 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Pakistani envoy to Kabul feared abducted
Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan was missing and feared kidnapped in a tribal border region, state television quoted the foreign ministry as saying Monday.
Afghan governor survives bombing attack
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The governor of an important and volatile southern province in Afghanistan escaped an apparent assassination attempt Monday after a bomb exploded by his vehicle convoy, officials said.
Top Taliban commander arrested in Pakistan: police
by Maaz Khan
QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani security forces captured and wounded a top Afghan Taliban commander early on Monday, police said, days after Islamabad denied the presence of senior militants on its soil.
U.S., Britain Intensify Push for Civilian Envoy to Afghanistan
By Mark Deen
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and Britain stepped up pressure on the United Nations to appoint a civilian envoy to Afghanistan to coordinate international development efforts.
NATO's Afghan mission at risk, say Britain, U.S.
Mon Feb 11, 8:28 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - The reluctance of NATO allies to send more troops and resources to Afghanistan is jeopardizing the military mission there, the United States and Britain said on Monday.
U.S. Marines to help Canada's soldiers in the south this summer
PAUL KORING February 11, 2008 The Globe and Mail
More than 2,000 battle-hardened, U.S. Marines will reinforce Canada's hard-pressed soldiers in southern Afghanistan during this summer's fighting season. Replacing those marines in the spring of 2009 - even with a contingent
Afghan Opium Fields Show Failure of U.S. Economic-Aid Efforts
By Ken Fireman
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The strategy combined economic development, drug control and security: two Afghan-American brothers with a factory in Kandahar and a plan to give opium farmers an incentive to grow cotton instead.
Conflicting Assessments of War in Afghanistan
The Washington Post By Peter Baker Monday, February 11, 2008
President Bush famously doesn't like long memos. So if retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones hoped to get Bush's attention with the report he produced on Afghanistan, he was clever enough to be blunt from the start.
French Rafale jets take off from Afghan base for first time
Mon Feb 11, 3:15 AM ET
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AFP) - Two French Rafale fighter jets took off from the main NATO air base in southern Afghanistan for the first time Monday in support of international efforts against extremists.
Afghanistan suffers worst winter in 30 years
(CNN) -- Aid workers have launched emergency responses to help people in rugged and poverty-stricken central and western Afghanistan, enduring what the United Nations is describing as "the harshest winter in nearly 30 years."
Canadians 'winning' in Kandahar, general says
Detailed assessment by top commander shows decrease in ambushes in key districts
GRAEME SMITH From Monday's Globe and Mail February 11, 2008 at 4:51 AM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Secret military statistics show that Taliban attacks have decreased in Kandahar's core districts in the past year, illustrating the success of Canada's new strategy of pulling back its troops into
Miliband urges NATO not to abandon Afghanistan
Mon Feb 11, 5:07 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Afghanistan could degenerate into a "failed state" if NATO were to pull out troops and abandon efforts to stabilize the country, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Monday.
S. Korea to Send Medical Staff to Afghanistan
Korea Times, South Korea
South Korea will this week dispatch an advance contingent of mostly civilian medical staff to Afghanistan to help with reconstruction efforts in the war-wracked nation, the foreign ministry said Monday.
'Afghan mullah, sons killed making bomb'
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A militant mullah and his two children were killed when a bomb he was making in his southern Afghanistan home prematurely exploded, a police chief has said.
MoD gives culture guides to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
Mon Feb 11, 3:56 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - The Ministry of Defence has given the country's more than 12,000 soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan social interaction guides to help them communicate with the local population, The Times reported on Monday.
WINNING AFGHANISTAN
THE US STRATEGY IS A SUCCESS. IT'S NATO AND HAMID KARZAI THAT ARE THE REAL PROBLEMS.
NEW YORK POST By ANN MARLOWE
February 10, 2008 -- They stood out sharply against the worn concrete buildings and battered cars on the potholed road our convoy followed: two soaring solar-powered street lamps provided by the US Army.
Afghanistan Plays Down Taliban Threat - AFP
KABUL (AFP)--Afghanistan's defense ministry said Monday the threat from the Taliban-led insurgency was "not as serious" as it was being portrayed outside the country.
Road paving in southern Afghanistan helps the living, honours the dead
The Canadian Press
PANJWAII DISTRICT, Afghanistan - Roads are for the living but the Canadian military has begun a massive road-building project that will also honour the dead in one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.
Taliban chief vows to intensify attacks in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-11 19:45:37
KABUL, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Taliban's elusive chief Mullah Mohammad Omar on Monday vowed to accelerate militants' activities against Afghan and international troops based in Afghanistan.
Stay the course or face 'dire consequences,' Afghanistan ambassador warns
The Canadian Press 11/02/2008 TORONTO
As a fierce political debate rages in Ottawa over the length of Canada's military mission to Afghanistan, the country's ambassador on Sunday called on Canadians to stay the course, and warned of potentially drastic results if international forces leave too soon.
Soccer as an Escape to Hope for Afghan Teenager
By JOE DRAPE February 11, 2008 The New York Times
BLAIRSTOWN, N.J. — In world religion class, Shamila Kohestani is neither the adolescent who defied the Taliban in Afghanistan nor the symbol of liberation that shared the stage with stars from Hollywood and sports at the 2006 ESPY
Two Myths About Afghanistan
Washington Post By Ann Marlowe Monday, February 11, 2008
As Western leaders and Congress debate NATO's responsibilities in Afghanistan, it's time to dissolve two great American illusions about Afghanistan.
No Progress on extremism unless there is representative government
Renowned journalist Ahmed Rashid on the latest situation in the tribal belt, the mistakes made and possible solutions
Interview Ahmed Rashid, The News By Farah Zia 10 February 2008.
The News on Sunday: The Americans are saying they want to deploy ground troops in Pakistan. What kind of consequences will it have?
Back to Top
Pakistani envoy to Kabul feared abducted
Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan was missing and feared kidnapped in a tribal border region, state television quoted the foreign ministry as saying Monday.
Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin was heading to the Afghan capital, Kabul, from the tribal district of Khyber when he went missing, Pakistan Television quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
Islamist militants have carried out attacks in the region.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan governor survives bombing attack
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The governor of an important and volatile southern province in Afghanistan escaped an apparent assassination attempt Monday after a bomb exploded by his vehicle convoy, officials said.
The bomb, aimed at the convoy of Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid, wounded three civilians, Khalid's office said in a statement. Khalid was not wounded, it said.
Kandahar is the former stronghold of the Taliban movement and is a major producer of opium poppies. The province has seen fierce fighting involving U.S., NATO and Taliban forces the last two years.
Also Monday, the reclusive leader of the Taliban said through a spokesman that the Islamic militia is not a threat to other countries and called on citizens of NATO nations to pressure their governments to withdraw troops from the country.
Mullah Omar said the U.S. military has failed in Afghanistan and that is why the Pentagon is pressuring other NATO countries to send more troops, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid quoted Omar as saying. Mujahid has spoken on behalf of Omar previously, though the validity of his statements could not be verified.
Pakistan's army, meanwhile, said its troops critically wounded and captured a top Taliban official after a gunbattle near the country's border with Afghanistan. The army said Mansoor Dadullah and six other militants were caught after crossing into southwestern Pakistan.
The blast against Khalid's convoy follows a suicide bomb attack that killed the deputy governor of neighboring Helmand province late last month as he was praying inside a mosque in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.
Militants have often attacked governors and other officials affiliated with President Hamid Karzai's administration in an attempt to weaken the government's command over the country. Khalid has survived previous assassination attempts.
Also in the south, a militant cleric and two of his children were killed when a bomb he was preparing in his home exploded prematurely, an Afghan official said Monday.
Mullah Abdul Wasay was tinkering with the explosives at his home Saturday night in Helmand province when they blew up, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said. Wasay's wife and daughter were seriously wounded, he said.
Troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force, meanwhile, killed an Afghan riding in a car that drove too close to the soldiers in the western province of Farah, ISAF said in a statement. Soldiers signaled the driver not to approach and fired a warning shot at the ground, ISAF said.
"ISAF troops continued on and were later informed by Afghan National Police that their warning shot had ricocheted and injured the car's driver and killed the passenger," the international military alliance said.
ISAF said the shot fell within rules of engagement that help protect troops from suicide bombers.
Last year, the Taliban staged more than 140 suicide missions — the highest number since they were ousted from power by the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.
Insurgency-related violence in 2007 killed a record 6,500 people, mostly militants, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials. The majority of those deaths were in the south, and particularly in Helmand.
Omar's comments about not being a threat to NATO countries could be seen as an effort to distinguish the Taliban militia from al-Qaida, which operates in the same Afghanistan-Pakistan region as Taliban militants.
He said through Mujahid that the Taliban has a right to "defend our country."
"We are not a threat to other countries. But we have to use our rights when our country is occupied by foreign forces," Mujahid quoted Omar as saying. "We want the people of other countries to pressure their governments not to send troops to Afghanistan."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been pushing NATO countries to increase their troop levels in Afghanistan. Last week Gates said he fears NATO may become a "two-tiered alliance," with "some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security, and others who are not."
Of the 42,000 NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, about 14,000 are American. The U.S. has an additional 13,000 operating separately hunting terrorists and training Afghan forces.
___
Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Top Taliban commander arrested in Pakistan: police
by Maaz Khan
QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani security forces captured and wounded a top Afghan Taliban commander early on Monday, police said, days after Islamabad denied the presence of senior militants on its soil.
Mullah Mansoor Dadullah -- the brother of the Islamist movement's slain military commander in Afghanistan -- and four other rebels were seized in southwestern Baluchistan province, provincial police chief Saud Gohar said.
The announcement comes amid a slew of warnings from US officials that senior militant leaders are operating in Pakistan's border areas and posing a threat to security throughout the region.
