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September 15, 2009 

UN officials in Afghanistan at odds over election
By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – A top American official at the United Nations mission in Afghanistan has temporarily left the country following a disagreement with his boss over how to respond to the massive allegations of vote

Rigging-weakened Karzai facing monstrous challenges if re-elected
By Hadi Mayar, Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's sitting President Hamid Karzai confronts diverse challenges on internal and external fronts as he staggers towards his second term in office in the wake of the last month's

Afghan ECC Orders Recount at 10 Percent of Voting Sites
By VOA News 15 September 2009
A top election official in Afghanistan says votes from 10 percent of the country's polling stations must be recounted due to indications of fraud in last month's presidential election.

Karzai rival warns: Vote fraud would doom U.S. involvement
By Hal Bernton And Jonathan S. Landay, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Mon Sep 14, 5:03 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — The leading challenger in Afghanistan's national elections warned Monday that if President Hamid Karzai wins another term based on a fraudulent vote, the U.S.-led war against al Qaida

What I Saw While Afghanistan Voted
Commentary By Ellen Bork Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 15, 2009
The day before the August 20 elections in Afghanistan, Ghazni Province Governor Osman Osmani’s prediction of an 80 percent voter turnout in his region seemed dubious.

US: Afghan govt failures as dangerous as Taliban
Tue Sep 15, 3:00 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The top US military officer said Tuesday that the Afghan people's doubts about their government's effectiveness and legitimacy posed as serious a threat to US goals there as Taliban fighters.

Afghan's presidential candidate calls for criminal enquiry
Hindustan Times - India 15 Sept 2009
Accusing President Hamid Karzai of staging "state engineered fraud", his main challenger in Afghanistan's presidential elections Abdullah Abdullah has said that this amounted to worse than a crime.

Afghan clashes kill 27 Taliban
Tue Sep 15, 10:17 am ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan and foreign forces killed 27 Taliban militants in gunfights and an air strike in a rebel stronghold of Kandahar province, police and the government said Tuesday.

EU Weighs Afghan Conference in Kabul, Voices Election Concern
By James G. Neuger and Caroline Alexander
Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- European Union leaders weighed calling an international summit in Kabul to step up western support for Afghanistan and pressure the future government to do more to stabilize the war-wracked country.

Mullen Says More Forces 'Probably' Needed in Afghanistan
Adm. Mike Mullen was warmly received Tuesday at a confirmation hearing for his second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but there were sharp differences over further increasing a U.S. force in Afghanistan which President Obama nearly doubled this year.
By Wendell Goler FOXNews.com Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The nation's top military officer warned

Afghan rift bared as US military chief challenges Barack Obama
Giles Whittell in Washington, Michael Evans and Catherine Philp The Times (UK) September 16, 2009
Deep rifts at the heart of Western policy on Afghanistan were laid bare yesterday when President Obama’s top military adviser challenged him to authorise a troop surge that his most senior congressional allies have said they will oppose.

Obama: 'Afghanistan is not Vietnam'
Agence France-Presse via National Post Tuesday, September 15, 2009
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Barack Obama rejected comparisons between the deepening US involvement in Afghanistan and the Vietnam war in an interview with the New York Times published Tuesday.

Mass grave unearthed in Afghanistan
Tue Sep 15, 9:40 am ET
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – A mass grave was unearthed on Tuesday in northern Afghanistan containing at least 20 bodies believed to date from the Soviet-backed government era, an official said.

British chief of army staff calls on Afghan president
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Britain's chief of Army Staff General David Richards called on Afghan President Hamid Karzai Tuesday and exchanged views on the situation in Afghanistan, a press release of Afghan presidency said.

Extracting Uranium by British troops baseless: Afghan Minister
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan Minister for Mines and Industries Mohammad Ibrahim Adil has rejected the claims that British forces in southern Helmand province illegally extracting uranium,

Afghanistan burden wearing down U.S.
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The deaths of four U.S. soldiers last Saturday in a spate of militant attacks that also killed dozens of Afghan security forces and civilians happened a day after Sen. Carl Levin,

Taliban commander surrenders to Afghan gov't: media
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Salam has laid down arms and surrendered to the government in Afghanistan's northwest Badghis province, a local newspaper said Tuesday.

Rocket attacks wound 2 children in E Afghan
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Rockets fired by militants in Khost province in east of Afghanistan wounded two children and caused panic among the locals on Tuesday, police said.

Roadside bomb wounds 2 in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bomb struck one government vehicle in Heart province west of Afghanistan Tuesday, wounding two persons including a child, police said.

EXCLUSIVE: Taliban makes IEDs deadlier
Rowan Scarborough (Contact) The Washington Times September 15, 2009
The Taliban has been building simpler, cheaper anti-personnel bombs made of hard-to-detect nonmetal components, increasing the number of lethal attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to a confidential military report.

Acclaimed author Khaled Hosseini says peace in Afghanistan key to return of displaced
Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 14 Sep 2009
Acclaimed author and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Khaled Hosseini has ended a five-day visit to Afghanistan today by highlighting the need for peace as the indispensable element in ensuring the safe and sustainable return of displaced Afghans.

Cholera claims 30 lives in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Cholera (Acute Watery Diarrhea) has claimed the lives of 30 people in the war-battered Afghanistan over the past two months, spokesman of Public Health Ministry Ahmad Farid Raeed said Tuesday.

China launches mine-clearing training course for Afghanistan, Iraq
BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A humanitarian mine-clearing training course for Afghanistan and Iraq sponsored by the Chinese government was inaugurated here Tuesday in Nanjing, capital of the eastern Jiangsu Province.

Canada will open doors to Afghan support workers
By Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News ServiceSeptember 15, 2009 5:10 PM
OTTAWA — In the face of unprecedented violence, Canada will open its doors to hundreds of Afghan workers who have risked their lives to assist our military and diplomats in their war-torn country.

Afghan Troop Pullout Plan Sought by German Minister Steinmeier
Bloomberg By Tony Czuczka and Brian Parkin Sept. 14, 2009
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wants to create the conditions for an international troop withdrawal from Afghanistan within four years, his spokesman said.
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UN officials in Afghanistan at odds over election
By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – A top American official at the United Nations mission in Afghanistan has temporarily left the country following a disagreement with his boss over how to respond to the massive allegations of vote fraud in the Aug. 20 presidential election, officials said Tuesday.

The official, Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and currently the deputy special U.N. representative for Afghanistan, was in charge of political affairs. He left the country on Sunday.

The top U.N. official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said Galbraith himself suggested that he leave the country for a short time. Eide said he expects Galbraith to return.

"Primarily, we had a somewhat different approach to the election process," Eide told The Associated Press, explaining why Galbraith asked to leave.

Eide declined to say what the differences were that led to Galbraith's departure. He said there had been "no critical reaction" from the international community over Galbraith's leaving, including from the U.S. Embassy.

Galbraith and Eide will both be at the United Nations headquarters in New York at the end of the month for a quarterly Security Council update on Afghanistan, said U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards.

The apparent disagreement between top U.N. officials exposes the tensions within Kabul's diplomatic community over how to respond to the election's messy aftermath. The U.N.-backed complaints commission announced Tuesday that ballots from about 10 percent of polling sites will have to be recounted because of possible fraud.

That increases the likelihood of a run-off between incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his top challenger Abdullah Abdullah who claims the election has been rigged in Karzai's favor. Resolving the election could take weeks and fears are growing of political unrest.

