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November 11, 2007 

Foreign soldier, six elders killed in Afghan unrest
KABUL (AFP) - A US-led coalition soldier died of injuries he suffered in battle and six Afghan elders were gunned down Sunday to end one of the bloodiest weeks in years in insurgency-hit Afghanistan.

The soldier succumbed to his wounds a day after the battle with insurgents in Kapisa province north of the capital Kabul, the military said.

It followed the deaths announced Saturday of six soldiers from a separate NATO-led force in the eastern mountains of Afghanistan and together increased to 201 the number of foreign soldiers killed in the country this year.

Although the nationalities of the casualties in the past two days have not been officially released, most of the troops in the east and in the coalition are US nationals.

In a separate incident Sunday, unknown gunmen on motorbikes shot dead six pro-government tribal elders as they were going to a prayer service in western Herat province, provincial police chief Juma Khan Adil said.

The gunmen opened fire on the elders as they were travelling by vehicle in Gozara district, he told AFP.

"The elders were going to the mosque. The armed men opened fire on their vehicle and killed six of them," he said. A seventh man was injured.

The police chief was unable to say who might have been behind the killing but similar such incidents have in the past been blamed on Taliban insurgents who target people associated with or who support the government.

One Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, however denied his group was involved in killing the elders.

Ahmadi did say however that the Taliban was behind a suicide bombing that injured up to five civilians in southern Helmand province.

Local officials said the bombing was aimed at a NATO-led convoy but it was not hit.

The Afghan defence ministry said the bomber, who was on foot, blew himself up among a group of Afghan soldiers handing food out to widows.

Elsewhere in the south, two policemen were killed in a late-night attack on their checkpost in the southern province of Zabul, a police official said. Another officer was missing following the clash.

A soldier was also killed and two of his colleagues wounded in a bomb blast Saturday in the eastern province of Khost, the defence ministry said.

Small attacks with few casualties are a routine element of the Taliban-led insurgency that has picked up steam in recent years and, according to Western military officials, is being joined by a growing number of foreign fighters.

But a massive suicide blast in the north on Tuesday that killed nearly 80 people, 59 of them children, was the worst to hit troubled Afghanistan.

The previous deadliest killed 35 people in Kabul in June.

The Taliban has denied involvement, as it has done previously in incidents that have taken a high civilian toll. A radical faction loyal to former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has also denied responsibility.

The Taliban have however regularly threatened to take their campaign into the normally calm north, and to step up their use of suicide bombings.

The insurgency launched in late 2001 following the Taliban's ouster has been its deadliest this year, with nearly 6,000 people dead, mostly rebels but also including hundreds of civilians.

There are other groups involved in the daily violence in Afghanistan, some also following an extremist ideology while others are linked to the opium trade or are carrying out attacks for reasons of personal enmity or power.
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3 Afghan police killed in violence
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer Sun Nov 11, 7:25 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide attacker on foot blew himself up near a NATO convoy in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, seriously wounding three civilians, while two separate attacks left three policeman dead elsewhere in the country, officials said.

Meanwhile, a service member with the U.S.-led coalition died of wounds suffered during a gun battle Saturday near the Tagab Valley of Kapisa province, 40 miles northeast of Kabul, the coalition said in a statement. It did not disclose the soldier's nationality.

The latest violence came a day after the U.S. military announced that six of its troops were killed in eastern Nuristan province — the most lethal attack in a year that has been the deadliest for American forces since the 2001 invasion.

In Helmand province, the suicide bomber detonated himself near the NATO convoy in the town of Gereshk. None of the soldiers was hurt, but three civilian bystanders were critically wounded, said Helmand police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force did not immediately have information on the attack.

Taliban militants also ambushed a police checkpoint near the city of Lashkar Gah in Helmand, leaving three policemen seriously wounded, Andiwal said.

In the eastern province of Khost, police patrolling on foot Saturday were hit by a land-mine blast that killed one officer and wounded two civilians, said Wazir Pacha, a spokesman for the provincial police.

On Saturday, Taliban militants attacked a police checkpoint near Qalat city in Zabul province. The ensuing gun battle left two policemen dead and one wounded, said provincial highway police commander Jailali Khan. Another policeman was missing, he said.

Insurgent attacks have risen sharply the last two years, and analysts say the counterinsurgency battle U.S. and NATO forces now face will take a decade or more to win.

More than 5,800 people, mostly militants, have died in insurgency-related violence this year, a record, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.

In the attack in Nuristan on Friday, militants ambushed U.S. and Afghan troops with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire as they returned from a meeting with village elders. Six Americans and three Afghan soldiers were killed and eight U.S. troops were wounded.

The six deaths brought the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 101, according to an AP count, surpassing the 93 American troops killed in 2005. About 87 died last year.

Insurgents have launched more than 130 suicide attacks — a record number — in 2007.

Last week a suicide bomber killed 75 people, including 59 children and six members of parliament, in Baghlan province — the deadliest attack since 2001.
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Associated Press Writer Noor Khan contributed to this report from Kandahar.
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Afghan demonstrators demand death penalty for 'Koran abuse'
Sun Nov 11, 5:13 AM ET
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - More than 1,000 university students demonstrated in eastern Afghanistan Sunday to demand the death penalty for an official accused of insulting the Koran, police and witnesses said.

The attorney general's spokesman, former journalist Mohammad Ghaws Zalmai, was arrested at the Pakistan border a week ago trying to flee after being accused of misinterpreting the Muslim holy book in a new translation.

"Death to Ghaws Zalmai!" shouted the angry mob in the eastern town of Jalalabad, an AFP reporter in the crowd said. "We want him hanged!"

"He has insulted our religion and must be killed," the group said.

The demonstrators blocked a main road linking the eastern town to the capital, Kabul, for several hours. Dozens of police officers were on hand to prevent violence.

The conservative parliament last week banned Zalmai from leaving the country days after the distribution of about 6,000 copies of his Dari-language translation, called "Koran-i-Pak" or "clean Koran".

A commission of clerics and prosecutors is examining the text, which does not include the original Arab verses and is said to differ on several issues, including homosexuality and adultery.

Zalmai is meanwhile being interrogated and police are searching for a cleric who approved his version, said Abdul Rauf Arab, an official in the attorney general's office.

The Afghan branch of the International Federation of Journalists has said its information was that Zalmai, president of a media union, was accused of not having his version of the holy book certified by an authorised scholar.

Afghanistan is a deeply devout country, with its 10-year resistance of the Soviet invasion called a "holy war", and issues of religion have in the past triggered massive demonstrations.

The constitution is based on Islamic Sharia law, which allows the death penalty in some circumstances.
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Cashing in on Karzai & Co.
By Arthur Kent Policy Options, November 2007 http://irpp.org/po/index.htm
The Canadian Forces in Afghanistan have been left exposed at a critical point of their mission, but not due to a lack of public support – it’s the Harper government that’s absent without leave. While the Forces can point to significant, if painful, gains in flashpoints such as Panjwai and Zhari districts, as well as Kandahar City, the prime minister and his team can boast of not a single clear policy gain, especially not where diplomatic intervention is needed most: pressuring the Taliban leadership in their safe havens in Pakistan, and rehabilitating the Karzai regime in Kabul.

The Harper government continues to acquiesce to the Bush administration’s results-barren command of an aid and security mission that is international in name only. Washington’s blunders have compromised a force whose success is crucial to Canada’s hopes for an eventual end to its combat obligations: the Afghan National Army, or ANA.

At issue is a web of political influence, backed by enormous sums of US military and humanitarian aid dollars, extending from the White House through an array of government officials, neo-conservative outriders and avaricious Afghan-American businessmen. Afghans and foreign observers who’ve witnessed the web’s growth describe it as a network of aggressive political adventurers, hungry for influence and lucrative development contracts.

“These people have hijacked a weak system,” says a senior member of President Hamid Karzai’s staff, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “People here initially welcomed diaspora Afghans with open arms and looked to them for guidance. But that’s changed. It’s clear that too many Afghan-Americans paraded their patriotism only to promote their careers, or to advance ethnic agendas, or just to fill their pockets. On top of that, their scheming has distorted policy in Washington, a lot like Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress at the start of the Iraq war.

“It doesn’t matter who Karzai appoints as Interior Minister or Attorney General,” the source says. “That’s just the visible surface. What really matters is who’s making deals behind the scenes, at the US Embassy or over a cosy meal at the Presidential Palace.” Member of Parliament Ramazan Bashar Dost says: “The United States and other western countries are not following their own laws. It is obvious to everyone that the contracts go to a minister's son or brother. You cannot get a contract unless you have connections.”

Across town from parliament stands an institution that attests to that charge: the Karzai regime’s Ministry of Defence. Ask to meet the minister, Rahim Wardak, and you’ll be referred to a public affairs desk at the American Embassy. Ask to meet the beneficiaries of the Afghan army building boom, and you’ll be invited to leave. But regime insiders will happily recite the names - with Minister Wardak’s son, Hamed, at the top of the list.
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For Canada and Canadians, the raising of a capable Afghan army is not only vital to stability in southwest Asia. Until the ANA can stand its own ground, Canada and its NATO partners will be forced to maintain combat forces to hold off the Taliban. Yet successive Canadian governments have done little to address the failings of the US-financed army project. Incompetence, conflict of interest, nepotism and corruption has led to chronic shortfalls in troop training targets. Instead of tackling the problem, US and NATO officials have concealed it by padding statistics.

Since 2001, the Bush administration has committed $12 billion to Afghanistan’s security forces. A 70,000-man army was called for, but only 25,000 soldiers can be proven to exist today. Of these, perhaps 18,000 are combat-ready. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has admitted to Congress that its investigators are probing criminal misconduct related to $6 billion worth of equipment and service contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan. Keeping track of dollars and troops can’t have been easy, given the proclivity of Washington’s generals to massage the numbers.

By the end of 2003, only 9,000 army recruits had gone through basic training. Half of these promptly deserted. At the time, US Gen. Peter Pace brushed criticism aside, claiming that the ANA would have 12,500 men in arms by the summer of 2004. That seemed laughable by the Berlin Conference in April, 2004, where the record revealed only 5,721 trained men, with 3,056 recruits in the system. Yet only four months later, Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the ANA was up to 13,000 troops. In January of 2005, US officials claimed 17,800 Afghan soldiers trained, with 3,400 more in the works. By January of 2007, Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin declared: “Currently 36,000 strong, the ANA is on its way to an end state of 70,000 combat and combat support soldiers skilled in counterinsurgency operations.”

Which was plainly nonsensical: in February, 2007, it was widely agreed that the Afghan National Army numbered at most 22,000 men. Six years on, Hamid Karzai has less than a third of the force he and his allies regard as minimally capable of defending his regime. An Afghan official familiar with problems at the MoD, says: “It remains a token army. It doesn’t reflect the ethnic reality of the country, or even all regions. Finances go to battalions said to be 600 men strong, but in reality there’s not a single full-strength battalion in all of Afghanistan. Unfortunately it is still the case that the best Afghan militias are private ones.”
Some 2,000 private militias still exist, totalling 120,000 gunmen, according to the joint UN-Afghan disarmament agency. At least 500 of the groups are controlled by regime insiders – ministers, MPs and commanders. Many militias enforce goods smuggling, land grabs and drug trafficking. None battle the Taliban and al Qaeda. That job goes to “the internationals,” who have been left by the Bush administration with only one way out of Afghanistan: build up the ANA’s combat forces to replace their own.

