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Karzai asks for new date for presidential election
By JASON STRAZIUSO
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday backed off plans for an August election and asked the country's electoral commission to set a new date after lawmakers said they would not recognize
Obama Says U.S. Needs Afghanistan Plan Before Exit
By Kim Chipman
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said the U.S. lost focus on its goals in Afghanistan and his administration must set clear policy objectives before coming up with a plan to bring American troops home.
Afghan: Taliban has 10,000 to 15,000 fighters
The Associated Press February 27, 2009
WASHINGTON: Afghanistan's interior minister says there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 Taliban fighting inside his country, and the insurgent group is operating across about 17 provinces.
US goals in Afghanistan achievable, says Obama
Washington (PTI): Expressing his resolve to refocus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Barack Obama has said that American goals of uprooting terrorists safe havens were achievable in Afghanistan.
Analysts: Obama to ask for more Australian troops
The Associated Press Saturday, February 28, 2009
CANBERRA, Australia: President Barack Obama will pressure Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to commit more Australian troops to Afghanistan when the two leaders meet for the first time, analysts said Saturday.
Rudd and Obama to go face-to-face on Afghanistan
Sydney Morning Herald Mark Davis Political Correspondent February 28, 2009
AFGHANISTAN will be at the top of the agenda when the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, meets the United States President, Barack Obama, for the first time in Washington next month.
McCain Says More U.S. Troops Needed to Prevail in Afghanistan
By Edwin Chen
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Senator John McCain said the U.S. will need to send additional troops to Afghanistan beyond the 17,000 that President Barack Obama has ordered. And he foresees an American military presence there for at least a decade.
Slide toward anarchy
Islamabad's deal with the Taliban may be a turning point in a failing regional battle against extremism
AHMED RASHID From Saturday's Globe and Mail February 27, 2009.
LAHORE — A spate of ceasefires between the Pakistani army and government, on one hand and the Pakistani Taliban across northern Pakistan, on the other, are a watershed in the country's steady slide toward greater anarchy
Afghanistan Urges More Support in Talks With U.S. and Pakistan
Bloomberg By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan Feb. 27 , 2009
Afghanistan wants the U.S. to boost support for democracy and nation-building and expects better cooperation with neighboring Pakistan in denying safe havens to terrorists, top Afghan officials said today.
Blast kills coalition contractor in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A contractor working for U.S.-led coalition forces died Saturday in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan after a roadside bomb exploded during a combat reconnaissance patrol, U.S. forces in Afghanistan said.
Facing Language Gaps and ‘Flying Trucks,’ U.S. Trains Afghan Pilots
By ELISABETH BUMILLER February 27, 2009 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Col. James A. Brandon flew Black Hawks when Moscow was considered a mortal foe of the United States and spent years in the Army studying enemy aircraft.
Afghanistan royal says he has iron will of ancestor to govern
Scotsman By JEROME STARKEY 28 February 2009
KABUL - THE great-grandson of Afghanistan's legendary Iron Amir – who forced rogue courtiers to eat each other – has joined the race to be the country's next president.
Report Says Drug Trade in Mexico, Afghanistan, Threatens US National Security
Voice of America By David Gollust 28 February 2009
Washington - A U.S. State Department report Friday said drug trafficking in Mexico and the opium trade in Afghanistan pose significant national security threats to the United States. Some progress against the drug trade was reported in both countries.
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Karzai asks for new date for presidential election
By JASON STRAZIUSO
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday backed off plans for an August election and asked the country's electoral commission to set a new date after lawmakers said they would not recognize Karzai as president after May 22.
The brief statement from Karzai's office offered no new date for a presidential vote, but said the election commission should follow the Afghan constitution, which calls for elections to be held 30 to 60 days before May 22, the expiration of Karzai's five-year term.
The commission in January said the presidential election would be held Aug. 20, but many members of parliament have said Karzai would be an illegitimate president after May 22 and that an August vote was not acceptable.
However, international monitors have said it would be difficult if not impossible to hold valid elections during the March-April timeframe because of security concerns, bad weather and logistical issues like the distribution of ballots.
It was not immediately clear if Karzai's decree was political posturing to counter demands from parliament or if he thought elections would actually be moved up.
Waheed Omer, a government spokesman, said Karzai's decree asks the electoral commission to set a new date "that hopefully adheres to the constitution."
"When the election commission set the date of Aug. 20 for the elections, the president received a letter from parliament asking him to uphold the constitution and also asking the electoral commission to uphold the constitution," Omer said.
"The president had a series of discussions with the Supreme Court and based on those discussions the president has issued a decree asking the electoral commission to uphold the constitution," Omer said.
The head of the election commission, Azizullah Lodin, said in January when he announced the Aug. 22 date that the security situation was not good enough for a spring vote.
