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Afghanistan, an ancient focal
point of trade and migration populated with a mosaic of ethnic groups, exists
at the junction of the crossroads between the East and West in the center of
the "world island" - Asia.
Afghanistan has suffered almost continuous
conflict being repeatedly invaded throughout recorded history.
6th century BC The Median invasion comes from the region south
of the Caspian Sea.
516 BC Darius I creates the Achaemenid
Persian empire which reaches to
the Indus river.
Zoroastrianism appears along with a
Mithraic Median prototype and its Zurvanist Sassanid successor serves as the
state religion of pre-Islamic Iranian empires from around 600 BC to 650
AC.
4th century BC The
Scythian empire reached
its greatest extent during the reign of Ateas and includes Bactria (present-day
Balkh).
328
BC Alexander III of
Macedonia enters the territory of present-day Afghanistan to capture
Bactria and finally conquers a region reaching to the Indus river.
Alexander III of Macedonia brings leprosy to Europe from
India.
273 BC to 232
BC The Indian Hindu warrior
and general Ashoka Maurya
reigns as the emperor of the Mauryan empire.
The brutality of the
conquests led Ashoka Maurya later in life to adopt
Buddhism under the
guidance of the Brahma Buddhist sages Radhaswami and Manjushris.
2nd century BC The Bactrian Hellenistic Greek king Euthydemus
and his son Demetrius cross the Hindu Kush and began the conquest of Northern
Afghanistan and the Indus valley creating the Indo-Greek empire.
1st century AD The Kushan empire wrestled control of the area
from the Bactrian's including the Kabul valley, part of Qandahar and
established the twin capitals near present-day Kabul and Peshawar then known as
Kapisa and Pushklavati respectively.
The Kushans adopted elements of
the Hellenistic culture of
Bactria including a writing system that used the Greek alphabet.
During
the Kushana empire rule, Afghanistan and Gandhara become major centers of
trade.
425 White Huns
of the Hephthalite empire, an
agricultural people with
a developed set of laws, displace the Kushan and conquer Sogdiana and Khorasan
before 425.
They cross the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invaded
Persia in 425.
Held
off at first by Bahram Gur, they later succeed in making
Persia a tributary in 485.
After a series of wars they are driven out of Persia, permanently loss
the offensive, and are finally defeated by Khosru I in 557 .
The White
Huns invade India and succeed in extending their empire to include the Ganges
river valley.
552 The Göktürks or
Kök-Türks - a Turkic people of ancient North and Central Asia,
Eastern Europe and northwestern China - under the leadership of Bumin/Tuman
Khan/Khaghan and his sons, establish the first known Turkic empire around in
the general area of territory that had earlier been occupied by the White Huns,
and expand rapidly to rule wide territories in Central Asia.
The
Göktürks originate from the Ashina tribe, an Altaic people who lived
in the northern corner of the area presently called the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomus Region of China.
Known in medieval Chinese sources as Tujue.
They were the first Turkic tribe to use the name "Türk" as a
political name.
552 - 642 The Sassanid empire, Sassanian empire, second
Persian empire, the fourth Iranian dynasty, and other powers rule the rest of
Afghanistan.
The Sassanid empire's territory encompassed all of today's
Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Afghanistan,
eastern parts of Turkey, and parts of
Syria, Pakistan, Caucasia,
Central Asia and Arabia.
643 Arab Muslims invade the entire region and introduce
Islam.
Tang Chinese has
extended its influence all the way to Kabul.
875-999 The Samanids reign over a rebuilt Persian empire in
Central Asia and eastern Iran, named after its founder Saman Khoda.
It
is the first native Iranian dynasty in Iran and Central Asia after the Arab
conquest and the collapse of the Sassanid Persian empire.
999 Mahmud of Ghazni and Bughra Khan invade.
Bughra
Khan occupies Bukhara, the capital of the Persian Samanids empire.
The
Samanid domains are split up between the Ghaznavids, who gained Khorasan and
Afghanistan, and the Karakhanids, who receive Transoxania; the Oxus River
becomes the boundary between the two rival empires.
At this time the
Karakhanid, Kara-Khanid Khanate, converts to Islam.
962 to 1187 Mahmud of Ghazni,
founder of the Ghaznavid empire, a Sunni Muslim state in Khorasan in modern day
Afghanistan, consolidates the conquests of his predecessors and turns Ghazna,
Ghazni, into a great cultural center as well as a base for frequent forays into
India.
992 to 1041
Khwarezm is a province of the Ghaznavid empire.
1041
Seljuk Turks gain control of
Khwarezm.
