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10 Taliban taken off UN terror list
Mon Aug 2, 6:58 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – A UN panel on Monday removed 10 Taliban along with 35 Al-Qaeda members and affiliates from its sanctions terror list after its first exhaustive review of 488 blacklisted names.
30 Taliban militants killed in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan National Army (ANA) and NATO forces eliminated 30 Taliban militants in Afghanistan's eastern Nuristan province on Monday, a press release issued by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
Rules for Afghanistan: Fight Taliban, corruption, "drink lots of tea"
By the CNN Wire Staff August 2, 2010
(CNN) -- Fight the Taliban "relentlessly." Don't tolerate corruption. Drink "lots of tea" with the locals.
Sweden ready to extend mission in Afghanistan
STOCKHOLM, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Sweden's four-party coalition government said on Monday that it would like to extend the mandate of the Swedish troops in Afghanistan.
In Kandahar, U.S. tries the lessons of Baghdad
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 3, 2010; A01
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- This city is starting to feel a lot like Baghdad.
Tall concrete blast walls, like those that surround the Green Zone, are seemingly everywhere. Checkpoints supervised by U.S. soldiers have been erected on all major roads leading into the city. Residents are being urged to apply for new identification cards that require them to have their retinas scanned and their fingerprints recorded.
Petraeus Resets Afghan Airstrike Rules
Amid Review of U.S. Strategy, Military Eases Restrictions on Attacks Against Insurgents Hiding in Abandoned Buildings
The Wall Street Journal - Europe Edition By JULIAN E. BARNES AUGUST 2, 2010
WASHINGTON - U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have eased a rule covering the use of force that has been a source of discontent among American troops, according to military officials.
Iran Aims to Revive Silk Road, Escape Isolation
August 2, 2010 By Robert Tait Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Iran has embarked on a series of ambitious projects to revive the historic Silk Road, moves aimed at expanding its regional influence and overcoming Western efforts to isolate it.
Irrigation project aims to help Kandahar thrive again
Perilous security hasn't stopped the Canadian effort in southern Afghanistan, 'the kind of thing that can really make a difference,' a project analyst says.
Los Angeles Times By David Zucchino August 2, 2010
Reporting from Arghandab River Valley, Afghanistan - When the Canadian government's international assistance agency looked into rebuilding a massive irrigation dam here in early 2007, the initial prospects weren't encouraging. The site appraisal team couldn't even get to the dam, 20 miles north of Kandahar in the Arghandab River Valley.
British troops continue Afghanistan push
British troops moved into buildings halfway down the main road to the Taliban-controlled town of Saidabad as they continued toward the rebel haven with the biggest British operation of the summer so far.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer in Camp Bastion 01 Aug 2010
Soldiers faced more gunfire from militants as they moved into a walled compound around a mile from the town in the Nad-I-Ali district of Helmand.
ITT gets $800 million in Afghanistan contracts
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- ITT Corp. said Monday it received two contracts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide training services for Afghanistan's security forces.
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10 Taliban taken off UN terror list
Mon Aug 2, 6:58 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – A UN panel on Monday removed 10 Taliban along with 35 Al-Qaeda members and affiliates from its sanctions terror list after its first exhaustive review of 488 blacklisted names.
"As a result of the review of 488 names, 45 were delisted," said Thomas Mayr-Harting, chair of the UN Security Council panel that maintains a blacklist of individuals and entities linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
He told a press conference that those removed, following requests from governments, include 10 individuals who had been associated with the Taliban as well as 14 individuals and 21 entities linked at some point to Al-Qaeda.
Individuals on the list are subject to asset freezes, a travel ban and an arms embargo.
Mayr-Harting said 443 names -- 132 Taliban and 311 from Al-Qaeda -- were confirmed on the list, though a final decision for 66 among them is still pending.
Last week, five of the 10 Taliban removed from the list were named as Abdul Satar Paktin; Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad Awrang, a former Afghan envoy to the UN; Abdul Salam Zaeef, author of "My life with the Taliban;" and two officials who are now deceased.
As part of his efforts to promote national reconciliation, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had asked the Security Council to remove names of some Taliban members who were not linked to Al-Qaeda from the terror blacklist.
The Karzai government has set conditions for peace talks with Taliban insurgents, demanding militants renounce violence, accept the Afghan constitution and rescind ties with Al-Qaeda.
The Afghan reportedly sought the removal of up to 50 former Taliban officials from the blacklist, including those of a number of persons now deceased.
Mayr-Harting's panel, with the help of a sanctions monitoring team, spent 18 months reviewing the list.
The Austrian envoy noted that a total of eight deceased individuals were delisted, while some 30 others remain on the list.
