Afghan journalist murdered en route to Peshawar

Very sad to hear about the murder of journalist Janullah Hashimzada, 37, shot dead by four masked gunmen on 24 August in a targetted assassination in the Soor Kamar area of Jamrud sub-district on the road between the border town of Torkham and Peshawar in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.
Although no one has so far claimed responsibility for the murder, Janullah’s friend Aimal Khattak claimed unknown men had threatened the journalist with death some three weeks ago.
Januallah was the Peshawar correspondent for Afghanistan Pahjwok News Agency, and was also bureau chief in Peshawar for the Pashto TV channel Shamshad. He also filed reports for AP, al-Arabiya TV channel and other outlets.
At a condolence meeting and fateha khwani held at the Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday, the club's President, Shamim Shahid said Janullah's death was "a great loss to the journalists' community and to freedom of the press." He added that Janullah was "very cooperative while sharing information on Afghan affairs" and that he was "a sincere friend and a humble human being."
Danish Karokhel, head of Pajhwok news service in Kabul, said Janullah was a professional journalist who covered major stories in Pakistan for Pajhwok and other media organizations. Mohammad Israr Atal, a staffer of Shamshad TV's Peshawar Bureau, recalled the precious moments he had spent with Janullah. "I never felt professional jealousy or distrust while working with Janullah in our office," he said. "We have been deprived of a good friend and a caring boss", he added.
He left three daughters and a widow to mourn his death. Daud Khattak, another friend of Janullah, said he was a brave journalist who visited and interviewed the Mujahideen and Taliban leaders both in tribal areas of Pakistan and troubled parts of Afghanistan.
The International Federation of Journalists has demanded a full inquiry into Janullah's death, with IFJ General Secretary Aidan White noting that "Pakistan’s highest authorities must take quick action to overcome the failings of local authorities to properly investigate previous murders of journalists in Pakistan.”
The IFJ statement pointed out that Janullah was working with the Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA), an IFJ affiliate, to set up an AIJA regional office in Peshawar, in order to assist Afghan journalists and media professionals working in Pakistan, as well as Pakistani journalists.
AIJA President Rahimullah Samander said the death of Hashimzada was an enormous loss for the Afghan journalists’ community, and the association’s offices in Afghanistan’s eastern four provinces were investigating the murder. The AIJA has called on Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to intervene with counterparts in Pakistan and request assurance of a full and immediate investigation.

TTP in disarray after death of Baitullah Mahsud

After several weeks travelling through the remote mountains and valleys of Kyrgyzstan with little contact with the outside world, I return to find that Baitullah Mahsud, leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) appears to have been killed in a US drone attack on 5 August, along with his wife and two others, in the Zangra area of Waziristan. According to reports he was staying at the house of his father in law, Malik Ikramuddin Mahsud, and four of his children were injured in the attack
Three days before his death I wrote on this blog that it would either be a US missile or an assassin's bullet that killed Baitullah; Pakistan's ISI considered him an asset and their much-trumpeted offensive in South Waziristan aimed at dislodging him has still yet to take place.
Mahsud's death is a serious blow to the whole TTP project. There are few, if any, leaders capable of holding this loose amalgam of tribal militants together. Unity in the name of Wahhabi Islam may be of interest to some factions, but tribal factionalism is stronger still.
The ragbag of factions will have much to ponder in the wake of Mahsud's death. Foremost in their minds will be an appraisal of what happened in Malakand and the Swat Valley, where the TTP has suffered a significant defeat. With hundreds of thousands of people returning to their homes, there is little sympathy for the remaining militants still sheltering in the hills. Even the revelation of extra-judicial killings of TTP fighters by Pakistan's security forces has caused little stir.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says it has come across "credible accounts of extrajudicial killings and complaints of reprisal attacks by the security forces during the operation in Swat". It singles out the death of militant leader Maulvi Misbahuddin and says credible evidence shows he had been held by the security forces shortly before his body and that of his son were found in Bacha Bazar. The government claims that they were killed in an encounter, while eyewitnesses maintain they were arrested by the police in Mardan.
In another case, Amir Izzat, spokesperson for the Swat militants, was arrested in Amandara. Two days later the authorities claimed that he was killed, allegedly by militants who tried to rescue him when they attacked the vehicle taking him to jail. HRCP says "Independent journalists claim that the targeted vehicle shown to them did not even have an engine."
The Commission adds: "The most harrowing reports were of dead bodies strewn upside down by the military with notes attached to the bodies warning that anyone supporting the Taliban will meet the same fate." Clearly the militants had taken a step too far. Instead of concentrating on Afghanistan, they were attempting to spread their influence and control into the Pakistan heartlands and some sections of the military decided that enough was enough.
The issue of where the TTP chooses to fight will continue to create problems for the movement. Some of the factions are only interested in fighting the Americans and their allies in Afghanistan, while others have set their sights, rather ludicrously, on Islamabad. There are also divisions over the question of foreign fighters and the relationship with al-Qaeda.
In the wake of Mahsud's death - which has still not been officially acknowledged by the TTP - a 42-member shura held in south Waziristan is said to have appointed Hakimullah Mahsud as its new emir. However, even this is uncertain. The Pakistan military say Hakimullah was killed in factional fighting following Baitullah's death and that they new leader is in fact one of his brothers, disguised to look like him. Whatever the truth, these are clear signs of disarray.
It would be foolish to predict the demise of the TTP too soon. And even if it now sinks into fratricide, the Quetta-based leadership of the Afghan Taliban will not give up its fight. One obvious question - if the US is able to strike with impunity at targets in South Waziristan, why can't it hit Mullah Omar and his cronies in Quetta? My bet is that there is a deal between the US and Pakistan that rules out drone attacks in Baluchistan. Any views?

