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February 26, 2009 

Poll: Americans back Obama on Afghanistan
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Roughly two-thirds of U.S. residents support President Barack Obama's plan to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates.

Isolation shields Afghanistan from financial crisis
By Sayed Salahuddin – Wed Feb 25, 7:19 pm ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Devastated by nearly three decades of war, Afghanistan's isolation from world trade and global finance might for once be to its advantage, shielding the country from the economic and financial meltdown abroad.

Taliban say want peace with Afghans, NATO troops out
By Sayed Salahuddin – Thu Feb 26, 7:15 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban are willing to work with all Afghan groups to achieve peace, but the problems of Afghanistan can only be solved if foreign troops withdraw from the country, a senior insurgent leader said.

U.S. losing war in Afghanistan, McCain says
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former GOP presidential nominee John McCain warned Wednesday that the United States is losing the war in Afghanistan.

Britain gave Iraq suspects to US, taken to Afghanistan
LONDON (AFP) – Britain admitted for the first time on Thursday handing over two terror suspects captured in Iraq to US agents who transferred them to Afghanistan for interrogation in 2004, in a case of rendition.

U.S. positive on Afghan input in policy review: Spanta
Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:56pm EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Obama administration officials reacted positively toward Afghanistan's call for more support to build Afghan security forces and a broader war strategy, the country's foreign minister said on Thursday.

In Afghanistan, U.S. mounts offensive in Taliban haven
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers
JALREZ VALLEY, Afghanistan — Hundreds of U.S. troops pushed into a key Taliban stronghold Wednesday in a major operation to stop the insurgents from infiltrating the Afghan capital from the south and clear the way

“Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul”
Much of the art in this exhibit was saved by brave individuals who risked their lives to protect it
By Julia Ramey Houston Press - Wed Feb 25, 2:17 pm ET
The image of the Taliban destroying two ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan in 2001 shocked the world. Fortunately, many other artifacts from the storied country have survived its war-torn history, and some 230 of them

Three British soldiers killed in Afghanistan: ministry
by Prashant Rao – Wed Feb 25, 12:47 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – Three British soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan as a result of an "enemy explosion" on Wednesday, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.

Pentagon spends more to counter roadside bombs in Afghanistan
By Thom Shanker International Herald Tribune - Feb 25 10:42 AM
WASHINGTON: As part of its buildup in Afghanistan, the Pentagon plans to deploy billions of dollars in heavily armored vehicles, spy planes, jammers and even experimental ground-penetrating radars to defend

A Strategy for Afghanistan
By Henry A. Kissinger Thursday, February 26, 2009 The Washington Post Page A19
The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point.

U.S. will boost supplies for Afghan force
By Andrew Gray – Thu Feb 26, 7:02 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will be able to ramp up supplies for thousands of extra troops being sent to Afghanistan even though convoys have come under attack in Pakistan, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan and Pakistan On The Brink
By FREDERICK BARTON AND KARIN VON HIPPEL
with Mark Irvine, Thomas Patterson, and Mehlaqa Samdani
Dramatic changes are needed in order to succeed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Almost daily, the people of the region experience deteriorating security and a worsening economic situation.

Shifting Alliances Complicate U.S.-Pakistan War Against Militants
By Omar Waraich time.com Islamabad Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009
The Obama Administration may be pressing Pakistan to intensify its efforts against Islamist militants on its own soil, but Islamabad has its own ways of tackling the issue — most recently in the form of truces with local

UK Names Mark Sedwill New Ambassador To Afghanistan
LONDON (AFP)--The U.K. on Thursday named Mark Sedwill, who has held a string of high-level postings in Asia and the Middle East, as its new ambassador to Afghanistan.

IDPs in northwest battle cold, diseases and hunger
26 Feb 2009
QALA-I-NAW, 26 February 2009 (IRIN) - Freezing temperatures, hunger and sickness are unrelenting inside an old tent where Dadullah's family has been living near Qala-e-Nau, the capital of the northwestern Afghan province of Badghis.

Afghanistan and Iraq - What If?
New York Times By Dexter Filkins February 25, 2009
KABUL - Today we begin showcasing dispatches from other New York Times bureaus in the region. Dexter Filkins sees Iraq through the prism of the other American conflict: Afghanistan.

Afghan review to ensure there is no further attack on US: WH
The Economic Times - Feb 26 12:50 AM
WASHINGTON: The Obama Administration is currently doing a review of the Afghan Policy with an aim to make sure that it does not become a safe haven for terrorists again to plot strikes on the US, the White House has said.

Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan, 26 Feb 2009
Feb 26 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0830 GMT on Thursday:

Exclusive: Lawyer says Guantanamo abuse worse since Obama
Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:23pm GMT By Luke Baker
LONDON (Reuters) - Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards "get their kicks in" before the camp is closed, according to a lawyer who represents detainees.

Taliban kill 'US spy' as 'gift to Obama'
AFP, 26 February 2009 - MIRANSHAH, Pakistan
Taliban militants beheaded an Afghan in Pakistan's lawless tribal region after accusing him of spying for the United States, local police said Thursday.

Obama seeks $75.5 billion for Iraq and Afghan wars 2009
Thu Feb 26, 2009 5:23pm GMT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking an additional $75.5 billion (53 billion pounds) for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of the current fiscal year in a budget released
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Poll: Americans back Obama on Afghanistan
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Roughly two-thirds of U.S. residents support President Barack Obama's plan to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates.

While support for the Afghanistan buildup crosses party lines, respondents are divided about whether the war there is worth its cost, poll results released Thursday indicated.

Those surveyed also were split 51 percent to 41 percent on whether winning in Afghanistan was necessary to succeed in the broader war on terror, the Post said.

Nearly four in 10 who said the Afghan war has not justified its expense did back sending the new troops, signaling some people may expect better results after the troop levels rise, the Post said.

On the war in Iraq, 60 percent of those surveyed in the latest poll said the costs of that war outweighed its benefits, which pollsters said showed little change from previous surveys.

The Washington Post-ABC News national poll was conducted by telephone Feb. 19-22 among 1,001 adults. The margin of error is 3 percentage points. Sampling, data collection and tabulation was handled by TNS of Horsham, Pa.
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Isolation shields Afghanistan from financial crisis
By Sayed Salahuddin – Wed Feb 25, 7:19 pm ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Devastated by nearly three decades of war, Afghanistan's isolation from world trade and global finance might for once be to its advantage, shielding the country from the economic and financial meltdown abroad.

Sandwiched between Kabul's main mosque and a foul-smelling river is the teeming money market where traders, holding aloft fist-fulls of U.S. dollars, euros, Pakistani rupees and afghanis, shout out their prices above the melee.

The afghani, Afghanistan's currency, has barely skipped a beat and property prices in the capital and other major cities are still rising steadily despite hundreds of Taliban suicide bombings and an insurgency spreading from the south and east.

"(The recession) has not affected Afghanistan because we have no dealings with Asia, Europe or anywhere else," said Amin Jan Khosti, the head of the market.

While other currencies rise and fall, the afghani has remained steady at around 52 to the dollar, the same as when the credit crunch began to bite last year.

That is partly due to the United States' backing of Afghan Central Bank intervention which has kept the currency stable and protected the country's economy from being buffeted by the financial turmoil, economists said.

The biggest risk for Afghanistan is that the foreign governments that pump billions of dollars in annual aid might need to cut back as they fund multi-billion dollar stimulus plans for their own economies in the wake of the economic crisis.

