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Official: Afghans probing 17 civilian deaths
By NOOR KHAN Associated Press October 17, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Afghan authorities are investigating the deaths of at least 17 civilians during a clash between NATO forces and militants in southern Afghanistan, an official said Friday.
South Afghanistan attack kills 17 civilians
By Abdul Qodous Fri Oct 17, 7:16 am ET
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Women and children were among 17 civilians killed in southern Afghanistan, an official said on Friday, but it was not clear if they were victims of a foreign air strike or Taliban rockets.
U.S. soldier shot, killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- A U.S. soldier died after being shot at by an Afghan policeman in eastern Afghanistan, the second such incident in a month, officials said.
New army chief backs more troops in Afghanistan
Fri Oct 17, 3:01 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A general who has called for more multinational troops to be sent to Afghanistan is set to be named the new head of the army within days, newspapers reported Friday.
Robert Gates: To succeed in Afghanistan will require much more than just guns
Independent, UK Friday, 17 October 2008
The long reach of violent extremism - emanating from failed and failing states, from ungoverned spaces - brought America and our allies to Afghanistan. That country has become the laboratory for what
‘Kite Runner’ author views rise of Taliban in social and political context
Rejects notion militant group is inherently evil
By Harold McNeil The Buffalo News October 17, 2008
Khaled Hosseini, the Afghan born author of the international best-seller “The Kite Runner,” Thursday shunned the notion that the Taliban, whom U. S. forces are battling in Afghanistan, are inherently evil
Afghanistan: WFP urges development of new nutritional foods
KABUL, 16 October 2008 (IRIN) - New kinds of nutritional food, preferably made from local produce, should be developed to reduce malnutrition among young children, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in Kabul on World Food Day.
Chains or drugs: treatment for Afghanistan's mentally ill
October 17, 2008
JALALABAD , Afghanistan (AFP) - The mentally ill in Afghanistan , a country destroyed by three decades of conflict, have been counted at about two million, according to the World Health Organisation .
6,000 Indian troops to protect missions in Afghanistan Special Correspondent
Frontier Post, Pakistan Friday, October 17, 2008
KABUL - India has agreed to send up to 6,000 paramilitary troops to Afghanistan by the end of this year, for boosting up security of the Indian diplomatic missions and on-going projects, a top ranking Afghan
Senior U.S. Commanders to Assess Afghanistan Mission
New York Times, United States By ERIC SCHMITT October 16, 2008
WASHINGTON - The commander of the United States' Special Operations forces is meeting this week with the senior American commander in Afghanistan, as well as top Special Operations officers there
The West Is at a Loss in Afghanistan
By Susanne Koelbl Spiegel Online, Germany - Oct 17, 2008
More and more military and civilian leaders are voicing pessimism when it comes to the NATO mission in Afghanistan. As the fight continues, ideas for how to break through the ongoing stalemate are few.
Brzezinski: West Must Avoid Russia's Mistakes in Afghanistan
Deutsche Welle, Germany 17.10.2008
Zbigniew Brzezinski was instrumental in arming the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet Union. In an interview with DW, the former US security advisor talks about how the West can avoid the mistakes of the Russians.
Afghanistan launches own Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
The Telegraph (UK) October 17, 2008
Afghanistan is launching its own version of hit television quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
US plan to help Pakistan fight insurgents
The Christian Science Monitor By Gordon Lubold October 17, 2008
Washington - The American military is beginning a training effort inside Pakistan this week that holds promise as the US helps Pakistan fight tribal militants blamed for much of the increase in violence there as well as in neighboring Afghanistan.
No time to go wobbly
The Economist 10/16/2008
Talking to some of the Taliban makes sense. But there is no short cut to peace
Five arrests made in Washington slave case
FEDERAL WAY, Wash., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Authorities say they have arrested five people in the state of Washington on charges of forcing an immigrant girl to serve as their slave.
Afghanistan investments offer risk but also reward
Fri. Oct. 17 2008 11:23 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff
A Canada-Afghanistan matchmaking effort is underway in Markham, Ont., with the goal of teaming Canadian businesses up with partners in the war-torn region.
Prosecutors: Afghan girl enslaved in Seattle area
By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer – Fri Oct 17, 4:01 am ET
SEATTLE – Five Seattle-area immigrants from Afghanistan enslaved a teenage girl they brought to the U.S., with some forcing her to do chores and one — her 37-year-old husband
Rebuilding Afghanistan
Voice of America Editorial 16 October 2008
The U.S. Department of Defense has announced the activation of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, a functioning command and control headquarters for U.S. forces operating in the country.
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Official: Afghans probing 17 civilian deaths
By NOOR KHAN Associated Press October 17, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Afghan authorities are investigating the deaths of at least 17 civilians during a clash between NATO forces and militants in southern Afghanistan, an official said Friday.
Villagers and a senior police official claimed Thursday that a NATO airstrike killed the civilians, including women and children, in Nad Ali district of the Helmand province.
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan confirmed that it carried out an airstrike in the area on Thursday — but not that it resulted in any civilian casualties.
NATO spokesman Capt. Mark Windsor said Friday the force was seeking more information and declined further comment.
Daud Ahmadi, spokesman for Helmand's governor, said Friday that authorities were investigating whether the airstrike or "insurgent action" caused the collapse of the house in which the civilians died.
Angry villagers brought more than a dozen corpses — including the badly mangled bodies of women and children — to the governor's house in the town of Lashkar Gah on Thursday, said Haji Adnan Khan, a tribal leader who had seen the bodies.
Nad Ali, about 6 miles from Lashkar Gah, has been a scene of heavy fighting between insurgents and Afghan and foreign troops. Militants control much of the area around the village.
The issue of civilian casualties at the hands of foreign troops has caused friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his U.S. and other Western backers.
Karzai has for years warned the U.S. and NATO that it must stop killing civilians in its bombing runs or risk undermining his government and the international mission.
In the most prominent recent incident, the Afghan government said that 90 civilians were killed during a U.S. raid in western Herat province in August.
A U.S. military investigation found that 33 civilians died, and concluded that their troops acted in line with their rules of engagement.
Western commanders point out that militants put civilians at risk by operating from residential areas. Innocents also bear the brunt of insurgent bombings and suicide attacks.
Insurgency-related violence has killed more than 4,800 people — mostly militants — this year, according to an Associated Press count of figures from Western and Afghan officials.
In eastern Kunar province, meanwhile, a clash between Afghan forces and militants in Narang district late Thursday killed 18 insurgents, said Gen. Abdul Jalal Jalal, the provincial police chief.
Jalal said the insurgents had attacked an Afghan security checkpoint, sparking the clash.
It was impossible to independently verify Jalal's claim. Afghan officials are known to exaggerate their battlefield successes.
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Associated Press writers Fisnik Abrashi and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.
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South Afghanistan attack kills 17 civilians
By Abdul Qodous Fri Oct 17, 7:16 am ET
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Women and children were among 17 civilians killed in southern Afghanistan, an official said on Friday, but it was not clear if they were victims of a foreign air strike or Taliban rockets.
The issue of civilian casualties is an emotive one in Afghanistan and feeds the perception of many Afghans that foreign troops do not take enough care to avoid killing ordinary citizens and fuels resentment at the NATO presence in the country.
"Around 17 civilians were killed when a house collapsed on them, but we don't know whether the foreign forces' air strikes or rocket attack caused it," said Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand province.