Eide said that he believes a second-round vote can be held before winter sets in if necessary.

Nearly complete preliminary results show Karzai with 54 percent and Abdullah with 28 percent, but Karzai is likely to lose thousands of votes after fraud allegations are examined, which could push him below the 50 percent threshold for outright victory.

Eide said that to delay any second round into next year would leave a dangerous political vacuum.

"To delay the process until summer next year, it would leave us without a legitimate government in a country that is in a serious armed conflict, and I think that's dangerous," he said.

But the departure of Galbraith raised questions about how much pressure the U.N. team here might be applying to election officials and whether the U.N. and U.S. see eye to eye on the counting process.

"Go to the U.S. Embassy and ask if they can put a razor blade between my position and their position. Our views are identical," Eide said. "It's tremendously important for me now not to be seen as doing anything else but slavishly follow the rules and laws that have been established. That to me is absolutely key. To be seen to deviate from that role in one way or another is dangerous."

A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, Caitlin Hayden, said: "Our relationship with UNAMA is strong and stronger than it's ever been," referring to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Galbraith could not be reached for comment.

He arrived at his U.N. post in June. He worked for the U.N. in East Timor in 2000-2001 and as the U.S. ambassador to Croatia from 1993 to 1998.
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Rigging-weakened Karzai facing monstrous challenges if re-elected
By Hadi Mayar, Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's sitting President Hamid Karzai confronts diverse challenges on internal and external fronts as he staggers towards his second term in office in the wake of the last month's presidential election marred by massive fraud allegations.

According to the unofficial partial results, Karzai is leading far ahead of his major rival, winning enough vote percentage to avoid a runoff poll.

However, the enormous rigging charges, ranging from ballot-box stuffing to intimidation of voters, have drastically diminished the credibility of the ballot, casting doubt on his authority as apresident commanding public support.

The Election Complaint Commission (ECC) has so far received over 2,800 complaints about election frauds, of which 726 have been deemed serious.

Last week, the commission invalidated votes in 83 polling stations in central, southern, and eastern Afghanistan, where Karzai had strong support.

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's major electoral rival, alleged the other day that the latter had manipulated the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), claiming that election officials had colluded in fraud on Karzai's behalf.

Even Afghanistan's Western allies, particularly the United States and Britain, expressed their reservations about the election process last week.

Although Karzai was tipped as a potential winner before the election, opinion polls had showed him short of the absolute 51 percent majority, indicating that he might have to fight a runoff poll against his runner-up, Dr. Abdullah.

The rigging charges and international reservations have certainly put a question mark to Karzai's authority to steer his country out of heightening militancy, lack of governance, administrative corruption, economic crunch, drug trafficking, and lack of international credibility.

In an interview with the BBC World Services last week, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari accused that Afghanistan had a 5 billion U.S. dollars narco-economy, which fed insurgency in the region.

The charge of narco-dollars stimulating insurgency in Afghanistan might be a little exaggerated, but there is no denying the fact that Afghanistan still remains the top suppliers for world narcotics market.

As for the Taliban insurgency, it has already grown out of proportion, making the month of August "the deadliest month of the deadliest year" ever since the breaking of war against Afghan militants in October 2001.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff,earlier this month described the situation in Afghanistan as "serious and deteriorating".

In a CNN interview, Mullen said, "I don't think that threat is going to go away."

Gen. Stanley Mc Chrystal, the American NATO commander in Afghanistan, is in the final stage of his strategic review.

Media reports suggest that his proposed new strategy mainly hinges on increasing the number of Afghan soldiers and police to put them in the frontline of counter-insurgency efforts.

Under the existing plan, over 134,000 Afghan troops are to be trained by late 2011, but U.S. officials said that number will need to be greatly increased.

While building capacity of the Afghan armed forces may prove a challenge for Karzai, he may also have to show his resolution on stopping civilian casualties in NATO and U.S. forces' raids.

Last week, the Afghan and international media took a serious exception when NATO forces launched a drive to free a New York Time correspondent abducted and held hostage by militants in the northern Kunduz province.

Although the American forces succeeded to free the Irish journalist, his Afghan colleague, a Germany-based student, was killed along with a woman and a child in the process.

British media reports said the militants had already agreed to free both the journalists.

The killing of over 70 people, mostly civilians, in Kunduz two weeks ago, had sparked massive criticism.

Economic woes, particularly poverty and unemployment, had remained the major issues coming into limelight during the election campaign.

Karzai will have to heal the wounds of his people. To surmount all these challenges, the new Afghan president will, however, first have to purge his administration, from top to grassroots level, of corruption and enhance its capacity to effectively take on the formidable challenges.
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Afghan ECC Orders Recount at 10 Percent of Voting Sites
By VOA News 15 September 2009
A top election official in Afghanistan says votes from 10 percent of the country's polling stations must be recounted due to indications of fraud in last month's presidential election.

The chairman of Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission, Grant Kippen, said Tuesday officials will need to audit and recount votes at about 2,500 polling sites.

The U.N.-backed ECC has already ordered thousands of votes thrown out from 83 polling stations due to "clear and convincing evidence of fraud."

In other election-related news, a senior U.S. official at the United Nations mission in Afghanistan has left the country after a disagreement with his boss about how to respond to the massive allegations of vote fraud.

U.N. officials announced Tuesday that Peter Galbraith, the deputy special U.N. representative for Afghanistan, left Kabul within the past two days after an argument with his Norwegian boss, Kai Eide.

U.N. officials say they expect Galbraith to return soon. They did not provide details about the disagreement that prompted him to leave.

Last week, the U.N.-backed ECC ordered Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission to recount ballot boxes from stations with 100 percent turnout, or sites where a candidate received more than 95 percent of the valid votes.

And Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission announced last week that President Hamid Karzai has more than the 50 percent of the votes needed to avoid a runoff, with nearly all of the votes tallied. His main challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, has 28 percent of the vote.

Dr. Abdullah and other candidates are disputing the results, which will not be final until the ECC finishes its investigation into the allegations of widespread fraud.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
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Karzai rival warns: Vote fraud would doom U.S. involvement
By Hal Bernton And Jonathan S. Landay, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Mon Sep 14, 5:03 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — The leading challenger in Afghanistan's national elections warned Monday that if President Hamid Karzai wins another term based on a fraudulent vote, the U.S.-led war against al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan will fail.

"We will have a vacuum of power, security and stability," Abdullah Abdullah told McClatchy . "Five years of illegitimate rule cannot be sustained by more troops or more resources."

Abdullah was the runner-up in the Aug. 20 presidential election that Karzai won, according to disputed initial tallies. Evidence of widespread fraud, however, has put a cloud over the outcome, which has yet to be announced. Abdullah, an ophthalmologist-turned-politician, is hoping that that fraud investigations will strip enough votes from Karzai to force a runoff either this autumn or after the snow clears in the spring.

Abdullah said Western publics are unlikely to tolerate a political outcome based on fraud. He said the Western nations already are paying "to maintain this corrupt government" and have to justify their presence before their own people. "It's not like Western governments can cheat their own populations forever," he said.

A Karzai spokesman on Monday said that Abdullah's comments reflect a candidate who fears defeat, and is now trying to undermine the Afghan electoral system.

Once an international emissary for the United Front , an anti- Taliban alliance, Abdullah received strong support in northern Afghanistan provinces that from 1996 to 2001 served as a stronghold for the Front, also known as the Northern Alliance .

