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First results in provincial Afghan elections released
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's election organisers on Saturday released preliminary results for 30 of the country's 34 provinces, more than a month after nationwide voting.
UN Warns Afghan Vote Results Could Spark More Violence
By VOA News 26 September 2009
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon is warning that the announcement of Afghanistan's presidential election results could spark more violence in the country.
Vital for Afghan election results to be certified and accepted by all, says Ban
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) September 26, 2009
As Afghanistan and its international partners continue to await the final results of last month's elections, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stressed the importance of ensuring that the outcome reflects the will of the people.
Karzai rival concerned with Afghan vote recount
Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:53am EDT By Maria Golovnina
KABUL (Reuters) - Recounting only a sample of votes in Afghanistan's disputed presidential vote is a confusing method that may fail to soothe concerns about the election's credibility, the main opposition candidate said on Thursday.
IEC: Final results of Afghan presidential election to be announced soon
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Final results of the Afghan presidential election held on Aug. 20 will be announced within the next 10 days, a local newspaper quoted chief electoral officer Daud Ali Najafi as saying on Saturday.
Ballot Uncertainty Fuels Cynicism in Helmand
As post-election agony continues, Helmandis are increasingly disillusioned with their government - and with democracy itself.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Ilyas Dayee in Helmand (ARR No. 338, 25-Sep-09)
“A president elected with fake votes cannot serve the nation,” grumbled Jawad, a resident of Helmand’s provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. “We expected that a transparent election would bring a new plan for solving our problems.
Why Karzai May Be Obama's Best Bet in Afghanistan
TIME By Tim McGirk in Kabul 09/25/2009
Despite the impatience of his generals, President Barack Obama has good reason for taking his time over deciding whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Right now, Washington's strategy is missing
No 'perfect' answers in Afghanistan: Obama
Sat Sep 26, 5:41 am ET
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AFP) – US President Barack Obama warned Friday there were no "perfect answers" in Afghanistan, as he conducts a wide ranging review of strategy and contemplates whether to send more troops.
Afghanistan Troop Request Splits Advisers to Obama
By PETER BAKER and ELISABETH BUMILLER International Herald Tribune September 26, 2009
WASHINGTON — As President Obama weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency, he has discovered that the military is not monolithic in support of the plan and that some
Analysis: Strains show in debate on Afghan troops
By Anne Gearan, Ap National Security Writer – Sat Sep 26, 11:05 am ET
WASHINGTON – The Potomac River is a physical as well as a figurative divide between the White House and the Pentagon, and occupants of each building often refer to the other address as a slightly foreign place "across the river."
Divisions On Way Forward In Afghanistan
September 25, 2009 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Today the sound of U.S. soldiers battling Taliban insurgents echo in a remote corner of Afghanistan.
McChrystal submits Afghanistan troops request
By Peter Graff – Sat Sep 26, 6:30 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The commander of Western forces in Afghanistan returned to Kabul on Saturday after flying to Europe to deliver his request for more troops in person to U.S. and NATO commanders, his spokesman said.
Afghanistan needs 500,000 more foreign forces?
Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:04:13 GMT Press TV
The commander of the Western forces in Afghanistan has officially asked the US and NATO military chiefs for as many as 500,000 soldiers.
US forces move into central Afghan city
By Kevin Maurer, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 26, 12:15 pm ET
NILI, Afghanistan – The soldiers hesitated as the mullah preached, unsure if they would be welcome at the celebration of one of Islam's highest holidays.
Troops In Afghanistan Keep Nightmare At Bay
September 26, 2009 NPR
The war in Afghanistan for U.S. troops has lasted twice as long as World War II. There is honest debate now about whether the United States should commit more troops to Afghanistan, or withdraw them.
Taliban execute 3 civilians in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Taliban, in efforts to terrify government servicemen, have executed three civilians in Herat province, west of Afghanistan, police said Saturday.
Afghan army says 18 Taliban killed in clashes
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan government troops and police killed at least 18 Taliban insurgents Saturday in clashes in the northern city of Archi, local civilian and military officials said.
Police arrest would-be suicide bomber in N Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police arrested a would-be suicide bomber in the northern Balkh province, a local newspaper reported Saturday.
Gun battle leaves 8 militants, 2 Afghan police dead in West
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Gun battle between Taliban insurgents and police in Nimroz province, west of Afghanistan, left eight militants and two police officers dead on Saturday, provincial governor Ghulam Dastgir Azad said.
Eight Taliban militants killed, 3 more wounded in S Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police back by the U.S.-led Coalition Forces killed eight Taliban militants in the outfit's stronghold Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on Friday, a statement of Interior Ministry issued here on Saturday said.
Four militants killed in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Four anti-government militants who planned to attack a border police checkpoint in Nangarhar province of eastern Afghanistan, were shot dead after identified by police on Friday, a statement of Interior Ministry said on Saturday.
Afghan civilian deaths hit record high in August
By Lori Hinnant, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 26, 9:35 am ET
KABUL – Rising violence ahead of Afghanistan's disputed presidential election made August the deadliest month of the year for civilians, the U.N. said, warning in a new report that attacks could spike again when the final vote results are announced.
Rocket strikes house killing 1, injuring 3 in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A rocket fired by Afghan security forces during clash with Taliban militants in the northern Baghlan province Saturday left one person dead and injured two others including a child, police said.
Norwegian defense minister visits Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Norwegian Defense Minister Anne Greta Erickson paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan Saturday and met with her Afghan counterpart General Abdul Rahim Wardak, a press release of Afghan Defense Ministry said.
The Taliban in Their Own Words
By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau | NEWSWEEK Sep 26, 2009 From the magazine issue dated Oct 5, 2009
During wars and after them, the real voice of the enemy is rarely heard. Propaganda is plentiful, as are prideful boasts—and the Taliban have certainly been quick studies at the modern art of information warfare.
US Terror Suspect to Face Charges in New York
By VOA News 26 September 2009
Prosecutors say an Afghan-born terror suspect in U.S. federal custody spent more than a year plotting a massive attack on the United States with co-conspirators.
German politicans hold final rallies as Islamic militants threaten retribution for Afghanistan
Sat Sep 26, 11:42 AM By Melissa Eddy, The Associated Press
BERLIN, Germany - German political parties held their final campaign rallies before Sunday's national election, mindful of new warnings by Islamic militants that they would exact retribution for the country's presence in Afghanistan.
Imam's arrest shocks New York's Afghan-American community
By Kiran Khalid September 26, 2009
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The arrest of a local imam for allegedly lying to the FBI about tipping off a suspected terrorist sent shock waves through the Afghan community in New York.
Militants destroy antenna of mobile company in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Anti-government militants in the latest wave of attacks against establishments have destroyed boasting tower of a mobile company in Kapisa province, some 80km north from
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First results in provincial Afghan elections released
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's election organisers on Saturday released preliminary results for 30 of the country's 34 provinces, more than a month after nationwide voting.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said turnout was 37.8 percent, slightly higher than the 37.7 percent who took part in the presidential poll, which was also held on August 20.
A total of 3,339 candidates contested 420 seats. Results announced Saturday show that 251 men and 106 women were elected.
A quarter of the provincial council seats were reserved for women.
At least four candidates were killed during the campaign. The Taliban, which is fighting a reinvigorated insurgency against US and NATO troops in the country, had called for a boycott of the polls.
"These results are preliminary and may change based on ECC (Electoral Complaints Commission) decisions," said an IEC statement.
"The IEC will announce the final results as soon as they have received and implemented the final decisions of the ECC."
The statement added that results from the remaining four provinces would be announced "soon".
The August polls have been mired in controversy, with complaints of irregularities from Afghan and foreign observers.
The ECC is currently investigating thousands of fraud claims in the presidential election, only the second in Afghanistan's turbulent history.
Preliminary results from the presidential poll show incumbent Hamid Karzai leading with 54.6 percent of the vote, against 27.8 percent for his main rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
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UN Warns Afghan Vote Results Could Spark More Violence
By VOA News 26 September 2009
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon is warning that the announcement of Afghanistan's presidential election results could spark more violence in the country.
In a quarterly U.N. report, Mr. Ban says the level of alleged electoral irregularities has generated "significant political turbulence" leading to fears of more violence when the outcome of the August 20 vote is announced.
Preliminary results show Afghan President Hamid Karzai ahead in the polls with 54 percent of the vote, but a U.N.-backed electoral commission is investigating charges of fraud. If a large number of votes are invalidated, Mr. Karzai could end up with less than 50 percent - forcing a runoff election.
In his report, the U.N. chief also notes August was the deadliest month for Afghan civilians so far this year, partly due to an increase in violence in the run-up to the presidential vote.
The report does not give the August death toll, but said some 300 violent incidents were recorded on election day. Taliban insurgents had warned of increased attacks to discourage Afghans from heading to the polls.
The U.N. report also says 1,500 civilians were killed between January and August of this year. More than two-thirds of the civilian deaths were due to militant attacks. Coalition forces were to blame for about a quarter of civilian deaths in 2009, the majority in airstrikes.
The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, says protecting civilians is a top priority in a new military strategy in Afghanistan.
In the country's latest violence, the governor of northern Kunduz province Mohammad Omar says at least 18 Taliban militants were killed in a gunbattle in the Dushti Archi district on Saturday.
Northern Afghanistan has seen a recent increase in militant activity following years of relative peace in the region.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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Vital for Afghan election results to be certified and accepted by all, says Ban
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) September 26, 2009
As Afghanistan and its international partners continue to await the final results of last month's elections, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stressed the importance of ensuring that the outcome reflects the will of the people.
Mr. Ban and his top envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, have in recent weeks called on national election authorities to ensure the integrity of the 20 August presidential and provincial council elections, in light of concerns that have arisen over irregularities in voting.
"The level of alleged electoral irregularities has generated significant political turbulence leading to fears of a return to violence when election results are announced," Mr. Ban wrote in his latest report on the situation in Afghanistan.
He said that serious electoral fraud occurred, made possible primarily, but not exclusively, by the lack of access to parts of the country owing to the ongoing conflict.
Following a decision by the Electoral Complaints Commission to review results from a number of polling stations, a credible audit and recount process is now coming to its conclusion, he said.
"When the entire electoral process is completed, it will be of critical importance for the results to be accepted by all so that the election of Afghanistan's future president can be certified and a new Government can be formed," stated Mr. Ban.
Forty-one presidential candidates, including two women, as well as over 3,000 candidates competing for provincial council seats, took part in the elections – the first to be organized by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and described by Mr. Ban as having been "among the most demanding ever to be organized."
The Secretary-General also stated that it is "imperative" that the international community maintain a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, while adding that there must be a "decisive shift" in that relationship.
"The Government must be enabled and determined to assume all the responsibilities that belong to a sovereign State," he said. "The international community, for its part, must play a role that is clearly one of support.
"A new contract between the Government of Afghanistan and its people will be a critical component in this shift of responsibilities," he added.
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Karzai rival concerned with Afghan vote recount
Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:53am EDT By Maria Golovnina
KABUL (Reuters) - Recounting only a sample of votes in Afghanistan's disputed presidential vote is a confusing method that may fail to soothe concerns about the election's credibility, the main opposition candidate said on Thursday.
Afghanistan has been in a state of political uncertainty since the August 20 vote, with accusations of widespread fraud delaying the announcement of a final result.
The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said this week it would allow Afghan election officials to use only a sample of votes from polling stations with suspected irregularities in order to speed up the recounting process.
Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, President Hamid Karzai's key rival in the election, said he had reservations about this method and would send observers to monitor the process, due to start next week.
"Our preference would have been for a (full) recount because sampling is very vague. It's really confusing at this stage," he told Reuters in an interview.
Preliminary results show Karzai winning in a single round but if enough of his ballots are thrown out he could still face a run-off against Abdullah.
Questions about Karzai and his post-election standing prompted U.S. President Barack Obama to delay a decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan, Obama administration officials have said, at a time when the Taliban insurgency is gaining strength.
The ECC, which says it has found "clear and convincing evidence of fraud," has ordered a recount of votes from polling stations with suspiciously large numbers of votes or where one candidate won more than 95 percent.
