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US Officials Urge Speedy Action on Iraq/Afghan Funding Request
(VOA) - Top U.S. officials called Tuesday for speedy action on President Bush's request for additional funds for military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the administration rejects the idea that additional U.S. forces are needed in Iraq.
Appearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, senior administration officials urged Congress to act quickly to approve President Bush's request for boosted funding in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said quick action on the presidential spending request will send a clear message to those Iraqis fighting the U.S. presence in Iraq.
"The sooner these terrorists and Baathists understand clearly that our will can't be broken, and that the Iraqi people, despite hardship and difficulty, will persevere in building their new society, the sooner we will win," he said. "That is why it is so urgent that Congress pass this supplemental request, and I would encourage speedy action when the request is formally submitted."
In a televised address Sunday evening, President Bush announced he would ask Congress for an additional $87 billion for U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Wolfowitz said the bulk of the money, $66 billion, is earmarked for the U.S. military operations. The remaining amount is to go to reconstruction, including $5 billion for building Iraqi security forces.
But the officials balked at the suggestion, most notably from Senator John McCain, that more U.S. troops are needed in Iraq.
General Richard Myers, the country's top U.S. military officer, says more foreign troops need to be brought in to help until Iraqi security forces can be built up to take over the job themselves.
"This is an international problem. International terrorism is an international problem. And every time an Iraqi turns around, they can't just see a U.S. service member," he said. "They don't want foreigners in their country, and particularly there is some allergy from time to time against the U.S. And so we need to internationalize it."
The Bush administration, which had originally rejected any significant political or military role for the United Nations in Iraq, is now seeking a new Security Council resolution that would pave the way for other countries to contribute forces. Some nations are wary of making any military or financial commitment in Iraq without a new U.N. mandate. Under the U.S. proposal, the force would be multinational in makeup but under U.S. command.
Four Afghan aid workers killed in road ambush
Wednesday September 10, 4:22 PM AFP
Four Afghan aid workers were killed in an ambush in eastern Afghanistan, aid officials said, announcing the latest of a bloody wave of attacks on aid workers, troops and government targets.
Five employees of the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR) were travelling by car in Ghazni province on Tuesday when they were attacked by a band of armed men, an aid official told AFP, requesting anonymity.
The ambush occurred on a road in the district of Ab Band, about 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of the capital Kabul.
The unidentified assailants pulled the passengers out of the car, killing four of them. The fifth passenger escaped with injuries, the aid official said.
The surge in violence against aid agencies and groups cooperating with the government or US forces in Afghanistan has been blamed on resurgent Taliban fighters, alleged to be regrouping over the border in Pakistan.
Ab Band lies near the restive southeast border province of Paktika, where resurgent Taliban and suspected al-Qaeda allies have concentrated a fresh insurgency over the past month, one of the bloodiest periods to blight Afghanistan since the Taliban were driven from power in late 2001.
Paktika, neighbouring Zabul province and Ghazni are believed to be among the main routes of infiltration used by bands of Taliban from Pakistan.
Canada, now in Afghanistan, won't send troops to Iraq
Tue Sep 9, 4:42 PM ET
MONTREAL (AFP) - Canada is too deeply involved militarily in Afghanistan to consider sending troops to Iraq, Defence Minister John McCallum said.
"The secret to success is to focus ... Our soldiers cannot engage in every effort around the world no matter how important it is, we have to make choices," McCallum told CTV television network.
"I believe a country of Canada's size will have most impact if it focuses. And our focus today is in Afghanistan," McCallum said in an interview from China, where he is currently on a visit.
Canada has sent 2,000 troops to boost the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, which has 5,000 troops.
Last week during a visit to Kabul, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham made clear that Canada does not expect to participate in a multinational force in Iraq.
NATO Studying Wider Afghan Peace Mission
Tue Sep 9, 1:16 PM ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO, responding to widespread calls to improve security in Afghanistan, is to study extending its peacekeeping mission beyond the capital, Kabul, Secretary-General George Robertson said on Tuesday. "This matter is being looked at inside NATO...and we'll be looking for some military advice on how feasible that may be," Robertson told reporters a month after the alliance took command of the 5,000-strong, U.N.-mandated force.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have urged the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to extend its reach to bring security to large areas of the country dominated by tribal warlords.
ISAF has controlled Kabul and the key Bagram airbase near the capital since the United States and Afghan rebels ousted the Taliban government and its al Qaeda allies in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld this month added their voices to the calls for NATO to expand its mission, although Western countries have been reluctant to commit more troops.
"You can't have a suggestion made by the German foreign minister and the American secretary of defense without taking that seriously," Robertson said.
Robertson said NATO would also be in contact with the United Nations for consultations on changing ISAF's mandate.
Germany wants to deploy a Provisional Reconstruction Team (PRT) of between 230 and 450 troops in Kunduz but because of its own constitution it could only do this with a U.N. mandate.
PRTs deployed so far by the United States and Britain have come under the command of a separate U.S.-led force of some 11,500 troops still hunting down Taliban and al Qaeda diehards.
Pakistan Suspends Transit of Indian Goods to Afghanistan
Wednesday September 10, 8:44 AM Asia Pulse
ISLAMABAD, Sept 10 Asia Pulse - The government late on Monday night suspended the transit facility for the transportation of Indian cargo/aid and other equipment through Pakistani territory to Afghanistan.
Agencies operating at the Wahga and Torkham border outposts have been cautioned not to allow the transit of Indian aid/consignments, particularly equipment meant for the Afghan army vis-a-vis these border areas.
Sources told reporters that the Ministry of Interior has dispatched instructions to the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) to forthwith inform custom officials at the Wahga and Torkhum borders not to permit transit to Afghanistan through land route.
Now, any goods sent by the Indian government to Afghanistan cannot pass through Pakistan's borders.
The authorities have informed the concerned collectors including Collector Peshawar and Lahore and D.G. Intelligence and Investigation to immediately implement the decision.
Senior Afghan Official Shot Dead
Wed Sep 10, 1:53 AM ET AP
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The brother of a slain police official allegedly led a gang of 15 men who stormed a government office in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province, shooting dead a senior government official, the provincial governor said Wednesday.
Mohammed Qudus, the head of administration in the Uruzgan district of the province, was killed in his office on Monday, said Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan.
Khan blamed the attack on a brother of the district's police chief, who was killed last month in a suspected Taliban ambush.
The suspected assailant, Mohammed Yunus, suspected Qudus "had a hand in the killing of his brother," Khan said. He said the dead official had played no role in the police chief's death.
No arrests have been made for the latest killing and Jan Mohammed Khan said police were searching for the suspects, including Yunus.
Revenge killings are common in Afghanistan's conservative areas. Some feuds last for generations, claiming scores of lives.
A rugged region, Uruzgan is believed to be infested with remnants of the Taliban militia, which was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001 for harboring terrorists. The militia fighters are suspected of attacks against the post-Taliban government.
U.N. envoy to Afghanistan sees probable delay of June election
The Yomiuri Shimbun 09/09/2003 By Susumu Arai
Lakhdar Brahimi, special representative on Afghanistan for the secretary general of the United Nations, recently gave an exclusive interview to The Yomiuri Shimbun. In the interview, Brahimi expressed concerns over the Taliban reorganizing.
The Yomiuri Shimbun: How do you see the situation in Afghanistan overall?
Lakhdar Brahimi: The situation is mixed. On the one hand, you have progress. You have the work that has been done in all fields. But on the other, there are concerns and worries, in particular about security. And as far as security is concerned, I think all those worries are in rural areas. I think, even in cities, there are concerns about security. These come from the fact that there are certainly a lot of people who are opposed to this peace process. There are a lot of people who are not necessarily opposed, but disappointed by the lack of progress and also the fact that this peace process is not inclusive. The popular base of the government is still a little bit too narrow, so people who are disaffected and dissatisfied with this situation may be inclined perhaps to support opposition and sometimes even violent opposition to the government.
There was serious fighting between the Taliban and pro-government forces in Zabul Province last week. Is the Taliban making a comeback?
No. As you know we have no means of being informed in detail ourselves as the United Nations. We have no military presence here and we have no intelligence. But I think from our contacts with the people of Afghanistan, I think the Taliban have been reorganizing themselves. And perhaps the reorganization is now at an advanced stage. That is why you have these clashes. Those are taking place not only between U.S. forces and the Taliban, but also between Afghan forces and the Taliban.
Are the Taliban supported by local residents?