Some of the main supply routes for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan run through Northern Alliance strongholds, and so does some of the country's electrical grid. Many Western officials are concerned that Abdullah supporters might block some of the routes or take control of the infrastructure if Karzai declares himself the winner of the elections.

The issue has also drawn the attention of top tier officials in the State Department as President Barack Obama deliberates future U.S. troop levels for Afghanistan . On Monday, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman denied a McClatchy weekend report that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Karzai last week to urge that the fraud standards not be relaxed.

Abdullah said on a visit to Charikar in Padrwan Province north of Kabul Sunday, he met frustrated supporters who wanted to demonstrate their discontent. He said he urged them to be calm but added that he couldn't predict what will happen.

"I will do my utmost to avoid violence. I know how difficult it is to reverse things once they go in that direction," Abdullah said. "But I can't guarantee anything and everything that will happen in this country. Nobody can."

There already is plenty of violence in this nation spawned by fighting between Afghan and international forces and the Taliban -led insurgency. Last month, 51 U.S. troops died in Afghanistan , the highest monthly death toll in the eight-year war, and September is shaping up to be another bloody month.

A spokesman for the Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior said the government would respect the rights of Afghans to protest peacefully, but won't tolerate any actions to disturb the peace.

"We don't expect civil unrest," said Zemari Bashari, an Interior Ministry spokesman. "But bad guys who want to bring insecurity to the people of Afghanistan . . . we are obligated to stop those activities."

The political crisis has been triggered by widespread reports of ballot box stuffing and other misconduct, and hundreds of thousands of votes are now in question.

McClatchy reported Saturday that Afghanistan's independent election commission decided to lower its standards last week to count enough votes to put Karzai over the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff election. On Aug. 29 , the commission established a set of standards to exclude questionable votes, but when an analysis of the results showed that the exclusions would put Karzai's tally below 50 percent, the commission cast a second vote on Sept. 7 to loosen the fraud standards, according to a commission official and Western official in Afghanistan .

Abdullah alleged Monday that Karzai had personally intervened to pressure Afghanistan's election commission to relax the standards for ferreting out fraud.

Abdullah also alleged that Karzai has sought to claim the presidency even before fraud investigations are completed and the tallies are officially certified, but has refrained under pressure from Western officials.

A Karzai spokesman dismissed the allegations. Waheed Omar told McClatchy that Karzai hadn't intervened with the election commission and had never contemplated claiming victory until the fraud investigations are complete.

"These are very serious allegations, and if he cannot produce evidence to support those allegations, then that will require an investigation," Omar said. "We believe there are limits to what someone can do."

The initial tally of all the Aug. 20 votes is expected to be announced this week.

Omar said that Karzai's share of the vote will bump up slightly from its current level of 54 percent to as high as 56 percent.

U.S. and other Western officials have been monitoring the election aftermath. Senior U.S. officials have met Karzai as well as Abdullah, and the U.S. Embassy urged a full investigation.

The fraud investigations may take weeks to complete, and only then can the vote can gain final certification.

Omar doesn't think these investigations will push Karzai below 50 percent.

"We believe there will be no reason for a runoff."
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What I Saw While Afghanistan Voted
Commentary By Ellen Bork Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 15, 2009
The day before the August 20 elections in Afghanistan, Ghazni Province Governor Osman Osmani’s prediction of an 80 percent voter turnout in his region seemed dubious. Considering the deteriorating security situation and Taliban threats against voters, an 80 percent turnout would be a sign of fraud, not voter enthusiasm.

Yet preparations were obviously being made for a “high turnout,” if not an honest one. According to one analysis, Ghazni had registered 50 percent more voters than was credible. This week, the country’s Electoral Complaints Commission threw out ballots from 27 polling stations in Ghazni Province and ordered recounts at other stations.

My colleague, Steve, and I arrived from Kabul via Blackhawk helicopter to observe the election a couple of days before the vote. The new ring road linking the capital to the south was not safe enough to drive. In Ghazni, we were based with a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) run by the Poles and the Americans.

The plan was for us to coordinate with U.S. officials to monitor the voting. As it turned out, they don’t travel without a military escort and, under election rules, military vehicles couldn’t go near the polling stations, where security was handled by the police. (Obviously, the Taliban don’t observe this prohibition.)

Meetings In Body Armor

We went to our meeting with the governor in body armor, escorted by impressive gentlemen from the U.S. military to the nearby OCC-P, the fortified coordination point for international coalition forces and the Afghan Army and police. Probably it was considered too dangerous to call on the governor at his office. Seeing as he’d survived three assassination attempts, including one when a suicide bomber flung himself across the windshield of a decoy car in the governor’s convoy, I thought this was a good call.

While waiting for the governor, we were told that one of his deputies, a district official, had raped a woman. According to the story, her husband then turned her over to the Taliban for indecency, or whatever it’s called, and they killed her. Initially suspended, the official was reappointed to his post. Hearing this, our Afghan interpreter announced his intention to emigrate and left the room in disgust.

Governor Osmani swept in with his entourage and shook everyone’s hand, including mine. In my opinion, Westerners worry way too much about whether Afghan men shake a woman’s hand or not. I don’t shake unless they offer. Sometimes they do. Once, a warlord put out his hand, and I shook it. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

The governor sat at one end of the prefab paneled room darkened against the sun by curtains the colors of the Afghan flag -- black, red, and green. He seemed a little harried under the circumstances, but smooth and charismatic. Things were going reasonably well, the governor said in good English. Considering the country was at war. True, he conceded, some election officials had abandoned their posts. In Nawa district on the Pakistan end of the province, there wouldn’t be any voting at all. Some election materials still hadn’t made it to the polling stations. He offered what may have been an Afghan proverb: “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

While we couldn’t actually go to the polls, there was a lot of election-related action at the PRT. At the request of the Afghans, the PRT was working almost around the clock preparing the elections in remote and violent parts of the province. Steve and I flew by helicopter to a nearby district, to drop off election workers, cardboard voting booths, ballots, and ballot boxes.

I spent election day in the PRT’s Tactical Operations Center (TOC), reading news stories on my Blackberry, watching the feed from the aerostat, a blimp sending images of the area around the base, and getting reports from the OCC-P, where Steve was. My log of events begins:

06:50: Boom. Shop destroyed by rocket in Ghazni City.

07:05: Boom - FOB Vulcan [one of the Polish forward operating bases] rocketed.

07:24: Five rockets near Khogyani district (5:30 a.m.); three near district center.

07:26: Report of attacks on Rashidan district center. Request for air support.

07:40: Afghan military/police convoy of election materials attacked in Gelan district.

Midmorning, “The Wall Street Journal” reported two people had been lynched for voting in Kandahar.

Around then, someone came into the TOC wearing body armor and a helmet and said the security level was Dress Code 2. There was disagreement over whether Dress Code 2 meant helmets or no helmets indoors, but I put on my vest, which easily weighed 30 pounds, and sat back down.

Taking Cover

The day went on like that with reports of improvised explosive devices, raids on polling centers, and rocket attacks on Ghazni City. At the PRT, we only had to take cover in a bunker twice. A public address system had only just been set up, and the announcements were in Polish so no one knew if the siren was the signal to take cover or the “all clear.”

After a while, hearing no more explosions, people wandered out. At about 11 o’clock that night, someone ran down the hallway outside our rooms, calling for volunteers to help unload Afghan Army wounded coming in from an attack in one of the rougher districts. The number of casualties expected kept changing, and the arrivals were delayed because the evacuation helicopters had trouble getting into the landing zone to pick them up. Only a few soldiers came in and fortunately most could walk, but later on we learned the next group included a fatality.