1092 The Seljuk
Turks, a Muslim dynasty
originally of Oghuz Turkic descent, is at its zenith under Malik Shah.
The Seljuk empire stretches from Anatolia to Pakistan.
Malik
Shah I dies and the Seljuk empire is split as his brother and four sons quarrel
over the apportioning of the empire among themselves.
They become the
target of the First
Crusade.
1124 The Khitan empire, Kara-Khitan
Khanate, is founded by Yelü Dashi, who led the remnants of the Liao
dynasty to Central Asia after fleeing from the Jurchen conquest of their
homeland in Manchuria.
Muhammad 'Ayn ad-Dawlah takes over administration
of the western branch of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, centred at Bukhara.
The unity of the Karakhanid empire is fractured by constant internal
warfare and later serves the dual suzerainty of both the Kara-Khitan empire to
the north and the Seljuk empire to the south.
1141 The Khwarezms expanded their territories south.
Seljuk Sultan Ahmed Sanjar is defeated by the Kara-Khitan Khanate and
the Great Seljuk empire falls into chaos.
Anu-sh Tigin's grandson Ala
ad-Din Aziz is forced to submit
as a vassal to the Khitan empire as is the the Kara-Khanid Khanate.
1146 The Ghaznavid empire is
defeated by Muhammad of Ghor, who founds the
Ghori empire.
The
Ghaznavid Khans continue to live in Ghazni as the 'Nasher' until the early 20th
century.
They regain power in 1709 when the Ghilzai Pashtuns's defeat
the Safavid Persians in Kandahar.
1175 The Ghurid
empire under the leadership of Muhammad of Ghor, stretches over a vast area
including parts of Iran, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, India, Turkistan, Iraq and parts of
other Arab countries.
Muhammad of Ghor occupies Uch, Multan, Peshawar,
Lahore, and Delhi.
1194 Last Sultan of Great
Seljuk empire is defeated by the Khwarezm ruler Ala ad-Din Tekish.
1200 Ala ad-Din Tekish dies and is succeeded by
his son, Ala ad-Din Muhammad, who in 1205 declares himself Shah, Persian for
King.
He becomes known as the Kwarezmshah, the ruler of the empire of
Khwarezm.
1204 Uthman briefly reestablishes the
independence of the Karakhanids empire.
1206
Qutb-ud-din Aybak, a Ghurid general, conquers Delhi and founds the Delhi
Sultanate which lasted from 1206-1526.
1211
Karakhanids are defeated by the Khwarezm-Shah 'Ala' ad-Din Muhammad and the
dynasty is extinguished.
1212 Ala ad-Din
Muhammad defeats the Ghurid empire and conquers the lands of the Kutluk, the
Gur-Khan of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, expanding the empire of Khwarezm, ruling a
territory from the Syr Darya nearly to Baghdad, and from the Indus River to the
Caspian Sea.
The empire of Khwarezm has now conquered both Khitan and
Ghurid.
Continuous warfare between these empires has drained the life
from them making them vulnerable to hostilities.
1219 Chingiz
Khan invades Afghanistan slaughtering resisters, salting fertile
agricultural areas and destroying cities including Herat, Ghazni, and Balkh.
To enhance the heinous legends of his conquests
Chingiz Khan leaves
mountains of the skulls of the defenders of those cities that do not submit
throughout Central Asia.
"The Mongols took no prisoners and allowed no
torture. They executed swiftly and efficiently, including all the soldiers of
the defeated army who, they believed, would be a constant source of future
problems if allowed to live. The first several months of a Mongol invasion were
bloody, but once the takeover ended, the bloodshed ended." - Jack
Weatherford
How Climate Change Drove the Rise of Chingiz Khan
1227 After Chingiz Khan died a
succession of petty chiefs and princes struggle for supremacy until Timur Lang,
Tamerlane or Tamburlaine, incorporates what is today Afghanistan into the
Timurid empire.
There are two factions within the
ruling class:
Tajik, men
of the pen, Wazirs in
Persian, of Persian descent, chancellors, merchants, artists and
scholars;
Warriors, men of the sword, a combination of Turk and Mongol
descent.
1526 Prince
Babur, a descendant of Tamburlaine, establishes the Mughal Empire by defeating
Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans, in the First Battle of Panipat.
The Mughal Empire's capital is based in Kabul.
At its greatest
territorial extent the Mughal Empire includes most of the Indian subcontinent,
then known as Hindustan, and parts of what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Persian word for Mongol is Mughal, generally used to refer to Central
Asian nomads who claimed descent from the Mongol warriors of
Chingiz Khan.
