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US warns Karzai on fraud, corruption, militia ties
Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:53pm EDT By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - U.S. envoys and lawmakers have bluntly warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai that American patience is running out, citing concerns about allegations of fraud and corruption
US envoy in testy vote meeting with Karzai: source
By Shaun Tandon (AFP)
WASHINGTON — Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US envoy Richard Holbrooke engaged in a testy exchange over recent elections, a source said, underscoring potentially cooler US ties if Karzai wins another term.
Abdullah Spurns Karzai’s ‘Mafia-Like’ Political Deals (Update1)
By James Rupert
Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah says he won’t take part in a power-sharing deal with incumbent Hamid Karzai, if that means accepting what he views as a fraudulent election.
Afghanistan's Long Vote Count: Room for Mischief?
By Jason Motlagh time.com Kabul Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009
The frantic run-up to Afghanistan's presidential election has given way to a bitter anti-climax. Even as results trickle in, they are in danger of being overwhelmed by mounting claims of fraud from the leading candidates,
Abdullah's spokesman says Afghan election may be falsified
KABUL, August 27 (RIA Novosti) - The campaign chief of Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah said they would appeal the results of the poll if it is falsified.
Obama's Next Move in Afghanistan
By Joe Klein time.com Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009
The early returns from Afghanistan's presidential election had the smell of a decorous massage job. With 10% of districts reporting, the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, the former Foreign Minister,
US general orders new mindset in Afghanistan
August 27, 2009
KABUL (AFP) – The top commander in Afghanistan has ordered the 100,000 Western troops in the country to change their mindset to win the fight against an insurgency now at its deadliest, the military said Thursday.
Afghanistan Election Results on Hold for at Least Two Days
By Steve Herman VOA News 27 August 2009
Afghanistan's voters are going to have to wait a bit longer to received further results of ballot counting from last week's presidential election.
Afghan Incumbent Widens Lead in Vote
Lotfullah Najafizada Quqnoos August 27, 2009
An updated Afghan vote count shows President Karzai far ahead of his closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah
UK: Troops did not die for just 150 Afghan votes
LONDON, England (CNN) -- UK officials have sought to play down low voter turnout in Afghanistan's elections amid reports just 150 people cast their ballots in an area where four British troops died securing it from the Taliban.
Afghanistan caught in complex guessing game
by Lynne O'donnell – Thu Aug 27, 4:05 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – As Afghans await the results of a bitterly contested election, their country is caught in a complex guessing game about who will be their next president and how solid his mandate will be.
Alleged Drug Ties of Top Afghan Official Worry U.S.
New York Times By JAMES RISEN and MARK LANDLER August 26, 2009
WASHINGTON - It was a heated debate during the Bush administration: What to do about evidence that Afghanistan’s powerful defense minister was involved in drug trafficking? Officials from the time say they needed him
Afghan threats mean empty ballot boxes
by Emmanuel Duparcq
PUL-I-ALAM, Afghanistan, Aug 27, 2009 (AFP) - The inhabitants of Logar province remember election day very clearly -- a day when they stayed at home, frightened by rockets and rebel threats, and the ballot boxes remained empty.
In southern Afghan city, fears of Taliban takeover
By Noor Khan And Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writers – Thu Aug 27, 4:53 pm ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Southern Afghanistan's largest city, Kandahar, is slipping back under Taliban control as overstretched U.S. troops focus on clearing insurgents from the countryside — a potentially alarming setback for President Barack Obama's war strategy.
AFGHANISTAN: POPULAR ANGER SIMMERS OVER ELECTORAL FRAUD ALLEGATIONS
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/26/09 Eurasianet
Six days after Afghanistan’s presidential poll, the legitimacy of the outcome appears threatened by a lack of electoral transparency, negligible pressure from Afghanistan’s international sponsors, and a complaint mechanism
London mum on Afghan elections
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- London believes it cannot draw any conclusions regarding the outcome of the Afghan presidential election as poll results trickle in, officials say.
Danish FM urges Karzai to speed up reform: report
August 27, 2009
COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Denmark's Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller hit out at Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday, accusing him of failing to speed up democratic reforms in the war-torn country.
Afghans in greatest danger since Taliban fell: Amnesty
Thu Aug 27, 3:21 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – Amnesty International said Thursday civilians were at a greater danger in Afghanistan than at any time since the Taliban extremists were ousted from power in 2001.
Nato attack on Afghanistan clinic
Thursday, 27 August 2009 10:48 UK BBC News
US and Afghan forces attacked a clinic in eastern Afghanistan where a Taliban leader was being treated for injuries he sustained last week, Nato has said.
Roadside bomb kills 4 police, wounds 3 more in E Afghanistan
Poople's Daily - Aug 27 7:36 PM
Four police were killed and three others sustained injuries as a roadside bomb struck their van in Khost province of east Afghanistan on Thursday, police said.
Afghan forces kill 12 Taliban in clinic siege: NATO
August 27, 2009
KABUL (AFP) - A fierce gunfight backed by US helicopter fire paralysed a district in eastern Afghanistan after Taliban forced their way into a clinic seeking treatment for their leader, officials and NATO said Thursday.
12 Taliban insurgents killed in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- A dozen Taliban insurgents were killed in clash with security forces in the eastern Paktika province, a press release of the local administration said Thursday.
Taliban commander captured in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- An Afghan-led security force captured a suspected Taliban leader in a raid on a medical clinic in the Sar Hawza district of Paktika province, NATO said.
US military in Afghanistan denies rating reporters
27 Aug 2009 18:06:49 GMT By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. military in Afghanistan defended itself on Thursday against accusations that a company it employs was rating the work of reporters and suggesting ways to make their war coverage more positive.
Shortage Of Civilian Experts Slows Afghan Rebuilding
by Tom Bowman NPR - National Public Radio August 26, 2009
Thousands of American troops are setting up combat outposts throughout Afghanistan. But in order to rebuild the country, U.S. civilian experts in fields such as farming, irrigation and the rule of law are needed.
Afghan bar groups demand compensation for Guantanamo detainee
KABUL, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The head of Afghanistan Independent Bar Association (AIBA) Rohullah Qarizada Thursday demanded the United States to pay compensation for Mohammad Javad, a young Afghan
Afghan Youths Seek a New Life in Europe
By CAROLINE BROTHERS The New York Times
PARIS — On the edges of a Salvation Army soup line in Paris, a soft-spoken Afghan boy told the story recently of how he ended up in Europe, alone.
US missile strike 'kills four Taliban' in Pakistan
Thu Aug 27, 6:43 am ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A US missile strike from a drone aircraft Thursday killed at least four Taliban militants in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, officials said.
Afghanistan clinch maiden first-class victory
Thu Aug 27, 1:37 AM
AMSTELVEEN, Netherlands (AFP) - Four months after securing one-day international status, Afghanistan on Wednesday celebrated their maiden first-class victory with a one-wicket victory over the Netherlands.
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US warns Karzai on fraud, corruption, militia ties
Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:53pm EDT By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - U.S. envoys and lawmakers have bluntly warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai that American patience is running out, citing concerns about allegations of fraud and corruption and attempts to prejudge the outcome of last week's election, participants said on Thursday.
Karzai met twice with U.S. President Barack Obama's envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, after the Aug. 20 presidential election, including a private lunch in Kabul that turned "tense" when the U.S. envoy raised the possibility of a run-off.
After that confrontation, the two finished dessert and shook hands, officials said.
U.S. tensions with Karzai, in meetings with Holbrooke and a visiting delegation of U.S. senators, reflected both election-time stress and growing discord in American relations with the man who has been leading Afghanistan since the Taliban was overthrown in 2001.
Endemic government corruption and his close ties with former militia leaders have eroded Karzai's support, both with the Afghan people and with Washington policymakers.
The Obama administration was particularly disturbed by Karzai's last-minute alliance with Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, officials said.
"He (Karzai) has hurt himself in the eyes of a lot of people," a Western observer close to U.S. deliberations explained of Dostum's role in Karzai's campaign.
U.S. officials say Dostom, who fought for Afghanistan's Soviet-backed Communist government and later switched sides repeatedly during years of factional civil war, may be responsible for war crimes.
Karzai justified the move to Washington, telling officials he believed Dostum, who enjoys the overwhelming backing of ethnic Uzbeks in the north of Afghanistan, delivered key votes that could put him over the top.
CLOSE RACE
Karzai would need more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off, but partial tallies so far show a close race with his leading challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.
Tensions flared the day after the election, when Karzai's campaign drew Washington's ire by declaring victory even though none of the results had been released by the independent election commission.
Washington fears such declarations undercut the commission and cast doubt on the election's legitimacy.
At their lunch meeting, Holbrooke urged Karzai to respect the election process, particularly given the possibility of a run-off. Karzai, who has told Washington that a run-off risks igniting ethnic violence, became angry, officials said.
Holbrooke has said Washington would make the fight against corruption a central focus after the election, a move that could further stoke tensions with a Karzai administration.
U.S. officials fear allegations of fraud will undermine Afghan public support for whatever government emerges after the election.
"There's been wholesale fraud to the benefit of Karzai in the past but there is no evidence that he was personally involved in fraud," a U.S. State Department official said after the vote.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll showed most Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting and only a quarter say more troops should be sent there.
"It's the last chance," Senator Sherrod Brown said, describing the message his congressional delegation delivered to Karzai last week during a post-election visit to Kabul. (Reporting by Adam Entous; editing by Todd Eastham)
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US envoy in testy vote meeting with Karzai: source
By Shaun Tandon (AFP)
WASHINGTON — Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US envoy Richard Holbrooke engaged in a testy exchange over recent elections, a source said, underscoring potentially cooler US ties if Karzai wins another term.
Holbrooke, a veteran US diplomat who is the special envoy to the region, pressed the Afghan leader on last week's elections amid allegations of widespread vote-rigging, an official with knowledge of the meeting told AFP.
"It was a difficult meeting and there were some sharp exchanges in it," the official said in Washington on condition of anonymity.
Holbrooke met with all of the candidates in Afghanistan's second-ever presidential election and shared a meal with Karzai on August 21, the day after the vote.
