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'Afghan Obama' aspires to be his country's saviour
As Afghanistan's elections loom, President Hamid Karzai's strongest challenge comes from a candidate who crosses the country's ethnic divide
By Ben Farmer in Samangan province, and Nick Meo in Kabul 08 Aug 2009
Its ancient engine emitting an unsettling rattle, the Russian-made MI-17 helicopter touched down in a choking cloud of dust in the mud brick Afghan town of Samangan. The haze had barely cleared around the disembarking
UN: Violence hampering Afghan vote
By JASON STRAZIUSO
KABUL (AP) — Insecurity in significant portions of Afghanistan has hindered election preparations and disproportionately affected Afghan women, a report co-authored by the U.N. mission in the country said Sunday.
Afghan presidential contender denies Karzai deal
By Golnar Motevalli – Sat Aug 8, 1:32 pm ET
MAIMANEH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – One of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main rivals denied reports on Saturday that he had agreed to withdraw from the August 20 election and accept a leadership post under Karzai.
Clinton: US to work with Afghan election winner
AP via Yahoo! News - Aug 08 9:44 PM
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. is ready to work with the winner of Afghanistan's upcoming presidential election.
Karzai Befriends Rivals to Improve Poll Odds
The Wall Street Journal By Matthew Rosenberg and Anand Gopal 08/08/2009
KABUL - The Unpopular Afghan President's Talents for Deal Making and Conciliation Are Expected to Pave Way to Another 5-Year Term
Taliban leader's death a sign of success in Pakistan: US
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama's national security advisor on Sunday hailed the reported killing of the Pakistani Taliban's leader as "a big deal" that has already has stirred dissension in the insurgent ranks.
Pakistan Taliban commander denies shootout with rival
By Alamgir Bitani – Sun Aug 9, 9:27 am ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – A Pakistani Taliban commander on Sunday denied reports of a deadly shootout with a rival, saying there had not been any fighting or a meeting to decide on new leadership for the group.
Mystery of Taliban chiefs deepens
Sunday, 9 August 2009 BBC News
Confusion surrounds the leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan after reports of a gun battle between potential successors to leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Taliban launch another mouthpiece propaganda in S Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Taliban insurgents fighting Afghan and international troops based in Afghanistan have established their propaganda mouthpiece in the southern Ghazni province, locals said Sunday.
U.S. relents its pressure as Pakistan prevails in bilateral interaction
by Abdul Hadi Mayar, Abdul Haleem
ISLAMABAD, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- If the latest visit by Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy, on Afghanistan and Pakistan, is taken as a benchmark to gauge the present level of undercurrents in U.S.-Pakistan relations,
Analysts Expect Long-Term, Costly U.S. Campaign in Afghanistan
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 9, 2009
As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war.
If we can't conquer the Taliban, then perhaps we should copy their tactics
We are not going to win outright in Afghanistan. What we need to do instead is try not to lose outright
guardian.co.uk Jason Burke Sunday 9 August 2009
The best way to view Afghanistan, a senior British officer said as we got into his helicopter in Kabul, is from the air. From above, he explained, "everything looks much more straightforward. You can see the roads, the rivers, the villages. Everything is much clearer."
Security, cultural constraints main obstacle for Afghan female candidates
Sima Samar
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Insecurity has created a limitation to some political rights of candidates during the campaign period, limiting the rights of freedom of expression as well as freedom of gathering for some
Wali-ur-Rehman, Hakimullah alive, claims foreign news agency
The News International (Pakistan) August 9, 2009
PESHAWAR: Taliban commander Wali-ur-Rehman who the government said was involved in a deadly shootout with a rival commander denied on Sunday that there had been any fighting and said both he and Hakimullah Mehsud rival were alive.
British soldier killed in Afghanistan blast
Sun Aug 9, 5:17 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A British soldier was killed by an explosion while on patrol in southern Afghanistan, defence officials in London confirmed Sunday.
Paperwork turns back China-bound Afghan flight
Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News
A China-bound Afghan passenger flight was sent back to Afghanistan because it lacked the proper documents required to land, not because of a bomb or hijack threat, Afghan officials said. Skip related content
China says plane diverted to Afghanistan by threat
By Gillian Wong And Amir Shah, Associated Press Writers
BEIJING – An Afghan plane bound for the restive western Chinese region of Xinjiang was sent back to Afghanistan after a bomb threat, Chinese media said Sunday.
As Dems fret, Obama sharpens AfPak goals
Mike Allen – Politico via Yahoo! News - Aug 08 1:40 PM
President Barack Obama next month will send Congress a new plan for measuring progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an effort to build confidence among wavering Democrats and give sharper direction to a costly and increasingly
Cabinet to look at civilian role in Afghanistan
The New Zealand Herald - Aug 09 9:21 AM By Audrey Young
The Cabinet will today discuss sending New Zealand civilians to Afghanistan's Bamyan province to complement and eventually replace the military Provincial Reconstruction Team there when it returns in September next year.
American Soldier remains in Taliban custody
August 9, 2009 - 9:40 AM Fox News by: Conor Powell
AFGHANISTAN – Its been more than three weeks since any one has seen or heard from Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl – the American soldier who went missing in Eastern Afghanistan earlier this summer.
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'Afghan Obama' aspires to be his country's saviour
As Afghanistan's elections loom, President Hamid Karzai's strongest challenge comes from a candidate who crosses the country's ethnic divide
By Ben Farmer in Samangan province, and Nick Meo in Kabul 08 Aug 2009
Its ancient engine emitting an unsettling rattle, the Russian-made MI-17 helicopter touched down in a choking cloud of dust in the mud brick Afghan town of Samangan. The haze had barely cleared around the disembarking figure of its VIP passenger, though, as the waiting crowd surged forward shouting his name – "Abdullah!".
A month ago, none of the 40 candidates running for president against Hamid Karzai seemed to have a chance, and the farmers of Samangan would not have bothered leaving their wheat fields for an election rally.
But suddenly, a lacklustre election campaign has sparked into a ferocious battle.
The hopes of millions who prayed for a better life after the fall of the Taliban government, and were frustrated, have been pinned on the challenger who promises to unseat Mr Karzai – the urbane former foreign minister, Dr Abdullah Abdullah.
With just 11 days to go before a vote that will help decide Afghanistan's future, many believe he has enough momentum to win – thanks not just to his own popularity, but to widespread disillusionment with the incumbent.
"Hamid Karzai has broken his promises," snarled farmer Mohammad Yousef, 56, one of 2,000 men who sat beneath the shade of parachutes strung between trees to hear Dr Abdullah speak in Samangan on Wednesday. "He hasn't done anything for us, so we will not support him this time."
Instead, Mr Yousef's vote will instead go to Dr Abdullah, a former eye surgeon who went into politics after serving with the anti-Taliban guerrillas of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in the 1990s. In a contest dominated by ex-warlords, Islamic extremists, and potentates of opium drug trade, he is regarded as of the few decent men of Afghan politics – free from the whiff of corruption, and with no blood on his hands.
"It was very difficult to convince me to get into the race," said Dr Abdullah in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, in which he admitted an initial apprehension about challenging for the toughest job in Afghan politics.
"I wanted to contribute to the change, but not lead it. But when I decided, from that time the picture was very clear for me. People do want change and you have to prove you are the agent for it."
On August 20, amid a full-scale war in the south, and bombs, killings and bloodshed across the shattered nation, Afghans will go to the polls at 7,000 voting stations nationwide, taking part in only the second fully democratic election in the nation's turbulent history.
