the Durand Line.
British Experience in Waziristan
During the past two weeks in six installments Tom Ricks has given a warm review to the book Waging War in Waziristan: The British Struggle in the Land of Bin Laden, 1849-1947 by Andrew M. Roe, a British officer. The lessons Ricks cites from the book are as follows:
Quote:
Be prepared to conduct a "constant mapping of political, economic and social information to gain a temporal insight into the views, motivation, and differences among the tribes and subclans."
Don't underestimate your enemy. "To take on the tribesman and defeat him in his own his is a game demanding a lifetime of specialized study."
Tribesman will study your tactics and punish lapses or even simple repetitions. "This is one read on why an advance is seldom disputed with vigour, whereas the withdrawal is ferociously harrassed."
Political officers must counter the tendency of military commanders to rely on their "instinct and their own values and standards, which often will be mistaken, unsuitable or inappropriate." (Tom: I saw this tendency a lot in Iraq in 2003-06.)
"Tolerating ambiguities, shortfalls and inconsistencies must be central to any sustainable policy." (Tom: Hmm, sounds like FM 3-24.)
Don't fight the tribal structure. "Employing and, where necessary, reinforcing the existing tribal framework and structures offers the best opportunity for success."
Be prepared to pay off the enemy.
Local forces should be the heart of your effort, not regular Army troops.
The first in the the series of Ricks' blog entries on the book can be read by clicking here. The more recent installments of the review can be found by scrolling within the blog.
Pakistan army accused of extrajudicial killings, human rights abuses
This allegation comes as no surprise given the history of Pakistan and its military. Starts with:
Quote:
The Pakistani army has allegedly committed hundreds of retaliatory killings and other ongoing human rights abuses in the Swat Valley since the end of its successful anti-Taliban offensive there in September, threatening billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid to a crucial ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban....The extrajudicial execution of up to 300 alleged Taliban supporters and sympathizers in the area around Mingora, the Swat capital, has been documented by New York-based Human Rights Watch...(Closes with)...the fact is that the engine of abuse is the military.
The HRW report is due to be published next month. Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2010040501618
If true it is easy to fear that winning 'hearts & minds' is not on the Pakistani Army's agenda. How will this affect the local population?
Pakistan faces Taliban resurgence
Ahmed Rashid's latest comment for the BBC, which ends with:
Quote:
The deteriorating security in North Waziristan is now having a global impact and creating a vast and multi-faceted militant hub. Meanwhile other areas are on the verge of falling back into the hands of the Taliban. Pakistan's civil and military need to formulate a coherent counter-insurgency strategy to provide security and an administration, so that development can reach the people and the militants can be isolated. Without such a strategy, an ad hoc approach is leading to an ever-worsening security situation.
Link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8665657.stm
German jihadi killed by Pakistani forces...
...aparently, Eric Breininger has been killed by Pakistani forces in Waziristan according to a jihadist group while German Jihad colonies take root in Waziristan:
Quote:
The Recruits are quickly becomming radicalised and, in some cases, entire families are departing hotbeds for terrorism. it is belived that colonies catering to German Islamists have taken shape in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Surely, they were already "radicalised" (whatever that means) before they got there?
What do you learn at terrorist training camp?
Terrorists attack Ahmedi mosques in Lahore
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english201...c_13321818.htm
Terrorists (almost certainly Punjabi Taliban) simultaneously attacked two Ahmedi sect mosques in Lahore during Friday prayers and killed over 80 people.
My first comments:
1. The choice of target is easy to understand. Ahmedis are a persecuted and vilified minority in Pakistan and "mainstream" news organizations feel no compunction about attacking them, so the ground is already prepared. e.g. GEO TV's religion presenter Amir Liaqat Hussain, a former minister under the buffoon Musharraf, encouraged people to kill them if they "overstepped their bounds" and an Ahmedi doctor was promptly killed; there was some fuss in the liberal press but Hussain is still on TV and writes a particularly vicious column in a major newspaper.
2. The day is also significant. its the anniversary of Pakistan's nuclear explosion and is a national day of jingoism, so appropriate for such an action.
