Karachi-Born US Senator Van Hollen Stands Up For Pakistan During Afghanistan Hearing
Maryland Democrat Chis Van Hollen, a key US senator who was born in Karachi, said it was the Trump administration that asked Pakistan to release the top three Taliban leaders for US-Taliban peace talks in Doha Qatar. He was speaking at a recent US Senate hearing on the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the chaotic US withdrawal that followed the Afghan Army collapse.
Senator Chris Van Hollen |
Senator Chris Van Hollen was born in 1959 in Karachi where his father was serving as a foreign service officer at the US Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan. His father later served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1969–1972) and US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives (1972–1976). His mother worked for the CIA as chief of the intelligence bureau for South Asia.
“Is it not the fact that the Trump administration asked the Pakistani government to release three top Taliban commanders as part of that (peace) process?” Senator Van Hollen asked. Targeting the Trump administration, Van Hollen continued, “And so, we pick a date. We say to the Taliban you can attack Afghan forces and then we say, now let’s negotiate the future of Afghanistan. Isn’t the way it was set up when you walked in?” “That’s essentially, yes," Blinken replied.
Referring to allegations of Pakistan's complicity in promoting chaos in Afghanistan, Senator Van Hollen said, “I think a number of those countries, at least Pakistan — like India, like the others — have an interest in preventing chaos and civil war in Afghanistan".
Here's the exchange between Van Hollen and Blinken at the Afghanistan hearing on Capitol Hill:
Van Hollen: “Is it not the fact that the Trump administration asked the Pakistani government to release three top Taliban commanders as part of that process?”
Blinken: “That’s correct".
Van Hollen: “And one of them is now number two in the Taliban government, Baradar, right?”
Blinken: “That’s correct.”
Van Hollen: “He is the person everybody saw in those photos in Kabul, right?”
Mr Blinken: “That’s correct.”
Van Hollen: “And there was another senior commander, and they began the discussions in Doha.”
Blinken: “That’s right.”
Van Hollen: “They (US negotiators) did not include the Afghan government, did they?”
Blinken: “That’s right, correct.”
Van Hollen: “And they in fact essentially ordered, pressured, the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, right?”
Blinken: “That’s correct.”
Van Hollen: “Many of those fighters are involved in the attack on Kabul today, right?”
Blinken: “Yes.”
Van Hollen: “Now, let’s see what the negotiation was: the US will leave by a certain date in May this year, right?”
Blinken: “Correct.”
Van Hollen: “You can’t attack American forces, but you can attack the Afghan forces with impunity, right?”
Blinken: “That’s correct.”
Van Hollen: “And so, we pick a date. We say to the Taliban you can attack Taliban forces and then we say, now let’s negotiate the future of Afghanistan. Isn’t the way it was set up when you walked in?”
Blinken: “That’s essentially, yes.” .
Carter Malkasian, former advisor to US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dunford, has also recently talked about how Afghan governments have scapegoated Pakistan for their own failures. He said: "Let’s take Pakistan, for example. Pakistan is a powerful factor here. But on the battlefield, if 200 Afghan police and army are confronted with 50 Taliban or less than that, and those government forces retreat, that doesn’t have a lot to do with Pakistan. That has to do with something else".
In another discussion, Malkasian explained the rapid advance of the Taliban and the collapse of the Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani. Here's what he said:
Over time, aware of the government’s vulnerable position, Afghan leaders turned to an outside source to galvanize the population: Pakistan. Razziq, President Hamid Karzai and later President Ashraf Ghani used Pakistan as an outside threat to unite Afghans behind them. They refused to characterize the Taliban as anything but a creation of Islamabad. Razziq relentlessly claimed to be fighting a foreign Pakistani invasion. Yet Pakistan could never fully out-inspire occupation.
Many westerners, including politicians, generals, analysts and journalists, are angry with Pakistan for the stinging US defeat in Afghanistan. They are trying to scapegoat Pakistan for the West's failed policies. Some want to punish Pakistan. However, many of them also recognize the importance of Pakistan in dealing with the aftermath of the Afghan fiasco. American analyst Michael Kugelman recently tweeted about America's use of Pakistani airspace (ALOCS) for "over-the-horizon" counter-terrorism ops in Afghanistan, underlining Pakistan's importance to the United States.
US Analyst Michael Kugelman on American Reliance on Pakistan |
A recent piece in Politico summed up US reliance on Pakistan as follows :
"The Biden administration has been unusually circumspect about revealing its contacts and discussions with Pakistan. While Pakistan’s actions often appear at odds with the United States, it nonetheless is a nation with links to the Afghan Taliban whose cooperation on fighting terrorism can be helpful. It’s also a nuclear-armed country American officials would prefer not to lose entirely to Chinese influence".
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Comments
The war in Afghanistan wasn’t a failure. It was a massive success — for those who made a fortune off it.
Consider the case of Hikmatullah Shadman, who was just a teenager when American Special Forces rolled into Kandahar on the heels of Sept. 11. They hired him as an interpreter, paying him up to $1,500 a month — 20 times the salary of a local police officer, according to a profile of him in The New Yorker. By his late 20s, he owned a trucking company that supplied U.S. military bases, earning him more than $160 million.
If a small fry like Shadman could get so rich off the war on terror, imagine how much Gul Agha Sherzai, a big-time warlord-turned-governor, has raked in since he helped the C.I.A. run the Taliban out of town. His large extended family supplied everything from gravel to furniture to the military base in Kandahar. His brother controlled the airport. Nobody knows how much he is worth, but it is clearly hundreds of millions — enough for him to talk about a $40,000 shopping spree in Germany as if he were spending pocket change.
Look under the hood of the “good war,” and this is what you see. Afghanistan was supposed to be an honorable war to neutralize terrorists and rescue girls from the Taliban. It was supposed to be a war that we woulda coulda shoulda won, had it not been for the distraction of Iraq and the hopeless corruption of the Afghan government. But let’s get real. Corruption wasn’t a design flaw in the war. It was a design feature. We didn’t topple the Taliban. We paid warlords bags of cash to do it.
As the nation-building project got underway, those warlords were transformed into governors, generals and members of Parliament, and the cash payments kept flowing.