"The thrust of the meeting was to respect the electoral process, let it take its course and be patient and to respect the results, whatever they are," the US official said.
The official said Holbrooke reiterated to each candidate the public US line that Washington was neutral in the race and steered clear of recommending any new vote while waiting for complete results.
Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the aftermath of the 2001 US-led military operation that ousted the extremist Taliban regime, enjoys a narrow lead as results trickle in.
His main competitor, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, has railed against what he says is vast state-engineered fraud but has urged his supporters to be patient and work through the electoral system.
Karzai enjoyed a warm relationship with former US president George W. Bush, with whom he often consulted by videoconference. Bush's ambassador to Kabul, Zalmay Khalizad, was a frequent dinner guest of Karzai.
Karzai's relationship is widely seen as cooler with President Barack Obama's administration.
Members of the Obama team have been alarmed at what they see as a lack of action against corruption and were taken aback by Karzai's alliances with warlords accused of human rights abuses during Afghanistan's nearly three decades of war.
The United States has been particularly concerned over Karzai's running mate, former anti-Taliban commander Mohammed Qasim Fahim, raising questions about how Washington will deal with him if he becomes vice president.
A senior State Department official said the administration has had "a number of conversations" with the Afghan government about its composition.
Human Rights Watch has called Fahim one of Afghanistan's "most notorious warlords" and said he is widely believed still to run armed militias that give cover to drug traffickers and other criminals.
Karzai has defended Fahim, calling him a war hero and a unifying force. Fahim is a Tajik, the second largest ethnic group in Afghanistan after Karzai's Pashtuns.
Separately, Obama last month ordered an investigation into allegations another Karzai ally, Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, killed up to 2,000 prisoners in 2001 and that the Bush administration failed to probe the charges.
Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who led the Obama team's review of policy to the region, said Dostum was "renowned for his brutality -- even by Afghan standards, and that's a pretty high standard."
"The point here is if Karzai is returned to office now because of Dostum as his supporter, then hopes for anti-corruption and good governance and the rest are going to be rather bleak in the new second round of a Karzai administration," Riedel said.
Obama has made eradicating Islamic extremism from the region a key priority in his young presidency and deployed another 21,000 troops to Afghanistan.
Obama has also faulted the Bush administration for too closely linking US policy to Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who was replaced a year ago by civilian President Asif Ali Zardari.
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Abdullah Spurns Karzai’s ‘Mafia-Like’ Political Deals (Update1)
By James Rupert
Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah says he won’t take part in a power-sharing deal with incumbent Hamid Karzai, if that means accepting what he views as a fraudulent election.
“I don’t find a place for myself in this mafia-type system,” Abdullah said in an interview last night at his home in Kabul. He spoke hours after the Independent Election Commission said Karzai had widened his lead, 42 percent to 33 percent for Abdullah, with about 17 percent of votes counted.
Abdullah said he “will not accept the outcome” if Karzai is declared the victor, unless election authorities resolve a growing mass of formal reports of fraud, which total 1,915, according to Ahmed Muslim Khuram, a spokesman for the Electoral Complaints Commission.
Local and provincial government and electoral officials helped conduct a “state-engineered fraud,” stuffing ballot boxes for Karzai and discarding voting papers marked for other candidates, he said.
Complaints of fraud have spiked, with 1,448 received in the week since polling day on Aug. 20, and “most of them are from ordinary citizens, instead of candidates” or their campaign teams, Khuram said. The reports of fraud, combined with a lower turnout than in the first presidential poll in 2004, may undercut U.S. hopes that it will strengthen the Afghan government politically for its conflict with Taliban Islamic insurgents.
Stronger Government
The Obama administration has said a stronger Afghan government that meets Afghans’ needs is the eventual way out for the U.S.-led forces there, which have lost 1,343 soldiers in the fighting, according to iCasualties.org.
Karzai’s side may be pressing rival candidates to reach a power-sharing deal that includes accepting the president’s re- election, said Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan’s Center for Research and Policy Studies.
Abdullah rejected that idea. “I will use every peaceful, responsible means to oppose it,” he said.
While he hadn’t been approached directly with an offer to share power, “there have been hints here and there” from Karzai’s camp, Abdullah said.
Mirwais Yasini, Ramazan Bashardost and Sarwar Ahmedzai, who also contested the Aug. 20 poll, have echoed Abdullah’s accusation of widespread fraud.
Complaints
Abdullah’s campaign has filed more than 200 reports of voting fraud with the United Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, he said. “We have faith in the integrity of the commission,” in which three of five members were named by the UN Secretary-General’s office, “but we will need to see its capabilities in dealing with so many cases,” Abdullah said.
The election monitoring team from the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, said in an Aug. 22 statement that the complaints panel, formed four months ago, got too little time to hire and train adequate staff. The commission has 250 staff members to investigate the fraud reports and is heavily burdened, Khuram said. This week, it hired 16 people just to open and process the complaints.
Karzai campaign spokesman Sediq Seddiqui has denied there is any pattern of fraud that might change the vote’s outcome.
In announcing results yesterday, the election commission gave no geographical breakdown of the vote, leaving it unclear whether Karzai is likely to surpass the 50 percent threshold he would need to avoid a runoff election. Karzai has more support in the south; Abdullah’s stronghold is in the north.
Turnout
The updated returns suggested a turnout of about 6 million voters, compared with 8 million in the country’s first direct presidential vote five years ago.
Independent monitoring teams from the National Democratic Institute and the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan say opportunities for fraud rose in last week’s vote because Taliban influence over many rural areas kept independent observers, as well as voters, away from polling places.
Over eight years, Karzai and his international backers have failed to keep Afghanistan’s war from spreading or to improve the lives of most of its people. Measured by income, life expectancy and literacy, Afghanistan is the world’s fifth- poorest country, according to a 2007 report by the Afghan government and the UN.
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rupert in Kabul at jrupert3@ bloomberg.net.
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Afghanistan's Long Vote Count: Room for Mischief?
By Jason Motlagh time.com Kabul Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009
The frantic run-up to Afghanistan's presidential election has given way to a bitter anti-climax. Even as results trickle in, they are in danger of being overwhelmed by mounting claims of fraud from the leading candidates, who appear to be increasingly unlikely to back down should the final verdict not go their way.
In the second installment of results, announced on Wednesday, President Hamid Karzai extended his lead over his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. After a dead heat the first day, he now stands at nearly 45% of the vote vs. 35% for Abdullah. Eager as Afghans and media outlets are for fresh information, the figures still reflect only 17% of the more than 27,000 polling sites nationwide. Moreover, they were drawn from less than half of the country's 34 provinces. As a result, even as some observers posit a Karzai victory, it's still hard to gauge where the candidates actually stand — and the extent of the impact of the Taliban's pre-election campaign of intimidation.
Returns will continue to be announced piecemeal in the coming days. Based on the recent pattern, so too will accusations of foul play. Abdullah, who leveled charges of systematic fraud and other irregularities at Karzai supporters the day after the vote, has since escalated his case. At a Tuesday press conference in the courtyard of his Kabul residence, he showed videos and materials that he said proved that Karzai tried to "steal the verdict of the nation."
One video, allegedly shot in Ghazni province, showed a man stuffing a ballot box. Another featured a child at a table marking ballots for the same candidate. Additional footage appeared to show Karzai campaign officials looking over the shoulders of voters as well as a polling station that apparently remained open two days after election day. Abdullah warned that if such evidence is ignored, "this is the type of regime that will be imposed on Afghanistan for the next five years. With that sort of system — with a system which has destroyed every institution, broken every law — Afghanistan cannot succeed."
The Karzai camp has issued similar charges, even as the President's campaign manager dismisses the charges by rivals: "If you are in second place, you say anything." However, Abdullah's claims received a shot in the arm on Aug. 25 from six other presidential hopefuls, including former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, who alleged that widespread fraud took place on election day, largely to the President's advantage. At least 1,461 complaints have already been lodged with the Electoral Complaints Commission, more than 150 of which involve large numbers of votes and could affect the final outcome. The commission has launched probes that must be completed before final results can be released, a requirement that could take several weeks. In the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province, where some of the worst fraud is said to have taken place, rolling violence means many of the probes are bound to remain unresolved.
There are also those who say the entire tabulation process is inherently flawed. Ramazan Bashardost, the parliamentarian and anti-corruption maverick who ran third in exit polls, says the Electoral Complaints Commission is breaking the law by releasing figures before completing its investigation into alleged vote-rigging. (The head of the commission, Aziz Ludin, said the decision to release preliminary figures is within the letter of the law, adding that it was agreed upon at an internal commission meeting — in part to steer clear of the kind of controversy that marred the 2000 U.S. presidential election.) Bashardost tells TIME that an election official informed him over the phone of being under intense pressure to provide results that favored a particular candidate, whom he will not identify. Ever the skeptic, Bashardost suspects there is a plot to gradually increase one candidate's margin of victory; by stretching it out over an extended period of time, it may dampen the anger of rivals. "It's a preparation," Bashardost says. He contends that the U.S. is playing a role in manipulating the outcome and that Washington is planning to broker a deal among the leading candidates to get the process over with.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, say they are working to avoid the prospect of post-election unrest. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has met with Abdullah and Karzai to insist they refrain from claiming victory until results are complete. Yet the longer the process drags on and the barbs fly, analysts say, the greater the space for troublemaking. "It is dangerous for each side to keep supporters [charged up] for the future," says Nasrullah Stanikzai, a politics professor at Kabul University.
Then there are the Afghan voters, some of whom say their patience is wearing thin amid the name-calling. It would be stretched to the limit with a run-off. "This government can do nothing right. Even by cheating, these politicians cannot win," says shopkeeper Siddiq Sadeg. He would not disclose for whom he voted, only saying it was neither Karzai nor Abdullah. And that candidate would remain his choice — if he'd bother to go to the polls again.
This article was reported with help from a grant by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
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Abdullah's spokesman says Afghan election may be falsified
KABUL, August 27 (RIA Novosti) - The campaign chief of Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah said they would appeal the results of the poll if it is falsified.
Election officials said on Wednesday that Afghanistan's incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, had a 10-point lead over closest rival Abdullah Abdullah with 17.2% of the vote counted after last week's presidential polls.
