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Ashdown lays out Afghan plan
Wed Feb 13, 8:12 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Paddy Ashdown, the senior diplomat whose candidacy as UN envoy to Afghanistan was vetoed by the country's president, outlined Wednesday the plan he had devised for Afghanistan had he got the job.
Defeat a "real possibility" in Afghanistan: Ashdown
February 13, 2008
LONDON (Reuters) - NATO is in disarray and the West faces defeat in Afghanistan unless it overhauls its counter-insurgency and reconstruction strategy, Britain's Paddy Ashdown wrote in an article published on Wednesday.
A strategy to save Afghanistan
By Paddy Ashdown - FT.com February 12 2008
The great sixth century BC military strategist Sun Tzu wrote: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
Attacks kill Italian soldier, three Afghan troops
Wed Feb 13, 11:05 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - An Italian soldier returning from an aid distribution mission near Kabul was killed in a Taliban attack Wednesday while three Afghan soldiers died in a rebel bomb blast in the volatile south.
Afghan, Saudi leaders vow to cement bilateral ties
KABUL, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia have stressed for strengthening bilateral relations between the two Islamic states during a recent telephone conversation
'Al Qaeda is not interested in Afghanistan'
rediff.com / February 13, 2008
Afghan politician Ali A Jalali is a visiting fellow for Institute of National Strategic Studies in Washington, DC. He was better known as an interior minister in President's Hamid Karzai government struggling with internal security and menace of drug traffickers.
Donors pledge US$31 million in food aid
KABUL, 13 February 2008 (IRIN) - The USA, Canada and Denmark have contributed US$31 million to a joint UN and government appeal to provide a temporary safety net for 2.55 million vulnerable Afghans facing food-insecurity
ANALYSIS-Clock running on NATO's stretched Afghan operation
Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:57pm EST By Luke Baker
LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - When three top U.S. officials flew to Europe recently to drum up more backing from NATO allies for the troubled Afghan campaign, the only solid offer was of 200 extra German troops in the quieter north of the country.
Australia Is Unable to Boost Afghanistan Force, Fitzgibbon Says
By Gemma Daley
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Australia's forces are stretched to the limit and the country is unable to contribute more soldiers to help NATO troops fight the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
Longer tours, Afghan solution bring peace: U.S. troops
By Jon Hemming Tue Feb 12, 1:28 AM ET
ZORMAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. troops in east Afghanistan might be eager for their 15-month tour to end but even as they wait they say would have achieved little had they stayed only six months like NATO troops elsewhere.
Afghan Kidnappings Increasingly Common
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR February 12, 2008
As security deteriorates in Afghanistan, kidnappings of Afghans are increasingly common. Even the capital, Kabul, is no longer safe.
PAKISTAN: Gearing up for another Afghan repatriation drive
13 Feb 2008 16:15:42 GMT
ISLAMABAD, 13 February 2008 (IRIN) - As the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) gears up for another Afghan repatriation drive, it is clear that fewer Afghans could return home from Pakistan this year because of continuing
Canada parties closer to agreement on Afghan mission
by Michel Comte Tue Feb 12, 10:26 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's opposition Liberals agreed with the ruling Conservatives for the need to maintain troops in Afghanistan to 2011 only if NATO allies send reinforcements soon.
Where do we show resolve, if not Kandahar?
Canadian blood and treasure earns us the right to help shape better solutions
DEREK BURNEY From Wednesday's Globe and Mail February 13, 2008 at 6:23 AM EST
In examining what we are doing in Afghanistan and why, it is important to underscore that Canada is a G8 member and, as such, is expected to engage internationally, serving global organizations to which we belong in a manner
A bipartisan tone on Afghanistan
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail February 13, 2008 at 6:15 AM EST
The Conservatives and Liberals seem to be finding common ground on Afghanistan. Recognizing that the mission there is too important to be treated as a political football, they have made gestures of compromise.
Common ground, but no consensus on Afghanistan
Canwest News Service Tuesday, February 12, 2008
OTTAWA - The ruling Conservatives and opposition Liberals have laid out duelling motions on the future of Canada's military mission in Afghanistan that contain differences but are not lacking common ground.
NATO's Afghan Stumbles
Washington Post- By Michael Gerson Wednesday, February 13, 2008; Page A19
MUNICH -- For European leftists, apparently the only thing worse than dead white men is live white men talking about death. So the Munich Conference on Security Policy -- a yearly meeting of European and American military
Afghanistan's refugee crisis 'ignored'
- Red Cross says unknown number are fleeing homes
- Villagers are victims of Taliban and security forces
Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian (UK) February 13, 2008
A growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is being overlooked as an unknown number of people are fleeing their homes, caught between security forces and the Taliban, Red Cross officials have told the Guardian.
Polish soldiers charged with murdering Afghans kept in jail
Tue Feb 12, 11:24 PM ET
WARSAW (AFP) - Polish military judges decided Tuesday to extend the pre-trial detentions of seven soldiers charged in the murders civilians in Afghanistan during an incident in August.
REVOLT IN PAKISTAN'S TRIBAL AREAS, Part 2
Al-Qaeda sets sight on the next battlefield
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online, Hong Kong - Feb 11, 2008
(See also Part 1: Ceasefire: A lull before the storm)
PESHAWAR, North-West Frontier Province - Despite last week's ceasefire agreement between the Pakistani security forces and the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas, it is clear that a major regional battle between al-Qaeda
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Ashdown lays out Afghan plan
Wed Feb 13, 8:12 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Paddy Ashdown, the senior diplomat whose candidacy as UN envoy to Afghanistan was vetoed by the country's president, outlined Wednesday the plan he had devised for Afghanistan had he got the job.
Writing in the Financial Times, Ashdown acknowledged that "defeat is now a real possibility" in the war-torn country where NATO troops are battling against an insurgency being waged by the Islamist Taliban militia that was thrown out of power around six years ago.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan includes about 43,000 troops, but commanders have been calling for another 7,500.
"What we lack above all is a strategy that all (including, crucially, the Afghan government and the international military) can buy into," the former international envoy to Bosnia-Hercegovina wrote.
He wrote that while increasing resources, in the form of more troops and aid, committed to the country was necessary, it was not the only thing that needed to be done, and listed three priorities: security, governance, and the rule of law.
"We (the international community) have to concentrate fiercely on the necessary and not to be distracted by the merely desirable," Ashdown wrote.
On security, he wrote that in addition to convincing ordinary Afghans their government could provide better security than the Taliban, the international community would have to provide "human security" -- electricity, the chance to get a job in a growing economy, effective governance and the rule of law.
He also advocated viewing security "from a political angle" by attempting to break up the Taliban by winning over moderates.
Ashdown wrote that international donors "should make improving governance the first, and if we can the only, priority for all future aid programmes" because until the Afghan government's institutions were strengthened, "we cannot ask them to do more".
The third priority was to link security and governance with a strengthened rule of law, underlining the importance of his point by writing: "Unless and until the rule of law is established there can be no safe democracy, no trusted government, no successful economy and no security for ordinary citizens."
"We have not lost in Afghanistan," Ashdown wrote.
"But we will lose if we do not start doing things differently. What we need is a strategy, not a disconnected collection of unco-ordinated tactics."
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Defeat a "real possibility" in Afghanistan: Ashdown
February 13, 2008
LONDON (Reuters) - NATO is in disarray and the West faces defeat in Afghanistan unless it overhauls its counter-insurgency and reconstruction strategy, Britain's Paddy Ashdown wrote in an article published on Wednesday.
Ashdown, who was rejected last month by Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the post of senior U.N. envoy to the country, called in the Financial Times for renewed efforts to win Taliban moderates away from the insurgency.
"With fighting in Afghanistan now entering its seventh year, no agreed international strategy, public support on both sides of the Atlantic crumbling, NATO in disarray and widening insecurity in Afghanistan, defeat is now a real possibility...
"We have not lost in Afghanistan ... But we will lose if we do not start doing things differently," he warned.
Ashdown said the consequences of failure in Afghanistan would be appalling.
"Global terrorism would have won back its old haven and created a new one over the border in a mortally weakened Pakistan," he said.
Ashdown called for more cooperation between international military and civilian efforts and a greater focus on governance and the rule of law across in a country where corruption and lawlessness is widespread.
Of an international security effort which has at times caused civilian casualties, he said:
"Breaking up the Taliban by winning over the moderates is a far better route to success than bombing and body counts."
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.
Washington has called on NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan and to commit more of them to the south of the country where the Taliban insurgency is strongest.
(Reporting by Mark John; editing by Keith Weir)
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A strategy to save Afghanistan
By Paddy Ashdown - FT.com February 12 2008
The great sixth century BC military strategist Sun Tzu wrote: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
With fighting in Afghanistan now entering its seventh year, no agreed international strategy, public support on both sides of the Atlantic crumbling, Nato in disarray and widening insecurity in Afghanistan, defeat is now a real possibility. The consequences for both Afghanistan and its allies would be appalling: global terrorism would have won back its old haven and created a new one over the border in a mortally weakened Pakistan; our domestic security threat would be gravely increased and a new instability would be added to the world’s most unstable region.
David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, is right – in the face of these consequences, withdrawal is not an option. But then neither is continuing as we are. So what should we do?
