Tag: Taliban

30 days? That’s an excuse to run consulate shredders — Kabul’s government won’t last the week

August 13, 2021 17 Comments filed under Archived Authors

I started yesterday with a news article about how US intelligence said that the Taliban could take Kabul in 90 days. After the previous week had been filled with over half a dozen Afghan provincial capitals falling, it became clear that the Taliban were deploying all their strength across the country to capture as much territory and control as they could before US forces pulled out before the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

While the news of those northern cities falling had been bad, and it was felt that the Taliban were likely trying to prevent a replay of the 1990’s Afghan civil war when the north fought them for five years, 12th August got progressively grim. It started to seem that the Taliban were not just going to put a knife to the Afghan government’s throat (and northern escape routes) by taking Tajik and Uzbek cities, but rather box Kabul in. This became clear when not just small towns but larger Afghan cities were put on the chopping block by the Taliban’s offensive. There is a wave of anti-Shia mobilisation across the region and I suspect that it also might have something to do with the expanded, multi-ethnic Taliban mobilisation in the north of Afghanistan. As these provinces border the ex-Soviet Central Asian states, and ISIS school-shooter sectarianism has had salience in many places where Muslims were previously considered un-radicalised or nominally secular, I suspect Taliban lines might not be a bad place for Central Asian, Afghan or even Pakistani potential ISIS recruits to flee.

As news of more fighting came in, the reports of Herat and Kandahar in the north-west and south of the country respectively, being surrounded and attacked threw whatever strategic calculus the great powers thought they had in Afghanistan, into the bin.

The updates from panicked civilians about the Taliban attacks killed whatever illusions about America having a semi-peaceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, or Pakistan smoothly sliding a re-furbished Taliban into power in Kabul, might have been harboured by the countries that have sponsored destructive wars in that nation since the eighties. The distressed calls, postings, video reports of Afghan citizens, especially educated women trapped in these cities, came flooding out. No one was crying but everyone was deadly serious.

Simultaneously, clips of refugees flooding out of captured cities, camps of the displaced going up in Kabul and where the government stood were broadcast. Among the wretched sights was the Afghan military vehicles zooming out of cities and from among people they were supposed to defend were broadcast as afternoon turned to evening, and then night fell.

The west, south and north of Afghanistan are out of that government’s hand. Kabul is boxed in. If you look at the map above, it’s sitting in the open jaws of Taliban controlled territory.

The BBC generally has the best maps, and frankly the best and most accurate, un-sentimental coverage on the rout in Afghanistan of the Kabul government. Hey, I guess after four disastrous wars into a country, they end up knowing their stuff. The second best coverage is by Al Jazeera, which also sobered up once it stopped sourcing its maps from neo-conservative American outfits, and ditched a sort of mawkish patronising tone for the Afghans.

 

As for America’s intelligence reports, which we started Thursday with – they have achieved the typical notoriety of stupidity that American intelligence reports are known for. By nightfall, the American bureaucrats had, in typical CYA fashion, re-assessed their estimate down to 30 days. That feels optimistic.

As reports come in of Afghan business interests trying to wrap up and send their equipment, personnel and capital out of the country, and the various state and private banks withdrawing funds to forward abroad, it becomes clear that the Kabul government, especially the career of one President Ashraf Ghani, is very over. At least at the prospect of anything beyond 2021.

What happens to the rest of the Kabul government is anyone’s guess. I don’t know if the Taliban have much to worry about “holding” their territory if part of their offensive was contacting Afghan defence forces commanders and asking them to stop fighting/withdraw or switch sides. A government counter-offensive seems highly unlikely, especially with the hollow, broken Afghan Army that has been described by Major Amin. If the Taliban went in for the kill against the government, then they would win and also be saddled with a lot of prisoners, many extremely high value ones as well as seas of refugees and an isolated country. I suspect they might be willing to live with that. You can visit the link below to see Pashtana Durrani describe the consequences of the Taliban taking over her city.

How soon will the end happen? The fall of Kabul, the closing of the Taliban’s jaws on what is left of Afghanistan’s government, that is now in the Taliban’s hands.

______________________________________________________

You can see the original post at https://these-long-wars.blogspot.com/2021/08/30-days-thats-excuse-to-run-consulate.html

You can support my Patreon at patreon.com/theselongwars

I will be posting more regularly now.

