Posted on 06/17/2004 11:16:30 PM PDT by AdmSmith
ISLAMABAD (CNN) -- A tribal leader accused of harboring Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan's western border region was killed Thursday night in a targeted missile strike, according to Pakistan intelligence sources. The Associated Press quoted an army spokesman Friday as identifying the tribal leader as Nek Mohammed, a former Taliban fighter.
He was killed late Thursday at the home of another tribal chief, the spokesman said.
"We were tracking him down and he was killed last night by our hand," Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Does the city sign now read “Welcome to Hamtramckistan’?
I FOUND ONE! You are correct - it will take me awhile to get used to this - CP was my first experience with this type of a forum, but I'm REALLY liking what I'm reading here. This is the kind of stuff that led to me to CP in first place...
Before all else, the ISI is essentially Pakistan's DIA, Inter-Services Intelligence. The Afghan Bureau of the ISI came to prominence funnelling several billion dollars from the US and Saudi Arabia to the Afghan mujahideen while the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, and several billion more from Saudi Arabia to the mujas and eventually the Taliban after the Soviets pulled out and US aid was halted.
There is no doubt that the Pak Army and the ISI's Afghan Bureau are still, to an unknown extent, "dirty" and feed intel to our enemies. This is a given and probably explains the use of irregular Pak troops for this operation in its entirety. I would safely assume that ISI's reach even extends, to a more limited extent, to the Pak Tribal Security Corps and the Pak Militia, meaning that the possible implications of your quoted material must include those that you draw.
However, there are also other possibilities that should probably be considered as well.
First off, Nek Mohammad enjoyed immense support from the various tribal clans, the majority thought of him as a hero. In this situation, I believe that he would gain more mobility and safety from this factor than any amount of ISI duplicity, simply because neither the Pak Army, ISI, nor the Pak government has had much influence in these areas until this year and even now, the tribe's jirgas and lashkars seem to favor the militants, paying only the barest minimum lip service to government and militia edicts as is necessary to avoid financial and legal retribution. Indeed, they have been slapped with sanctions numerous times, with little change in attitude.
Additionally, and in part because of the ISI's history of tight bonds with the "enemy", all intelligence is liable to remain tightly compartmented within the military forces active in the region. Very few top officers would be privy to an impending top level enemy meeting to begin with, and they probably wouldn't talk about it with reporters if they were in the loop.
Not looking to argue with you, only to raise additional possibilities. The influence of ISI-Taliban/AQ/militant relationships is indisputable. ISI duplicity in this series of military operations is also highly likely. The main question is the degree and effect of ISI duplicity. If the objective of the Pak military forces is to bring to a halt the militant presence and activity in the border tribal areas, and to either kill, capture, or drive them across the border, then any ISI efforts to oppose these objectives, while possibly significant, have not been even close to a determining factor to date.
Welcome to FR.
LoL.
So when the uninvited 'house guests' aren't getting fast enough results, threaten to demolish houses.
Is Rumsfeld taking notes?
Can you hear me now?
Good!
Welcome.
What's CP?
Of the towns listed, locations are only available for two, plus obviously "Shakai".
"Spair Kay" is probably Sperkai Nawal Kot, located NW of Torwam, roughly centered in the Shakai Valley along the Torwam-Shkin road before it enters the approach to the first pass north and west of Torwam.
"Khoni Khel" is probably Khan Khel, a small town in an upland area on the western flanks on the next valley north of the Shakai, which guards access to one of the few subsidiary ridges with easy access to the main ridgeline that runs roughly east-west, forming the southeastern barrier to the Shawal Valley itself. This main ridgeline is the dominant terrain feature for the entire area of current operations. Though it is distant from some parts of the AO, its control will be a decisive factor for all operations in the SE quadrant.
Regarding the disclosure of Omar's sat phone data to the press, there is a binary solution set. One, Afghan intel is dirty, since the report quotes them as the source.
Two, Afghan intel wanted this information published.
I tend to favor the second possibility, without drawing a hard conclusion. Before his break with the Taliban (a result of them killing his father) Hamid Karzai had extensive contacts with the Taliban, as he controlled the dominant tribal clan NE of Khandahar, the only clan that had any chance of successfully opposing the Taliban in their early days. The Taliban had to include Karzai or he could have ended their takeover before it even began. This experience gives him a wealth of insight into the Taliban's methods and ways of thinking, and increases the chances that he could devise his current intel forces so as to minimize the chance of Taliban infiltration.
One possible reason for the disclosure is right there in the quoted story. Omar severed the connection as soon as he realized his comms were penetrated. If that happened before the NSA had enough data to establish a fix, then Omar already knows that comms link has been compromised. You'd then publish the data to deny the use of that type link to all of Omar's subordinate commanders. If Omar was using the sat phone to begin with, it is a logical assmuption that that was his preferred communications channel. Denying its use to all then forces them to use a presumably less preferred method, one possibly less secure.
Note that all of the above is sheer speculation, that understanding the vagaries of "spy-vs-spy" requires a firsthand knowlege of all the datapoints available to the person making the decision to disclose the information, and we will never have that level of access, even if we were sleeping in the same tent and dogging his every step. It is just one possibility out of thousands.
