Islamberg

The Canada Free Press contains a very disturbing report written by Paul Williams about Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a radical Islamic organization originating in Pakistan, and the establishment of their Islamic paramilitary compounds in the U.S.:

Situated within a dense forest at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains on the outskirts of Hancock, New York, Islamberg is not an ideal place for a summer vacation unless, of course, you are an exponent of the Jihad or a fan of Osama bin Laden.

. . . It is home to hundreds - - all in Islamic attire, and all African-Americans. Most drive late model SUVs with license plates from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The locals say that some work as tollbooth operators for the New York State Thruway, while others are employed at a credit card processing center that maintains confidential financial records.

While buzzing with activity during the week, the place becomes a virtual hive on weekends. The guest includes arrivals from the inner cities of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and, occasionally, white-robed dignitaries in Ray-Bans from the Middle East.

Venturing into the complex last summer, Douglas Hagmann, an intrepid investigator and director of the Northeast Intelligence Service, came upon a military training area at the eastern perimeter of the property. The area was equipped with ropes hanging from tall trees, wooden fences for scaling, a make-shift obstacle course, and a firing range. Hagmann said that the range appeared to have been in regular use.

. . . Islamberg is a branch of Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization formed in 1980 by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who refers to himself as "the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr," Gilani, has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat ul-Fuqra or "community of the impoverished," an organization that seeks to "purify" Islam through violence.

Though primarily based in Lahore, Pakistan, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has operational headquarters in New York and openly recruits through various social service organizations in the U.S., including the prison system. Members live in hamaats or compounds, such as Islamberg, where they agree to abide by the laws of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are considered to be above local, state and federal authority. Additional hamaats have been established in Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulane Country, California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington. Others are being built, including an expansive facility in Sherman, Pennsylvania.

Before becoming a citizen of Islamberg or any of the other Fuqra compounds, the recruits - - primarily inner city black men who became converts in prison - - are compelled to sign an oath that reads: "I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah's sake."

In the past, thousands of members of the U.S. branches of Jamaat ul-Fuqra traveled to Pakistan for paramilitary training, but encampments, such as Islamberg, are now capable of providing book-camp training so raw recruits are no longer required to travel abroad amidst the increased scrutiny of post 9/11.

Over the years, numerous members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra have been convicted in US courts of such crimes as conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers' compensation fraud. Others remain leading suspects in criminal cases throughout the country, including ten unsolved assassinations and seventeen fire-bombings between 1979 and 1990.

The criminal charges against the group and the criminal convictions are not things of the past. In 2001, a resident of a California compound was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of a sheriff's deputy; another was charged with gun-smuggling' and twenty-four members of the Red House community were convicted of firearms violations.

By 2004 federal investigators uncovered evidence that linked both the DC "sniper killer" John Allen Muhammed and "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid to the group and reports surfaced that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was captured and beheaded in the process of attempting to obtain an interview with Sheikh Gilani in Pakistan.

Even though Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been involved in terror attacks and sundry criminal activities, recruited thousands of members from federal and state penal systems, and appears to be operating paramilitary facilities for militant Muslims, it remains to be placed on the official US Terror Watch List. On the contrary, it continues to operate, flourish, and expand as a legitimate nonprofit, tax-deductible charity.

Read the entire story here.

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President Musharraf and His Worrisome Concessions to Islamists

It is difficult to fathom the how and why of President Musharraf's caving to the ever growing threat of radical Islam in Pakistan. While Pakistan is a Muslim nation - and a nuclear armed one at that - it has never had a radical government, nor has radical Wahhabi / Salafi style Islam ever predominated except in parts of the NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Yet President Musharraf as much as ceded safe havens to Taliban and al Qaeda elements some time ago with his peace agreements. And now, predictably, radicals are making inroads throughout the NWFP and even into Pakistan proper, including the capital, Islamabad. Yet President Musharraf does not seem to be rising to meet the challenge. This from Dinah Lord:

Sharia, anyone In what can only be described as appeasment and concession the Pakistan government has agreed to accept all demands of the 'management' of the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque. Details are to be released to the Parliament today. What does that mean to the average Mo on the Pakistani street? It means the enforcement of sharia law.