"The fact that under the current circumstances Afghanistan held an election is without a doubt a positive moment and a considerable step forward. But first, turnout was unfortunately low rather than high due to a number of factors. Second, the election was marred by violations, pressures and fraud," Fazel Sangcharaki said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
He added that a number of documents proving election falsifications were presented on Tuesday during Abdallah's news conference in Kabul and the campaign had already submitted complaints on this issue with the country's Independent Election Complaints Commission.
Daud Najafi, the chief electoral officer, told journalists in Kabul on Wednesday that with 998,484 ballot papers counted, Karzai has 422,137 votes (44.8%) to former foreign minister Abdullah's 35.1%.
A candidate needs 50% of the vote to claim victory without a runoff.
Election day was plagued by militant attacks, with some 400 registered across the country.
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Obama's Next Move in Afghanistan
By Joe Klein time.com Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009
The early returns from Afghanistan's presidential election had the smell of a decorous massage job. With 10% of districts reporting, the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, the former Foreign Minister, were tied, with about 40% each. But few of those votes came from Karzai's Pashtun strongholds in the south, where turnout was light — owing to Taliban threats — but heavily managed. "It's not exactly one man, one vote out in the rural areas," a Western diplomat told me. "The tribal leader gathers everyone together and says, 'We're voting for Candidate X.'" In some cases, apparently, tribal leaders have simply stamped all the ballots themselves; with literacy rates running at less than 10% in many rural areas, that's not considered fraud but business as usual. And so it seems likely that Karzai will "win" re-election. Whether he has won anything worth winning remains to be seen.
The absurdity of holding an election in an impoverished country with a central government that barely governs and a guerrilla insurgency that has threatened to kill anyone caught voting is illustrative of our current Afghan dilemma. We have been prodding the Afghans to run, from Kabul, a country that has always been governed from the bottom up, valley by valley, tribe by tribe. Karzai has many attributes, but a desire to provide effective governance is off his radar screen. He is good at the traditional form of Afghan politics, creating alliances among tribal and ethnic factions. The money distributed by the central government — inevitably, money contributed by the international community — is routinely received as tribute by Karzai's local allies, to be disbursed, or not, as they wish; a government job is assumed by many, especially the police, to be a license to collect money for themselves. (An exception appears to be in the effective, if fledgling, Afghan army.) "I have yet to meet an Afghan civilian who has anything positive to say about the central government," a senior U.S. official told me. "They don't like the Taliban very much, but the Taliban at least provide a system of justice, plus some goods and services, and they'll go with that."
That is why Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says the military situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. "Last week I spoke to a couple of Army Rangers who had just engaged the enemy," Mullen told me. "They said it was like fighting the Marines. The Taliban were well trained, better organized, much tougher fighters than they'd been in the past." And that is why it is widely expected that General Stanley McChrystal will be requesting more troops when his review of the situation on the ground is completed in a few weeks. I'm told that President Obama will make a decision about whether to accede to McChrystal's request, in whole or in part, by November. That will probably be about the same time as the health-care-reform debate comes to a head. By the end of November, we should have a much clearer sense of the trajectory of the Obama presidency.
So what should Obama do about Afghanistan? His dilemma isn't as stark as has been posed in recent press accounts, with screamers on the right demanding slavish devotion to the military's wish list and screamers on the left demanding a withdrawal. The U.S. military has become far more ... nuanced when it comes to making requests of Presidents. The negotiations about what McChrystal can officially request will not take place anywhere near the public eye. It is very likely that more troops will be sent — to build and train the Afghan security forces, it will be said. Obama's problems on the left will be mitigated by the fact that most Democrats have also supported this war — as opposed to Iraq's — and have little desire to reverse themselves. They don't want to hurt the President, and they don't want to be perceived as weak on defense come election time.
Which still leaves the nagging question: What is the right thing to do in Afghanistan? It should be remembered that we invaded with cause: the Taliban government was providing safe havens for al-Qaeda, from which the Sept. 11 attacks were launched. Having routed the existing Afghan government, we had a responsibility to restore order. We have bungled that responsibility for eight years, attempting a Western version of order: central governance, the appearance of democracy — but largely ignoring traditional Afghan ways of social organization. The national-security challenge still exists, although its locus has shifted across the border to Pakistan.
Even if we help the Afghans establish a brilliant government in Kabul, that threat will remain — and it's legitimate to ask whether pouring our resources into Afghan nation-building is the best way to confront al-Qaeda. Unless the new Karzai government quickly changes course, the only reasonable answer is no. The question then becomes, What's Plan B? And is anyone working on that?
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US general orders new mindset in Afghanistan
August 27, 2009
KABUL (AFP) – The top commander in Afghanistan has ordered the 100,000 Western troops in the country to change their mindset to win the fight against an insurgency now at its deadliest, the military said Thursday.
US General Stanley McChrystal, who heads US and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan and has been working on a major war strategy review, released guidelines to ensure his troops put the Afghan people at the heart of their mission.
McChrystal was appointed after his predecessor was sacked in May when the United States said it needed new thinking to counter a record number of attacks since the Taliban regime was ousted in the 2001 US-led invasion.
"Protecting the Afghan people is the mission. The Afghan people will decide who wins this fight and we (the Afghan government and NATO troops) are in a struggle for their support," he said.
Presidential elections held in Afghanistan last week as part of Western-led efforts to put the war-torn, impoverished, illiterate and corrupt country on the path to democracy were overshadowed by poor turnout and fraud.
"Get rid of the conventional mindset. Focus on the people, not the militants," wrote McChrystal, calling foreign troops "guests" of Afghans.
After less than nine months, 2009 has become the deadliest year for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban.
NATO and US-led forces have courted heavy criticism within Afghanistan over the deaths of scores of civilians during military operations.
McChrystal, who was hand picked by US President Barack Obama and took up command in mid-June, is expected to call for even more troops in a formal war review anticipated within the next two weeks.
"Think before you act... View your actions through the eyes of the Afghans. If we harm Afghan civilians, we sow the seeds of our own defeat," he said.
"Afghan culture is founded on personal relationships. Listen to the population and adjust accordingly. Earn their trust. Develop their ownership in the solution. If they sweat for it, they will protect it," he added.
In terms of cooperation with Afghan soldiers, whom NATO and US troops are training and equipping, he ordered that they be treated as equal partners.
"Live, eat and train together, depend on one another and hold each other accountable," he said.
Faced with corruption in Afghanistan, which has been rated the fifth most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International, he urged troops to enable transparent government and "confront corrupt officials".
"Challenge the conventional wisdom if it no longer fits the environment. This is a battle of wits -- learn and adapt more quickly than the insurgent," he said, exhorting troops to "improve daily".
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Afghanistan Election Results on Hold for at Least Two Days
By Steve Herman VOA News 27 August 2009
Afghanistan's voters are going to have to wait a bit longer to received further results of ballot counting from last week's presidential election.
Results from Afghanistan's disputed presidential election are in a further state of limbo. The organization tabulating the votes says no further returns will be made public until Saturday, at the earliest.
The Independent Election Commission has announced no reason for the delay. But one official with the IEC acknowledges the counting is proceeding slower than expected because of computer software glitches.
The senior project officer for the team in Kabul from Democracy International, Bill Gallery, tells VOA News this should not be a cause for alarm.
"We are not super concerned about a couple days delay," he said. "We have been looking at the numbers released so far and there is some information there to use. We would be worried if they delayed any further. But I think this could just be an administrative issue."
It has been one week since the election. Results from only 17 percent of the polling stations have been released. Those returns show incumbent President Hamid Karzai with 43 percent of the vote. His closest rival among a long list of challengers, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, has 34 percent.
Mr. Karzai will need more than 50 percent of the total to avoid a run-off election next month.
A number of the contenders have alleged widespread irregularities. The Election Complaints Commission, partly appointed by the United Nations, says it is prioritizing dozens of serious allegations for investigation.
Violence involving Taliban insurgents who vowed to disrupt the election is continuing.
Officials in Paktika province say a regional Taliban commander and five of his followers have been captured following a fierce six-hour gun battle at a hospital there.
The Taliban leader, named as Mullah Muslim, had gone to the medical facility to seek treatment. Provincial officials say the commander had been wounded during election-day violence.
U.S. and Afghan forces, tipped off that the Taliban had entered the hospital, responded with troops and a helicopter gunship.
Officials say 12 insurgents and one soldier with the NATO-led International Security Force died in the clash.
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Afghan Incumbent Widens Lead in Vote
Lotfullah Najafizada Quqnoos August 27, 2009
An updated Afghan vote count shows President Karzai far ahead of his closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah
The Afghan incumbent still remains short of the 50 percent threshold that would enable him to avoid a two-man runoff.
The Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced on Wednesday that 17 percent of the votes have been counted so far, placing President Karzai in the lead with 44.8 percent and Abdullah Abdullah in second position with 35.1.
President Karzai collected 422,127 votes and Abdullah Abdullah 330,711 of the 998,484 ballots tallied so far, said IEC Chief Electoral Officer, Daud Ali Najafi.
Other candidates trailing the two key challengers are Ramazan Bashardost with 108,158 votes and Dr Ashraf Ghani with 27,627.
Incumbent Karzai was slightly ahead of Abdullah, by just 3 percent, in the preliminary results announced on Tuesday by the IEC.
The current status is based on only 17 percent of polling stations nationwide, meaning the results could still change dramatically each day.
A day earlier, Karzai’s tough rival Abdullah showed evidence of polling fraud to such an extent that he termed it a ‘massive rigging’.
Abdullah showed both Afghan and international journalists several video clips of polling stations after Election Day, with people marking one ballot after another for a single candidate.
International observers have also accepted that fraud occurred in the last week’s elections. UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, on Monday urged the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to investigate the challenges filed to the commission.
The Electoral Complaints Commission has received more than 1,400 complaints, around 50 of them are termed ‘serious’, which would affect the vote’s outcome, according to the ECC.
Taliban intimidation and threats to voters reportedly caused an unexpected low turnout in last Thursday’s presidential and provincial council elections.
