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Netherlands admits air strike that killed Afghan civilians
02 Oct 2009
THE HAGUE, Oct 2, 2009 (AFP) - A Dutch warplane dropped the bomb which Afghan authorities said killed nine civilians and four Taliban fighters in the south of the country on Wednesday, the Dutch defence ministry said.
Afghans Say Airstrike Kills 8, Mostly Civilians
The New York Times By TAIMOOR SHAH and SABRINA TAVERNISE October 1, 2009
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Afghan tribal elders said Thursday that eight people, at least five of them civilians, were killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. An American military spokeswoman,
White House Eyeing Narrower War Effort
Top Officials Challenge General's Assessment
By Scott Wilson and Anne E. Kornblut Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, October 2, 2009
Senior White House officials have begun to make the case for a policy shift in Afghanistan that would send few, if any, new combat troops to the country and instead focus on faster military training of Afghan forces,
Taliban burn two NATO fuel trucks in northern Afghanistan
EARTHtimes.org
Kunduz, Afghanistan - Taliban insurgents burned two fuel tanker trucks Friday in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, nearly a month after a deadly airstrike on militant-hijacked petrol trucks in the same province.
Obama meets Afghanistan commander on Air Force One
October 2, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama met Friday with the top US commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, aboard Air Force One before flying home from Copenhagen, a White House official said.
Gates favors bolstering troops in Afghanistan, sources say
From Ed Henry and Barbara Starr
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates is leaning toward the view that a significant number of additional combat forces will be needed for the war in Afghanistan, sources tell CNN.
U.S. Congress puts pressure on Obama over Afghanistan
By Sue Pleming And Susan Cornwell – Thu Oct 1, 5:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leading Republican lawmakers on Thursday raised the pressure on President Barack Obama to make a decision on Afghanistan strategy, demanding his generals testify in Congress as the president weighs his next move.
Senate blocks commander's testimony before new Afghan strategy
Thu Oct 1, 8:19 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Senate on Thursday rejected an attempt by Republican Senator John McCain to have the top US commander in Afghanistan testify before President Barack Obama announces his decision on a new Afghan war strategy.
The U.S. Accepts Karzai, for Better or Worse
By Aryn Baker / Kabul time.com Thursday, Oct. 01, 2009
The acceptance by the U.S. and NATO of a second term of office for Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has raised concerns among many Afghans skeptical of the legitimacy of his re-election.
Fledgling Afghan army grapples with high expectations
By Maria Golovnina – Fri Oct 2, 8:38 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Gun shots ring sharply across a valley littered with rusting hulks of Soviet tanks as Afghan soldiers crouch down and open fire into the dusty haze.
Difficult Prospects For Building A Viable Afghan Army
October 1, 2009 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
In the 1960s, Sher Mohammad Karimi became the first Afghan to graduate from Britain's prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
McChrystal Urges European Allies to Show Resolve in Afghanistan
By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, October 1, 2009 2:13 PM
LONDON, Oct. 1 -- As the White House deliberates over the future of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, the top American commander there issued a call in Europe on Thursday for "resolve" in the war effort
Cameron plans Afghan 'war cabinet'
Fri Oct 2, 6:10 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Opposition leader David Cameron said on Friday he would set up a "war cabinet" for the Afghan conflict if he becomes prime minister, as polls predict he will be next year.
McChrystal defends military goals in Afghanistan
The top U.S. commander, who wants to add troops for a counter-insurgency strategy, says that reducing U.S. aims in the country would be 'short-sighted.'
Los Angeles Times By Julian E. Barnes October 2, 2009
Reporting from Washington - The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan staunchly defended his emphasis on stabilizing the country with a troop-intensive counter-insurgency strategy, arguing Thursday that reducing U.S.
‘ISI has no links with Taliban’
Daily Times (Pakistan) October 2, 2009
LAHORE: The ISI is a professional agency and does not have links with any militant outfit including the Taliban, a TV channel quoted ISI DG Ahmad Shuja Pasha as saying on Thursday.
Two ISAF soldiers killed in Afghanistan: alliance
Fri Oct 2, 5:26 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Two foreign soldiers, one of them an American, have been killed during operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Friday.
Airman killed in Afghanistan blast
Fri Oct 2, 4:19 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – An airman has died in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence announced on Friday.
Ethnic Clashes Hit Faryab
Minor incident blows up into full-scale rioting between Uzbeks and Pashtuns in northern province.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Ahmad Setayesh in Maimana (ARR No. 339, 02-Oct-09)
The two teenage boys, Shaida and Najibullah, were, undoubtedly, extremely unwise.
Afghan legislation nudges women's rights forward
By Heidi Vogt And Kay Johnson, Associated Press Writers – Thu Oct 1, 2:16 pm ET
KABUL – The young Afghan woman got her first inkling of a life beyond her abusive husband when friends mentioned a government ministry dedicated to defending women. Then she saw a TV show about women's rights.
How Afghanistan's rape law got passed
Jessica Leeder From Friday's Globe and Mail Friday, Oct. 02, 2009 02:48AM EDT
An in-depth investigation into the murky process that led to the enactment of Afghanistan's controversial “rape” law reveals a porous, dysfunctional and corruptible parliamentary system.
Experts Caution Senators Against US Military Surge in Afghanistan
By Cindy Saine VOA News Capitol Hill 01 October 2009
Experts at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday advocated a U.S. strategy in Afghanistan that focuses more on political and economic initiatives than on a military surge.
Government seeks to limit testimony at Afghan abuse trial
By Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News ServiceOctober 2, 2009
OTTAWA — The Conservative government, citing national security concerns, is trying to block 22 witnesses from testifying at a public inquiry into allegations that Canadian soldiers transferred Afghan captives
Lake City ammunition plant gets $105.8M order from Afghanistan
Kansas City Business Journal By James Dornbrook Thursday, October 1, 2009
Alliant Tech Systems Inc. received a $105.8 million contract to provide ammunition to the government of Afghanistan.
Sources Claim IMU Militant Leader Yuldash Killed
October 2, 2009 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Pakistani security officials have reportedly claimed that the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Tohir Yuldash, was killed in a late-August missile strike.
Now, Pakistan invites India to work together in Afghanistan
New Kerala By Smita Prakash Oct.2, 2009
New Delhi - In a marked shift in its policy, Pakistan has invited India to work alongside in Afghanistan to rebuild the war-ravaged country to which New Delhi has agreed.
Efforts to Curb Helmand Opium Show Promise
Poppy cultivation in Helmand province, Afghanistan’s opium capital, fell by more than 30 per cent this year - but what will next year bring?
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Aziz Ahmad Tassal in Helmand (ARR No. 339, 01-Oct-09)
As the autumn planting season for poppy approaches, Afghan farmers are weighing their options.
Heratis in No Mood for Second Vote
Locals so angry and disappointed by electoral fraud, many say they will not vote if ballot goes to second round.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Shafe Ferozi in Herat (ARR No. 339, 01-Oct-09)
“Nobody values my vote,” said Shahab Aziz, 24, a shopkeeper in the Ghoreyan district of Herat province. “I cast my ballot in August, but I will certainly not do it again.”
NGOs worried about security in north
KABUL, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - Southern Afghanistan has long been a no-go zone for most NGOs, but concerns are now also being raised about the deteriorating security situation in the north: Insurgency-related activities and violent crime have reportedly increased in Kunduz, Balkh and Baghlan provinces previously considered peaceful.
M-ATVs deployed to Afghanistan
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- The first set of more than 6,000 mine-resistant, ambush-protected all-terrain vehicles shipped to the battlefield in Afghanistan to support U.S. troops.
Pakistan to Target Taliban ‘Epicenter’
By ISMAIL KHAN The New York Times October 2, 2009
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — After fighting peripheral wars against militants for the last several years, the military is poised to open a campaign in coming days against the Taliban’s main stronghold in Pakistan’s tribal areas,
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Netherlands admits air strike that killed Afghan civilians
02 Oct 2009
THE HAGUE, Oct 2, 2009 (AFP) - A Dutch warplane dropped the bomb which Afghan authorities said killed nine civilians and four Taliban fighters in the south of the country on Wednesday, the Dutch defence ministry said.
"It was a Dutch F-16 that dropped that laser-guided bomb," ministry spokeswoman Marloes Visser told AFP on Thursday.
Two Dutch F-16s based in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar were called in to provide air support to soldiers from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) engaged in intense combat with insurgents fighting from a compound in Nad Ali district of troubled Helmand province on Wednesday.
Only one of the warplanes dropped a bomb, said Visser.
"All of the procedures to pinpoint combatants were respected," she said. "If there had the smallest doubt regarding the presence of civilians they wouldn't have acted."
According to Helmand region officials six children and three women were killed in the attack, with at least three other civilians injured.
"That's terrible, it is something we never wanted to see happen and we try at all costs to avoid," said Visser.
Civilian casualties are a sensitive issue in Afghanistan, creating a rift between President Hamid Karzai's government and international forces as well as resentment on the ground against foreign troops.
Some 100,000 NATO and US-led troops are stationed in Afghanistan, helping the government fight a Taliban insurgency that is at its most deadly since the 2001 US-led invasion toppled the hardline regime.
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Afghans Say Airstrike Kills 8, Mostly Civilians
The New York Times By TAIMOOR SHAH and SABRINA TAVERNISE October 1, 2009
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Afghan tribal elders said Thursday that eight people, at least five of them civilians, were killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. An American military spokeswoman, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, confirmed the airstrike, in the Nad Ali district of the troubled province of Helmand, but declined to estimate the number of casualties before a review of the attack.
The strike killed a farmer and his family in the village of Khushal, according to Hajji Talib, a district council member from the area. Three of the family's guests were also killed, he said, but he did not know their identities.
Captain Mathias said coalition forces came under fire on Wednesday and, after a long firefight, called for an airstrike on the building the insurgents were firing from. “We later received reports that there had been civilians present,” she said. Western forces met with tribal elders on Thursday to review what happened.
The United States has relied on air power to reinforce what commanders describe as too few forces on the ground in Afghanistan. But airstrikes have led to higher numbers of civilian deaths, a result that the American commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has said must be reversed in order to make progress.
A statement from the coalition forces said the airstrike consisted of a “single precision-guided bomb on insurgents' position in the compound.”
The chief of the district council, Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, disputed that account, saying that the firefight happened after the airstrike and that the building that was hit was a house.
Dawoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor there, said the airstrike was called in after insurgents attacked coalition forces. He said the bomb was dropped on a “civilian house” but declined to say how many people were killed.
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Sabrina Tavernise from Kabul.
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White House Eyeing Narrower War Effort
Top Officials Challenge General's Assessment
By Scott Wilson and Anne E. Kornblut Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, October 2, 2009
Senior White House officials have begun to make the case for a policy shift in Afghanistan that would send few, if any, new combat troops to the country and instead focus on faster military training of Afghan forces, continued assassinations of al-Qaeda leaders and support for the government of neighboring Pakistan in its fight against the Taliban.
In a three-hour meeting Wednesday at the White House, senior advisers challenged some of the key assumptions in Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's blunt assessment of the nearly eight-year-old war, which President Obama has said is being fought to destroy al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and the ungoverned border areas of Pakistan.
McChrystal, commander of the 100,000 NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has asked Obama to quickly endorse his call for a change in military strategy and approve the additional resources he needs to retake the initiative from the resurgent Taliban.
But White House officials are resisting McChrystal's call for urgency, which he underscored Thursday during a speech in London, and questioning important elements of his assessment, which calls for a vast expansion of an increasingly unpopular war. One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting, said, "A lot of assumptions -- and I don't want to say myths, but a lot of assumptions -- were exposed to the light of day."
Among them, according to three senior administration officials who attended the meeting, is McChrystal's contention that the Taliban and al-Qaeda share the same strategic interests and that the return to power of the Taliban would automatically mean a new sanctuary for al-Qaeda.
Leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Taliban government provided much of al-Qaeda's leadership with a safe haven before being toppled by U.S. forces later that year. Since then, some White House officials say, al-Qaeda has not regained its foothold even as the Taliban insurgency has strengthened.
The deliberations over McChrystal's assessment are expected to last several weeks, and officials who participated in Wednesday's meeting say it is too early to discern what direction Obama intends to take.
Although participants described the discussions as fluid, divisions are becoming clearer between those in the administration who want to broaden the U.S. effort, including sending in additional combat forces, and those who want to adopt a narrower anti-terrorism effort focused primarily on al-Qaeda.
Senior White House officials asked some of the sharpest questions, according to participants and others who have been briefed on the meeting, while the uniformed military, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, did not take issue with McChrystal's assessment.
According to White House officials involved in the meeting, Vice President Biden offered some of the more pointed challenges to McChrystal, who attended the session by video link from Kabul. One official said Biden played the role of "skeptic in chief," while other top officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, were muted in their comments.
Clinton has given no public signals about whether she is inclined to side with Biden or with McChrystal. But Clinton often sees eye to eye with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who also has kept his views private. She met with Gates on Tuesday and has cleared her afternoon schedule for Friday to meet with her Afghanistan team.
Biden has argued against increasing the number of U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan, currently scheduled to total 68,000 by the end of the year. He favors preserving the current force levels, stepping up Predator drone strikes on al-Qaeda leaders and increasing training for Afghan forces. Like many congressional Democrats, Biden is concerned that deploying more U.S. troops could be counterproductive, giving the Taliban more fodder to foment public opposition to the foreign occupation.
McChrystal, whom Obama sent to Afghanistan in May after firing his predecessor, is making his case for additional resources publicly. In a speech Thursday at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, McChrystal said that "we must show resolve" and warned that "uncertainty disheartens our allies and emboldens our foes."
Asked whether a more limited counterterrorism effort would succeed in Afghanistan, he said, "The short answer is: no. You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy."
In the days leading up to the deliberations this week, senior White House officials emphasized what they say have been the administration's achievements against al-Qaeda, underscoring that defeating the terrorist organization, rather than rebuilding Afghanistan, has always been Obama's stated goal.
After pledging in last year's presidential campaign to wind down the war in Iraq and commit more resources to Afghanistan, Obama concluded a policy review in March that, for the first time, considered the instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a single problem that demanded a comprehensive solution, including a large increase in civilian aid to both countries.
Several senior Obama advisers argued this week that two significant events since then have changed the calculus on the ground.
The Pakistani government's decision to reinstate Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry as the Supreme Court chief justice -- his removal had been a major source of domestic tension -- and challenge the Taliban insurgency in the Swat Valley has brought more stability to the U.S.-backed administration of President Asif Ali Zardari, White House officials say.
At the same time, the tainted Aug. 20 presidential election in Afghanistan has cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Hamid Karzai's administration.
"Eight months ago, if you had asked people which was worse, everybody would have said Pakistan is worse and Afghanistan is in good shape," one senior Obama adviser said. "Today we find out they had an election that wasn't clean, the Taliban is doing qualitatively better than we presumed and Pakistan is doing so much better."
McChrystal's high-profile campaign on behalf of his assessment is forcing the White House to make its decision amid a widening debate on Capitol Hill and across the country. In his 66-page report, McChrystal warned that "failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum" within a year "risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."
Republican leaders in Congress have called on Obama to approve McChrystal's request quickly, but one presidential adviser noted: "In eight months, it is impossible to reverse eight years of neglect."
"A lot of decisions were made out of a sense of urgency in the previous administration, and they turned out to be wrong-headed," said another senior administration official involved in Afghanistan policy. "Examining the options, testing assumptions, reviewing everything -- we're not talking months, just days and weeks, and it is well worth the time spent."
Correspondent Anthony Faiola in London contributed to this report.
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Taliban burn two NATO fuel trucks in northern Afghanistan
EARTHtimes.org
Kunduz, Afghanistan - Taliban insurgents burned two fuel tanker trucks Friday in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, nearly a month after a deadly airstrike on militant-hijacked petrol trucks in the same province. The trucks were transporting fuel to NATO forces from the Tajik border and were on their way to Kabul when they were ambushed by the Taliban, provincial Governor Mohammad Omar said.
The attack happened on the outskirts of the provincial capital, also called Kunduz, Omar said, adding that both drivers were able to escape unharmed.
Noor Ahmad, one of the drivers, said the Taliban opened fire near the Aliabad district outside Kunduz City and shot out the trucks' tyres.
He said he and his fellow driver then ran to a police station. When they returned, they found the trucks destroyed by rocket-propelled grenades and automatic gunfire, he said.
The ambush occurred after a September 4 airstrike ordered by a German colonel on two Taliban-hijacked fuel trucks. It resulted in the deaths of up to 99 Afghans, including about 30 civilians, according to Afghan government reports, and provoked international criticism.
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Obama meets Afghanistan commander on Air Force One
October 2, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama met Friday with the top US commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, aboard Air Force One before flying home from Copenhagen, a White House official said.
"The president wanted to take the opportunity to get together with General McChrystal," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
McChrystal had been in London, and flew to Copenhagen to meet with Obama to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Gibbs said.
McChrystal left the plane after a 25 minute meeting, Gibbs said.
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Gates favors bolstering troops in Afghanistan, sources say
From Ed Henry and Barbara Starr
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates is leaning toward the view that a significant number of additional combat forces will be needed for the war in Afghanistan, sources tell CNN.
Gates is inclined to back Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, in pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy, defense and administration officials said Thursday.
Both officials stressed that Gates does not necessarily support sending all the additional forces McChrystal would want, which sources have said could be as many as 40,000 troops.
But they said Gates will likely agree with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen, who told Congress last week that he expects more troops will be needed.
Another senior military official separately told CNN any final strategy Gates endorses may not be solely a counterinsurgency plan.
President Obama met for 25 minutes Friday with McChrystal aboard Air Force One in Copenhagen, Denmark, according to reporters traveling with the president.
The president wanted to continue the conversation with McChrystal that began Wednesday with a three-hour meeting with his national security team in the White House Situation Room, White House officials said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs described the discussion as "robust," with the president hearing from 17 different people.
"We had an opportunity to get a fairly in-depth intelligence assessment on what's going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to assess individually where we are in each and what's changed since March" when the president decided to send an additional 21,000 troops, Gibbs said.
One senior administration official who attended said the discussions ran the gamut of scenarios. The source did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record about the meeting.
There was not a lot of "sniping," the source said, describing it as a "good meeting."
The source said different strategies were aired and participants were able to "shine some daylight" on different plans' assumptions and viability.
Vice President Joe Biden's suggestion to pull back from a counterinsurgency strategy of protecting the Afghan population and instead focus on using drones to go after al Qaeda was scrutinized, the source said. Opponents explained their opposition to that strategy, while proponents detailed their support. It was illuminating to see that it was not quite so simple to just pull back and send drones, said the source.
McChrystal and others explained their counterinsurgency strategy and answered questions about how additional troops might change the mission and where those additional numbers might be found.
In addition, several sources said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was concerned with having enough troops present in Afghanistan to support the Obama administration's civilian efforts, suggesting she may be leaning toward more additional troops as well. But, the sources said, Clinton made clear that she favors a more detailed examination of the mission before a decision on troop levels is made.
In London on Thursday, McChrystal said he believes the situation in Afghanistan is "serious" and "deteriorating." McChrystal suggested that focusing on al Qaeda would not be enough.
"I absolutely believe that al Qaeda and the threat of al Qaeda and Taliban senior leadership are critical to stability in the region," McChrystal said in a speech to London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. "But I also believe that a strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a shortsighted strategy."
Gen. David Petraeus, who as head of U.S. Central Command will make the final military decision on McChrystal's request, said that the strategy is being reassessed and no decision on additional troops has been made.
"I have not yet endorsed the resources" requested by McChrystal, Petraeus said while speaking at an event in Washington.
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U.S. Congress puts pressure on Obama over Afghanistan
By Sue Pleming And Susan Cornwell – Thu Oct 1, 5:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leading Republican lawmakers on Thursday raised the pressure on President Barack Obama to make a decision on Afghanistan strategy, demanding his generals testify in Congress as the president weighs his next move.
But Defense Secretary Robert Gates flatly rejected the request and said it was inappropriate as Obama decides how to turn around an increasingly unpopular war that his generals say will be lost without a clearer strategy and greater resources.
"Until the president makes his decision on the way forward in Afghanistan, it would be inappropriate for me -- or our military commanders -- to openly discuss the advice being provided or the nature of the discussions," Gates said in a letter to Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid.
Influential Republican Sen. John McCain, who lost the presidential election to Obama last year, said the generals and others should appear in Congress no later than November 15.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin sought to squash McCain's request, attaching an amendment to a defense spending bill that said Obama's generals and others should testify after a decision was made, not before.
"The secretary of defense is not going to allow it, nor should he, and we're not going to ask it," said Levin, whose amendment was passed along party lines.
But McCain said Senate members had an obligation to hear first-hand from commanders and not via news outlets.
"In an unfortunate party line vote the Senate voted to abrogate its obligations to the men and women serving in the military," said McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
House Minority Leader Republican Rep. John Boehner, said the American people needed to understand the challenges ahead and hear from the key general in Congress as soon as possible.
Some Democrats have also backed calls for U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, the head of Afghan operations, to testify. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said last week it would be useful "at some point in time" for it to happen.
Republicans have accused Obama of taking too long to decide what to do in Afghanistan while many Democrats have backed his deliberate approach.
TOO LONG, SAY REPUBLICANS
Obama met his national security team on Wednesday in the first of a series of sessions over the coming weeks to map out future strategy, with options ranging from sending in additional troops to scaling back.
"The president heard from, by my count, 17 different people as part of that meeting. I think it was ... exceedingly productive," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
The next meeting is on October 7 and Obama is weeks away from making a decision, particularly as the administration seeks clarity after the August 20 election in Afghanistan.
The head of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, McChrystal, has given a grave assessment of the effort and submitted a request estimated at between 30,000 to 40,000 more troops and trainers.
General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said on Thursday he expected two more sessions with Obama next week, adding that a decision had not yet been taken on force numbers but that this was about to be "introduced into the equation."
The Obama administration is also grappling with fallout after the election and questions over the legitimacy of incumbent Hamid Karzai, who is expected to win despite widespread allegations of fraud.
Petraeus said in an interview with NBC the government in Kabul needed to be seen as legitimate, "which is not the case right now, by and large, in many areas."
"President Karzai himself -- in fact I met with his foreign minister yesterday -- would be the first to say there has to be a substantial effort to combat corruption and achieve again this sense of legitimacy in the eyes of the people," he said.
The election could still go to a run-off, an option some U.S. officials see as the best chance to boost the legitimacy of the government.
Republican Rep. Dana Rohrbacher demanded a second round of voting in Afghanistan.
"If Mr. Karzai and his government cannot even conduct a free and fair election then we should have second thoughts about even considering sending more troops to Afghanistan. This is something we should all think about," he said.
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Steve Holland, Tom Ferraro and Andy Sullivan; editing by Todd Eastham)
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Senate blocks commander's testimony before new Afghan strategy
Thu Oct 1, 8:19 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Senate on Thursday rejected an attempt by Republican Senator John McCain to have the top US commander in Afghanistan testify before President Barack Obama announces his decision on a new Afghan war strategy.
Lawmakers voted 59 to 40 to reject the McCain amendment, which called for General Stanley McChrystal and others to testify before Congress about the direction of the war in Afghanistan by November 15.
"Unfortunately, now Congress must rely on news outlets for access to our military leaders," McCain said in a statement.
