Mediaboss Marketing

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan The 1,800-mile border between Pakistan and India has long been treated as a hostile red line between neighboring, nuclear-armed rivals. Its sole official crossing is a heavily guarded military post. Long stretches are illuminated by powerful floodlights, and the 340-mile, militarized portion that divides the contested Himalayan Kashmir region, known as the Line of Control, has been the site of alpine combat, long-distance shelling and periodic shootings of both Indian and Pakistani border troops.

In contrast, Pakistans 1,500-mile border with Afghanistan has always been more porous and politically complicated. Thousands of cargo trucks traverse its two major crossings every week. In the north, where ethnic Pashtun communities straddle both sides of the line drawn by British rulers in 1896, Afghans insist the real border lies deeper into Pakistan. They have long accused Pakistani authorities of allowing insurgents to slip across, stage attacks and retreat to safe havens.

[Pakistan shells border with Afghanistan as tensions rise over terrorist attacks]

Now, with thousands of steel posts and scrolls of deadly razor wire, Pakistan is trying to remove all such ambiguity.

Earlier this week, military officials announced that they are proceeding with a long-stalled plan to build a fence and heighten security measures along the entire border, beginning with the mountainous, semiautonomous tribal regions of Khyber-Paktunkhwa province in the north and gradually extending the work south through the lawless desert badlands of Baluchistan province.

This ambitious project, while unlikely to stop all human traffic, is aimed at sending a tangible signal to Afghanistan, and perhaps more importantly to officials in Washington, that Pakistan is a victim rather than a perpetrator of cross-border terrorism. Building a wall, military officials here assert, is the only way to control a border that has been permeable for far too long.

On Friday, as news spread that terrorists had killed 85 people in scattered attacks across Pakistan that included suicide bombings at both ends of the border, Pakistans military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, sent out a terse tweet: Security/surv[eillance] of Pak-Afg border enhanced. Stringent actions agst illegal Bdr crossers. Recent terrorist incidents linked to sanctuaries across.

Afghan officials have objected strongly to the new measures, saying they will disrupt normal, necessary cross-border traffic and unfairly punish families and communities on both sides. They also say the actions are unlikely to hinder the cross-border movement of insurgent groups sponsored by Pakistans security agencies.

But Pakistan, which routinely denies that it shelters anti-Afghan militants, has also been trying to turn the tables by ramping up accusations against Afghanistan for harboring anti-Pakistan militants mostly groups driven out of Pakistan by an aggressive military campaign in 2014 and 2015 and allowing them to set up base camps in tribal areas just inside the border.

In February, when Pakistan was stunned by a blitz of terrorist attacks that killed 125 people, including a suicide bombing at a historic Sufi shrine, the government promptly focused blame on Afghanistan, closed all border crossings and launched a cross-border shelling operation at the northern end against what it said were militant camps used by a group linked to the Islamic State.

[A wave of terrorist bombings tests Pakistani resolve]

Now, Afghan officials are blaming Pakistani-based Taliban militants for a massive bombing in Kabul and other recent attacks, and U.S. officials are considering an economic and diplomatic crackdown on Pakistan unless it takes action to rein in such groups. The army, which is building new border forts and surveillance operations in addition to the fence, says that better border-security management is in the interest of both countries and essential for peace and stability.

But Afghans arent having any of it, saying Pakistan has no right to build such a fence and warning that they may retaliate if the project continues. In the past, Pakistan made a mistake by constructing buildings along the border and faced strong reaction from us, said a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry. We hope they dont repeat such mistakes again.

Read more:

Pakistan targets Afghan Pashtuns and refugees in anti-terrorism crackdown

Between panic and euphoria, Pakistan tries to figure out Donald Trump

Read the original:
Pakistan, accused of terrorist infiltration, starts to fence its border with Afghanistan - Washington Post

President Trump with Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, President Donald Trump unveiled his strategy for how his administration would fight the ongoing war against the Taliban and various other jihadist groups in Afghanistan. The good news and the bad news is that Trump himself will not be actively managing the U.S. participation in the Afghan conflict, but instead will give the Defense Department latitude to set troop levels and their level of engagement at its discretion, without interference from the White House.