“Westerners often scratched their heads at the persistent lack of capacity in Afghan governing institutions,” Sarah Chayes, a former special assistant to U.S. military leaders in Kandahar, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs. “But the sophisticated networks controlling those institutions never intended to govern. Their objective was self-enrichment. And at that task, they proved spectacularly successful.”
Instead of a nation, what we really built were more than 500 military bases — and the personal fortunes of the people who supplied them. That had always been the deal. In April 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dictated a top-secret memo ordering aides to come up with “a plan for how we are going to deal with each of these warlords — who is going to get money from whom, on what basis, in exchange for what, what is the quid pro quo, etc.,” according to The Washington Post.
The war proved enormously lucrative for many Americans and Europeans, too. One 2008 study estimated that some 40 percent of the money allocated to Afghanistan went back to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries. Only about 12 percent of U.S. reconstruction assistance given to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2021 actually went to the Afghan government. Much of the rest went to companies like the Louis Berger Group, a New Jersey-based construction firm that got a $1.4 billion contract to build schools, clinics and roads. Even after it got caught bribing officials and systematically overbilling taxpayers, the contracts kept coming.
“It’s a bugbear of mine that Afghan corruption is so frequently cited as an explanation (as well as an excuse) for Western failure in Afghanistan,” Jonathan Goodhand, a professor in conflict and development studies at SOAS University of London, wrote me in an email. Americans “point the finger at Afghans, whilst ignoring their role in both fueling and benefiting from the patronage pump.”
https://www.newsweek.com/china-russia-bring-iran-pakistan-fold-face-afghanistan-1629992
"Acting in good faith," he (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov) added, "we can make a difference in creating necessary external conditions for the Afghans to get their destiny in their own hands, without any threats emanating from the Afghan territory in regards to terrorism, drug trafficking, and without any risks and challenges created from the territory of Afghanistan to its neighbors."
In a readout released following their discussions, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that "approaches were compared on issues of facilitating establishment of peace, stability and security in Afghanistan, while the necessity to establish national reconciliation in the country was stressed."
The Iranian Foreign Ministry also reported positive results.
"At the meeting, the top diplomats supported the formation of an inclusive government with the participation of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan," the Iranian side said in its own account of the four-way talks. "An Afghanistan free of terrorism, free of drugs and free of threats against its neighbors was another topic on the agenda."
The meeting is the latest platform among involving regional countries to address the situation in Afghanistan, where the international country at large remains concerned about the Taliban's ability to stabilize the war-torn nation and curb the spread of militant groups known to operate there.
The security climate across Afghanistan and its periphery also dominated a meeting held Thursday by member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post-Soviet, Russia-led alliance that also includes Armenia and Belarus as well as the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
"The situation in the CSTO's zone of responsibility and on the external borders of its member states remains unstable and spells new and truly acute challenges and risks for the security of our countries," Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
Putin was slated to stage another appearance at Friday's Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) leaders' summit also taking place in Dushanbe. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan also count themselves as members of the SCO, as do China, India, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
Iran, like Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia, is an SCO observer state. But the Islamic Republic is expected to receive full membership as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi traveled to Tajikistan to appear in person alongside Pakistani Foreign Minister Imran Khan and other leaders, while Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were scheduled to speak virtually.
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While these differences continue to exist, the situation in Afghanistan has presented a path for Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Islamabad to overcome their differences and coalesce. It was also an opportunity to present to the world an alternative order to that advertised by the United States.
The U.S. has accused both China and Russia of pursuing destabilizing moves across the globe, and has instituted tough sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan have also strained due to the former's warming relationship with India and the latter's long-cultivated ties to the Taliban.
The emerging dynamic reverses Cold War-era interactions that saw the U.S. and Pakistan on one side of the decades-long geopolitical dispute, and the Soviet Union and India on the other. India and Russia still maintain warm relations, but the SCO has sought to bring all regional parties together, leaving the U.S. on the sidelines.
September 21, 2021, 2:52 PM IST
By Sunil Sharan in Strategic Insights, India, World, TOI
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/strategic-insights/sour-grapes-india-pakistan-has-clearly-won-in-afghanistan/
Much hand-wringing and hair-pulling is going on in India over Pakistan’s “1971” moment. Actually Pakistan has had two 1971 moments. Once when they ejected the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1989, and now.
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The fight then is clear. It is white Christian nations versus brown Muslim nations. The US has been involved in the following campaigns after 9/11: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. All Muslim nations. It has met defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and been dealt a bruising blow in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Estimate of Muslim lives lost from war and displacement caused by war since 9/11 vary between five and ten million.
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Much is being made of Blinken’s statement that the US would like to see Pakistan evolve the way it, the US, wishes. This is just wishful thinking. When the Americans were all over Afghanistan (and Pakistan), they could not force the Pakistanis to do what they wanted to do. Now that they have hightailed out of Afghanistan, are we expected to believe that the US has more leverage over Pakistan now than before?
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Other than the US, the country that has clearly lost out in Afghanistan is India. For 20 years, India has poured over $3 billion in aid and reconstruction into Afghanistan, all of which, in a jiffy, has just landed in the hands of the Taliban. Pakistan has now become without doubt emboldened to launch a second jihad to liberate Kashmir from India. India cannot be naïve and altruistic anymore. It has to ramp up support for Pakistan’s Baloch rebels as well as instigate the Taliban in amalgamating Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province into Afghanistan, a long-cherished dream of its.
India just cannot afford to be a mute and idle spectator in the AfPak region. Its very survival is at risk. Pakistan has often accused India of fomenting terrorism in its own territory through the Pakistani Taliban. But think about this. The Pakistani Taliban wants to impose sharia in Pakistan, just as it’s been now imposed in Afghanistan.
But Pakistan’s Muslims are Hinduized. They don’t want sharia, just as India doesn’t want an enormous territory on its western flank under sharia. It is in India’s interest that Pakistan stays Hinduized. Why then would India support the Pakistani Taliban?
by Zarrar Khuro
"Brinkmanship may be a hallmark of Iranian policy but it only works when you know for sure where the brink actually is"
If anyone can be accused of using proxy forces as an extension of foreign policy it is Iran, which has used sectarian militias operating under the aegis of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to project power and influence across the Middle East, from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon.
