By Haider Abbas
The rapid withdrawal of US from Afghanistan, its deadline being August 31, will take decades for it to be rebuilt. But, AT in the middle have come across the ultimate details of internal mercenaries, stooges, informers, foot soldiers, sleeping cells of US game-plan, to be kept unleashed inside Afghanistan, long after it was to leave, has now slipped into the hands of Afghan-Taliban (AT) as US could not carry its ultimate data-bank which makes it lie bare before AT.
If an article published in The Intercept on August 18 1, has any foreboding, then it is certainly going to be one of the most imminent disaster yet to be scripted inside Afghanistan , as certainly, US had co-opted thousands of Afghans as undercover agents, who worked against AT in the over two-decades of US occupation. ‘The Taliban have seized US military Biometrics Devices. Biometric collection and identification devices were seized last week during the Taliban’s offensive. The Taliban have seized U.S. military biometrics devices that could aid in the identification of Afghans who assisted coalition forces. The devices, known as HIIDE, for Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment, were seized last week during the Taliban’s offensive, according to a Joint Special Operations Command official and three former U.S. military personnel, all of whom worried that sensitive data they contain could be used by the Taliban. HIIDE devices contain identifying biometric data such as iris scans and fingerprints, as well as biographical information, and are used to access large centralized databases. It’s unclear how much of the US military’s biometric database on the Afghan population has been compromised.’
The article further states, ‘ While billed by the US military as a means of tracking terrorists and other insurgents, biometric data on Afghans who assisted the US was also widely collected and used in identification cards, “We processed thousands of locals a day, had to ID, sweep for suicide vests, weapons, intel gathering, etc.” a U.S. military contractor explained. “[HIIDE] was used as a biometric ID tool to help ID locals working for the coalition. A spokesperson for the Defense Intelligence Agency referred questions to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which did not respond to a request for comment.’ The real fear has been echoed by ‘an Army Special Operations veteran (who) said it’s possible that the Taliban may need additional tools to process the HIIDE data but expressed concerns that Pakistan would assist with this. “The Taliban doesn’t have the gear to use the data but the ISI do,” the former Special Operations official said, referring to Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. The ISI has been known to work closely with the Taliban.’
It is no wonder that after the Kabul victory this is the biggest jackpot for AT, and of course what may be called as the otherwise biggest blow to CIA and US army, as according to another article published in New Scientist on August 19 2 ‘Annie Jacobsen, author of First Platoon: A Story of modern war in the age of identity dominance, says that the US has spent more than $8 billion on biometrics programmes in Iraq and Afghanistan’. The data includes every single Afghan who had been associated with US and its military and allied forces of NATO, along with the specifics of his/her job profile i.e. interpreter, spy, ISIS, Baluchistan Liberation Army(BLA) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan(TTP) elements along with those assigned to make jackets and to attack et all. Perhaps, the entire ‘whose who’ of anyone who worked at US Bagram military base or had been associated to any unit under NATO etc is now available. Perhaps, the entire portfolios of every minute detail of the whole demography of the elements detrimental to AT has now been sealed!
US in fact could not fathom the speed with which AT vanquished the Ashraf Ghani government and in its scramble could not pick-up, perhaps, the most vital object, now available for AT to exploit. AT surely does not have the wherewithal to decode the ‘package’ but most certainly Pakistan agencies and moreover China is now to decipher through it, herein lies the real danger for US. This becomes all too pertinent as China has been recuperating from the death of its 9 engineers, killed in a blast at Dasu Dam in KPK, Pakistan recently.
For AT, it will now be a task to hunt-down, the thousands of TTP, BLA, and also ISIS members who have sneaked into Afghanistan from Syria etc. As the data-pool has the details of their eyes retina, finger prints, apart from name, parent’s name, relatives details, travelling itineraries and residential proofs! Surely, those who worked clandestine for US are to have a hard time ahead. AT have long declared that ISIS, TTP and BLA are their foes. US could have at least deleted the data if not carry it back home! Or may be US had left it deliberately too. The possibility in a world of counter-intelligence and counter-sabotage just cannot be ruled-out!
The Pakistan agencies and Chinese agencies, through this minefield of information, would also come across the modus- operandi put into practice by US, as after all, it covers a data covering two-decades of US stratagem spread all across Afghanistan. It would also help de-code as to what US had as its next grand plan? Perhaps, the entire 20 years of US workmanship has gone into the deep waters! A complete US spoilsport! Now the details of US Blackwaters, the private mercenaries are also under the AT gaze!
The most probable countermove expected from AT is to find-out the US agents. This would obviously trigger a new hue-and-cry in Afghanistan and the whole world too as there are already reports that AT have started with the ‘combing-operations’, and very soon, the strings across to Quetta, Peshawar, Waziristan, Karachi, Gujranwala, Lahore, KPK- all inside Pakistan, as well as the affiliates of East Turkmenistan Islamic Movement inside China, are to have a fallout under the thumb! A very precious jackpot has supposedly got over to AT.
This will all, in the most obvious terms, make an easy-way for China and Pakistan which are engaged into China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China’s most ambitious project, which has been under attack since a long time. A treasure-trove is what is in place, for China, Pakistan and AT, as nations strive for years for such ‘incredible and classified’ information, and which, will serve its purpose for a pretty long time to come.
Always to the nemesis of US which had always wanted CPEC to fail at every cost.
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The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner and a political analyst.
References:
1 https://theintercept.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-taliban-military-biometrics/
2HTTPS://WWW.NEWSCIENTIST.COM/ARTICLE/2287750-US-BUILT-BIOMETRICS-EQUIPMENT-IS-FALLING-INTO-THE-HANDS-OF-THE-TALIBAN/