It all started in mid-February of this year when Mullah Baradar, the second in command of the Afghan insurgency, was captured in a joint raid conducted by CIA and Pakistani forces in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city where members of the Taliban’s leadership council were reportedly hiding after being shifted from Quetta. Afterwards, local and international media outlets reported more captures of high command Taliban leaders and shadow governors in different parts of the country. The latest of the series was the apprehension of Mohtasim Agha Jan, former Taliban finance minister and son-in-law of Mullah Omar. With this, it is said that at least seven important members of the leadership council are now in Pakistan’s detention.

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The arrest of the de facto Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Pakistan’s Karachi city in a joint secret CIA-Pakistan raid was another major blow for the brutal insurgency in the region. Just few days before that, on February 13, a massive onslaught in the restive south of Afghanistan attacked the hardcore militants’ longtime stronghold. Sporadic fighting is reported from the area, and there is resistance in some places, yet both Afghan and NATO officials claimed to have seized the town and termed the operation as ‘successful.’ Although the forces were ordered to be extremely careful in targeting noncombatants, two incidents of killing civilians still occurred, yet displaced people from the conflict-hit town welcomed the operation.
In Pakistan, the insurgents saw their second and more vindictive leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, died in a drone attack probably days after he appeared in a video with the Jordanian suicide bomber and claimed responsibility for the attack that killed 7 CIA experts in Khost. Analysts in the region say that his murder had led to cause a split between other Taliban leaders in the tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan and that had significant negative impacts on activities of the terrorist outfit.
The arrest of Mullah Baradar is similarly the most important achievement in the counterinsurgency efforts since the US-led international troops invaded Afghanistan to oust his Al-Qaeda-linked government. Though at that time the spiritual leader of the movement was the one-eyed former jihadi commander Mullah Omar, and he still enjoys his position as the Supreme Leader, it was Mullah Baradar who emerged as a de facto leader of the Taliban and commanded the powerful Quetta Shura the existence of which the government of Pakistan constantly denied but reports said ISI had helped it in shifting to Karachi from Quetta after there was a discussion to whether kill the top Quetta Taliban leaders in drone attacks.
Pakistan is believed to have been providing support to the Afghan Taliban for a long time. Its intelligence outfits provided protection to commanders and strategists that were hiding and operating in Pakistan. How did they allow the Americans to capture this top military strategist is not clear now, but t is clear enough that this will significantly affect the insurgency in Afghanistan because the new strategy is focusing to target the top leaders, chase the local ones, and offer reintegration to the foot soldiers, all at the same time.
Now this is an important opportunity for the international community to continue chasing the top leaders in Pakistan and disconnecting them from the local commanders in the field (Afghanistan). An effective reintegration program in Kabul can help the new strategy to quicken its pace for achieving its goals which will eventually enable the Afghan government to establish its writ across the country and the allied countries to withdraw their troops. Avoiding past mistakes and strengthening Afghan security forces should be kept in mind as the most important factors in making the process successfully completed.

KABUL (PAN): “Is anyone in Kabul hearing booms and pop-pop of gunfire? Or is it just me?” This was one of first tweets about the January 18 multiple terrorist attacks in the heart of the central capital.

The assailants targeted the Presidential Palace, Serena Hotel, Faroshgah, Gulbahar Business Centre and many other places, fuelling panic and chaos across the city. The tweet was posted by a Kabul-based British woman, who has a twitter account http://twitter.com/girlofgordon.

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We, Afghans, love Kabul, and we are hurt when this city is hurt. The terrorists have hurt it again. I am sick today and can’t write more. We just feel hurt!
Kabul attack in pictures.
5 dead, 38 wounded.
Updates on twitter
Video of the attack.

The suicide car bomb on Tuesday that killed at least 8 and wounded another 40 people in Kabul’s heavily fortified area of Wazir Akbar Khan district took place after a series of important events that affected or likely to affect Afghan politics. This was the first major attack in Kabul after President Obama announced his widely debated new Afghan strategy on Dec. 1, 2009. This coincided with the formation of a new cabinet that is internationally expected to curb corruption in the Afghan government. President Karzai has been under heavy pressure in picking up his new ministers. To work out both these crucial issues, the United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently visited Kabul followed by an unannounced visit by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

The main focus of the new Obama strategy was on sending the additional 30,000 troops to be arrived soon and deployed in different parts of Afghanistan. The Taliban had vowed to step up attacks and turn the new policy into a failure. The new wave of attacks – the killing of 16 policemen in Baghlan and Helmand in two separate attacks and the killing of 5 government officials in Paktia province – along with today’s deadly Kabul attack could be quoted as an example.

As usual, the Taliban spokesman, calling from an undisclosed place, took the responsibility of the attack and claimed that the target was a guest house, favorite of the European visitors and international workers, owned by the son of a former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani. There are rumors that the owner of the guest house is going to be included in the new Afghan government formation. But nearby to the place where the attack took place is the house of the former first vice president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, brother of the legendary Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Massouds were reported to have claimed that the former first vice president was the target but he survived.

In any case, the attack was a ‘new message’ for the new Afghan government as well as the new international commitment with Afghanistan as how the Taliban have still the capability to responding to the new strategies. This emphasizes on the need of multi-faceted mechanisms on the part of the international community to combat terrorism. For the Afghan government, President Karzai has to realize the enormity of the challenges his next government will have to face.

