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U.S. to host talks with Pakistan, Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan, the United States and Afghanistan will hold trilateral meetings in Washington next month.
Afghanistan: Growing number of Afghans lack health care - Ministry
KABUL, 7 April 2009 (IRIN) - Over 600,000 Afghans lack basic healthcare services due to attacks on healthcare facilities and health workers - a figure that has doubled since 2007, Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), has said.
Afghanistan admits problems with controversial law
April 7, 2009
KABUL (AFP) – The Afghan government admitted Tuesday to "problems" in President Hamid Karzai's approving a controversial law for the Shiite minority that critics say violates the rights of women.
Top commander says Afghan handoff 'years away'
By Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press Writer – Mon Apr 6, 6:27 pm ET
SAN DIEGO – The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan said Monday it will be years before coalition troops can make a complete handoff to Afghan security forces, despite the arrival of thousands of new soldiers
Security developments in Afghanistan
April 7 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan as of 0930 GMT on Tuesday:
Taliban Shura hiding in Balochistan, says Admiral Mullen
* Baitullah facilitating Qaeda attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan
Daily Times (Pakistan) April 7, 2009
ISLAMABAD: The top leadership of the Taliban is hiding in Balochistan province, Admiral Mike Mullen, the US Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said.
Romanian, Dutch soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By Fisnik Abrashi, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 7, 5:59 am ET
KABUL – A Romanian officer was killed in a roadside blast Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, where a day earlier rockets killed a Dutch soldier and wounded five others, officials said.
Aust., US to discuss more troops for Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News - Apr 07 1:22 AM
SYDNEY – Australia is considering sending more military trainers to Afghanistan as part of U.S.-led efforts to bolster coalition troops in the troubled country, the foreign minister said Tuesday.
All roads lead to Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online April 7, 2009
KARACHI - The al-Qaeda-led insurgency reached Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Saturday when a suicide bomber killed eight paramilitary police in an attack on a security base. The next day, militants proved through
Listening in Kabul
Washington Post By David Ignatius Tuesday, April 7, 2009
KABUL - Try to picture the unlikely scene here Monday: A brash U.S. diplomat and America's top military officer are sitting at a conference table with a ferocious-looking delegation of bearded and turbaned Afghan tribal leaders
NATO MILESTONE MARRED BY SOVIET-STYLE AFGHAN FUDGE
By Arthur Kent, skyreporter.com April 5, 2009
For all the pageantry and symbolism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 60th anniversary summit, its greatest achievement has been to redefine, in the saddest way, the expression “bitter irony.”
Military Budget Reflects a Shift in U.S. Strategy
New York Times By ELISABETH BUMILLER and CHRISTOPHER DREW April 6, 2009
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced a major reshaping of the Pentagon budget on Monday, with deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but new billions of dollars for others,
Mass-Grave in Kabul Education Dept
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 06 April 2009
Afghan authorities have confirmed uncover of the grave – 30-40 bodies are expected there
Abdullah: the 11-year-old suspected suicide bomber who is Afghanistan's youngest terrorist
An 11-year-old boy known only as Abdullah has been dubbed the world's youngest terrorist after he was arrested wearing a suicide vest.
By Aislinn Simpson The Telegraph (UK) April 7, 2009
The boy, who is originally from Peshawar in Pakistan, has become Afghanistan's youngest terror suspect. He is being held at one of the country's top security prisons, operated by Kabul's Intelligence Service.
Plight of Pakistan's displaced
By Barbara Plett BBC News, Katcha Ghari camp near Peshawar Sunday, 5 April 2009
Last year Pakistan finally closed camps that had housed Afghan refugees for three decades. During the past six months it's been forced to reopen them, this time for its own people.
Ireland cane Canada as Afghanistan fail again
by David Legge Mon Apr 6, 12:49 pm ET
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Ireland outplayed Canada in the 2011 Cricket World Cup Qualifier feature match here on Monday while fairytale contenders Afghanistan lost again.
Task Force Calls for Comprehensive New Strategy in the US Administration’s Efforts to Stabilize Afghanistan-Pakistan
New York, April 2, 2009—An Asia Society task force report released today recommends a comprehensive reformulation of US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan amidst rapidly deteriorating conditions in both countries.
Afghan travels across Europe strapped under bus
Mon Apr 6, 2:19 pm ET
WARSAW (AFP) – An Afghan youth survived a 30-hour journey from Athens strapped underneath a bus, only to discover that he had arrived in Poland and not his chosen destination Italy, border guards said Monday.
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U.S. to host talks with Pakistan, Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan, the United States and Afghanistan will hold trilateral meetings in Washington next month.
U.S. special envoy to the region Richard Holbrooke announced the talks at a news conference Tuesday with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Mahmood Qureshi.
"The United States and Pakistan face a common strategic threat, a common enemy and a common challenge and therefore a common task," Holbrooke said.
"We have had a long and complicated history, our two countries, and we cannot put the past behind us but we must learn from it and move forward."
Holbrooke arrived in Islamabad on Monday.
The top-ranking U.S. military officer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, was also present at Tuesday's news conference. He said he is holding talks with Pakistan's military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani.
"We want to assist them [the Pakistani military] in a critical transformation of a part of their armed forces to deal with the new emerging threat in the western areas," Mullen said.
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Afghanistan: Growing number of Afghans lack health care - Ministry
KABUL, 7 April 2009 (IRIN) - Over 600,000 Afghans lack basic healthcare services due to attacks on healthcare facilities and health workers - a figure that has doubled since 2007, Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), has said.
About 32 health centres were torched, destroyed and/or closed down due to insecurity in 2007, and 28 health facilities were shut down or attacked in 2008, MoPH said.
Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and MoPH are calling on all Afghans and warring parties, especially the insurgents, to understand the neutrality of health centres: "We call on the Taliban to respect the neutrality of health services and stop attacking health workers and health centres as they are in the field just to help people in need of health care," Fahim said.
World Health Day, which is marked on 7 April 2009, focuses on the safety of health facilities and the preparedness of health workers for emergencies.
"Frankly, there is no other country in the world really where this message is more important. The lives of health workers are put on the line every day when they try to deliver services," Sophia Craig, WHO health cluster coordinator for Afghanistan, told IRIN.
Craig said there had been an increase in the number of attacks on health facilities and health workers over the past year.
Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal and infant (0-12 months) mortality rates in the world, according to WHO. Every hour at least two Afghan women die from obstetric complications due in part to the lack of health services. In each batch of 1,000 live births, at least 125 infants die, and one in five children die from mostly preventable diseases before their fifth birthday, the UN Children's Fund and the MoPH said in 2008.
Meanwhile, the security situation is deteriorating, according to a 10 March 2009 report by the UN secretary-general.
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Afghanistan admits problems with controversial law
April 7, 2009
KABUL (AFP) – The Afghan government admitted Tuesday to "problems" in President Hamid Karzai's approving a controversial law for the Shiite minority that critics say violates the rights of women.
Karzai ordered a review of the Shiite Personal Status Law, which he signed in March, after an international outcry over claims it enforced Taliban-era restrictions on women.
"We must admit that there have been problems," the president's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, told reporters when asked if the legislation was properly assessed before it was signed.
He told AFP separately that he was referring to technical issues, with the legal points still under review.
"We're reviewing the law in order to fix the technical problems as well as the legal aspects of it," he said.
Some parliamentarians said the legislation had been rushed through parliament, with MPs from the Sunni majority preferring not to interfere in an issue involving Shiites.
"We must not forget that our experience in making laws, our experience in democracy is young," Hamidzada said at the press conference. "We're moving towards maturity," he said.
The spokesman would not be drawn on the contents of the legislation being studied by the justice ministry.
"At this stage we are not going to pre-judge the outcome, the president and the government of Afghanistan are committed to a full review," he said.
"The president is committed also to upholding the constitution that provides equal rights for men and women," he added.
Hamidzada said there had been several drafts of the legislation and it was not clear if the final version was the one critics referred to.
There has been a flood of criticism about the law, largely from Kabul's Western allies, including claims that it legalises marital rape and bars women from leaving home without their husbands' permission, except in emergencies.
But some MPs argue that the concerns are based on the draft bill and not the final, amended version passed by parliament.
The law was brought to parliament by Afghanistan's Shiites, who make up about 15 percent of the population.
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Top commander says Afghan handoff 'years away'
By Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press Writer – Mon Apr 6, 6:27 pm ET
SAN DIEGO – The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan said Monday it will be years before coalition troops can make a complete handoff to Afghan security forces, despite the arrival of thousands of new soldiers beginning this month and signs of diplomatic progress.
Army Gen. David McKiernan told newspaper executives gathered at The Associated Press annual meeting that militant havens across the border in Pakistan remain a challenge. And while he said that the Afghan army is now leading 60 percent of missions in Afghanistan, Afghan police lag in their ability to provide security.
Many of the 21,000 new troops arriving this month will be directed to the nation's southern region and will be trained to work as mentors to Afghan troops in addition to working in counterinsurgency operations.
"What we want to do is make a significant impact on the foundation of security ... and continue to move toward developing sufficient Afghan capacity and specifically, their army, their police, so at some point we can get to a tipping point where they lead the security in this country," he said.
"You're going to ask me when is that tipping point. I can't say, but I think it is a matter of years away," he said in a live satellite interview from Kabul.
In Afghanistan, two visiting U.S. envoys were warned by a former Taliban mullah on Monday against trying to defeat the insurgents militarily.
"No problem in Afghanistan can be solved by fighting," the mullah, speaking through an interpreter, told diplomat Richard Holbrooke and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But the mullah also said the country's religious leaders have resisted demands by the Taliban to issue decrees against the Americans, whom the Taliban view as occupiers.
"Our answer to them was that the Russians were invaders and occupiers," the mullah said, referring to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 that led to a decade-long occupation. "The U.S. and NATO are here to help us."
In his remarks, McKiernan also said his troops had increased targeting of drug operations eight- or tenfold over the past four months, specifically for drug lords or operations that could be tied to insurgents and insurgent funding.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the main ingredient in heroin. The Afghan drug trade accounts for 90 percent of worldwide production. The U.N. estimated last year that up to $500 million from the illegal drug trade flows to Taliban fighters and criminal groups.
"If there is a ... drug kingpin, but he's also connected to the Taliban and he's running weapons or IED (improvised explosive device) materials across the (Pakistan) border, I can make that nexus connection and ... we are doing that," he said.
McKiernan called heroin trafficking "a debilitating system across this country, that eats away at good governance, eats away at progress and it certainly provides a funding source for the insurgency."
The general stressed the need for coalition cooperation in Afghanistan in anti-drug and counterinsurgency efforts. He said he worried about the consequences of America shouldering too much of the burden.
"I am constantly maintaining the attitude that if nations, for a variety of reasons, are unwilling or unable to commit to military operations, commit in another way," he said.
McKiernan said that could include funding, police training and educational services.
He also made a rare — but brief — public reference to Iran when speaking about a "new sense of diplomacy" in the region. It was one of the first times McKiernan has mentioned Iran publicly in the context of regional diplomacy and comes after renewed efforts for diplomacy with Iran by the Obama administration.
"There's a new sense of regional diplomacy, which I think will produce effects as we look to the Afghan neighborhood: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, perhaps even Iran," McKiernan said.
The general did not elaborate.
In Afghanistan, an insurgent rocket attack hit The Netherlands' main military base late Monday, killing one Dutch soldier and wounding seven others, officials said. The wounded included five Dutchmen and two Afghans.
Gen. Peter van Uhm, defense chief in the Netherlands, told reporters in The Hague that four rockets were fired at Camp Holland, the Dutch headquarters in Afghanistan's restive southern province of Uruzgan.
The base has been under fire by Taliban fighters regularly, but the attack was the first to cause causalities.
A total of 19 Dutch soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since August 2006, when the government took the unpopular step of sending 1,650 troops to serve with the NATO-led force. One of the dead was Van Uhm's son, who was killed last year shortly after his father was promoted to military chief.
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Security developments in Afghanistan
April 7 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan as of 0930 GMT on Tuesday:
KANDAHAR - U.S. forces killed four militants and detained two others during a Monday raid on a building used by Taliban in Maywand district, about 400 km (250 miles) southwest of Kabul, the U.S. military said in a statement.
SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN - A roadside bomb in the south of the country killed one NATO-led soldier and wounded three more, the alliance said. It did not release the nationality of the soldiers.
URUZGAN - A NATO-led Dutch soldier was killed by indirect rocket fire in Uruzgan province, about 300 km (190 miles) southwest of Kabul on Monday, the alliance said.
