Taliban

[1001]

Taliban leader vows more attacks in Afghanistan

Mon Jan 9, 2006 6:38 AM EST

KABUL (Reuters) - Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar on Monday vowed more attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai suggested he "get in touch" if he wanted peace.

In a message to mark the three-day Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, which starts in Afghanistan on Tuesday, Omar reiterated his call for jihad, or holy war, against the United States.

"The Taliban attacks in Afghanistan will further intensify in this New Year, which will force Americans to leave Afghanistan very soon," he said in a message carried by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency.

AIP said the message had been read over the telephone by a Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif.

Omar, whose whereabouts have been unknown since U.S.-led forces toppled his government in late 2001, said jihad was a religious obligation for Muslims as the United States was "the biggest enemy of Islam."

"Muslims should stand prepared for the sacrifice of jihad on the great day of Eid al-Adha because armed jihad is the only way to safeguard the Islamic world."

Omar's Taliban was driven from power after refusing to surrender al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Karzai told the Associated Press news agency on Sunday he was willing to listen to what Omar had to say, but said the Taliban leader would first have to account for his actions.

Omar's message made no mention of Karzai.

But Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a deputy of Omar and defense minister in the Taliban's deposed regime, rejected the offer, calling Karzai an "American puppet" who should be tried in an Islamic court.

"Hamid Karzai, the American agent, has turned Afghanistan into an American base and has killed thousands of Afghans," he told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location.

An adviser to Karzai said the government's attitude toward Omar remained uncompromising.

"Our policy regarding talks with Taliban is clear. Omar is a criminal and he should be brought to justice," he told Reuters.

The United States has posted a $10 million reward for the Taliban leader, but Omar also has plenty of enemies among Afghans who fought against and endured five years of harsh Taliban rule.

Despite the presence of almost 30,000 foreign troops, the country remains dogged by violence.

Thousands have been killed since 2001, more than 1,200 last year alone, including hundreds of militants and more than 50 U.S. soldiers.

Akhund said it would be a betrayal of Islam to stop fighting "America and the infidel forces." "Mullah Omar and his Taliban are not ready for this sin," he said, adding that suicide attacks would continue.

Karzai says hundreds of insurgents have already given up and a handful of former Taliban won seats in September elections.

He held out an olive branch to Taliban rank and file two years ago, and the head of a national reconciliation commission said in November talks were needed to end the violence.

Omar and bin Laden are often said to be hiding on the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border, protected by friendly Pashtun tribes.

http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-01-09T113800Z_01_ARM931081_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-AFGHAN-KARZAI-COL.XML

[1001]

Afghan, al Qaeda militants use sophisticated arms

By Sayed Salahuddin Fri Feb 3, 8:27 AM ET

KABUL (Reuters) - Al Qaeda and Taliban militants are coordinating attacks on Afghan government troops and foreign forces and using increasingly sophisticated, and deadly, weapons, Afghanistan's defense minister said on Friday.

The militants, who have launched a string of attacks, including 14 suicide bombings in recent months, were getting their equipment from abroad but Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak declined to speculate on where it was coming from.


"It is quite obvious that all the infiltrations to Afghanistan and all the equipment, some of it really technically sophisticated equipment, are supplied from outside Afghanistan," Wardak told Reuters in an interview.


The equipment included high explosive used in roadside bombs and remote-control mechanisms to set off blasts, he said.


"We don't have this equipment readily available in Afghanistan," Wardak said.


About 1,500 people, most of them militants but including Afghan forces, aid workers, civilians and nearly 70 foreign troops, have been killed in the insurgency over the past year.


Wardak said he did not know the level of cooperation between al Qaeda and the Taliban, but said Afghan militants were able to help their foreign comrades.


"It is a combination ... al Qaeda by itself will not be able to do much," he said.


"There are Taliban, there are Haqqani's group, there are Gulbuddin's groups and there are other foreign militant organizations," he said.


Jalaluddin Haqqani is a pro-Taliban militant commander whose forces are active in southeastern Afghanistan. Militants loyal to former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are active in the east, near the border with Pakistan.


PAKISTAN TALKS


Wardak said he could not confirm speculation that al Qaeda militants from Iraq might be slipping into Afghanistan from Iran.


The militants had lost the ability to confront Afghan and foreign forces, he said, and had changed their tactics to suicide attacks, virtually unknown in Afghanistan until recently.


While Wardak declined to speculate on where militants were getting their weapons from, President Hamid Karzai said he would raise the violence in talks during an official visit to Pakistan this month.


"Bombs go off ... the children of Afghanistan suffer," Karzai told a news conference.


Afghanistan could not go on making sacrifices, he said.


"This is an issue we will speak about. Both of us should find a solution," said Karzai.


Pakistan, which is battling militants in its border areas, rejects accusations from Afghan and some U.S. officials that militants are getting help on Pakistani territory.

The past year has been the bloodiest since U.S. and Afghan opposition troops overthrew the Taliban in 2001 after they refused to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060203/wl_nm/security_afghan_dc_1

[Casey]

Al Qaeda leaders not in Afghanistan: Abdullah
Published: Monday, 20 February, 2006, 11:32 AM Doha Time

Staff Reporter

Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah was sure yesterday that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taleban leader Mullah Omar were not present in his country.

He admitted that there was a recent increase in Taleban’s operations "was a matter of concern for us".

However, he told reporters that the security situation has improved taking into consideration that 90% of the country was under the control of Taleban and Al-Qaeda."

He said that discussions between President Hamid Karzai and the Pakistani leadership concentrated on ways to stop attacks from Taleban and Al-Qaeda and to put an end to the infiltration on both sides of the border.

Abdullah said that the government’s priority was to form a national army that will be a beginning of a reconciliation.

On the issue of cartoons offending the Prophet Muhammad, Abdullah questioned the logic of destroying infrastructure and property during demonstrations in order to show resentment.

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=73621&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16

[1001]

Qaida threat in Afghan protest

Jalalabad (Afghanistan), Feb. 20 (Reuters):

Hundreds of Afghan students shouted support today for Osama bin Laden and threatened to join al Qaida during a protest against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.


In an attempt to cool the controversy after a weekend of rioting in countries including Nigeria, where 28 people were killed, and Libya, where 11 died, Pope Benedict said the world’s religions and their symbols had to be respected.


Pakistan’s main Islamist alliance vowed to broaden its campaign with more protests targeted at the US and Pakistani Presidents.


Pakistan's main Islamist alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), said today it would broaden its campaign. Qazi Hussain Ahmed, president of the MMA, was held under house arrest in Lahore at the weekend to prevent him leading a rally in Islamabad yesterday.


After his release today, he called publication of the cartoons in European newspapers “part of the clash of civilisations led by (President George W.) Bush”.


“Therefore, our movement is against Bush as well as against Mush,” he said, referring to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.


The protest in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad passed off without violence. Students gathered at the university campus chanted: “Death to Denmark”,“Death to America” and “Death to France”, a witness said.


They also shouted support for al Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri.


Shouting “Death to Karzai”, they demanded President Hamid Karzai close the embassies of Denmark, the US and France and expel their forces from Afghanistan.


“If they abuse the Prophet of Islam again we will all become al Qaida,” the students shouted.


Two weeks ago in Afghanistan, at least 10 people were killed in several days of protests over the cartoons but violent demonstrations there have largely petered out.


The cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper last year and reprinted in European papers, have sparked worldwide protests by Muslims who believe it is blasphemous to depict the Prophet.


In a speech to the new Moroccan ambassador to the Vatican, the Pope said: “In order to promote peace and understanding between peoples and mankind, it is both vital and urgent that religions and their symbols are respected and that believers are not the object of provocations that wound their religious feelings.”


“However, intolerance and violence can never be justified as a response to any offence, because it is a response that is incompatible with the sacred principles of religion,” he added.


Some 56 people have been killed and at least 280 injured in the protests, half of them in northern Nigeria. In the deadliest protests this weekend, at least 28 people died in riots in two Muslim states in northern Nigeria.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060221/asp/foreign/story_5874743.asp

[rectar]

hmmmm...221 or 222 or 224's lol

[rectar]

hmmmm...221 or 222 or 224's lolhmmm....222....The Golden Dome....Start of WWIII

http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20photo%20negatives/2006%20News%20Photo%20Originals/February/samarrashrine22f6ap.jpgIraqi Civil War Intensifies: 29 Sunni Mosques Attacked, Following Bomb Attack on a Samarra Shi'i Shrine (http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2006%20News%20Archives/February/22%20n%20b/Iraqi%20Civil%20War%20Intensifies%20%2029%20Sunni% 20Mosques%20Attacked,%20Following%20Bomb%20Attack% 20on%20a%20Samarra%20Shi'i%20Shrine.htm) (AP, 2/22/06).

[Casey]

Al-Qaeda militants seize control of Kabul prison wing
By Marina McIntyre


An Afghan soldier at Pul-e-Charkhi Prison in Kabul today (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images)

HUNDREDS of rioting prisoners led by al-Qaeda and Taleban militants were locked in a stand-off with security forces last night after seizing control of a wing of Afghanistan’s main high-security prison.
As night fell the prison, on the eastern edge of Kabul, was ringed by soldiers and police, backed by tanks and armoured personnel carriers, to prevent a break-out.

Seven people were killed in the uprising at the Pul-e-Charkhi prison, according to one police officer at the scene. Prison officials said that 30 had been wounded in clashes between inmates and police.



The huge, run-down, Soviet-style prison was built in the 1970s, and thousands of Afghans who opposed communist rule were killed and tortured there in the 1980s. It now holds 2,000 inmates, including about 350 Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters.

Rioting began in the prison’s Block Two on Saturday night. Muhammad Qasim Hashimzai, Afghanistan’s Deputy Justice Minister, said that prisoners led by al-Qaeda and Taleban militants had taken two female guards hostage during a row over a new prison rule forcing inmates to wear blue uniforms.

The uniforms were intended to prevent a repeat of a break-out last month, when seven Taleban suspects escaped by disguising themselves as visitors.

General Mahboub Amiri, head of Kabul’s Rapid Reaction Police Force, said that the violence began when Taleban members tried to escape. Prison officials said that inmates had been seen trying to climb the walls, but that none had escaped. Hundreds of prisoners armed with makeshift weapons then barricaded themselves inside the block. Gunfire rang out during the day. Smoke rose from windows as inmates burned mattresses and bedding.

