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Karzai extends Afghan vote lead; run-off indicated
By Hamid Shalizi And Peter Graff
KABUL (Reuters) – Partial Afghan election returns released on Saturday showed President Hamid Karzai extending his lead in last week's vote, but still falling short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off.
Karzai Using Rift With U.S. to Gain Favor With Afghans
By HELENE COOPER The New York Times August 29, 2009
OAK BLUFFS, Mass. — A little over 24 hours after the polls closed, President Obama stepped out on the White House South Lawn last week to pronounce the Afghanistan presidential elections something of a success.
U.S. Concerned About Allegations of Afghan Election Fraud
By Janine Zacharia
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. expressed renewed concerns about allegations of fraud in Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 election and pressed Afghan officials to respect whatever results emerge.
White House condemns any Afghan vote fraud
Fri Aug 28, 2:53 pm ET
OAK BLUFFS, Massachusetts (AFP) – The White House on Friday condemned any evidence of fraud from the Afghan election, after details emerged of a "testy" meeting between a top US envoy and President Hamid Karzai.
Complaints of Afghan election fraud pour in
By Peter Graff – Fri Aug 28, 9:04 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission has received more than 2,000 complaints of fraud or abuse in last week's disputed presidential election, with 270 now listed as serious enough to affect the result, it said on Friday.
Afghan polls: Abdullah cries foul over 'election frauds'
rediff.com - Aug 29 1:43 AM
Warning of 'shocking scale' of vote rigging in the Afghan Presidential elections, the main challenger to Hamid Karzai has said the poll fraud will remove all legitimacy from the new government.
Afghan rift with US clouds Obama strategy
By Matthew Green in Kabul The Financial Times August 28 2009 17:31
Cracks in the relationship between Washington and Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, following last week’s elections suggest the US will face an even tougher battle to implement its new strategy for the country.
Abdullah Abdullah warns survival of Afghanistan is at risk
Afghanistan's leading opposition candidate has warned the very survival of Afghanistan is at stake as its presidential elections become mired in allegations of fraud.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer in Kabul and Dean Nelson in New Delhi 28 Aug 2009
Abdullah Abdullah has previously appealed for his supporters to remain calm, patient and responsible. Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to Hamid Karzai,
British prime minister visits Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News
KABUL – Britain's prime minister has paid a surprise visit to British troops in southern Afghanistan.
Brown Visits Afghanistan, Seeks Faster Training of Local Forces
By Thomas Penny
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Gordon Brown, visiting British troops in Afghanistan, said local forces should accelerate their training as part of a strategy to increase Afghan control over the country.
Brown Visits Afghanistan, Seeks Faster Training of Local Forces
By Thomas Penny
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Gordon Brown, visiting British troops in Afghanistan, said local forces should accelerate their training as part of a strategy to increase Afghan control over the country.
Taliban growth in northern Afghanistan threatens to expand war
By Jonathan S. Landay, Mcclatchy Newspapers Fri Aug 28, 2:26 pm ET
BAGHLAN-I-JADID, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents have taken over parts of two northern provinces from which they were driven in 2001, threatening to disrupt NATO's new supply route from Central Asia and expand
After Afghanistan’s Vote
The New York Times August 29, 2009
Five months after President Obama announced a new approach to Afghanistan that was supposed to invest more heavily in nonmilitary programs, American commanders are talking about adding troops to an increasingly tough fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Two killed, 21 wounded in Afghan suicide strike
Sat Aug 29, 4:16 am ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest attacked a patrol of Western and Afghan troops in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least two civilians and wounding 21, district officials said.
Cash: A softener in Afghan war zone
Hard cash: A softener for US Marines pledging to grab 'hearts and minds' in Afghan war zone
By Alfred de Montesquiou, Associated Press Writer Friday August 28, 2009, 3:57 pm EDT
DAHANEH, Afghanistan (AP) -- The U.S. Marines came uninvited to Abdul-Hamid's home in this southern Afghan town and made their presence felt.
Wounded CBS journalist at hospital in Afghanistan
By Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writer – Sat Aug 29, 4:48 am ET
KABUL – A CBS Radio News correspondent was being treated Saturday at Bagram Air Base after being seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan that also killed a U.S. service member, officials said.
US faces smaller, smarter enemy in Afghanistan
By Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer
NOW ZAD, Afghanistan – After three tours in Iraq, U.S. Marine Sgt. Andre Leon was used to brutal shootouts with enemy fighters and expected more of the same in Afghanistan.
Analysis: Why are the U.S., allies still in Afghanistan?
By Joe Sterling
(CNN) -- The U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan has been a tough slog, a nearly eight-year conflict replete with gloom.
Afghanistan's hidden heroin addicts
Toronto Star Aug 29, 2009
KABUL - The flame from a match pierces pitch-black darkness, casting an eerie glow on dirty, feral faces.
Afghanistan's Bamiyan province struggles to build tourism
Ivan Watson is CNN's correspondent based in Istanbul, Turkey.
(CNN) -- Thursday is "Chinese night" at the Hotel Silk Road in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province.
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Karzai extends Afghan vote lead; run-off indicated
By Hamid Shalizi And Peter Graff
KABUL (Reuters) – Partial Afghan election returns released on Saturday showed President Hamid Karzai extending his lead in last week's vote, but still falling short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off.
Afghanistan has been on tenterhooks since the Aug 20 election, with official results coming out in slow drips, Karzai's camp claiming victory and his main rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, alleging widespread fraud.
With results from about a third of polling stations tallied, Karzai leads Abdullah by 46.3 percent to 31.3 percent.
The latest results extend Karzai's lead substantially from earlier partial figures, but they still suggest he would face a run-off, which must be held if no candidate wins more than 50 percent, scheduled for early October.
Results have been coming in at different rates from different provinces, so it is difficult to guess at the final outcome. Votes could also be thrown out by a complaints watchdog which says it is probing more than 2,000 accusations of fraud and abuse, including 270 serious enough to alter the outcome.
Western diplomats have said it is still too close to say whether Karzai can avoid a second round.
Southern provinces, which largely support Karzai, have been late to report. They are also the areas where many of the fraud allegations have been concentrated, and where Taliban violence and threats were most successful in scaring away voters.
Officials have still not given any figure for overall turnout. With 35 percent of polling stations tallied, there were more than two million votes recorded, suggesting total turnout of around 6 million, although officials warn against extrapolating.
The turnout appears disappointing in a country of about 30 million people, with an estimated 15 million eligible voters.
TEST FOR OBAMA
Taliban militants had vowed to disrupt the election and fired scores of rockets at towns and cities on polling day. The attacks failed to prevent the election from taking place, prompting Western officials to describe the election as a success.
Those assessments have since grown more circumspect, with reports of very low turn-out in some violent southern provinces and mounting allegations of fraud.
The election is also a test for the strategy of President Barack Obama, who has rushed thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan in a bid to reverse Taliban gains. There are now more than 100,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, including 63,000 Americans, about half of whom arrived this year.
The commander of U.S. and NATO forces, General Stanley McChrystal, is finalizing a review and may ask for still more.
U.S. and British forces have launched major advances into Taliban-held territory, taking by far the worst casualties of the eight-year-old war. In Britain's case, the casualties have been its worst in combat in a generation, mostly from roadside bombs.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an unannounced visit to southern Helmand province on Saturday, saying he wanted more Afghan troops to share the burden of fighting the Taliban.
Brown has been under fire back home from retired commanders and critics who say he has failed to send enough troops or equipment to keep British forces safe. A new poll showed nearly two thirds of Britons want to withdraw from Afghanistan.
The election has exposed tension between Karzai, once the darling of the West, and U.S. officials, who have acknowledged that meetings between Karzai and White House envoy Richard Holbrooke after the election were tense.
Washington has in particular expressed concern about the return of Uzbek ex-militia chief Abdul Rashid Dostum, viewed by Western officials as a warlord, who came back from apparent exile in Turkey days before the election to campaign for Karzai.
A spokesman for Dostum said on Saturday that he had again left the country, returning to Turkey.
(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft at CAMP BASTION; Editing by David Fox)
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Karzai Using Rift With U.S. to Gain Favor With Afghans
By HELENE COOPER The New York Times August 29, 2009
OAK BLUFFS, Mass. — A little over 24 hours after the polls closed, President Obama stepped out on the White House South Lawn last week to pronounce the Afghanistan presidential elections something of a success.
“This was an important step forward in the Afghan people’s effort to take control of their future, even as violent extremists are trying to stand in their way,” Mr. Obama said. “I want to congratulate the Afghanistan people on carrying out this historic election.”
But now, as reports mount of widespread fraud in the balloting, including allegations that supporters of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, illegally stuffed ballot boxes in the south and ripped up ballots cast for his opponents, Mr. Obama’s early praise may soon come back to haunt him.
Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission said Friday that it had received more than 2,000 complaints of fraud or abuse in last week’s election. Mr. Karzai’s biggest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, showed reporters video of a local election chief in one polling station stuffing ballot boxes himself.
The vote count has progressed very slowly in Afghanistan — as of Friday, preliminary results with 17 percent of the vote in gave Mr. Karzai 44 percent and Mr. Abdullah 35 percent. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, a runoff must be held between the top two candidates.
For Mr. Obama, who is on vacation here in Martha’s Vineyard, and his administration, it is the worst of all possible outcomes. Administration officials have made no secret of their growing disenchantment with Mr. Karzai, who is viewed by the West as having so compromised himself to try to get elected — including striking deals with accused drug dealers and warlords for political gain — that he will be a hindrance to international efforts to get the country on track after the election.
But Mr. Karzai, in a feat of political shrewdness that has surprised some in the Obama administration, has managed to turn that disenchantment to an advantage, portraying himself at home as the only political candidate willing to stand up to the dictates of the United States, according to Western officials.
Case in point: a meeting the day after the elections last week between Mr. Karzai and Richard C. Holbrooke, Mr. Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, at Mr. Karzai’s presidential palace in Kabul.
A person familiar with the meeting, which also included Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, and the deputy ambassador, Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., said that the three Americans went in to see Mr. Karzai and discussed two things: how Mr. Karzai would govern if he were re-elected, and how the elections had gone.
The three Americans told Mr. Karzai, the person said, that the United States was maintaining a neutral position in the elections, and that it would leave decisions about whether a runoff was needed to the Afghan elections commission and the electoral complaints commission.
Mr. Karzai told the Americans, according to this account, that he believed that he had won. Mr. Holbrooke, administration officials said, did not demand a runoff during the meeting, but did express concern about the complaints about fraud and ballot-box stuffing. The Americans left the meeting and described it as routine.
A few days after, reports surfaced in international and Afghan news outlets that Mr. Holbrooke had demanded a runoff election in what one report characterized as the “explosive” meeting with Mr. Karzai, a charge which the Americans deny vociferously.
The administration officials accused Mr. Karzai’s agents of leaking to the news media select portions of the exchange between the two men, in order to make it look as if Obama administration were trying to force the rightful winner of the Afghan presidential elections — Mr. Karzai — into holding a runoff to satisfy American demands.
Mr. Karzai, a senior administration official said, “has a longstanding pattern of creating a straw man of America’s positions, and rallying people around that. But contrary to those reports, no one shouted, no one walked out” of the meeting, he said.
Whatever the case, the atmosphere may now have become so poisoned between the United States and Mr. Karzai that the Obama administration will be hampered no matter what course it takes. Administration officials said initial characterizations of the success of the elections referred solely to the fact that they took place at all, despite threats by the Taliban and more than 200 rocket attacks in southern Afghanistan on election day.
“Those comments about the relative success of the elections were coming at a time when there was the fear that the Taliban would disrupt the process,” another senior administration official said. The Taliban, the official said, “launched hundreds of rocket attacks, and Afghans still voted.”
Publicly, the administration line remains that Mr. Obama is waiting for the Afghan complaints commission to rule on the validity of the vote tallies and on less numerous fraud allegations lodged against Mr. Abdullah. The process may take weeks.
Asked if Mr. Obama regretted his initial assessment that the elections appeared to have been successful, a White House spokesman, Bill Burton, said, “The president’s view is we’re all waiting for the results to trickle in just like everybody else.”
Mr. Burton added: “We think that, with the mechanisms in place to address any allegations of fraud, that they will work.”
That may not be enough for Afghans. “The allegations of fraud are very serious, throughout the country, and the international community has an obligation to ensure that the complaints commission investigates all of these complaints,” said Saad Mohseni, head of the Moby media group of radio and television stations based in Kabul.
“We had rockets raining on some towns, suicide bombers in the cities, gunfire, and yet people turned out to vote,” Mr. Mohseni said. “People took their lives in their hands, and therefore they deserve better.”
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U.S. Concerned About Allegations of Afghan Election Fraud
By Janine Zacharia
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. expressed renewed concerns about allegations of fraud in Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 election and pressed Afghan officials to respect whatever results emerge.
The election, marred by allegations of wrongdoing and possibly headed to a second round of voting, has created tensions between the U.S. and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is trying to stay in power.
“We condemn any acts of fraud,” White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said yesterday. “It is important that the outcome of these elections reflect the will of the Afghan people.”
“Robust mechanisms exist for dealing with incidents of fraud and we need to be patient and allow those bodies to do their work thoroughly,” he said, citing Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission.
The Electoral Complaints Commission, an independent Afghan body comprised of Afghan and international commissioners that adjudicates challenges to the electoral process, said that as of Aug. 24 it had received 790 complaints on or after polling day and 1,157 total, including the campaign period.
The allegations so far include ballot stuffing, poor quality ink and intimidation, the commission said, according to a press release on its Web site. The commission has sent investigators to seven provinces where fraud has been alleged, including Kandahar.
Certifying the Election
For election results to be certified, the commission must adjudicate all of the complaints it has received, a process that could be lengthy given the high number of challenges.
Hammer’s message of patience to the Afghan parties and condemnation of election fraud echoes sentiments aired by President Barack Obama’s special envoy on Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, to Karzai in an Aug. 21 meeting in Afghanistan.
The BBC reported yesterday that Holbrooke and Karzai had an “explosive meeting” over the election and that Holbrooke raised concerns about ballot-stuffing and fraud and said a second round run-off election might make the process more credible.
A senior State Department official, asked about the report, described the meeting as tough and said Holbrooke had the same conversation with Karzai as with other candidates, noting that they all should be patient and respect the election results. The official said Holbrooke didn’t say the U.S. favors a second ballot; only a credible result of the election.
Credible Result
Getting a credible result is important not just for the U.S; it is important for the new government’s legitimacy among Afghans too, said Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan who is now president of the American Academy of Diplomacy.
If votes are thrown out, particularly among Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group, it will push them into the arms of the Taliban, Neumann said. The most important thing is that whoever wins has “the greatest chance of Afghans rallying around the result,” Neumann said.
“We will continue to encourage Afghan authorities to follow the comprehensive anti-fraud measures established in order to protect the integrity of the election process and ensure that the election results are credible,” Hammer said.
Fighting the Taliban
The U.S. is seeking a clear and quick election result to determine its partner in fighting a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. This year has been the deadliest for U.S. troops there since U.S. forces invaded the country in 2001 to oust the Taliban leadership sheltering al-Qaeda. According to a U.S. military Web site, 176 U.S. servicemen have died this year.
The mounting death toll has made some Democrats queasy about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Obama earlier this year approved sending 17,000 more troops as well as 4,000 trainers.
“After nearly eight years in Afghanistan, we continue to risk further loss of American lives and increased resentment among the Afghan people -- all without a clearly focused mission,” Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, said in a statement today. He has urged Obama to declare a flexible timetable for withdrawing American forces.
As of Aug. 26, Karzai had 42 percent among the ballots counted, compared with 33 percent for Abdullah Abdullah, his former foreign minister. The Independent Election Commission had counted 998,000 votes at 17 percent of nationwide polling stations by then.
With no geographical breakdown of the poll given so far, and with hundreds of electoral fraud complaints to be deal with, Karzai may not surpass the 50 percent threshold he needs to avoid a runoff election.
To contact the reporter on this story: Janine Zacharia in Washington at jzacharia@bloomberg.net.
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White House condemns any Afghan vote fraud
Fri Aug 28, 2:53 pm ET
OAK BLUFFS, Massachusetts (AFP) – The White House on Friday condemned any evidence of fraud from the Afghan election, after details emerged of a "testy" meeting between a top US envoy and President Hamid Karzai.
Revelations about the encounter were revealed as concern mounted about alleged irregularities in the election, and US combat deaths for the month hit 46, making August the deadliest month of the war so far for American soldiers.
President Barack Obama's National Security Council declined to elaborate on reportedly fraught talks between envoy Richard Holbrooke and Karzai on the day after the August 20 polls but promised continued vigilance over electoral irregularities.
"We condemn any acts of fraud; it is important that the outcome of these elections reflect the will of the Afghan people," NSC spokesman Michael Hammer said.
"Robust mechanisms exist for dealing with incidents of fraud, through the IEC and the Electoral Complaints Commission and we need to be patient and allow those bodies to do their work thoroughly.
"We will continue to encourage Afghan authorities to follow the comprehensive anti-fraud measures established in order to protect the integrity of the election process and ensure that the election results are credible."
A separate US official with knowledge of the meeting between Holbrooke and Karzai said on condition of anonymity that the US envoy brought up allegations of widespread vote-rigging.
"It was a difficult meeting and there were some sharp exchanges in it," the official said in Washington.