The chief of the tribal council of Naad Ali district, where the deaths occurred on Thursday, said air strikes killed 18 members of five families sheltering in the house from fighting.
"Loy Bagh village where the house was bombed is relatively calm compared with other villages in the district," said Abdul Ahad Helmandiwal said. "We are still taking out dead or wounded people from the rubble."
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was investigating an incident involving an air strike in Naad Ali district, but said it was unable to confirm any civilian casualties.
A Reuters witness in Lashkar Gah, the nearby provincial capital of Helmand, said he saw six wounded people, including two children and a woman, brought to the hospital. Their families said they brought the wounded from Naad Ali district.
But the fatalities could not be independently verified due to clashes between Taliban fighters and ISAF-backed Afghan troops in the district, just west of Lashkar Gah.
The Afghan government sent a battalion of troops to Lashkar Gah on Thursday as reinforcements after at least two attempted Taliban attacks on the provincial capital in the past week which were halted by air strikes.
In a separate incident, Afghan and foreign troops killed and wounded around 50 Taliban insurgents in the Nerkh district of Maidan Wardak province, southwest of the capital Kabul on Thursday, provincial governor spokesman, Adam Khan Seerat told Reuters.
Two Taliban commanders were also killed during the ongoing operation, Seerat said.
An ISAF spokesman said 20 Taliban militants were killed.
Elsewhere, an air strike launched by foreign troops killed 17 militants in the Narang district of the northeastern province of Kunar on Thursday, a senior Afghan army official said.
The air strike was called in when a group of insurgents fired rockets at an Afghan army outpost established to provide security for a voter registration center in the district.
(Reporting by Abdul Qodous in Helmand, Ismail Sameem in Kandahar; Writing by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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U.S. soldier shot, killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- A U.S. soldier died after being shot at by an Afghan policeman in eastern Afghanistan, the second such incident in a month, officials said.
The Afghan policeman died later when U.S. soldiers fired back as concerns rose about insurgents having infiltrated Afghanistan's corruption-ridden police force, the Voice of America reported.
The incident Thursday occurred in Paktika province, south of Kabul, U.S. military and provincial officials said.
U.S. Army Maj. John Redfield told VOA a group of U.S. soldiers returning from a routine patrol was fired on from a tower by a member of the Afghan National Police.
"The ANP member shot from a tower and also threw a hand grenade toward the troops who were returning to their base," he said. "The other service members in the group fired back on the tower and killed the ANP member."
The earlier incident of a U.S. soldier being shot and killed occurred at a police station in the same province, the report said. In that incident too, the policeman was killed.
Regarding concerns about insurgents infiltrating the Afghan police force, Major Redfield was quoted as saying it was premature to speculate on the motive in the latest incident.
"That is a question, of course, that would be investigated," he told VOA.
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New army chief backs more troops in Afghanistan
Fri Oct 17, 3:01 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A general who has called for more multinational troops to be sent to Afghanistan is set to be named the new head of the army within days, newspapers reported Friday.
General David Richards, the former commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, could be appointed to replace General Richard Dannatt as chief of the general staff as soon as Friday, they said.
The Independent newspaper reported that Richards, who is currently in charge of army units serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo among other countries, believes an extra 30,000 soldiers are needed in Afghanistan.
This would include 5,000 more troops, the newspaper said, on top of the 7,800 currently serving as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and US-led operations in Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defence refused to confirm the appointment, saying only: "An announcement will be made in due course."
Dannatt, who was made chief of the general staff in August 2006, has been outspoken about the strains faced by Britain's armed forces and the need for better pay for junior troops.
There has been speculation in recent weeks that the 57-year-old was planning early retirement, although it was not expected until late 2009.
Richards will be replaced as the commander-in-chief of the land forces by Lieutenant General Peter Wall, the Independent said.
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Robert Gates: To succeed in Afghanistan will require much more than just guns
Independent, UK Friday, 17 October 2008
The long reach of violent extremism - emanating from failed and failing states, from ungoverned spaces - brought America and our allies to Afghanistan. That country has become the laboratory for what I have been talking about for the past year - how to apply and fully integrate the full range of instruments of national power and international co-operation to protect our vital interests.
Think about the scale of the effort in Afghanistan. There are 42 nations, hundreds of NGOs, universities, development banks, the United Nations, the European Union, Nato, all working as part of a multinational, civil-military effort.
For sure, coalition warfare is nothing new. But in Afghanistan, Nato's operations are hamstrung by national caveats, where different countries impose different rules on where their forces can go and what they can do. A number of our allies and partners have stepped forward courageously. But many have defence budgets that are so low, and coalition governments that are so precarious, that they cannot provide the quantity or type of forces needed for this kind of fight.
Afghanistan has also shown the importance of strategic communications. In Afghanistan, the Taliban employ so-called night letters to sway and intimidate the local population. I've said before that we need the equivalent of day letters to persuade and inspire in the other direction. We need to show the citizenry that we are fully committed to making a difference, rather than working disconnectedly on "one-off" projects.
To be successful, the full panoply of military and civilian elements must integrate better. These efforts today - however well-intentioned and even heroic - add up to less than the sum of the parts. The list of accomplishments is long. But so is the list of obstacles.
We must overcome them. We must be prepared to change old ways of doing business and create new institutions - both nationally and internationally - to deal with the long-term challenges we face abroad. And our own national security toolbox must be well-equipped with more than just hammers.
Robert Gates is the US Defense Secretary. This is an extract from a lecture delivered to the US Institute of Peace on Wednesday
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‘Kite Runner’ author views rise of Taliban in social and political context
Rejects notion militant group is inherently evil
By Harold McNeil The Buffalo News October 17, 2008
Khaled Hosseini, the Afghan born author of the international best-seller “The Kite Runner,” Thursday shunned the notion that the Taliban, whom U. S. forces are battling in Afghanistan, are inherently evil, despite the evil that they have been accused of perpetrating by many.
“I think some of the things that they continue to do [are] evil,” Hosseini said, during a rather relaxed question-and-answer session in Alumni Arena on the University at Buffalo’s North Campus.
Hosseini, a trained medical doctor who moved to the U. S. with his family as a youth in 1980, was the featured guest for UB’s 22nd annual Distinguished Speakers Series.
“I dismiss the entire notion of evil defined in such simple terms in real life, which is part of the reason I’m a little disturbed when our political leaders [take that tack]. I don’t think it’s quite that simple,” Hosseini explained, in response to the moderator’s query about whether the religious rebels were irredeemably terrible.
Born in Kabul where his father was a diplomat, Hosseini spoke Thursday of an almost idyllic childhood growing up in his native city in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a city he described as having a rich artistic, social and cultural life.
The Kabul of his youth provided the backdrop for the young protagonists in Hosseini’s first novel, “The Kite Runner,” which was released in 2003.
“It’s not autobiographical,” Hosseini said, “but it’s very difficult to write stories in a vacuum.”
Hosseini’s novel tells the story of Amir, a Pashtun boy from Kabul, who winds up carrying lifelong guilt for having betrayed his childhood friend Hassan, who is also the son of his father’s Hazara servant. Their lives are played out against several tumultuous events that changed Afghanistan — the fall of the monarchy following the Soviet invasion, the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the U. S. and the rise of the Taliban regime.
