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Report: Taliban, Afghans in secret talks
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- The Taliban and the Afghanistan government have been involved in secret peace talks to bring an end to the conflict, The Observer reported Sunday.
Afghan minister does not confirm Taliban talks
September 28, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's foreign minister on Sunday declined to confirm a report that said the government was in contact with Taliban insurgents to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Taliban kill Afghanistan's most high-profile policewoman
by Nasrat Shoaib Sun Sep 28, 9:32 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept 28, 2008 (AFP) - Taliban gunmen shot dead the most high-profile female police officer in Afghanistan and wounded her teenaged son as she left home to go to work Sunday, officials and the militia said
US airstrike kills 3 Afghan civilians
Press TV (Iran) Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:39:09 GMT
An airstrike by US-led coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan has killed three civilians in Kunar province, officials say.
Poverty, unemployment driving Afghanistan towards instability
Xinhua / September 28, 2008
The war-torn Afghanistan has experienced a deadliest year in 2008 since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 as so far this year more than 4,000 people including 1,445 civilians have been killed.
Why the West thinks it is time to talk to the Taliban
The Observer By Jason Burke Sept 09/27/2008
Negotiations have begun in secret with the enemy in Afghanistan. Jason Burke reveals the back channels of diplomacy that led to the controversial talks
Black Widow's inhospitable beauty
By John Simpson BBC News, Tora Bora, Afghanistan Saturday, 27 September 2008
The immense border between Afghanistan and the north-west frontier of Pakistan is harsh, inhospitable and breathtakingly beautiful.
What a Surge Can't Solve in Afghanistan
Washington Post, United States By David Ignatius Sunday, September 28, 2008
If there was one foreign policy issue on which Barack Obama and John McCain agreed during Friday night's debate, it was that the United States should send more troops to Afghanistan.
Taliban revival sets fear swirling through Kabul
The Sunday Times By Christina Lamb Sept 09/27/2008
Kabul - Attacks are on the rise and civilians, especially educated women, are increasingly nervous with the jihadists now just 20 minutes from the capital
Poverty, unemployment driving Afghanistan towards instability
Xinhua www.chinaview.cn By Abdul Haleem 2008-09-28
KABUL- The war-torn Afghanistan has experienced a deadliest year in 2008 since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 as so far this year more than 4,000 people including 1,445 civilians have been killed.
Analysis: US, Pakistan ties too important to fail
By CHRIS BRUMMITT Associated Press / September 28, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Beyond the bullets and the bluster, the United States and Pakistan need each other too much to allow tensions along the Afghan border to derail their relationship.
Afghan exporters reach final of world competition
www.quqnoos.com Written by Zabiullah Jhanmal Sunday, 28 September 2008
Export group faces team from Senegal in international competition
AFGHANISTAN’S Export Development Department (AEDD) has reached the final of an international competition to find the organisation which has had the largest impact on reducing poverty and expanding trade in the world.
Secret service arrests more 'fake' police
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 27 September 2008
Men in police uniforms accused of kidnapping and extortion
THE Intelligence service and police have arrested five men for infiltrating the police department in Logar province.
Karzai's Popularity Slips in Afghanistan
The Washington Independent By Spencer Ackerman Sept 09/27/2008
Poor Economy, Corruption Will Make Aghan President's Re-Election Bid Next Year Difficult
On Friday, President George W. Bush will host his most stalwart ally in the seven-year U.S. war in Afghanistan: Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The relationship between the two men is notably warm
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Report: Taliban, Afghans in secret talks
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- The Taliban and the Afghanistan government have been involved in secret peace talks to bring an end to the conflict, The Observer reported Sunday.
The British newspaper said it had learned a senior former Taliban leader has been talking to Kabul officials in a loose peace process facilitated by Saudi Arabia and given logistical support by Britain. The unnamed Taliban negotiator has been shuttling between the militant Islamist group's bases, Saudi Arabia and European capitals, sources told The Observer.
The revelation contradicts British government statements that negotiations with the Taliban, denounced as a terrorist organization, could only happen when it had given up violence, the newspaper said.
The secret talks, however, have lost momentum in recent weeks, unnamed Afghan officials said.
"They keep changing what they are asking for," one official told the newspaper. "One day it is one thing, the next another."
He said one aim of the talks was to drive a wedge between the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist organization.
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Afghan minister does not confirm Taliban talks
September 28, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's foreign minister on Sunday declined to confirm a report that said the government was in contact with Taliban insurgents to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Britain's Observer newspaper on Sunday said the "unprecedented talks" involved a senior ex-Taliban member travelling between Kabul, the bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and European capitals.
"I cannot say anything about the matter that talks between the Taliban and Afghans ... are going on," Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told a news conference when asked to comment about the report.
"I deny there is any contact between the Foreign Ministry and the Taliban about the negotiations," he said when asked for elaboration.
"I do not confirm such contacts," he said when pressed if any other government organ was involved in any such process. After the news conference he said with a smile he would have news on this in coming days.
The report came as the Taliban have extended the scope and size of their insurgency this year, the bloodiest period since U.S.-led and Afghan forces ousted the austere Islamist movement in 2001.
Western leaders and diplomats stress the war in Afghanistan, where more than 71,000 foreign troops are based, cannot be won militarily.
But talks with the Taliban had proven problematic.
"They keep changing what they are asking for. One day it is one thing, the next another," the Observer quoted one Afghan government adviser with knowledge of the negotiations as saying.
One aim of the initiative is to drive a wedge between Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the paper said.
