How the Taliban made $400 million last year

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Taliban raised about $400 million last year from sources that included donations, taxing local economies and extorting money from such targets as drug dealers, cell phone operators and aid projects, according to a U.N. report on the militant Islamist group released on Tuesday.

The report to the U.N. Security Council by the sanctions monitoring team said that about $275 million of that income reached Taliban leadership and the rest was collected, spent or misappropriated at the local level.

"The team understands Taliban funding as follows: revenue raised from taxing the local economy serves primarily to support local operations and is only in a few cases channeled upwards," the report said.

"Revenue extorted from nation-wide enterprises such as narcotics producers and traffickers, construction and trucking companies, mobile telephone operators, mining companies and aid and development projects goes to the Taliban Financial Commission which answers to the Taliban leadership," it said.

Donations were another major source of funding, which also went directly to the Taliban leadership.

The estimate covers the financial year ended March 20, 2012.

The U.N. team warned against a general perception that the Taliban's main source of income was Afghanistan's opium poppy economy. Afghanistan has long been the world's leading supplier of opium, accounting for about 90 percent of global output.

It said that Afghan officials estimate that the Taliban earned about $100 million in 2011/2012 from the opium poppy industry, a small share considering the annual value of the drug crop is estimated at $3.6 billion to $4 billion.

"This suggests that the Taliban do not make great efforts to exploit this potential source of revenue," the report said.

"While it provides enough to finance much of the insurgency in the main poppy growing provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan, the money raised from the drug trade is insufficient to meet the cost of insurgent activity elsewhere," it said. More >>

Prince Harry - You want to be naked? Go to war

nbcnews.com/

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As United States and Western nations pull out, China seeks role in Afghanistan

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NATO Shifts to Help an Elusive Afghanistan Peace

Gunmen kill senior Afghan peace negotiator

Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images

By msnbc.com and news services

Updated at 5:20 a.m. ET: KABUL - Gunmen shot dead a top Afghan peace negotiator in the capital Kabul on Sunday, police said, dealing a massive blow to the country's attempts to negotiate a peace deal with Taliban insurgents. 

Maulvi Arsala Rahmani was one of the most senior members on Afghanistan's High Peace Council, set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to open talks with insurgents. 

"He (Rahmani) was stuck in heavy traffic when another car beside him opened fire," said General Mohammad Zahir, head of the investigations unit for Kabul police.

Arsalan Rahmani's death on Sunday was seen as a major blow to Karzai's U.S.-backed peace efforts.
Rahmani, one of about 70 influential Afghans and former Taliban appointed by Karzai to try to reconcile with the insurgents, was on his way to a meeting with lawmakers and other officials in a government-run media center in the heavily barricaded diplomatic center of Kabul.
"His driver did not immediately realise that Rahmani had been killed," police official Zahir told Reuters, adding that no one had been arrested in connection with the shooting. No group took responsibility for the attack. More >>

U.S. officials confirm release of senior Taliban

Security Clearance/ By Nick Paton Walsh

Up to 20 high-level insurgent prisoners have been released from NATO custody in Afghanistan over the past two years in an effort to boost peace negotiations with the Taliban in various regions of the country, according to U.S. officials.

The insurgents, held at the jointly-run NATO-Afghan detention facility of Parwan, are considered "bad guys," said one U.S. official who did not want to be identified discussing a sensitive issue. Their release was undertaken, the official said, often at the request of the Afghan government. In all cases, they were assessed as unlikely to rejoin the insurgency.

The official added that the Taliban detainees had been in the maximum security Parwan detention center “for a reason” – but that NATO "does not release anyone when there is a high likelihood they will rejoin the insurgency." The official said he was aware of only two releases in the last nine months.

Some previously released Afghan detainees, especially from the U.S.-run detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have allegedly rejoined the insurgency, suggesting such programs are not without risk.

The U.S. official said the releases occur “when officials determine that the benefits significantly outweigh the risks.”

The releases are often intended to assist efforts by ISAF field commanders to negotiate truces or peace with local insurgent leaders in areas where the Taliban are strong.

News of the releases was first broken by the Washington Post which quoted U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker as telling reporters: "The Afghans have come to us with information that might strengthen the reconciliation process. Many times we do act on it."

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Monday expanded upon the ambassador's comments, with spokesman Gavin Sundwall saying, “Ambassador Crocker was referencing a two-year old, rarely-used program in which senior military officials, together with their Afghan counterparts, weigh the benefits of releasing certain individuals who are being detained at the Parwan Detention Facility and who are willing to denounce violence and engage in the process of reconciliation."

