Samizdata

Calling all pedantic obsessives who read the Samizdata.

I have had two e-mails from eagle-eyed blog readers with way too much time in their hands. Both asked me why I have been referring to Northern Alliance General Daoud Khan as General Daoud whilst calling other Generals by their surnames (i.e. General Dostam, General Musharraf, General Franks)?

Well, because everyone else has been calling him General Daoud.

But that got me thinking…why?

Then I realised the answer: the surname name Khan in that part of the world is rather like Smith in the English speaking world. There are two Generals called Khan in the Northern Alliance: The Tajik Daoud Khan from the Panshir Valley (who just captured Konduz) and the Herati Ismail Khan from Herat in the north-west of Afghanistan (who captured Herat from the Taliban a few weeks ago).

So now you know.

An article by Tunku Varadarajan, deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal, discusses this strange incident.

Yesterday, in a conversation with a highly placed diplomat from the region, I learned enough to be able to assert that all these reports are entirely correct. Pakistani air force helicopters and transport craft did, indeed, ferry out nearly 200 regular men and officers of the Pakistan army–including two brigadiers. A large number of ex-servicemen were also evacuated in this manner. According to the diplomat, “this could not have been done without the specific approval and connivance of the Bush administration.” The U.S. controls the skies over Kunduz, and it is unlikely that Pakistani craft would have flown into the zone without attracting U.S. attention.

So there does seem to be mounting evidence that not only is the whole incident now a certainty but that it was mounted by the Pakistani airforce.

Varadarajan also asks:

This affair raises intriguing, and worrying, questions. First: What were these Pakistani soldiers doing in Kunduz? And second, why did the U.S. choose to turn a blind eye to their rescue?

Frankly the answer to that seems pretty obvious to me. Let’s examine what we know so far.

The first report of this astonishing tale came prior to the fall of Konduz from forward combat elements of General Daoud’s Northern Alliance army, who were telling David Chater of SkyNews that there were aircraft flying in and out of Konduz at night. Chater is actually by far the best source we have so far as not only was he in Konduz hard on the heals of the lead elements of the Northern Alliance, but immediately started interviewing everyone who would stand still long enough for him to stick a microphone in their face. People in Konduz all confirmed the basic facts of the flights to him but everyone had wildly different ideas as to what it all meant. However the general consensus in Konduz was that the people being evacuated were the hardcore Al Qaeda fighters. Chater even interviewed the rather grumpy General Daoud Khan himself, who was none too pleased about what had happened. Daoud’s remarks that it is was the Pakistani Airforce were the first fairly authoritative comments we heard (live over the satellite). The fact ground fire from his forces had driven off the attempt to mount a fourth sortie indicates that if he was privy to what was happening (and it seems he probably was), he was sure as hell not going to cooperate regardless of what deal the USA and Pakistan had struck. It must be remembered that Daoud regards Pakistan as his sworn enemies. This is because without the machinations of the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence service), the Taliban would have never taken over Afghanistan in the first place. Afghan warlords are not known for their forgiving nature.

Ok, so where does that leave us? If Debka are correct about the presence of a significant ISI and Pakistani army presence trapped in the Konduz-Khanabad pocket (see previous article), the whole covert airlift starts to make sense.

It is clearly not in American interests to see Pakistan’s military ruler General Pervez Musharraf suffer any major political embarrassments: for better or for worse, the support or at least acquiescence of Pakistan is an absolute prerequisite for US military operations within Afghanistan. Thus the USA has no desire to see the Northern Alliance make major political hay at Pakistan’s expense by parading captured ISI people and maybe a few Pakistani army brigadiers in front of the world’s press. Pervez Musharraf took control of Pakistan in an army coup d’etat and thus it is upon the Pakistani army that his power depends. The last thing George W. Bush wants in Pakistan right now is for the Pakistani army to suffer a political humiliation. The only beneficiaries of that would be the Pro-Taliban Pakistani Islamic political parties

I am starting to suspect Al Qaeda did not get anyone airlifted out of the Konduz pocket and the only people who did get out were members of the Pakistani security services and armed forces. Of course I have no proof of that, but it is hard to see how anything else makes sense in view of what we know so far.