"It?s not easy to get dead people off the list," he added. "We have to have convincing proof that they are really dead and also we have to have information on what happened to their assets, and this in many cases takes some time."
Richard Barrett, coordinator of the UN's analytical support and sanctions monitoring team, said about 120 states, roughly two thirds of UN membership, were approached not just to obtain information about the listings but also to get general opinions on the sanctions regime.
"Of course some lack capacity and in Afghanistan, where a lot of the names are based, it was difficult to get really good information from the authorities there. But they did spend some time trying to provide us with what we wanted," he noted.
Among al-Qaeda-linked entities delisted were Bank al Taqwa Limited, four Barakaat firms based in the Unites States, the Somali International Relief Organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Swedish-based Somali network.
A Syrian, an Egyptian, a Tunisian, a Lebanese, a Malaysian and a Pakistani once linked with al-Qaeda were also taken off the list.
The UN blacklist was established under UN Security Council Resolution 1267, adopted in October 1999 to oversee implementation of sanctions imposed on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan for its support of Osama bin Laden's extremist network.
Under the resolution, UN member states are required to impose travel bans, an asset freeze and an arms embargo on any individual or entity associated with Al-Qaeda, bin Laden and/or the Taliban.
Delisting requires unanimous approval from all 15 members of the Security Council's sanctions panel.
The blacklist with all its entries is available on the Internet at: http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/index.shtml.
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30 Taliban militants killed in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan National Army (ANA) and NATO forces eliminated 30 Taliban militants in Afghanistan's eastern Nuristan province on Monday, a press release issued by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
"Afghan National Army soldiers with support from their coalition force partners, executed ground attacks on the towns of Bachancha and Badmuk Monday, clearing them of Taliban fighters and disrupting insurgent operations throughout the region," the press release added.
It said that initial reports indicates more than 30 insurgents were killed with two ANA soldiers killed in action.
It said that the attacks were part of ongoing security operations that began July 25 with the Afghan army commandos air assault on the village of Barg-e-Matal district.
"Afghan Natioanl Security Forces operations continue to deal a devastating blow to enemy forces who seek safe haven in Nuristan," said U.S. Army Col. Andrew Poppas, Task Force Bastogne commander in the press release.
"Their devotion to the safety and security of the Afghan people ensures the enemy has no place to hide," he said.
Taliban militants overran the Barg-e-Matal on July 25 and burned down over 150 houses and all government buildings including health clinic and schools. But the militants controlled the district only for 24 hours.
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Rules for Afghanistan: Fight Taliban, corruption, "drink lots of tea"
By the CNN Wire Staff August 2, 2010
(CNN) -- Fight the Taliban "relentlessly." Don't tolerate corruption. Drink "lots of tea" with the locals.
Those admonitions are among the two dozen guidelines for counterinsurgency warfare that Gen. David Petraeus issued to U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan on Sunday. In his first major public pronouncement since taking command in early July, Petraeus urged American troops and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to learn and adapt to the culture of Afghanistan while battling the Taliban insurgents and their allies.
"The decisive terrain is the human terrain," Petraeus wrote. "The people are the center of gravity. Only by providing them security and earning their trust and confidence can the Afghan government and ISAF prevail."
Petraeus led the 2007-2008 campaign to stabilize Iraq after years of insurgent and sectarian warfare following the U.S. invasion of 2003. Some of the steps he took there -- ordering troops to work in closely with local allies in outposts close to the people, patrol on foot and without sunglasses and cultivate ties with the local population -- are included in Sunday's four-page order.
"Earn the people's trust, talk to them, ask them questions and learn about their lives," he wrote. Coalition troops should be "a good guest," learn the local history and "make sure you have the full story."
"Don't be a pawn in someone else's game," he wrote. "Spend time, listen, consult and drink lots of tea."
Petraeus called on American and NATO troops to "Pursue the enemy relentlessly" and "seek out and eliminate" insurgents who threaten Afghan civilians. But he also urged coalition forces to fight "with discipline" and be careful to avoid civilian casualties.
"If we kill civilians or damage their property in the course of our operations, we will create more enemies than our operations eliminate," he wrote. "That's exactly what the Taliban want. Don't fall into their trap."
He urged his troops to aggressively fight the Taliban by being "first with the truth," acknowledging setbacks and failures but highlighting the "extremist" and "oppressive" nature of the enemy. Allied forces should "Hang their barbaric actions like millstones around their necks," he wrote.
And in a country where corruption is endemic, the Petraeus guidelines press allied forces to be mindful of where coalition funds go and to help Afghans "confront, isolate, pressure and defund" crooked elements.
"The Taliban are not the only enemy of the people," he wrote. "The people are also threatened by inadequate governance, corruption and abuse of power -- recruiters for the Taliban." Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pledged to root out corruption, and allied troops should "work with our allied partners to help turn his words into reality."
