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Karzai clarifies remarks that sparked White House 'concern' in call to Clinton
By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, April 3, 2010; A06
KABUL -- A day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai railed against the foreign presence in his country, the White House said Friday that his remarks were cause for "genuine concern," in an exchange that has undercut the political benefits this week of President Obama's first visit to Afghanistan as commander in chief.
White House slams Karzai comments as 'troubling'
by Stephen Collinson
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House on Friday delivered a stern public rebuke to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, describing his latest outburst as "genuinely troubling" and seeking "clarification" from Kabul.
U.S.-Afghan tensions threaten to undermine war against Taliban
By Dion Nissenbaum, Warren P. Strobel And Nancy A. Youssef, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Fri Apr 2, 7:01 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — As Afghan President Hamid Karzai was poised to begin his second term after a fraud-scarred re-election campaign last fall, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led an American delegation to Kabul where she hailed Karzai for opening "a window of opportunity" for a new cooperative era at a critical time.
Publicly criticizing the Afghan president hurts the U.S.
The Washington Post - Opinion By Michael O'Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan Saturday, April 3, 2010
Just four days after President Obama's surprise visit to Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave a major speech complaining that heavy-handed international actions tarnished last year's presidential election, diminished his legitimate
U.S. sees Afghan reconciliation drive lasting years
By Adam Entous – Fri Apr 2, 6:33 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. and NATO advisers in Afghanistan have urged President Hamid Karzai not to rush into deals with insurgents as part of a national reconciliation process that they envision lasting several years, Western officials said on Friday.
German friendly fire kills 6 Afghan soldiers
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – German soldiers traveling to the scene of a deadly firefight with Taliban insurgents accidentally killed six Afghan troops, the Afghan military said Saturday. Three Germans died in the firefight with the militants.
How to use Afghan culture to devise a political strategy -- and exit
The Washington Post - Opinion By David Ignatius Sunday, April 4, 2010
MARJA, AFGHANISTAN - If U.S. military commanders are right, here's how the path out of Afghanistan begins: Several dozen weathered Pashtun farmers are sitting on carpets under a makeshift tent. It's 45 days after U.S. Marines and Afghan
U.S. shift from Iraq to Afghanistan presents massive logistical operation for Army
By William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 2, 2010; 2:11 PM
As the United States draws down troops in Iraq and reinforces them in Afghanistan, the Army is pushing to complete the largest movement of military materiel since World War II, a massive logistical operation involving nearly 3 million pieces of equipment.
Afghanistan Mullahs in London to bridge cultural divide
Emily Buchanan BBC News world affairs correspondent Saturday, 3 April 2010
Their faces etched from years of conflict in the war-torn deserts of Helmand Province, four senior Islamic scholars step into a pod on the London Eye.
India's eager courtship of Afghanistan comes at a steep price
By Emily Wax Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, April 3, 2010; A01
CHELEBAAK, AFGHANISTAN -- Along a rugged stretch of road in the shadow of the snow-covered Hindu Kush mountains, villagers in mud-brick huts praised the newest addition to their vista: a series of massive steel towers that reach into the clouds.
Pentagon boosting Afghanistan "eyes in the sky"
By Andrea Shalal-esa – Fri Apr 2, 11:29 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon is intensely focused on getting more trucks, surveillance equipment and other military equipment into Afghanistan to prepare for what will be a critical summer in the war, Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter said on Friday.
Security for Indians in Afghanistan being increased
Press Trust Of India New Delhi, April 03, 2010
In the wake of the recent attack in Kabul targeting Indians, security of all Indians working in Afghanistan is being increased but there would be no scaling down of personnel or projects.
Russia Invades Afghanistan—Again
Moscow is lending a hand on the fight against the Afghan drug trade—but its cooperation comes with a price.
Newsweek By Anna Nemtsova and Owen Matthews
Published Apr 3, 2010
For Viktor Ivanov, the road back to Kabul has taken two decades. He first arrived in Afghanistan in 1987 as a young KGB officer, back when the country was the southernmost outpost of the Soviet empire. When he returned last month,
6 troops, 30 Taliban die in NW Pakistan clashes
By Hussain Afzal, Associated Press Writer
PARACHINAR, Pakistan – Pakistani troops fought gunbattles and bombed militant hide-outs in a Taliban stronghold near the Afghan border Saturday, leaving six soldiers and 30 militants dead, officials said.
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Karzai clarifies remarks that sparked White House 'concern' in call to Clinton
By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, April 3, 2010; A06
KABUL -- A day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai railed against the foreign presence in his country, the White House said Friday that his remarks were cause for "genuine concern," in an exchange that has undercut the political benefits this week of President Obama's first visit to Afghanistan as commander in chief.
In his speech to a group of Afghan election officials here, Karzai accused the United Nations of orchestrating electoral fraud and said foreigners were intentionally undermining his government. His remarks raised questions about whether his planned visit to Washington would proceed and prompted him to make an explanatory phone call Friday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry also met with Karzai "to clarify what he meant by those remarks," according to State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley.
Clinton and Karzai spoke about 12:30 p.m. Eastern time in a "cordial environment," according to Karzai's spokesman, Wahid Omar, who said the Afghan leader emphasized the need for "renewed cooperation and partnership." Omar said that some aspects of Karzai's speech had been "misinterpreted," but he did not disavow the president's remarks.
"There were no apologies," Omar said. "He said that the partnership requires utmost sensitivity to the concerns and aspirations of the Afghan people. "
A senior State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatic exchange described Karzai's conversation with Clinton as "constructive" and said Karzai "expressed surprise that his comments had created what he called 'a stir.' "
"They reached a good understanding at the end of the call," which lasted 25 minutes, the official said. "We're moving on and focused on the work ahead."
"It was instructive that he called," the official added. "He understood his comments had had a broader impact than he probably intended."
Karzai's speech came four days after Obama's visit to Afghanistan. In it, he described at length the chaos surrounding the Aug. 20 election, in which a U.N.-led commission stripped him of nearly one-third of his votes, citing fraud. He squarely blamed the United Nations, including the mission's former No. 2, Peter Galbraith, for conspiring against him, saying the foreigners wanted a "puppet government."
The accusation that the international community was behind the irregularities in the Afghan election was "preposterous," Crowley said. But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Karzai's scheduled May 12 visit to Washington, which the White House considers something of a reward, was still on, "as of right now."
Afghan politicians also jumped into the fray Friday. Abdullah Abdullah, who came in second to Karzai in the elections, held a news conference to denounce the remarks. He said Karzai's erratic behavior is undermining the government's war against the Taliban and was "treason to the national interest."
"As a former colleague and doctor, I think this is beyond a normal attitude," Abdullah said.
Obama and Karzai had a tense exchange during their meeting here Sunday. Obama pressed Karzai to crack down on government corruption, ensure independently monitored elections and make plans for reintegrating Taliban fighters into Afghan society.
One of Obama's requests, that Karzai place two international members on the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, the body that investigates fraud, is a particularly sore subject for the Afghan leader. In February, alleging that the body had conspired against him, he issued a decree that gave him power to appoint its members, although he conceded the inclusion of two foreign members. The Afghan parliament's lower house voted Wednesday to reject that decree.
Also Friday, three German soldiers were killed when their detachment was attacked in the northern province of Kunduz, the German Defense Ministry said.
