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More poll centres for Afghan vote
Thursday, 29 October 2009 BBC News
Afghanistan's election commission has said it will open more polling stations in the presidential run-off than it did in the fraud-riddled first round.
In Afghanistan runoff, more polling stations may mean more fraud
With less than half as many election workers in Afghanistan's second round of voting, it may be even easier for "ghost" stations to submit fake votes.
By Ben Arnoldy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the October 29, 2009 edition
Taliban vow more pre-poll attacks in Afghanistan
Thu Oct 29, 7:25 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's Taliban militia vowed Thursday to intensify its attacks in the build-up to next week's run-off presidential election after an attack on a guesthouse for foreigners in Kabul.
Afghan Runoff Stirs Concern of Repeat Fraud
By Gary Thomas VOA News Washington 28 October 2009
Afghanistan is scheduled to hold its runoff presidential election November 7. But can an electoral process that was so deeply marred by fraud the first time around be fixed in a short time? There is concern the second round of voting will prove to be as flawed as the first.
Afghanistan Votes, the U.N. Dithers
NY Times Op-Ed Contributor By PETER W. GALBRAITH October 27, 2009
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - IF the second round of Afghanistan's presidential elections, now scheduled for Nov. 7, is a rerun of the fraud-stained first round, it will be catastrophic for that country and the allied military mission
Afghan president's brother denies getting CIA pay
KABUL (AP) — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president, on Wednesday denied reports that he has received regular payments from the CIA for much of the past eight years.
Obama seeks study on local leaders for troop decision
Afghan provinces to be analyzed Details should help president determine need
By Scott Wilson and Greg Jaffe Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, October 29, 2009 8:23 AM
President Obama has asked senior officials for a province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan to determine which regions are being managed effectively by local leaders and which require international help, information that his advisers
Obama considers scaled-down Afghan plan
Anne Gearan and Matthew Lee ASSOCIATED PRESS Thursday, October 29, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is considering a scaled-down version of the war plan advanced by his top Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. officials say.
U.N cutting staff in Afghanistan
October 29, 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Non-essential U.N. staff across Afghanistan have been ordered to pack their bags and be ready for evacuation after a deadly attack on a U.N. guesthouse, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.
UN workers scramble over roofs during Kabul attack
The Associated Press By Robert H. Reid, Heidi Vogt 10/28/2009
KABUL - Terrified U.N. workers scrambled over the roof or leaped from windows to escape choking smoke and gunfire after being awakened at dawn Wednesday when Taliban militants wearing police uniforms stormed a residential hotel packed with foreigners.
US should follow Britain on Afghanistan: US senator
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States should follow Britain's lead on Afghanistan, tying a modest troop increase to a major expansion of local forces and an anti-corruption drive in Kabul, a US senator said Thursday.
UN report says Afghan opium still posing threat to world
By Abdul Hadi Mayar
KABUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- A fresh UN report says that despite fall in heroin production in Afghanistan, the country still produces 92 percent of world opium, which threatens the entire world.
Afghanistan calms security fears after UN hostel attack
by Chris Otton – Thu Oct 29, 1:38 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan played down security fears for next week's run-off election Thursday after a deadly pre-dawn Taliban attack on a UN guesthouse designed to strike fear into the heart of voters and organisers.
Getting lost in Afghanistan
Matthew Hoh's resignation as a US official in Afghanistan delivers a sharp, honest and accurate critique of the war
guardian.co.uk Gilles Dorronsoro Wednesday 28 October 2009
Former US marine and foreign service officer Matthew Hoh's letter of resignation from the US state department delivers a shot across the bow of those who would escalate the American combat presence in Afghanistan.
The US army's colossal training task
By Adam Brookes BBC News, Washington Thursday, 29 October 2009
The camera shows a group of Afghan soldiers standing on a cold dusty plain, listening to an American instructor. He is showing them how to use a new American rifle.
Adm: Afghan attack won't disrupt Nov. 7 runoff
AP via Yahoo! News - Oct 28 2:06 PM
WASHINGTON – The White House says Wednesday's deadly attack on a guest house used by the U.N. in the Afghan capital is an attempt by extremists to disrupt the Nov. 7 runoff presidential election.
Obama honours Afghanistan killed
Thursday, 29 October 2009 BBC News
US President Barack Obama has paid his respects to 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan, the first time he has honoured the fallen in this way.
S Korean FM calls on parliament to support for Afghan aid package
SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said Thursday the government plans to provide additional support to stabilize Afghanistan, which apparently included troop dispatch, calling for support from political circle.
Pakistan army kills 11 militants in Taliban strongholds
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani security forces killed 11 more militants during the last 24 hours, bringing the total fatality to over 280, as the operation in the country's tribal area steadily progressed towards the Taliban
Afghanistan: Northern returnees need aid
SHEBERGHAN, 29 October 2009 (IRIN) - Several thousand people returning to their homes in the northern Afghan provinces of Sar-i-Pul and Jowzjan need help before winter, according to aid agencies and local officials.
Analysis: What's at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
By Christiane Amanpour, CNN Chief International Correspondent October 29, 2009
Editor's note: Christiane Amanpour is host of the new show "Amanpour," which airs weekdays on CNN International at 2100 CET and on Sundays at 2 p.m. ET on CNN in the United States.
UN Security Council calls meeting on Afghanistan
29 Oct 2009 15:10:22 GMT
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council will hold a special session on the situation in Afghanistan on Thursday, the United Nations said.
NATO chief to discuss Afghan cooperation in Russia
By David Brunnstrom – Wed Oct 28, 2:09 pm ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen hopes to secure Russian help in equipping and training Afghan security forces during a visit to Moscow in December, an alliance spokesman said on Wednesday.
Israel drones to be used by Germany in Afghanistan
By Associated Press Wednesday, October 28, 2009
JERUSALEM — Israel Aerospace Industries says it will supply unmanned spy planes to Germany that will see action in Afghanistan early next year.
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More poll centres for Afghan vote
Thursday, 29 October 2009 BBC News
Afghanistan's election commission has said it will open more polling stations in the presidential run-off than it did in the fraud-riddled first round.
The plan is at odds with a UN-backed panel's recommendation to reduce the number of voting centres to cut fraud.
Incumbent President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah are competing in the 7 November run-off.
Hundreds of thousands of votes were deducted from the first round after investigations revealed fraud.
The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission's (ECC) action meant Mr Karzai's total was reduced to below the 50% plus one vote threshold for outright victory, indicating a second round was needed.
The ECC recommended cutting the total number of voting centres for the run-off - from just above 6,000 to about 5,800 - to make sure there would be enough monitors and security.
However, the Independent Election Commission plans to open 6,322 voting centres, election official Zekria Barakzai said.
He said Afghan and international forces could provide security for as many as 6,600 centres.
The whole country will participate in the election, although winter weather and security concerns will exclude 11 districts, Mr Barakzai said, according to the Associated Press news agency.
The election plans were announced a day after Taliban militants attacked UN workers, killing at least five in a guesthouse in Kabul.
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In Afghanistan runoff, more polling stations may mean more fraud
With less than half as many election workers in Afghanistan's second round of voting, it may be even easier for "ghost" stations to submit fake votes.
By Ben Arnoldy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the October 29, 2009 edition
New Delhi - Despite having fewer poll workers and a declining security situation, Afghanistan's election commission announced Thursday it would increase the number of polling centers for the presidential runoff.
While some analysts suspect the goal is to achieve high-enough turnout for a credible result, the ambitious plan heightens concerns that fraud will once again mar the election.
The first round of voting, on Aug. 20, saw between 6,167 and 6,306 centers open. For the Nov. 7 runoff the Independent Election Commission says it will open 6,322. The decision comes as a surprise since a number of "ghost" polling centers were never opened to the public or to monitors, yet sent fraudulent voter tallies back to Kabul.
More voters vs. one fewer candidate
President Hamid Karzai's runoff rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has unsuccessfully called on the IEC to provide a list of ghost stations and remove them from the ranks of runoff centers. Dr. Abdullah has also called for top IEC officials and several cabinet ministers to be sacked, to ensure a fair and clean second round. He has hinted he may otherwise boycott the election – a move that would further depress turnout.
When it comes to the credibility of the result, the decision may indicate that the IEC is more concerned about turnout than Abdullah quitting or fraud reoccurring.
"They hope [that] by opening more sites they will increase turnout," says Haroun Mir, a political analyst in Kabul. "They are not looking much at Dr. Abdullah, because if he ultimately boycotts but there's a high turnout, then the election will have credibility. But even if Abdullah doesn't boycott, but President Karzai wins with a low turnout, it will not be a credible result."
Leg-up for Karzai?
The move will likely make Karzai happy and further alienate Abdullah, says Mr. Mir. Karzai appointed the leadership of the IEC, and some its own workers were judged by an independent complaints panel to have helped Karzai during the election.