Yes, sure, certainly. They receive some support from people who are disappointed with the situation and the government.
Would you like to see the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) deployed throughout the country?
Definitely, yes. I think that as the government is working to promote the creation of the national army and national police, it would be reasonable to have effective international support and the best way of doing is it is through the expansion of the ISAF.
Both the DDR (Disarm, Demobilize and Reintegrate) program and the constitutional Loya Jirga were delayed. Do you expect that the general election will be held in June as scheduled?
I hope so. I think the delays in the DDR and the constitutional process are not in themselves a big problem. Because the delay of the constitution is still within the Bonn Agreement. It was supposed to have been done in December. It is not a big problem. It is within the time limit of Bonn.
More important is for the commission to have the government produce a good draft of the constitution. But the reason why the delay is taking place is because the draft is not ready and we don't know what it is going to look like, but I hope it will be good. That is much more important.
On the DDR, as you know, it is linked to the reform of the (Afghan) Ministry of Defense. There were some delays in working out the reform of the Ministry of Defense. DDR is waiting for that to happen. We are now reassured that this is going to happen very soon and DDR, if that is confirmed, can start by the middle of October. In a complex situation like Afghanistan, with the background of war, destruction and division, you cannot expect all these processes to work like a Japanese clock.
According to a diplomatic source, your office has started preparing for the postponement of the election. Is that true?
No, that's not correct. I'm not working for the delay. We have said that if you want to have the election, you have to prepare the conditions. If these conditions are not there, then there shouldn't be an election. What we are saying is that as we see things now, work is not being done to ensure that fair and free elections take place in June.
For elections, you need security, you need registration, you need the people to feel that this election is going to be free and fair. And that is going to move the process forward. That is not there now. It's not there. So we are calling on Afghans and their friends to do what is necessary to make it possible for the election to take place.
It seems to me that it is quite difficult to have elections in southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. Even U.N. officials are not allowed to go to some parts of those areas.
That's our concern. That is what we are saying. If you have no security in large parts of the country, how can you organize the election? That is the question we are asking. As a matter of fact, it is not only in the south. In the north, perhaps U.N. people can travel, but can the Afghan people be satisfied that they can vote freely? Or are the people who have the guns in their hands going to force them to vote as they want? That is another problem.
The government and its friends in the international community have got to ensure that the election can take place everywhere and that it can take place in conditions where every Afghan man and woman can feel free to vote if they want to or stay at home if they don't want to vote.
Is there a possibility that the Taliban will be accepted as a legitimate political force in the near future?
I'm not sure that the Taliban is interested in being a political force with other forces. As you know, they don't believe in elections. So you know, the question is not there. The question is really one of national reconciliation.
We had a terrible incident in the bombing of U.N. headquarters in Iraq. How does the situation in Iraq affect Afghanistan?
I think the situation in Iraq affects the whole world. The fear I think that we had was that the international community would move away from Afghanistan because they would be too busy with Iraq. That has not happened. I think there is still a reasonable amount of interest in Afghanistan and reasonable amount of support. From that point of view, we are rather relieved. But certainly this is a very, very serious crisis. I don't know how it is going to affect the situation in the region in general and in Afghanistan in particular. The U.N. has been the victim of this aggression in Iraq. We certainly take that very, very seriously.
Critical time for Afghanistan
CNN 09/09/2003 By Christiane Amanpour
The following is part of a series of reports from Afghanistan:
Almost two years since the fall of the Taliban, the reconstruction of Afghanistan is moving at a very slow pace.
In a donors' conference in Tokyo in January 2002, the United States and the international community pledged $4.5 billion to Afghanistan over five years. But Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's finance minister and a former World Bank official, says that's a drop in the bucket and much more is needed.
"I'm going to be very direct about this," he told CNN. "The international community has not been generous to us. It's actually been quite stingy."
U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai says the country needed a minimum of $15 billion to $20 billion over five years, and he told CNN there would be grave risks if his country is left without being rebuilt.
"The risks are that Afghanistan will go back into the hands of terrorists, into chaos and despair, and we're not going to allow that," Karzai said. "We must respond to the needs of the Afghan people. We must respond to the aspirations of the Afghan people.".
Two years ago President Bush promised to rebuild Afghanistan in the grand tradition of the Marshall Plan for Europe after World War II. But two years on those promises have not yet been met.
Indeed, the Bush administration didn't include aid for Afghanistan in its 2003 budget to Congress and only added it after Congress asked why.
But now, against the backdrop of an upsurge of fighting in Afghanistan and the continuing war in Iraq, the president on Sunday night announced another $1 billion for Afghanistan, and he has ordered one of its main highways rebuilt by the end of the year.
The U.S. Embassy's charge d'affaires in Kabul, David Sedney, told CNN, "Certainly the Afghan people are looking for results. We are building schools and clinics in many parts of Afghanistan, but we need to do more. At the same time our enemies, the Taliban, al Qaeda and others, are trying to use the fact that in some areas of the country they have not seen those benefits as a weapon against the government and against the international community."
Remember, Afghanistan is where Osama bin Laden, with the help of the Taliban, planned the September 11 attacks. The United States toppled the Taliban and routed al Qaeda to ensure the country would never again become a haven for terrorism.
But over the summer, especially during the past month, the Taliban and remnants of al Qaeda have been mounting a fierce insurgency in the south. They are partly able to do that because of the people's frustrations with a lack of reconstruction and improvement in their lives.
The capital of Kabul is full of small businesses. School has started up again, including for girls, who were banned from attending during the Taliban. But there's still no large scale rebuilding of the collapsed infrastructure.
The United States is now providing more money as an emergency cash infusion to shore up Karzai. He is a moderate, Western-oriented politician who believes strongly in building his country up again and reversing the course of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism that shook the world on September 11, 2001.
But Karzai needs a lot of help. Not only has he been unable to provide the kind of visible improvement and reconstruction for his people, but he is constantly being undermined by powerful warlords within Afghanistan and by the latest Taliban resurgence.
Aid officials in Afghanistan are already calling the new U.S. money "not as much as we hoped for." The question is, will it be enough to ensure Karzai has popular support by the time Afghanistan's first election is held next summer?
Aid agencies disappointed over US aid for Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept 9 (AFP) - Aid agencies Tuesday expressed disappointment that just 800 million dollars of US President George W. Bush's vast 87 billion dollar request to Congress for post-war Iraq and Afghanistan is earmarked for Afghan reconstruction.
"It's rather less than we were hoping for," said Paul Barker, Afghanistan country director for the US-based humanitarian organisation CARE International.
United States officials said the administration would also reallocate nearly 400 million dollars from its 2003 existing budget to boost the promised Afghan aid package to 1.2 billion dollars in fiscal year 2004.
Over the past two years the United States has allocated 1.8 billion dollars to relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
While the fresh aid represented an increase in US financial commitment, Barker said Washington needed to look further ahead than just a one-year package.
"Afghanistan is not a one-year contract, there is a need for multi-year help for Afghanistan, probably of around 20 billion dollars," he told AFP.
With the war-ravaged country struggling to rebuild after 23 years of conflict, the World Bank and United Nations have estimated its reconstruction needs at between 13 billion and 19 billion dollars.
Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani has put the figure at 30 billion dollars.
Some 11 billion dollars of the Bush budget request announced on Sunday will go to the US military's hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants in Afghanistan.
The sum represents the ongoing monthly bill of around 900 million dollars for the 12,500-strong US-led coalition hunting the extremists, who are blamed for a fresh surge in violence in the country's southeast.
Bush had repeatedly vowed the United States would not desert Afghanistan after US-led forces routed its former Taliban leaders nearly two years ago for refusing to hand over suspected September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
One third of the new 1.2 billion dollars in US aid will go towards training and support for the new Afghan National Army and police force.
A further 300 million dollars is to be spent on infrastructure, including roads, schools and health clinics.
Karzai invites Wali Khan to Kabul
Daily Times (Pakistan)
PESHAWAR: Afghan President, Hamid Karzai on Tuesday spoke to veteran politician Khan Abdul Wali Khan on the phone and invited him to visit Afghanistan. According to a statement by ANP Provincial Secretary Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the Afghan President held a detailed discussion with Mr Khan and Begum Nasim Wali Khan on the regional situation. Begum Wali Khan while accepting the invitation said an ANP delegation would soon visit Afghanistan to hold meting with Afghan leaders. —APP
Afghans' Goals Facing Renewed Threats
The Washington Post 09/09/2003 By Pamela Constable
Worsening Security Could Undercut Progress Toward Democracy, Reconstruction
KABUL - Two years after the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary guerrilla leader who fought Soviet occupation forces and Taliban rule, Afghans fear time may be running out to achieve Massoud's dream of a unified, democratic and moderate Muslim nation.
