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Tally shows Karzai in lead; EU casts doubt on votes
By Golnar Motevalli And Susan Cornwell – Wed Sep 16, 6:40 pm ET
KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai won the presidential vote outright in the first round, election officials said on Wednesday, but the European Union said more than a third of his votes might be suspect because of fraud.
Karzai leading Afghan vote with 54 percent
By Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 16, 9:02 pm ET
KABUL – Afghan officials issued full preliminary results Wednesday showing President Hamid Karzai got 54.6 percent of the vote in last month's election, a result that could be annulled by mounting fraud allegations.
Karzai condemns EU's fraud claims
Wednesday, 16 September 2009 BBC News
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's campaign team has condemned as "irresponsible" claims by EU monitors about the extent of election fraud.
1.1 million votes for Afghan leader suspicious: EU
By Golnar Motevalli – Wed Sep 16, 7:09 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – As many as a third of votes cast for Afghan incumbent Hamid Karzai in last month's presidential election are suspect and must be checked for fraud, the head of a European Union election observer mission said on Wednesday.
Afghan opposition candidate waits for results, though not patiently
Abdullah Abdullah remains a distant second to President Hamid Karzai as vote counts and fraud allegations pile up. The former Karzai ally continues to demand reform while hoping for a new election.
By Mark Magnier Los Angeles Times September 17, 2009
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Abdullah Abdullah is waiting. As is much of Afghanistan. With the nation approaching the one-month mark since its Aug. 20 presidential election, there are growing concerns
Karzai's challenger rules out making coalition
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main challenger Abdullah Abdullah has ruled out joining any coalition administration, a private television channel reported Tuesday.
Jimmy Carter: 'Hamid Karzai Has Stolen the Election' in Afghanistan
AlterNet.org - News By Aaron Glantz September 16, 2009
Editor's Note: Jimmy Carter has been speaking his mind quite a bit recently. Check out Addie Stan's blog on Carter's response to Obama-haters: "Many white people" believe "African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country."
The Afghanistan Impasse - Ahmed Rashid
The New York Review of Books By Ahmed Rashid 16 Sept 2009
On August 5, Baitullah Mehsud, the all-powerful and utterly ruthless commander of the Pakistani Taliban, was killed in a US missile strike in South Waziristan. At the time of the strike, he was undergoing intravenous treatment
Preparations for new Afghanistan vote begin
Second round will take place in five weeks if Hamid Karzai's share of vote in disputed presidential election drops below 50%
Declan Walsh in Islamabad guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 September 2009 23.56 BST
Afghan election officials have begun logistical preparations for a second round of voting to determine the controversial presidential election marred by allegations of large-scale rigging in favour of Hamid Karzai, it emerged today.
Diplomat in Kabul Leaves in Dispute
U.N. Deputy Head of Mission Differs With Boss on Recognizing Flawed Election
By Pamela Constable and Karen DeYoung Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, September 16, 2009
KABUL, Sept. 15 -- The deputy head of the U.N. mission here has abruptly left the country after a dispute with the mission's Norwegian chief over whether to publicly denounce Afghanistan's election commission
White House issues yardsticks for success in Afghanistan
By Nancy A. Youssef, Mcclatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The White House Wednesday presented Congress with eight general yardsticks to measure success in Afghanistan and Pakistan , but didn't say how they'd help the administration determine how well U.S. policy in the region is working.
Obama: No 'immediate' decision on more troops to Afghanistan
by Stephen Collinson – Wed Sep 16, 5:48 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama warned he would make no "immediate" decision on troops for Afghanistan Wednesday, a day after the top US military officer said extra US soldiers would probably be needed.
US ambassador walks streets of Kabul
By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 16, 4:10 pm ET
KABUL – The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan strolled the streets of Kabul on Wednesday, chatting with schoolchildren and visiting a mosque during an impromptu city tour.
In Afghanistan, troops trying to blend in better
From Mike Mount CNN Senior Pentagon Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Army ground commanders in Afghanistan say they need help, fast. That's not a request for more troops, but a request from commanders who say the current camouflage
Senators Presented Plans for Success in Afghanistan, Pakistan
By John M. Donnelly – CQPolitics.com via Yahoo! News - Sep 16 9:50 AM
In a classified briefing Wednesday morning, senior administration officials presented senators with a draft list of U.S. objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and measures of progress toward achieving them.
Al Qaeda calls for foreign kidnappings in Afghanistan
By Michael Perry – Wed Sep 16, 3:35 am ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A senior al Qaeda official has called on the Taliban to kidnap foreign civilians in Afghanistan to force U.S.-led forces to negotiate prisoner exchanges, a former Australian police counter-terrorism analyst said.
Afghan president re-opens probe into reporter's death
Wed Sep 16, 9:05 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday ordered a second investigation into the killing of an Afghan reporter during a British commando raid that rescued his Western colleague, his office said.
3 US Service Members Killed in Afghanistan
By VOA News 16 September 2009
U.S. military officials say three U.S. service members have been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.
Clash leaves 20 insurgents dead in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Clash between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents in west Afghanistan claimed the lives of 20 rebels, a private newspaper reported Wednesday.
Afghan journalist associations calls for probe into journalist murder
KABUL, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's National Journalists Union has once again called for thorough investigation into the murder case of local reporter of New York Times Sultan Munadi and punishing
Allies search for 'third way' strategy in Afghanistan
Wed Sep 16, 5:50 PM By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - The United States, Canada and Britain are casting about for a so-called "third way" in Afghanistan, a comprehensive strategy that could among other things disarm the more pliable, mercenary elements
Why the Taliban Is Gaining Ground in Afghanistan
By TIM MCGIRK / KABUL Tim Mcgirk time.com Kabul – Wed Sep 16, 1:10 pm ET
The Taliban today in Afghanistan is a markedly different movement from that of those warriors whose one-eyed leader, Mullah Omar, riding on a motorcycle, escaped capture from American forces in Kandahar in December 2001.
Australia's PM: Afghanistan A Difficult Work In Progress
CANBERRA -(Dow Jones)- Australia's military campaign against terrorist activity and terrorism training in Afghanistan remains a difficult work in progress, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Thursday.
'Regrettable' if Canada quits Afghanistan: Chertoff
CBC News September 16, 2009
A former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security calls it "regrettable" that Canada plans to withdraw from the conflict in Afghanistan.
Roadside bomb damages German forces' vehicle in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bomb damaged military vehicle of German troops in Takhar province, northeast Afghanistan, an official with the German troops in the neighboring Kunduz province Nasir Alkozai said Wednesday.
A ‘weapons system’ based on wishful thinking
By Andrew Wilder The Boston Globe September 16, 2009
IN APRIL, the US Army published the “Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System,’’ a handbook that provides guidance on how to use aid funding to win the support of the “indigenous population to facilitate
Drugs suspected in death of Afghanistan contractor
By Richard Lardner, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 16, 3:35 pm ET
WASHINGTON – A U.S. contractor in Afghanistan helping train the national police was found dead last week of a possible drug overdose, just months after his company was reprimanded by the State Department for another worker's drug-related death.
Pakistan arrests Taliban commander: army
Wed Sep 16, 5:37 am ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan said soldiers Wednesday arrested a third man from a list of most-wanted Taliban commanders in the Swat valley that offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in reward money.
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Tally shows Karzai in lead; EU casts doubt on votes
By Golnar Motevalli And Susan Cornwell – Wed Sep 16, 6:40 pm ET
KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai won the presidential vote outright in the first round, election officials said on Wednesday, but the European Union said more than a third of his votes might be suspect because of fraud.
A disputed result would prove difficult for U.S. President Barack Obama, who is considering deploying more troops and who set out broad goals on Wednesday for boosting the ability of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight militancy.
Afghan election authorities issued complete preliminary results showing Karzai received 54.6 percent of the vote last month. His main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, got 27.8 percent.
The results are not final until approved by a separate election fraud watchdog, which has called for a recount of about 10 percent of polling stations.
But a campaign spokesman for Karzai said the result made it almost impossible that any probe could overturn the outcome. Only a "miracle" for his opponents could prevent Karzai winning, Waheed Omar said.
A spokesman for Abdullah had no immediate reaction.
A final result pending the fraud probe could be weeks away, prolonging a state of political limbo that has led to fears of instability and concern among Western donors that a future government may lack a clear mandate.
A European Union election observer mission said it believed as many as 1.5 million votes -- including 1.1 million cast for Karzai -- were "suspicious".
"Any claim for any count or of victory will be premature and not credible," the head of the EU mission, Philippe Morillon, told Reuters.
Karzai's campaign called the EU mission's statement "irresponsible" and said only the official, U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission was empowered to find fraud.
UNPOPULAR WAR
Ali Najafi, a member of the Afghan election commission, also criticized the EU mission for coming forward with its assessment before the complaints process was complete.
"Observers observe. They can give advice to the (election commission) but they do not have the right to interfere," he said. Asked about the votes the EU team described as suspicious, he said: "I don't know where they got this figure from."
Western officials initially hailed the August 20 election, mainly because militant attacks failed to prevent it from taking place despite a resurgent Taliban insurgency.
One of the Obama administration's objectives delivered to lawmakers on Wednesday was to promote a more capable, accountable and effective government in Afghanistan, according to a draft document obtained by Reuters.
It also wants to defeat the insurgency and develop the Afghan security forces so the U.S. role can be reduced. Obama also wants to develop neighboring Pakistan's counterinsurgency capabilities to defeat insurgent groups.
The war, launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks to root out al Qaeda and topple the group's Taliban backers, is becoming increasingly unpopular at home and Obama may find it difficult to persuade Americans to send soldiers to defend a government whose legitimacy could be called into question.
Obama told White House reporters there was "no immediate decision pending on resources," a day after the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said more troops would probably be needed and that he expected a request from Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, in a couple of weeks.
The United States almost doubled its number of troops in Afghanistan this year to 62,000, partly to help secure the election. The number is expected to grow by another 6,000 by year's end.
Fraud accusations have been especially heavy in southern areas that favor Karzai but where Taliban threats had the most impact on turnout.
The EU's Morillon said fraud had been carried out by "unscrupulous, overzealous supporters ... from every camp."
In addition to the 1.1 million suspect ballots for Karzai, his team found 300,000 suspicious ballots for Abdullah. Disqualifying ballots for Karzai would have the most impact, by potentially putting the president below the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off vote.
The final tally showed Karzai with 3.1 million votes of the 5.7 million valid votes counted. If all the votes considered suspect by the EU were omitted, Karzai would have 2 million out of 4.2 million valid votes, shy of 50 percent.
The U.N.-backed ECC must sign off on any final result. A second election round, if needed, would have to be held within two weeks of the final result being declared, although there has been some concern that this could be difficult if it is delayed into winter when travel is difficult in Afghanistan.
(Additional reporting by Adam Entous in Washington; Editing by Alison Williams and Frances Kerry)
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Karzai leading Afghan vote with 54 percent
By Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 16, 9:02 pm ET
KABUL – Afghan officials issued full preliminary results Wednesday showing President Hamid Karzai got 54.6 percent of the vote in last month's election, a result that could be annulled by mounting fraud allegations. European Union election monitors say fraud is indicated in more than a quarter of the 5.6 million votes counted.
The Aug. 20 vote has been so tainted by reports of ballot-box stuffing and questionable tallies that many expect the final results to vary widely from the preliminary count after fraudulent ballots are thrown out.
If enough votes are thrown out for Karzai to drop below 50 percent, it will force him into a two-man runoff with top challenger Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister who has 27.7 percent of the vote. The preliminary count gave Karzai 3.1 million votes to Abdullah's 1.6 million.
Recounts and investigations are likely to take weeks, pushing the date for any runoff well past the original plan for the first week of October. Snow starts blocking villages and roads in the mountainous country in November, so a long delay could make a second round logistically unfeasible until the spring.
The wait for a runoff could leave Afghanistan with a power vacuum at a time when Taliban attacks are increasing, and undermine support abroad for a war backing an apparently corrupt administration. Certified results originally were to have been released this week, with any runoff occurring two weeks later.
A spokesman said Abdullah would not comment on the release of the full results but would speak with reporters Thursday.
Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai's campaign, said the president is "clearly leading in the elections and we have bypassed the 50 percent benchmark that is required for someone to win the first round. We hope that when the certified results are announced, we will win the election in the first round."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly stressed that the results were just preliminary.
"They're not final, and we're still waiting for the certified results," he said. "The certified results will only come after the independent electoral commission and the electoral complaints commission has carried out their investigations thoroughly, and done all the required audits and recounts."