Afghanistan continues to be plagued by militant attacks and suicide bombers since a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban's hard-line Islamist regime from power in 2001. The Taliban insurgency has strengthened in recent years, gaining more control over southern regions, and last year was the deadliest for U.S. troops since the invasion.
Lodin said the commission also agreed to wait for additional international forces expected to arrive in the coming months. President Barack Obama recently announced that 17,000 additional U.S. troops would deploy to Afghanistan this year, and U.S. officials have said they would arrive in time to help secure the election.
Associated Press reporter Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
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Obama Says U.S. Needs Afghanistan Plan Before Exit
By Kim Chipman
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said the U.S. lost focus on its goals in Afghanistan and his administration must set clear policy objectives before coming up with a plan to bring American troops home.
“Until we have a clear strategy, we’re not going to have a clear exit strategy,” Obama said in an interview tonight on public television’s “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” program. “My goal is to get U.S. troops home as quickly as possible without leaving a situation that allows for potential terrorist attacks against the United States.”
Obama, who earlier today outlined plans for withdrawing combat forces from Iraq, said there’s been a “sense of drift in the mission in Afghanistan” and the U.S. must work with allies to help the country develop economically and not be a safe haven for terrorists.
“We’ve been thinking very militarily, but we haven’t been as effective in thinking diplomatically, we haven’t been thinking effectively around the development side of the equation,” he said. “You know, what are we doing to replace poppy crops for Afghans that allow them to support themselves?”
The U.S. would be “further along” in dealing with such issues in Afghanistan if the Bush administration had stayed more focused on the region, Obama said.
“But, you know, that’s history,” he said. “We now have to move forward. It’s my job to come up with the best possible approach given some of the mistakes that have been made, and the fact that the situation right now has deteriorated badly in Afghanistan.”
NATO Meeting
Obama said one of his objectives when he attends an April meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be to discuss how to “move the ball forward” in Afghanistan. “Afghanistan is not a U.S. mission, it’s a NATO mission,” Obama said.
The president last week decided the U.S. will send 17,000 additional U.S. combat and support troops to Afghanistan. In a statement he said the deployment was “necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires.”
The U.S. has about 38,000 personnel in Afghanistan, and about 32,000 troops from other NATO members also are in the country.
Marine Base Visit
Obama today visited Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and talked about his plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq over the next 18 months, with all troops removed by the end of 2011.
When later asked whether he thought the mission in Iraq could be viewed as successful, Obama told “NewsHour” the U.S. military “unequivocally succeeded in every mission given to them.” The problem, he said, was lack of competent civilian oversight.
“I don’t think that we can rightly say that the strategy cooked up by our civilian leadership, with respect to either going in in the first place or how the war was managed, was a success,” Obama said.
Obama defended his plan in Iraq when asked about comments by Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, that the withdrawal isn’t as sweeping as they expected.
“Well, what I would say is that they maybe weren’t paying attention to what I said during the campaign,” Obama said. “I said that we were going to take 16 months to withdraw our combat troops from Iraq. We are now taking 18 months rather than 16.”
Obama also said he previously had made the commitment to keep a residual force in Iraq.
“Everything that I said I would do during the campaign I am now doing,” he said. “Obviously, because of consultation with commanders on the ground, something I also said we would do, there are some modifications to the plan.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@bloomberg.net.
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Afghan: Taliban has 10,000 to 15,000 fighters
The Associated Press February 27, 2009
WASHINGTON: Afghanistan's interior minister says there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 Taliban fighting inside his country, and the insurgent group is operating across about 17 provinces.
Mohammad Hanif Atmar offered a rare estimate of the size of his government's most organized and potent opponent during a visit to Washington. A large delegation of senior Afghan officials was in the U.S. capital this week, along with a delegation from Pakistan.
Both groups were weighing in as the new Obama administration forms a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan and a related policy for Pakistan. Afghan officials say they told their hosts that a new strategy must include better cooperation from Pakistan, where Taliban and other militants have command operations.
Afghan and Pakistani officials met separately this week, as well as in three-way sessions with U.S. hosts. President Barack Obama has named a new envoy to manage an overhaul of U.S. policy toward a region Obama calls the real central front against terrorism.
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US goals in Afghanistan achievable, says Obama
Washington (PTI): Expressing his resolve to refocus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Barack Obama has said that American goals of uprooting terrorists safe havens were achievable in Afghanistan.
Soon after announcing the timeline to withdraw all US troops from Iraq by 2011, Obama, in his speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, said: "it is time now to refocus on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He last week announced to send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan and has been conducting an extensive review of US policy with regard to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The President has also appointed Richard Holbrooke as the Special Envoy for the region.
