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Taliban Says Huawei to Install Cameras to Locate Militants (bloomberg.com) 71

Posted by msmash from the in-plain-sight dept.
Afghanistan's Taliban-led government is working with Huawei to install a wide-ranging surveillance system across the country in an effort to identify and target insurgents or terrorism activities, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing a person familiar with the discussions. From the report: Representatives of the Shenzhen-headquartered tech company met with Interior Ministry officials on Aug. 14, the person said, and a verbal agreement was reached regarding the contract. The Interior Ministry initially posted images and details of the meeting on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. In one post, spokesman Mufti Abdul Mateen Qani said the advanced camera system was being considered "in every province of Afghanistan."

The posts, which were later deleted, included comments from Abdullah Mukhtar, the deputy minister of the ministry. "We are willing to accept projects that are better in terms of quality and price," he said. "Reports on this meeting are factually incorrect. No plans or agreements were discussed," Huawei said in an emailed statement.
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Taliban Says Huawei to Install Cameras to Locate Militants More

Taliban Says Huawei to Install Cameras to Locate Militants

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  • Afghanistan is a mountainous country (Score:5, Funny)

    by HBI ( 10338492 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @01:44PM (#63796720)

    This means the comms are going to be wired, or have LoS stations on easily visible heights. Both make excellent targets for the other side.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      This means the comms are going to be wired, or have LoS stations on easily visible heights. Both make excellent targets for the other side.

      Or maybe Huawei or an affiliate will provide them with satellite service ?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HBI ( 10338492 )

        Possible, but look angles are an issue there too. Not the greatest place for satellite comms. Being able to see the ecliptic is not a given.

  • Life is stranger than fiction (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25, 2023 @01:49PM (#63796730)

    >to identify and target insurgents or terrorism activities

    The irony here is palpable

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      Not at all. It's a recruitment drive.

    • When the "bad" guys succeed their one time, they become the "good" guys that must succeed every time to protect what they have gained. Often, with less of the tools they had available for their initial success.

      To the winners go the history books.......

    • You either die a terrorist or live long enough to become the de jure government.

    • What's doubly ironic is that the USA and the Taliban are now allies by agreement.

      https://www.state.gov/wp-conte... [state.gov]

      So what changed, exactly?

      Pakistan.

  • Are they... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Marthis ( 1949724 )
    ...going to install them outside every Taliban house and such? Afte rall, the Taliban itself is a bunch of terrorists and militants
  • https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]

    https://www.axios.com/2021/08/... [axios.com]

    The excuses, blustering, and misdirection should be fun to read, at least.

  • This is anti-China propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @02:00PM (#63796760)
    Hoping people will forget that the US was there 20 years working to modernize and democratize the country but then gave up because it was taking too long.
    The US literally handed power over to the Taliban
    as well as leaving a huge cache of arms for the Taliban:

    the current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban are believed to control more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including U.S. Humvees, and up to 40 aircraft potentially including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones.

    https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]

    • The fact that the Taliban took the country literally overnight shows that they want the Taliban in power.

      The items left in Afghanistan were property of the Afghan army.

      • The fact that the Taliban took the country literally overnight shows that they want the Taliban in power.

        Conspiratorial thinking much?

        • The Afghans wanted them in power, by and large. When a country in such a situation actually wants democracy, it looks more like Ukraine.

          • No, they didn't. Not one fact on the ground there supports the idea the Afghan people were wanting the Taliban.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by quenda ( 644621 )

              Not one fact on the ground there supports the idea the Afghan people were wanting the Taliban.

              Not even the way they walked into power as soon as the invaders left? What would it take to convince you?

              A minority of educated people in the towns supported a Western-style government, but the typical Afghan is an illiterate hill tribesman, devoutly Hanafi Muslim, and welcomed the Taliban, if not actively fighting for them.

          • The Afghans wanted them in power, by and large. When a country in such a situation actually wants democracy, it looks more like Ukraine.

            Support by the Afghan people for the Taliban, Afghan government, and the Americans is not binary. This is one of the lessons from Vietnam that the US has failed to learn. Some of the people do want the adversary in power for various reasons. Very few people in lesser developed countries care about democracy as a principle because that's a first-world thought exercise. People really want to provide for their families and desire an economy and government that will provide that. If democracy leads to that

            • Re: This is anti-China propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)

              by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @08:55PM (#63797724)

              The long experiment with the American-supported Afghan government didn't work, as economic prosperity didn't result for many.