While slow but steady progress has been made toward holding national elections, revamping the security forces and reviving the war-ruined economy, Afghans and foreign observers say deteriorating security conditions -- including crime, regional warlordism and the recent emergence of Taliban guerrilla forces based along the Pakistani border -- are threatening to sabotage the country's recovery.
Massoud, an intellectual and military commander of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, was assassinated on Sept. 9, 2001, by two men posing as journalists. After the Taliban was overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion, Massoud's image dominated the political landscape on posters and billboards.
"If Ahmed Shah Massoud were alive, he would want elections, the rule of law and no foreign intervention," Massood Khalili, a former close aide to Massoud, declared at a memorial conference Sunday. Another speaker pointedly added, "The time has come to move from the politics of individuals to the politics of institutions."
Gains and Losses
On paper, and to some extent in practice, Afghanistan has moved gradually toward those goals over the last year. Work on a draft constitution is nearing completion despite time-consuming disagreements over how Islamic or secular the text should be. A national ratifying assembly is expected to be held in December, and national elections are still slated for sometime late next year.
The building of a new, multiethnic national police force and army is well underway, though progress has been painfully slow. Reforms in the Defense Ministry, the most powerful stronghold of Massoud's former militia associates, are finally taking shape, with new professional standards to be instituted and 22 top officials to be replaced through a competitive nationwide search.
Visible strides have been made in economic reconstruction and investment, though most major projects are being funded by foreign aid. Hotels and restaurants have opened all over Kabul, public buildings are being refurbished, some roads are under repair and tiled mansions have sprouted in affluent districts. Inflation is low, the currency is stable and commerce is booming.
Yet the growing threat of political violence and criminal lawlessness, some of it linked to Islamic radicals, has dominated recent news here and raised fears that after two decades of conflict and five years of repressive Taliban rule, precious momentum for change may be slipping from President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed coalition government.
"Security has been the real disappointment, and we are far, far behind. The state can exist without a lot of things, but it cannot exist without a professional military, police and justice system," said Anwar Ahady, the central bank governor, whose outlook on the economy and other aspects of Afghan recovery is far more optimistic.
In the past year there have been dozens of attacks on foreign aid facilities, killings of several aid workers, bombings of civilian buses and military jeeps, reports of rampant police abuse and government corruption, a rapid revival of opium poppy cultivation, the virtual paralysis of a program to disarm and demobilize private armies, and determined resistance to central authority by several powerful regional militia bosses.
Despite the presence of 8,500 U.S. combat troops and a multinational peacekeeping force in the capital, an aggressive and organized guerrilla force has become active during the past two months in areas close to the border with Pakistan.
The guerrillas, who occupied a mountainous region of Zabol province for nearly two weeks, are led by members of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic group that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001. They have been joined by others, including a militia led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan minister who turned against the Karzai government and has been on the run for several years. Last week, Taliban spokesmen said their fighters now also include followers of Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf, another Islamic militia leader, and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, said he was deeply concerned that the growing lack of security could jeopardize the democratic political process mandated under a U.N.-sponsored pact after the fall of the Taliban in November 2001. In a report to the U.N. Security Council last month, Brahimi dismissed elections here as useless without a safer environment and stronger government institutions.
"We have come out of our naive belief that elections are a magic cure for all ills," he said in an interview here last week. "People need security -- not just a lack of shooting, but no one telling them how they should vote, or else. . . . If we really want to help countries in transition, what they need first is the rule of law."
Opposing Threats
Ironically, Afghanistan's peace is now under threat from two adversarial forces. One is the revived Taliban militia and its Pakistan-based allies. The other comprises Islamic groups that once fought the Taliban but may now have an equal stake in disrupting the political and security reforms that stand to exclude them from power.
The use of Pakistan as a launching pad by renegade forces has also raised the specter of an old threat that obsesses and unnerves many Afghans. While Pakistani authorities insist they are trying to curb cross-border terrorism, many Afghans have long viewed Pakistani interference as the source of all their ills, including the Taliban movement that was spawned in Pakistani religious schools.
In recent weeks, U.S. forces have conducted several major combat operations and sustained bombing raids in rugged, hilly border areas, and U.S. military officials have reported killing as many as 200 enemy fighters and successfully forcing the rest into retreat. On Sunday, President Bush promised to seek billions of dollars in new military aid to combat terrorism in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but efforts to reform or co-opt regional Afghan militias have taken a back seat to other U.S. priorities. And while the recent takeover of peacekeeping leadership here by NATO has raised Afghan hopes for a more aggressive international military presence, no foreign nations have been willing to take on an expanded security role outside the relative safety of the capital.
"They need to go out and collect every single gun. Only then will people feel secure," said Sarwad Borak, 55, a white-spattered painter who was working on a new traffic police booth at a busy urban intersection. "We have security in Kabul, but not as soon as you reach the outskirts," he added. "Where they are no international forces, there is no security."
Massoud's former militia allies, the ethnic Tajik coterie from his base in the Panjshir Valley, have long dominated power in Afghan security ministries, wielding his name as an iconic cudgel to resist political and military reform sought by the United States, the United Nations and Karzai.
Despite lingering public skepticism, the Tajiks insist they have now become part of the solution and fully support the institutional modernization they resisted in the early stages of post-Taliban rule.
Gen. Mir Jan, Defense Ministry spokesman, said the institution has every intention of professionalizing its standards, though he cautioned that change is much harder to introduce in the countryside, where militia leaders have run fiefdoms for years.
"We can't ignore the fact that for 25 years there was no law. The commanders were the authorities and each had his own kingdom," Jan said. "The stronger the central government can become, the weaker the local powers will become, but we must move slowly and be mindful of traditions."
'Between Fear and Hope'
Karzai, who commands no military muscle of his own and is protected by a force of U.S. commandos, has tried to use diplomacy and deal-making as peacemaking tools, with mixed results. One notable success was his recent removal of a thuggish provincial governor, who now sits in Kabul as a minor cabinet minister.
Karzai's public efforts to distinguish between "good" and "bad" Taliban members, and perhaps woo some of the group's former leaders into the government fold, backfired badly with the public. While the president remains a popular figure, many foreign and Afghan observers privately say they have been increasingly disappointed with his indecisive leadership.
As Afghanistan prepares to move toward its first democratic elections, anti-democratic and radical Islamic groups -- both those in hiding and those in public political life -- are becoming bolder in their challenges to a progressive but weak central government that still suffers from what Brahimi called the "original sin" of having been hastily cobbled together in an international, post-9/11 panic nearly two years ago.
"There is a great danger that we will have elections, but that the fundamentalist forces will mobilize and there will be no space or security climate for alternative views," said Vikram Parekh, an Afghan specialist with the nonprofit International Crisis Group.
While few Afghans or foreign observers believe the Taliban could manage a return to power, the movement's recent surge of guerrilla activity has come as one more blow to an uncertain, war-weary nation that already has more than enough to worry about -- from absorbing millions of returning refugees to curbing the power of local warlords and finding the right balance between Islamic traditions and modern, liberal values.
"People are living between fear and hope," said Khalili. "The hope is that we have a government, we have international support, we have a road map of reconstruction that has started. The fear is that we see the emergence of an enemy that six months ago everyone thought was completely broken. Maybe people's hopes were too high before," he added, "but they are much less now."
Tripartite talks deferred
Daily Times (Pakistan)
ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the Tripartite Commission due to be held in Rawalpindi today (Wednesday) has been postponed due to the Afghan delegation’s non-availability. The commission comprises two representatives each from member states, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. "The Pakistani and US authorities have been informed that the Afghan delegation will not be available for today’s meeting, as they are commemorating the death anniversary of late Ahmad Shah Masood in Afghanistan," highly-placed sources told Daily Times. "In the last two meetings, Kabul has insisted on re-demarcation of Durand Line but Pakistan has rejected the demand, calling the issue a closed chapter," sources said. —Staff Report
Multi-million dollar programme to address Afghan youth
KABUL, 9 September (IRIN) - The Afghan government have unveiled a multi-million dollar project designed to address some of the needs of Afghan youth, IRIN learnt on Monday. "Seventy percent of two million unemployed Afghans are the youth who have been deprived of education during the years of war, mainly during the Taliban time," Mohammad Ghuas Bashiri, a deputy minister in the ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, told IRIN in Kabul.