Mr Karzai is still the favourite, according to the estimates of analysts and diplomats in Kabul. But in the past month of campaigning, the sense of inevitability around a Karzai victory has been slipping away, leaving the president with a fight on his hands. If there is no outright winner, there will be a run-off a month later, which would most likely be a straight battle between Mr Karzai and Dr Abdullah.
The contest is President Karzai's to lose. His Achilles' heel has been the impression of incompetence and corruption that has dogged his eight years in power, and slowly dragged him from the position of darling of the West, to one of the West's biggest Afghan headaches. Ever since Britain sent troops to Helmand, diplomats have viewed him as failing to provide the leadership which is desperately needed to boost Afghans' confidence in government and loosen the hold of the Taliban. He has squabbled often and bitterly with British diplomats over policy in Helmand – yet as a wily political operator, has always managed to sidestep apparent Western efforts to undermine him in the last 18 months.
Ordinary Afghans have grumbled about him for far longer. In the north they complain about the lack of water, power, and jobs, and in the south they complain about violence. But while they blame President Karzai, they have generally stuck with him because there was no one else. Until now.
"I voted for Karzai in the first elections and I was a penniless taxi driver. Nothing has changed five years later," Abdul Shukor said with a wry grin at a recent Abdullah rally in Kabul. The bitter joke among the capital's poorer residents is that those who have done well out of Mr Karzai live in the so-called "poppy palaces" which have sprung up across the capital. Gaudy, tasteless mansions, their nickname comes from the assumption that their owners have made money out of the burgeoning opium trade.
It is this disillusionment that Dr Abdullah believes can enable him to oust Mr Karzai and his formidable coalition of former warlords, strongmen and ethnic leaders. They include such feared men as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former Northern Alliance leader who is notorious for once disciplining an errant foot soldier by running him over with a tank.
Back in the 1990s, Dr Abdullah and General Dostum were with the Northern Alliance together against the Taliban. But there the similarities end. Unlike the general, a larger-than-life, vodka-swilling figure, who enjoyed challenging visiting reporters to wrestling matches, Dr Abdullah is a quietly-spoken, academic figure, fluent in both English and French.
He studied ophthalmology at Kabul University before joining the anti-Soviet resistance in the Panjshir Valley alongside Ahmad Shah Massoud, the legendary guerrilla commander who later led the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Massoud was murdered by al-Qaeda suicide bombers posing as a camera crew days before the attacks on September 11, 2001, but remains a revered figure in Afghanistan because of his warrior pedigree.
As well as benefiting from his association with Massoud, Dr Abdullah has the advantage of straddling Afghan's main ethnic divide. While his mother was an ethnic Tajik, a tribe predominant in the north, his father was a Pashtun, the tribe predominant in the religiously conservative south, which also provides the bulk of support for the Taliban movement. Being of mixed parentage means he can appeal to a wide variety of voters – and, combined with his message of change, has led to him being inevitably dubbed "The Afghan Obama".
At first his campaign got off to a poor start, with Dr Abdullah looking tired and uncertain. But as he told the Sunday Telegraph, a month ago he suddenly began to believe in himself. It was during a visit to the western city of Herat when he arrived to find cheering supporters lining the 10 miles from the city's airport to its football stadium.
"When I went to Herat I was overwhelmed," he said. "Thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, they turned out to welcome me at the airport and between the airport and the stadium.
"Some of them ran and some of them walked and some of them took bikes, whatever they had. That's something that shows people are now hopeful and that they want to be support my campaign."
Now, by contrast, he clearly enjoys campaigning, looking relaxed and cheerful despite the constant presence of armed bodyguards at his side – an operational essential for any Afghan election candidate. His growing confidence has prompted diplomats to revise their assessments of what previously seemed like a shoo-in for Mr Karzai. The British Ambassador to Kabul, Mark Sedwill, described the election last week as "genuinely in the balance".
At his headquarters in Kabul 500 supporters canvas support, sort stacks of leaflets, and consume steaming plates of rice and lamb. The capital's dingy streets are plastered with posters, showing a bewildering array of turbaned candidates, and a few women, and the symbols they have chosen for identification by Afghanistan's many illiterate voters – pots, goats, horses, and the like.
His supporters fervently hope that if he is returned at the polls, Dr Abdullah can do what Mr Karzai said he would do before he was overwhelmingly elected in 2004 – bring peace, jobs and reconstruction.
Doing so could revitalise the moribund government which the West has been trying with limited success to both prop up and push into an effective battle against the Taliban. Mr Karzai is widely judged to have failed on this crucial front.
Dr Abullah has also promised to develop a prime ministerial system and devolve power to elected governors, a plan which could help to restrain some of the less savoury characters put into power by the current president.
Dr Abdullah's detractors say he is too close to the Northern Alliance which he served for years, and the powerful Tajiks of the north-east. There are even murmurings that despite his mixed parentage, the southern Pashtuns could start an ethnic civil war if he took power.
For this reason, among others, the West has been careful not to openly back any candidate in the election. But the strained relationship between foreign diplomats who spend billions in Afghanistan, and see much of it wasted, and Hamid Karzai, the president they have to put up with, has meant credible rival candidates are welcomed. Dr Abdullah would be perfectly acceptable to the West, although there would be concerns that he, like Mr Karzai, would find his good intentions far easier to pledge than deliver.
A total of 36 candidates plan to stand, although the only other high-profile contender is Dr Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, an academic and former World Bank technocrat who once served as finance minister. He is, however, famously cantankerous and, like many Afghan leaders, seems unable to do a power-sharing deal with anyone.
President Karzai is thought to be considering joining forces with Dr Ghani, offering to create for him a new job of chief executive, making him in effect prime minister. If past Afghan politics are anything to go by, though, horse-trading, backroom deals and betrayals will probably prevail until a clear winner emerges.
That, at least, is the best case scenario. Such is the fear of fraud, and such has been the discontent over the results of the last five years of democracy, that many of Dr Abdullah's supporters say they will go for Tehran-style mass street protests if the polls say Mr Karzai has won again. And if that happens, they have pointedly said that Afghans, unlike Iranians, nearly all have Kalashnikovs.
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UN: Violence hampering Afghan vote
By JASON STRAZIUSO
KABUL (AP) — Insecurity in significant portions of Afghanistan has hindered election preparations and disproportionately affected Afghan women, a report co-authored by the U.N. mission in the country said Sunday.
Militant violence has risen steadily in the past three years, and a record number of U.S. and NATO troops are now in the country to combat it. Afghans will vote for president and provincial councils in a nationwide election Aug. 20, which the Taliban has vowed to disrupt.
Insecurity has already hampered candidates' ability to run for office and for election officials to prepare polling stations, the report said.
Violence has "severely limited freedom of movement and constrained freedom of expression for candidates and supporters, hampering their ability to campaign openly through public gatherings or door-to-door visits," the joint report from the U.N. mission and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said.
"These restrictions have, in turn, created significant limitations on freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and amplified women's difficulties in participating in the electoral process," it said.
Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said three women provincial council candidates from Kandahar could not even live there because of security threats, and the report noted that only 39 percent of Afghans who registered for the election in 2008 or 2009 are women.
The report said insecurity in "significant" portions of the country would affect the vote. The top U.N. official in the country, Kai Eide, said he could not define what "significant" meant because the situation could change before voting day. The Interior Ministry has said 10 out of 360 Afghan districts are controlled by militants and that one third of the country is considered to be at high risk of violence.
U.S., European and Afghan officials say they expect minor instances of fraud and violence during the election, but that they hope such incidents are kept to a low enough level that the outcome is seen as legitimate. If voters in the violent south and east are kept from the polls, it could lower the number of votes President Hamid Karzai receives, boosting the chances of his top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.