Afghans march supporting the ANDSF against the Taliban across Afghanistan

August 5, 2021 106 Comments filed under Archived Authors, Popular

Vast numbers of Afghan civilians in many cities across the country have been chanting “Allah Akbar” and other calls to support their beloved ANDSF (Afghan National Defense Security Forces) in the battle with the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Daesh. The cheering started at night in Herat and spread throughout the country. People were chanting on the streets, on roof tops, in mosques, through mosque speakers. Men, woman and children. There are hundreds or more articles and videos about this. Including:

https://menafn.com/1102564159/Anti-Taliban-chants-thousands-including  -vice-President-Saleh-took-to-streets 

https://www.aninews.in/news/world/asia/afghan-vice-president-amrullah-saleh-joins-civilian-protest-against-taliban-pakistan-in-kabul20210804110936/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/3/afghans-chant-allahu-akbar-in-defiant-protests-against-taliban

Anti-Taliban chants, thousands including vice-President Saleh took to streets

Mass popular cheering for the ANDSF synchronized across the country hasn’t  happened before in Afghanistan.

Among the first to publicly discuss that popular chants were beginning in Herat was one of Afghanistan’s greatest living intellectuals, Davood Moradian–founder and director-general, Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies. (Is there interest in interviewing him for BP?)

I would recommend that everyone read Davood’s very fine article on how Britain has long supported violent extreme Islamists in Afghanistan and has been flirting with or even appearing to support the Taliban for over a dozen years. In former US defense secretary Robert Gates book, President Karzai famously asks Secretary Gates why Britain was de facto supporting the Taliban. Gates responded with silence. The British have repeatedly sabataged Afghans in many other ways too. Here are some highlights from Davood’s article about Britain’s negative role in Afghanistan:

Continue reading Afghans march supporting the ANDSF against the Taliban across Afghanistan

Afghanistan, Next Round

May 7, 2020 21 Comments filed under Omar Ali

From Dr Hamid Hussain

Some questions and then more questions came my way about recent events in Afghanistan. My two cents put together in the piece.

Afghanistan – Next Round Afghan Style

Hamid Hussain

“However tall the mountain is, there is a road to the top of it”.   Afghan Proverb

United States and Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020.  The agreement was to pave the way for withdrawal of US troops and integration of Taliban in Afghan political system. The next step was exchange of 5000 Taliban and 1000 Afghan government prisoners.  This also proved to be the first hurdle.  Afghan President Ashraf Ghani insisted on linking prisoner release with cease fire.  Taliban rejected it and under US pressure, Ghani released few hundred Taliban prisoners.

In the deal with US, Taliban agreed not to threaten “security of US and its allies’.  Taliban defined only Europeans as ‘US allies.  Off course they don’t consider Afghan government as US ally therefore they continued to attack government forces. On the start of the Muslim holy months of Ramazan, Ghani asked again for a ceasefire.  Taliban representative in his response called this call ‘illogical’.  Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) also called for a ceasefire during negotiations between Taliban and Afghan government.  Taliban are not likely to agree to this.  They see attacks on Afghan security forces as a lever to extract more concessions. Taliban also want to calibrate its military operations to keep momentum of its cadres.  If they agree to a prolonged ceasefire and few months later need military operations, they may face difficulties in re-activating its own cadres.

Current violence in uneven geographically.  Violence has decreased in Taliban controlled areas in south and east and large cities.  In Taliban controlled areas, night raids by Afghan forces and air strikes by US forces and attacks by Taliban on government posts and convoys, Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks and target killings was the main engine of violence.  Afghan forces have stopped operations in Taliban controlled areas resulting in marked reduction of violence.  In government controlled large cities, Taliban were attacking government and civilian targets.  They have markedly reduced these attacks that resulted in reduction of violence in large cities. In some parts of eastern Afghanistan, Daesh was responsible for most attacks.  An unlikely alliance of US, Afghan forces, Taliban and local militias confronted Daesh from all sides eliminating most pockets of Daesh that contributed to marked reduction of violence. In all these areas, with reduction of violence, general public feels somewhat secure with economic activity picking up in towns and rural areas. Continue reading Afghanistan, Next Round

Akhtat Mansour, Islamic Wife-beating and Muslims for Trump 5-29-2016

May 29, 2016 No Comments filed under Archived Authors

Continuing the random thoughts theme.

This week began with a drone attack that dispatched Mullah Mansoor to meet his 72 virgins. More details have since been revealed about the Taliban chief’s last journey and the Pakistani government has finally confirmed that he is dead, though the whereabouts of his remains are still a bit mysterious (it was reported that he has been buried in Spin Boldak, but the latest Pakistani government statement claims his body is still in Pakistan). The details of his life before the fatal strike are still confusing and contradictory.


