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Gates: US reviewing its Afghanistan war strategy
By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Military Writer September 18, 2008
LONDON - The Bush administration is considering changing its war strategy in Afghanistan in light of rising levels of violence and an increasingly complex insurgent threat, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.
Russia envoy warns NATO on air space to Afghanistan
September 18, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - Russia threatened to block NATO from using its air space for operations in Afghanistan if member states did not stop "hostile" policies toward Moscow, the Kremlin's top diplomat in Kabul said.
Former Afghan provincial police chief killed
By NOOR KHAN Associated Press September 18, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Foreign troops killed a former provincial police chief in southern Afghanistan during an overnight clash that also left two of his bodyguards dead, an official said Thursday.
NATO suffers casualties from Afghanistan ambush
KABUL, Sept 18 (Reuters) - A NATO force was ambushed by insurgents on Thursday in eastern Afghanistan and suffered some casualties, an alliance spokeswoman said.
FACTBOX-Military deaths in Afghanistan
Sept 18 (Reuters) - A NATO force was ambushed by insurgents on Thursday in eastern Afghanistan and suffered casualties, an alliance spokeswoman said.
US seeking sole command of Nato's war against the Taliban
Western allies risk public backlash if Washington commands troops
By Kim Sengupta – Independent - Thursday, 18 September 2008
The Bush administration is pushing for sweeping changes to the military command structure in Afghanistan, so that the head of international forces would report directly to US Central Command instead of Nato.
Pakistan 'not told' of US strike
Thursday, 18 September 2008 BBC News
Pakistan was not warned about a suspected US missile strike in the north-west on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said.
Vested interests drive US's Pakistan policy
By Gareth Porter Sep 19, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
WASHINGTON - The George W Bush administration's decision to launch commando raids and step up missiles strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda figures in the tribal areas of Pakistan followed what appears
'FATA not a place for US adventurism'
Press TV (Iran) Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:46:38 GMT
A jirga of Pakistani tribal leaders have vowed to take sever action against the US if it launches an incursion into the tribal belt.
Pakistan's 'bleakest moment'
Thursday, 18 September 2008 BBC News
Guest columnist Ahmed Rashid says Pakistan is facing its bleakest moment, months after getting a new democratic government.
President Bush's plan may be too late for Afghanistan
September 18, 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - The Pentagon is negotiating with Afghanistan and Pakistan the possibility of launching special operations inside Pakistan.
Attacks on aid challenge Afghan reconstruction
Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:37am EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - Food convoys hit by rocket propelled grenades along major highways. A U.N. polio vaccination team targeted by a suicide bomber. A spurt in kidnaps.
Time to Rethink Tactics Against Taleban
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Jean MacKenzie, Afghanistan country director September 18, 2008
Afghanistan has gone from “Good War” to “Losing Battle” almost overnight. With everyone from former European Union envoy Francesc Vendrell to the US’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral Mike Mullen
Pak children freed from Taliban custody
Press TV (Iran) Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:35:08 GMT
Locals free some 300 school children after al-Qaeda and Taliban linked militants took control of a primary school in northwestern Pakistan.
Attacks on aid challenge Afghan reconstruction
Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:37am EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - Food convoys hit by rocket propelled grenades along major highways. A U.N. polio vaccination team targeted by a suicide bomber. A spurt in kidnaps.
US urges allies to fund Afghan army growth
By James Blitz in London The Financial Times September 18 2008
The US will on Friday begin putting pressure on its Nato partners to provide the $20bn (€14bn, £11bn) that Washington believes is necessary to fund plans to double the size of the Afghan national army over the next five years.
AFGHANISTAN: 1.8 million children to be immunised against polio on Peace Day
KABUL, 18 September 2008 (IRIN) - The Ministry of Public Health, backed by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), is planning to immunise 1.8 million under-fives against polio between 21 and 23 September.
Pavarotti Memorial Concert of musical stars to help Afghan refugees
MILAN, Italy, Sept. 18 (UNHCR) – The widow of tenor Luciano Pavarotti has unveiled plans for a tribute charity concert and memorial ceremony to be held in Petra, Jordan on 11 and 12 October.
Afghanistan cricket dreams big, hopes to qualify for 2011 cricket World Cup
The Canadian Press September 18, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — It may be more dream than realistic ambition, but the cricketers of war-torn Afghanistan are about to take the next step on their "Mission Impossible 2011"
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Gates: US reviewing its Afghanistan war strategy
By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Military Writer September 18, 2008
LONDON - The Bush administration is considering changing its war strategy in Afghanistan in light of rising levels of violence and an increasingly complex insurgent threat, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.
"You have an overall approach, an overall strategy, but you adjust it continually based on the circumstances that you find," Gates said in an interview with a group of reporters at a London hotel. "We did that in Iraq. We made a change in strategy in Iraq and we are going to continue to look at the situation in Afghanistan."
Pressed for more details about the review of Afghan strategy, Gates would say only, "We're looking at it."
Gates visited Afghanistan on Wednesday and flew to London for NATO consultations.
He did not reveal whether the White House has launched a formal review of its war strategy. But his remarks indicated that the administration sees a need to make some adjustments as progress there remains slow.
The Joint Chiefs chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, told a House committee last week that he had commissioned a study of Afghan strategy to incorporate the complexities presented by rising unrest and insurgent activity in Pakistan. Mullen also publicly questioned whether the United States is winning in Afghanistan.
Gen. David McKiernan, the senior U.S. general in Afghanistan, told reporters on Tuesday at his Kabul headquarters that he believed the current strategy was adequate but that he needed more U.S. troops and other resources to properly execute it. He said he needs more than 10,000 extra American ground troops in 2009, in addition to the reinforcements already announced by the Pentagon.
In the interview Thursday, Gates also was asked about a stalemate in U.S. efforts to complete negotiations with the Iraqi government on a legal framework to govern the presence and role of U.S. troops after December, when a U.N. mandate is set to expire. He said the U.S. negotiating team was returning to Baghdad to resume talks and that they had brought with them some new ideas on how to bridge the negotiating gap.
He offered no details but said the new American proposals were intended to resolve differences with the Iraqis over the extent of Iraqi legal jurisdiction over U.S. personnel in the country and over detainees.
Gates met with Iraqi officials in Baghdad on Monday.
Gates also said that at a NATO meeting here Thursday and Friday he would raise the issue of how to share the cost of a planned doubling in the size of the Afghan national army. He said building up the capacity and effectiveness of Afghanistan's own security forces is "ultimately the exit strategy for all of us."
The United States has about 33,000 troops in Afghanistan, and President Bush has ordered an Army brigade of about 3,700 soldiers that had been preparing to deploy to Iraq to instead go to Afghanistan in January.
Bush also announced last April at a NATO summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, that the United States would send even more troops to Afghanistan later in 2009, beyond his term in office, when ends in January.
Gates mentioned that Bush pledge on Thursday and said, "I expect his successor will meet that commitment."
Gates noted that violence has been on the rise in Afghanistan for the past two years, in part because of cross-border attacks from al-Qaida, Taliban and other extremist elements that find refuge in neighboring Pakistan. That has made it harder for U.S. and allied troops to improve security, which Gates said has restricted gains in other vital areas such as weeding out government corruption and developing the economy.
"We see some lessons to be learned from Iraq in terms of the need to establish security as a precondition or economic development and better governance. That means more forces," he said. "But I think we are in complete accord with our European allies that the military side of this is only one piece of the solution."
Violence has been on the rise in eastern and southern Afghanistan, and Gates said it reflects in part an increasingly complex set of insurgent components, beyond the Taliban rebels who had ruled Afghanistan and granted a refuge in the country for Osama bin Laden prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"It's not a centrally controlled Taliban insurgency against the government," he said. "It's a number of different challenges against the government."