URUZGAN - Afghan and U.S. forces killed two militants in Tirin Kot district, about 380 km (240 miles) southwest of Kabul on Monday, the U.S. military said in a separate statement. (Compiled by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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Taliban Shura hiding in Balochistan, says Admiral Mullen
* Baitullah facilitating Qaeda attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan
Daily Times (Pakistan) April 7, 2009
ISLAMABAD: The top leadership of the Taliban is hiding in Balochistan province, Admiral Mike Mullen, the US Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said.
Pakistan lies at the core of America’s strategic concerns, said Richard Holbrooke, the new US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Holbrooke and Admiral Mullen were talking informally to a select group of invitees to dinner at US Ambassador Anne Patterson’s house in the US embassy compound last night. The American delegation was accompanied by a small group of leading journalists from the top US newspapers, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
The delegation came to Pakistan from Kabul where it met with President Hamid Karzai and over two hundred other notables. Apparently, the Americans were told by Afghan officials that Afghanistan’s problems lay exclusively in Pakistan.
Holbrooke talked of America’s long term commitment to Pakistan’s economy and military and referred to the Kerry-Lugar bill for $7.5 billion for Pakistan over five years.
Asked if the US was winning or losing the war in Afghanistan, Admiral Mullen said that since the US was not winning, it could be said that it was losing it. But Holbrooke put it differently. He said neither the US nor the Al Qaeda-Taliban network was winning it.
Baitullah: Admiral Mullen said that the US was targeting Baitullah Mehsud now because he had established strategic links with Al Qaeda in the past year or so and was facilitating Al Qaeda’s attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
He praised Pakistani COAS General Ashfaq Kayani as a straight-talking general with whom he could work with mutual trust and benefit at the tactical and strategic level. However, the Americans left no doubt in anyone’s mind that the economic and military aid to Pakistan would be linked to Pakistan’s concrete support to the war against Al Qaeda. But they also insisted that America respected Pakistan’s sovereignty and there was no chance of American “boots on ground” in FATA.
After dinner, Holbrooke and Admiral Mullen left to call on President Asif Zardari.
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Romanian, Dutch soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By Fisnik Abrashi, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 7, 5:59 am ET
KABUL – A Romanian officer was killed in a roadside blast Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, where a day earlier rockets killed a Dutch soldier and wounded five others, officials said.
The Romanian vehicle patrol was hit by a roadside bomb northeast of Qalat, the capital of the southern Zabul province, killing the officer and wounding four other troops, the Romanian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
On Monday, in neighboring Uruzgan province insurgents fired rockets at the Netherlands' main base there, killing a Dutch soldier and wounding five others, said Gen. Peter van Uhm, the Dutch defense chief. The base had come under fire by Taliban fighters regularly in the past, but the latest attack was the first to cause causalities.
The Dutch and Romanian troops all served as part of the NATO-led force.
Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency, where thousands of new U.S. troops were ordered to join the fight by President Barack Obama to try to reverse militant gains of the last three years.
Coalition troops, meanwhile, killed four suspected Taliban militants and detained two others following a raid on a bomb-making cell in neighboring Kandahar province Monday, the U.S.-led coalition said in a statement.
The four men were killed "during the engagement" after they attempted to barricade themselves inside a compound in Maywand district, the statement said.
The latest violence comes as the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, said that despite the arrival of 21,000 new U.S. troops this year, it will be years before Afghan forces can be in charge of security.
McKiernan also said his troops had increased targeting of drug operations eight- or 10-fold in the past four months, specifically for drug lords or operations that could be tied to insurgents and insurgent funding.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the main ingredient in heroin. The Afghan drug trade accounts for 90 percent of worldwide production. The U.N. estimated last year that up to $500 million from the illegal drug trade flows to Taliban fighters and criminal groups.
McKiernan told newspaper executives gathered at The Associated Press annual meeting Monday that heroin trafficking was "a debilitating system across this country, that eats away at good governance, eats away at progress and it certainly provides a funding source for the insurgency."
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Aust., US to discuss more troops for Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News - Apr 07 1:22 AM
SYDNEY – Australia is considering sending more military trainers to Afghanistan as part of U.S.-led efforts to bolster coalition troops in the troubled country, the foreign minister said Tuesday.
Stephen Smith said the question of adding to Australia's 1,100-strong troop deployment in Afghanistan would be discussed at annual talks between the foreign and defense ministers from Australia and the United States on Thursday in Washington.
While details have not been announced, Australia is widely expected to agree to send more troops after a formal request is made from Washington.
Smith signaled Tuesday that planning was already under way for a new deployment.
"In some respects ... we've moved beyond the issue of a formal invitation," Smith told Sky News television. "We will expect that in the near future. It's now a matter for us to carefully work through what we regard as being in Australia's national interest."
Smith said the country was "looking not just to the possibility of a military contribution or a further security contribution for election purposes, but also the capacity building and training."
An unsourced report this week in the respected newspaper The Australian said Canberra was planning to order some 250 additional noncombat troops to Afghanistan to train domestic security forces.
Smith said no decision had yet been made, and the topic would be discussed when he and Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
NATO agreed over the weekend to contribute 5,000 more troops to bolster the intensified U.S. push for more security in Afghanistan's cities and its efforts to train soldiers and police in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is gaining strength more than seven years after the hard-line Islamic regime was ousted by U.S.-led forces.
President Barack Obama has decided to send 21,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines this year to buttress 38,000 American troops fighting the Taliban.
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All roads lead to Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online April 7, 2009
KARACHI - The al-Qaeda-led insurgency reached Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Saturday when a suicide bomber killed eight paramilitary police in an attack on a security base. The next day, militants proved through an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in which 26 people died in Chakwal, 90 kilometers south of Islamabad, that this was not an isolated operation.
Very much like Taliban-led insurgents have surrounded the Afghan capital Kabul, militants have stepped up their operations around Islamabad and its twin city, Rawalpindi, the military headquarters.
In telephone calls to the media, a militant claimed the attacks were part of a "campaign against infidels" and he promised two more operations a week in the country if the United States did not stop Predator drone missile strikes on Pakistani territory.
The weekend's strikes are a stark reminder of the escalating militancy in the country ahead of the visit, scheduled for Monday, of the chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke.
They are due to discuss with Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani and the government a joint strategy to eliminate the leadership of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It appears that militants and Washington have chosen Pakistan as their new field on which to wrestle.