Some say more troops should be sent and they are certainly needed. Some say those Nato members who are not sharing the burden of the fighting should do so – and they should. Some say we need more aid – and we do. We are putting into Afghanistan one 25th the troops and one 50th of the aid per head of population that we put into Kosovo and Bosnia.
Increasing resources in Afghanistan is clearly necessary, but it is not sufficient. Even if we were to provide what was necessary, and even if everyone pulled their weight, we would still find it very difficult to turn the tide, which is now running increasingly strongly against us.
What we lack above all is a strategy that all (including, crucially, the Afghan government and the international military) can buy into. We know well enough what the objective is – to help President Hamid Karzai’s government to govern so that we can hand over the tasks we are doing, including the fighting, to them.
However, we have not yet turned this aim into a plan. Neither have we agreed a single person to head up the fractured international effort, with the authority to bash international heads together and provide the support the government of Afghanistan needs to begin winning again.
Here is the plan I assembled over the past four months, as I reluctantly considered what I would do, if I had had to do this job.
Firstly, we (the international community) have to concentrate fiercely on the necessary and not be distracted by the merely desirable. To have too many priorities is to have none.
I fixed on three priorities for the period ahead.
The first is security. We have to convince ordinary Afghans that their government can provide them with better security than the Taliban. I do not mean here just military security – it is human security that matters. That includes electricity, the rule of law, effective governance and the chance of a job in a growing economy.
What is needed to deliver this is a much closer co-operation between the military and the civilian side. It is no good soldiers winning a battle with the Taliban if the civilian reconstruction takes too long to begin to improve the lives of the people afterwards. We British have a tendency to be rather self-congratulatory about our skill at this and a bit sniffy about our US allies’ hamfistedness and clumsy use of force. But it is very foolish to underestimate the US military’s ability to learn lessons fast, just as they did after Vietnam. US counter-insurgency practice is now as good as the best – and better than any when it comes to getting the civilians in straight after the military (the UK’s department for international development please note). We also have to start looking at security from a political angle. Breaking up the Taliban by winning over the moderates is a far better route to success than bombing and body counts.
Our second priority should be governance. Until we have strengthened the mechanisms of Afghan government we cannot ask them to do more: they cannot deliver what their citizens need and neither of us will be able to persuade Afghans that Kabul is a better bet for their future than the Taliban. We should make improving governance the first, and if we can the only, priority for all future aid programmes.
Here, however, we hit a dilemma. According to its constitution, Afghanistan is a centralised state. But on the ground it is a highly decentralised one. Which end of the pipeline of governance should we start with? The answer is start at the bottom and work with the grain of the Afghan tribal structure.
The third priority, linking these two, is strengthening the rule of law, from the judiciary, to the police, to the security structures, to the penal code. Corruption is always endemic in countries emerging from war and Afghanistan, where drugs super-charge the problem, is no exception. Unless and until the rule of law is established there can be no safe democracy, no trusted government, no successful economy and no security for ordinary citizens.
We have not lost in Afghanistan. Indeed the more I looked at it, the more I could see positive things to be built on. But we will lose if we do not start doing things differently. What we need is a strategy, not a disconnected collection of unco-ordinated tactics. What we should not need is a Chinese philosopher from 26 centuries ago to tell us that.
Lord Ashdown was leader of the Liberal Democrats and high representative in Bosnia, 2002-2006. He was asked by the United Nations secretary general to be the UN’s special envoy in Afghanistan but was rejected by Mr Karzai.
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Attacks kill Italian soldier, three Afghan troops
Wed Feb 13, 11:05 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - An Italian soldier returning from an aid distribution mission near Kabul was killed in a Taliban attack Wednesday while three Afghan soldiers died in a rebel bomb blast in the volatile south.
Another Italian soldier was wounded in the gunfight that erupted after the mid-afternoon attack about 60 kilometres (35 miles) from Kabul, the Italian defence ministry in Rome said.
The troops, with a NATO-led force, were "targeted with light weapons from hostile elements, to which they responded," it said. The soldiers had been distributing aid to local civilians.
A spokesman for the insurgent Taliban movement, Zabihullah Mujahid, told AFP in a telephone call that fighters from his group had ambushed the soldiers in Sarobi district.
The district governor Qari Salaiman said the troops had been on their way back from the aid mission when they were hit.
Outgoing Italian prime minister Romano Prodi expressed his condolences to the family of the dead soldier but said his country's mission "will continue, because it has a long-term goal."
Italy has 2,880 soldiers with the 40-nation, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that is helping the Afghan government tackle an insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.
The death takes to 14 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year. Nearly 220 died last year, most of them in hostile incidents.
In the southern province of Helmand meanwhile, a bomb ripped into an Afghan army convoy near the town of Musa Qala which was in Taliban hands for 10 months until December, when it was retaken by Afghan and international troops.
The force of the blast knocked one of the vehicles out of the convoy, district chief Abdul Salaam told AFP.
"Three soldiers were martyred and three others were wounded and their vehicle was destroyed," said Salaam, a former Taliban commander who was appointed district chief after the town was retaken from militants.
Salaam also said Taliban gunmen had on Tuesday attacked his house about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the town.
He was not at home at the time but there was a roughly 30-minute gunfight that ended when Afghan army reinforcements arrived, he said. There were no casualties.
Salaam's shift in alliance from the Taliban to the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai is an example of how authorities want to push reconciliation as one way to end local support for the insurgency.
The United States led an invasion that toppled the Taliban regime after the 9/11 attacks blamed on the Al-Qaeda network that then had bases in Afghanistan.
Despite the presence of nearly 60,000 international troops, the insurgency was its bloodiest last year when there was also a spike in extremist unrest in neighbouring Pakistan.
The rise in violence, and corresponding disillusionment among Afghans who had high hopes from the post-Taliban administration, has led to calls for a rethink in the international strategy in Afghanistan.
Paddy Ashdown, the senior British diplomat whose candidacy as UN envoy to Afghanistan was vetoed by Karzai, said in the Financial Times Wednesday that "defeat is now a real possibility" in the war-torn country.
"What we lack above all is a strategy that all (including, crucially, the Afghan government and the international military) can buy into," he wrote, adding security efforts must be accompanied by improving governance and rule of law.
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Afghan, Saudi leaders vow to cement bilateral ties
KABUL, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia have stressed for strengthening bilateral relations between the two Islamic states during a recent telephone conversation, a statement released by the Afghan presidential office said on Wednesday.
In the telephone conversation on Tuesday night, the statement said, both leaders exchanged views on issues of bilateral relations, situation in Afghanistan as well as the issues in the region and Islamic world. The two leaders stressed the importance of enhancing relations between the two Muslim countries.
King Abdullah during the talks also reassured his government's continued support to the people of Afghanistan, the statement said.
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'Al Qaeda is not interested in Afghanistan'
rediff.com / February 13, 2008
Afghan politician Ali A Jalali is a visiting fellow for Institute of National Strategic Studies in Washington, DC. He was better known as an interior minister in President's Hamid Karzai government struggling with internal security and menace of drug traffickers.
He proved to be a tough administrator. His resignation from the Karzai government in 2005 made the headlines because it irreparably weakened the government. He served as interior minister from 2003 to 2005 when he supervised the creation, training and deployment of a 50,000-strong Afghan national police and a 12,000-strong border police He was entrusted with counter-narcotic, counter-terrorism and criminal investigation operations.
Born in 1940 in a Pashtun family, Jalali wears many hats. He is one of the most quoted academicians and teaches in prestigious institutions in the West. He was director of Afghanistan National Radio Network Initiative and chief of the Pashto service at the Voice of America. He has published his thoughts in three languages; English, Pashto, Dari/Farsi. He was also a top military planner with the Afghan resistance following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He attended staff colleges in Afghanistan, the United States, Britain, and Russia, and has lectured widely.
Since 1987, he has become a US citizen and is an important man in the West's plans for Afghanistan. Jalali has written several books, including a three-volume military history of Afghanistan. His book, The Other Side of the Mountain (2002), co-authored with Lester Grau, is an analytical review of the Mujahedin war against the Soviet army in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. Although, Jalali is strongly in favour of US role in Afghanistan, he has been critical of some of the US' moves in his country. In 2002, he criticised the way the US used local chieftains in the war on terrorism that "enhanced the power of the warlords and encouraged them to defy the central authorities."
He was in New Delhi recently to attend a seminar on Asian Security. He spoke to rediff.com's Managing Editor Sheela Bhatt.
Q: What are the factors behind the re-emergence of Taliban?
There are many factors. You should look at the nature of intervention in Afghanistan. They didn't come to rebuild or help the country. They came to Afghanistan only in order to punish and destroy the terrorists' network that was responsible for the 9/11 attacks in the US. They wanted to remove the Taliban network. After that reconstruction and restoration of stability was very slow and not enough. Therefore it created a vacuum, which was gradually filled up by Taliban and criminal networks in the country. The Taliban was removed from power but was not defeated. Unfortunately, their potential to come back from their safe heavens across the borders was not addressed. So when the Taliban saw that stabilisation is not going well they came back.
During the past six years national institutions of Afghanistan, particularly security institutions, developed slowly. And the international community didn't deploy sufficient forces in Afghanistan. That gave an opportunity for the Taliban to come back.
Q: How come they are getting support from the same people who were victims of the Taliban before 9/11?
