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More than 20 insurgents killed in Afghanistan
Sat Aug 9, 9:59 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan soldiers backed by international air support killed more than 20 Taliban insurgents in the east and west of the country on Friday, a provincial police chief and the U.S. military said on Saturday.
FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, Aug 9
09 Aug 2008 13:54:48 GMT
Aug 9 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1320 GMT on Saturday:
89th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan
By The Canadian Press
ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan - A Canadian soldier has been killed in a firefight with insurgents in the volatile Zhari District, west of Kandahar city.
Says Humvee will be useful in future wars in Afghanistan.
By ED RONCO South Bend Tribune - Aug 09 4:02 AM
SOUTH BEND — It's going to take more work from Pakistan for the Afghan security situation to improve, but a major purchase of Mishawaka-made Humvees by the Afghan government will help the Asian nation
War in Afghanistan: a tour of hell
09/08/2008 Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
For all the money, technology and military might America can throw at the Taliban, conditions at the US Army's most attacked outpost in Afghanistan are reminiscent of the First World War trenches. Report by Stuart Webb
Pakistani Forces Battle Militants Amid Political Crisis
Movement to Oust Musharraf Fuels National Turmoil
Wall Street Journal By ZAHID HUSSAIN August 9, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani security forces engaged in fierce fighting with Islamic militants trying to expand their influence, amid a national crisis spurred by the ruling coalition's effort to oust President Pervez Musharraf.
Outspun by the Taliban
The Sydney Morning Herald - World August 9, 2008
With the West outgunned on propaganda, the fight for the hearts and minds of Afghanistan is going backwards, writes Paul McGeough.
Afghan troops and civilians surround RIR base after child death
Belfast Telegraph - News Saturday, 9 August 2008
Afghan soldiers and civilians have confronted troops at a Royal Irish Regiment base in Afghanistan following the death of child.
Battle lines move from Kashmir to Kabul
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong By M K Bhadrakumar Aug 9, 2008
There is wide acclaim today among Indian strategic analysts and diplomatic editors that New Delhi has scored a major diplomatic victory in Afghanistan and that its "influence" in Kabul has
Afghanistan hopes to end Olympic medal drought
Xinhua, China www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-08
BEIJING-Afghanistan's Olympic delegation strode into the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday night.
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More than 20 insurgents killed in Afghanistan
Sat Aug 9, 9:59 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan soldiers backed by international air support killed more than 20 Taliban insurgents in the east and west of the country on Friday, a provincial police chief and the U.S. military said on Saturday.
Violence has risen in Afghanistan this year with about 2,500 people, including 1,000 civilians, killed so far in fighting between insurgents and foreign and Afghan forces, aid agencies say.
In the first incident, Afghan and coalition forces killed 20 Taliban militants in the western province of Farah, provincial police chief Khalilullah Rahmani told Reuters.
"The Taliban were gathering for a meeting in an area of Bala Boluk district," he said.
"An air strike targeted the meeting and killed 20 of them." Fourteen people were wounded.
A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition forces said attack helicopters took part after soldiers came under attack.
"Coalition forces received small arms and indirect fire from an unknown number of anti-Afghan forces," the spokesman said, adding that coalition forces suffered no damage or casualties.
He did not specify whether any insurgents were killed or wounded in the incident.
In a separate incident, the U.S. military said coalition forces killed a known militant in an air strike in the eastern province of Paktika on Friday.
Coalition forces identified a separate militant group "maneuvering" against them and responded with small arms fire killing several, it said.
A woman was injured in the clash was airlifted to a coalition medical facility.
Elsewhere, a child was killed and two were wounded when insurgents attacked soldiers of the NATO-led force on Friday in the northeastern province of Kunar, the force said in a statement on Saturday.
"This is the second attack in this area during the past two weeks in which insurgents have killed Afghan children," it said.
(Reporting by Sharafuddin Sharafyar in Herat and Jonathon Burch in Kabul; editing by Andrew Dobbie)
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FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, Aug 9
09 Aug 2008 13:54:48 GMT
Aug 9 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1320 GMT on Saturday:
FARAH - Afghan soldiers backed by international air support killed 20 Taliban insurgents and wounded 14 in the western province of Farah on Friday, provincial police chief Khalilullah Rahmani told Reuters on Saturday.
PAKTIKA - U.S.-led coalition forces killed several militants with small arms fire and an air strike in the eastern province of Paktika on Friday, the U.S. military said on Saturday.
KUNAR - A child was killed and two were wounded when insurgents attacked soldiers from the NATO-led force on Friday in the northeastern province of Kunar, the NATO force said in a statement on Saturday. (Compiled by Jonathon Burch; editing by Andrew Dobbie)
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89th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan
By The Canadian Press
ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan - A Canadian soldier has been killed in a firefight with insurgents in the volatile Zhari District, west of Kandahar city.
The soldier has been identified as Master Cpl. Josh Roberts of the Second Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry based out of Shilo, Man.
The Saskatchewan native died as a result of a gunshot wound.
Roberts was involved in a joint operation aimed at disrupting insurgent activity in a rugged farming area when the incident occurred.
It’s believed a private security company passing by in a convoy may have accidentally opened fire on Canadian troops.
An investigation into the incident is underway.
Roberts is the 89th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002. A Canadian diplomat has also died in the country.
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Afghan ambassador visits area
Says Humvee will be useful in future wars in Afghanistan.
