Updated: China Training Haqqani Network At Bagram Airbase.
Updated: China Training Haqqani Network At Bagram Airbase.
Updated 13 March 2022: Since publication of this article AND Magazine has learned that there are Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps operational elements and a Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Station at Bagram as well.
In late 2021 we reported that Chinese personnel were on the ground at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. Indications were that the Taliban were going to provide the Chinese access to Bagram – a massive airbase originally built by the Russians and then dramatically expanded by the United States.
Sources speaking to AND Magazine now indicate that Chinese military personnel are on the ground at Bagram, and they are training Haqqani network fighters. The Haqqani network is an international terrorist organization at the heart of the Taliban. Its leaders include individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government such as Sirajuddin Haqqani. Sirajuddin is the Interior Minister in the current Taliban government.
The Haqqanis are experts in the conduct of suicide attacks. They carried out some of the deadliest such attacks on U.S. and coalition forces during the Afghan War. Many of their attacks involve the use of cars and trucks packed with huge amounts of explosives. They have also demonstrated the ability to carry out large-scale, complex operations.
The Haqqanis have a long-standing operational relationship with Al-Qaeda. They also have connections to ISIS-K and have used that organization as a false flag to claim attacks from which they want to distance themselves.
The Chinese training of Haqqani network operatives comes against the backdrop of a growing connection between Beijing and Kabul. In the wake of the disastrous American withdrawal from Kabul, Beijing has stepped in and is actively cementing an alliance with the new terrorist superstate in Kabul.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said recently that his country was preparing for the third foreign ministers' meeting among the countries bordering Afghanistan. He added that China was committed to the stability and security of Afghanistan.
The countries which will be represented at the upcoming meeting in China are Iran, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Previous such meetings have been held in Pakistan and Iran.
One of the items to be discussed at the upcoming meeting in China will be the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is hailed as a flagship of Beijing's global Belt and Road Initiative. It has built roads, power plants and other infrastructure projects in Pakistan with Chinese investment. China and Pakistan are now proposing to the Taliban that the CPEC continue into Afghanistan.
"The two sides are ready to discuss with Afghanistan the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan," read a joint statement issued at the end of wide-ranging bilateral talks President Xi Jinping hosted with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing earlier this month.
On the international stage, the Chinese government is now demanding that the United States release billions of dollars in frozen Afghan assets to the murderous new regime in Kabul. China's Ambassador Zhang Jun spoke recently in front of the Security Council. Imposing sanctions and freezing assets "are no less lethal than military intervention," Zhang said. "We once again call for the unfreezing of Afghanistan's overseas assets as soon as possible. These assets should be returned to their real owners and cannot be used as a bargaining chip for threats or coercion."
Meanwhile, as the Chinese cement an alliance with the Taliban and Haqqani fighters are trained to spread jihad beyond Afghanistan’s borders, the Biden administration is pushing ahead with efforts to establish normal diplomatic relations with this pariah state. US Special Representative Thomas West met only days ago with the Taliban's acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in the Turkish city of Antalya and discussed the political and economic situation in Afghanistan.
"With colleagues, Amb Beth Jones, Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts and Charge d'Affaires McCary @USAmbKabul, spent productive time with Taliban delegation. Covered critical issues for the Afghan people: economic stabilization & growth, education, & commercial air travel," West tweeted.
Not surprisingly perhaps, before coming to his current position Tom West was a nonresident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an associate vice president at the Cohen Group.
The Carnegie Endowment largely functions as part of the United Front, a worldwide Chinese effort to co-opt foreign elites and influence them to adopt pro-CCP policies. The Carnegie Endowment funds the Beijing-based Carnegie-Tsinghua Center, which partners with one of China’s top technological universities, Tsinghua University. Tsinghua University is part of China’s Thousand Talents Program, via which the CCP recruits American scientists and steals American technology. Tsinghua University is funded by the Chinese military and has launched cyber-attacks on the U.S. Government.
The Carnegie Endowment is also involved with the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF). CUSEF is funded by the Chinese Overseas United Front Work Department (UFWD). This is the agency responsible for coordinating United Front influence operations worldwide.
The Cohen Group was formed by Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Two of its four offices are in China. It specializes in helping American businesses operate in China and touts its ability to leverage its wide-ranging contacts with senior Chinese Communist Party officials.
Executives with the firm, including Cohen, have sought to promote among U.S. lawmakers China’s Belt and Road infrastructure projects.
“I think it’s a very important project,” Cohen Group executive Marc Grossman previously said of Belt and Road. In addition to lobbying on China’s behalf, Cohen is a government advisor in China to the mayor of the Tianjin Municipal Government and is an honorary professor at Nankai University.
After twenty years of war and thousands of American dead, the Biden administration is in effect facilitating the Chinese takeover of Afghanistan and the militarization of a new terrorist superpower. Sometime in the not so distant future suicide attacks will begin against American and other Western targets. God knows how many will die and how many more will be maimed.
One thing for sure, though, the Chinese Communists, and the Americans who have climbed into bed with them will make a great deal of money along the way.