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Afghans welcome security, wary of U.S. tactics
By Jonathon Burch
PUL-I-ALAM, Afghanistan, April 23 (Reuters) - With thousands of new U.S. troops now stationed around the Afghan capital, many Afghans welcome the improved security, but some tactics the soldiers employ could alienate the people they came to protect.
Afghanistan backs Clinton warning on Pakistan
WARSAW (AFP) – Afghanistan on Thursday said it welcomed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's assertion that the Pakistan government was ceding more and more territory to Islamic extremists.
Clinton says Pakistan is abdicating to the Taliban
By Arshad Mohammed – Thu Apr 23, 3:22 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pakistan's government has abdicated to the Taliban in agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley and the country now poses a "mortal threat" to the world,
US lacks civilians for Afghan 'civilian surge'
By Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is having trouble finding the hundreds of civilians it wants to bolster its troop buildup in Afghanistan, so military reservists might be asked to do many of the jobs.
Clinton: job creation is key to Afghan stability
AP via Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is telling Congress that local job creation is a key purpose of the $980 million in extra funds the State Department is requesting for its work in Afghanistan.
Gates to visit US Marines headed to Afghanistan
April 23, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday travels to a military base in North Carolina to visit US Marines preparing for combat against insurgents in Afghanistan.
US troops in Iraq on their way to Afghanistan
By Chelsea J. Carter, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 23, 6:38 am ET
BAGHDAD – American soldiers who specialize in clearing bombs from roads boarded a plane Thursday from Iraq to the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan, part of the largest movement of personnel and equipment between the two war fronts.
US: 2 militants killed in Afghan raid
AP via Yahoo! News - Apr 23 12:18 AM
KABUL – International and Afghan troops killed two militants in an overnight raid in central Afghanistan, U.S. forces said Thursday.
Sanitation woes in makeshift IDP camps
KABUL, 23 April 2009 (IRIN) - Open defecation, lack of toilets and poor sanitation in makeshift internally displaced persons (IDP) camps throughout Afghanistan are a health threat, particularly to children, health workers and aid agencies say.
G.I.’s to Fill Civilian Gap to Rebuild Afghanistan
By THOM SHANKER April 22, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is finding that it must turn to military personnel to fill hundreds of posts in Afghanistan that had been intended for civilian experts, senior officials said Wednesday.
General: Insurgents targeting southern Afghanistan
By Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer – Wed Apr 22, 1:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON – U.S. troops have reached a stalemate against insurgents in Afghanistan's Taliban-dominated south and so far have been unable to stop attackers from returning, a senior U.S. commander said Wednesday.
Afghan "terps" risk lives to work with U.S. forces
By Golnar Motevalli Thu Apr 23, 6:24 am ET
FARAH CITY, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Ahmad Shakib says he knows he is risking his life to work for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but with a casual shrug and an idiomatic American twang, he laughs off the danger.
Mullen warns no quick US victory in Afghanistan
Wed Apr 22, 11:06 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The top US military commander warned Wednesday that Americans cannot expect a swift victory over the Taliban and Al-Qaeda despite the imminent deployment of 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan.
Pakistan bid to stop Taleban push
Thursday, 23 April 2009 BBC News
The Pakistan government has sent troops to tackle Taleban militants who have advanced into a region just 100km (67 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.
'Iranian officer shot dead by Afghan guards'
April 23, 2009
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — Afghan border guards said Thursday they had shot dead an Iranian sergeant in an exchange of gunfire sparked when he allegedly entered Afghan territory without authorisation.
IMF approves $16.7 mln loan tranche for Afghanistan
[Reuters] WASHINGTON, April 22 - The International Monetary Fund has approved a disbursement of about $16.7 million to Afghanistan under a lending program for low-income countries, the fund said on Wednesday.
U.S. Urged To Focus On Governance In Afghanistan
April 23, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Obama administration needs to link its counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan with efforts to improve governance there to be successful in defeating the Taliban, a former Afghan finance minister has said.
Old military hardware in a new bottle
By Aunohita Mojumdar Asia Times Online April 23, 2009
KABUL - Obama's call for a fresh approach to Afghanistan and his promise of allocating greater resources have all but obscured the fact that Washington remains focused on its strategic military interests and the exit
Pak, Afghan are the biggest threat for Israel: Lieberman
Harinder Mishra
Jerusalem, Apr 22 (PTI) In a major shift in threat perception for the Jewish state, Pakistan and Afghanistan have now been identified as the biggest threatfor Israel with the much publicised danger emanating from Iran's nuclear programme pushed to the second rank.
Pakistan arrests two Afghan terrorist suspects
People's Daily - Apr 22 6:06 PM
Pakistan's security agencies have arrested two Afghan national from the tribal region in connection with several terrorist activities, local television reported Wednesday.
Pakistan deploys troops to Taliban areas
by Lehaz Ali
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan on Thursday deployed paramilitary troops to northwestern districts infiltrated by Taliban militants, as global concern mounted over Islamabad's ability to rein in the Islamists.
FACTBOX - Baluchistan emerges as pressure point in Pakistan
By Zeeshan Haider Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:24pm IST
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has accused India and Afghanistan of backing an insurgency in its southwestern province of Baluchistan, a region that is likely to come under scrutiny as more U.S. troops are sent to southern Afghanistan.
Why al Qaeda Stays Out Of Afghanistan
Strategy Page - Apr 23 3:08 AM
April 23, 2009: The Afghan government believes that al Qaeda is not present in Afghanistan in any significant numbers. Foreign military commanders, often advised by U.S. Army Special Forces operators who have been
The same war all over again
Redwood Times 04/22/2009
Has it sunk in yet? President Obama recently threw a fast one right past the peace bloc in Congress. These Democrats of varying stripes, including our own Blue Dog Mike Thompson
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Afghans welcome security, wary of U.S. tactics
By Jonathon Burch
PUL-I-ALAM, Afghanistan, April 23 (Reuters) - With thousands of new U.S. troops now stationed around the Afghan capital, many Afghans welcome the improved security, but some tactics the soldiers employ could alienate the people they came to protect.
Some 3,000 U.S. troops began deploying in Maidan Wardak and Logar provinces on the southern outskirts of Kabul in January, an area that before had seen little military presence.
U.S. commanders and Afghans say the troops have helped reduce violence in the area, rolling back attacks by Taliban guerrillas who had reached the outskirts of the capital in large numbers for the first time since fleeing Kabul in 2001.
But out on patrol there are still signs of tension between U.S. forces and a population wary of outsiders.
"I'm happy security has arrived. The road is safe now from Kabul to Logar," said Abdul Wakil, 35, standing by the side of the road watching soldiers search cars along the main highway through Logar.
"But we have a problem, and that problem is: the U.S. soldiers come in the evenings and search our houses. This is a problem for us. They should come during the day with Afghan soldiers and police," Wakil said.
The soldiers carry out regular "snap" TCPs or Traffic Check Points, stopping any car that fits a profile or they think might pose a threat. Soldiers search and question the occupants and no car is allowed to pass until they are finished.
INDESTRUCTIBLE
Using an Afghan interpreter, the soldiers even listen to drivers' cassette tapes for Taliban propaganda and inspect travellers' mobile phones. Text messages about wanting to "kill U.S. soldiers" have been found.
The soldiers patrol in heavily armoured MRAPs or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles that tower over the road, making them able to withstand most bomb or suicide attacks.
"In one of these things, you feel indestructible," said Captain Asher Ballew, in charge of the patrol.
Across Afghanistan, incidents involving roadside bombs rose by 87 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to a year ago, according to NATO figures. Soldiers are taking no chances.
In new guidance made public this month, the commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan U.S. General David McKiernan, says troops should avoid "aggressive driving that Afghans may perceive as offensive, threatening, or reckless".
But a road patrol in an MRAP through Logar as witnessed by a Reuters crew last week, was a tense and aggressive journey.