Experts say that Afghanistan has little to worry about, though, as its importance to the West is possibly greater than ever as the focus of the "war on terror" moves from Iraq to its territory, making aid cuts unlikely especially as such cuts might weaken the Afghan economy and strengthen the Taliban.

"The U.S. is deeply engaged here politically, militarily and economically. There are growing security problems and political instability to some extent, so America does not want to have or see another headache and it is keen to keep the economy stable," said Sayed Masood, an economics professor at Kabul University.

U.S. President Barack Obama has called Afghanistan his top foreign policy priority and has vowed to focus on development projects in addition to expanding the NATO military presence as insurgent violence has increased to its highest levels since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001.

The September 11, 2001 attacks were hatched in Afghanistan by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and top commanders who are believed to be hiding somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

PROPERTY BOOM
While most Afghans live in grinding poverty, with little running water, proper sewerage and sanitation, it is clear from the gaudy mansions springing up in the wealthier parts of the capital that some people are getting rich.

"In Afghanistan, many people do not know a lot about the world's economic crisis involving housing. The property business has become a major trade here," said Kabul University's Masood.

"There is not much infrastructure or good security, so those who have money and live here invest in property," he said.

That trend along with the steady flow of refugees returning from abroad and people fleeing fighting in the countryside has helped to push up Kabul property prices to record levels.

And because purchases are made in cash, the market is not affected by any squeeze in credit.

The development has created a big gap between the majority poor and minority rich which may lead to social unrest if not dealt with carefully, according to analysts.

A small residential plot in central Kabul now costs $35,000 on average, 25 percent more than 12 months ago, estate agents said. A similar sized plot in a business district of the city would cost more than $100,000, they said.

The Afghan economy has been kept afloat by the inflow of billions of dollars of aid, the spending and jobs provided by 69,500 foreign troops deployed in Afghanistan, as well as an illegal drugs trade worth an estimated $3 billion a year.

"The global financial crisis is unlikely to have major negative implications for Afghanistan," said Mariam Sherman, the World Bank's country manager for Afghanistan.

"This is mainly because the formal financial sector in Afghanistan is small, does not play a major role in financing economic activity, and has very limited international exposure."

Donor nations have spent more than $15 billion in Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster, according to the Afghan government which relies on aid for 90 percent of its budget.

Yet as unemployment queues grow in donor countries, some politicians and members of the public are asking questions.

In Canada, sceptical opposition leaders are asking why, at a time of big budget deficits and soaring unemployment, is the Ottawa government pouring billions of dollars into a combat and aid mission critics say shows few signs of success.

European countries, similarly strapped for cash and with public opinion solidly against the war, could also face problems financing an Afghan government largely seen as corrupt and inept.

It is the United States that is Kabul's biggest backer, spending more than half of its overseas development aid in Afghanistan and with plans to boost its 38,000 troops in the country by an additional 17,000.

If the financial crises deteriorates further in the U.S., where Obama is struggling to cut back a ballooning budget deficit, then some in Afghanistan are concerned foreign aid might be whittled down.

"Afghanistan is highly aid-dependent and if international developments start adversely affecting aid flows to Afghanistan that could be highly problematic," said Sherman, the World Bank's country manager for Afghanistan.

"However, given the country's geopolitical importance, there are no signs or expectations at the present time that aid would decline."

(Editing by Megan Goldin)
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Taliban say want peace with Afghans, NATO troops out
By Sayed Salahuddin – Thu Feb 26, 7:15 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban are willing to work with all Afghan groups to achieve peace, but the problems of Afghanistan can only be solved if foreign troops withdraw from the country, a senior insurgent leader said.

The Taliban have made a strong come-back in the last three years, extending the scale and scope of their insurgency across the south and east and up to the fringes of the Afghan capital.

U.S. officials admit they are not winning the war but, they say, neither are the Taliban. A stalemate has been reached with insurgents unable to overcome NATO's military might and foreign troops unable to stop Taliban roadside and suicide bombs.

Repeated calls from Afghan President Hamid Karzai for talks with the Taliban have been rejected by the militants, but the statement from the senior Taliban commander signals a slightly softer stance toward the government while maintaining the customary hard line against the international troop presence.

"We would like to take an Afghan strategy that is shared and large-scale, in consultation with all the Afghan groups, to reach positive and fruitful results," Mullah Mutassim, a former Taliban finance minister and member of the group's political council, told al-Samoud magazine in an interview conducted on February 25.

But, he said, the United States "has to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan as soon as possible, because the real starter of crises and complication of matters is the presence of foreign forces in the country.

"If these forces leave, the problem will be over, the question will be finished, and peace will prevail," he was quoted as saying in the interview translated by the U.S.-based Site Intelligence Group which monitors jihadi web sites.

Mutassim is regarded as close to fugitive Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.

NO ALTERNATIVE BUT TO FIGHT

The United States has some 38,000 troops in Afghanistan alongside some 30,000 troops from 40 other mostly NATO nations.

President Barack Obama last week ordered another 17,000 U.S. troops deployed to try to break the stalemate and has pledged a new strategy in Afghanistan to increase development and at the same time ease regional tensions that contribute to the war.

Mutassim said the armed struggle was the only way to drive out foreign forces and if the United States sent more troops to Afghanistan that would just lead to more soldiers being killed.

"Obama's taking this unreasonable strategy indicates the plan of his bloody and fierce war strategy which will cause the death of many of his arrogant troops in the face of the holy Afghan jihad," he said.

Despite his harsh words for the West, Mutassim only had praise for the government of Saudi Arabia which is often scorned by hardline Islamists for its close ties with the United States.

Saudi Arabia, one of only three states to recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, has hosted tentative talks between former Taliban and Afghan government officials aimed at exploring ways toward peace.

But, Mutassim said, the Taliban were not for a share in power.

"The Islamic Emirate demands to rule the country so as to establish an ... Islamic system in it, not in order to occupy high positions in the agent government," he said.

Mutassim denied the austere Islamists movement had been against women's education while they were in power, but said the ravages of war had not allowed girls to be schooled.

"I say that educating women is as necessary as educating men," he said.

The Taliban have eased a number of their hard line edicts against such things as television and music in the areas they control making them, Mutassim said, more popular now than when they were in power.

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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U.S. losing war in Afghanistan, McCain says
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former GOP presidential nominee John McCain warned Wednesday that the United States is losing the war in Afghanistan.

The Arizona senator, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that while he approved of President Obama's recent decision to send 17,000 more troops to the country, he believed an additional allied military and civilian surge would be necessary to prevent it from once again becoming an al Qaeda safe haven.

The Obama administration is conducting a review of overall U.S. policy in the troubled Islamic republic, the president said in his joint address to Congress on Tuesday.

"With our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and combat extremism," Obama said Tuesday. "Because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world. We will not allow it."

But McCain said on Wednesday, "When you aren't winning in this kind of war, you are losing. And, in Afghanistan today, we are not winning." He delivered his remarks at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

McCain claimed that while the situation in Afghanistan is "nowhere near as dire as it was in Iraq," the number of insurgent attacks had spiked in 2008 and violence had increased more than 500 percent in the past four years.

Growing portions of the country "suffer under the influence of the Taliban," he added.

McCain's comments echoed those of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who acknowledged last Friday that the United States is facing a "very tough test" in Afghanistan.

"But I'm sure we will rise to the occasion the way we have many times before," Gates told a news conference in Krakow, Poland, where NATO defense ministers were meeting.