Peter Galbraith, an American who was fired from the panel after complaining that it had covered up fraud, slammed the IEC in an opinion piece in the New York Times this week. "The United Nations must stop pretending that the commission is anything other than a pro-Karzai institution," he wrote.
Some view the IEC decision in stark terms: "This is to enable them to fill up the boxes with fake ballots as much as they want," says Fahim Dashty, editor of the Kabul Weekly newspaper.
Organizing a runoff in less than three weeks had already posed a daunting logistical and security challenge. The IEC decision makes a fair election more improbable and is designed to push Abdullah to boycott, he says. It will require more poll workers, election monitors, and troops to maintain security – "all things that are quire impossible," he says.
There will, in fact, be fewer poll workers: 60,000, compared to 165,000 in the first round.
IEC defends decision
IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor, however, lists several reasons why the number of workers will "certainly" be enough.
First, polling centers contain within them a handful of polling stations, which are large rooms filled with voting booths, ballots, poll workers, and monitors. While the number of centers will increase, the total number of polling stations will decrease. Mr. Noor says the exact numbers of stations have not yet been decided.
Additionally, the number of districts without any polling centers will rise from eight to 11, out of a total 380. And the number of poll workers at each station will drop from five to two. Workers will have much less work to do, says Noor, since there will be no provincial council elections to also administer and the number of candidates on the presidential ballot has shrunk from dozens to two.
As for security, Noor says: "The security institutions promised they could provide a good security environment for that number," referring to the 6,322 centers. Those institutions include Afghan and international forces.
The Taliban, however, pulled off hundreds of attacks across Afghanistan on Aug. 20 – with fewer centers as targets and more time for NATO and Afghan forces to prepare. And the security environment has not showed signs of improvement, as highlighted by a deadly attack on UN workers in the heart of Kabul Wednesday.
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Taliban vow more pre-poll attacks in Afghanistan
Thu Oct 29, 7:25 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's Taliban militia vowed Thursday to intensify its attacks in the build-up to next week's run-off presidential election after an attack on a guesthouse for foreigners in Kabul.
"We'll intensify our attacks in the coming days. We'll disrupt the elections," Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"We have new plans and tactics for attacks to disrupt the elections," the spokesman added.
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Afghan Runoff Stirs Concern of Repeat Fraud
By Gary Thomas VOA News Washington 28 October 2009
Afghanistan is scheduled to hold its runoff presidential election November 7. But can an electoral process that was so deeply marred by fraud the first time around be fixed in a short time? There is concern the second round of voting will prove to be as flawed as the first.
The runoff election between incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah faces multiple challenges: Taliban intimidation, voter apathy and cynicism, increasingly harsh winter weather, and, most of all, a turnaround time of only two weeks.
U.S. Special Envoy on Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke believes the second round of voting will be cleaner than the first.
"It is reasonable to hope that there will be less irregularities this time for several reasons," said Richard Holbrooke. "One, there are only two candidates; two, there is the experience factor; three, the international community, including the forces under General McChrystal's command, are going to go all out to help make this a success."
The United States wants a relatively clean election while it considers whether to send more troops and resources to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.
But International Crisis Group senior analyst Candace Rondeaux says a hastily planned election will in all likelihood be just as fraud-filled as the initial Aug. 20 vote.
"The question has to be asked, why go forward? Legally speaking, the runoff has to take place," said Candace Rondeaux. "You have to satisfy the legal processes that are in place in the constitution. However, I do not think that you can expect any great new thunderbolts of just and fair elections because we still have the same machinery in place that has not been fixed at all."
In the first round, more than a million ballots, most of them for Mr. Karzai, were declared fraudulent by the U.N.-run Election Complaints Commission, depriving Mr. Karzai of what he claimed was an outright electoral victory. According to media reports, he only reluctantly bowed to international pressure for a runoff between him and Dr. Abdullah.
Former EU Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, tells VOA the widespread fraud only served to feed cynicism among Afghan voters, who he says are already disillusioned about the lack of peace and security.
"Over the last four years, ever since the parliamentary elections - which were not as fair as people thought - I think there has been a decreasing faith on the part of the Afghans in their government, in the kind of quote, unquote, democratic process that we had encouraged and that they would have been very happy to adopt," said Francesc Vendrell. "I think their faith in the current setup has already been very badly shaken. And so this will only come as confirmation."
A just-released nationwide survey of Afghans finds them more optimistic than expected, but still concerned about corruption and insecurity. A just-released International Crisis Group report says the fraudulent first round and continuing political uncertainty have been a boon for the Taliban insurgency.
Analysts say part of the problem of electoral credibility stems from the widespread belief that the Afghan Independent Election Commission is not truly independent and that it is partisan for Mr. Karzai. There is standing tension between the Afghan-run Election Commission, which counted the ballots, and the U.N.-backed Complaints Commission, which invalidated the fraudulent ballots.
Candace Rondeaux says that unless the Election Commission is cleaned up the likelihood of repeated massive fraud is high.
"In order to really correct the flaws in this process you need a major overhaul. Not only do you have to remove, I think, the chairman of the IEC, the Independent Election Commission, you then have to look at reconstituting the entire IEC secretariat," she said. "The leadership of this body has been so abysmal that it does not make sense to think that you would get different results by having the same people review ballots again."
Mr. Karzai has rebuffed a request by Dr. Abdullah for the dismissal of Election Commission chief Azizullah Ludin. U.N. officials have said many of the polling stations that recorded fraudulent votes in the first round would not be open for the second, but Ludin has contended they will be. He is also resisting calls to get rid of some of the electoral officials the United Nations has found to be corrupt.
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Afghanistan Votes, the U.N. Dithers
NY Times Op-Ed Contributor By PETER W. GALBRAITH October 27, 2009
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - IF the second round of Afghanistan's presidential elections, now scheduled for Nov. 7, is a rerun of the fraud-stained first round, it will be catastrophic for that country and the allied military mission battling the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In the next week and a half, the United States and the United Nations, which has a mandate to support Afghanistan's electoral bodies, must do everything possible to ensure that the election is, in the words of that mandate, “free, fair and transparent.”
In spite of the clear connection between successful elections and stability in Afghanistan, the rest of the world largely chose to ignore the obvious risks of fraud before the Aug. 20 polling and the evidence of fraud immediately afterward. As a result, Afghanistan has endured a political crisis that has threatened to divide the country along ethnic lines and undermined domestic support for President Obama's counterinsurgency strategy.
There have been a few recent encouraging signs. After the Electoral Complaints Commission, a United Nations-backed group, threw out more than a million fraudulent votes for the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, the Obama administration asked Senator John Kerry to persuade Mr. Karzai to respect the Afghan Constitution and accept a runoff with his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.
This diplomacy dissuaded President Karzai from continuing to assert that the complaint commission's verdict should be dismissed as improper “foreign interference.” While the United Nations appointed three of the commission's five members, it is truly an Afghan institution regulated by a law that Mr. Karzai signed.
Also encouraging, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan announced that, as an antifraud measure, the number of polling centers will now be reduced and that some 200 district-level election officials will be replaced.
Still, much more needs to be done. The conditions that made fraud possible in the first round are still present. Although the Election Complaint Commission did a Herculean job of tossing out illegitimate votes, the final tally still included hundreds of thousands of phony ballots, most for Mr. Karzai.
Let me explain. At the time of the August vote, I was the deputy United Nations envoy in Afghanistan, and my staff collected compelling evidence that the actual turnout in southern and eastern Afghanistan was extremely small. Yet surprisingly large numbers of votes were being recorded in those areas. Many of these fraudulent votes came from “ghost” polling centers — stations identified on maps, but not existing physically, in areas so dangerous that they could not be visited by candidates' agents, monitors or voters.
We knew about this problem in advance. In July, I tried to get the Independent Election Commission to close some 1,500 of the ghost polling centers but was stopped by the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide of Norway, who insisted that he had no mandate other than to go along with the decisions of the election commission. My disagreement with Mr. Eide eventually led the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, to recall me from Afghanistan on Oct. 1.
Mr. Ban later said he fired me because I had tried to disenfranchise Afghan voters. But all I wanted to do was to eliminate polling centers that didn't exist. Afghans risked their lives to go to the polls, and were effectively disenfranchised when their votes were diluted by more than a million fake ones.
Looking ahead, the biggest obstacle to fair elections remains the body that administers them, the Independent Election Commission. The only thing independent about the commission is its name. President Karzai appointed all its members, and six of the seven commissioners have routinely voted in favor of procedures to benefit the Karzai campaign, including an outrageous last-minute decision after the first vote to include enough fraudulent Karzai votes in the preliminary tally to put him over the 50 percent threshold so he could avoid a runoff.
In every instance of fraud, Independent Election Commission staff members either committed the abuse, cooperated with those who committed it, or knew about it and failed to report it. Some 200 staff members are now to be fired, but thousands are implicated and should be replaced, as should the partisan provincial election officials who appointed them.
