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 War
and Terror
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November 2009
US stalls as Pakistan drifts
Taliban leader Mullah Omar has rejected any notion of peace talks, Pakistan's
army chief has spelled out a vision for an Islamic state, and embattled
President Asif Ali Zardari has relinquished control of the nuclear arsenal.
Taken together, these developments are a major setback for the designs of the
United States in the region. - Syed Saleem Shahzad
(Nov 30, '09)
Tajik grip on Afghan army signals
strife
Ethnic imbalances in the Afghan National Army risk reigniting a civil war
fought in the 1990s between the Tajiks and the Pashtuns. While the Tajik
minority's disproportionate dominance of security institutions is causing
widespread resentment among the Pashtun majority, Tajiks increasingly view the
Pashtun population as aligned with the Taliban. - Gareth Porter
(Nov 30, '09)
US headache over Afghan deserters
According to data published by the US Defense Department, one in every four
combat soldiers quit the Afghan National Army during the year ending in
September. This high desertion rate not only flies in the face of US officials'
long-time praise for the army as a success story - it is also very bad news for
US President Barack Obama's latest Afghan strategy. - Gareth Porter
(Nov 25, '09)
Nuclear fallout rocks Pakistan
Reports of the United States attempting to take an active role in helping
safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal could not have come at a worse time for
President Asif Ali Zardari. He is already marginalized by his military, now his
political opponents - including revitalized former president Pervez Musharraf -
see a weakness. A crucial showdown is due next month, precisely the time the
Pakistani Taliban plan their own fireworks. - Syed Saleem Shahzad
(Nov 19, '09)
Taliban tap into Afghanistan's roots
The insurgency in Afghanistan will continue to gather momentum as long as
Afghans believe the insurgents have more compelling answers than Western powers
or the government of President Hamid Karzai. The Taliban's fusion of religion,
state and army presents a compelling case that foreigners will be expelled,
Pashtun pre-eminence will be maintained, and that there will be a return to a
golden age under Islamic law. - Brian M Downing
(Nov 19, '09)
Afghanistan runs on well-oiled
wheels
Every day, trucks carry diesel from Turkmenistan to the Afghan capital, Kabul,
where some of the fuel is used in electricity power stations. Influential
people are making a lot of money from the venture, which is financed by
American tax dollars and is part of a fine-tuned system of nepotism and
corruption that works a treat. It is not about to change. - Pratap Chatterjee
(Nov 18, '09)
'Northern Taliban' threatens
Central Asia
Taliban counter-moves against United States coalition efforts to forge a supply
route from Central Asia to northern Afghanistan have ended the relative calm in
that part of Afghanistan and could drag Central Asian states into the conflict.
As more foreign fighters from groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
join the ranks of the emerging "northern Taliban", the issue is rapidly
climbing up the coalition's agenda. - Sanobar Shermatova
(Nov 17, '09)
US boosts India's anti-terror
efforts
India's decision to increase information-sharing with United States
intelligence agencies since last year's Mumbai terrorist attack is paying off,
witness the Federal Bureau of Investigation's operation uncovering a plot to
attack important sites in India, including the Taj Mahal. - Siddharth Srivastava
(Nov 17, '09)
An anxious wait in Afghanistan
While the United States agonizes over its Afghan policy, even with the
re-election of President Hamid Karzai now settled, the country remains in
limbo. Warlords and powerbrokers jockey behind fortified walls in the capital,
while the United Nations and other organizations keep their heads down. Only
the Taliban appear unfazed. - Derek Henry Flood
(Nov 16, '09)
Welcome home, war
Wars, even the most distant ones, come home in strange, unnerving ways - as
Americans have just discovered with the killings at Fort Hood. In less noticed
but no less crucial ways, America's wars are now coming home, with techniques
developed in the crucibles of Iraq and Afghanistan migrating from Baghdad and
Kandahar. - Alfred W McCoy (Nov 13, '09)
Afghans fear infiltration from Iran
 Every
day, scores of refugees return to Afghanistan from Iran through a small, poorly
supervised border town in Herat province. Most of them have been kicked out by
Tehran, which, say helpless border police, is also sending across both Afghan
