Combat Outpost Penetrated in Afghanistan, 9 dead

[Norfolk]

Yes, I was a tad sloppy in trying to express my thoughts. While ISI (along with trainers/operatives attached from the Army) have had their hands in this for decades, what worries me about it is the relative (and absolute) decline of the Arab/Caucasian/Central Asian cadres that used to predominate in the training camps, and their supplantment on a large scale by former Pakistani officers. The ties have been there for the better part of three decades, but Pakistani involvement has perhaps not been this high or this vital to the Taleban since the 90's. With the deaths of so many of the Arab, Chechen, and Central Asian cadres over the past several years, the war has become rather less a war against al-Qaeda and its Taleban supporters per se, and more and more a proxy war with powerful official elements within Pakistan itself. A war that is increasingly as much about internal dynamics within Pakistan as in Afghanistan.