Britain has provided logistic and diplomatic support for the talks -- despite official statements that negotiations can be held only with Taliban who are ready to renounce, or have renounced, violence, it added.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jeremy Laurence
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Taliban kill Afghanistan's most high-profile policewoman
by Nasrat Shoaib Sun Sep 28, 9:32 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept 28, 2008 (AFP) - Taliban gunmen shot dead the most high-profile female police officer in Afghanistan and wounded her teenaged son as she left home to go to work Sunday, officials and the militia said
Attackers waiting outside the home of Malalai Kakar, head of the city of Kandahar's department of crimes against women, opened fire on her car as she left, Kandahar government spokesman Zalmay Ayoobi told AFP.
"Today between 7 am and 8 am when she was (in her car) outside her house and going to her job, some gunmen attacked," Ayoobi said.
"Malalai Kakar died in front of her house. Her son was wounded."
A doctor in the city's main hospital said Kakar, in her late 40s, had been shot in the head.
"She died on the spot and her son was badly injured and is in a coma," he said on condition of anonymity.
Her son, aged 15, had been driving Kakar to work, police said. The boy later came out of the coma but was in a serious condition.
A spokesman for the extremist Taliban movement, which targets government officials as part of a growing deadly insurgency, said that the assassins were from his group.
"We killed Malalai Kakar," spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP. "She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target."
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, saying in a statement that it was an "act of cowardice" by the "enemies of the peace and welfare and reconstruction of Afghanistan."
The European Mission branch in Afghanistan said Kakar had been an "example" in her country and her murder was "particularly abhorrent."
The interior ministry praised her as a "brave hero and loyal to her profession."
Kakar, a mother of six, was regularly profiled in international media and was known for her courage in one of Afghanistan's most conservative provinces.
A captain in the police force and the most senior policewoman in Kandahar, she headed a team of about 10 women police officers and had reportedly received numerous death threats.
Kandahar is the birthplace of the extremist Taliban, who are mounting a growing insurgency that targets government officials.
During their 1996-2001 hold on power, the Taliban stopped women from working outside the home and even leaving home without a male relative and an all-covering burqa.
Kakar was the first woman to enrol in the Kandahar police force after the 2001 ouster of the Taliban and had been involved in investigating crimes against women and children, and conducting house searches.
The head of Kandahar province's women's affairs department was killed in a similar way two years ago.
And in June gunmen shot dead a female police officer in the western province of Herat in what was believed to be the first assassination of a female police officer in the war-torn country.
Bibi Hoor, 26, was on her way home when two armed men on motorbikes opened fire, killing her instantly. It was not clear who killed her or why.
Afghanistan's police force was destroyed by the time the Taliban were removed and is being rebuilt with international assistance. It numbers about 80,000 people, including a few hundred women.
About 750 policemen have been killed in the past six months, mostly in insurgency-linked violence sweeping the country.
In other violence linked to a Taliban-led insurgency, a government official said police had ambushed and killed 17 Taliban insurgents in Helmand province on Saturday.
The US-led coalition said meanwhile it killed six militants in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday.
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US airstrike kills 3 Afghan civilians
Press TV (Iran) Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:39:09 GMT
An airstrike by US-led coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan has killed three civilians in Kunar province, officials say.
US military officials in Kabul claim that the airstrike targeted a 'suicide bomb cell' in Asmar district in the province while Afghan officials say the airstrike hit a compound and killed three civilians but no militants.
The issue of civilian casualties is a highly sensitive one in war-torn Afghanistan.
The Afghan government has long criticized US-led forces for conducting indiscriminate airstrikes, which have killed large numbers of innocent Afghans.
In August, a US airstrike killed nearly 90 Afghan civilians, including women and children in the Azizabad village in Herat province. At the time, the US claimed that the airstrike had killed 35 militants and seven civilians.
Afghan President Hamed Karzai strongly criticized foreign forces for the civilian casualties, saying innocent people are becoming the victims of 'reckless operations' by foreign forces. He has called for a review of foreign military presence in the country.
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Poverty, unemployment driving Afghanistan towards instability
Xinhua / September 28, 2008
The war-torn Afghanistan has experienced a deadliest year in 2008 since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 as so far this year more than 4,000 people including 1,445 civilians have been killed.
Driving factors towards increasing instability, according to Afghans, is high rate of unemployment and poverty in the war-wrecked country.
Many of those fighters joining Taliban insurgents are illiterate tribal people, young seminarians and low educated jobless youths.
"If I fail to find job I would have no choice except to join Taliban or leave for Iran as I heard they (Taliban) pay more stipend than the government," said a jobless youth who was waiting for customer at a square in west of Kabul.
Taliban outfit, according to him, pay 400 U.S. dollars while a government soldier receives some 200 U.S. dollars a month.
Hundreds of jobless Afghans are seen waiting from down to dusk at Chawk Kota Sangi square west of Kabul to be hired.
If any one calls for a laborer, dozens would surround him.
The job-seeking man who introduced himself Faiz Ali emphasized that "no one would commit suicide unless he or she is fed up with the miserable life."
Though there is no exact statistic about the rate of unemployment in Afghanistan, it is said that some 40 percent of the country's 25 million populations are jobless and some 5 million Afghans live under poverty line in the war-battered nation.
The war-torn and landlocked Afghanistan is largely dependent on international community's assistance to recover from over three decades of war and civil strife.
Since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 the international community has contributed more than 35 billion U.S. dollars for the rebuilding of the war-ravaged central Asian state.
In the post-Taliban Afghanistan the per capita income has increased from 70 U.S. dollars in 2001 to 300 U.S. dollars in 2008,according to Aziz Shams, an official at the Ministry of Finance. Afghanistan, even though has made tremendous achievements in the fields of communication and road building, needs a long way to go to recover from war devastation and stand on its feet.
Majority of Afghans have little access to clean water, job, job insurance and regular income to run their daily life smoothly.
