organization:taliban

Iran’s Alliance of Convenience with the Taliban? « LobeLog
▻http://www.lobelog.com/irans-alliance-of-convenience-with-the-taliban

For Iran, this is an especially salient matter as IS is most active in the Afghan province of Farah on Iran’s border.

Common fight: Afghan Taliban faction approaches IS leader - The Express Tribune

▻http://tribune.com.pk/story/912067/common-fight-afghan-taliban-faction-approaches-is-leader

http://i1.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/912067-afghanistantalibanx-1435627907-583-640x480.png

ISLAMABAD:

A breakaway faction of the Afghan Taliban has sent a delegation to meet the self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakar al Baghdadi, and assure him that they are not opposed to the activities of the ultra-extremist group in Afghanistan.

Leaders of the Fidayee Mahaz or the Islamic Movement of Afghanistan will hold talks with Baghdadi or the group’s other leaders days after the Taliban warned the IS leaders to stay away from Afghanistan as its emergence will divide the ‘Mujahideen’ that could harm their resistance against the foreign forces.

#is #isis #daech #syrie #irak #afghanistan #taliban

Jihadist “war of elimination” reaches the #Taliban – Can #ISIS be seen as a (Machiavellian) tool for the West?
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/jihadist-war-of-elimination-reaches-the-taliban-can-isis-be-s

On June 19, the Al-Akhbar daily newspaper carried the following report: “The patience of the Taliban movement is growing thin regarding ISIL’s practices against it. The movement has been losing elements who are pledging allegiance to ISIL’s leader Abou Bakr al-Baghdadi. Taliban interpreted this as a an ISIL attempt at creating a parallel movement. The verbal war was launched by the Taliban movement by offering advices but the movement ended up threatening Al-Baghdadi: “There’s no place for you among us.”

“The drums of the “Jihadist elimination” war have started to sound in the Afghani lands

A report card : #Iran and its Afghan children

Coinciding with a trip by the Taliban to Tehran last month, supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei announced that all Afghan children in Iran - there illegally or not - had a right to enroll in school. Access to education has been fraught with obstacles for refugees. Michelle May, who has been specialising in the topic, looks at the Islamic republic’s track record over the past 36 years. Photos by #Shahriar_Khonsari

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-610/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/5/27/1432752089697/70138975-faab-45a7-b4d7-8757a06f2429-360x540.jpeg http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-610/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/5/27/1432753040639/6845e0cb-25c4-494c-bc33-b5bedee2a2e2-360x540.jpeg http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-610/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/5/27/1432753448088/994d050c-309e-4a1c-b7e6-dcf21ed9b486-360x540.jpeg http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-610/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/5/28/1432827525219/03950c1f-9ad2-47e2-9901-6f7dc45b0522-540x360.jpeg

Al Jazeera accentue sa propagande grossière pour Al Qaeda, cette fois avec un texte en anglais. Comme c’est le même gugusses que précédemment, et que c’est parfaitement ridicule, c’est certain : ça va convaincre les Américains.

Nusra Front’s quest for a united Syria
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/06/nusra-front-quest-united-syria-150602050740867.html

“We used to cover al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden, and their hosts, Mullah Omar’s Taliban in Afghanistan. They would never go beyond offering simple tea and bread for breakfast. Things now seem entirely different,” I replied, gesturing towards the dozen dishes placed in front of me.

With humility, my host insisted that I should start my breakfast.

I think of this little anecdote to illustrate the change that has undertaken al-Qaeda in Syria. In this ancient melting pot of religions and civilisations, it is the kitchen which is key to comprehending sociology.

[…]

Unexpectedly, he did not abandon al-Qaeda or withdraw his allegiance from its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri - who, like the British monarch, has symbolic resonance without much in the way of practical authority.

[…]

By now, the time for forgiveness for the Assads or Hezbollah has surely passed. They can continue to swear allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, if this offers some lease of life. In Ramadi and Anbar, the US-supported Shia groups fighting ISIL shout sectarian slogans “Ya Hussain!” and “Ya Khamenei!” as they battle through Sunni heartlands.

The Obama administration may be at ease with the idea of armed groups alien to the Iraqi population fighting on behalf of Baghdad - but continues to have a problem with Syrian fighters - such as those who make up Nusra’s ranks - fighting in Syria. This dichotomy will not serve the West’s interests.

