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More U.S. troops to Afghanistan?
By Russ Feingold Russ Feingold – Fri Oct 24, 4:00 am ET
Washington – Washington policymakers and others are increasingly recognizing that we need to return our attention to Afghanistan and the threat of Al Qaeda. While the administration has pursued a misguided
U.S. forecasts steep drop in Afghanistan opium yield
The Associated Press Friday, October 24, 2008
WASHINGTON: U.S. and UN experts agree that Afghanistan will harvest fewer poppy plants bound for the drug trade in 2008 after two years of record crops. They have radically different estimates
Afghanistan Planning Second Round of Talks with Ex-Taliban
By Steve Herman Voice of America 23 October 2008
Afghanistan's foreign minister says a second round of talks is likely with former top officials of the fundamentalist Taliban. VOA correspondent Steve Herman reports from Kabul that U.S. and NATO officials
Pakistan, Afghanistan agree on no talks with Taliban
By Sajjad Malik – Daily Times (Pakistan)
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani and Afghan foreign ministers told a press conference on Wednesday the two countries agree on not holding talks with armed Taliban.
More U.S. troops to Afghanistan?
By Russ Feingold The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News – Fri Oct 24, 4:00 am ET
Washington – Washington policymakers and others are increasingly recognizing that we need to return our attention to Afghanistan and the threat of Al Qaeda. While the administration has pursued
Europe could boost NATO Afghanistan troop levels
Thu Oct 23, 7:03 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – European nations could contribute more to NATO's mission in Afghanistan if Washington poured in more resources itself and provided a compelling strategy, the U.S. ambassador to NATO said on Thursday.
Imran Khan warns against US 'surge' in Afghanistan
by Katherine Haddon – Fri Oct 24, 1:11 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Pakistan ex-cricket star turned politician Imran Khan warned against any Iraq-style surge to tackle violent militancy in Afghanistan, telling AFP the two situations were "completely different".
AFGHAN POLICE NOW HUNTING DISGRACED FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL
By Arthur Kent, Oct. 23, 2008
Skyreporter.com has secured documentary evidence that President Hamid Karzai’s former Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet, who was fired by Karzai in July, is to be apprehended by police
France Plays Down Taliban Capture Of Antitank Missiles
ANNECY, France (AFP)--France played down Friday the capture by Taliban forces of two French antitank missiles seized after the insurgents launched an attack on hundreds of its troops in Afghanistan.
Security concerns over voter registration process
KABUL, 23 October 2008 (IRIN) - The decision by the Afghan government to use hundreds of medical and educational facilities as voter registration centres has sparked concern about potential security
5 Afghan security guards kidnapped
Press TV (Iran) Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:32:35 GMT
Pro-Taliban militants have kidnapped five Afghan guards after attacking their station in Selma Dam in Afghanistan's western province Herat.
Suspected US strike kills 11 in Pakistan: officials
by Hasbanullah Khan
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, Oct 23, 2008 (AFP) – Suspected US spy drones fired missiles early Thursday into a school set up by a top Taliban commander in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, killing 11 people, security officials said.
Pakistani refugees complain of army and Taliban
By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Oct 23, 2:54 pm ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – The Taliban beheaded their relatives and terrorized their villages. Now army airstrikes are killing the innocent, say refugees who fled fighting set off by a Pakistani military offensive against the Islamic extremists.
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More U.S. troops to Afghanistan?
By Russ Feingold Russ Feingold – Fri Oct 24, 4:00 am ET
Washington – Washington policymakers and others are increasingly recognizing that we need to return our attention to Afghanistan and the threat of Al Qaeda. While the administration has pursued a misguided war in Iraq, the Taliban has regrouped in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda has established a stronghold across the border in Pakistan, and Al Qaeda affiliates have gained strength around the world.
But few people seem willing to ask whether the main solution that's being talked about– sending more troops to Afghanistan – will actually work.
If the devastating policies of the current administration have proved anything, it's that we need to ask tough questions before deploying our brave service members – and that we need to be suspicious of Washington "group think." Otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
For far too long, we have been fighting in Afghanistan with too few troops. It has been an "economy of force" campaign, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff put it. But we can't just assume that additional troops will undo the damage caused by years of neglect.
Sending more US troops made sense in, say, 2006, and it may still make sense today. The situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated badly over the past year, however, despite a larger US and coalition military presence.
We need to ask: After seven years of war, will more troops help us achieve our strategic goals in Afghanistan? How many troops would be needed and for how long? Is there a danger that a heavier military footprint will further alienate the population, and, if so, what are the alternatives? And – with the lessons of Iraq in mind – will this approach advance our top national security priority, namely defeating Al Qaeda?
We must target Al Qaeda aggressively, and we cannot allow Afghanistan to be used again as a launching pad for attacks on America. It is far from clear, however, that a larger military presence there would advance these goals.
To the contrary, it might only perpetuate a counterproductive game of cat and mouse that has led to a steep erosion in Afghans' support for foreign forces in southwestern Afghanistan, the main Taliban stronghold. One of the most recent polls found that, while most Afghans support the US presence, only a minority rate it positively.
Regardless of whether we send more troops, we need to understand that, as in Iraq, there is ultimately no military solution to Afghanistan's problems. Unless we push for diplomacy and a regional approach, work to root out corruption, stamp out the country's narcotics trade, and step up development and reconstruction efforts, Afghanistan will probably continue its downward trajectory.
Many of the biggest threats we face in Afghanistan emanate from across its long border with Pakistan. The US intelligence community concluded last year that Al Qaeda has "a safe haven in the Pakistani Federal Administered Tribal Areas."
