Terror Camps Proliferate In Pakistan Financed By Opium Production

The next President is going to face severe national security challenges on numerous fronts, not the least of which will be nuclear armed and, in part, terrorist occupied Pakistan. The ineffectual actions of the Pakistani government are allowing terrorists to flourish. They are fueled by huge sums of money from the drug trade - which suggests that the drug eradication program being tried in Afghanistan is equally ineffectual. It is only a matter of time before this matter has to be dealt with, either by Pakistan or by NATO.
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This from Bill Roggio at the LWJ:

Al Qaeda continues to grow its network and expand its capabilities in northwestern Pakistan, US military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The peace agreements have given the Taliban and al Qaeda time and space to reestablish their networks, which pose a threat not only to Pakistan, but the West as well.

Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied terrorists groups, collectively called al Qaeda and allied movements, or AQAM, by some in US military and intelligence circles, has set up a series of camps throughout the tribal areas and in the settled districts of the Northwest Frontier Province. "More than 100" terror camps of varying sizes and types are currently in operation in the region, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. As of the summer of 2007, 29 terror camps were known to be operating in North and South Waziristan alone.

Some camps are devoted to training the Taliban's military arm, some train suicide bombers for attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, some focus on training the various Kashmiri terror groups, some train al Qaeda operatives for attacks in the West, and one serves as a training ground the Black Guard, the elite bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. A US Special Forces raid against the Black Guard camp in Danda Saidgai in North Waziristan, Pakistan in March 2006 resulted in the death of Imam Asad and several dozen members of the Black Guard. Asad was the camp commander, a senior Chechen al Qaeda commander, and associate of Shamil Basayev, the Chechen al Qaeda leader killed by Russian security forces in July 2006.

The growth in the number of camps US intelligence officials said Pakistan is outpacing Iraq as the destination for recruits, The New York Times reported earlier this week. Iraq is now seen as a lost cause by jihadists while Pakistan is now seen as al Qaeda's main effort. Recruits from Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East are heading to Pakistan.

Al Qaeda has also reformed Brigade 055, the infamous military arm of the terror group made up of Arab recruits. The unit is thought to be commanded by Shaikh Khalid Habib al Shami. Brigade 055 fought alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance and was decimated during the US invasion of Afghanistan. Several other Arab brigades have been formed, some consisting of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards, an intelligence official told The Long War Journal.

. . . The deteriorating situation in Pakistan's tribal agencies is highlighted by the increased incidences of cross border attacks over the past several months. Today, 11 Pakistanis, including nine soldiers, were wounded in an attack launched from Afghanistan into the lawless, Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan.

. . . Afghan and Coalition forces have fought a series battles with the Taliban along the ill-defined border as Taliban have been attempting to overrun military bases and district centers in the region. US and Afghan forces have killed more than 200 Taliban fighters in the lopsided battles. Many of the Taliban attacks have been launched from inside North and South Waziristan in Pakistan.

. . . The security situation in Pakistan's tribal agencies has spiraled downward since the government negotiated peace agreements with the Taliban in North and South Waziristan in 2006 and throughout early 2007. The agreements gave the Taliban and al Qaeda time and space to consolidate their hold in the tribal areas and in some settled districts of the Northwest Frontier Province. The Taliban renewed their efforts to destabilize the Afghan government and boldly conducted a series of military attacks in Northwestern Pakistan and a bloody suicide campaign in the major cities.

The new Pakistani government has reinitiated peace negotiations with the Taliban in the northwest. Peace agreements have been signed with the Taliban in North Waziristan, Swat, Dir, Bajaur, Malakand, Mohmand, and Khyber. Negotiations are under way in South Waziristan, Kohat, and Mardan. The Taliban have violated the terms of these agreements in every region where accords have been signed.

Read the entire article. As to the financing of the terrorists, it is coming from nearly $150 billion dollar drug trade arising out of opium production in the region. This from AKI:

Opium cultivation is the prime source of income for the Taliban and enables the militants to buy arms for their insurgency against the Afghan government.

But they rely on an efficient distribution system and regional experts believe that senior Afghan officials are colluding with the Taliban for their own gain.

