Aboard The Democracy Train

WASHINGTON — A day after a contested decision to pull American military forces from Syria, officials said Thursday that President Donald Trump has ordered the start of a reduction of American forces in Afghanistan.

More than 7,000 American troops will begin to return home from Afghanistan in the coming weeks, a U.S. official said. The move will come as the first stage of a phased drawdown and the start of a conclusion to the 17-year war that officials say could take at least many months. There now are more than 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Trump announced Wednesday that he would pull all of the more than 2,000 American troops from Syria.

Taken together, the Syria withdrawal and the likely Afghan drawdown represent a dramatic shift in the U.S. approach to military engagement in hot spots around the world, reflecting Mr. Trump’s aversion to long-running military entanglements with their high costs and American casualties.

“I think it shows how serious the president is about wanting to come out of conflicts,” a senior U.S. official said of how the Syria decision affects his thinking on Afghanistan. “I think he wants to see viable options about how to bring conflicts to a close.”

The Taliban released a short statement today confirming that representatives of its “political office” are set to meet with an American delegation tomorrow (Dec. 17).

The face-to-face is to take place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). And according to the Taliban, “[r]epresentatives of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and [the] United Arab Emirates will also attend the meeting.”

Notably absent from the Taliban’s statement is any mention of the Afghan government. The jihadists have publicly rejected any talks with President Ghani’s government, repeatedly describing it as an illegitimate “puppet” of the US.

According to Voice of America (VOA), the encounter in the UAE was brokered by Pakistan, after President Donald Trump requested Pakistan’s assistance in jumpstarting the talks. Citing Pakistani officials, VOA added that previous talks in Qatar stalled because the Taliban insisted on “a date or timeframe” for the US and NATO withdrawal before participating in any sort of peace process with its Afghan foes. Such a timetable would be a major concession just to initiate negotiations.

The Trump administration has attempted to pressure Pakistan into ending its support for the Taliban and other jihadist groups. The US withheld millions of dollars in military aid, but this did not alter Pakistan’s behavior.

The State Department confirmed earlier this year that Pakistan continues to provide a safe haven for the Taliban’s senior leadership, including the al Qaeda-linked Haqqanis.

The Taliban has been using diplomacy to undermine the legitimacy of the Afghan government, while boosting its own international credentials.

The Obama administration’s talks with the Taliban further strained relations between the US and then President Hamid Karzai. The US agreed to allow the Taliban to open its “political office” in Doha with the understanding that the insurgency group wouldn’t refer to itself as the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” – the name of its authoritarian regime prior to the US-led invasion in Oct. 2001.

The first thing the Taliban did upon opening its office in mid-2013 was unfurl a banner with the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” on it. This offended Karzai’s government, as it implies that the Taliban’s regime is the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan.

The Taliban has continued to press this point. Not only does the group constantly refer to itself as the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” it is also argues that only its extremist, sharia-based government is a legitimate representative of the Afghan people.

For instance, the Taliban released a statement on Nov. 16 concerning a conference in Moscow. The Taliban attended; the Afghan government did not. The statement was tellingly titled, “The Islamic Emirate’s Effective Diplomacy.” From the jihadists’ perspective, the Russian-hosted event was a good opportunity to expose “the crimes of the foreign invaders and Kabul administration and their corruption among other topics.” The Taliban added that in Moscow it “clarified the present situation of Afghanistan and exposed the policies, oppression and corruption of the savage aggressors and Kabul administration.”

The Taliban consistently refers to Ghani’s government as the “Kabul administration” — a derogatory phrase.

The Taliban elaborated, saying the “Islamic Emirate’s delegation presented its religious and national stance at the Moscow Conference through which the doubts of various countries were removed and it became further clear that it is only the Islamic Emirate which at present truly represents the Afghan people, that it has indeed been successful in obtaining the public’s support and is struggling for defending the Afghan people’s rights and state sovereignty — such struggle is the human and legal right of any nation which they must not be deprived of.”

The Taliban crowed that “in the military field the Islamic Emirate has defeated the occupying enemy alongside its enslaved forces on the one hand, and on the other hand it has forced the tired enemy into embarrassment in the political field.” That is, according to the Taliban, the US and the West have been embarrassed into negotiations.

Much of the rest of the Taliban’s statement on the Moscow conference was in this same vein, trumpeting its ability to tell its story in the media, while undermining the US and the West (“the imperialistic powers”), as well as the Afghan government.