Although the United Nations mission raised more than $300 million — much of it from American taxpayers — to allow the Independent Election Commission to conduct the elections, it exercised negligible oversight over the commission's decisions. The United Nations must stop pretending that the commission is anything other than a pro-Karzai institution. Since it is not feasible to replace the commissioners at this late date, Secretary-General Ban should appoint an envoy to supervise them in a way that Mr. Eide refuses to. Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden or Louise Arbour, a former United Nations human rights commissioner, would both be good choices for this brief assignment. They have reputations for impartiality and are tough enough to force the election commission to take fraud seriously.
President Karzai is widely expected to win the second round. But even if the voting is reasonably honest, his victory will be tainted at home and abroad. Dr. Abdullah, his opponent, has proposed smart constitutional changes to provide for greater power-sharing among Afghanistan's diverse ethnic groups, including having the Parliament choose a prime minister and the cabinet, electing provincial governors and increasing the powers of elected local governments.
Once Afghanistan's nightmare elections are finally over, the United Nations should encourage Afghans to consider these and other reforms, as the status quo promises only to prolong the country's crisis of legitimacy.
Peter W. Galbraith, a former United States ambassador to Croatia, was the deputy special representative of the secretary-general of the United Nations in Afghanistan from June 1 to Oct. 1.
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Afghan president's brother denies getting CIA pay
KABUL (AP) — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president, on Wednesday denied reports that he has received regular payments from the CIA for much of the past eight years.
The New York Times, citing current and former American officials, reported Tuesday that the CIA pays Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the CIA's direction in and around Kandahar.
Karzai called the report "ridiculous."
"I work with the Americans, the Canadians, the British, anyone who asks for my help. They (CIA) do their own recruitment. I have no idea where they get their recruits. It's absolutely ridiculous," he told The Associated Press in Afghanistan.
The CIA's ties to Karzai, who is a suspected player in the country's illegal opium trade, have created deep divisions within the Obama administration, the Times said.
Allegations that Karzai is involved in the drug trade have circulated in Kabul for months. He denies them.
Critics say the ties with Karzai complicate the United States' increasingly tense relationship with his older brother, President Hamid Karzai. The CIA's practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
Some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, a central figure in the south of the country where the Taliban is dominant, undermines the U.S. push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.
Karzai helps the CIA operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists, according to several American officials, the Times reported. Karzai also is paid for allowing the CIA and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city, which also is the base of the Kandahar Strike Force, the newspaper said.
Karzai also helps the CIA communicate with and sometimes meet with Afghans loyal to the Taliban, the newspaper reported.
CIA spokesman George Little declined to comment on the report.
A congressional official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the story is accurate and said that some members of Congress have known about the relationship between Karzai and the CIA "for some time." The offical spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.
Afghans vote Nov. 7 in a runoff presidential election between Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah. The second round was ordered after U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of Karzai's votes from the Aug. 20 ballot, determining widespread fraud, and pushed Karzai's totals below the 50% threshold needed for a first round victory.
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Obama seeks study on local leaders for troop decision
Afghan provinces to be analyzed Details should help president determine need
By Scott Wilson and Greg Jaffe Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, October 29, 2009 8:23 AM
President Obama has asked senior officials for a province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan to determine which regions are being managed effectively by local leaders and which require international help, information that his advisers say will guide his decision on how many additional U.S. troops to send to the battle.
Obama made the request in a meeting Monday with Vice President Biden and a small group of senior advisers helping him decide whether to expand the war. The detail he is now seeking also reflects the administration's turn toward Afghanistan's provincial governors, tribal leaders and local militias as potentially more effective partners in the effort than a historically weak central government that is confronting questions of legitimacy after the flawed Aug. 20 presidential election.
"This is obviously a complicated security environment in Afghanistan, and the president wants the clearest possible understanding of what the challenges are to our forces and what is required to meet that challenge," said a senior administration official who has participated in the Afghanistan policy review and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it. "Any successful and sustainable strategy must clearly align the resources we provide with the goals we are trying to achieve."
As U.S. forces in Afghanistan endure the deadliest month of the eight-year-old conflict, Obama is weighing a request by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for a quick jump in forces to blunt the Taliban's momentum against concerns that too many new troops could help the insurgency's recruiting efforts.
The president's lengthy deliberations gave way to more personal reflections early Thursday, when Obama traveled with a small group of aides to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to bear witness and meet with family members as the remains of 18 Americans recently killed in Afghanistan were flown back to U.S. soil.
Administration officials say that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and national security adviser James L. Jones, a retired four-star general, support Obama's request for a more detailed status report on each province that could identify potential U.S. allies among Afghanistan's local leaders, some with less-than-sterling human rights records.
Gates and Jones have pushed McChrystal to justify as specifically as possible his request for 44,000 additional troops, the figure now at the center of White House deliberations. The review group once included intelligence officials, generals and ambassadors, but it has recently narrowed to a far smaller number of senior civilian advisers, including Biden, Gates, Jones, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Administration officials said the province-by-province analysis will be ready for Obama before his scheduled Friday meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the White House.
"There are a lot of questions about why McChrystal has identified the areas that he has identified as needing more forces," said a senior military official familiar with the review, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations candidly. "Some see it as an attempt by the White House to do due diligence on the commander's troop request. A less charitable view is that it is a 5,000-mile screwdriver tinkering from Washington."
A range of options
The weeks-long White House review has been shaped by a central tension between the broad counterinsurgency strategy endorsed by the military and a narrower counterterrorism campaign against al-Qaeda that some senior administration officials favor.
McChrystal, who took command of the 100,000 U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in May, is promoting a plan that calls for concentrating forces around urban areas to better protect the Afghan population and pulling back from remote regions. His idea calls for speeding the training of Afghan forces, expanding civilian efforts to improve Afghan governance and starting other long-term programs to win the support of the population that the insurgency draws from.
About half the 44,000 troops McChrystal requested would be sent to take back Taliban sanctuaries in southern Afghanistan. The others would push into western Afghanistan, where the U.S. military has only a slight presence, and reinforce operations in the mountainous east. One brigade would train Afghan army and police forces.
Even after weeks of review, administration officials say a range of options is still under consideration, including whether additional U.S. forces could be deployed in phases. Although Obama had been expected to announce his decision before leaving Nov. 11 on a 10-day trip to Asia, administration officials say he may wait until he returns.
"I think it's important to hear and to get this right," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday.
In reviewing McChrystal's bracing assessment of the war, the president and his senior advisers have concluded that the Taliban cannot be eliminated as a military and political force, regardless of how many more troops are deployed.
The acknowledgment is behind Obama's request for an analysis of which of Afghanistan's 34 provinces can be left to local leaders, perhaps including elements of the Taliban unaligned with al-Qaeda. Administration officials have said that under any strategy, the Taliban would not be allowed to threaten the Kabul government or provide sanctuary for al-Qaeda, whose leaders operate largely from the tribal areas across the border in Pakistan.
"How much of the country can we just leave to be run by the locals?" said one U.S. official involved in Afghanistan policy, who discussed the White House request on the condition of anonymity. "How do you separate those who have taken up arms because they oppose the presence of foreigners in their area, because they're getting paid to fight us because we're there, from those who want to restore a Taliban government? How many of the people who we're fighting actually share al-Qaeda's ideology?"
Obama's interest in provincial allies also reflects the administration's growing disenchantment with President Hamid Karzai and his inability to extend his government's authority beyond Kabul during his nearly eight years in office. Provincial governments and tribal structures have long exerted more power than the central government, which many Afghans view as remote, corrupt and ineffective. Another U.S. official involved in Afghanistan policy said, "Most of Afghanistan that's stable is under local control."
"The question is: Can you get benign local control in more places?" the official said. "And will that be easier to achieve, and more effective, than trying to establish more central government control?"
Refining a strategy
Critics of ceding authority to local power brokers point to Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, where Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai has been given wide latitude to run the municipality and the surrounding province. Security in the area has deteriorated over the past year, while the cultivation of opium-producing poppies has soared.
Some U.S. and Afghan officials contend that Ahmed Wali, who heads the Kandahar provincial council, has been reluctant to crack down on drug traffickers -- and the Taliban fighters who protect them -- because he is involved in narcotics smuggling, an accusation he has repeatedly denied. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Ahmed Wali has been on the CIA's payroll for much of the past eight years.
"Ahmed Wali illustrates the challenge we face across the country," a senior U.S. official involved in Afghanistan policy said Wednesday. "Do we pay him off to help us -- whatever help that may be -- or is our goal of improving the government more important than doing these kinds of deals?"
Obama is refining his strategy from several options outlined during more than 15 hours of meetings in the White House, administration officials say.
Some White House officials, including Biden, have advocated a strategy that would focus primarily on counterterrorism efforts against al-Qaeda. The vice president has argued for preserving the current U.S. troop level of 68,000, expediting the training of Afghan forces, intensifying Predator drone strikes against al-Qaeda operatives and supporting the Pakistani government against the Taliban within its borders.
