Hazara Nation

FP

President Hamid Karzai’s appeal to the fugitive Taliban Amir, Mullah Omar, “to return home under guarantees of safety to help bring peace to Afghanistan”, proves that Taliban have become indispensible and a force to reckon in Afghanistan’s polity. Their attacks and suicide bombings have played havoc with life, property, peace and stability in Afghanisatan. They have a vengeful mindset, yet Karzai believes that he can bring them on board for the good of Afghanistan. In an interview to Geo TV on Sept 30, 2008 President Karzai said: “I propose Mullah Mohammad Omar to get back to Afghanistan. I will be wholly and solely responsible for his security and I shall be answerable to the whole of the world on his behalf.” Hamid Karzai’s offer of negotiations, and to give the NATO-ISAF forces safe passage out of Afghanistan, demonstrates his fear and frustration of US-led war on terror. But this statement has implications for the future of Afghanistan. If Taliban could play their cards well, they could be Karzai’s partners in ruling Afghanistan. Taliban should come to the negotiating table and demand general elections in Afghanistan,

under the auspices of OIC. Taliban would win the elections in several provinces. They are especially active in the seven provinces adjacent to Pakistan’s border. Hamid Karzai is an able ruler in his own right, but his position is tenous without US-NATO backing. He will run for his life the day US-NATO troops leave Afghanistan. Sensing victory in the long run, Mullah Omar is acting tough, in the belief that time is on his side. Karzai’s offer of peace talks has been rejected by a Taliban spokesman, saying “there would be no negotiations until foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan.” This means that fighting, bloodshed and violence will continue in Afghanistan for a long time. Since three decades when 1978, Afghanistan was invaded, by the Soviet Red Army. One million Afghan citizens were killed and an equal number injured and maimed by bombings and missile attacks on undefended villages and mines planted and sprayed on villages and towns, killed and maimed thousand, mostly children. The Afghans fought back and threw the Red Army out. The defeat of the mighty Red Army triggered the collapse of Soviet Union. With the Soviet defeat, Afghan warlords and drug mafia’s indulged in loot and plunder till the Taliban conquest of Kabul in October 1996. The Taliban fighters under Mullah brought peace, but Taliban rule was ruthless, vicious and merciless. Mullah Omar wanted to impose Islamic Sharia by the sword and rifle butts and bullets. Mullah Omar welcomed Osama bin Laden, whose 25000 fighters helped the Taliban to consolidate their hold over entire Afghanistan.
Taliban rule was harsh, brutal, obscurantist and cruel. Mostly illiterate Taliban started killing and beating the people into submission. They massacred ethnic minorities viz Hazara’s, Uzbecks, and Shia’s in the name of Islam. Afghan women were their target of religious frenzy. They tram0pled on the rights of women in the name of Sharia. Taliban are Sunni Pushtun’ keen on ridding Afghanistan of ethnic and religious minorities. Mullah Omar rose from a village Mullah to all powerful Taliban leadership. He claimed to have visions of God and Prophet Mohammad (pubh). Osama –bin -Laden was his honored guest. When the Twin Towers in New York and Pentagon were attacked by Al-Qaeda, by flying passenger planes into them, and killing three thousand innocent people, the Taliban expressed glee instead of remorse. This and their fanaticism and support for terrorism infuriated the West, especially America. President Bill Clinton ordered the air invasion of Afghanistan. During the last eight years of bombings and land attacks hundreds, thousands of Pushtun’s have been killed, but the Taliban could not be defeated. Amazingly despite US--NATO Occupation the Taliban militants have continued the resistance. Taliban attacks on ISAF intensified in 2007, and have taken a heavy toll of US and NATO troops, and Afghan National Army soldiers. About 1000 NATO and US personnel have been killed, including 700 US soldiers and officers. Thousands of Afghan National Army soldiers have died as the insurgency intensifies.Taliban insurgency has demoralized the Karzai regime, and the ISAF commanders and troops. British Army officers in Afghanistan, including top British Commander Brigadier Mark Carleton have expressed the danger of a Taliban victory, stating that ,” It is not possible to win the war against the Taliban. A deal with the Islamic militants might have to be reached to end the insurgency”. White Hall and US generals have denied any ideas of a deal, or pulling out of Afghanistan, reiterating resolve to dig in for a long stay. Rigid stance of the Taliban or US-NATO is unwise.