In Television interviews to CNN and PBS, Obama said that US goals in Afghanistan so far have not been clear enough that is why he said he has ordered a "head-to-toe, soup-to-nuts" review of the Afghan policy.
"Minimal goals in Afghanistan is that we make sure that it's not a safe haven for al-Qaeda, they are not able to launch attacks of the sort that happened on 9/11 against the American homeland or American interests," he said. The President said that the US had no interests or aspirations to be in Afghanistan over a long term.
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Analysts: Obama to ask for more Australian troops
The Associated Press Saturday, February 28, 2009
CANBERRA, Australia: President Barack Obama will pressure Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to commit more Australian troops to Afghanistan when the two leaders meet for the first time, analysts said Saturday.
Such a request from Australia's most important strategic ally at the leaders' first face-to-face meeting in Washington on March 24 would present a tough choice for Rudd.
His government has repeatedly assured the Australian public that no more troops will be sent to the faltering fight against insurgents in Afghanistan unless European countries agree to increase their military commitments. However, it has also said it will consider any request from the Obama administration.
Former Defense Department chief Hugh White, professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University, said Saturday that Rudd will come under intense pressure to demonstrate Australia's commitment to its alliance with the United States by sending more troops to the Central Asian country.
"Barack Obama has really committed the credibility of his presidency to his capacity to persuade other partners — NATO and non-NATO — to increase their contributions in Afghanistan, so I think he's going to be pretty keen to pop the question and very reluctant to take 'no' for an answer," White told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Michael McKinley, an expert in global politics from the same university, agreed that Obama will expect Australia to escalate its troop commitment as an additional 17,000 U.S. troops join the fight against a resurgent al-Qaida and Taliban force.
"It's very clear that Obama wants an additional contribution from Australia," McKinley told The Associated Press.
Rudd will be only the third national leader to meet Obama in Washington since his inauguration, following Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso last Tuesday Feb 24 and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown next Tuesday. Rudd and Obama have spoken by telephone three times, twice since the president's election.
Rudd said in a statement on Friday that the two leaders will discuss "how we can work together in Afghanistan."
With 1,000 troops in Afghanistan, Australia is the largest contributor outside NATO to the U.S.-led alliance there.
Rudd, who was elected in late 2007, said Friday that Australia's 58-year-old alliance with the United States was the bedrock of Australian foreign and security policy.
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Rudd and Obama to go face-to-face on Afghanistan
Sydney Morning Herald Mark Davis Political Correspondent February 28, 2009
AFGHANISTAN will be at the top of the agenda when the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, meets the United States President, Barack Obama, for the first time in Washington next month.
Mr Rudd said yesterday he would meet the US president on March 24 for discussions on a co-ordinated international response to the global financial crisis and new president's strategies for Afghanistan. The two men have spoken on the telephone several times but it will be their first face-to-face meeting since Mr Obama's election win last year.
Mr Rudd said they would also discuss climate change, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and the future shape of the Asia-Pacific region.
"I look forward to using my meetings in Washington to build on the strong ties that already exist between our nations."
The new American administration is currently finalising a review of its military and political strategy for Afghanistan.
Mr Obama has already announced that the US will send another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan and his Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has said the Administration will be looking for its European allies to boost their presence in the country.
That has generated speculation the US will ask Australia to increase its military commitment to Afghanistan. There are just under 1100 Australian soldiers in Afghanistan now.
The chief of the Australian Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, told Senate estimates this week the Government had not asked defence to evaluate whether Australia could make a larger commitment to Afghanistan. Air Chief Marshal Houston said many of the 17,000 extra US troops would be deployed in the "Pushtun south" of Afghanistan including the province of Oruzgan where Australia's forces were stationed.
He said the American rethink of Afghanistan strategy was likely to focus on ensuring the country could not be used as a terrorist base rather than achieving a full-scale democratic transition.
"Instead of going for a Western-style democracy with a Westminster face we are not going there any more."
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McCain Says More U.S. Troops Needed to Prevail in Afghanistan
By Edwin Chen
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Senator John McCain said the U.S. will need to send additional troops to Afghanistan beyond the 17,000 that President Barack Obama has ordered. And he foresees an American military presence there for at least a decade.
Deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan, especially in the south, will require “more than a surge” of troops, he said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” scheduled to air today. “It’s going to be long and hard and tough.”
McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, didn’t specify a troop number. The surge was a term widely applied to the deployment of some 30,000 troops to Iraq by then-President George W. Bush in 2007.
The Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war also strongly endorsed the Obama administration’s reversal of a Bush policy banning the news media from taking photographs of caskets bearing the bodies of fallen troops returning from foreign wars.
On Iraq, McCain, who generally supports the president’s troop withdrawal plan announced today, said Obama directly assured him and other key lawmakers in a briefing last night that he “reserves the right” to stop the withdrawal if conditions deteriorate.