"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.
Karzai's main opponent Abdullah Abdullah has alleged massive fraud and ballot stuffing and made formal complaints to the Election Complaints Commission, which received 790 allegations of fraud on election day alone.
Analysts said that by making public the fractious nature of the exchange between Holbrooke and Karzai, the US administration has revealed its concern that fraud allegations and low turnout would damage the election's credibility.
But any judgment that the Afghan elections were not free and fair would complicate Obama's task of retaining public support for the Afghan operation, with US troop deaths rising.
Obama, who is currently on vacation on the island of Martha's Vineyard, initially said the elections seemed to have been successful, but since then more claims of fraud have surfaced.
Earlier Friday, a bomb blast killed a US soldier, in the latest deadly attack on American forces.
The soldier's death brought the American military death toll to its highest point for a single month since the conflict began in 2001, a US official said.
A total of 46 troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this month, higher than the previous monthly record set in July with 45 deaths.
After less then nine months, 2009 is already on record as the deadliest year for all foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the extremist Taliban regime and sparked an increasingly virulent insurgency.
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Complaints of Afghan election fraud pour in
By Peter Graff – Fri Aug 28, 9:04 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission has received more than 2,000 complaints of fraud or abuse in last week's disputed presidential election, with 270 now listed as serious enough to affect the result, it said on Friday.
More than a week after the election, Afghanistan remains in a state of political limbo, with authorities having published results from just 17 percent of polling stations, giving inconclusive figures.
President Hamid Karzai's main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has complained about fraud and said he would not accept the result if large-scale abuse was found to have played a decisive role.
The complaints commission, which was partly appointed by the United Nations and includes Afghan and foreign members, said more allegations from polling day are still arriving. The numbers of serious complaints reported on Friday were far higher than it had listed in the initial days after the voting took place.
It has received 2,207 complaints, including 1,740 since polling day. It has so far categorized 984 of the complaints, and listed 270 as Category A, "which, if proved valid, could have material effects on the results", it said in a statement.
"Received complaints vary. They include allegations of ballot stuffing, poor quality ink, intimidation and accusations against polling staff."
Partial results released so far show Karzai leading with 44.8 percent, with Abdullah winning 35.1 percent. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, a run-off must be held between the two top candidates.
Although the results so far suggest a run-off would be needed, it is still too early to predict the eventual outcome. Many provinces in the south -- where Karzai draws much of his support but fraud allegations are widest and turnout was most affected by Taliban threats -- have yet to be tallied.
Taliban fighters threatened to disrupt the poll and launched rocket attacks across the country on polling day, especially in the south. Those attacks failed to halt the election itself, but do seem to have dampened turnout, especially in the south.
The complete preliminary results are due on September 3, with another two weeks for complaints to be investigated before the final outcome is announced. A second round if needed should be held two weeks later, presumably October 1, though dates can change.
The initial tallies suggest only about 5.5 million Afghans voted, a disappointing figure in a country with about 30 million people and an estimated 15 million eligible voters
Pour turnout in the violent south could increase the chance of a run-off, by restricting votes cast for Karzai by his fellow Pashtuns.
Endemic government corruption and Karzai's close ties with former militia leaders have eroded his support, both with the Afghan people and with Washington policymakers.
(For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
(Editing by Nick Macfie)
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Afghan polls: Abdullah cries foul over 'election frauds'
rediff.com - Aug 29 1:43 AM
Warning of 'shocking scale' of vote rigging in the Afghan Presidential elections, the main challenger to Hamid Karzai has said the poll fraud will remove all legitimacy from the new government.
"If the democratic process does not survive, then Afghanistan does'nt survive," former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said, as allegations of vote frauds gathered momentum with only days left for announcement of the outcome.
Abdullah's warnings come as United States and its western allies who initially had welcomed the elections as movement towards normalisation in Afghanistan through the ballot, have raised concerns about the legitimacy of the outcome, as early results point to a dismal 30-35 per cent turnout.
The former Foreign Minister in an interview to British newspaper the 'Daily Telegraph' said he would examine all legal avenues against what he termed as "state engineered election frauds."
"And if that was unsuccessful," Abdullah Abdullah said he would refuse to recognise the outcome. Election officials in the backdrop of such warnings by him and other Presidential aspirants have said that they have contingency plans to deal with any "Iran-style" protests.
With 17 per cent of the results released, Karzai has a narrow lead over Abdullah by 42.3 per cent to 33.1 per cent. The winner needs 50 per cent plus one vote to sail through in the first count, otherwise the polls go to the second round.
As the cries of poll fraud increase, French foreign ministry have called a meeting of envoys of France [ Images ], United Kingdom, Germany [ Images ] and US to meet in Paris on Wednesday to discuss the Afghan election.
The White House has also condemned any acts of fraud in the elections as its Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke [ Images ] had a verbal duel on the issue with President Karzai.
Abdullah Abdullah told the British paper that Afghan Election Commission had to take notice of complaints of fraud, "because what does that mean? The same sort of regime that crafted this massive rigging will be imposed upon Afghanistan for another five years."
The former foreign minister last week had presented to the media what he claimed was frauds committed by Karzai supporters and said it remains to be seen whether the election commission was strong enough to disallow suspect votes and ballot boxes.
Dr Abdullah said the international community was concerned that the drawn-out elections could worsen security, but denied he had come under pressure to make a deal with the government and avoid a lengthy battle. He said, "They cannot pressure me to be part of a mafia system, a 'narcostate' as they themselves defined it."
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Afghan rift with US clouds Obama strategy
By Matthew Green in Kabul The Financial Times August 28 2009 17:31
Cracks in the relationship between Washington and Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, following last week’s elections suggest the US will face an even tougher battle to implement its new strategy for the country.
Mr Karzai grew angry at a meeting with Richard Holbrooke, Washington’s envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, after the diplomat voiced concerns over evidence of massive electoral fraud, according to an Afghan government official.
The official, who was not authorised to speak to journalists, said Mr Karzai had been particularly vexed by a suggestion from Mr Holbrooke that the president should accept results pointing to a second round run-off in October. Mr Karzai has argued that this could inflame ethnic tensions.
The incident with Mr Holbrooke added to concerns that a deterioration in a relationship that has already turned increasingly sour in recent years will complicate new plans by Barack Obama, US president, to starve Taliban insurgents of popular support by deploying thousands more troops and a “civilian surge” of development workers.
The strategy is based on a hope that the elections will deliver a more capable government than Mr Karzai’s present administration, which is widely perceived as corrupt and ineffectual. Instead, the politicking unleashed by the polls threatens to land western allies with an even less credible partner.
Allegations of massive fraud by Mr Karzai’s supporters and an extremely low turnout in the south have proved embarrassing for Afghanistan’s allies at a time of sharply increasing casualties for Nato troops, particularly Americans and Britons. Mr Karzai’s embrace of warlords accused of conducting massacres or running opium cartels to win votes from their followers has further strained his relations with Washington.
Electoral officials are due to release further results today to add to preliminary returns that suggest Mr Karzai has won 44.8 per cent of votes compared with 35.1 per cent for Abdullah Ab-dullah, a former foreign minister, with 17 per cent of votes counted. Mr Karzai needs to win 50 per cent to avoid a second round run-off.
Allegations of ballot-stuffing, intimidation and connivance in rigging by electoral officials in favour of Mr Karzai, but also in some cases for Mr Abdullah, have cast a pall over the process.
Elders in southern provinces dominated by Mr Karzai’s Pashtun community have reported widespread manipulation of the ballot in his favour. “I think five per cent of votes have been counted validly and 95 per cent have been fabricated,” said Ahmad Shah Jan, a tribal leader from Uruzghan Province.
However, Afghan observers suspect that politicians and the US will work together to forge a compromise coalition.
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Abdullah Abdullah warns survival of Afghanistan is at risk
Afghanistan's leading opposition candidate has warned the very survival of Afghanistan is at stake as its presidential elections become mired in allegations of fraud.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer in Kabul and Dean Nelson in New Delhi 28 Aug 2009
Abdullah Abdullah has previously appealed for his supporters to remain calm, patient and responsible. Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to Hamid Karzai, said he had been shocked at the scale of vote-rigging in the August 20 poll, which threatened to remove all legitimacy from the government.
He said he would exhaust all legal avenues to counter what he alleged was "state-engineered fraud", but said if that was unsuccessful he would not recognise the elections.
His comments will heighten fears that if the election is widely perceived to be stolen, the country could be shaken by destabilising demonstrations or unrest.
Election officials have said they have contingency plans to deal with "Iran-style" protests similar to those held in Tehran after that country's disputed presidential elections in June.
Dr Abdullah spoke out as reports emerged of a heated row over the election between Richard Holbrooke, Barack Obama's super envoy to the region, and Hamid Karzai over the election.
