Eideard

A founding patron of the Taliban in Afghanistan died in the hands of a younger generation of militants in the tribal badlands of Pakistan in the last few days, a victim of the vicious forces he helped create, Pakistani officials said Monday.

Brig. Sultan Amir, known by his nom de guerre, Colonel Imam, was captured by the Pakistani Taliban in northern Waziristan last March. Whether he was killed by his captors, or died of a heart attack as reported by the Taliban, remained unclear.

The demise of Colonel Imam comes 10 days after another veteran figure in the emergence of the Afghan Taliban, Gen. Naseerullah Babar, 82, died after a long illness at his home in Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan.

The death of the two men signified the end of an era of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that began in the 1970s, stretched into the American-backed mujahedeen resistance against the Soviet occupation and was followed by the coercive Taliban rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s…

Colonel Imam formed a close bond with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader who welcomed Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan…

A weathered figure with a long white beard and white turban who looked to be in his 70s, Colonel Imam was initially trained by the Special Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1974, and completed a master parachutist course with the 82nd Airborne Division…

A senior Pakistani government official in the tribal areas, Tariq Hayat, said Monday that he had been informed by a Pakistani official in North Waziristan that Colonel Imam was dead. The militants were demanding a ransom for the return of the body, he said. Only after the body has been reclaimed would the cause of death be known, Mr. Hayat said.

Chickens coming home to roost land in the Pentagon about as frequently as any other center for the training of imperial flunkies.

RTFA for the details. If you have watched American policy in South Asia for a spell you ain’t about to be surprised.

Pakistani forces found a passport of a militant linked to two hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks during an offensive against Taliban strongholds near the Afghan border, DawnNews reported.

The passport of Said Bahaji, a German of Moroccan origin, was among documents, weapons and militant literature seized by the government forces during their operation in South Waziristan and was shown to a group of journalists during an official trip.

Bahaji’s name appeared in the 9/11 Commission Report…The report said Bahaji spent eight months with hijackers Mohamed Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh between Nov. 1998 and July 1999.

‘Described as an insecure follower with no personality and with limited knowledge of Islam, Bahaji nonetheless professed his readiness to engage in violence,’ it said…

Educated in Morocco, Bahaji returned to Germany to study electrical engineering at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. He spent five months in the German army before obtaining a medical discharge, the Commission said.

Convergence applies to a lot of things. In the world of bandits and terrorists, there isn’t always a great deal of distinction.

I admit that I’m waiting for a qualitative increase in intelligence, reconnaissance – and UAV armaments precision.

Refugees arrive at a checkpoint at Bannu, at the edge of Waziristan
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Security forces claim…to have made steady gains in their assaults on militants’ strongholds in South Waziristan and army officials said they were surprised by low level of resistance.

‘The area has been heavily mined. There are a lot of improvised explosive devices and mines. But the level of resistance from the militants is not very high,’ one of them said…

They are now poised to enter the strategic Kotkai valley. Troops are also believed to have launched attacks from the north to enter Makin.

Meanwhile, an anti-Baitullah militant group has offered support for security forces against the TTP. ‘We are with the security forces and, if called, we would fight alongside them against Baitullah’s men,’ a spokesman for the Misbahuddin group said…

More than 100,000 people have fled South Waziristan where the government has launched a major ground assault against the Taliban, officials said on Sunday…’Some 80,000 people had already left Waziristan before the operation. More people are coming out. In the last two days about 1,500 families or you can say some 22,000 people have left the area,’ he added…

A spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency in Pakistan confirmed that authorities had registered more than 100,000 displaced people.

It appears that the long-awaited offensive against the Pakistan Taliban has begun.

Will the Taiban melt back into the hills, join the Pashtun shuttle forth-and-back between Pakistan and Afghanistan? Standing and fighting may seem heroic; but, it is not the most sensible option.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

After fighting brief skirmishes against militants, the Pakistan Army plans to unfold in the next few days what military officials characterise as the mother of all battles in South Waziristan.

‘If we don’t take the battle to them, they will bring the battle to us,’ a senior military official said of the militants. ‘The epicentre of the behemoth called the Taliban lies in South Waziristan, and this is where we will be fighting the toughest of all battles.’

For three months, the military has been drawing up plans, holding in-depth deliberations and carrying out studies on past expeditions to make what seems to be the last grand stand against Pakistani Taliban in the Mehsud heartland a success.

‘We are ready. The environment is ready,’ the senior officer said. But military officials also admit Waziristan will not be an easy battle. ‘It will not be a walkover. This is going to be casualty-intensive hard fighting. The nation will have to bear the pain,’ said another officer.

Already this past summer, the military has lost more than three hundred of its soldiers in the Swat valley. One out of ten was officer — the highest soldier-to-officer casualty ratio in any war, skirmish or operation in the world, a spokesman for the military said…

In late January last year, the military launched Operation Zalzala with the stated goal of dislodging Baitullah Mehsud from his stronghold. The operation did not cause even a tremor and only 12 days later, were authorities struggling to revive the dead Sararogha agreement…

With that went even the pretence of any state authority as control of the volatile region was ceded to now emboldened militants…

Thousands of army soldiers — two divisions — are now sitting on the fringes of the Mehsud mainland waiting for orders from the high command to move in.

Scary stuff for a nation that hasn’t been pushed this far before into deliberate civil war.

Wonder where the dudes flying the buzzers will be headed the next few days?

Firing by Pakistani troops forced two U.S. military helicopters to turn back to Afghanistan after they crossed into Pakistani territory early on Monday, Pakistani security officials said.

The incident took place near Angor Adda, a village in the tribal region of South Waziristan where U.S. commandos in helicopters raided a suspected al Qaeda and Taliban camp earlier this month.

“The U.S. choppers came into Pakistan by just 100 to 150 meters at Angor Adda. Even then our troops did not spare them, opened fire on them and they turned away,” said one security official.

The U.S. and Pakistani military both denied that account, but Angor Adda villagers and officials supported it…
But the official denials were contradicted by Pakistani civilian officials and villagers in Angor Adda…

Two Chinook helicopters appeared set to land when troops began shooting, alerting tribesmen who also opened fire on the intruders, said a senior government official in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

Statements by politicians and military officials both sides of the border are meaningless, of course. Denial, from the Pentagon to Peshawar, is now an automatic part of the public face of armies.