Rocky relations between Pakistan and the USA

A useful summary of Pakistan-American relations just published by the Congressional Research Service  notes that bilateral distrust has 'peaked' since the death of Osama bin Laden, with some members of Congress openly calling for significant reductions in US aid to Pakistan.
Relations between the two countries have certainly come under pressure in 2011, with the Raymond Davis affair, the murder of Punjab governor Salman Taseer and minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, the revelation that Osama bin Laden had been living in the heart of a Pakistani military cantonment for several years, controversy over US drone strikes and a general cooling of relations between the CIA and the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. 
In addition, as Pakistan's relations with the US have deteriorated, it has moved closer than ever before to China, with private companies recently signing contracts worth $15 billion, along with $20 billion-worth of government-to-government deals.
In March, the US summed up its relations with Pakistan by stating "Progress in our relationship with Pakistan over the last year has been substantial, but uneven", although there had been significant progress in combating al-Qaeda in the region. Despite these deep reservations, on 18 March, Hillary Clinton certified that Pakistan had made progress on ceasing support to extremist and terrorist groups. However, the outlook for the rest of 2011 is deemed to be poor.

Headley spills the beans on his ISI handlers

Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, aka 'Pasha'

David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American and former DEA informant, is providing entertaining testimony in the Chicago trial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, accused of providing support to the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Headley is going full tilt to implicate Pakistan's ISI intelligence service in the attacks, yesterday alleging that he had done most of his reconnaissance in coordination with a retired Pakistani military officer called Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, also known as 'Pasha'. Rehman has also been indicted for conspiracy to murder by the same court and for providing material help to terrorists, although he is still at large in Pakistan. The indictment can be found here.
You can find Rana's indictment - which also indicts the notorious al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba leader Ilyas Kashmiri - here.
All the exhibits in the trial, including some useful photos and maps, as well as emails between Headley and Rana, can be found here.
Headley himself has already pleaded guilty to 12 terrorism charges connected to Mumbai and an aborted plan to attack the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten. He was able to negotiate a plea bargain deal that means he will be spared the death penalty so long as he continues to cooperate with law enforcement agencies. The plea agreement itself can be found here. 

An assessment of recent negotiations with the Taliban

Thomas Ruttig has written a useful summary of the state of 'negotiations' between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The Battle for Afghanistan: Negotiations with the Taliban; History and Prospects for the Future, published by the New America Foundation, notes that for the first time last year the Karzai government admitted that there was contact with Taliban leaders, although it played them down as unsubstantial not leading to any concrete results: "Without doubt, contacts between the Karzai government and individual insurgents exist, but they have not been systematized and there is still no comprehensive strategy for going forward on talks or even negotiations on reconciliation" says Ruttig.
He says NATO has also confirmed that it has facilitated the talks, presumably by giving guarantees for interlocutors and Taliban officials. At the same time, its kill-and-capture programme aimed at Taliban leaders appears to be going against the whole idea of reconciliation, with the added danger that by killing Taliban leaders who want to negotiate, the future will be left to younger and more radicalised leaders.
Ruttig says the High Peace Council, consisting of 70 members nominated by President Karzai has little credibility with ordinary Afghans, who perceive it as a body aimed at achieving a 'Pashtun' settlement, at the expense of other minorities and women.
A fourth point made by Ruttig is that the Pakistani authorities have stopped denying that they support (and largely control) the Afghan Taliban. They can 'deliver' Taliban leaders to peace talks or they can stop them, as in the case of Mullah Abdul Ghani Barodar, who was arrested by the Pakistanis for taking part in negotiations without their say-so. This stranglehold that Pakistan exerts over the Taliban, for its own purposes, is resented by many members of the organisation.
Ruttig recommends that peace negotiations should continue, but that it is vital that they discuss all the core causes of the conflict. Initially this would be involve international organisations 'holding the hand' of the Afghan institutions, but later it would be important that Afghans themselves were seen to be leading the process. "Talks with insurgents–direct or indirect–would be only one part of the overall reconciliation process, which would be aimed at reaching an initial political settlement to end violence, creating transitional institutions to pursue the process, and providing a mechanism for constitutional and institutional reform," says Ruttig.
He also advocates bringing in other regional powers such as Russia and China into the negotiations and moving the United States away from a policy of 'talking and shooting' to 'talking instead of shooting.' He says the High Peace Council should be reformed by broadening participation and creating checks and balances.
Confidence building measures such as dropping UN sanctions against Taliban leaders and releasing imprisoned members of the organisation should be speeded up.

