Russian Media: Russia And China In Run-Up To Battle For Kazakhstan – OpEd

 May 6, 2024  

By Akhas Tazhutov

Kamran Bokhari, senior director of Eurasian Security and Prosperity at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, in his recent piece entitled “Kazakhstan and U.S. Strategy” and published by The National Interest, said: “Central Asia, a vast land-locked area between Russia and China, deserves far more U.S. attention than it currently gets. Greater U.S. engagement with the region can help counter Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Similarly, U.S. efforts to compete with China can get a boost given that this region is critical for Chinese geo-economic prowess. At the same time, having a robust relationship with the heart of Eurasia will allow America to create a pressure point for Iran, which is aggressively trying to alter the security architecture of the Middle East. Furthermore, it will enable the United States to ensure that Taliban-run Afghanistan does not become a haven for transnational jihadist agendas at a time when the Islamic State is on the rise again”.

The author’s estimation of an American would-be strategy for the Central Asian region appears quite realistic. The only question that appears to remain unanswered in his piece is the following: what would be the concrete path of moving forward to accomplish the noted objectives? This is just where a hitch is when it is a question of really challenging Russia’s traditional clout and China’s rapidly growing influence in Central Asia. After all, if one power intends to create a pressure point in a region or a country, located in the rear of its two most significant power rivals, it has to have reliable access to them. That is the very thing it should get first to ensure the delivery of what that region or country seeks from it and what it can offer them. But there is a problem with that in the present case.

Central Asia including Kazakhstan is inaccessible to the West, except through Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea. Its other surrounding countries – Russia, China, Afghanistan, and Iran – can hardly be called Western-friendly. The situation gets worsened by the fact that the waterway through the Caspian from Central Asia to the South Caucasus and vice-versa may also be seen as being controlled by Russia, as the Russian Caspian Flotilla is the largest and most powerful naval group in the Caspian Sea basin. That is hampering or even blocking Central Asia’s accessibility for the USA and its allies through Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea is quite within Russia’s power in the worst scenarios.

It cannot be said that the West did not try to lead Central Asia out of control of Russia in terms of logistics. In the later stages of the Western coalition’s stay in Afghanistan, there were efforts made by Washington to create conditions for establishing economic and trade ties bypassing Russia, China, and Iran that would connect the post-Soviet Central Asian region to the markets in South Asia and beyond. Before the summer of 2021, such plans were repeatedly discussed during the meetings within the framework of the C5+1 format. The New Delhi Times, in an article by Himanshu Sharma entitled “US to link South & Central Asia” (July 20, 2020), said: “The United States and five Central Asian countries pledged to “build economic and trade ties that would connect Central Asia to markets in South Asia and Europe”. Their joint statement in Washington in mid-July called for a peaceful resolution of the Afghan situation for greater economic integration of the South and Central Asian regions”. Among other things, they included a project for building railway links between [post-Soviet] Central Asia and Pakistan.

Now, the latter seems to be getting more concrete. Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin, while having a meeting with Taliban officials in Afghanistan on April 24,   stated that Kazakhstan was interested in participating in the construction of the Trans-Afghan Railway project. The interesting point here is that Russia expressed interest in the same thing even earlier. The Russian Federation is ready to take on part of the financing of the work and the preparation of a feasibility study of the project. It is claimed that Russia, which is now under sanctions restrictions, is interested in developing a new transport corridor since it gives it additional access to the world’s oceans. The above reports would seem to indicate that the eastern route of the North-South Corridor, a planned railway route that is meant to connect Russia to the Indian Ocean via Central Asia and Afghanistan, is gaining relevance in Moscow’s international agenda. That is, it can be assumed that the Russian side plans to control that route in one way or another, once it becomes operational. This seems to be, by no means, what Washington and its allies wanted for Central Asia to be done.

It means that in terms of independent access to Central Asia, the US and its allies still have no choice but to continue to count on the trans-Caspian direction. In that context, all further plans for the development of transport and logistics between the West and Central Asia without involving Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran, find themselves linked to the Caspian Sea ports of Aktau and Kuryk in the Mangystau province, located in the south of Western Kazakhstan. Of all the countries in the region, only Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have access to the Caspian Sea. The port of Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan is much closer to the port of Baku in Azerbaijan and much farther away from Russian territorial waters, than Aktau and Kuryk. Yet it seems doubtful that Turkmenistan which pursues a policy of neutrality, can be involved in the actions related to the great powers rivalry in the Central Asian region. As regards the formal position, the Turkmen officials have never expressed positions regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But informally, they have been and are being seen as more inclined towards supporting Russia over the West. According to Azattyq, in Turkmenistan, “officials have carried out pro-Kremlin propaganda efforts, blaming the West for provoking the war in Ukraine and warning against foreign ‘agents’ who are allegedly trying to destabilize the country”. Turkmenistan’s representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Khemra Amannazarov, left the conference room during the speech of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba at a meeting of the OSCE Council of Ministers on December 1, 2022. He returned after the latter had finished his speech. 