The Pakistani Muslim League leader denied the presence of illegal activists (read jihadis) and ammunition in the mosque. This despite the report of massive amounts of arms and ammunition spotted by two security guards taken hostage by the group. This also runs counter to the frequent assertions made by President Musharraf that the mosque provided aid and comfort to SUICIDE BOMBERS. The Mosque denies this, of course.

. . . This does not bode well for President Musharraf and it appears that nuclear Pakistan is moving ever closer to having a radical muslim finger on the red button of the nuclear bomb.

Read the whole post here. And Bill Rogio has more background on the problem here.

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Amir Taheri on Politics, Pakistani Style

Amir Taheri weighs in on the choice immediately facing Pakistani President Musharraf - whether to rely on Islamist parties for support or to allow secular democratic opposition to rebuild:

AS NATO forces prepare to face a massive "spring offensive" by the Taliban in Afghanistan, policymakers may be ignoring a greater threat looming in Pakistan.

. . . But, while Afghanistan is vaccinated against Talibanization, Pakistan is not.

Islamist parties sympathetic to the Taliban already control the regional government in the Northwest Frontier, one of Pakistan's four provinces, and have a foothold in the administration of another, Balochistan. Of greater concern, however, is the heightened profile of Taliban-style groups in Punjab and Sind, two provinces that account for 80 percent of the country's population.

Two factors explain the rise of Taliban-style groups in Pakistan.

The first is President Pervez Musharraf's semi-official alliance with Islamist parties that, though not as radical as the Taliban, have worked hard to increase the role of religion in the nation's politics. By imposing religion as a measure of all things, they have enabled hard-line elements to pose as the sole true custodians of Islam.

The second factor is Musharraf's refusal to allow Pakistan's moderate parties to rebuild themselves under leaders of their choice. These parties were severely restricted, and their top leaders chased out of the country, when Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

The elimination of the mainstream parties led to a paradoxical situation - in which a general who takes the secular Turkish republic as his model found himself allied to Islamists of various shades.

. . . Yet the Musharraf presidency is fast approaching a fork in the road. In one direction lies the path to tighter military rule backed by obscurantist religious parties ready to sacrifice political and social freedoms at the altar of a narrow vision of Islam. The other direction points to a genuine democratization that could immunize Pakistan against all forms of Talibanization.

The moment of choice will come later this year, when Pakistan is to hold a general election.

The question is whether Musharraf will allow the mainstream, non-Islamist parties to reorganize freely and enter the election with leaders of their own choice.

In recent weeks, several countries (including the United Sates, Britain and Saudi Arabia) have worked behind the scenes to broker a deal between Musharraf and party leaders in exile.

If my sources are right, an agreement is in the making between Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

As leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Bhutto is arguably the strongest democratic figure in her nation's politics. Last week's decision by a court to throw out trumped-up charges of corruption against her could facilitate her return from exile. And that is certain to boost the chances of mainstream forces defeating the Islamists in a straight electoral contest. . . .

Continue reading here.

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Al Qaeda Resurgent In NWFP

Predictably, with a safe haven in Pakistan's NWFP, al Qaeda is reforming under new mid-level leadership:

Although the core leadership was weakened in the counterterrorism campaign begun after the Sept. 11 attacks, intelligence officials now believe it was not as crippling as once thought.

That reassessment has brought new urgency to joint Pakistani and American intelligence operations in Pakistan and strengthened officials’ belief that dismantling Al Qaeda’s infrastructure there could disrupt nascent large-scale terrorist plots that may already be under way.

In February, the deputy C.I.A. director, Stephen R. Kappes, accompanied Vice President Dick Cheney to Islamabad to present Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, with intelligence on Al Qaeda’s growing abilities and to develop a strategy to strike at training camps.