The Mughal rulers are
adherents of Islam.
On the
whole the indigenous Pashtun tribes, Afghans living in the Kandahar area pitted
foreigner against foreigner, Persian against Arab against Turk against Mongol,
siding sometimes with the Persians, sometimes with the Turks, sometimes with
the Mughals.
Afghanistan is divided in many parts in the 16th, 17th and
early 18th century.
North were the Turkisk Uzbeks, west was Persian
Safavid's rule and east is the Mongol or Mughal rule and local Pashtun rule.
1501 to 1736 The Persian
Safavid are the Azeri speaking Iranian dynasty which establishes
Shi'a Islam as the official
religion.
15th century Pashtun Sher Shah Suri,
Sher Khan, the Lion King, conquers much of Central Asia and founds the Sur
empire of northern Indian during the time of Moghul Humayun.
Mughal
empire grows considerably Akbar the Great and now includes all of Hindustan.
Mughal empire expands until its defeat under Aurangzeb's rule.
1605–1627 Jahangir, the son of Moghul Akbar and Rajput
princess Mariam-uz-Zamani, rule the Mughal empire.
1627 Shah Jahan, the son of Jahangir and Mariam-uz-Zamani,
succeeds to the throne and inherits the
greatest empire on Earth.
1630–1653
Shah Jahan commissiones the Taj Mahal in Agra as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz
Mahal who dies giving birth to their 14th child.
1709 Pashtuns rise against the Persian Safavids in Kandahar.
The Persians are defeated.
1719-1729
Afghans conquer and hold Isfahan, Iran.
1729 Nadir Shah pushes back the Afghans in the
Battle of Damghan.
1738 Nadir Shah conquers
Kandahar and occupies Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore.
1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani, a Pashtun, is elected King in a loya
jirga after the assassination of Nadir Shah.
With the death of Nadir
Shah the Durrani Pashtuns became the principal rulers of Afghanistan.
Pashtun martial prowess has been renowned since
Alexander III of
Macedonia fought them.
The Pashtuns are one of the few groups that
manage to impede British imperialism during the 19th century.
The
Pashtuns are the world's largest patriarchal lineage
tribal group.
The total
population of the group is estimated to be at least 45 million, but an accurate
count remains elusive because there has not been
an official census in Afghanistan
since the 1970s, and because of the migratory nature of many Pashtun tribes and
the practice of secluding women in Pakistan.
The area that is drone
targeted by the US is Pashtun.
Ahmad Shah Durrani consolidates
chieftains, petty principalities, and fragmented provinces into one
country.
Ahmad Shah Durrani's rule extended from Mashad in the west to
Kashmir and Delhi in the
east, and from the Amu Darya (Oxus) River in the north to the Arabian Sea in
the south.
From 1747 until the 1978 Marxist coup, all of Afghanistan's
rulers, with the exception of a 9-month period in 1929, are from Durrani's
Pashtun tribal confederation, and all are members of that tribe's Mohammadzai
clan.
19th century Afghanistan becomes a
battleground in the rivalry between
Imperial Britain and
Tsarist Russia for control of Central
Asia.
1809 "Imperial planners
saw themselves playing a "Great Game."
They sacrificed an entire British army of twelve thousand men in the wilderness
of Afghanistan." - Peter Dale Scott
1893 Britain
establishes an unofficial border, the Durand Line, separating Afghanistan from
British India.
1919
Three Anglo-Afghan wars (1839-1842, 1878-1880, 1919) end with London granting
full independence.
Emir Amanullah foundes an Afghan monarchy in 1926.
King Amanullah moves to end Afghanistan's
traditional isolation in
the years following the Third Anglo-Afghan war.
King Amanullah
established diplomatic relations with most major countries and introduces
reforms intended to modernize Afghanistan.
Some of these reforms, the
abolition of the hijab for women and the opening of a number of co-educational
schools, alienate tribal and religious leaders.
Faced with overwhelming
armed opposition, King Amanullah abdicates in January 1929 after Kabul falls to
forces led by Bacha-i-Saqao, a Tajik.
1929
Mohammed Nadir Khan, a cousin of Amanullah, kills Bacha-i-Saqao and with
considerable Pashtun tribal support is declared King Nadir Shah.
King
Nadir Shah began consolidating power and regenerating Afghanistan.
1933 King Nadir Shah is assassinated
in a revenge killing.
Mohammad Zahir Shah succeeds and reigns from 1933 to 1973.
