"My guess is that because both the Afghan and Pakistani militaries use the Mi-17, this makes it more convenient to fly NATO forces across the border and into the FATA as necessary, with lots of plausible deniability, especially if they are flown at night and no one gets around to painting a lot of markings on the aircraft. That would explain why, as the Canadian report puts it, 'details were kept off the MERX web-site, which formally lists government procurement competitions, and no news release was issued about the new choppers, which have been in use since the spring.'"Report: Canadian military leasing Russian Mi-17 helos in Afghanistan - By Tom Ricks | The Best Defense:
The Alliance on Mi-17 Shopping Spree
The news of Canadian military in Afghanistan having leased some Russian Mi-17 helicopters is the latest to surface in a string of similar development. Says Ricks:
Is the World Starting to Understand alQaeda?
At long last, the world starts to understand alQaeda:
"[Today's alQaeda is] a global, fluid, and adaptive amoeba: a kind of collectively self-aware organism, one that closely monitors what Western experts are saying about it -- and plots ways to turn those ideas against the United States."Will this flash of comprehension go mainstream, or is it destined for oblivion? Only time will tell. Complete article: Watching the Watchers - By Jarret Brachman | Foreign Policy
Al-Adel Spearheading bin Laden's War on West?
"[I]n April this year, [Saif al-Adel] was released from Iranian custody along with Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's son, and top al-Qaeda operatives Suleiman al-Gaith and Mahfouz al-Walid.
"Iran swapped the terrorists for Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, a Pakistan-based diplomat kidnapped by al-Qaeda last year.
"Little is known about the shadowy al-Adel, who is also known by the names Muhammad al-Makkawi and Ibrahim al-Madani. Born in Egypt, al-Adel is said to have served as a colonel in its Special Forces. He was, however, arrested in 1987 along with several jihadists.
"Egyptian prosecutors claimed that al-Adel's plans included crashing an aircraft into the Egypt's parliament, or driving a bomb-laden truck into the building – both tactics al-Qaeda later used to devastating effect."
Ahmed Rashid's Take on the Complex Regional Dynamics
"If Obama's generals have their way -- and in an eerie parallel of the way things work in Islamabad, they are increasingly calling the shots in the relationship -- the war in Afghanistan could drag on indefinitely. Pakistan will dig in its heels, as will other regional powers. Taliban attacks will multiply, and the U.S. military and the CIA will escalate their actions along (and maybe even across) the Pakistani border. We are at the cusp of either a broader peace in the region or an ever-widening chaos. It's Obama's choice."
The Road to Kabul Runs Through Kashmir - By Ahmed Rashid | Foreign Policy
The Road to Kabul Runs Through Kashmir - By Ahmed Rashid | Foreign Policy
Outrage Over Pakistan’s Apparent Lack of Strategy
Finally, some genuine outrage over the steady terror strikes that have been bleeding Pakistan for years now - and the unmistakable callousness of the official response. Thank you, Musharraf Zaidi.
PakNatSec shares Zaidi's consternation over the fact that almost a decade into the war on terror and three years since the TTP's open declaration of war on Pakistan, the 'front-line state' is blundering about without any visible counter-terrorism strategy. In fact, the analysis of the 'pattern of attack' is itself missing - unless you take for analysis the wild conspiracy theories doing the rounds of the Internet and the Urdu press.
Consider, for instance, the November 5 attacks targeting two mosques in the northwest. Where is the analysis involving questions like how - if at all - are the two attacks linked together; how do they fit into the overall pattern (or patterns?) - if any - of terror hits; what can we learn from the pattern(s) about the perpetrators, their capacity, their strategy, their aims; and so forth? Or - if any or all of these questions are misplaced - analysis leading us to the right questions to ask?
Any eventual strategy to combat terrorism must be preceded by and based on sound, in-depth, exhaustive, sustained analysis; and much if not all of that analysis must come from, blend into, an filter through to public discourse. For, Pakistan's success in the war on terror will take not just all sorts of Pakistanis - it will take every last one of us.
"Three years since the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) launched this war into a different, much bloodier dimension, the official response to this mayhem seems only to show Pakistan still has no counter-terrorism strategy. As always, the only certainties in the aftermath of terror in Pakistan were two things. First, Pakistani leaders would fall over themselves to repeat platitudes about terrorism in Pakistan and how very strongly they condemn this kind of thing. Second, this will all happen again, very soon.The piece, 'All calculus, no answers', contributed to the AfPak Channel is as readable as it is thought-provoking.