Abdullah said his representatives would meet ECC officials this week to seek clarification of the sampling technique.
"I am not sure how it's going to work because the type of fraud from one place to another is quite different," he said.
"We will seek clarity about the methods and ways it will be conducted. If we are convinced that this is the right way to move ahead of course we will support the process."
Abdullah said Afghanistan risked losing international support in its fight against insurgents if concerns about the election's credibility were not resolved.
"Today's situation where the United States is putting on hold its major decisions on Afghanistan is not a desirable situation. That can lead to further undesirable situations," he said.
"Anything that leads to a situation where an illegitimate government is imposed on Afghanistan for another five years would put at risk the engagement of the international community."
(Editing by Golnar Motevalli and Jerry Norton)
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IEC: Final results of Afghan presidential election to be announced soon
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Final results of the Afghan presidential election held on Aug. 20 will be announced within the next 10 days, a local newspaper quoted chief electoral officer Daud Ali Najafi as saying on Saturday.
"The fate of the presidential election whether it goes for the second round will be cleared within the next 10 days," according to daily 8 Subh.
"If there is need for the runoff it will be held within one month," Najafi said.
Afghanistan's second presidential election in the country marked by fraud and according to Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) it had received more than 2,700 complaints and over 700 of them are so serious that can affect the election's result.
In the preliminary result announced on Sept. 17, President Hamid Karzai stood at first by bagging 54.6 percent of the votes, followed by Abdullah who secured 28 percent of the ballots.
The UN-based Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) on Friday announced a partial vote recount from polling stations with suspected of fraud so as to accelerate the recounting process to reach a final result.
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Ballot Uncertainty Fuels Cynicism in Helmand
As post-election agony continues, Helmandis are increasingly disillusioned with their government - and with democracy itself.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Ilyas Dayee in Helmand (ARR No. 338, 25-Sep-09)
“A president elected with fake votes cannot serve the nation,” grumbled Jawad, a resident of Helmand’s provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. “We expected that a transparent election would bring a new plan for solving our problems. Now we are disappointed. This unfair election has increased the distance between the people and the government.”
Jawad’s complaints are echoed by many in Helmand, the volatile southern province that has the dubious distinction of being both the opium capital of the world as well as a major centre of the Taleban insurgency.
Despite the presence of some 15,000 United States and British troops, the elections in Helmand did not go well. Turnout was depressed by multiple rocket attacks, Taleban patrols, and general disaffection. Reports of rampant fraud meant that it may never be clear how many of the province’s 125,000 declared votes were actually cast by residents or simply stuffed into ballot boxes by supporters of incumbent president Hamed Karzai, who received almost 84 per cent of the reported turnout.
But the real damage to Helmand’s morale has been the long, drawn-out, post-election period. It took nearly one month for the Independent Election Commission, IEC, to release even preliminary results, which give Karzai nearly 55 per cent of the vote, against 28 per cent given to his closest rival, Dr Abdullah Abdullah.
With over 2,500 complaints registered with the Electoral Complaints Commission, ECC, 700 of which could materially affect the outcome of the election, there is as yet no clear winner. What is worse, there is very little idea of when official results might be announced and even less consensus on whether a second round of voting, constitutionally mandated if one candidate fails to clear more than 50 per cent, is either possible or desirable.
“We were not worried about fraud in the elections,” said tribal elder Bismillah Barakzai. “We were more concerned about security – we thought that the elections might not take place at all in Helmand. But we know that many cases of fraud did happen, and now the same government is going to rule the country using these fraudulent votes. This is not acceptable.”
While the ECC tries to find some way to speed up the process, Helmand’s residents are losing faith in the whole notion of democracy. In many people’s opinion, the elections were a trick played on them by the international community.
“The elections were just a game,” said political analyst Mohammad Nader. “We thought Afghanistan was going to become a democratic country, but the problems created by 30 years of war will not be solved so easily. [United Nations Special Representative] Kai Eide told the world that Afghanistan’s elections were successful. But this was just to show that the presence of the international community in our country has been justified.”
But Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, head of the tribal council in Nad Ali, defended the elections, and rejected the idea of a second round.
“I agree that there was fraud, but not all of the votes were fake,” he said. “I want the votes of the people to be respected. We cannot ensure security for a second round of elections.”
In Helmand, he explained, families were divided – one son might be with the Taleban, while another worked in the government. “For the first elections, it was very difficult to convince these sons to let their family members go to vote,” he said. “It will not happen a second time, and clashes will increase.”
The alleged widespread fraud could also further boost the authority of the Taleban, making them less amenable to peace negotiations, say some Helmandis. More and more people are turning away from the government, disgusted by the failure of the election process. The Taleban are capitalising on this sentiment, spreading stories that the Afghan government is a mere American puppet.
“Our people are illiterate. They do not know whether the US supports Karzai or not. They only hear things, but cannot analyse,” said Hajji Zahir, a tribal elder from Musa Qala.
The Taleban dismiss talk that they are meddling in the post-election situation. According to Mullah Ashraf Akhund, a local Taleban commander, the group has more important worries.
“Why do you ask me about the election?” he said irritably. “I do not care about them at all. We are trying to defeat [US president Barack] Obama and his sons in the world.”
But he could not refrain from a bit of anti-election rhetoric.
“The people have already understood everything about this government,” he said. “Now it is obvious for them that the government does not belong to them, it belongs to the United States. Go tell the people to leave the government and join the Taleban Emirate.”
Regardless of the anger and disillusionment created by the election, many Helmandis just want the process to be over. A second round will mean more violence, they say, and will do nothing to change the result.
“Yes, the election was full of fraud, but we cannot stand any more violence,” said Shirin Del, a former national security officer. “Instead of continuing to fight, we should get to work and see what the government will do for us.”
A shopkeeper in Lashkar Gah, who did not want to give his name, agreed.
“The new government is not legitimate,” he said. “I did not vote for Karzai. The people of Helmand did not vote for him. He wins through fraud. But a second round would be too expensive, and the security situation will not allow it.”
But not all Helmandis are so cynical about the elections. Bismillah Jan, who lives in the capital, told IWPR that there had been no fraud during the election process.
“People are just discriminating against Karzai,” he insisted. “Karzai has served his country. He is a prominent person. These are the votes of our people and the international community must respect them.”
But he does agree that a second round would be undesirable.
“We must consider the current situation,” he said. “Security is deteriorating. We should not talk about all this discrimination and just increase problems. There can be no second round in Helmand, because there is no force capable of ensuring the security of the electoral process.”
Mohammad Ilyas Dayee is an IWPR-trained reporter in Helmand.
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Why Karzai May Be Obama's Best Bet in Afghanistan
TIME By Tim McGirk in Kabul 09/25/2009
Despite the impatience of his generals, President Barack Obama has good reason for taking his time over deciding whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Right now, Washington's strategy is missing one key component: a legitimate Afghan President deemed worth defending.
Afghanistan's election commission, overseen by a U.N. watchdog body, has spent more than a month counting votes from the Aug. 20 election, trying to weed out the fraudulent ballots that may account for as much as 20% of the 5.5 million votes cast. When these tainted ballots are discounted, the front-runner and incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, may yet emerge as the first-round winner, even though his loyalists were the most brazen vote riggers. But if his tally falls below 50%, Karzai might be forced into a runoff against his former Foreign Minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. U.N. officials are already rushing to print new ballots so that a run-off election could be held in early November. Afghans and international sponsors of the election agree that the only way to salvage its credibility is to see the process through, and possibly prosecute the fraudsters, whether or not Karzai squeaks by in the first round.
Until then, it is reasonable to expect that Obama will remain in "a holding pattern," as one Western diplomat in Kabul put it, postponing the decision whether to send reinforcements or overhaul his political and military strategy in Afghanistan.
The leadership crisis in Kabul casts a long shadow over plans to build up the Afghan military and police in order to allow the U.S. and its NATO allies to draw down troop levels. Foreign trainers admit privately that for the next few years, the Afghan security forces are woefully ill prepared to cope with the rising Taliban insurgency. For a monthly salary of $150, the loyalty of an Afghan cop will only go so far when his outpost at some bleak crossroads is ambushed by the Taliban. And while the Taliban forces are often highly motivated, there may not be that many Afghans willing to die to defend the Karzai government.
As things stand, Karzai will likely be confirmed as Afghanistan's President by November, muddied though he may by widespread election fraud. Washington must then decide: Is it worth backing a man who forfeited the trust of many Afghans and of the international community whom the harried President has tried to scapegoat for his government's corrupt incompetence?
The answer may be that Washington has no better alternative. Despite his growing paranoia — Karzai rarely leaves his presidential palace these days — and his failure to crack down on unsavory characters in his government (and perhaps in his own family), Karzai shouldn't be entirely written off. It is worth remembering a few of his assets: he is a Pashtun from the respected Popalzai tribe, credentials that may assist him in trying to negotiate with the predominantly Pashtun Taliban. (These recent elections reopened old schisms between the Pashtuns and the Tajiks, and if Abdullah, who is widely perceived as a Tajik leader, were to somehow win the runoff, the Taliban's ranks would almost certainly be swelled by masses of angry young Pashtuns.)
Karzai sought to ensure his re-election by making pacts with warlords whose human-rights records would have them behind bars in most countries. Still, having been installed in power by the U.S. invasion, Karzai has proven adept at persuading the country's umpteen warlords and trigger-happy commanders to usually — although not always — settle their grudges politically rather than with arms. Afghanistan may be a mess by the measure of politics and security, but its jails are no longer filled with thousands of political prisoners; in cities and towns, girls go to schools and universities; a feisty free press flourishes, and there are plenty of new millionaires whose fortunes were not necessarily made from trafficking opium, but from bricks and mortar, cell-phone towers and trade.
Obviously, none of this progress has been enough to stabilize the country. Otherwise, the Taliban wouldn't effectively control 60% of it, as some security analysts now claim. Every day, Karzai and his Western backers are losing ground to the Taliban, as insurgents fill the void created by the failure to bring progress to the rural areas. And as bad as Karzai's government of patronage may be, part of the blame for the lack of progress must also go to the international donors who concentrated on mega projects carried out by foreign corporations and their armies of gun-toting security contractors. Tapping into a seemingly limitless river of funds became an end in itself, rather than completing the actual bridge or road they were supposed to build.
More than additional U.S. troops, Afghanistan needs a leader who can deliver — and do it fast. Is Karzai able to be that leader? "Despite all the deal-making he's done to get elected, is it in his character to turn around and look at things in a gimlet-eyed [pragmatic] way?" asks one Western diplomat. Karzai's past record would say no. But lately, as he paces through his palace garden, with his bodyguards always in his shadow, he must have realized the extent to which the diplomatic community and his own people have forsaken him over the election debacle. As he tries to mend ties with the American public through a barrage of TV interviews, a more chastened, statesmanlike Karzai has emerged. It won't take long to discover whether this transformation is genuine or another piece of theater from the dapper Afghan President. For Obama, it may be worth the wait to find out.
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No 'perfect' answers in Afghanistan: Obama
Sat Sep 26, 5:41 am ET
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AFP) – US President Barack Obama warned Friday there were no "perfect answers" in Afghanistan, as he conducts a wide ranging review of strategy and contemplates whether to send more troops.
After the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Obama said he understood that Americans and others were becoming discouraged by the war, on a day when NATO announced the deaths of five more US soldiers in Afghanistan.
"This is not easy, and I would expect that the public would ask some very tough questions," said Obama, whose task in selling the war to Americans has been complicated by the disputed Afghan presidential election.
"That's exactly what I'm doing, is asking some very tough questions, and you know, we're not going to arrive at perfect answers.
"I think anybody who's looked at the situation recognizes that it's difficult and it's complicated.
"But my solemn obligation is to make sure that I get the best answers possible, particularly before I make decisions about sending additional troops into the theater."
Obama repeatedly said the US mission was to disrupt and dismantle Al-Qaeda, in the kind of language which some observers see as a possible sign of a narrowing of the broad counter-insurgency fight against the Taliban.
Earlier, the top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen held a secret meeting in Germany with the NATO commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal to discuss a request for more troops, officials said.