A couple of days later, while we waited for our helicopter back to Kabul, we heard an explosion and saw a dust cloud on the other side of the airstrip. A contractor in a makeshift office had fortunately decided to visit the men’s room. When he came back, there was a neat hole in the back of his chair.

Expectations for the Afghan elections were less than modest. Even a low turnout would have been acceptable since, the thinking went, the Pashtun areas, which were most dangerous, would probably support Karzai anyway. But a very low turnout, estimated at 10 to 15 percent, combined with massive fraud and apparent official collusion, upset plans to build on a Karzai victory by drawing his rivals into government.

Still, I resist the temptation some feel to minimize the problems with the August vote.

“I am an American who lived through an imperfect election eight years ago,” U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke said in July, apparently referring to the 2008 U.S. presidential election. “I am not going to hold Afghanistan to standards which even the United States does not achieve.”

For my part, I think it would be a good thing if Afghanistan’s people waited peacefully for nearly six weeks while its supreme court settled the outcome of a contested election by ruling on the constitutionality of voting procedures in a decisive province.

The analyst Martine van Biljert called someone in Ghazni on the telephone. "How did the election go in Ghazni? Or how did it not go?” she asked him. He laughed. "No, no, there was an election. It took place in the governor's guesthouse, and in the compounds of the district governors, and in several houses. It's still ongoing."

Someone should have told the 10 to 15 percent who risked their lives by going to polling stations.

Ellen Bork is director of democracy and human rights at the Foreign Policy Initiative. The views expressed in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.
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US: Afghan govt failures as dangerous as Taliban
Tue Sep 15, 3:00 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The top US military officer said Tuesday that the Afghan people's doubts about their government's effectiveness and legitimacy posed as serious a threat to US goals there as Taliban fighters.

"I consider the threat from lack of governance to be equal to the threat from the Taliban," Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

US-led forces drove the Taliban from power in late 2001, but the Islamist insurgents have returned and asserted control over parts of Afghanistan because of "the lack of legitimacy in the (Afghan) government at every level."

Mullen expressed serious concerns that charges of vote-rigging in the war-torn country's recent presidential ballot would only deepen doubts Afghans have about their government in Kabul.

"There needs to be a level of legitimacy that the Afghan people see in their government, whether it's local to national, and there's a great question about that right now, and so far, the elections are not helping," he said.

"We need to get through these elections, see what the results are, see who we're dealing with, what's the government look like and move forward accordingly. But that issue of legitimacy is a huge, huge issue," he said.

The electoral complaints body in Kabul has announced that ballots at 10 percent of Afghanistan's polling stations will be recounted due to indications of fraud during last month's controversial polls.

With most of the votes from August 20 tallied, President Hamid Karzai leads with 54.3 percent against his main rival Abdullah Abdullah's 28.1 percent.

But US officials worry that the dispute will further sink US public support for the eight-year-old war, which has dropped to dismal depths even as Washington debates sending more troops there.

"We could send a million troops, and that will not restore legitimacy to their government. Would you agree with that?" asked Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

"That is a fact," said Mullen.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine asked Mullen whether corruption in the Afghan government and "the shadow over the legitimacy" of the presidential vote hurts US efforts to present an alternative to the Taliban.

"There's no question," said Mullen.

"The Afghan government needs to at some point in time appear to be -- you know, to actually be -- to have some legitimacy in the eyes of its people," he added.

"And the core issue in that regard is the corruption piece, and in many ways it's been a way of life there for some time, and that's got to fundamentally change. That threat is every bit the threat that the Taliban is," he said.
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Afghan's presidential candidate calls for criminal enquiry
Hindustan Times - India 15 Sept 2009
Accusing President Hamid Karzai of staging "state engineered fraud", his main challenger in Afghanistan's presidential elections Abdullah Abdullah has said that this amounted to worse than a crime.

"The massive vote rigging in last month's elections is worse than a crime, it's treason," Abdullah told The Times.

"Karzai doesn't think about the country, he thinks only of himself. He has been caught red-handed," he said.

Abdullah said, "what's at stake is Afghanistan, the future of this country. The country will die because of this sort of thing. Fraud is the extension of this corruption which prevailed in this system."

Abdullah, a former foreign minister, is trailing Karzai in partial results published by the Independent Elections Commission, an organisation that he claims is under the control of the President's supporters.

A UN-backed elections watchdog ordered the IEC to begin a massive recount of votes last week, saying that it had unearthed "clear and convincing evidence of fraud".

Although Karzai narrowly passed the 50 per cent threshold that would allow him to avoid a run-off, the recount could push his support below the 50 per cent level and force the country to have a vote for a second time.

Abdullah admitted that although an investigation is required, there is at present no independent judiciary to take up the task. His allegations have been backed up by international election monitors, who cited numerous witness testimonies.
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Afghan clashes kill 27 Taliban
Tue Sep 15, 10:17 am ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan and foreign forces killed 27 Taliban militants in gunfights and an air strike in a rebel stronghold of Kandahar province, police and the government said Tuesday.

The battles took place in Zeheri district in a joint operation to clear militant hideouts in the southern province, where the Taliban have a strong presence, said deputy Kandahar police chief Mohammad Shah Khan.

"During the operation Monday in Ashobo area, where the air force was also used, 27 armed opposition were killed. It was a Taliban hideout," he said.

Afghanistan's defence ministry confirmed the incident and the death toll, saying that operations in the area were ongoing.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, told AFP four militants were killed and five civilians died in the crossfire. The insurgent militia is known to exaggerate its claims.

The clashes come with a Taliban insurgency at its deadliest since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the group's hardline regime and with Afghanistan facing political turmoil following a fraud-tainted presidential election last month.
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EU Weighs Afghan Conference in Kabul, Voices Election Concern
By James G. Neuger and Caroline Alexander
Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- European Union leaders weighed calling an international summit in Kabul to step up western support for Afghanistan and pressure the future government to do more to stabilize the war-wracked country.

Planning for a summit -- proposed by Germany, France and the U.K. -- is getting under way as Afghan officials examine allegations of fraud tarnishing voting last month that puts President Hamid Karzai on track for a second term.

“If it’s possible to have a conference in Kabul I would prefer that, but if it’s not possible, we’ll have it somewhere else,” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told reporters after chairing an EU meeting in Brussels today. At the same time, he said that “for all the problems in Afghanistan, I don’t think the lack of international conferences is the number one.”

EU foreign ministers pledged to do more to build a functioning economy and state in Afghanistan, even though they haven’t delivered on promises to supply additional trainers for the undermanned and poorly equipped Afghan police.

Western governments “have to put a bit of pressure on the Afghan side” to stabilize the country, “but we too have to strengthen our efforts to create the conditions for reducing the troop presence,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

Steinmeier, running against Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s Sept. 27 election, claimed broad EU support for an Afghan summit.

EU national governments and central EU bodies have contributed at least 9 billion euros ($13 billion) to Afghanistan since 2002, the year after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban.

To contact the reporters on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net; Caroline Alexander in Brussels at Calexander1@bloomberg.net
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Mullen Says More Forces 'Probably' Needed in Afghanistan
Adm. Mike Mullen was warmly received Tuesday at a confirmation hearing for his second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but there were sharp differences over further increasing a U.S. force in Afghanistan which President Obama nearly doubled this year.
By Wendell Goler FOXNews.com Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The nation's top military officer warned Tuesday that an effective counterinsurgency in Afghanistan "probably means more forces" need to be sent there.