No Kazakh official would afford things like that. Astana’s representatives try to behave utterly correctly towards both the West and Russia. The result is that both in Russia and the West, there are often those who suspect Kazakhstan of playing a double game. Kazakhstan has faced repeated accusations by opponents of Putin of helping Russia obtain sanctioned goods that can be used to aid Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine despite Astana’s vows to avoid helping Moscow circumvent Western economic penalties.  Symmetrically, there have been accusations by supporters of Putin toward the Central Asian nation of assisting activities of the West against Russia. There is no point in giving examples – there are a lot of them. To tell the truth, the current system of relations within the triangle of Russia – Kazakhstan – the USA, and its allies seems to suit the Russian leadership just fine. The Kremlin’s propagandists continue – largely because of inertia – to blame the Kazakh ruling regime for many alleged sins against Russia. 

But at times some of them start revealing things. Thus, just recently, one of the mouthpieces of Russian state propaganda has publicly claimed that “Tokayev is a product of Moscow” and “the fact that Kazakhstan, at the very least, helps Russia bypass sanctions is, I repeat, not the country’s State policy, but Tokayev’s personal merit. If he leaves, all this will be over”.

Hence the conclusion suggests that the Kremlin is not too worried about the Kazakh regime’s alleged flirting with the West. There does not yet appear to be a substantial change in relations within the triangle of Russia – Kazakhstan – the USA, and its allies. Even if there is any, it is most likely not in favor of the West. The Kremlin seems to be aware that it still takes the upper hand in relations within that triangle. The only thing that can worry it in this regard is any possible attempts by the West to gain a foothold on the Kazakhstani coast of the Caspian Sea – in the ports of Aktau and Kuryk. It can be assumed that in the event of the slightest suspicion on this account, the Russian Federation, as the former head of the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan, Alnur Musayev noted, may “attack Kazakhstan to cut off the Central Asian nation from the Caspian Sea – from Astrakhan [a city in the Russian Federation] to Aktau [a city in Kazakhstan] and to the border with Turkmenistan”. 

It’s an entirely different story when it comes to relations within the triangle of Russia – Kazakhstan – China. In there, that is Beijing which is taking the upper hand, and Russia is losing its position. In this context, one news report appears to be worthy of special attention. This is the statement by the Kazakh Minister of Trade and Integration, Arman Shakkaliev, about China having come out on top among Kazakhstan’s trading partners, surpassing Russia.

In terms of trade with Kazakhstan, China, according to Chinese figures, for the first time bypassed Russia a decade and a half ago. According to the Kazakh statistical data, this first happened only in 2023. The discrepancies in Kazakhstan-China trade turnover value can perhaps be attributed to differences between the methods of keeping statistics. But, in truth, such an explanation sounds quite unconvincing, as the data of the parties varied and is still varying widely. For instance, China was Kazakhstan’s largest trade partner in 2023, with bilateral trade turnover reaching $41 billion, a 32% increase over the previous year’s total, according to Chinese figures. The Kazakhstan side, meanwhile, reported total bilateral trade in 2023 as totaling $31.5 billion, while the volume of trade between Kazakhstan and Russia amounted to $26  billion.

But anyway, one can talk about China starting to economically squeeze Russia out of Kazakhstan. Moscow can’t stop this, without being dragged into a direct conflict, as China shares a 1,783-kilometer border with Kazakhstan and does not need to turn to Russia’s logistical mediation. Central Asia remains the only region in the post-Soviet space where Russia still maintains a major influence. And if the Kremlin loses its significant clout over what happens in Kazakhstan, the rest of Central Asia will be mostly cut off from Russia, and Moscow will become dependent on Astana in developing its relationship with the other Central Asian countries.  This seems to have to look like an even more alarming prospect.

Therefore, it is not surprising that some Russian military and political experts (topwar.ru) are beginning to say that “Russia and China now are in the run-up to the battle for Kazakhstan”.

Locations of Kazakhstan's Tengiz, Karachaganak, and Kashagan. Credit: EIA, U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. State Department, IHS EDIN, KazMunaiGas, Transneft, CPC, BP, OGJ

Akhas Tazhutov is a political analyst from Kazakhstan.

Attacks Target Afghanistan’s Hazaras

Inadequate Protection Provided for Community Long at Risk

THEY ARE MINORITY IN PAKISTAN AS WELL

Fereshta Abbasi
Researcher, Asia Division

HRW

Click to expand Image
Afghans mourn at a burial ceremony for Shia Muslims killed by gunmen who attacked a mosque in Guzara district of Herat province, April 30, 2024. © 2024 MOHSEN KARIMI/AFP via Getty Images

For many Afghans, the country’s armed conflict has never ended.

The armed group Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) attracted worldwide attention in March when it attacked the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, killing at least 143 people and injuring many others. Since emerging in Afghanistan in 2015, the group has carried out a bloody campaign mostly targeting Shia-Hazara mosques and schools and other facilities in predominantly Hazara neighborhoods.

In the most recent attack, on April 29, an armed member of the group opened fire on worshippers at a Shia-Hazara mosque in western Herat province, killing six, including a child. On April 20, a magnetic bomb attached to a bus whose passengers were primarily Hazara exploded, killing one and injuring 10. On January 6, a similar attack on a bus in Dasht-e Barchi, a predominantly Hazara neighborhood of Kabul, killed five people, including at least one child, and injured 14. Dasht-e Barchi has been the site of numerous ISKP attacks. When ISKP claimed responsibility for the January 6 attack, they said it was part of their “kill them wherever you find them” campaign against “infidels.”