In a separate statement on Nov. 28, the Taliban commented on a conference in Geneva that “was also attended by Ashraf Ghani along with his team.” The Taliban said its “Islamic Emirate, as a representative of the valiant Mujahid Afghan nation and as a sovereign entity, is fighting and negotiating with the American invaders for the success of Jihad” — in other words, to get the US and its foreign allies to withdraw from Afghanistan. Moreover, it was a “waste of time” to talk with “powerless and foreign imposed entities” — meaning the Afghan government.
It remains to be seen if Zalmay Khalilzad, who leads the American delegation, can actually get the Taliban and the Afghan government to sit down at the same table — or if the US will proceed without such talks.

At least one American official claims they aren’t even really negotiating with the Taliban. “We are not engaged in peace talks with the Taliban,” John R. Bass, the US Ambassador in Afghanistan, said earlier this month, according to TOLOnews. “We are not negotiating on behalf of the Afghan people, we are not negotiating on behalf of the Afghan government, we are not in negotiating period.”

Previous talks have been held in Qatar, a nation that has offered a permissive fundraising environment for the Taliban and al Qaeda. But the UAE, Qatar’s geopolitical rival, has also allowed freedom of movement for the Taliban. Shortly before he was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in May 2016, the Taliban’s emir, Mullah Mansour, visited Dubai. His trip, which was first reported by the Washington Post, was for “shopping and fundraising.” Mansour then visited Iran before returning to Pakistan, where he was droned to death.

Other Taliban figures have been known to travel to the UAE for fundraising as well.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD’s Long War Journal.

WASHINGTON Dec 8: “The contractor must maintain a constant capability to surge to any location within Afghanistan or Pakistan” within a 30-day period, says an official US announcement released in 2010.

The announcement — highlighted by The Nation, the oldest US weekly, in May 2010 — solicits bids from private war contractors to secure and ship US military equipment through sensitive areas of Pakistan into Afghanistan.
Among the duties the contractors were required to perform was “intelligence, to include threat assessments throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan”.

The solicitation notice — almost completely ignored by the Pakistani media — also underlines the enormity of the task: “There will be an average of 5,000” import shipments “transiting the Afghanistan and Pakistan ground lines of communication (GLOC) per month, along with 500 export shipments”.

The terms of the contract indicate that US personnel were directly involved in these operations, although a bulk of the force was hired locally, in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Ninety American contractors were among the 65,000 people killed in Pakistan in 17 years.

A May 25, 2010 article in The Nation, by journalist Jeremy Scahill, points out that among the firms listed by the US Department of Defence as “interested vendors” were an Afghan firm tied to a veteran CIA officer and run by the son of a former Afghan defence minister, Gen Abdul Rahim Wardak, and a Pakistani firm with links to Blackwater, a private security company based in the US.

Although often highlighted in the US media, the mysterious world of private contractors drew little attention in Pakistan until recently, when a report by the Brown University’s Costs of War Project mentioned that 90 American contractors were among the 65,000 people killed in Pakistan in the last 17 years.

The activities of private contractors in Pakistan did not receive much attention in the US media either, mainly because the death tolls in Afghanistan and Iraq were much higher.

According to the Brown University report, a total of 7,820 private American contractors have been killed since 2001. Of them 3,937 were killed in Afghanistan, 3,793 in Iraq and 90 in Pakistan.

For most Pakistanis, even 90 contractors are far too many as the number makes them realise that hundreds of private American contractors have been operating in their country without their knowledge.

But the 2010 solicitation expla¬ins why the United States had to hire a large number of private contractors in Pakistan. It identifies “current limitations on having US military presence in Pakistan and threat levels precluding US Military active invol¬vement” as the main reasons for hiring private contractors.

Defining a contractor’s functions, the solicitation states: “The contractor must be proactive at identifying appropriate methods for obtaining the necessary in-transit visibility information.”

Although no official statistics are available about the total number of American contractors deployed in Pakistan, in 2012 the US Central Command informed Congress approximately 137,000 contractors were working for the Pentagon in the greater Middle East region that includes Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

Of that total, 40,110 were US citizens, 50,560 were local hires, and 46,231 were from neither the US nor the country in which they were working.

“These numbers do not reflect the totality of contractors. For example, they do not include contractors working for the US State Department,” journalist David Isenberg wrote in the Time magazine on October 9, 2012.

According to the US Department of Defence data, at the peak of their deployment (2008-2011) contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan represented 52 per cent of the total force, averaging 190,000 contractors to 175,000 uniformed personnel.

Focusing on the situation in Pakistan, journalist Antony Loewenstein, wrote in an Australian publication in April 2012 that in Pakistan “private security is a state within a state”.