Dadullah "has been wounded and arrested early this morning. He resisted when our men launched an operation," in the village of Gowal Ismail Zai, near the Afghan border, Gohar told AFP.
"We had reports of his presence from intelligence sources... he was hiding in a house in the village. Four others were also arrested including three guards of Dadullah," the police chief added.
Some women and children were also in the house and Pakistani authorities were investigating their links to the detained commander, a security source said.
In Kabul, Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi welcomed the news of Dadullah's capture but would not comment further.
A senior Afghan official said on condition of anonymity that reports received by the government suggested the capture was linked to a dispute between Dadullah and the Taliban's central command.
Dadullah had succeeded his elder brother -- the Taliban's most top military commander Mullah Dadullah -- who was killed in an Afghan and NATO operation in southern Afghanistan in May 2007.
The Taliban said in a statement late December that they had sacked Mansoor Dadullah "because he disobeyed orders of the Islamic Emirate" of the Taliban.
But a spokesman for the commander denied that he was fired, leading to speculation of infighting among the rebels.
This came at the same time that media reports emerged that British intelligence agents were involved in talks with senior Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, although it was never clear who they might have been.
There was no immediate confirmation of the arrest from the Taliban.
Zabihullah Mujahed, a Taliban spokesman, said Mansoor Dadullah was one of five Taliban who were freed in May last year in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo.
The Afghan government has never said which prisoners were released in the controversial deal.
News of Dadullah's capture comes a day after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the country's border regions posed a direct threat to the Islamabad government.
Pakistan on Saturday dismissed a senior but unnamed US official's assertion that Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were operating from regions along the Afghan border.
A top Al-Qaeda operative, Abu Laith al-Libbi, was killed in a suspected US missile strike in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan last month.
The Islamic extremist Taliban militia ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and gave sanctuary to bin Laden, who masterminded the September 11 attacks in the United States.
A US-led invasion in October 2001 ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, but they have regrouped and are putting up increasingly stiff resistance to NATO-led international forces.
Allied Pakistani Taliban militants have meanwhile stepped up an insurgency on their side of the border and have been linked by Islamabad to the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in December.
Back to Top
Back to Top
U.S., Britain Intensify Push for Civilian Envoy to Afghanistan
By Mark Deen
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and Britain stepped up pressure on the United Nations to appoint a civilian envoy to Afghanistan to coordinate international development efforts.
``There hasn't been sufficient strategic focus,'' Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told journalists in London. The U.S. wants a ``senior figure, preferably a European, who could be the central organizer of the civilian effort,'' he said.
Construction of the Afghan economy and civic organizations need to run alongside NATO's battle to defeat Taliban insurgents, Burns said. The development effort was hindered last month when Afghan President Hamid Karzai vetoed the appointment of Britain's Paddy Ashdown, a former troubleshooter in Bosnia, to oversee the project.
``The whole international community needs a better relationship with President Karzai,'' U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on BBC Radio 4's Today program. ``Troops alone are not going to be the answer. It has to be the building up of society.''
Burns will meet with officials at the Foreign Office today to discuss Afghanistan. Other topics to be discussed include Iran, Iraq, Darfur and Burma, he said. North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders are due to meet in April.
Back to Top
Back to Top
NATO's Afghan mission at risk, say Britain, U.S.
Mon Feb 11, 8:28 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - The reluctance of NATO allies to send more troops and resources to Afghanistan is jeopardizing the military mission there, the United States and Britain said on Monday.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Afghanistan risked becoming a "failed state" unless more effort were made to fight Islamic militants, and U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns appealed in London for more help from Europeans.
U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001, but Taliban rebels launched an insurgency two years ago and violence has risen sharply since then.
Miliband, who visited Afghanistan last week with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said it was vital other NATO members increase their commitment.
"It would help precipitate even more dangerous insecurity in Afghanistan (if the international community pulled out)," Miliband told BBC radio. "If more effort is not made, Afghanistan risks becoming a 'failed state'."
"We do need the whole of the international community, including European countries, to step up," he said.
Burns, speaking before talks with British officials on Afghanistan and other areas of foreign policy, said it was unfair that a few NATO members -- mentioning the Americans, British, Dutch and Canadians -- were shouldering the burden.
"It is incumbent on us to say, with great respect, we need help from Germany and the other major west European countries," he told reporters, when asked about Germany's involvement.
"It's hard to think of a successful military operation when the majority of the capitals are saying we decide where and when the troops are deployed," he said.
He referred to the large number of Canadian casualties, adding: "For Canada to do all that and not have the support of every country in the alliance to come and help with resupply, with helicopters, with combat troops, is not a recipe for success."
But Burns said he did believe NATO's mission was heading "in the right direction" and would ultimately defeat the Taliban.
France has indicated a willingness to send more troops, but Germany has been adamant it cannot do more.
Britain, the second largest contributor to the 43,000-strong ISAF international peace force, is feeling intense pressure as its 7,000 soldiers -- based mostly in southern Helmand province -- battle increasingly fierce resistance and casualties rise.
Aside from the military campaign, Miliband and Burns stressed the need for greater effort on the civilian side.
Burns said he was worried that the civilian effort had been "disjointed" and hoped the appointment of a new United Nations envoy could help coordinate this. Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected Britain's Paddy Ashdown for the role.
(Reporting by Katherine Baldwin and Kate Kelland, editing by Tim Pearce)
Back to Top
Back to Top
U.S. Marines to help Canada's soldiers in the south this summer
PAUL KORING February 11, 2008 The Globe and Mail
More than 2,000 battle-hardened, U.S. Marines will reinforce Canada's hard-pressed soldiers in southern Afghanistan during this summer's fighting season. Replacing those marines in the spring of 2009 - even with a contingent less than half as big - is the enormous challenge bedevilling NATO.
The Harper government has threatened to quit fighting the Taliban in February of 2009 unless another North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally sends at least 1,000 more troops to southern Afghanistan.
France, with its first-rate military, long experience in fighting third-world insurgencies, and fewer of the political or historical considerations that are keeping German, Spanish and Italian troops far from the fray, is considered the most likely contributor.
There may be few other alternatives. NATO, despite claiming to be the world's most potent alliance with nearly one million soldiers, will be hard pressed to find reinforcements capable of waging counterinsurgency warfare half a world away.
Britain and the United States - already fielding the largest fighting contingents in Afghanistan - are overstretched. Many NATO allies simply lack the capacity to deploy a credible combat force.
Finding a nominal battalion is easy; fielding a fighting force is far harder. Ten of the 26 NATO allies have sent token contingents of fewer than 250 soldiers. Among non-NATO nations, a contingent sometimes means sending a soldier to carry a flag. Five of the 41 countries "contributing" to the International Security Assistance Force have three or fewer soldiers in Afghanistan.
Putting a combat-capable force into southern Afghanistan requires far more than just a few hundred infantry with armoured vehicles. Canada's deployment of 2,500 includes about 250 stationed at a supply and support air base in Dubai. Of the remaining 2,250 in Afghanistan, only about one-third are "outside the wire" of Kandahar air base conducting combat and security operations against the Taliban.
Canada could send a second battle group to Kandahar, but that would seriously overstrain its relatively small army (smaller than the Toronto police force) and would likely require doubling the length of deployments to one year. While that is still shorter than the 15-month deployments the U.S. Army uses in Afghanistan, an increase in Canadian commitment seems politically impossible.
Among the big European allies with sizeable militaries capable of deploying a beefed-up mechanized infantry battalion with artillery and logistics support, Germany, Spain and Italy have already deployed to Afghanistan but domestic politics makes a full-blown combat role unlikely.
Britain has almost doubled its combat commitment to southern Afghanistan and has sent warplanes, helicopters and three times as many ground troops as Canada. Any further increase to the British commitment seems likely to go to Helmand province where the Taliban insurgency is at least as hot as in Kandahar.
Although France already has more than 12,000 troops deployed abroad, with major commitments in Lebanon, West Africa, Chad, Kosovo and Afghanistan, shifting its 1,500-soldier contingent from Kabul to shore up the embattled southern regional command when the U.S. marines leave seems a real possibility. France may also opt to add one of its elite fighting battalions from the French Foreign Legion.
Alternatively, the Pentagon may have to take up the slack again. U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates's decision to send 3,200 U.S. Marines (two-thirds of them to southern Afghanistan) this year reflected the reality that Washington had failed to pressure the major European allies into taking on a fighting role.
Although Mr. Gates has insisted the marines will deploy only until November, no U.S. administration is likely to risk triggering a pull-out by one of the few allies willing to take on a combat role.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan Opium Fields Show Failure of U.S. Economic-Aid Efforts
By Ken Fireman
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The strategy combined economic development, drug control and security: two Afghan-American brothers with a factory in Kandahar and a plan to give opium farmers an incentive to grow cotton instead.
For two years, Yosuf and Abdul Mir pleaded with U.S. officials for a $1.5 million grant for their project, arguing that it meshes perfectly with a billion-dollar-a-year American opium-eradication program. Then, last year, they were turned down.
The Agency for International Development's refusal reflects a broader American policy breakdown in Afghanistan, according to critics: Even as the U.S. and NATO win tactical military battles against the Taliban, they may be losing the war through an inability to create the economic and political environment needed to defeat the insurgents.
The decision against funding the cotton proposal ``is a remarkable example of the failure to align our tools with our strategy,'' Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at New York University, said in Jan. 23 testimony to the House Armed Services Committee.
The long western effort to shore up Afghanistan after the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 stands at what former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, the co-author of a new report on the enterprise, calls ``a critical crossroads.''
Faltering Mission
In the Jan. 30 report, Pickering and the other members of the Afghanistan Study Group concluded that the ``mission to stabilize Afghanistan is faltering'' in the face of mounting violence and insecurity, increasing drug production and declining Afghani confidence in ``their government and its international partners.''