According to the World Bank, which administers the US $2.98 million Japanese-funded youth project, recent studies indicate that there are over five million young people in Afghanistan, many of whom are severely disadvantaged. Despite the influx of developmet aid in the post-Taliban era, there are currently very few programmes aimed specifically at the development of the country's youth.
The Japan Social Development Fund (JSCF) is the lead donor for the project. "We hope this grant will make a difference for young Afghans' social life," said Kinichi Komano, Japanese Ambassador to Afghanistan at the launching ceremony in Kabul.
Under the project, entitled 'Creating Future Potential Micro-Entrepreneurs' youngsters would be targetted with a focus on their developmental needs, helping them to establish youth development centers for orientation, guidance, information exchange, and skills training in the country.
"During more than two decades of war and destruction, many young Afghans lost their livelihoods and missed the chance to be active members of their society," Shideh Hadian, World Bank project team leader, noted.
According to the Labour and Social Affairs ministry, the four-year project is a pilot programme which will offer literacy, micro finance and vocational training in order to build social capacity and create employment opportunities. "We will give top priority for girls as they sustained more deprivation than men," Bashiri maintained. "In fact employment guarantees security and it will stop youth from joining in or undertaking destructive activities," the deputy minister added.
The labour minstry said the project would cover only four provinces and it would expand once more money was forthcoming from donors. "We also have pledges from donors mainly Iran, to launch similar types of projects throughout the country," Bashir said.
US losing hearts and minds in Afghanistan
The Taipei Times 09/09/2003
DISILLUSIONMENT: Corruption, weak leadership and the apparent immunity of marauding warlords are causing ordinary denizens to lose faith in American rule
Along a potholed road in eastern Afghanistan, Mohammed Jan points through a cloud of dust at a line of mansions that seem out of place in such poverty-stricken surroundings.
"This is where the new, beautiful houses begin. They belong to the commanders. Their money is from drugs, from smuggling. They will never be caught. Their soldiers are working with the Americans," says Jan, himself a small-time opium grower.
Nearly two years after the collapse of Taliban rule, ordinary Afghans like Jan say they are losing faith in the US and its coalition partners.
They point to rampant corruption, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's weak leadership and the behavior of US-backed warlords whose private armies operate with impunity throughout most of Afghanistan.
Their disillusionment is strengthening Taliban holdouts whose attacks are getting bolder. Nowadays the rebels don't fear being turned over to the authorities; they say most villages give them food and shelter.
"The big mistake is from the Americans. They want to bring peace to Afghanistan with thieves and killers. The Americans after two years have learned nothing," said Abdul Raouf, a car dealer in the eastern city of Jalalabad. "Every day the situation is worse."
The American invasion of Afghanistan relied heavily on local anti-Taliban forces, and it was inevitable that these warlords, however unsavory, would continue to be important forces in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network that masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks.
But Afghans increasingly wonder whether the trade-off was worth it.
"Everybody says warlords, but who are these warlords? They are commanders, they are government ministers," said Raouf. "We didn't like the Taliban but there was security then, there were laws. But now anyone with a gun is the law."
Back at the mansions, in the province of Nangarhar, a white marble watchtower peeks over the 3m-high brick wall.
"Drug smuggler," Jan says. "That's a commander of Hazrat Ali's. Are the Americans crazy? We Afghans know who these people are and what they are doing. There is no security, no development, but these people's pockets are fat with money. We know that without the Americans they would be nobody."
Hazrat Ali is military chief of Afghanistan's eastern zone, a powerful man appointed by Karzai but aligned with Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim.
The US says it is committed to strengthening the central government and is putting more than US$1 billion into extending Karzai's control beyond Kabul, the capital to the whole Texas-sized country.
US officials insist that Jan's lament doesn't reflect the full picture. They say some areas are more secure, some less; some Afghans are optimistic, others not. They point to the reconstruction projects that are beginning, the road that links the capital to Kandahar.
Reconstruction, the argument goes, is bound to be slower in the east and south of Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are being hunted. Sometimes, Western diplomats say, solutions entail messy compromises; when Karzai decided that the governor of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city, was corrupt and ineffective, he removed him but made him a government minister.
The opium industry, harshly suppressed by the Taliban, has made a roaring comeback.
The UN says production in 2002 generated up to US$1.2 billion or almost a fifth of Afghan GDP. Central Asian states and Russia are complaining bitterly about the increase in Afghan drugs flowing north.
Those benefiting most are the commanders aligned to the government and working with the US-led coalition, say Afghans in eastern Jalalabad who spoke to reporters.
Commander Mustafa, a soldier of Zahir's and a partner with the US-led coalition, denies the allegation. In an interview at his base near the border with Pakistan, surrounded by a dozen men with kalashnikov rifles, he said his men would seize and destroy any drugs they found.
A UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the drug trade couldn't possibly flourish without the patronage of government officials and military commanders.
Human Rights Watch recently issued a 101-page report warning that "Afghan warlords and political strongmen supported by the United States and other nations are engendering a climate of fear in Afghanistan." It named a string of men in senior government positions.
This climate of fear, the advocacy group said, jeopardizes efforts to adopt a new constitution and hold national elections in mid-2004.
A disarmament campaign was to have begun July 1, but the UN delayed it, demanding the Defense Ministry first be reformed to reflect Afghanistan's ethnic diversity. The UN wants sweeping changes to take power away from Defense Minister Fahim's private army.
Nearly two years since taking power, Karzai's limited reach is allowing the corruption to flourish.
Several months ago, Karzai banned logging in eastern Afghanistan, but it still flourishes in areas where his appointees govern.
The rock-strewn road from Kunar in eastern Afghanistan to neighboring Nangarhar province is bumper-to-bumper with timber-laden 16-wheelers.
In Kabul, Afghan businessmen who have come back from the US to invest here are disillusioned.
Abdullah Aziz, who returned to Afghanistan from California where he has lived since 1978, said he went to northern Kunduz province to retrieve his property.
He said he brought a letter from Karzai to the governor. "He took the piece of paper and he said `Karzai -- he is no one here.'"
Aziz is still trying to get his property. (AP)
Afghans warn of US neglect
By Sanjoy Majumder BBC News Online correspondent in Kabul
Tuesday, 9 September, 2003, 01:22 GMT 02:22 UK
Two years after the 11 September attacks on America, Afghanistan finds itself in a dilemma.
For most Afghans the aftermath of the World Trade Center strikes meant liberation from the rule of the Taleban and its hardline Islamic rule.
But some have begun questioning the commitment of the United States towards Afghanistan's long-term security and interest.
Many Afghans who fled the country returned home, women went back to school and work.
Music, banned under the Taleban's strict interpretation of Islam, now blares from every street corner.
But the sense of normality is tenuous at best.
Reports pour in of increased violence from the provinces, especially in former Taleban strongholds in the south and along the Pakistan border in the east.
Many have begun to feel that not enough is being done to extend the relative safety of Kabul to other parts of the country.
'Al-Qaeda obsession'
Afghan politician Ishaq Gailani, who belongs to one of the country's most influential religious families, is a prominent critic of the Hamid Karzai-led government.
He believes that the United States is too caught up in tracking down members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation.
"We want the Americans to do something constructive for the Afghan people," says Mr Gailani.
"All they are interested in is their pursuit of al-Qaeda - which is basically a military objective."
It is a sentiment that is shared by some on the streets of the Afghan capital.
"They are not interested in the welfare of the ordinary Afghan," says one man who describes himself as a lawyer.
"That is why all their operations are against the militant forces in the mountains. They are so busy looking for al-Qaeda that they cannot see what is under their nose.
"This is a weak government and it has no control over the provinces. Factions are springing up everywhere - it is going to be a repeat of 1992 [when all the warlords starting fighting each other]."
But it is a point of view which runs into stiff opposition.
Back in business
It is busy in the market square at the heart of Kabul as traders loudly hawk their wares, restaurants do brisk business and shiny new shops sell smuggled consumer goods.
"The situation has improved drastically since the Americans came here two years ago," says a shoeshine man.
"Just look at this place - people have money to spend, we are not going hungry anymore."
Across from him is Farid, who sells the latest Afghan and Indian music.
"I lost my job when the Taleban took over Kabul. Their defeat was the best thing that happened to me," he says.
"Now I am back in business thanks to the Americans and the international security forces. As long as they secure Afghanistan they secure our future."