Everyone has theories about the significance of this strike and whether it will weaken or strengthen the US-backed Afghan regime or the Pakistan-backed Taliban. Considering that Pakistan is a “major non-NATO ally” and a partner in the ANTI-Taliban coalition (and receives regular payments for these services, freely offered and repeatedly affirmed by Pakistani civilian and military leaders) AND is also the main backer of the Taliban and feels that the US-backed regime and US policy in general are actually a threat to Pakistan (a position also repeatedly affirmed by Pakistani civilian and military leaders, especially when they no longer hold official positions; incidentally this affirmation is shared  by many “pro-Western” Pakistanis), there is no end to the convolutions and contradictions in this situation. So it is impossible for an amateur/casual observer to claim that he knows what is going on and what “really happened”. All we can say is “what a tangled web we weave..” and leave it at that.
But while we may be in no position to say how and why this particular strike took place and who is playing against whom, we can still make a general observation that in war there are only two ways to make peace: either one side wins and the other side accepts defeat (or gets wiped out), OR both sides recognize they are not likely to win outright and there is a compromise position both sides can accept (no matter how unhappily). Now consider the position of the Taliban; if they feel they have no chance of coming back into power and the pain of carrying on is too much, then they may accept a US backed regime and make peace on those terms. But if they feel they can outlast the US and their losses are bearable, then what is the incentive to make peace? Considering that for 15 years the US has not made strategic victory a priority, and is still insisting that the Mullah Mansour strike was a one-off, why would the new leaders compromise? More of the same seems likely..

Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) chairman Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani addresses a press conference in Islamabad on May 26, 2016. 

The other big news of the week on social media was the announcement by the council of Islamic ideology that they are working on an “Islamic” version of the women’s protection bill that would protect the position of women by prohibiting contact with non-mehram males (e.g. by banning female nurses contact with male patients), banning any art education that includes drawing living beings or sculpting them and by permitting husbands to “discipline” their wives by “lightly beating them” if needed. (incidentally, this problem has arisen because the Pakistani constitution has a series of “Islamic provisions” that require ALL laws to be “in accordance with the quran and sunnah”. Many of the framers no doubt thought this could be taken to mean whatever they wanted, but it does give an opening to mullahs and Islamic scholars over and above that afforded to them in countries like Egypt and Turkey).

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CII’s anti-women proposals  

Needless to say, this news led to a gleeful postings on Islamophobic sites, much outrage among  Muslim women and intense discussion about the locus standi of the CII, the “Islamic” nature of this Islamic proposal and the best way to stop this move. As any fan of Islamic jurisprudence will agree, the proposals are fully in line with classical Shariah law (of ALL major schools of Islamic law), but as these fans are also aware, this law was never fully implemented in the good old days and is even less likely to be enforced today. Very few modern leaders in Muslim nations have seriously considered (much less asked for) the institution of slavery or the practice of using female slaves as concubines, to be freely  bought and sold by Muslim males in a Muslim society. Yet these are also part and parcel of classical shariah. In short, there IS indeed some truth to the claim that contemporary Muslims do NOT necessarily practice (or support) all aspects of medieval Islamicate jurisprudence. But while most contemporary Muslims do not practice or vocally support particular Shariah rulings that are not in line with contemporary mores, they frequently support the abstract notion of “enforcing shariah” and they lack any clear alternative to that law. There have been institutional efforts and there are individual scholars who argue in favor of modern re-interpretation of classical shariah, but these efforts have NOT achieved critical mass. And all efforts at reform face the twin threats of apostasy and blasphemy memes, which have enough support in the Islamic world to make such reform a hazardous undertaking. But all is not lost. As the reaction to the “wife-beating” proposal indicates, this may well be the next shariah rule that will go the way of slavery and concubinage. Inshallah. 🙂

Finally, I happened to be at a Pakistani-American gathering yesterday and was somewhat surprised to run into a couple of vehement Trump supporters. One of them was a very observant Muslim who prays five times a day and is a pillar of the local Islamic center, but who was supporting Trump because “Trump will keep out terrorists who give a bad name to Muslims and who threaten our future and the future of our children in this great country”. And he is not alone. 
Then I woke up to see this tweet from Indian film director Ram Gopal Verma (who happens to have 1.83 MILLION twitter followers):

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“3rd world people” like Varma are not necessarily fans of third world people. 