              No, that's not why. Actually the economy was far better even than what they had in the past, and even people who were doing better economically under the Kabul government were still very often favoring the Taliban. I remember CNN interviewing a shop owner who had a business selling MP3 players, who was saying he supported the Taliban. When they asked why, he said because they're lions.

              Now, think of the problem with this. Among other things, what was banned under the Taliban? Music. Now what could possibly motivate a guy who made a living selling MP3 players to support the Taliban? Well, among other things, religion.

              Now I know a lot of people, especially far left ones like rsilvergun, love to talk about how if everybody had a guaranteed job, then all crime, including rape and murder, would go away. And I know exactly where that idea comes from, it's an idea whose origins can be traced back to Karl Marx.

              But people like him have their proverbial head in the sand. In truth, very few people even want a job if they can avoid it, let alone his dream job of being a factory drone in his own factory. Know what somebody like that MP3 player peddler values even more than financial stability? Easy: The afterlife. And that's a very common thing in majority Muslim states.

              Now, do you think somebody like him thinks his best chance at 72 virgins is in a westernized country, or one that enforces rules that are most likely to get him those virgins?

              Sure, the Taliban lied about allowing music, but honestly I think he felt that the risk was worth it. I guarantee you he's either worse off right now or he's no longer in the MP3 player business. And I think odds are, he doesn't particularly care whether they ever get democracy there. He possibly regime change, but I really doubt he ever wants to see westerners there ever again.

              • I'm sorry, but cherry picked shop owner anecdote aside, NO ONE WANTED THE TALIBAN to run anything. That guy didn't support them, he just expressed the power politics that is what Afghan politics became after the Soviets annihilated all civil society, then America ignored the power gap (something the Biden Administration would do again).

                The Afghan government collapsed for the simple reason that it was entirely dependent on the U.S. military, which was now leaving in a shockingly foolish way. Anticipating o

                • I'm sorry, but cherry picked shop owner anecdote aside, NO ONE WANTED THE TALIBAN to run anything.

                  An easily disproven assertion, but I won't bother. The reason I highlighted this particular person is to show just how boneheaded your assumptions are about how they think and their overall culture. They're not westerners, so stop assuming they think like westerners or hold anywhere near the same values as you do.

                  That guy didn't support them, he just expressed the power politics that is what Afghan politics became after the Soviets annihilated all civil society

                  You obviously don't realize this, but the "power politics" as you put it goes back centuries. US veterans that saw combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan say the former was so much easier because they

    • Humvees are shit and all of that other stuff requires expensive parts and also well trained technicians. We left behind a bunch of old shit we didn't want any more and yet it's still too new for the Afghans to maintain without our help.

      The deal to pull out was also brokered by TFG.

    • We will not forget. But to be accurate, President Biden did that. He decided to pull out for no other reason than he was such an incredibly weak man, a political man. Trump is an imbecile, but at least he didn't pull the trigger on the pullout once he learned it wouldn't magically work out.

      • Re:This is anti-China propaganda (Score:5, Informative)

        by TypoNAM ( 695420 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @03:26PM (#63797006)

        What are you talking about? The Trump administration made a deal with the Taliban: https://www.congress.gov/event... [congress.gov]

        The deal was for the U.S. Military to pull out by May 2021: https://www.axios.com/2020/02/... [axios.com]

        • Boy, the spin is strong with you!

          • February 29, 2020 press conference in which Trump announced the deal with the Taliban [youtube.com]

            February 29, 2020 Agreement For Bringing Peace to Afghanistan [state.gov] . Note that I'm linking directly to the State Department's copy of the agreement Trump announced.

            From the bottom of page 1:

            The United States is committed to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces of the United States [...] within fourteen (14) months following announcement of this agreement

            Given that the agreement was announced that same day by Trump, the previous poster (and Biden) were correct in saying that Trump committed the US to withdrawing all troops by May 1, 2021, which would have been fourteen months after Trump a

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward
            He posts two citations, one of which is the actual minutes from a congressional meeting during the Trump administration, and your response is "the spin is strong with you". Begone, troll!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      This post is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan
    • Unfortunately, Joe Biden, the idiot, gave it to the Taliban.

    • Just a thought :

      If the US withdraw and took back all the war gear, would they have been willing to hand it over to Ukraine now?

      I mean they basically donated everything there to the Taliban. They could have destroyed it all when they knew the Taliban was making fast progress, but they left them mostly in a usable condition. Wouldn't have taken much to throw a couple of grenades into every vehicle before they left. Same for the choppers, etc.

