US cancels plan to attack Qandahar

As expected General Petraeus has canceled the plans to attack Qandahar. The attack doesn’t make any sense while Mr. Hamid Karzai is trying to build relationships with the Afghan National Resistence (aka Taliban).

He has decided a full-scale military encirclement and invasion – as American troops had done in Iraq’s Fallujah – was not an appropriate model to tackle the Taliban in the southern capital.

Gen Petraeus’s decision to revise the entire strategy comes just weeks after he arrived in Afghanistan following the abrupt dismissal of Gen Stanley McChrystal for insubordination.

Gen McChrystal had planned a summer conquest of the Taliban in Kandahar to reinvigorate the battle against the Taliban.

But the operation has been repeatedly delayed by concerns that it would not adequately restore the confidence of city residents in the security forces.

Gen Petraeus is reported to believe that the operation must be a broad-ranging counter-insurgency campaign, involving more troops working with local militias.

The plan he inherited was criticised for placing too much emphasis on targeted assassinations of key insurgent leaders and not enough on winning over local residents.

Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said yesterday that the US-led strategy in southern Afghanistan was undergoing sweeping changes.

“Kandahar is not a military operation like Fallujah,” Mr Holbrooke said. “We have Gen David Petraeus looking at the plan, scrubbing it down, looking at it again.”

President Hamid Karzai has bolstered Gen Petraeus’s efforts by agreeing to a US proposal to pay defectors from the Taliban to form local defence militias.

Mr Holbrooke, who oversees the civilian component of the American campaign in Afghanistan, has been described by Gen Petraeus as his “wing man” in the effort to reverse Taliban gains.

He said that the changes of strategy in the area also included a decision not to destroy poppy crops this year, an action that had in the past “driven” farmers into alliance with the Taliban.

He also said that the Afghan police force in Marjah – which now numbers 60 – could not yet replace thousands of US Marines. Efforts to stabilise Helmand’s Marjah have been bogged down by stronger resistance.

Gen Petraeus recruited prominent military experts who assisted him in the surge of forces that brought stability to Iraq.

Stephen Biddle, a military strategist at the US Council for Foreign Relations, coauthored as suggestion that the US would be successful in Afghanistan if it could set up a strong local government in places like Kandahar.

Defections from the Taliban are crucial to the goal of ending the war within four years but Mr Holbrooke said only insurgent groups that had split with al-Qaeda, and willing to work within the framework of the Afghan constitution would be approached.

More effort was being put into recruiting local allies on a district by district basis.

“The reintegration policy is the key to a successful counter-insurgency campaign,” he said. “As for reconciliation, it’s out there somewhere. We’ve talked about it. The US will support Afghan-led reconciliation and by that we mean we need to know what’s going on. Not much is going on now, and nothing is going on with the United States.”

Mr Holbrooke said Pakistan had dramatically increased its co-operation with the US in the battle against the Taliban but he criticised Islamabad’s continuing support for the Haqqani network of insurgents.

“Without Pakistan’s participation, this (Afghan) war could go on indefinitely,” he said. “There’s much more co-operation at every level

“But I don’t want to mislead you, it is not yet where we hope it will be. What we talk about is the Haqqani network. Let’s be very specific. It’s a real problem.” Guardian by Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Published: 9:00PM BST 23 Jul 2010

And now Krishna clears ISI of terror charges in India

— disapproves Home Secy’s remark on ISI’s role in Mumbai attacks

— snubs Pillai over irresponsible statement

From Christina Palmer

NEW DELHI—Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Wednesday rued that home secretary G K Pillai’s remarks about the role of the ISI in 26/11 attack were made on the eve of his talks with Pakistan.

“Mr Pillai could have waited till I came back to issue a statement. Perhaps it would have been wiser if that statement had not been made just on the eve of my visit,” Krishna said in an interview to a television channel, making public his displeasure with Pillai for the first time.

Pillai had commented that the Mumbai carnage of November 28, 2008, was planned by the ISI “from beginning to end”. “When two foreign ministers are meeting after the Mumbai attack, there was a special significance for this meeting,” Krishna said.

“Everyone who was privy to whatever was happening in government of India ought to have known that the right kind of atmosphere from India’s side should have been created for the talks to go on in a very normal manner, but unfortunately this episode happened,” he added.

“Well, I have had some discussions with the prime minister,” Krishna replied when asked if he had conveyed his dissatisfaction over Pillai’s remarks to the prime minister.

After his talks with Krishna in Islamabad on July 15, Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said at a joint press conference that the remarks made by India’s home secretary were not “helpful” for better relations when a journalist asked him about Pakistan’s action against Hafeez Saeed, the suspected mastermind of the Mumbai attack.

The next day, Krishna told reporters in Delhi that there was no comparison with Saeed and Pillai as the former was crying jihad against India.

Krishna’s criticism of Pillai has brought out in the open differences of perception within the government over engagement with Pakistan. At a seminar in New Delhi on Tuesday, Menon had endorsed Pillai’s remarks by pointing out links between the official establishment and the existing intelligence agencies. Krishna, however, was also critical of Qureshi’s abrasive style in his interaction with the media.

