Taliban's Leadership Council Runs Afghan War from Pakistan, The Guardian, 29 January 2010
EXCERPT: "The Quetta shura has long been the aching achilles heel of western efforts to defeat the Taliban. While the war is fought in Afghanistan, the thinking part of the Taliban ‑ the one-eyed leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and a council of about 14 other men ‑ is sheltering on the far side of the border, in the western Pakistani province of Balochistan. The shura, or leadership council, has multiple functions. It directs the military campaign against western troops and it co-ordinates the political and propaganda campaign that has so successfully undermined the rule of President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. The Afghan war is organised and run out of Balochistan, according to Seth Jones, a senior civilian adviser to the US special forces commander in Afghanistan. 'Virtually all significant meetings of the Taliban take place in that province, and many of the group's senior leaders and military commanders are based there,' he wrote in a newspaper article last month. Quetta shura is a label of convenience for meetings that take place in the Baloch capital ‑ a dusty, suspicious city that hums with intrigue ‑ and also in surrounding villages and Afghan refugee camps."
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Related articles:
Pakistan terror sanctuaries single greatest source of Afghan instability: Eikenberry, OneIndia, 27 January 2010
Gates' trip highlights challenges to US-Pakistan partnership, China View, 26 January 2010
On the trail of the Taliban in Quetta, BBC News, 25 January 2010
Pakistan's former spymaster says Taliban leader is ready to talk, Miami Herald, 25 January 2010
Strategic Balochistan becomes a target in war against Taliban, The Guardian, 21 December 2009
Related posts:
The Quetta Shura Taliban in southern Afghanistan, 4 January 2010
Pakistan Taliban sent to Afghanistan to counter US surge, 23 December 2009
Mullah Omar not in Pakistan: Taliban commander, 30 September 2009
Taliban widen Afghan attacks from base In Pakistan, 24 September 2009
The death of Baitullah Mahsud: A view from Afghanistan, 20 August 2009
