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Why don’t you go suit up and go fight the taliban.
Afghanistan Thread | Taliban Rule
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Haqqani 
I kept telling you... China got PLAYED. The USA just shytted on China.
wsj.com
China Sees Risks in Stepping Into Afghanistan After U.S. Withdrawal
Chao Deng
10-12 minutes
TAIPEI—Chinese state media has mocked the U.S.’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan as the latest sign of America’s declining global prestige, but China is approaching its own plans for engaging with the country under Taliban rule with caution.
On Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry cited portrayals in U.S. media of a new “Saigon moment.” China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency the day before tweeted side-by-side photos of helicopters evacuating U.S. government employees from Saigon and Kabul with the words “history repeats itself.”
Still, after largely being a bystander during two decades of heavy U.S. presence in its Western neighbor, China’s leadership appears to be wary of stepping into a volatile political situation where it has little experience, experts say.
Beijing’s biggest concern is potential ripple effects of Taliban rule, with its history of Islamic extremism, in China, where authorities have used tight border controls and draconian measures to control the minority Muslim Uyghur population in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
“China would really prefer not to be dealing with any of this,” said Andrew Small, a senior fellow specializing in Chinese foreign policy at the German Marshall Fund, a Washington-based think tank. As it watches the uncertainty clouding Afghanistan’s future, Beijing is “wary of being sucked in,” Mr. Small said.
Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, left, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin in July.
Photo: Li Ran/Associated Press
Even so, China has spent much of the past few weeks engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity, sending representatives to meet with the U.S., Russia, Pakistan and other countries in Qatar, and hosting Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar for high-level talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin.
On Monday, China sent its newly-appointed special envoy for Afghanistan, Yue Xiaoyong, to Tehran for meetings with outgoing Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, while Mr. Wang spoke by telephone with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and separately with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The meetings, say experts, don’t appear to show Beijing taking on a leading role in managing the crisis in Afghanistan, though Beijing appears to be laying the groundwork for an approach that will depart from Washington’s.
Beijing sees potential benefits to aligning itself with the Taliban and could formally acknowledge a Taliban-led government, which would ultimately put itself in a position to benefit from an eventual reconstruction of Afghanistan or opportunities to have more influence in the region.
“It seems they’re trying to distance themselves from the American initiative,” said Barnett R. Rubin, a former State Department official and Afghanistan scholar at New York University. Beijing will prefer to coordinate its relations with other countries in the region rather than follow the U.S.’s bilateral approach, he said.
Escaping Kabul as the Taliban Take Afghanistan
Thousands of people rushed to Kabul’s international airport as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. WSJ’s Yaroslav Trofimov describes his journey from the city to catch an evacuation flight. Photo: AFP
Cooperation between China and the U.S. on Afghanistan issues isn’t impossible. The Biden administration has repeatedly pointed to Afghanistan as one of a few issues, along with climate change, on which the two countries have shared interests and can potentially collaborate.
Still, the State Department’s description of Messrs. Blinken and Wang’s Monday phone call was terse, while China’s more detailed version offered few signals of cooperation, instead focusing on Washington’s missteps in Afghanistan and urging the U.S. to ensure what it called a “soft landing” in the country that would prevent a new civil war or humanitarian disaster.
Unlike the U.S., which has a range of concerns, including the Taliban’s treatment of women and Afghans aligned with the former government, as well as the group’s potential support for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, Beijing has signaled a narrow focus on its own security interests.
Chinese authorities are concerned about the Taliban’s historic ties to Uyghur militants, particularly the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a largely defunct Uyghur separatist group that Beijing partly blames for ethnic tensions in Xinjiang.
Geng Shuang, China’s envoy to the United Nations, said at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday that ensuring Afghanistan doesn’t become a haven for terrorists was the overriding priority for China, and urged the Taliban to deliver on pledges that it has made to Beijing to prevent international terrorists from basing themselves in Afghanistan.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the international airport in Kabul on Tuesday.