But the deepening conflict is complicating those plans. For example, administration officials say that sending additional U.S. training brigades to accelerate preparation of the Afghan security forces may not accomplish as much as hoped because recruitment -- and retention -- has gone poorly as the war intensifies.
"It's all part of the endemic problems of illiteracy and security that plague many countries, but particularly this one," said a senior administration official familiar with the review process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it. "You want to increase the number of people engaged in training, but at some point bringing in more and more Americans won't produce quicker results. There's a ceiling."
McChrystal has advocated something far closer to a nation-building project. Some Republican supporters of the general's plan in Congress have compared his strategy to the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq, a shorter-term effort that helped pull the country back from sectarian civil war.
But administration officials reject the comparison, pointing out that McChrystal's troop request would require a far longer deployment of U.S. forces and that Afghanistan is in a less dire position than Iraq was at the time of the surge.
Most important, administration officials say, the violence in Afghanistan is directed against U.S. forces rather than among Afghans. In Iraq, much of the pre-surge violence involved Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites fighting for control of the state, which gave the U.S. military a clearer role in protecting Iraqi civilians.
"There are some areas of the country that will fight us and fight the Taliban just because we are there," Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters Wednesday.
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Obama considers scaled-down Afghan plan
Anne Gearan and Matthew Lee ASSOCIATED PRESS Thursday, October 29, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is considering a scaled-down version of the war plan advanced by his top Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. officials say.
Such a narrowed military mission would increase American forces to accomplish the commander's broadest goals of protecting Afghan cities and key infrastructure. But with fewer troops, the strategy likely would cut back on McChrystal's ambitious objectives, amounting to what one official described as "McChrystal Light."
Senior White House officials Wednesday stressed, however, that the president has not settled on any new troop numbers and continues to debate other strategic approaches to the 8-year-old Afghanistan war. The officials say Obama has not yet settled on the narrowed option or any other as his final choice for how to overhaul the war effort.
Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because Obama has not announced his decision, said the troop numbers probably would be lower than McChrystal's preference, at least at the outset. The officials did not divulge exact numbers.
A stripped-down approach would signal caution in widening a war that is going worse this year than last despite intense U.S. attention and an additional 21,000 U.S. forces sent there on Obama's watch.
Fourteen Americans were killed Monday in Afghanistan in two helicopter crashes, and roadside bombings Tuesday left eight U.S. troops dead. October has been the worst month for U.S. fatalities since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan began in October 2001.
Under the pared-down option, McChrystal would be given fewer forces than the 40,000 additional troops he has asked for atop the current U.S. force of 68,000, officials told The Associated Press. The option still would adopt the commander's overall goals for a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at turning the corner against the Taliban next spring.
That approach would reflect a shift in thinking about what parts of the war mission are most important and the intense political domestic debate over Afghan policy.
A majority of Americans either oppose the war or question whether it is worth continuing to wage, according to public opinion polls dating to when Obama shook up the war's management and began a lengthy reconsideration of U.S. objectives earlier this year.
Any expansion of the war will displease some congressional Democrats. If Obama does not meet McChrystal's request, Republicans are likely to accuse Obama of failing to give McChrystal all he needs.
Even if McChrystal gets less than he wants from Obama, the U.S. may still end up adding more troops later in 2010. The most likely reason would be to fill voids left by some NATO allies who have been considering troop cutbacks.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has pushed back hard against a faction of administration officials, led by Vice President Joe Biden, who contend that much of the U.S. national security objective in Afghanistan could be accomplished by concentrating on strikes at al-Qaida along the Pakistan border.
That approach would hunt terrorists with techniques such as missile-loaded pilotless drones, and could require little or no additional U.S. manpower.
Gates has bridged both sides, officials said. Long wary of a large U.S. presence that could too easily look like an occupation army, he has suggested recently that he could support a carefully designed expansion.
Obama meets Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military leaders who would have the responsibility for carrying out his strategy decisions. White House officials said the president will continue to consider his options with advisers over the next couple of weeks, adding that other broad war-council meetings may still be called during that period.
The White House preference is to announce the troop decision after Afghanistan's run-off presidential election on Nov. 7, but before Obama leaves for an unrelated foreign trip on Nov. 11. That timing is not assured, however, and no announcement plan has been settled upon by Obama and his aides, officials said.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is on record supporting a troop increase. He has not quantified his preference, but he signed off on McChrystal's assessment of the worsening conditions in Afghanistan and the need for a change in approach and boost in manpower.
Gates has not given a public opinion on McChrystal's request but has pushed for the commander's overarching strategy during recent weeks of review by the White House, officials said.
"I think that the analytical phase is ... coming to an end," Gates said last week in Europe. "Probably over the next two or three weeks we're going to be considering specific options and teeing them up for a decision by the president."
As for McChrystal, he already has begun carrying out elements of his targeted counterinsurgency plan, which focuses on the volatile south and east of the country and emphasizes protecting civilians even if it means allowing individual militants to escape.
McChrystal's recommendations got broad endorsement from NATO defense chiefs last week, with the suggestion that some nations will increase troops or other resources.
The Friday meeting is the last formal session the president has scheduled to review the situation in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, a decision-making process that Republican critics say has taken too long.
AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.
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U.N cutting staff in Afghanistan
October 29, 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Non-essential U.N. staff across Afghanistan have been ordered to pack their bags and be ready for evacuation after a deadly attack on a U.N. guesthouse, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.
The staff members will leave the country because of security concerns, according to the official, who said a smaller staff will reduce exposure during the upcoming presidential runoff, but will not affect U.N. capabilities to support the election.
The United Nations also reduced non-essential staff ahead of the August 20 election, the official said.
The order comes a day after Taliban militants stormed the guesthouse in an early morning raid on Wednesday, killing five U.N. staff members and wounding nine more. At least 25 U.N. employees were staying at the guesthouse, including 17 members of the U.N. election team.
Afghanistan's presidential runoff election is scheduled for November 7. Taliban militants have threatened to disrupt the polling.
The United Nations said it was reviewing its security procedures in the aftermath of Wednesday's attack.
"This is a sad day and very difficult day for the United Nations," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday, condemning the "shocking and shameless act and the terrorists who committed this crime" and noting that the incident is a reminder of how tough the U.N. job is in Afghanistan.
Ban said he was assured by Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had instructed his Interior Ministry to strengthen security, and he said the United Nations would do likewise -- in Kabul as well as elsewhere in the country.
"We will, of course, review our security procedures, as we do regularly for the Afghanistan mission as a whole. We will take all necessary measures to protect our staff," Ban said.
In the strike, weapons fire and explosions pounded the heart of the capital starting about 6 a.m. local time. The fighting began as sporadic gunfire, but intensified over time, lasting more than an hour.
The attack took place in a relatively secure section of the capital, in the vicinity of a number of government buildings. The firefight, which included machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, appeared to be concentrated near the guesthouse.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying on an insurgent Web site that three militants had killed 50 foreigners, who were election organizers. The claim could not be independently confirmed.
Officials said three militants were killed.
International troop levels increased this year, to provide security for the Afghan election in August, and the United States is considering deploying more troops.
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UN workers scramble over roofs during Kabul attack
The Associated Press By Robert H. Reid, Heidi Vogt 10/28/2009
KABUL - Terrified U.N. workers scrambled over the roof or leaped from windows to escape choking smoke and gunfire after being awakened at dawn Wednesday when Taliban militants wearing police uniforms stormed a residential hotel packed with foreigners.
The assault, which killed 11 people including three militants, was one of a series of brazen attacks aimed at undermining the Nov. 7 presidential election runoff. It underscored the risks facing U.N. and Afghan officials in organizing the vote and the massive challenge for the U.S.-led military force in curbing the determined insurgency.
Those challenges were highlighted across the border in Pakistan, where a car bomb killed 100 people — mostly women and children — while visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the capital of Islamabad pledging support for the Pakistani campaign against Islamic militants.
Five U.N. employees, including an American, were among those killed at the guest house in Kabul. Nationalities of the other U.N. victims were not released.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the assault as well as rocket attacks at the presidential palace and the city's main luxury hotel. The Taliban have warned Afghans that they risk attacks if they do not stay away from the polls for next week's runoff.
The visibly shaken chief of the United Nations' mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, told reporters the attack "will not deter the U.N. from continuing all its work" in the country.
"We will not be deterred from this noble mission," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in New York.
Yet the brazen assault showed the vulnerability of the foreign community and the ease with which the Taliban can launch attacks — even in a city that has been relatively secure despite eight years of war.
The two-hour attack began shortly before 6 a.m. when three gunmen wearing green uniforms and suicide vests broke into the three-story Bakhtar residential hotel, home to the largest concentration of U.N. staffers working on the election. The crackle of gunfire echoed across the city and explosions set fire to the building, filling the lobby and the upper floors with thick, choking smoke.
