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February 7, 2009 

Germany, France dodge Afghanistan troop issue
By DAVID RISING and GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writers
MUNICH – NATO's top official chastised Germany and France for refusing to commit more troops to Afghanistan, but the two European powers skirted the issue Saturday even while agreeing that Washington should not be left to fight international conflicts alone.

NATO chief lashes European allies over Afghanistan
by Lorne Cook – Sat Feb 7, 5:45 am ET
MUNICH, Germany (AFP) – NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Saturday criticised European allies who have refused to step up their efforts in Afghanistan, as the United States prepares to send in thousands more troops.

U.S. says new Afghanistan strategy needed by April
Sat Feb 7, 3:40 am ET
MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – A comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan must be agreed by the NATO summit in April, U.S. national security adviser and retired Gen. James Jones told a German newspaper.

Taliban stronghold destroyed by British and Afghan forces after 10 day battle
A major Taliban stronghold has been destroyed by British and Afghan forces following 10 days of bitter fighting in southern Afghanistan.
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 07 Feb 2009
Hundred of insurgents were either killed or forced to flee from a stronghold in central Helmand which they had occupied for several months.

2 officials killed in same Afghan province
By RAHIM FAIEZ,Associated Press Writer AP - Sunday, February 8
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban gunmen fatally shot a provincial council member while a roadside bomb killed a second official in the same Afghan province Saturday, part of a spate of violence that left 17 people dead across the country, officials said.

Afghanistan's Police Academy sequel: funny if it weren't so deadly
JANE ARMSTRONG Globe and Mail February 7, 2009 at 12:05 AM EST
ZENDANAN, Afghanistan — The Canadian soldiers assigned to mentor Afghanistan's fledgling national police force never expected miracles. All that Captain Fern Bosse wanted this winter from his 11 charges at the Pashmul police

A FEW GOOD MEN
JANE ARMSTRONG February 7, 2009
Amid the corruption and ineptitude of the Afghan National Police force, there are glimmers of hope - even inspiration. Ethnic Hazara officers were sent to violent Pashmul in Afghanistan's southern Zhari district

WHY ARE WE IN AFGHANISTAN?
By Richard Reeves – Richard Reeves via Yahoo! News - Feb 06 2:48 PM
NEW YORK -- Twenty-five years ago, when more than 100,000 soldiers of the Red Army were trying to gain control of Afghanistan, I spent most of a day at the Afghan Surgical Hospital on the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass, listening to stories about Soviet atrocities.

Taliban say behead Polish hostage in Pakistan
By Abdul Sami Paracha
KOHAT, Pakistan (Reuters) – Taliban fighters beheaded a Polish hostage in Pakistan Saturday, according to a spokesman for the militants who said the body wouldn't be handed over until some captured Taliban were released.

Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan 07 Feb 2009
Feb 7 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0700 GMT on Saturday:

Aussies destroy Taliban bomb-making cache
TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Australian troops have destroyed two major Taliban weapons storage sites in Baluchi Valley in Afghanistan's volatile south.

Canada won't take back seat to U.S.: Top Canadian in Afghanistan
Canada.com, Canada By Ryan Cormier
EDMONTON - Canada's military leadership in Kandahar will not take a back seat to the massive influx of U.S. troops expected later this year, says Brig. Gen. Jon Vance, who will soon take over the Afghan mission.
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Germany, France dodge Afghanistan troop issue
By DAVID RISING and GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writers
MUNICH – NATO's top official chastised Germany and France for refusing to commit more troops to Afghanistan, but the two European powers skirted the issue Saturday even while agreeing that Washington should not be left to fight international conflicts alone.

Vice President Joe Biden came to the Munich Security Conference amid expectations he would forcefully repeat President Barack Obama's calls for greater European troop deployments in Afghanistan, as Washington prepares to double American troops there to roughly 60,000.

But Biden kept his Afghan comments general in an apparent attempt to avoid a heated public dispute among allies.

Biden asked only for European "ideas and input" on a joint Afghan strategy "that brings together our civilian and military resources that prevents terrorists a safe haven and that helps Afghans develop the capacity to secure their own future."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel supported the general concept of more European military backing of the U.S. through NATO, but did not address U.S. calls for additional European deployments in Afghanistan.

"International conflicts can no longer be shouldered by one country alone," she declared. "No country can go it alone, so the cooperative approach needs to be guiding us."