Besides McChrystal, the McCain measure called for testimony by General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command; Admiral James Stavridis, the head of US European Command; and US ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry.
But lawmakers voted against the measure, opting instead for an amendment introduced by Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Armed Services Committee, that would postpone the testimony until after a White House strategy announcement.
"Appropriate committees of Congress shall hold hearings, in open and closed session, relating to the strategy and resources of the United States with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan promptly after the decision by the president on those matters is announced," the Levin text said.
Levin told reporters that he opposed the McCain amendment because it sought testimony on the war effort in Afghanistan before Obama had reached a decision.
"In 2006, when president (George W.) Bush was considering a surge in Iraq, there was no effort to put General Casey in that position," he said, referring to General George Casey -- then the top US commander in Iraq.
The Levin measure, which passed in a 60-39 vote, calls for the military commanders and the US ambassador to testify along with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Gates said he was opposed to McChrystal testifying before Obama had completed his strategy review.
"Until the president makes his decision on the way forward in Afghanistan, it would be inappropriate for me -- or our military commanders -- to openly discuss the advice being provided or the nature of the discussions being carried out with the president," he wrote.
"However, once the president acts, I will be happy to testify before the appropriate committees of the Congress and to facilitate similar testimony by commanders and other senior Department leaders."
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The U.S. Accepts Karzai, for Better or Worse
By Aryn Baker / Kabul time.com Thursday, Oct. 01, 2009
The acceptance by the U.S. and NATO of a second term of office for Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has raised concerns among many Afghans skeptical of the legitimacy of his re-election. That acceptance was announced in Washington and Brussels on Sept. 29, at least a week before Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission releases its final verdict on a recount of thousands of potentially fraudulent votes that could either confirm Karzai's initial first-round victory or — if his tally falls below 50% — order a runoff vote against his closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. But while the Western powers may have jumped the gun with the announcement of support, it seems inevitable that Karzai will eventually emerge victorious even after a runoff.
The U.S., NATO and the U.N. — whose senior representative to Afghanistan, Norwegian Kai Eide, was accused by his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, of tacitly favoring a Karzai victory following the election debacle (Galbraith was fired this week) — will now be forced to work with an Afghan leader that has not only distanced himself from Western tutelage but also lacks legitimacy in the eyes of his people.
Relations between Karzai and his Western backers deteriorated significantly over the past couple of years, particularly after the onset of the Obama Administration. Instead of stinging Karzai into cleaning up his act, public criticism from Washington enabled him to set himself up as a leader at odds with the U.S., boosting his support in some sections of the population. He sought to strengthen his position through alliances with regional power brokers, including warlords accused of major human-rights abuses and known drug traffickers — people he will be beholden to as he enters a second term.
"These leaders, these warlords, we witnessed them as they destroyed our country over the past decades," says Sanjar Sohail, editor of the national Eight in the Morning newspaper. "Previously they destroyed with the power of the gun. Now they can destroy with the power of democracy."
Still, the U.S. and NATO have little choice but to work with the leader they have, even if he's not the leader they wish they had. Karzai believed that Washington was trying to get rid of him ahead of the election, and he'll see his victory as a triumph also over those in Western capitals who had sought his ouster. Having secured another term of office, and with the West desperate to save its mission in Afghanistan from collapse, Karzai has the upper hand — and that will make it all the more difficult to cajole him into fighting corruption and delivering the good governance that is key to the campaign against the Taliban.
Presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada acknowledges tension in the relationship between Karzai and the international community, especially the U.S., but contends that the most difficult times are over, especially now that Karzai has what he calls a "fresh, strong mandate." He continues, "We have always agreed on what should be the end result [for Afghanistan] but not always on how to get there. We are a very different government now than we were eight years ago, so we can be more partners than beneficiaries." Perhaps. But the reforms in governance and the fight against corruption that Western powers are demanding would involve tough choices for the incumbent, many of whose key supporters are part of the problem.
The international community has protested vocally against Karzai's affiliation with warlords such as his newly appointed vice presidential running mate, Marshal Fahim, and Abdul Rashid Dostum, a northern warlord whose flagrant disregard of Afghan law over the past several years was overlooked in exchange for his support in the election. Such protests have had little effect, says Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. "Rhetoric and public criticism that pushes a leader to a corner will not work, especially in Afghanistan where pride is an issue. If you just go in and say 'Don't deal with Dostum' or 'Stop corruption' and leave, no one will feel the pressure."
Even now, Nadery claims, Washington has more leverage than it knows. For example, many of the salaries of Karzai's coterie of close advisers are paid by the U.S. "If you have a clear demonstration that resources would be cut off from different operations in the [presidential] palace, that kind of pressure would have an impact," he suggests.
While many of the comparisons between the NATO mission in Afghanistan and the failed Soviet occupation in the 1980s are flawed, there is an unfortunate parallel in at least one respect: Moscow's insistence that Afghans recognize their puppet government, despite its failure to deliver to the people. "Everyone is focusing on the number of troops the U.S. has in Afghanistan," says analyst Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies. "The Russians had twice as many troops [as the NATO coalition does now] but they failed, not because they were weak, but because the Afghan government was never accepted by the people. If people do not accept and recognize the legitimacy of the Afghan government we cannot force them with foreign forces. And that is where we are going." Karzai has a lock on power in Kabul for the next five years, but if can't be persuaded or compelled to fundamentally reform his government, the echo of the Soviet example may grow louder and more ominous.
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Fledgling Afghan army grapples with high expectations
By Maria Golovnina – Fri Oct 2, 8:38 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Gun shots ring sharply across a valley littered with rusting hulks of Soviet tanks as Afghan soldiers crouch down and open fire into the dusty haze.
No one fires back and enemy positions are empty.
Here at the Kabul Military Training Center, the exercise is part of U.S. efforts to put the Afghan army on its own feet in hopes that, one day, Western troops could leave Afghanistan.
Once a Soviet military base, the facility is now at the heart of plans by General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. and NATO military chief in Afghanistan, to create a strong enough Afghan fighting force capable of defending its country from the Taliban.
Progress is painfully slow. Plagued by illiteracy, corruption and desertion, the army is not yet far from what it was just a few years ago: a motley crew of militia fighters.
"This army is a microcosm of the greater population. A lot of the things that are holding back the army also exist on the civilian side," said Colonel Dennis Brown, the training centre's acting chief of staff.
"We have to work and take small steps ... so we can leave once we get the military to defend their country. So we can leave. And our mission will be done."
The plan is to expand the army from 90,000 to 134,000 soldiers by late 2011 -- and create an effective force that could take over security in Afghanistan, much as is happening in Iraq.
A rise in civilian deaths, particularly in air strikes by NATO forces, has fueled Afghan anger and contributed to calls for a greater role of the Afghan army in anti-Taliban operations.
Recruits come from all over Afghanistan and anyone in good health in welcome. In a country at war, many arrive already hardened by battle but lack professional training and discipline.
"A lot of these guys have a lot of experience," said Staff Sergeant David Adams, a U.S. mentor from Arizona as he pointed at a group of soldiers receiving instructions in the blistering heat on how to storm and secure buildings.
"If you talk to these guys about how to execute an ambush, they've done it many more times than I have," he added, smiling. "Now we need to turn it into a winning force."
COSTLY EFFORT
The sprawling training center is like a city in itself, complete with pot-holed roads, shooting ranges, ruins of Soviet facilities and biscuit-colored hills flanking it from all sides.
Supervised by NATO trainers, hundreds of Afghans go through rounds of exercise every day. Perched on the outskirts of Kabul, the center churns out 25,000 trained soldiers a year.
Clad in brand-new uniforms, Afghans clutch their M-15 assault rifles somewhat awkwardly during exercises -- part of a plan to re-equip an army long used to Russian-designed AK-47s.
Yet many cannot read and write -- a challenge when it comes to explaining how to use sophisticated modern weaponry.
"A lot of them are illiterate so that's a problem," Staff Sergeant David Miller, a mentor from California. "You just got to keep things very simple for these guys."
Desertion is a big problem. Up to seven percent of soldiers disappear after a few weeks of training, mentors say, raising suspicions that some of the skills are leaking to the Taliban.
"There is no way to be 100 percent certain that we are not training the Taliban," said Colonel Brown.
NATO forces are gradually handing over the training to Afghan officers in an effort to turn the army into a self-sufficient force capable of recruiting and training its own men.
It is expensive. It already costs $8 billion a year to train and maintain the Afghan army. With an entire economy worth only about $11 billion, Afghanistan is unable to sustain such a force on its own, making it dependent on foreign cash.
A point of resentment shared by soldiers in most armies, Afghan recruits often complain about low wages. These concerns are embittered by the fact that wages, at about $120 a month, often lag behind what the Taliban pay their foot soldiers.
"We need more money," said Sergeant Hakimullah, an Afghan officer who supervises some of the training. "What I get is not enough to support my family of 15."
The eventual goal described by the commander of U.S. and NATO forces would be to nearly triple the army's size to 240,000 -- a challenge for a country with an average life expectancy of 45 years and where only a third of the population can read or write.
NATO forces say they are ready to overcome the difficulties.
"What we are not trying to do here is create a British army or American army. Afghanistan is very different culture," said Captain Fred Bell, a British mentor. "If we are not optimistic we might as well go home now."
(Editing by Sugita Katyal)
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Difficult Prospects For Building A Viable Afghan Army
October 1, 2009 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
In the 1960s, Sher Mohammad Karimi became the first Afghan to graduate from Britain's prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
Following further military training and education from the top U.S. and European institutions, Karimi's credentials can stand with those of any military professional.
But the biography of the lieutenant-general -- who today heads the operations department at the Afghan Defense Ministry and plays a significant role in the effort to rebuild the Afghan National Army (ANA) -- varies greatly from those of his Western counterparts.
After the 1978 communist coup in Afghanistan, Karimi was arrested and incarcerated because of his Western education. Unlike many of his communist colleagues and the majority of the Afghan officer corps, he had never received training in the Soviet Union.
Karimi was eventually forced into exile in neighboring Pakistan, where he lived until the demise of the Taliban regime in 2001.
"Indeed the national army is progressing well. We now have a National Army and it is being built further. But we all are very impatient and trying to build everything in one day. We cannot build everything overnight," Karimi told RFE/RL.
"We have a very weak economy and we have been at war for the past 30 years, and it still continues,” he said. “We are now moving forward with international help, and over the past eight years we built the military from zero to having 95,000 soldiers now."
General Karimi was responding to recent media reports questioning whether a greater push to train Afghan forces could be a realistic alternative to increasing the number of Western troops fighting to establish security in Afghanistan.
Critics have expressed doubts as to whether Afghan military and security forces can at this stage play a serious role in stabilizing Afghanistan, and in turn help pave the way for an eventual exit strategy for international forces.
Mixed Success
Reports suggesting that 90 percent of Afghan soldiers cannot read or write have added to the skepticism, as have the high number of desertions among Afghan forces reluctant to serve in volatile southern provinces plagued by an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency.
The technical capability of Afghanistan's military is also a negative factor. Afghan units lack sufficient helicopters, tanks, artillery and other critical components to become a self-reliant sustainable force, leaving them to rely heavily on international troops for support during field missions.
Despite such misgivings, the creation of a disciplined Afghan security force is nevertheless considered by many -- including some European allies in the Afghan war effort -- to be the best and most realistic option for the long term.
The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have played the lead roles in training, mentoring, and arming the new military.
On September 30, President Barack Obama convened a meeting of his so-called war council made up of key members of the U.S. national security infrastructure, including top diplomats, generals, and national security advisers.
In discussing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, the White House gathering considered a recent request from the top U.S. and NATO commander for as many as 40,000 additional troops.
The request from General Stanley McChrystal followed a three-month review of the security situation in Afghanistan that concluded that the U.S. mission will end in failure unless more troops are sent.