Adm. Mike Mullen's comments put him at odds with a number of lawmakers who are skeptical about any calls for more troops.

While he was warmly received Tuesday at a confirmation hearing for his second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there were sharp differences over further increasing a U.S. force in Afghanistan which President Obama nearly doubled this year.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., warned the United States must "avoid the risks associated with a larger ... footprint."

Levin said that in a recent visit to Afghanistan, he noticed U.S. Marines outnumbered Afghan security forces five-to-one in Helmand Province. Levin and most others on the committee have called for increasing the size of the Afghan army nearly twice as much as Obama's current strategy envisions.

Obama is hoping to train an Afghan force of about 134,000 troops by 2010. Levin suggests 250,000 soldiers by 2013, a goal supported by most others on the committee.

But Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain warned that simply increasing the size of the Afghan army without a corresponding increase in U.S. troops is destined to fail.

"I've seen that movie before," McCain said, referring to Iraq before the surge. McCain also warned Obama not to be swayed by dwindling public support for the war in Afghanistan. He said there's a "temptation to wash our hands of a difficult situation in Afghanistan. We can't make this fatal mistake again."

Mullen strongly suggested that the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, will recommend more troops be sent to the region in a coming "assessment."

Mullen expects that will be sent to the White House "in a couple of weeks." Mullen said McChrystal found the situation "much worse than he expected" when he took control of the forces in Afghanistan in June. Mullen said the general was "alarmed by the insurgency" and needs to "retake the initiative from insurgents who have grabbed it over the past three years."

Mullen said the United States has "very badly under-resourced Afghanistan for the better part of five years." He said it's "very clear we need more resources to execute the president's strategy," though Mullen said he'd await McChrystal's report "to evaluate specifically what that means."

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., warned about comparing Afghanistan to Iraq, saying Iraq is "used to a strong central government" and that Afghanistan "has never been governed centrally." Mullen said he favors a "relatively weak central government that isn't corrupt."

Mullen also touched on the prospect of an Iraqi referendum on the Status of Forces agreement that currently authorizes U.S. troops to be in that country through 2011. He said there is "great concern" by the commander of U.S. forces, Gen. Ray Odierno, and U.S. Ambassador Chris Hill, and that the "outcome is critical."

Interestingly, Vice President Biden, who made a surprise visit to Iraq Tuesday, said Odierno is "optimistic" and "believes we will be able to meet the letter of the SOFA."

In a speech in March, Obama said our goal is "to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return in the future."
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Afghan rift bared as US military chief challenges Barack Obama
Giles Whittell in Washington, Michael Evans and Catherine Philp The Times (UK) September 16, 2009
Deep rifts at the heart of Western policy on Afghanistan were laid bare yesterday when President Obama’s top military adviser challenged him to authorise a troop surge that his most senior congressional allies have said they will oppose.

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that more US troops as well as a rapid increase in the size and capability of the Afghan army were needed to carry out the President’s own strategy for prevailing in Afghanistan as the eighth anniversary of a debilitating war approaches.

His remarks to a Senate hearing came as Bob Ainsworth, the British Defence Secretary, said that the Taleban had proven a resilient enemy. “We’re far from succeeding against them yet but I reject that we’re not making progress,” he said at King’s College London.

Mr Obama also rejected claims that Afghanistan was turning into a quagmire akin to Vietnam, but his immediate dilemma is political: approving a surge could trigger a high-level mutiny within his own party. Making matters worse, a new poll showed that public support for the war has slumped since April.

“Each historical moment is different,” Mr Obama said in an interview published yesterday. “You never step into the same river twice, and so Afghanistan is not Vietnam.”

The call for more troops is supported by military commanders and Senate Republicans, including Senator John McCain, who warned yesterday that a “wait and see” approach to a surge risked repeating the “nearly catastrophic mistakes” that the US made in Iraq.

General Stanley McChrystal, in charge of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, is expected to make specific troop requests to add to the 68,000 already committed to Afghanistan within the next fortnight.

A central plank of his strategy, led by General Graham Lamb, of Britain, would be to try to induce low and middle-ranking Taleban fighters to fight for the Government, repeating tactics pioneered by General Lamb in Iraq two years ago, Admiral Mullen said. Britain has about 9,000 troops in the country. If he accepts his commanders’ recommendations, Mr Obama will have to remake the case for a war that had overwhelming public support until this year. He has a tough fight to persuade fellow Democrats that new troops are needed.

Democratic senators lined up yesterday to reject calls for more US combat troops. Senator Russ Feingold warned that he and “a growing chorus” of Democrats would refuse to back sending more reinforcements.

Calling for a flexible timetable for withdrawal, he insisted that “continuing to build up troops in Afghanistan is the exact formula to increase support for the Taleban”.

The argument was echoed in London by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which warned that the continued presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan could be more destabilising than withdrawal.

Admiral Mullen’s appearance before the Senate Armed Forces Committee was ostensibly an uncontroversial renomination for two more years as America’s most senior uniformed officer. In practice, he had to walk a tightrope, defending General McChrystal’s recent assessment of the Afghan security situation while explaining his failure so far to state the number of extra troops he needs, and making the case for a surge without prejudging the decisions of his Commander-in-Chief.

“I support a properly resourced, classically pursued counter-insurgency strategy,” he told the committee. “You can’t do that from offshore and you can’t do that just by killing the bad guys. You have to be there.”

Asked by Mr McCain if the preferred Democratic solution of leaving security to a strengthened Afghan army would suffice, Admiral Mullen said: “No, sir.” Mr McCain then referred to speculation that Mr Obama had delayed tackling the issue of specific troop numbers because of the drain on his time and political capital caused by the healthcare debate. “I believe the President can do both,” his former opponent in the White House race said.

Yesterday the debate was decorous. It is likely to turn acrimonious in the weeks ahead as Republicans train their fire on delays that they will argue have put American lives at risk.

When Admiral Mullen revealed that General Lamb had initiated an effort to win over Taleban fighters, he was asked why it had taken so long. “It has not been an area of focus,” he said.

Asked how the Taleban could have the initiative against the world’s most powerful military despite having no tanks or aircraft, the admiral replied: “They’re very good at it. It’s their country. They know how to fight.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, one of an influential cross-party trio likely to frame the congressional response to Mr Obama’s next move on Afghanistan, alluded to a new CNN poll showing a 14 per cent drop in public backing for the war. He asked Admiral Mullen: “Do you understand that you’ve got one more shot back home?” The admiral said that he did.
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Obama: 'Afghanistan is not Vietnam'
Agence France-Presse via National Post Tuesday, September 15, 2009
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Barack Obama rejected comparisons between the deepening US involvement in Afghanistan and the Vietnam war in an interview with the New York Times published Tuesday.

Some commentators have suggested that Mr. Obama could suffer the same fate as 1960s Democratic president Lyndon Johnson who saw his reformist administration eventually consumed by an entanglement in a war half a world away.

But Mr. Obama, who is aiming to enact a hugely ambitious domestic agenda while dealing with multiple crises abroad, rejected the comparison.

"You have to learn lessons from history. On the other hand, each historical moment is different," Mr. Obama said in a joint interview with the New York Times and CNBC.

"You never step into the same river twice. And so Afghanistan is not Vietnam."

Mr. Obama is currently considering a strategic review of U.S. operations in Afghanistan and is widely expected to receive a request from the military for more US troops in the coming weeks.