Asia Times Online has learnt that the US officials want broader and more direct participation of their civilian officials in Pakistan, without the intervention of the Pakistan armed forces or the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Pakistani President Asif Zardari, the Pakistani ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, and Holbrooke recently discussed a mechanism for new rules of engagement, at a secret meeting in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The parties decided on the issues on which the Pakistan army would be taken on board, and on those that would be dealt with separately through the Pakistani Ministry of Interior and the government of Pakistan.
This plan will raise the US's involvement in Pakistan to an all-time high, possibly including clandestine special operations, beside stepped-up intelligence-sharing.
A section of influential American military thinkers, however, believe that US over-involvement has already caused a severe erosion of US influence in the Middle East and South Asia, and that if the present cycle of involvement is not curtailed, it could be disastrous for American interests. Top jihadi circles close to Taliban leader Mullah Omar have also boasted that the more the American involvement, the more the jihadi plans will succeed.
The Pakistani security forces have so far failed to break militant networks, although they uncovered a safe house in Attock (a town in Punjab province near North-West Frontier Province) following the attack in Lahore on the Sri Lankan cricket team early last month. This implies that the militants have established various active cells all around Islamabad and other important cities of Punjab from where the ruling civil and military establishment comes.
The Chakwal area, where Sunday's attack on the mosque occurred, is where the bulk of the army's personnel comes from, and to date such incidents have been rare.
The new wave of attacks targeting Islamabad and Punjab - the nation's largest province - are not aimed at destroying Pakistan or to setting up a Taliban-style government. Rather, the attacks aim to force Pakistan to be neutral in the "war on terror", leaving the militants and the Americans to settle their dispute in Afghanistan alone.
This is unlikely at present, as mentioned above, because the US is increasing its influence in Pakistan by directly overseeing operations to eliminate al-Qaeda and militants by bypassing the ISI. Again, as mentioned, this carries with it dangers.
Colonel Douglas MacGregor (retired), in a paper presented to the US National Defense University on April 2, emphasized:
- The US can and should avoid direct involvement in most 21st-century conflicts. When conflicts or crises involve US forces, the use of American military power should be limited or terminated before the cumulative human and political costs defeat the original purpose of the US military action.
- The principal strategic purpose for which US armed forces will fight in the 21st century involves securing American prosperity, and where necessary, extending American security to geographical areas vital to US and allied prosperity. Douglas argued that prolonged military involvements only erodes US influence and entices other regional players to meddle.
This strategy does not change America's policy stance on Islamist terrorism. The exportation of Islamist terrorism against the US and its allies must remain a permanent red line in US national military strategy. Governments that knowingly harbor terrorist groups must reckon with the very high probability that they will be subject to attack. However, long-term, large-scale American military occupations, even to ostensibly train indigenous forces to be mirror images of ourselves, are unwise and should be avoided.
Iranian interests gained prominence in Baghdad because Tehran's agents of influence wear an indigenous face while America's agents wear foreign uniforms and carry guns. And Iran will remain the dominant actor in Iraq so long as it maintains even the thinnest veil of concealment behind the facade of the [Nuri] Maliki government and its successors.
The growing US involvement in the region is seen in a different light in jihadi circles, as renowned jihadi leader Abdullah Shah Mazhar told Asia Times Online:
Mullah Omar says one thing very clearly. There is no need to seek advancement in technology to counter the US. They are far superior. Suppose we go one step ahead in technology, they would already be ahead by several steps to counter us. The better strategy is to keep them engaged in our style of warfare, keep them engaged in these rocks and mountains and let them drain.
The US has already run up a bill of US$700 billion for its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Adding Pakistan as a new theater will only add to this cost. And in return, it will lead to growing influence for Russia, China and Iran - and last but not least, the militants.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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Listening in Kabul
Washington Post By David Ignatius Tuesday, April 7, 2009
KABUL - Try to picture the unlikely scene here Monday: A brash U.S. diplomat and America's top military officer are sitting at a conference table with a ferocious-looking delegation of bearded and turbaned Afghan tribal leaders, including one man who spent two years as a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. And they are soliciting the tribal chieftains' advice on U.S. policy options in the Afghanistan war.
A weathered man from Paktia province, the spokesman for the group, fixes the American dignitaries with an unblinking gaze that seems to come out of another millennium. The United States once helped Afghanistan fight against Russian invaders, he says, but now it is walking in the Russians' shoes. America should stop killing Afghan civilians and start talking with some of the Taliban insurgents about how to end the war, he recommends.
And the Americans nod. Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a man sometimes known for being headstrong and pushy, asks the tribal leaders sweetly, "What attracts people to the Taliban?" Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admits to the group that it took the military "too long to recognize the damage we've done with house searches and bombings" and promises that he will consider new ways to limit such harm for the civilian population.
So it went over two days here, as the American officials took the Obama administration's new Afghanistan policy on the road to Kabul. The centerpiece of the plan, announced late last month, is 4,000 more U.S. troops to train the Afghan army and police. In addition to briefing the tribal elders, the two met with delegations of dissident politicians, female parliamentarians, agricultural experts and Muslim leaders from a council known as the ulema.
To each group, Holbrooke and Mullen repeated the same message: The United States isn't supporting or opposing any candidate in the August presidential election; it is spending billions to train Afghanistan's army and police so that U.S. and coalition forces can leave sooner; and it is seeking dialogue with some of the adversaries America is now fighting on the battlefield.
It was a bravura diplomatic show, and it seemed to have the desired effect. "This is exactly what we've been waiting for," said Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan's minister of the interior. He described the Obama policy as "Afghanization" of the war, and he predicted that most of his countrymen would "wholeheartedly support" it. President Hamid Karzai, who rated little more time with the American visitors than did the ulema, may not have been so enthusiastic, given America's neutrality in the election.
Some common messages emerged: Many Afghans specifically blamed Pakistan and its intelligence service, known as the ISI, for funding the Taliban insurgency; they criticized the Karzai government's corruption; and they lauded Holbrooke's pet project for sharply boosting aid to Afghanistan's agricultural sector.
The Afghanistan visit was an unusual exercise in strategic listening for a superpower that during the Bush years treated communications strategy as a problem of talking more loudly. It was especially interesting to see Holbrooke in listening mode. "Give us advice on reconciliation with the Taliban," he implored the religious leaders. "What other suggestions do you have?" he asked the tribal chiefs.