I still hope Hillary wins. I don’t think Trump is fit to be president (on ANY party’s platform). But I also think he COULD win. A lot of people are voting against the bipartisan consensus of the recent past. ..They may be voting for a worst alternative (at least, I think they will be, if they vote for Trump), but there is a lot of resentment and sense of betrayal out there. Interesting times.

Taliban Academy

July 12, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
…one of the five suicide bombing facilities….owned
and operated by the Haqqani Network in Serai Darpakhel……The undertaking or affidavit ‘esteshahadi’ … picture of would-be bomber, his name, his father’s name….family occupation, father’s political
affiliation….experience, if any, in militant activities.

Announcing graduate studies in “how to be a suicide bomber.” The Unique Selling Point: campus recruitment is 100%, they would like many more students!!!
…….
It was one of the many non-descript buildings around, located at the
dead-end of a small street inside Serai Darpakhel. “Go straight and
there is the door on the left”, we were told by a guard outside the
street. But even then it was hard to find the iron door, opposite
a power transformer and a heavy generator to ensure uninterrupted power
supply. 

For the unsuspecting outsiders, there was nothing
unusual about this place, except that it was known to all those who
lived nearby. It was a facility to indoctrinate and train suicide
bombers.

Step inside and there is a courtyard with big columns, mats spread out, bedrolling piled up in one corner.
Nothing unusual. Stairs lead to the upper portion painted in light cream and brown colours.
Plastered on one of the walls is a white banner inscribed with kalma and beneath it ‘the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’.

This
was one of the five suicide bombing facilities, locals now say, owned
and operated by the Haqqani Network in Serai Darpakhel, frequented by
would- be-bombers in their teens and twenties; Afghans and Mehsuds
mostly but boys from Mohmand and Orakzai too would turn up.


Rarely were the religious indoctrinators, mentors or those running
the centres seen outside the iron gate that shielded the dead-end house
from passersby.
No -one living in Serai Darpakhel knew who they were, except that it was a centre for suicide bombers.

Even
those brought or enrolled at the centre for ‘esteshahadi’ or martyrdom
were not allowed to step outside till the completion of his mandatory
two-month stay inside the centre.

The undertaking or affidavit all ‘esteshahadi’ friends were required to sign was elaborate.

It
had a printed colour picture of the would-be bomber, his name, assumed
name, his father’s name, age, address, education, personal contact
number, family contact number, family occupation, names of
friends and acquaintances, father’s past and present political
affiliation, the number of members in the family and their monthly
income and experience, if any, in militant activities.

And the
seven rules the ‘esteshahadi friend’ were required to live by were
pretty stringent too. The use of cell phones were neither allowed nor
considered necessary, the undertaking said. For two months, neither
would the enroller be allowed to go outside nor was he allowed to go out
without permission, it read.

He was also required to make no
attempt to befriend anyone else except his other ‘fidayi brothers’
teachers and mentors. He was supposed to hand-over his personal
belongings to the centre in-charge and ask for things he might need from
him. 

Other than that, things inside the centre were kept tight with a
strict regimen of praying, spiritual and religious indoctrination and
cooking, locals say.

Even a man, who came looking for his son, was
turned away by the centre’s administrator, feigning ignorance about his
whereabouts, a local resident recalls. It was only after a lot of
contacts here and there, that the centre reluctantly let the boy go.

Not
very far from Serai Darpakhel, drive to the main Miramshah bazaar. And
there is the two-storey building of what once was the Government Girls
Higher Secondary School. When militants first moved in and started
bombing schools, this too was soon abandoned and later occupied and
converted by militants of all hue and origin into a facility for
training and distribution of dead bodies on their arrival from
battlefield or of those killed in drone strikes.

The 450 to 500
girls were later shifted to continue their studies at a degree college
inside the military cantonment in Miramshah. The militants,
surprisingly, had no objection to that.

……

Link: http://www.dawn.com/news/1118706/startling-facts-about-suicide-bombers-training-den

……

regards

Super excellent news (if true)

June 18, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
Good for the Afghan police – that is if they really found the culprits and not just some random scapegoats (in South Asia you are always worried about this happening).

With madness all around we can expect only small mercies and tiny blessings. Herat has been the scene of Indian embassy attack recently. It was considered an unlikely place due to the proximity with Iran. But then mad people follow no logic.

…….

Afghan police hunted down and killed two Taliban insurgents who cut off
the fingers of 11 elderly men who voted in the presidential election
run-off, officials said today.




All voters in Afghanistan had their fingers marked with ink after voting
to prevent them from casting more than one ballot, but the ink also
identified those who participated in the election in defiance of Taliban
threats.