The Haqqani's shaky peace deal in Kurram Agency

When Sunni and Shia tribesmen in the strategically important Kurram Agency in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas signed a peace agreement in February this year, it was clear that something was afoot. The two groups had been at each other's throats for several years. Shia members of the Turi tribe living in Upper Kurram had been the subject of a murderous campaign by neighbouring Sunni Bangash tribesmen and had been cut off from the rest of Pakistan by ambushes and road blocks that had seen hundreds of Shias taken out of buses and murdered at the side of the road. The main road to Peshawar, for example, had been closed since 2007, despite attempts by the Pakistani army to keep it open. According to some accounts, the Shias have been armed and supported by the Iranian regime, which is also predominantly Shia.
Much of this anti-Shia violence has been directed by Hakimullah Mahsud, now leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, but once its emir in Kurram, Orakzai and Khyber. Mahsud is vehemently anti-Shia, regarding them as 'pagans'. He has encouraged his fighters fleeing the Pakistani offensives in both South Waziristan and also Swat to regroup in Orakzai and Kurram and to take on the Shias.
The peace agreement was brokered by the Haqqanis, the family/tribal group who make up one of the main factions of the Afghan Taliban - whose members come from the Zadran tribe. The so-called Haqqani network is now recognised as the most sophisticated and capable insurgent organisation in Afghanistan, operating out of its main bases in North Waziristan.
Under pressure from the CIA drone campaign in North Waziristan and with the support of elements of the Pakistan military, who provide their finance and weapons, the Haqqanis have been looking to move their operations into Kurram, which provides easy access to Afghanistan. Kurram suits the bill perfectly, as it served as a major staging post for attacks against Soviet forces during the 1980s. Osama bin Laden helped build some of the training camps in the region and it is thought that the remnants of al-Qaeda - as well as other foreign forces in the region such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan - and also Pakistani jihadist groups close to the military such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba will benefit from the peace deal with the Turi tribe.
According to a new report from the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project , written by Jeffrey Dressler and Reza Jan, the Haqqani's move into Kurram will have negative consequences for security and stability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. They say it will become more difficult to identify, track and strike these groups once they have relocated.
This may be true, although it can hardly be in Iran's interests to allow the Taliban to come to power in Afghanistan. Nor is it likely that the deeply sectarian Sunnis under the command of Hakimullah Mahsud will be able to restrain themselves from killing Shias for very long, thus provoking yet another round of bloodletting in the region. This is a very shaky peace agreement indeed.

Another rubbish story

"There are no telephone lines or internet connection and bin Laden and his household burned all their rubbish rather than put it out for collection."
This one really made me laugh. In my experience, this is the universal way of disposing of rubbish in Pakistan, where trash collection is a luxury few can afford. A briefing by Pakistan's own Environment department states: "Unfortunately, none of cities in Pakistan has a proper solid waste management system right from collection of solid waste up to its proper disposal."