The block was divided into three sections, with one each for political prisoners, ordinary criminals and women. Mr Hashimzai said that prisoners had broken through the divisions, and that there were fears that some female prisoners could have been raped.

Four prisoners were wounded while trying to escape, but other injured prisoners were still being held by rioters, Mr Hashimzai said. “They have control of the wounded prisoners and they are not giving them to us so that we can treat them. We have doctors and ambulances ready here,” he said.

Timur Shah, a gang leader who helped to kidnap Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni last year, was involved in starting the riot, according to one of the negotiators, Nader Nadeery, of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Mr Hashimzai said last night that negotiations with the prisoners had foundered. “Unfortunately, the prisoners have no unity and have different demands. There’s no one leader who can talk to us,” he said.

He said that prisoners were chanting: “Death to (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai”, “Death to Bush” and “Death to America”.

A hundred Afghan prisoners currently held at Guantanamo Bay are expected to be moved to the prison this year.In December 2004, four inmates and four prison officers died after an attempted break-out at the jail. A separate block in the prison houses Jack Idema, an American former soldier convicted of torturing Afghan suspects in a private jail in 2004.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2060280,00.html

[Petronas]

Taliban says sending fighters to Iraq
March 5, 2007

A senior Taliban commander said in remarks broadcast on Friday that the Afghan Islamist group was sending fighters to Iraq to support anti-U.S. militants. "Whenever there is a chance the (Afghanistan-based holy fighters) mujahideen travel to Iraq and the opposite is also true," Mullah Dadullah told Al Jazeera television in an interview. "We have very strong relations with the mujahideen in Iraq. The mujahideen stay in Iraq for a month for example then they come here," he added in remarks dubbed in Arabic. "We also share intelligence." "Travel from and to Iraq is at a peak currently ... if any mujahid wants to carry out an operation in Iraq he can travel."

Several Sunni Muslim groups including a wing of al Qaeda, which is allied to the Taliban, have been fighting U.S.-led and Iraqi government forces in Iraq.

The interview appeared to have been recorded before news emerged on Friday that Pakistani security forces had arrested Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the third most senior member of the Taliban's leadership council. Asked if he was aware of the whereabouts of al Qaeda leaders including top chief Osama bin Laden, Dadullah said: "I do not know where they are ... (but) Osama bin Laden is alive, praise God, and he sends his orders to the mujahideen and sends us news of victory." The Taliban were toppled in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for refusing to hand over leaders of al Qaeda.

Dadullah repeated that the Taliban plans to escalate operations against foreign soldiers in Afghanistan in the spring with at least 6,000 fighters which he said might rise to up to 20,000 once the fighting intensified. Dadullah was speaking to a Jazeera correspondent outdoors interview with heavily armed bodyguards nearby. Dadullah said the Taliban has obtained weapons but did not say from where, adding that the group was making its own weapons when necessary. "The Taliban today is not the same as the Taliban of five years ago," he said. ...

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=3/5/2007&Cat=2&Num=003

[Vancouver]

Al-Jazeera's recent interview with Dadullah:
http://www.archive.org/download/mulladad/mulla.wmv
The Arabic text running at the bottom contains unrelated AJ headlines.

In the "artist" field of the wmv, we find
Abu Hadhifa al-Maqdisi
أبو حذيفة المقدسي
"al-Maqdisi" means "of Jerusalem". That alias is also used by al-Qaida's #1 cleric Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (who is Jordanian, currently in the slammer, and who has probably never set foot in Jerusalem).

[Vancouver]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269823,00.html
An American military spokesman says they think Abu Laith al-Libi was behind the attack during Cheney's visit, and Dadullah's attribution of that attack to bin Ladin is apt to be a lie to bolster morale about the missing Saudi.

[Casey]

'Taliban leader Mullah Omar is in southern Afghanistan, not Pakistan'
Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 08:35 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Khalida Mazhar 'Pakistan Times' US Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON (US): President General Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan is pursuing a correct strategy to fight the menace of terrorism and strongly rejected Afghan president’s allegation that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is hiding in Quetta.

“Even if we are succeeding 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, the direction is correct, end goal is correct, strategy is correct,” he told American CBS news channel, while forcefully defending Pakistan’s counter-terrorism efforts.

Responding to a question he dismissed as “absolute non-sense” Afghan President Karzai’s allegation that Mulla Omar is hiding in Quetta.

President Musharraf said the Taliban leader is somewhere in south of Afghanistan.

President said, “He (Mullah Omar) is in south of Afghanistan somewhere, he is not in Pakistan, although President Karzai and everyone keeps saying he is in Quetta - absolute nonsense, absolute total nonsense—he has never been in Pakistan - they are trying to make a scapegoat of Pakistan and we don’t like that at all.”

He said “Pakistan is being maligned by the West unfairly because of lack of understanding, total lack of understanding of the environment and reality by President Karzai himself.”

Asked if he is angry with the Afghan leader, the President replied :”Yes, indeed, very angry.”

He ruled out the suggestion of a joint operation by American and Pakistani forces against insurgents trying to hide on the Pakistani side.

He rejected, “absolutely and totally,” the prospect of the joint US-Pakistan military operation to pursue retreating insurgents inside Pakistan adding that “the whole population of Pakistan will rise against it.”

In response to a question about al-Qaeda leaders remaining “free to operate” even after six years of counter terrorism efforts by the coalition, the President said “they are in the mountains and there are people who support them and hide them and these mountains are inaccessible - they have been there for centuries - even the British never went in.”

The Pakistani leader brushed aside reports that US Vice President Dick Cheney had visited Islamabad last month to ‘pressure’ the country to do more in the fight against terrorists.

“Is there an alternative,” he posed a question when the interviewer suggested that partial success in the fight against terrorism means partial failure.

When asked as to why US, Pakistan and Afghanistan have not been able to trace terrorists despite sharing intelligence information, he said “We are trying to locate them by all possible means—and we are not being able to - it is as simple as that - they are in the mountains and we do not even know whether they are in Afghanistan or on our side and they keep shifting.”

Responding to a question President Musharraf said he does not feel frustrated that after six years of pursuing terrorists the coalition has not been able to capture or eliminate some of the top terrorists but believed this is a challenge to face for the sake of Pakistan.

The President said, “We have a challenge to face - we have a challenge to face for the sake of Pakistan.”

Answering another question, President Musharraf said it is not the government’s weakness that it has not so far moved against two “madaris” adjacent to Lal Masjid in capital Islamabad.

He said, “Certainly, it is not weakness of the government.”●

http://www.pakistantimes.net/2007/04/15/top5.htm

[Casey]

Taliban chief urges unity against US
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sat, 12 May 2007 22:39:53

Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar has called upon all Muslims to unite against international forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The fugitive Omar issued a rare statement Saturday, calling on Afghan and Iraqi insurgents to put aside sectarian disputes.

"While the oppressor Americans are pounding bombs on innocent people... they are meanwhile attempting to separate Muslims through ethnic, religion and tribal (differences)," the statement quoted Omar as saying.

"I call upon all jihadi leaders, national figures and politicians to join hands and free their beloved countries from the hands of infidel Americans," Omar added.

He further called on the same groups to form a 'pure Islamic government' once international troops are ousted.

"This is America's conspiracy to divide Afghans by the name of (ethnic) Tajik and Pashtuns and in Iraq by the name of Sunni and Shiite in a bid to ease the pressure on themselves, but they are failing," the Taliban chief stressed in the statement.

Omar continued "I'm sure the Americans will be defeated both in Afghanistan and Iraq."

The Taliban leader, who has a 10-million-dollar bounty on his head, headed the 1996-2001 Taliban regime which was ousted by the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

MF/KB

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=9617§ionid=3510204

[Casey]

Officials: Taliban's Dadullah killed in Afghan clash

Story Highlights•

NEW: Taliban's top operational commander, Mullah Dadullah, killed in clash
• NEW: Dadullah believed to be behind kidnappings of foreigners and Afghans
• More than 70 militants killed in southern area, Afghan security official says
• Roadside bomb killed at least eight Afghan police outside Kandahar

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- The Taliban's top operational commander, Mullah Dadullah, has been killed in a clash in Afghanistan, security officials said on Sunday.

"Mullah Dadullah has been killed and his body is in Kandahar," said Saeed Ansari, spokesman for the intelligence department.

Another government spokesman said the one-legged Dadullah was killed in a clash with Afghan troops in the southern province of Helmand on Friday.

Apart from leading most Taliban attacks in the south, the notorious Dadullah was also believed to be behind a series of kidnappings of foreigners and Afghans.

There have been several reports over recent years that Dadullah had been killed or captured.

His death will be a heavy blow for the Taliban, fighting to expel foreign troops since they were ousted in a U.S.-led offensive after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

He would also be the most important Taliban killed since then.

In December, U.S.-led forces killed another top Taliban official, Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Osmani, in an air attack in the south of the country after a tip-off by Pakistan.

In other developments, Western and Afghan troops have driven the Taliban from a southern area after a week-long battle in which more than 70 militants were killed, an Afghan security official said on Saturday.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent months after the traditional winter lull and an upsurge of fighting last year, the bloodiest since the Taliban's removal in 2001.

Bomb kills eight Afghan police
In the latest incident on Saturday, a roadside bomb killed at least eight Afghan police outside the southern city of Kandahar, provincial police chief, Esmatullah Alizai said.

There were no casualties among Afghan and Western troops in the fighting in Nahri Saraj of neighboring Helmand province, scene of a series of operations by foreign-led forces in recent weeks, the security official said.

Five Taliban commanders were amongst those killed, the official said, adding there were no casualties among civilians.

"We have driven out the Taliban from the district and it is under our control," he said.

Foreign troops led by the U.S. military and NATO as well as the Taliban could not be immediately contacted for comment about the battle.

Nahri Saraj lies 25 km (15 miles) from Sangin district where witnesses said more than 40 civilians were killed last Tuesday in an air strike by U.S.-led coalition troops.

The coalition has confirmed civilian casualties in the battle of Sangin.

Separately, an air attack by Western forces killed at least seven civilians, including women and children, in Marja district of Helmand early on Friday, witnesses said on Saturday.