Staff writer Mary Beth Sheridan in Washington contributed to this report.
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White House slams Karzai comments as 'troubling'
by Stephen Collinson
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House on Friday delivered a stern public rebuke to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, describing his latest outburst as "genuinely troubling" and seeking "clarification" from Kabul.
Karzai accused foreign powers of orchestrating election fraud last year, just three days after US President Barack Obama made a secret weekend trip to Afghanistan to warn him to do more to tackle government corruption.
"Obviously some of the comments by President Karzai are troubling. They are cause for real and genuine concern," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, in a significant stiffening of the US tone on the controversy.
"We are seeking clarification from President Karzai about the nature of some of his remarks," Gibbs said, noting the huge US military and political resources that had been poured into Afghanistan.
"The president was quite clear with President Karzai over the weekend about the necessary steps that have to be taken to improve governance and corruption."
Gibbs was asked whether Karzai's visit to the White House planned for May 12, was still on. His response: "as of right now," appeared to put the event in play as a bargaining chip.
Karzai's claims called into question whether he had absorbed Obama's message on Sunday, and will also pose a political problem for Washington, which has embraced the Afghan leader as a partner despite its distaste for his conduct.
The comments by Gibbs also represented a calculated intervention into Afghan politics. On Thursday, his deputy Bill Burton had offered a more non-committal comment on Air Force One and the State Department brushed aside the allegations.
The Afghan leader drew fierce global condemnation for his speech on Thursday.
"There was fraud in presidential and provincial council elections -- no doubt that there was a very widespread fraud, very widespread," Karzai told Afghan election commission workers in Kabul.
"But Afghans did not do this fraud. The foreigners did this fraud," he said, accusing other countries of interfering in his country's domestic affairs.
He went so far as to claim that such moves risked the 126,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan being seen as "invaders" -- terminology used by the Taliban -- and their nine-year insurgency becoming viewed as "a national resistance."
Afghan analysts suggested that Karzai had lost control when he made his staggering remarks after being criticized by Obama and angered by the Afghan parliament, and could signal a shift in foreign policy.
This week Afghan lawmakers voted against his amendments to a law banning non-Afghans from the UN-backed watchdog that was integral to exposing last year's fraud.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled in Afghanistan in September and some Afghans believe Karzai is galled by the prospect of having to make embarrassing concessions to secure vital foreign funds.
Karzai was declared re-elected in November by his own officials after his challenger Abdullah Abdullah abandoned a run-off.
He accused "embassies" of trying to bribe electoral members, and former UN deputy head of mission Peter Galbraith, and the head of the EU election observer mission, France's Philippe Morillon, of orchestrating the fraud.
Galbraith was sacked after arguing the UN was turning a blind eye to the electoral chicanery. At the time, he said that as much as 30 percent of the Karzai vote in the August election was fraudulent.
Interviewed by AFP, Galbraith said Karzai's comments were "absurd and preposterous" and showed that Karzai was not taking Obama's warnings seriously.
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U.S.-Afghan tensions threaten to undermine war against Taliban
By Dion Nissenbaum, Warren P. Strobel And Nancy A. Youssef, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Fri Apr 2, 7:01 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — As Afghan President Hamid Karzai was poised to begin his second term after a fraud-scarred re-election campaign last fall, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led an American delegation to Kabul where she hailed Karzai for opening "a window of opportunity" for a new cooperative era at a critical time.
That window appears to be closing quickly.
Relations between Karzai and the Obama administration soured dramatically this week, and the tensions threaten to interfere with the U.S.-led effort to take key Afghan cities back from the Taliban , hand them over to the Afghan government and begin withdrawing American troops by July 2011 .
Karzai "decided to break with us in a major way. All this is not easily patched (up)," said one official, who insisted on anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak for the record.
Some American officials worry that tensions are reaching a new milestone just as U.S. is becoming more deeply engaged in Afghanistan , both diplomatically and militarily. There currently are 87,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan , and that number will increase to more than 100,000 by July when the surge of additional forces is complete.
Tensions also are growing despite a parade of U.S. officials who've visited Kabul this year, including Clinton; Defense Secretary Robert Gates ; Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones , the national security adviser; as well as President Barack Obama .
Indeed, on the same day that Gates visited Kabul , Karzai hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad .
After a cool meeting with Obama last weekend in Kabul , Karzai delivered a broadside on Thursday that questioned America's motives in Afghanistan . Karzai went so far as to suggest that the U.S. risks being viewed as an invader that wants a "puppet government" in Kabul .
The White House fired back on Friday.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration has asked Karzai to explain his critique. "Obviously, some of the comments of President Karzai are troubling," Gibbs said. "They're cause for real and genuine concern."
Karzai's suggestion that U.S. troops could come to be seen as "invaders" could taint public opinion in Afghanistan and surrounding countries, the official said, noting that it's a label that until now had been used primarily by the Taliban and other insurgents.
In an effort to smooth over the dispute, Karzai called Clinton on Friday "to clarify his statements," the State Department said. "President Karzai reaffirmed his commitment to the partnership between our two countries, and expressed his appreciation for the contributions and sacrifices of the international community," said Clinton spokesman P.J. Crowley .
Does Karzai enjoy the support of the administration? "Depends on who you ask," a senior defense official told McClatchy , speaking on the condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to speak publicly.
Relations between the Obama administration and Karzai have always been strained. Even before he was elected president, Obama made little effort to conceal his view that Karzai was a disappointing leader.
Confidence in Karzai plummeted last summer when he oversaw a widely discredited, fraud-tainted presidential vote. International pressure eventually forced a resentful Karzai to accept a runoff.
On Friday, Karzai's challenger in that race, Abdullah Abdullah , suggested that the Afghan president had become unhinged in his recent speech.
"It was extraordinary," said Abdullah, who dropped out of the runoff after failing to persuade Karzai to overhaul the electoral process for the second round of voting.
Karzai, who apparently sees himself as the besieged father of the Afghan state, had come to expect warmer treatment during the Bush administration, when he had regular access to the White House and was routinely praised by senior U.S. officials.
"He's been going sideways . . . for a while," the U.S. official said, "trying to distance himself from the United States ."
Despite serious misgivings among some of his closest advisers on Afghanistan , Obama cautiously embraced Karzai after his new term began in November and decided to send 30,000 more American troops to help the Afghan president beat back surging Taliban resistance.
The Obama administration made it clear that Karzai had to complement the U.S. military commitment with a quick crackdown on corruption and an effort to regain the confidence of suspicious Afghans.
Western officials in Kabul have consistently voiced frustrations that Karzai hasn't been moving fast enough since he was sworn in.
While a U.S.-led military coalition quickly routed Taliban fighters in Marjah, a district in southern Afghanistan's restive Helmand province, the Afghan government has been slow to fill the political void. Privately, Pentagon officials complain that there still isn't enough local governance after U.S. Marines , partnered with Afghan forces, secured Marjah.
Now the U.S. is counting on Karzai to take decisive political steps as coalition forces prepare for a campaign to push out Taliban leaders in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the heart of the radical Islamist movement.
Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal , the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan , has stressed that Karzai has approved plans for Afghan troops to build a ring around Kandahar and root the Taliban out from there.
In Kabul , there are growing concerns that Karzai's unfolding showdown with Afghan lawmakers could jeopardize parliamentary elections scheduled for this fall.
