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Karzai vows to take war on Taliban to Pakistani soil (Roundup)

Jun 15, 2008, 10:58 GMT

Kabul - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that his country was victim of terrorism coming from the border with Pakistan and vowed to fight on Pakistani soil in 'self-defence.' Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai talks with journalists during a press conference in Kabul Afghanistan 15 June 2008. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on June 15 that his country was victim of terrorism coming from the border with Pakistan and vowed to fight on Pakistani soil in 'self-defence.' EPA/S. JAN

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai talks with journalists during a press conference in Kabul Afghanistan 15 June 2008. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on June 15 that his country was victim of terrorism coming from the border with Pakistan and vowed to fight on Pakistani soil in 'self-defence.' EPA/S. JANSpeaking to reporters in his fortified presidential palace, Karzai said three Pakistani Taliban leaders - Baitullah Mehsud, Mullah Fazilullah, and Mullah Omar - warned they would come to Afghanistan and fight the Afghan or international forces. 'Our patience is running thin, thousands of people are sent to our country, our houses are burnt, our school are burnt,' Karzai said. 'Mullah Fazilullah said that we have right to go to his house and kill him there wherever they are. Regarding Baitullah Mesud, we will go openly and we will hit him, the Pakistani government should know we will come and hit him there wherever he is,' Karzai said angrily. Mehsud is a Taliban leader who commands thousands fighters in South Waziristan, the restive tribal region in north-west Pakistan. He has recently vowed to wage Jihad (holy war) against the US and its allies in Afghanistan. Mehsud has also been accused of having direct links in the assassination of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, along with a series of suicide attacks on the country's security forces. Relations between Kabul and Islamabad, the two close allies of US on war against terror, have soured recently after the Pakistan government decided to strike a peace deal with Pakistani Taliban, who are widely entrenched on the border with Afghanistan. Several Afghan officials warned the truce would enable Taliban militants to step up their fights inside Afghanistan. US officials also recently joined Afghanistan in its concerns over the Pakistani truce, while NATO commanders on the ground have recently openly pointed finger at tribal area in Pakistan as the safe haven for insurgents. Pakistan, which supported the creation of Taliban and officially recognized the Ultra-Islamic regime until last days before the US-led invasion toppled their government, vehemently denies the claims and asserts that the regime has deployed more than 100,000 troops to the rugged border to clamp down on insurgents. Thousands of Taliban militants, including their leader, the one- eyed Mullah Mohammad Omar, have escaped and were given sanctuaries in Pakistani tribal region. The militants often cross border and stage attacks in Afghan soil. When a foreigner wanted to come to Afghanistan country and fight its forces, Karzai rhetorically asked: 'What should be our defence? Reading poems? Or it should be something that would rescue us?' 'We will be killed here anyway, it is better that we go a step forward and kill ourselves there so that the enemies could not come after us, it is a very serious issue,' the president said on his return from a donor conference in France. The Friday conference in Paris, the international community pledged more than 20 billion dollars for the reconstruction war- ravaged country and strengthening of its fledging security forces. 'Fazilullah should know that we will hit him in his house and in his bases, the other fellow Mullah Omar of Pakistan should know the same, this is a two-way road in this case,' Karzai said. 'We will get them and we will defeat them and we will avenge all that they have done in Afghanistan for the past so many years,' the Afghan president said. 'We hit them yesterday,' the president said, without giving any details. On Thursday at least 11 Pakistani troops including an officer were killed when US-led coalition forces destroyed paramilitary Frontier Corps post at Gora Prai in the tribal district of Mohmand Agency. The incident happened when Afghan and coalition forces clashed with a group of militants who were trying to cross the border. Islamabad protested the US forces for bombing, but coalition forces in Afghanistan called their action as 'self-defence'. Karzai's blunt comments come after some 900 prisoners including some 400 jailed Taliban managed to escape following an attack by militants on a prison in southern city of Kandahar on Friday night. The attack was similar to the previous two assaults earlier this year, in which Taliban militants, contrary to their typical guerrilla-style, carried out a more sophisticated attack strategy. In January a group of militants attacked the capital's only five- star hotel, killing six persons, while militants attacked a military parade in Kabul in May. Karzai and foreign diplomats attending the ceremony survived the attack, but three people, including a lawmaker, were killed. Following those incidents, Afghan top security chiefs said that the attack was plotted inside the tribal areas of Pakistan. 'These two incidents in Kabul and Kandahar were very, very fortunate incidents, indicative of the challenges that we still have indicative of the weaknesses that we still have,' Karzai admitted. 'Therefore it is all the more reason for us to work harder and to keep building the Afghan institutions and intelligence and to be a lot more alert and steadfast in our resolve in confronting terrorism as it affects all of us.'

