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Obama calls Afghan president
KABUL (AFP) – US President Barack Obama called Afghan leader Hamid Karzai late Thursday to tell him Washington has completed a review of its strategy in Afghanistan and the "war on terror", Karzai's office said.
In Afghan War, U.S. Dominance Increasing
With More American Troops and Civilians On the Way, NATO Is Likely to Lose Clout
By Karen DeYoung and Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, March 26, 2009; A16
After years of often testy cooperation with NATO and resentment over unequal burden-sharing, the United States is taking unabashed ownership of the Afghan war.
Afghan intel chief: Pakistan spies support Taliban
By Sebastian Abbot And Chris Brummitt, Associated Press Writers – 7 mins ago
KABUL – Afghanistan's intelligence chief accused Pakistan's spy agency of helping Taliban militants carry out attacks in his country, highlighting one of the biggest challenges facing the Obama administration
Afghan Strikes by Taliban Get Pakistan Help, U.S. Aides Say
New York Times By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT March 26, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Taliban's widening campaign in southern Afghanistan is made possible in part by direct support from operatives in Pakistan's military intelligence agency, despite Pakistani government promises to sever ties to militant
MP Dies – Top Officials Summoned
www.quqnoos.com Written By Tamim Shahir Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Parliament summoned Minister of Interior and Intelligence Chief to respond to the assassination of MP in Helmand
Taliban Attacks in Afghanistan Kill 9 Police Officers
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA March 26, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — Nine Afghan policemen were killed and six officers were wounded in two attacks by Taliban insurgents in southern and central Afghanistan on Thursday, the Interior Ministry said.
Iran says to attend U.N. meeting on Afghanistan
Thu Mar 26, 5:14 am ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran said on Thursday it would attend a U.N. conference on the future of Afghanistan which was proposed by Tehran's old foe the United States.
U.S., Iran to Attend Afghanistan Conference in Moscow
By Lucian Kim
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. and Iranian diplomats will attend a conference on Afghanistan in Moscow tomorrow, as Russia seeks a bigger role in regional diplomacy.
UPDATE:Germany's Merkel Says NATO Must Succeed In Afghanistan
BERLIN (AFP)--German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must succeed in Afghanistan to ensure that the country does not become a base again for "terrorists" to attack the alliance's members.
Karzai declares assets to offset corruption smear
Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:22am EDT
KABUL, March 26 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has hinted he will run in a crucial election in August, said foreigners exaggerate the extent of corruption in Afghanistan for political reasons, while publicly announcing his earnings on Thursday.
Sources: Obama to OK more trainers to Afghanistan
By Anne Gearan, Ap Military Writer – 13 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Defense officials say President Barack Obama is set to approve sending additional U.S. military trainers to Afghanistan as part of a revamped war strategy to be unveiled Friday.
Security developments in Afghanistan
March 26 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan by 0730 GMT on Thursday:
Netherlands to stick to its Afghanistan pullout plan
BRUSSELS, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has said the Netherlands will stick to its plan to withdraw troops from the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan by the end of next year, Dutch paper De Volkskrant reported Thursday.
New Afghan local force to guard against Taliban
Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News
Jon Hemming Print Story The first recruits graduated on Thursday to a new Afghan community force the U.S. military hopes will boost local security against the Taliban and do for Afghanistan what Sunni militias did in Iraq.
Envoy Pick: US Needs Pakistan Help To Succeed In Afghanistan
WASHINGTON (AFP) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's pick to be ambassador to Kabul warned Thursday that allied plans to flood Afghanistan with troops and aid will fail unless Pakistan cracks down on Islamist extremists.
US Must Boost Intelligence Support In Afghanistan-US Spy Chief
WASHINGTON (AFP)--The U.S. must improve its intelligence gathering in Afghanistan, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said Thursday.
Rudd Tells Obama Australian Forces in Afghanistan for Long Haul
By Michael Heath
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pledged Australian troops will remain in Afghanistan “for the long haul,” even as more than two-thirds of voters said in a poll this week they were against sending more soldiers there.
Potential Afghan Reconstruction Challenges Cited
By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 26, 2009; A16
Government auditors sounded a warning yesterday for reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan as they outlined to lawmakers how a lack of security, coordinated planning and effective oversight has hobbled the United States' $50 billion effort in Iraq.
Auditors warn of Afghan aid waste
Call for increased oversight of reconstruction
Jason Motlagh The Washington Times Thursday, March 26, 2009
Afghan reconstruction will require a disciplined, long-term U.S. aid commitment and the watchdog agency tasked by Congress to provide independent oversight needs greater resources to do its job, government auditors said Wednesday.
AFGHANISTAN: Dozens of schools reopen in volatile south
26 Mar 2009 14:23:42 GMT
KABUL, 26 March 2009 (IRIN) - Eighty-one primary and secondary schools which had previously been closed in southern areas of Afghanistan owing to insecurity have reopened in the past three months, the Education Ministry (MoE) has said.
Canadian involvement in Afghanistan to narrow
Arrival of 17,000 U.S. troops in Kandahar this spring will change the mission's scope but may temporarily increase violence
GLORIA GALLOWAY March 26, 2009 The Globe and Mail
SPIN BOLDAK, AFGHANISTAN -- The territory patrolled by Canadian troops in Afghanistan is about to shrink as a new and massive wave of Americans arrives in Kandahar to take on a Taliban insurgency that is slowly regaining control.
Embassy Row
James Morrison Wednesday, March 25, 2009 The Washington Times
TALIBAN THREAT
Taliban extremists will gain the "upper hand" in Afghanistan unless NATO and Afghan forces can prevent foreign nations and shadowy organizations from supporting them, a top Afghan diplomat told international intelligence officers in Washington.
Afghanistan ambassador hearing set
Boston Globe by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor March 25, 2009
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced this afternoon that it will hold the confirmation hearing Thursday for President Obama's pick to be ambassador to Afghanistan.
Bio information on Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry
The Associated Press Thursday, March 26, 2009; 3:06 AM
-- NAME _ Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry.
EXPERIENCE _ Deputy chairman of NATO's military committee, Brussels, 2007-present; top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, 2005-07; has served in various strategy, policy and political-military positions
Deeper into Afghanistan
San Francisco Chronicle - Opinion Thursday, March 26, 2009
Elected to end one war, President Obama is ready to revive another.
$1,000 for a kebab? Afghan villages fight corruption
The Christian Science Monitor By Anand Gopal 03/25/2009
Kalan Gazar - In this remote area amid the rough-hewn mountains of northern Afghanistan, a man gingerly steps forward at a village assembly.
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Obama calls Afghan president
KABUL (AFP) – US President Barack Obama called Afghan leader Hamid Karzai late Thursday to tell him Washington has completed a review of its strategy in Afghanistan and the "war on terror", Karzai's office said.
"The American president gave information on the key points of the reviewed strategy of his country to the Afghan president and said the strategy will be announced soon," a statement said, giving no more details.
Previous reports said the new strategy is expected to be unveiled at an international meeting on Afghanistan in the Netherlands next Tuesday.
Obama has switched the focus of the "war on terror" from Iraq to Afghanistan and ordered 17,000 more US troops for Afghanistan.
Karzai is due to attend the meeting in the Netherlands, along with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The new plan is likely to focus in part on militant bases in neighbouring Pakistan, where hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled to escape the US-led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban government.
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In Afghan War, U.S. Dominance Increasing
With More American Troops and Civilians On the Way, NATO Is Likely to Lose Clout
By Karen DeYoung and Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, March 26, 2009; A16
After years of often testy cooperation with NATO and resentment over unequal burden-sharing, the United States is taking unabashed ownership of the Afghan war.
President Obama's decision to deploy an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan this year will bring the number of foreign troops there to nearly 90,000, more than two-thirds of them Americans. Although many will technically report to NATO commanders, the U.S. force will increasingly be in charge.
Even as the U.S. military expands its control over the battlefield, the number of American civilian officials will also grow by at least 50 percent -- to more than 900 -- under the new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy Obama will announce as early as tomorrow, according to administration officials. American diplomats and development experts plan to spread into relatively peaceful western and northern regions of Afghanistan that until now were left to other NATO governments. New U.S. resources and leadership also will be brought to bear over critical issues such as counter-narcotics efforts and strengthening local government institutions.