Yes but they still don't like the Taliban. They don't see the Taliban as the alternative to the current political transition. However, when people see that government is not present or when they see that the government cannot protect them they sit on the fence. All the surveys indicate that only a few people actively support Taliban. Most surveys claim that only 10 percent of the people are fighting for Taliban and 20 percent are fighting for the government, while 70 percent are sitting on the fence. While they don't want the Taliban to come back they don't want to risk their life on behalf of the government that can neither protect them nor provide services to them.
Q: How do you see India's role in Afghanistan?
India was very helpful in reconstruction of Afghanistan. It is helping build highways, hydro projects, schools and clinics. India has spent around $800 million. On the strategic front the issue is?the differences between India and Pakistan. It also affects Afghanistan. The misconception and suspicion between two countries hurts Afghanistan. Sometimes one hopes that two countries will not make Afghanistan the battlefield of their disputes.
Q: After serving in the government as the interior minister you resigned. Now you have turned a critic of the government. Why the change of mind?
I am not critical of the government. I am critical of the process. I think Afghanistan is the least funded post-conflict project since World War II. If you look at the troops in Afghanistan, there are 1.5 soldiers per 1,000 population. There were 20.5 soldiers per 1,000 in Kosovo, 19 in Bosnia, it was 10 soldiers in Sierra Leone. Afghanistan is facing many challenges because it is facing war for the past 30-35 years. The infrastructure is destroyed.
The limited interest of international community and lack of investment and reconstruction didn't help the government develop institutions. That is why the government is weak. It doesn't mean that government is purposely weak. On other hand the Taliban is across the border in safe heavens in Pakistan. Gradually, Pakistan's tribal areas have become a hot-bed of extremism and terrorism. Al Qaeda is entrenched in the tribal areas. That is the worry of the establishment. It is the source of troublemakers.
Q: What is the difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda?
Only 20 percent of insurgents who form the core of Taliban are fighting the ideological war. The rest are aggrieved tribes who have been mistreated by some government officials or drug trafficker or some foreign intelligence operators or by the transnational Al Qaeda terrorists. It also consists of unemployed youth and criminal groups. All these are alliance of convenience. They are fighting for different reasons.
Al Qaeda is a transnational organisation. They are not even interested in Afghanistan or Pakistan. They are waging a global war. Taliban is in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Al Qaeda is also based in the tribal areas of Pakistan. There are elements in the Taliban that are not ideologically motivated. They are not that dangerous. There are ways to bring them back. They can be motivated to return. Those who will not settle for less than overthrowing of the regime, I don't think there will be any way for them to reconcile.
Q: You live in the US. You have heard and understood the views of the East and West. Where is West making an error in understanding what we call Jihadi terrorism?
Jiahdi terrorism is not a deliberate ideological design. It grew out of the environment.
In 1980s when Afghanistan was fighting the Soviet Union there was rush to support anybody who could give the Soviets a bloody nose. This created an environment where the extremist elements came in. Later on these elements turn their guns against the West. They thought the West is creating problems for them in Islamic countries. The global war on terrorism is working in some way but it will be a long way. It's not going to be quick and cheap. It will take decades.
Q: Will the rejection of senior British diplomat Paddy Ashdown's proposed nomination as United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan by President Karzai affect the efforts of international community in the region?
I don't think so. There is a demand for finding an envoy who can co-ordinate efforts of different countries who have come to Afghanistan with a different level of commitments and resources. Well there was a reason for the rejection. Afghanistan is a sovereign country. We have the choice to make a decision. However that doesn't mean that demand for the special envoy is gone. Afghanistan does believe that there is a need to co-ordinate efforts. Why did the government take the decision? May be media played it in a way that it sounded like interference in the affairs of Afghanistan.
Q: President Karzai himself made it a big issue by talking to the BBC about it.
Yes, there were reasons behind it. The media actually played it up and showed his (Ashdown's) position as that of a super envoy who will have a mandate to interfere in Afghanistan's affairs. Second, Afghans were comparing his role in Bosnia. That role was different. Bosnia was a state within a state. Afghanistan is one state. Afghanistan has an elected government and an elected Parliament. There was also misunderstanding on the role of a super envoy or whatever you call it about the possibility of undermining the sovereignty of the Afghan president.
Q: In retrospect don't you think it was a mistake to neutralise and disarm the Northern Alliance as it happened in case of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party?
Yes, a vacuum was created but not because the Northern Alliance was disarmed. The NA didn't have an army and was composed of malicious people. In 2002 -03 they were fighting with each other. I had to go to the northern areas to bring peace because they were fighting with artillery and tanks. The victims were civilians. They were destabilising the country. They were disarmed in order to create a new institution -- the army and national police. The slow process created a vacuum.
Q: But they were fighting the Taliban.
Not now. When the Taliban was removed they were fighting each other. The pace of rebuilding national institutions was slow. In the post-conflict situation, you have to break and make. If you don't break war machines of the past you cannot make new institutions. Reintegration of the Northern Alliance didn't work. After they were demobilised some of them joined the drug traffickers, criminal gangs and some even joined the Taliban.
Q: How will Iran issue affect the Afghanistan process?
Well, Iran is a neighbour. Whatever happens there it will affect us. Iran has been helpful in the stabilisation and reconstruction of Afghanistan. At the same time they have another track in Afghanistan. They are trying to maintain the offensive in Afghanistan. If trouble brought to them they will be able to bring trouble to the US in Afghanistan.
Q: The volatile situation in Pakistan also holds no good news for you.
Pakistan faces many challenges. Holding of peaceful elections is one of them. Also the perception that elections were free and fair. If that perception emerges, there is a hope. If the perception is built that it was not fair, then the new government will not be considered legitimate. That will create problems. In the tribal areas, if elections are not free and fair it will have a negative impact. The extremism of tribal areas directly affects us. This is a regional issue and should be sorted out with help of regional co-operation.
Q: Do you agree with the perception that NATO's operation in Afghanistan is failing?
Some things are positive but some problems persist. The positive thing is that Afghans support the presence of NATO. We are worried that NATO will leave before the Afghans are able to fend for themselves. The problem is that within NATO different countries have different mandates, different instructions for their operations. Some countries are willing to fight militarily and some are not. Some countries think that their mandate is for peace-keeping and stabilisation, some think that stabilisation and peace will not come without defeating insurgencies and establishing security in those areas. It is not that NATO cannot work. The insurgencies cannot be defeated militarily but it should not lose militarily either.
Q: So do you think NATO is a success in Afghanistan?
There are many NATO countries fighting gallantly in Afghanistan. Generally speaking, without NATO Afghanistan will slide back into chaos. Because Afghanistan has first hand experience that when it is weak it has many neighbours who take advantage of it.
Q: Do you think the change of government in the US will affect you?
There is bipartisan support for the US involvement in Afghanistan. Both leading parties have the same policy. Even the US public supports it. They had given less support for the involvement in Iraq but they support the continued commitment of the US in Afghanistan.
Q: What are your hopes for your country?
I think Afghanistan can still rise. The longer it takes the longer we suffer. Yes, government doesn't have influence outside the major urban areas in the south. However, one cannot say government does not have influence. The Afghan government appoints governors and police chiefs in all provinces and nobody defies it. Army and police function in all parts of the country. Yes in some parts the influence is weak because government is not in position to provide services.
Q: What are the gains for women and children after 2003?
Well there is a lot of progress in Afghanistan. Six years ago television was banned. Today we have 12 private channels 24/7. Then women could not go to work. Today 27 percent of the workforce consists of women. In 2002, only 900 boys were studying in madrassas today five million children, including 1.5 million girls, are studying in school. Women are influencing all aspects of life including social and political. Afghanistan has the most enlightened constitution among Islamic countries. In 2002, only 6 percent of the population has access to basic health facilities now, 65 percent have access. However, these achievements are not matched by other issues like security and stability.
Q: Do you think if the proposal which recommends that Taliban becomes part of the Afghan process, stability may come?
Forget about the Taliban, whoever is fighting the government if they come and renounce violence and accept the constitution I think there is a place for all of them.
Q: Are they looking for political Islam?
Political Islam or no political Islam as long as they are non-violent there is a place for them. Once they adopt violence to overthrow the government Taliban or no Taliban they are not acceptable to Afghanistan.
Q: What should be the top agenda of the Afghan process now?
I think two things to begin with. Re-establishment of the domestic political consensus that we had in 2002. That internal consensus is declining. For the international community I would say that we need a unified strategy for different troops.
Q: What about the Taliban?
If you have good governance and security those who actually see the presence of government will join the government. Those who will not settle for less than overthrowing of the government I think they need to be defeated militarily.
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Donors pledge US$31 million in food aid
KABUL, 13 February 2008 (IRIN) - The USA, Canada and Denmark have contributed US$31 million to a joint UN and government appeal to provide a temporary safety net for 2.55 million vulnerable Afghans facing food-insecurity, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said.
"The US has confirmed [its] contribution of 30,000 metric tonnes [mt] of wheat worth $19 million, Canada has confirmed $10.1 million and Denmark has confirmed $2 million," WFP country representative Rick Corsino told IRIN on 13 February.
Australia, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) are also expected to contribute over $14 million to the joint appeal in the near future, Corsino said.
A dramatic increase in staple food prices and winter-related problems such as road blockages have pushed 1.41 million Afghans in rural areas and 1.14 million in urban areas into high risk food-insecurity, and they are now in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, UN agencies and the Afghan government say.