. . . Many American officials have said in recent years that the roles of Mr. bin Laden and his lieutenants in Pakistan’s remote mountains have diminished with the growing prominence of the organization’s branch in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and with the emergence of regional terrorism networks and so-called home-grown cells.

. . . Officials say they believe that, in contrast with the somewhat hierarchical structure of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, the group’s leadership is now more diffuse, with several planning hubs working autonomously and not reliant on constant contact with Mr. bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, his deputy.

Much is still not known about the backgrounds of the new Qaeda leaders; some have adopted noms de guerre. Officials and outside analysts said they tend to be in their mid-30s and have years of battlefield experience fighting in places like Afghanistan and Chechnya. They are more diverse than the earlier group of leaders, which was made up largely of battle-hardened Egyptian operatives. American officials said the new cadre includes several Pakistani and North African operatives.

Experts say they still see Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as largely independent of Al Qaeda’s hub in Pakistan but that they believe the fighting in Iraq will produce future Qaeda leaders.

“The jihadis returning from Iraq are far more capable than the mujahedeen who fought the Soviets ever were,” said Robert Richer, who was associate director of operations in 2004 and 2005 for the C.I.A. “They have been fighting the best military in the world, with the best technology and tactics.”

. . . Top American officials said that, despite the damage to the structure of Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks, concern is still high that the group is determined to attack globally.

Read the whole article here.

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Pakistan: Radical Muslims Stone & Execute 3 for Adultery

This, from a Pakistani newspaper, shows Pakistan trying to come to grips with the rising religous fundementalism emanating out of the North West Fronteir Province (NWFP):

[T]he three accused of adultery were caught and . . . taken to an open place, first stoned and then shot dead by two men wearing masks and said to be 'activists' of the militant group that calls itself the Lashkar-e-Islam.

That religious extremists and obscurantists were behind this gruesome episode is proven by the fact that reports say that the crowd assembled to watch the killing after hearing it through mosque loudspeakers. It is unfortunate that instead of spreading love, peace and tolerance -- which is Islam's real message -- these purveyors of hate rallied a crowd to watch three people being stoned and then shot dead. The gory incident is also evidence of Talibanisation in the country, which seems to be growing well beyond parts of FATA like the Waziristan region to places close to the NWFP's settled districts.

. . . If anything, what happened on Wednesday only makes the case stronger for FATA to be absorbed into mainstream Pakistan, which means that it should have its police force and courts just like the rest of the country. As for the conservatism in the area, until the rise of the Taliban in the mid-1990s and growing influence of extremists in the region since the US invasion of Afghanistan, there were no reported instances of public executions. This is something that goes to the 'credit' of the Taliban alone and unless the government acts against their sympathisers inside Pakistan the brutalisation of society will continue unhindered. This is incidentally the second incident of jirga-sanctioned stoning to death in recent weeks. The last came from a village near Donga Bonga in southern Punjab and the incident seems to have been largely forgotten with no follow-up on what happened to the perpetrators.

Read the entire article here.

Update: More detail from the Hindu News Agency:

Two men and a woman accused of adultery were stoned to death by hundreds of tribesmen and bullets pumped into their bodies on the direction of a pro-Taliban outfit in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

"The incident occurred in one Watan Shah's home in Meelot village in Bara and the men and woman were produced before a council of religious outfit Lashkar-e-Islami yesterday," an area official who didn't wish to be named said today.

He said some people in Bara area had complained to the outfit about the two men having an adulterous relationship with a divorcee in the area.

"We know that the Lashkar sent men to check on the house of Watan Shah and found the woman Taslilm and two tribesmen Allah Noor and Shahzad in a compromising position after which they were produced before a council and punished to death by stoning," he added.

He said hundreds of tribesmen had participated in the stoning of the three at a "huge ceremony" after which the Lashkar activists also fired bullets into their bodies.

In Pakistan's tribal areas, women are rarely allowed to venture out of home without their menfolk.