Aside from fighting, the additional forces would be instrumental in helping develop the Afghan army and police forces, whose envisaged numbers have grown rapidly as the security situation has deteriorated.
In 2001, the Afghan military was conceived to be 70,000 strong. Current plans aim at having a 134,000 strong Afghan army by 2011. Two years beyond that mark, by 2013, the Afghan army is to boast 240,000 personnel and the Afghan police 160,000 – the necessary levels, experts argue, for those forces to be effective.
Modern Afghan Army?
Carol Dysinger, associate professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, has made numerous trips to Afghanistan over the past four years to gather material for the upcoming film "Camp Victory: Afghanistan," which documents the effort to train the Afghan military.
Dysinger tells RFE/RL that based on her observations of the relationship between Afghans and their mentors from the U.S. National Guard, she believes that those who doubt the potential of the Afghan military are ignorant of the independent "nature of the man who will staff the Afghan army officer corps," and of the qualities of Afghan soldiers.
The Afghan officers and soldiers Dysinger spoke to told her: “'We need material support, we need the training and the mentoring, and we want to have our own army,'” she said. "As one young man said to me, 'the country is ours, the fight is ours [and] the dust is ours.'"
Afghanistan historically relied heavily on its tribes for protecting its territory and fighting outsiders, and only created a robust military in the early 1970s.
Civilian Afghan communist leaders took advantage of the military's reliance on Soviet training and weapons when coups and counter-coups were launched in late 1970s and 1980s.
The politicization of the military paved the way for its disintegration after Kabul fell in 1992 to anti-Soviet mujahedin guerillas, who were subsequently defeated by the Taliban.
Understanding such dynamics could be critical to understanding the challenges involved in creating the new Afghan military.
Former communist-era Afghan military General Amarullah Aman says that what really matters is the quality of the Afghan forces; their organization, discipline, and morale.
"In our military there is now no [system for] reward and punishment,” Aman said. “We have not seen any officer being punished for desertion or disciplined for being defeated in battle."
Aman relates an often repeated list of concerns, adding that "no officer has been put on trial for selling arms and ammunition. But such incidents continue to happen all the time."
Like many former military officers who stood to return to their positions after the fall of the Taliban, Aman was decommissioned under a UN-sponsored program.
He says that the Afghan military is dominated by cadres from past warring factions who sometimes see the creation of a professional military as going against their personal interests.
Cost Concerns
Apart from the domestic Afghan political complications, Western analysts often highlight the cost of creating a large new Afghan military. They point to the annual revenue that Afghanistan currently generates on its own, which amounts to about $600 million.
The question is whether once completely on its own, the country would be able to sustain a large military and security force whose operating costs could amount to billions annually.
General Karimi disagrees, arguing that building an Afghan army would be cheaper for Western countries than sending more troops. In addition, he says, it would lessen domestic opposition to the Afghan mission within allied countries, where governments face growing public opposition to their involvement as military casualties mount.
Karimi notes, however, that restoring sustainable peace in Afghanistan will require much more than merely building Afghan security forces.
"Since 2003 and 2004 we have been shouting loudly and saying that fighting alone will not bring peace,” Karimi said. “We need to bring about reconstruction for people and rebuild and create a sound administration, so that security measures can move parallel to reconstruction," he says.
"We need to win people's hearts and minds because, as one of our proverb goes, 'You cannot build communities by force,'" he said.
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McChrystal Urges European Allies to Show Resolve in Afghanistan
By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, October 1, 2009 2:13 PM
LONDON, Oct. 1 -- As the White House deliberates over the future of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, the top American commander there issued a call in Europe on Thursday for "resolve" in the war effort, saying that "time does matter" in charting a new course in the escalating conflict.
In his first major speech since issuing a stark assessment calling for up to 40,000 fresh troops within the next year or risk losing the war, Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned of the "serious" risks facing allied forces there. He said the current policy debate over the war may ultimately benefit military strategy by further clarifying the mission's goals. But McChrystal insisted on the need for unwavering commitment and speed in decision making, warning against a downgrading of the definition of success.
"We must show resolve," he said before a group of academics, strategists and retired military officers at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. The British, who have the largest number of troops in Afghanistan after the United States, are closely scrutinizing the White House debate. "Uncertainty disheartens our allies and emboldens our foes."
The speech, while offering a candid take on the situation on the ground, echoed much of what McChrystal had already recommended in his Aug. 30 assessment. McChrystal is expected to make a specific troops request for additional U.S. troops -- already scheduled to number 68,000 by the end of the year -- in the near future.
But it was significant because of timing and place. The Obama administration is now weighing how to proceed in Afghanistan, showing reluctance to immediately embrace McChrystal's calls for a troop surge. Additionally, he offered his take on the war while in London, even as Republicans are clamoring for him to appear before Congress to take questions on the war effort, something the Obama administration has yet to agree to.
As part of the debate, some in the administration have argued that the United States should scale down troops in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban in favor of a more limited effort to root out hidden al-Qaeda leaders. McChrystal was asked after his speech whether that was a good idea and said, "The short answer is: no. You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy."
McChrystal reiterated his call for a shift in approach at a critical time, with new focus on building the trust and confidence of Afghans, quelling three major insurgencies and building up Afghanistan's own police and security forces.
"I will not stand up here and say we're winning until I'm told by indicators that we are winning," he said. Addressing the reasons for the recent reverses, he said, "We have under-sourced our operations, in some areas we have under-performed, in some areas we have under-coordinated and in some ways we have not overcome very intrinsic disadvantages."
He later continued: "We are going to have to do things dramatically differently, even uncomfortably differently in the way we operate." Current security is so low in many areas, he said, that allied soldiers must often point their weapons directly at any unidentified pedestrians while traveling in caravans for safety reasons. That, he said, is obviously no way to build trust.
McChrystal was set to meet Thursday with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, one of the rare leaders in Europe, in addition to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who have indicated some measure of willingness to commit more troops to the war. Brown, under pressure amid rising British military causalities, said he remains "open-minded" about sending more troops, but only if those troops were well equipped and operating under a clear mission.
Michael Williams, a lecturer in international relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, said that the prospect of Washington "getting cold feet" over Afghanistan "has disquieted Washington's European allies." He said that after Obama's rally for more troops from Europe earlier in the year, the administration's hesitation now "does not embolden them to take political risk" with further commitments to the war. Several leaders, including Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, have recently indicated their desire to wind down their presence in Afghanistan as soon as possible.
Yet Williams noted that others, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, following her recent victory at the polls, could potentially afford to make a bigger commitment to Afghanistan. But "she's not going to take risks if Obama is faltering."
McChrystal and Brown, officials said, were also likely to discuss the issue of troop increases. The prime minister's office, however, sought to play down any European concerns over U.S. commitment, with one official there saying "there is no question that Gordon Brown and President Obama are on the same page."
Special correspondent Karla Adam contributed to his report.
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Cameron plans Afghan 'war cabinet'
Fri Oct 2, 6:10 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Opposition leader David Cameron said on Friday he would set up a "war cabinet" for the Afghan conflict if he becomes prime minister, as polls predict he will be next year.
The Conservative Party leader told The Sun newspaper he would bring together top ministers, armed forces and intelligence chiefs in a group similar to the US National Security Council.
"Our military is at war in Afghanistan, but quite frankly, Whitehall isn't," Cameron said, referring to politicians and civil servants.
Cameron, who hopes to succeed Prime Minister Gordon Brown in elections due by next June, said the cabinet would meet "from minute one, hour one, day one" if his party takes power.
The Conservatives have held a double-digit opinion poll lead over Brown's Labour party for months and are widely expected to form the next government.
Earlier this week, Conservative defence spokesman Liam Fox indicated that any government led by the party would be "sympathetic" to any request from the United States for more troops in Afghanistan.
The commander of international forces in Afghanistan, US General Stanley McChrystal, has reportedly called for another 40,000 troops to be sent to the country to help combat the insurgency.
"I told General McChrystal during our recent meeting in Kabul that a Conservative government would be sympathetic to a request for an increase in the number of British troops to help expedite the training of the Afghan Security Forces," Fox said in a speech Monday.
Cameron and Fox met with McChrystal for about 20 minutes in London on Thursday, where the Tory leader "made clear our commitment to the mission" in Afghanistan, according to a party spokesman.
Britain has more than 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the vast majority in the southern province of Helmand where they are battling Taliban extremists.
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McChrystal defends military goals in Afghanistan
The top U.S. commander, who wants to add troops for a counter-insurgency strategy, says that reducing U.S. aims in the country would be 'short-sighted.'
Los Angeles Times By Julian E. Barnes October 2, 2009
Reporting from Washington - The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan staunchly defended his emphasis on stabilizing the country with a troop-intensive counter-insurgency strategy, arguing Thursday that reducing U.S. aims in the country would be "short-sighted."
Speaking in London, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said he opposes strategies that would require fewer troops and focus on fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership through drone attacks, air strikes and similar approaches, according to transcripts and audio recordings of his remarks.
Such an approach is favored by some Obama administration officials, including Vice President Joe Biden.
However, counter-insurgency advocates have said that a narrow war effort would leave the Afghanistan government unprotected from encroachment by the Taliban or other extremist organizations.
The strategy debate is at the heart of a sweeping review requested by President Obama as the administration grapples with a tainted Afghan presidential election, escalating violence and mounting allied casualties. McChrystal was among officials taking part in a White House strategy meeting on Wednesday, according to administration officials. He participated by video-teleconference.
In his remarks Thursday before the International Institute for Strategic Studies, McChrystal argued that stabilizing Afghanistan is critical to the political health of the wider region.
"A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy," he said.
McChrystal has submitted a request for thousands of additional troops, but the White House has put the request on hold while it reviews the broader strategy.In his speech to the London-based policy group, McChrystal did not make an explicit plea for more troops, but said that the White House debate was over the goals and objectives of the Afghanistan mission.
"People are re-looking what our goals and objectives are, and redefining and clarifying those. And that is helpful," McChrystal said. "I don't think if we align our goals and our resources we will have a significant problem. Our problem will be if we didn't."
But a gap has emerged between military and civilian leaders. The White House has insisted its goal remains the same: destroying Al Qaeda and preventing its ability to rebuild in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Military leaders said they are willing to consider a more limited mission if the overall goal is less ambitious, such as simply disrupting Al Qaeda. Destroying the organization in Afghanistan, on the other hand, necessitates a stable country, which in turn requires a broad counter-insurgency effort, military experts say.
McChrystal spoke in London as the U.S. Senate debated a proposal to demand he testify about the war before lawmakers. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pushed for the resolution, which was defeated on a 59-40 vote along party lines.
McChrystal repeated his view that the U.S. and its allies have not provided enough resources for the operations in Afghanistan, blaming the shortfall for a "serious and deteriorating" situation.
He said that the military must look at fighting differently.
"We must redefine the fight," McChrystal said. "The objective is the will of the Afghan people. We must protect the Afghan people from all threats: from the enemy and our own actions."
The war, McChrystal said, was ultimately political.
"At the end of the day, we don't win by destroying the Taliban, we don't win by body counts, we don't win by number of successful military raids or attacks," he said. "We win when the people decide we win."
McChrystal was asked repeatedly about the strategy debate in Washington, specifically whether delays in sending more troops would undermine the war effort. He said he supports the debate in Washington because, whatever the outcome, the administration would be more likely to pursue its strategy with firmer resolve.
"If that debate is necessary for a strong decision that is backed by resolve, then I think we have to take that time," McChrystal said.
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‘ISI has no links with Taliban’
Daily Times (Pakistan) October 2, 2009
LAHORE: The ISI is a professional agency and does not have links with any militant outfit including the Taliban, a TV channel quoted ISI DG Ahmad Shuja Pasha as saying on Thursday. Pasha made the comments during his meeting with CIA chief Leon Panetta, National Security Adviser James Jones and other officials in Washington.
