"Karzai abandons talks with Taliban; Suggests shift of focus to Pakistan" by Rahim Faiez Associated Press / October 2, 2011
KABUL - President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who for years pushed for reconciliation with the Taliban, now says attempts to negotiate with the insurgent movement are futile and efforts at dialogue should focus instead on neighboring Pakistan.
Karzai explained in a videotaped speech released by his office yesterday that he changed his views about trying to talk to the Taliban after a suicide bomber, claiming to be a peace emissary sent by the insurgents, killed a former Afghan president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, at his home on Sept. 20. Rabbani was leading Karzai’s effort to broker peace with the Taliban.
See: Rubbing Out Rabbani
“Their messengers are coming and killing. . . . So with whom should we make peace?’’ Karzai said Friday to a gathering of the nation’s top religious leaders that was videotaped.
“I cannot find Mullah Mohammad Omar,’’ Karzai said, referring to the Taliban’s one-eyed leader. “Where is he? I cannot find the Taliban council. Where is it?’’
Related: Taliban chief tells fighters to spare civilians
“I don’t have any other answer except to say that the other side for this negotiation is Pakistan,’’ Karzai said.
Most of the Taliban leadership is thought to be living in Pakistan, and its governing council - known as the Quetta Shura - is based in the southern Pakistani city of Quetta. It has long been believed that the Pakistani government has sheltered and influenced the group.
Afghanistan said yesterday that it had evidence that Rabbani’s assassination was planned by Taliban figures living in Quetta.
Afghan Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi went even further, telling Afghan lawmakers yesterday that Pakistan’s intelligence service, known as the ISI, was involved in Rabbani’s killing - an allegation that Pakistan has denied. “Without any doubt, ISI is involved in this,’’ Mohammadi said.
Hey, maybe it's all true, right? I mean, it is not like the AmeriKan media would ever obfuscate or omit certain intelligence entanglements, right? The fact that this fits right into the world domination war agenda is just a coincidence, right?
Last week, US officials leveled accusations of their own, saying Pakistan’s spy agency assisted the Haqqani network - a militant group allied with Al Qaeda and the Taliban - in attacks on Western targets in Afghanistan. It was the most serious allegation yet of Pakistani duplicity in the 10-year war.
That coming from a pot-hollering-kettle, war-criminal press.
The Pakistan-based Haqqani network has been described as the top security threat in Afghanistan.
NATO said yesterday that it captured Haji Mali Khan, a senior Haqqani leader inside Afghanistan, describing his arrest as a “significant milestone’’ in disrupting the terror group’s operations.
We've passed millions of those the last ten years.
The group has been blamed for hundreds of attacks, including a 20-hour siege of the US Embassy and NATO headquarters last month.
The United States and other members of the international community have in the past accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban, and the Haqqanis in particular, to maintain safe havens in the country’s tribal areas along the Afghan border - particularly in North Waziristan.
An Afghan government statement issued earlier in the past week said Pakistan had failed to take steps to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries. It added that if Pakistan’s intelligence service is using the Taliban against Afghanistan, then the Afghan government needs to have negotiations with Pakistan, “not the Taliban.’’
Khan, the Haqqani leader being held by NATO, was seized Tuesday during an operation in eastern Paktia Province’s Jani Khel district, which borders Pakistan, the alliance said.
It was the most significant capture of a Haqqani leader in Afghanistan and could dent the group’s ability to operate along the porous border with Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.
Shortly after NATO’s announcement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied in a message to Afghan media that Khan had been arrested but provided no evidence that he was free.
NATO described Khan as an uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani, two sons of the network’s aging leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani.
See: Haqqani Ha-Ha
It's just not funny anymore.
“He was one of the highest ranking members of the Haqqani network and a revered elder of the Haqqani clan,’’ NATO said of Khan.
During the operation Tuesday, Khan surrendered without resistance and NATO forces also arrested a number of other insurgents, the alliance said.
--more--"
I'm sorry; after a while it reads like a broken record.
And someone sure sent a signal to Karzai:
"Plot to kill Karzai is foiled, 6 are arrested, Afghans say" October 06, 2011|By Javed Hamdard and Joshua Partlow, Washington Post
KABUL - A microbiology professor at Kabul University, a fourth-year medical student, and a security guard at the presidential palace were among six people arrested in an alleged plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai, Afghan officials said yesterday.
