Indian Defence Review

Islamabad has already begun to take steps to appease the Pashtuns by announcing that NWFP will henceforth be named Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.26 This is to impress upon the Pashtuns who live in NWFP outside of the tribal areas that like Punjab and Sindh, the province will be identified as the stronghold of ethnic Pashtuns living there. At best, this will have a cosmetic effect. However, the forces that would bring about the formation of Pashtunistan, if and when that takes place, will sweep away this secondary identity of the Pashtuns.

Pashtuns in Pakistan believe, and rightly so, that endless drone attacks launched by the American UAVs to eliminate Taliban and innocent citizens in North Waziristan almost on a regular basis were allowed by Islamabad at the behest of not only the Western forces but also the Pakistani army and ISI”¦

There is no doubt in the minds of those who interact with the Pakistani army personnel occupying high positions that the greatest concern among the top brass today is the Pashtun question once U.S.–NATO troops begin packing their bags. The decade-long presence of the foreign troops in Afghanistan, and their categorisation of all Pashtuns as the Taliban, and hence the enemy of the Western powers, has brought about a sea change in the cooperation between Afghan Pashtuns and the Pashtuns of Pakistan. Islamabad’s efforts to quell the Pakistani Pashtuns so that they do not actively get involved in helping the Afghan Pashtuns fighting the foreign troops have embittered the Pakistani Pashtuns. They consider the foreign forces in Afghanistan their principal enemy. Furthermore, they also perceive the Pakistani army as a collaborator of the foreign forces. They cite Pakistani army’s operation in the Swat Valley and in the tribal agencies of North Waziristan, Bajaur and Orakzai in particular, as playing second fiddle to the foreign “occupiers” and committing atrocities against its own people.

This is exactly the process that in the past led to Balochistan’s virtual separation from Pakistan. In addition, Pashtuns in Pakistan believe, and rightly so, that endless drone attacks launched by the American unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to eliminate Taliban and innocent citizens in North Waziristan almost on a regular basis were allowed by Islamabad at the behest of not only the Western forces27 but also the Pakistani army and ISI, who are involved as well in providing the necessary intelligence for the drone pilots to execute the attacks. This has further lowered the trust level between the Pakistani Pashtuns and Islamabad.

Also read: Salvaging America’s Botched Strategic Foray into Asia – I

Besides the ongoing war, which is steadily moving in favour of the Pashtuns fighting the foreign troops, two other forces have begun to emerge to give shape to the post-war Afghanistan. One such force is represented by Britain and Saudi Arabia. The second force, represented by Afghan president Karzai and Pakistan, is a counter to the other force.

The Clamour for Pashtunistan

The British–Saudi authorities are in the process of negotiating with what they portray as the “moderate” Taliban, who can be induced to share power with Afghan president Hamid Karzai in the post-U.S.–NATO Afghanistan. By categorising some Taliban as “moderate,” what Britain and the Saudis are presenting to Washington in particular are those Taliban who have been indoctrinated with the Wahabi version of orthodox Islam, propagated solely by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These Taliban are all Pashtuns who would be induced to demand a “Pashtunistan” over a period of time with the objective of combining the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan using the ethno-religious identity of the Pashtuns of two different countries separated by the nonfunctional Durand Line.

“¦.consider the foreign forces in Afghanistan their principal enemy. Furthermore, they also perceive the Pakistani army as a collaborator of the foreign forces.

Eventually, the formation of such a Pashtun nation will result in the Balkanisation of Afghanistan, since the ethnic groups that represent the Northern Alliance will find no reason to remain within Pashtunistan as second-class citizens and would be agreeable to a state of their own. This would be possible only if there is an assured economic patronage that would guarantee to kick-start the new states economic infrastructure and growth.

None of these developments will happen overnight, but the seeds of these have been laid and watered well during the ongoing 10-year-old Afghan War. The geopolitical ramifications have a greater spill off on the being of Pakistan when viewed in the light of the map of Pashtunistan projected on the Afghanistan government’s website (see Map 1). The fragmentation of Afghanistan could result in Pakistan being reduced to two of its existing provinces, Punjab and Sindh.