and foreign fighters to join the Taliban-led insurgency. - Zia Ahmadi and
Mustafa Saber (Nov 12, '09)
US air supply drop turns deadly
An American air supply drop that went horribly wrong is the latest incident to
provoke Afghan anger. Up to 25 United States and Afghan personnel, plus several
civilians, were reportedly killed or injured in insurgent-riddled Bala Murghab
district, with everything going from bad to worse when two paratroopers went
missing in a fast-flowing river. - Mustafa Saber
(Nov 12, '09)
Drones: A slam-dunk weapons system
 In
Afghanistan and Pakistan, drones seem to be the only things that "work". They
are not, however, the first wonder weapons so hailed. The atomic bomb,
Vietnam's electronic battlefield, Star Wars, "smart bombs" and "netcentric
warfare". All failed, just as drones will. But it made no difference, all
"succeeded" at home; yet another mini-sector of the military-industrial complex
was born. - Tom Engelhardt (Nov 11, '09)
'Cronies and warlords' wait in the
wings
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pulled no punches in saying that
"cronies and warlords" should have no place in the future of a democratic
Afghanistan. But the point is, cabinet and provincial governor appointments are
a part of a complex political contract in Kabul and it is extremely doubtful
that Karzai is in a position to oblige Britain, or any other country, even if
he wanted to. - M K Bhadrakumar (Nov 9, '09)
It's payback time in Kabul
In return for their pledges to guarantee huge majorities for Hamid Karzai in
the August 20 election, the Afghan president had to make promises to a number
of power brokers and warlords in the provinces of key ministries in the next
government. Now Karzai has to deliver. - Gareth Porter
(Nov 9, '09)
'Undeployables' sent to the Afghan
front
As the United States debates whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops
to Afghanistan, an already overstretched military is struggling to meet its
deployment numbers. One place it is targeting is military personnel who go
absent without leave, and who then are caught or turn themselves in. Many of
these soldiers are already "damaged or even broken". - Dahr Jamail and Sarah
Lazare (Nov 9, '09)
When war comes home
The massive 
Fort Hood military base in Texas, where a major last week gunned down 13
people, is one of the most heavily deployed facilities for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Fort Hood soldiers have also accounted for more suicides than any
other army post since the invasion of Iraq in 2003; this year alone, the base
is averaging over 10 suicides a month. - Dahr Jamail
(Nov 9, '09)
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UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 2
Breaking up is (not) hard to do
The Pentagon well knows that AfPak is the key land bridge between Iran to the
west and China and India to the east; and that Iran has all the energy that
both China and India need. The balkanization of AfPak would neutralize China's
drive for land access from Xinjiang across Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, via the
port of Gwadar in Balochistan province. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 6, '09)
This is the concluding article in a two-part report.
 PART 1:
Welcome to Pashtunistan
Israel up in arms over weapons
seizure
Israel has spared no effort in bringing the world's attention to its seizure of
a ship carrying tonnes of apparently Iranian-supplied weapons bound for
Hezbollah in Lebanon, via Egypt and Syria. If history is any guide, the
incident could be used as a pretext for waging another war on Hezbollah, or
even a strike against Iran. - Sami Moubayed (Nov
6, '09)
US puts its faith in Pakistan's
military
A deal hatched between the Pakistani military and United States Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton cleared the path for Hamid Karzai to be re-elected for a
second term as Afghanistan's president. With Karzai's challenger, Abdullah
Abdullah, now out of the picture, Pakistan's military will actively mediate
between Washington and the Taliban. Along with Abdullah, the big loser is
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari. - Syed Saleem Shahzad
(Nov 5, '09)
India on brink of Maoist offensive
More than 70,000 paramilitary troops are poised to begin Operation Green Hunt,
a massive offensive against Maoist rebels in India's northeast "Red Corridor",
should a final appeal to the Maoists to sit down with the government for talks
fail. - Ranjit Devraj (Nov 5, '09)
Russia, India and China go their
ways
Despite its best efforts, Russia failed at a recent trilateral summit to get
India and China to agree to a common regional initiative regarding Afghanistan.