He wrote that a total of 62 retired military officials were running these private companies and at least half of them “had been arrested and then released for corruption and working for the Americans”.

According to him, “the most revealing company name” on the 2012 list was G4S Wackenhut Pakistan. G4S is a British behemoth in the security industry with a troubling human rights record.

A January 2010 report of the Foreign Policy (news site) also covers the period when private security was its peak in Pakistan. It notes that in 2010, the top UN security official, Gregory Starr, the former head of US State Department Security, advocated an increase in the use of private security firms in Pakistan.

The report notes that the UN “accelerated its move toward hired guns” in Pakistan after the Taliban launched an attack against a UN residence in October 2009, killing five UN employees.

The report also identifies some of the companies active in Pakistan in that period, including Blackwater/Xe, Triple Canopy, Dyncorps and Aegis. Most of them have now hired local partners.

QUETTA: Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan has said that Gwadar Port can serve as the gateway for the landlocked Central Asian states by providing them access to maritime routes and a trade corridor for doing business with all countries of the world.

According to a statement issued by the Balochistan government, the chief minister was speaking at a meeting of heads of the Regions Forum of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) states in Chelyabinsk city of Russia on Wednesday.

“Pakistan and China are working together to develop the Gwadar Port to facilitate connectivity, trade and investment in the region and beyond,” he added.

The SCO comprises eight member states: Pakistan, China, Russia, India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Four other states have observer status in the organisation.

The SCO’s major objectives include strengthening mutual confidence and good neighbourly relations, promoting effective cooperation in politics, trade and economy, science and technology, culture, education, energy, transportation, tourism and environmental protection.

Prime Minister Imran Khan nominated Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan to represent Balochistan and Pakistan in the forum, while Punjab minister Mian Mohammad Aslam Iqbal, Kamran Khan Bangash, special assistant to the KP chief minister, and Aamir Shoakat, SCO director, accompanied the Pakistani delegation.

The chief minister said that in the integrated world, regional organisations such as the SCO played an important role in coordinating actions and polices to ensure security, peace and development in the region.

“We are highly appreciative of the Russian Federation and Chelyabinsk region for bringing us together at this important platform,” he said, adding that “we would specially thank Mr Dubrovsky, Governor of Chelyabinsk region, for taking this initiative to host the first meeting of the forum”.

“I invite you all to come and visit Balochistan or send your investors to explore possibilities for investment for mutual benefit and cooperation in the province. My government stands ready to extend all possible facilities to all investors,” Mr Khan said.

President Donald Trump has reached out to Pakistan’s prime minister, sending Imran Khan a letter seeking Islamabad’s co-operation in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table to end the 17-year war in neighbouring Afghanistan, officials have said.

The development could help ease tension between Washington and Islamabad.

Relations soured after Mr Trump last month alleged that Pakistan harboured al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden despite getting billions of dollars in American aid.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry quoted Mr Trump as saying in the letter that he considers his most important regional priority achieving a negotiated settlement to the Afghan war and that he was seeking Pakistan’s support and facilitation toward that goal.

It said Mr Trump acknowledged the war has cost dearly both the United State and Pakistan.

The ministry also said Mr Trump emphasised Pakistan and Washington “should explore opportunities to work together and renew their partnership”.

Pakistani authorities did not release the letter, which information minister Fawad Chaudhry said Mr Khan received on Monday morning.

The ministry welcomed the US president’s outreach, saying: “Pakistan has always advocated a political settlement to end war in Afghanistan.”

“Pakistan reiterates its commitment to play the role of facilitator in good faith,” the ministry statement said.
Pakistani media outlets, whose reporters met with Mr Khan in Islamabad on Monday, quoted the prime minister as saying that Pakistan would continue its efforts to help peace in Afghanistan.

When Mr Trump levelled his accusation about bin Laden last month, Islamabad said “such baseless rhetoric … was totally unacceptable”.

Mr Khan at the time stressed the United States had provided what he described as a minuscule 20 billion US dollars in aid to Pakistan.

Bin Laden was killed by US commandos in a surprise raid in May 2011 in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad.
According to Imtiaz Gul, a Pakistani analyst, Mr Trump’s letter indicates there is a realisation within the US administration that Pakistan’s co-operation is vital to ensuring peace in Afghanistan.

Despite near-daily attacks by the Taliban, who now hold sway in about half of Afghanistan’s territory, the Trump administration has stepped up efforts to find a peaceful solution to the protracted war.

US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was expected to arrive in Pakistan this week during his visit to the region to revive peace talks with the Taliban.

According to the US State Department, Mr Khalilzad will travel to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar with a delegation from December 2 to December 20