Pakistani Security Officials Had Warned of Afghan Army's Collapse

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistani security officials had warned Americans and Indians that the Afghan Army would collapse when faced with the Taliban onslaught, according to multiple people including American journalist Steve Coll and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Former US Ambassador Ryan Crocker who has served in both Afghanistan and Pakistan has recently written that Pakistanis' skepticism has been validated. 

Afghan National Army

In response to a question posed by New Yorker staff writer Isaac Chotiner, Steve Coll, author of "Directorate S" about Pakistan ISI, said, "I remember talking to the Pakistani generals about this (US building Afghan Army) circa 2012. And they all said, “You just can’t do that. It won’t work.” They turned out to be right". Here's the relevant excerpt of the New Yorker interview published on August 15, 2021: 

Isaac Chotiner: Why, ultimately, was it so hard to stand up the Afghan military to a greater extent than America did? Was it some lack of political legitimacy? Some problem with the actual training? 

Steve Coll: I don’t know what proportion of the factors, including the ones you listed, to credit. But I think that the one additional reason it didn’t work was the sheer scale of the ambition. And this was visible in Iraq as well. Building a standing army of three hundred thousand in a country that has been shattered by more than forty consecutive years of war and whose economy is almost entirely dependent on external aid—that just doesn’t work. What did work was what at various stages people thought might be possible, which was to build a stronger, more coherent, better-trained force, which has effectively been the only real fighting force on behalf of the Kabul government over the past few years. This force is referred to as commandos or Special Forces, but it is basically twenty or thirty thousand people. That you can build with a lot of investment and hands-on training. But you can’t just create an army of three hundred thousand. I remember talking to the Pakistani generals about this circa 2012. And they all said, “You just can’t do that. It won’t work.” They turned out to be right.

A 2013 video clip of Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has recently surfaced in which he essentially confirms what Steve Coll told The New Yorker.  Doval can be heard saying that the 325,000 strong Afghan Army and police will deliver. He said the Afghan Army is well trained and sufficiently motivated. Doval believed the Afghan National Army will defend the Afghan state and Afghanistan's constitution and democracy irrespective of what happens at the political level, he added. Doval said he didn't believe 15-20 Pakistani security officials who have told him otherwise. He said he never believes anything the Pakistanis say.  

Former US Ambassador Ryan Crocker who has served in both Afghanistan and Pakistan has written in a New York Times Op Ed that "We (Americans) have again validated their (Pakistanis') skepticism".  Here's an excerpt of Crocket's Op Ed:

I pushed Pakistani officials repeatedly on the need to deny the Taliban safe havens. The answer I got back over time went like this: “We know you. We know you don’t have patience for the long fight. We know the day will come when you just get tired and go home — it’s what you do. But we aren’t going anywhere — this is where we live. So if you think we are going to turn the Taliban into a mortal enemy, you are completely crazy.” We have again validated their skepticism.

In a recent interview with BBC's Yalda Hakim, General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the British Armed Forces, has said that the Pakistani Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa is an upright man. Carter said that General Bajwa wanted to see a peaceful and moderate Afghanistan. He said that Pakistan had to face various challenges. Pakistan sheltered 3.5 million Afghan refugees on its soil. The British military chief said Pakistan had set up barricades on the Afghan border and was keeping a close eye on border traffic.  

Carter Malkasian, former advisor to US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dunford, has recently talked about how Afghan governments have scapegoated Pakistan for their failures. He said: "Let’s take Pakistan, for example. Pakistan is a powerful factor here. But on the battlefield, if 200 Afghan police and army are confronted with 50 Taliban or less than that, and those government forces retreat, that doesn’t have a lot to do with Pakistan. That has to do with something else". 

In another discussion,  Malkasian explained the rapid advance of the Taliban and the collapse of the Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani. Here's what he said:

Over time, aware of the government’s vulnerable position, Afghan leaders turned to an outside source to galvanize the population: Pakistan. Razziq, President Hamid Karzai and later President Ashraf Ghani used Pakistan as an outside threat to unite Afghans behind them. They refused to characterize the Taliban as anything but a creation of Islamabad. Razziq relentlessly claimed to be fighting a foreign Pakistani invasion. Yet Pakistan could never fully out-inspire occupation.  