U.S. policy in Pakistan, a major component of the new strategy, is largely unilateral. The European Union has an aid and trade relationship with the country, but few European governments outside of Britain have strong involvement there.
In Afghanistan, the administration "will continue to characterize the effort as multinational. There will continue to be thousands of troops and people" from NATO and elsewhere, said a former senior Defense Department official with a lot of experience there. "But the center of gravity is going to shift toward the Americans."
Obama's national security team has taken pains to consult with allies as it has put the new strategy together. The Washington announcement, and the presentation Obama will make at an April 3-4 NATO summit in Europe, will emphasize shared threats and common purpose, officials said.
But the increasing U.S. dominance is both by default and by design. The United States has far more troops, equipment and money -- and more willingness to use them -- than the rest of NATO. Even before Obama took office, his holdover defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, had largely given up pressing the allies for more combat forces, with fewer restrictions on their activities.
Although European governments have been asked to send up to four additional battalions of 800 to 1,000 troops each to boost security for Afghan elections in August, they will be temporary additions. Britain, whose 8,000 combat troops make it the second-largest NATO contributor, is considering whether it can send more after its withdrawal from Iraq this year. Germany, the third largest, has authorized 4,500, although they are restricted from certain combat areas and duties; France fields nearly 3,000 unrestricted troops.
The Netherlands plans to end its 1,700-troop combat mission in Afghanistan next year; Canada will bring its 2,800 troops home in 2011. With the arrival of new forces this year, U.S. troops will number more than 55,000.
"It's great to have our allies here," a U.S. commander in Afghanistan said. "But we recognize that when crunchtime comes -- and that's what we're in right now -- we have to be the ones to step up and get it done."
"Crunchtime" arrived for Obama in a series of military, diplomatic and intelligence assessments warning that no time remains for the niceties of negotiating over who will do what in Afghanistan. Taliban attacks and both U.S. and NATO casualties rose last year to their highest levels of the war, now in its eighth year, and the numbers are expected to further increase this year.
"This is the new reality," the former Defense Department official said. "We tried the essentially decentralized approach, where every country kind of does its own area and does what it thinks is right. That has essentially fallen down. . . . We want our allies to still be there. We don't want NATO to fail. But in order for NATO to succeed, the U.S. has got to take the lead."
Rather than expecting more combat forces, the U.S. administration has asked the allies to tell it what more they can contribute in terms of financing, training for Afghan forces, and civilian experts in every sector, from agriculture to governance -- "essentially whatever you can give us to free up an American to do something else," the former official said.
The results of those entreaties remain to be seen. A NATO trust fund established last year to pay for equipment and transportation for Afghan security forces set a goal of about $1.5 billion; contributions to date total less than $25 million, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Bantz J. Craddock told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. Plans to double the size of the Afghan army to 134,000 by 2011 will require an additional 29 NATO training teams. "The U.S. provides them when NATO doesn't," Craddock said. American trainers outnumber their NATO counterparts three to one.
Because some NATO members restrict their troops to certain areas of the country, trainers often cannot move with redeployed Afghan forces, leaving U.S. forces to "pick up the responsibility" to transport the Afghans and their equipment from one region to another, Craddock said.
The Americanization of the war is visible in the turbulent south, where the regional NATO command, led by a Dutch general, with Dutch, British, Danish and U.S. troops, faces the primary Taliban threat. Most of the additional U.S. troops will deploy there, and dozens of C-130 transport aircraft land at the Kandahar air field every day with pallets of supplies. In a dusty parking lot not far from the main runway, more than 200 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, await the supplementary U.S. troops. When they arrive, there will be more American personnel at the Kandahar base than at the current largest U.S. facility -- at Bagram, north of Kabul, the capital.
A British general will take over the southern command this fall, but U.S. and NATO military officials said they expect the No. 2 commander, U.S. Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, to be the real decision-maker.
"This will become an American headquarters," one non-U.S. military officer in southern Afghanistan said of Kandahar. "They're going to have almost three times as many troops as any other NATO member here. And that's going to mean they'll be in charge."
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Afghan intel chief: Pakistan spies support Taliban
By Sebastian Abbot And Chris Brummitt, Associated Press Writers – 7 mins ago
KABUL – Afghanistan's intelligence chief accused Pakistan's spy agency of helping Taliban militants carry out attacks in his country, highlighting one of the biggest challenges facing the Obama administration as it prepared Thursday to launch a new strategy for the Afghan conflict.
Many Taliban militants fled to Pakistan's border area from Afghanistan following the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, finding a sanctuary that allowed them to mount cross-border attacks that have destabilized Afghanistan and jeopardized international efforts to rebuild the country.
U.S. defense officials say President Barack Obama is set to approve sending 4,000 additional U.S. military trainers to assist the Afghan armed forces. The U.S. was also expected to add hundreds of civilian advisers. The latest additions would follow Obama's decision to add 17,000 troops to the flagging war this year.
Obama called the leaders of both Afghanistan and Pakistan on Thursday to brief them on the revamped strategy, their offices said. But many believe that even with a stepped-up U.S. effort, chances for success are slim unless Pakistan effectively cracks down on Taliban and al-Qaida militants operating from its territory.
The U.S. and Afghanistan have repeatedly called on Pakistan to sever all links with the Taliban, which came to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s with significant support from Pakistan's military intelligence agency — known as the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Pakistan's government insists it no longer supports the militant group, but the country's civilian leaders have limited control over the agency.
Afghanistan's intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, told parliament Wednesday that the spy agency provides support to the Taliban leadership council in the Pakistani city of Quetta headed by the group's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. He said the council sends militants into Afghanistan to attack Afghan and international forces.
The New York Times reported that Pakistani spy operatives provide money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders, with evidence of the ties coming from electronic surveillance and trusted informants. The report cited American, Pakistani and other security officials who spoke anonymously because they were discussing confidential intelligence information.
A senior officer in the Pakistani spy agency denied the allegations Thursday, saying "How is it possible we are cooperating with them and sustaining casualties at the same time?"
He said 52 officers from the agency and more than 1,000 soldiers were killed in the war against terrorism that began after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
"There is a difference between the perception and the reality," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the agency's policy.
A senior Western diplomat in Islamabad said Pakistani assistance to the Taliban has declined since 2001, "but there continue to be old compulsions and there continue to be old acquaintances" that harm the country's relationship with the West. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the media.
Saleh, the Afghan spy chief, criticized Pakistani officials for denying that Taliban leaders are based in the country. He said the Pakistanis view militants on their border as "a kind of weapon" that can be used in both Afghanistan and India.
"The Pakistani government is making excuses by saying these areas are out of their control," said Saleh.
Afghanistan has accused Pakistan's spy service or militants based in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas of being behind several major attacks in Kabul, including the bombing of the Indian Embassy last July, an assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai in April and an assault on the luxury Serena Hotel in January 2008.
By focusing the blame on militants in Pakistan, Saleh reinforced recent remarks by Obama, who has warned that militants using Pakistani territory to launch attacks should not be allowed free reign.
Many of the additional troops that Obama has pledged to send to Afghanistan will be deployed in the south near the border with Pakistan — the heartland of the Taliban insurgency, where militants attacked a police checkpoint Thursday, killing nine policemen, the Interior Ministry said.
Another officer was killed and two were wounded in a search operation the police launched after the attack, said the deputy provincial police chief Kamal Uddin.
Taliban militants also attacked a police convoy in central Ghazni province Thursday, wounding six policemen, regional police spokesman Iqbal Gul Sapan said. Four militants were killed in the clash in Nani village near the provincial capital, he said.
The Interior Ministry said the police were transporting a militant prisoner at the time, adding that two civilians were wounded in the attack.
___
Abbot reported from Kabul and Brummitt from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez and Amir Shah in Kabul and Stephen Graham in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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Afghan Strikes by Taliban Get Pakistan Help, U.S. Aides Say
New York Times By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT March 26, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Taliban's widening campaign in southern Afghanistan is made possible in part by direct support from operatives in Pakistan's military intelligence agency, despite Pakistani government promises to sever ties to militant groups fighting in Afghanistan, according to American government officials. The support consists of money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders who are gearing up to confront the international force in Afghanistan that will soon include some 17,000 American reinforcements.
Support for the Taliban, as well as other militant groups, is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of Pakistan's spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, the officials said. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections.
