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JohnRandolphHardisonCain
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 Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:39 pm Post subject: Haqqani Network: Worse Than the Taliban!!! |
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Sooner or later United States will have to negotiate with the Taliban in order to end this political war. Continuing to escalate the U.S.-led NATO occupation of Afghanistan only further radicalizes the resistance and drives them into the hands of even more radical groups like the Haqqani Network. Anyone paying close attention to the situation in Afghanistan understands that the level of violence is escalating. Iraq under U.S. military occupation has been a far larger proving ground for the development of tactics and perfection of weapons for jidhaddists than Afghanistan under the Taliban ever was. You did one heckuva job, Bush & Cheney! Obama and Biden don't know their ass from a whole in the ground when it comes to understanding the dire straits this country has allowed itself to become squeezed into. SecDef Gates is about to give the green light to more U.S. troops in Iraq. That will result in an bigger and more costly failure for the U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan.
Haqqani Network's Reign Of Terror On Afghanistan | Quote: | Click on link above for original NPR Morning Edition post which contains an audio link to listen to this news story online at any time.
NPR's Morning Edition September 3, 2009
The Haqqani Network is a terrorist group that is not as well known as the Taliban or al Qaida. From its base in Pakistan, the group has mounted a series of sophisticated attacks in Afghanistan. Vahid Brown, a terrorism expert and teacher at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, talks with Renee Montagne about the roots and reach of the Haqqani Network.
TRANSCRIPT:
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And I'm Renee Montagne. When the Taliban assassinated Afghanistan's deputy chief of intelligence yesterday outside a mosque, the insurgents eliminated a powerful adversary. He was a top intelligence official who'd gone after the Taliban and al-Qaida for years, jailing and detaining many of them. The Taliban is rejoicing at the success of the suicide bombing, and so likely is another little-known terrorist group.
SHAPIRO: It's called the Haqqani Network. From its base in Pakistan it has mounted a series of sophisticated and vicious attacks in Afghanistan. Its leader is a one-time mujahidin who fought the Soviets in the 1980s. Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son have links to the Taliban and al-Qaida, but their group is separate.
MONTAGNE: To find out more, we turn to Vahid Brown, who studies the Haqqani Network in his job as an FBI instructor at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.
Thank you for joining us.
Mr. VAHID BROWN (FBI Instructor): Thank you.
MONTAGNE: Before we talk about exactly who this group is and what it does, why do we hear so much about the Taliban and al-Qaida but more or less have not heard about the Haqqani group?
Mr. BROWN: Well, I think the primary reason that we don't hear as much about the Haqqani Network as an independent or as a distinct source of violence in Afghanistan is that the Taliban claim the Haqqani Network's violence as their own.
So when the Haqqani Network carries out a very high profile attack in the eastern Afghanistan or in Kabul, it is a Taliban spokesman who will come out and say this attack was carried out on behalf of the Taliban, as being a part of the Taliban insurgency, when in fact there's these two very distinct movements. So one reason…
MONTAGNE: Well, tell us about that, the violence that terrorism experts credit or blame them for.
Mr. BROWN: Well, like the Taliban in the south, the Haqqani Network is mostly deadly because of its daily share of small scale what we call kinetic activity - direct fire, IEDs, bombing attacks.
But they're more famous for very high profile terrorist attacks, very sophisticated multi-stage suicide attacks, not just a single bomber walking into a facility, for example, and blowing himself up, but a series of waves of bombers that deteriorate a defense perimeter and then gain access in the second wave and a third wave with small arms actually entering the building and shooting people. So very high profile attacks.
MONTAGNE: One example…
Mr. BROWN: For example…
MONTAGNE: …that might be - about a year and a half ago an attack - a very deadly attack - on a five-star hotel in Kabul.
Mr. BROWN: Yes. In January of '08, the Serena Hotel, the only five-star hotel in Afghanistan. In April of the same year the military parade overseen by President Karzai in Kabul was attacked in an attempt to assassinate President Karzai by the Haqqani Network. In August of 2008, on the U.S. military base, Camp Salerno, a multi-stage suicide wave attack.
MONTAGNE: Now, why doesn't the Haqqani Network take credit for these things?
Mr. BROWN: Well, that's a great question. Many analysts would agree that the Haqqani Network has some utility in using the Taliban brand. The Taliban brand kind of represents opposition to foreign intervention in Afghanistan. It represents the imposition of a certain baseline of law and order.
But they don't feel that it would help their cause to have a media presence in Afghanistan that would confuse the kind of insurgent environment by saying, well, there's the Taliban movement that is trying to achieve these goals and there's our movement trying to achieve these goals. They try to appear as a unified front.
MONTAGNE: Right. But then what makes the Haqqani Network different than any subgroup of the Taliban?