"We welcome this next step in the process, but caution patience to everybody to await the final certified results," he said.
A U.N.-backed complaints commission is examining thousands of potentially fraudulent ballots. The commission, which is the final arbiter of the vote results, has ordered a massive audit and recount of about 10 percent of voting stations. The group has already invalidated ballots from 83 polling stations because of fraud allegations, all in areas with high support for Karzai.
EU observers said about 1.5 million of the 5.6 million ballots counted should have been held out because they have indications of fraud according to guidelines set out by election officials ahead of the vote — turnout at or above 100 percent, or more than 90 percent of votes cast for one candidate.
"All of these votes should have been quarantined and investigated," said Dimitra Ioannou, the group's deputy chief observer.
About 1.1 million of those votes were cast for Karzai. If all of them are taken out of the count, he would fall below the 50 percent mark.
Outside monitors have accused the Afghan election commission, which is run by Karzai appointees, of loosening its own fraud-identification measures part way through the counting.
The deputy head of the U.N. mission here said the Independent Election Commission had voted 6-1 for a formula to root out corrupt ballots, only to reverse itself the next day, claiming it had no legal way to enforce those standards. The official, Peter Galbraith, left Afghanistan this weekend after a dispute with his boss, Kai Eide, over the U.N.'s approach to the fraud allegations.
Daoud Ali Najafi, the chief electoral officer for the Afghan election commission, said results from more than 600 polling stations were not included in Wednesday's release because of suspicious vote tallies. He said the EU observers were stepping beyond their authority as monitors by questioning the official calculations.
Election day itself was marred by Taliban threats and attacks that killed dozens and shut polling stations. Najafi said turnout was about 38.7 percent, a much lower figure than the 70 percent turnout in Afghanistan's first direct presidential election in 2004.
Thousands of fake ballots were submitted across the country, and returns showed Karzai winning 100 percent of the vote in some districts. The most serious complaints were lodged in southern Afghanistan, where Karzai's fellow ethnic Pashtuns predominate, although Grant Kippen, the Canadian head of the Electoral Complaints Commission, said all provinces were affected by the recount order.
Kippen has said the recounts it has ordered because of fraud will affect more than 2,500 of the 26,300 polling stations open on Aug. 20.
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Karzai condemns EU's fraud claims
Wednesday, 16 September 2009 BBC News
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's campaign team has condemned as "irresponsible" claims by EU monitors about the extent of election fraud.
EU election observers have said about 1.5m votes - about a quarter of all ballots - cast in the presidential vote in August could be fraudulent.
The monitors said 1.1m of the suspicious votes were for Mr Karzai.
The EU claims reveal a growing strain in the international community about how to deal with the election fallout.
Earlier, the head of the UN mission in Afghanistan admitted his deputy had left the country after a row between them over the election.
But Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, denied reports he had ordered his US deputy, Peter Galbraith, to leave.
The remaining preliminary results from the 20 August election are due to be released later on Wednesday, four weeks after the election.
However, the final declaration of a winner is not likely to be made for some weeks.
'Interfering'
The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says the latest fraud allegations are the most serious so far.
Mr Karzai's team reacted angrily to the EU monitors' statement.
A statement from his campaign office said: "Today's announcement of the number of suspected votes, by the head and deputy head of the EU Election Monitoring Commission, is partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan's constitution."
The statement said the monitors should be referring their findings to the Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission.
"We believe the only way we can have a legitimate result out of the current process is to allow the legal institutions to complete the process and refrain from interfering in their affairs," the statement said.
Dimitra Ioannou, from the EU monitoring mission, had said that of the suspicious votes cast, 1.1m were for Mr Karzai and 300,000 for his main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
"Massive fraud was taking place at polling station level and when all these ballot boxes arrived at the tally centres, instead of being quarantined and investigated, they were accepted as good results."
Our correspondent says the allegations could have major implications for the outcome of the election and could put pressure on the complaints commission to widen its investigation into voter fraud.
However, the claims also revealed a rift within the international community on its response to the election.
Mr Eide and Mr Galbraith reportedly disagreed over the extent to which vote recounts were necessary.
Mr Galbraith was said to have advocated a wholesale recount.
Such a move would probably mean a second-round run-off, potentially leaving Afghanistan in political limbo for months.
Mr Eide said Mr Galbraith would "leave the mission for a while and then he'll come back".
President Karzai is leading the count with 54.3% of the disputed votes. Mr Abdullah is estimated to have 28.1%.
Analysts say that turnout is around 30-35%, not much higher than six million out of a registered electorate of 17 million.
AFGHAN POLL FRAUD
15 Sep: ECC 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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1.1 million votes for Afghan leader suspicious: EU
By Golnar Motevalli – Wed Sep 16, 7:09 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – As many as a third of votes cast for Afghan incumbent Hamid Karzai in last month's presidential election are suspect and must be checked for fraud, the head of a European Union election observer mission said on Wednesday.
The announcement by the largest foreign observer team in Afghanistan suggesting fraud on a massive scale came hours before authorities were due to issue a preliminary final tally expected to show Karzai with enough votes to win in a single round.
The fraud accusations have come at a particularly difficult time for U.S. President Barack Obama, who has already ordered thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan and is expected to make a decision in coming weeks about whether to send more.
The war is already becoming increasingly unpopular at home, and Obama may find it more difficult to persuade Americans to send soldiers to die to defend a government whose legitimacy could be called into question.
The preliminary final result can still be overturned by a separate body, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, which has already ordered a recount of 10 percent of polling stations after finding "clear and convincing evidence of fraud."
Phillippe Morillon, head of the EU observer team, told Reuters his team believed 1.5 million votes were suspicious, including 1.1 million cast for Karzai and 300,000 cast for his main rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
In near-complete figures issued last week, Karzai had slightly more than 3 million votes, or 54.3 percent of the 5.54 million valid votes counted.
"UNSCRUPULOUS"
Were all the votes described by Morillon as "suspicious" to be removed from that preliminary tally, Karzai would fall just short of the 50 percent needed to win in a single round, and would instead face a run-off against Abdullah.
Morillon said fraud had been carried out by "unscrupulous, overzealous supporters ... from every camp," and that fraudulent ballots needed to be removed from the count before any result could be considered final.
"Any claim for any count or of victory will be premature and not credible," he said.
Four weeks after the election, Afghanistan remains mired in political limbo, with results trickling out as fraud accusations mounted, undermining faith in the vote both in Afghanistan and among Western nations with troops fighting there.
The U.N.-backed ECC must sign off on any final result, and its fraud probe could potentially force a second round if it invalidates enough ballots to put Karzai below the 50 percent threshold needed to win in a single round and avoid a run-off.
The recount process has only just begun and could take weeks or even months.
A second round, if needed, would have to be held within two weeks of the final result being declared, although there has been some concern that this could be difficult if it is delayed into winter when travel is difficult in Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, Obama's top military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said more troops were needed in Afghanistan, although he did not say how many.
(Editing by Paul Tait)
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Afghan opposition candidate waits for results, though not patiently
Abdullah Abdullah remains a distant second to President Hamid Karzai as vote counts and fraud allegations pile up. The former Karzai ally continues to demand reform while hoping for a new election.
By Mark Magnier Los Angeles Times September 17, 2009
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Abdullah Abdullah is waiting. As is much of Afghanistan. With the nation approaching the one-month mark since its Aug. 20 presidential election, there are growing concerns at home and abroad that the delay in results and allegations of fraud could increase political instability.
But the former foreign minister, who earned the second-largest number of votes, hasn't been sitting on his hands. These days, he spends much of his time trying to focus attention on the perceived irregularities and slamming the record of his political rival, incumbent President Hamid Karzai.
"After five years of Karzai rule, the people of Afghanistan expected there would be a credible process," Abdullah said this week during an interview in his garden surrounded by roses, pomegranates and marigolds. "Instead, we've seen, in the absence of all this, massive state-engineered fraud," he added as a string of journalists and Afghan luminaries trundled through.
Results announced Wednesday, described as "preliminary final," gave Karzai 54.6% of the vote to Abdullah's 27.8%. But the count will not be official until hundreds of reports of fraud are addressed.
Many on the streets of Kabul, the capital, seem to think Karzai will pull it out.
"People grumble about election fraud in every country, but I don't think there's enough here to change the outcome," said Ahmed Fawad, 50, owner of a dusty shop selling canned goods, potato chips and shampoo. "And Karzai's brought us schools, electricity, roads. People like Abdullah talk a lot, but can they deliver?"
With Karzai on track to win reelection without a runoff, Abdullah's best shot is to seed enough doubt among the Afghan public and the U.N.-affiliated Electoral Complaints Commission to prompt a second round of voting, say political analysts.
The allegations that authorities are investigating, involving nearly 10% of the nation's 24,000 polling stations, include sites where 100% of the votes went to Karzai, vote totals that end in suspiciously round numbers such as 400 or 500, large turnout of women in areas where it's culturally unlikely they would even leave the house, ballot stuffing and registration irregularities.
Waheed Omar, a spokesman for the Karzai campaign, said Abdullah cared less about people's votes than about manipulating public opinion for his own political ends. This may include bucking for a position in the next administration, he added. "There have definitely been irregularities by his team more than others," Omar said. "He's using this as a tool to confuse public opinion, justify his defeat and confuse Western thinking, something that could endanger the stability of Afghanistan."
Abdullah, whose campaign slogan was "The Abdullah so nice they named him twice," said there has been no systemic fraud from his camp, although he can't discount the possibility of isolated irregularities. Abdullah said he wouldn't accept the outcome if Karzai is declared the winner without the fraud allegations being addressed. This has some fearful of street clashes.
"Everyone focuses on what my supporters would do," he said. "They might stay calm. But how long can you maintain the Afghan people's belief in such a system?"
Abdullah, who still has an ink stain on his finger indicating that he voted, weeks after most citizens washed off the telltale mark, said fraud allegations fit with other Karzai administration shortcomings, including weak governance, poor security and minimal adherence to the rule of law.
"This golden opportunity for Afghanistan has been messed up," he said. "I don't think we have a free ticket from the U.S. or international community. If the process is corrupt, we will lose that opportunity -- a big loss."
Abdullah, son of a Tajik mother and a Pashtun father, is a trained ophthalmologist who treated refugees before becoming an advisor to Tajik resistance hero Ahmed Shah Massoud in 1986. Fluent in English and French, he lobbied foreign governments during the years of Taliban rule to support the struggling Northern Alliance fighters in northern Afghanistan. After the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban, Abdullah joined Karzai in setting up a new government.
Abdullah's switch from Karzai supporter to archrival has prompted some to liken him to a political chameleon, a characterization Abdullah disputes, saying he has always been an independent, principled thinker. He said he identified governance problems before Afghanistan's 2004 presidential election and raised these with Karzai, who failed to act on them. He chose not to vote for Karzai in 2004 despite being in Karzai's Cabinet and said he told the president as much.
"What sort of political lizard would do this?" Abdullah said, sitting in an open tent in Kabul's upscale Karte Parwan neighborhood, across the street from two huge houses with baby blue faux Corinthian columns and half a block from sheep munching on refuse. "This isn't the actions of someone without principles and values. This is based on vision."
Mohammad Feroz doesn't know about vision. But the 25-year-old butcher believes Abdullah is more trustworthy than Karzai. "I know he can do something for the people," Feroz said, standing beside a wheelbarrow of bloody sheepskins. "Karzai won in 2004 because of fraud. I didn't vote for him then, and I didn't this time. Karzai's no good."
Abdullah said his administration would be markedly different from Karzai's. Its hallmarks, he added, would be people-led government, a parliamentary system to cap the presidency's extraordinary power, greater participation by political parties and "zero tolerance" for corruption.
The 49-year-old politician, dressed in a tie and pressed bluejeans, said he had little illusion that fraud and malfeasance could be wiped out easily. But national leaders must lead by example, he added.
"If you base your contacts on corruption, there's no end in sight," he said. "I'm not saying it's an easy task, but you have to start from the top."
mark.magnier@latimes.com
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Karzai's challenger rules out making coalition
KABUL, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main challenger Abdullah Abdullah has ruled out joining any coalition administration, a private television channel reported Tuesday.
"Dr. Abdullah utterly ruled out making coalition and said he would not compromise at the price of people votes," Tolo aired in its news bulletin.
Abdullah made these remarks amid reports that efforts are underway to form a coalition administration under sitting President Karzai in Afghanistan.
The former Foreign Minister Abdullah also stressed if complaints are thoroughly examined, a runoff is inevitable.
