organization:taliban

“This Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand. I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.

That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists”.

Do you remember who said this ?

Hint - it was in August 2007. Yes, he may have changed his mind since then...

#Obama #NSA #Prism #surveillance #elections #lol

http://www.cfr.org/us-election-2008/obamas-speech-woodrow-wilson-center/p13974

EXCLUSIVE: CIA didn’t always know who it was killing in drone strikes, classified documents show - Open Channel
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/05/18781930-exclusive-cia-didnt-always-know-who-it-was-killing-in-

...

NBC News has reviewed two sets of classified documents that describe 114 drone strikes over 14 months in Pakistan and Afghanistan, starting in September 2010. The documents list locations, death and injury tolls, alleged terrorist affiliations, and whether the killed and injured were deemed combatants or non-combatants.

Though the Obama administration has previously said it targets al Qaeda leaders and senior Taliban officials plotting attacks against the U.S. and U.S. troops, officials are sometimes unsure of the targets’ affiliations. About half of the targets in the documents are described as al Qaeda. But in 26 of the attacks, accounting for about a quarter of the fatalities, those killed are described only as “other militants.” In four others, the dead are described as “foreign fighters.”

In some cases, U.S. officials also seem unsure how many people died. One entry says that a drone attack killed seven to 10 people, while another says that an attack killed 20 to 22.

Yet officials seem certain that however many people died, and whoever they were, none of them were non-combatants. In fact, of the approximately 600 people listed as killed in the documents, only one is described as a civilian. The individual was identified to NBC News as the wife or girlfriend of an al Qaeda leader.

...

The CIA’s Program to Spread Polio in Pakistan is Working
http://gawker.com/the-cias-program-to-spread-polio-in-pakistan-is-workin-510287695

Two health-care workers were shot yesterday, one fatally, in Peshawar, Pakistan, leading the World Health Organization to suspend polio vaccinations there. Though no one has reportedly taken credit for the attack, it fits with an ongoing anti-vaccination terror campaign by the Pakistani Taliban, which believes health workers are agents of a western conspiracy. This belief is unfortunately not untrue.

First U.S. Drone Strike Since Obama’s Drone Speech Kills Easily Replaceable Militant In Pakistan | Dispatches from the Underclass
http://raniakhalek.com/2013/05/29/first-u-s-drone-strike-since-obamas-drone-speech-kills-easily-replaceab

The United States isn’t officially at war with Pakistan. But that hasn’t stopped the U.S. government from bombing whoever they want whenever they see fit. Nor has it stopped  the U.S. media from dutifully following up with celebratory applause as was the case this morning when news broke that a U.S. drone strike may have killed the Pakistani Taliban’s number two guy, Waliur Rehman, a claim the Pakistani Taliban explicitly denies.

Never mind that the strike destroyed a house and killed six other people in the process because according to the Associated Press, ”the death of Waliur Rehman would be a strong blow to the militant group responsible for hundreds of bombings and shootings across Pakistan.” I’m no expert on Pakistan but it seems to me that killing a handful of alleged militants and their commander might serve as a provocation for more violence rather than a “strong blow”. 

The U.S. State Department had offered a $5 million dollar bounty  for Rehman’s capture for his alleged involvement in an attack on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but Rehman is far better known for being at war with the Pakistani government as deputy commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, one of the many militant groups that make up the Pakistani Taliban.

And as ABC News points out, “Pakistani Taliban commanders have been killed in the past, only to quickly be replaced. Like most militant groups, the TTP has a hierarchical structure with others ready to move up the ladder.”

So this militant, who we may or may not have killed in a country we’re not officially at war with, is easily replaceable, in which case what the fuck is the point of dropping bombs in a war that can never be won?

The Soviet decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was made in October 1985, several months before Stinger missiles entered Afghanistan in significant quantities in the autumn of 1986. None of the secret Politburo discussions that have since been declassified mentioned the Stingers or any other shift in mujahideen equipment as the reason for the policy change from indefinite occupation to preparations for retreat.