The two are said to have had "sharp exchanges" after Mr Holbrooke complained about ballot box stuffing from the Karzai campaign.
The Afghan election watchdog has received more than 1,500 complaints since polling closed, including more than 100 from the Abdullah campaign. More than 160 have been judged "high priority", including allegations of ballot box tampering and ghost polling stations which could prove "material to the outcome".
In insecure southern districts where Taliban intimidation scared away nearly all voters, ballot boxes are said to have returned stuffed with votes for Mr Karzai.
In an exclusive interview, Dr Abdullah told the Daily Telegraph: "I think if the process doesn't survive, then Afghanistan doesn't survive.
"Because what does that mean? The same sort of regime that crafted this massive, massive rigging will be imposed upon Afghanistan for another five years.
"On top of whatever problems this government, this administration had, there will be its illegitimacy.
"We will exhaust all legal avenues. But finally, if it worked, all well, if it didn't we will not accept the legitimacy of the process and then this regime will be illegitimate."
The country's Election Complaints Commission has the power to disallow suspect votes and ballot boxes, but Dr Abdullah said it "remains to be seen" if it was strong enough to deal with the fraud.
A Western diplomat said a regime thought to be fraudulently elected would struggle to bring security in the face of a worsening Taliban insurgency.
He said: "Every time they tried to do something, people would throw it back in their faces that you are not a proper government anyway.
"Abdullah is enough of a diplomat that he knows he cannot threaten protests while the count is under way, even if in political discussions he lets it be known that such developments would be difficult to stop."
Dr Abdullah has previously appealed for his supporters to remain calm, patient and responsible in the face of mounting evidence of fraud.
The Karzai campaign has made counter allegations of vote rigging and intimidation by Dr Abdullah's supporters.
Mr Karzai leads the former foreign minister by 42.3 per cent to 33.1 per cent, according to preliminary results taken from 17 per cent of the five and a half million votes cast.
Final, certified results are not due until September 17, leaving the country in a tense political limbo for three more weeks. If a candidate does not win more than 50 per cent of the vote, the election will enter a second round run off, with the winner not announced until at least mid-October.
Dr Abdullah said the international community was concerned the drawn-out elections could worsen security, but denied he had come under pressure to make a deal with the government and avoid a lengthy battle.
He said: "They cannot pressure me to be part of a mafia system, a 'narcostate' as they themselves defined it.
He added: "The international community must be aware of the conduct of this regime and I don't think they would like me to be part of this."
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British prime minister visits Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News
KABUL – Britain's prime minister has paid a surprise visit to British troops in southern Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown flew Saturday to the city of Lashkar Gah, where British troops have been waging a tough fight against Taliban insurgents.
Brown promised British troops more help to overcome the threat of Taliban roadside bombs that have killed and wounded many British soldiers this summer.
A sharp rise in casualties has undercut support for the war among the British public and sharp criticism that the government has not given the soldiers enough helicopters and other support to cope with the rising insurgency.
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Brown Visits Afghanistan, Seeks Faster Training of Local Forces
By Thomas Penny
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Gordon Brown, visiting British troops in Afghanistan, said local forces should accelerate their training as part of a strategy to increase Afghan control over the country.
The prime minister, on a six-hour trip to Britain’s Camp Bastion base in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, said the target of training 134,000 soldiers by the end of 2011 should be brought forward to November 2010. He pledged British help to increase the number of recruits to 4,000 a month from 2,000. The Afghan army is currently just under 90,000-strong.
“We can get another 50,000 Afghan armed personnel trained in the next year,” Brown told reporters today. “Stepping that up means the Afghans take more responsibility for their own affairs, backed up by partnering and mentoring by British forces.”
Brown’s suggestion that local troops should bear the burden of maintaining security comes as the U.S. is pressing its allies to increase their force levels in Afghanistan. Britain sent an extra 700 soldiers to provide security during this month’s presidential election, raising the strength of the U.K. force to around 9,000.
The London-based Independent newspaper reported today that U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal will ask for 20,000 more international troops as part of his new plan to fight a resurgent Taliban. Brown held talks with McChrystal today as part of his visit.
Poll Opposition
Deploying more troops in Afghanistan would be politically difficult for Brown, who’s trailing in polls at home and faces an election by next June. A YouGov Plc poll in today’s Telegraph newspaper found 62 percent of people saying British troops shouldn’t be in Afghanistan, against 26 percent who support the deployment.
No formal decision on further British deployment will be made until after McChrystal has presented his report and Brown has had a chance to discuss it with President Barack Obama, a person familiar with the British position said.
Brown’s popularity has slid as increasing numbers of British soldiers die in the fighting in Afghanistan, where the U.K. has the second-biggest contingent behind the U.S. This month the total number of British deaths passed 200, In July alone, 22 British solders were killed, according to the Ministry of Defense.
‘Taliban Is Strengthening’
“What the increased level of British casualties this summer has done is focused public attention on the question of whether we’re succeeding in Afghanistan and what success means,” said Malcolm Chalmers, fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based military research group. “Since the Taliban is strengthening, it would appear we haven’t yet managed to succeed.”
Brown today told reporters that defeating the Taliban is critical to protecting the U.K. from terrorism. Speeding up the training of Afghan soldiers is part of a strategy of “Afghanization” being championed by the prime minister.
“It will take time, they’ve only been an army for three years,” said Major Tom Wood of the Royal Logistics Corps, one of those training Afghan recruits at Camp Bastion. “But what people have got to understand is the Afghans are natural warriors, so in terms of fighting ability they’re brave beyond recognition. Their willingness to learn is fantastic.”
Explosive Devices
During his visit, Brown discussed improved techniques for detecting and disabling improvised explosive devices, which have killed three quarters of the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan. Brown said Britain would double the number of specialist troops it has in the country for dealing with the bombs, from 200 to 400 by the end of the year.
The prime minister also pledged more support to Afghan farmers who abandon the cultivation of opium poppies and embrace conventional crops. Help will be given to 40,000 farmers, 10,000 more than this year, Brown said.
District and provincial leaders will also be trained in the skills needed for effective local government, he said.
Brown spoke by telephone today to both incumbent Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his challenger Abdullah Abdullah. Final results of the election aren’t expected until mid- September.
Before leaving London, the prime minister held talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari yesterday and General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, in Scotland on Aug. 21.
Turkey pledged yesterday to double its contribution to peacekeeping in Afghanistan to 1,600 troops when Turkey takes over control of the rotating command of NATO operations in the Afghan capital Kabul in November.
To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Penny with the prime minister in Afghanistan at tpenny@bloomberg.net.
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Brown pledges more help for British troops to fight the Taliban
In a surprise visit to Afghanistan, the prime minister announced an increase in troops and equipment
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 August 2009 15.10 BST
Prime Minister Gordon Brown today praised the work of British troops in Afghanistan, promising more help for them to overcome the threat of roadside bombs planted by the Taliban.
On a surprise visit to the war-torn country, Mr Brown announced new kit and personnel to deal with the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have killed and wounded so many British soldiers.
He visited troops at Camp Bastion in Helmand province and thanked them for their efforts in fighting the insurgents ahead of recent presidential elections.
Mr Brown travelled with Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the Defence Staff, and had talks with senior commanders, including US commander General Stanley McChrystal.
He said: "Let me pay tribute to the courage, bravery, professionalism and patriotism of our forces.
"This has been a most difficult summer in Afghanistan, because the Taliban have tried to prevent elections taking place.
"I think our forces have shown extraordinary courage during this period.
"They know the reason why we are here and that is our security at home depends on a stable Afghanistan – no return of the Taliban, and no role for al-Qaida in the running of Afghanistan."
Mr Brown unveiled new measures to deal with the threats facing British soldiers on the ground.
This autumn, 200 specialist counter IED troops will be deployed to join 200 sent there earlier in the year.
There will also be an increase in flights by unmanned surveillance aircraft. By the spring the Hermes 450 will be flying 33% more hours, Desert Hawk will be flying 50% more hours and Reaper 80% more hours.
Last week, British infantry working with explosives experts cleared 37 IEDs from some of the most dangerous roads in the region. Troops have also uncovered weapons including rocket launchers and explosives intended to be used to derail the election.Mr Brown today announced that Warthog tracked vehicles will be available in the spring, six months earlier than expected. Twenty more Ridgback mine protected vehicles will be available this autumn. The extra equipment will be funded from government reserves over and above the defence budget.
Two hundred and seven British troops have died in Afghanistan since British operations began there in 2001.
Mr Brown said he wants the Afghan army to be trained more quickly so the Afghan people can take on a bigger role in running their own affairs. He called for a target of training some 50,000 additional Afghan troops – bringing the overall level to around 135,000 – to be brought forward by a year, from the end of 2011 to the end of next November.
