US drones killed 2,183 Jihadis, 487 civilians since 2004
Can this be true? the 487 figure? My God that's terrible however if that figure is anywhere near the truth .. heck even give a hundred or so ... then US citizens are killing each other at a much faster clip than that .. It seems our citizens need discipline ... ;) I swear I read that we, Americans have killed more than have been killed in our wars .. right here in this Blessed Country. that just can't be true ... could it.
By David Loyn BBC News, Herat 31 August 2012 Last updated at 06:36 GMT
'Me, or the Taliban': Fighter leaves for love - ..embedded video
Much of the recent history of Afghanistan can be told through the life of one commander in the western city of Herat - Abdullah, known as "Charsi", which means "the hashish smoker".
In a city proud of having Afghanistan's only museum to the jihad, the Islamist war against Soviet domination in the 1980s, Abdullah "Charsi" was one of the mujahideen fighters, led in the west by the legendary commander Ismail Khan.
He lay low in the Taliban years in the late 1990s, but amid growing disorder when US-led troops came into the area, he joined the Taliban. Now he has brought his followers back from the mountains to rejoin the government side.
Abdullah's alliance with the Taliban was not ideological but practical. They offered security at a time of insecurity.
Now, amid a general redrawing of forces ahead of the departure of foreign combat troops in less than two years' time, he is switching to what he believes will be the stronger side. He says that as the foreigners leave, "we Afghans have to take the country for ourselves."
He knows of three other groups of ex-mujahideen fighters, numbering hundreds of men each, moving back from the Taliban to the government side.
Red Cross worker Abdul Karim says he was tortured by Abdullah's men
Since he left the Taliban, Abdullah claims his men have been at the forefront of several operations by Afghan government forces against the Taliban - unofficial militias fighting alongside uniformed government troops.
Now he wants to join the government formally and rolled out a long sheet of paper marked with hundreds of thumbprints and signatures of local elders who back his bid to be the police chief for a large part of the city of Herat and the border with Iran.
"I haven't done anything against the law. I went to the mountains with the Taliban because of security problems," he said.
"I did not plant mines in villages, or use suicide bombers as they did.'
Torture claims
But not everybody backs him. Abdul Karim is a Red Cross official who claims he was tortured by Abdullah's men when they were with the Taliban.
He said that twice they threatened him and extorted large quantities of fuel, and when he did not break his links with the government, more than 30 men appeared on motorcycles and took him away.
"They took me to the edge of the river, tied my hands and feet, blindfolded me and beat me.
“ If you have committed crimes against humanity, or crimes like torture, then you will be held accountable” Gen David Hook
[ OOPS? C'mon, David - accountability for torture in Afghanistan, while not for even in the USA? ]
"They hit me so hard that I began to bleed." He says that they threw him into the river, and left him for dead.
He said that Abdullah should not be made a police chief, but "should have been hanged in public, as a lesson to others".
Abdullah denied the allegations of torture. But he said that Adbul Karim should have been killed for what he did - claiming he was a government spy (working for the very government that Abdullah is now trying to join).
The process of "reintegration" - persuading those allied to the Taliban to hand in their weapons and come over to the government side - is led by a British general, David Hook.
He said that to encourage the switch, fighters are given a general amnesty, but not for serious crimes: "If you have committed crimes against humanity, or crimes like torture, then you will be held accountable by the legal system of Afghanistan."
If the torture victim we spoke to is to be believed, then those running reintegration programmes are not looking very closely at the pasts of those they disarm.
And what appears to be happening in the Herat region is men coming over to the government side, not because of government incentives, but because of a change in atmosphere, as alliances alter ahead of the departure of foreign forces.
Those who take up the government offer to leave the Taliban receive a coat, a Koran, and three months' wages.
But the scheme is having little impact in the places where the Taliban are strongest. Most of the 5,000 who have reintegrated in the last two years are from the north and west - with the largest number coming over in Ghor Province, never a Taliban stronghold.
'Me or the Taliban'
Parveen persuaded her husband Basir Ahmad to leave the Taliban
[ YEAH! ]
At a reintegration ceremony in Ghor witnessed by the BBC, many taking up the offer were old men, handing in rusting, locally-made single-shot rifles, and did not look like Taliban at all. Some western diplomats have privately expressed doubts about the value of the scheme.