Photo: STR/Associated Press
Though there is scant evidence of Uyghurs training abroad and returning to China to stage terrorist attacks, Chinese authorities have raised the existence of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement to justify its suppression of ethnic Uyghurs. In recent years, the government set up internment camps in Xinjiang to detain more than one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.
The U.S. in 2002 listed East Turkestan Islamic Movement on a list that prohibited members of groups from entering or remaining in the U.S., and the following year Pakistan said it killed the group’s leader in a drone attack. Last year, Washington delisted the group, arguing there was no credible evidence of its existence for more than a decade—a move that Beijing protested.
When it comes to potential collaboration with the U.S., Beijing will want to know whether Washington is a reliable counterterrorism partner, including what its stance is on East Turkestan Islamic Movement, said NYU’s Mr. Rubin. But with the U.S. withdrawing from Afghanistan, China could naturally be working more closely with regional players to secure common security interests.
“They will want to coordinate their policies. China, Russia and Iran and to some extent Pakistan probably feel like they can magnify their effect together better,” Mr. Rubin said.
Taliban Seize Power in Afghanistan: What’s Next
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, with fighters entering the presidential palace, and gunshots broke out at Kabul’s airport as thousands tried to flee the country. The collapse of the Afghan government creates an uncertain future for civilians and challenges for the U.S. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP
Unlike the U.S. and other Western embassies that have rushed to evacuate personnel, the four countries have kept their embassies open, signaling an intent to keep the lines of communication open with the Taliban. On Sunday, the Chinese Embassy in Kabul said it had asked various factions in Afghanistan to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens.
In the days since the Taliban captured Kabul on Sunday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying has referred to the situation in dispassionate terms, describing the Afghan government’s collapse as a “major change” for the country and citing the Taliban’s pledges to set up an “open and inclusive” Islamic government.
On Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the U.S. role in Afghanistan as destructive and noted that President Biden recently argued that the U.S. mission in the country wasn’t nation building. Still, Ms. Hua gave no hint that Beijing was eager to step into such a role.
China’s Communist Party-controlled tabloid Global Times on Monday rejected speculation that China sought to fill the power vacuum by sending in its own troops. “The most China can do is to evacuate Chinese nationals if a massive humanitarian crisis occurs, or to contribute to postwar reconstruction and development,” it said.
So you’re certain the Taliban leader is our puppet...how does that Northern alliance fit in?Haqqani
The way i see it is about leverage.
Think about how Mandela was basically on a leash. A LONG leash, but a leash nonetheless.
Think about how they rehab political prisoners. First it starts with a cleaner jail cell, then its better food. Then more privileges. Then before you know it, you're holding regular meetings with literal diplomats and your own subordinates counting down until your debut.
This was structured to present a certain image of Taliban resistance and independence and not the overt facade of a well timed broadway production.
The sheer fact NO american soldiers have been killed in the last 18 months is ASTOUNDING.
I think the biggest threat to Baradar is other taliban factions who think he's too close to the West, IMO.
I think China is paranoid but it won't change their near term calculations.
I wouldn't say Baradar is a literal puppet. I think Trump was more attuned to Russia than Baradar will be to "the West", however he REMEMBERS who snatched him up, who he pissed off, and who put him back on top.
as for Massoud and Northern Alliance...IDK. Hard to tell if the west takes him seriously.
China seems to be more worried about ETIM. Its hard to tell if the West doesn't just start dumping guns on those guys to annoy China OR if Massoud just flounders in the wind and the Northern Alliance just chills out waiting for their order to make moves.
This was written in march, updated in June 2021:
nytimes.com
Spy Agencies Seek New Allies in Afghanistan as U.S. Withdraws
Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Julian E. Barnes
9-11 minutes
The move signals an acknowledgment by Western intelligence agencies that they are preparing for the likely collapse of the central government and a return to civil war.
Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Published May 14, 2021Updated June 9, 2021
KABUL, Afghanistan — Western spy agencies are evaluating and courting regional leaders outside the Afghan government who might be able to provide intelligence about terrorist threats long after U.S. forces withdraw, according to current and former American, European and Afghan officials.