Afghans Form Militias and Call on Warlords to Battle Taliban - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/world/asia/as-taliban-advance-afghanistan-reluctantly-recruits-militias.html?smid=tw-s

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KABUL, Afghanistan — Facing a fierce Taliban offensive across a corridor of northern Afghanistan, the government in Kabul is turning to a strategy fraught with risk: forming local militias and beseeching old warlords for military assistance, according to Afghan and Western officials.

Des voyous (étasuniens) qui promeuvent des voyous (afghans) qui font appel à des (compatriotes) voyous, quoi de plus cohérent ?

« #nos_valeurs » #mascarade

Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, not his army, the world’s most dangerous…
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/pakistans-nawaz-sharif-not-his-army-world-s-most-dangerous-1643972215

Sharif’s credentials as a supporter of the Taliban have also been an open secret, with active “ignorance” of the Punjabi Taliban. The south of Punjab is where most of the Saudi funding ties in with the most extreme groups that have been linked to the violence in Afghanistan and even Iraq and Syria. The Saud family own thousands of acres in southern Punjab, which are used for their food security and hunting grounds for falcons.

An increasing sectarian rift in Pakistan has been seen since Sharif’s latest return to power in 2013, with attacks on the Shiite community reaching a new high in the past 12 months. The government has looked away at the plight of these communities in comparison to attacks on army schools and charities.

Similarly, on the issue of the Syria war, Sharif’s extreme Wahabi nature has shown its true colours (his father reportedly followed a Salafist group, Ahl al-Hadith, which rejects claims it is synonymous with Wahabism). Sharif has seen the Syrian war as a Shiite-Sunni war despite most of the Syrian Arab Army officer corps being Sunni, Christian and Druze, yet Sharif, pressured by the Saudis, has falsely told the Pakistani political leadership that the war in Syria is an assault on Sunnis

Syria and Pakistan have always been strong military allies with deep counter-intelligence ties. Pakistan has historically been one of the largest trainers of the Syrian Air Force, and also regular annual military exchange of officers and equipment sold to the Syrians. Yet this five-decade-old historic relation was put aside when, under heavy Saudi pressure, Sharif called for the Syrian government to step aside as it had lost credibility.

This shift in a historic stance towards Syria came about through direct pressure from the then-Saudi Crown, and now ruler, Prince Salman. Sharif has also had strong relationships with the Hariri family in Lebanon, and used the “old-school” Afghan-Arab jihadi network to facilitate Sunni groups in Lebanon to take on Hezbollah.

The most disturbing element of the Sharif-Saudi alliance in Lebanon has been the arming of the Wahabi groups in Nahr al-Bared and Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian camps in Lebanon, which turned into an all-out skirmish in 2008-2009.

Note : l’auteur est un syrien dont on pourra consulter des articles sur OpenDemocracy pour se faire une idée de ses opinions :
▻https://www.opendemocracy.net/author/kamal-alam

ISIS turns on its creator, a marginalized, drained al-Qaida - Middle East - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.651107

Ideology is far from the best to tool to use when attempting to decipher the constantly shifting kaleidoscope of Jihadist alliances, from Syria to Afghanistan.
By Zvi Bar’el

A special event is rocking jihadist groups these days. This week, for the first time in twenty years, The Afghani Taliban published the life story of their leader Mullah Omar. Omar, who hosted and protected Osama Bin Laden before the attacks on September 11, took great care for many years to remain undercover, fostering a secretive, mysterious image. He was known to very few people, his photo was never published and his lifestyle and whereabouts were unknown.

Thus the publication of his history, education and numerous feats against the “American enemy” is an exceptional occurrence evoking much interest, particularly due to its timing. According to Afghani and Pakistani pundits who follow Islamic organizations in the two countries, the reason for shedding the layer of mystery around Omar is the increasing defection of senior Taliban leaders towards the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) organization, based on their sense that the Taliban leader can no longer fulfill the prime mission of the group, that he is disconnected from his followers and mainly because Taliban funding sources are drying up.

Other sections of the Taliban oppose the attempts at reconciliation with the Afghani government, concerned that this reconciliation – the success of which is doubtful – will isolate the Taliban from their power bases. This requires that Mullah Omar appear in public, presenting himself as the only leader in the eyes of the Taliban, thus trying to stanch the flow of deserters going to the “ISIS caliphate of Khorasan,” which is portraying itself as the sole representative of Islamist groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India.