Mr. BROWN: Well, the Taliban movement that's loyal to Mullah Omar that predominantly operates in southern Afghanistan, in Helmond and Kandahar, that Taliban movement led by Mullah Omar is opposed to a lot of the tactical innovations that the Haqqani Network is famous for. Its use of suicide tactics - the beheadings and videos of brutal killings - these things are eschewed by the Taliban of Mullah Omar. And in fact he openly criticizes such tactics.
MONTAGNE: Then that sounds like they're so much more vicious, I guess you could say, than the Taliban. But why?
Mr. BROWN: One possible reason is the Haqqani Network's closeness with international jihadists groups that has given the Haqqani Network a lot of its edge in terms of its deadliness in Afghanistan. The technological innovations that were perfected by al-Qaida in Iraq in the last five years are being applied and being adopted by the Haqqani Network via foreign fighters.
So this is another one of the main distinctions between the Haqqani Network and the Taliban movement, is the willingness to use foreigners and to cooperate with international jihadists organizations in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar and the Taliban are very careful to portray their movement as an Afghan nationalist movement.
MONTAGNE: Because in fact Afghans in general don't like what they call foreigners, as in al-Qaida foreigners.
Mr. BROWN: Mm-hmm. Yes, that's true. It is a unique vulnerability of the Haqqani Network that Mullah Omar's Taliban has been careful to avoid. The Haqqani Network, it's vulnerable. It risks being tainted by its association with foreign influences, much like al-Qaida in Iraq risked being tainted. So in Iraq in the last five years, when Iraqi people began to see that al-Qaida in Iraq was the proxy of foreign interests, that that is an extremely negative thing to have associated with oneself in Afghanistan.
MONTAGNE: Thank you very much for joining us.
Mr. BROWN: Thanks, Renee.
MONTAGNE: Vahid Brown teaches at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, where he's been tracking the Haqqani Network and the Taliban in Afghanistan. |
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LBenedict
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| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Haqqani Network: Worse Then the Taliban!!!
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Catchy title...but in your mad dash to copy and paste, you forgot or did not know the difference between than and then
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Sargbaby
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| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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| LBenedict wrote: | | Quote: | Haqqani Network: Worse Then the Taliban!!!
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Catchy title...but in your mad dash to copy and paste, you forgot or did not know the difference between than and then |
Or, from "from a "whole" in the ground," and hole in the ground!
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LBenedict
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| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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To be honest, I didn't even read what he wrote...I'm certain that you understand.
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“And it's my opinion, and that's only my opinion, you are a lunatic. Just because there are a few hundred other people sharing your lunacy with you does not make you any saner.”
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Little Lamb
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| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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I thought the Rev. was talking about the preacher who endorsed John McCain.  |
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Sargbaby
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| Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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| LBenedict wrote: | | To be honest, I didn't even read what he wrote...I'm certain that you understand. |
Indubetly so!
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""A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality." W.C.
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JohnRandolphHardisonCain
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:47 am Post subject: |
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Ghulam Yahya is not part of the Haqqani network, but he is a former member of Hamid Karzai's government who has become disillusioned with Karzai and the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan and has now joined with joined with Taliban forces in fighting against Karzai's government forces and against U.S. & NATO forces in Afghanistan. He is another example of why the U.S./NATO military mission in Afghanistan is DOOMED. The Afghan insurgency / resistance isn't now just in the south and east of the country. It is now in the north and west as well. Escalating the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan will only lead to a wider and fiercer conflagration.
Warlord's Defection Shows Afghan Risk | Quote: | The Wall Street Journal | MIDDLE EAST NEWS | SEPTEMBER 3, 2009
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
HERAT, Afghanistan -- Ghulam Yahya, a former mayor of this ancient city along the Silk Road, battled the Taliban for years and worked hand in hand with Western officials to rebuild the country's industrial hub.
Now, Mr. Yahya is firing rockets at the Herat airport and nearby coalition military headquarters. He has kidnapped soldiers and foreign contractors, claimed the downing of an Afghan army helicopter and planted bombs in central Herat -- including one that killed a district police chief and more than a dozen bystanders last month.
Mr. Yahya's stranglehold over the outskirts of Herat has destabilized a former oasis of calm and relative prosperity. "The security situation here is critical," said Herat's current mayor, Mohammed Salim Taraki.
Ghulam Yahya, former mayor of Herat, once worked with Western officials. Now he sides with the Taliban.
The warlord's odyssey from friend to foe shows how disillusionment with the Western-backed administration of President Hamid Karzai has pushed even some former enemies of the Taliban into the insurgency. Violence is rapidly spreading beyond the ethnic Pashtun heartland of southern and eastern Afghanistan, where much of the countryside already is in rebel hands, into parts of the country that were considered safe just a few months ago.
Widespread anger over alleged fraud in August's presidential elections -- where President Karzai is leading with 45.8 percent of the vote according to the latest partial count -- has deepened this alienation. Though President Karzai has tried for years to woo back insurgent commanders, only a handful have switched sides. Many more tribal leaders who had supported Kabul now cooperate with the Taliban, military officials say.
~~~cont'd~~~ |
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