The effort represents a turning point in the war. In place of one of the largest multinational military training missions ever is now a hunt for informants and intelligence assets. Despite the diplomats who say the Afghan government and its security forces will be able to stand on their own, the move signals that Western intelligence agencies are preparing for the possible — or even likely — collapse of the central government and an inevitable return to civil war.
Courting proxies in Afghanistan calls back to the 1980s and ’90s, when the country was controlled by the Soviets and then devolved into a factional conflict between regional leaders. The West frequently depended on opposing warlords for intelligence — and at times supported them financially through relationships at odds with the Afghan population. Such policies often left the United States, in particular, beholden to power brokers who brazenly committed human rights abuses.
Among the candidates being considered today for intelligence gathering is the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the famed Afghan fighter who led fighters against the Soviets in the 1980s and then against the Taliban as head of the Northern Alliance the following decade. The son — Ahmad Massoud, 32 — has spent the last few years trying to revive the work of his father by assembling a coalition of militias to defend Afghanistan’s north.
Afghans, American and European officials say there is no formal cooperation between Mr. Massoud and Western intelligence agencies, though some have held preliminary meetings. While there is broad agreement within the C.I.A. and France’s D.G.S.E. that he could provide intelligence, opinions diverge on whether Mr. Massoud, who is untested as a leader, would be able to command an effective resistance.
Credit...Pool photo by Christophe Archambault
The appeal of building ties with Mr. Massoud and other regional power brokers is obvious: Western governments distrust the Taliban’s lukewarm commitments to keep terrorist groups out of the country in the years ahead and fear that the Afghan government might fracture if no peace settlement is reached. The Second Resistance, as Mr. Massoud now calls his armed uprising force, is a network that is opposed to the Taliban, Al Qaeda or any extremist group that rises in their shadow.
Top C.I.A. officials, including William J. Burns, the agency’s director, have acknowledged that they are looking for new ways to collect information in Afghanistan once American forces are withdrawn, and their ability to gather information on terrorist activity is diminished.
But Mr. Massoud’s organization is in its infancy, desperate for support, and legitimacy. It is backed by a dozen or so militia commanders who fought the Taliban and the Soviets in the past, and a few thousand fighters located in the north. Mr. Massoud says his ranks are filled by those slighted by the government and, much like the Taliban, he thinks that Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, has overstayed his welcome.
“We are ready, even if it requires my own life,” Mr. Massoud said in an interview.
Even the symbols at Mr. Massoud’s events harken back to the civil war era: old Northern Alliance flags and the old national anthem.
But for all of Mr. Massoud’s bluster at recent rallies and ceremonies, the idea that the Northern Alliance could be rebranded and that its former leaders — some of whom have since become ambassadors, vice presidents and top military commanders in the Afghan government — would follow someone half their age and with little battlefield experience to war seems unrealistic at this point, security analysts have said.
Today, supporting any sort of insurgency or building a resistance movement poses real challenges, said Lisa Maddox, a former C.I.A. analyst who has done extensive work on Afghanistan.
“The concern is, what would the second resistance involve and what would our goals be?” she said. “I fear folks are suggesting a new proxy war in Afghanistan. I think that we’ve learned that we can’t win.”
Even considering an unproven militia leader for possible counterterrorism assurances as international forces leave undermines the last two decades of state-building, security analysts say, and practically turns the idea of an impending civil war into an expected reality by empowering anti-government forces even more. Such divisions are rife for exploitation by the Taliban.
Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
The United States had a fraught relationship with the Northern Alliance, making it difficult to collect intelligence in the country. The French and British both backed the senior Massoud in the 1980s, while the Americans instead focused mostly on groups aligned with Pakistan’s intelligence services. The C.I.A. connections with Mr. Massoud and his group were limited until 1996, when the agency began providing logistical help in exchange for intelligence on Al Qaeda.
One of the reasons the C.I.A. kept Massoud at arm’s length was his track record of unreliability, drug trafficking and wartime atrocities during the early 1990s, when Mr. Massoud’s forces shelled Kabul and massacred civilians, as other warlords did.
