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UN 'damaged' by Afghan vote bias claims: Abdullah
KABUL (AFP) – The main rival for the Afghan presidency on Saturday said the United Nations' credibility had been "seriously damaged" by claims of bias levelled at the world body's special envoy in Kabul.
UN Afghan neutrality questioned
By Martin Patience BBC News, Kabul Saturday, 3 October 2009
Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to Afghanistan's incumbent President Karzai, has called for an inquiry nto the UN's role since the August poll.
What I Saw at the Afghan Election
By Peter W. Galbraith The Washington Post Sunday, October 4, 2009
Before firing me last week from my post as his deputy special representative in Afghanistan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed one last instruction: Do not talk to the press. In effect, I was being told to remain a team player after being thrown off the team. Nonetheless, I agreed.
Audit of Afghan suspect ballots to start soon: officials
KABUL — (AFP) — More than 3,000 ballot boxes containing votes suspected of having been cast fraudulently in Afghanistan's presidential election have arrived in the capital Kabul for audit, officials said Saturday.
My Hamid Karzai Daydream
Jamie Metzl October 1, 2009 06:50 PM HuffingtonPost.com
Just back from serving as an election monitor in Afghanistan, I became distressed at how much the Karzai government's mishandling of the electoral process and rampant corruption are undermining its own legitimacy and that of the overall
One Afghan, One Vote
The U.S. ignores election fraud in Afghanistan at its own peril.
by Richard Williamson The Weekly Standard
Will the Obama administration give Afghanistan a pass on credible allegations of material fraud in its recent election? We don't know yet. But it shouldn't.
UK ministers in Afghanistan to boost troop morale
Sat Oct 3, 2009 8:59pm IST By Abdul Malek
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Britain's defence and interior ministers visited Afghanistan on Saturday to boost the morale of British troops who suffered 50 dead in the past three months.
Extra US troops for north, west Afghanistan: military
October 3, 2009
KANDAHAR MILITARY BASE, Afghanistan (AFP) – Extra troops called for by the head of foreign forces in Afghanistan would be sent mainly to the north and west of the country, the US military said on Saturday.
In Afghanistan, Training Can Look a Lot Like Fighting
Sunday, October 4, 2009 The Washington Post
As President Obama and his national security team debate strategy for the war in Afghanistan, some of the options on the table involve a greater focus on training and strengthening the Afghan security forces.
Report Cites Firefight as Lesson on Afghan War
By THOM SHANKER The New York Times October 3, 2009
WASHINGTON — The paratroopers of Chosen Company had plenty to worry about as they began digging in at their new outpost on the fringe of a hostile frontier village in eastern Afghanistan.
Afghanistan: Why Obama is rethinking 'war of necessity'
Waning American support for the war and allegations of fraud in the Afghan elections have turned a policy review into a fervent debate about the Afghanistan conflict within the Obama administration.
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the October 3, 2009 edition
Washington - But the White House review has since turned into a debate because it comes at a difficult moment for US involvement in Afghanistan. American public support for the war is waning, and a flawed Afghan
Corruption, Shortage of Mentors Hinder Afghan Forces, U.S. Says
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 3, 2009
As the White House weighs a request from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan for additional troops for combat and training there, a new report from the Defense Department's inspector general attributes shortcomings
Obama Meets With Afghanistan Commander In Denmark
October 03, 2009 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
U.S. President Barack Obama has met briefly with his top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, during a European stop to discuss White House strategy in the Afghan war, White House officials said.
Afghan Security Officer Kills 2 US Troops
By VOA News 03 October 2009
Afghan officials say an Afghan security officer opened fire on U.S. troops while conducting a joint operation with them, killing two and wounding two others.
3 U.S. troops killed by attacks in Afghanistan
KABUL (AP) — Three American troops were killed by attacks in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Saturday, adding to the toll as the Obama administration debates its strategy in the troubled eight-year war.
Suspected militants killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The International Security Assistance Force says several suspected militants were killed or detained Saturday in Afghanistan's Kandahar and Paktika provinces.
Four Finnish peacekeepers wounded in Afghanistan
HELSINKI, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Four Finnish peacekeepers were wounded on Saturday after their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan, the Finnish Defence Forces said in a statement Saturday.
Deployments and Diplomacy
More troops is a start. But to win in Afghanistan, we'll need help from its powerful neighbors.
By Henry Kissinger | NEWSWEEK Oct 3, 2009 From the magazine issue dated Oct 12, 2009
The request for additional forces by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, poses cruel dilemmas for President Obama. If he refuses the recommendation and General McChrystal's argument
AFGHANISTAN: RETHINKING THE CONSTITUTIONAL BALANCE OF POWER
EurasiaNet Aunohita Mojumdar 10/02/09
As the international community, specifically the NATO allies, wrestles with the need to develop yet another military strategy in Afghanistan, some domestic political leaders in the strife-ravaged country are starting to question whether
Taliban force protest against foreign troops: local governor
Fri Oct 2, 12:52 pm ET
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) – Taliban militants in western Afghanistan on Friday forced civilians to protest against foreign forces after spreading rumours they had desecrated a mosque, the local governor said.
Afghan war options: Beating al-Qaida key yardstick
By ROBERT BURNS The Associated Press Saturday, October 3, 2009 9:20 AM
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is considering a range of ideas for changing course in Afghanistan, from pulling back to staying put to sending thousands more troops to fight the insurgency.
19 Reasons To Win In Afghanistan
Heritage.org 03 Oct 2009
There have been many arguments in the past four weeks to withdraw. We have compiled a short review of other social network debates to summarize the basic arguments for staying in the Afghanistan. The 19th reason has been added at the bottom.
Western Afghanistan, a new worry ?
Reuters By Golnar Motevalli October 3rd, 2009
Herat province in west Afghanistan is seen as one of the country's safest areas. It is one of the largest, most prosperous Afghan provinces — its capital's wide, smooth and tree-lined boulevards are a far cry from Kabul's crumbling skyline.
'Forced' Protest Quelled in Afghan West
Reza Shir Mohammadi Quqnoos October 3, 2009
Afghan troops overwhelmed a protest rally in western Afghanistan which was provoked after a mosque desecration rumour on Friday
Pakistani official rejects presence of Mullah Omar in Balouchistan
by Hadi Mayar
KABUL, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- A senior Pakistani official has outrightly rejected the U.S. and western media reports about the presence of senior Afghan Taliban leaders in Balouchistan.
Japan to train former Taliban soldiers
TOKYO, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Japan is highlighting its contribution to the international community by providing training to former Taliban soldiers, its foreign ministry announced Friday.
Pakistani Taliban chief may be dead: US official
October 3, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Newly anointed Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud may have been killed recently during clashes with a rival faction, a senior US counter-terrorism official said on Saturday.
Musharraf: Multifaceted approach against Taliban
AP via Yahoo! News - Sat Oct 3, 1:37 am ET
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (pur-VEHZ' moo-SHAH'-ruhv) says al-Qaida needs to be eliminated from the country by force, but dealing with the Taliban requires a military, political and socio-economic approach.
No place to keep surrendering Taliban: Pakistani PM
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said the government is now having trouble accommodating the thousands of Taliban who have surrendered to the security forces
Pakistan army accused of executing Taliban suspects
By Saeed Shah, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Fri Oct 2, 6:36 pm ET
MINGORA, Pakistan — Scores of badly tortured bodies have been found dumped in Pakistan's Swat valley, raising concerns that the Pakistani army is conducting a campaign of extra-judicial killings and brutality of suspected
Pakistan Taliban faction parts ways with TTP
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- A Taliban faction led by Mullah Nazir on Friday parted ways with the banned group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and assured the government that it will remain impartial
Terrorism Case Shows Range Of Investigators' Tools
by Dina Temple-Raston NPR - National Public Radio October 3, 2009
Investigators in the terrorism case against Najibullah Zazi claim to have amassed stacks of evidence against the former Denver-area shuttle bus driver.
Melon Crop Under Threat
Failure of efforts to stop the melon fly prompts farmers in the north to consider giving up the crop.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Ahmad Kawoosh and Baryalai Jalalzai in Balkh (ARR No. 339, 02-Oct-09)
Across the north, huge piles of sweet melons are appearing along the region’s roadsides, sold to motorists and passersby for about 100 afghani (two US dollars) apiece.
Pakistan: Anti-Taliban tribal elder fatally shot
By HABIB KHAN The Associated Press Saturday, October 3, 2009 10:48 AM
KHAR, Pakistan -- Suspected Taliban militants fatally shot a tribal elder Saturday in volatile northwestern Pakistan as he traveled to discuss anti-militancy efforts with government authorities, an official said.
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UN 'damaged' by Afghan vote bias claims: Abdullah
KABUL (AFP) – The main rival for the Afghan presidency on Saturday said the United Nations' credibility had been "seriously damaged" by claims of bias levelled at the world body's special envoy in Kabul.
Abdullah Abdullah said there were "serious questions" about the role played by Kai Eide, a Norwegian, in the August 20 election, which has been marred by accusations of widespread fraud.
This week Eide's sacked former deputy, veteran US diplomat Peter Galbraith, accused his ex-boss of blocking the release of details of "very extensive" voter fraud.
Abdullah said Eide's actions gave the impression he supported Karzai, although the presidential candidate stopped short of calling for the envoy's resignation or dismissal.
"In normal circumstances accusations, claims and challenges as such by a senior UN official will call for an internal UN investigation. That has not happened," Abdullah told reporters.
"But as far as I am concerned, in my mind I have no doubt that it has seriously damaged the UN's credibility in Afghanistan.
"The UN's role has been respected all the time by most of the parties -- I don't include the Taliban -- in the country. But at this critical stage, the decision will be decided either by fraud or by the rule of law.
"At this stage, a biased attitude is not acceptable."
Karzai leads in preliminary results from the disputed election with about 55 percent of the vote, against Abdullah on just under 28 percent. The winner needs 50 percent plus one vote.
But an upcoming audit of ballots in 3,063 ballot boxes could see Karzai's lead drop below the required threshold, forcing a run-off with Abdullah.
Abdullah has said he will monitor the investigations to the end and not support the result if he is not satisfied with the transparency of the process.
The former foreign minister said "short term concerns and backroom deals" had led to a "whitewash" that had damaged the democratic process.
He called for the rule of law to prevail "or fraud will govern Afghanistan for the next five years".
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UN Afghan neutrality questioned
By Martin Patience BBC News, Kabul Saturday, 3 October 2009
Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to Afghanistan's incumbent President Karzai, has called for an inquiry nto the UN's role since the August poll.
He said serious questions had been raised about the neutrality of the UN special envoy to the country, Kai Eide.
Along with the Afghan authorities, the UN is responsible for the election's smooth running and investigating claims of fraud.
The accusation comes after the dismissal of a key deputy to Mr Eide.
Peter Galbraith said he was sacked over a dispute with his superior about how to handle allegations of fraud.
He said Mr Eide had chosen to side with President Hamid Karzai, an accusation the UN denies.
Dr Abdullah said the incident had "greatly damaged" the UN's standing in the country.
"It took a brave individual [Peter Galbraith] to stand up for transparency," said Dr Abdullah.
"His remarks and what has happened in the last few weeks - question the neutrality of Kai Eide's mission."
Investigations ongoing
Unofficially, Mr Karzai has won this election.
But most of the allegations of fraud are against the president and his supporters.
EU election observers have said that about 1.5m votes - about a quarter of all ballots - cast in August's presidential vote could be fraudulent.
They say that 1.1m votes cast for Mr Karzai are suspicious.
Investigations into voter fraud are ongoing and an official announcement about the result is not expected until next week.
Mr Karzai could still be forced into a run-off election, and his challenger would be Dr Abdullah.
AFGHAN POLL FRAUD
15 Sep: Election Complaints Commission chief says 10% of votes need to be recounted
8 Sep: Poll complaints body orders some recounts nationwide
8 Sep: IEC says votes from 600 polling stations "quarantined"
3 Sep: Claims 30,000 fraudulent votes cast for Karzai in Kandahar
30 Aug: 2,000 fraud allegations are probed; 600 deemed serious
20 Aug: Election day and claims 80,000 ballots were filled out fraudulently for Karzai in Ghazni
18 Aug: Ballot cards sold openly and voter bribes offered
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What I Saw at the Afghan Election
By Peter W. Galbraith The Washington Post Sunday, October 4, 2009
Before firing me last week from my post as his deputy special representative in Afghanistan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed one last instruction: Do not talk to the press. In effect, I was being told to remain a team player after being thrown off the team. Nonetheless, I agreed.
As my differences with my boss, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, had already been well publicized (through no fault of either of us), I asked only that the statement announcing my dismissal reflect the real reasons. Alain LeRoy, the head of U.N. peacekeeping and my immediate superior in New York, proposed that the United Nations say I was being recalled over a "disagreement as to how the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) would respond to electoral fraud." Although this was not entirely accurate -- the dispute was really about whether the U.N. mission would respond to the massive electoral fraud -- I agreed.
Instead, the United Nations announced my recall as occurring "in the best interests of the mission," and U.N. press officials told reporters on background that my firing was necessitated by a "personality clash" with Eide, a friend of 15 years who had introduced me to my future wife.
I might have tolerated even this last act of dishonesty in a dispute dating back many months if the stakes were not so high. For weeks, Eide had been denying or playing down the fraud in Afghanistan's recent presidential election, telling me he was concerned that even discussing the fraud might inflame tensions in the country. But in my view, the fraud was a fact that the United Nations had to acknowledge or risk losing its credibility with the many Afghans who did not support President Hamid Karzai.
I also felt loyal to my U.N. colleagues who worked in a dangerous environment to help Afghans hold honest elections -- at least five of whom have now told me they are leaving jobs they love in disgust over the events leading to my firing.
Afghanistan's presidential election, held Aug. 20, should have been a milestone in the country's transition from 30 years of war to stability and democracy. Instead, it was just the opposite. As many as 30 percent of Karzai's votes were fraudulent, and lesser fraud was committed on behalf of other candidates. In several provinces, including Kandahar, four to 10 times as many votes were recorded as voters actually cast. The fraud has handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting the United States and its Afghan partners.
