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Karzai's brother 'met ex-Taleban'
By Martin Patience BBC News, Kabul Wednesday, 8 October 2008
The Afghan president's brother sat with former Taleban leaders at a religious meal hosted by the Saudi King Abdullah last month, the BBC has learnt.
Ex-Taliban, Karzai's brother had dinner but no talks
Wed Oct 8, 2:03 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Former Taliban leaders said Wednesday they shared a meal with President Hamid Karzai's brother and other government officials in Saudi Arabia last month but stressed the meeting did not amount to peace talks.
Inquiry shows Afghan raid killed 33 people
By David Morgan Wed Oct 8, 7:40 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thirty-three Afghan civilians died during U.S. air strikes in August on a village in western Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Wednesday, dramatically increasing the U.S.
Pentagon looks outside NATO for Afghanistan troops
By Kristin Roberts October 8, 2008
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - The United States called on southeastern Europe on Wednesday, including aspiring NATO members, to send more troops to fight the insurgency in Afghanistan.
Foreign troops cannot bring peace to Afghanistan: Canadian PM
Tue Oct 7, 9:02 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - NATO-led forces alone cannot bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday, a week before Canada votes in a general election.
NATO looks to new tactics in Afghan opium war
BUDAPEST (AFP) - NATO defence ministers will hear a plea Thursday to take new steps to crack down on the opium trade in Afghanistan as the illicit business generates vital funds for the Taliban-led insurgency.
Norwegian Foreign Minister visits Afghanistan
Norway Post October 8, 2008
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere is back in Afghanistan on an official visit, nine months after his hotel, the Serena, was attacked on his visit to Kabul in January. The visit was kept secret as a security precaution.
Norway supports Afghan-Taliban peace talks: FM
Wed Oct 8, 11:27 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Norway added its backing Wednesday to a political solution to Afghanistan's extremist insurgency following reports that the Afghan government has already begun talks with the Taliban.
US should talk with its enemies: Petraeus
Wed Oct 8, 5:07 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - General David Petraeus said Wednesday that attempts are being made to open talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan and that the United States should be prepared to engage with its enemies.
U.S. to give Afghan army new vehicles, weapons
Wed Oct 8, 7:55 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military is to provide the Afghan army with armored vehicles and NATO standard weapons in an attempt to boost the capability of the fledgling force, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
AFGHANISTAN: Aid agencies call on Taliban to back new humanitarian agenda
KABUL, 8 October 2008 (IRIN) - The UN and some aid agencies have called on Taliban insurgents to support a new humanitarian agenda in Afghanistan with the aim of regaining operating space for aid workers.
Resurgent Taleban vow to disrupt 'joke' presidential election
Tom Coghlan in Kabul The Times (UK) October 7, 2008
The Taleban threatened to attack polling stations and candidates during Afghanistan’s second presidential election, due to be held next summer, as the lengthy and dangerous process of voter registration began yesterday.
Biggest Threat' to U.S. in Afghanistan Is Aided by Pakistanis
By James Rupert
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- When Jalaluddin Haqqani fought Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the U.S. showered him with praise, guns and money. The congressman celebrated in ``Charlie Wilson's War
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Karzai's brother 'met ex-Taleban'
By Martin Patience BBC News, Kabul Wednesday, 8 October 2008
The Afghan president's brother sat with former Taleban leaders at a religious meal hosted by the Saudi King Abdullah last month, the BBC has learnt.
The meeting is regarded as a possible prelude to talks between the Afghan government and the Islamic movement.
Reports suggest negotiations took place during this meeting, although this has been strongly denied by both sides.
Recently, British and US officials said a resolution to the conflict would require negotiations with the Taleban.
'No formal talks'
Last month the king of Saudi Arabia played host to an extraordinary cast of political players during a religious meal.
The BBC understands that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's older brother, Qayum Karzai, was in attendance, as well as former Taleban leaders.
Also present was the former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and a delegation of at least 15 Afghans.
In addition, men representing every political movement in Afghanistan "at some point or another" were at the meal, the Taleban's former ambassdor to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was also present, told the BBC.
He said that there was an eagerness in the room to find a solution to end the violence in Afghanistan but denied that any "formal talks" had taken place.
For their part, both the Afghan government and the Taleban have also flatly denied that there were any negotiations.
But while it is not clear what was discussed in Saudi Arabia, the meeting of leaders and politicians appears to be far more than a coincidence.
In the past, Saudi Arabia has acted as a broker between the Taleban and other parties. It was one of only three countries (Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates were the others) to recognise the Taleban government in the mid-1990s.