One tribal leader near Herat has left the Taliban for an unusual reason. The girl he wanted to marry gave him a simple message: "Choose me or the Taliban." Basir Ahmed is not a typical Taliban fighter, being easily persuaded to pick up his harmonium, and sing a love song.
He had joined the Taliban - like so many others in this region - to defend himself against criminality and disorder. He handed in his rifles to the headmaster at the school where his intended wife, Parveen, was studying.
Now both regret it. He has left himself defenceless, and his house has been attacked three times.
Ending conflict and dealing with wrongs committed during it are never tidy affairs.
The challenge to the Afghan government, both in the case of the alleged torture victim Abdul Karim, and the singing ex-Talib, Basir Ahmed, is to provide security to protect them.
By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul 2 February 2012 Last updated at 17:33 GMT
Many doubt Afghan forces will be able to withstand the Taliban after 2014
Nato has invested hundreds of billions of dollars over the past 10 years trying to raise a modern army for Afghanistan and to rebuild the country's infrastructure.
But if a leaked classified report prepared by the alliance is to believed, all this will go to waste soon after foreign combat forces withdraw in 2014.
The latest in a series of leaks suggests that Nato is much more worried about the course of the war than it lets on in public.
Nato has tried to play down the importance of the report by calling it a "compilation of opinions expressed by Taliban detainees", but it highlights many failures in the decade-long war in Afghanistan.
The harsh reality is that an increasing number of Afghans are turning to the Taliban, having grown mistrustful of Nato and Afghan forces.
In remote parts of the country where the government rules only on paper, the Taliban are often preferred.
"Americans are like Kuchi nomads," a tribal elder from the south-east once told me. "They come with their tents for some time and before you know them, they leave."
Taliban courts
People have little choice but to support the Taliban in many areas, given the power of the militants.
But widespread corruption in the government and a culture of impunity - where senior bureaucrats or those with connections to them easily escape punishment even for serious crimes like murder - are seen as reasons for people moving closer to the Taliban.
In Kunduz in the north, for instance, several militia commanders working for the government have been accused of extortion, robbery and rape, but not one has ever been tried.
Locals say corruption is rampant even in the judiciary and they have no option but to turn to shadowy Taliban judges to resolve disputes.
One Kabul man I spoke to, Jamshid, a fruit vendor in his 30s, compared the judicial system of the Karzai administration with the desert courts of the Taliban.
"The Taliban courts were swift and strict," he said with admiration.
"A thief would be given the death sentence after a short trial. But under Mr Karzai's rule, it will take a century to prove a thief guilty - and even then there is no guarantee that he will be punished."
Villagers often prefer the Taliban to "corrupt" Afghan authorities, the report alleges
The country's poor literacy rate and the Taliban's psychological war in many districts is believed to have helped the insurgents to win the hearts of the Afghan population.
Taliban songs, videos and ringtones play on people's emotions.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar has launched his own style of counter-insurgency, and a shadow Taliban administration of sorts is in place in many areas.
Taliban officials do the rounds in villages, districts and valleys collecting taxes and dispensing their version of justice.
I know of several cases where Taliban officials have been fired because people have complained about them - many people see this as a more responsive system than the actual government where such action is rare.
And family loyalties run deep. People from the same village or district as a Taliban fighter will never hand him over to Nato or the Afghan government.
Many families have members working on both sides, some for Afghan forces, others for the Taliban - this is seen as a form of local insurance policy. When villagers hear US President Barack Obama or Vice-President Joe Biden discussing withdrawal in 2014, the Taliban come and say, look Nato is leaving, but we will be here.
“Please don't mind because you [Afghan government officials] have helped the mujahideen and you are our friends” Taliban radio broadcast
The Taliban's reach is thought to extend right into parts of the government.
When I was in Sarkano district in the eastern province of Kunar, I could hear the Taliban presenter on Radio Voice of Sharia FM: "This is a message for apostate employees of the Afghan government. But not to some of our friends in the government - they know who they are."
Serious threat
Senior officials have told me some government members think the Taliban might return.
"So, they tell the Taliban, 'look we have sympathy with you'," one of the officials said.
"Then the Taliban tell these officials to prove their support. Sometimes, they ask these officials to help carry a fighter, a suicide attacker, or to help with weapons and access."
Another reason for locals turning away from the elected government is its failure to restore or maintain order in areas vacated by Western forces. Afghan security forces, grappling with high illiteracy rates, desertion, drug addiction and Taliban infiltration, have failed to instil confidence in the people.