Germany has argued that its military is already too far stretched to send more troops beyond the 4,500 maximum it has committed to the relatively calm north of Afghanistan. About 3,500 are now there. Instead, it says the focus should be on future civil reconstruction, in conjunction with military security.

The French parliament voted in September to keep 3,300 French troops in the Afghan theater, but has no current plans to increase the French contingent.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy argued for a Europe more ready to defend itself instead of relying on others, but also managed not to touch on the Afghan troops issue.

"Does Europe want peace, or does Europe want to be left in peace?" he asked. "If you want peace, then you ... need to have political and military power."

But NATO's exasperated secretary general, Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, said if Europe wants a greater voice, it needs to do more.

"The Obama administration has already done a lot of what Europeans have asked for including announcing the closure of Guantanamo and a serious focus on climate change," he said. "Europe should also listen; When the United States asks for a serious partner, it does not just want advice, it wants and deserves someone to share the heavy lifting."

De Hoop Scheffer added the same principle applies to Russian requests to be involved in Washington's plans to place a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

He said Russia cannot talk of a new "security architecture" yet build its own new bases in Georgia and support Kyrgyzstan's plans to close the Manas air base, used by the U.S. to resupply troops in Afghanistan.

Kyrgyzstan's president announced this week his country was kicking Americans out of the base after securing more than $2 billion in loans and aid from Russia. U.S. officials said Kyrgyzstan acted as a result of pressure from Moscow, but Russia and Kyrgyzstan denied that.

Biden also urged European nations to take in Guantanamo detainees once the U.S. closes the detention facility for suspected terrorists on Cuba. Several European nations already are considering the U.S. request.

On Iran, Biden said the new U.S. administration was willing to negotiate but will act to isolate and pressure the Islamic Republic if it does not abandon its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism.

"We will draw upon all the elements of our power — military and diplomatic, intelligence and law enforcement, economic and cultural — to stop crises from occurring before they are in front of us," Biden told the security gathering.

The Islamic Republic asserts its intentions are purely peaceful.

Merkel also said the West was ready to push for harsher penalties, alluding to the possibility of more U.N. Security Council penalties to force Tehran to end programs that could produce such weapons.

The U.S. plans interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. Washington has said the system is aimed at preventing missile attacks by "rogue states" such as Iran, but Russian officials claim the true intention is to undermine Russia's defenses.

Saying defense shield plans remained on the table, Biden warned the U.S. would continue to have differences with Moscow, including opposition to its efforts to carve out independent states in Georgia. But he said the two sides needed to cooperate on common interests.
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NATO chief lashes European allies over Afghanistan
by Lorne Cook – Sat Feb 7, 5:45 am ET
MUNICH, Germany (AFP) – NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Saturday criticised European allies who have refused to step up their efforts in Afghanistan, as the United States prepares to send in thousands more troops.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned the Europeans that they were undermining their leadership credentials and upsetting the balance within the world's biggest military alliance, as it battles a Taliban-led insurgency.

"I am frankly concerned when I hear the United States is planning a major commitment for Afghanistan, but other allies ruling out doing more," he said, at a major international security conference in Munich, southern Germany.

"That is not good for the political balance of this mission. That is not good for the balance inside the North Atlantic alliance," he said. "Leadership and burdens -- they go together."

Scheffer, who did not single out any nation, warned that the failure to step up "makes calls for Europe's voice to be heard in Washington perhaps a bit more hollow than they should be."

New US President Barack Obama has singled out Afghanistan as his main front in the "war on terrorism" and plans to deploy 30,000 more US troops there over the next 18 months.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is embarked on its biggest and most-ambitious operation ever trying to spread the influence of the weak Afghan government across the strife-torn country and help foster reconstruction.

But the Taliban and its backers, including Al-Qaeda, drug lords and criminal gangs, have been waging an increasingly tenacious insurgency, using neighbouring Pakistan as a rear base, and seriously undermining NATO's goals.

Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States have troops on the frontline of that fight in southern Afghanistan, but other allies insist that reconstruction is as important as combat and refuse to redeploy.

Scheffer commended an editorial ahead of the conference written in national newspapers by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which they called for "a new transatlantic balance".

They insisted in it that "the United States and Europe share leadership and burdens more fairly."

But both nations have ruled out sending more troops. France has some 2,800 personnel in Afghanistan, while Germany, in an election year, has set a ceiling of 4,500, most of whom are based in the relatively quiet north.

Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra warned the European Union to realise that its focus should not simply remain trying to secure peace in Europe.

"The time is right to strengthen European defence and security by committing more financial resources, more military capacities and, most of all, more political will," he told the conference.