The election was a foreseeable train wreck. Unlike the United Nations-run elections in 2004, this balloting was managed by Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC). Despite its name, the commission is subservient to Karzai, who appointed its seven members. Even so, the international role was extensive. The United States and other Western nations paid the more than $300 million to hold the vote, and U.N. technical staff took the lead in organizing much of the process, including printing ballot papers, distributing election materials and designing safeguards against fraud.
Part of my job was to supervise all this U.N. support. In July, I learned that at least 1,500 polling centers (out of 7,000) were to be located in places so insecure that no one from the IEC, the Afghan National Army or the Afghan National Police had ever visited them. Clearly, these polling centers would not open on Election Day. At a minimum, their existence on the books would create large-scale confusion, but I was more concerned about the risk of fraud.
Local commission staff members were hardly experienced election professionals; in many instances they were simply agents of the local power brokers, usually aligned with Karzai. If no independent observers or candidate representatives, let alone voters, could even visit the listed location of a polling center, these IEC staffers could easily stuff ballot boxes without ever taking them to the assigned location. Or they could simply report results without any votes being in the ballot boxes.
Along with ambassadors from the United States and key allies, I met with the Afghan ministers of defense and the interior as well as the commission's chief election officer. We urged them either to produce a credible plan to secure these polling centers (which the head of the Afghan army had told me was impossible) or to close them down. Not surprisingly, the ministers -- who served a president benefiting from the fraud -- complained that I had even raised the matter. Eide ordered me not to discuss the ghost polling centers any further. On Election Day, these sites produced hundreds of thousands of phony Karzai votes.
At other critical stages in the election process, I was similarly ordered not to pursue the issue of fraud. The U.N. mission set up a 24-hour election center during the voting and in the early stages of the counting. My staff collected evidence on hundreds of cases of fraud around the country and, more important, gathered information on turnout in key southern provinces where few voters showed up but large numbers of votes were being reported. Eide ordered us not to share this data with anyone, including the Electoral Complaints Commission, a U.N.-backed Afghan institution legally mandated to investigate fraud. Naturally, my colleagues wondered why they had taken the risks to collect this evidence if it was not to be used.
In early September, I got word that the IEC was about to abandon its published anti-fraud policies, allowing it to include enough fraudulent votes in the final tally to put Karzai over the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. After I called the chief electoral officer to urge him to stick with the original guidelines, Karzai issued a formal protest accusing me of foreign interference. My boss sided with Karzai.
Afghanistan is deeply divided ethnically and geographically. Both Karzai and the Taliban are Pashtun, Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group, which makes up about 45 percent of the country's population. Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's main challenger, is half Pashtun and half Tajik but is politically identified with the Tajiks, who dominate the north and are Afghanistan's second largest ethnic group. If the Tajiks believe that fraud denied their candidate the chance to compete in a second round, they may respond by simply not recognizing the authority of the central government. The north already has de facto autonomy; these elections could add an ethnic fault line to a conflict between the Taliban and the government that to date has largely been a civil war among Pashtuns.
Since my disagreements with Eide went public, Eide and his supporters have argued that the United Nations had no mandate to interfere in the Afghan electoral process. This is not technically correct. The U.N. Security Council directed the U.N. mission to support Afghanistan's electoral institutions in holding a "free, fair and transparent" vote, not a fraudulent one. And with so much at stake -- and with more than 100,000 U.S. and coalition troops deployed in the country -- the international community had an obvious interest in ensuring that Afghanistan's election did not make the situation worse.
President Obama needs a legitimate Afghan partner to make any new strategy for the country work. However, the extensive fraud that took place on Aug. 20 virtually guarantees that a government emerging from the tainted vote will not be credible with many Afghans.
As I write, Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission is auditing 10 percent of the suspect polling boxes. If the audit shows this sample to be fraudulent, the commission will throw out some 3,000 suspect ballot boxes, which could lead to a runoff vote between Karzai and Abdullah. By itself, a runoff is no antidote for Afghanistan's electoral challenges. The widespread problems that allowed for fraud in the first round of voting must be addressed. In particular, all ghost polling stations should be removed from the books ("closed" is not the right word since they never opened), and the election staff that facilitated the fraud must be replaced.
Afghanistan's pro-Karzai election commission will not do this on its own. Fixing those problems will require resolve from the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan -- a quality that so far has been lacking.
galbraithvt@gmail.com
Peter W. Galbraith served as deputy special representative of the United Nations in Afghanistan from June until last week.
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Audit of Afghan suspect ballots to start soon: officials
KABUL — (AFP) — More than 3,000 ballot boxes containing votes suspected of having been cast fraudulently in Afghanistan's presidential election have arrived in the capital Kabul for audit, officials said Saturday.
Afghans went to the polls on August 20 to elect their president for the next five years, but allegations of widespread fraud -- mainly directed against President Hamid Karzai -- have delayed the announcement of a winner.
Karzai leads the preliminary results with around 55 percent of the vote. He needs 50 percent plus one vote to be declared the winner.
His main rival Abdullah Abdullah has around 28 percent, and has been at the forefront of vote-rigging accusations against Karzai.
Pivotal to the outcome -- which could be announced later this week -- is the result of the audit of 3,063 ballot boxes that have been returned to Kabul from polling stations across the country for a sample audit.
Noor Mohammad Noor, a spokesman for the Independent Election Commission (IEC), told AFP the audit "will start within the next couple of days".
Around ten percent of the 600-700 ballots in each box will be audited, another official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"A sample will be extrapolated to the larger population of ballot boxes -- it is not a recount as such, but an audit," she said.
"The process is supposed to start tomorrow (Sunday)," she said, adding that observers and candidates' agents were being trained on Saturday in preparation.
"If procedures are finalised tonight they will start tomorrow, otherwise the following day," she said.
The fraud accusations that have dogged the Afghan vote have dismayed leaders of the international community that has supported the process as a step forward on Afghanistan's road to democracy.
Vote-rigging allegations have been accompanied by controversy, as this week Peter Galbraith, deputy to the UN's special envoy to Afghanistan, was sacked over disagreements with his boss, Kai Eide, over how to deal with the fraud.
Galbraith later said that Eide had been biased in favour of Karzai.
Abdullah told reporters on Saturday that "serious questions" about Eide's role in the elections had emerged from the affair, and the UN's reputation among Afghans had been damaged.
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My Hamid Karzai Daydream
Jamie Metzl October 1, 2009 06:50 PM HuffingtonPost.com
Just back from serving as an election monitor in Afghanistan, I became distressed at how much the Karzai government's mishandling of the electoral process and rampant corruption are undermining its own legitimacy and that of the overall international effort. I began to daydream about Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaking directly to the American people to take responsibility for his government's failings and seek support for strong U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. This is what he said:
My Dear American Friends,
From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for all you have sacrificed to help my country. You liberated Afghanistan from the brutal rule of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. We are delighted to have them gone.
Afghanistan is far from America, and few Americans knew much about my native land before the terrible events of September 11, 2001 brought our fates together. I know that no American can forget the tragedy of that day, just as no Afghan can forget the string of tragedies over the past thirty years that have turned our proud country to rubble.
It's strange for me to watch the Afghanistan debate in the United States knowing that what America decides will have almost as great an impact on the future of Afghanistan as elections in our own country. Americans are rightly asking what has been gained from eight years of war - your soldiers are dying, the Taliban is growing stronger, Al Qaeda has safe havens in Pakistan, and my own government is riddled with corruption and cannot yet stand on its own feet. Many Americans saw the August Afghan elections as a last straw and are asking how a counter-insurgency strategy can work if the Afghan government is not able to hold a clean election, provide basic services, or bring any semblance of justice and security.
But while I ask the American taxpayers and their representatives to hold me accountable for how international funds are being used by the Afghan government, I also hope that the American people can understand how much the U.S. policy of funding and arming Afghanistan's warlords after the 2001 intervention helped create the situation we are in. What could we have done to stand up to the warlords other than make deals with them? Once we did, how could we create the culture of accountability we all know is badly needed? This is not to mention all the problems that have been created by the poor coordination among international military forces or the negative impact on our credibility of civilian casualties from US bombing.
We have all made terrible mistakes, but what's done is done. The key question you must now answer is whether you will support a strong and broad engagement in Afghanistan to lay a foundation for long-term security, or will begin scaling back your engagement and focus more narrowly on fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. For your sake as well as for our own, I hope you do the former.
If you scale back now, before we are able to develop our own institutions, there is a decent chance our system will collapse. If you stay in your bases and whack the Taliban and Al Qaeda from the sky, you will only stir the hornet's nest and destabilize our already weak government. Trust me, a failed or terrorist state in Afghanistan will become everyone's problem. If the Taliban and Al Qaeda take over and use Afghanistan as a base to export extremism and terror, what will you do then? Will you come back? As tough as it seems, won't it be easier to make the current flawed system work?
The new Afghanistan is just eight years old. We are very far from perfect, but we are doing a lot to educate our young girls and build a multi-ethnic society. With your help, we've made great progress in strengthening our army, but we've had very little progress in improving the quality of our policing, building a justice system, or giving farmers meaningful alternatives to growing opium poppies. I believe that together we can make significant progress in all of these areas, but we need our leadership, your robust support, and a bit more time.
We need you to stay and help us, and you need us to succeed. But it would not be fair for us to ask you to sacrifice so much without our making commitments as well. For this reason, I today want to make a series of pledges to the American people.
From this day forward I will commit myself to fighting fraud and corruption within my government. Corruption is not a part of Afghan culture, and we Afghans need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. I will kick-start this process today by asking my brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, to step down as Chairman of the Provincial Council of Kandahar.
Within two months, my government will publicly present our list of top goals for the next three years in key areas such as good governance, development, education, policing, judicial reform, and agriculture, and measurable benchmarks that we can all use to determine whether these goals are being met. For each goal, we will determine what support we need from the international community to make progress. If we do not reach these benchmarks, I will fully understand if the international community begins reducing its support to our government. It will literally be life and death for me and every member of our government to bring about this progress, and corruption or other interference with this process simply will not be tolerated.
You may be asking how I can do this when my own position is so shaky after a deeply flawed election whose outcome remains uncertain. I take full responsibility for the electoral fraud carried out in my name, but will it matter who ultimately wins if international support is withdrawn prematurely and our state collapses? We need to get our act together now. For this reason, I would like to invite my challenger, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, to become my full and equal partner as Co-President of Afghanistan.
I beg you, for our sake as well as yours, help give us one last chance to build a better future for all of our children. From where I stand, the alternative seems unimaginable for both of our countries.
Jamie F. Metzl is Executive Vice President of the Asia Society who served as Project Director for the Asia Society Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force. The views expressed are his own.
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One Afghan, One Vote
The U.S. ignores election fraud in Afghanistan at its own peril.
by Richard Williamson The Weekly Standard
Will the Obama administration give Afghanistan a pass on credible allegations of material fraud in its recent election? We don't know yet. But it shouldn't.
In Afghanistan's recent Presidential election there have been credible allegations of voter registration cards for sale, stuffed ballot boxes and other irregularities. The European Union has said up to one-third of the ballots may be tainted. America should not demand that we find a Thomas Jefferson amongst the chaos in Afghanistan. We're still looking for another Jefferson in America. But the human right of self-determination and the rule of law are abandoned at our own peril.
Democracy is not just a rhetorical gimmick, an idealistic aspiration or a July 4th punch line to be marginalized or eclipsed by political "spin" or coarse pragmatic opportunism. Democracy is a way to allocate power in a manner that encourages inclusion and compromise. It is a process in which there are no final victories so losers can accept today's judgment knowing they will have the opportunity to contest for power on a future date in a free and fair process.
And the rule of law is a means to peacefully adjudicate conflicts. All societies have competing interests, disputes, disagreements. In Afghanistan, a country at war with itself for 30 years, the disputes are bitter and the elbows are sharp. The rule of law allows their resolution in an open, transparent, fair process based upon established and recognized criteria rather than by personality, position, privilege and power. So the judgments are accepted.
In the march of freedom, history, heritage and habits matter. Not all soil is immediately hospitable to the institutions, processes and practices of democracy. Transitions can be difficult and take time. Therefore, notwithstanding the universal desire for freedom and the desirability and durability of democracy in allocating power and adjudication disputes, especially within diverse societies, patience, institution-building and various intermediary steps may be required. A country needs to develop a vibrant civil society, establish a free press, pass laws guaranteeing the right to assemble and so on. The pace of progress in any given circumstance may be a legitimate topic of debate.
In Afghanistan, promises have been made, expectations have been raised, commitments have been proffered. To deny the apparent material fraud in Afghanistan's recent presidential election is for America to break those promises, shatter those expectations, and breach those commitments. It will permanently damage America's credibility, lower Afghanis' horizons, and complicate the already immensely difficult challenges in Afghanistan.
I was in Kabul for the August 20th presidential election as leader of the International Republican Institute's Election Observer Mission. The environment of insecurity suppressed voter turn out; nonetheless millions of brave Afghanis went to the polls. At one polling station Mohamad Daud told me, "We had more participation last election. People are feeling fear. But people are voting. That is good for my country." In the Habibia High School polling place Abdul Wali caught the hopes of many Afghanis when he told me, "For the last 30 years we were so scared. Now, even though there are bombs, there is less fear. The big difference from the last 30 years is that now people have the right to vote. We are choosing our own government. It is our responsibility to vote. It is the government's job to be fair."
"I grew up with brutal war," Abdul Sami, a 48 year old printer, told me. "People are more hopeful now. The international community is here. . . . People will accept the results of this election. The vote is between me and my God. And the vote count will be transparent. So life will be better for my children."
The challenges in Afghanistan are considerable, progress will be difficult and take time. But, for whatever reason, if America diverts its eyes from credible allegations of large-scale election fraud in the belief that such a betrayal will achieve a measure of short term stability, we will have lost our way and undermined our interests and the future of Afghanistan.