Abdullah, who has secured 28.1 percent votes of the 95 percent polling stations against Karzai who bagged 54.3 percent, has accused the sitting presiding of rigging the votes.
More than 2,100 complaints have been lodged with the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC). Among the complaints, 700 are so serious that, according to officials, they can affect the election result.
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Jimmy Carter: 'Hamid Karzai Has Stolen the Election' in Afghanistan
AlterNet.org - News By Aaron Glantz September 16, 2009
Editor's Note: Jimmy Carter has been speaking his mind quite a bit recently. Check out Addie Stan's blog on Carter's response to Obama-haters: "Many white people" believe "African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country."
Former President Jimmy Carter, who has monitored elections in countries across the globe, called the elections in Afghanistan “despicable” Tuesday.
“Hamid Karzai has stolen the election,” the former president told a small group of donors to his Carter Center in Atlanta. “Now the question is whether he gets away with it.”
Official counts have given the Afghan president, who was installed after a U.S.-lead coalition toppled the Taliban in 2001, 54 percent of the vote. His main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, alleged fraud and a recount is currently underway.
Carter said that the election reminded him of past fraudulent elections he had seen, where only 20 percent of people in a particular precinct were recorded as voting -- with 100 percent of the vote in that precinct going to a particular candidate.
“This is something which President Obama is struggling with,” Carter said.
Carter's comments came as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said the U.S. military would need to send more troops to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
"A properly resourced counter-insurgency probably means more forces and without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of good governance," Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Obama has already sent tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan than his predecessor, George W. Bush.
In his comments Tuesday, former President Carter strongly disagreed with the policy.
“Americans have turned against the war in Afghanistan,” Carter said. “Every time we launch one of our unmanned drones from Kansas and kill 100 people, we make 100,000 new enemies.”
Rather than increasing the number of troops in Aghanistan, Carter said, “I would negotiate with locals.”
Speaking about the decline of violence in U.S.-occupied in Iraq, Carter argued it wasn't the surge of American troops that had caused an increase in calm, but General David Petraeus' willingness to “pay bribes and pay Iraqi soldiers.”
The same strategy, he said, could also be used in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, American and other coalition troops continue to die at an escalating rate in Afghanistan. An improvised bomb attack killed two U.S. service members Monday in southern Afghanistan where U.S. and NATO troops have stepped up their operations in recent months, NATO said.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, as of Thursday morning at least 746 members of the U.S. military had died in the Afghan war since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
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The Afghanistan Impasse - Ahmed Rashid
The New York Review of Books By Ahmed Rashid 16 Sept 2009
On August 5, Baitullah Mehsud, the all-powerful and utterly ruthless commander of the Pakistani Taliban, was killed in a US missile strike in South Waziristan. At the time of the strike, he was undergoing intravenous treatment for a kidney ailment, and was lying on the roof of his father-in-law's house with his young second wife. At about one o'clock that morning, a missile fired by an unmanned CIA drone tore through the house, splitting his body in two and killing his wife, her parents, and seven bodyguards.
His death marked the first major breakthrough in the war against extremist leaders in Pakistan since 2003, when several top al-Qaeda members based in the country were arrested or killed. Over the last few years, Mehsud's estimated 20,000 fighters gained almost total control over the seven tribal agencies that make up the Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan.
Mehsud's death plunged the Pakistani Taliban, composed of some two dozen Pashtun tribal groups, into an intense struggle over leadership, creating an opportunity for the CIA and Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) to take action against the extremists. After ousting in April and May the militants who had seized the Swat valley—which is not in the tribal areas but north of the capital city of Islamabad—the Pakistani army is now pursuing the Pakistani Taliban with more determination: in mid-August, two of Mehsud's senior aides were arrested, one in FATA and the other in Islamabad while seeking medical treatment. The US is anxious for Pakistan to continue its pressure by launching an offensive in Waziristan, the region in the southern part of FATA—first in South Waziristan to eliminate the Pakistani Taliban there and then in North Waziristan, where al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders are based.
In North Waziristan two key Afghan Taliban networks—one led by the Pash- tun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani, and the other by the Muslim extremist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar—have been on the payroll of Pakistan's ISI since the 1970s and the ISI still allows them to operate freely. Al-Qaeda militants also live in North Waziristan, as do militant groups of Pakistani Punjabis, who launch terrorist attacks in India and Afghanistan.
The key question is whether the Pakistani army and the ISI, which have intermittently supported the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban since 2001, can now make a strategic shift—turning decisively to eliminate not only the Pakistani Taliban but also the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda. Until now the Pakistani army has considered the Afghan Taliban a strategic asset in its battle against India and other regional rivals for influence in Afghanistan.
Success in eliminating these terrorist networks is vital for the US and the world—even more so now that the rigged presidential elections in Afghanistan in late August have created a deep political and security crisis for Afghans and Western forces there. Every day the evidence of electoral fraud has mounted, with videos posted on the Internet showing, for example, a local election chief stuffing ballot boxes.
Fighting Over the Spoils in the Tribal Areas
Baitullah Mehsud became Pakistan's most-wanted leader after Taliban forces allied with him took control of the Swat valley in April. They were pushed out of the valley by the army in June after fierce fighting that left 312 soldiers, 2,000 militants, and an unknown number of civilians dead. Mehsud also became a target for CIA-launched drones, after the US decided last year to target Pakistani Taliban leaders along with those from the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Mehsud was close to and trusted by Osama bin Laden; by Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban; and by Jalaluddin Haqqani. He gave them support, troops, and facilities for their various operations. By fighting off the Pakistani army and expanding his power across Pakistan's tribal areas, he gave al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban a hugely expanded sanctuary from which to operate and gather recruits for their war in Afghanistan.
Among Mehsud's innovations were the extremely efficient new systems he set up to train suicide bombers, some as young as eleven, and to produce vast quantities of land mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which are being used in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also oversaw a criminal network of kidnapping for ransom, which netted him a war chest estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. Seventy prominent Pakistanis have been kidnapped this year throughout Pakistan, with ransoms—as high as one million dollars—handed over in FATA.
With the control of money, men, and territory at stake, there was a fierce struggle among various Pashtun tribal contenders to succeed Mehsud as leader of the Pakistani Taliban. The succession was also heavily influenced by al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Mullah Omar and Sirajuddin Haqqani sent several delegations to South Waziristan to influence Pakistani Taliban leaders.
Finally on August 26 a new power-sharing agreement was worked out between the two main contenders: Hakimullah Mehsud, twenty-eight, a ruthless Mehsud protégé who took responsibility for a series of suicide bombings in Pakistan earlier this year, became the new chief of the Pakistani Taliban; while his main rival, Waliur Rehman, who had acted as Mehsud's deputy, will head the Taliban in South Waziristan, where most of the fighters are based. Both men promised a new bombing campaign in Pakistan and increased support to the Afghan Taliban. One day later, on August 27, they fulfilled their promise when a suicide bomber at Torkham—a town that straddles a major crossing on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border—attacked a police checkpoint on the road used by NATO convoys to enter Afghanistan, killing twenty-two people. Three days after that, on August 30, a suicide bomber killed fifteen policemen in Swat.
The Reconquest of Swat
Regrouped under its new leadership, the Pakistani Taliban will continue to pose a major threat to the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari and to the country's military leaders, who are the real decision-makers in Pakistan. The army's recent counterinsurgency campaign in the Swat valley was its first success since 2001, allowing the more than two million people who had fled the region to return home. Mingora, the main town in Swat, is once again open for business and the hundreds of schools destroyed by the Taliban have restarted under tents.
However, the Swat campaign has left gnawing doubts. None of the twenty militant commanders operating there has been killed or captured. The local Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah is also at large, although suspected of being badly wounded. Taliban attacks against schools and police stations resumed in late August, proving that many Taliban are still hiding out in the mountains.
Still, the army has clearly adopted a new and much tougher strategy for eliminating the Pakistani Taliban and establishing greater cooperation between the CIA and the ISI in the tribal areas. This progress has been much appreciated by US officials. On a visit to Islamabad in mid-August Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told me that Pakistan's cooperation in fighting the Pakistani Taliban was very welcome, but that the army now has to go into South Waziristan and clear out the militants just as it did in Swat. In the meantime the US military is providing limited fresh equipment and funds to the army for just such an operation.
During August, other Western officials came to Islamabad to deliver the same message. In addition to Holbrooke, they included British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and two senior US commanders, General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, and General Stanley McChrystal, the new head of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. They all urged the government and army to use this moment to turn decisively against the terrorist holdouts in the tribal areas and in Waziristan.
However, Pakistan's generals made it abundantly clear that they will not invade South Waziristan for the moment. "It's going to take months" to launch a ground offensive, the senior commander in the area, Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmad, told reporters after meeting with Holbrooke on August 18. General Ahmad said that all the army can do now is choke off supplies to South Waziristan by shutting down the roads, while planes and artillery bombard terrorist hideouts—but from outside South Waziristan.
The army would prefer to wait and see what happens in Waziristan and also in Afghanistan. It is hesitant to move into the tribal areas, where since 2004 it has been defeated by the guerrilla tactics of the Taliban and their advantage in the area's harsh mountainous terrain. Pakistan continues to pursue a policy of containing the Taliban fighters on the Afghan border rather than eliminating them. That clearly will not satisfy Western governments and military leaders since it leaves NATO forces in Afghanistan vulnerable to the inflow of men, supplies, and suicide bombers from the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Senior Pakistani officials say they will only be able to adopt a new strategy against the Taliban when India changes its current policy toward Pakistan and Kashmir. In Swat the army succeeded because it made use of Pakistani troops transferred from the Indian border, where 80 percent of the army is based. The key to launching a Pakistani offensive in the tribal areas is for the Americans to help improve Pakistan's relations with New Delhi, so that the army can move more of its troops to the Afghan border.
India is not helping. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on August 17 that Pakistan-based terrorist groups were plotting more attacks against India. Last November the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) carried out attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people. Lashkar is a group that is distinct from the Taliban and has been particularly active against targets in India and Kashmir. Indian officials now say that Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar leader who lives undisturbed in Lahore, was "the brain" behind the Mumbai attack. They demand that he be put on trial.
Pakistan is refusing to clamp down on Lashkar or put Saeed behind bars. Lashkar is the best disciplined, organized, and loyal of the jihadi groups that the ISI has trained and sponsored since the 1980s, and it has always targeted India rather than the Pakistani army. The army will do everything to preserve Lashkar, as long as it believes there is a threat from India. Similarly, Pakistan's continued support for the Afghan Taliban is based on countering India's influence in Afghanistan and on having an alternative force that Pakistan can count on, in case the Americans leave Afghanistan.
In short, the strategy of the Pakistani military to selectively use Islamic extremists both as a tool in its foreign policy arsenal against India and to gain influence in Afghanistan is not going to change in a hurry. The Obama administration's main strategy for the moment is hand-holding—it wants to keep engaging with the Pakistani leaders to try to get them to change course. At least one senior US official arrives in Islamabad every other week to argue the American case.
The Afghan Elections
Pakistan's safe havens for the Afghan Taliban have been to a large extent responsible for their revival and growing dominance across Afghanistan and for the rising death toll among NATO forces. But the Taliban were not the major cause of the political crisis that enveloped Afghanistan after the August 20 presidential elections.
US officials told me in April 2008 that President Bush had been warned by his military commanders that Afghanistan was going from bad to worse. More troops and money were needed; reconstruction was at a standstill; pressure had to be put on Pakistan; the elections in April 2009 should be indefinitely postponed. Bush ignored all the advice except for asking the Afghans to postpone the elections until August.
He left everything else to his successor to sort out. When Obama took over in January, the crisis was much worse and Pakistan and Afghanistan immediately became his highest foreign policy priorities. Obama added 21,000 more troops, committed billions of dollars to rebuild Afghan security forces and speed up economic development, and sent hundreds of American civilian experts to help rebuild the country. He has attempted to make the anti-narcotics policy more effective and to involve neighboring countries in a regional settlement. It's an assertive and possibly productive new strategy, but the Obama administration has had neither the time nor the resources to implement it.
The depth of the opium problem, for example, has recently been exposed by Gretchen Peters, who in her book Seeds of Terror describes how opium sales have ballooned since 2001, because of either a lack of a coherent strategy by the US or the constant bickering over a strategy between the US and its NATO partners, particularly Britain. Bush refused to use the US military—the only capable force on the ground—to interdict drug convoys in Afghanistan and arrest or kill drug lords, many of whom were easily identifiable. Only last year did the Department of Defense agree to use the military for these purposes. During the last six months there have been a series of raids by US Special Forces and Afghan commandos that have netted large amounts of opium, chemicals that turn it into heroin, and many of the drug traffickers. Afghanistan today provides 93 percent of the world's heroin. As Peters shows, from the poppy growers, to the Taliban and other local powers, to the drug lords and their allies in government, the influence of opium money pervades Afghan life.