Its good news because Trumps hands-off approach averts the risk of the president, an impulsive leader with no military experience, ordering a reckless escalation of the war for, say, PR purposes. Secretary of Defense James Mattis is perhaps the most intelligent, levelheaded, and mature member of the Trump administration (which is not to damn him with faint praise), and so far, intends to pursue the Afghan War as part of a regional strategy, in partnership with allies, and without dramatically increasing the number of American soldiers on the ground. Right now, hes only talking about deploying another 2,000-to-4,000 troops on top of the 8,400 already there. In terms of risk to our tax dollars and American lives, that is not such a heavy price to pay if Mattis is indeed successful at finally routing the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIS in Afghanistan.

Hawkish pundits like Eli Lake are praising Trumps strategy for another reason: By declining to set a definite end date for the U.S. military engagement, it avoids the mistake critics of the Obama administrations approach said the former president made in broadcasting to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations, as well as other regional malefactors like Russia, Iran, and Pakistan, exactly when it would be safe to gallivant around the Central Asian country again without the risk of running into an American soldier.

Now for the bad news. Mattis may be a grown-up but he is also a general, and giving a military leader carte blanche to handle a war as he sees fit, with little civilian oversight, certainly has its downsides. Lake notes that military commanders under Obama complained that the White House at times micromanaged the war and put restrictive limits on how much battle support our troops could provide to the Afghan soldiers they were there to train, but those restrictions were meant to avoid mission creep and a reescalation of our military role, as well as to ensure that our military kept the terms of the agreements we had signed with the Afghan government.

Letting the Pentagon decide for itself how to handle our presence there doesnt necessarily guarantee an escalation, but it raises the possibility of military men deciding (as they are wont to do) that more aggressive military action is the key to breaking the current stalemate, and thus opening a can of worms that proves hard to close. As Lakes Bloomberg View colleague Noah Feldman points out, The fundamental drawback to this presidential outsourcing comes from the way it structures incentives over the long run.

Put simply, the Pentagon will always ask for more. The Defense Department is not in the habit of saying it doesnt need any more soldiers, weapons, or money, and Mattis certainly has no reason not to take as much as he can get for a war that looks no more decisively winnable today than it has for the past decade and a half weve been fighting it. In Feldmans view, delegating authority for Afghanistan to Mattis lets Trump take credit for any victories and distance himself from any failures that might arise from the defense secretarys efforts.

Furthermore, while setting no deadline for withdrawal may not give the Taliban a precise idea of when the U.S. will no longer be a factor in Afghanistan, they know full well that their strategy of wearing us down until we get fed up and leave is working and will eventually prevail. Smoking the Taliban out of their innumerable hiding places in the Af-Pak region is a thoroughly unrealistic proposition, and whether in two years, five, or ten, at some point, we will leave. Millenarian fanatics with their eyes on Armageddon and the afterlife will happily wait us out a little longer if need be. Foreign powers great and super have been failing badly to stamp out Afghan insurgencies for going on 180 years now; anyone who thinks a little strategic ambiguity will make them crack is kidding themselves.

In an op-ed in the Washington Examiner, Daniel L. Davis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, argues that Trump would be better off abandoning the pipe dream of defeating the Taliban and stabilizing Afghanistan militarily, which he describes as a physical impossibility given the countrys size and inhospitable terrain. Instead, the president would be far wiser to focus on the goal of protecting the U.S. from terrorism by engaging in a robust diplomatic effort to convince Pakistan to cease or severely curtail cross-border support for the insurgency. According to Reuters, the administration is indeed weighing a strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Pakistan in just that regard, which may include an escalation of drone strikes there, withholding aid, or even downgrading our relations. On the other hand, the goal of getting Pakistan to clean up its act is one both the Obama administration and the Bush administration before it tried and failed to achieve, and its not immediately clear why Trump should be any more successful.

However that plan goes, we can be sure that getting out of Afghanistan for good and all is the one strategy America wont try anytime soon, at least not as long as the public barely remembers were still there.