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According to eyewitnesses, one piece of diplomatic theatre from 2005 typifies how global diplomacy has been conducted in Afghanistan since the collapse of the Taliban regime. Though the event focused on governance, not the army, the same unilateralist strong-arming that ensued has undermined the program to build up the ANA.

The setting was the residence of Jean Arnaud, the U.N.’s special representative.  Arnaud had invited the heavyweights of Kabul’s foreign diplomatic corps to debate voting systems for Afghanistan’s first parliamentary elections. Among European and Asian embassies, there was unease about the option advocated by the biggest foreign aid donor on the scene, the Bush administration. The single non-transferable vote, or SNTV, would render political parties irrelevant. Because President Karzai had failed to forge his own party, American officials wanted to prevent the emergence of a parliamentary group that might challenge him. But SNTV had a downside: the stifling of parties might well compress the powder-keg of Afghan politics to critical mass.

The discussion was interrupted by a late arrival: Zalmay Khalilzad, the American Ambassador. “I’ve just spoken with President Bush,” Khalilzad announced. “He said that SNTV is the choice. SNTV is going to happen.” Then he turned and walked out.

This was not the first time Khalilzad (known as “King Zal” or “The Viceroy”) had cold-shouldered foreign policy professionals espousing views different from his own. According to an Afghan legal aide who has worked closely with Karzai: “Frequently the European ambassadors would be angry with Khalilzad. They knew it didn’t matter what agreements were made at their meetings with ministers. The key decisions were made over private dinners at the palace, with Khalilzad and his Afghan-American circle from the US Embassy dictating policy. The Europeans said ‘why should we contribute to a policy if we have no say in the decision making process?”

This discord belies the multi-lateral intent of the Afghan project: some 70 nations and organizations back the current aid protocol, the Afghanistan Compact. Militarily, 37 nations contribute to the NATO-run International Security and Assistance Force. But one government - the Bush administration – has provided as much financial aid as all others combined. And as people like Zalmay Khalilzad are quick to point out, money not only talks, it shouts out loud for ultimate control.

For an activist-envoy who has left gorilla-sized footprints all over Asia for more than two decades, Khalilzad might be assumed to be have earned his way by making the right calls at the right times. Instead, his career path reveals two constants: a genius for advancing himself by way of influential connections; and a penchant for policies that sooner or later reveal their author’s knack for blowback.

When Khalilzad served the Reagan administration in the 1980’s, he backed anti-Soviet Afghan resistance figures of his own Pashtun ethnicity – despite their extremist views. He favoured fundamentalists like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and allied himself to Pakistan’s campaign against the Afghan nationalist leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, an ethnic Tajik. Today, Hekmatyar is among America’s most-wanted Afghan terrorists. Massoud is revered as a hero who prevented the Taliban seizing all of Afghanistan, but whose warnings about al Qaeda went unheeded by the U.S.

By the time the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, Khalilzad’s geopolitical aim had not improved. As a director of the RAND Corporation, he lobbied the Clinton administration to recognize the Taliban regime. At the time, he was a paid consultant for the proposed UNOCAL trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline. In the March 30, 1999 edition of the Washington Post, Khalilzad was quoted as saying: “In the rural areas, what the Taliban is seeking to impose is not very different than what the norm has been.”

Today, Khalilzad’s “norm” is almost as evident as the Taliban’s, as befits a hard-charging neo-conservative loyalist. A one-time protégé of Paul Wolfowitz, Khalilzad headed the Bush-Cheney transition team in 2000. Later, he was a counsellor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Then came a chance to shape post-Taliban Afghanistan, first as President Bush’s special representative, and later as Ambassador to Kabul. Says a source close to the Presidential Palace: “He encouraged Karzai to rid his government of Tajiks, and except for a few positions, he has succeeded. Ethnic fascism is not too strong a label for Zal and his friends.”

Khalilzad’s plan was to weaken the Taliban by co-opting the Pashtun tribes that the movement feeds on for recruits and support. Stack Karzai’s ruling elite with Pashtuns, the reasoning went, and the Taliban movement would fade away. “But in many cases, Zal’s Pashtuns were the wrong Pashtuns,” says a member of Europe’s diplomatic corps in Kabul. “Advancing ministers on the basis of ethnicity was a mistake.” Figures like Information Minister Khorram and Attorney General Sabet bear that out. Both are unabashed fundamentalists, and long-time aides to fugitive warlord Hekmatyar. While they were empowered, respected Tajiks, notably former Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, were pushed aside.

This strategy has borne bitter fruit: the Taliban have stepped up their insurgency, not eased it, and the regime’s ineptitude and corruption have run rampant. “The role of Khalilzad in Afghanistan is like a poison that has no treatment,” says MP Ramazan Bashar Dost. “As US Ambassador, he was supposed to act according to the good will of Americans. But even though he is an American citizen and has studied in America, his way of thinking about Afghanistan is according to old Afghan standards. It’s more about a tribal system than democracy.”

If Khalilzad’s concepts of tribalism reveal one Western tendency, it is a passion for promoting Afghan-Americans friendly to the Bush White House. In the 1990’s, a new generation of displaced Afghans, the sons and daughters of diplomats, businessmen - and former guerrilla commanders - took root in their parents’ adopted homeland. It was within this diaspora that Hamed Wardak came of age.

A somewhat chubby, intensely studious young man, Hamed was destined to emulate, if not exceed, Zalmay Khalilzad’s gifts for political networking and hyper-drive careerism. Hamed’s father, Rahim Wardak, brought his family to the U.S. from Pakistan. There, in the 1980’s, he had garnered a reputation as one of the least accomplished commanders of the American-backed Mujahideen resistance to Soviet occupation forces. By the time of the 1990’s civil war, Rahim Wardak had vanished from the Afghan scene.

Bizarrely, his young son, Hamed, would help ignite Rahim Wardak’s unlikely comeback. At Georgetown University, Hamed wrote his senior thesis under the mentorship of Jeane Kirkpatrick, formerly Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the UN, and the godmother of the neo-conservative movement. Graduating in 1997, Hamed won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. During this period, he flirted with pro-Taliban sympathies, due both to his ethnic Pashtun fervour and peer pressure from young DC-area extremists.

Gradually, however, Hamed came under the influence of Kirkpatrick’s philosophical soul mates, notably Marin Strmecki, a Republican essayist and political facilitator with the Smith Richardson Foundation. Strmecki worked at the Pentagon under Dick Cheney in the first Bush administration, along with Lewis “Scooter” Libby – and Zalmay Khalilzad. It was during Hamed Wardak’s reappraisal of the world, via these American political heavyweights, that he came into contact with a group of upwardly-mobile players on Washington’s Afghan-American scene: the Karzais; specifically, two of the six Karzai boys – Qayum and Mahmood. Unlike their younger brother Hamid, who had spent much of his life in Pakistan, Mahmood and Qayum were accomplished US-based businessmen.

The brothers recognized a bright prospect in the young Rhodes Scholar. In turn, Wardak saw the benefits of aligning himself with the Karzais’ dazzling circle of friends. This paid enormous dividends. By the time war drums sounded in the aftermath of the Sept. 11th terror attacks, Hamed Wardak had toned down his pro-Taliban sympathies and was on his way to becoming vice-president of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce, founded by Mahmood Karzai. He also nabbed an advisor’s post with Karzai’s first Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani. But his real breakthrough was joining a Virginia-based contracting firm, Technologists Inc., founded by Aziz Azimi, a close friend of Qayum Karzai.

Hamed Wardak’s new alliances proved extraordinarily advantageous as George W. Bush launched his “war on terror,” particularly with Khalilzad and Strmecki enjoying direct access to vice-president Dick Cheney’s office. The melding of the Wardaks’ business and political connections had catapulted them into the front ranks of an advancing legion of state-building, doctrine-spouting capitalists. Along with the leading lights of the Afghan-American business community, they returned to their ancestral homeland, which had become a cradle of treasure and influence few Afghans could have dreamed of after the displacement and loss of the Soviet and Taliban eras.

On the policy front, members of Khalilzad’s coterie, notably Marin Strmecki and Martin Hoffman, a former college roommate of Donald Rumsfeld, stepped up their efforts to Pashtunize the Karzai regime. Strmecki had already taken the campaign to the op-ed pages of American newspapers, alleging that the Tajik-led Northern Alliance was plotting against both the Karzai government and former King Zahir Shah. By the time Khalilzad took up his ambassadorship to Kabul in Dec. 2004, Strmecki had been appointed Rumsfeld’s “Afghanistan Policy Co-ordinator.” That same month, Karzai removed his Minister of Defence, the Northern Alliance’s Mohammed Fahim, a Tajik. Faim’s replacement: Rahim Wardak.

Meanwhile, Khalilzad assembled a team of Afghan-American consultants, technocrats and publicists within the bunker-like precincts of the US Embassy, some on salaries of $200,000 or more. This group had direct links with Washington, where they enjoyed an additional back-channel fixer and communicator, the Karzai regime’s Afghan-American Ambassador, Said Jawad. Within Khalilzad’s makeshift provisional authority in Kabul, he championed a creation called the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group. ARG achieved two cherished goals for the administration: putting a select group of loyal American and Afghan-American business hawks in charge of U.S.-funded development projects; and doing so while completely by-passing the State Department. In the minds of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Khalilzad, State was a haven of resistance to the neo-conservative cause.

ARG reported directly to the Department of Defense, specifically to Rumsfeld’s office. State Department officials bristled at being cut out of decision-making on ARG’s high-cost projects, but could do little other than watch this feverish new phase of the gold rush in Afghan aid. Marin Strmecki joined ARG’s board, while Louis Hughes, a former president of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, took the helm. According to officials close to Karzai’s office, Khalilzad pressed USAID, the government’s main overseas aid agency, to grant contracts to the administration’s approved list of Afghan-Americans. Several USAID officers who resisted Khalilzad were replaced.

The ARG brain trust proudly boasted its intent to: “apply its private-sector experience and expertise” in rebuilding Afghanistan, “given current US advocacy of market economy, citizen self-determination, and democracy…”

In practice, the group was more about self-service than self-determination, according to one former USAID official, who requested transfer from Kabul after several bruising encounters with Khalilzad and his ARG clients. “We had all these people shuttling in from D.C., lecturing everyone about their Afghan-American credentials. They used all the buzz words – democracy, helping the Afghan people. But it was more about them monopolizing the flow of information from Kabul to Washington, and landing contracts.”

According to another US official who fought in vain to prevent the shift: “The justification was streamlining, because so many construction projects were for the Afghan military, and they were ultimately the Pentagon’s babies. But there was an immediate loss of transparency and accountability. That’s just how the Department of Defense does business.”