While lawmakers were on recess in February, Karzai issued a decree that gave him the power to appoint all five members of the independent election body that investigated fraud in last year's presidential election.
Though Karzai eventually acceded to international pressure and gave the United Nations the right to name two members, Afghan lawmakers balked.
On Wednesday, Afghanistan's lower house voted to strip Karzai of that power. While the move must be backed by the upper house, Karzai already has blasted lawmakers for challenging his power.
Karzai's frustrations may have been compounded by reports that American officials were quietly prodding Afghan lawmakers to act.
"I think there was some strong lobbying from the U.S. Embassy that upset him," said one Western official in Kabul , who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the volatile political climate.
On Friday, opposition leader Abdullah was joined by a handful of the Afghan lawmakers who challenged Karzai.
"If the window isn't already closed, it's closing," said engineer Mohammed Asam , an Afghan lawmaker who voted to strip Karzai of his new electoral powers. "I am afraid we are losing our opportunity."
(Nissenbaum reported from Kabul ; Strobel and Youssef reported from Washington . Margaret Talev contributed to this article from Washington .)
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Publicly criticizing the Afghan president hurts the U.S.
The Washington Post - Opinion By Michael O'Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan Saturday, April 3, 2010
Just four days after President Obama's surprise visit to Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave a major speech complaining that heavy-handed international actions tarnished last year's presidential election, diminished his legitimate status as clear winner and risked making the foreign military presence resemble the imperialist invaders of yesteryear.
Karzai went too far. His comments were unfair and risked encouraging critics of the Afghanistan mission who want to portray foreign forces as unwelcome. But his remarks were also a predictable result of American browbeating. Historically, negative treatment of the Afghan leader has produced these sorts of reactions. Kabul and Washington are partners in the effort to create a stable, democratic state; they should understand that public displays of rancor are best avoided.
The immediate catalyst for Karzai's outburst appears to have been comments by Obama's national security adviser. En route to Kabul, Gen. Jim Jones predicted to journalists on the record that Obama would pressure Karzai about corruption in governance and said that Karzai had made no progress on this front since his Nov. 19 inauguration.
Jones's concerns were not without foundation. Even as the latest wave of U.S. troops began arriving en masse, and NATO forces, with limited Afghan help, were clearing towns such as Marja in Helmand province and preparing for a major operation in Kandahar city, the ruling elites in Kabul allegedly refused to clean up their self-serving approach to governance. Allegations of malfeasance have been reinforced by concerns about the president's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, a major power broker in Kandahar. His system of patronage and favoritism has been a concern for allied forces, who see it as angering local tribes that are on the outs -- and thereby helping the Taliban's efforts to recruit followers.
In the past year, Vice President Biden and other U.S. officials have strongly criticized the Afghan leader in public. But whatever one thinks of Afghan governance, and it's true that it's not improving fast enough, Jones's remarks were flawed and self-defeating.
First, Karzai was largely a U.S. pick. Through the Bonn process that followed the Taliban's overthrow in 2001, this country led an international effort to make him Afghanistan's leader. His "big tent" approach to governance was seen as the most practical way to engender support from tribal leaders, warlords and other power brokers as the United States sought to maintain a light footprint in Afghanistan and avoided building up a strong central state. Circumstances have changed since 2001, but Karzai remains largely the same man. Moreover, some aspects of his strategy of inclusiveness resemble the American desire for reconciliation with elements of the Afghan insurgency. We have grounds to debate and criticize Karzai on many issues, but such conversations need to happen with an attitude of respect, an appreciation of nuance, and an awareness that 80 percent of Afghans still like him as their leader.
Second, Jones was wrong that no notable progress has been made against corruption since November. The pace of progress remains too slow, but Karzai began his second term as president by keeping in office many of his best ministers and governors. Helmand province Gov. Gulab Mangal, Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, for example, have accomplished a good deal for their country. The Major Crimes Task Force designed to pursue cases of high-level corruption is gaining strength. And the number of trained Afghan army and police forces accompanying NATO troops into Marja, while still modest, was double the number of locally available forces accompanying U.S. Marines on similar operations in Helmand last year.
Discussions continue about how to dilute Ahmed Karzai's influence in Kandahar. But delays reflect disagreement among NATO governments about how to proceed, not just nepotistic interference from Kabul.
Third, browbeating Karzai, especially in public, does not work. A more respectful approach has proved effective. While keeping much of his counsel private, Sen. John Kerry was direct in meetings with Karzai last fall. Kerry persuaded Karzai to accept a second round of voting to determine the presidency, and though that second round was not implemented, Karzai's willingness to approve it did much to shore up his legitimacy at home and abroad. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's discreet approach to Karzai and his cabinet has generated cooperation with key ministers on reform of Afghan security forces. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presence at Karzai's second inauguration is part of a State Department effort to make diplomacy and development more effective, in part by reaching out to regional and local Afghan leaders in key places. Perhaps the professional rapport he seems to have with Clinton is an indication that Karzai responds to such efforts.
A transcript of the Obama-Karzai meeting was not released. Our guess is that it had a more balanced tone than much of the trip's public remarks. To be fair, Jones may have underestimated how his comments could reinforce negative perceptions in Afghanistan and the United States and set the stage for another period of acrimony. But we are fighting a war. Our leaders need to stop relearning lessons about U.S.-Afghan diplomacy every few months. There is no time to waste.
Michael O'Hanlon is director of research and a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution. Hassina Sherjan is an Afghan businesswoman and director of the nonprofit group Aid Afghanistan for Education. They are co-authors of "Toughing It Out in Afghanistan."
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U.S. sees Afghan reconciliation drive lasting years
By Adam Entous – Fri Apr 2, 6:33 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. and NATO advisers in Afghanistan have urged President Hamid Karzai not to rush into deals with insurgents as part of a national reconciliation process that they envision lasting several years, Western officials said on Friday.
Karzai's reconciliation push has raised expectations about talks with the Taliban to end the war but also exposed policy differences within the Obama administration on how to proceed at a time of heightened tension with the Afghan leader.
Karzai plans to hold a "peace jirga," or assembly, to promote reconciliation with insurgents starting May 2. Pakistan and some insurgent groups have started jockeying for position in anticipation of negotiations, however far off they appear to be, officials said.
Having committed to send 30,000 more troops to try turn the tide against the Taliban before the start of a gradual drawdown in mid-2011, the Obama administration is skeptical of Karzai's timing but is considering supporting what could become a "talk and fight" strategy.
The biggest stakeholders -- including Islamabad, Washington and Kabul -- could agree on the conditions for reconciliation by year's end, said Graeme Lamb, top adviser to the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, on reintegration and reconciliation issues.
But Lamb added that "rushing to a deal would not be either favorable or durable," echoing the message of other top officials who met recently with Karzai.
A senior U.S. diplomat involved in the effort, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the reconciliation process, once launched, was likely to drag for at least three years because of the complexity of the issues and divisions among key players.
Some U.S. officials worry that Karzai will try to cut deals with some insurgent groups before a consensus has been reached on the details of the reconciliation process and its participants, jeopardizing the military aims of President Barack Obama's troop surge.
KARZAI'S OFFER SPURNED
In private meetings, U.S. officials have said they were struck by how serious Karzai appeared to be about trying to reach reconciliation agreements.