"Afghanistan will be a real test here," he added.

On Wednesday, Britain also scolded its NATO allies for not stepping forward to share combat duties, warning that there could be no freeloaders in the fight against the insurgents.

"An alliance worth its name must be one that shares the burden of membership equally amongst its members, because there can be no freeloading when it comes to collective security," British Defence Secretary John Hutton said.

"Volunteering, not waiting to be asked, must be the hallmark of a proper relationship between the transatlantic members of this alliance," he told NATO ambassadors.

The challenge facing NATO, the European Union, United Nations and other main world institutions is the focus of talks here on Sunday, which will include Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
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U.S. says new Afghanistan strategy needed by April
Sat Feb 7, 3:40 am ET
MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – A comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan must be agreed by the NATO summit in April, U.S. national security adviser and retired Gen. James Jones told a German newspaper.

Jones, who is to speak at the Munich Security Conference later on Saturday, told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily the problems in Afghanistan required more than a military response.

"Not everything has collapsed but the trends don't look good," Jones said.

"We need more than a military solution," he added, noting that it was a mistake that the country's justice system was not being reformed more thoroughly and that more police were not being trained. By the NATO summit in April, a new, comprehensive strategy had to be developed, the paper quoted him as saying without giving direct quotes.

NATO and the Afghan government had to stop the drugs business to curb the "economic fuel of the insurgency."

"Answers will not be unilateral but multilateral," he said, according to extracts of the interview in German published by the newspaper. Jones said a boost to troop numbers alone would not "bring an answer on its own."

Jones said the United States would conduct a general review of its foreign policy within 60 days.

Jones is participating at the security conference in southern Germany, which brings together more than a dozen heads of state and government and defense experts to discuss security issues including Afghanistan, the future of NATO and Iran.

On Friday, Ari Larijani, the speaker of Iran's parliament, told the conference U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to send an envoy to the Middle East to sound out countries in the region was a "positive signal."

Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Jones viewed Larijani's remarks positively. One could see a readiness for dialogue, the paper cited Jones as saying in reported speech.

Obama has named former U.S. Senator George Mitchell as his envoy to the Middle East. Richard Holbrooke has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

(Reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich)
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Taliban stronghold destroyed by British and Afghan forces after 10 day battle
A major Taliban stronghold has been destroyed by British and Afghan forces following 10 days of bitter fighting in southern Afghanistan.
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 07 Feb 2009
Hundred of insurgents were either killed or forced to flee from a stronghold in central Helmand which they had occupied for several months.

During the operation, Corporal Danny Nield of 1st battalion The Rifles, was killed after being blown up by an improvised explosive device and several British soldiers were injured.

A force of around 700 coalition troops launched a series of attacks against the stronghold in the area of Spin Masjid, north of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gar, where the British military headquarters is based.

The Taliban had occupied the area for several months imposing "their version of law and order" on the locals and murdering anyone who supported the Afghan government, according to the Ministry of Defence.

The area was also used as a base by insurgents to attack convoys supplying Nato bases

The operation code named Attal, was one of an increasing number to be planned and executed by the Afghan National Army (ANA) with assistance from British, Danish and Canadian forces.

During the 10-day battle last month more than 30 IEDs were discovered and several senior Taliban commanders were killed. Insurgents were cleared from the area and a new patrol base was created to prevent the Taliban from recapturing their former base.

In his first visit to Afghanistan as a minister, Under Secretary of State for Defence, Kevan Jones, said that the success of the operation was proof that the British strategy was on course.

He added: "The future for Afghanistan is with its own security forces – they need to be able to protect the local population from the oppression of the Taliban and to uphold the rule of law. This latest operation is another example of how they are continually improving – able to plan and execute complicated and hugely successful operations.

"The work of the British mentors, the 1st Battalion The Rifles who I met on this visit, has been central to this success, passing on the skills and experience of the British Army and setting the foundations for a safe and secure Afghanistan."

Capt Mike Richardson, 24 Commando Engineers Regiment, said: "The joint efforts of Afghan and ISAF troops saw 15 IEDs disposed of in an area approximately 2km by 1 km.

"The search skills and patience of the ANA, coupled with the expertise of British Bomb Disposal Teams undoubtedly contributed to the low casualty rate amongst locals and the coalition forces during this operation."
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2 officials killed in same Afghan province
By RAHIM FAIEZ,Associated Press Writer AP - Sunday, February 8
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban gunmen fatally shot a provincial council member while a roadside bomb killed a second official in the same Afghan province Saturday, part of a spate of violence that left 17 people dead across the country, officials said.