Details of the ISI's continuing ties to militant groups were described by a half-dozen American, Pakistani and other security officials during recent interviews in Washington and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. All requested anonymity because they were discussing classified and sensitive intelligence information.
The American officials said proof of the ties between the Taliban and Pakistani spies came from electronic surveillance and trusted informants. The Pakistani officials interviewed said that they had firsthand knowledge of the connections, though they denied that the ties were strengthening the insurgency.
American officials have complained for more than a year about the ISI's support to groups like the Taliban. But the new details reveal that the spy agency is aiding a broader array of militant networks with more diverse types of support than was previously known — even months after Pakistani officials said that the days of the ISI's playing a “double game” had ended.
Pakistan's military and civilian leaders publicly deny any government ties to militant groups, and American officials say it is unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts. American officials have also said that midlevel ISI operatives occasionally cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses.
In a sign of just how resigned Western officials are to the ties, the British government has sent several dispatches to Islamabad in recent months asking that the ISI use its strategy meetings with the Taliban to persuade its commanders to scale back violence in Afghanistan before the August presidential election there, according to one official.
But the inability, or unwillingness, of the embattled civilian government, led by President Asif Ali Zardari, to break the ties that bind the ISI to the militants illustrates the complexities of a region of shifting alliances. Obama administration officials admit that they are struggling to understand these allegiances as they try to forge a strategy to quell violence in Afghanistan, which has intensified because of a resurgent Taliban. Fighting this insurgency is difficult enough, officials said, without having to worry about an allied spy service's supporting the enemy.
But the Pakistanis offered a more nuanced portrait. They said the contacts were less threatening than the American officials depicted and were part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw and leave what they fear could be a power vacuum to be filled by India, Pakistan's archenemy. A senior Pakistani military officer said, “In intelligence, you have to be in contact with your enemy or you are running blind.”
The ISI helped create and nurture the Taliban movement in the 1990s to bring stability to a nation that had been devastated by years of civil war between rival warlords, and one Pakistani official explained that Islamabad needed to use groups like the Taliban as “proxy forces to preserve our interests.”
A spokesman at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington declined to comment for this article.
Over the past year, a parade of senior American diplomats, military officers and intelligence officials has flown to Islamabad to urge Pakistan's civilian and military leaders to cut off support for militant groups, and Washington has threatened to put conditions on more than $1 billion in annual military aid to Pakistan. On Saturday, the director of the C.I.A., Leon E. Panetta, met with top Pakistani officials in Islamabad.
Little is publicly known about the ISI's S Wing, which officials say directs intelligence operations outside of Pakistan. American officials said that the S Wing provided direct support to three major groups carrying out attacks in Afghanistan: the Taliban based in Quetta, Pakistan, commanded by Mullah Muhammad Omar; the militant network run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; and a different group run by the guerrilla leader Jalaluddin Haqqani.
Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, recently told senators that the Pakistanis “draw distinctions” among different militant groups.
“There are some they believe have to be hit and that we should cooperate on hitting, and there are others they think don't constitute as much of a threat to them and that they think are best left alone,” Mr. Blair said.
The Haqqani network, which focuses its attacks on Afghanistan, is considered a strategic asset to Pakistan, according to American and Pakistani officials, in contrast to the militant network run by Baitullah Mehsud, which has the goal of overthrowing Pakistan's government.
Top American officials speak bluntly about how the situation has changed little since last summer, when evidence showed that ISI operatives helped plan the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, an attack that killed 54 people.
“They have been very attached to many of these extremist organizations, and it's my belief that in the long run, they have got to completely cut ties with those in order to really move in the right direction,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recently on “The Charlie Rose Show” on PBS.
The Taliban has been able to finance a military campaign inside Afghanistan largely through proceeds from the illegal drug trade and wealthy individuals from the Persian Gulf. But American officials said that when fighters needed fuel or ammunition to sustain their attacks against American troops, they would often turn to the ISI.
When the groups needed to replenish their ranks, it would be operatives from the S Wing who often slipped into radical madrasas across Pakistan to drum up recruits, the officials said.
The ISI support for militants extends beyond those operating in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. American officials said the spy agency had also shared intelligence with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group suspected in the deadly attacks in Mumbai, India, and provided protection for it.
Mr. Zardari took steps last summer to purge the ISI's top ranks after the United States confronted Pakistan with evidence about the Indian Embassy bombing. Mr. Zardari pledged that the ISI would be “handled,” and that anyone working with militants would be dismissed.
Yet with the future of Mr. Zardari's government uncertain in the current political turmoil and with Obama officials seeing few immediate alternatives, American officials and outside experts said that Pakistan's military establishment appears to see little advantage in responding to the demands of civilian officials in Islamabad or Washington.
As a result, when the Haqqani fighters need to stay a step ahead of American forces stalking them on the ground and in the air, they rely on moles within the spy agency to tip them off to allied missions planned against them, American military officials said.
Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington, and Eric Schmitt from Washington and Islamabad, Pakistan.
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MP Dies – Top Officials Summoned
www.quqnoos.com Written By Tamim Shahir Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Parliament summoned Minister of Interior and Intelligence Chief to respond to the assassination of MP in Helmand
Minister of Interior Mohammad Hanif Atmar and Intelligence Chief Amrullah Saleh were impeached to the Lower House on Tuesday session.
Dad Mohammad Khan, member of Parliament along with his bodyguards were killed in an assassination attempt in southern Helmand Province last week.
His murder raised the anger of the MPs which asked the top security officials to respond to it.
Minister of Interior told parliamentarians that Mr. Khan made his trip to the restive Helmand province without informing the security forces.
Mr. Atmar also said his bodyguards were all deployed from a private security company.
Lower House commission for the safety of MPs said 48 relatives of Dad Mohammad Khan were killed in different assaults before but no institution has followed up the terror attacks.
Ten members of Lower House and a Senator of Afghan parliament have been assassinated over the past four years.
Baghlan incident in 2007 left five MPs dead including the prominent political figure and MP Mustafa Kazimi.
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Taliban Attacks in Afghanistan Kill 9 Police Officers
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA March 26, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — Nine Afghan policemen were killed and six officers were wounded in two attacks by Taliban insurgents in southern and central Afghanistan on Thursday, the Interior Ministry said.
The attacks came one day after the police said an explosive device ripped through a minibus on Wednesday, killing nine civilians and wounding seven on a road frequently used by Afghan security forces and international troops in eastern Afghanistan.
The attacks seemed to underline the gathering pace of the war in Afghanistan as the Obama administration plans to bolster NATO and American forces battling the resurgent Taliban.
The first fatalities on Thursday came in an attack before dawn by Taliban insurgents on a police checkpoint in the Nehr-e-Saraj district of Helmand Province. Nine policemen were killed. Later, an ambush on a police vehicle in Ghazni Province, southwest of Kabul, injured six policemen and two civilians.
An Interior Ministry statement called the attack in Helmand Province a “cowardly attack by enemies of peace and stability” — a term often used by officials to refer to Taliban militants.
The statement also added that some of police weapons and ammunition were destroyed by Taliban in the attack.
Afghanistan’s lightly armed police force has been a frequent target for the Taliban, mostly in the south of the country where the insurgents are the most active.
In January, about 30 Taliban fighters attacked the house of a regional leader in Helmand and killed at least 20 of his bodyguards.
On March 16, a suicide attacker in police uniform killed 11 people, most of them narcotics police, at the gate of police headquarter in Lashkargah, the capital city of Helmand.
President Obama has made the Afghan war a high priority for his administration, and is sending 17,000 additional troops to the country. But he has also insisted that the United States must look for a way out of the war.
On Wednesday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, appointed Peter W. Galbraith, an American diplomat who made a public break with the Bush administration over Iraq, as the deputy special representative for Afghanistan.
The choice of an American, even one with extensive experience in the United Nations system who served in the transitional government in East Timor, was considered unusual given that the United States is at war there. The United Nations and the United States have differed over issues like civilian deaths in military attacks in Afghanistan.
Mr. Galbraith is close to Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Asked last week about reports that he has clashed repeatedly with Mr. Holbrooke, Kai Eide, the United Nations special representative in Afghanistan, said, “We are both people with rather short fuses — that makes for very interesting and stimulating discussions.” But he added that he had no complaints.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris.
