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Officials: Bombings kill 11 people in Afghanistan
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – Two separate bombings killed 11 people in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said, the latest attacks near the country's volatile border with Pakistan.
Five NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Sat Mar 21, 3:11 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said Saturday that a foreign soldier had been killed in action in the south of the country the day before, the same day that four Canadian troops died in attacks.
Afghanistan: A Plea for Talks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 21, 2009
The leaders of Afghanistan’s Muslim clerics council urged President Hamid Karzai on Friday to push ahead with a proposal for talks with the Taliban to be mediated by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile,
India to attend Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow
www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-21 13:55:03
NEW DELHI, March 21 (Xinhua) -- India will attend the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference on Afghanistan to be held later this month in Moscow, said the local daily The Statesman Saturday.
U.S. plans major Afghan police boost: Holbrooke
By David Brunnstrom
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – President Barack Obama plans a significant increase in the size of the Afghan police force, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said on Saturday.
Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iran agree to boost relations
www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-21
KABUL, March 21 (Xinhua) -- The governments of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran agreed on Saturday to further boost cooperation among the three neighboring states.
The Pentagon's Shopping List for Afghanistan
By Kris Osborn / Washington Time Magazine - Mar 20 1:35 PM
Similarities exist between the Iraq and Afghan theaters of war: the enemy's weapons of choice in both countries include suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Violence to 'spike' in Afghanistan: Dutch general
by Dan De Luce – Fri Mar 20, 2:02 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The arrival of more US troops in southern Afghanistan in coming months will trigger a rise in violence but reinforcements will help improve security in the longer run, a NATO general said on Friday.
Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan, 21 Mar 2009
March 21 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0600 GMT on Saturday:
Afghan officials in drug trade cut deals across enemy lines
Corrupt politicians are safeguarding traffickers who then help the Taliban, Globe investigation finds
GRAEME SMITH From Saturday's Globe and Mail March 21, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT
KABUL — In the shadow of the craggy mountains overlooking the road between Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, a specially trained unit of police conducted a nearly perfect ambush of a drug dealer.
Afghanistan presidential hopefuls: List of candidates could be long
Hamid Karzai could face a test - Chicago Tribune - By Kim Barker - March 19, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai, the suave, sharply dressed leader whose visage is so closely associated with Afghanistan, faces a hard road to re-election this year.
Vietnam supports peace restoration in Afghanistan
20:49' 21/03/2009 Vietnam Net
VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam is ready to contribute positively and constructively to the restoration of peace and security in Afghanistan, said a Vietnamese diplomat.
Ambassador Bui The Giang, Deputy Permanent
Iran Willing to Boost Aid to Afghanistan, Help U.S., Envoys Say
By Bill Varner
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Iran wants to increase its investment in Afghanistan’s economic development in response to the U.S. bid for more regional engagement and openness to improved relations, United Nations and Afghan diplomats said.
How we helped create the Afghan crisis
By Stephen Kinzer | March 20, 2009 – Boston Globe
WITH THE United States facing a terrifying set of challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this is an opportune moment to look back at how the United States itself helped create the crisis.
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Officials: Bombings kill 11 people in Afghanistan
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – Two separate bombings killed 11 people in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said, the latest attacks near the country's volatile border with Pakistan.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a NATO soldier was killed in a "hostile incident" in the country's south, the military alliance said Saturday.
A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up at a police checkpoint in Chaparhar district of eastern Nangarhar province where officers were searching cars, killing six people, including five civilians and one policeman, said police spokesman Gafor Khan. The blast also wounded four civilians and a policeman, he said.
South of Nangarhar in Khost province, a bombing killed five people near a shrine as they celebrated the Persian new year, said the provincial police spokesman, Wazir Pacha. The blast on the outskirts of Khost city wounded five people, he said.
The militant Taliban group that ruled over Afghanistan in 1990s practices an extreme version of Islam and discouraged people from celebrating the Persian new year, known as Nowruz, when they controlled the country. Many Taliban and al-Qaida militants sought sanctuary in Pakistan after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and have been staging cross-border attacks.
The NATO fatality occurred Friday, the same day four Canadian troops serving with the NATO-led force were killed in two separate explosions, the alliance said.
The Saturday statement did not disclose the victim's nationality or the site of the incident.
Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency. Thousands of new U.S. troops soon will be joining British, Canadian and Dutch forces trying to reverse gains by the Taliban and expand governance and security.
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Five NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Sat Mar 21, 3:11 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said Saturday that a foreign soldier had been killed in action in the south of the country the day before, the same day that four Canadian troops died in attacks.