"I was praying when suddenly I heard loud gunfire, then return fire," said Agha Mohammad Osman, who lives nearby. "We ran inside our homes to remain safe. The gunfire hit the door and then the attackers got inside the guest house. Foreign guests inside were crying out for help, but we could not help them."
Exhausted survivors spoke of terror inside the residential hotel, with flames engulfing much of the building while U.N. guards tried desperately to fight off the determined attackers.
Miles Robertson, an Australian working as an election adviser, said he and his wife were awakened by the gunfire. Fearing they would be taken hostage, Robertson bolted the door while his wife hid in the closet.
"Shortly after that, fire started in the room next to us," Robertson said breathlessly. "We realized that there was no way for us to go out. I opened the window and stepped out to the balcony and had a volley of shots fired at me."
As smoke billowed into the room, Robertson and his wife placed moist towels over their faces, climbed out a window and scrambled over the roof until they jumped to safety.
John Christopher "Chris" Turner of Kansas City, Mo., who works for a trucking company on contract to the U.S. military, said he grabbed an AK-47 rife and scampered through the upper floors, pounding on doors to alert his fellow residents.
Turner said he assembled about 25 terrified guests and, along with a Nepalese man, gave covering fire as they led the group into the laundry room. He said they locked themselves inside as U.N. guards returned fire.
"I carry an AK-47 and I kept firing it to keep the attackers away from the group I was guarding," Turner said. The group later jumped over a back wall to take refuge in a house behind the hotel, he said.
Turner called his father in suburban Kansas City after the attack, 82-year-old Lionel Turner told the AP.
"He said he was burned a little, but that he wasn't hurt," the father said. "He's got more guts than a Missouri mule."
It was not possible to reach others who had been staying at the guest house to verify Turner's account. U.N. staff were evacuated to Dubai for counseling, the U.N. said. Turner did not have a weapon when he spoke with an Associated Press reporter.
About a mile away from the guest house, one rocket struck the "outer limit" of the presidential palace but caused no casualties, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said. Two more rockets slammed into the grounds of the expensive Serena Hotel, favored by many foreigners.
One failed to explode but filled the hotel lobby with smoke, forcing guests and employees to flee to the basement, according to British freelance journalist Kate Holt, who was staying in the hotel.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks as "an inhuman act" and called on the army and police to strengthen security around all international institutions.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility in a telephone call to the AP, saying three militants with suicide vests, grenades and machine guns carried out the guest house assault. The Interior Ministry said there were three attackers and all were killed.
"This is our first attack," Mujahid said.
U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said five U.N. staffers were killed and nine were wounded.
Afghan police and U.N. officials said 11 people in all were killed, including three attackers, two security guards and the brother-in-law of one of Afghanistan's most powerful governors, Gul Agha Sherzai. The man was killed by a stray bullet as he watched the gunfight from a nearby house, according to provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai.
Edwards said the U.N. would have to evaluate "what this means for our work in Afghanistan."
"This has clearly been a very serious incident for us," Edwards said. "We've not had an incident like this in the past. ... We obviously will have to adjust our security in light of this."
An internal U.N. memo ordered restrictions on movement for the rest of the week and said U.N. departments would be reviewing its list of critical and nonessential personnel, suggesting some people may be moved out of the country for their own safety.
The Aug. 19, 2003, truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, prompted the U.N. to pull out of Iraq for several years.
The Afghan runoff presidential election pits Karzai against former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of Karzai's votes from the Aug. 20 ballot because of fraud, pushed Karzai's totals below the 50 percent threshold needed for a first-round victory in the 36-candidate field.
Associated Press writers Hamza Hendawi, Todd Pitman, Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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US should follow Britain on Afghanistan: US senator
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States should follow Britain's lead on Afghanistan, tying a modest troop increase to a major expansion of local forces and an anti-corruption drive in Kabul, a US senator said Thursday.
Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, a top ally of President Barack Obama, said a large troop increase would only help the Islamist Taliban militia's "propaganda machine" pump out resentment against US soldiers.
"The British model demonstrates renewed resolve, by dedicating significant new resources, by committing to the counter-insurgency strategy and by demonstrating enhanced capability, while at the same time minimizing the perception of a foreign occupation," Levin said in a speech.
Levin underlined that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had tied the increase -- 500 soldiers, for an overall contingent of 9,500 -- to Afghan vows to expand the number and use of its security forces and to root out corruption.
"If president Obama were to stand alongside prime minister Brown and leaders of our other NATO allies, and announce a NATO Afghan Initiative following the British model, he would win the support of the American people," said Levin.
The lawmaker, whose home state is Michigan, said the approach would also garner support from the US Congress "the Afghan people whose future hangs in the balance, even if he decided not to include a large combat troop increase."
Obama has been huddling with his top national security advisers to consider recommendations from his handpicked commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who has called for a new strategy and more troops to carry it out.
The president's Republican foes have called in unison and with increasing urgency for the White House to approve McChrystal's recommendations, while former vice president Dick Cheney accused Obama of "dithering."
Levin accused Cheney of "cheap and easy" attacks and warned: "this pressure on the president goes beyond mistaken."
"It creates a political environment is not just poisonous; it is dangerous -- it creates growing pressure for decisions before the president has considered all the options," said the senator.
"What the nation needs and the troops deserve is careful, thoughtful deliberation. The wrong decisions could endanger far more lives than taking the time needed to deliberate and reach the right decisions," he said.
Levin also called for offering low-level Taliban fighters "jobs and amnesty" in order to weaken the Islamist insurgency, and said a new law Obama signed Wednesday authorized US commanders to pay militants to lay down their arms.
"A plan to reintegrate the reconcilable Taliban in Afghanistan is long overdue," he said.
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UN report says Afghan opium still posing threat to world
By Abdul Hadi Mayar
KABUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- A fresh UN report says that despite fall in heroin production in Afghanistan, the country still produces 92 percent of world opium, which threatens the entire world.
The report released last week by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says Afghan opium crop dropped from 7,700 tons in 2008 to 6,900 tons this year, but because of massive overproduction there are now more than 12,000 tons of opium in stockpiles, "enough to meet world demand for more than two years."
It says: "Afghan opium kills more people every year than any other drug on the planet, claiming up to 100,000 lives annually."
"About 15 million people around the world use heroin, opium or morphine, fueling a 65 billion U.S. dollars market for the drug and also fueling terrorism and insurgencies."
The report says Afghan opium now threatens to sow havoc around the globe, adding that Europe and Russia account for more than a third of the Afghan opium consumption.
The report sounded a strong warning about the Central Asian opium-trafficking route, which has become a virtual conveyor belt for heroin between Afghanistan and Russia.
"The perfect storm of drugs, crime and insurgency that has swirled around the Afghanistan - Pakistan border for years is heading for Central Asia," Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of UN drug office said while releasing the report.
A greater portion of Afghan heroin enters the territory of the former Soviet Union through the Afghan border with Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. It then travels westwards towards Kazakhstan before entering the central region of Russia.
A recent BBC report said that Russia's central areas have now become focal spots of heroin addiction.
According to UN estimates, Russia is now the world's largest consumer of heroin. At least 70 tons of Afghan heroin were consumed in Russia last year, more than three times the amount in the United States and Canada combined.
UN reports say there are between one-and-a-half to 6 million heroin addicts in Russia. Besides, the country has seen hundreds of thousands of HIV and hepatitis infection resulting from intravenous drug injections.
In the past, the issue of drug trafficking from Afghanistan has led to serious tensions between Moscow and Washington.
Russia has accused NATO and the United States of failing to make sufficient efforts to tackle the issue of heroin production in Afghanistan.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called Afghan heroin a threat to Russian national security.
Russian officials say that since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Russia's southern borders have become more vulnerable.
The UN report also says that the Taliban bring up around 400 million U.S. dollars a year from the opium trade.
"If quick preventive measures are not put into place, a big chunk of Eurasia could be lost," Maria Costa said.
"The Taliban raised 450 million U.S. dollars to 600 million U.S. dollars over the past four years by taxing opium farmers and traffickers," the report said.
According to the report, opium poppy eradication reached a high in 2003, after the Taliban were ousted from power, with over 21,000 hectares eradicated. In 2008, only 5,480 hectares were cut down compared with 19,047 hectares in 2007.
The United States had announced a new drug policy for Afghanistan earlier this year, under which it planned to phase out funding for eradication programs while significantly increasing its funding for alternate crop and drug interdiction efforts.
Costa told the G-8 foreign ministers' conference in Italy in June this year that the dip in cultivation was welcome, though vulnerable to relapse without concerted international efforts to assist farmers abandon poppy cultivation to harvest other crops.
The UN drug office recently said that opium cultivation dropped19 percent last year, but was still concentrated in southern provinces where the Taliban insurgency is strong.