US National Archives releases new bin Laden files

Readers will forgive me if I resist the temptation to join in the general spluttering and speculating that has greeted the death of Osama bin Laden. I have read so much drivel in the last couple of days as every media organisation in the world has emptied its bottom drawer to fill page after page (screen after screen, etc) with vacuous irrelevance.
The best joke I heard was "Congratulations to the Americans. In Britain it is impossible to get a bin taken out on a Bank Holiday weekend". That one may not travel, but is the first of many, I am sure.
In the meantime - and if you really have not yet had enough bin Laden in your diet - I suggest you try the US National Archives, which has just published a remarkably informative bin Laden file containing some fascinating documents.
Available for the first time are: the CIA's 1996 3-page biographical sketch of bin Laden; the President's Daily Brief from 6 August 2001 warning "Bin Ladin determined to Strike in US"; a State Department issue paper from 2005 stating that "Some Taliban leaders operate with relative impunity in some Pakistan cities"; a 400-page Sandia National Laboratories profile of bin Laden, focussing on the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania; a State Department cable on the Taliban's regrouping in Pakistan's Tribal Areas, making them "a sanctuary beyond the reach of either government"; the demands made on Pakistan immediately after 9/11 by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; and an account of the only known conversation between the US government and Taliban leader Mullah Omar which took place in 1998. This latter conversation, initiated by Mullah Omar, came just two days after the controversial US Cruise missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for the East African Embassy bombings.

Apaches demand apology for slur on Geronimo

I have every sympathy with the Fort Sill Apache Tribe who have written to President Obama asking him why the name of their revered ancestor Geronimo was used as a codename for Osama bin Laden in the operation that led to his death in Pakistan. The fact that bin Laden had been killed was reported back to Washington with the words "Geronimo EKIA" - Enemy Killed in Action.
"Our Tribe like most of the country was ecstatic about your announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a military operation in Pakistan. The performance of our military and intelligence agencies in locating and taking action against Osama bin Laden made us all of proud to be Americans", writes Jeff Houser, who in these democratic days, is chairman of the tribe.
"To equate Geronimo or any other native American figure with Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer and cowardly terrorist, is painful and offensive to our tribe and all Native Americans," he adds.
"Geronimo was a renowned Chiricahua Apache leader who personally fought to defend his people, territory and way of life. Unlike the coward Osama bin Laden, Geronimo faced his enemy in numerous battles and engagements. He is perhaps one of the greatest symbols of Native American resistance in the history of the United States."
Houser points out that in 2009 the US House of Representatives honoured Geronimo for "his extraordinary bravery, and his commitment to the defense of his homeland, his people and Apache way of life".
Geronimo and his people lived in Southern New Mexico and Arizona until 1886, when they were forcibly removed and held as prisoners of war for 28 years. They were eventually released in 1914 in Oklahoma, where today's members of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe still live, although they have never given up on their wish to return to their homelands. Geronimo died after 23 years in captivity.

Memories of Abbottabad

Sir James Abbott in Afghan costume - courtesy National Portrait Gallery

In October 2009 I spent a wonderful day in Abbottabad in the company of friends from the Amaan Ittehad organisation, who had organised a large public event calling for the restoration of democracy and justice in Pakistan. It was my one and only visit to the town - now notorious for ever more as the final hiding place of Osama bin Laden. I was struck by two things - the warmth and friendship of the people there, who did everything possible to facilitate my visit and to make me feel at home; and secondly, the remnants of so many signs of the Raj.
On the hillside, close to what is now Pakistan's premier army officer training school, stands the pretty little church of St Luke's, Abbottabad, while in the centre of the town the barracks can hardly have changed since the days in 1848 when James 'Kaka' Abbott, supported by Hazara and Pashtun tribesmen, drove the Sikhs under Chatar Singh from this area forever.

St Luke's Church, Abbottabad

Abbott was regarded as a hero by the Hazarawals and when he was removed from his post as district commissioner in 1852 for 'going native' he decided to throw a huge party for all the people of the district. It is said he spent everything he had saved to provide food for the party, which was held on Nara Hill, site of his most glorious victories against the Sikhs. According to his replacement, Herbert Edwardes: "And there for three days and nights he might be seen walking among the groups of guests and hecatombs of pots and cauldrons - the kind and courteous host of a whole people." After 18 years of loyal service, he was summarily transferred to the government gunpowder factory in Calcutta. He eventually retired a General and was knighted in 1894, two years before he died.