President Karzai and the Pakistani army are not seeking to counter the so-called “moderate” Taliban concept. As a result, they are presenting a group of powerful Pashtun insurgent commanders, such as Mullah Mohammad Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, to share power in Kabul with President Karzai—a Popalzai Pashtun from Kandahar. It seems this group will not be interested in demanding a Pashtunistan but they would seek control of Afghanistan in its present state. That is why Islamabad is promoting them and President Karzai, who does not want the partition of Afghanistan since he also has a support base within the Tajik-Hazara-Uzbek communities that helped him to stay in power for the last eight years, is negotiating to accommodate them. Again, this is a complicated process. What the actual outcome will be is difficult to assess at this nascent stage.

The fragmentation of Afghanistan could result in Pakistan being reduced to two of its existing provinces, Punjab and Sindh.

In tune with the old British colonial concept, billboards demanding Greater Pashtunistan have appeared in Swat Valley, Dera Ismail Khan and other areas of the NWFP (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) in recent days. The map of Greater Pashtunistan that has been circulated includes Balochistan, NWFP and Afghanistan. The Swat Valley, located in the northeastern part of the NWFP, has already become autonomous and has imposed Wahabi-style Islamic Sharia law, in violation of Pakistan’s constitution. For all practical purposes, Islamabad has handed the Swat Valley over to the Saudi-funded Wahabis. Since all these developments have occurred within a short span of eight years, one wonders what caused such rapid deterioration.

On 19 September 2007, a British historian who uses the pseudo name “Rumbold”28 said: “However much we try and dress it up, both Afghanistan and Pakistan are in the midst of civil wars. In Afghanistan, the situation is serious enough to warrant thousands of foreign troops assisting the Afghan army to hunt down the remnants of the Taliban and their allies. In Pakistan, tens of thousands of Pakistani troops, demoralized and under constant attack, are attempting to fight Al-Qaeda, local tribes and fugitive Taliban.”

The Swat Valley, located in the northeastern part of the NWFP, has already become autonomous and has imposed Wahabi-style Islamic Sharia law, in violation of Pakistans constitution.

“Both countries’ governments are fighting against the same people: the Pashtuns. Most Pashtuns live in Afghanistan and in the part of Pakistan known as the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). My proposal (albeit not a novel one), is to create a Pashtun homeland based in the NWFP and a sizeable section of Afghanistan,” Rumbold added.

He went on to say: “Partition in South Asia has had a chequered history, but it should be pointed out that the reason why the Pashtuns do not have their own country is because the British and Russians carved it up during the Great Game so that a buffer state could be created between British and Russian territory.”

Rumbold also made clear that “Pashtunistan would allow the British and the Americans to help consolidate the rest of Afghanistan. More importantly it would substantially reduce the chances of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of disgruntled Islamists. This should be the clincher for Britain and America. Pashtuns would be happy because they would have their own homeland, while those who chose to stay in other countries would have made a conscious effort to renew their loyalty to said country. Civil war is the most debilitating of any type of war, as it divides people of the same nation. Pashtunistan could put a stop to it.”

Echo in America

In the July–Sept 2008 issue of the US Military Intelligence Journal, an article titled “Secessionist Jihad: the Taliban’s struggle for Pashtunistan,” by Michael D. Holmes, pointed out29 “. . . One of the reasons for our failure to subdue the Taliban insurgency may be that we have not identified the proper causes behind it. We have labelled the Taliban a jihadist movement and ascribed motives to them based on religious traditionalist goals, in part because that is what the Taliban itself has stated. But had we looked deeper, we might have found that the root causes behind the enduring and resilient nature of the Taliban have very little to do with religion, and much to do with an ancient ethnic struggle between the Pashtun people, and virtually everyone else in the region. And much like the enduring struggles of the former Yugoslavia, religion has become a blanket for what, in reality, is an ethnic and cultural struggle between tribes in a zero-sum game to control territory.

“¦the chances of Pakistans nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of disgruntled Islamists. This should be the clincher for Britain and America.

“. . . By mentally segregating the Taliban as an ‘Afghan’ problem, by not addressing their roots of support inside the border with Pakistan, and by ignoring the obvious truth of their largely homogeneous ethnic composition, I believe that we have misdiagnosed not only the nature of their insurgency, but also the best way to deal with that insurgency. This approach has put us on the path of treating the symptom, but not the disease.