During this period, Hamed Wardak’s Washington DC-based firm, Technologists Inc. (Ti), benefited from several large contracts, some arranged directly with the US Defense Department, others via the Afghan Ministry of Defence. Ti’s website boasts that it was the first Afghan-American firm to be awarded a prime contract by the US government. Its portfolio has been fattened by a cornucopia of construction projects, including border crossing stations and the ANA’s Logistics and Command Headquarters, a counter-narcotics “campus” where the US Drug Enforcement Agency and its Afghan counterparts will be based, cell block renovations to Kabul’s huge Pul-i-Charkhi prison, and three industrial parks.

Ti’s president, Aziz Azimi, allows that the projects have brought at least $100 million in contracts to his firm. He admits to meeting Khalilzad twice in Kabul, but says that his projects were not obtained through ARG. As for Hamed Wardak, he left the company in 2006. Currently, Azizi says, “I don’t have any kind of dealings with him.” Regarding past deals: “I have not gained any of my contracts from Mr. Wardak’s father, because he was not the minister when I got there (Afghanistan).

“You’re welcome to take any company out there, and put their numbers against mine,” Azimi says. “In terms of value and return, I have a very clear conscience. I welcome anyone to come in and look at my books. I have nothing to hide, nothing to be afraid of.”

Hamed Wardak could not be located for his response to this story. Azimi says he does not know the whereabouts of his former “Managing Director of International Operations,” and Wardak’s name has been removed from Ti’s website. Wardak reportedly has set up his own company, NCL, in Kabul, along with a foundation called “Sacrificers For Peace,” described as a “multi-ethnic movement” seeking “governmental reform.”

The name prompts a wry smile from the source in President Karzai’s office. “The Afghan people know who has made genuine sacrifices – their own families, their villages, their country. Afghans know the meaning of the word sacrifice. And they know too well about those who only pretend to be concerned, while getting rich on foreign aid.”

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As Afghanistan slumps towards the 30th anniversary of the Communist coup that triggered the war, Rahim Wardak, a relic of the early years of the conflict, hangs on as Minister of Defence. He does so despite clashes with both Karzai and US Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the former commander of American and coalition forces. Gen. Eikenberry, according to an official who witnessed one of his confrontations with Wardak in Karzai’s presence, lost patience with the Defence minister’s failure to meet recruiting targets.

“Wardak’s connections saved him,” the source says. “In the end, it came down to a test of which man had closer ties with Rumsfeld’s office, Wardak or Eikenberry. Rahim Wardak won out, because of his connections through Khalilzad.”

As for Khalilzad, his star continues to rise. From his office at the UN, he’s well positioned to become Secretary of State, should Republicans win the 2008 election. Khalilzad has never stopped pulling strings in Kabul. When his move to Baghdad in 2005 enabled his successor as Afghan ambassador, Ronald Neumann, to dismantle ARG, returning contract controls to the State Department, Khalilzad retaliated. He persuaded Rumsfeld to dispatch Strmecki to conduct a “political audit” of the US Embassy in Kabul. The result stunned Karzai’s staff, who understood that Neumann had been seeking an extension to his posting. Instead, the White House announced Neumann was to be replaced by its former ambassador to Columbia, William Wood – described as “Zal-friendly” by sources in Kabul.

According to a former White House adviser on Afghanistan: “There is no doubt that Khalilzad’s approach has been very disruptive. Especially by way of his appointments strategy, he has compromised Karzai’s entire administration.”

The Karzai brothers, meantime, have flourished under the Washington-backed regime. Qayum Karzai has secured election to parliament, while Mahmood has become a leading property owner in Kandahar. There, younger brother Ahmed Wali Karzai heads both the regional council and the list of suspects being investigated by Afghan journalists for links to the heroin trade. Hamid remains president, but faces mounting criticism from both legislators and laymen – and, increasingly, from his foreign sponsors.

According to Ramazan Bashar Dost: “The Afghan government is completely corrupted. The internal and external mafia should be totally removed. The authorities should be replaced by those real Afghans who believe in national benefits, human rights and democracy not only as political philosophy but as a philosophy of life.” The firebrand MP’s views are echoed by the source at Karzai’s palace. “Afghans watch all of this foreign aid money being poured into Kabul, most in control of foreign governments and private contractors. There are complaints of bribery and fraud going on, but look at all the so-called experts - all those US and UN and EU agencies. We’ve got the world’s largest alphabet-soup of accounting and transparency in Kabul, yet the system’s completely out of control.”

MP Shukria Barakzai says: “Why are contracts given to warlords? Why are the provincial reconstruction teams doing their projects under cover of local commanders? Why are they hiding the war economy, instead of cleaning it up?”

One of Karzai’s former ministers says US domination of Afghanistan’s international sponsors has widened fractures within the regime, tilting the entire process of nation building into a decline from which it may not recover. “There is friction and disenchantment on all levels,” he says. “The international community has no shared vision, much less a common strategy. The Afghan government, in turn, is drifting from its international allies, and is paralyzed by individuals and factions within, making short term tactical deals and alliances.”

Where does Stephen Harper stand on the plight of the regime and its army? Neither he nor his people will say. Foreign Affairs, the Afghan Task Force, Canada’s embassy in Kabul: all declined comment for this article. (As did Zalmay Khalilzad, Marin Stmecki, and Afghanistan’s ambassador to Washington.)

Canadians are left to sort out wildly conflicting claims. First, Harper’s statement, during a Quebec swing in August, that Afghanistan’s security forces are becoming more and more responsible for their country’s security. Next, Karzai in Kabul, telling embedded reporters airlifted in from Kandahar that “Afghanistan will fall back into anarchy” if Canadian troops are pulled from their combat role before the country can stand on its own, which he made clear would not be by February 2009. Far from clearing up the confusion that has afflicted the Afghan mission, the Harper government is blowing more smoke – and hiding behind the fog of war.

Arthur Kent’s film reports and articles are available online at www.skyreporter.com.
He has reported regularly from Afghanistan since 1980 for networks including the CBC, NBC News, BBC News, PBS and The History Channel, as well as for the Calgary Herald, Britain’s The Observer and Canada’s Maclean’s magazine. This is his second article for Policy Options, in our Mission Afghanistan series.
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Afghan women run unique market
Joydeep Ray NDTV.com (India) Saturday, November 10, 2007 (Kabul)
Once in Afghanistan an exposed ankle or elbow could have meant brutal public flogging for women but change is now evident in Afghanistan.

Women are now running markets in the heart of Kabul. The Women's World Market in the heart of Kabul has shattered many barriers. Until recently, women were not permitted to show their faces in public but at this unique market, spread over three floors, all the sixty-odd shops are run by women.

The mall was conceptualized by Mushghan Wafiq against all odds and has managed to make entrepreneurs of Afghani women.

''After success of this market in Kabul, now we plan to setup similar markets elsewhere in Kabul and other provinces in Afghanistan. We want to set up all the branches by ourselves only. It was too tough to launch even this mall but we overcame all the difficulties,'' said Musghan Wafiq, Mentor, Women's World Market.

The market, which competes with neighbourhood shops, sells everything from readymade garments to toiletries, ready to eat food, ornaments and even fabric made in India.

Musghan and her colleagues are now planning a chain of Women's World Markets across Afghanistan.

''Though I wanted to be a model and it was not possible in those days of war and Taliban, but now I have become an entrepreneur. I am happy to own this shop, I am happy because I never thought of this,'' said Alisha, a show-owner at the Women market.

Even male customers think things are moving in the right direction.

''I was honestly little surprised when I came here first time seeing only women running the shops but after a thought, I started praising their idea as this after all leading to empowerment of women in my country. I am happy to be a shopper here,'' said Abdul Samad, a customer.

Afghanistan's all women's market is something neighbouring countries would do well to emulate and their economies would also benefit from a spurt in women entrepreneurs.
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Supply of wheat to Afghanistan stopped
By Ibrahim Shinwari Dawn (Pakistan) November 10, 2007 issue
LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), Nov 9: Wheat supply to Afghanistan was suspended on Friday as personnel of Khyber Rifles posted at the Torkhum border impounded dozens of trucks loaded with the commodity, sources said.

The trucks were later shifted to an army camp in Landi Kotal, but their drivers were allowed to leave. Officials of the Khyber Rifles also stopped the customs clearance of wheat.

Customs clearing agent at Torkhum Niazuddin told Dawn that the action was taken by the Khyber Rifles without giving a notice.

He said that the Khyber Rifles officials later told the dealers and clearing agents that wheat supply to Afghanistan through Ghulam Khan in Waziristan, Chaman and Bajaur had been stopped to control its shortage in the country after the imposition of emergency.
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AFGHANISTAN: Landslides and avalanches threaten Badakhshan locals
11 Nov 2007 15:14:05 GMT
More  BADAKHSHAN, 11 November 2007 (IRIN) - Over 1,000 poor people living on the steep slopes of a mountain in Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan are being urged by aid agencies and authorities to move as they are at risk of being killed in landslides and avalanches.

A joint survey conducted by the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS), the UN and the provincial government found that seismic activity is creating widening gaps in the middle of Sia Shakh mountain in the Batash area of Faizabad city, the provincial capital of Badakhshan. Concerns are that this movement could dislodge large boulders which would cause severe damage to settlements below.

"We have recommended that all residents should evacuate the area before winter," said Mohammad Othman Abuzar, president of the ARCS in Badakhshan.

In winter, rain and snow typically blocks access to rural areas in Badakhshan's Hindu Kush and Pamir mountain ranges. In addition, heavy weather conditions would increase the probability of landslides and avalanches.

Nowhere to go

Hundreds of families who could afford to move have already left the mountain side, Abuzar said. However, about 300 destitute families who still live in the area say they cannot afford to abandon their homes and livelihoods and move to other locations permanently.

"This is everything we have," said resident Niaz Mohammad while pointing to a one-storey house adjacent to the affected mountain.

"There is nowhere we can move to and have a house of our own," added the poor father of five.

The ARSC-led survey also found that several locations across Badakhshan province are vulnerable to varying levels of tectonic activity.

"About 2,000 people in Badakhshan live in insecure areas where there are serious risks of landslides and avalanches," Shamsurahman Shams, deputy governor of the province, said.

Provincial officials concede that little has been done so far to tackle this vulnerability and avert possible human tragedy.

"We all know one day a human catastrophe will happen in this province if the problem is not solved promptly and appropriately," Abuzar said.

Long-term solution

Though Badakhshan is sparsely populated, with its estimated 700,000 residents averaging 16 people per square kilometre, local officials say access to land, both for housing and agriculture, is a major problem in the province.

One solution Shams offered is the distribution of land in neighbouring provinces, such as Kunduz and Takhar, for vulnerable Badakhshi families.

Any decision on relocation and land distribution in other provinces, however, can only be taken in Kabul, the capital, and would require strong political backing in the Afghan government and National Assembly.

An assessment team from Kabul is expected to visit Badakhshan province in the near future to recommend solutions after consultation with concerned community and provincial authorities, Mohammad Aslam Fayaz, deputy head of the Afghanistan Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA), told IRIN.

"There needs to be a long-term solution to the problem of vulnerable families in Badakhshan," said Abdul Karim, deputy head of the UN Assistance Mission (UNAMA) in Badakhshan province, adding that any solution should entail the right to housing and livelihoods.
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Afghan police foil heroin smuggling to Tajikistan
KABUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Police in Afghanistan's northeast Takhar province foiled drug smuggling to Tajikistan and discovered14 kg heroine, a local newspaper reported Saturday.