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Instead, Ismail Khan fled to Iran after surrendering to the Taliban and the quick conclusion to the fighting meant that Iran would gain no strategic depth in Afghanistan the way it had in Iraq and beyond. But that alone cannot explain Iran’s ire toward Pakistan, which it likely sees as having gained influence at Tehran’s expense, and so we must cast a broader net and switch our view from geostrategy to geoeconomics and in particular the future trade routes that may crisscross this region.
Iran’s desire to become the primary trade route through which exports from Afghanistan, and eventually transit trade from Central Asia would reach the world has also seen a setback especially in the context of talks regarding operationalizing the transit trade agreement between Uzbekistan and Pakistan, which would see transit trade being shifted from Iranian ports to Pakistani ports. Not only is that bad news for Bandar Abbas, it’s also yet another blow to Iranian hopes to further develop the Chabahar port, a joint project between Tehran and New Delhi.
Chabahar had already been suffering from delays and had also been seeing declining volumes due to the pandemic. The Taliban takeover then, may prove to be the final nail in the coffin of this already-troubled project and the fate of the transit agreement signed by the Ghani government with India and Iran is also now uncertain. None of this is good news for a cash-strapped Iran.
Despite this, the targeting of Pakistan by Iranian media and officials does seem like a strategic miscalculation, given Iran’s preoccupations in the Middle East. Brinkmanship may be a hallmark of Iranian policy, but it only works when you know for sure where the brink actually is.
Qureshi “hoped that the world would not repeat the mistake of disengaging with Afghanistan,” according to the statement.
The U.S. State Department said Blinken stressed “the importance of coordinating our diplomatic engagement and facilitating the departure of those wishing to leave Afghanistan” in his talks with Qureshi.
The Taliban swept through Afghanistan in August, after Washington and Western allies withdrew their troops in line with U.S. President Joe Biden’s orders that there was no point in extending America's longest war beyond 20 years.
The Islamist movement’s return to power prompted the Biden administration to swiftly block billions of dollars held in U.S. reserves for Kabul, while the World Bank and International Monetary Fund both halted Afghanistan’s access to crucial funding amid worries about the fate of Afghan basic human rights under Taliban rule.
Blinken told reporters Thursday the Afghan issue was the focus of his multilateral and bilateral meetings, including with counterparts from Russia and China. He said the Taliban continue to seek legitimacy and international support for their rule in Kabul, saying the world is united on how to deal with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
“I think there is very strong unity of approach and unity of purpose... again, the Taliban says that it seeks legitimacy, that it seeks support from the international community; the relationship that it has with the international community is going to be defined by the actions it takes. That’s what we’re looking for,” Blinken stressed.
He reiterated U.S. priorities for the Islamist group, including allowing Afghans and foreign nationals to leave the country, respecting human rights, particularly for women, girls and minorities, preventing terrorist groups from using Afghanistan to threaten other countries, and forming a “genuinely inclusive government” that can reflect aspirations of the Afghan people.
The Taliban have dismissed criticism of their male-only interim cabinet, saying it represents all Afghan ethnicities and it promised to “very soon” bring women on board.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban) has writ all over the country and enjoy grassroots support. We truly represent the aspirations of the people of Afghanistan and are ready to engage with the world,” Suhail Shaheen, whom the Taliban have nominated as their permanent representative to the U.N., said Friday.
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Pakistan, China, and Russia have all moved to engage with the Taliban and have been urging the global community to engage with and help the new rulers in Kabul meet urgent humanitarian needs of Afghans.
They have demanded unfreezing of Afghan assets and removal of other economic sanctions on Kabul but they also have linked recognition of the new Taliban government until it delivers on its stated commitments.
“Just as an overwhelming majority of countries around the world, we prefer to most closely watch what the Taliban have been doing in Afghanistan, what final shape the structure of power in that country will take, and how the given promises will be fulfilled. We are monitoring this very closely,” Russian media quoted presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Friday.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, while addressing a virtual conference of G-20 foreign ministers on Thursday, also underscored the importance of the Taliban ensuring a broad and inclusive governance system in Kabul but slammed the freezing of Afghan assets by the U.S. and international lending institutions.
Inbox
https://www.newsweek.com/2021/10/08/exclusive-pakistani-leader-imran-khan-says-taliban-can-americas-partner-peace-1632231.html
IMran Khan: "For its part, the United States has divested a liability—its costly military intervention—which, as the U.S. President has himself admitted, was not a strategic priority for the United States. Both Pakistan and the United States need to prevent terrorism emanating from Afghanistan. To this end, we should cooperate to help in stabilizing Afghanistan by addressing the humanitarian crisis in that country and supporting its economic recovery. Of course, there may be an immediate negative impact in the U.S. due to the chaotic nature of its evacuation from Kabul. The U.S. has withdrawn voluntarily from Afghanistan. Therefore, I don't think that the U.S. withdrawal will erode U.S. credibility globally in the long term."
"As for China, if China offers economic support to Afghanistan, it's natural that the Afghans will accept it. The Taliban have welcomed the prospects of being incorporated in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and establishing close relations with China.
However, the U.S. too can play an important and positive role in Afghanistan by providing humanitarian assistance, contributing to Afghanistan's recovery and reconstruction, and cooperating in containing terrorism from Afghanistan. During the Doha peace process, the U.S. established a working relationship with the Taliban. There was direct cooperation between the U.S. and the Taliban during the evacuation process. I believe that the U.S. can work with a new government in Afghanistan to promote common interests and regional stability".
by John Bolton
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/23/john-bolton-taliban-takeover-pakistan-extremists/
Is President Biden sufficiently resolute to do the necessary? Probably not. In George Packer’s recent biography of diplomat Richard Holbrooke, he quotes from Holbrooke’s notes taken during an Obama administration Situation Room meeting on Afghanistan. “Among his notes were private interjections,” Packer writes. “Vice President Joe Biden said that every one of Pakistan’s interests was also America’s interest: ‘HUH?’”