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Iran says to attend U.N. meeting on Afghanistan
Thu Mar 26, 5:14 am ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran said on Thursday it would attend a U.N. conference on the future of Afghanistan which was proposed by Tehran's old foe the United States.
But Iran has yet to decide who to send to next Tuesday's international meeting in The Hague, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said.
"Iran will participate," he said. "The level of participation is not clear."
News of Iran's attendance is likely to be welcomed by the new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, who has offered a "new beginning" of diplomatic engagement on a range of issues with the Islamic Republic.
In an overture toward Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier this month Tehran would be invited to the conference to discuss Afghanistan, with which Iran shares a long border.
The Dutch foreign minister on Wednesday also said Iranian delegates would attend.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying a regional solution should be found for the crisis in Afghanistan. Iran has said it was ready to help Afghanistan as it battles a growing Taliban insurgency.
"We believe that a regional solution should be found for the Afghanistan crisis," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Mottaki as saying during a visit to Brazil.
"Iran's goal in the region is to help peace, stability and calm which is necessary for the region's progress," he said.
Mottaki said earlier in March the United States was failing in Afghanistan and should recognize a new approach was needed.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its highest level since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, and the United Nations said earlier this month it was likely to worsen this year.
A U.S. official said this week Obama, who last month ordered the deployment of 17,000 extra U.S. troops to the country, was expected to announce the results of his administration's review of Afghanistan policy on Friday.
Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties for three decades and are now embroiled in a dispute over Tehran's nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at making bombs. Iran says it is for peaceful power purposes.
But the two foes share an interest in ensuring a stable Afghanistan, analysts say.
Last week, in a televised address released to Middle East broadcasters, Obama made his warmest offer yet of a fresh start in relations with Iran.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday he had so far seen no change in U.S. behavior but Tehran would respond to any real policy shift by Washington.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and delegates from more than 80 countries, including Pakistan, will attend the conference on Afghanistan in the Netherlands.
(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl and Zahra Hosseinian; writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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U.S., Iran to Attend Afghanistan Conference in Moscow
By Lucian Kim
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. and Iranian diplomats will attend a conference on Afghanistan in Moscow tomorrow, as Russia seeks a bigger role in regional diplomacy.
Russia would be “ready to help” set up a meeting between the diplomats, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said on state television today. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Moon and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Akhundzadeh are scheduled to attend, he said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will gather with regional foreign ministers in Moscow tomorrow to discuss the future of Afghanistan. The meeting, organized on Russia’s initiative, will be followed by a second international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague on March 31.
No meeting between Moon and Iranian officials is planned, according to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The Iranian Foreign Ministry confirmed that a deputy minister will be traveling to both Moscow and The Hague, according to Iranian state television.
U.S. and Iranian diplomats already met for direct talks in discussing the future of Iraq under the Bush administration. President Barack Obama is seeking cooperation with Iran on issues of common interest. Iran has opposed Sunni militias in Iraq and supported Afghan forces fighting the radical Islamic Taliban.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lucian Kim in Moscow at lkim3@bloomberg.net
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UPDATE:Germany's Merkel Says NATO Must Succeed In Afghanistan
BERLIN (AFP)--German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must succeed in Afghanistan to ensure that the country does not become a base again for "terrorists" to attack the alliance's members.
"Afghanistan is NATO's biggest test at present," Merkel said in a speech to parliament ahead of the alliance's 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg, France and the German towns of Baden-Baden and Kehl on April 3-4.
"For me our aim remains clear, against which our success will be measured, that Afghanistan no longer poses a terrorist threat to our security, in other words in NATO member countries. That is our aim," Merkel said.
"We should remember that Afghanistan ... was the base for the attacks of September 11, 2001. This was possible because there was no functioning state, and that was the reason for our engagement in Afghanistan, because it threatened our security, the members of NATO."
Germany has about 3,500 troops in Afghanistan, one of 41 nations forming the 60,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. The German parliament voted last year to increase this to 4,500. The U.S. also has a further 10,000 soldiers there not under NATO command.
Next week's summit is expected to see Barack Obama in his first visit to Europe since becoming U.S. President in January press allies in the alliance, Germany included, to do more in Afghanistan.
Germany's troops are based in the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan - 14 of its soldiers have been killed there in attacks - but Merkel reiterated that her country is pulling its weight in terms of police support and civilian reconstruction work.
"We can be satisfied with our performance," she said.
She also welcomed Obama's moves to develop a joined-up strategy for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but stressed that there can be no talks with those " not interested in reconstruction."
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Karzai declares assets to offset corruption smear
Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:22am EDT
KABUL, March 26 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has hinted he will run in a crucial election in August, said foreigners exaggerate the extent of corruption in Afghanistan for political reasons, while publicly announcing his earnings on Thursday.
Karzai, who said that he earns 24,350 afghanis ($487) each month, has faced criticism from both Afghans and his Western backers for failing to curb corruption, which is seen as rampant in Afghanistan.
"Foreigners have defamed Afghanistan so badly in terms of corruption. But it's not as serious as they think," the Afghan leader told reporters at a news conference during which he signed a form outlining his and his wife's wealth, income and debts.
Corruption is perceived to be rife in the former Taliban state, with top cadres of the government, including members of Karzai's own family being accused of profiting from the problem.
"The (Afghan) government is not as (foreigners) describe. It is only political pressure from them which says "come on our side, or we will defame you"," he said.
Karzai said he had no debts, did not own a private house or car and had no land, while his wife owned 511,000 afs ($10,220) worth of jewellery.
Every government employee would be required to declare their assets, income and debts in a new public registry which would be kept and managed by a government department responsible for preventing corruption, Karzai said.
"I hope all the government employees and high-ranking officials will fill this form and register their property to show the public more transparency and an accountable government," he said.
The Afghan leader also said he had a Frankfurt-based bank account which contained $10,000 at the time he opened it, when he was fighting with the mujahideen against the Taliban about 11 years ago. Karzai added he has not checked his balance since then.
There are some 70,000 U.S. and NATO-led troops based in Afghanistan fighting a worsening Taliban-led insurgency and Karzai has criticised his Western backers in the past for their role in civilian casualties.
The United States is set to unveil a strategy review of its involvement in Afghanistan on Friday which is expected to emphasise the need for more civilian assistance for Afghanistan and a strengthening of Afghan security forces. (Reporting by Akram Walizada; Writing by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Valerie Lee)
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Sources: Obama to OK more trainers to Afghanistan
By Anne Gearan, Ap Military Writer – 13 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Defense officials say President Barack Obama is set to approve sending additional U.S. military trainers to Afghanistan as part of a revamped war strategy to be unveiled Friday.
Officials said the additional 4,000 troops will be devoted to training and advising the Afghan armed forces. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not released his new plan. The latest additions would follow Obama's decision to add 17,000 troops to the flagging war this year.
The forthcoming White House review also says the United States will add hundreds of civilian advisers.
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Security developments in Afghanistan
March 26 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan by 0730 GMT on Thursday:
HELMAND - Taliban insurgents killed nine Afghan policemen in an attack on a police post in Nahr Saraj district, some 555 km (345 miles) southwest of Kabul, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
GHAZNI - Four Taliban insurgents were killed, and seven policemen and two civilians were wounded during a battle just outside Ghazni city some 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Kabul, a spokesman for the provincial governor said.
Afghan police were taking a detained militant to the provincial court when the Taliban militants started to attack, the spokesman added. (Compiled by Hamid Shalizi, Editing by Valerie Lee)
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Netherlands to stick to its Afghanistan pullout plan
BRUSSELS, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has said the Netherlands will stick to its plan to withdraw troops from the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan by the end of next year, Dutch paper De Volkskrant reported Thursday.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday about next week's international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, Verhagen said the decision to end the mission in Uruzgan in 2010 is "final" and the Netherlands will not yield to Washington's pressure to keep its forces there.
The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who is to attend the conference next Tuesday, is also aware of the Dutch position, the Dutch minister said.
The Netherlands has some 1,700 troops deployed in Uruzgan, one of the volatile provinces where the NATO-led International Security Assistant Force (ISAF) is directly confronted with the Taliban fighters. The Dutch mission started in August 2006 and has been extended once.
Verhagen was positive about the security situation in Uruzgan. It is improving "a little at a time," but the progress "is not irreversible," he added.