“The true name of the Taliban now means something else from when they first came,” Hosseini explained.
“Most of the Taliban were young men who were basically refugees of the war against the Soviet Union. Many of them had lost their fathers and their mothers . . . They’d been raised in these horrible, squalid camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he added.
War and misery were all they knew, Hosseini said. That, and religious teachings that they received at the madrassas, “where they were taught a very militant and very unforgiving brand of Islam.”
“I want to think that for many of them, their actions came from a place of conviction, that it wasn’t just that they felt they were bad people who enjoyed torture,” Hosseini said.
When they sought political asylum in the U. S. in 1980, Hosseini’s family settled in San Jose, Calif., where they at first eked out a meager existence.
After graduating from Independence High School in San Jose, Hosseini earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1988 and went on to earn his medical degree from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine in 1993.
Hosseini practiced medicine until just after “The Kite Runner” was released. His second novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” was released in 2007.
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Afghanistan: WFP urges development of new nutritional foods
KABUL, 16 October 2008 (IRIN) - New kinds of nutritional food, preferably made from local produce, should be developed to reduce malnutrition among young children, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in Kabul on World Food Day.
"Foods which have been fortified for maximum nutritional impact can radically change children's lives," Josette Sheeran, WFP's executive director, said in a statement.
WFP has thrown down a challenge to its offices in 80 countries around the world where people are food-insecure, to develop and produce new micronutrient-rich food items to help tackle child malnutrition.
WFP said 923 million people in the world, including millions of vulnerable Afghans, were fighting hunger every day.
The Afghan government has given a commitment to halve its hungry population by 2018, but high food and fuel prices have forced over five million already vulnerable Afghans into extreme hunger and high-risk food-insecurity, with women and children especially exposed to risks of malnutrition, according to aid agencies.
Soya beans
Locally produced soya beans - believed to be a rich source of amino acids and protein essential for the human body - could be used to curb child malnutrition, nutrition experts have suggested.
"If Afghanistan produces 300,000 tonnes of soya beans annually it will be able to meet the protein requirements of 30 million people and will be able to eradicate malnutrition," Steven Kwon, a USA-based nutrition expert, told IRIN on 28 August.
To do so the war-ravaged country would require sufficient investment in soya bean production and processing into milk, biscuits and other products, experts said.
Worst indicators
Afghanistan has the second highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world largely due to malnutrition, food-insecurity and poor health services, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
About 22 million of the country's estimated 26.6 million people are living in poverty and substandard conditions, UNICEF says.
"Among under-five children, 7 percent suffer from acute malnutrition and 54 percent of them are chronically malnourished. The nutrition figures could be higher in the areas affected by conflict and drought, where access is denied and humanitarian services are difficult to deliver," stated UNICEF's Humanitarian Action Report 2008.
The country has an estimated 5,972,000 under-five children 40 percent of whom are underweight and 54 percent are stunted, according to UNICEF.
Fortified biscuits
In an effort to alleviate short-term hunger and encourage school attendance, WFP will provide a daily ration of fortified biscuits to 1.6 million boys and girls in food-insecure districts with especially poor educational indicators, according to WFP's country brief.
"It is imperative that children here are encouraged to attend school so that they have the chance to build a better future for themselves and for their country," Rikki Malik-Lali, WFP's officer-in-charge in Kabul, said in a statement.
WFP said it feeds a third of the population through free distribution, food-for-work and other projects.
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Chains or drugs: treatment for Afghanistan's mentally ill
October 17, 2008
JALALABAD , Afghanistan (AFP) - The mentally ill in Afghanistan , a country destroyed by three decades of conflict, have been counted at about two million, according to the World Health Organisation .
But in 2005 there were only 160 beds in the nation's psychiatric facilities, it says., however there are more traditional methods offered for curing the afflicted.
With shaggy hair and beard, and mumbling incoherently, Sher Mohammed, 40, lies curled up under the shade of a tree to which he has been chained for a month.
This is the standard "treatment" for mentally ill people who have been coming to the Mia Ali sanctuary in eastern Afghanistan for 300 years.
"Here, we don't give medication or advice, there is no other treatment than belief in God," says Mia Mohammad Naeem, one of the guardians of the shrine in Samar Khel village, 10 kilometres (six miles) from the city of Jalalabad .
"It's a spiritual treatment with the Koran and diet," he says.
At the Mia Ali sanctuary the patients, presumed to be possessed by jinns (demons), are chained by the wrist to a tree or in a concrete room, under shelter or in the open, for 40 days.
They are fed only bread and water and get no change of clothing.
In a shack close by, Ghulam Haider, 45, crouches on the ground, tirelessly writing in Arabic the different names of God and verses of the Koran on pieces of paper.
"Some of these taweez (amulets) will be poured in a glass of water and then drunk. Others will be burned or used as a necklace. Every single word of the holy Koran is healing," he says.
The taweez, not recognised by orthodox Islam, are used to treat mental sickness and are also sought after by the pilgrims who come to visit and pray at the tomb of Mia Ali Sayed, a Sufi sage from the 17th Century.
In one family that has arrived is a woman in a burqa who holds a baby in her arms: everyone has come to pray for the child to not cry the whole night. Other visitors ask for headaches or stomach pains to stop.
"We don't ask Mia Ali for a cure, we ask God. Mia Ali is only the way to God," says Mia Mohammad Naeem.
As his name suggests, he is a descendant of the Sufi as are the roughly 50 people who maintain this sanctuary, each taking turns for a few days a month. In normal life, Mohammad Naeem is a driver.
Only Asadullah, a old man of 85 whose fingers play with the keys to the locks on the chains of the current eight patients, works full-time at the site.
"My responsibility is to tie up the patients. During the night, I go to see how they are, I clean them. Some can be violent but they respect my white beard," he says.
Behind him a rake-thin young man is tied up inside a concrete room. Bare chested and emitting a strong smell, Wali arrived here from Kabul , 150 kilometres away, about 20 days ago.
"I drank whisky, I smoked hash... so my family brought me here," he says with a dark look.
The keepers of the sanctuary have no doubt about the success of this method of treatment developed by Mia Ali himself.
"Most of the people get well after 40 days," says Mohammad Naeem.
He gestures to an electricity generator. "This was built for us by a patient who came here in a bad condition and, as a miracle, was cured," he says, adding that patients come from all over Afghanistan and even neighbouring Pakistan .
"Families pay 5,000 afs (100 dollars) for food and cleaning. We stay in contact with them by phone," he says.
The sanctuary has no links with the psychiatric section of the public hospital in the city of Jalalabad , even though it is close by.
"Family members bring the people here after treatment in the hospital has failed," says Jan Baz, a 22-year-old soldier who is also a member of the Mia family.
The hospital has had a psychiatric section for 30 years but can no longer admit permanent patients, allowing people to stay for only three weeks even though many return.
"We have 20 beds but only 12 patients right now," says the head of the mental ward, Ahmad Zahir Allahyar.
"Our treatment uses both medication and psychotherapy. The doctors counsel the patients, they talk to them as friends. There are music programmes, they can watch TV, play board games, study... to free them from depression."
A few years ago, patients here would have been tied to their beds but this practice has been stopped, the doctors adds, as people in blue uniforms amble in the corridor.
"War is the main cause for developing this kind of disease -- most of them have histories of losing members of their families," Allahyar says.