By ED RONCO South Bend Tribune - Aug 09 4:02 AM
SOUTH BEND — It's going to take more work from Pakistan for the Afghan security situation to improve, but a major purchase of Mishawaka-made Humvees by the Afghan government will help the Asian nation, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States said here Friday.
Afghanistan is in the process of receiving its initial order of 1,400 trucks, to be used by Afghan army and police forces, Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad said.
Ultimately, the country will get more than 5,000 of the military trucks, known officially as High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles.
Prior to the arrival of the Humvee, the Afghan government was losing about 100 police officers every month, Jawad said.
"They travel unprotected," Jawad said. "They're traveling on the back of their pickup trucks."
The ambassador, a former chief of staff to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, appeared with U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Granger, during a news conference Friday afternoon at a
test track owned by AM General Corp., which makes the Humvee.
Donnelly and Jawad toured the Humvee factory Friday morning, where more than 1,000 people produce about 80 of the military trucks daily.
Some 52 of the 80 trucks made Friday will be sent to Afghanistan, Jawad said.
"When your forces introduced these vehicles into Afghanistan, they proved to be very effective," he said. "This was really high on the wish-list of the Afghan National Army."
Jawad said the trucks will be useful in "future wars" against insurgents, and that's important as long as terrorist training camps are still operating just across the more than 1,500-mile border in Pakistan, he said.
"We are seeing more and more roadside bombings, suicide bombings, and the types of terrorist activities that these vehicles are very appropriate to fight against," he said.
Pakistan, whose President Pervez Musharraf faces impeachment, needs to get serious about controlling terrorism inside its borders, for the sake of regional and global security, Jawad said.
"We are supporting very much the civilian elected government of Pakistan," he said. "We would like the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani Intelligence Service to become serious in fighting extremism and terrorism both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for the sake of the people of Pakistan if not for anything else."
Afghanistan will ultimately purchase more than 5,000 Humvees, said Craig Mac Nab, director of public relations for AM General.
"They're in the process of becoming one of our biggest overseas customers," Mac Nab said. "It's a big deal for them and a good deal for us."
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War in Afghanistan: a tour of hell
09/08/2008 Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
For all the money, technology and military might America can throw at the Taliban, conditions at the US Army's most attacked outpost in Afghanistan are reminiscent of the First World War trenches. Report by Stuart Webb
Just after dawn at Forward Operating Base Salerno, the Chinooks, Apaches and Black Hawks are starting their engines. Amid the building roar of the helicopters, the camp comes alive. In this part of eastern Afghanistan, Salerno provides the gateway to a string of isolated American military outposts along the frontier with Pakistan. No one is in a hurry to board the helicopter destined for Combat Outpost Margha. As the ground slips away, the tail-gunner takes up position on the Chinook's open ramp and the banter between the men evaporates. The soldiers, 18 of them, have a grim resignation about them now.
Among US forces in Afghanistan, Margha has a formidable reputation, and is the most attacked combat outpost in Paktika province. Located at the top of a mountain on the lawless, porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is one of the farthest flung and most vulnerable outposts in America's global war against terrorism.
Once these troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade are dropped here they are effectively cut off from the outside world. Most are young, in their late teens and early twenties. With every pocket and pouch stuffed with ammunition, and chests crossed with grenade belts, they already look battle-hardened. Some were only 12 years old when the Twin Towers came down in 2001 - a stark reminder of how long the war has been going on.
The mountains seem to go on for ever. Under their gaze have passed some of the greatest warriors and empires in history: from Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan to the British and Soviet armies. These men are just the latest to pass through.
As we skim the ground, the gunners - fingers on triggers - scan the trees and boulders that flash past. The view is beautiful, yet across this frontier the Taliban come and go freely, mounting attacks, resupplying and regenerating. Looking down at the endless landscape, it seems impossible that all the gaps in this border could ever be plugged. Many commanders in both Britain and America accept that the war cannot be won by military means alone. From up here, you can see why. The most powerful military capabilities in the world count for nothing in Paktika. For all the technology, money and might, the young men in this helicopter are at the sharp end of an old-fashioned war.
A puff of white smoke from a signal flare on the ground guides us in. A pyramid-shaped mountain looms into view - nothing but steep sides and sharp ridges. Army engineers have somehow managed to carve a tiny shoulder for a landing spot and the Chinook hovers for some time to line up. We sit uncomfortably, suspended and exposed, while a Black Hawk swirls around to provide cover. Finally, the ramp lowers and the men pile off, the speed of their exit matched by the speed of the 18 men getting on. Hours before our arrival, Margha had been hit by six Taliban-fired rockets. On this occasion, no one had been hurt.
The soldiers head immediately for cover. Margha is looked down on by a series of towering ridges. The main ridge forms the border with Pakistan and it is from here that most of the frequent rocket and mortar attacks come: the soldiers call it Rocket Ridge. The troops at Margha - always men - come under a serious rocket and mortar attack from the Taliban at least once a week. But this is a significant improvement. The base at the top of the hill is the 'new' Margha, only a couple of months old - it used to be located down the hill, next to the village from which it takes its name, and was attacked constantly.
Specialist Max Dorsa from California is on his first tour and had a miraculous escape at the old camp when a rocket-propelled grenade tore through the back of the guard tower he was in, but failed to explode: 'I never thought it would be as bad as this,' he says. Pte Jason Stewart has equally bad memories: 'We were taking rocket fire every day; they just looked down and shot at us from the hill above. It was insane.' The position became untenable and Combat Outpost Margha was relocated. It is still perilously exposed but the ridges, while within range, are now just over half a mile away.