But the debate on the Taleban refuses to go away.
In recent comments the Afghan Government and the Americans have said that the Taleban is trying its best to overthrow the present administration.
Talking to the Taleban
But others argue that a distinction should be drawn between al-Qaeda and the Taleban which, they say, is made up of Afghans.
Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, a former Afghan prime minister, says al-Qaeda was a "completely Arab organisation" and no Afghans were "terrorists".
The Afghan Government, he argues, has little choice but to reach out to all anti-government forces such as the Taleban and the Hizb-e-Islami party of former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
"When the Taleban was in power the Northern Alliance complained that the Taleban were not ready to sit down with us and negotiate," he says.
"Now they find themselves in the same position."
Mr Ahmadzai says the Taleban cannot be "eliminated" and therefore should be drawn into "the circle of peace" through talks.
The Pashtun factor in the Taleban's revival
By AHMED RASHID The Straits Times (Singapore) September 9, 2003
PESHAWAR, GULANAI (Pakistan) - From the dusty bazaar of these border towns bristling with guns and jihadi fighters, the lightning victory achieved by the United States in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks two years ago seems like a distant past. It is as if the Taleban were never routed.
In the last 10 days of last month, the Taleban, who were driven out of Kabul under withering US bombardment and ground assault, assembled some 1,000 troops in the two tribal provinces of Afghanistan to launch attacks on US and Afghan forces.
A mix of Pashtun tribal passion and Islamic extremism, combined with political failure in Pakistan, lies behind the Taleban resurgence and explains why the US war on terror is faltering. The war on terror has done little to address the issue of Pashtun desire for political autonomy.
The Taleban's dramatic offensive in Afghanistan during the past few weeks has been fuelled by recruits, arms, money and logistical support from Pakistan's two provinces of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan, where Pashtun tribesmen and Islamic parties are sympathetic to the Taleban.
Pakistan's Pashtuns find common ethnic and political cause with the Taleban, who are also largely Pashtun. Pashtuns on both sides of the border are bitterly opposed to the presence of US forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The sense of Pashtun brotherhood is even stronger in Pakistan's seven Federal Administered Tribal Agencies (Fata), which run north to south forming a 1,200-km wedge between Afghanistan and the settled areas of NWFP.
They are nominally under the control of Pakistan, but the tribes have been semi-autonomous since the British Raj. They have always carried arms and sold arms to everyone in the region, from Tamil Tigers and Kashmiri militants to the Taleban.
These days, the bazaars in Fata are filled with the Taleban - both Afghan and Pakistani - looking to stock up before going into Afghanistan. 'The Taleban are clean, honest, believe in Islam, and will rout the Americans,' says Mohmand shopkeeper Shakirullah. 'Anyone fighting the Americans is our friend.'
The Mohmands are just one of dozens of major tribes that straddle the border, but their views are similar to most tribal Pashtuns'. Isolated from mainstream Pakistan and the media, misinformation is rampant. After dozens of interviews, it is apparent that most Mohmands refuse to accept that the Al-Qaeda carried out the attacks of Sept 11, believing instead that they were perpetrated by 'the CIA and Jews'.
Most Mohmands also believe that the Americans, especially President George W. Bush, hate the Pashtuns.
After the defeat of the Taleban in Afghanistan, the Pakistan army entered Fata areas one by one at the request of US forces, who are patrolling the Afghan side of the border looking for Al-Qaeda militants.
Last month, at the behest of the Americans, thousands of Pakistani troops occupied the Mohmand Agency for the first time. But the army has been unable to stop the flow of guns and fighters to the Taleban. For the first time since their defeat nearly two years ago, the Taleban battling US and Afghan government troops in southern Afghanistan are not retreating under withering air bombardment by the Americans. Instead, they are standing their ground and bringing in more recruits from Pakistan, while at the same time trying to open up other fronts in eastern Afghanistan to broaden the attack against US forces.
The Taleban are now striking at Afghan and US positions all along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Just last weekend, they launched an audacious attack a few kilometres outside Kabul.
The Taleban aim is to humble the Americans and the government led by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and delay the political process - including the adoption of a new constitution this December and general elections next June - all the while preventing reconstruction by aid agencies and ensuring that instability remains.
The Pakistani army's actions in Fata are designed to apprehend Taleban and Al-Qaeda leaders such as Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding out further south. With American funds, the army is building schools, hospitals and roads in Fata to try to win the tribesmen's support and glean intelligence from them as to the whereabouts of Taleban and Al-Qaeda leaders.
But the army has one hand tied behind its back. Lieutenant-General Mohammed Ali Jan Orakzai promised tribesmen that the army would not interfere in their main economic livelihood - the smuggling of goods (and drugs) between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a trade which also provides the Taleban with supplies. The army has also not prohibited the sale of guns and ammunition in Fata, which supply the whole of Pakistan.
Meanwhile, US officials and Afghan leaders have charged that Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency is clandestinely providing its own support to the Taleban, a charge Pakistan denies vehemently. However, on Aug 31, army spokesman Shaukat Saulat admitted that three to four officers had been arrested for links to Pakistani extremist groups which are also backing the Taleban - the officers were all posted near Fata.
In Afghanistan, officials close to President Karzai say the officers were in fact captured in Zabul province while helping the Taleban and were handed over to US forces, which took them to Pakistan for questioning. The army denies the charge.
The arrests come amid rising concerns that as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who is also army chief, allies himself closely with the US in its war against terrorism and in Iraq, Islamic extremism is rising in the army's officer corps. The army backed extremist Islamic causes such as the Taleban regime in the past, but since Sept 11, General Musharraf has been at pains to stress that Islamic fundamentalism has been eliminated in the army.
The army's failure to contain the growing and widespread support for the Taleban among Pakistani Pashtuns is not helped by the fact that the neighbouring province of NWFP is presently ruled by Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six Islamic fundamentalist parties which are all allied with the Taleban.
The MMA came to power after winning a majority in last October's general elections. Its two largest component parties are the Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam (JUI) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). The JUI has a long history of backing the Taleban with thousands of fighters. Peshawar politicians and bureaucrats say the JUI is directly supporting the Taleban insurgency in southern Afghanistan, and many Taleban leaders and their families have been given sanctuary in JUI-controlled madrasahs.
The JI, on the other hand, has a pan-Islamic agenda based on the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and is the best organised Islamic party across Pakistan. The JI is backing its former Afghan ally and Brotherhood pan-Islamicist, the Afghan commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is allied with the Taleban and is active in eastern Afghanistan.
The real danger for Pakistan and its American ally lies in the fact that the stepped-up Taleban resistance in Afghanistan is likely to embolden Islamic parties and extremist groups in Pakistan itself to take on the army and the government of this nuclear power.
Gen Musharraf has so far been unable or unwilling to create a modern, moderate Pashtun leadership which could be a real alternative to extremists, nor has he been able to curb extremism in the ranks of his own military. A victory over terrorism remains as elusive as ever in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Ahmed Rashid is the author of Taleban: Militant Islam, Oil And Fundamentalism In Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise Of Militant Islam In Central Asia.
Two years, thousands of hunters but no sign of Osama
By Jane Macartney, Asian Diplomatic Correspondent Tuesday September 9, 5:23 PM
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - His six-foot 5-inch frame may lie in an unmarked grave in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains. Or he could be moving, leaning on a cane and circled by bodyguards, from safe house to safe house along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
That mystery serves as a daily reminder to the United States of its failure to capture Osama bin Laden after a two-year hunt, how even a $25 million reward has yet to net either the al Qaeda chief or the world's newest most-wanted fugitive, Saddam Hussein.
The former Iraqi president may be easier to capture than the Saudi-born Islamic militant suspected as chief architect of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed 3,000 people, counter-terrorism experts say.
"There are not many places that Saddam Hussein can go except Iraq," said David Wright-Neville, former terrorism adviser to Australia's office of National Assessments, equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency.
"There are many places that Osama bin Laden can go. I think they will get Saddam, dead or alive, but I am not convinced they will get bin Laden -- and if they do he will be dead," said Wright-Neville, now at the Monash Global Terrorism Research Unit in Melbourne, Australia.
U.S. security experts believe bin Laden remains alive after two years leading the world's most-wanted list and they voice increasing frustration at his success in eluding massed U.S. special forces, spy satellites and aircraft surveillance.
Most dismiss rumours he lies in a grave, which would be unmarked in line with his Wahhabi Islamic beliefs, in Afghanistan's Tora Bora hills where the al Qaeda staged one of their last coordinated stands against U.S. forces in late 2001.