Taliban insurgents cut off the ink-stained fingers of at least two voters just a few hours after they cast their votes in the volatile southern Kandahar province.
The presidential returns announced on Wednesday are based on partial results from 28 of the 34 provinces, but few votes have been counted from the southern region.
Afghan election officials are slowly releasing results from last week’s presidential election and final official results are expected to be announced on September 17.
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UK: Troops did not die for just 150 Afghan votes
LONDON, England (CNN) -- UK officials have sought to play down low voter turnout in Afghanistan's elections amid reports just 150 people cast their ballots in an area where four British troops died securing it from the Taliban.
British media claimed that early estimates of ballots in the former Taliban stronghold of Babaji in Helmand province indicated few exercised their voting rights, despite the efforts of Operation Panther's Claw, a five-week offensive against militants in the region.
The claims have fueled debate in Britain over the country's continued military role in Afghanistan as the country's death toll since operations began in 2001 pushes past the 200 mark.
Britain's ambassador to Kabul, Mark Sedwill, told journalists that while turnout in the August 20 presidential and provincial vote was low across the country, this was not a reflection of the success or failure of Panther's Claw.
"Panther's Claw, although timed to try to improve security for people to move around for the election, was not specifically itself about the election," Sedwill said via videophone link from Kabul. Watch concerns about NATO casualties, amid vote-rigging allegations »
"The clear phase of that operation only ended a couple of weeks before the election... there is a long road to go until that entire area is fully secure."
Last month, senior British military commander Lt. Gen. Simon Mayall told a press briefing that Panther's Claw was aimed at safeguarding the elections in addition to securing long term stability in the area.
An editorial carried on the British Ministry of Defense Web site acknowledged that "many commentators are questioning whether the loss of... British lives in the operation was worth enabling such a small number of voters to exercise their democratic right."
The article quoted Assistant Chief of the Defense Staff (Operations), Air Vice Marshal Andy Pulford saying British efforts in the region were justified.
"British forces know exactly what they fought for. They have seen with their own eyes the improved quality of life that security now enjoyed by thousands of Afghans in Babaji has delivered," Pulford said.
"Low voter turnout or not -- and this has yet to be verified -- that security will be enduring. It will be there next week. It will be there next month. It will be there next year, and upon that security the Afghan government will continue to build a better life for the local people."
Counting is still underway in elections with partial results showing incumbent President Hamid Karzai ahead of his former foreign minister and main rival Abdullah Abdullah.
The Afghan Independent Elections Commission said with 17.2 percent of polling stations tallied, Karzai had 44.8 percent against Abdullah's 35.1 percent. Candidates must get 50 percent to avoid a run-off between the top two contenders.
Final confirmed results are not expected until mid September, with a run-off likely to be held in October if necessary. Allegations of voter fraud on all sides are expected to further complicate proceedings.
The British Foreign Office said it was too early to speculate on voting figures in southern Afghanistan and Babaji in particular.
"While there has been speculation on these figures, much of which has been contradictory, we need to wait until the Afghan Independent Elections Commission produce their official results," a spokesman said.
"It is wrong to speculate on turn-out before the have finished counting and verifying the ballots."
Sedwill said he was "satisfied" with how the "rough and ready" election had been run, and that although participation in election had been low across the country, this did not represent a victory for the Taliban.
"Turnout was down, but it was down across the country although obviously the intimidation effect that the Taliban has in the south and the east did have an impact, but they were seeking to stop the elections all together not imply to disrupt the turnout and in that they failed," he said
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Afghanistan caught in complex guessing game
by Lynne O'donnell – Thu Aug 27, 4:05 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – As Afghans await the results of a bitterly contested election, their country is caught in a complex guessing game about who will be their next president and how solid his mandate will be.
The gap between the main rivals in the race for the top job -- President Hamid Karzai and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah -- appears to be widening in the incumbent's favour.
Just over 17 percent, or nearly one million ballots, have been counted and made public, showing the Western-backed Karzai with 42.3 percent so far, and Abdullah on 33.1 percent.
The Independent Election Commission (IEC), which is in charge of the count, said Thursday it would not be releasing any more figures before Saturday.
Counting would continue Thursday, said IEC spokeswoman Marzia Siddiqi, giving no reasons for the cancellation of Thursday's release. Friday is a holiday in Islamic Afghanistan.
While IEC officials have been eager to stress that nothing should be extrapolated from the figures released so far, they appear to suggest turnout was low -- around 30-35 percent -- raising questions about the legitimacy of the man declared president when final results are known in mid-September.
Afghanistan's second presidential election and a parallel vote for provincial councillors were held on August 20 under the shadow of scores of Taliban attacks.
Just two hours after the first results were released in Kabul on Tuesday, the southern city of Kandahar was rocked by a suicide car bomb that killed more than 40 people and bore all the hallmarks of a Taliban attack.
Views on the legitimacy of the vote are mixed, with some commentators insisting such low turnout raises serious questions about what mandate a president with 50 percent of around five million votes can claim.
Others are as adamant that turnout of around five million -- of 17 million registered -- is proof Afghans are engaged in the democratic process and sent a clear message to the Taliban that their intimidation tactics were futile.
"I think Afghans have shown very clearly to the Taliban that despite the fear that was created before the election -- which was massive, with night letters, threats, attacks -- despite all of that they wanted to vote," said Nader Nadery, of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan.
"Even in very volatile environments, where there was fighting -- Baghlan, Logar, Paktia, Zabul, Helmand -- when the fighting stopped people went to polling stations and asked to be able to vote.
"Compare that response proportionately to the level of threat and fear from the Taliban, and the message to the Taliban is that your tactics haven't worked," he said.
In some areas of the country, however, the campaign of intimidation worked well enough to keep voters away almost entirely. In some militant strongholds, including Logar province south of Kabul, residents said turnout was negligible.
"In my village there are more than 6,000 people. Only seven voted," mechanic Mansour Stanikzai told AFP in the provincial capital Pul-i-Alam.
Analyst Haroun Mir said the Taliban's tactics successfully derailed the election and undermined the democratic process, which the international community has been eager to promote as suitable for the feudal, war-ravaged nation.
"The reason we had the election was to give legitimacy to the government, and we have failed in that goal," Mir said.
"The Taliban has cancelled it out, they forced people to remain in their homes," he said, adding the legitimacy of the final result "is put in question."
He said the slow release of the results should give Karzai and his international backers time to cut a compromise with Abdullah.
"We could end up with a power-sharing situation," he told AFP. "It is segregated -- Abdullah in the north, Karzai in the south.
"This election has shown that Afghanistan remains strictly divided," he said, adding: "We are heading for political crisis."
As the number of complaints -- 790 on polling day alone -- was being used by Abdullah to lambast the whole process as fraudulent in favour of his opponent, ordinary Afghans said they expected some problems in one of the world's most corrupt countries.
"There is no doubt that there would be a lot of fraud but a lot of the people I know and work with said they were supporting Karzai," said 28-year-old Kabul telecommunications engineer Mohammad Akbar.
Time spent waiting for the results was "extremely boring," he said, but added: "There is a lot of concern and worry that when the election result becomes final, whether or not it will be accepted."
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Alleged Drug Ties of Top Afghan Official Worry U.S.
New York Times By JAMES RISEN and MARK LANDLER August 26, 2009
WASHINGTON - It was a heated debate during the Bush administration: What to do about evidence that Afghanistan’s powerful defense minister was involved in drug trafficking? Officials from the time say they needed him to help run the troubled country. So the answer, in the end: look the other way.
Today that debate will be even more fraught for a new administration, for the former defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, stands a strong chance of becoming the next vice president of Afghanistan.
In his bid for re-election, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has surrounded himself with checkered figures who could bring him votes: warlords suspected of war crimes, corruption and trafficking in the country’s lucrative poppy crop. But none is as influential as Marshal Fahim, his running mate, whose trajectory in and out of power, and American favor, says much about the struggle the United States has had in dealing with corruption in Afghanistan.
As evidence of the tensions, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly told Mr. Karzai that running with Marshal Fahim would damage his standing with the United States and other countries, according to one senior administration official.
Now, the problem of how to grapple with Marshal Fahim adds to the complexity of managing an uneasy relationship with Mr. Karzai. Partial election results show Mr. Karzai leading other contenders, but allegations of fraud threaten to add to the credibility problems facing a second Karzai-led government.
If Marshal Fahim did take office, the administration official said, the United States would probably consider imposing sanctions like refusing to issue him a travel visa — something it does with other foreign officials suspected of corruption — though the official cautioned that the subject had not come up in internal deliberations.
The United States could take harsher steps, like going after the marshal’s finances, but this would be a remarkable move, given the deep American involvement in Afghanistan and the importance of its relationship with the Karzai government, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.
And Marshal Fahim is not the only Afghan official forcing such a tricky calculation. This summer President Obama called for an investigation of a warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is accused of involvement in the killings of thousands of Taliban prisoners of war early in the conflict. That demand fell on deaf ears: Mr. Karzai recently allowed General Dostum to return from exile, reinstating him to his government position. The general, in turn, has endorsed Mr. Karzai and campaigned for him.
Said Tayeb Jawad, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, said allegations of Marshal Fahim’s involvement in drugs were “politically motivated.”
As for the Obama administration’s opposition to his selection as vice president, Mr. Jawad said he was chosen for “the role he could play in national unity in Afghanistan, not for his ability to make foreign trips.”
The Bush administration had felt it had no choice but to rely on the warlords, many of them corrupt and brutal, who wielded power before and during the Karzai era.
In 2001, when United States forces swept into Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, Marshal Fahim, then a general, was a crucial ally as the military commander of the Northern Alliance.
He worked closely with the Central Intelligence Agency and was rewarded with millions of dollars in cash, according to current and former United States officials. After Mr. Karzai became head of Afghanistan’s transitional government, General Fahim was named defense minister.
In early 2002, at a Rose Garden ceremony with Mr. Karzai, then a darling of the White House, President George W. Bush announced that the United States would help create and train a new Afghan Army. That meant sending millions of dollars in aid to General Fahim and his ministry.