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Taliban Alledged to Have Kidnapped Nuclear Scientists For Al Qaeda

This is ominous. From a report today by India's Zeenews:

Two top nuclear scientists of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) are currently in Taliban custody. The two were working at PAEC’s facility in North West Frontier Province. Zee News investigations reveal that the two scientists were kidnapped about six months ago. To avoid international embarrassment Pakistan Government has kept this information under wraps.

According to information available with Zee News, nuclear scientists have been kidnapped by Taliban at the behest of Al-Qaeda. Further investigations reveal that Al-Qaeda may be using the expertise of the scientists to produce nuclear bombs. The two scientists are reportedly being held somewhere in Waziristan, near Afghanistan border.

We will have to see if this is confirmed. Read the rest of the story here.

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Moderate Islam in America and CAIR's Strategy

This morning, I happened upon a 2002 editorial in the newspaper Pakistan Today. The editorial was written by Tashbih Sayyed, a reporter who had left the Pakistan for the United States as he was coming under increasing pressure to conform his articles to hardline muslim fundementalist mores. Mr. Sayyed addressed in his article what he saw as wrong with Wahhabi / Deobandi Islam, and tells how he had hoped to find a practice of moderate Islam in America, only to find much of the Wahhabi poison already seeping into the fabric of America.

In this 2002 article, Mr. Sayyed forecasts precisely the strategy of the Wahhabists and CAIR that we see being played out today -- to claim leadership of all muslims in America, to silence moderate muslim voices, and to drive a wedge between all Muslims in America and all non-Muslims. This is a very important read, particularly coming on the heels of the the Flying Imams (here and here) and CAIR's attempts to silence and belittle the Secular Islam Summit (here).

It is to help people like this author, Mr. Sayyed, that we need to challenge organizations such as CAIR at every turn. And it is Mr. Sayyed's voice, like the voices of those who participated in the Secular Islam Summit, that we need to amplify until it reaches decibels exponentially above that of CAIR's.

The US, more than any Muslim country, understands the principles Allah values and protects them through the US Constitution. The Constitution proclaims that the US government is a creation "of the people by the people and for the people." Allah's will does not favor a particular faith, color or creed, and neither does the American constitution. Allah advocates the middle road hoping that every person will not only take care of themselves, but will work to make the lives of their community members better as well. American values teach the same, translating the idea of social justice into civil liberties principles like the right to privacy, and education without any prejudice or discrimination. Volunteering and charitable work are respected as well. One only has to demonstrate a will to perform.

Islamists know that if American values are allowed to spread in the Muslim world, it will help the evolution of a Muslim state of mind that believes in democracy, pluralism and social justice. The real Islam which, up until now, has lain imprisoned in books, can finally be set free. The US can help in the establishment of a democratic society in the Muslim world after fifteen hundred years of intellectual despotism.
. . . .
In a polarized American society, it will be easy for the Islamists to achieve their goal. It will create a sense of insecurity among Muslims. To make the Muslims feel insecure in America and to force them to join the radical Islamist groups, a deliberate attempt is being made by Islamists to drive a wedge between Muslims and non Muslims. Innocent incidents are being turned into events that cause non-Muslims to dislike Muslims. The non-Muslims are intentionally made to hate Muslims. Situations are being created under which a non Muslim is made to think that Islam is not a peaceful religion and Muslims are not law abiding citizens.

I urge you to read the entire editorial here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Mr. Sayyad has written numerous editorials for Pakistan Today since the two I have linked here, and all are collected on the newspapers archives. I have not read them all yet, but do intend to do so over the next few days. You can find the archives here.

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Taliban & Al Qaeda Taking the Fight -- To Pakistan

The New York Times is reporting that the Taliban and al Qaeda, operating from their safe havens in Waziristan of the North West Fronteir Province (NWFP), are behind several recent suicide attacks aimed at targets inside Pakistan. The attacks are apparently meant as reprisals for prior attacks by the government of Perez Musharraf and as a warning against taking any future action.

[I]n recent weeks the suicide bombers have turned on Pakistan itself, carrying out six attacks and killing 35 people. Militant leaders have threatened to unleash scores more, in effect opening a new front in their war.