While Washington has backed efforts to lure lower- and mid-level Taliban to lay down arms, it has been wary of efforts to reach out to their leaders, arguing that more military pressure should be applied first to weaken the insurgency and enable Karzai to negotiate from a "position of strength."
But a senior U.S. diplomat in Kabul said "there is some thinking going on in Washington" now about being more open to reconciliation, even to Karzai's proposed outreach to Taliban leaders that the Pentagon has described as unreconcilable, including hard-line chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.
"It is really important that we do try to establish a set of conditions" for reconciliation, Lamb said.
But he added: "We're not at a point of negotiation. We're at a point of improving our understanding. We're at the point of establishing early dialogue ... The result will be that we will be better placed to explore the boundaries and where the contested areas of interest lie."
He told Reuters that while major shareholders in the process should be able to settle some of those issues in 2010, "the enduring success of this initiative will then take a number of years."
The Taliban have spurned Karzai's offer to talk, although another insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, sent a delegation to Kabul to present a peace plan.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was up to Karzai to decide whether to try to reconcile with insurgent groups, such as Hezb-i-Islami, one of three that is fighting foreign troops.
Mullen, who visited Afghanistan this week, acknowledged the flurry of recent reconciliation talk but added: "I don't see it as determinative, decisive activity at this point."
Washington has made clear that insurgents who want to reconcile must renounce violence and al Qaeda, and accept the Afghan constitution, conditions that are unacceptable to the Taliban.
Before committing to reconciliation, Pentagon war planners want to see more concrete signs that military pressure in Afghanistan, and across the border in Pakistan, is weakening the Taliban, a process that will hinge largely on how the campaign in the southern city of Kandahar unfolds.
"We'll get indicators throughout '10, strong indicators, of which way this is going," Mullen said. "We're moving to a position of strength. But I just don't think we're there yet."
(Editing by Paul Simao)
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German friendly fire kills 6 Afghan soldiers
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – German soldiers traveling to the scene of a deadly firefight with Taliban insurgents accidentally killed six Afghan troops, the Afghan military said Saturday. Three Germans died in the firefight with the militants.
The friendly fire incident Friday took place in northern Kunduz province, where German forces were sharply criticized last September when they ordered an airstrike on two tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of them civilians.
The German central command confirmed Friday's incident, but put the number of Afghan troop casualties at five. The deaths occurred amid heavy fighting between German troops and militants near Kunduz city.
Meanwhile in Kabul, the speaker of the lower house of parliament criticized President Hamid Karzai for blaming the international community Thursday for the vote fraud controversy over last year's disputed presidential election.
Yunus Qanooni also blasted Karzai's claim of foreign interference in the drafting of the nation's electoral law, which the president had sought to amend this week to expand his control over the country's institutions. Karzai was rebuffed by parliament.
"This is the house of the people and all the members have been elected," Qanooni said. "It's not possible that we would be influenced by foreigners."
Karzai called U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Friday after the Obama administration expressed dismay at his remarks — a sign of the increasingly uneasy relations between the Afghan leader and key international allies whose forces support his weak government against a powerful Taliban insurgency.
Militants have long been active in the volatile south and east, but once stable northern areas have also come under growing militant influence, including Kunduz. The Taliban presence there threatens a key NATO military supply line that opened last year following painstaking negotiations between neighboring counties and the United States.
The land route via Russia and Central Asia offers an alternative means of trucking in essential supplies to the 120,000-strong NATO force in Afghanistan. Most supplies come in overland from Pakistan along a corridor that has been frequently attacked by militants.
Commenting on Friday's friendly fire incident, the German military said its soldiers were rushing from Kunduz to the scene of fighting with militants shortly after 7:00 p.m. when they encountered two civilian vehicles and demanded that they stop. When they did not, a German armored personnel carrier opened fire on them, its statement said. The vehicles were later found to have been transporting Afghan troops and an investigation is pending, the military added.
Shortly before, German troops had been attacked while on a bridge-building and mine-clearing mission southwest of Kunduz city.
Kunduz provincial government spokesman Muhboballuh Sayedi said Afghan commanders were meeting on Saturday with coalition forces to discuss the incident. The Afghan Defense Ministry condemned the deaths of its soldiers.
Commander of Afghan forces in northern Afghanistan, Gen. Murad Ani, said the two vehicles attacked had been returning to base after resupplying army and police units dispatched at the request of the Germans.
One was an armored vehicle and both were clearly marked, said Ani, who visited the scene of the shooting Saturday morning along with officials from the police and intelligence services.
Ani said the incident occurred 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the battlefield and there was no fighting in the immediate area.
"I don't know why these German troops fired on our soldiers," he said, adding it wasn't clear what warnings had been issued before firing commenced.
The German commander in northern Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Frank Leidenberger, called Ani soon after the friendly fire incident to "express his profound dismay," the German military said.
Spokesman for the German Central Command Joerg Langer said troops had warned the oncoming vehicles but were unable to see who was inside because of failing light.
"We obviously regret this incident very much," Langer told The Associated Press in Berlin. He declined to give further details citing the ongoing investigation.
The German military said Friday's battle with militants continued until about 11:30 p.m. and German troops were still patrolling the area. The bodies of the three soldiers were to be repatriated to Germany on Saturday, it said.
Kunduz is one of the principal bases for the 4,300 German troops currently deployed in Afghanistan. The German parliament recently approved the deployment of 850 reinforcements.
Elsewhere in Kunduz on Friday, an apparent rocket attack on an Afghan military base killed a small child and injured two women, the Interior Ministry reported. Another three civilians were killed in a pair of roadside bomb attacks in the eastern province of Khost, the ministry said.
NATO announced that a coalition soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan on Friday.
In the latest assassination of a government figure, gunmen opened fire and killed a deputy district police chief on his way to work in Baglan province bordering Kunduz, the Interior Ministry said.
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Associated Press Writer Juergen Baetz in Berlin and Christopher Bodeen and Slobodan Lekic in Kabul contributed to this report.
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How to use Afghan culture to devise a political strategy -- and exit
The Washington Post - Opinion By David Ignatius Sunday, April 4, 2010
MARJA, AFGHANISTAN - If U.S. military commanders are right, here's how the path out of Afghanistan begins: Several dozen weathered Pashtun farmers are sitting on carpets under a makeshift tent. It's 45 days after U.S. Marines and Afghan troops have swept into this Taliban stronghold, and now the town's elders are gathered in a shura.
A tribal leader named Haji Abdul Salam presents a long list of grievances: schools, clinics, roads, money to replace the opium poppy crop that's blooming in the fields. An Afghan district governor named Gulab Mangal makes generous promises of assistance; hovering in the background are U.S. military and civilian officials who will pay the bills.
This is how conflicts end in Afghanistan: The Afghans talk out their grievances and eventually reach a deal. Money is exchanged and honor restored. Fighting often continues in the background, but most people go home until the next conflict begins.
"By all appearances, the people of Marja just want to get on with their lives," says Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was an enthusiastic observer of the shura here. He assured an audience of Afghan journalists later in Kabul: "All of us want to see this [war] end as soon as possible."