The massive cost of the US war in Afghanistan

If you are worried about how the US government spends its tax dollars, stop reading here. A report from the Congressional Research Service - The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 -  on military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan since the 9/11 attacks makes daunting reading. 
In the decade since the 9/11 attacks on America, Congress has approved a total of $444 billion for Operation Enduring Freedom and other counter-terror operations in Afghanistan. This amounts to 35 per cent of all military spending during the period in question. The remaining 65% was mostly spent on operations in Iraq.
Today, however, the bulk of spending is in Afghanistan. For 2011, Afghan war costs accounted for 71% of war costs and Iraq 29%, a reversal of the split of two years earlier when Afghanistan’s share was one third and Iraq’s share was two-thirds. In the FY2012 request, the $114 billion cost for Afghanistan is a 91% increase over FY2009, and  161% higher than FY2008. In FY2012, the cost for Iraq drops to $18 billion, a decrease of $78 billion from FY2009.
The 59-page report notes "Between FY2009 and FY2010, average monthly DOD spending for Afghanistan grew from $4.4 billion to $6.7 billion a month, a 50% increase, while average troop strength almost doubled from 44,000 to 84,000 as part of the troop surge announced by the President last year. Troop strength in Afghanistan is expected to average 102,000 in FY2011. DOD’s plans call for troop levels to fall by less than 4,000 in FY2012 unless the President decides otherwise as part of his decision to “begin transition to Afghan security lead in early 2011. . . [to a ] a responsible, conditions-based U.S. troop reduction in July 2011.”"
It can be seen that the cost of the war in Afghanistan has risen dramatically since 2006, up from $19bn to $60bn in 2009. This will rise to $105bn for 2010 and $119bn in 2011. The cost increases reflect not only higher troop levels and more intense operations, but also substantial sums for training Afghan forces, extra procurement costs and, latterly, higher foreign aid levels. It also costs more per soldier to keep troops deployed in Afghanistan compared to Iraq. Incredibly, the Administration cites a figure of $1 million per troop per year in Afghanistan. Plenty more stats in this report if you can face it.

Media and Telecoms guide to Afghanistan

Having helped to write and edit it, I can't oversell Infoasaid's Media and Telecoms Landscape Guide to Afghanistan. That having been said, I can highly recommend it if you want a quick and easy-to-read guide to how the media works in Afghanistan.

Three Cups of Tea author savaged by 60 Minutes

Mortenson in Pakistan

Oh dear! Greg Mortenson, who shot to fame with the publication of his best-seller Three Cups of Tea, has had a bit of a thrashing from CBS's 60 Minutes.
They began investigating complaints from former donors, board members, staff and charity regulators about the way Mortenson runs the Central Asia Institute. They say there are "serious questions about how millions of dollars have been spent, whether Mortenson is personally benefiting and whether some of the most dramatic and inspiring stories in his books are even true."
Mortenson, who charges $30,000 for each public speaking engagement, has sold millions of copies of his books. And yet, as a series of replies from the CAI trustees to questions asked by 60 Minutes has revealed, he often uses a private jet to fly between engagements. Last year CAI apparently spent more on Mortenson's travel costs - which it pays -  than on building schools.
In addition, it appears that stories about him being kidnapped by the Taliban are untrue, as are stories about how villagers nursed him back to health on his descent from K2, the tallest mountain in Pakistan. Education officials at some schools in Pakistan reported to 60 Minutes that some of the schools built with CAI money are poorly constructed and that they have not heard from the charity for some time. Only 41 per cent of the money CAI spent in 2009 actually went to schools in Pakistan or Afghanistan. It was all too good to be true.