In fact, most of this year has been taken up with preparing for the Afghan elections and trying to ensure sufficient security for them. Everything else has had to be put on hold. In private moments Holbrooke has regretted how the elections have distracted attention from putting into effect Obama's new strategy. At home Obama has not had the time to show that his policy is the right one to follow, and now the elections themselves are being exposed as riddled with fraud.
Another complicating issue for Obama has been the troubled US relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who in the spring was convinced that Obama and Holbrooke wanted to replace him and hold the elections under a caretaker president. That was never the case, but Karzai's paranoia, which is fostered by some of his aides and brothers, who drum up astounding conspiracy theories about US or British intentions, got the better of him.
That the elections were subject to extensive rigging by Karzai's supporters was partly the result of his belief that the Americans were backing one of the two strongest opposition figures, either Abdullah Abdullah or Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, which was again not the case. In fact, with so much now invested in Afghanistan, Obama and Holbrooke had every incentive to ensure that the election results were credible. What is now clear, however, is that the flagrantly dishonest elections have undermined the government and its Western backers, jeopardized future Afghan trust in democracy, and given the Taliban more reason to claim they are winning.
For much of this year the Taliban have been on the offensive in Afghanistan. Their control of just thirty out of 364 districts in 2003 expanded to 164 districts at the end of 2008, according to the military expert Anthony Cordesman, who is advising General McChrystal. Taliban attacks increased by 60 percent between October 2008 and April 2009. Forty-seven American soldiers died in August, making it the deadliest month in the war for the US Army. Forty-four were killed in July.
In August, moreover—as part of their well-planned anti-election campaign—the Taliban opened new fronts in the north and west of the country where they had little presence before. On election day in Kunduz in the far northeast of the country, considered to be one of the safest cities in Afghanistan, the Taliban fired fifty-seven rockets. The US military has acknowledged the gravity of the situation. "It is serious and it is deteriorating.... The Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated" in their tactics, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN on August 23.
Both before and after the elections there were highly visible Taliban attacks in cities including Kabul and Kandahar, along with well-laid ambushes, attacks against security forces, and extensive use of IEDs. A month before the elections thousands of US, British, and Afghan forces launched an offensive in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan in order to regain territory, block supply routes from Pakistan, and release villagers from the clutches of the Taliban so that they could vote.
Instead, voter turnout was estimated by Western officials who had done their own investigation at between 1 and 5 percent in most parts of Helmand and Kandahar—before high-intensity ballot stuffing for Karzai began in the late hours of August 20. According to Western diplomats, Karzai loyalists also created hundreds of fake polling sites, from which many thousands of votes were recorded in favor of the incumbent. In one southern district, the polling sites were shut down and the entire vote of 23,900 ballots was forged for Karzai. In Babaji, a town in Helmand that was reclaimed by British forces with the loss of four soldiers this month, only 150 people voted, out of 80,000 who were eligible. The British suffered thirty-seven dead and 150 wounded in the six-week Helmand campaign— ostensibly to provide security for the vote. It will be difficult to maintain the morale of Western troops for long under such circumstances.
The Taliban had threatened to derail the elections and, to a considerable degree, they did, because much of the terrified population did not vote. The turnout is expected to be between 30 to 40 percent, much less than the 70 percent who voted in 2004. There were four hundred Taliban attacks on election day and many polling stations never opened.
How Could the Rigging Have Happened?
Forty candidates ran against Karzai. His main opponent, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, and other candidates produced overwhelming evidence of cheating. By the end of August the Electoral Complaints Commission had received over 2,500 complaints, of which more than 570 could directly affect the results. It will take weeks to go through all these claims.
Still, within hours of the polls closing, the US, NATO, the European Union, and the UN congratulated everyone on a successful election. Their words were aimed at the Taliban, who had failed to stop it; but they sounded hollow and deceitful to Afghans who were more interested in the credibility of the election.
The rigging defied expectations. There were hundreds of foreign observers from the US and other embassies. Both UN officials and a European Union delegation were assigned months ago to make sure this would be a credible election. Afghans and other experts were warning the embassies about possible rigging. Abdullah Abdullah painted a bleak future for the country if the West did not recognize the fraud. "The fact is that the foundations of this country have been damaged by this fraud, throwing it open to all kinds of consequences, including instability. It is true that the Taliban are the first threat but an illegitimate government would be the second," said Abdullah to reporters in Kabul on August 29. Yet the entire Western community in Afghanistan was caught napping by the widespread fraud. In fact, as I recently wrote elsewhere, the fraud was assured months ago when Karzai began to align himself with regional warlords, drug traffickers, and top officials in the provinces who were terrified of losing their lucrative sinecures.
The biggest mistake may have been made by the UN in not running the elections as it did in 2004 but instead handing them over to the Afghan-run "Independent Election Commission," which was beholden to Karzai, who appointed the members. On September 8, a UN-backed commission announced that it had found "clear and convincing evidence of fraud" and ordered a partial recount of returns that claimed Karzai had received 54 percent of the vote. If Karzai does not receive over 50 percent of the vote in the final count then there will be a runoff election in October. If Karzai wins over 50 percent his legitimacy will be doubted by many Afghans while the credibility of the US and the other nations involved in the elections will be even more damaged.
An October runoff between Karzai and Abdullah may win back the credibility of the democratic process if that election is more tightly run, but it will leave the country paralyzed for most of the next two months. During that time there could be severe ethnic tensions. Karzai is a Pashtun while Abdullah's mother is a Tajik. We can expect local conflicts, assassinations, and a breakdown in law and order—while the Taliban will further justify their condemnation of democracy as an infidel conspiracy. The best option would be for the US to pressure Karzai to accept a national government that would include Abdullah and other opposition candidates.
In Washington President Obama is under fire from the left of the Democratic Party for becoming another war president and from right-wing Republicans for being overly ambitious in his plans for Afghanistan. Increasingly Americans are getting fed up with a war that has gone on longer than the US involvement in the two world wars combined. For the first time, polling shows that a majority of Americans do not approve of Obama's handling of Afghanistan. Yet if it is to have any chance of success, the Obama plan for Afghanistan needs a serious long-term commitment—at least for the next three years. Democratic politicians are demanding results before next year's congressional elections, which is neither realistic nor possible. Moreover, the Taliban are quite aware of the Democrats' timetable. With Obama's plan the US will be taking Afghanistan seriously for the first time since 2001; if it is to be successful it will need not only time but international and US support—both open to question.
After Obama's injection of 21,000 troops and trainers, total Western forces in Afghanistan now number 100,000, including 68,000 US troops. It is likely that General McChrystal will soon ask for more. Obama's overall plan has been to achieve security by doubling the Afghan army's strength to 240,000 men and the police to 160,000; but these are tasks that would take at least until 2014 to complete, if indeed they can be carried out. Meanwhile the military operation in Afghanistan is now costing cash-strapped US taxpayers $4 billion a month.
Across the region many people fear that the US and NATO may start to pull out of Afghanistan during the next twelve months despite their uncompleted mission. That would almost certainly result in the Taliban walking into Kabul. Al-Qaeda would be in a stronger position to launch global terrorist attacks. The Pakistani Taliban would be able to "liberate" large parts of Pakistan. The Taliban's game plan of waiting out the Americans now looks more plausible than ever.
For all these reasons it is important to recognize that if Western forces are to regain the initiative in Afghanistan, they must deal with the situation in Pakistan, which needs to eliminate sanctuaries of both the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban forces within the country. The Pakistani military will bide its time until the Americans are really desperate, and then the army will demand its price from the US—a price to be measured in financial and military support.
Balochistan
Much has been made of Pakistan as a potential failed state on the verge of breakup, yet if there is even a remote chance of that happening it will not be because of the Taliban, but because of an underlying crisis that has been studiously ignored by the West—the separatist movement in Balochistan. The issue is well described in the best chapter of a new book on Pakistan by Nicholas Schmidle, To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan.
Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province, comprising 48 percent of its territory and sharing a long border with southern Afghanistan; but it is a land of rugged mountains and deserts, with a population of only 12 million people. Ever since Pakistan's creation in 1947, the Baloch tribes have been in revolt against what they see as the chauvinism and denial of their rights by the Pakistani army in favor of Punjab, the country's most populous province, with 86 million people.
In five major insurgencies against the army, the Baloch have demanded greater autonomy, royalties for the province's gas, development funds, and genuine political representation. The fifth insurgency began in 2005 and has intensified because of the brutal repression and hundreds of "disappearances" of Baloch nationalists, for which the army under former President Pervez Musharraf was responsible.
Many young Baloch are now demanding their own state. In August, with the start of the new school year, Baloch students refused to hoist the Pakistani flag or sing the national anthem. Ten non-Baloch college principals were assassinated by guerrillas the same month, creating panic among the Punjabi settler population. The Khan of Kalat, Mir Suleman Dawood, the titular chief of chiefs of all the Baloch tribes—whose ancestors once ruled Balochistan—announced on August 11 the formation of a council for "an independent Balochistan"; he rejected any reconciliation with the government unless there was international mediation from the UN. According to human rights activists, hundreds of Baloch nationalists have disappeared—they are believed to have been secretly arrested and tortured by the military but their whereabouts remain unknown.
Schmidle meets the Khan and other Baloch chiefs and, with no small courage, follows them as they are trailed by the ISI. "By the end of 2006, nearly every nationalist leader in Balochistan had been killed, arrested, or placed under house arrest," he writes. The Khan of Kalat describes Balochistan's mineral wealth to Schmidle: "We are sitting on gold and anytime we speak up and ask for due compensation, we get a bloody spanking."
The civilian government under President Zardari arranged a cease-fire with the guerrillas last year but failed to follow it up with serious talks, and guerrilla attacks have resumed. Pakistan's past military rulers have ignored the fact that their country is a multiethnic, multireligious state and the policies of an overtly centralized military do not work. The army's refusal to acknowledge this led to the loss of East Pakistan—now Bangladesh—in 1971. Tomorrow it could be Balochistan.
Schmidle has written a picaresque book about what Pakistan looks like today. Like a good film director he presents extraordinary pictures of political mayhem and violence interspersed with dialogue, solid character actors, and tightly focused close-ups of bad guys such as Maulana Fazlullah, the leader of the Swati Taliban—"a short man with large gaps between his teeth,...wavy hair,...a bulky, black turban and a goofy smile."
However, like many movies, Schmidle's book lacks a coherent plot. Each chapter serves up a separate scene or subject, but no common thread or larger themes and ideas link the chapters together. In fact there is little that sets the book apart from the best recent Western newspaper reporting on Pakistan. Schmidle's prose can be brilliant but fails to describe the undercurrents of life in Balochistan or provide the analysis that is needed.
As early as page 8 he heralds his arrival in Pakistan with an analysis that could have been culled from any US magazine over the past three years—Pakistan as the most dangerous place on earth:
From what I gathered, there were a few essential things to know about Pakistan: the army was perpetually in charge, the intelligence agencies were a brooding and ubiquituous force, the Islamists threatened to take over, ethnic problems portended more Balkanization, corruption plagued human interaction and a modest arsenal of nuclear weapons all combined to make Pakistan the most dysfunctional—and most dangerous—country in the world.
After reading such a statement of the obvious we expect some further insights. Instead, at the end of the book, Schmidle is still asking the same questions, having found no answers:
The political, social, economic, and religious dynamics embedded in Pakistan seemed to become more and more complicated—and volatile—with time, and less and less solvable.
Foreign correspondents should not make too much of their own intrepid adventures, but this is not the case with Schmidle. He opens the book with a graphic account of his deportation from Pakistan, warning us that the book is going to be as much about him as about Pakistan. We are often told about his looks and his physique—he is six feet two with blond hair—and about the personal dilemmas that obsess him: What clothes should he wear? What color should he dye his hair? Would it be better to pretend to be Canadian rather than American? Such worries only trivialize his story.