Mr Brown said: "I think we can get another 50,000 Afghan personnel trained over the next year and stepping that up means the Afghans take more responsibility for their own affairs.
"They are backed up by the partnering and mentoring done by British forces."
In an effort to underline Britain's commitment to the war, Mr Brown has made four visits to Afghanistan in just over a year.
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Taliban growth in northern Afghanistan threatens to expand war
By Jonathan S. Landay, Mcclatchy Newspapers Fri Aug 28, 2:26 pm ET
BAGHLAN-I-JADID, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents have taken over parts of two northern provinces from which they were driven in 2001, threatening to disrupt NATO's new supply route from Central Asia and expand a war that's largely been confined to Afghanistan's southern half, U.S. and Afghan officials said.
Insurgents operating out of Baghlan district along the highway from Tajikistan launched coordinated attacks during the Aug. 20 presidential elections, killing the district police chief and a civilian, while losing a dozen of their own men, local officials said. It was the worst bloodshed reported in the country that day.
The violence has been on the rise in recent months, however, as the Taliban and al Qaida -linked foreign fighters have staged hit-and-run attacks, bombings and rocket strikes on German, Belgian and Hungarian forces in Baghlan and neighboring Kunduz provinces.
The insurgents now control three Pashtun-dominated districts in Kunduz and Baghlan-i-Jadid, a foothold in a region that was long considered safe. With a force estimated at 300 to 600 hard-core fighters, they operate checkpoints at night on the highway to the north, now a major supply route, local officials said, and are extorting money, food and lodging from villagers.
"The Taliban want to show the world that not only can they make chaos in southern Afghanistan , but in every part of Afghanistan ," Baghlan Governor Mohammad Akbar Barekzai said. "This is a big problem. We don't have sufficient forces here."
For U.S. commanders, whose stretched forces have been unable to pacify the south and are taking record casualties, it's another looming problem.
"What can we do to mitigate the risk? It's a question of means," said a senior U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. "Clearly, the main effort is in the south. But we can't allow other areas of the country to be destabilized."
The official said he's begun discouraging Western aid workers from visiting projects in those areas.
The growing Taliban presence also threatens to aggravate long-standing tensions into violence between the region's Pashtuns — the ethnic group that dominates the Taliban — and Tajiks.
Many Pashtuns, descendents of settlers from southern Afghanistan awarded lands in the north in the early 20th century, supported the Taliban's rule of the 1990s, while many Tajiks fought against the religious militia.
Another potential danger is that al Qaida -linked foreign extremists could use Taliban sanctuaries in the north to stir up trouble in the adjacent former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan , whose authoritarian rulers have brutalized their Muslim populations.
" Al Qaida wants to have a base there," said retired Afghan Gen. Hillaluddin Hillal, a parliamentarian from Baghlan. " Al Qaida's support is behind them (the Taliban ). Al Qaida has an interest in Central Asia ."
A senior U.S. intelligence official confirmed that Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks and Pakistanis affiliated with al Qaida have been making their way into Baghlan and Kunduz from Pakistan's tribal areas.
The new NATO supply link, established after Pakistani insurgents began attacking the main logistics route from the Pakistani port of Karachi , consists of two roads, one from Uzbekistan and one from Tajikistan . After merging in Baghan Province outside the city of Pul-i-Khumri, the highway runs south through the towering Hindu Kush mountains to the main U.S. base at Bagram and to Kabul .
"The concern is if we don't stunt the ( Taliban ) growth, it could cause problems with our northern distribution network," said the senior intelligence official, who asked not to be further identified because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. "A couple of years ago, ( Taliban leader) Mullah Omar said 'We need to open up new fronts in the north and cause a dissipation of (U.S.) resources.' To a degree, it's working."
Northern Afghanistan's nine provinces, dominated by ethnic minorities who opposed the Taliban , have mostly been peaceful since local forces aided by U.S. support ousted the militia in late 2001. About 5,700 German-led international troops have been overseeing major aid and reconstruction efforts from their headquarters in Kunduz.
The Taliban infiltration into Kunduz and Baghlan began 18 months ago with the return from Pakistan of insurgent leaders who ran the provinces during the Taliban rule of Afghanistan , U.S. and Afghan officials said. The establishment of the new NATO supply route may be a factor that drew Taliban from the south.
The Taliban are blamed for the killings of local officials and for one recent unsuccessful attack on former President Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kunduz, and another on a minor presidential candidate, Abdul Salam , a former Taliban commander known as "Mullah Rocketi," in Baghlan-i-Jadid.
The Taliban "have become stronger in the last five to six months," said Gul Agha, who heads Baghlan-i-Jadid's criminal investigation department. "Before, they moved in very small groups. Now they are moving in groups of 30 to 40 and they have a leader of each group. They have a (shadow) governor, district leaders and recruiters."
The senior U.S. intelligence official confirmed that the Taliban have set up "shadow governments," a tactic they've used to exercise control elsewhere in Afghanistan by punishing crimes and settling feuds that usually linger in corrupt, incompetent government institutions and courts.
Agha said that the insurgents "have influence" in all of Baghlan-i-Jadid's 268 villages, nestled amidst lush groves and rice paddies fed by the Southern Salang River , and that the local administration's authority doesn't extend beyond the district center of the same name.
The district shares its northern border with Chahar Dara, which Afghan officials identified as one of the three Kunduz Province districts controlled by the insurgents.
"There is only one mountain between us," said Amir Gul Baghlani , the Baghlan-i-Jadid district chief. "When they are under pressure over there, they come to this side. When they are under pressure here, they cross to the other side. We don't have enough security."
The district has only 90 police officers and has been recruiting and arming tribal militias in an effort to fill the gap, local officials said.
However, several residents charged that the militias, known as arbakai, have become part of the problem.
"These arbakai take food from villagers by force and taxes by force. My relatives went several times to complain to the authorities. When the arbakai found out, they beat my relatives. So they joined the Taliban to keep their prestige and honor," said Mohammad Ghulam , deputy director of the district's agricultural high school. "Now they are fighting the government."
Several U.S. military officials said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal , the recently installed U.S. commander in Afghanistan , hopes to stem the problem by deploying additional Afghan troops accompanied by U.S. military trainers, an idea that appealed to local officials who fear an influx of American soldiers would fuel violence and bloodshed.
Barekzai, the Baghlan governor, said that he only has about 1,400 police officers and 500 Afghan troops to call on. About 200 Hungarian forces deployed to secure aid projects in are barred from conducting offensive operations.
It isn't too late, however, to neutralize the Taliban presence, but time is running out, he continued.
"Give me resources and more police. The Taliban are like microbes. We need to use a strong antibiotic," he said. "If we don't do it now, then later on, say in six months, it will require more forces, more resources and more weapons and we will probably have more casualties."
( McClatchy special correspondent Hashim Shukoor contributed to this article.)
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After Afghanistan’s Vote
The New York Times August 29, 2009
Five months after President Obama announced a new approach to Afghanistan that was supposed to invest more heavily in nonmilitary programs, American commanders are talking about adding troops to an increasingly tough fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the situation is “serious, and it is deteriorating.” A few days later, four more American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb, making 2009 the deadliest year for United States and NATO forces there. So it is understandable that polls show that many Americans are tiring of the 8-year-old war. Between Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has sacrificed more than 5,000 lives and spent more than $900 billion.
President Obama has correctly begun shifting attention and resources away from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is the more insidious threat. That increasingly fractious nation, with more than 60 nuclear weapons, is where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have their headquarters. Still, it is vital to keep asking whether every new investment is worth the cost and truly advances the United States’ security goals. That critical analysis did not occur enough during most of the Bush era in Iraq.
There are more than 100,000 Western troops in Afghanistan. Two-thirds are Americans, including 17,000 authorized by Mr. Obama in February, and even more may be needed. But that decision must be carefully weighed by the White House, Congress and the American people. In two weeks, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander, is to present his first war review. If he seeks more forces, he must explain how a greater reliance on troops would advance Mr. Obama’s promise of a “stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy.”
That strategy was sold not just as a means of dislodging Taliban guerrillas from the strategic mountain passes and towns they have retaken in recent years. Mr. Obama also promised he would insist on a more capable and accountable government in Kabul, help farmers shift from poppy growing to other crops and build up an effective army and police force. He also must speed deployment of American civilians to help Afghan leaders carry out development projects, strengthen local governance and establish justice systems. Another critical task: reaching out to Taliban fighters willing to lay down their arms.
Politics is intruding. Because of Taliban attacks and voter apathy, turnout for the Aug. 20 election was disappointingly low and there were allegations of widespread fraud. Even worse, neither of the two main contenders offers serious solutions to the country’s problems.
President Hamid Karzai seems to have a lead over the primary challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, but the fraud charges are likely to unsettle the country for some time. Mr. Karzai’s cynical decision to ally himself with a former defense minister allegedly involved in drug trafficking and a warlord accused of war crimes is the wrong way to build the country’s future.