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Two ISAF soldiers killed in Afghanistan: alliance
Fri Oct 2, 5:26 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Two foreign soldiers, one of them an American, have been killed during operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Friday.
The troops were killed in separate incidents "as a result of enemy activity in southern and eastern Afghanistan in the last 24 hours," ISAF said in a statement.
The US soldier died after a grenade attack in the east of the country. The other was killed by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan. His nationality was not confirmed, in line with ISAF policy.
But Britain's defence ministry in London said an airman from 34 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment was killed by an explosion while on patrol near British forces' Camp Bastion base in Helmand province on Thursday.
A total of 380 foreign service personnel have died in Afghanistan so far this year, including 223 from the United States and 81 from Britain, according to the independent website icasualties.org, which tracks coalition deaths.
More than 1,400 troops have died since the start of the US-led military action to oust Afghanistan's hardline former rulers the Taliban in October 2001, the website said.
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Airman killed in Afghanistan blast
Fri Oct 2, 4:19 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – An airman has died in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence announced on Friday.
The death of the member of 34 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment brings the total number of troops who have died since operations against Taliban extremists began in 2001 to 219.
"The airman was killed as a result of an explosion that happened whilst on a force protection patrol near to Camp Bastion in central Helmand province, on the afternoon of October 1, 2009," the ministry said in a statement.
Britain has around 9,150 troops in Afghanistan, the vast majority in Helmand where they are battling Taliban insurgents.
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Ethnic Clashes Hit Faryab
Minor incident blows up into full-scale rioting between Uzbeks and Pashtuns in northern province.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Ahmad Setayesh in Maimana (ARR No. 339, 02-Oct-09)
The two teenage boys, Shaida and Najibullah, were, undoubtedly, extremely unwise.
One day last week, the pair saw a young girl on the street in Maimana city, the capital of Faryab province, in northern Afghanistan. Perhaps struck by her beauty, perhaps just full of the mischief of youth, the pair called out to her, “I love you.”
The girl ignored them, and hurried home to tell her family.
The boys were Pashtun, the girl was Uzbek. With the region’s deep ethnic divisions already inflamed by a bitterly divisive election campaign and murky aftermath, that was all that was needed to start a conflict that quickly escalated into full-blown ethnic rioting.
The result: two people dead, 30 injured. The windows of the governor’s office were broken and shops belonging to Pashtuns in Maimana were set on fire and looted.
Two neighbourhoods were involved in the fracas – Deh Sayedan, populated predominantly by Uzbeks, and Afghankot, which is mainly Pashtun.
Toryalai, a resident of Afghankot, told IWPR that he had witnessed the encounter that sparked the trouble.
“Those boys were impolite,” he said. “They yelled ‘we love you’ to the girl. She paid no attention and kept on walking. Nothing else happened. I wonder why a small personal issue so easily became a big tribal one. It has caused financial damage, murder, and disaster to the people in Maimana.”
Toryalai places the blame squarely on the Uzbeks and, specifically, their Junbish-e-Milli party led by General Abdul Rashid Dostum.
“Whenever anything happens involving Pashtuns, this party tries to stir people up,” he said.
But during the riots in Maimana, Dostum himself called his Faryab supporters from his exile in Turkey, urging them to remain calm and seek legal redress, rather than taking matters into their own hands.
Mohammad Asef Paiman, head of the Faryab provincial council and a member of Junbish-e-Milli, denied that the party had anything to do with the violence.
Mohammad Aslam Godaz, a civil servant in Faryab and a relative of the Uzbek girl, gave IWPR a very different version of the incident.
“Two young men armed with pistols, and riding motorcycles, tried to abduct the girl, but were prevented by a member of her family,” he said. “The girl came home and told her family the story. They started out for the governor’s office to complain, when a young man attacked them, stabbing and killing one of the elders.”
It was only after this that the riots began, he said, acknowledging that the violence was triggered by the residents of Deh Sayedan.
“Their dignity was offended,” he said. He demanded that the murderer and the two young men be handed over to the family, and he blamed the authorities for the mayhem that had occurred.
“The police did not take action quickly enough,” he insisted. “They did nothing to prevent people from coming out into the streets. That is why the demonstrations turned violent.”
But Godaz’s version of events was disputed by two other eyewitnesses, Habib and Hajji Mohammad, who told IWPR that the original incident had happened outside their shops. They substantiated Toryalai’s account.
“Those boys were rude,” Habib said. “They should not have spoken to the girl. But they did not have a pistol and they do not own a motorcycle. They do not even know how to ride one.”
The governor of Faryab Province, Abdul Haq Shafaq, confirmed that the demonstrators had demanded that he hand over the two young men who had insulted the young girl.
“This demand is against the law,” he said. “The two rude young men who caused the clash between Afghankot and Deh Sayedan have been arrested and will be punished according to the law.”
Shafaq also insisted that the situation was now under control, and that he had put an end to any more “expressions of love” on the streets of Maimana.
But one week after the riots, Afghankot is surrounded by troops, along with national and local police. Even border troops have been deployed in the area. Afghan military helicopters fly overhead during the day.
A delegation from Kabul, led by presidential adviser Alam Rasekh, has been dispatched to Faryab province, where it is arbitrating between the two sides.
General Morad Ali Morad, commander of the 209th Shahin corps of the national army, told IWPR that the local forces could no longer control the situation.
He also confirmed that there had been armed men among the demonstrators who had shot at security forces. As a result, two Afghan soldiers were wounded.
Abdul Satar Barez, deputy governor of Faryab, used the term “insurgents” to describe the armed men, and hinted at some greater involvement by “enemies of Afghanistan”.
“There are hands behind this matter which want to turn a small issue between two families into a great tribal issue,” he said.
But given the level of ethnic tension in the north in the weeks following the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections, it required very little incitement to turn an unpleasant but essentially harmless incident into a riot requiring high-level intervention from the military and the central government.
The population of Faryab is predominantly Uzbek, with minorities from the Tajik, Pashtun, and Hazara ethic groups.
There has long been ethnic friction in the region. The Uzbeks, like many other ethnic groups in Afghanistan, have very dark memories of the Taleban period, and many extend that antipathy to the entire Pashtun population. The Taleban are drawn overwhelmingly from the Pashtuns.
The August 20 elections, which selected not only the president, but members of the local provincial council, exploited and deepened those ethnic divides. In principle, the Uzbeks supported the candidacy of incumbent president Hamed Karzai, thanks to a marriage of convenience between Karzai and Dostum.
Karzai’s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, is a Tajik, closely associated with the Northern Alliance. Abdullah did very well in the north, but gained only 33 per cent of the vote in Faryab, against almost 58 per cent for Karzai.
But a campaign that appealed to people’s deepest ethnic fears and prejudices could not help but worsen an already delicate situation. Faryab was a powder keg, and the two boys, with their thoughtless harassment of the Uzbek girl, supplied the match.
This comes against the backdrop of steadily deteriorating security in the north. Kunduz has become a virtual no-go zone for foreigners, following a series of attacks and the kidnapping of a British journalist, which resulted in the death of his Afghan colleague.
Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of nearby Balkh province, is also in a state of unrest, with the powerful governor, Atta Mohammad Noor, a Tajik and Abdullah supporter, squared off against Juma Khan Hamdard, a Pashtun and a backer of Karzai.
So the problems in Maimana fit into a very uneasy pattern.
“Nationalist factions are taking advantage of small tribal issues for political reasons,” said Ibrahim Amini, a poet and writer in Mazar-e-Sharif. “Our people are illiterate, with a low level of critical thinking. This is the reason behind most of the disasters in our country.”
Deputy governor Barez himself had come under pressure from Uzbek demonstrators because he lives in Afghankot and was accused of sympathising with the young men.
“Since I live in Afghankot village they think I support the perpetrators of the incident,” he said. “But it is just my house in Afghankot. I belong to all Faryab and serve my people. ”
Ahmad Setayesh is a freelance journalist based in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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Afghan legislation nudges women's rights forward
By Heidi Vogt And Kay Johnson, Associated Press Writers – Thu Oct 1, 2:16 pm ET
KABUL – The young Afghan woman got her first inkling of a life beyond her abusive husband when friends mentioned a government ministry dedicated to defending women. Then she saw a TV show about women's rights. Finally, after four years of marriage, she grabbed some car fare and fled.
Arazo, 19, says she knew from the beginning that the beatings weren't right but it took years for her to realize she could leave. She decided she had to rescue herself, even though it meant leaving her 2-year-old son behind because Afghan law gives custody to the father.
Now, Afghanistan is poised to enact legislation that would allow her to prosecute her husband for abuse. Courts hold little sway in Afghanistan, but activists call the law a necessary step in the slow struggle for real rights for women here.
The Elimination of Violence Against Women Act comes on the heels of a marriage law for the minority Shiite Muslim community that sparked an international uproar in March because of wording that appeared to legalize marital rape.
The government changed the Shiite law to remove the most controversial phrases, but the revised version now in effect still allows a husband to withhold financial support from his wife if she refuses to have sex with him and limits women's ability to leave the home.
The debate over the Shiite law soured Afghanistan's reputation abroad just as the country headed into an August presidential election, and it appears to have propelled the latest legislation to the president's desk.
Sunni Muslims make up about 80 percent of the population, with Shiites comprising at least 15 percent.
Arazo, a Sunni, says she will not press charges against her husband because local police would be unlikely to hold him long even if they arrested him. Speaking at a private aid office in Kabul, she gave only her first name and refused to say where she is from for fear that her husband might track her down.
But she said the legislation could give more women courage to stand up for themselves if it spreads the idea of women's rights into the countryside.
"I learned as a child that a husband is like a second God, that I should obey whatever he says," she explained. An orphan at 11, she was forced to marry a cousin by an uncle even though they did not like each other. The marriage was unhappy from the beginning, and then her husband started hitting her. Sometimes he would slam her head against the wall, she said.
Now that she has left, she can never return home, because she is sure he or his relatives would either force her back into his house or kill her.
The new legislation to protect women comes nearly eight years after the fall of the Taliban regime, which made women virtual prisoners in their homes. The measure, which was first proposed in 2004 and signed this summer by President Hamid Karzai while Parliament was in recess, outlaws spousal abuse along with acts like the bartering of female relatives and child marriages.
"There was lots of resistance," said Shinkai Karokhail, a female lawmaker from Kabul who was involved in the early drafting. Conservative religious leaders didn't want anyone jailed for domestic violence, saying they should instead be asked to leave home temporarily.
Parliament is expected to approve the legislation but the bill has already been watered down. University professors, lawyers, police officials and even some members of the human rights commission — in a nod to social limitations — asked for changes that made punishments less severe, Karokhail said.
"They squeezed the bill, they reduced the articles, they eliminated so many parts," she said. In particular, she said it does not draw a clear enough line between rape and adultery. Many Afghan rape victims end up jailed for having sex outside of marriage.
Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, welcomed the legislation even though she said changing traditional practices and reducing abuse will likely take years.
"Now, we will have a tool to change that reality in the courts," Samar said of the act. "It will make a difference in the lives of Afghan women — at least those who can reach the courts."
Afghanistan was a patriarchal society long before the Taliban forced women to stay inside the home and banned girls from attending school. While the removal of these strictures has given women more opportunities on paper, those choices often aren't available in villages and towns where it is common for a man to settle a debt by giving a sister in marriage and where female rape victims risk their lives by speaking out.
"I never saw a man being stoned because of rape. But the women are stoned," said Sabrina Saqib, a lawmaker from Kabul who is one of the main backers of the act.
Though some reformers in the capital demonstrated against the Shiite marriage law, many more women showed up to condemn the protest. They said the law reflected the way they live their lives, in obedience to a husband.
Arazo pays dearly for her decision to run away from home. She has no way to get her son back and now lives at a women's shelter with no way of supporting herself. She is going to school, but still can barely read.