Here's Ajit Doval from 2013 on his assessment of the strength of the Afghan Army:

https://youtu.be/l2ZuJxUBHDs

https://www.youtube.com/embed/l2ZuJxUBHDs"; title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>" height="315" src="https://img1.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" width="560" style="cursor: move; background-color: #b2b2b2;" />

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Indian NSA Ajit Doval on Use of Taliban Against Pakistan

Why is India Sponsoring Terror in Pakistan?

Karan Thapar Debunks Indian Narrative of Kulbhushan Yadav

Coll's Directorate Demonizes Pakistan ISI

Gen Petraeus Debunks Charges of Pakistani Duplicity

Husain Haqqani vs Riaz Haq on India vs Pakistan

Pakistan ISI: Afghans' Bogeyman?

Ex CIA Officer on ISI

Gall-Haqqani-Paul Narrative on Pakistan

India Ex RAW Officer Documents Success Against Pakistan

Robert Gates' Straight Talk on Pakistan  

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

[Riaz Haq]

OPINION
FARAH STOCKMAN

Engaging the Afghanistan We Leave Behind
Aug. 25, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/biden-taliban-afghanista...


The heartbreaking scenes at the Kabul airport should make one thing painfully clear: We can’t airlift the whole country to some safe haven. Although the United States has a moral responsibility to evacuate the Afghans we put in harm’s way, the evacuation and the tragedies associated with it will soon be in the past. The most consequential decisions in the days and weeks ahead involve how we will help the millions of Afghans who will be left behind and how we will relate to their new leaders.

The Biden administration faces a choice: try to thwart any government the Taliban create or use whatever shred of leverage America has left to encourage them to govern as inclusively and moderately as possible. If we care about the people of Afghanistan, we will try the latter — and do so with as little of the hubris and heavy-handedness that helped get us into this mess in the first place.

For many ordinary people across Afghanistan, this is a moment of cynicism and even despair about politics and the long game for their country. The sight of Afghan political and military leaders escaping in American planes is a betrayal, plentiful proof of whose bidding they had been doing all along.

But not everyone caught a cargo plane out of town. The former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and the longtime leader and chairman of Afghanistan’s National Reconciliation Council, Abdullah Abdullah, have been sitting down with Taliban leaders in an attempt to form a new and more inclusive government.

[Riaz Haq]

#Terrorists will target #China in #Pakistan. By targeting China—now the world’s 2nd-largest #economy— terror groups are all increasingly guaranteed attention. China may be developing its relationship with the #Taliban in part to mitigate these concerns https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/27/why-terrorists-will-target-chi...

Pakistan has become a microcosm of a larger reality that Beijing is going to have to contend with globally. As it becomes a global power on the world stage, it is going to attract the anger of terrorist organizations. Beijing’s willingness to engage with the Taliban may be an attempt to try to preempt such problems in the new Afghanistan, but history has shown this to be a risky gamble for Beijing.

China tried to strike an earlier pre-9/11 deal with the Taliban to get them to do something about Uyghur groups the Chinese had noticed gathering in Afghanistan, but it is unclear that the Taliban did anything about those groups.

The new deal Beijing and the Taliban are reported to have struck is likely not dissimilar to the previous one in its concerns, but now there is the additional question of the large number of Chinese nationals who can be found around the region, including various intrepid entrepreneurs in Kabul who may not adhere to the various sharia laws the Taliban will impose. Who will guarantee their safety? And none of this will help Beijing overcome the larger problem of the inevitable enemies you attract once you have superpower status.

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

The most effective of these attacks was the assault in Dasu. Chinese sources have attributed it to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)—a group whose existence is disputed and whose name is mostly used to refer to a group that calls itself the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP)—acting in unison with the TTP. Both Pakistan and China also used the opportunity to cast blame on India—a perennial accusation thrown around terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

More formally, Beijing seemed to widen the circle of blame during the Afghan Taliban’s two-day visit to China, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi demanding that the Taliban make a clean break from ETIM/TIP and take action against it in Afghanistan as “it was a direct threat to China’s national security.”