Diplomats and concerned residents see the bombings as proof of a spreading “Talibanization,” as Pakistan’s president, Gen. Perez Musharraf, calls it, which has seeped into more settled districts of Pakistan from the tribal areas along the border, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have made a home.

In Peshawar and other parts of North-West Frontier Province, which abuts the tribal areas, residents say English-language schools have received threats, schoolgirls have been warned to veil themselves, music is being banned and men are told not to shave their beards.

Then there is the mounting toll of the suicide bombings. One of the most lethal killed 15 people in Peshawar, most of them police officers, including the popular police chief.

The police, on the front line of the violence, have suffered most in many of the suicide attacks, diplomats and officials say. They are increasingly demoralized and cowed, allowing the militancy to spread still further, they warn.
. . . .
The creeping militancy has frustrated government agencies, who disagree over what to do about it, according to one intelligence official.

There is consensus that a large-scale military operation, like the kinds that have failed in recent years, is not the solution. But some diplomats say that the series of peace deals that the government struck with tribal leaders and militants in South and North Waziristan has not worked either.

For instance, according to another Western diplomat, General Musharraf knows the North Waziristan agreement is only 20 to 30 percent effective, but he continues to back it for lack of another plan.

The accord has brought some order to the area’s capital, Miram Shah, according to officials with knowledge of North Waziristan. It has also forced a split among the militants, with the more aggressive followers of Mr. Mehsud and their Qaeda allies congregating in the town of Mir Ali, they said.

Some officials are now arguing that the government should move against the militants in Mir Ali, while supporting the more reasonable ones.

Read the entire article here. I posted an editorial here from a Pakastani paper that dealt with the growing threat of Talibanization spreading its tentacles out from the NWFP into Pakistan proper, as well as another Pakistani editorial here on Musharraf's problems with the NWFP safe havens. Ultimately, neither Musharraf nor the United States and NATO can allow these Taliban and al Qaeda safe havens to exist. But for now, Musharraf must make some hard decisions of how to address the problem.

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Musharraf, the Taliban, & Few Good Choices

The Pakistani newspaper The International News, contains a very thorough and perceptive analysis of the problems facing General Musharraf as he tries to both support the coalition forces in their operations against the Taliban while simultaneously keeping closed the flood gates of anarchy in Pakistan:

If this spring is going to witness a bloodier battle between the Taliban and coalition forces, it is going to bring much greater fall out on Pakistan who does not have the means and capacity to secure such a long and porous border with Afghanistan and stop Taliban's movement on both sides. Facing the onslaught by the ISAF, Taliban are bound to retreat to their sanctuaries on both sides of the border forcing the Nato-led troops to hot pursuits across the Durand Line into Pakistan's tribal areas. This will further exacerbate the dilemma President Musharraf is facing: if he does the job himself, he alienates his own tribes; and if he lets the coalition forces do the killing on our territory he invites a big political backlash at home. And if the Taliban succeeds in causing greater casualties to the ISAF and expanding the insurgency to the broader regions with the support of the local people at the grassroots, the Musharraf government will be in trouble if it tries to go beyond its capacity to deliver what the coalition forces would fail to achieve.

Afghanistan is far bigger a quagmire than created by President Bush in Iraq. It can't be sorted out in a few years. Expecting quick results and victory by military means alone will be a big folly. In the meanwhile, Pakistan will have to clear its own deck. Let Islamabad clear all suspicions regarding its alleged soft corner for Taliban and persuade its own tribes to keep away from the fire the Taliban are igniting. And let General Musharraf clearly define his limits and scope of partnership in the war against terrorism. We don't have any option to clean up or neutralise our tribal areas. If we don't, others will do for us, even if we protest. The test is coming and it is too close now to the next general elections. A failure to do our job or partial success at a high cost will, in turn, expedite the change in the dynamics of political power in Pakistan which still faces a bigger challenge of whether it is going to become governable or not.

I highly recommend this article.