The president announced he will withdraw combat forces in Iraq over the next 18 months and remove all troops by the end of 2011.
Additional Troops
An inevitable result of additional troops in Afghanistan will be increased casualties, McCain said. Ultimately, the U.S. will prevail in the fight against terrorists based in Afghanistan, he said.
The U.S. has 38,000 troops in Afghanistan, and the president recently ordered another 17,000 soldiers deployed there, pending the outcome of a strategic review he is conducting.
McCain last visited Afghanistan in November, after losing the election.
While he and Obama clashed over the Iraq war policy during the campaign, McCain said the president’s timetable is “reasonable.” During Obama’s briefing to top lawmakers at the White House yesterday, McCain said, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Obama she disagreed with his decision to leave a residual force of up to 50,000 troops in Iraq. About 142,000 American soldiers are stationed there now.
Defense Spending
When asked today about his views on the current level of defense spending envisioned by the Obama administration, McCain said, “It obviously depends on what we’re doing.”
“We obviously need to continue our growth of the Army and Marine Corps, but also the military,” he said. “We’re going to have to make tough decision on some of the weapons systems.”
Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-22 fighter springs to mind, McCain said, referring to the cost of the aircraft. Still, “I worry a bit about what is an overall reduction in defense spending,” he said regarding what appears to be a lower amount of planned defense spending under Obama compared to Bush.
On domestic issues, McCain took strong exception to Obama’s proposal to spend $634 billion to expand U.S. health-care, to be financed in part by higher taxes on wealthy Americans.
“I don’t want to raise taxes in a recession. I think it’s a serious mistake,” McCain said, calling the president’s plan a “backdoor approach to socialized medicine.”
He said he preferred to see the White House and Congress prolong the solvency of Social Security before taking on the politically tougher issue of health-care reform.
McCain also faulted Obama and Democratic lawmakers for not negotiating with Republicans during the writing of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill.
The president’s many meetings with Republicans amounted to little more than window dressing, McCain said.
“Talking to people isn’t negotiations,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Edwin Chen in Washington at EChen32@bloomberg.net
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Slide toward anarchy
Islamabad's deal with the Taliban may be a turning point in a failing regional battle against extremism
AHMED RASHID From Saturday's Globe and Mail February 27, 2009.
LAHORE — A spate of ceasefires between the Pakistani army and government, on one hand and the Pakistani Taliban across northern Pakistan, on the other, are a watershed in the country's steady slide toward greater anarchy and loss of state control over large areas of territory.
The ceasefires are a strategic attempt by both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban to unify and concentrate their forces for a spring offensive against the expected arrival of 17,000 more U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan, where Canada also has nearly 3,000 soldiers. These fast-moving developments come as the U.S. and NATO struggle to find a common strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan before the NATO summit on April 2.
Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has sent a letter to the commanders of the Pakistani Taliban, urging them to immediately stop attacks on the Pakistani army. "If anybody really wants to wage jihad, he must fight the occupation forces inside Afghanistan," Mr. Omar reportedly wrote. "Attacks on Pakistani security forces by militants in the tribal areas and elsewhere in Pakistan are harming the war against U.S and NATO forces in Afghanistan."
Mullah Omar, who is believed to be based in Quetta, in Pakistan's southern province of Baluchistan, followed up by sending envoys to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) — the tribal belt adjoining Afghanistan — where the Pakistani Taliban leaders are based. His appeal was part of a concerted attempt by al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, calling upon the Pakistani Taliban to unite.
Their efforts have resulted in an unprecedented show of unity by the once divided Pakistani Taliban commanders, who have been fighting Pakistani forces in FATA since 2004. Three major warlords of the region, Baitullah Meshsud and his two rivals Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul have struck up a new alliance called the Shura-e-Ittehad ul Mujaheddin or Council of United Holy Warriors. They have called for a ceasefire with the Pakistani army in Bajaur, where the army has been carrying out an offensive since last August. Islamabad still has to respond to the offer.
The government and the army, however, have already ceded control to another branch of the Pakistani Taliban, further east in the Swat valley and Malakand district, just 100 miles north of Islamabad. Maulana Sufi Mohammed, a radical cleric who was freed last year after spending six years in jail for leading 10,000 Pashtun tribesmen in a futile attempt to oppose the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, is now leading a peace march through the strategic Swat valley. He is trying to convince his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, who leads the Swati contingent of the Pakistani Taliban and is closely allied to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, to accept the government's offer of a ceasefire and enforcement in Swat of Nizam-e-Adl (an Islamic justice system).
While the government insists the legal change will be only a limited application of Islamic justice through the local courts, the Taliban interpret it as allowing the full application of sharia, affecting all aspects of education, administration and law and order in the region.
