Jew World Order

The agreement was signed by commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, and Afghan Foreign Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, in Kabul. Under the deal, the newly-formed Afghan Special Operations Unit will take the lead in searches of houses and private compounds.

According to the agreement, US forces will also provide support, but only “as required or requested”. Also, the operations will still be based on US intelligence and Afghan forces will continue to depend on American airstrikes during the raids.

The raids have been a long-standing source of tension between the two countries. Earlier, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had demanded an end to such operations and now, many Afghans, who say the raids violate their privacy, still want them to be ended altogether.

Press TV talks with Michael Maloof, former Pentagon official from Washington, to further explore the issue. Below is a transcript of the interview.

Press TV: American authorities have time and again stressed on the importance of night raids for the US forces. Why are the night raids so important to them?

Maloof: They are very good and effective counterterrorism tactics because US Special Forces have been trained to fight at night; they use night vision devices and other sensors and this has proven to be overtime a very effective way of element of surprise forced to the Taliban.

Press TV: The initial Intelligence must be extremely significant to the planning of such operations. How much do you think the US military authorities have confidence in their Afghan counterparts to share such intelligence with them and consequently involve them in the decision-making process ahead of every night raid?

Maloof: As I understand the new arrangement, there is going to actually be a joint Afghan-US group that will pore over the information, make a timely decision as to whether or not undertake a raid, then they take that to a judicial official and that judicial official then must make a decision to issue a so-called warrant that will then be issued to actually conduct the raid.

That raid then will be conducted; the lead of conducting these raids will be Afghan Special Forces which, as I understand that, they still have yet to be trained and set up as a separate unit.

So the intelligence will be shared, to answer your question, it is going to have to be shared. The US is not going to provide the sources and the methods, how they obtained that information in all cases.

But there is going to have to be an element of risk on the part of the US to trust their counterparts in light of recent events but you can also understand why the Afghans are very loath to want to have night raids continue, principally among Afghan women and more conservative areas that feel that their privacy is being invaded and often times the intelligence is not the best.

Press TV: It has also been made clear that this agreement does not cover the raids conducted by the CIA in Afghanistan, which will continue operating in the country even after the US troops withdraw. Why do you think such a distinction was made in the first place?

Maloof: It is going to be principally the continuation of drone attacks by the CIA. You have got to understand why they are trying to get this agreement underway now, as far as the United States is concerned.

The United States has an ulterior motive and that is they want to… and there is a larger issue here and that is they want to establish permanent bases in Afghanistan even after the bulk of the ISAF forces leave, the US and the NATO forces actually depart in 2014, they still want to establish bases.

Now the Taliban, on the other hand, has made it very clear that because they have issued a Jihad that war will continue as long as this foreign occupation in Afghanistan. So it is not going to be the beginning of the end; it is probably going to be just another turn of the page of continued hostilities in Afghanistan for quite some time.

Press TV: Speaking of a bigger picture, as you mentioned, the drone attacks by the CIA will continue and these night raids will also be being done under the cover of US intelligence that will be shared by their Afghan counterparts.

This basically, as you said, is an extrapolation of the same policies and the same actions that have been employed over the years, but now the people’s faces that will be seen will be that of the Afghan forces.

Is this the US trying to sort of come up with another way of trying to curb the boiling anti-US sentiments that have grown due to these night raids in which, as the Afghan government and the people have said, civilians are bearing the brunt?

Maloof: You are absolutely right but the United States Special Forces will still be involved in those raids. It is just that the Afghan Special Forces will have the lead.

US Special Forces, as I understand the arrangement, will be going along but it will be the Afghan forces that will take the lead in determining and protecting women and children primarily, facilities, culturally sensitive areas and they will decide what needs to be not be attacked and US forces will be along to provide the equipment and support to the Afghan forces.

The question of trust is going to be there of course between the US and the Afghan Special Forces. But I think that is going to be something that they are going to have to deal with as they provide continued training and this is because the unit has to be brought up and trained and then they have got to see how they can actually operate with US forces.

MSK/JR