3. There will be talk of stepped up security and other such BS, but the fact is that such terrorism is unstoppable until you get at the head. There is an infrastructure of support and guidance and its known to everyone in Pakistan, but decisive action is difficult because:
A. The army set up and protected this monster and knows better than anyone how big the operation is. Even if some of the top brass now want to proceed against them, they would prefer to do so slowly and in small increments. That also ensures a long-term American GWOT subsidy, so go-slow is a win-win situation for the top brass.
B. Because the army does not like to admit mistakes, it has never really let the general public know that mistakes were made and enemies within were created by the blessed armed forces themselves. So they rely on the narrative of "foreign hand" and "Indian-zionist agents" rather heavily. This means the "information war" is a total mess and the general public (whose cooperation is essential for any counter-insurgency) remains confused about who is fighting whom and for what purpose. Again, the confusion suits the general staff just fine (letting them hang on to some shred of their jihadi bona-fides while slowly fighitng jihadis) but is not helpful to anyone else.
C. Several decades of jihadist propaganda (nurtured officially) has created a significant jihadist constituency in the educated classes. What the Marxists of yore would call the "class interests" of this segment force them to be anti-jihadi (those "class interests" being intertwined with a capitalist global economy and the modern world in general) but their ideological vocabulary is almost entirely Islamist and Jihadist. The resulting cognitive dissonance must give migraines to the American embassy and undermines (but does not stop) the anti-terrorist effort.
D. And ALL THIS is layered on top of the "baseline" level of insurgency one expects in any mismanaged, unequal, unfair, over-populated, under-represented, mis-educated, illiterate, discriminated against third world population (which shows up in the Hindu kingdom of Nepal, the secular republic of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, etc in various forms, from large scale criminality to Maoist insurgencies). Which would be a large enough set of headaches for any country, but thanks to our brilliant general staff, we have added an islamist insurgency on top of it (and of course, the two merge in various creative ways).
My predictions for the future:
1. Very slowly, painfully and very very incompetently, the ruling elite will fight the jihadist insurgency, and some of them will get very rich doing so.
2. The baseline "Maoist" component of the insurgency could potentially have grown into a serious problem, but Islamism will coopt all other grievances and will save the ruling elite in the long run because they are so insane, the corrupt and vicious ruling elite will look better by comparison.
3. More of the same for many years to come. But humpty dumpty will not fall because India, China, Iran and America will spend sleepless nights figuring out how to keep humpty together...
Accord in NWA or 'Stop & Go' again?
I am sure something has been occurring in North Waziristan, but have missed any reports until this (Hat tip to Watandost): http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=29358
Quote:
Situation in the troubled North Waziristan tribal region has witnessed a gradual improvement following an agreement on Monday that led to the release of 20 Taliban by the government and in return the militants allowed an Army convoy, stranded in Miramshah for the last 45 days, to proceed.
Sounds like the 'Stop & Go' policy of the recent past.
The Pakistani Madrassah and Terrorism
Published on the e-journal Perspectives on Terrorism as 'The Pakistani Madrassah and Terrorism: Made and Unmade Conclusions from the Literature', which covers many points on a quick scan earlier:http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/...=130&Itemid=54
Parallel is an article on Madrassah in Indonesia 'Muslim Education, Celebrating Islam and Having Fun As Counter-Radicalization Strategies in Indonesia':http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/...=128&Itemid=54
Not all gloomy!
What do the locals think - in the FATA?
I know I missed this, so hat tip to Melissa Payson for the reminder. This is a CNAS product, using a local NGO (CAMP) for the polling in the FATA.
Quote:
Few places in the world have assumed as much importance for the United States and its allies since 2001 as Pakistan’s northwestern tribal regions, which have served as a base for the mix of militants seeking to attack the governments, militaries and civilians of the United States, Afghanistan, Pakistan and others. Yet our understanding of this region – its politics and history, U.S. involvement there, and the opinions of those who call it home – is painfully limited.
This project aims to help bridge that knowledge gap, by combining three streams of work from the New America Foundation’s Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative: A first-ever poll of sensitive political issues in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (FATA); New America's on-going monitoring of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, and our series of of in-depth analyses on politics and militancy in Pakistan’s tribal areas, written by local Pakistani researchers and other regional experts.