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This is the old tribal warJun 15th, 2008 - 12:15:12

Karzai's background is that of a Pashtun warlord, and this whole thing seems in part about old rivalries. Just as Afghanistan has always been separated into tribes, Iraq has been divided along religious/sectarian lines.

Here's some history dating back to 2002 insofar as to how Karzai got where he is - and years later, nothing substantial has been done to pacify Afghanistan, or to end Taliban influence. They cannot even give a straight count of the prison escapees.

Note particularly the final paragraph pasted below (morw in the source link)

www.greenleft.org.au/2002/498/28003

The much-hyped loya jirga or grand assembly was supposed to be post-Taliban Afghanistan's first step towards the creation of a representative democratic government. However, even before the delegates had begun to gather in Kabul for the meeting's scheduled start on June 10, it was obvious that the loya jirga would be neither democratic nor representative.

It did not take long for delegates to realise that the main purpose of the stage-managed extravaganza was to formalise and legitimise the cynical ruling coalition between Afghanistan's most powerful warlords and the US-backed central regime of Hamid Karzai all with Washington's blessing.

As far as the US rulers and the Karzai regime were concerned, the loya jirga would be a mere formality. The May 25 New York Times reported: Karzai is expected to win an easy victory and lead the new government, Afghan officials and Western diplomats said? He is being strongly backed by the former king, Mohammad Zahir Shah and he has solidified his ties with several powerful former leaders of the Northern Alliance [NA]. The king has kept his promise not to push for the restoration of the monarchy

Karzai's strength reflects the enormous influence of the country that is backing him the United States. From warlords on the country's fringes to ministers jockeying for position in Kabul, many leaders see American money and military clout as the ultimate source of power here.?

Warlords return
Washington has acquiesced in the return of the warlords on the proviso that they pledge allegiance to Karzai's interim administration and cooperate militarily with US forces.

Post-Taliban Afghanistan is divided into three major cantons. the west is dominated by the forces of Ismail Khan, a Farsi-speaking Tajik warlord with strong ties to Iran; the north is mainly controlled by General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek leader of Junbish-i-Milli; and central Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, is the turf of the mainly ethnic Tajik Jamiat-i-Islami commanders from the Panjshir Valley, the most prominent being defence minister Mohammad Fahim.

The Panjshiri faction, Washington's main military ally in the toppling of the Taliban regime, was given a central role in the interim administration that was cobbled together in Bonn six months ago, being given the key ministries of defence, the interior (which runs the police) and foreign affairs.

However, in Afghanistan's south and east, no single warlord is paramount. The Pashtun ethnic majority in these areas now politically marginalised because it was a base for the Taliban is hostile to the NA-dominated Karzai government and is increasingly wary of the US. Even though Karzai is a Pashtun, many southern and eastern Pashtun tribal leaders consider him an agent of the Panjshiris. Pashtun civilians continue to bear the brunt of US military massacres.

In the Pashtun majority areas there are continuing stand-offs between a number of weak governors appointed by Karzai and local contenders for power the best-known being Bacha (sometimes referred to as Padsha Zadran) Khan Zardran who have strong military forces and support from Pashtun tribal chiefs.

While the US maintains an opportunistic military relationship with Pacha Khan and other anti-Karzai Pashtun warlords, Washington clearly fears that they may politically challenge Karzai's tenuous claim to be the representative of the Pashtun people.

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Karzai vows to take war on Taliban to Pakistani soil (Roundup)

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