You know what we have to worry about around the world lets get on with it. Please read the link! New military strategy looks beyond Afghan war We have earned that luxury and necessity as
Hundreds of Afghan fighters to lay down arms: NATO, Our multi level attack is paying off but we must be relentless
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are benefiting from Pakistan's military operations, better surveillance by law enforcement agencies and the death of key militants in U.S. drone strikes, a think tank said Sunday. Pakistan's anti-terror efforts are a key focus of the Obama administration, which wants the country to do more to target Taliban militants who regularly launch attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials have also expressed frustration with Pakistan's unwillingness to launch an offensive in North Waziristan, part of the country's lawless tribal region that hosts a large number of militants who wage attacks in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army says its troops are stretched too thin by other operations in the tribal region. But many analysts believe the military is reluctant to cross militants with whom it has historical ties and could be useful allies in Afghanistan after foreign troops withdraw. Attacks down almost 20 percent in Pakistan
Pakistan's unwillingness to go into North Waziristan home of the Haqqani's is in my mind what is keeping the attacks down for now but the U.S. has responded by more than doubling the number of drone strikes in the tribal region. There were close to 120 such strikes in 2010, most of which occurred in North Waziristan. Prime target, the Haqqani's
For now NATO appears to be smoking the Haqqani's and have them on the run but we have to capture or kill them and their followers. The deadliest group of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan "the Haqqani's" has not conducted a complex large-scale attack in the capital city of Kabul for seven months, its momentum stymied as elite American-led commandos have escalated raids against the militants’ bomb makers and logisticians. In three months alone, commandos have carried out 1,784 missions across Afghanistan, killing or capturing 880 insurgent leaders.
New and increased drone attacks come in Khyber, an area abutting Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, that’s been notably drone-free. It has become an area for militants fleeing military action in South Waziristan. They also bring the drone-strike tally for this year, more than twice last year’s 53 strikes. But those figures don’t begin to tell the whole story.
So far over 900 low level Taliban fighters have given up arms and decided to work for peace in the last month and the pace is picking up. However the blood bath continues as the Haqqani's remain defiant.Hundreds of Afghan fighters to lay down arms: NATO Those that have signed up for reintegration have been promised protection and there are at least 45 armed groups or possibly more were in talks with the government on lower-level or local reintegration.
Those who want to sign up must stop fighting, cut ties with other militants and embrace the Afghan constitution. They provide the government information and surrender heavy weapons but are allowed to keep arms deemed essential for self-defense. That said at least a dozen so far have been attacked or killed.
Mullah Sangin of the Sangin province where the tribal uprising is taking place against the Taliban.The notorious Taliban stronghold has been bitterly contested by insurgents and drug traffickers ever since British troops arrived in 2006, but the government revealed that tribal elders, backed by some local insurgents, have agreed to stand up to the Taliban.
It was also announced that that one group of insurgents have already handed in their weapons in an attempt to join a local peace process in Sangin. They are fighting back, this is what has been happening in Pakistan and what had to happen in Afghanistan. Under the arrangement, local Taliban fighters will stop attacking US and Afghan forces and will keep non-local insurgents out of the Sarwan-Qala area of the upper Sangin Valley, according to a spokesman for the Helmand governor Gulab Mangal.
Foot patrols by government forces will continue and local people will be expected to help clear areas of homemade bombs and tip off local police as to their whereabouts.
"There was no signed agreement but we believe this will create the opportunity for other Taliban fighters to come and join the government," said Daoud Ahmadi. He said that the Afghan army, police and US forces were all represented at the traditional tribal Shura last Saturday and that some of the tribal elders had been given authority by the local Taliban to speak on their behalf. Afghanistan hopes tribal uprising will bring peace
I was listening to ex Taliban fighters and their Commanders who fought NATO and the US for 6 years saying they figure the Government now cares about them so they have now stopped, They point out besides they are sick of fighting and we are leaving anyway. Great! That Is what I was hoping for from the beginning. At least long enough to let us leave then they can kill each other again.
Around Spin Boldak we have Col. Razzik and his force of some 250 men who have become invaluable to the U.S.-led operations to seize Taliban redoubts in Kandahar province, U.S. commanders say. Unlike other Afghan security forces—often ineffectual, reluctant to fight or simply unfamiliar with Kandahar's terrain—his men have wowed American commanders with their tactical skills and determination.