Increasing Taliban-led militancy, poor living condition particularly in the countryside, and the sway of warlords coupled with corruption and poppy cultivation have enabled militants to challenge government and exploit the situation for their benefit.
"Taliban militants come to our village almost every night and ask people to support them (Taliban) either by giving money or man," said a man from Barakibarak district of Logar province who did not want to be identified.
He also said that the government has to protect the lives and properties of the citizens by eliminating Taliban insurgents from each corner of the country.
Mostly proclaimed offenders and those at large have gathered under the umbrella of Taliban to hide their face and escape punishment, a person from southern Uruzgan province said.
The 48-year old man who refused to be identified said that Taliban outfit pays 500,000 Afghanis (10,000 U.S. dollars) as reward for any group or individuals who attack a district headquarters.
Many of those carry out suicide bombing, according to him, besides receiving money from their masters have been brain washed.
"High rate of unemployment has driven thousands of Afghan youth to the neighboring countries Pakistan and Iran to seek job or to Taliban rank to fight government and international troops based in Afghanistan," the 48-year old man stressed.
He also emphasized that daily long queue of visa seekers behind the embassies of Iran and Pakistan speaks of the living condition of people in the country and "Taliban would further benefit from the situation if the status quo goes unchecked."
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Why the West thinks it is time to talk to the Taliban
The Observer By Jason Burke Sept 09/27/2008
Negotiations have begun in secret with the enemy in Afghanistan. Jason Burke reveals the back channels of diplomacy that led to the controversial talks
For the past few months an incongruous figure has passed through the airports of the Middle East and Europe: a senior Afghan cleric who defected from the Taliban. Bearded and in traditional dress, he has unsurprisingly needed the help of the Saudi Arabian and British intelligence services - among others - to pass unhindered between capitals.
He has always travelled in great secrecy, his movements known only to a few individuals at the highest levels of the Afghan government, in Riyadh and among certain Western allies. His mission: to talk to the Taliban leadership about a possible peace deal.
The backing given by the West to these talks is a measure of how badly things have gone wrong in Afghanistan, and how far Western governments are prepared to go to stabilise a deteriorating situation which is costing more in men, money and political capital than they ever imagined. The equally worrying situation in Pakistan, where the Taliban are largely based and where a separate but related insurgency has broken out, has given the initiative a new urgency.
That the Saudi Arabians accepted the invitation of the Afghan government to sponsor the initiative this summer is a measure of how concerned those who govern the traditionally leading nation of the Sunni Muslim world are about Afghanistan and al-Qaeda and the consequences they might have for the rest of the Islamic world and beyond. It is also a measure of the esteem in which the Saudis are still held.
This is not the first time the Saudi Arabians have brokered talks with the Taliban, and Western powers have been keen to get Riyadh more involved in Afghanistan for some time. The Saudis, along with Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, were the only states to recognise the hardline Islamic militia as rulers of Afghanistan in the Nineties. In 1998 they also nearly concluded a deal with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive leader of the Taliban, to hand over Osama bin Laden.
For the West, the sponsorship of Riyadh is essential. Western efforts to negotiate with the Taliban have rarely brought any durable positive results. The reconciliation process launched by the Afghan government has brought in about 5,000 low-level fighters and a handful of mid-level commanders, but has never had the political backing or resources that was needed for it to become a genuine means of sapping the strength of the Taliban.
But these most recent talks also show that, at the very least, some of the Taliban senior command are getting tired. 'They've been fighting for nearly seven years, living undercover, moving regularly, unable to go back to Afghanistan without risking a violent death. Despite the bellicose rhetoric and the successes of recent months, they have lost a lot of people and there is a certain degree of fatigue,' said one experienced Pakistan-based observer.
The Saudi initiative has resulted in the submission of a list of demands by the Taliban to Kabul. One problem was that those demands keep changing, said one Afghan source. A second is the question of whether any potential agreement could be made to stick.
'We could agree something with the high command that won't be put into action at a grass-roots level,' said an adviser to the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai.
The Taliban demands are also unlikely to be acceptable to the Western powers, especially the US, which have bankrolled the effort to stabilise and reconstruct Afghanistan. Hekmat Karzai, director of a think tank in Kabul, said that although discussions with the Taliban 'might not be too difficult... getting the international community on board would be extremely hard'.
Another problem would be convincing other ethnic groups in Afghanistan who suffered heavily under the Taliban regime to accept any deal.
However, there is increasing acceptance among Western officials and strategists that some kind of political accommodation to at least divide the Taliban may be inevitable. There are also question marks over to what extent Taliban factions may be manipulated by elements within the Pakistani security establishment. However, Islamabad is unlikely to oppose moves to integrate senior Taliban figures into the political process in Kabul.
Previous attempts to negotiate with the Taliban have been problematic. A controversial truce in Helmand province, where British troops are deployed, was widely criticised for handing the key town of Musa Qala back to the militants and necessitating a major operation to recapture it.
In May, the former Afghan President Burnahuddin Rabbani said he had contacted the Taliban and received 'encouraging responses'. The Taliban published a statement on their website saying they would 'fight until the withdrawal of the last crusading invader', but added that 'the door for talks, understanding and negotiations will always be open' to 'mujahideen' such as Rabbani, who fought the Russians in the Eighties.
One problem with the Saudi-sponsored talks so far is that the go-between has been unable to speak directly to Mullah Omar. However, an Afghan source described the initiative as 'a step in the right direction', whatever the result. 'Anything that might be an ice-breaker and might take us forward is welcome,' he said.
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Black Widow's inhospitable beauty
By John Simpson BBC News, Tora Bora, Afghanistan Saturday, 27 September 2008
The immense border between Afghanistan and the north-west frontier of Pakistan is harsh, inhospitable and breathtakingly beautiful.