There have even been several reports of Afghan police selling their weapons to militants.
While Afghan officials admit there are problems in the army and police - on whom the country's future security depends - they say there is no systemic failure.
"The reality is that they sell their bullets and weapons in the market to the highest bidder and that sometimes includes Taliban or other insurgent groups," said one senior Afghan security official in Kabul.
Pakistan is crucial
The leak also puts Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a very difficult position.
He has been trying to repair ties with Afghanistan's not-so-friendly neighbour, Pakistan, which denies sheltering the militants. The report's claims that Pakistani security services are helping the Taliban will do nothing to help his efforts.
Mr Karzai has told his confidants on several occasions that a peace dialogue with the Taliban will succeed only when it has the backing of Pakistan.
"If you have a hundred channels to talk to the Taliban through, and Pakistan is not on board, all of these channels will get closed, but if you have a small number of channels to contact Taliban through, along with Pakistan's approval, it will surely take you somewhere," one senior aide to the president told the BBC.
The leaked document seriously undermines Nato and Afghan government claims over the years that the Taliban have lost their punch.
On the contrary, the Taliban remain a more serious threat than ever to peace and stability in Afghanistan.
Most international troops are withdrawing from Afghanistan this year. After 12 years of a US-led invasion, parallels are being drawn with the Soviet exit, decades ago. [ more ]
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Afghanistan: An Army Prepares
When US troops leave Afghanistan in 2014, will the country's own forces be able to hold the line against the Taliban?
People and Power Last Modified: 13 Dec 2012 08:18
By filmmaker John D McHugh
The US military has an expression – no man gets left behind. But with the withdrawal of coalition combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014 drawing closer, the men of the Afghan National Army (ANA) could be forgiven for feeling that they are indeed being abandoned.
In 2009, the US announced that the size of the ANA would be increased to almost 200,000 soldiers [John D McHugh]
In order to be able to leave and not have Afghanistan collapse immediately on their departure, the Americans announced at the end of 2009 that the size of the ANA would be increased to almost 200,000 soldiers.
A huge recruitment and training drive began, with new military training centres being set up around the country to facilitate the explosion in numbers.
In June 2012, slightly ahead of schedule, the ANA reached its quota. With great fanfare this was announced to the world as a sign that the army was ready to fulfill its obligations in protecting Afghanistan.
But the hard reality is that the ANA still depends on the US-led coalition for logistics, maintenance, intelligence-gathering and analysis, artillery and air support, medical evacuation (Medevac) and much, much more.
In fact, talk to any coalition troops on the ground and they will tell you the Afghans can fight, but only after they have been fed, clothed, armed and delivered to the battlefield by NATO.
Chief Warrant Officer Klaus Augustinus is a Danish mentor/advisor to the ANA and is on his third tour in Afghanistan. He openly admits that he was unimpressed with the ANA in the past, but now he feels they are making real progress. However, he says, it is the insistence on viewing the ANA through the prism of a Western army that leads to many problems.
“Always keep in mind that the Afghan way is the right way,” Klaus says. “We’re not going to do it any faster than they can cope with it. Otherwise we’re going to lose.”
Desertion
The Afghan Defence Ministry admits that between seven and ten per cent of its troops desert every year [John D McHugh]
There is no doubt that this huge new army is plagued with problems, but by far the biggest is the sheer turnover of men - currently running at about 30 per cent a year. In other words, the ANA has to find replacements for around 60,000 men every year.
There are many reasons for this attrition. The casualty rate is high, with more than 850 soldiers confirmed killed in 2012 alone, and a great many more wounded. As the ANA takes over the lead role in providing security throughout Afghanistan in 2013, both figures are expected to increase dramatically.
Part of this will doubtless be due to more fighting, but only barely adequate medical support and the likely withdrawal of full airborne Medevac services will not help either.
Currently the ANA relies on the coalition helicopters to take its wounded to hospital quickly. If not available, the ANA will have to use ground transportation to move badly injured men, increasing the time it takes to get them to a place of proper care and significantly reducing survival rates.
Failure to re-enlist is also a big problem. Right now about one-quarter of all recruits decline to sign up for a further tour of duty contract after their initial three-year commitment is completed.
Then there is desertion – a concern to all army commanders of a volunteer army during a war, but something to which the ANA currently seems especially vulnerable. The Afghan defence ministry admits to losing between 7-10 per cent of its troops every year in this way.