At the other end of the Middle East there have been recent reports that Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is considering stepping down as the group’s leader. These reports claim that he has transmitted messages to various branches of the group, releasing them from their vows of allegiance to the group, calling on them to join other Islamist groups, including Islamic State, and continue operating within them. The most detailed such report comes from Ayman Din, a former Al-Qaida operative, who left the organization in the 1990s but still maintains close ties to Islamic groups.

In an interview to the London daily Al-Khayat, he related that al-Zawahiri feels he can no longer compete with Islamic State. Even though he’s succeeded in setting up three new branches - in Somalia (the al- Shabab organization), in Egypt’s Sinai and in India - the internal conflicts within these branches, including the most important one in Yemen, where some of his operatives crossed the lines and joined Islamic State, have transformed Al-Qaida into a secondary and even marginal group.

In Syria too, in which Al-Qaida operates through its proxy Jabhat al-Nusra, headed by Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, al-Qaida’s situation is not great. Jabhat al-Nusra linked up with al-Qaida at a late stage of the civil war in Syria, following a bitter clash between al-Joulani and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Al-Baghdadi, who headed Al-Qaida in Iraq before arriving in Syria, was told by al-Zawahiri to return to Iraq and conduct operations from there, leaving Jabhat al-Nusra to conduct the war in Syria. Al- Baghdadi, who was already in control of many areas of Syria, rejected this demand and in effect announced the severing of his links with al-Qaida, heaping abuse at al-Zawahiri in the process.

However, it seems that the leadership of Jabhat al-Nusra is also facing a serious dilemma. Qatar, which has financed and fed the group for years, wants the group to dissociate itself from al-Qaida and join what are mistakenly labeled the “moderate” groups. The objective of this is to remove Jabhat al-Nusra from the U.S. Administration’s list of terrorist groups, thus allowing Qatar to support it directly without causing itself any embarrassment. It would thus join the common struggle against Islamic State and Syrian president Bashar Assad.

However, Jabhat al-Nusra, which controls several strategic areas such as parts of the Syrian city of Idlib, parts of the Golan Heights and the Daraa area, has yet to make a choice. The group can’t see any advantage in dissociating from al-Qaida, which would force it to join the fighting alongside groups that differ from it ideologically, and possibly even having to share control over areas it already holds and from which it currently reaps financial profits.

On the other hand, rejecting Qatar’s demands risks losing the financial support it enjoys. If Qatar convinces Turkey to join the attempts to budge Jabhat al-Nusra, its refusal may also block the vital free passage to and from Turkey, now available to its fighters. These calculations illustrate the fact that loyalty to al-Qaida or its absence is not dependent on ideological grounds but on pragmatic considerations that relate to the group’s very survival. The faction is therefore considering setting up a new group with a different name, which will allow its removal from the list of terrorist groups and secure its funding. However, such a move may lead to further splitting of the group, which will weaken it militarily and thus debilitate its bargaining power vis-à-vis Qatar.

Jabhat al-Nusra was dealt another severe blow this week when it lost the battle for the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus. The most significant armed group within the camp is the Hamas-affiliated Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis. As such, it is supported by the Muslim Brothers in Syria, the rivals of Jabhat al-Nusra. This rivalry played well into the hands of Islamic State - and according to some reports, al-Nusra activists even assisted Islamic State fighters in their battles with the Hamas-linked group.

It’s doubtful whether these moves by Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, were coordinated with or reported to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is ideologically far removed from both Islamic State and the Muslim Brothers. The constantly shifting kaleidoscope that presents new patterns of alliances - often illogical - between different groups, makes the exact pigeonholing of each group irrelevant. It no longer makes any difference if Jabhat al-Nusra is linked to al-Qaida or is even financed by it, if in some local arenas it cooperates with Islamic State while in others it fights it. This is also how one should relate to the “pledge of allegiance” to Islamic State, taken by more than 30 Islamic groups across the world, or to the abandonment of al-Qaida by some of these groups. Islamic State needs these allegiances in order to portray itself as the largest and strongest organization, and in order to depose - if not to eradicate - al-Qaida as a competing organization. This is the same manner in which al-Qaida operated before a competitor that now threatens its existence grew within its own ranks.