10 myths about Afghanistan |The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/27/10-myths-about-afghanistan

In Pakistan, women work to strengthen democracy | UNDP
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/democraticgovernance/successstories/in-pakistan--women-work-to-strengthen-democracy.html

Zameer Akhtar, 28, is participating in the electoral process for the very first time. Being a woman and living in a joint family in Pakistan, getting consent from her elders for her decision wasn’t simple at first. But she felt compelled to take part in election training due to lack of public confidence in previous elections.

#démocratie #femmes #Pakistan

How and why did #Chechnya separatists begin to self-identify as Islamists ?

“The conflict in the 1990s was grounded in and defined by secular political demands: demands on the part of the Chechens to exercise independence, and demands on the part of the Russian Federation that Chechnya remain a part of that Federation. Russian atrocities perpetrated on the Chechen people during the First Chechen War brought about an economic and social crisis which created an environment conducive to radical Islam in a culture predominantly opposed to both radicalism and politicized religion.

The Chechen resistance movement adopted fundamentalist Islamic tactics and accepted support from Islamic organizations largely because the money was there for the taking. The Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban all contributed money to Chechen separatist groups. Additionally, Al Haramain, Khayatul-Iga-Sa and Islamic Congress, the Kuwaiti Society for Social Reform, the Yemeni International Islamic Organization, plus Islamic charities in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Central Asia, the US and Europe all donated money. Funding from these charities during the second war ranged in the millions. A wide estimate of $10 to $200 million a year came from foreign Islamic groups, while the US Department of State claims that radical Muslim individuals have contributed close to $100 million since 1997. Fighters came to join the holy war from Algeria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Sudan, Australia, Bosnia and the United States. Up to 300 Afghan-Arabs fought in Ibn Al Khattab’s Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade, himself an Islamic warlord originally from Saudi Arabia who was known to have close ties with Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan’s Taliban was the only state to recognize Chechen independence in the early 1990s.

Rather than a motivating factor in their decisions to adopt terrorist methods, the adoption of radical Islam by many of the rebels was a way of creating solidarity between Chechen separatists and the Islamic world that simply did not exist between them and the West. By pledging allegiance to Islam, the Chechen fighters were able to garner money, manpower, crucial resources and moral support from foreign jihadis to strengthen their own nationalist positions. Many new religious recruits were not even ideologically strict and had little knowledge of the religious values for which they claimed to fight. They were simply fighting in the name of whatever power would allow them to continue the fight”

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dxxob/wednesday_ama_chechnya/c9ux204

This is what winning look like, reportage de Ben Anderson.

part 1
http://www.vice.com/video#ooid=k0YjNsYjqByYfHA79NhX1OBTJ4NLKVAJ
part 2
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-like-part-2
part 3
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-like-part-3

Anderson’s conclusion is grim: “All it is now is about getting out and saving face. We’re not leaving because we achieved our goals. We’re leaving because we’ve given up on achieving those goals,” he says. “All the fighting has been to introduce a hated and feared government, who in some areas make the Taliban look like the good guys.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/this-is-what-winning-looks-like_n_3268079.html
#afghanistan #usa #armées #héroïne

Dirty Wars, Filthy Hands: 5 Unsavory Ways America Conducts Its Global War on Terror | Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/world/dirty-wars-filthy-hands-5-unsavory-ways-america-conducts-its-global-war-te

America’s allies are terrorists, warlords, and corrupt officials, plied with bounty payments and quid-pro-quo assassinations.

The recent revelation that the Central Intelligence Agency has handed tens of millions of dollars over to the offices of the president of Afghanistan should come as no surprise. The CIA has a long history of this sort of activity. And most importantly, it’s the latest reminder of how America’s global “war on terror” has been forged through backroom deals, cold hard cash and the fostering of corruption.