“We should understand the spirit of Thimphu and spirit of Thimphu was to make earnest effort to bring about reconciliation between two countries and I do not want that spirit to be eroded even by a remotest possible way,” he said.

“I think we can put forward any contention that a country can face in a most forceful way but there has to be dignity, there has to be civility and civility is certainly no weakness,” he added.

Even when Krishna was in Islamabad on July 16, Qureshi held a press conference with Pakistani journalists and criticised India for its selectively focusing on terror and sidelining other vital bilateral issues like Kashmir.

Indo-Ozzie spat continues: Another Indian beaten up

An Indian was attacked by six youths here resulting in serious facial injuries after he got involved in a brawl trying to save a compatriot from being beaten up, the latest in a series of assaults on the community in Australia.

24-year-old Bharat Thapar is awaiting surgery in a local hospital following the last night incident which took place in a Melbourne suburb.

Thapar saw another Indian, Ratan, being bashed up last night near Carnish Road in Oakleigh South, Sumeet, a friend of the victim, said. “He stopped his car and came out to stop the fight. But the youths instead took on him.”

“Bharat has received some serious face injuries and he is now waiting for a surgery as advised by doctors in Monash Hospital where he is admitted to,” Sumeet said.

Sumeet said that Thapar appears to have suffered multiple fractures in jaw which doctors intend to operate on as early as possible.

While police arrived on the scene and called an ambulance for the victim, they allowed the attackers to leave, he said.

Thapar moved to Australia three years ago from Panipat in Haryana.
The last night attack on Thapar is the latest in a slew of assaults against Indians in Australia, mostly in Melbourne.

More than 100 attacks have been reported against Indians in this country since June last year. Another Indian student attacked in Australia
Melbourne, Jul 20 (PTI)

Afghanistan strategic partnership with Pakistan

KABUL — At the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul these days, a visitor is likely to be handed a booklet about the two countries by Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq titled “The Conjoined Twins.”

But unlike in other periods in the fraught Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship, when they might have wanted surgical separation, both sides say they are happy to be locked together.

“Pakistan and Afghanistan are brothers,” Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said in Kabul on Monday. “We have improved our relations considerably.”

A transit trade deal reached by the two neighbors Sunday is the latest milestone in a rapidly changing relationship long characterized by distrust and ill will — and one that could have broad consequences for how they confront their shared Taliban insurgency. Officials from both countries now speak with marked optimism about the prospects for collaboration.

“It’s a paradigm shift,” Sadiq said in an interview last week. “We see a lot more confidence in each other, a lot more cooperation in very sensitive fields.”

“We now have a better relationship with Pakistan,” a senior Afghan official said. “There is a new willingness on both sides that we should resolve the [Taliban] problem. We are both suffering from this menace.”

Even before Pakistan agreed to allow Afghan trucks to transport goods through its country to the Indian border, a potential boon for Afghan agricultural exports, several signs pointed to a thaw in the rivalry between the wary neighbors, who share one of the world’s most volatile borders.

Critics of Afghan President Hamid Karzai remain skeptical, however, that Pakistan will commit to destroying elements of the Taliban network, which senior U.S. officials think is supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency to some degree.

“We know that Mr. Karzai is in a very dangerous game that he cannot win. It’s impossible,” said Saleh Mohammad Registani, an Afghan lawmaker. “This game is controlled by Pakistan.”
Strategic partnership

Pakistani officials trace the improvement in ties to 2008, after the departure of President Pervez Musharraf, who had a troubled relationship with Karzai. The next year, Pakistan stayed neutral during the political crisis that followed Afghanistan’s fraud-marred presidential election, Pakistani officials said. Karzai blamed the West for undermining his chances.

Other officials familiar with Karzai’s thinking say he also has lost faith in NATO forces’ ability to defeat the insurgency and has turned to Pakistan to help broker a deal to end the conflict.

Last year, Karzai agreed to allow Afghan students to accept scholarships to study in Pakistan — a move that will push the number of Afghan graduate students in Pakistan from about 6,000 to 8,000, Sadiq said. Three weeks ago, Karzai agreed to send Afghan military officers across the border to be trained by the Pakistani military. Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, told reporters in Kabul that the first batch of 20 Afghan officers would leave for Pakistan soon.

“President Karzai used to tell them, half in jest and half seriously, ‘I’m not going to send students or military officers to Pakistan as long as you send suicide bombers into Afghanistan,’ ” said a former diplomat who worked in Kabul. “Without any assurance that’s not going to happen, he’s given the green light for this.”

There has also been accelerated diplomacy at the highest levels, with Karzai traveling to Islamabad in March and recent visits to Kabul by Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the head of the Pakistani army, and Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, Pakistan’s intelligence chief, to discuss potential cooperation on jump-starting negotiations with the Taliban.
A friendly ‘facilitator’

Those developments have raised concern that Karzai is moving faster than many Afghans would like to try to broker a political deal that could bring the Taliban back into the government. Some officials in Karzai’s office say they fear that Pakistan might not negotiate sincerely and will use its influence with the Taliban in ways that hurt Afghans.

“It all depends on the Pakistanis — they have to prove their honesty,” one senior Afghan official said. “If they’re not honest, this will erupt.”