The Taliban also enjoys a haven in Pakistan from which it launches cross-border attacks into Afghanistan. No policy in Afghanistan will succeed without a change in our policy toward Pakistan, to one that encourages a sustained pursuit of Al Qaeda leadership as well as broad engagement with Pakistan's civilian institutions, its population, and civil society.
We must also work with other key nations, such as Saudi Arabia and China. In late 2001, the Bush administration was able to bring all the regional players together to develop an internationally recognized, post-Taliban framework for Afghanistan. We should consider a similar high-level diplomatic initiative. The way forward requires a renewed strategy that has the support of Afghanistan's neighbors and stakeholders.
In addition, we need to help build a more stable, more representative, less corrupt Afghan government. We cannot rely on a single leader while turning a blind eye to corruption and repression, as we did in Pakistan.
The establishment of the rule of law and strong civil institutions is critical. Otherwise, Afghanistan may end up being devoured by parasitic warlords who hold sway over key ministries and impede critical reform.
Afghanistan's massive opium production, and the involvement of prominent government officials in the narcotics business, are serious problems. So far, we have relied too much on poppy eradication, even though similar efforts have not been effective in other parts of the world.
The US government should provide support for robust rural development programs, which provide alternative opportunities for farmers, thereby undermining the incentive to grow poppies.
Finally, the US has yet to deliver on much of the development assistance it had planned for Afghanistan. Its infrastructure needs are immense, from decent hospitals to functioning schools and passable roads. Every day that those needs go unmet, more Afghan people may turn away from their own government and allow the Taliban to move in.
In the long run, regional diplomacy, government reforms, and infrastructure development may be more important to Afghanistan's success – and to our own national security – than committing additional troops.
The decision to go to war in Afghanistan was the right one, but after years of misplaced priorities and muddling through, we have to do some hard thinking before asking our military to create the stability and security that are badly needed there.
• Russ Feingold is a Democratic senator from Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs.
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U.S. forecasts steep drop in Afghanistan opium yield
The Associated Press Friday, October 24, 2008
WASHINGTON: U.S. and UN experts agree that Afghanistan will harvest fewer poppy plants bound for the drug trade in 2008 after two years of record crops. They have radically different estimates, however, about what the decline will mean for opium production.
In a report obtained by The Associated Press before its planned release Friday, the Bush administration contends that production of the heroin precursor will plunge by 31 percent, from 8,000 metric tons in 2007 to 5,500 metric tons this year. That is more than five times the drop in production predicted by the United Nations in late August.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy maintains its estimate is accurate. Its director, John Walters, said the UN report may contain "methodological anomalies" related to on-the-ground surveys of poppy fields and stocks and not factor poor weather into its production estimate.
The Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which compiled the UN report, was not immediately available for comment, but an official at its New York branch defended its estimate, calling the discrepancy "surprising" and "not logical." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak out on the matter.
When the UN report was released on Aug. 26, officials said that despite a 19 percent drop in cultivation, opium production would go down only 6 percent because of a rise in yield.
The U.S. report estimates that poppy cultivation is down a similar amount, 22 percent, but says yields also have fallen. Walters's office noted that the United States and the United Nations use different data collection and analysis techniques to compile their estimates.
Walters said the U.S. estimate included factors affecting opium production, such as drought, that the United Nations might not have used. Both reports, however, did factor the weather into cultivation.
UN experts said the drought was a crucial reason, along with anti-drug campaigns, for the significant decline in poppy cultivation from 477,000 acres, or 193,000 hectares, in 2007 to 388,000 acres in 2008. The U.S. report estimates that cultivation fell from 499,000 acres in 2007 to 388,000 acres in 2008.
Regardless of the difference in opinion over what the drop will mean for opium production, Walters said the decline in cultivation, particularly that 18 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces which are now poppy free, up from 15 in 2007 and 12 in 2006, is "good news" and a sign that counternarcotics efforts are working after years of failure.
"It gives us a clear indication that we can do this, we just need to sustain it," he said, noting that anti-drug campaigns were working especially well in Afghanistan's north and east where incentive programs aimed at rewarding local officials for declines in poppy cultivation have been most successful.
The Bush administration has spent $2.8 billion to fight drugs in Afghanistan since 2002, but until this year it had seen poppy cultivation on the rise and record harvests in both 2006 and 2007.
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Afghanistan Planning Second Round of Talks with Ex-Taliban
By Steve Herman Voice of America 23 October 2008
Afghanistan's foreign minister says a second round of talks is likely with former top officials of the fundamentalist Taliban. VOA correspondent Steve Herman reports from Kabul that U.S. and NATO officials are giving conditional support to such discussions between the Afghan government and insurgents.
Afghanistan is looking to hold a second round of discussions with former members of the Taliban.
During a news conference in Kabul, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, was asked to comment on reports that a continuation of Saudi mediated talks held last month will take place soon in Dubai.
The foreign minister says no place or time has been set for further discussions, but the unofficial delegation that held talks in Saudi Arabia will work out the logistics with the Saudis.
Spanta added that it is the government's responsibility to pursue such talks.
But Kabul and the Taliban have emphasized that such meetings should not be construed as peace talks.
In recent months, various top military officials and diplomats have stated that peace cannot be achieved in Afghanistan solely on the battlefield.
The Afghan government says it is willing to negotiate with the Taliban if they recognize the country's constitution, lay down their weapons and join the political process.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Patrick Moon, while visiting Kabul, expressed optimism the insurgents might accept those conditions.
"The Taliban does not pose a strategic threat to the government of Afghanistan," said Moon. "They do not offer a vision or a future for the people of Afghanistan. So it is reasonable to expect that you could have a Taliban which decides that their future lies with what the government is offering."
