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NATO air strike kills 16 Taliban: police
by Mohammad Reza
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) – A NATO air strike in Afghanistan killed up to 16 militants overnight while a twin suicide attack killed a policeman outside a government anti-drugs office, officials said Monday.
Extra US troops to be deployed fast to Afghanistan: NATO
KABUL (AFP) – Around 17,000 extra US troops earmarked for Afghanistan will deploy as fast as possible and thousands more are requested for August elections, the deputy NATO force commander here said Monday.
NATO confident of Afghan election reinforcements
By Jon Hemming
KABUL (Reuters) – NATO forces in Afghanistan are confident member states will provide thousands of extra troops as temporary reinforcements for presidential elections in August, the deputy commander of NATO-led forces said on Monday.
Iran says invited by Italy to Afghanistan meeting
23 Feb 2009 15:07:35 GMT
TEHRAN, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it had been invited by Group of Eight president Italy to an international meeting on Afghanistan, which is also expected to be attended by Tehran's old foe the United States.
U.S. Army captain learning new skills in war-torn Afghanistan
By Jonathan S. Landay, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Sun Feb 22, 2:34 pm ET
MAYDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan — U.S. Army Capt. Matthew Crowe trained to obliterate distant foes with high-explosive shellfire. But in this mud-washed, mountain-framed provincial capital in eastern Afghanistan
Pakistan army halts operations in Swat
By Simon Cameron-moore
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The Pakistan army said on Monday it had ceased operations against Taliban militants in the northwestern valley of Swat, and an Islamist cleric asked for troops to be shifted to "safer places" to give peace a chance.
Taliban swaps kidnapped official for militants
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Taliban militants released a kidnapped Pakistani official in exchange for two of their men in the troubled Swat Valley, government officials said Monday.
U.S. aid effort in Afghanistan requires skills from diplomacy to urban planning
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY McClatchy Newspapers Monday, Feb. 23, 2009
MAYDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan U.S. Army Capt. Matthew Crowe trained to obliterate distant foes with high-explosive shellfire. But in this mud-washed, mountain-framed provincial capital in eastern Afghanistan
Hutton: Claims US unhappy with UK over Afghanistan are tittle-tattle
British defence secretary says he will press EU Nato allies to provide more military resources in Afghanistan
Deborah Summers and agencies guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 February 2009 09.24 GMT
John Hutton today rejected claims that US military commanders were unhappy with the performance of the British armed forces in Afghanistan as "tittle-tattle", as he called on Nato to do more to share the burden among its members.
INTERVIEW-"I'll talk to Taliban"-Afghan presidential hopeful
23 Feb 2009 13:01:20 GMT By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai lacks a coherent policy on holding peace talks with the Taliban, a former minister said on Monday, vowing to make the issue a top priority if he is elected to replace Karzai.
Top Afghan diplomat heads to US for war-review talks
AFP - Monday, February 23
KABUL (AFP) - - Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta will travel to Washington on Sunday to participate in the reassessment of the US "war on terror" in Afghanistan, his office said.
Obama nixed full surge in Afghanistan
By Gareth Porter Feb 24, 2009 Asia Times
WASHINGTON - United States President Barack Obama decided to approve only 17,000 of the 30,000 troops requested by General David McKiernan, the top commander of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan
A new Afghanistan nightmare commences
By Ramzy Baroud Online Journal Contributing Writer Feb 23, 2009, 00:20
When US envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke met with Afghanistan’s ‘democratically’ installed President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on February 14, he may have just learned of the historic significance of the following day.
Illinois National Guard couples serve together in Afghanistan
Setting isn't conducive to romance, but troops say they're happy to be together
By Kim Barker | Chicago Tribune correspondent February 23, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan—The couple's newlywed apartment isn't much. It's a tiny room with plywood partitions that don't reach the ceiling, and three other soldiers live in adjoining rooms in the cramped wooden hut.
Finland to double troops in Afghanistan
New Kerala
Brussels, Feb 23: Finland is to double the number of its troops in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan to some 200 in time for elections Aug 20, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said Monday as his European Union (EU) colleagues
Afghan troops capture 5 armed insurgents
People's Daily - Feb 23 12:16 AM
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) during an operation against Taliban fighters captured five rebels in Khost province east of Afghanistan, provincial Police chief Abdul Qayum Baqizai said Monday.
Afghans face another crisis: air pollution
Reuters By Sayed Salahuddin Feb 22 , 2009
KABUL - Severe air pollution in Afghanistan's major cities will lead to an environmental disaster unless measures are taken to avert the looming crisis, a senior official said on Sunday.
The Second Olive Farm will be Reconstructed in the East
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 22 February 2009
43,000 trees donated by the PRT and the Saudi government will be planted on a farm
Koreans in Afghanistan
The Korea Times - Opinion 02-22-2009
Seoul Should Be Cautious in Helping Washington Overseas
Pakistan arms villagers to fight Taliban
Pakistan plans to arm 30,000 villagers so that they can fight the Taliban.
By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor 23 Feb 2009 Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
Officials in Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), who last week signed a controversial peace deal with Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, announced plans to distribute rifles and create a new elite
Secret US Unit Trains Commandos in Pakistan
New York Times, United States By ERIC SCHMITT and JANE PERLEZ February 22, 2009
BARA, Pakistan - More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country's lawless tribal areas, American military officials said.
Afghan Parliament Impeaches Kabul Mayor
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 23 February 2009
Kabul mayor warns to prevent the illegal construction of sky-scrapers in the Afghan capital
Cultural Centre Smells Drug
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 22 February 2009
The former Russian Culture Centre in Kabul is the safest place for the drug addicts to enjoy their habit
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NATO air strike kills 16 Taliban: police
by Mohammad Reza
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) – A NATO air strike in Afghanistan killed up to 16 militants overnight while a twin suicide attack killed a policeman outside a government anti-drugs office, officials said Monday.
Afghan security forces called in NATO warplanes to fend off scores of militants who attacked a police post in the northwestern province of Badghis.
"We requested air support from the international forces. As a result of the aerial bombardment, 16 Taliban have been killed," Ikramuddin Yawar, police chief for western Afghanistan told AFP.
Ten rebels were wounded, he added.
Yawar had earlier put the death toll at "higher than eight". Deputy provincial governor for Badghis, Abdul Ghani Saberi said initially that eight rebels died and 15 were wounded.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force confirmed carrying out an air strike in the remote province. It said there were casualties but an alliance spokesman was unable to specify how many.
The Taliban-led insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government and foreign troops has recently spread out of its heartland in southern and eastern Afghanistan to the northwest and southwest of the country.
In the neighbouring province of Nimroz on Monday, two suicide bombers killed a policeman as they blew themselves up outside the counter-narcotics office of the provincial capital of Zaranj, the government said.
Both bombers detonated devices strapped to their bodies under police uniforms after police opened fire when they attempted to enter the building, the interior ministry said in a statement.
"One police was martyred and three others were injured," it said.
"Police guarding the gate tried to stop them as they tried to enter the building. They exploded themselves and killed the police officer," provincial governor Ghulam Dastagir Azad told AFP.
He said the bombers were riding a motorbike.
Taliban insurgents, who benefit from drugs money, have frequently targeted counter-narcotic operations in Afghanistan, which is the world's biggest supplier of drugs.
Since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted them from government, the Taliban have regrouped and waged an increasingly deadly insurgency, hoping to topple the US-backed regime in Kabul and regain power.
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Extra US troops to be deployed fast to Afghanistan: NATO
KABUL (AFP) – Around 17,000 extra US troops earmarked for Afghanistan will deploy as fast as possible and thousands more are requested for August elections, the deputy NATO force commander here said Monday.
The reinforcements, approved by US President Barack Obama last week, will head mainly to the southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul although details were being finalised, Lieutenant General Jim Dutton told reporters.
They will secure the border with Pakistan and "thicken up the force ratios in those areas where the insurgency is still at its most virulent," the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) deputy commander said.
"There are lots of pretty stable pockets in both those areas. What we have not managed to do is to join them up to widen and deepen the security to allow complete freedom of movement," the British soldier said.
An extra 120 helicopters, which have also been approved, will provide extra mobility to the troops and prove "game-changing", he said.
There are already about 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, in ISAF and a separate US-led coalition, helping to fight against a Taliban-led insurgency that saw record attacks last year and to build up Afghan security forces.
ISAF commander US General David McKiernan had asked for reinforcements of 17,000, Dutton said, despite reports that up to 30,000 were needed.
They will arrive "basically as fast as they can reasonably be deployed here", he said.
ISAF has also asked contributing nations for more soldiers and helicopters to secure presidential elections due in August.