"Fewer than 20 detainees have ever been released under this program,” he added, “and the decision to release a detainee takes into account whether they pose any further security threat.”

La 82 division y el choteo de la doctrina militar kubishe

se suponia que la 82 division de infanteria de marina aerotransportada seria la avanzada de una intervencion militar en cuba. por lo menos eso creiamos todos, rusos, cubanos y americanos. un plan operativo para contener las primeras 3 olas de desembarco maritimo con preparacion artilleria previa y durante desde los buques madres de la division, junto al bombardeo selectivo de la aviacion norteamericana en el sector de la costa norte que va desde el palacio de las convenciones al este hasta playa baracoa por el oeste, era un asunto recurrente en toda la doctrina militar de raulito el ministro. 

Punto 0

 como es sabido las olas de desembarco se suceden en intervalos de 3-5 minutos, por tanto 3 olas lo que da es un tiempo entre 9 y 15 minutos, a lo cual se anaden unos 5-10 minutos adicionales para ocupar el objetivo principal en esa direccion. total 14-25 minutos.

Tiempo desde la linea de desembarco hasta Punto 0 = 5-10 minutos

nunca nadie se cuestiono y mucho menos pregunto por que habia que demorar el desembarco de las 3 primeras olas [yo me lo imaginaba, alguno por ahi tambien, pero no muchos mas] porque se sabia que la 4ta ola de desembarco no pararia hasta la playita de el cajio y surgidero de batabano en la costa sur habanera. ahora con la informacion que tienes 35 anos despues tienes alguna pista????????????????????

ahora parece que la afamada 82 division anda por afganistan cuidando los campos de amapolas como en su momento los soldaditos de quien tu sabes preservando al cartel petrolero en cabinda.

The 82nd Airborne In Afghanistan >> TotallyCoolP

quien lo iba a decir.
------------------------------
de contra: cazando dos pajaros de un tiro

Punto 1 [La Rinconada]

Children in Afghanistan work to extract country’s vast mineral wealth

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In ’highly unusual’ move, Marines asked to disarm before Leon Panetta speech

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Taliban: New and Improved?

FrontPage Magazine/ By Robert Spencer

Apparently the Taliban are softening, even allowing girls to get an education. Clearly this heralds an opening to the West, a heady indication that their most repressive days are past them, and that soon they will take their place among the free people of the earth. Soon they will be following the teachings of Naomi Wolf and Thomas Paine.

Yaroslav Trofimov, in a piece that ran Sunday in the Wall Street Journal, noted that Maulvi Qalamuddin, who headed the Committee to Protect Virtue and Prevent Vice back when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, has completely changed his tune regarding the education of girls. Where once he oversaw the shutting-down, sometimes violently, of girls’ schools, now he says: “Education for women is just as necessary as education for men. In Islam, men and women have the same duty to pray, to fast—and to seek learning.” More >>

Afghan president to meet with Taliban

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Another Disgraceful Apology Frenzy

FrontPageMaganize/ Bruce Thornton

Two recent news stories about Afghanistan reveal the delusional mentality of those conducting our foreign policy. The first is about some Marines who urinated on the corpses of Taliban fighters. Such behavior, of course, is mild compared to the sort of brutal treatment of both the living and the dead typical of all wars ever fought. Nonetheless, this act is contrary to the rules of war and the professional code of the Corp, and as such should be punished. That’s all our official spokesmen need to say about the matter, for it concerns a violation of our military’s high standards that have helped make it the most professional, lethal, and ethical force in the world.

The foreign policy establishment, however, has fallen all over itself issuing solicitous apologies. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her “total dismay,” a reaction stronger than her comments about the Egyptian military slaughtering Copts. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta phoned the utterly corrupt and duplicitous beneficiary of our power and money, Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai, to assure him that those responsible would be found and punished for such a “deplorable” act. Of course, this is a part of the world where brutal violence against civilians is routinely used as a tool of politics, and where torture and mutilation of the living, let alone the desecration of the dead, are standard operating procedure. Yet we cede the moral high ground to Karzai, who said the soldiers’ behavior was “inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms,” something I don’t recall him ever saying about the terrorists murdering our soldiers. Even more risible was the response of the Taliban, who condemned the “inhuman act of wild American soldiers,” one “in contradiction with all human and ethical norms.” This from a group that when it ruled Afghanistan, used a European-built soccer stadium to bury non-shari’a-compliant women up to their necks and then stone them to death, and to machine-gun and behead other miscreants. More >>

Only en Canada - Stolen military equipment in Afghanistan

CBC.ca/
By Community Team
There was a great deal of reaction from the CBC Community to our story, originally reported on Power & Politics, that Canadian military equipment in at least 10 shipping containers has gone missing.