It has been the cause of tension for at least a century and a half.
As "the Durand Line", the border was imposed on the Afghans by Britain in 1893. Even now, Afghanistan refuses to agree to it in principle, although, in practice, it is accepted.
Looking down from the Afghan side at Torkhum towards the Khyber Pass which leads into Pakistan, you can understand why stopping the movement of guerrillas and weapons across the border is so hard.
The road from the Khyber is the main trade route into Afghanistan, and is choked day and night with lorries packed high with Pakistani goods.
The border police on both sides try their best to check that guns and explosives are not hidden under the tons of onions or rice or electrical goods, but the job is an impossible one.
In Kabul, I interviewed a would-be suicide bomber from Pakistan who had given himself up when he realised his controllers had lied to him.
I asked if police had examined the lorry which he drove across the border laden with explosives. He shook his head.
The road from Kabul to Jalalabad and on to Torkhum is becoming more and more dangerous.
Landmine threat
A year ago, when my team and I travelled along it, the police gave us an escort of a jeep containing four armed men.
This time we had eight jeeps and 48 armed men.
And when, a couple of days later, we drove southwards out of Jalalabad to the Tora Bora mountains, close to the Pakistani border, the Afghan authorities insisted on giving us a 14 vehicle escort.
On the dirt roads and mountain tracks which lead to Tora Bora, the biggest threat is landmines.
The Taleban who operate here cannot have failed to see our convoy, and would have guessed that we had to return this way. It would have been simple to lay mines in our path during the night.
Tora Bora means the black widow. It lies in the shadow of the Spin Garh (white-headed) range, which is covered with snow all year round.
The sight is breathtaking - fierce, brooding and impenetrable except on foot.
The Afghan border police have a hilltop position looking up at Tora Bora.
At the mountain's foot lies a narrow valley leading to the famous caves where Osama bin Laden hid, and eventually escaped from, in 2002.
Could we go there, I asked the police commander? No, he said, they were in no-man's land.
The Taleban, who have been forced out of the caves twice by coalition and Afghan troops, have now established themselves back there again.
From time to time the police fire heavy machine-guns and mortars across at Tora Bora, to assert their presence.
There was no return fire; the Taleban are too wary for that.
Ambush fears
During the night, as we slept under the stars, the police were vigilant. Occasionally, they called out softly to one another to show they were still there, and that their throats had not been cut by marauders.
Yet the base is easily infiltrated. At one point after dark a fully-grown wolf loped across the open space in front of us.
In the morning the commander decided we should return by a different route - until he was told that an American convoy had been ambushed there nine days ago.
It was plain he was pretty anxious.
Then he and his men consulted their maps. By driving along a couple of dry river-beds we could curve round and join the main Jalalabad road after three hours' hard driving across country.
It worked. As we left the Black Widow's shadow there was no ambush.
Maybe the fact that we had an escort of 80 well-trained policemen, all armed with AK-47 assault rifles, had something to do with it.
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What a Surge Can't Solve in Afghanistan
Washington Post, United States By David Ignatius Sunday, September 28, 2008
If there was one foreign policy issue on which Barack Obama and John McCain agreed during Friday night's debate, it was that the United States should send more troops to Afghanistan. The bipartisan enthusiasm for this surge is so strong that there has been relatively little discussion of whether this strategy makes sense.
So here's a skeptical look at the issue, drawn from conversations during a visit to Afghanistan this month with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Rather than more troops, the real game-changer in Afghanistan may be Gates's plan to spend an extra $1.3 billion on surveillance technology to find and destroy the leadership of the insurgency.
The case for more troops was made forcefully by the new U.S. commander, Gen. David McKiernan. He said in a briefing in Kabul that to cope with rising violence, he needs three more combat brigades, in addition to the extra brigade already promised for early next year. That could add at least 15,000 troops to the current force of about 35,000. Other senior officers made similar pitches in briefings at Bagram and Jalalabad.
But the commanders' description of the enemy that these troops will be fighting was fuzzy. The adversary isn't al-Qaeda; it's not even the Taliban. It's what McKiernan called a "nexus of insurgency" and what other officers described as a "syndicate" of insurgents and criminal groups. It's not clear that this nexus, or syndicate, or whatever you want to call it, poses a mortal threat to the United States -- or even, necessarily, to the government of Afghanistan.
The "insurgent syndicate" was detailed in a PowerPoint briefing by Brig. Gen. James McConville, the deputy commander for the area in eastern Afghanistan where U.S. troops are fighting. One of his slides showed a circle of nine interconnected groups -- including the forces of Islamic warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the "Haqqani Network" of tribal leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and other Mafia-like groups. Al-Qaeda is part of the syndicate, in theory. But from what I've heard from U.S. commanders during three visits to Afghanistan this year, al-Qaeda's presence remains minimal.
The syndicate members can be deadly, to be sure. The Haqqani network, for example, is believed to be responsible for this year's Kabul bombings at the Serena Hotel in January, at the Victory Day parade in April and at the Indian Embassy in July. U.S. officials view the Haqqani group as "terrorists for hire," and they believe the organization has links with Pakistani intelligence. But targeted Special Forces attacks on this group's leadership are likely to have more impact than a general increase in U.S. troops.
The need for precise targeting is why Gates is stressing what's known as ISR -- short for "intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance." He has been pushing for more than a year (against foot-dragging by the Air Force) for a big increase in the use of drones and cheap manned aircraft to watch the roads and mountain passes of this huge country and spot the insurgents before they strike. This ISR surge has more than doubled the number of daily Predator patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past year, from 12 in June 2007 to 28 today, and that number should reach 55 by the end of 2009.
