Afghan reality: India may talk to ISI, Taliban

IBN Live

New Delhi: The top levels of the government are debating opening talks with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Afghan Taliban to ensure India remains relevant in Afghanistan.

CNN-IBN learns the precarious security situation in Afghanistan–highlighted by the terrorist attacks targeting Indians in Kabul on February 26–is prompting a gradual but significant rethink in New Delhi.

Sources confirm that the government is debating opening up a channel of communication with the ISI and engaging sections of the Taliban–an idea India abhorred till now.

India is also considering paring down its presence at reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Projects underway may be wrapped up quickly and there may be even a freeze on undertaking new projects.

Wake Up Lahore 2010 – Episode 1

Part-1:

Indian meddling in Pakistan

by Zaki Khalid | Pakistan Observer

As Operation Rah e Nijat is gradually nearing it’s successful end, India’s RAW is getting increasingly desperate and frustrated in trying to find other means of involving Pakistan in further geostrategic mayhem. One such recent incident was the highly absurd allegation that Lashkar e Taiba was behind the Kabul attacks on Indians, which Richard Holbrooke was sturdy enough to reject in time before another outbreak of state collision took place.

Footages from Swat and Waziristan reveal that the terrorists belong from different countries such as Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Germany and India. Their primary funding comes from the dozens of Indian consulates spread across Afghanistan, especially near the Pak-Afghan border. For India it seems, their foolish dream of “Akhand Bharat” (Greater India) is still entwined in their fascist ideologies. Add to that the Hindutvization of middle-level officers, senior level colonels and Generals of the Indian Army and you have a rogue brigade of ideologically-driven Hindu elements that will stop at nothing to create troubles and strife for Pakistan. 

India will not scale down its operation in Afghanistan: Menon

 One India

New Delhi, Mar 6 (ANI): National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon has said that India will not scale down its operation in Afghanistan.

Buzz up!
“India and Afghanistan are stepping up security for Indians in Afghanistan,” said Menon adding that the reports on suspension of ‘Medical Mission’ is false, as per the report of a leading news channel.
“Afghanistan has given us all information on recent attacks,” said Menon

Menon is presently in Kabul to review the security of Indians working on several development projects across Afghanistan.

India to send more troops to Afghanistan

Times of India 

 

The recent killing of RAW agents in Kabul attack has exposed Indian activities in Afghanistan. The Indian media avoided to highlight or protest the killings, out of fear of exposure of Indian designs against Pakistan. Now Indian government clearly said it is sending more troops to protect RAW assets.

NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday said Afghanistan remained a “vulnerable” area for Indian assets as the government plans to provide more and better security to its nationals posted in the war-ravaged country. 

“There were intelligence alerts that Indian assets may be targeted, following which adequate steps were taken but Afghanistan is a vulnerable area,” home minister P Chidambaram said on Friday’s attack in Kabul in which six Indians died. 

Chidambaram’s comments come close on the heels of a government move to send another contingent of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel to strengthen security of Indian interests in Afghanistan. 

Holbrooke unsure if Pakistan against Afghan Taliban

Dawn News

WASHINGTON: US special envoy Richard Holbrooke said in an interview with the Financial Times that he is agnostic about whether Pakistan had decisively turned against the Afghan Taliban.

Holbrooke made the comment in relation to Pakistan’s arrest of the Afghan Taliban’s operational commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

He said he was not prepared to make a judgement on whether relations between the United States and Pakistan had turned a corner after Baradar’s arrest.

Holbrooke declined to say whether the US was getting good intelligence from the joint interrogation of Mullah Baradar. But he said he had “no problems” with the Lahore High Court’s denial of a request last week to transfer the Taliban commander to Afghanistan.

Regarding military operations in Afghanistan, Holbrooke said the US and its allies faced a “daunting” task there and “it is much too early” to predict how the situation will turn out.

Newsweek Pakistan to compete in Pakistan’s ‘vibrant media’

By Moin Ansari | Rupee News

Newsweek, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company, is to launch a title for the Pakistan market, marking the first such move by a prominent western magazine in the country.

Newsweek Pakistan, which will offer international and local content, is expected to hit the stands by September under a licence agreement with a local media company.

The English-language newspaper and magazine industry in Pakistan is far smaller than in neighbouring India. Some estimates suggest only 100,000 copies of English-language publications are sold a day in a country with a population of 180m. Existing English language titles include The Herald, Newsline, The Friday Times, The Dawn and The News.

Pakistan imposes fewer regulatory restrictions on western media than India, which limits foreign ownership. In Pakistan, western media are able to enter the market and the only apparent restrictions are on Indian media organisations.