Qureshi said Monday that Pakistan wants the modest role of “facilitator.” During Karzai’s visit to Islamabad in March, Pakistani officials asked the Afghan president to develop a “strategic framework” — including proposals for negotiating with the Taliban. They are now waiting for the Afghans “to share their plans and programs with us,” Qureshi said.

“It entirely depends on the Afghan government, what they want us to do. We have no specific agenda,” he said. “In us, they will find friends willing to help.”

Senior NATO officials in Kabul say they are not particularly concerned by Karzai’s push for rapprochement.

“Everyone’s focus at the moment is to help these two countries,” NATO’s senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, told reporters Saturday. “There has been nothing in the dialogue between the two countries with which we’re uncomfortable, and all of us would like to see them working more effectively together.”Afghanistan builds up strategic partnership with Pakistan, By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Foreign Service, Wednesday, July 21, 2010; A12

Pakistan to get about 50 Predator drones

• General Atomics Wins Approval to Sell First Predator Drones in Middle East. (Bloomberg)
• “There could be an argument that if the countries do it themselves, it’s less intrusive”. (Bloomberg)
• General Atomics see the potential for sales of as many as 100 units in the Middle East and Pakistan of the so-called Predator XP model approved for export, Pace said. (Bloomberg)
• “Saudi Arabia is a huge country, and if they want to cover the country well, they alone could get 50 aircraft,” Pace said. (Bloomberg)
• Predators range in price from about $4 million for the basic model to about $15 million for the so-called Avenger version. (Bloomberg)
• U.S. approves Predator drone sales to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (True Slant)
• The non-NATO Predators will differ from the full-functionality versions in several significant ways. San Francisco Gate
• Most importantly, they will lack the ability to carry missiles and will be crippled to perform surveillance and reconnaissance missions only. San Francisco Gate

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. said it won U.S. approval for an export version of the Predator drone, clearing the way for the first sales of the unmanned aircraft in the Middle East.

“There’s interest from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates,” Frank Pace, president of the aircraft systems group at the closely held company, said today in an interview at the Farnborough Air Show near London.

General Atomics recently received U.S. State Department approval to offer an unarmed Predator model to countries beyond the NATO bloc, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Pace said. That would allow sales in the Middle East and elsewhere to governments previously ineligible to buy the planes, he said.

U.S. Predators are now used to monitor and strike targets in Iraq, Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan. Selling the aircraft to countries in the Middle East may ease regional opposition to the surveillance while raising new issues related to how the buyers fly them, one analyst said.

“There could be an argument that if the countries do it themselves, it’s less intrusive,” William Hartung, an analyst at the New America Foundation, a Washington research group, said in a phone interview. “But there’s still a question of how this capability is used.”

For example, a Pakistani Predator that was sent to monitor neighboring India would be “problematic” because such a mission might not be in U.S. interests, Hartung said.

Predator Capabilities

Predators are popular with U.S. military and intelligence agencies because they’re smaller than manned planes and can loiter over a target for long periods without risk to a pilot. Missile-equipped Predators can mount attacks via remote control.

General Atomics see the potential for sales of as many as 100 units in the Middle East and Pakistan of the so-called Predator XP model approved for export, Pace said.

“Saudi Arabia is a huge country, and if they want to cover the country well, they alone could get 50 aircraft,” Pace said.

General Atomics, based in Poway, California, has sold about 435 Predator-series drones, mostly to the U.S. government, according to spokeswoman Kimberly Kasitz. That total includes about 25 sold to NATO countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Kasitz said. The export model also is being promoted in South America and Mexico, she said.

That version, based on the model used by the U.S. Army and the Air Force, will lack the ability to carry weapons and will be designed only for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, Pace said.

Predators range in price from about $4 million for the basic model to about $15 million for the so-called Avenger version, Kasitz said.

General Atomics also builds the Predator B model with extended range and a new Predator C, the Avenger, that can evade enemy radar. Boeing Co., Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. also make unmanned aerial vehicles used by the U.S. military for surveillance and armed missions. General Atomics Wins Approval to Sell First Predator Drones in Middle East By Gopal Ratnam – Jul 20, 2010

To contact the reporter on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Washington at gratnam1@bloomberg.net.

Kabul conference highlights Pakistan’s seminal role

It has been a cascading series of events. The Afghan president visited Pakistan and called the countries inseparable conjoined twin brothers. This cleared the way for the Tehran Agreement (Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan), then there was Istanbul Meeting (All the neighbors of Afghanistan and Turkey), then there was London Conference (62 members of the international community). After the London Conference an Afghan jirga was held which approved reconciliation with the Afghan National Resistence (aka Taliban). President Hamid Karzai called the Taliban “Talibjan (Dearest students) and has been talking to the Afghan National Resistance. Now there is the Kabul Meeting with 72 countries represented in Afghanistan’s capital.

In all the previous conferences a Pan-Afghan has been suggested and proposed. Now the Kabul Conference is suggesting and advertising a similar message for all Afghans. Even Bharat which was opposing the Pan-Afghan solution or any reconciliation with the Afghan National Resistance–has now accepted the reconciliation formula proposed by Pakistan.

