Hamid Karzai: Pakistan Is The Source Of Terrorism In My Country

A portion of the transcript:

Hamid Karzai: The problem of terrorism, as it is affecting Afghanistan, is not entirely an Afghan problem. As a matter of fact, a greater part of this problem is a regional problem, and a greater part of this problem is unfortunately coming to us from Pakistan. So the Americans, the international coalition – when they say they are continuing to work in Afghanistan, and yet the security is not there, they are right, because they have not gone to the right place to fight terrorism.

Interviewer: Which is?

Hamid Karzai: Which is the sanctuaries that the terrorists have in Pakistan.

Interviewer: But Pakistan, actually, recently… I have noticed that there is a very strong declaration from the Afghan government against Pakistan. You have accused the Pakistani government of being behind your attempted assassination, the last one, and the most dangerous thing is that you have threatened that you would go behind the borders just to find Al-Qaeda, and Taliban as well, which means you will go to Pakistan. Right now, Mr. President, if you don’t have the power to secure the situation in Afghanistan, do you think you have the power to go behind the border?

Hamid Karzai: When I said that Afghanistan would go in self defense beyond the Durand Line, [it] was in response to a statement that came from terrorist networks from Pakistan, from someone called Baitullah Mahsoud – you must have heard of him, and from someone called [Maulana] Fazlullah. They declared that they would cross the border and come into Afghanistan, to kill Afghans and the international troops. Now, for me, the president of a sovereign country – when there is a threat issued to me beyond my borders by someone, what is my responsibility?

Interviewer: That’s right, but the question is: Do you have the power? Can you do it?

Hamid Karzai: The power is the power of the government, of the institutions of the government, and of the people. Afghanistan is known in history – and Afghanistan has proven that in history – that when the Afghan people decide to defend themselves, they always win – as we have always won.

Source: MEMRI TV clip of excerpts from an interview with President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, which aired on Dubai TV on July 14, 2008.

Watch the interview.

Commentary

The War on Terror (World War IV) is not limited to fighting against governments (such as Omar Mohammed’s Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or Syria, Iran, North Korea, Sudan…etc), but also against organizations that are not governments. In this war, the umbrella organization called al-Qaeda is an enemy, as are Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, Abu Sayyaf, Jamaat ul Fuqra, and dozens of other terror groups worldwide.

Fighting this war to a successful conclusion will involvemany things, but one of the most important ingredient is not allowing terrorists to have sanctuary anywhere in the world. They must always be pursued, and never allowed to rest or re-build their strength.

Previously, the Democrats have agitated for more troops to go to Afghanistan. Wanna bet they’ll change their minds once they realize there might be some possibility of going into Pakistan to fight the terrorists, even as the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, once suggested?

Afghan-Pakistan Clashes and Iranians in Iraq

I am glad to see that we will not afford our enemy a sanctuary across international borders (I wish we would do the same with Mexico), and we are engaging the enemy:

The Afghan Army clashed with the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal agency of Mohmand on June 10. While initial reports indicated the US conducted a targeted airstrike against a Taliban or al Qaeda target in the tribal agency, the aircraft appear to have been supporting Afghan troops. Pakistani soldiers were reported to have been killed in the fighting.

The fighting started after Afghan forces attacked a Taliban force as it attempted to cross the border. Between 10 and 13 Pakistani soldiers were killed after Afghan and US forces pursued Taliban forces fleeing into Pakistan.

“The militants launched a cross-border attack into Afghanistan,” an unnamed Pakistani security official told Reuters. “At least 10 of our soldiers were killed in a counter-offensive by forces in Afghanistan.” Geo TV reported 13 Pakistani soldiers, including a major, were killed. An estimated 50 Pakistani soldiers were manning an outpost in Suran Dara along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier. Only 10 have been accounted for.

Source: The Long War Journal

I wonder when we’ll start going across the border in Iran to stop their “Special Groups” and “Explosives Experts” from going into Iraq and killing American soldiers? When will people begin to realize that Iran has been at war with us since President Jimmy Carter installed the Ayatollah Khomeini and jump started the Iranian Islamic Revolution?