A movement toward possible peace talks comes at a time when violence in the country has surged to record levels since the Taliban were forcibly driven from power seven years ago.
There are about 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, under the command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the United States.
The chairman of NATO's Military Committee, at the conclusion of a three-day tour of Afghanistan, said increasing violence is not a surprise.
Italian Navy Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola characterizes the mounting Taliban attacks as a result of the Afghanistan National Army and police working with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to fill a power vacuum.
"Nothing was happening because the law was not there," he said. "Now that the law - in the form of the ANA [Afghan National Army], the ANP [Afghan National Police], with the support of ISAF - is going there you see the bad guys starting to make violence."
A NATO spokesman in Brussels says it is the alliance's view that it is up to the Kabul government to decide whether it is prudent to hold talks with the Taliban.
Police in the southern city of Kandahar are blaming Taliban insurgents for the death of one of their officers when a remote-controlled bomb loaded on a donkey exploded. Two other policemen and a civilian were wounded.
The U.S. military says three soldiers of the American-led coalition force were killed in the western part of the country when a bomb placed by insurgents struck their vehicle.
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Pakistan, Afghanistan agree on no talks with Taliban
By Sajjad Malik – Daily Times (Pakistan)
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani and Afghan foreign ministers told a press conference on Wednesday the two countries agree on not holding talks with armed Taliban.
“Talks will be held with only those who are willing to lay down arms and those who live within the constitution,” Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta said. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said other nations were coming around to Pakistan’s multi-pronged counterterrorism strategy that said “no talks with militants but political dialogue with those who agree to live as peaceful citizens”.
Sanctuaries: The Afghan foreign minister also called for the destruction of Taliban and Al Qaeda ‘reproduction factories’ in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, adding cross-border terrorism was a serious issue. “If there are sanctuaries, there are. Let us call a spade a spade. But they would be taken care of only by the Pakistani security forces,” Qureshi added. Qureshi said he had
shared a document with his Afghan counterpart that ‘set the tone for a new relationship’ with new transportation and communication corridors, co-operation in energy and mineral development projects, and trans-border economic zones.
Spanta denied India was planning to send troops to Afghanistan or that there were 16 Indian consulates in Afghanistan, saying there were only four in Mazar-e-Shairf, Herat, Kandhar and Jalalabad.
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More U.S. troops to Afghanistan?
By Russ Feingold The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News – Fri Oct 24, 4:00 am ET
Washington – Washington policymakers and others are increasingly recognizing that we need to return our attention to Afghanistan and the threat of Al Qaeda. While the administration has pursued a misguided war in Iraq, the Taliban has regrouped in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda has established a stronghold across the border in Pakistan, and Al Qaeda affiliates have gained strength around the world.
But few people seem willing to ask whether the main solution that's being talked about– sending more troops to Afghanistan – will actually work.
If the devastating policies of the current administration have proved anything, it's that we need to ask tough questions before deploying our brave service members – and that we need to be suspicious of Washington "group think." Otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
For far too long, we have been fighting in Afghanistan with too few troops. It has been an "economy of force" campaign, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff put it. But we can't just assume that additional troops will undo the damage caused by years of neglect.
Sending more US troops made sense in, say, 2006, and it may still make sense today. The situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated badly over the past year, however, despite a larger US and coalition military presence.
We need to ask: After seven years of war, will more troops help us achieve our strategic goals in Afghanistan? How many troops would be needed and for how long? Is there a danger that a heavier military footprint will further alienate the population, and, if so, what are the alternatives? And – with the lessons of Iraq in mind – will this approach advance our top national security priority, namely defeating Al Qaeda?
We must target Al Qaeda aggressively, and we cannot allow Afghanistan to be used again as a launching pad for attacks on America. It is far from clear, however, that a larger military presence there would advance these goals.
To the contrary, it might only perpetuate a counterproductive game of cat and mouse that has led to a steep erosion in Afghans' support for foreign forces in southwestern Afghanistan, the main Taliban stronghold. One of the most recent polls found that, while most Afghans support the US presence, only a minority rate it positively.
Regardless of whether we send more troops, we need to understand that, as in Iraq, there is ultimately no military solution to Afghanistan's problems. Unless we push for diplomacy and a regional approach, work to root out corruption, stamp out the country's narcotics trade, and step up development and reconstruction efforts, Afghanistan will probably continue its downward trajectory.
Many of the biggest threats we face in Afghanistan emanate from across its long border with Pakistan. The US intelligence community concluded last year that Al Qaeda has "a safe haven in the Pakistani Federal Administered Tribal Areas."
The Taliban also enjoys a haven in Pakistan from which it launches cross-border attacks into Afghanistan. No policy in Afghanistan will succeed without a change in our policy toward Pakistan, to one that encourages a sustained pursuit of Al Qaeda leadership as well as broad engagement with Pakistan's civilian institutions, its population, and civil society.
We must also work with other key nations, such as Saudi Arabia and China. In late 2001, the Bush administration was able to bring all the regional players together to develop an internationally recognized, post-Taliban framework for Afghanistan. We should consider a similar high-level diplomatic initiative. The way forward requires a renewed strategy that has the support of Afghanistan's neighbors and stakeholders.
In addition, we need to help build a more stable, more representative, less corrupt Afghan government. We cannot rely on a single leader while turning a blind eye to corruption and repression, as we did in Pakistan.
The establishment of the rule of law and strong civil institutions is critical. Otherwise, Afghanistan may end up being devoured by parasitic warlords who hold sway over key ministries and impede critical reform.