….
“Insurgent commander Mullah Shir Agha and one of his officers were
killed in a police operation yesterday in Herat,” a statement from the
interior ministry said.

“The pair were accused of having cut off the ink-dyed finger of 11 voters.”

The ministry said another insurgent involved in the attacks was injured in the operation and held by police.

….
Local police confirmed the operation, but said two Taliban fighters had escaped.


“The security forces are on them. They are members of Taliban and will
pay the price for their crimes,” Herat police spokesman Abdul Rauf
Ahmadi said.

…
Jan Kubis, head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, described the mutilations as an “abhorrent” act.

“These ordinary Afghans were exercising their fundamental right to
determine the future path of their country through voting and not
through violence and intimidation,” he said.

…
One spokesman for the Taliban denied involvement in the attack.

The Taliban had vowed to target voters on Saturday, when two candidates
stood in the second-round vote to succeed President Hamid Karzai.

……

Link: http://www.outlookindia.com/news/printitem.aspx?845010

……

regards

Rafia Zakaria middle-fingers the (complicit) West

May 7, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
As a keen observer of both the global South and North, Rafia Zakaria is well suited to comment on how narratives are being written in the world press. She bluntly accuses the West of white-washing away the western complicity in the rise of the Taliban and Boko Haram and other extremist groups, leaving poorly off third-world countries with the stigma of being “that country” which is full of monsters performing acts of evil. First it was Pakistan and now it is the turn of Nigeria to be a victim of western negligence (and often outright malfeasance) and now facing an international campaign of vilification.

 Well yes, and no. One can stretch the imagination and claim that India is being portrayed in the Western Press as “that country” where rapists are running wild, with even six month old babies not being spared from the clutches of monsters (yes, really). The insults are coming fast and furious on Twitter: what is wrong with Indian men? Not just any Indian men, but conservative Hindu vegetarian men. It was none other than an Alicia Muller May an american diplomat based in India who made this astute statement:

“It’s the vegetarians that are doing the raping, not the meat eaters. This place is just so bizarre,” Alicia Muller May wrote in 2012

We can throw statistics back and forth (gun crime in the USA is a nice, soft target) but at the end of the day this is the truth: Americans (westerners) think of the brown and black people as uncivilized barbarians (all of them). And Rafia Zakaria is certainly correct that the West is good in covering up its complicity.

But if there is ever going to be an opportunity to set the matters right the brown world must do better than sit around and complain that America is being mean and not helpful enough. There was after all a very good reason why Pakistan, for example, invited the USA to come to the village well and poison the drinking water (so to speak). The expectation was that with the help of USA, Pakistan can fend off India. When sufficient help did not materialize in 1965 (1971, 1998,..) there was a lot of pain and heart-break. Surely it is up to the browns to stop the sword-fighting and start investing in plough-shares?
……….
There was a time in Pakistan when the doings of the Taliban were also
just beginning. It was a time when Pakistanis never believed that the
Taliban, a ragtag group of itinerant fighters, with their bonfires of
CDs and their floggings of women, would be able to expand their sphere
of operations to other parts of the country.

The story of how
they did manage to do so is a sad and complex one, with chapters
detailing a superpower invading Afghanistan and bombing a portion of
Pakistan and littering the country with its intelligence agents and
security contractors. Those chapters are omitted from the world’s
imagination, in which the difference between a Taliban fighter and an
ordinary Pakistan is next to none. The conflation is enshrined even in
the American definition of drone targets: every man over the age of 16
in a strike zone is automatically and always a ‘combatant’. The truth of
imperium is the truth the world accepts.

In the process of
fighting both the local insurgency and American intervention, Pakistan
became ‘that’ country, occupying a place in the world’s imagination
alongside problems so complex that it does not belong to the normal
moral order of things. Pakistan is the country where a schoolgirl can be
shot by the Taliban for wanting to go to school, an act so ghastly that
it functions to create the moral extreme that defines other nations as
‘good’, in relation to Pakistan’s ‘bad’.

Becoming ‘that’ country,
Pakistan’s citizens can tell you, involves having the human rights
violations of your present being dislodged from context, extricated from
narratives of global inequity, so that others less unfortunate can
count their blessings. They, after all, are not ‘that’ country, the one
that stands at the darkest edge of misfortune, the most hapless case, at
the fringe of the fellowship of nations.

Nigerians should take
note and beware. Within the global imagination, the issue of abducted
schoolgirls seems to be marching in just the same direction.