The five soldiers were killed on Friday, when clashes and attacks across the country left nearly 40 people dead, 19 of them policemen, as the insurgency led by the extremist Taliban militia rages on.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement that the soldier was killed in a "hostile incident" on Friday. It did not release the nationality of the troop, leaving that task to the home nation.
The Canadian military announced in Ottawa on Friday that four of its soldiers and an Afghan interpreter were killed and nine others were injured in two separate explosions in southern Kandahar province, a Taliban stronghold.
"Please do not think of these incidents as a failure on the part of any person of the mission itself," Brigadier General Jon Vance, the Canadian commander in Kandahar, said in a nationally televised address from Afghanistan.
Canada has 2,800 troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of ISAF, which has swollen to reach nearly 62,000 soldiers from 42 nations, according to alliance figures.
Most of the Canadian troops are in the dangerous south, where Australia, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States have also deployed forces.
The latest casualties on one of the bloodiest days yet for ISAF took to 71 the number of international soldiers to die in Afghanistan this year, according to the icasualties.org website that tracks the conflict here and in Iraq.
About 40 have died in Iraq so far this year, according to the site.
Around 294 international troops died in Afghanistan last year, most of them in attacks.
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Afghanistan: A Plea for Talks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 21, 2009
The leaders of Afghanistan’s Muslim clerics council urged President Hamid Karzai on Friday to push ahead with a proposal for talks with the Taliban to be mediated by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, four Canadian soldiers and an interpreter were reported killed Friday by roadside bombs, and the United States military said international forces killed 34 militants in two days of clashes in the south and east.
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India to attend Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow
www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-21 13:55:03
NEW DELHI, March 21 (Xinhua) -- India will attend the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference on Afghanistan to be held later this month in Moscow, said the local daily The Statesman Saturday.
The newspaper quoted government sources here as saying India, which holds the observer's status at SCO, is in favor of a policy that integrates development projects in Afghanistan with "security initiatives".
Indian prime minister's special envoy on Pakistan, Satinder Lambah, is likely to represent India at the conference on March 27in Russia, the current rotating chair of the SCO.
Indian officials also say they are also opposed to the distinction being drawn between 'good' Tabliban and 'bad' Taliban.
Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has called the former Afghan student movement as "a terrorist group" and "threat to human civilizations."
Some 4,000 Indians are now working in different projects in Afghanistan, according to Indian official.
Indian embassy in Kabul came under a terrorist attack in July last year, in which over 40 people were killed, including four Indian diplomats.
Editor: Sun
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U.S. plans major Afghan police boost: Holbrooke
By David Brunnstrom
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – President Barack Obama plans a significant increase in the size of the Afghan police force, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said on Saturday.
Holbrooke said an initial plan by the Obama administration to help boost the ranks of the Afghan police force from 78,000 to 82,000 over the next three to four years was now regarded as too little.
"Everyone we talked to without exception -- Afghans, insurgency experts, the government, American military -- agreed that was not sufficient," he said.
"So we are looking in conjunction with our allies and friends in the Afghan government at a very significant increase," he told a security conference in Brussels.
"The police aren't very good right now. We know they are the weak link in the security chain," he added. International efforts so far to train up the Afghan police force are widely considered as insufficient.
However Holbrooke said figures cited by the New York Times of a combined goal of about 400,000 Afghan troops and police officers were "speculative" and said Obama had yet to finalize the numbers.
The Afghan government and its international backers have already announced plans to substantially increase its size of the Afghan army to 134,000 soldiers, from 70,000 in mid-2008.
U.S. officials said last week the Obama administration was weighing several options as part of a policy review expected this month for Afghanistan, where insurgent violence is at its worst since the U.S.-led intervention there began in late 2001.
Among the ideas are scaling back the U.S. mission to focus on counter-terrorism and the training of Afghan forces; making a focused counter-insurgency push in the violent south and east; and pursuing a wider campaign to protect civilians.
Hundreds of civilian officials from across the U.S. government would be deployed to Afghanistan as part of the new strategy in a sort of "civilian surge."
On Thursday, France proposed sending European Union gendarmes to train paramilitary police in Afghanistan as part of efforts to step up training of Afghan security forces.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
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Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iran agree to boost relations
www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-21
KABUL, March 21 (Xinhua) -- The governments of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran agreed on Saturday to further boost cooperation among the three neighboring states.
The agreement was reached during a meeting of Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta with his Tajik and Iranian counterparts Hamra Khan Zarifi and Manuchehr Mutaki in Afghan northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, a statement of the Afghan Foreign Ministry released here said.
This is the third meeting of the foreign ministers of the three neighbors, which took place at the first day of the Afghan New Year on March 21.
A joint communiqué, released at the end of the meeting, stressed for the establishment of a joint television channel, linking the trio neighbors by railway, the formation of a common investment body and setting up of vocational training centers.