Pakistan’s prime minister, in remarks Friday to the U.N. General Assembly, made clear there is a long way to go. Imran Khan tried to portray his country as the victim of American ungratefulness for its assistance in Afghanistan over the years. Instead of a mere “word of appreciation,” Pakistan has received blame, Khan said.
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The Biden administration is looking for new ways to stop terrorist threats in Afghanistan after withdrawing all troops.
Over two decades of war, American officials accused Pakistan of playing a double game by promising to fight terrorism and cooperate with Washington while cultivating the Taliban and other extremist groups that attacked U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Islamabad pointed to what it saw as failed promises of a supportive government in Kabul after the U.S. drove the Taliban from power after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as extremist groups took refuge in eastern Afghanistan and launched deadly attacks throughout Pakistan.
But the U.S. wants Pakistani cooperation in counterterrorism efforts and could seek permission to fly surveillance flights into Afghanistan or other intelligence cooperation. Pakistan wants U.S. military aid and good relations with Washington, even as its leaders openly celebrate the Taliban’s rise to power.
“Over the last 20 years, Pakistan has been vital for various logistics purposes for the U.S. military. What’s really been troubling is that, unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot of trust,” said U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who is on the House Intelligence Committee. “I think the question is whether we can get over that history to arrive at a new understanding.”
https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-general-assembly-business-africa-russia-middle-east-3a0b6569a8478246b0eef5f03f997af8
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia, China, Pakistan and the United States are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government and prevent extremism from spreading, Russia’s foreign minister said Saturday.
Sergey Lavrov said the four countries are in ongoing contact. He said representatives from Russia, China and Pakistan recently traveled to Qatar and then to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, to engage with both the Taliban and representatives of “secular authorities” — former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the ousted government’s negotiating council with the Taliban.
Lavrov said the interim government announced by the Taliban does not reflect “the whole gamut of Afghan society — ethno-religious and political forces — so we are engaging in contacts. They are ongoing.”
The Taliban have promised an inclusive government, a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last ruled the country from 1996 to 2001 including respecting women’s rights, providing stability after 20 years of war, fighting terrorism and extremism and stopping militants from using their territory to launch attacks. But recent moves suggest they may be returning to more repressive policies, particularly toward women and girls.
“What’s most important ... is to ensure that the promises that they have proclaimed publicly to be kept,” Lavrov said. “And for us, that is the top priority.”
At a wide-ranging news conference and in his speech afterward at the U.N. General Assembly, Lavrov criticized the Biden administration including for its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He said the U.S. and NATO pullout “was carried out out without any consideration of the consequences ... that there are many weapons left in Afghanistan.” It remains critical, he said, that such weapons aren’t used for “destructive purposes.”
Later, in his assembly speech, Lavrov accused the United States and its Western allies of “persistent attempts to diminish the U.N.’s role in resolving the key problems of today or to sideline it or to make it a malleable tool for promoting someone’s selfish interests.”
As examples, Lavrov said Germany and France recently announced the creation of an Alliance For Multilateralism “even though what kind of structure could be more multilateral than the United Nations?”
The United States is also sidestepping the U.N., he said, pointing to the recent U.S. announcement of a “Summit for Democracy” despite, Lavrov said, U.S. President Joe Biden’s pledge this week “that the U.S. is not seeking a world divided into opposing blocs.”
“It goes without saying that Washington is going to choose the participants by itself, thus hijacking the right to decide to what degree a country meets the standards of democracy,” Lavrov said. “Essentially, this initiative is quite in the spirit of a Cold War, as it declares a new ideological crusade against all dissenters.”
Civilian-led outreach can find areas of actual cooperation instead of mutual blame.
By Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/30/pakistan-us-afghanistan-relations-withdrawal/
What makes the U.S.-Pakistan relationship so toxic is not that their interests have diverged widely from the halcyon days of anti-Soviet cooperation but the prevailing assumption that their differences can only be managed through coercive engagement, money thrown at the problem, or disengagement
One root cause of this dysfunction is relations are largely managed through the two countries’ security establishments. In 2018, then-commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Joseph Votel testified to the House Armed Services Committee, saying he spoke to his Pakistani counterpart “almost weekly.” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has spoken by phone with Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, at least four times, and in early September, CIA director William Burns met with Bajwa and ISI Director-General Faiz Hameed. U.S. President Joe Biden has yet to call Khan, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi met in person for the first time last week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan have often grown closer during periods of military rule, such as during the 1960s under then-Pakistani President Ayub Khan, the 1980s under then-Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, and the early 2000s under Musharraf. Ties grew noticeably colder under the civilian leadership of then-Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s, who ultimately accused Washington of plotting against him prior to his imprisonment and execution by Zia-ul-Haq.
Washington’s leaders might say they have no choice but to deal directly with Pakistan’s security establishment, which is the country’s real decision-maker on matters of national security. But Washington, as Bolton’s words in 2010 indicated, has also grown accustomed to the political expediency of going straight to Pakistan’s brass and sidelining its civilian government. Bush’s “with us or against us” ultimatum to military dictator Pervez Musharraf was successful precisely because he was the sole decision-maker. Had Pakistan been a genuine democracy 20 years ago, fully accountable to its lawmakers and public opinion, then things might have gone differently. Instead, Washington and Islamabad’s spymasters and generals have eked out a working relationship while the civilian government remains disengaged.
Congress’s dubious attitude toward Pakistan was best summarized by Rep. Bill Keating when he recently described it as “one relationship that really always troubled me.” During that same hearing, Rep. Scott Perry struck at the heart of Pakistan’s insecurities when he exclaimed, “we should no longer pay Pakistan [for counterterrorism cooperation], and we should pay India.” Recently introduced legislation calls for an assessment of Pakistan’s past support for the Taliban but falls short of any punitive measures.
Khan’s jovial charm is powerful, but it hasn’t led to a significant shift in Washington perceptions of Pakistan, save for a few well-tended interlocutors like Sen. Lindsey Graham. But even there, praise for Islamabad is sometimes little more than an underhanded compliment intended to poke at a domestic political rival, such as when Graham criticized Biden for failing to reach out to Khan by phone—a snub that is a source of anxiety in Islamabad and a sign of how little Biden prioritizes Pakistan’s civilian leadership.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1649634/pakistan-can-repel-militants-protect-nukes-says-us-report
Pakistan is capable of repelling any ‘jihadi’ attempt to seize power and of protecting its nuclear weapons, says a report by a prestigious US think-tank.