Between 2015 and mid-2021, ISKP attacks killed and injured more than 2,000 civilians primarily in Kabul, Jalalabad, and Kandahar. Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, these attacks have continued – killing and injuring over 700.

The Taliban have long battled the ISKP, which have also targeted Taliban personnel. A suicide bombing outside a Kandahar bank on March 21 killed at least 21 people and injured 50, many of them Taliban ministry employees who had lined up to collect their salaries.

Attacks on Hazara and other religious minorities and targeted attacks on civilians violate international humanitarian law, which still applies in Afghanistan. Deliberate attacks on civilians are war crimes. Beyond the immediate loss of life, such attacks incur lasting damage to physical and mental health, cause long-term economic hardship, and result in new barriers to education and public life.

Like the previous Afghan government, Taliban authorities have not taken adequate measures to protect Hazaras and other communities at risk or provide assistance to survivors of attacks, though they are responsible for ensuring the safety of all Afghan citizens.

RSF mobilises support for more than 170 Afghan journalists who fled to Pakistan

Together with its local partner, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has been helping more than 170 Afghan journalists who fled to Pakistan.
Image: RSF

Together with its local partner, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has been helping more than 170 Afghan journalists who fled to Pakistan, providing financial and administrative assistance and organising networking workshops. While a conference is being held in Islamabad on 29 April, RSF urges the Pakistani authorities and international community to help protect Afghan journalists in Pakistan.

The “Advocacy platform for Afghan journalists” project launched in December 2023 by RSF and its local partner, the Islamabad-based Freedom Network, has so far helped 173 Afghan journalists who fled persecution in their own country only to encounter many administrative, financial and professional difficulties in the country where they sought refuge.

To help address these problems, RSF has supported Freedom Network in providing administrative, financial and advocacy assistance. As part of the project, Freedom Network is organising a conference in Islamabad on 29 April to draw the attention of political decision-makers and the international community to the plight of these journalists, with a view to finding short and long-term political solutions to the challenges they face.

This initiative is supported by RSF and is funded by the European Union’s ProtectDefenders programme.

"When the RSF project was launched in November 2023, I saw the despair on the faces of many Afghan journalists. For me, it was important to get them out of that situation and give them a new perspective. Today, I see hope in them as the project draws to a close. A solid foundation has been laid to support them, especially the women, and this would not have been possible without the RSF project. Freedom Network, RSF's partner in Pakistan, will continue to support these refugee journalists from Afghanistan.
Iqbal Khattak

Freedom Network executive director and RSF representative in Pakistan

Humanitarian assistance was also provided to 59 Afghan journalists under the project, including women journalists who were particularly affected in exile. Four orientation workshops were organised to help the journalists familiarise themselves with local conditions. Pakistani journalists' unions and press clubs were also mobilised to support their colleagues in exile.

Participants in the RSF/Freedom Network project, which is due end at the end of April, have also pleaded the cause of the exile journalists with local and international bodies. A solidarity network called the “Pak-Afghan Journalists Solidarity Network (PAJSN)” was set up at the beginning of 2024 to involve the Pakistani government, diplomatic missions in Islamabad and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Representatives of the Afghan journalists were able to meet UNHCR officials, diplomats from EU member countries and the National Human Rights Commission (NCHR).

“It is necessary and urgent for stakeholders to join forces to address the many problems that Afghan journalists face in Pakistan. We urge them to hear our call and to respond. Afghan journalists who have fled to Pakistan deserve to live in decent conditions and should have the possibility to become residents and to use their professional journalistic skills, or to be allowed and supported in their departure to a host country.

Antoine Bernard

RSF director of advocacy and assistance

More than 170 Afghan journalists are still refugees in Pakistan after fleeing their country, which has been under Taliban control since August 2021. Most of them hope to obtain a visa for a third country but are not sure whether they will ever succeed.

They are having great difficulty renewing their Pakistani visas, and some have been the victims of police harassment. Often deprived of a legal status enabling them to lead a normal life, they live in a state of permanent anxiety. They also have no access to healthcare at public hospitals or to public schools for their children. Their careers have been cut short and their financial resources are running out.

Unveiling the IS-K Threat: From Kabul to Moscow, a Wake-Up Call for Canada

An attack in Moscow underscores the continuing reach of terrorist organizations

BY: MUSTAFA ARYAN /
29 APRIL, 2024   

The aftermath of the recent terrorist attack on the Moscow Crocus City Hall music venue. Image: Wikimedia Commons



The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), a regional affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group primarily based in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asia, has recently garnered attention due to its escalating activities and global ambitions. The group’s attack on the Moscow Crocus City concert hall, as one example, has further elevated its status as a global terrorist group, sparking concern among nations worldwide.

The term ‘Khorasan’ refers to a historical region encompassing parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asia. As for IS-K it was established in 2015 when disaffected Taliban members pledged allegiance to the IS, marking the expansion of IS influence beyond its primary territories at the time in Iraq and Syria. Hafiz Saeed Khan, a Pakistani national and former Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander, was appointed as the inaugural emir of the IS-K province. Khan, along with key TTP figures such as spokesman Sheikh Maqbool and numerous district chiefs, initially pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the first caliph of the IS, in October 2014. These individuals, including Khan, were among the founding members of the Khorasan Shura, the group’s original leadership council.