“As a result of this imprecision, we have applied a series of remedies designed to combat religious extremism (but not ethnic separatism) with lackluster results. However, had we correctly identified the ethnic nature of this conflict early on, and applied remedies designed to counter and combat an ethnic secessionist insurgency, and in so doing faced that transnational nature of ‘Pashtunistan,’ we would very likely have been more effective in combating them.

“Up to this point, we have viewed the Taliban as a Jihadist Muslim insurgency, composed largely of Pashtun tribesmen. I argue that what we should be doing is viewing and, more importantly, treating the Taliban as a Pashtun ethnic insurgency, composed largely of Jihadist Muslims.”

Holmes said, “Secessionist insurgencies seek to separate from their current state and establish new states based upon their political, ethnic, religious or whatever other feature they feel sets them apart from their current political peers. Some of the more notable insurgencies in history have been secessionist, to include our own American Revolution, the 1999 war in Kosovo, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.

“Given this definition, one might say that the Taliban could not possibly be secessionist. Everything it advocates speaks to a traditionalist mindset. It has actively advocated the unity of the Islamic umma; it does not wish to separate from Afghanistan, but to unite it under its banner, and nowhere in its creed does it advocate power for one group over another, but rather passionately it struggles for the greater Jihad and the unity of all under the banner of Mohammed. All of this is true, but it ignores the greater and deeper sources of discontent that fuel the Pashtun people’s support for this jihad; the transnational make up of the Taliban, and the dimension of their exclusion from the Pakistani elite. To understand this, one must view central Asia from a tribal, ethnic and historical perspective, without the artificiality of political boundaries.”

“”¦treating the Taliban as a Pashtun ethnic insurgency, composed largely of Jihadist Muslims.”

What is to be noted in this context is that the Pashtuns define themselves not by language but by adherence to an ancient code of conduct dating back to the pre-Islamic era. To anyone having dealt with Albanians and familiar with their Kanun of Lek Dukagjin, this Pashtunwali, or “Way of the Pashtuns,” is strikingly familiar. Like the Albanian Kanun, it might be described as the glue that binds these disparate people together as an ethnic group and the beginnings of an insight into the ethnic dimension of our war in Afghanistan.

This high point of Afghan–Pashtun power was short-lived as it ran headlong into the birth of the British Empire in India. For the next 190 years, the Afghans, and virtually everyone else in South Asia, began losing ground to first the British East India Company and then the British Empire proper. As the British expanded north and west, following the western rim of the Himalayan Mountains, they began having difficulties with the Muslim tribes of the “Northwest Frontier.” The people they called the “Pathans” and often subcategorised as Afridis, Yousafzai or a host of other names (most, by the way, Pashtun clan names) proved a constant source of instability.

In an effort to stabilise the frontier and prevent Russia from expanding and threatening India, Britain invaded Afghanistan three times. None of these expeditions ended well. By 1893, Britain gave up hope of controlling these tribal people. General Roberts (the hero of Kipling’s cynical poem on Bobs Bahadur) himself called the region “ungovernable” and commissioned a survey of that land which they could control and that which they could not. The resultant Durand Line more or less describes the southern boundary of Afghanistan today.

“¦there is an indigenous urge for independence and for a state that is strong within the tribal culture of the Pashtuns. This urge drove them to found Afghanistan in 1747 and is now drives some to seek a new country to be carved out of Pakistan.

The Durand Line was drawn by Westerners to the demands of Western governments with no regard to the facts or rights of the indigenous peoples. It cut across the heart of Pashtun tribal areas and while it allowed for a majority Pashtun ethnicity in Afghanistan, it created a minority Pashtun area in that part of India which would later become Pakistan. This gave rise to the problem of secession.

While the Pashtuns in Afghanistan have long been a major political power if not a clear majority, their kin in Pakistan have been excluded from power by the largely Urdu- and Punjabi-speaking city dwellers in Karachi and Islamabad. Although given a large degree of autonomy within the boundaries of the NWFP, some Pakistani Pashtuns have reacted to their minority status by demanding their own state—Pashtunistan.30

So, there is an indigenous urge for independence and for a state that is strong within the tribal culture of the Pashtuns. This urge drove them to found Afghanistan in 1747 and is now drives some to seek a new country to be carved out of Pakistan. But how did this become translated into an Islamic jihadist call for religious reform? There seems too large a gap between the impulse for secession and the call for jihad. But, not really.