On the security front, the report points to a sharp increase in violent attacks, especially roadside bombs and suicide explosions, by the Taliban and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. Reported acts of violence in Afghanistan rose to 8,950 last year from 900 in 2004, according to former Lieutenant General David Barno, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005.
Roadside bombings rose to 1,469 from 325 in the same period, while suicide bombings increased to 130 from 3, Barno told the House Armed Services Committee on Jan. 23.
While most attacks have taken place in the Taliban's southern stronghold, some are now plaguing areas once thought relatively secure, such as the Jan. 14 attack on a luxury hotel in Kabul that left eight dead.
Iraq's Impact
Bush administration critics such as Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, say the U.S. and its allies ``risk a strategic failure in Afghanistan.'' Skelton and other Democrats argue that President George W. Bush's refusal to pull back from Iraq has crippled the effort in the more important Afghan conflict.
U.S. spending on Afghanistan has been skewed toward the military. According to a November report by the Congressional Research Service, 93 percent of the $163 billion spent since 2001 has gone to the Pentagon, while about 7 percent has been used for aid and diplomacy.
Administration officials say critics are missing some positive developments. The officials say the insurgents are turning to terror, for example, because they can no longer fight conventional battles or hold territory.
``The Taliban are losing on the battlefield repeatedly,'' Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said at a Senate hearing on Jan. 31. ``As they've lost on the battlefield, they've resorted more and more to tactics of pure terror.''
More Troops
Still, U.S. Army General Dan McNeill, who commands the NATO force in Afghanistan, says at least 7,500 more troops are needed. The U.S. reluctantly agreed to send an additional 3,200; no other member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has offered more. The issue is certain to arise at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, in April.
Meanwhile, Pickering and retired Marine General James Jones, the former supreme Allied commander in Europe who headed the Afghanistan Study Group, say the U.S. effort is also faltering on the economic and political fronts, including the Afghan government's rejection last month of British diplomat Paddy Ashdown to serve as international aid coordinator.
They also point to a surge in Afghan opium-poppy production despite an intense U.S. eradication effort, saying the campaign is failing because it doesn't provide an alternative crop for impoverished Afghan farmers and is turning the farmers into Taliban sympathizers.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in November that the value of Afghan opium exports in 2007 rose 29 percent over the previous year and was equal to 53 percent of the country's legitimate gross domestic product. A follow-up report issued Feb. 6 said opium production this year would be at or near 2007 levels.
Profits From Opium
The issue has great strategic significance because insurgents and criminals reap ``windfall'' profits from the opium trade, the agency says.
That's where the Mir brothers and their factory come in -- or want to. Yosuf Mir says the plant could provide as many as 18,000 jobs, as well as a guaranteed cotton and wool market for local farmers who now grow opium for lack of an alternative.
``If we don't do this, they're just going to grow more narcotics,'' says Mir, 49, in an interview.
Mir says he and his brother put together a deal in 2005 to renovate and run the plant, won the support of the Afghan government and got more than 2,000 farmers to sign pledges agreeing to switch from opium to cotton.
They applied to USAID for a grant under a program that funds alternatives to opium production, and got what they believed was a tentative okay in 2006 from Chemonics International, a Washington-based company that administers USAID projects in Afghanistan.
Project Rejected
A year later, in June 2007, Chemonics rejected the project without explanation. A letter in October from the head of the State Department's Office of Afghanistan, John Fox, said the refusal was prompted by a congressional ban on funding projects that would compete with U.S. farmers.
Mir says that explanation makes no sense, because whatever is produced in his plant will only be marketed domestically. ``There's no way Afghan cotton is going to compete with American cotton,'' he says. ``We don't want to send anything to the United States.''
USAID said in a statement that the congressional ban on competitive projects was the reason for the rejection. The agency also said grant decisions under the program in question are made by Chemonics. ``It is ultimately USAID money, but we hire them to do the administrative work,'' the agency said.
Chemonics spokesman Sean Killian said his company had no comment on the case.
Rubin, who is director of studies at NYU's Center on International Cooperation, says the decision highlights what is lacking in U.S. policy toward Afghanistan: ``a multifaceted, focused strategy which brings together military, political and economic elements.''
Back to Top
Back to Top
Conflicting Assessments of War in Afghanistan
The Washington Post By Peter Baker Monday, February 11, 2008
President Bush famously doesn't like long memos. So if retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones hoped to get Bush's attention with the report he produced on Afghanistan, he was clever enough to be blunt from the start. "Make no mistake," the report says in its first line. "NATO is not winning in Afghanistan."
If Bush read that far into the report, he evidently disagrees. During his speech Friday to the Conservative Political Action Conference, the president offered a far rosier view of the situation in Afghanistan than even his own top military and civilian advisers hold. "The Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies are on the run," Bush declared to the audience of supporters.
Lest he be accused of making a "last throes" type of statement, much as Vice President Cheney once declared of the insurgents in Iraq, Bush went on to note that "Afghanistan has a long road ahead." But that was the end of the pessimism for him. The rest of his assessment was upbeat. Democracy is on the march, he reported. Roads and bridges are being built. Girls are going to school. No mention of his decision to send 3,200 more Marines because of spiking violence.
Military officials reported that 2007 saw more U.S. casualties than any year since the 2001 operation to push the Taliban out of power. Today, according to most assessments, the Taliban and its allies do not control territory but operate with impunity from bases in Pakistan. U.S. forces beat the Taliban in any direct engagement but have been unable to defeat them strategically. Reconstruction remains spotty and opium production a growing problem.
"We are seeing only mixed progress," Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates agreed. "I would say that while we have been successful militarily, that the other aspects of development in Afghanistan have not proceeded as well," he told the same hearing.
Jones, the former NATO commander, does not couch his judgment. In a pair of reports that he oversaw, he made clear he views the situation in dire terms. One of them described "a stalemate of sorts" in which the Taliban cannot beat U.S. and NATO forces but "neither can our forces eliminate the Taliban by military means as long as they have sanctuary in Pakistan."
The report goes on to say that "urgent changes are required now to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a failing or failed state."
A senior administration official briefing reporters just hours after Bush's speech said the president was right in the sense that the Taliban is not winning. "Tactically, on the security front, I'd say we're winning," the official said. "The challenge with Afghanistan is, that's not good enough. It's on some of the other elements of the mission that we're not doing well."
The Best Guess
Bush hates it when people try to figure out his complex relationship with his father and how it influences the decisions he makes as president. "Shallow psychobabble," he scoffed to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" yesterday. "A bunch of people obviously got too much time on their hands."
And yet the president can't help providing more to babble about. Last week during his CPAC speech, he made a joking reference to his father that could be read as pretty cutting. "I appreciate the fact you invited Vice President Cheney here," the president told the activists. "He is the best vice president in history." After the applause died down, he added slyly, "Mother may have a different opinion. But don't tell her I said this, but my opinion is the one that counts."
George H.W. Bush, of course, served as vice president for eight years. This is hardly the first time the current president has seemed to slight his father's presidency. In private, he has made clear he wanted to do things differently than his father, whether it came to foreign affairs or winning reelection. Publicly, he identified himself politically more readily with Ronald Reagan than his father. At one point, asked by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward if he turned to his father for advice on Iraq, he answered, "There is a higher father that I appeal to."
The president thinks too much is read into such remarks. When the subject comes up, Bush always expresses great love for his father. "I wouldn't be sitting here . . . as president, without the unconditional love of my father," he told Wallace.
Whether he was the best vice president or not.
Lincoln's 199th
Bush has always nursed a deep admiration for Abraham Lincoln. He keeps a portrait of the 16th president in the Oval Office, and one of the first books he read after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was Jay Winik's volume about the end of the Civil War. So it should come as little surprise that he would want to celebrate Lincoln's 200th birthday. The only trick? It won't come until next year, when Bush will be out of office.
Never let a little thing like the calendar get in the way, though. Bush hosted a celebration of Lincoln's 199th birthday last night at the White House, complete with experts and actors. Bush presented Ford's Theatre Lincoln Medals to former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor and pioneering neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
The event was intended to kick off a year of events leading to the actual bicentennial celebration, but Bush was having fun. "I'm often asked, 'Do you ever see Lincoln 's ghost?' " he said. "And I tell people, 'I quit drinking 22 years ago.' "
Quote of the Week
"I used to think that leading a group of strong-willed senators was one of the toughest jobs in the country. I may have found one even tougher one -- father of the bride. You know, I told Laura I was going to say that and she said, 'Well, you might add another one -- son-in-law to the president.' "
-- President Bush, in his CPAC speech
Back to Top
Back to Top
French Rafale jets take off from Afghan base for first time
Mon Feb 11, 3:15 AM ET
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AFP) - Two French Rafale fighter jets took off from the main NATO air base in southern Afghanistan for the first time Monday in support of international efforts against extremists.
The multi-purpose jets, which arrived at the base in the volatile southern province of Kandahar last week, set off on an air patrol with French Mirages also stationed at the Kandahar Air Field, an AFP correspondent said.
Rafale aircraft, in service for two years, took part last year in a four-month mission in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) but were then based in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
Their relocation to the Kandahar Air Field, a base for 11,000 soldiers from 25 countries, has put them in one of the most volatile parts of Afghanistan where a Taliban-led insurgency was at its fiercest last year.
A Canadian general commands ISAF forces in southern Afghanistan, where French jets operate alongside Dutch F-16s and British Harriers.
Canada has warned it will withdraw its 2,500 troops at the start of 2009 unless NATO sends 1,000 extra troops, as well as helicopters, to back their mission in Kandahar.
France is in talks with Canada about deploying French reinforcements in the south, Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Sunday.
France's 1,515 soldiers in ISAF are based mostly in Kabul and surrounding areas.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan suffers worst winter in 30 years
(CNN) -- Aid workers have launched emergency responses to help people in rugged and poverty-stricken central and western Afghanistan, enduring what the United Nations is describing as "the harshest winter in nearly 30 years."