"We are probably talking about thousands (of soldiers) but not many thousands," he said. "This is to provide some extra mobile forces available on one day, maybe two days, to provide security should it be required."
"We are confident here that we will get what we have asked for," Dutton said. Finland and Germany are among nations that have already pledged troops for the vote, Afghanistan's second presidential election.
The commander said there had been a "considerable downturn" in insurgent activity in the east in the past three months that may be linked to increased Pakistan pressure on rebel bases.
The east and south have been the main battlefields in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001 ousted the Taliban regime for sheltering Al-Qaeda.
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NATO confident of Afghan election reinforcements
By Jon Hemming
KABUL (Reuters) – NATO forces in Afghanistan are confident member states will provide thousands of extra troops as temporary reinforcements for presidential elections in August, the deputy commander of NATO-led forces said on Monday.
U.S. President Barack Obama has approved the deployment of some 17,000 extra U.S. troops this year to add to the nearly 70,000 military personnel already in Afghanistan but commanders have also requested temporary reinforcements to secure the August 20 polls.
"We have asked for more helicopters and we've asked for more infantry-type units," Lieutenant General Jim Dutton told reporters. "We are confident that we will get what we asked for."
Washington's European NATO allies have been slow to come up with large numbers of extra troops for Afghanistan, either because their forces are already nearly stretched to the limit, or because of domestic opposition to the war.
But it is easier for nations to send troops on a short-term basis, rather than making a long-term commitment which would mean regularly rotating units through the country, Dutton said.
"We are probably talking thousands, but not many thousands," he said when asked about the numbers requested. "This isn't a vast increase, this is to provide some extra mobile forces available on one day, maybe two days, to provide security.
A relatively peaceful election would be a milestone for Afghanistan and Western nations whose troops are struggling to fight off a Taliban insurgency and whose taxpayers are bankrolling the country.
But election security will be primarily the job of the Afghan army and police, supported by troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) who would provide air assets and intelligence, but remain as "invisible as possible," Dutton said.
"We don't really want to see ISAF troops outside polling stations," he said.
STALEMATE
Violence is expected to rise sharply in Afghanistan this year once the traditional "fighting season" returns in the Spring and could surpass last year's record levels as the extra troops move into areas where foreign soldiers seldom patrolled before.
Most of the 17,000 U.S. troops due to arrive in Afghanistan in the next several months will be sent to the south of the country. The reinforcements will consist of a brigade of Marines, an armored infantry brigade and a combat aviation brigade.
The aviation brigade will bring with it 120 helicopters, much needed in the south where mainly British, Canadian and Dutch forces have suffered casualties from suicide and roadside bombs due to shortages of air transport.
ISAF is locked in a stalemate with the Taliban in the south with some areas changing hands back and forth several times as British and Canadian forces especially have not had enough troops to hold on to territory once they have cleared out insurgents.
As foreign troops pull out, the Taliban move back in. Each time another offensive is launched to retake an area, the civilian population inevitably suffer.
"That's why, sometimes at least, we weren't particularly welcome," said Dutton.
The commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, U.S. General David McKiernan has now forbidden commanders to launch operations to clear an area unless they can hold on to it afterwards.
"A regional commander, a task force commander, can't do an operation nowadays unless he can demonstrate how he is going to hold once he has cleared. It's an absolute requirement," Dutton said.
(Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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Iran says invited by Italy to Afghanistan meeting
23 Feb 2009 15:07:35 GMT
TEHRAN, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it had been invited by Group of Eight president Italy to an international meeting on Afghanistan, which is also expected to be attended by Tehran's old foe the United States.
In Rome, an Italian Foreign Ministry spokesman said the question of Iran being invited to the June meeting was a "working hypothesis that Italy is exploring in agreement with the other principal allies in Afghanistan".
Italy wants to hold a conference bringing together the world's richest countries and Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India, China and Turkey among others to find ways of bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It also seeks to involve Iran, which shares borders with both those countries. Iran is embroiled in a row with the West over its disputed nuclear programme, but new U.S. President Barack Obama has expressed readiness to talk to its leaders.
Obama earlier in February spoke of possible diplomatic openings with the Islamic Republic, marking a break with his predecessor George W. Bush. Iran in turn said it is ready for talks as long as they are "fair".
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini discussed the planned meeting on Afghanistan, where the Taliban insurgency is growing in strength, with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.
"In view of the constructive role of Iran in Afghanistan, they have invited Mr Mottaki to take part in this meeting. We are now examining this invitation with a positive outlook," spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told a news conference.
He said Frattini and Mottaki had spoken over the phone.
"In international meetings Iran has always welcomed whatever helps the stability of Afghanistan and we have always actively attended those meetings," Qashqavi said.
The talks hosted by Italy will be held in Trieste on June 27, a day after G8 foreign ministers from the United States, Russia, Britain, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Japan meet there, a senior Italian diplomat has told Reuters.
He said the conference would discuss securing the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight the "spillover" of terrorism, drugs and organised crime.
While Iran and the United States sat at the same table to discuss Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration made sure the new pro-Western Afghan government kept Tehran at arm's length.
But the head of NATO, which leads some 55,000 troops in Afghanistan, has said dialogue with Iran was crucial to fighting the insurgency there.
The United States and Iran, which have not had diplomatic ties for three decades, held three rounds of talks in Baghdad in 2007 on ways of reducing violence in Iraq. (Reporting by Hossein Jaseb in Tehran and Phil Stewart in Rome; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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U.S. Army captain learning new skills in war-torn Afghanistan
By Jonathan S. Landay, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Sun Feb 22, 2:34 pm ET
MAYDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan — U.S. Army Capt. Matthew Crowe trained to obliterate distant foes with high-explosive shellfire. But in this mud-washed, mountain-framed provincial capital in eastern Afghanistan , he is learning to be a diplomat, urban planner, construction manager, humanitarian worker and politician.
As the overseer of the first sustained American aid effort launched in the city eight years after the U.S. intervention that drove the Taliban from power, the 32-year-old artillery officer is having to master skills that he's not been taught by the military.
But those skills are crucial to the Obama administration's plan to end the Taliban insurgency in part by delivering on unfulfilled U.S. vows to lift ordinary Afghans out of the crush of poverty and illiteracy.
"Dealing with the locals is the most important thing I do," Crowe said Sunday after he and some two dozen of his troops from the 4th Battalion , 25th Field Artillery Regiment , 10th Mountain Division , based at Ft. Drum, N.Y., returned from only their second walking tour of this snowy, destitute city since arriving in mid-January.
"Blowing stuff up doesn't have the same effect of what I can do in the town by helping the locals," said Crowe, whose men usually roll through the city in heavy armored vehicles. "Security still has to be a priority, but I tell my soldiers they are not here just to kill bad guys."
Crowe spent much of the four-hour tour closeted in municipal offices ringed by razor wire-topped concrete walls, a sign of the Taliban's presence in the city, with Abdul Kabir Ebrahimi , the recently appointed mayor, reviewing aid projects that the U.S. military is proposing to fund.
The proposals are basic: building a $684,000 system to pump clean water to the filth-strewn bazaar, the city's only major income source; improving sanitation with garbage collection points, trucks and a landfill; and providing the municipal government with $2 million in badly needed construction equipment like a crane and a backhoe.
Ebrahimi presented his own list of needs: a minibus to transport municipal staff to and from work, a covered gym to supplement a soccer field and basketball courts that fierce mountain winds sometimes render unusable, and sidewalks and paved parking lots in the bazaar.
"Do you have one park in your plan, or can we increase the number?" Ebrahimi, who worked for the Afghanistan office of Bearing Point , a U.S. consultancy, before accepting his first public post, asked Crowe.
The United States hopes that by partnering with officials like Ebrahimi across the country, popular faith can be restored in local authorities, whose years of flagrant misrule and rampant corruption are driving people into the arms of the guerrillas.
The way that U.S. commanders see it, neutralizing the Taliban and allied groups is especially critical in Maydan Shahr.
The ethnically mixed city of some 80,000 people is the administrative center of Wardak Province , which controls the southern gateway to Kabul , a 45-minute drive north on the main national highway. The highway also serves as the chief U.S. military supply route from Pakistan and the garbage-strewn city's main street.
Maydan Shahr, with its dirt streets, lack of clean water and no major private employers, provides a snapshot of the massive hurdles the United States and its NATO allies still face in pacifying the Taliban's strongholds in eastern and southern Afghanistan .
There was virtually no Taliban presence in Maydan Shahr until last year. Insurgent leaders believed to be wintering in Pakistan's nearby tribal region have been recruiting among the area's dominant Pashtun ethnic group. Even some senior city officials are now said to support the guerrillas, who often target public workers.