McCain said that the U.S. was winning the war in Afghanistan through early 2005, when some troops were withdrawn and "our integrated civil-military command structure was disassembled and replaced by a Balkanized and dysfunctional arrangement."

A Vietnam War veteran, former prisoner of war and longtime member of the Armed Services Committee, McCain said that while he knows Americans "are weary of war ... we must win [in Afghanistan]. The alternative is to risk that country's return to its previous function as a terrorist sanctuary, from which al Qaeda could train and plan attacks against America."

Among other things, McCain stated that the U.S. needs to establish a larger military headquarters capable of executing "the necessary planning and coordination for a nationwide counterinsurgency campaign."

He also said plans to expand the Afghan army from 68,000 to 134,000 troops were insufficient. He recommended expanding the Afghan army to between 160,000 and 200,000 troops.

At the same time, he said, the U.S. needs to boost the country's nonmilitary assistance to help strengthen "its [civilian] institutions, the rule of law, and the economy in order to provide a sustainable alternative to the drug trade."

Southern Afghanistan provides about two thirds of the world's opium and heroin. Over the years, those two drugs have served as a major source of revenue for the insurgency, including the Taliban.

McCain warned that, even if his recommendations are adopted, the violence in Afghanistan is "likely to get worse before it gets better. The scale of resources required to prevail will be enormous."

The timetable, he concluded, "will be measured in years, not months."
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Britain gave Iraq suspects to US, taken to Afghanistan
LONDON (AFP) – Britain admitted for the first time on Thursday handing over two terror suspects captured in Iraq to US agents who transferred them to Afghanistan for interrogation in 2004, in a case of rendition.

Referring to a security operation in February 2004, Defence Secretary John Hutton said: "Two individuals were captured by UK forces in and around Baghdad, they were transferred to US detention in accordance with normal practice and then moved subsquently to the US detention facility in Afghanistan."
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U.S. positive on Afghan input in policy review: Spanta
Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:56pm EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Obama administration officials reacted positively toward Afghanistan's call for more support to build Afghan security forces and a broader war strategy, the country's foreign minister said on Thursday.

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, visiting Washington to take part in the Obama administration's review of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he "found a very, very positive response" to Kabul's ideas for regaining the initiative in a 7-year-old war against Islamic militants.

The minister did not specify what, if any agreements, were reached in a week of meetings that also involved senior Pakistani officials, and the month-old Obama administration has not commented publicly on the ongoing policy review.

But Spanta cited the appointment of veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke as a special U.S. envoy to the region as recognition of the need for a broader approach to a war theater where a resurgent Taliban has gained ground and al Qaeda militants remain active in Pakistan's tribal areas.

"My thesis is that the main threat center of instability in the war is not Iraq; it is not Afghanistan. It is much more Pakistan," he said of Afghanistan's nuclear-armed neighbor, where a fledgling civilian government is grappling with militant attacks and a deep economic crisis.

In Afghanistan the U.S.-led coalition war effort needed to invest in building up the Afghan army, police and other local security agencies, Spanta said in a speech to the Center for American Progress think tank.

"That will be a condition of the Afghanization of the security sector in Afghanistan. This is cheaper, acceptable for you, for your taxpayers, for your public opinion and, of course, for the Afghans to take more responsibility," he said.

The meetings in Washington were held amid increasingly open shows of strain between the Obama administration and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai as the Taliban insurgency steadily gains ground. U.S.-led forces toppled the hard-line Islamist Taliban government in 2001.

Karzai's main criticism has been that the U.S.-led military campaign against Taliban and al Qaeda militants had brought civilian casualties that were Afghan support for the war. Kabul was negotiating with the U.S.-led coalition forces to find ways to curb civilian casualties, said Spanta.

President Barack Obama last week decided to send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, bringing U.S. forces there to 55,000 by this summer.

"Afghanistan's wish is to deploy these troops in the main problem center in the some provinces in the south of Afghanistan and also for the control of cross-border activities," said Spanta.
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In Afghanistan, U.S. mounts offensive in Taliban haven
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers
JALREZ VALLEY, Afghanistan — Hundreds of U.S. troops pushed into a key Taliban stronghold Wednesday in a major operation to stop the insurgents from infiltrating the Afghan capital from the south and clear the way for the first sustained international aid effort in this remote valley.

Supported by about 200 Afghan soldiers and their French army trainers, 200 soldiers of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., encountered no resistance.

U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan are scrambling to beat back the Taliban insurgency by bolstering U.S. forces, delivering long-promised humanitarian and reconstruction projects, girding for a surge in violence with the end of winter and preparing for the country's second democratic presidential election in August.

The reactions to the arrival of the U.S.-led force Wednesday, however, ranged from skepticism to hostility. "Down To America" dabbed in whitewash greeted the U.S. column as it pushed into the valley from the American base in Maydan Shahr, the capital of Wardak Province.

Icy-eyed villagers stared as towering Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored trucks and other vehicles towing trailers, generators and guns, protected by two helicopter gunships and two A-10 "tank-buster" jets, plowed parts of the valley's main track into knee-high furrows of dense mud. The convoy halted traffic for hours and twice churned slowly through the main bazaar, filling the crisp winter air with choking clouds of diesel fumes.

"Everything was okay before they came here," growled Mohammad Sharif as he sat in his dingy confectionery shop glaring at the American vehicles stopped outside. "We don't want them to come here. We haven't needed them for 1,000 years. This is our country."

The angry comments by Sharif and others seemed to confirm assertions by U.S. officers that the valley, which is about 50 miles south of the capital, Kabul, is under firm Taliban control, and that the guerrillas enjoy strong support among the district's ethnic Pashtuns, who constitute 30 percent of the Jalrez District's impoverished population of about 66,000.

"This is where key leaders of the Taliban are located," said Lt. Tyjuan Campbell, of Palmetto, Fla., of Apache Company, 2nd Battalion, 82nd Infantry Regiment, as he stood outside the abandoned French-built agricultural center that he took for his headquarters.

U.S. and French officers said that Taliban explosives experts produce roadside bombs and suicide vests in the valley. The insurgents also use the area to infiltrate Kabul and launch attacks, stealing through the mountains on narrow tracks and goat paths.

The 3rd Brigade Combat Team plans to set up bases across the valley — the first U.S. presence here since the 2001 U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban — to root out the Taliban and provide the security required to start aid projects aimed at eliminating the insurgents' sanctuary.

Campbell conceded, though, that the U.S. force made no friends with its two-way, three-hour, fume-belching grind through the main bazaar's narrow lane.

"I'm pretty sure they got quite upset. We rolled right through there and rolled right back again," Campbell said as the sun set and the biting cold intensified.

Aziz Ahmad, one of several dozen drivers and passengers stalled by the convoy, at first expressed anger and resentment at the outsiders, complaining about the blockage and saying that villagers "are afraid that fighting will now start here. They are scared."

But in a glimpse of promise for the U.S. troops, Ahmad said that many residents would reconsider their views if the Americans paved the track.

"If they pave the road, that is a foundation for Afghanistan," he said. "Things will begin to change."

The valley is framed by stunning snow-covered peaks, some as high as 12,000 feet, that enclose a narrow plain of layer cake-like dried mud homes, narrow tracks, apple orchards, clear brooks and pastures.

There's no electricity; the inhabitants are desperately poor; the children are filthy, thinly clad and rheumy-eyed; and a U.S. military assessment rates the Afghan government's authority in the Jalrez District "nonexistent."

The U.S. operation began before dawn Wednesday, with helicopters flying small U.S. and Afghan Army units into positions on the sides of the valley near the main bazaar.