For sustainable stability, a prerequisite for progress, Afghanistan needs the rule of law. To sanction the trespass of the rule of law by embracing fraudulent election results will betray Afghanis, encourage rule by patronage and power, and diminish American's influence. To deny democracy we have promised and promoted will reaffirm allocation of power by ethnicity, division and lawlessness; the very patterns that must be broken if stability is to be achieved and progress is to be realized. We must keep faith with the hopes and courage of brave Afghanis such as those I saw and listened to on election day. President Obama should speak out forcibly against election irregularities, as the Europeans already have done. He should demand a transparent adjudication of election complaints. If the election is deemed fatally flawed by material fraud, President Obama should support a new vote. By standing for the rule of law we will stand up for the Afghan people.
Ambassador Richard Williamson most recently served as President Bush's Special Envoy to Sudan.
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UK ministers in Afghanistan to boost troop morale
Sat Oct 3, 2009 8:59pm IST By Abdul Malek
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Britain's defence and interior ministers visited Afghanistan on Saturday to boost the morale of British troops who suffered 50 dead in the past three months.
Making a previously unannounced trip to the turbulent Helmand Province, where a 9,000-strong British contingent is based, the ministers also talked about the necessity of bolstering the Afghan army's capabilities as a fighting force.
Britain's goal is "to accelerate, as fast as we can, Afghan capability," defence minister Bob Ainsworth, who visited the province along with interior minister Alan Johnson, said.
"Security is obviously the most important thing, and therefore we need to grow the Afghan National Army," he added.
British officials initially asked the news media not to report on the visit until Monday for security reasons, but Afghan television showed pictures of the ministers on Saturday.
"It has been tremendous ... to not just commend our troops, for me to have the opportunity to do that, but also to hear from the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police," Johnson told reporters after meeting provincial governor Ghulab Mangal and other officials.
British forces launched their biggest military operation of the war three months ago in Helmand, in parallel with a large operation launched simultaneously by a newly arrived force of U.S. Marines in another part of the province.
The British contingent is the second largest of a 100,000-strong Western force, two thirds of it American, and 50 British service members have died in Afghanistan since July 1.
With the war increasingly unpopular at home, London has been promoting plans to boost Afghan security forces so that Western troops can withdraw.
Helmand, which produces most of the world's illegal opium crop, has been a stronghold of Taliban insurgents and drug traders. British forces have been fighting heavily there for more than three years.
The Western forces commander, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, has described the situation in the country as dire and asked for thousands of additional troops to implement an overhauled counter-insurgency strategy, or risk failure.
McChrystal has also called for the Afghan security forces to more than double to 400,000 soldiers and police, a prospect that would require billions of dollars in international funding.
(Editing by Michael Roddy)
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Extra US troops for north, west Afghanistan: military
October 3, 2009
KANDAHAR MILITARY BASE, Afghanistan (AFP) – Extra troops called for by the head of foreign forces in Afghanistan would be sent mainly to the north and west of the country, the US military said on Saturday.
"It is where we have the fewest troops," a US official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
US General Stanley McChrystal, who commands 100,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, has reportedly asked for up to 40,000 extra troops and warned that without reinforcements in the next 12 months, the mission could end in failure.
North and west Afghanistan were calm until the start of this year, but have seen a sharp deterioration in security in recent months, as Taliban insurgents intensified attacks before the August 20 presidential election.
Like in the south and the east, fighting between militants and international forces has now become a daily occurrence.
McChrystal has called the situation "serious" but is still not certain of getting reinforcements, with the issue politically explosive in the United States and as public opinion turns against the Afghan mission.
Security in Afghanistan has worsened in the last two years, with US and coalition casualties reaching record numbers in recent months.
A total of 384 foreign troops have died so far in 2009, 226 of them American, the most since the ouster of Afghanistan's former hardline leaders the Taliban eight years ago, according to the independent icasualties.org website.
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In Afghanistan, Training Can Look a Lot Like Fighting
Sunday, October 4, 2009 The Washington Post
As President Obama and his national security team debate strategy for the war in Afghanistan, some of the options on the table involve a greater focus on training and strengthening the Afghan security forces. To an American public -- and an administration -- that may be reluctant to send more troops to a faltering, eight-year war, the notion of helping the Afghans fight for themselves could seem particularly attractive.
But it's an appeal that should be tempered. In a recent essay published by the security-focused Stimson Center in Washington, Robert Haddick, managing editor of the Small Wars Journal, reviews American experiences helping foreign security forces. Though he believes such initiatives will be a "growth business" in the years ahead, Haddick contends that if U.S. policymakers hope such foreign forces can be a "competent and reliable substitute" for U.S. military personnel, they will "frequently find themselves disappointed."
In the essay, titled "The Promise and Perils of Security Force Assistance," Haddick outlines three critical obstacles. First, the government happily receiving the help may not necessarily support Washington's goals. For example, until recently, "Pakistan steered billions in U.S. security assistance to guard against India rather than to suppress Taliban sanctuaries near the Afghan border as the U.S. sought," Haddick writes.
Second, building and maintaining national security forces is expensive, and there is no guarantee that the governments in question can maintain those forces over time. Military education is essential to developing a competent and confident cadre of officers, but building such institutions takes "decades of sustained effort and funding," Haddick writes. In Afghanistan, he cautions, "government revenues are a fraction of what will be needed" to pay for expanded security forces, meaning that Afghanistan could become "a permanent ward of the U.S. long after U.S. combat forces have departed."
Haddick, a former Marine Corps officer, also notes that today's security partner could become tomorrow's rival. He recalls how the United States indirectly assisted Afghan militias fighting the Soviets in the 1980s -- only to see some of the same groups fighting against U.S. forces today.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recent assessment of the Afghan war included a call for boosting the Afghan army from 92,000 to 134,000 troops within a year and expanding it more in the future, and for doubling the police force. But even shifting to a support, training and advising mission wouldn't significantly reduce the combat risk to U.S. forces, Haddick said in an e-mail. "Training occurs on both bases and in the field, followed by long 'apprenticeships' in combat. U.S. trainers, advisers, support personnel, and partner units will need to be with Afghans for all of these steps, which will be nearly indistinguishable from direct combat by U.S. forces."
So in the end, training may be just another fighting word.
-- Carlos Lozada
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Report Cites Firefight as Lesson on Afghan War
By THOM SHANKER The New York Times October 3, 2009
WASHINGTON — The paratroopers of Chosen Company had plenty to worry about as they began digging in at their new outpost on the fringe of a hostile frontier village in eastern Afghanistan.
Intelligence reports were warning of militants massing in the area. As the paratroopers looked around, the only villagers they could see were men of fighting age idling in the bazaar. There were no women and children, and some houses looked abandoned. Through their night scopes they could see furtive figures on the surrounding mountainsides.
A few days later, they were almost overrun by 200 insurgents.
That firefight, a debacle that cost nine American lives in July 2008, has become the new template for how not to win in Afghanistan. The calamity and its roots have been described in bitter, painstaking detail in an unreleased Army history, a devastating narrative that has begun to circulate in an initial form even as the military opened a formal review this week of decisions made up and down the chain of command.
The 248-page draft history, obtained by The New York Times, helps explain why the new commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is pressing so hard for a full-fledged commitment to a style of counterinsurgency that rests on winning over the people of Afghanistan even more than killing militants. The military has already incorporated lessons from the battle in the new doctrine for war in Afghanistan.
The history offers stark examples of shortcomings in the unit’s preparation, the style of combat it adopted, its access to intelligence, its disdain for the locals — in short, plenty of blame to go around.
Before the soldiers arrived, commanders negotiated for months with Afghan officials of dubious loyalty over where they could dig in, giving militants plenty of time to prepare for an assault.
Despite the suspicion that the militants were nearby, there were not enough surveillance aircraft over the lonely outpost — a chronic shortage in Afghanistan that frustrated Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates at the time. Commanders may have been distracted from the risky operation by the bureaucratic complexities of handing over responsibility at the brigade level to replacements — and by their urgent investigation of an episode that had enraged the local population, the killing a week earlier in an airstrike of a local medical clinic’s staff as it fled nearby fighting in two pickup trucks.
Above all, the unit and its commanders had an increasingly tense and untrusting relationship with the Afghan people.
The history cited the “absence of cultural awareness and understanding of the specific tribal and governance situation” and the emphasis on combat operations over the development of the local economy and other civil affairs, a reversal of the practices of the unit that had just left the area.
The battle of Wanat is being described as the “Black Hawk Down” of Afghanistan, with the 48 American soldiers and 24 Afghan soldiers outnumbered three to one in a four-hour firefight that left nine Americans dead and 27 wounded in one of the bloodiest days of the eight-year war.
Soldiers who survived the battle described how their automatic weapons turned white hot and jammed from nonstop firing. Mortally wounded troops continued to hand bullet belts to those still able to fire.
The ammunition stockpile was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, igniting a stack of 120-millimeter mortar rounds — and the resulting fireball flung the unit’s antitank missiles into the command post. One insurgent got inside the concertina wire and is believed to have killed three soldiers at close range, including the platoon commander, Lt. Jonathan P. Brostrom.
The description of the battle at Wanat — the heroism, the violence and the missteps that may have contributed to the deaths — ends with a judgment that the fight was “as remarkable as any small-unit action in American military history.”
The author, the military historian Douglas R. Cubbison, also included a series of criticisms in his review, sponsored by the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., that laid blame on a series of decisions made before the battle.
The draft report criticized the “lack of adequate preparation time” before arriving in Afghanistan, which meant there was little training geared specifically for Afghanistan, and not even a detailed operational plan for the year of combat that lay ahead.
Pentagon and military officials say those initial criticisms are being revised to reflect subsequent interviews with other soldiers and officers who were at Wanat or who served in higher-level command positions. After a round of revisions, the study will go through a formal peer-review process and be published.
The battle stands as proof that the United States is facing off against a far more sophisticated adversary in Afghanistan today, one that can fight anonymously with roadside bombs or stealthily with kidnappings — but also can operate like a disciplined armed force using well-rehearsed small-unit tactics to challenge the American military for dominance on the conventional battlefield.
Official judgment on whether errors were made by the unit on the ground or by any leaders up the chain of command will be determined by a new investigation opened this week by Gen. David H. Petraeus of United States Central Command at the urging of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The call for such an independent review came from family members of the fallen, including David P. Brostrom, father of the slain platoon commander and himself a retired Army colonel, as well as from a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia.
The history is replete with wrong turns at every point of the unit’s mission, starting with the day it was reassigned to Afghanistan from training for Iraq.
After having served for more than a year in other hot zones of eastern Afghanistan, the platoon arrived in the village at dark on July 8, 2008, just two weeks from the day it was supposed to go home to its base in Italy.
The men wore their adopted unit emblem — skull patches fashioned after Marvel Comics’ antihero, the Punisher. They unloaded their Humvees, packed with weapons, water and the single rucksack each had kept when the rest of his kit was shipped home. They had plenty of ammunition.
But at the end of an intense tour of combat, they had run out of good relations with an increasingly distrustful population.
They named it Outpost Kahler, after a popular sergeant who had been killed by one of their own Afghan guards early that year. His last words as he moved ahead of his comrades to check whether their Afghan partners were asleep while on duty had been, “This might be dangerous.” (The shooting was ruled an accident, but relations between skeptical American troops and Afghan forces deteriorated.)
Although the 173rd Airborne Brigade had been scheduled to return to Iraq from its base in Italy, the need for forces to counter a resurgence of militant violence in eastern Afghanistan prompted new orders for the brigade to switch immediately to preparations for mountain warfare — many of the outposts were linked only by narrow, rutted trails, and some could be reached only be helicopter — and a wholly different culture and language. “Unfortunately, the comparatively late change of mission for the 173rd Airborne B.C.T. from Iraq to Afghanistan did not permit the brigade sufficient time to prepare any form of campaign plan,” the history reports.
The unit arrived at Wanat ill prepared for the hot work of building an outpost in the mountains in July; troops were thirsty from a lack of fresh water, and their one construction vehicle ran out of gas, so the unit was unable to complete basic fortifications. The soldiers had no local currency to buy favor by investing in the village economy, the history makes clear. The soldiers also said they complained up the chain of command about the lack of air surveillance over their dangerous corner of Afghanistan, but no more was provided.
Even as they settled into their spartan command post, the unit’s commanders were insulted to learn that local leaders were meeting together in a “shura,” or council, to which they were not invited — and which might even have been a session used to coordinate the assault on the Americans that began before dawn the very next morning.
The four-hour firefight finally ended when American warplanes and attack helicopters strafed insurgent positions. The paratroopers drove back the insurgents, but ended up abandoning the village 48 hours later.
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Afghanistan: Why Obama is rethinking 'war of necessity'
Waning American support for the war and allegations of fraud in the Afghan elections have turned a policy review into a fervent debate about the Afghanistan conflict within the Obama administration.
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the October 3, 2009 edition
Washington - But the White House review has since turned into a debate because it comes at a difficult moment for US involvement in Afghanistan. American public support for the war is waning, and a flawed Afghan presidential election in August has revealed the degree to which corruption permeates the country's political leadership.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is likely to emerge the winner in a review of the alleged frauds in the Aug. 20 election. But doubts about him and his government as a reliable partner in a counterinsurgency strategy are feeding proposals for alternative approaches. One idea would be to use few or no additional US troops, and focus instead on accelerating training of Afghan soldiers and police.
However, achieving Obama's goals in Afghanistan is not possible without additional resources, security analysts say.
"The most dubious argument out there is that you can somehow reduce the risks the situation in Afghanistan presents by also reducing the costs," says James Dobbins, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at Rand Corp. in Arlington, Va. There's no basis for the idea that you can achieve the same objectives at lower costs, he says.
But others have suggested that Afghanistan won't become an Al Qaeda haven even if a resurgent Taliban were to reestablish control over large sections of the country. And even if it did, some analysts say the US can't afford to "right" all states where such havens might arise – especially since terrorists targeting the US don't necessarily require a safe base from which to operate.