The Trump administration doesnt seem to be taking the threat of future Russian election interference very seriously.

Were about to find out what Mattiss Pentagon will do with mostly unchecked authority to conduct a war.

Should Democrats in places like Georgia keep trying to rebuild white support? Or should they focus on minority mobilization? The debate goes on.

A new report suggests Obama knew about Putins intervention in the 2016 election and its aims, but didnt move aggressively until it was too late.

The emergence of a new game plan, from persuasion to motivation.

Look, I dont know who you are, wiseass, Biden reportedly said.

One surprised music critic reviews Mystified.

The Justice Departments handling of the Clinton email investigation is at the center of the senators questions.

Dean Heller of Nevada said he could not support legislation as written. Now things get dicey for Mitch McConnell.

Turns out, the former FBI director was attending an event for a nonprofit that works with abused children.

D.C. might still be revolving around legislative gridlock and investigations. But the electoral landscape would be very different.

A U.S. representative said he couldnt back the resolution which condemned violence against women because it supported safe abortion.

Obamacares popularity seems to be peaking just as Republicans get closer to taking it down in legislation that is not popular at all.

The Saudi-led coalition wants the tiny Gulf state to cut off ties with Iran and close Al Jazeera, ultimatums Qatar isnt likely to meet.

Change is slow. Thats why we have to keep working.

She met with a handful of Republican senators this week, but they couldnt agree on a plan.

The president also admitted that his tape bluff was an attempt to intimidate Comeys testimony.

A quick break from the off-camera briefings.

See more here:
The Trump Doctrine in Afghanistan: Let the Generals Handle It - New York Magazine

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

China has formally initiated a mediation bid to ease Afghanistan's tensions with Pakistan and to encourage the two uneasy neighbors to jointly work for countering terrorism and promoting regional peace.

Beijing's diplomatic offensive comes as relations between Islamabad and Kabul have deteriorated in the past two years over mutual allegations of sponsoring terrorist attacks on each other's soil.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to Kabul on Saturday, where he met with President Ashraf Ghani and other senior Afghan officials to discuss ways to improve ties with Pakistan.

An official statement later quoted Yi as telling his Afghan interlocutors that "if required, China will be ready to observe and explain steps" both Pakistan and Afghanistan are taking against terrorism and extremism.

Diplomatic relations

Earlier this year, diplomatic intervention by Britain helped ease tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The mediation led to an understanding that the two countries develop a way to address mutual concerns and promote peace efforts.

Ghani later proposed involving a third country to help verify efforts taken by the two countries to reach those goals, which apparently prompted China to undertake the current mediation effort as it enjoys good relations with both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A statement from Ghani's office quoted the president as saying, "Wang believes Pakistan has an influence on Taliban and will ask Pakistan to strictly control them, especially the Haqqani group."

The statement also said the Chinese foreign minister had said he would urge Pakistan to commit to fighting terrorism.

The Chinese foreign minister later arrived in Islamabad to further his mediation mission in talks with Pakistani foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz. It was not immediately known whether Yi brought with him any proposals from the Afghan side.

More meetings Sunday

"Both sides held wide-ranging discussions and overview on matters related to bilateral relations, regional security and the situation in Afghanistan," Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said.

The visiting Chinese foreign minister is also scheduled to meet with Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Sunday before holding a joint news conference with Aziz to share details of their talks.

Yi will then travel back to Kabul to brief Afghan leaders on his meetings in Islamabad, officials said.

China considers stability in Afghanistan vital to its national security and economic interests. It is worried that continued Afghan insecurity could threaten security of its western Xinjiang province, which shares a border with the war-torn nation.

Major investment

Beijing is investing billions of dollars in Pakistan, China's staunch ally, to establish a trade route to gain access to international markets through the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

Afghan leaders allege sanctuaries and safe havens on Pakistani soil have enabled the Taliban to intensify insurgent attacks and prolong the Afghan war.

Islamabad denies the charges and in turn says sanctuaries in border areas of Afghanistan are where terrorist attacks are plotted against Pakistan, including Friday's deadly suicide bombings in two cities that killed more than 80 people and injured more than 200 others.