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Afghanistan calms security fears after UN hostel attack
by Chris Otton – Thu Oct 29, 1:38 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan played down security fears for next week's run-off election Thursday after a deadly pre-dawn Taliban attack on a UN guesthouse designed to strike fear into the heart of voters and organisers.
As the international community insisted Wednesday's attack in Kabul, which killed at least five foreign UN staff, would not disrupt the November 7 poll, Afghan officials tried to assuage the fears of foreign staff.
Thousands of foreigners work in Afghanistan, providing aid and expertise.
The United Nations said its head of mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, had spoken to the Afghan interior minister, who had given assurances that security would be enhanced in the wake of the attack.
The UN was also holding a review of all of its security measures, with spokesman Dan McNorton acknowledging that "it's not business as usual."
The attack on the Bekhtar guesthouse in downtown Kabul, carried out by three Taliban fighters who blew themselves up after a two-hour gunbattle, followed a threat by the Islamists to violently disrupt next week's election. Related article: Attacks raise heat on Obama
The poll will pit Afghan President Hamid Karzai against his former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
Attacks by the Taliban, the Islamist militia toppled by US-led forces in late 2001, were a major deterrent to voters in the first round of the election on August 20 when turnout in some provinces was as low as five percent.
Almost 200 violent incidents around the first vote were attributed to the Taliban, including amputations of fingers marked with purple ink as proof of voting, and rocket and grenade attacks on polling stations.
A Taliban spokesman said that Wednesday's assault in Kabul signalled the start of a new bloody campaign to wreck the elections.
The Afghan defence ministry, however, played down the prospects of widespread Taliban attacks this time round, and said authorities had learned lessons from the first round of voting.
"The enemy had prepared for months with foreign support, allocating loads of funds to disrupt the elections in a well-planned effort," defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.
"This time round, they haven't had the same amount of time to prepare a campaign of attacks and the Pakistani Taliban who helped the Afghan Taliban last time to disturb the election are busy fighting in Pakistan," he added in reference to a major anti-militant offensive in South Waziristan.
A White House spokesman said that the Taliban's attempts to wreck the poll would not succeed. Related article: Taliban vows further mayhem
"In Kabul obviously there is an attempt by some to disrupt the will of the Afghan people in choosing their next government that this administration believes will not succeed," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting neighbouring Pakistan, struck a similar note when condemning the "cowardly" attack.
"We remain firm in our commitment to Afghanistan and the Afghan people and to working with the Afghans to conclude their presidential election process," she said in a statement.
In a press conference at UN headquarters in New York, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also insisted the organisation's focus would not be deflected.
"We will never be deterred by these terrorist attacks," he told a press conference.
He offered no detail about what could be done to secure hundreds of UN staff in the country, however, many living in similar compounds to that stormed by the Taliban suicide squad, and he admitted that other casualties were possible.
"It is quite an unfortunate fact of life that we cannot ensure 100 percent the security because of these suicidal terrorist attacks," Ban said.
Karzai was forced into a run-off after falling fractionally short of an outright majority in a first round which was riddled with fraud.
Nearly a quarter of all the votes were eventually discounted after being deemed fraudulent and Abdullah has demanded the head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), who was appointed by Karzai, be sacked.
The IEC was due to hold a press conference later Thursday when it was expected to outline measures to avoid a repeat of the widespread fraud and address security fears.
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Getting lost in Afghanistan
Matthew Hoh's resignation as a US official in Afghanistan delivers a sharp, honest and accurate critique of the war
guardian.co.uk Gilles Dorronsoro Wednesday 28 October 2009
Former US marine and foreign service officer Matthew Hoh's letter of resignation from the US state department delivers a shot across the bow of those who would escalate the American combat presence in Afghanistan. "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," Hoh wrote. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."
With Tuesday's attacks making October the bloodiest month for US troops in the country in the eight years since the war began, Hoh's letter is an expression of deep moral conviction, and senior US officials, from ambassador Karl Eikenberry to vice-president Joe Biden, are taking it seriously. But the statement is more than a cri du coeur. It presents several arguments that are worthy of discussion.
"If honest," Hoh writes, "our strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaida resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc."
Hoh's argument here is weak on two accounts. First, in the other countries mentioned, the US has a degree of co-operation with the local governments, even if they cannot completely control their own territories. Afghanistan is a special case, in that its government cannot survive without western assistance. And if the Taliban succeeds in retaking Afghanistan's cities, al-Qaida could find there a perfect sanctuary, where it would be impervious to counter-terrorism operations. In the other countries Hoh mentions, that is not the case.
"Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilisation and insurgency in Pakistan," Hoh asserts.
This is absolutely correct, the only caveat being that the Pakistani government also supports the Taliban and other radical groups that are destabilising the country. As the Afghan Taliban show with their persistent practice of attacking Indian targets in Kabul, the Pakistani military support them as a weapon against India, and it offers no indication of a new policy. (The offensive in Waziristan is directed against the Pakistan Taliban, not the Afghan Taliban). Nonetheless, even an American withdrawal from Afghanistan would not give the US or Pakistan any insurance about the future behaviour of these radical groups, Afghan or Pakistani. Afghanistan could still become a sanctuary for groups fighting in Pakistan.
"The threat is not tied to geographic or political boundaries," Hoh says.
Hoh is right. The September 11 attacks were planned mostly in Germany, and the war in Afghanistan does not make the US more secure. At the same time, al-Qaida needs a sanctuary in order to escape from the police and counterterrorism forces. Even a loose network of individuals is vulnerable when it has no protection from police or military strikes. Afghanistan was once instrumental in lending a certain level of security to al-Qaida and similar groups, just as Waziristan is today. Al-Qaida can always move from Pakistan to another base, like Yemen, if the situation there becomes too dangerous, but that will affect its ability to operate, since Pakistan is still the best base they can hope for.
US troops, Hoh writes, were "inadequately prepared and resourced".
This point is also completely accurate, and little has changed. Western troops are not prepared to fight a counter-insurgency. They spend too little time in country, undergo no appreciable linguistic training and the Pashtuns fear their presence and reject their cultures. By contrast, the Iraq surge worked not because of counter-insurgency, but because the local tribes chose to join the US, and the insurgents they were fighting were mostly urban. So the US did not learn how to fight a rural counterinsurgency in Iraq.
Hoh writes that the war could continue for "decades and generations".
If the objective is to crush the Taliban, not to pursue the more realistic goal of leaving an Afghan government that can survive on its own, this is true. The Obama administration has made clear that its objectives are mostly limited to security, and John Kerry's speech on Monday delivered exactly that line.
But Hoh has nevertheless a point here, because the strategy General Stanley McChrystal proposes is more ambitious: it aims for total military victory against the Taliban. To accomplish that, McChrystal will need a lot more than the 20,000 to 60,000 troops for which he is asking. The Taliban can continue to strike from Pakistan, and, as the US operation in Helmand showed this summer, even 20,000 soldiers cannot secure the centre of a single province in southern Afghanistan.
To what end, as Hoh asks, are we asking our young men and women to sacrifice? That is the question the White House has to answer.
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The US army's colossal training task
By Adam Brookes BBC News, Washington Thursday, 29 October 2009
The camera shows a group of Afghan soldiers standing on a cold dusty plain, listening to an American instructor. He is showing them how to use a new American rifle.
In many Afghan units, the old AK47s are being thrown away now. The new Afghan army will have new weapons: refurbished M16s.
The new weapons may be more powerful. In a firefight, they may give Afghan troops an edge over insurgents who use Soviet-era AKs.
But the new rifles are also unfamiliar. They require more maintenance, more care.
The camera shows the Afghan soldiers hunched against the wind, as the instructor talks them through the basics of the M16 rifle, through a Dari interpreter.
The film I am watching was shot by an American lieutenant: Alan Campbell, a US Army reservist in his late twenties. He trained Afghan troops for nine months.
His video is instructive. It exudes a sense of the colossal task facing American trainers as they try to assemble a modern fighting force in Afghanistan, one that can tackle the Taliban, defend the central government, and - one day - allow US, British and other Nato troops to go home.
When I interview Alan Campbell, it sounds to me as if he found the young Afghan army troubled and unsure. He says corruption was a "serious problem".
"Corruption was big: money, pay, accountability for soldiers, accountability for weapons, accountability for sensitive items, vehicles, fuel, ammunition," he continues.
"In the big picture, that's a big problem."
US officers have told us privately of equipment issued to Afghan units disappearing and US troops finding it on sale in the local markets.
They also told us about Afghan army vehicles that appear to get two miles to the gallon of fuel.
"Either there's a leak in the tank, or that gas is disappearing," said one officer.
A Pentagon report issued at the end of September spoke of "major challenges" facing the development of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
It pointed to insufficient leadership capability, shortages of essential equipment, and the time needed to develop "ethical leaders".
Ethnicity, too, causes problems in the new Afghan army.
