Amrullah Saleh forced to resign..

[Tronic]

Amrullah Saleh is out and Ibrahim Spinzada is in.. I'm not doubting Spinzada's capabilities, I'm doubting Karzai's motive... I really don't see how Saleh can be shown the door, with the decades of experience the man had.. Although, I can't tell the internal working of the Afghan intelligence.. having your brother-in-law run the show seems much too convenient.. but it shouldn't be over the expense of Afghan security, I don't think Karzai has his priorities right.. though that may just be me..

[S2]

Saleh

Saleh always struck me as a born intelligence agent. There was a slightly evil, malevolent quality to him.

Like a snake...

[1980s]

Ive expressed my irritation with this news over at the Iranian defence forum. Karzai no doubt made this move as a gesture of appeasement to the Taleban and their Pakistani backers. Saleh in my view is a highly professional and competent figure. I have been impressed with his demeanour and forthrightness and respect his courage. Karzai's wrong policy of thinking he can woo the Taleban with moves like this is going to rebound on him in the near future. He not only alienated many Tajiks when he rigged the election against Abdullah Abdullah but this move against Saleh will only alienate Tajiks further i suspect.

Civil-war is now almost surely guaranteed once the Americans exit given what will apparently follow from the latest “grand jirga” and with moves like this by Karzai’s regime to appease the Pakistanis and undermine the erstwhile N.A figures who still oppose reconciliation with the Taleban and with Pakistan so long as the latter continues to back the former and meddle in Afghan affairs.

The Tajiks better start arming themselves from now and prepare to re-live the 1990s. Huge misdemeanor here by Karzai and i hope it seriously costs him...

[Parihaka]

The Tajiks better start arming themselves from now and prepare to re-live the 1990s. Huge misdemeanor here by Karzai and i hope it seriously costs him...

Given Kharzai's disposition I'm sure he's worked out to a nicety exactly when it is that he should run to Dhubai and leave his country to its fate. Like you, I hope he misjudges that moment...

[S2]

Rabbani

I note Rabbani didn't blink an eye turning his back on the United National Front at this recent jirga.

[Tronic]

Ive expressed my irritation with this news over at the Iranian defence forum. Karzai no doubt made this move as a gesture of appeasement to the Taleban and their Pakistani backers. Saleh in my view is a highly professional and competent figure. I have been impressed with his demeanour and forthrightness and respect his courage. Karzai's wrong policy of thinking he can woo the Taleban with moves like this is going to rebound on him in the near future. He not only alienated many Tajiks when he rigged the election against Abdullah Abdullah but this move against Saleh will only alienate Tajiks further i suspect.

Civil-war is now almost surely guaranteed once the Americans exit given what will apparently follow from the latest “grand jirga” and with moves like this by Karzai’s regime to appease the Pakistanis and undermine the erstwhile N.A figures who still oppose reconciliation with the Taleban and with Pakistan so long as the latter continues to back the former and meddle in Afghan affairs.

The Tajiks better start arming themselves from now and prepare to re-live the 1990s. Huge misdemeanor here by Karzai and i hope it seriously costs him...

Karzai's reach to the Taliban is only to consolidate his own power, it has nothing to do with Afghanistan's national interests. I'm sure he envisions an Afghanistan run by him and other opportunistic chaps like him (power hungry weasels like Hekmatyar for example). He's a very big moron to think he can pull off some grand compromise between all the warlords, so that everybody gets a piece of the pie, which is, IMO, what he is aiming for. And he's using the American presence in his favour to win him ground against the other warlords. This moron deserves to be toppled, he's playing the same old power game of the 90s.

I note Rabbani didn't blink an eye turning his back on the United National Front at this recent jirga.

Think he knows which way the wind is blowing, and he wants a piece of the pie alongside Karzai. Rabbani's ideology is to simply be part of the system and than shape it to his own liking from within; don't think he cares much, as long as he can become part of the ruling elite. Hell while he's at it, invite Hekmatyar to jump in bed with him aswell, not like he hasn't done it before; this time, maybe the Taliban will follow aswell. The opportunistic and power hungry mindset from the 90s civil war is still clearly visible.