The son of a Marine general, Schmidle, in his mid-twenties and married, arrives in Pakistan in February 2006 under a two-year grant from a Washington think tank. To his credit, he learns Urdu and travels extensively. His time in Islamabad coincides with the most tumultuous events in the country's history during the dictatorship of General Musharraf. The heart of his story is his meetings with Islamic extremists. He befriends the bespectacled, soft-spoken yet lethal religious leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who ran the radical Red Mosque in the center of Islamabad. Ghazi opens doors for Schmidle that lead him straight into the heart of the Islamic militancy that was beginning to grip the country in 2006. Ghazi himself is a complex character:
While Ghazi relished his al-Qaeda connections and the confidence such friends might have lent, I still found him to be surprisingly sensible and pragmatic. His eyes didn't burn with fervor. Nor did his rhetoric emanate hatred. He calmly explained the rise of anti-Americanism around the world as a product of the United States' "missed opportunity" to act as a benevolent, global leader.
Ghazi's story ends with his martyrdom once the army, after procrastinating for six months, storms the Red Mosque. One hundred militants die but hundreds of Ghazi's young followers escape the siege to become the suicide bombers that have since torn through the heart of Pakistan's cities.
Ultimately the book's strength lies in its cinematic descriptions, for example its account of the quarter in Karachi run by the political leader Altaf Hussain and his party, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), which advocates preserving the ethnic identity of the Urdu-speaking minority that emigrated from India:
Whitewashed apartment blocks lined the surrounding streets. Billboards modeled Altaf's face more than they advertised products, and the MQM's white, green, and red-striped flag fluttered from lampposts, traffic lights and car antennas. Sputtering Suzuki hatchbacks circled around a dried-up fountain, the color of rain clouds. A sculpture of a clenched fist rose from the top of the fountain.
Unfortunately, strong description is not enough. Whether Pakistan's army and political leaders can deal with the threat from the Taliban and other violent forces they have themselves sustained over the years is a question that needs to be addressed more urgently than ever as the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan deteriorates further.
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Preparations for new Afghanistan vote begin
Second round will take place in five weeks if Hamid Karzai's share of vote in disputed presidential election drops below 50%
Declan Walsh in Islamabad guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 September 2009 23.56 BST
Afghan election officials have begun logistical preparations for a second round of voting to determine the controversial presidential election marred by allegations of large-scale rigging in favour of Hamid Karzai, it emerged today.
The second round will take place in five weeks only if Karzai's share of the vote – which currently stands at 54% – falls to less than 50%. With 10% of ballots currently under scrutiny, that scenario appears increasingly likely.
Karzai's team today dismissed EU claims of fraud, after Phillippe Morillon, head of the EU election monitoring mission, said 1.1m of about 3m votes cast for Karzai were suspect.
"Hamid Karzai's election campaign team believes today's announcement of the number of suspected votes by the head and deputy head of EU election monitoring commission is partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan's constitution," his campaign office said in a statement.
A senior western official said that the Afghan independent election commission had "pencilled in" a run-off vote for the third week of October, despite earlier predictions that a fresh poll would be impossible before the onset of the harsh Afghan winter. The IEC has ordered new ballots from the UK and new stocks of indelible ink, used to stain voters' fingers, from Canada, according to the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. But an exact date has not been set.
A second vote could resolve a tense dispute with Karzai's main presidential rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who claims the 20 August poll was rigged. Results so far give Abdullah 28% support. But it would also be expensive and dangerous, disinfranchising Afghan voters in remote snowbound provinces. By the third week of October parts of northern Badakhshan and eastern Nuristan provinces are likely to be inaccessible because of heavy snowfall.
There would be a risk of further Taliban violence. In the last round, a small number of voters had their fingers chopped off after casting their ballot. The authorities would also have to recruit new staff in areas with a history of proven vote-rigging.
"It could be a nightmare. On top of the security problem of further Taliban attacks, some areas will be left out of the vote," the western official said.
So far, 93% of votes have been counted. The independent election commission is expected to release a full preliminary tally later today,, but the UN-backed electoral complaints commission (ECC), which adjudicates disputes, has quarantined votes from 2,500 of the country's 26,300 polling stations.
The ECC has already thrown out votes from 83 stations, mostly in areas in which Karzai won, in some cases scoring 100% of votes cast with a 100% turnout.
EU election observers say 27% of results published so far indicate fraud.
Despite the potential difficulties, many see an imperfect second round as preferable to a long winter of perilous limbo.
Alternatively, a second round could be averted if Karzai and Abdullah were to strike a power-sharing deal, but neither so far appears inclined to compromise.
The fraud controversy has split the UN mission to Kabul, whose American deputy head, Peter Galbraith, has left for New York following a dispute with his Norwegian boss, Kai Eide.
"In any hotly-contested election, there are bound to be differences of opinion. But Peter and Kai remain committed to the election process," a spokesman for the mission, Aleem Siddiqui, said.
The row is thought to centre on the UN's public stance on fraud allegations, with Galbraith favouring aggressive criticism while Eide advocates a "behind the scenes" approach.
One UN insider said the argument had divided opinion inside the mission, reflecting a wider split over the poll. "There's a heated debate in lots of embassies," the insider said. "The difference is that ours has come into the open."
The debates in Kabul came as the Ministry of Defence announced that two British soldiers had died yesterday after they were fatally wounded in separate explosions in southern Afghanistan.
A soldier from 2nd Battalion The Rifles was killed when he was caught in a blast while on foot patrol in Helmand and a second soldier, from 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, died in hospital in the UK after being injured in an explosion in the north-west of Helmand on Saturday. A total of 216 British troops have died in Afghanistan since the start of operations in October 2001.
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Diplomat in Kabul Leaves in Dispute
U.N. Deputy Head of Mission Differs With Boss on Recognizing Flawed Election
By Pamela Constable and Karen DeYoung Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, September 16, 2009
KABUL, Sept. 15 -- The deputy head of the U.N. mission here has abruptly left the country after a dispute with the mission's Norwegian chief over whether to publicly denounce Afghanistan's election commission for not discounting clearly fraudulent votes cast in favor of President Hamid Karzai's reelection.
Mounting tensions over the country's tainted presidential vote have divided and frustrated Afghanistan's international backers, and endangered President Obama's troubled war strategy as his administration debates whether to deploy additional U.S. troops.
American diplomat Peter W. Galbraith and his Norwegian boss, U.N. Special Representative Kai Eide, disagreed so strongly over the right post-election approach that they were unable to keep working together, prompting Galbraith's departure from the country Sunday.
"I suggested to him, and he agreed, that it would be best" to leave the country, Galbraith said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "It's fair to say [Eide] didn't have confidence that I would follow his policy line on this, and I had disagreements with his policy line that were best resolved by leaving." A senior U.N. official here said Galbraith "will be back."
On Thursday, Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission is set to announce final results from the Aug. 20 vote. It is expected to declare that Karzai has won reelection with about 54 percent of the vote and that his top challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, has lost with about 28 percent.
But the polling process has been irreparably tainted. A separate, U.N.-sponsored Electoral Complaints Commission has found evidence of fraud at polls throughout the country, and the panel said Tuesday that about 10 percent of the entire vote, from 2,500 polling stations, needs to be recounted on suspicion of fraud. This might affect enough ballots to lower Karzai's tally below the 50 percent plus one vote he needs to avoid a runoff with Abdullah.
The question that has increasingly divided Afghan experts and international officials here is whether to pursue the time-consuming fraud investigations to the end -- leaving a weakened Karzai, estranged from Afghanistan's international backers, in power during months of political drift and potential violence until a possible spring runoff -- or to seek an unlikely political compromise among Afghans to avoid a second round of voting.
Divisions over what to do exist even within the Obama administration, which is under increasing pressure to demonstrate to a skeptical Congress and American public that its Afghanistan strategy is working. That strategy depends on having a viable, democratically elected partner in the Afghan government.
The divisions are paralleled in disagreements among NATO allies fighting in Afghanistan that began long before the presidential vote. Some European countries have lowered their troop commitments to Afghanistan, while the United States is increasing the size of its force. A recent U.S. airstrike in northern Afghanistan that killed at least 70 people -- including some civilians -- was requested by German ground forces that the Americans complain have not been active enough in patrolling the area.
In the post-election dispute, sources close to the United Nations said Galbraith represented the view that the fraud probe must be fully carried out, along with a partial recount that the complaints panel ordered, even if this leads to a delayed runoff. That view jibes with the vision of Grant Kippen, the Canadian who heads the complaints commission, that building a democratic process matters more than who wins this election.
Germany's foreign minister said Tuesday that his government would press for a full investigation of the fraud complaints, saying the new Afghan president needed to be "recognized and respected by the entire population." Other European governments have backed off from their initial praise for the election, saying that unless the new government is seen as legitimate, it will be hard for them to justify continued military involvement.
But another, more pragmatic school of thought, which Eide has publicly endorsed in the past, argues that a runoff may be too difficult and dangerous to hold. The urgent need to establish a new government while Afghanistan and its Western allies are fighting a war against Taliban insurgents, this line of thinking goes, requires finding a political solution such as a compromise between Karzai and Abdullah.
Diplomatic sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said U.S. officials here had been frustrated in their efforts to press Karzai to acknowledge the widespread fraud and to accept the possibility of a runoff, or to make a deal in which he would remain as a titular president but be held more accountable for his actions and allow himself to be surrounded by foreign, technocratic advisers.
The sources said Karzai has been privately trying to win over European diplomats, including Eide, suggesting that they not be overly concerned about the fraud problem and give him full support on the grounds that he has won a decisive mandate.
The dispute leading directly to Galbraith's departure began Sept. 2, when he called the Afghan election commission to protest its decision to abandon agreed-upon guidelines under which it would not count any ballots submitted by local officials from "ghost" polling places, where no voters showed up because of security concerns, sources said. The United Nations, Galbraith said, would not remain silent in the face of the decision.
Within 90 minutes, Karzai had summoned U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry to protest Galbraith's action; Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta summoned Galbraith to a meeting that afternoon. Eide, sources said, told his deputy he disagreed with his intervention and made his views known to the Afghan government.
On Sept. 7, the election commission decided to go ahead with the ghost tally, and it announced the next day that Karzai, with more than 90 percent of the vote counted, had passed the 50 percent mark.
DeYoung reported from Washington.
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White House issues yardsticks for success in Afghanistan
By Nancy A. Youssef, Mcclatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The White House Wednesday presented Congress with eight general yardsticks to measure success in Afghanistan and Pakistan , but didn't say how they'd help the administration determine how well U.S. policy in the region is working.
Indeed, White House officials said they weren't sure if they'd use the metrics to help President Barack Obama decide whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan , according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Wednesday.
Instead, the administration official, who spoke with reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the White House devised the metrics to hold itself accountable. A senior defense official, however, said the metrics also are designed to help guide the White House as it begins what could be weeks of deliberations about the way ahead in Afghanistan and Pakistan , six months after it first laid out its goals there.
During a press conference Wednesday with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper , Obama said that he refused to be rushed on whether to send more troops, despite declining political and public support, mounting U.S. casualties, evidence that U.S.-backed Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai rigged his re-election last month, pervasive official corruption, a resurgent Taliban and halfhearted assistance from neighboring Pakistan .
If Karzai claims another term as president, as appears likely, and the outcome is considered illegitimate, it could further undercut domestic public and political support for the Afghan war and leave the White House hitched to an unpopular leader in Kabul .
Obama said Wednesday that he wants "absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be."
It's not clear, however, that the metrics presented Wednesday will provide that clarity. Some metrics could be measured using statistics such as polls or economic variables, but about half of them are subjective, and each metric has between four and 14 sub-metrics. Two that are classified weren't released.
One metric, for example, calls for the U.S. and its allies to defeat extremist insurgencies, "secure the Afghan populace, and develop increasingly self-reliant Afghan security forces that can lead the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fight with reduced U.S. assistance."
The 14 sub-metrics for that goal include: measure the level of corruption within the Afghan security forces; public perceptions of the security forces; the capability and size of the Afghan police and army; and percent of the population living under insurgent-controlled or government-controlled communities.
Others yardsticks include economic and political development in Afghanistan and Pakistan and improved security forces in both nations.
Other goals, especially those directed at Pakistan , might be difficult for the United States to reach, since it has few troops and little leverage in that country, where anti-Americanism has been rising.
For example, one metric calls for the development of " Pakistan's counterinsurgency capabilities," adding the United States should "continue to support Pakistan's efforts to defeat terrorist and insurgent groups."
The senior administration official stressed that the United States isn't engaged in nation building in Afghanistan , even though one of the sub-metrics calls for measuring "public perception of Afghanistan's justice sector and commitment to providing the rule of law at the national, provincial, and local levels."
If the Afghans and Pakistanis achieve the goals with U.S. support, the United States will meet its goal of "disrupting, dismantling and defeating" al Qaida , the official said.
"The metrics are the strategy," he said.