Many Afghans try to cope themselves and it's only the chronically ill who need a hospital such as this one, he says.
One of them is Raza Khan, who is about 50 years old and has a beard that is more salt than pepper. He says he has been ill since the time of the 1979-89 Soviet invasion when he was a mujahideen (holy fighter).
"I saw a lot of fighting. I wasn't scared of the Russian tanks or artillery but I got tired, not sleeping well. I started beating my relatives," he says. "I know I'm ill. Whenever I'm cured, I want to go back to my family."
Next to him is 27-year-old Jamshir, a former refugee in Pakistan who returned to Afghanistan three years ago.
"I have no job, no money," he says. "I have long-term malaria. I'm causing problems for my family.
"Here I am given pills, medicine, and after that I feel ok. I want to get cured and to help rebuild my country."
The centre can admit no women -- this would mean building a separate building -- although this is being considered.
Asked about the Mia Ali sanctuary, hospital medical director Abdel Shakoor says that education will one day see such practices disappear.
"Day after day, our network to cover mental illness increases and the number of people who believe in the shrine decreases," the doctor says.
"But it will take a lot of time to change the behaviour of the people. It needs more education, social organisation systems, community participation, to change the habits of people."
But he is not optimistic about the chances of his own patients being cured.
"In 21 days, we can only put them out of danger, not cure them," he says. "They are chronic patients, the treatment is so long."
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6,000 Indian troops to protect missions in Afghanistan Special Correspondent
Frontier Post, Pakistan Friday, October 17, 2008
KABUL - India has agreed to send up to 6,000 paramilitary troops to Afghanistan by the end of this year, for boosting up security of the Indian diplomatic missions and on-going projects, a top ranking Afghan intelligence source disclosed this to The Frontier Post here.
India decided to send its paramilitary troops, after receiving formal request from Afghan government in July, this year. After thoroughly considering the invitation, India finally, reached an agreement with Afghan government this year in August, to send 6,000 paramilitary troops to Afghanistan, the source disclosed while giving details of the agreement between the two governments .
India has largest share in the reconstruction process of Afghanistan and 4,000 Indian nationals are engaged in different projects in many areas. Some mega Indian projects are said to be Zarange Della Ram Road Project, and the construction of a dam in Herat.
Besides its reconstruction activities, India has a chain of diplomatic missions in various cities of Afghanistan, whose security is the major concern for Afghan government, particularly after attack on Indian Embassy in Kabul. India was reluctant to send its regular troops to Afghanistan because it has a stance that Indian troops can only operate in UN peace keeping activities outside India. Indian military chief, Deepak Kapoor while visiting Kabul in August this year, had said India was not considering the option of sending its troops to Afghanistan . However, Indians after repeated requests from Afghan government and its allies in Afghanistan, agreed to send 6,000 of its paramilitary troops called ITBP (Indian Tibitain Border Police), and sources in the Afghan capital confirmed its first contingent will reach Kabul by mid-December this year, whereas another presidential source said, it will be next year in January.
About 3500 to 4000 Indians are working in Afghanistan for whose security, already some 500 security personnel from the same Tibitain squad are there.
Last year the United States, Canada and Afghanistan had jointly requested Indians to send troops to Afghanistan, first because India has huge share of investment coming to Afghanistan and secondly , because the US and its allies think that India, being a regional power, has its influence in Afghanistan, particularly among the parties of Northern Alliance and its Persian speaking leadership and communities.
Indian which had been nursing its desire of sending troops to Kabul for a long time accepted this request. Top presidential sources in Kabul while commenting on the presence of Indian troops admitted that India was sending paramilitary troops just to beef up security of the Indian diplomatic missions and entrepreneurs".
As Indian military presence in Afghanistan is a major concern to Islamabad, Pakistan had joined the war on terror with United States after getting an assurance that India would have no place militarily in Afghanistan. A close aide of Hamid Karzai said: "Of course Afghan government is aware of Pakistan's reservations about Indian military presence in Afghanistan but the growing insurgency and insecurity of Indian nationals and diplomatic officials are the main causes of inviting Indian paramilitary troops to our war ravaged country". "By providing better security environment to the Indian entrepreneurs here Afghanistan will attract further investment from there," he added.
On the other hand Pakistan is seriously monitoring developments between Delhi and Kabul and some officials in the Defence and Foreign ministries confirming the agreement between Delhi and Kabul said: "Pakistan will soon lodge a protest to the United States as they had agreed to keep India militarily away from Afghanistan at the time when Pakistan was asked to join the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan."
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Senior U.S. Commanders to Assess Afghanistan Mission
New York Times, United States By ERIC SCHMITT October 16, 2008
WASHINGTON - The commander of the United States' Special Operations forces is meeting this week with the senior American commander in Afghanistan, as well as top Special Operations officers there, to assess the mission in Afghanistan, senior military officials said Thursday.
Skip to next paragraph Reach of War Go to Complete Coverage
The commander, Adm. Eric T. Olson, was in Pakistan on Thursday to meet the new leader of Pakistan's Frontier Corps paramilitary force, Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan, and to observe a new American-led training program for the Pakistani corps.
Over the next several months, about two dozen American and British military trainers will instruct Pakistani officers at a base in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. The Pakistani officers will in turn train Frontier Corps soldiers next year, in what both countries say is a crucial step in building an effective indigenous force to combat fighters from Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan's unruly tribal areas.
But the bulk of Admiral Olson's time in the region will be spent conferring in Afghanistan with senior American Special Operations officers from across the country, as well as with the senior American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, on Friday.
General McKiernan has said that he needs as many as 15,000 combat and support troops beyond the 8,000 troops that President Bush recently approved for deployment early next year. The general is also conducting his own assessment of operations in Afghanistan.
His findings, along with other assessments from the Pentagon and the State Department, will be combined into a comprehensive White House review of Afghanistan policy that is to be completed next month after the presidential election, administration officials said Thursday.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, said officials from across the government, including the intelligence agencies, were working to ensure that "we are on the proper footing as we hand off the baton to the next administration."
The participants in the White House review, which began on Sept. 22 and is led by Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the senior coordinator for Iraq and Afghanistan, completed their formal meetings last week. Officials at the National Security Council are wrapping up their consultations and preparing to write their recommendations, an administration official said.
One set of findings and recommendations will address what the Bush administration can do in its waning months, an administration official said. Another set will highlight issues and possible actions for the next administration, specifically during the period between the American presidential election and the Afghan presidential election, scheduled for next September.
Admiral Olson, General McKiernan and another senior commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former top officer in Iraq who takes charge of the Central Command on Oct. 31, are reviewing the Afghanistan mission.
This summer, General McKiernan, a four-star Army officer who leads the NATO force in Afghanistan, was given command of most of the 19,000 American troops who have operated separately. The NATO force had already included about 15,000 other Americans.
American officials say they hope that the creation of a more unified command structure under General McKiernan will improve the coordination of all forces in Afghanistan - most notably American units near the Pakistani border in eastern Afghanistan, which have been independent of the NATO-led force in southern Afghanistan.
Admiral Olson was expected to meet with Special Operations officers this week at Bagram air base in Afghanistan to discuss details of how many of the Special Operations forces could improve coordination with General McKiernan's command.
Afghan Police Officer Kills G.I.
KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan police officer in an observation tower in the Bermel district in the southeastern province of Paktia fired on an American patrol on Thursday, killing one of the soldiers, the United States military command said.
The Americans returned fire, killing the police officer, the military said.
Last month, another Afghan police officer in Paktia fired on American troops at a police station, killing one and wounding three before he was killed.
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The West Is at a Loss in Afghanistan
By Susanne Koelbl Spiegel Online, Germany - Oct 17, 2008
More and more military and civilian leaders are voicing pessimism when it comes to the NATO mission in Afghanistan. As the fight continues, ideas for how to break through the ongoing stalemate are few. Some are beginning to think that victory -- for either side -- is impossible.
It is one of the last mild summer evenings in Kabul. A group of Western diplomats and military officials is meeting for a private dinner in one of the embassies in Wazir Akbar Khan, an upscale residential neighborhood. Almost all of the 12 envoys and generals represent countries that have troops stationed in southern Afghanistan and the mood is somber. "Nothing is moving forward anymore, and yet we are no longer able to extricate ourselves," one of the ambassadors says over dessert, a light apple pastry. He gives voice to that which many here are already thinking: "We are trapped."
If only that were the extent of it. The diplomats feel abandoned, a feeling that stems in part from attitudes toward their concerns at home. Conscious of domestic political sentiment, many Western governments have taken to disavowing and tuning out the unpleasant news from Afghanistan.
As such, it seemed almost treasonous when the outgoing supreme commander of the British contingent, General Mark Carleton-Smith, recently said unequivocally that the Taliban will never be defeated. A military victory over the Taliban was "neither feasible nor supportable," he told the Sunday Times. Carleton-Smith has lost 32 of his men in six months.
The commander's words were intended as a wake-up call for politicians at home, but the underlying meaning is this: The situation in Afghanistan is far more serious than you can imagine in your government offices. People are dying here every day. It's time for politicians to come up with a new plan.
'Doomed to Fail'
At almost the same time, a diplomatic briefing between the British ambassador in Kabul, a man known for his directness, and a French diplomat was leaked. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles said the current situation in Afghanistan was "bad; the security situation is getting worse -- so is corruption -- and the government (of President Hamid Karzai) has lost all trust." The American strategy, he said, "is doomed to fail."
Internally, US intelligence agents have arrived at a similar assessment. In the most thorough analysis of the war in Afghanistan to date, the National Intelligence Estimate, which is to be released after the US presidential election in November, the 16 US intelligence services involved write that Afghanistan is in a dangerous "downward spiral." The report mentions mounting violence and a government consumed by corruption and barely capable of resisting the Taliban uprising. Last Thursday Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, spoke of a similarly poor outlook when he predicted that the situation would become even worse next year.
In short, pessimism about the situation in Afghanistan has never been so high.
Indeed, the mood has become so dark that it almost seemed like a ray of hope when the news broke of possible "peace talks" between the radical Islamist Taliban and the Karzai government in Mecca. Saudi Arabian King Abdullah had invited envoys from Kabul and the Taliban to attend a joint Id al-Fitr, the banquet traditionally held to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai had repeatedly asked the Saudi monarch to use his influence, as the political leader of the country that watches over Islam's holiest sites, to reconcile the two hostile groups.
Karzai also issued a passionate appeal to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar: "Esteemed brother, return to your home, return and work for peace and stop killing your brothers."
Hardened Positions
Two government officials from Kabul and one of the Karzai brothers traveled to Mecca, along with Fazl Hadi Shinwari, the ultra-conservative head of the Ulema, or council of Islamic scholars, as well as the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Saif and the former Taliban foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil. Saif and Muttawakil are now seen as moderate forces with whom Karzai confers.
The other side was represented by 11 members of the Taliban who supposedly had access to the group's supreme decision-making body, the Quetta Shura. A representative of the notorious Pashtun leader Gulbuddin Hekmatjar -- allegedly his son-in law Ghairat Baheer -- was also among the guests.
A concrete result was hardly to be expected, the positions are simply far too hardened. Instead, the participants downplayed the meeting as a "pilgrimage." The Taliban "were not authorized" to conduct peace talks, former Ambassador Saif said after returning to Kabul.
It is possible, however, that the meeting did mark the beginning of a political reconciliation process, which could have two different outcomes: A participation of the Pashtun Taliban in the government or a separation of the ideologically less rigid insurgents from the hardliners.
United Nations Special Envoy Kai Eide, arguing for a dialogue with the Taliban, says: "Anyone who wants relevant results must talk to the relevant people." But experts on the extremist movement in Afghanistan believe that its radical leadership is "incapable of entering talks." They say only those insurgents who joined the Taliban as nominal members simply out of disappointment in the government could be more open to discussion -- and they are the majority.
Handful of Cash
The Taliban leadership is estimated at only a few hundred men, while the core of their militia consists of roughly 5,000 fighters. Nevertheless, the radicals can count a total of 16,000 armed men in their camp, including fighters from the Pakistani tribal regions, foreign Islamists and so-called part-time fighters -- mercenaries willing to fight at the side of the religious fanatics for a handful of cash.
Ideology plays more of a secondary role in the insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where concrete struggles for economic resources and political power are the real source of conflict. The governors often favor a specific clan, thereby excluding other Afghans from the distribution of jobs and aid funds. If the disadvantaged ones object, they are disparaged as Taliban and declared the enemy, not infrequently with international support. This, more than anything, drives them into the arms of the extremists.
Dutch soldiers stationed in Oruzgan Province complain that the governor installed there last year, who is not a member of the same clan as the Karzai family, has no access to the president and receives virtually no government funds for his province. The man who actually holds the power in the province, say the Dutch troops, is the former provincial governor and Karzai protégé Jan Mohammed Khan, who is given regular access to the president.
The Dutch have announced their intention to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2010. The Canadians, who are holding the fort in Kandahar, where they have suffered heavy losses, plan to follow suit a year later. The British in neighboring Helmand Province are incensed because positions and funds are awarded primarily to Karzai loyalists.
With at least five million Afghans about to face the hardships of winter, some of their fellow citizens have become immensely wealthy. Anyone who has managed to become a police chief, governor or high-ranking ministry official under Karzai often has it made. Many stole land and then had themselves registered as the legal owners. Others used easy access to international aid money to establish bustling bazaars or managed to acquire licenses to mine for minerals or drill for oil. Obtaining contracts to build streets or schools was likewise not difficult.
Moral Decay
But nothing has proved to be as lucrative as the drug trade, which accounts for 53 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product. In the province of Helmand alone, the drug trade is a business worth several billion dollars per year.
So far not a single corrupt minister or leading drug baron has so much as been charged with a crime much less sentenced. Karzai allowed the profiteers to do as they pleased -- as long as they supported him.
Many Afghans have been left disappointedly wondering if this is what democracy really means. Indeed, the word "democracy" has for many become little more than an expletive used to describe extortion and moral decay.
Finally, NATO agreed last Friday that ISAF soldiers will be permitted to fight drug dealers and destroy heroin laboratories from now on. But the German military, the Bundeswehr, continues to hold back, limiting its drug-related activities to helping local drug enforcement officials.