From Yemen to Afghanistan to Somalia, America has prosecuted its perpetual war the usual way U.S. foreign policy is conducted: partnerships with unsavory leaders who are corrupt and commit abuses. ...

Taliban renounces war on anti-polio workers - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/10053981/Taliban-renounces-war-on-anti-polio-workers.html

in a sudden U-turn the Taliban leadership issued a statement offering its support for polio eradication campaigns as long as foreigners were not involved and that all volunteers respected local Islamic culture.
"According to the latest international medicine science, the polio disease can only be cured by preventive measures ie the anti-polio drops and the vaccination of children against this disease.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan supports and lends a hand to all those programs which works for the health care of the helpless people of our country,” said a stament issued by the ’Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’.
But it warned the World Health Organisation and Unicef to employ only “unbiased people” in a campaign “harmonised with the regional conditions, Islamic values and local cultural traditions.”

#polio #vaccination #afghanistan #santé

Je vous conseille vivement le plugin DownloadHelper pour Firefox, qui permet de récupérer et convertir très facilement dans le format de votre choix des vidéos de Dailymotion et autres, pour les partager ou les archiver.

Genre l’émission de Mélenchon sur Mediapart, que je voulais montrer à mes vieux amis communistes sans Internet : un coup de DownloadHelper et j’obtiens 2Go d’un fichier mp4 de très bonne qualité que je peux mettre sur une clé USB.

Rester en vie à Karachi, par Ashraf Khan (Le Monde diplomatique)
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2013/04/KAHN/48973

« La mère de toutes les élections » : c’est ainsi que la chaîne qatarie Al-Jazira qualifie le scrutin législatif qui se tiendra demain au Pakistan. L’incertitude règne, après une campagne particulièrement meurtrière… Ce qui, dans les rues de Karachi, n’a fait qu’accroître l’insécurité que dépeignait récemment Ashraf Khan dans nos colonnes.
http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/asia/mother-all-elections-0

#Pakistan #élections #politique #violence #ville

Adolescence denied

Hundreds, thousand, hidden in the abandoned industrial areas that surround the port of Patras; I stayed with them in the old disused train station in the centre of Corinth; I found them in the ‘urban holes’ that dot the landscape of an Athens wounded by the crisis. They are the kids I followed for this project, some of whom are very young. After desperate journeys, they arrive from the wars which have tormented their countries in recent years. But war, for them, was only the beginning of the tragedy. Those who come from the Middle East and Central Asia try to reach Europe, the land I am lucky enough to call home, through its eastern door, Greece. They then get stuck there, amidst increasingly harsh security checks and racism which tragically often degenerates into neo-Nazi violence. For many, there is the hope of being able to rebuild the sort of life which would be impossible in their country of origin. The young Afghans I met are mainly fleeing the forced militarization practiced by the Taliban in Afghanistan, subsequent to the war that affected the country in 2001. For many others who are fleeing a scorching North Africa in revolt, the hope is to have the rights they were denied by the radicalization of the violence in their country of origin, recognized. Persecution for religious and ethnic reasons, or due to political opinion, could allow them to obtain refugee status in European Union countries, but certainly not in Greece. There, the rules are so tight that more than 99.5% of requests for asylum are refused. For this reason, they are forced to hide, because having a Greek police record would mean the end of the dream of safe reception in Europe. I learned that this is set out by the Dublin Regulation, the EU law with responsibility for granting asylum. According to the regulation, the country where a person is first identified is the country that has the duty and right to decide whether to grant refugee status or not, irrespective of where the application for asylum is made. Attempts to harmonize regulations on asylum in Europe have been dramatically swept away by the economic crisis. The Mediterranean countries have been the most affected by the flows and at the same time, have the fewest economic resources to manage them. What’s more, the difficult social conditions in these countries are providing an outlet for the phenomena of cultural closure, xenophobia and violence, which represent, for those who arrive, an insurmountable obstacle to obtaining the enjoyment of even the most basic human rights.