The White House said it would review the metrics quarterly and present its findings to Congress by March, as Congress requested. It will determine success on a scale, White House officials said. In addition, it will appoint a team of experts to review progress in Afghanistan using the White House metrics so there's an independent analysis.
Congress demanded the benchmarks from the White House by Sept. 24 as concern grows that the U.S. may be committing itself to an escalating war with little prospect of success.
Adm. Michael Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that the United States "probably" will send more troops to Afghanistan in addition to the additional 17,700 troops and 4,000 trainers that Obama ordered this spring. There currently are 64,000 troops in Afghanistan .
McChrystal's formal request for troops is expected later this month, Mullen said.
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Obama: No 'immediate' decision on more troops to Afghanistan
by Stephen Collinson – Wed Sep 16, 5:48 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama warned he would make no "immediate" decision on troops for Afghanistan Wednesday, a day after the top US military officer said extra US soldiers would probably be needed.
As more and more Americans sour on the eight-year war, even as expectations mount of a deeper US role in the conflict, Obama promised a painstaking review of strategy before taking such life and death decisions.
"My determination is to get this right. I'm going to take a very deliberate process in making those decisions," he said after talks in the White House with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"I just want to be absolutely clear, because there's been a lot of discussion in the press about this, that there is no immediate decision pending on resources.
"You don't make determinations about resources, and certainly you don't make determinations about sending young men and women into battle without having absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be.
"We are going to proceed and make sure that we don't put the cart before the horse."
Obama spoke as his aides presented senators Wednesday with a set of proposed benchmarks to measure progress in the US-led fight against an increasingly violent insurgency.
With members of Obama's party voicing anxiety about the open-ended US commitment in Afghanistan, lawmakers had demanded the White House produce indicators or "metrics" to show how progress can be assessed.
Obama is studying classified recommendations on future strategy by war commander General Stanley McChrystal, who is widely expected to submit a separate formal request to increase the 62,000-strong US force.
He promised that before drawing any conclusions he would seek input from a broad range of government security advisors as well as the US military and its allies in the international force in Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services committee that more soldiers would likely be needed to subdue the Taliban.
"A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces and, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of good governance," said Mullen.
The draft list of benchmarks prepared by the administration covers levels of violence, the volume of narcotics trafficking and more subjective criteria such as public perceptions of the Kabul government and its police and judiciary.
It recommended monitoring the level of insurgent-related violence, public perceptions of security, the proportion of the population living in areas under insurgent control, and the percentage of key roads under government control.
Under the objective of promoting a more capable Afghan government, one benchmark cites the Afghan government's "ability to hold credible elections in 2009 and 2010."
The August 20 presidential elections in Afghanistan were plagued by claims of massive fraud, with European Union observers branding 1.5 million votes as suspicious.
The disputed polls have piled pressure on Obama, who faces mounting skepticism from allies in Congress, including House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has warned there is little support among lawmakers for more troop deployments.
Powerful Senate Armed Services committee chairman, Democrat Carl Levin, has suggested that Washington should accelerate the pace and scope of training of Afghan forces before sending more US troops.
From the other side, Republicans are warning that Obama is acting too slowly.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs denied that the president was stalling in order to avoid confronting Congress with a divisive debate on more troop deployments while he is trying desperately to win passage of his landmark health reform bill.
Obama must also keep a weather eye on weakening public support for a war, which he maintains was neglected by the previous administration of former president George W. Bush.
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US ambassador walks streets of Kabul
By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 16, 4:10 pm ET
KABUL – The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan strolled the streets of Kabul on Wednesday, chatting with schoolchildren and visiting a mosque during an impromptu city tour.
Though insurgent attacks have skyrocketed across Afghanistan this year, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's 15-minute stroll — while wearing a business suit and with no visible body armor — underscores the fact that the Afghan capital remains relatively safe.
An American ambassador in Iraq would never have taken an unplanned stroll down a busy city street during the deadliest years of the war there because of the extreme dangers he would have faced.
After his walk, the U.S. ambassador told The Associated Press that getting out and meeting people was "extremely valuable" and that he often takes short walks around the city.
"The mission here is to secure the people, secure the community," Eikenberry said. "You've got to be out here getting a sense of what the people are thinking in order to do that."
Outside a woodworking shop, Eikenberry talked with 37-year-old Sayed Hassan Barwazi, a community leader. Barwazi thanked the ambassador for coming out from behind the embassy's blast-proof walls and asked the U.S. to "pay attention to schools and parks."
While the two spoke, a crowd of about 100 gathered on the street, including several police carrying AK-47 rifles. A NATO convoy cruised by, and an Afghan man with a trained monkey on a leash walked past.
Throughout the walk, Eikenberry asked schoolchildren about their favorite subjects in school.
A former three-star general who was the top U.S. military commander in the country from 2005 to early 2007, Eikenberry has traveled all over the country and is regarded as well-versed in Afghanistan's history and complex politics.
Thousands of U.S. and other foreign citizens live in Kabul, including aid workers and diplomats. Many are driven around in well-protected SUVs and with armed guards, though others ride bikes and walk short distances. Doing that can be dangerous, though; foreigners have been attacked and kidnapped in Kabul while walking and driving.
The reason for Wednesday's trip was to visit an old madrassa — an Islamic religious school — whose walls and roof were torn apart by bullet holes and mortar fire from the country's civil war in the mid-1990s. The U.S. is giving $120,000 to help restore the structure, which will house classrooms for more than 300 students when complete.
"It is our hope that this madrassa will educate young Afghans to help advance peace, progress, justice and prosperity in your country," Eikenberry said during a short ceremony.
Eikenberry had several body guards watching him during his short walk, though when he asked Afghan officials if he could walk to the nearby madrassa — about 100 yards (meters) away — he said quietly that he knew his security team would not like his impromptu plan.
This year has been the deadliest of the eight-year war for U.S. troops, but a tight security cordon around Kabul has helped keep the capital relatively peaceful.
A U.S. spokesman for NATO forces, Col. Wayne Shanks, said Wednesday that three U.S. service members were killed after their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday.
In London, the Ministry of Defense said a British soldier who was wounded by an explosion in Helmand province on Saturday died at a hospital in England. His death Wednesday brings to 215 the number of British military personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Violence has risen across Afghanistan in the last three years as the resurgent Taliban regained control of large swaths of countryside. August was the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the war with the Taliban began in late 2001. The American death toll now stands at more than 750 in the conflict.
Fighting has been particularly harsh this summer in the south, where thousands of U.S. troops have deployed to bolster the Canadian and British-led operations in the Taliban heartland.
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In Afghanistan, troops trying to blend in better
From Mike Mount CNN Senior Pentagon Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Army ground commanders in Afghanistan say they need help, fast. That's not a request for more troops, but a request from commanders who say the current camouflage uniform is not blending well in the diverse countryside.
In response, the Army later this month will field-test two new camouflage color schemes and patterns on about 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, where the terrain is extremely varied.
Commanders have had problems there because of the numerous changes in environments a soldier can move in and out of in a short period of time -- from woodland to desert to alpine, and to rocky and snowy mountain tops.
The current uniform, known as the Army Combat Uniform or ACU, has lighter shades of green and tan, which some commanders have complained does not blend well if soldiers need to stay motionless on a mission, as snipers or reconnaissance troops must.
The effort by the Army was recently accelerated, according to Army officials, after U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, told the Army he had a number of complaints from soldiers in Afghanistan who said the current camouflage pattern was not effective in the mountainous regions.
Two yet-to-be-identified battalions -- a battalion has about 500 troops -- will test the two patterns, with initial results being turned into Army researchers by the end of October.
While deployed, all 1,000 soldiers will have their regularly issued ACUs. In addition, one battalion will also get one of the new camouflage uniforms with a test pattern known as "MultiCam." The pattern is made up of numerous blobs of white, brown, tan, black and greens for a more woodland look, and is already being worn by snipers and special operations forces.
The other brigade will test a similar pattern to the ACU, called the Universal Cammo Pattern-Delta or "UCP-Delta." While the pattern is the same, a series of "digitized" blocks of green and tan, the test uniform adds what he Army calls "coyote brown" and a slight color darkening all around to the greens and tans. The look is also designed to blend in the woods.
Both battalions will be based in eastern Afghanistan where the terrain is the most rugged and diverse, Army officials said.
The Army hopes to have the field input and a decision on what pattern is best by the end of January 2010 and the fielding of the new uniform as early as June 2010.
Troops will still keep the existing ACU, and commanders will be able to decide mission by mission what the soldiers should wear, according to Army officials.
The testing is part of the Army's long-term development of a permanent alternative to the current ACU, according to Army officials.
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Senators Presented Plans for Success in Afghanistan, Pakistan
By John M. Donnelly – CQPolitics.com via Yahoo! News - Sep 16 9:50 AM
In a classified briefing Wednesday morning, senior administration officials presented senators with a draft list of U.S. objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and measures of progress toward achieving them.
The unclassified document, obtained by Congressional Quarterly, shows the importance of nuclear-armed Pakistan in the administration's approach to the regional conflict. It also shows an emphasis on soliciting support from other nations to address the problem.
Officials from several agencies met with senators. A similar briefing was set for Wednesday afternoon with members of six House committees that deal with national-security matters.
"The goal of the United States," the document begins, "is to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."
The first objective is: "Disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan to degrade any ability they have to plan and launch international terrorist attacks." The measures for achieving that goal are contained in a classified annex.
The second set of goals also pertain to Pakistan. They are:
- "Assist efforts to enhance civilian control and stable constitutional government in Pakistan.
- "Develop Pakistan's counterinsurgency capabilities; continue to support Pakistan's efforts to defeat terrorist and insurgent groups.
- "Involve the international community more actively to forge an international consensus to stabilize Pakistan."
The third set of objectives apply to Afghanistan. They are:
- "Defeat the extremist insurgency, secure the Afghan populace, and develop increasingly self-reliant Afghan security forces that can lead the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fight with reduced U.S. assistance.
- "Promote a more capable, accountable and effective government in Afghanistan that serves the Afghan people and can eventually function, especially regarding internal security, with limited international support.
- "Involve the international community more actively to forge an international consensus to stabilize Afghanistan."
Senator Question War's Progress After the briefing, senators expressed concerns about the war's progress.
John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he is reserving judgement on whether more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan until his committee conducts a series of hearings on the matter.
"There are a lot of questions that have to be answered," Kerry said.
Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the administration needs to act quickly to address a variety of pressing issues in Afghanistan -- from training and equipping Afghan forces to a moving forward with a program to persuade low-level Taliban members to stop fighting.
"What I'm interested in is getting these known actions going," Levin said.
Each of the objectives lists between four and 14 ways of gauging progress toward meeting it. Measuring success in defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan, for instance, can be shown in the percentage of the population living in districts or areas under insurgent control. Other benchmarks on that goal are the ability of Afghan security forces to assume "lead security responsibility" and the "level of corruption" within those forces.
The document stated that the administration would assess progress at "regular intervals," with the first assessment due March 30, 2010. A "red team" on the National Intelligence Council would conduct its own assessment as a check on the first one, it said.
The House committees that were set to receive the briefing were Armed Services, Appropriations, Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, Intelligence, and Judiciary.
The administration officials who were scheduled to deliver the information included: Michèle Flournoy, under secretary of Defense for Policy; Paul Jones, deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and deputy assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asia; Peter Lavoy, deputy director of National Intelligence for Analysis; Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, special assistant to the President and senior director for Afghanistan and Pakistan; and Vice Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., director for Strategic Plans and Policy for the Joint Staff.
The benchmarks set forth in Wednesday's briefing are required by the fiscal 2009 war spending measure (PL 111-32). As spelled out in the law, the administration must provide "a clear statement of the objectives of United States policy with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the metrics to be utilized to assess progress toward achieving such objectives."
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Al Qaeda calls for foreign kidnappings in Afghanistan
By Michael Perry – Wed Sep 16, 3:35 am ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A senior al Qaeda official has called on the Taliban to kidnap foreign civilians in Afghanistan to force U.S.-led forces to negotiate prisoner exchanges, a former Australian police counter-terrorism analyst said.
The directive has been issued by veteran al Qaeda adviser Mustafa Hamid, also known as Abu Walid al Masri, and stems from the U.S. detentions in Guantanamo Bay, Leah Farrall told Reuters on Wednesday.
Farrall, who had worked for the Australian Federal Police, said she had found the al Qaeda internet document, written in late July, while completing a PhD on al Qaeda at Monash University in Australia.
The document, "The U.S. Soldier in Afghanistan - the first step for the release of all prisoners of the war on terror," argues the capture of a U.S. soldier earlier this year should serve as a precedent in a campaign of abducting Western civilians to negotiate the release of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners.