McChrystal's appeal for more troops and resources was due to be formally submitted to Defense Secretary Robert Gates by Saturday but Gates has decided to hold off presenting the request to Obama until the administration completes a review of war strategy.
Insurgents killed another five US soldiers in Afghanistan's southern Taliban stronghold, NATO said Friday.
Two soldiers were killed outright and three later died of their injuries in a trio of separate incidents on Thursday.
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Afghanistan Troop Request Splits Advisers to Obama
By PETER BAKER and ELISABETH BUMILLER International Herald Tribune September 26, 2009
WASHINGTON — As President Obama weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency, he has discovered that the military is not monolithic in support of the plan and that some of the civilian advisers he respects most have deep reservations.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s troop request, which was submitted to the Pentagon on Friday, has reignited a longstanding debate within the military about the virtues of the counterinsurgency strategy popularized by Gen. David H. Petraeus in Iraq and now embraced by General McChrystal, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
General McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 40,000 additional troops for the eight-year-old war, a number that has generated concern among top officers like Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, who worry about the capacity to provide more soldiers at a time of stress on the force, officials said.
While Mr. Obama is hearing from more hawkish voices, including those of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, some outside advisers relied on by Mr. Obama have voiced doubts.
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a retired four-star Army general, visited Mr. Obama in the Oval Office this month and expressed skepticism that more troops would guarantee success, according to people briefed on the discussion. Mr. Powell reminded the president of his longstanding view that military missions should be clearly defined.
Mr. Powell is one of the three people, with Senator John F. Kerry and Senator Jack Reed, considered by White House aides to be most influential in this current debate. All have expressed varying degrees of doubt about the prospect of sending more forces to Afghanistan.
Mr. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has warned of repeating the mistakes of Vietnam, where he served, and has floated the idea of a more limited counterterrorist mission. Mr. Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and an Army veteran, has not ruled out supporting more troops but said “the burden of proof” was on commanders to justify it.
“The one thing that’s very clear is this is the decision that will have huge consequences,” Mr. Reed said in an interview. “It has to be made carefully.”
In the West Wing, beyond Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has advocated an alternative strategy to the troop buildup, other presidential advisers sound dubious about more troops, including Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, and Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, according to people who have spoken with them.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has not endorsed General McChrystal’s request yet, viewing the situation as “complicated,” said one person who has spoken with him. But Mr. Gates, who will be an influential voice in Mr. Obama’s decision, has also left open the door for more troops and warned of the consequences of failure in Afghanistan.
Although Mr. Obama has called Afghanistan a war of necessity, he has left members of both parties uncertain about the degree of his commitment to a large and sustained military presence. Even some advisers said they thought Mr. Obama’s support for the war as a senator and presidential candidate was at least partly a way of contrasting it with what he saw as a reckless war in Iraq.
His decision to send 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan early this year, which will bring the number of American troops there to 68,000 this fall, was made hurriedly within weeks of coming into office to stanch the tactical erosion on the ground and provide security during Afghan elections.
But with those elections now marred by fraud allegations, the latest troop request is forcing Mr. Obama to decide whether he wants to fully engage in Afghanistan for the rest of his term or make a dramatic change of course. Where this will lead Mr. Obama remains uncertain. With the liberal base of his party increasingly vocal in its opposition to the war, Mr. Obama may want to show that he has duly considered all sides before making up his mind.
But some advisers said the varying views reflected the complicated nature of the debate in which many key players are not clearly defined in pro or con camps. The troop request follows the strategy unveiled by Mr. Obama in March to focus more on protecting the Afghan population, building infrastructure and improving governance, rather than just hunting the Taliban.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has endorsed the idea of more troops and will be at the table representing the military. But other officers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and say they admire General McChrystal nonetheless have privately expressed doubt that additional troops will make a difference.
“If a request for more forces comes to the Army, we’ll have to assess what that will do in terms of stress on the force,” said a Army official, who asked not to be identified speaking before General McChrystal’s troop request became public.
General Casey, whose institutional role as Army chief is to protect his force, has a goal to increase by 2012 a soldier’s time at home, from the current one year for every year of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan to two years at home for every year served. At a news conference in Nevada this month, General Casey said that “if there is an increase of forces in Afghanistan, then that could slow that down.”
Advisers who have Mr. Obama’s ear have raised other questions. Mr. Powell went to see Mr. Obama for other reasons, but his remarks on Afghanistan have been cited in the White House since then. “The question the president has to answer is, ‘What will more troops do?’ ” Mr. Powell told reporters before a speech in California last week. “You have to not just add troops. You need a clear definition of your mission and then you can determine whether you need more troops or other resources.”
In an interview, Senator Kerry, who met with Admiral Mullen last week, said that he had not made up his mind about the troop buildup but “we have to ask some very tough questions about that, questioning the underlying assumptions.” In Vietnam, he said, “the underlying assumptions were flawed, and the number of troops weren’t going to make a difference.”
Senator Reed, who met with Mr. Biden, was more measured, but said the president needed to look at the capacity of Afghan forces and the prospects of reconciliation with moderate Taliban members. “You have to evaluate several options very vigorously — one to give you confidence in the decision and two, because you want to make sure you have the best operational plan to carry out the strategy,” he said.
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Analysis: Strains show in debate on Afghan troops
By Anne Gearan, Ap National Security Writer – Sat Sep 26, 11:05 am ET
WASHINGTON – The Potomac River is a physical as well as a figurative divide between the White House and the Pentagon, and occupants of each building often refer to the other address as a slightly foreign place "across the river."
The gulf is suddenly on display as President Barack Obama contemplates whether to widen the U.S. commitment to the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan, a battle that is losing political and popular support even as it replaces Iraq as the military's No. 1 priority.
The White House is now uncertain whether to stick with a long-planned military recalibration of the war, a hesitance that has stoked new tensions with the Defense Department.
After nine months of harmony, officials say it's nowhere near the schism that cleaved the military and the Clinton administration in the 1990s. But how the young Democratic administration and its commanders navigate this turbulence will play a critical role both in the management of the war and the cultivation of support from both the military and the American public.
A senior administration official described it as "a realignment check" and played down suggestions that military leaders feel undercut. Pentagon officials insisted there is no crisis of confidence on either side but acknowledged raw feelings and a sense of impatience.
Several officials in Washington and Afghanistan spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not decided on his next move.
"I do not doubt that there are people in this building and elsewhere who feel very strongly about this and may be voicing some frustration at the pace of this decision," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the commanding general they chose for Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, are "completely comfortable," Morrell said.
"There is no anxiousness on their part about taking some extra time about evaluating the strategy and making sure we are on the right path."
Mullen, however, signed off on McChrystal's blunt warning that without reinforcements the war will soon be beyond winning. Mullen endorsed more troops, telling Congress this month there will not be enough able Afghan forces to do the job fast enough.
White House officials were startled and irritated by some of Mullen's remarks, which came as Obama and senior aides were debating a shift. Obama has since said he wants to make sure that underlying assumptions about the war still hold and he denied that McChrystal was told to pocket his request for more forces.
For many in the uniformed military, backed by prominent Republicans in Congress, the question is whether Obama will listen to his top generals and stick with a counterinsurgency campaign around which the military has organized.
For the young administration, the better question is whether the United States is fighting the right war in the right place, and whether victory on paper in Afghanistan is worth the price.
Gates, a civilian chosen by Obama, has not publicly endorsed McChrystal's conclusions. He stayed away from a hastily scheduled powwow in Germany on Friday that included McChrystal and his two uniformed bosses, Mullen and Gen. David Petraeus.
"I do not think there is a rift between the military and civilians, but I do think there is a very serious debate over what is the best option," said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Obama doesn't have forever to decide whether to send thousands of U.S. forces to the war, said Cordesman, who helped McChrystal draft a brutal assessment of backsliding conditions there. Delay feeds the perception that the United States is not serious and will soon walk away from the fight, he said.
Obama has sent 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year, with little to show for it. During a summer of heavy fighting, Marines pushed into parts of Helmand province and other areas once under Taliban control, but there are not enough of them to fully hold all the territory.
Troops and hundreds of U.S. civilians flowed into the country to protect voters during last month's election. But inconclusive results and allegations of massive fraud leave the U.S. unsure who will be in charge and whether Afghans will see their government as legitimate.
Clinton entered office as the object of some suspicion among many in the military because he had famously avoided service in Vietnam, and he made matters far worse with what even supporters in the Pentagon thought was a ham-handed approach to the question of whether gays could serve openly.
Obama has avoided Clinton's early missteps and earned points among skeptics for agreeing with his generals to leave more forces in Iraq longer than he planned, stop the release of potentially inflammatory photos of detainees and replace the previous Afghanistan commander with McChrystal.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who witnessed some of the strains of the Clinton years as a commander in Kosovo and later in Europe, said some of the impatience over the troop decision is misplaced.
"You have to give the administration time to do its homework," Clark said.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — Anne Gearan has covered U.S. foreign policy and national security for The Associated Press since 2004.
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Divisions On Way Forward In Afghanistan
September 25, 2009 By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Today the sound of U.S. soldiers battling Taliban insurgents echo in a remote corner of Afghanistan.
Amid what has already become one of the longest wars in U.S. history, an intensive debate is taking place within President Barack Obama's administration on how to move forward in that distant theater of battle.
There are disagreements over whether to back a leaked assessment report by the senior U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, purportedly calling for more troops and resources to defeat the Taliban insurgency while building a sustainable Afghan state and protecting its people. Other senior officials are said to be pressing for an entirely new strategy.
Generals And Politicians
Army General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, has said that both he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen endorse McChrystal's assessment.
"Obviously I endorsed, the chairman endorsed General McChrystal's assessment and description," Petraeus said at a counterinsurgency conference in Washington on September 23.
But Geoff Morrell, the chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, has said the Obama administration is considering options aside from sending more troops to Afghanistan as it continues to review the Afghan war strategy.
Morrell said Gates will not forward McChrystal's resources request to the president until his administration sorts out its internal deliberation regarding the way forward in Afghanistan.
"We are going to consider that assessment," Morrell told a Pentagon press briefing on September 23. "We are also going to consider other inputs when we are discussing where we are in Afghanistan -- how far we've come since we pursued this new strategy back in March and where we are headed."
Experts suggest that divisions between the U.S. military and some people within Obama's administration, on the one hand, and senior figures within the administration on the other are the key forces likely to shape the future course in Afghanistan.
"It is very confusing here now," says Marvin Weinbaum, a veteran regional expert who has followed Afghanistan for the past four decades and is currently a specialist at the Middle East Institute in Washington. "The president has what seems to be an almost impossible choice to make. He has got military commanders by and large recommending an increment of troops, they haven't specified just how many."
He adds: "At the same time -- and this has been a change that has been gathering momentum over the last several months -- people are beginning to question the mission itself."
Weinbaum says that such disagreements were inevitable because the strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan that Obama unveiled in March focused narrowly on decimating Al -Qaeda and the protection the U.S. mainland.
"It can rightly be said that that mission can be accomplished in other ways that don't require counterinsurgency," Weinbaum argues.
Uncertainty In Kabul
While Washington debates whether to back McChrystal's call for more resources or to chart out a new strategy, Kabul is grappling with the aftermath of a controversial election.
The incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, appears to have won the election. But official results will only be announced after the UN-appointed Electoral Complaints Commission deals with hundreds of fraud claims.
Obama's regional envoy, Richard Holbrooke, has expressed the administration's willingness to work with Karzai if his reelection is certified by the commission. But given Washington's disagreements with Karzai and its public criticism of Karzai's pre-election maneuvers, analysts suggest their relations would be dicey at best.
The debate comes at a time when the Taliban insurgency is at its peak and some of its leaders see their strategy of waiting out the U.S. military presence turning a corner. The ongoing debate in Europe over the Afghan mission and talk from leading troop-contributing states of pulling out of Afghanistan appear to strengthen such Taliban perceptions.
Winnable War
Former Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali notes mistakes that have been made in the course of the Afghan war effort in recent years but warns against altering policy with an eye to the dismal history of foreign military ventures in Afghanistan.
Jalali, who is currently a distinguished professor at the Near East South Asia Center of Washington's National Defense University, backs McChrystal's leaked report because "it clearly highlights the problem in Afghanistan and the way out of it."