On Saturday, Bajwa alleged that militant sanctuaries in Afghanistan were operating "under the patronage" of the country's intelligence agency and its Indian counterparts.

The army chief made the remarks while chairing an emergency meeting of his top commanders, according to an official statement released Saturday night. Bajwa dismissed criticism that Pakistan is not doing enough to counter terrorism.

"Unfortunately, our sacrifices against terrorism are not well-acknowledged and we are often subjected to the demand of 'Do more.' ... It is time now for the other stakeholders, particularly Afghanistan, to do more," he said.

Bajwa's remarks came days after the U.S. Department of Defense in its latest report alleged that the Taliban and militants linked to the Haqqani terrorist network continue to use sanctuaries on Pakistani soil for staging attacks in Afghanistan.

See original here:
China Begins Mediation Bid to Ease Afghanistan-Pakistan Tensions - Voice of America

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - Ten soldiers from the 660thOrdinance Company in Pocatello have volunteered to serve the United States in Afghanistan. Saturday there was a farewell ceremony for those leaving and their families.

"They have answered our country's call and for that I want to personally say thank you to each and every one of you," said one of the military commanders who spoke at the ceremony.

Commanders spoke to both the soldiers and the families about what being deployed means and how to cope while they are separated.

Bannock County Commissioner Terrell Tovey, who is also still active in the U.S. military, offered words of encouragement and advice for those being deployed. He also read a proclamation from the county commission.

"We, the Bannock County Commissioners, hereby proclaim June 24, 2017 the 660th Ordinance Company Day."

Soldiers who are leaving said it's bittersweet to go but it's still an honor to serve.

"I'm 100 percent nervous about it," said Sgt. Morris Smith, who will be deployed overseas for the second time. "It's a new place. I've never been there before. It'll definitely be more of a culture shock than my first experience. The country's vastly different than what Kuwait was for me but I am looking forward to it."

"I'm excited. A little bit anxious," said Specialist Nicolas Akina, his first time being deployed overseas. "I think the closer it gets the more it starts hitting home that I'm going to be gone. I'm a newlywed, just a couple months ago so it's hard but it's what I signed up for and I'm excited to go and do my part."

It's not any easier for the families to say goodbye either.

"I'm scared for him, I'm scared for myself, but I'm also really proud," said Kali Smith, wife of Sgt. Smith. "This is what he loves to do and I just can't wait for him to come back."

The deployment will last about a year.