The presence of the former Mr Sharif could also be significant. Mr Sharif played a significant role in brokering a deal between various warring mujahideen factions in Afghanistan during the early 1990s.
'Political means'
In recent days, in Kabul and in Western capitals, there appears to be an emphasis on pushing for negotiations with the Taleban.
On Sunday, there was a flurry of interest after the UK's most senior military official in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, said that there could be no military solution to the conflict.
Then the UN special envoy, Kai Eide, weighed in on Monday, saying: "If you want to have relevant results, you must speak to those who are relevant."
And finally, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday that the only way to win the war was "through political means".
But any negotiations with the Taleban will be fraught with difficulties - it's not clear whether the movement even wants talks.
The Taleban's senior leader Mullah Omar, in his traditional end of Ramadan message, made no indication that he was willing to speak to the Afghan government, instead, insisting that foreign troops leave the country.
There's also doubt about what role Saudi Arabia could play.
Some analysts say that the Saudis are still furious after Mullah Omar reversed his decision in 1998 to hand over Osama Bin Laden to Prince Turki al Faisal, the former Saudi head of intelligence. Mullah Omar then also insulted the Saudi kingdom and its rulers.
Whatever is happening there appears to be momentum - but nobody seems to know in what direction that will take Afghanistan.
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Ex-Taliban, Karzai's brother had dinner but no talks
Wed Oct 8, 2:03 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Former Taliban leaders said Wednesday they shared a meal with President Hamid Karzai's brother and other government officials in Saudi Arabia last month but stressed the meeting did not amount to peace talks.
The disclosure came after media reports citing various officials that Afghan government leaders met Taliban insurgents in Mecca last month for negotiations to end a rebel insurgency crippling Afghanistan.
Former Taliban ambassador to Islamabad, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, told AFP he had attended the dinner but denied any negotiations had taken place.
"The recent flood of media reports about talks between Taliban and the Karzai administration in Saudi are all and totally baseless and untrue," said Zaeef, a one-time close aide to fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
"As far as I'm aware such talks have not taken place nor have I represented anyone in those talks as it has been reported," he said.
Zaeef confirmed however that among those at the dinner was the president's elder brother, Qayoum Karzai, a parliamentarian and businessman who divides his time between Afghanistan and the United States.
"That was a routine dinner hosted by the Saudi king," he said, adding that 15 Afghans were present, about half a dozen them former Taliban.
Their exchanges with King Abdullah had amounted to only pleasantries, he said.
Zaeef was arrested soon after the 1996-2001 Taliban regime was driven from government and spent several years in the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay before being released about two years ago.
He lives in Kabul and says he has distanced himself from the Taliban movement behind an insurgency against Karzai's government.
A former Taliban-era foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, told AFP he had also attended the dinner and said "it had nothing to do with talks."
Mutawakil also spent time in Guantanamo Bay and has since reconciled with the new government.
Government officials and the Taliban have also denied talks aimed at ending the insurgency which was launched after the militia's ouster from government in a 2001 US-led invasion.
President Karzai has however called Taliban, including Mullah Omar, to the negotiating table to end the violence on condition they accept his government's constitution and are not involved with Al-Qaeda.
Karzai told reporters last week that Afghan envoys had made repeated trips to Saudi Arabia and to neighbouring Pakistan to try to set up negotiations but that nothing had been finalised.
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Inquiry shows Afghan raid killed 33 people
By David Morgan Wed Oct 8, 7:40 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thirty-three Afghan civilians died during U.S. air strikes in August on a village in western Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Wednesday, dramatically increasing the U.S. estimate of the death toll in an action that has strained U.S.-Afghan relations.
A new military inquiry into the August 22 attack on the village of Azizabad in Herat province also lowered the U.S. estimate for the number of militants believed to have died, to 22 guerrillas from an initial estimate of 30 to 35.
The United States first reported only five to seven civilian deaths in the attack. That outraged Afghans and opened a rift with the Afghan government and the United Nations, which both said more than 90 civilians had been killed.
The military revisited its investigation after cell phone video emerged showing the bodies of people who were said to have died.
The latest U.S. civilian-death estimate includes at least eight men, three women and 12 children, all identified by gender from video footage taken after the attack.
New findings were released by U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, which oversees American military operations in Afghanistan. But the full investigation report is classified, according to military officials.
Neither a Centcom release nor a six-page executive summary from investigating officer U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael Callan explained the discrepancies in U.S.-reported deaths.