"[The] Afghanistan war is winnable," Jalali says. "However, because of these mistakes [in the past eight years], it is much harder now and it takes a longer time. So if we now cut and leave Afghanistan, the situation will return to [pre-]9/11."
He adds: "All these sacrifices [and] investment will be [made in] vain. The cost of leaving will be much greater not only for Afghanistan [but] for the region and beyond."
Domestic Pressures
Jalali says that the outcome of U.S. domestic and foreign policy issues such as health care and the Middle East will play a key role in Obama's approach in Afghanistan. He predicts that Afghanistan will be a key topic of debate in the U.S. over the coming years.
"It is actually the pressures of domestic politics that affects the options on Afghanistan," he says.
He suggests that there is still widespread support for McChrystal's strategy, but that U.S. ambivalence regarding Afghanistan could possibly undermine its NATO allies' commitment to the war effort. That, Jalai says, "will be a disaster."
Experts suggest that the rising international casualty figures in Afghanistan are a major factor in undermining domestic U.S. support for the war effort. Compared to a total of 294 troop deaths in 2008, some 365 coalition soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far this year. With 68,000 troops in the country, most of those killed were U.S. soldiers.
Overall public support for the Afghan war has fallen below the 50 percent mark in the United States for the first time since it was launched in October 2001. A majority of Democrats (56 percent) favor removing troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible.
A Way Forward
J Alexander Thier, the director of Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent nonpartisan think tank in Washington, tells RFE/RL that complaints by Karzai's rivals and the "dramatic and poorly done [election] fraud" forced Obama's administration to distance itself from supporting the outcome of the election.
But Thier says the administration is still likely to follow the strategy it announced in March, and which is backed by General McChrystal.
"I think that we will be involved in a counterinsurgency operation. I think that we will add additional troops to train the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. I think that we will increase our civilian aid," Thier says, adding that "there will be a lot of pressure on the next government to improve its performance and to fight corruption."
However, Thier suggests that if continued U.S. efforts in Afghanistan fail in the next 18 months then the arguments to leave will be much stronger: "There will be a much more intensive debate about whether we should begin some sort of process of withdrawal."
Despite the flagging public support for the Afghan war, many in the Washington still consider abandoning Afghanistan a worse option than continuing the effort there.
Jonathan Morgenstein, a senior national security fellow at Third Way, a think tank in Washington, echoes that prognosis.
"I know there are a lot of people, a lot of Democrats, who are feeling like this is hopeless. And I disagree with that it would be difficult and there will be just tragic numbers of more military casualties," Morgenstein tells RFE/RL.
"But we can't just choose, 'Well, are we going to continue with this policy or not?' We have to choose, 'Are we going to continue with this policy or choose a different one?' And all of the other alternatives are worse."
'Back To A Future'
Some experts suggest that compared to other Western states, the United States has played a major role in determining modern Afghan history. U.S. arms, money and political patronage enabled the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahedin guerrillas to force the Red Army out of their country.
But when the United States dramatically curbed its involvement in the country after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, Afghanistan endured a bloody civil war among mujahedin factions that decimated the Afghan state and turned it into a global terrorist sanctuary as Afghans suffered under hard-line extremists.
Jalali argues that the United States and the international community have a moral obligation to help Afghanistan, and that they are bound by various agreements and pledges they voluntarily made since 2001.
"There are some people [in the West] who believe that we cannot change Afghanistan and we cannot bring some kind of stability to the country," he says.
But Jalali says Afghans strongly disagree with such views. He argues that Afghans want Washington and its allies to "undo what you have done to us in the past 30 years."
And that, he says, means restoring the stability that existed in Afghanistan before the 1978 communist coup.
"Before I978, Afghanistan had a stable government. It had the trust of its population. It controlled its territory, it lived in peace with its neighbors. There was no fundamentalism, no extremism," Jalali says. "So they want to go back to their future. And that's what all Afghans want."
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McChrystal submits Afghanistan troops request
By Peter Graff – Sat Sep 26, 6:30 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The commander of Western forces in Afghanistan returned to Kabul on Saturday after flying to Europe to deliver his request for more troops in person to U.S. and NATO commanders, his spokesman said.
General Stanley McChrystal gave his long-awaited request for more troops to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis.
"At the end of that meeting General McChrystal did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the U.S. side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side," Sholtis said. The unannounced meeting took place at an air base in Germany.
In a bleak assessment prepared last month and leaked to the media in recent days, McChrystal wrote that his mission would likely fail if he is not given reinforcements for his force, now more than 100,000 strong, including about 63,000 Americans.
Officials have not said exactly how many extra troops McChrystal believes he needs, although U.S. defense and congressional officials have suggested the request would be for about 30,000 extra troops.
President Barack Obama, who has already ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year, has described himself as a "skeptical audience" of the case for more troops.
He has said he will not take a decision on McChrystal's request until he finishes a thorough re-evaluation of the U.S. strategy in the region, a delay that has been criticized by Republican opponents.
His administration is described as divided, with Vice President Joe Biden seen as favoring cutting back the force.
POLL SHOWS OPPOSITION TO EXTRA TROOPS
A Gallup poll published on Friday showed a fall in support for the war, with 50 percent of Americans opposed to sending more troops, while 41 percent supported it. Obama said he understood the public's concerns.
"This is not easy and I would expect that the public would ask some very tough questions," he told a news conference at a summit of world leaders in Pittsburgh on Friday. "That's exactly what I'm doing, is asking some tough questions."
McChrystal's bleak assessment from last month said that the additional troops were needed to enact a new counter-insurgency strategy which would focus on protecting Afghans in populated areas and counter a strengthening Taliban-led insurgency.
Since then, increasing evidence of fraud in an Afghan presidential election has made the case for sending more troops to protect the Afghan government more difficult to defend.
"What's most important is that there is a sense of legitimacy in Afghanistan among the Afghan people for their government," Obama said. "If there is not, that makes our task much more difficult."
A U.N.-backed watchdog found "clear and convincing evidence of fraud" in the August 20 vote and ordered a recount of some 3,000 polling stations, about 12 percent of the total.
Preliminary results showed President Hamid Karzai winning in a single round with 54.6 percent of the vote, but if enough of his ballots are nullified in the recount that he ends up with less than 50 percent, a second round must be held.
Afghanistan's election authorities and the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) agreed this week to conduct the recount by studying just a sample of ballots from suspicious polling stations, to speed up the process.
Samples of 313 ballot boxes were randomly selected on Thursday to be audited in detail, the ECC said in a statement.
Officials hope to complete the recount of samples so that they can certify a result in the next two weeks, allowing a second round, if needed, to be held before winter weather sets in around the end of October.
(For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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Afghanistan needs 500,000 more foreign forces?
Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:04:13 GMT Press TV
The commander of the Western forces in Afghanistan has officially asked the US and NATO military chiefs for as many as 500,000 soldiers.
At a face-to-face meeting in Germany, General Stanley McChrystal "did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the US side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side," the US general's spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis was quoted by Reuters as saying on Saturday.
The unannounced meeting took place as, despite the presence of over 100,000 American and NATO troops, Afghanistan is witnessing the highest level of violence since the 2001 invasion of the country.
The rise in violence, widely seen as an insurgent reaction to the foreign military presence, has been strongly used by Washington and allies as an excuse for enlisting more troops.
Amid conflicting reports on the troop level asked for in the request, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell said a recent report by the general on the situation on the ground has envisioned 500,000 more forces and a five-year work plan.
"The numbers are really pretty horrifying. What they say, embedded in this report by McChrystal, is they would need 500,000 troops - boots on the ground - and five years to do the job," she said on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday. "No one expects that the Afghan Army could step up to that. Are we going to put even half that of U.S. troops there, and NATO forces? No way!"
Speaking to CBS News in an interview to be aired on Sunday, however, McChrystal admitted that the US overuse of military force is ultimately detrimental to Washington's strategic goals due to the civilian casualties it causes. "You know, the favorite saying…'To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' We can't walk with only a hammer in our hands."
Many thousands of Afghan civilians have died since the 2001 invasion due to military operations gone wrong. A UN report released on Saturday said, so far this year, 1,500 civilians had died with August the deadliest month of the year.
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US forces move into central Afghan city
By Kevin Maurer, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 26, 12:15 pm ET
NILI, Afghanistan – The soldiers hesitated as the mullah preached, unsure if they would be welcome at the celebration of one of Islam's highest holidays.
But when the sermon ended, the Afghans draped bright scarves over the soldiers' tanned necks. Then they pushed Chief Warrant Officer Chaka, a Puerto Rican with a thick black beard and a deep tan who could easily pass for Afghan, up front to speak. Chaka thanked the elders and showed them his hands stained orange for the Eid celebration.
"This is our home away from home," said Chaka. "We wanted to come over and be with our neighbors."
The event showed how these dozen Special Force soldiers have joined in the daily life of the town's 95,000 residents since they moved in a month ago. The team is among only a few U.S. troops to live in the midst of Afghans, but there will likely be more. The hope is to push Special Forces teams into villages throughout Afghanistan, giving them the mission of rebuilding and training Afghan police and soldiers.
For its part, the village of Nili, the provincial capital of Day Kundi in central Afghanistan, had built a living compound in hopes of attracting Western aid workers roaming Afghanistan in search of projects. It stood empty for two years, until Day Kundi's governor lobbied international forces for help. The request dovetailed with a plan by the top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to forge closer ties between the U.S. military and Afghans.
"We are enthusiastic about this initiative and believe that it will go a long way to increasing security and enabling villagers to defend themselves," said Col. James E. Kraft, commander of the 7th Special Forces Group. "Everyday we are here, we are making our Afghan partners better. In the final analysis, the onus of security in Afghanistan will rest with its security forces. We want to work ourselves out of a job."
Day Kundi is one of Afghanistan's most peaceful regions, dominated by ethnic Hazaras with long-standing grievances against the mostly Pashtun Taliban. Nili sits in a sharp valley surrounded by towering peaks. Between the biscuit colored compounds and houses that make up the town are acres of almond trees, which the locals harvest. There is little industry and the province exports next to nothing.
Established in 2004 from several isolated northern districts in Uruzgan province, Day Kundi is dominated by ethnic Hazaras, who complain of persecution from their Pashtun neighbors. A Taliban saying about non-Pashtuns goes: "Tajiks to Tajikistan, Uzbeks to Uzbekistan, and Hazaras to goristan (graveyard)."
Day Kundi is a perfect testing ground in many ways, because it is so peaceful and progressive — it is home to one of Afghanistan's few female mayors — and so poor. Overlooked by development projects and the military alike, its streets are dirt, its schools are in shambles and it faces a shortage of water for crops. With winter fast approaching, any building projects will be difficult to complete until spring when the passes are clear.
The Special Forces soldiers spend their days in and around Nili meeting with local leaders, visiting schools and helping the doctors at the province's two hospitals. Everywhere they go, they bring soccer balls and backpacks for the children and radios and food for the adults. They never give out aid directly, relying instead on the elders or Afghan police.
"These guys have to learn how to do this," said Capt. Mark, a former enlisted Green Beret and helicopter pilot whose deep blue eyes draw immediate notice among Afghans. "That way when we are gone, the ideals are already in place." The Special Forces soldiers, who all have thick beards to blend in with Afghan culture, are only identified by their first names under rules for journalists embedded with them.
Last week, they surveyed a school south of Nili that was nothing more than a collection of torn white tents tacked into the mountainside. Dusty, threadbare rugs covered the dirt floors and there were no desks or school supplies for the 400 students.
"It has been nine years that these students have worked out of these tents," said Khanali, the school's 28-year-old principal.
Mark urged Khanali to get him plans for the new school so that he could send up a proposal for funding.
After a month, the Afghans are anxious for some of the building projects to start. Chief Mortaza, the provincial police chief who like many Afghans goes by only one name, said all people want is for the team to start fixing the schools and the mosque.
"If you put one stone on a building, we'll have a party," Mortaza told the soldiers. "Put one stone and the people will be trusting."
But the team is still in the assessment phase and is trying to figure out the needs of the province so they can target the best projects.