"One of my finance guys was killed by the Taliban and they arrested my secretary's family when they came to visit him from Kabul . He had to pay a ransom," said Ebrahimi.
The first major U.S. military contingent to be based in the city — about 1,500 troops of the 10th Mountain Division — at a fortress-like compound right off the city's main traffic circle is frequently targeted by ambushes and roadside bombs.
Making matters worse, the municipal treasury is all but empty, making Ebrahimi almost totally dependent on U.S. financing and raising serious questions about whether the projects that the United States funds can be sustained once the money stops.
The municipal tax base is tiny, and U.S. officers said the former mayor disappeared with bundles of cash, leaving unfinished projects and unpaid contractors who Crowe and Ebrahimi are trying to pacify with pledges of eventual compensation.
"I've been left in a very difficult position," said Ebrahimi. "There is no money. There is no more land (for the city) to sell. It's very difficult to meet expectations. Sometimes I feel guilty that these people don't believe the government can help them."
Crowe and Ebrahimi, flanked by aides and protected by U.S. troops on alert for suicide car-bombers, strolled out of the municipal compound to inspect the sites of some of the proposed projects.
Clusters of merchants and customers watched them tour the bazaar, a complex of scores of small, mostly empty shops bordering open lots of ankle-deep, custard-like mud that dissuades locals from patronizing any but the stores on the main street.
"This bazaar is a big problem. Look at the mud. There is no clean water. There are no toilets," Mohamad Kabir , a butcher, said as he watched the entourage pass, a light snow falling. "We need an active municipal government."
Crowe acknowledged that the rural poor, the Taliban's main support base, are the most critical section of Afghanistan's 55 million people that the intensified U.S. aid effort must reach.
But the 6-week-old U.S. military contingent in the city has yet to penetrate far into the countryside, and Crowe said he believed that Maydan Shahr could become the hub of a wider aid effort.
"I want to focus on Maydan Shahr," he said, "because it becomes a very visible sign of how we are here to help."
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Pakistan army halts operations in Swat
By Simon Cameron-moore
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The Pakistan army said on Monday it had ceased operations against Taliban militants in the northwestern valley of Swat, and an Islamist cleric asked for troops to be shifted to "safer places" to give peace a chance.
U.S. officials have expressed unease about Pakistan's strategy for pacifying Swat. They fear it could result in another safe haven for al Qaeda and Taliban militants in the country.
"The military operation has been halted," military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told Reuters, explaining that further civilian casualties would have alienated support for the army.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes, and the Taliban largely controls the valley despite the presence of four army brigades or 12,000 to 16,000 troops.
The army had already reduced operations in Swat because it lacked public backing, and was hampered by the breakdown of the local administration and ineffectiveness of the police in the face of the insurgency, Abbas said.
Abbas said there would be no sanctuary for militants in Swat so long as the writ of the state was re-established.
But he said that at this stage that was "a big if."
The army needed sophisticated surveillance equipment and attack helicopters to fight a counter-insurgency campaign, Abbas said, echoing a point that army chief Ashfaq Kayani was expected to make in the United States this week.
The army has been fighting Taliban insurgents in several tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, but the insurgency in Swat, a one time tourist haven in the mountains, was just 130 km (90 miles) northwest of the capital Islamabad.
Critics say the government, which has offered to instate Islamic sharia law in Swat and neighboring regions, has risked encouraging militancy with policies of appeasement.
Sunday, authorities freed two Taliban fighters in exchange for an official and six guards kidnapped in Swat, according to a militant spokesman. A government official refused to comment on whether any swap had taken place.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will doubtless face questions over Swat when he meets U.S. and Afghan officials in Washington this week to review the security strategy for the region.
STEPS LISTED
A former militant cleric acting as peacemaker requested the
government to shift its forces to "safer places" in Swat, where more than 1,200 people have been killed since violence erupted in late 2007.
Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who renounced militancy after being released from jail last year, has led a struggle for Islamic sharia law in Swat since the early 1990s, and his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah is the local Taliban commander.
After talks between two, a senior government official said Saturday Taliban fighters and the authorities had agreed to a "permanent ceasefire" in Swat.
But Fazlullah subsequently said that would only be decided once a temporary ceasefire expires in the middle of this week.
During a news conference called by Sufi Mohammad in Mingora, the main town in Swat, his spokesman listed a series of steps both sides should take to end the conflict.
"We request the government that it should immediately shift its forces deployed in schools, houses, mosques, hospitals... to safer places," said spokesman Amir Izzat.
Security forces and the Taliban should also remove barricades on the roads to allow people to move freely, the spokesman said.
The Taliban were also asked to stop interfering in administrative and police affairs.
Their fighters have torched nearly 200 girls schools in a campaign against female education, and they have conducted public executions, beheading people, enforcing their own brand of the sharia in Swat.
(Reporting by Junaid Khan, Augustine Anthony and Sheree Sardar; Editing by Valerie Lee)
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Taliban swaps kidnapped official for militants
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Taliban militants released a kidnapped Pakistani official in exchange for two of their men in the troubled Swat Valley, government officials said Monday.
Kushal Khan was on his way to take up his new post as the district coordination officer Sunday when unknown gunmen kidnapped him and six members of his security detail near Mingora, the valley's main city.
Late Sunday, Khan and his security guards were released after two Taliban militants were freed in a swap, said Syed Muhammad Javed, division commander of the Malakand region, where Swat is located.
Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan confirmed the exchange.
Kushal Khan was seized a day after the provincial government declared a permanent cease-fire agreement with Taliban militants in the valley.
Yet, hours after the announcement, Maulana Fazlullah -- the Taliban commander in the area -- was playing down the agreement with aggressive rhetoric in a radio broadcast. Fazlullah said militants would continue their fight to impose Islamic law, or Sharia, in the region.
Swat Valley, located in North West Frontier Province, was once one of Pakistan's biggest tourist destinations. It is situated near the Afghanistan border and about 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.
In recent months, militants have unleashed a wave of violence that has claimed hundreds of lives across the North West Frontier Province.
The militants want to veils to be made compulsory for women and beards for men, and to ban music and television.
The fighting has displaced nearly half of Swat's population, officials said.
The central government has long exerted little control in the area, but it launched an intense military offensive in late July to flush out militants.
As retaliation for the military presence, the Taliban carried out a series of deadly bombings, beheadings and kidnappings -- and said the attacks would continue until the troops pull out.
On Saturday, the government of the province said it had reached a deal with the Taliban for a permanent cease-fire.
It marked a major concession by the Pakistani government in its attempt to hold off Taliban militants.
The agreement means boys' schools will reopen on Monday and camps will be set up for Swat residents who have fled the fighting or whose homes had been destroyed.
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U.S. aid effort in Afghanistan requires skills from diplomacy to urban planning
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY McClatchy Newspapers Monday, Feb. 23, 2009
MAYDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan U.S. Army Capt. Matthew Crowe trained to obliterate distant foes with high-explosive shellfire. But in this mud-washed, mountain-framed provincial capital in eastern Afghanistan, he is learning to be a diplomat, urban planner, construction manager, humanitarian worker and politician.
As the overseer of the first sustained American aid effort launched in the city eight years after the U.S. intervention that drove the Taliban from power, the 32-year-old artillery officer is having to master skills that he's not been taught by the military.
But those skills are crucial to the Obama administration's plan to end the Taliban insurgency in part by delivering on unfulfilled U.S. vows to lift ordinary Afghans out of the crush of poverty and illiteracy.
"Dealing with the locals is the most important thing I do," Crowe said Sunday after he and some two dozen of his troops from the 4th Battalion, 25th Field Artillery Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., returned from only their second walking tour of this snowy, destitute city since arriving in mid-January.
"Blowing stuff up doesn't have the same effect of what I can do in the town by helping the locals," said Crowe, whose men usually roll through the city in heavy armored vehicles. "Security still has to be a priority, but I tell my soldiers they are not here just to kill bad guys."
Crowe spent much of the four-hour tour closeted in municipal offices ringed by razor wire-topped concrete walls, a sign of the Taliban's presence in the city, with Abdul Kabir Ebrahimi, the recently appointed mayor, reviewing aid projects that the U.S. military is proposing to fund.
The proposals are basic: building a $684,000 system to pump clean water to the filth-strewn bazaar, the city's only major income source; improving sanitation with garbage collection points, trucks and a landfill; and providing the municipal government with $2 million in badly needed construction equipment like a crane and a backhoe.
Ebrahimi - who worked for the Afghanistan office of Bearing Point, a U.S. consultancy, before accepting his first public post - presented his own list of needs: a minibus to transport municipal staff to and from work, a covered gym to supplement a soccer field and basketball courts that fierce mountain winds sometimes render unusable, and sidewalks and paved parking lots in the bazaar.