Hundreds of deaths have been reported this winter as a result of the frigid temperatures, which have dipped to minus 30 degrees Celsius, or minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit.
The more mountainous regions have seen up to 180 centimeters, or nearly six feet of snow, and many of the regions slammed by the snow and cold are poorly accessible.
The United Nations says many entities are trying to deal with the problem: several U.N. agencies, Afghan provincial authorities, the Afghan National Disaster Management Authority, the Afghan Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, the Afghan Red Crescent Society, non-government organizations, provincial reconstruction teams, and NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a recent report that "some 329 fatalities have been reported" in Herat, Farah, Badghis, and Ghowr provinces
The humanitarian group Oxfam said more than 500 people have died in the region. Oxfam is distributing blankets and coal and launched a program to employ 150 people to clear snow.
"While the snow has mounted and the temperature has plunged to the low teens in parts of Afghanistan, most of those who have lost their lives since December were either elderly people or children. And the extreme conditions continue to make life miserable for tens of thousands of others," Oxfam said in a statement last week.
The International Organization for Migration is distributing blankets, sweaters and shawls to 2,500 internally displaced families in three camps in Herat province,
Serena Di Matteo, head of the IOM sub-office in Herat, said, "many of these people live in incredibly poor structures with practically no protection from the cold and have almost nothing."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Canadians 'winning' in Kandahar, general says
Detailed assessment by top commander shows decrease in ambushes in key districts
GRAEME SMITH From Monday's Globe and Mail February 11, 2008 at 4:51 AM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Secret military statistics show that Taliban attacks have decreased in Kandahar's core districts in the past year, illustrating the success of Canada's new strategy of pulling back its troops into the heart of the province, a top military commander says.
Insurgent ambushes have fallen in four of Kandahar's 17 districts as the latest rotation of troops has focused on protecting the vital zone around the provincial capital, said Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, although he did not give specific numbers.
The assertion that Canadian forces have created a bright spot amid the darkening security picture in southern Afghanistan represents the military's first detailed response to several academic reports in recent months that have described NATO as losing the war.
Gen. Gauthier, commander of all Canadian forces overseas, invited reporters for an unusually open discussion in Kandahar during the weekend, taking questions for nearly an hour in an attempt to show that his troops are making progress.
"In relation to where we're focused, I think we are winning," he said.
Geographic focus was a key part of the general's assessment. While saying that security has improved in the districts of Panjwai, Zhari, Spin Boldak and Kandahar city, he repeatedly declined to comment about the provincial situation as a whole.
Canada assumed the lead responsibility for Kandahar's security at the beginning of 2006, patrolling to the furthest reaches of the province, but it proved a bigger task than military planners had expected.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters pushed against the western edge of Kandahar city that summer, forcing the Canadians to devote their entire combat strength to a bloody defence of the city.
The Canadians had regained sufficient control of the districts around the city by the spring of 2007 that commanders proudly announced they had resumed patrols across much of the province's 55,000 square kilometres.
But control of the central districts once again looked shaky by the summer of 2007, as Taliban overran police outposts, and Gen. Gauthier said with the latest rotation of soldiers, mostly from Quebec, the decision was made in August to focus on a few central areas.
That decision was partly aimed at "managing risk" of casualties among the Canadian troops, he said, but was also intended to protect the districts where 75 per cent of the province's population lives.
"Afghans will be better off, in those areas where we're focused," Gen. Gauthier said. "You can only do so much with the troops that you have. You've got to make those tough decisions. You've got to take Kandahar and bite it off, one bite at a time, and that's effectively what we've done here."
In places just beyond the Canadians' zone of control, the Taliban have established a parallel court system, enforced curfews, and mounted road checkpoints.
But Gen. Gauthier described his troops in a dilemma similar to that faced by a hospital triage nurse, deciding which patients require the most urgent attention: "You have to prioritize," he said.
Gen. Gauthier has served as the guiding hand behind the Afghan mission for the past two years, leading Canadian Expeditionary Force Command. Previously the head of military intelligence, and now making his 20th visit to Afghanistan, he described himself as one of the officers who can speak with the most authority on Canada's military progress.
But his optimism contradicts the prevailing view of Kandahar's security.
Canadian Major-General Marc Lessard, the new commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in the south, said last week that violent incidents in the six southern provinces have increased 50 per cent in the past year.
Among those southern provinces, Kandahar does not enjoy a reputation for better security. In fact, it stood out in a private consultant's report as Afghanistan's most violent province in 2007.
Vigilant Strategic Services Afghanistan (VSSA) counted 1,120 violent incidents in Kandahar during the past year, compared with 363 in neighbouring Helmand province and 105 in Uruzgan province during the same period.
Kandahar continues to be exceptionally troublesome this year, as the VSSA numbers for the first four weeks of 2008 showed a greater number of insurgent-related attacks in Kandahar - 43 incidents - than in any other province.
Along with looking at the level of violence, Gen. Gauthier also suggested that his troops have carved out a foothold for reconstruction and development in Kandahar. But a journalist pointed out that many aid agencies have withdrawn their non-essential staff from Kandahar in recent weeks, fearing a rise in Taliban activity.
"Right," the commander replied. "And I suppose we need to find a way to deal with the perception issue, because it's all about perception."
He did concede that the Canadians were mistaken in their reliance on hastily trained Afghan police. The Afghan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP) were given 10 days' training and assigned to outposts in Panjwai district after Canadian soldiers cleared insurgents from the area last winter.
"There was an expectation that ... that would contribute positively to the security environment, and it didn't," Gen. Gauthier said. "For the most part, it didn't."
The most recent rotation of Canadian troops has recaptured the outposts lost by ANAP last year. The new Afghan forces guarding those positions have a stronger system of Canadian mentors, he said, and it's unlikely that the Taliban will retake the outposts when the heaviest part of the fighting season starts in late May.
"Now, we have police in the same places," Gen. Gauthier said. "They're there, and they haven't come under serious attack, and the question will be, where are they in the May-to-September time frame?"
This year will likely see a decrease in violence in the districts where Canadian forces are concentrated, he added. He did not make predictions about the rest of Kandahar province.
"There is a finish line somewhere down the road," he said. "We are moving toward that finish line."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Miliband urges NATO not to abandon Afghanistan
Mon Feb 11, 5:07 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Afghanistan could degenerate into a "failed state" if NATO were to pull out troops and abandon efforts to stabilize the country, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Monday.
Miliband, who visited Afghanistan last week with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said "immense challenges" remained there and it was vital that Britain meet its commitments and some other NATO members increased theirs.
"It would help precipitate even more dangerous insecurity in Afghanistan (if the international community pulled out)," Miliband told BBC radio. If more effort is not made, Afghanistan risks becoming a "failed state," he added.
"I think it's important that the pressure is kept up," he said. "But I also think it's important that we emphasize to people that troops alone are not going to be the answer, it has to be the building up of a decent society in Afghanistan that is able to cater for its own affairs."
American-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001, but Taliban rebels launched an insurgency two years ago whose success has led Washington to call on its allies to send more troops to Afghanistan.
France has indicated a willingness to send more troops, but Germany has been adamant it cannot do more.
Britain, the second largest contributor to the 43,000-strong ISAF international peace force, is feeling intense pressure as its 7,000 soldiers -- based mostly in southern Helmand province -- battle increasingly fierce resistance and casualties rise.
"We do need the whole of the international community, including European countries, to step up," Miliband said. "There are a range of ways in which the international community needs to make its presence felt."
(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Tim Pearce)
Back to Top
Back to Top
S. Korea to Send Medical Staff to Afghanistan
Korea Times, South Korea
South Korea will this week dispatch an advance contingent of mostly civilian medical staff to Afghanistan to help with reconstruction efforts in the war-wracked nation, the foreign ministry said Monday.
"The advance contigent, composed of the head of the Afghan Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and some medical staff, will be sent to the country in the middle of this month," said ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong.
In December, South Korea decided to dispatch a civilian-led PRT to continue its contribution to the U.S.-led efforts to stabilize the country instead of withdrawing all of its troops.
Composed of about 30 civilian medical staff, vocational training experts and government officials, the team will be sent in several groups by May, according to the ministry.
South Korea sent hundreds of troops to Afghanistan in late 2001 after the U.S. ousted the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the U.S. Despite a U.S. request, the Seoul government did not extend the stay of about 50 medics of the Dongui unit and 150 engineers of the Dasan unit in the central Asian state.
"The PRT will take over the mission carried by Donggui unit at a hospital in Bagram," Cho said. The dispatch was originally planned for last month but delayed since a need to "increase security staff" was raised, he added. (Yonhap)
Back to Top
Back to Top
'Afghan mullah, sons killed making bomb'
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A militant mullah and his two children were killed when a bomb he was making in his southern Afghanistan home prematurely exploded, a police chief has said.
The explosion Saturday night at Mullah Abdul Wasay Akhund's home in Helmand Province also killed two other men and injured his wife and daughter, police said.
Provincial police Chief Mohammad Hussain Andewal said both the children were young boys, but he did not know their ages. The surviving family members told authorities that the two other male victims who died in the explosion were taken away by men riding in two vehicles, Andewal said.
Helmand, Afghanistan's top poppy-producing region, is also among six provinces in southern Afghanistan where international troops continue to battle insurgents.
Last month, a suicide bomb attack at a mosque killed the province's deputy governor.
Back to Top
Back to Top
MoD gives culture guides to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
Mon Feb 11, 3:56 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - The Ministry of Defence has given the country's more than 12,000 soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan social interaction guides to help them communicate with the local population, The Times reported on Monday.
According to the newspaper, which obtained copies of the guides through the Freedom of Information Act, they were drawn up by the ministry's intelligence department.
The guides are divided into three booklets -- Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Arab world.
They highlight how certain topics of conversation are regarded as inappropriate, with the booklet on Afghanistan reading: "Asking someone which ethnic group they are from is regarded as impolite, and questioning another man about female members of his family is especially taboo."