The gunmen killed Qari Khan Mohammad, a member of Nangarhar's provincial council, as he was traveling toward the eastern city of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar, said council head Fazel Hadi Muslimyar.

Muslimyar said a gunbattle broke out after the Saturday attack and one militant was killed by police.

A roadside bomb, meanwhile, killed three people Saturday in Nangarhar, including Mohammad Nahim, the chief of Goshta district, said Ghafor Khan, spokesman for the provincial police chief.

Taliban fighters for years have targeted officials in their campaign to discredit the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Karzai condemned the attacks in a statement and blamed them on the "enemies of Afghanistan."

In nearby Laghman province, a Taliban attack on a police convoy late Friday killed two police, including the police chief of Qarghayi district, said Hadayutullah Qalanderzai, Laghman's deputy provincial governor.

Taliban and other militants have expanded their power across the country in the last three years after their initial defeat following the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Attacks have spiked and militants now hold control over wide swaths of the countryside.

President Barack Obama has said he will refocus U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. His administration plans to send up to 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan over the next year to bolster the approximately 33,000 U.S. troops already in the country.

In the country's south, coalition troops and Afghan police killed 10 militants Friday in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The coalition and Afghan forces arrested three people accused of planting a roadside bomb, and shortly afterward the forces were attacked by militants, the ministry said.
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Afghanistan's Police Academy sequel: funny if it weren't so deadly
JANE ARMSTRONG Globe and Mail February 7, 2009 at 12:05 AM EST
ZENDANAN, Afghanistan — The Canadian soldiers assigned to mentor Afghanistan's fledgling national police force never expected miracles. All that Captain Fern Bosse wanted this winter from his 11 charges at the Pashmul police station in the district of Zhari was that no one would get killed or walk off the job.

So far, he's zero for two.

One officer was killed last fall in this violent region west of Kandahar city and others have defected to who-knows-where.

Capt. Bosse's Canadian team wants to teach the Afghan officers — a ragtag group of young men who prefer to fight, not listen — something about what is expected of a professional police force in a democratic country.

But it will be a long haul — not just here, but for the entire Afghan National Police force, which is rife with corruption, ineptitude, absenteeism and lawlessness.

On a sunny afternoon, as his charges don their scruffy gear for a daily foot patrol with their Canadian mentors, Capt. Bosse, a 49-year-old military veteran who was a master sniper in Bosnia, sounds more like a tested parent than a police mentor.

The Afghan police commander, a 32-year-old former mujahedeen fighter named Roozi Khan, won't put on his bulletproof vest. Another officer is waving his Kalashnikov with the safety switch off. And a third — named Abdullah but nicknamed Smiley by the Canadians — is pacing the control tower above with no helmet or vest, a clear target for snipers.

Capt. Bosse, a grey-haired Quebec City native with a thick grey mustache, warns that the patrol isn't going anywhere until they get their vests on. And he summons the interpreter to order Smiley out of the tower: "Tell him that I don't want to see him up there when we return."

Such scenes happen every day between the 60-odd Canadian mentors in Afghanistan and the local police crews.

Nearly eight years after the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban government, Afghanistan's central government and main institutions are still weak, none more so than its national police force, which is desperately needed to deal with the country's drug-trafficking problem and to shore up its fragile civil society.

While the Afghan National Army has made encouraging strides in recent years, the police lag so far behind that it's almost comical. There is still no precise timetable for when the country will be able to provide its own security.

Capt. Nick Arakgi, the platoon commander for the Canadian mentors throughout Zhari, says most Afghan officers are well-meaning and willing to fight. But high-level corruption has taken its toll. While they are supposed to earn the equivalent of about $100 a month, they are seldom paid on time, if at all. Nor are they properly fed, clothed or equipped. Observers worry that individual officers' performance won't improve until the senior command is cleaned up.

Yet the Canadians' mandate is limited: They aren't tasked with training police or even giving commands. They can only provide guidance.

Capt. Arakgi, a reservist who is a Peel Region police constable back home in Ontario, often uses the phrase "baby steps" when talking about police progress here.

Others are more scathing. The International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based organization that analyzes conflict regions, reported in December that stalled police reform in Afghanistan has hampered democratic development and further eroded public trust of the central government: "A national police force able to uphold the rule of law is crucial to state-building and would help tackle the root cause of alienation that drives the insurgency."