But Callan dismissed the higher death tolls reported by the Afghan government and the United Nations, saying those investigations relied primarily on villager statements, limited forensic evidence and no access to "multi-disciplined intelligence architecture."
"We are deeply saddened at the loss of innocent life in Azizabad," said Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the acting Centcom commander, who blamed the civilian deaths on insurgents who he said "routinely surround themselves with innocents."
CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
Callan said the August military action was defensive, based on credible intelligence and within the rules of engagements and the law of war.
His executive summary said the air attacks were carried out by an AC-130H gunship to defend U.S. and Afghan ground forces who came under fire from militants while trying to locate a "high value individual" in Azizabad.
The U.S. commander "established positive identification of legitimate targets prior to engagement. Unfortunately and unknown to the U.S. and Afghan forces, the (militants) chose fighting positions in close proximity to civilians," Callan wrote.
The latest U.S. investigation included independent information collected from witnesses to the Azizabad attack and from previous investigations.
Investigators recommended improved cooperation between U.S. forces, the Afghan government, international agencies and non-governmental organizations to assist investigations.
"There's no other military in the world that goes to greater extent to prevent civilian casualties. This is something that we take very seriously and, when we have allegations of loss of innocent life, we investigate it," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.
Human Rights Watch said in a recent report that a surge in the use of air power in Afghanistan had resulted in a high number of civilian casualties, estimating that 119 civilians died in the first seven months of 2008.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered his condolences for the deaths of civilians in coalition air strikes in Kabul last month and acknowledged that the United States needed to work harder to prevent them.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert and Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Peter Cooney and Cynthia Osterman)
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Pentagon looks outside NATO for Afghanistan troops
By Kristin Roberts October 8, 2008
OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - The United States called on southeastern Europe on Wednesday, including aspiring NATO members, to send more troops to fight the insurgency in Afghanistan.
As the conflict with Taliban fighters has escalated, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has increasingly looked for troop contributions from outside NATO.
"As the situation on the ground in Iraq continues to improve, I urge you to consider sending your military forces to Afghanistan," Gates told a meeting of the Southeastern Europe Defense Ministerial, a group of 12 countries that includes Italy, Turkey, Ukraine, Romania and Macedonia.
"Your assistance will not only help Afghanistan better protect and care for its citizens, it will also reinforce your important role in ensuring peace and stability around the world," he said.
Violence in Afghanistan has soared for more than two years and the Pentagon chief has repeatedly asked NATO members and others to send troops, equipment and money to the war zone. Still, NATO commanders say they need another three brigades, or about 10,000 to 12,000 troops.
While the United States is likely to fill that requirement next year as the Pentagon starts to shift focus to Afghanistan from Iraq, U.S. officials worry NATO allies will see that as an excuse not to meet pledges to commit more resources.
"I want to make sure that everybody understands that the increases in U.S. forces are not seen as replacements for NATO contributions. They're reinforcement," Gates told reporters traveling with him this week. He will raise the issue at a NATO meeting in Budapest on Thursday.
The United States has 33,000 troops in Afghanistan, including 13,000 under the NATO mission. America has the most forces there of any country, followed by Britain with about 8,000 troops.
All members of the southeastern Europe defense group except Bosnia have troops in Afghanistan, totaling 5,000. Among them, Italy has 2,350 followed by Turkey with 800, Romania with 725 and Bulgaria with 460, according to NATO data.
Macedonia, which said on Tuesday it would pull its 77 troops out of Iraq, is considering sending more forces to Afghanistan, according to the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia, Philip Reeker.
"Macedonians have indicated an openness, as their Iraq deployment comes to an end, to looking at augmenting the forces already in Afghanistan," Reeker told reporters. Macedonia has 135 troops in Afghanistan.
(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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Foreign troops cannot bring peace to Afghanistan: Canadian PM
Tue Oct 7, 9:02 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - NATO-led forces alone cannot bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday, a week before Canada votes in a general election.
"I don't believe -- and I've said many times I don't believe -- that we can pacify every corner of Afghanistan as foreign troops," said Harper in an interview with CBC television.
"I don't think it's viable, knowing the history of Afghanistan, what we know about it, to believe that foreigners are going to be able to run Afghanistan or Afghan security on an ongoing basis."
Harper added: "What we can do is establish some basic security and train the Afghan security forces to gradually accept responsibility for the day-to-day security of their country."
To reach this goal, the Conservative leader said, a timeline for a transition of security responsibilities should be set.
Canada maintains 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
But since they first deployed in 2002, 97 Canadian troops have died in roadside blasts and in fighting with Taliban insurgents. Two Canadian aid workers and a senior diplomat have also been killed.