Now, various allied governments and officials have different views of Mr. Massoud and the viability of his movement. The French, who were devoted supporters of his father, see his efforts as full of promise to mount a real resistance to Taliban control.
David Martinon, the French ambassador to Kabul, said he has watched Mr. Massoud closely over the last three years, and nominated him for a for a trip to Paris to meet with French leaders, including the president. “He is smart, passionate and a man of integrity who has committed himself to his country,” Mr. Martinon said.
Washington is more divided, and some government analysts do not think Mr. Massoud would be able to build an effective coalition.
Credit...Adam Ferguson for The New York Times
Eighteen months ago, Lisa Curtis, then a National Security Council official, met with Mr. Massoud along with Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. diplomat leading peace efforts with the Taliban. She described him as charismatic, and said he spoke convincingly about the importance of democratic values. “He is very clearheaded and talks about how important it is to preserve the progress of the last 20 years,” she said.
In Afghanistan, some are more skeptical of Mr. Massoud’s power to influence a resistance.
“Practical experience has shown that no one could be like his father,” said Lt. Gen. Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, a former deputy minister in the Interior Ministry. “His son lives in a different time and does not have the experience that matured his father.”
Others in the Afghan government see Mr. Massoud as a nuisance, someone who has the potential to create problems in the future for his own self-interests.
Even if there are varying opinions of his organizational prowess, there is broad agreement that Mr. Massoud can help function as the eyes and ears for the West — as his father did 20 years ago.
Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Mr. Massoud, who was educated at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in Britain, returned to Afghanistan in 2016. He spent the next three years quietly building up support before he emerged more publicly in 2019 by holding rallies and mounting recruiting drives in the country’s north.
In recent months, Mr. Massoud’s rhetoric has grown tougher, lashing out at Mr. Ghani during a recent ceremony in Kabul, and his efforts to secure international support more aggressive. In addition to reaching out to the United States, Britain and France, Mr. Massoud has courted India, Iran and Russia, according to people familiar with his pursuits. Afghan intelligence documents suggest that Mr. Massoud is purchasing weapons — through an intermediary — from Russia.
Credit...Joel Robine/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But Europe and the United States see him less as a bulwark against an ascendant Taliban than as a potentially important monitor of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. A generation ago, Mr. Massoud’s father was outspoken on the burgeoning terrorist threats in the country. And even if the son cannot command the same forces as his father, perhaps he will be able to offer similar warnings.
As a young diplomat, Mr. Martinon remembers hearing about the late Massoud warning to the world during his April 2001 visit to France.
“What he said was beware, beware,” Mr. Martinon recalled. “The Taliban are hosting Al Qaeda and they are preparing something.”
Julian E. Barnes reported from Washington. Najim Rahim and Fatima Faizi contributed reporting from Kabul.
And you think the Taliban has enough centralized command and control to act in a coordinated fashion?This was written in march, updated in June 2021:
nytimes.com
Spy Agencies Seek New Allies in Afghanistan as U.S. Withdraws
Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Julian E. Barnes
9-11 minutes
The move signals an acknowledgment by Western intelligence agencies that they are preparing for the likely collapse of the central government and a return to civil war.
Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Published May 14, 2021Updated June 9, 2021
KABUL, Afghanistan — Western spy agencies are evaluating and courting regional leaders outside the Afghan government who might be able to provide intelligence about terrorist threats long after U.S. forces withdraw, according to current and former American, European and Afghan officials.
The effort represents a turning point in the war. In place of one of the largest multinational military training missions ever is now a hunt for informants and intelligence assets. Despite the diplomats who say the Afghan government and its security forces will be able to stand on their own, the move signals that Western intelligence agencies are preparing for the possible — or even likely — collapse of the central government and an inevitable return to civil war.
Courting proxies in Afghanistan calls back to the 1980s and ’90s, when the country was controlled by the Soviets and then devolved into a factional conflict between regional leaders. The West frequently depended on opposing warlords for intelligence — and at times supported them financially through relationships at odds with the Afghan population. Such policies often left the United States, in particular, beholden to power brokers who brazenly committed human rights abuses.