Reform has been held up by a number of factors, the report said, including a tendency by the United States, the lead player in Afghanistan, to view the police force as an "auxiliary security force rather than an enforcer of the law. ¡K The Afghan National Police is ill equipped for this role."

Progress is also hampered by having too many international cooks in the kitchen. For example, Afghanistan's International Police Co-ordination Board is chaired by the country's Minister of the Interior, but it has eight member agencies, including the United National Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the U.S. embassy and the European Commission.ƒo

Prime targets

Despite all this advice, police today in Afghanistan are so poorly positioned that they have become prime targets for insurgents themselves. In 2007, more than 1,200 Afghan police officers were killed, three times the death rate of Afghan soldiers, according to the Crisis Group.

Unlike army members, who are dispatched across the country, Afghan police officers tend to be local boys who live and work in their hometowns, where they are more susceptible to temptation and corruption.

The pitiful performance of the police in many areas of southern Afghanistan has caused many rural residents to switch allegiances to the Taliban, which at least have a solid track record in maintaining law and order. And in recent years police themselves have become prone to crossing over.

Their failure to secure many rural areas may be one of the reasons why the central government delayed federal elections this year by three months.

The new Minister of the Interior, Hanif Atmar, conceded that Afghan people expected more from their police when he spoke to reporters in January at the Kandahar Airfield base. "There are people who are not happy — and for good reason," he said. "The enemy has made their lives difficult in certain parts of the country. And they expect their leaders to deliver on improving security."

Meanwhile, the Canadian police mentors in Zhari say the police are in no shape even to police themselves.

"If we left here tomorrow, they wouldn't last a week," says Corporal Nik Boldirev, a native of Sault Ste. Marie who is in Capt. Bosse's unit. He often plays "bad cop" with the Afghan officers, in contrast to Capt. Bosse's more grandfatherly approach.

The Canadian mentors serve their entire seven-month tour in a small compound, living and working with the Afghan police. Apart from work, though, there isn't much real interaction; the Canadians live in a tent and trailer on one side of the compound, while the Afghans are in a poorly heated tent on the other side.

Downtime in the Canadian quarters is spent watching action movies, comedies and playing NHL '09 on the Xbox. Across the yard, the Afghan police sit on mattresses in the evenings watching TV. Two of the commander's sons have been staying in the compound. Capt. Bosse wants the boys out, but Mr. Khan says they're not safe at home.

Occasionally, Capt. Bosse wanders over to the Afghan tent with his interpreter to drink tea and talk shop. The biggest concern right now is that one of the best Afghan officers in the unit hasn't been paid in months.

Capt. Bosse sympathizes. "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't being paid. Why should we expect anything different from them?"

The 20-year-old officer, Gul Aghaa, a married father of two young children, says he plans to quit.

Other officers complain of substandard equipment. The Canadian Forces gave them winter boots, but they are still wearing summer uniforms in January. The Canadians also pay for their food and water, even though the police force itself is supposed to feed and clothe the men.

The officers huddle in blankets as the temperature outside hovers near the freezing point. Mr. Aghaa says he has been injured four times in his four years with the police force.

"If the Canadians would give me a salary and more equipment, I would stay," he says. "I have just three magazines, two in my bag and one in my weapon. I can only fight for half an hour. If it was a longer fight, I would have to kill myself or else the enemy would kill me."

Capt. Bosse can only nod his head in sympathy.

The force's problems run yet deeper. In the southern countryside, where the Taliban are encroaching on villages one compound at a time, most residents loathe the police.

Stories abound of officers who steal food and livestock, use drugs and blackmail villagers for money with threats of arrest. A squad was broken up late last year after the Canadians caught two of them smoking marijuana in a police vehicle. Their commander was accused of kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old boy.

Because of this local antipathy, officers aren't permitted to leave the compound without Canadian escorts, which makes it difficult to imagine the police patrolling this area on their own. "We are years from that," Capt. Bosse says. "Years."

While some observers believe it will be a decade before the Afghan National Police can stand on their own, Mr. Atmar, a former education minister who is widely respected within Afghanistan, wants to speed the pace of reform to three to five years.

The country can't wait any longer to have a decent police force, he says. "The Afghan people do not have that kind of patience."

The greatest optimism so far is invested in a coalition effort called Focused District Development, which has sent thousands of new recruits away from their local areas to be trained at regional police academies.ƒo

Dubiously on dutyƒo

During the afternoon patrol in the village of Zendanan, Capt. Bosse puts Mr. Aghaa in front as the line of soldiers and police makes its way through town.