See you after the election...

For the next couple of weeks I will be travelling in remote parts of Central Asia. It is unlikely I will be able to access this blog until my return. By then, the Afghan Presidential elections will be over and we may be in a new phase of the country's history. Alternatively, it may just be more of the same. Either way, I hope to continue where I left off. (PS I'm still looking for a copy of that Taliban code of conduct...).

A report someone didn't want you to read

Clearly someone in Whitehall didn't want too many people to read Britain's Parliamentary Select Committee on Foreign Affairs' report on Afghanistan. They chose to release it on Sunday, immediately after the House of Commons had closed for its extended summer holiday and without issuing a press release.
Entitled Global Security: Afghanistan and Pakistan, the report is strongly (but carefully) critical of the present government's policy (there is a Labour majority on the committee), but more critical of both EU and American policy under President George W Bush. Germany also comes in for criticism for failing to train the Afghan police.
On American policy, the report says:
"Some, though certainly not all, of the responsibility for problems in Afghanistan since 2001 must be attributed to the direction of US policy in the years immediately after the military intervention in 2001. The unilateralist tendencies of the US under the Bush administration, and its focus on military goals to the exclusion of many other strategically important issues, set the tone for the international community’s early presence in Afghanistan."
The committee is also critical of Coalition bombing, saying that:
"The use of air power and acts of considerable cultural insensitivity on the part of some Coalition Forces over an extended period have done much to shape negative perceptions among ordinary Afghans about the military and the international effort in Afghanistan. This problem has caused damage, both real and perceived, that will in many instances be difficult to undo."
For those of you not used to the UK system, these reports are compiled by MPs, who take both written and oral evidence. They are published without interference by ministers and are often critical of government policy. Even so, this report is particularly critical of both UK government and international policy.
The committee makes strong points about corruption, concluding that "virtually no tangible progress has been made in tackling the endemic problem of corruption, and that in many cases the problem has actually become worse. ... policy commitments, action plans and all manner of strategies are of little value if they are not accompanied by the political will on the part of the Afghan President and government to drive forward change and tackle corruption at senior levels."
It says Britain should relinquish its role as lead nation on drug eradication in Afghanistan and cede this responsibility to the UN, together with ISAF.
Overall, the international community "has delivered much less than it promised and that its impact has been significantly diluted by the absence of a unified vision and strategy, grounded in the realities of Afghanistan’s history, culture and politics."
On the subject of Pakistan, the committee singles out the madrassahs for criticism and suggests Saudi funding is behind some of the most radical ones. The committee has noted a change of attitude by some Pakistani generals but remains concerned that "this may not necessarily be replicated elsewhere within the army and ISI."
The report suggests the British government should "address" the problems created by the imposition of the Durand Line on local Pashtun tribes. Good luck on that one, particularly since the report also reveals, astonishingly, that no-one in the Foreign Office can speak Pashto!
Other problems noted:

• "We conclude that there has been significant ‘mission creep’ in the British deployment to Afghanistan".
• "The UK deployment to Helmand was undermined by unrealistic planning at senior levels, poor co-ordination between Whitehall departments and crucially, a failure to provide the military with clear direction".
  