"Do you have one park in your plan, or can we increase the number?" Ebrahimi asked Crowe.
The United States hopes that by partnering with officials like Ebrahimi across the country, popular faith can be restored in local authorities, whose years of flagrant misrule and rampant corruption are driving people into the arms of the guerrillas.
The way that U.S. commanders see it, neutralizing the Taliban and allied groups is especially critical in Maydan Shahr.
The ethnically mixed city of some 80,000 people is the administrative center of Wardak Province, which controls the southern gateway to Kabul, a 45-minute drive north on the main national highway. The highway also serves as the chief U.S. military supply route from Pakistan and the garbage-strewn city's main street.
Maydan Shahr, with its dirt streets, lack of clean water and no major private employers, provides a snapshot of the massive hurdles the United States and its NATO allies still face in pacifying the Taliban's strongholds in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
There was virtually no Taliban presence in Maydan Shahr until last year. Insurgent leaders believed to be wintering in Pakistan's nearby tribal region have been recruiting among the area's dominant Pashtun ethnic group. Even some senior city officials are now said to support the guerrillas, who often target public workers.
"One of my finance guys was killed by the Taliban and they arrested my secretary's family when they came to visit him from Kabul. He had to pay a ransom," said Ebrahimi.
The first major U.S. military contingent to be based in the city - about 1,500 troops of the 10th Mountain Division - at a fortresslike compound right off the city's main traffic circle is frequently targeted by ambushes and roadside bombs.
Making matters worse, the municipal treasury is all but empty, making Ebrahimi almost totally dependent on U.S. financing and raising serious questions about whether the projects that the United States funds can be sustained once the money stops.
The municipal tax base is tiny, and U.S. officers said the former mayor disappeared with bundles of cash, leaving unfinished projects and unpaid contractors who Crowe and Ebrahimi are trying to pacify with pledges of eventual compensation.
"I've been left in a very difficult position," said Ebrahimi. "There is no money. There is no more land (for the city) to sell. It's very difficult to meet expectations. Sometimes I feel guilty that these people don't believe the government can help them."
Crowe and Ebrahimi, flanked by aides and protected by U.S. troops on alert for suicide car-bombers, strolled out of the municipal compound to inspect the sites of some of the proposed projects.
Clusters of merchants and customers watched them tour the bazaar, a complex of scores of small, mostly empty shops bordering open lots of ankle-deep, custardlike mud that dissuades locals from patronizing any but the stores on the main street.
"This bazaar is a big problem. Look at the mud. There is no clean water. There are no toilets," Mohamad Kabir, a butcher, said as he watched the entourage pass, a light snow falling. "We need an active municipal government."
Crowe acknowledged that the rural poor, the Taliban's main support base, are the most critical section of Afghanistan's 55 million people that the intensified U.S. aid effort must reach.
But the six-week-old U.S. military contingent in the city has yet to penetrate far into the countryside, and Crowe said he believed that Maydan Shahr could become the hub of a wider aid effort.
"I want to focus on Maydan Shahr," he said, "because it becomes a very visible sign of how we are here to help."
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Hutton: Claims US unhappy with UK over Afghanistan are tittle-tattle
British defence secretary says he will press EU Nato allies to provide more military resources in Afghanistan
Deborah Summers and agencies guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 February 2009 09.24 GMT
John Hutton today rejected claims that US military commanders were unhappy with the performance of the British armed forces in Afghanistan as "tittle-tattle", as he called on Nato to do more to share the burden among its members.
The defence secretary acknowledged that a shortage of troops might have hampered progress in Afghanistan and said he would press the UK's European Nato allies to provide extra military resources.
But he said that Britain had not received a direct request from the US to provide additional soldiers and added that the UK was "playing above our weight" compared with other Nato members.
Hutton told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There has been a very lively debate in Europe over the last few years about this. Our view has always been very clear that Nato needs to do more, the European members of Nato need to do more. There needs to be a fairer burden-sharing of responsibilities, particularly in those really hard areas where what we need are combat forces."
In an interview with the Financial Times published this morning, Hutton dismissed reports that senior figures in the US military have been left unimpressed by some aspects of the British effort in the country.
"I do not think that is fair, nor do I think that reflects the real view in the Pentagon and elsewhere," he said.
"There is a very high level of regard for the contribution that UK forces have made in Iraq and Afghanistan."
He said the UK – whose armed forces have suffered 145 fatalities in Afghanistan since 2001 – was open to criticism as long as it was "fair".
He added: "Our reputation is very important to us. We will very strongly defend it. We will defend it by being open to criticism where it is fair. We will not change our tactics in Afghanistan on the basis of uncorroborated and unsourced gossip from people who don't have the courage to put their names to their remarks."
The comments from Hutton – who will discuss the Afghanistan mission at a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Poland today – came as Barack Obama revealed plans to send 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. The move was welcomed by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, who said that the extra forces would play an "important and positive role" in the campaign.
Some will be deployed in Helmand province, where UK soldiers have been engaged in fierce fighting with the Taliban.
Around 8,100 British servicemen and women are currently serving in Afghanistan.
Speaking on a visit to Afghanistan last night, Miliband said: "I think that there is a universal recognition that these extra American troops can play, and will play, an important and positive role, when they are aligned and allied with a strategy for economic development and political development."
He also pledged that Britain would keep its troop levels "under review" – although he stressed that the prospect of an increase had not been raised directly.
"In terms of the United Kingdom we represent about 12% of the troops in Afghanistan at the moment," Miliband said.
"We have had no request to increase our number of troops but, of course, we always keep the number under review."
Hutton said he would raise the issue of increased troop contributions from other countries during today's meeting in Poland. The US currently has around 30,000 troops in Afghanistan.
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INTERVIEW-"I'll talk to Taliban"-Afghan presidential hopeful
23 Feb 2009 13:01:20 GMT By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai lacks a coherent policy on holding peace talks with the Taliban, a former minister said on Monday, vowing to make the issue a top priority if he is elected to replace Karzai.
Security in Afghanistan has worsened more than seven years after U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban and the solution for ending the conflict was to hold talks with the insurgents, said former finance minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi.
"I think that the government, in this regard, has not been open enough and has not articulated its strategy well. The president, at times, makes contradictory statements," Ahadi said.
"If I win the election, I will be more than happy to talk to them (insurgents). As long as their demands are reasonable, we can hope to reach a political settlement," he told Reuters in an interview in his refurbished two-storey house in Kabul.
Ahadi, who like most of the Taliban is an ethnic Pashtun, said he would press the radical Islamists to accept direct elections as a means to choose a government and set up a tolerant Islamic administration allowing women the right to work and vote.
Ahadi, a clean-shaven professor of economics and political science, is a close relative of one of the country's two main spiritual leaders who hold great influence, especially in the south and east where the insurgency is most entrenched.
Ahadi, who lived and worked in the West for many years, leads Afghanistan's oldest and largest nationalist Pashtun party.
"As a normal citizen, I don't really have the means to reach them (insurgents). As they are armed opponents, it is not easy for me to just call them up and say 'listen, let us have a discussion'," Ahadi said.
"I am sure they must have some terms of their own. There is a basis for negotiation. I would be willing to accept some of their terms, but I need to know what terms they want," he said.
The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until their ouster in 2001, have rejected Karzai's repeated calls for peace talks as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan.
KARZAI'S LEGITIMACY
Ahadi said Karzai, who is planning to run for re-election, must resign and a caretaker government be formed by May 21, the date set by the constitution for the presidential vote.
Ahadi, 58, quit his post as finance minister this month after four years in order to run in the election, which has been set for Aug. 20 by the election commission appointed by Karzai.
The commission argued that the poll could not be held in May because it would have to be organised during the harsh Afghan winter, when remote areas are cut off by snow and many people would be disenfranchised.
Karzai, Afghanistan's leader since the Taliban's ouster and who won elections in 2004, said this month he was unsure whether his term in office legally ended in August and was working on ensuring his government's legitimacy.
Ahadi has joined the growing chorus of opposition parties saying an interim government is the only answer because institutions in Afghanistan, like the election commission, were not truly independent.
"That is why they are asking for his departure before the election and I think there is truth in it. There is a great deal of abuse of power and using state institutions for personal ends," Ahadi said.
"I think that it would be really good if we had a caretaker administration that is truly neutral so that the contenders could really contest in these elections in a transparent manner."
Ahadi also said foreign troops, under NATO and the U.S. military's command in Afghanistan, must exercise great caution to cut civilian casualties while hunting militants. Such casualties have sapped support for foreign forces and the government.