[1980s]

Karzai just made one of the biggest mistakes of his Presidency, and maybe even his life, one that might even cost him it at some point. It was too obvious what really led to Saleh's 'resignation' and i am glad that The Independent made a point to highlight that reason.

Meanwhile, friends of Mr Saleh say his resignation was the culmination of months of budding resentment towards Mr Karzai. "Amrullah Saleh had differences when it came to security issues with Karzai and also he had differences when it came to, for example, the latest jirga, when Karzai signed a decree that Taliban prisoners should be released," one confidant said. "The intelligence network made a lot of sacrifices to get some of these terrorists in prison. Instead of condemning the Taliban, Karzai praised them."

There was also the question of the spy network's politically awkward revelation that not only did many Taliban cells operate in and receive backing from Pakistan, but that Pakistan's intelligence agency had helped with Taliban suicide bombings on targets in Kabul, such as the Indian Embassy in 2008 and 2009, and a guesthouse used by Indian clientele earlier this year. "Pakistan has put several conditions" on collaborating with the Afghan government's plans for peace with the Taliban "and one of those was the removal of Amrullah Saleh as intelligence chief," Mr Saleh's friend said. "These different factors played in Karzai's decision to distance himself from the spy chief."

Mr Saleh himself told a news conference that the president had "lost confidence in our capability to provide security for the jirga and my explanation to the president was not convincing enough".

He added that he had resigned for "moral" reasons after Mr Karzai rejected his explanations. He said there were "dozens of other internal and external reasons" for his departure. Mr Saleh is understood to have tried to quit several times in the past, but until yesterday Mr Karzai had refused to let him go.

Full article - Blow for Karzai as top cabinet ministers quit - Asia, World - The Independent

Appeasement didnt work with Hitler, it wont work with the Taleban or their Pakistani masters either. Like the Nazis decades ago, the Taleban is hell-bent on war and conquest. Afterall, that is their only reason for even existing. Karzai may just find this out first-hand should he end up like Najibullah.

[Tronic]

Karzai just made one of the biggest mistakes of his Presidency, and maybe even his life, one that might even cost him it at some point. It was too obvious what really led to Saleh's 'resignation' and i am glad that The Independent made a point to highlight that reason.



Appeasement didnt work with Hitler, it wont work with the Taleban or their Pakistani masters either. Like the Nazis decades ago, the Taleban is hell-bent on war and conquest. Afterall, that is their only reason for even existing. Karzai may just find this out first-hand should he end up like Najibullah.

Well lets not forget that Karzai was once Taliban himself, so he's always had a soft corner for them, and I'm also sure has friends within.

[troung]

Afghan ex-spy boss opposes talking to Taliban
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writers Matthew Pennington, Associated Press Writers Wed Jun 9, 4:15 pm ET

KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan's ousted intelligence chief told The Associated Press on Wednesday that President Hamid Karzai is pursuing a dangerous strategy in seeking peace with the Taliban because the insurgents are giving nothing in return.

Amrullah Saleh said the Taliban have only responded to Karzai's conciliatory approach with "violence, destruction and intimidation."

Hours later, an explosion in southern Afghanistan killed 39 people and wounded dozens. It followed the downing of a NATO helicopter by the Taliban, which killed four American servicemen.

Speaking at his heavily secured Kabul home, Saleh said he did not want "a small terrorist group to dominate the political scene in Afghanistan."

"I am in favor of peace but I am against bowing to the Taliban," he said.

He also voiced concern over the Afghan leader's plan to free militant prisoners without prior screening by the National Directorate of Security which he led for six years, acting as the key partner of the CIA.

Saleh and Interior Minister Hanif Atmar — who was in charge of police — resigned Sunday after Karzai held them responsible for failing to prevent a militant attack last week on a national conference, or jirga, on how to reach peace with insurgents. Both men were highly regarded by Western officials.

Saleh's comments reflect deep unease among former figures in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, who have long been allied to Karzai but oppose his efforts to negotiate with Taliban leaders. The Taliban have demanded that NATO and U.S. forces withdraw before any talks.

