Was the Pakistani chopper of military peacemakers shot down to sabotage peace?
GOC Maj Gen Javed Sultan, who was in charge of military operations in North and South Waziristan Agencies, two brigadiers, a lieutenant colonel, three captains and NCO Naik Amir were killed in the crash.The US-made Bell 412 medium twin-engine helicopter lost ‘contact’ with Wana air traffic control at about 2:40pm and its wreckage was spotted around Tanai in Ahmedzai Wazir area.
Are the drones ready to torpedo the peace deals by targeting Mehsud houses in Waziristan?
American Predator drones
Indo-Israeli drones taking off from India’s airbase in Tajikistan and monitored by the 4 Indian consultates and 13 information centers in Afghansitan
Every time there is a peace deal. A drone bombs a village and unknown saboteurs inflame the situation by destroying the cease fire. A pinch of powder on smoldering coals is all that it takes. A peace deal has been signed in Waziristan. After a horrible year, we have had 4 days of a relative “peace”. How long before a drone sabotages it? We are sure, as soon as the term “peace deal” was heard by the powers to be, the pressure must have started mounting on Islamabad to ditch the deal.
It is pedantic to review the statements made by US Secretary of State Ms. Condaleeza Rice “You have determined enemies. We know that. The Taliban and Al Qaeda continue to make life difficult”.. “They’ve tried to adopt other tactics, like going after innocent people. We’ll have to adapt too. The Afghan government, the Afghan forces will have to adapt” Rice said.
In other news, the chess game in the Hindu Kush goes on unabated. Peace deal? “Even before Thursday’s ceasefire, the Taliban’s preparations in the strategic backyard of Pakistan were well underway. This included the isolation of Mehsud and appointing a new team of commanders in the Pakistani tribal areas. Most of the new appointments are Afghans, to signify the importance of fighting a war in Afghanistan rather than in Pakistan. The two main commanders are Abdul Wali in Bajaur Agency and Ustad Yasir in Khyber Agency.
A key component of the Taliban’s offensive this year will be to counter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) plans against them and al-Qaeda. Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times
Mulla Umar leads the Afghan “Taliban” and Baitullah Mehsud leads the break away splinter group called “Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan” led by . Mullah Umar the Afghan Taliban want to concetrate on fighting occupation forces in Afghanistan. The “Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan” with foreign backing challenged the Pakistan state. Foreign links connected to the “Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan“were discovered by the Pakistani ISI.
Is NATO itself in trouble. ”I do think the alliance [NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization] is facing a real test here. Our populations need to understand this is not a peacekeeping mission but rather a long-term fight against extremists.” Condaleeza Rice
But one key question remains: What happens next?
While the military operation may be important in enabling the government to talk from a position of strength rather than the hitherto weak position, perhaps more important is how it conducts the negotiations and what plan it has to strengthen its writ over the largely-lawless tribal regions in the medium- to long-term in the post-military operation scenario.
In the words of a senior official: “Instead of waiting for the militants to open up another front, the government needs to open its own front in a positive manner by ensuring quick and cheap justice, better social service delivery and better security.”
The ceasefire will bring immediate peace to the restive tribal region and areas where Mehsud has influence.
Another Peace deal between Pakistanis! How long before another drone sabotages peace?
SOLUTION: FATA should be named as the 5th province of Pakistan as “Fatah”, shortened name of “Fatah e Islam”. FATA should be treated like a regular province with members in the National Assembly and Senate. The provincial assembly should be called “Fatah Jirga” and should consist of the local elders of jirga. They must “do more”America should be pressured to expedite the $750 million aid that is still clogged up in the pipeline. What does FATA need? 50 new hispitals, 200 news schools, a network of roads linked to Quetta, and export oriented factories linked to a FTA with the USA and EU. A similar solution for Waziristan would work.
On inadequate US Aid to Pakistan
Where are the Pakistani nukes?
AHMAD SHAH AND THE DURRANI EMPIRE
In 1747 Ahmad Shah and his Abdali horsemen joined the chiefs of the Abdali tribes and clans near Qandahar to choose a leader. Despite being younger than other claimants, Ahmad had several overriding factors in his favor. He was a direct descendant of Sado, eponym of the Sadozai; he was unquestionably a charismatic leader and seasoned warrior who had at his disposal a trained, mobile force of several thousand cavalrymen; and he possessed part of Nadir Shah’s treasury.