Violence has marred several campaigns. The U.N. report said nine people have been killed in apparent election-related violence, including four members of Karzai's campaign when a roadside bomb attack hit a campaign vehicle in northern Jawzjan province. Two members of Abdullah's campaign have also been killed in attacks.
In the country's latest violence, a roadside bomb killed a British soldier in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said Sunday. The death raises the number of international troops slain in August to 20.
Thousands of additional British forces and U.S. Marines have been deployed to southern Afghanistan — the Taliban's heartland — in an attempt to shake militant control and enable the presidential poll to take place.
Elsewhere in the south, a roadside bomb exploded against a convoy of security officials in Zabul province, killing three soldiers, said Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, an Afghan army commander.
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Afghan presidential contender denies Karzai deal
By Golnar Motevalli – Sat Aug 8, 1:32 pm ET
MAIMANEH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – One of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main rivals denied reports on Saturday that he had agreed to withdraw from the August 20 election and accept a leadership post under Karzai.
Afghan and Western media have speculated that former finance minister Ashraf Ghani, seen as one of two leading challengers to the president, might pull out of the vote and accept a senior administrative post to help Karzai win.
"I've been approached repeatedly, the offer is on the table. I have not accepted it. The issue is the extent of crisis. We are in a very difficult moment in our history," Ghani told reporters in Maimaneh, capital of northern Faryab province.
"I intensely disagree with the course of conduct that Mr Karzai and his entourage have adopted during the last five years," he said.
But he did not rule out a return to government in future, if allowed to implement his plans.
"There would have to be very very firm commitments, time-bound set of activities, full embracement of the program that I've articulated for the next 10 years."
Ghani took a swipe at Karzai's tactic of relying on the support of ethnic chieftains, many of whom led armed factions during decades of civil war.
"The problem is that this government has turned into a contract among ethnic entrepreneurs," Ghani said.
"There are a number of people who in the name of being Pashtun or Hazara or Uzbek or other groups come and claim to speak for them. They don't speak for these people. They haven't done anything to change the lives of these people," he said.
Ghani, who was finance minister under Karzai from 2002 to 2004, was visiting the predominantly ethnic-Uzbek city of Maimaneh to rally support for his presidential campaign but his rallerallyy attracted only about 150-200 followers.
Posters of Uzbek leader Rashid Dostum hung throughout the city, showing the extent of the challenge Ghani faces.
Dostum, a former guerrilla fighter notorious for making and breaking alliances, won 10 percent of the total vote in the last election in 2004 by sweeping Uzbek areas. He has asked his followers to back Karzai this time around.
"In Faryab, whoever Dostum votes for, we'll follow his word. Dostum is our heart, he is our kidneys...whoever Dostum votes for, we'll vote the same," said 21-year old passerby Sayed Rahmatollah.
Like Karzai, Ghani is a Pashtun, from Afghanistan's largest ethnic group who have traditionally led the country.
In the 2004 election, Karzai swept Pashtun areas, while the only rivals to achieve more than two percent of the vote were Dostum and two other ethnic minority candidates who primarily won support among their groups.
But Ghani was confident his plans of job creation, infrastructure development and enfranchisement of the poor, youth and women, would transcend Dostum's grip on Faryab.
"Absolutely. Faryab is a microcosm of national unity. You see Turkomens, Uzbeks, you see Pahstuns you see Dari speakers, etc." Ghani said.
(Editing by Peter Graff and Angus MacSwan)
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Clinton: US to work with Afghan election winner
AP via Yahoo! News - Aug 08 9:44 PM
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. is ready to work with the winner of Afghanistan's upcoming presidential election.
Clinton says the U.S. will insist on a better performance from the Afghan government, which the U.S. views as crucial in combating Muslim extremism.
The Obama administration has been critical of President Hamid Karzai's government, though U.S. officials have toned down their rhetoric ahead of the Aug. 20 vote.
Clinton says there are areas of progress — and areas where improvement is needed.
Clinton says the U.S. is working to ensure a free and fair election, and will be clear about "what we need to see coming from the government."
She spoke in a Thursday interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria that is airing Sunday.
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Karzai Befriends Rivals to Improve Poll Odds
The Wall Street Journal By Matthew Rosenberg and Anand Gopal 08/08/2009
KABUL - The Unpopular Afghan President's Talents for Deal Making and Conciliation Are Expected to Pave Way to Another 5-Year Term
When the U.S. and its allies first anointed Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan's president nearly eight years ago, he was seen at home and abroad as an adept politician uniquely suited to forge compromises among the country's warring factions.
As Afghanistan has deteriorated, so has Mr. Karzai's reputation. The same traits that once earned him praise are now criticized as signs of a mercurial and vacillating leader. He publicly denounces the U.S. presence. He is widely blamed for all that ails Afghanistan: the rampant corruption, the flourishing opium trade, the Taliban's resurgence. And, until he began campaigning for re-election when the nation goes to the polls Aug. 20, he rarely ventured beyond the confines of his palace. At a rally on Friday he made only a brief appearance, speaking for about six minutes.
Yet the deeply unpopular Mr. Karzai, 51 years old, is heavily favored to win another five-year term. The reason, according to allies, foes and diplomats: Despite his many shortcomings, Mr. Karzai has become a passive strongman, a leader whose deal-making touch and conciliatory instincts have allowed him to sideline rivals or turn them into allies. That is expected to translate into victory at the polls, in a system in which voters tend to follow their traditional and ethnic leaders.
Yet he also lacks the clout to dominate the unruly collection of former warlords, tribal elders, small-time politicos and businessmen who preside over Afghanistan. That has left the country in a permanent state of barely contained chaos and Mr. Karzai as the most powerful among a roster of nearly 40 national candidates, many of them politically weak.
If Mr. Karzai wins another five-year term, it is likely to mean little or no progress on overhauls needed to bolster Afghanistan's economy and civilian institutions to complement the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's intensified military campaign against the Taliban. Mr. Karzai's office didn't respond to requests for an interview or for comment on Mr. Karzai's governing style.
Neither Mr. Karzai's government nor its Western benefactors have "created or trained a proper, competent government apparatus," said Robert Finn, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan for the first two years of Mr. Karzai's presidency. As a result, Mr. Karzai has "fallen back on traditional power structures -- the local powerbrokers, the tribal chieftains or whoever they are."
One of Mr. Karzai's two vice-presidential running mates, for instance, is Mohammed Fahim, a Tajik warlord known for his brutality during the civil war in the 1990s that followed the retreat of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Karzai has promised to reappoint as army chief of staff another ex-warlord, Uzbek leader Gen. Rashid Dostum, say people involved in the negotiations.
And Mr. Karzai has courted the Hazara minority, a key swing vote, by promising to appoint more Hazara ministers and create a province dominated by the ethnic group, said Muhammad Mohaqeq, a Hazara leader.
Such moves echo Mr. Karzai's efforts early in his presidency to force warlords to abandon their fiefs and join the central government.
The president's choice of allies has done little to endear him to a wary public. Private polling in recent weeks indicates he is losing ground to second-place candidate Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, and unlikely to win the 50.1% needed to secure victory in the first round on Aug. 20, say people who have seen the numbers. He would be expected to win in a second round between the top two finishers.
Mr. Karzai is in talks with another contender, Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister, about a deal that could help ensure his victory in the first round, say people in both camps. The deal would see Mr. Ghani drop out of the race and sign on to Mr. Karzai's camp. In exchange, Mr. Ghani, a capable technocrat, would become a "chief executive" in the new administration and handle much of its day-to-day management.