Zaid Hamid, security expert and head of the Pakistani think-tank, BrassTacks, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that several players were involved in the game of drug trafficking and the collusion of Afghan officials was crucial.

"The total drug economy of Afghanistan is estimated to be 150 billion dollars out of which only one billion dollars returns to Afghanistan," Zaid Hamid told AKI.

"The rest is laundered through the international banking system which indicates that several other players are involved in the game of drug trafficking and the receipts to the Afghan insurgency are very small."

Hamid said that Russian and Chinese anti-narcotics forces had recently told their colleagues in Pakistan that the flow of drugs from Afghanistan into their respective countries had reached a crisis.

"They are facing a crisis-like situation," he told AKI. "The figures provided to Pakistan suggested the majority of the drug smuggling is taking place through northern corridors (a non Taliban area)".

"These routes linked Afghanistan to Central Asian states, Afghanistan to Russia and from the Afghan province of Badakshan to Tajikistan and to China. The third route is coming from Afghanistan to Pakistan to the UAE (United Arab Emirates) through the Arabian Sea.

"With this course, the receipts of money coming back to Afghanistan is very small, according to notes given by the Russians to Pakistan."

. . . Various statistics confirmed the claim that several players are involved in the game of drug trafficking beside the Taliban.

Gul endorsed British media reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the current Afghan president was involved in the drug trade.

"Everybody in Afghanistan and Pakistan knows that the powerful person in the distribution of drugs is Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Hamid Karzai," Gul told AKI.

Hamid Gul's claims can be substantiated through many accounts that the Taliban is the base of this trade but the cartel is far complex.

Nevertheless, the real issue is still not the local farmers whose fields are in remote villages only but the distribution networks in which a strong cartel involving the Afghan government is involved.

A senior official working for the British Government's office in the province of Helmand, seconded to the anti-narcotics mission, told AKI that the poppies are cultivated mostly in the districts controlled by the Taliban like Bagran, Musa Qala, Nawzad and Sangeen.

He said from Laskhar Gah, the capital of Helmand, the crops are transported with the collaboration of the police and the local administration and then goes deep inside to the Garmser district from where it reaches to Pakistan and then through Arabian Sea it is distributed through various markets.

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Taheri On Talking With Mullahs

I wrote a post several days ago (see here) on the many naive aspects of Obama's "new" plan to unilaterally and unconditionally - but with preperation - engage Iran's theocracy. Iranian columnist Amir Taheri weighs in on the same topic today, making many of the same points.

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This from Amir Taheri in the WSJ today:

In a report released this week, the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed "serious concern" that the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to conceal details of its nuclear weapons program, even as it defies U.N. demands to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

Meanwhile, presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama – in lieu of a policy for dealing with the growing threat posed by the Islamic Republic – repeats what has become a familiar refrain within his party: Let's talk to Iran.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with wanting to talk to an adversary. But Mr. Obama and his supporters should not pretend this is "change" in any real sense. Every U.S. administration in the past 30 years, from Jimmy Carter's to George W. Bush's, has tried to engage in dialogue with Iran's leaders. They've all failed.

Just two years ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proffered an invitation to the Islamic Republic for talks, backed by promises of what one of her advisers described as "juicy carrots" with not a shadow of a stick. At the time, I happened to be in Washington. Early one morning, one of Ms. Rice's assistants read the text of her statement (which was to be issued a few hours later) to me over the phone, asking my opinion. I said the move won't work, but insisted that the statement should mention U.S. concern for human- rights violations in Iran.

"We don't wish to set preconditions," was the answer. "We could raise all issues once they have agreed to talk." I suppose Ms. Rice is still waiting for Iran's mullahs to accept her invitation, even while Mr. Obama castigates her for not wanting to talk.

The Europeans invented the phrase "critical dialogue" to describe their approach to Iran. They negotiated with Tehran for more than two decades, achieving nothing.

. . . The Islamic Republic does not know how to behave: as a nation-state, or as the embodiment of a revolution with universal messianic pretensions. Is it a country or a cause?