See more here:
Pocatello soldiers deploy to Afghanistan - LocalNews8.com

FEED BACK

Zaheer Bhatti

FACEBOOK and other Social Media are rife with planted stories distorting the course of history. This piece is a humble attempt to put the record straight over an account about the Imperial assault on Afghanistan. Making the Manhattan twin-tower strike an excuse, sixteen years down the line, Pentagon, the State Department or the 9/11 Commission Report have yet to address a number of elementary questions, such as what security lapses allowed penetration of the impregnable US Air Defence System by a bunch of novices (all Muslims but None of them Afghans) and yet the US chose to assault Afghanistan over which it had helped vacate Soviet aggression two decades earlier. The referred Facebook account makes a trivial allegation that hijackers of the planes which struck the towers were trained in Afghanistan, because the medieval-looking Afghan land been war-ravaged for decades in the aftermath of the Russian invasion, and neither had the capacity nor infrastructure to be able to train persons for a sophisticated mission. The account attributes attack on Afghanistan to Mulla Omars refusal to hand over Osama alleged to have masterminded the 9/11 attack to the US. The fact is that firstly Osama had categorically denied any role in the occurrence but expressed his endorsement of striking at the United States which had become the symbol of universal tyranny. Secondly, Mulla Omar while refusing to hand over Osama to the US as he was his guest in Afghanistan had agreed upon Pakistani mediation to send him to another Muslim country. But the imperial allied junta saw the game slipping and pre-emptively assaulted Afghanistan. The US claim to have defeated the Taliban the very first year in 2001 was falsified subsequently as the ill-provided yet resolute Afghans pulled a tactical retreat into the rugged terrain of the country and neighbouring Iran and Pakistan in the face of carpet bombing by the Allied military might, only to re-surface in 2005 and challenge the conglomerate of Allied Nations purely on the score of their will and determination without any sophisticated armoury at their disposal. The US claim of NATO success in Afghanistan is belied by replacement of Gen. Mckiernan with Gen. Mc Chrystal engineering a 30,000 additional troop Surge strategy in the summer of 2010, only to find US combat troop casualties doubling compared to the corresponding period in 2009 forcing Obama to replace Mc Chrystal with David Petraeus after the formers remarks about Obama and his Administrative team of Joe Biden, James Jones and Richard Halbrooke, which underscored festering tension between the US military commanders and its civilian leadership. The troop surge accompanied by escalation in drone attacks had cost the US 7 of its CIA operatives in one retaliatory Bagram Air Base Taliban suicide attack by the Afghan Taliban. Pumping more troops had backfired but the US conjured a face saving success, and announced withdrawal with an insignificant number of troops left behind, which had been precipitated by several Allies pulling out of the faceless war. Realizing soon after its carpet bombing that instant success in Afghanistan was going to be a pipe dream, the US had at first desperately tried to entice desertions among Taliban ranks in order to fashion an ostensibly representative Government, but failing to do so had to fall back on puppets from the minority Northern Alliance and a fake Constitution. Contrary to the report recording the first Afghan elections to have been held on 9 October 2004 with an 80% turn out, had the election turnout been anywhere near and Karzai wielding a strong centre, he would not have remained confined to Kabul despite a repeat term of office followed by another puppet twins of Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah whose jurisdiction is anything but worse; so much for the Constitution tailored against the will and traditional requirements of the Islamic Polity. Ever since, the US has tried to engage the Afghan Taliban into a dialogue but failed because they would settle for nothing short of complete US withdrawal to enable an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. While Pakistan having captured the Deputy Taliban Commander Mulla Barader offered to mediate with the warring Afghans through him, the effort fell foul with the US Establishment scuttling the offer indicating lack of trust in Pakistani sincerity relying on Wiki-leaks conjuring its nexus with the Afghan Taliban. The tailored face-book account nevertheless makes some inadvertent admissions including the fact that the Taliban resurgence corresponded to rise in anti-West and anti-American outrage among Afghans caused by a series of incidents in 2012 including US marines urinating over dead Afghan bodies, burning copies of the Holy Quran by US soldiers at a military base and breaking into several homes killing 17 Afghans mostly women and children, which only confirms universal disapproval of NATO assault over Afghanistan. But as contended, if indeed the US had withdrawn because it had largely achieved its objective of disrupting Alqaeda killing many of its leaders including Osama Bin Laden way back in 2011, it ought to have vacated Afghanistan and left it to the Afghans to find a home solution to their differences without outside meddling. But it is gravely doubtful if the US wants peace and stability in Afghanistan and the region, as it has pre-emptively killed any prospects by not only scuttling any such efforts but pre-emptively killing Mulla Omars successor Mulla Mansoor and also the peace-seeking Afghan leader Burhanuddin Rabbani. That the Allied Forces shifted focus mid-stream to tracking the non-existent WMDs in Iraq apparently seeking diversion from the quagmire in Afghanistan it had plunged itself, it was later indicated by a series of frustrating US steps and postures how bitterly confused and tangled the Afghan war had become for them. With Trump planning another troop surge in Afghanistan and India reportedly contemplating sending in a Division of its men, the bloody Indo-American nexus is surfacing yet again. The war in Afghanistan has delivered nothing except misery to its people and a hapless coterie of installed imperial puppets unable to operate beyond Kabul despite pumping in billions of dollars of American taxpayers money in aid of now their Indian-tutored proxies. The writer is a media professional, member of Pioneering team of PTV and a veteran ex Director Programmes. Email: zaheerbhatti1@gmail.com

See the original post here:
Corrigendum: Imperial assault on Afghanistan' - Pakistan Observer