The guides also highlight slight differences in what is regarded as acceptable behaviour in the region, noting that while in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impolite to refuse tea or coffee from a host, in Qatar, one should not accept more than three cups of the drinks.
In the guide to the Arab world, the booklet's authors acknowledge that many people in the region "simply are unable to believe claims by Western politicians that they have no designs to control Middle Eastern oil supplies ... or maintain a long-term military occupation of Iraq."
There are 7,700 British troops in Afghanistan, and 4,500 in Iraq.
Back to Top
Back to Top
WINNING AFGHANISTAN
THE US STRATEGY IS A SUCCESS. IT'S NATO AND HAMID KARZAI THAT ARE THE REAL PROBLEMS.
NEW YORK POST By ANN MARLOWE
February 10, 2008 -- They stood out sharply against the worn concrete buildings and battered cars on the potholed road our convoy followed: two soaring solar-powered street lamps provided by the US Army. Kholbesat Bazaar is a back-of-beyond district capital in the eastern Khost Province of Afghanistan, poor even by Afghan standards, and one of the two of 12 Khost districts still classified as "red" or insecure. Yet even here, change is coming.
It's not just the lights that allow shopkeepers to stay open past dark and increase safety, or the fact that Kholbesat now has a clinic with a female doctor and can thus accommodate female patients. The US Army is building a 40-kilometer blacktop road from the Pakistani border to Kholbesat and onward to Khost City at a pace of two kilometers a week. When it is completed in spring 2008, the speed of local transport should triple, jumpstarting trade and allowing locals to make the trip to Khost City in a half-hour rather than an hour and a half.
The future should hold more improvements in locals' lives, given the close cooperation between the government and American soldiers who are scheduled to move into a barracks in the district center. Rapport has increased, and residents are calling in the locations of improvised explosive devices, denying insurgents safe haven in their houses, and generally obeying the law.
Of course, a handful of Afghanistan's 34 provinces are not so lucky. In some, NATO troops have been unable to intimidate the insurgents on the battlefield - Helmand, Kandahar, and Uruzgan. (This should not have been surprising. For instance, the Dutch, who have roughly 500 soldiers in Uruzgan, have only 22,000 troops total in their military and haven't won a war since, what, the 18th century? )
In a few others, mainly desert or mountains, there is little or no Coalition presence (Nimroz, Farah, Nuristan). In these provinces, a mixture of bandits, drug gangs and Taliban create varying degrees of insecurity.
But the media's perception that the country is "slipping into chaos" or "the forgotten war" are wrong. While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice correctly pointed out how far America has to go in Afghanistan during her surprise trip to the country this week, the progress in Khost shows how many things are going right.
In fact, while military efforts often are criticized and the colorful Afghan President Hamid Karzai praised in American coverage, the actual situation deserves the reverse.
If Afghanistan had a strong, effective national government, which provided security and services to its citizens equally, the differences between regions would not be so stark, five years into American efforts. As Rice said this week, "The Afghan government has responsibilities, too." This is about as close as a diplomat can come to saying that Karzai - perceived as ineffectual, vacillating and worse by most of the Kabul diplomatic community and our military leadership - has to step up to the plate.
*
While talking about NATO efforts, it's important to understand the context. The "reconstruction" of Afghanistan is itself a misnomer; there was little infrastructure to repair even before the US attack in 2001. Afghanistan has been a poor country for a long time.
In the 1890s, 5-10 percent of Afghanistan's population were slaves; 80 percent of the population were landless well into the 20th century.
Then, from 1980 to 1999, the years of Communist domination, the resistance to it, and the civil war, Afghanistan's GDP contracted by one-tenth of one percent, placing it still further behind.
Given where it is coming from economically, Afghanistan as a whole is doing well today, with GDP growing an average of 9.375 percent a year from 2003 to 2006. This is more than the 8.9 percent growth rate of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) between 2001 and 2005.
The International Monetary Fund projects real GDP growth of 13 percent for the March 2007-8 fiscal year and believes that Afghanistan will meet its goal of covering its operating budget with domestic revenue within seven years.
The World Bank ranks Afghanistan first of nine South Asian countries in ease of starting a business, third in paying taxes, and fourth in employing workers. Overall, it ranks 24th out of 178 countries in ease of starting a business and employing workers and 38th in paying taxes.
The problem is that most of the economic growth is occurring in the northern and some of the eastern provinces, while remote, mountainous areas like Nuristan and parts of Ghazni, and the insurgency-ridden south, show little progress. There's a direct correlation to success in provinces that either have few Pashtuns and thus little tolerance for the Taliban (the north) or a well-implemented American counterinsurgency strategy (Khost) and economic growth.
Most of Afghanistan could not remotely be described as a war zone; there is simply no military activity in much of the country. Yes, there are occasional incidents of banditry or clan or criminal feuds that spin out of control, but no more so than in many developing countries from South America to Africa.
Those provinces which have an American military presence are relatively secure, thanks to the sort of counterinsurgency strategy working in Khost. Of the 85 districts in six eastern provinces under the responsibility of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, 20 were termed "green" or under government control in early 2007, which increased to 58 by year's end. And because the American military has been building roads in the eastern and southern provinces, even provinces like Laghman and Ghazni, long among the poorest in Afghanistan, are starting to show economic progress.
Contrary to what the liberal media would have you believe, there is almost no shooting going on in many of the US-patrolled provinces for the very good reason that the Taliban are afraid to begin attacks that only end in their annihilation. The Taliban have not even won an engagement against the Afghan National Army in Regional Command East since April 2007. Instead, IEDs are their major tactic.
The US soldiers who have given their lives for Afghan freedom have largely died in IED attacks, which have accounted for 50 percent of US military casualties in Afghanistan.
But most of the casualties of insurgent bombings are Afghan security forces (618 National Police officers and 183 National Army members) and Afghan civilians. Just 83 American soldiers died from hostile causes in 2007, of around 25,000 stationed in the country. Meanwhile, 4,271 insurgents were slain by Afghan and foreign troops.
The good news on the IED front is that once the locals are fully onboard, their cooperation in reporting the planting of explosives or the planning of attacks can greatly reduce them. In Khost, admittedly the best-controlled Eastern Province, there were 69 IED explosions in 2007, killing 33 Afghans (but no Americans). But 59 explosive devices were either found or turned in by Afghans.
In the areas where other NATO troops have the responsibility, little progress has been made in improving security, infrastructure, or the legitimate economy. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates rightly lambasted the British forces for ineffective performance in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, which seem to have shown no progress in the last three years.
"Our guys in the east are doing a terrific job. They've got the [counterinsurgency] thing down pat," Gates said on Jan. 16. "But I think our allies over there, this is not something they have any experience with."
This is not quite accurate; the British conducted a successful counterinsurgency in Malaysia and more recently in Oman. But something is very wrong with what they are doing in Afghanistan and we need to get it right fast. The best idea might be to relieve them of their responsibilities in the volatile south, sending them instead to less critical areas, while allowing American troops to implement the counterinsurgency strategy that has worked well in Khost Province.
*
The major crisis, however, is economic. While Afghanistan has benefited from the business-friendly laws and procedures Karzai's ministers have implemented under USAID guidance, economic growth and foreign investment is constrained by the massive corruption of his administration and the glacial pace at which needed economic reforms are taking place.
For example, the banking sector in Afghanistan has expanded rapidly, but mainly in terms of taking deposits. Lending activity is pathetic, mainly because Afghanistan still does not have laws entitling lenders to seize collateral in the case of borrower default. (Needless to say there are no mortgages in Afghanistan, because if a borrower stopped payments, the bank could not take his house.) The necessary laws have been mired in various parts of Parliament and Karzai's office for nearly two years.
Corruption is pervasive, and reaches ridiculous levels. Afghan businessmen complain of having to pay bribes at the Large Taxpayers' Office to pay their taxes. Ordinary non-violent crimes are rarely reported to the police because Afghans know they will have to pay a bribe to get any response.
Afghans have little respect for Karzai, who has tolerated cronyism and criminality in his immediate family. One brother, Ahmed Wali, is said to be among the largest drug dealers in the country. Another, Mahmoud, was part of an investor group mysteriously awarded a contract for a cement factory before the Afghan government commissioned study meant to guide the development process was even completed. (He has no experience in cement or any allied industry.) He was also given a 41-year lease for a beet factory. A cousin of Karzai, the former Taliban spokesman "Rocket" Popul, has been awarded a hotel construction contract in Kabul.
These truths are starting to emerge, as Western leaders lose patience with Karzai and as American leaders lose patience with NATO forces' poor performance in both kinetic and counterinsurgency roles.
Unfortunately Karzai is hinting that he may run again for president in 2009; it would be a disaster if the US foisted him on the Afghan people yet again. There are Afghan governors, legislators and Afghan-Americans like Zalmay Khalizad who are far better qualified to lead.
Given where they came from, Afghans are making great strides today. They need our military to keep the peace - and that military presence will help in other ways, too. A 2005 Heritage Foundation study found that countries with long-term American troop deployments grow faster than other countries, controlling for other factors. The authors believe this is due both to improved security and to the diffusion of American political and economic ideas over time.
If we stay the course in Afghanistan, I have no doubt the same thing will happen there, too.
Ann Marlowe has published two memoirs, and reports frequently from Afghanistan. She was been embedded with the US military in Regional Command East twice in 2007.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan Plays Down Taliban Threat - AFP
KABUL (AFP)--Afghanistan's defense ministry said Monday the threat from the Taliban-led insurgency was "not as serious" as it was being portrayed outside the country.
Some NATO nations were portraying the risks as larger than they were to try to attract reinforcements for the alliance's International Security Assistance Force, ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters.