Petraeus has taken command at a time when the nearly 9-year-old war is the subject of fierce debate in the United States and in many of the countries that have contributed troops to the mission. He replaced Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was sacked after Rolling Stone magazine published disparaging comments about the Obama administration's civilian leadership by the general and some of his aides.
A highly publicized offensive in the southern town of Marjah has turned out to be less fruitful than expected, Petraeus acknowledged in June. Meanwhile, widely reported plans for an offensive in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar have been replaced with a slow buildup of forces around the city in conjunction with Afghan troops.
And the Netherlands finished pulling its troops out of southern Afghanistan's Uruzgan province Sunday after four years and 24 combat deaths, nearly six months after an impasse over whether to extend their commitment brought down the Dutch government.
CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr contributed to this report.
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Sweden ready to extend mission in Afghanistan
STOCKHOLM, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Sweden's four-party coalition government said on Monday that it would like to extend the mandate of the Swedish troops in Afghanistan.
The coalition government would make this decision if it wins the parliamentary election next month, four politicians from all four government parties including Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors, said in an article published in a leading Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.
"Sweden should participate in international crisis management efforts which carry a clear legal mandate, as an expression of Sweden's solidarity and responsibility in the world," the politicians said.
Forty-one percent of Swedes are against Sweden's troop deployment in Afghanistan, 6 percent up from February, 42 percent of respondents are in favour of sending troops to Afghanistan, 4 percent less, according to a survey published last week.
Some 500 Swedish troops are currently posted in northern Afghanistan, serving in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
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In Kandahar, U.S. tries the lessons of Baghdad
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 3, 2010; A01
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- This city is starting to feel a lot like Baghdad.
Tall concrete blast walls, like those that surround the Green Zone, are seemingly everywhere. Checkpoints supervised by U.S. soldiers have been erected on all major roads leading into the city. Residents are being urged to apply for new identification cards that require them to have their retinas scanned and their fingerprints recorded.
As U.S. and NATO commanders mount a major effort to counter the Taliban's influence in Kandahar, they are turning to population-control tactics employed in the Iraqi capital during the 2007 troop surge to separate warring Sunnis and Shiites. They are betting that such measures can help separate insurgents here from the rest of the population, an essential first step in the U.S.-led campaign to improve security in and around Afghanistan's second-largest city.
"If you don't have control of the population, you can't secure the population," said Brig. Gen. Frederick Hodges, director of operations for the NATO regional command in southern Afghanistan.
In Baghdad, the use of checkpoints, identification cards and walled-off communities helped to reduce violence because there were two feuding factions, riven by sect. Carving the city into a collection of separate Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods allowed U.S. forces to place themselves along the borders. Both sides tolerated the tactics to a degree because they came to believe U.S. troops would protect them from their rivals.
The conflict in Kandahar is far murkier. There are no differences in religion or ethnicity: Nearly everyone here is a Sunni Pashtun. There are divisions among tribes and clans, but they are not a reliable indicator of support for the Taliban. And many residents regard U.S. forces as the cause of the growing instability, rather than the solution to it.
Military officials hope the measures will nonetheless make it more difficult for the Taliban to transport munitions into the city and to attack key government buildings. The use of biometric scans will allow soldiers at checkpoints to apprehend anyone whose fingerprints are in a database of suspected insurgents.
"Just because Afghanistan is different from Iraq, it doesn't mean you can't use techniques that worked well there," Hodges said.
Another tactic employed in Iraq and soon to be copied in Kandahar involves major outlays from a discretionary fund that commanders can use to pay for quick-turnaround reconstruction projects. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former top commander in Iraq who recently took charge of the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan, called such money "a weapon system."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently approved a proposal from Petraeus to spend $227 million from the fund -- the largest-ever single expenditure -- to pay for new generators and millions of gallons of diesel to increase the electricity supply in Kandahar. Petraeus and other top military officers in Afghanistan have supported the costly effort because they think the provision of more power will lead residents to view their government more favorably, which is a key element of the counterinsurgency campaign.
But some U.S. civilian officials in the country question whether the increase in power, which will be directed toward businesses, will win over residents. The officials maintain that the United States will have to keep shelling out millions of dollars a month for diesel or risk further wrath from Kandaharis because a hoped-for hydroelectric project intended to replace the generators will take years to complete.
Green Zone revisited?
Contractors working for the NATO regional command already have installed 7,000 concrete slabs -- each eight feet wide -- around the governor's palace and the mayor's office, along major roads and in front of police stations. Demand for the walls are so high that several manufacturing sites have sprung up on the highway heading toward the airport.