Nearly nine years after the Northern Alliance, backed by the U.S., forced the Taliban regime from power, the Islamist movement has bounced back. Violence is at record levels despite an increase in U.S. forces aimed at turning the war around.

The blast Wednesday night ripped through a wedding party in Kandahar province, killing 39 people and wounding more than 70, according to the provincial executive director Mohammad Annus. The cause was not known. "We don't know if it was a suicide attack, or a bombardment or something else," Annus said.

At least 17 U.S. service members have been killed in the past four days, including the four Americans who died Wednesday when insurgents in southern Helmand province's Sangin district — one of the most volatile in the country — shot down a NATO helicopter.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, with spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi saying militants hit the aircraft with two rockets.

NATO said the four died "after their helicopter was brought down by hostile fire." U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph T. Breasseale confirmed they were Americans, but declined to give more details.

Also Wednesday, another NATO service member died in a homemade bomb attack. The Ministry of Defense in London said he was British.

A total of 29 NATO troops have been killed this month, including 10 on Monday alone — seven of them Americans. It was the deadliest day for the military alliance in seven months.

During the interview, Saleh described Pakistan as "enemy No. 1" for its alleged support of the Taliban and hosting of some of its leaders, including the movement's founder and supreme chief Mullah Mohammad Omar. Pakistan denies harboring militants and arrested the Taliban's No. 2 figure in Karachi earlier this year.

Saleh said Karzai shared this tough view of Pakistan but was now taking a "softer" approach as he tried to reconcile with the Taliban.

Analysts say the removal of Saleh and Interior Minister Atmar — two of Karzai's top three security officials — could cause upheaval in their agencies.

While Saleh maintained his resignation was not forced, he said the president's acceptance of it "was not a surprise."

Saleh said Karzai had "pushed aside and did not pay attention to" information presented to him about security measures surrounding last week's jirga in Kabul.

"Professionally, that was an insult to us," Saleh said.

None of the jirga's 1,500 delegates — including lawmakers, tribal and provincial chiefs — was hurt in the assault. The two attackers were killed in a gunbattle with security forces about a mile from the venue, and those behind the attack — allegedly members of the Pakistan-based Haqqani network — were arrested.

In Pakistan on Wednesday, militants attacked dozens of trucks ferrying vehicles for NATO troops in Afghanistan. The bold assault near the capital, Islamabad, killed seven people and illustrated the vulnerability of a crucial U.S. military supply line.

The U.S. Embassy said about 30 trucks were damaged after they were set on fire on the main road leading to the Afghan border, about six miles (10 kilometers) from the capital. Many of the containers held military vehicles such as Humvees.

Keeping up a steady flow of supplies is crucial for NATO as it readies a major operation in the Taliban's heartland in Kandahar province — which lies next to Helmand, where the helicopter was shot down.

The operation is a key plank of the military strategy behind President Barack Obama's effort to end the Afghan war. Last December he ordered some 30,000 more U.S. troops to the country, and he wants to start bringing them home in July 2011.

Also key to that strategy is the effort to negotiate with the Taliban — a goal pushed by Karzai with increasing vigor since his re-election last year — although the U.S. is skeptical whether peace can succeed unless the Taliban are first weakened on the battlefield.

Karzai won endorsement from the jirga for his plan to offer incentives to the militants to lay down their arms and to seek talks with the Taliban leadership.

Saleh, who fought the Taliban regime with the Northern Alliance before its ouster in late 2001, voiced deep skepticism over the jirga, and said his relations with Karzai had been strained for several months.

"I have all along been advocating for a tougher stand against the criminals and the Taliban and demanding firmer justice," he said.

Asked if Karzai's reconciliation strategy was dangerous for the country, he said: "This one-sided peace? Yes."

He said it would cause "ambiguity and confusion in the government."