Afghanistan's massive opium production, and the involvement of prominent government officials in the narcotics business, are serious problems. So far, we have relied too much on poppy eradication, even though similar efforts have not been effective in other parts of the world.
The US government should provide support for robust rural development programs, which provide alternative opportunities for farmers, thereby undermining the incentive to grow poppies.
Finally, the US has yet to deliver on much of the development assistance it had planned for Afghanistan. Its infrastructure needs are immense, from decent hospitals to functioning schools and passable roads. Every day that those needs go unmet, more Afghan people may turn away from their own government and allow the Taliban to move in.
In the long run, regional diplomacy, government reforms, and infrastructure development may be more important to Afghanistan's success – and to our own national security – than committing additional troops.
The decision to go to war in Afghanistan was the right one, but after years of misplaced priorities and muddling through, we have to do some hard thinking before asking our military to create the stability and security that are badly needed there.
• Russ Feingold is a Democratic senator from Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs.
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Europe could boost NATO Afghanistan troop levels
Thu Oct 23, 7:03 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – European nations could contribute more to NATO's mission in Afghanistan if Washington poured in more resources itself and provided a compelling strategy, the U.S. ambassador to NATO said on Thursday.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its highest level since U.S.-led forces toppled hard-line Taliban Islamist rulers after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States for harboring al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban and other insurgent groups are particularly strong in the south and east of Afghanistan and enjoy safe havens across the border in Pakistan, officials say.
The United States has long called for its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to offer more troops for Afghanistan and to place fewer restrictions, known as "caveats" in alliance jargon, on their operations.
The United States has about 32,000 troops in Afghanistan. Approximately 13,000 of them are in the NATO-led force of more than 50,000 troops.
Kurt Volker, the U.S. NATO ambassador, told reporters he believed other members of the Western security alliance would contribute more to the NATO effort if reassured on the U.S. strategy and commitment.
The Bush administration is engaged in a review of its Afghanistan policy, adding to uncertainty among its allies.
"You right now have allies who are concerned about some developments in Afghanistan and they are not sure what the U.S. is doing -- people have talked about some review going on on Afghanistan policy," Volker said. "Well the Europeans want to know what that's about. Where does the U.S. come out on this?
"If you have a clear U.S. commitment to Afghanistan and backing that up with U.S. resources and a strategy that makes sense to people ... then, yes, we could also get more input from our European allies as well," Volker said.
Experts say it will take more than just troop increases to stabilize Afghanistan. Better governance, economic development and new efforts to tackle corruption and the opium trade are all widely seen as necessary.
Volker declined to predict whether NATO foreign ministers would offer Georgia a membership action plan, or a formal pathway to joining the alliance, when they meet in December.
Russia invaded Georgia in August after Tbilisi tried to retake the breakaway pro-Russian South Ossetia region. Moscow has since withdrawn soldiers from Georgia proper, but it has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
The August war has led some allies to say NATO should delay putting Georgia and Ukraine on a formal membership track.
(Editing by Eric Walsh)
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Imran Khan warns against US 'surge' in Afghanistan
by Katherine Haddon – Fri Oct 24, 1:11 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Pakistan ex-cricket star turned politician Imran Khan warned against any Iraq-style surge to tackle violent militancy in Afghanistan, telling AFP the two situations were "completely different".
While stressing his support for US Democratic White House hopefuls Barack Obama and Joe Biden, he said in an interview Thursday that any move to increase the US military presence would be a bad move.
Obama wants to pull US troops from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan, pledging to "take out" top Al-Qaeda figures thought to be hiding in the mountainous Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.
Khan also said any international bail-out to help Pakistan overcome its current economic crisis would be "like treating cancer with disprin", adding the problem could only be addressed long-term by reforms to halt corruption.
"Most American politicians haven't a clue," the chair of the Pakistan Movement for Justice said during a visit to London.
"So it's very easy, they say, you know a surge, but do they understand a surge in Afghanistan and Pakistan is completely different to urban centres in Iraq?
"It's a spread-out area, they don't understand that this (the violence) has morphed into Pashtun nationalism now... they have huge men and guns to draw from."
There are thought to be about 50 million ethnic Pashtuns living in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Khan said Biden had a good grasp of the area's politics, adding: "It looks as if they might understand the situation better than (Republican candidate John) McCain, who's basically owning all (US President George W.) Bush's policies."
He was scathing about the Pakistani government's attempts to tackle its balance of payments crisis and said any international bail-out would have a minimal effect without structural reforms to tackle corruption.
The violence-plagued country, a key ally of the US in the "war on terror", must find up to 4.5 billion dollars in foreign exchange in the next 30 days.
"It's like treating cancer with disprin (pain relief tablets)," Khan said of a possible bail-out deal with the International Monetary Fund, which has held discussions with Pakistan.
"There are fundamental flaws within Pakistan. The problem is not the aid -- (ex president Pervez) Musharraf had something like, after 9/11, 65 to 70 billion dollars of fiscal space available because of loans writeoff, loans rescheduling...
"But what happened? There was still an economic meltdown. So there are fundamental structural flaws in the economy. They need to get the governance system right."
The former Pakistan cricket captain also said that Pakistan's government would become more subservient to the United States if it had to borrow more money from it.
"Yes, it's going to be more difficult for Pakistan government because when you beg and borrow money, you have no ability to take a stand," Khan said.
The 55-year-old is not currently a lawmaker -- his party boycotted elections this year in protest at the lack of an independent judiciary.
And he said it would not attempt a return to parliament until independent-minded chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was ousted under Musharraf, returns.
"We will wait until the chief justice gets reinstated," Khan said.