Mr. Fazlullah's men, aided by Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs, have fought bloody battles with the army over the past two years, finally driving the army out and taking control of most of Swat last year. The fighting has led to some 1,200 civilian deaths and the forced exodus of an estimated 350,000 people out of a population of 1.5-million. Mr. Fazlullah has blown up 200 girls' schools, hanged policemen and teachers and set up sharia courts. He now runs a parallel government. Rather than order the army to retake Swat, the Pakistan Peoples Party government in Islamabad led by Benazir Bhutto's widower, President Asif Ali Zardari, and the Awami National Party, a Pashtun secular party that runs the provincial government of the North West Frontier Province, have capitulated to the Taliban's demands in order to avoid more violence.
A PSYCHOLOGICAL BLOW
The deal has become an explosive issue in Pakistan. Right-wing, religious-minded citizens and politicians praise it for bringing peace to Swat, while liberals see it as an unmistakable turning-point in the country's losing battle against Islamic extremism. Even Sufi Mohammed, who is touted as a moderate compared to his son-in-law, has vowed to impose sharia across Pakistan and has denounced democracy as an evil, Western model. The psychological blow to public morale has been devastating.
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban now have the opportunity to create a new safe haven in Swat, well away from FATA, where they have been subjected to increasingly successful surprise attacks by U.S. drones. Sources in Peshawar say that extremist leaders are already moving to the safety of Swat, where drones have not been used so far.
The fallout in Swat will have long-term consequences. Although the military regime of former president Pervez Musharraf concluded several controversial short-lived ceasefires with the Pakistani Taliban, which allowed the Taliban to reinforce and widen their territorial control, the army never previously conceded major changes in the legal or political system. Even in Afghanistan, where the Afghan Taliban control several provinces, the Kabul government has never conceded the writ of the state, insisting that such provinces remain contested.
Mr. Zardari still has to sign off on the deal, and the ceasefire may not last, as others have not lasted before. This is, however, the first time that the government has surrendered an enormous area of northern Pakistan to extremists, who will govern by a separate set of laws and are dictating their terms to the state. Moreover the Taliban are unlikely to stop in Swat. From FATA, the Taliban have expanded their influence into the settled areas of NWFP and have virtually laid siege to the capital, Peshawar. The Swati Taliban will now have access to the heavily populated rural areas north of Islamabad.
The ANP were the first to insist upon the concessions. Besieged in Peshawar by Taliban suicide bombers who have vowed to eliminate its ministers and members of parliament, the ANP is paralyzed, divided and unable to govern. The ANP's decline into ineffectuality will have far-reaching consequences. Secular and democratic Pashtuns voted for it in overwhelming numbers in the general election last year, when the ANP ousted a government of Islamic fundamentalists installed by Mr. Musharraf.
The hope in Kabul and Islamabad was that the populist ANP, being a Pashtun party, would be better at rolling back the Taliban tide. That is now proving to be a false hope. Similarly, the ruling PPP is a secular and democratic party, and Mr. Zardari has repeatedly vowed to stand up against extremism, but the PPP's policy in Swat has not acted upon those promises.
The army is demoralized and overstretched and has declined to accept U.S. offers to retrain its regular forces in counterinsurgency, because it still believes there is a much larger threat from its traditional enemy, India. The army will not attempt to retake Swat unless it has the full support of the federal and provincial governments, while the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai have led the army to reinforce its positions on the Indian border.
The weakening of Pakistan's resolve to counter extremism will further weaken an already devastated economy, which faces increasing joblessness, inflation and capital flight. The Obama administration has promised Pakistan $1.5-billion (U.S.) a year for the next five years, to be spent on social programs, but it will take many months before Congress will make such money available, while conditions Congress will impose — such as resisting the Taliban — Pakistan may be unwilling or unable to fulfill.
MAJOR SPRING OFFENSIVE
The ceasefires in Pakistan herald a major Taliban offensive in Afghanistan in spring, just as the new Obama administration is trying to conceive a new strategic policy toward Afghanistan, Pakistan and the whole region. The Afghan Taliban leadership based in Quetta is still largely untouched and freely able to provide logistics, ammunition, recruits and direction to the thousands of Taliban fighting Western forces in Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO are also tasked with providing security for Afghanistan's presidential elections scheduled in August, but Kabul is beset with a constitutional crisis; President Hamid Karzai's term expires in May and he is refusing to step down.
The crisis in Pakistan leaves the U.S. and its allies with very few policy options. Large injections of aid money are desperately needed to give the government and the army the time and space to re-establish the writ of the state and revive the moribund economy. Yet it is even less clear now whether the Pakistani state is willing or able to take on the Pakistani Taliban or co-operate with NATO forces to block the Taliban who are flooding into southern Afghanistan to take on the newly arriving U.S. troops. What is certain is that the region is rapidly descending into chaos.