Saqib acknowledged that women face many barriers to reporting crimes, even with a law to back them up, but stressed that it is a move toward changing mindsets.
"Men in our society, lots of them don't see women as equal to men," she said. "So we have to change the way they look at that."
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How Afghanistan's rape law got passed
Jessica Leeder From Friday's Globe and Mail Friday, Oct. 02, 2009 02:48AM EDT
An in-depth investigation into the murky process that led to the enactment of Afghanistan's controversial “rape” law reveals a porous, dysfunctional and corruptible parliamentary system.
But the system is at least functioning, it shows, a fact Canadians should see as a sign of progress, says the Canadian development veteran who led the investigation.
Passed quietly in May, the legislation – it applies only to the minority Shia Muslims, which make up 10 to 20 per cent of Afghanistan's 30 million people – requires, among other things, that women submit to sex with their husbands every four days with few exemptions. That has led to concerns that the law essentially legalizes rape within marriage.
“The parliament there has gone through a very normal growth process and it shouldn't be expected to function normally,” said Lauryn Oates, an independent development worker who did the investigation for the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent research group.
“There is political development happening along a spectrum. It's happening slowly, but it is happening,” she said, adding: “There is extraordinary progress being made.”
Ms. Oates's investigation into the law was based on 51 interviews with key members of parliament, academics and civilian stakeholders in Kabul during May and June. That was the same period Afghan President Hamid Karzai found himself in the midst of a political firestorm on domestic and international fronts for signing the legislation, officially called the Shiite Personal Status Law.
Ms. Oates set out to trace how the law moved almost undetected from the pages of a hard-line clerical magazine through Afghanistan's two houses of parliament and onto the desk of Mr. Karzai, who said he did not read any of its controversial articles before signing it last March.
Shortly after he did, civilian development groups frustrated by the law's contents and its unusual enactment – the normal parliamentary process was virtually bypassed – turned to embassy officials and international media. News of the law prompted protests and much political hand-wringing over how a bill so peppered with human-rights abuses was allowed to slip into force.
According to Ms. Oates's investigation, the law's passage was engineered by the Shia cleric Mohammad Asif Mohseni, a hard-line, Iran-backed mullah who has been working to increase his stature in Kabul's Shia community.
He did it by making backroom deals with a small circle of MPs, chief among those being Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a Sunni who was originally one of the biggest opponents to the law (the original concept of which was welcomed by the minority Shia community). Mr. Sayyaf is known as blatantly anti-Shiite. In fact, Human Rights Watch alleges he and forces under his control in the early 1990s were responsible for the mass killing and raping of Shiites and the burning of their homes.
Still, Mr. Sayyaf did an about-face in January and became the law's lead advocate in parliament. Many who gave interviews to Ms. Oates suggested Mr. Sayyaf's change of heart had to do with a deal struck with Mr. Mohseni. What Mr. Sayyaf got in exchange remains unclear.
“All kinds of trade-offs go on behind the scenes, which is the way they've done politics for the last three decades,” Ms. Oates said in an interview.
It was Mr. Sayyaf who spearheaded a confusing but pivotal parliamentary vote in the lower house in which members, many of whom later said they did not know what they were voting for, voted to issue an unprecedented advisory to the Supreme Court. It directed the court to apply the Personal Status Law even though it had not been formally enacted or debated.
Ms. Oates's analysis shows it was this statement that really paved the way for the bill to glide through the upper house of parliament and into the orbit of Mr. Karzai, where it aligned with his spring mission to shore up votes for the looming presidential election. However, Ms. Oates suggested Mr. Karzai was not a pivotal figure.
“He [Mr. Mohseni] might have been able to do it without Karzai,” she said. “Mohseni is backed by Iran, he has financial resources and he just used his political connections,” she said.
Notable about Mr. Mohseni's use of those connections, she said, is the fact that he went through parliament to make them rather than operating completely outside it to impose his agenda.
“It is significant that he sought to legitimize the law using formal state structures like the parliament,” Ms. Oates wrote. She said it shows there is democratic “buy-in among Afghans.”
“It's happening indigenously and imperfectly,” she said, adding: “Despite all the challenges in this whole process, Canadians looking at this shouldn't see this as a reason to give up on Afghanistan.”
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Experts Caution Senators Against US Military Surge in Afghanistan
By Cindy Saine VOA News Capitol Hill 01 October 2009
Experts at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday advocated a U.S. strategy in Afghanistan that focuses more on political and economic initiatives than on a military surge. The hearing comes as President Barack Obama is meeting with his top advisers to help him formulate a new strategy for the region.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry began the hearing by highlighting what he called "a landmark change" in the relationship between the United States and Pakistan, as new legislation - co-sponsored by Senator Richard Lugar and approved by both houses of Congress - would triple non-military U.S. assistance to Pakistan.
"The Kerry-Lugar initiative signals our determination to put the relationship on a new foundation, with the aspirations of the people of Pakistan front and center," said Senator Kerry.
The three experts invited to testify before the committee welcomed the increased aid to Pakistan.
But in considering how the United States should move forward in Afghanistan, all three warned of the failure of other countries' attempts to deal with Afghanistan in the past - including occupations by the Soviet Union and Britain.
Milt Bearden is a former Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Islamabad.
"The Soviets spent 10 years, with an average troop strength of 120,000," said Milt Bearden. "This was always enough to fuel an insurgency that matched every effort that they put out to quell the insurgency. But it never, ever was enough to defeat that insurgency."
Bearden said there will always be enough ethnic Pashtuns in Afghanistan who view any foreign force as an occupation and who will engage U.S. troops on the battlefield.
The former CIA officer spelled out his view of how likely a surge in U.S. military forces would be to succeed.
"There is no, in my opinion, there is no possibility for the United States to provide enough troops in Afghanistan to pacify the situation," he said.
Another expert at the hearing, Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, also said that a U.S. military escalation would be unlikely to succeed and would intensify rivalries in the region, such as the one between India and Pakistan.
Lodhi warned of other negative consequences of a military surge in Afghanistan on Pakistan.
"It will lead to an influx of militant and al-Qaida fighters into Pakistan," said Maleeha Lodhi.
Lodhi warned that a surge in U.S. troops would enhance the vulnerability of U.S. and NATO ground supply routes throughout Pakistan, and would likely mean more Afghan refugees pouring into Pakistan.
She said, most importantly:
"It could endanger, erode and unravel the key public consensus that has been achieved in the past one year to fight the militancy," she said.
Lodhi said a fragile consensus has been formed among the general public in Pakistan to fight against the Pakistani Taliban.
Steve Coll, President and CEO of The New America Foundation, a Washington-based public policy institute, agreed with the other panelists at the hearing that neither an abrupt withdrawal of all U.S. forces nor a troop surge is the answer.
Coll said there is a more sustainable solution, and he hopes it is the one President Obama will choose.
"It would make clear that the Taliban will never be permitted to take power by force in Kabul or major cities," said Steve Coll. "It would seek and enforce stability in Afghan population centers, but emphasize politics over combat, urban stability over rural patrolling, Afghan solutions over Western ones. And it would incorporate Pakistan more directly into creative, persistent diplomatic efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and the region."
Senior members of the Obama administration are reported to be divided over whether to scale back U.S military involvement in Afghanistan or to add thousands of additional troops as part of a request made by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Army General Stanley McChrystal.
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Government seeks to limit testimony at Afghan abuse trial
By Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News ServiceOctober 2, 2009
OTTAWA — The Conservative government, citing national security concerns, is trying to block 22 witnesses from testifying at a public inquiry into allegations that Canadian soldiers transferred Afghan captives to local authorities knowing they faced a risk of torture.
The government has filed a motion with the Military Police Complaints Commission, which subpoenaed public servants to find out what they knew about prisoner abuse.
"I think the government wants to do everything possible to stop anything from coming to light about transferring detainees when they risked torture," said Paul Champ, a lawyer for Amnesty International.
The inquiry was called following complaints from Amnesty and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association that military police failed to live up to their international obligations by transferring captured insurgents to Afghan authorities with a reputation for abusing their detainees.
The probe is scheduled to reconvene Wednesday after a four-month hiatus.
One of the 22 public servants who have been subpoenaed is Richard Colvin, a Foreign Affairs official who visited Afghan prisoners and heard stories of torture, saw the evidence first-hand and wants to share what he knows, said Champ.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay, facing accusations from NDP leader Jack Layton that the government is trying to "muzzle" the commission, told the House of Commons on Thursday that Colvin and other witnesses are no longer relevant as a result of a recent Federal Court ruling that curtailed the scope of the inquiry.
A judge ruled early last week that the probe can examine the conduct of military police, but that it cannot delve into broader issues of public policy.
The Justice Department's argument is twofold: lawyers say the testimony of the 22 public servants is not relevant and, even if it was, they wouldn't be able to publicly testify because it could breach national security. In their motion to quash the subpoenas, justice lawyers have invoked a section of the Canada Evidence Act that protects national security.
Colvin's lawyer says that he does have pertinent information and that he wants to divulge it.
"Mr. Colvin does have personal knowledge of what military police subjects knew or had the means of knowing," Lori Bokenfohr wrote in a Sept. 28 letter to Justice Department lawyer Alain Prefontaine.
She said he also has "documentation" to support his assertions.
"Mr. Colvin's knowledge/ documentation relate ... to risk of torture resulting from the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities."
The inquiry has been delayed by a series of court challenges, including a government bid to block the probe on grounds that it could unfairly damage the reputations of Canadian Forces members, inadvertently divulge military secrets, and turn out to be a waste of money during tight economic times.
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Lake City ammunition plant gets $105.8M order from Afghanistan
Kansas City Business Journal By James Dornbrook Thursday, October 1, 2009
Alliant Tech Systems Inc. received a $105.8 million contract to provide ammunition to the government of Afghanistan.
The contract includes several options that could increase its value to $200 million and will be fulfilled at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence by ATK Small Caliber Systems, a division of Alliant Tech Systems (NYSE: ATK), based in Edina, Minn. The estimated completion date is Sept. 30, 2012.
Alliant Tech Systems spokeswoman Amanda Covington said Thursday that production won't occur in Independence but that the local operation will procure ammunition from other suppliers, mainly in Eastern European countries.
The ammunition is “nonstandard,” meaning it is used in guns such as the AK-47, which is not used by the United States.
“This is the second of two contracts we've received for this,” Covington said. “The first, in December 2008, was for $87 million.”
Jack Figg, a spokesman for ATK Small Caliber Systems, said this is a big deal for the Independence operation because it's a new market segment.
“This is part of a plan to go after international business to offset any slump in our business with the U.S. Army,” Figg said. “By establishing ourselves with the ability to be able to fill a contract like this, if there is a downward slump, we can sell to this type of client and avoid violent swings in employment.”
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Sources Claim IMU Militant Leader Yuldash Killed
October 2, 2009 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Pakistani security officials have reportedly claimed that the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Tohir Yuldash, was killed in a late-August missile strike.
The officials made the remarks to domestic and international media on condition of anonymity.
Pakistani army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told RFE/RL's Uzbek Service that his forces have received information about Yuldash's death but that "there is no credible evidence or anyone [who is] a witness."
The death of the head of the IMU, an extremist militant group active in Central Asian countries that has ties to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, would be a significant development in the effort to counter militancy in South and Central Asia.
The anonymous officials claimed that Yuldash died in Pakistan's remote western South Waziristan tribal region along the Afghan border, where he has been based for years.
His host and key ally, leader of the Pakistani Taliban Baitullah Mehsud, was confirmed killed in a U.S. drone strike in the region on August 5.
Sailab Mehsud, a Pashtun journalist from South Waziristan, tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that local sources and intelligence reports say Yuldash was badly wounded in a missile attack in the village of Kanigurum in South Waziristan on August 27.
Citing those reports, Mehud suggests that several of Yuldash's associates and Taliban commanders were also killed or injured.