Gates also told reporters that he believes Britain intends to add more troops in Afghanistan, but he offered no numbers and said he was not sure the government here had made a final decision.
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Russia envoy warns NATO on air space to Afghanistan
September 18, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - Russia threatened to block NATO from using its air space for operations in Afghanistan if member states did not stop "hostile" policies toward Moscow, the Kremlin's top diplomat in Kabul said.
"(Russian air space) is still open, but if the NATO countries continue to their hostile policies with regard to Russia, definitely this issue will happen," Zamir Kabulov told BBC radio in an interview aired on Thursday.
NATO imports most of its logistics via Pakistan to Afghanistan, but also uses Russia's air space for some cargo.
The 26-member alliance upset Russia by saying its use of force in a brief war with Georgia last month was disproportionate. NATO has also said Georgia will eventually be allowed join the alliance. Russia is fiercely opposed to further NATO expansion.
NATO was not immediately available for comment.
Kabulov said the United States had made far too many mistakes since toppling the Taliban government in 1991.
"The main one ... is that it did not work with the Afghan government and the Afghan nation," Kabulov said.
"During the past 6- years, instead of strengthening the Afghan government, the Afghan armed forces and the Afghan economy, they strengthened their military presence and this is a main and fundamental mistake."
More than 71,000 foreign troops under the command of NATO and the U.S. military are stationed in Afghanistan where the Taliban has made a come back since 2005.
The former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, pulling its forces out some 10 years later in the face of resistance from mostly Western-backed Afghan factions.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Jeremy Laurence)
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Former Afghan provincial police chief killed
By NOOR KHAN Associated Press September 18, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Foreign troops killed a former provincial police chief in southern Afghanistan during an overnight clash that also left two of his bodyguards dead, an official said Thursday.
Troops battled with Ruzi Khan Barakzai, the former police chief of Uruzgan province, near the provincial capital of Tirin Kot, said Uruzgan's deputy police chief Ghulab Khan Wardak.
Barakzai was called to a house of his friend, which was surrounded by foreign troops late Wednesday, Wardak said.
After he arrived with his guards at the house, a clash with foreign troops erupted in which Barakzai and two of his bodyguards were killed, Wardak said. Two other of Barakzai's bodyguards were wounded.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force said its troops were involved in an incident in Uruzgan on Wednesday night, but did not have more details. Dutch NATO troops are based in Uruzgan.
In a statement, President Hamid Karzai "expressed his regret" over the killing of Barakzai, which he said was a result of "misunderstanding between foreign and local forces." He did not elaborate.
Barakzai was a tribal leader and a militia commander in Uruzgan.
Afghanistan is seeing a resurgence of violence, even as the U.S. and NATO have poured thousands of new troops into the country. Last year, more than 8,000 people were killed in insurgency-related attacks. The attacks have claimed more than 4,500 lives — mostly militants — this year.
The violence that is afflicting Afghanistan's south and west is having a particularly negative effect on schools attendance.
The lack of security and attacks on the school buildings, teachers and students have forced some 70 percent of school-aged children away from schools in these two regions, said Shigeru Aoyagi, the director of UNESCO's office in Afghanistan.
Some 88 schools were also attacked by insurgents, whose actions have forced the closing of 640 schools countrywide, Aoyagi said.
Since last October some 250 students and teachers were killed in insurgent attacks, said Hamid Halimi, a spokesman for the education ministry.
While over 6 million children, including 2.1 million girls have been enrolled in school in 2007, over 11 million people, aged 15 and over, in a country of 30 million, remain illiterate, Aoyagi said. The majority of those are in rural area, where three quarters of Afghans live, he said.
Girls were barred from schools under the Taliban regime, when only 1 million boys attended school. After the Taliban fell in 2001, girls were allowed to return, but many conservative and uneducated Afghans still forbid their girls from going.
Taliban militants, meanwhile, killed two policemen and wounded three others after attacking their checkpoint in the eastern Paktika province Thursday morning, said provincial governor Akram Akhpelwak.
In central Logar province, meanwhile, five other police officers were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle Wednesday, said Mostapha Mohseni.
In the western Herat province's Shindand, another roadside blast wounded three more policemen, said Noor Khan Nekzad, a regional police spokesman.
Militants have killed more than 720 police in the last six months. In 2007, militants killed about 925 police — meaning the pace of attacks this year has increased.
Afghanistan's 80,000 police have less training and less firepower than the Afghan army, making them an attractive target for militants. The police also travel in small groups through some of Afghanistan's most dangerous territory.
__
Associated Press reporters Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this story.
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NATO suffers casualties from Afghanistan ambush
KABUL, Sept 18 (Reuters) - A NATO force was ambushed by insurgents on Thursday in eastern Afghanistan and suffered some casualties, an alliance spokeswoman said.
The ambush in Kunar came hours after a soldier of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) died in a separate attack of the insurgents in another area of the province which borders Pakistan, she said.
Violence has surged to its worst level in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest period since U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001.
Despite an increase in strength of foreign troops, now numbering more than 71,000, the al Qaeda-back Taliban have not only been intensifying their guerrilla attacks, but extending the scope of their activities.
Thursday's ambush came a day after four U.S. soldiers and an Afghan national were killed in a roadside bomb on a highway in a southeastern area.
At least 195 foreign troops have been killed so far in 2008 in Afghanistan. (Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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FACTBOX-Military deaths in Afghanistan
Sept 18 (Reuters) - A NATO force was ambushed by insurgents on Thursday in eastern Afghanistan and suffered casualties, an alliance spokeswoman said.
The ambush in Kunar came hours after a soldier in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) died in a separate attack in another area of the province bordering Pakistan, she said.
Four U.S. soldiers and an Afghan were killed by a roadside bomb on a highway in southeast Afghanistan on Wednesday.
Here are figures for foreign military deaths as a result of violence or accidents in Afghanistan since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001:
NATO/U.S.-LED COALITION FORCES:
Britain 120
Canada 97
Denmark 17**
France 24*
Germany 28
Spain 23
Netherlands 17
United States 597
Other nations 53
TOTAL: 976
NOTES:
* Figures supplied by French Military.
** Figures supplied by Danish Central Command, includes one suicide.
Sources: Reuters/icasualties (www.icasualties.org/oef), compiled from official figures. (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
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US seeking sole command of Nato's war against the Taliban
Western allies risk public backlash if Washington commands troops
By Kim Sengupta – Independent - Thursday, 18 September 2008
The Bush administration is pushing for sweeping changes to the military command structure in Afghanistan, so that the head of international forces would report directly to US Central Command instead of Nato.
The changes would have huge repercussions for Nato, whose officials have stated that Afghanistan is a "defining moment" for the organisation's ability to conduct large-scale operations abroad.
The Independent has learnt that the proposal to streamline the complex chain of command, enabling US General David McKiernan to be answerable to superiors at Centcom in Tampa, Florida, rather than Nato, is before Robert Gates, the American Defence Secretary.
Mr Gates is due in the UK today after a visit to Afghanistan where he spoke about the deteriorating security situation with senior Western officers and Afghan ministers. At the same time, in a mark of the seriousness with which the Americans view the situation, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, flew to Pakistan from where Taliban fighters are mounting cross-border raids.
Any move to make the Afghan war an American-run operation would be controversial in some Nato countries. There is already public disquiet in countries such as Italy, Germany and Canada over the conflict.
Nevertheless, altering the command structure is an option in a wide-ranging plan by Washington to acquire greater control of the mission in Afghanistan. A violent Taliban resurgence has made the past three months the most lethal for Western forces. President George Bush has recently announced that several thousand troops will be moved from Iraq to Afghanistan, and General David Petraeus, who led the "surge" in Iraq, credited with reducing the violence there, is returning to the US in overall charge of both missions.