The upbeat tour was deceptive, in a way, in its suggestion that Afghanistan's problems can be fixed by more open talk. An illustration of how hard it will be to turn the war around comes in a security map displayed in Atmar's office. Districts where the insurgency poses a high threat are colored in red; those that are enemy controlled are black. There is an arc of nearly unbroken red and black across the southern half of the country, where more than half the population lives.
Across town, in the U.S. military commanders' conference room, the headline on a PowerPoint slide reads: "The Glass Is Half-Full!" Maybe so, but there's a summer of heavy fighting ahead, and Obama's war may get worse before it gets better.
Watching Holbrooke make nice with the Afghans, the headline that occurred to me was: "Bulldozer Meets Quagmire." A diplomat who began his foreign-service career in Saigon was here searching for a pathway to avoid another Vietnam.
And Afghanistan isn't even the biggest worry for Holbrooke and Mullen. What scares them more is the Taliban insurgency in neighboring Pakistan, where they landed late Monday night on the next stop on the policy road show. As one of the wizened Afghan tribal elders admonished: "Fix the ISI and you will solve the problem."
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NATO MILESTONE MARRED BY SOVIET-STYLE AFGHAN FUDGE
By Arthur Kent, skyreporter.com April 5, 2009
For all the pageantry and symbolism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 60th anniversary summit, its greatest achievement has been to redefine, in the saddest way, the expression “bitter irony.”
The alliance that was born in the afterglow of the civilized world’s victory over fascism, and went on to define itself by standing up to the cruelty of the Soviet empire, stands humbled by a fractious guerrilla army led by the killers of school girls, which relies upon the support of one of NATO’s putative allies, Pakistan – the same state that contributed to the Soviets’ undoing by the Afghan mujahideen.
The summit in Strasbourg/Kehl ended without discussing, much less adopting, any new stratagems to counter the Pakistan military’s backing for Mullah Omar and his Afghan Taliban leadership council.
As well, the alliance’s leaders offered no explanation as to how the lives of Afghan civilians will be protected during this year’s expected upsurge of fighting.
Worst of all, NATO’s political leaders congratulated themselves for committing only 3,000 more troops and 2,000 trainers to the war zone. That's about the same number of soldiers the Soviet Army deployed in the mid-1980’s to defend just one of its bases on the southwest outskirts of Kabul.
Even the participation of an articulate, well-intentioned new American president could not reverse the effective emasculation of NATO through the misguided policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
And so the politicians produced PR instead of results: from Obama to Brown, the conference was hailed as a great success. It was left to the diminutive French president, as co-host, to utter the most embarrassing lie.
“The time of international summits where we talk and do nothing is over,” pronounced Nicholas Sarkozy – who refuses to send more French forces to Afghanistan, and who, like the other NATO leaders, said not a word about Mullah Omar’s sanctuary in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.
It was pure propaganda, prettied up with high-flown rhetoric about “comprehensive approaches” and “renewing the alliance to meet the challenges of our time.”
Witnesses to the past three decades of warfare in Afghanistan have heard this kind of guff before. The Soviets and their Afghan Communist client regime read from much the same script, laced with clichés like “internationalist duty.”
By the mid-1980’s, the Soviets showed themselves to be incapable of coming up with new ideas to deploy against the Western-backed mujahideen. It became clear to all the parties to the conflict that the Red Army was in for a drubbing, and eventually would have to give up and limp homeward.
NATO’s political glitterati appear destined for the same fate. The politicians’ words and actions reveal a marked detachment from the realities faced by their troops on the battlefield. Each day, the soldiers are putting their lives on the line for the mission, while their “excellent suits” look only for the back door.
The people of Afghanistan feel betrayed: the foreigners’ current buzz phrase, “lowering expectations,” shouts cut-and-run in anyone’s language.
Quite likely, that’s just what Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi was mumbling into his cell phone as he delayed the NATO proceedings. With the marital rape bill, President “Pazzo” Karzai has given Italy and all the allies a good excuse to shoulder their assault rifles and go home (never mind that Karzai, his regime and its dysfunctional policies are all, in large part, creations of the U.S.-led coalition).
Clearly, Pakistan isn’t the only faithless foreign interloper on the Afghan scene.
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Military Budget Reflects a Shift in U.S. Strategy
New York Times By ELISABETH BUMILLER and CHRISTOPHER DREW April 6, 2009
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced a major reshaping of the Pentagon budget on Monday, with deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but new billions of dollars for others, along with more troops and new technology to fight the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The decisions are expected to set off a vigorous round of lobbying over the priorities embroidered into the Defense Department's half-trillion dollars of annual spending. They represent the first broad rethinking of American military strategy under the Obama administration, which plans to shift more money to counterterrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan while spending less on preparations for conventional warfare against large nations like China and Russia.
Mr. Gates announced cuts in missile defense programs, the Army's expensive Future Combat Systems and Navy shipbuilding operations. He would kill controversial programs to build a new presidential helicopter and a new communications satellite system, delay the development of a new bomber and order only four more of the advanced F-22 fighter jets.
But he also said plans to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, while halting reductions in Air Force and Navy personnel, would cost an additional $11 billion. He also announced an extra $2 billion for intelligence and surveillance equipment, including new Predator and Reaper drones, the remote-controlled vehicles currently used in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq for strikes against militants, and more spending on special forces and training foreign military units.
More broadly, Mr. Gates signaled that he hoped to impose a new culture on the Pentagon — making the system more flexible and responsive to the needs of the troops in the way it chooses and buys weapons.
Even so, he acknowledged that it would be hard, with the economic crisis and concerns in Congress over jobs, to “make tough choices about specific systems and defense priorities based solely on the national interest and then stick to those decisions over time.”
Military experts said Mr. Gates seemed to be mounting a determined effort to rein in some of the most troubled programs after years of record military spending and start dealing with the huge cost overruns and delays that have plagued so many programs.
But some noted that other presidents and defense secretaries had been stymied in making similar efforts in the past, and they said that leaders of military-related committees in Congress would undoubtedly try to save the F-22, C-17 cargo planes and other systems that Mr. Gates would like to cut.
Representative Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Monday in a statement that while Mr. Gates's proposed budget was a “good faith” effort, “the buck stops with Congress, which has the critical constitutional responsibility to decide whether to support these proposals.”