It also stressed for enhancing trade and economic cooperation, transport, energy, tourism, education as well as the war on terror and illicit drug trafficking.
According to communiqué, a joint commission would be established to follow the decisions for the enhancement of relations among the three neighboring countries.
Editor: Wang Guanqun
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The Pentagon's Shopping List for Afghanistan
By Kris Osborn / Washington Time Magazine - Mar 20 1:35 PM
Similarities exist between the Iraq and Afghan theaters of war: the enemy's weapons of choice in both countries include suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). But the river valleys of Iraq are very different terrain from the mountains and hills of Afghanistan. The equipment the U.S. used in the flatlands of Mesopotamia isn't likely to be as effective in the high crags of Central Asia. Indeed, apart from sending 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. is looking to redesign their equipment — from the gear they carry to the vehicles they drive to the drones that spot trouble ahead — as they pursue the mission Barack Obama has called the "right war." (See pictures of a mountainous outpost in Afghanistan.)
The plan is to issue soldiers lighter gear to help them navigate the mountainous terrain. Humvees will also have to be transformed. Those in use in Iraq have been much improved since the war began. However, they cannot be simply transfered over to Afghanistan. IEDs in Afghanistan have been delivering bigger bangs (in a seven-month period in 2008, IED incidents increased from 50 to 154) and, says, Dean Lockwood of the think tank Forecast International, "while the up-armored Humvees have good protection, it is not enough for a large IED." Furthermore, the vehicles have to be lighter to do all the off-road patrols required in Afghanistan. Indeed, some military officers would sacrifice armor for mobility in Afghanistan because that kind of versatility may increase the chances of averting a roadside bomb. (Check out a brief history of the Humvee.)
The Pentagon is working to speed up the purhase of 6,000 or more of such lighter, more mobile transport called MRAP-ATVs (the initial-loving military's monikker for "Mine Resistant Ambush Protection All Terrain Vehicles"). The vehicles "will have a smaller turn radius and be capable of keeping up with some of the pickup trucks [run by insurgents] they may be chasing," says Gen. Robert Lennox, the U.S. Army's assistant deputy chief of staff for operations. The specifics required by the Army and the Marines are spelled out in the request for bids: blas-resistant, off-road vehicles that drive 65 mph, have 16 inches of ground clearance, accelerate from zero to 30 mph in 12 seconds and weigh no more than 10 tons. Oh yes, the winning bidder also has to be able to produce 500 to 2,000 vehicles within a couple of months.
While drone warfare is controversial when it surreptitiously operates over Pakistani territory, there is no secrecy about its use to spot trouble ahead of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan itself. One system perfected in Iraq is headed for Central Asia. Task Force ODIN (short for Observe, Detect, Identify and Neutralize) is reputed to have killed 3,000 alleged bomb-planters and led to the capture of several hundred more.
Now ODIN II is headed to Afghanistan. The system is a combination of piloted aircraft and "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" (UAVs) equipped with sensors and infra-red cameras in order to help see insurgents planting bombs even at night. With the information relayed via ground stations, the operators of ODIN, working on Panasonic Toughbook laptops, compare incoming images with earlier ones rom the same site, looking for tiny differences that may indicate the work of bomb makers. When they spot an enemy crew in action, they can either alert nearby troops to be on the guard or call Apache helicopters to launch Hellfire missiles against suspected bombers.
In addition to ODIN, the Pentagon is spending millions of dollars more on other drones to track IEDs and their makers. The names are colorful: Yellow Jacket, Copperhead, the Sentinel Hawk. The Yellow Jacket project, which involves an almost self-contained robot aircraft, will cost nearly $10 million.
All of these technology upgrades are necessary, says Rickey Smith of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, because "the Taliban have evolved and the more robust they get, the more counterinsurgency and elements of national power are needed to kick into the effort." The urgency felt by the Pentagon is reflected by Gen. Richard Cody, formerly the Army's vice chief of staff, as he talked about fielding ODIN throughout Afghanistan: "We are building as many as we can as fast as we can."
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Violence to 'spike' in Afghanistan: Dutch general
by Dan De Luce – Fri Mar 20, 2:02 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The arrival of more US troops in southern Afghanistan in coming months will trigger a rise in violence but reinforcements will help improve security in the longer run, a NATO general said on Friday.
More US boots on the ground are much needed and could turn the tide, but will mean more contact with insurgents in the volatile south, said the Dutch commander of NATO forces in the region, Major General Mart de Kruif.
"I'm absolutely sure that we will see a very important year in RC (Regional Command) South, that we will see a spike in incidents once the US force hits the ground, but the situation will significantly change in a positive way within the next year," Kruif told reporters by video link.
