Background docs on Haqqani Network

The US National Security Archive has published an interesting little trove of documents on the Haqqani Network to coincide with last week's State Department decision to designate it as a terrorist organisation.
Included are records that detail direct meetings between Jalaluddin Haqqani and US diplomats,  his role as a Taliban military commander, his intimate ties to foreign militants, his al-Qaeda connections,  as well as his potentially critical function as a major advocate for Osama bin Laden within the Taliban administration.
They include admissions by Haqqani that he had had good relations with US officials during the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan which ended following the cruise missile attack on one of his camps in Khost in the wake of the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on American embassies in East Africa.

Excellent new blog on Afghanistan

An absolute must-read for anyone who wants to keep an eye on what is happening in the heart of Afghanistan's government is the newly-established Afghan blog, Dirty Politics. Amongst its stories:
- an amazing video clip showing how government ministers were selected at an informal meeting of Uzbek and Hazara politicians organised by prominent businessman Haji Ramazan and including General Abdul Rashid Dostum (passim), Haji Muhammad Muhaqiq, Speaker of the House Abdul Rauf Ibrahim and others;
- a video clip from Pakistan's Dunya TV in which former ISI director General Hamid Gul, in speaking of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, says (in Urdu) that both men defended Pakistan during the anti-Soviet war and stayed loyal to Pakistan until the US invasion of Afghanistan. "They are both as patriotic Pakistanis as I am," he adds.
Best story: that of a man arrested in Jalalabad  province yesterday for making fake government documentation, including fake documents identifying him as President Karzai. Abdul Wares faked President Karzai's signature for permits to allow the carrying of guns and to drive a  car with tinted windows. He also created counterfeit documents with the signatures of the Ministers of the Interior, Defence and Agriculture, Traffic Chief and Speaker of the Upper House.

The Haqqani network - the fountainhead of jihad

A new report from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point on the Haqqani Network - The Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of al-Qa'ida - argues that this family-based jihadi network both protected and shaped al-Qaeda from its earliest days and allowed bin Laden's organisation to aspire towards global jihad.
While carefully avoiding any direct association with international terror organisations, the Haqqani Network has been unwilling to disengage from al-Qaeda and has aided its growth onto the world arena. "By shedding new light on the history of al-Qa’ida, this report also tells us that al-Qa’ida and the Haqqani network, and not the Quetta Shura Taliban, became the United States’ primary enemies on 11 September 2001," say authors Don Rassler and Vahid Brown.
To date, the history of al-Qaeda has been understood in terms of the its outgrowth from the Maktab al-Kidamat organisation in Peshawar under the auspices of Abdullah Azzam. This approach, say the authors, fails to take into account the important connections between al-Qaeda's leaders and the Haqqani clan. "The scholarly and policy community have misapprehended the precise local context for the development of global jihadism - a context to be found in the Haqqanis' Paktia and not Azzam's Peshawar - and have underestimated the Haqqani network's critical role in sustaining cycles of violence far beyond its region of overt influence."
They argue that the ties between the Haqqani network and al-Qaeda have remained just as close since 9/11 under Sirajuddin Haqqani's command as they were prior to that when under the control of his father, Jalauddin. Sirajuddin continues to play an important role as a mediator - between the Pakistani ISI and the various factions of the Tehreek-e-Taliban, between the TTP and local Shias in Kurram and even between the Iranian state and al-Qaeda. In this latter case it is suggested that in 2010 he helped to secure the release of a top Iranian diplomat in exchange for several al-Qaeda commanders, including Saif al-Adel.
The authors point out the paradox of the fact that while the Haqqani network has functioned as Islamabad's proxy in Afghanistan, it has also served as al-Qaeda's local enabler for more than 20 years.
They say that even though the Pakistanis have in the past offered up the Haqqani network as a way of ending the conflict in Afghanistan, the organisation is unlikely to disengage from its relationship with al-Qaeda and other jihadist organisations: "Positioned between two unstable states, and operating beyond their effective sovereignty, the Haqqani network has long been mistaken for a local actor with largely local concerns. It is vital that the policy community correct the course that has taken this erroneous assessment for granted and recognize the Haqqani network’s region of refuge for what it has always been – the fountainhead of jihad."

Negotiating with the Taliban - report

A new publication from the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics provides a useful summary of the background to the discussion on negotiating with the Taliban.
Negotiating with the Taliban: Toward a solution for the Afghan Conflict, is largely written by Talatbek Masadykov, together with Antonio Giustozzi and James Michael Page.
Masadyakov is currently Chief of the Political Affairs Division of the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA). In order to prepare this paper he took four months research leave in 2008, which he spent as a Visiting Fellow at the Crisis States Research Centre and travelling around the region.
One section of the report stands out and I will quote it at length:
"(The United Nations') List 1267 − expanded after September 11, 2001 and last updated on October 10, 2008 − now features 142 individuals associated with the Taliban,and 243 individuals and 113 entities or other groups and undertakings associated with Al Qaida. Despite reconciliation with the Karzai government by senior listed Taliban such as Mullah Mutawakil, Mullah Zaeef, Mullah Salaam Rocketi, Mullah Khaksar and others, none has been de-listed, largely as a result of differences among permanent UNSC members.
"Up to one third of those Taliban now on the Consolidated List also feature on ISAF and OEF target lists. Several have been killed in combat. Under heavy pressure from the US and the UK,Pakistan has placed a small number of anti-government elements under house arrest in Quetta and elsewhere. This has not prevented them from continuing to exercise authority in their respective organisations.
"The vast majority of insurgent commanders now operating in Afghanistan are not listed: they are too young to have participated in the Taliban regime. Apart from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani themselves, almost no Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin or Haqqani network commanders feature on the Consolidated List."
A very useful and timely publication, particularly in the light of reports that the UN head of mission in Afghanistan, Kai Ede, met with representatives of the Taliban in Dubai earlier this month. Today, the Taliban's Leadership Council denied the reports: " The Leadership Council considers this mere futile and baseless rumours, being a machination against Jihad and Mujahideen who are waging Jihad against the invaders. The Leadership Council once again emphasises continuation of Islamic Jihad against all invaders as a means to frustrate these conspiracies."