Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani is said to be the newest leader of the Taliban war in Afghanistan, but there is nothing new about him, being a veteran of the war against Russia.

His son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is said to be taking over operational command of the Taliban fight in the Kunnar region of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, and in fact Sirajuddin might be the next rival to Mullah Omar for overall leadership of the Afghan Taliban.

The Haqqani faction has sided with Baitullah Mehsud, and so despite the denials in the following interview, they are well connected to the Tehrik-i-Taliban.  The following interview is provided to you by NEFA Foundation, who has obtained video of a conversation with Taliban Deputy Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of the infamous Afghan mujahideen leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. Though only in his early thirties, Haqqani is considered one of the most powerful Taliban military commanders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and has been rumored as a possible internal political rival to the current Taliban administration of Mullah Mohammed Omar. Haqqani has freely acknowledged his role in organizing recent terrorist attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul, and his partnership with foreign fighters arriving from elsewhere in the Muslim world. This video was made by Rahimullah Yousufzai, a veteran reporter/analyst based in Peshawar. 

Link to Interview  

The entire video is worth the study time, but a few things are worth mentioning.  First, their fight is stated to be ideological and religious, not just political.  Second, note a tactic we have discussed before here at TCJ.  He states that in the terrain owned by the Taliban they can field 100-200 fighters at a time for attacks, but that his real intent is not to control terrain.  He has sanctioned 15-20 fighters at a time to cause distuptions and harrass NATO forces, something we pointed out in The Taliban and Distributed Operations.

Finally, it bears mentioning once again - in order to maintain a consistent theme at TCJ - that force projection is the only answer to the growing Taliban threat.  The high value target program, relying on Pakistan to end the threat, and more NATO forces who cannot fight due to rules of engagement won’t solve the problem.

As of August 16th, it was said that more than 100,000 noncombatants had fled the most northerly province in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

About 100,000 Pakistani villagers have fled clashes between security forces and militants in a northwestern region raising the danger of a big humanitarian problem, a government official said on Friday.

Security forces and militants have been fighting in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border, a known sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, since the militants attacked a security post last week.

About 170 people have been killed, including some civilians, officials have said. The fighting has included strikes on militants by fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

The violence has triggered an exodus, with people streaming out of the region on packed pick-up trucks and on foot, many heading for the safety of the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

As of August 18, this number had swelled to approximately 300,000. This number is almost certainly exaggerated, but it’s obvious that Peshawar, which is the last bastion of normalcy in the tribal region and increasingly Talibanized every day, is receiving an influx of people for which it has no place or resources.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban have made their position on these operations well known.

Arif Yousafzai

PESHAWAR: The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has threatened to launch attacks on security forces and government installations in Mohmand Agency if the ongoing military operation in Bajaur is not halted immediately.

Talking to The Post on phone from an undisclosed location, TTP Mohmand Agency Amir Umer Khalid said Tehrik Chief Baitullah Mehsood had instructed him to make preparations for attacks on security forces in case the operation in Bajaur Agency was prolonged.

Umer said: “We have completed our preparations and are anxiously waiting for the orders of our chief. We can not sit quiet if our innocent brothers, sisters and kids are bombed in Bajaur Agency. Taliban have also decided to expand their intelligence system to identify people playing spies’ role and giving reports about the activities of Islamic insurgents to the government. We will publicly hang those who are acting as spies for the government.” They needed to take a lesson from two youths who we recently slaughtered in front of people after being proved guilty of spying for the government, he added.

The government seemed to be living in a fool’s paradise. It was underestimating the strength of Taliban, he said, adding that the militants had the courage to fight till last man. “If we are being bombed to appease America, we have the right to fight back to defend our ideology.”

The commander said thousands of people were fleeing Bajaur due to the bombing by government jets. It is unfortunate that the jets, which the government should have used against the enemies of Islam, are being used against the Islamists just because they are not ready to accept the American hegemony. Asked if Baitullah Mehsood could expand battle to other agencies and parts of the country, he said in the struggle for survival, nothing could not be ruled out.

Separately, talking to The Post on phone from an unspecified location, Taliban spokesman in Swat Haji Muslim Khan said their Amir in Swat valley, Maulana Fazalullah, had ordered to line up suicide bombers for escalating attacks on security forces and government installations across the country.

He said Taliban were fighting guerrilla warfare against the security forces in Swat and targeted killing of government functionaries would be started soon. The NWFP chief minister, cabinet ministers, Rehman Malik, MNAs and MPAs belonging to Swat and some police officials are on their hit list.