Among the candidates being considered today for intelligence gathering is the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the famed Afghan fighter who led fighters against the Soviets in the 1980s and then against the Taliban as head of the Northern Alliance the following decade. The son — Ahmad Massoud, 32 — has spent the last few years trying to revive the work of his father by assembling a coalition of militias to defend Afghanistan’s north.
Afghans, American and European officials say there is no formal cooperation between Mr. Massoud and Western intelligence agencies, though some have held preliminary meetings. While there is broad agreement within the C.I.A. and France’s D.G.S.E. that he could provide intelligence, opinions diverge on whether Mr. Massoud, who is untested as a leader, would be able to command an effective resistance.
Credit...Pool photo by Christophe Archambault
The appeal of building ties with Mr. Massoud and other regional power brokers is obvious: Western governments distrust the Taliban’s lukewarm commitments to keep terrorist groups out of the country in the years ahead and fear that the Afghan government might fracture if no peace settlement is reached. The Second Resistance, as Mr. Massoud now calls his armed uprising force, is a network that is opposed to the Taliban, Al Qaeda or any extremist group that rises in their shadow.
Top C.I.A. officials, including William J. Burns, the agency’s director, have acknowledged that they are looking for new ways to collect information in Afghanistan once American forces are withdrawn, and their ability to gather information on terrorist activity is diminished.
But Mr. Massoud’s organization is in its infancy, desperate for support, and legitimacy. It is backed by a dozen or so militia commanders who fought the Taliban and the Soviets in the past, and a few thousand fighters located in the north. Mr. Massoud says his ranks are filled by those slighted by the government and, much like the Taliban, he thinks that Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, has overstayed his welcome.
“We are ready, even if it requires my own life,” Mr. Massoud said in an interview.
Even the symbols at Mr. Massoud’s events harken back to the civil war era: old Northern Alliance flags and the old national anthem.
But for all of Mr. Massoud’s bluster at recent rallies and ceremonies, the idea that the Northern Alliance could be rebranded and that its former leaders — some of whom have since become ambassadors, vice presidents and top military commanders in the Afghan government — would follow someone half their age and with little battlefield experience to war seems unrealistic at this point, security analysts have said.
Today, supporting any sort of insurgency or building a resistance movement poses real challenges, said Lisa Maddox, a former C.I.A. analyst who has done extensive work on Afghanistan.
“The concern is, what would the second resistance involve and what would our goals be?” she said. “I fear folks are suggesting a new proxy war in Afghanistan. I think that we’ve learned that we can’t win.”
Even considering an unproven militia leader for possible counterterrorism assurances as international forces leave undermines the last two decades of state-building, security analysts say, and practically turns the idea of an impending civil war into an expected reality by empowering anti-government forces even more. Such divisions are rife for exploitation by the Taliban.
Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
The United States had a fraught relationship with the Northern Alliance, making it difficult to collect intelligence in the country. The French and British both backed the senior Massoud in the 1980s, while the Americans instead focused mostly on groups aligned with Pakistan’s intelligence services. The C.I.A. connections with Mr. Massoud and his group were limited until 1996, when the agency began providing logistical help in exchange for intelligence on Al Qaeda.
One of the reasons the C.I.A. kept Massoud at arm’s length was his track record of unreliability, drug trafficking and wartime atrocities during the early 1990s, when Mr. Massoud’s forces shelled Kabul and massacred civilians, as other warlords did.
Now, various allied governments and officials have different views of Mr. Massoud and the viability of his movement. The French, who were devoted supporters of his father, see his efforts as full of promise to mount a real resistance to Taliban control.
David Martinon, the French ambassador to Kabul, said he has watched Mr. Massoud closely over the last three years, and nominated him for a for a trip to Paris to meet with French leaders, including the president. “He is smart, passionate and a man of integrity who has committed himself to his country,” Mr. Martinon said.
Washington is more divided, and some government analysts do not think Mr. Massoud would be able to build an effective coalition.