Seven of the civilians wounded in the attack were brought to a government run hospital in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, they said.

"I know of six or seven deaths in my village," a wounded woman said at the hospital.

Afghan officials say U.S.-led troops have killed scores of civilians in the past two months in Afghanistan.

A U.S. commander apologized last week for the deaths of 19 civilians killed by coalition forces in March.

Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/05/13/afghanistan.violence.reut/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

[pixikill]

yay!!
God is killing allahs minions!!
and God is killing allahs minions in allahs god-forsaken homeland.
nice one, God!

[Vancouver]

"Irhabi 11" at Firdaws confirms that this is Dadullah:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/images/2007/05/20070513065040x-dadollah-203.jpg
BBC photo.

Al-Jazeera just now:
Taliban sources confirmed to Al Jazeera that Dadullah had been killed.

A Taliban spokesman had earlier rejected the government's claim labelling it "propaganda".

[Vancouver]

http://www.aljazeera.net/mritems/images/2007/5/13/1_692180_1_34.jpgal-Jazeera photo

[pixikill]

how gay are those sheets?

[Petronas]

U.S.: NATO has intercepted Iranian arms
Wed Jun 13, 1:06 PM ET

NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, providing evidence Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on CNN. "It's certainly coming from the government of Iran. It's coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government."

Speaking separately to The Associated Press, Burns said NATO must act to stop the shipments. The Iran-Afghanistan frontier is "a very long border. But the Iranians need to know that we are there and that we're going to oppose this." "It's a very serious question," he said, adding that Iran is in "outright violation" of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The State Department later appeared to step back from Burns' assertion the Iranian government was directly involved in the transfers but stressed Washington has proof that weapons from Iran were being sent to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. "We absolutely are certain that there are Iranian-origin weapons flowing into Afghanistan to the Taliban," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "We do not know the extent of any Iranian government involvement at this point, but given the nature of the regime and also some of its past behaviors elsehwhere — whether in the Palestinian areas or in Iraq — it certainly raises very serious questions and we are quite concerned about it," he said.

Tehran, which is also in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program, denies it is aiding the Taliban, calling the accusation part of a broad anti-Iranian campaign. Iran says it makes no sense that a Shiite-led government like itself would help the fundamentalist Sunni movement of the Taliban.

Burns acknowledged that it was "curious" that Iran would aid the Taliban. "It's quite surprising," he told CNN. "The Iranians had said that they were the mortal enemies of the Taliban in 2001 and '02."

Burns did not give details on the scope of the alleged Iranian shipments, although he appeared to indicate that they were limited. "I don't think it's made a substantial difference in the greater theater of the war," he said. "It is not going to turn the tide against us, but it is very troublesome, it is illegal under international law ... and the Iranians need to stop it," Burns told the AP.

Burns, who was holding talks in Paris, first accused Iran on Tuesday of transferring weapons to the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan — the most direct comments yet on the issue by a ranking American official.

In Afghanistan last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iranian weapons were falling into the hands of anti-government Taliban fighters, but he stopped short of blaming Tehran.

Iran's possible role in aiding insurgents in Iraq has been hotly debated, and last month some Western and Persian Gulf governments alleged that the Islamic government in Tehran is also secretly bolstering Taliban fighters.

In an AP interview Monday, U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill said Taliban fighters are showing signs of better training, using combat techniques comparable to "an advanced Western military" in ambushes of U.S. Special Forces soldiers.

"In Afghanistan it is clear that the Taliban is receiving support, including arms from ... elements of the Iranian regime," British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in the May 31 edition of the Economist. ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070613/ap_on_re_eu/iran_taliban;_ylt=AnkEWt9dE_domyjMlPgKkmgUewgF

[Casey]

Taliban vow to attack Westerners in Kabul

The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
KABUL: A spokesman for the Taliban said Tuesday that its fighters would attack restaurants in the capital that are frequented by Westerners, a day after eight people died in a suicide assault on a luxury hotel here.

Afghan officials said they had arrested four men after the attack Monday on the Serena Hotel, a heavily guarded property frequented by Westerners and other foreigners working in Afghanistan. One of those detained was seized in a police uniform, an official said.

Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said by telephone: "We will target all these restaurants in Kabul where foreigners are eating. We have jihadists in Kabul right now and soon we will carry out more attacks against military personnel and foreigners."

Taliban spokesmen have boasted before of plans to increase their attacks, threats that often were not realized. In the past two years, however, the militants have turned increasingly to suicide attacks. The attack on the Serena was the first of its kind against a facility frequented by Westerners.

Afghan officials accused a militant connected to an insurgent leader in Pakistan of organizing the attack. An American, a Norwegian reporter and a Filipina hotel worker were among the dead. The police said they found a video made by two of the attackers in a house in Kabul where they arrested two men. A fourth man - believed to have driven the attackers to the hotel - was arrested in eastern Afghanistan while trying to flee to Pakistan, the police said.

The hotel attack indicated that the Taliban could be refining their strategy to undermine the government of President Hamid Karzai and the Western campaign to stabilize Afghanistan.

Amrullah Saleh, head of Afghanistan's intelligence service, said three militants stormed the hotel. A guard shot and killed one at the gate to the hotel's parking lot, which triggered his suicide vest. A second blew himself up near the entrance to the hotel's lobby. The third made it inside the hotel and shot his way through the lobby, Saleh said. The police said the man they suspected of being the third attacker was arrested soon after the assault. He was the one wearing a police uniform.

The militants stormed the hotel just after 6 p.m., hunting down Westerners who hid in a gym. More than 30 U.S. soldiers rushed to the hotel and security personnel from the U.S. Embassy ran to the scene.

Blood covered the lobby floor as gunfire rang out, witnesses said.

Saleh asserted that the attack was organized by Mullah Abdullah, an ally of Siraj Haqqani, a militant who is thought to be based in Miran Shah, the main town in the tribal region of North Waziristan in Pakistan. The U.S. military has offered a $200,000 reward for the capture of Haqqani.

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=9236371

[Casey]

The Media Activities Of The Taliban Islamic Movement - By Al-Somood Magazine.

Published and translated by Al-Somood Magazine

Since its inception as a military jihadi movement, the Taliban Islamic movement has recognized the extraordinary importance of the news media in deciding [the outcome of] conflicts, in particular, ideological conflicts. It is convinced that the media are among the most important elements of psychological warfare - and the war of morale, which is by no means less important than the field war. Accordingly, the movement undertook to begin its media activity, together with its military activity, against the invading crusader forces at the time of the latter’s invasion of Afghanistan. The movement appointed a unit consisting of the journalistic cadres who formerly occupied important media positions within the Government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The [media] unit officially began its journalistic activities on 23/09/2002; the activities consisted of the following:

1. The setting up of an internet website, speaking on behalf of the Islamic Emirate.

2. Issue of the monthly magazine Sirk in the Pashtu and Dari languages.

3. The quarterly magazine Murshal [The Trench], specializing in the publication of military news and reports.

4. Issue of the weekly newspaper ad-Dami^r [The Conscience] in Pashtu and Dari.

5. Publication and distribution of CDs containing jihadi films.

6. Publication and distribution of [audio] tapes of jihadi songs and [news] reports.

7. Contact with both local and world [TV] channels and other news media.

8. The collection and gathering of field news, then the translation thereof into Arabic, English and Urdu.

9. Translation and publication of Islamic books, especially those concerning jihad and resistance [to occupation].

Initially, the media unit was conducting its activities under the supervision of Sa’ada Qudratu’llah Jamal, who held the position Minister of Media and Culture in the period of the Islamic Emirate Government. Then Sheikh Ustaz Muhammad Yasir was appointed official in charge of this unit on 08/05/2004.

Likewise, Brother Mufti Latifu’llah Hakimi was appointed its official spokesperson, in which capacity Brother Hakimi would proclaim the continued pursuit of the jihadi course by the Muslim Afghan people, under the leadership of Commander-of-the-Faithful Mullah Omar (God protect him), against all the occupiers and their minions; and this he would do by contacting the news agencies and TV stations.

This unit led the movement’s journalistic struggle against the crusader occupation, and contributed toward directing the media battle against all the various, rancorous Western media [outlets]; as the world crusader alliance led by America had launched an ideological attack against Afghanistan, besides its military onslaught. And in this attack they spared no effort, but did whatever they could.

In the context of these sorely expended crusader efforts, the Foreign Relations Committee of the American Congress agreed in November 2001 to instigate a media war against the Taliban through the setting-up of a 24-hour “Radio Free Afghanistan”, as well as the creation of radio stations and television channels. The Republican Congressman Ed Royce, who proposed the project, said at the time:

“Directing radio and television programs toward Afghanistan will help us win the media war against the Taliban.”

The Western media set out to distort the public image of the Taliban movement by stirring up a number of issues related to the Afghan question. However, through its active spokespersons, the movement succeeded in repelling these attacks using its own media. Brother Mufti Hakim had played the critically effective role in this serious confrontation, at a time when the efforts of all the enemies were concentrated against the movement.

By the writ of Almighty God, that the enemies were able to capture Sheikh Ustaz Muhammad Yasir. The enemy accounted his capture a painful blow to the movement, but God (Great and Exalted) caused their hopes to be disappointed through his replacement by other active brothers of the media unit, similarly able and qualified in this field.

Only a short space of time elapsed before Brother Latif al-Hakimi was arrested, and the brothers Qari Muhammad Yusuf “Ahmadi” and Dr Muhammad Hanif were appointed the media unit’s official spokespersons for the movement. By the Grace of God, and through His Succour, the movement’s media activities did not come to an end. Indeed, they were in a state of forward progress, and that owing, first, to the Goodness of God, and then to the efforts of the brothers who took upon themselves the task of achieving that progress.

In the year 1427 AH the media centre issued Alsomood [The Resistance] magazine in Arabic, under the supervision of Sa’ada Nusayru’ddin ‘Herawi’ (may God protect him). It is worth mentioning that Sheikh Nusayru’ddin “Herawi” is considered among the most important and pre-eminent personages and jihadi leaders in the movement at present. So too previously, he occupied very high and important positions, and acquired the honour of [being] “Secretary of State” in the Bureau of the Commander-of-the-Faithful at the time of the Islamic Emirate.