At this time a handful of families including the Karzais and
the Kalilzidads own nearly all arable land, while most Afghans
languish.
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad is instrumental in
pushing the US covert action and later the US invasion of Afghanistan in hopes
of regaining lost power.
1946 Zahir Shah rules
with the assistance of his uncle Prime Minister Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan,
who continues the policies of Nadir Shah.
1953
Sardar Shah Mahmud Khan is replaced as Prime Minister by Mohammed Daoud Khan,
the king's cousin and brother-in-law.
1963
Mohammed Daoud Khan, seeking a closer relationship with the
Soviet Union and a more hostile one
towards Pakistan, creates a dispute with Pakistan which leads to an economic
crisis and Mohammed Daoud Khan is forced to resign.
1964 King Zahir Shah promulgates a
liberal constitution
providing for a bicameral legislature to which the king appointes one-third of
the deputies.
The people elect another third, and the remainder are
selected indirectly by provincial tribal assemblies.
King Zahir Shah's
"experiment in democracy" produces few lasting reforms and it permits the
growth of extremist parties on both the left and the right.
These
included the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan which
had close ideological ties to the Soviet
Union.
Zahir Shah takes a more active role.
1967 People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan splits
into two major rival factions: the Khalq (Masses) faction headed by Nur
Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin supported by elements within the military,
and the Parcham (Banner) faction led by Babrak Karmal.
The split
reflects ethnic, class, and ideological divisions within Afghanstan.
Most of the following heads of state are Ghilzai (Taraki, Amin, Najib,
Mullah Omar).
1973 Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan
seizes power in a military coup.
King Zahir Shah flees.
Mohammad
Sardar Daoud Khan attempts to carry out reforms.
1978 Iranian intelligence agency (SAVAK) and CIA-supported
Islamist agents arrive from Iran with bulging bankrolls in an attempt to create
a clamp-down on the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan by purging
left-wing officers from the Afghan army.
April 27,
1978 People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan initiates a bloody
coup, which resulted in the overthrow and murder of Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan
and most of his family.
Nur Muhammad Taraki, Secretary General of the
People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, becomes President of the
Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister of the newly established Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan, strongly supported by the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics.
The People's Democratic Party of
Afghanistan implementes a socialist agenda which includes:
decree
abolishing usury;
banning of forced marriages;
state
recognition of women's rights to vote;
replacing religious and
traditional laws with secular and Marxist ones;
banning tribal courts;
land reform;
men are obliged to cut their beards and women
couldn't wear a burka.
Taraki embarks upon an ambitious land reform
program to help poor Afghan sharecroppers build schools for women and open
Afghan universities to the poor while introducing free health care.
The
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics sends contractors to build roads,
hospitals, schools and dig water wells.
They also train and equip the
Afghan army.
Adolph "Spike" Dubs
Pro-Taraki militants
assassinate CIA Kabul Chief of Station "Spike" Dubs.
Taraki appoints
Tabizullah Amin in charge of land reform.
Amin launched a brutal
campaign of terror against political opponents.
KGB Chief Yuri Andropov
claims that Amin is an agent provocateur working with the CIA to infiltrate the
Kabul government, intent on discrediting its progressive agenda.
Many
groups are formed in an attempt to reverse the dependence on the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics, some
resorting to violent means
and sabotage of Afghanistan's industry and
infrastructure.
The
government respondes with heavy handed military intervention and arrests,
exiles and executes many mujahideen.
Pashtuns
play a pivotal role in the Soviet war in Afghanistan as
many join the ranks of the
mujahideen.
1979
Operation Cyclone the largest covert operation in history is launched in
Afghanistan shortly after James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. signs the first
executive order for secret aid.
Saudi-born Usamah bin Mohammad bin
Laden, is recruited to
organize and train the mujahideen.
Under this secret presidential
directive James Earl
"Jimmy" Carter, Jr. gives the CIA
the authority to arm the mujahideen through bin Laden.
This secret aid lays the
foundations of al-Qa`ida.
"With the active encouragement of the CIA
and Pakistan Inter-Service Intelligence,
who wanted to turn the Afghan Jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim
states against the Soviet Union,
some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's
fight between 1982 and 1992.
Tens of thousands more came to
study in Pakistani madrasahs.
Eventually, more than 100,000 foreign
Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad." - Ahmed
Rashid
This kicks start what will later be named
ISIS.
"It was
the government of the US who supported Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul Haq in
creating thousands of madrasahs, from which the germs of the Taliban emerged."
- Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
BCCI, a
Pakistani-operated institution with connections to the Pakistani Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) agency, is used by US intelligence agents to funnel money to
Usamah bin Laden and
the mujahideen in
Afghanistan.