"We agree there are threats," Azimi told reporters when asked about calls for ISAF nations to make a deeper commitment to Afghanistan where they are helping Afghan forces confront Taliban rebels and their allies in Al-Qaeda.
But he told AFP after the media briefing: "The scale of the threat is not as serious as being shown outside Afghanistan." US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has led calls for reluctant European countries to contribute more troops to ISAF, warning at the weekend the failure of the international force here would increase the security threat to Europe.
"On one side there is the reality in Afghanistan and on the other side, what NATO says," Azimi said at the briefing. "When NATO talk among themselves, they try to show the concerns are big.
"They have good reasons for it - it is to attract more support from NATO members to Afghanistan," the general said, adding the aim was to secure more aid, troops and attention to help the country.
"But when we look at the realities inside Afghanistan, it is totally different to what is being raised as concerns." Afghanistan itself was better placed than last year - the deadliest of the insurgency - to tackle the rebels, the spokesman said.
"At the beginning of last year we had about 30,000 troops. Now, as we speak, we have over 60,000. Last year, we did not have good equipment, weapons - this year we do," the general said.
"Putting all these facts together, we are in a better position as we go to the battlefields this year, in 2008," Azimi said, adding though that the threats from suicide attacks and bombings remained.
Azimi accompanied Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak to a conference of NATO members in Munich last week where he said Afghanistan received renewed commitment from its Western allies.
Despite the wrangling among ISAF nations, "NATO has no dispute in their long- term commitment to Afghanistan," he said.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Road paving in southern Afghanistan helps the living, honours the dead
The Canadian Press
PANJWAII DISTRICT, Afghanistan - Roads are for the living but the Canadian military has begun a massive road-building project that will also honour the dead in one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.
The $4.5 million project to pave 6.5 kilometres of road that a local elder called the "Spine of the Panjwaii" is a two-year undertaking that will give jobs to more than 400 Afghans.
It also demonstrates the Canadian military's efforts to stabilize the region west of Kandahar city.
Years of war, roadside bombs and the punishing extremes of weather have laid siege to the main route passing through Panjwaii district, the heartland of Kandahar province and birthplace of the Taliban.
Chunks of pavement are interspersed with gravel and sand, perfect hiding spots for the dozens of IEDs - improvised explosive devices - that have been sown along the road in the last two years.
"There's not a day where we don't hear about an IED on that road or find an IED on that road," said a Canadian soldier who works with the Afghan military.
The harsh terrain makes it difficult for villagers in the district to bring their produce to market or get to work or go to the three schools that serve the population. It's especially bad in the rainy season when the sandy ground turns to mud.
"With the road, the people of Panjwaii will be able to come back, to start business again," said Haji Baran Shah, the district leader in Panjwaii.
Elders estimate that as many as 50 Afghans have died along the road in the last six months.
In the middle of January, five Afghans were killed and three were injured when a roadside bomb likely meant for a Canadian convoy hit a taxi.
"I lost my heart, my son. Who is responsible for that?," said Juma Gul, whose son Abdul Samad, 33, was among the dead. "Who will feed our family any more?"
More than 100 other Afghans are buried in cemeteries that flank a turn in the highway that winds past the major mosque in the district.
A paved road will help people reach this holy and sacred place. In the course of the road construction, walls will be built to help protect the graves.
The road will also help pay tribute to two Canadians who lost their lives.
"Just over there, we lost two guys," said Warrant Officer Nicolas Cote with the Civil Military Co-operation Team.
He was pointing to the spot where Cpl. Nicolas Raymond Beauchamp, 28, of the 5th Field Ambulance in Valcartier, Que., and Pte. Michel Levesque, 25, of Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, were killed when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle Nov. 17. An Afghan interpreter also died and three Canadians were injured.
"That we can come back here and rebuild this spot, well, it's an important thing," Cote said.
Recent statistics released by NATO suggest the road is among the most dangerous in Afghanistan - in the 10 per cent of districts that have 12 "IED events" per month for every 10,000 inhabitants.
The Canadian International Development Agency and the military spend thousands of dollars on infrastructure projects like road building in Afghanistan. CIDA estimates its funding has helped rehabilitate 210 kilometres of road in Kandahar.
The current road-paving project is being financed by the military and only came through after Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier saw the conditions of the route himself and gave Capt. Michel Larocque, the head of the CIMIC in the area, the go-ahead.
"It wasn't just about a tactical need," said Larocque.
"It was about information operations - showing the Afghan people they can count on us to do the right things in the their area."
Though it is being welcomed by the people of Panjwaii, the road is also causing anxiety.
Threatening "night letters" have been sent to people applying for jobs along the route, warning them away from working on a project conducted by Canadians.
Fatima, 35, was hoping her two older sons would get jobs paving the road and then use the skills learned for future employment.
"Then I got this letter telling me my sons and I would be killed for working on this road," she said through an interpreter.
"But what else can we do? I need them to work because we need the money."
Local leaders have encouraged people to expose those who are sending the letters. Larocque went as far as inviting them to explain themselves to a public gathering of the community - called a shura.
Meanwhile, round-the-clock security will be provided for the road's construction, 800 metres at a time. Afghan police and military and massive search lights will be used to deter anyone from planting explosives to hold up construction.
"These kind of projects are preventing people from going to the Taliban side," said Haji Mahmoud, who is overseeing the hiring of people from Panjwaii to work on the road.
"Now they have a job to do and they won't fight."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban chief vows to intensify attacks in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-11 19:45:37
KABUL, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Taliban's elusive chief Mullah Mohammad Omar on Monday vowed to accelerate militants' activities against Afghan and international troops based in Afghanistan.
In a statement read out to media outlets in south Afghanistan by the outfit's purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, Omar stressed that militants would further speed up attacks against military targets in the post-Taliban nation.
"Our fighters would accelerate their attacks against American and its allied troops in Afghanistan," Omar said in the statement.
He also stressed that the "United States has failed in Afghanistan and in order to hide its failure, is attempting to bring more troops from European nations to this country."
The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately ascertained.
Editor: Bi Mingxin
Back to Top
Back to Top
Stay the course or face 'dire consequences,' Afghanistan ambassador warns
The Canadian Press 11/02/2008 TORONTO
As a fierce political debate rages in Ottawa over the length of Canada's military mission to Afghanistan, the country's ambassador on Sunday called on Canadians to stay the course, and warned of potentially drastic results if international forces leave too soon.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Omar Samad stressed that the security provided by Canadian and foreign troops is essential to rebuilding a country ravaged by decades of war and neutralizing the threat posed by terrorism.
"Look at what happened when the world was not present in Afghanistan," Samad said.
"The consequences of that are so important that we should not repeat the same error."
Samad's comments followed a speech in which he talked about the political vacuum left behind when the Soviets ended their decade-long occupation of the country in 1989 and the world "abandoned Afghanistan."
The void, he said, was filled by Islamic extremists - many of whom were trained at religious schools in neighbouring Pakistan - ultimately giving rise to a civil war in which the repressive Taliban government came to power and provided safe haven to al-Qaida terrorists.
While Afghans have made great strides in reclaiming their country and rebuilding their devastated institutions, the situation remains precarious, and a Taliban resurgence a real threat.
A premature withdrawal by international forces, whose presence most Afghans approve, would surely have "dire consequences" and could easily lead to a failed state that again poses a threat to global security, he said.
Samad offered no suggestions on how long Canadian soldiers should stay but pleaded for both patience and understanding.
"Study the case very carefully. See why Afghanistan matters not only to Canada's government but also to the international community at large," he said.
Canada should be guided by the "very balanced" report produced late last month for the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper by John Manley.
The report called on Ottawa to commit to staying in the Asian country indefinitely provided that NATO contributes more troops and more equipment.
In response, the Harper Conservatives introduced a resolution in the Commons to allow Canadian troops stay on fighting in Kandahar until at least the end of 2011 and essentially dared the Opposition to support it or face an election.
The Liberals want Canada to end its combat role by 2009 but stay on in Afghanistan for redevelopment purposes, while the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois oppose any extension of the mission beyond 2009.
Speaking to another issue that has bedevilled the Harper government, Samad said Afghanistan will investigate allegations that Taliban prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian soldiers were tortured.
But he said the controversy should be laid to rest and prisoner transfers resume.
"It's an issue that we hope has reached its end as we hear that our institutions and our government is doing everything possible to assure Canada and other countries there will be no detainee problems," Samad said.
"We are going to look into the allegations to see what happened and what to do."
Samad said that an agreement between Ottawa and Kabul over detainee transfers "stands."
Canada stopped the transfers in November after Canadian diplomats discovered a clear case of abuse in the jails of the National Directorate for Security in Kandahar.
On Friday, Afghanistan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak assured Canada that the handover could resume without the fear of torture.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Soccer as an Escape to Hope for Afghan Teenager
By JOE DRAPE February 11, 2008 The New York Times
BLAIRSTOWN, N.J. — In world religion class, Shamila Kohestani is neither the adolescent who defied the Taliban in Afghanistan nor the symbol of liberation that shared the stage with stars from Hollywood and sports at the 2006 ESPY Awards. She is a teenager whose lips move as she takes notes, and whose list of words to look up grows exponentially each minute, each hour and each day.
Some of her classmates at Blair Academy here know that Kohestani, 19, is the captain of the Afghanistan national women’s soccer team. Some are aware that she is Muslim. Most know her only as the striking young woman who is eager to stock her iPod with any kind of music they recommend.
Until recently, they had no idea of what Kohestani has already endured in her short life. The music that some of them take for granted is a luxury to her; the classwork they grumble about is a privilege.
When you have been deprived of both from age 8 to 13, as Kohestani had, this prep school in the woods of northwest New Jersey is as perfect a place as exists on earth.
“With no soccer, there would be no school, and no hope,” said Kohestani, whose sparkling smile attests to the fact that hope is one thing she has in plenty now.