Although military officials say their informal surveys of residents show significant support for walls and checkpoints, local leaders have expressed unease. Kandahar's governor, Tooryalai Wesa, told Hodges that he does not want parts of the city to turn into an Iraq-like Green Zone.
Although municipal workers have registered about 20,000 residents into the biometric database and provided them with plastic identification cards, Afghan President Hamid Karzai put the registration on hold last week because of concerns over privacy rights, military officials said.
There are other grievances. Residents near checkpoints say electronic jamming equipment used by soldiers to prevent remote-controlled bombs interferes with their mobile phones. Shopkeepers say they are losing business.
"Since they put the cement walls up, security is better, but nobody is coming to our shops," an elderly man named Rafiullah told Hodges as he visited his small stall filled with sundries next to a checkpoint on the western border.
Hodges promised to "figure out a solution." But removing any of them involves a trade-off in protection for the forces in the city. Last month, three U.S. soldiers and four Afghan interpreters were killed when two suicide bombers stormed a police headquarters building that had not yet been fully encircled with concrete walls.
Hodges said the checkpoints have forced insurgents to find alternate routes into the city, either through the desert or on dirt paths, which limit what they can transport and how quickly they can move. "Will we stop everyone? No," he said. "But it is having an effect. The enemy is having to change their movements."
The Taliban are also seeking to place new obstacles for U.S. and Afghan forces. In the Arghandab district north of Kandahar, where U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division are seeking to clear out pockets of Taliban fighters, the insurgents have seeded pomegranate groves and vineyards with homemade anti-personnel mines; several soldiers have been maimed by them over the past two weeks. Commanders are wrestling with the option of razing some fields to remove the bombs, which would eliminate many farmers' livelihoods, or assume more risk by leaving the crops untouched.
"Counterinsurgency doctrine says you don't turn the population against you," a U.S. officer in the area said. "But at how much of a cost does that make sense?"
Wayward cousins
Perhaps the most important reason population control worked to the extent it did in Baghdad was because each side believed the other posed an existential threat, and both turned to the United States for security. In many parts of southern and eastern Afghanistan, the population has yet to seek protection.
Many Kandaharis regard the Taliban as wayward brothers and cousins -- fellow Pashtuns with whom they can negotiate and one day reconcile. They also worry about siding with their government because they fear Taliban retribution, both now and when U.S. troop reductions begin next summer.
But the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy depends on persuading Pashtuns to get off the fence and cast their lot with their government. The U.S. military and civilian agencies are trying to help the government win over the public by delivering services to the population that the Taliban does not offer, including education, health care, agricultural assistance and justice based on the rule of law.
That requires capable civil servants willing to work in an unstable environment -- and that's where the strategy is hitting its most significant roadblock.
A recent effort by Karzai's local-governance directorate to fill 300 civil service jobs in Kandahar and the surrounding district turned up four qualified applicants, even after the agency dropped its application standards to remove a high school diploma, according to several U.S. officials.
The main impediment is security. Afghans don't want to work for their government or U.S. development contractors in such an unsafe environment. But if the government and contractors cannot employ qualified workers, the government cannot deliver services and will be unable to win the population's allegiance, a prerequisite for improved security.
To crack that loop, U.S. officials are exploring ways to protect Afghans working for the government. One plan under consideration would involve transforming the Kandahar Hotel into a secure dormitory surrounded by concrete walls, for civil servants. Development contractors working for USAID are building compounds with secret entrances to minimize the chances that insurgents spot staff members.
Getting government officials in place is no guarantee of success. Kandahar's governor and mayor are regarded as ineffective administrators, but U.S. and Canadian advisers are trying to transform them into more competent leaders.
In the Panjwai district to the west of Kandahar, U.S. officials say, the district governor and the police chief recently got into a fight. The chief hit the governor with a teakettle and the governor smashed a teacup on the chief's head, the confrontation culminating in a shootout between their guards.
In Arghandab, U.S. military and civilian officials spent a year working closely with -- and praising -- the district governor, Abdul Jabar. When he was killed in a car bombing in Kandahar this summer, the officials blamed the Taliban.
But some of those same officials concluded that the governor was skimming U.S. funds for reconstruction projects in his district. His killing, they think, was the result of anger by fellow residents over his not distributing the spoils, not a Taliban assassination.
"It was a mob hit," said one U.S. official familiar with the situation. "We saw him as a white knight, but we were getting played the whole time."
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Petraeus Resets Afghan Airstrike Rules
Amid Review of U.S. Strategy, Military Eases Restrictions on Attacks Against Insurgents Hiding in Abandoned Buildings
The Wall Street Journal - Europe Edition By JULIAN E. BARNES AUGUST 2, 2010
WASHINGTON - U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have eased a rule covering the use of force that has been a source of discontent among American troops, according to military officials.