"Until he gets reinstated, in our opinion fighting elections will only produce dummy parliaments and a puppet prime minister."
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AFGHAN POLICE NOW HUNTING DISGRACED FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL
By Arthur Kent, Oct. 23, 2008
Skyreporter.com has secured documentary evidence that President Hamid Karzai’s former Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet, who was fired by Karzai in July, is to be apprehended by police and brought back to Kabul for formal investigation.
A leaked letter from Sabet’s successor, Ishaq Alako, addressed to the Ministry of Interior, states that Alako feels there is probable cause to contemplate criminal charges against Sabet, and that a travel ban must be enforced against the fugitive.
Sabet has vanished from Kabul and is said to have sought refuge with powerful friends in another province.
The development is a huge embarrassment for the U.S., British and Canadian governments, among others. Sabet was promoted by Karzai from a lowly lawyer’s post to the AG’s office in August, 2006 - at the urging of officials from both the U.S. and British embassies in Kabul.
When Sabet’s abuse of power was examined in depth here at skyreporter (pls see our Afghan Heroin series of film reports in Recent Stories) Canadian officials, including those in Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, refused any comment in response to questions about Sabet’s wrongdoing and his connections to Canada.
This had the dual effect of concealing one of the Karzai regime’s most glaring examples of official corruption, while frustrating attempts by honest Afghan lawmen and parliamentarians to clean up their struggling young government.
Among the specific allegations put 18 months ago to top Canadian officials, including former Ambassador Arif Lalani, were:
- that Sabet had evidently obtained Canadian status after entering the country on false pretences
- that Sabet continued to boast of an ability to travel to and from Canada
- that Sabet was displaying sudden newfound wealth at odds with his modest official salary as Attorney General
Not only were skyreporter’s questions not answered, but the PMO, Foreign Affairs and Ambassador Lalani shunned any and all further communications with this correspondent.
Here’s a more detailed account of the man the Government of Canada has been helping to shield. These are exerpts from “Covering Up Karzai & Co.”, first published in the summer, 2007 edition of Policy Options, the monthly publication of Canada’s Institute for Research on Public Policy:
The sheer scope of fraud within the regime’s ministries has caused a collapse of public trust. So much so that Hamid Karzai’s corrupt dominion arguably constitutes a greater threat to the long-term security of Afghanistan than anything those back-country no-hopers known as the Taliban are capable of mustering on the battlefield…
The Harper government, by accepting a subservient role to the Bush administration’s deeply flawed political and diplomatic approach to Afghanistan, has allowed itself to become trapped into providing public relations cover for a Kabul regime that is desperately in need of a complete overhaul. Rather than trying to effect the necessary repairs, Canadian diplomats and civil servants have been reduced to two main functions: making excuses for the regime’s failures, and lowering expectations for the future.
Afghanistan’s genuine democrats say that by perpetuating the Karzai administration’s myth of viability, nations like Canada are smothering attempts to root out corruption and get on with winning the peace. “It is a disaster for the Afghan people,” despairs Ramazan Bashar Dost, a popular member of parliament from Kabul. “Mr. Karzai doesn’t really want to fight corruption, and the international community, too, doesn’t have the will to fight corruption in Afghanistan.”
A walk through the crumbling architecture of the Karzai regime is like stumbling through a fun house on the midway, with warped mirrors reflecting a weird array of characters, all of them darting mischievously among the shadows. Some, in truth, are honourable appointees, trying their best for the country, while others are impostors, clowns – and, predominantly, villains…
At a news conference in March, 2007, reporters in Kabul asked openly if widespread rumours about President Karzai’s younger brother Wali’s connections with Kandahar’s drug trade were being investigated.
“That’s just anti-Karzai propaganda,” came the reply from the president’s Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet. “I’ve seen no evidence of this.”
Could this be because the Attorney General is looking the other way? That’s the suspicion of Sabet’s critics in parliament. Supporters of one of his victims, the respected former chief of border police at Kabul Airport, General Aminullah Amerkhel, don’t mince words: Sabet, they say, was acting on behalf of Kabul’s leading druglords when he had Amerkhel removed from his post last October (Oct, 2006).
Circumstantial evidence appears damning. Amerkhel was an accomplished drug-buster: his face had become well known to viewers of Afghanistan’s TV news channels as he and his men nabbed smugglers almost daily. Then, last year, he challenged corruption up the chain of command. He told reporters that too often, he would arrest a courier - kilogram bags of pure heroin in hand - only to see the smuggler released the next day, on orders from above.
Since Amerkhel’s suspension by Sabet, arrests have plummeted. Only five traffickers have been collared at the airport in the past six months. Amerkhel regularly racked up five or six per week.
So is Hamid Karzai’s Attorney General really in league with the heroin gangs? It’s a question that should interest the government of Canada for at least two reasons. First, heroin profits help finance the Taliban's war effort. Second, Sabet boasts to friends of enjoying residency in Canada: his wife and children live in Montreal. Yet officials in Ottawa - at Foreign Affairs, Immigration and the Prime Minister’s Office - have refused since mid-March, 2007 to confirm the status of President Karzai’s rogue Attorney General.
Sabet’s past is littered with reasons that he should never have gained entry into Canada, particularly due to his long history of association with the black prince of Afghan extremists, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Sabet was a longtime counsellor to Hekmatyar, once the United States' most-favoured anti-Soviet guerrilla leader, but now on their most-wanted list of terrorists.
In 1992, Sabet's continuing links with Hekmatyar led to his dismissal from a job at the Voice of America in Washington D.C. He was denied residency in the United States.