Prior to Tuesday's conference, Verhagen will hold talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Washington is trying to persuade European countries to provide a larger share of the ISAF in Afghanistan.
About 80 countries, including the United States and Iran, and 20 international organizations are expected to participate in the UN-chaired conference to discuss the future strategy for Afghanistan.
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New Afghan local force to guard against Taliban
Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News
Jon Hemming Print Story The first recruits graduated on Thursday to a new Afghan community force the U.S. military hopes will boost local security against the Taliban and do for Afghanistan what Sunni militias did in Iraq.
The U.S. military says the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) will free up police by guarding schools, mosques and roads and boost traditional power structures fractured by war and threatened by the Taliban's hardline brand of justice.
Some 243 recruits have received three weeks of training and will soon return to their embattled home district of Jalrez in Maidan Wardak, 55 km (35 miles) southwest of Kabul, in a pilot scheme U.S. commanders hope can be extended across the country.
"This programme was created at a time when the communities of Maidan Wardak urgently need protection from the enemies of Afghanistan," U.S. General David McKiernan, commander of international troops in Afghanistan, told the recruits at their graduation ceremony at a base east of Kabul.
In the last year Taliban insurgents have expanded into the mountainous province and attacked fuel and supply convoys on the highway between the capital and the south.
Greatly strengthening both the Afghan army and police, U.S. officers acknowledge, is the only long-term exit plan for the 70,000 mainly Western troops now in Afghanistan.
But Afghan security forces are having a tough time and have suffered hundreds of casualties fighting an increasingly confident Taliban insurgency.
"In a lot of ways they are being overwhelmed," said a U.S. army advisor who declined to be named. "The fighting is becoming more and more intense every year ... The Taliban seem to grow increasingly stronger, they don't seem to be losing ground.
"We need to free up more highly trained more experienced officers to do more pivotal roles," he said.
"BOTTOM-UP"
The Afghan government, backed by the international community, is still trying to disarm local militias run by warlords and some Afghan politicians have said the community force scheme will simply pour more arms into a country already awash with guns and gunmen.
"You must prove wrong those who believe your actions will be influenced by criminals or by the enemies of Afghanistan," McKiernan said. "Prove wrong those who believe you might use your new skills and weapons against other communities."
U.S. General David Petraeus is credited with greatly reducing violence in Iraq by arming Sunni tribal militias against al Qaeda, combined with a "surge" of U.S. troops.
Petraeus is now in overall command of U.S. troops in Afghanistan as well. Washington has already approved the deployment of 17,000 extra U.S. troops and will unveil a new strategy for Afghanistan on Friday, expected to emphasise economic development and expanding Afghan security forces.
The APPF is "totally different" from the Iraqi tribal militias, McKiernan told reporters. "This is a means to use a community-based, bottom-up approach to improve security."
Members of the force are not drawn from one tribe, but nominated by a cross-section of village elders who have to vouch for each recruit, Afghan and U.S. officials say.
They will be held to account if, like the previous auxiliary police force, they prey on the populace.
"Their feet will be held to the flame by the Ministry of Interior for misconduct," said the U.S. army adviser. "These guys work for the Afghan government."
The next batch of 200 APPF recruits from a neighbouring district of Jalrez will now start training. The whole programme will be reviewed in the next two months.
"This is one district at a time, see how it works and then we'll make decisions based on that," Major General Richard Formica, the commander of the U.S. force that trains the Afghan army and police, told reporters.
The members of the new force will help bring a local face to security in Jalrez and act as the eyes and ears for Afghan and international security forces in their district, said the NATO force's deputy chief of staff, Major General Michael Tucker.
"That's 243 sensors in that village that weren't there before and they know the difference when ... someone who doesn't belong to the village is there," he said. "We would never know. We could walk right past al Qaeda and not know it. They know."
(Reporting by Jon Hemming; editing by Andrew Roche)
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Envoy Pick: US Needs Pakistan Help To Succeed In Afghanistan
WASHINGTON (AFP) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's pick to be ambassador to Kabul warned Thursday that allied plans to flood Afghanistan with troops and aid will fail unless Pakistan cracks down on Islamist extremists.
"We can succeed in Afghanistan, it's true, but if we don't address the problem, the linked problems in Pakistan, then we'll have no lasting success," Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
His comments came as Obama was expected on Friday to unveil his new strategy for turning the tide in the nearly eight-year-old war, which includes sending 17,000 more U.S. troops, unleashing a wave of development aid, and bolstering Afghan security forces, the rule of law, and the fragile Kabul government.
"This is about enabling the Afghans to develop governments and rule of law, enabling the Afghans to develop their own security forces, enabling the Afghans to develop a sustainable economy," Eikenberry said.
"When they come together, success would be defined then as an Afghan state strong enough to not become an open safe haven for international terrorism," said Eikenberry, whose Senate confirmation was not in doubt.
The general, who was previously commander of the combined forces in Afghanistan is also an expert in East Asia, fluent in Chinese, and once served as defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
His comments came as Obama's special envoy for the conflict, Richard Holbrooke, was due to brief key lawmakers around 4 p.m. EDT on the contents of Obama's revised strategy for the conflict.
Eikenberry emphasized that Washington will "redouble" its efforts to secure more help from international partners, especially in training and expanding the size of the Afghan police, and in providing agricultural aid and expertise to wean farmers off poppy crops that feed the global narcotics trade.
"The way ahead is clear, but the resources to date have, regrettably, been insufficient," he said, warning that Afghans were notably frustrated with cross- border violence from fighters based in Pakistan.
And Eikenberry said Pakistan's intelligence agency may still be providing support to the Taliban and other Islamist fighters routed by U.S. forces in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks.
"It's been unclear if all elements of ISI have dropped their support for Taliban and their extremist allies," he said, referring to Pakistan's spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.
The issue of improving cooperation among U.S., Afghan, and Pakistani security forces against extremists - including sharing intelligence - will be a top issue at three-way talks in May, Eikenberry said.
His comments came after The New York Times reported that operatives in Pakistan's military intelligence provide cash, supplies and strategic advice to the Taliban Islamist militia.
Eikenberry declined to confirm the account but underlined that Pakistan "has a very unclear and ambiguous relationship" with the Taliban and blamed Pakistani " sanctuaries" housing extremists "first and foremost" for worsening security concerns in neighboring Afghanistan.
"Why is it increasingly dangerous and difficult in Afghanistan? The first and foremost would be the problem that has come to pass with the problem of sanctuary inside of Pakistan," he said.
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US Must Boost Intelligence Support In Afghanistan-US Spy Chief
WASHINGTON (AFP)--The U.S. must improve its intelligence gathering in Afghanistan, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said Thursday.
"We need to ramp up the level of intelligence support in Afghanistan," Blair told journalists.
WASHINGTON (AFP)--Mexico is not in danger of becoming a failed state, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told reporters Thursday.
"Mexico is in no danger of becoming a failed state," Blair told a roundtable of journalists outside Washington in McLean, Virginia.
His remarks came as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with leaders in Mexico Thursday, and vowed that the U.S. would stand by its southern neighbor in its fight against drug cartels.
The visit by Clinton comes ahead of a summit in Mexico between U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon planned for next month.
(Updates with quotes, details; integrates comments on North Korea.)
WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The United States must improve its intelligence gathering in Afghanistan, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said Thursday.
"We need to ramp up the level of intelligence support in Afghanistan," Blair told journalists in his first press conference.
"We know a heck of a lot more on Iraq than on Afghanistan," he said, adding the United States particularly needed "a granular understanding of local power structures."
U.S. President Barack Obama has switched the focus of the "war on terror" from Iraq to Afghanistan and ordered 17,000 more troops for Afghanistan.
Obama is expected on Friday to unveil his new strategy for turning the tide in the nearly eight-year-old war, which also includes unleashing a wave of development aid, and bolstering Afghan security forces, the rule of law, and the fragile Kabul government.
Obama called Afghan leader Hamid Karzai Thursday to tell him Washington has completed the review, Karzai's office said.
Obama's special envoy for the conflict, Richard Holbrooke, is due to brief key U.S. lawmakers later Thursday on the contents of Obama's revised strategy for the conflict.
Blair also told journalists that North Korea is trying to show that it has the ability to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.
"North Korea is attempting to demonstrate an ICBM capability through a space launch, that's what they are up to," he said. Pyongyang is said to have put a rocket, believed to be a Taepodong-2 missile, onto a launch pad after saying it planned to put a communications satellite into space between April 4 and 8.