Opium production for 2011 set to rise in Afghanistan

Opium production in Afghanistan for 2011 is likely to increase strongly in the north and north-east of the country, although overall cultivation for the entire country is expected to decrease slightly, according to the latest survey from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Cultivation in Badakhshan, Baghlan and Faryab provinces in the north of the country is likely to increase due to the present high prices for the drug. The two latter provinces were certified as poppy-free in 2010, so this is a setback. Both are likely to lose this status in 2011. Other provinces certified poppy-free in 2010 are likely to remain so.
In total 16 provinces are likely to remain poppy-free in 2011, with the remaining 18 provinces showing moderate to strong increases. Asked to explain the main reasons why farmers chose to grow opium rather than other crops, almost three-quarters answered that high prices was the main reason. Reasons for not growing opium were that it was banned by the government (38%), it was forbidden by Islam (30%) or fear of eradication (19%).
Only in eight per cent of surveyed villages - all of them in Baghlan -  did farmers receive cash advances from 'external sources' for growing opium. In Baghlan, this meant 57 per cent of all poppy-growing villages. UNODC found a strong statistical linkage between villages that had not received governmental agricultural assistance and the growing of opium.
The price increase for opium has been dramatic over the last year, rising between February 2010 and March 2011 by 306 per cent for dry opium and 251 per cent for fresh opium. By comparison wheat prices increased by 31 per cent and maize by 42 per cent over the same period. Rice actually fell in price by one per cent.
The interesting question is whether or not the increase in cultivation in the north of the country is a tactic supported and encouraged by the Taliban. It receives much of its income from opium production and with this being curtailed in the south, it seems likely that it is connected to the 'external sources' providing funding for farmers in the north of the country.

Hard facts of human rights in Pakistan

The annual report for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, published yesterday, does not make comfortable reading. They say that957 people were killed in US drone attacks in 2010, while 1,159 people were killed in 67 suicide attacks. The fatalities included 1,041 civilians. In addition, a further 2,542 people were killed and 5,062 people injured in terrorist attacks.
In Karachi, 237 political activists and 301 other civilians were killed in targeted killings. Another 118 people were killed and 40 injured in targeted killings in Baluchistan. These included 29 non-Baluch 'settlers' and 17 members of the Shia Hazara community. The bodies of another 59 missing persons were found in the province.
The report reveals that there are more than 8,000 people on death row in Pakistan, including nearly 6,000 in Punjab alone. A total of 75,586 prisoners were detained in 55 prisons, although the authorised capacity for these prisons is only 42,617. Seventy-two prisoners died in prisons and another 157 were injured.
Freedom of movement in some areas of Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan and FATA, is so limited, that the report calls them "virtual no-go areas".
Ninety-nine members of the Ahmedi sect were killed in the year and at least 64 people were charged with blasphemy, including Aasia Bibi, a Christian farmhand. Three men (including two Christian brothers) accused of blasphemy were killed in police custody.
Twenty-five of the 102 Sikh families that had been forced to flee Orakzai through intimidation, returned to the area. However, 500 Hindu families from Balochistan migrated to India because of threats to their lives.
Many more fascinating and daunting figures are contained in this remarkable report.

Pak financier of Indian Airlines hijack arrested in Chile?

Hijacked jet on the runway at Kandahar Airport in 1999

Indian news organisations are reporting that a man arrested in Chile last week in possession of a false passport may be Abdul Rauf, a Pakistani terrorist accused of financing and coordinating the December 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines passenger jet from Kathmandu to Kandahar, via Amritsar and Lahore.
The aircraft and its 11-member crew and 179 passengers was hijacked by five armed men who eventually landed at Kandahar and demanded the ransom of a number of Pakistani jihadis imprisoned in India. They killed one of the passengers in the eight-day stand-off before the Indian authorities agreed to release three men: Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad, Mushtaq Zargar, a Kashmiri separatist leader and Ahmed Omar Sayeed Sheikh, a British-educated Pakistani who was later convicted of the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Taliban officials facilitated the handover of prisoners, which took place on the runway at Kandahar in the presence of the-then Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh. All three men lived openly in Pakistan following their release, despite the fact that they had all been convicted of terrorist offences in India.
Rauf, who is brother-in-law to Azhar, is said to have sent money to the hijackers and also rented a flat in Dhaka where the hijackers fine-tuned their plans.
Two senior Indian police officers left for Chile yesterday in order to confirm Rauf's identity. His arrest was brought to their attention via Interpol. His last recorded presence in Pakistan was in October 2009 when he was called in by Pakistani authorities to help negotiate the release of 42 people taken hostage by pro-Taliban militants who had occupied part of an army base in Rawalpindi.
* The Indian team sent to Chile appear to have ruled out the man detained in Chile as being Abdul Rauf, although inquiries are continuing.

