Taliban posing for photographers in Pakistan
While Washington D.C. is buzzing about today's Inauguration of President Barack Obama, on the other side of the world, the Taliban apparently haven't gotten the message of "hope and change". The Taliban are seizing territory in Pakistan, threatening the vital overland supply line for the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters have burned trucks carrying supplies up the mountain highway through the fabled Kyhber Pass, and in the last few days they have stepped up their offensive in the Swat Valley, only a hundred miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. The Taliban are burning schools for the crime of teaching little girls how to read, as well as to demonstrate the powerlessness of the Pakistani Army and security services, who reportedly refuse to patrol at night.
If Pakistan cannot secure a valley near its own capital, it is not even remotely capable of taking on the Taliban in their Pashtun strongholds near the mountanous Afghan border. In 2008 the U.S. responded to the Pakistani' government's inability or unwillingness to fight the Taliban by stepping up Special Forces and air raids deep into Pakistan. But the cost in terms of civilian lives lost in bombing suspected Taliban hideouts in villages has been high, in terms of lost goodwill among the Afghan people and faltering support for the NATO mission in Afghanistan among America's European allies.
Click on the extended post to read why Russia matters to President Obama's project of saving the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
Russia Today TV coverage of the Inauguration Day festivities in Washington D.C.
Enter Russia. Even as the Russian government was still issuing statements accusing Washington of having instigated Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's foolhardy attack on the Russian-backed separatist enclave of South Ossetia last year, the Kremlin quietly agreed to allow rail shipment of equipment and materiel overland through Russia from Germany in support of the NATO peacekeepers deployed in Afghanistan. As Russia Blog previously reported in September 2007, Russia and Ukraine's big Antonov 124 transports are regularly chartered by private logistics contractors and the Pentagon to fly large cargo into the old Soviet airbase in Kabul.
In an interview that appeared in the January/February 2009 issue of Foreign Policy magazine, General David Petraeus, the American commander widely credited with calming down a civil war in Iraq, called for engaging Russia, India and China more closely with the common goal of stabilizing Afghanistan. Since the incoming Obama Administration has already chosen to keep Bush's Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and given Petreus the task of a post-Iraq "surge" in Afghanistan, one hopes that the Obama team understands how important Russia and the former Soviet republics north of Afghanistan will be in maintaining the NATO presence in that war-torn country.
Therefore, if some quid pro quo and greater respect for Russia's priorities is required in return for help with this top U.S. priority, so be it. Obama has already indicated an encouraging willingness to reevaluate the need for an American missile defense system installation on Russia's doorstep in Poland. Behind the scenes, there may be some other issues on the table once Obama and Medvedev meet in the near future.
- The Editors
Pakistan temporarily halts US-NATO supplies
By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan, Associated Press Writer
January 19, 2009
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Pakistan temporarily closed the major supply route to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on Monday after suspected insurgents firing rockets killed a soldier at a Pakistani military camp — the latest attack to highlight the vulnerability of the legendary Khyber Pass.
Growing militant activity along the road has prompted several temporary closures in recent months.
Truck drivers that carry fuel, food and other goods to Western troops face constant intimidation and threats of violence. Militants have even ransacked and burned vehicles waiting in terminals in the nearby city of Peshawar.
Afghan-based U.S. and NATO forces get up to 75 percent of their supplies via routes that traverse Pakistan. Military officials say the disruptions have not hurt their operations, but acknowledge they are searching for other routes, possibly through Central Asia.
The Pakistani government has responded by dispatching paramilitary escorts and staging a military operation in the Khyber tribal region, but militant activity continues.
Khyber is part of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt, where al-Qaida and Taliban fighters have bases and hold tremendous sway.
Fazal Mahmood, a senior government official in Khyber, said 14 soldiers also were wounded in the early Monday rocket attack.
He said the suspected militants fired eight rockets at the camp in the Landikotal area. A daylong curfew was imposed in Landikotal while security forces hunted down the militants in the neighboring Khugi Khel area.
Go to the AP website to read the rest of the story.