Haji Muslim said they appreciated the statement of Prime Minister’s Advisor Rehman Malik to prolong the military operation in Swat, adding that it would be better if Rehman Malik himself took the command of security forces there. “I suggest to Rehman Malik to come to Swat and lead the operation,” he said and added Taliban were fighting a sacred war for the enforcement of Shariah and hoped they would be successful.

On the other hand, Taliban Kurram Agency spokesman Fazal Saeed Haqqani said NATO, Irani and Afghan troops were busy operating against the Sunnis to help Shias. He said the Sunni-Shia strife started in Kurram Agency in 1961 and it had claimed hundreds of lives till today. He said Taliban had rocked Shias, but now the NATO, India, Afghanistan and Iran had reached there to rescue the Shia community. The Taliban self-described spokesman said the government never made sincere efforts to restore peace in Kurram Agency.

Time will tell the effectiveness of the current operations against the TTP. However, if the operations cease without total destruction of the TTP - a highly unlikely scenario - the operations will have been mostly a loss and failure, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban will come back empowered from the stand down in hostilities. We’ve seen it before many times. Meanwhile, the province of Ghazni has been ceded to the Afghan Taliban.

As The Captain’s Journal predicted more than half a year ago, the Taliban prepared dual fronts and are engaged in full bore summer operations.

The past few days have seen an unprecedented number of police deployed in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Security was tightened in and around Kabul on Sunday with 7,000 additional police officers deployed ahead of Monday’s 89th observance of Afghanistan’s independence from Great Britain.

Police were seen at newly established security checkpoints looking at every passing vehicle Sunday. Increased foot patrols were also apparent.

An Interior Ministry official said it was the biggest police operation in Kabul in several months.

Also on Sunday, dozens of Taliban militants were killed after they ambushed a convoy carrying supplies for NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said.

Five security forces who worked for a private company were killed in the attack, in Zabul province, said Gulab Shah Alikhail, the deputy governor.

After the ambush, Afghan army forces were called in, Alikhail said.

Alikhail put the militants’ death toll at 32.

On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed 10 Afghan police officers in Kandahar province, according to Police Chief Matiullah Khan.

Khan blamed the Taliban and their al Qaeda associates for the attack.

“Who else is conducting this kind of cowardly acts except for the Taliban and al Qaeda people,” he said.

But it isn’t just the largest operation in several months. Kabul hasn’t seen this kind of security operations since the overthrow of the Taliban. Further, the police presence points to a security problem in the balance of Afghanistan, from which the threat comes.

A lawmaker from Kandahar who is critical of Karzai’s government said the police deployment has more to do with protecting the government’s reputation than reassuring the public.

“Unless they bring some comprehensive changes in the security, this deployment will not affect people’s confidence,” the lawmaker, Khalid Pashtun, said.

Pashtun said there had been a steady increase in kidnappings, robberies and other crimes this year.

“People are afraid to leave their house after 7 p.m.,” he said.

To the west, insurgents have been regularly attacking U.S.-led coalition and NATO supply convoys, burning fuel trucks and killing NATO and coalition soldiers.

To the east, the Tag Ab Valley of Kapisa Province has become the scene of near-daily clashes and airstrikes by the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan.

Afghan and NATO officials insist that the nearly seven-year effort to bring stability to Afghanistan is progressing.

However, the security operation in Kabul is the second time this year that the authorities have taken extraordinary measures to reassure Afghans that cities are safe from a Taliban assault.

In June, Afghan and NATO commanders mustered thousands of troops to clear militants from a strategic valley within striking distance of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s main southern city.

Kabul is a center of gravity, and the Taliban know it. They are capable of forming en masse to threaten the city, and thus threaten the seat of government. The observances and celebrations are the raison du jour, and takes on no more significance than that. The real message here is the concern on the part of Kabul for its own stability, and the degrading security situation in Afghanistan.

Slightly to the Southeast in Pakistan, the Pakistani troops recently sent into the NWFP met with a nasty surprise.

When several hundred Pakistani troops backed by paramilitary forces on Friday launched an operation against militants in Bajaur Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, they received a most unwelcome surprise.

News of the offensive, which proved to be the most bloody this year in Pakistan, had been leaked to the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda militants by sympathizers in the security forces, and the army walked into a literal hail of bullets.

Contacts familiar with the militants told Asia Times Online that every hill had observers as the first military convoys entered Bajaur - the main corridor leading to the Afghan provinces of Kunar, Nooristan, Kapisa and the capital Kabul - and they were quickly under attack.