Link:http://pakistansurvey.org/
Linked in is the definitive, open source map of drone strikes.
Militancy in Pakistan’s Borderlands: a report
Full title of a new Century Foundation report: 'Militancy in Pakistan’s Borderlands: Implications for the Nation and for Afghan Policy' by Hassan Abbas and link:http://tcf.org/publications/2010/10/...han-policy/pdf
A summary by the author on his website:http://watandost.blogspot.com/2010/1...pakistans.html
FATA: continuity or change?
Thanks to Melissa for picking this article up, written by Dr Maleeha Lodhi, ex-Pakistani Ambassador to the UK & USA, following a conference on:
Quote:
Advancing policy implementation in Fata” ranged over security issues, Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, effectiveness of state governance, economic development, the international community’s role in stabilisation and most importantly, building a national consensus on Fata.
Link:http://www.thenews.com.pk/02-11-2010/opinion/13335.htm
No surprises, but an airing of the issues in the region.
Why Pakistan's anti-terror courts don't work
This article fits here and hat tip to Circling the Lion's Den; citing a think tank report and starts with:
Quote:
For example, the 1997 Anti-Terrorism Act does not apply to residents of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, no matter where in Pakistan they are arrested. Instead, they must be dealt with under the Frontier Crimes Regulations, drawn up by the British in 1848 and designed to enforce collective responsibility. As Yusuf notes: When suspected militants are repatriated to FATA, they often rejoin the insurgency.
Link:http://circlingthelionsden.blogspot....urts-dont.html
The report itself:http://www.eastwestcenter.org/filead...s/apb077_2.pdf
While the world looks to Pak hinterlands, AQ is swarming its largest cit
From FP a short article on the role of Karachi, not Quetta:
Quote:
In fact, NATO sources say, most of the Afghan Taliban frontier leadership -- known as the Quetta Shura -- had for at least three years been sheltered in Karachi under an ultra-secret program run by the Pakistani security establishment and known as the "Karachi Project." The idea that most of the leadership of Taliban's was stationed in Quetta was a "smoke screen," a top NATO source told me. "In reality, it's Karachi Shura," confirmed a top NATO commander.
Then the apparent lessons learnt from the US FBI interrogation of David Headley, who did recce for Mumbai and other places:
Quote:
While analysts have for years accused Pakistan's security establishment of playing a double game with militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba -- disavowing responsibility for their actions while retaining them as "strategic assets" to be deployed against India -- recent revelations emerging from the interrogation of David Headley, a Pakistani-American accused of complicity in the Mumbai attacks, threaten to blow the game wide open.
In Headley's telling, Pakistan is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between "good" jihadi groups -- those that launch attacks in India or Afghanistan -- and "bad" ones that wage against the Pakistani state. Indeed, that may have been the motive for the Mumbai assault.
Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...wn_on_al_qaeda
Curiously this suggests that ISI and maybe others - politically - had a strategy; which is strongly contested by others, no that there is no national CT strategy. See the various articles on:http://watandost.blogspot.com/ and for example this article:http://watandost.blogspot.com/2010/1...-pakistan.html
From which I quote:
Quote:
Pakistan has proven that it is a country that cannot protect its own citizens -- in mosques, shrines, universities, shopping centers and police stations. How can it possibly protect the citizens of other countries?
Punjab Governor Assassinated
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/wo...n.html?_r=2&hp
The killer has a very popular fan page already, at http://www.facebook.com/Malik.Mumtaz.Qadri
I know people are trying to have this page shut down, but I think the page should NOT be shut down. People are not "radicalized" on this page, they come to this page because they are "radicals". let others see them and see what the mindset is really like. Otherwise, we will be forever plagued by Westoxicated liberals whose only frame of reference is postmodern western academia and who only know radical Muslims through the eyes of some professor in Columbia University or Berkeley...little brown children, bravely struggling against the hegemonic discourse of the west or some such...
For background on the blasphemy business, you can see my article at http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...s-to-come.html
Sorry for the rant, but its not a good day.