What US Army Doesn’t Want You To See

 

20 More IAF planes bite the dust. More than 300 remain grounded

By Moin Ansari | Rupee News

Half the Indian Air Force has now been grounded

Bharat (aka India) has more than 600 planes in its inventory. It has grounded a couple of hundred Mig-21s which have a hard time defying gravity–more than 250 have crashed. The IAF has also grounded a hundred of the Mig 29s. Now there is news that the IAF has grounded the 20 Kiran Aircraft.

In the wake of Wednesday’s aircrash in Hyderabad, the Indian Navy has grounded its entire fleet of Kiran aircraft.

The Navy has a fleet a 20 Kiran aircraft -12 Mk-I and eight Mk II aircrafts – which are based in Goa. “As per the standard operating procedure, the aircraft will not fly till the time they are cleared by the Board of Inquiry (BOI) looking into today’s mishap”, Navy officials said here.

They added that if the probe team found no problems with the aircraft, the fleet would be airborne soon. A Kiran Mk II aircraft of Navy’s Goa-based Sagar Pawan Aerobatic Team (SPAT) today crashed in Hyderabad while performing at the India Aviation airshow there.

Amaresh Misra On Hemant Karkare’s Controversial Assasination

 Part 1

Kabul bombing: Holbrooke refutes hallucinatory Indian accusations

By Moin Ansari | Rupee News 

• U.S. Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said Tuesday last week’s terrorist attack in Kabul did not target Indians specifically
• Speaking to reporters in Washington on Wednesday, Mr. Holbrooke said: “I don’t accept the fact that this was an attack on an Indian facilitylike the embassy. Holbrooke
• ”There were foreigners, non-Indian foreigners hurt. It was a soft target. Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Holbrooke
• “I understand why everyone in Pakistan and everyone in India always focuses on the other. But please, let’s not draw a conclusion for which there’s no proof.” Holbrooke

WASHINGTON, March 3 (APP): U.S. Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said Tuesday last week’s terrorist attack in Kabul did not target Indians specifically and cautioned againt jumping to conclusions without any solid proof. “In regard to this attack, I don’t accept the fact that this was an attack on an Indian facility like the embassy. They were foreigners, non-Indian foreigners hurt. It was a soft target,” he told reporters at a Sate Department briefing.

Secret document bares Indian subversion in Pakistan

Defence Correspondent

Islamabad—Even as India and Pakistan were actively engaged in laying a framework for normalizing their relations in the aftermath of Operation Parkaram (Dec 2001 – Oct 2002), RAW’s Counter Intelligence Team – X (CIT-X), assigned to conduct subversive operations targeting Pakistan was working relentlessly to destabilize the country. According to well placed sources the details of these plans came to light once a copy of the classified document detailing these activities was accidentally lost and became available for public scrutiny.

The strategy to advance the interaction with Pakistan on the diplomatic channels, while perpetrating acts of terrorism on a parallel track, was envisaged after the failure of Indian spell of coercive diplomacy vis-à-vis Pakistan during the Premiership of Atal Bihari Vajpaee. The document lays out the extensive espionage network dovetailed into the diplomatic missions in Central Asia, particularly Afghanistan, and Middle East which the Indian under cover intelligence operatives utilize to rake trouble not only in FATA but in Pakistani hinterland as well. 

The Mystery of the Afghanistan War

By  Christopher King | Middle East Online

A situation exists in which it may be in the interests of the United States to seek a ‘cold war’ situation with Russia and China as a pretext for defaulting on its external debt, attacking Iran, taking direct control of all Middle Eastern oilfields and effective control of Europe.

Let us consider a puzzle about the Afghanistan war. Recently, Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, formerly of the Pakistani army and head of the country’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency (1987-89), remarked: “In this situation, what are the Americans trying to achieve – I don’t know. There is much ambiguity about their political objectives. Every military conflict must have a political purpose. I cannot discern that there is any political purpose.”

 

A U.S.-Trained Pakistani Is Said to Support the Taliban

Carlotta Gall

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan – With his white turban, untrimmed beard and worn army jacket, the man known uniformly here by his nom de guerre, Col. Imam, is a particular Pakistani enigma.

A United States-trained former colonel in Pakistan’s spy agency, he spent 20 years running insurgents in and out of Afghanistan, first to fight the Soviet Army, and later to support the Taliban, as Pakistani allies, in their push to conquer Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Today those Taliban forces are battling his onetime mentor, the United States, and Western officials say Colonel Imam has continued to train, recruit and finance the insurgents. Along with a number of other retired Pakistani intelligence officials, they say, he has helped the Taliban stage a remarkable comeback since 2006.

In two recent interviews with The New York Times, Colonel Imam denied that. But he remains a vocal advocate of the Taliban, and his views reveal the sympathies that have long run deep in the ranks of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services.

Pakistan to India: No lectures or cosmetic engagements

by Moin Ansari | Rupee News

The failure of the Bharati administration to hold Pakistan hostage to Mumbai has failed miserably. The Bharati (aka Indian) administration has been taken to task in parliament and in the media.