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Mullah Dadullah: The Taliban's Violent Commander

Der Spiegel has an ominous article on the new Taliban general, Mullah Dadullah, the reorganization of the Taliban in their Pakistani NWFP safe havens, and Dadullah's decision to invest heavily in suicide bombings.

Western intelligence agencies warn that the Taliban now have "their own star" in their struggle against Western soldiers and the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai. The new nightmare from the Hindu Kush Mountains is called Mullah Dadullah. He sports a pitch black beard, always wears a military jacket and these days, he is omnipresent in the media.

Bloodthirsty propaganda is everywhere in northern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. Virtually every CD salesman in Peshawar is selling the latest films released by the Taliban leader. "Oh, you want the Dadullah tapes," says one. "They're very popular right now." He disappears for barely a minute and then returns with an entire stack. He charges about €3 ($4) per film. Those who buy several get a discount. But he doesn't want his picture taken. He says Pakistani police already causes him enough trouble when they find terror DVDs in the suitcases of journalists at the airport.

The images on these DVDs reveal the Taliban's self confidence and new professionalism. The films herald a bloody spring in Afghanistan, one in which Western troops will face a newly strengthened Taliban army under a re-organized leadership. Well armed and better logistically organized than ever before, the Taliban are preparing for their fight against the hated NATO troops, whose alliance has recently shown signs of internal division. "They say it will be the decisive summer," says a man who occasionally drinks tea with the Taliban commanders.

Read the whole article. There is only one way to defeat an enemy that will not surrender, and that is to take the offensive to to attack them wherever they are found. That means that the Taliban cannot be allowed a safe haven anywhere. Pakistan will either have to take control of the NWFP, or NATO will have to do it for them.

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"Fanatacism" In Pakistan

There is an interesting editorial in the Pakistani newspaper, the International News, by Kamila Hyat. The author examines the spread of radical Islam and makes some suggestions for combating it.

There are other examples too of a new fanaticism that has crept into society. Middle-aged women walking in parks report repeatedly being asked by other walkers, including women, to cover their heads. Similar incidents have been reported from bazaars and other public places in several cities. In a posh Lahore bazaar, an old man armed with a megaphone delivered stern sermons against women out shopping on their own. Shopkeepers quickly chased him away, anxious he would frighten customers.

And the situation is of course considerably worse in the NWFP. Even in Peshawar itself, schools for girls have closed down after threats. Administrations have received warnings about dress codes and in some cases parents have been warned to keep daughters away from educational institutions.

Beyond the issue of women too there has been terrifying evidence of this extremist scourge. In the Swat area, people have been informed in sermons delivered over illegal radio stations that they should not get children vaccinated against polio, as those who "die in epidemics are martyrs". Reaching directly in to homes, other messages over radio stations in some areas have called on women to ensure their husbands grow beards, while in incidents that are being reported almost daily, video or music shops have been attacked, bans placed on the playing of music even in personal vehicles or homes and girls' schools attacked in several areas.

While the incident involving Maulvi Sarwar and the young minister has most vividly driven home the message concerning fanaticism in society, the evidence of its presence has been there now for many years. The attacks on New Year Eve parties, on marathon runners and on fast food restaurants are all symptoms of the same trend.

It is obvious that this malaise is expanding its tentacles, and assuming the shape of a giant monster that cannot easily be hacked down. This has happened because the threat was not tackled when it was smaller, and therefore relatively easy to deal with.

The need now is to confront it head on before it acquires still more alarming dimensions, which may prove impossible to take on. For this, a long-term, holistic set of strategies will have to be derived -- beginning with the acknowledgement that the issue does not involve merely the death of a single woman by a man who had obviously lost all connections with sanity, but runs far deeper than this.

Read the rest of the story. The NWFP long ago became radicalized, and it is there that the Taliban and al Qaeda are gaining safe haven. There is a sizable number of Muslims throughout Pakistan that support a radical Islamic agenda, but that has not been the case outside of the NWFP, though, as this story makes clear, Pakistan is awaking to that poison throughout the country now.