It is a situation the Americans have to live with: in Afghanistan, they are trying to put into practice the hard lessons learnt in Iraq. General David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, has rewritten the American military's manual on counter-insurgency. Before, the US Army trained to fight wars using overwhelming fire power, but in this unconventional conflict against suicide bombers, hit-and-run attacks and roadside bombs, the old philosophy simply wasn't working.
Under Petraeus, the emphasis now is less on engaging with guns and more on engaging with diplomacy - of having increased contact with the locals in order to win over hearts and minds. The strategy has been to move out of huge 'super bases' and instead install the troops in smaller camps closer to the Afghan people. By showing a highly visible presence and aiding the communities the Americans hope to offer an alternative to supporting the Taliban. But the practice is leaving the Americans more vulnerable than ever.
The platoon commander, 24-year-old Lieut Joe Corsi, tries to build up trust and confidence with the local population by inviting village elders to Margha once a week for a meeting. The local leaders ask for help ranging from drilling wells to power generation, pleas that Corsi will pass on to his commanders at Camp Salerno. In return, Corsi asks if they have seen anything suspicious or any outsiders in their villages.
But Corsi is hampered in what he can do - with only 18 soldiers, he cannot allow his men to patrol the vicinity. There are several reconstruction projects ongoing, but the Americans are largely unable to protect them. All Corsi can do is radio headquarters and ask for air support if he hears of an attack. But in such mountainous terrain reports of incidents can take hours to filter through, by which time the Taliban are long gone.
And with military helicopters and jets stretched to the limit on other operations, support is not guaranteed. Margha is resupplied by private contractors using civilian aircraft. Supplies are parachuted into the base by light aircraft or dropped off by a Ukrainian crew using an old Russian helicopter, flying at high altitude to avoid enemy fire.
The ease of the Taliban's movement leads many of the soldiers at Margha to believe the Pakistani military are at best turning a blind eye, and at worst actively assisting the insurgents. The Pakistan government's remit has never extended much into its tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan and there is a reluctance to get involved. Pakistan also played a key role in supporting the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s and it is believed that sections of the Pakistani military and intelligence services remain sympathetic.
The relationship between the Pakistani and American military along the border is limited and strained. For Sgt Daniel Cowden it is a frustrating situation. 'The worst thing is that they can seek refuge in Pakistan; the Pakistan military really don't do anything so they can come and go real easy. They can fire at us from the ridge and just go straight back into Pakistan.'
Often, the Taliban shoot from within Pakistan itself. The US soldiers have to get permission from Camp Salerno to return fire across the border - and permission is not guaranteed, in part out of concern that Pakistani civilians could be hit.
The stress of facing repeated bombardment and not being able to fight back makes the soldiers at Margha feel like sitting ducks. Pte Greg Gardiner is in charge of the heavy mortar with which, in theory, they can return fire. 'We take all these rockets and mortars, then we get our big gun ready and then we just have to stand around,' he says.
American troops came to Afghanistan after 9/11 with the intention of defeating al-Qa'eda and ousting the Taliban under Operation Enduring Freedom. After initial success, their attention was diverted by Iraq, and the problems of Afghanistan have returned. Warlords and drug barons hold sway over large parts of the country, corruption in government is endemic, and the Taliban have become a resurgent force. The number of insurgent attacks has increased 300 per cent since September 2006.
Western intelligence agencies believe a future terrorist attack on Britain or America is still likely to have its origins in these borderlands. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, says he would refocus America's attention on Afghanistan and take a much tougher line with Pakistan. He has promised extra troops and funding. But more force and more money could merely provide more cannon fodder for the Taliban unless resources are used in a much more targeted and sophisticated way.
Ask the men at Margha about this and they will usually say, 'Sir, that's way above my pay grade.' Some, like 21-year-old sniper Danny Miller, joined up to be part of the 'war on terror'. 'A big motivational factor for joining the army was September 11,' he says, although he does sometimes wonder how much can be achieved at Margha. 'I'm sure everybody thinks it. Hey, it sucks but you just put it behind you and get the job done.'
Up on the hill, it is a lonely and isolating experience. The outpost is tiny: about half the size of a football pitch. To help protect them from incoming fire, the men live in shipping containers surrounded by earthen blast walls and sandbags. The containers are connected by tunnels of wooden beams and walkways. The scene is reminiscent of the First World War trenches, the claustrophobic feel intensified by the sense of impending attack. Because of the constant threat, the men spend most of their day inside the containers. With summer temperatures topping 50C, conditions can be grim.
The men's routine is one of constantly revolving guard duty in the camp's three watchtowers. There are four to a tower, and they sleep in a shipping container underneath. At night they guard in pairs to keep each other awake. The senior NCOs and Corsi work the same 24-hour shift pattern in the radio room. There are no showers or laundry, just wet wipes for washing and ration packs to eat. The time crawls by. The men pass the long hours playing cards and video games, watching DVDs and listening to their iPods, and waiting for the next rocket attack.
Last month a massed attack by several hundred insurgents on a similar base in Kunar province to the north killed nine US soldiers and injured 15 in one day. The base had to be abandoned. Since the Taliban have regrouped, more of these isolated American camps are at risk of being picked off, though in general the situation remains a bloody, expensive stalemate.
The soldiers will stay at Margha for about a month, when the next Chinook will arrive to take them back to a forward operating base for two days' break - just enough time to rest, take a shower and do their laundry, before they are sent out to one of the other remote combat outposts for another month of relentless guard duty. The men do 15-month tours in Afghanistan.