Sabet turned next to Canada, immigrating with his family to Montreal in 1999, where he became a familiar face at the downtown mosque, Masjid as-Salam. Sources within Montreal’s Afghan community confirm that Sabet portrayed himself as a simple refugee to gain residency, and that he failed to disclose the previous denial of re-entry into the U.S. Thus he allegedly committed two “material misrepresentations” with regard to Canadian regulations. Sabet is said to have collected welfare until his return to Kabul in 2003, where he picked up a lawyer’s position at the Interior Ministry.
Then, in an ironic twist typical of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, Sabet used his smooth command of English to form a relationship with a U.S. Justice Department adviser who was seeking favourable reviews of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
As a result, Sabet led an Afghan government inspection of the site, declaring afterward that there were "only one or two" complaints from prisoners, and that "conditions of the jail were humane. The rumours about prison conditions were all wrong."
Soon after, both the U.S. and British embassies in Kabul began lobbying for Mr. Sabet's promotion, according to an aide of President Karzai's who witnessed the sessions. Mr. Sabet was nominated as attorney general just months later. How that nomination was approved by parliament says much about the power structure in Kabul.
In order to insure enough votes for Sabet, a deal was brokered by Karzai’s aides between the candidate and a key Karzai ally, Abdul Sayyaf. This brigand is one of Afghanistan’s most feared warlords, a leading force of disunity among the militias that devastated Kabul in the civil war of the early 1990’s. Today, Sayyaf’s an MP - and leader of the parliamentary minority.
In return for Sabet lending support to the controversial amnesty bill that Sayyaf and other accused war criminals pushed through the house earlier this year, the nominee secured his confirmation as Attorney General. Since then, Sayyaf’s hold over Sabet has strengthened.
Sayyaf is frequently accused of land grabbing by citizens of villages to the west and north of the capital. A British lawyer happened to be in Sabet’s office when one such dispute came forward. A grieving widow alleged that her home had been occupied by one of Sayyaf’s militia commanders. The Attorney General listened for a time, then leaned across his desk and yanked the letter of complaint from the widow’s hands. He tore it up and ordered her to leave.
According to a senior Justice Ministry source, most if not all of Sabet’s key staff appointments have been cleared through Sayyaf, particularly that of his deputy of narcotics affairs, General Stanakzai. This left Sayyaf with two trusted henchmen in key counter-narcotics posts: earlier, he had used his influence to place a close aide named Sadat in the Interior Ministry’s hierarchy.
Sabet, meanwhile, has been equally determined to succeed in the game of connections. Just days after securing the Attorney General’s chair in August, 2006, he elevated a minor police officer named Nadir Hamidi to the rank of full general and made him his deputy. Within weeks, Gen. Nadir - known widely as “Choor,” or briber - fled Afghanistan to Dubai, his pockets stuffed with several hundred thousand dollars of state funds.
Sabet ducked accusations that he’d helped Nadir escape. Then he made an even more disruptive appointment. General Kasim is a former security chief of Baghlan province, north of Kabul. A Hekmatyar loyalist like Sabet, he was facing corruption charges – until the Attorney General had his file wiped clean and installed him as chief of Kabul’s District Ten police station.
There, he’s been a useful tool for Sabet’s barnstorming “anti-vice” raids on foreign-owned Kabul restaurants. (In one incident in February, 2007, Kasim’s men helped themselves to seized alcohol, according to foreign aid workers who witnessed the raid. An hour later, one of the expats was stopped at a checkpoint and beaten by policemen “whose breath reeked of vodka.” He filed a complaint, which now languishes at the Interior Ministry.)
More spectacularly, Kasim and his men have been the Attorney General’s storm troopers in putting the squeeze on Kabul’s vibrant young news media. On April 17th, 2007, enraged by the coverage of one of his speeches by Tolo TV, Afghanistan’s most popular independent channel, Sabet ordered Kasim and more than a hundred armed policemen to bring the errant journalists to his office.
The police stormed Tolo TV’s studios, arresting seven journalists, including four from other agencies covering the raid. Several of the reporters were rifle-butted and punched.
All of this occurred without warrants, as in the Amerkhel case. Saad Mohseni, Tolo TV’s director, protested: "Sabet has shown that he is totally unfit to hold his position. Our international allies must tell the president this type of official is not acceptable to the Afghan people."
The U.N. agreed, denouncing the raid as “unlawful.” But from the U.S. and its NATO allies, including Canada, there has been only silence. President Karzai, feeling no heat from his foreign sponsors and pressured by allies like Sayyaf, an avowed foe of the news media, had only this to say: “The Attorney General we have today is one that is in a head-on clash with the bad guys.”
The concurrent practices of going soft on criminals while cracking down on the media should tell the people of western democracies everything they need to know about the Karzai regime, say its critics.
“We are facing the old difficulties of Afghanistan’s history in the last 25 years,” says Shukria Barakzai. “Who is there who isn’t working for his own pocket, who is there who isn’t a warlord or criminal?
“The president is completely isolated from the people. He only listens to this mafia group inside the palace.”
Whose reach, the evidence shows, goes far into the countryside.
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France Plays Down Taliban Capture Of Antitank Missiles
ANNECY, France (AFP)--France played down Friday the capture by Taliban forces of two French antitank missiles seized after the insurgents launched an attack on hundreds of its troops in Afghanistan.
Defense Minister Herve Morin said Western forces in Afghanistan sometimes had to abandon weapons in the field and that the main concern had been to get the troops out of last Saturday's ambush alive.
"It was an ambush in a narrow valley, with a lot of Taliban," said Morin as he visited an army unit in the eastern town of Annecy that was about to send some of its soldiers to Afghanistan.