"The intelligence reports also state that along with Tahi Yuldash [local Taliban commanders] Noor Islam, Abdullah and another person were injured in that attack. Youldash was reported to have suffered massive injuries and had lost an arm and a leg in this attack," Mehsud says.
"But a [top Pakistani] Taliban leader, Qari Hussain, however, insists that such reports are not true."
Yuldash has been reported killed on a number of previous occasions, but subsequent audio or video statements generally emerged to discount those claims. Amid reports of his demise that began to leak out in recent weeks, however, Yuldash did not issue messages he usually delivers at the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (in late August this year) or its end marked by the Eid-al-Fitr celebration (in late September).
An unidentified caller, claiming to be one of Yuldash's bodyguards, told RFE/RL's Uzbek Service on September 28 that Yuldash was killed along with his top associates.
He further claimed that the IMU was trying to keep Yuldash's death secret and that an ethnic Tatar, Abdur Rakhman, had replaced him as the organization's leader.
Big Blow
Pakistani journalist and regional expert Ahmed Rashid was one of the first international correspondents to extensively report on the growth and evolution of the IMU.
Rashid tells RFE/RL that if the reports of his death are true, it would be a "big blow" to Central Asian Islamic militants.
Rashid describes Yuldash as a "charismatic figure" who has led the IMU since 2001, when the group's founder, Jumanboy Khojaev (nom de guerre: Juma Namangani), was killed in intense U.S. bombing northern Afghanistan. Yuldash reportedly led the surviving fighters' flight to Pakistan, where many are believed to remain.
"It is definitely a major success, for the Americans, for the Pakistanis and for the Uzbek governments. In fact, this very summer we have had a number of small suicide attacks and militant attacks in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and it seemed at least that there was a revival of militancy in Central Asia emanating from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is, of course, based in the tribal areas of Pakistan," Rashid says.
"And couple that with the Afghan Taliban offensive in northern Afghanistan, which borders Central Asia, it seems that there was a growing focus on Central Asia by Al-Qaeda, by the Central Asian groups and by the Afghan Taliban."
Taliban Loss
But former Brigadier General Mehmood Shah, who used to head security affairs in Pakistan's troubled tribal areas, tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that Yuldash's death "will harm the Pakistani Taliban movement a lot."
But he says, Yuldash was not very active in organizing Islamist militancy in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries. "There are others who are active on that front, he was only sitting here and making money while damaging Pakistan," Shah argues.
Based on his extensive contacts in the region, Shah suggests that news about Yuldash's death appears to be credible because earlier reports only suggested that he was injured.
Rashid predicts that Yuldash's death would undermine the "underground networks" that the IMU has been trying to establish across Central Asia over the past eight years.
Rashid also suggests that Central Asian governments' public and private responses to Yuldash's death will be very different.
"I think, privately the governments will be very, very pleased. But I think publicly, they don't want to admit that they have a militant problem," he says, adding that the Central Asian regimes would "publicly discount that Yuldash was ever a threat to Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan."
Tajik Defense and Interior Ministry officials tell RFE/RL that they have not yet received any official information about Yuldash's death and can therefore not comment.
Uzbek officials have also declined to comment.
RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Najib Aamir contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan. RFE/RL correspondent Farangis Najibullah and RFE/RL Uzbek Service correspondent Alisher Sidikov contributed reporting from Prague
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Now, Pakistan invites India to work together in Afghanistan
New Kerala By Smita Prakash Oct.2, 2009
New Delhi - In a marked shift in its policy, Pakistan has invited India to work alongside in Afghanistan to rebuild the war-ravaged country to which New Delhi has agreed.
External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna stated this in an exclusive interview to Asian News International (ANI) here on Thursday.
Krishna said that he was pleasantly surprised by Pakistan''s suggestion, and has expressed India''s willingness to work together for rebuilding Afghanistan.
"In Afghanistan we are doing something constructive, something very solid, something appreciated by the people of Afghanistan. We have gone there to rebuild Afghanistan and I am very happy to hear from Pakistan Foreign Minister that both India and Pakistan should work together to rebuild Afghanistan," the External Affairs Minister told ANI.
"I am very surprised by the change in policy by Pakistan. I said yes we are already there we can work together to rebuild Afghanistan. India doesn''t have any other agenda in Afghanistan rather than rebuilding the country," Krishna added.
Earlier, Pakistan''s foreign and national security strategy considered Afghanistan providing it strategic depth against India.
Islamabad had always been worried about New Delhi''s growing involvement in development of Afghanistan, and fears were expressed in Pakistan that India intended to encircle Pakistan. Objections were also raised over setting up of the Indian consulate in Kandahar.
India has invested in Afghanistan, particularly in infrastructure projects such as roads, hospitals, schools and the new parliament building in Kabul. Indian reconstruction aid totals 1.2 billion dollars.
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Efforts to Curb Helmand Opium Show Promise
Poppy cultivation in Helmand province, Afghanistan’s opium capital, fell by more than 30 per cent this year - but what will next year bring?
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Aziz Ahmad Tassal in Helmand (ARR No. 339, 01-Oct-09)
As the autumn planting season for poppy approaches, Afghan farmers are weighing their options.
Last year, an aggressive campaign by the provincial government, coupled with a significant downturn in the price of opium, led many landowners to abandon their traditional, illegal crop for wheat.
Helmand, the undisputed opium capital of the world, showed an overall decrease of 33 per cent in poppy cultivation in 2009.
This year, Helmand governor Gulab Mangal has vowed to expand his so-called Food Zone programme, which distributes seeds, fertiliser and equipment to farmers in specific areas who grow wheat and other food crops rather than poppy.
“The Food Zone programme encouraged people not to grow poppy,” Mangal said. “It shows that seriousness, a regular plan and good management can have an effect. Poppy cultivation decreased by 33 per cent this year, and I am sure that by next year we will double that figure.”
Advisor to the governor Salim Zmaryal was similarly upbeat about the Food Zone.
“This project was based on popular demand,” he told IWPR. “We raised public awareness by talking to religious leaders and soliciting their opinion about the illegality of poppy. We also conducted a campaign through the media. In addition, we distributed seeds, and got serious about implementing the law. We punished smugglers and confiscated the tools needed for harvesting. We seized and burned opium. All of these measures contributed to the decrease.”
Funding for the programme was provided mainly by the United Kingdom, Zmaryal said.
“The UK allocated 12.9 million US dollars for the Food Zone,” he said. “But other countries helped as well. For instance, the United States will give us fruit saplings for 1,000 hectares of land.”
The programme was so successful that Helmand exported 4,000 tonnes of wheat to other provinces this year, he added – all the more remarkable because Helmand had always been a net importer of grain.
The fight against opium poppy in Helmand has been a long and difficult one, with uneven results. Afghanistan’s largest province, and one which suffers from a vigorous insurgency, Helmand alone produces half of the world’s opium. Much of the land under cultivation is in areas controlled by the Taleban and other insurgent groups; still more is protected by corrupt police or government officials.
From 2004 to 2009, poppy cultivation more than tripled, reaching a peak in 2008 with over 103,000 hectares planted. This year, for the first time, that area has shrunk, according to a report issued in September by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC. In 2009, Helmand planted about 70,000 hectares – a fall of 33 per cent. Production of opium declined by 24 per cent to just over 4,000 tonnes in 2009 from nearly 5,400 in 2008.
While Afghan government officials are more than happy to claim the credit for the sharp decline, the UN points out that market factors also played a significant role. The price of opium has taken a nosedive due to overproduction in recent years. A kilogramme of fresh opium in 2009 fetches just 48 dollars, or a little over one-third of what it cost just two years ago.
Faced with the risks and headaches of poppy versus the shrinking rewards, many farmers simply decided to switch to wheat or other crops.
“We are not going to cultivate poppy anymore,” said Bismillah, a resident of Nad Ali. “It has made us poor. We don’t have wheat or hay for our animals because we grew poppy.”
Some people say they have benefited little from the Food Zone.
“The government gave us nothing,” said Abdul Bari, a resident of Chaimirza village in Nad Ali district. “We spoke with the government’s representative, but he told us that we were too late in requesting assistance. So we grew poppy. We are just as strong as the government. We harvested our fields and nobody interfered. I collected 140 kg, and I will plant it again this year. It is like cash, I can sell it whenever I want to.”
Abdul Bari may well qualify for assistance next year, however. The governor insisted that the Food Zone programme would be extended in the coming season.
“Last year, we gave seeds and fertiliser to 32,000 farmers,” Mangal said. “This year, we will expand that to 40,000 farmers.”
Sher Agha, a farmer in Nawa district, thinks the Food Zone programme is a great idea, but nevertheless chose to stay with poppy.
“I am not happy to grow poppy, but what else can I do?” he said. “Other crops do not bring in as much income. Opium might be cheap at the moment, but the price will go up later. There is good money in opium. They gave us wheat last year, but we stuck with poppy. When the eradication team came to our village, we gave them 400,000 Pakistani rupees (about 4,800 dollars), and saved our crop. We are still thinking about what to do this year – we have not yet made a decision.”
The Food Zone programme is also under attack from those who complain of corruption in the allocation of resources. This is hardly surprising in Afghanistan, designated the fifth most corrupt country in the world according the Transparency International’s annual index. Still, it is an important factor when weighing the support of the population for the government’s anti-poppy efforts.
“This multi-million dollar project is going into the pockets of a very small number of people,” said Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, a tribal leader in Helmand. “I am critical of it for many reasons. First, they promised to distribute high-quality fertiliser, which costs 700 rupees (8.50 dollars) per sack. Instead, they are giving out an inferior product, which you can buy in the market for 400 rupees.
“In addition, some members of the staff of the governor’s office and district officials from Nad Ali have a share in this process. They have stocked hundreds of sacks of fertiliser for themselves. This is just the same as four years ago, when there was a project to pay farmers not to grow poppy. Most of the money went to people inside the process, who had never grown one jerib of poppy, but received thousands of dollars. This process is also corrupt.”
Surgul, a farmer in Nad Ali, agrees.
“At the beginning we thought they were giving us wheat and fertiliser for free,” he said. “Now they are asking us for money – 700 afghani (14 dollars) per kg. We don’t have even seven afghani. We have to buy our food from the shops on credit. There is no money in the districts. People are poor. This programme is giving wheat and fertiliser to people with close relations to the governor’s office, or it goes to the staff of the local government.”
Mangal insisted that his office maintained a firm grip on resources, and that corruption and bribery had been controlled.
His deputy, Abdul Satar Mirzakwal, attributed the griping to enemies of Afghanistan.
“We are fighting terrorism,” he said. “Helmand is a province riddled with terrorists. Drug smugglers and those who benefit from poppy do not want this [Food Zone] programme to be successful; they just want to sabotage it. We are not spending a penny on this programme – all the money is coming from the United Kingdom. The PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) is responsible for all the expenses. This is a good opportunity for people. Today the world is trying to get rid of poppy.”
Meanwhile, the government is trying to crack down on farmers who do grow poppy.
“We want to meet with the district governors soon so that they take this issue seriously,” Mangal said. “They should tell the people that anyone who cultivates poppy will be arrested and imprisoned and his equipment will also be taken from him.
“The person arrested will not be released until his fields have been planted with something other than poppy.”
Another positive development in the fight against poppy, according to residents, has been the increased US military presence in Helmand.
In the past, those living in Taleban-controlled areas were able to cultivate poppy in relative peace; but following Operation Khanjar, a US-led offensive in July of this year that cleared the Taleban out of several southern districts, some farmers may choose not to risk growing the illegal crop.
“We may not be able to grow poppy at all this year, since the government is back in control of Nawa,” said Mohammad Jan, a farmer in Kharabay village in Nawa district. “If we grow it, they will destroy it. Last year, one of our relatives lost his poppy fields just at harvest time, when he had begun to scrape the poppies. It was very difficult for him – at that time of year, poppy is more precious than one’s own son. I am going to grow wheat this year. It would not be fair to accept government assistance and still grow poppy.”