The president added in the interview however that he thought all the time about the dangers of overreach in Afghanistan and of not having clear goals or strong support from the American people on the war.

A new CNN Opinion Research poll released Tuesday meanwhile showed support among the U.S. public for the Afghan war had hit a new low.

Some 58 percent of respondents said they opposed the conflict, while 39% were in favour.

A previous CNN poll released two weeks ago showed 57% of Americans opposed to the war in Afghanistan.
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Mass grave unearthed in Afghanistan
Tue Sep 15, 9:40 am ET
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – A mass grave was unearthed on Tuesday in northern Afghanistan containing at least 20 bodies believed to date from the Soviet-backed government era, an official said.

Construction workers found the grave in Ali Abad district, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the capital of Kunduz province, district governor Habibullah Muhtashim told AFP.

"Up to 15 dead bodies have been discovered so far, while more are expected to be unearthed during ongoing work," he said. Another five bodies were found later in the day, he added.

"They were bayoneted and were buried under the earth. There were bayonet holes in their Russian-made jackets."

During Soviet-backed rule in the late 1970s, a group of 35 people were arrested in Ali Abad district and were never heard of again, and the bodies could be those of the missing Afghans, Muhtashim said.

Investigations were ongoing, he added.

Following a Soviet-backed coup in 1978, Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan after it invaded in December 1979, sparking an uprising by mujahedeen fighters.

The provincial head of the country's Independent Human Rights Commission, Zabuhullah Paiwand, termed the mass grave "a war crime" and strongly condemned it. He said those responsible must be arrested and punished.
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British chief of army staff calls on Afghan president
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Britain's chief of Army Staff General David Richards called on Afghan President Hamid Karzai Tuesday and exchanged views on the situation in Afghanistan, a press release of Afghan presidency said.

"In the meeting in Presidential Palace matters pertaining the war on terror, strengthening Afghan security forces and enhancing bilateral relations between the two countries came under discussion," the press release added.

The British military dignitary assured his country's of full support in war against terrorism and durable stability in Afghanistan, the press release further said.

More than 8,000 British forces have been serving within the frame of NATO in Afghanistan to stabilize security in the post-Taliban country where 77 British soldiers lost their lives so far this year. 　
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Extracting Uranium by British troops baseless: Afghan Minister
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan Minister for Mines and Industries Mohammad Ibrahim Adil has rejected the claims that British forces in southern Helmand province illegally extracting uranium, a local news agency Pajhwok reported Tuesday.

Adil made these remarks in response to a parliamentarian Sediquezada Nili in Wolesi Jirga or Lower House on Monday, Pajhwok said.

However, the minister admitted that Britain's flag could be seen near the uranium deposit "This meant to alarm people not to enter the area to save them from paralyzing."

Adil, according to the news agency, added that exploration work on uranium mines would only be feasible if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gives permission.

More than 8,000 British forces with majority of them deployed in Helmand have been serving in Afghanistan to stabilize security in the war-battered country.
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Afghanistan burden wearing down U.S.
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The deaths of four U.S. soldiers last Saturday in a spate of militant attacks that also killed dozens of Afghan security forces and civilians happened a day after Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told the U.S. Senate the training of Afghanistan's own forces should be stepped up before committing additional U.S. troops in that country.

Such a strategy "will show our commitment to the success of mission that is clearly in our national security interests, without creating a bigger U.S. military footprint that provides propaganda fodder for the Taliban," the influential Michigan Democrat, who recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan, was quoted as saying.

Sobering words that point to the prevailing mood about Afghanistan within President Barack Obama's own party which, as noted by The New York Times, the president would need to consider when deciding whether to send more troops to that country in addition to the 68,000 already committed.

Earlier in the week, another influential Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was quoted as saying she did not think "there is a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in Congress."

Separately, the Voice of America reported on a finding last week by a London policy institute that the Taliban's activity has spread to 80 percent of Afghanistan, just eight years after its regime was destroyed. The finding should come as no surprise, with U.S. commanders having acknowledged the Afghan ground situation has deteriorated.

Adding to U.S. concerns is the unresolved issue of the Afghan elections, whose outcome is mired in serious voter fraud complaints, with thousands of questionable votes already set aside by the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission.

Though preliminary results show President Hamid Karzai with a huge lead in his bid for a second term, it is the Complaints Commission, made up of Afghans and foreigners, that is the final arbiter and not Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, which is battling its own allegations.

But the Complaints Commission's work may take weeks or months to complete as all the hundreds of serious complaints must first be resolved before it certifies the election results, as that could affect the final outcome.

But any delay would leave the already fractured country without an effective government, giving more fodder to the Taliban to claim vindication of its opposition to foreign presence as also the elections. Britain's Daily Telegraph reported U.S. officials were frantically trying to get Karzai to agree to a power-sharing deal with his nearest poll rival, Abdullah Abdullah, to avert such a situation. But such an arrangement could set off another set of problems.

Britain's Guardian reported these developments can only raise the stakes for the United States and Britain, where popular support is dwindling fast for a war seen only as favoring a corrupt and ineffective regime at untold cost both in terms of men and resources to the United States and its allies. The months of July and August were the bloodiest for U.S. forces with more than 90 dead, not counting the September casualties. The situation is no better for Britain, which has lost more than 200 of its soldiers since 2001.

Some experts have even begun drawing comparisons between the Afghanistan situation and the Vietnam War, the VOA reported. But those who disagree say there are major differences with Afghanistan being far more ethnically diverse with deep tribal links. They say the goal of the Afghan war is to prevent the Taliban and al-Qaida from securing a home base, whereas in Vietnam the objective was to stop a communist-backed insurgency. U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan is also far below the peak reached in Vietnam.

Despite the rising burden of Afghanistan, commentators like Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria argue against a withdrawal.

In his recent column in the news magazine, Zakaria wrote, "The United States, NATO, the European Union, and other nations have invested massively in stabilizing the country over the past eight years" and a withdrawal would only bring back the region's players, resulting in the "revival of the poisonous alliance between the Pakistani military and the hardest-line elements of the Taliban."
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Taliban commander surrenders to Afghan gov't: media
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Salam has laid down arms and surrendered to the government in Afghanistan's northwest Badghis province, a local newspaper said Tuesday.

"Mullah Abdul Salam along with one of his comrade surrendered to the government and handed over two pieces of weapons," daily 8 Subh reported in its edition.

Quoting the police chief of the province Syed Ahmad Sami, the newspaper said that mediation of elders had played a significant role in convincing Mullah Salam to lay down arms.

Taliban militants have yet to make any comment.
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Rocket attacks wound 2 children in E Afghan
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Rockets fired by militants in Khost province in east of Afghanistan wounded two children and caused panic among the locals on Tuesday, police said.

"Some 10 rockets fired by Taliban rebels in Sabari district Tuesday, one of which struck a house injuring two innocent children," district police chief Rasoul Marjan told Xinhua. Taliban insurgents have speed up attacks.

Conflicts and Taliban-linked insurgency, according to UN report released recently, had claimed more than 1000 civilian lives until June, which means a 24 percent increase compared with the same period last year.　
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Roadside bomb wounds 2 in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bomb struck one government vehicle in Heart province west of Afghanistan Tuesday, wounding two persons including a child, police said.

"It was 01:00 p.m. local time when a roadside bomb planted by rebels hit a car of Rural Development Department injuring the driver and a child," deputy to provincial police chief Dilawar Shah Dilawar told Xinhua.