But it is the proposed change to the command structure in Afghanistan which is seen by the Americans as crucial to whether or not the Afghan mission succeeds. Officials point out that in Iraq, General Petraeus was in sole command, which allowed him to carry out his counter-insurgency plan. In Afghanistan, however, different Nato countries are in charge of different regions, often with different rules. Forty nations ranging from Albania and Iceland to the US and Britain are involved in Afghan operations. The force in southern Afghanistan, the main theatre of combat, includes troops from Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Australia, Romania and nine other nations.
US forces sent to Afghanistan recently from Iraq claimed that operations were being stymied because of the multi-layered command structure. Colonel Anthony Anderson, commander of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines complained publicly: "We are trying to keep our frustration in check ... but we have to wait for the elephants to stop dancing", a reference to the alleged clumsiness of the international command.
Lt Col Brian Mennes, commander of Task Force Fury, a parachute battalion serving in Kandahar, said at the end of his tour: "We don't understand where we are going here, we desperately want to see a strategy in front of us."
The two separate missions in Afghanistan – the Nato-led Isaf (International Security and Assistance Force), and Operation Enduring Freedom, by the Americans in the border regions with Pakistan – are due be merged under General McKiernan. This, say some US officers, needs a streamlined structure unencumbered by countless Nato caveats on rules of engagement. The Americans are said to be "acutely aware" of the sensitivity of Nato allies on the issue of command structure. Mr Gates recently said: "The command structure is a sensitive matter in terms of the eyes of our allies. And so if there were to be any changes it would require some pretty intensive consultations with our allies."
One avenue under consideration is for Nato to continue to be in charge of matters such as logistics, force protection and public affairs while direct counter-insurgency operations would be run from Centcom by General Petraeus.
Major General Julian Thompson, former commander of the Royal Marines, raised doubts about the viability of changing the command structure from Nato to Centcom. "It seems to me that this will make the command structure in Afghanistan even more complicated. What will be the position of Nato soldiers from other countries? It would be a bit like a British commander saying he would report directly to the MoD in London rather than Nato."
However, General Thompson acknowledged: "To my knowledge there are certainly some difficulties with so many nationalities in Afghanistan. In Helmand, for instance, some of the troops from other Nato countries have had to refer back home on orders issued by the British."
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Pakistan 'not told' of US strike
Thursday, 18 September 2008 BBC News
Pakistan was not warned about a suspected US missile strike in the north-west on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said.
Such attacks were "counter-productive" and reflected an "institutional disconnect" on the US side, he said.
Officials say at least five people were killed when a US drone fired missiles at a suspected militant target.
It came as a top US commander met Pakistani officials to discuss tension over US attacks along the border.
Observers say Wednesday's attack - in South Waziristan, close to the Afghan border - may be an indication that the Americans have told Pakistan there will be no more ground assaults, but that drone attacks are to continue.
Earlier in the week, Pakistani troops were reported to have fired shots into the air to stop US troops crossing into South Waziristan.
Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday to discuss "measures to defuse tension between the two countries, following a spate of air and ground violations along the Pakistan-Afghan border", the state news agency APP said.
Adm Mullen "reiterated the US commitment to respect Pakistan's sovereignty and to develop further US-Pakistani co-operation... on critical issues that challenge the security and well-being of the people of both countries", the US embassy in Islamabad said afterwards.
Mr Gilani has strongly condemned the latest attack.
'Counter-productive'
Mr Qureshi said on Thursday that such assurances combined with the suspected missile strike indicated "an institutional disconnect" on the US side.
"We were not informed," Mr Qureshi said, after meeting Adm Mullen in Islamabad.
"My understanding of the rules of engagement is that no foreign troops will be permitted to operate in Pakistan," Mr Qureshi said. "If there is action required inside our territory, it will be carried out by our forces.
"Our stance is that we should co-operate with each other and such incursions cannot improve the atmosphere - rather they will deteriorate it and will be counter-productive."
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Pakistan says it appears that Islamabad is not going to lodge a formal protest with the US despite Pakistani concerns that the attack came within hours of Adm Mullen's assurances.
The Pakistani delegation which is to accompany President Asif Zardari to the UN general assembly session of 22 September is expected to take up the matter with the Americans.
Our correspondent says that the foreign minister also appeared to justify the US strikes at one point by saying that the Americans felt threatened by the presence of al-Qaeda and Taleban elements in Pakistani territory.
"This is a long struggle and we must evolve a long-term strategy to carry it out," Mr Qureshi said.
Pakistan's army has repeatedly said it will not tolerate cross-border incursions from Afghanistan as tension in recent months has risen over an increase in US attacks in the area.
'Secret' order
The missiles in the attack struck a militant training camp, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
At least six people were injured as well as the five who died, local officials told the BBC.
They said four missiles were fired at the village of Baghar Cheena, about half a kilometre from the Afghan border in the tribal region of South Waziristan.
Two hit a house reportedly occupied by militants, while two struck the hillside.
Baghar Cheena is about 4km (2.5 miles) from Angoor Adda, a village which Pakistani officials say was the scene of an unprecedented US ground assault earlier this month.
That sparked diplomatic fury from the Pakistani side.
South Waziristan is one of the main areas from which Islamist militants launch attacks into Afghanistan.
Last week, it emerged in Washington that President George Bush had authorised cross-border attacks by US troops based in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's army has warned that the aggressive US policy will widen the insurgency by uniting the tribesmen with the Taleban.
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Vested interests drive US's Pakistan policy
By Gareth Porter Sep 19, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
WASHINGTON - The George W Bush administration's decision to launch commando raids and step up missiles strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda figures in the tribal areas of Pakistan followed what appears to have been the most contentious policy process over the use of force in Bush's eight-year presidency.
That decision has stirred such strong opposition from the Pakistani military and government that it is now being revisited. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday for the second time in three weeks, and US officials and sources told Reuters that any future raids would be approved on a mission-by-mission basis by a top US administration official.
The policy was the result of strong pressure from the US command in Afghanistan and lobbying by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Central Intelligence Agency's operations directorate (DO), both of which had direct institutional interests in operations that coincided with their mandate.
State Department and some Pentagon officials had managed to delay the proposed military escalation in Pakistan for a year by arguing that it would be based on nearly non-existent intelligence and would only increase support for Islamic extremists in that country.
But officials of SOCOM and the CIA prevailed, apparently because Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney believed they could not afford to be seen as doing nothing about bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the administration's final months.
SOCOM had a strong institutional interest in a major new operation in Pakistan.
The Army's Delta Force and navy SEALS had been allowed by the Pakistani military to accompany its forces on raids in the tribal area in 2002 and 2003, but not to operate on their own. And even that extremely limited role was ended by Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in 2003, which frustrated SOCOM officials.
Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose antagonism toward the CIA was legendary, had wanted SOCOM to take over the hunt for bin Laden. And in 2006, SOCOM's Joint Special Operations Command branch in Afghanistan pressed Rumsfeld to approve a commando operation in Pakistan aimed at capturing a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative.
SOCOM had the support of the US command in Afghanistan, which was arguing that the war in Afghanistan could not be won as long as the Taliban had a safe haven in Pakistan from which to launch attacks. The top US commander, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, worked with SOCOM and DO officers in Afghanistan to assemble the evidence of Pakistan's cooperation with the Taliban.
Despite concerns that such an operation could cause a massive reaction in Pakistan against the US war on al-Qaeda, Rumsfeld gave in to the pressure in early November 2006 and approved the operation, according to an account in the New York Times on June 30. But within days, Rumsfeld was out as defense secretary, and the operation was put on hold.
Nevertheless, Bush and Cheney, who had been repeating that Musharraf had things under control in the frontier area, soon realized that they would be politically vulnerable to charges that they weren't doing anything about bin Laden.
The July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was the signal for the CIA's DO to step up its own lobbying for control over a Pakistan operation, based on the Afghan model - namely, CIA officers training and arming a local militia while identifying targets for strikes from the air.