Officers of different ethnic backgrounds sometimes would not talk to each other. Others held their rank because of who they knew, or where they were from.
"Nepotism in the army is probably one of the things that hurt them the most," said Alan Campbell. "In the long run that has to be overcome if they are going to take over control of their country."
It is not only junior American officers who worry that the effort to build the Afghan armed forces is facing serious problems. I went to a conference in Washington recently on counterinsurgency. It was attended by the US military's foremost thinkers on the subject, and I found these concerns echoed right at the heart of the counterinsurgency elite.
Col Jeff Haynes, a Marine who oversaw US teams training Afghan troops, says that building the Afghan armed forces is "utterly central to all US and Nato strategy".
"Standing up armed forces in Afghanistan is huge. I cannot overstate it. They are the ones who set the conditions on the battle space, that set the conditions for governance."
He acknowledges that he encountered corruption and the nepotism. But he warns against underestimating the potential of the Afghan soldier.
"This corruption and cronyism stifles initiative," he says. "But I don't want to paint a completely bleak picture - there are pockets of brilliance and we need to expand that."
But US officers say there are not yet enough pockets of brilliance. Only about a third of Afghan army units can operate independently, we are told.
'Lack of leadership'
"And the less capable units," says Col Haynes, "are in real trouble".
He reels off a bleak list of what he found in the poorer Afghan army units: "Disregard for the mission, criminal activity, poor equipment, a lack of fuel, a lack of water, uniforms that were not worn remotely the way they were intended to be."
For Col Haynes - who is now retired from the US Marine Corps - the central problem was with leadership.
Much of the Afghan officer corps, he says, has not yet reached the point at which it can realise the potential of the tough, willing Afghan soldier.
"When you have poor leadership it starts at the top and it goes all the way down to the individual soldier."
President Barack Obama is now pondering what to do next in Afghanistan, whether to send thousands more American troops there.
Whatever he decides, one element of the strategy will remain constant: only when the Afghan security forces are ready and able and willing to take up the fight, will US British and Nato troops be able to pull out. And at the heart of the American military, they simply don't know when that will be.
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Adm: Afghan attack won't disrupt Nov. 7 runoff
AP via Yahoo! News - Oct 28 2:06 PM
WASHINGTON – The White House says Wednesday's deadly attack on a guest house used by the U.N. in the Afghan capital is an attempt by extremists to disrupt the Nov. 7 runoff presidential election.
Press secretary Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration believes attempts to interfere with the vote will not succeed. He said that security arrangements are not being re-thought because of the attack.
Gibbs said, "The administration is confident that there are the appropriate resources to conduct an election." President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah will face off in the runoff Nov. 7 after an earlier round of voting was marred by fraud. Gibbs said that President Barack Obama sent his condolences to the victims of the attack, in which at least 12 people were killed, including six U.N. staffers.
Obama is deciding whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan as part of a revamped war strategy. Gibbs said yes when asked during his briefing with reporters whether the president's decision is still "several weeks" away.
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Obama honours Afghanistan killed
Thursday, 29 October 2009 BBC News
US President Barack Obama has paid his respects to 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan, the first time he has honoured the fallen in this way.
The bodies of 15 US soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Agency agents were transferred to a mortuary on the base.
The president also met their families privately.
His predecessor, George W Bush, visited the families of dead troops but never received the bodies at the base, in Dover, Delaware.
Mr Bush also did not go to military funerals, telling the military newspaper Stars and Stripes three years ago that he preferred to meet families privately.
Mr Obama, who was wearing a dark coat, was taken to the base, 100 miles (161km) from the White House, by the Marine One helicopter to greet the C-17 aircraft that had brought back the dead.
He boarded the plane and watched as a military chaplain prayed for those who had passed away.
'Salute'
There has been a ban on the media attending such events for 18 years, but this was lifted earlier this year for transfers when families involved give permission.
A small group of reporters were allowed to watch the final transfer, of Sgt Dale R Griffin, from the plane to the van which would take it to the mortuary.
Mr Obama saluted as the flag-draped case was moved.
The returned remains were of troops killed this week in three separate incidents.
On Monday, 10, including the three drug enforcement agents, died when a US military helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan. Four more US troops died when two helicopters crashed over southern Afghanistan.
The remaining eight soldiers were killed on Tuesday in roadside bomb attacks in Kandahar province.
It has been the bloodiest month so far in the past eight years for US troops in Afghanistan - with at least 53 killed.
On Monday, Mr Obama told troops at a Florida naval base he would not rush any decision about boosting the number of troops in Afghanistan.
He said he would not risk their lives unless it was "absolutely necessary".
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S Korean FM calls on parliament to support for Afghan aid package
SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said Thursday the government plans to provide additional support to stabilize Afghanistan, which apparently included troop dispatch, calling for support from political circle.
Yu met with the heads of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) and the minor opposition Liberty Forward Party and explained about the plan, foreign ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said at a press briefing.
However, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), which has been allegedly opposing the sensitive troop-dispatch plan, did not attend the meeting.
The foreign ministry said it plans to reschedule a meeting with the DP to discuss on the matter as an approval from the parliament is required to send troops abroad.
"If consultations with the parties proceed as planned, we expect to announce the additional aid plan for Afghanistan as early as tomorrow," an official at the ministry said.
In a weekly diplomatic policy coordination meeting presided over by Yu on Wednesday, the government reached the decision to send "non-combat security forces" to Afghanistan.
After pulling out from the South Asian country in 2007, Seoul only took the role of providing medical and vocational training by assisting the United States.
At the moment, two dozen South Korean volunteers work inside the U.S. Air Force Base in Bagram, north of Kabul.
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Pakistan army kills 11 militants in Taliban strongholds
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani security forces killed 11 more militants during the last 24 hours, bringing the total fatality to over 280, as the operation in the country's tribal area steadily progressed towards the Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan, the amy said Thursday in a daily press release.
The army said one soldier was killed and another two security forces personnel were injured in clashes in the last 24 hours during the ground assault in various areas in the tribal agency near the border with Afghanistan.
In the operation coded as Rah-e-Nijat, or path of salvation, the security forces continued shelling on extremists hideouts on main Jandola-Sararogha axis, Shakai-Kaniguram axis and Razmak-Makeen axis, the army said.
On Jandola-Sararogha axis, the security forces are consolidating their positions along the main axis Kotkai-Sararogha and the important town of Inzar Kalay has been fully sanitized and cleared of mines, improvised explosive devices and bobby traps, according to the press release.
On Shakai-Kaniguram axis, the security forces are expanding their perimeter of security and closing in towards Kaniguram from east and west.
On Razmak-Makeen axis, the security forces successfully moved forward after fully securing Sharakai Sar and secured Pakalita and Manza Sar feature North East of village China.
In the ending operation in Swat and Malakand, the army said, the security arrested four suspects and recovered vehicle of terrorist commander Hussain with driver from Ballogram near Mingora.
So far, 7,099 cash cards have been distributed amongst the displaced families of Waziristan, the army said.
Pakistani security forces launched the ground assault on Oct. 17 in the South Waziristan, advancing towards the main base of Taliban militants in Pakistan. The army said that about 30,000 soldiers are in place to take on an estimated 10,000 hard-core Taliban militants in the lawless area.
The military said that the operation was launched in six towns of the area in three directions and is likely to continue for six to eight weeks, but no final deadline can be given.
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Afghanistan: Northern returnees need aid
SHEBERGHAN, 29 October 2009 (IRIN) - Several thousand people returning to their homes in the northern Afghan provinces of Sar-i-Pul and Jowzjan need help before winter, according to aid agencies and local officials.
Aid agencies say most are returnees from Iran and from a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in southern Afghanistan.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said it had set up a tented camp in an arid area in Sozma Qala District, Sar-i-Pul Province, to accommodate hundreds of returnees from Iran. Some aid had been distributed to them, it said.
About 300 families had returned to Jowzjan Province from Zhari IDP camp in Kandahar Province, provincial governor Mohammad Hashim Zaray told IRIN.
"Some people have gone to their homes but some have set up tents and temporary settlements in the outskirts of Sheberghan [capital of Jowzjan Province] and other areas," said Zaray, adding that insecurity, land disputes and lack of jobs were the main problems facing returnees.
Intensifying insurgency-related violence, the lack of aid and difficult living conditions forced over 2,000 IDP households in Zhari camp to sign up for a UNHCR-assisted voluntary return programme in 2009, according to relevant officials in Kandahar.
"About 850 families have left the camp so far this year but hundreds of families still live in Zhari," Mohammad Azam Nawabi, director of the refugees department in Kandahar, told IRIN.
Shelter
As winter approaches, the need for decent shelter is becoming more important. "Our children will die from cold," said one man outside his tent in Sar-i-Pul Province.
"This winter will devastate my family because we have no home, no warm clothes, no food and nothing to resist the cold," said another man.
Central and northern parts of Afghanistan normally get snow in early November.