Neither camp would publicly comment. A Ghani campaign staffer said the candidate hadn't yet ruled out such a deal.
The U.S. would likely support such a move in the hopes it would avoid prolonged instability before a second round of voting, a U.S. official in Washington said, although American officials in Kabul have repeatedly said they favor no single candidate.
Mr. Karzai's style, while suiting him, also has been dictated by the fact that Afghanistan remains a weak nation dominated by provincial interests. "This isn't a federation, it's not even a confederation," said a senior Western official in Kabul. "It's a herd of provinces and people that sometimes runs in the same direction." Asked whether anyone else could have managed any better with the hand the president was dealt, the official said: "Probably not."
Building the institutions that underpin a democracy -- strong ministries, a competent and apolitical bureaucracy, real political parties -- "is going to take years," said Haroun Mir, the co-director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies. It will also, Mr. Mir said, require the cooperation of the people Mr. Karzai is criticized for appeasing.
U.S. officials have already begun forging stronger ties with provincial officials in anticipation of continued weakness in Kabul.
That's an art that Mr. Karzai, the son of the paramount chieftain of the Populzai tribe of the Pashtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, mastered long ago. "Ever since he was a child in his village he knew how to get along with people and balance everyone," said Hajji Aga Lalai Dastagiri, a tribal leader from Kandahar, a southern province, who has known the Karzai family for many years.
With corruption rife and Afghanistan's limited bureaucracy chronically incapable of shepherding development projects, Mr. Karzai instead often "deals directly with locals," said Nek Muhammad, a spokesman for the president's re-election campaign in Kandahar, a southern province.
He cited a road project in the province's remote Panjway district. It took more than eight months for the local government to find a contractor. Even then work didn't begin because of a series of bureaucratic hold ups.
"Then Karzai came one day, met with the locals and ordered construction to start," Mr. Muhammad said. "Work started within three days."
Those who aren't visited by the president can make the trek to Kabul and attend one of the audiences he regularly holds at the Gul Khana, or Flower House, the part of the royal palace where he works.
"Last year, mullahs from my village asked me if I can send them to Hajj," the Muslim pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, said Mr. Dastagiri, the tribal elder. "I couldn't afford it from my own pocket so I went to the president," he continued. "I told him that they are good mullahs, very loyal to the government. I asked him to sign a president's decree and send them to the hajj. He did it."
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Taliban leader's death a sign of success in Pakistan: US
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama's national security advisor on Sunday hailed the reported killing of the Pakistani Taliban's leader as "a big deal" that has already has stirred dissension in the insurgent ranks.
US national security adviser Jim Jones put the level of US certainty that Baitullah Mehsud died Wednesday in a US missile strike "in the 90 percent category."
"Pakistan has confirmed it. We know that there reports from the Mehsud tribe that he wasn't. But the evidence is pretty conclusive," Jones said in an interview with NBC News.
"This is a big deal," Jones said.
He said it meant that a US efforts to forge closer security ties with the Pakistani military was "moving in the right direction," and that the Pakistanis were "doing quite well in terms of their fight against extremism."
"Baitullah was the public enemy number one in Pakistan, so its their biggest target," he said.
Jones said he could not confirm reports that another top Pakistani Taliban commander was killed in a shootout with a rival.
But he told Fox television, "It certainly appears there is dissension in the ranks. That's not a bad thing for us."
"I won't say it's a tipping point, but it certainly shows that we're having some success," he said.
Jones said US and Pakistani intelligence sharing has grown and that the US and Pakistani military are working more closely together on Afghanistan as well.
In the TV interviews, Jones also said the United States has not ruled out sending more troops to Afghanistan but should first see what effect its new strategy is having.
He confirmed an account in the Washington Post that he told military commanders during a visit to Afghanistan in late June that if they asked for more troops now, "the president would quite likely have a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment."
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was widely understood to stand for "What the (expletive)."
But Jones said what he meant was that "we have yet to be able to measure the implementation of the new strategy, so if you have recommendations, make it in the context of the new strategy."
"We have learned one thing in six years," he told CBS television. "This is not just about troop strength."
General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, has been making an assessment of the situation and was thought to be preparing the ground for a request for more troops.
But at an unannounced meeting in Belgium last weekend, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave him until the end of September to complete his assessment, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
Obama has already ordered an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan since taking office, with the US force soon to reach 68,000.
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Pakistan Taliban commander denies shootout with rival
By Alamgir Bitani – Sun Aug 9, 9:27 am ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – A Pakistani Taliban commander on Sunday denied reports of a deadly shootout with a rival, saying there had not been any fighting or a meeting to decide on new leadership for the group.
The comments by Wali-ur-Rehman add to a volley of unverifiable claims and counter-claims by the government and the Taliban that have surrounded the reported death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. missile attack last Wednesday.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Saturday that Wali-ur-Rehman had been involved in a shootout with a rival for the Pakistani Taliban leadership, Hakimullah Mehsud, and that there were reports one of them had died.
Hakimullah Mehsud had earlier denied that Baitullah Mehsud was killed by the U.S. drone strike in the first place.
Wali-ur-Rehman, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location to a Reuters reporter who had spoken with him several times before, also denied that any tribal council meeting, or shura, had taken place to decide on a successor to Baitullah Mehsud.
"There are no differences. There was no fighting. We both are alive, and there was no special shura meeting," he said.
Hakimullah would call journalists soon to prove he too was alive, Rehman said.
"He definitely will call you and tell you everything," he said.
Western governments with troops in Afghanistan are watching to see if any new Pakistani Taliban leader would shift focus from fighting the Pakistani government and put the movement's weight behind the Afghan insurgency led by Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Asked about Wali-ur-Rehman's comments, an intelligence officer in the region, who declined to identified, told Reuters: "He's just making it up. The shootout took place and some wounded were shifted to North Waziristan."
CONFLICTING REPORTS
Taliban commanders have said the government is fabricating reports of dissent within its ranks to promote division and undermine the movement.
Baitullah's deputy, Noor Said, told Reuters by telephone that a video would soon be released to prove that Baitullah was still alive.
But the Taliban themselves have offered conflicting reports, with a separate commander yesterday confirming that a shura was called in Taliban-controlled territory in Waziristan, a northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told Reuters on Sunday that it was "quite certain" Baitullah was dead.
"The problem is we don't have material evidence and that won't be available for quite some time because obviously it's a remote and inaccessible area," Abbas said.
Baitullah, who suffers from diabetes, has been ill and has not been looking after the movement's affairs for the past three months, Rehman conceded.
Some analysts have said the Pakistani Taliban's leadership would be split over who should become the next chief, suggesting denials of his death could be aimed at buying time until a new leader is chosen.
Hakimullah, who controls fighters in the Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber tribal regions, is regarded as one of the leading contenders to replace Baitullah Mehsud, who had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Wali-ur-Rehman is another shura member and a former spokesman for Baitullah.
(Additional reporting by Kamran Haider; Writing by Jason Subler; editing by Patrick Graham)
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Mystery of Taliban chiefs deepens
Sunday, 9 August 2009 BBC News
Confusion surrounds the leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan after reports of a gun battle between potential successors to leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Pakistani officials have said they had "credible evidence" that Baitullah Mehsud had died in a US drone attack.
But a senior Taliban commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, contacted the BBC to say his chief was alive and well.
Now officials in Islamabad say Hakimullah was himself one of those killed in a fight over succession.
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool, in Islamabad, says the situation is very unclear and information is based on rumours from deep inside militant territory in north-west Pakistan.
Rumours
The US and Pakistani governments say their intelligence suggests Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US rocket attack on Wednesday.