One of Ahmad Shah’s first acts as chief was to adopt the title “Durr-i-Durrani” (“pearl of pearls” or “pearl of the age”), which may have come from a dream or from the pearl earrings worn by the royal guard of Nadir Shah. The Abdali Pashtuns were known thereafter as the Durrani.
Ahmad Shah began by capturing Ghazni from the Ghilzai Pashtuns, and then wresting Kabul from the local ruler. In 1749 the Mughal ruler ceded sovereignty over Sindh Province and the areas of northern India west of the Indus to Ahmad Shah in order to save his capital from Afghan attack. Ahmad Shah then set out westward to take possession of Herat, which was ruled by Nadir Shah’s grandson, Shah Rukh. Herat fell to Ahmad after almost a year of siege and bloody conflict, as did Mashhad (in present-day Iran). Ahmad next sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush. In short order, the powerful army brought under its control the Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara tribes of northern Afghanistan (see Ethnic Groups, ch. 2). Ahmad invaded India a third, then a fourth, time, taking control of the Punjab, Kashmir, and the city of Lahore. Early in 1757, he sacked Delhi, but permitted the Mughal Dynasty to remain in nominal control as long as the ruler acknowledged Ahmad’s suzerainty over the Punjab, Sindh, and Kashmir. Leaving his second son Timur in charge, Ahmad left India to return to Afghanistan.
The collapse of Mughal control in India, however, also facilitated the rise of rulers other than Ahmad Shah. In the Punjab, the Sikhs were becoming a potent force. From their capital at Pune, the Marathas, Hindus who controlled much of western and central India, were beginning to look northward to the decaying Mughal empire, which Ahmad Shah now claimed by conquest. Upon his return to Qandahar in 1757, Ahmad faced Maratha attacks which succeeded in ousting Timur and his court in India.
Ahmad Shah declared an Islamic holy war against the Marathas, and warriors from various Pashtun tribes, as well as other tribes such as the Baloch, answered his call. Early skirmishes ended in victory for the Afghans, and by 1759 Ahmad and his army had reached Lahore. By 1760 the Maratha groups had coalesced into a great army. Once again Panipat was the scene of a confrontation between two warring contenders for control of northern India. The Battle of Panipat in 1761 between Muslim and Hindu armies who numbered as many as 100,000 troops each was fought along a twelve-kilometer front. Despite decisively defeating the Marathas, what might have been Ahmad Shah’s peaceful control of his domains was disrupted by other challenges.
The victory at Panipat was the high point of Ahmad Shah’s–and Afghan–power. Afterward, even prior to his death, the empire began to unravel. By the end of 1761, the Sikhs had gained power and taken control of much of the Punjab. In 1762 Ahmad Shah crossed the passes from Afghanistan for the sixth time to subdue the Sikhs. He assaulted Lahore and, after taking their holy city of Amritsar, massacred thousands of Sikh inhabitants, destroying their temples and desecrating their holy places with cow’s blood. Within two years the Sikhs rebelled again. Ahmad Shah tried several more times to subjugate the Sikhs permanently, but failed. By the time of his death, he had lost all but nominal control of the Punjab to the Sikhs, who remained in charge of the area until the British defeat in 1849.
Ahmad Shah also faced other rebellions in the north, and eventually he and the amir of Bukhara agreed that the Amu Darya would mark the division of their lands. In 1772 Ahmad Shah retired to his home in the mountains east of Qandahar, where he died. Ahmad Shah had succeeded to a remarkable degree in balancing tribal alliances and hostilities and in directing tribal energies away from rebellion. He earned recognition as Ahmad Shah Baba, or “Father” of Afghanistan (fig. _, Ahmad Shah Durrani’s Empire, 1762).