As a result of findings during a review commissioned by Gen. David Petraeus, it has been made clear that troops are allowed to request airstrikes and artillary strikes against insurgents hiding in dilapidated buildings or other abandoned structures. Commanders conducting the review said they found some junior commanders had misinterpreted the rules to mean they weren't allowed to fire on such places.
The review comes as Gen. Petraeus, who in July took over as head of the allied force in Afghanistan, looks to improve the U.S.'s broader counterinsurgency strategy—aimed at protecting the population and shoring up support for the Afghan country's government—and demonstrate results on a tight timeline. Other reviews of the strategy are to take place at the end of this year, and defense officials are keen to find ways to demonstrate their progress ahead of that.
The clarification on the use of force is part of a broader effort by Gen. Petraeus to review the tactical directive limiting airstrikes and artillery strikes that was issued in July 2009 by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was recently dismissed as head of the allied force. That directive was a radical departure from the U.S. military's traditional doctrine of using overwhelming force to defeat its enemies.
Gen. Petraeus, who has spoken often about how civilian deaths undermine a counterinsurgency effort, is expected to largely keep in place limits on the use of airstrikes. Two senior military officials said Gen. Petraeus would largely keep intact Gen. McChrystal's previous guidance on the use of force—and will emphasize his support for Gen. McChrystal's efforts to limit civilian casualties.
Last week, Gen. Petraeus issued new counterinsurgency guidelines that largely continue the practices laid out by Gen. McChrystal. The guidance tells troops to position their outposts near population centers in order to better protect the population, to be careful that money paid out for projects or contracts doesn't go to the insurgency, and to confront corrupt officials.
Gen. McChrystal's guidelines on the use of force in Afghanistan have been controversial.
Many Defense Department officials say the rules have succeeded in limiting civilian casualties and have helped improve the Afghan government and population's view of the allied military effort. Military service members, by contrast, often complain the rules are too restrictive and have at times put troops in danger. Some current and former military officials say the limits on airstrikes have stripped the U.S. of its greatest technological advantage over the Taliban.
On Sunday, the Netherlands became the first North Atlantic Treaty Organization country to end its combat mission in Afghanistan, ending a four-year operation that was deeply unpopular at home, the Associated Press reported. Separately, in southern Afghanistan, two international service members were killed in fighting, and a minibus carrying civilians struck a roadside bomb, killing six, the AP said.
Also Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates repeated his view that next summer isn't a deadline for a large-scale withdrawal from Afghanistan. "We need to re-emphasize the message that we are not leaving Afghanistan in July of 2011—we are beginning a transition process and a thinning of our ranks," Mr. Gates said on "This Week" on ABC News. "The pace will depend on conditions on the ground."
Meanwhile, senior officials at the International Security and Assistance Force, the umbrella organization for coalition forces in Afghanistan, cautioned that Gen. Petraeus has yet to finalize the new directive on air and artillery strikes that will apply to all ISAF troops. But other military officials said the most important change will be to get rid of misinterpretations that have grown up around the rules, such as the overly broad definition of what kinds of structures couldn't be targeted.
As part of the current review, lower-level commanders have been examining their practices to ensure they are in keeping with the intent of Gen. McChrystal's tactical directive but not going beyond it, according to military officials.
In eastern Afghanistan, senior U.S. commanders determined that some troops were under the impression that they weren't allowed to fire on abandoned homes. However, the directive, military officials said, was designed to stop troops from striking residential compounds and structures where civilians might live.
"Soldiers may have perceived that they were prevented from firing at insurgents using these dilapidated former dwellings, when in fact they were not," a senior military official said.
Commanders have now been told that a structure where civilians might live is defined as a building with four walls and a roof, and shouldn't be targeted. By contrast, troops can target a structure with three walls and no roof.
At his confirmation hearing in June, Gen. Petraeussuggested that the problem with the tactical directive stemmed from how lower-level commanders implemented it. He said the military needed to ensure that subordinate leaders didn't make the guidance "more bureaucratic or more restrictive than necessary," especially when troops were in danger.
Defense officials said the confusion surrounding the rule on structures is typical of the military, where junior commanders often add requirements to an original order. The officials compared it to a morning drill scheduled to start at 7 a.m. To ensure no one is late, each echelon below subtracts a half hour from the start time—only to have the soldiers show up at 5 a.m. and wait for two hours.
Another military official noted the original directive was a "shock to the system": Because it was a big shift from the usual doctrine of using overwhelming force, some officers struggled with how to get their troops to follow it. "Some commanders may have overcompensated," this official said.
Write to Julian Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com
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Iran Aims to Revive Silk Road, Escape Isolation
August 2, 2010 By Robert Tait Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Iran has embarked on a series of ambitious projects to revive the historic Silk Road, moves aimed at expanding its regional influence and overcoming Western efforts to isolate it.
