{"id":190587,"date":"2009-11-11T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T03:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/11\/11\/this-is-not-a-surprise-11\/"},"modified":"2009-11-11T22:25:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T03:25:00","slug":"this-is-not-a-surprise-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/11\/11\/this-is-not-a-surprise-11\/","title":{"rendered":"This is Not a Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears that the Taliban is in the process of severing its ties with al Qaeda<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Such positions may put Omar’s Taliban at odds with al-Qaeda’s extremist Sunni agenda of overthrowing what it sees as corrupt Muslim governments and targeting Shiites. Analysts said that Omar, who leads a council of Taliban commanders based in or around the Pakistani city of Quetta, wants such countries as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government if it regains power and that he has little interest in fomenting war elsewhere.<\/p>\n

“We assure all countries that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as a responsible force, will not extend its hand to cause jeopardy to others,” Omar said in a written statement in September.<\/p>\n

The messages from the Taliban leadership since the spring amount to something of a “revolution,” said Wahid Mujda, a political analyst who was a Foreign Ministry official under the Taliban government. “Al-Qaeda’s path is now different from the Taliban’s path, and they are growing more separated.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This ain’t a revolution.<\/p>\n

Al Qaeda was never particularly popular in Afghanistan, where the people are, after all not Arabs<\/span>, and they have about as much love for rich Arabs as we in the United States do.<\/p>\n

Bin Laden was there because the Taliban wanted his money<\/span>, not him<\/span>.<\/p>\n

When they were in control of Afghanistan, not only were they not fierce protectors of him, but they were trying to find a way for help the US make him dead<\/a> in a way that gave them some plausible deniability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that the Taliban is in the process of severing its ties with al Qaeda: Such positions may put Omar’s Taliban at odds with al-Qaeda’s extremist Sunni agenda of overthrowing what it sees as corrupt Muslim governments and targeting Shiites. Analysts said that Omar, who leads a council of Taliban commanders based in or …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153,981,1076],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-civil-war","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}