Bottom line though, an attempt was made to locate Omar through his sat phone, meaning that we now have a record of all calls made from that unit, and Omar is necessarily on the run, possibly with a reduced or less secure capacity to communicate with his subordinates.
Command Post. Don't have cable. Got tired of Mainstream BS. Found Command Post by accident. Stayed until last week when Free Speech to a leap, at the expense of Free Speech.
One of my friends whom I met through CP suggested this forum as an alternative
Glad to see you found the place.
Good stuff here. Rumor has it that Adm Smith never sleeps, maintaining a constant vigil for the scraps and pieces that leak out to help us piece together the patterns. He denies it, but I haven't decided yet.
Another strong analyst is on a sabbatical for a couple days, something about taking his computer offline. He's the guy who posts the maps, and brings a former ground pounder's perspective to the table.
You've already met many of the rest today, not a bleedin lib in the bunch, meaning no spam filtering needed.
Are we having fun yet?
I see that large smelly "uncle" being led out of the house, remote control clutched in a death grip, banana in one hand and a trail of crumbs leading back to the couch, tears streaming down his face at the demise of such a good deal.
I'm guessing the Paks got to thinking about how the Geneva Accords would view such cruel and unusual punishment and decided that destroying the houses was the lesser of two evils.
Jeffers, thanks for your insight here, particularly concerning Karzai. That was something I didn't know, and gives me a bit more to think about.
Regarding Omar and the satphone, I'm sure there are many possible motives from various directions that could lead to disclosure of the information. The fact that some people wanted it out in open source is interesting. There is a lot going on here, and the mainstream media seems to be oblivious.
Afghan intelligence officials talk to Mullah Omar
The source is AFP/Dawn and gives more details.
Here is more pieces from "sleepless in Wana":
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/WireFeed/WireFeed&c=WireFeed&cid=1088083246406
Taliban's Mullah Omar still alive
(Reuters) - July 9 2004 10:02
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A captured member of the Afghan Taliban has contacted the movement's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, a senior official says, the first indication in months that the one-eyed fugitive is still alive.
Afghanistan's southern security chief, Abdullah Laghmani, said Mullah Mujahid, whom he described as Omar's former bodyguard, was captured about 80 km (50 miles) north of Kandahar city this week.
"Last Monday, Mujahid spoke to Mullah Omar in our presence," Laghmani said. "But since then, when we tried to contact him on this number they disconnected it. Mullah Omar is alive."
Laghmani quoted Mujahid as telling Omar: "I have gone," in an apparent reference to his capture.
"You can send Mullah Dadullah or someone else," Mujahid was also quoted as telling Omar, apparently suggesting Dadullah, named as the Taliban's chief of operations for southern Afghanistan in March, take over Mujahid's responsibilities.
Dadullah's appointment was made by a 10-member council headed by Omar, the last time word emerged that the Taliban's supreme leader was alive.
Mullah is a term used in the region for Muslim clerics and is a title used by many senior members of the Taliban.
Omar is among the militants most wanted by Afghan and U.S. forces, and is believed to be actively involved in coordinating an insurgency against foreign and local troops in Afghanistan that has claimed hundreds of lives this year.
He has been on the run since the Taliban fled Kabul in November, 2001, and his whereabouts remain a mystery.
IN HIDING
U.S. officials have said they suspect Omar and allied Islamic militants including al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden are hiding somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.
The New York Times reported on Friday that bin Laden was directing al Qaeda efforts to launch an attack on the United States this year.
Laghmani also said Mujahid spoke to former Taliban defence minister Mullah Obaidullah, who is also on the run.
But a spokesman and a commander for the Taliban, who have vowed to disrupt presidential elections planned for mid-October, denied Omar and Obaidullah had been contacted.
Mujahid used to be close to Omar, but not since the Taliban were ousted, they explained.
"It's wrong to suggest that the satellite 'phone belonged to Mullah Omar or anybody has spoken to him," said spokesman Latif Hakimi.
Omar was supreme leader of the Taliban when the movement allowed al Qaeda to establish training camps in Afghanistan.
Omar refused to hand over bin Laden after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that were blamed on al Qaeda, prompting U.S. air strikes and Afghan ground forces to launch a war that toppled the regime months later.
Excellent...you know the Talibs are embarrassed when they deny trivialities.
From "sleepless west of Wana", here's a new map, shaded relief of the Shawal Valley District, drawn from a 30 meter per pixel elevation model with high-res river, road and border overlays, extracted from satellite derived vector graphics, and manually enhanced to one pixel resolution, with village locations accurate to 4 decimal places:
http://host1.in-motion.net/~jefft/tech/Mapping/afghanistan/shawalrelief.jpg
I did not include the slope/trafficability data because that was obtained using software written by US military personnel and I consider it sensitive, but this should still give a good lay of the land overview.
As events occur, I will update this map with additional village locations, so you might check back later too.
Watch the mainstream media descend on the region once again when there's a whiff of another big fish capture. As long as there are operations in progress, the Pak Government would do well to keep a tight lid on any such disclosures.
Agreed! Mum's the word.
I miss everything.....so what is the latest.
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