In just a few hours, 65 soldiers were killed, 25 were taken prisoner and scores more were wounded. Under air cover, the soldiers retreated, leaving behind five vehicles and a tank, which are now part of the arsenal of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The Pakistani troops have retreated, as the Taliban regroup, rearm, train, collect “taxes” and continue to send fighters into Afghanistan to topple the government and return it to Taliban rule. Even if Pakistan was a consistent ally in the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban (and they are little more than a halting ally), they aren’t capable of anything more than harassment of fighters in the tribal regions. More troops are needed in Afghanistan, now and not later.

In Georgia Pleads for Help Against Russian Brutality and Hegemony, we linked a photo of thugish Russian troops.

We noted the long hair, beards, inconsistent cover, and the idiotic sneakers and purple socks being worn by the dude on the back of the beaten up APC.

Here is another photo of a Russian “soldier” in Georgia where he doesn’t belong.

This photo comes courtesy of the New York Times (Joao Silva).  Note the lack of a blouse and the cover being worn backwards.  Again, the cover is being worn backwards, like some thug gang member.

They are perfect representatives of their thugish government.  Michael O’Hanlon waxed pathetic today on Foxnews about the provocation by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that started the whole thing.  Unfortunately, Michael has bought into Russian propaganda.  Russia provoked the war, not Georgia.

“I blame the Russians,” he says, “because it was them who provoked the whole thing. They found some South Ossetians and some Abkhazians who have agreed to play their game.

“The Russians still cannot get used to the idea that Georgia is an independent state. They still want to use us as their slaves,” he says.

Asked about the destruction of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, which many Ossetians have blamed firmly on Georgia’s bombardment, he is adamant.

“It’s not true that the Georgians have destroyed Tskhinvali. Russian troops were stationed in Tskhinvali and from their base in the city have provoked the Georgian side [over a long period]. I work in Gori and there was hardly a day when there wasn’t any shelling - virtually every day we had wounded delivered to our hospital - there was no end to Russia’s provocation, all year round. So Georgia had no choice but to defend itself.”

But as for all of the talk about the mighty Russian bear asserting itself in the world, Ralph Peters gives some background to the thugish, horrible appearance and behavior we have already noted above.

RUSSIA’s military is succeeding in its invasion of Georgia, but only because Moscow has applied overwhelming force.

This campaign was supposed to be the big debut for the Kremlin’s revitalized armed forces (funded by the country’s new petro-wealth). Well, the new Russian military looks a lot like the old Russian military: slovenly and not ready for prime time.

It can hammer tiny Georgia into submission - but this campaign unintentionally reveals plenty of enduring Russian weaknesses.

The most visible failings are those of the air force. Flying Moscow’s latest ground-attack jets armed with the country’s newest precision weapons, pilots are missing far more targets than they’re hitting.

All those strikes on civilian apartment buildings and other non-military targets? Some may be intentional (the Russians aren’t above terror-bombing), but most are just the result of ill-trained pilots flying scared.

They’re missing pipelines, rail lines and oil-storage facilities - just dumping their bombs as quickly as they can and heading home.

Russia’s also losing aircraft. The Kremlin admits two were shot down; the Georgians claimed they’d downed a dozen by Sunday. Split the difference, and you have seven or more Russian aircraft knocked out of the sky by a tiny enemy. Compare that to US Air Force losses - statistically zero - in combat in all of our wars since Desert Storm.

As one US officer observed to me, the Russian pilots are neither professionally nor emotionally toughened for their missions. Their equipment’s pretty good (not as good as ours), but their training lags - and their pilots log far fewer flight hours than ours do.

Russia has been planning and organizing this invasion for months. And they’re pulling it off - but the military’s embarrassing blunders must be infuriating Prime Minister Putin.

Let’s not overdo the notion of the mighty Russian bear, please.  They are thugs, led by a thug, and they look and behave unprofessionally because they are in fact unprofessional.  One more photo, from Reuters.

Note the stupid looking do-rag, the long hair and the inconsistent uniforms.  Thugs - commanded by a thug!

Some Taliban and al Qaeda support comes from radical Salafists in Saudi Arabia, but the Taliban also harvest their own support. Regular readers of The Captain’s Journal know that we’re not particularly fond of the notion of mixing the war on drugs with Operation Enduring Freedom, since the idea of destruction of a farmer’s means of income does not comport with the need to win the population.

What about support for the Taliban from poppy? This has been asked thousands of times in the main stream media, and indeed, the State Department wants badly to war against drugs in Afghanistan. So do some military (mostly Army, not any Marines to our knowledge, since Marine operations in Helmand specifically avoided destruction of crops).

