Taliban Capture Yamgan

[BarakzaiAbdali]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/0...085850568.html

Taliban captures district in northeast Afghanistan


Hundreds of fighters overpower security forces in Badakhshan province's Yamgan, reportedly killing 10 officers.


Hundreds of Taliban fighters have wrested control of Badakhshan province's Yamgan district in northeastern Afghanistan after attacking the district headquarters from four directions, officials have said.

An Afghan local police commander told Al Jazeera that 10 police officers were killed in the attack which started at about 4am on Saturday.

The toll differed slightly from that given by the parliamentary representative for the province, Abdul Wali Niazi, who told local media that seven police had been killed and three had been taken hostage.

Abdullah Naji Nazari, the head of the provincial council, did not confirm the casualty figures, but said the centre of Yamgan had been captured by the Taliban.

"The situation is tense and worrying if reinforcements are not sent in time," he said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said fighters had taken control of several checkpoints and the district centre, killing several members of Afghan forces and seizing weapons.

Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston, reporting from Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan, said security forces were regrouping and planning an offensive to retake the district.

Johnston said the country's north has become a new fighting front for the Taliban over the past two months, during its annual Spring offensive.

"That area in the north is more exposed. There are not as many security forces up there," she said.
In early May, at least 18 Afghan policemen were killed in a series of Taliban attacks in Badakhshan province.
A surge in attacks has taken a heavy toll on civilians, according to the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan.

In the first four months of 2015, civilian casualties jumped 16 percent from the same period last year, it said

[BarakzaiAbdali]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Hungry_Hippos

Its like hungry, hungry hippos - ANA and ALP are like the wiley cayote and their adversaries just keep pulling road runner moves on them.

[Badlun]

Bad news for humanity. Such things happen in jungle where animals live. Talibán will never occupy an inch in civilized and developed world.

[khushal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Hungry_Hippos

Its like hungry, hungry hippos - ANA and ALP are like the wiley cayote and their adversaries just keep pulling road runner moves on them.

I feel bad for the ANA and ALP foot soldiers. My cousin used to tell me stories about how the communist gov forced him into the Army and they would put him and others like him, who were also forced into the Army, in the frontlines where they had no chance. The Soviet soldiers had air support while the Afghans were used as cannon fodder. He eventually deserted and went to Pakistan.

Why risk your life for a gov that is funded and employed by an outside power who has mission impossible of delivering a warlike armed tribal people wholesale to a hegemonic power. Forget it. If the American soldier and the Soviet soldier couldnt do it with air support, how can they.

[khushal]

Bad news for humanity. Such things happen in jungle where animals live. Talibán will never occupy an inch in civilized and developed world.

Go fvck yourself. Its because of people like you who have put those poor ANA foot soldiers in the situation they are in. Go to the frontlines yourself and see how you like it.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I feel bad for the ANA and ALP foot soldiers. My cousin used to tell me stories about how the communist gov forced him into the Army and they would put him and others like him, who were also forced into the Army, in the frontlines where they had no chance. The Soviet soldiers had air support while the Afghans were used as cannon fodder. He eventually deserted and went to Pakistan.

Why risk your life for a gov that is funded and employed by an outside power who has mission impossible of delivering a warlike armed tribal people wholesale to a hegemonic power. Forget it. If the American soldier and the Soviet soldier couldnt do it with air support, how can they.

No, you are right. Money makes the mare go is the old nursery rhyme and there are many people who need a way forward to survive. I am not passing moral judgement on the ANP and the ANA or the USA or India or Pakistan for that matter. Generally, I think our role is just to take the evidence and history and comment, with moral clarity, as to who would traditionally be defined as occupied and occupier. What people decide to make of the rest is their own business.

The problem is that people prefer an echo chamber - and most of their lives are spent in one - hearing their own viewpoint validated and unchallenged. The sad thing is, counter arguments are made to be digested, thought over and either rejected with evidence at hand, or at least incorporated into a panoramic worldview.