• Pakistan did not want India to “lecture” it to “do this or that” and rejected further “cosmetic engagements”
• Advani said the only concrete outcome of the 500-word statement was the foreign secretaries’ agreement “to stay in touch”.
• “Is dialogue linked with Pakistan’s abandoning terrorism, or have the two been de-linked as clearly said by our PM at Sharm el-Sheikh?
• The BJP veteran goes on to re-assert his earlier remark that the Indian government’s U-turn on dialogue with Pakistan seems to be the upshot of “Washington’s nudge”
• In this latest one, there is nothing but contradictions and obfuscation.”

There is a dearth of vision in Delhi–where dialogue with Pakistan or China is seen as a reward for good behavior, as if relations with Delhi are part of some “Most Favored Nation” status by economic giants like the USA. Bharat as a large country has border disputes with all her neighbors and does not have the ability or the will to resolve issues with any of her neighbors.

Saudi-Indian relations: Analysis

by Moin Ansari | Rupee News

The Bharati (aka Indian) press is full of sound and fury about the trip of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the King of Sadui Arabia. The trip itself was a major achievement for the Bharati government–a clear indication of the level of relations between Delhi and Riyadh. Only four previous prime ministers have ever been allowed to the sacred land. Of course Mr. Manmohan Singh visited Riyadh only, not being allowed to stepon sacred soil of Mecca or Madina.

Bharati leaders were overjoyed by the fact that a Bharati Prime Minister was able to reach the shores of the Arabian peninsula which seems to be a major feat for the Bharati government.

The Bharati media is also very excited by the fact that Saudi Arabia has agreed to sell oil to Delhi at market prices. Well duh! Saudi Arabia surely doesn’t want to keep its oil under the sands. It does want to sell it so that it can sustain the lifestyle it is used to.

Plane Crashes At India Air Show

News By Al Jazeera

Two people have died and four more injured after an Indian naval aircraft crashed during an acrobatics display in the southern city of Hyderabad.

Police said the plane came down in a residential neighbourhood of the city on Wednesday.

Indian TV news channels showed the plane flying in a formation at the air show shortly before it crashed into densely populated land adjacent to the show ground.

“In the final phase, the aircraft appears to have gone out of control. They crashed into a building and the pilots have died,” Nirmal Verma, a navy chief, said.

He was unable to say if there were further casualties on the  ground.

But Prerna Suri, Al Jazeera’s India correspondent, said the state police department had confirmed the two deaths and four injured.

“The Indian army, the state police and the fire department have been deployed to comb the area for survivors,” she said.

“It was a very crowed area so the casualty count is expected to go up.

“The aircraft was manned by two pilots, both have been declared dead.

How India Lost The Plot In Talks

By M.J. Akbar | The Daily Star

DELHI lost its own plot one day before foreign secretaries Nirupama Rao and Salman Bashir sat down at Hyderabad House to reopen the dialogue between India and Pakistan.

Salman Bashir came to Delhi for two sets of talks, not one. The Indian government was the second half of his agenda. The first, and from his perspective the more important, part was the resumption of dialogue between Islamabad and secessionist elements in Jammu and Kashmir, Hurriyat leaders and the more extreme Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Bashir did not want to talk to Omar or Farooq Abdullah, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Mehbooba Mufti or Ghulam Nabi Azad, who represent parties that won a substantial number of seats in the assembly. He wanted to hear what Geelani said, that there was a storm brewing in the valley. Bashir reassured Geelani that Pakistan had not abandoned its dream of altering the map of India.

These pre-arranged meetings were held with the consent of the Indian government. If the Indian government had wanted to prevent them, Hurriyat leaders and Geelani would not have been able to catch the flight from Srinagar to Delhi. Precedence — the fact that we have enabled such meetings before — is not the point.

US Plans Quick Reaction Force in Pakistan

By Dawn, Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The US government has decided to establish a Quick Reaction Force for the protection of its diplomatic missions in Pakistan.

The step has been taken in order to meet the increased terrorist threats to US personnel in Pakistan.

DawnNews has learnt that the US Congress has been requested to allocate US$ 22.9 million for the program.

The Quick Reaction Force will be comprised of specially trained Pakistani personnel, who would be deployed at the US Embassy in Islamabad and its Consulate in Karachi

As part of the program, US will deploy 25 additional special protective specialists and 4 diplomatic security agents at its missions in Pakistan.

The proposed force will provide the regional security officer, a special agent in charge of security at a US Embassy, the capability of defending the Embassy and Consulate compounds against attacks from terrorists.