People of Afghanistan are paying a heavy price because of Taliban and the United States rigidity and inflexibility. On Sept 25, NWFP Governor Owais Ghani stressed that the US should talk to Mullah Omar in order to negotiate peace in Afghanistan. Urging the US to talk to militant commanders in Afghanistan to establish peace, Owais Ghani said: “They have to talk to Mullah Mohammad Omar, certainly; and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Jalaluddin Haqqani groups. The West must accept that the Mullah Omar is not dead, and he is a political reality. The solution, the bottom line, is that political stability will only come to Afghanistan when all the political power groups, irrespective of the length of their beard, are given their just due share in the Afghan political dispensation,” said the NWFP governor in an interview with a London-based newspaper. Owais Ghani’s proposition to initiate peace talks with the Taliban came at a time when the Karzai administration is clearly losing administrative control even on Kabul. Increasing numbers of better trained and better equipped Taliban cadres have stepped up hit-and-run operations into southern and eastern Afghanistan in order to demoralize the army and police force. Their deadly attacks have been focused on members of the Afghan army, police, government departments and the foreign aid workers. The Taliban have avoided direct confrontations with the US-led allied forces, lest they pursue them into Pakistani territory.
The Taliban fighters are better organized and their fighting skills have improved, a fact conceded by the NATO forces during briefings to the US high command. The Taliban insurgency at present is largely restricted to seven provinces, all straddling Pakistan’s north-western frontiers. This explains why Pakistan gets the blame for the heightened level of Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. American politicians and generals are talking tough, despite increased losses in men and material. They do not feel remorse or sympathy with the people of Afghanistan, who are at the receiving end of this unending war. In his speech at the National Defense University in Washington, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "The US has to act against terrorists hiding in Afghanistan and Pakistan”. Barak Obama, likely to be the next US president has reiterated US Army pullout from Iraq, but surge in Afghanistan to defeat the militants. He firmly believes that terrorist safe heavens along the border in Pakistan must be wiped out. With the change in Washington, missile bombings by US drones are likely to intensify. Republican nominee John Macain calls Afghanistan as “Al-Qaeda central.” He has promised to” hunt Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell”. He advocates permanent US stay in Afghanistan till the Taliban are crushed. The people of Afghanistan will continue to suffer becauwe of such aggressive and hostile attitude. With the near failure of military plans, American is reviewing its military strategy. So far the US-led NATO forces have failed to uproot the Taliban fighters. Taliban attacks and increased ISAF-US casualties prove that the Taliban are gaining strength. Taliban supported by war lords and drug mafia’s have adequate resources. They are regrouping and re-organizing for attacks on towns and cities. Pitched battles prove the point.
The resurgence of the Taliban fighters, who had melted into the countryside after the US invasion of Afghanistan, has even surprised the American military strategists. The insurgency is getting bloodier and deadly and costing the allied forces heavily. Bloody suicide attacks, ambushes, roadside bombs and bold and brazen assaults on the NATO and ISAF troops in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan are a daily occurrence. Mullah Omar and Taliban militia, have fixed the 2010 summer deadline for a complete takeover of the war torn country. Despite heavy casualties, Taliban continue to attack. They are motivated and well supplied with weapons, munitions and explosives, but defeating US-NATO-ISAF-ANA (Afghan National Army) is not a childs play. The Taliban are dispersed across Afghanistan, lack telecommunications, yet their command and control structure is working. But this is a nebulous and weak position. The Taliban have lost many top military commanders including Mullah Dadullah Akhund and Mullah Akhtar Osmani.