The main force's long column of dozens of MRAPs, armored Humvees, trucks and other vehicles was supposed to drive the 15 miles to the Jalrez Bazaar at around 40 mph. However, a partially completed Chinese-built paved road gave way to a rutted, waterlogged track that forced the armored vehicles to slow to less than 10 mph at some points.

Interrupted by frequent stops, the convoy took four hours to reach the main bazaar, passing the French-built agricultural center where it was supposed to establish a base.

Once inside the bazaar, the U.S. trucks and Humvees idled for more than 45 minutes. Men crouched on the verges, some muttering and gesturing, and infant-cradling women hidden in full-length burqas hurried by.

The convoy was forced to turn around on the narrow track on the other side of the bazaar after the troops realized that they'd passed the agricultural center. The return journey took three hours, and more than a dozen trucks and cars were forced to wait while the Americans rumbled back.

"Everybody here seems real happy, especially as we push these monsters through their town," one soldier observed over the radio.

Inside one MRAP, the already cramped space constricted by packs and portable rocket launchers, the delays brought exasperation and derision from crewmembers.

Sgt. Daniel Steciak, the vehicle chief, noted that the bunched-up vehicles made tempting targets for the Taliban.

"I'm pretty sure they know we're here," quipped Steciak, 23, of Columbia, Md.

"The element of surprise, sergeant," responded Pvt. Eli Zajghowski, 22, of Orlando, Fla.
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“Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul”
Much of the art in this exhibit was saved by brave individuals who risked their lives to protect it
By Julia Ramey Houston Press - Wed Feb 25, 2:17 pm ET
The image of the Taliban destroying two ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan in 2001 shocked the world. Fortunately, many other artifacts from the storied country have survived its war-torn history, and some 230 of them are on display this spring at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston as part of “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul.” Afghanistan’s rich and expansive history as a trade passage connecting China and India with Europe is represented in the form of incised gold vases from the Bronze Age, stone statues of Greek heroes, elaborate Persian and Scythian jewelry and 2,000-year-old gold relics from the Bactrian horde. One of the most interesting aspects of this exhibit is that oftentimes these works managed to survive only because a brave Afghan risked his or her life to protect them. Some of those heroic stories are included in the exhibit. 12:15 to 7 p.m. Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Through May 17. Audrey Jones Beck Building, 5601 Main. For information, call 713-639-7300 or visit www.mfah.org. Free to $7.

Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: March 1. Continues through May 17, 2009
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Three British soldiers killed in Afghanistan: ministry
by Prashant Rao – Wed Feb 25, 12:47 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – Three British soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan as a result of an "enemy explosion" on Wednesday, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.

"It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence has to announce the deaths of three soldiers from 1st Battalion The Rifles," it said in a statement, adding that their families had been informed.

The soldiers were killed during an escort operation in the Gereshk district of Helmand province, where the Taliban militia has been waging a bloody insurgency.

A response helicopter was called out, but the soldiers were pronounced dead by military doctors.

The deaths bring to 11 the total number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year and 148 since the US-led invasion of the country in late 2001.

"Today has been incredibly sad for the whole of Task Force Helmand, and particularly for The Rifles," said Commander Paula Rowe, a British military spokeswoman.

"We will all feel the loss of these brave soldiers, whose role was to build the capacity of the Afghan National Army.

"But it is their family, friends and loved ones, as well as the men and women who served alongside them, who feel the greatest pain and we offer them our deepest and heartfelt condolences, thoughts and prayers."

According to a report last week, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was told during a visit to Afghanistan that some roadside bombs used by the Taliban include electronic parts that originally came from Britain and were supplied by British Muslims.

The Daily Telegraph said the devices, which were used to activate bombs via remote control, were either sent to sympathisers in neighbouring countries or carried in by volunteers who flew to Pakistan and crossed the border into Afghanistan.

Last month, Defence Secretary John Hutton signalled he wanted to boost protection for British troops facing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used by the Taliban militia.

Britain has about 8,300 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of whom are serving in Helmand in the south.

After the United States, Britain is the second biggest troop contributor to a multinational NATO-led force helping Kabul fight Taliban-led insurgents and establish its authority.

Around 17,000 extra US troops earmarked for Afghanistan, meanwhile, will deploy as soon as possible and thousands more are requested ahead of August elections in Afghanistan, the deputy NATO force commander in Kabul 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 would bolster about 70,000 foreign troops already in Afghanistan.
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Pentagon spends more to counter roadside bombs in Afghanistan
By Thom Shanker International Herald Tribune - Feb 25 10:42 AM
WASHINGTON: As part of its buildup in Afghanistan, the Pentagon plans to deploy billions of dollars in heavily armored vehicles, spy planes, jammers and even experimental ground-penetrating radars to defend troops against roadside bombs that are proving increasingly lethal.

More than 175 U.S. and allied troops were killed by roadside bombs in Afghanistan in 2008, more than twice as many as the year before, and American commanders say that the 17,000 extra troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Barack Obama last week will offer additional targets.

While improvised roadside bombs have been a greater threat in Iraq, the Taliban-led insurgency has begun to use them on a wider scale in Afghanistan. Four coalition soldiers died Tuesday when an improvised explosive device, or IED in military jargon, exploded in southern Afghanistan, where most of the new troops are headed.

Senior military officers say Afghanistan's topography and primitive infrastructure play to the insurgents' advantage. Unlike Iraq, where more of the streets are paved, Afghanistan has a network of undeveloped roads that makes it far easier to lay traps.

"Dirt roads give you plenty of softer places to dig in, then for the weather to settle it, and then for dust to camouflage it," said Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, director of the Pentagon's organization in charge of seeking ways to counter improvised explosives.

Even the most vital paved highway, the Ring Road that is the primary route for commercial and military convoys between Kabul and other major cities, was built with thousands of culverts - any of which could conceal explosives.

The military plans to use satellites and portable Global Positioning Systems to show convoys the exact location of each culvert and to install sensors that could detect hidden bombs, Metz said.

His unit, the Joint IED Defeat Organization, tallied 3,611 incidents of improvised explosives in Afghanistan in 2008, a 50 percent increase from 2007. The number of U.S. and allied deaths from roadside bombs more than doubled, to 176 in 2008 from 75 in 2007. Even more Afghan civilians were killed.

In Iraq, there were more than 9,000 IED attacks last year, but that was far below 2006, when they reached 2,500 a month. Today, insurgents in Iraq are planting fewer IEDs, and only one in nine produces an American casualty.

In Afghanistan, where as many as one in three bombs kills or wounds someone, American officers say they hope a combination of technology, intelligence, armor and training can help them drive down the casualty rate.

The improvised bombs - buried in roads, packed into cars or bicycles, and hidden in trash cans or animal carcasses - are constructed from materials readily available in war zones, whether abandoned bombs, construction explosives or fertilizer. They are the weapon of choice for an insurgency: cheap and easy to build, but difficult to detect and counter.

The Pentagon created the counter-IED organization in 2006, and its budget has ranged from $3.5 billion to $4.4 billion annually, but that does not include costs for armored vehicles and other systems.

In part because new jamming technology has foiled some weapons triggered remotely by cellphones or garage-door openers, insurgents in Afghanistan are turning to more primitive methods, using wire or even rope as triggers.

Other countermeasures being prepared include a ground-penetrating radar that only recently completed testing, as well as more jammers, wheeled robots, hardened troop transport vehicles and a laser that can detonate an IED from a safe distance. Armored vehicles with heavy rollers in front will be deployed to detonate bombs triggered by pressure plates.