And some military analysts reacted to Mr. Gates's promise of budget revolution with skepticism. Andrew H. Krepinevich Jr., a military expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said that it was hard to tell how much Mr. Gates was reducing spending over all because he was increasing spending in unspecified amounts in some areas and had not put a net dollar amount on his entire proposal.
Mr. Krepinevich said he anticipated that Mr. Gates's reductions would not close the $25 billion to $50 billion Bush-era gap between military programs and the spending for them, and that future cuts would most likely be needed.
He noted that some of Mr. Gates's cuts were less than draconian. While the secretary chose to emphasize smaller, speedy ships for close-in waters, the slower shipbuilding he proposed for the deep-water Navy would not reduce the number of aircraft-carrier battle groups at sea to 10 from 11 until after 2040.
While he capped the number of the $150 million combat plane, the Air Force's F-22, at 187, he promised to speed the testing of another fighter, the F-35, and maintain plans to eventually buy 2,443 of the planes. While he canceled the purchases of eight Army vehicles to allow for more study and a rebidding, he said he would also speed the development of costly electronic sensors for troops.
And while he promised to fix the flawed procurement processes that allow weapons prices to soar, he said he wanted to hire tens of thousands of civil servants to do the work, since contracting that out to the private sector has not proven efficient.
“The perennial procurement and contracting cycle, going back many decades, of adding layer and layer of cost and complexity onto fewer and fewer platforms that take longer and longer to build, must come to an end,” he said. “There is broad agreement on the need for acquisition and contracting reform in the Department of Defense. There have been enough studies, enough hand-wringing, enough rhetoric. Now is the time for action.”
The changes will mean fewer big ships, and a reduction in the number of Army brigades, but with the same number of troops so that the combat forces are not hollowed out, and bolstering the Army's helicopter forces, Mr. Gates said. He added that he wanted to add 2,800 to the ranks of special forces troops and more cyber security experts.
Spending on missile defense programs will be scaled back by $1.4 billion over all. Mr. Gates proposed increasing spending to defend against relatively limited attacks by smaller powers with shorter-range missiles, adding interceptors aboard ships but not on land in Alaska. But he would cancel or delay some of the more exotic programs to counter intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Mr. Gates also said that while he planned to halt a Navy program to build a new class of stealth destroyers, he would finish constructing the first three ships if the contractors agreed to allow all of them to be built at one shipyard instead of the dividing the work between two yards. Otherwise, he would only build one of the $3 billion ships.
This year Mr. Gates made the unusual decision to publicly announce his proposed reductions in the Pentagon budget before the recommendations are sent to the White House.
Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters last week that Mr. Gates, a Republican who has worked for eight presidents of both parties, may have been trying to provide some political cover for Mr. Obama over the cuts.
Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican, reacted strongly against Mr. Gates's proposal to end spending for the F-22, which employs 25,000 workers in Georgia and across the country.
“It's outrageous that President Obama is willing to bury the country under a mountain of debt with his reckless domestic agenda but refuses to fund programs critical to our national defense,” Mr. Price said in a statement.
In addition, a bipartisan group of six senators urged Mr. Gates not to make large cuts in missile defense programs. In a letter to Mr. Obama, they said the reductions “could undermine our emerging missile defense capabilities to protect the United States against a growing threat.”
The group included the Republicans Jon Kyl of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma as well as Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, and Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.
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Mass-Grave in Kabul Education Dept
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 06 April 2009
Afghan authorities have confirmed uncover of the grave – 30-40 bodies are expected there
Kabul police has said the mass grave have found in the yard of Kabul education department in the west of the Afghan capital.
Police officials said they have began investigations to recognize the dead bodies found collectively in the grave.
Spokesman for the Ministry of Education, Mohammad Asif Nang, said, “The bodies found during a construction work and probably 30 -40 bodies were buried there.”
He said they have paused the work progress when the bodies discovered in the field.
West of Kabul had witnessed a fierce of fighting for the past ten years and more corpses are expected in that part of the city.
The reason and the time of the incident have been yet remained unknown and no certified confirmation has made.
According to the Spokesman of the Ministry of Education, an investigative unit of Afghanistan Human Rights Commission appeared in the scene and performed primary investigations.
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said 180 mass graves have been found last year in the country which included 1,200 bodies.
Nader Naderi, Spokesman for Human Rights Commission said research about the mass-murder is an evidence for the crimes committed in Afghanistan.
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Abdullah: the 11-year-old suspected suicide bomber who is Afghanistan's youngest terrorist
An 11-year-old boy known only as Abdullah has been dubbed the world's youngest terrorist after he was arrested wearing a suicide vest.
By Aislinn Simpson The Telegraph (UK) April 7, 2009
The boy, who is originally from Peshawar in Pakistan, has become Afghanistan's youngest terror suspect. He is being held at one of the country's top security prisons, operated by Kabul's Intelligence Service.
He is said to have chosen a Kalashnikov as a weapon because he found a pistol's trigger too difficult to pull. He is an orphan and his voice has not yet broken.
Abdullah learned about holy war, or jihad, at a religious school, where he studied the Koran in the morning and weaponry in the evening, as well as hearing how foreigners were killed women and children in Muslim countries.
He went to Afghanistan with his cousin, who visited him at school and invited him on an outing.
He walked over the mountains into the country with a group of men, and was given an oversized jacket to put on.
When he was arrested, the jacket was found to be packed with explosives.
Abdullah has been confirmed as Afghanistan's youngest prisoner and is also being described as the world's youngest terrorist.
He was interviewed in prison by ITV News's International Editor Bill Neely, who wrote about the visit in the Daily Mirror ahead of a full report on tonight's ITV News at Ten.
Mr Neely wrote of his visit: "When I saw him in the prison office which is now his cell, my jaw dropped. I'd been told I would meet a youth who had been arrested with a group of Taliban fighters – but I didn't expect the picture of apparent innocence that confronted me.
"I watched this little boy speak, his high-pitched voice so innocent, pouring out the detail of an adventure he had clearly relished."
Mr Neely asked the boy how he felt about being a suicide bomber: "He said he knew he'd be in pieces. But he also knew the difference between suicide, which God forbade, and sacrifice, which is what you become if you blow yourself up, killing the non-Muslims who want to kill your family.
"Afterwards you would go straight to heaven, with 70 girls. I suspect he didn't care too much about the girls. But when I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, he said: 'When I'm older I'll kill non-Muslims. If I don't, they'll come to our homes and kill us'."