Farrall said the document rallies against the U.S. treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners and calls on the Taliban to treat their enemy the same, citing examples of kidnapping campaigns by Hamas and Hezbollah.
But whereas some al Qaeda kidnappings have led executions, Hamid does not call for hostages to be harmed.
"He does not speak about executing prisoners at all. It's all about hostage taking and holding the hostages and negotiating. There is nothing about what to do with them if negotiations fail," Farrall said.
"He also talks about using the bodies of dead servicemen and pretending that they are still alive. He certainly does not advocate killing at all," she said, adding that Hamid had, until now, been regarded as a moderate voice in al Qaeda.
Six weeks after his directive was released, New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell and his Afghan colleague were kidnapped in Afghanistan. British journalist Farrell was freed, but his colleague was killed in a rescue raid in early September.
Farrall said the capture of the journalist suggests the Taliban may be considering Hamid's advice as he is very close to Taliban leaders Mullah Mohammad Omar and Jalaluddin Haggani.
In the document Hamid said he fought alongside Haggani in the Afghan-Soviet war and personally delivered Osama bin Laden's oath of allegiance to Omar, said Farrall.
Australia's Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism Bill Paterson said that while kidnapping campaigns had been used by al Qaeda, militants in north Africa and the Philippine's Abu Sayyaf rebels, it was unclear whether the Taliban would adopt such a tactic.
"The Taliban learn from al Qaeda and possibly vice versa," Paterson told Reuters in Sydney.
"But the Taliban are their own people and there is some evidence that some in the Taliban see al Qaeda in their midst in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan as intruders and foreigners."
Hamid has been detained in Iran since 2003 but remains an influential figure in the militant movement and maintains contact with his followers through jihadist websites, said Farrall.
The document calling for kidnappings of Westerners first appeared on an internet source page Farrall has been tracking for several years, but has since been posted widely on al Qaeda forums.
Farrall said she wrote about the document in an article in The Australian newspaper on Wednesday because of concerns other militant groups may see it as a call to kidnap Westerners.
"It has been posted on the forum that is used for al Qaeda strategic communications," Farrall said. "Prior to this his work had had a fairly limited distribution."
"My concern is this document has now gone out to wide readership of groups with different agendas, who may take the idea but not necessarily take the precautions of looking after the hostages and holding them."
(Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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Afghan president re-opens probe into reporter's death
Wed Sep 16, 9:05 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday ordered a second investigation into the killing of an Afghan reporter during a British commando raid that rescued his Western colleague, his office said.
The president told the interior ministry and National Directorate for Security to re-open inquiries into the death last week of Sultan Munadi, a 34-year-old father of two.
Karzai issued the order after meeting Munadi's family at his palace in Kabul and hearing their version of the events that led to his death.
Munadi and Stephen Farrell, both working for The New York Times, were snatched by Taliban rebels while investigating suspected civilian deaths in a NATO air strike in the northern Kunduz province earlier this month.
A dramatic airborne commando raid last Wednesday saw British-Irish citizen Farrell whisked to safety but Munadi killed in the crossfire, his bullet-riddled body left at the scene for his family to collect.
Karzai met Munadi's father and brother and "assured them of a serious investigation into his death," the presidency said.
Based on investigations carried out by Qurban Mohammad, the reporter's father, and witnesses, Munadi's "martyrdom case is totally different to what is said by media and coalition forces," said the statement.
"Listening to Qurban Mohammad, the president ordered the interior ministry and National Directorate of Security to launch a re-investigation," it said.
Initial investigations showed Munadi was killed by gunfire at close-range, the statement said.
Munadi's brother Mohammad Osman told AFP that he believed the fatal shot entered vertically from under his chin and was fired from such close range that it left burn marks on the skin around the wound.
"He had a gun shot from under his chin with a skin burn. This is not possible unless he is shot with gun barrel touching his skin," said Osman.
Munadi's death caused heartbreak and anger among his colleagues, some of whom accused international forces of double standards in their dealings with Afghans and Westerners.
The operation sparked a blacklash over the use of British troops with reports saying that negotiations had been under way to free the pair and after a British soldier, and an Afghan woman and child were also killed in the raid.
It has been unclear whether Munadi was killed by insurgents or troops.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband rebuffed calls for an inquiry, insisting the raid was the only way to secure the men's release.
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3 US Service Members Killed in Afghanistan
By VOA News 16 September 2009
U.S. military officials say three U.S. service members have been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.
Officials made the announcement Wednesday but have not provided any more information.
The bombing comes amid a wave of attacks by Afghan insurgents against U.S. and NATO forces.
Last month was the deadliest for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban-led government was ousted in 2001.
Violence has risen steadily in Afghanistan in recent years as the Taliban has fought to extend control across wide swaths of the countryside. The U.S. military and NATO have deployed a record number of troops to try to help Afghan forces crush the insurgency.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
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Clash leaves 20 insurgents dead in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Clash between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents in west Afghanistan claimed the lives of 20 rebels, a private newspaper reported Wednesday.
"Twenty militants were killed during clash with security forces Tuesday in Band-e-Sabzak area between Herat and Badghis provinces in western Afghanistan," daily Rah-e-Nejat writes.
Quoting Herat police chief Asmatullah Alizai, the newspaper added that five more insurgents got wounded in the gun battle lasted for hours.
It also added that police and soldiers had been deputed on the highway to ensure lasting security for traffic there.
Taliban insurgents continued to engaged Afghan security forces and foreign troops with guerrilla-style attacks, besides launching roadside bombings and suicide attacks, across the militancy-hit country.
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Afghan journalist associations calls for probe into journalist murder
KABUL, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's National Journalists Union has once again called for thorough investigation into the murder case of local reporter of New York Times Sultan Munadi and punishing those behind the gruesome incident, a press release of the association published in local newspapers on Wednesday said.
"Afghanistan's National Journalists Union once again calls on government and NATO to identify those responsible for Munadi's murder and bring them to justice at its earliest," the press release published in 8Subh newspaper stressed.
Munadi and his Irish-British colleague Stephen Farrell were abducted by Taliban militants in Kunduz province couple of days ago and later on Munadi was killed during NATO's rescue operation but Farrell was set free unharmed.
Afghan journalist associations as civil societies have earlier demanded from government to investigate and bring Munadi's murderers to justice.
Taliban militants have ruled out their involvement in Munadi's assassination.
Several journalists have been killed in Afghanistan over the past eight years but no culprits have brought to justice.
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Allies search for 'third way' strategy in Afghanistan
Wed Sep 16, 5:50 PM By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - The United States, Canada and Britain are casting about for a so-called "third way" in Afghanistan, a comprehensive strategy that could among other things disarm the more pliable, mercenary elements of the Taliban and empower local leaders to solve their own problems, diplomatic sources have told The Canadian Press.
U.S. President Barack Obama, following his meeting Wednesday with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Washington, said the nearly eight-year-old war has "lacked a clear strategy," and there will no more American troops until there is a plan.
"It's important that we also do an assessment on the civilian side, the diplomatic side, the development side, that we analyze the results of the election and then make further decisions moving forward," said Obama.
"My determination is to get this right, and that means broad consultation not only inside the US government, but also with our (International Security Assistance Force) partners and our NATO allies."
Those consultations are taking place at a feverish pace in Washington, London, Ottawa and Brussels, said one senior official in a background interview with The Canadian Press.
The talks have unfolded against the backdrop mounting casualties in the bloodiest summer for western forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban regime and a presidential election tainted with allegations of massive fraud.
Canada's "coherent" approach to fusing the military and civilian elements in Kandahar is the envy of other NATO nations and provides a valuable blueprint that the Americans are reviewing closely, the official said.
Elements of the British experience, wheeling and dealing with local Afghan elders in Helmand province, are also being brought to the table as both countries try "to help the Americans find a way through this."
In order to staunch the bleeding after the Aug. 20 election and preserve some air of legitimacy the allies are hoping to convince the next Afghan president to assemble a government of national reconciliation that would promote some sort of "agreed platform" of policies.
The challenge would be to give the people of Afghanistan, particularly the ethnic Pashtuns of the south "a political product they can believe in," said the official.
Breaking the back of the Taliban uprising could be done in two ways.
Instead of giving local fighters - many of them hired guns and destitute farmers - the choice of "fighting or fleeing," they should be given a "third option" of surrendering and reintegrating with society.
The allies tried that between 2005 and 2007 with the Program Takhim-E-Sohl, which encouraged fighters to lay down their weapons in exchange for offers of money and jobs, but the Afghan-led initiative was so rife with corruption the program collapsed and international cash dried up.
Officials say it's time for a better, more stringent national program to lure moderate Taliban away from the more hard-core elements of the insurgency.
At the same time, the countries are discussing the idea of empowering local district councils to, among other things, mediate disputes - much the same way they did for centuries before the Soviet occupation upended the social order.
Much of the appeal of the Taliban, especially in rural areas, can be found in their ability to swiftly - sometimes brutally - arbitrate disputes among residents as opposed to the muddled Western-based national justice system.
The new strategy could be rolled out by next spring, just before the annual fighting season, the official said.
But it would need a selling job beforehand, not only in Afghanistan, but also among NATO nations.
Obama needs to deliver a speech that "explains to our skeptical publics - right skeptical - exactly how we think we are going to succeed."
The arguments for a renewed military campaign may fall on deaf ears in Canada, as the Conservative government has steadfastly maintained the country's combat mission will come to end in 2011.
Harper made it clear in Washington that the country is not walking away from its commitment: "Canada is not leaving Afghanistan; Canada will be transitioning from a predominantly military mission to a mission that will be a civilian humanitarian development mission after 2011."
He said "that transition's already in place."
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Why the Taliban Is Gaining Ground in Afghanistan
By TIM MCGIRK / KABUL Tim Mcgirk time.com Kabul – Wed Sep 16, 1:10 pm ET
The Taliban today in Afghanistan is a markedly different movement from that of those warriors whose one-eyed leader, Mullah Omar, riding on a motorcycle, escaped capture from American forces in Kandahar in December 2001. Mullah Omar is still their leader, even though, as a senior Afghan intelligence official told TIME, he is thought to be hiding across the border in Pakistan, moving between the towns of Quetta and Zob in the scorched Baluchistan desert. Nowadays, though, the Taliban encompasses a vast and disparate array of players. A look at who they are is key to understanding why they are gaining ground against 63,000 U.S. troops and their NATO partners after eight years of guerrilla war.
The Taliban is not monolithic. It is composed of several layers: a hard-core group of former Taliban commanders (including Mullah Omar) who operate out of sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan and who maintain ties with Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency (though Islamabad vehemently denies this); bands linked to al-Qaeda whose ranks have recently swelled with Arab, Chechen and Uzbek fighters operating in the craggy, northeastern ranges of Afghanistan; and, a last group, probably the largest, made up of local tribesmen who have allied themselves loosely with the Taliban as a result of President Hamid Karzai's often corrupt provincial officials pitting one tribe against another. Mullah Salam, a tribal elder from Helmand province, scene of heavy fighting between Taliban and NATO forces, told TIME why he switched to the Taliban: "Karzai's people made promises to me, and I in turn made them to my tribe, but these were never honored." This last segment of the Taliban is also made up of those seeking justice against NATO forces, a roster likely to grow after coalition jets killed over 30 villagers in Kunduz who were filling up fuel from hijacked NATO tankers.
Western military officials, diplomats and Afghan officials interviewed by TIME all agree that the battle with the Taliban is entering a critical phase, especially after the Aug. 20 presidential elections marred by fraud. Karzai's credibility is now damaged. After 30 years of war, Afghans have developed a sixth sense about survival: they can detect subtle shifts of power. Rarely do they have qualms about changing to the winning side, even in midconflict. In an essay on the Taliban for Foreign Affairs magazine, Afghanistan expert Michael Semple and MIT political scientist Fotini Christia write: "Changing sides, realigning, flipping - whatever you want to call it - is the Afghan way of war."
And right now, that Afghan sixth sense is telling them that the U.S. and the other Western nations are losing the heart for battle. In the Pashtun strongholds of Afghanistan, it is now perceived to be a good idea for a tribe to start siding with the Taliban, even though members of the tribe may not agree with their harsh medievalism. A critical mass is gathering, experts say. Elders who belong to once neutral tribes in Kandahar province are now telling their youths to take up arms against the foreign invaders, as their fathers did back in the 1980s against the Red Army. In Tahkt-e-Pul, on the edges of Kandahar city, an influential mullah recently refused to preside over the funeral of a dead Afghan government soldier, a local boy; meanwhile a Taliban, who died fighting the Americans or the British, was honored as a brave martyr. It is a disturbing change among Afghans who in 2001, after the benighted years of the Taliban, welcomed foreigners bringing aid and progress.