Our contention all along has been that the problem is not poppy, any more than it is any other crop. It’s the Taliban, and they are more than capable of obtaining income through bullying tactics whether from farmers who grow poppy or women who weave clothing with yarn. The Taliban have begun heavy handed tactics of taxation of various businesses to support their campaign.

PESHAWAR: The Taliban are financing their “jihad” against the United States and supporting the families of the militants killed in the war with private taxation, besides Zakat and Ushr.

Sources close to militants, tribal elders and government officials in various tribal regions where Taliban-linked militancy has paralysed business told Daily Times that the organisation has not made a uniform policy on Zakat so far.

Taliban vary the taxation from area to area and depending on the financial status of traders. Bajaur is the worst case, where reports say the Taliban have imposed fixed taxes on traders, ranging from Rs 30 to Rs 25,000 per month.

“I pay Rs 500 a month to the Taliban as per their decree,” said Rustam Khan, who runs a small business in the Khar bazaar. “I can afford to pay the sum, otherwise it would have been great injustice.”

Maulana Waheed, in charge of Zakat for Taliban in Bajaur, said the total collection was around Rs 175,000 so far – much lower than what Taliban need to spend. Waheed denied the Taliban were forcing Khar residents to pay Zakat to them, but accepted collecting 12,000 kilogrammes of wheat as Ushr from farmers.

Fuel stations give 120 litres of fuel each to the Taliban, who are frequently on the move to avoid United States spy planes.

“That is true, we provide a certain quantity of fuel to the Taliban as per their desire and our contribution for jihad,” said a manager at one of the fuel stations in Khar.

In the neighbouring Mohmand tribal region, the Taliban are not collecting Zakat, but seek contributions from harvested crops and also collect skins of sacrificed animals.

The Maulvi Nazir-led Taliban in Ahmedzai Wazir areas of South Waziristan collect neither Zakat nor Ushr, but the heavy fines they impose on the residents are one of the main sources of revenue to run the “Movement for Return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan”.

It doesn’t have to be small local businesses; it can be larger industrial operations as well.

ZIARAT, Pakistan — The Taliban’s takeover in April of the Ziarat marble quarry, a coveted national asset, is one of the boldest examples of how they have made Pakistan’s tribal areas far more than a base for training camps or a launchpad for sending fighters into Afghanistan.

A rare, unescorted visit to the region this month revealed how the Taliban are grabbing territory, using the income they exact to strengthen their hold and turn themselves into a self-sustaining fighting force. The quarry alone has brought tens of thousands of dollars, said Zaman, a tribal leader.

The seizure of the quarry is a measure of how, as the Pakistani military has pulled back under a series of peace deals, the Pakistani Taliban have extended their reach through more of the rugged 600-mile-long territory in northern Pakistan known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.

The quarry here in the Mohmand tribal district, strategically situated between Peshawar and the Afghan border, is a new effort by the Taliban to harness the region’s abundant natural resources of coal, gold, copper and chromate.

Of all the minerals in the tribal areas, the marble from Ziarat is one of the most highly prized for use in expensive floors and walls in Pakistan, and in limited quantities abroad.

A government body, the FATA Development Authority, had failed over the past several years to mediate a dispute between the Masaud and Gurbaz subtribes over how the mining rights to the marble should be allocated, according to Pakistani government officials familiar with the quarry.

The Taliban came eager for a share of the business. Their reputation for brutality and the weakness of the local government allowed them to settle the dispute in short order.

The Taliban decided that one mountain in the Ziarat area belonged to the Masaud division of the main Safi tribe, and said the Gurbaz subtribe would be rewarded another mountain, Zaman, the contractor, said.

The mountain assigned to the Masauds was divided into 30 portions, he said, and each of six area villages was assigned five of the 30 portions.

Zaman said the Taliban demanded $1,500 commission upfront for each portion, giving the insurgents a quick $45,000.

The Taliban also demanded a $7 tax on each truckload of marble, he said. With a constant flow of trucks, the Taliban were collecting up to $500 a day, Zaman said.

There are no magic tricks to perform. Get rid of the poppy, and you don’t get rid of the Taliban. Get rid of the marble quarry, and you don’t get rid of the Taliban. In fact, squeezing the financiers in Saudi Arabia, while a good tactics and hopefully fully in process, won’t get rid of the Taliban.

It isn’t about the poppy, marble or financiers from the house of Saud. It’s about the religious radicals practicing jihad because of their belief system, who would fight to the death to destroy the West. There is no solution except to kill them. Many in Afghanistan suffer under their yoke, and providing security for them is the other part of the equation. This requires forces and kinetic operations.