When we spoke to General Karimi, the ANA chief of staff, he told us that desertion is much reduced and that measures are in place to reduce it further. That may be true, but no one knows exactly what will happen when the ANA begins bearing the brunt of the fight against the Taliban in a little over a year’s time.
Taliban intimidation and threats
So why are desertion rates so high? We managed to find some deserters (it is not hard to track them down) and they cited three main reasons: corruption and abuse of power by officers, lack of care for troops and probably most significantly, Taliban intimidation and threats.
Naim was in the ANA for two-and-a-half years. His family had not wanted him to join the military, but they were poor, and so in order to help out he signed up. He says he actually enjoyed his time in the army and he saw a lot of action in the turbulent east of the country. But one day he was wounded in a firefight, shot in the knee, and everything changed. He says it was an American soldier who rushed to his aid, and gave him immediate treatment. Within 10 minutes he was on a US Medevac helicopter, and spent the next month being treated by US medical staff – for which he is grateful.
But from the time he was injured, he says, he was abandoned by his own army. No one, not even his platoon NCOs (non-commissioned officers) or commander, came to check on him, to see how he was doing or to ask whether he was receiving appropriate care. Worse still, nobody from the ANA bothered to tell his family where he was.
After a month, he was transferred to another facility and was able to call home. But by this time, having repeatedly asked for information on their missing son, his parents had been told that he was dead and had held funeral rites. Though delighted and relieved to hear he was safe, they were understandably furious about ANA’s callous disregard. When Naim was released from hospital two months later, his father forbade him from returning to his unit. It is a story in line with an often-heard complaint from former recruits, who say the value that the coalition armies place on the health and general wellbeing of their troops is rarely, if ever, replicated in the Afghan force.
But in truth, Taliban threats against individual ANA soldiers - and more insidiously against their families - are probably a much bigger cause for desertion than their own side’s institutional indifference. We spoke to one deserter, identified in our film as ‘Amir’, who had gone absent from his unit only a few weeks earlier. He told us that the Taliban had visited his family home several times and told them that if he did not leave the army, they would cut off his head. When that did not work, they extended the threat to the whole family and he had no choice but to do as they ordered. He is still furious about it, but said he had to put his relatives first.
'Green on blue'
Of course, it is not the only way the Taliban have sought to disrupt the buildup of the ANA. It is now generally accepted that in the rush to accrue the huge numbers needed, the ANA was far from effective in vetting volunteers – and that is a failing that the insurgents have done their best to exploit.
Although it is by no means the only cause, it may well have contributed to a rise in so-called 'green on blue' attacks over the last 12 months. So far, more than 50 coalition soldiers have been killed in 2012 in these insider incidents, when a member of the Afghan security forces, or an infiltrator dressed in a uniform, turns his weapon on his unsuspecting Western allies. The problem is, it is something that is almost impossible for coalition troops to guard against when working alongside Afghans, and worse, every safeguard that is put in place erodes trust between the two groups.
Of course, the perception in the West that the Taliban is behind all of these attacks is somewhat misplaced. Insurgents routinely claim each and every 'green on blue' attack as a planned operation, but the reality is that many are the result of a real or perceived slight, or an argument that just went too far. After extensive questioning of the attackers (or at least those that are not gunned down immediately) the Afghan authorities say approximately 25 percent of the perpetrators have provable links to the Taliban, but the rest of the incidents are down to other factors.
Whether this is true or not, the fact that some attacks are orchestrated by the Taliban is enough to add to the general Western clamour to get out of an ungrateful Afghanistan as soon as possible – which means they have fulfilled their purpose.
Equipment
ANA officers say the US promised military material to help them go it alone after the 2014 withdrawal [John D McHugh]
Another key question facing the ANA is how well-equipped its troops will be to take on the Taliban. Officers told us that they have been promised all manner of military material by the coalition forces to help them go it alone after the 2014 US withdrawal.
But it is questionable how much time has been spent asking the Afghans what they actually want – even down to that most basic item of an infantryman’s kit, his rifle.
When in 2008 the much loved and trusted AK-47 (the Kalashnikov had previously been the ANA’s standard issue weapon) began to be replaced by the American-made M-16 rifle, there were loud cries of complaint.