Seeing as he enjoys a special status and dignity in his relation to the Commander-of-the-Faithful (may God protect him), and, furthermore, undertakes the accomplishment of important military and administrative activities, he has become famous among the leadership of the Taliban and among the Mujahideen as the “Right Hand” of the Commander-of-the-Faithful (God protect him). Accordingly, he is respected by all.

Security circumstances have necessitated that he use the name “Herawi” instead of his real name; as he works in more than one sphere, his original name appears at the head of the Americans’ list of the main wanted persons belonging to the Taliban. We content ourselves here with revealing this much of his identity and no more, for the sake of his protection; and we implore God (High and Exalted) to help him in his undertakings in noble jihadi causes, and to grant him success, and to protect him through His Generous Protection.

Sheikh Nusayru’ddin “Herawi”, in addition to the founding and publication of Alsomood magazine, has created a sister website at: www.alsomood.r8.org; this he did on 01-02-2007.

Likewise, the magazine office has other media projects, such as the production and issue of jihadi films in Arabic and the local language, and their publication in the Islamic world through websites and Islamic jihadi forums. In this way, Taliban has been able (with God’s Help) to take the battle to the heart of the enemy, achieving this, specifically, by the broadcast, through world and local media outlets, of the pictures of jihadi operations against crusader soldiers.

Taliban continues to conduct significant and notable media activities besides those we have already mentioned, such as the creation of news websites in Pashtu and Arabic, as well as the issue of newspapers and magazines, all of which has given the movement a broad media presence.

We mention here some of these activities, as examples:

1. ‘Azm [Resolution/Purpose] monthly magazine

This magazine was established on 25th May 2002 by brother Nasiruddin al-Nasir. It published articles, reports, and accurate military statistics from behind the frontline in Pashtu and Dari. Its preparations for publication got as far as the eighth issue but it stopped publication after the seizure/capture of its editors on 16th April 2003. ‘Azm magazine is considered one of the most successful of the movement’s publications because it was distinguished in publishing extensive essays specializing in the Afghan situation and carrying out interviews with the leaders in the field and also the detailed reports from the trenches.

Newsweek, the American magazine - after the detention of its founder - wrote a detailed report [Newsweek, Periscope (March 22nd 2004)] about ‘Azm magazine and its important role in the movement’s first media appearance [i.e. it was important in establishing for the Taliban, for the first time, a media presence].

2. Tawakkal [Trust] magazine

This magazine was established by the martyred brother Mullah Mohammad Hussein Mustas’ad (may God (Most-High) have mercy on him) following the capture of the founders of ‘Azm magazine in accordance with the saying of God Most-High [in the Qur’an], “then, when thou has taken a decision, put thy trust in God,” taking it [the saying] as a good omen. The publication of this magazine continues in Pashtu to this day. However, it be delayed from its specified date [of publication] following the martyrdom of its founder brother Mohammad Hussein Mustas’ad (may God have mercy) in a fierce battle face to face with American forces in Zabul province on 22nd July 2007. The martyred brother Mullah Mohammad Hussein Mustas’ad (may God have mercy on him) was considered one of the movement’s preeminent scholarly and journalistic personages of the movement since he left behind a great wealth of his scholarly and cultural writings; and we mention here, in particular, his well know n four-volume work entitled “The Taliban in Afghanistan - from the rightly-guided caliphate to the Islamic Emirate.” This weighty book is a comprehensive encyclopedia of the Afghan Taliban movement since the author (may God have mercy on him) explores all the stages of the growth of the movement and its development. He also discusses the details of the formation of the Islamic Emirate and its administrative, political and military affairs and its relationships with [other] Islamic movements and the countries of the Islamic world and others.

Brother Mustas’id (may God have mercy on him) held important scholarly and administrative positions at the time of the Islamic Emirate government, such as President of the Central Academy in Kabul and Deputy Minister of Finance.

3. Basoun [Revolution] newspaper

This newspaper was established by brother Mullah Hussein Khan in the last days of the month of October in 2002 and was issued on a fortnightly basis in Pashtu and Dari. Its publication continued for a whole year but it stopped on account of security conditions.

4. Tora Bora magazine

This magazine was established by brother Ghazi Ajmal in 2003 and is issued every 3 months in Pashtu and Farsi. Its pages included articles, announcements and military reports. It enjoys great fame among other jihadi publications in Afghanistan.

5. Monthly Istaqamat [Uprightness] magazine

Istaqamat magazine was established on 3rd November 2005 by brother Hamidullah Hamed and this magazine was published in 3 languages: Pashtu, Dari and English. It stopped publication following the third issue on account of straitened security circumstances.

6. I’idaad [Preparation] website in Pashtu on the internet

7. Nafir [Trumpet/Horn] website in Arabic on the internet

They both [also I’idaad website] were closed down and stopped from publishing after 6 months. That happened after their closing on the internet by the enemies.

8. Mujahid Ghag [Voice of the Mujahid] magazine

This magazine was established on 6th August 2004 by brother Suleymankhil. It is published every 2 months in Pashtu.

All the supervisors and those who published and established these media/informational publications are journalists and followers of the Islamic Emirate, even if they prefer to publish these magazines and newspapers not officially as spokespersons for the movement’s media unit.

[Casey]

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A death and an injury an a big number of the collaborating administration members in the attack of Kabul

The chosen sacrifice of Allah ( Mojahed ) - 27 / 4 / 2008



بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم



مصرع وإصابة عدد كبير من أعضاء الإدارة العميلة في هجوم كابل

ذبيح الله (مجاهد) – 27/4/2008

هاجم مجاهدو الإمارة الإسلامية الأبطال التالي أسمائهم: ملا عبد العلي من ننجرهار، ملا حمزه من قندهار، ملا عطا محمد من كابل، ملا محمد عثمان من قندهار، فرهاد من هرات والياس من بكتيا، هجوما مسلحا مفاجئا ضمن عمليات ((العبرة)) صباح اليوم في قلب العاصمة كابل وبالتحديد في استاد " غازي استوديوم " حين كان رئيس الإدارة العميلة كرزاي وأعضاء حكومته وعدد من البرلمانيين يحتفلون يوم الثامن من شهر ثور الموافق لـ 27 أبريل.

حسب التقارير الواصلة، خلال الهجوم الذي استمر لمدة 15 دقيقة، بداية أطلق المجاهدون عددا من الصواريخ على مكان الإحتفال، ثم مباشرة أطلق هؤلاء الأبطال المذكورين أعلاه قذائف آر بي جي ونيران الأسلحة الرشاشة داخل الإستاد على مسئولي الإدارة العميلة، مما أسفر عن مقتل وإصابة عددا من المسؤولين رفيع المستوى، وعددا من أعضاء البرلمان ومجموعة كبيرة من جنود الداخليين.

وبعد عمليات الكماندوز، عاد ثلاثة من المجاهدين المهاجمين إلى مراكزهم بأمن وسلام، وأستشهد الثلاثة الآخرين من قبل العدو.

وبعدها القي القبض على عدد من الأشخاص الأبرياء من قبل العدو من شدة الاضطراب بتهمة الإرتباط بالهجوم.

وجدير بالذكر، بأنه ليست هذه هي المرة الأولى التي يتم فيها عمليات الكماندوز من قبل مجاهدي الإمارة الإسلامية الأبطال على العدو، حيث قبل مدة وجيزة بقرب من قصر الرئاسة الجمهوري في فندق " سرينا " تم هجوم مماثل على العدو.



دستور إمارة أفغانستان الإسلامية - المقدمة والعشرة فصول مترجمة للعربية



وَإِذَا قِيلَ لَهُمْ لَا تُفْسِدُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ قَالُوا إِنمَا نَحْنُ مُصْلِحُونَ (البقرة11)
أَلَا إِنَّهُمْ هُمْ الْمُفْسِدُونَ وَلَكِنْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ (البقرة12)



معلومات: الناطق الرسمي لإمارة أفغانستان الإسلامية - طالبان
قاري محمد يوسف (احمدي)
للمناطق الجنوب الغربية والشمال الغربية في البلاد
هاتف : 008821621346341
خلوي : 0700886853 - 0707163424
ذبيح الله (مجاهد)
للمناطق الجنوب الشرقية والشمال الشرقية في البلاد
هاتف : 008821621360585
خلوي : 0799169794 - 0707010740

والله أكبر والعزة لله ولرسوله وللمؤمنين
اللجنة الإعلامية لإمارة أفغانستان الإسلامية - طالبان
------------------------------------------------------
المصدر / صفحة (صوت الجهاد) في 27/4/2008
موقع رسمي لإمارة أفغانستان الإسلامية - طالبان


In the Name of Allah, the Benificent, the Merciful



A death and an injury an a big number of the collaborating administration members in the attack of Kabul

The chosen sacrifice of Allah ( Mojahed ) - 27 / 4 / 2008

The militants of the Islamic emirate attacked the heroes the next their names : Abd Al-Ali's mullah from Nangarhar, Hamza's mullah from Kandahar, Ata Mohamed's mullah from Kabul, Mohamed Othman's mullah from Kandahar, Frhad from Hrat and Elias from Paktia, a sudden armed attack within operations ( the lesson ) today in the morning in the heart of the capital Kabul and specifically in a stadium " Ghazi Istoudiom " when it was the president of the collaborating administration Karzai and its government members and a number of parliamentarians celebrate the eighth day from bull month the coinciding to 27 April .

According to the benevolent reports, through the attack that continued for 15 minutes, beginning the militants shot a number of missiles at the celebration place then directly that shot these mentioned heroes its above is the missiles of RBJ and the machineguns fires inside the stadium on the officials of the collaborating administration, which resulted in a killing and an injury a number of officials high-ranking, and a number of parliament members and an a big group of the internal soldiers .

And after Al Kmandoz operations, three of the attacking militants returned to their centers with security and peace, and I am martyred the other three from the enemy .

And after it he carried out the arrest of a number of the free persons from the enemy from the intensity of disorder with the charge of connection with the attack .

And a worth mentioning, that it is not this she is the first time that takes place in it Al Kmandoz operations are from the militants of the Islamic emirate the heroes on the enemy, where before a short period near from the republican presidential palace in a hotel " our secrets " a similar attack on the enemy took place .