The goal, as it is every day, is to let the villagers know that police and coalition forces are watching the town. There are reports that Taliban insurgents are setting up in abandoned grape huts and other locations. Over the past couple of weeks, Capt. Bosse has ordered police to search nearly every home.

The searches have angered some residents, but Capt. Bosse say they are needed to ensure that insurgents do not move in. The patrol wends through farmers' fields of grapes and wheat. The locals also plant marijuana and poppies, but Canadian Forces have recently been turning a blind eye to drug crops.

The 90-minute patrol is uneventful. The group stops all cars on the highway and searches every male pedestrian, with the Afghans taking the lead. A bagful of hash is seized from two old men driving a truck with a sheep in the back. Through it all, it's clear that the villagers are more comfortable with the Canadians, though Capt. Bosse keeps urging the police officers to do the talking.

As the group returns to the police compound, Capt. Bosse notices that Smiley is still wandering around the lookout tower with no helmet or vest. The gate that he ordered to be open when they got back is still closed.

"I told you to get down from the tower," Capt. Bosse tells Abdullah. "This doesn't look good. It doesn't look professional."

Later, the wild-haired commander, Mr. Khan, is asked why Abdullah went up the tower against numerous orders. "I will punish him," he says, dodging the question. "I will make him stand in the cold without any coat. He won't do it again."

Capt. Bosse is not so sure.
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A FEW GOOD MEN
JANE ARMSTRONG February 7, 2009
Amid the corruption and ineptitude of the Afghan National Police force, there are glimmers of hope - even inspiration. Ethnic Hazara officers were sent to violent Pashmul in Afghanistan's southern Zhari district, in part to address concerns that local Pashtun police recruits were too close to their tribes and susceptible to bribes and criminality.

The Hazara, who have feuded for centuries with the Pashtun majority, are Shia Muslims with closer ties to Iran. Their Asiatic features make them stand out physically in the Pashtun-dominated south.

But their performance on the job stands out too, say Canadian police mentors - partly because most of the Hazara have some education, making them easier to train than the largely illiterate Pashtun officers. At one police substation in Zhari, the entire unit is Hazara.

"I trust these guys absolutely with my life," says Canadian Corporal Gord Martin, who has lived with the group since last fall. "If they search a vehicle or someone, you know there is nothing left behind."

The top two officers here are 22-year-old Hamidullah, who joined the police force nearly a year ago after three years in the Afghan National Army, and Ahmad, 20, who became an officer to feed his extended family of nine. Cpl. Martin says Hamidullah is good enough to land a job with a Canadian big-city police force, if only he spoke English.

In an interview at the Zhari District police headquarters, Hamidullah and Ahmad describe in detail what they have learned from their Canadian mentors, including first aid, home and vehicle searches and the tricky job of distinguishing insurgents from the regular population. One clue the Canadians taught them: Check the hands; if they're not callused, they're not farmers.

Hamidullah recalls with pride the way he spotted a man last fall surveying the police-compound wall. The man claimed to be a farmer, but when Hamidullah seized his cellphone, the numbers in the contact list matched those of known insurgents. He arrested the man.

The Hazara police also say they are indebted to the Canadian mentors in another, more pragmatic way: "If the Canadians weren't here, we wouldn't have enough food to eat."
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WHY ARE WE IN AFGHANISTAN?
By Richard Reeves – Richard Reeves via Yahoo! News - Feb 06 2:48 PM
NEW YORK -- Twenty-five years ago, when more than 100,000 soldiers of the Red Army were trying to gain control of Afghanistan, I spent most of a day at the Afghan Surgical Hospital on the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass, listening to stories about Soviet atrocities.

The place was run, probably with American money, by the most fundamentalist of Pakistan's many religious parties, Jamaat-i-Islami, the spiritual (and often literal) fathers of the Taliban. I wrote this at the time:

"I was not allowed to leave without going from bed to bed. Forty beds. At each one, stumps of arms or legs would be thrust at me, or dressings would be lifted away to show a red hole that had been a face. A young man, what was left of him, held my eyes with his until I cried as the blankets were pulled from his wasting body, most of it scar tissue from burns. ... An older man named Abdul Kareem, who said he was a farmer at a place called Baghlan, north of Kabul, proudly showed me the foot-long stumps of his legs."

"Abdul Kareem said, through a translator, that a Russian had thrown a grenade into his house and killed three of his children. "'How do you know it was a Russian?'" I asked.