As NATO is seeking deeper links with Pakistan–in a post Afghan phase, and Kabul and Islamabad seem to be drawing closer with trade and access to ports, there has been a transformational improvement in the atmospherics in the two capitals. Pakistan is proposing joint monitoring of the Durand Line and is now training Afghan Army officers in one of the finest military academies in the world–in Kakul.

Pakistan has been a crucial and important player in the reconciliation process.

British and US sources are confirming internal Afghan and NATO documents which outline the beginning of the withdrawal and the end of the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014.

As international leaders arrive in Kabul for a key conference on Afghanistan’s future, Channel 4 News has obtained the document on which the Afghan government’s plan to reintegrate the Taliban is based.

As International Editor Lindsey Hilsum writes, it says fighters could be retrained in forestry and literacy skills. … I say it’s a government document, because the front page says “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan National Security Council”, but the 80 pages of management consultant-speak about ‘stakeholders’, ‘change management’, ‘broad strategic vision’ and ‘a menu of conflict recovery options’ suggest that the men from the Afghan ministry were not the ones to write the draft. The flowery paragraphs about “We Afghans desire… a consolidated and sustainable peace”, and statements that it’s all ‘Afghan owned and led’ do not convince. The document says that international donors will spend $772m over five years to retrain former Taliban fighters in forestry, literacy, technical and vocational skills and keep them busy on agricultural conservation and public works.’ – UK Channel 4 News

The Official Chinese media is highlighting Pakistan’s role at the Kabul Conference:

ISLAMABAD, July 21 (Xinhua) — The international conference in Kabul has backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s efforts of reconciliation with Taliban. Representatives of almost every country in their speeches tried to announce the end of its engagement in Afghanistan. This is now a test case for the Afghan security forces as how to deal with the law and order in 2014, the deadline set by President Karzai to hand over security to Afghan forces.

Some 150,000 US-led NATO troops have fought their enemy — the Taliban and remnants of al-Qaeda in nearly nine years, but the fast growing deaths of foreign troops raised concerns over how foreign troops will deal with insurgents.

June was the deadliest month for foreign forces in Afghanistan with 102 deaths including 60 of Americans. Over 50 NATO troops have died this month. Taliban failed to disrupt the Kabul Conference, but their rockets fired at Kabul international airport forced diversion of the plane of the UN Secretary General to the U. S-controlled Bagram airbase north of Kabul. The rocket attack to some extent highlighted Taliban ability that they can attract the world attention.

The conference highlighted the role of Pakistan in any possible political reconciliation and reintegration process as it is strongly believed that Islamabad still has influence on the Afghan Taliban. The NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also said in Islamabad on Wednesday that Pakistan can play important role in Afghanistan’s political reconciliation. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was quick to add that Islamabad will play role in political reconciliation after the Afghan government formally makes a request for such a role.

When Pakistan announced this January to reach out Afghan Taliban, several Afghan experts and foreign media opined that Islamabad can play a role as it has influence on Afghan Taliban. Pakistan is believed to have strong contacts with Haqqani network, which is based in North Waziristan tribal region and led by Siraj- ud-Haqqani,the son of former Taliban Minister Jalaluddin Haqqani.

No delegate opposed talks with Taliban in the Kabul conference as NATO member countries are anxious to quit Afghanistan as they have not succeeded in defeating their enemy despite spending some 40 billion US dollars and loosing hundreds of soldiers.

After President Obama’s announcement to start withdrawal of forces in July 2011, several other voices emerged for political reconciliation and the Kabul conference endorsed those voices.

Late last month, head of the British army Gen Sir David Richards surprised the world when he suggested politicians and military chiefs to talk to members of the Taliban sooner rather than later. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Australian Defence Minister have also said they could start withdrawal of troops in 2011.

These are among NATO’s important countries and the others will follow them to leave Afghanistan. NATO is confident to train the Afghan forces to take responsibility in 2014, but Afghan experts say it may be very difficult for the Afghan forces to deal with the Taliban and that is why the notion of reconciliation is gaining momentum. Pakistan would play a key role in this process. The Afghan President, on a number of occasions, sought Islamabad’s help to reach out to Taliban.

Many believed that without the help of Pakistan it would be impossible to oust Taliban and it would also be difficult to reconcile with Taliban. Pakistan’s contacts with Afghan Taliban are not a secret. Some local security officials privately defended such contacts as a must as Islamabad needs influence in the neighboring country. Kabul conference highlights Pakistan’s role. English.news.cn 2010-07-21 23:56:13 FeedbackPrintRSS, by Muhammad Tahir

JF-17 Thunders a big at prestigious UK Air show

Some even say the JF-17 Thunder fighters were a major attraction of the Farnborough International Airshow, which ended here on Sunday.
“For me, they are the stars of Farnborough,” said Piotr Abraszek, aviation editor of Warsaw-based magazine Nowa Technika Wojskowa, who said he had been following reports of the JF-17 for several years. Also interested in the fighter was a Japanese air attache at the country’s embassy in London.

What interests him most about the aircraft?

“Quality and capability. And how it compares with other Asian aircraft,” he responded.

The aircraft has been in development in one form or another since 1991. After several design concepts and name changes, it emerged in its present form.