IS-K shares the overarching IS goal of establishing a global caliphate but focuses its operations within the Khorasan region. The group’s activities, characterized by violent attacks against both military and civilian targets, exploit Afghanistan’s ongoing political instability and security challenges.

Since forming in 2015, IS-K has been involved in numerous terrorist activities, including attacks on schools and hospitals in Afghanistan. After the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, IS-K also conducted several high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, including the suicide bombing in August 2021 that killed 13 American military personnel and at least 169 Afghans in Kabul during the hasty U.S. withdrawal from the country. From the end of 2022, to the beginning of 2023, embassies in Kabul belonging to Pakistan and Russia were struck by IS-K extremists. Additionally, they targeted a hotel housing Chinese business delegates and carried out an assault at a military air base. In March 2024, IS-K also organised a suicide bombing in Kandahar that resulted in at least 21 deaths and left more than 50 people injured. This incident underscored IS-K’s influence and its ability to target even the Taliban heartland.

IS-K activities have not been limited to Afghanistan. The group has carried out mass-casualty assaults in Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan. Additionally, it has pursued operations targeting the U.S. and Europe. The IS-K attack on the Moscow concert hall resulted in 145 dead and some 500 wounded, making it as one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent history and the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades. Indeed, the attack in Moscow signified a significant shift in the group’s operations, demonstrating an expanding capacity to inflict terror beyond its home base of Afghanistan. By reaching Moscow, IS-K also signaled its geographic reach to strike anywhere in the world.

The UN Security Council reported in June 2023 that the number of IS-K militants in Afghanistan ranged from 4,000 to 6,000, including family members. Other regional and international terrorist groups actively operating in Afghanistan include the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Islamic Jihad Group, Khatiba Imam al-Bukhari and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Most of the terrorist groups that fought alongside the Taliban now find themselves isolated as their Taliban allies have transitioned into government roles and positions of power. The fighters from these groups, now without a clear purpose, could potentially be recruited by IS-K which has demonstrated the capacity to absorb fighters from other groups. And a potential influx of new members could pose an increased threat to regional stability.

Retired General Frank McKenzie, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan during the 2021 withdrawal, issued a stark warning recently regarding the ongoing threat of terrorism. Despite the absence of recent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, General McKenzie cautioned that the threat has not dissipated and may, in fact, be on the rise. He highlighted that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has emboldened IS-K and increased the likelihood of further attacks not only against the U.S. but also its allies and other nations worldwide.

IS-K has been using various means to spread its propaganda, one of which is through online publications. A significant contributor to these publications, especially in 2023, was a mysterious writer who identified himself as ‘the Canadian’. This individual, who goes by the name ‘Sulaiman Dawood al-Kanadie’, has been actively writing for the ‘Voice of Khurasan’, an online publication produced by IS-K and his contributions cover a wide range of topics including a demand for “a jihadist invasion of Israel.”

The presence of such a person in Canada is a cause of concern for authorities, as it indicates the potential for IS-K’s influence to spread beyond its primary region of operation. Additionally, there have been instances where Canadian citizens have traveled abroad to join the IS or engage in related activities. In 2015, the Canadian government estimated that 180 Canadians had travelled overseas to fight in various conflicts, including with IS and other jihadist groups, with approximately 60 having already returned.

Retired U.S. General David Petraeus, who led NATO and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan between July 2010 and July 2011, and served as the Director of the CIA from September 2011 until November 2012, highlighted recently on The West Block hosted by Mercedes Stephenson that the risk of a terror attack in Canada was “elevated” following the Moscow attack. The presence of IS-K propaganda in Canada, particularly the contributions of ‘the Canadian’ to the ‘Voice of Khurasan’ underscores this threat. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) also stated this year “that it is keeping tabs on ISIS-K [IS-K] and forecasts the group will continue to be active for at least the remainder of the year.” This acknowledgment by CSIS suggests that there might be other individuals or networks connected to ‘the Canadian’ and although he is just one person his influence, especially domestically, could be substantial.

The potential implications of IS-K threats for Canada’s national security are significant and in Canada the RCMP is tasked to track and prevent terrorist threats. However, the presence of IS-K propaganda and the activities of ‘the Canadian’ highlight the risk of radicalization within Canada’s borders, which could potentially lead to homegrown terror attacks, posing a direct threat to the safety of Canadian citizens.

Canada’s approach to countering terrorism and radicalization, such as our National Strategy on Countering Radicalization to Violence, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSETs), and the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, collectively mitigate risks associated with terrorism and radicalization. However, rapidly changing terrorist threats require continuous and robust efforts and should include enhanced surveillance by strengthening internet monitoring to prevent the spread of extremist propaganda within Canada, implementing additional counter-radicalization programs, and raising public awareness about the threats posed by extremist groups.