Under pressure from Congress to show progress by next spring, Obama administration officials had hoped that the election would show that Afghanistan was moving forward enough to justify more money and troops. If the election produces a government that even Afghanis do not consider legitimate, that task could be impossible.
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Two killed, 21 wounded in Afghan suicide strike
Sat Aug 29, 4:16 am ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest attacked a patrol of Western and Afghan troops in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least two civilians and wounding 21, district officials said.
Abdul Qayum, governor of Sha Joy district in Zabul province, told Reuters the attacker struck as troops were patrolling a market in the district.
Lieutenant-Commander Sam Truelove, press officer for U.S. and NATO-led forces in the capital Kabul, confirmed that there had been a blast but had no further details.
(Reporting by Ismail Sameen; Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by David Fox)
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Cash: A softener in Afghan war zone
Hard cash: A softener for US Marines pledging to grab 'hearts and minds' in Afghan war zone
By Alfred de Montesquiou, Associated Press Writer Friday August 28, 2009, 3:57 pm EDT
DAHANEH, Afghanistan (AP) -- The U.S. Marines came uninvited to Abdul-Hamid's home in this southern Afghan town and made their presence felt.
They blew holes in the mud walls that surround the several small buildings in his family's compound, broke through rooms hunting for weapons and militants, and handcuffed and blindfolded the men. Their main target: Abdul-Hamid's neighbor and the neighbor's sons, all suspected insurgents.
Less than a week later, Abdul-Hamid, a 50-year-old farmer who uses only one name, trotted alongside a staff sergeant, listing every broken item in his home. It was payback time -- literally.
As winning the "hearts and minds" of ordinary Afghans becomes a higher priority in the war on the Taliban and al-Qaida, U.S. troops are finding that one of the most potent weapons in their arsenal is hard cash.
Under a special allocation from Congress, a project called the Commander Emergency Relief Program uses American taxpayer dollars to repay Afghans for damage caused during military operations.
The program isn't new. Commanders have been doling out money in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to compensate civilians for combat losses.
But it's new here in the Now Zad Valley, where there have been no significant numbers of international forces for years until Marines entered the area this month.
In the valley, the image of U.S. and NATO troops was one presented by the Taliban. U.S. commanders hope the compensation program will help change that image.
The project employs some 35 Marines from the Civil Affairs unit in Afghanistan and has been allotted $250 million this fiscal year for southern Afghanistan alone, said Lt. Col. Curtis Lee, a program manager in the embattled region.
Authorities have even established a grid to price each type of suffering based on local customs and values.
A slain civilian translates to $2,500 in compensation to a family. A dead cow goes for nearly the same amount, because they are so hard to raise in southern Afghanistan's barren countryside and are crucial to a family's well-being. A broken window: about $50. A broken door can go up to $110 if it's made of metal and has nice smithery.
"People here are really struggling to make a living, so any material damage is a very big deal," said Staff Sgt. Todd Bowers, 30, from Washington, D.C. "Just a little money can make their lives much better."
The U.S. military is reaching out to civilians more now that NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has made gaining popular support the crux of his counterinsurgency strategy.
While that includes doling out cash, it also means consulting villagers in a region where local councils are a normal means of decision-making -- including allowing residents directly affected by operations to air their grievances.
Abdul-Hamid, his wife, and their 10 children, for instance, endured a terrifying, middle-of-the-night ordeal on the outskirts of Dahaneh, a longtime Taliban stronghold stormed last week by Marines from Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines.
The Marines arrived by helicopter in the middle of the night, shoving M-16s in the family members' faces as multiple squads stormed through. At one point, one of the farmer's adult sons cried softly because his plastic handcuffs were so tight his fingers turned purple.
The Marines then used explosives to burst through the wall into the compound belonging to Abdul-Hamid's neighbor. A baby started crying after the second explosion sent shrapnel and debris flying high over Abdul-Hamid's courtyard.
Minutes later, the Taliban in town had regrouped and begun firing rockets, mortars and missiles at the Marines resisting from Abdul-Hamid's and his neighbor's compounds.
Barely two days after that, Abdul-Hamid sat down with village elders, Afghan army officers and a dozen Marines, discussing how to improve relations and bring normalcy back to Dahaneh.
The elders wanted their detained clansmen freed, which Marines said would happen once they'd been fully investigated. The elders assured the troops that no Taliban were left in town and pledged to press fleeing civilians to return.
Abdul-Hamid wanted the troops to return to his house, where Afghan soldiers who'd moved in along with the Marines were already plucking chickens from his courtyard.
The Civil Affairs unit took his photo, fingerprinted him and scanned his irises to run through a countrywide NATO computer system. But his persistent nagging of the Marines in the compound -- unlike his neighbor, who'd fled town when his sons were arrested -- also helped convince the troops he was not a militant.
Bowers, of Civil Affairs, told the farmer an assessment team would inspect his home and reimburse him for every broken window, door and wall.
"That's fine," the farmer said. "But what about my lost dignity?"
During the inspection alongside Staff Sgt. Evan Matos four days later, Abdul-Hamid seemed more content, though it turned out that he would not be repaid for the 66 pounds of opium the Marines had seized in his home.
The drug is illegal under Afghan law but is a critical part of the economy for many in the south.
"That's not fair, these are my savings -- I buy sugar and tea, and clothes for the children with it," Abdul-Hamid said.
Matos said the Marines were evaluating how much Abdul-Hamid's home was worth and would pay him a good rent as long as they were stationed here. He said the compensation for the damage was not aimed at buying Abdul-Hamid's loyalty.
"We're trying to show him and others that we're not bullies, and that we're a constructive force in Afghanistan," said Matos, 25, of New York City.
Matos was solemn as he pulled out 125,000 Afghanis -- the equivalent of $2,500 and a huge amount by local standards -- from a small metallic chest and handed the money to Abdul-Hamid.
The farmer was smiling.
"How about you top that with another 25,000" Afghanis, Abdul-Hamid said, "so we reach a round figure?"
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Wounded CBS journalist at hospital in Afghanistan
By Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writer – Sat Aug 29, 4:48 am ET
KABUL – A CBS Radio News correspondent was being treated Saturday at Bagram Air Base after being seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan that also killed a U.S. service member, officials said.
The U.S. troop death made August the deadliest month of the nearly eight-year war for American forces. The intensified fighting has raised the risk to journalists embedded with the military.
Cami McCormick was wounded Friday when the Army vehicle in which she was riding struck a bomb. CBS could not confirm the extent of her injuries, and NATO officials declined to comment, citing privacy regulations.
NATO spokesman Capt. Jon Stock confirmed that a U.S. service member died in the blast, bringing to 45 the number of American military personnel killed in August.
The military has not given the exact location of the explosion or named the U.S. service member. CBS said it occurred in Logar province, bordering Kabul, and officials there confirmed that a blast had hit a military convoy on Friday.
McCormick was first treated at a field hospital, where she was in stable condition after surgery. She was later transported to the Bagram base, north of Kabul, for more treatment. McCormick, 47, is an award-winning New York-based correspondent who has worked for CBS since 1998.
President Barack Obama's decision to send 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to combat a resurgent Taliban has increased international media attention to the war, coinciding with a rise in troop casualties.
At the same time, Taliban militants have increased their reliance on roadside bombs — known as improvised explosive devices.
They are now the cause of the majority of Western troop deaths in Afghanistan.
Two Associated Press journalists, photographer Emilio Morenatti and videographer Andi Jatmiko, were wounded along with two U.S. soldiers by a bomb in Afghanistan on Aug. 12.
___
Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
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US faces smaller, smarter enemy in Afghanistan
By Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer
NOW ZAD, Afghanistan – After three tours in Iraq, U.S. Marine Sgt. Andre Leon was used to brutal shootouts with enemy fighters and expected more of the same in Afghanistan.
Instead, what he's seen so far are anonymous attacks in the form of mines and roadside bombings — the mark of what he calls a cowardly adversary.
"I'm not impressed with them," Leon, 25, of Herndon, Va., said this past week from a Marines camp deep in the southern province of Helmand, where U.S. forces are challenging Taliban insurgents and their devastating use of IEDs, or homemade bombs. "I expected more of a stand-and-fight. All these guys do is IEDs."
Marines on the front lines in southern Afghanistan say there's no question that the militants are just as deadly as the Iraqi insurgents they once fought in Iraq's Anbar Province. The Afghan enemy is proving to be a smaller, but smarter opponent, taking full advantage of the country's craggy and enveloping terrain in eluding and then striking at U.S troops.
In interviews, Marines across Helmand said their new foes are not as religiously fanatic as the Syrian and Chechen militants they fought in Iraq and often tend to be hired for battle. U.S. commanders call them the "$10 Taliban."