He said he hoped foreign troops would leave Afghanistan once the process of training and equipping the Western-reliant Afghan forces finishes in 2012. (Editing by Paul Tait)
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Top Afghan diplomat heads to US for war-review talks
AFP - Monday, February 23
KABUL (AFP) - - Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta will travel to Washington on Sunday to participate in the reassessment of the US "war on terror" in Afghanistan, his office said.
Once there, Spanta will also hold talks with his US and Pakistani counterparts in a tripartite meeting on how to tackle "terrorism" in the region, a foreign ministry statement said.
"Based on Afghanistan's request, the United States has agreed to include Afghanistan's new views in the reassessment of the strategy of the struggle against terrorism.
"The aim of this trip is to participate and include the views of Afghans in the joint review of the strategy of the struggle against terrorism," the statement said.
Spanta will be accompanied by Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, Interior Minister Mohammad Anif Atmar, and the war-torn country's spy agency chief, Amrullah Saleh, the statement said.
After holding talks with President Hamid Karzai last week, President Barack Obama's special envoy for the region Richard Holbrooke said that Washington has agreed to include Kabul's views in its strategy review.
Karzai's spokesman said later that tensions with the US government over Washington's handling of its "war on terror" had largely been eased with Holbrooke's visit.
There are about 38,000 American troops and a similar number of NATO-led forces personnel stationed in Afghanistan to help Karzai's government curb a mounting insurgency being waged by the remnants of the Taliban ousted in late 2001.
The new US government has said it will deploy 17,000 more troops here.
Karzai, who maintained good relations with the previous US administration, has increasingly complained about US anti-militant operations which he says cause civilian casualties.
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Obama nixed full surge in Afghanistan
By Gareth Porter Feb 24, 2009 Asia Times
WASHINGTON - United States President Barack Obama decided to approve only 17,000 of the 30,000 troops requested by General David McKiernan, the top commander of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan, and General David Petraeus, the Central Command chief, after McKiernan was unable to tell him how they would be used, according to White House sources.
But Obama is likely to be pressured by McKiernan and the Joint Chiefs to approve the remaining 13,000 troops requested after the completion of an Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review next month.
Obama's decision to approve just over half the full troop request for Afghanistan recalls a similar decision by president Lyndon B Johnson to approve only part of the request for US troop deployments in a parallel situation in the Vietnam War in April 1965 at a comparable stage of that war. Johnson reluctantly went along with the request for additional troops within weeks under pressure from both the field commander and the Joint Chief of Staff.
The request for 30,000 additional troops, which would bring the US troop level in Afghanistan to more than 60,000, had been approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as by Defense Secretary Robert Gates before Obama's inauguration. A front-page story in the Washington Post January 13 reported that Obama was ready to "sign off" on the deployment request.
On January 30, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said between 20,000 and 30,000 more troops would "probably" be sent to Afghanistan and the figure would "tend toward the higher number of those two".
But on February 9, Mullen indicated that the Pentagon would soon announce that three brigades, or about 16,000 troops, would be deployed to Afghanistan in the coming months.
What had changed in the nine days between those two statements, according to a White House source, was that Obama had called McKiernan directly and asked how he planned to use the 30,000 troops, but got no coherent answer to the question.
It was after that conversation that Obama withdrew his support for the full request.
The unsatisfactory response from McKiernan had been preceded by another military non-answer to an Obama question. At his meeting with Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon on January 28, Obama asked the Joint Chiefs, "What is the end game?" in Afghanistan, and was told, "Frankly, we don't have one," according to a February 4 report by NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski.
Obama had also learned by early February that earlier assurances from Petraeus of an accord with Kyrgyzstan on use of the base at Manas had been premature, and that the US's ability to supply troops in Afghanistan would be dependent on political accommodations with Russia and Iran.
The rationale from the military leadership for doubling the number of US troops in Afghanistan, even without a strategy or a concept of how the war could end, had been to "buy time" for an effort to build up Afghan security forces, as indicated by Mullen's January 30 remarks.
The 17,000 troops, on the other hand, presented the upper limit of what Obama had pledged to add in Afghanistan during the campaign, according to Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress, who was an adviser to Obama.
Korb told IPS that Obama's decision not to wait until the key strategic questions were clarified before sending any more troops was based on the belief that he had to show both Afghans and Pakistanis that the United States was not getting out of Afghanistan, according to Korb. "There are a lot of people in both countries hedging their bets," said Korb.
McKiernan reminded reporters Wednesday that the 17,000 troops represent only about two-thirds of the number of troops he has requested. That complaint suggested that he had been given no assurance that the remainder of the troops would be approved after the policy review.
The Wall Street Journal quoted an administration official Wednesday as saying that the troop authorization addresses the "urgent near-term security needs on the ground", but "does not prejudge or limit the options of what the [Afghanistan] review may recommend when it's completed".
Obama may have become more wary of getting mired down in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, despite his strong commitment to increasing troops to Afghanistan during the campaign.
Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, on whom Obama has reportedly relied for advice on foreign policy, told Sam Stein of the Huffington Post on Wednesday, "We have to decide more precisely what is the objective of our involvement. Because we are increasingly running the risk of getting bogged down both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan in pursuit of objectives which we are lacking the power to reach."
Brezinzski said the administration needed "very specific, narrow objectives".
Korb told IPS that the policy review will deal with political-diplomatic as well as military policy issues, including the option of seeking to incorporate at least elements of the insurgents into the government through negotiations. He recalled that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been advocating negotiations with the Taliban for two years.
Both Obama's decision to agree to just over half of his field commander's request for additional troops and the broader strategic situation offer striking parallels with the decision by president Lyndon B Johnson in April 1965 to approve 36,000 out of a 49,000 troop request for Vietnam.
Johnson's decision, like Obama's, was made against a background of rapid deterioration in the security situation, worry that the war would soon be lost if more US troops were not deployed and an unresolved debate over how the troops would be employed in South Vietnam. Some of Johnson's advisers still favored a strategy of protecting the key population centers, whereas the field commander, General William Westmoreland, was calling for a more aggressive strategy of seeking out enemy forces.
Another parallel between the two situations is high-level concern that too many US troops would provoke anti-US sentiment. That was the primary worry of some of Johnson's advisers about the effect of deploying three divisions in South Vietnam.
Similarly, Gates said December 14 he would be "very concerned" about deploying more than the 30,000 troops requested by McKiernan, because, "At a certain point, we get such a big footprint, we begin to look like an occupier." Gates repeated that point in Congressional testimony January 27, in which he again stressed the failure of the Soviet Union with 120,000 troops.
McKiernan, on the other hand, said Wednesday, "There's always an inclination to relate what we're doing with previous nations," he said. "I think that's a very unhealthy comparison."
Johnson was worried about sliding into an open-ended commitment to a war that could not be won. But two months later he gave in, against his better judgment, to a request from General William Westmoreland, the commander in Vietnam, for "urgent reinforcements". The escalation of the war continued for another two years.
Obama now faces the prospect that the Joint Chiefs will renew their support for McKiernan's request for the remaining 13,000 troops next month. And if the full 30,000 troop increase proves to be insufficient, he is likely to face further requests later on for "urgent reinforcements”.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.
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A new Afghanistan nightmare commences
By Ramzy Baroud Online Journal Contributing Writer Feb 23, 2009, 00:20
When US envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke met with Afghanistan’s ‘democratically’ installed President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on February 14, he may have just learned of the historic significance of the following day. February 15 commemorates the end of the bloody Russian campaign against Afghanistan (August 1978-February 1989).
But it is unlikely that Holbrooke will absorb the magnitude of that historic lesson. Both he and the new US president, Barack Obama, are convinced that the missing component for winning the war in Afghanistan is a greater commitment, as in doubling the troops, increasing military spending, and, by way of winning hearts and minds, investing more in developing the country. That combination, the US administration believes, will eventually sway Afghans from supporting the Taliban, tribal militias, Pashtun nationalists and other groups. The Pashtuns are waging a guerilla struggle in various parts of the country, mostly in the south, to oust Karzai’s government and foreign occupation forces. While Kabul was considered an “oasis of calm” – by Jonathan Steele’s account – during the Soviet rule, it’s nowhere close to that depiction under the rule of the US and its NATO allies, who had plenty of time, eight long years, to assert their control, but failed.
In fact, just as Holbrooke sat within Karzai’s heavily guarded presidential palace, roadside bombs were detonating across the country, in Khost, in Kandahar and elsewhere. Several police officers were killed, the latest addition to the hundreds of soldiers and officers who die each year as they desperately defend the few symbols of the central government’s authority. Aside from its shaky control over Kabul, and a few provincial capitals, the central government struggles to maintain the little relevance it still holds.