[Riaz Haq]

CJ Werleman
@cjwerleman
Eyewitnesses told
@BBCWorld
that a significant numbers of those killed during ISIS-K suicide attack were shot dead by US forces in the panic after the blast.

https://twitter.com/cjwerleman/status/1431537431539376137?s=20

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


CJ Werleman
@cjwerleman
ISIS-K evolved from Indian and Afghan government backed anti-Pakistan terrorist groups, but not a single mention of that in any US based news publication.

NB: Indian state sponsorship of terrorism is one of the least discussed aspects of global terrorism.

https://twitter.com/cjwerleman/status/1431744564268716032?s=20

[Riaz Haq]

From @TheEconomist: #ISIS_K "lost almost 12,000 operatives between 2015 and 2018, in the face of counter-terrorism pressure from America and the Pakistani government. The UN reckons it has just 500 to 1,500 left" #Pakistan #Afghanistan #KabulAiport #US #UN https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/08/27/what-is...

Its (ISIS-K's) hatred of the Taliban is not just theological. It is also the product of fierce competition between jihadists for resources, both human and economic. The group seems to have been established in 2014, with Hafiz Saeed Khan, a former member of the Taliban in both Afghanistan and later Pakistan, as its first emir. (He was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan in 2016.) It grew by attracting other disaffected members of the Taliban, which had been routed in Afghanistan and had fled across the border into Pakistan. It went as far as declaring war on its rival in 2015. But ISKP now has relatively few fighters in Afghanistan. It lost almost 12,000 operatives between 2015 and 2018, in the face of counter-terrorism pressure from America and the Pakistani government. The UN reckons it has just 500 to 1,500 left.

But even after being rooted out of its eastern strongholds, in Kunar and Nuristan provinces, it has managed to strike repeatedly in Afghan cities. One reason for that, notes Abdul Sayed, an expert on jihadist groups, is that ISKP has absorbed defectors from the Haqqani network, a Taliban-allied group that is also close to al-Qaeda, and which has long experience in conducting suicide bombings in Kabul. The fact that the Taliban had reportedly placed the Haqqani network in charge of Kabul’s security may have helped ISKP mount its attack.

For the moment ISKP’s threat seems to be confined to its heartlands. There is no evidence linking it to terror plots in the West (although one of its stated long-term aims is to raise the “banner of al-Uqab above Jerusalem and the White House”). There also seems to be little love for it in Afghanistan itself. In regions it has previously controlled, such as Nangarhar, its introduction of strict sharia law—from the closing of schools, to brutal punishments for those that fell foul of its interpretation of Isam—has led to resentment. All of that suggests its immediate impact will be limited to the types of outrages perpetrated in Kabul on August 26th. It is no less terrifying for that.

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

ISKP is the Central Asian offshoot of Islamic State (IS), a jihadist group that established a short-lived and terrible caliphate in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2018. Khorasan is a historical area that takes in parts of Iran, Afghanistan and other bits of Central Asia. As its power in the Levant has waned, IS has increasingly looked to gain a foothold in the region. ISKP is not only fiercely anti-Western, but also the sworn enemy of the Taliban, another Islamist group that has taken control of Afghanistan. ISKP has portrayed the Taliban as sell-outs for signing a deal with America and co-operating with its withdrawal.

[Riaz Haq]

"only Afghan Taliban can keep Afghanistan under order, united and peaceful. The US/West is hedging just to see their efficacy. Taliban challengers (ISIS, RAW, NDS, US-backed strongmen) do not have any chance, just like the 50-nation alliance in the 20 long years"

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2305705/afghanistan-where-lies-pakista...

[Riaz Haq]

Ex RAW official Rana Banerji to Karan Thapar: "Taliban was formed in the 90’s from a madrasah near Kandahar to counter growing criminal behaviour/rapes due to the vacuum left after Soviet withdrawal & US abandonment...no Pakistanis were involved at this stage.

Taliban were initially funded by President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Pakistanis were later aided/funded by Pakistan ISI in 1994-95.

https://youtu.be/42VPh7OgiWI

https://thewire.in/video/watch-taliban-takeover-what-role-did-pakis...

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan to set up WHO airlift into #Afghanistan. #PIA is setting up a #medical/humanitarian air bridge to Afghanistan, in coordination with #international agencies. http:/news/2021/aug/30/the-latest-pakistan-to-set-up-who-airlift-into-afg/#.YSzrAKWFmLg.twitter via @LasVegasSun


Pakistan’s ambassador to Kabul said on Monday that his country’s national carrier is setting up an airlift for medical supplies from the World Health Organization to Afghanistan’s northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.