Many of the soldiers wear black wristbands bearing the names of friends who have been killed. At Margha it seems that everyone has lost someone close. Corsi wears two wristbands. One is for his good friend Cpl Jacob Lowell, who was travelling in a Humvee when the Taliban fired down from the hills; a bullet went through the roof. Corsi has had extra metal plates welded to the tops of all his Humvees.
The other wristband is for his commanding officer, Major Thomas Bostick. 'I knew his wife and two daughters,' Corsi says. 'He was my mentor. It's a way to celebrate his life, and it helps me just remember.' The bands also help Corsi keep perspective. 'When you start to think selfish thoughts, like how close you are to going home, you just look down at your arm and remember that some people aren't able to go home.'
The Americans have lost more than 550 military personnel in Afghanistan since 2001. The British and American sectors are among the most dangerous areas to patrol in the country. US forces have the difficult mountain terrain and cross-border insurgents to deal with. The British in Helmand face threats both from an area that is a Taliban heartland and from warlords and drug barons whose fiefdoms thrive in the chaos of war. British military deaths in Afghanistan now stand at more than 100. The great majority of these have come since 2006 when the British moved into Helmand.
Margha's platoon medic, 22-year-old Specialist Trevor Ramey from Florida, hopes more than anything that his skills won't be needed again. It is only his first tour, but he is already a veteran. On his very first day in Afghanistan, at an outpost just north of Margha, he had a shocking reality check. He had just disembarked from the helicopter and put down his bags when he was called to treat an Afghan commander. 'The round traced the top of his skull and exposed his brain. They brought him in and it just blew my mind. I wasn't prepared for that in any way.'
Ramey's best friend Juan Restrepo, a fellow medic, was killed during a fire fight in Kunar. They had trained together, shared a room and deployed together. 'He was going to try and pull back another dead soldier. He took two AK-47 rounds to the neck. He was the only medic on the patrol, he couldn't tell anyone how to treat him. He died on the Medivac bird. I'm not going to deny it, I cried.' Ramey has lost five close friends during the tour. 'That sticks with you. Being here, it changes you.'
In the middle of my eight-day visit, I prepare to visit the Afghan border police at the old Margha fort to see how conditions compare down in the valley. Even though it is little over a mile away Corsi's men cannot leave the base and so cannot provide an escort. While I wait for the police to come and collect me the platoon sniper Danny Miller, 21, is instructed by Corsi to plot the exact range of points along my route so he can provide covering fire if I get into trouble. Miller has already had the Taliban in his sights - and pulled the trigger. 'It's unfortunate that it needs to be done,' he says. 'To me, when I look through the scope they are an enemy of the United States.' He explains that the police base is at the limit of his range. 'I can still hit someone at that range but it won't be accurate. But in the bazaar [half a mile away], I'll be able to drop the guy standing next to you.'
Within an hour of my return to the American base a policeman is kidnapped in the bazaar by three armed men and thrown into the boot of a car. In the radio room, Sgt Cowden does not rate his chances. 'Being a policeman I think they'll kill him, leave his body by the side of the road as an example not to work with the Americans.'
With the American military fighting simultaneous conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is not uncommon for soldiers to be on their third or fourth tour of duty. Such long deployments and the stress of combat are taking a serious toll. The rates for suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder among American soldiers are at record highs. An influential study estimated that one in five American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffers from post-traumatic stress.
Dr Ira Katz, the head of mental health services for Veterans Affairs - a government department that looks after the welfare of US war veterans - estimated recently that there were about 1,000 suicide attempts a month among war veterans, the highest number since records began.
The situation has got so bad that about 20,000 troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq have been prescribed antidepressants - 17 per cent of those currently serving in Afghanistan, and 12 per cent of those in Iraq. The drugs help the soldiers cope with the unimaginable stress - for an overstretched military, it helps keep them in the field.
Issuing drugs to armies is nothing new. Amphetamines were issued to various German, British, US and Japanese units during the Second World War to keep the men alert; prescribing amphetamines to American forces during Vietnam was widespread. But the wholesale issuing of antidepressants, sleeping pills and anxiety medicine to a military on active operations is a new and potentially shocking development. No one at Margha will talk about taking pills. Some feel they can't in the macho atmosphere of the army; others are worried that by admitting to it they could hurt their chances of promotion.
During their 15-month tour the soldiers get two weeks' leave. Ramey knows he has been affected by what he has seen - on his last return home his friends and family noticed changes in him, too. He came to Afghanistan in the hope of saving lives, but in the process he may have damaged his own. 'I guess this place has messed with me, subconsciously,' he says. 'My friend slept over at my hotel with his girlfriend one night. I'd been drinking and passed out drunk and they said I was screaming in my sleep. I had a dream I was still here.'
Stuart Webb is a journalist for Channel 4 News
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Pakistani Forces Battle Militants Amid Political Crisis
Movement to Oust Musharraf Fuels National Turmoil
Wall Street Journal By ZAHID HUSSAIN August 9, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani security forces engaged in fierce fighting with Islamic militants trying to expand their influence, amid a national crisis spurred by the ruling coalition's effort to oust President Pervez Musharraf.
At least 30 militants and seven Pakistani paramilitary troops died in renewed clashes near the border with Afghanistan, where helicopter gunships and mortars pounded insurgents' hideouts. The military's offensive, launched this week in the Bajaur tribal region, targets the center of al Qaeda and Taliban activities in Pakistan, according to Pakistani officials. In a separate incident, Taliban militants who effectively control a swath of the Afghan border beheaded two men and fatally shot a third after accusing them of spying for the government and the U.S.