The soldiers joke that their Nili compound looks like a trailer park, surrounded by a head-high stone berm and razor wire. It lacks the guard towers and thick walls of the usual imposing Special Forces base. Supplied by helicopters and the occasional air drop from a cargo plane, the base is one of the most remote in Afghanistan.
Since its creation, Special Forces have trained foreign armies and toppled the Taliban by mentoring Northern Alliance fighters. But in the almost nine years since, Coalition units have focused much of their resources on raids. Mark, the team commander, said thousands of soldiers are attacking the "branches" of the insurgency in Afghanistan, but only living among Afghans will get to the root of the problem.
"We lost our way, but have found it again," he said.
Bolstering the strength and numbers of local security forces is also a historic Special Forces mission — and a central tenet of McChrystal's strategy. In Day Kundi, that means the Afghan National Police.
On Friday, a green Afghan police truck led the way over the mountains toward a makeshift range outside of Nili. It was a day off for the Afghan officers, but they were going to learn marksmanship.
"They don't just have to deal with shoplifters and car thieves, but the Taliban," said Staff Sgt. James, the team's 23-year-old weapons sergeant.
He set out targets — black silhouettes a few feet apart on plywood stands — and briefed the Afghans, then walked the line of nine officers to adjust their stances and get them to relax.
"Bend your knees," he said, his words translated by an interpreter. "Bring the gun to you, don't bend to it."
One police officer on the end of the firing line wasn't getting it. He became James' favorite student.
"Watch me," he said, showing the officer the proper movements.
By noon, the Afghans were catching on and firing full magazines, more accurately.
"They left better than when they came," James said.
Despite Day Kundi's poverty and isolation, the provincial governor — Sultan Ali Uruzgani — who appealed successfully for the Special Forces team — said he hopes it can be an example for Afghanistan's future.
"Day Kundi is a role model for the other provinces," he said. "The (Special Forces Team) is working very hard and the future of this province is very bright."
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Troops In Afghanistan Keep Nightmare At Bay
September 26, 2009 NPR
The war in Afghanistan for U.S. troops has lasted twice as long as World War II. There is honest debate now about whether the United States should commit more troops to Afghanistan, or withdraw them.
Would more forces decisively defeat the Taliban? Or, after eight years, does the presence of U.S., British and other NATO troops — and civilians killed by air strikes aimed at insurgents — only anger Afghans?
As a journalist, I just try to help frame that debate. But I was part of the NPR team that covered the war in Afghanistan eight years ago. I get distressed to hear analysts and policymakers say the primary goal should be just to keep al-Qaida terrorists from using Afghanistan as a base.
I saw the kind of society the Taliban made in Afghanistan. Those of us who did remember it as a nightmare no people should live again. Women could not work or attend school. They could not so much as walk outside without a male relative. We met women who said they had prepared to commit suicide, because they had no hope of change. The world tut-tutted when the Taliban did things like destroy the enormous Buddha statues in Bamiyan. But after feeling briefly ennobled, the world would turn away.
The Taliban outlawed news, art, music, theater, song, literature, dance, sport, comedy and any religion but theirs. They built a society in which women were captive, dissenters were prisoners and minorities — Buddhists, the Hazara people or gays — were marked for extinction.
We did a story about the Kabul soccer stadium. The groundskeeper there recalled how on Friday afternoons, Talibs with guns and whips rounded up people on the streets, herded them into the stadium and locked the doors. They would parade a couple of dozen prisoners across the field, and denounce them by name and crime: theft, adultery or heresy. Then, they strung them from the soccer goal posts and — I choose to be blunt about this — chopped off their hands or feet to bleed their lives away in the grass.
Today, political corruption, tribal rivalries and violence against women still afflict Afghanistan. But there are millions of women in school and at work. Women are in the Afghan parliament. There are numerous allegations of vote fraud in the recent election, but there are political parties and free press to pursue them. It is hard to weigh the crime of vote fraud against the kind of people who chop off limbs in soccer stadiums.
It was the crime of al-Qaida terrorists, whom the Taliban let use Afghanistan, that brought the U.S. and NATO there. But even if al-Qaida now hides in the hills of Pakistan, for many of us who saw the Taliban's brutal and bloody abuse of their own people, it would seem another crime to let such murderers take power again.
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Taliban execute 3 civilians in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Taliban, in efforts to terrify government servicemen, have executed three civilians in Herat province, west of Afghanistan, police said Saturday.
"The rebels sprayed bullets and killed three innocent brothers on charge of spying for the government in Gazara district on Friday," Ikramudin Yawar, senior police officer in west Afghanistan, told Xinhua.
He added that the victims were innocent civilians and did not work for the government.
"Those committed the heinous crime belong to Taliban commander Ghulam Yahya Akbari," he said.
Taliban militants who often targeted government interests have not made comment.
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Afghan army says 18 Taliban killed in clashes
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan government troops and police killed at least 18 Taliban insurgents Saturday in clashes in the northern city of Archi, local civilian and military officials said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed for his part said 20 soldiers had been killed and the insurgents controlled the town, a hotbed of violence in Kunduz province.
The fighting in Archi followed incidents Friday in the south and east in which a further 24 Taliban were reported killed, while in the western Herat province the insurgents were said to have murdered four civilians, three of them brothers.
District chief Shikh Saduddin told AFP the government forces were trying to oust the Taliban from Archi.
Colonel Abdul Wakil Ahsas, the commander of a battalion in the provincial capital of Kunduz, said two Taliban attacks had been repulsed, with 18 confirmed killed and ten wounded.
Another four Taliban were also thought to have been killed but their bodies had not been found, he said.
Three policemen were wounded, the colonel added.
Kunduz has become a new battleground in the war between the Taliban and government and Western forces.
It has become more interesting to the insurgents with the launching of a new supply route for the foreign trips from Tajikistan which passes through the province.
Kunduz was the scene of an air strike on September 4 by NATO on two coalition fuel trucks that had been captured by the Taliban, which killed 30 civilians as well as 69 militants according to Kabul.
Also Saturday, the interior ministry said 12 Taliban were killed in Helmand the day before, eight of them when they tried to ambush police and foreign troops.
In the district of Freshk a local Taliban commander, Fazal Rahim, was among three more killed, the defence ministry added.
In the neighbouring province of Nimroz a nine-hour battle sparked by a Taliban attack on a border police post in Kang district on the Iranian frontier ended early Saturday with eight militants killed, the provincial police chief said.
Abdul Jabar Pordili said police casualties were two killed and three wounded.
A similar attack in Dur Baba district in eastern Nangarhar province, near the Pakistan border, left four Taliban dead, the interior ministry said.
In Herat, police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi said four civilians had been found dead in Injil district with notes on their bodies accusing them of collaborating with government and foreign forces.
They included three brothers, and a man of 26 who had been hung from an electric pylon.
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Police arrest would-be suicide bomber in N Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police arrested a would-be suicide bomber in the northern Balkh province, a local newspaper reported Saturday.
"The rebel was driving an explosive-laden car when police identified and detained him on Friday," daily 8Subh quoted police spokesman in the province Shir Durani as saying.
However, it did not identify the nationality of the suspected suicide bomber.
Police in the relatively peaceful northern Balkh province have detained eight suspected terrorists over the past one week.
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Gun battle leaves 8 militants, 2 Afghan police dead in West
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Gun battle between Taliban insurgents and police in Nimroz province, west of Afghanistan, left eight militants and two police officers dead on Saturday, provincial governor Ghulam Dastgir Azad said.
"The militants raided a border checkpoint in Kand district in the wee hours and the police resisted, killing eight rebels and wounding four others," Azad told Xinhua.
In the firefight which lasted several hours, two police officers were killed and three others got wounded, he said.
The militants executed three civilians on charge of spying for the government in the neighboring Herat province on Friday.
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Eight Taliban militants killed, 3 more wounded in S Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police back by the U.S.-led Coalition Forces killed eight Taliban militants in the outfit's stronghold Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on Friday, a statement of Interior Ministry issued here on Saturday said.
"A group of militants ambushed join convoy of Afghan National Police and Coalition Forces in Nawa district and police returned fire, as a result eight militants were killed and three others injured," the statement added.
No causalities on joint forces were reported, it said.
"Hundred of machine gun bullets, one thousand meters electric lines and explosive material were also found on the ground."
Taliban militants who intensified their activities against Afghan and international troops have yet to make comment.
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Four militants killed in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Four anti-government militants who planned to attack a border police checkpoint in Nangarhar province of eastern Afghanistan, were shot dead after identified by police on Friday, a statement of Interior Ministry said on Saturday.
"Four militants driving a vehicle tried to attack the checkpoint of border police in Dur Baba district on Friday," the statement said.
Police foiled their attempts by shooting the rebels dead on the spot, it added.
There was no causality on police forces, it said.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and international troops have yet to make comments.
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Afghan civilian deaths hit record high in August
By Lori Hinnant, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 26, 9:35 am ET
KABUL – Rising violence ahead of Afghanistan's disputed presidential election made August the deadliest month of the year for civilians, the U.N. said, warning in a new report that attacks could spike again when the final vote results are announced.
A total of 1,500 civilians died in Afghanistan from January through August, according to the report released late Friday. About three-quarters of the deaths were blamed on militants. The U.N. report did not specify the August death toll, but said the month was the deadliest of the year as the Taliban stepped up an intimidation campaign to discourage Afghans from voting in the Aug. 20 election.
The U.N. said coalition forces were to blame for about a quarter of civilian deaths in 2009 — most of them in airstrikes. The top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has made protecting Afghan civilians a top priority.
An Associated Press count found a total of 174 civilians were killed in August, 165 of them at the hands of militants. The deadliest attack of the month was an Aug. 25 truck bomb in the southern city of Kandahar that killed 43 people.
"In terms of the numbers of security incidents we saw, this represented a new high," said Adrian Edwards, the U.N. spokesman in Afghanistan.
This has already been the deadliest year of the war for U.S. and NATO forces and the numbers released Friday indicate that ordinary Afghans have not been spared. The U.N. recorded 1,145 civilian deaths in the first eight months of last year and a record 2,118 for all of 2008.
Since then, the Taliban have extended their grip on vast parts of the country, including areas that had been relatively peaceful in the years since the 2001 U.S. invasion to oust the hard-line group from power for sheltering Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.
Bombs and suicide attacks accounted for 39.5 percent of civilian deaths this year, the U.N. said, warning there are "fears of a return to violence when election results are announced."
Preliminary results from the election show President Hamid Karzai with 54.6 percent, but a U.N.-backed complaints commission is now throwing out tainted ballots. If enough are found to be fraudulent, Karzai could dip below the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff with his top challenger.
Afghan election officials involved in a recount are racing to meet a narrowing window for a possible runoff before winter.
In the country's latest violence, 18 Taliban militants were killed in a battle after they attacked a government building early Saturday in the Dushti Archi district of northern Kunduz province, Gov. Mohammad Omar said. None of the Afghan army soldiers or police officers that responded to the attack was killed, he said.
Kunduz, in the country's far north, is one of the regions that had been peaceful in past years but has seen an influx of militants in 2009.
Twelve militants were killed Friday in three separate gunbattles in Helmand province, including two joint operations with Afghan and international forces in the Taliban stronghold, Afghan government officials said.
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Rocket strikes house killing 1, injuring 3 in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A rocket fired by Afghan security forces during clash with Taliban militants in the northern Baghlan province Saturday left one person dead and injured two others including a child, police said.
"Security forces came in contact with Taliban rebels in Shiringali village of Baghlan-e-Markazi district this morning during which a rocket fired by the troops hit a house killing one woman and wounding three others including one child," a police officer Gul Aqa told Xinhua.
He also added that the fighting is continuing between the two sides.
A similar incident in the eastern Kunar province Friday also left four civilians dead and injured three others.
Baghlan, a relatively peaceful province, has been experiencing increasing Taliban-led insurgency over the past several months.
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Norwegian defense minister visits Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Norwegian Defense Minister Anne Greta Erickson paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan Saturday and met with her Afghan counterpart General Abdul Rahim Wardak, a press release of Afghan Defense Ministry said.
