#Pakistan's claim to be a victim of terrorism rests on groups like #TTP ("Pakistani Taliban"), but it was the Army/ISI who created the jihadist emirate in North Waziristan where this group was formed, with the active and ongoing assistance of the ISI's loyal Haqqani Network. ImageImage
#pt: "The Foutainhead of Jihad", pp. 164-5.
The #Haqqani-run enclave in North Waziristan, operating with the full backing of #Pakistan's ISI, not only nurtured the #TTP the Pakistanis would later portray as a mortal foe, it of course supported the "Afghan" #Taliban and was where #Al_Qaeda organised many post-9/11 plots. ImageImage
In 2009, the #Haqqanis - again, under the complete control of #Pakistan's ISI - were central to the formation of an umbrella group that included the "Afghan" and "Pakistani" #Taliban (TTP), with a mission statement to avoid trouble in Pakistan and focus on #Afghanistan. Image
The founder of the "Pakistani Taliban" (#TTP) Baitullah Mehsud was close to the #Haqqani Network, a wing of #Pakistan's ISI, and Mehsud/TTP remained entangled with the Haqqanis even after TTP supposedly declared war on the Pakistani state. Image
The man who carried out the Camp Chapman attack in 2009 was tied in with Al-Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, and the "Pakistani Taliban" (TTP), as the jihadist media output in the aftermath showed. Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency had been key in orchestrating the operation. Image
The #Haqqani Network is perhaps the central node for the web of jihadists controlled by #Pakistan's ISI, very much including the #Taliban, helping it succeed last time and this. The Haqqanis' history is also inextricably intertwined with #Al_Qaeda | kyleorton.co.uk/2021/09/07/pak…
The #Haqqani part of #Pakistan's jihadist network was entwined with #Al_Qaeda from the outset, and explicitly globalist; its first magazine in 1988 was literally called, "The Voice of Global Jihad", kept engaged with Bin Laden even in Sudan.

["Fountainhead of Jihad", pp. 89-92] ImageImageImageImage
As Rassler and Brown point out in "Fountainhead of Jihad" (p. 12), theoretically it is a liability for the #Haqqani Network (and #Pakistan) for the Haqqanis to be so tightly bound into #Al_Qaeda, and yet they won't give it up, which can only mean it's an ideological commitment. Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Kyle Orton

Kyle Orton Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @KyleWOrton

15 Sep
In Sept. 1971, the KGB's Oleg Lyalin defected from the London Embassy and told the British government about the really alarming (and some quite bizarre) "special actions" the Soviets had been planning on the West, precipitating the mass expulsion Soviet spies in Operation FOOT.
The interesting thing is that this meant the West was quite well aware, from near the beginning of Andropov's renewed campaign, that Soviet terrorism was a very real phenomenon, and yet down to the end most in the West considered it a "conspiracy theory"
The KGB recruitment of Wadi Haddad of the PFLP in 1970 was the turning point: his Palestinian group was given weapons that even Eastern Bloc states hadn't received and given tasks as various as kidnapping CIA officers and assassinating Soviet defectors.
Read 7 tweets
14 Sep
#IS established itself in "Af-Pak" by building off the Afghan Salafist community that took root in eastern areas via the Arab presence there beginning many decades ago. The Salafis had some second thoughts, but the #Taliban is now pressuring them, too. trtworld.com/opinion/the-dy…
#pt: The Taliban made an approach to IS-Centre in 2015 to ask that ISKP not be used to open another jihadist front, since this would distract from the war with the West. No dice. IS didn't even bother to reply.
#pt: The original Pakistani, mostly TTP, leadership of #ISKP was killed off quite quickly and replaced with Afghan Salafis. The current leader, though, Dr. Shahab al-Muhajir, seems to be a former Haqqani Network operative, and has peeled away other parts of that network.
Read 4 tweets
13 Sep
The lengths the #KGB went to in trying to destroy #Solzhenitsyn even after he had been expelled from the Soviet Union are extraordinary, and not entirely irrational: they understood the danger he posed to them.

<Mini thread drawn from "The Sword and the Shield", pp. 312, 317-21>
Andropov first tried to expel Solzhenitsyn in autumn 1971, but Brezhnev listened to interior minister Nikolai Shchelokov, who said the great writer should be co-opted rather than persecuted. Andropov did not forget this, and later witch-hunted Shchelokov until he killed himself.
In late 1973, after Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov wrote an open letter that encouraged Congress to override the Nixon-Kissinger administration by passing Jackson-Vanik that linked Soviet trade privileges to human rights, Brezhnev said the KGB should have cracked down from the start.
Read 9 tweets
9 Sep
#Pakistan's ruler from 1999 to 2008, General Pervez Musharraf, wrote in his memoir: "It is true that we had assisted in the rise of the #Taliban after the Soviet Union withdrew from #Afghanistan" (p. 202). Image
Even after #Pakistan's General Musharraf disparages the "obscurantist" nature of the #Taliban and the "peace of the graveyard" they brought, he writes: "Nevertheless, we still supported them, for geostrategic reasons", to minimise Indian influence in #Afghanistan (p. 203).
Musharraf tries to create a narrative where #Pakistan was not engaged with the #Taliban at inception, even though the Saudis and UAE were (p. 201-11), which is absurd, and that the ISI had lost its "leverage" over the Taliban after it came to power (pp. 203, 209), equally absurd.
Read 9 tweets
5 Sep
"Though Mr. Biden reversed other Trump policies, he was inclined to go through with the Afghan [withdrawal] ... The military argued for keeping 2,500 troops ... Bagram air base was central to the military's plans" for drones and special forces. wsj.com/articles/insid…
On 8 May, "The Pentagon wanted a discussion on an emergency evacuation of the embassy and how to plan to remove Afghans at risk, but White House officials asked that those issues be removed from the agenda"

Again, Biden cannot say he didn't know. Biden chose to leave the Afghans
Even Jake Sullivan thought closing Bagram Airbase was a bad idea, and in June there was a pause for four days. But Biden insisted on doing all this with 650 troops in Kabul, so the Pentagon could only protect either Bagram or HKIA, and Biden went with the latter.
Read 7 tweets
4 Sep
#Pakistan's use of #Islamists to interfere in #Afghanistan does not begin in 1979—that jihad project had begun in 1973 and all the Mujahideen groups were formed before the Soviet invasion—but the origins go back to c. 1956 for a cluster of reasons. <Mini Thread>
#Pakistan inherited the #British concept of "strategic depth", i.e. the need for a buffer against the most dangerous imperial rival (#Russia), and thus from foundation sought to make #Afghanistan into a client state.

[@husainhaqqani, "Between Mosque and Military", pp. 164-6]
#pt: Pakistan's move to vassalise #Afghanistan began in earnest in 1956, after the creation of the Pakistani constitution, with its "Objectives Resolution", creating an Islamic Republic, which had impacts not only internally, allowing the state to define "Muslim", but externally.
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(