Karzai

For the last three or four days, I have been asked a question nearly a hundred times: ‘what are the election results?’ From my neighbors next door to the taxi drivers, colleagues and local and foreign journalists, everyone is impatient to know the outcome of the much-discussed, controversial Afghan elections that were held on August 20, but two months passed and no one has a clue about the real situation. One day it seems that a runoff will be the result but the next day there is a strong possibility that President Hamid Karzai is going to be declared as the winner. On the third day it appears there is a possibility for ‘negotiations’ and a ‘coalition government.’

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The two-day World Pashto Conference (Oct. 08-09, 2009) in Kabul concluded on Friday with a special focus on education for the Pashtun people in Afghanistan and Pakistan and appealed the militants active in both countries to stop torching schools and other educational institutions.

The conference was arranged by two cultural and literary groups working for the promotion of the Pashto language in Kabul; it was the first World Pashto Conference in Afghanistan and the eighth of overall World Pashto Conferences; all of the previous World Pashto Conferences were held in Pakistan. The first World Pashto Conference was held in Peshawar in 1988.

Delegations and representatives of Pashto literary organizations from India, Pakistan, European countries, Gulf countries, Canada and the United States participated in the Conference. Several government officials, governors, members of Parliament, and tribal elders were also present.

There were four workshops in the Conference to discuss the problems the Pashtuns and their language – Pashto – has been facing in the world today. They discussed the overall situation of the Pashtuns, the lack of educational institutions for Pashtun children, the faults in the jirga system, and the apathy the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan have towards the Pashto language.

There was a poetry reciting gathering on the first day and a music and dance session on the second day. Nearly all of the poems were about the current war-like situation in the tribal areas and Afghanistan and Pakistan. They said the war had destroyed not only their land and people, but also the history, culture, and the future.

At the concluding session, the participants unanimously passed a resolution which:

• appealed the anti-government elements on both sides of the border to stop torching schools;

• asked the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan to support the Pashto language and work for its promotion;

• asked the relevant government institutions, literary and cultural organizations, and the civil society to cooperate with each other and find implementable mechanisms for the solutions of the problems the Pashtuns have been facing and for the promotion of the Pashto language; and

• asked the international community and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to provide more and modern educational opportunities to the Pashtuns for their progress and prosperity.

Interesting notes:

• The Chairman of the first World Pashto Conference – a well-known progressive Pashtun writer, Salim Raaz – was not invited to the Conference. He told a news conference in Peshawar that the Kabul Conference was not part of the World Pashto Conferences and he didn’t know who had arranged it.

• All of the participants from Pakistan said they felt at home in Afghanistan because the country was their mother land.

• A speaker from Pakistan continuously used the term ‘Occupied Afghanistan’ for the tribal areas and the settled Pashtun-dominated districts of Pakistan (reminding the people that these areas are a part of Afghanistan but occupied by Pakistan).

• Most of the speeches and the poems focused on the current situation in the tribal areas and the worst conditions the Pashtuns live in.

• A Working Committee established the World Pashto Network and there was a demand for a World Pashto Conference every year.

• Several of the participants complained about bad arrangements of the conference.

• At polling centers, the number of representatives of candidates, foreign observers and media people was higher than the voters.

• Most of the voters did not know about the candidates for provincial seats. They thought the election was just for electing the new president. After casting their vote for the presidential candidate, when the election commission employees told them that they had to vote for any of the provincial candidate too, they were surprised at first, then randomly selected one candidate from the list and voted.

• At the polling center at Habibia High School, Karta-e-3, an elderly man told me he had voted for President Karzai. Minutes later another presidential candidate, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, arrived there and, after casting his vote, started meeting with voters. The elderly man met with him enthusiastically, praised his role in the country’s development and told him that he liked him very much. When Dr. Ghani left the polling center, I asked the elderly man why he voted for Karzai if he liked Dr. Ghani that much. ‘It is simple. I like Ghani, but I voted for Karzai because he had the required experience for a president and knew how to rule the country,’ he replied.

• There were people who campaigned for other candidates but ended up voting for Karzai. One of them said he did this because he knew President Karzai was going to win. ‘I did not like the idea of my vote going to a loser.’

• A friend told me that some Pashtoon voters did not like Karzai’s policies and government, yet they voted for him just because they did not want to see Dr. Abdullah as a winner. Many of the voters of this mentality, according to my friend, said: ‘If we voted for Dr. Ashraf Ghani, Pashtoon votes will be divided and Dr. Abdullah will win the election.’

• Turnout was low but very few of the voters who went to polling centers had any fears of the Taliban attacks. They were excited and many of them waited for many hours outside the polling centers to have some information about the results.

• A television crew wanted to show their audience that the turnout was high. So they lined up the voters, including those who had polled their votes, and filmed the scene.

Afghan Presidential Election 2009. Photo by Abdulhadi Hairan

Afghan Presidential Election 2009. Photo by Abdulhadi Hairan

Presidential candidate Dr. Ashraf Ghani outside Habibia High School after he polled his voted. Photo by Abdulhadi Hairan

Click to read: Majority of a low turnout voted for Karzai

Afghan Presidential Election 2009. Photo by Abdulhadi Hairan

Presidential candidate Ramazan Bashardost talking to media outside a polling center. Photo by Abdulhadi Hairan

Afghan Presidential Election 2009. Photo by Abdulhadi Hairan

Click to read: Majority of a low turnout voted for Karzai