Meantime, a shadowy militant group introduced itself as Al-Fatah claimed of responsibility.

Unknown man, who speaks for the group told media via telephone from undisclosed location, claimed that fighters loyal to Al-Fatah which is different from Taliban carried out the attack.
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EXCLUSIVE: Taliban makes IEDs deadlier
Rowan Scarborough (Contact) The Washington Times September 15, 2009
The Taliban has been building simpler, cheaper anti-personnel bombs made of hard-to-detect nonmetal components, increasing the number of lethal attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to a confidential military report.

The shift in the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) away from larger anti-armor bombs has allowed the Taliban to produce more weapons and hide them in more places as they strive to kill larger numbers of American forces in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province and other contested regions.

The change in production from metal-dominated explosives to devices made of plastic is making it more difficult for ground troops to detect the buried IEDs with portable mine-detectors, creating an "urgent need" inside the Pentagon for better detection devices, the report said.

The new Taliban tactics are disclosed in a confidential report from the Pentagon's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, portions of which were obtained by The Washington Times.

The area around Now Zad, northwest of Kandahar, has experienced some of the most ferocious fighting for control of southern Afghanistan since the surge of 21,000 U.S. troops began last spring. News reports and military bloggers say Marines on patrol face a constant threat from hidden IEDs.

"Although the Taliban still fights with small-arms, rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices, they have increasingly focused the role of IEDs as antipersonnel devices," the report said. "Smaller, lighter, more quickly constructed and quite often triggered by a victim-operated switch [booby trap], these antipersonnel IEDs have been a significant factor in labeling Now Zad the most dangerous location with the highest U.S. casualty rate in either the Afghan or Iraq theaters."

The Aug. 11 report, titled, "The Taliban's Emerging IED TTPs in the Proving Grounds of Now Zad, Helmand Province," was written by an analyst at U.S. Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan. TTPs is short for tactics, techniques and procedures.

The shift in tactics comes at a particularly sensitive time for President Obama. Sentiments inside the Pentagon lean toward sending more troops to Afghanistan, while key Democrats oppose such an expansion as the number of casualties grows in the theater.

The research Web site icasualties.org reports 328 NATO fatalities so far this year, already making it the most deadly since the war began in October 2001. The U.S. has lost 190 service members this year, after reporting 155 deaths last year.

In the past two months, more than half of the battlefield deaths suffered by NATO troops were caused by IEDs. This month, of 31 fatalities, 15 came from IEDs; in August, 46 of the 77 coalition deaths resulted from these devices, according to icasualties.org.

The Pentagon report said the Taliban IED research-and-development program used the Now Zad region to show that smaller, more numerous IEDs kill more people. The rate for dead and wounded for the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment stood at one-third of the unit in August, the report said. A typical Marine battalion has 800 to 1,000 troops.

A military official, who monitors Afghanistan and asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the Taliban is shifting to small IEDs for a number of reasons.

"You've got the fear factor," the source said. "It's also less costly. It's easier for them to build those things and use them as opposed to running the risk of getting in firefights and losing people. The cost is relatively low. We're fighting guys who from all appearances are from three centuries ago, but we can't figure out how to beat them."

The Pentagon report said the Taliban has become adept at mining a road called the "Pakistani Alley" -- so-named because Taliban militants use it to ferry in new fighters from the neighboring country.

"U.S. troop movements are split between foot and mounted patrols," the report said. "The terrain and deplorable road conditions often necessitate that foot patrols be conducted on uneven terrain. The Taliban have taken advantage of this by littering the area north of 'Pakistani Alley' with numerous antipersonnel IEDs to maintain control over their northern buffer-zone."

Robert Maginnis, a military analyst and Army adviser, said IEDs are tailor-made for Afghanistan.

"IEDs are effective in Afghanistan in part because of the terrain," Mr. Maginnis said. "There are few paved roads, which means planting a device in or near a road is easier and harder to detect by visual inspection. The increase in Taliban use of IEDs is due to the increased coalition forces in country, which forced the relatively small Taliban force to adjust its tactics. It stretches the force's impact."

Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis, a spokesman for Gen. Stanley McChrystral, the top commander in Afghanistan, told The Times the general has stepped up efforts to disrupt networks before they can plant bombs, and get better intelligence on where they are embedded in light of "the weapons' increasing use against coalition forces and because of the impact of a larger number of indiscriminate, victim-operated IEDs on the Afghan people."

"Like most everything in Afghanistan, the IED threat here is complex, and we go about addressing it in a number of ways," Col. Sholtis said. "Broadly speaking, there's an offensive component that involves intelligence collection tied to Afghan and coalition operations designed to identify and disrupt the cells that manufacture, place and operate IEDs.

"There's also a robust defensive component that involves a comprehensive reporting system that tracks IED events, disseminates threat intelligence to all levels, identifies emerging threats and lessons learned, and trains the force in the latest threats and countermeasures."

Two nonmetallic ingredients, salt solution and carbon, are being considered by the Taliban as IED trigger mechanisms, the Pentagon report said. The Taliban can harvest carbon from everyday batteries. This reduces the amount of metal, making detection difficult.

"The use of IEDs as antipersonnel mines offers several distinct advantages," the report said. "They are small and easily transported and emplaced. They are easily camouflaged and do not need to be remotely controlled. In addition, antipersonnel IEDs are almost always lethal to their victims and are extremely difficult to detect with current U.S. minesweepers."

One Taliban tactic involves waiting until NATO forces enter an IED field. Once a bomb explodes, the militants open fire with mortars and rocket grenades.

The military source said the Taliban is also thwarting detection by using long pull-cords rather than an electronic signal to ignite IEDs. This way, the bomb cannot be defeated by electronic countermeasures on vehicles and aircraft that jam the signal.

The source, who completed several tours in Afghanistan, said the Taliban strategy has been to abandon some villages rather than fight the Marines head-on. They then watch the Marines' routines and place IEDs along those routes.

The Pentagon report said the current mine detector, the AN/PSS-12, is not sufficiently sensitive to pick up the scarce metal in anti-personnel IEDs. "There is an urgent need to identify new man-portable detection platforms to expand the ability of U.S. troops to detect anti-personnel IED-mines," the report concludes.

One system now readily available commercially consists of electric field sensors, which can pick up electricity from nonmetallic conductors, the report said.
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Acclaimed author Khaled Hosseini says peace in Afghanistan key to return of displaced
Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 14 Sep 2009
Acclaimed author and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Khaled Hosseini has ended a five-day visit to Afghanistan today by highlighting the need for peace as the indispensable element in ensuring the safe and sustainable return of displaced Afghans.

"Finding long-term solutions to the Afghan refugee situation, including their sustainable return and successful reintegration, is directly linked to peace and stability across the country," said Hosseini after the visit to the land of his birth.

It was the second trip to Afghanistan by the author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns since being appointed as a goodwill envoy for the UN refugee agency.

On Monday, Hosseini took part in a kite-flying event at Kabul's Tapa Marajan hill in the run-up to the International Peace Day on 21 September. UNHCR, as part of its contribution to Peace Day, produced over 2,500 kites and dispatched them to its offices around the country. Hundreds of children and adults, many of them returned refugees, took part in today's event which was designed to draw attention to the continuing need for peace.

Security conditions in many parts of Afghanistan, notably in the south and south-eastern regions, remain a major obstacle to repatriation especially for hundreds of thousands of refugees still in Pakistan.

