Pakistan to help train Afghan military

[Army of Pakistan]

Pakistan to help train Afghan military
Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent From: The Australian
July 02, 2010 12:00AM

PAKISTAN will begin training Afghan military personnel within months, and has indicated it could hand over several top Afghan Taliban commanders.

The move signals deepening relations between the traditionally wary neighbours.

A Pakistan military spokesman yesterday confirmed the training had been agreed to by both sides, as the US Senate confirmed General David Petraeus as the new commander of US and NATO troops fighting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

A top Islamabad security official also said this week that Pakistan may extradite top Taliban commander Mullah Baradar as part of efforts to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai reach a settlement with the Taliban.
Relations between Pakistan and the Western-backed central Afghan government have been tense for years, with Mr Karzai accusing Pakistan security forces of backing the Taliban insurgency as insurance against Indian influence in Afghanistan.

But with US President Barack Obama signalling a military withdrawal in July next year, Pakistan is increasingly viewed by Kabul as key to ending the conflict.

The US is believed to support a negotiated settlement with the Taliban as a means to end its faltering war effort.

But at his Senate confirmation hearing in Washington this week, General Petraeus, the mastermind of the US military's "counterinsurgency" strategy in Iraq , warned that NATO forces faced "tough fighting" ahead. He also told senators he would not be surprised if elements of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency still had links with Afghan Taliban commanders and other extremist groups.

"What we have always had to figure out with Pakistan centre is, are they working with the Taliban to support the Taliban or to recruit sources in the Taliban," he said.

A Pakistan military spokesman told The Australian the plan to train Afghan officers had been under discussion for some time and would involve a small group in the first instance who would receive training in the frontier outpost of Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan's lawless border area.
"I would think it will be quite helpful for the future because Afghanistan and Pakistan share the border and have to remain interdependent. It is essential that each side should have some understanding of the other," the spokesman said.

Mr Karzai's national security adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta confirmed the plan, saying: "This is meant to demonstrate confidence to Pakistan, in the hope of encouraging them to begin a serious consultation and conversation with us on the issue of (the) Taliban."

General Petraeus will replace Stanley McChrystal, who was forced to resign last week over impolitic comments in a Rolling Stone magazine profile.

Pakistan to help train Afghan military | The Australian

[Army of Pakistan]

Pakistan to train Afghan military officers
Updated on Thursday, July 01, 2010, 12:56 IST
Washington: In a significant policy shift, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has agreed to send a group of military officers to Pakistan for training, a decision which could raise eyebrows in India.

An agreement has been worked out confirmed Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Karzai's national security adviser, who said under it a "limited" number of officers would be sent for training. The new deal comes on the heels of recent high-level contacts between the two countries.

"The move is a victory for Pakistan, which seeks a major role in Afghanistan as officials in both countries become increasingly convinced that the US war effort there is faltering," The Washington Post reported today.

"This is meant to demonstrate confidence to Pakistan, in the hope of encouraging them to begin a serious consultation and conversation with us on the issue of [the] Taliban," Spanta was quoted as saying.

Though the number of Afghan officers is said to be between a handful and a few dozen, but it has enormous symbolic importance as the first tangible outcome of talks between Karzai and Pakistan's military and intelligence chiefs that began in May, the daily said.

"It is likely to be controversial among some Afghans who see Pakistan as a Taliban puppet-master rather than as a cooperative neighbour, and in India, which is wary of Pakistan's intentions in Afghanistan," the Post said.
Some key US officials involved in Afghanistan said they knew nothing of the arrangement. "We are neither aware nor have we been asked to facilitate training of the Afghan officer corps with the Pakistani military," Lt Gen William B Caldwell IV, head of the NATO training command in Afghanistan said.

He said Afghanistan "is a sovereign nation and can make bilateral agreements with other nations to provide training."
The US has spent USD 27 billion to train and equip Afghan security forces since 2002 and President Obama's war strategy calls for doubling the strength of both the army and police force by 2011 to facilitate the gradual withdrawal of the US troops.

The surprise development comes after reports that top Pakistan Army brass including Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI Chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha recently made a number of visits to Kabul and had meetings with President Karzai.

More than 300 Afghan Army officers are currently being trained under bilateral agreements in other countries, including Turkey and India, the Post said.

The paper said that Pakistan had been pushing for months for a training deal and a senior Pakistani government official said that the training programme was expected to begin "soon".

But, the paper said fears of Pakistani military influence persist among Afghan ethnic minorities and some in Karzai's government, including one official who compared the training initiative to the Soviet education of Afghan officers in 1960s and 70s that he said was "the start of all evil in Afghanistan".

US officials, the post said were worried that Pakistanis' appeared wanting "a cleaning of the house" of Afghan Army, which is currently dominated by ethnic Tajiks, whom Pakistan sees as hostile to its interest.
Meanwhile in an interview to the PBS News Hour, Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said that of late there has been high-level contact between the two countries, which has significantly improved their relationship.