Ahmed Rashid is the author of the best-selling Taliban and Jihad. His latest book is Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia (Penguin 2008).
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Afghanistan Urges More Support in Talks With U.S. and Pakistan
Bloomberg By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan Feb. 27 , 2009
Afghanistan wants the U.S. to boost support for democracy and nation-building and expects better cooperation with neighboring Pakistan in denying safe havens to terrorists, top Afghan officials said today.
Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said U.S. officials assured him this week that they won't abandon a commitment to stability and democracy in Afghanistan. Wardak said his government had been concerned about President Barack Obama's “lowering expectations” by referring to “clear and attainable” objectives in the country.
“The level of their support will be increased to make those objectives attainable,” Wardak said American counterparts told him. “They'll do everything in their power to enable them to win this war.”
Obama is beefing up American forces in Afghanistan to quell an insurgency by the Taliban while also trying to avoid getting bogged down in the country, which is beset by drug trafficking and corruption.
Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate his “own personal view is that our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the U.S. and our allies. Whatever else we need to do flows from that objective.”
Gates's comments raised concern among Afghans that the U.S. intends to abandon democracy efforts in Afghanistan.
More Troops
Wardak, who spoke after meetings this week among U.S., Afghan and Pakistani officials, said Afghans supported Obama's decision last week to deploy an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, a boost of almost 50 percent from the current force.
Wardak said the cost of supporting one U.S. or coalition soldier would pay for about 70 Afghan soldiers. With proper training and funding, the Afghans will in time “relieve the international forces of their burden.”
Afghan Ambassador Said Jawad said the delegation told U.S. officials that “it's a necessity” to provide more funding and attention to building up Afghan security forces, adding that it's “politically less risky” than for the U.S. to try to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda with its own forces.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said he had made clear to Obama administration officials that they shouldn't assume that “democracy, modernity, to have a better life” is too lofty a goal for Afghanistan. At every chance, he said he articulated “our dream for democracy, for us and for our children.”
Opium Trade
The U.S. said today that Afghan government officials at the national and provincial levels must do more to crack down on the drug trade that makes Afghanistan the largest source of opium poppy, the ingredient for heroin.
Even as Afghan poppy cultivation dropped 19 percent after two years of record highs, the trade “fuels both the insurgency as well as rampant corruption,” David T. Johnson, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, told reporters today in Washington.
Afghan Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar disputed the view that his country isn't doing enough on narcotics.
Last year, he said, 18 of the country's 34 provinces were made “poppy-free,” and this year, authorities hope to eliminate opium from four more provinces. More than 90 percent of poppy cultivation occurs in the four southern provinces where government control is weak and insurgents are strongest, he said.
More Talks
The three days of trilateral meetings in Washington will become a regular event, with a session planned for late April or early May.
“We are expecting our Pakistani brothers and sisters to deliver now on promises of the destruction of sanctuaries” for terrorists and “schools of hate” in which new extremists are weaned, Atmar said today.
“The center of command” of the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces isn't in Afghanistan, making a regional approach essential, said Afghan National Security Adviser Zalmai Rassoul. “Without that, we can't end this war.”
U.S. and Afghan intelligence officials have long said that Osama bin Laden and top extremist leaders are likely hiding in the loosely governed, semi-autonomous frontier provinces of Pakistan.
Jawad said his country wants “specific benchmarks” for intelligence sharing and action against terrorist bases by Pakistani authorities. The ambassador said Afghanistan is sympathetic that Pakistan's civilian government is constrained by domestic extremists and uncooperative elements in military and intelligence forces.
“There's not much capability for them to deliver,” Jawad said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Washington at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net
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Blast kills coalition contractor in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A contractor working for U.S.-led coalition forces died Saturday in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan after a roadside bomb exploded during a combat reconnaissance patrol, U.S. forces in Afghanistan said.
The person's name and nationality were being withheld until family members could be notified.
Militants have attacked and kidnapped contractors in Afghanistan since the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda began in 2001.
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Facing Language Gaps and ‘Flying Trucks,’ U.S. Trains Afghan Pilots
By ELISABETH BUMILLER February 27, 2009 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Col. James A. Brandon flew Black Hawks when Moscow was considered a mortal foe of the United States and spent years in the Army studying enemy aircraft. So he now finds it a little bizarre to be piloting an old MI-17 Russian helicopter, a legacy of the Soviet invaders here, in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan.
“If somebody had told me in the 1980s that I’d be flying an MI-17 20 years later,” Colonel Brandon said last week, “I’d have said they were crazy.”