Since acquiring the first two from China in July 2007, the Pakistani Air Force is now equipped with 14 JF-17s. It has now started its own assembly line, which saw the first aircraft roll out in November 2009.

Despite the early morning hour at the air show, and the fact the planes sit in a corner of the local airport where they are one display, dozens of people have already made their way to see the “mysterious” aircraft from Asia, even when their full-glass cockpits are still covered by canvas.

The two on display here were assembled in Pakistan, said Ali Saeed, the chief of the JF-17 engineering office of the PAF, which according to previous reports has requested as many as 250 of the aircraft from China.
Powered by a Russia-built Kilmov RD-93 engine, the JF-17, according to Saeed, is presently the best plane of the PAF.

For Major Azkaar Ul-Husnain, who had also flown other fighters like the F-6 and F-16, the JF-17 is like his best friend.

He’s been flying them since early 2008, and took to the skies again to bring one to the air show.

“It is quite useful. And it’s a very important part of the PAF,” he said, noting the plane will eventually replace its present fleet of F-7s, A-5s and Mirages.
“We hope in the future 80 percent of the air force will be JF-17,” Ul-Husnain said.

Orders take off

Since 2004, when the air show was first held under civil rather than military oversight, airline orders and defense spending have normally dominated the week-long events.

The last air show in 2008 was a record-breaking year for the business with $88.7 billion worth of orders announced during the show.
This year had an exciting start with a flurry of deals taking place on the first day as airlines “opened up their cheque books”, the London-based Daily Mail reported.

Boeing hogged most of the attention after winning a 6-billion pound ($9.1-billion) order for 30 of its 777 jetliners from Dubai-based airline Emirates.
The leasing arm of GE Capital, which buys planes and lends them to airlines, was another big spender. It ordered 100 planes, 40 from Boeing and 60 from Airbus, at a cost of $7.9 billion.

And Canadian manufacturer Bombardier won an order from Qatar Airways for three business jets worth $121 million.

The highlight of the show, Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, on its debut outside North America, has given a further boost to the industry, which has been in the grips of the bleakest downturn since the Great Depression.

Thomson Airways will be the first UK airline to fly this fuel-efficient plane and will take delivery in January 2012, the Daily Mail reported.

“Overall, we are encouraged that 2010 will be a very buoyant year,” says Shaun Ormrod, CEO of Farnborough International ltd., the organizer of the air show.

Welcoming more mosques–good for USA

We ought to welcome the growth of Islam in America for one reason: Muslims in America are fast becoming the model of intelligent and progressive Islam for the entire Muslim world. Muslim Americans have all the ingredients at hand to nurture the most reasoned and learned scholars, thinkers and leaders. This is a good thing for America and the rest of the planet.

Muslims often say America is the best place to practice Islam — not the easiest place — but the best place to be a Muslim. In many parts of the country Muslims still struggle to come together for worship and community life; and when a mosque is finally built, different challenges arise. These places of worship are being vandalized; hate mail and death threats are left on mosque answering and fax machines; and worshippers have been targeted while at prayer. Small, very vocal groups are whipping up the hatred and bigotry with a lot of paranoid and xenophobic rhetoric. However, despite this adversity, Muslims in America can vote, we have the freedom to assemble, the freedom of speech, and the freedom to practice Islam the way we choose. This cannot always be said in many Muslim-majority countries.

Muslims in America are free from the shackles of culture that so often bear a weight on their understanding of Islam. Because we are an incredibly diverse group of people who frequently have only Islam in common, we are deliberate and thoughtful about what is being taught in our mosques. American Islamic centers are living and breathing institutions that have evolved and matured over time. The statement, “this is the way we always did it back home” doesn’t hold water in an American mosque. Before 9/11 and after, I’ve seen many cultural practices and extreme ideologies be dismissed in America’s mosques while the clean and pure Islamic practices are implemented and embraced.

The larger and stronger a mosque becomes in a community, the more the Muslims are able to engage their youth in positive activities like service projects, sports, healthy recreation, and proper Islamic scholarship. The last thing any of us want is for our kids to turn to the Internet or some small fringe group for companionship to be negatively influenced. Muslim kids are under tremendous pressure; when they leave their homes they are inundated with prejudice and bigotry toward them for no other reason than they are Muslim. Having a safe haven where they can connect in positive ways with their peers, vetted mentors and other caring adults will help these kids grow up feeling proud to be Muslim and proud to be American.

When a mosque is well-established in the neighborhood, its members seek to create partnerships through interfaith service and fellowship that strengthens the entire community. Christian and Jewish faith leaders are opening their interfaith circles to include Muslims, and all are finding tremendous commonalities between their faith teachings. Muslims work cooperatively with various faith groups in their shared communities to serve the needy. Muslims are charged by our faith to serve everyone in our community; in fact, there is a tradition that says if our neighbors within a radius of forty houses are hungry, we are obliged to share what we have to ease the hunger. Look in some of the poorest, inner-city neighborhoods and you will find Muslims running food pantries and health clinics that serve everyone in need.