Kohestani became one of the 440 students at this 160-year-old boarding school in late October, when she arrived with the clothes on her back, a small carry-on bag and her soccer cleats. It was sports that delivered her here, but that has taken a back seat as she tries to expand her English and make up for five years without an education.
The Rev. Cynthia J. Crowner, the teacher of the world religion class, wrote “absolutist vs. liberal” on the blackboard and asked her students to name the traits of religions that span both spectrums. Kohestani raised her hand: “The Taliban were fundamentalists.”
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, Kohestani and her six sisters were virtually confined to their small home in Kabul. They were not allowed to attend school or work, and when they appeared in public, they had to be covered in a burqa.
But Kohestani’s two older sisters — one is now a midwife, the other is in medical school — made money by adorning burqas with embroidery. The family sought out underground schools and traded books among friends, violating Taliban laws.
Kohestani said she was beaten for not wearing her burqa properly. “I threw the burqa off and ran,” she said.
It was with the same determined abandon that Kohestani became one of the cornerstones of women’s soccer in Afghanistan. In 2004, she was one of eight girls who came to the United States for a clinic to learn soccer as part of the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange, a fledgling program started by Awista Ayub, an Afghan American.
“These girls had dreams of becoming something and had passion in life, and it was cut short for a while,” said Ayub, 28, who played women’s ice hockey at the University of Rochester. “I think some of them might not have realized that the window of opportunity would open again.”
In the spring of 2006, Kohestani was among 250 girls who took part in a five-day clinic in Kabul sponsored by the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange. She was back in America that summer and met President Bush and accepted the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs on behalf of all Afghan female soccer athletes.
The highlight of the trip, however, was participating in the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy in Hightstown, N.J. There, she caught the attention of Carolyn Conforti-Browse, who teaches English and is the softball coach at Blair Academy.
“She wasn’t an amazing soccer player, but the energy and the joy that she brought to the field for every practice — I have to say that stayed with me,” said Conforti-Browse, who is also a counselor at the academy.
Conforti-Browse asked the Blair headmaster, Chan Hardwick, to find scholarship money for Kohestani. Foudy, the former captain of the United States women’s soccer team, pledged to pay for Kohestani to return to America for a year of what is essentially postgraduate study.
As an athlete in Afghanistan, Kohestani is a big deal. Last August, she scored six of the national team’s 11 goals as the Afghans won four of five games at a tournament in Pakistan, their first international event. The team is a long way from qualifying for an Olympics or a Women’s World Cup, but it is followed closely. Kohestani said President Hamid Karzai even had a member of parliament call to wish the team luck before the finals.
But at Blair Academy, her athletic prowess is barely acknowledged. Kohestani arrived too late for the soccer season, playing in only the last game.
For her winter sport, she chose basketball, which she had never played before, and is a member of a struggling junior varsity squad. She stands apart from her teammates not only for the sweat pants and long sleeves she wears under her uniform in accordance with Muslim custom, but also by the intensity she brings to the court.
“In the first two or three days, she traveled almost every time she caught the ball, and I’d have to stop and she’d get very frustrated and angry because she is so competitive,” said Ryan Spring, the basketball coach and a history teacher. “Now she can score, and she leads with her energy.”
Kohestani said she wanted to attend college in the United States. To do so, she must overcome a steep learning curve. A half-dozen Blair instructors have been tutoring her privately.
“This was a young woman who had never used a calculator before, did know how to use a computer, but didn’t have one,” said Hardwick, the headmaster. “She had a lot of holes in her educational background, because she had been out of school for about five or six years of her early learning. If there is any great leveler in the world, it’s got to be education, and this is what she wants, she wants to be educated.”
Hardwick witnessed her drive over the Christmas holiday when Kohestani stayed with his family. She attacked the Internet with the same fervor as she danced to hip-hop music with Hardwick’s daughters Elizabeth, 21, and Kate, 18.
Often, Kohestani is up past midnight, paging through a dictionary for one of the hundreds of words she does not understand. There are some words, like “crush,” that only her classmates can explain.
“She asks about everything and wants to absorb it all,” said Frances Salaveria, one of her basketball teammates. “She makes me think about all the things we take for granted.”
Kohestani is a daily visitor to the weight room because there is no such facility for women in her home country. Her desire to fill her iPod with all kinds of melodies, too, comes from the fact that the Taliban banned most music.
Kohestani is an observant Muslim, saying her prayers at the appointed times in her dormitory room. She talks about her faith when her classmates ask, but mostly she reassures them that she is tolerant of the mores of American teenagers.
“Some of them think, you don’t speak with boys,” she said. “You are not friendly with boys. ‘We have boyfriends, do we look bad to you?’ ”
“No, this is your culture,” she said she tells them. “Why do you look bad on me? You guys were born here, raised here and this is your culture.”
One morning last month, the Blair student body gathered for its weekly chapel, and Kohestani shared her story, her culture.
She showed a documentary that outlined the degradations of the Taliban rule and showed how women’s soccer has taken hold in Afghanistan and changed girls’ lives. There were images of women being executed at the Olympic Stadium in Kabul under the Taliban reign. Now, Kohestani and her teammates play matches on that very same field.
When the lights came up, the questions came steadily. Kohestani answered them all gracefully.
“Is there an arranged marriage awaiting you when you get home?” asked a female student in the balcony.
“No, I came here to find a husband,” she deadpanned to thunderous laughter.
Now, her classmates knew Shamila Kohestani’s story. They gave her a long, heartfelt standing ovation.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Two Myths About Afghanistan
Washington Post By Ann Marlowe Monday, February 11, 2008
As Western leaders and Congress debate NATO's responsibilities in Afghanistan, it's time to dissolve two great American illusions about Afghanistan.
The first is that Hamid Karzai is a good president who looks after American interests. The second is that the situation in Afghanistan is going from bad to worse. Both of these unchallenged "facts" are dangerous errors.
Karzai manages by panic, with massive corruption and an absence of vision. It's a tribute to the Afghan people's energy and U.S.-implemented economic regulations and reforms that Afghanistan's gross domestic product has more than doubled since the invasion. But Karzai has sought to derail grass-roots efforts at building democracy and to stifle Afghanistan's nascent civil society, repeatedly siding with fundamentalists against progressives.
Consider his silence at the death sentence recently given to a college student for reprinting an article critical of Islam; Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, the speaker of the upper house of parliament, which initially endorsed the sentence, is close to Karzai.
It's an American illusion that Karzai is Afghanistan's bulwark against the Taliban or ethnic strife. The reverse is more likely. On Aug. 20, 1998, the day the United States sent cruise missiles to kill Osama bin Laden, Karzai told The Post that "there were many wonderful people in the Taliban." Yes, Karzai fought the Taliban -- for a month in 2001, when we insisted. But his main interest is in winning reelection, so he has to pander to the worst elements among his Pashtun compatriots. Voting in 2004 followed ethnic patterns. Karzai won 55 percent of the vote but didn't draw a majority from any non-Pashtun group. Karzai's support among Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns alike is much lower today than in 2004. He can't afford to antagonize any Pashtuns, and while most Pashtuns aren't Taliban, all of the Taliban are Pashtuns. So he spent much of the fall offering to negotiate with Taliban chief Mohammad Omar and the vicious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Today, most Afghans are living in the best conditions they have ever known, slowly growing their country out of poverty. Most of the north and west is peaceful. Much of the east is, too, except some areas that are very undeveloped and very remote or directly border Pakistan's lawless tribal belt. American estimates for the 14 provinces and 158 districts of Regional Command East show that 58 percent of the kinetic activity there last year (direct fire, indirect fire and detonations of improvised explosive devices) occurred in three provinces (Konar, Paktika and Ghazni). Fifty-two percent occurred in 12 of the 158 districts, and about 75 percent took place in 30 of the districts.
The American war in Afghanistan is not a shooting war; most of our casualties are the result of IEDs, which insurgents use because they can't capture and hold territory, or prevail in firefights with American troops or the Afghan National Army (ANA). The numbers are not what many might think: In 2007, there were 89 suicide bombings and 94 car bombings..
Col. Martin Schweitzer, commander of the coalition forces in six provinces in Regional Command East, told me that the ANA has not lost an engagement with the Taliban since last April. Fewer than 300 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Afghanistan since the invasion six years ago. We lost 83 soldiers plus two military civilians to hostile causes in 2007, when 24,000 to 27,000 personnel were in country. In 2006, 98 died. The decrease in deaths in action last year is even more significant when you consider the danger our troops were exposed to. American strategy has evolved from concentrating forces in large forward operating bases to building up provincial reconstruction teams in province capitals to establishing combat outposts in district centers (county seats) this past year.
In 2007, the Army's counterinsurgency strategy of stationing platoons in district centers and delivering quick infrastructure aid started to produce visible results for ordinary Afghans in the east. Not all areas in the Pashtun belt are equal -- Khost, for instance, is thriving, while Ghazni is still very poor -- but security is improving. When Schweitzer took command early last year, 20 of the 85 districts were "green," or on the side of the Afghan government. By year-end, 58 were classified as "green."
I saw this as an embedded reporter in Ghazni province in November. The young captain in charge of Four Corners, once the "worst neighborhood" in Ghazni, told me that in the spring of 2007 his base had taken fire twice a week, but as of late November it hadn't been rocketed in 60 days.
One reason may be Ghazni's new roads. Roads are development magic, and the U.S. Army is building them like crazy. In Ghazni alone, 10 roads have been funded at a cost of $5 million, and an 11th is in the approval process. Freight truck traffic along Highway 1, which runs from Kabul through Ghazni City to southern Zabol province, more than quadrupled in 2007.
In March, the Army paved a seven-kilometer stretch near Four Corners. This road, nicknamed "Route Rebel," used to be the second worst in Afghanistan for IEDs, which kill far more Afghan civilians and police than they do coalition troops. Daily traffic on "Route Rebel" has gone from 20 to 200 cars. There hadn't been any roadside bombs in eight months when I visited in late November -- it's much harder to plant them on asphalt.