A nation-state wants concrete things such as demarcated borders, markets, access to natural resources, security, influence, and, of course, stability – all things that could be negotiated with other nation-states. A revolution, on the other hand, doesn't want anything in particular because it wants everything.

. . . The problem that the world, including the U.S., has today is not with Iran as a nation-state but with the Islamic Republic as a revolutionary cause bent on world conquest under the guidance of the "Hidden Imam." The following statement by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the "Supreme leader" of the Islamic Republic – who Mr. Obama admits has ultimate power in Iran -- exposes the futility of the very talks Mr. Obama proposes: "You have nothing to say to us. We object. We do not agree to a relationship with you! We are not prepared to establish relations with powerful world devourers like you! The Iranian nation has no need of the United States, nor is the Iranian nation afraid of the United States. We . . . do not accept your behavior, your oppression and intervention in various parts of the world."

So, how should one deal with a regime of this nature? The challenge for the U.S. and the world is finding a way to help Iran absorb its revolutionary experience, stop being a cause, and re-emerge as a nation-state.

Whenever Iran has appeared as a nation-state, others have been able to negotiate with it, occasionally with good results. In Iraq, for example, Iran has successfully negotiated a range of issues with both the Iraqi government and the U.S. Agreement has been reached on conditions under which millions of Iranians visit Iraq each year for pilgrimage. An accord has been worked out to dredge the Shatt al-Arab waterway of three decades of war debris, thus enabling both neighbors to reopen their biggest ports. Again acting as a nation-state, Iran has secured permission for its citizens to invest in Iraq.

When it comes to Iran behaving as the embodiment of a revolutionary cause, however, no agreement is possible. There will be no compromise on Iranian smuggling of weapons into Iraq. Nor will the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps agree to stop training Hezbollah-style terrorists in Shiite parts of Iraq. Iraq and its allies should not allow the mullahs of Tehran to export their sick ideology to the newly liberated country through violence and terror.

As a nation-state, Iran is not concerned with the Palestinian issue and has no reason to be Israel's enemy. As a revolutionary cause, however, Iran must pose as Israel's arch-foe to sell the Khomeinist regime's claim of leadership to the Arabs.

As a nation, Iranians are among the few in the world that still like the U.S. As a revolution, however, Iran is the principal bastion of anti-Americanism. Last month, Tehran hosted an international conference titled "A World Without America." Indeed, since the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, Iran has returned to a more acute state of revolutionary hysteria. Mr. Ahmadinejad seems to truly believe the "Hidden Imam" is coming to conquer the world for his brand of Islam. He does not appear to be interested in the kind of "carrots" that Secretary Rice was offering two years ago and Mr. Obama is hinting at today.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is talking about changing the destiny of mankind, while Mr. Obama and his foreign policy experts offer spare parts for Boeings or membership in the World Trade Organization. Perhaps Mr. Obama is unaware that one of Mr. Ahmadinejad's first acts was to freeze Tehran's efforts for securing WTO membership because he regards the outfit as "a nest of conspiracies by Zionists and Americans."

. . . The Islamic Republic might welcome unconditional talks, but only if the U.S. signals readiness for unconditional surrender. Talk about talking to Iran and engaging Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot hide the fact that, three decades after Khomeinist thugs raided the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, America does not understand what is really happening in Iran.

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Iran and Lessons In Diplomacy

Although Iran met with the U.S. in Iraq several times in 2007 and gave assurances that they would stop the arming and funding of militias, their promises have proven false. To the contrary, there has been a sharp increase in the operational tempo of their proxy war since the start of 2008. Not surprisingly, Iran has refused to meet again with Ambasador Crocker to discuss security in Iraq. In February, they could not meet because of "scheduling difficulties." Today, they refuse to meet because of "Americans' massive attacks on the Iraqi people in various cities" - i.e., we are attacking their proxies, particularly in Sadr City. There are some clear lessons about the limits and advisability of diplomacy to be gleaned from our attempts to engage Iran.
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The Washington Post is reporting that Iran is refusing to meet with our Ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, to discuss the security situation in Iraq ostensibly because U.S. forces are attacking defenseless Iraqis in cities throughout the country. Why would they meet with us in 2006 and 2007, but not in 2008?