A network of road, railway, and tunnel schemes has been launched along with expensive port upgrades in what experts say is a concerted attempt to restore the country's traditional role as a trade hub.
The projects have gone ahead despite Iran's exclusion from Western-backed plans to restore the Silk Road, the 6,000-kilometer-long trading route between Europe and Asia that is thought to date back almost 3,000 years.
Iran has not signed up to Western-backed initiatives, such as the European Union-supported Transport Corridor of Europe, Caucasus, and Asia (TRACECA) project -- also known as the "new Silk Road" -- amid the ongoing international dispute over Tehran's suspect nuclear program, which has seen four rounds of United Nations sanctions passed against the Islamic republic.
Instead, it has been fostering improved transport links through a series of bilateral agreements with neighboring states.
Reaching Out In All Directions
Iranian officials are so upbeat about the results that they have announced plans to hold a festival celebrating the ancient route's reemergence.
The latest plans include a road, designed to eventually provide a direct link to Russia, stretching from the Persian Gulf to Gilan Province on the Caspian Sea neighboring the Caucasus.
"We intend to establish a path from Hormozgan in the south of Iran to Ghazvin, Rasht, Astara, and then onto Russia and Europe," Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said in July, announcing a new working group for Silk Road initiatives. "For the time being, we are working on the Ghazvin-Rasht section and the Roads Ministry has promised to complete this in one year."
The aim, Rahimi said, is to dramatically increase the capacity of Iran's roads to transport goods and reduce maximum transit times between Europe and China from two months by sea to 11 days by land.
The planned north-south road bolsters other projects aimed at improving links with Iran's neighbors to the east -- including a road-and-rail scheme connecting eastern Iran with Herat Province in western Afghanistan and a flagship tunnel project in Tajikistan linking the capital, Dushanbe, with Khujand in the north.
Efforts are also under way to upgrade the Caspian Sea ports of Bandar Enzali and Neka, the latter aided by Chinese investment. China has been investing heavily in Iranian pipeline infrastructure to improve its supplies of oil and natural gas from Iran.
Looking To Central Asia
Some of the links dovetail with separate U.S.-backed infrastructure work in Afghanistan, according to Svante Cornell, research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program. For instance, while Iran is focusing on building a road to Herat, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the biggest donor -- the others are Saudi Arabia and Japan -- to a new highway linking the city with Kandahar in the south.
"You have various projects on the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan where Iran has been involved," Cornell says. "Incidentally [these are] projects which very much parallel what the United States has been trying to do, although they have not been communicating at all with one another."
One goal appears to be "connect Iran to Central Asia and Afghanistan and reintegrate the Persian-speaking area of Iran and northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan," Cornell argues.
"And then you also have the specific Iranian-Turkmen relationship, which is very pragmatic, not at all based on any ideological or other commonalities but simply pragmatic common interests, which you see for example in the Turkmen export of gas to northern Iran."
Iran has been keen to foster links with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan to facilitate oil-swap deals that have seen the three Central Asian states ship their crude to Neka on the Caspian Sea. Iran in turn delivers equivalent volumes of oil to their clients through its Kharq terminal in the Persian Gulf. Turkmenistan also ships its vital cotton exports through Iran.
Avoiding Isolation
Hooman Peimani, head of energy security and geopolitics at the National Energy Institute in Singapore, believes Iran's ambitions amount to putting itself at the heart of the trade route between Europe and Asia.
"The purpose of Iran in getting involved in such projects is to ensure that it is going to be used as a kind of transit route for international trade from and through Asia, mainly in the context of connecting Europe and Asia, mainly via Turkey and possibly via the Caucasus," Peimani says.
"Within this context, Iran has done a lot of work in terms of improving its roads. The infrastructure, particularly in the northern part of the country, has witnessed a major project to improve the roads, constructing new highways. Also Iran has spent a lot of money in order to expand its railway network."
The scope of Iran's ambition clashes with the goal of the United States and its allies to squeeze it economically to force it to abandon its uranium-enrichment program, which Tehran says is peaceful but which the West suspects is aimed at producing a nuclear bomb. But, Peimani says, sanctions and enmity with the United States have not been obstacles to the Iranian determination to be at the heart of a modern Silk Road -- an aim abetted by Iran's geography and vast energy wealth.
Peimani says this is also due to the fact that "Central Asia is a landlocked region that doesn't have a lot of options." For international trade, the Central Asian states "mainly have to rely on Iran or Russia. Of course there is China, but it presents a very long route for international trade. Therefore, Iran is a necessity for Central Asia, particularly for Turkmenistan."