____

Associated Press writers Amir Shah, Rohan Sullivan and Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Mirwais Khan in Kandahar and Bahauddin Khan in Sangjani, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserve

[troung]

June 11, 2010
Karzai Is Said to Doubt West Can Defeat Taliban
By DEXTER FILKINS
Karzai Is Said to Doubt West Can Defeat Taliban - NYTimes.com
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two senior Afghan officials were showing President Hamid Karzai the evidence of the spectacular rocket attack on a nationwide peace conference earlier this month when Mr. Karzai told them that he believed the Taliban were not responsible.

“The president did not show any interest in the evidence — none — he treated it like a piece of dirt,” said Amrullah Saleh, then the director of the Afghan intelligence service.

Mr. Saleh declined to discuss Mr. Karzai’s reasoning in more detail. But a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Karzai suggested in the meeting that it might have been the Americans who carried it out.

Minutes after the exchange, Mr. Saleh and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, resigned — the most dramatic defection from Mr. Karzai’s government since he came to power nine years ago. Mr. Saleh and Mr. Atmar said they quit because Mr. Karzai made clear that he no longer considered them loyal.

But underlying the tensions, according to Mr. Saleh and Afghan and Western officials, was something more profound: That Mr. Karzai had lost faith in the Americans and NATO to prevail in Afghanistan.

For that reason, Mr. Saleh and other officials said, Mr. Karzai has been pressing to strike his own deal with the Taliban and the country’s archrival, Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime supporter. According to a former senior Afghan official, Mr. Karzai’s maneuverings involve secret negotiations with the Taliban outside the purview of American and NATO officials.

“The president has lost his confidence in the capability of either the coalition or his own government to protect this country,” Mr. Saleh said in an interview at his home. “President Karzai has never announced that NATO will lose, but the way that he does not proudly own the campaign shows that he doesn’t trust it is working.”

People close to the president say he began to lose confidence in the Americans last summer, after national elections in which independent monitors determined that nearly one million ballots had been stolen on Mr. Karzai’s behalf. The rift worsened in December, when President Obama announced that he intended to begin reducing the number of American troops by the summer of 2011.

“Karzai told me that he can’t trust the Americans to fix the situation here,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He believes they stole his legitimacy during the elections last year. And then they said publicly that they were going to leave.”

Mr. Karzai could not be reached for comment Friday.

If Mr. Karzai’s resolve to work closely with the United States and use his own army to fight the Taliban is weakening, that could present a problem for Mr. Obama. The American war strategy rests largely on clearing ground held by the Taliban so that Mr. Karzai’s army and government can move in, allowing the Americans to scale back their involvement in an increasingly unpopular and costly war.

Relations with Mr. Karzai have been rocky for some time, and international officials have expressed concern in the past that his decision making can be erratic. Last winter, Mr. Karzai accused NATO in a speech of ferrying Taliban fighters around northern Afghanistan in helicopters. Earlier this year, following criticism by the Obama administration, Mr. Karzai told a group of supporters that he might join the Taliban.

American officials tried to patch up their relationship with Mr. Karzai during his visit to the White House last month. Indeed, on many issues, like initiating contact with some Taliban leaders and persuading its fighters to change sides, Mr. Karzai and the Americans are on the same page.

But their motivations appear to differ starkly. The Americans and their NATO partners are pouring tens of thousands of additional troops into the country to weaken hard-core Taliban and force the group to the bargaining table. Mr. Karzai appears to believe that the American-led offensive cannot work.

At a news conference at the Presidential Palace this week, Mr. Karzai was asked about the Taliban’s role in the June 4 attack on the loya jirga and his faith in NATO. He declined to address either one.

“Who did it?” Mr. Karzai said of the attack. “It’s a question that our security organization can bring and prepare the answer.”

Asked if he had confidence in NATO, Mr. Karzai said he was grateful for the help and said the partnership was “working very, very well.” But he did not answer the question.

“We are continuing to work on improvements all around,” Mr. Karzai said, speaking in English and appearing next to David Cameron, the British prime minister.

A senior NATO official said the resignations of Mr. Atmar and Mr. Saleh, who had strong support from the NATO allies, were “extremely disruptive.”

The official said of Mr. Karzai, “My concern is, is he capable of being a wartime leader?”