Opinion polls suggest that a majority of Canadian oppose the Afghanistan mission, while Harper has expressed frustration at the failure of NATO allies to commit more troops and resources to ISAF.
In March, the House of Commons approved prolonging Canada's presence in Afghanistan to 2011, and at the start of the election campaign Harper ruled out any extension beyond that date.
The main opposition Liberals, who were in government when Canada agreed to send troops to Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001, support a 2011 withdrawal.
The smaller New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois want an immediate exit.
Harper said Tuesday: "My judgment is if we have an open-ended commitment, we are never going to make the transition to Afghan security. So I think setting the timeline is part and parcel of accomplishing the mission."
"I don't think anybody can accuse Canada of cutting and running for a mission we will, by that point, have been on for nearly a decade."
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NATO looks to new tactics in Afghan opium war
BUDAPEST (AFP) - NATO defence ministers will hear a plea Thursday to take new steps to crack down on the opium trade in Afghanistan as the illicit business generates vital funds for the Taliban-led insurgency.
NATO's top commander and Afghanistan's defence minister are expected to urge the allies to tackle drug runners and laboratories head on in an effort to stop the trade fuelling an enemy the alliance is struggling to contain.
Over two days of informal talks, the 26 allies will also hold a first-ever NATO-Georgia Commission meeting at ministerial level, as Russia appeared to make good on its vow to pull troops out of Georgia before the weekend.
At talks in the Hungarian capital Budapest starting at 1100 GMT, NATO's commander, US General John Craddock, will appeal to ministers to lift restrictions on the way the fight against opium production is waged, and focus on "high end" targets.
"There is a lethal nexus of insurgency and poppy," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said ahead of the informal meeting. "We all have an interest in solving this."
But the move has met resistance from a bloc of states led by Germany, Italy and Spain, who fear such work could antagonise Afghan farmers or put their troops in more danger.
Above all, they want the Afghan government to lead the drug battle.
Officials say the solution could well come from Afghan Defence Minister Mohammad Rahim Wardak himself, and a "flexible approach" that would not oblige any country to take part against its will.
"We will have Wardak saying publicly -- here is what we Afghans need," a NATO official said, in essence making the call come from President Hamid Karzai's government.
Craddock will also use the meeting to call for more troops and equipment to fight the Taliban, whose insurgent activities -- like the opium crops -- are strong in the south.
NATO has almost 51,000 troops in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is trying to spread Karzai's rule and foster reconstruction, but still needs more soldiers and helicopters to help suppress the Taliban.
The alliance also needs trainers and funds -- Japan has surfaced as a potential source of money -- to develop the Afghan army, which Kabul wants to grow to some 132,000 troops from around 80,000 presently.
On Friday, the ministers will focus on Georgia, and assess at a first meeting at this level how to support Tbilisi's efforts to rebuild and reform its military to meet NATO membership requirements.
The commission was formed after Russia's massive strike on Georgia in early August, amid a dispute over the rebel Georgian region of South Ossetia which, along with Abkhazia, Moscow has since recognised as independent.
NATO has halted all high-level meetings with Russia and is unlikely to resume them at least until Moscow fully complies with the peace agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Russia has long been angered that NATO is considering Georgia as a serious candidate for membership at some time in the future.
The ministers will also discuss the future of the world's biggest military alliance ahead of its 60th anniversary summit in April, as the global financial crisis threatens to cut defence spending and dilute NATO's ambitions.
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Norwegian Foreign Minister visits Afghanistan
Norway Post October 8, 2008
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere is back in Afghanistan on an official visit, nine months after his hotel, the Serena, was attacked on his visit to Kabul in January. The visit was kept secret as a security precaution.
For the same reason, the Norwegian minister was invited to stay at President Hamid Karzai's residence, where the two leaders will also have talks.
Stoere was to have visited the Serena Hotel, but this plan was changed for security reasons, NRK reports.
This is the first time Stoere is back in the Afghan capital, after the attack on Hotel Serena, in which Norwegian journalist Carsten Thomassen was killed.
- I am back to complete a program which I was unable to carry out due to tragic circumstances on my last visist, Stoere said.
Stoere is expected to vissit the Norwegian forces deployed in Afghanistan, as well as Norwegian aid workers in the country.
He says it is important for Norwegian officials to visit Afghanistan regularly, to keep informed about developments.
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Norway supports Afghan-Taliban peace talks: FM
Wed Oct 8, 11:27 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Norway added its backing Wednesday to a political solution to Afghanistan's extremist insurgency following reports that the Afghan government has already begun talks with the Taliban.
Foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, on a surprise visit nine months after he escaped unharmed from an attack on a Kabul hotel, said any political process should be on the basis of the post-Taliban constitution.
Media reports that Taliban and Afghan government representatives met in Saudi Arabia last month have raised speculation that Kabul's long-mooted talks have begun, although this has been denied by both sides.
"We as the international community and Norway, as a state committed to support Afghanistan, should support Afghanistan in carrying forward such a political agenda," Stoere told reporters when asked about negotiations.
"As inclusive as possible a political process is good for any country also for Afghanistan after its dramatic past," he said.
Stoere added that Afghanistan would not be able to succeed in defeating the Taliban-led insurgency through a single strategy, including just a military one.
Afghan foreign minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, who addressed the same briefing, reiterated other government statements that there had been no talks in Saudi Arabia.
Ex-members of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime had however attended a dinner there during the holy month of Ramadan, he said.
They included the former Taliban foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, and ex-ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who both say they have distanced themselves from the insurgent Taliban.
The Afghan government has said however it would welcome talks with those Taliban willing to accept the constitution and not aligned with Al-Qaeda.
Stoere, who arrived Tuesday, was due to meet President Hamid Karzai and visit some of the 500-600 Norwegian troops based mostly in northern Afghanistan as part of a NATO-led force helping with security and reconstruction.
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US should talk with its enemies: Petraeus
Wed Oct 8, 5:07 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - General David Petraeus said Wednesday that attempts are being made to open talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan and that the United States should be prepared to engage with its enemies.
His comments came a day after US presidential rivals Barack Obama and John McCain tangled over the question of directly engaging Iran in their second one-on-one debate.
"I'm trying to go around minefields these days and not blunder into them," Petraeus said. "But I do think you have to talk to enemies."
"You've got to set things up. You've got to know who you're talking to. You've got to have your objectives straight -- all the rest of this stuff," he added. "So I'm not trying to, again, get into the middle of domestic politics."
Petraeus, who is credited with a dramatic turnaround in Iraq during his 19-month tenure as the top US commander there, assumes command at the end of October over the US Central Command.
The post puts him in charge of all US military operations in an area that includes Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The general made no direct reference to Iran in his "enemies" comments at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
But he noted that Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has asked Saudi Arabia to arrange peace talks with the Taliban, and added "there also have been some local activities."
"The key there is making sure that all of that is done in complete coordination with complete support of the Afghan government and with President Karzai," he said.
"If there are people that are willing to reconcile, then I think certainly that that would be a positive step in some of these areas that have actually been spiraling downward throughout the course of this year," he said.
General David McKiernan, the top US commander in Afghanistan, has called for enlisting the support of Afghan tribes in much the same way that Petraeus did to turn Sunni tribes in Iraq against Al-Qaeda.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon last week, McKiernan would not rule out reconciliation with ousted Taliban leader Mullah Mohmmad Omar.
He said any reconciliation effort should be led by the Afghan government, but that the military would support it.
Asked whether dealing with the man who harbored Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was beyond the pale, McKiernan said, "I think that's a political decision that will ultimately be made by political leadership."
Karzai said September 30 that he has asked Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to arrange talks with the Taliban so that Omar and other militia leaders could return home in peace.
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U.S. to give Afghan army new vehicles, weapons
Wed Oct 8, 7:55 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military is to provide the Afghan army with armored vehicles and NATO standard weapons in an attempt to boost the capability of the fledgling force, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
Violence has surged in Afghanistan despite some 64,000 foreign troops in the country battling a resurgent Taliban militants, and military experts believe that the Afghan army is the key to the nation's long-term stability.
The Afghan army has now reached a strength of more than 62,000 and is to more than double to 134,000 in the coming years. The new vehicles and weapons will be a boost to an army that lacks guns, tanks and planes.
The army will receive more than 6,000 armored vehicles and some 75,000 NATO standard M-16 rifles over the coming year, the U.S. military unit responsible for training the Afghans said in a statement.
"The Afghan National Army will become a modernized army with Humvees and NATO weapons. This transformation will help usher their forces into the 21st Century," Major Charles McPhail, chief of plans and requirements, said in the statement.
The M-16 rifle has been the primary weapon of the U.S. military for more than 30 years while the Afghan army uses the more sturdy, but less accurate Russian-designed AK-47.
"Our soldiers like these weapons," said Afghan army Major Hasim Habiullah. "Some of them have already qualified with the M-16 rifle."