President Barack Obama last month approved the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to join US and other NATO forces in Afghanistan, and is expected to unveil a new strategy for the war within days.
The Dutch general said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had pushed out insurgents associated with the Taliban in parts of Helmand and Oruzgan provinces but that they lacked the troops to expand security efforts.
"From an ISAF point of view, we are not stopped by the insurgency, but we just ran out troops," he said.
The deployment of more US soldiers was a welcome move that Kruif said could transform the terms of the war.
"The influx of additional forces ... will really be a game-changer from my point of view," he said.
Most of the US reinforcements are headed to the south, where Australian, British, Canadian and Dutch troops in ISAF are deployed under NATO command.
The southern Kandahar province is a bastion of the Taliban insurgency, as well as the neighboring province of Helmand, which serves also as the center of a vast opium trade that finances the militants.
After being ousted in 2001 by a US-led force, the Taliban have rebounded and are now challenging the Kabul government in the south and east despite the presence of more than 70,000 foreign troops.
At the moment, international troops controlled about 60 percent of populated areas in the south, he said.
The general said the expanded security effort needed to be accompanied by a similar expansion of civilian development efforts, which the Obama administration is expected to announce soon as part of its new strategy.
Improving governance at the local district level would be "decisive" in allowing for the eventual withdrawal of foreign forces, said Kruif.
For the insurgents, the weapons of choice were relatively crude makeshift bombs, known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), with Afghans as the main victims, he said.
The explosives were much simpler than the devices used by insurgents in Iraq, and were not detonated by remote control, he said.
The key to defending against the explosives was attacking the bomb-making networks and winning the trust of the local Afghan population, he added.
The additional US forces will allow NATO to put more pressure on the insurgent leadership, and enable troops to secure a wider area for reconstruction and development projects, he said.
"After that, after the elections, however, I think that what we are doing now is actually planting the seeds and that will lead to a significant increase in the security situation across southern Afghanistan next year."
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Factbox - Security developments in Afghanistan, 21 Mar 2009
March 21 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0600 GMT on Saturday:
SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN - A soldier from the NATO-led force in Afghanistan was killed in a "hostile incident" in the south of the country on Friday, the alliance said.
PAKTIA - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces killed one militant and detained four more during an operation in Zadran district, 135 km (85 miles) south of Kabul, the U.S. military said.
(Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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Afghan officials in drug trade cut deals across enemy lines
Corrupt politicians are safeguarding traffickers who then help the Taliban, Globe investigation finds
GRAEME SMITH From Saturday's Globe and Mail March 21, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT
KABUL — In the shadow of the craggy mountains overlooking the road between Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, a specially trained unit of police conducted a nearly perfect ambush of a drug dealer.
Officers surrounded Sayyed Jan's vehicle so quickly that his two bodyguards never had a chance to fire their weapons, and he was caught moving at least 183 kilograms of pure heroin.
But the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan realized they had a problem when they discovered that Mr. Jan's powerful friends included their own boss. The drug dealer was carrying a signed letter of protection from General Mohammed Daud Daud, the deputy minister of interior responsible for counternarcotics, widely considered Afghanistan's most powerful anti-drug czar.
That document, along with other papers and interviews with well-placed sources, show that Gen. Daud has safeguarded shipments of illegal opiates even as he commands thousands of officers sworn to fight the trade. Some accuse the deputy minister of taking a major cut of dealers' profits, ranking him among the biggest players in Afghanistan's $3-billion (U.S.) drug industry.
Reached by telephone this week, Gen. Daud angrily denied involvement in drug corruption. "Your information is completely defective and deficient, and shameful for the prestige of journalism," he said.
The Globe and Mail's investigation of Gen. Daud highlights the wider implications of drug cartels operating inside the Kabul administration. It's a toxic triangle of alliances, as corrupt officials work with drug traffickers who, in turn, help the Taliban.
Some international officials still say the corruption is limited to isolated bureaucrats who supplement their meagre salaries with graft. But a growing number of informed observers now agree with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent description of Afghanistan as a "narco-state," saying they are concerned about networks of corrupt officials taking over parts of government — in effect, running branches of the state for illegal gain.
This is a problem for Canada and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries, not only because Afghanistan supplies most of the heroin on their own streets, officials say, and not only because such large-scale corruption wastes the money and lives spent in support of the Kabul government.
More importantly, the routes used to export heroin also bring guns and ammunition into the country, giving firepower to those killing Canadian soldiers. The drug barons inside the Afghan administration are believed to be cutting deals across enemy lines, supplying cash and weapons to the rising insurgency.
THE WOLF AS SHEPHERD
One of the most notorious departments in Kabul is the anti-drug section of the Ministry of Interior, the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan.