The government of Afghanistan and the UN launched a Joint Appeal for The Humanitarian Consequences of the Rise in Food Prices on 24 January asking donors to provide about $80 million for a five-month (February-June 2008) humanitarian intervention.
WFP will use over 90 percent of the requested $80 million to distribute 88,000 mt of mixed food items to most vulnerable communities in this period. This will be in addition to WFP's over 180,000 mt planned food aid programme for 2008.
Aid diverted from Horn of Africa
The first 19,000 mt of the USA's 30,000 mt wheat aid - which was diverted from the Horn of Africa, from a less urgent programme - has reached neighbouring Pakistan and WFP has started transporting it into southern Afghanistan, Corsino said.
WFP hopes to purchase the remaining food items from Afghanistan's immediate neighbours (Iran and Pakistan) and other regional markets based on "best prices and speedy delivery".
Afghan government bodies and UN agencies have already conducted needs assessments and have identified targeted beneficiaries, and food aid will be distributed mostly through food-for-work programmes.
However, in selective cases vulnerable female-headed households and disabled people will be considered for free distribution, Corsino said.
Attacks on aid convoys
Widespread insecurity and heavy snowfall have hindered humanitarian access to many parts of the country, particularly in western and southern provinces.
WFP has lost 410 mt of food items valued $350,000 in nine armed attacks on its contracted convoys in western Afghanistan in the past nine months, UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a press release on 5 February.
According to Corsino, the humanitarian intervention to assist 2.55 million food-insecure Afghans will start in late February with almost all food aid being delivered to targeted communities by road.
The UN has repeatedly called on all sides in the conflict to ensure safe passage for humanitarian relief convoys and stop attacks on aid workers.
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ANALYSIS-Clock running on NATO's stretched Afghan operation
Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:57pm EST By Luke Baker
LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - When three top U.S. officials flew to Europe recently to drum up more backing from NATO allies for the troubled Afghan campaign, the only solid offer was of 200 extra German troops in the quieter north of the country.
At a time of growing concern about NATO's ability to keep the resurgent Taliban at bay, Europe's relucance to help must have worried the trio -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns.
True, at separate NATO talks in Vilnius last week, France said it was studying a possible deployment to help Canadian troops in the more violent south, and particpants said Romania, Poland and Norway signalled they could do more.
Germany, nagged by Gates, softened a longstanding insistence that it cannot exceed a self-imposed limit of 3,500 troops in Afghanistan, and no longer excludes reinforcements this year.
It was hardly the crush of support the United States wants or needs, seven years after it ousted the Taliban regime that was sheltering al Qaeda.
And given major allies' reluctance or inability to commit resources, it could be months before help does arrive, leaving Afghanistan in the lurch amid grave concern about its future.
Burns, a seasoned diplomat and former ambassador to NATO, was explicit about the difficulties when he addressed a British policy think-tank earlier this week, after a day of intensive talks on the issue at Britain's Foreign Office.
"The problem for NATO in Afghanistan is that we lack a sufficient number of troops on the ground, we lack equipment -- especially helicopters -- and that's hurting military efforts to defeat the enemy," he said.
"NATO never fought a ground war until the Afghanistan war... NATO's future is so much on the line."
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has more than quadrupled in size to 43,000 troops in barely four years, but commanders say some promises of troops and equipment still have not materialised.
"It would be better if countries just said they couldn't do something -- rather than saying they can and then not doing it -- so at least NATO's military planners knew where they stood," said Colonel Christopher Langton, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
TIME RUNNING OUT?
Growing concern about Afghanistan was summed up on Wednesday by Britain's Paddy Ashdown, a former U.N. envoy to Bosnia who was named, but then withdrew, as "super envoy" to Afghanistan.
"Defeat is now a real possibility," he wrote in the Financial Times after listing the problems Afghanistan faces, including "NATO in disarray and widening insecurity".
Underlining this concern, Rice went to Afghanistan with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. They declared the mission at risk unless more partners stepped up to help.
Britain, with 7,800 troops in Afghanistan and 4,500 in Iraq, is too stretched to provide more troops and equipment, and key partners like Canada and the Netherlands have had too many casualties or have domestic reasons for not doing more.
Pressure is building instead on France and Germany, neither of which has a major ground presence in the south.
Both say they made substantial deployments in the first years of the mission -- when NATO was present only in the capital Kabul and the north -- and that it does not make sense for them to switch focus now.
But neither country's leader will want to go empty-handed to a NATO summit in Bucharest in early April and speculation is mounting that they will come armed with new offers of some kind.
Even so, it may be weeks or even months before extra troops are on the ground, at a time when security experts say NATO has too few to hold on to some positions wrested from the Taliban.
The Taliban now controls many roads in the south and runs its own checkpoints, according to the Senlis Council, a think-tank with researchers in the area. The threat of a new Taliban offensive is ever-present.
At the same time, the United Nations has yet to find the right "super envoy", coordinating the overall military, aid and development effort that experts see as key to an effective counter-insurgency policy.
Ashdown withdrew his name after Afghan President Hamid Karzai made it clear he was not wanted. U.N. and NATO sources expect it to take weeks to find a viable substitute.
More troops and equipment and better strategy coordination should make NATO more effective on the ground but time is short.
"There's lots of goodwill, lots of money being spent, but no single strategic focus," said Burns, who complained that nine of NATO's members were carrying 95 percent of the burden.
"The U.N. needs to step up to the challenge by appointing a strong envoy with a centralised mandate, and do it soon." (Editing by Tim Pearce)
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Australia Is Unable to Boost Afghanistan Force, Fitzgibbon Says
By Gemma Daley
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Australia's forces are stretched to the limit and the country is unable to contribute more soldiers to help NATO troops fight the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
``We are already doing more than our fair share,'' Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said today in an interview in the capital, Canberra. ``We really don't have the capacity.''
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has led calls for North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to contribute 7,000 more combat soldiers to southern Afghanistan. Australia is a partner of NATO's International Security Assistance Force and has 1,000 personnel in southern Uruzgan province and around Kandahar Airport.
A U.S.-led military coalition ousted the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, then handed the Afghan mission over to NATO command as President George W. Bush's attention shifted to Iraq. Pitched to Europeans as a peacekeeping assignment, the increasingly violent campaign is losing public support in Canada and Europe.
NATO's force of 41,000 soldiers in Afghanistan is responsible for fighting insurgents and rebuilding infrastructure shattered by almost three decades of conflict.
Fitzgibbon, during a visit to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, earlier this month, pressed the alliance to ``deal Australia in'' on the decision-making process in Afghanistan.
Defense Strategy
Fitzgibbon, 46, said he planned to develop a new policy document setting out Australia's strategic priorities as the existing one, issued in 2000, is out of date. The plan will deal specifically with the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.
Australia will bring home about 550 of its 1,500 soldiers in Iraq by the middle of this year, Fitzgibbon said.
``We have a long-term commitment to the country and our contribution will remain,'' he said of Iraq. ``We really want to focus on capacity building and the economy and providing humanitarian aid.''
An Australian military headquarters will remain in Baghdad to command troops in the Middle East Area of Operations and an army security unit will be in the capital providing protection for embassy workers, according to the Australian Department of Defence.
An air force patrol unit and a transport detachment will remain in the Gulf region as well as a maritime group protecting Iraqi oil platforms, the department said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pledged before the November election to negotiate a staged withdrawal of some of Australia's troops from Iraq. Former Prime Minister John Howard was one of the original coalition partners in the war.
The defense policy paper will also focus on increased military spending by nations in Asia.
``We will look at these new developments,'' Fitzgibbon said of the arms build up. ``It's very natural for countries as they grow economically to enhance their military capacity.''
China's spending is at a five-year high of 350 billion yuan ($48.7 billion), 17.8 percent more than a year earlier, making it the fourth-largest defense budget in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Indonesia plans to buy two new German submarines next year, doubling its fleet, and four Dutch frigates within three years, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said last June.
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Longer tours, Afghan solution bring peace: U.S. troops
By Jon Hemming Tue Feb 12, 1:28 AM ET
ZORMAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. troops in east Afghanistan might be eager for their 15-month tour to end but even as they wait they say would have achieved little had they stayed only six months like NATO troops elsewhere.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is pressuring NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, particularly to the dangerous south, and ward off what many see as a possible defeat by the Taliban, six years after they were toppled from power.
Germany and other European nations refuse to let their troops leave the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan, while British, Canadian and Dutch troops battle it out in the south, suffering numerous casualties.
But in the east, U.S. troops tout their success in stemming violence in what were once Taliban strongholds.
While there are big differences in geography and Taliban strength in the south and the east, the differing approach and sheer resources of U.S. troops have made the contrast between violent south and increasingly quiet east ever more great.
The biggest difference is the amount of time troops spend on the ground. The U.S. 82nd airborne is coming to the end of 15 months in eastern Afghanistan. Most other NATO soldiers spend six months, some as little as four months, in the country.
"The American soldier and his leadership in the east in 15 months develop a relationship with the terrain, with the indigenous people and their leadership, and with the enemy," General Dan McNeill, NATO commander in Afghanistan, told a news briefing in Washington last week.
NEW STRATEGY
U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan, while wishing they could return to their families sooner, were more blunt.