During the meeting, matters pertaining security situation in Afghanistan, presidential election and strengthening Afghan security forces came under discussion, the press release said.
Some 500 Norwegian forces have been serving in Afghanistan within the framework of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
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The Taliban in Their Own Words
By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau | NEWSWEEK Sep 26, 2009 From the magazine issue dated Oct 5, 2009
During wars and after them, the real voice of the enemy is rarely heard. Propaganda is plentiful, as are prideful boasts—and the Taliban have certainly been quick studies at the modern art of information warfare. But the fears and ambitions of ordinary fighters are too often buried under statistics and theories propounded from thousands of miles away. That's been even more true in Iraq and Afghanistan, where reporters who might accurately convey the other side's perspective are at risk of being kidnapped or killed for their efforts.
After eight long years of war in Afghanistan, however, America and its allies can ill afford not to understand who the enemy is and why they fight. To put together this remarkable oral history, told through the words of the Taliban themselves, NEWSWEEK turned to contributing correspondent Sami Yousafzai, who has been covering the conflict for the magazine since 2001. Over that time he has developed and maintained contact with dozens of Afghan insurgents, including the six whose stories are told here.
Working with NEWSWEEK's Ron Moreau, Yousafzai spent more than a month crisscrossing Afghanistan and Pakistan to meet these sources. He has known them all for some time, and in the past their information has generally proved reliable. Their accounts may sometimes be self-serving—most Afghan civilians recall the Taliban regime far less fondly, for one thing—but the facts are consistent with what Yousafzai knows about the men from earlier reporting. While it's impossible to confirm the credibility of everything they say, their stories offer a rare chance to understand how the insurgents see this war, from the collapse of the Taliban, through their revival and, now, their budding ascendancy.
Chapter One: The Fall
'The bombs cut down our men like a reaper harvesting wheat. it felt like judgment day.'
—Maulvi Abdul Rehman Akhundzada
HAQQANI: Two days before the September 11 attacks on America, we were all celebrating the death of [Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah] Masood, [who was assassinated by Qaeda agents posing as television reporters]. His forces were already on the verge of defeat, so his death all but assured us of total victory in Afghanistan. But the September 11 attacks turned our cheer into deep concern. We gave those camels [a derogatory Afghan term for Arabs] free run of our country, and they brought us face to face with disaster. We knew the Americans would attack us in revenge.
Realizing the danger, I immediately sent my wife and children to Pakistan. The entire government started to fall apart. I never thought the Taliban would collapse so quickly and cruelly under U.S. bombs. Everyone began trying to save themselves and their families. When the bombing began, I changed out of my usual white mullah's garb, put on an old brown shalwar kameez, and headed for Pakistan. I crossed the mountains on foot, and at the top I turned around and said: "God bless you, Afghanistan. I'll never come back to you under our Islamic regime."
AKHUNDZADA: When the bombing started, I was commanding some 400 fighters on the front lines near -Mazar-e Sharif. The bombs cut down our men like a reaper harvesting wheat. Bodies were dismembered. Dazed fighters were bleeding from the ears and nose from the bombs' concussions. We couldn't bury the dead. Our reinforcements died in their trenches.
I couldn't bring myself to surrender, so I retreated with a few of my men in the confusion. Everything was against us. The highway south to Kabul through the Salang Tunnel was blocked. We walked four days in the deep snow without food or water. Kids started shooting at us from the hilltops, hunting us like wild animals.
By the fifth day I could barely walk. I hid my weapon and walked to a village, saying I was a lost traveler and asking for food. The villagers fed me, but I had lost touch with my comrades. I walked on until a minibus came along; I aimed my gun at the driver and forced him to stop. The van was full of Taliban. They said they had no room for me, but I threatened to shoot out their tires unless they took me. I had to lie on the floor with their feet on my body. It was uncomfortable, but I was warm for the first time in days.
A group of local militiamen captured us the next morning at a checkpoint on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. We were nearly dead. Our mouths were dry and cracked, our lips bleeding. It felt like Judgment Day. I lay in their filthy jail for a month before they let me go free, just after the Eid holidays. With the strength I had left, I made it to Peshawar. Our Islamic Emirate had collapsed with less than 40 days of resistance—I couldn't accept that. Allah would let us rise again, I thought, because of all the blood we had spilled for Islam.
KHAN: After the mujahedin began retreating, Arabs, Chechens, and Taliban raced by our house and mosque in Ghazni in convoys of cars, pickups, and trucks, headed to Pakistan. Almost immediately they started getting bombed. So they abandoned their vehicles and started walking, even the wounded. Some injured Taliban, and Arabs with their families, came to seek shelter at my father's mosque. Other villagers wouldn't help them. Only my father and I brought them food.
YOUNAS: When I was a child, my father was a mujahedin commander in the jihad against the Russians, and he sent our family for safety to an Afghan refugee camp in Wana, South Waziristan. After the Taliban's victory [in 1996], he became an official in a ministry in Kabul. I used to visit him on holidays from Wana. The Islamic Emirate's collapse was like a nightmare.
I watched as wounded, disabled, and defeated Taliban fighters straggled into Wana and the surrounding villages, along with Arabs, Chechens, and Uzbeks. Every morning as I went to school I could see them wandering around town, almost like homeless beggars. Little by little, the tribal people started helping them, giving them food. Some people even took them into their houses; at first these once proud jihadis survived, thanks to the people's charity.
The Arabs were disappointed the Taliban hadn't stood and fought. They told me they had wanted to fight to the death. They were clearly not as distressed as the Afghans. That was understandable. The Arabs felt they had lost a battle. But the Afghans were much more devastated—they had lost their country.
MASIHUDDIN: When the Taliban fell, I was a madrassa student in Nuristan. Since all the Taliban officials and militiamen had fled, I decided to continue my studies in Pakistan.
[Then-Pakistani president Pervez] Musharraf imposed new rules on the Pakistani madrassas [in 2002], including a ban on foreign students. So I went to a mosque in an outlying village [near Peshawar] to study and wait for the situation to improve. We were 10 students studying and sleeping in one small room. The people couldn't afford to bring us food, so we often went without dinner. We rarely had electricity. Without a fan it was hard to study, even to sleep. To make matters worse, the Peshawar police were harassing and arresting us. They didn't hold us for long, though—I think they just wanted to frighten us. We began praying for the survival of the Taliban who had fled. There was no reason to pray for victory, since such a return seemed inconceivable.
HAQQANI:My father, brother, and family were at Mansehra [a town in northwestern Pakistan that is home to several Afghan refugee camps]. But I realized it wouldn't be wise to move in with them. Too many people knew who I was, and some had no love for the Taliban. Instead I found a place to stay at a mosque nearby. I had to sneak over at midnight just to see my kids, like a thief. When I was visiting my daughter one night, she asked me about our Kabul home, why we didn't have a car anymore. She complained that it was too hot in the refugee camp, and that she wanted to move back to the cool climate of Kabul. I couldn't answer her. But she could tell from my eyes how sad I was. I was a wreck—nervous, worried, and almost panic-stricken.
AKHUNDZADA: Once proud Taliban mullahs and fighters changed the way they dressed so they wouldn't be recognized. No one wanted to be identified as a Talib. Friends and relatives who had respected me while I was a commander now turned away. I had no money or job. I moved my family to a village in Punjab, far from Afghanistan, to become a day laborer, but I was a failure at it. I couldn't speak the local language, and no one would hire me. So I returned to Peshawar and started selling vegetables from a basket in the market. I began making money. But I couldn't get over the Taliban's collapse, the death of my men. My wife said I was crying in my sleep. I went to a doctor, who gave me some medicine. I was so distracted that when a customer would ask me for potatoes, I'd give him tomatoes.
Chapter Two: The Rebirth
'The end of the Taliban was the start of my Jihadi career.'
—Mullah Aga Mohammad
KHAN:Mullahs like my father became depressed. Under the Taliban they had been very influential, but after the collapse people paid less attention to them. My father was so upset, he had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. At the end of 2002 the Afghan police raided our mosque. They grabbed my father and hauled him in front of the villagers, accusing him of being with the Taliban. They demanded to know where the Taliban's weapons were stored. They personally insulted him and then threw him in jail. He was 70.
The faithful at our mosque went to the police and complained. People who a few months before seemed to have turned against my father now supported him. They said it was a disgrace for the police to have entered the mosque wearing their shoes, and to have arrested an old, crippled imam. In early 2003 he died.
I was a just a kid, but the police arrested me too, twice—once from my house, once from the mosque. They interrogated me, asking stupid questions like: "Where are the Taliban?" "Where are the weapons hidden?" My family sold our motorbike to raise the money to free me. The police also arrested my brother, who was a schoolteacher. The police even arrested, insulted, and manhandled a 90-year-old mullah in our district. People's attitudes were changing; they were becoming angry at the police and the local officials for the disrespect they were showing toward mosques and mullahs.
YOUNAS: At first I didn't hear the Afghans talking about going back to fight. But the Arabs did, and they encouraged the Afghans and the local tribal people not to give up. Nothing much happened for the first year or so, but then the Arabs started organizing some training camps. The first one I heard about was at Shin Warsak village, near Wana. When I had some time off from school, I decided to visit. I was really impressed. There was more than one camp. One was run by Arabs, and another by Chechens and Uzbeks.
Thanks to my madrassa studies I could speak Arabic; I made friends with Egyptians, Saudis, Libyans, and Yemenis. Nek Mohammad Wazir [a pro-Taliban Pakistani tribal leader who was killed by a June 2004 Predator strike] gave the Arabs places to train and access to weapons and other supplies. They moved openly on the main roads and in the towns and villages, showing no concern about security. I decided to leave my studies and join their resistance.
MOHAMMAD:The end of the Taliban was the start of my jihadi career. My father died in 1994, leaving me to take care of my mother, brothers, and sisters. So I'd had no time to join Mullah Omar's movement. For years I had a very heavy conscience for having missed the jihad. After the collapse of the Taliban in late 2001, many injured and traumatized mujahedin began coming to the mosque in Peshawar where I was the imam. Some of the worshipers asked me outright why I hadn't fought in the jihad like these men.
I needed to make up for not joining the fight. I started asking around if the mujahedin were still active, but no one could give me a real answer. Then one day I heard about a young Afghan named Azizullah who had been in the resistance—he's in jail now in Afghanistan. I went to his house, and told him I wanted to help the resistance against the Americans if it was forming. He lied, saying he was only a poor man and had nothing to do with jihad. Then one day I saw him walking to the mosque. I joined him. He was still hesitant, but finally he said he could help. He gave me directions to a militant camp in Waziristan and a letter of introduction.
HAQQANI: In early 2003 my family and I moved to a rented house near Peshawar. It was the first time I was living in my own house since 2001. I put my white clerical outfit back on. And suddenly the Taliban's defense minister, Mullah Obaidullah, came to see me—the first senior Taliban leader I had seen since our collapse. He was traveling around Pakistan to rally our dispersed forces. Half the Taliban leadership was back in touch with each other, he said, and they were determined to start a resistance movement to expel the Americans. I didn't think it was possible, but he assured me I could help.
He said to meet him again in two weeks, and gave me an address. I was surprised at the number and rank of the people I found at the meeting. There were former senior ministers and military commanders, all sitting together, all eager to resist the Americans. Obaidullah told me: "We don't need you as a deputy minister or bureaucrat. We want you to bring as many fighters as you can into the field."
AKHUNDZADA: One day a man came to buy vegetables—a mullah who had worked with our jihad in northern Afghanistan for years. We recognized each other. He asked me what I wanted to do: keep selling potatoes or go back to the jihad. I was making about 2,000 rupees [$33] a day, which was good, but I wanted to rejoin the struggle. We went to a meeting at night near Peshawar, and I couldn't believe what I saw: my top commander [from the northern front], Mullah Dadullah! He was my ideal; his name meant victory for us. My interest in the vegetable business disappeared. After six or seven months I was called to Miran Shah [in North Waziristan]. Dadullah [who would be killed in May 2007] was there; so were Akhtar Mohammad Osmani [who would be killed in December 2006] and our defense minister, Mullah Obaidullah [who would be captured by Pakistani forces in March 2007]. It was decided that each commander should go find his former soldiers and prepare to return to Afghanistan to fight.