By using ISR sensors, U.S. forces can see what's coming at them across Afghanistan's porous borders. And with new surveillance tools, they may be able to identify the networks and individuals that pose the biggest threat -- and then call in Special Forces teams to capture or kill insurgent leaders. "You don't hit a whole town, you hit the two people you want," says Lt. Gen. Richard Zahner, who heads a new ISR task force.
Afghanistan is a slow and difficult exercise in nation-building. The cornerstone of this effort is creating a strong Afghan army, whose numbers will double from 66,000 to 134,000 over the next three years. This effort requires 2,300 more American trainers, according to Maj. Gen. Robert Cone, and that's certainly a good investment. And there are other specific areas where additional American forces can make a difference.
As Gen. McKiernan says, "It's not just boots on the ground" that will bring success in Afghanistan, but a range of factors such as governance, economic development and relations with neighboring Pakistan. The idea that we can saturate that vast country with enough American soldiers to provide security for the population seems unrealistic, to put it mildly.
The writer is co-host ofPostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address isdavidignatius@washpost.com.
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Taliban revival sets fear swirling through Kabul
The Sunday Times By Christina Lamb Sept 09/27/2008
Kabul - Attacks are on the rise and civilians, especially educated women, are increasingly nervous with the jihadists now just 20 minutes from the capital
Maryam Rahmani was asleep in her parents’ house in Kabul last month when she was woken by loud praying in the street. “Most of us when we heard that thought, ‘This is it, the Taliban have come to the city’,” she said, nervously fingering the orange shawl wrapped round her against the autumn chill.
In fact it was a lunar eclipse and people had come outside to offer special prayers. But Rahmani’s reaction reflects the jumpiness in Kabul as the Taliban move to within 20 minutes’ drive of the Afghan capital.
“Everyone’s nervous, particularly educated women,” said Rahmani, 26, who works at a women’s project and is completing an economics degree at Kabul University. “I’m hurrying to finish my thesis so I can get my diploma in case the Taliban come back. All my friends are applying for Indian visas.”
Nobody seriously thinks the Taliban could take Kabul. The capital is surrounded by mountains, has only a few routes in and remained almost untouched during the Russian occupation. Afghanistan has more than 71,000 foreign troops under the leadership of Nato and the US, neither of which can contemplate defeat.
It is hard to find any Afghan families who hanker after a Taliban regime that banned everything from girls’ schools to television and regarded public amputations and executions as entertainment.
However, the fear among Kabulis is palpable. “There is a sense of dread of return to the dark days of the past,” said a western diplomat.
Nato spokesmen may reel off statistics of schools and clinics built, but even the wildest optimist would be hard put to talk up Afghanistan at present. This year 232 soldiers have been killed, the most since the Taliban fell in 2001, and last year civilian deaths tripled to more than 4,500. The highways, paid for with billions of foreign dollars, are now regarded as out of bounds for foreigners and many Afghans.
“The number of violent incidents has jumped from an average of 700 per month last year to 900-1,000 in the last two months,” said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the United Nations mission in Afghanistan. “I don’t think anyone is contemplating an invasion of Kabul but the Taliban are much closer to the capital - within kilometres.”
The spiralling violence has forced the Bush administration to order a review of Afghan policy. All eyes are now on General David Petraeus, who has just taken over US Central Command, where it is hoped he will work the same magic with Afghanistan as he did with his troop surge in Iraq.
This week he will be in London meeting military commanders and Britain’s ambassador to Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles. He will be told in no uncertain terms that military force alone is not the answer, and America needs to take a lead on development and political negotiations, even with the Taliban, if all is not to be lost.
While the focus has been on the south where British troops are based, and the east where the Americans are concentrated, recent months have seen an alarming shift. According to the UN, the Taliban now have a significant presence in five of the six provinces surrounding Kabul. On Highway One, the main road leading south from the capital, you have to drive for only 20 minutes before coming across craters in the road where an improvised explosive device has detonated. Two weeks ago the governor of Logar and two of his bodyguards were assassinated half an hour from the capital.
On Wednesday a bomb on the edge of the city killed two police and wounded General Ali Shah Paktiawal, the chief criminal investigator, who had gone to investigate the fatal poisoning of three policemen at a checkpoint. One of the bodies had been booby-trapped.
“The security situation overall has worsened,” admitted Brigadier General Richard Blanchette, spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). But he said: “It can be turned around - it’s not a lost cause.”
Kabul is calmer than a year ago with fewer suicide bombs, but it is hard to escape the sensation of living in a bubble. Security in the capital has been visibly stepped up over the past year. The Wazir Akbar Khan district favoured by diplomats, aid workers and the odd warlord is a maze of concrete barriers and road blocks.
Thirty-six international private security companies are operating in Kabul and 11 more are setting up, despite having to pay a $300,000 bond to the interior ministry.
The insurgents appear to be targeting charities and aid organisations. Thirty aid workers have been killed this year. Last month three foreign women working for the International Rescue Committee, one of whom was a British-Canadian, were shot dead on a road in Logar province, just outside Kabul.
As one of the few organisations to stay on during the Taliban regime, the UN has traditionally been left alone. But a fortnight ago two doctors vaccinating children were killed in the southern town of Spinboldak by a suicide bomber.
In the midst of this violence voter registration is supposed to get underway next month for presidential elections next summer. “It’s a nightmare,” says one of the UN officials coordinating security.
The four-phased voter registration was supposed to start with the most secure provinces - those around Kabul, including Wardak, Logar, Kapisa and Parwan. But in the few months, since the schedule was drawn up, security has worsened dramatically.