"The essential thing is that everyone is alive," he said, adding that the Milan antitank missiles abandoned would be difficult to use for anyone without the proper training.
Fourteen Taliban were killed in the clash, according to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
The ambush took place in the Alasai valley north of the capital Kabul, near where 10 French soldiers were killed in another Taliban ambush in mid-August.
But the French army waited until Thursday to publicly announce the incident.
It said that around 300 French troops were attacked by about 100 Taliban and had to retreat after fierce fighting.
Air cover was called in to help them get out of the ambush, said Lieutenant Colonel Bruno Louisfert, a French army spokesman in Afghanistan.
He said a missile launcher was also abandoned along with the two Milan portable medium-range guided missiles.
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Security concerns over voter registration process
KABUL, 23 October 2008 (IRIN) - The decision by the Afghan government to use hundreds of medical and educational facilities as voter registration centres has sparked concern about potential security risks to aid workers, students and other civilians.
Afghanistan is expected to hold presidential elections in 2009 with financial and technical assistance from the UN and other donors. President Hamid Karzai has said he will seek re-election for another five-year term.
In a bid to ensure peoples' participation the government has designated schools, hospitals and mosques all over the country as voter registration stations.
"Because people have better access to hospitals, schools and mosques we decided to use them for the voter registration process," Zekria Barakzai from the election commission told IRIN.
Taliban insurgents, who have plunged parts of the country into chaos and violence, have repeatedly threatened they will disrupt the election process by attacking electoral sites and election workers.
Voter registration has already started in Logar, Nangarhar, Kunar, Laghman, Parwan, Kapisa and a few other provinces, and should be extended to volatile southern parts of the country in the coming months.
The insurgents fired a rocket on a health facility used as a voter registration centre in Ghazni Province on 20 October, killing one and wounding several others, local media reported.
Schools, hospitals
"Schools and hospitals must not be used for political and military purposes," said Member of Parliament Noorulhaq Ulomi.
The health and education ministries have also acknowledged that hospitals and schools are civilian and non-political facilities.
"Hospitals and medical workers have already suffered armed attacks and we are very concerned that their use in the electoral process could increase security threats to them," Health Ministry spokesman Abdullah Fahim told IRIN.
The Education Ministry echoed the concerns, but said: "The election is a national process and we must support it."
Hundreds of schools have been torched and dozens of students and education workers killed by insurgents and other militants over the past three years, according to aid agencies.
Medical workers in Logar, Kunar and Nangarhar provinces have voiced concerns about their safety in hospitals and clinics used in the election process, and some parents are worried about their children at school: "If the Taliban attack schools where voters register, our children will certainly be harmed. We don't want this to happen," said Gul Mohammad, a father of four.
At least seven voter registration sites have been closed due to insecurity, the election commission said.
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5 Afghan security guards kidnapped
Press TV (Iran) Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:32:35 GMT
Pro-Taliban militants have kidnapped five Afghan guards after attacking their station in Selma Dam in Afghanistan's western province Herat.
Herat's governor, Seyyed Gol Chishti, on Thursday confirmed the attack, saying the incident had taken place overnight, Press TV's correspondent in Afghanistan reported.
The district governor said one of the guards had made a deal with the militants and helped them to ambush and seize the Afghan servicemen, including himself.
Only three of the eight guards on the post could escape the attack, he said.
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi denied that the militants had made any deals with the guards, saying they had abducted all eight guards and available weapons and artillery.
A Taliban committee would decide the fate of the stolen eight later, Qari said by phone.
Last month, 13 guards were killed in a similar attack on a check post at Salma Dam, a USD 80 million projects extended to finish by the end of 2008.
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Suspected US strike kills 11 in Pakistan: officials
by Hasbanullah Khan
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, Oct 23, 2008 (AFP) – Suspected US spy drones fired missiles early Thursday into a school set up by a top Taliban commander in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, killing 11 people, security officials said.
The air strike apparently targeting veteran militant Jalaluddin Haqqani, a major target for US forces, was the latest in a string of attacks on Pakistani soil that have raised tensions between Islamabad and Washington.
It came hours after parliament passed a special resolution calling for an urgent review of Pakistan's anti-terror policy, including more talks with militants and a vow to defend Pakistan's territorial sovereignty.
Security officials said the madrassa, or religious school, near Miranshah, the main town in troubled North Waziristan region, was set up by Haqqani during the 1980s "jihad" against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
It was currently run by one of Haqqani's own commanders, Mullah Mansoor, and was recently used as a guest house for "international and local students traveling from other areas".
"At 2:25 am, two spy drones fired three missiles at the madrassa of Mullah Mansoor. Eleven people have been killed in the missile strike," a security official told AFP.
"Locals are still looking for more people in the rubble," he said.
A similar missile strike targeting another house owned by Haqqani on September 8 killed 23 people, including members of Haqqani's extended family, security officials said.
Haqqani was one of the most prominent Afghan commanders who fought the Red Army between 1978 and 1989. He subsequently became close to Mullah Omar, the leader of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Since the fall of the Taliban, Haqqani has become one of the most active Taliban commanders launching attacks on international forces in Afghanistan from safe havens in Pakistan, security officials said.
His son Sirajuddin, also a leading Taliban commander, was an occasional visitor at the madrassa that was hit on Thursday, a senior security official handling tribal unrest told AFP.
The Pakistani army said it was gathering details about an "incident" in North Waziristan. "Details are being gathered about the exact number of casualties," chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.
Residents said that all of the victims were local tribesmen, adding that locals had fired at two suspected US drones hovering above.
Missile strikes targeting militants in Pakistan in recent weeks have been blamed on US-led coalition forces or CIA drones based in Afghanistan.