Patrols travel down the centre of the road and oncoming traffic is expected to stop. The soldiers swerved toward any cars that did not come to a complete stop.
"You'd better stop," shouted the driver of one MRAP down the internal intercom, swearing four-letter insults as he swerved head on toward an oncoming truck.
"This guy wont stop. I don't know who the (hell) some of these people think they are," he shouted, as the truck veered off the road to avoid colliding with the MRAP. "I'm gonna make an example outta someone out here!"
Further on, a motorcycle approached slowly around a blind corner. The MRAP swerved, running the man off the road.
"That'll teach him!" said the driver, as others laughed.
At the snap checkpoint, a bearded man in his fifties who did not want to be named said he was still glad the Americans were there.
"We are happy the soldiers come out on the roads. It's more secure now," he said. "But the problem is, that when they stop the traffic, there are queues of cars, and in these cars are sick people, women and children who face problems." (Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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Afghanistan backs Clinton warning on Pakistan
WARSAW (AFP) – Afghanistan on Thursday said it welcomed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's assertion that the Pakistan government was ceding more and more territory to Islamic extremists.
"Afghanistan highly welcomes this position of Secretary Clinton to recognise the source of the threat in our region," Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said Thursday in Warsaw after talks with his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski.
"We Afghans are the main victims of international terrorism, we try to convey the reality of our region to the world," Spanta told reporters.
"On many occasion we try to encourage our allies to recognise the main training centre and protector of terrorists is grouped beyond Afghanistan's borders," he said.
"Without frank and honourable cooperation from the Pakistan side to succeed against terrorism, this is an illusion," Afghanistan's diplomatic chief said.
Clinton said Wednesday that Taliban advances pose "an existential threat" to Pakistan and urged Pakistanis worldwide to oppose a government policy yielding to them.
Pakistani officials said Wednesday that Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat valley have moved closer to Islamabad in a bid to broaden their control despite a deal designed to allow sharia law to end extremist violence.
Sikorski meanwhile urged NATO allies participating in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan to beef up their contingents in order to speed Afghanistan's stabilisation.
"If other NATO and coalition countries do what we have done which is to increase forced by a quarter...without caveat, then the Afghan authorities and the nato commanders will have the tools to do the job," Sikorski said.
This month Polish President Lech Kaczynski approved the deployment of an extra 400 troops to Afghanistan, boosting the number of Poles with the NATO-led force there to 2,000.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan until 2001 when the US led an invasion in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington by Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. The Taliban had been playing host to bin Laden.
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Clinton says Pakistan is abdicating to the Taliban
By Arshad Mohammed – Thu Apr 23, 3:22 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pakistan's government has abdicated to the Taliban in agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley and the country now poses a "mortal threat" to the world, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.
Surging violence across Pakistan and the spread of Taliban influence through its northwest are reviving concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed country, an important U.S. ally vital to efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who on March 27 unveiled a new strategy that seeks to crush al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and those operating from across the border in Pakistan, meets the presidents of both countries May 6-7.
The talks illustrate U.S. anxiety that Afghanistan could again become a haven for al Qaeda militants to launch foreign attacks more than seven years after U.S.-led forces toppled the Afghan Taliban regime that sheltered the September 11 attackers.
Speaking to U.S. lawmakers, Clinton said the Pakistani government had to provide basic services to its people or risk seeing the Taliban, and other extremists, fill the vacuum.
Under pressure from conservatives, Zardari earlier this month signed a regulation imposing Islamic law in Swat, a northwestern valley once one of Pakistan's most popular tourist destinations.
Asked about the matter, Clinton bluntly replied: "I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists."
Speaking before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Clinton said, ominously, that the situation in Pakistan "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world."
Swat was a major tourist spot until 2007, when militants infiltrated the valley from strongholds on the Afghan border to the west in support of a radical cleric.
US DEPLOYING 21,000 MORE TROOPS
After inconclusive military offensives and a failed peace agreement, Pakistani authorities accepted an Islamist demand for sharia, or Islamic law, in February.
Teresita Schaffer, a former U.S. diplomat who served in Pakistan and now heads the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said many analysts share Clinton's assessment.
"There is deep concern in the U.S. government, and elsewhere in this country, about the implications of the deal in Swat," Schaffer said. "It represents a cession of state authority to people who have been slitting the throats of policemen in the public square."
Schaffer said she did not believe Clinton viewed the Pakistani state itself as a mortal threat.
Rather, she said Clinton may have been suggesting that events in the country, where militants are believed to have plotted foreign attacks and set off a series of domestic suicide bombings in the last month, threaten other nations.
The White House says the May 6-7 talks between Obama, Karzai and Zardari will include a three-way meeting. The talks represent the U.S. president's effort to ease tensions and forge more cooperation between the two countries.
Kabul has accused Islamabad of not doing enough to stop militants crossing the border to launch attacks in Afghanistan. However, ties have improved under Zardari, whose country is facing its own Islamist insurgency.
Obama has authorized the deployment of 21,000 additional U.S. troops and hundreds of new diplomatic and other civilian officials to Afghanistan to try to quell the Taliban insurgency in the south and the east of that country.
A senior U.S. commander said U.S. and NATO forces were close to achieving "irreversible momentum" in their battle with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, saying this was partly due to an influx of some 4,000 U.S. troops to the area this year.
(Additional reporting by Sue Pleming, Andrew Gray, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert; editing by Todd Eastham)
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US lacks civilians for Afghan 'civilian surge'
By Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is having trouble finding the hundreds of civilians it wants to bolster its troop buildup in Afghanistan, so military reservists might be asked to do many of the jobs.
In announcing the new strategy for the war last month, the administration said it would send several hundred civilians — such as agronomists, economists and legal experts — to work on reconstruction and development issues as part of the military's counterinsurgency campaign.
Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that the military is trying to find ways to fill the gap. That would likely be with reservists, who often have the necessary skills because of the experience they have in their civilian lives, officials said.
"It's just a realization that they are not going to be able to provide the 'civilian surge' in the near future and the need is now," Morrell said. "We're looking at ways to step into the breach and figure out how we can get additional personnel there to help out on the civilian side."
The Pentagon has been asked to see if it can find 200 to 300 reservists, and officials are canvassing the force to find the needed experts — educators, engineers, lawyers and others, said Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman.
The phenomenon of looking to the military is far from new and was a sore point in Iraq after the Pentagon was asked to do tasks the State Department lacked staff to do. The military, among government departments, has long had more money to train and hire people and a greater ability to order its employees to war zones and other hardship posts.
In an attempt to address this, the State Department in 2006 created a Civilian Response Corps with the aim of building a cadre of hundreds of civilian government workers with expertise in different areas of post-conflict reconstruction.
But funding for the project, led by veteran diplomat John Herbst, was slow to come from Congress. It currently has only 35 of its planned 250 active members from various government departments.
With $75 million more just allocated to the corps, officials said Thursday they are now ramping up staffing and hope to have hired, trained and equipped at least 100 personnel by the end of the year.
In addition to the active component, the corps has a 300-strong standby unit for short-term emergency deployments that officials want to boost to 500 by the end of the year with an eventual goal of 2,000.
The administration over the coming months is sending about 17,000 additional combat troops and 4,000 more trainers to mentor Afghan security forces — a buildup long delayed by the war in Iraq as the Afghan campaign became more and more violent in recent years.
Officials haven't released the number of civilians they want to bolster the new effort and have said there is no firm number yet. But two officials said privately that the number of 500 to 600 was being considered at one point as the new war strategy was being developed in recent months.
In addition to the nation's 1.4 million-strong active duty armed forces, there are some 850,000 "citizen soldier" reservists across the services. It was unclear whether reservists with needed skills would be activated to fill the Afghanistan positions. It is also possible that they could instead be hired as private contractors rather than going in uniform, one official said Thursday on condition of anonymity because plans are still sketchy.