At the outset, Osama Bin Laden distinguished between two kinds of enemies. The nearby ones; those Arab or Muslim regimes who are not implementing Islam correctly - and the distant enemy, mainly the West, intent on disseminating its culture and controlling Islamic states while endangering their religious values. The fight against the two enemies must be waged in parallel, determined Bin Laden. Following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the distant enemy became much more accessible due to its presence in these occupied countries. This fact helped al-Qaida recruit supporters based not only on religious grounds but on national ones, thus mobilizing thousands of volunteers across Muslim nations for a war against the occupying Western armies.

Subsequently, Bin Laden set up branches in most Muslim nations, basing them on local radical and terrorist groups whose main aim was to fight local regimes - but who also provided activists for international operations. On this al-Qaida infrastructure, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is basing his widespread control network. With such a structure, Islamic State can afford to suffer defeat in one country or region, but its infrastructure will continue to exist, continuing to absorb local al-Qaida branches.

Afghan interpreter who worked with British army refused UK asylum

Aslam Yousaf Zai claims he has been targeted by Taliban, but Home Office says it does not believe he would be in danger if he returns to Afghanistan

▻http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/07/afghan-interpreter-british-army-refused-uk-asylum
#Afghanistan #interprète #asile #réfugiés #UK #Angleterre #migration #droit_d'asile #interprètes

v. aussi :
La Cité | L’Occident laissera-t-il tomber « ses » interprètes en Afghanistan ?

A l’approche de la fin prévue de la mission italienne, les interprètes afghans, « alliés » indispensables des forces armées occidentales, craignent d’être abandonnés sur place, en proie à la vengeance des talibans.

▻http://www.asile.ch/vivre-ensemble/2015/01/09/la-cite-loccident-laissera-t-il-tomber-ses-interpretes-en-afghanistan

As the U.S. mission winds down, Afghan insurgency grows more complex - The Washington Post

▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/as-the-us-mission-winds-down-afghan-insurgency-grows-more-complex/2015/02/12/99eab761-d5f0-4046-86ee-7e757b65dd01_story.html

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FAIZABAD, Afghanistan — The Taliban in this northern province allows girls to attend school. It doesn’t execute soldiers or police. Its fighters are not Pashtun, the main ethnic group that bred and fueled the insurgency. Some members are even former mujahideen, or freedom fighters, who once despised the Taliban and fought against its uprising.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/02/13/Foreign/Graphics/afghanNorth.jpg?uuid=lP_hYLMhEeS_OVVg85GNSw

“The Taliban here are against the ideology of the Taliban in the south,” explained Maizuddin Ahmedi, 20, a former Taliban member who reflects the local faction’s atypical nature: He has a Facebook page, tweets regularly and wears a beanie emblazoned with “NY.”

#afghanistans #diversité #talibans

Nos milices à nous : Afghan Militia Leaders, Empowered by U.S. to Fight Taliban, Inspire Fear in Villages
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/world/asia/afghan-militia-leaders-empowered-by-us-to-fight-taliban-inspire-fear-in-vil

From the start, some Afghan officials, including former President Hamid Karzai, objected to the Americans’ practice of forming militias that did not answer directly to the Afghan government. They saw the militias as destabilizing forces that undermined the government’s authority and competed with efforts to build up large and professional military and police forces.

Now, many of those concerns have become a daily reality in Afghan villages.

“For God’s sake, take these people away from us,” Mr. Ahad, 36, said of Rahimullah’s militiamen. “We cannot stand their brutality.”

La politique de développement des milices est un aspect fondamental des guerres de « démocratisation » américaines.

(via Angry Arab)

The Making of a Christian Taliban in Ukraine - The Intercept
▻https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/18/ukraine-part-3

Korchynsky does not pretend to be moderate, but he doesn’t appreciate the worst epithet used against his forces.

“We are not Nazis,” he tells me. “We are patriots and nationalists.”

Korchynsky is nearly a caricature of a Russian-hating Ukrainian nationalist. His silver hair contrasts with his dark, bushy mustache, which is turned down at the edges in the Cossack style. The St. Mary’s Battalion, which is one of more than a dozen private groups fighting alongside the Ukrainian Army against Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, is Korchynsky’s creation. It is also one of the more unusual volunteer formations in the ragtag forces taking on the separatists, incorporating an ideology that manages to mix Christian messianism with Islamic jihadism.