Viewed from the context of tribal culture and a strong desire to be seen as a separate people, the turn to religion was an almost natural response. Tribal societies do not have strong leadership models, they exist in a “headless” state, and the Pashtuns are no exception to this.

As a tool to unite the Pashtun people, religion worked well.31 But it also had perhaps the unintended (there is no evidence to the contrary) consequence of covering the real reason behind the discontent—the urge for separatism—and spilling over into the larger non-Pashtun but religiously observant Muslim population in the region. This was further confused and muddled by historical events in Afghanistan which allowed the discontent of the Pakistani Pashtuns to spill over the border and helped unite the greater Pashtun tribe even further.

Taliban activity is now largely restricted to the Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan, and particularly the border region with Pakistans NWFP, from which it can stage and train for missions and operations inside Afghanistan.

While the Pakistani Pashtuns struggled with their minority status following partition in 1947, their cousins in Afghanistan had grown accustomed to being the ruling elite. Since the founding of the kingdom in 1747, Pashtuns had filled virtually all Afghan leadership positions. But in 1973, Shah Mohammed Zahir, a Pashtun, was overthrown and Afghanistan began its spiral downward to its current failed status, with a series of increasingly leftist and socialist governments. On the way downward, the Pashtuns were replaced as the power elite by Tajiks and other northern tribes eager for their turn at the helm. This climaxed with the 1979 Soviet invasion and the imposition of the Communist regime.

These events had the effect of pushing the Afghan Pashtuns in much the same way as their cousins across the border. Dispossessed of the power they once held and dominated by people they viewed as godless heathens, the Afghan Pashtuns turned inward to find their identity and unity in religion. Whether this came as a result of, or in parallel with, the natural retreat to Pakistan and their cousins to the south is immaterial to this discussion. What is important is that the war with the Soviets united the Pashtuns as few things had since the British left and gave a physical outlet to their secessionist urges.

As long as there was the common Soviet enemy, there was cooperation. But after the Soviets left, cracks began to appear in the coalition of tribes and ethnic groups as they began to struggle for power. And it was in this maelstrom that the natural advantages of size and the unity that language, culture and the appeal to the common religion began to once again favour the Afghan Pashtuns. Given their secure bases in Pashtun areas across the border and their large ethnic population within Afghanistan, the Taliban (as the Pashtun religious reformers now came to be known), with its agenda of a government inspired and led by the Koran also had great appeal for the non-Pashtun Muslims who, like everyone else, took the religious face of the movement as the truth and ignored the heavily Pashtun composition of the leadership. But as the Taliban swept into power, often hailed as liberators by the non-Pashtuns, cracks began to appear in the heretofore wholly religious façade.

Moreover, Pakistani extremist groups have functioned as umbrella organisations for other international terror groups that sought shelter in Afghanistan.

By the end of the Taliban’s reign, Afghanistan had once again separated along ethnic lines, with the Northern Alliance composed of Tajiks, Uzbeks and other northern ethnic groups opposing the Pashtun Taliban for political control. Taliban activity is now largely restricted to the Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan, and particularly the border region with Pakistan’s NWFP, from which it can stage and train for missions and operations inside Afghanistan. The Taliban is a transnational Pashtun ethnic group, which uses its bases in safe areas within Pakistan as a sanctuary to continue its fight for a homeland encompassing Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan and essentially to re-establish the empire created by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747.

Where are its roots?

The answers to that question can be found in the almost 60-plus years of British rule in that part of the subcontinent, prior to the formation of Pakistan in 1947, and in the continuance of British colonial policy towards that area, by Pakistani leaders.

By pursuing the old colonial policy towards the tribal areas, Pakistani leaders have opened a floodgate to various forces in Britain who would like the area separated from Pakistan to form a buffer between oil- and gas-rich central Asia and to the Saudi-funded Wahabis who were on a rampage recruiting terrorists and setting up Islamic schools (madrassas) to convert moderate Muslims to hard-core Salafism in Pakistan and central Asia, with the plan to set up an Islamic umma (nation) under a caliphate.

Islamic forces of Pakistan have created and nurtured this syndrome in the madrassas where the Taliban from Afghanistan received their education.

The Taliban, by hosting bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, became an integral part of Sunni fundamentalist mythology and its international networks, and Afghanistan became a place where extremists from around the world could meet safely, share ideas, develop strategies and receive training—a physical base of terror. Moreover, Pakistani extremist groups have functioned as umbrella organisations for other international terror groups that sought shelter in Afghanistan.