"We are going to be looking beyond the government resources, we're going to be looking to our reserve components, where we can tap individuals based on their civilian skill set," Michele Flournoy, under secretary for defense policy, said in a speech Tuesday.
Flournoy said the U.S. didn't build a cadre of civilian experts for such missions when the need first came to light years ago in places like Somalia, Haiti and the Balkans.
In another development, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Congress Thursday that local job creation is a key purpose of the $980 million in extra funds the State Department is requesting for its work in Afghanistan.
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Clinton: job creation is key to Afghan stability
AP via Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is telling Congress that local job creation is a key purpose of the $980 million in extra funds the State Department is requesting for its work in Afghanistan.
Clinton is testifying before a House appropriations subcommittee that is reviewing the administration's request for $7.1 billion in additional funds for the State Department this budget year.
She told the panel that a main goal is to improve security at the local level in Afghanistan by putting more people to work. And she said the Obama administration believes that many in the Taliban insurgency who are fighting against American and Afghan forces are motivated more by money than by ideology.
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Gates to visit US Marines headed to Afghanistan
April 23, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday travels to a military base in North Carolina to visit US Marines preparing for combat against insurgents in Afghanistan.
At Camp Lejeune, Gates plans to watch members of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade in training exercises ahead of their deployment to the Afghan war.
The 8,000-strong brigade will soon head to Afghanistan as part of more than 21,000 reinforcements approved by President Barack Obama to bolster the US mission there.
The additional troops are part of a new strategy unveiled by Obama last month designed to stem an increasingly violent insurgency focused in Afghanistan's south and east.
The strategy includes a focus on flushing out Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan and boosting civilian efforts to build up local government and economic development in the impoverished country.
The top US military official, Admiral Mike Mullen, warned Wednesday during a visit to Afghanistan that Americans cannot expect a swift victory over the Taliban and Al-Qaeda despite the deployment of additional troops.
Obama is expected to decide later in the year whether to approve the deployment of a further 10,000 troops to Afghanistan.
There are currently 40,000 US troops stationed in the country.
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US troops in Iraq on their way to Afghanistan
By Chelsea J. Carter, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 23, 6:38 am ET
BAGHDAD – American soldiers who specialize in clearing bombs from roads boarded a plane Thursday from Iraq to the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan, part of the largest movement of personnel and equipment between the two war fronts.
The transfer comes as the U.S. military is scaling back its forces in Iraq before a planned withdrawal at the end of 2011, and as President Barack Obama deploys 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to beef up U.S. operations there.
"Our commanders have decided we're more needed in Afghanistan than we are here," said 1st Lt. Chris Selleck. He is one of nearly 500 soldiers of the 4th Engineer Battalion who found out weeks after arriving in Iraq that they would be redirected to Afghanistan.
"Since we are kind of at the beginning of our deployment, they decided to go ahead and ship us over there," said Selleck.
The battalion began sending troops and equipment — everything from giant tow trucks and bulldozers to desks and chairs — last week.
On Thursday, the transfer moved into its final stages, as soldiers loaded some of the last remaining equipment. Among the items were MRAPs — mine-resistance patrol vehicles — and cargo containers.
The battalion will not be replaced in Iraq, another sign of America's drawdown in Iraq.
In late March, the Fort Sill, Oklahoma-based 100th Brigade Support Battalion was moved from the giant U.S. base in Balad, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Baghdad, to southern Afghanistan.
U.S. military commanders have said the sharp decline in violence in Iraq and the increasing capabilities of Iraq's security forces made it possible to transition the soldiers.
The decline in violence also has given Iraqi leaders opportunities to focus on building sources of revenue.
On Thursday, a senior official overseeing oil and gas licenses in Iraq said the country will keep its late June deadline for bids to develop eight oil and gas fields.
Abdul-Mahdi al-Ameedi said the final contract details will be published later this week.
Meanwhile, the companies have until late June to submit their offers for the 20-year service contracts, al-Ameedi said. He said the winning bids will be announced before July 1.
The service contracts mean companies are paid a flat fee instead of sharing in production revenue.
___
Associated Press Writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.
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US: 2 militants killed in Afghan raid
AP via Yahoo! News - Apr 23 12:18 AM
KABUL – International and Afghan troops killed two militants in an overnight raid in central Afghanistan, U.S. forces said Thursday.
Forces with the Afghan army and the U.S.-led international coalition were attempting to capture Taliban militants who intelligence sources said were camping in Tarin Kowt district of Uruzgan province, a U.S. statement said.
Two armed men who threatened the troops were shot and killed, it said. No women or children were present and no Afghan or international forces were injured, it said.
Separately, Afghan and coalition troops captured three suspected militants in a raid in eastern Logar province, the statement said. No casualties were reported.
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Sanitation woes in makeshift IDP camps
KABUL, 23 April 2009 (IRIN) - Open defecation, lack of toilets and poor sanitation in makeshift internally displaced persons (IDP) camps throughout Afghanistan are a health threat, particularly to children, health workers and aid agencies say.
According to the Afghan government, at least 230,000 people are living in formal IDP camps and informal settlements where few sanitary, water and toilet facilities are available.
About 500 families (2,500 individuals) displaced from southern regions have set up shacks, tents and mud huts in Qambar on the western outskirts of Kabul. Most residents there are forced to defecate in the open. Some also use insecure pit latrines or dry vault toilets near their shacks.
“In summer we suffer a lot from the stink, and the flies and mosquitoes which are attracted to the scattered faeces and dirt,” Akhtar Gul, an IDP at Qambar camp, told IRIN.
Similar concerns were raised by several residents of the Wechtangay IDP settlement in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
IDPs in the makeshift camps are prone to diseases like dysentery and diarrhoea because they lack access to proper sanitation, adequate safe drinking water and healthcare, health workers say.
The problem with building toilets…
Backed by UN agencies, the Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR) has been trying to discourage internal displacement and prevent the establishment of new IDP camps.
“Our policy is to encourage people to return to their original areas,” said Hafiz Nadeem, a MoRR official, adding that building latrines and wells in informal camps would attract more IDPs.
Anne Garella, head of the Action contre la Faim (ACF) country mission, told IRIN they had applied to build toilets and water points for the Qambar IDPs but had failed to get permission from the government.
In January the government permitted ACF to provide drinking water to the Qambar IDPs for six months; ACF has been delivering two tankers of water a day.
“The number of IDPs in the camp is increasing every day and we are very concerned about their access to drinking water after June,” said Garella, adding: “A longer-term solution would be for the government to allow us to dig wells and build toilets there.”
The need for safe drinking water will increase in the coming months and the government is expected to extend Qambar’s water delivery deadline to beyond June, according to aid workers.
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G.I.’s to Fill Civilian Gap to Rebuild Afghanistan
By THOM SHANKER April 22, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is finding that it must turn to military personnel to fill hundreds of posts in Afghanistan that had been intended for civilian experts, senior officials said Wednesday.
In announcing a new strategy last month, President Obama promised “a dramatic increase in our civilian effort” in Afghanistan, including “agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers” to augment the additional troops he is sending.
But senior Pentagon and administration officials now acknowledge that many of those new positions will be filled by military personnel — in particular by reservists, whose civilian jobs give them the required expertise — and by contractors.
The shortfall offers more evidence that the government’s civilian departments have not received enough money to hire and train people ready to take up assignments in combat zones. Unlike the armed services, nonmilitary agencies do not have clear rules to compel rank-and-file employees to accept hardship posts.
Senior officials said Wednesday that the president’s national security team had not determined exactly how many people would be required to carry out the reconstruction portion of the strategy, nor which departments and agencies would be required to supply the people.
But not enough of those civilians are readily available inside the government, officials said, forcing the administration to turn to the military, Pentagon civilians and private contractors, at least for the initial deployments.