A constitution emirate of Islamic Afghanistan - the introduction and the affability are chapters translated into the Arabic



And if for them he says, you do not spoil in the land they said but we are reforming ( the cow is 11 )
So they are the corrupter but they do not feel ( the cow is 12 )



Information : The spokesman of the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan - Taliban
A continental is Mohamed Youssef ( you praise )
To the regions the south western and the north western in the countries
A telephone : 008821621346341
A cellular : 0700886853 -0707163424
The chosen sacrifice of Allah ( Mojahed )
To the regions the south eastern and the north eastern in the countries
A telephone : 008821621360585
A cellular : 0799169794 -0707010740

And Allah is the greatest and the honour to Allah and to its messenger and to the believers
The media committee of the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan - Taliban
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The source / a page ( the jihad sound ) on 27 / 4 / 2008
An official site of the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan - Taliban

[The 801]

Taliban claim victory from a defeat
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - The Taliban have suffered their first major loss in this year's offensive, but they are putting on a brave face, even spinning the setback as a triumph in their broader battle against foreign forces in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, several thousand US Marines captured the town of Garmsir in the southern Afghan province of Helmand in their first large operation since arriving to reinforce North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops last month.

The Taliban-controlled Garmsir had served as a main supply route for their insurgency in the area.

The Taliban, however, claim the loss of one base is not critical, and anyway, for NATO to hold on to its gain it will have to commit thousands of troops to the outpost, which is located in the inhospitable desert, if it is to effectively guard the lawless and porous border through which the Taliban funnel men, arms and supplies.

The Taliban also claim that one of their underlying goals since the US-led invasion in 2001 has been to tie down as many foreign troops as possible, much as the mujahideen wore down Soviet troops in the 1980s. Various Taliban leaders have told the media they will not resist the forces in Garmsir, one of the biggest concentrations since the 2001 assault on the country.

Meanwhile, the Taliban say they will energize their drive to win over the Pashtun tribal districts on both sides of the border and turn them into "Taliban country", a process that is already well underway.

For NATO, the fight against the Taliban has almost gone full circle. From the initial large offensive involving thousands of troops, NATO resorted to limited special operations with heavy reliance on air attacks. This only increased the population's anger against the coalition as many ordinary citizens died in the onslaught from the sky, and the Taliban were able to capitalize on this discontent.

NATO command has now decided to increase its ground presence, even at the risk of greater casualties. As mentioned above, this suits the Taliban and its al-Qaeda-inspired goal of tying up troops.

As NATO consolidates in the Garmsir deserts, the Taliban will be busy in eastern Afghanistan's border provinces, aiming to bring the tribes there under Taliban control.

One of their weapons is fear, as happens in the Pakistani tribal areas, where through targeted killings of high-profile enemies, such as tribal chiefs, clerics and pro-government personalities, they effectively intimidate their rivals.

Now it is happening in Afghanistan, the latest being the suicide attack, carried out by Anwar ul-Haq Mujahid's Tora Bora group, in the Khogiani district of Nangarhar province against the police chief of Khogiani, who had informed US forces in 2001 about the Tora Bora mountains and al-Qaeda's sanctuary there. The police chief survived, but at least 18 other people were killed.

The mastermind of this strategy is Ustad Yasir, a regional commander of the Pakistan and Afghan border regions, though he was recently rooted out from Khyber Agency in Pakistan after the Taliban were betrayed there. (See Taliban bitten by a snake in the grass Asia Times Online, April 26.)

Having "lost" Khyber Agency, where the Taliban had targeted NATO supply lines, they now want to continue this tactic in adjoining Nangarhar province.

The Taliban don't forget - or forgive - though. On Thursday, they launched a suicide attack in Khyber Agency against Haji Namdar, who betrayed them. Only one of the four explosive plates strapped to the bomber exploded, so Namdar managed to escape unhurt, although 30 others were injured.

At the time of the attack, Namdar was appealing to the masses for donations for the Taliban's struggle in Afghanistan. But now he has been exposed as a traitor and in fact not pro-Taliban. This may allow the Taliban to make inroads into his large constituency, which is traditionally suspicious of the Taliban, who still very much want to regain a footing in Khyber Agency.

Taliban sources have also claimed the capture of an important US military camp in Khost province (close to the Pakistan border), but that could not be independently confirmed. The camp is said to have been taken by Jalaluddin Haqqani and handed over to al-Qaeda militants. If this is true, it would be a step in the Taliban's march to wrest control of Afghan tribes.

Meanwhile, the NATO soldiers guarding the Garmsir deserts, one of the world's hottest spots, with temperatures reaching 50-60 Celsius (122-140 F - 801), face a tough time. The area is central to the country's flourishing opium trade.

On the Afghan side of the border, it is run by elements in the Afghan administration and security forces. (See The Taliban's flower power Asia Times Online, February 1, 2007.) Across the border, it is mainly run by Pakistani-Iranian Baloch smugglers.

The Taliban only allow the transportation of drugs and related activities for payment, which means the drug cartels will facilitate the insurgency, and make it even hotter for NATO.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JE03Df02.html

[Casey]

Killed a father and Sheikh Suleiman al-Dajani Aba Al-Qahtani in Afghanistan

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Name of God the Merciful

Statement
Al-Qaeda organization in Afghanistan

About the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Suleiman al-Allah's mercy

Praise be to God, who singled out to stay, and wrote a courtyard created, and generous of them martyrs, they are alive with their Lord.
And prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad Imam Alatkiee, and the machine owners Tahireen Alazkiae.
After:

Our hearts are filled recognition of the king Qadeer, and satisfaction juvenile Galilee God Almighty, to mourn the Islamic nation in general and especially to the mujahideen struggling Sheikh Sulaiman Al-Otaibi father Almighty God's mercy, it was on a date with martyrdom in the land of Afghanistan after the Iraq side of the brothers here, before they Nearly six months after the migration, Jihad and the science and advocacy and advice, both parts of God about us and good for Islam and Muslims.

It was his martyrdom in the state of Paktia in Afghanistan with his companion, Brother Abu Al-Qahtani Dja God's mercy, is the brother Nasser Abu Faraj Al-Qahtani by God, following a clash with the enemies of God and renegade soldiers of the Cross, proved to God and his eyesight and beating an example of heroism and sacrifice and Alastpsahl.

God's mercy and the mercy wide, before the satisfactory, and housing.

We extend our condolences to his family and two sisters all Muslims and mujahideen, but Abe Solomon Brothers of the Mujahidin of Iraq especially in the island for a Arabs.

We ask God to bless the effects of the martyrs, and compensates them better Muslims.
Thank God the Lord of the Worlds.

Do not forget to pray for

Al-Qaeda organization in Afghanistan

Written by Sheikh commander / Mustafa Abu These remarks were made - may God protect him --
First 1429 e-ul


Source: (Center for Media Dawn)




استشهاد أبا سليمان العتيبي والشيخ أبا دجانة القحطاني في أفغانستان

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

بيان
تَنَظيم قَاعِدةّ الجِهَاد فِي أفغَانِستَان



حول استشهاد الشيخ أبي سليمان العتيبي رحمه الله




الحمد لله الذي تفرد بالبقاء ، وكتب على خلقه الفناء ، وكرّم منهم الشهداء ، فهم عند ربهم أحياء .
والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمدٍ أمام الأتقياء ، وعلى آله وصحابته الطاهرين الأزكياء.
وبعد :

فبقلوبٍ مِلؤها التسليم للملك القدير ، والرضا بقضاء الرب الجليل عز وجل ، ننعى إلى الأمة الإسلامية عامة وإلى المجاهدين خاصة الشيخ المجاهد أبا سليمان العتيبي رحمه الله تعالى ، فقد كان على موعدٍ مع الشهادة في أرض أفغانستان بعد أن انحاز من العراق إلى إخوانه هنا ، قبل ما يقرب من ستةِ أشهر ، بعد هجرةٍ وجهاد وعلمٍ ودعوةٍ ونصحٍ ، جزاه الله عنا وعن الإسلام والمسلمين خيراً.

وكان استشهاده في ولاية بكتيا بأفغانستان مع رفيقه الأخ أبي دجانة القحطاني رحمه الله ، وهو أخو أبي ناصر القحطاني فرج الله عنه، إثر اشتباكٍ مع أعداء الله جنود الصليب والردة ، وثبّتهما الله ونصرهما وضربا مثلا للبطولة والتضحية والاستبسال.

فرحمهما الله رحمة واسعة ، وتقبّلهما في المرضيين ، وأسكنهما عليين .



ونتقدم بالتعزية فيهما لأهلهما وإخوانهما المجاهدين وعموم المسلمين ، ولإخوان أبي سليمان من مجاهدي العراق خاصة وفي جزيرة ا لعرب.

نسأل الله أن يبارك على آثار الشهداء ، وأن يعوّض المسلمين منهم خيرا.
والحمد لله رب العالمين.



لا تنسونا من الدعاء

تَنَظيم قَاعِدةّ الجِهَاد فِي أفغَانِستَان

كتبه الشيخ القائد / مصطفى أبو اليزيد - حفظه الله -
جمادى الأولى 1429هـ


المصدر: (مركز الفجر للإعلام)

[Casey]

Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/ statement over the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Sulaiman Otaibi

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Al Qaeda organization in Afghanistan/ statement over the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Sulaiman Al Otaibi

In the name of Allah the most gracious the most merciful

Statement
Al Qaeda organization in Afghanistan

Over the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Sulaiman Al Otaibi

Praise is to Allah who is Unique in being Immortal, and wrote for His creation perishing, and honored from them the martyrs, for they are before their Lord Alive
And peace and blessings of Allah on our Prophet Muhammad the Imam of the pious, and on his family and righteous companions

To proceed

With hearts full of surrender to the decree of the All Capable Lord, and with the acceptance of the judgment of Allah the Exalted, the Almighty, we present to the Islamic Ummah in general and to the Mujahideen especially the news of the martyrdom of the Mujahid Sheikh Abu Sulaiman Al Otaibi, May Allah have mercy on him. He was on an appointment with martyrdom in the land of Afghanistan after he came from Iraq and joined his brothers here before 6 months approximately, after migration and jihad and knowledge and Dawah and instruction. May Allah reward him on behalf of the Muslims and Islam with goodness

He was martyred in the Pakitka province in Afghanistan with his companion and brother Abu Dujanah Al Qahtani May Allah have mercy on him, (the brother of Abu Naseer Al Qahtani May Allah hasten his release), as a result of clashes with the enemies of Allah from the crusaders and apostates. Allah granted them steadfastness and victory and they cited an example of championship, sacrifice and heroism

May Allah have vast mercy on them, and accept them amongst the accepted and grant them high station

We give condolence in them to their families and Mujahideen brothers and all brothers in general, and to brothers of Abu Sulaiman in the Iraqi Jihad especially and in the Arabian Peninsula

We ask Allah to bless the imprints of the martyrs and to compensate the Muslims better than them and praise is to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds


And don’t forget us in your righteous prayers
Al Qaeda organization in Afghanistan
Written by the Commander Sheikh Mustafa Abu Yazid
Jamadi Al Oola 1429H

Source-AL Fajr media productions


Translated by Umm Saad

[The 801]

Afghanistan: Taliban claim death of 'female US spy'


Karachi, 21 May (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - Taliban fighters in Afghanistan claim to have killed a woman by slitting her throat after accusing her of spying for US forces in Afghanistan.