One final point: some of the best material submitted to this inquiry is not included in the main report. For that you have to dig into the background documents. Check out the evidence given by intrepid journalist Sean Langan who was held as a prisoner on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for two months earlier this year. He made his oral presentation shortly after being set free. Of his captivity, he says:
"On my most recent trip, I became all too aware of just how much of a safe-haven the tribal areas of Pakistan have become. I was surrounded by Taliban training camps, who test-fired their weapons on a daily basis, and I was told Arab mujahideen openly patrol the roads. And before being released after three months in captivity - I was brought to a Taliban safe-house in Peshawar, just minutes away from the Pakistan military HQ. Which is why I agree with the American general who said NATO operations in Afghanistan are like "mowing the lawn". The seeds of the insurgency are sown in Pakistan, and that is where the focus needs to be."
Can't disagree with that.

Signs of a deal between Mahsud and Pak Army

.....................................A shy Baitullah Mahsud.......................

Is the Pakistan Army going to press ahead with a major offensive in South Waziristan aimed at breaking the power of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud? Don't hold your breath.
After trumpeting the achievements of Operation Rah-e-Rast (Straight Path) in the Swat Valley and other districts in Malakand, the Army announced in mid-June it was launching its new offensive, called Path of Salvation (Rah-e-Najat), aimed at breaking Mahsud's power in his tribal homeland.
But unlike Swat, where the Taliban has little local support or depth, Mahsud has a formidable military presence in South Waziristan, with around 10,000 fighters, including many Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens and other foreigners. Elements of al-Qaeda's leadership are also based in the area.
At first it looked as though the new offensive was progressing well. There was the formation of an anti-Mahsud alliance of the TTP leader's old foes - the Bhittani tribe, Waziristan Baba, and the quickly-murdered Qari Zainuddin, amongst others. The Americans and the Pakistani airforce appeared to be coordinating their air attacks for once and the Pakistani Army was soon shelling suspected 'hideouts' and cutting off roads of escape. Baitullah already had a $5 million bounty on his head from the Americans and a further $615,000 from the Pakistan government, as a result of his murderous campaign of suicide bombings.
But all this is to misunderstand the nature of the relationship between the TTP leaders and the Pakistani military and (more importantly) the ISI intelligence service. It was the ISI that encouraged the Taliban from Afghanistan to settle in Waziristan after the fall of their regime in Kabul and which has built up Baitullah into the figurehead he has since become. The formation of the TTP itself two years ago could not have taken place without ISI approval.
Baitullah Mahsud's mistake has been to operate and interfere too much in the internal politics of Pakistan, to the detriment of the military's campaign in Afghanistan, where Pakistan wishes to exert much more influence. In Swat the TTP lost all sense of perspective and thought they could do as they wished, even though there is no desire in the wider parts of the country for the extremist Wahhabism they profess and which is itself in stark contrast to the traditional ideals of Pakhtunwali.
So now we are hearing that the Army has 'temporarily' shelved its plans to push into militant havens in Waziristan, amid reports of secret talks between Mahsud and the Pakistani army. And elders from the Mahsud tribe have told the Taliban chief that the fight against the Pakistani army is "spoiling their plan" and that the only beneficiaries from the violence are the US-led troops stationed in neighbouring Afghanistan. In other words, they would prefer to concentrate on fighting in Afghanistan, rather than wasting their time in Pakistan.
A deal is already being talked about: Mahsud will be required to end suicide and other attacks against civil, military and foreign targets inside Pakistan and in return the army will delay the launch of attacks against him and his followers. Note that there is not a word about Afghanistan in all this.
Such a deal is not without precedent. Don't forget that the problems in Swat started with a similar deal and there have been similar agreements with Baitullah before, most recently in 2007.
If true, this deal will certainly lead to tensions with the Americans, who desperately want Mahsud neutralised. However, the Pakistanis will say that they are over-stretched in Swat, where hostilities continue and where soldiers will have to stay for months or years to help two million people uprooted by the conflict return to their homes and businesses.
And it is doubtful that anything short of a full military offensive could displace the militants from the harsh landscape - ideal for ambush - of south Waziristan anyway. If Mahsud is finally killed it will not be by the Pakistan Army, but either by a US drone missile strike or an assassin's bullet from one of his many tribal enemies.