The national version of this process has barely begun, but its outlines are sketched by Graeme Lamb, a retired British lieutenant general who is coordinating the process of reconciliation and reintegration for the U.S.-led coalition. He quotes a precept of military strategy to explain his mission: "The object of war is a fair peace." ad_icon
Lamb argues that the first hints of how this war will end can be seen in a loose and sometimes inchoate process of signaling that involves the various Afghan parties to the conflict, the neighboring countries such as Pakistan and the U.S.-led coalition. He describes this budding dialogue as a "melting pot" of tribes, nations and interests.
Lamb says that he can't yet describe terms for negotiations and that, in any event, this is a matter for the Afghans. "We are not at the point of negotiation; we are at the point of trying to understand."
Already, the jockeying has begun over how Afghanistan will work when the fighting ends and the Americans leave. President Hamid Karzai has started talks with a Taliban ally headed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Pakistanis are lobbying for their covert proxies in the Haqqani network to have a seat at the table. The other neighbors -- Iran, India and China -- are also eager to play.
The haphazard process will get another forward jolt next month when Karzai holds a "peace jirga" to discuss how to broaden the political circle in ways that might include the Taliban.
U.S. troops have won some battles recently, including here in Marja, but these military successes shouldn't mask the real challenge, which is the uncertain transition to Afghan control. To find this exit ramp, the United States must build Afghan security forces and governance structures that can hold together as Americans start to leave in July 2011.
Unfortunately, there's little evidence to confirm that this transition will work on schedule. As of now, the Afghan military and government can't do the job, and there's an air of unreality to some of the U.S. training and governance programs.
Given the weakness of the central government in Kabul, U.S. commanders are working to align American power with the most basic political structures, the tribal shuras. "Culturally, this country works," says Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the chief U.S. military spokesman here. "People sitting down together can solve almost anything."
A top U.S. commander argues that the key now in this run-up to reconciliation is to keep pounding the enemy and to avoid premature negotiating positions. "The worst thing anyone can do is put red lines on the table. Make them fuzzy blue," he says, so that the parties can bargain toward the eventual red lines of a deal.
Karzai has caused consternation among Americans recently because of his defiantly independent rhetoric and his invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Kabul. His tirade Thursday against meddling by the United States and its allies will deepen that concern. But it's not surprising that he's bristling against U.S. pressure to reform or dickering with his Iranian neighbor. Politics in this part of the world is a contact sport, and we shouldn't be afraid of Afghan expressions of sovereignty.
Lamb notes that the dividing line between fighting and talking isn't as clear as Westerners sometimes think: "Clausewitz was right, but he didn't finish his sentence: If war is an extension of politics, then to politics it must return."
davidignatius@washpost.com
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U.S. shift from Iraq to Afghanistan presents massive logistical operation for Army
By William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 2, 2010; 2:11 PM
As the United States draws down troops in Iraq and reinforces them in Afghanistan, the Army is pushing to complete the largest movement of military materiel since World War II, a massive logistical operation involving nearly 3 million pieces of equipment.
The operation, dubbed Nickel II after the code name for Gen. George S. Patton's celebrated repositioning of an entire Army corps during the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, began last June and is now about 35 percent complete, said Lt. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., commander of the Third Army, Patton's former unit.
In a briefing for Pentagon reporters from his headquarters in Kuwait, where equipment from Iraq is sorted, Webster said some of the gear is being refurbished for use in Afghanistan and some returned to the United States for use in training.
"This is the largest operation, that we've been able to determine, since the buildup for World War II," Webster said. It involves the removal of 2.8 million pieces of equipment from Iraq, including 88,000 containers and 41,000 vehicles of all types.
Webster did not specify the cost of the operation but acknowledged that it would run into the tens of billions of dollars. He said the Third Army spent roughly $20 billion on repairing equipment and supplying troops during the 2007 surge of U.S. forces into Iraq to contain escalating sectarian violence. Those costs for Army operations in Iraq dropped to $16 billion last year and are projected to dip to $9 billion this year, Webster said.
He said some of those savings "will be pushed over to Afghanistan" and used to fund a buildup of forces there to combat an intensifying insurgency by the radical Islamist Taliban movement. The Taliban was driven from power in Kabul by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in November 2001 but has gained ground in recent years.
In a separate briefing Friday, Ashton B. Carter, undersecretary of defense for logistics, said the military as a whole has already moved 2.2 million pieces of equipment out of more than 350 forward operating bases in Iraq. But he said 1.2 million additional items need to be removed by August.
As the military prepares for an offensive against the Taliban in the coming months, the Pentagon is pouring a vast array of gear to Afghanistan, including new unmanned dirigibles equipped with sophisticated aerial surveillance equipment, Carter said. The airships are designed to maintain surveillance longer and at less cost than more expensive unmanned aircraft, he told a conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
President Obama last year ordered the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of August 2010, leaving a residual force of 35,000 to 50,000 to serve mainly in training and advisory roles. Under an agreement signed by the Bush administration with the Iraqi government in 2008, all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.
While reducing troop strength in Iraq, Obama is deploying an additional 30,000 service members to Afghanistan to augment American and NATO forces already there as part of a plan to secure population centers and reverse the Taliban's momentum.
Among the equipment being moved to Afghanistan, Webster said, is a variation of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicle designed to counter the widespread use of "improvised explosive devices," or roadside bombs, in Iraq. Because of Afghanistan's much rougher terrain, the heavy MRAPs used in Iraq were breaking down, so the military developed a lighter, more agile version with independent suspension called the M-ATV, for MRAP All Terrain Vehicle.
"We're now flying those in at a rate of about 400 a month, and we plan to move that up to about 1,000 a month" as the buildup intensifies in Afghanistan this spring, Webster said.
He noted that Obama "wanted us to move in there as quickly as possible, and initial estimates were that it was going to take as much as 18 months." That timetable has been dramatically accelerated, he said, and "we now will be able to move the 5,000-plus vehicles that are needed for the buildup by the end of the summer."
Contributing to the faster flow of equipment into Afghanistan has been the opening of five supply routes from countries north of the landlocked nation, in addition to two routes through Pakistan. One route in the "northern distribution network," as the military calls it, is about 5,000 miles long, Webster said.
The northern routes now account for about half the supplies moving into Afghanistan, he said.
Some of the equipment the U.S. military has accumulated in Iraq, although still serviceable, is not worth moving and will be donated to the Iraqi government, the general said. Those items include SUVs used in the Green Zone in Baghdad and on forward operating bases around the country.
The SUVs may have cost $30,000 each originally but now are worth less than the cost of shipping them to Afghanistan, much less to the United States, where they do not meet environmental standards anyway, Webster said.
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Afghanistan Mullahs in London to bridge cultural divide
Emily Buchanan BBC News world affairs correspondent Saturday, 3 April 2010
Their faces etched from years of conflict in the war-torn deserts of Helmand Province, four senior Islamic scholars step into a pod on the London Eye.
As the giant wheel turns they stare in silence at the city spread beneath them; the River Thames, the Houses of Parliament and miles beyond.
It is their first time ever in Britain. As they soak up the sights, they know this visit is about much more than tourism.
It marks a new initiative in British government strategy; the recognition that military progress in southern Afghanistan will not hold unless international forces also win the battle for hearts and minds.
In the intense propaganda war on the ground, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office now hopes to improve communication with ordinary Afghans by targeting their religious leaders.