"Packed in 14 bags the contraband was taking to Tajikistan when police intercepted the smugglers close to Tajikistan border and sized it Thursday," daily Outlook quoted Syed Habib Syedkhili as saying.

However, the drug smugglers made their good escape, he added.

Police also captured a man with two landmines in Takhar's provincial capital Taliqan on Thursday, the newspaper further said.

Afghanistan with an output of 8,200 of opium poppy in 2007 has topped poppy growing countries in supplying raw material used in manufacturing heroin in the world.
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Few Choices for Helmand’s Troubled Youth
Unemployment is driving some young men into the arms of the Taleban, while others turn to drugs and crime.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By IWPR trainees in Helmand (ARR No. 272, 9-Nov-07)
For 19-year-old Jaan Agha from Nawa district, the choice was stark - join the Taleban or watch his family starve.

"I couldn’t find a job anywhere,” he said. “So I had to join the Taleban. They give me money for my family expenditures. If I left the Taleban, what else could I do?”

Agha, who has not been to school, has only basic skills.

“I am not educated, so it’s hard to find a job, although a lot of educated people are also unemployed nowadays,” he said.

In the southern province of Helmand, the drug industry and the Taleban seem to be the only career choices currently on offer to young men.

As schools close because of the unstable security situation, university is a dim hope for most. With unemployment at over 50 per cent, thousands of young people are unemployed and disaffected, while surrounded by a booming opium trade and a growing insurgency.

While the Taleban do not offer a fixed pay scale, those who work with the insurgents are given basic expenses covering such items as food, clothing, medical care, transport and communication. Many see it as their only choice.

Twenty-two-year-old Mahmud from Lashkar Gah joined the Taleban when he could find no other source of income.

"I fought for the Taleban for two years because I had no other job,” he said.

Joining the Taleban gave Mahmud a chance to save up enough money to start his own small business. Nowadays, he buys goods in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah and sells them in the districts at weekly “mila” or markets.

“Now that I have work, I am not with the Taleban any more.”

Helmand’s young men face real problems when they want to get married. In Afghanistan, a bridegroom traditionally presents a large sum of cash – called a “walwar” - to his bride's family. In this poppy-rich province, which supplies half of the world’s opium, it can cost up to 20,000 US dollars to arrange a wedding.

The “best” girls command a high walwar and men who are not actively involved in the booming drugs trade have to compete with those whose pockets are swollen with poppy proceeds.

Some say their inability to raise the walwar through legitimate means has led them into a life of crime.

“I was engaged for eight years,” said Torjan, 28, a resident of Nadali district. “Then my bride’s father doubled the price we had agreed on. I joined the Afghan National Army, but then I began to receive death threats from the Taleban. So then I joined them.”

However, on discovering that the Taleban’s pay scale was not high enough to allow him to pay the new, inflated walwar, Torjan has now turned to Helmand’s other growth industry.

“I have decided to start smuggling drugs,” he said.

Noorullah, 22, of Greshk district, made the same choice, but then things went terribly wrong.

"When I was running an opium shop, I had a lot of money. I got engaged by promising to give one million Pakistani rupees [16,000 USD] as walwar. But then the government seized all my opium, and now I’m in debt to a lot of people,” he said angrily.

“I have no money now to get married and am very tired of life. I have no way of making money other than robbing people.”

The lack of services and employment for youth is also blamed for escalating drug abuse, perhaps unsurprising in the world’s opium capital.

Obaidullah, a 19-year-old from Marja district, said he turned to drugs because he had little else to do.

“There was no place for me to go for entertainment,” he said, sounding disoriented. “I did not want to talk to anyone. I first started smoking cigarettes, but then that was not enough. I then began to smoke hashish, then opium. Now even that doesn’t help, and I am using heroin.”

There are about 75,000 drug addicts in Helmand province, according to Rahmatullah Mohammadi, head of the Mohammadi Nijat hospital, a treatment facility in Lashkar Gah.

About 40,000 of them, or over half, are between the ages of 15 and 25.

The Mohammadi Nijat facility, which cost 16,000 dollars to set up, has 20 beds available for addicts – but treatment comes at a price.

“We treat one addict within a month, and they have to pay 10,000 afghanis [200 dollars] as a fee for the treatment,” said Mohammadi.

Another 20 beds are available for addicts at the Wadan hospital.

After ten days in treatment, Bismillah, an addict from Musa Qala district, is showing some signs of recovery already.

"I got addicted to narcotics when I was harvesting poppy paste from our farmland along with my brothers and other labourers,” he explained.

Mohammad Nadir Watanwal, head of Helmand’s labour and social affairs department, said there are not enough jobs for all the people flocking to Lashkar Gah.

"A lot of people, in particular the young, have headed from the districts to Lashkar Gah city because of the bad security situation, and this has created problems with employment opportunities for the province’s youth,” he said.

Watanwal added that his department had referred 180 high school graduates to government offices for employment, while a further 60 have been receiving vocational training, including in car mechanics, wiring and carpentry.

Compounding the unemployment problem is a lack of educational opportunities, according to some high school graduates.

This past year, over 300 high school graduates are thought to have taken the university entrance exams which are standardised across Afghanistan. Not one of them passed.

While many attribute this to a low-level of schooling in the province, embittered Helmandis feel that they are being discriminated against.

Wahidullah, 22, said he is one of many young people who have tried unsuccessfully to get into university.

“If the situation continues like this in Helmand, I think there will be no engineers, judges, doctors and so on from this province,” said Wahidullah, who has tried unsuccessfully to get into university. “Young people fail the exam every year, and no one is going to university.”

Zia, 24, said he sat the entrance exam twice, but has still not gained a university place.

“In Helmand, one can get into higher education only by having a lot of money or by knowing high-ranking government officials,” he said. “And those are two things I don’t have.”

IWPR is implementing a journalism training and reporting project in Helmand. This article is by one of the trainees, whose name has been withheld for security reasons.
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New Silk Road to Link Central Asia, Europe
Voice of America 10 November 2007 By Claudia Blume  Hong Kong
China and seven Central Asian countries have agreed to build a modern-day equivalent of the historic Silk Road, in the hope of once again making Central Asia a vital transit route for trade between Asia and Europe. Claudia Blume reports from Hong Kong.

Until the Middle Ages, a network of trade routes known as the Silk Road was an important economic artery connecting China and Europe via Central Asia. Today, less than one percent of all trade between Asia and Europe goes overland through the countries of Central Asia. The main reasons are poor transportation infrastructure and cumbersome border and customs procedures.

That is about to change. China and seven Central Asian countries - including Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia - have agreed on an $18 billion strategy to improve the region's network of roads and railway lines within the next 10 years.

Sean O'Sullivan is the director of the Central and West Asian department of the Asian Development Bank, which is providing some of the financing for the project. He says the purpose of the New Silk Road will be to provide a more direct route between East and West.

"The idea is that instead of everything going around the Central Asian region, either by sea or in the North, the Trans-Siberian railway route, the idea is that through cooperation, through better infrastructure, through better and smoother border crossing and coordination, that the transport will take these routes right across instead of going around or by sea," he said.

O'Sullivan says the project will not follow the exact China-to-Europe routes taken by the ancient Silk Road. Instead, the plan is to develop six corridors that not only go from east to west, but also from north to couth, connecting the Central Asian republics, Russia and China with South Asia and the Persian Gulf countries.

"One of the key features of Central Asia and these countries we are working with, most of them are landlocked and it's just very important to get a corridor, for example to the south, to the sea across Afghanistan, which is opened up," he added.

About half of the funds for the project will come from the eight countries involved, while the Asian Development Bank and other multinational organizations will provide the rest.
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Afghan Wushu team to participate in tournament in China
www.chinaview.cn  2007-11-11 16:01:17
KABUL, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan National Wushu Team is to leave for Beijing on Monday to take part in the international Wushu tournament, local newspaper Afghanistan Times reported on Sunday.

It's the first time that Afghan team is participating in such competitions, Afghanistan Times quoted Arif Paiman, the spokesman of National Olympic Committee, as saying.

Paiman added that the competition would be attended by 114 countries and regions across the world.

The Afghan team is consisted of four players, a coach and a representative from the National Wushu Federation, Paiman noted.

He said that if the Afghan team could finish in top three this time, they would be able to participate in international Wushu championship of 2008.
Editor: Bi Mingxin
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State Of The Afghan Nation: Opium
Tom Blackwell, National Post Saturday, November 10, 2007
With its economy in shambles, Afghanistan ranks near the bottom on almost every international indicator of human and economic development. In one sector, though, it leads the world, setting records year after year. Unfortunately, that sector is the heroin trade. Afghanistan produces more than 90% of the world's opium.

As well as supplying addicts around the globe--causing an estimated 100,000 deaths a year -- the industry has fuelled corruption and instability at home, and bankrolled the Taliban insurgency.

"Opium production has ? reached a frightening new level, twice the amount produced just two years ago," the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) noted recently in its latest report on the situation.

That poppy boom brought $4-billion to Afghanistan this year, more than half the country's legitimate GDP.

The consequences are far-reaching. A "metastases" of dirty money funds everything from capital investment to expensive foreign imports, bribes of civil servants and even weddings and funerals, the report notes.

"The government's benign tolerance of corruption is undermining the future: no country has ever built prosperity on crime."

The trade also has a symbiotic relationship with the Taliban. For keeping poppy fields safe from authorities, and protecting drug labs and smuggling convoys, the insurgents earn about $10-million annually, by one estimate.

And yet, there are positive developments that hint at a solution. Seven provinces moved out of opium production this year, bringing the poppy-free total to 13 provinces, and leaving production concentrated mostly in the more lawless south.

The possible solutions run the gamut. The European Union has endorsed a proposal to set up an industry to produce legal opiates for the medical market. American officials have been pushing chemical spraying of poppy fields, though critics warn of a backlash among Afghans.

The UNODC urges a multi-pronged approach: increasing the "abysmally low" financial support paid farmers to grow other crops, using NATO military might to curb the flow of precursor chemicals in and opium or heroin out of Afghanistan, and crop eradication that is done fairly.
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Raj-era embassy in Afghanistan to be rebuilt
Telegraph.co.uk Eleanor Mayne In Kabul  11/11/2007
The once lavish British embassy in Kabul is to be rebuilt to house the UK's diplomatic mission to Afghanistan.

The building, which dates from the years of the Raj, was devastated during riots in 1995, when a 5,000-strong mob of Afghanis set fire to it.

But negotiations to buy back the site from its current owners, the Pakistanis, are well-advanced following an expansion earlier this year of the British diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, described as "one of Britain's top foreign policy priorities".

"The embassy was built in 1919 after the UK's victory in the third Anglo-Afghan war," said a spokesman for the mission. Lord Curzon, foreign secretary at the time, had famously declared that he wanted the British ambassador to be "the best-housed man in Asia".

Now diplomats are looking at a range of options. "This one will reinforce our long-term relationship with Afghanistan," said the spokesman.