The perils of thoughtless analysis

In April the US Directorate of National Intelligence's Open Source Center - a part of the American intelligence community that produces reports based on open source material - used data from the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System to analyse violent incidents in Afghanistan.
The report was for official use, but a copy has ended up on the website of the Federation of American Scientists where it can easily be accessed.
It's called Afghanistan - Geospatial Analysis Reveals Patterns in Terrorist Incidents 2004-2008 and uses some novel techniques in an effort to make violence in Afghanistan more understandable, from a military point of view.
When I checked, the WITS database had details of more than 4,000 incidents in Afghanistan over this period. Not all record geographical details. However, the data is strong and it allows all kinds of analysis, including the following:
mapping incident density, identifying the dominant ethnic group where incidents occurred, mapping incidents by district or province, identifying seasonal changes in patterns of attack, distributions of deaths and kidnappings, comparisons with events in neighbouring Pakistan, etc.
The results are mixed. We find out, for example, that it is possible to predict, with reasonable accuracy, where attacks will occur, based on previous attacks. This is hardly rocket science, but potentially useful in a situation where troops are rotating every six months or so. Incidents per district can be worked out, as can who carried out the attacks.
The report includes a table on attacks showing in one column 'perpetrator' and in the next column '%age of attacks'. Problem: the categorisation of who carried out an attack rests with a US platoon commander or Afghan policeman who may often know little about the complexity of Taliban politics.
So we find out that 64% of all attacks are carried out by 'Taliban'. 'Unknown' accounts for 33 percent. The remaining three per cent is divided between 'Taliban/al-Qaeda'(2%), 'Al-Qaeda' (1%), 'Taliban/Other' (0.3%), 'Hizb-i-Islami' (0.21%), 'Islamic Jihad Union' (0.17%), and even (I have no idea how) 'Taliban/Nigeria' (0.02%).
This categorisation bears no relationship to the reality of the Taliban on the ground. Most analysts accept that there are around seven factions. All this is lost through the analysis because the people deciding who carried out the attack are not able to make an accurate choice. In computer teminology this can be described as crap in = crap out.
The same problem dogs the analysis of incident type, where we are told that 42 per cent of attacks are IEDs. Next comes 36 per cent for 'Armed attacks'. 'Ambush' rates just 0.46% of all incidents - surely an underestimate? And what about attacks that start with an IED explosion and are followed up by armed attacks? They don't seem to exist.
Some information is quite interesting. The analysis shows, for example, a trend that attacks move south and west in the winter and north and east in the summer. It also shows that hotspots follow the main national highway and predominately fall in the Pashtun ethnic areas in the south. Most are also very close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The lesson here is that computers are wonderful at processing information in lots of interesting ways. But if you give them rubbish data, they will probably mislead you. With cleaner information, this kind of analysis could be very helpful indeed.

Anyone seen full copy of Taliban code of conduct?

I have tried, without success, to find a full English translation of the Taliban's new code of conduct, as reported by al-Jazeera. I would like to comment on the code, but don't think I can until I have read it. Can anyone help?

You read it here first

"It is clear that from next year onwards the British government will be under enormous pressure to reduce its spending in Afghanistan. It will not be long before signs of this - possibly in terms of greater support for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban - become apparent."
Circling the Lion's Den, 7 July 2009

"The key part though that I was emphasising in my speech at NATO today is the importance of local engagement because it is there that the mass of non-ideological Taliban supporters are giving passive or sometimes active support to the Taliban. They need to be brought within the constitutional fold and I think that is possible if one works with the grain of what is, remains a deeply tribal society in Afghanistan."
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Interview with Channel 4 News, 28 July 2009.

Missing US soldier spotted - report

A report in yesterday's edition of the Dari-language newspaper Roznama Cheragh says that Bowe Bergdahl, the missing US serviceman (see below) suspected of deserting, was spotted by residents of Andar district in southern Ghazni province. The report, translated on the blog In my Country, says he was seen in Ibrahazi bazaar last Friday. It adds that the unshaven soldier was seen in the company of Taliban fighters while being fitted out with Afghan clothes and a Pakool, the traditional warm hat used by many Afghans.