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Rudd Tells Obama Australian Forces in Afghanistan for Long Haul
By Michael Heath
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pledged Australian troops will remain in Afghanistan “for the long haul,” even as more than two-thirds of voters said in a poll this week they were against sending more soldiers there.
Rudd, visiting Washington, held his first meeting with President Barack Obama two days ago. The U.S. leader had been expected to ask one of his country’s closest allies to expand its 1,100-strong force in Afghanistan.
Asked on the PBS television show “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” whether Obama made the request, Rudd said: “No he did not,” according to an audio file. “Our discussion was about the American thinking as it’s unfolding through America’s own review of its long-term strategy.”
Rudd withdrew Australian combat troops from Iraq last year and, like Obama, has said Afghanistan is the front line in the international campaign against terrorism. He acknowledged in the interview that the war in Afghanistan is “increasingly unpopular” both in Australia and elsewhere.
“But the bottom line is this: It’s the right place to be,” he said.
Australia has also said it is prepared to consider increasing its troop presence if other nations with forces in Afghanistan do so.
Sixty-eight percent of Australians oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan, according to a Newspoll of 1,201 people published in the Australian newspaper two days ago. Last week, the country’s death toll in Afghanistan rose to 10 after two soldiers were killed in separate incidents.
Rudd told PBS he was haunted by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the Bali bombings the following year that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians.
“We have therefore a combined responsibility to do whatever we can to make sure Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for terrorism again,” he said. “It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be difficult and dangerous.”
Australia will be “a strong, reliable ally” of the U.S. in Afghanistan, Rudd said. “We are there for the long haul.”
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Potential Afghan Reconstruction Challenges Cited
By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 26, 2009; A16
Government auditors sounded a warning yesterday for reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan as they outlined to lawmakers how a lack of security, coordinated planning and effective oversight has hobbled the United States' $50 billion effort in Iraq.
They pointed to American-built projects that Iraqis cannot run themselves as an example of an issue that could be even more problematic in Afghanistan, where three-quarters of the population is illiterate, the average annual income is $800, and the country has few paved roads, no railway and only a handful of airports with paved runways. By contrast in Iraq, 74 percent of the population is literate, the average annual income is $4,000, and the nation has a network of roads, railways and airports.
"Afghanistan has a much lower absorptive capacity for investment," Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. "Any investment has to be aimed at [their] capacity. You build above that, you lose it."
Similarly, Pentagon officials have expressed a key concern that the Afghan national security forces they are training lack the capacity to perform the intelligence and data gathering necessary for national security, said Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers, managing director for international affairs and trade at the Government Accountability Office.
At the same time, said Arnold Fields, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, Afghan leaders are pressing to be more involved in the redevelopment of their country. "More specifically, the government and ministries of Afghanistan would like to partake more in the contracting effort," he said.
That raises concerns of corruption, abuse and inadequate oversight of the tens of billions of U.S. dollars appropriated for Afghan reconstruction.
The reconstruction effort in Iraq is winding down as the effort in Afghanistan is ramping up, with $32 billion appropriated since 2001 and more coming.
Iraq reconstruction has been hindered by a dearth of trained Iraqi contracting officers, officials said. That is a prime reason why Iraq has a $47 billion budget surplus, largely from oil income, GAO officials said.
At least $3 billion to $5 billion in U.S. taxpayer money has been lost to contractor waste, Bowen said. That's 15 to 20 percent of the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund.
He pointed to a $40 million prison in Diyala province north of Baghdad sitting unfinished in the desert. The Iraqis, who he said did not want it and cannot maintain it, call it The Whale.
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Auditors warn of Afghan aid waste
Call for increased oversight of reconstruction
Jason Motlagh The Washington Times Thursday, March 26, 2009
Afghan reconstruction will require a disciplined, long-term U.S. aid commitment and the watchdog agency tasked by Congress to provide independent oversight needs greater resources to do its job, government auditors said Wednesday.
With President Obama scheduled to announce a new Afghan strategy this week that involves a substantial increase of manpower and money, the auditors warned that the situation is ripe for waste and fraud unless accountability improves.
"Unless the expanding Afghanistan program draws upon the lessons learned in Iraq, substantial waste of taxpayer dollars will occur," Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, told the House Armed Services Committee.
The U.S. has so far spent more than $50 billion on nonmilitary aid for Iraq, including $21 billion for reconstruction. As much as $5 billion of the reconstruction money was wasted on dubious contracts, according to Mr. Bowen, often in areas where poor security made development projects unfeasible.
Retired Marine Maj. Gen. Arnold Fields, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), said that $32 billion spent in Afghanistan since 2001 has been less than effective, in part due to mounting instability in the country.
GETTY IMAGES U.S. Marine Cpl. David Hamilton trains Afghan national police Wednesday at a police base in Bakwa, Afghanistan. The police force is widely considered one of the most corrupt institutions in the country.
He resisted comparing Iraq and Afghanistan, citing the latter´s dearth of natural resources and infrastructure, low education levels, ethnic and linguistic diversity and rough geography.
But both he and Mr. Bowen said that a lack of U.S. oversight and coordination have compounded the problems.
On Wednesday, The Washington Times reported that $5.625 billion in Afghan aid has not yet been accounted for, while hundreds of millions of dollars designated for short-term humanitarian projects were diverted to other uses.
According to Defense Department inspectors, attempts to review questionable expenditures have been thwarted by U.S. military officials, including Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and Mr. Obama's nominee to be U.S. ambassador there.
SIGAR was created last year to investigate possible abuses regarding all U.S. agencies working in Afghanistan.
Just returned from his third trip to Afghanistan, Gen. Fields said his agency is working closely with other auditors to set priorities and explore allegations of wrongdoing.
He said he has a team of 41 auditors and support staff, but needs 90 people to do the job.
Gen. Fields stressed that it would take more time and money to open offices and build the staff necessary to scrutinize a vast bureaucracy at home and abroad.
Moreover, he said that a shortage of funding could hamper SIGAR and requested that an additional $7.2 million be added to the $16 million operating budget appropriated last year.
Without the extra funds, "We will not be able to bring aboard the robust staff that is commensurate with the robust mandate that Congress has imposed upon us," Gen. Fields said.
Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas Democrat, recommended SIGAR receive the additional funds “to save money that might be misspent somewhere else.”
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AFGHANISTAN: Dozens of schools reopen in volatile south
26 Mar 2009 14:23:42 GMT
KABUL, 26 March 2009 (IRIN) - Eighty-one primary and secondary schools which had previously been closed in southern areas of Afghanistan owing to insecurity have reopened in the past three months, the Education Ministry (MoE) has said.
A series of individual agreements were reached during behind-the-scenes talks between the MoE, local tribal elders, religious scholars and insurgent groups, the MoE said.
"The reopening of 81 schools in Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces will enable over 50,000 students to reclaim their right to education," Asif Nang, a spokesman for the MoE, told IRIN in Kabul.
Some 15 percent of the 50,000 students are girls, MoE said.
Local people had agreed to ensure the safety and security of the schools, the students and the teaching staff, Nang said.
Efforts are also under way to reopen hundreds of other schools through community-based initiatives and negotiations.
Over 570 primary and secondary schools are still closed - mostly in southern regions where Taliban insurgents have burned down schools and killed or terrified students and teachers. Hundreds of thousands of students had been denied education as a result, MoE officials said.
Over 290 security incidents involving schools, students and school workers were reported in 2008, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Rapprochement policy
Since his appointment as education minister in October, Farooq Wardak has engaged in a policy of rapprochement with the insurgents, and tried to persuade them to allow schools to be reopened.
The Taliban oppose girls' formal education and all types of outdoor work by women, due to their strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
"The 81 schools have been reopened owing to support from tribal elders, local councils, religious scholars and 'patriotic Taliban'," said Wardak's chief spokesman, Asif Nang.
Concessions
In a new directive issued by the education minister on 22 March, all schools and education centres in the country have been instructed to ensure prayer breaks during school hours, a practice which has hitherto not been formally enforced, but which is expected to please the Taliban.
The MoE also said it would consider favourably requests by the insurgents for the renaming of schools as 'madrasas', and teachers as 'mullahs', and would be prepared to tweak the existing curriculum, which the MoE believes is already in line with Islamic precepts, to accommodate any minor misgivings the insurgents might have.