Bank of England is the financial regulator for BCCI.
BCCI collapses leaving its legitimate creditors some $11 billion in
losses.
"According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the
mujahideen began
on 24 December 1979.
On July 3, 1979, President Carter signed the first
directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I explained
to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military
intervention." - Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski
"Regret what?
The secret operation was an excellent idea.
It drew the
Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?
On the day
that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter,
saying, in essence: 'We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its
Vietnam War.'" -
Zbigniew Kazimierz
Brzezinski 1998
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, co-founded the
Trilateral Commission with
David Rockefeller,
conceptualizes modern geopolitics as a New Great Game of competition in Central
Eurasia between the US, the UK and
other NATO countries against Russia,
the People's Republic of
China and other Shanghai Coöperation Organization countries for
"influence, power, hegemony and profits in Central Asia and the
Transcaucasus".
Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia's richest construction family,
builds military bases.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, an estimated $500
million is split between Usamah
bin Laden training bases and the Hezb-e Islami faction of the mujahideen
led by Gulbeddin Hekmatyar
who receives American weapons including Stinger anti-aircraft
missiles.
American officials estimated that from 1985 to 1992, some
12,500 people are trained in bomb making,
sabotage, and urban
guerrilla warfare.
Afghan army is overwhelmed by the number of
mujahideen incidents.
December 25 The
Soviet Union sends troops
which enter Kabul five months after the CIA hires
Usamah bin Mohammad bin
Laden and al-Qa`ida, to crush the insurrection
and install another pro-Moscow government.
"Relations between the CIA
(US - CIA) and the Inter-Services
Intelligence (Pakistan - ISI) had grown increasingly warm following Zia's
ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime.
During the
Afghan war Pakistan is aggressively
anti-Soviet.
Soon after the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in
1980, Zia sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian
states." - Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison
1980
Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan
and Pakistan is directed to small regional markets.
There is no local
production of Heroin™.
Researcher Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the
beginning of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan
borderlands became the world's top
Heroin™ producer,
supplying 60 per cent of US demand."
Gulbeddin Hekmatyar, a preferred
client of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, builds a sophisticated
Heroin™ supply network in
Afghanistan's Kunar and Nuristan provinces.
Heroin™ from the
Golden Crescent, negligible before 1979, amounts to 60% of the American market
in 1980.
1986 Golden Crescent is suppling 70%
of the high-grade Heroin™.
Eight tons of Afghan-Pakistani
morphine base from a single Pakistani source supply the Sicilian mafia "Pizza
Connection" in New York - 80% of the Heroin™ reaching the US between
1978 and 1984.
Witness'
confirmed that opium was shipped out of the area on the same Pakistan Army
trucks which shipped in "covert" US military aid.
At the same time the
the CIA and ISI together encouraged the mujahedin to get Soviet troops addicted
to Heroin™, hashish and
cocaine™ from Latin
America in Operation Mosquito.
"Half of Taliban manpower and
equipment originate in Pakistan under the ISI." - Jane's Defence Weekly
The CIA, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
assisted in the financing the résistance.
House of Saud
made a deal with Abdul Aziz to
share the oil revenues which will be spent to support of Wahhabi
madrasahs.
For over nine years the Soviet Army occupies Afghanistan
while conducting military operations against the Afghan mujahideen
rebels.
"At first, everyone thought, there's no way to beat the Soviets.
So what we have to do is throw the worst crazies at them that we can
find, and there was a lot of collateral damage.
We knew exactly who
these people were, and what their organizations were like, and we didn't care.
Then, we allowed them to get rid of, just kill all the moderate
leaders.
The reason we don't have moderate leaders in Afghanistan today
is because we let the nuts kill them all.
They killed the leftists, the
moderates, the middle-of-the-roaders.
They were just eliminated, during
the 1980s and afterward." - Cheryl Benard
Cheryl Benard's 'white saviour' attitude
Zalmay
Mamozy Khalilzad, an ethnic Pashtun, was mentored by
Zbigniew Kazimierz
Brzezinski, the Carter Administration's architect of the policy supporting
the mujahideen résistance to the invasion of Afghanistan by the
Soviet Union .
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad was given
Council on Foreign
Relations fellowship were he was mentored by
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz
Director of Policy Planning at the
State Department.
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad served
Ronald Reagan as a
senior State
Department official advising on the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the
Iran–Iraq War.
During this time he
was the State
Department Special Advisor on Afghanistan to Undersecretary of State
Michael H. Armacost.