"How strongly did the terrorist attack in Darra Adam Khel register within the Pakistani discourse? The customary thing in Pakistan after a terrorist attack is a casual, 'oh-no-not-again.' It's casual because you simply cannot expend all your energy lamenting one terrorist attack, when you know there is another just around the corner. We have to conserve our outrage and our routine condemnations for these events, because, let's face it, there will never be a Pakistani 9/11. We've never built anything quite so magnificent and meaningful as the World Trade Center, or the Pentagon. So we stutter and stumble. From one kind of 9/11 to the next."
PakNatSec shares Zaidi's consternation over the fact that almost a decade into the war on terror and three years since the TTP's open declaration of war on Pakistan, the 'front-line state' is blundering about without any visible counter-terrorism strategy. In fact, the analysis of the 'pattern of attack' is itself missing - unless you take for analysis the wild conspiracy theories doing the rounds of the Internet and the Urdu press.
Consider, for instance, the November 5 attacks targeting two mosques in the northwest. Where is the analysis involving questions like how - if at all - are the two attacks linked together; how do they fit into the overall pattern (or patterns?) - if any - of terror hits; what can we learn from the pattern(s) about the perpetrators, their capacity, their strategy, their aims; and so forth? Or - if any or all of these questions are misplaced - analysis leading us to the right questions to ask?
Any eventual strategy to combat terrorism must be preceded by and based on sound, in-depth, exhaustive, sustained analysis; and much if not all of that analysis must come from, blend into, an filter through to public discourse. For, Pakistan's success in the war on terror will take not just all sorts of Pakistanis - it will take every last one of us.
Yes, Pashtunistan Does Have U.S. Takers - and They're Pentagon
'The Best Defense' is the Foreign Policy Magazine's national security blog. The author, Thomas E. Ricks, is a much-decorated defense reporter and author. In this blog post dated November 3, 2010, he gives us a long quote 'from a friend who can't be identified, but who is in a position to understand this'. To quote from the quote:
"Pakistan is an artificial construct whose legitimacy as an independent nation-state is increasingly called into question -- not only by some in the international community, but by increasing numbers of their own population. The largest Muslim nation in the subcontinent is not Pakistan, but India. Muslims live well -- indeed, on average, better -- in India than in Pakistan. This is not lost on the Pakistanis. Prognostications for India over the coming fifty years are pretty rosy from an economic perspective. That can hardly be said for Pakistan -- whose Punjabi elites control but a mere sliver of land between India and the FATA region to the north and west -- largely peopled by the Pashtuns. Further to the west are the Baluchis -- no friend of the Punjabis either and eager to go their own way.What is the significance of this? Chiefly this:"Given all of this, what if the U.S. finally decided to take into account the strategic culture of the region and decided to go over the heads of both the Pakistani and Afghan governments and make the following offer. The Durand Line is no more. We support the existence of a free and independent Pashtunistan and Baluchistan. Moreover, we could invite India to assist in this with Muslim Indian troops. It worked in Bangladesh. Why not here"
1. PakNatSec has been picking up for a while signs of a 'Pashtunistan Plan' brewing somewhere. This post by Tom Ricks makes it clear beyond an iota of doubt that someone somewhere is contemplating the bogeyman of Pashtunistan to push Pakistan to the wall;The Ricks' post is here: What Joe Biden doesn't get: Why CT alone isn't the answer in Afghanistan.
2. For reasons that may not be elaborated here and now, PakNatSec is inclined to think this friend of Tom Ricks, 'who can't be identified, but who is in a position to understand [Counter Terrorism & Counter Insurgency]', is somebody fairly high in the U.S. military hierarchy. The 'Pashtunistan Plan', therefore, is a brainchild not of the U.S. political leadership or the CIA but of Pentagon; and
3. When the earlier pointers are re-evaluated in light of this revelation, is looks very likely that the plan is already in motion - and that securing White House approval is the next item on the Pentagon agenda.
Who Needs Pakistan’s National Security?
Given that the collective security of the world is a direct measure of the security of individual nations, every nation of the world has an interest in the national security of every other.
Allowing for varying stakes in global security for various nations commensurate to their commercial and economic interests, we inevitably reach the conclusion that the United States’ stake in global security – and by extension in any nation’s security – is the largest. The United States, therefore, has the largest interest in Pakistan’s national security.
Taking geographical proximity and cultural affinity into account, India and Afghanistan emerge as the greatest well-wishers of Pakistan. On the whole, however, every nation of the world needs Pakistan’s national security.
Allowing for varying stakes in global security for various nations commensurate to their commercial and economic interests, we inevitably reach the conclusion that the United States’ stake in global security – and by extension in any nation’s security – is the largest. The United States, therefore, has the largest interest in Pakistan’s national security.
Taking geographical proximity and cultural affinity into account, India and Afghanistan emerge as the greatest well-wishers of Pakistan. On the whole, however, every nation of the world needs Pakistan’s national security.
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