Credit...Adam Ferguson for The New York Times
Eighteen months ago, Lisa Curtis, then a National Security Council official, met with Mr. Massoud along with Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. diplomat leading peace efforts with the Taliban. She described him as charismatic, and said he spoke convincingly about the importance of democratic values. “He is very clearheaded and talks about how important it is to preserve the progress of the last 20 years,” she said.
In Afghanistan, some are more skeptical of Mr. Massoud’s power to influence a resistance.
“Practical experience has shown that no one could be like his father,” said Lt. Gen. Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, a former deputy minister in the Interior Ministry. “His son lives in a different time and does not have the experience that matured his father.”
Others in the Afghan government see Mr. Massoud as a nuisance, someone who has the potential to create problems in the future for his own self-interests.
Even if there are varying opinions of his organizational prowess, there is broad agreement that Mr. Massoud can help function as the eyes and ears for the West — as his father did 20 years ago.
Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Mr. Massoud, who was educated at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in Britain, returned to Afghanistan in 2016. He spent the next three years quietly building up support before he emerged more publicly in 2019 by holding rallies and mounting recruiting drives in the country’s north.
In recent months, Mr. Massoud’s rhetoric has grown tougher, lashing out at Mr. Ghani during a recent ceremony in Kabul, and his efforts to secure international support more aggressive. In addition to reaching out to the United States, Britain and France, Mr. Massoud has courted India, Iran and Russia, according to people familiar with his pursuits. Afghan intelligence documents suggest that Mr. Massoud is purchasing weapons — through an intermediary — from Russia.
Credit...Joel Robine/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But Europe and the United States see him less as a bulwark against an ascendant Taliban than as a potentially important monitor of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. A generation ago, Mr. Massoud’s father was outspoken on the burgeoning terrorist threats in the country. And even if the son cannot command the same forces as his father, perhaps he will be able to offer similar warnings.
As a young diplomat, Mr. Martinon remembers hearing about the late Massoud warning to the world during his April 2001 visit to France.
“What he said was beware, beware,” Mr. Martinon recalled. “The Taliban are hosting Al Qaeda and they are preparing something.”
Julian E. Barnes reported from Washington. Najim Rahim and Fatima Faizi contributed reporting from Kabul.
IDK man...i'm just going off of what i'm seeing, what i've studied about how intelligence agencies work, and how all these sweeping pieces worked in the past combined with foreign interests.
The Taliban looks more "organized" but C&C probably doesn't really exist for them. I'd be surprised if they're not begging for foreign aid in a few weeks. They dont know how to run a country, and now they're trying to have a softer image especially considering they know everyone is watching. Way more than Pre-9/11.
The Northern Alliance is thriving off the fumes of something that didn't really get to materialize and mature and seems to only be able to gain strength in opposition to a more strident Taliban. The taliban would have to get way worse before the West takes the Northern Alliance more seriously it seems. And the key thing about the "Alliance" part was these groups actually UNITING. They weren't all the same "group".
Mid way through this clip you can see theres already like tons of "white guys" on the helicopter in the back 
Yeah shyt's about to get SPICY
Yeah shyt's about to get SPICY
Yahoo is now a part of Verizon Media
Ex-Spy, Target of Multiple Assassination Attempts: What We Know of Afghanistan's 'Anti-Taliban' VP-turned 'Caretaker' Prez
News18
Tue., August 17, 2021, 11:11 a.m.·4 min read
Afghan vice president Amrullah Saleh in a tweet on Tuesday announced that he is the “legitimate caretaker president” and is still in Afghanistan.
“Clarity: As per d constitution of Afg, in absence, escape, resignation or death of the President the FVP becomes the caretaker President. I am currently inside my country & am the legitimate care taker President. Am reaching out to all leaders to secure their support & consensus,” he said in a post on the mico-blogging site.
Saleh’s remark comes days after he asserted that he will not surrender. “I won’t dis-appoint millions who listened to me. I will never be under one ceiling with Taliban. NEVER,” he wrote in English on Twitter on Sunday, before going underground after he reportedly retreated to the country’s last remaining holdout: the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul.