The site overlooks Kabul from a low hill and was shaded by tall trees with a rose garden fondly nicknamed "Little Surrey". The grounds were said to be large enough to house an army division, with pools, a hockey pitch and tennis and squash courts. Brick-making apparatus was hauled from India by elephants.

In 1989, faced with growing Soviet influence in Afghanistan, Britain withdrew its diplomats, leaving a small guard of Gurkhas. After the Afghan mujahideen took power in 1992, the site was passed to Pakistan.
Remarkably, the ambassadorial china, silver teapots and crystal glasses survived years of Taliban rule, hidden away and kept safe by two Afghan caretakers.

Britain's 128 diplomatic staff currently work from a mix of temporary and permanent buildings.
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Kabul irked by biometric system installation
Dawn (Pakistan) By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, Nov 10
The Pakistan-Afghan border remained closed for several hours on Saturday after Afghan authorities blocked the Chaman-Kandahar highway putting barricades and parking huge containers at the entry point against the reactivation of biometric system by Pakistan.

After the protest by the Afghan authorities, Pakistan postponed its plan to activate the biometric system on the border for an indefinite period that was installed last year to discourage illegal border crossing from both sides.

According to sources, Pakistani border authorities restarted the biometric system and when Pakistanis having special identity cards started crossing the border through the new system, the Afghan authorities stopped them and closed the border with Pakistan.

Hundreds of trailers, trucks and oil tankers carrying food and fuel for the allied forces and other vehicles were stranded on the border.

Pakistani border officials tried to convince the Afghan authorities for opening the border but their efforts remained fruitless as the Afghan officials refused to allow Pakistanis to enter into the Afghanistan.

Later, Afghan border commanders Akhtar Mohammad, Wali Shah and Pakistani security officials Col Masood Ahmed, Col Nasir Mehmood and DPO Nasibullah Khiliji held talks which continued for two hours.

After successful negotiations, Afghan authorities opened the border.

The sources said it was decided that Pakistan would postpone restarting the biometric system for an indefinite period and in this connection Islamabad and Kabul would hold further talks.
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America, the new ‘Great Game’ in Central Asia and the politics of oil
By By Kaleem Omar The News International (Pakistan) November 10, 2007
The United States is the world’s biggest consumer and importer of oil. But the Chinese economic juggernaut is fast catching up with the US as an oil importer and is projected to have more cars than the US by the year 2020. The competition between the two countries for new sources of oil is going to be intense. With crude oil prices closing in on an all-time high of $ 100 a barrel this week and expected to breach that barrier within the next few days, the US’s interest in getting a hammerlock on Central Asia’s vast oil and gas reserves is likely to become greater than ever before.

The United States is spending $ 83 million to ugrade its two main air bases in Afghanistan, the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, and Kandahar Air Field in the south. Both bases are being equipped with new runways, new navigation aids and other facilities. The move reinforces the view that Washington intends to maintain a permanent military presence in Afghanistan in order to ensure that the US continues to have access to the huge deposits of oil and gas in Central Asia and the Caspian region.

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan make up the eastern side of the Caspian Sea Basin, Azerbaijan the western side and Iran the southern side – a seven-country region beneath which lie oil reserves to rival those of Saudi Arabia and the world’s richest reserves of natural gas. Iran is already the second-biggest OPEC oil producer. It also has large gas reserves. There are also billions of dollars to be made from the oil and gas reserves of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. This is what is driving the new “Great Game” in Central Asia.

It has often been said that the business of America is business and that its foreign policy in the post-cold war era is driven more by commercial considerations than other factors. That certainly seems to be the case when it comes to President George W. Bush’s administration, many of whose senior members, including Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, have close ties to big business – and, more specifically, to major players in the energy and arms industries..

As CEO of the US energy services giant Haliburton Corporation for five years (1995-2000), Cheney spent much of the 1990s scheming with his fellow oil barons to get a pipeline from the fields of the Caspian Sea – where a projected $ 4 trillion in profits are waiting for them – through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea.

Cheney’s business interests in oil and arms, temporarily divested while he helps direct American policy in energy and defence, rival those of former President George Bush Senior and his son. The Bush family has close connections to the Washington-based Carlyle Group, a $ 14 billion private equity firm that has parlayed a roster of former top-level government officials, largely from the Reagan and Bush Senior administrations, into a money-making machine.

On the board of directors for Carlyle is former President George Bush. James A. Baker, who was Secretary of State under the first President Bush and spearheaded George W. Bush’s crisis management team in the Florida vote-recount episode in the 2000 presidential election, is currently senior counsel to the Carlyle Group. He was a classmate of former Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at Yale University.

Rumsfeld was the roommate of Frank C. Carlucci at Yale. Carlucci, who was Secretary of Defence under President Ronald Reagan, is currently chairman of the Carlyle Group. The current President Bush was a director of a firm called Caterair during the years 1990-94. Caterair is owned by the Carlyle Group.

A report published in the New York Times on March 5, 2001 said that during the 2000 presidential campaign, former President George Bush took time off from his son’s race to visit Saudi Arabia.to talk to top-level Saudi officials about American-Saudi business affairs.

In a new spin on Washington’s revolving door between business and government, where lobbying by former government officials is restricted but soliciting investment is not, Carlyle has upped the ante and taken the practice global. Bush Senior and Baker were accompanied on their trips by former Prime Minister John Major of Britain, another of Carlyle’s political stars.

George W. Bush’s own business interests were once tied to Saudi financiers. In 1979, Bush’s first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $ 50,000 for a 5 per cent stake in Arbusto. At that time, Bath was the sole US business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected but never proven that the money came directly from Salem bin Laden.

In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks on the United States, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden’s, in Arbutso.

In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbutso and that he was aware that Bath represented Saudi interests.

An article by Neela Banerjee in The New York Times headlined “Fears again of oil supplies at risk” addressed the nightmares that George W. Bush’s war in Afghanistan had raised among those concerned about oil.

Banerjee restated other points that need emphasising, such as the fact that while US dependence on Gulf oil is down to 13 per cent of overall use, Saudi Arabia remains the US’s biggest single supplier of crude. “Moreover,” said Banerjee, “the Saudis are the only ones with enough spare oil-field capacity to call on if there is a severe disruption (of supplies) elsewhere.”

Meanwhile, ex-President and ex-CIA Director George Bush has reportedly been using his Saudi connections to further the business interests of the Carlyle Group.

The American public-interest law firm Judicial Watch in 2001 strongly criticised this situation, pointing out in a March 5 statement that it was a “conflict of interest that could cause problems for American foreign policy in the Middle East and Asia.” In a follow-up statement on September 29 (nineteen days after the 9/11 attacks on the United States), Judicial Watch said: “This conflict of interest has now turned into a scandal.”

Hidden behind President Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan, could there be an Oil Agenda? Michael Klare, author of “Resource Wars,” has suggested that the long-term Bush/Cheney plan is to establish a Pax Americana in Central Asia and secure the vast oil and natural gas resources of the Caspian Basin.

US oil companies have been negotiating with the post-Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan for access to the oil and gas resources for years but have been stymied by political instability in the region. Oil conglomerates were torn between two possible pipeline routes to Western markets: west through the war-torn Caucasus Mountains to Turkey, or south through war-torn Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Arabian Sea.

Until it was put on hold in 1997, Unocal, a leading US energy firm, which spearheaded the Afghanistan project, was to have built a 1,030-mile oil pipeline, called the Central Asian Oil Pipeline Project (which would start at Chardzhou in Turkmenistan and link Russia’s Siberian existing oil pipelines to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast), and a companion 918-mile natural gas pipeline, in addition to a tanker loading terminal at Gwadar, on the Mekran coast. The company projected annual revenues of $ 2 billion, or enough to recover the cost of the project in five years.

Unocal opened offices in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan and got every faction of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance to sign on. According to a report published in the New York Times on May 12, 1998, even former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger got on board to help sell the project in the region.

Backing the Caspian plan is none other than US Vice-President Dick Cheney, who, as CEO of Halliburton, was successful in winning contracts from Caspian Sea states to be part of any future development. In 1994 Cheney helped broker a deal between US Oil giant Chevron and the state of Kazakhstan when he sat on the Oil Advisory Board of that Central Asian state.

In a speech on June 23, 1998 to oil executives at the Washington-based Cato Institute, a Conservative think tank, Cheney said: “The current hot spots for major oil companies are the oil resources of the Caspian Sea region. Former Soviet states Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are all seeking to quickly develop their oil reserves, which languished during the years of Russian domination.”

The stakes in that region could be “as much as 200 billion barrels of oil and natural gas,” Cheney told his audience.
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British Get Blamed for Helmand Security Problems
IWPR, UK 11/10/2007 By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul and Aziz Ahmad Tassal in Helmand 
Allegations in an Afghan parliamentary report that British forces are actively promoting strife reflects lingering suspicions of a country many still see as a historical enemy.

“The British do not want to bring security to Helmand,” said Hazrat Sebghatullah Mojadeddi, speaker of the Meshrano Jirga, parliament’s upper house. “They could wipe out the Taleban in a day if they wanted to. The Taleban are not as strong as they say.”

Mojadeddi’s words were salt in an already raw wound. The British have been bogged down in an increasingly bitter battle in the southern province of Helmand for more than a year, when they took over command from the United States-led Coalition.

The transition was not a smooth one. The British forces came in as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, with a different mission and rules of engagement from the Coalition. Whereas the latter was – and in other parts of the south still is - involved in an aggressive counter-terrorism campaign, the British were supposed to be bringing the security needed to allow reconstruction efforts to take place.

Over the past 18 months the insurgency in Helmand has boomed, reconstruction has stalled, and the local population has become more and more disaffected. The British have had to engage in operation after operation to clear the province of hostile elements, while the top NATO commander publicly admits that Afghan government forces are unable to hold the territory gained in such battles.

Now the British are being criticised by Afghanistan’s senate, in the wake of a report delivered by Helmand member of parliament Abdulwahid Karezwal. After a fact-finding trip to his home province, Karezwal told the Meshrano Jirga that British soldiers are involved in intrusive and offensive house searches, and that they bomb villages and kill civilians, including children.

“The real reason behind the insecurity in Helmand is the behaviour of the British soldiers,” he said.

The senators reacted angrily to his report, demanding that the accusations be investigated and action taken.

The contents of the report and the Meshrano Jirga’s response to it highlight one of the major stumbling blocks in the British campaign to bring security and stability to Helmand - many local residents simply do not accept that the foreign troops are on their side.

“The British want to avenge their ancestors,” asserted Mohammad Hanif Hanifi, a senator from neighbouring Uruzgan province, expressing a commonly-held view.

The British have had a long and troubled history in Afghanistan, beginning with the Great Game of the 19th century, in which they tried several times to create an Afghan buffer state to safeguard their Indian empire from the expansionist Russians. The rebellious locals were not cooperative, and three unsuccessful wars ensued. The most disastrous military engagement came in 1880 at the Battle of Maiwand, on the Helmand river, which resulted in the deaths of over 1,900 British and Indian troops.

Nearly 130 years later, Helmand’s residents still remember the tales, and they are convinced that the British do, too.