By the time of Ahmad Shah’s ascendancy, the Pashtuns included many groups whose origins were obscure; most were believed to have descended from ancient Aryan tribes, but some, such as the Ghilzai, may have once been Turks (see Ethnic Groups, ch. 2). They had in common, however, their Pashtu language. To the east, the Waziris and their close relatives, the Mahsuds, had lived in the hills of the central Suleiman Range since the fourteenth century. By the end of the sixteenth century and the final Turkish-Mongol invasions, tribes such as the Shinwaris, Yusufzais, and Mohmands had moved from the upper Kabul River Valley into the valleys and plains west, north, and northeast of Peshawar. The Afridis had long been established in the hills and mountain ranges south of the Khyber Pass. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Durranis had blanketed the area west and north of Qandahar.
Ahmad Shah’s successors governed so ineptly during a period of profound unrest that within fifty years of his death, Afghanistan was embroiled in a civil war. Many of the territories conquered with the help of Ahmad Shah’s military skill fell to others in this half century. By 1818 the Sadozai rulers who succeeded Ahmad Shah controlled little more than Kabul and the surrounding territory within a 160-kilometer radius. They not only lost the outlying territories but also alienated other tribes and lineages among the Durrani Pashtuns.
After the death of Ahmad Shah’s successor, Timur, the three strongest contenders for the position of shah were Timur’s sons, the governors of Qandahar, Herat, and Kabul. Muhammad Zeman, governor of Kabul, was in the most commanding position and became shah at the age of twenty-three. His half-brothers accepted this only by force majeure–upon being imprisoned on their arrival in the capital for the purpose, ironically, of electing a new shah. The quarrels among Timur’s descendants that threw Afghanistan into turmoil also provided the pretext for the intervention of outside forces.
The efforts of the Sadozai heirs of Timur to impose a true monarchy on the truculent Pashtun tribes and to rule absolutely and without the advice of the other, larger Pashtun tribes’ leaders were ultimately unsuccessful. The Sikhs too, were particularly troublesome, and after several unsuccessful efforts to subdue them, Zeman made the mistake of appointing a forceful young Sikh chief, Ranjit Singh, as his governor in the Punjab. The “one-eyed” warrior would later become an implacable enemy of Pashtun rulers in Afghanistan.
Zeman’s downfall was triggered by his attempts to consolidate power. Although it had been through the support of the Muhammadzai chief, Painda Khan, that he had come to the throne, Zeman soon began to remove prominent Muhammadzai leaders from positions of power and replacing them with men of his own lineage, the Sadozai. This upset the delicate balance of Durrani tribal politics that Ahmad Shah had established and may have prompted Painda Khan and other Durrani chiefs to plot against the shah. Painda Khan and the chiefs of the Nurzai and the Alizai Durrani clans were executed, as was the chief of the Qizilbash clan. Painda Khan’s son fled to Iran and pledged the substantial support of his Muhammadzai followers to a rival claimant to the throne, Zeman’s older brother, Mahmud. The clans of the chiefs Zeman had executed joined forces with the rebels, and they took Qandahar without bloodshed.
Zeman’s overthrow in 1800 was not the end of civil strife in Afghanistan but the beginning of even greater violence. Shah Mahmud reigned for a mere three years before being replaced by yet another of Timur Shah’s sons, Shuja, who ruled for only six years, from 1803 to 1809. On June 7, 1809, Shuja signed a Treaty of Friendship with the British which included a clause stating that he would oppose the passage of foreign troops through his territories. This agreement, the first Afghan pact with a European power, stipulated joint action in case of Franco-Persian aggression against Afghan or British dominions. Only a few weeks after signing the agreement, Shuja was deposed by his predecessor, Mahmud, whose second reign lasted nine years, until 1818. Mahmud alienated the Muhammadzai, especially Fateh Khan, the son of Painda Khan, who was eventually seized and blinded. Revenge would later be sought and obtained by Fateh Khan’s youngest brother, Dost Mohammad.
From 1818 until Dost Mohammad’s ascendancy in 1826, chaos reigned in the domains of Ahmad Shah Durrani’s empire as various sons of Painda Khan struggled for supremacy. Afghanistan ceased to exist as a single nation, disintegrating for a brief time into a fragmented collection of small units, each ruled by a different Durrani leader.
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We would like to refer our readers to the an article on “Toppling the US military” that is worth its weight in gold. Search for it on this site. See: “Kissinger threatened Zulifiqar Ali Bhutto”