A day later, pictures began to surface on social media of the former vice president with the son of his former mentor and famed anti-Taliban fighter Ahmed Shah Massoud in Panjshir — a mountainous redoubt tucked into the Hindu Kush. Saleh and Massoud’s son, who commands a militia force, appear to be putting together the first pieces of a guerilla movement to take on the victorious Taliban, as fighters regroup in Panjshir.
Who is Amrulla Saleh?
Orphaned at a young age, Saleh first fought alongside guerilla commander Massoud in the 1990s. He went on to serve in his government before being chased out of Kabul when the Taliban captured it in 1996.
The hardliners then tortured his sister in their bid to hunt him down, Saleh has said. “My view of the Taliban changed forever because of what happened in 1996,” Saleh wrote in a Time magazine editorial last year.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Saleh — then a part of the anti-Taliban resistance — became a key asset for the CIA.
The relationship paved the way for him to lead the newly formed Afghanistan intelligence agency, the National Security Directorate (NDS), in 2004. As NDS chief Saleh is believed to have amassed a vast network of informants and spies inside the insurgency and across the border in Pakistan, where Pashto-speaking agents kept track on Taliban leaders.
The intelligence Saleh gathered provided what he alleged was proof the Pakistani military continued to back the Taliban.
Taliban Backed by Pakistan
In an interview with News18 in 2019, Saleh, who was one of the youngest intel chiefs when he took charge in 2004, asserts that the Taliban fights for a vague ideology. “Our quest is for stability,” he says.
Commenting on the strong ties between Taliban and Pakistan, Saleh said he was certain that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who was being shielded by the Taliban, was in Pakistan. He also recalls the ISI telling the then George W Bush administration in the United States that the tribes that were said to be protecting Osama were autonomous and their terrain was rugged and that they needed money to clear these areas which have remained quasi-independent for centuries.
After multiple rounds of intelligence collection in FATA (Federally Administred Tribal Areas), Saleh says, he did not find Osama. “Instead, what we found was a wide network and small cells of terrorists operating out of the area covertly, and in some cases, with overt support from Pakistan army. We had to develop our sources and go elsewhere. Eventually, in 2006, we located Al-Qaeda related safe houses in Mansera. We saw traces of Bin Laden there too,” he tells News18.
The findings had panicked President Pervez Musharraf, he said, adding that the Afghan government was accused for colluding with India’s intelligence. “He (Musharraf) went on saying that the Afghan government was all in collusion with India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), and finally he said the dossier was nothing but some false information and that if there was any truth in it he would personally act on it. He said Pakistan isn’t a banana republic and there was no Mullah Omar in the soil of Pakistan. He also said that if Pakistan did hide Mullah Omar it was like shooting in its own foot. You can imagine when a general is caught lying red-handed, what his reaction will be,” says the vice presidential candidate.
Assassination Attempts
However, in 2010, he was sacked as Afghanistan’s spy chief following a humiliating attack on a Kabul peace conference. Exiled into the political wilderness, Saleh maintained his fight against the Taliban and Islamabad on Twitter, where he fired off daily tweets taking aim at his longtime foes.
A return to favour came in 2018 when he briefly oversaw the interior ministry after sealing an alliance with president Ashraf Ghani, who has now fled to an unknown location. The VP faced a series of assassination attempts on by the Taliban as the US was preparing to exit Afghanistan. His latest close call came last September when a massive bomb targeting his convoy killed at least 10 people in Kabul.
Within hours of the attack, Saleh appeared in a video with his left hand bandaged, promising to fight back. “We will continue our fight,” he said.
Ex-Spy, Target of Multiple Assassination Attempts: What We Know of Afghanistan's 'Anti-Taliban' VP-turned 'Caretaker' Prez
News18
Tue., August 17, 2021, 11:11 a.m.·4 min read
Afghan vice president Amrullah Saleh in a tweet on Tuesday announced that he is the “legitimate caretaker president” and is still in Afghanistan.