"You can't do anything in six months," said one junior officer. "It takes you three months just to get to know your area of operations, by then you're half way out the country."
Given the difficulty of persuading NATO nations to send more troops to Afghanistan, it is hard to imagine European countries ordering their soldiers already in the country to stay longer.
As debate rages in Europe and in Canada over whether troops should be involved in combat, or reconstruction and training missions, U.S. operations in eastern Afghanistan could point to another way that might make that argument redundant.
In the past, the goal of U.S. troops was to kill the enemy, but there was no government authority or security forces to fill the gap and the Taliban simply reformed and came back.
"If you were here five years ago that was our decisive operation; put the enemy down. Great, wonderful, then what? Well we didn't have a then what. We do now," said Colonel Martin Schweitzer, a top U.S. commander in the east.
U.S. troops have enthusiastically embraced an Afghan-first counter-insurgency strategy focused on winning over the populace and bolstering local government and Afghan security forces.
British commanders in the south say they threw out their own outdated counter-insurgency manual and used the new American one instead, but the gulf in their resources is huge.
"U.S. Congress well endows the commanders in the U.S. sector with reconstruction money, bureaucratically unencumbered, more or less, so that they can apply those monies in a pure and comprehensive way in counterinsurgency operations," McNeill said.
AFGHAN SOLUTION
Zormat, a high plateau squeezed between two mountain ranges in the eastern province of Paktia, was so unsafe United Nations staff and non-government aid workers pulled out last year.
The United States has spent $63 million in Zormat alone, officers said, channeling it through local government officials and strengthening their standing with the people.
Afghan troops now lead all major operations in the region, with U.S. soldiers only in support, U.S. commanders say. Between August and October last year, there were 60 improvised explosive device attacks in Zormat. Since November, there have been none.
The same pattern is broadly evident across the east. But how much of that is due to the deep blanket of snow and ice that covers the mountainous terrain will become clear in the spring.
"It's an Afghan solution to an Afghan problem," said Schweitzer. "Not surprisingly the results last a hell of a lot longer than anything we do."
British aid is less evident in the south as most of it goes through the Afghan government, a policy Britain defends as more sustainable, but one that may not produce quick results.
With fewer resources, the British are obliged to rely more on intrigue and negotiations with the Taliban, analysts say.
British forces captured the town of Musa Qala in December after a Taliban leader switched sides and later came close to "flipping" the militant commander in the region.
But across the more temperate south, there has only been a slight winter let-up in fighting.
Canadian troops have suffered some of the highest casualty rates taking the same ground twice last year after Afghan police crumpled in the face of better armed and more numerous Taliban guerrillas. The Canadian government is threatening to pull its troops out unless other NATO countries send reinforcements.
(Editing by David Fogarty)
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Afghan Kidnappings Increasingly Common
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR February 12, 2008
As security deteriorates in Afghanistan, kidnappings of Afghans are increasingly common. Even the capital, Kabul, is no longer safe.
The growing wave of Afghan kidnappings isn't about politics. It's about ransom.
There's no shortage of policemen in Kabul. At a busy intersection recently, a handful of policemen direct traffic, while even more stand in the street and talk to each other by radio as they stop cars to peer inside.
But the flurry of police activity doesn't make Kabul residents feel safe. Just a short drive away in the Qali-a-Fatullah district, hardly anyone ventures out anymore.
Many say it's not a fear of suicide bombers that keeps them indoors. Far greater is their worry of being kidnapped by criminals for ransom.
"The biggest side effect of the deteriorating security situation is kidnapping. And Afghans are most at risk," says Mohammed Farid Hamidi, a member of the independent human rights commission in Qali-a-Fatullah district.
The Afghan attorney general's office says that in the past 10 months, they have investigated 130 Afghan kidnappings for ransom — 23 of them in Kabul. Those are believed to be a fraction of the actual number.
Many victims and their families accuse the government of complicity. Some claim Afghan police officers are trying to boost their meager salaries by working with kidnappers, a charge that police officials vehemently deny.
The police, in turn, blame such kidnappings on family members or private security firms looking to make a quick buck.
Whatever the case, kidnappings for ransom are rarely investigated.
There was no follow-up last month, for example, when an Afghan doctor was snatched off the street in Qali-a-Fatullah in broad daylight. He was one of a dozen people kidnapped in his neighborhood alone.
Witnesses say the culprits were dressed in military uniforms. They shot Dr. Fouad Sultani in the leg when he resisted. They then stuffed the 35-year-old victim into a white Corolla and drove off.
All this while armed police officers stood at checkpoints 150 feet away.
At their home nearby, Sultani's father recalls how his kidnapped son called him on his cell phone. "Dad," he said, "I'm bleeding badly and my leg is paralyzed. Do something!"
The father, Haji Hayder Sultani, says he tried to calm his son. He told him to tell the kidnappers he'd pay whatever they want. But the line went dead.
The next day, the police called to say they had found his son's body in the street. An autopsy showed he bled to death. Police blamed relatives for the abduction, something Sultani calls ridiculous. He says his son was well known as a doctor and businessman, making him a prime target for ransom.
Nor was there any investigation into the case of another Kabul doctor who was shot and kidnapped as he drove home one night last October.
The victim, Dr. Mohammed Hashem Wahaaj, says police refused to get involved because they suspected relatives had abducted him.
Wahaaj says his four captors were not relatives, but strangers dressed in suits. After running him off the road, they shot him in the arm to subdue him. They explained to Wahaaj that they were kidnapping him for ransom money, he says.
Wahaaj was blindfolded and chained to the wall of a windowless basement for 19 days. He says his captors beat him and demanded his brothers pay a million-dollar ransom.
Eventually, his brothers cut a deal with the kidnappers, although Wahaaj says they won't tell him for how much. But the going rate is said to be several hundred thousand dollars.
"They were well trained, well organized. And without support of government, they cannot do all these things. Because all of them, they have weapons, and their cars, their people, they are moving very freely. They cannot do by their own selves," Wahaaj says.
He says he has since moved his wife and children to Pakistan — and that he never goes anywhere alone anymore. He has also applied for a license to carry a gun.
So has Haji Hayder Sultani, the father of the doctor slain across town.
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PAKISTAN: Gearing up for another Afghan repatriation drive
13 Feb 2008 16:15:42 GMT
ISLAMABAD, 13 February 2008 (IRIN) - As the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) gears up for another Afghan repatriation drive, it is clear that fewer Afghans could return home from Pakistan this year because of continuing insecurity in Afghanistan and the fact that there will be no special UN assistance for unregistered refugees as in 2007.
"After six years of voluntary repatriation, it's hard to maintain large numbers. It's clear the numbers could be much less," Kilian Kleinschmidt, the assistant country representative for the UNHCR told IRIN in Islamabad.
According to UNHCR, there are currently two million registered Afghans in the country today, making it one of the most intractable refugee problems.
His comments come less than a month before the UNHCR launches this year's Afghan repatriation programme - a voluntary effort that over the past six years has successfully helped over three million Afghans to return home.
From 2 March returnees may register at one of two voluntary repatriation centres (VRCs) - one in Quetta and the other just outside Peshawar.
Participants will then proceed to one of four encashment centres in Afghanistan - Jalalabad, Kabul, Kandahar and Gardez - where they will receive a monetary grant of about US$100 per person, as well as be pre-screened for any special needs.
Successes to date
In the first year of the programme 1.5 million Afghans returned with UNHCR assistance, but over the past few years those numbers have since dropped off.
In 2003, just over 343,000 returned, followed by 383,000 in 2004; 450,000 in 2005; and 133,000 in 2006.
In 2007, over 360,000 returned. Many of them were unregistered but took advantage of UNHCR assistance during a government grace period from 1 March to 15 April.
In Pakistan for decades
Yet with no grace period for unregistered Afghans this time around, coupled with the fact that most Afghans now living in Pakistan have been in the country for decades, it is unlikely that this year's numbers will be very high.
"I don't want to return. It's not safe," said one 23-year-old Afghan in Rawalpindi, who declined to give his name.
"If I go back, what am I supposed to do for a job?" another demanded.
Under the government's current three-year plan, all Afghans are expected to return to their country by the end of 2009.
Given the realities on the ground in Afghanistan, such a plan is looking increasingly less tenable, and underscores the need for a more realistic approach by all parties if the voluntary nature of return - agreed to by UNHCR and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan - is to be maintained.
Camp closures
Another contentious issue under the government's current plan is the proposed closure of over 80 refugee camps - where half of Pakistan's Afghan population lives - by the end of 2009.
Under the terms of an agreement between the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan and UNHCR, just three of these camps are agreed for closure.
But closing the three camps this year will probably prove challenging.
"We've agreed to close these camps and staying in situ is not an option," Kleinschmidt said, adding, however, that it will not be easy as UNHCR does not have access to the two camps in Balochistan.
"In Jalozai [in the North West Frontier Province], we reached an agreement with the Afghan elders last year, so we're more optimistic about closing that camp," Kleinschmidt said.
Inherent in this challenge is likely resistance by many camp residents to return, particularly in Balochistan where many have lived since the 1979 Soviet invasion.
Also, of the two million registered Afghans, over half were born in Pakistan and know no other country.
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Canada parties closer to agreement on Afghan mission
by Michel Comte Tue Feb 12, 10:26 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's opposition Liberals agreed with the ruling Conservatives for the need to maintain troops in Afghanistan to 2011 only if NATO allies send reinforcements soon.