I was sent to Quetta, where survivors from my unit had settled. There had been 400 fighters under my command. In Quetta I found 15 of them. They embraced me and the idea of returning to free our land of the American invaders. In North Waziristan we trained, re-equipped, recruited more men, and got ready to return to Afghanistan.
MOHAMMAD:I left my family in the care of my younger brother and traveled to South Waziristan. I ended up at a mosque in a remote mountain village, where a mullah looked at Azizullah's letter of introduction and led me farther into the rugged countryside to a secret place, well hidden among the hills, rocks, bushes, and trees. There were checkpoints guarded by armed men who would not even let locals pass by. A group of 20 or 30 Arab fighters from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Egypt met me there, with a few Afghans and Chechens. They were very distrustful and questioned me rather roughly.
Another more senior Arab interviewed me at length. The biggest question he wanted answered was why I hadn't fought in Mullah Omar's jihad. After a few hours I was taken to their leader, Abu Khabab [al-Masri, a senior Qaeda operative and bombmaker who was killed in a July 2008 Predator strike]. He was welcoming, not hostile like the others. He sat by my side on the floor of a mud-brick house and asked me why I wanted to join their struggle and what I thought I could contribute.
Only a few select Arabs and other jihadis were allowed up a mountain near the camp. That's where most of the leadership lived. Some big jihadi stars were there besides Abu Khabab, like Abu Laith al-Libi [a guerrilla-war expert who was killed by a January 2008 Predator strike] and Abu Hamza Rabia [a senior Qaeda planner who was killed by a Predator in late 2005]. Even so, there wasn't much food or money. I thought the mujahedin at the camp seemed disappointed at times because they had little to do. But the Arabs slowly grew friendlier with the locals. Soon local tribesmen were being welcomed into certain sectors of the camp, bringing food, supplies, and money. Some even brought us AK-47s and RPGs.
YOUNAS:In our camp there were about 150 Arabs, along with some Afghans, Chechens, and local tribal militants. The Arab instructors taught us how to fire Kalashnikovs, especially in close-range fighting; how to gather intelligence on the enemy; and how to fire mortars and rockets accurately. It was a friendly place; we all felt a commitment to help and sacrifice for each other. At the start of 2003, the weather became bitterly cold, and the camp closed. But the commander called me back that March. He told me he was working with Nek Mohammad to arrange for one of the first cross-border attacks against American forces in Afghanistan. Even with Nek Mohammad's help, we only had usable weapons for 50 of the roughly 200 mujahedin who had been trained. But 50 of us—a couple dozen Arabs, three or four Afghans like myself, and some Waziri and Mehsud tribals—were armed and ready to go.
MOHAMMAD: The first thing I learned was to shoot, field-strip, and maintain an AK-47. Then we did ambush and guerrilla-war exercises day and night in the hills. The Arabs taught us how to make an IED by mixing nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel, and how to pack plastic explosives and to connect them to detonators and remote-control devices like mobile phones. We learned how to do this blindfolded so we could safely plant IEDs in the dark.
Discipline was strict. Any trainee who broke the rules could get a severe beating. You had to wake up before dawn every morning for physical exercises and to run in the mountains. Recruits were awakened at all hours of the night so they would learn to be alert in an emergency. I don't see this kind of discipline in camps run by the Afghan Taliban today.
After two months of hard training, we graduated. There were 200 of us: about 160 local tribals, a few Punjabis, and about 40 Afghans like me. We were divided up into 10 groups. Each had two or three Arabs assigned to it as commanders and instructors. We split up: some groups went to Khost and Paktia provinces, and others to Ghazni and Kandahar. Three of our groups were bombed by the Americans crossing the border. It was very dangerous back then. We had to run quickly and stay out of sight. We didn't want villagers to see us. At that time they weren't very supportive, and there were spies looking for us. We wanted to reach the cover of ravines, rocks, and trees before the sun rose.
Chapter Three: The Taliban Surge
'After these first few attacks, God seems to have opened channels of money for us.'
—Qari Younas
YOUNAS: One night in April [2003], we crossed the border in five pickups and one larger truck. Once we were safely across, we sent the vehicles back to wait for us on the Pakistan side. Our target was a U.S. base just across the border at Machda in Paktika province. We attacked at dawn. I think we really surprised them. We shelled them with 122mm rockets and mortars for about 30 minutes. But we didn't get close enough to fire our Kalashnikovs; before we could move in, American helicopters came, raining rockets and bullets on us. Terrified, I crawled and ran to escape death. Amid the noise and explosions, dust and smoke, I remember seeing six of us cut down and killed: two Arabs, three tribals, and an Afghan.
Still, I was strangely exhilarated. We showed our resolve by fighting, by taking a stand. We knew we'd be back. We carried the stiff and bloodied bodies of our martyrs back to Wana. Thousands of locals attended their funerals, saying it was an honor to witness the burial of these martyrs. People brought flowers, ribbons, colored cloth, and flags to decorate their graves. As the news traveled, a lot of former Taliban began returning to Wana to join us.
HAQQANI:Arab and Iraqi mujahedin began visiting us, transferring the latest IED technology and suicide-bomber tactics they had learned in the Iraqi resistance during combat with U.S. forces. The American invasion of Iraq was very positive for us. It distracted the United States from Afghanistan. Until 2004 or so, we were using traditional means of fighting like we used against the Soviets—AK-47s and RPGs. But then our resistance became more lethal, with new weapons and techniques: bigger and better IEDs for roadside bombings, and suicide attacks.
KHAN:By the middle of 2004, we were hearing rumors that the Taliban were operating once again in Ghazni. Friends and relatives in other rural districts were saying that armed men were beginning to show up in villages at night on motorbikes. Within a few months, signs of them began appearing everywhere. At first we saw shabnama ["night letters"] that the Taliban were leaving in shops, mosques, and other public places warning people not to cooperate with [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and the Americans. By the beginning of 2005 the Taliban began targeted killings of police officers, government officials, spies, and elders who were working with the Americans.
One night around midnight someone knocked on the door of our house. We were terrified, fearing that the police had come back to arrest me or my brother once again. But when we opened the door, it was one of my father's former students. He had a Kalashnikov on his shoulder and was a Taliban subcommander already. The two other Taliban he was with also carried AKs and had several hand grenades attached to their belts. This was my first encounter with the Taliban since the defeat. We invited them to spend the night. Early the next morning I accompanied them to the mosque. My father's former student read out the names of those he accused of having betrayed Islam by following Karzai and the infidels. He warned them to cease all contact and to quit any job they may have had with the government or the Americans. He ended by saying he would return in one week.
MOHAMMAD:Those first groups crossing the border were almost totally sponsored, organized, and led by Arab mujahedin. The Afghan Taliban were weak and disorganized. But slowly the situation began to change. American operations that harassed villagers, bombings that killed civilians, and Karzai's corrupt police and officials were alienating villagers and turning them in our favor. Soon we didn't have to hide so much on our raids. We came openly. When they saw us, villagers started preparing green tea and food for us. The tables were turning. Karzai's police and officials mostly hid in their district compounds like prisoners.
YOUNAS: After these first few attacks, God seems to have opened channels of money for us. I was told money was flowing from the Gulf to the Arabs.
Our real jihad was beginning by the start of 2005. Jalaluddin Haqqani's tribal fighters came actively back to our side because the Americans and the Pakistanis had arrested his brother and other relatives. He appointed his son Sirajuddin to lead the resistance. That was a real turning point. Until then villagers in Paktia, Paktika, and Khost thought the Taliban was defeated and finished. They had started joining the militias formed by the Americans and local warlords, and were informing on us and working against us. But with the support of Haqqani's men we began capturing, judging, and beheading some of those Afghans who worked with the Americans and Karzai. Terrorized, their families and relatives left the villages and moved to the towns, even to Kabul. Our control was slowly being restored.
KHAN: My father's former student returned as promised a week later. I decided to join him. I helped assassinate those people who had continued their contacts with the government and the Americans. I didn't want to kill, but I was determined to bring back our Islamic regime and get rid of the Americans and the traitors allied with them.
By the end of 2005 the Taliban's ranks in Ghazni were increasing. There were new recruits like me and more former Taliban returning home from Pakistan. At the same time, we started receiving shipments of RPGs, rockets, mines, and bombs, most of which were old and rusty. My group only had three RPG launchers and only one mortar tube, and a few rounds for each. We had a few rusty Russian mines that only worked about 30 percent of the time. So we could only carry out very quick and limited attacks on convoys, construction crews, and district compounds. At first we didn't have much success. But we were learning. Just firing a mortar, even if it didn't hit the target, was a big deal: it proved to everyone we were there and were a force to be respected.
The Americans and their Afghan allies made mistakes after mistake, killing and arresting innocent people. There was one village in Dayak district near Ghazni City where the people had communist backgrounds, from the days of the Russians, and had never supported us. But the police raided the village, beat the elders at a mosque and arrested them, accusing them of being Taliban. They were freed after heavy bribes were paid. After that incident the whole village sent us a message asking forgiveness for the abuses of the communist era.
AKHUNDZADA: There are famous Taliban poems about how mujahedin come to free villages from occupiers at the point of a bayonet. I began living that poem. My body and mind got stronger and my mental problems disappeared. As word of our success traveled, I was able to organize another group of new, young recruits. They were smarter, more spirited, and better motivated than my former Taliban fighters.
Still, we lacked weapons and money. So I visited Mullah Dadullah. He had gone into Helmand province in early 2006 with 30 people. When he returned months later, he had organized 300 sub-commanders who each had dozens of troops. He had also signed up and was training hundreds of suicide-bomb volunteers. His return was like the arrival of rain after five years of drought.
I gave him a list of our needs. Even before he read the list, he smiled and said: "Whether I am alive or dead, remember this: the resistance will become greater than your greatest expectations. We will return to control Afghanistan." The next day he called me, took a page out of a notebook, wrote something on it, and gave it to me. The note said to go and see this guy and he will help you. Back in Pakistan, I found the man. He kissed Dadullah's letter. After two weeks this man had provided me with all the guns, weapons, and supplies I had requested. Dadullah gave such letters to many people.
MOHAMMAD:Once we sent a shipment for the making of IEDs to our forces in Zabul province. For some reason we forgot to include the remote-control devices. I got an urgent call from the commander asking me to quickly send the missing items. So I hid the remotes among some books and clothes in several travel bags. At Torkham [the Khyber Pass crossing], the police asked me to open the bags. At first I thought I should flee. But where could I run? I started searching for the key to open the bags. There was a long customs queue. The impatient policeman finally said: "You're taking too long. Get out of here."
Another night I was in a hotel in Kabul on a mission to smuggle remote devices and explosives. Afghan police and intelligence were checking all the travelers staying in the hotel. My fellow mujahedin and I hid the bags containing the remotes in the bathroom. The police checked our luggage and pockets. But God blinded their eyes to the bathroom. If they had found the devices I would have ended up in jail for life. All these close calls strengthened my faith and my commitment to the jihad.
HAQQANI: In 2007 I returned to Afghanistan for the first time. I visited the south and spoke to Taliban units, to elders and villagers, and raised new recruits. Mullah Omar has entrusted me with the job of touring towns and villages on both sides of the border to encourage people to support, contribute to, and join the jihad. Between 2006 and 2009 I have personally raised hundreds of new recruits to join the resistance. [In August] I traveled to eight Afghan provinces in 20 days. The unpopularity of the Karzai regime helps us immensely. In 2005 some Afghans thought Karzai would bring positive change. But now most Afghans believe the Taliban are the future. The resistance is getting stronger day by day.
Chapter Four: You Have the Watches, We Have the Time
'We were born here. We will die here. We aren't going anywhere.'
—Mullah Aga Mohammad
MASIHUDDIN: That base on top of the mountain [in Barge Matal] had to go. The Americans there were monitoring our phone calls and walkie-talkies, and they ran intelligence operations with Afghan spies from there. So [last June] we began carefully planning an attack. One of our men said that the mission would be hard even if the Americans only threw stones at us, as we'd be attacking up a steep mountain. Everyone laughed at him, but we knew there was some truth in what he said.