The NATO official said that American commanders had given Mr. Karzai a dossier showing overwhelming evidence that the attack on the peace conference had been carried out by fighters loyal to Jalalhuddin Haqqani, one of the main leaders fighting under the Taliban’s umbrella.

“There was no doubt,” the official said.

The resignations of Mr. Saleh and Mr. Atmar revealed a deep fissure among Afghan leaders as to the best way to deal with the Taliban and with their patrons in Pakistan.

Mr. Saleh is a former aide to the late Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary commander who fought the Soviet Union and the Taliban. Many of Mr. Massoud’s former lieutenants, mostly ethnic Tajiks and now important leaders in northern Afghanistan, sat out the peace conference. Like Mr. Saleh, they favor a tough approach to negotiating with the Taliban and Pakistan.

Mr. Karzai, like the overwhelming majority of the Taliban, is an ethnic Pashtun. He appears now to favor a more conciliatory approach.

At the end of the loya jirga, Mr. Karzai announced the formation of a commission that would review the case of every Taliban fighter held in custody and release those who were not considered extremely dangerous. The commission, which would be led by several senior members of Mr. Karzai’s government, excluded the National Directorate of Security, the intelligence agency run by Mr. Saleh.

In the interview, Mr. Saleh said he took offense at the exclusion. His primary job is to understand the Taliban, he said; leaving his agency off the commission made him worry that Mr. Karzai might intend to release hardened Taliban fighters.

“His conclusion is — a lot of Taliban have been wrongly detained, they should be released,” Mr. Saleh said. “We are 10 years into the collapse of the Taliban — it means we don’t know who the enemy is. We wrongly detain people.”

Mr. Saleh also criticized the loya jirga. “Here is the meaning of the jirga,” Mr. Saleh said. “I don’t want to fight you. I even open the door to you. It was my mistake to push you into the mountains. The jirga was not a victory for the Afghan state, it was a victory for the Taliban.”

Mr. Karzai has been seeking to build bridges to the Taliban for months. Earlier this year, the president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, held secret meetings with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy commander, according to a former senior Afghan official.

According to Gen. Hilaluddin Hilal, the deputy interior minister in an earlier Karzai government, Ahmed Wali Karzai and Mr. Baradar met twice in January near Spin Boldak, a town on the border with Pakistan. The meeting was brokered by Mullah Essa Khakrezwal, the Taliban’s shadow governor of Kandahar Province, and Hafez Majid, a senior Taliban intelligence official, General Hilal said.

A Western analyst in Kabul confirmed General Hilal’s account. The senior NATO official said he was unaware of the meeting, as did Mr. Saleh. Ahmed Wali Karzai did not respond to e-mail queries on the meeting.

The resolution of that meeting was not clear, General Hilal said. Mr. Baradar was arrested in late January in a joint Pakistani-American raid in Karachi, Pakistan. But Mr. Karzai’s attempts to negotiate with the Taliban have continued, he said.

“He doesn’t think the Americans can afford to stay,” General Hilal said.

Mr. Saleh said that Mr. Karzai’s strategy also involved a more conciliatory line toward Pakistan. If true, this would amount to a sea change for Mr. Karzai, who has spent his nine years in office regularly accusing the Pakistanis of supporting the Taliban insurgency.

Mr. Saleh says he fears that Afghanistan will be forced into accepting what he called an “undignified deal” with Pakistan that will leave his country in a weakened state.

He said he considered Mr. Karzai a patriot. But he said the president was making a mistake if he planned to rely on Pakistani support. (Pakistani leaders have for years pressed Mr. Karzai to remove Mr. Saleh, whom they see as a hard-liner).

“They are weakening him under the disguise of respecting him. They will embrace a weak Afghan leader, but they will never respect him,” Mr. Saleh said.

[Tronic]

As I stated earlier, Karzai is just a weak power hungry leader; and worst of all, he does not deserve power if he wishes to take it forcefully in a country like Afghanistan. Afghanistan needed leaders like Ahmed Shah Massoud, it got Karzai.