Ehsan Ahrari, a U.S.-based analyst, called this phenomenon the “Taliban syndrome”—the movement to create an Islamic order in Afghanistan based on a blend of strict observance of Islam from Saudi Arabia’s salafiyya (puritanical) tradition. Islamic forces of Pakistan have created and nurtured this syndrome in the madrassas where the Taliban (“students” in Farsi) from Afghanistan received their education. Since the chief thrust of this education is on Islam and the need for jihad (holy war) to establish an Islamic government, the Taliban members became firm believers and fervent practitioners of this training.32

Britain and the Muslims

The fallout of the Anglo-Muslim relationship during the British imperial era and its linkages to the Whitehall’s grand strategy the “Great Game” continue to linger and shape London’s strategic objectives and policies to date. Nostalgia at the loss of its Empire is replaced by its influencing its Western allies to continue to play the Muslim card, secure the Pamir Knot and secure energy resources for its continued well-being. There has been a distinct continuity of London’s policies during and after the loss of the Empire to date.

Since the chief thrust of this education is on Islam and the need for jihad to establish an Islamic government, the Taliban members became firm believers and fervent practitioners of this training.

The British, after 1842, launched glorified punitive raids against Afghanistan rather than colonising expeditions. In the other two Anglo-Afghan wars, in 1878–1880 and 1919, the British destroyed Afghan armies and terrorised the hapless region, particularly with air power in the latter. They suffered few military setbacks and scored remarkable victories, such as the Battle of Kandahar in 1880 and the brilliant siege of Sherpur. The kill ratio was typically colonial. It is, therefore, something of a perversity that the British should have come to regard Afghanistan as their “graveyard” when the graves they left there were mostly Afghan.33

An Indian viceroy like Lord Curzon was arguably a more sophisticated orientalist than anyone in the Bush or Obama administrations by a vast margin. The British knew how to manipulate societies they did not control militarily, setting up devious alliances and systems of bribery that held their foes in check without overbearing force. They were able to play the “great game” against the Russians and keep India theirs without waging ruinous wars. Yet, they were also prey to the strange delusions that seem to dog Western powers when they get involved in Asia.34

The partition of India, and the formation of Pakistan, a Muslim nation, by the British Raj was not done because the British liked Muslims. The British had slaughtered the Muslims in the thousands in 1857, when the Hindus and Muslims joined hands under the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, to drive out the feringhee (white-skinned foreigners). Those who remember that untold part of history of the Indian independence movement talk of piles of bodies lying in the streets of Delhi, slaughtered by British soldiers. Most of them were Muslims. The Muslims were “traitors” aspiring to reinstate the “despicable” and “corrupt” Mughal dynasty, London screamed.

The key to the British Empire’s financial success was its ability to manipulate Islam. The British Empire builders eliminated the Islamic caliphate, created nations by drawing lines on the sands of Arabia, eliminated some nations and partitioned others to create Islamic nations. Britain was aware that the oil fields of Arabia would be a source of great power in the post–World War II decades. The western part of British India bordered Muslim central Asia, another major source of oil and gas, bordering Russia and Muslim Afghanistan. British India also bordered Islamic Iran and the Persian Gulf—the doorway to the oil fields of Arabia. In order to keep its future options open, Balochistan, bordering northeastern Iran, and the tribal Pashtun–dominated areas bordering Afghanistan remained as British protectorates.

Pakistan was created by the gamesmen in London because they wanted a weak Muslim state sandwiched between the oil-rich central Asia and the Middle East that would depend heavily on the mighty British military.

So, when the break-up of British India was planned by Churchill and others, Balochistan was not a problem. The problem was the Pashtun-dominated NWFP35, which was led by a pro-Congress Party leadership, and had wanted to join a Hindu-majority India.

What London wanted was to deny the large Hindu-dominated India from having common borders with Russia, or central Asia. That could make it too powerful and, worst of all, energy independent. Pakistan was created by the gamesmen in London because they wanted a weak Muslim state sandwiched between the oil-rich central Asia and the Middle East that would depend heavily on the mighty British military. The Cold War period held this arrangement in place, to the satisfaction of the British. The Kashmir dispute, triggered from London to cut off Indian access to Afghanistan, served the British policymakers well.