Afghan Logistics, which provides cars to foreigners, considers them no-go areas. In just one month in Wardak 51 trucks were burnt, while in Logar 10 schools have been set on fire. The Afghan Women’s Resource Centre, which runs education projects in Kapisa and Parwan, sends its workers out in burqas, travelling in unmarked cars, and has stopped taking foreign donors on visits.
In most cases the Taliban presence is not open but consists of sending night letters warning people not to collaborate with foreign “infidels” or to send their daughters to school.
“It’s like the bogeyman,” says Haji Ahmed, an agricultural trainer from Logar. “They come out at night and walk through the villages, turning off the music at weddings or going into houses and threatening anyone who works with foreigners.”
According to an American adviser to the energy ministry, four of the country’s 19 regional electricity companies are now run by Taliban. “The Taliban are a fact of life,” said a Canadian development worker in Kandahar. “We have to deal with them or get nothing done.”
Through private contractors, ISAF forces are having to pay the Taliban so they can transport fuel and water supplies. The company providing fuel to the British headquarters at Camp Bastion pays more than £2,000 a tanker, of which they estimate a quarter goes to the Taliban.
The Taliban cause has been helped by the number of civilians recently killed in airstrikes by US forces under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom, the mission begun after 9/11 to hunt Al-Qaeda.
Forty seven people were killed at a wedding in Nangahar in July. A few weeks later US forces killed nine police officers in Farah province. Last month between 30 and 90 people were killed in US bombings in Azizabad, apparently the result of false information.
Even so it is astonishing that a movement so reviled seven years ago could have regained so much influence. “The people are caught between a rock and a hard place,” says Dr Ashraf Ghani, who was finance minister from 2002-4. “As the government cannot protect them against the threat of the Taliban, they have to opt for an insurance policy of not blocking them.”
Ghani has spent the past few months travelling round the country and says the Taliban revival is a result of the weakness and corruption of President Hamid Karzai’s government. “Karzai had never even run a two-man office before he became president,” he says. “What people want is order so they can manage their lives. Instead they have uncertainty and corruption where just a few become obscenely wealthy.”
Ghani, who many expect to run for president, has sent his wife to Washington for security and he predicts a wave of political assassinations in the coming year.
Afghanistan last year suffered its harshest winter in living memory, followed by severe drought. This, along with rising food prices, has seen the cost of wheat quadruple.
Colonel Abdul Karim, director of procurement for the Afghan army, says the government and world need to act quickly. “The government needs to find work for these people so they don’t have economic problems and time on their hands to think whether to support the Taliban or the government.”
The frustration that development is lagging behind military gains is a view shared in ISAF. “There’s nobody here who thinks we’re going to have a military victory, this is not what we’re aiming at,” says the ISAF’s Blanchette. “Governance is the steepest hill we have to climb. We’re still spending a whole lot more on defence rather than on improving quality of life and that has to change.”
4,500: The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan last year
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Poverty, unemployment driving Afghanistan towards instability
Xinhua www.chinaview.cn By Abdul Haleem 2008-09-28
KABUL- The war-torn Afghanistan has experienced a deadliest year in 2008 since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 as so far this year more than 4,000 people including 1,445 civilians have been killed.
Driving factors towards increasing instability, according to Afghans, is high rate of unemployment and poverty in the war-wrecked country.
Many of those fighters joining Taliban insurgents are illiterate tribal people, young seminarians and low educated jobless youths.
"If I fail to find job I would have no choice except to join Taliban or leave for Iran as I heard they (Taliban) pay more stipend than the government," said a jobless youth who was waiting for customer at a square in west of Kabul.
Taliban outfit, according to him, pay 400 U.S. dollars while a government soldier receives some 200 U.S. dollars a month.
Hundreds of jobless Afghans are seen waiting from down to dusk at Chawk Kota Sangi square west of Kabul to be hired.
If any one calls for a laborer, dozens would surround him.
The job-seeking man who introduced himself Faiz Ali emphasized that "no one would commit suicide unless he or she is fed up with the miserable life."
Though there is no exact statistic about the rate of unemployment in Afghanistan, it is said that some 40 percent of the country's 25 million populations are jobless and some 5 million Afghans live under poverty line in the war-battered nation.
The war-torn and landlocked Afghanistan is largely dependent on international community's assistance to recover from over three decades of war and civil strife.
Since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 the international community has contributed more than 35 billion U.S. dollars for the rebuilding of the war-ravaged central Asian state.
In the post-Taliban Afghanistan the per capita income has increased from 70 U.S. dollars in 2001 to 300 U.S. dollars in 2008,according to Aziz Shams, an official at the Ministry of Finance. Afghanistan, even though has made tremendous achievements in the fields of communication and road building, needs a long way to go to recover from war devastation and stand on its feet.
Majority of Afghans have little access to clean water, job, job insurance and regular income to run their daily life smoothly.
Increasing Taliban-led militancy, poor living condition particularly in the countryside, and the sway of warlords coupled with corruption and poppy cultivation have enabled militants to challenge government and exploit the situation for their benefit.
"Taliban militants come to our village almost every night and ask people to support them (Taliban) either by giving money or man," said a man from Barakibarak district of Logar province who did not want to be identified.
He also said that the government has to protect the lives and properties of the citizens by eliminating Taliban insurgents from each corner of the country.
Mostly proclaimed offenders and those at large have gathered under the umbrella of Taliban to hide their face and escape punishment, a person from southern Uruzgan province said.
The 48-year old man who refused to be identified said that Taliban outfit pays 500,000 Afghanis (10,000 U.S. dollars) as reward for any group or individuals who attack a district headquarters.
Many of those carry out suicide bombing, according to him, besides receiving money from their masters have been brain washed.