Muslim women are being empowered in America, often well beyond their overseas counterparts. When a Muslim community grows and settles in, women become an integral part of the mosque. We still have a long way to go toward real gender equity in our communities; however, women are fighting for more than a space in the mosque, we are fighting for and winning leadership roles within Islamic institutions. Dr. Ingrid Mattson exemplifies this trend. Muslim women in America are implementing programs that support peaceful families; they sponsor scholarships for young women; they mentor young girls through apple pie programs like the Girl Scouts of the USA.

As Muslim women become leaders in American mosques and institutions, they prevent the import of misogynistic practices and attitudes that are still accepted in some overseas patriarchal societies. They are raising their daughters to know their Islam-given rights as equal partners within the Muslim society. These same women are models for Muslim women around the world. I hosted a web chat for the State Dept. last year and answered questions from Muslim women all over the world on the subject of being a working Muslim mother in America. The women I spoke with were encouraged and empowered to hear our American-Muslim story. One of the last comments from a Muslim woman in Africa said it all. She wrote, “Sister, I envy you. This ideal situation of yours: reconcile your status as businesswoman, Muslim and mother. This is possible because you are in the United States, which offer great opportunities to anyone with ideas. Thanks to Allah.”

There’s something in the air in America that inspires Muslims to work cooperatively toward the common goal of a strong faith community. Because we are a small group from a huge world of vastly different cultures, we have learned to work together as Muslim-Americans instead of as nationals of different countries. For example, while India and Pakistan rattle their sabers at each other over Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani Muslims in America have left politics back home and work together for the common good. We can’t afford political or sectarian strife, instead we are moving forward toward a holistic way of working together for the sake of God and society.

Folks who push back against a mosque being built or expanded in their neighborhood on the grounds that they don’t want Islam to spread in their area are being naive. Protesting against an Islamic center, (as recently occurred in Tennessee, New York, and California), only serves to create animosity and more misunderstanding between the community at large and their Muslim neighbors. Efforts to limit Muslims’ freedom to worship will not keep Muslims from living in your neighborhood, going to school with your kids, supporting your businesses, contributing to the tax base or practicing Islam.

Muslims are positively contributing to the beautiful diversity of this country through community service, professional and business development, and academic achievement. A growing and thriving Muslim community in America is a tide the haters can’t turn as long as we continue to be a free society that protects the civil liberties of all. The hostile bigotry displayed toward Muslims in America is hurtful, but we are reminded of Nietzche’s memorable quote: “What does not destroy me makes me strong”. Kari Ansari. Huff Post. Writer and co-founder of America’s Muslim Family Magazine, Posted: July 20, 2010 04:20 PM

Pakistan-China to Develop JF-17 Block II‏

Although the JF-17 design was frozen after its 6th prototype, there was an informal understanding on further development of the block II stealthy version. Several designs of the stealthy JF-17 have since then been floated, like the one above. Now, there are reports coming of an MoU been officially signed between Pakistan and China to develop the much advanced block II version. The JF-17, despite seeing immense hindrance by India [and may be Russia now] is surprisingly seeing huge acceptance and appreciation from some very good Air forces of the world such as of Turkey and Egypt. In fact, there were also reports of India considering the JF-17 before 26/11.

The new JF-17 block II could be an indication of Pakistan’s approval for its next (5th) generation fighter and this comes because India has already agreed to “pay for” the PAK-FA Russian 5th generation fighter, aimed at countering the American F-22 Raptor. India is also on papers wooing an indigenous [?] 5th generation fighter called the MCA (Medium Combat aircraft) but with India’s LCA now entering its 4th decade of prototyping, this seems not likely before 2040, a time when 6th generation fighters would already be flying. The block II of JF-17 could see deployment before 2020. This is reported to be an entirely full-stealth aircraft. Congratulations to the nation.

China-Pak in MoU to Develop Variant on JF-17 Thunder

China and Pakistan have reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a stealth version of a light-weight fighter aircraft being jointly produced by them to match MiG-21 warplane, a work horse of the Indian Air Force.

JF-17 Thunder, also known as FC-1, being jointly built by Kamra-based Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) and Chengdu Aerospace Company (CAC) today made its first appearance at an international air show having flown in here after making refueling stops in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The plane, which has been in development in one form or another since 1991, is a symbol of cooperation between China and Pakistan and the first assembled version brought out by the Kamra plant, delivered in November last year, according to ‘Show News,’ a special issue of defence journal Aviation Week for the Farnborough Air Show.

“The two (countries) have also reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a stealth variant of the JF-17 Thunder,” it said.

The journal said that Pakistan Air Force (PAK) is expected to acquire around 250 JF-17s, but this may be a split of 100 in the JF-17 configuration, being displayed at the air show here, and 150 of the stealth multi-role combat aircraft (MCRA) between 2015 and 2025.

A Russian-built Klimov RD-93 engine — a specialised single-engine fighter variant of the Mig 29’s RS-33 powerplant, powers the plane. The first prototype of the warplane flew in 2003 and the first two Chinese-made versions were handed over to the PAF in March 2007.

Show organisers said that the two JF-17 fighter planes would not fly as part of the air show. “The aircraft has not completed its full release to service in Pakistan,” the journal said, quoting a member of the flight control committee.

“Although that full release is only month away, the PAF is also today in what is for them new territory. Farnborough is their very first event of this kind ever,” it said.