"The militants are taking advantage of the existing political instability," said Talat Masood, a defense analyst and retired general. The struggle between President Musharraf and the ruling coalition has left a power vacuum, he said, and "no one seems to be in charge here."
The announcement Thursday by the leaders of the ruling coalition that they intend to proceed with the impeachment of Mr. Musharraf has plunged the country into turmoil. Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistan People's Party, the senior partner in the ruling coalition, and Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), accused Mr. Musharraf of conspiring to undermine the country's transition to democracy. Mr. Musharraf has told allies he has no intention of quitting and will oppose any move to oust him.
Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister, said Friday that his party members would return to the cabinet after having quit it in May, after the PPP refused to restore judges fired by Mr. Musharraf during a brief state of emergency late last year. The party has continued to support the government.
The looming showdown will be shaped by the question of who would replace Mr. Musharraf if he left office. PPP officials acknowledge that Mr. Zardari's ambition is to become president and that he is likely to be the party's candidate if the office were open. That could split the coalition. Mr. Sharif has privately indicated that he wouldn't support such a move.
Analysts said the impeachment process could drag on for weeks, and Mr. Musharraf, as president, retains the power to dismiss Parliament, though he has said in the past he won't exercise that power.
A serious concern is that the army, which so far has kept itself out of the fray, could be sucked into the situation, distracting it from the antiterrorism campaign. "The army is already losing its grip in the northern areas, and its involvement could have disastrous consequences" if it intervened in the political arena, said Mr. Masood.
Pakistan is under growing U.S. pressure to crack down on militants in its tribal areas, from which they launch attacks on Pakistani forces and on North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in neighboring Afghanistan. The lawless borderland is also considered a possible hiding place for senior al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden.
A senior military officer said the fragmentation of power in Islamabad and the absence of a clear direction from the government have contributed to the worsening situation.
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Outspun by the Taliban
The Sydney Morning Herald - World August 9, 2008
With the West outgunned on propaganda, the fight for the hearts and minds of Afghanistan is going backwards, writes Paul McGeough.
The Afghan air is thick with dangerous munitions. Compared with Iraq, more than twice as many combat sorties are flown. But as the Afghanistan conflict becomes more a war of information and propaganda, the words, graphs and data produced on both sides can be as lethal as the rockets and missiles dropped on the Taliban.
Inevitably, the information business is hazy. The US with its allies and the Taliban both seek to influence public opinion, either across the steppes of Central Asia or in the sitting rooms of the 40 nations that comprise the US and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.
But analysts dissecting their media efforts find the battle for hearts and minds is poised precariously. On the ground in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan, the Taliban and their allies are winning analysts' plaudits for the efficiency and effectiveness of a propaganda machine that increasingly keeps locals sitting on the fence in conflict-prone areas of the country.
On the other hand, one of Washington's most assiduous analysts of the so-called war on terror, Anthony Cordesman, is scathing in his critique of the quality and quantity of the information released by the US and its allies. With the exception of United Nations reporting on Afghanistan's burgeoning opium crop, Cordesman says that Afghanistan "is a largely unreported war in terms of useful, unclassified reporting by governments and NATO".
That's analyst speak. Cordesman, who is attached to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, is not saying that no information is released; just that what is available is quite useless to any serious attempt to get a meaningful fix on the course of the fighting, of threat developments and what he calls "relative success".
He spares none of the culprits. "The US government has cut back on its reporting ," he writes in a new report. "The Afghan government provides little or no useful data NATO has a long history of vacuous ministerial declarations "
By contrast, a study of Taliban propaganda by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group concludes that the fundamentalists successfully convey an impression that they have coherence and momentum "far greater than reality", both in Afghanistan and in the 40 alliance countries.
The Taliban have proved adept at fuelling people's existing grievances, suspicions and perceptions as they attempt to drive a wedge between the Afghans and the Government of Hamid Karzai and his international sponsors. Too often, the Karzai Government sought to crack down on the local media, rather than to engage it intelligently.
"The Afghan and other governments have failed to communicate robustly and honestly with their populations in a way that would help build and sustain popular will for a long-term endeavour," the ICG report argues.
Zubair Babakarkhail, a reporter with the Afghan Pajhwok news service, complained this week that neither the Taliban nor the Karzai Government could be believed. And the UN spokesman Aleem Siddique chimed in with a claim that the Taliban were better at reaching the media than the international forces based in Afghanistan.
Just 33 days short of the seventh anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, which provoked the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the tenor of the Cordesman and ICG reports is disturbing. It is particularly so, given the sense in this week's first conviction at a US war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay that perhaps the global counter-terrorism effort is running out of steam.
The guilty finding was against Osama bin Laden's driver - hardly terrorism's Mr Big, as the New York tabloids might describe him. With Osama bin Laden still free in the wilds of Pakistan, the 5 ½ year sentence for his driver is unlikely to resonate much beyond the studios of America's late-night news comedy shows.
The verdict and sentencing at Guantanamo came on the heels of a remarkable third report which provides a grand context in which to consider Cordesman's anxiety over the dearth of meaningful information on the Afghanistan war.
Global policy experts at the Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation have made an exhaustive study of the forces that determined the fate of almost 650 terrorist groups which operated between 1968 and 2006. Their objective was to examine how terrorist groups come to an end. The findings are sober reading. The most common demise for such groups - in 43 per cent of cases - was a transition to the political process. Effective police work defeated another 40 per cent and 10 per cent dissolved after emerging victorious.