But by 2002, C.I.A. intelligence reports flowing into the Bush administration included evidence that Marshal Fahim was involved in Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trade, according to officials discussing the reports and the internal debate for the first time.
He had a history of narcotics trafficking before the invasion, the C.I.A. reports showed. But what was most alarming in the reports were allegations that he was still involved after regaining power and becoming defense minister. He now had a Soviet-made cargo plane at his disposal that was making flights north to transport heroin through Russia, returning laden with cash, the reports said, according to American officials who read them. Aides in the Defense Ministry were also said to be involved.
The reports stunned some United States officials, and ignited a high-level, secret scramble.
Hillary Mann Leverett, then director for Afghanistan at the National Security Council, recalled a secure videoconference discussion where the State Department warned it might be illegal to provide military assistance through Marshal Fahim.
“They pointed out that if Fahim was involved in narcotics trafficking, then there is a problem because there is a U.S. law that would prohibit military aid provided to a known narcotics trafficker,” Ms. Leverett said.
Alarmed, National Security Council officials took the matter to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser. Another round of meetings followed, with Mr. Hadley ordering that the delicate debate be kept to a small number of senior administration officials, including Mr. Hadley and John E. McLaughlin, then C.I.A. deputy director, according to Ms. Leverett.
Meanwhile, the allegations of drug dealing by the top Afghan defense official were also raising concerns at the new American Embassy in Kabul, where officials say they considered whether they could meet with Marshal Fahim or provide him with funds.
Some United States officials in Washington and Kabul argued that there was no smoking gun proving his involvement in narcotics trafficking, and thus no need to break off contact with him. And eventually, the Bush administration hit on what officials thought was a solution: American military trainers would be directed to deal only with subordinates to Marshal Fahim, and not Marshal Fahim himself.
That would at least give the Bush administration the appearance of complying with the law.
But as it turns out, both Afghan and American officials now say that Marshal Fahim continued to meet routinely with top American officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, then the American officer in charge of the military assistance to the new Afghan Army.
General Eikenberry, now the American ambassador to Afghanistan, said in an e-mail message earlier this year that at the time he was unaware of the debate at the White House and that he was never barred from meeting with Marshal Fahim.
In hindsight, several current and former administration officials say they have come to believe the decision to turn a blind eye to the warlords and drug traffickers who took advantage of the power vacuum in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks was one of the fundamental strategic mistakes of the Afghan war. It sent a signal to the Afghan people that the most corrupt warlords had the backing of the United States, that the Karzai government had no real power or credibility and that the drug economy was the path to power in the country.
By late 2003, officials said, the Bush administration began to realize its mistake, and initiated what officials called its “warlord strategy” to try to ease key warlords out of power. Marshal Fahim remained defense minister until 2004 and was briefly Mr. Karzai’s running mate as vice president in elections that year, but Mr. Karzai then dropped him.
Marshal Fahim remains a powerful figure among Tajiks, the ethnic group in north Afghanistan, and Mr. Karzai, a Pashtun from the south, calculated that an alliance with the general would help him increase his support in northern Afghanistan.
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Afghan threats mean empty ballot boxes
by Emmanuel Duparcq
PUL-I-ALAM, Afghanistan, Aug 27, 2009 (AFP) - The inhabitants of Logar province remember election day very clearly -- a day when they stayed at home, frightened by rockets and rebel threats, and the ballot boxes remained empty.
"To tell the truth, there were no elections in Logar province," said Siddikullah, keeping an eye on his spare parts workshop from the shade of a tree on the main street in Pul-i-Alam, capital of Logar, a militant stronghold just south of Kabul.
"People were afraid and stayed at home. There was no question of voting," said his friend Ukramran, who is a barber.
Despite its proximity to Kabul, the province has earned a terrible reputation as a den of criminals and insurgents.
And there were no half-measures in the rebels' campaign of intimidation aimed at discouraging voters and discrediting a ballot they regard as a charade orchestrated by the United States.
Ten days before the August 20 poll, four militants who had taken up positions in buildings in the middle of town sprayed the offices of the governor and police with a salvo of rockets and automatic gunfire.
The confrontation, which cost the lives of a police officer and the four attackers, traumatised a number of residents, as did the "night letters" posted by the Taliban threatening reprisals against anyone who might vote.
On the morning of the election, a rain of rockets on towns and villages across the province further dissuaded people from going to the ballot box, and "the people stayed in their homes", said Siddikullah.
His colleague Mansour Stanikzai, his long Afghan shirt splattered with engine grease, lives in nearby Padkhaw-Chana.
"In my village there more than 6,000 people. Only seven voted," he said.
Others gave similar accounts, contrasting it with the turnout of the last presidential election in 2004.
"Last time, lots of people came to vote," recalled mechanic Ali Gul, stroking his long pepper-and-salt beard.
"But not this time. In my village there are more than 200 houses, but only two people voted," he said.
The Independent Election Commission's officer for Logar province, Aminullah Fazly, received death threats and had to place his family in hiding. He acknowledged the poor turnout.
"Participation was really low," he said.
About half of the 400,000 inhabitants of the province had registered to vote. But despite being guarded by police, the majority of the polling stations remained more or less empty.
"In many cases, only shopkeepers working nearby or police and army went to cast their vote," Fazly said.
According to a source at the commission, "most of the ballot boxes came back with five, seven or 10 votes".
Of the province's seven districts, Azra, which is the safest, most populated and dominated by the Pashtun Ahmadzai tribe, was the sole exception.
Turnout there was more than 70 percent and the vote was split between the main candidates, including Afghanistan's Pashtun President Hamid Karzai.
The election commission had not stinted in its efforts to register voters, in particular women, in this conservative province.
"There were more women registered this year, because we put registration desks in clinics or schools. But they didn't vote," said Fazly.
"There were no men, so how can there be women?" said barber Ukramran.
Even so, in the evening, after the vote, "rebels went into the villages, seizing people, looking to see if their finger had ink (showing they had voted). And the ones who had were badly beaten," said Siddikullah.
Few people spoke of possible fraud in the election.
"To manipulate a vote, you first need to have a vote, but there was no vote," said shopkeeper Mohammad Taher.
All the Logar inhabitants questioned said they thought the election should have been postponed until the security situation improved.
"It seems that the government and its international partners don't care about the people's vote. They just organised it following their own interest," said Stanikzai.
And criticism turns naturally to the Karzai government and its international allies, all of whom hailed the vote.
"An election like that does not mean anything, because there was nobody in the polling centres. For example, me, if nobody came to my shop, I would have to close and do something else," said Siddikullah.
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In southern Afghan city, fears of Taliban takeover
By Noor Khan And Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writers – Thu Aug 27, 4:53 pm ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Southern Afghanistan's largest city, Kandahar, is slipping back under Taliban control as overstretched U.S. troops focus on clearing insurgents from the countryside — a potentially alarming setback for President Barack Obama's war strategy.
Afghan authorities promise a counteroffensive against the militants in Kandahar — a pledge that appears aimed primarily at boosting public morale after a devastating bombing killed 43 people on Tuesday.
Losing Kandahar, a city of nearly 1 million and the Taliban's former headquarters, would be a huge symbolic blow because it is effectively the capital of the ethnic Pashtun-dominated south, the main battlefield of the Afghan war.
It is difficult to measure the extent of Taliban control, and NATO officials publicly discount the possibility that Kandahar is about to fall to the militants.
Thousands of U.S. and Canadian troops are deployed throughout the province and around the city, which includes a major NATO base. NATO officials say the U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan will enable them to send more troops into Kandahar.
"Because there's one bombing, it doesn't mean the situation is going down the tubes," said Maj. Mario Couture, a spokesman for NATO in Kandahar province.
Nevertheless, many Afghans believe more Taliban forces are operating clandestinely in the city, while the Islamist movement tightens its grip on districts just outside the urban center.
As guerrillas, the Taliban doubtless don't want to capture and run the city. Instead their goal is probably to wield enough influence to block any government efforts to expand services, prevent international relief agencies from operating there, force merchants to pay protection money and undermine the government's image in one of the country's major cities.
"The Taliban are inside the city. They are very active. They can do anything they want," said an Afghan employee of an international aid organization who requested anonymity because he feared reprisals from the militants.
The Taliban's resurgence in Kandahar city, the movement's main power base during the 1990s, has been slow and gradual over the past four years, said an international security official who is familiar with the area.
These days, the Taliban control many of the city's streets at night, the official said. Residents who spoke to The Associated Press also said militants were active at night, though they did not describe them as being in control.
The security official also pointed to a number of attacks, aside from Tuesday's bombing, that indicate the Taliban want to take over the city. One was last year's brazen bomb and rocket attack on a major prison that freed hundreds of militants and other prisoners.
The militants have targeted tribal elders in surrounding districts, and have a notable presence in the city's north, south and west, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
A chilling indicator of the militant presence are fliers posted in the city.
Haji Tooryalai, a 45-year-old Kandahar resident, said he'd seen some of the so-called shabnamas, or "night letters," ahead of the Aug. 20 elections warning people not to vote. No voting figures have been released from Kandahar but turnout appears to have been low.
"Poor men, rich men — everyone is worried about their security," Tooryalai said. "A few months ago, business was good, but now we are just sitting in our shops and there are just not that many customers."
Tuesday's explosion was especially unnerving.
It struck near a Japanese construction company involved in reconstruction efforts. The Taliban denied responsibility, as they typically do when attacks kill many civilians.
Since the blast, people talk of little else.
A radio announcement asking for blood donations for the wounded spurred a huge response. Early Thursday, about 200 men gathered to sacrifice seven cows and pray for the victims.
Farid Ahmad, a real estate worker who appeared to be in his 50s, said people feel hopeless.
"Everybody can't afford security guards, and if you are hiring security guards it means you are an important person and that will make you a target," Ahmad said.
Kandahar province Gov. Tooryalai Wesa said authorities planned to review the security of the city as part of their investigation of the attack, a report likely to be finished in the next three or four days.
Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, the Afghan National Army commander in Kandahar, said security forces were planning to launch an operation in the city.
He would not give a date for the crackdown or detail its size and scope, but said it would be "soon" and spearheaded by Afghan security forces. NATO forces will be offering backup, but in districts surrounding the city, he said.
