Contradicting Gates, fundamental conflicts between Taliban and al-Qaeda have emerged over the years

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from Gareth Porter: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49551


WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (IPS) - U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen argued in Senate Testimony Wednesday that the 30,000-troop increase is necessary to prevent the Taliban from giving new safe havens to al Qaeda terrorists.

But that argument is flatly contradicted by the evidence of fundamental conflicts between the interests of the Taliban and those of al Qaeda that has emerged in recent years, according to counterterrorism and intelligence analysts specialising in Afghanistan.

Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, "Taliban-ruled areas could in short order become once again sanctuary for al Qaeda, as well as a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in Pakistan."

Mullen made the same assertion in even more pointed terms. "To argue that should they have...power the Taliban would not at least tolerate the presence of al Qaeda on Afghan soil is to ignore both the recent past and the evidence we see every day of collusion between these factions on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border," he said. "Put simply, the Taliban and al Qaeda have become symbiotic," said Gates, "each benefitting from the success and mythology of the other."

It is well known among government officials working on Afghanistan and al Qaeda, however, that serious tensions between the two organisations emerged after the attack on the "Red Mosque" in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad in July 2007. Western intelligence quickly discovered the attack was an al Qaeda operation, and that it marked the beginning of an al Qaeda campaign calling for the overthrow of the Pakistani government and military.

That created a serious conflict between al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to specialists who followed the issue closely. The Taliban leadership, which is based in Quetta, Pakistan, had been depending on assistance from the Pakistani military to increase its military capabilities and did not look kindly on that al Qaeda policy.

Despite widespread confusion over the two, the Tahreek-e-Taliban, the Pakistani jihadist group that has been an umbrella organisation for the military campaign against the Pakistani military, is not related to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Pakistani group, which has now changed its name, is a close ally of al Qaeda, but does not see eye to eye with the Afghan Taliban.

Ignoring these turning points in the Taliban's relationships with both al Qaeda and other Pakistani jihadi groups, Gates suggested that the three groups are closer than ever before. "What we have seen in the last year develop is an unholy alliance, if you will, of al Qaeda, the Taliban in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan," he said.


"We make a serious mistake in equating the two organisations," said Arturo Munoz, who was a supervisory operations officer in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counterterrorism Center from 2001 to 2009 and is now a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation . . .

read more: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49551

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1. .

[EFerrari]

2. Exactomundo. Lawrence Wright who spent years reporting on bin Laden

up to and including having interviews with his money guy, also reports that the Afghan fighters against the Soviets wanted him the hell out of Afghanistan because he sucked as a commander.

The only way Gates, a career criminal in our government, can justify this continuing insanity is to collapse the very relationships that we need to keep straight to be effective in the region.

Gates, obstructor of justice in BCCI and Iran Contra, fixer for the BFEE, check. McChrystal, war criminal who hid prisoners from the ICRC and tried to cover up Tillman's death, check. Petraeus, implicated in illegal arms sales and liar for Bush, check.

What the hell is Obama thinking?