US buys Karzai-Pakistan peace policy for Afghanistan

Bharat (aka India) is pushing for the partition of Afghanistan, so that in a post-US Afghanistan, it can use its proxies to fight the Pakhtuns in Afghanistan and continue to destabilize Pakistan. Bharat’s aim to create a Pakhtun state in Afghanistan that would then push for a united Pakhtunistan.

The US has also toyed with the same idea, but it wil take too much effort to create countries in the area and it would surely not be liked by any of the neighbors. The world is sick and tired of solutions like the ones proposed for Iraq. The US just wants to get out, and will probably allow the chips to fall where they may.

The upcoming civil war in Afghanistan will be a bloody one, with Bharat fully supporting the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, and Pakistan behind the Pakhtuns. Iran has promised to back Pakistan and the Pan-Afghan solution. Russia is playing neutral, because a Tajik and Uzbek instrability would create problems for Tajiksitan and Uzbekistan. Bharat has stashed arms for the post-US scenario, and the Pakhtuns and the Pakistanis know this. Continued supply lines to the Northern Alliance will be difficult to maintain for Delhi, but it will surely try. All Tajiks and Uzbeks cannot be counted upon to back Abdullah Abdullah’s aspirations for a partitioned Afghanistan. The Afghan National Resistance has tentacles right up to the Uzbek border, and they claim Uzbeks and Tajiks as part of their coalition. Warlords like Dostum may chart an independent course and may not support Bharati proxies in Afghanistan.

For years the US has been saying that it would not negotiate with the top leadership of the Afghan National Resistance (aka Taliban). Now there are indications from Washington and London that American is ready to accept the long standing Pakistani proposal of talking to all factions in Afghanistan so that peace can be brought to Kabul and the US can pull a face saving exit.

The focus on shifting governance and warfare into Afghan hands comes as the U.S.-led international coalition backing Karzai’s government, now near its planned peak of 150,000 troops, struggles to contain the Taliban insurgency. The coalition registered its highest number of troop deaths last year at 521, according to iCasualties.org, a nonprofit group that tracks military fatalities. So far this year, 379 have died, a rate 33 percent higher than in 2009. Businessweek

The US press is still caught up in the decade old rhetoric of blaming Pakistan and this that the other for the defeats in the Hindu Kush. US diplomacy has finally caught up with what the Europeans want, especially Britain. The UK has clearly informed Washington that it will definitely pull out its troops by 2014 or before. The beginning of the end starts in 2011 and the end will be terminated in 2014. The recent statement by President Hamid Karzai during the Kabul conference clearly describes his stance that Afghan forces with Pakistani help will be able to stand up in 2014.

Many in America are asking “Why are we in Afghanistan”.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele recently said the unthinkable: Afghanistan is “a war of Obama’s choosing.” Steele’s remarks triggered a verbal slugfest between neocon proponents of endless war, such as William Kristol, and Iraq hawks turned Afghanistan doves, such as Ann Coulter.

Michael Steele was right. President Barack Obama could have started afresh in Afghanistan. But he chose to make the war his own, twice escalating the number of troops.

For what purpose? Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation declared: to “defend the vital interests of the United States.”

What vital interests?

The original justification for war long ago disappeared. Al-Qaeda has relocated to Pakistan. Today, says CIA Director Leon Panetta, “At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less” Taliban operatives in Afghanistan. Huffington Post.

Newsweek columnist Haas clearly want the US to withdraw as do the majority of Americans.

Today the counterinsurgency strategy that demanded all those troops is clearly not working. The August 2009 election that gave Karzai a second term as president was marred by pervasive fraud and left him with less legitimacy than ever. While the surge of U.S. forces has pushed back the Taliban in certain districts, the Karzai government has been unable to fill the vacuum with effective governance and security forces that could prevent the Taliban’s return. So far the Obama administration is sticking with its strategy; indeed, the president went to great lengths to underscore this when he turned to Petraeus to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Kabul. No course change is likely until at least December, when the president will find himself enmeshed in yet another review of his Afghan policy.

At the other end of the policy spectrum would be a decision to walk away from Afghanistan—to complete as quickly as possible a full U.S. military withdrawal. Doing so would almost certainly result in the collapse of the Karzai government and a Taliban takeover of much of the country. Afghanistan could become another Lebanon, where the civil war blends into a regional war involving multiple neighboring states. Such an outcome triggered by U.S. military withdrawal would be seen as a major strategic setback to the United States in its global struggle with terrorists. It would also be a disaster for NATO in what in many ways is its first attempt at being a global security organization.

There are, however, other options. One is reconciliation, a fancy word for negotiating a ceasefire with those Taliban leaders willing to stop fighting in exchange for the chance to join Afghanistan’s government. It is impossible, though, to be confident that many Taliban leaders would be prepared to reconcile; they might decide that time is on their side if they only wait and fight. Nor is it likely that the terms they would accept would in turn be acceptable to many Afghans, who remember all too well what it was like to live under the Taliban. A national-unity government is farfetched.