In this role he developed and guided the
international program to promote the merits of a Mujahideen-led Afghanistan to
oust the Soviet occupation.
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad served under
President George H. W. Bush in the Defense Department as Deputy
Undersecretary for Policy Planning.
Between 1993 and 2000, Khalilzad
was the Director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Force Structure at the RAND
Corporation.
During this time, he helped found RAND's Center for
Middle Eastern Studies as well as "Strategic Appraisal," a periodic RAND
publication.
Zalmay Mamozy
Khalilzad consulted for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which at
the time was conducting a risk analysis for
Unocal, later a part of
Chevron, for a proposed 1,400 km (890 mile), $2-billion, 622 m³/s (22,000
ft³/s) Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project extending from Turkmenistan
to Afghanistan and further proceeding to Pakistan.
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad acted as a special liaison between
UNOCAL and the Taliban
regime.
As one of the original members of Project for the New American Century,
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad was a signatory of the letter to
William Jefferson Clinton sent
on January 26, 1998, which called for him to accept the aim of "removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power"
using "a full complement of diplomatic, political and military
efforts.
Taliban Oil
Pipelines to 9/11
US Bases
in Afghanistan and Oil Pipeline Politics
1989
Soviet Union withdraw troops but
continues to aid Mohammed Najibullah.
1992 Najibullah
government is overthrown when Abdul Rashid Dostum mutinies, and allies himself
with Ahmed Shah Massoud, to take control of Kabul and declare the Islamic State
of Afghanistan.
mid
1990s Caspian oil reserves
are of top strategic importance in the quest to control the earth's remaining
oil supply.
The US developes a policy called "The Strategy of the
Silk Route."
The strategy is designed to lock out Russia, China,
and Iran.
US corporations are to construct an oil pipeline through
Afghanistan.
James Baker former
Treasury Secretary, Secretary of State and Chief of Staff during BCCI reign, is
a leading player in developing the "Strategy of the Silk Route."
Consortium of US oil companies led by Unocal, later Chevron, pursue
this goal.
The plan is to build a Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline from
Turkmenistan's natural gas fields to Pakistan.
Unocal partnered with
Saudi Delta Oil, which was owned by
al-Qa`ida funders
Khalid bin Mahfouz and Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi form Central Asia Gas
Pipeline, Ltd. (CentGas).
A feasibility study for the Central Asian
pipeline project is performed by
Enron.
This
study concludes that as long as the country is split among fighting warlords
the pipeline could not be built.
Stability is necessary for the $4.5
billion project.
The US believes the Taliban will impose the necessary
order.
US intelligence and ISI continue the close relationship
established through BCCI while funneling arms and funding to the Taliban to
control Afghanistan.
Until 1999,
US taxpayers pay the annual
salary of every Taliban official.
"We would show up in someone's office, offer our thanks, and we would
leave behind a briefcase full of $100 bills, sometimes totaling more than a
million in a single transaction." -
CIA Director George
Tenet
2000 In reaction to the lack of Pashtun representation in the
Kabul government, the Taliban, a
movement of religious scholars and former mujahideen, emerge from the southern
province of Kandahar.
"The Taliban conducted simultaneous negotiations
with two potential oil companies: Argentinean Bridas and Unocal/CentGas.
Once George Walker Bush was selected president, Unocal and BP-Amoco,
which had in the meantime bought Bridas, the Argentinean rival resumed
consortium negotiations with the Taliban.
Under Secretary of State
Richard Armitage, a Unocal
lobbyist, represents US interests.
The Taliban employes as their PR
officer in the US Laila Helms, niece of
Richard Helms, former
director of the CIA and former US ambassador to
Iran.
In March 2001,
Richard Helms brings
Rahmatullah Hashami, Mullah Omar's adviser, to Washington.
Throughout
the 1990's Hamid Karzai, a top adviser and lobbyist for Unocal, is involved in
negotiations with the Taliban regime for the construction of a Central Asian
gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through western
Afghanistan to Pakistan.
At the same time, Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad, who
was also working for Unocal, lobbied the
Clinton
administration to 'engage' with the Taliban." - Loretta Napoleoni
Taliban's Ban On Poppy A Success, U.S. Aides
Say
2001 American oil interests take control of
the White House by
selecting George Walker Bush.
Enron CEO
Kenneth Lee Lay, a
Bush family friend and
Bush's biggest campaign contributor, is eager.
Donald Henry Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, is
a large stockholder in
Enron.
Thomas White, former
vice-chairman of Enron, is appointed
Secretary of the Army.