NATO officials would not comment on any planned operation.
The U.S. is sending additional 21,000 U.S. troops this year to turn the tide against the Taliban, part of Obama's effort to shift the focus of the fight against terrorism away from Iraq and toward the Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
The American military effort so far, however, has focused primarily on the countryside. U.S. military officials have not explained their strategy publicly but it was believed they wanted to cut Taliban supply lines, interrupt poppy production and attack insurgent units in areas unlikely to produce significant civilian casualties. The Taliban have also set up Islamic courts in some rural communities.
U.S. Marines have launched operations in nearby Helmand province to wrest control of the Helmand River valley and the Now Zad district from Taliban fighters.
But some officials believe securing Kandahar and the surrounding areas is more important because of the large civilian populations and the city's role as the political and economic center of the south.
They would like to see more of the extra troops in Kandahar and not Helmand.
NATO spokesman Capt. Glen Parent, however, noted that over the past month 4,000 more U.S. troops were deployed to both Kandahar and Zabul provinces, including vast stretches around the city.
About 2,000 Canadian troops are based in and around Kandahar, said Couture, the other NATO spokesman.
He said it's been difficult for the Canadians to deal with the city because they lacked enough troops and were busy battling the militants in nearby Zhari and Panjwai districts.
"With the massive arrival of the Americans, that allows us to focus on Kandahar and surrounding areas of the city," he said.
___
Associated Press writers Heidi Vogt in Kabul and Kathy Gannon in New York contributed to this report.
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AFGHANISTAN: POPULAR ANGER SIMMERS OVER ELECTORAL FRAUD ALLEGATIONS
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/26/09 Eurasianet
Six days after Afghanistan’s presidential poll, the legitimacy of the outcome appears threatened by a lack of electoral transparency, negligible pressure from Afghanistan’s international sponsors, and a complaint mechanism stymied by its lack of mandate and resources.
At a press conference in Kabul’s plush Intercontinental Hotel on August 25, an audible murmur of disbelief swelled as Afghanistan’s Chief Electoral Officer Daud Najafi read from a list of numbers showing President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah in a neck-and-neck race. The actual totals appeared to contradict rumors that had been circulating in the capital that Karzai was winning by a healthy margin. The figures released by Najafi covered only 10 percent of the ballots cast.
While most western correspondents rushed off to file reports emphasizing the closeness of the race, the primary significance of Najafi’s numbers was that they helped deflect the growing anger and lack of credulity in the electoral process. Some believe the release may have been timed to do just that. One Afghan observer also suggested that the timing of the daily press briefings -- scheduled to begin at 5 pm every evening (though invariably starting later) -- reflects a government effort to keep the chances of spontaneous protests to a minimum. "People will be too busy with prayers and Iftar [the meal breaking the day-long Ramadan fast, which begins around 6:30 pm local time] to protest," the observer said.
Two competing narratives are now vying for attention in Afghanistan. One consists of the official count, sanctioned responses to criticism and the international community’s reactions. But a parallel narrative of claims, counterclaims and rumors of back-room deals is growing.
So strong are these rumors that Abdullah, who has charged the government with conducting widespread electoral fraud, felt compelled to hold a news conference to dispel rumors he was seeking a deal. "My message to our people is that I will not make deals based on your votes. I will not compromise your rights in exchange for anything," he told journalists on August 25.
Meanwhile, though the count is still officially weeks from completion, some Karzai supporters appeared to have no difficulty accessing figures. Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal, for example, announced as early as August 24 that the incumbent had secured 68 percent of the votes.
With reports of low voter turnout and fraud trickling steadily out of the provinces, anger among Afghans is rising. Behind the scenes, negotiators are working "to lower the margin of victory to give the perception of a more legitimate outcome," according to one foreign diplomat.
One important mechanism for determining fraud is the release of data on the number of votes cast in each polling station at intervals throughout Election Day. If the reporting shows an abnormal spike, it does not automatically certify fraud, but it warrants investigation. Were these numbers available, observers would be able to compare and detect anomalies.
But in the six days since the vote, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has refused to provide any figures on the total turnout of voters -- which it, by law, must have. The commission also has not provided provincial breakdowns that could enable observers to compare figures with what they witnessed on the ground.
IEC officials claim they need to "tally" the documentation -- check and recheck -- to make sure it is accurate. Western diplomats have supported this argument, which puts the value of the process above the transparency and credibility that could have come from the early release of provisional figures, as was done in the 2004 elections.
Tallies are no check against ballot stuffing, says a detailed account by Thomas Ruttig of the Afghan Analysts Network. His blog report on Paktia Province in southern Afghanistan indicates ballot stuffing was neatly performed on the eve of the elections. "If [ballot boxes were] delivered from the polling centers together with the legitimate ones, it would become very difficult to find them and quarantine them, in particular when they are accompanied by the required documentation," writes Ruttig.
Unofficial estimates suggest that around 5.5 million votes were cast. The figure is substantiated to some extent by the IEC’s announcement that the 555,842 votes counted so far represented 10 percent of the total. It is impossible to estimate what percentage of the actual electorate these figures represent, however, since there is no record or even estimate of the actual number of voters in the country. Officials accept that the figure of 17 million registered voters is inflated and represents multiple registrations, fake voter cards, under-age and proxy registration. In the absence of a real number, even official figures, when they are available, cannot enable a full assessment of the degree of fraud.
While the international community and IEC officials have claimed the August 20 polls had better checks and balances against fraud in place than was the case for previous elections, these safeguards depended to a large extent on how they were implemented by officials tasked with administering the vote. And, in many instances, officials are facing accusations of fraudulent practices on August 20. Even in relatively secure areas of Afghanistan, such as Parwan Province, EurasiaNet saw free and reasonable access denied to accredited reporters who were made to wait for lengthy periods outside some polling areas: sufficient time for anyone attempting to conceal fraud.
The Electoral Complaints Commission’s work, moreover, has been compromised by the IEC’s declaration on August 24 that nothing the ECC finds will have a bearing on the final results. This remarkable statement also overlooks the impact of small margins in provincial council contests that may be decided by narrow voting margins.
Some western diplomats allude to annoyance at the media’s strong coverage of fraud, complaining of an unproductive debate undermining the electoral process they quickly approved on Election Day. Since Karzai was expected to win anyway, "why waste time and energy on a second round," appears the prevailing argument.
Such an attitude may provoke a backlash. Because for Afghans who voted, at stake is more than western opinion. If allegations of fraud are ignored, they could lose their right to speak and to be heard -- a promise the West was quick to deliver after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 19 years.
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London mum on Afghan elections
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- London believes it cannot draw any conclusions regarding the outcome of the Afghan presidential election as poll results trickle in, officials say.
Mark Sedwill, the British envoy to Afghanistan, told reports in a video briefing from Kabul that his government is cautious about making any assessments on the trends in the polls.
"We are being very cautious about it, we genuinely don't believe we can reach too many conclusions from these results," he said.
Incumbent Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his closest rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, both declared rival claims of victory Friday. The latest results, however, show Karzai widening his lead over Abdullah, though the incumbent has not taken a clear majority.
The results come amid a flurry of complaints of voter fraud and intimidation. World leaders, however, hailed the Aug. 20 vote as a success despite mounting challenges and a low voter turnout.
Sedwill maintained his optimism, however, telling reporters voter enthusiasm tends to decline as democracy becomes the norm in Afghanistan.
"That's what one expects in a second election after the end of a civil war, there tends to be a burst of enthusiasm in the first ones and then in the second ones turnout is lower generally," he said.
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Danish FM urges Karzai to speed up reform: report
August 27, 2009
COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Denmark's Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller hit out at Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday, accusing him of failing to speed up democratic reforms in the war-torn country.
Denmark has been present in Afghanistan since the initial US-led invasion eight years ago and currently has more than 700 troops serving there.
"I've had a number of conversations with Karzai and he always says the right things. But then he goes home and we see that he does nothing about it," the top Danish diplomat told the Politiken newspaper.
"If he wins the election, we must put pressure on him to deliver on some of the many good promises (on democracy and development)," he added.
Moeller also said he opposed a new law that human rights groups say allows discrimination against Shiite women.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the legislation passed on July 27 allows a man to withdraw all means of support from his wife, including food, if she refuses to satisfy his sexual demands.
"I raised this subject with Karzai and I told the United States that the American government should apply pressure on Karzai to stop this law if he is re-elected," said Moeller.
Afghanistan's second-ever presidential election was held on August 20 but final results are not expected until mid-September.
Preliminary results indicate Karzai and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah are the front runners to win, but the gap appears to be widening in the incumbent's favour.
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Afghans in greatest danger since Taliban fell: Amnesty
Thu Aug 27, 3:21 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – Amnesty International said Thursday civilians were at a greater danger in Afghanistan than at any time since the Taliban extremists were ousted from power in 2001.
The London-based human rights group cited Tuesday's bombing in Kandahar which killed 43 people and Thursday's clinic siege in the Sar Hawza district of Paktika province, which borders Pakistan and is a hotbed of Taliban violence.
The Taliban-led insurgency hit record intensity in the build-up to and aftermath of the August presidential elections.
"With the outcome of voting in Afghanistan unclear, the danger and insecurity facing millions of Afghans continues and in fact is higher now than ever," said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific director.
"Anti-government groups, including the Taliban, have demonstrated a systematic contempt for the safety of civilians by targeting Afghans who want to establish their future through ballots, not bullets.
"The Afghan government and its international supporters have done much to try to protect Afghans from this threat during the election period but they must also show that they will follow the rule of law themselves and will quickly investigate, and if necessary punish, any violation of the laws of war or human rights violations."
In the clinic siege, a fierce gunfight backed by US helicopter fire paralysed the small district after Taliban rebels forced their way into a clinic seeking treatment for their leader, officials and NATO said.
One US soldier and 12 Taliban were killed.
Amnesty called on NATO to launch an immediate investigation into the incident to establish whether international humanitarian laws were broken.
"If the Taliban used the clinic as a shelter to fire from, they've committed a serious violation," said Zarifi.
