Friendly Fire

21 November, 2009, 08:09

I think that Afghan heroin is being boarded onto US military planes and shipped of into Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo ready for distribution through CIA created Albanian organised crime networks throughout Europe which will be used to finance the future insurgency in Central Asia and increased escalation in the Caucasus.

It would be good Eugene in a future video if you showed the ethical composition by region of Afghanistan for us uninformed observers. It would give us a better understanding of what the US true objectives are.

Are they supporting key US friendly ethnic tribal factions over other groups or a safe transit route for an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan or passages for drug and terrorist into Central Asia to destabilise the region or maybe all of the above?

Shouldn’t Russia and the SCO have more of a presence in the border areas of Afghanistan aligning themselves with groups that border the Central Asian states?

After all it was the FSB that created and supported the Northern Alliance and handed them over with all the intelligence they collected on the Camps to US forces after 9/11 to conduct there invasion of Afghanistan.

20 November, 2009, 18:30

For sure, sounds like more (nation building) freedom-fighting narco dealers. Just like the CIA's Air America operations in South-East Asia, or the Bush Crime Family's Oliver North operations with Iran-Contra, or even the Brits herion monopoly back there in China around the turn of the 20th Century. General McChrystal is the bonehead behind Abu-Garib, and was given another chance by Obama it seems. But, he just doesn't get it.
He's not General George Patton, he's an interim 'police action' commander. Doesn't look like he needs more fruit salad on his chest, he's betting the corporatocracy (Defence Industrial Base) will continue the occupation, and he is along for the ride to make some other legacy about fighting 'terrorism' come true. All we ever needed, was maybe something like Carter's Delta Force to bring bin laden to trial, I dought they could honestly convict him. Afghanistan was part of the strike up for Iraq per Project for a New American Century, the Heritage Foundation etc all the rest of the Barry Goldwater Fantasy Neocon Dreams. Then George W. Bush could have a Ford class aircraft carrier named after him!

18 November, 2009, 00:59

I am really afraid that none of this will matter. What is hastily put in place is the escalation of war into the Central Asia, specifically Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. With all the hoopla surrounding the deligitimizing of Karazi leadership and his Government, the agonizing, mesmerizing debate in Washington as to what will Obama do, the infiltration of the Afghanistan's north has commenced, and the escalation begun.

I do not doubt that this is no secret to those countries' leadership. It is also Chrystal clear to Russia and China that the process of destabilizing the arc has begun.

According to Sanobar Shermatova, a Moscow-based expert on Central Asian affairs, and a member of RIA Novosti news agency's advisory council, the things are rapidly deteriorating.

The danger was highlighted in stark terms in September, when the Taliban stepped up their activities in Kunduz province, a region close to Tajikistan which is controlled by German troops in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force and which until this year was quiet.

When the Taliban seized two fuel tankers in Kunduz in early September, NATO responded with an air strike that resulted in a number of civilian deaths, causing an international crisis. Attacks on German military vehicles have also been reported in the region. How did the Taliban get there? Not a bird can fly from the Afghanistan's south to the north without being noticed by NATO forces. Yet, Taliban forces were able to get there by helicopters!

Afghan officials say Taliban activity in Kunduz has also involved non-Afghan militants of Central Asian origin. One senior commander, General Mustafa Patang, told journalists on September 12 that "hundreds" of militants had come to northern Afghanistan from the tribal areas of Pakistan. Now we also know that the Pakistan Taliban are being shipped, along with their commanders into Afghanistan! They have NATO gear, and very likely pay.

On October 12, President Hamid Karzai confirmed that the Taliban were moving men to the north - adding that they were using military helicopters to do so.

The bulk of non-Taliban foreign fighters are assumed to belong to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which was active in Central Asia in the late 1990s before relocating to Afghanistan and then, after 2001, to lawless parts of Pakistan. Estimates of their numbers range wildly from a few hundred to 5,000.

These Central Asian militants are not entirely homogeneous. One known group affiliated to the IMU is the Islamic Jihad Union, which has apparent connections with Turkish and Afghan emigres in Germany. The German police believe the group was planning to bomb airports, restaurants and cafes, an American military base and the Uzbek Embassy in that country. The aim was apparently to prompt Germans to call on their government to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and from the military base in the Uzbek border town of Termez.

The IMU itself appears to have shifted its priorities from toppling the Uzbek government to the broader international jihad agenda --- and the NATO money. In practical terms, its focus has been fighting the enemy on its doorstep - the Pakistani government. The military has mounted periodic offensives in the tribal areas, and the IMU has fought back on the side of the Pakistani Taliban. The IMU was closely aligned with top militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed by a rocket from an unmanned US plane in early August. That was some years ago. Now, the "good" Taliban is ready for some for pay service.