The current debate over Afghanistan inflates the threat that a potentially reestablished safe haven would pose to US security, said Paul Pillar, a former deputy director of the CIA's counterterrorist center, in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post. The issue is not whether such a haven would be useful to terrorists, he wrote.
"Instead, the issue is whether preventing such a haven would reduce the terrorist threat to the US enough … to offset the required expenditure of blood and treasure and the barriers to success in Afghanistan, including an ineffective regime and sagging support from the population," he wrote.
That argument reflects a legitimate weighing of the "risks and costs" of the Afghanistan war, says Mr. Dobbins, who was a special adviser on Afghanistan to both the Bush and Clinton administrations.
But should Obama stick to his counterinsurgency strategy, he adds, he will have little choice but to increase both troops and funding. "We've learned in the last few years in Iraq what we should have learned a number of times in the past," Dobbins says.
One lesson is simply "what the necessary elements of a counterinsurgency strategy are, but it's also the need to adequately resource such a strategy."
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Corruption, Shortage of Mentors Hinder Afghan Forces, U.S. Says
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 3, 2009
As the White House weighs a request from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan for additional troops for combat and training there, a new report from the Defense Department's inspector general attributes shortcomings in the Afghan army and police force to a shortage of U.S. mentors and trainers, corruption and illiteracy among Afghan soldiers and a lack of strategic planning.
"Expansion of the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] beyond currently approved levels will face major challenges," the 224-page report concludes, listing a major one as "time necessary to develop ethical, competent leaders."
Not all of the report is negative. In discussing how $19 billion has been spend so far on the Afghan forces, the inspector general notes that Afghan army units "have demonstrated consistently that they will fight" and now take the lead in 54 percent of operations. In addition, the report says, the Afghan National Police force has reformed pay and promotion procedures, and it is considered more capable in 52 districts.
The report also says that the Defense and Interior ministries, as well as the army and police, "are beginning to make progress in addressing what has been the endemic problem of corruption."
It adds, however, that it will "likely be at least another year before the ANSF would be able to demonstrate measurable progress."
The inspector general reports, for example, that Afghan army leaders are manipulating a new electronic pay system "to extort soldiers' pay." Afghan officers or noncommissioned officers, the report says, take soldiers' identification cards when they leave posts to give their money to relatives or banks and then require them to pay to get the cards back.
An American officer reported that in his area, there was no system for holding Afghan soldiers accountable for their weapons, uniforms, assigned vehicles or other equipment. Another U.S. mentor said that in his area only about 80 or 90 units of a 100-unit supply order would make it to the Afghan company that ordered it. The officer added that "300 percent of the necessary cold weather gear had to be fielded to the 1st brigade, with no explanation for the duplication and no consequences to anyone for the loss and/or theft of the gear."
Officers in Kabul reported that fuel was a "systematic problem" in the national police force, with corruption and hoarding leading to patrols being curtailed in some districts.
The inspector general describes shortages of U.S. trainers and mentors at almost every level of the Afghan operation: "Mentor and Liaison Teams have historically been and still are under-resourced against required personnel levels, which has delayed the development of the Afghan Army and Police."
Expansion of the teams beyond the currently approved ceilings "will require additional U.S., Coalition, and ISAF personnel resources assigned in support of the train and equip mission," according to the report.
As an example, the report says that of 5,688 U.S. trainers required to develop a competent Afghan military force of 134,000 men, only 2,097 were sent to do the job. Of about 103 liaison teams needed for the mission, 70 were available. In one area, embedded training teams, which normally are made up of 16 personnel, were averaging only four, with additional help borrowed from nearby support or security units.
Police training teams have been "impeded" because they are below the necessary personnel strength. In one area, the target was to have 635 teams fully operational, but there were only 90. More broadly, there were to be 2,375 teams, but just 992 were assigned.
The Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for building Army forward operating bases and police headquarters in Afghanistan involving $4 billion in expenditures over two years, had only 411 personnel assigned of 641 that had been authorized.
Overall, the Afghan unit "had 1029 personnel, including contractors, while the U.S. Army Engineer's Gulf Resources Division in Iraq and Kuwait manages approximately $3 billion worth of projects with three districts and 3,326 personnel, including contractors."
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Obama Meets With Afghanistan Commander In Denmark
October 03, 2009 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
U.S. President Barack Obama has met briefly with his top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, during a European stop to discuss White House strategy in the Afghan war, White House officials said.
Obama and McChrystal met aboard Air Force One on an airport tarmac in Copenhagen for about half an hour. The U.S. president was in Copenhagen for an ultimately unsuccessful pitch to persuade the International Olympic Committee to award the 2016 summer games to his adopted hometown of Chicago.
Obama has been consulting with his national security team on revising U.S. strategy there and whether to send as many as 40,000 more troops.
The meeting was the first between the U.S. president and his top Afghan commander since McChrystal presented a grim assessment of the war effort and requested more troops for the mission.
McChrystal's report on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, delivered to Obama last month, is the focus of an administration strategy review on whether to send more troops to fight the increasingly unpopular war.
'Serious' And 'Deteriorating'
In a speech at a London think tank on October 1, McChrystal delivered a blunt assessment of the eight-year-old conflict.
''The situation is serious and I choose that word very, very carefully," McChrystal said. "And I also say, neither the success nor failure for our endeavor there in support of the Afghan people and the government can be taken for granted. My assessment, my best military judgment, is that the situation is in some ways deteriorating, but not in all ways."
McChrystal added that violence in Afghanistan is mounting "not only because there are more coalition forces" but "because the insurgency is growing."
The Copenhagen meeting, which lasted about 25 minutes, was arranged after McChrystal flew in from London, where he had met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and given a speech at the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
McChrystal has warned the Afghan effort will likely fail without a "significant change in strategy." He is reportedly seeking 30,000 to 40,000 more combat troops and trainers, according to defense and U.S. Congressional sources.
Key Strategic Moment
The administration is reportedly divided over whether to bolster forces or take an alternative path as Obama inches toward a potentially pivotal decision in the Afghan war.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One that "the president thought the meeting was very productive." He added that the two men "both agree that this [consultation] is a helpful process."
In his London speech, McChrystal highlighted the urgency of making the right decision about the Afghan war.
''We need to reverse the current trends, and time does matter. Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome," McChrystal said. "This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely. Public support will not last indefinitely. But the cruel irony is that to succeed we need patience, discipline, resolve, and time.''
Obama has said he will ask tough questions of his top advisers and military commanders before making a decision, which is expected to take at least several more weeks.
The administration almost doubled the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan this year to 62,000 to combat the worst violence since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban rulers in 2001.
The U.S. contingent makes up the bulk of a 100,000-strong international force in Afghanistan. U.S. allies have been reluctant to commit more troops. Mounting casualties have contributed to falling U.S. and European public support for the war effort.
compiled from agency reports
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Afghan Security Officer Kills 2 US Troops
By VOA News 03 October 2009
Afghan officials say an Afghan security officer opened fire on U.S. troops while conducting a joint operation with them, killing two and wounding two others.
A spokesman for the governor of Wardak province said the shooting occurred late Friday while Afghan and U.S. forces were on patrol together in Wardak.
It is unclear what motivated the shooting.
A statement from NATO-led forces in Afghanistan said two U.S. soldiers died from injuries sustained in a "hostile attack" Friday, but declined to give further details.
NATO says two other U.S. troops died Friday in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan. Another died of wounds sustained in a bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan.
U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan have recently been facing stiffer Taliban resistance.
2009 is the deadliest year for foreign forces since the conflict began nearly eight years ago.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
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3 U.S. troops killed by attacks in Afghanistan
KABUL (AP) — Three American troops were killed by attacks in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Saturday, adding to the toll as the Obama administration debates its strategy in the troubled eight-year war.
Two of the Americans were killed Friday in a firefight with militants in Wardak, an eastern province bordering Kabul. The third service member died Friday of wounds from a bomb attack in Wardak the day before. The newly reported deaths came the same day as a suicide attack on a U.S. convoy in the south killed two Americans.
U.S. and NATO deaths dropped in September over the previous two months — possibly due to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan or because no major offensives were launched. But since President Barack Obama's decision to send 21,000 more troops to curb the growing Taliban-led insurgency, international and civilian tolls have risen steadily.
In far western Afghanistan, a Taliban attack Saturday on a NATO supply convoy killed a civilian contractor escorting the trucks, said Raouf Ahmadi, a regional police spokesman.
U.S. forces mounted major operations in July and August in southern Afghanistan to try to dislodge the Taliban from longtime strongholds and improve security ahead of the Aug. 20 presidential election, the outcome of which remains in doubt because of allegations of massive fraud by supporters of President Hamid Karzai.
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Suspected militants killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The International Security Assistance Force says several suspected militants were killed or detained Saturday in Afghanistan's Kandahar and Paktika provinces.
The security force said in a release that Saturday's operations focused on a suspected site of Haqqani militant activity and a Kandahar compound linked to a Taliban facilitator. The specific number of fatalities and detainees was not reported.
Force officials said suspected militants killed in the Paktika operation had threatened Afghan and international security forces. No Afghan civilians were among the casualties.
The Kandahar operation resulted in the discovery and destruction of 1,653 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used to make bombs.
Saturday's military operations by the joint force reportedly did not result in the deaths of any Afghan civilians.
Force officials said five U.S. troops were killed Friday in parts of Afghanistan. Improvised explosive devices were to blame for three of them, while the remaining servicemen died in a hostile attack in eastern Afghanistan.
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Four Finnish peacekeepers wounded in Afghanistan
HELSINKI, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Four Finnish peacekeepers were wounded on Saturday after their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan, the Finnish Defence Forces said in a statement Saturday.
This is the first time that Finnish soldiers stationed in Afghanistan have been injured.
The troops were on patrol on Saturday morning 40 kilometres west of Mazar-i-Sharif when their RG-32 armoured patrol vehicle hit an improvised explosive device.
The military said that all four are being treated in a German field hospital and the soldiers are now in stable conditions.
Attacks on peacekeeping forces have been on the rise during the summer months in Afghanistan, including in the joint Swedish-Finnish operational area in the north of the country.
Lauri Inna, a spokesman at the Finnish army headquarters, said that although Finnish troops had come under fire about a dozen times this year, Saturday's explosion was the first time Finnish troops had been wounded.
This year some 386 foreign soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan. American soldiers account for the majority of foreign military casualties. Currently some 100,000 foreign soldiers are stationed in the country. Finland has around 200 soldiers serving in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
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Deployments and Diplomacy
More troops is a start. But to win in Afghanistan, we'll need help from its powerful neighbors.
By Henry Kissinger | NEWSWEEK Oct 3, 2009 From the magazine issue dated Oct 12, 2009
The request for additional forces by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, poses cruel dilemmas for President Obama. If he refuses the recommendation and General McChrystal's argument that his forces are inadequate for the mission, Obama will be blamed for the dramatic consequences. If he accepts the recommendation, his opponents may come to describe it, at least in part, as Obama's war. If he compromises, he may fall between all stools—too little to make progress, too much to still controversy. And he must make the choice on the basis of assessments he cannot prove when he makes them.
This is the inextricable anguish of the presidency, for which Obama is entitled to respect from every side of the debate. Full disclosure compels me to state at the beginning that I favor fulfilling the commander's request and a modification of the strategy. But I also hope that the debate ahead of us avoids the demoralizing trajectory that characterized the previous controversies in wars against adversaries using guerrilla tactics, especially Vietnam and Iraq.
Each of those wars began with widespread public support. Each developed into a stalemate, in part because the strategy of guerrillas generally aims at psychological exhaustion. Stalemate triggered a debate about the winnability of the war. A significant segment of the public grew disenchanted and started questioning the moral basis of the conflict. Inexorably, the demand arose for an exit strategy with an emphasis on exit and not strategy.
The demand for an exit strategy is, of course, a metaphor for withdrawal, and withdrawal that is not accompanied by a willingness to sustain the outcome amounts to abandonment. In Vietnam, Congress terminated an American role even after all our troops had, in fact, been withdrawn for two years. It remains to be seen to what extent the achievements of the surge in Iraq will be sustained there politically.
The most unambiguous form of exit strategy is victory, though as we have seen in Korea, where American troops have remained since 1953, even that may not permit troop withdrawals. A seemingly unavoidable paradox emerges. The domestic debate generates the pressure for diplomatic compromise. Yet the fanaticism that motivates guerrillas—not to speak of suicide bombers—does not allow for compromise unless they face defeat or exhaustion. That, in turn, implies a surge testing the patience of the American public. Is that paradox soluble?
The prevailing strategy in Afghanistan is based on the classic anti-insurrection doctrine: to build a central government, commit it to the improvement of the lives of its people, and then protect the population until that government's own forces are able, with our training, to take over. The request for more forces by General McChrystal states explicitly that his existing forces are inadequate for this mission, implying three options: to continue the present deployment and abandon the McChrystal strategy; to decrease the present deployment with a new strategy; or to increase the existing deployment with a strategy focused on the security of the population. A decision not to increase current force levels involves, at a minimum, abandoning the strategy proposed by General McChrystal and endorsed by Gen. David Petraeus; it would be widely interpreted as the first step toward withdrawal. The second option—offered as an alternative—would shrink the current mission by focusing on counter-terrorism rather than counter-insurgency. The argument would be that the overriding American strategic objective in Afghanistan is to prevent the country from turning once again into a base for international terrorism. Hence the defeat of Al Qaeda and radical Islamic jihad should be the dominant priority. Since the Taliban, according to this view, is a local, not a global, threat, it can be relegated to being a secondary target. A negotiation with the group might isolate Al Qaeda and lead to its defeat, in return for not challenging the Taliban in the governance of Afghanistan. After all, it was the Taliban which provided bases for Al Qaeda in the first place.
This theory seems to me to be too clever by half. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are unlikely to be able to be separated so neatly geographically. It would also imply the partition of Afghanistan along functional lines, for it is highly improbable that the civic actions on which our policies are based could be carried out in areas controlled by the Taliban. Even so-called realists—like me—would gag at a tacit U.S. cooperation with the Taliban in the governance of Afghanistan.