The diplomat, Mansoor Ahmad Khan, announced on Twitter that the state-run Pakistan International Airlines will serve as a humanitarian air bridge for essential supplies to Afghanistan, in coordination with international agencies.

He thanked PIA, as the carrier is known, for the supplies. It wasn't immediately cleat when the airlift would begin.

The latest development comes days after WHO sought Pakistan’s help in airlifting medical supplies to Afghanistan following last week's deadly attack on the Kabul airport.

Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, fell to the Taliban on Aug. 14, a day before Kabul.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan to set up #WHO airlift into #Afghanistan. #PIA is setting up a #medical/#humanitarian air bridge to Afghanistan, in coordination with #international agencies. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2021/aug/30/the-latest-pakistan-to-set... via

@LasVegasSun

Pakistan’s ambassador to Kabul said on Monday that his country’s national carrier is setting up an airlift for medical supplies from the World Health Organization to Afghanistan’s northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.


The diplomat, Mansoor Ahmad Khan, announced on Twitter that the state-run Pakistan International Airlines will serve as a humanitarian air bridge for essential supplies to Afghanistan, in coordination with international agencies.

He thanked PIA, as the carrier is known, for the supplies. It wasn't immediately cleat when the airlift would begin.

The latest development comes days after WHO sought Pakistan’s help in airlifting medical supplies to Afghanistan following last week's deadly attack on the Kabul airport.

Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, fell to the Taliban on Aug. 14, a day before Kabul.

[Riaz Haq]

#Afghanistan: Can the #Taliban fly abandoned #American #aircraft? More than two dozen MiG-21 fast attack jets left by #Russians fell into Taliban hands....#Pakistani support kept them flying. #US #Pakistan https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/asia/2021/08/27/afghanistan-c...

“What’s sure is that they have at least several Mi-17 of different versions operational,” said Lukas Muller, the author of Wings Over the Hindu Kush, a book on the history of the air war in Afghanistan.

“I bet that this would make the ‘core’ of the Taliban air force in the months to come. It’s relatively easy to maintain and spares are widely available on the open market, as there are non-military versions of this type. Actually, this type was the most common aircraft used in the 1990s civil war, when even very small factions with limited foreign contacts could operate it,” he said.

Even with the Mi-17s, the Taliban would face huge challenges.

“The United States provided at least two aircraft types to the Afghans that were too complex for most, if not all, developing countries to expect to maintain or sustain without long-term or even permanent outside assistance: the C-130 and the UH-60,” Mr Marion toldThe National.

“The Black Hawk was far more complex than the rugged, Soviet/Russian-built Mi-17 with which the Afghans were very familiar; also the Mi-17 was more capable than the UH-60 in the Afghan environment. The Mi-17 was built specifically for Afghanistan,” he said.


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

A key moment came after the Soviet withdrawal, Mr Marion said, with the Taliban’s capture of Kandahar airfield in 1994 during the Afghan civil war.

More than two dozen MiG-21 fast attack jets fell into Taliban hands, Mr Marion writes, and the militants forced Colonel Abdul Shafi Noori, commander of Kabul Air Wing maintenance group, to keep the planes airworthy. Pakistani support also kept operations going.

But not all of the Taliban’s “maintainers” and pilots were forced to collaborate.

Mr Marion recalled that one Afghan pilot who flew in the Soviet-backed Afghan air force went on to fly missions for the Taliban then became a shopkeeper after 2001 and then rejoined the Coalition-backed air force to fight the Taliban once more.

Another pilot flew for the short-lived, anti-Taliban Rabbani-Massoud government, which briefly held Kabul during the civil war, then defected.

“I quit from Dostum’s camp because he wants to dismember Afghanistan,” one such pilot told AFP in 1997, a reference to the brief rule of the Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum.

[Riaz Haq]

#Taliban Spokesman to #Indian journalist: “If America announced today that all the Indians who want to go to US should go to Delhi airport in 2-3 hours, you’d see a lacs (hundreds of thousands) of Indians mob Delhi airport”https://youtu.be/_5Fj6i1iCjY via @YouTube #US #Kabul_Airport