The Pentagon has already been asked to identify up to 300 people in the military, likely reservists, who have skills critical to civilian reconstruction and who could be ordered quickly to Afghanistan, according to a senior Pentagon official. Depending on the final decision for numbers required to fulfill the reconstruction mission, that military component could be half or even more of the expanded civilian development effort in Afghanistan.
The officials predicted that the requirement for the “civilian surge” would eventually include hundreds of people with experience in areas that include small-business management, legal affairs, veterinary medicine, public sanitation, counternarcotics efforts and air traffic control.
In addition, officials said, the number of diplomatic positions at the American Embassy in Kabul and at provincial reconstruction outposts could increase by several hundred more. Some officials supplied details of the plan on the condition of anonymity because the decisions were not final.
The need to identify military people as one of several interim options to carry out the civilian mission in Afghanistan was foreshadowed this week by Michele A. Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, who served as a director of the Obama administration’s review of strategy in Afghanistan.
“We’re going to be looking to our reserve components, where we can tap individuals based on their civilian skill set,” Ms. Flournoy said during a speech on Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan policy institute here.
She said the government was still “playing a game of catch-up” after years of not setting aside money to create this civilian expertise, and she described the reliance on reservists as part of “a whole host of stopgap measures” necessary until teams of civilian experts could be created.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, has been a champion of finding money for the government to hire and train experts to work on civilian reconstruction in combat zones. This month, he called on leaders of the Senate budget committee to lobby for increases in State Department financing, and he has urged university experts to volunteer for service in Afghanistan.
“Our ultimate success in Afghanistan is predicated on how much civilian support we can bring to bear,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “While we will do whatever we can to supplement that civilian capacity in the interim, ultimately it requires other departments of the government to fill this need.”
The issue was a source of friction between the Pentagon and the State Department in early 2007, shortly after President George W. Bush announced his order to send five additional combat brigades to Iraq in a new strategy that included an expanded civilian mission.
At the time, Mr. Gates shared his irritation with Congress over a State Department request for military personnel to fill more than one-third of the 350 new diplomatic positions that Mr. Bush had ordered to be created in Iraq.
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General: Insurgents targeting southern Afghanistan
By Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer – Wed Apr 22, 1:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON – U.S. troops have reached a stalemate against insurgents in Afghanistan's Taliban-dominated south and so far have been unable to stop attackers from returning, a senior U.S. commander said Wednesday.
An estimated 80 percent of Afghanistan's insurgent attacks now are happening in the nation's southern region, Maj. Gen. Michael S. Tucker said during a Pentagon briefing. He said insurgents have pushed south over the last year after military troops and police largely have thwarted their threats in eastern Afghanistan.
"We're at a stalemate," Tucker said in a 35-minute videoconference call from Afghanistan. "We just simply do not have enough forces to address the needs of the people down there to set the conditions for governance to take hold."
He added: "It's a different enemy in the south than it is in the east. Obviously, the south is the center of gravity for the Taliban themselves in Kandahar."
The Obama administration is sending about 17,000 U.S. troops and an additional 4,000 training and counterinsurgency forces to Afghanistan over the next several months. Most of those troops will be sent because of problems in the south.
In all, an estimated 68,000 U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan over at least the next two years to root out senior al-Qaida leaders, keep the Taliban at bay and help the country secure itself.
Asked if that would suffice, Tucker said it should because "you can only put so many foreign troops in Afghanistan." He is the deputy chief of staff for American military operations in Afghanistan.
"This country does not — they're somewhat xenophobic in that regard," Tucker said. "They don't necessarily like to have a lot of foreign troops. And so we think what we have is enough to get the job done as efficiently and as quickly as possible without breaking through some of those thresholds that they have."
Tucker called himself "concerned" about Taliban militants in Pakistan's northwest Swat Valley who appear to have become emboldened by a provincial government-backed peace deal to impose Islamic law in exchange for a cease-fire. The extremists are tightening their grip on a neighboring district closer to the capital by patrolling roads, broadcasting sermons and spreading fear.
"The activities in the Swat do concern us," Tucker said. "We're keeping an eye on it."
He said U.S. forces are working with the Pakistani military to track enemy operations in Pakistan, particularly in the border regions and tribal areas where al-Qaida leaders are believed to be hiding.
"Pakistan is as important to us as Afghanistan is," Tucker said, adding: "We think they could do better. We think that they could probably do less focus on the Indian border and more focus on the border with Afghanistan to help stem the sanctuary that the insurgency enjoys there."
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Afghan "terps" risk lives to work with U.S. forces
By Golnar Motevalli Thu Apr 23, 6:24 am ET
FARAH CITY, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Ahmad Shakib says he knows he is risking his life to work for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but with a casual shrug and an idiomatic American twang, he laughs off the danger.
"Afraid of the Taliban? No, I'm the man," said Shakib, 22, one of thousands of Afghans recruited to work with U.S. and NATO forces as interpreters, or "terps."
Terps have been killed alongside U.S. and NATO colleagues on operations, and others have been targeted by militants who accuse them of collaborating with foreign forces.
The U.S. government offers military interpreters the prospect of an immigrant's visa to the United States after two years. Shakib says that's what tempts some. But he'd do it anyway.
"I like this job. I like helping the people, helping the Americans. The way they do their job, I just love it," he said.
"My family worry about me. The say you're in danger. But it's the way I like it."
His job means he can no longer go back to Kandahar, the southern city that was the birthplace of the Taliban in the 1990s, where he went to school and his brother still lives.
"(A relative) could say 'oh by the way, my cousin is an interpreter, he's working with the Americans'. So they (the Taliban) will be like let's go and pop him," Shakib said, using U.S. slang for an assassination.
"Bad guys are everywhere. If they get information of course they are going to harm me. But I don't care."
MORE THAN JUST LANGUAGE
Captain Christopher Garvin, who trains the Afghan army in Farah, a desert province on the Iranian border, says he relies on his terps for more than just the language.
"Coming here the first challenge was to fully understand the culture and how they like to operate," said Garvin. "Having a good interpreter is the key."
Garvin's interpreter, Yama Ellyassi, said he joined the Americans in part because of the pay and the prospect of a visa, but mainly because it offered a chance to help defeat the Taliban who imprisoned and beat his father while in power before 2001.
On an Afghan army base last week, Ellyassi stood between Garvin and Afghan Lieutenant-Colonel Khalil Nehmatullah as they discussed final plans for an opium poppy eradication mission.
He has had to learn military lingo on the job, and says he practices making sure he has the technical terms correct.
"A minor mistake can cause a big problem," he said.
He relates the story of an interpreter who mistakenly told a unit of Afghan police to "fire" when he should have said "ceasefire." The mistranslation resulted in several casualties and a mission which ended in disaster.
Shakib said sometimes he is required to translate a tone of voice and body language, as well as just words.
"A lot of times when you are translating English you have to use something from yourself also. If a guy is angry you have to get that across."
Soldiers need to be careful to make sure their interpreters understand their slang, said Sergeant Brian Wood, who works on Garvin's team and manages the terps.
"They can translate it word for word but to them it doesn't make sense like it does for us. Like 'to beat feet' would be to run away. To them it's like, 'What's that? You want to beat my feet?'," he said.
"I mean lost in translation is a given, it'll happen here and there," Wood said. "Here in combat, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan, with interpreters, their word could literally mean the difference between life or death."
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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Mullen warns no quick US victory in Afghanistan
Wed Apr 22, 11:06 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The top US military commander warned Wednesday that Americans cannot expect a swift victory over the Taliban and Al-Qaeda despite the imminent deployment of 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, made the remarks to NBC television from Afghanistan, where he paid his second visit this month to the war-torn country at the heart of US foreign policy.
"There are limits on how many troops we can provide to make a difference," he told the television network.