US National Security Adviser Jim Jones said on Sunday that US officials believed Baitullah Mehsud was dead.
"We think so," Mr Jones told Fox News. "The Pakistani government believes he is and all the evidence we have suggests that."
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the BBC that the authorities had received reports that a meeting of Taliban commanders in South Waziristan, called to decide on the movement's new leadership, had turned into a gun battle.
The unconfirmed reports say that Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, was killed.
Mr Jones said he did not know if this was true.
"We've heard stories about that. I can't confirm it. It certainly appears there is dissension in the ranks. That's not a bad thing for us," he said.
Infighting
However, Hakimullah Mehsud had earlier contacted the BBC to say his chief, Baitullah Mehsud, was still alive.
Mr Malik said the other Taliban leader allegedly involved in the shootout was Waliur Rehman.
The Pakistani interior minister challenged the Taliban to prove its leaders are still alive.
But Taliban commanders have dismissed the challenge as a ploy to flush them out into the open.
Speaking to Reuters, a man claiming to be Mr Rehman denied both that there had been disagreements among Taliban members and that either he or Hakimullah Mehsud had been killed.
"There are no differences. There was no fighting. We both are alive, and there was no special Shura meeting," he said, referring to a reunion of party leaders.
Mr Rehman also insisted that Hakimullah Mehsud himself would call journalists soon to prove he too was alive.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for a Taliban group that was opposed to Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud, said Baitullah's supporters were turning on one another in the struggle to find a new leader.
"Differences have arisen between the followers of Baitullah, that is why they are claiming that he is not dead," he said.
"The 'Shura' (party leaders) are at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days. God willing, the infighting will get worse."
The BBC's Orla Guerin, in Islamabad, said that part of the challenge of finding out facts was linked to the area's remote and rugged terrain which means access for journalists and even Pakistani troops is difficult.
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Taliban launch another mouthpiece propaganda in S Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Taliban insurgents fighting Afghan and international troops based in Afghanistan have established their propaganda mouthpiece in the southern Ghazni province, locals said Sunday.
The FM transistor, according to locals, airs program from 07:00p.m. until 09:00 p.m. local time and often broadcasts Taliban anti-government activities in local language of Pashtu.
"This radio called itself "Da Shariat Ghag Radio" or Radio voice of Sharia (Islamic Laws) have been airing programs on Taliban anti-government activities over the past three days," a resident of Qarabagh district Noor Mohammad told Xinhua.
A local official who declined to be identified also confirmed the report, saying Taliban militants have established their propaganda radio in the province.
Da Shariat Ghag Radio was the official mouthpiece of Taliban regime before its collapse in late 2001.
Meantime, Taliban purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told media from an undisclosed location via telephone claimed that militants have established four radios in the country.
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U.S. relents its pressure as Pakistan prevails in bilateral interaction
by Abdul Hadi Mayar, Abdul Haleem
ISLAMABAD, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- If the latest visit by Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy, on Afghanistan and Pakistan, is taken as a benchmark to gauge the present level of undercurrents in U.S.-Pakistan relations, the tilt seems to go in Pakistan's flavor.
While Washington in bilateral interactions during the visit conceded many of Pakistan's assertions the latter looked comfortable to prevail itself, in many respects.
Holbrooke paid a three-day visit to Islamabad from July 21 to 23. He held talks with Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's army chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, chief of ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence), Foreign Minister Shah Mahdud Qureshi, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, and President Asif Ali Zardari.
Holbrooke met opposition leader, Mian Nawaz Sharif. Talking to reporters after his meetings with Pakistani leaders, the U.S. regional troubleshooter said his country did not intend to intrude its forces into the Pakistani territory.
U.S. military officials have earlier been aggressively pleading for physical presence of U.S. land forces in Pakistan in pursuit of Al-Qaida and Taliban operatives.
Western analysts have been claiming that Pakistan had launched crackdown against religious insurgents in the violence-stricken border areas near Afghanistan only under U.S. pressure.
The ongoing military operation against Taliban militants in parts of Swat and Malakand tribal regions in Pakistan particularly seems to have helped lower the intensity of U.S. pressure against Islamabad.
Holbrooke, like other U.S. and British officials, greatly appreciated the action taken against extremist religious fighters in Swat, where the Taliban spokesman had said in April that they would welcome if Osama bin Laden decided to take shelter in their area.
Washington has all along taken a tough stance on the issue of militancy inside the Pakistani tribal areas, claiming that "80 percent" of Al-Qaida leaders and activists are hiding in these areas and planning attacks against the West from their bases inside Pakistan.
The tone and tenor of Richard Holbrooke, however, remained much more amicable during the latest visit. To a question about the proposed military operation in South Waziristan, he said: "It is Pakistan's internal matter."
Washington has always alleged that Afghan Taliban militants receive financial and manpower support from their Pakistani counterparts.
Last month, Afghan authorities claimed arresting a would-be suicide bomber in Afghanistan's southern Zabul province, saying that the terrorists had intruded from Pakistan.
Drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal area were yet another area, where Pakistan asserted its opposition during Holbrooke's visit -- although it did not succeed to move the U.S. from its position.
The United States says these attacks are very much effective in eliminating Al-Qaida activists.
Washington claims that attacks of Hellfire missiles from Predator unmanned planes have perished 13 of the 20 top Al-Qaida leaders -- mostly in North and South Waziristan tribal areas.
Drone attack, according to media reports couple of days ago, eliminated Baitullah Mehsoud, leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan,(Taliban Movement of Pakistan) along with his wife.
If the reports on the death of Mehsoud, the most wanted man by Pakistani government whom the U.S brands as a "key ally of al-Qaida network" in Pakistan's lawless tribal area is true, it could be a big achievement in the U.S.-led war on terror.
Mehsoud's men believed to be between 10,000 to 20,000 have been fighting against both the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan's Foreing Minister Shah Mekmood Qureshi, according to media reports has welcomed Mehsoud's elimination, saying "It is a great success for the forces that are fighting extremism and terrorism in Pakistan."
However, Pakistan often says that drone attacks trespass its sovereignty. Islamabad has repeatedly said that these attacks are counter-productive as they turn the civilian people against the Pakistani security forces, thus creating hurdles in the way of military operations against militants.
Besides Prime Minister Gilani, the opposition leader, Mian Nawaz Sharif, also in recent meeting with Holbrooke expressed his opposition to the drone strikes and called for their cessation.
Post-visit statements by Pakistani officials and media reviews also show that Islamabad is not as much on the hook as it had been while Washington pondered new ways and means to contain violence in Afghanistan through a "regional approach."
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Analysts Expect Long-Term, Costly U.S. Campaign in Afghanistan
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 9, 2009
As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war.
Since the invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago, the United States has spent $223 billion on war-related funding for that country, according to the Congressional Research Service. Aid expenditures, excluding the cost of combat operations, have grown exponentially, from $982 million in 2003 to $9.3 billion last year.
The costs are almost certain to keep growing. The Obama administration is in the process of overhauling the U.S. approach to Afghanistan, putting its focus on long-term security, economic sustainability and development. That approach is also likely to require deployment of more American military personnel, at the very least to train additional Afghan security forces.
Later this month, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is expected to present his analysis of the situation in the country. The analysis could prompt an increase in U.S. troop levels to help implement President Obama's new strategy.
Military experts insist that the additional resources are necessary. But many, including some advising McChrystal, say they fear the public has not been made aware of the significant commitments that come with Washington's new policies.