He notes that even China may use Iran as an export route. "China, despite all the problems Iran is facing with the United States, has actually increased trade with Iran, which is now equal to about $22 billion a year," Peimani says.
Sanctions Make For Bargains
Paradoxically, the West's desire to isolate Iran through embargos may even be aiding the country's aim of turning itself into a trade corridor. Niklas Swanstrom, program director at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, believes Western sanctions are making Iran more attractive for Chinese, Russian, and Indian traders and investors.
And with China relying on Iran for 12-14 percent of its oil imports, Chinese investors have a direct incentive to invest in Iranian pipeline and other infrastructure that may have suffered under Western sanctions.
"For the Chinese, for the Russians, and arguably even for the Indians, it's a bargain now. Now is the time to move into Iran because it's easy to get concessions, it's relatively easy and relatively cheap to build pipelines and to build infrastructure that they can monopolize or control," Swanstrom says.
"So we're in a situation where we have an interest in international isolation and then we have another interest, which is energy -- and it simply doesn't match."
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Irrigation project aims to help Kandahar thrive again
Perilous security hasn't stopped the Canadian effort in southern Afghanistan, 'the kind of thing that can really make a difference,' a project analyst says.
Los Angeles Times By David Zucchino August 2, 2010
Reporting from Arghandab River Valley, Afghanistan - When the Canadian government's international assistance agency looked into rebuilding a massive irrigation dam here in early 2007, the initial prospects weren't encouraging. The site appraisal team couldn't even get to the dam, 20 miles north of Kandahar in the Arghandab River Valley.
A report by the Canadian International Development Agency called security "very fragile" and warned that the "environment will pose a significant challenge."
It is even more treacherous now to tread in Arghandab district, the site of major Taliban infiltration routes into Kandahar and the most deadly area of Afghanistan for roadside bombs. But Canada has pushed ahead with a rehabilitation project to reestablish the valley and other areas surrounding Kandahar city as Afghanistan's breadbasket.
Silt and debris have been dredged from the main canal and small feeder canals, bringing life-giving irrigation to some small farmers and contributing to a bumper pomegranate harvest predicted for this fall. More than 2,000 local Afghans have been hired as workers since the project began in 2009, with a goal of 10,000 workers as the 10-year project expands.
Not even the assassination of the Arghandab district governor, Abdul Jabar, in June or Taliban threats against Afghans who cooperate with Westerners has stopped the steady, if fitful, pace of the project.
"This is the kind of thing that can really make a difference — and the Afghans know it,'' said Lisa Vandehei, a former Canadian army sergeant and senior analyst for the project. "It's something the local people have been begging for for years and years."
If completed, the irrigation project could produce the kind of social and economic transformation the U.S. military and its allies are struggling to achieve as they try to establish security and governance in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual home.
Water has always been key to development in Afghanistan, an arid country where only 10% of the land is arable. Up to 85% of crop production comes from irrigated land.
The dam and irrigation system would affect 80% of the residents of Kandahar province, Vandehei said. The project could eventually create 60,000 new farm jobs by increasing cultivated land and doubling crop yields.
Of course, irrigation water could well be diverted for use by opium farmers. Nevertheless, the project has the potential to help lure farmers away from opium by making other crops — wheat, pomegranates, grapes, apricots — more productive and profitable.
With a price tag of $47.9 million for the first three years, a successful Dahla Dam Signature Project would be a bargain — especially in light of the $51.5 billion the U.S. has spent on Afghan reconstruction, with modest results.
But the obstacles are overwhelming. Because of perilous security, Afghan district officials conduct government business behind the massive blast walls of a U.S. military compound. Roadside bombs and insurgent ambushes are common, threatening Afghan farmers and workers, as well as U.S. and Canadian forces.
Although insurgents frequently kill or threaten Afghans who work for Westerners, Vandehei said there have been relatively few threats against workers on the dam project. She said no worker has been killed and only one has been injured.
"Local people know the value of the work, and they don't want to see it stopped," she said. Local companies are hired for supplies and equipment, giving residents an incentive to help the project succeed.
Security is the responsibility of a private Canadian company contracted by the Canadian government to run the project. However, Vandehei and another Canadian civilian working for the Canadian government are escorted and protected by U.S. or Canadian forces when visiting project sites. They wear body armor and travel in military vehicles or aircraft.
Their focus remains the engineering challenge of rebuilding and modernizing — in the middle of violent insurgency — a decrepit irrigation system built by the U.S. in the 1950s as a foreign aid project and left unattended for decades. Just finding the original engineering plans was a chore. Researchers finally tracked them down in a moldy box in the basement of a corporate library in Boise, Idaho, Vandehei said.