This is not to exclude the possibility of defections from the Taliban as occurred from Al Qaeda in Iraq's Anbar province. But those occurred after the surge, not as a way to avoid it. To adopt such a course is a disguised way of retreating from Afghanistan altogether.
Those in the chain of command in Afghanistan, each with outstanding qualifications, have all been recently appointed by the Obama administration. Rejecting their recommendations would be a triumph of domestic politics over strategic judgment. It would draw us into a numbers game without definable criteria.
President Obama, as a candidate, proclaimed Afghanistan a necessary war. As president, he has shown considerable courage in implementing his promise to increase our forces in Afghanistan and to pursue the war more energetically. A sudden reversal of American policy would fundamentally affect domestic stability in Pakistan by freeing the Qaeda forces along the Afghan border for even deeper incursions into Pakistan, threatening domestic chaos. It would raise the most serious questions about American steadiness in India, the probable target should a collapse in Afghanistan give jihad an even greater impetus. In short, the reversal of a process introduced with sweeping visions by two administrations may lead to chaos, ultimately deeper American involvement, and loss of confidence in American reliability. The prospects of world order will be greatly affected by whether our strategy comes to be perceived as a retreat from the region, or a more effective way to sustain it.
The military strategy proposed by Generals McChrystal and Petraeus needs, however, to be given a broader context with particular emphasis on the political environment. Every guerrilla war raises the challenge of how to define military objectives. Military strategy is traditionally defined by control of the maximum amount of territory. But the strategy of the guerrilla—described by Mao—is to draw the adversary into a morass of popular resistance in which, after a while, extrication becomes his principal objective. In Vietnam, the guerrillas often ceded control of the territory during the day and returned at night to prevent political stabilization. Therefore, in guerrilla war, control of 75 percent of the territory 100 percent of the time is more important than controlling 100 percent of the territory 75 percent of the time. A key strategic issue, therefore, will be which part of Afghan territory can be effectively controlled in terms of these criteria.
This is of particular relevance to Afghanistan. No outside force has, since the Mongol invasion, ever pacified the entire country. Even Alexander the Great only passed through. Afghanistan has been governed, if at all, by a coalition of local feudal or semifeudal rulers. In the past, any attempt to endow the central government with overriding authority has been resisted by some established local rulers. That is likely to be the fate of any central government in Kabul, regardless of its ideological coloration and perhaps even its efficiency. It would be ironic if, by following the received counterinsurgency playbook too literally, we produced another motive for civil war. Can a civil society be built on a national basis in a country which is neither a nation nor a state?
In a partly feudal, multiethnic society, fundamental social reform is a long process, perhaps unrelatable to the rhythm of our electoral processes. For the foreseeable future, the control from Kabul may be tenuous and its structure less than ideal. More emphasis needs to be given to regional efforts and regional militia. This would also enhance our political flexibility. A major effort is needed to encourage such an evolution.
Concurrently, a serious diplomatic effort is needed to address the major anomaly of the Afghan war. In all previous American ground-combat efforts, once the decision was taken, there was no alternative to America's leading the effort; no other country had the combination of resources or national interest required. The special aspect of Afghanistan is that it has powerful neighbors or near neighbors—Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran. Each is threatened in one way or another and, in many respects, more than we are by the emergence of a base for international terrorism: Pakistan by Al Qaeda; India by general jihadism and specific terror groups; China by fundamentalist Shiite jihadists in Xinjiang; Russia by unrest in the Muslim south; even Iran by the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. Each has substantial capacities for defending its interests. Each has chosen, so far, to stand more or less aloof.
The summit of neighboring (or near-neighboring) countries proposed by the secretary of state could, together with NATO allies, begin to deal with this anomaly. It should seek an international commitment to an enforced nonterrorist Afghanistan, much as countries were neutralized by international agreement when Europe dominated world affairs. This is a complex undertaking. But a -common effort could at least remove shortsighted temptations to benefit from the embarrassment of rivals. It would take advantage of the positive aspect that, unlike Vietnam or Iraq, the guerrillas do not enjoy significant support. It may finally be the route to an effective national government. If cooperation cannot be achieved, the United States may have no choice but to reconsider its options and to gear its role in Afghanistan to goals directly relevant to threats to American security. In that eventuality, it will do so not as an abdication but as a strategic judgment. But it is premature to reach such a conclusion on present evidence.
For the immediate future, it is essential to avoid another wrenching domestic division and to conduct the inevitable debate with respect for its complexity and the stark choices confronting our country.
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AFGHANISTAN: RETHINKING THE CONSTITUTIONAL BALANCE OF POWER
EurasiaNet Aunohita Mojumdar 10/02/09
As the international community, specifically the NATO allies, wrestles with the need to develop yet another military strategy in Afghanistan, some domestic political leaders in the strife-ravaged country are starting to question whether a highly centralized government is the best system for the present, challenging times.
The recently conducted presidential election, a vote marred by widespread fraud, has helped catalyze the nascent constitutional debate inside Afghanistan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Domestic critics of President Hamid Karzai believe the reports of massive vote-tampering on behalf of the incumbent shows that the strong-presidential system is detrimental for Afghanistan. They are calling for an urgent redistribution of power -- from the central government to the regions -- in order to prevent Afghanistan's democratization process from careening off the rails.
Not surprisingly those supporting the idea of devolving power from Kabul to the regions tend to be political opponents of the president. Among these critics is the governor of northern Balkh Province, Gen. Atta Mohammad Noor. Though originally appointed by Karzai, Atta was a strong supporter of the president's main rival in the presidential vote, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.
"This is one of the reasons why I supported Dr Abdullah," Atta said during a recent interview with EurasiaNet. "If one man has too much power it is a totalitarian system, and not a democracy. Rights will not be given, liberty is in question and there is no balance and no justice."
The final election result has yet to be confirmed. Even so, Abdullah, in comments to EurasiaNet, talked like Karzai's reelection was not in doubt. Even if he didn't prevail in the election, Abdullah vowed to press ahead with an initiative to create more of a confederal system in Afghanistan.
While the fine points of Abdullah's vision remain vague, his general framework emphasizes a need for the decentralization of power, in particular the direct election of governors. He also expressed a desire to establish a commission that could resolve constitutional disputes. Abdullah is convinced that the existing system is overly centralized, and, therefore, prone to abuse of power.
"It is difficult", he said, "for a person who believes in democracy to go along with a system where everyone from the minister to the district governor works under the orders of the commander in chief."
The key for Afghanistan's future stability will be a system that deemphasizes the importance of the personality at the top of the political pyramid, and which instead stresses transparency and strengthens respect for institutions, he asserted. "Then it [wouldn't] matter so much who comes and who goes [via elections]. The system [would] be in place," Abdullah said.
Under Afghanistan's current presidential system, power is highly concentrated in the chief executive's office, leaving regional officials with little political, administrative or financial authority. Governors of provinces are appointed by the president. Provincial councils -- elections to which were held concurrently with the August presidential vote, but which have received scant media coverage -- have no powers and barely any role in the management of local affairs. District council elections have yet to be held.
The system may not be ideal, but now is no time to be tinkering, some prominent politicians say, including the governor of Wardak Province, Halim Fidai. In an interview with EurasiaNet, the Wardak governor said a strong presidential system offered the democratization process the best chances of success, given the current circumstances.
"A strong centralized government must be supported by the international community," Fidai said. "The problem is the international community is looking at Afghanistan from its own perspective and not the perspective of Afghanistan."
"People are criticizing a centralized system that has not yet been [fully] implemented," he continued. "A [confederal] system would disunite and disintegrate the country. It would create more warlords; unqualified people would be [elected] as governors."
Fidai's voice carries added authority because he is viewed as someone with whom the international military and diplomatic community can work. Wardak Province, thanks in large measure to Fidai's leadership, has emerged as a proving ground for pilot programs, including the controversial "AP3" project -- officially known as the Afghan Police Protection Force Program -- which seeks to arm communities to defend themselves.
An existing problem with the appointment of governors is that local interest groups have excessive influence, Fidai suggested. "The appointees should be picked by the president alone in accordance with criterion of qualifications for the post," he added.
Although emphasis should remain on the concept of centralization, Afghanistan's governing system could benefit from some decentralization. "The local governance systems should have the authority to make government officials accountable," Fidai said.
It is clear that the international community is disenchanted with Karzai's management style. Nevertheless, every indicator suggests that the United States and its European allies aren't about to support an effort to reform Afghanistan's political system at a time when an external threat, in the form of the Taliban insurgency, is eroding domestic security.
The United Nations' September 30 dismissal of Peter Galbraith, who had been the No. 2 UN diplomat in Kabul, suggests that the international community is coming around to the position of overlooking the massive fraud in the August presidential vote, and giving its blessing to Karzai's reelection. Galbraith's earlier efforts to adopt a hardline stance on the fraud issue, demanding a wide-scale recount, was apparently responsible for his dismissal. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The Galbraith incident suggests that the international community is circling the wagons around Karzai, perhaps because they see no better available options, and hoping for the best.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
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Taliban force protest against foreign troops: local governor
Fri Oct 2, 12:52 pm ET
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) – Taliban militants in western Afghanistan on Friday forced civilians to protest against foreign forces after spreading rumours they had desecrated a mosque, the local governor said.
Ghulam Dastagir Azad, governor of western Nimroz province, said the protests blocked the main highway between the city of Herat and the capital Kabul as the insurgents used the public as human shields to fire on police.
"Taliban stopped buses on the highway in Delaram district on a junction where passengers from Herat, Farah and Nimroz provinces travel and forced them to protest against foreign forces," he said.
The premises of a construction company and some police posts were set on fire and the road -- one of the most insecure in the country -- was blocked for several hours, he added.
US Marines in Delaram said the protest involved some 200 to 300 people. Tyres were set on fire and the demonstrators marched towards the police station shouting anti-American slogans.
Lieutenant John Bartucco, stationed with the 2nd Battalion 3rd Marines at their base in Delaram, some 600 metres (650 yards) from the police station, said it took the Afghan National Army (ANA) three hours to quell the unrest.
"The local nationals started pulling on some defences (at the police station) and pulling on concertina wire. We dispatched ANA who set up a perimeter and attempted to disperse the local nationals," he told AFP.
Azad said there were some casualties among police, civilians and the militants but could not give any exact figures. Police reinforcements were sent to the area, he said.
The governor and the US military said the protest was whipped up after the Taliban spread rumours that foreign forces in the area had desecrated the Koran during their operations and thrown a dead dog into a mosque last week.
Militants often stop civilian buses on the Herat-Kabul highway and search for anyone working for either the Afghan security forces or the government.
Travellers have on occasion been forced to witness public executions of anyone suspected of working for the police or army.
Bartucco said the desecration rumours were "Taliban propaganda... to damage our credibility and this (incident) was part of the result".
"We have been pushing the message out for the past couple of days that we did not do what they are alleging," he added.
Insurgents shot at the Afghan National Police station next to Delaram military base last week, killing one Marine and injuring an ANP officer, but no other violence had been seen there recently, the officer said.
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Afghan war options: Beating al-Qaida key yardstick
By ROBERT BURNS The Associated Press Saturday, October 3, 2009 9:20 AM
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is considering a range of ideas for changing course in Afghanistan, from pulling back to staying put to sending thousands more troops to fight the insurgency.
A look at the options and their implications for achieving Obama's stated goal of defeating al-Qaida.
GETTING OUT
A full, immediate withdrawal of American forces does not appear to be in the cards, not the least because U.S. allies in NATO share the view that abandoning Afghanistan now would hand a victory to Islamic extremist forces such as the Taliban that are aligned in some respects with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida. Some argue that because the al-Qaida figures who were run out of Afghanistan when U.S. troops invaded after the Sept. 11 attacks are now encamped across the border in Pakistan, there is no point to a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. A related school of thought holds that the very presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan adds to the country's instability and fuels its insurgency. Obama has taken a different view. Less than two months ago he said, "If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaida would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people."
SCALING BACK
A less drastic alternative to a full-scale retreat is a partial pullback. A reduced U.S. force would stay mainly to train and advise the Afghan national army and police. U.S. special operations forces would continue their hunt for most-wanted extremist leaders in Afghanistan. Pilotless drones such as the armed Predator would take out al-Qaida figures on the Pakistan side of the border. This would essentially end the counterinsurgency mission of U.S. and NATO forces. The reasoning is that the fight is not worth the cost in blood and treasure, and al-Qaida is a more urgent priority. This counterterror option would amount to a reversal of the strategy Obama endorsed in March. In the view of military analysts Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, who favor an expanded counterinsurgency campaign, a shift to only training and counterterror operations would be a big mistake. They argue that it would empower the Taliban and al-Qaida, endanger remaining U.S. troops and diplomats and allow Islamic extremists to portray the U.S. pullback as a defeat for the forces of moderation.
STAYING PUT
One of those advocating no short-term change in the size of the U.S. force in Afghanistan is Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He argues for putting greater emphasis on training the Afghan security forces and accelerating their growth. In this approach, the counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban would continue on course. Additional U.S. troops would be required for the training mission, but not for combat. The flow of equipment for the police and army would be expanded. More effort would be focused on persuading lower-level Taliban fighters to lay down their arms. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, is calling for accelerated training of Afghan forces. But in his view, more combat troops also are required to retake the initiative from the Taliban, which now control or contest large parts of the country. Earlier efforts to speed up Afghan training stalled in part because of a lack of NATO trainers.
RAMPING UP
This is the McChrystal plan, which he calls "a fundamentally new way of doing business." In military parlance, it would be a classic counterinsurgency campaign that could last for years. It would mean sending more U.S. troops - perhaps as many as 40,000. The general says it would mean redefining the fight in ways that enable Afghans to regain control of their own country. McChrystal spelled out his reasoning in a report weeks ago to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who asked for a comprehensive assessment of the war effort when he removed McChrystal's predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan, in May in search of "fresh thinking, fresh eyes." McChrystal says there is no guarantee his approach will work. Critics worry that this escalation would only lead to others, creating a quagmire. But McChrystal argues that if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban - or is unable to counter international terrorist networks - then Afghanistan could again become a base for al-Qaida to launch an attack on the U.S. That's just what Obama says must be avoided.