But the post–Cold War days are different. China is rising in the north and seeking entry into the Persian Gulf and central Asia through the western part of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. China has a long-term plan to build infrastructure in this area to bring resources into its vast, but thinly populated, western region that extends from the Eastern borders of Kazakhstan to Shaanxi province deep inside China.36

Britain wants another partition of Pakistan. Whether Washington wants it, or not, it is playing second fiddle to this absurd policy. This time, a new nation is supposed to emerge—a weak and disoriented nation born out of violence, just the way the partition of British India occurred. This nation will consist of Pashtun-dominated NWFP and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)—both situated west of Indus River and bordering the British-drawn disputed Durand Line, which allegedly separates Afghanistan from Pakistan. This area would merge with the Pashtun-dominated eastern, central and southern Afghanistan to form Pashtunistan. Historians point out that the British, during their Raj days in the subcontinent, had cut up the same Pashtunistan to create a buffer in the form of Afghanistan between Czarist Russia and British India.

British Intelligence’s Modus Operandi vis-à-vis Afghanistan

“The terrorist threat to Britain is partly a ‘blowback’, resulting from a web of British covert operations with militant Islamist groups stretching back decades. And while terrorism is held up as the country’s biggest security challenge, Whitehall’s collusion with radical Islam is continuing. . . . Two of the four London bombers were trained in Pakistani camps run by the Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HUM) terrorist group, which has long been sponsored by Pakistan to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. Britain not only arms and trains Pakistan but in the past provided covert aid benefiting the HUM. . . . Many HUM militants were instructed by an insurgent faction that Britain was covertly training and arming with anti-aircraft missiles.”37

Britain wants another partition of Pakistan. Whether Washington wants it, or not, it is playing second fiddle to this absurd policy.

Broadly speaking, the objective of London in setting up a Pashtunistan is to secure a firm grip over a country sandwiched between central Asia and the Middle East—two oil- and natural-gas-rich regions. In addition, such a nation will be bordering Iran, considered by London as an avowed civilisational enemy. London’s reading is that if it brings about the existence of Pashtunistan, yet another weak nation born in a hostile region, it will depend heavily on Britain. Britain, in return, will make way for the United States to set up bases and pick up the expenses to be incurred by this new and weak nation.

However, in achieving such an objective in that area, Britain uses three of its weapons: First, the proliferation of opium in southern Afghanistan—the area expected to provide muscle for the Pashtunistan demand. Afghan president Karzai pointed out on a number of occasions that the proliferation of opium in Helmand province of Afghanistan began in earnest in 2005, when the British troops moved into Helmand province for maintenance of its security. Helmand’s major opium trading centres are Sangin, Musa Qala, Garmsir, Baghran, Kajaki and Nad Ali. In 2005, British troops captured five of these six trading centres, and subsequently the opium production skyrocketed in Helmand.

London makes clear to the Pashtuns aspiring for Pashtunistan that their opium income will remain intact only if Britain is allowed in remain on the saddle of affairs in Pashtunistan.

The opium economy serves Britain well. During the eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century British Raj, more than 50 per cent of the now-defunct British Empire’s income was generated from Bengal, Bihar and Malwa opium. Opium is unaccounted for cash of large sums and is used to enhance liquidity in the bankrupt banks, as well as to finance various terrorist and secessionist groups working on behalf of London. According to the United Nations Office of Drug and Crimes (UNODC) chief, Antonio Mario Costa, the Afghan drugs, after it is retailed in the streets of western European cities, generate $400 billion annually.38 This entire amount is off the book, and Mario Costa said that this amount becomes the bread and butter of many reputed banks after the money gets laundered through offshore banks.

In December 2007, senior Afghan government officials told reporters that two MI6 agents were expelled from the country, at the behest of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), after they were caught funding Taliban units. The two alleged MI6 agents, Mervyn Patterson and Michael Semple, left Afghanistan on 27 December on charges that they posed a threat to the country’s national security. Patterson worked for the United Nations, and Semple worked for the European Union. Both men were Afghan specialists, who had been operating in the country for over 20 years. An unnamed Afghan government official told the London Sunday Telegraph that “this warning” that the men were financing the Taliban for at least 10 months, “came from the Americans.” The London Times, on 30 December 2007, added that when Patterson and Semple were arrested, they had $150,000 with them, which was to be given to Taliban commanders in the Musa Qala region, which was under British troops at the time.39

Some Pakistani-based militant groups are reported to still scout for recruits at mosques among Muslim communities in Britain.

