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| Afghanistan |
| Afghanistan: Generals focus on new ways to defeat Taliban |
| 2009-01-04 |
| (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani arrived in Kabul on Friday for crucial talks with Afghani and US military leaders on new approaches to fighting the Taliban and other terror groups in South Asia. Kiyani was due to meet General Bismillah Khan, chief of staff of the Afghan Army and Gen.David D. McKiernan, the American chief of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and other military officials. Among the issues expected to discussed at the meeting is the highly effective strategy of Gen. David Petraeus, former head of the Multinational Force in Iraq, who is widely credited with the success of the troop surge that stabilised the country's security. The talks were to take place as Pakistani security forces launched a massive military operation in the Khyber Agency on the Afghan border against the Taliban and other suspected militants in order to secure the most crucial supply routes for NATO forces in Afghanistan. Forty-three people with suspected links to the Taliban were detained while 107 others linked to tribal groups were arrested. Thirty-three homes and other properties belonging to the militants were demolished and a curfew has been imposed in the area at certain times of day. The US called for the military operation after more than 450 containers carrying Afghanistan bound NATO supplies including 40 expensive bullet proof vehicles, oil and food supplies were destroyed in December. The operation was to have been carried out two weeks ago but a sudden escalation of Indian forces on Pakistan's eastern border forced Pakistan to relocate many of its troops and equipment from north-western borders with Afghanistan to its eastern borders with India. The US immediately intervened and played a crucial role in diffusing the increased tension between the two neighbouring countries that arose after the Mumbai terror attacks in November. US President Bush personally telephoned President Asif Zardari and urged him not to withdraw Pakistani troops from the western border. Eighty percent of NATO's supplies for landlocked Afghanistan come through the Arabian Sea Port of Karachi and pass through the Khyber Agency. It is the least expensive route for transporting supplies, but the route came under frequent attack last year. According to Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, from the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce, not only were NATO supplies facing disruption by December, but all Afghan trade through the Khyber Agency had been suspended. In early 2009, four new American combat brigades are expected to join the foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan and the demand for supplies will increase. NATO has been exploring new routes from the Black Sea, Russia, Central Asia into Afghanistan. It is the most expensive landlocked route, but if fighting flared again in the Khyber Agency, NATO would have no other choice. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 Bringing the Russians in would be the stupidest thing the West could do. The Afghanistanis have a lot of unrelieved hatred for the Russians, going back to the 1979-1988 Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Bringing in the Indians would be a better option, especially if they came by ground through Musaraffabad, Rawalpindi, and Peshawar. I'm not sure 120,000 would be enough - we might want to send in a couple of divisions (Marine and Army) from Karachi to link up with them in Rawalpindi for the drive north. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-01-04 13:01 |
| #6 Sorry about the double post. I've no idea what I did wrong. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-04 12:57 |
| #5 Kiyani was due to meet General Bismillah Khan, chief of staff of the Afghan Army and Gen.David D. McKiernan, the American chief of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and other military officials. How humiliating! Poor General Kyani had to sit with an Afghan military man as an equal, his behaviour enforced and overwatched by a bloody kufr American, required to listen while they explained to him what his armies had thus far done incompetently. Thereafter he and his army will have to watch impotently as Petraeus' strategy is employed by others, because nobody would believe anything good and honourable of the Pakistanis... although they do march nicely in pretty uniforms on parade. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-04 12:57 |
| #4 Kiyani was due to meet General Bismillah Khan, chief of staff of the Afghan Army and Gen.David D. McKiernan, the American chief of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and other military officials. How humiliating! Poor General Kyani had to sit with an Afghan military man as an equal, his behaviour enforced and overwatched by a bloody kufr American, required to listen while they explained to him what his armies had thus far done incompetently. Thereafter he and his army will have to watch impotently as Petraeus' strategy is employed by others, because nobody would believe anything good and honourable of the Pakistanis... although they do march nicely in pretty uniforms on parade. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-04 12:57 |
| #3 ...new ways to defeat Taliban Killing every current and former member of the ISI would be a good start. Start with Gul. |
| Posted by: PBMcL 2009-01-04 10:44 |
| #2 The Russers might go for it at the right price. Lotta kickbacks, lotta jobs (yes Ima being redunant and repeating myself). |
| Posted by: .5MT 2009-01-04 06:44 |
| #1 120K Indian troops would help a lot. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2009-01-04 00:46 |