The religious thread is not entirely surprising — Korchynsky and his men are devout Orthodox Christians. It was in the 1990s that Korchynsky learned the advantage of mixing religion and politics when he fought in the Caucasus region alongside Muslims, who were battling Russia for independence.

Korchynsky points approvingly to Lebanon. There, Hezbollah participates in government as a political party, while its paramilitary wing wages war independent of the state (and is thus considered, by the United States and the European Union, a terrorist organization). Korchynsky believes that sort of dual structure would be beneficial for Ukraine. He sees himself as the head of an informal “revolutionary community” that can carry out “higher order tasks” that are beyond the formal control of government.

That’s the theory. In practice, Korchynsky wants the war in eastern Ukraine to be a religious war. In his view, you have to take advantage of the situation: Many people in Ukraine are dissatisfied with the new government, its broken institutions and endemic corruption. This can only be solved, he believes, by creating a national elite composed of people determined to wage a sort of Ukrainian jihad against the Russians.

“We need to create something like a Christian Taliban,” he told me. “The Ukrainian state has no chance in a war with Russia, but the Christian Taliban can succeed, just as the Taliban are driving the Americans out of Afghanistan.”

For Korchynsky and the St. Mary’s Battalion, the Great Satan is Russia.

KORCHYNSKY WAS BORN to fight Russia.

He is the descendent of a noble Polish family that, in the late 18th century, fought in the Kosciuszko Uprising, which was a doomed attempt to liberate Poland from the Russian empire. The Poles lost, and Korchynsky’s family moved to what was called the Kresy, or borderlands, in what is today Ukraine. As a Ukrainian, Korchynsky is continuing his family’s war against the Russian empire.

In the early 1990s, he was one of the founders and leaders of a right-wing, nationalist organization known, somewhat awkwardly, as the Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian People’s Self Defense. When an uprising erupted in late 2013 against Ukraine’s corrupt president, Korchynsky immediately joined the fight, which was centered on the main square in Kiev, known as the Maidan.
(…)
I asked Korchynsky how a man like him — contesting the political order in Ukraine — gets along with his wife, a member of the parliament. He replied that his wife understands that the country’s key problems can’t be solved in parliament. The most important thing is to continue the revolution, but it’s useful to have friends in the government. “Sometimes it helps get something done, like gets someone out of jail, or gets the authorities to give us extra weapons,” he says.

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HRW en 2011 ,
►http://www.hrw.org/fr/news/2011/09/12/afghanistan-le-gouvernement-devrait-juguler-les-milices-et-la-police-locale-afg

Les #milices [afghanes créées par les #Etats-Unis] et certaines unités de la nouvelle Police locale afghane (ALP) soutenue par les États-Unis commettent de graves violations des droits humains, sous le contrôle lacunaire du gouvernement et en toute impunité, a déclaré Human Rights Watch dans un rapport publié aujourd’hui.

Rien n’a changé aujourd’hui :

Afghan Militia Leaders, Empowered by U.S. to Fight Taliban, Inspire Fear in Villages - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/world/asia/afghan-militia-leaders-empowered-by-us-to-fight-taliban-inspire-fear-in-vil

They are a significant part of the legacy of the American war here, brought to power amid a Special Operations counterinsurgency strategy that mobilized anti-Taliban militias in areas beyond the grasp of the Afghan Army.

From the start, some Afghan officials, including former President Hamid Karzai, objected to the Americans’ practice of forming militias that did not answer directly to the Afghan government. They saw the militias as destabilizing forces that undermined the government’s authority and competed with efforts to build up large and professional military and police forces.

Now, many of those concerns have become a daily reality in Afghan villages.

“For God’s sake, take these people away from us,” Mr. Ahad, 36, said of Rahimullah’s militiamen. “We cannot stand their brutality.”

#Afghanistan #droits_humains

Can you be an Islamist and a feminist? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/islamist-feminists-muslim-world.html#

The radical gender agendas of Saudi Arabia, IS and the Taliban are on the fringes of Islamism, although strong and pervasive, especially the Saudi version, which is supported and enforced by the regime. It can never be reconciled with feminism. Meanwhile, mainstream Islamists elsewhere — including in North Africa and Indonesia and other Asian locations — have succeeded in stretching Islamic interpretations to accommodate change.