Beyond that, the Pentagon is planning to buy 2,080 heavily armored vehicles that are more maneuverable than the 2,000 larger models in place. Each costs about $1 million. The more unwieldy version of the troop transport, known as a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle, or M-RAP, has trouble negotiating Afghanistan's rough terrain.

The military's counter-IED effort in Afghanistan is managed by Task Force Paladin, with headquarters at Bagram Air Field outside Kabul, and has focused most of its efforts on eastern Afghanistan. General David McKiernan, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said the task force would expand its efforts in the south to support the additional troops.

Programs deemed successful in Iraq will be replicated in Afghanistan, including one that uses small passenger aircraft upgraded with advanced reconnaissance sensors to search for IEDs and another that uses remotely piloted surveillance vehicles.

Officials declined to provide numbers for the new surveillance aircraft or the additional intelligence teams, citing security concerns.

Overall, there are 38,000 American troops in Afghanistan today; half are in the NATO security and assistance force along with 32,000 allied troops, and half are under United States command carrying out counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and training missions.

IEDs are intended to do more than kill troops on the battlefield, Metz said: "The enemy knows this is a strategic weapon to influence public opinion back in the U.S., to influence positively his recruiting and to show people that the central government in Kabul has less control."
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A Strategy for Afghanistan
By Henry A. Kissinger Thursday, February 26, 2009 The Washington Post Page A19
The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point.

The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk.

Heretofore, America has pursued traditional anti-insurgency tactics: to create a central government, help it extend its authority over the entire country and, in the process, bring about a modern bureaucratic and democratic society.

That strategy cannot succeed in Afghanistan -- especially not as an essentially solitary effort. The country is too large, the territory too forbidding, the ethnic composition too varied, the population too heavily armed. No foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan. Even attempts to establish centralized Afghan control have rarely succeeded and then not for long. Afghans seem to define their country in terms of a common dedication to independence but not to unitary or centralized self-government.

The truism that the war is, in effect, a battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan population is valid enough in concept. The low standard of living of much of the population has been exacerbated by 30 years of civil war. The economy is on the verge of sustaining itself through the sale of narcotics. There is no significant democratic tradition. Reform is a moral necessity. But the time scale for reform is out of sync with the requirements of anti-guerrilla warfare. Reform will require decades; it should occur as a result of, and even side by side with, the attainment of security -- but it cannot be the precondition for it.

The military effort will inevitably unfold at a pace different from the country's political evolution. Immediately, however, we are able to make sure that our aid efforts, now diffuse and inefficient, are coherent and relevant to popular needs. And much greater emphasis should be given to local and regional entities.

Military strategy should concentrate on preventing the emergence of a coherent, contiguous state within the state controlled by jihadists. In practice, this would mean control of Kabul and the Pashtun area. A jihadist base area on both sides of the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border would become a permanent threat to hopes for a moderate evolution and to all of Afghanistan's neighbors. Gen. David Petraeus has argued that, reinforced by the number of American forces he has recommended, he should be able to control the 10 percent of Afghan territory where, in his words, 80 percent of the military threat originates. This is the region where the "clear, hold and build" strategy that had success in Iraq is particularly applicable.

In the rest of the country, our military strategy should be more fluid, aimed at forestalling the emergence of terrorist strong points. It should be based on close cooperation with local chiefs and coordination with their militias to be trained by U.S. forces -- the kind of strategy that proved so successful in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold in Iraq. This is a plausible approach, though it seems improbable that the 17,000 reinforcements President Obama recently committed are enough. In the end, the fundamental issue is not so much how the war will be conducted but how it will be ended. Afghanistan is almost the archetypal international problem requiring a multilateral solution for a political framework to emerge. In the 19th century, formal neutrality was sometimes negotiated to impose a standstill on interventions in and from strategically located countries. This provided a framework for defusing day-to-day international relations. (Belgian neutrality, for example, was not challenged for nearly 100 years.) Is it possible to devise a modern equivalent?

In Afghanistan, such an outcome is achievable only if its principal neighbors agree on a policy of restraint and opposition to terrorism. Their recent conduct argues against such prospects. Yet history should teach them that unilateral efforts at dominance are likely to fail in the face of countervailing intervention by other outside actors. To explore such a vision, the United States should propose a working group of Afghanistan's neighbors, India and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Such a group should be charged with assisting in the reconstruction and reform of Afghanistan and establishing principles for the country's international status and obligations to oppose terrorist activities. Over time, America's unilateral military efforts can merge with the diplomatic efforts of this group. As the strategy envisaged by Petraeus succeeds, the prospects for a political solution along these lines would grow correspondingly.

The precondition for such a policy is cooperation with Russia and Pakistan. With respect to Russia, it requires a clear definition of priorities, especially a choice between partnership or adversarial conduct insofar as it depends on us.

The conduct of Pakistan will be crucial. Pakistan's leaders must face the fact that continued toleration of the sanctuaries -- or continued impotence with respect to them -- will draw their country ever deeper into an international maelstrom. If the jihadists were to prevail in Afghanistan, Pakistan would surely be the next target -- as is observable by activity already taking place along the existing borders and in the Swat Valley close to Islamabad. If that were to happen, the affected countries would need to consult each other about the implications of the nuclear arsenal of a Pakistan being engulfed or even threatened by jihadists. Like every country engaged in Afghanistan, Pakistan has to make decisions that will affect its international position for decades.

Other countries, especially our NATO allies, face comparable choices. Symbolically, the participation of NATO partners is significant. But save for some notable exceptions, public support for military operations is negligible in almost all NATO countries. It is possible, of course, that Obama's popularity in Europe can modify these attitudes -- but probably to only a limited extent. The president would have to decide how far he will carry the inevitable differences and face the reality that disagreements concern fundamental questions of NATO's future and reach. Improved consultation would ease this process. It is likely to turn out, however, that the differences are not procedural. We may then conclude that an enhanced NATO contribution to Afghanistan's reconstruction is more useful than a marginal military effort constrained by caveats. But if NATO turns into an alliance a la carte in this manner, a precedent that can cut both ways would be set. Those who tempt a U.S. withdrawal by their indifference or irresolution evade the prospect that it would be the prelude to a long series of accelerating and escalating crises.

President Obama said Tuesday night that he "will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world." Whatever strategy his team selects needs to be pursued with determination. It is not possible to hedge against failure by half-hearted execution.
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U.S. will boost supplies for Afghan force
By Andrew Gray – Thu Feb 26, 7:02 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will be able to ramp up supplies for thousands of extra troops being sent to Afghanistan even though convoys have come under attack in Pakistan, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday.

Air Force General Duncan McNabb, head of U.S. Transportation Command, said the attacks by militants in Pakistan had declined recently and the U.S. military had expanded its options for delivering supplies to Afghanistan.

But McNabb, whose headquarters is responsible for moving U.S. military supplies around the world, acknowledged that he worried about the security of the Pakistan routes.

"It's something that gives us great concern," he told a House (of Representatives) committee. "You don't want to make this a vulnerability," he added. "And I, quite frankly, do not think that it is. I think that we will get the stuff through."

Militants staged a string of attacks late last year on supplies trucked by commercial haulers through northwest Pakistan from the port of Karachi to U.S. and other foreign troops fighting a resurgent Taliban in landlocked Afghanistan.

Hundreds of trucks were destroyed in the attacks and several drivers were killed.

