In September 2011, the Haqqani network in Pakistan took the blame for a deadly attack on the US embassy in Kabul, across the border in Afghanistan. A week later, during testimony on Capitol Hill, the US military's top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, referred to the Haqqanis as a "veritable arm" of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). And a year after that, the US added the Haqqani Network to its list of terrorist groups.
All of which has me wondering: why then, and what now?
In the 1980s, Jalaluddin Haqqani was exclusively a CIA asset. In the 1990s he fought against the Pakistan-backed Afghan government of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and subsequently, against the Taliban. Then, after 1996, he most likely became associated with the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's spy service.
By that time Jalaluddin was a war veteran with about 17 years of experience behind him. The Haqqani patriarch certainly needed no education in guerrilla warfare from the ISI; in fact, he could have given them lessons.
Yet by blacklisting the Haqqani network now, the US may unwittingly be emboldening another group of militant actors, which will complicate the possible troop drawdown in 2014. Indeed, by vilifying the Haqqanis, the Americans have positioned Mullah Omar's Afghan Taliban to come out on top.
A team led by Anatol Lieven, an analyst with the Royal United Services Institute in London, met recently with senior representatives of the Afghan Taliban. According to a summary of that meeting, the Taliban might consider a ceasefire to facilitate talks, and is prepared to discuss a US military stabilisation force operating in Afghanistan for another decade.
This force would be stationed in five primary military bases - Kandahar, Herat, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul - as long as the US presence contributed to Afghan security and did not constrain Afghan independence and Islamic jurisprudence. These bases could also not be used for American attacks against neighbours, such as Iran and Pakistan.
The emphasis on Islamic jurisprudence merely reasserts the Taliban's rejection of the Afghan constitution. But Mullah Omar's group is unlikely to return to the strict form of Wahhabism, the faction that favours a stringent version of Islam. It is far more likely that the Afghan Taliban would favour an equitable, democratic but Islamic judicial system in accordance with tribal customs.
But the real surprise detailed by Mr Lieven is the Taliban's apparent willingness to negotiate a prolonged US presence in Afghanistan. The condition that these bases will not be permitted to be used to stoke unrest in Pakistan and Iran is obviously intended to reassure both neighbours of their concerns, and the Taliban's desire for harmonious relations.
Nonetheless, why would the Afghan Taliban suddenly express an openness to having American troops housed in Afghanistan until 2024 to help ensure stability?
To answer this question, we need to go back to the Haqqanis again.
The Haqqani network is now the largest, most influential and most strategically located of the "Afghan freedom fighters". Were the US to negotiate with all factions, the Haqqanis would have a major political role to play, much greater than Mullah Omar's outfit. Therefore, it suits the Taliban leader to have the Haqqanis excluded. Since the US will not be negotiating the future of Afghanistan with a terrorist-labelled group, any future political dispensation in Afghanistan will not include the Haqqanis.
That explains Mullah Omar's sudden willingness to make a pact with the US. But what is going to be the outcome of this?
There is no doubt the Haqqanis will remain a thorn in the side of Afghanistan post-2014, the previously stated date for the start of an American withdrawal. If a so-called stability force were to stay on after 2014, US forces would be deployed to deal with Haqqani attacks. And if they were deployed their methods of military operation would be no more effective than they are today.
As a consequence, an increasing number of Afghans will again begin to view the post-2014 political dispensation of Afghanistan as "American proxies", and the cycle of violence will keep growing until it either explodes, or the US finally packs up and leaves the region to its chaotic future.
Moreover, Afghans with a dislike for the US, regardless of tribal or ethnic affiliation, will now be more likely to join the Haqqanis. The Haqqanis are continuing to grow in number and they will be the force to reckon with, from here onwards, terrorist label or no.
There is, of course, another possibility: that Mullah Omar will use this offer to the US for an extended stay in Afghanistan as a bargaining chip with the Haqqanis. In such a scenario, Afghan political leaders, pushed by more emboldened militant groups, might then refuse the American request to stay on and force them out, just as the Iraqis did.
In such an eventuality, the internecine political jostling for power could be minimised and a relatively stable Afghanistan might emerge.
Either way, the US loses. And then it will need a scapegoat.
Perhaps that explains why some see the Haqqanis as a "veritable arm" of the ISI.
Brig Shaukat Qadir is a retired Pakistani infantry officer
The Bio
Ram Buxani earned a salary of 125 rupees per month in 1959
Indian currency was then legal tender in the Trucial States.
He received the wages plus food, accommodation, a haircut and cinema ticket twice a month and actuals for shaving and laundry expenses
Buxani followed in his father’s footsteps when he applied for a job overseas
His father Jivat Ram worked in general merchandize store in Gibraltar and the Canary Islands in the early 1930s
Buxani grew the UAE business over several sectors from retail to financial services but is attached to the original textile business
He talks in detail about natural fibres, the texture of cloth, mirrorwork and embroidery
Buxani lives by a simple philosophy – do good to all
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
PROFILE OF INVYGO
Started: 2018
Founders: Eslam Hussein and Pulkit Ganjoo
Based: Dubai
Sector: Transport
Size: 9 employees
Investment: $1,275,000
Investors: Class 5 Global, Equitrust, Gulf Islamic Investments, Kairos K50 and William Zeqiri
BULKWHIZ PROFILE
Date started: February 2017
Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce
Size: 50 employees
Funding: approximately $6m
Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait
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The Written World: How Literature Shaped History
Martin Puchner
Granta
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Zayed Sustainability Prize
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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