Anand Gopal

After the recent Reuters interview with Siraj Haqqani, I shuffled through my archives to see if there is anything new in what he said. Below are a excerpts of a few interviews I did with him in 2010. You’ll see he covers similar ground. The Haqqanis are quite pragmatic and have an established track record of exhibiting openness to a deal, although for legitimacy purposes it seems unlikely that such a development would come independently of the Quetta Shura Taliban.

Haqqani has been reticent in the last year–largely because, his people explain to me, of the fear of drone attacks. In fact, if I’m not mistaken this is the first time he has publicly surfaced in over a year. That it comes in the midst of heightened US accusations against the Pakistanis is probably not an accident: Islamabad has for some time been promoting the Haqqanis as responsible interlocutors in a potential peace process.

Your father worked with the U.S to defeat the Soviets. Is there any way you could talk with or work with the Americans to bring peace to Afghanistan?

At that time my father didn’t have a personal relationship with Americans. Back then the whole international community was supporting the Afghan Jihad, including Western and Arab countries. Also back then the Afghan freedom fighters were relying more on the assistance and aid of Islamic countries rather than Western countries. Like today, during the Soviet era the  Mujahidin were fighting an occupying force and believed that foreign forces are the only obstacle which prevents peace and stability in Afghanistan. This is why we wanted the immediate withdrawal of the occupying forces. Today too the withdrawal of the occupying forces is one of our main demands. Once the occupying forces leave Afghanistan the fighting will end and peace and stability will be restored.

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It was late November, 2001, and the Taliban were on the run everywhere in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance had captured Kabul and much of the rest of the country; only parts of the southwest—including the province of Helmand, remained in the Taliban’s hands. In Marjah, a quiet market town near the Helmand desert, the dying Taliban were making a last stand against a local tribal commander named Abdur Rahman Jan. The battle lasted for nearly two days, and many reinforcements came from the surrounding areas. But the Taliban, beleaguered around the country and bereft of public support, soon succumbed; Jan’s force overran Marjah and the Taliban fled in disgrace.

Jan went on to become Helmand’s police chief under the new government of Hamid Karzai. His close friend Sher Muhammad Akhundzada, a strongman with deep pockets and roots in the area, became the governor. The two quickly populated the seats of local government with their friends, family members and those from their tribes. The local government revenues became part of their personal piggy bank, locals say, and they became heavily involved in the opium business. They marginalized other tribes, destroyed the poppy fields of rivals, took bribes and kickbacks for government contracts and filled the ranks of the police with hated former mujahedeen commanders. One resident of Marjah told me, “The police were the biggest criminals. We were more afraid of them than of anyone else.”

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Pajhwok reports that the Pak. military has killed Omar Khalid.  Khalid, the head of the so-called Shah Khalid group, was in control of Mohmand agency.

Khalid, whose group generally acted as the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) representative in Mohmand, was one of the highest-ranking leaders in the Pakistani Taliban movement. He was a close ally to Faqir Muhammad of the Bajaur agency, who in turn has been linked to Zawahiri. He has led fighters into Afghanistan to attack US forces there, according to several reports.

The Long War Journal describes Khalid’s career trajectory:

Khalid became the dominant Taliban commander in Mohmand in July 2008 after defeating the Shah Sahib group, a rival pro-Taliban terror group. Khalid’s forces killed 10 members of the Shah Sahib group and captured another 80. Among those killed were Muslim Khan, the leader of the Shah Sahib group, and Mullah Obaidullah, the deputy leader. The groups reconciled after Baitullah Mehsud ordered an end to the fighting.

The Shah Sahib group consists of fighters of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, which operates in Mohmand and across the border in Afghanistan’s Kunar province. The Lashkar-e-Taiba took part in the July 13 attack on a US outpost across the border in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, and has conducted numerous high-profile terror attacks inside Pakistan, Kashmir, and India, including the November 2008 terror assault in Mumbai.

We still don’t have official confirmation of Khalid’s death, however

Things are devolving by the day.  The Pakistani Taliban is now demanding that buses in the northwest cannot carry audio or video players.  The Riaz Khan of the AP reports:

Transport workers in Mardan town received letters this week from militants saying that buses offering such entertainment were guilty of spreading “vulgarity and obscenity,” Walid Mir, general secretary of the town’s transport union, told The Associated Press.

The militants said they would check the buses and that suicide attacks would be carried out against vehicles that still had audio and video equipment — prompting union members to act quickly, Mir said.

Meanwhile, TNSM is strengthening its grasp of Swat.  The Daily Times in Pakistan (via the MEMRI blog) reports that women are no longer allowed in the central market. And while we’re at it, we might as well mention that the Pakistani Taliban forced a popular Pashtun comedian to renounce his work,  MEMRI tells us.

Lovely.

It looks like we have some confirmation of last week’s post on Hekmatyar’s letter to Karzai. The Afghan online news site Quqnoos is reporting that the President is indeed close to opening talks. Might we see a return of Hekmatyar to the Afghan government? The last time Hekmatyar held a government post, you might recall, he was much too busy shelling Kabul and murdering Afghans to attend to his government duties.