On 20 April 2010, an Afghan member of Parliament, Nasimeh Niazi, told the Fars News Agency (FNA) that the foreign forces deployed in Afghanistan were involved in the production and trafficking of illicit drugs in the country, adding that the British troops have even trained opium experts. Britain deployed 7,000 troops in Helmand province beginning in 2006. Helmand province, where almost 50 per cent of Afghanistan’s opium is produced, began to register huge growth in opium production that year. In 2007, it reached a level of 4,400 tons, which is almost the amount entire the world consumes annually. Productivity of opium per hectare, aided by British research, has grown enormously. Ms. Niazi also pointed out that Helmand province in southwestern Afghanistan has been transformed into a profitable centre for foreign states to earn an expense fund for their deployment in the country. Heroine-production labs in Helmand, which did not exist before the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, are now plentiful and work overtly, Niazi added.40

In addition, London makes clear to the Pashtuns aspiring for Pashtunistan that their opium income will remain intact only if Britain is allowed in remain on the saddle of affairs in Pashtunistan.

“¦following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistans ISI, Britains MI6 and Americas CIA joined hands to recruit Arabs to help the Afghan mujahideen fight the Red Army.

The second weapon Britain is using in Afghanistan is its huge reserves of educated Muslims residing in Britain. Over the years, many reports have emerged indicating a growing number British Muslims operating in Afghanistan41 and in the border areas of Pakistan. British military sources said (Foreign Policy, 15 June 2009) a terrorist found in Afghanistan was with a tattoo of a British soccer club, indicating the individual is from West Midlands of England. The British military source said: “We’ve known for a long time that foreign fighters, many with thick Birmingham accents, have been recruited to fight against us for the Taliban. Some of the linguistics specialists have picked up West Midland and Manchester accents too.”

These British Muslims, located by British military authorities in Afghanistan, were part of the MI6-trained operators. Some Pakistani-based militant groups are reported to still scout for recruits at mosques among Muslim communities in Britain.42 Smaller British mosques have their own links with madrassas in the Punjab and other regions of Pakistan though they insist these are genuine schools of Koranic study, not terror training camps.

Well-known militant groups, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Harkat ul Mujahideen, have operated openly in the past and in some cases with the military’s support and boasted of their British recruits (Times of London, 14 July 2005).

Omar Saeed Sheikh was originally recruited by British intelligence agency, MI6, while studying at the LSE. He was seen with Islamic fundamentalists and was instrumental in recruiting students around London to the cause.

In early 1980s, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan’s ISI, Britain’s MI6 and America’s CIA joined hands to recruit Arabs to help the Afghan mujahideen fight the Red Army. It is at this time a tacit agreement developed between ISI and MI6 allowing the ISI to recruit from British mosques. One such mosque was London’s notorious Finsbury Mosque under Abu Hamza al-Masri. Subsequently, it was revealed that al-Masri had been working with two branches of the British security services, the police’s Special Branch and MI5, the domestic counterintelligence service. The relationships continued for several years, and there were at least seven meetings between Abu Hamza and MI5 between 1997 and 2000.43 Based on records of the meetings, British authors Daniel O’Neill and Sean McGrory described the relationship as “respectful, polite, and often cooperative.”

A group of recruits at the radical Finsbury Park mosque in London, which is run by British intelligence informer and radical London imam Abu Hamza al-Masri, were groomed as suicide bombers.

British authors Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory later commented: “It was in north London that the suicide bombers were provided with money, documents, and the names of the contacts who would steer them to the intended targets in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, and the cities of Europe.”44 In addition to being an informer for the British, Abu Hamza was under surveillance by numerous intelligence services, including the same British ones he worked for. What the British authorities knew of this squad, and whether they attempted to do anything about it, is not known.