  • Apparently, they are really, really incompetent at running a country and doing finances. Who would have thought.

  • The first is money for Huawei, which they'll take in the form of extracted minerals extracted by Chinese companies. The second is they get to keep a sharp eye out for Uyghurs escaping Prison China.

    • Got it in one.

      And lets not forget the bonus of China getting their hands on some of the hardware the US left behind. China has a long history of acquiring foreign hardware/software and reverse engineering it to produce and/or improve their own versions.

      No mater how much the Taliban might think the agreement benefits them China will come out ahead long term.

  • The Taliban is concerned about (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Friday August 25, 2023 @04:09PM (#63797118)
    Insurgents? Um, no. The Taliban doesn’t give a rats ass about the country or the people, and no form of conventional security even makes their top ten list. This is a group that cuts people’s hands off for stealing, they enslave the female population, they publicly execute any woman that gets out of line, they beat the men who don’t grow their beards long enough, and the only thing that they can actually grow or produce is opium.

    This is about controlling their slaves er I mean the non-Taliban population of Afghanistan. Not that I have a ton of sympathy for the Afghanis. They basically chose this. They had a 10-year opportunity to join the Soviets, and then a 20-year opportunity to join the Americans. They didn’t like either and chose the Taliban instead. Not what I would have chosen. In my book, even Putin would have been an order of magnitude better than the Taliban, but meh whatever. You do you man.

    The Taliban do NOT care about actually running Afghanistan. They do NOT care about the people, or the economy, any the well being of anyone beyond their own little warlord-level cabal.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Saffaya ( 702234 )

      I'm not one to defend the Taliban, but I cannot let this gross manipulation go unanswered.

      "the only thing that they can actually grow or produce is opium. "

      The Taliban FOUGHT AGAINST and FORBADE the producing of opium.
      They declared it to be against Islam.
      The production statistics show clearly the effect of the rise of the Taliban on opium production (sharp decrease)
      So much so, that it's the U.S. MARINES that were PROTECTING POPPY FIELDS against destruction by the Taliban.

      Look it up, and you can find a video

      • Slightly different shades of awful. Theyre all a bunch of violent warlord-tribal groups and nothing more. Their way of life was the pinnacle of humanity. 4 thousand years ago. And some of your info is out of date. The Taliban are back to growing opium the second it became convenient. So much for their religious convictions. Look it up. This isnt about their specific religion. Any warlord tribal society is literally the worst nowadays. Just cause the Taliban were beating slightly fewer women to death than I
  • ...where the US, the UK, Russia, & various other countries have failed? Afghanistan is sitting on valuable mineral deposits which lots of countries with mining industries would love to get access to. Invading hasn't worked for anyone. Maybe the Chinese can succeed with their signature soft diplomacy & offers of infrastructure development? I mean, they got the Saudis & Iran back to talking to each other.

    • Birds of a feather flock together. In this case very nasty ones.

      • I don't see China bombing sovereign states.

        • No, they kill quietly in detention camps.

          • Well, the USA has been known to have a few internment camps, torture camps, etc.. dotted around the world, e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Morocco, & Cuba. It's what they're famous for. Well, that & bombing wedding parties with hell-fire missiles & then bombing them again when the neighbours coming rushing to help.

    • The Chinese might be able to.

      After all they are not the white men (Soviets or the rest of the West). It probably helps that China does not care what form of government you have, or how you handle your own population.

      • It probably helps that China does not care what form of government you have, or how you handle your own population.

        Also true of western govts dealing with countries with high rates of egregious human rights abuses, e.g. Saudi Arabia, DRC, Israel, etc.. We only seem to care about human rights in countries that we compete with in international trade & relations.

  • Many Western countries, most notably the UK, have already installed video cameras for the "safety" of the people there. Of course, the cameras are mainly a control mechanism. We can say they are evil when the Taliban installs them or when China installs them, but apparently they are OK when they are installed on every street corner in London.

  • In western propaganda since 2000, Afghan warlords are considered identical to Taliban. But they are different groups, and they hate each other. Taliban is anti-opium, and Warlords are pro-opium. Taliban is a Islamic government, Warlords are not so big on Islam. Taliban is anti-CIA, Warlords are pro-CIA. The myth westerners believe is that Taliban are terrorists, and that the Warlords are dangerous but nice people. This is propaganda. It is actually the other way around.

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