Pakistani lawmakers passed a unanimous resolution during a closed-doors joint session of parliament demanding that the government do more to put an end to US military action on Pakistani soil.
"The nation stands united against any incursions and invasions of the homeland, and calls upon the government to deal with it effectively," it said.
But it also said that talks with insurgents were vital, adding: "Dialogue must now be the highest priority, as a principal instrument of conflict management and resolution."
The United States has stepped up attacks on militants in Pakistani tribal areas since a new civilian government came to power in Islamabad in March.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has vowed zero tolerance against violations of his country's sovereignty amid the strikes, which have stoked anti-US sentiment in Pakistan.
US and Afghan officials say northwest Pakistan is a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who sneaked in from Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001.
Security officials Thursday revised upward the toll from an air strike, a day earlier, at a militant compound in northwestern Bajaur tribal district to 33 rebels killed. Officials said Wednesday 10 insurgents were killed. There was no independent confirmation of the latest claim.
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Pakistani refugees complain of army and Taliban
By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Oct 23, 2:54 pm ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – The Taliban beheaded their relatives and terrorized their villages. Now army airstrikes are killing the innocent, say refugees who fled fighting set off by a Pakistani military offensive against the Islamic extremists.
The army maintains it is winning the war in the Bajur tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan, one of its most intense operations against al-Qaida and its Taliban allies since 2001. A spokesman even predicts military victory in a month.
Dozens of refugees interviewed by The Associated Press this week in tent camps on both sides of the border gave a rare glimpse of the human costs of the fighting in Bajur, a highly dangerous region where foreigners are largely restricted from visiting and Pakistani journalists have limited movement.
"I feel like a walking dead body," Parmeen Bibi said as she carried her wailing 3-year-old granddaughter in a camp in Peshawar, the main city in Pakistan's troubled northwest.
"I don't want to go back to that land where my innocent brothers were slaughtered," she said, referring to four brothers she says were beheaded by the Taliban for supporting the government. "To hell with those people, and to hell with those lands."
Nearly 200,000 people have fled the fighting in Bajur, and many have sought refuge in the camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For the most part, the refugees said they witnessed only airstrikes and heard artillery fire in the distance. None saw any combat involving troops on the ground in Bajur — something the army says has not been a major feature in a fight that has relied heavily on bombs and rockets fired from planes and helicopters. The army also has some 6,000 to 8,000 soldiers and paramilitary troops on the ground.
Some refugees described militants patrolling areas, staking out positions and occasionally peeping out to fire rifles at aircraft. But they also said insurgent numbers are few.
Pakistan says it is doing its best to avoid civilian casualties in Bajur, which is believed to be a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders. The military does not release information on civilian casualties and it is unclear if it keeps figures on them.
However, many refugees complained of high numbers of civilians killed in army airstrikes. Even those who expressed dislike for the Taliban said they felt betrayed by the government for tactics that take innocent lives.
Gulzada Khan said he and others had braved dangers to collect the bodies of children and women killed in the air attacks. "Whenever we went to collect the remains, the aircraft came again to the area and started bombing it," he said.
The United States has praised the Bajur offensive and urges Pakistan to press on against militants blamed for rising attacks on U.S. and NATO forces across the frontier in Afghanistan.
The insurgents also are blamed for soaring suicide attacks within Pakistan, such as last month's bloody bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. Those attacks, and fighting in the northwest, are adding to pressure on Pakistan's young civilian government at a time of economic stagnation.
The military is battling insurgents in other parts of the northwest as well, but the government holds up its operation in Bajur as crucial to the overall fight against extremists.
The region borders Afghanistan, settled areas of Pakistan and other tribal areas, making it a key hub for militants. Before the offensive began in early August, officials said insurgents had set up a virtual mini-state there, enforcing their hard-line version of Islamic law and meting out brutal justice for violators and alleged spies.
Pakistan's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said this week that the army now controls about 70 percent of Bajur. Officials have estimated more than 1,000 militants have been killed, compared to 70 soldiers who have died since early September.
Officials have persuaded several tribes in Bajur to create militias to guard against insurgents, which could be crucial for maintaining control of the area when troops withdraw.
Abbas said it would take another month until "the whole area is cleared of the militants."
The insurgents have "made innovative trenches, innovative defenses in the populated areas," he said. "They have been also using anti-tank weapons systems. They have been getting heavy weapons from the Afghanistan side."
Holding on to Bajur, an area roughly half the size of Rhode Island and home to about 1 million people before the fighting, could prove more difficult than retaking it from militant control, analysts warn, especially if pro-government tribal militias should switch allegiance.
Pakistan's tribal regions are deeply conservative and have long had semi-autonomous status that limits the central government's authority while giving tribal elders great sway.
"These successes will only be meaningful if they can be sustained," said military analyst Talat Masood. "When the winter has set in, it becomes difficult to operate there."
Helping refugees return, rebuild their homes and replant crops will be key to the government's long-term goal of winning over the local population.
Many of those who fled are staying with relatives, but thousands are living in at least nine camps set up in Pakistan's northwest, U.N. officials say. Some 20,000 people have taken refuge in Afghanistan.
In the Pakistani camps, families live in tents, with straw mats to cover the muddy floor. Heat and flies are constant companions, though conditions have improved since August because of work by the United Nations and other agencies.
In Afghanistan, some refugees are living in the open air.
"We have suffered a lot in this fighting," said Abdul Nadeem, a 28-year-old sheltering on the Afghan side. "We have just come here by ourselves and with our children, and we have left behind everything we have."
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Associated Press Writer Nematullah Karyab in Spin Kai, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
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