Furthermore, Canada also finds itself in a bit of an intelligence vortex when it comes to many of the locations IS-K operates in overseas. For example, Canada severed diplomatic relations with Iran and Syria in 2012 and does not recognize the Taliban government. Therefore, international collaboration amongst agencies in Canada and our allies plays a crucial role in mitigating threats by sharing what intelligence is available, coordinating counter-terrorism efforts, and supporting activities that counter IS-K activities.

Indeed, collaboration will continue to be crucial in addressing the multifaceted nature of the IS-K global threat while also bolstering Canada’s defence against terrorism.

MUSTAFA ARYAN
Research Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto

Malala Yousafzai vows support for Gaza after backlash

Lahore (Pakistan) (AFP) – Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai on Thursday condemned Israel and reaffirmed her support for Palestinians in Gaza, after a backlash in her native Pakistan over a Broadway musical she co-produced with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


Issued on: 25/04/2024 - 

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai participates in a panel discussion in Johannesburg in December 2023 

© PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP/File

Yousafzai, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, has been condemned by some for partnering with Clinton, an outspoken supporter of Israel's war against Hamas.

The musical, titled "Suffs," depicts the American women's suffrage campaign for the right to vote in the 20th century and has been playing in New York since last week.

"I want there to be no confusion about my support for the people of Gaza," Yousafzai wrote on X, the former Twitter. "We do not need to see more dead bodies, bombed schools and starving children to understand that a ceasefire is urgent and necessary."

She added: "I have and will continue to condemn the Israeli government for its violations of international law and war crimes."

Pakistan has seen many fiercely emotional pro-Palestinian protests since the war in Gaza began last October.

Yusafzai's "theatre collaboration with Hillary Clinton -- who stands for America's unequivocal support for genocide of Palestinians -- is a huge blow to her credibility as a human rights activist," popular Pakistani columnist Mehr Tarar wrote on social media platform X on Wednesday.

"I consider it utterly tragic."

Whilst Clinton has backed a military campaign to remove Hamas and rejected demands for a ceasefire, she has also explicitly called for protections for Palestinian civilians.

Yousafzai has publically condemned the civilian casualties and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The New York Times reported the 26-year-old wore a red-and-black pin to the "Suffs" premier last Thursday, signifying her support for a ceasefire.

But author and academic Nida Kirmani said on X that Yousafzai's decision to partner with Clinton was "maddening and heartbreaking at the same time. What an utter disappointment."

The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Hamas militants also abducted 250 people and Israel estimates 129 of them remain in Gaza, including 34 who the military says are dead.

Clinton served as America's top diplomat during former president Barack Obama's administration, which oversaw a campaign of drone strikes targeting Taliban militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan's borderlands.

Yousafzai earned her Nobel Peace Prize after being shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban as she pushed for girls' education as a teenager in 2012.

However, the drone war killed and maimed scores of civilians in Yousafzai's home region, spurring more online criticism of the youngest Nobel Laureate, who earned the prize at 17.

Yousafzai is often viewed with suspicion in Pakistan, where critics accuse her of pushing a Western feminist and liberal political agenda on the conservative country.

© 2024 AFP

What's Behind The Deadly Surge Of Violence In Pakistan's Balochistan?

April 23, 2024 
By Abubakar Siddique

A man walks past charred truck containers torched by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) in the central Bolan district in Balochistan Province on January 30.

Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan has been the scene of a low-level insurgency and a brutal government crackdown for decades.

But the vast and resource-rich province -- home to the South Asian country's ethnic Baluch minority -- has witnessed a surge in deadly attacks in recent months.

The gun attacks and suicide bombings have targeted Pakistani security forces as well as foreign nationals.

Who Is Behind The Attacks?

Most of the attacks have been claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist militant group and U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

The Majeed Brigade, the BLA’s suicide squad, is believed to have carried out the most complex attacks.

SEE ALSO:
Pakistani Protests: Baluch Women Seek Answers, Justice In Disappearance Of Loved Ones

The BLA is considered the largest armed group operating in Balochistan. It is allied with the Baloch Liberation Front, the other major separatist militant group active in the province. Experts believe the BLA has several thousand members.

Last year, Baluch militants carried out 110 attacks, according to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank. In the first three months of 2024 alone, the groups have launched 62 attacks, suggesting a sharp rise.

Who Are They Targeting?

The BLA is targeting the Pakistani Army and police and has been blamed for killing Chinese workers.

Since January, the group has attacked government offices in the port city of Gwadar, the lynchpin of Chinese investments in energy and infrastructure in Pakistan. The BLA also attacked Pakistan's largest naval air force base and attempted to overrun the strategic town of Mach.

Assassinations and improvised-explosive-device (IED) attacks have been reported almost daily.

A general view of Gwadar port, which is the lynchpin of Chinese investments in Pakistan. (file photo)

"Anyone affiliated with the state's crackdown in Balochistan is their target," said an Islamabad-based expert who tracks the region and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Zafar Baloch, a Balochistan researcher based in Britain, says the BLA and other separatist groups seek independence from Pakistan. The groups have demanded that the Pakistani military leave Balochistan and for China to end its "exploitative" projects in the province.

SEE ALSO:
Cross-Border Strikes A Major Escalation In Long-Running Iran-Pakistan Dispute

The Baluchis blame Islamabad for exploiting the vast natural resources in Balochistan and committing grave human rights abuses in the impoverished region.