Misssile bombings by US drones are taking a very heavy toll of Taliban commanders and fighters. Mullah Omar is a fugitive and is in hiding. The Taliban chief is alive and functional, but in no position to assert his leadership over entire Afghanistan. Being a fanatic is one thing, but a realist another. He has been sending war directives and instructions to his field commanders from his hideout through audio-tapes, letters and verbal messages. Such a guerrilla organization is unlikely to prevail in the short term. Where is Mullah Omar? It is seven years since Mullah Mohammad Omar, vanished into the trackless terrain outside Kandahar. The American intelligence agencies repeatedly claiming that one of the most wanted fugitive, who has a $10 million FBI bounty on his head, is guiding his forces while hiding somewhere in Quetta. Such naïve intelligence findings is a failure of intelligence agencies to find the most wanted fugitive after Osama Bin Laden. If Americans catch Mullah Omar, they will put him in Guatanobay prison, disregarding assurances given by President Hamid Karzai. So Mullah Omar is not going to surface unless all foreign forces leave Afghanistan While invading Afghanistan in Oct 2001, the US stated objective was to eliminate the Taliban militia, to catch Osama bin Laden and prominent al-Qaeda members and establish a Northern Alliance led regime in Kabul. However, seven years later, as the Bush era is coming to its fag end, it has failed to achieve any of these targets, especially uprooting of the Taliban. Pentagon, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are busy reviewing earlier plans of troop surge in Afghanistan, on the Iraq pattern. They argue that Afghan surge is unlikely to work and “isn’t in the works. Rugged terrain and lack of sufficient troops have led Pentagon to consider special operations teams to zero in on Taliban hiding in caves, culverts and narrow valleys.

There are signs that the US military is scaling down its goals in Afghanistan. Senior Pentagon generals are studying proposals to dispatch teams of “highly trained special forces” to target the most violent Taliban insurgent’s and militant bands on both sides of the border.” These new proposals are an acknowledgement of senior US military brass, that large scale influx/surge of conventional forces is unlikely in the near future, because US troop commitments in Iraq. It clearly reflects acknowledgement of set backs against Taliban. There is intense debate in the Pentagon, about the best way to fight and defeat the Taliban. As the security situation worsens in Afghanistan, US military officials are increasingly arguing that an Iraq style of troop surge plan would not work in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s rugged geography, and the history of Pushtuns to rule from Kabul, calls for an urgent review of military policy and plans. In Iraq the population is urbanized and educated. Iraq is a wide flat country, with plains of Tigris and Eupharates river valleys. Afghanistan is mountainous and rugged. and Pushtuns are un-educated, wild but intellilgent. Many American writers call them “cow-boys in turbans”. They have been engaged in resisting and ambushing foreign invaders since centuries. The remote villages in the mountains are hard to reach with large formations of conventional troops. Now Pentagon generals reason that “Afghanistan is a different place and to surge forces doesnt necessarily fit”.
Pentagon generals agrees that Afghanistan is the greatest challenge of General David.H. Petraeus, the new C-in-C of US Central Command, which over sees the war in Afghanistan. Highest death rates of US and ISAF forces have compelled Pentagon to review its military policy in Afghanistan, which seemingly has failed. Washington needs to review not only its military policy, but more importantly its political policy in Afghanistan. Washington should ponder the possibility of bringing on board Mullah Omar and the Taliban. 2009 is likely to be a crucial year for the United States, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and off course for the Taliban. US and ISAF is not likely to pullout. Can the Taliban impose unacceptable losses on foreign troops when they lack air power? Air Force is the strongest factor of advantage to the US led ISAF and NATO forces. The well trained Afghan National Army of two lakhs (200000) will be a force to reckon when fully operational. It is an army dominated by ethnic and religious minorities.

It is far from reality that the Taliban can defeat and crush US-NATO-ISAF-Afghan National Army. Both Taliban and the US-NATO-ISAF-ANA are in a no win position. Taliban will become a force to reckon with, and should be brought on board. Sixty percent Pushtun’s are a majority in Afghanistan, and must not be denied their just rights. Both foreign troops and the Taliban can go on bombing and killing, but to no avail. Both Mullah Omar and the next US President should heed the advice of NWFP Governor Owais Ghani. War is no more the solution to the situation in Afghanistan. Dialogue is.