Massive influence
Officials invited these scholars to see life for themselves in the UK, as they have the unique ability to influence thousands of mosques and their congregations in Britain's key military campaign ground.
Across Afghanistan there is widespread ignorance and deliberate misinformation about Britain and Britain's military intentions.
Ordinary people will listen to religious scholars often before politicians. The Taliban uses its religious credentials to tell local people repeatedly that the British are an occupying force which wants to destroy Muslims and their faith.
The four scholars, or ulemas, are supporters of the Afghan government and defy the Taliban, themselves often suffering death threats. They view the Taliban as an arm of foreign powers in the region who want to keep Afghanistan weak, and they are adamant they do not see Britain and its allies as occupiers.
Haji Mulla Meherdell Kajar, chief imam of the Central Mosque in Lashkar Gah, says the foreign forces are doing what they can to help Afghanistan and are making huge sacrifices in the process.
"The propaganda says that the invaders want to destroy us, and illiterate people listen to the propaganda. But these forces were invited in to help overcome our problems."
He was amazed to hear from the BBC that some British Muslims want the international forces to pull out. Hajji Meherdell was emphatically against a premature withdrawal.
False beliefs
"Those Muslim brothers who say Britain should leave Afghanistan - they don't know Islam. Don't they know our whole country is at war? They should advise the British not to withdraw their forces until they bring stability, security and development to us, and then they can go."
What surprised the scholars most, though, was to find Muslims in every walk of life in Britain.
Whether meeting them in the Foreign Office, or as security guards on the London Eye, they had not known before that Muslims had jobs. They believed that Muslims were treated badly and not allowed to practise their religion.
They were particularly taken aback by the Afghan mosque in north-west London. They watched as several hundred turned up to pray.
Haji Mokhtar Aqqani, the most senior religious figure in Helmand, addressed the congregation. In Afghanistan he has spoken out against the Taliban, delivered radio messages condemning suicide bombings, and issued a fatwa against the growing of poppies. However even he still thought that Muslims in the UK could not go to the mosque.
After prayers, he told the BBC: "People in Helmand say that in Britain there are no mosques and no freedom to worship, so I was really surprised to see so many people come and pray here freely. I will take that message back home."
The scholars went to other mosques too in Birmingham and London.
Small cost, big dividend?
By the end of the trip, Haji Meherdell concluded: "We have found true Islam in this country, a peaceful tolerant society where Muslims are not harmed, the opposite of what the Taliban and insurgents tell us."
The Foreign Office hopes that if the scholars can go back and influence opinion in Afghanistan it will not just help the security of Afghanistan, but it will disarm the arguments of those who want to recruit young jihadis to strike Britain.
If it proves successful, there could be more attempts to try and bridge the gulf in knowledge and understanding between the two cultures.
Exchanges with British imams could also influence how Muslims in Britain view the international operation.
However this battle progresses, at least it is cheap; the cost of the ulemas' tour being a tiny fraction of that of the military campaign.
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India's eager courtship of Afghanistan comes at a steep price
By Emily Wax Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, April 3, 2010; A01
CHELEBAAK, AFGHANISTAN -- Along a rugged stretch of road in the shadow of the snow-covered Hindu Kush mountains, villagers in mud-brick huts praised the newest addition to their vista: a series of massive steel towers that reach into the clouds.
The towers, part of a $1.3 billion aid package from India, carry electricity to a crippled region that has long gone without. They also represent an intense competition between India and arch-rival Pakistan for influence in whatever kind of Afghanistan emerges from the U.S.-led war.
To blunt India's eager courtship of Afghanistan, Pakistan is pouring $300 million of its own money and resources into a nation it also views as key to the stability of volatile South Asia, as well as a potentially lucrative business partner.
The economic stakes are especially enormous for India, the far richer nation, as it seeks energy to fuel its rise as a global economic power. Afghanistan is a bridge to Central Asia's vast gas and oil reserves, which are coveted by India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear weapons but barely enough electricity.
India's efforts have come at a cost: It has suffered four attacks on its interests in Afghanistan in the past two years, which have killed at least 101 people and wounded 239. Attacks on two Kabul guesthouses in February killed seven Indians, including a visiting musician and the chief engineer of the Chelebaak electricity project.
For U.S. officials, India's increasing presence in Afghanistan is causing new security and diplomatic problems in a country where more than 1,000 American troops have died in more than eight years of war. Washington also fears upsetting the delicate balance in its relations with Islamabad.
"Let's be honest with one another: There are real suspicions in both India and Pakistan about what the other is doing in Afghanistan," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters after a recent trip to New Delhi.
Washington is feeling pressure from Pakistan to limit India's role in Afghanistan. Each nation fears, to a degree that outsiders often find irrational, that an Afghanistan allied with the other would be threat to its security. Pakistan considers Afghanistan, another majority-Muslim nation, a natural ally and is deeply suspicious of India's efforts there.
"We don't want to be flanked by hostile elements," said Mansoor Ahmad Khan, deputy chief of mission in the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul, referring to Pakistan's location -- sandwiched between Afghanistan to the west and India to the east.
U.S. and NATO officials said they feared militant groups linked to Pakistan would step up attacks on Indian aid workers and other India-linked targets in Afghanistan, complicating efforts to stabilize the country.
Indian officials have publicly stated that they suspect a Pakistani role in the attacks against Indians; Pakistani officials have rejected the charges. Indian and U.S. intelligence officials have linked Pakistan to the 2008 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 50 people, saying Pakistani intelligence had collaborated with militants. Indian officials also suspect Pakistani involvement in a suicide bombing at the embassy in October, which killed 17 people.
In the guesthouse attacks, Afghan intelligence officials publicly blamed Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group that has been implicated in the 2008 siege in Mumbai that killed 165 people.
The guesthouse bombings shocked many Indians and intensified widespread popular anger against Pakistan. Indians and Afghans were partly enraged because Bhola Ram, the Chelebaak engineer, and several other victims were Indian nationals working on aid projects.
"Bhola Ram's project was almost done when he was killed," said Giliani Lutfi, 45, an Afghan co-worker at the new electrical plant just outside Kabul. "Please tell India, we are so sorry. Ram gave our people power, and that means life to us. It wasn't the Afghan people who stole his life."
While war still rages in parts of Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are building roads, hospitals and schools, as well as undertaking irrigation and power projects -- all while claiming closer links to Kabul.
"Our longest border is with Afghanistan. We have deep cultural and economic and people-to-people ties," said Khan, the Pakistani official in Kabul. "India may be very vocal about their aid projects here, but we don't need to publicize our position. Pakistan's role speaks for itself."
Indian officials note that their country has educated many of Afghanistan's top leaders, including President Hamid Karzai, who has a master's degree from an Indian university.
And when the U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban, India provided intelligence and other military support, according to Rani Mullen, an upcoming fellow at New Delhi's Center for Policy Research.
The competition between the two nations can seem silly at times: When India donated a fleet of buses in the western city of Herat, Pakistan began donating buses decorated with painted Pakistani flags.
But the rivalry also has serious implications for the U.S.-led war. Karzai favors attempts to negotiate a settlement with the Taliban, an idea supported by Pakistan. Indian leaders fear that any Afghan settlement with the Taliban would give Pakistan more influence in Kabul, which they view with alarm.