"We will need a large combat presence for many years to come, and we will probably need a large financial commitment longer than that," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the "strategic assessment" team advising McChrystal. The expansion of the Afghan security force that the general will recommend to secure the country "will inevitably cost much more than any imaginable Afghan government is going to be able to afford on its own," Biddle added.
"Afghan forces will need $4 billion a year for another decade, with a like sum for development," said Bing West, a former assistant secretary of defense and combat Marine who has chronicled the Iraq and Afghan wars. Bing said the danger is that Congress is "so generous in support of our own forces today, it may not support the aid needed for progress in Afghanistan tomorrow."
Some members of Congress are worried. The House Appropriations Committee said in its report on the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill that its members are "concerned about the prospects for an open-ended U.S. commitment to bring stability to a country that has a decades-long history of successfully rebuffing foreign military intervention and attempts to influence internal politics."
The Afghan government has made some political and military progress since 2001, but the Taliban insurgency has been reinvigorated.
Anthony H. Cordesman, another member of McChrystal's advisory group and a national security expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told reporters recently that even with military gains in the next 12 to 18 months, it would take years to reduce sharply the threat from the Taliban and other insurgent forces.
The task that the United States has taken on in Afghanistan is in many ways more difficult than the one it has encountered in Iraq, where the U.S. government has spent $684 billion in war-related funding.
In a 2008 study that ranked the weakest states in the developing world, the Brookings Institution rated Afghanistan second only to Somalia. Afghanistan's gross domestic product in 2008 was $23 billion, with about $3 billion coming from opium production, according to the CIA's World Factbook. Oil-producing Iraq had a GDP of $113 billion.
Afghanistan's central government takes in roughly $890 million in annual revenue, according to the World Factbook. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has pointed out that Afghanistan's national budget cannot support the $2 billion needed today for the country's army and police force.
Dutch Army Brig. Gen. Tom Middendorp, commander of the coalition task force in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province, described the region as virtually prehistoric.
"It's the poorest province of one of the poorest countries in the world. And if you walk through that province, it's like walking through the Old Testament," Middendorp told reporters recently. "There is enormous illiteracy in the province. More than 90 percent cannot write or read. So it's very basic, what you do there. And they have had 30 years of conflict."
Unlike in Iraq, where Obama has established a timeline for U.S. involvement, the president has not said when he would like to see troops withdrawn from Afghanistan.
White House officials emphasize that the burden is not that of the United States alone. The NATO-led force in the country has 61,000 troops from 42 countries; about 29,000 of those troops are American.
Still, military experts say the United States will not be able to shed its commitment easily.
The government has issued billions of dollars in contracts in recent years, underscoring the vast extent of work that U.S. officials are commissioning.
Among other purposes, contractors have been sought this summer to build a $25 million provincial Afghan National Police headquarters; maintain anti-personnel mine systems; design and build multimillion-dollar sections of roads; deliver by sea and air billions of dollars worth of military bulk cargo; and supervise a drug-eradication program.
One solicitation, issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, is aimed at finding a contractor to bring together Afghan economic, social, legal and political groups to help build the country's infrastructure. The contractor would work with Afghan government officials as well as representatives from private and nongovernmental organizations to establish a way to allocate resources for new projects.
"We are looking at two decades of supplying a few billion a year to Afghanistan," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and military expert at the Brookings Institution, adding: "It's a reasonable guess that for 20 years, we essentially will have to fund half the Afghan budget." He described the price as reasonable, given that it may cost the United States $100 billion this year to continue fighting.
"We are creating a [long-term military aid] situation similar to the ones we have with Israel, Egypt and Jordan," he said.
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If we can't conquer the Taliban, then perhaps we should copy their tactics
We are not going to win outright in Afghanistan. What we need to do instead is try not to lose outright
guardian.co.uk Jason Burke Sunday 9 August 2009
The best way to view Afghanistan, a senior British officer said as we got into his helicopter in Kabul, is from the air. From above, he explained, "everything looks much more straightforward. You can see the roads, the rivers, the villages. Everything is much clearer."
Sadly, the gritty reality on the ground is rather different. If anything has helped Afghanistan become the graveyard of empires – and of good intentions – it is its complexity. If the current international operation is to have the remotest chance of success, this essential characteristic needs to be turned to our advantage, not obscured beneath a welter of wishful thinking and rhetoric.
For the war in Afghanistan is not going well. The Taliban are inflicting casualties and ceding little ground. The insurgents continue to maintain a parallel administration across at least a third of the country. They do not appear to lack recruits, fighting spirit or confidence. Then there is the continuing narcotics boom, the endemic corruption, the exclusion of huge swaths of the population from politics, the myriad problems faced by even the most simple international initiative.
And there are the domestic factors. General Sir David Richards might say that the British army will be in Afghanistan for 40 years, but it is extremely unlikely that the British public will countenance such a commitment. The military campaign in Afghanistan has already cost British taxpayers more than £5bn. There is a limit to what countries are prepared to pay. The White House is already having trouble with growing resistance on Capitol Hill to further funding, particularly from Democrats.
We need to face facts. We are not going to win outright, certainly not within a time-scale that would be acceptable to increasingly recalcitrant western domestic populations. What we need to do, instead, is try not to lose outright either. This will mean dumping the grandiose oratory and taking a long, hard look at what is actually going on.
The first truth we need to accept is that the UK plays a relatively minor role in this conflict. There are nearly seven American grunts for each British squaddie. Our politicians should remember that next time they declare a "victory" following a single operation by a couple of thousand of admittedly brave and professional British troops.
The second harsh truth is that we have become trapped by our own words. Support for the west in Afghanistan is strongest among cosmopolitan urbanites, ethnic minorities and women, none of whom is likely to take on the Taliban with any great success in the near future. Though a poll in February found that 60% of Afghans would support senior Taliban as ministers if it meant peace, it is hard to imagine that being acceptable in the west.
Finally, we need to recognise that the election this month, particularly as it is probable that Hamid Karzai will be re-elected, is not going to change a great deal. For a farmer in southern Afghanistan, Kabul is a million miles away and concerns are not about the president and elections but about what is happening in the next village or valley.
But it is these local dynamics that may eventually help, if not find a solution, then give the new strategy a much greater chance of success. The key lies in seeing our role in Afghanistan differently. Instead of being there to fight a classic counterinsurgency war, we need to see our job as providing (often muscular) assistance to conflict-resolution.
The war in Afghanistan did not start in 2001. It has been going on for decades. It is not a war between global jihadi Islam and "civilisation", but a civil war in which the west and groups such as al-Qaida are equally foreign. At the moment, we are thrashing around in it like a myopic drunk in a bar brawl.
This civil war is hugely complicated, with allegiances fragmented along ethnic, cultural, political and historical lines. It pits the Pashtun against ethnic minorities, urban modernisers against rural reactionaries and the centre against the periphery. In some instances, it is about raw power and hard cash. In others, it is about less tangible things: identity, honour, pride. In each village, there are supporters of all factions who each represent, in the classic Afghan way, a group whose interests they try to promote and protect. The Taliban have long recognised this, effectively exploiting all the fissures of Afghan society with a clever outreach programme to the disaffected. We have not.
Our job before we leave should not be battering the Taliban into submission, but trying and set the conditions for the resolution of at least some of the many, interlinked conflicts. Such an effort needs to be Afghan-led and will involve many people whose views on, say, gender equality, are not likely to be shared by much of the international community. This is not about "peace talks" with insurgents, but about trying to encourage the construction of something that is sufficiently inclusive to prevent an immediate collapse into dangerous anarchy the moment western forces pull out. Part of the Taliban's support stems from the legitimacy it has as representatives of conservative Pashtun rural values and traditions. Find other representatives and that legitimacy will disappear.