But in a case of going to war with not just the military you have, but the military your enemy once had, Colonel Brandon is a leader of a bumpy American effort to build an Afghan Air Force from the wreckage up. To do that as quickly and (relatively) cheaply as possible, the United States is training American pilots to fly the helicopters of the former Soviet Union — Colonel Brandon calls them “flying trucks” — so the American pilots can in turn train, or retrain, Afghan pilots who once flew for the Russians, the Taliban or powerful warlords.
The program, which is projected to cost American taxpayers $5 billion into 2016, is aimed at giving Afghanistan the ability to defend itself from the skies and one day allowing the Americans to leave. But for now it reflects all the problems of getting Afghan forces to stand on their own.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” said Brig. Gen. Walter D. Givhan of the United States Air Force, the program’s commanding general, who oversees eight American instructor-pilots and the 33 not-always-operating aircraft of the Afghan Air Force.
One problem is that many of the 80 or so Afghan pilots being trained do not speak English, an issue when American instructor-pilots are barking out orders to them in helicopters careering above Kabul. There is no room in the cramped MI-17 cockpit for an interpreter, and in any case things usually happen too fast.
“We don’t have time to ask a translator to say, ‘Don’t hit the mountain,’ ” said Lt. Col. Todd Lancaster, the commander of the helicopter squadron of the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, the American unit that is building up what is officially called the Afghan National Army Air Corps.
A training flight last week to practice helicopter “gun runs” in the cold, brilliantly clear skies just outside of Kabul was a case in point. Lt. Col. Joshua Jones, a pilot from Fort Rucker, Ala., was instructing Bakhtyar Bakhtullah, a colonel in the Afghan air corps, in stomach-churning swoops so aerial gunners could practice blasting machine guns out the helicopter’s doors. The target was an abandoned armored vehicle lying in the valley below.
But when Colonel Bakhtullah, one of the best Afghan pilots, banked sharply left, his turn was jarring — mildly terrifying might be another way to put it — which was the result, Colonel Jones said later, of relying too much on the foot-operated tail rotor pedal and not enough on the helicopter’s control stick.
Colonel Jones, who had mostly used hand signals in the cockpit to communicate with Colonel Bakhtullah, decided he would try to explain the procedure later with an interpreter on the ground. “That I couldn’t fix today,” Colonel Jones said. “It was too technical.”
Americans have in the past been taught to fly MI-17s, mostly for military exercises to teach them how to counter enemy aircraft. (The MI-17 is used all over the world, including by Iran and North Korea.) The Afghan program is modeled after an earlier American effort to build up the Iraqi Air Force, which also includes some MI-17s. But the Russian helicopters, which make up the bulk of the Afghan fleet, have an ironic resonance in a country where in the 1980s the United States supplied guerrillas with Stinger missiles to shoot Soviet helicopters down.
These days, the American pilots encounter some resentment from the Afghans who have been flying the Russian helicopters for decades — Colonel Bakhtullah has been a pilot since 1981 — and wonder why they must take instruction from Americans who just learned to fly the helicopters in a four-week course at Fort Bliss, Tex. The Americans say that the Afghans have not had a real air force since the Russians left two decades ago, and that they were often improperly trained in the first place.
But Colonel Jones said he understood the Afghan point of view and tried to make suggestions rather than demands. “We’re really trying not to come across as conquering heroes,” he said.
The Afghan pilots also complain about their salaries, some $200 to $300 a month, which are paid by the Afghan air corps. “No one cares for us,” said Ehsan Ehsanullah, one of the best Afghan pilots, after a training flight last week. He said he made more money in the 1990s, when he was flying for the Taliban.
The bigger problem is that the demands of the war cut into what the Americans consider vital training hours. Sometimes, they say, they will arrive for a scheduled training session to find that the helicopter is needed to transport troops or cargo to Kandahar. Last month one such flight ended in disaster when an MI-17 piloted by two Afghans crashed in the province of Herat, killing all 13 Afghans aboard.
(Military regulations require that United States pilots fly MI-17s if there are Americans aboard, and the American pilots can fly only those MI-17s that have certified parts and that Americans maintain. Colonel Jones’s training helicopter was a secondhand MI-17 that the United States bought for Afghanistan from the Czech Republic.)
One bright spot is the new $183 million headquarters of the Afghan air corps, paid for by the Americans. It includes two hangars, barracks, a medical unit and classes in English. In a nearby compound there are classes in helicopter maintenance.
On a morning last week, an American civilian contractor from Fort Bliss, Robert Luna, was instructing a class of Afghans about the MI-17’s power control panel. He said he had been teaching the MI-17 to Americans at Fort Bliss since 1999. “It was kind of, ‘Know your enemy,’ back then,” Mr. Luna said. “Now it’s, ‘Teach your allies.’ “
General Givhan remains optimistic about the program, which late last year trained the Afghans to transport their president, Hamid Karzai, on special MI-17s. Before that, the Americans flew Mr. Karzai everywhere. The program, General Givhan said, is “our ticket out of here.”