The Brookings report — “The Agonising Problem of Pakistan’s Nukes” — argues that the Taliban victory in Afghanistan has emboldened militants in Pakistan, stirring fears of a resurgence of militant activities in the country.
“The fear now includes the possibility that jihadis in Pakistan, freshly inspired by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, might try to seize power at home,” the report claims.
“Trying, of course, is not the same as succeeding. If history is a reliable guide, Pakistan’s professional military would almost certainly respond, and in time probably succeed,” the author, Marvin Kalb, adds.
But the report warns that even a failed attempt could reopen “the floodgates of a new round of domestic warfare between the government and extremist gangs.”
The Brookings report warns that a resurgent insurgency would “leave Pakistan again shaken by political and economic uncertainty.”
The report then turns to another possibility that Pakistan has often warned against — instability in South Asia increases the possibility of a nuclear conflict in the region. Pakistan uses this argument to strengthen its demand for international arbitration to settle the Kashmir and other disputes in India.
The Brookings report does not mention the Kashmir dispute but it acknowledges that “when Pakistan is shaken, so too is India, its less than neighbourly rival and nuclear competitor.”
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Former President Barack Obama translated this challenge into carefully chosen words: “The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short term, medium term and long term,” he asserted, “would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon.” (Author’s italics).
The nation that has both nuclear weapons and a dangerous mix of terrorists was — and remains — Pakistan.
No problem, really, Pakistan’s political and military leaders have quickly assured a succession of anxious presidents. Whether it be Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tehreek-e-Labaik, al-Qaida, or the Afghan Taliban’s Quetta Shura — these terrorist organizations have always been under our constant surveillance, checked and rechecked. We keep a close eye on everything, even the Islamic madrassas, where more than 2 million students are more likely studying sharia law than economics or history. We know who these terrorists are and what they’re doing, and we’re ready to take immediate action.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/09/28/the-agonizing-problem-of-pakistans-nukes/
@YusufMoeed
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My article in
@ForeignAffairs
, highlighting Pakistan's sacrifices; positive contribution and commitment to peace in Afghanistan - sustainability of which is only possible through constructive global engagement with the new Afghan government.
https://twitter.com/YusufMoeed/status/1446121838434603014?s=20
Afghanistan deserves peace and prosperity, and a blame game among international actors will not get us there. Nor will a repeat of the mistakes of the 1990s, when the United States abandoned Afghanistan and sanctioned Pakistan, its close ally throughout the 1980s, once the Soviets had been driven from Kabul. This isolated the region as international assistance and attention disappeared, placed Afghanistan on a path to civil war and economic meltdown, and strengthened international terrorist outfits—eventually culminating in the 9/11 attacks. Although ordinary Afghans and Pakistanis will always face the greatest risks from instability inside Afghanistan, mass migration flows and terrorism threaten the entire world. It is therefore in every country’s interest to prevent history from repeating itself.
The prudent way forward is for the international community to engage constructively with the new government in Kabul. The goal must be to create the conditions for Afghan civilians to earn a respectable livelihood and to live in peace. This will require the international community, especially the countries that were present in Afghanistan for two decades, to play a positive role in leveraging its influence to further the cause of peace and stability.
Pakistan has been at the forefront of international humanitarian efforts since the fall of Kabul. It has helped evacuate approximately 20,000 foreign citizens and Afghans from the country and has created an air and land bridge to channel emergency supplies to the country. These efforts are important, but diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan must go much further. Afghanistan does not have the resources or the institutional capacity to stave off economic disaster on its own. In order to ensure a durable peace, the international community must determine the means through which development assistance can be provided while ensuring that its concerns about the situation in the country are addressed. But given the precarious humanitarian and economic situation in Afghanistan, time is of the essence. A wait-and-see approach, although more politically tenable for many countries, would be tantamount to abandonment.
Pakistan’s expectations of the new government are no different than those of Western governments: Pakistan wants a state that is inclusive, respects the rights of all Afghans, and ensures that Afghan soil is not used for terrorism against any country. Unlike in the 1990s, the Taliban have repeatedly stated their interest in continued engagement with the world. This is an opportunity for the international community. The leverage generated through assistance and the legitimacy the Taliban will derive from it can be used to secure inclusive governance from the new administration.
Over the past month, Pakistan has led diplomatic initiatives with Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors and other countries in the region to discuss the way forward. We will continue these efforts. However, Western diplomacy needs to be better connected with regional initiatives to forge a common agenda for engagement and decide on the multilateral and bilateral avenues available to channel assistance. A starting point could be a major donor conference where regional players and Western countries sit down together and draw up specific plans for humanitarian and economic relief. An understanding is also required on the terms of the release of the Afghan central bank’s reserves, most of which are held by the United States. Such a forum could also be used to encourage countries that have unfinished development projects in Afghanistan to consider completing them for the benefit of the Afghan people.
When the last American troops departed from Kabul on August 30th, it meant not only the end of a 20-year campaign in Afghanistan but also the end of Western reliance on neighbouring Pakistan. In that time the country had been an infuriating partner that had helped nato forces with logistics and intelligence even as it provided a haven to the Taliban’s leaders. Now, perhaps America could wash its hands and walk away.
America and its allies have plenty of reasons to feel aggrieved. Pakistan is perpetually sparring with its neighbour, India—which is steadily becoming a vital regional partner for the West. It has close diplomatic and commercial ties with China, to which it provides access to the Indian Ocean, via the Karakoram highway and the port of Gwadar. It is home to lots of Muslim extremists. With a gdp per head that is just two-thirds of India’s and which has in recent years been falling, Pakistan might seem a sensible country to shun.
Alice Wells, the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia under Donald Trump, called the CPEC initiative an "unstainable and unfair" debt for Pakistan during a visit to Islamabad last year.
Pakistan rejected the US's criticism of CPEC last year. The Chinese embassy in Islamabad at the time stated that "the US is obsessed with the story it [has] made for CPEC."