In 2006, it looked to the world as if the U.S. was going to pack its bags and go home, leaving Iraq to be divided between al Qaeda and Iran - obviously the desired outcome for Iran. The theocrats in Tehran were doing their part, giving money to all sides and executing a low level proxy war against the U.S., just enough to add to the mayhem without crossing the line that would bring the 82nd Airborne in on a night jump into Tehran. They only needed patience. And so they met with the U.S. and Iraq on several occasions to give empty assurances, merely awaiting the inevitable.

But then something happened on way to the mosque. Bush refused to blink, Petraeus executed a brilliant counterinsurgency plan, al Qaeda grossly overplayed its hand in the Sunni tribal regions, and PM Maliki grew into his office. So that when 2007 came to an end, Tehran had a major problem. Al Qaeda was strategically defeated, peace was decending, and the Iraqi government grew stronger each day. It was decision time for the mad mullahs.

Clearly the trajectory was towards the development of a strong, secular Iraqi government and a stable Iraq. That would be the worst possible outcome for Iran's theocracy. Their theocracy is deeply unpopular, their hold on their citizens is maintained by the gun, and their legitimacy is based on a philosphy representing a complete break with a millenium of Shia apolitical traditions. Thus, the decision was easy - step into the breach and increase the operational tempo of their proxy war against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government.

And that is precisely what the theocracy has done in 2008. Rockets were smuggled into Iraq and the Green Zone has been under steady bombardment throughout much of this year from the Sadrists. Sadrist proxies increased their attacks, and attempted to carry out bombings disguised as al Qaeda. According to intelligence, there was a surge of Iranian Qods force members into Iraq in February. And of course, there was the takeover of Basra once the British withdrew. Iran upped the ante considerably in an effort to turn the tide.

Here is where things get interesting. Though the U.S. has been complaining about IED attacks since early 2007 and pointing the finger at Iran, apparently PM Maliki and the Shia's dominating the Iraqi government with a plurality did not consider Iran a major threat. But then came Basra. When the Iraqi forces went into Basra to reestablish government control, they found themselves fighting people armed, funded, trained and quite possibly led by Iran. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have both said that Basra was the wake-up call for the Iraqi government. They now fully understand the extent of Iran's proxy war and its danger to their government.

All of that said, this leads one to suspect that Iran's refusal to meet with Ambassador Crocker and the Iraqi government in February was likely to forestall any complications from having to explain the increase in their operational tempo. With the Iraqi government seemingly not hostile in February, there was nothing to be gained from the meeting - and thus the "scheduling conflict." The same is true today's call for a meeting, though the information is all out in the open now and the Iraqi government is highly annoyed. There are no more scheduling conflicts. Rather Iran's refusal to meet now seems, as best I can assess, a weak attempt at spin aimed at an international audience and our Democrats. In any event, their refusal to meet is a tacit acknowledgment that they do not intend to change course.

Update: As discussed here, Iran did meet with an Iraqi delegation that travelled to Tehran recently carrying with it the evidence of Iran's acts of war inside Iraq. According to a member of the delegation, Iran refused to acknowledge the evidence, claimed it was not training, funding or arming the militias, and gave its assurances that it would respect Iraqi sovereignty. In other words, business as usual.

What are the lessons to be learned here. The first is that any agreement with Tehran isin't worth the paper its printed on. Anyone deeply familiar with the near thirty year history of Iran's mullahocracy knows that, but this is simply one more example. While their diplomats were promising greater security in Iraq, their Qods force was smuggling in rocketry for the Sadrists.

Two, while "we should never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate," we must not be so stupid as to attempt a negotation with a country that has shown no indication that it would do so in good faith. That is merely an invitation to be played and manipulated - and in Chamberlainesque fashion, encourage rather than discourage more aggressive behavior on Iran's part.

Three, and most importantly for our peace at all costs left, diplomacy is not a panacea. It will not cure all ills. It will not solve the problem of Iran's proxy war in Iraq if Iran is bent on turning Iraq into a mirror of Lebanon.

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