Most agree bin Laden is flitting among safe houses along the porous borders dividing Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
That is a large area, populated by tribal leaders sympathetic to a fugitive from U.S. justice and patrolled by intelligence services who may be content to see a little humiliation for the mighty U.S. war machine, analysts say.
"He had built up an extensive network in Pakistan well before September 11 and that was the hub of his communications and logistics," said Afghan expert Ahmed Rashid.
That network is not only in lawless tribal areas where Pakistani forces have long been forbidden to tread, but extends into cities where most arrested al Qaeda leaders have been found.
"It is very difficult to know to what degree the Pakistanis are really cooperating as far as the tribal belt is concerned," said Rashid. "This is a very sensitive area and the last thing the authorities want to do is to antagonise the tribals."
Tribal anger in the vital buffer along the border with Afghanistan could not only spark domestic political unrest but give birth to even more secure hiding places for Afghans opposed not only to the U.S. forces but to their Pakistani allies.
Bin Laden and his top lieutenant, the Egyptian operations mastermind Ayman al-Zawahri, may be receiving protection not only from renegade members of Pakistan's military intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), but possibly even from similar elements in Iran eager to counter U.S. interests, analysts said.
FRIENDS NOT FRIENDLY ENOUGH
"The Americans have to live with the Pakistani bureaucracy that works against them and the police that works with them," said Clive Williams, terror expert at Australia National University in Canberra.
Afghanistan offers plenty of hideouts to a man fighting jihad (holy war) there since the Soviet invasion nearly 25 years ago.
"He knows the language, he knows the people, he understands the area and he has money and Afghans need money," said former Pakistani intelligence chief Hamid Gul.
And the temptation of a $25 million reward from the United States has little meaning for an Afghan farmer who measures his worth in goats and knows such a betrayal means certain death.
"I am sure bin Laden can up the ante and pay much more," said Gul.
Some question whether the son of one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest construction millionaires retains the financial means to pay off those around him and the physical means to contact those who adhere to his anti-American message.
Bin Laden, who walks with the help of a cane, has not been seen since a videotape in late 2001 in which he appeared grey-faced and tired. He has not been heard from since well before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
He almost certainly communicates only by human courier and if he does not travel with Zawahri, then meets him amid great care although probably with some regularity, analysts say.
"It might be that he is ailing...and if he is debilitated then he does not want to present the image of a person who is clearly fading," said Wright-Neville. "He wants to maintain his mystique."
Recent audiotapes breathing of revenge attacks have been voiced by Zawahri. Bin Laden has good reason to keep quiet.
"I'm a little surprised they haven't got him given the resources they have put into this over two years," said Wright-Neville.
They may prefer not to catch him. Recent rumours he was in southeastern Kunar province elicited scant U.S. response.
"They would be putting on trial a man of great conviction," said Williams.
Chechnya Tops Land Mine Danger List
Breakaway Russian Region Cof Hechnya Replaces Afghanistan As Deadliest Nation for Land Mines
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON Sept. 9 - More people were killed by land mines during the continuing conflict in Chechnya last year than anywhere else in the world, a watchdog group said Tuesday.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, reported that 5,695 people were killed by land mines in Chechnya in 2002, more than double the 2,140 casualties a year earlier. The group said Russian troops and Chechen rebels both use mines in the breakaway Russian region.
"Fighting, replete with massive violations of human rights and laws of war, including widespread use of mines by both sides, continues," the group said.
At the same time, a massive mine-clearing effort in Afghanistan is having the desired effect, lowering the toll from mines from 1,445 in 2001 to 1,286 last year, still the world's second-deadliest toll.
About $64 million was spent last year on mine-clearing operations, four times greater than in 2001, after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban government.
Nine of the world's 15 current land mine producers are in Asia: China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, Singapore and Vietnam. Nepal was added to the list this year after the government in Katmandu admitted producing mines.
The group said that as of July 31, 134 countries, including Afghanistan, had ratified a treaty to ban land mines. The agreement awaits ratification in another 13. The United States, Russia and China are among the 47 countries that have yet to sign the treaty.
The Bush administration is reviewing the U.S. policy toward land mines. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines said the administration had stockpiled mines to use in the recent Iraq war but did not deploy them.
Six governments used land mines in 2002, down from nine in 2001 and 13 in 2000, the group said. This year, only two countries Myanmar and Russia continued to use mines on a regular basis, the group said.
The number of deaths in Myanmar, also known as Burma, doubled from 57 in 2001 to 114 in 2002. The Burmese military has been accused of forcing people to walk in front of patrols in suspected minefields , so-called atrocity demining.
The report found that 11,700 people around the world were reported killed by mines last year, including 2,649 children and 192 women. The advocacy group said the total is higher because civilians are killed in areas with no help and no way to communicate, so their deaths are not reported.
via ABCNews.com
Remembering 9/11: Afghanistan being put slowly back together
Progress made despite perils from warlords, Taliban, land mines
By CHARLES POPE AND MATTHEW CRAFT SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
WASHINGTON -- Less than a month after the United States made Afghanistan the opening front in the war on terrorism, President Bush made an unequivocal promise.
"The Taliban's days of harboring terrorists and dealing in heroin and brutalizing women are drawing to a close," Bush said in a speech to the United Nations on Nov. 10, 2001. "I can promise, too, that America will join the world in helping the people of Afghanistan rebuild their country."
Bush was right about defeating Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, which was suspected of providing a haven and support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. A few weeks after the president's U.N. speech, Afghan opposition forces supported by the U.S. Air Force and ground troops routed the Taliban.
But the second part of Bush's vow remains stubbornly unfulfilled. Two years later, the war on terrorism goes on, in Afghanistan, in Iraq and elsewhere. And Afghanistan remains a fractured country, both politically and economically.
Yet, progress is being made, if slowly. And Afghans are anxious for a more stable, less violent life.
"They are optimistic in the sense that they see this as a huge opportunity and they don't want to blow it," said Lisa Schnellinger, Afghanistan project director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting who has lived in the country for nearly a year.
"They see that they have a chance for a peaceful society that is really theirs for the first time," she said.
Take a look inside at what Afghanistan has experienced politically, economically and in daily life over the past two years.
Power politics
Nearly two years after the Taliban fell from power, the interim government led by President Hamid Karzai is still taking short, wobbling steps. Karzai is often called the mayor of Kabul, because the rest of the country is run by the same warlords who have held pockets of the country like fiefdoms for years -- before and during the Taliban regime.
Yet U.S. officials and aid workers give him high marks.
"I think Karzai is very smart how he's gone about this," Schnellinger said. "You can't simply come in and say, 'OK, all you warlords disappear now.' He has to have an army to enforce the rule of law anywhere. He's just begun to build that army and you don't train professional soldiers from scratch overnight."
Two forces buffet the new national government: the Taliban and the warlords, rich tribal leaders with ties to the opium trade.
The remnants of the Taliban have hidden across the border in Pakistan where most residents of the frontier provinces are fellow Pashtuns. This safe harbor has allowed them to regroup. However, few believe the Taliban will become strong enough to alter the nation's course.
"It's really hard to imagine a return to either a Taliban-style rule or something where you have foreign terror organizations that are welcome there. Or, for that matter, a return to the kind of chaos that preceded the Taliban and created the conditions for them," said Tom Willard.
A former Army officer who served in Afghanistan, Willard now works in the country as a development officer for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
The problem with the warlords is more complex. As ethnic tribal leaders with sway over most of the countryside, they give the government legitimacy and undermine it at the same time.
Larry Goodson, director of Middle East studies at the U.S. Army War College, said that if the Pentagon had put more troops on the ground when it attacked the Taliban it would have weakened the warlords. Instead, American forces relied on them and backed the Northern Alliance, a group of ethnic militias.
The warlords emerged stronger and some were handed seats in Karzai's government. Mohammad Fahim, the defense minister, keeps his private army north of Kabul.
"This is a direct byproduct of U.S. strategy," Goodson said. "We brought them back, and now they're a hindrance."
The borders of Afghanistan surround a mishmash of ethnic groups with different languages and customs. Afghans never built a strong national identity nor had a powerful central government. Goodson said national governments worked best in cooperation with local tribal chiefs.
Analysts say that for the national government to gain a stable footing, the warlords will have to be disarmed and pacified. This would require building a national police force and strengthening district governments.