The practice of eradicating poppy in the spring, when farmers have invested time and money in bringing the crop to maturity, has riled many landowners.
“In Afghanistan, you have to force people, or they will never listen to you,” said another resident of Nawa, Noor Mohammad. “The government should first arrest and imprison me. They should tell me in prison to stop growing poppy. They do not do this. Instead, they come and destroy my fields when I have already gone through the hard times. They tell me poppy is illegal. The government should help me. If it does not, I will never listen, not even to the president.”
Aziz Ahmad Tassal is an IWPR-trained reporter in Helmand.
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Heratis in No Mood for Second Vote
Locals so angry and disappointed by electoral fraud, many say they will not vote if ballot goes to second round.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Shafe Ferozi in Herat (ARR No. 339, 01-Oct-09)
“Nobody values my vote,” said Shahab Aziz, 24, a shopkeeper in the Ghoreyan district of Herat province. “I cast my ballot in August, but I will certainly not do it again.”
Six weeks after Afghanistan’s August 20 presidential elections, there is still little clarity about winners, results, or the possibility of a second round.
President Hamed Karzai is ahead, with close to 55 per cent of the vote, but allegations of massive fraud may yet rob him of a first-round win. If he fails to clear the 50 per cent-plus-one hurdle, he will face a runoff with his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who currently has 28 per cent of the vote.
But voters like Aziz will likely refuse to participate in any repeat election; most say they were too let down by the previous poll.
“I regret having voted,” Aziz said. “I thought that these elections would be far more transparent than the presidential elections in 2004, but it turns out the level of fraud might be even higher.”
Farid Sorosh lives in a part of Herat province where the security situation is precarious and the nearest polling station is 40 kilometres away. Still, he made the trip on August 20.
He says he won’t do it again.
“I already had some concerns about fraud in the first round,” he said. “It was a bad sign that there were no international observers in many places.”
Just a few hundred international observers were scattered throughout the country, with more than 27,000 polling stations to monitor. Due to security concerns, many monitors were restricted in their movements, unable to view more than a tiny fraction of the vote.
The absence of observers, as well as the insecurity that has plagued much of the country, resulted in numerous reports of irregularities ranging from voter intimidation to outright ballot-box stuffing. In all, over 2,500 complaints were received, close to 700 of which were judged to be serious enough to challenge the results of the vote.
Unable to thoroughly investigate all allegations, the Electoral Complaints Commission, ECC, is now wading through a sample of about 10 per cent of “suspicious” ballot boxes.
But a second round is far from assured. While many in the Afghan and international media have said that a Karzai government elected under the current circumstances will lack legitimacy, others have contended just as vociferously that a second round will bring the same problems as the first, while changing nothing. At the end of the process, Karzai will be installed as president for the next five years.
“If there is a second round it will be a highly problematic affair,” said Nazir Ahmad Reha, a political expert in Herat. “Many people will refuse to participate; there will be economic problems and security issues. Therefore I really hope a second round will not be necessary.”
Even some of those who served as election observers say they would not participate in a second round.
“The first round of elections didn’t live up to expectations at all,” said election observer Hamed Mehri. “Foreign observers should have been present during the election process, and also the representatives of political parties. The people from the Independent Election Commission should have worked justly and transparently, but they didn’t. So if there is a second round I will not participate.”
Political analyst Ershad Khatibi agrees that a second round is not ideal, but insists that the first vote was too flawed to stand. A low voter turnout – estimated at no more than 30 per cent – could cast the whole election into doubt, he said.
“This election has violated the wishes and hopes of the Afghan people,” he said. “The Independent Election Commission (IEC) and other authorities have not fulfilled their responsibilities.
“Of course (if there is a second round) there will be fraud again. Moreover, insurgents will try to instil more fear in people so they will not go to vote. However, I believe there should be a second round. If it will be decided in the first round only, it will have a very negative impact.”
But election officials say it is much too early to speculate about a runoff. “Nobody has yet announced there will be a second round,” said Zia Ahmad Zia, IEC director in Herat. “But if it does happen, we are 100 per cent ready to make sure there is no fraud in Herat city.”
Meanwhile, the voters in Herat seem to have lost their faith in the process. Although some say they would vote again in a second round, many more insist they would not.
“I participated in the first round, because I want a better future for my country, but now I am very disappointed,” said Mohammad Naderi, a shopkeeper. “I will not vote in the second round, because there will just be double the trouble in the first. Moreover, poor people like me can’t leave their work several times for elections.”
Mohammad Shafe Ferozi is an IWPR trainee in Herat.
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NGOs worried about security in north
KABUL, 1 October 2009 (IRIN) - Southern Afghanistan has long been a no-go zone for most NGOs, but concerns are now also being raised about the deteriorating security situation in the north: Insurgency-related activities and violent crime have reportedly increased in Kunduz, Balkh and Baghlan provinces previously considered peaceful.
“We’re very concerned about the safety and security of our staff in Kunduz and other northern provinces,” Anders Fänge, director of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), told IRIN.
The SCA, which has been running health, education, agriculture and rural development projects since 1982 and had a budget in 2009 of over US$30 million, has about 5,000 staff in Afghanistan. All bar 15 are locals.
Since 2006 local negotiators have helped release 16 SCA local staff from abductors, according to Fänge. However, negotiations for the reopening of an SCA-backed girls’ school in the Khanabad District of Kunduz, closed by insurgents, have failed.
SCA’s concerns are shared by at least two other NGOs which run projects in the north.
“Whilst the insecurity is worsening the NGOs have no mitigating resources except suspending their activities in insecure areas,” Dawran Faizan, a programme manager for Netherlands-based HealthNet International, told IRIN.
Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said “the UN shares” the concerns of NGOs about insecurity but added that UN agencies were working as normal in the north.
Increasing violence
Armed violence has increased since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001 and civilian Afghans have increasingly been on the receiving end.
From January to August 2009 UNAMA recorded at least 1,500 civilian deaths - 68 percent attributed to anti-government elements and 23 percent to pro-government forces, according to a report by the UN Secretary-General.
“Security incidents targeting humanitarian activities increased significantly. Humanitarian workers continued to be subject to intimidation, robberies, abduction and assassination,” said the report entitled The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security, submitted to the Security Council on 22 September.
Large swathes of Afghanistan have been inaccessible to the UN and most other international aid agencies because of insecurity and threats to aid workers. From January to 15 September 2009 at least 99 security incidents involving NGOs had been reported in 27 of the country’s 34 provinces, according to the Afghanistan NGOs Safety Office.
Until recently northern Afghanistan was considered largely peaceful and suitable for development projects. However, Afghan and international military officials say insurgent activities have now spread into the northern provinces.
A security incident which led to airstrikes by NATO forces on a district in Kunduz Province on 4 September reportedly caused dozens of civilian deaths.
Some NGOs said they had been advised to avoid entering Kunduz and Baghlan provinces for security reasons.
Insecurity has been exacerbated by a political crisis stemming from election-related controversies. The 20 August presidential election has been marred by serious allegations of mostly state-sponsored rigging.
“The level of alleged electoral irregularities has generated significant political turbulence leading to fears of a return to violence when election results are announced,” the Secretary-General’s report said.
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M-ATVs deployed to Afghanistan
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- The first set of more than 6,000 mine-resistant, ambush-protected all-terrain vehicles shipped to the battlefield in Afghanistan to support U.S. troops.
Riding on their successful deployment of similar vehicles in Iraq and contracted only earlier this summer, Washington lauded the delivery as a major achievement for the Defense Department.
"That is just the first wave of a massive production and transportation program that will see at least 6,644 of these life-saving vehicles delivered to our forces in Afghanistan over the next year or so, making it one of the fastest and highest-priority acquisition programs in the history of the Defense Department," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.
The military loaded seven of the M-ATVs onto cargo aircraft at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., on Tuesday for delivery to the troops in Afghanistan.
The M-ATV features the V-shaped hull used to deflect roadside bombs in a small, maneuverable vehicle designed to replace the up-armored Humvee in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military contracted defense group Oshkosh Corp. to deliver the M-ATVs earlier this summer.
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Pakistan to Target Taliban ‘Epicenter’
By ISMAIL KHAN The New York Times October 2, 2009
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — After fighting peripheral wars against militants for the last several years, the military is poised to open a campaign in coming days against the Taliban’s main stronghold in Pakistan’s tribal areas, South Waziristan, according to senior military and security officials.
For three months, the military has been drawing up plans, holding in-depth deliberations and studying past operations in the area, where previous campaigns ended in failure and resulted in some of the military’s highest levels of casualties.
Even so, military officials said they expected stiff resistance once again in an area that one senior military official called the “epicenter” of the Taliban in Pakistan. It has also become a key base for Al Qaeda. “This is where we will be fighting the toughest of all battles,” the official said.
He and other officials did not want to be identified while discussing confidential preparations for the campaign. But they said the military now seemed ready to try to re-enter the area, having decided it could wait no longer. “If we don’t take the battle to them, they will bring the battle to us,” the official said.
The past two operations in South Waziristan ended up with the military bogged down and suing for peace, resulting in a series of accords that ultimately strengthened the hand of the militants.
An operation in January 2004 led to a peace agreement by that April, followed by another on Feb. 5, 2005, with Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. But with few if any enforcement mechanisms, the accords were never sturdy and allowed the militants to regroup and tighten their hold on the region.
In late January 2008, the military began another operation, called Zalzala, or Earthquake, with the declared goal of dislodging Mr. Mehsud. The operation did not cause even a tremor, and only 12 days later, authorities were struggling to revive the peace accord.
With the failure of the operation went any pretense of state authority in Waziristan, as the government in effect ceded control to emboldened militants.
Military officials hope that things will be different this time, having now taken on militants’ strongholds, each in their turn, in recent years in other areas: first in Bajaur, then in Mohmand and, most recently, in the Swat Valley. Perhaps most critical was the elimination of Mr. Mehsud, whose death in an American drone strike in August helped fracture the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i-Taliban. “The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan as a monolithic organization remains no more,” a security official said.
Since June, Waziristan has been under an economic blockade, with thousands of army soldiers sitting on the fringes of the area, waiting for orders from the military high command to move in.
Some argue that the military should have mounted an operation immediately after Mr. Mehsud’s death. “As far as we are concerned, the operation should have been launched three months ago,” said a senior government official. “Baitullah is dead and his group seems to be in some form of disarray. And this provides the best opportunity to go after them.”
But a senior military official said that, in addition to needing to wait for the forces and resources to be available, the military wanted to see what would be the repercussions of Mr. Mehsud’s death.
“We thought that Baitullah’s death would unravel the Mehsud militant group and galvanize the tribe to stand up to the people they have suffered from,” the official said. “It didn’t happen.”
Now there is a sense within the military establishment that the situation in South Waziristan cannot be allowed to be perpetuated. The blockade is nearly three months old, and the military, which has been conducting limited airstrikes, is running out of targets.
The Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, described Waziristan as an intelligence black hole. “We have to move in,” he said recently.
A large number of civilians have already relocated to Dera Ismail Khan and Tank, both in North-West Frontier Province, giving the army a relatively free hand to mount an operation.
But all agree that the battle ahead is formidable. Questions remain whether the army will be able to hold territory and sustain operations in a tough and treacherous terrain, where snows arrive in late November.
The Mehsud militants not only have the advantage of familiarity with the area, but their numbers — estimated at 6,000 to 7,000 — have been thickened by foreign elements, in particular Uzbeks, who have a reputation as ferocious fighters.
Then there is the Haqqani network, which uses the area as a base for its operations in Afghanistan, and there is Al Qaeda, which depends heavily on the Mehsud fighting force. “They will defend their power base and fight till the very last,” one officer said.
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