"These 21,000 troops are absolutely vital. We don't have, we haven't had enough troops in Afghanistan to, once we are in an area to clear it, we haven't had enough troops to hold it. And these troops will allow us to do that."
The United States last month unveiled a sweeping new strategy designed to turn around the flagging war in Afghanistan, where a Taliban insurgency last year reached its deadliest proportions since the 2001 US-led invasion.
The plan puts Pakistan at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda, but dispatches thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan and boosts civilian efforts to build the impoverished country, notably in the key agriculture sector.
US President Barack Obama is expected to decide later in the year whether to approve the deployment of a further 10,000 troops to Afghanistan.
When asked by NBC to respond to American people who want to know how much longer "the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan" will take Mullen replied: "These next two years, I think, will tell that tale".
"There will be a significant engagement for a period of time. It's not -- we're not going to turn it around and succeed in the next 24 months," he said.
The commander lumped together the fight against the Taliban, the resurgent hardline Islamist movement fighting against the Western-backed Afghan government and foreign troops, and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror network.
"Goal one is to get Al-Qaeda and its leadership -- defeat them. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda have in ways merged. So what was a few years ago sort of a separate fight is now merging," he said.
"The threat is very real. I see intelligence routinely that indicates that Al-Qaeda is plotting against the United States, against Western interests."
Mullen arrived in Afghanistan early Wednesday and travelled to the eastern province of Wardak to meet newly deployed US forces and Afghan police, said a spokeswoman for the US-led coalition, Elizabeth Mathais.
"They went down to Jalrez district (Wardak province) and met with governor (Haleem) Fadayee and some of the Afghan public protection force," she told AFP.
Mullen travelled to Pakistan later Wednesday, where he was expected to meet government officials, although the US embassy was unable to confirm his precise agenda.
The commander has said that he expects Taliban activity to rise during 2009 in Afghanistan as the United States prepares to send in extra troops in the coming months to counter the bloody insurgency.
The new reinforcements include 17,000 combat forces and 4,000 mentors who will train new Afghan security force recruits. They will join 70,000 foreign troops already in Afghanistan, including about 38,000 US troops.
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Pakistan bid to stop Taleban push
Thursday, 23 April 2009 BBC News
The Pakistan government has sent troops to tackle Taleban militants who have advanced into a region just 100km (67 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.
Officials say the forces will protect government buildings in Buner district, where insurgents have begun patrolling the streets and mounting checkpoints.
As the troops moved into the region, insurgents launched an attack on their convoy, killing at least one soldier.
Meanwhile nine people have been killed in the Khyber region, officials say.
Local tribesmen told the BBC that they were killed by bombs dropped by the Pakistani air force, which was targeting militants in the neighbouring region of Orakzai.
Mountainous
The militants advanced towards Buner from the Swat Valley, a region they largely control.
The BBC's Mark Dummett in Islamabad says if the government is trying to reassert control over the region, its efforts appear to be too little, too late.
The Taleban are reported to have moved several hundred men into Buner from the Swat Valley.
The government sent six platoons - up to 300 men - to deal with the insurgents.
A police official told the BBC that the troops were attacked as they were leaving the village of Totalai in the south of Buner district.
The convoy was heading for Dagar, the central town of the largely mountainous district.
Meanwhile, in a separate incident officials confirmed that seven people had died in the Khyber tribal region close to the Afghan border.
The dead were seven children and two women, they said, who died when their homes were bombed - but they did not confirm tribesmen's assertion's that the bombs were dropped by the Pakistani air force.
Army officials say 11 militants have been killed so far in an operation in the area which has been continuing for three days. There is no independent confirmation of these claims.
Springboard
The confrontation in Buner comes just weeks after a peace deal was signed by President Asif Ali Zardari allowing the introduction of Islamic law in Swat.
The deal was designed to end a bloody 18-month conflict with the Taleban in Swat by yielding to some of their demands.
But critics say that the militants can now use Swat as a springboard to take over new areas of the country.
The BBC's Ilyas Khan says many people believe Buner could be the next battlefield for the Pakistani security forces after Swat.
Human rights group Amnesty International said there was concern that the Taleban were targeting non-governmental organisations, and residents feared the restrictions imposed.
Sam Zarifi, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific director, said: "The people of Buner are now at their mercy, particularly women and girls, whose rights the Taleban systematically deny."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier said the insurgency posed a "mortal threat" to world security.
Speaking to a Congress committee, Mrs Clinton said the Pakistani government was "basically abdicating to the Taleban and the extremists".
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'Iranian officer shot dead by Afghan guards'
April 23, 2009
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — Afghan border guards said Thursday they had shot dead an Iranian sergeant in an exchange of gunfire sparked when he allegedly entered Afghan territory without authorisation.
The incident took place in southwestern Nimroz province, the border police commander for the region told AFP.
The Iranian officer, identified as Mansoor Noori, allegedly crossed into Afghanistan several times late Wednesday on a motorcycle with another guard, said General Saifullah Hakim.
"Afghan police repeatedly warned them not to cross the border but they ignored the warnings and started firing on Afghan forces," he said.
Afghan forces responded, killing Noori and arresting his colleague, the commander said.
Afghan and Iranian security forces have launched a joint inquiry into the shooting, Hakim told AFP.
Afghan officials will deliver a formal protest to authorities in Tehran on Thursday, he said, adding that Noori's body and the detained guard would not be handed over until Iranian officials admitted responsibility for the incident.
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IMF approves $16.7 mln loan tranche for Afghanistan
[Reuters] WASHINGTON, April 22 - The International Monetary Fund has approved a disbursement of about $16.7 million to Afghanistan under a lending program for low-income countries, the fund said on Wednesday.
The announcement came after the IMF completed the fifth review of Afghanistan's economic performance under a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility arrangement.
The review allows for the immediate disbursement of about $16.7 million and bring to about $103.2 million in total funds for Afghanistan under the program.
The IMF approved a loan of around $120 million to Afghanistan in June 2006 under the arrangement.
IMF Deputy Managing Director Murilo Portugal said in a statement that Afghanistan's economic and security challenges.
"A drought and worsening security cut economic growth to 3 percent in fiscal year 2008/09, while higher food prices drove average inflation up to more than 20 percent," Portugal said.
"Despite these adverse conditions, the authorities have pursued prudent monetary and financial sector policies which helped to lower inflation to single digit levels in recent months," Portugal said.
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U.S. Urged To Focus On Governance In Afghanistan
April 23, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Obama administration needs to link its counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan with efforts to improve governance there to be successful in defeating the Taliban, a former Afghan finance minister has said.
Ashraf Ghani, a contender in the August presidential election, credited President Barack Obama with taking steps to create a "second chance" to build a stable Afghanistan after lost years since the U.S. invasion in 2001.
"To commit more forces in this time is an act of both courage and statesmanship," the former World Bank and UN official said in remarks at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.
In a new strategy for Afghanistan unveiled last month, Obama said he would send in 17,000 more troops and make stabilization of Afghanistan and the war on Islamist militants there a top foreign-policy priority.
Ghani, author of a new Atlantic Council report on Afghanistan, said, however, that "forces in themselves are not the answer. It is the strategy that is going to use them that is the issue."
He said the troop increase needed to be wed to a counterinsurgency strategy that supported renewed efforts in four key areas to build up the governing capacity of the Afghan state.
"The game changer is to produce a legitimate election that the next government of Afghanistan can have a mandate," said Ghani, who is seen as an outside contender in the August 20 presidential vote.
Second, the international community needs to develop a coherent strategy to reverse a situation in which development aid efforts are often wasteful, unaccountable, and prone to funneling most of the donors' money to foreign experts and contractors, he said.
Ghani said the third element was new national programs modeled on relatively unheralded successes in Afghanistan such as the National Solidarity Program for rural development and the national telecommunications network.
Finally, eight of Afghanistan's 34 provinces should be set up as model provinces -- laboratories for reforms.