During his visit, Hosseini met with returnees and displaced Afghans around Kabul and in Parwan province and visited several UNHCR shelter and reintegration projects.

"After almost thirty years of conflict, peace is what all Afghans wish for. Bringing closure to the refugee chapter cannot be achieved without it" said Hosseini. "Operational space is shrinking. It's also getting more challenging for humanitarian agencies to meet the essential needs of the most vulnerable people in conflict affected areas."

Insecurity has greatly hampered the ability of agencies like UNHCR ability to provide assistance to those who need it the most. It has also caused some returned refugees to leave their homes again.

In addition to insecurity, the protracted conflict has gravely affected socio-economic conditions and opportunities in Afghanistan. Many Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan who are considering repatriation say the lack of jobs and basic services discourages them from return.

These realities are reflected in this year's reduced repatriation figures. Since 2002, over 4.3 million Afghans have returned home with UNHCR's assistance. But this year, the annual figure has only recently passed 52,000.

Hosseini left Afghanistan as a boy and was resettled in the United States. Since becoming UNHCR's Goodwill Envoy in 2006, he has visited refugees, returnees and displaced people in Afghanistan and Chad.
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Cholera claims 30 lives in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Cholera (Acute Watery Diarrhea) has claimed the lives of 30 people in the war-battered Afghanistan over the past two months, spokesman of Public Health Ministry Ahmad Farid Raeed said Tuesday.

"Over the past two months, 673 cases of the epidemic have been detected in several parts of the country including the capital city Kabul and 30 people have died of the disease," Raeed told Xinhua.

However, he said that the situation is now under control.

Health system in Afghanistan is weak and fragile due to decades of civil war and people living in remote area usually have no access to medical facilities at all.
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China launches mine-clearing training course for Afghanistan, Iraq
BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- A humanitarian mine-clearing training course for Afghanistan and Iraq sponsored by the Chinese government was inaugurated here Tuesday in Nanjing, capital of the eastern Jiangsu Province.

About 40 military officers from Afghanistan and Iraq are on the two-month course at the University of Science and Technology of the People's Liberation Army in Nanjing, said China's Foreign Ministry.

The ministry said in a press release that the course was a concrete measure of China to actively taking part in international humanitarian mine clearing, and it showed that the Chinese government attached great importance to friendly cooperative relations with Afghanistan and Iraq.

It also showed the positive attitude of the Chinese government to assist the two countries' economic recovery and social reconstruction.

In 10 years, China had trained about 300 mine clearers for 15 countries and offered various kinds of humanitarian mine clearing assistance for nearly 20 countries, said the press release.

China will also donate mine detection and clearing equipment to the two countries when the training is over.
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Canada will open doors to Afghan support workers
By Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News ServiceSeptember 15, 2009 5:10 PM
OTTAWA — In the face of unprecedented violence, Canada will open its doors to hundreds of Afghan workers who have risked their lives to assist our military and diplomats in their war-torn country.

That upbeat initiative, announced Tuesday, came as the government tabled its latest report card on progress in Afghanistan — one that concluded security conditions reached an all-time low this year.

Despite touting some modest advances on development projects, Tuesday's update, covering April 1 to June 30, 2009, found that insurgent roadside bomb attacks had risen 108 per cent from the same period the previous year.

"In May and June, the frequency of insurgency attacks nationally was higher than in any month since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001," the report stated.

Afghanistan is expected to be on the agenda Wednesday when Prime Minister Stephen Harper visits U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House.

International Trade Minister Stockwell Day, who chairs the federal cabinet committee on Afghanistan, said that Canada has no plans to extend its combat mission beyond the 2011 withdrawal date set by Parliament.

Day welcomed the surge of American troops and did not dispute the suggestion that Canada's post-2011 reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan would be fully dependent on U.S. or other allied soldiers providing the necessary security.

Even more American soldiers are likely needed in Afghanistan, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified Tuesday before a Senate panel in Washington.

"A properly resourced counter-insurgency probably means more forces and, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people," Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

U.S. troops in Afghanistan are expected to reach 68,000 by November, doubling the number from the start of the year.

Tuesday's Canadian government update said the increase in U.S. troops this year had lightened the load for Canada's 2,800 military personnel because it allowed them to concentrate on Kandahar City instead of being stretched thin across the province.

"Kandahar province, where Canada's efforts are concentrated, experienced a steep increase in the number of enemy-initiated attacks against soldiers, civilians and facilities during the quarter," the report stated.

Although fighting usually increases during the summer months, "the frequency of security events in Kandahar was exceptionally high," it added.

Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said potentially hundreds of Afghans who work for the Canadian government and face risks in their homeland would now be offered a temporary fast track to become Canadian citizens.

Kenney said the plan, which takes effect next month and would end in 2011, would require Afghan applicants to demonstrate that they face extraordinary risk or have suffered serious injury as a result of working with the Canadian government. Those applying must have worked at least 12 consecutive months in Kandahar for the Canadian government.

Interpreters are crucial links between western forces and the Afghan population, but their work often leaves them and their families at the mercy of insurgents.

"We appreciate their service. We recognize the risks that they've taken and we want to ensure their safety by offering them special consideration if they choose to relocate here to Canada," said Kenney.

Dependent children and spouses of Afghans killed in support of Canada will also be eligible, but all will have to meet standard security and medical checks.
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Afghan Troop Pullout Plan Sought by German Minister Steinmeier
Bloomberg By Tony Czuczka and Brian Parkin Sept. 14, 2009
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier wants to create the conditions for an international troop withdrawal from Afghanistan within four years, his spokesman said.

Aides to Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel's main challenger in Sept. 27 elections, have drafted 10 points for a possible pullout accord with the Afghan government, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner told reporters in Berlin today.

While Steinmeier won't set a specific pullout date, he defined “a worthwhile aim over the next four years, and that worthwhile aim is to set conditions to begin an international withdrawal,” Ploetner said.

Afghanistan is heating up the election campaign after a German commander ordered a NATO air strike that may have killed civilians. Two tanker trucks seized by Taliban militants were targeted in the Sept. 4 strike, killing scores of people in an area where International Security Assistance Force troops are under German command.

The Foreign Ministry plan includes possibly withdrawing about 500 German troops from the city of Faizabad by 2011 and turning the base into a training camp for local security forces, the German magazine Der Spiegel reports in this week's edition.

Germany should “create the foundation for withdrawal from Afghanistan” during parliament's next term, which runs for four years, Der Spiegel cited the position paper as saying. Polls show a majority of voters oppose Germany's military engagement in Afghanistan.

‘The Wrong People'

Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, last week rebuffed a call by former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for a pullout date, telling Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that a deadline “could be understood by the wrong people in Afghanistan as encouragement.”

Merkel and Steinmeier, whose parties have governed together since 2005, told parliament on Sept. 8 they oppose setting a pullout timetable, while stressing that Afghans need to move toward providing their own security. Germany has 4,200 troops in Afghanistan. Merkel leads the Christian Democratic Union.

An initial assessment led by U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's commander in Afghanistan, “concluded that civilians had been killed or injured,” ISAF said in a Sept. 8 statement. Afghan Rights Monitor, an Afghan group, said 60 to 70 people were killed.

While northern Afghanistan is under German command, Germany has kept its troops mainly to aid, rebuilding and police- training tasks, leaving the U.S. and U.K. to do much of the fighting against Taliban insurgents in the south.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Czuczka in Berlin at aczuczka@bloomberg.net;
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