Condoleezza Rice, a former
Chevron board member, becomes National Security
Advisor and then Secretary of State.
A major
benefactor of the CentGas deal is going to be Halliburton.
Vice President
Richard Bruce Cheney is Halliburton's CEO.
Richard Armitage, a
lobbyist for Unocal, is Under Secretary of State.
Hamid Karzai, later
Afghanistan's Prime Minister, is a Unocal adviser.
James Baker and the
Council on Foreign
Relations demand immediate action and publicly release a Task Force Report
labeled, "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century," by
the James A. Baker III Institute.
They claim urgency of the pipeline
project and openly call for the Bush Administration to "quickly facilitate
higher exports of oil from the Caspian Basin region …"
They
reiterate the basic premise of the "Strategy of the Silk Route," stating, "the
exports from oil discoveries in the
Caspian Basin could be
hastened if a secure, economical export route could be identified swiftly."
That "export route" would run through Afghanistan into
Pakistan.
"The Chairman of the 911 Commission investigation was Thomas
Kean, director of Hess Corp., which was in a joint venture called Delta Oil,
with Khalid Bin Mahfouz and Mohammed Hussein al Amoudi.
It is also
important to mention that James Baker, who had a lead role in developing the
"Strategy of the Silk Route" and BCCI operations, was hired by these same
BCCI/Saudi/ al-Qa`ida oil interests to defend them against lawsuits brought by
families of 911 victims." - David DeGraw
Afghan Northern Alliance, led
by Ahmed Shah Massoud, receives diplomatic recognition in the United Nations as
the government of Afghanistan.
Ahmed Shah Massoud leads the United
Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan.
Ahmed Shah Massoud, an
ethnic Tajik, is assassinated in late September.
On October 7 under the
auspices of a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, US and its coalition
allies launch an invasion of Afghanistan to
oust the Taliban
government.
Sponsored by the United Nations, Afghan factions met in
Bonn, Germany and choose a 30 member interim authority led by
Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun from
Kandahar.
"The CIA has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to
Pakistan's intelligence service since the Sept. 11 attacks, accounting
for as much as one-third of the foreign spy agency's annual budget.
The
Inter-Services Intelligence agency also has collected tens of millions of
dollars through a classified CIA program that pays for the capture or killing
of wanted militants.
The ISI has used the covert CIA money for a
variety of purposes, including the construction of a new headquarters in
Islamabad, the capital.
The CIA has routinely brought ISI operatives to
a secret training facility in North Carolina.
The CIA also directs
millions of dollars to other foreign spy services. But the magnitude of the
payments to the ISI reflect Pakistan's central role.
The CIA depends on
Pakistan's coöperation to carry out missile strikes by
Predator drones that have killed
dozens of suspected extremists in Pakistani border areas.
CIA
payments to the ISI can be traced to the 1980s, when the Pakistani agency
managed the flow of money and weapons to the Afghan mujahedin.
In
addition to bankrolling the ISI's budget, the CIA created a clandestine reward
program that paid bounties for suspected terrorists.
The first check,
for $10 million, was for the capture of Abu Zubaydah, a top Al Qaeda figure.
ISI got $25 million more for the capture of
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. " -
Greg Miller November 15, 2009
Afghan
Massacre: the Convoy of Death
2004 Hamid
Karzai is selected as president of Afghanistan.
2007 DoD contracts for up to $300 million with AEY
Incorporated to became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan's army and
police forces.
AEY Incorporated provides ammunition that is more than
40 years old in decomposing packaging manufactured in China.
The US
government contributes $2 million to destroy excess small-caliber weapons and
2,000 tons of ammunition in Albania,
according to the State
Department through 2007 which included 104 million 7.62 millimeter
cartridges.
AEY bought more than 100 million cartridges manufactured in
China from Albania for the Pentagon contract.
AEY also provided
ammunition or equipment in 2004 to the Department of Energy, the EPA, the
Transportation Security Administration and the State Department.
AEY is
operated by Efraim E. Diveroli, president, and David M. Packouz, vice
president, (son of rabbi Kalman Packouz) both in their early 20's.
Yoav
Botach, an Israeli citizen and "entrepreneur" who "co-owns" 144 commercial and
other properties in Los Angeles through Botach Tactical, incorporated AEY and
is the father of rabbi Shmuley Boteach and grandfather of Efraim E. Diveroli.
AEY won the contract primarily because the
US government declared Hasidic
Jews to be a disadvantaged minority for purposes of minority business
encouragement in 1984.