"In recent weeks and months, almost unnoticed by the American media, there's been an increasing intensity of direct contacts between the governments of Pakistan and the governments of Afghanistan.
"They haven't come to any final conclusion. Some of the reporting has been quite wild on this," Holbrooke said. "But the bottom line is that there's a more of a dialogue, encouraged by us. The US is working closely with President Karzai. And the Pakistanis understand what we're doing. I'm not here to say that something very dramatic and secret is going on. But it's out there in plain view. It just hasn't been reported," he said.

"General Kayani went to Kabul, barely mentioned in the Western press. President Karzai went not only to Islamabad, but to New Delhi, Beijing, and Washington and Tokyo. These contacts are significantly narrowing the gap, the historic gap, which is over 60 years old, between Afghanistan and Pakistan," Holbrooke said.

"Please remember -- that, on the day Pakistan declared independence, Afghanistan opposed its entry into the UN in 1947. They have a disputed border. They share a Pashtun ethnic group. There are massive historical issues here."

PTI

http://www.zeenews.com/news637809.html

[BLS_1919v2.0]

Well it is kind of redundant but welcoming. US trains Pakistani troops on counter insurgency and now they can train Afghan troops. Well at least it is better than them sending negative elements into Afghanistan.

[BLS_1919v2.0]

I have no problems with Pakistan. They just need to stop producing terrorism and sending us captains with suicide bombers.

Well I agree, so lets see how this thing goes. I mean it is better than their previous attempts at 'help'. It will go through the proper channels and under the supervision of their Masheraan Amreeka.

[Army of Pakistan]

Some Afghan military officers to get training in Pakistan

By Karin Brulliard and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 1, 2010


American and Afghan troops carry a wounded comrade to a medevac helicopter near Kandahar on Tuesday. (Justin Sullivan/getty Images)

KABUL -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has agreed to send a group of military officers to Pakistan for training, a significant policy shift that Afghan and Pakistani officials said signals deepening relations between the long-wary neighbors.

The move is a victory for Pakistan, which seeks a major role in Afghanistan as officials in both countries become increasingly convinced that the U.S. war effort there is faltering. Afghan officials said Karzai has begun to see Pakistan as a necessary ally in ending the war through negotiation with the Taliban or on the battlefield.

"This is meant to demonstrate confidence to Pakistan, in the hope of encouraging them to begin a serious consultation and conversation with us on the issue of [the] Taliban," Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Karzai's national security adviser, said of the training agreement.

The previously unpublicized training would involve only a small group of officers, variously described as between a handful and a few dozen, but it has enormous symbolic importance as the first tangible outcome of talks between Karzai and Pakistan's military and intelligence chiefs that began in May. It is likely to be controversial among some Afghans who see Pakistan as a Taliban puppet-master rather than as a cooperative neighbor, and in India, which is wary of Pakistan's intentions in Afghanistan.

Some key U.S. officials involved in Afghanistan said they knew nothing of the arrangement. "We are neither aware of nor have we been asked to facilitate training of the Afghan officer corps with the Pakistani military," Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, head of the NATO training command in Afghanistan, said in an e-mail. But Afghanistan, he said, "is a sovereign nation and can make bilateral agreements with other nations to provide training."

The United States has spent $27 billion to train and equip Afghan security forces since 2002, and President Obama's war strategy calls for doubling the strength of both the army and police force there by October 2011 to facilitate the gradual departure of U.S. troops.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, confirmed Wednesday as the new U.S. and NATO war commander, said this week that the United States wants to "forge a partnership or further the partnership that has been developing between Afghanistan and Pakistan." In addition to taking military action against Taliban sanctuaries inside its borders, Petraeus said, it is "essential" that Pakistan be involved "in some sort of reconciliation agreement" with the insurgents.

U.S. officials are generally pleased with the rapprochement between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the rapid progress of the talks has given some an uneasy feeling that events are moving outside U.S. control. Karzai told the Obama administration about his first meeting with Pakistani intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha when he visited Washington in May, but "he didn't say what they talked about, what the Pakistanis offered. He just dangled" the information, one U.S. official said.

That session, and at least one follow-up meeting among Karzai, Pasha and the Pakistani army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, included discussion of Pakistan-facilitated talks with Taliban leaders, although the two governments differed on whether the subject was raised with a Pakistan offer or an Afghan request. Both governments denied subsequent reports that Karzai had met face to face with Pakistan-based insurgent leader Sirajuddin Haqqani.

Hedging their bets

Pakistan and Afghanistan have long held each other at arm's length. The border between them is disputed, and Afghans resent Pakistan's support for the Taliban government during the 1990s and its tolerance of insurgent sanctuaries. But as they have assessed coalition prospects in the war, both governments appear to have turned to each other as a way of hedging their bets against a possible U.S. withdrawal.

While building Afghanistan's weak army is a key component of U.S. strategy, more than 300 Afghan soldiers are currently being trained under bilateral agreements in other countries, including Turkey and India, Pakistan's traditional adversary. Pakistan has been pushing for months for a training deal, and Spanta said that a "limited" number of officers would be part of the new agreement. Details were still under discussion, but a senior Pakistani government official said the program was expected to begin "soon."

Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington and an advocate of a Pakistani training program, said the plan could expedite joint operations between the two militaries and reduce suspicions about Pakistan within the Afghan army.

"This is a major move," Nawaz said. "It will have a powerful signaling effect in both countries."

Fears of Pakistani military influence persist among Afghan ethnic minorities and some in Karzai's government, including one official who compared the training initiative to the Soviet education of Afghan officers in the 1960s and 1970s that he said was "the start of all evil in Afghanistan."
"Pakistanis never trust Afghans. And Afghans never trust Pakistanis," according to a senior Afghan official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his job. "But because the current situation is getting worse and worse, Karzai has to say okay to the Pakistanis and shake hands."

'We have doubts'

Another Afghan official, citing Karzai's recent firing of two top security officials who were highly critical of Pakistan, said the Afghan leader may be moving too far, too fast. The firings, the official said, were a "triumph for the ISI," Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, which has had a history of backing the Taliban and other militant groups in Afghanistan.

Afghan skeptics noted that Pakistan still refuses Afghanistan's demand to extradite Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was captured in Karachi in a joint Pakistani-U.S. raid early this year, or to arrest other senior leaders with whom they believe Pakistan retains ties. "If they were able to arrest Mullah Baradar . . . why haven't they arrested [Afghan Taliban leader] Mullah Omar? Or . . . Haqqani? This is something we have doubts about," one senior Afghan official said.

Baradar, who reportedly had engaged in talks with the Karzai government, "was interested and more willing to negotiate," the official said. "He was tired of fighting. Pakistan wants to use the Taliban as a pressure element. They don't want the Taliban to be in direct contact with the Afghan government."

Some U.S. officials expressed similar wariness about Pakistan's intentions. "What the Pakistanis and the Taliban want," one said, "is a cleaning of the house," including replacement of the Afghan officer corps, currently dominated by ethnic Tajiks whom Pakistan sees as hostile to its interests.
But other officials in all three countries rejected that analysis and pointed to a broader thaw in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations over the past year. Pakistani scholarships have been accepted by a number of Afghan university students, and Pakistan is training Afghan civilian officials, Spanta said.

"We have seen a paradigm shift in the relationship," said Mohammad Sadiq, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan. "And of course, both sides are benefiting from it."

DeYoung reported from Washington.

washingtonpost.com

[Army of Pakistan]

Sweet victory. This being known, I'm done with this ridiculous forum.

[BLS_1919v2.0]

If this is a victory for you, then those are low standards. But good riddance, one more lost soul leaving the forum, only to be back a month later.

[afghan]

****s has already trained thousand of afghans as terrorists(taliban), they can give them army ranks evereything is ready, why to go through such a huge trouble.

[єѕαρχαι]

Thats a good omen

[MazloomyarMaseed]

Pakistan Army will teach Afghan Soliders on the following:-

1) How not to spot a Talib crossing the border
2) Learn to treat an ISI agent kindly and with respect
3) Learn Urdu as its the language of the Muslim Ummah
4) If you allow an Suicide bomber to blow up the Indian embassy you will be rewarded
with a place in Paradise.
5) If India attacks, Allow Punjabis to settle in Afghanistan
6) Accept Qadiyanis and Ismailis as fellow Muslims and allow Aga Khani to establish charities in Afghanistan
7) Allow Indian Looking women from America to spread Feminism
8) Kill your own Afghan officer if he ever dared insult Pakistan Army

[Khushal Khan Khattak]

I am very happy indeed to know this will happen. Afghanistan and Pakistan are Natural brothers. Inshallah, in the coming years, we should work together to become real economic and political powers in this region.

I pray for co operation between Pakistan and Afghanistan in all fields.
Amen!!!.

[BLS_1919v2.0]

I wish everybody thought like you. I wish Pak govt thought like you.

If that like that maybe we all wouldn't so against the state. Alas people can dream lolzz.

[r3alist]

****s has already trained thousand of afghans as terrorists(taliban), they can give them army ranks evereything is ready, why to go through such a huge trouble.

lets just take this point and accept is truth for the sake of argument....


if its the case that the ISI trained "thousands" of taliban then whats wrong wih your own people that they are so dull in the head that they can be radicalised?

where the love for the fellow pashtun??

do pashtuns have an agreement with god that they hold no responsibility for their own actions and someone else is always to blame? - i cannot believe you are saying they dont with a straight face, people are responsilbe for their own actions.

[amna.]

realist.
the problem is Pakistan reated ISI to hurt us Afghans and destabilize us. Why are you trying to not agree that all ISI wants is to hurt us Pukhtuns.

[muhsina]

Pakistan to help train Afghan military

Pakistani army is already helping Afghans across the Durand line how to become expert suicide bombers for the sake of a promised [fool's] Paradise. I dont think they need any more training.

I am sure this time Pakistani army will train Afghan military to become militants instead by indoctrinating them with their extremists ideas.