Just 7 per cent were defeated militarily. For all the military effort directed at fighting terrorism, the overall scorecard is dismal.
Afghanistan has complexities which are unique and inseparable. The al-Qaeda dimension makes it a terrorist conflict. The Taliban and its associated groups make it an insurgency war with its own terrorist element. And the ease with which both terrorists and insurgents move back and forth across the Pakistan border elevates what often is treated as a national conflict to a more challenging regional rupture.
The RAND report concludes: "Our analysis suggests there is no battlefield solution to terrorism. Military force is usually too blunt an instrument The use of substantial US military power also runs the risk of turning the local population against the government by killing civilians." The report urges a combined police and intelligence effort and, when necessary, the use of local military force. "This means a light US military footprint or none at all," it says. "The US military can play a critical role in building indigenous capacity but should generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim societies, since its presence is likely to increase terrorist recruitment."
Afghans are due to go to the polls again next year. In 2004 the world genuinely celebrated their purple-painted, one-finger salute to democracy. But in the intervening years democracy has not taken hold and such is the rising level of violence that the postponement of next year's poll already is the subject of serious debate in Kabul and beyond.
Karzai's refusal to have political parties ensures that tribalism, cronyism and corruption persist at levels of nation-breaking, rather than nation-building. Nearly 65 per cent of Afghans say Karzai does a poor job in combating corruption and more than half believe he is failing at rebuilding the country. As his stocks plummet, the President's aides openly admit his best political asset these days is the absence of a credible alternative.
In the meantime, 40 per cent of Afghans say it's too early to say whether the Government and its foreign backers can defeat the Taliban. More than 40 per cent rate the Taliban to be stronger and more than 70 per cent have concluded that the Karzai Government should negotiate with the Taliban.
In the south-west, there has been a significant fall-away in public sentiment from those who see the Taliban as their greatest threat, who are opposed to the fundamentalists and who are conscious of a strong local police presence. By contract, the numbers aware of a strong Taliban presence in their communities have more than doubled.
The steady decline in positive ratings for US forces is alarming - down from 68 per cent in 2005 to 42 per cent in 2007. It is remarkable that a people which has lived with such privations could develop such a poor image of the world superpower in such a brief span of time, notwithstanding significant gains in fields such as education and health.
But the threat from roadside bombs is up 400 per cent since April. Fewer than 10 per cent of Afghans get electricity and never regularly. In Kabul, there were complaints this week that the supply is the worst it has been.
These are daily hardships that inform sagging public opinion more than, say, news of the death of 20 or a dozen insurgents on the Pakistan border. Given the focus on the body count, Cordesman observes that such data is easily accumulated but less relevant than data on indicators which are more difficult to measure - extortions, kidnappings, disappearances and displacements.
Assistance for agriculture is paltry - as little as 7 per cent of the whole aid kitty. But more than 70 per cent of the population engages in farming, including the hugely corrupting opium crop, Cordesman says. At the same time, the drug eradication effort has failed to prevent the steady growth of an industry which was a Taliban cash cow.
Cordesman's complaint on the absurd misdirection of foreign aid is borne out by reports this week from Afghanistan. In Kabul, the deputy head of the National Directorate of Security, Dr Abdullah, stood before a session of the Afghan parliament and openly accused "a number of its members" of "supporting drug traffickers and terrorists". In the eastern district of Nangarhar, a council of senior tribesmen accused the Kabul government of breaking its promise to improve health and educational services if they abandoned the cultivation of illegal poppies.
In his dry way, Cordesman observes that regular statements on the weight and street value of drug seizures are meaningless. What is needed, he says, is solid data on the number of key figures in drug groups who are captured or killed. Equally, data on eradication is meaningless unless it is overlaid with the impact of the eradication on the Taliban.
Washington has spent more than $6 billion to beef up the Afghan police service as a counter to the Taliban. But by some estimates not even one of the 433 police units that have undergone training is up to the counter-terrorism task envisaged in the RAND Corporation report.
Cordesman's complaint that reporting and analysis on progress in developing both the Afghan army and the police service was erratic, misleading and exaggerated is borne out by a fly-on-the-wall account published in The Washington Post on Wednesday, of an encounter between Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Hamid, a hapless police commander in the north, and Major Vincent Heintz, his New Yorker mentor.
Heintz's opening question was easy enough - how many officers did Hamid have? The commander knows he had 54 when he took up his district posting a few weeks earlier. But some were transferred; others simply disappeared.
Heintz: "Sir, would it be fair to say you don't know how many officers you have working here?"
Hamid: "No, I don't know."
The American swings the conversation to tactics and strategy. "My question to you, sir, is what is your plan to defend the district?"
Hamid: "My plan is to enforce the law. I'm not very familiar with the villages or which villages are vulnerable, and I don't have a plan. But I think we should ambush the Taliban."
Paul McGeough is Chief Correspondent of the Herald.
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Afghan troops and civilians surround RIR base after child death
Belfast Telegraph - News Saturday, 9 August 2008
Afghan soldiers and civilians have confronted troops at a Royal Irish Regiment base in Afghanistan following the death of child.
Trouble flared in the already volatile Sangin area of Helmand Province in the south of the country after indirect fire weapons used by British soldiers from the Parachute Regiment struck a mother and daughter.
Despite receiving urgent treatment from Royal Irish medics at a nearby joint Afghan National Army (ANA) and Operational Mentor Liaison Team (OMLT) patrol base, the child died.