Pakistan Seizes Insurgent Stronghold on Afghan Border

By Zahid Hussain | The Wall Street Journal

DAMADOLA, Pakistan—Pakistani forces have seized a key al Qaeda and Taliban stronghold along the border with Afghanistan that once served as a hideout for Ayman al Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama bin Laden.

The capture of Damadola, a district in the Bajaur tribal region, is a major success in Pakistan’s counterinsurgency campaign. The area had long been dominated by insurgents operating on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Pakistani forces seized the scenic district late last month, after several days of fierce fighting that Pakistan said left more than 75 foreign and local militants dead. Pakistan’s military took reporters to the site, which is surrounded by snow-capped mountains less than five kilometers from the Afghan border, for the first time Tuesday.

“It was the main hub of militancy where al Qaeda operatives had moved freely,” said Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan, the regional commander.

Delhi’s extra mile

by Moin Ansari | Rupee News

Prime Minster Manmohan Singh has once again reiterated that “Delhi can walk the extra mile” if–this that and the other. This was the same line used by Jawahlal Nehru in 1948 about Kashmir. He kept on promising a plebiscite and kept on absorbing Kashmir into Bharat (aka India). This was the same line used by the leaders of Delhi in 1962 when the Chinese leaders had asked Pakistan to join in the battle and liberate Kashmir. Pakistan’s Ayub Khan ignored the advice of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and listened to the American promises on Kashmir. This is the same line used by Indira Gandhi in 1969 during talks on Kashmir. A couple of years later General Mankeshaw was recruiting 80,000 Hindus into the Mukti Bahni in the largest case of state sponsored and cross border terrorism known to the world. This is the same line used by Mr. Vaypayee while his cohorts were massacring 3000 Muslims in Gujarat.
Bharat has used the same line for China, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Lanka and Bangladesh. All have been victims of Bharati terror.
ON BOARD AIR INDIA ONE: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday reiterated that all problems between India and Pakistan could be resolved through meaningful bilateral dialogue if only Pakistan would take a more reasonable attitude to deal with terrorist elements who targeted India.

Taking a stand – Finally

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON – The refusal of Pakistani intelligence to turn over Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and as many as six other top Taliban figures to the United States or the Afghan government has dealt a serious blow to the Barack Obama administration’s hopes for Pakistani cooperation in weakening the Taliban. 

It has left little doubt in the minds of US officials that the Pakistani military intends to keep physical custody of the Taliban detainees in order to exert influence on both the pace of peace negotiations in Afghanistan and the ultimate terms of a settlement. 

The Pakistani custody of Baradar and other Taliban leaders now appears to be more of a safe haven for the Afghan insurgents than a normal detention. At least some US officials already accept the likelihood that the Pakistanis will allow the Taliban leaders to continue to maintain contact with other Taliban officials while in custody. 

Raise Your Price, Pakistan

Ahmed Quraishi

How about exchanging Taliban Number Two Abdul Ghani Baradar for terror master Brahamdagh Bugti and the dismantling of the terror network targeting Pakistan’s Balochistan?

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistan has agreed to hand over Afghan Taliban’s number 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, to Afghanistan. How about asking for Mr. Brahamdagh Bugti in exchange? Or for the dismantling of the Afghan-based terror infrastructure targeting Pakistani Balochistan?

There are signs that Afghanistan’s role as a base for anti-Pakistan operations over the past seven years is gradually shrinking. But it is not completely over yet. The rollback in that role is directly linked to what the United States wants. And Washington’s recent change of heart regarding Pakistan’s role and legitimate regional security interests are the result of the Pakistani military standing its ground, not any genuine change of heart in US policymaking circles. This is why you did not see any US official jumping in excitement at the idea of Pakistani military training the Afghan National Army, which is what our army chief has proposed.

India Can Make Progress if Run on Hinduism: Bhagwat (RSS Chief)

Outlook India

Asserting that India would make progress only if run on the lines of Hinduism, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said here today that those who were Indians were Hindus and if one was not a Hindu he could not be an Indian.

“For us the word Hindu did not mean any religion but a way of life,” he said at the annual function of the local RSS and the Hindu Samagam here.

He said that the Union Finance Minister had in his budget speech quoted from Chanakaya but this was totally out of context.

Post London: Delhi begs Saudis for role in Afghanistan

by Moin Ansari | Rupee News

RIYADH: Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for external affairs, was at the centre of yet another controversy after his remarks here on Saturday evening that Saudi Arabia could be a “valuable interlocutor” between India and Pakistan.

The remark, in response to a question from a reporter, triggered a storm on Sunday, with many viewing it as a deviation from the country’s stand to treat the dispute with Pakistan as a bilateral affair, and reject all suggestions of third-party mediation.

Tharoor strongly argued that he had been misinterpreted as he had not used the word “mediation or anything like that”. He also tweeted, ruing the misinterpretation of the word “interlocutor”, while insisting that an “interlocutor was different from a mediator”.