Nearly 600 Humvees and more than 6,000 M-16 rifles have already been provided and training on the new weapons and vehicles has also been started.
(Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by David Fox)
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AFGHANISTAN: Aid agencies call on Taliban to back new humanitarian agenda
KABUL, 8 October 2008 (IRIN) - The UN and some aid agencies have called on Taliban insurgents to support a new humanitarian agenda in Afghanistan with the aim of regaining operating space for aid workers.
“Now is the time to expand the humanitarian agenda together… I appeal to the Taliban, to share our humanitarian agenda,” said Kai Eide, special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan.
“I would like to underline that this is not a political effort - this is not a hearts-and-minds effort - it is a purely neutral humanitarian effort… There are disagreements on so many things, but let us demonstrate that we can share this humanitarian agenda,” said Eide who also heads the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
Matt Waldman, Oxfam’s head of policy in Kabul, said: “It's essential that there are renewed efforts to achieve greater humanitarian capacity, coordination and access.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has frequently voiced concern about the growing impact of conflict on civilians and aid workers, said it was vital to reach and assist needy people.
“Humanitarian access has to improve and civilians have to receive humanitarian assistance which will ensure their survival. It has to be totally disconnected to any political statement. This requirement has to be respected by all sides to the conflict,” Franz Rauchenstein, head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul, told IRIN.
Worst year for aid workers
Calls for the expansion of humanitarian space in Afghanistan come after Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, in September reported to the Security Council that the number of UN civilian staff killed in security incidents around the world had increased by 36 percent in 2008 compared with 2007.
“Primary threats against United Nations and humanitarian personnel remain armed conflict, terrorism, harassment, violent public protests, banditry and criminality in areas of armed conflict, as well as in countries with economic, political and social unrest,” Ban stated in his report entitled Safety and Security of Humanitarian Personnel and Protection of United Nations Personnel.
About 30 aid workers, including Afghans and foreigners, were killed and 92 abducted across Afghanistan from January to September 2008, according to a separate report Ban Ki-moon presented to the Security Council on the situation in Afghanistan on 23 September.
“The United Nations Department of Safety and Security has assessed approximately 90 of almost 400 districts as areas of extreme risk… 40 to 50 percent of the country is inaccessible to United Nations aid activities, which affects service delivery,” the Secretary-General said in his report.
Access negotiations with Taliban
The UN said access negotiations with the Taliban had enabled health workers to immunise 1.6 million children against poliovirus in the volatile south and eastern provinces.
Afghanistan could eradicate poliovirus if six similar immunisation drives are conducted in the future, the UN said.
“We should build on the success of the polio vaccination campaign,” Eide said.
The idea of negotiation with the Taliban on humanitarian access has to some extent been a reflection of the Afghan government’s policy of reconciliation with the insurgents, experts said.
President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly invited Taliban leaders for dialogue and peace talks.
“In parts of the country engagement with a range of actors may well be necessary to ensure sufficient and sustainable humanitarian access,” Oxfam’s Waldman said.
Anja de Beer, director of the non-governmental organisations’ network network in Kabul (ACBAR), appealed to all warring parties to acknowledge international humanitarian law, respect humanitarian action and ensure aid workers’ access to areas under their influence.
Downside of armoured cars
In a bid to cope with rising security challenges, some international aid organisations, mostly UN agencies, have increasingly relied on the use of armoured vehicles even in Kabul, and have also erected large blast-resistant walls outside their offices.
However, armoured vehicles and anti-blast barriers have not only significantly inflated programme costs but have also isolated aid workers from communities and local implementing partners, said an international expert with extensive experience in the country who preferred anonymity.
The increased use of high-profile armoured cars by aid workers has also blurred their identity with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, US military personnel, Afghan government officials and Western diplomats that also use such transport means.
Time running out
As aid agencies call for a new humanitarian approach, a combination of problems resulting from high-food prices, drought, crop failure, lack of access to basic health services and conflict-related violence are threatening millions of vulnerable people.
The ICRC and Oxfam International have already warned that parts of the country are on the verge of a serious crisis (large-sale population displacement).
“Time is running out to avert a winter of hunger,” Oxfam warned in a statement on 30 August.
The new humanitarian agenda needs to be implemented quickly - ideally before winter - if it is to avert a possible crisis in the near future, experts said.
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Resurgent Taleban vow to disrupt 'joke' presidential election
Tom Coghlan in Kabul The Times (UK) October 7, 2008
The Taleban threatened to attack polling stations and candidates during Afghanistan’s second presidential election, due to be held next summer, as the lengthy and dangerous process of voter registration began yesterday.