But they differed on whether Canadian soldiers should continue hunting insurgents beyond their current mandate of February 2009, or stick to a non-combat role in volatile Kandahar province.
"I think this is important progress that has been made," said Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Liberal proposals to amend a Conservative motion to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
"There are differences in the motion, but the government's objective is to see common ground here. So we will look at these in great detail with the express intention of trying to find common ground," he said.
Earlier, Liberal leader Stephane Dion presented Harper with four pages of amendments to the government's one-page motion on Afghanistan.
These included a firm mission end date of 2011, and for it to be refocused from counterinsurgency operations to training the Afghan army and providing security for more reconstruction in Kandahar.
Harper has said he wants Canadian combat operations in Afghanistan to continue on their current path and for lawmakers to revisit the mission in 2011 to decide whether it should be extended further.
But both party heads seemed eager to try to find a compromise to avoid possible snap elections in March over this issue.
"The mission must change. The mission must have a clear end date. And the mission must be about more than the military," Dion told reporters.
"Combat and counterinsurgency operations will not be part of our mission," he said. "We must all understand that there is no exclusively military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan."
"That is why our motion also places a greater emphasis on stronger and more disciplined diplomatic efforts and a better balance with respect to reconstruction and development efforts."
But, Dion added, "We will not micro-manage the military. It is for them (military commanders) to determine how to implement this new mission," leaving the door open to ongoing skirmishes with insurgents.
Canada deployed 2,500 troops in Afghanistan's volatile southern Kandahar province as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters.
Since 2002, 78 Canadian soldiers and a senior diplomat have died in roadside bombings and in fighting with the insurgents.
Harper has asked NATO allies to commit an additional 1,000 troops, as well as medium lift helicopters and unmanned drones, to bolster Canadian forces now on the ground in Kandahar -- the birthplace of the Taliban.
The plan is set to go to a confidence vote before the end of March.
If it is defeated, Harper's minority government could fall, leading to snap elections.
The New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois parties have said they want Canada's soldiers to return home at the end of their current mandate in February 2009.
But the Conservatives and Liberals have enough seats in Parliament to team up and pass an amended motion and prevent early elections, if they choose.
"Without compromising our principles, the wording of the (amended Liberal) motion has been carefully chosen to maximize the possibility of an agreement for the sake of Canada, Afghanistan, and the mission," said Dion.
If NATO does not send reinforcements, Canadian troops would still return home at the end of their current mandate in February 2009, Dion and Harper agreed.
Harper's minority government still faces a string of confidence votes in the coming weeks -- including on its budget and an omnibus crime bill -- that could yet lead to early elections.
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Where do we show resolve, if not Kandahar?
Canadian blood and treasure earns us the right to help shape better solutions
DEREK BURNEY From Wednesday's Globe and Mail February 13, 2008 at 6:23 AM EST
In examining what we are doing in Afghanistan and why, it is important to underscore that Canada is a G8 member and, as such, is expected to engage internationally, serving global organizations to which we belong in a manner befitting our responsibility, our capability and our interests - provided, of course, that we want to be a player, not a bystander, on major issues. As John Manley, chairman of the Afghanistan panel has stated, our role is a noble undertaking consistent with Canadian interests, values and traditions. He has also said, "For the first time in many years, we have brought a level of commitment to an international problem that gives us real weight and credibility."
Afghanistan represents the most robust expression of Canadian foreign policy since the Korean War. Our effort - military and civilian - is substantial and yet, as our panel report has indicated, it is hobbled by a collective effort - military and civilian - that is highly fragmented, under-resourced and ineffectively co-ordinated. These shortcomings contribute to understandable unease among Canadians about the utility of what we are doing and about the prospects for success. We have urged a series of moves that would respond to current deficiencies and better ensure that Canada's diplomatic voice is more disciplined and commensurate with our contributions - in terms of blood and treasure.
We have tried to give our Prime Minister some leverage to secure what is needed most: more troops for more security and for more training, as well as more balanced burden-sharing by our erstwhile allies. And he has begun to use it. Our willingness to extend the mission is contingent on new commitments from others. This is, after all, a test of resolve for NATO and the international community.
We could use more sensitive and more constructive leadership, too, from a reinvigorated and more confident America, an America with the will to tackle threats to global security with judicious elements of panache, diplomacy and respect, enabling others to share the responsibility.
To the critics who say fundamentally that we should not be in Afghanistan, I ask the following question: If we are not willing to commit our military resources when asked to do so by the United Nations, for a mission co-ordinated by NATO, in a country whose democratically elected government wants us and whose citizens desperately need us, then precisely where and when would Canada be prepared to do so?
Some have suggested that we would be better in Darfur, forgetting presumably that Sudan is not favourably disposed to such involvement by Canada. In any event, do we go to Darfur only to get out when the going gets tough? To what Canadian tradition or value would that speak?
History has too many examples of what can happen when the international community chooses not to engage in the face of aggression. It is not just the lesson of Munich, it is a more recent lesson from Rwanda. Roméo Dallaire's harrowing experience, recounted in his book Shake Hands with the Devil, illustrates what happens without collective international resolve.
Above all, peacekeepers need a peace to keep.
We need to recognize, too, that security is the essential condition for reconstruction and good governance. They are intrinsically linked. Security enables development and good governance enhances security.
We should not exaggerate either our influence or our capability, but there are some things we can do well and what we are doing in Afghanistan, I can assure you from personal experience, is making a difference. Will it succeed? Well, there are no guarantees and our panel had no illusions about the complexity of the challenge.
Progress is decidedly mixed, but there are genuine signs of improvement in terms of education, health and basic governance. For a country brutalized by 30 years of internal strife and that ranks as the fourth-poorest in the world with a per capita GDP half that of Haiti, expectations need to be conditioned by a healthy dose of realism.
Given the obvious limitations of the current effort in Afghanistan, a premature withdrawal or an abrupt shift to a non-combat role has no operational logic. It would simply shift the burden to others and, frankly, undercut any realistic prospect of success.
Perfection is not the goal. Making things better is.
We chose a tough responsibility in Afghanistan in one of the most difficult and dangerous regions of that country. There are problems that need to be addressed and our panel offered a candid assessment of what we think is needed. Canada has certainly earned the right to help shape better solutions, notably a more robust diplomatic role to complement our military effort, one that will help bring more coherence to the international effort, not just in Afghanistan, but in what is today the most dangerous region of the world.
We should never allow the fundamental freedoms we enjoy in Canada to become a source of weakness or reluctance when we are called on to support the establishment of those very same freedoms for those who do not yet have them. We need to concentrate more on hand-holding than hand-wringing. The ultimate objective is to equip the Afghans to handle their own affairs and to prevent their country from again becoming a sanctuary for global terrorism.
We had hoped, too, that our report would lift the parliamentary debate out of the partisan ditch. Today, that is, at best, a "work in progress." But, I have to believe that a degree of reason and informed debate will ultimately prevail. The sacrifices to date, and those directly engaged in Afghanistan on our behalf, merit at least that.
Derek H. Burney, a mMember of the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan and a former ambassador to the United States, is a senior strategic adviser to Ogilvy Renault LLP. This article was adapted from Mr. Burney's Robert H. Catherwood Scholarship address in Toronto last night.
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A bipartisan tone on Afghanistan
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail February 13, 2008 at 6:15 AM EST
The Conservatives and Liberals seem to be finding common ground on Afghanistan. Recognizing that the mission there is too important to be treated as a political football, they have made gestures of compromise. The Liberals have moved further in embracing the Manley report, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in yesterday's press conference, showed an uncommon graciousness, a welcome change from his usual point-scoring. The parties are close to a position that both can support, but they are not there yet.
The previous Liberal government assigned Canadian soldiers to the effort in Afghanistan in general and Kandahar in particular for two excellent reasons. They are there to help Afghans fend off the Taliban, whose actions while in power did so much to hurt so many. And by rebuilding the society and supporting an effective government (very much a work in progress), they are there to make Afghanistan less of a haven for extremists who might target other countries - including Canada - from that base. While the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois want Canada to withdraw its soldiers, the Conservatives and Liberals recognize the imperative of acting in a way that doesn't undo the important work achieved so far, while imposing a condition of greater help from our allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Neither party appears keen to fight an election on the issue. The question of whether soldiers should engage in "combat," for instance, seems a matter more of semantics than substance; the word was barely mentioned in yesterday's proposed Liberal amendment to last week's Conservative motion.
The significant disagreement is over the deadline. The Liberal amendment calls unequivocally for the Canadian Forces to leave Kandahar by July, 2011. Although Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan has said the "objective" is to withdraw troops by the end of 2011, the Conservative motion says only that the mission would be reviewed in 2011. It would be wise for the Liberals to adjust their position, even given that they have already adjusted considerably to embrace the Manley recommendations. It makes no tactical sense to declare now what will happen three years from now. Circumstances in Afghanistan may change markedly; Canadian soldiers in Kandahar may feel on excellent grounds in 2011 that they are part of an operation that should not be cut short. The Conservative motion offers essential flexibility. The Liberals should not balk at this.
As the parties otherwise jockey for an election that Canadians neither want nor need, it appears Mr. Harper and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion have at least, and at last, managed to treat the Afghan file as above politics. That said, one should never underestimate the capacity of partisan interests to derail even the most promising bipartisan efforts. Given the global stakes involved here, both sides should resist any such temptation.