Much of the worst insurgent violence is fuelled by micro-factors that have little to do with global narratives or big ideologies. In Kunar's infamous Korengal Valley, a squabble over illegal timber felling is the origin of the fierce fighting. In Uzbeen, the valley east of Kabul where the French were ambushed last year, it is smuggling rights and tribal disputes.
In such places, negotiated solutions achieved through traditional jirga assemblies, deftly aided by the stick wielded by coalition military forces and the carrot of international cash, should be enough to achieve some temporary stabilisation at least. In some places, deals will have to be done with the Taliban clerics to whom half the country go for rough but rapid and bribe-free justice. They are respected if not liked and would need to be part of any new set-up. In others, it may be tribal leaders who can impose some kind of order. The one condition for everybody would be the rejection of al-Qaida-style international terrorism. Given the parochialism of most Afghan commanders and constituencies, this should not be difficult to impose. Given the efficacy of drones and the new Afghan intelligence service it would not be difficult to enforce either.
In the best scenario, this patchwork of micro-agreements would lead to those who persisted in perpetuating civil conflict being seen as the enemies of stability. In the worst-case scenario, when domestic populations start taking to the streets against the war in Afghanistan and western troops pull out in three or four years' time, such an initiative may at least slow the advance of the Taliban.
Either way, it is worth trying. Given current prospects, we do not have a great deal to lose.
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Security, cultural constraints main obstacle for Afghan female candidates
Sima Samar
KABUL, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Insecurity has created a limitation to some political rights of candidates during the campaign period, limiting the rights of freedom of expression as well as freedom of gathering for some candidates especially for females, the Head of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission Sima Samar said Sunday.
"None of the three female provincial council candidates stood in southern Kandahar province due to security threats, neither of them ever made public campaign in the south," she told reporters in a joint press conference with top UN envoy Kai Eide.
On July 30, night letters were spreading in the neighborhood where one female candidate lives in Takhar province in the north, warning her to stop campaigning or she will suffer consequences, Samar said.
Afghanistan's second presidential and provincial council election in the post Taliban country set for August 20 as Taliban militants have vowed to disturb it and close all road one day before the elections.
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Wali-ur-Rehman, Hakimullah alive, claims foreign news agency
The News International (Pakistan) August 9, 2009
PESHAWAR: Taliban commander Wali-ur-Rehman who the government said was involved in a deadly shootout with a rival commander denied on Sunday that there had been any fighting and said both he and Hakimullah Mehsud rival were alive.
According to a foreign news agency, the comments by Wali-ur-Rehman add to a volley of unverifiable claims and counter-claims by the government and the Taliban that have surrounded the reported death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. missile attack on Wednesday.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik had said on Saturday that Taliban commander Wali-ur-Rehman had been involved in a shootout with rival Hakimullah Mehsud, and that there were reports one of them died.
Wali-ur-Rehman, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location to a Reuters reporter who had spoken with him several times before, denied that any council meeting, or shura, had taken place to decide on a successor to Baitullah Mehsud.
"There are no differences. There was no fighting. We both are alive, and there was no special shura meeting," he said.
Hakimullah Mehsud had earlier denied that Baitullah Mehsudhad been killed by the U.S. drone strike in the first place.
Taliban commanders have said the government is fabricating reports of dissent within its ranks in order to promote division and undermine the movement.
Hakimullah Mehsud would call journalists soon to prove he too was alive, Rehman said. "He definitely will call you and tell you everything," he said.
Western governments with troops in Afghanistan are watching to see if any new Pakistani Taliban leader would shift focus from fighting the Pakistani government and put the movement's weight behind the Afghan insurgency led by Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Hakimullah, who controls fighters in the Orakzai, Kurramand Khyber tribal regions, is regarded as one of the leading contenders to replace Baitullah Mehsud, who had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head.
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British soldier killed in Afghanistan blast
Sun Aug 9, 5:17 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A British soldier was killed by an explosion while on patrol in southern Afghanistan, defence officials in London confirmed Sunday.
The soldier died following a blast Saturday while on patrol east of Gereshk town in the restive Helmand Province.
In Kabul, the NATO alliance's International Security Assistance Force said the soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED), the main weapon of the Taliban insurgents.
"Each and every loss that we sustain in Helmand sends reverberations throughout the brigade," said Task Force Helmand spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wenham.
The deaths bring to 196 the number of British troops who have died since operations against the Taliban extremists began in October 2001. Of these, at least 165 were killed as a result of hostile action.
Twenty-seven British troops have been killed since the start of July and the spike in deaths has revived debate in Britain about its involvement in Afghanistan and the standard of equipment available to protect troops.
Last month was the deadliest for the international force since the 2001 US-led invasion, with 76 killed, according to the icasualties.org website which compiles a toll. Most of the deaths were in IED strikes.
Britain has around 9,150 troops in Afghanistan, the vast majority in Helmand where they are battling Taliban extremists.
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Paperwork turns back China-bound Afghan flight
Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News
A China-bound Afghan passenger flight was sent back to Afghanistan because it lacked the proper documents required to land, not because of a bomb or hijack threat, Afghan officials said. Skip related content
China's Xinhua news agency had reported that Chinese authorities suspected the flight had been threatened by a bomb. But an air traffic official in Kabul and an airport police source in Kandahar said there was no such threat.
The plane, from Afghanistan's Kam Air airline, had departed from Kabul but landed in the southern city of Kandahar on its return because of high winds in Kabul, they said.
"It can go back to Kabul whenever it wants," the Kandahar airport police source said.
The sources said the flight was the first the airline had made on that route, and the airport in China's Xinjiang province denied it permission to land.
A press officer for NATO-led and U.S. forces in Kabul, Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, said a plane had made a "precautionary landing" in Kandahar, but that there was no hijacking or bomb threat involved.
(Reporting by Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR, Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL and Chris Buckley in BEIJING; writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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China says plane diverted to Afghanistan by threat
By Gillian Wong And Amir Shah, Associated Press Writers
BEIJING – An Afghan plane bound for the restive western Chinese region of Xinjiang was sent back to Afghanistan after a bomb threat, Chinese media said Sunday.
Kam Air deputy chief Feda Mohammad Fedawi told The Associated Press that the plane, carrying 160 passengers, left Kabul and was crossing Kyrgyzstan on its way to the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, when it was told to turn back.
The Xinhua News Agency said there had been a bomb threat and Urumqi airport authorities had been told not to let the plane land.
Kyrgyz authorities told the crew that Chinese authorities would not allow them into their airspace, Fedawi said. The plane could not return to the Afghan capital because of windy weather and was diverted to the southern city of Kandahar, Fedawi said.
He said there had been no bomb threat.
There was no immediate way to explain the differing accounts.
Urumqi was the scene of China's worst ethnic violence in China in decades when rioting last month killed 197 people and injured more than 1,700, according to official count.
Fedawi said the plane's passengers and crew were fine and it was expected to return to Kabul on Monday morning.
He said the plane had been inspected by Afghan officers and a foreign security company before departure in a security check he described as unusually thorough.
A press officer for NATO forces in Afghanistan, which control the Kandahar airport, said the alliance had received no report of a plane forced to land there.
A Xinjiang regional government duty officer, who refused to give his name, said he had not received any information about the incident, while calls to the region's public security bureau rang unanswered.
Calls to the Urumqi airport's information counter also rang unanswered.
The government has said that Urumqi has slowly been returning to normal since the rioting erupted on July 5 after police stopped a protest by ethnic Uighur residents. The Uighurs went on a rampage, smashing windows, burning cars and beating Han Chinese — the nation's dominant ethnic group. Two days later, the Han took to the streets and attacked Uighurs.