One new idea put forward by Robert Blackwill, a former U.S. ambassador to India, is for a de facto partition of Afghanistan. Under this approach, the United States would accept Taliban control of the Pashtun-dominated south so long as the Taliban did not welcome back Al Qaeda and did not seek to undermine stability in non-Pashtun areas of the country. If the Taliban violated these rules, the United States would attack them with bombers, drones, and Special Forces. U.S. economic and military support would continue to flow to non-Pashtun Afghans in the north and west of the country.

This idea has its drawbacks as well as appeal. A self-governing “Pashtunistan” inside Afghanistan. Newsweek.

The choices spelled out by Haas are walking away from Afghanistan, partitioning the country or negotiating with the top leadership of the Afghan National Resistance (aka Taliban).

The Guardian of London is reporting that there is a sea change in Washington’s attitude towards the peace process in Afghanistan.

• White House shifts Afghanistan strategy towards talks with Taliban
• Senior Washington officials tell the Guardian of a ‘change of mindset’ over Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy

The White House is revising its Afghanistan strategy to embrace the idea of negotiating with senior members of the Taliban through third parties – a policy to which it had previously been lukewarm.

Negotiating with the Taliban has long been advocated by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and the British and Pakistani governments, but resisted by Washington.

The Guardian has learned that while the American government is still officially resistant to the idea of talks with Taliban leaders, behind the scenes a shift is under way and Washington is encouraging Karzai to take a lead in such negotiations.

“There is a change of mindset in DC,” a senior official in Washington said. “There is no military solution. That means you have to find something else. There was something missing.”

That missing element was talks with the Taliban leadership, the official added.

The American rethink comes in the aftermath of the departure last month of General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan.

Barack Obama, apparently frustrated at the way the war is going, has reminded his national security advisers that while he was on the election campaign trail in 2008, he had advocated talking to America’s enemies.

America is reviewing its Afghanistan policy which is due for completion in December, but officials in Washington, Kabul and Islamabad with knowledge of internal discussions said feelers had been put out to the Taliban. Negotiations would be conducted largely in secret, through a web of contacts, possibly involving Pakistan and Saudi Arabia or organisations with back-channel links to the Taliban.

“It will be messy and could take years,” said a diplomatic source.

The change of heart by the US comes as Afghanistan hosts the biggest international gathering in its capital for 40 years, with representatives from 60 countries including Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

The dominant theme of the Kabul conference is “reintegration”, which involves reaching out to low-level insurgents to encourage them to lay down their arms.

Earlier this year Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, distinguished between “reintegration”, which the US supported, and “reconciliation” or negotiating with senior Taliban. Holbrooke said: “Let me be clear. There is no American involvement in any reconciliation process.”

There is growing disenchantment in the US with the war in Afghanistan and members of the Senate’s foreign relations committee last week questioned Holbrooke over what they described as a lack of clarity on an exit strategy.

The US has no agreed position on who among the leaders of the insurgency should be wooed and who would be beyond the pale. The Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, would be a problem as he provided Osama bin Laden with bases before the 9/11 attacks.

The US would also find it problematic to deal with the Pakistan-based insurgents led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose group pioneered suicide attacks in Afghanistan. The third main element in the insurgency is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has hinted he is ready to break ranks.

A source with knowledge of the process said: “There is no agreed US position, but there is agreement that Karzai should lead on this. They would expect the Pakistanis to deliver the Haqqani network in any internal settlement.”

The US has laid down basic conditions for any group seeking negotiations. They are: end all ties to al-Qaida, end violence, and accept the Afghan constitution.

A senior Pakistani diplomat said: “The US needs to be negotiating with the Taliban; those Taliban with no links to al-Qaida. We need a power-sharing agreement in Afghanistan, and it will have to be negotiated with all the parties.

“The Afghan government is already talking to all the shareholders‚ the Taliban, the Haqqani network, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and Mullah Omar. The Americans have been setting ridiculous preconditions for talks. You can’t lay down such preconditions when you are losing.”

Some Afghan policy specialists are sceptical about whether negotiations would succeed. Peter Bergen, a specialist on Afghanistan and al-Qaida, told a US Institute of Peace seminar in Washington last week that there were a host of problems with such a strategy, not least why the Taliban should enter negotiations “when they think they are winning”.

Audrey Kurth Cronin, a member of the US National War College faculty in Washington, and the author of How Terrorism Ends, said talks with Mullah Omar and the Haqqani network were pointless because there would be no negotiable terms.

She said there could be talks with Hekmatyar, but these would be conducted through back channels, potentially by a third party. Given his support for jihad, she said, “it would be unreasonable to expect the US and the UK to do so”.

Asked how Obama’s Afghan strategy was progressing, a senior former US government official familiar with the latest Pentagon thinking said: “In a word, poorly. We seriously need to be developing a revised plan of action that will allow us a chance to achieve sufficient security in a more sustainable manner.”

Officials have mentioned possible roles in negotiation for the UN and figures such as the veteran UN negotiator, the Algerian Lakhdar Brahimi, who heads, along with the retired US ambassador Thomas Pickering, a New York-based international panel which is looking at such a reconciliation.

Another name mentioned is Michael Semple, an Irishman based in Boston at Harvard’s Kennedy School who has extensive contacts with the Taliban. Guardian