A loya jirga -- a grand council drawing representatives from all over the country -- is supposed to take place next month. The goal of the meeting is to have a constitution in place by the end of the year, laying the foundation for national elections in June 2004.
Perhaps, some say, the warlords who control most of the country could be turned into political leaders. Otherwise, Goodson said, attacking them "would be like declaring war on the entire countryside."
Rebuilding and the economy
Afghanistan was already one of the world's poorest countries before the United States attacked two years ago. It will take longer and cost more than originally expected to put Afghanistan back together.
Some even fear that the job will never be finished. The United States, they worry, will lose interest as it is sapped by a similar -- and far more expensive -- effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq. And with no oil or natural resources, corporations won't be drawn to invest in the country.
The good news is that the effort to rebuild Afghanistan is supported by dozens of countries.
Unlike Iraq, which can count on billions of dollars in revenue from oil, Afghanistan's goals are much smaller. With no natural resources or middle class and a poorly educated population, aid workers say Afghanistan's future lies in agriculture -- and not just in opium, the country's most lucrative crop.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who toured Afghanistan last month, said parts of the country reminded her of Eastern Washington, with its rugged mountains surrounding valleys of wheat, potatoes and fruits.
One goal is to persuade farmers to raise more fruit for export. It would also lead to the construction of processing plants that could help stabilize the economy and bring hard currency into the country.
That isn't such a large leap. Agriculture accounts for 80 percent of the country's economy. Instead of opium, U.S. officials are pressing farmers to grow legal crops and raise livestock that would produce wool, mutton, sheepskins and lambskins.
Even if those goals are realized, Afghanistan is destined to remain one of the world's most destitute countries. With an annual per capita income of $700, the country is highly dependent on foreign aid.
In fact, foreign aid is the underpinning of the country's economy with more than 60 countries and international financial institutions pledging money. More than $4.5 billion is pledged through 2006, with the United States promising roughly half the total.
Afghanistan's economy grew by an eye-popping 30 percent last year, fueled by foreign aid and reconstruction.
"The return of refugees, the end of the drought and the beginning of the harvest in Afghanistan and basically the general economic activity that we see in the country account for this growth rate, this very positive growth rate," said Afghan presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin.
Adding to the optimism is a decision by Pakistan to forge closer economic ties with Afghanistan.
"Afghanistan and Pakistan are fully eye to eye on the importance of deepening the economic relations," Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani said last month.
Security and quality of life
Overall, the average Afghan lives a better life than two years ago. USAID has immunized millions of children for diseases and started building rural medical clinics. The agency has provided $25 million in textbooks and trained about 3,500 teachers. Women have returned to work. More children are in school than ever before.
But if Afghanistan is ever to lurch into a better life, government officials and aid workers say improving security throughout the country is the first, and most important, step.
Until people can travel without fear of being attacked, of being confronted by hostile warlords, it will be difficult to attract foreign investment. It will be difficult to strengthen the central government.
The resurgence of the Taliban in the eastern and southern parts of the country can be blamed on the reluctance of Americans to provide security outside Kabul and Kandahar, said Thomas Gouttierre, director of the center for Afghan studies at University of Nebraska at Omaha. That's also the key to the success of warlords and their militias -- they provide security.
If the first step in improving people's quality of life requires securing the country, many say the second step is building the Ring Road, a highway from Kabul to Kandahar and then, eventually, to the western city of Herat.
"The road is crucial," Schnellinger said. "Some people really think that that is the key first piece because you need the road for security, you need the road for economics, you need the road for communications. Everything depends on the road."
Construction crews are rushing to finish the stretch between Kabul and Kandahar by the end of the year, even if it means it will be poorly constructed. Goodson said that it's important as a symbol of progress. "Even though it'll be a light tarmac that'll probably fall apart."
And Afghanistan remains one of the most heavily mined places on Earth, despite intensive work the last two years to remove the devices.
In a report released this week, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines found that land mines and unexploded ordnance are scattered indiscriminately through the country "in urban and commercial areas, towns and villages, as well as in farmlands, grazing lands, and along transport roads."
Last year, the International Committee for the Red Cross recorded 1,286 new casualties from land mines, unexploded ordnance and cluster munitions. One hundred fifty-four people were killed and 1,132 injured.
Gouttierre said the Bush administration is trying to rebuild Afghanistan "on the cheap." President Bush's recent call to spend $87 billion on the war on terror includes $11 billion for military operations in Afghanistan and $800 million for everything else.
He and others worry that if the pace isn't quickened to secure the country -- especially the rural areas -- the United States and its allies will miss an important opportunity. Small improvements in basic quality-of-life items such as electricity and water will yield big results, they say.
"I've been begging for them to build roads, build hospitals," Goodson said. "Let people see our good intentions and see that we meant what we said about saving Afghans. Make it hard for groups like the Taliban and al-Qaida to take root."
Like others, Goodson can point to significant achievements, but he worries that Afghanistan will, once again, slip into the shadow. The next 12 months, they say, will be important in determining whether progress continues.
"On balance I'm happy we're there and we haven't abandoned it yet. I'm frustrated at our ineptness and the fact that we've let it slip to the back pages and then out of the newspaper altogether."
Time running out for normalcy in Afghanistan
Washington, Sept. 9 (PTI): The use of Pakistan as a launching pad by renegade Taliban forces to launch attacks on the US-led forces has raised fears among Afghans that time may be running out to establish a democratic and moderate Afghanistan.
While Pakistani authorities insist they are trying to curb cross-border terrorism, many Afghans have long viewed Pakistani interference as the source of all their ills, including the Taliban movement that was spawned in Pakistani religious schools, the Washington Post said in a report today.
Efforts to reform or coopt regional militias have taken a back seat. While the recent takeover of peacekeeping leadership in Afghanistan by NATO has raised Afghan hopes for a more aggressive international military presence, no foreign nations have been willing to take on an expanded security risk outside the safety of the capital, the Post said.
Despite the presence of 8,500 U.S. combat forces and a multinational peacekeeping force in the capital, an aggressive and organised guerrilla force has become active during the past two months in areas close to the border with Pakistan.
The guerrillas, occupying a mountainous region of Zabol province for nearly two weeks, are led by Taliban members.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN Special Representative in Afghanistan, has said he is deeply concerned that the growing lack of security could jeopardise the democratic political process mandated by th UN after the fall of the Taliban in November 2001.
"We have come out of our naive belief that elections are a magic cure for all ills," he told The Post.
"People need security--not just a lack of shooting but no one telling them how they should vote," he added.
Afghanistan selling cheap sugar acquired through transit trade
Tuesday September 09, 2003 (1456 PST) PakTribune.com, Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, September 10 (Online): Afghanistan instead of buying sugar from Pakistan has started acquiring cheaper sugar from the world market under the Afghan Transit Trade.
The acquired sugar is being allegedly sold to the Central Asian States.
Trade Ministry sources told Online that Afghanistan during the past two and a half years has acquired Rs 7 million worth sugar from the world market under the Transit Trade system.
The price of sugar in the world market is Rs 14 per kilo while in Pakistan it is Rs 20 per kilo.
It is worth mentioning that under the Afghan Transit Trade policy Afghanistan imports various items from other countries through Pakistan without paying custom duty.
The source further said that Afghanistan instead of utilizing the cheap sugar for its own consumption is selling the imported sugar to Central Asian States and border areas of Afghanistan, which is in violation of the treaty.
Schofield training soldiers for duty in Afghanistan
By William Cole Honolulu Advertiser, HI
The roadside firefight was brief but intense — a training precursor to what Schofield Barracks soldiers could see in Afghanistan in five months.
Sgt. Nathan Hoffman of Bravo Company took part in the Army's Lightning Thrust Warrior training, adapted to mimic conditions in Afghanistan.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
Two enemy snipers hid in a thicket just off the Dillingham Airfield runway, where C-130 transports were landing during the Lightning Thrust Warrior exercise. Sneaking up on a platoon providing perimeter security next to an old hangar, the snipers opened fire.
Down went two Bravo Company, 2nd Platoon soldiers in a blaze of blank gunfire, their gear registering laser hits. Around the other side of the building, the other sniper found his mark with three other soldiers.
"I was right here in the prone position. He just took his weapon and shot, and he got me," said Pfc. Leonardo Vera, 21, who might have suffered some ignominy, but nothing else.
"This environment, it's just training. In real life, it's real bullets, and you lose life," Vera said yesterday. "It's good training. You gotta know your job when you do the real thing."