Gen. Daud has been responsible for the CNPA since his presidential appointment as deputy minister for Counternarcotics in 2004, and the force has grown to an estimated 3,000 drug officers across the country. But the documents and case studies gathered by The Globe and Mail paint a disturbing portrait of his role in the industry.
"You have chosen a wolf as your shepherd," said an Afghan police officer who worked with Gen. Daud.
The officer spoke on condition of anonymity, as did all other Western and Afghan officials who provided details about drug corruption.
Talking about narcotics can be dangerous in Kabul; in December, an outspoken judge who handled drug cases was dragged out of his house by masked men and executed with a gunshot to the head.
One of the few people who has discussed Gen. Daud's dealings on the record is Lieutenant Nyamatullah Nyamat, then serving as head of the counternarcotics police in Kunduz province. He gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times accusing Gen. Daud of running a drug business in northern Afghanistan and protecting other dealers; shortly after the article was published in 2005, Lt. Nyamat disappeared. Two sources familiar with the incident said British advisers to the CNPA scrambled to ensure the lieutenant's safety, holding a meeting in which Gen. Daud admitted ordering his arrest. (Gen. Daud now denies this.) The lieutenant was eventually released unharmed, and reassigned to a less active post in central Afghanistan.
The Kabul government has often emphasized the lack of firm evidence against its top members; Ms. Clinton's "narco-state" reference was angrily rejected by government officials earlier this year. Gen. Daud's boss, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, specifically defended the counternarcotics force during an interview last month at his elegant offices in Kabul. When asked whether he still has confidence in the CNPA, Mr. Atmar nodded vigorously.
"Absolutely, absolutely," he said. "That's not to say some people may not be honest in their jobs, but this is an ongoing battle in every country, every nation, with every police force. By and large they are actually doing the right job with honesty and integrity."
Mr. Atmar's appointment to the Interior Ministry last fall was greeted with optimism among foreign diplomats, who hoped the well-regarded administrator would clean up corruption among the police. The minister says he has attempted to purge the senior ranks, removing 10 police generals and charging some of them with drug corruption in the few months since he took office.
Powerful figures in the ministry such as Gen. Daud remain untouched, but the minister said he can only take action with proof of wrongdoing.
"One unfortunate thing is that much of this is based on speculation," Mr. Atmar said. "Give me the evidence, and hold me accountable for action on that evidence."
THE DRUG RUNNER
The strongest paper trail connecting Gen. Daud with drug dealing comes from the arrest of Sayyed Jan, the infamous trafficker, on June 19, 2005.
Officials disagree about how much heroin Mr. Jan was carrying: one source said 183 kilograms, another said 192, and Gen. Daud himself said it was 250.
Sources also disagree about whether the dealer was wearing a CNPA uniform when arrested, but either way it appears he was operating with Gen. Daud's blessings until he was undeniably caught smuggling. A letter from Gen. Daud to the governor of Helmand province, dated March 15, 2005, introduces Mr. Jan as a "respected Haji," meaning a Muslim who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and urges the provincial administration to assist Mr. Jan. The letter was signed with a flourish by Gen. Daud. The governor seems to have obeyed the counternarcotics chief, as investigators found two other letters written the same month, one from the governor telling the police chief to allow safe passage for Mr. Jan and another from the police chief repeating the instruction to his men.
A relative of Mr. Jan described him as a hard-working young trafficker from the southern province of Helmand who got started as a teenager during the Taliban regime, guarding small caches of opium in the desert. Mr. Jan founded his own drug business in 2001, his relative said, and the operation thrived under the new government as he bought protection for his refineries and transportation routes.
One of the dealer's biggest protectors was Gen. Daud, his relative said, describing a conversation in which Mr. Jan confided that he paid the deputy minister $50,000 (U.S.) for permission to run a single convoy through his zone of control. When speaking about the counternarcotics chief, the trafficker used a Pashto word that means "boss."
Another source confirmed that Gen. Daud received payments from Mr. Jan, but suggested they were based on 50 per cent commission on his drug profits.
That relationship seems to have broken down when a CNPA unit, apparently acting without Gen. Daud's knowledge, caught the trafficker with a vehicle full of heroin. Gen. Daud initially attempted to set Mr. Jan free from prison, but then reversed himself and declared his support for the prosecution.
In a complicated series of legal manoeuvrings, however, the young trafficker was transferred to a prison in Helmand where sources say a local official accepted a bribe of 1.8 million Pakistani rupees, worth about $28,000Ö Canadian dollars, to set him free. The dealer is now believed to be continuing his work outside of Afghanistan.
When confronted with this information, Gen. Daud said he cannot be held responsible for Mr. Jan escaping prosecution because it falls outside his jurisdiction. He denied taking money from Mr. Jan or any other dealer.