The women of these Islamisms have been incorporated into the economy, politics, education, media and other sectors of society. Their Islamism speaks to urban, educated and working women, who endorse their programs and fulfill their own individual projects within the spaces provided them. They offer an alternative to the aggressive approach of one feminism fits all. This brand of feminism might be a step toward recognizing Islam’s woman question and offering emancipation that is culturally sensitive to local milieus.

Secular feminists will be horrified by this conclusion, but Islamist feminism should be given a chance to evolve in places that totally reject feminisms tied to the international expansion of Western powers. One must recognize that certain things, among them gender inequality, are too complex to be addressed by one proposed solution or vision, especially those that follow along the same paths of military tanks and fighter jets.

For Marine who urinated on dead Taliban, a hero’s burial at Arlington - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marine-sniper-is-saluted-as-more-than-the-video-scandal-that-defined-him/2015/02/21/e0a8492a-b7ba-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html

A Marine vilified by his country’s leaders and court-martialed for “bringing discredit to the armed forces” would soon be buried at Arlington National ­Cemetery, the country’s most hallowed ground. On this mid-February night before the funeral, dozens who knew Richards beyond those 38 seconds gathered to celebrate his life.

#Etats-Unis “#nos_valeurs”

Syria, Iraq… and now Afghanistan: Isis advance enters Helmand province for the first time, Afghan officials confirm - Middle East - World - The Independent
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-iraq-and-now-afghanistan-isis-advance-enters-helmand-province-f

ISIS fait son entrée en #Afghanistan, où des combats l’opposent aux talibans,

Isis, the militant group that claims to have established a “caliphate” across Iraq and Syria, has now reportedly extended its territories into Afghanistan for the first time.

According to the Afghan military, the organisation that calls itself “Islamic State” is actively recruiting and operating across the south of the country.

Officials say a man identified as Mullah Abdul Rauf has been claiming to represent Isis in the region, setting up a network of followers who are inviting people to join them across the southern Helmand province.

But they have clashed with the local Taliban, military sources claim, whose leaders have warned people to have nothing to do with Rauf.

General Mahmood Khan, the deputy commander of the army’s 215 Corps, told the Associated Press: “A number of tribal leaders, jihadi commanders and some ulema (religious council members) and other people have contacted me to tell me that Mullah Rauf had contacted them and invited them to join him.”

Amir Mohammad Akundzada, the governor of the Nimroz province adjacent to Helmand, said Rauf was a former Taliban commander – as well as a relative who he had not seen for two decades.

Reza Aslan se montre on ne peut plus clair : l’Arabie séoudite a dépensé plus de 100 milliards de dollars sur les 20 ou 30 dernières années pour répandre le wahhabisme dans le monde, idéologie qu’il définit comme le virus à la source de Boko Haram, ISIS ou al Qaeda…
▻http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/reza-aslan-anyone-who-asks-why-muslims-have-not-condemned-terrorism-cant-u

“There’s no question that there has been a virus that has spread throughout the Muslim world, a virus of ultra-orthodox puritanism,” Aslan replied. “But there’s also no question what the source of this virus is — whether we’re talking about Boko Haram, or ISIS, or al Qaeda, or the Taliban.”

“All of them have as their source Wahhabism, or the state religion of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “And as we all know, Saudi Arabia has spent over $100 billion in the past 20 or 30 years spreading this ideology throughout the world.”

C’est au tout début de la vidéo :
▻http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/01/11/reza-aslan-anyone-who-asks-why-muslims-arent-de/202086

(Ça commence à vraiment vraiment se voir. Nos usuels affreux vont devoir lancer une grande campagne de dénonciation du Saudi bashing…)

#CIA analysis : ‘high-value targeting’ had limited effect against Taliban - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/12/18/cia-analysis-high-value-targeting-had-limited-effect-against-taliban

(Reste plus qu’à attendre cinq décennies avant d’abandonner, ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/323202)

Raids, #drone strikes and other military operations designed to capture or kill “high-value targets” in the Taliban have had little overall effect in part because of the militant group’s ability to replace leaders, according to a 2009 CIA analysis newly released by #WikiLeaks .