BAGHDAD – Coalition forces captured a suspected Iranian-trained Special Groups explosives expert Wednesday in Numaniyah, about 180 km southeast of Baghdad near Al Kut.

Acting on intelligence information, Coalition forces targeted a suspected Iranian-trained improvised explosive device expert. Using information provided by Special Groups criminals already detained, the targeted criminal is believed to have traveled to Iran several times for explosives training. Intelligence sources also said the suspect has numerous Iranian contacts with whom he would meet when smuggling weapons and bomb-making materials into Iraq.

Coalition forces entered the suspected criminal’s residence and subdued him without firing any shots after the man made a move toward a weapon.

“Significance progress is being made, and Iraqi people are a big part of the operations to stop terrorists throughout Iraq,” said Navy Lt. Patrick Evans, MNF-I spokesperson.

Source: MNF-Iraq

Arabs Volunteer To Fight In Afghanistan Against al-Qaeda?

WASHINGTON — The leader of the tribal confederation that has fought to expel Al Qaeda from most of Iraq’s Anbar province is offering his men to help gin up a rebellion against Osama bin Laden’s organization along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In an interview, Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi told The New York Sun that in April he prepared a 47-page study on Afghanistan and its tribes for the deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Kabul, Christopher Dell. When asked if he would send military advisers to Afghanistan to assist American troops fighting there, he said, “I have no problem with this, if they ask me, I will do it.”

The success of the Anbari tribal rebellion known as the awakening spurred Multinational Forces Iraq to try to emulate the model throughout Iraq, including with the predominately Shiite tribes in the south of the country. Today, the tribal-based militias formed to protect Anbaris from Al Qaeda are forming a political alliance poised to unseat the confessional Sunni parties currently in parliament in the provincial elections scheduled for the fall and the federal ones scheduled for 2009.

During his nomination hearing for taking over the regional military post known as Central Command, General David Petraeus said one of the first things he would do would be to travel to Pakistan to discuss the current strategy of the government in dealing with Al Qaeda’s safe haven in the Pashtun border provinces. A possible strategy for defeating Al Qaeda would be an effort there along the lines of the Anbar awakening to win over the tribes that offer Osama bin Laden’s group protection and safe haven.

Source: Michael J. Totten

No wonder the Legacy Media doesn’t cover the war in Iraq (or Afghanistan) very much these days. These kind of stories do not fit the America-hating template of failure.

Still, things are not all rosy in Afghanistan, or even in Pakistan.

U.S. Marines In Helmand

US marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in southern Afghanistan.
Photograph: David Guttenfelder/AP

For two years British troops staked out a presence in this small district center in southern Afghanistan and fended off attacks from the Taliban. The constant firefights left it a ghost town, its bazaar broken and empty but for one baker, its houses and orchards reduced to rubble and weeds.

But it took the U.S. Marines, specifically the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, about 96 hours to clear out the Taliban in a fierce battle in the past month and push them back 10 kilometers, or six miles …

The marines’ drive against the Taliban in this large farming region is certainly not finished, and the Taliban have often been pushed out of areas in Afghanistan only to return in force. But for the British forces and for Afghan residents, the result of the recent operation has been palpable …

Major Neil Den-McKay, the officer commanding a company of the Royal Regiment of Scotland based here, said of the U.S. Marine’s assault: “They have disrupted the Taliban’s freedom of movement and pushed them south, and that has created the grounds for us to develop the hospital and set the conditions for the government to come back.” People have started coming back to villages north of the town, he added, saying, “There has been huge optimism from the people.”

For the marines, it was a chance to hit the enemy with the full panoply of their firepower in places where they were confident there were few civilians. The Taliban put up a tenacious fight, rushing in reinforcements in cars and vans from the south and returning again and again to the attack. But they were beaten back in four days by three companies of marines, two of which were dropped in by helicopter to the south east …

Marines from Charlie Company said the reaction from the returning population, mostly farmers, has been favorable. “Everyone says they don’t like the Taliban,” said Captain John Moder, 34, commander of Charlie Company. People had complained that the Taliban stole food, clothes and vehicles from them, he said …

Source: The Captain’s Journal, where the author also offers analysis and wonders is we will repeat the mistakes of others in Afghanistan.