One year before the presidential election, President Karzai's popularity is at a low point. And the Western press isn't helping. Just recently, the New York Times published a story about the alleged involvement of Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali, in the drug trade. President Karzai himself denied the allegations in an interview with SPIEGEL, saying, "I have thoroughly investigated these accusations; none of them are true." The New York Times article, though, listed several witnesses who worked as informers for the Americans in an investigation against the influential head of the provincial council in Kandahar. With growing disagreement over the conduct of the war and other issues, the Americans could very well withdraw their support for Karzai.
The United States is determined to stop the downward spiral. Washington plans to send another 20,000 troops to the country by 2011, hoping to repeat the surge strategy that has seen some success in Iraq, where the addition of 30,000 troops has helped bring relative stability to the situation.
The British, on the other hand, fear that additional US soldiers could be more likely to heat up the conflict. "We don't need more GIs, but more reconciliation, more reconstruction and more offers for those who want to get out of the conflict," says an English advisor who has been working in Afghanistan for almost two decades. The West, he says, seems to be repeating the same mistakes the Soviets made. Despite an Afghan army of 100,000 men and 120,000 of their own soldiers, Moscow's military campaign in Afghanistan was ultimately a failure -- not least because support for the war back home dried up.
In Afghanistan, there is a simple barometer for the condition of the country. The cost of transporting one truckload along the notorious road from Kabul to Kandahar was about $1,800 (€1,315) in the spring. Because of the increased danger, the price is almost 10 times as high today.
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Brzezinski: West Must Avoid Russia's Mistakes in Afghanistan
Deutsche Welle, Germany 17.10.2008
Zbigniew Brzezinski was instrumental in arming the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet Union. In an interview with DW, the former US security advisor talks about how the West can avoid the mistakes of the Russians.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the son of a diplomat, was born in Warsaw on March 28, 1928. In the 1950s, he was considered one of the leading Western experts on the Soviet Union. In 1960, Brzezinski advised John F. Kennedy on Eastern Europe during his successful candidacy for the US presidency. Known for his hawkish foreign policy, Brzezinski served as National Security Adviser to US President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. Today, Brzezinski is a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and advises US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
DW-WORLD.DE: While almost all political parties in Germany want the troops to remain in Afghanistan, a majority of the population would prefer a withdrawal. What should the West do -- withdraw, stay the course or increase the number of troops?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: I don't think any of these options can be the answer. Withdrawal means that Afghanistan will plunge immediately into a major crisis with unpredictable consequences. Simply putting more troops is not the solution to the problem. Staying the course is obviously unsatisfactory because right now there is mounting evidence that the situation is deteriorating.
As Jimmy Carter's Security Advisor in 1979, you orchestrated the arming of the mujahedeen against Afghanistan's left-wing government, eventually drawing the Soviet Army into what you later referred to as the "Afghan trap." Has the West now fallen into that trap?
The West should not repeat the mistakes that the Soviets made. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan on the illusion that a bunch of Marxist Afghan intellectuals could help them create a communist satellite using a foreign army to impose its will. When the US reacted to the outrageous terrorist attacks of September 11, which originated from Afghanistan, it required only 300 American soldiers to overthrow the Taliban. The reason for that was that the Afghans were genuinely grateful for the American support and the support of other countries.
We are now running the risk of unintentionally duplicating what the Soviets were doing: Instead of capitalizing on that goodwill and leaving fairly soon thereafter while giving a lot of economic assistance to the Afghans, we are trying to create a modern state -- and a democratic version thereof -- through a large foreign military presence. I do not think that is a wise strategy.
What you are suggesting seems to be exactly what the Soviet Union did: Before it withdrew its troops, it tried to transfer the burden of fighting to the Afghan forces -- and failed. Why should NATO succeed, given that it has much less Afghan soldiers to rely on than the Soviets had?
The Soviets did that after devastating the Afghan society and creating massive ill will. One should not underestimate the enormous damage and incredible suffering that the Soviets imposed in the Afghan society by a ruthless military campaign, which drove millions of Afghans out of the country and killed hundreds of thousands of them. We have not done that yet. But I think the risk is that the longer we rely on a military solution, the more likely it is that the resistance to us will become stronger and stronger. I don't think that it is in any way comparable to the resistance against the Soviet occupation yet.
How can the West avoid getting there?
We cannot try to create a modern, centralized, democratic state in Afghanistan from the top down using essentially foreign troops to impose such a solution. This collides with the sense of ethnic identity and religious sensitivity in a country that is very resistant to foreign intrusions. We need an altogether different approach. Some additional troops in the short run may be necessary, but the main emphasis has to be on decentralized political accommodation with the different elements which are collectively described as the Taliban but in fact representing a much more diversified group.
In their nearly completed National Intelligence Estimate, US intelligence agencies report a "breakdown in central authority" and "rampant corruption within the Karzai government." The British ambassador to Afghanistan is said to have called for an "acceptable dictator..."
How do you create a dictator out of nothing? The problem in Afghanistan is that it is not possible to rule it from Kabul effectively, and I do not see how we create a dictator in a deus ex machina fashion. A dictator has to have either extensive social appeal or ruthless instruments of power -- or preferably both. I don't see that in Afghanistan unless it emerges by itself at some point.
How should the West deal with the drug trade that provides the Taliban with funds?
Simply trying to wipe out the poppies and deprive the farmers of income will not undercut the Taliban, it will strengthen them. The Europeans should pay the Afghan farmers as much as it takes to abandon drug crops. The Europeans should do that because most of these drugs go to Europe. The drug problem in Afghanistan is simultaneously a source of income for the Taliban and a serious threat to Europe. In this respect, the European responsibility for dealing with it is self-evident.
There have been repeated US attacks on Pakistani territory. Do you think this could further destabilize the nuclear power Pakistan?
US attacks on Pakistani territory should be done only under very exceptional circumstances: When there is truly reliable intelligence that very senior operatives of al Qaeda are potential targets and there is no indication that the Pakistani authorities are going to do anything about it. In those circumstances, such a reaction is justifiable since al Qaeda attacked the United States. But I think sporadic attacks against some Taliban activities emanating from Pakistan are likely to have the effect of simply widening the hostilities, and, in effect, transforming the problems we face in Afghanistan into a problem that spans both Afghanistan and Pakistan thereby vastly complicating the challenge that we face -- while at the same time probably further destabilizing Pakistan.
You support Barack Obama. Much like John McCain, he has called for a significant increase in US troops in Afghanistan...
The call for some additional troops may be justified here or there. But additional troops are not the solution in the long run. I think Obama has a much better understanding of the problems of the 21st century than McCain and the problems we face in Afghanistan are not the only problems the 21st century is putting before us. The American definition of its role in this world has to creatively adapt to the new global complexities. I don't see much evidence that McCain understands that need. Obama is much more qualified.
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Afghanistan launches own Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
The Telegraph (UK) October 17, 2008
Afghanistan is launching its own version of hit television quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
The programme's format will be similar to the original, but with one difference. The show's top prize of one million Afghanis is worth just £11,690.
However, the jackpot is considered a huge sum in Afghanistan, where the average annual income is under £200.
The Daily Mail reported a Kabul-based production company has signed a deal with the ITV show's owners for a 52-part series.
The programme starts filming in the next few weeks.
Contestants will have to answer 15 questions before they get their hands on the top prize.
Western-style television is popular in the Islamic republic. The country has already launched its own Pop Idol-inspired show Afghan Star.
The Millionaire franchise has been sold to 107 countries worldwide.