Why Was There A Sharp Increase In Attacks?

The expert in Islamabad said the "recruitment of the separatist militant organizations has skyrocketed" recently. That, the analyst said, has enabled the groups to "launch more attacks."

The disputed February elections, marred by widespread allegations of fraud, added "fuel to the fire" because they deprived the Baluchis of real political representation, the analyst says.

The Baluch youth, the analyst says, do not "see any avenue for expressing their dissent."

Baluch political parties, which had formed most provincial governments in the past, lost power in the controversial elections.

Sarafaz Bugti, a Baluch politician who is backed by the military, now heads the provincial government.

Baloch, the Britain-based researcher, said that "Islamabad's counterinsurgency strategy, based on a militarized approach, is the root cause" of instability in Balochistan.

A man looks at charred shops and a vehicle torched by the BLA militants in Bolan district, Balochistan on January 30.

Activists have accused the Pakistan military of the enforced disappearances of thousands of people and a "kill-and-dump" policy against political activists and suspected armed separatists.

Baloch says Islamabad's suppression of a sit-in protest by the relatives of Baluch victims of forced disappearances and unlawful killings in January dented the community's hopes for a political solution to their woes.

Are Baluch Separatists Growing In Strength?

Analysts say the Taliban takeover of neighboring Afghanistan has boosted the capabilities of armed groups in the region, including Baluch separatist groups.

Some of the military gear and weapons left behind after the U.S. military withdrawal in 2021 and seized by the Taliban have turned up and been used by Baluch armed groups.

The influx of U.S. weapons has "opened new avenues for these groups to thrive," Baloch said.

SEE ALSO:
What Is Jaish Al-Adl, The Separatist Group Targeting Iranian Forces?

The researcher says the BLA has also evolved in recent years. Once led by tribal figures, the group is now run by educated middle-class professionals who think in "modern and unconventional ways." Since 2018, several Baluch separatist groups have coalesced around the BLA.

Baloch says the group has used digital and social media to attract new recruits and cultivate sympathy from the civilian population.

Pakistan is not willing to address the deep-rooted political grievances that keep Balochistan unstable, the Islamabad-based analyst says.

"If 20 years of kinetic operations have not solved anything," the analyst said. "It will not solve anything in the next 20 years."    

Abubakar Siddique a journalist for RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, specializes in the coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key To The Future Of Pakistan And Afghanistan. He is also one of the authors of the Azadi Briefing, a weekly newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan.

 

A Brief History of Kill Lists, from Langley to Lavender

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Posted onApril 17, 2024

The Israeli online magazine +972 has published a detailed report on Israel’s use of an artificial intelligence (AI) system called “Lavender” to target thousands of Palestinian men in its bombing campaign in Gaza. When Israel attacked Gaza after October 7, the Lavender system had a database of 37,000 Palestinian men with suspected links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Lavender assigns a numerical score, from one to a hundred, to every man in Gaza, based mainly on cellphone and social media data, and automatically adds those with high scores to its kill list of suspected militants. Israel uses another automated system, known as “Where’s Daddy?”, to call in airstrikes to kill these men and their families in their homes.

The report is based on interviews with six Israeli intelligence officers who have worked with these systems. As one of the officers explained to +972, by adding a name from a Lavender-generated list to the Where’s Daddy home tracking system, he can place the man’s home under constant drone surveillance, and an airstrike will be launched once he comes home.

The officers said the “collateral” killing of the men’s extended families was of little consequence to Israel. “Let’s say you calculate [that there is one] Hamas [operative] plus 10 [civilians in the house],” the officer said. “Usually, these 10 will be women and children. So absurdly, it turns out that most of the people you killed were women and children.”

The officers explained that the decision to target thousands of these men in their homes is just a question of expediency. It is simply easier to wait for them to come home to the address on file in the system, and then bomb that house or apartment building, than to search for them in the chaos of the war-torn Gaza Strip.

The officers who spoke to 972+ explained that in previous Israeli massacres in Gaza, they could not generate targets quickly enough to satisfy their political and military bosses, and so these AI systems were designed to solve that problem for them. The speed with which Lavender can generate new targets only gives its human minders an average of 20 seconds to review and rubber-stamp each name, even though they know from tests of the Lavender system that at least 10% of the men chosen for assassination and familicide have only an insignificant or a mistaken connection with Hamas or PIJ.

The Lavender AI system is a new weapon, developed by Israel. But the kind of kill lists that it generates have a long pedigree in U.S. wars, occupations and CIA regime change operations. Since the birth of the CIA after the Second World War, the technology used to create kill lists has evolved from the CIA’s earliest coups in Iran and Guatemala, to Indonesia and the Phoenix program in Vietnam in the 1960s, to Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s and to the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just as U.S. weapons development aims to be at the cutting edge, or the killing edge, of new technology, the CIA and U.S. military intelligence have always tried to use the latest data processing technology to identify and kill their enemies.

The CIA learned some of these methods from German intelligence officers captured at the end of the Second World War. Many of the names on Nazi kill lists were generated by an intelligence unit called Fremde Heere Ost (Foreign Armies East), under the command of Major General Reinhard Gehlen, Germany’s spy chief on the eastern front(see David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, p. 268).

