[Peptobismol]

X-Posting

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/ma...stan.html?_r=1
By ELIZABETH RUBIN
Published: October 22, 2006

As I traveled through Pakistan and particularly the Pashtun lands bordering Afghanistan, I felt as if I were moving through a Taliban spa for rehabilitation and inspiration. Since 2002, the American and Pakistani militaries have focused on North Waziristan and South Waziristan, two of the seven districts making up Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, which are between the North-West Frontier Province and, to the south, Baluchistan Province; in the days since the 9/11 attacks, some tribes there had sheltered members of Al Qaeda and spawned their own Taliban movement. Meanwhile, in the deserts of Baluchistan, whose capital, Quetta, is just a few hours’ drive from the Afghan city of Kandahar, the Afghan Taliban were openly reassembling themselves under Mullah Omar and his leadership council. Quetta had become a kind of free zone where strategies could be formed, funds picked up, interviews given and victories relished.

In June, I was in Quetta as the Taliban fighters celebrated an attack against Dad Mohammad Khan, an Afghan legislator locally known as Amir Dado. Until recently he was the intelligence chief of Helmand Province. He had worked closely with U.S. Special Forces and was despised by Abdul Baqi — and, to be frank, by most Afghans in the south. Mullah Razayar Nurzai (a nom de guerre), a commander of 300 Taliban fighters who frequently meets with the leadership council and Mullah Omar, took credit for the ambush. Because Pakistan’s intelligence services are fickle — sometimes supporting the Taliban, sometimes arresting its members — I had to meet Nurzai at night, down a dark lane in a village outside Quetta. =================
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan's Taliban dilemma 7 November 2009

The Afghan Taliban leadership and sources of supply are not even in Afghanistan, they are in Pakistan - in Quetta, a city just across the mountains from Kandahar where so many British and American troops have died.

The charge of cynicism arises because the Americans and the British support the Pakistan government - and the Pakistan government at the same time provides sanctuary in Quetta for the Afghan Taliban who are killing US and British troops.
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Supply lines
At the moment, Pakistan is both ally and enemy to the USA - ally in the fight against the Pakistani Taliban, but enemy so long as they continue to protect the Afghan Taliban.

Quetta is the crucial element. An entire suburb of that Pakistani city is effectively occupied by the Afghan Taliban and their "Shura" ruling council - including their leader Mullah Omar.

The Afghan Taliban get many of their basic supplies in Quetta - their motorbikes, for example, and their mobile phone SIM cards.

And their supply lines cross the mountains into Afghanistan to the north.

Afghanistan is caught in the middle. Nothing will really change here until this has been resolved.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan's Taliban dilemma 7 November 2009 ========================

How the US Funds the Taliban
By Aram Roston
November 11, 2009

...
Two years ago, a top Afghan security official told me, Afghanistan's intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, had alerted the American military to the problem. The NDS delivered what I'm told are "very detailed" reports to the Americans explaining how the Taliban are profiting from protecting convoys of US supplies.

The Afghan intelligence service even offered a solution: what if the United States were to take the tens of millions paid to security contractors and instead set up a dedicated and professional convoy support unit to guard its logistics lines? The suggestion went nowhere.
...
The trouble is that--as with so much in Afghanistan--the United States doesn't seem to know how to fix it.