Washington’s World: December 8th – December 14th, 2014
▻http://theswoop.net/sys/index.php

With regard to #ISIL, an emerging factor is the increasing US willingness to recognize Iran’s de facto participation in the coalition and to describe it, as Kerry did, as “positive”. The State Department’s line is to keep cooperation with Iran over ISIL and, most likely in the future, against the Taliban in Afghanistan, in totally separate compartments from the nuclear negotiations.

However, we understand that the even the sporadic exchanges that are now taking place at local level are having some impact on building trust. This may ease an agreement in 2015, although as we have noted Iran will then face a much more hostile political line-up on Capitol Hill.

#Etats-Unis #Iran

Families mourn drug mules beheaded in Saudi Arabia - Pakistan
▻http://www.dawn.com/news/1148749

SARGODHA: Every morning, grandfather Haji Abdul Haq wakes up wondering whether his son has been beheaded. Not by the Taliban, Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group, but by the Saudi Arabian government.

Haq’s son is on death row in the conservative kingdom, waiting for his name to be added to the growing roll of Pakistanis executed this year by the Saudis for heroin smuggling.

Saudi Arabia has meted out the gruesome fate to 74 people in 2014, 15 of them Pakistanis convicted of drug smuggling.

Families and rights campaigners complain their trials are opaque and unfair, and accuse the Pakistani government of doing nothing to help its citizens, afraid of offending an important and hugely wealthy ally.

Patrick Cockburn · Whose side is Turkey on?: The Battle for Kobani · LRB 6 November 2014
▻http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n21/patrick-cockburn/whose-side-is-turkey-on

Ankara gave its support to jihadi groups financed by the Gulf monarchies: these included al-Nusra, al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate, and Isis. Turkey played much the same role in supporting the jihadis in Syria as Pakistan had done supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The estimated 12,000 foreign jihadis fighting in Syria, over which there is so much apprehension in Europe and the US, almost all entered via what became known as ‘the jihadis’ highway’, using Turkish border crossing points while the guards looked the other way. In the second half of 2013, as the US put pressure on Turkey, these routes became harder to access but Isis militants still cross the frontier without too much difficulty. The exact nature of the relationship between the Turkish intelligence services and Isis and al-Nusra remains cloudy but there is strong evidence for a degree of collaboration. When Syrian rebels led by al-Nusra captured the Armenian town of Kassab in Syrian government-held territory early this year, it seemed that the Turks had allowed them to operate from inside Turkish territory. Also mysterious was the case of the 49 members of the Turkish Consulate in Mosul who stayed in the city as it was taken by Isis; they were held hostage in Raqqa, the Islamic State’s Syrian capital, then unexpectedly released after four months in exchange for Isis prisoners held in Turkey.

U.S. and British Troops End Combat Operations in Key Afghan Province
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/world/asia/us-and-british-troops-end-combat-operations-in-key-afghan-province.html

Et toujours cette époustouflante réalité parallèle,

For the British forces, #Helmand was the centerpiece of a multiyear counternarcotics effort that largely failed to stem poppy cultivation. The province, which is home to more than 80 percent of the nation’s opium production, remains the heart of the illicit drug trade. According to a United Nations report, 2013 saw more land used to cultivate the crop than any year since the international community began recording the figure.

Still, officials on Sunday expressed cautious optimism that the Afghans would be ready to handle the fight on their own. While the Taliban tested districts throughout northern Helmand, claiming checkpoints, causing hundreds of casualties and sowing fear into the local population, they failed to claim any district centers from the government.

“Because of the competence, resolve and combined skills of the A.N.S.F., insurgent networks have become ineffective in Helmand Province,” said a statement from the International Security Assistance Force, referring to the Afghan National Security Forces.

In reality, locals say, the Taliban have never been stronger in the province. In the face of Western assertions, they added, the Taliban have claimed stretches of area surrounding the government centers and have dominated rural areas, as well as the flourishing drug trade.

Perhaps more worrisome are the trends that developed in northern Helmand over the last five months. Unlike years past, the #Taliban massed in large groups to contest government forces, a previously unthinkable dynamic given the presence of coalition air support.

#Afghanistan #Etats-Unis

#Afghanistan : ‘A Shocking Indictment’
Rory Stewart NOVEMBER 6, 2014 ISSUE
▻http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/06/afghanistan-shocking-indictment

Mille milliards USD, pour quoi (en fait pour qui) ?