"'I know Russians,' he said. 'They have red faces. They look like monkeys.'

"The maimed men around me burst into laughter. They were broken only in body -- and many of their bodies were being patched up so they could fight another day."

Someone else said something and they laughed again. I didn't need a translator to know what he had said. "They look like you!"

Most of the fighters I talked with there and in travels through the tribal lands on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border saw little difference between Russians and Americans, except at that time we were paying them to kill Russians. Communists, democrats, we all represented modernity to them. We wanted to give them -- or force on them -- new laws, new freedoms, a new culture. Most of all, both communists and democrats wanted to educate women.

We want them to be like us. That is not going to happen.

They beat the Soviets, as they beat the British of Kipling's time, the time he wrote "A Soldier of the Queen," ending:

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

"And the women come out to cut up what remains,

"Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

"An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."

And they will defeat us. They have been there for centuries, and they will be there for centuries more. They have no place else to go. We do and we will. As early as 2006, Field Marshal Sir Peter Inge, the former head of Great Britain's armed forces, warned his country and countrymen that they were risking another defeat in Afghanistan, which is more a name than a nation.

Which brings me to President Obama's warnings and pledges about winning in Afghanistan. He had to sound tough about something after he courageously and correctly opposed our invasion of Iraq. That's how American politics works. And American presidents, the good ones, change their focus and strategies as times and events redirect them. Now he is running the government, and he should break those promises, the sooner the better, before more of our men -- and the men of our NATO allies -- are left on Afghanistan's plains.

"We did not finish the job against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. We did not develop new capabilities to defeat a new enemy, or launch a comprehensive strategy to dry up the terrorists' base of support," Obama said during the campaign. We tried but failed. That's too bad, but the growth of terrorism and a multiplication of terrorist havens have made the job more complex and Afghanistan irrelevant.

We have been on the plains and in the mountains for seven years now, almost as long as the Soviets were there. We went to punish Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida for the bombing of the World Trade Center -- and we have certainly had some success diminishing that organization, even as others are arising, some because we are engaged in that part of the world. It is worth remembering that bin Laden and his people are not Afghans; they are Saudi Arabians and Egyptians.

So the relevant questions now are: Who are we fighting? Why?
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Taliban say behead Polish hostage in Pakistan
By Abdul Sami Paracha
KOHAT, Pakistan (Reuters) – Taliban fighters beheaded a Polish hostage in Pakistan Saturday, according to a spokesman for the militants who said the body wouldn't be handed over until some captured Taliban were released.

Speaking in Germany, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government had received "unofficial confirmation" Piotr Stancza, an engineer and a father of one, had been killed.

"We do not have a solid proof but we have received unofficial confirmation that this tragedy indeed took place," Tusk told reporters in Munich in comments broadcast live on Polish TV.

The Taliban spokesman, identified only as Mohammed, told Reuters Stancza, 42, was killed because Pakistani authorities failed to free the militants before a deadline expired at midnight Friday.

"We have killed the man after authorities refused to release our colleagues," the Taliban spokesman told Reuters. "We will now only hand over his body after our demands are met."

He said Stanza was executed in the south Waziristan tribal region, a known haven for Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.

An intelligence official in the region, who requested anonymity, said the Taliban had demanded 200,000 rupees ($2,540) in exchange for the body.

Officials were unable to verify the Taliban claim, and the two principal hostage negotiators handling Stancza's case could not be reached for comment.

Speaking on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters:

"We have used every opportunity to avert this."

Stancza was kidnapped on September 28 while visiting one of his company's sites near Attock city, about 65 km (40 miles) west of the capital, Islamabad.

Gunmen shot dead his Pakistani driver, bodyguard and translator before taking him hostage.

Militants had demanded 60 of their comrades should be freed, but later cut their demand to four of their top men and negotiations have intensified over the past 10 days.

Attacks on foreign aid workers, company employees and diplomats have increased in Pakistan over the past year, especially in areas near the border with Afghanistan, where Taliban and al Qaeda militants are battling government forces.

An American heading the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in southwestern province of Baluchistan, was abducted last week and his driver was shot dead.

Two Chinese telecommunication engineers, two Afghan diplomats and an Iranian diplomat were kidnapped in northwest Pakistan, though one of the Chinese later escaped.

