A Reinvigorated Anti-Taliban Alliance? BBC News Asia 09/12/2014 After years of false starts, are we on the brink of a breakthrough in improving relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the Taliban and al-Qaeda on both sides of the border suffering an array of defeats and deaths? For years the Pakistani military has been accused by the Afghans, the Americans and Nato of playing a double game - helping the Nato-US coalition in Afghanistan on the one hand, but at the same time allowing al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban to seek refuge and garner logistical support in Pakistan. Even the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US special forces in Abbottabad, a military garrison town in Pakistan, did not push the military into changing its tune, which was always one of denial that it supported the Afghan Taliban. Many leaders of the Afghan Taliban have lived in Pakistan since 2001. These accusations dogged Pakistans new army chief General Raheel Sharif when he visited Washington for 10 days last month - particularly that in the past six months of a military offensive in North Waziristan the Pakistan army had failed to capture or kill a single prominent militant leader. But now those assumptions may be changing and the complex three-way relationship between the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan could be on the cusp of undergoing a dramatic improvement. United against al-Qaeda For the first time in nearly 10 years the Pakistan army has killed a high-level leader of al-Qaeda. Adnan el Shukrijumah, a naturalised American citizen, was killed..[..].. To read the complete article, please follow the link below pakistan - interviews | Ahmed Rashid ahmedrashid/publications/pakistan/articles/ Ahmed Rashid ahmedrashid
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 06:11:07 +0000
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