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US plan to help Pakistan fight insurgents
The Christian Science Monitor By Gordon Lubold October 17, 2008
Washington - The American military is beginning a training effort inside Pakistan this week that holds promise as the US helps Pakistan fight tribal militants blamed for much of the increase in violence there as well as in neighboring Afghanistan.
But a separate initiative to provide jet fighters to the Pakistani Air Force that Bush administration officials believe will be instrumental in the fight has been held up over concerns that Pakistan will use the planes against India, not against extremist elements in its border with Afghanistan.
The US deployed a small unit of about 30 special forces personnel into Pakistan this week to bolster the ability of Pakistan's Frontier Corps to fight its own insurgency.
The team, which also includes some British special forces, is significant, not for its size, but for the expectation that it can give Pakistan the tools to fight militants on its own. That is key to American defense officials who are desperate to reverse violence in the region but say any counterinsurgency there must have a Pakistani face.
That is why a long-proposed sale of new and refurbished F-16 jet fighters to Pakistan has become so critical to the Bush administration, which believes the old fleet of fighters the Pakistani Air Force is using now aren't effective.
The older planes aren't able to fly night missions, and they aren't equipped to drop the kind of precision munitions that could be instrumental in the ground fight against militants.
"Right now, they're basically dropping dumb bombs in the daylight, a fact that does not escape the enemy," says one defense official.
But Congress isn't so sure the Pakistani government can be trusted to use the planes against the tribal militants thought to be responsible for violence in Pakistan as well as in neighboring Afghanistan.
Members of Congress want to know why Pakistan would need a jet fighter that has "air-to-air" fighter capability when all the Pakistanis really need to fight militants from the air is a plane or helicopter with "air-to-ground" or "close air support" capabilities to support its efforts against militants on the ground.
Bush administration officials attempted to reassure lawmakers that the planes were actually being used for their intended purpose during a hearing on Capitol Hill last month as they attempted to get the proposed sales back on track.
"I don't know that it helps air-to-air with an entity such as Al Qaeda unless I'm missing something where they're in the air," said Rep. Gary Ackerman (D) of New York, who chaired the hearing. "Do we have flying Al Qaedas?"
The plan includes the sale of about 18 new F-16s, as well as the sale of older-model American F-16s the US military isn't using. Another program would refurbish some of the Pakistani Air Force's planes with more current technology and capability. But the bulk of the planes wouldn't be in the hands of the Pakistanis until the end of 2010, a Defense official says.
The concern over the use of the planes illustrates broader issues about the role Pakistan is playing in the Bush administration's so-called war on terrorism. American officials have grown impatient over Pakistan's inability to fight the insurgency, long perceived to be a US problem, not a Pakistani one.
But in recent months and under new civilian and military leadership, the Pakistani government appears to be making inroads against havens in Pakistan's border region with large operations in places such as the Bajaur region, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other Defense officials.
The bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad by militants last month also helped to solidify support for counterterrorism efforts, at least within the Pakistani government, though still not strongly among its population.
"From what I have seen, they recognize the problem, and there is a commitment to do something about it," Admiral Mullen said in an interview this week.
The Pakistanis have made greater use of their fleet of older F-16s as part of this effort. But their limitations have provoked greater urgency among Bush administration officials to get them the planes as soon as possible.
"We are in a bind here because we really need Pakistan in order to prosecute the war against the Taliban," says Loren Thompson, a senior analyst with the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va. "And yet there is a real danger that the weapons will be used for purposes other than that war."
Mr. Thompson believes that in the end the US will be able to sell the planes to Pakistan, albeit with restrictions. At the same time, the Pakistanis must meet other security requirements to house the planes once they receive them so the F-16's technology does not fall into the wrong hands, Defense officials say.
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No time to go wobbly
The Economist 10/16/2008
Talking to some of the Taliban makes sense. But there is no short cut to peace
IT DOES not take the leak of an American intelligence assessment to know that Afghanistan is, as the spooks put it, "on a downward spiral". That was all too apparent in April, when a military parade attended by President Hamid Karzai came under fire in view of television cameras.
The vortex started in 2006, when NATO troops were deployed in southern Afghanistan and stumbled into a full-blown insurgency. Since then each year has been bloodier; every spring NATO commanders plan an offensive to stop the Taliban's spring offensive, and every autumn they count more bodies and cry out for reinforcements. This year, says the United Nations, there may not be a winter lull. Thousands of Afghan civilians are being killed, by both sides. More of the country is being marked as "hostile" to aid workers (see map). Provinces around Kabul are becoming ever more dangerous.
With its superior firepower, NATO can win any battle, but it is losing the war-or at least not winning, which may amount to the same thing. It is alarming, therefore, that the British seem to be losing heart in Afghanistan just as America is rethinking its strategy and sending more forces (see article). The British ambassador to Kabul is said in a leaked report to have concluded that America's strategy was doomed to fail, and that foreign forces were part of the problem, not the solution.
As Margaret Thatcher once put it, this is no time to go wobbly. The past two years in Iraq show that a seemingly hopeless situation can be turned around. Many Afghans remember the misery of Taliban rule and support the presence of foreign troops. More American forces are being released from Iraq, and the new government in Pakistan seems more serious about taking control of the militant havens in its tribal belt.
That said, Afghanistan will remain poor and unstable for a long time. America should not think it can easily orchestrate a comprehensive Iraq-style tribal uprising against the insurgents, as some hope. In contrast to the foreign fighters in Iraq, the Taliban are mainly locals. But the other quick fix being proposed by the wobblers-negotiating a settlement with the Taliban-is not realistic either. There is no sign that the Taliban leadership is interested in a deal. President Karzai has already held out an olive branch, sending his brother to talk to figures close to the Taliban in Saudi Arabia. But their response has been more bombs and mockery. The Taliban say there is nothing to talk about until foreign troops leave; and they see the rumours of talks as a sign that they are on the verge of victory.
The right kind of dialogue Like economic development, political reconciliation does indeed need to be part of the solution for Afghanistan. But some differences go too deep to be negotiated away. If the Taliban want to wind the clock back to where it was before the American invasion, when they harboured al-Qaeda and ruthlessly oppressed their own people, there can be no agreement with them. A more realistic strategy is to isolate the hardliners by cutting deals with individual insurgent commanders, and wooing disaffected tribal groups over to the government side. But that will not happen on a significant scale without two things: greater security, to keep the support of the population and protect those who throw in their lot with the government; and a government that looks credible, legitimate and effective enough to offer a more attractive alternative to the Taliban.
In the short term, improving security will require a surge of Western forces to stop the country from spinning out of control. In the longer run Afghans will progressively have to take over the fighting. To do so, the Afghan army, a decent force belatedly being expanded from 88,000 to more than 122,000 men, will need at least to be doubled in size. The police badly need reforming. European allies unwilling or unable to send more fighting troops should help pay for this. Strengthening the security forces will be expensive, but cheaper than trying to garrison Afghanistan permanently with Western troops.
At the same time, the West needs to get serious about the enemy within: the chronic corruption and ineffectiveness of Mr Karzai's administration, whose many failures are pushing disappointed Afghans into the hands of the insurgency. For too long the Americans have regarded Mr Karzai as indispensable. George Bush placed too few demands on him. If Mr Karzai's recent cabinet reshuffle heralds more resolute action, he could yet redeem himself. But he faces re-election in 2009. America's new president should make it clear that Western support for Afghanistan will continue, but that support for Mr Karzai will no longer be unconditional.