Aurvasi Patel, head of UNHCR's office in the northern province of Balkh, said efforts were under way to assist 5,000 families in the north and northeast of the country before winter.
She said the aid for returnees would include food and non-food items such as warm clothes and charcoal - supported by UNHCR, the UN World Food Programme and the UN Children's Fund.
UNHCR has earmarked US$14 million for its shelter programme in 2009: Some 10,000 returnee families will be given help to rebuild their houses in different parts of the country.
Longstanding problem
Hundreds of thousands of people - mostly ethnic Pashtuns - fled their homes in the north and sought refuge in IDP camps in the south of the country in 2001-2002 because of insecurity and ethnic tensions.
UN agencies delivered basic aid to about one million IDPs for a while but ended its operation in March 2006 in a bid to encourage people to return to their home areas.
Over five million Afghan refugees have returned to Afghanistan - mostly from Pakistan and Iran - over the past eight years, according to UNHCR.
Hundreds of thousands of IDPs have also returned to their original homes in the past four years, it said.
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Analysis: What's at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
By Christiane Amanpour, CNN Chief International Correspondent October 29, 2009
Editor's note: Christiane Amanpour is host of the new show "Amanpour," which airs weekdays on CNN International at 2100 CET and on Sundays at 2 p.m. ET on CNN in the United States.
(CNN) -- October has been the deadliest month for the US and NATO militaries fighting in Afghanistan as well as UN workers trying to organize an election runoff. Surely the surge in deaths serves to underscore why Afghanistan matters.
For all the debate happening away from the battlefield, here are a couple of important bottom-line questions:
Is the world prepared to see the Taliban and their opportunistic allies al Qaeda return to power in Afghanistan? Are people prepared for the terrorists' dream- photo-op of Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden sitting smiling together in Kabul?
And here's what's at stake:
The West fortunately has been free of terrorist attacks on its major cities in the last few years, but it was not so long ago that the London Tube bombings; mass murder in Madrid; mayhem in Mumbai in 2008; the murders of Benazir Bhutto and Daniel Pearl; the Bali bombing; the shoe bomber and, of course, 9/11 and the attacks on the World Trade Center changed our world and our way of life.
Together, those events created pervasive fear and anxiety, not to mention a change in our lifestyle caused by security measures in airports, trains, banking transactions and office buildings.
What all of these events have in common is that the perpetrators all came from, visited, were financed by, or were led by terrorist organizations operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially the ungovernable territories on those countries' border. The Bush administration, in the view of some, may have gone too far in responding to these events by creating an all-encompassing "war on terrorism."
However, for the eight long years America and NATO countries have been at war in Afghanistan, this war, uniquely in modern history, is still supported by all the world's major powers, the neighbors of Afghanistan, and mostly by the people of Afghanistan, who dread both insecurity and a return to the brutal horrors of the Taliban.
If the threat of new terrorist attacks is not enough, what about the threat of a nuclear catastrophe?
Look at Pakistan this week. Horrific bombings in the frontier town of Peshawar and elsewhere have also killed scroes of people, just as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives to firm up security and development co-operation with that country.
While foreign policy and intelligence experts continue to worry that terrorism, Islamic extremism, the continued threat of renewed war between Pakistan and India, plus the presence of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of both countries, could prove a combustible mix in the not-too-distant future. This is not scare-mongering; it's simply the reality that what happens in South Asia could affect all of our lives. That's why all of us must be concerned by the outcome of the war that is being fought today in mountains of the tribal areas in Pakistan and the plains of Afghanistan.
Many of the soldiers and officers I speak to in Afghanistan say the best way to beat back the threat of Taliban insurgents is with boots on the ground and additional military resources, as well as a proper development assistance for the Afghan civilians. The Afghan people need protecting and enabling.
I have been reporting from Afghanistan since 1996 and the one thing I've noticed over the years is that every Afghan asks foremost for security. Then next on the list is development to help them earn a decent living and raise their families. They also want a decent government. They know this will take years of patience and effort. They know it will be a hard slog. After all, they have been at war for 30 years now, during which the traditional, honor-bound society they had for decades has all but vanished.
Though it is true that fierce tribal traditions mean some Afghans distrust even the tribe next door, not to mention foreign troops, over and again, Afghan men, women and children have told me they do not see the U.S. and NATO forces as occupiers, rather as armies from countries who came to help them ... but who have fallen short of their promises.
This fear and disenchantment is what the Taliban feeds on today. They want the U.S. and NATO out, they try to convince the people those outsiders are occupiers bent on harming them. And yet, if you look at the current trends and the latest polls in Afghanistan, despite massive governmental corruption, abuse and dysfunction, the majority of the people want nothing to do with the Taliban.
Polls show only a tiny minority support them. And that is mostly because they are desperate for security and safety, something the West has failed to follow through on after roundly defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda in seven weeks after 9/11.
And across the border in Pakistan surveys show Osama Bin Laden has lost his luster among Muslim youth. Support for Islamic extremists is dropping. The Pakistani government is finally fighting back against the extremists who threaten the future of this mostly moderate Muslim country. Under pressure, the militants are lashing out in parts of the country.
See Christiane Amanpour's special report on "Generation Islam"
Unfortunately, at this crucial moment, people in America and Europe are tiring of their governments' support for the war in Afghanistan and the battles in remote parts of Pakistan. The agonized debate over strategy in Washington hides the sad fact that since sending the Taliban and al Qaeda packing, shortsighted U.S. vision snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Bush administration mostly ignored Afghanistan while diverting its attention and resources to Iraq. Now that the U.S. is finally refocusing on the war in Afghanistan it's an opportunity to look at what is at stake: the urgency of finishing the job in Afghanistan pitted against the real war-weariness of western voters. This is the dilemma of the modern world where the latest of life's challenges such as the financial crisis, unemployment, new flu pandemics, health care, and the housing market dominate daily life.
Getting the job done in Afghanistan will take years in time and resources. It will require faith and patience. The mass media is not the best place to reflect that. It does not usually focus on the hard slog, instead it is constantly in search of the new and the now.
But the next time there is a major terrorist attack, in all likelihood it will have been generated by an organization somewhere near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Again, people will ask: Why weren't our leaders and the media there to warn us of the dangers?
As a member of the media I believe that's our job: to report the facts.
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UN Security Council calls meeting on Afghanistan
29 Oct 2009 15:10:22 GMT
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council will hold a special session on the situation in Afghanistan on Thursday, the United Nations said.
It was not immediately clear what would be the focus of the meeting, which takes place a day after Taliban militants attacked a U.N. guest house in Kabul, killing five U.N. staff.
The U.N. press office said in a statement that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to brief the 15-nation council at the meeting, which takes place at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT). (Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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NATO chief to discuss Afghan cooperation in Russia
By David Brunnstrom – Wed Oct 28, 2:09 pm ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen hopes to secure Russian help in equipping and training Afghan security forces during a visit to Moscow in December, an alliance spokesman said on Wednesday.
Rasmussen will meet President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the foreign and defense ministers during the December 15-17 visit, his first to Moscow since taking over as the defense alliance's secretary-general on Aug 1.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said there was a possibility Moscow could also agree to broaden agreements on the transit of NATO supplies to Afghanistan through Russia.
"On Afghanistan there is a clear prospect of stepping up cooperation and it is supported by a clear shared interest," Appathurai told reporters.
"Russia has no more desire to see terrorism, extremism and drugs flow out of Afghanistan than any of us," he said.
Appathurai said that although NATO was seeking better ties with Russia, they would not come at the expense of promises the alliance has made to the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia that they can one day join the alliance.
"There will be no compromise on core principles, but a strong push to expand practical cooperation," Appathurai said.
NATO froze relations with its former Cold War foe after last year's war between Georgia and Russia but they have started to warm again.
Moscow has said it backs U.S.-led efforts against an Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan but that it will not send its own soldiers back to the country where it fought a war in the 1980s.
NATO wants to beef up the Afghan police and army before withdrawing Western forces that were sent to Afghanistan after the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
There are more than 100,000 foreign troops in the country, but they have struggled to contain the widening insurgency and mounting casualties have made the mission increasingly unpopular with Western public opinion.
(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
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Israel drones to be used by Germany in Afghanistan
By Associated Press Wednesday, October 28, 2009
JERUSALEM — Israel Aerospace Industries says it will supply unmanned spy planes to Germany that will see action in Afghanistan early next year.
The Heron drones will be deployed by the German air force in northern Afghanistan in early 2010 for reconnaissance missions, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
It would not reveal how many drones were sold or for how much but said it was a multimillion dollar deal.
Israeli drones have previously been supplied to coalition forces to gather intelligence data on Islamic militants in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Heron is Israel’s largest surveillance drone, with a 54-foot wingspan and an ability to fly for as long as 30 hours at a time at a speed of 140 mph (225.3 kph) and a height of 30,000 feet (9,144 meters).
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