"If we can demonstrate success in eight provinces, we will regain the initiative vis-a-vis the insurgency," he said.
Ghani's report for the Atlantic Council titled, "A Ten-Year Framework for Afghanistan: Executing the Obama Plan and Beyond," is posted at http://www.acus.org/publication/afghanistan-report
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Old military hardware in a new bottle
By Aunohita Mojumdar Asia Times Online April 23, 2009
KABUL - Obama's call for a fresh approach to Afghanistan and his promise of allocating greater resources have all but obscured the fact that Washington remains focused on its strategic military interests and the exit strategy, goals not synonymous with the interests of Afghans or long-term stability in the region. The added danger this time round is that the use of soft power - diplomacy and aid initiatives that kept a counterbalance to the military perspective - may now be reduced to handmaidens in the aid of strategic military aims.
One does not have to go much further than last month's White Paper outlining the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy to understand the Obama administration's main tactical aims in Afghanistan. The "core goal of the US", the paper states, "must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan
and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan". This core has been reiterated time and again at different levels by senior administration officials, but continues to be ignored by other members of the international community. Desperate for some signs of a positive change, other donor countries, the United Nations (UN) and even the Afghan government have cherry-picked the parts of the Obama strategy that suit their contentions.
While President Hamid Karzai dwelt on the US recognition that the theater of war would now extend to Pakistan, the UN's top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, focused on the "greater balance between the military and civilian sides". Indeed the White Paper has something for everyone. The hold-all strategy lays out a number of simultaneous aims that include bolstering governance, economic aid, building political institutions and establishing the rule of law. What analysts are ignoring, however, is that the Obama administration has already signaled its priorities within the wish list it has spelt out and these remain focused on short-term tactical military advantages.
A focus on the military strategy itself does not presage an undermining of other goals. The evidence for that lies in the details: the budgetary details, the tools of implementation, a high tolerance for operating procedures that result in violence against civilians, and a "hearts and minds" campaign that impacts on the ability of aid workers to deliver independent aid. The evidence also lies in hints about the apparent willingness to compromise on some aspects of fundamental democratic and human-rights principles.
Obama's core goals are a reiteration of the early goals of the Bush era before it got into the messy business of "nation-building". The means it uses to achieve these may also merely result in an expanded version of the George W Bush administration's toolbox.
Take the talk of a civilian surge. At best the number of civilians who are going to be sent by Washington will number in the hundreds, not the thousands that the "military surge" entails. Moreover, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan's Reconstruction in the US administration, the 215 civilian posts are related to the expansion of the civilian-military provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), ie the civilian and aid workers will be embedded within the military bases. The decision to expand the PRTs comes at a time when 11 reputable international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with a track record of years of consistent work in Afghanistan, have called for a phasing out of the PRTs. The NGOs Oxfam, Care, Action Aid, Save the Children and others have joined hands to express concern that the continued delivery of humanitarian and development aid through the military component has not only been ineffective but is continuing to intensify the danger to the operations of civilian agencies working on the ground.
While the PRTs were set up as a means of reaching out to areas where the civilian agencies had not been able to reach, the intensifying conflict since 2005 has fundamentally altered that role. The heavy fighting has meant that soldiers engaged in fighting are also delivering aid, blurring the lines between the civilian and military and eroding the neutrality that aid workers depend on for effective and safe delivery of aid.
There appears to be a willful disregard of the need to maintain this distinction. Though the international military forces have signed onto the May 2008 Afghanistan National Civilian Military guidelines, they have not followed them. The UN, which is expected to play the role of coordinator, has also not fulfilled its mandate. "It is profoundly regrettable that for over a year the UN took few steps to fulfill this important responsibility" said a report on civilians caught in conflict released earlier this month by this group of NGOs. Some examples of the disregard are in the unwillingness of military forces to carry clear identification, the military's continued use of unmarked white vehicles that are universally used by humanitarian workers, and the location of military facilities and the passage of military convoys in urban areas.
Rather than emphasizing the need for the neutrality in aid delivery, many of the major donors have tended to pour their money into the PRTs. As fighting has intensified, donor money has also followed the troops, with some of the largest donors like the US, Britain and Canada routing substantive chunks of their money into the provinces where their troops are fighting. In the existing conditions the aid money has come to resemble pacification tactics: money that is expected to win the hearts and minds battle and mitigate the fallout of the intense fighting.
Humanitarian and aid agencies talk of the difficulty of getting donor money. "We are feeling the pull on our sleeve from the military tent and the political tent", said Dave Hampson of Save the Children UK, adding "we are not being funded on the basis of humanitarian need".
The $75.5 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq in the Supplemental Appropriations Request for 2009 has been widely reported. Less reported is the fine print: $38 billion will fund ongoing military operations, $11.6 billion is for equipment, $3.6 billion is for the Afghan security forces and $3.1 billion for counter-terrorism operations. Only $1.6 billion will go towards economic assistance for Afghanistan, a portion of it for supporting additional civilian personnel and diplomatic operations. Only $170 million is earmarked to support economic growth in Afghanistan, including agriculture sector development.
An example of the preference for routing funds through the military is evident in the figures for the US Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). In 2008, this was close to $0.5 billion, which exceeds the total amount the Afghan government spends on health and education. The supplementary budget provides for an additional $0.5 billion in additional funds to continue the CERP "which enables US military commanders to respond to urgent, humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs in their areas of responsibility".
With a former military commander, General Karl Eikenberry, nominated in March as the next US ambassador to Afghanistan, will the emphasis on using aid to buttress military strategy undergo any change?
The tolerance for civilian casualties is another example of how the long-term goal of stability and security of the civilian population is being compromised for short-term military goals. "Corollary damage" - that euphemistic term for civilian casualties from use of excessive use of force - has grown not diminished. In the year 2008, a year when the international military forces reportedly changed their operating methods to minimize civilian casualties, the number of deaths from air strikes by international military forces rose by 72% over the previous year, with a 40% increase in the use of aerial munitions.
According to the NGO report, almost 60% of the civilian deaths caused by international military forces were attributable to American-led forces serving in Operation Enduring Freedom.
The NGOs have also expressed concern about the possible adverse fallout of the presence of an increased number of international troops on the civilian population. They are calling for significant changes in the operating procedures of the international military forces.
US policy makers have made much of not creating a "Valhalla" in Afghanistan, speaking of shorter goal posts and lowered ambitions. There are fears here that these could represent a willingness to compromise on essential human and democratic rights in exchange for a measure of illusory "stability".
A resurgent conservatism has provided a useful tool for political mobilization amongst a section of powerful political powerbrokers. Debate within the international community has also shifted. It now speaks of the need for "Afghanisation" and to respect Afghanistan's culture. There has been increasing rhetoric around the fact that Afghanistan does not need to replicate the model of democracy. While such talk is always made with deference to the country's constitution, the recent controversy over the Shia bill - that would return Taliban-style restrictions on women - has shown that the constitution is only as good as its implementers and no bulwark to the erosion of basic rights.
Aspects of women's rights, democracy, media freedoms and cultural tolerance are increasingly being labeled as "foreign concepts" by a powerful section of Afghan leaders. The international community has largely left this unchallenged. Long before Afghanistan's citizens can lay claim to the basic rights of life and liberty, the debate now centers around the need to curtail these rights in accordance with Afghanistan's traditions.
President Bush was castigated for the US policy of supporting predatory warlords with untenable human-rights records. There are no signs that this policy will change. Individual commanders with poor track records continue to be propped up by the US administration on the grounds of being 'can do guys' that the Obama administration feels it can do business with. The world view and ideologies of some of these so-called leaders have little to differentiate them from that of many of the Taliban on several counts.