"High rate of unemployment has driven thousands of Afghan youth to the neighboring countries Pakistan and Iran to seek job or to Taliban rank to fight government and international troops based in Afghanistan," the 48-year old man stressed.
He also emphasized that daily long queue of visa seekers behind the embassies of Iran and Pakistan speaks of the living condition of people in the country and "Taliban would further benefit from the situation if the status quo goes unchecked."
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Analysis: US, Pakistan ties too important to fail
By CHRIS BRUMMITT Associated Press / September 28, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Beyond the bullets and the bluster, the United States and Pakistan need each other too much to allow tensions along the Afghan border to derail their relationship.
U.S. missile strikes on suspected militant havens in Pakistani territory have ratcheted up tensions and uncertainty, and a brief clash between forces of both nations a few days ago has heightened worries.
But few can envisage sustained fighting on the frontier or American soldiers being killed and wounded — a scenario that could shatter a strategically vital alliance between two countries that have little in common save mutual need.
Washington requires Islamabad's help to prevent Afghanistan sliding into chaos seven years after the ouster of the Taliban and to hunt down Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders thought to be hiding in the restive tribal areas along the Afghan border.
Many of the supplies for U.S. troops in Afghanistan also move through Pakistan.
Pakistan's new civilian rulers, in turn, need U.S. cash to stave off an economic meltdown that is eroding their popularity just six months after taking power following years of dictatorship.
This nuclear-armed nation also requires American help in defeating the homegrown Islamic militants who have built up strongholds in the tribal region and forged ties with the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Those extremists are posing an increasing threat to Pakistan itself — a fact underscored by the devastating bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
"I think this climate of tension cannot prevail for too long," said Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in the capital. "The stakes are really too high on either side."
The frontier with Afghanistan is a rugged, inhospitable land where Pakistan's government has never had much control. NATO and U.S. commanders say militants sheltering there are mounting rising attacks in Afghanistan and fear the extremists could be plotting another Sept. 11-scale attack in the West.
U.S. forces had been conducting strikes on "high-value" targets across the border in recent years under what many people believe was an unwritten agreement with Islamabad.
But tensions have spiked over a flurry of attacks since late August, including a highly unusual ground raid by U.S. commandos. With many Pakistanis angry, and government critics using the attacks to argue for cutting ties with Washington, civilian and military leaders have protested strongly to Washington.
On Thursday, U.S. helicopters and Pakistani ground troops briefly traded fire along the poorly defined and marked border, without anyone being hit, officials from both nations said.
Yet almost immediately, both sides were making conciliatory noises.
"I look at U.S. support as a blessing," President Asif Ali Zardari said in New York alongside Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who promised help for Pakistan.
Pakistan needs Western cash to avert economic crisis. The shock of higher oil and food prices has helped push up inflation to 25 percent, wrecked the government's finances and exacerbated a trade gap that is fast eating up the country's foreign currency reserves.
Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir reportedly told a meeting of donor nations in New York that "$10 billion to $15 billion was our immediate requirement" to avoid bankruptcy.
U.S. officials must tread carefully in working with Pakistan against extremist groups. While leaders of both side stress they have a common enemy, many Pakistanis blame the rise in violence here on the alliance with Washington and the U.S. border strikes are feeding public anger.
"The Americans cannot afford to destabilize the government too much," said Talat Masood, a retired general.
Some analysts see the outrage generated by the Marriott bombing as a possible turning point, however.
"This is a historic moment to create a mass opposition to the militants," said Ahmad, the Quaid-i-Azam professor. "The biggest challenge now is being able to say this is not only our own war, but it is also a common war with the Afghans, NATO and the U.S."
Chris Brummitt, Islamabad bureau chief for The Associated Press, has reported on southern Asian affairs since 2002.
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Afghan exporters reach final of world competition
www.quqnoos.com Written by Zabiullah Jhanmal Sunday, 28 September 2008
Export group faces team from Senegal in international competition
AFGHANISTAN’S Export Development Department (AEDD) has reached the final of an international competition to find the organisation which has had the largest impact on reducing poverty and expanding trade in the world.
The AEDD, which recently launched micro-credit programmes for Afghan carpet-weavers, competed with 14 other organisations from different countries, reaching the final along with a group from Senegal.
Head of the AEDD, Said Suliman Fatimi, said: "We are making efforts to get the prize and we are hopeful too because all our programs in the past and present obey world standards."
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan said it would donate $150,000 to the AEDD to expand the carpet weaving industry with.
About 50% of this donation will be given out as one year micro-credits to the carpet weavers.
The co-ordinator of rural programs for the SCA, Dr. Nazir Qayoom, said: "We have a long-term program to help Afghanistan’s carpet weavers increase their economic conditions so that they will become self-sufficient."
Head of Afghanistan’s carpet weaving union, Qari Muhammad Alam, said: "We face many problems, but we do not neglect the donations of the Sweden committee because their promises to us and the implementation of their programs will help us a lot."
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Secret service arrests more 'fake' police
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 27 September 2008
Men in police uniforms accused of kidnapping and extortion
THE Intelligence service and police have arrested five men for infiltrating the police department in Logar province.
Three of the men, who are accused of dressing up in police uniforms, setting up illegal checkpoints to extort money from drivers and kidnapping, were Taliban fighters, the National Directorate of Security said on Saturday.
The men were arrested after security forces stormed a house where they were holding a man from Khost to ransom.
Last week, Afghan soldiers arrested four men for posing as policemen in police uniforms in the western province of Farah.