The M-16 may be a reliable gun in the hands of a well-supplied and well-trained US soldier, but in dusty and dry Afghanistan the weapon is a disaster. Its lubricant-hungry parts soak up the dirt causing the weapon to jam and stick persistently.
Coalition trainers say that with proper cleaning and maintenance the M-16 is reliable and effective – but most Afghan army veterans are quick to point out that they already had one of the world’s most reliable weapons. They add that ANA supply lines are poor and getting the necessary cleaning oil out to where it is needed on the battlefield often proves impossible.
In fact, many consider that the issue of the M-16 is actually just another sign of coalition mistrust. The AK-47 takes a 7.62mm round, whereas the M-16 uses the standard NATO 5.56mm bullet. Yet because the AK-47 is widely-used both by the Taliban and elsewhere in the region, the ammunition for it is readily available. M-16 rounds, of course, are that much harder to obtain. It means that if an ANA soldier deserts to the Taliban with his newly-issued M-16 in tow, he will struggle to find bullets for it. Spend any time with ANA troops and cynics among them will tell you that they are being forced to fight (sometimes with dangerous consequences) with a rifle that jams, purely because their allies want to stop it of being any use to the other side.
After 2014
If the ANA collapses Afghanistan's last line of defense will crumble and chaos will engulf the country again [John D McHugh]
In Chicago in early 2012, Barack Obama, the US president, described the plans to withdraw from Afghanistan as “irreversible”.
But the fortunes of the ANA are very much reversible, and if the army collapses, or fractures along ethnic lines, Afghanistan’s last line of defence will crumble and chaos will engulf the country once again.
From what we witnessed in the making of this film, it is hard to see how the Afghan army, however dedicated, can achieve what the far greater resourced “Coalition of the Willing” has failed to do over the past 11 years.
And yet, despite this, morale among ANA troops - or at least among many of those we spoke to - is higher than it might be expected to be.
Although they have been playing a support role in the coalition’s fight against the Taliban up until now, Afghan units have had their successes and on occasion ANA troops have displayed notable courage and determination in the field. This kind of commitment may not be enough to prevail against the Taliban in any long drawn-out fight, but once US troops leave and the dynamics of the war change (as they must), it may just be sufficient to hold the line for a time, and allow Afghanistan to find a way to peace through other means.
America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
By Ben Farmer, Kabul - 10:33PM BST 19 Aug 2011 - 479 Comments
The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.
The prospect of such a deal has already been met with anger among Afghanistan’s neighbours including, publicly, Iran and, privately, Pakistan.
It also risks being rejected by the Taliban and derailing any attempt to coax them to the negotiating table, according to one senior member of Hamid Karzai’s peace council.
A withdrawal of American troops has already begun following an agreement to hand over security for the country to Kabul by the end of 2014.
But Afghans wary of being abandoned are keen to lock America into a longer partnership after the deadline. Many analysts also believe the American military would like to retain a presence close to Pakistan, Iran and China.
Both Afghan and American officials said that they hoped to sign the pact before the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December. Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai agreed last week to escalate the negotiations and their national security advisers will meet in Washington in September.
Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Mr Karzai’s top security adviser, told The Daily Telegraph that “remarkable progress” had been made. US officials have said they would be disappointed if a deal could not be reached by December and that the majority of small print had been agreed.
Dr Spanta said a longer-term presence was crucial not only to build Afghan forces, but also to fight terrorism.
“If [the Americans] provide us weapons and equipment, they need facilities to bring that equipment,” he said. “If they train our police and soldiers, then those trainers will not be 10 or 20, they will be thousands.
“We know we will be confronted with international terrorists. 2014, is not the end of international terrorist networks and we have a common commitment to fight them. For this purpose also, the US needs facilities.”
Afghan forces would still need support from US fighter aircraft and helicopters, he predicted. In the past, Washington officials have estimated a total of 25,000 troops may be needed.
Dr Spanta added: “In the Afghan proposal we are talking about 10 years from 2014, but this is under discussion.” America would not be granted its own bases, and would be a guest on Afghan bases, he said. Pakistan and Iran were also deeply opposed to the deal.
Andrey Avetisyan, Russian ambassador to Kabul, said: “Afghanistan needs many other things apart from the permanent military presence of some countries. It needs economic help and it needs peace. Military bases are not a tool for peace.
“I don’t understand why such bases are needed. If the job is done, if terrorism is defeated and peace and stability is brought back, then why would you need bases?