This deems most of the country a battleground between Afghani militias, seen by a growing number of Afghans as a legitimate resistance force against an illegitimate occupation; that being US and NATO forces.
Unlike the unpopular war in Iraq, Afghanistan was widely viewed in the US as a moral war, based on the logic that since al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks, and since the group is hosted by an equally militant Taliban government, both groups must pay. So far, the people of Afghanistan have paid many times over the price expected. Thousands were killed, and an entire generation was scarred by a new civil war, and yet a new foreign military occupation.
While mainstream news consumers are inundated with official commentary and occasional news reports on the challenges awaiting the US in Afghanistan to secure democracy, freedom and ‘national interests,’ media reports continue to reduce the battle over Afghanistan as one that is concerned with fighting local corruption, instilling human rights and ensuring gender equality.
Little is said of the pertinent reasons behind the war, as such seemingly tedious rhetoric of great games to control the Eurasian landmass -- which dates back to the 19th century’s rivalry between the British and Russian empires -- is more suited for academic discussions that are by no means newsworthy.
But it is perhaps relevant to note that desperate attempts at controlling Afghanistan have failed miserably in the past. If Holbrooke wishes to dig deeper into history, he should learn that the British Empire, which controlled India at the time, was also defeated in Afghanistan in 1842, and again in 1878. Soviet leaders looked for a quick victory as they occupied Kabul in December 1979, only to find themselves engaged in a most bloody war that cost them 15,000 deaths (it goes without saying that the hundreds of thousands of Afghani deaths often go unreported) and an unmitigated defeat.
But, then again, Holbrooke must’ve known of the details of the latter period for, after all, it was his country that armed and financially sustained the mujahideen forces in Afghanistan, fearing that the Soviets’ ultimate objective during the Cold War was challenging US dominance in the region, and eventually the Middle East. Considering the strategically disastrous toppling of the Shah of Iran to the US, the world’s leading superpower could take no chances.
But since then, Afghanistan has grown in significance from a politically strategic landmass, due to its proximity to warm waters and regional powers, to an energy strategic landmass inevitable to the exploitation of Caspian oil.
“I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian,” said former Vice President Dick Cheney in a speech to oil moguls in 1998. In the same year, John Maresca, vice president of international relations of Unocal Corporation commented before a House committee in February 2008 on ways to transfer Caspian basin oil (estimated between 110 to 243bn barrels of crude, worth up to $4 trillion): “[One] option is to build a pipeline south from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of US sanctions legislation. The only other possible route is across Afghanistan.”
Military success in Afghanistan is simply not possible, for numerous logistical, historical and practical reasons. But failure will also come at a price, at least for those who will directly benefit from subduing the rebellious nation.
Former President Bush and his entourage of allies failed to turn Afghanistan into a US-styled democracy, easily exploitable for strategic and economic use. By pressing a military solution in Afghanistan, Obama is not only summoning another failed US imperial experiment -- as that in Iraq -- but insists on adding his country’s name to those of Britain and Russia, which had better chances of success, but were squarely defeated
“It’s like fighting sand. No force in the world can get the better of the Afghans,” Oleg Kubanov, a former Russian officer in Afghanistan told Reuters. “It’s their holy land; it doesn’t matter to them if you’re Russian, American. We’re all soldiers to them.”
It would be timely if Holbrooke takes a few hours from his hectic schedule in the region to brush up on Afghanistan’s history, for he surely needs it.
Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London).
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Illinois National Guard couples serve together in Afghanistan
Setting isn't conducive to romance, but troops say they're happy to be together
By Kim Barker | Chicago Tribune correspondent February 23, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan—The couple's newlywed apartment isn't much. It's a tiny room with plywood partitions that don't reach the ceiling, and three other soldiers live in adjoining rooms in the cramped wooden hut. Adding to the awkwardness, before 11 p.m. each night, Spec. Elizabeth Fozard has to leave and return to the women's hut, or she's breaking curfew.
It's not exactly a honeymoon here on the Camp Phoenix base in Afghanistan.
Fozard and Staff Sgt. Brian Hempstead are among at least 13 married couples serving in this war zone with the Illinois National Guard, part of the Guard's largest deployment since World War II.
Five of the couples live at this camp in Kabul, while others have been assigned together at other bases or split up throughout Afghanistan. A sixth couple is being reunited at Camp Phoenix this month after the husband rejoined the Guard so he could be deployed with his wife.
Being married on base is not conducive to romance, but the couples are allowed to share a few private moments here and there. And they agree that having their spouse along on an overseas deployment sure beats a long separation.
"It's better than nothing," said Fozard, 25, of Forsyth, whose own hut is about 10 yards from her husband's. "Nobody [in the men's hut] really makes a big deal about me being there, as long we're quiet. And they're always playing video games anyway."
For married fun, there is not much to do in Afghanistan for a Guard couple like Hempstead and Fozard, who wed last July.
One couple plays ping-pong and video games. Another has pizza night. Another goes for tea at an Afghan shop on the base. Another watches movies and eats popcorn. And two couples plan to renew their vows in Afghanistan—wearing their fatigues, in the base chapel.
"It's nice to have my wife here," said Maj. Doug Bury, 45, who will renew his vows with his wife of six years, Capt. Gina Mathia, in March. "We usually carve an hour or two a night to be together. Watch TV, read books, talk. It's just nice having someone next to you."
The couples say they try to be sensitive to other soldiers, knowing they are separated from their own loved ones, and try to avoid allowing jealousy to become a problem.
But often there is little privacy. There are no public displays of affection, no hand-holding, no touching. And some soldiers have to salute their higher-ranked spouses — not the best way to keep the power balance in a relationship.
"It's our running joke that I'm going to pay for every salute and 'Hey sir,' " said Maj. Stanley Manes, 44, of Champaign, whose wife, Kelly, is a sergeant.
Although the Army used to frown on deploying couples together and even banned sexual relations between single men and women in combat zones, those policies have quietly changed in recent years. Recognizing the toll that long deployments were taking on marriages, the Army — whose rules apply to the National Guard — in 2006 opted to allow deployed couples to live together in Iraq, depending on space availability.
The Army also changed its general order banning unmarried male and female soldiers from visiting each other and banning sex; as of last April in Afghanistan, a new policy allowed visits and did not mention sex.
At Camp Phoenix, unmarried men and women are allowed to be in each other's rooms between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. But the door is supposed to be kept open. In multiperson housing units, the visitor must be announced, and other residents must consent.
In Afghanistan, married couples have lived together in the past, but there is no specially designed Couples Row, as on some bases in Iraq. The Illinois National Guard has decided that couples can live together, but only if "suitable housing" is available. And at a crowded base like Camp Phoenix, that's unlikely, officials say.
That means Lindsay Pettyjohn and Byron Steele, who married on a military leave in November, have still not been able to live together. Steele lives next to Hempstead, so the two couples are often in the hut at the same time.
Their wooden hut feels more like a college dormitory than a place for newlyweds. A "Girls of Brazil" calendar hangs on Hempstead's partition; his wife said she had given up on that discussion. The four men in the hut often pass their time playing video games.
"We kind of banked on being able to live together, but in reality, I told her not to count her chickens before they're hatched," said Steele, 28, a staff sergeant from Mt. Carmel.
Across the camp, in the housing called " Lego Land," the more senior soldiers have their own small rooms, with thin metal walls that seem to magnify the sound of even a yawn next door. Here, Frank Harrold and Rebecca Bigger-Thomas, of Normal, each have their own room.
They see each other at meals. During the day, they send e-mails and text messages. After work, they watch movies in Harrold's room and talk to their children back home.
"We're married, so we can shut the door," joked Bigger-Thomas, 48, a master sergeant who works as an assistant inspector-general.
When they were deployed in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, they were the only married couple in their company and they lived together for half their deployment, pushing together two wooden single beds and ordering an air mattress online.
The couples here say they are lucky. Unlike separated couples, not knowing what a spouse is going through every day with the void that comes with distance and war, these spouses know exactly what their partners face and the dangers outside the gates of Camp Phoenix.
A suicide attack in January injured five Guard soldiers, one seriously, outside another Kabul base. So far, none of these soldiers has been near any action, but that does not stop their spouses from worrying — when one spouse is on a mission that runs long, when jammers prevent phone calls from connecting.
Despite such stress, these soldiers say they are trying to keep in mind the real reason they're here — helping Afghanistan.
"We didn't want to live together," said Sgt. Kelly Manes, 30. "We're here for a completely different reason. Everyone else here is dealing without their spouse, their family, their children. I feel lucky just to get to see him. But every second? No. We're already married."
kbarker@tribune.com
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Finland to double troops in Afghanistan
New Kerala
Brussels, Feb 23: Finland is to double the number of its troops in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan to some 200 in time for elections Aug 20, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said Monday as his European Union (EU) colleagues discussed a police-training mission there.