Chris Alexander, parliamentary secretary to the minister of defence, said that the containers had been broken into and their contents replaced with rocks and sand. The theft was discovered when the containers from Afghanistan were opened in Canada.

The top-rated comment on the story came from a CBC Community member, Maple Guardian, who says he served in Afghanistan.

"When I was coming home in '07 the Leo 2's were just coming into the country. I was there when two Leopard 2 power packs (Engine and Transmission units) were received.

I took a peek in one and the carton was empty and looked in the other and it had a pack in it. I mentioned it was weird how they had to use a new pack so fast as the Leo 2's had not moved further then the tarmac to the Armoured SQ lines. That was received with a quizzical "What?" and the SQ had a look.

Sure enough, it was gone and it was supposed to be there. It was stolen in transit by the Russian air Carrier (or the pilots) that made an unscheduled stop in an unnamed country. This is business as usual in Afghanistan. That is also why Canada should be moving its own equipment and not leaving it up to private contractors that have honesty problems."

Many of the commenters said that soldiers and sailors, not private contractors and shipping companies, should be handling military equipment.

• "As a Canadian citizen with families serving the military for many generations, I do not want private companies fulfilling military functions. Ever. Costs be damned. I want my nation in charge of all things military. Not a private company. EVER," wrote Mentalist.
  
• "I'm sure if we had left this job with our public employee soldiers, the cargo wouldn't have been replaced with rocks," wrote AaronBroad.

Others pointed out that the Canadian military simply doesn't have the trucks or ships needed to do it on their own, and that hiring private firms is standard military practice.

• "Our soldiers don't have any container ships. Never did. Neither do our sailors. Also never did. When you have cargo to ship, you hire a cargo ship," wrote MortimerSnerd.

Another informative comment came from NepeanBaron.

More >>

China Wins Afghan Oil Contract

Foreign Policy Association/ by Jeff Myhre  

Any suspicions that the US went into Afghanistan to secure access to resources went out the window last week. On Wednesday, Tom A. Peter over at the Christian Science Monitor reported, “China’s National Petroleum Corporation became the first foreign company to tap into Afghanistan’s oil and gas reserves. Chinese officials have estimated that the deal could be worth at least $700 million, but some say China could earn up to 10 times that.”

That foreign companies would exploit Afghanistan’s natural resources was inevitable. After 30 years of war, local firms just don’t have the ability in terms of talent or money to do the job themselves. Abdul Rahim Hashami, CEO of the New Afghan Petroleum Company told Mr. Peter, “I don’t think any Afghan companies have the business background or experience related to this…. The only thing that I can hope, is that Afghans are in some way a part of it, as partners or used in one way or another so Afghans can be a part of the project.” I am old enough to remember when that was called “neo-colonialism.”  More >>

Now Obama wants to talk to the Taliban?

neorepublica.com

By Michael Rubin/
Whenever the U.S. military undertakes any drill, let alone an engagement, there are hundreds if not thousands of man-hours spent after the fact going over the lessons learned in mind-numbing detail. Never, however, has the State Department conducted a lessons-learned session to investigate why their diplomacy has failed, hence the prevalence of the myth in diplomatic circles that it never hurts to talk. More >>

Taliban to open Qatar office for peace talks with US

Afghanistan sets ground rules for Taliban talks

msnbc.com/

KABUL — Afghanistan will accept a Taliban liaison office in Qatar to start peace talks but no foreign power can get involved in the process without its consent, the government's peace council said, as efforts gather pace to find a solution to the decade-long war.

Afghanistan's High Peace Council, in a note to foreign missions, has set out ground rules for engaging the Taliban after Kabul grew concerned that the United States and Qatar, helped by Germany, had secretly agreed with the Taliban to open an office in the Qatari capital, Doha.

U.S. officials have held about half a dozen meetings with their insurgent contacts, mostly in Germany and Doha with representatives of Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban's Quetta Shura, this year to prepare the way for face-to-face talks between the group and the Afghan government.

A representative office for the group is considered the starting point for such talks and Doha has in the past served as a meeting ground for initial contacts. More >>

Combined Force Captures Taliban Leader

Global Security

From an International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News Release
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 23, 2011 – A combined Afghan and coalition security force today captured a Taliban leader and four associates in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Afghanistan’s Helmand province, military officials reported.

 

Taliban leader Wali Mohammad

Wali Mohammad and four companions were returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan, officials said. The security force received information that the Taliban leader was visiting southern Afghanistan after being in hiding in Pakistan for several years.
Mohammad directed attacks that killed multiple civilians in southern Afghanistan. He also is linked to high-level Taliban leaders within the insurgents’ network.