Taking advantage of the Afghanistan's mountainous rural landscape, the fighters often spread out their numbers, hiding in fields and planting bombs on roads, rather than taking aim at U.S. forces from snipers' nests in urban settings, as often was the case in Iraq. And they are not as bent on suicide, often retreating to fight another day.
"One thing about Afghanistan, they're not trying to go to paradise," said Sgt. Robert Warren, 26, of Peshtigo, Wis. He served a tour in both Iraq and Afghanistan before his current assignment at Combat Outpost Sharp, a Marines camp hidden in cornfields and dirt piles.
"They want to live to see tomorrow," Warren said. "They engage with us, but when they know we'll call in air support, they'll break contact with us. ... They're just as fierce, but they're smarter."
Marine commanders believe they face between 7,000 and 11,000 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, although it is unclear how many are low-level militants hired for battle as opposed to extremist leaders.
By comparison, officials still are unsure how many members of al-Qaida in Iraq remain. Earlier estimates ranged between 850 to several thousand full-time fighters, although commanders believe that number has been reduced significantly as a result of counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq.
There are some similarities between the fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officers and enlisted troops said both foes have no qualms about using civilians as human shields.
Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marine brigade leading the current fight in Helmand, said the Taliban's use of IEDs shows the extremists' disregard for Afghan civilians — much as in Iraq.
"Enemy here is equally brutal and cowardly in conducting despicable acts of intimidation and cruelty directed against (the) local population," said Nicholson, who was severely wounded in a rocket attack in Fallujah in 2004 during the first of his two commands in Iraq.
Both foes are also sometimes known to use drugs — troops have reported finding syringes and needles in enemy camps.
Training does not seem to be an issue for Marines who have been making the transition from Iraq to Afghanistan. Their skills appear to have held up in both war zones.
But new U.S. battle guidelines that limit shooting into or otherwise attacking buildings without ensuring there are no civilians inside have at times made the fighting more difficult.
The rules were put into place this summer after dozens of Afghans were killed in a May battle in Farah province that ended when U.S. forces bombed a building where Taliban fighters were believed to be hiding.
"It's frustrating to be attacked from a building," said Lt. Joe Hamilton of Baltimore as he scrutinized two-story village structures on the other side of dirt-and-barbed wire walls at Combat Outpost Fiddler's Green. "You can't shoot back because you don't know if there are civilians there."
He added: "They're more disciplined. They wait longer until we get in their kill zones, then they attack us."
Once in Iraq, now in Afghanistan, the Marines say they relish the battle in either place, preferring the action to staying home, out of the fight.
Asked where he felt the threat was most dire, Sgt. Warren shrugged his shoulders.
"Camp Lejeune," he said wryly. The North Carolina base is where Marines train and live between deployments.
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Analysis: Why are the U.S., allies still in Afghanistan?
By Joe Sterling
(CNN) -- The U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan has been a tough slog, a nearly eight-year conflict replete with gloom.
Lately a lot of the news from Afghanistan seems particularly grim for the United States and its allies.
More U.S. troops have been killed there in August than in any month since the war began. There are indications that more U.S. troops could be deployed to the country.
The Afghan presidential elections this month were rife with charges of fraud. Corruption plagues the political system. The poppy trade is flourishing. And, in the words of the top U.S. military official, Adm. Mike Mullen, the "Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated."
Support for the war hit a new low among Americans, a CNN poll found this month.
So why do the United States and its allies continue to pour money and troops into Afghanistan?
"The importance of the place is pretty substantial," said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.
Al Qaeda has used that part of the world as a sanctuary, he said. Neighboring Pakistan has been serious about vanquishing the militants there and that helps the fight against militants in Afghanistan. A victory for al Qaeda in a conflict there would represent an important public relations triumph for the militants, he said.
He understands why Americans are displeased but said people need to feel that progress is being made in the region.
"We haven't been winning for eight years," O'Hanlon said. "They want to know why."
U.S. President Barack Obama has tackled the question head-on.
The al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan represent an urgent threat to the United States, he said in March, just as they were when al Qaeda attacked the United States in 2001, when the then-ruling Taliban harbored the terror network.
"Many people in the United States -- and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much -- have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan?" the president said.
"After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? And they deserve a straightforward answer.
"So let me be clear: Al Qaeda and its allies -- the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks -- are in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban -- or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged -- that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can."
The questions have come up in Britain, too, where the deaths of 15 British troops in July stirred outrage and criticism of Britain's strategy in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown told his countrymen that British involvement in that country now is as crucial as it was after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
"In 2001 the case for intervention in Afghanistan was to take on a global terrorist threat and prevent terrorist attacks in Britain and across the world," he said. "In 2009 the overriding reason for our continued involvement is the same -- to take on, at its source, the terrorist threat, and prevent attacks here and elsewhere."
Obama said the Afghan insurgency "feeds instability" in Pakistan and Pakistan extremists have the proven ability to undermine the Afghan government. He cited the importance of confronting the heroin trade that finances the insurgency.
Obama has listed several objectives in dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan, such as promoting an accountable Afghan government and self-reliant security forces, developing a stable government and strong economy in Pakistan, and disrupting terror networks.
Pakistani security forces have been battling militants in the northwestern part of the country, and drone strikes thought to be conducted by the United States have been carried out from Afghanistan against militants in Pakistan.
"The future of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbor, Pakistan," Obama said. "In the nearly eight years since 9/11, al Qaeda and its extremist allies have moved across the border to the remote areas of the Pakistani frontier.
"This almost certainly includes al Qaeda's leadership: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. They have used this mountainous terrain as a safe haven to hide, to train terrorists, to communicate with followers, to plot attacks, and to send fighters to support the insurgency in Afghanistan. For the American people, this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world."
In Britain, Brown said the military effort to clear a region and establish security would be buttressed by Afghan plans "to build basic services -- clean water, electricity, roads, basic justice, basic health care, and then economic development."
"This inevitably takes time, but the important thing is that work has begun, to give the people a stake in the future," he said.
U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, Democrat-Virginia, said in a recent TV interview that he has "a lot of concerns about the way we've articulated our national goals in Afghanistan."
"I think that it is extremely important for us to be able to articulate the end point of our strategy, just as it was in Iraq," he said.
While there is grim news on the ground in Afghanistan, the picture painted by the president in March was a red alert for Americans: It's a tough but necessary fight that requires patience and resources.
"There are no quick fixes to achieve U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Obama said. "The danger of failure is real and the implications are grave."
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Afghanistan's hidden heroin addicts
Toronto Star Aug 29, 2009
KABUL - The flame from a match pierces pitch-black darkness, casting an eerie glow on dirty, feral faces.
Sucking sounds. Lungs expand with the inhalation of heroin fumes. A gulp and an aahhh. There's more furtive movement nearby, scratching, the rustle of newspapers crunching underfoot, foul-smelling bodies pressing in.
These are the human moles of Kabul, drug addicts who live in the stark ruins of the Russian Cultural Centre, all rubble and dank subterranean warrens.
Police officers never venture into this underground maze: Too dangerous and forbidding, the garbage shin-high, glass shards and jagged tin cans, mounds of rags except some of them are breathing, wheezing.
Can't see your hand in front of your face, or a menacing presence at your back, one room leading into another, rusted rebar collapsed on ground that's shifted, buckled, like tectonic plates.
The smell of human waste makes eyes water.
Crouched inside a narrow cubicle – indeed, what was once a washroom stall in the basement of this building, a half dozen of them side-by-side now used as sleeping quarters – Noor Mohammed rolls heroin paste into a scrap of newsprint, scrabbles amidst the rubbish for another matchbook, fires up the roach, then passes it to his friend, Ali, lying feebly against the wall.
"I am ashamed," Mohammed says, his voice barely a whisper. "Look at me, what I've come to."
Mohammed, 22, might actually be considered one of the luckier of Kabul's estimated 200,000 heroin addicts. He is not a permanent resident of these ramshackle ruins, where upwards of 3,800 resided until a recent police flush; merely comes here every day to buy what he needs – a hit of opium selling for as little as 10 Afghanis, or 20 cents.
He has a home. He has a wife. And for the past two years he's been keeping his addiction a secret, working as an itinerant labourer to support his habit.
"But my wife is getting suspicious, especially these last few months. She looks in my eyes and she sees that I'm not there any more."
Twice, before his marriage, Mohammed sought treatment in one of the capital's few drug-rehabilitation facilities. Even now, he is registered as an outpatient but routinely comes directly from the hospital to the ruins in a crazy balancing act between his desire to quit and his lust to get high. Mohammed does not use needles but will inject others, as a kindness. "I hate it, I hate this drug,'' he insists. "My body hurts, my stomach, my head. I am always so tired. But when I use it, I feel better, if only for a little while.''