"I have a clear strategy: When the enemies are killing us, we shouldn't be giving them flowers," Col. Razzik said in an interview, as he awaited a visit by the American ambassador to his fort-like base in the border town of Spin Boldak.
Col. Razzik's ability to safeguard the strategic Spin Boldak crossing from the Taliban in recent years has allowed him to stay in office. That job security comes despite what officials in Kabul and Washington say are well-founded concerns that he has been enriching himself and his patron, President Hamid Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, with revenue from heroin smuggling, customs-skimming and bribes. people from his own tribe are scared to death of him and leaving the area. In Afghanistan, U.S. Turns 'Malignant Actor' Into Ally
I wish we would quickly kill the Haqqani's, both Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin and leave the rest to Pakistan. We are getting closer hitting a nerve and I can finally see success if Pakistan and the ISI cooperate. We have been taking down one key leader after the next for the last 6 months but with their rate of regeneration this is just beginning and we can not relent now nor think any form of victory is at hand. I wish we would get out and leave the rest up to Afghanistan and Pakistan, keep an eye on events, and see what they do from here on in. Our job as a ground force is done if we are smart enough to leave starting this year like we said we would.
James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com
3 comments:
Re: the military's new strategic plan. Most of it sounds worthwhile, although I have reservations about the closer military-to-military ties with the PRC. They aren't developing a strike fighter capable of crossing the Pacific out of worries about the threat presented by Canada or Mexico.
Re: Afghanistan. Those commando operations sound very effective. I said a long time ago that the better way to deal with guerrilla fighters, which is all the Taliban and al Qaeda have, is to hit them incessantly with tightly focused surprise attacks that keep them nervous and off balance as much as possible. It also helps if they can continually be denied talented leaders. Sounds as though the drone attacks are fairly effective at that.
For all of that, I don't see the Afghans running the bad guys out any time soon. Especially not if our troops keep on keepin' on. As I've said many times, the Afghans are fierce fighters when motivated. If they really wanted to clean house, our people couldn't stop them if they tried.
The problem echoes Vietnam: a corrupt, weak, inept government that commands the loyalty of almost no one in the country, and a people whose first desire is to get on with raising their kids and crops, free of foreigners and fighting. Karzai is no George Washington or Winston Churchill. If he's made untiring efforts to gin up nationalism and rally his people against the Taliban, I somehow missed it.
As for Pakistan, what the leaders of its central government have for policy hasn't stopped one pro-bin Laden ISI type from being a slacker or, worse, a fifth columnist in the WOT. The fact there even are ungoverned territories where terrorists can train, hide and regroup with impunity says it all about the kind of ally that's little better than a declared enemy, IMO. Then, there's the major matter of not allowing U.S. forces to operate across Pakistan's border, no matter what.
Maybe things are a bit different since the Taliban gave Pakistan's government the shakes last year. I hope so, for Pakistan's sake and ours.
S.W., Afghanistan more than duplicates Nam it is Vietnam or steroids in every single respect.
We lied and created the fiasco in Nam as we have in Afghanistan. We created North and South Vietnam not the Vietnamese.
As you said we are propping up another puppet regime. We could have gotten right out of Afghanistan as we succeeded on our originally declared mission long ago.
We seem to have nothing left in America but this corruptive war economy and are keeping the wars going for illicit gains.
I do not like what we see. We are determined to join Afghanistan's graveyard of Nations but we better get the hell out of there because I have said it for years and you can see it now that these wars are barely beginning.
I call it Bush's forever war but in reality it is Cheney, Rummy, and Rove who fostered it for those powers really behind the right.
There are no surprises here. Have you ever read "we do not have clean hands in Afghanistan", "a clean break" everything that is happening right now in North Africa and the Middle East is our fault.
Those people are peeved at us too as we shored up and turned our heads on those destructive dictatorships as long as they did our bidding.
The chicken has come home to roost. 3 of my sons are career military and they know this is barely beginning.
I keep telling them to relax you are an it for the long haul. This is their future and I don't like it but they are reserved towards it.
Yes, AP, and when this is done, or maybe even if it isn't, those who profit financially and politically from never-ending strife have their sights set on sub-Sahara Africa.
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