"Sayyed Jan fled from jail, but God willing we are chasing him to arrest him again and put him back in jail," the counternarcotics chief said.
Another arrest caught Gen. Daud by surprise in the summer of 2005. His own men, again apparently working without the direct supervision of the counternarcotics chief, captured a fuel tanker packed with an estimated 700 kilograms of raw opium on the outskirts of Kabul. The driver, Noor Mohammed, asked for permission to make a phone call; he dialled a number, and shortly afterward Gen. Daud's personal bodyguards rushed to the scene, brandishing their weapons and demanding the CNPA officers leave.
A tense standoff followed, then confusion as the CNPA bodyguards realized they were pointing their guns at fellow CNPA officers. Two Afghan officials who described the scene said they eventually settled the dispute by agreeing to take the tanker back to CNPA headquarters, and it's not known what eventually happened to the drugs. But those involved saw the incident as a clear example of Gen. Daud trying to protect some shipments.
"This is nonsense," Gen. Daud said, suggesting that drug dealers spread unfounded rumours to undermine his work.
Such anecdotes have spread widely, in fact, in Kabul's community of Western officials. But some take a sanguine view of reported corruption, especially when the reports concern a figure so prominent as Gen. Daud.
THE FORMER WARLORD
Born in 1969 to a family from the northern province of Takhar, Gen. Daud joined the anti-Soviet resistance as a teenager and became part of the famed militia of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the so-called Lion of the Panjshir.
After the assassination of Massoud no honorific needed in 2001, Gen. Daud worked with U.S. forces overthrowing the Taliban regime and was rewarded with control over a broad territory in the north.
As the country held its first presidential elections in 2004, however, Western officials became increasingly concerned that warlords such as Gen. Daud and their private armies would not fit into their plans for a heavily centralized government. Like other warlords, Gen. Daud was invited to accept a senior appointment in Kabul in hopes that he could be drawn away from his regional power base and integrated into the new regime.
This strategy worked, in some respects; officials say Gen. Daud no longer ranks among the country's biggest militia commanders, though he could still mobilize 4,000 to 6,000 armed men within 48 hours if necessary. He remains popular in his home province, where Western officials have been amused to hear villagers reciting poems in his honour.
Gen. Daud's supporters point out that many senior figures in the Kabul administration are implicated in drug corruption, and pushing them out of their jobs won't solve the problem. They emphasize that Gen. Daud appears to be reducing his involvement in the drug trade as he reaches middle age; his second wife is a U.S. citizen, and some speculate that he might try to clean up his business and eventually settle in the United States.
"Dealing with these characters is a slow process," a senior Western official said. "You can't judge them based on the past. You have to think about what they can do for this country in the future."
Others disagree, seeing the problem of corruption in more urgent terms.
"Fighting corruption and official involvement in drug trafficking in Afghanistan is as critical a challenge to rebuilding the country as defeating the Taliban," veteran ABC news correspondent Gretchen Peters writes in her forthcoming book Seeds of Terror, based on five years of field research along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The need for such reform becomes clearer as drug investigators find traffickers involved with another kind of contraband: weapons.
Two Western officials closely monitoring the problem said about 50 to 70 per cent of weapons that supply the insurgency arrive in the country by road, facilitated by corrupt figures in the Afghan government — a statistic that shatters the image of Taliban hauling shipments of guns and ammunition through snowy mountain passes, as usually portrayed by NATO leaders; instead, many insurgents apparently find it more convenient to buy supplies from corrupt authorities.
The profits are huge: a Kalashnikov rifle purchased for $100 or $150 in Tajikistan can be smuggled to the battlefields of southern Afghanistan and sold for $400. The fact that the same rifle might be used to kill a Canadian soldier — or the corrupt Afghan official who sold it — has not diminished the trade.
"This government is not working for us," said the relative of Mr. Jan, the trafficker, expressing his disgust with the business. "We hate the drugs. But this government is addicted to money."
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Afghanistan presidential hopefuls: List of candidates could be long
Hamid Karzai could face a test - Chicago Tribune - By Kim Barker - March 19, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai, the suave, sharply dressed leader whose visage is so closely associated with Afghanistan, faces a hard road to re-election this year.
He's unpopular with the West and with Afghans at home. Even supporters acknowledge the insurgency-racked country is in crisis. The Afghan election commission has rejected Karzai's demand to move up the voting to April from August, leaving in doubt who will run the country after Karzai's term ends May 21. But a big question hovers over the pending vote, both at home and abroad: If not Karzai, who?
In a war-torn nation beset by ethnic and tribal strife, Karzai is one of few leaders with nationwide name recognition. He's a Pashtun, and the Pashtuns are likely to determine the future president.