Last month, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, Masoor Ahmed Khan, held talks with the new Afghan leadership about Kabul's joining CPEC.
The deteriorating security situation in Pakistan, however, has prompted concerns about how it could hamper Chinese investment in the country, as well as Islamabad-Beijing relations. China has in the past urged Pakistan to improve security for its projects and personnel against possible Pakistani Taliban attacks.
Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of the South Asia program at the Washington-based think tank the Stimson Center, told DW that Pakistan runs the risk of "spillover instability" from Afghanistan, as cross-border terrorism incidents and attacks are carried out in the Balochistan province and tribal areas.
"Despite Pakistan's longstanding support for the Taliban, the group seems unable or unwilling to contain terrorist groups operating within Afghan borders, including those targeting Pakistan," she said.
Shuja Nawaz, a South Asia analyst at the Atlantic Council in Washington, told DW that Pakistan should maintain ties with both the United States and China, saying it "need not try to swing" between the two.
"China is an important neighbor and friend. The US and Pakistan have long historical ties," Nawaz said.
"Pakistan needs to act in its own interest in reshaping its relations with the United States so it is not dependent on the Americans nor does it have to deceive them about its actions on their behalf," Nawaz added.
Threlkeld said Pakistan "will be hard pressed to maintain positive relations with the US" as "US interest wanes and frustration grows over Pakistan's support for the Taliban."
"While it might be tempting to focus solely on its ties with Beijing, Islamabad knows it must continue to engage with Washington," she said.
"The US, likewise, continues to need Pakistan for counterterrorism support in Afghanistan," she added.
Pakistan in need of 'a deep public debate'
Nawaz said Pakistan would need to engage in dialogue on its foreign policy stance. He says civilian and the military leadership must take a unilateral stance, and avoid short-term foreign policy strategies.
"Pakistan needs a deep public debate on its foreign policy in Parliament and then an articulation of the principles of its foreign policy for the next 10 years," he said. "No zigzags or short-term deals, which have been a recent pattern."
Pakistan "must not exaggerate the value of a telephone call with Biden again and again," Nawaz said. It is "important for the groundwork to be done at lower levels," before Biden and Khan speak with one another, he added.
"More importantly, Islamabad and Rawalpindi [where the Pakistani military headquarters is based] must speak with one voice to Washington, DC," he said.
BY JAMES DURSO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 10/20/21 05:40 PM EDT
What should the U.S. do?
Don’t be the spoiler: Blocking projects that may benefit the economies of Afghanistan and Pakistan will push Central and South Asia into the arms of Russia and China.
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Connectivity between Central Asia and South Asia is needed if the regions are to escape the gravitation pull of Russia and China. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which border Afghanistan, have established relations with the Taliban government as many key economic projects require stability in Afghanistan.
In February 2021, representatives of Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan agreed to a roadmap for the Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway project, a 600-km track to be built over five years. The rail project will run alongside regional power projects — the 1,000-megawatt Surkhan-Puli-Khumri high-voltage power line and the 1,300-megawatt CASA-1000 energy project — that supply power to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The final key project is the stalled 1,100-mile Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural-gas pipeline that can ship 33 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually, and will relieve Ashgabat of Beijing’s leverage as China currently receives 90 percent of Turkmenistan’s gas.
Pakistan has successfully arbitraged its location by supporting the U.S. in two wars in Afghanistan and reaping significant financial benefits in the process. It is a partner with China in the $62 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the largest project in the Belt and Road Initiative. Now Pakistan may be Central Asia’s partner linking the region to maritime trade routes via the ports of Karachi and Gwadar, and Pakistan’s large internal market of over 200 million people, 60 percent of them under the age of 30.
In Afghanistan, the U.S. and Pakistan weren’t even fighting the same war. U.S. officials have accused Pakistan of a “double game,” but Islamabad was eyeing the “next game” — the conflict with India. The U.S. anticipated a formal end of hostilities after it defeated the Taliban and restructured Afghan society, but Pakistan knew even if the U.S. departed in victory, it would still have India to contend with and war in Afghanistan was just a way to position itself for the next phase of the struggle. Pakistan could use the Taliban to build “strategic depth,” recruit fighters it could deploy against India in Kashmir, and be paid for helping Uncle Sam. The Pakistani generals were channeling Paul von Hindenburg who, when he recommended the annexation of the Baltic Provinces into the German Empire said, “I need them for the maneuvering of my left wing in the next war.”
America sees wars as finite events that end at Appomattox Courthouse or on the battleship Missouri; Pakistan sees war as a process.
U.S. policy in Afghanistan is pretty much now just “women and girls,” which ignores that leaders in Central and South Asia are also responsible for women and girls. The U.S. should not allow its differences with the Taliban to block regional trade arrangements — which will have to include the Kabul government — and thereby hand a political win (and financial windfall) to Russia and China by limiting the region’s trade options.
A bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate, the “Afghanistan Counterterrorism, Oversight, and Accountability Act of 2021,” that, among other things, directs the Biden administration to “develop a revised strategy for South and Central Asia,” and also requires an assessment of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban from 2001 to 2021.
By Natasha Bertrand, Oren Liebermann, Zachary Cohen and Ellie Kaufman, CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/22/politics/us-pakistan-afghanistan-airspace/index.html
The Biden administration has told lawmakers that the US is nearing a formalized agreement with Pakistan for use of its airspace to conduct military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan, according to three sources familiar with the details of a classified briefing with members of Congress that took place on Friday morning.
Pakistan has expressed a desire to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in exchange for assistance with its own counterterrorism efforts and help in managing the relationship with India, one of the sources said. But the negotiations are ongoing, another source said, and the terms of the agreement, which has not been finalized, could still change.
The briefing comes as the White House is still trying to ensure that it can carry out counterterrorism operations against ISIS-K and other adversaries in Afghanistan now that there is no longer a US presence on the ground for the first time in two decades after the NATO withdrawal from the country.
With no formal agreement currently in place, the US runs the risk of Pakistan refusing entry to US military aircraft and drones en route to Afghanistan.