Incessant Taliban attacks on the overland route from Pakistan through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan have brought a halt to coalition convoys carrying fuel and munitions. Now, the situation seems different. Many Taliban groups actually provide "security" for NATO. However, the appearance of the northern route, the non-reconstituted Taliban and other Central Asian motley crew of forces are ready to harass NATO along the new route. Naturally, that would provide the same rationale for massive military presence in the North, and with it, the destabilization of the three states can begin in earnest.

The IMU is an obvious choice for the job - many of its fighters spent time in northern Afghanistan in the mid-1990s when they were part of the Tajik opposition guerrilla movement fighting the government in Dushanbe. The ethnic factor is also important, since this part of Afghanistan is populated by Tajiks and Uzbeks.

Effectively, there are three front lines for defending Central Asia against a spillover of the Afghan conflict in the shape of incursions by Taliban-allied militants. Given the arrival of the latter so close to the border, it did not come as a complete surprise when there were sightings of them in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan this spring and summer.

The Tajik-Afghan frontier goes through difficult terrain and is porous in parts, allowing drug traffickers and militants to slip across unnoticed. There are mountain pathways providing routes through Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The IMU used the same routes in 1999 and 2000 to mount raids on Kyrgyz and Uzbek territory. The fact that armed groups appeared in roughly the same areas this year - eastern Tajikistan and southern Kyrgyzstan - suggests that CSTO anti-narcotics and anti-terrorist measures are extremely weak.

Border law-enforcement is still unable to monitor or intercept suspects using these drug routes. There is just too much money involved.

The second defensive line, therefore, runs along Central Asia's borders with Afghanistan to reduce opportunities for infiltration. It should be recalled that both the German base in Termez and the French forces in Tajikistan are within easy reach of the border.

The third line of defense lies deeper inside Central Asia. Militant groups, for example in Pakistan and the North Caucasus, are quick to adapt and will rapidly extend their attacks to new areas so as to disperse the forces arrayed against them. Weakening the security forces also has the aim of undermining the governments they support.

There have been several examples in recent months of such targeted attacks in Uzbekistan. In May, police were targeted in and around the eastern city of Andijan, while in August the deputy head of the interior ministry's counter-terrorism department, Colonel Hasan Asadov, was killed.

Two Muslim clerics were attacked around the same time in what seem to have been related incidents. Abror Abrorov, deputy head of the Kukeldash madras (seminary) in Tashkent was murdered in mid-July, and the capital's chief imam or mosque leader, Anvar-Qori Tursunov, was targeted in a failed assassination attempt at the end of the month. It seems most likely that both clerics were singled out by militants for being too close to government and for preaching against radicalism.

While attacks on police and clerics are unprecedented in Uzbekistan, they are fairly standard practice in Pakistan and the North Caucasus. It seems reasonable to predict that militants will use these tactics again in the Central Asian context.

Yet in contrast to other parts of the world, they will find their room for maneuver severely constrained in Central Asia. There are no places of refuge where they can hide out and no stockpiles of arms, and the local population will not supply them with food and intelligence information. The fact that the armed group which tried to establish itself in Tajikistan was eventually confronted and dispersed by government troops shows that there are limits to insurgent efforts.

Assuming that the militants will be unable to start operating deep inside Central Asia, there is thus little chance that these states will become drawn into the conflict with the Taliban and IMU in Afghanistan. It is therefore the defensive lines on either side of the Afghan border that will be decisive.

Central Asian states are aware of the dangers posed by the Taliban relocating to northern Afghanistan. But Coalition Forces cannot act ignorant of these developments. After security services from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany and the Central Asian states gathered in Dushanbe last month, they remained tight-lipped about the outcome.

Coping with the new challenge from the "northern Taliban" must have been at the top of their agenda. But they are working cross purposes. NATO seems to support the relocation and provide logistics, arms and funding. Central Asian states are left to wonder to what end.

China and Russia understand that the energy route from Central Asia and Russia to China is imperiled by the introduction of instability on SCO and CSTO countries' borders. So, while the hand wringing is going on in Washington, some swift moves are happening on the ground. The destabilized area from Pakistan to Central Asia seems to be shaping as we speak. The question is only if the new thrust is going to have enough time to become irreversible.

In the meantime, listen to what Karazi has to say.

15 November, 2009, 06:23

On this Veterans Day I pay tribute and respect to all those who made efforts and sacrifices in defeating Nazi Germany. And they are not only the soldiers. That was effort of the whole nations including the children who worked in arms factories.
The years 1942-45 were also the time for good cooperation between US and ZSRR. Unfortunately after the WW2 the evil of Nazi Germany has been replaced by the evil of the United States.

14 November, 2009, 09:36

Eugene,

I forgot to mention my dad. (my bad). Dad was a marine during WWII. He died in 1982. His name was Eugene, I am named after him. Happy veteran's day sir.

Your friend,
Eugene, from San Francisco

14 November, 2009, 09:20

Eugene,

I am one of nine children. (all still alive) Four are sons. Two of my brothers served in the military. Me and my youngest brother did not. On this veterans day, I honor you for your service to your country. Your friend as always.

Eugene H., San Francisco