Earlier this month, suspected militants blew up a bridge in northwestern Pakistan's Khyber Pass, temporarily cutting the main supply route for Western forces in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military's logistical efforts were further complicated this month when Kyrgyzstan decided to shut down a U.S. air base in the central Asian country, a hub for moving troops and equipment into Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama, in his first major military decision, last week approved the deployment of 17,000 extra U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

MAJOR CHALLENGE
McNabb said getting supplies into Afghanistan through its rugged mountainous terrain was a major challenge, with essentially only five possible access points by land.

"You couldn't choose a harder place," he said.

McNabb said the U.S. military needed about 78 shipping containers to be trucked into Afghanistan daily to supply the 38,000 U.S. troops currently there and the routes through Pakistan could potentially handle three times that number.

Since the beginning of January, an average of 90 containers had been trucked in every day, McNabb said.

"What I do is make sure we're always beating 78," McNabb told the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

The number of containers needed could rise by about 50 percent to sustain the larger U.S. force ordered in by Obama, he said.

The U.S. military sends food, water, fuel and construction supplies into Afghanistan by land but sensitive military equipment is transported by air, McNabb said.

About 75 percent of U.S. supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, the Pentagon says. But officials, alarmed by the attacks there, have sought in recent months to open up central Asian routes into northern Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have agreed NATO non-military cargo for Afghanistan may pass through their territories, Russia's Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday.
(Editing by David Storey)
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Shifting Alliances Complicate U.S.-Pakistan War Against Militants
By Omar Waraich time.com Islamabad Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009
The Obama Administration may be pressing Pakistan to intensify its efforts against Islamist militants on its own soil, but Islamabad has its own ways of tackling the issue — most recently in the form of truces with local Taliban forces that have raised eyebrows in Washington. Pity the intelligence analyst tasked with interpreting the rapidly changing political landscape of Pakistan's wild northwest and tribal areas over the past week.

First, the Taliban in the Swat Valley announced an "indefinite cease-fire," but only after the Army had agreed to halt its counterinsurgency operations, and the government caved in to the militants' demand for the imposition of Islamic law. Then, it emerged that the Taliban and the Army would both be observing a four-day truce in Bajaur, the tribal area along the Afghan border that has seen the fiercest fighting of Pakistan's domestic campaign against extremists. And, on a more ominous note, last weekend at an undisclosed location deep within Waziristan's mountains, Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud forged a new alliance with two rival commanders who had fought him with backing by the government.

The recent developments have caused concern among Pakistan's Western allies, who hope to see a tougher government crackdown on militancy — and, at least in Swat, have emboldened the militants, who believe that they have prevailed over the government's effort to militarily dislodge them.

Pakistan's domestic militants have faced a four-pronged assault since last summer, with counterinsurgency campaigns by Pakistani troops in Swat, Bajaur and the town of Darra Adam Khel — home to a notorious militant arms industry — along with stepped up CIA-directed missile strikes from pilotless drone aircraft. The seriousness of the Pakistani effort was underlined by the scores of casualties suffered by the military, particularly in Bajaur. The military believes it has the Taliban on the ropes in Bajaur, and says the truce there is simply to give them an opportunity to surrender their weapons. The cease-fire in Swat, however, comes at a moment when four-fifths of the area is under the control of the forces of local jihadist Maulana Fazlullah, which have yet to lay down their weapons. Indeed, when the new government administrator took his post in the area on Sunday, he was kidnapped by local Taliban forces, and held hostage to secure the release of a handful of their imprisoned comrades. Military officials say the level of civilian casualties in the fighting there made a truce preferable to an ongoing counterinsurgency campaign that had alienated much of the local population.

The Pakistan cease-fires give cause for concern in the Obama Administration, not least because they apply only to Taliban actions against the Pakistani state. In declaring their cease-fire, the Bajaur-based Taliban said it had been mistaken in targeting the Pakistan army, and promised instead to concentrate its fire on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.

While the U.S. seeks to eliminate the sanctuaries inside Pakistan from which militants operate in Afghanistan, Pakistan's priority has been to restore its own security. And Islamabad's domestic pacification effort has not been helped by U.S. tactics, particularly the missile strikes from pilotless drones targeting militants, which have inflicted civilian casualties and fanned local anger. Amid last year's fighting in Bajaur, the Pakistan army protested a flurry of drone strikes against the compounds of veteran militant leader Jalaluddin Haqqani in North Waziristan, arguing that such actions would open up another front at a time when Pakistan's resources were already stretched.

In truth, Islamabad's protests may camouflage a tacit backing of the drone attacks, of which there have been over 30 since last August. Pakistan's governments have ritually condemned the attacks as "counterproductive," going as far as to summon the U.S.ambassador on one occasion. However, after Sen. Dianne Feinstein inadvertently revealed to a Senate Intelligence Committee that the drones operate from a base inside Pakistan, it has emerged that the policy carries Islamabad's silent imprimatur.

In interviews with TIME, a former cabinet minister in the government of President Pervez Musharraf and a current senior government offical have both confirmed that the previous government agreed to allow the CIA to target militants operating on Pakistan's soil. Both sources refused to be named because of the sensitivity of the information. "Musharraf gave them the base in Shamsi [in a remote part of Baluchistan] to use for drones, logistics, everything," said the current government official, who insists that the airstrikes are "counterproductive" because they inflame public opinion against Islamabad's alliance with Washington. "We have inherited all these problems from the previous government. There is an opinion in Pakistan that says that the Americans are doing our job for us [by targeting the militants]. But the drone attacks constitute an infringement of our sovereignty."

The complex web of alliances is also illustrated by the U.S. use of drones to target two groups of militants based in Waziristan, led by Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur. These men, from the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe which straddles both sides of the Afghanistan border, had formed an alliance with the Pakistani Army against Baitullah Mehsud and other militants. In fact, backed by the Army, Nazir and his men had routed some 250 al-Qaeda-aligned Uzbek militants from Wana in South Waziristan in 2004. But despite their non-aggression pact with the Pakistani military, both men continued to mount cross-border attacks on U.S. and NATO troops. The fact that they became targets of U.S. drone attacks prompted critics in Pakistan to suggest that the Musharraf government was double-dealing in some of its alliances in the tribal areas.

That's certainly how Nazir and Bahadur see it. The two men and Mehsud, the militant commander against whom they fought on behalf of the Pakistani military, have now formed a new alliance with ambitions on both sides of the border. The "Shura Ittehad Mujahideen", or Council of United Jihadists, has declared war on the governments of the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan, and proclaimed its fealty to Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban. (The Pakistan Taliban has, until now, been a separate, if like-minded group.) In this instance, the drone war may actually have strengthened one of the most intractable militants operating in Pakistan.

The government hopes that its peace deal in Swat will drive a wedge between militants there and the stronger, more ambitious Mehsud — and, if successful, that it can be replicated on other fronts. But as is demonstrated by the shifting alliances in Waziristan, the basic problem facing the Pakistani government is that most of the population in the areas it's trying to pacify, while not inherently opposed to the Pakistani state, nonetheless support the principle of fighting the Americans in Afghanistan.
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UK Names Mark Sedwill New Ambassador To Afghanistan
LONDON (AFP)--The U.K. on Thursday named Mark Sedwill, who has held a string of high-level postings in Asia and the Middle East, as its new ambassador to Afghanistan.