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Afghanistan royal says he has iron will of ancestor to govern
Scotsman By JEROME STARKEY 28 February 2009
KABUL - THE great-grandson of Afghanistan's legendary Iron Amir – who forced rogue courtiers to eat each other – has joined the race to be the country's next president.
Prince Abdul Ali Seraj, who opened Afghanistan's first nightclub in the 1970s, said it is time to launch "psychological warfare" against the Taleban and reclaim Islamic law from the extremists.
The royal insists Afghanistan needs a "change candidate" because President Hamid Karzai has failed. His great grandfather Abdur Rahman Khan ruled from 1880 to 1901, massacring tens of thousands on the battlefield, while executing and torturing hundreds more whom he suspected of dissent.
He made slaves of an entire province, yet he is fondly remembered inside Afghanistan as one of the few rulers in the last 250 years ever to unite country's various tribes and ethnic groups.
Prince Ali fled Afghanistan in 1978 after a communist coup, disguised as a hippy. He returned in 2002 after the Taleban collapsed, and says Abdur Rahman is his hero. "Afghanistan needs a strong leader," he said. "Afghan people have never rallied around policies; they have rallied around people."
He owes his life to a bunch of stoned Australian hippies who agreed to help smuggle him out of the country in their overland "love bus".
They even gave him a guitar, to disguise him, when secret police boarded the bus close to the Khyber Pass, at the border Pakistan border. "I had no idea how to play a guitar," he said. "But they just told me to strum it whenever they did, so I did."
He left behind a string of businesses including Kabul's first disco, called 25 Hours, a bowling alley and a Chinese restaurant.
Prince Ali describes himself as a child of the Sixties, but insists Afghanistan needs tough love, instead of free love. Echoing his great grandfather's nickname, he said the president needs an iron fist.
"Afghanistan needs a ruler with two heads," he said. "He needs compassion for 95 per cent of the people, and an iron fist for the other 5 per cent – the terrorists, al-Qaeda and corrupt officials."
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Report Says Drug Trade in Mexico, Afghanistan, Threatens US National Security
Voice of America By David Gollust 28 February 2009
Washington - A U.S. State Department report Friday said drug trafficking in Mexico and the opium trade in Afghanistan pose significant national security threats to the United States. Some progress against the drug trade was reported in both countries.
The State Department report on the global drug trade is the first to be issued under the Obama administration. And it paints a grim picture of the situation in Mexico, where clashes between security forces and drug traffickers, and fighting among rival drug gangs, have killed more seven thousand people since the beginning of last year.
The State Department's annual International Narcotics Control Strategy report said Mexico is the source for as much as 90 per cent of the cocaine entering the United States and most of the heroin, marijuana and methamphetine.
Driven by U.S. demand for drugs, much of the violence is in Mexican cities along the United States border and it has spilled over across the border, with the report citing an increase in contract killings and kidnapping on U.S. soil by Mexican gangs.
Nonetheless at a news briefing, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law enforcement David Johnson said anti-narcotics efforts by the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon are proving effective, backed by large-scale U.S. aid under the Merida Initiative of the Bush administration.
"What you see is a government, a courageous government led by President Calderon, that is confronting these drug cartels and limiting their ability to do their business. They (drug gangs) are confronting each other. And the result is unfortunately is a significant level of violence," he said.
The report identified 20 countries, including Mexico, Afghanistan and Pakistan as major producers and transit points for illegal drugs and it said among that group, Burma, Bolivia and Venezuela have failed demonstrably to adhere to international narcotics control agreements, raising the possibility of U.S. sanctions.
Assistant Secretary Johnson expressed disappointment over the anti-drug effort of Bolivia, cited as the world's third largest producer of cocaine. The report says counter-drug cooperation declined last year as President Evo Morales expelled U.S. drug enforcement advisers.
Venezuela's anti-drug cooperation was described as minimal, with Johnson saying that drug trafficking from Colombia and other countries, through Venezuela, is on the rise. "The real challenge that we face in Venezuela is the use of the territory of Venezuela, particularly along the coastal region in the west, adjacent to Colombia, where significant quantities of cocaine are shipped out to the Caribbean in the direction of the United States but also significantly and growing to the east to West Africa and upward into Europe," he said.
The report said opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the worlds largest producer, dropped by nearly 20 per cent due to poor weather, price declines and improved governance in some provinces.
Johnson said while the number of poppy-free provinces in Afghanistan increased from 13 to 18 last year, more leadership is required from the Kabul government to fight corruption and curb the drug trade, which finances the country's insurgency.
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