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NYT Gets It Right, Wrong & Left on Afghanistan - & NYT Misses the Vietnam Parallel

The NYT, in their follow up article on the suicide bombing in Afghanistan allegedly targeting VP Cheney:

Get it right - the Taliban is growing in strength;

Get it wrong - Suicide bombings are not a sign of that strength

Get it left - gratuitous "anonymous" criticisms of the Bush administration with no basis in reality;

And NYT misses the parallel with Vietnam: If the enemy has a safe haven; they are almost impossible to defeat.

The NYT Gets It Right.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban appear stronger and more emboldened
in the region than at any time since the American invasion of the country five years ago, and since the Bush administration claimed to have decimated much of their middle management.

That is right. The Taliban were decimated and they fall back into Pakistan, into the radical Deobandi madrasas from which they grew. The area into which they fell was Northwestern Frontier Provinces -- an area so wild that the Pakistani government has never held sway there, even though it is nominally part of Pakistan. And we know that, over the past several years, the Taliban has reorganized, trained and recruited, probably with the support of rouge elements of Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI.

The NYT Gets It Wrong -

The audacity of a suicide-bomb attack . . . underscores . . . a deepening . . . concern that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent.

American officials insisted that the importance of the attack, by a single suicide bomber who blew himself up a mile away from where the vice president was staying, was primarily symbolic. It was more successful at grabbing headlines and filling television screens with a scene of carnage than at getting anywhere near Mr. Cheney.

But the strike nonetheless demonstrated that Al Qaeda and the Taliban appear stronger and more emboldened in the region . . .

Resorting to suicide attacks, as a historical rule, demonstrates military weakness. Such attacks are only used when the attacker does not have the military strength to achieve a victory on the battlefield. Such attacks are not emblematic of any sort of military resurgence. The fact that such attacks are not stopped beforehand is emblematic of how difficult it is to identify such attacks in advance. That is much more of a police function then a military one.

Two, the NYT hints around it but does not seem to grasp the import of such attacks. The main goal of militant Muslim suicide attacks is to be consumed by the western electorate through the prism of the Western press, who aid the terrorism through their "if it bleeds, it leads" philosophy. Suicide attacks have been adapted by the Taliban precisely for that cause. The Taliban, though insane by our standards, are by no means stupid. And they see the cumulative effect of press reports of suicide attacks on the western electorate -- the election of a group of representatives and senators who want nothing more then to leave Iraq. Thus the Taliban would be fools not to adopt such a strategy.

The NYT gets it Left:

[C]ritics [of Bush and Cheney] . . . said the strike was another reminder of how Iraq had diverted the Bush administration from finishing the job in Afghanistan.

Oh, spare me. Who said that, the author? the editor? Please, that is just so nonsensical at this point. The Taliban were driven from Afghanistan. More troops were not needed to accomplish that. And as I recall, the cries about more troops in Afghanistan had much more to do with capturing bin Laden. That is ancient history.

Two, would another two battalions in Kabul have stopped a lone suicide bomber from infiltrating? Hardly.

The NYT Misses the Vietnam Parallel:

For all of the attempts of the left to draw parallels between Vietnam and our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is the one place were such a parallel would have been accurate. The Vietnam War actually began in the early 1950's, during the Eisenhower administration. The reason it dragged on twenty years was because the prime element responsible for the war, the communist North Vietnamese, had an untouchable safe haven in their own country. It was Nixon's bombing of Hanoi in December, 1972 that finally led the North Vietnamese to come seriously to the table for peace talks. One of the first rules of war is not to allow an enemy a safe haven. That is, unfortunately, what we have with the Taliban, and al Qaeda today, safe in nominally Pakistani territory. That is a real Vietnam parallel. And it is the one that needs to be addressed immediately. The NYT missed that one.

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NEW DNI: IRAN TRAINING IRAQI INSURGENTS TO USE EFP'S.