Little wonder then that negotiations with the Taliban are increasingly being touted as a way out of the current morass. If hard-won democratic freedoms and human rights are bartered in exchange, it will undoubtedly be dubbed "the Afghan way" of doing things. After all the US has long been quite comfortable with authoritarian undemocratic regimes, as long as they are seen to be on the American side.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
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Pak, Afghan are the biggest threat for Israel: Lieberman
Harinder Mishra
Jerusalem, Apr 22 (PTI) In a major shift in threat perception for the Jewish state, Pakistan and Afghanistan have now been identified as the biggest threatfor Israel with the much publicised danger emanating from Iran's nuclear programme pushed to the second rank.
Israel's hardliner Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in his first interview to a Russian daily after taking charge, has said that since he began warning against the nuclear threat from Iran, nuclear threats have become more prevalent.
However, he said that a more urgent problem has developed in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Pakistan is nuclear and unstable, and Afghanistan is faced with a potential Taliban takeover, and the combination form a contiguous area of radicalism ruled in the spirit of Bin Laden," Lieberman told Russian daily 'Moskovskiy Komosolets'.
"I do not think that this makes anyone in China, Russia or the US happy... These countries (Pakistan and Afghanistan) are a threat not only to Israel, but to the global order as a whole," he said.
"Iran is not Israel's biggest strategic threat, rather Afghanistan and Pakistan are," he emphasised.
The strategic threat coming from Iraq was ranked as the third most important issue of concern for the Jewish state by the Israeli foreign minister.
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Pakistan arrests two Afghan terrorist suspects
People's Daily - Apr 22 6:06 PM
Pakistan's security agencies have arrested two Afghan national from the tribal region in connection with several terrorist activities, local television reported Wednesday.
The two suspects, from Lughman province of Afghanistan, were arrested in Kurram tribal agency on the Afghan border and charged with terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, private Geo TV channel quoted sources as saying.
The two suspects have admitted carrying out several terrorist activities in different parts of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), reports said.
They also admitted that they were involved in planning of suicide attack on NWFP senior minister Bashir Bilour.
Bilour was targeted in a stadium blast in the NWFP capital Peshawar in November, which killed four people and wounded 13 others, but he escaped from the attack.
Source:Xinhua
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Pakistan deploys troops to Taliban areas
by Lehaz Ali
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan on Thursday deployed paramilitary troops to northwestern districts infiltrated by Taliban militants, as global concern mounted over Islamabad's ability to rein in the Islamists.
The extremists patrolled the streets of Buner district, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) outside the capital, warning residents not to engage in "un-Islamic" activity and barring women from public places, officials and witnesses said.
"Local police are helpless and seem to have lost control," said resident Shams Buneri. "Taliban are moving freely everywhere in the town."
The extremists moved into the district from the Swat valley, where Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari recently signed a deal allowing the implementation of strict Islamic law in a bid to end a two-year campaign of deadly violence.
That accord has caused alarm in Washington, where US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Taliban advances posed an "existential threat" to the survival of Pakistan, a key US ally in the fight against Al-Qaeda.
In a bid to bring the deteriorating security situation in Buner under control, authorities sent in hundreds of paramilitary soldiers.
"We have decided to deploy eight platoons," Frontier Constabulary commandant Zafarullah Khan told AFP. There are roughly 40-45 soldiers per platoon.
Buner police official Rasheed Khan confirmed to AFP that Taliban fighters were patrolling the streets unchecked, but added that district government officials were in negotiations to put an end to the militant occupation.
Highlighting the instability in the area, one policeman was killed and another wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire on their vehicle, which was being escorted by paramilitary forces, police official Syed Azhar told AFP.
Several Taliban militants also occupied a police post in Buner and negotiations were in progress for the release of three policemen trapped inside, Khan said.
Fighters loyal to the fundamentalist Taliban, who were in power in Afghanistan from 1996 until they were ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001, have also moved into adjacent Shangla district, local lawmaker Fazal Ullah told AFP.
US President Barack Obama is to meet with Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in early May, with efforts to clear Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters from Pakistan's restive northwest high on the agenda.
The top US military commander, Admiral Mike Mullen, arrived in Islamabad for talks with Pakistani officials as concerns mounted over the government's ability to check the Taliban's advances toward the capital, officials said.
"Pakistan -- it's a country that has nuclear weapons. My long-term worry is that descent ... should it continue, gives us the worst possible outcome there," Mullen told NBC News.
The government in Islamabad lost control in Swat, a former ski resort and jewel in the crown of Pakistani tourism, after a violent two-year militant campaign to enforce strict sharia law.
It agreed to allow sharia courts in Malakand, a district of some three million people in North West Frontier Province that includes the Swat valley, in order to halt the violence.
Clinton on Wednesday urged the Pakistani people "to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents, to the Taliban, to Al-Qaeda, to the allies that are in this terrorist syndicate."
But Pakistani authorities have rejected suggestions that they need outside military help to combat the insurgent threat.
"Pakistan... has one of the largest armies in the world," the country's ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, told CNN. "The military is capable of dealing with the insurgency."
More than 1,800 people have been killed in a wave of extremist attacks across Pakistan since July 2007, when the military stormed the Islamist-occupied Red Mosque in Islamabad.
In late December, at least 41 people were killed in a suicide car blast at a polling station in Buner -- one of the deadliest bombings in Pakistan in the past year. Taliban-linked extremists claimed responsibility for the attack.
Residents in Buner said masked Taliban were asking people in the streets to support them in their efforts to implement sharia law, as announcements blared from mosques that un-Islamic activity would no longer be tolerated.
Banners were hung in the town, telling women not to go to markets and public places and warning men not to shave off their beards.
"They (Taliban) have unleashed a reign of terror in Buner," former provincial lawmaker Karim Babak told AFP.
"This situation has triggered a great deal of panic among the local population."
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FACTBOX - Baluchistan emerges as pressure point in Pakistan
By Zeeshan Haider Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:24pm IST
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has accused India and Afghanistan of backing an insurgency in its southwestern province of Baluchistan, a region that is likely to come under scrutiny as more U.S. troops are sent to southern Afghanistan.
Pakistan has accused India of meddling in Baluchistan in the past but Wednesday's comments from Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik in parliament were the most explicit in recent years.
Mounting instability in Pakistan has fuelled speculation that it could eventually fall apart. The doomsters often cite Baluchistan as the region most likely to splinter off first, although the Pakistan army has always maintained an iron grip.
Here are few facts about Baluchistan.
GEOGRAPHY
Baluchistan is the biggest of Pakistan's four provinces in terms of area, accounting for 44 percent of the total. But due to the inhospitablity of its mountains and deserts it has the smallest population, with roughly 10 million of Pakistan's 170 million people living there.
It borders Iran to the west, Afghanistan to the north, and its southern coast runs along the Arabian Sea, providing historic links to the Gulf Arab lands. It also abutts Pakistan's three other provinces, Sindh, Punjab and North West Frontier Province.
The government, with Chinese help, is building a major port at Gwadar to reduce dependence on Karachi, Pakistan's only major port, and provide another naval base.
Baluchistan has major reservoirs of natural gas, and it has substantial gold and copper deposits in its northwest corner, where China has mining interests.
BALUCH MILITANCY
Ethnically, Baluchistan is dominated by two groups, the Baluch and the Pashtuns.
Baluch nationalists have demanded greater autonomy ever since Pakistan was carved out of India at the end of British rule in 1947.
They want more control over mineral resources, and feel exploited by other provinces, notably Punjab.
Pakistan has often accused India of fomenting trouble in Baluchistan as a pay-back for Pakistani support for a Muslim insurgency in Indian-held Kashmir. India denies this, just as Pakistan denies giving material support to Kashmiri separatists.
AL QAEDA AND THE TALIBAN
Fighters flocked to Pakistan from across the Islamic world during the Afghan jihad or holy war, backed by the Western and Arab countries, against Soviet invasion in the late 1970s. Peshawar, the capital North West Frontier Province, and Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, were the principal jumping off points for mujahideen, or holy warriors, going to fight in Afghanistan.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda mastermind for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, has family roots in Baluchistan.
