[Peace-discuss] The war with Pakistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The Obama administration really wants to attack Pakistan, but they're scared of 
them.  That's why the US media didn't pay much attention to Clinton's visit, 
which was undoubtedly replete with threats. But the bifurcated Pakistani 
government responded in a way that was surely noted in DC: it reappointed the 
head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was expected to retire in 
November! Take that, US State Department...  --CGE]

	Afghanistan war logs: whose side is Pakistan on?
	Wikileaks reports have galvanised opinions of some Americans
	who view the Pakistani military with suspicion
	* guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 July 2010 22.44 BST

The storm of controversy raised by the accounts of alleged collusion between 
Pakistani intelligence and the Taliban in the war logs has resurrected one of 
the most vexed questions of the nine-year Afghan war: whose side is Pakistan on?

The reports have galvanised the opinions of some Americans who view the 
Pakistani military, which runs the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, as a 
double-dealing entity that accepts $1bn a year in US funding while quietly 
helping Afghan insurgents.

Although the quality of evidence against the ISI in the logs is low – and the 
spy agency has rejected it as "malicious and unsubstantiated" – experts say 
there is strong evidence to suggest collusion elsewhere.

The main focus is along the lawless 1,600-mile frontier with Afghanistan, where 
insurgent commanders can recruit, re-supply and seek finance with little 
interference.

The main node is in the south-west province of Balochistan, across the border 
from the conflict-racked provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. Here, Taliban foot 
soldiers shelter deep in the countryside in old Afghan refugee camps, such as 
Girdi Jungle, while the leadership clusters around Quetta.

Despite behind-the-scenes pressure from the British and US governments, the ISI 
has taken little action to break up this safe haven.

Hardly any Taliban leaders have been arrested, in contrast with the dozens of 
al-Qaida fugitives rounded up elsewhere. And the whereabouts of the Taliban 
leader Mullah Muhammad Omar remain a mystery. But the picture is complex and 
evolving. Militancy experts say many Taliban leaders have abandoned Quetta for 
the sprawling city of Karachi, where last February the ISI arrested Mullah Abdul 
Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's number two, in a move trumpeted as heralding a new 
policy.

But it may have been a mistake. One US official said Baradar was arrested by the 
ISI section that co-operates with the CIA, but that had not been coordinated 
with the section that runs covert Afghan operations, known as directorate S. The 
ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha, was out of Pakistan at the time, he noted.

Even at senior levels of the US administration, the official said, the nature of 
the ISI's relationship with the Taliban was unclear. "Is it command and control? 
We don't know. It's one thing to provide a group territory and let them raise 
funds, recruit and give tactical advice. It's another to be able to tell them to 
do something – or to shut them down at will."

The other main staging area for Taliban operations lies further north along the 
border, in the tribal belt, where one of the war's most notorious commanders, 
Jalaluddin Haqqani, has a foothold. Some 377 reports in the war logs refer to 
the role of Haqqani fighters in the insurgency – their distribution of 
threatening "night letters", training of suicide bombers, ammunition smuggling 
across the border, and plots to attack luxury hotels in Kabul. While reports of 
ISI links in the papers are unconfirmed they echo a growing chorus of 
accusations from the CIA, largely made in private, in recent years. Based on 
intercepted phone calls US agents have accused the ISI of sponsoring suicide 
attacks by Haqqani fighters on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

The third warlord with a base in Pakistan is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, 63, who has 
deep ties to the ISI, and operates close to Peshawar. His name features in 69 
war log reports.

Much of the war logs controversy swirls around General Hamid Gul, a former ISI 
head and fundamentalist sympathiser who is described in at least eight 
intelligence files as an active Taliban organiser.

But the fuss around Gul, a notorious publicity hound, obscures the role of a 
much more significant figure in the conflict, Pakistan's army chief, General 
Ashfaq Kayani. This commander led the fight against the Pakistani Taliban last 
year and has overseen a sharp rise in CIA drone attacks in the tribal belt, 
which has had the blessing of the ISI. Last week he won an unprecedented 
three-year extension to his term of office.

But many forget that Kayani was also head of the ISI from 2003-2007, when the 
level of ISI-related reporting in the war logs started to soar. Paradoxically, 
or perhaps because of this, he is now leading Pakistan efforts to help broker a 
peace deal with the Taliban.

Kayani recently worked to soften the army's hostile relationship with Hamid 
Karzai, Afghanistan's president, and push towards negotiations.

Analysts say it is clear that ISI policy towards the Taliban, much like Kayani 
himself, is an enigma, and in reality has multiple strands, opportunistically 
supporting some groups when it suits strategy and perceived interests, and 
fighting against groups on others. The ISI, they say, is on its own side.

Then there is the issue of capacity. One former US military officer said he 
doubted the ISI had the ability to crack down on every militant group inside its 
borders even if it wanted to.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/26/afghanistan-war-logs-pakistan-military