In
the beginning, most global media outlets did not cover the issue at all,
discarding it with the disdain that accompanies misfortunes in parts of
the world used to misfortune. When the story was taken up by the CNN
and other gods of the global media, its details and context were happily
snipped away and moulded into the familiar form: an Islamist group, a
ghastly act and an ineffective government.

The boring specifics
of income inequality, Western complicity, ongoing insurgency, and
military repression are all subtracted to leave the skeleton of a story:
a group of abducted schoolgirls in a faraway place where people are
callous enough to allow such things to happen.


When singular acts are
used to construct the dynamics of complex problems, however, those
agitating against groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Taliban in
Pakistan are erased from the stories.

The consequence is a global
context in which a grotesque act becomes the source of moral castigation
of an entire nation, a step in the process of making it ‘that’ country,
a place that exists in the global imagination only to mark the furthest
boundary of badness, where anything can happen. As Pakistanis can tell
Nigerians, it is a costly sentence; often, an undeserved one.
………
Link: http://www.dawn.com/news/1104659/becoming-that-country
……..
regards

Monsters Inc

March 29, 2014 1 Comment filed under Archived Authors
The Americans are cutting their losses (who can blame them), Karzai is straddling the fence (he is fooling himself) and the evil people are free to scare little kids.

It sounds just like a fairy (horror) tale but there will be many more true stories like this from Taliban controlled Af-Pak territory.

It is beyond belief that the powers that be (from America to Afghanistan) are waiting (for what?) to designate the Taliban as terrorists. They will feel bad, the poor dears. Nelofar’s life is presumably lost in vain.

..
The story is heartbreaking. A Facebook status update on July 16, 2013,
from Ahmad Sardar, the Afghan journalist in Kabul. Nelofar, his
5-year-old daughter asks her dad, “Do the Taliban kill animals too?” The
father answers no, and the little girl says: “I wish we were animals.”


 
Little Nelofar is dead now, brutally murdered
by the Taliban – shot in the head – together with her dad, her mom and
her 8-year-old brother. Of Nelofar’s family, only her 2-year-old brother
has miraculously survived, in a coma with three bullets in his body.


 

On March 20, 2014, on the eve of the Persian New Year, the Taliban
managed to enter the highly fortified Serena Hotel, located just a
kilometer away from the Afghan presidential palace, where Nelofar and
her family were celebrating the Nawrooz, the arrival of the spring and
of the New Year.


 
The Taliban suicide mission left nine people dead and many more
injured before Afghan forces killed the four attackers, who had managed
to sneak pistols and ammunition inside the hotel, despite the tight
security measures.


 
The deadly attack on the Serena Hotel occurred on the same day that yet more Taliban fighters were freed from Bagram Prison,
complete control of which was transferred to the Afghan government
exactly a year ago. Since, then, most of the prisoners – considered
dangerous members of the Taliban – have been let go without formal trial
and over the strong protests of both U.S. officials and a majority of
the Afghan people.


 
Despite the fact that the Taliban’s use of deadly force against the
civilian population is widely branded as “terrorist attacks” inside and
outside of Afghanistan, neither the Afghan government nor the U.S.
officially recognizes the Taliban as a terrorist organization.


 
There is no sign that Karzai will put aside his vain hopes of winning
the hearts and minds of his “dissident brothers”; not even at the cost
of the many lives taken during the bloodshed perpetuated by the Taliban
on a daily basis. Karzai has lost the faith and trust of the Afghan
people on this.


 
It is an open secret that Mr. Karzai’s refusal to sign the Bilateral
Security Agreement with the Americans is purely political, with an eye
to winning the Taliban’s favor.


 
The Afghan public meanwhile worry that the withdrawal of
international forces from Afghanistan will mean a return of the Taliban
to power. There is an increasing need for the international community,
led by the United States, to take a clear stance with regards to the
Taliban.


 
In short, it is time for Washington to put objective facts above
political wishful thinking and officially recognize the Taliban as a
terror organization. Many other members of the international community
would then surely follow suit, resulting in real and effective pressure
on the Taliban and its supporters, both inside Afghanistan and at a
regional level. Acknowledging the Taliban as a terrorist entity will
also facilitate more cooperation between the international community in
their fight against terrorism, based on universal legal conventions and
international law.


 
Little Nelofar was surely not the only Afghan child to be so
frightened of the Taliban; the fear has paled the face of every Afghan.
The first step in overcoming that fear, however deep and complex, is for
people to know what they are dealing with: insurgents or terrorists.
..
regards

Brown Pundits