A Pentagon spokesman said the Defense Department does not comment on closed briefings due to security classifications. CNN has reached out to the National Security Council, State Department and Pakistan embassy in Washington for comment.
At the same time, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are emerging as the top options for possible locations to establish a US military presence to conduct so-called over-the-horizon operations in Afghanistan, the sources said, but both would run into severe opposition from Russian President Vladimir Putin and some local politicians. "Both are long shots," one source said, calling them "likely pipe dreams due to needing Putin's blessing."
https://www.dawn.com/news/1654655
US Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Colin Kahl shared this information with the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday during an open/closed hearing on “Security in Afghanistan and in the regions of South and Central Asia”.
He was replying to a question from the committee’s chairman Senator Jack Reed, who asked him to update the panel on “our arrangement with Pakistan regarding their cooperation with us in counterterrorism”. The senator referred to recent press reports claiming that Pakistan was working with the Taliban to attack the militant Islamic State group.
“Pakistan is a challenging actor, but they don’t want Afghanistan to be a safe haven for terrorist attacks, external attacks, not just against Pakistan but against others” as well, Dr Kahl told the open session. “They continue to give us access to Pakistani airspace and we are in conversation about keeping that access open.”
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/first-target-is-pakistan-isis-k-aims-to-go-global-impose-sharia-law-says-report-101635641775126.html
According to him, Afghanistan has gone from bad to worse since the Taliban - who he accuses of "destroying the country" took the helm some two-and-a-half months ago.
"We want to implement Shariah Law. We want to implement the way our Prophet was living, the way he was clothed, the dressing hijab was there. Currently, we don't have much to fight. But if you give me anything, I am going to fight Pakistan now," knewz quoted Nazifullah as saying.
On China, India was keen that Beijing participate but see no reason to doubt the reason for their absence. A source reminded that China did participate in the BRICS NSA meeting, so no reason for them to skip this one.
India will focus on humanitarian aid to Afghanistan which constitutes a major part of bringing security and stability to the country. India’s commitment is to the people of Afghanistan and there is a need for quick access to Afghanistan and its people which Pakistan has denied, said sources. Adding, if Pakistan is concerned they should allow Indian aid to flow through.
The other area of concern for India is drug trafficking. Everyone in the region has raised their levels of alert and capacity on the issue.
On visas for Afghan nationals who have been urging India to help them leave the country, sources say it is a national decision and will be taken keeping security and humanitarian needs of applicants. Matter of constant review between agencies said sources.
India is maintaining a small team of local staff in Kabul working on consular issues.
Before returning to their countries, various delegations wish to visit various places in India which is being organised. Sources say the Kazakh delegation would visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Uzbek delegations want to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, while the delegation from Tajikistan want to go sightseeing in Delhi.
The so-called Troika Plus group pledged on Thursday to try to ease severe pressure on Afghanistan's banking system as it warned of possible economic collapse and a humanitarian disaster that could fuel a new refugee crisis.
The group, made up of Pakistan, China, Russia and the United States, met in Islamabad against a backdrop of growing alarm over the situation in Afghanistan, where more than half the population is facing severe hunger over the coming winter.
"I urge the international community to fulfil its collective responsibility to avert a grave humanitarian crisis," Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote on Twitter, adding that Pakistan would provide aid including food, emergency medical supplies and winter shelters.
The Taliban victory in August saw the billions of dollars in foreign aid that had kept the economy afloat abruptly switched off, with more than $9 billion in central bank reserves frozen outside the country.
"Nobody wishes to see a relapse into civil war, no one wants an economic collapse that will spur instability," Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said.
"Everyone wants terrorist elements operating inside Afghanistan to be tackled effectively and we all want to prevent a new refugee crisis," he told the envoys, who also met the Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
Restrictions on the banking system put in place by international governments since the Taliban took over have deepened the pain for Afghans, prompting growing calls for the freeze on the reserves to be lifted.
The troika said it acknowledged concerns about the "serious liquidity challenges and committed to continue focusing on measures to ease access to legitimate banking services."
Pakistan has called on governments, including the United States, to allow development assistance to flow into Afghanistan to prevent collapse.
Pakistan has also discussed the idea of Afghanistan joining CPEC, its multi-billion dollar infrastructure project with China, which comes under the banner of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Thursday's conference, which reiterated calls on the Taliban to ensure women's rights are respected and that Afghanistan does not become a base for militant groups to carry out attacks outside the country, is the latest in a series of diplomatic meetings in the region.
Muttaqi arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday to discuss trade and other ties, while neighbouring India held a conference for regional countries on Wednesday, though arch-rival Pakistan did not attend that meeting.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/11/india-afghanistan-leverage-taliban-takeover-regional-diplomacy/
This week’s (Afghanistan) conference (hosted by India) included national security advisors from Russia, Iran, and five Central Asian states. India sought to emphasize regional concerns about the risks of an unstable Afghanistan, including terrorism and drug trafficking. Indian officials also saw the conference as an opportunity to put New Delhi back into the conversation. As one source told the Indian Express, “when you are not at the table, you are on the menu.”
The conference did allow New Delhi to convey its core concerns to friendly regional actors that still enjoy influence in Kabul, a strategy it’s likely to embrace in the coming months. India only recently established formal channels of communication with the Taliban, and it has had only one known meeting with Taliban officials since the takeover: an exchange in Doha, Qatar.
But the conference will do little to strengthen India’s influence in Afghanistan. Its limited relations with the Taliban, along with the likelihood of deepening Pakistani and Chinese footprints in the country, suggest India will be written out of the script. Both Pakistan and China have already hosted senior Taliban officials. Beijing seeks to invest in infrastructure in Afghanistan, and Islamabad has already permitted Taliban officials to take up diplomatic posts.
China and Pakistan’s decision not to attend Wednesday’s conference further demonstrates that neither country plans to help India pursue its interests in Afghanistan. Islamabad, which alleges that New Delhi sponsors anti-Pakistan terrorists in Afghanistan, won’t cede an inch of ground. It has already failed to respond to a recent request to allow Indian trucks to cross through Pakistani territory to deliver food shipments to Afghanistan.