The spokesman for Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said at a news conference that the plotters had confessed to working with two Arabs, operating out of Pakistan’s tribal region, who were allied with Al Qaeda and another insurgent group linked to the Taliban. Lutfullah Mashal said the “dangerous and educated group’’ planned to have the palace guard kill Karzai on one of his trips to the provinces.
In other words, an inside job.
In recent months, assassins have killed several high-level officials, including the president’s half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, top police officials, and the mayor of Kandahar city.
See why I tire of the read?
Last month, a man with a bomb hidden under his skull cap assassinated former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading the government’s efforts at peace talks.
The head of the six-man cell was identified as Emal Habib, the chairman of the microbiology department at Kabul University’s medical school. Afghan authorities said Habib worked with three university students who lived in Kabul, as well as with Mohibullah Ahmady, a guard with the palace administrative department and a resident from Karzai’s home village of Karz, on the outskirts of Kandahar. They did not give details about the sixth man arrested.
The plot allegedly began a year ago when Habib contacted people in Pakistan affiliated with terrorist groups. Afghan authorities said Habib and others visited the northwestern city of Peshawar and later the nearby tribal region of South Waziristan, where they met with an Egyptian and a Bangladeshi who were affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Haqqani network, an insurgent group active in Afghanistan that reportedly has ties with Pakistan’s intelligence service.
This REALLY IS GETTING LAUGHABLE!!
They spent a week living in a mosque and learned how to fire guns and make bombs, according to Afghan officials, who added that $150,000 was paid into Habib’s Kabul Bank account by unspecified international organizations.
Karzai has survived several assassination attempts. In 2002, a gunman in an army uniform opened fire, but missed, while the president was traveling in Kandahar city. In 2008, insurgents attacked while Karzai was attending a military parade in Kabul. He has also had close calls from rocket attacks.
The persistent threat has prevented Karzai from traveling widely in the country, and he lives surrounded by guards, checkpoints, and towering walls.
They are calling that freedom over here.
The presidential security force includes more than 1,000 people, many of them loyalists from Karzai’s Pashtun tribe and home town. But his advisers worry about that no security measure can prevent one of his guards from turning on him....
Meaning if you step out of line.... and remember, Karzai has also been cutting trade deals with Iran and China in anticipation of US withdrawal.
The dean of Kabul University’s medical school, Shirin Agha Zareef, said Habib had worked in the department for seven or eight years, spoke fluent English and “was very intelligent and very punctual in his classes.’’
He sounds like CIA!
The one development that captured Zareef’s attention was that Habib had begun to disregard the faculty’s Western-style dress code in favor of the traditional Afghan baggy pants and tunic and also grew a long black beard....
Nothing like attracting attention to yourself.
--more--"
Related: Karzai pledges to back Pakistan vs. US
"In Istanbul, Karzai presses Pakistan to aid in Taliban talks; Islamabad denies group uses nation as base for strikes" November 03, 2011|By Christopher Torchia, Associated Press
ISTANBUL - President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan pressed Pakistan yesterday to help his country negotiate with the Taliban, despite a series of high-profile assassinations and attacks that have diminished peace prospects and intensified suspicions that Islamabad supports and shelters the militants.
Karzai’s appeal came in Istanbul during a one-day conference on Afghanistan that drew regional players as well as Western powers. Although a successful show of solidarity, the gathering also underscored how much is left to do in Afghanistan as international combat forces prepare to leave by the end of 2014.
Karzai said a peace process cannot succeed without the participation of the top leadership of the Taliban, which he alleged was based in Pakistan.
“Our hope is that, with help from our brothers in Pakistan, we will manage to wean away the Taliban leadership from some of the long-established networks of support they enjoy outside Afghanistan and integrate them into the peace process,’’ Karzai said.
Pakistan denies that the Afghan Taliban’s top leaders are based on its territory.
It has bristled at US and Afghan accusations it plays a double game, fighting some militant groups while supporting others it views as potentially useful proxies in future conflicts with rival India.
You know what? That is what intelligence agencies do.
But the Sept. 20 assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and the leader of the Afghan High Peace Council, as well as other high-profile attacks in Afghanistan - some ascribed to the Haqqani network, a militant group with bases in Pakistan - have added to concerns about Islamabad’s loyalties.
You gettin' the message, dear readers?
On Tuesday, Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, discussed a joint inquiry into Rabbani’s killing. But since the Pakistani army has far more sway over foreign policy than Zardari’s weak government, it is unclear how much the Pakistani president can accomplish.