Mystery over closure of Afghan blog

 

President Najibullah hanging in Aryana Square in September 1996

Afghan journalist Fahim Khairy has been writing his blog Suffering City for the past year or so, much of it concentrating on internal political issues in Afghanistan and in particular criticising what he perceives to be the pro-Pashtun sentiments of the Karzai government.
But something has happened in the last week and the blog has been closed down for reasons that are still unclear. It seems that someone found his username and then hacked his password. Having done that, they then closed down the site. What could have prompted such an action? One possibility is that it is connected to a series of articles Khairy has written, based on the remarkable book Hidden Secrets by Razaq Mamoon.
This book, published in Dari in Afghanistan, examines the events that led up to the brutal killing of President Najibullah in Kabul in December 1996. Until now, it has always been believed that Najibullah was dragged from a UN compound and strung up from a lamppost in Kabul by the victorious Taliban forces who had entered the city shortly before.
However, Mamoon's book argues that he was killed by three men, two of whom were former communist comrades of Najibullah, but who had fled the country following a split in the Khalq party in 1991. The third person involved, according to Mamoon, was Colonel Imam, the infamous Pakistani intelligence officer who was murdered in North Waziristan in February. Imam was shot dead on the orders of Hakimullah Mahsud, leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, who watched as this hero of the anti-Soviet jihad was callously shot in the head.
Mamoon's book includes a series of documents from the Taliban's own intelligence service archive that  appear to confirm Mamoon's story of Najibullah's murder. According to these documents, the two other killers were Shanawaz Tanai, who once served as Najibullah's defence minister, and Garzai Khowkhozai. These two men later formed an anti-Najibullah movement in Pakistan and were  supported by the ISI.

Garzai was later arrested by the Taliban and the documents referred to by Mamoon and reproduced by Khairy appear to be handwritten notes from Garzai's interrogation. He says Col. Imam - at that time a serving officer in the Pakistan Army as well as an intelligence officer - was with him when they brought Najibullah to the Presidential Palace from the UN building at around midnight. A Taliban judge queried whether the killing of Najibullah would create a bad image of the Taliban, but Najibullah reassured them that no-one would care. The Taliban judge also asked why the former comrades wanted to kill Dr. Naibullah. Garzai replied that they were taking revenge for their comrades who were killed by Najib after the failed the coup in 1990. Garzai added that he was proud of killing him.
Not long after arriving, Najibullah was brought in the courtyard where he was forced to get into a car. There had already been an argument between Col Imam and Najibullah, although the reason for it is unclear. As he was brought into the courtyard Najib resisted and they started beating him and calling him names. Still he refused to get in the car. They finally shot and killed him and then tied him up and threw him into the back of a pick-up truck before driving away. His dead body was driven to Aryana Square where they hung him from a lamppost.
Following the publication of his book, Mamoon was attacked and badly injured in Kabul in January this year. His assailant threw acid in his face, saying that he had been forced to do it by men with Iranian accents. Mamoon's most recent book, Footprint of Pharoah, is about Iranian interference in Afghanistan.
This may explain the attack on Mamoon, but the identity of whoever it was who hijacked Khairy's site remains a mystery. Based in the United States since 2003, Fahim Khairy is in a wheelchair, following the onset of Guillain Barre Syndrome which has left him paralysed. He is a campaigner for disabled people in Afghanistan and a harsh critic of the Karzai Administration in Afghanistan.
Was it the ISI that closed down the site, concerned about the revelations? Or was it the Iranians, possibly seeking to limit the influence of Mamoon? Or was it connected to the internecine feuding that dominates some parts of Afghan polity?