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Five arrests made in Washington slave case
FEDERAL WAY, Wash., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Authorities say they have arrested five people in the state of Washington on charges of forcing an immigrant girl to serve as their slave.
A federal grand jury indictment accuses Mohammad Atahee, Nasima Yousuf, Mohammad Yousuf, Nahid Yousufi and Maruf Yousufi, of forcing the unidentified 16-year-old Afghan girl to serve as a slave at their homes, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said Thursday.
Atahee married the girl in her native Afghanistan when she was 13 and took her to the United States where she served as a servant at home in the Washington cities of Auburn and Federal Way, the indictment alleges.
Court documents accuse Atahee of repeatedly assaulting the girl both physically and sexually.
The alleged slave labor took place for nearly 18 months starting in August 2006 and was discovered after the girl reported an alleged rape to police on Jan. 26, 2008.
The Post-Intelligencer said the defendants could be sentenced to five years in prison if convicted on conspiracy to enslavement charges
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Afghanistan investments offer risk but also reward
Fri. Oct. 17 2008 11:23 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff
A Canada-Afghanistan matchmaking effort is underway in Markham, Ont., with the goal of teaming Canadian businesses up with partners in the war-torn region.
It's a land ripe with opportunities for Canadian investors, and the time has never been better to buy-in, said Aziz Amiri, the president of the Canada Afghanistan Business Council, which organized the event.
He told CTV's Canada AM there are dangers to investing in Afghanistan, but companies that take that "calculated risk" stand to make high returns.
"There are challenges as well as opportunities. Canadian companies are in places that aren't safer than Afghanistan. It's a calculated risk," Amiri said.
The primary areas of opportunity, Amiri said, are in reconstruction and mining, so the conference has targeted Canadian and Afghan companies that work in those industries.
Governments around the world have committed to helping rebuild Afghanistan, and money is available to finance appropriate projects, he said.
Mining is also is a major resource in Afghanistan, with largely untapped resouces of copper, aluminum and oil. The nation also has an iron mine worth $60 billion, Amiri said.
"Afghanistan is located very strategically, close to China, we have a border with China, and close to India. So a lot of these raw materials from Afghanistan have a good market in that area becuase of the emerging markets in China and India and Central Asia."
There is also room for development in the export of Afghanistan's natural gas resources, agricultural products and hand crafts, he said.
And while investing in Afghanistan has the potential to be financially rewarding, it is also a vital part of helping the nation emerge from the shadow of the Taliban, Amiri said.
"If we have jobs created there, if we have opportunities there, if people at the end of the month get some money from employment, then the prosperity will come rather than them getting the money from the Taliban to fight."
The Canada Afghanistan Business Council is a non-profit organization established with the goal of building business relations between the two nations.
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Prosecutors: Afghan girl enslaved in Seattle area
By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer – Fri Oct 17, 4:01 am ET
SEATTLE – Five Seattle-area immigrants from Afghanistan enslaved a teenage girl they brought to the U.S., with some forcing her to do chores and one — her 37-year-old husband — beating and sexually assaulting her, according to a federal indictment unsealed this week.
The girl is from an impoverished single-parent home in Afghanistan, and she was informally adopted by another family there that forced her to marry at age 13 in 2005, Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said Thursday. The girl's husband is Mohammad Atahee, a friend of the adoptive family; U.S. officials don't recognize the marriage.
Atahee and three of the family's members were already living in the south Seattle suburbs when the girl's adoptive mother, Nasima Yousuf, 70, brought her to the United States in 2006, as part of what prosecutors say was a plot to enslave her. Yousuf's husband, Mohammad, 84, had filed an immigration petition to bring the girl to the U.S., claiming his wife was her biological mother.
Once in the country, the indictment said, the girl, identified only as JV1, was forced to live with Atahee, who beat her and sexually assaulted her. She was forced to spend at least three days a week at the Auburn home of Maruf Yousufi, 42, and his wife, Nahid, 29 — caring for their children, doing laundry, cooking and cleaning. Maruf Yousufi is Mohammad Yousuf's son.
The girl escaped after some good Samaritans helped her report Atahee to the police in January 2008 for sexual assault, prosecutors said. Since then, she's been at a safe house, but they won't say where.
She also called police in August 2006 to report her case, but Nahid Yousufi threatened her and persuaded her to recant the allegations, the indictment said.
All five defendants are charged in U.S. District Court with one count of conspiracy to engage in forced labor, and the Yousufs also face a visa fraud charge for allegedly lying on immigration applications.
Atahee and Mohammad Yousuf pleaded not guilty, while the others did not enter pleas during their initial court appearances Wednesday. Atahee and the Yousufis were detained pending further hearings, while the Yousufs were released pending trial, set for Dec. 23.
Several of their lawyers did not return calls Thursday or said they could not comment. Ralph Hurvitz, who represents Mohammad Yousuf, said he didn't know anything about the case beyond what the indictment said, and that his client doesn't speak English.
All the defendants have legal status in the U.S., Langlie said. The girl, however, does not, because of the Yousufs' alleged lies on immigration applications. She could stay in the country by obtaining a visa for victims of human trafficking.
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Rebuilding Afghanistan
Voice of America Editorial 16 October 2008
The U.S. Department of Defense has announced the activation of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, a functioning command and control headquarters for U.S. forces operating in the country.
The U.S. Congress confirmed General David McKiernan as commander of US Forces-Afghanistan. General McKiernan will also continue to serve as the commander of NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which includes forces from 40 nations. This realignment of the command structure is intended to enable the most efficient command and control of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and to ensure effective integration and coordination between U.S. and coalition forces operating under NATO/ISAF.
As President George Bush said of Afghanistan, "This is a situation where there has been progress, and there are difficulties."
The progress Mr. Bush spoke of is significant: more than 80 per cent of Afghans have access to basic health care services, compared to 9 percent in 2003. As a result, child deaths have decreased by 26 percent. Nearly six million children are enrolled in schools, and more than two million of them are girls. Under the ousted Taliban regime, girls were not allowed to be educated after the age of eight.
Just as significant for the well-being of the people are improvements to the country's infrastructure. Since 2002, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, has reconstructed or built thousands of kilometers of roads; canals, pipelines and irrigation structures; rehabilitated or built power plants, hydroelectric dams and power-lines.
But as Mr. Bush said, Afghanistan still faces a number of problems, many of them associated with the Taliban insurgency. Afghanistan is the world's leading grower of opium poppies, the source of heroin. The growers and traffickers are protected by the Taliban and other insurgents -- for a cut of the profits. The Taliban will rake in an estimated one hundred million dollars in profit this year alone -- money that will be used to continue the war in Afghanistan.
Indeed, violence is on the upswing in the country. Some of it can be attributed to drug gangs. But there has also been a significant increase in raids by foreign fighters who are based in Pakistan and cross into Afghanistan to carry out attacks.
These problems cannot be resolved piecemeal. They must be dealt with in a coordinated manner, by the Government of Afghanistan, the international community, and neighboring states, utilizing the full range of military, political, economic, and social programs. Cooperative efforts such as Border Coordination Centers and formal talks must be expanded.
The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and representatives of tribes and provincial governments on both sides of the border, must work together to rid themselves of those who would kill and destroy for their own ends.
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