"But if they were using the clinic for health care, NATO forces had no business firing on the clinic, even if they had cleared out civilians from the facility.
"The bottom line in this incident is that another clinic in Afghanistan is now not working -- a tragedy for a country that already suffers from horrifically low rates of access to health care.
"Whether the Taliban or NATO or both have violated the laws of war, it is Afghan civilians who pay the price."
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Nato attack on Afghanistan clinic
Thursday, 27 August 2009 10:48 UK BBC News
US and Afghan forces attacked a clinic in eastern Afghanistan where a Taliban leader was being treated for injuries he sustained last week, Nato has said.
They were fired upon when they neared the clinic in the Sar Hawza district of Paktika province, and responded by ordering helicopter strikes.
The troops first made sure there were no civilians inside, Nato added.
Nato said one soldier was killed and seven gunmen were arrested, but local officials said 12 militants had died.
Hamidullah Zhwak, a spokesman for Paktika's governor, said the Taliban commander had been wounded in clashes last Thursday, when Afghans voted in presidential and provincial elections.
He and three other wounded Taliban had been brought to the clinic at noon on Wednesday, shortly after which the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) was tipped off, he said.
Mr Zhwak said militants in a tower near the clinic had opened fired as the troops approached and that the gun battle had lasted five hours.
"After ensuring the clinic was cleared of civilians, an AH64 Apache helicopter fired rounds at the building, ending the direct threat and injuring the targeted insurgent in the building," Nato said on Thursday, adding that there were no civilian casualties.
A blast in Kandahar on Wednesday night which set a wood shop on fire caused no casualties, the AP news agency reported.
The explosion came one day after a massive explosion in Kandahar killed 43 people in Afghanistan's deadliest bombing for a year.
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Roadside bomb kills 4 police, wounds 3 more in E Afghanistan
Poople's Daily - Aug 27 7:36 PM
Four police were killed and three others sustained injuries as a roadside bomb struck their van in Khost province of east Afghanistan on Thursday, police said.
"It was a remote-controlled bomb targeting a vehicle of border police in Garboz district at 1 p.m. local time (0830GMT), leaving four dead on the spot and injuring three others," a senior police officer Shir Mohammad Kuchi told Xinhua.
He put the attack on the enemies of peace, a term used against Taliban militants.
Taliban militants have yet to make comment.
Clash between police and insurgents in the neighboring Paktika province have left 12 Taliban fighters dead.
Taliban militants have intensified their activities against government interests particularly security forces to destabilize peace in the country.
Source:Xinhua
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Afghan forces kill 12 Taliban in clinic siege: NATO
August 27, 2009
KABUL (AFP) - A fierce gunfight backed by US helicopter fire paralysed a district in eastern Afghanistan after Taliban forced their way into a clinic seeking treatment for their leader, officials and NATO said Thursday.
An American soldier was killed in the violence, which broke out Wednesday as Afghan forces were trying to capture a suspected Taliban commander, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) under NATO said.
Twelve Taliban were killed in the fighting that raged for about six hours, and six others were captured, said Hamidullah Zhwak, the provincial spokesman, adding a clinic guard was also wounded.
Acting on a tip-off, Afghan security forces surrounded the clinic at around midday in the small Sar Hawza district of Paktika province, which borders Pakistan and is a hotbed of Taliban violence.
The ISAF statement said the "suspected insurgent leader" was being treated for injuries suffered during fighting on election day, August 20.
The Afghan soldiers "were clearing the clinic when they received direct fire attack," the statement said.
More troops, international and Afghan, arrived to provide backup, it said, and once all civilians had been brought safely out of the clinic, an Apache helicopter was called in to fire on the building.
The helicopter strafing ended the "the direct threat," ISAF said, "injuring the targeted insurgent in the building."
No civilians were killed, ISAF said.
"This clearly shows the disparity between coalition forces and anti-Afghan forces when it comes to concerns for civilians caught in the crossfire," said Major Matthew Gregory, a spokesman for ISAF.
In the neighbouring province of Khost, a roadside bomb killed four border police and wounded three others on Thursday in Gurbuz district, said police official Sher Ahmad Kochai, blaming the Taliban for the attack.
The Taliban have widening influence in eastern and southern Afghanistan and have been particularly active around the election, only the second in Afghanistan's history to choose a president.
In early counting, President Hamid Karzai is leading his main rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah 42.3 percent to 33.1 percent.
The campaign to instill enough fear in people to deter them from voting appears to have had a serious impact, as figures extrapolated from early results suggest 30-35 percent of registered voters turned out.
Violence peaked on election day, with reports from a variety of sources of rocket, grenade and suicide attacks, gunfights and afterwards beatings and even finger amputations of people who voted.
The Taliban have also stepped up their attacks on foreign soldiers -- who under NATO and US command number more than 100,000 -- in Afghanistan to wipe out the insurgency.
The Taliban's weapon of choice is the improvised explosive device, or IED, usually a concealed roadside bomb detonated remotely and, increasingly, linked to others to cause maximum damage, often killing civilians.
ISAF said Thursday an American soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan when his patrol was struck by an IED and then ambushed by insurgents.
"The patrol responded to the attack but a service member was killed in the engagement," an ISAF statement said.
After only nine months, 2009 has become the deadliest year for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion.
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12 Taliban insurgents killed in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- A dozen Taliban insurgents were killed in clash with security forces in the eastern Paktika province, a press release of the local administration said Thursday.
"The incident occurred Wednesday when a group of Taliban militants entered a hospital in Saroza district," the press release said.
It said that police force immediately surrounded the hospital after receiving report from locals.
"Clash erupted during which 12 rebels were killed," it added.
It noted that those Taliban militants secretly brought one injured commander along with three others for medical treatment.
Six more insurgents were captured by police during the operation, it further said.
Taliban militants have yet to make comment.
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Taliban commander captured in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- An Afghan-led security force captured a suspected Taliban leader in a raid on a medical clinic in the Sar Hawza district of Paktika province, NATO said.
The Afghan National Security Force entered the medical clinic Wednesday to capture Mullah Muslim, a Taliban commander who was being treated for injuries sustained in a firefight on last week's election day.
The security personnel were clearing the clinic when they came under direct fire attack, NATO said in a release. Members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force and additional ANSF troops were called in for support.
"After ensuring the clinic was cleared of civilians, an AH64 Apache helicopter fired rounds at the building, ending the direct threat and injuring the targeted insurgent in the building," the statement said.
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US military in Afghanistan denies rating reporters
27 Aug 2009 18:06:49 GMT By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. military in Afghanistan defended itself on Thursday against accusations that a company it employs was rating the work of reporters and suggesting ways to make their war coverage more positive.
Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for U.S. troops, said it had obtained documents prepared for the U.S. military by the Rendon Group, a Washington-based communications firm that graded journalists' work as "positive", "neutral" or "negative".
The newspaper, partly funded by the Pentagon but editorially independent, said the journalists' profiles included suggestions on how to "neutralize" negative stories and generate favorable coverage.
It published a pie chart which it said came from a Rendon report on the coverage of a reporter for an unidentified major U.S. newspaper until mid-May, judging it to be 83.33 percent neutral and 16.67 percent negative with respect to the military's goals.
The U.S. military command in Afghanistan said the Rendon Group provided a range of services including analysis of news coverage -- but it did not grade journalists.
"I've been here since June and we have never used any product from Rendon to rate specific journalists or to try and influence their reporting," said Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, director of communications for U.S. Forces Afghanistan.
The command said it compiled background information on journalists, including biographical details and recent topics they have covered, to prepare leaders for interviews.
It supplied a sample profile which included bullet-point summaries under headings such as "Background", "Coverage" and "Perspective, Style and Tone".
But it said it had never used such information to determine whether a reporter was granted the opportunity to embed with a military unit or interview a commander.
The Stars and Stripes report, published on Wednesday, sparked condemnation from organizations representing U.S. and international journalists.
"This profiling of journalists further compromises the independence of media," said Aidan White, general secretary of the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists.
"It strips away any pretense that the army is interested in helping journalists to work freely. It suggests they are more interested in propaganda than honest reporting."
Rendon said references to positive, negative or neutral coverage in its analysis referred to how the content affected military objectives. "Neutral to Negative" coverage could include reports of kidnappings and suicide bombings, it said.
"The information and analysis we generate is developed by quantifying these themes and topics and not by ranking of reporters," it said in a statement posted on its website. (Editing by Alan Elsner)
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Shortage Of Civilian Experts Slows Afghan Rebuilding
by Tom Bowman NPR - National Public Radio August 26, 2009
Thousands of American troops are setting up combat outposts throughout Afghanistan. But in order to rebuild the country, U.S. civilian experts in fields such as farming, irrigation and the rule of law are needed.
And those experts aren't arriving in Afghanistan quickly enough, analysts say.
When soldier-turned-diplomat Karl Eikenberry was the commanding general in Afghanistan in 2007, he would often ask his field commanders: "If you had a choice right now of getting 100 more infantrymen or 10 agricultural experts, which would it be?"
"Nine times out of 10, the answer would be 10 agricultural experts," Eikenberry recalled to NPR in a recent interview.
Now, Eikenberry is the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. But U.S. commanders are still waiting for those agricultural experts.
There are 10,000 U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province. Another 5,000 American soldiers are deployed in neighboring Kandahar province. And the Obama administration is considering sending thousands more.
Compare those figures to the total number of U.S. government civilians on the ground in southern Afghanistan: 50.
"The military is very realistic about a 'surge' in civilian resources," says Andrew Exum, a retired Army officer and defense analyst who recently returned from Afghanistan.
In this instance, "realistic" means those civilian experts aren't expected any time soon.
Exum, who is also a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, says the process is going to take some time.
"The State Department and other U.S. agencies don't have a ready brigade that can just be deployed at any moment. So they recognize that if we get more civilian resources, we might not get them until next spring," he says.
Exum and others say that success in Afghanistan can come only by providing jobs and a better life for Afghans. Decades of war and civil war have left much of the country a wasteland. The U.S. military says many fight Afghan men for the Taliban only because they're paid, earning them the nickname "Ten Dollar Taliban."