From deep inside the cubicle, Ali moans. He is 17, his hands and face blackened with grime, his tunic just soiled tatters. A year ago, his older brother died from a heroin overdose down here, died in his arms. "I will die soon too, I think.''
The brothers had both worked on construction crews in neighbouring Iran – where, like so many Afghans, they developed their drug habit – but were expelled when unable to produce proper documents. Ali had no home to go back to, his parents internally displaced. "Someone ... took me by the arm, brought me here. That was two years ago. This is my home now."
Ali begs on the streets sometimes but police have cracked down on obvious heroin users. So, instead, he sets out most days with a burlap sack to collect cans and bottles that he sells to scrap dealers.
Heroin gives him fleeting relief. "I forget all the sorrows. I don't think about everything bad that happened in my past. And I don't worry about the future. But then – when it wears off – comes the pain. It's like this hole inside of me that can only be filled with more drugs.
"There is no solution for me."
They don't tell you about this, about Afghanistan's growing domestic drug problem – an estimated 1.5 million addicts, including 120,000 women, according to the Ministry of Narcotics – all those advocates of legalizing the country's robust opium crop – a yield that provides some 93 per cent of the world's heroin. This heroin, which is refined opium, ends up on streets across the globe but also is destroying families here.
ICOS – the International Council on Security and Development – has for years been promoting the legal cultivation of opium. It denies any association with global drug companies looking to cash in on the market for pain-relief morphine.
Yet ICOS is no longer welcomed by the Afghan government. And, despite ICOS claims, the International Narcotics Control Board counters there is no worldwide shortage of heroin for medical purposes. Nineteen countries legally produce it; only India exports it.
Further, according to an ICOS research paper, it is folly to argue legalizing Afghan poppy cultivation would benefit farmers or deny huge profits to the neo-Taliban. The profit is all at the marketing and refinement end. In order to make legal opium economically viable in Afghanistan, says ICOS, farmers would have to operate at poverty levels. And, given the corruption here, there is no way to keep a legal yield from falling into illegal hands.
Meanwhile, eight years of poppy eradication programs – led by the United States and Great Britain – have not curtailed the industry, though officials say 18 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces are opium-free.
Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has said eradication "didn't reduce the amount of money the Taliban got by one dollar." Washington last month announced it was pulling out of the eradication scheme.
But the economics of opium have no traction here, in the Russian ruins. These men – and the addicted women shuttered inside their houses, routinely given opium during childbirth, even blowing heroin fumes into the mouths of colicky babies – can see no further than their next fix.
A middle-aged man appears at the crumbling entrance to the compound. He is looking for his 15-year-old son, an addict. "I was told he might be here. I need to find him and bring him home. We will get him the help he needs."
But then the man reveals he is a heroin addict also. "I thought, my son, when he saw what the drug has done to me, he would never be tempted to use it. I was wrong. This drug is a curse for all Afghans."
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Afghanistan's Bamiyan province struggles to build tourism
Ivan Watson is CNN's correspondent based in Istanbul, Turkey.
(CNN) -- Thursday is "Chinese night" at the Hotel Silk Road in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province.
Hungry guests sip cans of Coke and nonalcoholic beer and pick at a buffet that includes General Tsao's chicken, egg drop soup and slices of sweet green melon grown in nearby fields.
When a vegetarian diner arrives, the hotel's Japanese owner, Hiromi Yasui, runs back to the kitchen to whip up a dish of spinach, garlic and steamed rice.
"This is the most clean kitchen in Bamiyan," she boasts in heavily accented English, as she directs her staff of Afghan assistants in fluent Dari. Yasui proudly points to an electric dishwasher, perhaps the only one of its kind in this battle-scarred Afghan province.
The Hotel Silk Road has been open for less than two years. The green concrete walls of this compound jar somewhat with the brown, mud brick architecture of Bamiyan Valley. But the hotel is probably the largest foreign private investment in Bamiyan's fledgling tourism industry since the overthrow of the Taliban eight years ago.
Aid workers say tourism is one of the greatest economic hopes for reviving this isolated, yet visually -- and archaeologically -- stunning part of Afghanistan, a region that has seen little infrastructure development over the last eight years, even though Bamiyan is one of the safest parts of the country.
"The natural resources and cultural resources here are probably the single best place for economic development to happen, around revitalizing the tourism industry here," says Bob Thelen, the representative for the Aga Khan Development Network in Bamiyan. The nonprofit organization has been working with the government of New Zealand to distribute $1.2 million over a three-year period to develop eco-tourism as an industry in Bamiyan.
Bamiyan first attracted widespread international attention in 2001, when Taliban militants spent weeks blowing up two giant statues of Buddha. For more than 1,500 years, these colossal figures -- one was 53 meters (174 feet) high, the other 35 meters (115 feet) -- stood like sentries overlooking this alpine valley. Today, the massive caves where the Buddhas once stood are huge, empty pockets carved into cliffs that dominate the countryside.
Despite the loss of these archaeological treasures, the cave network of monasteries that honeycomb the cliffs, as well as Bamiyan's breathtaking mountains and alpine lakes, continue to attract a trickle of both Afghan and foreign tourists.
Hotel Silk Road owner Yasui spotted Bamiyan's potential when she first traveled here as a photojournalist in 1996.
"Before the war, this was a touristic place," she says. "More than 7,000 cars a day visited here."
In the '60s and '70s, Afghanistan was a Central Asian stop on the Hippie Trail, a destination favored by hash-smoking Western visitors driving Volkswagen vans.
But the Soviet invasion of 1979 plunged the country into a decades-long spiral of conflict. Bamiyan became the site of horrific massacres during the civil war of the 1990s and the subsequent rise of the Taliban.
The Taliban's overthrow in 2001 seemed to open the door to new opportunity.
In 2002, with the help of her Afghan husband and a Japanese investor who fronted hundreds of thousands of dollars, Yasui purchased a plot of land next to a bend in the river that runs through the valley. The couple then spent the next five years building their hotel.
"I like Afghanistan, I like Bamiyan," Yasui explains. "[But in the past,] I didn't want to stay more than three days, because there was no shower, no place to sleep."
Yasui's hotel opened in 2007. Rooms cost $100 a night, pricing them far out of the range of most Afghans. Guests must remove their shoes at the entrance and wear slippers, in accordance with Yasui's strict standards of hygiene.
"The furniture has all been imported from Pakistan," Yasui said. "I bought the water glasses from the PX [American military supermarket] in Kabul."
Yasui is not the only hotelier in Bamiyan.
In 2003, an Afghan businessman named Raziq got a jump-start on the local tourism industry, when he and several partners rented a house on a plateau offering a spectacular view of the Buddha cliffs. The building had been housing American special forces soldiers. Raziq and his partners rechristened it the Roof of Bamiyan Hotel.
Raziq, an ethnic Hazara who learned American-accented English catering to foreigners on Kabul's touristic Chicken Street, says he got his inspiration to open a hotel after he saw female Western backpackers paying to sleep on the floor of a grimy tea shop in Bamiyan's dusty bazaar.
Over the last year, the Afghan government declared Bamiyan's Band-i-Amir lake, which sits 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) above sea level, the country's first national park. The New Zealand-funded eco-tourism project, in conjunction with the Aga Khan Foundation, also recently trained 22 young male and female Afghans to be professional tour guides.
The three-month course included "the relevant topics for this area, geology, archaeology, history, hospitality, English, communication skills," said Thelen, of the Aga Khan Development Network.
One of these guides is former Roof of Bamiyan employee Jawad Wafa.
Though only 23 years old, this ambitious young Afghan plans to launch a tourism and logistics company, complete with a fleet of rental vehicles and guides.
"The first thing we need to have more tourists in Bamiyan, we need security and peace. The second one is roads," Wafa says.
Eight years after the overthrow of the Taliban, the entire province of Bamiyan has barely 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) of paved roads. Travel here from Kabul requires at least seven hours driving on a bone-jarring dirt track.
But even this isolated oasis is feeling the threat of the mounting violence spreading across the country.
"Every time there is a bomb in Kabul, visitors cancel reservations," says Raziq, operator of the Roof of Bamiyan Hotel.
And in recent months, troops from New Zealand have documented a spike in insurgent attacks, mostly along Bamiyan's border with Baghlan province, a region where Taliban insurgents have grown increasingly active.
"As much as on the one hand you can promote Bamiyan and other pockets throughout Afghanistan as secure and peaceful, there's always the very real threat of violence," Thelen said.
Tour operators saw a dramatic drop in foreign visitors this summer, due to the uncertainty and violence surrounding the August 20 presidential elections.
In fact, the handful of people seen touring the remains of the Buddha statues last week were mostly American aid workers. They were sent by their organizations from less secure parts of Afghanistan, to take temporary shelter within the mountain walls of Bamiyan Valley.
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