Daily brief: American killed at CIA Kabul station

By Andrew Lebovich Monday, September 26, 2011 - 9:07 AM Share

The Rack: Matthieu Aikins, "Our Man in Kandahar" (The Atlantic).

Inside job?

OneAmerican was killed and another wounded Sunday night when an Afghan employed by the U.S. government opened fire on the grounds of what is believed to be the CIA's headquarters in Kabul, housed in the former Ariana Hotel (Post, WSJ, BBC, NYT, Times, AP, Tel, Guardian, McClatchy, AFP, CNN, ABC, Reuters).The attacker was shot dead after nearly 10 minutes of gunfire and a small explosion in the compound, an annex to the U.S. embassy that is the largest overseas CIA station in the world and one of the most secureareas in Kabul. Officials say they are still unsure of the gunman's motivation for opening fire (NYT, Guardian). The L.A. Times reports on how the recent string of high-profile attacks in Kabul have rattled the city's residents (LAT).

Afghanauthorities this weekend arrested a man in the killing of former Afghanpresident Burhanuddin Rabbani, a supposed liaison with the Quetta ShuraTaliban leadership named Hamidullah Akhund (NYT, AFP).Akhund reportedly delivered audio messages from Rabbani to the Taliban leadership, and allegedly set up the meeting between Rabbani and the suicide bomber that took his life last week. Reuters spoke about Rabbaniwith Abdullah Anas, a former anti-Soviet fighter and associate of Osamabin Laden who has been involved in negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban (Reuters).

Alsothis weekend, Afghan police say that they disrupted a suicide attack inthe southern province of Zabul after officers shot two attackers dead, detonating their explosives (AP). A German tourist and an Afghan were killed by unidentified gunmen this weekend in the central province of Ghor (Guardian).An American soldier who confessed to taking part in the intentional killing of Afghan civilians, Pfc. Andrew Holmes, was sentenced to seven years in prison Friday (AFP, Guardian, LAT).And a former Army officer, Sidharth Handa, received a 10-year prison sentence Friday for taking more than $300,000 in bribes from Afghan contractors (AP).

Mutual incalcitrance

Pakistaniofficials pushed back this weekend on American assertions of the former's suspected complicity with the insurgent Haqqani Network, as thewar of words between the two allies continues to accelerate (NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, AP, BBC, Reuters).Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said Sunday that the Haqqanis were once the "blue-eyed boy" of the CIA, and that the agency likely has links to terrorist organizations, while Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that the spy agency created the Haqqanis, adding that Pakistan had lost $68 billion fighting terrorism (ET, Dawn, Dawn).Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani criticized U.S. policy in South Asia this weekend, and announced Sunday that he will convene a meeting of thecountry's political parties to discuss recent developments with the United States (Bloomberg, ET, Dawn, ET).

Pakistaniarmy chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani convened an emergency meeting of his top commanders Sunday, asf U.S Central Command chief Gen. James Mattis met with the head of the Pakistani army's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Khalid Shameem Wyne (Guardian, Tel, Reuters, AP, FT, Dawn, AFP).The commanders voted not to pursue an operation against the Haqqanis intheir stronghold in North Waziristan, while army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas confirmed that the Pakistani military is in contact with the Haqqanis (ET, Reuters, AFP, AP).Kayani has canceled a trip that was supposed to take him to the United Kingdom today, with no explanation given for the change (AP).And Mark Mazzetti, Scott Shane, and Alissa J. Rubin have a must-read feature on the Haqqani Network's criminal and insurgent enterprises (NYT).

On Friday, a suspected U.S. drone strike reportedly killed at least six "militants" east of the North Waziristan capital of Miranshah (AFP).

The blame game

Afghanofficials said Sunday that Pakistani army outposts had fired more than 300 rockets and mortar rounds into the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan over the previous five days, and warned that Afghan forces would "respond" if the shelling did not stop (ET, Reuters, McClatchy).Six men arrested last week in Birmingham, England have been charged with terrorism offenses, including two who allegedly traveled to Pakistan to receive terrorist training (BBC, AP, Reuters, Times).In Quetta, police arrested a 12-year-old boy suspected of planting explosives in a Shi'a Muslim neighborhood, as direct flights for Shi'a pilgrims to Iran are under consideration between the two countries' governments (ET, ET, ET).And Pakistan's Human Rights Commission released a report this weekend asserting that poverty and fear of Taliban violence have forced many young girls in the country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into seminaries (Dawn).

TheInternational Court of Arbitration (ICA) in the Hague has ruled that India cannot conduct "permanent" work on the controversial Kishanganga Dam in the disputed region of Kashmir, but that all other work on the project can move forward (ET, DT, Dawn, ET). The court will also decide if the Indian dam or a Pakistani dam on the same river will be allowed to proceed (ET).

Massive flooding in Pakistan's south has left nearly two million people sick (AFP).And schools reopened in the Punjab after a 10-day closure due to an outbreak of dengue fever, with students under orders to wear shirts withlong sleeves to guard against mosquito bites (ET). The outbreak has also forced Pakistan to move a national cricket game against Afghanistan to Karachi (Dawn).

Fivestories round out the day: A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will visit Pakistan in November, after the IMF's Managing DirectorChristine Lagarde and the head of the World Bank Robert Vilke reportedly refused to meet with a Pakistani delegation led by Shaikh this weekend (Dawn, ET).Pakistan's paramilitary Rangers moved in force into a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stronghold of Karachi this weekend, detaining "dozens" of people (ET, ET).Defense attorneys rested their case Saturday in the murder case of Mumtaz Qadri, the admitted killer of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, as the defense said Taseer's behavior and lifestyle were, "unbecoming of a Muslim" (ET). The Tribune looks at Pakistan's suffering public education system (ET). And Mark Magnier profiles controversial Pakistani television host Mathira Mohammad (LAT).