After the U.S. built the Dahla Dam in 1952 and completed the canal irrigation system in 1956, the province bloomed. Farmers exported apricots, pomegranates, grapes and other crops to neighboring countries. A robust irrigation system snaked from the dam through the Arghandab Valley, on through Kandahar city and into the province's southern deserts.
"People in the area remember or have heard from their parents or grandparents about 'When it was better — when the system was working,' " Vandehei said.
The main canal is 36 miles long. Its 55 sub-canals total 180 miles, in addition to thousands of small tertiary canals.
But three decades of war have left the system a wreck. A third of the reservoir is clogged with silt. Generators, floodgates, culverts, bridges, hydraulic lift systems and other equipment must be replaced or repaired.
"Some of the canals are so clogged they look like roads," Vandehei said.
Clearing just one sub-canal provides enough irrigation to sustain 400 farming families, she said.
The clearing is done by laborers paid $5 to $10 a day. The project has also hired Afghan engineers, scientists, accountants and heavy equipment operators, boosting the local economy, Vandehei said.
In addition to restoring the dam and canal system, the project is working with farmers to improve irrigation techniques. Seventy percent of the water now flowing through the system is lost to inefficiency and waste, Vandehei said.
A series of wells linked by underground canals has been used by Afghan farmers for centuries to irrigate crops. But each farmer is able to trap and hoard water, losing much of it through evaporation or leaks and denying water to fellow farmers sharing the system.
The project is attempting to develop an equitable means of sharing and distributing irrigation water, Vandehei said. It is also training farmers and local officials to manage the repaired system so that improvements are sustainable.
"Irrigation," the project report said, "made agriculture possible and led to the past prosperity of Kandahar."
david.zucchino@latimes.com
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British troops continue Afghanistan push
British troops moved into buildings halfway down the main road to the Taliban-controlled town of Saidabad as they continued toward the rebel haven with the biggest British operation of the summer so far.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer in Camp Bastion 01 Aug 2010
Soldiers faced more gunfire from militants as they moved into a walled compound around a mile from the town in the Nad-I-Ali district of Helmand.
Hidden bombs again slowed engineers clearing the heavily mined main road south to the town.
Bomb disposal experts blew up several large booby traps set to target British armoured vehicles along the road as they crept several hundred metres further along the route.
The compound taken on Sunday afternoon will now be turned into a permanent checkpoint where Afghan and British forces will try and stop militants replanting the route with mines.
Commanders said progress in Operation Tor Shezada, or Black Prince, was “relatively good”, three days after beginning with a helicopter assault into insurgent-held territory on Friday morning.
Saidabad is considered the last Taliban-controlled town within Nad-I-Ali after Febraury’s Operation Moshtarak to clear the district and harbours up to 180 insurgent fighters.
The Taliban also use the area as a rat run between central Nad-I-Ali and the restive town of Marjah to the south west, which United States Marines have fought to pacify since February.
The latest offensive aims to seize Saidabad, clear the main road towards it and push the Taliban out of surrounding farmland into the desert to the West.
Soldiers from 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, patrolled though irrigation ditches and muddy fields as they strove to keep Taliban away from the road.
The soldiers, laden with up to 100lb of kit and ammunition, traded shots with Taliban firing from “murder holes” gouged in the side of high-walled compounds.
A spokesman for British troops in Helmand said: “The engineers have been able to clear several hundred metres more towards Saidabad and that’s on track.
“They themselves haven’t come under fire, but the outer cordon has faced sporadic fire.” Troops who landed south of Saidabad before dawn on Friday reported they had been welcomed by residents and faced little resistance.
A large cache of homemade mines and bomb making equipment was also found.
The advance proceeded as the Netherlands became the first major Nato country to begin its pull out from Afghanistan.
Dutch troops, whil will leave within two months, officially handed over control of Uruzgan province to a mixed force of American, Australian, Slovak and Singaporean soldiers.
The Dutch deployment began in 2006 and cost 24 lives, becoming deeply unpopular. A Nato request for the Dutch to stay in the country sparked a political row that led to the Dutch government’s collapse in February. Canada has announced it will withdraw next year and Australia has suggested it may leave in 2012.
The Kabul international conference last month said Nato-led troops should switch from front line combat to training missions by 2014, though David Cameron said some British troops may leave as early as next year.
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ITT gets $800 million in Afghanistan contracts
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- ITT Corp. said Monday it received two contracts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide training services for Afghanistan's security forces.
A contract for northern Afghanistan could be worth up to $450 million, and one for southern Afghanistan could be up to $350 million if all options are exercised, the company said.
Each contract has a 1-year base period and options for four more years.
ITT said it will provide operations and maintenance support at the security force's facilities and train Afghan personnel to take over at the end of the contract.
Shares of ITT rose 32 cents to $47.44 in afternoon trading.
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