They said they killed the alleged female American informer in the Afghan valley of Kunar on Monday.

"Bachagai, 32, was part of an American proxy network in the Sarkano district's village Barogai," a Taliban spokesperson Zubair Mujahid told Adnkronos International (AKI) from the Kunar valley.

"Her information caused a lot of American attacks on the position of the mujahadeen, their killings and arrests," said Mujahid.

"We throughly investigated the matter and confirmed her links with Afghan intelligence and American troops. She also received cash rewards on the information she provided against the Taliban," he said.

Mujahid told AKI that once all the evidence against the alleged spy was gathered, they slit her throat with a knife and killed her.

The Taliban have killed many suspected informers in past especially in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar but killing a woman is a rare occurence among the former ruling student militia.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.2182812534

[Casey]

Officials Downplay News Reports of Taliban Takeover in Southern Afghanistan
By Ayaz Gul
Islamabad
17 June 2008

Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces are discounting media reports that say Taliban militants have seized control of several villages in southern Afghanistan. From neighboring Pakistan, Ayaz Gul reports.

Afghan reinforcements wait at Kabul airport before taking a flight to Arghandab district, Afghanistan, 17 Jun 2008
Reports earlier this week said a force of about 500 Taliban fighters had swept into several towns just north of the Southern city of Kandahar, setting up roadblocks and planting landmines.

Hundreds of local residents are reported to have fled the area (the Arghandab district).

But officials from the U.S. led coalition in Afghanistan say a patrol sent into the area to investigate, found no evidence to support the reports of a Taliban takeover in the villages.

A statement says that coalition forces moved freely and met no resistance.

In Kabul, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada has also played down the reported Taliban offensive in the Kandahar region.
more (http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-06-17-voa50.cfm)


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Taliban takes control of 18 towns in Kandahar, elder says
By Carlotta Gall and Abdul Waheed Wafa
Published: June 17, 2008

ISLAMABAD: Afghan families continued to flee the district of Argandab in southern Afghanistan as Taliban fighters and NATO and Afghan forces prepared to battle over the strategic region Tuesday.

The Taliban have taken control of 18 villages west of the Argandab River and started digging trenches and mines, a tribal elder from the region said. NATO and Afghan forces moved troops in to the region and dropped leaflets from the air warning civilians to stay inside their homes if fighting erupted in their area.

The sudden flurry of activity from all sides, coming days after some 400 Taliban prisoners escaped Friday during a jailbreak in Kandahar, indicates the seriousness of the threat.
more (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/17/mideast/afghan.4-289286.php)

[Casey]

Local Taliban commander’s house blown up

TANK: Security personnel blew up the house of a local Taliban commander during a pre-dawn raid in the city, said a district police official on Tuesday.

Security personnel carried out the operation at about 4.30am, blowing up the house of local Taliban commander Hayatullah who had allegedly carried out attacks on Manjhi Khel police checkpost on Monday night.

Hayatullah and his brother Faridullah were not in the house at the time of the operation.

Separately, the security forces arrested at least three people during a search operation in the city, police confirmed. The police began a search operation inside Durand gate, which resulted in the arrest of Allah Naaz, Akhtar Naaz and Muhammad Bakhsh. Those arrested have been moved to an undisclosed location for further questioning. app

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C06%5C18%5Cstory_18-6-2008_pg7_24

[Casey]

Taliban destroy bridges, plant mines outside Kandahar in battle preparation

ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan, June 17 (AP): Taliban destroyed bridges and planted mines in several villages they control outside southern Afghanistan's largest city in apparent preparation for battle, residents and officials said Tuesday. More than 700 families fled the Arghandab district 15 kilometers northwest of Kandahar city, said Sardar Mohammad, a police officer manning a checkpoint on the east side of the Arghandab River. On the west side of the river, hundreds of Taliban controlled around nine or 10 villages, Mohammad said. “Small bridges inside the villages have been destroyed,” he said. The Afghan army flew four planeloads of soldiers to Kandahar from Kabul Tuesday. A Taliban commander named Mullah Ahmedullah told the Associated Press Tuesday that around 400 Taliban moved into Arghandab from Khakrez, one district to the north. He said some of the militants released in Friday's prison break had joined the assault. “We've occupied most of the area and it's a good place for fighting. Now we are waiting for the NATO and Afghan forces,” Ahmedullah said. (Posted @ 13:20 PST)

http://www.dawn.com/2008/06/17/welcome.htm

[Casey]

Warlord: My encounter with Taliban mastermind

Backed by the CIA, he fought the Soviets then was sidelined. Now he's back, wreaking havoc among British forces.
Raymond Whitaker on meeting Jalaluddin Haqqani

Sunday, 22 June 2008

In a month when Britain has lost nine soldiers in Afghanistan, including the first woman, and hundreds of Taliban fighters were freed by a daring bomb attack on Kandahar's main jail, the British public is only just becoming aware of the malevolent power of Jalaluddin Haqqani.


A man once known only to old Afghan hands is being credited with the resurgence of the Taliban since 2006. He is said to have introduced Iraqi-style suicide bombings to a country where they were unknown and are still considered by many to be un-Islamic. Wily and well connected, he is emerging as the biggest threat to Britain and its Nato allies in Afghanistan, where last month more Western troops were killed than in Iraq for the first time since 2003. He has experienced a comeback as spectacular as that of the movement he is now serving as principal military commander.



When I encountered Haqqani in March 1994, the fortunes of the legendary Afghan warlord were at a low ebb. He was a hero to the CIA and wealthy Arab backers during the fight against the Soviet invaders. As chronicled in the movie Charlie Wilson's War, torrents of money and arms had been channelled through Pakistan's intelligence service to resistance leaders like him. But, after the Russians pulled out in 1989 and the Communist regime collapsed in 1992, Haqqani and his fellow Pashtun chieftains had been outmanoeuvred.


Kabul had been seized by the Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who installed his party leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, as President. Now Haqqani was sitting outside the President's office, waiting for an audience in which he would seek favours, and the photograph I took of him shows all the discomfort of a man who would have preferred to be meeting Rabbani on the battlefield.


Already in his late 40s, the mujahedin commander might have been expected to fade into obscurity, especially when Pakistan despaired of his ilk and decided to foster the Taliban instead. Yet 14 years later, he is regarded as the Taliban's most effective military leader. The former darling of the West's intelligence agencies is now their leading target after Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the Taliban figurehead, Mullah Omar.


Haqqani has shown his talent for psychologically significant blows, such as the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai during a military parade in the heart of Kabul in April, and January's attack on a luxury hotel that killed seven and sent shivers through the expatriate community in the Afghan capital.


This has accompanied the steady stream of suicide bombings that undermine Nato's military superiority and keep the civilian population on edge. On Friday, a suicide bomber on foot attacked a foreign military convoy in Helmand province, killing one Nato soldier and five civilians.


How did a man now in his 60s, who appeared to have been pushed to the margins, return to such a central role? Bin Laden himself, of course, was once seen as an asset by the US, and when the wealthy Saudi decided in the 1980s to take up the Afghan cause, one of the first Afghans he met was Haqqani. From a Pashtun clan with clout both in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal territories, Haqqani was able to provide Bin Laden with territory for his first camps. It was an association that later stood him in good stead.


As one of the few Pashtun commanders able to demonstrate effectiveness in fighting the Communists – he seized Khost, the first town to fall to the mujahedin after the Soviet pullout – the rough-hewn Haqqani was admired by Arabs who dreamed of jihad but lacked the nerve to go to war themselves. He visited the Gulf states frequently, learned Arabic and was always able to raise money in the Middle East after the American tap was turned off, enabling him to maintain large numbers of men under arms.


Even when Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) switched horses and backed the Taliban, he remained on good terms with the agency and was able to make a comfortable retreat to his stronghold, Miram Shah, in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.


Haqqani was the first mujahedin commander to surrender unconditionally to the Taliban, and remained on polite terms with the movement. Although he was never part of the tight inner circle, he took various minor posts during Mullah Omar's five years in power, between 1996 and 2001, eventually becoming interior minister.


He also helped his old associate Bin Laden to set up training camps on his return to Afghanistan. None of this necessarily meant that he was fully committed to the alliance between the Taliban and al-Qa'ida, in the view of his old contacts in the CIA and ISI – but after 9/11 it was time to put that theory to the test.


According to at least one report, Haqqani was summoned to Islamabad and told he could be installed as president of Afghanistan if he formed a breakaway "moderate" faction of the Taliban, excluding Mullah Omar. Presumably, the al-Qa'ida leadership would have been expelled from Afghanistan under the deal. But the warlord declined and returned to his stronghold. According to Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars, a history of American involvement in Afghanistan, it was into Haqqani's territory that Bin Laden fled after he managed to elude the Americans in 2001.


Even then, Haqqani did not immediately assume a prominent role in the Taliban, although his forces were always ready to attack the Americans in eastern Afghanistan. It was only after the movement's 2006 spring offensive ran into trouble that he was asked to take command. The subsequent Taliban resurgence took Nato by surprise and spread dissension among its members over tactics and reinforcements.