A strange story of multiple suicide in Nimroz

What are we to make of a report, published by Afghan Islamic Press, that eight drug addicts in the city of Naranj in Nimroz Province in Afghanistan's south west, committed suicide by hanging earlier this week?
Governor Ghulam Dastagir Azad told AIP that the addicts killed themselves in the Qabaristani area of the city. He added that some time previously police had picked up 250 addicts in the city and had taken them to hospitals for detoxification, but they had returned to the city and, presumably, to drug taking.
"I asked the Public Health department time and again to set up a clinic for addicts in the province, but to no avail," he said.
There are said to be nearly 20,000 addicts in Nimroz province alone and it remains a major opium producing area. Last year anti-narcotics minister General Khodaidad said the number of addicts in Afghanistan had risen to 1.5 million, up from 900,000 two years previously. There are just 40 clinics offering minimal treatment for addicts.
Two points can be made about this story. First, I find it impossible to believe that eight addicts decided simultaneously to commit suicide by hanging in the same area of a small regional town. That obviously raises questions about whether or not police were involved in the deaths.
Second, it reinforces a point I have made here before: the main victims of Afghanistan's poppy harvest are not in the West, but are primarily local people. No opportunity should be lost to remind Afghans that the Taliban and the warlords who deal in opium and heroin are responsible for the deaths of thousands of fellow Moslems.

Speculation grows that Bergdahl is a deserter

Is PFC Bowe Bergdahl, the American GI who disappeared on 30 June and was allegedly captured in eastern Afghanistan by the Taliban, a deserter? Stories now appearing on a number of US military blogs and elsewhere suggest that this is the case. Bouhammer's Afghanistan Blog makes the case in detail. He points to the video issued by the Taliban of Bergdahl eating and talking and notes that "the soldier is not under any duress, stress, strain, etc. I think it is safe to call it as it is."
He adds: "I saw an AP report that stated this soldier lagged behind on a patrol and it implied he was kidnapped that way. But the same article said he was not noticed missing until a formation the next day. I can tell you that story is complete BS. No leader of any kind takes his unit on dismounted patrol and then comes back into the base without knowing he has everyone. Afghanistan is not the type of environment where everyone walks “Ranger File” or “Ducks in a Row” and you lose someone because they are walking slow. We're not talking about triple canopy jungle here, we are talking about desert. Regardless, that story is completely false and shame on the Associated Press for even thinking about printing it, much less actually printing it."
If you watch the full video, which is over 20 minutes long, a number of points strike you immediately. Bergdahl appears to have been schooled. He says US casualties in Afghanistan are higher than admitted and that soldiers' morale is low and that they are scared. Huge numbers of soldiers are committing suicide, going AWOL or deserting, he says. He says he is being well treated, "as a guest in a regular household in America", and that he sees the Taliban as "ordinary people fighting for their country". The video is effectively Taliban propaganda, spoken by Bergdahl. One other interesting point: his interrogator, who is never seen, speaks with a clear English accent.
Bouhammer is not the only person arguing that Bergdahl is a deserter. PJ Tobia, a freelance reporter living in Kabul, is much more specific. "I’ve been reporting for over a week (along with the AP and WaPo) that Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier who’s gone missing in eastern Afghanistan, walked off the base on his own accord.
Now, somebody close to the people searching for Bergdahl has repeated this assertion saying that the soldier left “a note behind that said he was going to the mountains to find himself. He took a journal and 4 or 5 knives with him.” My source tells me that Bergdahl arrived at a village and asked if anybody spoke English. That’s when he was captured."
Tobia notes that during the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan many Russian soldiers deserted: "Back in the 80’s Russian soldiers defected regularly. Artyom Borovik’s fantastic book The Hidden War talks at great length about Soviet soldiers who fled their bases and joined the Mujahidin. Many of them fought alongside their former enemies for years. A few even stayed here in Afghanistan. One of them is a well-known cab driver here in Kabul, though I’ve never met him. I’m told that another was a bodyguard for Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Afghan hero and Northern Alliance leader who helped drive the Russians out of this country."
The most likely explanation for Bergdahl's 'capture' is that villagers close to his base sold or passed him on to the Haqqani Taliban network, which is active in Paktika, the region in which he disappeared. AP says he is being held by Maulvi Sangin. In the video, recorded on or about 14 July, his interrogator clumsily attempts to suggest he is in Kandahar. In their first statement on Bergdahl, issued on 6 July, the Taliban claimed that a soldier had come out of his garrison at a place called Malakh in Yousaf Khel district of Paktika and had been captured by mujahideen.