“Clarity: As per d constitution of Afg, in absence, escape, resignation or death of the President the FVP becomes the caretaker President. I am currently inside my country & am the legitimate care taker President. Am reaching out to all leaders to secure their support & consensus,” he said in a post on the mico-blogging site.
Saleh’s remark comes days after he asserted that he will not surrender. “I won’t dis-appoint millions who listened to me. I will never be under one ceiling with Taliban. NEVER,” he wrote in English on Twitter on Sunday, before going underground after he reportedly retreated to the country’s last remaining holdout: the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul.
A day later, pictures began to surface on social media of the former vice president with the son of his former mentor and famed anti-Taliban fighter Ahmed Shah Massoud in Panjshir — a mountainous redoubt tucked into the Hindu Kush. Saleh and Massoud’s son, who commands a militia force, appear to be putting together the first pieces of a guerilla movement to take on the victorious Taliban, as fighters regroup in Panjshir.
Who is Amrulla Saleh?
Orphaned at a young age, Saleh first fought alongside guerilla commander Massoud in the 1990s. He went on to serve in his government before being chased out of Kabul when the Taliban captured it in 1996.
The hardliners then tortured his sister in their bid to hunt him down, Saleh has said. “My view of the Taliban changed forever because of what happened in 1996,” Saleh wrote in a Time magazine editorial last year.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Saleh — then a part of the anti-Taliban resistance — became a key asset for the CIA.
The relationship paved the way for him to lead the newly formed Afghanistan intelligence agency, the National Security Directorate (NDS), in 2004. As NDS chief Saleh is believed to have amassed a vast network of informants and spies inside the insurgency and across the border in Pakistan, where Pashto-speaking agents kept track on Taliban leaders.
The intelligence Saleh gathered provided what he alleged was proof the Pakistani military continued to back the Taliban.
Taliban Backed by Pakistan
In an interview with News18 in 2019, Saleh, who was one of the youngest intel chiefs when he took charge in 2004, asserts that the Taliban fights for a vague ideology. “Our quest is for stability,” he says.
Commenting on the strong ties between Taliban and Pakistan, Saleh said he was certain that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who was being shielded by the Taliban, was in Pakistan. He also recalls the ISI telling the then George W Bush administration in the United States that the tribes that were said to be protecting Osama were autonomous and their terrain was rugged and that they needed money to clear these areas which have remained quasi-independent for centuries.
After multiple rounds of intelligence collection in FATA (Federally Administred Tribal Areas), Saleh says, he did not find Osama. “Instead, what we found was a wide network and small cells of terrorists operating out of the area covertly, and in some cases, with overt support from Pakistan army. We had to develop our sources and go elsewhere. Eventually, in 2006, we located Al-Qaeda related safe houses in Mansera. We saw traces of Bin Laden there too,” he tells News18.
The findings had panicked President Pervez Musharraf, he said, adding that the Afghan government was accused for colluding with India’s intelligence. “He (Musharraf) went on saying that the Afghan government was all in collusion with India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), and finally he said the dossier was nothing but some false information and that if there was any truth in it he would personally act on it. He said Pakistan isn’t a banana republic and there was no Mullah Omar in the soil of Pakistan. He also said that if Pakistan did hide Mullah Omar it was like shooting in its own foot. You can imagine when a general is caught lying red-handed, what his reaction will be,” says the vice presidential candidate.
Assassination Attempts
However, in 2010, he was sacked as Afghanistan’s spy chief following a humiliating attack on a Kabul peace conference. Exiled into the political wilderness, Saleh maintained his fight against the Taliban and Islamabad on Twitter, where he fired off daily tweets taking aim at his longtime foes.
A return to favour came in 2018 when he briefly oversaw the interior ministry after sealing an alliance with president Ashraf Ghani, who has now fled to an unknown location. The VP faced a series of assassination attempts on by the Taliban as the US was preparing to exit Afghanistan. His latest close call came last September when a massive bomb targeting his convoy killed at least 10 people in Kabul.
Within hours of the attack, Saleh appeared in a video with his left hand bandaged, promising to fight back. “We will continue our fight,” he said.