Nato insists that it cannot be defeated in battle by the Taliban. That is certainly true – large numbers of Taliban militants freed in the attack on Kandahar jail were later killed when they tried to mass together to seize the city – but it is irrelevant. With a judicious mixture of hit-and-run attacks, suicide bombings and occasional "spectaculars", plus the constant vehicle bombings that claimed four British lives last week, Haqqani can destabilise nearly half the country and hold back economic reconstruction.


Recently, he appeared in a DVD to dispel rumours that he was dead, or that he had handed over to his 34-year-old son, Sirajuddin, who has assumed responsibility for military operations. He is a particularly formidable opponent for the West, with his long-standing connections to Pakistani intelligence apparently protecting him from any intervention in Waziristan, while his Middle Eastern links bring him money and recruits.


"This is not a battle of haste; this is a battle of patience," he says in the DVD. He speaks from experience. The commander I saw in the President's waiting-room 14 years ago appeared to be washed up, but he has outlasted his opponents. The Taliban, formed to get rid of old warlords like him, is now grateful for his help.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/warlord-my-encounter-with-taliban-mastermind-851912.html


This article comes from WorldAnalysis.net
http://worldanalysis.net/smee

The URL for this story is:
http://worldanalysis.net/smee/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=78

[Casey]

Pakistan tribe gather dead after Taliban take town
Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:07am EDT
By Alamgir Bitani

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, June 24 (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban militants told rivals to collect the bodies of their men on Tuesday in a northwestern town the Taliban seized the previous day, a tribal elder said.

Militants loyal to Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud seized the town of Jandola, on the main road into the South Waziristan ethnic Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border, in fighting on Monday.

The fighting comes as the government tries to end violence by Mehsud through talks despite concerns from the United States, which says negotiations and peace deals give militants a free hand to plot attacks.

At least nine people were killed in the fighting on Monday, most of them members of the pro-government Bitani tribe.

"We've been asked by the Taliban to pick up bodies which are lying there," said tribal elder Haji Alamgir.

Khazan Gul, a member of a so-called peace committee the government had set up, later said nine bodies had been recovered.

Pakistan's semi-autonomous Pashtun lands along the Afghan border have been a refuge for Taliban and al Qaeda militants since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The area where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding has never come under the full control of any government and the United States says it has become a sanctuary for militants plotting violence in Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond.

Mehsud, a member of South Waziristan's Mehsud tribe, has emerged as Pakistan's most notorious militant over the past year.

He has been accused of launching a string of suicide attacks across the country including a Dec. 27 gun and bomb attack in which former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed.

KIDNAPPED

The top political official in the Jandola region, Barkat Ullah, said the area was completely under the control of the Taliban and the fighting was over.

Tribal elders were discussing the fate of up to eight members of the pro-government peace committee whom the Taliban had kidnapped, but Ullah declined to say what action the police might take.

A military spokesman referred queries to the Interior Ministry, saying it was responsible for security in the region despite the presence of an army base with about 4,000 men just outside the town.

The government's top Interior Ministry official was not immediately available for comment but a security official said he expected government action to restore control of the town.

"This is basically between the two tribes. This is a Bitani area and the Mehsuds have attacked them because the Bitanis were part of the peace initiative," said the official, who declined to be identified.

"The Mehsuds were in a pretty comfortable position before the army moved into the area so now they want to reassert their control."

Separately, militants attacked a military post in the Swat valley in North West Frontier Province where the militants and provincial government signed a peace pact last month.

A militant was killed and one wounded when troops responded, Colonel Mohammad Nadeem Anwar told reporters. A militant spokesman said two people were killed.

The mountain valley was a tourist destination until last year when militants began attacking police as part of a bid to impose Taliban-style rule. (Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony, Junaid Khan and Robert Birsel; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Ben Tan)

http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSISL129171

[The 801]

Here now is the price that we pay for our government taking their eye off the taliban and going off to fight in Iraq.

The scariest of shit is about to happen folks....

Taliban Imperil Pakistani City, a Major Hub
Akhtar Soomro for The New York Times


PESHAWAR, Pakistan — In the last two months, Taliban militants have suddenly tightened the noose on this city of three million people, one of Pakistan’s biggest, establishing bases in surrounding towns and, in daylight, abducting residents for high ransoms.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/28/world/28pakistan02_190.jpg
Taliban militants prepared on Friday to execute two men in Bajur, having accused them of helping the United States to carry out a missile strike. One of the men was decapitated.

The Taliban have established bases around Peshawar.

The militants move unchallenged out of the lawless tribal region, just 10 miles away, in convoys of heavily armed, long haired and bearded men. They have turned up at courthouses in nearby towns, ordering judges to stay away. On Thursday they stormed a women’s voting station on the city outskirts, and they are now regularly kidnapping people from the city’s bazaars and homes. There is a feeling that the city gates could crumble at any moment.

The threat to Peshawar is a sign of the Taliban’s deepening penetration of Pakistan and of the expanding danger that the militants present to the entire region, including nearby supply lines for NATO and American forces in Afghanistan.

For the United States, the major supply route for weapons for NATO troops runs from the port of Karachi to the outskirts of Peshawar and through the Khyber Pass to the battlefields of Afghanistan. Maintaining that route would be extremely difficult if the city were significantly infiltrated by the very militants who want to defeat the NATO war effort across the border.

NATO and American commanders have complained for months that the government’s policy of negotiating with the militants has led to more cross-border attacks in Afghanistan by Taliban fighters based in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

But the brazen campaign of intimidation in Peshawar, just 90 minutes by highway from Islamabad, the capital, shows that the Taliban threat now cuts deeply on both sides of the border, not just with suicide bombings but also with the persistent presence of militants among the population.

In this hard-boiled provincial capital, the linchpin of the North-West Frontier Province, the fear is palpable. Many of the rich have fled their mansions and left for Dubai. Middle-class families are packing for other places in Pakistan, and the poor are vulnerable to the militants’ entreaties.

“If this trend continues, there will be complete peace because the city is under the Taliban, or civil war because of the fighting,” said Samullah Shinwari, 31, the father of four children, who is selling his lucrative shopping mall and two ancestral family homes and moving to Islamabad.

With the militants crowding in, the national government called a special meeting in Islamabad on Wednesday to address the rapidly deteriorating security situation.

The day before, a sympathizer of the Taliban, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, shocked the National Assembly when he said that the entire North-West Frontier Province, including Peshawar, was on the brink of being engulfed by extremism.

The government’s control, he warned, was “almost nonexistent” in the province, an integral part of Pakistan and one of just four in the country. The specter of the fall of Peshawar threatens the fabric of the country.

The government issued a statement after its meeting announcing that it was turning over security of the province directly to the army. In the tribal areas, the police and the paramilitary Frontier Corps would remain the first line of defense, and the policy of peace deals with the militants would continue, the statement said. The military would be a force of last resort.

On Friday extra police officers were patrolling the main roads of Peshawar and its entry points from the tribal region.

There were reports that the Frontier Corps planned an operation in the coming days in the Khyber agency, adjacent to the city, to clean out Islamic militants under the sway of Mangal Bagh, a former bus driver who has grown into one of the most feared extremist leaders, commanding thousands of men.

But whether there was sufficient resolve to push back the startling gains by the militants was a point of debate.

“The government is helpless,” said Arbab Hidayat Ullah, a former senior police officer here. “It has lost its wits. The police have lost so many men at the hands of the Taliban they are scared.” Mr. Ullah said that the police of Peshawar had a considerable budget, but that the money had little impact and that the void allowed the brute force of the Taliban to flourish.

Despite its proximity to the capital, Peshawar has always been a world unto itself, and the province and the tribal areas have been largely forgotten by successive Pakistani governments. They have reaped slim allocations from the federal budget and received minimal governance.

Until now, the people of Peshawar have pretty much liked it that way, providing for themselves or growing rich on the smuggling routes that come with its position as the entrance to the semiautonomous tribal lands. The city has also long been a staging area for intrigue.

In the 1980s, the Americans used the city as rear base for the mujahedeen, the Islamic fighters supplied by Washington to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden came here in 1985 to help in that effort, and almost exactly 20 years ago, in August 1988, Mr. bin Laden held meetings at a house here that gave birth to Al Qaeda, according to a new history, “The bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century” by Steve Coll.

Today the Taliban, sometimes working with Al Qaeda, have almost total control over the tribal agencies, and their influence has steadily bled into Pakistan proper, as they “Talibanize” and challenge nearby areas.

The Taliban militants are a fractious mélange of various groups, law enforcement and local officials say. A survey of the towns close to Peshawar reveals the mixture.

To the south in Darra Adam Khel, forces of the Tehrik-e-Taliban of Pakistan, an umbrella group of Taliban, took virtual control of the city some time ago. The group is led by Baitullah Mehsud, who is accused by the Pakistani government of masterminding the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December and running scores of suicide bombers on both sides of the border.

To the east, a militant named Mangal Bagh leads a group called Lashkar-i-Islam. He holds sway in the Khyber agency and is so flush with men and money that he is fighting another Islamic group in the Tirah valley, law enforcement officials said.

To the north, the forces of Tehrik-e-Taliban established a prison in the town of Michini several months ago. And in the town of Warsak, the Taliban have constructed a training camp, the officials said.

In Shabqadar, a few miles away, the Taliban turned up in the central square and posted a notice urging people to contact them rather than the courts to settle their disputes, said Ahsanuddin Khan, the deputy superintendent of police.

On Thursday, in Tangi, near Charsadda, four pickup trucks of armed men with beards, long hair and scarves wrapped around their faces pulled into a school where polling places for women were set up for a special election for the provincial assembly. The militants ordered men present in the grounds of the school to leave.

“There were too many Taliban,” said Laila Gul, a worker for the Pakistan Peoples Party. “They fired into the air. One of them said he would explode the grenade on his belt.” In response, two battered trucks of the North-West Frontier police turned up, with a few elderly officers, but the intruders were allowed to get away.

In Charsadda, just 20 minutes from Peshawar, menacing convoys of Taliban men have showed up in recent weeks, their presence unchallenged, and almost accepted, said Munir Orekzei, a tribal leader and a member of the National Assembly.

On Friday, Waliur Rehman, a local Taliban commander, oversaw the execution of two men before thousands of people in Bajur, accusing them of helping the United States carry out a missile strike in Damadola that killed 14 people last month.