In a Washington Post column only two weeks after the NIE's conclusions were made public, David Ignatius quoted former CIA official Hank Crumpton, who had run the CIA operation in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, proposed a DO operation: "We either do it now, or we do it after the next attack."
That either-or logic and the sense of political vulnerability in the White House was the key advantage of the advocates of a new war in Pakistan. Last November, the New York Times reported that the Defense Department had drafted an order based on the SOCOM proposal for the training of local tribal forces and for new authority for "covert" commando operations in Pakistan's frontier provinces.
But the previous experience with missile strikes against al-Qaeda targets using Predator drones and the facts on the ground provided plenty of ammunition to those who opposed the escalation. It showed that the proposed actions would have little or no impact on either the Taliban or al-Qaeda in Pakistan, and would bring destabilizing political blowback.
In January 2006, the CIA had launched a missile strike on a residential compound in Damadola, near the Afghan border, on the basis of erroneous intelligence that al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri would be there. The destruction killed as many as 25 people, according to residents, including 14 members of one family.
Some 8,000 tribesmen in the Damadola area protested the killing, and in the southern port city of Karachi tens of thousands more rallied against the United States, shouting "Death to America!"
Musharraf later claimed the dead included four high-ranking al-Qaeda officials, including Zawahiri's son-in-law. The Washington Post's Craig Whitlock reported last week, however, that US and Pakistani officials now admit only villagers were killed.
It was well known within the counter-terrorism community that the US search for al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan was severely limited by the absence of actionable intelligence. For years, the US military had depended almost entirely on Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, despite its well-established ties with the Taliban and even al-Qaeda.
One of the counter-terrorism officials without a direct organizational stake in the issue, US State Department counter-terrorism chief General Dell L Dailey, bluntly summed up the situation to reporters in January. "We don't have enough information about what's going on there," he said. "Not on al-Qaeda, not on foreign fighters, not on the Taliban."
A senior US official quoted by the Post in February was even more scathing on that subject, saying, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then."
Meanwhile, the Pakistani military, reacting to the US aim of a more aggressive US military role in the tribal areas, repeatedly rejected the US military proposal for training Frontier Corps units.
The US command in Afghanistan and SOCOM increased the pressure for escalation early last summer by enlisting visiting members of the US Congress in support of the plan. Texas Republican congressmen Michael McCaul, who had visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, declared on his return that it was "imperative that US forces be allowed to pursue the Taliban and al-Qaeda in tribal areas inside Pakistan".
In late July, according to The Times of London, Bush signed a secret national security presidential directive which authorized operations by special operations forces without the permission of Pakistan.
The Bush decision ignored the disconnect between the aims of the new war and the realities on the ground in Pakistan. Commando raids and missile strikes against mid-level or low-level Taliban or al-Qaeda operatives, carried out in a sea of angry Pashtuns, will not stem the flow of fighters from Pakistan into Afghanistan or weaken al-Qaeda. But they will certainly provoke reactions from the tribal population that can tilt the affected areas even further toward the Islamic radicals.
At least some military leaders without an institutional interest in the outcome understood that the proposed escalation was likely to backfire. One senior military officer told the Los Angeles Times last month that he had been forced by the "fragility of the current government in Islamabad" to ask whether "you do more long-term harm if you act very, very aggressively militarily".
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.
(Inter Press Service)
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'FATA not a place for US adventurism'
Press TV (Iran) Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:46:38 GMT
A jirga of Pakistani tribal leaders have vowed to take sever action against the US if it launches an incursion into the tribal belt.
The jirga of Ahmedzai Wazir tribe held at Rustam Adda in Wana, South Waziristan on Wednesday announced that the tribe's 4,000 fighters were ready to repel any US attack on their land.
The eight million tribal people of FATA are ever ready to offer any sacrifice for safeguarding their motherland against foreign forces, the elders and religious leaders told reporters after the meeting.
"We will fight along side our brave army against foreign aggression and would not even hesitate to lay down our lives,” the tribal elders told the jirga.
They said tribesmen were soldiers of the Pakistani Army who will defend every inch of their motherland at any cost and the history of the tribal people was replete with such brave activities.
The tribal jirga strongly condemned an early September attack by the US-led forces against civilians in Angoor Adda in which 20 people were killed.
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Pakistan's 'bleakest moment'
Thursday, 18 September 2008 BBC News
Guest columnist Ahmed Rashid says Pakistan is facing its bleakest moment, months after getting a new democratic government.
Just when Pakistanis thought they had a new democracy, ushering in a new civilian government, a new president and the end of eight years of military rule, they are faced with the bleakest moment in the country's history.
Proverbially listed as a failing state, this precariously poised country could now be in a downward spiral towards becoming a failed state.
Internationally isolated and condemned by the world community due to its Afghan policy, Pakistan's tribal territories have become a free for all firing range for US troops even as the domestic threat from the Pakistani Taleban multiplies.
Pakistanis also face run away inflation of over 25%, an economy in virtual meltdown as foreign exchange reserves dwindle and industry grinds to a halt.
There is a lack of electricity, an unresolved judicial crisis and ultimately an uncertain political future with the army still waiting in the wings.
When newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari travels to New York to attend the UN General Assembly he will be desperately trying to shore up Pakistan's crumbling international reputation, discuss new policy options towards the Taleban with President George Bush and beg for fresh aid from donor countries in order to avert a default on the country's foreign debt.
Double game
It's a tough order for a man who barely knows his way around the corridors of power.
Much of the present crisis has to be laid at the doors of former President Pervez Musharraf, the army and the Interservices Intelligence (ISI) - who since 11 September 2001 have played a double game not only with the Americans but also with their own people.
Promising democracy, economic development, moderation and an end to training jihadi fighters who had become the army's front line in projecting its foreign policy and fuelling the wars in Afghanistan and the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir, in reality the military continued to pursue the same old games.
By allowing the growth of Islamic extremism and the mushrooming of thousands of new madrassas in the country, the military considered economic and political stability an afterthought.
In his last years Mr Musharraf presided over a rotten system that was just waiting to implode. Neither the army nor the Americans were prepared to see that but the people of Pakistan certainly did - as they poured into the streets to protest this or that foible of the regime.
Out of control
Just as the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government took over, all the chickens came home to roost. The Afghan Taleban - which still has a safe haven in Pakistan - no longer listens to its military mentors.
The Pakistani Taleban are out of control. Once serving as the protectors and facilitators for al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban, the Pakistani Taleban have now developed their own political agenda - turning northern Pakistan into what they call a Sharia (Islamic law) state.
The key to remedy the present crisis lies in how Mr Zardari and the civilian government will conduct their relations with the military and how successful they will be to bring it on board when adopting a new national security doctrine that does not depend on Islamic extremism and makes friends rather than enemies of Pakistan's neighbours.
The civilians and the military need to develop a partnership that works, where decisions are jointly discussed and burdens shared. So far that has not happened.
Confrontation - such as when the government tried and failed to force the ISI to report to the Interior Ministry just before Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited Washington - will not work.
The incident showed up the government to be immature, inept and unversed in how state institutions operate.
By the same token the army cannot carry on with its military campaigns against the Pakistan Taleban, refusing to share information and intelligence with responsible civilians. Nobody in government has a clue as to what the military strategy is while many doubt there even is one.
The army's refusal to give the public any information and the lack of transparency in what it is doing only further damages the military's reputation and creates unnecessary conflict with parliament and the government. Moreover it fuels conspiracy theories about the army's intentions.
It cannot be over-emphasised: to get over this present crisis the army and the civilians will have to sit down together.
But the problem for the government is that so far in its discussions with the military it has been shown to know next to nothing about national security or foreign policy.