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19 Reasons To Win In Afghanistan
Heritage.org 03 Oct 2009
There have been many arguments in the past four weeks to withdraw. We have compiled a short review of other social network debates to summarize the basic arguments for staying in the Afghanistan. The 19th reason has been added at the bottom.
1. Afghanistan and Pakistan - This Region is Ground Zero for Anti-U.S.
Radical Islamic Violence. As the host nations for the primary terrorist organization that successfully conducted multiple attacks against the U.S. personnel and facilities, this region, by definition, is important to U.S. national security interests. Between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the preponderance of radical Islamic combatants, their recruitment base, and Al Qaeda central headquarters are current adversaries. Allowing the Taliban and Al Qaeda to return to power in Afghanistan, without their proper acceptance of a clear political defeat, can only:
1) embolden other U.S. adversaries, 2) increase radical Islamic recruitment, 3) undermine those Afghan civilians who supported the U.S., and 4) set back the notion of moderate Muslim governance for decades to come. This is not just a conflict to terminate Bin Laden but to ultimately diminish the future recruiting base of radical Islam. With realistic projections for a significant youth bulge Afghanistan and Pakistan, the potential for future violence is high for the near future.
2. U.S. Credibility is at stake.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations support the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. Over 500 coalition soldiers from countries other than the U.S. have died in Afghanistan. Abandoning Afghanistan could lead to significant weakening of NATO cohesion/structure and undermine potential future requests for security assistance. The Fallout from a Afghanistan withdrawal can potentially be far worse than remaining. Following the Fall of Vietnam, U.S. experienced setbacks in Cambodia, Philippines, Fall of Iran, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Egypt-Israeli conflict, Angola, Lebanon, Libya, El Salvador, Colombia, and Nicaragua due to the loss of U.S. credibility.
3. U.S. Presence in Afghanistan has served as a proximity deterrent for Al Qaeda.
From a severely weakened position, Al Qaeda has been forced to accept the condition of awaiting more opportune circumstances before relaunching its campaign against the U.S. Having U.S. soldiers on the border of Waziristan, is a realistic deterrent from initiating offense operations that are so close to cross-border retaliation. Crossing the border into Pakistan is only one nuclear incident away. If, on the other hand, U.S. soldiers are ordered to abandoned Afghanistan, Al Qaeda will then have the freedom of action to recommence operations.
4. Counterterrorist campaigns cannot be waged from a distance.
Critics of the U.S. force presence claim that there are alternatives to holding Al Qaeda at bay such as intensive intelligence, Predator drones, cruise missiles, Special Operations raids, and monetary payments to Warlords to deny safe havens. However, most specialists on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism claim terrorists cannot be confronted at a distance.
5. Abandoning Afghanistan will move the War's Frontline from Overseas to the Homeland.
U.S. military forces in Afghanistan are essentially hardened targets that can easily kill far more Taliban than can be similarly inflicted on U.S. troops. Moving the frontlines from overseas to CONUS will expose the soft underbelly of the U.S. civilian population to potentially horrific casualties. While one American casualty is too many; the scope and scale of potential casualties would remain far less in relative comparison by continuing the fight overseas.
6. Cost-Benefit Analysis favors Forward Presence.
Alan Greenspan recently claimed that the long term repercussions of the 9/11 attack contributed to the making of the 2008 global economic crisis, large federal government deficit spending, and the current recession.
Greenspan indicated that to stimulate the economy immediately after the
9/11 attack the Federal Reserve needed to cut interest rates dramatically to spur domestic spending. Rates quickly moved from 3.5% to 1%. This reduced Federal Reserve rate helped to fuel speculative borrowing to homeowners who would not normally qualify for home mortgages. Post 9/11 interest rates were also a contributing factor leading to the real estate bubble that burst in 2007. The recent economic crisis has cost the global economy over $11.9 trillion dollars.
Can the U.S. taxpayer afford another 9/11 type of attack, which coupled with nuclear devices, could have far worse second and third order effects? Spending $60 billion annually is a far less expense than a potential $11.9 trillion dollar impact related to another 9/11 incident.
7. President Obama and GEN Stanley McChrystal have both claimed that the fight to stabilize Afghanistan is winnable.
8. Today's U.S. All Volunteer force is qualitatively a more capable military force than Vietnam predecessor.
Despite the challenges of facing multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, the All Volunteer force still retains advantages in education, training, hard-won experience, superior leadership and proven equipment compared to its Vietnam counterparts. Joint, Interagency and multi-national coordination has improved.
9. U.S. Precedent for Bringing Stability in Iraq and Kosovo.
The U.S. government has experienced recent successes against hostile adversaries during transition phase of war. Although skeptics denounced the potential for U.S. success in these recent conflicts, the track record for success resides with the U.S. government.
10. Afghanistan provides the venue to Learn about the Long Term Adversary.
If observers believe that Al Qaeda is a long term enemy of the United States, where is the best location to study the threat than in the actual region? Residing in Afghanistan provides the opportunity to develop language skills, foster culture apperception, discern tribal networks, study vulnerabilities, learn weaknesses, and to recruit the next generation of informants to eventually penetrate Islamic networks. The intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) begins with cultural appreciation that can be gained first-hand by living in the region.
11. U.S. Presence Denies Sanctuary of the Adversary within Ungoverned Spaces.
The Al Qaeda selection of Afghanistan is no accident. Terrorist networks have managed to find the ungoverned spaces in Somalia and Afghanistan to construct training camps for future terrorists. Remaining in Afghanistan denies this remote country from becoming a host for terrorist training activities.
12. U.S. Presence, if managed properly, can serve to Drain the Terrorist Recruitment Swamp.
This is a delicate balance. Merely occupying a country, does not guaranteed setting the conditions to diminish hostile recruitment. Nonetheless, if presence can be performed in a manner which engenders hope, fosters rule of law, exhibits benefits of governance and development, then the seeds of peace can be sown into a war torn region.
13. The Germany Precedent.
Unless a determined adversary is convinced of defeat, the second war becomes much more pronounced, highly probable, and devastating. World Wars I and II were the same war. Germany merely brought about a strategic pause to regroup and refine its war winning strategy. The Peace treaty of 1918 was nothing more a temporary cessation of conflict. Germany convinced the world that it was militarily weakened. A strategic deception plan was underway that only became apparent in 1939. The Wehrmacht's “stab in the back” thesis led by WWI veterans kept the interwar sentiments strong and thriving. Similarly, Al Qaeda must be taught that it has been defeated to prevent a far worst catastrophy. If, as a decentralized network, it cannot be made to accept defeat, then a generational strategy to await the natural death of key Al Qaeda leadership may be a more thorough and calculating approach.
14. Loss of Superior Force and Infrastructure Posture against Iran.
If Iran is truly one of the most likely and most dangerous near-term adversaries of the United States, it makes little sense to abandon a mature base infrastructure and a means for a Second Front against a potential War with Iran. Multiple Lines of Communications complicates Iranian defense planning, splits their leadership focus, undermines soldier morale, and can lead to a much shorter Iran war with superior U.S. force posture.
15. Strategic rhetoric of an early withdrawal prolongs any conflict.
During later phases of a war (Phases 4 and 5), one of the greatest challenges is to cause the mid-level managerial “fence sitters” to choose sides. The Fence sitters are the local leaders who will eventually make a support decision, encourage the reporting of concealed identification of Taliban adversaries, and buttress a regime when it becomes apparent that the presence is for the long term. The irony is that public indecision and senior official debate weakens the U.S.
position. A firm strategic communications plan to express long-term presence will speed the commitment of mid-level managerial fence-sitters to align with U.S. supporters.
16. Other Models of U.S. Occupation Beyond Vietnam.
Although Vietnam resulted in a failed U.S. position, there are other examples of successful U.S. presence with a much smaller footprint. Following the Spanish-American War, U.S. military presence existed in the Philippines from 1899 through the 1980s. A violent insurgency existed but was able to be overcome. General Blackjack Pershing, General Arthur MacArthur and others were participants in this long term presence. The strategic key is to minimize the Army's footprint and scale of presence to be capable of sustaining posture for the long term. Still other examples include Kosovo, Germany, Japan and Liberia. Liberia is particularly interesting. LURD and MODEL combatants remained fence sitters for nearly two years after the Civil War ended in 2003. When they became convinced that U.S. and U.N. presence was for the long term, their leaders accepted political positions working for the central Monrovian government.
17. U.S. Needs to Honor the Ultimate Sacrifice of U.S. soldiers on the fields of Afghanistan by staying the course.
Dedicated families, friends, and communities have stood behind the very real sacrifices of sons and daughters to fight for defense of the nation. Woe to the nation that forgets the sacrifices of its heroes- will there be a next generation that are willing to commit its defense.
18. Whole of Government Approach
A whole of government approach is being implemented in Afghanistan in an unprecedented way, offering a better chance of success than in previous engagments of this type. According to a State Department blog, “In Afghanistan, the new Interagency Civil-Military Action Group (ICMAG) within the U.S. Embassy is the lead body for policy implementation and problem solving. Already, ICMAG has facilitated integrated guidance and geographically-based plans for Regional Command-East and is now moving to Regional Command-South. It has supported development of functional sectoral efforts in areas such as health and focused district development and is increasingly coordinating with international actors such as the International Security Assistance Force (on metrics), the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (on district mapping) and with the United Kingdom (Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team). ICMAG is also working on developing an integrated metrics system in-country.” Moreover the U.S. military is continuing to leverage the knowledge and expertise of various kinds of civilian social scientists in winning the hearts and minds campaign. Parts of this approach were obviously used in other ewcwnt conflicts, but perhaps with less emphasis and resources.
19. The Taliban is largely unpopular and can be defeated.
While the Taliban have some following among their Pashtun co-ethnics, especially in the southern part of the country, the Taliban are generally hated by the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazarra and other non-Pashtun groups that together make up a numerical majority in Afghanistan. The memory of Taliban persecution is fresh and motivational for all the non-Pashtun groups. Wherever they have gone since 2004, the Taliban have used barbaric tactics to win the obedience of the local populations.
They win “hearts and minds” by murder, violence and coercion. Nearly all opinion polls indicate very little support for the Taliban. The Taliban can be defeated and blocked by strategies that protect the population and build up the security capacity of the Afghan state, its provinces and its districts.
Counter-sanctuary activities by Pakistani forces could easily disrupt their base areas and training grounds. Better coordination with Persian Gulf allies and stronger counternarcotics efforts could dry up their financial base. The Taliban cannot win unless the West quits.
In Summary, multiple threats are being addressed by the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. They include: dealing with the primary threats of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, preparing for a destabilized Pakistan with nuclear weapons, posturing for a future hostile Iran, and reducing the long-term recruitment of radical Islamic terrorists from this region.
At the center of debate, however, is the question of whether the average U.S. voter truly believes that Al Qaeda and Taliban can seriously pose a threat to U.S. national security interests at home and abroad? If yes, then it becomes questionable for a decision to willfully deliver strategic victory to a weakened terrorist network by pulling out of Afghanistan.
There are significant ramifications for U.S. credibility abroad to our detriment. When the first nuclear device explodes in a heavily populated U.S. city, who will be held responsible for this incident?
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Western Afghanistan, a new worry ?
Reuters By Golnar Motevalli October 3rd, 2009
Herat province in west Afghanistan is seen as one of the country's safest areas. It is one of the largest, most prosperous Afghan provinces — its capital's wide, smooth and tree-lined boulevards are a far cry from Kabul's crumbling skyline.
But the past few months have seen a sharp increase in violence.
Last month a cabinet minister and former militia leader, Ismail Khan, was the target of a bomb attack in Herat city. A day earlier, Herati traders took to the streets to protest against rising insecurity in the province.
Khan, who is seen by many Heratis as an icon of the anti-Taliban and anti-Soviet mujahedin, was unharmed, but three civilians were killed.
The district of Guzara in Herat has seen a spate of Taliban attacks, including the shooting dead of three men and the hanging of another and an ambush on a policeman's home in which his teenage son was killed.
Since July at least 29 civilians have been killed in insurgent-linked attacks in Herat. Foreign troops, mainly Italians and Americans, are hit by roadside bombs or ambushed on a weekly basis.
While these attacks do not put Herat on a par with southern provinces such as Kandahar or Helmand — where the Taliban have grass-roots support in many areas — they still point to a considerable rise in instability in Herat, when compared to the same period last year.
Although the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, focusses mainly on the insurgency in the Pashtun tribal belt of the south and east, in
an interview with CBS news recently, he said the spread of violence to the mostly Tajik north and west was worse than he had expected.
Some analysts, including Ahmed Rashid, a prominent authority on the Taliban, have warned that the Taliban has been pushing further westwards and northwards for the past year in an effort
to consolidate gains already made in northern provinces such as Badghis and Kunduz — where there are mainly European troops.
Iran might also have reason to be alarmed. Last month, three Afghan policemen at a checkpoint very close to the border with Iran were killed in a Taliban ambush about two months after they attacked an Iranian engineering company, killing one employee.
U.S. military and Afghan officials have said that the rise in Taliban attacks in the west is partly a result of July's U.S. operation “Strike of the Sword” in southern Helmand province, which has pushed Taliban fighters to the west and north.
Farah province, which is sandwiched between Herat and Helmand, has also seen a sharp spike in violence since the U.S. operation and the Taliban now command checkpoints in districts
such as Bala Boluk. In April I accompanied U.S. and Afghan army patrols in Bala Boluk, but on my second visit to Farah in August, I was told the entire district was now pretty much a no-go zone.
Could Herat's Guzara district, where much of the Taliban-related violence has taken place in the past months, be on the same slide into Taliban control?