Reuters reports on the testimony before Congress of New Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell:

Iran is training anti-American Iraqi Shi'ites at sites inside Iran and Lebanon in the use of armor-piercing munitions blamed for the deaths of 170 U.S. troops in Iraq, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, newly installed U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said it was "probable" that Iranian leaders including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were aware that weapons known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, had been supplied to Iraqi Shi'ites.

But he and other senior intelligence officials told a hearing on threats to the United States that al Qaeda remained the greatest threat facing the United States and had reestablished itself in Pakistan since being driven out of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

Read the whole story.

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CHENEY WARNS PAKISTAN ON TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA

Vice President Cheney travelled to Pakistan to express the U.S. concern with Pakistan's lack of aggressive efforts against radicals, including both the Taliban and al Qaeda who have established safe havens in Pakistan's Fronteir Provinces. See the story here.

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UK TAKES UP NATO SLACK IN AFGHANISTAN

Britain is deploying another 1,500 troops to Afghanistan after pleas for more combat soldiers made by the NATO commander to the other European members of NATO fell upon deaf ears.

“Those [extra] troops should be coming from countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain who have so far not shown the adequate resolve to be part of a full Nato complement in Afghanistan,” he told Today on BBC Radio 4.

Nato is running the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan with a total complement of about 35,000 troops, but most of the contributions from Nato members are small. The United States has provided the biggest force —27,000, of whom 15,500 serve under Nato — followed by Britain.

“Too many of our European partners are now pocketing the Nato security guarantee but leaving UK taxpayers and the UK military to carry the cost,” Dr Fox said.

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I could not agree more with Dr. Fox on this one, though I would add the U.S. taxpayers and military to his last statement. The showing of Germany, France, Italy and Spain has been disgraceful. And the problem of Afghanistan is not going to go away anytime soon. Allowing an enemy a power base that is untouchable is a sure recipe for a long, and possibly losing war. That was the true lesson of Vietnam. And now we are seeing it repeated again as the Talian has a secure base in Pakistan's Fronteir Provinces, protected from attack by NATO because it is nominally a part of Pakistan. And now protected from the Pakistani military as a result of Musharraf's treaty with the provinces. Both the NATO problems and Taliban safe havens will have to be addressed as the war in Afghanistan progresses.

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THE REAL WAR IN ISLAM is between those who would bring Islam into the modern era and those who seek to maintain the purity of Islam as it existed in 700 A.D. -- or at least their perception of this purity. Islam unfortunately has never undergone a renaissance or reformation, and indeed, the internal mechanisms for such modification - ijtihad - were frozen over one thousand years ago. Thus today we have acts such as this:

Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil. Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said. . . .

. . . The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a recent report said that violence against women had increased alarmingly, with some of the incidents incited by Mullahs opposed to women’s emancipation.

The truth is that, while radical Islamists appear to be a minority, they are a completely ruthless minority acting in a sphere with no ethical or moral restraints. And if history teaches us anything, it is that a ruthless minority can easily overtake and impose their will on a majority population. Lenin and Mao are prime examples. Thus, while we must protect ourselves from the menace that is radical Islam, the ultimate solution to the problem is for Muslims to address and solve these issues internally. Unfortunately, that will mean much more innocent blood will be spilt, like that of Zilla Huma Usman.

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MUSHARRAF'S POLITICAL FUTURE. Pakistani politics may well be driving Musharraf away from the radicals and into a deal with the secular liberal party over the next year. That would be a plus.

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AL QAEDA SAFE HAVEN IN PAKISTAN. This from the NY Times:

Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

Allowing your enemy an untouchable safe haven is not a sound strategy. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, will at some point have to act, either by taking action himself or by giving the green light to US forces to attack both the Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds in the fronteir provinces which are only nominally under Pakastani control. But he has shown an ever increasing reticence to act over the past two years. Why that is so probably has as a lot to do with the internal dynamics of his hold on power in Pakistan as well a concern about the committment of the United States in seeing the war on terror through to a conclusion. -- a conclusion that will take more then one generation, it would seem.

Update: From the Telegraph (UK)

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