It is not trusted by the army and Mr Zardari has to find the right people to fill the key positions where interaction with the military is paramount.
Gradually through a maturing working relationship, the army must learn to accept that the elected government has the right to control foreign policy, although not without consulting the military first.
Only civilian rule can deliver greater trade and cooperation with Pakistan's neighbours rather than more confrontation.
It is the resolution of disputes like Kashmir with India and the Durand Line with Afghanistan that will give Pakistan securer borders.
It will also make the military less paranoid about India and place civilians more firmly in control. Failed statehood can still be avoided.
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President Bush's plan may be too late for Afghanistan
September 18, 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - The Pentagon is negotiating with Afghanistan and Pakistan the possibility of launching special operations inside Pakistan.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Kabul on Wednesday, and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been dispatched to Islamabad.
The trouble is that on September 16 a spokesman of the Pakistani Army said they were "ordered to open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid across the Afghan border."
This decision by the Pakistani military may foil the U.S. president's plan to step up the campaign in Afghanistan, if not provoke a U.S.-Pakistani war.
President George W. Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow U.S. Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.
The new orders reflect concern about safe havens for al-Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan. But have they come too late?
Judging by the media, the operations are to be carried out before the November presidential elections in the United States, which puts special emphasis on the political aspect of Bush's new plan.
American experts have been pushing for such raids into Pakistan, or more precisely into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), better known as the free tribal zone, since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. They have lately become increasingly impatient, claiming that the president wasted too much time considering the idea..
They could be right. Such raids into Pakistan could be effective, given several conditions.
First, they should be carried out as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, which would make them legitimate.
Second, there should be no pause in coalition forces' actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan that might give al-Qaeda a chance to become entrenched in the free tribal zone.
And third, they should have been launched before the Iraqi campaign to collect detailed information about the Afghan-Pakistani border regions where the al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters were trained.
Had the U.S. started these raids in Pakistan in 2001, or 2002 at the latest, they would not have provoked such a huge outcry. Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, where the free tribal zone is located, is one of the most volatile regions in Pakistan. It can be described as a state within a state. It has always been like that, yet the Taliban had never enjoyed such sympathy there as they do now.
Pervez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan, said during his latest meeting with Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher, who heads the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs in the U.S. State Department, that foreign troops would never be allowed to carry out operations in Pakistan.
The position of Pakistan, once America's most loyal ally in the fight against international terrorism in the region, is easy to understand. Islamists, in particular the Taliban, have grown so influential in the province that the Pakistani authorities fear they may seize power in Peshawar, the capital city of the province, even though Pakistan's 11th Army Corps, reinforced by border troops and police, is deployed there.
In April 2008, the ruling coalition of Pakistan said it was ready to negotiate with Pushtu leaders, although it knew that many of them supported the Taliban.
The Kabul authorities and some people in the White House thought Pakistan was deliberately hindering the stabilization of Afghanistan.
One reason for that conclusion was the statement made by Beitullah Mehsud in late May. This usually reclusive Taliban leader in Pakistan said during a news conference in his home base, South Waziristan, in the free tribal zone: "Islam does not recognize boundaries."
He went on to claim that a jihad against the occupation forces [meaning the U.S. and ISAF troops in Afghanistan] was a sacred duty of all true believers.
He also promised to bring war to Afghanistan, which is easy to do since South Waziristan borders on Afghanistan's Khost and Paktika provinces.
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, said on June 15: "When [militants] cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and to kill coalition troops it exactly gives us the right to go back and do the same."
Washington expressed quiet support for its Afghan ally.
Karzai has since softened his stance regarding Pakistan, possibly because the neighboring country now has a new president.
So, Afghan troops may or may not go to Pakistan and kill Pakistanis.
But does Asif Ali Zardari, the new Pakistani president, have enough power to fulfill his promise (or rather the promise of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, whose assassination was blamed on Beitullah Mehsud) to wage an "uncompromising struggle" against the Pakistani Taliban?
I rather doubt this. The army is a social institution to be reckoned with in Pakistan, for objective and historical reasons. It has not expressed its support for Bush's plan; on the contrary, it has threatened to "open fire if U.S. troops launch another air or ground raid across the Afghan border."
Pakistan's army commander General Ashfaq Kayani, who shares President Musharraf's belief that foreigners must not be allowed to carry out operations in Pakistan, has not retired like his president.
Pakistan is now considering all the pros and cons in Bush's plan. And although the U.S. has always been Pakistan's main sponsor, the last say belongs to Islamabad, or rather the Pakistani generals.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
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Attacks on aid challenge Afghan reconstruction
Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:37am EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - Food convoys hit by rocket propelled grenades along major highways. A U.N. polio vaccination team targeted by a suicide bomber. A spurt in kidnaps.
Attacks on aid agencies in Afghanistan have spiraled this year, hampering reconstruction efforts just as the country faces both frustration from ordinary Afghans over slow development as well as one of its worst food crises and droughts in years.
For years, aid workers have been in the cross-fire in Afghanistan, often on the wrong road at the wrong time. But now there is increasing evidence international aid agencies, including U.N organizations, are becoming specific targets.
The attacks highlight a deteriorating security situation with the rise of the Taliban insurgency and criminal mafias as well as the loss of respect for the neutrality of agencies where the line between aid and military reconstruction work can be confused.
At least 26 aid workers have been killed this year. The number of deaths in the first three months of the year was nearly equivalent to all of 2007, while 2008 is on track to be the worst year for attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The latest attack on Sunday was ominous. A suicide bomber attacked a marked U.N. vehicle. Two Afghan doctors working on polio vaccination for the World Health Organization were killed.
The bombing came after the killings in August by Taliban militants of three foreign women working for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a respected NGO.
"These were the most egregious examples of how NGOs and the UN have become targets," said Ciaran Donnelly, IRC director in Afghanistan. "Each year the peak in summer violence gets higher."
"It is said that Taliban doesn't have to win, just not lose. This is the way the Taliban is showing they're not losing."
Violence has surged as the Taliban step up their campaign of guerrilla attacks and roadside and suicide bombs aimed at sapping support for the Afghan government and its Western backers.
Many roads south and east of Kabul are too dangerous for aid workers, especially foreigners. A U.N. worker said Taliban who stop cars may have photos and names of U.N. workers.
The problem is not just insurgents but also criminals who may kidnap workers to sell them to insurgents, or for their own ransoms, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO).
The World Food Program said it had lost 800 tons of food aid in the first half of the year, enough to feed around 80,000 people for a month, after attacks on convoys. This comes as Afghanistan faces a food deficit of around 2 million tons.
"It is much worse than it was," said Susana Rico, director of the WFP in Afghanistan.
"There are provinces (where) we can't go for a month at a time. Most of the aid eventually gets through, but there have been increasing delays," said Rico.
WFP officials say there have been 23 attacks on WFP convoys until August this year, compared with 30 in all of 2007.
In one case, eight trucks in a 50-truck convoy were driven away by attackers after an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) attack, never to be seen again.
In another incident, insurgents left a note after stealing a truck. "We have taken this food. Thanks very much."
In five provinces in the south, WFP said only a third of last year's 750,000 child recipients were turning up at schools for food aid due to Taliban threats.
Some aid workers say there are signs more radical insurgents are exerting influence in regions where for years local Taliban sympathizers have given the green eye to development projects.
"NGOs are perceived to be legitimate targets but on the ground local commanders often had a different view," said one NGO worker, who asked to remain anonymous.
"Now there appears to be a radicalization of leadership, supplementing locals. Communities we have worked for years can protect us up to a point, but that point is diminishing."
Many aid workers blamed the blurring of the line in Afghanistan between the military and NGOs.
International and Afghan forces are increasingly involved in building schools, clinics and wells, as part of counter-insurgency efforts aimed at winning popular support.
