Kabul, Afghanistan - A leading Afghan insurgent says his group is ready for a peace deal, as more than a thousand delegates gathered in Kabul Wednesday to discuss ways to quell the violence in this war-ravaged country.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hizb-i-Islami, one of Afghanistan’s three main insurgent factions, told the Monitor in an e-mail interview that his group decided to open talks with the Afghan government after US President Barack Obama and other Western leaders mentioned the possibility of starting to withdraw troops as early as July 2011.
“They said that the chaos in Afghanistan does not have a military solution. They said they could not defeat the opposition to this regime by fighting,” Mr. Hekmatyar wrote from an undisclosed location. “Because of that, we gave a complete and logical proposal” for peace to the government.
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Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan —In the days leading up to the launch of a major US military offensive in the Afghan town of Marjah in February, Taliban commanders in the area received a surprise visit.
It was from a charismatic man of medium build, intense eyes, and a knack for fiery oratory. In a brief meeting, he rallied the troops, discussed strategy, and disappeared into the night.
Most of the commanders present there in late January had not met him before. But in southern Afghanistan he needed no introduction. He was Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, the man who some Western officials and insurgents say is now the day-to-day leader of the Taliban.
“He has tremendous power now,” says a tribal elder in the southern province of Helmand, who knows Mr. Zakir and met with him recently. “He can design military strategy and appoint or fire” Taliban shadow governors. Read the rest of this entry »
ACHIN, Afghanistan — The detritus of tribal war litters the road that leads into this quiet mountain hamlet in eastern Afghanistan. The charred bodies of vehicles and the skeletal remains of destroyed houses fill the desert that flanks the road. Most of the shops in the main bazaar are shuttered, and some residents have packed up and left.
Achin district, a home of the Shinwari tribe, is part of an ambitious countrywide U.S. push to fund tribal militias to stand against the Taliban and stabilize the violence-plagued region. A months-long feud between Shinwari clans has brought Achin to a standstill, however, threatening to undermine the effort and illustrating the difficulties in enlisting tribes to combat the insurgency.
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Militancy and Conflict in Pakistan Policy Paper
North Waziristan, the second-largest of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, is the most important springboard for violence in Afghanistan today, much as it has been for decades. The most important militant group in the agency today is the Haqqani Network. The legendary Afghan mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani left his native Khost province and settled in North Waziristan’s capital, Miram Shah, in the mid-1970s; his son, Sirajuddin, was raised in the area.[i] Jalaluddin quickly became the most important mujahideen commander in eastern Afghanistan during the 1980s; Sirajuddin now manages the network his father built, employing it to support violence against U.S. and NATO forces. Like his father, Sirajuddin uses North Waziristan to recruit, as a safe haven, and for strategic depth. North Waziristan is well-suited for all of these purposes because of its geographic isolation, difficult terrain, and relatively stable coalition of tribal militants. Read the rest of this entry »
Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan–Weeks after a major United States-led offensive overturned Taliban rule in the southern Afghan town of Marjah, another force continues to hold sway over the population.
“We are ruled by fear now,” says Gul Muhammad, a shopkeeper from the dust-caked market town, speaking by phone. “We don’t know who will ultimately win here, or who will end up back in power.”
Stuck between the Taliban, an untested new governor, and predatory former leaders trying to reclaim power, many of Marjah’s residents say they are afraid to cast their support in any direction.
Yet establishing a suitable local government that wins over this hesitant population is one of the biggest and most important challenges the US faces. It could determine the success of the offensive, one of the largest in the nine-year Afghanistan war and a high-profile test of the US’s “clear, hold, and build” strategy.
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WASHINGTON — The suicide bomber who killed seven Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors and a Jordanian intelligence officer was a double agent the CIA had recruited to provide intelligence on senior al Qaeda leadership, according to current and former U.S. officials and an Afghan security official.
The officials said the bomber was a Jordanian doctor likely affiliated and working with al Qaeda.
The Afghan security official identified the bomber as Hammam Khalil Abu Mallal al-Balawi, who is also known as Abu Dujana al-Khurasani. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed that Mr. al-Balawi was the bomber, Arabic-language Web sites reported Monday.
Mr. al-Balawi was brought to the CIA’s base in Khost Province by the Jordanian intelligence official, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, who was working with the CIA, according to the Afghan security official.
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KABUL–The Taliban said in a statement Saturday it would provide a “legal guarantee” that they would not intervene in foreign countries if international troops withdraw from Afghanistan, the closest the movement has come to publicly distancing itself from Al Qaeda.
The Taliban have “no agenda of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and is ready to give legal guarantee if the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan,” the group said in a statement emailed to news organizations.
The statement did not specify what such a guarantee would look like. A Taliban spokesman was not available for comment.
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KABUL — Some powerful Afghan politicians and tribal leaders have expressed doubts that more U.S. troops can turn the tide of the war, as President Barack Obama prepares to unveil a new Afghanistan strategy Tuesday.
President Barack Obama has been briefing allies about his plans for Afghanistan. He’s expected to tell the public — and lawmakers — how many more troops he’ll send and that it’s not an open-ended commitment. Video courtesy of Fox News.
“We should focus on building the Afghan security forces, not sending more troops,” said Sebgatullah Sanjar, the chief policy adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
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KABUL — The U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government are launching an initiative to persuade Taliban insurgents to lay down their weapons, offering jobs and protection to the militants who choose to abandon their fight.
While President Hamid Karzai’s government has been trying to woo these insurgents for years, the new program marks the first time that the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces are systematically reaching out to Taliban fighters.
The tactic comes as the U.S. prepares to announce Tuesday how many additional troops it will send to Afghanistan as part of a new strategy aimed at bringing the eight-year war to a successful end. U.S. officials also hope America’s European allies will raise their troop contributions as part of the new push.
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By Yochi Dreazen and Anand Gopal
KABUL — The collapse of security in the southeastern Afghan province of Khost is highlighting the difficulties of trying to contain the Taliban.
In 2007 and early 2008, troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division waged a long, bloody and seemingly successful campaign to push Taliban fighters and their allies from the Haqqani terrorist network out of Khost. Diplomat Richard Holbrooke, now President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the region, wrote an op-ed calling it “an American success story.”
Today, Khost is one of the most dangerous provinces in Afghanistan. Afghan officials say the number of militant attacks in the province is up at least 31% so far this year.
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