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Plight of Pakistan's displaced
By Barbara Plett BBC News, Katcha Ghari camp near Peshawar Sunday, 5 April 2009
Last year Pakistan finally closed camps that had housed Afghan refugees for three decades. During the past six months it's been forced to reopen them, this time for its own people.
In the Katcha Ghari camp near Peshawar, at the edge of abandoned and crumbling Afghan homes, row after row of tents stretch into the distance.
They are divided into clan and family groupings and separated by neatly packed dirt roads, lending an air of permanence to a temporary village.
This is the other side of Pakistan's battle against the Taleban and al-Qaeda.
Huge cost
More than half a million people have been displaced by the fighting in the tribal belt near the Afghan border. And American plans to intensify the conflict in the border region could deepen the crisis.
Already the government is struggling to cope.
Thousands of homes have been destroyed by military operations, particularly in the tribal area of Bajaur.
The army has declared victory, saying it has won back territory from the militants. But this has been at a huge cost to civilians.
Many have fled to the camps, many more have squeezed in with relatives or rented cheap accommodation. They are not sure it's safe to return, and few have anything left to go back to.
Some of the tents in Katcha Ghari serve as makeshift classrooms. These provide a refuge from the conflict for children. Their schools have been targeted by militants, and used as bases by the army.
For girls especially, school is the plus side of homelessness. Bound by the conservative tribal culture, they are rarely educated.
But 12-year-old Samina Khanpur has just had the opportunity to finish kindergarten and enter first grade.
She remembers bombing raids, and cowers in her tent when planes fly overhead, but comes eagerly to learn her lessons.
Flattened
"I miss my home," she says, "but the school is the one good thing about this place."
Otherwise camp life can be very difficult for women, accustomed to strict segregation from men who are not family members.
United Nations agencies have set up canvas walls around clusters of tents to give women more privacy.
We enter one of these with Zaman ur Rehman, a subsistence farmer who has two wives, 16 children and 20 grandchildren.
There are men in our party, so the women conceal themselves in one of the tents for the duration of the visit.
Mr Rehman tells us his home has been flattened. He considers himself lucky because it was bombed after he left, although one of his children died during the family's flight from Bajaur.
Camp life is hard, but he is not moving unless he gets government help.
"If there's peace we'll go back," he says, "but after all we've suffered, we should be compensated, so we can go and rebuild our houses."
That is the consensus in the camp.
"We can't do anything else," says a teacher, Abdul Haleem. "They've destroyed the whole village, the whole market. There are no hospitals, no schools, no teachers in Bajaur. They're all here."
Mr Haleem and the camp dwellers are angry with the military and confused. They tell me they do not understand a war that punishes civilians. They want the army to make peace with the Taleban, even defend the militants against the Americans.
"The Taleban have stood up against bombardment by US missile strikes, and the army should tell the Americans to stop this!" says Mr Haleem.
The government of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has appealed to the federal authorities and international donors to supply funds not only for relief, but return and rehabilitation.
Crime rate
Currently it is planning to provide services for the displaced until the end of the year, but by then, others could swell their ranks.
US President Barack Obama has declared Pakistan's border region the most dangerous place on Earth. It seems likely that conflict there will increase in the coming months, including more American missile strikes.
If so, "there will be more displaced people coming to this region", says the province's Social Welfare Minister Sitara Ayaz.
"We know how difficult it was when they first came and it still is for us. So it's a concern for us, if more people come here and if they are not going back, then it will be a very big problem. The crime rate could increase. When you don't have food and shelter, a lot of things happen."
It's already a big problem: recent clashes at another camp between police and protesters demanding compensation left one person dead, raising fears of further unrest if the displaced do not get money soon to rebuild their homes.
Mr Obama calls Islamic militancy a cancer that is destroying Pakistan from within. But for many of the tribespeople, the cure seems as deadly as the disease.
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Ireland cane Canada as Afghanistan fail again
by David Legge Mon Apr 6, 12:49 pm ET
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Ireland outplayed Canada in the 2011 Cricket World Cup Qualifier feature match here on Monday while fairytale contenders Afghanistan lost again.
Undefeated knocks by Kevin O'Brien (89) and Eoin Morgan (84) steered pre-tournament favourites Ireland to a six-wicket triumph over Canada at Willowmoore Park.
Afghanistan, a fifth-division nation who defied heavy odds to win three earlier tournaments, could have done with some of that batting power as only Karim Sadiq (72) impressed in a five-wicket loss to the Netherlands.
Ireland, Canada, Scotland, Kenya, Netherlands and United Arab Emirates have secured places in the second-phase Super Eights with one series of first-round matches left.
The remaining Group A place rests between Namibia, Uganda and Oman while Afghanistan or Bermuda will go forward from Group B where Denmark are out of contention.
Teams finishing first to fourth in the Super Eights secure places at the World Cup in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka beside the 10 elite nations headed by defending champions Australia.
Only Geoff Barnett (49) and John Davison (41) impressed with the bat as Canada were all out for 220 and Ireland recovered from 42-4 as O'Brien and Morgan gradually cut loose.
O'Brien hit nine fours and a six off 104 balls and Morgan 10 fours and a six off 100 against a Canadian attack in which only Umar Bhatti (3-28) experienced success.
Morgan said the cheap loss of four wickets did not concern him: "I was pretty calm about it. It was a good wicket so by building a solid base I could be there at the end.
"Kevin and I compliment each other quite well at the crease. He is an aggressive player who hits boundaries pretty much anywhere he wants while I like to accumulate my runs so it was a good partnership.
"The right-left combination worked well, especially as the wicket was not turning. The spinners found it very difficult to settle and then we made it tough for them at the end," said Morgan.
Ireland, beaten at home by Scotland in the final of the previous tournament, face one-win Namibia on Wednesday and are virtually certain to take a 100 percent record into the Super Eights.
Many of the team from war-torn Afghanistan honed their skills in Pakistan refugee camps after fleeing the conflict at home and they came to South Africa hoping to complete a magical qualifying ride that began in Jersey last year.
But fears about batting depth were exposed on Saturday by Kenya and 204-9 was never going to be enough against the Dutch, who amassed 208-5 in 46.2 overs.
Daan van Bunge led the way with an undefeated 65, including two sixes, as Netherlands climbed from 80-4 against an Afghan attack that found the going tough apart from two-wicket Mohammad Nabi.