Fighting still intense in Pakistan's Swat Valley

The Utror river in Kalam Bazaar in happier days

Fighting in the Swat Valley in north-western Pakistan between the Army and Tehreek-e-Taliban militants is still fierce, even though people are beginning to return to their houses in the southern parts of the region. Yesterday the Pakistan Army said 16 militants were killed in the Maidan area of Lower Dir, while another five were killed in different parts of the Valley.
One incident in particular, in the beautiful Kalam Valley, indicates just how fierce the fighting has become. When a group of Taliban fighters set up a checkpoint close to the the village of Urtror, the villagers called the security forces who arrived and shot dead one of the militants. Another jumped into the river Swat and was reported drowned, while six others escaped.
However, that was not the end of the affair. According to The News International, "the security forces reportedly hanged the body of the slain militant from a pole on Gammon bridge near Kalam town. This practice is apparently being followed to warn the militants of a similar fate."
This report accords with others I have seen that suggest the bodies of militants have been put on public display or left in public places by the Army as a warning to others.
The viciousness of the TTP fighters who have arrived in the area is not in doubt either. Ghazala Khan, writing for the blog All things Pakistan recounts a horrific story from a young woman called Palwasha from the Charbagh area of the Swat Valley. TTP militants tried to force her father to marry off Palwasha and her three sisters on the spot to four men they brought to the family house. Read her blog to find out what happened.
The situation in Swat - not to mention other parts of the North West Frontier Province and FATA - is nothing if not complex. It has always been my belief that a good knowledge of the tribal structure and history in this part of the world is essential. Without it, most military action can only exacerbate problems.
After years in which the US Army in particular has failed to distinguish between the different Taliban factions - or even between those that operate in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and those that confine themselves to the tribal territories - things now seem to be changing. In this context a new report by the Nine Eleven/Finding Answers (NEFA) Foundation is to be welcomed.
Written by NEFA Foundation Senior Investigator Claudio Franco, The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan: The Bajaur Case is to be welcomed. It is the first of three reports that aim to explain the background to the various Taliban factions in Pakistan. This first report looks into the Pakistan Army's offensive in Bajaur, which started a year ago and which was the first indication that there had been some kind of change of policy by the army in its attitude towards the militants who had effectively declared independence from Islamabad. It concentrates on the history and background of Faqir Mohammed.
Franco makes the point that up until 2007 Bajaur mainly functioned as a logistical base for the more active TTP campaigns further south in Waziristan. However, he says, "Terrorist plots targeting both London and Barcelona, respectively, in 2005 and 2007, were linked to al-Qaida operatives based in the Bajaur area. Moreover, the Agency border passes, in particular the Nawa Pass, have functioned for years as a revolving door to and from neighboring Kunar Province in Afghanistan."
The report is invaluable and personally I can't wait to see the next two.

Anti-Baitullah group formed in South Waziristan

I write from Pakistan, where two news items catch my eye. First a report in Dawn that says a new anti-Baitullah Mehsud alliance has come into being in South Waziristan, headed by Ikhlas Khan (also known as Waziristan Baba), but also including the Turkistan Bhittani faction and the Haji Tehsil Khan Wazir factions.
The report says the new group has already established offices in the Gomal, Umar Adda, Jandola, Pang and Sheikh Autar areas of South Waziristan. It adds that Waziristan Baba believes Baitullah was behind the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto and that he would avenge the killings of innocent people by Baitullah. "Those who destroy hospitals and schools and kill our brothers and sisters are not our well-wishers," he is quoted as saying.
The new alliance follows the recent assassination of Qari Zainuddin (see my previous post on this subject), who had been urging tribesmen to rise up against Baitullah and the Tehreek-e-Taliban. It will be named the Abdullah Mehsud Alliance - the same name used by Qari Zainuddin for his organisation.
A second item that caught my eye, also in Dawn, refers to four bodies found on the Tank-Jandola road in South Waziristan yesterday. The bodies included two sons of Gul Pir, a Baitullah Mehsud commander who was himself killed in an army operation in the Sheikh Utar area three days ago.
The report does not say who killed them, but adds the following: "According to sources, incidents of target killing are taking place in the town of Tank and adjoining areas and Baitullah's men are at the receiving end. It may be added that earlier the Baitullah group virtually ruled the area but now it is under the control of its adversary, Turkistan Bhittani."
This is clearly an important development. Is the tide beginning to turn against Baitullah in his heartland? And who are the assassins?