And are the Italian troops, who make up the bulk of main foreign force in Herat, and whom the Taliban perceive as weaker than their U.S. counterparts, capable of containing the growth of the insurgency in the west?
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'Forced' Protest Quelled in Afghan West
Reza Shir Mohammadi Quqnoos October 3, 2009
Afghan troops overwhelmed a protest rally in western Afghanistan which was provoked after a mosque desecration rumour on Friday
Taliban militants in the western Afghan province of Nimroz on Friday forced civilians to protest against foreign forces after spreading rumours they had desecrated a mosque, provincial governor, Ghulam Dastgir Azad said.
"Taliban stopped buses on the highway in Delaram district on a junction where passengers from Herat, Farah and Nimroz provinces travel and forced them to protest against foreign forces," Nimroz Governor told the Associated Press.
The governor added that insurgents used the public as human shields to fire on police during the protest.
Two people have been killed and three others were wounded in the gun battle erupted by the protest as the insurgents set a number of police checkpoints on fire, according to local officials.
Police forces also sustained injuries in the exchange of fire, Governor Azad said, adding they are in stable heath condition.
US Marines in Delaram said the protest involved some 200 to 300 people.
Tyres were set on fire and the demonstrators marched towards the police station shouting anti-American slogans.
A US officer in Dilaram told AFP it took the Afghan National Army (ANA) almost three hours to quell the unrest.
The governor and the US military said the protest was whipped up after the Taliban spread rumours that foreign forces in the area had desecrated the Koran during their operations and thrown a dead dog into a mosque last week.
The US office said the desecration rumours were "Taliban propaganda... to damage our credibility and this (incident) was part of the result".
"We have been pushing the message out for the past couple of days that we did not do what they are alleging," he added.
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Pakistani official rejects presence of Mullah Omar in Balouchistan
by Hadi Mayar
KABUL, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- A senior Pakistani official has outrightly rejected the U.S. and western media reports about the presence of senior Afghan Taliban leaders in Balouchistan.
Pakistani newspapers quoted Mohammad Aslam Raisani, chief minister of Baluchistan province, on Thursday that reports about presence of Mullah Mohammad Omar and other Afghan Taliban leaders in Balouchistan's provincial capital Quetta or its suburbs are "baseless and just a rumor."
The rejection came on the heels of an angry uproar in Pakistan over a recent report in the London-based newspaper, The Sunday Times, saying that U.S. officials believed that the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and other leaders of his group are hiding in Quetta city of Balouchistan.
Quetta and its suburban areas in Pakistan's southwestern Balouchistan province are close to Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, which is considered to be the heartland of Afghan Taliban militants.
The British newspaper said the Quetta Shura (council) of Afghan Taliban, including the inner core of Afghan Taliban leaders, is based in Quetta from where it regulates Jihadist activities in southern Afghanistan.
"Quetta Shura is high on Washington's list," U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, said on Wednesday.
"In the past, we focused on al-Qaida because they were a threat to us. The Quetta Shura mattered less to us because we had no troops in the region," Patterson said in an interview with The Washington Post.
U.S. officials, according to The Sunday Times, maybe consider drone strikes or commando action in Quetta to crack down the Afghan insurgent leaders.
It said U.S. officials had reports that Islamabad contemplated to shift the Taliban leaders from Quetta to Karachi where it would be difficult for the United States to carry out drone attacks.
The change of mind in upper U.S. power echelon follows a spate of Taliban attack in Afghanistan, particularly in the southern provinces, in which heavy losses were inflicted on the international coalition forces.
Two major U.S. and British operations in Helmand, bordering Pakistan's Balouchistan province, in recent months failed to create any significant dint in Taliban's might.
Rather, the insurgents have got more hardened in their resilience, escalating their operations to new swaths of Afghanistan's territory.
Similarly, Michael Semple, a former UN official who formerly worked in Afghanistan and is now based in Islamabad, describes Quetta-based Afghan refugee camps as a "great reserve army" for the Taliban. He claimed the Taliban have support from the mosques and madrassas (seminaries) in the area.
Raisani says if Washington carries out drone attack in Balouchistan, the backlash of the possible attacks would make the supply line for NATO forces in Afghanistan highly insecure.
NATO is carrying out logistic supplies for its troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan. One of the two routes for these supplies passes through Balouchistan, particularly Quetta.
After scores of attacks on supply convoys in recent months, the international coalition has begun to explore alternate routes for its supplies.
Washington has already signed an agreement with Moscow under which military supplies will flow to Afghanistan through the Russian soil. Other Pakistani officials have also aired views similar to those of Raisani about possible U.S. attacks in Quetta.
Major General Salim Nawaz, the chief of Frontier Corps (FC) paramilitary forces in Balouchistan, told media the other day that if Washington had any evidence about presence of Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders in Quetta it should share with Pakistan.
Pakistan, he said, is capable to take action on its own. He ruled out the presence of Taliban leaders in Quetta or the existence of Quetta Shura.
Earlier, Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, had ruled out presence of the Afghan Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, in Quetta.
Last week, Pakistani newspapers quoted him as pledging to keep the United States out of Balouchistan "at all costs."
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Japan to train former Taliban soldiers
TOKYO, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Japan is highlighting its contribution to the international community by providing training to former Taliban soldiers, its foreign ministry announced Friday.
The Japanese government says this will support reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and serve as an alternative to the Maritime Self-Defense Forces refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, The Mainichi Daily News reported. The legal mandate for refueling expires in January.
Many young men join the Taliban movement for money. The Japanese mission is to provide vocational training that will help provide an alternative was out of poverty, the newspaper said. Training will be provided to as many former Taliban as possible and the Japanese Foreign Ministry is considering offering salaries during the training program, funded by the government.
Japan has played a leading role in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of the Afghan National Army. The country backed the social rehabilitation of about 60,000 former soldiers. This experience will be used in the rehabilitation of the soldiers to receive training.
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Pakistani Taliban chief may be dead: US official
October 3, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Newly anointed Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud may have been killed recently during clashes with a rival faction, a senior US counter-terrorism official said on Saturday.
"There's reason to believe that Hakimullah may have died recently -- perhaps as the result of factional in-fighting within the Pakistani Taliban," the official told AFP.
US and Pakistani officials are reviewing information about the alleged incident and have yet to confirm the death. The Pentagon declined to comment.
If confirmed, the warlord's demise would be the latest setback to the Pakistani Taliban, which have carved out camps in the mountains of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt.
"Of course, it would be a very good thing if Hakimullah were off the streets," noted the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the intelligence matter.
"We're working hard -- as are the Pakistanis -- to determine what has happened to him."
Washington says the militants are plotting attacks on the West and slipping over the border to target foreign troops in Afghanistan.
Hakimullah, who is believed to be about 30, was tapped to lead the feared Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) after his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by a missile fired from a CIA-operated drone aircraft on August 5.
Hakimullah's brother, Kalimullah Mehsud, was also killed on Monday in a battle in the lawless insurgent stronghold of North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan, Pakistani security officials said.
The young commander, who did not make media or public appearances since his appointment, has two surviving brothers.
Pakistan's government blames the TTP -- formed by Baitullah Mehsud in late 2007 -- for most of about 270 attacks and suicide bombings that have killed more than 2,100 people across Pakistan in the past two years.
Pakistani security forces earlier this year launched a fierce offensive to purge the northwest of Taliban fighters, and has already claimed success in the Swat valley and Bajaur. But unrest has rumbled on.
Analysts say they will face a much tougher task in North and South Waziristan, which are teeming with both Pakistani Taliban and other Islamist militants who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban there in 2001.
Meanwhile, Washington has stepped up missile attacks by US drone aircraft in the region.
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Musharraf: Multifaceted approach against Taliban
AP via Yahoo! News - Sat Oct 3, 1:37 am ET
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (pur-VEHZ' moo-SHAH'-ruhv) says al-Qaida needs to be eliminated from the country by force, but dealing with the Taliban requires a military, political and socio-economic approach.
Musharraf spoke Friday night at Augustana College in Sioux Falls. He says the Taliban is not a monolith, but rather a spread out organization with no single commander who could be removed for the command structure to be destroyed.
Musharraf is a stalwart supporter of the U.S. in the war on terror. He ended his decade-long rule and resigned as president in August 2008 amid threats of impeachment.
Since his departure, he's given several speeches at think tanks and universities around the world.
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No place to keep surrendering Taliban: Pakistani PM
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said the government is now having trouble accommodating the thousands of Taliban who have surrendered to the security forces, following the successful military operation in northwest Pakistan's Swat, Malakand and the surrounding tribal areas, local media reported Saturday.
Addressing the Senate on Friday, the prime minister said that over 3,000 militants had already surrendered to the government and another 2,000 were expected to surrender in the coming weeks.
However, he added, there was no room to house all these prisoners. Discussing law and order, he said the government had successfully brought the situation under control with the help of the nation and its political leadership.
Meanwhile, Pakistan army say that its ongoing operations have severely dented the Taliban-led insurgency in the country's northwest. Military officials say the campaign is being gradually extended to what they consider the rebel stronghold, the region of Waziristan bordering Afghanistan.
Military authorities in Pakistan believe that the gains the anti-insurgency campaign has made in the past few months, in and around the Swat valley, have weakened the Taliban militants and set the stage for ridding the country of them.
They say the killing of nearly 2,000 militants, including key commanders, and arrest of some of the top Taliban leaders in the Swat offensive have helped bring down terrorist attacks in the country, in recent months.
In their recent talks with U.S. leaders, Pakistani officials have repeatedly urged Washington to give Islamabad the drone technology that the United States has used to take out several top Al-Qaida and Taliban leaders in Pakistan's tribal areas.
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Pakistan army accused of executing Taliban suspects
By Saeed Shah, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Fri Oct 2, 6:36 pm ET
MINGORA, Pakistan — Scores of badly tortured bodies have been found dumped in Pakistan's Swat valley, raising concerns that the Pakistani army is conducting a campaign of extra-judicial killings and brutality of suspected Taliban militants that could sully the army's successful campaign against them.
At least two mass graves for executed Taliban have been discovered, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan , an independent organization. Separately, an Internet video emerged Friday that appeared to show Pakistani soldiers, likely in Swat, beating prisoners, including elderly men. The army announced an investigation into the recording.
Pakistan's fearsome Taliban movement, based in the tribal area that borders Afghanistan , took over Swat, which lies just 100 miles from Islamabad , two years ago and conducted a brutal campaign of repression, beheading and bombing their way across the valley.
The army began a counteroffensive in April this year and had the militants routed by the end of July. Then, bodies of suspected Taliban , many previously detained by the military, started to turn up at crossroads, on bridges and outside homes.
By the first of September, according to Pakistani news reports, 251 corpses had been found, and local residents say the tally may have reached 400 by now.
The killings seem to have the support of the local residents, who express anger at human rights activists who raise the issue.
"Where were these champions of human rights when the Taliban would slit the throats of people in front of their women and children?" said Mohammad Ali , a hotel owner in Swat's main town of Mingora. "Even the Israelis have not done such bad things to the Palestinians as the Taliban did to us."
The army denies executing prisoners, suggesting that the bodies belong to militants killed in combat or at the hands of citizens taking revenge on their tormentors. The military says the mass graves hold the bodies of injured Taliban who were killed by their own during their retreat — rather than leave them behind to give information to the authorities.
Some of the bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, according to local news reports.
A number of high-profile Taliban commanders also have turned up dead after the military had announced they were in custody. One example: Sher Muhammad Qasa, who residents said was paraded through the streets of Charbagh, a former Taliban stronghold, after he was captured on Sept. 16 . Four days later, the army announced that he had succumbed to injuries sustained when he was detained. The residents asked that they not be identified for fear of military reprisals.
Ayub Khan was taken away by the army one afternoon in early August, from his home in Swat's main town of Mingora, in front of his five young children, according to several people in the neighborhood. Nine days later, his body was dumped on a nearby bridge. He had been badly beaten. A single shot to the head had finished off the 42-year-old. Ayub Khan was a minor informer for the Taliban , according to some local residents.
Some cases have disturbed local residents.
The death of Akhtar Ali , a 28-year-old who ran a popular electrical repair store, is one of those. He was picked up from the street at around 4 p.m. on Sept. 1 at an army checkpoint in Mingora, said passers-by who saw him being taken away. His family was assured later that day that he would be released. But at 6 a.m. on Sept. 5 his corpse was dumped on the doorstep of the family home, where many in the neighborhood saw it.
Every inch of his body showed signs of abuse, including burns made with an iron and the marks of merciless beatings. He was not shot, just tortured to death. Friends and family insist he had no known Taliban links.
A military spokesman in Swat, Col. Akhtar Abbas , denied that anyone in army custody has been killed. But he conceded that the army is conducting an internal investigation of Ali's death.
Questions about the army's behaviour in Swat intensified Friday with the airing on a number of Internet sites, including Facebook and YouTube , of a video that seemed to show soldiers kicking, punching and whipping prisoners while questioning them. The video shows soldiers and other prisoners looking on as the beatings take place. Screams and cries of "God" can be heard in the recording.
The army said Friday that an "investigation has been ordered" into the video, and anyone guilty would be punished. The army's chief spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas promised that the findings of the inquiry would be made public.
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
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Pakistan Taliban faction parts ways with TTP
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- A Taliban faction led by Mullah Nazir on Friday parted ways with the banned group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and assured the government that it will remain impartial in the military offensive against TTP, the private news agency NNI reported.
The Ahmedzai Wazir Tribe and representatives of Mullah Nazir group had a jirga with the Political Agent Shahab Ali Shah in Wana, the largest town of northwest Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal agency, and assured the authorities that they will not support the Taliban fighters.
The Ahmedzai Wazir Tribe demanded return of troops to barracks, removal of road side check posts and halt to United States drone attacks.
They also demanded restoration of electricity to Wana and other areas. The federal government's official Shah assured the tribal elders that their demands would be accepted soon.