One of the black-shirted "opposing force" snipers, Staff Sgt. Michael Spear, was in Afghanistan in June 2002 with the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, N.C.
"This is pretty fast-paced, because they put so many people in a small area," Spear said. "In Afghanistan, it will be pot shots here and there. The enemy will be dispersed more — one or two in a town instead of 22 or 23 in a town."
But the 25th Infantry Division (Light) is practicing for engagements big, small and anything in between, and the exercise involving 3,500 soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team — scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in February, followed by the 3rd Brigade six months later — is a large-scale tune-up for combat duty.
The mission of the brigade combat teams will be to conduct combat patrols, protect coalition forces and provide humanitarian assistance.
A Black Hawk lands near Dillingham Airfield during the annual two-week exercise.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
Starting last Friday and running through Sept. 18, Lightning Thrust Warrior integrates infantry and other ground units, helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, artillery and convoys. This year, the annual exercise was altered to include Afghanistan-like situations.
"We've got (enemy) soldiers planted out here to harass them as they're coming in — just like Afghanistan," said Maj. Will Oxtoby, a 3rd Brigade fire support officer acting as an observer-controller.
Helicopter air assaults and artillery firing are scheduled next week on the Big Island. Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Army Airfield, and Kahuku Training Area also are being used. The bulk of training is taking place on O'ahu.
Two 2nd Brigade battalions, 1-21 and 1-14, practiced yesterday seizing and securing an airport at Dillingham, where groups of 11 to 25 soldiers fanned out into the woods from Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.
Smaller Kiowa Warriors buzzed overhead, and C-130s with troops and equipment landed, followed by the arrival of a convoy of Humvees and trucks at the airport, which is closed to civilian use for several days.
Pfc. Joseph Marcinko, 20, who lay on the side of a dirt road sighting down a belt-fed M-240 machine gun, said training with an opposing force gets the adrenaline going.
"It keeps you awake and alert, because you know somebody's out there," he said. "You're just waiting for them to make contact with you."
"We're getting ready to go into a hostile environment," Marcinko added, "and we're getting good training. If you don't take it seriously now, you won't take it seriously when you get there."
"We react, and that's what this (training) gives us a chance to do," said Spc. Jeff Bulington, 21.
For yesterday's exercise, there was limited sniping and mortar fire from the 3rd Brigade's "Team Houligan." For followup training in Kahuku, "there's going to be a definite enemy that needs to be taken care of," Oxtoby said. "They'll have a good fight there."
Spear, who along with fellow scout sniper Pfc. John Hubbart registered laser hits on the five soldiers, and earlier ambushed a six-man anti-tank weapons team, said his best advice after being in Afghanistan was to train "as if this is the real deal — because this is where you make your mistakes, so you don't make them in combat."
U.S. scholars worry about Pakistan
The Washington Times By Anwar Iqbal UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst September 7, 2003
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Speakers at a recent seminar in Washington warned that Pakistan cannot always use the threat of religious extremists to curry favor from the United States.
Speaking on the "future of sustainable democracy in Pakistan" at the Brookings Institution Wednesday -- and later at a discussion in Columbia, Md., -- prominent U.S. scholars and government officials said that the pro-Indian tilt in U.S. policy was irreversible. They described Pakistan's "Kargil misadventure" as a turning point which forced major world powers, including China, to look critically at "the irresponsible attitude" of a nuclear power. (The Kargil affair refers to when Pakistan occupied military posts in Indian Kashmir in 1999 causing serious border clashes between the two nuclear rivals. President Clinton had to personally intervene in order to prevent a nuclear conflict between the
two.)
They observed that the pro-Indian and Israeli tilt in the U.S. policy was backed not only by the Jewish and Indian lobbies but the Christian right as well.
The speakers warned, furthermore, that if it were proven that Pakistan had exchanged nuclear technology with North Korea for missiles, it would have very serious consequences.
William Milam, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, said that Pakistan did not have democracy but a hybrid government with an elected civilian partner --Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali -- and the military as the superior partner, President Pervez Musharraf.
He said that during the last two years, Musharraf had introduced "some dubious constitutional reforms" and was trying to justify these amendments in the name of a referendum "which was also dubious."
"The military's unwillingness to let the civilians make national security decisions stems from a fear of India," said Milam. "The military also has entered into an alliance with the Islamists for its aggrandizement.
"The army may not be responsible for the economic malaise of Pakistan but has not been able to deliver either," he added. "The military has a history of failures and has been unable to learn from its mistakes," said the retired U.S. ambassador. He urged the U.S. administration to push for a democratic change in Pakistan and said that if President Ziaul Huq like Musharraf had dismissed Parliament and sacked the elected government, the United States would not have watched silently. "The real question is not the future of sustainable democracy in Pakistan but the future of Pakistan without sustainable democracy," he said.
Michelle Sisson, deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia, however, defended Musharraf's reforms for strengthening local bodies as a step in the right direction because, she said, "building democracy at this level will take Pakistan to sustainable democracy."
She said she was aware that no elected government has been able to complete its tenure in Pakistan. "Corruption is a fact of life. So is feudalism, but Pakistan does need a sustainable democracy."
She said Pakistan has been slowly building institutions that fight for human rights, for the rights of women, children, and religious and ethnic minorities.
She urged the Pakistan government to provide civic amenities to its people. "You cannot expect citizens to pay taxes if they do not see some of it coming back."
Sisson said the replacement of deputy and assistant commissioners with elected nazims (or district chiefs) has brought some new faces. "It is not perfect but it is going to get better. Discontent among the people can be curbed," she added Teresita Schaffer, former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka and now director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the military took over the government in Pakistan because politicians had messed up things.
"Unfortunately, autocracy has not worked either. Pakistan has learned that an autocratic government is not the answer," she added.
Pakistan needs democracy, said Schaffer, also because of its ethnic and religious diversity. In autocracy, she said, smaller ethnic and religious groups feel isolated, which increases their bitterness.
"Besides, time after time the people of Pakistan have demonstrated that they want to have a say in the affairs of the government." She regretted that the institutions that Pakistan had been proud of 40 years ago "have now been hollowed out." She said during a recent visit to Pakistan she was "stunned at the way the judiciary has been undermined."
"Both integrity and efficiency of the judiciary has suffered," she added.
"Parliament is dysfunctional ... and the president has further weakened it by trying to legislate by issuing decrees," said Schaffer. Pakistan, she said, has an election commission but people generally believe that successive governments have manipulated the commission to get the results of their liking and no government has so far done anything to improve its image.
Schaffer also condemned the practice of inducting retired generals as vice chancellors and said that it was hurting these institutions.
"The army's oversized role in the government is a very serious obstacle to Pakistan's development," said the former U.S. envoy while urging Pakistanis to "rebuild institutions and create islands of integrity."
Professor Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said the situation in Pakistan forces U.S. policymakers to worry "if they have put their money in the right place."
If it were not needed in the fight against terrorism, he said, "Pakistan would have been a fit case for the rogue state." He said although he favors a long-term U.S. engagement with the country, "Pakistan today is the most anti-American country in the world."
Dr. Nisar A. Chaudhry, president of the Pakistan American League, disagreed with Cohen and said that although anti-American feelings exist, "they can be removed with a long-term and positive engagement."
Rodney W. Jones -- who heads a private think-tank called Policy Architects International and has recently returned from a visit to Islamabad -- said during this visit he told Pakistani policymakers that they need to re-arrange their priorities in accordance with new realities.
The U.S. relationship with Pakistan, he said, was based on mutual strategic interests, as ties between states always are. He said after the Kargil misadventure, the United States has not been ashamed of acknowledging its pro-Indian tilt. The Republicans, he said, have been traditionally more lenient towards Pakistan but even if the current Republican administration is more pro-India, there is no reason why Democrats would be different.
Pakistan cannot always use the threat of Islamic fundamentalists to seek favor from the United States. It will not work," said Rodney Jones a U.S. scholar who recently visited Pakistan on an invitation from the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad. The presence of religious extremists in Pakistan was not a source of strength but a cause for worries, said Stephen Cohen.
Both Cohen and Jones said that the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, which could fall into the hands of religious extremists if its economy collapses further, increases the worries of the international community, including the United States.
"I told them (in Islamabad) that the United States is no more apologetic about its pro-India tilt. This tilt is going to stay and a change of government in Washington will have no impact on the U.S. position," said Jones. "The pro-Indian and pro-Israeli policies are no more championed by the Jewish and Indian lobbies alone. They enjoy the support of the Christian right as well," he added.
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