Delayed recognition

TheL.A. Times reports on Pakistan's unlikely new literary star, Jamil Ahmad, whose book about his time in Pakistan's northwest has recently been published nearly 40 years after it was written (LAT). The book, The Wandering Falcon, is set to be released in the United States in October.

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SONGSHU

11:50 AM ET

September 26, 2011

Im just glad we've

Im just glad we've established that intentionally killing Afghan citizens only merits 70% of the punishment that stealing 300k does.

MORTIMUS

12:36 PM ET

September 26, 2011

It's a question of proxy etiquette...

For US, we see proxies as disposable, expendable, recyclable; we use them, then lose them; we pump them, then dump them. Sure, we used proxies in Afghanistan in the 80's, we used them in Central America, we used them in Vietnam (for a while), we used them in Africa, etc. But we didn't hold on to them; we got what we needed to get done, and then we cut the umbilical cord, and let them wither on the vine or ...

The Pakistanis, on the other hand, also use proxies; but they have a more shall we say, 'organic' or 'sustainable' relationship with their affiliated groups. They prefer ongoing or enduring relationships because, well, they know that history is long and unpredictable; alliances fray, agreements erode, security interests conflict--and it really is no fun getting caught with your pants down now is it?

Which brings us back to the US. We cut our central asian proxy friends loose, and it took 10 years for that decision to come back and bite us in the ass. In that context, it really does look silly for Mullen to be lecturing the pakis on proper proxy etiquette.

But then again, he's retiring, so what the f*ck does he, or gates, or any of the old hands care, right?

[also, could somebody tell 'lesbian' lindsey graham to shut his piehole? He was yammering about invading Iran, he was yammering about going to war with the russkies over Georgia, and now he wants to take it to 180 million pakistanis? and he's on several armed services subcommittees, so he should know better; he should know that we are in no position to dictate a goddamn thing when it comes to Pakistan. His impertinence regarding central asia policy is liable to get good men killed (as if we didn't have enough of that already...that JAGhole).]

MARTY MARTEL

3:21 PM ET

September 26, 2011

US appeasement of Pakistan has led to endless Afghan war

This endless war in Afghanistan has been of US’ own making. Taliban insurgency has been fueled by Pakistani government since 2001.

The years of American policy of appeasing Pakistan at any cost have resulted in never-ending Afghan war.

Intentional and willful denial of Pakistani State’s terrorist connections by Bush administration since 2001 and then Obama administration have brought this untold suffering to not just American troops but to Afghan – civilian and security - people as well.

The seeds of the ‘current Afghan tragedy’ were sowed in Washington when Bush administration decided to allow Musharraf to spirit away by airlift hundreds, if not thousands, of Taliban operatives cornered by the advancing Northern Alliance in Kunduz in November, 2001. Pakistan relocated those Taliban cadres including Mullah Mohammed Omar in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan (now relocated to Karachi by Pakistani ISI to protect them from possible US drone attacks) and Haqqani network (HQN) in North Waziristan from where Mullah Omar’s QST and Haqqani’s HQN have been planning raids in Afghanistan ever since.

U. S. has deliberately deluded itself about Afghan Taliban’s Pakistani connections in fueling and sustaining Afghan insurgency as reported by Matt Waldman in ‘The sun in the sky‘ on 6/13/2010, corroborated by WikiLeaks leaks on 7/25/2010 and then further corroborated by Chris Alexander, Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009 in his article on 7/30/2010 titled ‘The huge scale of Pakistan‘s complicity‘.

Duplicitous Pakistan has U. S. under the barrel of a gun - US can NOT use its aid leverage to force Pakistan to stop supporting terrorist groups who kill US/NATO troops in Afghanistan day in and day out because US needs Pakistan’s help in ferrying supplies to those very US/NATO troops.

Previous US ambassador Anne Patterson to Pakistan, wrote in a secret review in 2009 that ‘Pakistan's Army and ISI are covertly SPONSORING four militant groups - Haqqani‘s HQN, Mullah Omar‘s QST, Al Qaeda and LeT - and will not abandon them for any amount of US money‘, as diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show.

How can Pakistani State or its nuclear arsenal be in danger of falling to Islamic fundamentalists when ‘Pakistani Army and ISI are SPONSORING those very Islamic fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, Mullah Omar’s QST, Haqqani’s HQN and Hafiz Saeed’s LeT’ as so clearly written by Ambassador Patterson?

Ambassador Patterson had NO reason to mislead her own State Department and U. S. government.

Following are verbatim quotes from what Gen (rtd) Jack Keane (a former Pentagon official) said at a discussion on Afghanistan organized by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think-tank on June 30, 2011:

1. "The truth is, the ISI aids and abets the sanctuaries in Pakistan that the Afghan (Taliban) operate out of. They (ISI) provide training for them, they provide resources for them and they provide intelligence for them. From those sanctuaries, every single day Afghan fighters come into Afghanistan and kill and maim us".
2. "There's a direct relationship of ISI's complicity and the deaths of American soldiers and the catastrophic wounding of those soldiers. The chief of staff (General Kayani) of the Pakistani military is complicit. He used to be the director of ISI. He put the guy (General Ahmed Pasha) in there who is in charge now and he has full knowledge of what I'm just describing".
3. "There are two ammonium nitrate factories in Pakistan. 80 per cent of the explosive devices that are used to kill our soldiers, kill Afghan security forces and kill Afghan people come from Pakistan."
4. "All of what I just said to you, when we confront them with this, they lie to us.”

With Pakistani Army headed by General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, who once headed ISI, former President Musharraf as well as current Pakistani civilian government repeatedly lying to the United States, America‘s Afghan mission was doomed from the very beginning.