The Jirga decided to honor the 2007 Peace Accord under which the Ahmedzai Tribe and Taliban faction Mullah Nazir had expelled Uzbek militants from Wana. They also demanded compensation to those tribesmen whose property have been destroyed and those who have lost people in the violence.
The jirga also demanded release of Wazir Tribesmen arrested during the operation.
The decision by Ahmedzai Wazir Tribe and the Taliban faction is considered to be a serious set back for TTP at a time when the security forces are considering operation in the lawless tribal regions along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the area.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in recent days that military operation in North and South Waziristan was under consideration and the government would start action in proper time.
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Terrorism Case Shows Range Of Investigators' Tools
by Dina Temple-Raston NPR - National Public Radio October 3, 2009
Investigators in the terrorism case against Najibullah Zazi claim to have amassed stacks of evidence against the former Denver-area shuttle bus driver.
They say he allegedly trained at an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan last year. They have surveillance video from a Denver-area beauty supply store, which they claim shows Zazi pushing a shopping cart full of bomb-making ingredients — such as hydrogen peroxide and acetone — up and down the store aisles. The FBI also says it found chemical residue consistent with a favored homemade bomb-making recipe in a hotel room Zazi rented just days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Zazi, for his part, has said this is all some kind of mistake. Authorities say he admits training in explosives at an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan last year, but he has maintained that he never intended to put that expertise to use. He was formally charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in a federal court in Brooklyn earlier this week. He pleaded not guilty.
Officials say FBI agents in Denver and New York had been tracking Zazi for some time — and experts analyzing the case say the way law enforcement gathered evidence against Zazi and possible co-conspirators may be a textbook case of how to conduct a terrorism investigation. The FBI used a blend of wiretaps and subpoenas, search warrants and local police, among other things, to build its case.
"I think what's striking about the Zazi case is not so much that new tools were being used, but that old tools were being used in a comprehensive fashion," says Sam Rascoff, who used to work terrorism cases for the New York Police Department's intelligence unit. "And that they were being stitched together in a thoughtful, strategic way, so that one tool naturally gave way to another."
Prosecutors have already informed Zazi's lawyer and the judge in the case that much of the evidence they'll present at trial came from a wiretap. They also said some of the evidence will include classified information — which means the case is likely to be complicated.
Wiretaps
If you have ever watched The Wire on television, you know a little something about Title III wiretaps. Named for a section in the criminal code, Title IIIs are generally used to catch mobsters or drug dealers. To get this kind of wiretap, police must convince a judge that the wire is likely to pick up evidence of a crime.
The wiretap used on Zazi was different. In his case, officials tell NPR they asked a judge for what's called a roving FISA wire tap. (FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.) Roving wiretaps are standard fare in narcotics cases. They allow investigators to link a wiretap with a person, rather than just a specific phone number. It allows for a broader array of electronic surveillance, including disposable cell phones, e-mail and text messages.
FISA wiretaps are meant to be aimed at foreign targets — people who work for or are representing a foreign entity. FISA wiretaps used to be all about espionage, but, according to former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes, that changed to include terrorism. The foreign entity in this case would be a group like al-Qaida. "In certain cases, obviously, an act of terrorism against the United States affects national security, and so under certain circumstances terrorism also qualifies," he said.
Law enforcement officials close to the Zazi case tell NPR that the FBI applied to a special court for the wiretap months ago. Sources say officials acted after Pakistani intelligence allegedly told them that Zazi had met with al-Qaida operatives there.
When Zazi returned to the United States from Pakistan in January, the FBI was tracking him — not on a daily basis, but in a way that they could keep tabs on him. Sources say the wiretaps were vital to the investigation. For example, officials tell NPR the wiretap picked up a Zazi phone conversation about chemical mixtures for explosives. In another intercept, officials allege he was frantically calling and texting several people about bomb-making. That information led officials to use another tool — physical surveillance.
Surveillance
At the end of the summer, sources say, Zazi surprised agents by renting a car and starting to drive cross-country. FBI agents followed him on the 27-hour drive. And, just to make sure they tracked Zazi closely, they asked local law enforcement for help along the way. Zazi was pulled over several times for speeding. He apparently got a ticket in Kentucky. And the FBI knew about it.
When Zazi neared New York City on Sept. 10, the New York police pulled him over on the George Washington Bridge. Officials familiar with the case tell NPR that was an orchestrated operation between the FBI and NYPD. They wanted to make sure there weren't any chemicals or a bomb in Zazi's car. They told Zazi it was a routine search and, just to underscore the point, pulled over other cars on the bridge as well.
"The stop was, at least allegedly, for a random drug check point," said Zazi's lawyer, Art Folsom. "They searched his vehicle, they found nothing, and then sent him on his way. He thought this was just one of those law enforcement things that happens every now and then. He didn't think anything of it at that point."
Authorities got a better look at Zazi's car a day later, using a special provision of the Patriot Act known as a "sneak and peek." They broke into the car and swabbed it for chemicals. They found Zazi's laptop in the car and mirrored the hard drive. And then they very carefully put everything back just where they found it.
Sources close to the case say it was clear Zazi didn't know about the "sneak and peek" because when he returned to Denver, he switched out his hard drive and voluntarily handed his computer over to the FBI when they began questioning him. When they searched that drive, investigators didn't find the same files they had in New York. They say among the missing files was a recipe for making hydrogen peroxide and acetone bombs. It is unclear how Zazi explained the discrepancy.
When the FBI did pin Zazi down about the bomb-making instructions, he said he had accidentally downloaded them from the Internet. Officials close to the case tell NPR the instructions were in Zazi's handwriting. The notes allegedly had been scanned and then sent to one of three e-mail accounts Zazi controlled. Officials believe Zazi e-mailed them to himself from Pakistan.
A Range Of Tools
Evidence in the case is still closely held, partly because officials are still tracking a handful of other men they believe were helping Zazi in the plot.
Rascoff, the former NYPD official, said that even with the limited evidence revealed so far, the Zazi investigation shows how many tools can be brought to bear in a domestic terrorism case.
"They can use electronic surveillance, which is just a fancy term for eavesdropping on phone calls and looking into e-mails; undercover agents and confidential informants who are on the inside of organizations; and they can use physical surveillance, what you and I would call casing a joint or following a person," Rascoff says. And in the Zazi case, investigators seemed to have used them all.
Law enforcement officials are quick to say they aren't done yet. Officials haven't explained where the chemicals and bomb materials ended up. And they tell NPR more arrests are coming.
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Melon Crop Under Threat
Failure of efforts to stop the melon fly prompts farmers in the north to consider giving up the crop.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Ahmad Kawoosh and Baryalai Jalalzai in Balkh (ARR No. 339, 02-Oct-09)
Across the north, huge piles of sweet melons are appearing along the region’s roadsides, sold to motorists and passersby for about 100 afghani (two US dollars) apiece.
Trucks full of them sweep into the cities, where, for a few months, the fruit graces the tables of residents at almost every meal.
Many farmers make their entire living in this short season, which begins as summer turns into autumn. They earn enough in sales to support themselves and their families through the long winter.
But now this wealth of the north is under attack – from a small parasite known as the melon fly. It attacks the fruit from the inside, leaving the flesh full of holes, with a sour smell and unfit for consumption.
“I have lost half my harvest,” sighed Mohammad Aslam, a farmer in Daulatabad district of Balkh, leaning on his shovel. “I have not been able to beat this fly.”
Buyers who cut into their purchase to find it spoiled simply heave it through the car window, or abandon it by the side of the road.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, rotting melons are clogging the sewers and creating a slippery hazard on the streets.
The problem has been growing for several years, but has finally reached crisis point. Many farmers are now refusing to grow melons, and next year the traditional grass huts, or chaila, where farmers live in summer months to guard their crop from poachers and animals, may all but disappear from the melon fields in Balkh, Baghlan, and Kunduz provinces.
No one knows the exact origin of the melon fly. Some specialists say that it originated in India, and is causing problems all across the region.
Kateb Shams, the director of agriculture in Balkh, has a more original explanation. He insists that the drugs mafia introduced the melon fly to the province in order to encourage farmers to abandon melons for the more lucrative poppy. If so, the plan failed. Balkh has been certified poppy-free for the third year in a row, leaving farmers reliant on their traditional fruit.
The flies attack the melons when the fruit is just developing, burrowing in through the thin skin. They lay their eggs inside, and in three months exit the melon, again through small holes.
The whole north has been affected by the plague, including the provinces of Balkh, Faryab, Jowzjan, Kunduz, Baghlan and Samangan.
The government has tried to help, but farmers say it is too little, too late.
Last year, the Balkh office for the protection of plants announced that it had all but beaten the fly by treating much of the land with insecticide. By 2009, it maintained, the problem would be solved.
This was an overstatement, according to senior agriculture official Kateb Shams. But he did not agree that the situation was hopeless. Mobile units are working in all districts of Balkh to help farmers, he said, and he advised melon growers to take action on their own.
Among his advice: bury the melon seeds more than 70 centimetres below the surface where the flies cannot reach them; cover the young fruit with plastic bags to protect against flies; irrigate the melon fields during the winter, so that flies and their eggs will freeze; and grow something else for a few years to deprive the flies of their food and they will die out.
But he acknowledged that these home-grown remedies are not nearly as effective as a new product being supplied to farmers this year, the insecticide deltamethrin.
Engineer Mohammad Omran, who heads the plant protection office, insists that deltamethrin poses no health risk to people or animals. But farmers do not believe that the chemicals will kill the fly while leaving their animals intact. In fact, many are afraid for their own health.
In past years, farmers were given a variety of insecticides, seldom understanding exactly what they were using, and receiving little instruction in their proper use.
“I sprayed my fields with what they gave me,” said Noorullah, a farmer in Chelgazi village of Balkh, speaking last spring. “When I treated my melon crop, I left my donkey on the land but when I came back to my fields in the afternoon, the donkey had died.”
Others complained of headaches and vomiting after they had treated their fields.
Worst of all, the chemicals seemed to have little effect against the fly.
“I did whatever the [agricultural officials] told me these last years, but it has had zero effect,” said Sayed Nader, from Shulgara district of Balkh. “I spent a lot of money on insecticide, but it hasn’t helped at all.”
So now farmers are angry, and blame the government.
“The government efforts to fight the flies were only symbolic,” said Amir Mohammad, who lives in Chamtal district in Balkh province.
“The government is late in reacting to the problem,” said Sheikh Ahmad of Balkh district. “They should have started sooner with their efforts to combat the melon fly, as well as grasshoppers and other insects. Now they give medicine after the patient has already died.”
Many are threatening to abandon melon-growing altogether.
This would be a great loss of income for the region, according to Sayed Taher Roshanzada, the director of the chamber of commerce and industry in Mazar-e-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh province.
“Previously our melons and watermelons where exported to all provinces of Afghanistan,” he said. “Hundreds of tons also went to Pakistan and India.”
The Balkh authorities, for their part, place the blame right back on the farmers.
“If the farmers would just listen to us and do what we tell them, we would be able to get rid of this disease,” Omran said.
Ahmad Kawoosh and Baryalai Jalalzai are IWPR trainees based in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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Pakistan: Anti-Taliban tribal elder fatally shot
By HABIB KHAN The Associated Press Saturday, October 3, 2009 10:48 AM
KHAR, Pakistan -- Suspected Taliban militants fatally shot a tribal elder Saturday in volatile northwestern Pakistan as he traveled to discuss anti-militancy efforts with government authorities, an official said.
The dead body of a man accused of spying for the U.S. also turned up in the Bajur tribal region.
Bajur was the focus of an intense six-month operation against militants starting last year, an offensive that was praised by American officials worried about insurgents using Pakistan to plan attacks across the border in Afghanistan.
Although the army declared it had been cleared earlier this year, trouble still flares in Bajur.
Tribal elder Malik Abdul Majeed was killed while riding in his car in the Damadola area of Bajur, said Abdul Maalik, a local government official.
Majeed's cousin also was wounded in the attack.
As part of their strategy to gain control in pockets of Pakistan's northwest, Taliban militants frequently attack tribal leaders considered to be pro-government. Many such tribal leaders have formed "peace committees" aimed at keeping insurgents out of their territory.
Majeed belonged to a tribal peace council in Bajur's Mamund area, said Maalik, adding that the killing "is an act of terrorism."
Militants also have slaughtered many individuals they suspect of helping out the government or the United States. The latest body surfaced on the outskirts of Khar, Bajur's main town.
Police official Muhammad Javed said a note attached to the corpse read: "He is an enemy of Islam. He is an American agent."
Helicopter gunships pounded militants hide-outs later Saturday in Charmang town in Bajur, killing five insurgents, said government official Ghulam Saeedullah.
Under pressure from the U.S., Pakistan has also been cracking down on insurgents in the northwestern Khyber tribal region, where militants have stepped up attacks on trucks carrying supplies to American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Pakistan paramilitary forces said they killed 27 militants, including two commanders, in Khyber on Friday and 11 more, including a would-be suicide bomber, on Saturday. The Frontier Corps said one soldier died and three others were injured.
The offensive in Khyber started Sept. 1 and is said to have killed around 190 militants.
It was not possible to independently confirm the Frontier Corps' statements. Access to Khyber is restricted.
Pakistan's army also is readying an offensive in South Waziristan, a rugged, lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan that is the base of Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida leaders. For weeks, the army has been cutting off militant escape routes and softening targets using airstrikes.
The Taliban attacked three military checkpoints with rockets and small weapons in neighboring North Waziristan on Saturday, wounding six soldiers, an army statement said.
Also Saturday, a Pakistani anti-terrorism court again adjourned pretrial proceedings in the case of seven suspects in the attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, a court official said. The case was adjourned until Oct. 10, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the proceedings are secret and the judge has issued a gag order on the parties involved.
Pakistan's prosecution of the suspects is considered a key test of its willingness to bring justice to perpetrators of terrorism, but the court has repeatedly delayed formally charging the suspects and launching the trial.
The Mumbai siege last November left 166 people dead and ratcheted up tensions between Pakistan and longtime rival India.
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Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad in Islamabad and Riaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.
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