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Common ground, but no consensus on Afghanistan
Canwest News Service Tuesday, February 12, 2008
OTTAWA - The ruling Conservatives and opposition Liberals have laid out duelling motions on the future of Canada's military mission in Afghanistan that contain differences but are not lacking common ground.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion made conciliatory statements Tuesday about the prospect of reaching a compromise on Afghanistan. Both stressed they did not want the minority Conservative government to fall on an issue that, they say, should be above partisanship.
Technically, the Liberal motion unveiled Tuesday is an amendment to the Conservative motion introduced last week. Here's a look at the common ground and where the motions diverge:
Both motions support the extension of the military mission in Kandahar beyond February 2009 through to February 2011 provided certain conditions are met.
The Liberals set out a timetable that says Canada will start drawing down its troops on February 2011 and complete the withdrawal by July 1, 2011. The motion says Ottawa should immediately notify NATO that Canada will end its military presence in Kandahar as of Feb. 1, 2011.
The Conservative motion is less clear cut. It calls for the mission to continue through 2011, at which point "progress in Afghanistan, including Canada's military deployment, will be reviewed."
The motions differ over what the troops' mandate will be after 2009. The Conservatives keep a "combat" role in the mix, the Liberals don't.
The Conservative motion says the combat mission will continue to 2011 "with increasing emphasis on training the Afghan national security forces expeditiously to take increasing responsibility for security in Kandahar and Afghanistan as a whole so that, as Afghan national security forces gain capability, Canada's combat role should be commensurately reduced."
The Liberal motion makes no mention of a "combat" role for the military beyond February 2009. It says the military mission should consist of training the Afghan security forces so they can take increasing responsibility for security in Kandahar and Afghanistan as a whole, provide security for reconstruction and development efforts in Kandahar, and continue its responsibility for the Kandahar provincial reconstruction team.
Dion told a press conference the military leaders would be free to decide operational details of how to implement those training priorities, but that offensive combat operations could not be part of the formula. Harper reacted cautiously, telling reporters he was "encouraged" the Liberal motion backs away from suggesting the government would "dictate operational decisions to military commanders on the ground."
The two parties disagree on the size of the troop commitment from one or more other countries that should be operational in Kandahar by February 2009.
The Conservatives say Canada must secure a partner to provide a battle group of about 1,000 troops to arrive and be operational no later than February 2009.
The Liberals do not put a number on the additional troops, but Dion told reporters 1,000 additional troops are not enough. His party's motion merely says, however, that the mission will be extended on condition "NATO secures sufficient troops to rotate into Kandahar (operational no later than February 2009) to allow Canadian troops to be deployed pursuant to the mission priorities of training and reconstruction."
. The two motions agree that extension of the mission should be contingent on the Canadian Forces on the ground in Afghanistan getting medium helicopter lift capacity and high performance unmanned drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance no later than February 2009.
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NATO's Afghan Stumbles
Washington Post- By Michael Gerson Wednesday, February 13, 2008; Page A19
MUNICH -- For European leftists, apparently the only thing worse than dead white men is live white men talking about death. So the Munich Conference on Security Policy -- a yearly meeting of European and American military officials and experts -- attracted a large contingent of pierced and angry protesters chanting unprintable slogans. After a few days at the conference listening to droning simultaneous translations and concentrated diplomatic blandness, I was fully prepared to join the protesters.
But there was one important moment. Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered the latest in a series of rebukes to European nations for not sharing enough of the burden in Afghanistan. "We must not -- we cannot -- become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not," he argued. This would "effectively destroy the alliance."
For two decades, NATO's main purpose has not been "to fight" but to earnestly debate its own role and relevance. And it does have an important role. The prospect of NATO expansion provides incentives for reform from the Balkans to Ukraine. And it seems wise to maintain a military alliance of democracies in Europe, with Russia increasingly convinced that one Cold War was not enough.
But by Gates's standard -- a willingness to share military burdens and sacrifice in a common cause -- NATO hardly exists. During the past 15 years, Europe has taken a peace dividend so massive that the slightest military exertion leaves it bent and gasping for air. And public support for the Afghan mission is shallow across Europe. More than 50 percent of Germans believe their nation should withdraw from Afghanistan. German authorities seem proud of resisting that pressure by maintaining a contribution of 3,200 troops -- a rather pathetic boast from a wealthy nation of 80 million people. Administration arm-twisting is likely to result in the contribution of few thousand additional troops by Germany and France. But no one believes this would mark a turning point in the Afghan war.
We are not merely facing another crisis of NATO as we did in the Balkans. We are facing a broad insurgency in Asia that is actively preparing for violence against the "near enemy" in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- and the "far enemy" in Europe, India and the United States.
Americans are accustomed to thinking of the Afghan war as a Taliban uprising supported from havens in Pakistan. In reality, we are seeing a broad, borderless, regional revolt in the Pashtun tribal belt, two-thirds of which lies in Pakistan. In southern Afghanistan, the Taliban is pressing to retake Kandahar and other areas. In eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban are more internationalized -- influenced by Pakistan and al-Qaeda -- and seek both to maintain the havens and take terrorist shots at Western Europe and America. In the semi-autonomous tribal regions of Pakistan, large madrassa facilities feed a radicalism with global ambitions of murder -- and radical tribal leaders put increasing pressure on settled areas.
The normal, historical response to this kind of challenge would be to pay off various tribes and turn them against each other. Pakistan has tried. The problem is that these tribes, unlike in the past, shelter a transnational threat. Terrorists and radicals exploit long-standing local grievances to gain global reach. And so our safety increasingly depends on the security and development of places such as South Waziristan and Swat -- which is the real lesson of Sept. 11.
Yet every element of our response seems hobbled. In Afghanistan, corruption has flourished, and responsible leaders are in short supply. Pakistan is unprepared to fight a counterinsurgency campaign in the tribal regions -- and seems only half convinced that one is necessary. Civilian reconstruction and military efforts in Afghanistan are uncoordinated. NATO military efforts in the south are reminiscent of Iraq a year ago -- we "clear" but cannot "hold" long enough to "build." And while it is easy for Americans to complain about the Europeans, our military is also badly overstretched.
Success in Afghanistan and Pakistan will require a long-term commitment. America will need to take a broader military role in southern Afghanistan; the Afghan military will need to be massively expanded; the Pakistani military will need to be trained, aided and motivated to fight tribal extremists. But meanwhile, the threat of terrorism germinates, sprouts and grows to ugly maturity in one of the most remote and confusing regions of the world.
Still, NATO is not on the verge of a decisive loss in Afghanistan. We are either winning slowly or losing slowly. It is just hard to tell which.
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Afghanistan's refugee crisis 'ignored'
- Red Cross says unknown number are fleeing homes
- Villagers are victims of Taliban and security forces
Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian (UK) February 13, 2008
A growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is being overlooked as an unknown number of people are fleeing their homes, caught between security forces and the Taliban, Red Cross officials have told the Guardian.
They say they have less access now to displaced people than at any time over the past 27 years. "The conflict has not only intensified but it has also spread over the last few years. Prolonged human suffering is causing real concern in ever larger areas," said Reto Stocker, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Kabul. "There is little capacity to address it. We've never had so little access."
With the emphasis placed on security and development aid, large humanitarian needs were being overlooked, he said.
According to British estimates, there are 23,000 displaced people in the Lashkar Gar region of Helmand province, the base for more than 7,000 UK troops. It is impossible to judge the accuracy of the figure and there is no way of knowing how many people are displaced throughout the country, Stocker said. "Some areas are completely inaccessible."
Travellers on one of the country's most important roads, between Kabul and Kandahar, are subjected to daily attacks, he added.
Stocker said Taliban supporters force Afghan villagers to feed and shelter them at night. Then the Afghan security forces accuse them of supporting the Taliban and force them to leave their homes.
Stocker is in London to meet officials in the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, and international development department. He said the ICRC spends about £50m a year in Afghanistan, double the amount earmarked for the country. The shortfall is made up by taking money from other parts of the ICRC budget.
"We are not funded adequately," said Stocker, who described the ICRC as the only organisation mandated to talk to "the armed opposition" - the Red Cross's official description of the Taliban. The ICRC arranged daily exchanges of prisoners when the Taliban ruled the country.
The ICRC deploys 80 staff there, supported by 1,200 Afghan employees. They help an estimated 80,000 Afghans who have lost limbs, mainly as a result of landmines. They also monitor the treatment of detainees, including those handed over to the Afghan authorities by Nato troops. The number had risen from 5,000 to 13,000 in two years, Stocker said. They were being held in prisons and detention centres designed to accommodate a quarter of that number. The figures do not include an estimated 630 Afghans held by US forces.
Red Cross officials echo concern recently expressed by Oxfam about the dangerous confusion between Nato-led military and civilian operations. Nato-sponsored provincial reconstruction teams are treated with suspicion by Afghans, who believe they are controlled by foreign soldiers, the officials say.
Officials from humanitarian organisations paint a very different picture of Afghanistan to the one presented publicly by ministers.
In a speech yesterday David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said Britain should help spread democracy round the world. Speaking on condition of anonymity, humanitarian groups say most Afghans want security rather than "democracy" as represented by a powerful elite in control in Kabul. Afghans are increasingly dependent on central government and a corrupt national police force, even though their loyalties are with local elders, officials say.