The MoE's overtures seem to be in line with the government's policy of reconciliation with the insurgents in order to end the armed conflict. The media have recently carried numerous reports of government intentions to reach a modus vivendi with the Taliban.
Human rights activists have warned that girls' education must not be left out of the equation in talks with the Taliban.
According to UNICEF, the country has one of the highest adult illiteracy rates in the world: 71 percent in general, 86 percent for females.
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Canadian involvement in Afghanistan to narrow
Arrival of 17,000 U.S. troops in Kandahar this spring will change the mission's scope but may temporarily increase violence
GLORIA GALLOWAY March 26, 2009 The Globe and Mail
SPIN BOLDAK, AFGHANISTAN -- The territory patrolled by Canadian troops in Afghanistan is about to shrink as a new and massive wave of Americans arrives in Kandahar to take on a Taliban insurgency that is slowly regaining control.
The influx will dramatically change the scope of the international military mission in many parts of this province, including the populous town of Spin Boldak on the Pakistan border and the desert that surrounds it.
A significant number of the 17,000 U.S. soldiers promised by President Barack Obama are expected to augment the Canadians in Kandahar starting this spring and on into the summer. They include 4,000 soldiers of the 5th Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, based in Fort Lewis, Wash.
Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Patrick, the chief of operations for Canada's Join Task Force Afghanistan, said the actual distribution of American forces on the ground in Kandahar has yet to be negotiated.
But, "I can tell you that broadly speaking they will be going down to Spin Boldak. They will be going up to southern Shah Wali Kot. And we have the Americans that are already with us [in Maywand]," Col. Patrick said.
Rumours have been circulating among local Afghans that the Canadians are planning to pull out of all districts except for Zhari, Panjway and Kandahar city.
Col. Patrick said nothing so concrete has been decided. "The fact of the matter," he said, "is that every unit will look down at a piece of ground and decide what they can handle and what they can't handle."
There is no point, for instance, in putting a brigade of armoured vehicles like the Strykers - which can hold an entire nine-member infantry squad - in the mountains. Nor does it make sense to send foot patrols to vast open spaces including the desert plains that surround Spin Boldak.
And it may not be realistic to divide the province exactly along district lines because there are many tribal issues that cross boundaries.
"We have to take their cultural considerations into consideration as well before we say 'this is Canada's side and this is the Americans' side,' " Col. Patrick said. "So all of these things are being worked out. But they are being worked out in very fast fashion. We expect them [the Americans] on the ground soon."
Their arrival, he said, will allow the Canadian forces to target communities that have been missed. "There is a sizable amount of the population that needs to be protected, that needs to have that governance and development projected into their areas."
Meanwhile, the presence of the Americans is expected to have a huge impact on Spin Boldak, where fighting the Taliban and common criminals is now in the hands of the local forces, especially the Afghan Border Police. The Canadians or Americans posted here are primarily focused on civic reconstruction.
Local elders told Canadian liaison officers yesterday that they are actually quite pleased with the current level of security that is overseen by General Abdul Razik, the flamboyant young commander who controls a key road into Pakistan.
The Americans are likely to take a much more pro-active approach to combatting the insurgents, which is expected to actually increase violence in the area, at least temporarily. But, ultimately, the plan is, there will be more eyes on the Taliban and the narcotics trade that funds them.
At the moment, said Col. Patrick, much is being done to prepare for the arrival of the U.S. troops.
"They have to have their own [forward operating bases] built in the size that's equal to the forces that they are coming in with. So that's going to start fairly soon, and in some areas it's already started," he said. In fact, they are constructing a massive new camp within the Kandahar Air Field.
In addition, there is a huge amount of military equipment that must be moved into the country and positioned in the region where it will be deployed.
Local district leaders will be informed in advance about what areas of responsibility the Americans will assume from the Canadians.
In the meantime, he said, "we certainly have advertised the fact that there [are] going to be a lot more soldiers here and what does this mean for business and what does this mean for your security and what does this mean for governance. Because we don't want them to wake up one day and say: 'Where did all of these people come from?' "
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Embassy Row
James Morrison Wednesday, March 25, 2009 The Washington Times
TALIBAN THREAT
Taliban extremists will gain the "upper hand" in Afghanistan unless NATO and Afghan forces can prevent foreign nations and shadowy organizations from supporting them, a top Afghan diplomat told international intelligence officers in Washington.
"The Taliban cannot be defeated in Afghanistan without dismantling their command-and-control infrastructure" in the border areas of Pakistan, Ashraf Haidari, political counselor at the Embassy of Afghanistan, said in a speech at the U.S. National Defense Intelligence College.
"We know that no insurgency without a cause could ever survive without external sanctuaries and support," he added. "So unless external state and non-state sources of support for the Taliban insurgency ends, military and civilian casualties will continue rising in Afghanistan, gradually giving the terrorists an upper hand."
Mr. Haidari also complained that NATO forces are "increasingly crippled by numerous operational limitations and some 60 caveats imposed" on the troops by member nations of the Western military alliance.
"With the exception of a few countries that actively participate in combat operations against the Taliban in the south and east, the rest avoid deployments in areas where we have needed them," he said.
While the United States, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands do much of the fighting, critics point to nations like Germany as an example of NATO members who avoid combat.
German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth on Tuesday defended his government's deployment of German forces to the north of Afghanistan, saying the decision was made by NATO. He said Germany was the first nation to argue for moving troops out of the Afghan capital of Kabul, and German forces were assigned to the north.
He said observers who are critical of Germany "do not know the facts."
"All the people in the know [are aware] that Germany is doing its part," he told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
In his speech earlier this month, Mr. Haidari said the alliance has failed in three key areas by dispatching too few troops, failing to coordinate military and civilian reconstruction efforts and neglecting a "public diplomacy" strategy to win the hearts and minds of Afghans.
REVOLUTIONARY GREECE
Alexandros P. Mallias celebrated his last Greek Independence Day as Greece's ambassador in Washington with a rousing message on the anniversary of the 19th-century uprising against the Ottoman Empire and with a visit to the White House to celebrate with President Obama.
"The vision and aspirations of the torchbearers of the revolution, sung and unsung heroes who sacrificed life and limb fighting under circumstances unfathomable to us today, inspired not only those under the boot of tyranny, but reverberated across mountains and seas, resonating with individuals who valued freedom throughout the world," the ambassador wrote in the message sent to friends and reporters.
Greeks celebrate March 25 as the anniversary of the revolution that broke out in 1821 and lasted until 1829. The Ottoman Empire officially recognized Greek independence in the 1832 Treaty of Constantinople.
Mr. Mallias noted that several prominent Americans supported the Greek revolution, including Daniel Webster, then a senator from Massachusetts who later served as secretary of state; Henry Clay, the Kentucky senator known as the "Great Compromiser”; and James Williams, a former slave from Baltimore who died fighting for Greece.
"Let us pay homage to champions of liberty by protecting and cherishing the freedoms and dignity won through their struggles," he said.
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Afghanistan ambassador hearing set
Boston Globe by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor March 25, 2009
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced this afternoon that it will hold the confirmation hearing Thursday for President Obama's pick to be ambassador to Afghanistan.
If confirmed, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry would play a key role in carrying through on the new path forward that Obama is expected to outline this week, which includes 17,000 more US troops but also more regional diplomacy.
“At this crucial moment, after too many years of policy drift, we simply must get our Afghanistan strategy right. With the Taliban resurgent and U.S. troops increasingly at risk, we cannot afford a continuation of the status quo,” the panel's chairman, Senator John F. Kerry, said in a statement. “At such a time, Karl Eikenberry brings exceptionally valuable skills to the table. After two much-lauded tours of duty there, he knows the military side of the equation as well as anyone can. In his new civilian capacity, he is uniquely placed to get the civil-military balance right. I'm looking forward to hearing his testimony.”
The committee also announced that new Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire will preside Thursday for the confirmation hearings for Rose Gottemoeller as Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance and Philip Gordon as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
Shaheen is chairwoman of the subcommittee on European Affairs, which has jurisdiction over NATO, the European Union, Russia, Turkey, Kosovo, NATO efforts in Afghanistan, and energy security issues.
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Bio information on Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry
The Associated Press Thursday, March 26, 2009; 3:06 AM
-- NAME _ Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry.