"We will double our presence from about 100 to 200 for the elections, and in that sense I hope that we have responded to the requests (for more troops) that have come from the United States," Stubb told journalists in Brussels.
At the regular meeting, EU foreign ministers were set to discuss the 27-member bloc's role in stabilizing Afghanistan at a time when the new US government has called on European members of NATO to boost their commitments in the country.
The majority of Europe's involvement in Afghanistan is carried out under the banner of NATO. Just under half the troops serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are European.
But deep divisions remain between countries such as Britain and Denmark, who have committed large numbers of troops to the combat zones, and those such as Germany and Italy, which are reluctant to follow suit.
"We are not talking about more troops, we are talking about implementing a comprehensive strategy, because military commitment is not enough," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.
"We need political engagement, rule of law, we need stabilization at the border region, and so we need much more than only military commitment," he said.
Germany and Italy were among the countries who announced the deployment of additional troops for the August 20 presidential elections at a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Krakow last week.
The EU's main contribution to Afghanistan has been to set up a team to train the country's fledgling police force. But the team, which is mandated to have up to 400 police and justice experts, currently has just 177 international staff, according to EU figures.
Thursday the UN's special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said that he was disappointed over the slow pace of deployment.
The EU has also pledged 8 billion euros ($10 billion) in reconstruction aid for the period 2001-10.
Neutral Finland, which is not a NATO member, currently has 110 troops in ISAF, which operates under UN mandate.
--- IANS
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Afghan troops capture 5 armed insurgents
People's Daily - Feb 23 12:16 AM
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) during an operation against Taliban fighters captured five rebels in Khost province east of Afghanistan, provincial Police chief Abdul Qayum Baqizai said Monday.
"They were busy in cleaning Sabari district from insurgents when they came in contact with militants and captured five of them alive late Sunday night," Baqizai told Xinhua.
However, he did not say if there were any important rebels among the detainees.
Afghan troops with the support of the NATO-led peacekeeping force ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) have been fighting militants since long to ensure durable peace in the post-Taliban country.
Source:Xinhua
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Afghans face another crisis: air pollution
Reuters By Sayed Salahuddin Feb 22 , 2009
KABUL - Severe air pollution in Afghanistan's major cities will lead to an environmental disaster unless measures are taken to avert the looming crisis, a senior official said on Sunday.
Three decades of war and severe drought have already damaged the country's environment with widespread desertification and deforestation and loss of vegetation and wildlife, deputy head of Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency said.
But now, overpopulation in Afghanistan's cities, the burning of poor quality fuel, thousands of imported old cars, no proper waste management or sewage system and a boom in construction, have worsened air pollution, Jarullah Mansoori said.
"Afghanistan is always facing a lot of problems. Economic challenges, security problems and government challenges," Mansoori told Reuters in an interview.
"But the most dangerous challenge is environmental pollution and the environmental pollutants are the silent killers," he said.
Set up in 2005, Mansoori's agency recently formed an emergency body, with international donors agreeing to give $100 million towards equipping and training government departments to tackle the crisis in the short-term, Mansoori said.
With the funding, authorities will be able reduce some of the problems within two to three years, he said, adding the agency was also starting a public awareness campaign.
While the capital and Afghanistan's largest city, Kabul, was worst affected, other major cities like Jalalabad in the east, Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz in the north, Kandahar in the south and Herat in the west, were also suffering, he added.
OVERCROWDED
Millions of Afghan refugees have returned to Afghanistan from neighbouring countries since the overthrow of the Taliban by U.S.-led and Afghan forces in late 2001, most of them flocking to the cities in search of work.
"For example, Kabul is a city built for 500,000 people, but now five million live here ... Currently, there are 800,000 vehicles as opposed to 50,000 (previously) ... Afghanistan is a dumping ground for expired vehicles," said Mansoori.
Air pollution as well as unclean drinking water were contributing to people's health problems, he said.
"The current health problems are asthma and 22 types of cancer, the most common being leukaemia. Out of every 100 people, eight are suffering. We have to take this issue very seriously," Mansoori said.
Compared to the capitals of neighbouring countries such as Iran, India and Pakistan, said Mansoori, Kabul was the worst affected.
"We are three times more polluted than the other capitals in the region. If everything is left as it is now, after two or three years, we will not be able to live in Kabul, said Mansoori.
"We will have to leave for another place, where we can find clean air, clean water and clean food. This is called environmental migration. When environmental migration takes place then it's a huge social problem," he said.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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The Second Olive Farm will be Reconstructed in the East
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 22 February 2009
43,000 trees donated by the PRT and the Saudi government will be planted on a farm
43,000 trees donated by the PRT and the Saudi government will be planted on a farm Today the reconstruction work of the second olive farm in Nangarhar province started.
43,000 olives, date trees, orange and other fruitless trees will be cultivated on 24 hectares of land in the province.
Head of the Nangarhar Canal department, Abdul Hakim, said the trees are donated by Nangarhar's Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), and the Saudi government.
Mr. Hakim also mentioned that the 2000 date trees, will be lined out in Ghazi Abad, which is famous for its vegetation also on the second farm in the province.
He added that 15,000 fruitless trees and 3,000 fine-looking plants will also be planted
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Koreans in Afghanistan
The Korea Times - Opinion 02-22-2009
Seoul Should Be Cautious in Helping Washington Overseas
Officials here might have heaved sighs of relief during U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit last week for two reasons.
First, Secretary Clinton told Pyongyang to resume talks with Seoul first before wooing the new U.S. administration. Second, the former first lady stopped short of directly asking her Korean hosts to expand their support for U.S. operations in Afghanistan.
Still, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told a news conference that the Korean government would expand its support for the reconstruction of the South Asian country to the training of local police, to which Clinton agreed, noting that Washington regards Seoul's plan as ``important,'' and saying, ``The U.S. government will continue to examine policies along with our South Korean counterpart.''
Minister Yu's remark was problematic, as it is doubtful such a commitment came after consultation with the National Assembly, particularly the opposition party, which can justify some diplomatic watchers' suspicion on what the ``continuous examination of policies'' means.
U.S. President Barack Obama has recently decided to send an additional 17,000 troops even before he and his aides complete their policy reviews for Afghanistan, drawing less than willing responses from most of his NATO allies in following Washington's example.
It's been sometime but already diplomatic experts here and abroad began to call Afghanistan as ``Obama's Vietnam,'' or ``Obama's Iraq,'' with the latter compared to his immediate predecessor's disastrous conduct of war. It may be better to try to find Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan than in Iraq, but the ominous commonness between the two is unmistakable ― expanding the war front unnecessarily wide if not taking downrightly wrong targets, particularly if the possibility of spreading it to Pakistan is taken into account.
Of course, becoming an ally should mean becoming a friend in need, too. But even allies cannot always agree in every issue involving both moral justification and material interest. Koreans' fighting alongside U.S. troops in Vietnam helped Korea to accelerate its economic development, but its national reputation suffered serious damage among global peace lovers. Also, it was very fortunate that Korea's Zaytun Unit, wholly consisted of military engineers and medics, has also served their duty of rebuilding Iraq with little casualties.
Trying similar operation in Afghanistan needs serious reconsideration, however. First, Afghanistan, called the ``tomb of imperial powers,'' is no Iraq. Second, the previous administration sent a non-combat unit to Iraq in part to help ease tension on the Korean Peninsula by calming down the hawkish Bush administration. Considering the nightmare of 23 evangelists kidnapped by Taliban insurgents a few years ago, it is not hard to imagine the latter's responses to police trainers expanded three to four times in number.
If the current government tries, by any slightest of chances, a similar tactic to keep the new U.S. administration at its side in inter-Korean rivalry, nothing would be more foolish and unjustifiable.
All the Lee Myung-bak administration has to do is extend its hands ― unclenched ― to the North. Expanding support to the U.S. in Afghanistan, if done, should be made in ways to help ``pure'' reconstruction, and after winning a bipartisan approval at the Assembly.
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Pakistan arms villagers to fight Taliban
Pakistan plans to arm 30,000 villagers so that they can fight the Taliban.
By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor 23 Feb 2009 Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
Officials in Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), who last week signed a controversial peace deal with Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, announced plans to distribute rifles and create a new elite police force as part of a new strategy to confront terrorism.
However, security experts warned that the local government's plan could spark a civil war.
The announcement was seen as an attempt to allay US and British fears that the peace deal could create a new safe haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, just as the American and Pakistani governments prepare a new offensive in the frontier and tribal areas.