The death sparked outrage among local people and members of the ANA, who then surrounded the RIR base.
“Two ANA sergeants began to rally some of their fellow soldiers and direct their frustration towards the Royal Irish soldiers in the base,” an MoD spokesman said.
“As the evening wore on a crowd of local nationals gathered outside the patrol base, again fuelled by this small, discontented ANA group.
“Warnings were given by the locals for the ANA to move out of the base so they could deal with the UK troops left there.”
The Royal Irish troops pulled out to another base after coming under fire, where they remained until the situation had calmed down.
“A senior ANA officer was flown out to the patrol base and, having assessed the situation, placed the two ANA sergeants under arrest,” the MoD spokesman said.
“Once the ringleaders had been dealt with a meeting was arranged with the local elders to discuss the incident.
“This meeting concluded that the death of the child and the injuries to her mother were purely accidental and the Royal Irish soldiers in the patrol base had done all they could to assist those injured.”
The incident occurred at the end of June. Last month six RIR soldiers were injured in a roadside bombing. Another member of the regiment also lost a leg during an attack in the same area earlier in the month.
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Battle lines move from Kashmir to Kabul
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong By M K Bhadrakumar Aug 9, 2008
There is wide acclaim today among Indian strategic analysts and diplomatic editors that New Delhi has scored a major diplomatic victory in Afghanistan and that its "influence" in Kabul has "peaked". This victory has come on the back of Washington's strategic pro-India tilt and, in the period since end-2001 to date, India's earmarking of a staggering US$1.2 billion as assistance for Afghan "reconstruction".
Some Indian cheerleaders expound the thesis that it is the hallmark of an aspiring great power to "first learn to become a net provider of regional security" - and Delhi must therefore step in and lend a hand in fixing the Afghan problem. Others visualize Afghanistan providing a "unique opportunity" to be of help to the United States, and that Delhi will eventually benefit from the payback by a grateful superpower that is sure to come. Yet
another Indian viewpoint is that it simply pays to rattle Islamabad by creating space for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. An invidious Indian argument is that Delhi should use Afghan soil to retaliate against Islamabad's support of Kashmiri militants.
In diplomacy, maybe, it pays to sidestep historical memory. Archives may contain only chronicles of wasted time. Very few Indian strategic analysts who at present hold forth on Afghanistan seem to be even remotely aware of how, like Karzai, the then head of state in Kabul, Dr Mohammad Najibullah, was a frequent visitor to Delhi in the late 1980s.
That, too, was a twilight zone in the 30-year-old Afghan war when the conflict, like today's, uneasily lingered in the shade. Fortunately for Delhi, though, the slow-rolling coup that worked its way through the Afghan labyrinth for months before culminating in the morning of April 16, 1992, with Najib's ouster, didn't come entirely as surprise. Indian diplomats soon began diligently seeking out the Afghan mujahideen in the dangerous Hindu Kush mountains, to explain to those new masters the cold rationale of India's exceedingly warm friendship with Najib.
They explained patiently that it was after all a strictly state-to-state, government-to-government relationship with Najib, shorn of ideology or religion or commitments. The Northern Alliance's Ahmad Shah Massoud still looked away as elements in his militia systematically ransacked the Indian Embassy, forcing its diplomats to flee Kabul.
Yet, within no time, by the mid-1990s, Massoud had become India's key Afghan ally - or, as much as he could be anyone's ally. Certainly, it remains a tantalizing proposition whether with all the Indian help Taliban rule could have been overthrown but for al-Qaeda's historic decision to attack New York and Washington in September 2001.
Historically, there has never been a dearth of justification for Indian involvement in Afghanistan. At the time of the Afghan jihad in the 1980s against the Soviets, Indian policy maintained that secular India had everything to lose with the advent of Islamism in the region - encouraged as a factor of Cold War geopolitics by the US - and that Najib provided a bulwark against the Islamist mujahideen based in Peshawar in Pakistan. But Delhi swiftly switched tack after the mujahideen takeover in 1992.
It found itself networking instead with a mujahideen group that was famously rooted in political Islam - the Jamiat-i-Islami, belonging to the Afghan-based Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen, which had strong links with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Following the appearance of the Taliban in the mid-1990s, India confidently took the side of the Northern Alliance. In political terms, this phase signified a wholesale embrace of Islamists, as the Northern Alliance comprised a variety of radical Islamist groups (including die-hard mujahideen groups like the Ittihad-i-Islami, which followed the Wahhabi ideology and enjoyed generous funding during the Afghan jihad from wealthy Saudi benefactors, including from Osama bin Laden).
The changed rationale was that the Taliban represented the dark forces of "obscurantism" and "extremism", which posed a threat to regional security and stability. However, since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, Delhi incrementally distanced itself from the Northern Alliance. Instead, Delhi began supporting the US-backed power setup in Kabul. The pro-US policy was rationalized in terms of the upcoming struggle against "terrorism" proclaimed by US President George W Bush.
No one knows how much of its surplus capital Delhi ended up spending on various Afghan groups through the three decades - and, more important, what durable dividend it brought for India. Unfortunately, the Indian political system doesn't insist on stocktaking. The 59-year-old Indian parliament is yet to evolve a system of in-camera hearings, which is a redeeming feature of most serious democracies in the world, including neighboring Iran. All through the painful twists and turns, Indian policy towards Afghanistan was steeped in pragmatism and remained largely Pakistan-centric. But things seem to be changing. The horizons appear to have vastly expanded. According to Pakistani writer Ahmed Rashid, Kabul is "replacing Kashmir as the main area of antagonism" between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani security establishment has convinced itself that Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies are engaged in undermining Pakistan's security. American analysts say Afghanistan has explicitly become a theater of Pakistan-In
dia adversarial relations.