___
Amir Shah in Kabul reported from Kabul.
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As Dems fret, Obama sharpens AfPak goals
Mike Allen – Politico via Yahoo! News - Aug 08 1:40 PM
President Barack Obama next month will send Congress a new plan for measuring progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an effort to build confidence among wavering Democrats and give sharper direction to a costly and increasingly bloody war, White House officials told POLITICO on Saturday.
The administration has begun seeking feedback on the plan from lawmakers and their staffs. The finished version is to be delivered to Capitol Hill by Sept. 24, a congressionally mandated date for a report on Afghanistan.
"There's an intense impatience here for results, and I think an absolutely understandable impatience among the American people for results," said a senior administration official who requested anonymity, as did other officials and aides interviewed for this story, to speak freely about a policy that's still being formulated. "In the course of August, these plans will be complete."
Along with an array of dozens of numerical indicators, a system of red, yellow and green indicators will help White House and congressional policymakers spot which objectives are in trouble, which are unchanged since the last report, and which are showing significant progress.
"We don't have a long track record here in terms of measuring progress and then sharing that assessment with Congress," a second official said. "I think they are all from Missouri right now: They want us to show them. Matter of fact, they want to see the effects."
A senior administration official said Saturday: "Because we believe the American people deserve clarity on our progress in Afghanistan, we have compiled a comprehensive set of metrics based on the objectives laid out by the president and informed by a stringent intelligence review. We have briefed members of Congress and their staffs over the past few weeks. Work has already started on the first quarterly round of measurements and we expect to continue engaging Congress in the months ahead."
The matrix is referred to in the West Wing as "the SIP" — Strategic Implementation Plan. Officials says it's ambitious enough that they joke it should have been named the GULP.
"[National Security Adviser James] Jones' signature is actually on the document, and it directs actions here in Washington, so [there'll be accountability] among departments and agencies, State, Defense, the intelligence community, various parts of the intelligence community," an official said. "It also, however, specifies some actions that we expect to be taken by the first tier of American leaders in theater."
The official said one measurement is "the proportion of the Afghan population that is now secured." Others will put demands on Obama's new commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal; the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry; and the ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson.
"On the military side, there have been 21,000 additional troops requested," the official said. "The president has approved the movement of those troops, and we're going to track and make sure they arrived. On the civilian side, there's an order of magnitude less than 21,000 civilians who have been requested, and we're going to track their progress."
The document will include specific metrics under nine broad objectives — some of them classified, and divided roughly half for Afghanistan and half for Pakistan. The list has not been released, but is likely to leak after it goes to lawmakers.
Aides say that behind the scenes, Obama is demanding in his expectations for Afghanistan, which he has called the "central front... in the battle against terrorism."
One aide said part of the accountability built into the new plan is "walking into the office over there" — the Oval — and responding to the President when he says, 'Where are we on my nine [objectives]?'"
Another official added: "And, 'What do you mean you only have progress on this objective? What about the other eight? And how are these nine coming together in an integrated way?'"
A pair of upcoming events is about to push Afghanistan to the forefront of the news, after months in the background while Congress wrangled over the president's domestic agenda:
--President Hamid Karzai faces reelection on Aug. 20 in a what an administration official called "a chance to reset the Afghan political stage." Karzai has two serious challengers, although many allied officials think he will hold on.
"The United States is impartial: we do not support or oppose any particular candidates," an aide said. "Our priority is that the Afghan people choose their president from a level playing field and under conditions that create an election outcome accepted as legitimate by the Afghan people and by the world."
--McChrystal, the commanding general, is expected to call for additional troops in a strategic review to be delivered to the Pentagon in late August or early September. That's going to be a momentous and painful decision for Obama, who already has encountered resistance from his own party to the wider commitment he announced in March.
Officials say a call for new troops would be a tough sell, both in the Oval Office and on Capitol Hill, but are leaving their options open. The 143 reported American military fatalities so far this year mean 2009 is almost certain to replace 2008, when there were 155 American fatalities, as the bloodiest year to date in a conflict that's approaching its eighth full year.
One aide said: "If the only thing you could change is add more troops and everything else stays the same as today, I think that would be a tough sell because the President would say, 'Well, wait a second. Do you mean we're going to throw more troops at this problem? Where's the civilian effort? Where's the economic development effort? What's going on in Pakistan that influences what's going on in Afghanistan? And how about our international partners? What exactly have they ponied up?'
"So, if I were to take to the President of the United States a solution that said, 'Look, let's dial up the troops,' he's going to say, 'Wait a second. This is like one tenth of the problem here. What about the rest of the story?'"
The nine objectives are subsets of the big goal that the president set in his big speech on March 27 outlining a new strategy referred to internally as "Af/Pak": "to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."
Different parts of the government have begun gathering information to fill into the plan to form a statistical baseline that will allow policymakers to measure progress. "There are nine plans that are due to us," an official said. "The first one was due [July 31], and they actually did what we told them to do on time."
The official said the plan "will, over time, hold us accountable for what it is we are trying to do."
"There is a metrics portion here that says that we are going to measure our progress in routine intervals, and then we are going to assess how we are doing, where we are making progress and where we are not making progress and where adjustments need to be made," the official said.
"So it is a bit of an unusual Washington document in the sense that it holds people accountable, puts them on a timeline, and it describes very carefully what is required against that timeline, and then it says, 'Oh, by the way, we are going to review your progress.'"
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Cabinet to look at civilian role in Afghanistan
The New Zealand Herald - Aug 09 9:21 AM By Audrey Young
The Cabinet will today discuss sending New Zealand civilians to Afghanistan's Bamyan province to complement and eventually replace the military Provincial Reconstruction Team there when it returns in September next year.
Joint command between the Army and a civilian team may be proposed for Bamyan with a staged handover to an entirely civilian operation, the Herald understands.
The Cabinet will also discuss today a fourth deployment of the SAS, covered in a review of New Zealand's contribution.
Prime Minister John Key has already made it clear that the Government will agree to the request for the SAS, conveyed by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Foreign Minister Murray McCully.
That could be announced today.
The SAS has served in Afghanistan three times between December 2001 and November 2005.
Corporal Willie Apiata was awarded the Victoria Cross last year for actions in saving a comrade's life under fire in Afghanistan in 2004.
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American Soldier remains in Taliban custody
August 9, 2009 - 9:40 AM Fox News by: Conor Powell
AFGHANISTAN – Its been more than three weeks since any one has seen or heard from Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl – the American soldier who went missing in Eastern Afghanistan earlier this summer.
Sunday, Maulvi Sangin, a top Taliban commander told the AP “that Taliban is waiting for a response to its demands before deciding the American's fate.”
Sangin did not say what the Taliban’s demands were – but in the past the Taliban has said Pfc. Bergdahl would be killed unless the U.S. stops air strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The U.S military has said they will not negotiate with the Taliban – and instead launched an aggressive campaign to find the 23 year old soldier.
There have been several reports of Pfc Bergdahl whereabouts – including one claim that he had been moved to Pakistan. However, according to U.S. military officials the Hailey, Idaho native is still in Eastern Afghanistan - though the Taliban is believed to be moving him every day to prevent the U.S from rescuing him.
Pfc. Bergdahl, was serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment when he disappeared June 30 - just five months after arriving in Afghanistan.
The Taliban claims they captured him while he was out on patrol. Pentagon officials tell Fox News that Bergdahl walked off his base near the Afghanistan/ Pakistan border during the middle of the night without his weapon, helmet and body armor.
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