Sedwill, who will take up the post in April, replaces Sherard Cowper-Coles, who was earlier this month named the U.K.'s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Currently international director of the U.K. Border Agency, Sedwill was the Foreign Office's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa in 2005, deputy high commissioner in Pakistan in 2003-04, and spent time in Iraq in 1996- 97 as a diplomat and U.N. weapons inspector.
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Afghan women legislators meet at NATO
BRUSSELS, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- A delegation of women representatives from Afghanistan's Parliament concluded a visit to NATO headquarters Wednesday after holding meetings on Afghan stability.

The high-level delegation, which included representatives of the upper and lower houses of Afghanistan's National Assembly, conducted three days of meetings with NATO officials aimed at discussing the role of Afghan women in supporting stability in the country, NATO reported.

Officials said the meetings were part of an ongoing NATO initiative to "engage women in a constructive dialogue on issues related to the stability, reconstruction and development of Afghanistan," the release said.

At the top of the priority list for the meetings were continuing discussions on the Bucharest Summit Declaration, which outlined short- and long-term strategic-policy goals of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, among other initiatives.
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IDPs in northwest battle cold, diseases and hunger
26 Feb 2009
QALA-I-NAW, 26 February 2009 (IRIN) - Freezing temperatures, hunger and sickness are unrelenting inside an old tent where Dadullah's family has been living near Qala-e-Nau, the capital of the northwestern Afghan province of Badghis.

The family abandoned their home in Moqur District because of recurrent armed conflict between insurgent groups and pro-government forces and prevalent food insecurity.

"We left our homes out of despair and came here for survival," the 42-year-old father-of-four told IRIN outside his tent. "These children are hungry and feel cold," he said pointing to his young children huddled around him, shivering in the cold.

A provincial official said about 400 families (around 2,000 individuals) had been displaced across the province over the past two months. Most of the displaced have set up tents or sought shelter in dilapidated houses in the outskirts of the provincial capital.

Due to below zero temperatures and lack of access to safe drinking water, many internally displaced persons (IDPs), particularly children, are prone to diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.

"We have lost everything. I cannot even buy medicine for my sick children," said Dadullah.

Dearth of aid
Badghis is a remote province that has had little development and humanitarian activity over the past several years, making it one of the least developed of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

Provincial government authorities said they had few resources at their disposal to mitigate the suffering of IDPs and that non-government aid agencies had little presence in the province.

Access to vulnerable people in Badghis and large areas in the south, east and central parts of the country has been impeded by worsening insecurity, attacks on aid workers, rugged terrain and lack of transport infrastructure.

The Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS), which has extensive presence across the country, said its provincial department delivered live-saving relief to some IDPs but acknowledged the need for more.

"These people [IDPs] need more emergency food aid, medical assistance, winter supplies and shelter," Abdul Rahim Raheen, ARCS's provincial head, told IRIN.

Amid a worsening humanitarian situation across Afghanistan largely resulting from conflict, drought and high food prices, the issue of how to meet the needs of IDPs remains a pressing challenge for the Afghan government and aid organisations.

Over 235,000 individuals are currently displaced in different parts of the country, down from about one million in 2002, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

However, tens of thousands of IDPs are deprived of basic necessities and are in need of immediate assistance, Amnesty International, a London-based rights watchdog, said on 18 February.
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Afghanistan and Iraq - What If?
New York Times By Dexter Filkins February 25, 2009
KABUL - Today we begin showcasing dispatches from other New York Times bureaus in the region. Dexter Filkins sees Iraq through the prism of the other American conflict: Afghanistan.

In their quiet moments, aid workers call it “the tragedy:” the billions of dollars that never arrived here. The troops that landed somewhere else. The bright minds that turned to that other, greater subject. And, in all those events, the sad sinking of the promise that greeted the American-led victory over the Taliban in November 2001, more than seven years ago.

The “tragedy” these aid workers are referring to, of course, is the war in Iraq. Not that the Iraq war itself was tragic but that it was calamitous in its results for the other war that suddenly fell to the lower tier. More than any other factor, it is the American invasion of Iraq that looms over Afghanistan and all of its dashed hopes.

Traveling around the benighted country, it's impossible not to indulge in what historians call the “counter-factual,” also known as the “what-if.” What if the Americans had not invaded Iraq? What if all those resources had stayed here? All those troops? All that money? What if? Would Kabul's muddy streets all been paved? Would Taliban fighters be perched just outside the capital? Would Osama bin Laden still be making audio tapes?

I posed this question to an aid worker in Kabul, a Westerner who has spent many years in the country. We'd been talking about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, the spread of Taliban-fostered mayhem north from the Pakistani border. “This is the tragedy,” the official said. “This is for the history books — the $70 billion that would have given you enough police and army to stabilize this place all went to Iraq.”

The American ambassador to Afghanistan, William Wood, put the issue more delicately. “I think frankly that everyone — the international community, the United States, the United Nations, Western Europe, the international press — were unrealistically optimistic about the problem of Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban.”

Everywhere you go in Afghanistan, you see opportunities missed, buildings unbuilt, mayhem uncontained. In Maiwand, a dusty city in southern Afghanistan, I followed a group of American soldiers into the “headquarters” of the National Directorate of Security, a wing of the national police. The building was devastated, a relic of wars gone by: the windows were shattered, the doors unhinged. The furniture inside was moldy and old. The room was dark without electricity. The chief, Abdul Ghafar, is a brave man: the Taliban have killed hundreds of Afghan police officers like him across the country. And he is good at what he does: sitting in the darkened room, Mr. Ghafar warned the American soldiers of new intelligence his men had collected that the Taliban had recently moved a suicide bomber into the area. “Listen to me,” the chief said. “What I'm telling you is the truth.” Maybe Chief Ghafar will thrive in the new Afghan state. Maybe he will die. But surely his chances would be much better if he had a proper building to work in.

During my talk with the aid official in Kabul, the conversation turned, as so many do here, to the subject of Iraq. In Iraq, the crucial event that the reversed the course of the war was the phenomenon known as the “Sunni Awakening.” Essentially, the Awakening amounted to a decision by a majority of the insurgents to reach an accommodation with the Americans. A deal was struck, more than 100,000 Sunnis–many of them former insurgents–were put on the payroll, and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was decimated. In some areas, the violence in Iraq is down by more than 90 percent.

For the aid official, the important factor in Iraq was the context within which the Awakening took place. The Iraqi insurgents took five years to switch sides and in those five years, the Americans had built a new Iraqi state. They held elections, built new government buildings, and, crucially, trained and equipped an Iraqi army and police force with 300,000 members. “There was a mass,” the aid official said. “There was a state they could be a part of.”

In Afghanistan, after seven years, there is no such thing. Outside of Kabul's city limits, the state barely functions. The Afghan Army has just 70,000 troops. The police chiefs, like Abdul Ghafar, work in broken buildings and in the dark. “The mass is not there,” the official said.

In Afghanistan, history is moving too fast to engage in counter-factuals. To ask “what if” is to let history pass you by. But, seven years on, there are lessons that history can teach us and, in this case, they seem to many here as clear as the broken windows in Chief Ghafar's office.
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Afghan review to ensure there is no further attack on US: WH
The Economic Times - Feb 26 12:50 AM
WASHINGTON: The Obama Administration is currently doing a review of the Afghan Policy with an aim to make sure that it does not become a safe haven for terrorists again to plot strikes on the US, the White House has said.

"The President has spoken on a number of occasions, throughout an almost two-year-long campaign, the transition, and even as President of the US about the tremendous danger in that region of the world," White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs told reporters yesterday.

Gibbs said the Obama Administration has undertaken a review of its policy, as it relates towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, "in order to ensure, as the President says, that there are terrorists plotting attacks on American soil and safe havens in Afghanistan, as we speak."