But there is a much larger dimension. The Pakistani establishment is also sizing up the new geopolitical reality - the unprecedented pro-India tilt in the US's regional policy. It is having a hard time coping with the trilateral consensus between Kabul, Delhi and Washington, which pillories Islamabad as the "primary and near-exclusive trouble maker" in the region. The Pakistani establishment cannot accept that while Islamabad remains a key partner for Washington in the "war on terror", it is Delhi that is on the way to becoming a stakeholder in US global strategies.
Indeed, the National Defense Strategy document released by the Pentagon in Washington on July 31 confirms the worst Pakistani suspicions. It underscores, "We [the US] look to India to assume greater responsibility as a stakeholder in the international system, commensurate with its growing economic, military and soft power." India is the only country hailed in this fashion in the entire 29-page document.
The Pentagon seems to have overlooked how such a vehement US national defense strategy pronouncement citing India as a pivotal country would go down with the Pakistani generals. To be sure, Delhi finds the US doctrine to be immensely attractive. This is how the Indian elite always wanted the US to view India. But the Pakistani perspective sees the emerging regional equations as a dangerous slide toward Indian military superiority and regional "hegemony". How does the Pakistani military, weaned on adversarial feelings towards India, countenance such a challenge? First, Pakistan will assert its legitimate interests in Afghanistan, no matter what it takes. Make no mistake about it. The Pakistani generals know what transpired when American and British top brass met in Britain last month to exchange notes on Afghanistan. The conclave assessed there were huge problems with the Karzai regime's performance and the war might last for another 30 years, which is a hopeless scenario, as "war fatigue" is setting in among
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies and the tide of public opinion is turning against the war. But that isn't all.
From the Pakistani perspective, whereas in the past India essentially developed its own line toward Kabul, it is today acting in concert with the US. Meanwhile, India is also working towards establishing formal ties with NATO. For the first time, the Pentagon invited India to take part in the two-week Red Flag air exercise, which is currently underway in Nevada. And in September, NATO will deploy in southern Afghanistan one of its seven ultra-sophisticated Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, capable of peering deep inside Pakistan.
On the eve of the US-India military exercises in Nevada, which also includes NATO participation, the commander-in-chief of Russia's air force, General Alexander Zelin, was quoted as saying that Russia's strategic bombers may soon start patrolling the Indian Ocean. A prominent strategic analyst at the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of World Economy and International Relations Center for International Security in Moscow, Vladimir Yevseyev, commented that Zelin's statement was intended to "warn" India, as the US has "come to regard the Indian Ocean as a zone of its priority interests".
In other words, though Indian rhetoric on Afghanistan is carefully couched in terms of countering terrorism, Pakistan doesn't see it that way. Instead, it views it in much larger terms as an Indian thrust, supported by the US, as the pre-eminent regional power in South Asia. In recent weeks, Pakistani military raised the ante along the Line of Control bordering the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The resurgence of tensions seems a calibrated move. Islamabad is sending some signals.
Nasim Zehra, a relatively moderate, sensible voice in the Pakistani strategic community, wrote recently, "It is time for Pakistan to categorically state: enough of Pakistan bashing, enough of vacuous Kantian moralizing in a Hobbesian world, enough of the do-more mantra and enough of partisan analysis, enough of selective perceptions, enough of double standards Pakistan will play 'as clean as the world around it'. Take it or leave it. There is no 'going it alone' for any of Pakistan's neighbors.
"No matter what anyone's GDP [gross domestic product] may be or their nuclear arsenal, we are in this mess together That is the message of the spreading militancy The region will unravel if the governments in the area and those involved outsiders like Washington do not make it a common cause to jointly work to address the causes of growing militancy. The answer lies in a regional solution."
The message is simple: If Pakistan goes down, it will take India down with it. There is no such thing as absolute security.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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Afghanistan hopes to end Olympic medal drought
Xinhua, China www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-08
BEIJING-Afghanistan's Olympic delegation strode into the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday night.
The delegation, whose only four athletes arrived in the Chinese capital one day before the Olympics open, is seeking a historic medal in the Beijing Games.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Afghanistan from Olympic competition in 1999 for the Taliban ruling. After missing the 2000 Sydney Games, Afghan athletes were allowed to participate in the Athens Games since the IOC lifted the ban in 2002.
Runner Mehboba Andyar, the only female Afghan athlete in Beijing, will compete in the 1,500 and 3,000 meters events.
Ahdyar spent years training for her chance on the world supreme athletic stage. In spite of the change in Afghanistan's political fortunes, the only female Olympian has faced daily taunts from her more conservative neighbors, vicious rumors about her character, and even death threats from extremists.
Ahdyar left her training camp in June to seek political asylum in Norway, saying she just wanted undistracted training.
In Athens, women's athletes Friba Razayee and Robina Muqim Yaar represented Afghanistan for the first time in the country's history.
Afghanistan's best Olympic finish was Mohammed Ebrahimi's fifth place in wrestling at the Tokyo Games in 1964.
Afghanistan, a mountainous Islamic country in Central Asia with a population of about 31 million, has a history and culture that goes back over 5,000 years.
The most popular sport in Afghanistan is buzkashi, a team sport played on horseback. The second most popular sport is soccer, followed by cricket.
Editor: Xinhuanet
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