This never leads to growth, collaboration, and understanding. This attempt to dehumanize anyone on any side of a conflict, i.e. when they forget the wartorn nation of the 1970s and 1980s and what would go on to create the situation, as in effect, a propaganda tool.

My general message continues to be that we are all pawns in a larger game. The military industrial media complex has taken folks from all over the world and pitted them against eachother. It has, admittedly done so by capitalizing on certain age-old differences that exist between peoples. But these differences are only the ingredients for a fire, not the actual match that is lit. This extends beyond even the Muslim lands to places like Nicaragua and Chile for example.

We have to not forget that people all over the world are suffering to prop up this strange world order based on unsubstantiated assumptions.

At the end of the day, each man will have to decide whether they made decisions based on their moral compass or whether that compass was confounded by love of family and the real life material needs.

[jankhan]

No, you are right. Money makes the mare go is the old nursery rhyme and there are many people who need a way forward to survive. I am not passing moral judgement on the ANP and the ANA or the USA or India or Pakistan for that matter. Generally, I think our role is just to take the evidence and history and comment, with moral clarity, as to who would traditionally be defined as occupied and occupier. What people decide to make of the rest is their own business.

The problem is that people prefer an echo chamber - and most of their lives are spent in one - hearing their own viewpoint validated and unchallenged. The sad thing is, counter arguments are made to be digested, thought over and either rejected with evidence at hand, or at least incorporated into a panoramic worldview.

This never leads to growth, collaboration, and understanding. This attempt to dehumanize anyone on any side of a conflict, i.e. when they forget the wartorn nation of the 1970s and 1980s and what would go on to create the situation, as in effect, a propaganda tool.

My general message continues to be that we are all pawns in a larger game. The military industrial media complex has taken folks from all over the world and pitted them against eachother. It has, admittedly done so by capitalizing on certain age-old differences that exist between peoples. But these differences are only the ingredients for a fire, not the actual match that is lit. This extends beyond even the Muslim lands to places like Nicaragua and Chile for example.

We have to not forget that people all over the world are suffering to prop up this strange world order based on unsubstantiated assumptions.

At the end of the day, each man will have to decide whether they made decisions based on their moral compass or whether that compass was confounded by love of family and the real life material needs.

x

[ComradePashtun]

The district will be re-taken sooner or later. Period. It is an isolated region and a soft target for the militants. They will run away and seek a hide-out once the ANA plans and then relaunches the clearing them out offences. In the longer-run, Pakistan ceasing active support and providing them safe-havens will be a major element when their imminent defeat comes that is if they continue to be dumb.

The moral compass is the lives of 30 million people who have a better chance of future despite the current government's ills and weaknesses. Stability is a pre-condition for improvement in all areas. Talibs will be a catastrophe not that they will ever come back. All they are doing is hurting the vulnerable people who desire peace and would like to continue to live in an Afghanistan that is a much better place than the last thirty years and by far better than under the Talibs. There are 8 million children in school, every Afghan has access to basic or very basic health service, in the remotest parts within two hours of walking distance. Child mortality where it was 275 per 1000 births is reduced by 75%, and similarly maternal mortality from 1600 in early 2000s is reduced to 375 per 10,000 live births etc. The endogenous economy (I know the aid dependency etc. as if Talibs would have turned the world around them) is by far doing better and with adequate stability Afghanistan could attract billions of dollars of investment which could immensely impact the lives of its people.

An orstracised Afghanistan under mullahs and under the mercy of Iran and Pakistan is absolutely unimaginable and reminiscence of human disaster and catastrophe. Today we have a better and much stronger Afghanistan and further improvements will come with time.


Taliban are in ISI's thrall and will do as they set the tune.

[ComradePashtun]

This does not tantamount to one being pro kharijian etc. There are rational and judicious ways of dealing with even the most difficult things in life. Today most Afghans consider Talibs a bigger threat than the kharijian and hence the status-quo and suffering of the Afghans. Afghan need to reconcile fist and then collectively deal with what they want to do be it kicking out kharijian or anything else.

