The Taliban’s Shadowy Partners
Dec 9, 2009 2 Comments ›› Erik Wong
War On Terror: The anti-war crowd says the small number of enemy fighters inside Afghanistan doesn’t justify sending 30,000 fresh troops there. They fail to understand the larger problem.
Sen. Barbara Boxer complains al-Qaida is scarcely in Afghanistan. She cites an intelligence report leaked to ABC News that only 100 fighters are actually present inside the country, along with several thousand Taliban fighters.
“I do not support adding more troops,” the California Democrat argued, “because there are now 200,000 American, NATO and Afghan forces fighting roughly 20,000 Taliban and less than 100 al-Qaida.”
In other words, why are we even over there?
What Boxer and other war critics fail to understand is there’s almost an endless supply of enemy fighters streaming across the border from neighboring Pakistan, where they’re actually based.
In fact, it’s an open secret the Taliban are headquartered across the border in the city of Quetta, Pakistan, where they operate openly under the aegis of Pakistani intelligence — and the financial sponsorship of the Saudis.
Sending more troops to Afghanistan is a necessary, albeit unfortunate, rear-guard action against marauding Taliban fighters armed, trained, supplied and deployed from Quetta — and funded from Riyadh.
NATO and U.S. military command know this. They’ve complained about it over and over in military action reports. So have Treasury officials regarding Saudi funding of the Taliban.
“Saudi Arabia today remains the location where more money is going to terrorism — to Sunni terror groups and the Taliban — than any other place in the world,” testified Stuart Levey, Treasury undersecretary.
Quetta is just across the mountains from Kandahar, Afghanistan, where so many U.S. troops have died. Islamabad refuses to move on the Taliban hub, despite increased pressure from the Obama administration. While it’s cracking down on groups targeting the Pakistani government, it’s giving a pass to those attacking U.S. and Afghan forces.
Islamabad has led us to believe that the Taliban problem is confined to the lawless tribal region along the Afghan border. But in fact, the Taliban leadership is holed up outside the tribal areas in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.
Pakistani intelligence views Taliban chief Mullah Omar an asset ready to be redeployed in Afghanistan once the U.S. inevitably leaves the country. They had groomed and installed him as Afghan strongman prior to 9/11 to check Indian influence in the region.
There are now reports that Omar has been moved from Quetta to Karachi to keep him safe from U.S. drone attacks.