High-level delegations of Afghanistan and Pakistan led by their Foreign Ministers are in Washington to give inputs to the policy review being undertaken currently.

Secretary of State Hillary R Clinton is about to host a tri-lateral meeting with her Pakistani and Afghan counterparts today to find a common ground on the issue. She is also scheduled to meet the Afghan delegation.

To a question on sending extra troops in Afghanistan, Gibbs said: "I think many in Pentagon and certainly commanders on the ground in Afghanistan and throughout the region would tell you that what the president decided to do in Afghanistan would be impossible to do without a sharp and significant, yet responsible drawdown in Iraq."
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Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan, 26 Feb 2009
Feb 26 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0830 GMT on Thursday:

HELMAND - An explosion killed three British soldiers during an operation in Girishk district, 530 km (330 miles) southwest of Kabul on Wednesday, the British Defence Ministry said.

HELMAND - A British Royal Marine died in hospital in Britain on Wednesday of wounds he sustained from insurgent fire while on patrol in Sangin, 490 km (305 miles) southwest of Kabul, the British Defence Ministry said.

HELMAND - Helmand Deputy Governor Hajji Abdul Sattar and NATO-led and Afghan security forces have launched a joint investigation into the death of civilians during an engagement between NATO-led forces and insurgents on Monday, the alliance said. (Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Paul Tait)
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Exclusive: Lawyer says Guantanamo abuse worse since Obama
Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:23pm GMT By Luke Baker
LONDON (Reuters) - Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards "get their kicks in" before the camp is closed, according to a lawyer who represents detainees.

Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike.

The Pentagon said on Monday that it had received renewed reports of prisoner abuse during a recent review of conditions at Guantanamo, but had concluded that all prisoners were being kept in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

"According to my clients, there has been a ramping up in abuse since President Obama was inaugurated," said Ghappour, a British-American lawyer with Reprieve, a legal charity that represents 31 detainees at Guantanamo.

"If one was to use one's imagination, (one) could say that these traumatized, and for lack of a better word barbaric, guards were just basically trying to get their kicks in right now for fear that they won't be able to later," he said.

"Certainly in my experience there have been many, many more reported incidents of abuse since the inauguration," added Ghappour, who has visited Guantanamo six times since late September and based his comments on his own observations and conversations with both prisoners and guards.

He stressed the mistreatment did not appear to be directed from above, but was an initiative undertaken by frustrated U.S. army and navy jailers on the ground. It did not seem to be a reaction against the election of Obama, a Democrat who has pledged to close the prison camp within a year, but rather a realization that there was little time remaining before the last 241 detainees, all Muslim, are released.

"It's 'hey, let's have our fun while we can,'" said Ghappour, who helped secure the release this week of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident freed from Guantanamo Bay after more than four years in detention without trial or charge.

"I can't really imagine why you would get your kicks from abusing prisoners, but certainly, having spoken to certain guards who have been injured in Iraq, who indirectly or directly blame my clients for their injuries and the trauma they have suffered, it's not too difficult to put two and two together."

FORCE-FEEDING
Following a January 22 order from Obama, the U.S. Defense Department conducted a two-week review of conditions at Guantanamo ahead of the planned closure of the prison on Cuba.

Admiral Patrick Walsh, the review's author, acknowledged on Monday that reports of abuse had emerged but concluded all inmates were being treated in line with the Geneva Conventions.

"We heard allegations of abuse," he said, asked if detainees had reported torture. "And what we did at that point was to go back and investigate the allegation... What we found is that there were in some cases substantiated evidence where guards had misconduct, I think that would be the best way to put it."

Walsh said his review looked at 20 allegations of abuse, 14 of which were substantiated, but he did not go into details. Generally he said the abuse ranged from "gestures, comments, disrespect" to "preemptive use of pepper spray."

Ghappour said he had spoken to army guards who, unsolicited, had described the pleasure they took in abusing prisoners, whether interrupting prayer or physical mistreatment. He said they appeared unconcerned about potential repercussions.

He also saw evidence of guards pulling identity numbers off their uniforms or switching them once they were on duty in order to make it more difficult for them to be identified.

Ghappour said he had filed two complaints of serious detainee abuse since December 22 but received no response from U.S. authorities. In one case his client had his knee, shoulder and thumb dislocated by a group of guards, Ghappour said.

In one of the six main camps at Guantanamo, the lawyer said all the detainees he knew were on hunger strike and subject to force-feeding, including with laxatives that induced chronic diarrhea while they were strapped in their feeding chairs.

"Several of my clients have had toilet paper pepper-sprayed while they have had hemorrhoids," Ghappour said.

Another area of concern was evidence that detainees were being abused on the way to meetings with their lawyers -- sometimes so badly that they no longer wanted to meet with counsel for fear of the beatings they would receive, he said.

"Some detainees are convinced they are going to be locked up there forever, despite the promises to close the camp," he said.

(Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen and Andrew Gray in Washington, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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Taliban kill 'US spy' as 'gift to Obama'
AFP, 26 February 2009 - MIRANSHAH, Pakistan
Taliban militants beheaded an Afghan in Pakistan's lawless tribal region after accusing him of spying for the United States, local police said Thursday.

The 35-year-old man was kidnapped one week ago and his body found Thursday in Razmak some 65 kilometers (43 miles) south of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, an official said.

"He was slaughtered overnight. His headless body was put on the roadside, police official Munir Khan told AFP. A note found on the body of the man, identified as Shafiq Gul, said he was "spying for the US".

"Whoever spies for the US will face the same fate. This is a gift to (US President Barack) Obama," the note said.

Islamist militants frequently kidnap and kill local tribesmen and Afghans, on alleged charges of spying for the Pakistani government or for US forces, who are battling a Taliban-led insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's rugged tribal regions have been wracked by violence since becoming a stronghold for hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels who fled across the border to escape the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

The new Obama administration is conducting a comprehensive strategy review in its war against Islamist extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Obama seeks $75.5 billion for Iraq and Afghan wars 2009
Thu Feb 26, 2009 5:23pm GMT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking an additional $75.5 billion (53 billion pounds) for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of the current fiscal year in a budget released Thursday that reflects plans to pull troops out of Iraq.

Obama, in his first budget, is also requesting $130 billion for military operations in the two wars for fiscal year 2010 that starts October 1, which would be a decline from the roughly $140 billion he expects will be needed this year.

"The budget recognizes and funds the president's strategy to increase our resources in Afghanistan while responsibly removing combat brigades from Iraq," the document said.

Congress has already appropriated about half of the money that the Obama administration says it will need for Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

The proposed 2010 budget would increase U.S. defence spending by 4 percent, or $20.4 billion, to $533.7 billion, excluding the cost of the wars or work on nuclear weapons.

Total spending in the Pentagon base budget and for the wars would reach nearly $664 billion in fiscal 2010, if the plan is approved by Congress.

The administration anticipates big savings in the budget over the next few years in a number of areas, including defence spending. Obama aides say the drawdown of troops from the Iraq war will help yield significant budget savings.

But some private analysts are sceptical that a reduction of troops will bring big savings in the near-term because the drawdown from Iraq comes as the administration is boosting troop levels in Afghanistan.

An administration official said the costs of moving personnel and equipment out of a war zone were included in the budget.

Obama plans to give a speech on Friday at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, in which he is widely expected to announce steps to begin pulling U.S. combat troops out of Iraq.

(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Jackie Frank)
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