In a statement, the Afghan High Peace Council said it was continuing work to open negotiations with the Taliban, but it would not talk to anyone whose identity could not be verified or who appeared to be pushing the political goals of other countries.
“It is time that our neighboring countries stop their interference, and rather than increasing violence in Afghanistan, allow the Afghan people to live in peace and prosperity,’’ the council said.
In an opulent hall on the shores of the Bosporus Strait, delegates delivered speeches promising support for Afghan sovereignty and endorsed a transition to Afghan security leadership, efforts for a political solution to the war, and economic development.
China, India, and Iran sent envoys at the conference. The United States and other countries with troops in Afghanistan also sent representatives.
“The terrorism, extremism, as well as drugs and human trafficking that Afghanistan is struggling against are not problems that one country can deal with on its own,’’ said President Abdullah Gul of Turkey.
US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns pointed to an Oct. 29 suicide truck bombing in Kabul that killed 17 people, including a number of Americans, as an example of US sacrifice in Afghanistan. He said regional powers had often acted “in ways that make things worse,’’ instead of cooperating to solve problems.
Is that ever the example of arrogant American or what? We've invaded and killed thousands if not millions (no one really knows), littered the environment with depleted uranium munitions, and tortured people.
Rhetoric alone was not enough to achieve stability, he added.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,’’ Burns said. “While outsiders cannot impose a solution, we should facilitate contact and provide support.’’
Afghan officials were seeking regional support for the idea of a “New Silk Road,’’ an integrated trade and transportation network that would run through Afghanistan. The nation was at the crossroads of the historic east-west trade route known as the Silk Road.
The United States has also pushed economic cooperation as a way to wean Afghanistan off international assistance and undercut the appeal of extremism.
Amnesty International said Afghanistan should work with its neighbors to protect human rights in the run-up to NATO’s withdrawal and afterward.
Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific program director for the group, said progress had been made since the US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban in 2001, citing a decrease in discrimination against women and better access to education and health care.
But advances have faltered in justice and policing, and in improving conditions for some 450,000 people displaced by the conflict, Zarifi said.
That s the FIRST TIME I have SEEN a REFERENCE to REFUGEES in a LONG, LONG TIME!!
--more--"
"Afghan ambassador pulled from Qatar over Taliban talks; Karzai unhappy with idea to host militants’ envoy" December 16, 2011|By Rod Nordland and Sharifullah Sahak, New York Times
KABUL - Afghanistan withdrew its ambassador from Qatar in protest over reports that the Persian Gulf emirate has been in talks about bringing in Taliban insurgents to jump-start peace talks, officials confirmed yesterday.
The move was the latest in a series of setbacks for efforts to start talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government. It came after news reports in Pakistan and India said that the United States had been mediating talks in Doha, the Qatari capital, and that the emirate planned to host a Taliban peace mission.
The United States, Germany, and Qatar have been in discussions recently about how to restart peace talks, according to Afghan officials; in diplomatic parlance, the talks have centered on how to establish an “address’’ for the Taliban, so that negotiators would know they are talking to the right intermediaries.
Qatar apparently went beyond the scope of those discussions, reportedly spreading the notion of allowing a former Taliban official, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, to act as the “political address’’ for the Taliban in Qatar. Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan who now lives in Kabul under an amnesty, said there was no substance to such reports.
“I have not heard anything, and I have not received any message neither from the Taliban nor from any other side,’’ he said.
An Afghan government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivities involved, said, “President Karzai supports the creation of a political address that would be a facilitative step in advancing the Afghan peace process.
“But we need to make sure anyone who is involved in this process keeps us fully engaged and consults us every step of the way. Our American and German partners have kept us in the picture, but the Qataris have not consulted with us on this.’’
It was not immediately possible to reach the Qatari foreign ministry for comment.
The Afghan official described the downgrading in relations, in which the ambassador to Qatar has been recalled from Doha to Kabul and replaced with a charge d’affaires, as a temporary move.
“We’ll see what decision the government makes and what the president decides to do,’’ the official said.
The move was another indication of the hardening of Afghanistan’s position about talks with the Taliban after a series of setbacks in such efforts. One former go-between who met with President Hamid Karzai and US officials last year had been exposed as a fraud who managed to extort large amounts of money from the United States but had no Taliban connections.
At bottom, that is what wars are all about.
--more--"