“Their predecessors were defeated in Helmand, and that is why they are creating insecurity in the province,” said Hanifi. “This is why they kill local people.”

Prior to the arrival of the British, security was much better, he insisted. “When the US forces were here, the province was safe, and people had a better relationship with the foreign forces.”

According to Hanifi, the Meshrano Jirga intends to send a copy of its report to President Hamed Karzai, with a request that strong action be taken.

“Security cannot be restored in Helmand province until the British are removed and another country’s forces are deployed,” he said.

Hanifi’s opinions are widely echoed in Helmand. Locals are convinced that the rapid downhill spiral in security that occurred with the British arrival was no coincidence.

“If the British are here today, it is because they want to fight the Pashtuns,” said Sultan Mohammad, a resident of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. “The British have modern technology and weapons, but they are unable to defeat the Taleban. Why can’t they ensure security, with more than 7,000 troops present in the province? They cannot do any reconstruction; they cannot win the hearts and minds of people. In reality, they do not want security.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Eaton, ISAF spokesperson in Helmand, rejects any suggestion that the British troops aim to do anything other than provide security and stability.

“We are here at the request of the Afghan government, and by decision of the United Nations Security Council,” he said. “NATO forces launch joint operations with the national army and police. They do not conduct searches alone.”

The only reason the British were in Helmand was to create security, he insisted. “NATO and ISAF are here to prevent Taleban attacks on the Afghan government and on ISAF,” he said.

The head of Helmand’s provincial council, Mohammad Anwar, also rejects the senators’ accusations.

“Many years have passed since the Afghans and British fought,” he said. “The British are here to help, not for revenge.”

Ghulam Sarwar Ghafari, a political expert from Helmand, condemned the parliament’s verbal assault on the British.

“It is a very bad thing for parliament to accuse the British of not wanting security,” he said. “That is not parliament’s job.”

Ghafari was not quite ready to leap to the defence of the foreign troops, however. “The UN should establish a supervisory council and investigate the British actions,” he said.

Public opinion tilts towards the parliamentarians’ view.

“The people of Helmand cannot tolerate searches of their homes by the British,” said Sardar Mohammad, a schoolteacher in Lashkar Gah. “For a foreigner to enter the house of a Pashtun without permission is a crime against humanity. The soldiers should be tried and punished. They kill or imprison innocent people, calling them al-Qaeda or Taleban.”
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Finishing the Job in Afghanistan
The Wall Street Journal 11/10/2007 By Hans Binnendijk
KABUL
The war in Afghanistan is being fought by NATO soldiers near this capital, but it may be lost in the capitals of Europe. Europe's citizenry is tiring of this prolonged and distant conflict, while their governments struggle to maintain NATO solidarity in the face of Taliban advances in Southern Afghanistan and deadly suicide attacks here in Kabul.

More than half of the 53,000 coalition troops deployed to Afghanistan are American. About 41,000 of that coalition total are assigned to NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission; the remaining, mostly American, contingent operates separately under the U.S. Central Command. Together they face an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 active Taliban and other insurgents.

The contribution of America's 36 coalition partners is important, but in many cases it is limited. Most coalition contributions are relatively small; only eight contribute a thousand or more troops. The U.S. and a few key allies such as Britain do most of the fighting. Seven allies join the U.S. in the turbulent southern region while combat operations in the east are also primarily American. Most partners are deployed in the quieter northern and western region. About two thirds of all coalition casualties in Afghanistan are American.

Germany is a top contributor with more than 3,000 troops deployed. The German government last month renewed its engagement in Afghanistan despite the opposition of some 62% of the German public.
But ISAF commanders remain vexed by the limitations placed on the German troops. While they will support Afghan Army combat operations in the north where they are deployed and will fight there in self defense, they have no significant operational reserves for combat. They will respond to emergency situations elsewhere in Afghanistan with logistics and transport. They cannot reinforce combat operations in the south without consulting the Bundestag in Berlin.

Dutch forces serve in the turbulent Uruzgan province and the Canadians are deployed around Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold. Both have experienced considerable fighting. Both are looking for relief. The Dutch government seeks to reduce its 1,600 troop commitment by about a quarter starting next summer, and it is considering withdrawal if reinforcements from other nations cannot be found. The Canadians also prefer to move to a less dangerous mission. NATO leaders fear that the Dutch and Canadian actions could trigger an unraveling of the ISAF coalition with dire consequences for NATO.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sought at the recent NATO Defense Ministerial to raise more European troops for Afghanistan. He went so far as to suggest that the U.S. might swing its troops from still-volatile Kosovo to Afghanistan if Europeans do not contribute adequately in Afghanistan. Several NATO allies responded with promises of small increases, but not enough to meet the Dutch needs. These small contributions also do not address the growing requirement for reinforcements in Afghanistan.

A recent German Marshall Fund poll showed that European support for combat operations in Afghanistan is only about 31%, so much needs to be done. Three basic points can help European governments make this case before irreversible damage is done.

First, this war is waged in direct response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. as well as to al-Qaeda sponsored attacks in London and Madrid. The Taliban harboring al Qaeda have systematically proven their brutality to all who deviate from their radical religious beliefs. The war is being fought under the international legitimacy of a September 2001 NATO Article 5 declaration, and a December 2001 U.N. Security Council Resolution. NATO's North Atlantic Council made a clear decision to engage by taking overall responsibility for the ISAF mission. The American people support this conflict, in marked contrast to deep divisions over Iraq.

Second, this war can be won. While Taliban forces have retaken some territory, fighting over the past half year has not been in their favor. Casualties among Taliban leadership have been high, and some of those remaining are contacting the Afghan government and international organizations asking how they might avoid being targeted. Some are suggesting peace talks. Without their sanctuary in Pakistan's frontier provinces, the Taliban and their al Qaeda partners would not last long.

Third, the consequences of failure are severe. A much bloodier civil war would surely break out. Taliban rule would return to much of Afghanistan. Regional instability already evident in Pakistan would escalate. Al Qaeda would regain a more stable base of operations. And NATO would be shattered, having failed at its most important military conflict to date.

Regaining European public support is critical, but more must also be done in Afghanistan to win. A well-crafted and publicly articulated plan is needed using current progress and lessons learned as a foundation. Such a plan might include the following elements.

A comprehensive approach with clear movement towards peace is needed. Recent progress in Iraq's Anbar province can serve as an example. There, moderate Baathist insurgents turned against foreign fighters after concluding that continued collaboration undercut their own interests. The same can happen in Afghanistan, where some relatively moderate Taliban leaders are already looking for relief from ISAF pursuit. Clearly, this will be made more difficult if Taliban insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists maintain their sanctuary in Pakistan's Northwest frontier areas.

The military pressure on the Taliban leadership has to accelerate to provide incentives for negotiations. The anticipated Taliban Spring offensive this year was pre-empted by an effective offensive, and according to ISAF Commander and U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, "we have had significant tactical success this fighting season." But Afghanistan has been starved of coalition troops as the buildup in Iraq proceeded. Gen. McNeill estimates that he needs at least four additional deployed battalions plus a rapid response force to stem lawlessness arising from gaps in police reform efforts.

In short, Gen. McNeill needs a surge much smaller than the one in Iraq. One place to get some of these troops is from the NATO Response Force, an impressive but unused capability that NATO leaders refer to as the "Rolls Royce in the garage."

In the longer run, the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) have to take over Afghan security. Progress growing, training, equipping and mentoring the ANA is proceeding, with the goal of 70,000 vetted and trained troops available at the end of 2008. ANA forces now engage in combat together with embedded ISAF advisers, and they have not broken ranks yet. Elite ANA commando units are being developed to engage in special operations. The ANP is another story. Police units tend to be both local and corrupt. Better vetting and training is long overdue.

Ultimately, a comprehensive approach to peace in Afghanistan hinges on an enhanced economic development effort. There is progress: During the past three years, per capita income has doubled, access to health care has increased eightfold, and roads and telecommunications have improved significantly. However, the key remains agriculture; and large investments are needed in irrigation, food delivery and planting of traditional Afghan crops like figs and almonds. When it comes to the thriving poppy trade, crop eradication only drives farmers into the arms of the Taliban; the solution lies in crop substitution and, again, greater peace and economic development.

Finally, a new, high-profile European High Representative under U.N. auspices should be appointed to pull together the diverse national contributions in Afghanistan and to coordinate military and economic approaches into a comprehensive and coherent whole. Paddy Ashdown provides a good example with his work in Bosnia. Such a High Representative could also help convince European publics to stick with the Afghan effort.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the U.S. Congress this week that his nation would remain engaged shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. in Afghanistan. This promise may not be enough. If NATO is to continue fighting in significant numbers in Afghanistan, a major public-diplomacy effort must be launched in Europe. President Bush would do well to suggest the launch of such a campaign to German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she visits him in Texas this weekend.

Mr. Binnendijk is professor of national security studies at the National Defense University.
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Assessing Afghanistan
National Post  Saturday, November 10, 2007 327
BC The area known today as Afghanistan, part of the Persian Achaemenian empire, is conquered by Alexander the Great, who then departs for India. Ruins of a Greek city founded about 325 BC were discovered at Ay Khanom. Excavations produce Greek architectural elements, including a theatre and a gymnasium. 304 BC The modern day Kandahar and Herat provinces are ceded to the Maurya dynasty of northern India. Inscriptions have been found from the reign of the Indian monarch Ashoka the Great (ruled 273-232 BC), who greatly increased the popularity of Buddhism in Afghanistan.

250 BC Diodotus, a local Greco-Bactrian governor, declares the Afghan plain of the Amu Darya river independent.

180 BC Greco-Bactrian conquerors move south, establishing their rule at Kabul and in the Punjab. The Parthians of eastern Iran establish control over Sistan and Kandahar.

130 BC A nomadic raid ends the Greek era at Ay Khanom.

135 BC Central Asian nomadic tribes united under the banner of the Kushan to seize Bactria, or what is now northern Afghanistan, from the Bactrian Greeks. AD 78-144 The region becomes part of the empire of Kushan Kin Kaniska, a patron of the arts who propagates a brand of Buddhism.

241 Persian Sasanids establish control over parts of Afghanistan, including Bagram in what is now northern Afghanistan.

Approximately 300 -400

The world's largest Buddha figures are carved into a cliff at Bamian in Afghanistan's central mountains.

400 A new wave of Central Asian nomads under the Hephthalites take control.

565 Nomads are defeated by a coalition of Sasanids and Western Turks. Under the Hephthalites and Sasanids, many of the Afghan princedoms are influenced by Hinduism. Excavations from the time near Kabul and Ghazni reveal both Buddhist and Hindu statuaries. 646 Islamic armies defeated the Sasanids at the Battle of Nahavand near modern Hamadan, Iran. They advance into the Afghan area, but are unable to hold the territory.

800 -900 The region witnesses the rise of numerous local Islamic dynasties.

Approximately 950

A former Turkish slave named Alptigin seizes Ghazni. He is succeeded by another former slave, Subuktigin, who extends the conquests to Kabul and the Indus.

998 Subuktigin's son, Mahmud of Ghazna, conquers the Punjab and Multan and carries his raids into the heart of India. Ghazni becomes a cosmopolitan city, as does the second capital at Bust, or Lashkar Gah, in the south.