The peace deal in Swat has caused some alarm among Nato allies because it is only 100 miles from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
The decision to arm villagers is thought to have been inspired by US initiatives in Iraq, which played a key role in reducing violence.
The NWFP, including its capital Peshawar, has seen a dramatic surge in Taliban attacks in the last year, including beheadings, shootings and bomb attacks on pro-government politicians and schools attended by girls. Pakistani Taliban groups are believed to control key areas just outside of Peshawar, in Khyber Agency, where raids have interrupted supply routes for Nato forces in Afghanistan.
Haider Khan Hoti, the NWFP's chief minister, said that the new elite force and the decision to arm villagers with weapons seized from terrorists and other "anti-state" elements were part of a strategy to challenge Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the province. His government would fund the new force with $40 million (£27 million).
"The purpose of setting up this force is to combat terrorism and extremism effectively," he said.
The US is expected to back the formation of a national elite police force to hold on to territory cleared of Taliban forces in Pakistan army offensives.
But security experts warned that arming villagers could backfire. Mahmood Shah, a former security chief in Pakistan's tribal areas, said the initiative could lead to civil war in the region.
"This is Pakistan, not Iraq or Afghanistan. There is complete anarchy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that is not the case here. It is not going to help," he said.
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Secret US Unit Trains Commandos in Pakistan
New York Times, United States By ERIC SCHMITT and JANE PERLEZ February 22, 2009
BARA, Pakistan - More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country's lawless tribal areas, American military officials said.
The Americans are mostly Army Special Forces soldiers who are training Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops, providing them with intelligence and advising on combat tactics, the officials said. They do not conduct combat operations, the officials added.
They make up a secret task force, overseen by the United States Central Command and Special Operations Command. It started last summer, with the support of Pakistan's government and military, in an effort to root out Qaeda and Taliban operations that threaten American troops in Afghanistan and are increasingly destabilizing Pakistan. It is a much larger and more ambitious effort than either country has acknowledged.
Pakistani officials have vigorously protested American missile strikes in the tribal areas as a violation of sovereignty and have resisted efforts by Washington to put more troops on Pakistani soil. President Asif Ali Zardari, who leads a weak civilian government, is trying to cope with soaring anti-Americanism among Pakistanis and a belief that he is too close to Washington.
Despite the political hazards for Islamabad, the American effort is beginning to pay dividends.
A new Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps paramilitary force has used information from the Central Intelligence Agency and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months, including at least five high-ranking commanders, a senior Pakistani military official said.
Four weeks ago, the commandos captured a Saudi militant linked to Al Qaeda here in this town in the Khyber Agency, one of the tribal areas that run along the border with Afghanistan.
Yet the main commanders of the Pakistani Taliban, including its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and its leader in the Swat region, Maulana Fazlullah, remain at large. And senior American military officials remain frustrated that they have been unable to persuade the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to embrace serious counterinsurgency training for the army itself.
General Kayani, who is visiting Washington this week as a White House review on policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan gets under way, will almost certainly be asked how the Pakistani military can do more to eliminate Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the tribal areas.
The American officials acknowledge that at the very moment when Washington most needs Pakistan's help, the greater tensions between Pakistan and India since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November have made the Pakistani Army less willing to shift its attention to the Qaeda and Taliban threat.
Officials from both Pakistan and the United States agreed to disclose some details about the American military advisers and the enhanced intelligence sharing to help dispel impressions that the missile strikes were thwarting broader efforts to combat a common enemy. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the increasingly powerful anti-American segment of the Pakistani population.
The Pentagon had previously said about two dozen American trainers conducted training in Pakistan late last year. More than half the members of the new task force are Special Forces advisers; the rest are combat medics, communications experts and other specialists. Both sides are encouraged by the new collaboration between the American and Pakistani military and intelligence agencies against the militants.
“The intelligence sharing has really improved in the past few months,” said Talat Masood, a retired army general and a military analyst. “Both sides realize it's in their common interest.”
Intelligence from Pakistani informants has been used to bolster the accuracy of missile strikes from remotely piloted Predator and Reaper aircraft against the militants in the tribal areas, officials from both countries say.
More than 30 attacks by the aircraft have been conducted since last August, most of them after President Zardari took office in September. A senior American military official said that 9 of 20 senior Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Pakistan had been killed by those strikes.
In addition, a small team of Pakistani air defense controllers working in the United States Embassy in Islamabad ensures that Pakistani F-16 fighter-bombers conducting missions against militants in the tribal areas do not mistakenly hit remotely piloted American aircraft flying in the same area or a small number of C.I.A. operatives on the ground, a second senior Pakistani officer said.
The newly minted 400-man Pakistani paramilitary commando unit is a good example of the new cooperation. As part of the Frontier Corps, which operates in the tribal areas, the new Pakistani commandos fall under a chain of command separate from the 500,000-member army, which is primarily trained to fight Pakistan's archenemy, India.
The commandos are selected from the overall ranks of the Frontier Corps and receive seven months of intensive training from Pakistani and American Special Forces.
The C.I.A. helped the commandos track the Saudi militant linked to Al Qaeda, Zabi al-Taifi, for more than a week before the Pakistani forces surrounded his safe house in the Khyber Agency. The Pakistanis seized him, along with seven Pakistani and Afghan insurgents, in a dawn raid on Jan. 22, with a remotely piloted C.I.A. plane hovering overhead and personnel from the C.I.A. and Pakistan's main spy service closely monitoring the mission, a senior Pakistani officer involved in the operation said.
Still, there are tensions between the sides. Pakistani F-16's conduct about a half-dozen combat missions a day against militants, but Pakistani officers say they could do more if the Pentagon helped upgrade the jets to fight at night and provided satellite-guided bombs and updated satellite imagery.
General Kayani was expected to take a long shopping list for more transport and combat helicopters to Washington. The question of more F-16's — which many in Congress assert are intended for the Indian front — will also come up, Pakistani officials said.
The United States missile strikes, which have resulted in civilian casualties, have stirred heated debate among senior Pakistani government and military officials, despite the government's private support for the attacks.
One American official described General Kayani, who is known to be sensitive about the necessity of public support for the army, as very concerned that the American strikes had undermined the army's authority.
“These strikes are counterproductive,” Owais Ahmed Ghani, the governor of North-West Frontier Province, said in an interview in his office in Peshawar. “This is looking for a quick fix, when all it will do is attract more jihadis.”
Pakistani Army officers say the American strikes draw retaliation against Pakistani troops in the tribal areas, whose convoys and bases are bombed or attacked with rockets after each United States missile strike.
Eric Schmitt reported from Bara, Peshawar and Islamabad, Pakistan, and Jane Perlez from Islamabad.
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Afghan Parliament Impeaches Kabul Mayor
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 23 February 2009
Kabul mayor warns to prevent the illegal construction of sky-scrapers in the Afghan capital
Complaint of the capital residents prompted the Afghan Parliament to summon the city mayor to present his response to the people's concerns.
Lower House's Communication Commission conveyed the people's complaints to the mayor, mainly pointing out the capital's master planning, transportation's infrastructure and sky-scrapers construction in forbidden locations.
Kabul Mayor, Abdul Ahad Sahibi said to seriously concentrate on the illegal constructions in the city.
Meanwhile, the 4m populated capital mayor declared to resume the asphalting of more than a 100km road inside the city.
Most of the road projects construction has been paused for the weather condition.
The massive road projects in the Afghan capital will be funded by the United Arab Emirates, The World Bank and other international donors.
A convenient challenge to the projects implementation is the lack of proper quality.
Most of the Kabul residents complain the bad roads in the city which have been destroyed over the past decades.
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Cultural Centre Smells Drug
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 22 February 2009
The former Russian Culture Centre in Kabul is the safest place for the drug addicts to enjoy their habit
Once, it was a popular cultural centre to tighten up the Afghanistan-Russia cultural relation, but today, it houses hundreds of drug addicts in the Afghan capital Kabul.
At least a single cultural sign cannot be seen in the centre but the drug smokes has filled the atmosphere of the destroyed building.
The Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics is concerned over the rapid rising of the drug addicts in the country and it has stuck to combat the social crisis.
Dr. Mohammad Zafar, Afghan Counter Narcotics acting minister said: “The number of drug addicts has highly increased recently.”
The addiction of drug in not only limited to the unemployed people but nearly 60 per cent of the cops in the southern Helmand Province are captivated to narcotics.
This was claimed by a British official that faced a strong denial of the Afghan Interior ministry.
The rocking number of drug addicts roots from the poppy cultivation in the country that Mr. Zafar says, “Only international mafia and the insurgents benefit from the narco-trade and poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.”
Ministry of Public Health has established a healthcare centre to treat the drug addicted residents of Kabul.
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