But those U.S. civilian experts who can help boost the Afghan economy and society simply aren't arriving quickly enough.
"The way they are trickling in — and trickling is the operative term — they can't possibly meet the needs in a place like Helmand," says Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst who recently returned from a visit to Afghanistan.
"Much of the job will continue to have to be done by the military working with far too few civilians, and that will be true at least through the end of 2010," says Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, dismisses Cordesman's claim.
"I have no idea what he's talking about," Holbrooke told reporters at a recent news conference. "We have a very sustained plan."
That plan, Holbrooke says, is to bring in more civilians from not only the State Department but also the Department of Agriculture, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development, which focuses on economic growth, trade and humanitarian aid.
"Many people have already arrived," Holbrooke said. "I saw a mission that was showing much more energy than I'd ever seen on previous trips going back three or four years."
More Energy, But Still Not Enough People
State Department officials say there are now more than 500 government civilians working throughout Afghanistan from all U.S. agencies. Their goal is to double that number by December. Most of those civilians will be working in the provinces, they say.
State Department officials tell NPR that they plan on using these civilian government experts to create more economic reconstruction teams within the provinces, at the district level.
Right now, many of the current economic teams, known as provincial reconstruction teams, are run by military reservists. The State Department hopes that over time civilians can run these teams.
Rebuilding A 'Decades-Long' Enterprise
They will have a big job. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said recently that it may take "a few years" to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida, but many years to rebuild.
"The larger part of it, economic development and institution-building, probably is a decades-long enterprise in a country that has been through 30 years of war and has as high an illiteracy rate as Afghanistan does, and low level of economic development," Gates told reporters recently.
"So that is a long-term prospect, but it's also one of those areas where virtually all of our international partners and nongovernmental organizations are committed to that side of the equation for an indefinite of period of time," he said.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says he believes the State Department has a good plan for bringing in more civilian workers to help the military's efforts.
"And my expectation is they will start to show up on the order of by the hundreds towards the end of the year and the first part of next year," Mullen tells NPR.
Causes For The Delays
One State Department official says the delays are the result of the time-consuming search for the right people with the right skills. Currently, the USAID Web site features 50 openings for development officers in Afghanistan.
The U.S. also must build places for them to live in some of the more remote areas in Afghanistan.
Then there is the issue of security. Parts of the country are too dangerous, and that is preventing private charitable groups and nongovernmental organizations from working there, too. The U.S. military will have to make sure those areas are safe, Holbrooke says.
"You can't have civilians go out unless there's security," he says.
And that, U.S. officers say, will likely mean more American troops in Afghanistan.
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Afghan bar groups demand compensation for Guantanamo detainee
KABUL, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The head of Afghanistan Independent Bar Association (AIBA) Rohullah Qarizada Thursday demanded the United States to pay compensation for Mohammad Javad, a young Afghan man released recently from Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp.
"AIBA demands U.S. to pay compensation for Mohammad Javad who has been in detention for seven years," Qarizada told reporters at a joint press conference here with Javad and his American defense lawyer Eric Montalvo.
The AIBA head said "Javad has no house to live and no chance to continue his education, the most important thing is the U.S. should pay for his health treatment."
Javad was arrested in 2002 when he was 12 years old for attacking a U.S. military vehicle by grenade that injured two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan translator.
"I joined a team of attorneys, we got together to work for Javad's case and we quickly realized the evidence that the government was insufficient," Javad's lawyer Eric Montalvo said.
Montalvo said "It doesn't take a lot of money to help sustain Javad's life in Afghanistan so I think it is a very small amount of money that would make a big difference for this young man."
The Afghan Independent Human Right Commission has also requested compensation from Washington.
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Afghan Youths Seek a New Life in Europe
By CAROLINE BROTHERS The New York Times
PARIS — On the edges of a Salvation Army soup line in Paris, a soft-spoken Afghan boy told the story recently of how he ended up in Europe, alone.
The boy, who said he was 15 but looked younger, recounted how his family left Afghanistan after his mother lost her leg in an explosion in 2004. They spent three years in Iran, where he went to school for the first time, learning English and discovering the Internet. After his father suffered a back injury that made working difficult, the boy, who declined to give his name, headed west.
He spent two months working 11-hour days in a clothing sweatshop in Istanbul, he said. He was then smuggled into Greece, where he was forced to work on a potato and onion farm near Agros for nine months, finally escaping in the back of a truck. He reached Paris by train after nearly a year on the road.
“I want to go to school,” he said in English. “I would like it if I could be — it sounds like a lot to ask — an engineer of computing.”
Thousands of lone Afghan boys are making their way across Europe, a trend that has accelerated in the past two years as conditions for Afghan refugees become more difficult in countries like Iran and Pakistan. Although some are as young as 12, most are teenagers seeking an education and a future that is not possible in their own country, which is still struggling with poverty and violence eight years after the end of Taliban rule.
The boys pose a challenge for European countries, many of which have sent troops to fight in Afghanistan but whose publics question the rationale for the war. Though each country has an obligation under national and international law to provide for them, the cost of doing so is yet another problem for a continent already grappling with tens of thousands of migrants.
In Italy, 24 Afghan teenagers were discovered sleeping in a sewer in Rome this spring, and last year two adolescents died in Italian ports — one under a semitrailer in Venice and another inside a shipping container in Ancona. In Greece, which says it is overwhelmed by asylum seekers from many countries, there is no foster system for foreign minors; only 300 can be accommodated in the whole country, officials say.
And in Paris this year, Afghans for the first time outnumber sub-Saharan Africans as the biggest group of unaccompanied foreign minors to request admission to child protection services, said Charlotte Aveline, a senior adviser on child protection at City Hall.
“Some arrive very beaten, very tired, but if they stay put for just one week they very quickly become adolescents again,” said Jean-Michel Centres of Exilés10, a citizens’ organization that works with the mainly Afghan migrants who gather around Villemin Square, close to the Gare de l’Est.
“First they ask where they can go to have papers, then where they can go to school, and where after that they can get a job,” Mr. Centres said.
The European Union does not keep statistics on the number of foreign children who are wandering Europe without their families, and the records of aid groups and government agencies vary greatly. But requests for asylum by unaccompanied Afghan minors suggest that there are thousands across Europe. The requests provide a baseline, experts say, because many more youths do not seek refugee status.
Blanche Tax, a senior policy officer at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Brussels, said that last year 3,090 Afghan minors requested asylum in Austria, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany — the European Union countries where their numbers rose the most sharply — more than double the 1,489 requests in those countries in 2007.
“Afghanistan is hemorrhaging its youth into Europe,” said Pierre Henry, director of France Terre d’Asile, an organization that works with the European Union, the United Nations refugee agency and the French government on asylum affairs.
The five Afghan boys interviewed for this article told of being exploited as under-age labor in Greece and Turkey and dodging beatings by the police. None would give his name in order to speak more freely.
A 17-year-old from the Afghan city of Ghazni said the police repeatedly tried to remove him and another boy from trucks in the port of Patras, Greece, where the authorities destroyed an Afghan squatter camp on July 12.
Once in France, the boys face more hardship. The Paris police have started conducting nightly searches to prevent Afghan migrants from sleeping in Villemin Square. The 15-year-old was placed in a cheap hotel, while others were put in temporary shelter in an unused subway station. Others find their own shelter under bridges and beside a canal.
The housing, financed by the state, is administered by France Terre d’Asile. The group helps guide the boys through the process of requesting assistance from the French child protection agency, registers their names and gives them French lessons.
“We have had some very good success stories,” said Ms. Aveline, the adviser at City Hall.
The boys interviewed for this article said they were in limbo, dreaming of going to school and having a normal life.
One teenager who has been in Paris for two months was deeply worried about what lie ahead. “How should I make a future?” he asked. “I’m 15 already. I’m on my own. What can I do?”
Yet a few days later, he was full of excitement because France Terre d’Asile had taken him to a swimming pool, the first time he had ever been to one. He was also taking French classes. From his pocket he produced a pencil and paper with pictures of fruits. “I like bananas,” he said in French. “I like apples.”
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US missile strike 'kills four Taliban' in Pakistan
Thu Aug 27, 6:43 am ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A US missile strike from a drone aircraft Thursday killed at least four Taliban militants in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, officials said.
"The strike targeted a Taliban compound in Kaniguram village of South Waziristan, killing four militants," a senior security official told AFP.
Another official confirmed the casualties and said that a US drone fired two missiles, but added it was not immediately clear whether there was any high-value target present in the area at the time.
"The missile strike was carried out at 3.00 pm (0900 GMT)," the official said, adding that the village is known to have hideouts belonging to fighters loyal to slain Pakistan Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.
Mehsud was also killed in a US drone attack, on August 5, however his death was only confirmed by other Taliban commanders on Tuesday.
The US military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones in the region.
Pakistan in April launched a punishing military offensive against the Taliban in the northwest, targeting the rebels in the districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir after militants advanced closer to the capital Islamabad.
Last month the military claimed to have cleared the area of Taliban and vowed to turn their attention to the mountainous tribal belt along the border where Mehsud and his Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have thrived since 2007.
Islamabad publicly opposes suspected US strikes, saying they violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the populace. Since August 2008, around 52 such strikes have killed more than 521 people.
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Afghanistan clinch maiden first-class victory
Thu Aug 27, 1:37 AM
AMSTELVEEN, Netherlands (AFP) - Four months after securing one-day international status, Afghanistan on Wednesday celebrated their maiden first-class victory with a one-wicket victory over the Netherlands.
In the four-day match, part of the Intercontinental Cup tournament, Afghanistan began the final day needing 168 to win, with eight wickets to spare, and reached their target when Samiullah Shenwari smashed Mudassar Bukhari for a boundary.
In a low-scoring, rain-affected match, the Dutch were bowled out for 181 in their first innings with Hamid Hassan and Mohammad Nabi grabbing four wickets each.
Afghanistan were dismissed for just 107 with Nowroz Mangal top-scoring with 41 before the Dutch were then bowled out for 132 in their second innings. This time, Shapoor Zadran and Mirwais Ashraf claimed four wickets each.
Opener Noor Ali top-scored for Afghanistan in their second innings making 56.
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