[ComradePashtun]

I feel bad for the ANA and ALP foot soldiers. My cousin used to tell me stories about how the communist gov forced him into the Army and they would put him and others like him, who were also forced into the Army, in the frontlines where they had no chance. The Soviet soldiers had air support while the Afghans were used as cannon fodder. He eventually deserted and went to Pakistan.

Why risk your life for a gov that is funded and employed by an outside power who has mission impossible of delivering a warlike armed tribal people wholesale to a hegemonic power. Forget it. If the American soldier and the Soviet soldier couldnt do it with air support, how can they.

You have no touch with reality. You live in bubble. Feel sorry for yourself brother.

[ComradePashtun]

Barakzai wrora, what do you reckon is a practical solution to the current situation and a better future for Afghanistan? Don't you think a peace amongst Afghans is a necessary condition?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai wrora, what do you reckon is a practical solution to the current situation and a better future for Afghanistan? Don't you think a peace amongst Afghans is a necessary condition?

Yes brother absolutely. But it has to be an autonomous peace between the key players in our traditional society. We both know that when there was peace and stability in the "good old" days when people did not feel insecure and had not suffered inordinate indignities that each member of society from the Malik to the Talib and so on and so forth had his proper place and role.

As a case in point, when Karzai was President, there were laws he personally signed off on that were deemed as repugnant by the international community but that he likely understood were abided by on the local community level regarding certain aspects of marriage law.

The international community and the funders and backers of the Kabul regime started to threaten to pull resources and funding, etc etc and Karzai was pressured to repeal or somehow get rid of the law.

A sovereign nation does not take dictates. How would this work if say Afghans collectively decide they do not want to dabble in high interest and IMF loans that keep the nation (as it did the African nations) in perpetual debt. The dictates of the "international community" do not allow for such intransigence and once again Afghanistan will be put in a position of dependency and continue to exist as a "nation state" in a troubled region that was carved out to remain perpetually in trouble.

Some call my views as "unrealistic" "impractical" etc and "out of touch with the polarized world where poorer nations depend on the powers to survive." I call my views derived in the light of history where we see again and again that people who cede autonomy end up losing aspects of their culture, self worth, and future that are not recoverable.

What then was all this for? To wink our eye at fate and become another Dubai or Saudi of Lithium? Fat, content, controlled, suzerainty and in cultural decline and stagnation? Gaining all the material wealth in the world but losing dignity and complete freedom? Ignoring history of a people that wiped out indigenous tribes once they got a foothold and bribed the tribal leaders and divided tribe from tribe with various treaties and alliances?

So yes peace would be great, and a negotiated peace where everyone from the nouveau riche oligarchs to the pakir is incorporated into the nation's fabric and rich tapestry of culture. But no one would ever afford this dignity to Afghans if their goal is to use Afghan land for their own purposes in this sort of strange quasi deal that Karzai believed he made when he stated "we have our interests and the kharij have their interests."

If the Kharij interest for instance is to fly spy vehicles out of Kandahar to interrogate the skies of Iran or other neighboring nations and this results in these nations needeling in return - this perpetuates problems.

[Khostai]

So what they play this cat and mouse game for 14 years without any succes. And now the taliban have even infighting among thmeselfs, they can enjoy this small voctory but it would not last for long.

[marwat]

Barakzai wrora, what do you reckon is a practical solution to the current situation and a better future for Afghanistan? Don't you think a peace amongst Afghans is a necessary condition?

i was out of the city for a week,i visited this forum regularly and i saw Barakzai posting and rejoicing Taliban. i thought i will ask him the same question.

[marwat]

Yes brother absolutely. But it has to be an autonomous peace between the key players in our traditional society.....

people call your views unrealistic and impractical because you want to seek all this fortune in taliban..
historically Mullah and military alliance, the notorious spy Lawrence of Arabia conspiring against Amanullah and religiously inspired jihadist backed by British to topple Amanullah government is eye opening.