There will probably be 50 candidates for president. Many of the other leading candidates were once Karzai allies. Most were formerly top ministers. In all likelihood, several of the top alternatives will band together behind a consensus opposition candidate at the last minute. At this early stage, here are the most prominent names being mentioned:
ABDULLAH: The ophthalmologist, known as "Dr. Abdullah," was Afghanistan's foreign minister from 2001 to 2006, when Karzai removed him in what many Afghans regarded as a slight to the Northern Alliance. Abdullah is one of three major figures in the anti-Taliban alliance dominated by ethnic Tajiks, although Abdullah's father is an ethnic Pashtun.
ANWAR-UL HAQ AHADI: The country's former finance minister stepped down in February after four years and announced he would run for president. Ahadi, who has a doctorate in political science from Northwestern University, leads the country's oldest and largest Pashtun nationalist party. He is related to one of the country's two main spiritual leaders, who still hold influence in the Taliban strongholds of the south and east.
ASHRAF GHANI: The country's finance minister from 2002 to 2004 was considered a champion of reform. He is well regarded internationally, from his time with the UN and the World Bank. After a brief stint as chancellor of Kabul University, he co-founded the Institute for State Effectiveness. As an American citizen, Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, also would have to overcome the image of being too pro-Western and would have to give up his American citizenship to be president.
ALI AHMAD JALALI: The country's former interior minister quit after 2 1/2 years in September 2005 amid rumors that he was upset over the involvement of officials in the drug trade. But insiders said Jalali also did not want to give up his U.S. citizenship. As a top military strategist, Jalali has taught at the National Defense University in Washington in recent years. Jalali, an ethnic Pashtun, is popular in Afghanistan for his stands against corruption and warlords but could alienate Afghans suspicious of his American ties.
ABDUL ALI SERAJ: A prince and descendant of Afghanistan's royal family, Seraj has already announced his candidacy. Seraj, a Pashtun who ran nightclubs in Kabul before moving to the U.S. during the Soviet occupation, is handing out bags of soil to Afghans to symbolize the country that people should want to save.
GUL AGHA SHIRZAI: The governor of Nangarhar province is a Karzai ally but has also kept his options open for the future. Shirzai, whose nickname is "The Bulldozer" for his ability to get things done, is in many ways the opposite of technocrats Jalali and Ghani. An ethnic Pashtun who knows how to use the tribal system to his advantage, Shirzai also once governed Kandahar.
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Vietnam supports peace restoration in Afghanistan
20:49' 21/03/2009 Vietnam Net
VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam is ready to contribute positively and constructively to the restoration of peace and security in Afghanistan, said a Vietnamese diplomat.
Ambassador Bui The Giang, Deputy Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN Security Council, made the statement at the council’s debate on the situation in Afghanistan in New York on March 19.
“There can be no purely military solution to the situation,” he said, adding that an integrated approach and a comprehensive vision are required.
Moreover, improving social welfare, including healthcare and education services, should continue to be amongst the main priority tasks of the Afghan government, he said.
“In this process, it is important that the Afghan authorities and people are provided with necessary assistance to enhance their capacity and pro-active participation in both decision-making and implementing socio-economic projects and programmes,” Mr Giang said.
In this political field, the Vietnamese ambassador called on Afghan leaders to give priority to peace and political stability, overcome divisions, renounce violence, and advance dialogue and cooperation in the common interests of the country.
He expressed his hope that the presidential elections scheduled for August will be successful, helping restore peace and security in the country.
He also highly valued all efforts by the international community and other regional countries to further support Afghanistan and welcomed the upcoming special conferences on Afghanistan to be convened in Moscow and The Hague.
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Iran Willing to Boost Aid to Afghanistan, Help U.S., Envoys Say
By Bill Varner
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Iran wants to increase its investment in Afghanistan’s economic development in response to the U.S. bid for more regional engagement and openness to improved relations, United Nations and Afghan diplomats said.
“They are interested, and they are motivated,” Kai Eide, head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, said in an interview. “Iran is already doing quite a bit and there is the potential for more. They have a key role to play.”
Eide, a former Norwegian ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was in New York to brief the UN Security Council on the situation in Afghanistan and his trip last week to Tehran. He met this week with U.S. State Department officials in Washington and is scheduled to return there today.
Iran’s interests in western Afghanistan and past help in stabilizing the country may be used by the U.S. and European allies as an opening for better relations. Ties have been strained by Iran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment that might support nuclear-weapons development.
“This is happening just when there are new messages from Washington calling on Iran to partner more with us,” Zahir Tanin, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the UN, said. “This is a new dynamic, and Iran answered in the Security Council yesterday that they are ready. The will is there.”