http://c0875922.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/67375.story_x_large.jpg

#photo #photographie #Grèce #migration #Patras #réfugiés #asile #Dublin #droits_humains #xénophobie

C.I.A. Delivers Cash to Afghan Leader’s Office - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html?ref=global-home

A la une de tous les médias norvégiens aujourd’hui : « La plus grande source de corruption en Afghanistan a été et est l’Amérique : de l’argent dans des valises, des sacs à dos et des sacs en plastique... »

KABUL, Afghanistan — For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

#afghanistan #états-unis #corruption #cia

Mon dieu ! Une tentative d’attentat terroriste au Canada par l’AQ ....iranien.

BBC News - Canada foils ’al-Qaeda inspired’ terror attack on train
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22258191

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said the surveillance operation leading to the arrests of the two suspects was “a result of extensive collaborative efforts”.

They said the two men were not Canadian citizens and were supported by “al-Qaeda elements in Iran” but there was no evidence of state sponsorship.

Via Paul Danahar https://twitter.com/pdanahar/status/326433845673074689

Pendant ce temps, à l’autre bout du monde : Deadly blast hits Pakistan election rally
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/04/201341616343565646.html

An explosion in Pakistan has killed at least nine people and wounded dozens more at an election campaign rally being attended by a senior politician, officials say.

Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, a senior leader of the secular Awami National Party (ANP), escaped the blast with only minor bruises on Tuesday in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

A hospital official said doctors were treating some 50 people wounded in the explosion, including dozens who were in critical condition.

Pakistan’s umbrella Taliban faction claimed responsibility for what was the fourth deadly attack on politicians or political parties in three days as the country prepares to hold historic polls on May 11.

Tu te souviens de ce qu’on avait repéré la semaine dernière ? D’où viennent les Talibans ?
http://seenthis.net/messages/128789

Education in Afghanistan in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war was largely secular. The US covert education destroyed secular education. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrassas) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000 [in 2001].

Afghanistan : la culture de l’opium n’est jamais aussi bien portée - RTBF Societe
http://www.rtbf.be/info/societe/detail_afghanistan-la-cultre-de-l-opium-n-est-jamais-aussi-bien-portee?id=79728

« Les surfaces cultivées de pavot ne vont pas simplement croître dans les zones déjà productrices en 2012... mais aussi dans les régions où la culture était nulle », souligne le Bureau de l’ONU contre la drogue et le crime (UNODC) dans son enquête annuelle.

L’Afghanistan produit 90% de l’opium mondial, une drogue dont est notamment issue l’héroïne. Les surfaces cultivées vont croître principalement dans le sud de l’Afghanistan, incluant la province du Helmand, un fief taliban responsable de la moitié de la production afghane d’opium, souligne le rapport.

La province de Herat, dans le nord-ouest à la frontière de l’Iran, est la seule du pays où les surfaces cultivées de pavot diminueront cette année, selon l’ONU.

Les prix élevés du pavot, actuellement en moyenne 160 dollars le kilo humide, constituent la principale motivation des agriculteurs pour planter cette semence, d’après ce rapport qui fait aussi un lien entre l’insécurité, l’aide aux fermiers et la production d’opium.

Les autorités afghanes souhaitent quant à elle détruire cette année 15.000 hectares de champs d’opium, soit un peu moins de 10% des surfaces cultivées dans le pays.

Le marché de l’opium profite à différents acteurs du conflit en Afghanistan, et surtout aux talibans, qui encaissent au moins 100 millions de dollars par an en taxant ce marché clandestin, selon des responsables américains et afghans.

C’est incomplet,

1- Nombreux sont les seigneurs de guerre afghans alliés de l’OTAN qui profitent de cette culture,

2- Comme la guerre pour « libérer la femme afghane », la guerre contre la drogue est un cuisant échec.