"If you want to try to reconcile with people who are institutionally and ideologically linked with terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, then caution is advised," Jayant Prasad, the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, said in an interview at his residence, which is patrolled by armed guards and heavily fortified with sandbag bunkers and razor wire.
New Delhi's diplomatic offensive in Afghanistan is on display at a dusty Kabul construction site, where Indian engineers are working with Afghans to build a $90 million parliament, funded by India.
The floors and walls of the palacelike structure, a gleaming symbol of the new Afghanistan, are to be inlaid with green and rose marble from the Indian state of Rajasthan.
Such Indian-sponsored projects are sprouting from Kabul to Herat, widely considered Afghanistan's cultural heart and home to poets, painters and Sufi mystics. And they continue despite the targeted violence against Indians.
In February, Nawab Khan, an Indian musician who plays a percussion instrument known as a tabla, came to Herat to play a concert sponsored by the Indian government.
"He was sitting right here after the performance," said Tara Chand, consul general of the heavily guarded Indian consulate in Herat. "He played to a full house. All the Afghans took photographs of him with their cellphones. It was a lovely night."
Khan returned to Kabul, to fly home to New Delhi. But during the guesthouse bombings that also killed Bhola Ram, the father of six was crushed to death when the roof collapsed on him.
The guesthouse deaths outraged many Afghans, and Ram's co-workers gathered to pray for him after the attack.
Outside Kabul one recent day, at the Chimtala substation where Ram worked, young Afghans proudly inspected the power plant wearing new work boots and coats donated by India.
Sitting in a sun-streamed classroom, Sayed Arif, 25, and other young engineers were learning how to run the power plant.
"We very much want the Indians here," Arif said, looking out at the power lines that India brought to his country. "That much in Afghanistan we are sure of."
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Pentagon boosting Afghanistan "eyes in the sky"
By Andrea Shalal-esa – Fri Apr 2, 11:29 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon is intensely focused on getting more trucks, surveillance equipment and other military equipment into Afghanistan to prepare for what will be a critical summer in the war, Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter said on Friday.
Carter, head of Pentagon acquisition, technology and logistics, said the success of the U.S. war in Afghanistan would depend largely on being able to get weapons and support services to the U.S. troops headed to the land-locked country, which he described as "the last place where you would like to be fighting a war."
"This summer is going to be very critical. If we don't get ourselves in there and get set ... we can't have success," he told a conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
As part of that effort, Carter said he was increasing 20-fold the number of airships hovering over Afghanistan, providing "eyes in the sky" to troops on the ground.
Equipped with sophisticated cameras and the ability to stream images to U.S. bases on the ground, the airships would help track any activity that could jeopardize the troops, including the burying of roadside bombs.
At the same time, the very visible presence of the airships would keep potential attackers on their guard, Carter said, calling the airships a more affordable way to maintain surveillance than more expensive unmanned airplanes, which are also being deployed in Afghanistan in large numbers.
Carter did not name the airship maker, and Pentagon officials were not immediately available for comment.
South Dakota-based Raven Industries Inc last month said it had a tethered airship backlog of more than $10 million. It said the airships would be paired with surveillance equipment and deployed in Afghanistan.
Aria International, based in Virginia, also makes a helium-filled blimp equipped with infrared thermal cameras, and Lockheed Martin Corp has a larger version that it has been promoting to the military for years.
The unmanned airships will cut the need for risky on-foot missions by staying in the air much longer and feeding data to commanders through on-board cameras and sensors.
These sensors could also "rewind" after an explosion to find who planted the bomb and where they went.
Carter said the airships would be under the control of local forward operating bases, not commanders far away, making them a good tool on a fairly localized basis.
He said the Pentagon was also accelerating delivery of hand-held metal detectors and ground-penetrating radars, as part of an urgent drive to reduce the number of casualties from road-side bombs or improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The military was also deploying about 1,000 new armored trucks built by Oshkosh Corp per month, double the initial rate, Carter said.
He said Defense Secretary Robert Gates had told him to "make sure that we are doing all we can do" to prevent the large number of IED-related troop deaths and injuries that marked the early years of the Iraq war.
The Pentagon was also examining several models of unmanned helicopters that could be used to get supplies to troops without using dangerous convoys on the road, he said.
At the same time the military is dramatically increasing its presence in Afghanistan, it was also dealing with the drawdown in Iraq, a major logistical challenge, Carter said.
He said the military had already removed 2.2 million pieces of military equipment from more than 350 forward operating bases in Iraq but needed to deal with 1.2 million more pieces by August, deciding if they should return to the United States, stay in Iraq or go elsewhere for use in future conflicts.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
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Security for Indians in Afghanistan being increased
Press Trust Of India New Delhi, April 03, 2010
In the wake of the recent attack in Kabul targeting Indians, security of all Indians working in Afghanistan is being increased but there would be no scaling down of personnel or projects.
Sources in New Delhi also made it clear that India is "not reaching out" to Taliban and before thinking about that, it will await the results of the campaign launched by the US-led forces in Helmand and the proposed military action to be initiated in Kandahar.
India is conscious of the dangers posed to its interests by the Taliban and lately Lashkar-e-Taiba in Afghanistan but that will not deter it from continuing the developmental and reconstruction projects it is committed to.
There are about 3,500 Indians engaged in such projects but not many of them are working for Indian government programmes as a substantial number have been contracted by firms of other countries, the sources said.
However, after the February 26 attack, India is increasing security for its personnel working on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, they said.
The Indian medical mission in Kabul, which was the worst hit in the February 26 attack, had to be scaled down as most of its members were hurt and one was killed.
"It is not a full stop to our developmental projects in Afghanistan," the sources said, adding all other reconstruction activities and Indian medical missions in other places of Afghanistan are continuing their work.
The Indian medical mission in Kabul has treated 3.1 lakh people and it has won considerable dividends for India as the work has been appreciated in Afghanistan as well by other countries, they said.
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Russia Invades Afghanistan—Again
Moscow is lending a hand on the fight against the Afghan drug trade—but its cooperation comes with a price.
Newsweek By Anna Nemtsova and Owen Matthews
Published Apr 3, 2010
For Viktor Ivanov, the road back to Kabul has taken two decades. He first arrived in Afghanistan in 1987 as a young KGB officer, back when the country was the southernmost outpost of the Soviet empire. When he returned last month, Kabul was the outpost of a very different empire—one run by reluctant imperialists in Washington keen to get out as soon as possible. Though the official reason for Ivanov's return was to aid U.S. antinarcotics efforts—he's now Russia's drug czar—his real goal in Afghanistan was clear: to help recover some of Russia's lost influence there. As his Russian Air Force plane began its descent into the Kabul airport, Ivanov raised a glass of champagne with his aides and boasted, "Russia is back."
A lot of history stands in the way of Russia's new campaign. Local memories of the destruction wrought by the Soviets in their decade-long occupation remain fresh. But both the Afghans and the Americans have reasons to welcome Russia's reengagement. No one has a silver bullet for Afghanistan's rampaging drug trade, but with its vast intelligence assets across Central Asia and an operational group of Russian troops on the Afghan-Tajik border, Moscow could make a real difference. To win over the locals, the Russians have also offered to ramp up their involvement in the Afghan reconstruction, energy, and mineral sectors. Russian companies are currently negotiating to rebuild 142 Soviet-built installations across the country, including a $500 million deal to reconstruct hydroelectric plants in Naglu, Surobi, and Makhipar and a $500 million program to build wells and irrigation systems nationwide. Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil and gas giant, has commissioned a study of gas fields in Djarkuduk and Shebarghan that could lead to contracts yielding $350 million a year. Russian air-transport contractors are already working for NATO and the Afghan government. But all this cooperation comes with a price: increased Russian influence in Kabul. Moscow makes no bones about this: it seeks nothing less than to "reclaim its geopolitical share of Afghanistan," says its ambassador, Andrey Avetisyan.