Considering where it started, Afghanistan isn't doing too badly. It would be doing much better with a courageous, inspired president committed to honest and transparent government.
Ann Marlowe, a freelance writer, was embedded with U.S. forces twice in 2007. She has visited Afghanistan nine times since 2002.
Back to Top
Back to Top
No Progress on extremism unless there is representative government
Renowned journalist Ahmed Rashid on the latest situation in the tribal belt, the mistakes made and possible solutions
Interview Ahmed Rashid, The News By Farah Zia 10 February 2008.
The News on Sunday: The Americans are saying they want to deploy ground troops in Pakistan. What kind of consequences will it have?
Ahmed Rashid: I think it will be a disaster if American troops en masse were to come inside Pakistan. It would trigger off a general uprising in the NWFP by Pashtun militants which may possibly swamp the Pakistan army or divide it and lead to coups within the army. Such a trigger is not needed at all.
On the other hand I think there must be greater cooperation at the covert level between Pakistan and America; with intelligence and special forces, because clearly Pakistan has failed to capture top al-Qaeda leaders nor has it made any effort over the last two and a half years to do so. What could be beneficial is a discreet, covert, improved relationship, not just with the Americans but with NATO itself, in order to better coordinate the forces on both sides of the border.
TNS: You've talked about the consequences for Pakistan but if the US troops were to come at all, what could they possibly achieve considering their near failure in Afghanistan?
AR: I think this has become a political football for the American elections. It has got a lot to do with the Republican administration trying to position itself at a time when all the reports are saying that Afghanistan is a failed state. Seven years of American activity in Afghanistan has been a total failure, a terrible legacy for the Bush administration to have to live down in the last twelve months of his presidency. That they have failed in Iraq as well as Afghanistan could affect the Republican vote in the presidential election.
Secondly, it is a way for the Democrats to show that they would do much better and have a better strategy.
The bigger failure has been that neither the US nor the NATO have had a strategy in Afghanistan. The second part of it is that neither the Americans nor the Pakistan army have had a strategy in the North West Frontier Province. The Pakistan army has been worst at it because they have had this piecemeal attitude of making peace and then attacking and making peace and then attacking. There has been no consistent strategy or planning and, at the strategic level, there is a complete lack of trust between the militants and the people of NWFP and the army.
TNS: Many analysts think that Baitullah Mehsud is more of a top al-Qaeda leader than a local Taliban leader. Why is it so?
AR: I think Baitullah Mehsud is becoming a sort of an iconic figure like Mullah Omar and Bin Laden. He is heading this militia and a great deal is being done in his name, but it is not necessary that he is either ordering it or organising it. There are a lot of militias acting independently of Mehsud.
This whole Islamic movement or militancy, since the 1990s, has shown in Afghanistan and Pakistan is that they need an Amir, someone who invokes the power or influence of the seventh century Arabia, after the death of the prophet. They need someone who they can claim to be a uniting factor, given that they are operating in a very divisive tribal society. So whether it is Taliban or al-Qaeda you need a leadership at almost a supernatural level, which is what Baitullah Mehsud has become.
TNS: Do you see some sort of a merger between Taliban and al-Qaeda and to what extent?
AR: For the last two years there has been a very effective alliance between al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, Pakistani groups fighting in Kashmir, urban militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harkatul Mujahideen, foreign groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Movement in Muslim China. So I think there is a very broad-based alliance, of which Pakistani Taliban is playing a leading role because they have been the hosts of all these forces. All these forces are based in Pakistan, their leaders are living in Pakistan, their logistics and supply lines are here. So obviously, in order to run this, the Pakistani Taliban are playing a very critical role.
TNS: Specifically, do you see any links and coordination among the Taliban here and in Afghanistan?
AR: After 9/11 the Afghan Taliban retreated into Pakistan. They were never defeated by the Americans; they were hosted here by Pakhtun tribesmen, and by elements of the intelligence services, and the government, helped by the JUI in Quetta and Peshawar. They were able to exploit their hosts in order to rebuild their movement inside Afghanistan. But as part of that process, of rebuilding their movement in Afghanistan, they in turn ideologised their hosts, the Pakistani Pakhtuns. These Pakhtuns, who had already fought with the Taliban in the 1990s against Ahmed Shah Masud and later against Americans, were very amenable to being ideologised; also because they received a lot of money from their guests.
It is very ironical because when the Afghan Taliban were created in 1994 they were highly influenced by the madrasas in Pakistan. And now we have a backlash of that. We now have the Afghan Taliban helping create the Pakistani Taliban.
So there's this cross border fertilization that is constantly taking place. This issue cannot be addressed unless both countries address it as a regional problem. It has to be tackled as a cross-border problem and not of one country.
TNS: What do you think is the way to contain extremism and militancy which has now spread to Dara Adamkhel and Swat? And do you think the Pakistani army, in its present shape and with its present level of training, can tackle it?
AR: The first thing is that Pakistani Taliban and the alliance of extremists want to destabilise Pakistan and if possible to conquer more territory and claim NWFP as a Shariah state, that can somehow be separated from the rest of Pakistan. At the same time, they are spreading that campaign in other parts of Pakistan -- in the urban areas. With attacks in Karachi and Lahore, they are trying to destabilise the country.
The thing is that under the political dispensation of President Musharraf, there is no support in the country for a concerted campaign against extremists because there is no support for him and his government. Until there is a legitimate government, which is representative and can mobilise people to stand up and resist the extremists, we're going to go down on this score.
This is the biggest failure of the Americans -- not to understand that the real problem in Pakistan is the lack of legitimate government. It's not a question of better guns or money etc. It is a matter of legitimacy and having the people's support. The second thing is that this is also affecting the morale of the Pakistan army. We've seen how the morale has plummeted in the army, in the Frontier Corps, in the Police; the security services are extremely scared of the militants. The tactic of suicide bombing has created enormous fear amongst them.
They also need motivation and mobilisation. I don't think that can come about with a military that one day is asking them to crack heads of civil society, of lawyers and women, and is then asking them to take on extremists at the same time. You have to decide; you can't ask the police and the military to be involved in both because it's going to confuse them.
Thirdly, the US plans to rearm the Frontier Corps and sections of military and re-train them for counterinsurgency is very necessary. The army itself has to undergo a process of reconstruction and screening because within its ranks there are a large number of extremists. I think the army chief has to screen these people out of these services before any kind of retraining programme.
TNS: You have talked of Musharraf as a weakened president with no legitimacy. But can we expect some change of policy if PPP comes into power?
AR: I think the PPP can do a great deal to mobilise the public. But will Pervez Musharraf allow them to do it? Is he going to share power? Is he going to allow the prime minister to function? We saw what happened with Shaukat Aziz. Certainly the PPP government is not going to act like Shaukat Aziz. If they do, they will be thrown out within three days. This is a political party with a political manifesto and political leadership, which needs to be treated as a proper political representative of the public. If they are elected to power and Musharraf continues with his present behaviour, we will have another crisis within weeks.
TNS: With the Americans now ready to give financial assistance for the tribal areas to the tune of 750 million dollars and some part of it reserved for Frontier Corps, there are reservations about how this money is going to be spent. Can you think of some mechanism to spend it honestly and in what order of priority?
AR: I think this entire plan is wrong and warped. What is needed first is immediate action by the Pakistani government to bring FATA into the mainstream of Pakistani politics. Now this cannot be done in one go, I accept that. FATA has to be brought under the constitution. The people of FATA should be asked through a referendum what kind of a status they want, whether they want a separate province or want to be a part of NWFP and the laws should be gradually changed. An immediate law that could be changed, even before this election, is that political parties should be allowed to operate in FATA.
Unless this happens, and unfortunately there is no American pressure for the army to do this, the situation will stay the same. This should have been done back in 2002, when the first rigged elections were held by Musharraf. Then he had a big chance to so this but he lost that opportunity. Now we've seen this virtual collapse of FATA.
To provide money now would mean you are bolstering the present setup which is a fake setup, very unpopular among the people.
At the moment there is no civil society in FATA. The Taliban have wiped them all out. The government has failed to protect the maliks, school teachers, bureaucrats, journalists and the local people who formed the civil society. In FATA there was a civil society, which has been eliminated after 9/11. The government has allowed it to be eliminated. They have either been killed by the local Taliban, or driven out as refugees. So you have the most educated people living in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. This is a criminal thing; one part of the country has been denuded of its entire civil society because of the lack of action by the government.
TNS: Looking back what do you think were the mistakes committed in Afghanistan, because we haven't seen any stability there. Brahimi, the UN envoy who organised the Bonn conference, has recently admitted it was a mistake not to have included the Taliban in decision making process?
AR: I think Brahimi's comment is a regret that there were not more Pashtuns at Bonn which I think is absolutely correct. I doubt very much if the Taliban would have come to Bonn even if there had been an invitation.
The real failure in Afghanistan stems from a lack of US seriousness in addressing the problems of nation building and reconstruction. We now know that within months of American victory in Afghanistan, they were already preparing for Iraq and there was no intention of rebuilding Afghanistan. Rumsfeld and Cheney had no intention to spend money, time or troops. This situation persisted till around 2005 when only after Iraq started going wrong did they realise that they better do something about Afghanistan. And then we saw a much greater commitment towards building the Afghan army, police, more money etc. But by then the Taliban insurgency had caught on. And you can argue today that perhaps it was too little, too late.
TNS: What role do you see for Taliban and do you think they can be part of the new project in Afghanistan? AR: A lot of Taliban rank and file can be bought over with inducements of rehabilitation, reconstruction -- bribes in many ways. But I think the Afghan Taliban leadership is incorrigible. They will have to be eliminated. They are not going to surrender or do a deal with the Americans or with the Karzai government.
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).