His nephew, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing in New York, also kept up family ties there. Both are currently in U.S. custody.
There have been attacks on minority Shi'ite Muslims in and around Quetta in recent years. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim group linked to al Qaeda, has been blamed for these attacks.
The Taliban movement, that won control over Afghanistan in 1996, sprang largely out of Islamic seminaries or madrasas in Baluchistan that were established during the Afghan war.
After being defeated by U.S.-backed forces in Afghanistan in late 2001, many Taliban fighters re-based in Pakistan.
U.S PRESSURE, PAKISTANI RELUCTANCE, INDIAN SPECTRE
U.S. generals have often asserted that the Taliban leadership operates from Quetta. Pakistan denies this.
But suspicion abounds that Pakistani intelligence has taken either a permissive stance towards a Taliban presence or have provided covert support in the hope of one day regaining influence in Kabul through the Taliban.
The New York Times in March reported that the United States might widen the zone of missile strikes on militant targets beyond the northwestern tribal areas to include Baluchistan. President Asif Ali Zardari said last month he had U.S. assurances that would not happen.
A senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Wednesday said about 80 percent of Taliban activity takes place in parts of Afghanistan bordering Baluchistan where the United States plans to deploy thousands of troops in the coming months to reinforce British, Canadian, Dutch and other NATO soldiers.
Pakistan is coming under pressure to deploy more troops in Baluchistan, but it aleady has around 117,000 stationed in the northwest.
Pakistani generals would be loathe to deploy heavily in wastes of Baluchistan, and fear that more deployments along the western border would leave them vulnerable on the eastern front with India.
Pakistan has been trying to persuade the United States to understand its fear of encirclement, resulting from India's friendship with Afghanistan. Indian officials reject the notion of New Delhi running a predatory strategy.
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Why al Qaeda Stays Out Of Afghanistan
Strategy Page - Apr 23 3:08 AM
April 23, 2009: The Afghan government believes that al Qaeda is not present in Afghanistan in any significant numbers. Foreign military commanders, often advised by U.S. Army Special Forces operators who have been working in the country since late 2001, tend to agree. Al Qaeda's problem in Afghanistan is that they are greatly disliked. This all goes back to the early 1990s.
Back then, the Taliban were out to establish a religious dictatorship in Afghanistan . The one flaw in this plan was that the Taliban enforced Islam as interpreted by a few the Pushtun tribes in southern Afghanistan. The Pushtuns were only 40 percent of the population, and the Pushtun tribes the Taliban came from, were a fraction of that. Resentment began to build so that by the late 1990s most Afghans hated the Taliban. In addition, non-Pushtuns in northern Afghanistan (the Northern Alliance) continued fighting the Taliban. Fortunately for the Taliban, they had given Osama bin Laden, and his al Qaeda organization, sanctuary in 1994. Bin Laden arrived as the Taliban were still in the process of fighting for control of most of Afghanistan. From the beginning, al Qaeda provided the Taliban with technical support, and gunmen who were more ruthless and deadly than your average Afghan warrior. By the late 1990s, the al Qaeda brigade was a principal means of enforcing Taliban rule in many parts of the country.
But for seven years, al Qaeda had a place to set up shop. This included training camps, support activities and a safe place for terrorists to rest up between missions. The training camps were out in the hills, but many senior al Qaeda officials hung out in Kabul and other cities.
By the late 1990s, the Taliban were becoming increasingly unpopular because, basically, the Taliban represented the religiously conservative Pushtun tribes of southern Afghanistan. Unlike previous Afghan governments, the Taliban were not interested in working out deals. You did things their way, or they sent their brigade of al Qaeda gunmen to straighten you out. The use of the foreigners as enforcers was the last straw for most Afghans. The al Qaeda brigade was composed mostly of foreigners (mainly Arabs). The Arabs were contemptuous of the Afghans, whom they viewed as a bunch of ignorant country bumpkins, and the Afghans picked up on this.
Afghans have not forgotten the treatment they received from the al Qaeda foreigners, and this hostility was ramped up when al Qaeda brought in their suicide and roadside bomb tactics to Afghanistan five years ago. This was a tactic al Qaeda believed was leading them to victory in Iraq, and would repeat that success in Afghanistan. The bombing tactics, which killed so many civilians, ultimately failed in Iraq, and is having the same impact in Afghanistan.
The only Afghans who get on well with al Qaeda are the Taliban leadership (or at least some of them). Most of these men, and nearly all al Qaeda members, fled to Pakistan after 2001. Some have returned, but the al Qaeda who came back found that most Afghans still hated them. Al Qaeda made itself unpopular among the Pakistani Pushtuns as well, and this led to some battles that left hundreds of al Qaeda men dead. Al Qaeda has since learned to behave better in Pakistan, and that's where the remaining al Qaeda bases are. But al Qaeda has a tenuous tenure in Pakistan, and none at all in Afghanistan.
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The same war all over again
Redwood Times 04/22/2009
Has it sunk in yet? President Obama recently threw a fast one right past the peace bloc in Congress. These Democrats of varying stripes, including our own Blue Dog Mike Thompson, have in the past voted a righteous No on special war appropriations from the Bush regime. It is shocking to see all but 20 Democrats stamping their approval on $130 billion dollars worth of Live War money coming from the new regime.
By tucking these war appropriations back in the budget under the guise of “transparency,” the money for Afghanistan and Iraq became nothing more than a pair of bloody earmarks, easily “overlooked” in the larger factional struggle over the Democrats' plan to save corporate capitalism. The Republicans played their part in the two-party charade by sticking to the economic stimulus theme, meanwhile rejecting paying out money for a war Americans are currently killing and dying in!
Dennis Kucinich wasn't fooled. As one of only two Progressive Caucus members voting No to this sleight of hand, Kucinich said: “I will not vote for a budget that ties military spending to the operational funding of our government. This year, the budget includes $130 billion for war funding.”
Wasting no time, Obama has followed up with another 77 billion dollars worth of supplemental war appropriations, 2/3rds to Iran, 1/3rd to Afghanistan. “I can't imagine any way I'd vote for it,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, our Democratic congress member directly to the south and a cochair of the 77-member Progressive Caucus. Woolsey fears the president's plan for Iraq would leave behind a big occupation force. She is also concerned about the planned escalation in Afghanistan. “I don't think we should be going there,” she said.
What are we to make of Obama's bold move, reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson's dramatic escalation of the Vietnam War after a 1964 Presidential campaign that played up his peaceful contrast to his opponent's bellicosity?
Obama, who I thought was being so clever, is perhaps showing what a shallow view he has of the peace movement. It didn't all begin with Iraq, Barack dear - although your career may have started there. After 9-11, the peace movement made it clear worldwide that our sorrow was not an excuse for war against Afghanistan.
The peace movement called for the apprehension of the criminals responsible - not for the random bombing of women and children and men. Particularly when in Afghanistan US Cold Warriors paid for the schooling and the arming of the Taliban kids we proposed now to root out. Particularly when the “hijackers” were overwhelmingly Saudis! Particularly when the criminals who need to be apprehended bear a strong resemblance to the ones running the Bush regime! The ones who said we needed a “New Pearl Harbor.”
But Obama's view of the peace movement may be just Empire Realism. Cheney's contempt for our opinions has perhaps been inherited along with Gates, Bernancke, Summers, Clinton, et.al.
When Mike Thompson had his Easter recess for two weeks, activists swarmed his offices in Ft. Bragg and Eureka to make known an agenda for the future with peace at the top of the list. The upcoming vote on this war supplemental is scheduled around Memorial Day. It will tell us a lot about what to expect from Mike Thompson and the onetime peace bloc in Congress. If we don't whoop it up, we may have a trillion dollar war to stop - all over again.
Paul Encimer
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