1150 'Ala' al-Din Husayn of Ghur, a mountain-locked region in central Afghanistan, sacks Ghazni.

1219 Genghis Khan invades the eastern part of Husayn's empire. Later, Husayn's son rallies Afghan highlanders near Kabul, defeating the Mongols and killing Genghis Khan's grandson. Genghis Khan retaliates, leveling Bamian.

1227 Genghis Khan dies. In Afghanistan, several local chiefs establish independent states while others recognize Mongol princes. Late 1300s Timur (Tamerlane), a 14th-century warlord of Turco-Mongol descent, conquers a large part of the country.

1405-1507 Timur's successors, the Timurids, patronize learning and the arts, revitalizing the capital city of Herat.

1504 Babur, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, makes Kabul the capital of an independent state.

1507 Turkic Uzbeks take Herat under Muhammad Shaybani.

1522 Babur seizes Kandahar and establishes the Mughal Empire in eastern Afghanistan south of the Hindu Kush. For the next 200 years, the country is divided between India's Mughals, who hold Kabul, and Persia's Safavids, who hold Herat. Kandahar is in dispute for many years.

1709 Mir Vays Khan, an Afghani tribal leader, heads a successful uprising against Gorgin Khan, the Persian governor of Kandahar. Khan governs Kandahar until his death in 1715.

1716 The Abdalis (Durrani) of Herat liberate their province from the Persians.

1725 The country faces Russian pressure from the north, just as Ottoman Turk forces advance from the west. Shah Ashraf curbs both onslaughts.

1729 Afghans are defeated at Damghan and driven out of Persia.

1732 Iranian ruler and conqueror Nadr Qoli Beg takes Herat and recruits many Heratis to serve in his army. Electing himself shah of Persia, he renames himself Nadir Shah.

1738 Kandahar falls to Nadir Shah's army. He also seizes Ghazna and Kabul.

1747 Nadir Shah's death leads to the collapse of his Persian empire and also the rise of the last great Afghan empire, surpassed in size only by the Ottoman. Ahmad Shah Durrani expands Afghan control from Meshed in northeastern Iran to Kashmir and Delhi, from the Amu Darya river to the Arabian Sea.

1776 Amid tribal rebellions, Ahmad Shah's son Timur Shah shifts the capital from Kandahar to Kabul.

1793 Timur Shah dies and his son Zaman Shah seizes the throne. He sets his sights on India, alarming the British, who pressure Persia's Fath Ali Shah of Persia into diverting Zaman Shah's attention, which he does by encouraging an advance on Kandahar. Zaman Shah returns to Afghanistan to defend that city and Kabul and is imprisoned.

1803 A new king, Shah Shoja', ascends to the throne, just as powerful and unruly chiefs declare independence in outlying provinces, Punjab Sikhs move in on Afghanistan's eastern terrritories and Persians advance from the west.

1809 Shah Shoja' signs a friendship treaty with the British, who are looking for allies against a possible invasion of India by Napolean I and Alexander I of Russia. The shah promises to oppose the passage of foreign troops through his lands but Kabul is soon taken by Persian forces. 1919 Habibollah is murdered and Amanollah Khan takes the throne. Launching, a surprise attack against the British in India, Amanollah sparks the third Anglo-Afghan war, after which Afghanistan gains its independence. Amanollah rapidly modernizes the country, overturning strict dress codes for women, opening schools for boys and girls and increasing trade with Europe and Asia.

1924 Amanollah's reforms are met with civil unrest. His forces suppress the Khost rebellion.

1927 As opposition to his rule increases, Amanollah travels to Europe. Rebels march on Kabul, where much of the army deserts.

1929 Amanollah abdicates and flees to India.

1933 Hailing from a long line of Pashtun rulers, Zahir Shah becomes king. Afghanistan remains a monarchy for next the 40 years.

1946 Afghanistan joins the United Nations.

1953 General Mohammed Daud Khan becomes prime minister. Turning to the Soviets for economic and military assistance, he also introduces social reform, allowing women to wear the veil voluntarily and abolishing purdah -- the practice of secluding women from public view.

1961 Pakistan closes its border with Afghanistan after agitation.

1963 The "Pashtunistan" issue persists, namely the political status of Pashtun living in Pakistan after that country gained its independence in 1947. Mohammed Daud resigns as prime minister.

1973 Mohammed Daud overthrows King Zahir Shah in a coup. He declares Afghanistan a republic and himself president. The King goes into exile in Italy. Attempting to play the Soviets against the West, Mohammed Daud aggravates left-wing factions.

1978 The leftist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) launches a coup and military officers kill Mohammed Daud. Noor Muhammad Taraki becomes president. Islamic traditionalists and ethnic leaders begin an armed revolt in the countryside.

1979 Conservative Islamists control much of rural Afghanistan. The Afghan army faces collapse. President Nur Mohammed Taraki is deposed and killed under orders from his rival, Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin, who also fails to suppress the rebellion and is killed by the Soviets in December. That month, Soviet forces take control of Kabul. PDPA member and Marxist Babrak Karmal becomes president, with Soviet backing. 1980 Resistance intensifies as mujahideen groups fight Soviet forces. United States, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia supply money and arms.

1985 Mujahideen form an anti-Soviet alliance in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is among them. Seeing little combat, the young Saudi Arabian provides them with financial backing. Mikhail Gorbachev says he will withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

1986 United States supplies mujahideen with Stinger missiles for firing at Soviet helicopter gunships. Mohammad Najibullah, former head of the secret police, replaces Karmal as secretary-general of the PDPA.

1987 Afghanistan, Pakistan, the USSR and the United States sign peace accords. Soviet Forces begin withdrawing. Najibullah is elected president. Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran now number more than five million. In total, more than half the population is displaced.

1989 Last remaining Soviet troops leave. Civil war rages as mujahideen try to overthrow Najibullah. 1991 United States and USSR agree to end military aid to both sides.

1990 Approximately 6.3 million Afghan civilians now are in exile -- 3.3 million in Pakistan and 3 million in Iran.

1992 Rebel forces close in on Kabul and the Najibullah government collapses.

1993 Mujahideen factions agree on formation of a government. Burhanuddin Rabbani is proclaimed president of the Islamic State in Afghanistan. More than 1.2 million refugees slowly return from Pakistan.
ASSESSING AFGHANISTAN
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Crisis brings hope to one frontier of the War on Terror
The London Times - Fri, Nov 09, 2007
American troops have been struggling to combat militants crossing into Afghanistan. Suddenly Pakistan is coming to their aid
As American gun crews adjusted their 105mm howitzers to the co-ordinates of an insurgent group crossing the border from Pakistan, the night’s mission seemed like scores before it.

A brief pause, a sudden command and the surrounding mountains were illuminated by a stab of light as the guns launched their shells.

But this time something was different. Of the numerous Taleban infiltrations that the US airborne troops have engaged since arriving at their remote frontier base in eastern Afghanistan five months ago, this was the first time that they had been alerted to the enemy’s movement by Pakistani forces over the border.

Despite monthly meetings to co-ordinate halting cross-border movement by militants, the Pakistani forces had never once warned Attack Company of insurgents heading toward them.

“We’re sharing the same border mission,” one exasperated US officer explained. “I have had Pakistani commanders who have wanted to react and to talk every day. They are up to their waist in bad guys over there. And they have reacted to my requests for co-operation. But here’s when they reacted: when they’re getting attacked they answered the phone. When we’re getting attacked they didn’t.”

To cap the American delight at the sudden spirit of co-operation, US soldiers in hilltop observation posts watched as Pakistani troops fired on five groups of militants as they struggled back towards the border under a hail of American shrapnel.

It may have been an isolated incident, but it could signify much more. And it illustrates the dilemma facing both President Musharraf and the West. Pakistan can be a crucial ally in the War on Terror and in pacifying Afghanistan, but there are limits to what General Musharraf can deliver as he struggles under emergency rule and the advance of radical Islam.

Pakistani forces have been badly humiliated recently in Waziristan, the tribal agency regarded as a safe haven and training ground for international jihadists as well as insurgents entering Afghanistan. During recent fighting with militants more than 200 Pakistani troops were taken prisoner and 50 more killed by tribal militias. Dozens surrendered this week to extremists in the scenic Swat Valley, a former favourite of Pakistani and Western tourists, as militants seized three police stations.

But whether or not Pakistan’s demoralised forces in Waziristan now choose to co-operate with the Americans, life for Attack Company, 1st Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry is unlikely to get easier.

Their firebase FOB Tillman — named after the National Football League star Patrick Tillman who became a US Ranger and was killed near here in 2004 — seems a tiny microcosm of all the challenges besetting coalition troops in Afghanistan.

The company, based only three kilometres (1¾ is hugely overstretched, even with an Afghan National Army (ANA) unit attached, and a group of Afghan mercenaries. Fewer than 500 American and Afghan troops are responsible for a border area of several hundred kilometres, all of it rugged mountain territory.

“This has been as much or more contact than I had in Iraq,” said Captain Hammonds, Attack Company’s commander. “There’s a legitimate chance of getting overrun here. One observation post was once hit by 120 individuals. The enemy has so much freedom of movement, the area is so big and there are so few coalition forces here.”

Overall they have received little help from Pakistan, whose past efforts to police their side of the border have been a mess of contradictory signals.

American officers said they had witnessed infiltrating militants pass through Pakistani army checkpoints unchallenged before crossing into Afghanistan. Yet at other times the Americans have watched fierce gunbattles between Pakistani troops and militants.

There is no barrier along the border in Attack Company’s area of responsibility other than one 10km stretch of barbed wire across a plateau east of FOB Tillman. Insurgents from Pakistan crawled under the wire at night recently and set up four rocket launchers only 40ft beyond it. Behind the rockets — aimed at an American observation post — they hung a booby-trapped jihadist flag on the the barbed wire. “It’s a s*** fence,” said Captain Hammonds of the wire, which more or less corresponds to the Durrand Line drawn by the British to divide Waziristan and Afghanistan more than a century ago. “We’ve videotaped the bad guys lifting up the fence and coming through: we’ve called the Pakistanis, who did nothing. So we killed them. Then the Pakistanis come and clear them up later.”

The proto-Taleban militants are a diverse collection of tribesmen, madrassa students, foreign fighters and al-Qaeda. Using Miram Shah, the Waziri town 35 miles east of FOB Tillman, as headquarters, the militants move on to three staging posts in tribal communities right beside the border to study their infiltration routes and contact Afghan enablers before crossing into Afghanistan.

Sometimes large fighting columns of up to 50 men make the journey into Afghanistan to link up with insurgents aleady in the country. At other times the Americans see small teams of no more than six men cross. “Its like a John Wayne movie here except with rockets and machineguns,” noted another US captain. The Afghan Army forces in FOB Tillman, though brave and better trained than at any time since their nascence in 2002, remain hobbled by grave logistical problems, and are unable to operate without close chaperoning by the Americans.

“Their morale fluctuates with their food situation,” said Captain Roland Beason, a US adviser at Tillman. “If their morale is only a three or four, all you’ve got to do is buy them a goat and it’s a ten.” Yet to date the ANA’s logistics chain often leaves its men short of goats.