Gehlen and the FHO had no computers, but they did have access to four million Soviet POWs from all over the USSR, and no compunction about torturing them to learn the names of Jews and communist officials in their hometowns to compile kill lists for the Gestapo and Einsatzgruppen.

After the war, like the 1,600 German scientists spirited out of Germany in Operation Paperclip, the United States flew Gehlen and his senior staff to Fort Hunt in Virginia. They were welcomed by Allen Dulles, soon to be the first and still the longest-serving director of the CIA. Dulles sent them back to Pullach in occupied Germany to resume their anti-Soviet operations as CIA agents. The Gehlen Organization formed the nucleus of what became the BND, the new West German intelligence service, with Reinhard Gehlen as its director until he retired in 1968.

After a CIA coup removed Iran’s popular, democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, a CIA team led by U.S. Major General Norman Schwarzkopf trained a new intelligence service, known as SAVAK, in the use of kill lists and torture. SAVAK used these skills to purge Iran’s government and military of suspected communists and later to hunt down anyone who dared to oppose the Shah.

By 1975, Amnesty International estimated that Iran was holding between 25,000 and 100,000 political prisoners, and had “the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture that is beyond belief.”

In Guatemala, a CIA coup in 1954 replaced the democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman with a brutal dictatorship. As resistance grew in the 1960s, U.S. special forces joined the Guatemalan army in a scorched earth campaign in Zacapa, which killed 15,000 people to defeat a few hundred armed rebels. Meanwhile, CIA-trained urban death squads abducted, tortured and killed PGT (Guatemalan Labor Party) members in Guatemala City, notably 28 prominent labor leaders who were abducted and disappeared in March 1966.

Once this first wave of resistance was suppressed, the CIA set up a new telecommunications center and intelligence agency, based in the presidential palace. It compiled a database of “subversives” across the country that included leaders of farming co-ops and labor, student and indigenous activists, to provide ever-growing lists for the death squads. The resulting civil war became a genocide against indigenous people in Ixil and the western highlands that killed or disappeared at least 200,000 people.

This pattern was repeated across the world, wherever popular, progressive leaders offered hope to their people in ways that challenged U.S. interests. As historian Gabriel Kolko wrote in 1988, “The irony of U.S. policy in the Third World is that, while it has always justified its larger objectives and efforts in the name of anticommunism, its own goals have made it unable to tolerate change from any quarter that impinged significantly on its own interests.”

When General Suharto seized power in Indonesia in 1965, the U.S. Embassy compiled a list of 5,000 communists for his death squads to hunt down and kill. The CIA estimated that they eventually killed 250,000 people, while other estimates run as high as a million.

Twenty-five years later, journalist Kathy Kadane investigated the U.S. role in the massacre in Indonesia, and spoke to Robert Martens, the political officer who led the State-CIA team that compiled the kill list. “It really was a big help to the army,” Martens told Kadane. “They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands. But that’s not all bad – there’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.”

Kathy Kadane also spoke to former CIA director William Colby, who was the head of the CIA’s Far East division in the 1960s. Colby compared the U.S. role in Indonesia to the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which was launched two years later, claiming that they were both successful programs to identify and eliminate the organizational structure of America’s communist enemies.

The Phoenix program was designed to uncover and dismantle the National Liberation Front’s (NLF) shadow government across South Vietnam. Phoenix’s Combined Intelligence Center in Saigon fed thousands of names into an IBM 1401 computer, along with their locations and their alleged roles in the NLF. The CIA credited the Phoenix program with killing 26,369 NLF officials, while another 55,000 were imprisoned or persuaded to defect. Seymour Hersh reviewed South Vietnamese government documents that put the death toll at 41,000.

How many of the dead were correctly identified as NLF officials may be impossible to know, but Americans who took part in Phoenix operations reported killing the wrong people in many cases. Navy SEAL Elton Manzione told author Douglas Valentine (The Phoenix Program) how he killed two young girls in a night raid on a village, and then sat down on a stack of ammunition crates with a hand grenade and an M-16, threatening to blow himself up, until he got a ticket home.

“The whole aura of the Vietnam War was influenced by what went on in the “hunter-killer” teams of Phoenix, Delta, etc,” Manzione told Valentine. “That was the point at which many of us realized we were no longer the good guys in the white hats defending freedom – that we were assassins, pure and simple. That disillusionment carried over to all other aspects of the war and was eventually responsible for it becoming America’s most unpopular war.”

Even as the U.S. defeat in Vietnam and the “war fatigue” in the United States led to a more peaceful next decade, the CIA continued to engineer and support coups around the world, and to provide post-coup governments with increasingly computerized kill lists to consolidate their rule.

After supporting General Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the CIA played a central role in Operation Condor, an alliance between right-wing military governments in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, to hunt down tens of thousands of their and each other’s political opponents and dissidents, killing and disappearing at least 60,000 people.

The CIA’s role in Operation Condor is still shrouded in secrecy, but Patrice McSherry, a political scientist at Long Island University, has investigated the U.S. role and concluded, “Operation Condor also had the covert support of the US government. Washington provided Condor with military intelligence and training, financial assistance, advanced computers, sophisticated tracking technology, and access to the continental telecommunications system housed in the Panama Canal Zone.”