Another problem, aid workers say, is that U.N. aid agencies work under UNAMA, the U.N. agency also charged with giving political support to the government.
"Telling people this U.N. vehicle is about elections and this about humanitarian needs is a hard PR exercise," said Donnelly.
NGO workers say three U.N. aid officials are leaving, angry that calls to split the two operations fell on deaf ears. "Anywhere else in the world NGOs would, should and do operate on both sides of a conflict," Nic Lee, the ANSO director in Kabul, was quoted as telling IRIN, a U.N. news service.
"Only here ... that sense of independence has become a lot more politicized ... and it has become very difficult for NGOs to implement and enforce their neutrality."
NGOs and aid operations have been known to complain of restrictions on access to both sides in conflict areas in other countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia, however.
In any case, many aid and NGO officials view blurring of distinctions as a growing problem in Afghanistan.
"The Taliban and insurgents are increasingly seeing aid agencies contributing to the U.S. reconstruction effort and the Karzai government," said Maria Kuusisto of the Eurasia Group. "And the trouble is there is no end game in sight."
(Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Time to Rethink Tactics Against Taleban
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Jean MacKenzie, Afghanistan country director September 18, 2008
Afghanistan has gone from “Good War” to “Losing Battle” almost overnight. With everyone from former European Union envoy Francesc Vendrell to the US’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral Mike Mullen voicing doubts about the outcome of the campaign against the Taleban insurgency, the world has finally woken up to the fact that Afghanistan is spinning out of control.
This was apparent to those of us who lived and worked in the country as far back as 2005, when suicide attacks in Kabul and Kandahar made everyday life a hazardous undertaking. NATO told us then that the bombings were a sign of the Taleban’s weakening, a last gasp before they finally folded.
Three years later, the Taleban are stronger than ever, and the international community can no longer pretend that the war is going well. The most profound defeat has been in the battle for hearts and minds, with NATO and Coalition air strikes dealing the final blows.
Any goodwill that might accrue from progress on the development front, such as the building of a school here or a well there, is wiped out when military operations kill civilians, such as July’s bombing of a wedding party in Jalalabad, in which 47 were killed, including the bride; or the more widely publicised and controversial attack on a civilian compound in Shindand, in August, which, according to government and independent investigations, claimed more than 90 innocent lives.
The Afghan government is calling for a renegotiation of the terms under which foreign forces operate in the country; civilians are grumbling about the American and European “occupiers”.
Things have reached a point where Kabul’s chattering classes have begun to murmur among themselves that the Taleban should not be regarded as an insurgency, but rather a legitimate resistance force. And this is from the progressive, Soviet-educated academics and engineers who make up the backbone of the intellectual elite. Picture the debate in the teahouses of Kandahar, where the bearded, turbaned patrons may have just lost a family member to a foreign air strike.
Something must change, and quickly, if Afghanistan is not to topple back into the chasm of violence and war.
But the remedies that are being suggested are not going to do the trick. In the United States, both presidential candidates and the incumbent are proposing a mini-surge of troops, hoping, no doubt, for a repeat of the purported success of last year’s Iraq operation.
But an additional influx of forces – the highest number so far discussed hovers around 8,000 – is not going to stem the tide. Instead, unless there is a radical rethink of how foreign forces are to be used, they may actually make things worse.
Over the past two years, we have witnessed a disturbing phenomenon in the south, particularly the Taleban stronghold of Helmand. NATO will launch an operation and move into an area, with tanks, troops, and air cover. The Taleban melt away, unwilling or unable to stand against far superior fire power.
Besides, they know that time is on their side: Lacking the soldiers to hold the territory, NATO moves on in a few weeks or months, leaving behind an angry and demoralised population, who may have lost loved ones, or whose homes and lands may have been destroyed.
With the departure of the foreign troops, the local residents are once again face to face with the Taleban. Many of them make the pragmatic decision to support the insurgents, since they cannot rely on protection from NATO. In six months or a year, the Taleban will have regrouped, and the whole process will begin again. In Kabul, this cycle is called, dismissively, “mowing the lawn”.
The proposed increase in troops will not enable NATO or the US-led coalition to hold territory; it will, however, give them the capability of launching more and more operations.
This is not to say that troops should be withdrawn altogether. At present, it is only the radical fringe and the insurgents, who support this idea. Those of us who live in the real world understand all too well what would happen were the international presence to disappear. It would not be long before Afghanistan would be once again engulfed in civil war, with long-simmering ethnic tensions, historical grievances and political rivalries unleashed.
The international community missed a golden opportunity in 2002, when Afghans were happy to see the back of the Taleban, hopeful that the future would be brighter, more prosperous and more stable than the deeply troubled decades that came before.
But a series of bad moves and miscalculations, first and foremost the failure of the internationals to agree among themselves on strategies and priorities, has led to the lamentable situation we are in right now.
Before the new boots hit the ground, all parties – the Afghan government, the US-led coalition forces, the NATO-dominated International Security Assistance force, ISAF, as well as the diplomatic community – have to come together to define their goals and devise a roadmap to get them there.
There are some glimmers of hope; the recent successful British operation to deliver turbines to Kajaki Dam may help to rehabilitate the foreign troops in the minds of many Afghans. But it may be two years or more before the turbines begin providing electricity to people’s homes – and two years can be a very long time in Afghanistan.
There are no easy answers. While Afghans and, now the US, thunder that the real problem is Pakistan, there are few concrete plans for bringing stability to the volatile tribal areas that line the Afghan-Pakistan border. Recent US air strikes have served only to raise the ire of those living in the region, many of whom are now threatening to send even more fighters across the border to battle the US and its allies in Afghanistan.
Some advocate opening talks with the Taleban. This is a tempting solution, but would first require that those at the table define who the Taleban actually are. If we adhere to the position that the insurgency is comprised of anyone who possesses a weapon and dislikes foreign troops on their soil, we will soon have to lump the entire population into that category.
Too many Afghans think that the slide is irreversible. But there is still time, provided that the international community, which is sacrificing so much in terms of lives and treasure here in Afghanistan, takes a long, hard look at its track record so far. More of the same is not going to help. We must at long last develop a cohesive, unified approach to tackling Afghanistan’s problems.
The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of IWPR.
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Pak children freed from Taliban custody
Press TV (Iran) Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:35:08 GMT
Locals free some 300 school children after al-Qaeda and Taliban linked militants took control of a primary school in northwestern Pakistan.
The children were taken hostage for several hours in Dir district of the North West Frontier Province, near the restive Bajaur tribal region and the troubled Swat valley.
A press TV correspondent from the area said that the local villagers upon receiving information about militants' assault at the school rushed to the site and besieged the entire vicinity to block the ways of their escape.
The armed residents rushed to the school and exchanged fire with the militants, killing two of them while the third escaped, local television channels reported.
The two dead militants had explosives strapped to their bodies and they blew up during the gun battle. Police and locals were not certain whether the militants blew themselves up or had exploded after being hit by bullets.
All the children were freed unhurt, the school management said.
The Pakistani Taliban has been running a terror campaign to close down schools all over the tribal region.
Pakistan's tribal regions have been wracked by violence since thousands of rebels sneaked into the country after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
Pakistan has suffered a wave of violence, and hundreds of civilians have lost their lives in suicide and bomb attacks across the country since former President Pervez Musharraf joined the so-called 'US war on terror' following the 9/11 attacks.
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Attacks on aid challenge Afghan reconstruction
Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:37am EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - Food convoys hit by rocket propelled grenades along major highways. A U.N. polio vaccination team targeted by a suicide bomber. A spurt in kidnaps.
Attacks on aid agencies in Afghanistan have spiraled this year, hampering reconstruction efforts just as the country faces both frustration from ordinary Afghans over slow development as well as one of its worst food crises and droughts in years.