Gunmen with daggers pounced on one of the men, decapitating him and waving his severed head at the cheering crowd, according to The Associated Press.

In all of these places, the militants use a mixture of fear and social co-option, techniques similar to those used by their kin in Afghanistan in the 1990s, when the Taliban emerged after the retreat of the Soviets and the end of the American financing for their mujahedeen proxies.

One of the first targets of the Taliban are usually criminals with whom they often fashion a symbiotic relationship, officials here said. Often the Taliban attack criminals and in that way increase their social standing with local people.

And then to win favor with the Taliban, the criminals grow their hair and their beards, and join forces with the militants, they said. In this way, the criminals get protection from the militants for the money they give to the Taliban from their extortion rackets.

Last weekend 16 Christians were abducted from a house in an upscale section of Peshawar. They were released after negotiations with the police, but the landlord, a Muslim, was held longer and released only on the stipulation that he attend Islamic revival meetings for the next three months.

Unnerving for reasonably tolerant Peshawar was the recent kidnapping of four prostitutes from a house in Hayatabad, the most expensive area of the city, adjacent to the Khyber agency.

Abduction of young boys has also become common in Hayatabad: in the last few weeks a dozen boys have been snatched by militants demanding that they become jihadists rather than sit idly at home, said Masood Afridi, a doctor who lives there.

Nobody knows exactly when the Taliban will actually try to take on Peshawar.

Few people expect a direct assault but rather a mounting campaign of intimidation and fear, and the posting of heavily armed men at carefully chosen strategic points. Some people believe that once the summer fighting in Afghanistan is over and more Pakistani Taliban return home, they will turn their sights on Peshawar.

Not knowing the militants strategy was one thing, but the government’s strategy was nonexistent, complained Waris Khan Afridi, a tribal leader from the Khyber agency and a former member of the National Assembly.

“There is no strategy to counter them,” he said. “Very soon, the Taliban will go to Peshawar and say: ‘Hands up.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/28/world/asia/28pstan.html?ei=5087&em=&en=848ef5383b36b99f&ex=1214798400&pagewanted=all

[Casey]

Pakistan: Baitullah warns of attacks in Sindh, Punjab

By Alamgir Bhittani


TANK, June 28: Pakistani Taliban on Saturday suspended peace talks and accused the government of going back on its word and continuing crackdown against militants.

Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud told Dawn: The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan is suspending peace talks with the government. This will apply not just to South Waziristan but all areas, including Swat.

He, however, did not go as far as announcing resumption of hostilities. If the (security forces) operations continue people will see Sindh and Punjab turn into furnace.

He said the people had voted the ANP and PPP into power on the premise that they would bring peace. But now, they are talking about use of force and are launching operations against our people in Tank, Jandola and Darra Adamkhel.

Let the people ask their government why it has gone back on its word, he said. It will be unfortunate if violence engulfs the whole region again.

The government was holding talks with Baitullah Mehsud and militant groups in Bajaur, Mohmand tribal region and the semi-autonomous arms manufacturing town of Darra Adamkhel through tribal interlocutors.

Muslim Khan, the spokesman for the militant group in Swat, told Dawn: We have not yet received any instruction from the Taliban leadership.

Baitullah Mehsud tried to justify the killing of members of the peace committee in Jandola and said he had repeatedly asked military authorities to curb their criminal activities.

They were criminals and we had no other option but to go after them.

Baitullah Mehsud reiterated that regardless of the situation in tribal areas, the holy war against Americans in Afghanistan would continue.

He warned that the militants would wage a jihad against Pakistan Army if it helped the Americans launch attacks inside tribal areas.

http://www.dawn.com/2008/06/29/top2.htm

[The 801]

Plot to divide the Taliban foiled
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Along with the Taliban's ongoing progress in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has strengthened its position in Pakistan's tribal areas, reinforced by a steady stream of new recruits from other countries and an expansion of its networks among local tribes.

The situation reached a point where the Pakistani security agencies, in connivance with the Saudi establishment, felt they had to act. They hatched a plot to establish a proxy network in a newly formed Taliban group that rivals the anti-state al-Qaeda franchise of Baitullah Mehsud's Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban.

Al-Qaeda was wise to the ploy, though, and the proxies were last
Friday wiped out before they could even gain a toehold.

A senior Pakistani militant affiliated with al-Qaeda's setup told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, "Pakistan and the Saudi establishment tried to create a conspiracy, taking advantage of some tribal feuds between Taliban commanders coming from [tribal] Wazir and Mehsud backgrounds, and planted their proxy network to hijack the whole Taliban movement.

"But on Friday there was a clash in Mohmand Agency in which Taliban commanders close to Baitullah Mehsud terminated the leadership [of the proxies], including Shah Khalid, the local leader of the pro-government Taliban. The move to hijack the Taliban movement vanished into smoke," the militant said.

At least 15 people, including Khalid, the chief of a militant outfit known as the "Shah group", and his deputy, Qari Abdullah, were killed in the fighting. (State-run PTV, however, reported that Khalid had been killed after surrendering to militants loyal to Mehsud.)

Khalid's group had previously been involved only in fighting United States-led forces in Afghanistan and was not interested in local Pakistani affairs. But it recently became a part of a newly formed group headed by North Waziristan's Wazir tribal commander, Gul Bahadur, to rival al-Qaeda's franchise - Mehsud's network.

The roots of the group's formation were originally the result of ethnic differences between the Wazir tribe and the Mehsud tribe, but Pakistani security agencies took full advantage of the situation and encouraged known Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) contacts in the Taliban, such as Haji Nazir from South Waziristan and Haji Namdar from the Khyber Agency, beside Khalid from Mohmand Agency, to be a part of this new Shah group.

Mehsud is now on the offensive, all too aware of the establishment's schemes to undermine him and al-Qaeda.

Since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Pakistan has tried to drive al-Qaeda from the seat of the ideological throne of the Afghan resistance against Western armies by encouraging local Afghan commanders to structure the resistance on tribal lines.

In the broader picture, Pakistan envisaged this would improve the chances of reconciliation between the tribal movement and the Western armies, and the tribals would eventually be tolerated as the rulers of Afghanistan. Pakistan's connections would in the process remain intact in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda would be alienated.

Tribal tribulations
The story of the current infighting in the Taliban starts in the labyrinth of the regional war theater with the emergence of one Aminullah Peshawari, a well-respected Salafi academic whose influence spread from the Pakistani city of Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), the tribal areas of Mohmand and Bajaur to the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nooristan.

Aminullah was a known anti-establishment figure and used to meet Osama bin Laden, but he was neither a militant nor operated any militant group. He was a credible anti-American voice in the region.

After the US invasion of Afghanistan and the defeat of the Taliban, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation started operations in Pakistan against al-Qaeda's sympathizers. The Pakistani security apparatus was aware that it had to play its cards very cleverly in its newfound role as a partner in the "war on terror". Pakistani officials thus approached Aminullah and warned him of possible arrest and of being sent to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The noose was tightened so much that the respected Salafi academic was left with no choice but to blindly follow the footsteps of the Pakistani security agencies, which were desperate that he announce his support for the Laskhar-i-Taiba's commander in Mohmand Agency, Shah Khalid.

Previously, Khalid's group had been banned from operating inside Afghanistan because of his closeness with the Pakistani security agencies. Aminullah's support allowed Khalid to operate in the region freely. Both Aminullah and Khalid were now on the payroll of the ISI and Saudi intelligence.

Aminullah moved around with armed guards and a string of four-wheel drive vehicles in the city of Peshawar. The same protocol was given to Khalid. These sort of allowances and the money helped their networks thrive and they boasted of several successful operations in Afghanistan.

This month, North Waziristan's Gul Bahadur made public his differences with Baitullah Mehsud and summoned a meeting at which he (Gul) was appointed as the chief of Pakistani Taliban. Khalid emerged as one of Gul's main followers.

Other local Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders, however, suspected that Khalid had links to the state apparatus. A respected Taliban deputy commander in Nooristan province in Afghanistan and Kunar province's Mufti Yousuf advised Khalid to submit to the local discipline of the Taliban instead of operating a separate jihadi network. The advice went unheeded. As a result, tension mounted between Khalid and Omar Khalid, alias Abdul Wali, the regional commander installed by the Taliban.

As for Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, the al-Qaeda franchise, did not want to challenge him as he is a grandson of the legendary anti-British resistance fighter, Faqir of Ipi, and they were not sure he was an ISI proxy.

However, Baitullah Mehsud suspected a few ISI-backed Taliban commanders in the Pakistani tribal areas would aim to take advantage of his and Gul Bahadur's differences, and Shah Khalid was one of them, in addition to Haji Nazeer of South Waziristan and Haji Namdar of Khyber Agency.

So the decision was taken to confront the pure proxies of the ISI, Khalid being the first. He was advised by Omar Khalid to leave the area at once. Khalid agreed, and one of his comrades, Haji Namdar from Khyber Agency, provided him with a base in the agency. But last Tuesday, one of Khalid's men killed a deputy of Omar Khalid's group.

This situation in the most important strategic backyard of the Taliban, which guarantees them access to Nooristan and Kunar provinces across the border, was of major concern to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who also wanted to clarify just who the ISI's contacts were.

Mullah Omar assigned two of the Taliban's most respected regional commanders to intervene. They were Ustad Yasir of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and Pakistan's Khyber Agency, and Qari Ziaur Rahman of the Afghan provinces of Nooristan and Kunar and the Pakistani agencies of Mohmand and Bajaur.

These commanders arrived in Mohmand Agency on Friday, but on that day the Taliban's local commander had already begun fighting Khalid, conclusively beating him and capturing his network's arsenal and assets.

As a follow up, Mullah Omar's delegates, including Ustad Yasir and Qari Ziaur Rahman, issued a strict warning that such intra-Taliban bloodletting was not acceptable and that in the future all fighters would work under one umbrella with no stand-alone activities tolerated. This is a clear message to the rivals of Baitullah.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani government has tried to play the killing of Khalid and his fellow jihadis to its advantage. The bodies were taken to Peshawar in a procession arranged by various Salafi organizations. The highest political figure of a Salafi political party to have received direct patronage from Riyadh, Allama Sajid Mir, attended prayers in Peshawar and held a press conference in which he maintain