They add that last year an estimated 550 Afghan businessmen and their families were abducted - victims of extortion. This is rarely mentioned yet has an important impact on the Afghan economy, the officials say.
Aid agency staff also express concern about British plans to train defence forces consisting of local volunteers. The US and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, have opposed the plan, saying they could turn into Taliban militia. "What message does that give to the Tajiks in the north when you are arming Pashtuns in the south?" one official said. British officials defend the plan, though they say the proposed groups must be properly monitored.
The Ministry of Defence yesterday announced that Afghan forces, operating with British troops, had seized a tonne of raw opium and about 20kg of pure white heroin powder in the Mosulmani area of Helmand province.
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Polish soldiers charged with murdering Afghans kept in jail
Tue Feb 12, 11:24 PM ET
WARSAW (AFP) - Polish military judges decided Tuesday to extend the pre-trial detentions of seven soldiers charged in the murders civilians in Afghanistan during an incident in August.
According to the judges' ruling, the "evidence gathered indicates that it is highly likely that the acts for which they have been charged took place."
Six soldiers, charged in November in connection with shootings in a village in the eastern part of the country, face up to life in prison if found guilty of the killings of six civilians, including women and children.
A seventh soldier, charged with the lesser offence of opening fire on a civilian target, was also ordered held in custody faces up to five years in prison.
According to an initial Polish defence ministry statement, several Afghan civilians were killed in the village of Nangar Khel in eastern Wazi-Khwa region on August 16 when Polish troops returned fire after being ambushed.
But the Polish military prosecutor's office has said the shootings in fact took place several hours after the ambush.
Poland has 1,200 troops serving with NATO's 36,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is battling a Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan.
The shootings in Wazi-Khwa region came two days after a Polish soldier had been killed by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, in what was the first fatality for Poland since it joined the NATO-led force in March 2002.
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REVOLT IN PAKISTAN'S TRIBAL AREAS, Part 2
Al-Qaeda sets sight on the next battlefield
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online, Hong Kong - Feb 11, 2008
(See also Part 1: Ceasefire: A lull before the storm)
PESHAWAR, North-West Frontier Province - Despite last week's ceasefire agreement between the Pakistani security forces and the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas, it is clear that a major regional battle between al-Qaeda and the Western coalition is still pending, starting in Pakistan.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, during a visit to Germany on Sunday, did not mince his words in saying that al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan's northwest frontier region pose a direct threat to the Islamabad government.
The remaining issue is who strikes first, and against whom.
"Undoubtedly, we are under observation, especially those who live in the cities," says a Pakistani and a member of al-Qaeda's shura (council) who spoke to this correspondent in Peshawar.
"We can sense a big operation is being planned against us in Pakistan's cities, but perhaps the security agencies will not get the chance to strike first," says the man, speaking under the nom de plume of Abu Haris.
"Pakistan's fears are not without basis. After Lal Masjid [Red Mosque operation in Islamabad last year in which the radical mosque was stormed], Sheikh [Osama bin Laden] personally appointed an amir [chief] for Pakistan for khuruj [revolt]. The decision got the approval of the shura and then an organization was set up in various Pakistani cities," the al-Qaeda member says.
"They were given resources and recently a new amir was appointed [the change was due to some unavoidable circumstances]. However, the greatest shock [for us] was in Karachi, where members of Jundullah [Army of God - a militant organization that targets the Pakistan state] were arrested. But we will recover and the arrests did not expose the identities of others as we have worked a lot to plug loopholes in our organization," Abu Haris says. (See Shootout echoes across Pakistan Asia Times Online, January 31, 2007.)
He says different people have different tasks and although the cells do meet together in the Waziristan tribal areas, they are not aware of each other's locations or precise tasks and operations.
Abu Haris believes this approach has saved the organization from being penetrated by intelligence agencies, which is why the rate of arrests of al-Qaeda members has dwindled in recent months.
Abu Haris is assigned by al-Qaeda to Pakistan, which means the cities, not the tribal areas. He says al-Qaeda has not only revived the structure that was destroyed after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but has greatly expanded its work.
Largely known as an Arab organization, al-Qaeda has now absorbed thousands of former members of Pakistani jihadi organizations, given them representation in the shura and delegated them operations in Pakistan.
Abu Haris is an example of this. He was a member of the banned Lashkar-i-Toiba, which concentrated its operations on Kashmir, but he is now a member of al-Qaeda's shura and in charge of a cell operating in the Peshawar Valley.
"The nature of operations and policies is different in Afghanistan, entirely different from those in the tribal areas, and now we have a completely different approach in Pakistani cities," Abu Haris said.
The post-ceasefire suicide bombing in the town of Charsadda in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) at the weekend illustrates this. At least 25 people were killed and more than 40 injured in an attack on a rally of the Awami National Party - a secular, ethnic Pashtun group - ahead of national elections scheduled for February 18.
The plan of khuruj
The addition of former jihadis, who were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight in Indian-held Kashmir, and some retired Pakistani army officers to al-Qaeda's ranks has brought about a major change in the group's operational approach.
Al-Qaeda began to concentrate more on strategic matters and an intelligence and review committee was formed. This is run by Pakistanis based in Pakistani cities. One of their tasks is to cull media sources for items on issues ranging from United States and European Union policy to matters concerning al-Qaeda. They then prepare summary papers and analysis which is passed on to members of the shura and high command.
For instance, recently the committee analyzed the issue of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, which has been much in the spotlight amid Western fears of it falling into militant hands. There has even been talk of the US trying to take control of it. However, the al-Qaeda assessment was that staff at the nuclear facilities was "patriotic, clean and better Muslims than the military leadership" and that any intervention by the Americans would be strongly resisted.
Al-Qaeda's shura makes all decisions, including the religious and strategic assessment of any project, for instance the decision to stage a khuruj was approved by Bin Laden last year.
The shura discussed the religious justification of khuruj and after long debate agreed it was essential for Pakistan. The religious requirements to launch khuruj include the appointment of an "amir of khuruj".
According to sharia law, khuruj against rulers can only be launched when the chances of success are good.
"It [khuruj] will be different from isolated attacks, rather it will be collective actions of revolt throughout Pakistani cities. This is what khuruj is by strategy and according to the demands of sharia," Abu Haris said.
All the same, al-Qaeda is aware it doesn't have the following such as the Iranian revolution had in 1979 when the Shah was swept out of power. Al-Qaeda's strength in urban centers is estimated at not much more than a few thousand.
All the same, Abu Haris is confident. "Just a few steps would be enough to break the binding forces of the country, and then it will fall into our hands," he says. "For instance, there are two major [oil] refineries in the country. If we were to blow them, the country would face a severe energy crisis. Everything would come to a halt and riots would erupt. There are already so many divisions in the country that the riots would bring it to the verge of collapse.
"The Pakistani army would be incapable of containing this. The 1965 war [with India] is evidence. Pakistan opened up a front in Indian Kashmir and in retaliation the Indians went for large-scale war ... the fact is that the Pakistani army was demoralized and desertions were rampant.
"We assess that any large-scale operation would break the army and Pakistan, and this would be a blessing for us. Of course, the Indians would take advantage of the situation and that's why we have a plan to immediately spread this war to the whole region, including India and Afghanistan," Abu Haris explains, basing his arguments on information from al-Qaeda's intelligence and review committee.
Pakistan in peril? Pakistan and al-Qaeda have had an informal agreement that al-Qaeda will not be targeted if it respects the sanctity of Pakistan. Certainly, the Pakistani security forces - mostly under US duress - have launched many operations in the tribal areas, but the militants have generally responded by only fighting against the security forces.
However, the recent arrests in Karachi stunned General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as they came to appreciate the full extent of al-Qaeda's plans for sabotage in the cities.
Pakistani intelligence agencies were aware to some extent of the problem of militancy, but preferred not to tackle it head-on lest it explode in their faces.
Another incident also jolted the Pakistani army. Intelligence had been reporting for the past year of the presence of militants in Dara Adam Khail, in NWFP, but the army ignored the warnings. However, when militants seized the strategic Peshawar-Kohat tunnel, which cut off NWFP from the rest of the country, and with it military supplies, the army was shocked.
Retired Brigadier Mehmood Shah, a former secretary of FATA (the Federally Administered Tribal Areas) , commented to a national TV network, "I don't think that ordinary Taliban are behind such a sophisticated military strategy, which cuts off military supply lines. Only national armies can plan such operations. I think there is some external hand behind that operation."
However, this assessment ignores developments. The forms of militancy have changed. It is nothing like the tribal rebellion against British India when guerrilla war meant firing on military convoys from behind rocks. The touch of the military brains (see Military brains plot Pakistan's downfall Asia Times Online, September 26, 2007) has brought sophistication to the militancy.
In addition to mainstream al-Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban, many unnamed militant groups operate with different agendas, and they are little-know to Pakistani intelligence.
Many analysts believe Pakistan has undergone a major shift in its policies in the tribal areas and that last week's ceasefire is a manifestation of this.
"It is an illusion to think Pakistan has changed its policies. American pressure is so immense that Pakistan just would not dare to change its policies. They will definitely come after us, but this time we will not give them the chance of first strike," Abu Haris says.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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