The Afghan Border Police in the firebase are in an even more perilous state. No more than half are ever present at any time. They have hardly any ammunition. And the recent arrest of one of their senior commanders for corruption – he had sequestered most of the weaponry due to be issued to his men for personal benefit – led to an upsurge in Taleban attacks in the area.

With some US soldiers on their second or third tour of eastern Afghanistan there is no shortage of experience in counter-insurgency warfare. Tough, capable and with better local knowledge than their British counterparts in Helmand, they realised long ago that winning the hearts and minds of local tribes was the key to success.

When they first arrived at FOB Tillman in May they set about liaising with local elders to identify reconstruction projects they could perform, as not a single aid agency has visited the area.

They arrived with a budget of $3.5 million and drew up plans for 16 schemes throughout their area of responsibility, which is deeply impoverished, even by Afghan standards. Most involved new roads and flood defences, to help protect crops devastated by freak summer rains. (Schooling was low on the project agenda. The school nearest to FOB Tillman has been blown up three times already.) The local tribal elders were delighted. But the money never came through.

Other then $10,000, the bulk of the budget appears to have been diverted to Iraq. None of the promised projects has materialised, and now enemy attacks are on the up.

Captain Hammonds estimates that his men have had double the number of firefights with insurgents that the previous American unit in the area had in a similar timeframe. “We look like windbags,” Hammonds said. “We separated the enemy from the people and killed a lot. But we didn’t follow it up as per the laws of counter-in-surgency. Where are the roads and clinics? I want to flood these guys with success. I want that money through, to let them know that someone in the world cares enough about them not to have to live like the Flintstones. Then they’ll take us seriously.”

The wild east

54 US soldiers have died in eastern Afghanistan this year

250 Pakistani troops have died in border regions this year

22,000 US troops throughout Afghanistan

80,000 Pakistani troops along the border

2,400km Length of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan

Sources: Nato; Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Times archives
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Can Pakistan's Military Be Trusted?
By Robert Baer TIME Magazine Friday, Nov. 09, 2007
The mess in Pakistan should make us miss the Cold War — really miss it.

There was a time when Washington could call up Islamabad and order a jihad on the Red Army occupying Afghanistan — and Islamabad would salute. Islamabad was our loyal ally in the Cold War. Granted, no one in Washington was happy when Pakistan started developing a nuclear bomb in the '70s. Or when it finally tested one in May 1998. But still, we slept nights knowing that Pakistan's pro-American, Western-trained generals, our generals, had their fingers on the trigger.

Now, things aren't so clear. With the anarchy along the border with Afghanistan — Pashtunistan, as the Pakistanis call it — promising to spread, with Benazir Bhutto promising mass demonstrations, the courts closed and Musharraf promising the army will put down civil disobedience at the same time as he promises democratic elections in February, it's hard to tell where the generals stand.

With more than a little irony, even the Iranians are worried. "Pakistan is not a country, Pakistan is an army," an Iranian close to the regime in Tehran recently complained to me. "And it's an army you can't count on."

My Iranian friend tried to make the case that we would be better off with Tehran having a nuclear bomb than Pakistan's generals. Small comfort to Washington and Tel Aviv, but he was on to something.

The truth is Pakistan is an artificial country, its borders drawn by British colonial administrators in a fit of expediency, its people hopelessly divided along ethnic lines. None of it mattered, democracy or not, as long as the generals stood shoulder to shoulder and held off disintegration and chaos — kept the nukes safe, out of the hands of radicals. Let's hope the generals aren't having second thoughts.

One concern might be Pakistan's ethnic Pashtuns. They make up roughly 20% of Pakistan's officer corps and 25% of enlisted. Historically, they have faithfully served Pakistan, but since 9/11 their loyalty has been sorely tested. Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are holed up in Pashtunistan, on both sides of the remote, mountainous, impenetrable Pakistan-Afghan border — the rear base they use to wage jihad on Islamabad and Kabul. Al-Qaeda has at least the implicit support of the local Pashtuns, and, inevitably, Pashtuns are dying, both at our hands and the Pakistan army's. It has to be taking a toll on the loyalties of Pashtuns in Pakistan's army.

And that's just the start. With Benazir Bhutto now under house arrest, it's unclear where her supporters in the army stand. And if Musharraf really were to hold a free election in February, who would win? The last time there was a free election in the Middle East, Hamas won in Gaza.

The generals promise us the center will hold — the army is not going to disintegrate, and the nukes are safe behind lock and key. But then again, these are the same generals who apparently had no idea their head nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan was selling Pakistan's nuclear secrets to anyone who could pay.
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Dinner, auction, dance celebrate Afghan sister city
Hayward is the first, only Bay Area city with relationship in area
By Rachel Cohen, Oakland Tribune Staff Writer - Nov 11 2:52 AM
HAYWARD — With braids to her knees and bare feet skipping, the Afghan dancer spun in residents to celebrate the partnership between Hayward and its sister city of Ghazni, Afghanistan.
Some 80 people enjoyed a catered Afghan dinner, an auction and speeches on progress since the sister city relationship was established last year.

Mo Qayoumi, president of California State University, East Bay and the highest-ranking Afghan American in education, told the group, "Your contribution is recognized as a positive gesture of friendship for the people of Ghazni."

He read a letter from a girl who aims to become a medical doctor and needs shoes, clothes and books for school. She is now attending a school with 140 girls, which opened this year with help from the Afghan Friends Network, a locally started group of 700 friends and donors.

The two programs that began last year with the Hayward-Ghazni Sister City Partnership are continuing this year. Tyrrell Elementary School and Ghazni's Jihan Malika School exchange mostly drawings through a pen pal program.

In 2006, Carol Ruth Silver, Afghan Friends Network founder and a member of the Sister City Committee, flew to Kabul to set up a school for widows and disadvantaged women. She traveled about 92 miles southwest to Ghazni, a city of about 140,000 people, and interviewed teachers for the school. The Widows Literacy Project doubled to two classes and 75 women in its second year.

This year, the Sister City

Committee completed three one-shot projects. Ghazni's mayor expressed the need for soccer balls and sports equipment for children, and the Sister City Committee raised $3,000, with which it purchased the equipment in Kabul.

"We tried to shop for everything in Ghazni, but even being the main city in the province, not everything was available," Silver said.

Dawn Erickson, a key link for the Sister City Committee who lives in Kabul, bought and delivered to the Ghazni Hospital on Aug. 6 a $3,600 blood refrigerator to replace an ordinary kitchen-type unit. She also deliv ered a backup generator for a library and its computers. The library was built by the Japanese, but is not on the electric grid all the time.

Silver, a San Francisco resident, said the Sister City Committee is working on getting a recently created school book for teaching reading, writing and math copied and distributed. The 288-page glossy bound book could be used year after year and would replace the single-use 102-page stapled write-in booklet the Women's Literacy Project students use now.

"We would love to have a volunteer come forward for us who is in the book business," Silver added.

The committee is also investigating a house-building program that would teach construction.

Hayward's relationship with Ghazni began when Humaira Ghilzai, a San Francisco resident who emigrated from Ghazni in 1979, began calling cities around the Bay Area to see if they would be interested in building a sister city relationship. In 2004, a committee formed and visited different groups for a year, until the Hayward City Council approved the relationship last year.

Hayward is the first and only city in the Bay Area with a sister-city relationship with an Afghan city, Ghilzai said, although Fremont is looking into building one with Kabul.

For more information, visit http://www.haywardghazni.org.
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Iran-US cooperation in Taliban overthrow confirmed
NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Two former Bush administration officials revealed on Thursday that Iran cooperated with the US to overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001.

Testifying at a key Congressional committee hearing on Iran, Bush administration's first special envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins and Hillary Leverett, who was directly involved in efforts to engage Iran, gave detailed accounts of cooperation between Tehran and Washington.

There's a popular perception in the US that in the aftermath of 9/11, the United States formed a coalition and overthrew the Taliban. That's wrong. In the aftermath of 9/11 the US joined an existing coalition which had been trying to overthrow the Taliban for most of a decade. 

"That coalition consisted of India, Russia, Iran and the Northern Alliance. And it was with the additional assistance of American airpower that that coalition succeeded in ousting the Taliban, Dobbins said in his testimony.

That coalition, along with Pakistan, was also very important to the success that the US enjoyed in replacing the Taliban within a matter of weeks with a moderate, broadly representative government in Kabul, which relieved the United States of the necessity of itself occupying and trying to govern Afghanistan, he added.

In her deposition, Leverett confirmed: For the first two months after 9 / 11, I worked openly and intensively with my Iranian counterpart to establish a framework for US-Iranian cooperation on Afghanistan. My Iranian counterpart said Iran was prepared to offer unconditional cooperation to the US. Iran would not ask the U.S. for anything up front in turn for its cooperation.

Leverett documented in her written testimony in the months after 9/11, Iran provided tangible support to coalition military operations in Afghanistan and US efforts to stand up a post-Taliban political order culminating in the Bonn Conference.

Following the Bonn Conference and my transfer from the UN to the National Security Council to become director for Iran and Afghanistan affairs, the US and Iran launched an ongoing channel of monthly meetings to coordinate our efforts on Afghanistan and related issues, she continued.

This support from Iranians came even after Bush termed Iran as part of the axis of evil in January 2002. The Iranians skipped one monthly meeting to protest President Bush's public condemnation of Iran, but otherwise, they came to every monthly meeting over the 17 months course of the talks.

Giving instances of Tehran's offer of military cooperation, Dobbins said: In March 2002, the Iranian delegation asked to meet with me on the fringes of an international meeting in Geneva that I was chairing on assistance to Afghanistan. They introduced me to an Iranian general in full uniform who had been the commander of their security assistance efforts to the Northern Alliance throughout the war.
Lalit K. Jha
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Students, teachers under attack in conflict zones: UN
NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Students, teachers and schools are under concerted and deliberate attack and in war zones, says a major United Nations study on the impact of conflict on education.

Conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the study catalogues a range of assaults on education - pupils taken hostage, targeted by bombs or abducted to work as child soldiers.

Stressing urgent measures to protect the academic future of children, the document adds teachers are assassinated; schools blasted with shells and rockets; or used as military bases.

Dedicated to the memory of Safia Ama Jan, who worked throughout her life to get Afghan girls into school before she was shot and killed outside her home in Kandahar in September 2006, the report continues teacher trade unionists unaccountably disappear.

As many as 190 bombing and missile attacks on educational facilities took place in Afghanistan in 2005-2006, a key writer of the study pointed out at a news briefing here.

Brendan OMalley, offered stark statistics on the problem, said attacks prevented 100,000 Afghan children --- who had been in school the year before --- from attending.

Calling attacks on educational institutions a war crime, the study charts the extent and nature of the violence and calls for campaigns to end impunity. It urges steps to designate schools as sanctuaries in conflict zones.

The author pointed out: One suggestion is that we create a symbol rather like the Red Cross to denote recognition of this status protecting educational facilities.

We need urgent, collective action, including human rights campaigns, to set up a global database on education attacks, to end impunity for attacks, and to work towards acceptance of schools as zones of peace and safe sanctuaries.
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