McSherry’s research revealed how the CIA supported the intelligence services of the Condor states with computerized links, a telex system, and purpose-built encoding and decoding machines made by the CIA Logistics Department. As she wrote in her book, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America:

“The Condor system’s secure communications system, Condortel… allowed Condor operations centers in member countries to communicate with one another and with the parent station in a U.S. facility in the Panama Canal Zone. This link to the U.S. military-intelligence complex in Panama is a key piece of evidence regarding secret U.S. sponsorship of Condor…”

Operation Condor ultimately failed, but the U.S. provided similar support and training to right-wing governments in Colombia and Central America throughout the 1980s in what senior military officers have called a “quiet, disguised, media-free approach” to repression and kill lists.

The U.S. School of the Americas (SOA) trained thousands of Latin American officers in the use of torture and death squads, as Major Joseph Blair, the SOA’s former chief of instruction described to John Pilger for his film, The War You Don’t See:

“The doctrine that was taught was that, if you want information, you use physical abuse, false imprisonment, threats to family members, and killing. If you can’t get the information you want, if you can’t get the person to shut up or stop what they’re doing, you assassinate them – and you assassinate them with one of your death squads.”

When the same methods were transferred to the U.S. hostile military occupation of Iraq after 2003, Newsweek headlined it “The Salvador Option.” A U.S. officer explained to Newsweek that U.S. and Iraqi death squads were targeting Iraqi civilians as well as resistance fighters. “The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists,” he said. “From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation.”

The United States sent two veterans of its dirty wars in Latin America to Iraq to play key roles in that campaign. Colonel James Steele led the U.S. Military Advisor Group in El Salvador from 1984 to 1986, training and supervising Salvadoran forces who killed tens of thousands of civilians. He was also deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, narrowly escaping a prison sentence for his role supervising shipments from Ilopango air base in El Salvador to the U.S.-backed Contras in Honduras and Nicaragua.

In Iraq, Steele oversaw the training of the Interior Ministry’s Special Police Commandos – rebranded as “National” and later “Federal” Police after the discovery of their al-Jadiriyah torture center and other atrocities.

Bayan al-Jabr, a commander in the Iranian-trained Badr Brigade militia, was appointed Interior Minister in 2005, and Badr militiamen were integrated into the Wolf Brigade death squad and other Special Police units. Jabr’s chief adviser was Steven Casteel, the former intelligence chief for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Latin America.

The Interior Ministry death squads waged a dirty war in Baghdad and other cities, filling the Baghdad morgue with up to 1,800 corpses per month, while Casteel fed the western media absurd cover stories, such as that the death squads were all “insurgents” in stolen police uniforms.

Meanwhile U.S. special operations forces conducted “kill-or-capture” night raids in search of Resistance leaders. General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Joint Special Operations Command from 2003-2008, oversaw the development of a database system, used in Iraq and Afghanistan, that compiled cellphone numbers mined from captured cellphones to generate an ever-expanding target list for night raids and air strikes.

The targeting of cellphones instead of actual people enabled the automation of the targeting system, and explicitly excluded using human intelligence to confirm identities. Two senior U.S. commanders told the Washington Post that only half the night raids attacked the right house or person.

In Afghanistan, President Obama put McChrystal in charge of U.S. and NATO forces in 2009, and his cellphone-based “social network analysis” enabled an exponential increase in night raids, from 20 raids per month in May 2009 to up to 40 per night by April 2011.

As with the Lavender system in Gaza, this huge increase in targets was achieved by taking a system originally designed to identify and track a small number of senior enemy commanders and applying it to anyone suspected of having links with the Taliban, based on their cellphone data.

This led to the capture of an endless flood of innocent civilians, so that most civilian detainees had to be quickly released to make room for new ones. The increased killing of innocent civilians in night raids and airstrikes fueled already fierce resistance to the U.S. and NATO occupation and ultimately led to its defeat.

President Obama’s drone campaign to kill suspected enemies in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia was just as indiscriminate, with reports suggesting that 90% of the people it killed in Pakistan were innocent civilians.

And yet Obama and his national security team kept meeting in the White House every “Terror Tuesday” to select who the drones would target that week, using an Orwellian, computerized “disposition matrix” to provide technological cover for their life and death decisions.

Looking at this evolution of ever-more automated systems for killing and capturing enemies, we can see how, as the information technology used has advanced from telexes to cellphones and from early IBM computers to artificial intelligence, the human intelligence and sensibility that could spot mistakes, prioritize human life and prevent the killing of innocent civilians has been progressively marginalized and excluded, making these operations more brutal and horrifying than ever.

Nicolas has at least two good friends who survived the dirty wars in Latin America because someone who worked in the police or military got word to them that their names were on a death list, one in Argentina, the other in Guatemala. If their fates had been decided by an AI machine like Lavender, they would both be long dead.

As with supposed advances in other types of weapons technology, like drones and “precision” bombs and missiles, innovations that claim to make targeting more precise and eliminate human error have instead led to the automated mass murder of innocent people, especially women and children, bringing us full circle from one holocaust to the next.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.