http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/10/who_is_colonel_imam.php
By October 15, 2009 12:58 AM
Colonel Imam. Photo from the Irish Times. |
Pakistan's The News provides a [likely unintentional] humorous rebuttal to Hamid Mir's report that Ilyas Kashmiri was a member of the Special Services Group, Pakistan's elite commandos.
This is with reference to Hamid Mir's report (Sept 20) titled "How an ex-commando became a terrorist". It is total disinformation -- Ilyas Kashmiri neither had any association with the SSG nor did he serve in the army as a soldier. Being an ex-commando officer, I know that the SSG never indulges in such heinous crimes. It's a superior professional force of the army composed of responsible officers and men who carry out professional tasks. I would like to add that there is always an attempt by hostile agencies to defame the security forces of Pakistan with a malicious intent. Therefore, newspapers and columnists must refrain from falling prey to these fifth columnists.Colonel (r) Imam
Ex-SSG officer,
Rawalpindi
So who is Colonel Imam anyway? This is the very same Colonel Imam who is the Father of the Taliban. Imam proudly talks of the Taliban victories in Afghanistan. From the Times Online:
Colonel Imam's faux outrage earns him the coveted Captain Louis Renault Award
If unfamiliar with Louis Renalt Award see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1DEG6BWgp0&feature=player_embedded
From The Sunday Times
June 7, 2009
The Taliban will 'never be defeated'
Christina Lamb in
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6445981.ece#
'Colonel Imam', the Pakistani agent who trained Mullah Omar and the warlords to fight the Soviets, says the
THE Pakistani intelligence agent who trained Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, to fight has warned that Nato forces will never overpower their enemies in
"You can never win the war in
"I have worked with these people since the 1970s and I tell you they will never be defeated. Anyone who has come here has got stuck. The more you kill, the more they will expand."
A tall, bearded figure, whose real name is Amir Sultan Tarar, he trained at
During the late 1970s and 1980s he controlled CIA-funded training camps for 95,000 Afghans and often accompanied his students on missions.
After the Soviet defeat and the collapse of communism, he was invited to the White House by the first President George Bush and was given a piece of the Berlin Wall with a brass plaque inscribed: "To the one who dealt the first blow."
Today western intelligence agencies believe Imam is among a group of renegade officers from
United Nations officials and
"I wish I could do it but they don't need me any more," he says. "My students are far ahead of me now. They are giving a lesson to the world. I am very proud of them."
Although he expresses great admiration for the British military ("far more gallant than the Americans"), Imam says that in sending troops to
In particular, he chides, they should have remembered the battle of Maiwand in 1880, in which 2,500 British troops took on 25,000 Afghans and suffered a devastating defeat.
"When people in
His comments come as the number of British soldiers killed by enemy action in
According to Imam,
It is unlikely that anybody alive today knows the Afghans as well as Imam. All the key figures were trained in his camps, from the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panj-shir, to warlords such as Gul-buddin Hekmatyar, his "naughtiest" student. "It was a matter of pride for me that my students later became big commanders," he said.
"The Afghan is a very cunning soldier," he added. "He picks things up very quickly and never forgets. As a Pakistani unit commander I'd be training my men for six months and maybe they would remember 70%. But in
Omar passed through his camps in 1985. "He was a simple man, a small commander leading a maximum of 40 people and didn't have much weaponry," Imam recalled.
One of Imam's biggest backers was Congressman Charlie Wilson, the Texan who was instrumental in securing funding for Operation Cyclone, the CIA programme to supply arms with which the mujaheddin would fight the Soviet troops.
"He used to dance with happiness at seeing our training camps," said Imam.
Within 10 years the Russians had been forced out. "Total expenditure just $5 billion and not a single American life," said Imam. "Now the Americans are spending hundreds of billions and losing hundreds of lives."
The last time he saw
Furious at the American betrayal and devastated by the resulting infighting in the Afghan resistance, he became close to Omar. "I love him," he said. "He brought peace to
Imam was
Like many Pakistanis he refuses to believe the September 11 attacks were carried out by Osama Bin Laden. "An operation like that needs ground support," he said. "I have no doubt it was carried out by the Americans to give a bad name to the Taliban government as an excuse to topple it."
When General Pervez Musharraf, then president of
Recalled to
Today he adds: "It was the blunder of his life and because of it we are all doomed."
Imam left
"I'm quite happy with the current situation because the Americans are trapped there. The Taliban will not win but in the end the enemy will tire, like the Russians."
He has offered to find the Americans a way out: "We can give them a face-saving solution but they must change their strategy."
First, he says, they must spend billions on reconstruction. Then they must open talks with Omar rather than the so-called moderate Taliban with whom negotiations are under way.
"When are you people going to understand there are no number two Taliban?" he asked. "Those who break away from mainstream Taliban have no place in society. You may make deals in
"In
He insisted the Taliban leader was not in
Imam said he had watched with horror as fighting spread into
"These are not Taliban, they are tribals," he said. "Mullah Omar told them time and time again not to fight against
"This is an American plan to make us a subjugated country and have an excuse to get our nukes. Everybody, your prime minister, President Obama, all go, 'Oh, the nuclear weapons are unsafe'. I say you're making them unsafe. When you were not in the region there was no problem."
The call for prayer brings our interview to an end. Before he goes he has one last warning: "I tell you when my nation rises up it is not
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