Some bomb-making materials were confiscated during the operation.
Also, a combined patrol seized a drug cache today in Helmand’s Nawah-ye Barakzai district, officials said. The cache contained 20 pounds of ammonium nitrate and 400 pounds of poppy seeds. Ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, also can be used to construct bombs.
Additionally, a combined force today discovered a weapons cache containing seven mortars and 35 explosive munitions in the Shindand district of Herat province.
In Afghanistan operations yesterday:
– A coalition force seized a weapons cache containing nine 122mm artillery rounds and two 115mm artillery rounds in the Bagram district of Parwan province.
– A combined force detained two suspects while searching for a Haqqani network member in the Pul-e ‘Alam district of Logar province. The man distributes weapons to Haqqani fighters and conducts attacks in the district.
– A combined force captured a Haqqani network leader and detained two suspects in Logar’s Pul-e ‘Alam district.
– A combined force captured a Taliban leader and two suspects in Nangarhar province’s Bati Kot district.
– A combined force captured a Haqqani network leader and one suspect in the Zarghun Shahr district of Paktika province. The leader coordinated roadside bomb attacks against Afghan forces.
– A combined force detained several suspects and seized some firearms and grenades during a search for a Haqqani network leader in the Sabari district of Khost province. The leader constructs and places roadside bombs and sells weapons to insurgents.

Washington ready to negotiate with Mullah Omar

Washington is ready to negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and now regards his involvement as crucial to the prospects for peace in Afghanistan, Hillary Clinton has said.

By Dean Nelson, UK Telegraph - South Asia Editor

4:24PM BST 28 Oct 2011

Her comments been taken as a significant shift in American policy from moves to divide the Taliban-led insurgency and isolate Mullah Omar, the man who sheltered Osama bin Laden as he plotted the September 11 attacks, to an acknowledgement of his leadership.

It follows the disclosure earlier this month that American officials had met leaders of the Haqqani Network, the powerful Taliban faction blamed for some of the most devastating attacks on American and Nato forces in Afghanistan, including last month's attack on the US embassy in Kabul in which seven were killed and 19 wounded.

Earlier this week the faction's commander Sirajuddin Haqqani warned Washington that only the Quetta Shura, led by Mullah Omar, could negotiate a peace deal and that his fighters would not be divided from its leadership.

In an appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mrs Clinton said the United States would continue to "fight, talk and build" in Afghanistan and Pakistan to "test whether these organisations have any willingness to negotiate in good faith".

She said there was "evidence going both ways" on its intentions, citing the Haqqani Network's response to a Pakistan-brokered meeting in August between US officials and Ibrahim Haqqani, the brother of the group's top leader Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Doubts were raised too over the Taliban leadership's intentions following the assassination last month of former Afghan President Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, the head of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, by a suicide bomber sent to Kabul with a "message of peace" from the Quetta Shura.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his government would hold no further talks with the Taliban unless Pakistan, which it regards as its patron, acts as guarantor.

Mrs Clinton said the Haqqani meeting not a "negotiation" and that no subsequent meetings have followed it, but stressed any future negotiations with the Taliban would need the Quetta Shura's blessing.

"The negotiations that would be part of any Afghan-led peace process would have to include the Quetta Shura and would have to include some recognition by the Quetta Shura which, based on everything we know, is still led by Mullah Omar, that they wish to participate in such a process … We are pursuing every thread of any kind of interest expressed," she said.

Her change of tone follows earlier exploratory talks with a senior aide to Mullah Omar in Qatar and German earlier this year and appears to have been influenced by her visit to Pakistan last week, where she met army chief General Kiyani and President Asif Zardari. Sources close to the Pakistan military said General Kiyani warned her that "if this game is to end in success for the United States, they have to take these people [the Taliban] on board."

Afghanistan and Pakistan analyst Arif Rafiq said Mrs Clinton's comments marked a significant change. "Hillary Clinton's public statements prior to the recent Pakistan visit noted a desire to split Quetta Shura elements from Mullah Omar. I think they [now] recognise that though talks have yet to yield tangible dividends, attempts to split the Taliban have failed," he said.

10 years in Afghanistan

Military.com

Ten years after America began its war in Afghanistan, the decade can be measured by different yardsticks: Dollars. Deployments. Deaths. Or maybe this striking fact: Some Soldiers have childhood memories of when the fighting began. A decade is longer than the time ground troops were in Vietnam, longer than the Revolutionary War.
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