Take the case of Omar Saeed Sheikh.45 In the years 1987–1989, Omar Saeed Sheikh attended school in Pakistan, where his family had relocated, before returning to the United Kingdom to continue his studies. After graduating Forest School, Omar Saeed Sheikh enrolled at London School of Economics (LSE), in October 1992, where he studied applied mathematics and economics. Omar Saeed Sheikh was originally recruited by British intelligence agency, MI6, while studying at the LSE. He was seen with Islamic fundamentalists and was instrumental in recruiting students around London to the cause. It is unclear whether he was recruited to MI6 because of his Islamic connections or mingled in Islamic circle as an MI6 agent. Omar Saeed Sheikh was reportedly sent to Bosnia as an aid worker by MI6 to engage in jihadi operations.

The row centred on the continued violence in Helmand province, where British troops were based, and Londons refusal to acknowledge publicly Pakistans role in supporting the Taliban.

He returned to Pakistan in 1993 and began to operate as an ISI agent. By 1994, he was running training camps in Afghanistan. He was arrested and served time in prison for the 1994 abduction of three British nationals in India. In prison, he got acquainted with Aftab Ansari. Omar Saeed Sheikh was released from jail on 31 December 1999 as part of the Flight 814 hostage deal and provided safe passage to Pakistan. Omar Saeed Sheikh associated himself to the Taliban and al-Qaeda and operated hand in glove with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in the abduction and assassination on 1 February 2002 of the American journalist Daniel Pearl.46

Britain’s other weapon is the fundamentalist Islamic groups that it harbours. Two of these groups, Tablighi Jamaat47 and Hizb ut-Tahrir, are active within Pakistan, promoting Islamic caliphate. These groups are funded mostly by Saudis and Kuwaitis. Times Online (UK), on 4 July 2009, came out with a revealing article “British Islamists plot against Pakistan.” In that article, it states:

“British militants are pushing for the overthrow of the Pakistani state. Followers of the fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahrir have called for a ‘bloodless military coup’ in Islamabad and the creation of the caliphate in which strict Islamic laws would be rigorously enforced. . . .

“At Lahore’s Superior College, where Muqeem has set up a Hizb ut-Tahrir student group, he said the organisation’s aim was to subject Muslim and western countries to Islamic rule under sharia law, ‘by force’ if necessary. . . .

Karzai accused Britain of “compromising” with Islamabad because of its need for cooperation from Pakistans security services to infiltrate terrorist groups involving British Muslims.

“He added that Islamic rule would be spread through ‘indoctrination’ and by ‘military means’ if non-Muslim countries refused to bow to it. ‘Waging war’ would be part of the caliphate’s foreign policy.

“One of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s strategies in Pakistan is to influence military officers, he revealed.

“Shahzad Sheikh, a Pakistani recruit and the group’s official spokesman in Karachi, talked openly about persuading the army to instigate a ‘bloodless coup’ against the present government who, he said, were ‘worse than the Taliban.’

“‘It is the military who hold the power (in Pakistan) and we are asking them to give their allegiance to Hizb ut-Tahrir,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain to you in detail how we are trying to influence the military . . . We never disclose our methodology of change. You may say it’s a coup.’

“In 2003 four army officers were arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of being linked to extremist groups, although the groups and men have not been named. A Hizb ut-Tahrir insider at the time claims they were recruited by the organization’s ‘Pakistan team’ while training at Sandhurst in England.”48

Tablighi Jamaat, which originated in the Indian subcontinent during the days of the British Raj days, promotes Deobandi variety of Sunni Islam. Reports indicate that the Tabligh has at least 10,000 of its members in Kyrgyzstan alone. The New York Times once quoted an FBI official claiming the Jamaat a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda. The police in the UK also carried out interrogations based on information that Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the London bombers of 7/7, had frequented the Tablighi headquarters in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai had long been battling the British design in Afghanistan. Back in 2007, some of Karzai’s closest advisers had accused Britain of conspiring with Pakistan to hand over southern Afghanistan. The deputy head of mission at the British embassy was in such a heated argument with the president that it was feared he would be expelled. Karzai’s chief of staff, Jawed Ludin, was forced to resign after his attempts to defend Britain led to accusations that he was a British spy. The row centred on the continued violence in Helmand province, where British troops were based, and London’s refusal to acknowledge publicly Pakistan’s role in supporting the Taliban. Karzai accused Britain of “compromising” with Islamabad because of its need for cooperation from Pakistan’s security services to infiltrate terrorist groups involving British Muslims.49

Continued…: Salvaging America’s  Botched Strategic Foray into Asia – III