“If the job is not done, then several thousand troops, even special forces, will not be able to do the job that 150,000 troops couldn’t do. It is not possible.”
A complete withdrawal of foreign troops has been a precondition for any Taliban negotiations with Mr Karzai’s government and the deal would wreck the currently distant prospect of a negotiated peace, Mr Avetisyan said.
Abdul Hakim Mujahid, deputy leader of the peace council set up by Mr Karzai to seek a settlement, said he suspected the Taliban had intensified their insurgency in response to the prospect of the pact. “They want to put pressure on the world community and Afghan government,” he said.
KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. and Afghanistan reached a deal Sunday on a long-delayed strategic partnership agreement that ensures Americans will provide military and financial support to the Afghan people for at least a decade beyond 2014, the deadline for most foreign forces to withdraw.
The Karachi airport attack comes against the backdrop of a major split in the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) - and threats of retaliation following limited military operations against foreign militants in North Waziristan.
Given the violence it seems clear that any pretence at a peace process is now over. Few seriously thought that recent talks between the government and militants were getting anywhere anyway.
The attack is also a reminder, if it were needed, that despite their divisions the Taliban retain the capability to mount spectacular strikes across Pakistan.
The Karachi raid comes at a time when significant re-alignments are in the offing within militant ranks ahead of the Nato drawdown of combat troops in Afghanistan later this year.
Both North and South Waziristan, along with other tribal districts, are strongholds for Taliban militants
The split within the TTP is the clearest symptom of these changes.
The TTP was founded, and invariably headed by, a Mehsud tribesman from the South Waziristan tribal region. But last November, after its former leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike, its leadership passed into the hands of Mullah Fazlullah, a non-Mehsud from Swat region.
This, combined with an offer of peace talks by the Pakistani government, led to an internal struggle between the powerful Mehsud faction and the non-Mehsud elements.
Former BBC correspondent Rahimullah Yousufzai, who is an expert on Taliban affairs, says one reason the Mehsuds fell out with the TTP leadership was because of their keenness to hold peace talks.
"The Mehsud tribe has suffered the most in Pakistan's war against militancy," he says.
"The 2009 military operation in their area scattered them into far-off cities such as Lahore and Karachi where people view them with suspicion. They don't live normal lives. This has created pressures on their leaders to mend fences with the government and pave the way for their rehabilitation."
The Mehsud faction, led by Khalid Mehsud (alias Khan Said Sajna), not only wiped out their TTP rivals from their native South Waziristan, they also captured most TTP strongholds in Karachi.
But Sunday night's attack shows the groups allied with Mullah Fazlullah's TTP still have secure hideouts in the country's largest city and the capability to launch attacks on high-value targets there.
The situation is further complicated by a warning issued to local people by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who heads a powerful Taliban faction in North Waziristan, at the end of May, asking them to move to safer locations "before hostilities break out with the government".
He was apparently incensed over some limited military action in a village near the town of Miranshah from where locals say foreign militants, predominantly Uzbeks, were "flushed out and encouraged to cross the border into Afghanistan".
Locals in Miranshah say most foreigners have left the area. Many have headed into Afghanistan, but many more have slipped into Pakistan. They say it is not clear if an alternative sanctuary is emerging in Afghanistan's Khost area, which has recently been vacated by the Americans.
Unlike the TTP, which has fought inside Pakistan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur has had a peace agreement with Islamabad since 2007, and has entirely focused his attention on foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan. He also has a close working relationship with the Mullah Nazir group which controls the western half of South Waziristan, has a similar peace agreement with Islamabad, and has been exclusively fighting inside Afghanistan.
Analysts believe that both these groups view the TTP split as the handiwork of Pakistani intelligence agents who play one faction against another to advance their own interests in Afghanistan, a suggestion denied by Islamabad but which few believe.
"There is a fear among the Bahadur and Nazir groups that if Pakistan succeeds in bringing the TTP to its knees, they will become redundant at best, and may suffer a similar fate at worst," says Khadim Hussain, an expert on militancy and author of the book Militant Discourse.
VIDEO - Karachi has been a target for many attacks by the Taliban
But these are not the only elements in the Waziristan matrix. For more than a decade, the area has been a sanctuary for Afghanistan's Haqqani Network, and thousands of "outsiders" - militants from Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, north-western China, and other parts of Asia and South Asia, including Punjab province in Pakistan.