For years, aid workers have been in the cross-fire in Afghanistan, often on the wrong road at the wrong time. But now there is increasing evidence international aid agencies, including U.N organizations, are becoming specific targets.
The attacks highlight a deteriorating security situation with the rise of the Taliban insurgency and criminal mafias as well as the loss of respect for the neutrality of agencies where the line between aid and military reconstruction work can be confused.
At least 26 aid workers have been killed this year. The number of deaths in the first three months of the year was nearly equivalent to all of 2007, while 2008 is on track to be the worst year for attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The latest attack on Sunday was ominous. A suicide bomber attacked a marked U.N. vehicle. Two Afghan doctors working on polio vaccination for the World Health Organization were killed.
The bombing came after the killings in August by Taliban militants of three foreign women working for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a respected NGO.
"These were the most egregious examples of how NGOs and the UN have become targets," said Ciaran Donnelly, IRC director in Afghanistan. "Each year the peak in summer violence gets higher."
"It is said that Taliban doesn't have to win, just not lose. This is the way the Taliban is showing they're not losing."
Violence has surged as the Taliban step up their campaign of guerrilla attacks and roadside and suicide bombs aimed at sapping support for the Afghan government and its Western backers.
Many roads south and east of Kabul are too dangerous for aid workers, especially foreigners. A U.N. worker said Taliban who stop cars may have photos and names of U.N. workers.
The problem is not just insurgents but also criminals who may kidnap workers to sell them to insurgents, or for their own ransoms, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO).
LOST FOOD AID
The World Food Program said it had lost 800 tons of food aid in the first half of the year, enough to feed around 80,000 people for a month, after attacks on convoys. This comes as Afghanistan faces a food deficit of around 2 million tons.
"It is much worse than it was," said Susana Rico, director of the WFP in Afghanistan.
"There are provinces (where) we can't go for a month at a time. Most of the aid eventually gets through, but there have been increasing delays," said Rico.
WFP officials say there have been 23 attacks on WFP convoys until August this year, compared with 30 in all of 2007.
In one case, eight trucks in a 50-truck convoy were driven away by attackers after an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) attack, never to be seen again.
In another incident, insurgents left a note after stealing a truck. "We have taken this food. Thanks very much."
In five provinces in the south, WFP said only a third of last year's 750,000 child recipients were turning up at schools for food aid due to Taliban threats.
Some aid workers say there are signs more radical insurgents are exerting influence in regions where for years local Taliban sympathizers have given the green eye to development projects.
"NGOs are perceived to be legitimate targets but on the ground local commanders often had a different view," said one NGO worker, who asked to remain anonymous.
"Now there appears to be a radicalization of leadership, supplementing locals. Communities we have worked for years can protect us up to a point, but that point is diminishing."
Many aid workers blamed the blurring of the line in Afghanistan between the military and NGOs.
International and Afghan forces are increasingly involved in building schools, clinics and wells, as part of counter-insurgency efforts aimed at winning popular support.
Another problem, aid workers say, is that U.N. aid agencies work under UNAMA, the U.N. agency also charged with giving political support to the government.
"Telling people this U.N. vehicle is about elections and this about humanitarian needs is a hard PR exercise," said Donnelly.
NGO workers say three U.N. aid officials are leaving, angry that calls to split the two operations fell on deaf ears. "Anywhere else in the world NGOs would, should and do operate on both sides of a conflict," Nic Lee, the ANSO director in Kabul, was quoted as telling IRIN, a U.N. news service.
"Only here ... that sense of independence has become a lot more politicized ... and it has become very difficult for NGOs to implement and enforce their neutrality."
NGOs and aid operations have been known to complain of restrictions on access to both sides in conflict areas in other countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia, however.
In any case, many aid and NGO officials view blurring of distinctions as a growing problem in Afghanistan.
"The Taliban and insurgents are increasingly seeing aid agencies contributing to the U.S. reconstruction effort and the Karzai government," said Maria Kuusisto of the Eurasia Group. "And the trouble is there is no end game in sight."
(Editing by Jerry Norton)
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US urges allies to fund Afghan army growth
By James Blitz in London The Financial Times September 18 2008
The US will on Friday begin putting pressure on its Nato partners to provide the $20bn (€14bn, £11bn) that Washington believes is necessary to fund plans to double the size of the Afghan national army over the next five years.
Opening what might be a new front in transatlantic tensions over Nato’s Afghan mission, Robert Gates, US defence secretary, is set to tell his alliance counterparts that Washington expects them to meet most of the cost of doubling Afghanistan’s indigenous army from 65,000 troops to about 134,000 by 2014.
Arriving in London for an informal summit of Nato defence ministers, Mr Gates said the question of who would pay for the Afghan national army would be raised at a private discussion on Friday on the organisation’s funding and possible transformation.
“One of the issues that I’ll be raising in the meetings . . . is that we need, as an alliance, to figure out a way to pay for that increase in the size of the Afghan national army,” he told reporters.
Mr Gates said that the plan to double the size of the Afghan army and to give it responsibility for the country’s security “is ultimately the exit strategy for all of us over the longer term”.
A senior Pentagon official said the US would be unwilling to provide much of the financing for the expansion of the Afghan army, given Washington’s already significant military deployment in the country.
He said it would make sense if alliance members that were not prepared to make a significant troop deployment of their own to Afghanistan came forward to provide the funds needed to double the Afghan military’s size.
The official said: “We are not going to be carrying the burden of this and the Afghans are not capable of paying for it either.”
The Pentagon was on Thursday refusing to spell out which Nato members it thought should carry the burden of the project. The senior official said that beyond Nato, Japan might be the kind of state to which Washington looks to meet the costs.
The US and Nato originally planned to increase the Afghan army’s size to 80,000 by next year. A revised plan now envisages adding 10,000 troops each year over four years starting in 2010, with training costs alone expected to be about $4bn.
Washington wants its Nato allies to send more military trainers to Afghanistan. There is currently a shortfall of about 3,000 trainers for an 80,000-strong army. Boosting the army’s size by 50 per cent would dramatically increase the shortfall in training staff.
The US has consistently called on Nato to provide more resources for the conflict in Afghanistan. During trips to Europe, John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has stressed the need for European countries to step up their commitment. Barack Obama made a similar call in Berlin last July, suggesting that pressure on Europe to pay for the Afghan national army is certain to intensify.
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AFGHANISTAN: 1.8 million children to be immunised against polio on Peace Day
KABUL, 18 September 2008 (IRIN) - The Ministry of Public Health, backed by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), is planning to immunise 1.8 million under-fives against polio between 21 and 23 September.
Health workers said the three days from International Peace Day on 21 September would enable them to access communities in the volatile south, where insurgency and counter-insurgency-related violence had increasingly impeded aid and public service delivery.
"Peace Days are very important to ensure all children receive polio vaccines. Many districts in the southern, eastern and western regions have been missed during the polio campaigns this year due to insecurity, attacks and violence. UNICEF encourages all parties to understand that immunisation is for the children and not for any political agenda," Roshan Khadivi, a spokeswoman for UNICEF, told IRIN in Kabul.
Poliomyelitis has been eradicated all over the world except in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nigeria, according to WHO.
Conflict sustains polio
A joint evaluation by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and WHO found that polio had virtually been eradicated in the relatively calm northern parts of Afghanistan.
"In the past three years no polio case has been reported in the 10 northern provinces," said Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the MoPH, owing to successful immunisation drives.
However, in the conflict-ridden south and southeast, where health services have been restricted by recurrent attacks on facilities and staff, it is virulent.
At least 16 polio cases have been reported this year, mostly in the volatile south, and seven were confirmed there in 2007, UNICEF said.
Three years ago, the MoPH announced that by 2008 polio would be eradicated. But conflict-related obstacles and access problems have thwarted this goal, public health officials conceded.