(Additional reporting by Alamgir Bitani, Augustine Anthony and Patryk Wasilewski; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Matthew Jones)
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Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan 07 Feb 2009
Feb 7 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0700 GMT on Saturday:

KHOST - U.S.-led coalition forces shot and killed one Afghan civilian man and wounded a woman and child when their car failed to stop at a checkpoint in southeastern Khost province on Friday, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Kabul, the U.S. military said.

LAGHMAN - Taliban insurgents attacked a hotel on the main highway between Kabul and Jalalabad city overnight, 100 km (60 miles) east of the capital, killing a district police chief and his bodyguard inside, the provincial governor's spokesman said.

NANGARHAR - Unknown gunmen killed the deputy head of the provincial council in eastern Nangarhar province overnight, 120 km (75 miles) east of Kabul, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, the provincial governor's spokesman said.

NANGARHAR - A roadside bomb killed the chief of Bati Kot district in Nangarhar province, 140 km (90) miles east of Kabul, Abdulzai said.

(Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
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Aussies destroy Taliban bomb-making cache
TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Australian troops have destroyed two major Taliban weapons storage sites in Baluchi Valley in Afghanistan's volatile south.

Australian units from the Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force uncovered a cache of improvised explosive device components and ammunition as well as other home-made explosives and equipment at two sites in Oruzgan province's Baluchi Valley, the Australian Ministry of Defense reported.

Officials say the bomb-making and weapons storage site has been destroyed, causing severe damage to the Taliban's operational capabilities in the region.

"This is a deterrent against the enemy knowing that there is nowhere they can put their weapons and we won't find them," Lt. Ashley Judd, MRTF patrol commander, said in a statement.
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Canada won't take back seat to U.S.: Top Canadian in Afghanistan
Canada.com, Canada By Ryan Cormier
EDMONTON - Canada's military leadership in Kandahar will not take a back seat to the massive influx of U.S. troops expected later this year, says Brig. Gen. Jon Vance, who will soon take over the Afghan mission.

“Right up until the time Canada leaves, we will remain the lead in Kandahar Province,” he said.

“The American forces aren't coming in superimposed on us. Their deployment is going to be complementary to us.”

The U.S. is expected to bolster its Afghanistan presence by as many as 20,000 troops in the next year, and perhaps eventually 30,000.

At least some of those will be deployed to the volatile Kandahar Province, where the majority of Canada's 2,700 troops are based.

Vance, an Edmonton-based soldier who leaves Canada for the top command role in Afghanistan on Sunday, said Canadian troops will continue to “set the tempo” in the southern province, where there has been increased insurgent activity and attacks in the past year.

However, the surge of U.S. troops will benefit Canada's mission, he predicted.

“It will have an immediate effect on the ability to provide security to the inhabitants of Kandahar Province,” Vance said.

“Part of the challenge, to this point, is that we've simply been too thin on the ground. We simply haven't had the reach and ability to see to the security of all Afghan civilians. This will make it harder for insurgents to operate.”

Vance will replace Brig. Gen. Dennis Thompson, who has been in command in Afghanistan since May 2008.

Vance will be busy for the duration of his 10-month command. He has newly deployed helicopters to use, a new provincial governor to work with, a more active insurgency, development projects and a presidential election.

The Afghanistan vote, scheduled for Aug. 20, is at the top of the list.

“As the guy responsible for delivering security in conjunction with Afghan partners, I have to be somewhat pessimistic and realistic. I think there will be an effort by the insurgents to interfere with the elections,” Vance said.

“We will be occupied with this question from the day I arrive. We will do everything in our power to meet Afghan expectations for security.”

Vance will be the first commander to get extended use of six Chinook and eight Griffon newly deployed helicopters.

“Having our own helicopters is absolutely essential to what we're doing. We have an opportunity now to be a bit more flexible off the roads to avoid unnecessary road travel. They give us more capability, reach and speed,” Vance said.

The aircraft fulfil a key recommendation of last year's report to Parliament by former Liberal MP John Manley.

During the next ten months, Canadian troops will continue to train both the Afghan army and national police. The latter group has traditionally lagged in terms of professionalism and respect, but Vance said he's optimistic that will change before Canadians withdraw from the country in 2011.

Canadians will also continue to target the productions chains of Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, that have killed the majority of Canadian soldiers in the country.

For the past year, Canadians have focused on the suppliers and builders of the bombs.

“We want to prevent it from becoming buried in the first place,” Vance said. “As you work your way back through the chain, we try to deal with all of that as much as we can. We will accelerate those actions as much as we can.”

Development will also continue through the year, with signature projects that include refurbishment of the Dahla Dam, educational support and a polio vaccine program.
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