Secret US documents show Brennan’s ‘no civilian drone deaths’ claim was false: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/04/11/secret-us-documents-show-brennans-no-civilian-drone-deaths-cl

US intelligence officials were aware that at least one civilian had died in drone strikes in Pakistan during 2011, despite claims to the contrary made by the man now running the Central Intelligence Agency.

In June 2011, John Brennan, at the time President Obama’s chief counter terrorism adviser, stated publicly that for ‘almost a year’ no civilian had died in US drone strikes in Pakistan.

But leaked US intelligence documents obtained by news agency McClatchy show this was not true.

Des Taliban se la coulent douce au Qatar:

Peace Envoys From Taliban at Loose Ends in Qatar- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/world/asia/taliban-peace-envoys-in-qatar-with-nothing-to-do.html

When a handful of Taliban emissaries flew into Qatar on an American plane in 2010, the Obama administration hoped they would help negotiate a peace deal that could stabilize Afghanistan and allow the United States a graceful exit.

Three years after that secret arrival, the Taliban officials remain idle and their political office here remains unused.

“They are just living here enjoying the air-conditioning, driving luxury cars, eating and making babies,” one Afghan diplomat in Qatar said. “It’s all they can do; they have no work to do.”

Obama’s drone war kills ‘others,’ not just al Qaida leaders | McClatchy
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/09/188062/obamas-drone-war-kills-others.html

Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show.

Comment les États-Unis ont organisé et financé massivement le développement de l’enseignement islamique en Afghanistan :
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e4d_1365286482

Under NSDD 166, US assistance to the Islamic brigades channelled through Pakistan was not limited to bona fide military aid. Washington also supported and financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions. (Michel Chossudovsky, 9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001, Global Research, September 09, 2010)

Religious schools were generously funded by the United States of America:

Education in Afghanistan in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war was largely secular. The US covert education destroyed secular education. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrassas) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000 [in 2001]. (Ibid.)

Unknown to the American public, the US spread the teachings of the Islamic jihad in textbooks “Made in America” developed at the University of Nebraska:

… the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books…

The White House defends the religious content, saying that Islamic principles permeate Afghan culture and that the books “are fully in compliance with US law and policy.” Legal experts, however, question whether the books violate a constitutional ban on using tax dollars to promote religion.

… AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic materials intact because they feared Afghan educators would reject books lacking a strong dose of Muslim thought. The agency removed its logo and any mention of the U.S. government from the religious texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos said.

“It’s not AID’s policy to support religious instruction,” Stratos said. “But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity.”

… Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtun, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska -Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $ 51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.” (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)

Onze enfants afghans tués dans un raid aérien de l’Otan - France Inter
http://www.franceinter.fr/depeche-onze-enfants-afghans-tues-dans-un-raid-aerien-de-lotan

L’Otan n’interdit pas à ses aviateurs d’ouvrir le feu, de lancer des missiles ou larguer des bombes sur des zones fortement peuplées.

L’Otan conseille à ses aviateurs de ne pas ouvrir le feu, lancer des missiles ou larguer des bombes sur des zones fortement peuplées.

The untouchable: a new breed of warlord
http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-untouchable-a-new-breed-of-warlord-20130319-2gcji.html

Preaching his anti-Taliban credentials, Hakim Shujoyi has enlisted the protection of US forces. But locals say he is a brutal killer whose men rape and rob their way through parts of Oruzgan.

Une victoire contre l’obscurantisme.
Taliban victim Malala Yousafzai starts school in UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/20/taliban-victim-malala-yousafzai-school

Out of Afghanistan: incredible stories of the boys who walked to Europe

The country is so dangerous it’s no wonder so many leave, travelling alone across the Middle East in search of a new life

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2012/1/25/1327489254929/Afghanistan-2002-007.jpg

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/29/out-afghanistan-boys-stories-europe?CMP=twt_gu

#migration #Afghanistan #parcours_migratoire