The Insurgency in Afghanistan’s Heartland: Report
29 June 2011
The insurgency in Afghanistan has expanded far beyond its stronghold in the south east. Transcending its traditional Pashtun base, the Taliban is bolstering its influence in the central-eastern provinces by installing shadow governments and tapping into the vulnerabilities of a central government crippled by corruption and deeply dependent on a corrosive war economy. Collusion between insurgents and corrupt government officials in Kabul and the nearby...
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Intelligence Operations Re-focus from Social, Tribal Data to Targeting Insurgents
27 June 2011
Military intelligence officers were scrambling a year ago to collect and analyze the social, economic and tribal ins and outs of each valley and hamlet in Afghanistan. This information wasn't the kind of secret or covert material many military intelligence specialists were used to. But it was seen as crucial to helping commanders tell the good guys from the bad, learn what Afghans really needed from their government and undermine the Taliban-led...
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Wary Afghans Worry U.S. is Repeating History
23 June 2011
President Barack Obama's decision to withdraw one-third of U.S. forces in Afghanistan over the next 14 months conjured up uneasy memories for Afghans concerned that their American allies could leave the country before the job is done.Across the political spectrum, Afghan leaders expressed reservations about American intentions, saying they don't want to see U.S. policy makers repeat the patterns of the past by cutting off support for Afghanistan...
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Nuristan Province now al-Qaeda and Taliban Central: Senior Police Official
23 June 2011
Afghan intelligence officials in the province of Nuristan have accused the central government and Nato forces in particular of ignoring insurgents there and in other strategically important areas close to the Pakistani border. They say that increasing violence in Nuristan - and in the provinces of Laghman, Kunar and Nangarhar - poses a significant security threat. "Nuristan is now al-Qaeda and Taliban central," said one senior police official in...
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Obama, Pentagon Reportedly Split on Afghanistan Pullout
22 June 2011
Barack Obama is set to reject the advice of the Pentagon by announcing on Wednesday night the withdrawal of up to 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by November next year, in time for the US presidential election. The move comes despite warnings from his military commanders that recent security gains are fragile. They have been urging him to keep troop numbers high until 2013. The accelerated drawdown will dismay American and British commanders in Kabul,...
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Afghanistan NGO Safety Office Bi-Weekly Security Report
21 June 2011
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While May concluded with the reporting of extraordinary levels of conflict related activity (surpassing the previous peak recorded in August 2010), the opening period for June indicates a continuation of this momentum, reporting similarly high levels of incidents (see p. 7). This periods figures also reveal that despite security force efforts at interdiction and disruption of AOG networks (both manpower and supply related) through the winter and...
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Focus of War to Shift Eastward in Effort to Stop Cross-border Flow of Militants
14 June 2011
In southern Afghanistan, the United States has succeeded over the past year in prying the Taliban’s grip from parts of Kandahar and Helmand provinces. But U.S. military commanders recognize they have far to go in the country’s east, where insurgents fight from the cover of craggy mountains, drive truckloads of weapons through illegal dirt-road crossings, and flee across the border into Pakistan to elude capture.The intense U.S. focus...
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US Establishes Contact with Mullah Omar
14 June 2011
The United States has established contacts with elusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar to negotiate an end to the conflict in Afghanistan. A former Afghan Taliban spokesman has played a key role in the US-Taliban communication, a source told The Express Tribune. Abdul Haqiq, who was operating under the alias of Dr Mohammad Hanif as an Afghan Taliban spokesman, is said to have helped Washington reach out to Mullah Omar. Dr Hanif was arrested by US and...
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Taliban’s Conduct of Intelligence and Counterintelligence: Analysis
14 June 2011
Throughout the history of the post-9/11 insurgency in Afghanistan, reports have emphasized the Afghan Taliban’s impressive ability to collect and exploit intelligence effectively. Researchers and media outlets describe the Afghan Taliban as possessing an “impressive intelligence network” which conducts numerous functions such as giving Taliban fighters early warning of U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrols,...
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Afghan Taliban Cede Ground in the South, but Fears Linger
13 June 2011
The poppy harvest is over and the fighting season has arrived in southern Afghanistan — except this year the Taliban have not returned in their usual numbers to intensify the war, Afghans across the region say. They credit the thousands of additional American troops and Afghan forces deployed to insurgency-ridden districts who have cleared out most of the Taliban and are keeping them at bay. The change is palpable. In Marja, the district in...
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