The chief spokesman for Mullah Omar, the Taleban’s leader, told The Times that the group would use its increasing influence in the country to disrupt the poll. “This is not an election, it is a joke that is putting dust in people’s eyes,” said Qari Yousuf Ahmadi. “Where will they have an election? How much of Afghanistan belongs to the Government and foreign troops?”
The poll is seen as a crucial test of the credibility of the fragile Western-backed Government and the seven-year reconstruction effort. The Taleban made little attempt to oppose elections in 2004 and 2005, and Afghan officials have expressed hope that it will allow the democratic process set for August 2009.
Azzizullah Luddin, the head of the Afghanistan Independent Electoral Commission, told The Times: “My expectation is that they don’t attack. My hope is that they will allow the people to vote.”
A total of 12.5 million Afghans registered to vote in the 2004 presidential election. With a 75 per cent turnout it was hailed as a triumph, with Hamid Karzai returned as President amid high expectations. However, despite modest progress in reconstruction in some areas, the four years since have seen a steady decline in security, with parts of the south and southeast now inaccessible to the Government because of Taleban activity and widespread criminality.
The standing of the Karzai administration has also been eroded by corruption at all levels, much of it fuelled by the opium trade. Yesterday fresh allegations appeared in the American media concerning President Karzai’s brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, and the heroin trade. He denied the claims and threatened legal action.
Western officials in Kabul said that the election challenge was greater than in 2004. “The environment is significantly more difficult,” said a UN diplomat. “The Taleban was much weaker then.”
Officials compared the insecurity in the country to that facing Iraq in 2006 when it held elections, but added that a significant additional strain on the process was the low level of education among ordinary Afghans. Western diplomats point out that 80 per cent of the Afghan police force overseeing much of the security organisation of the election are illiterate. All election materials have to be printed with pictorial explanations.
Election officials said yesterday that the security situation was hampering efforts to move registration materials to district centres in insurgency-hit areas in the east of the country. The registration process is scheduled to occur in four stages, with work in the most dangerous areas not due to begin until November.
The Nato commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, said this week that he needed an additional 14,000 troops to counter instability, particularly on the Pakistan border.
On the streets of Kabul, many voters seemed apprehensive about the election. “I feel shame that I voted for Karzai before and I never vote for him again,” said Mohammad Azzam Khan, 28, from Kandahar. His friend, who did not want to be named, said: “This is not an Afghan election. Whoever is chosen by America will be the president.”
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Biggest Threat' to U.S. in Afghanistan Is Aided by Pakistanis
By James Rupert
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- When Jalaluddin Haqqani fought Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the U.S. showered him with praise, guns and money. The congressman celebrated in ``Charlie Wilson's War,'' the movie and book about that conflict, called him ``goodness personified.''
Now the U.S. is trying to kill Haqqani, who commands a Taliban guerrilla force fighting Americans in five Afghan provinces from his base in western Pakistan.
Haqqani has eluded his pursuers, former U.S. officials say, with help from the intelligence services of Pakistan's military, which the U.S. also has showered with guns and money. The army also has given Haqqani a pass, bypassing his base during its two-month offensive against other Taliban groups in the region.
The Afghan tribal chief illustrates one reason the U.S. has failed to win the war on terrorism: Its enemies are sheltered by its friends.
``Haqqani is the biggest threat in eastern Afghanistan,'' said Peter Tomsen, a retired U.S. ambassador who knows him personally from the Soviet war. Pakistan's military intelligence agencies ``know where Haqqani is, but they're protecting him. They know he's sending people across the border to kill Americans and Afghans.''
Estimated by news reports to be in his 60s or 70s, Haqqani appeared frail in a video his organization released early this year. His network's military operations now are run by his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, 28, said the News, an English-language newspaper in Pakistan.
The Early Years
The elder Haqqani was born on the Afghan side of the border and in about 1974 settled 10 miles inside Pakistan, in Miramshah, said Mohammed Yaqub Sharafat, director of Afghan Islamic Press, a news agency specializing in that country's wars. From there, he began organizing forces against the Afghan government, Sharafat said.
Pakistan's military for decades has backed guerrilla groups in Afghanistan and India to maintain leverage against its neighbors, according to Ahmed Rashid, a Lahore-based analyst who wrote about the U.S.-led war on terror in the June 2008 book ``Descent Into Chaos.''
After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Haqqani became a commander in the mujahedeen resistance movement, receiving weapons from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Pakistan military's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.