Most of these "outsiders" have little interest in promoting peace with either Islamabad or Kabul, and are likely to align with those native factions that aim to create a permanent post-Nato sanctuary in areas comprising southern and eastern Afghanistan, Pakistan's tribal region and parts of its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Uzbek militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), who are believed to have taken part in the attack on the airport, are one such group. DNA tests will be conducted to try to verify if any of the militants killed were Uzbeks.
Either way, the authorities have warned a council of elders in North Waziristan to expel foreign militants from their area.
What happens now to Pakistan's fast-changing militant alliances remains unclear - but the backdrop to the Karachi attack is far more complex than it appears at first glance. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Who are the Pakistani Taliban?
• With its roots in the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban movement came to the fore in 2007 by unleashing a wave of violence
• Its leaders have traditionally been based in Pakistan's tribal areas but it is really a loose affiliation of militant groups, some based in areas like Punjab and even Karachi
• The various Taliban groups have different attitudes to talks with the government - some analysts say this has led to divisions in the movement
• Collectively they are responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistanis and have also co-ordinated assaults on numerous security targets
• Two former TTP leaders, Baitullah Mehsud and Hakimullah Mehsud, as well as many senior commanders have been killed in US drone strikes
• It is unclear if current leader Maulana Fazlullah, who comes from outside the tribal belt, is even in Pakistan, but he has a reputation for ruthlessness
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Pakistani military said Saturday that it had killed a senior leader of Al Qaeda wanted in the United States on charges of plotting to bomb several Western targets, including the New York City subway system.
The death of Adnan G. el-Shukrijumah, described by the F.B.I. as a leader in Al Qaeda’s external operations program, marks a major counterterrorism victory for the Pakistani military, and is likely to further improve fraught relations with the United States.
Mr. Shukrijumah was killed either late Friday or early Saturday in a raid at a remote compound in the tribal district of South Waziristan, which is home to many militants and is a major focus of the C.I.A.-led drone campaign. It comes just over a week after a trip to Washington by the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, who met with Secretary of State John Kerry and American military leaders in a visit intended to repair a strategic relationship that has long been scarred by acrimony and mistrust.
Saudi national Adnan el-Shukrijumah in 2004. FBI, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Pakistani military said in a statement that the operation to capture Mr. Shukrijumah began late Friday when helicopter gunships swooped on a compound in the village of Shin Warsak, about five miles west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.
The attack touched off a gun battle that continued into early Saturday morning, said a senior military official who, lacking the authority to speak to the media, spoke on the condition of anonymity. It ended with the deaths of Mr. Shukrijumah, an Afghan aide and one Pakistani soldier, whose photo was later posted on the military’s website. Another soldier was critically wounded.
A resident of the area, speaking by telephone, said the raid had occurred in a settlement that was occupied mostly by Afghan refugees. Mr. Shukrijumah and the other men had moved into the house about two weeks ago, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals. Mr. Shukrijumah had moved to Shin Warsak from North Waziristan, a neighboring tribal region, after a military operation against militants there, the army statement said.
South Waziristan is a major target of the American drone campaign in Pakistan, which started in June 2004 with a missile strike on a target close to the village where Mr. Shukrijumah was killed. On Saturday, Pakistani military officials were at pains to stress that the information leading to Mr. Shukrijumah’s whereabouts had come from their own sources, not American ones.
“Americans often question our sincerity, asking, ‘Where are the high-profile militants?’ ” said one of those officials. “Today’s operation is an answer.”
The military said Mr. Shukrijumah’s death stemmed partly from the drive against Taliban and allied militants in North Waziristan, which started six months ago and has caused many militant groups to scatter.
But American and Afghan officials, and many counterterrorism experts, say that Pakistan’s push against the militants is selective and that it continues to strategically support certain groups, particularly those that carry out attacks in India and Afghanistan.
Mr. Shukrijumah spent some of his early years in Brooklyn and went to college in Florida. His indictment accused him of conspiring to bomb three lines of New York City’s subway system and a shopping center in Manchester, England, a plot said to have been coordinated by Qaeda leaders based in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
A senior intelligence official in Peshawar said Mr. Shukrijumah had been “very active” in Waziristan until about 2009, when Pakistani intelligence agencies lost track of him, leading to reports that he had fled the country. “He was invisible,” the official said.
Declan Walsh contributed reporting from London, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan.
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