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Karzai's Popularity Slips in Afghanistan
The Washington Independent By Spencer Ackerman Sept 09/27/2008
Poor Economy, Corruption Will Make Aghan President's Re-Election Bid Next Year Difficult
On Friday, President George W. Bush will host his most stalwart ally in the seven-year U.S. war in Afghanistan: Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The relationship between the two men is notably warm — “We’re proud of you, proud of the work you’re doing,” Bush told Karzai during their last meeting in Washington — something understandable, given that Washington ensured Karzai’s rise from an obscure lieutenant of the deceased anti-Taliban warrior, Ahmed Shah Massoud, to president of Afghanistan.
But for the first time in Karzai’s meteoric ascent — and ahead of national elections scheduled for next year — Afghans are beginning to express disillusionment with the president. Corruption, instability and tough economic times are starting to turn even Karzai’s fellow Pashtuns against him. While the anti-Karzai antipathy is building, some experts wonder if Washington has blundered into an Afghanistan policy without a Plan B.
“The Bush administration has taken to having a Maliki-Musharraf-Karzai complex,” said Nathaniel Fick, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq who is now with the Center for a New American Security. He was referring to Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki and the deposed Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf. “It’s slow to criticize its anointed allies,” Fick explained.
Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert at New York University, expanded on this theme. “There is a lot of sentiment against President Karzai among people of all ethnic groups,” Rubin said, “I imagine, given the situation in Afghanistan, there would be resentment against anyone who was president.”
A recent two-week trip through eastern Afghanistan, an overwhelmingly Pashtun area, revealed a populace that seemed deeply unhappy with the levels of corruption in the Karzai government. While many people interviewed seemed unconcerned about whether Karzai is personally corrupt — though his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is suspected of being a major drug dealer — they were worried that Karzai is unprepared to lead Afghans out of their current security and economic crises.
“Karzai is a good guy,” Zareen, an elderly farmer in southwestern Paktia province, interviewed about 10 days ago, said through a translator. “We want [aid] money from foreign countries [that Karzai secures]. But there is corruption in the government, so the money is not distributed.”
Zareen’s brother dismissed the local council, known as a shura, as a band of ineffective thieves. “All of them are people of the area,” he said through translation, referring to the shura’s members, “and they just promise, they don’t implement. When the government says it will help, it just steals stuff. There are steps of corruption: Karzai, then senior people, then the governor, then the [district commissioner] — they all steal. There is nothing left for the people.”
An assessment of neighboring Paktika Province, prepared in 2007 by a Human Terrain Team — a group of anthropologists and political scientists working with the U.S. military — revealed similar disillusionment. “People tired of the Taliban because they beat them,” a tribal area in the district of Kushamond told the team. “Now, if this government [also] beats them, what should the people do?”
In the province, the team wrote, “Elders expressed frustration at their inability to engage with the [Karzai government] and [U.S. military] elements responsible for house searches and the death of a mentally-disabled teenager.”
There isn’t much polling done in Afghanistan, but much of what exists is conducted by Craig Charney’s New York-based firm. While Charney said he could not share his results with The Washington Independent, he said his latest poll, conducted last November, found substantial but eroding support for Karzai.
“His favorabilities were in the 70s or 80s, and his positives for his job approval was 55 or 60 [percent],” Charney said in a telephone interview, “But it was down from two years before — which was honeymoon time.” Karzai, he continued, “could have eroded some [in the polls], but still be in a strong position.”
Rubin, of New York University, who is the author of “The Fragmentation of Afghanistan,” said that Karzai’s rising unpopularity is related to his inefficacy as a leader — something hard-wired into post-Taliban Afghanistan. “Only one person has any real power,” Rubin explained. “It’s basically a monarchical constitution with an elected leader. It took the 1964 constitution and made the head of state elected instead of a king with a prime minister.”
The problem is that while one person essentially governs the country, his power is, in essence, limited by Afghanistan’s heavy reliance on Washington. “Hamid Karzai does not run [the Afghan army],” Rubin continued. “It’s run by the Dept. of Defense In Afghanistan, the U.S. runs most of the [aid and development] programs outside the government, and Hamid Karzai has nothing to do with them. That’s why he feels so ineffectual. He doesn’t feel empowered.”
Several Afghans interviewed by The Washington Independent said they would not vote for Karzai in next year’s election, considering him too weak to govern. One, a doctor in the eastern border province of Khost, said he would sooner leave Afghanistan than see Karzai re-elected, fearing a likely deterioration in security.
Fick heard many similar comments during an trip to Afghanistan in August, but said Washington is at a disadvantage because this is no plausible alternative to Karzai. “We met with half a dozen Cabinet officials, a dozen members of Parliament — and everyone put forward his own name as a candidate” for president, Fick said. “But in terms of who actually has a national constituency, it’s sort of hard to say.”
Charney agreed. “The bottom line is that Karzai — despite all his problems and weaknesses — is still the only national figure Afghanistan has got,” he said.
Be that as it may, Fick feared that U.S. policy has become too reliant on a single figure — and could be thrown into turmoil if Karzai loses the next election. Avoiding such personalization of policy is easier said than done, however.
“It [requires] a return to interest-based realism, in a way,” Fick said, “to not meet with foreign leaders and say, ‘I looked into his eyes and got a sense of his soul.’” Fick was referring to what Bush famously said on his first meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who invaded Georgia despite vociferous U.S. objections this summer.
If Washington is to turn away from being beholden to whomever wins the 2009 Afghan election, Rubin said, Afghanistan’s relationship with the international community will have to change — and changed in way that, somewhat paradoxically, strengthens the presidency. “If President Karzai makes a decision,” Rubin said, “in an hour some [NATO] ambassador is gonna come in and argue with him. He doesn’t control his troops, and doesn’t control the money. That’s a situation that breeds corruption.”
Rubin emphasized this point. “We have to have a strategy focused on building the Afghan government,” he said, “and not on accomplishing short-term goals.”
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