This failure ensures that the United States can now press ahead with its own
strategy of striking grand bargains individually with these key players. - M K
Bhadrakumar (Nov 4, '09)
Obama's world outreach teetering
Just months after well-received speeches in Turkey and Egypt, setbacks from
Afghanistan to the West Bank to Pakistan, Iraq and Iran have seen belief plunge
in the Muslim world over United States President Barack Obama and his plans for
progress. With this, anti-US sentiment is back on the rise. - Jim Lobe
(Nov 4, '09)
DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Afghanistan as a bailout state
In Washington's terms, the disaster unfolding daily in Afghanistan is not the
definition of failure. In economic lingo, it now falls into the category of
"too big to fail", which means upping the ante; America's leaders always opt
for more in counter-insurgency disasters rather than cutting their losses. - Tom
Engelhardt (Nov 3, '09)
Fighting the 'good' war
Afghanistan is not Washington's "good war", though it is now characterized in
that fashion not only by the Republican right wing but by President Barack
Obama and many Democrats who were critical of the "Bush" Iraq war. - Jack A
Smith (Nov 3, '09)
Drugs, guns and war in Myanmar
Insurgent groups in the north of Myanmar have begun flooding the region with
cheap narcotics to boost revenues as part of a concerted weapons build-up. An
illicit trade that for years benefited the military leadership may now help
fund a re-ignited civil conflict that has the potential to spill over and
rattle relations with close ally Beijing. - Brian McCartan
(Nov 3, '09)
US goofs the Afghan election
Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah's withdrawal from a runoff that he had
scant chance of winning ends what had become a mere sideshow to more
significant events unfolding in Kabul. President Hamid Karzai can now firmly
take center stage. He has turned the tables on Western powers that would have
seen him vilified and overthrown, and, if the rift worsens, he could yet blow
the lid on an explosive issue: the role of foreign troops in the narcotics
trade. - M K Bhadrakumar (Nov 2, '09)
Why Pakistanis see US as the bigger
threat
Most Pakistanis are anti-Taliban, but they are even more anti-United States, as
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton learned during her visit to
the country last week. The view persists that Pakistan is fighting an American
war; that before 2002 there was no terrorist threat in Pakistan; and that the
threat will vanish once US forces withdraw from the region. - Muhammad Idrees
Ahmad (Nov 2, '09)
Now it's a one-horse race
 In
Kabul's cavernous loya jirga council tent, built to signify the hope and
reunification of Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah's dramatic withdrawal from the
presidential race has set the stage for even more discord and instability;
people are in a more vulnerable place than before the start of the election. - Derek
Henry Flood (Nov 2, '09)
Al-Qaeda has plans for its new
recruit
With the recent appointment of Ilyas Kashmiri as head of its military
committee, al-Qaeda has recruited a veteran who learned his trade on the
battlefields of Afghanistan and during the insurgency against India in disputed
Kashmir. Ilyas also took with him his elite 313 Brigade, which al-Qaeda claims
it now wants to unleash. A foiled plot in Denmark could be a prelude. - Syed
Saleem Shahzad (Nov 2, '09)
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ATol Specials
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Syed Saleem Shahzad reports on
the Afghan war from the Taliban side
(Dec '06)
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How
Hezbollah defeated Israel
By
Mark Perry and
Alastair Crooke
(Oct '06)
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Mark Perry and
Alastair Crooke
talk to the 'terrorists'
(Mar, '06)
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The evidence for and against Iran's alleged
nuclear weapons program
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Nir Rosen goes inside the Iraqi
resistance
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Nir Rosen rides with the 3rd
armored cavalry in western Iraq
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Islamism, fascism and
terrorism
by Marc Erikson
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For earlier articles go to:
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