Access negotiations
Aid workers' ability to reach and assist vulnerable communities has increasingly been limited. Dozens of aid workers have been killed, abducted or threatened by criminal gangs and Taliban insurgents over the past two years, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office.
Some aid organisations, including UNICEF, have initiated indirect "access negotiations" to reach needy people in insecure areas.
"We are talking to community leaders and religious leaders through access negotiators to pass the message [to the armed opposition]. We are also mobilising women through women's projects that UNICEF is funding to get the communities' support for the polio eradication activities," said Khadivi.
Such negotiations enabled vaccinators to access 1.3 million under-fives in insecure regions on 19-22 September 2007, Khadivi said.
For the past two years the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has advocated for a day of tranquility on 21 September to enable humanitarian workers to deliver relief aid and conduct immunisation campaigns in otherwise inaccessible areas.
"We believe the voices for peace deserve to be heard and we hope this year's peace day efforts will have a resounding beneficial impact for the whole country," Adrian Edwards, chief UN spokesman in Afghanistan, told IRIN.
However, Zabihullah Mujahid, a purported spokesman for Taliban insurgents, said the message had not been communicated to them.
"They only talk about this in the media," said Mujahid, adding that the insurgents would respect a day of tranquility only if the Afghan government and international forces declared their commitment.
"If our enemies sincerely commit to a day of ceasefire we will also do so," he said.
No spokesperson for the NATO-led International Security Force (ISAF), which commands more than 34,000 multinational troops in the country, was available to comment on a Peace Day ceasefire.
The Ministry of Interior, however, gave its assurances: "The government of Afghanistan is strongly committed to peace and will respect Peace Day," said Zemarai Bashari, ministry spokesman.
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Pavarotti Memorial Concert of musical stars to help Afghan refugees
MILAN, Italy, Sept. 18 (UNHCR) – The widow of tenor Luciano Pavarotti has unveiled plans for a tribute charity concert and memorial ceremony to be held in Petra, Jordan on 11 and 12 October.
Under the patronage of HRH Princess Haya Bint al Hussein of Jordan, a UN Messenger of Peace, the concert at the renowned archeological site at Petra will generate funds for projects in Afghanistan by the UN Refugee Agency and the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
"It was Luciano's dream to sing in Petra," Nicoletta Mantovani told journalists at a press conference in Milan on Tuesday. "I'm very happy that this dream, thanks to princess Haya, is now turning into reality."
Some of the world's biggest stars of classical and pop music – many of them verterans of the "Pavarotti & Friends" concerts – will take the stage together on Oct. 12. They include Sting, Andrea Bocelli, Jovanotti, Laura Pausini, Zucchero, Angela Gheorghiu, Andrea Griminelli, Cynthia Lawrence and Roberto Alagna. The concert will be conducted by Eugene Kohn.
In a surprise announcement, Mantovani said Spanish tenor José Carreras – who joined Pavarotti and Placido Domingo to popularize opera as the Three Tenors – will also take part in the concert. Bono, the lead singer of U2, will also join through a video satellite link,
The concert will be broadcast by Mediaset on Italian Rete4, Iris and Spanish Telecinco, but "there are many broadcasters interested in showing the concert all over the world," said Mediaset president Fedele Confalonieri.
Elisabetta Belloni, director general for development cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also announced that the government of Italy will donate 2.1 million Euros (about $2.9 million) to UNHCR and WFP projects in Afghanistan.
Since 2002, over 5 million Afghans have returned to the eastern provinces of their country from Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere. The joint UNHCR/WFP projects will focus on the most vulnerable of them – especially women and children – and pay to construct schools, provide health, skills and literacy training, and build micro-hydropower and irrigation canals to bring electricity and improve agricultural production.
For over ten years, until his death in September 2007, Pavarotti actively supported UNHCR projects in Kosovo, Pakistan, Zambia, and Iraq. For his continuous commitment to refugee causes, Pavarotti received UNHCR's Nansen Refugee Award and was named a UN Messenger of Peace.
"Pavarotti was not only an extraordinary tenor but also a man who did a lot for those in need, in particular for refugees. Over the years, he donated to UNHCR $7 million for projects aimed at improving the living conditions of the most vulnerable uprooted people," said Laura Boldrini, UNHCR spokesperson in Italy. "We are grateful to Nicoletta Mantovani for keeping her husband's commitment alive."
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Afghanistan cricket dreams big, hopes to qualify for 2011 cricket World Cup
The Canadian Press September 18, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — It may be more dream than realistic ambition, but the cricketers of war-torn Afghanistan are about to take the next step on their "Mission Impossible 2011" - playing the globe's best at the World Cup in three years time.
Afghanistan kept alive its dreams of meeting the likes of Australia and India by winning the World Cricket League Division Five in May - beating hosts Jersey by two wickets in a low-scoring final - and is now preparing for the next qualifying stage.
From Oct. 4-11, the young Afghans will compete in WCL Division Four against Hong Kong, Italy, Fiji, hosts Tanzania and Jersey. The top two finishers will progress to a six-team WCL Division 3 in Argentina in January.
From there, the top two sides will join a further 10 countries in the United Arab Emirates to play off for four berths alongside cricket's elite at the 2011 World Cup, to be jointly hosted by Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
"Lots of people in Afghanistan are closely following our journey toward World Cup and hopefully we will not disappoint them," says Bashir Stanekzai, general manager of the team.
"That's a long way, but we are moving in right direction."
There is one national cricket academy in the capital Kabul, but the Afghan players have decamped from the strife-torn nation to the relative calm of Peshawar in Pakistan to get some competitive games under their belts before travelling to Tanzania.
"We have good academy in Kabul, but the problem was we could not get tough matches like we'll be getting in Peshawar to train ourselves for the tournament in Tanzania," Stanekzai said.
A 13-day tour to Peshawar was organized in collaboration with the Pakistan Cricket Board, during which Afghanistan will play four practice matches.
Playing against the likes of Pakistan test players Yasir Hameed and Wajahatullah Wasti will test the capabilities and boost the morale of an Afghan team led by opening batsman Nauroz Khan Mangal.
They are coached by former Pakistan test paceman Kabir Khan, who is concentrating on toughening the players psychologically for the stiff competition ahead.
"I only have 15 days to work with the team before the start of the tournament, which is probably not enough," the 34-year-old Khan said.
"They don't need a lot of coaching cricketing wise - they just need help with the mental side of the game."
Stanekzai agreed with the need for mental fine-tuning, noting his side's difficulties in pursuing targets.
"The standard of bowling and fielding is excellent, but sometimes the batting lets us down as we lost eight wickets in the final against Jersey while chasing just 81 runs," Khan said.
After the low-scoring final in Jersey, Afghanistan crashed to a semifinal defeat in the ACC Trophy Elite 2008 against Hong Kong. It crumbled to 129 all out off just 43.4 overs, 25 runs short off its target.
"We need to use all the 50 overs, as we have a very good bowling attack, and if we get a score of 230 on the board we will be hard to beat," Khan said.
Confidence in the camp, which will run for the next few days ahead of the side's return to Kabul, is high and Khan has a belief in the ability of his players.
"The team has the potential to be promoted. I was the national coach of the UAE and I don't see any difference in standard between our team and players who played in the World Cricket League Division 2 and the Intercontinental Cup," he said.
Although the focus of the side, who will look to the likes of fast bowler Habid Hassan to star, will be on making it through to Division 3, Khan believes that if Afghanistan progress they have the potential to do well in the next stages of the competition as well.
"If we qualify for the next stage I hope the team will do well in that event as well," Khan said.
"Talent wise we are very good. I have seen a lot of players who have played Division 2 and Division 3 cricket and this is the most talented side I have seen."
Afghanistan will begin its campaign against Fiji on Oct. 4, with crunch games likely to be against Hong Kong and Italy on Oct. 8 and Oct. 9 respectively.
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