2008 "The chief effect of
military operations in Afghanistan so far has been to push radical Islamists
across the Pakistani border. As a result, efforts to stabilize Afghanistan are
contributing to the destabilization of Pakistan, with potentially devastating
implications." - Andrew Bacevich
"This is a warrior culture. If you walk around
looking scared, they are not going to respect you." - Army Gen. Stanley A.
McChrystal 2009 "Hell's Angels" of the Taliban engineer a revolt in the
Swat valley of Pakistan by exploiting profound fissures between
a small group of wealthy landlords and
their landless tenant
sharecroppers.
Taliban close a major supply route ferrying some 80%
of NATO supplies into Afghanistan by blowing up a 30-yard-long iron highway
bridge in the Khyber Pass.
Barack Obama orders
17,000 American troops to Afghanistan "to stabilize a deteriorating
situation."
4000 newly arrived Marines and 650 Afghan troops pour into
Taliban controlled villages of southern Afghanistan with armor and helicopters
in the first major operation under a new Pentagon strategy to clear
insurgents from the hotly contested region
before the presidential election.
Southern Afghanistan, a Taliban
stronghold, is a region where Afghan president Hamid Karzai is seeking votes
from fellow Pashtun tribesmen.
Hamid Karzai is reelected August 20 in a
"landslide victory".
August 27 a
suicide bomber hits a Pakistani border
security checkpoint killing at least 18 border guards at the Torkham
checkpoint, the main border crossing from the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan.
August 30 the Chaman border crossing has been closed for two days due
to a dispute between Afghan and Pakistani customs officers.
1,000
trucks are backed up along the road waiting to cross the border.
An
explosion sets several NATO vehicles on fire: three oil tankers, two container
trucks and two dump trucks.
NATO troops fighting the Taliban in
Afghanistan get about 75% of their supplies from Pakistan through the Chaman
and Torkham border crossings.
140 Afghan peasants are killed in rural
Farah province by American airstrikes according to the Red Cross.
Relatives receive $2,000 for family members killed and $1,000 for
injuries.
"As of March 2009, there were 68,197 DoD
contractors in Afghanistan, compared to 52,300 uniformed personnel.
Contractors made up 57% of DoD's workforce in Afghanistan.
This
apparently represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by
DoD in any conflict in the history of the US.
Poor contract management
has also played a role in abuses and crimes committed by certain contractors
against local nationals, which likely has undermined US
counterinsurgency efforts
in Iraq and Afghanistan." - Congressional Research Service,
08/13/2009
American troops set up bases along a
dirt track that a Chinese firm is paving as part of a $3 billion project to
gain access to the Aynak copper reserves.
American troops provide
security to enable China to exploit one of the world's largest unexploited
deposits of copper, earn tens of billions of dollars and feed its voracious
appetite for raw materials.
American forces expand their presence in
neighboring Logar province, where the Aynak deposit is.
Chinese company and Taliban battle over Afghanistan’s
underground riches
China gets an all-clear from the Taliban to mine for copper in
Afghanistan
"The Afghan war is the center of a Western military
operation that is broadening into wider and wider circles throughout Eurasia
and in varying degrees taking in dozens of nations from the Chinese border to
the Indian Ocean to the Black Sea to the Adriatic Sea.
Nations being
absorbed into this military transit, overflight, troop recruitment, training
network include all those in Central Asia (Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan) and the South
Caucasus (Armenia,
Azerbaijan and
Georgia), the Black Sea
region (Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria,
Romania and
Ukraine) and the Southern
Balkans (Albania,
Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia) in addition to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
With the exception of the Central Asian states (so far), all of those
nations mentioned above have sent troops to the war theater or soon will,
Serbia alone possibly excepted." - Rick Rozoff 09/09
"Contrary to the official portrayal of the Afghan
National Army (ANA) as ethnically balanced, the latest
data from US sources reveal that the Tajik minority now accounts for far more
of its troops than the Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group.
Tajik domination of the ANA feeds Pashtun
resentment over the control of
the country's security institutions by their ethnic rivals, while Tajiks
increasingly regard the Pashtun population as aligned with the Taliban." -
Gareth Porter
The Campaign for a US-Afghanistan
Partnership is a nonprofit pro-war front group established by Washington's
most monied lobbying firm Patton Boggs LLP.
One of Patton
Boggs LLP clients is NCL Holdings, a US firm headed by Hamed Wardak,
the Afghan-American son of Afghanistan's defense minister, General Abdul Rahim
Wardak.
NCL Holdings runs supply lines in Afghanistan for the
DoD paying protection money to the Taliban to leave supply lines alone.
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