I asked for volunteers, and everyone signed up. As usual we prepared a medical team, including donkeys and stretchers to evacuate our wounded. But as I divided up weapons, ammunition, explosives, and communications gear, it started to rain heavily. The Americans have heavy boots and other mountain equipment that allows them to move up and down the steep rocks. But our men mostly wear leather sandals that don't give us any grip. So we postponed the attack for two weeks.
KHAN: Fighting the Americans is not easy. One night in the summer of 2007, my commander, Mullah Nurla, was killed in an American raid on his house. Other Americans killed 12 of our commanders. All the raids came between midnight and dawn. We found out that the Americans were finding us by tracing our cell-phone calls, and by calls from spies giving away our locations. So we forced the cell companies to stop all transmissions from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. We still worry about helicopters and bombers, but we are suffering fewer American night raids. I think they just don't have the intelligence they used to have. Fewer people are willing to cooperate with them and betray us.
Our men, on the other hand, are watching American bases 24 hours a day. They inform us of American movements. We used to hit the Americans with roadside bombs and then disappear. Now when we explode an IED, we follow that with AK and RPG fire. We now have more destructive IEDs, mostly ammonium-nitrate bombs that we mix with aluminum shards. We get regular deliveries of these fertilizers, explosives, fuses, detonators, and remote controls. One heavy shipment is on its way right now. I think we are better at making IEDs now than the Arabs who first taught us.
HAQQANI: I admit Taliban commanders are being captured and killed, but that hasn't stopped us, and it won't. Our jihad is more solid and deep than individual commanders and fighters—and we are not dependent on foreigners, on the ISI [Pakistan's intelligence agency], or Al Qaeda. Personally I think all this talk about Al Qaeda being strong is U.S. propaganda. As far as I know, Al Qaeda is weak, and they are few in numbers. Now that we control large amounts of territory, we should have a strict code of conduct for any foreigners working with us. We can no longer allow these camels to roam freely without bridles and control.
MASIHUDDIN: Late Friday afternoon, after prayers, we began to move. We slowly sent our people up the mountain as the shadows lengthened. The mujahedin climbed slowly, steadily. We waited quietly on the ridgeline overnight without fires for warmth or to cook food. We've learned that the Americans are always listening for the smallest sound.
I gave the signal to attack just before sunrise. We started with our mortar and rocket teams shelling the base from the surrounding hilltops. By dawn our mujahedin were almost hugging the base's outer walls. We killed a number of Afghan Army soldiers, and one U.S. soldier who may have been hit in a guard tower. As we fought, our video team filmed our advance. Our mortars, rockets, and RPGs destroyed most of one outer defensive wall. We yelled to those inside to come out and surrender. No one came out. So we set fire to one side of the post and moved around to wait on the opposite side. The smoke forced some, if not all, of the soldiers to abandon the post. During the attack we didn't lose any fighters.
Then American helicopters arrived, firing rockets and machine guns. We fought until sunset. We lost 12 Taliban to martyrdom, largely to the helicopter fire that comes down like heavy rain. We cannot compare our military strength to that of the Americans. But we have learned how to stay protected behind rocks and mountains. Even with all their advanced technology, we forced them to withdraw and captured that base. [Coalition forces retook the post three days later and later abandoned it; a U.S. chronology of the battle differs in some details.]
YOUNAS: Not long ago, when one of my younger brothers got married, my mother asked me: "Boy, when will you marry?" I told her that the day I help to bring the Taliban back to Kabul and restore the Islamic Emirate is the day I will marry. That day may be far away, but I know it will come.
KHAN: The Americans talk about getting Taliban to leave the jihad for their dollars. That's ridiculous. I was engaged to be married a year ago, but I don't have the $1,500 bride price to give to the girl's father or the $500 for the wedding. If I had money, I would not delay my marriage. Who would marry me? You'd be surprised. The people here are not worried about giving their daughter or sister to Taliban, who can get killed within one week of the wedding. They are happy to be part of the jihad.
It's not easy being in the Taliban. It's like wearing a jacket of fire. You have to leave your family and live with the knowledge that you can be killed at any time. The Americans can capture you and put you in dog cages in Bagram and Guantánamo. You can't expect any quick medical treatment if you're wounded. You don't have any money. Yet when I tell new recruits what they are facing they still freely put on this jacket of fire. All this builds my confidence that we will never lose this war.
MOHAMMAD: We never worry about time. We will fight until victory no matter how long it takes. The U.S. has the weapons, but we are prepared for a long and tireless jihad. We were born here. We will die here. We aren't going anywhere.
MASIHUDDIN: In the south the mujahedin have adjusted to Obama's new crusade by making some small strategic withdrawals and fighting back mostly with IEDs. But we mujahedin in Kunar and Nuristan are lucky. These mountains and forests are our protectors. Trees and rocks shelter us everywhere. The Americans can't match us here.
Two or three years ago, U.S. soldiers in the region acted as if they were on holiday. They were taking videos and photos of themselves and walking in the mountains for fun. They were playing games in the open. Those days are over. Now they are forced to keep their fingers on their triggers 24 hours a day.
AKHUNDZADA: Sometimes I think what's happened is like a dream. I thought my beard would be white by the time I saw what I am seeing now, but my beard is still black, and we get stronger every day.
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US Terror Suspect to Face Charges in New York
By VOA News 26 September 2009
Prosecutors say an Afghan-born terror suspect in U.S. federal custody spent more than a year plotting a massive attack on the United States with co-conspirators.
Najibullah Zazi was transferred Friday from the western state of Colorado, where he was detained, to the northeastern city of New York, where he faces charges of conspiring to detonate bombs.
A federal grand jury in New York indicted 24-year-old Zazi on Wednesday, but that was not made public until Thursday.
The U.S. government says Zazi received bomb-making instructions in Pakistan in 2008. It also says he bought components to build improvised explosive devices and traveled to New York City on September 10, 2009, to move forward with his plans.
If convicted, Zazi faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. He has denied any links to terrorism.
He is set to appear in court Tuesday.
Zazi is a legal permanent resident of the United States. He was detained in Colorado September 19 on charges of lying to counter-terrorism investigators.
He was indicted on the terror plot charges four days later.
Zazi was born in Afghanistan and moved to Pakistan as a boy before relocating to the United States with his family about 10 years ago.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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German politicans hold final rallies as Islamic militants threaten retribution for Afghanistan
Sat Sep 26, 11:42 AM By Melissa Eddy, The Associated Press
BERLIN, Germany - German political parties held their final campaign rallies before Sunday's national election, mindful of new warnings by Islamic militants that they would exact retribution for the country's presence in Afghanistan.
Two threatening videos surfaced Friday - one by al-Qaida and another by the Taliban - showing video of top German landmarks like the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and Munich's world-renowned Oktoberfest.
On Saturday, authorities banned all flights over Oktoberfest until it ends on Oct. 4. This year's 16-day festival is expected to draw some 6 million visitors.
IntelCenter, an organization that monitors terrorism, said the threats directed at Germany are "now at unprecedented levels."
Chancellor Angela Merkel hopes to return for a second four-year term and ditch her conservative party's "grand coalition" with her main rivals, the Social Democrats, led by her foreign minister and challenger, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The 54-year-old Merkel wants to form a new centre-right government with her preferred partners, the pro-business Free Democrats. But while she is personally popular among voters - some 49 per cent said they would vote for her - Germans vote for parties and do not directly elect candidates.
Merkel is widely expected to remain chancellor and her conservatives to be the biggest party.
Although Germany's election campaign has centred mainly on how best to spur economic recovery, the role of German troops in Afghanistan has leapt into the spotlight after al-Qaida issued a string of threatening videos aimed at Germans.
It's not clear what, if any, effect the terror threats might have on how people vote. None of the main parties advocate an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Only the Left Party has called for that, but it remains a marginal force.
"At the moment, I am expecting that the terror alerts will generate no direct reaction of the voters at all, at least no reactions that could lead to a change of voting behaviour," said Nils Diederich, political scientist at Berlin's Free University. In an audiotape that surfaced Friday, Osama bin Laden demanded that European countries pull their troops out of Afghanistan and threatened "retaliation" against them for their alliance with the United States in the war.
The Interior Ministry on Friday also confirmed the existence of a Taliban video that threatens attacks on Germany.
"Your operation here against Islam makes an attack on Germany tempting for us mujahedeen," a German-speaking Taliban fighter in Afghanistan identified as Ajjub says in the video.
The Taliban video showed photos of German landmarks, including the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Oktoberfest in Munich, the Frankfurt skyline, as well as Defence Minister Franz-Josef Jung and Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
German authorities tightened security after the first threats, with many more officers now visible at airports and train stations.
President Horst Koehler urged Germans go to the polls, recalling that the right to vote was not something to take for granted.
"People have died for the free, secret and equal right to vote. It's our democracy and we should not weaken it," Koehler said in a statement Saturday that was to be published in the Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
Germany is the world's second biggest exporter after China, and it has kept its unemployment rate hovering at around 8 per cent amid the financial crisis through a series of government-backed short-term contracts.
Both Merkel and Steinmeier have ruled out a coalition with the Left, a mix of former East German communists and Social Democrats angered by economic reform.
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Imam's arrest shocks New York's Afghan-American community
By Kiran Khalid September 26, 2009
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The arrest of a local imam for allegedly lying to the FBI about tipping off a suspected terrorist sent shock waves through the Afghan community in New York.
Ahmad Wais Afzali, a prominent imam in Queens who runs an Islamic burial service for the Muslim community, has maintained his innocence in the case.
He's charged in connection with a terror probe that revolves around 24-year-old Najibullah Zazi. Prosecutors said Zazi received explosives training with the intent to bomb a high density target in the United States, and that Afzali jeopardized their investigation by telling Zazi that federal investigators were on to him.
Afzali's attorney, Ron Kuby, said his client was trying to help investigators find Zazi, whose family attended his mosque several years ago.
Kuby said the imam "consistently cooperated" with police in previous investigations and now "feels ill-used."
Afzali, 37, immigrated to the United States from Afghanistan with his family when he was 7 years old. He was released on a $1.5 million bond Thursday.
Hours later, he told reporters surrounding him and his wife outside their home in Queens that he'd received many messages of support.
"I am grateful not only to the Afghani community, I am very grateful even to the non-Muslims and the Muslims," he said.
The Afghan community in Queens is a tightly-knit one, where much of the social interaction centers around religion. It's in that climate that Afzali flourished, establishing himself as a role model to young Muslims who seemed lost, says Abdul Rouzyi, the owner of an Afghan kebab restaurant in the area.
"He's young, good-looking and rich," Rouzyi told CNN. "A lot of people looked up to him."
Rouzyi said he had seen young Afghan and Pakistani kids who were into drugs turn their lives around after being mentored by Afzali.
Ahmad Wahidi, a 20 year-old college student who knew Afzali through the local mosque, the Masjid Al-Saaliheen, said the community's anger and shock over Afzali's arrest has been muted by fear.
"Nobody really talks about it because they're scared," said Wahidi. Wahidi said the fear is rooted in the belief that Afzali's words were twisted against him.
Ahmad Wais, president of the Masjid Al-Saaliheen and a childhood friend of the imam, said this case may have a negative impact on the Afghan-Muslim community's relationship with law enforcement.
"Personally, I feel that the law enforcement, what they did with this guy -- even the people who want to help, now they're afraid to come forward."
Afzali seems to believe the justice system will vindicate him.
"We all are American citizens. I was raised in America. I have been American since I was 7 years old. Before being judged in media, papers and TV, know the facts from fiction."
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Militants destroy antenna of mobile company in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Anti-government militants in the latest wave of attacks against establishments have destroyed boasting tower of a mobile company in Kapisa province, some 80km north from Afghan capital Kabul, a press release of Interior Ministry said here Saturday.
"The enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan attacked and destroyed a communication antenna of Areba Company in Nijrab district on Friday," the press release added.
Areba is one of the four cellular company providing mobile phone services to the post-Taliban nation.
Taliban militants in the past had attacked antennas of mobile phone companies in the southern Ghazni, Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
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