`Engaging' and `Cruel'
``He was very engaging and hospitable,'' said Tomsen, who met Haqqani while serving as U.S. envoy to the mujahedeen. ``But he was also very cruel. He executed prisoners.''
When Wilson, the Texas Democrat who pushed covert mujahedeen funding through Congress, secretly visited Afghanistan in 1987, the ISI escorted him to meet Haqqani. Wilson, now 75, recounted the story to George Crile, the author of ``Charlie Wilson's War.''
Wilson, who retired from Congress in 1996, didn't respond to e-mail and phone messages to his Texas home.
The mujahedeen drove the Soviets out in 1989. When the Islamist Taliban movement arose in the 1990s, Pakistan's military helped it consolidate power in Afghanistan. As Taliban fighters swept toward Kabul, Haqqani allied with them, later becoming the Taliban government's tribal affairs minister.
In 2001, the U.S. pressed Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, to cut support for the Taliban because their leaders had sheltered Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants as they planned the Sept. 11 attacks.
Partial Purge
Musharraf replaced his Islamist ISI chief, Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed, 26 days after those attacks. He also purged the army and the ISI of many but not all of their Islamic militant officers. Some officers remain committed to supporting the Taliban, according to Rashid, the analyst.
After Western forces led by the U.S. and Afghan warlords toppled the Taliban government in November 2001, Haqqani helped rebuild the movement in Pakistan's largely ungoverned northwestern borderlands.
Since then, the ISI has helped U.S. agencies capture al- Qaeda leaders as Musharraf declared Pakistan an ally in the fight against terrorism. In exchange, the U.S. gave Pakistan $10 billion in aid, according to a 2007 study by the Washington- based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Yet the ISI has continued to protect the Taliban, including Haqqani, in hopes of again using them to influence Afghanistan once U.S. forces leave, Tomsen said.
Plan Revealed
In 2005, a Pakistani intelligence officer tipped off Haqqani to a CIA plan to kill or capture him, said a retired CIA officer who served recently on counter-terrorism assignments in Pakistan.
The next year, the CIA asked Pakistan's military to approve a new Haqqani assassination plan but got no response, the retired officer said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the information.
Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former counter-terrorism chief and now a private consultant, said ``current contacts in the business'' have told him that Pakistani intelligence officials alerted Haqqani to the planned 2005 raid.
``There have been other incidents, too, of leaks about these operations from the ISI,'' Cannistraro said.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said: ``The agency does not as a rule comment on these kinds of allegations.''
Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said there was no need to respond to the allegations because they were not an ``official complaint.''
Retired, Not Current
In an October 2006 appearance on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' Musharraf said retired pro-Taliban ISI officers were helping anti-U.S. guerrillas but current officers were not.
``It's an open secret'' that ISI officers still back Haqqani and the Taliban, said Ashraf Ali, a Pakistani journalist and researcher on the Taliban at the University of Peshawar.
``Haqqani's fighters and commanders travel freely and continue to operate'' throughout Miramshah and the surrounding district of North Waziristan, Ali said, citing interviews with local residents. They ``are openly recruiting Taliban fighters and giving them basic military training.''
Seven years after Musharraf ended overt support for the Taliban, the movement and Haqqani continue to bedevil the region. Pakistan blamed the Taliban for last month's bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel, which killed 53. Afghanistan's government accuses the ISI and Haqqani's network of organizing an April assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai and the July 7 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.
Transfer Undone
Pakistan's civilian government, now controlled by Musharraf's opponents under President Asif Ali Zardari, failed in an attempt this year to assert authority over the ISI. On July 26, Zardari announced the agency's transfer to the Interior Ministry to put it ``under the elected government's control,'' the newspaper Dawn reported.
Within hours, Zardari announced the move had been ``misunderstood'' and reversed it under what Pakistani news reports called military pressure.
On Sept. 8, American Predator drones fired missiles into Haqqani's mud-walled family compound in Miramshah, according to Pakistani news reports citing residents and officials.
The strike killed members of Haqqani's family and at least three Arab al-Qaeda guerrillas, Pakistani newspapers reported. The News quoted unnamed family members as saying the Haqqani men were mostly in Afghanistan at the time.
A week later, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher publicly complained about the ISI in a Reuters interview, calling for the agency to be reformed.
On Sept. 29, Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, named Lieutenant General Shujaa Pasha as the ISI's new director. Pasha has been responsible for the army's day-to-day functioning over the past two years -- including security operations in the tribal region.
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rupert in Islamabad at jrupert3@bloomberg.net.
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