The Quqnoos story in full:

PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai’s office says it is “optimistic” about striking a peace-deal with the leader of one of the country’s most hard-line Islamic groups, Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), whose leader is on the US’s most wanted list of “terrorists”.

The president’s spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said today (Tuesday) that there was fresh optimism about the possibility of holding talks with HIA’s leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is frequently accused of collusion with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“We are optimistic to have some developments for you in the near or far future,” Hamidzada said.

The spokesman was answering questions about claims that sources close to Hekmatyar said recently that the HIA leader planned to hold talks with Kabul in the near future.

Hekmatyar, who founded HIA in the mid-1970s, has reportedly tried to open negotiations with the Karzai government for the past four years. His group was long-considered one of the most radical Islamist groups before the emergence of the Taliban.

Hamidzada also said the president welcomed talks between Pakistan’s new coalition government and the Pakistani Taliban, although talks between the two sides recently broke down when the government refused to withdraw troops from the country’s tribal areas.

In April 2002, the US Central Intelligence Agency tried and failed to kill Hekmatyar with an unmanned predator drone.

Four years later, he was wrongly reported as captured before he allegedly took credit for Al-Qaeda leader Osma bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora during the US-led invasion of 2001.

In 2003, the US government blacklisted HIA a “terrorist” organisation and the UN put its leader’s name on a list of people accused of supporting the Taliban.

In related news, CBS has a video a interesting new interview with Hekmatyar, which you can watch it in full here - just after the ad for the new Buick Enclave.

As bullets flew and MPs scampered on Sunday, many wondered how insurgents were able to penetrate such tight security. The Taliban claims that they didn’t intend to kill Karzai, but of course you wouldn’t expect them to say otherwise. However, if history is any guide, they might actually be telling the truth. During the last presidential elections the guerrillas curiously avoided attacking polling stations, a clear sign that they would rather have Karzai in power than a Northern Alliance commander or other such unknown quantity.

The prolific Syed Saleem Shahzad of Asia Times Online claims that the Haqqani Network and Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami engineered Sunday’s attack. If true, it might suggest another reason why the attackers may have been content to just turn the heat up a bit and not actually try to kill the President. On Saturday a well-placed source (a former Taliban official who is now in close contact with Rabbani of the Northern Alliance and Mr. Karzai) told me that Hekmatyar sent a letter to Karzai in an attempt to open negotiations. The letter reads, in part:

I have devoted my whole life to struggle, but I am now old. I only want what is best for my country of Afghanistan.

Hekmatyar goes on to ask Karzai to remove all foreign troops from urban centers. It isn’t clear what Hekmatyar says he will do in return, but the obvious inference would be that he’d lay down his arms and accept a post in the next government. The existence of such a letter fits well with the latest rumor on the Afghan street: Hekmatyar is angling to join the government (a rumor most recently spread by Zaynab TV)

How seriously can we take all this? The letter comes at an interesting time - see my article about Hizb-i-Islami’s growing presence in the north. Antonio Giustozzi suggests that Hizb-i-Islami is flush with funds and is increasing activity in the north. Why would a letter like this come now? Surely Hekmatyar isn’t so out of touch to realize that his boys have got a long way to go before they can actually play for state power. Therefore he might be using his newfound wealth to force the Karzai government take him more seriously.

Or it might be, like everything else in Afghanistan, a dirty game of conceit, lies and misinformation.

For those that don’t know: more on Hekmatyar

What’s your opinion of the negotiations between Taliban and National Front?
I can tell you that the National Front is the same as the foreigners in this country. It is very difficult to negotiate with them. We don’t want to negotiate with National Front until the foreign forces leave Afghanistan. Karzai supported the National Front in negotiating with the Taliban. Karzai is like a figurehead and he takes his power from the US. But in this country there is corruption, fighting everything. So why doesn’t he stop these things? He is like the second Shah Shujah.

What’s your opinion of the Mujeddedi commission?
Mujaddedi’s commission is in name only. He is only acting when he talks about bringing in the Taliban. He’s with America and Karzai as well. They are sick and being kept alive be US money. They keep saying we will shoot the Taliban. On the one hand they say that Pakistan supports Taliban. On the other hand they that the Afghan people don’t have any interest with or in the Taliban. So how can I join with someone who says this?

If National Front come to an agreement with you will you stop fighting?
We want only Islamic law. And we will support Islam always. Rabbani said: Bomb the Taliban, so how can I join with the National Front? We will never negotiate with anyone, not with the National Front, not with Karzai, not with Mujaddedi, not anyone. They are not Muslim, they do bad things and they are not moral. They brought the foreigners here, so what difference is there between them and foreigners? We are not ready to negotiate with anyone until foreigners leave Afghanistan.

What is the difference between National Front and Karzai?
There’s no difference between Karzai, the National Front, and foreigners. When the foreigners came and said “Muslims are our brothers” Then why don’t they change their religion? They should follow Muslim laws.