Word: haqqani
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After his most recent trip to Islamabad, I asked Gates how he could consider Pakistani officials who support Haqqani's network as allies. "It's frustrating," he said, then went quiet. I suggested that his silence said a lot. (See pictures of Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan...
Lately Gates has been pressing Pakistani generals to go after the jihadis they helped create - men like Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose son now wields the deadliest force in North Waziristan, from which he launches attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. To Afghan and Pakistani audiences, Gates likes to reiterate that the U.S. made a big mistake when it abandoned the region after the Soviets withdrew in 1989. This time is different, he says. But the Pakistanis are not convinced. They still count the Taliban as a bulwark against Indian influence in Afghanistan and an ally in the civil war that...
...government, it brings more Pashtuns in, Pakistan may want to play a part to try and bring in people that may be supporting the Taliban but are not ideologues." Such a solution would probably not involve Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban directly but would perhaps include the notorious Haqqani network based in Pakistan's North Waziristan and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-e-Islami - both of which have enjoyed extensive contacts with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency...
...this is where Washington and Islamabad's interests collide. The U.S. has warned Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari that it expects Pakistani security forces to take action against the Afghan Taliban as well as the Haqqani network and Hizb-e-Islami, but Pakistan is loath to act against militants on its territory who confine their operations to Afghanistan, focusing instead on those extremists who directly challenge the Pakistani state. An unpopular and politically beleaguered Zardari is in no position to help Obama...
...Haqqani network is believed to have long-standing links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence organization, while senior Western diplomats allege that Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban continues to operate out of the southwestern city of Quetta - a claim furiously denied by Pakistan's military. Many suspect that the reason that the Afghan Taliban manages to operate unmolested on Pakistani soil is Pakistan's need to maintain leverage in Afghanistan, where the U.S. presence is viewed as temporary. Indeed, some Pakistani observers suggest that even if a U.S. surge is successful, it will at best lead...