It might seem surprising, given Afghanistan's history as a Cold War battleground, that it's the Americans who invited the Russians back in. But sure enough, last year U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, set up a series of contact groups on mutual security interests in the region. Ivanov and his U.S. counterpart, Gil Kerlikowske, have since sat down on many occasions to figure out ways Russia can help NATO choke off the Taliban's drug businesses.
The Russians have good reason to help. More than 130,000 Russians die each year of heroin addiction and its side effects, and about 120,000 more are jailed for drug-related crimes. Russia is the conduit for some $18 billion of heroin a year, making it both the biggest consumer and biggest transit country in the world. "It is useless to fight it inside our borders," says Ivanov. "We need to fight the problem at its root."
Unlike in 1979, that won't mean sending Russian troops to Afghanistan. But Moscow is working to provide something almost as potent: crucial intelligence on drug traffic throughout Central Asia, where Russia's Federal Security Service still maintains an excellent network of eyes and ears. Russia is also pushing Afghanistan's neighbors hard to pick up the pace on drug-enforcement efforts. Moscow, along with Beijing, leads the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security bloc that includes all Central Asian states. Beefing up border security has been one of SCO's top priorities, with Russia contributing money, equipment, and training. The SCO won't be able to cut off the Taliban's drug routes via Iran and Pakistan. And Kabul will still have to tackle the problem of rampant corruption in its Interior Ministry and the police, who are responsible for more opium traffic than the Taliban. But Chris Chamber, a NATO spokesman, says that Russia's intelligence and regional influence will be crucial to the fight.
Still, Russia's ambitions in Afghanistan go far beyond the drug war, and include building a pro-Russian constituency among the country's elite, dominating Afghanistan's multibillion-dollar infrastructure-development industry, and exploiting its underground wealth. "It is not too late. We are determined to activate our business cooperation with Afghanistan. Russia is first of all interested in exploiting Afghan gas and mineral resources," says Avetisyan, the Russian ambassador.
To access these riches, Russia has been courting Afghan Vice President Karim Khalili—a leader of the country's persecuted Hazara community who Moscow hopes will act as Russia's chief lobbyist in Kabul. At a meeting with Khalili in March, Ivanov offered to aid Japanese efforts to restore the huge Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in 1999 in Banyan, Khalili's power base, and to develop tourism there, as well as to reconstruct a power station and a nearby tunnel that links north and south Afghanistan.
Russia also has a huge number of potential allies among Afghanistan's former communists, many of whom studied and lived in Russia in the 1980s. Some of these approximately 100,000 educated Afghans joined the mujahedin after the fall of Moscow's puppet Mohammad Najibullah in 1992 and are now powerful men in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration. Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, for example, a onetime officer in Najibullah's military, now rules a personal fiefdom in the north of the country and is an adviser to the chief of staff of the Afghan National Army.
Other communists who fled after Najibullah was toppled returned after the fall of the Taliban. Many found important jobs in the new resource-starved government, as they tended to be better trained and educated than the Islamist mujahedin. One former senior European diplomat in Kabul says that, though the communists were unwanted at first, they quickly became the building blocks of the Karzai regime. "Thank God at last we have some professionals, even if they were trained and educated in Moscow," the diplomat says. Statistics are hard to come by, but according to a top Afghan police officer and a former communist head of the Afghan Army, between 50 and 70 percent of all staff positions in the Ministries of Interior and Defense are now held by ex-communists. Russia plans to reach out to these people by sponsoring cultural programs in Kabul and by bringing in some of the 100,000 Afghan exiles living in Russia to help lobby them.
Russians in Kabul are eager to take advantage of such links—one Russian diplomat complained that he's fed up with watching foreigners line up "to get a bite of the Afghan pie when it could have been us." To help turn things around, 19 Russian business leaders will arrive in the capital in early May to talk about energy, rebuilding, transport, and logistics.
The Russians say their aim is simply to help make Afghanistan rich. "The Soviets did not just fight. Soviet scientists also made maps of all Afghanistan's resources," says Avetisyan. On his recent trip, Ivanov brought such maps with him and, during a meeting with Karzai, talked about gas, copper, and aluminum exploitation. Ivanov also made it clear to Khalili that Russia was ready to strike deals on "favorable terms." The Russians will face an uphill battle with the Chinese, who got into the country ahead of them—two years ago, the China Metallurgical Group bought one of the world's largest copper mines in Logar, south of Kabul, and it has promised to invest $3 billion in the project. But Moscow is reported to be eyeing the Hajigak iron mine, currently on sale for about $1.8 billion, and Russians say they may be ready to sign a deal during a Russian-Afghan forum in Kabul this July.
So far, such moves seem to elicit more relief than concern in Washington. The Obama administration has taken a big gamble with its surge, and everything is being done with an eye to July 2011, when the administration has promised to begin its withdrawal. For that to happen, Afghanistan's neighbors must shoulder more and more of the burden of helping fix its drug and infrastructure problems. If that means Afghanistan moving closer to Russia's orbit, then Washington, at least for now, seems to deem that a price worth paying. "The United States is not concerned about Russia coming back," says Anthony Cordesman, a respected analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. If history is any guide, having Afghanistan in Russia's sphere of influence would be far from ideal—but it would also be preferable to having it go it alone and spread violent mayhem across the region and the world.
With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai in Kabul
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6 troops, 30 Taliban die in NW Pakistan clashes
By Hussain Afzal, Associated Press Writer
PARACHINAR, Pakistan – Pakistani troops fought gunbattles and bombed militant hide-outs in a Taliban stronghold near the Afghan border Saturday, leaving six soldiers and 30 militants dead, officials said.
It was part of a recently launched operation in Orakzai tribal region aimed at flushing out foreign and Pakistani militants who last year fled an army onslaught further south.
Government official Sami Ullah said both ground forces and army helicopters took part in Saturday's fighting that killed 30 insurgents. The troops captured six militants after the fighting, he added.
Two military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information to media, said six soldiers also died, and another 10 were wounded.
It was not immediately possible to get independent confirmation of the casualties and the identities of those killed in the remote and volatile region.
Ullah said Pakistani forces have killed about 250 militants in the region in the past three weeks and have cleared several militant strongholds.
Orakzai usually has a population of 450,000 and borders the tribal regions of Khyber and Kurram. But the violence there has forced tens of thousands of civilians to move to safer places in recent months.
At least 10,000 people left Orakzai and moved to a camp in the nearby Kohat region since the latest offensive began there in the second week of March.
Washington has praised Islamabad for targeting militant strongholds in various tribal regions.
The CIA has also launched scores of missile attacks near the Afghan border, killing Taliban, al-Qaida men and local insurgents.
Pakistani Taliban have responded with suicide and bomb attacks on police and civilians in major cities.
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Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.
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