India’s waning influence in Afghanistan not only represents a strategic loss but also puts its many investments in the country at risk. Since 2001, New Delhi’s $3 billion in development assistance has produced more than 400 projects in Afghanistan, including a dam, a highway, a pediatric hospital, and its parliament building. Although India finds itself suddenly locked out, it won’t sit on its hands. New Delhi seeks assurances from the Taliban that its assets and remaining nationals in the country remain safe.
However, India lacks sufficient leverage to reverse its strategic setbacks in Afghanistan under the new regime. The Indian government will need to resign itself to conveying its concerns through countries with more influence, including the United States—which met with China, Pakistan, and Russia in Islamabad on Thursday. Prospects for U.S.-India cooperation in Afghanistan are limited, although New Delhi can count on Washington taking its interests into account.
But India can start with the countries present at Wednesday’s conference. Russia has engaged closely with Taliban leaders in recent months; Iran has provided military supportand safe havens to Taliban leaders. Central Asian states also enjoy leverage by providing electricity to Afghanistan and presenting cross-border trade opportunities. Their territory also could offer staging grounds for U.S. counterterrorism activities.
In Afghanistan, India must carry out a delicate diplomatic dance: compensating for its loss of influence by tightening ties with other regional actors while steering clear of its Chinese and Pakistani rivals.
https://youtu.be/FDEfDx3d3kM
Pakistan will allow India to send 50,000 tons of wheat through its territory to neighboring Afghanistan, which is reeling under a severe hunger crisis as its economy has stalled since the Taliban took over in August, according to an Afghan government official.
Islamabad agreed to allow over land wheat shipments nearly a month after Kabul sought permission, Sulaiman Shah Zaheer, a spokesman of the Afghanistan Ministry of Commerce and Industries, said in a phone interview.
“The issue has now been resolved, and India can now send the wheat to Afghanistan via the Wagah border in Pakistan,” he said
The aid will be the first such consignment from New Delhi, which is yet to recognize the country’s new Taliban regime. Pakistan, Iran and U.A.E. are among the other nations that have provided Afghanistan with food and medical supplies. More than half of the country’s nearly 40 million people are likely to face acute food shortage and nine million are already on brink of starvation, according to a recent World Food Program report.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan had said that his country would “favorably consider the request by Afghan brothers for transportation of wheat offered by India through Pakistan on exceptional basis,” in a statement after a Nov. 12 meeting with Afghanistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
There was no immediate comment from Pakistan officials Monday.
Last month Pakistan had denied India’s request to send the wheat because of the fractious relationship between the two South Asian nations.
Brownstein’s contract with the Pakistani Embassy is worth $100,000 per month, to be paid quarterly, and includes Mimi Burke, Sean Callahan, David Cohen, Nadeam Elshami, Marc Lampkin, Doug Maguire, Al Mottur and Ari Zimmerman, in addition to Begich. It comes as Pakistan has continued to engage with the U.S., Russia and China in the wake of the pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s subsequent takeover. Representatives from those countries, or the extended troika, met last week in Islamabad to discuss what they described in a joint statement as a “severe humanitarian and economic situation in Afghanistan.” The extended troika also met with Taliban leaders on the sidelines of those talks, where they called on the Taliban to allow “unhindered humanitarian access” and pushed for the restoration of rights for women and girls.
— In a statement, Brownstein spokesperson Lara Day said that the firm will work to “forge stronger Pakistan-U.S. bilateral relations” following the withdrawal, which she contended is “essential to regional peace and stability, strong counterterrorism efforts, and promotion of economic growth and trade.” Day noted that Pakistan is also “at the crossroads of developments in and between Iran and China, making it strategically important to both the U.S. and European partners.”
While the Anglo-American intelligence alliance remains rock-solid, the Pakistani-American one has badly foundered. But decades from now, historians will look back on this era’s checkered legacy and highlight OVERT as a model. The menace of transnational terrorism will likely stay with us, and so we should hope that both friendly and adversarial nations will continue to work together to keep their populations safe without losing sight of their values.
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By AKI PERITZ
01/02/2022 07:00 AM EST
Aki Peritz is a former CIA analyst and the author of Disruption: Inside the Largest Counterterrorism Investigation in History, from which this article is adapted.
August 9, 2006. It was evening in Walthamstow, East London. Two local men had arranged to meet at the Town Hall complex to discuss an urgent matter. They met in the parking lot, briefly rummaging around in the back of one of their cars, before walking off toward the Walthamstow War Memorial. There, they leaned against a wall in the dark, chatting.
A little way off in the darkness, the command crackled over the police comms. The surveillance team watching the men from afar was ordered to move in and arrest them immediately. Their high-priority targets had converged on a single spot, and there was little time to waste. But this was Great Britain, where the police do not carry guns. These men and women were suddenly tasked to arrest the two top suspects in al-Qaeda’s largest terror plot in the West since 9/11 — and they didn’t have a single firearm among them.
All they had were, at best, cuffs and a stern voice. And so the team aggressively approached the men, hoping they wouldn’t have a gun or a knife. Or a bomb, possibly hidden in one of the cars, ready to detonate with a flick of the switch.
Utterly caught off guard, two men who had spent the last several months plotting to bring down multiple passenger planes over the Atlantic Ocean gave up without a fight.
Thus began a massive crackdown throughout the United Kingdom. That night and into the following morning, scores of police kicked down doors across London and elsewhere, tackling suspects on the street, dragging others from their homes and safehouses. It was the culmination of Operation OVERT, a massive investigation that had been whirring relatively quietly for months as the U.S., the U.K. and Pakistan worked together to crush what would come to be known as the transatlantic aircraft plot: a terrorist conspiracy to kill thousands of passengers by detonating liquid explosives hidden in plastic bottles.
OVERT was a huge undertaking; over 800 surveillance officers worked on cracking that cell, with teams pulled in from Northern Ireland and the military. “If the Boy Scouts had a surveillance team,” Steve Dryden of the London Metropolitan Police dryly noted, “we’d have used them as well.” Across the Atlantic, the White House, CIA, NSA and other departments were providing as much assistance to their British counterparts as possible. Cooperation from the United States, as well as from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had been critical to the effort that ended with the raft of arrests on that August night.