Conference Invitation
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on March 5 that Iran would be invited to an international conference on the future of Afghanistan, in another sign of President Barack Obama’s effort to engage adversaries. Iran hasn’t said whether it would attend the March 31 conference in the Netherlands, Eide said.
In a video message today to Iranians, Obama urged Iran’s leaders to opt for peace over “terror or arms” and said his administration seeks “constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community.”
Iran, which borders western Afghanistan and has long- standing trade and cultural ties with that region, has invested more than $500 million in its infrastructure, schools and hospitals since 2001. Iranian officials cooperated for a time with a U.S.-led coalition that ousted the Taliban in an effort to shut down safe havens for al-Qaeda in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Eide said that Iran, which is building a rail link to the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, might contribute to a network of tracks linking Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan to the north, and China. He also said Iran likely would send more “experts” into Afghanistan to boost its capacity to effectively use foreign aid.
There is no active consideration of the use of overland supply routes into Afghanistan from Iran, to replace insecure routes in the south and east, Eide said.
“Iran has spared no efforts to extend its full and sincere cooperation” Iranian Deputy Ambassador Eshagh Al Habib told the Security Council. “We stand ready to continue in this part. Iran attaches great importance to regional initiatives in this regard.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Varner at the United Nations at wvarner@bloomberg.net
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How we helped create the Afghan crisis
By Stephen Kinzer | March 20, 2009 – Boston Globe
WITH THE United States facing a terrifying set of challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this is an opportune moment to look back at how the United States itself helped create the crisis. It is an all-too-familiar tale of the behemoth lashing out in ways that seem emotionally satisfying and even successful at first, but that in the end decisively weaken its own security.
The tale begins in 1979, when Americans were caught in a sense of defeat and malaise. They were still recovering from the shock of losing the Vietnam War, only to absorb another one with the stunning overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the seizure of American diplomats in Tehran.
On Christmas Eve, however, something happened that seemed to open a new horizon for the United States. Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan and installed a pro-Moscow regime. Here, suddenly, was a chance for the United States to fight a war against the Red Army.
In order to forge an Afghan force that would wage this war, the United States needed camps in Pakistan. Pakistan was ruled by General Zia al-Huq, who had proclaimed two transcendent goals: imposing a "true Islamic order" in his country and building a nuclear bomb. He had also just hanged the elected leader he deposed, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This was the man the United States would have to embrace if it wanted Pakistan to support the anti-Soviet rebellion it hoped to foment in Afghanistan. It eagerly did so.
The United States also accepted Zia's demand that all aid sent to Afghan warlords be channeled through his intelligence agency, the ISI, and that the ISI be given the exclusive right to decide which warlords to support. It chose seven, all of them in varying degrees fundamentalist and anti-Western.
The ISI also came up with the idea of recruiting Islamic militants from other countries to come to Pakistan and join the anti-Soviet force. Its director, Hamid Gul, later said his agency recruited 50,000 of these militants from 28 countries. One was Osama bin Laden. Most of the others - brought to the region as part of a US-sponsored project, then armed and trained with US funds - shared bin Laden's radical anti-Americanism and fundamentalist religious beliefs.
During the 1980s, the CIA waged its most expensive and largest-scale campaign ever, pouring a staggering $6 billion into its anti-Soviet guerrilla force. Saudi Arabia, at Washington's request, contributed another $4 billion. Finally, in 1989, the insurgency succeeded and the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan in defeat. One million Afghans died in the decade-long war. Five million fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries. Many found food and shelter at religious schools sponsored by Saudi Arabia, where they were taught the radical Wahhabi brand of Islam. Those schools were the cradle of the Taliban.
After the last Soviet unit withdrew from Afghanistan, the overseer of the CIA project there, Milt Bearden, sent a two-word message to his superiors at Langley: "WE WON." For a while, that seemed true. In 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had helped conceive the project, dismissed those who worried about its long-term effects.
"That secret operation was an excellent idea," he said. "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"
Those "stirred-up Muslims" are now the enemy that the US faces in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They threaten America's national security far more profoundly than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ever did.
Jimmy Carter approved the idea of sponsoring anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan poured billions of dollars into it. George H. W. Bush turned his back on Afghanistan, allowing it to degenerate into the chaos from which the Taliban emerged. Bill Clinton refused to confront the looming threat with anything more than an ineffective cruise missile raid on one of bin Laden's camps. George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan, succeeded in toppling the Taliban regime, and then, rather than staying engaged, immediately turned his attention to Iraq. Their policies showed the short-sightedness that has for more than a century been a hallmark of American foreign policy.
These American policies, more than any other factor, created the daunting crisis President Barack Obama now faces.
Stephen Kinzer is a longtime foreign correspondent and author of "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq."
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