Commentary

The article reveals a difference in approach to warfighting doctrines. The British were apparently satisfied to “hole up” in the district with a fort mentality that focused on holding ground, and falling back to the medieval idea of abandoning agricultural lands in the face of conflict, and retreating to a central strong point. Even after the US Marines cleared out the province, the British seemed to not have caught on.

The results of the current Presidential Election will be very important in determining whether or not we have the intestinal fortitude to continue with a long-term strategy of helping the Afghanis become strong enough to resist the Taliban on their own, and to help them establish an economic and agriculture system that can displace the poppy fields, much to the dismay or druggies, libertarians, and Ron Paul Supporters everywhere.

Who is more likely to continue our current policy in Afghanistan? McCain or Obama?

Freedom Watch Afghanistan

Afghanistan National Security Forces Order of Battle

The Long War Journal is pleased to publish the first release of the Afghanistan National Security Forces Order of Battle (ANSF OOB). The ANSF OOB, like the Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle, is based on open source information. We believe the ANSF OOB is a good representation of the Afghan military and police structure. The OOB will be updated and published on a quarterly basis.

Go read the Order of Battle.

And Obama’s Security Coordinator has been captured in Pakistan.

Another Media Attempt to Harm Our Troops Fails

The Left, which includes most of the Media, is so against this war that they are willing to lie in order to support their agenda to get us out of Iraq.
I have documented others’ findings on this matter before, and here is another one exposed: The New Republic, who’s only response to the discovery is a terse statement as follows:

NOTE TO READERS:

Several conservative blogs have raised questions about the Diarist “Shock Troops,” written by a soldier in Iraq using the pseudonym Scott Thomas. Whenever anybody levels serious accusations against a piece published in our magazine, we take those charges seriously. Indeed, we’re in the process of investigating them. I’ve spoken extensively with the author of the piece and have communicated with other soldiers who witnessed the events described in the diarist. Thus far, these conversations have done nothing to undermine–and much to corroborate–the author’s descriptions. I will let you know more after we complete our investigation.

–Franklin Foer

Matt Sanchez wrote the following:

I was at Camp Falcon earlier this month and didn’t recognize any of what Scott Thomas described. So, I e-mailed the public affairs officer Major Luedeke at Camp Falcon:

Per COL Boylan’s request, I have prepared the following:

1. There was no mass grave found during the construction of any of our coalition outposts in the Rashid District at any time. Such a discovery would have prompted an investigation and close attention paid at levels higher than ours to making sure that the victims were properly interred and attempts would have been made to determine their identities. It is difficult to fathom that a unit’s leadership would condone Soldiers disrespecting the remains of anyone in the fashion described.

2. Due to the threat of IEDs, our combat vehicles are driven professionally and in control at all times. To be driving erratically so as to hit dogs or other things would be to put the entire vehicle’s crew at risk and would be gross dereliction of duty by the noncommissioned officer or officer in charge of the vehicle. Drivers aren’t allowed to simply free-wheel their vehicles however they see fit, and they are *not* allowed to be moved anywhere with out a vehicle commander present to supervise the movement. Therefore- claims of vehicles leaving the roadways to hit animals are highly dubious, given the very real threat of IEDs and normal standards of conduct.

3. As for the alleged woman with severe burn scars, we have nobody matching that description here at FOB Falcon. As Soldiers, we practice the value of Respect: “Treat people as you want to be treated.” If the blogger and his friends can’t live the Army value of respect, I have little doubt that someone around them who does would have made an on-the-spot correction. The Falcon dining facility is not a spacious one. Anyone being rude, loud or raucous calls immediate attention to himself. It is hard to fathom that anyone would be able to get away with such callous behavior without somebody intervening and stopping it from happening.

These type of stories are part of I believe are part of a 5GW-type of campaign being conducted against our troops, against our people, and designed to provide moral support to the anti-American War Protesters here, and the enemy in the Theater.

For a more detailed timeline of how this particular story unfolded and fell apart, visit Gateway Pundit, where Jim has been following developments of this story.

He also links to others who are covering the story.