Gopal, a Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor reporter, investigates, for example, a US counterterrorist operation in January 2002. US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, had identified two sites as likely “al-Qaeda compounds.” It sent in a Special Forces team by helicopter; the commander, Master Sergeant Anthony Pryor, was attacked by an unknown assailant, broke his neck as they fought and then killed him with his pistol; he used his weapon to shoot further adversaries, seized prisoners, and flew out again, like a Hollywood hero.

As Gopal explains, however, the American team did not attack al-Qaeda or even the Taliban. They attacked the offices of two district governors, both of whom were opponents of the Taliban. They shot the guards, handcuffed one district governor in his bed and executed him, scooped up twenty-six prisoners, sent in AC-130 gunships to blow up most of what remained, and left a calling card behind in the wreckage saying “Have a nice day. From Damage, Inc.” Weeks later, having tortured the prisoners, they released them with apologies. It turned out in this case, as in hundreds of others, that an Afghan “ally” had falsely informed the US that his rivals were Taliban in order to have them eliminated. (...) Gopal then finds the interview that the US Special Forces commander gave a year and a half later in which he celebrated the derring-do, and recorded that seven of his team were awarded bronze stars, and that he himself received a silver star for gallantry.

(...)

Gopal’s investigations into development are no more encouraging. I—like thousands of Western politicians—have often repeated the mantra that there are four million more children, and 1.5 million more girls, in school than there were under the Taliban. Gopal, however, quotes an Afghan report that in 2012, “of the 4,000 teachers currently on the payroll in Ghor, perhaps 3,200 have no qualifications—some cannot read and write…80 percent of the 740 schools in the province are not operating at all.” And Ghor is one of the least “Taliban-threatened” provinces of Afghanistan.

(...)

Why didn’t I—didn’t most of us—know these details? The answer is, in part, that such investigative journalism is very rare in Afghanistan. Gopal’s work owes a lot to other researchers. He is building on the work of Sarah Chayes and Alex Strick van Linschoten (both of whom immersed themselves in the Pushtu south), of exceptional journalists such as Carlotta Gall and David Rohde of The New York Times, of officials with years in the country such as Eckart Schiewek, Robert Kluijver, and Michael Semple, and of Afghan journalists such as Mohammed Hassan Hakimi.

(...)

But his real genius lies in binding all these sources together and combining them with thousands of hours of interviews

(...)

Sur les #Dostum et ses pareils,

No one reading Gopal would be tempted to joke about these men again, or present them simply as “traditional power-brokers” and “necessary evils.”

#Etats-Unis #leadership « #nos_valeurs » "#monde_libre" #propagande #propagandistes #violence #mort #malheur

Document présenté comme une lettre du leader taliban Adnan Rashid à Malala Yousafzai (archive 2013) – The Express Tribune

▻http://tribune.com.pk/story/578128/taliban-leader-advises-malala-to-return-join-madrassa

« Contrairement à Malala, Nabila n’a pas reçu un accueil chaleureux à Washington » - Al Jazeera English (archive)

▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/11/malala-nabila-worlds-apart-201311193857549913.html

It is useful to contrast the American response to Nabila Rehman with that of Malala Yousafzai, a young girl who was nearly assassinated by the Pakistani Taliban. While Malala was feted by Western media figures, politicians and civic leaders for her heroism, Nabila has become simply another one of the millions of nameless, faceless people who have had their lives destroyed over the past decade of American wars. The reason for this glaring discrepancy is obvious. Since Malala was a victim of the Taliban, she, despite her protestations, was seen as a potential tool of political propaganda to be utilised by war advocates. She could be used as the human face of their effort, a symbol of the purported decency of their cause, the type of little girl on behalf of whom the United States and its allies can say they have been unleashing such incredible bloodshed. Tellingly, many of those who took up her name and image as a symbol of the justness of American military action in the Muslim world did not even care enough to listen to her own words or feelings about the subject.

As described by the Washington Post’s Max Fisher :

Western fawning over Malala has become less about her efforts to improve conditions for girls in Pakistan, or certainly about the struggles of millions of girls in Pakistan, and more about our own desire to make ourselves feel warm and fuzzy with a celebrity and an easy message. It’s a way of letting ourselves off the hook, convincing ourselves that it’s simple matter of good guys vs bad guys, that we’re on the right side and that everything is okay.