The Taliban is surging into the vacuum created by Karzai's government, which is based on patronage rather than competence, coupled with the international community's often bungled and chaotic distribution of aid. One indication of how far the Taliban have come: this summer, Mullah Omar tried to consolidate his grip on his unruly commanders with a 13-page Code of Conduct (among the rules: no senior government officials are to be executed without his say-so, and civilian casualties must be minimized when attacking foreign troops). In large swathes of the southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Zabol, Oruzgan, Paktia and Paktika, a shadow Islamic republic of the Taliban already exists, with governors, a radio station, law-enforcing militias and courts. In recent months, the Taliban opened a northern front in Kunduz, Baghlan and Badakshan provinces, with a strong contingent of al-Qaeda foreigners among them, according to senior Afghan officials. In all these areas, a new saying prevails: "Government courts for the rich (because the judges are bribable), Taliban justice for the poor." And Taliban justice, they say, is usually more swift and fair.
But a Taliban win is not necessarily inevitable. Non-Pashtuns like the Tajiks, Hazaras and other minorities are certainly resisting a return of the Taliban; the parts of the country that they dominate, including sections of central and northern Afghanistan, are relatively peaceful. Also, while American and European casualties may be rising - 810 U.S. servicemen have died so far in the eight-year conflict - so has the number of Taliban deaths. Dozens of Taliban are killed every week.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani comrades of the Afghan Taliban are now locked in battle with the Pakistani army, and this has slowed the number of Pakistani volunteers infiltrating across the border to kill American soldiers. These frontier Pashtun tribesmen, who once provided the Afghans with a steady flow of weapons, young fighters and suicide bombers, are suddenly too pinned down to give anything but a trickle of support. Mullah Omar and the other members of the so-called Quetta Shura, or military council, have stayed on the sidelines for fear of losing their covert support from the Pakistani military and the ISI, who hate Karzai and his northern allies and want to see the Taliban back in power and the NATO forces gone from Afghanistan.
Says one top Afghan official: "We and the Americans gave the Pakistanis the addresses of madrasahs [religious schools] where the Taliban are training young recruits and suicide bombers, but the ISI refuses to act." Now that Pakistani authorities are finally realizing that support of an Islamist revival in Afghanistan comes with its own risks at home, that attitude may start to change. Only with the loss of his Pakistani sponsors can Mullah Omar and his Taliban be coaxed into striking a truce with Karzai.
- With reporting by Muhib Habibi / Kandahar
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Australia's PM: Afghanistan A Difficult Work In Progress
CANBERRA -(Dow Jones)- Australia's military campaign against terrorist activity and terrorism training in Afghanistan remains a difficult work in progress, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Thursday.
"We are in Afghanistan for the long haul" and no-one should forget the reasons why Australia is there, which also include Australia's obligations to the United States, he told reporters.
But Australia's mission there isn't a "blank check" and specifically aims to train an Afghan national army brigade to in time to take responsibility for security in Oruzgan province, he said.
-By Ray Brindal, Dow Jones Newswires; 612-6208-0902; ray.brindal@dowjones.com
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'Regrettable' if Canada quits Afghanistan: Chertoff
CBC News September 16, 2009
A former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security calls it "regrettable" that Canada plans to withdraw from the conflict in Afghanistan.
"The consequences of failure in this part of the world will not be limited to the United States," said Michael Chertoff, who served from 2005 to 2009 in the administration of former president George W. Bush.
"They will be felt by everybody," Chertoff said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti.
"Support by our NATO allies is a very, very important element of the strategy [in Afghanistan]."
Chertoff said he strongly supports President Barack Obama's buildup of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. If an "enduring infrastructure" is not established in that country, Chertoff believes extremists will regain control of large chunks of territory,
"That's exactly what put us into the situation we had prior to 9/11," he said. "The consequences of that will be felt not only in the United States but in Canada and around the world."
Chertoff believes the challenge of this century is "ungoverned space," where there is no government that can maintain order. Those areas of the world can give terrorists room to thrive, he said.
"It would be very short-sighted to stint on the investment now and face the consequences in five years," he said. "So I think President Obama is dead-right in what he is doing."
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Roadside bomb damages German forces' vehicle in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bomb damaged military vehicle of German troops in Takhar province, northeast Afghanistan, an official with the German troops in the neighboring Kunduz province Nasir Alkozai said Wednesday.
"The incident occurred late Tuesday evening outside provincial capital Taliqan next to an airstrip, as a result a military armored personal carrier was damaged," Alkozai told Xinhua.
Quoting a German brigadier Shcrghinj with Germany's Provincial Reconstructing Team (PRT) in Kunduz province, Alkozai added that there were no casualties on the troops.
More than 3,500 German troops have been deployed in Afghanistan with majority of them in the relatively peaceful northern region serving under NATO command to help restore peace in the war-torn country.
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A ‘weapons system’ based on wishful thinking
By Andrew Wilder The Boston Globe September 16, 2009
IN APRIL, the US Army published the “Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System,’’ a handbook that provides guidance on how to use aid funding to win the support of the “indigenous population to facilitate defeating the insurgents.’’ This summer the US government indicated that it plans to nearly double (to $1.2 billion) the main fund military commanders in Afghanistan use to support projects intended to “win hearts and minds.’’
This handbook and the surge of aid money illustrate the centrality of development assistance to the United States’ counterinsurgency strategy. The underlying assumption is that aid projects, such as building schools, clinics, and roads, will win the hearts and minds of Afghans, give them more faith in their government, and turn them away from the Taliban. The logic sounds reasonable. But the problem is that there is little evidence to support it.
Some colleagues and I have spent the last year conducting more than 400 interviews in Afghanistan trying to understand the stabilization benefits of the billions of dollars worth of development aid that have been spent so far in Afghanistan. While many projects have clearly had important humanitarian and development benefits, we have found little evidence that aid projects are “winning hearts and minds,’’ reducing conflict and violence, or having other significant counterinsurgency benefits.
In fact, our research shows just the opposite. Instead of winning hearts and minds, Afghan perceptions of aid and aid actors are overwhelmingly negative. And instead of contributing to stability, in many cases aid is contributing to conflict and instability. For example, we heard many reports of the Taliban being paid by donor-funded contractors to provide security (or not to create insecurity), especially for their road-building projects. In an ethnically and tribally divided society like Afghanistan, aid can also easily generate jealousy and ill will by inadvertently helping to consolidate the power of some tribes or factions at the expense of others - often pushing rival groups into the arms of the Taliban.
In the southern province of Urozgan, an Afghan government official said to me: “In this area the family and friends of Karzai get everything. All aid in these areas is to make them more powerful. They are corrupt and cruel people, but donors continue to support them.’’
The most destabilizing effect of aid, however, is its role in fueling massive corruption, which in turn is eroding the legitimacy of the government. Our research suggests that we have failed to win Afghan hearts and minds not because we have spent too little money, but because we have spent too much too quickly, often in insecure environments with extremely limited implementation and oversight capacity.
Significantly, the main cause of insecurity identified by most Afghans we interviewed was not poverty, or a lack of reconstruction, or even the Taliban, but their highly corrupt and ineffective government. In Paktia province, where the US-led Provincial Reconstruction Team has been funding aid projects since 2003, a tribal elder explained:
“Paktia has lots of problems, but the issue of lack of clinics, schools, and roads are not the problem. The main problem is we don’t have a good government . . . Without a clean government, millions of dollars are stolen. If you increase the amount of money it will also be useless because the government will simply steal more. There’s a growing distance between the people and the government and this is the main cause of the deteriorating security situation.’’
The Taliban exploits this sentiment, and seeks to legitimize its movement by promising better security, quick justice, and a less corrupt government, rather than more roads, schools, and clinics.
This is not to say that the United States and other donor countries should not fund development projects in Afghanistan. But foreign aid should focus on promoting humanitarian and development objectives, where there is evidence of positive impact, rather than on promoting counterinsurgency objectives, where there is not. Without compelling evidence to the contrary, the United States should stop wasting money on a “weapons system’’ that seems to be largely based on wishful thinking and the delusion that money can buy Afghan hearts and minds.
Andrew Wilder is a research director at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University.
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Drugs suspected in death of Afghanistan contractor
By Richard Lardner, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 16, 3:35 pm ET
WASHINGTON – A U.S. contractor in Afghanistan helping train the national police was found dead last week of a possible drug overdose, just months after his company was reprimanded by the State Department for another worker's drug-related death.
The deaths have raised questions over how well DynCorp International selects and manages employees assigned to the police training contract, a crucial component of the U.S. effort to hand over more of the security burden to the Afghans.
The leaders of an independent panel investigating wartime spending said Wednesday they are troubled that drugs appear to be involved in the deaths of two workers hired by the State Department's largest contractor.
"This shouldn't be treated as an isolated event that (the State Department) can ignore," said Christopher Shays, co-chairman of the Commission on Wartime Contracting. "They really need to step in and say, 'Do we have a drug problem at DynCorp?'"
The employee was found dead in his quarters in Kabul, the capital, on Sept. 10. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said an investigation is under way.
DynCorp spokesman Douglas Ebner said the company would not speculate on the cause of the death.
Michael Thibault, who along with Shays heads the contracting commission, said DynCorp officials informed the panel last week that a syringe, needle, and a drug vial were found near the body. The vial was marked as containing a strong type of muscle relaxant, he said.
A toxicology test will be conducted to determine if drugs were a factor.
The employee, a medic, had arrived in Afghanistan in late August. Given his profession, it would not be unusual for medical supplies to be found in his room.
On March 17, a DynCorp employee assigned to the same contract was found dead in the company's housing in Kabul. Drug use was suspected in that death, which remains under investigation. After that death, the State Department ordered the company to replace its senior project managers on the police training contract.
Both the departments of State and Defense depend heavily upon contractors such as DynCorp for support in war zones for construction, transportation, security, food service and laundry. But how well federal authorities are watching over the performance and conduct of this industrial army is a long-standing concern.
Most recently, the State Department has been criticized by the commission and public interest groups for failing to know that private security guards hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan were engaging in lewd and inappropriate behavior that may have compromised the U.S. effort there.
DynCorp has been training police in Afghanistan since 2003, according to information on the Falls Church, Va.-based company's Web site. The latest installment of the training contract was awarded by the State Department in August 2008 and is worth $317 million.
Dyncorp has 16,000 employees in Iraq and Afghanistan and expects to expand that number to 20,000 as demands for its services increase.
William Ballhaus, DynCorp's president and chief executive officer, was asked about the Sept. 10 death during a hearing held Monday by the wartime contracting panel on a separate State Department contract.
Ballhaus didn't discuss the cause of the death or provide any details about the employee. But he did say company managers in Afghanistan treated the area where the employee died as a "crime scene," securing the room with guards to make sure evidence wasn't removed.
He also said the company immediately notified the State Department and the FBI. "We're talking about tens of minutes on this timeline," Ballhaus said.
The body was brought to back to the U.S. on Sunday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, he added.
Ballhaus said he and other DynCorp officials reviewed how the employee was recruited, hired and trained. "We wanted to make sure our process was intimately followed, and it was," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
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Pakistan arrests Taliban commander: army
Wed Sep 16, 5:37 am ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan said soldiers Wednesday arrested a third man from a list of most-wanted Taliban commanders in the Swat valley that offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in reward money.
Sher Muhammad Qasab was the alleged local Taliban commander in Charbagh, in the heart of the former tourist region where the military launched a major assault this summer to defeat a deadly two-year Islamist insurgency.
Qasab, who with 15 other Taliban commanders in the northwest district had a price on his head of 10 million rupees (around 120,000 dollars), was "seriously injured" and "arrested in a military operation," the army said in a statement.
Military officials in the northwest city of Peshawar confirmed his arrest.
"Troops encircled him from days. His three sons were also killed on Monday during the operation," a military official told AFP.
Last Friday, Pakistan announced the arrest of the Taliban spokesman in Swat, Muslim Khan, and another commander from the list of 16 most-wanted people headed by the architect of the Swat uprising, Maulana Fazlullah.
The mountain valley slipped out of government control after radical cleric Fazlullah rose up in July 2007, commanding thousands of followers who beheaded opponents, burnt schools and fought to enforce Islamic law.
Pakistan launched a blistering offensive against the Taliban after militants marched out of Swat and advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the capital Islamabad in April. The military now says the area is clear.
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