Afghan heroes reach the highest peak

Congratulations to the Afghan mountaineers who on Sunday became the first Afghans to conquer their homeland's highest peak, 7,492-metre Noshaq Month, in north-eastern Afghanistan. What a fantastic achievement!
Malang, 35, and Amruddin, 25, both members of the Afghans to the Top expedition, made it to Noshaq's peak on Sunday, where they planted the Afghan national flag. Two other Afghan climbers, Gurg Ali (28) and Afiat Khan (28), made it to the mountain's base camp. All four are from Ishkashim, a town in the northern province of Badakhshan about an hour from Noshaq Valley.
The idea for the expedition came about after a visit to the region by three French mountaineers in 2007. When they heard the four young Afghans express their dream of reaching the highest peak, they decided to do something about it. Using funds from Mountain Wilderness International, the Aga Khan Foundation, the United Nations and USAID, they were able to make the expedition possible.
According to the Afghans to the Top website in October 2008, the Afghan mountaineers invited the organizers of the the project for a trek to Noshaq base camp to assess and conceptualize the timeline and budget that would be required for the expedition.
Then in April and May this year the four Afghans were invited to a mountaineering course at Chamonix in the Alps to complete their mountaineering skills through a technical training course organized under the auspices of the national school of ski and alpinism (ENSA) by Jean Annequin and Simon Destombes, the two guides on the expedition.
The training they received in France means the men will also be able to work as professional mountain guides on their return to Afghanistan. A diploma will confirm this instruction.
Noshaq, the highest peak in Afghanistan and the second highest in the Hindu Kush range after Pakistan's Tirich Mir, attracted climbers from all over the world in 1960s and 1970s. The first ascent was made by two Japanese climbers in 1960.
But three decades of war made climbing almost impossible - until now.
"The Afghans to the Top expedition would like to send out a message of peace, and remind the world that it is, once again, safe to travel to the north part of the country," a statement posted at the expedition's website said.
"The four young Afghan guides participating in this adventure will then be able to start their careers as mountain guides and organize more treks and expeditions in the years to come," it said.

Photos: L/R, T/B: Gurg Ali, Amruddin, Malang and Afiat Khan, ready to challenge Mt. Noshaq, main image. Pics courtesy of Afghans to the Top expedition website.

Afghan govt shuts down anti-Karzai websites

AP reports that the Afghan interior ministry has blocked at least five internet sites, four of which feature the name of President Hamid Karzai and one named after the current interior minister. The sites are:
www.hamidkarzai.com
www.hamidkarzai.net
www.karzai.com
www.karzai.net
www.karimkhoram.com
(The President's official website can be found here)
www.hamidkarzai.com has clearly been put up by opponents of the President. It consists of a single page with a picture of Karzai in the company of US special forces soldiers in November 2001 (see above) and tries to suggest that Karzai was put in power by the CIA:
"It is worth noting that while this picture confirms how Karzai owed his safety only to the US "A-team" protection, most American media and the BBC were portraying Karzai as the "leader of the Pashtuns ," as it was alleged that he was the one who had started to raise Afghanistan's Southern tribes against the Taliban rule. It is pertinent to note that Mr. Hamid Karzai's following was, for the least, meager and not really Afghan!"
www.hamidkarzai.net does not appear to be functioning at all. www.karzai.com appears to be offering various sexual services with Russian women, while www.karzai.net is an online store connected to Ariana TV in Afghanistan.
The final site, www.karimkhoram.com, is named after the interior minister, but has been put up by Kabul Press to protest about the conviction and continuing detention of journalist student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, who was initially sentenced to death - later commuted to 20 years in prison - for downloading and distributing a report criticising the treatment of women under Islamic Law.
A spokesman for Karzai's presidential campaign, Waheed Omar, at first admitted that the sites had been closed at their request, but later denied this.
Although the sites cannot be viewed by anyone using any of the 25 Afghan ISPs, they can easily be seen through other links.
Update: According to a statement on its website, Kabul Press, which receives 600,000 hits a month, has also now been blocked. The statement says: "Because Kabulpress targets corruption in the Afghan government, aid agencies working in Afghanistan, and international governments that support the current Afghan government, it has been a thorn in the side of the Karzai administration for several years." The article says that it has been aware for some time of an impending crackdown on websites by the Afghan government.