EXPERIENCE _ Deputy chairman of NATO's military committee, Brussels, 2007-present; top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, 2005-07; has served in various strategy, policy and political-military positions, including director for strategic planning and policy for U.S. Pacific Command; U.S. security coordinator and chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Afghanistan; assistant Army and later defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in China; senior country director for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and deputy director for strategy, plans and policy on the Army Staff.
EDUCATION _ Graduate of the U.S. Military Academy; master's degrees from Harvard University in East Asian studies and from Stanford University in political science; advanced degree in Chinese history from Nanjing University in China.
FAMILY _ Wife, Ching Eikenberry.
QUOTE _ "The search for (Osama) bin Laden will continue because this man has committed mass crimes and atrocities against the American people. And we will not rest as a government, our military will not rest until that man is found, captured or killed." _ February 2007.
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Deeper into Afghanistan
San Francisco Chronicle - Opinion Thursday, March 26, 2009
Elected to end one war, President Obama is ready to revive another.
This week he's due to outline a new strategy in Afghanistan that's expected to mean more troops, more fighting and a closer watch on a porous border with combustible Pakistan.
This outlook may be a recipe for a disastrous re-run of the Iraq experience. The two wars haven't rid the region of dangerous extremists, won allies or produced clear-cut ends.
But Obama has hinted in recent remarks that he's lowering expectations and limiting the risks in rethinking the Afghanistan war, now in its seventh year. Gone is the Bush-era dream of a thriving, democratic society built on Western-style freedoms.
In its place is a more basic goal. Obama's aim is to eradicate the Taliban extremists who hosted Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorists who launched the Sept. 11 attacks. The purpose is to stabilize, not remake Afghanistan, while keeping a close eye on next-door Pakistan where the same fighters are rooted.
Obama wants the minimum from a very bad situation. The Afghanistan conflict was allowed to drift along while the previous White House focused intently on Iraq. The Taliban, once smashed flat, regrouped into a formidable force. A corrupt central government did little to unify the country while opium production flourished. Tribes, not institutions, remain the social glue.
Added to this ever-worsening scenario was the impatience of NATO countries roped into helping the original American effort. These countries now want out after seeing little results.
Obama doesn't believe he can afford a flat pullout, a move that might easily cede the country to the Taliban. He's already ordered 17,000 troops - many transplanted from dwindling forces in Iraq - to join the 38,000 already there. At full strength, these numbers will be about a third of the Iraq troop commitment.
In a "60 Minutes" interview this week, Obama made U.S. security the top priority. But for his war-weary listeners he added: "There's got to be an exit strategy. There's got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift."
It's a clearly stated pledge, one that American voters should jot down to remember. A Gallup poll earlier this month found that 42 percent of Americans felt the Afghanistan war was "a mistake." Compare that to near unanimous support when it was launched months after the Sept. 11 attacks to uproot the Taliban.
This souring attitude isn't lost on White House policymakers, already worried about public reaction to a financial recession and budget imbalances. With Afghanistan, the Obama team reportedly has set a three- to five-year timetable to show results.
Along with fighting the Taliban, there will be efforts to stamp out opium growing, build civilian institutions such as the police, and expand the Afghan military. Further aid to Pakistan may be conditioned on its wholehearted fight against extremists. This is a complicated mix that demands constant attention.
Still, these goals are the right ones: a tight time frame to show genuine results. But Obama is entering a zone where both military and social progress has proved as rocky and harsh as Afghanistan's landscape.
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$1,000 for a kebab? Afghan villages fight corruption
The Christian Science Monitor By Anand Gopal 03/25/2009
Kalan Gazar - In this remote area amid the rough-hewn mountains of northern Afghanistan, a man gingerly steps forward at a village assembly.
"Why did you spend so much money on cement?" he asks village leaders – the first time he has so openly questioned authority.
They check their records and reply: "The cement is high quality, and it was the best deal we could find."
The man sits back down, apparently satisfied.
This bland exchange – one of many at a meeting where local officials must defend their use of public funds – is part of a ground-breaking program to bring accountability to a nation ranked one of five most corrupt by Transparency International, a corruption watchdog. The problem extends from top officials to local village leaders, and it's fueling anger at the government and building support for the insurgency.
Now, villagers trained by an international nonprofit are tackling corruption at the local level through "social audits." They gather to inspect the books of shuras, or elected councils, that oversee many villages and receive funds from the government and NGOs to undertake development projects. In many villages that uncover corruption, residents voted their shuras out in subsequent elections.
"For the first time, we feel like we have some control in our lives," says one villager, Rahimah, who like many Afghans has only one name. "We can finally hold our leaders accountable."
"It used to be that our shura would get money and we'd have no idea what happened to it," says Begum, another villager here in Kalan Gazar, in northern Baghlan Province. In some areas, money earmarked for a development project had simply vanished.
Learning to play accountant
To help build Afghans' capacity in dealing with such problems, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) introduced the idea of social audits – meetings that scrutinize the books of the village council – in hundreds of villages.
The villagers select a "social audit committee," made up of those whom the community deems the most honest and industrious. AKDN then trains the committee on how to inspect the shura's financial transactions – the training is needed because many villagers are illiterate or have never examined financial dealings before.
Committee members follow the money trail, tracking down receipts, interviewing laborers, and grilling shura members. Their efforts culminate in a village-wide assembly where committee members present their findings, then invite members of the community to ask questions of the shura or levy allegations. The assembly closes after the village votes on whether they are satisfied with the shura's dealings.
"This process is crucial to bringing a vibrant democracy to Afghanistan," says Sujeet Sarkar, head of the AKDN's Local Governance Program.
The village shura receive one-time grants for development projects from the government, so thus far the social audits have taken place once in each participating village.
A $1,000 kebab and nice hotel
In the Kalan Gazar social audit, locals gathered to appraise the implementation of a micro-hydro generator, which harnesses energy from a river to bring electricity to the village, and a program that trains women in tailoring.
The Social Audit Committee checked the quality of materials and interviewed laborers to ensure they were paid. They made a taxing two-hour journey to the provincial capital and tracked down the merchants who provided materials for the projects, to check that their prices matched the shura's stated outlay.
In the public meeting, the committee presented detailed figures on the shura's expenditures. Then, slowly at first, villagers stepped to front of the meeting and questioned the shura on various details.
Their queries ranged from the technical ("How many kilograms of steel were used?") to the social ("Why don't you implement more projects that benefit women?"). For many of the villagers, this was the first time in their lives that they were questioning authority or challenging elected officials.
The Social Audit Committee here found no serious instances of fraud, and the locals largely approved of the shura's work. But this is not always the case. In one village, its committee found that the shura paid nearly $1,000 for a kebab, prompting irate questions.
In another case, a committee uncovered a trip that the shura took to Kabul, where the councilors stayed in a nice hotel, using public funds. The village forced the shura members to agree to stay in modest accommodation on future trips.
Because the commitees present their findings to the public quickly (most audits are completed within days), and because they can appeal to the public if there are any problems, it is difficult for shura members to intimidate the committee.
"This is creating a lot of fear among the shuras," says Muhammad Nabi, a government official in Baghlan province. "It puts objective pressure on the shuras and helps limit abuses of power."
Audits' limited reach
Initiatives to strengthen local governance, such as the social audit program, will be key in helping to build a modern democracy in Afghanistan, says John Dempsey, a legal expert with the United States Institute of Peace, a think tank.
Officials hope the program can one day evolve into more advanced methods of government accountability. In some Latin American countries, for example, cities are involved in "participatory budgeting," where communities collectively decide the municipal budget.
But such innovations might still be a long way off here. Despite the program's successes, those involved say there are still many hurdles to overcome. The AKDN has implemented the program in more than 400 villages, but these are all in the peaceful northern regions.
The ongoing war and precarious security situations in southern and eastern Afghanistan prevent the AKDN and most other aid agencies from operating there. Moreover, some shuras in the north have refused to cooperate in the process.
But Mr. Sarkar says some of these shuras are succumbing to pressure from the community to accept social audits. Many hope that the experience Afghans gain in these audits can be transferred to the southern provinces if the war ends.
"This is our job," says Farzana, a member of the Social Audit Committee here in Kalan Gazar. "We have a responsibility to show all Afghans that we can hold our government accountable."
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