The other matches brought wins for Scotland over Uganda, Namibia over Oman, Kenya over Bermuda and UAE over Denmark in a clash that saw the highest team and individual scores so far with Amjad Javed contributing 164 of 379 runs.
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Task Force Calls for Comprehensive New Strategy in the US Administration’s Efforts to Stabilize Afghanistan-Pakistan
New York, April 2, 2009—An Asia Society task force report released today recommends a comprehensive reformulation of US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan amidst rapidly deteriorating conditions in both countries. The report argues that much of the effort in Afghanistan over recent years has been strategically unfocused and often counter-productive. Incremental changes alone, such as more troops or more aid, cannot address the monumental challenge the US faces in the region. The US must focus on isolating and defeating Al Qaeda and eliminating their sanctuaries in the region by providing security for the Afghan population, providing for the long-term stabilization of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and encouraging regional cooperation in support of the above goals.
Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan was co-chaired by former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Dr. Barnett Rubin, one of the foremost experts on Afghanistan. Other notable task force members included former Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann, as well as Ambassador Teresita Schaffer, Ahmed Rashid, Peter Bergen, and Rory Stewart. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, former Chairman of the Asia Society and current Special Representative for Afghanistan-Pakistan, as well as National Security Adviser General James Jones were also members of the task force but stepped down to assume their new appointments before the first draft of the report was completed.
“This report is an unprecedented call for dramatic policy changes, both in terms of the caliber of its authors and the scope of their recommendations. As the new US administration and the UN—really, the world—look for answers for this region, this task force provides a bold new vision for the way forward,” said Asia Society President Vishakha N. Desai.
The task force acknowledges that American interests and objectives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan nexus remain critically important to US security and addressing the threat of al-Qaida and its allies, but emphasizes that policy must be grounded in a realistic understanding of what is achievable. To achieve lasting stability, US strategy in the region must integrate counterterrorism, governance, economic development, and regional objectives.
The report includes the following recommendations:
• “Explicitly end the rhetorical emphasis on the “war on terror” and define our enemy as those who attacked our nation—al-Qaida and its allies.”
• “End Operation Enduring Freedom, the counter-terrorism command in Afghanistan, because al-Qaida’s sanctuary is now in Pakistan, not Afghanistan and integrate all troops an operations under a single NATO-ISAF command.”
• “Begin negotiations on a Status of Forces Agreement to be concluded after the next round of elections.”
• “Separate funding for Afghanistan, including for security forces, from Iraq.”
• “Engage with the Afghan government and the United Nations to ensure an accepted and legitimate constitutional transition of presidential power and a more effective government.”
• “Transfer assistance to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund and security duties to official institutions, Afghan and international, as soon as possible, consistent with transparency and fiduciary oversight.”
• “Combat narcotics by…taking a gradual [yet systemic] approach to this huge industry, rather than artificially trying to make economic transformation a quick-fix counterinsurgency strategy.”
• “Support efforts in Pakistan…to integrate FATA into the mainstream of Pakistan and create conditions under which Pakistan can take direct responsibility for the security of its borders, and Afghanistan can recognize them as open borders.”
• “Focus regional policy on creating conditions for the transformation of Pakistan’s security doctrine so that it no longer requires the use of covertly supported guerrilla forces against neighbors.”
• “Establish regular dialogue and exchanges over Afghanistan and Pakistan with Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, the Central Asian states, and Saudi Arabia.”
Full version of the report and the web-cast of the panel discussion about the report with Lord Paddy Ashdown, Dr. Barnett Rubin, Steve Coll and Ambassador Francesc Vendrell are available at http://www.asiasociety.org/taskforces/afpak/
________________________________________
Task Force Members
Co-Chairs
Ambassador Thomas Pickering
Vice Chairman, Hills & Company
Dr. Barnett Rubin
Director of Studies and Senior Fellow
Center for International Cooperation, NYU
Project Director
Dr. Jamie F. Metzl
Executive Vice President, Asia Society
Members
Mr. Peter Bergen
Schwartz Senior Fellow
New America Foundation
Dr. Vishakha N. Desai
President, Asia Society
Mr. Thomas E. Freston
Principal, Firefly3
and Asia Society Trustee
Ambassador Karl F. Inderfurth
John O. Rankin Professor
Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University
Ms. Ellen Laipson
President and Chief Executive Officer, Henry L. Stimson Center
Ms. Clare Lockhart
Co-founder and Director
Institute for State Effectiveness
Dr. M. Ishaq Nadiri
Jay Gould Professor of Economics
New York University
Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann
President, American Academy of Diplomacy
Mr. Ahmed Rashid
Pakistani Journalist and Author
Ambassador Teresita Schaffer
Director, South Asia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Mr. Rory Stewart
Executive Director
Turquoise Mountain Foundation
The Asia Society is an international organization dedicated to strengthening relationships and deepening understanding among the peoples of Asia and the United States. We seek to increase knowledge and enhance dialogue, encourage creative expression, and generate new ideas across the fields of policy, business, education, arts, and culture.
Founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, the Society reaches audiences around the world through its headquarters in New York and regional centers in Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Hong Kong, Seoul, Manila, Melbourne, Mumbai, and Shanghai.The Asia Society is supported by contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Asia Society is on the Web at www.asiasociety.org.
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Afghan travels across Europe strapped under bus
Mon Apr 6, 2:19 pm ET
WARSAW (AFP) – An Afghan youth survived a 30-hour journey from Athens strapped underneath a bus, only to discover that he had arrived in Poland and not his chosen destination Italy, border guards said Monday.
"The man, aged 19 years old, was hidden near the gear box, attached with a belt," Elzbieta Pikor, spokesman for the Polish border guard, told AFP.
Polish transport mechanics had discovered him as they were checking the bus.
"Italia?" the young man asked as he emerged from his hiding place after the 2,800-kilometre (1,700-mile) journey.
In fact, he had arrived in Nowa Deba, southern Poland, having picked the wrong bus, another from the same line having left Athens for Italy.
"He was exhausted, frozen and starving, but in good health," said Pikor.
The would-be immigrant had travelled through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Slovakia along the way, the gear cable scratching his face every time the bus changed gears.
He was carrying no papers and gave his name only as Yahiya, saying he was from the Afghan capital Kabul.
He will be kept in a Polish detention centre pending a decision on his request for refugee status.
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