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Karzai Says Corrupt Private Security Firms Are Undermining Afghanistan War
By Alan Bjerga - Aug 22, 2010
Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed his demand that private security firms in Iraq disband by year’s end, saying they are a source of corruption that’s undermining support for the war against the Taliban insurgency.
Banning security firms to put Kabul-Washington relations at odd
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Amid row over alleged corruption in his administration leveled by Washington, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree last Tuesday asking all private security companies to cease operation within the next four months.
4 US troops killed in eastern Afghanistan
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – Four U.S. troops were killed in fighting in eastern and southern Afghanistan on Sunday, and a former guerrilla leader who battled Soviet invaders decades ago was killed by a roadside bomb in the country's north.
UK official decries video game with Taliban role
Associated Press
LONDON – A video game that allows players to adopt the role of the Taliban is a "tasteless product," Britain's defense secretary said Sunday, calling on retailers to show their support for troops by not selling it.
Afghan president pledges that women's rights will not be sacrificed for peace with Taliban
August 22, 2010 Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — President Hamid Karzai gave assurances Sunday that the rights of Afghan women will not be sacrificed in pursuit of a peace deal with the Taliban.
Afghan police killed during airstrikeBy the
CNN Wire Staff August 21, 2010
(CNN) -- Three Afghan police officers were accidentally killed in an airstrike and a bomb killed five Afghan civilians in separate incidents in northern Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said on Saturday.
Tribal clash leaves 20 injured in S Afghan province
Xinhua Aug. 21, 2010
QALAT, Afghanistan - A clash between two tribal groups in Afghanistan's southern Zabul province left at least 20 people injured with five of them in critical conditions, provincial administration spokesman Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar Saturday.
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Karzai Says Corrupt Private Security Firms Are Undermining Afghanistan War
By Alan Bjerga - Aug 22, 2010
Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed his demand that private security firms in Iraq disband by year’s end, saying they are a source of corruption that’s undermining support for the war against the Taliban insurgency.
The firms are “running a parallel security structure to the Afghan government,” they are “looting and stealing from the Afghan people” and “some of them turn into terrorist groups at nighttime,” Karzai said on ABC’s “This Week” program.
“Why would an Afghan young man come to the police if he can get a job in a security firm, have a lot of leeway and without any discipline,” Karzai said. The better-paid private security forces must be disbanded in order for the Afghan police force to be built up, he said.
The U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are in an offensive to try to push the Taliban out of Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan. The U.S. plans to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by July 2011, according to a timetable set by President Barack Obama. General David Petraeus, commander of the 142,000 U.S. and NATO troops in the region, said Aug. 15 that deadline may change based on military conditions.
Karzai last week told private security companies in Afghanistan to disband within four months, turning their operations over to Afghan forces. The U.S. State Department said that would create challenges in the war against Taliban insurgents.
Almost 17,000 armed guards from both Afghan and foreign companies protect bases, convoys and personnel of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, a Defense Department report said in May. Others protect offices and residences for foreign embassies, companies and international aid groups.
U.S. security companies working in Afghanistan include DynCorp International Inc., based in Falls Church, Virginia, and acquired this year by Cerberus Capital Management LP, as well as Moyock, North Carolina-based Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide.
To contact the reporters on this story: Alan Bjerga in Washington at abjerga@bloomberg.net.
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Banning security firms to put Kabul-Washington relations at odd
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Amid row over alleged corruption in his administration leveled by Washington, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree last Tuesday asking all private security companies to cease operation within the next four months.
More than 50 private security companies with some 30,000 employees are said to have activities in Afghanistan and mostly engaged in escorting logistic and military convoys of the NATO-led troops from the capital city Kabul to provinces onward to districts.
Before issuing the order, the Afghan president accused the private security firms of the involvement in robbery, malpractice and misusing their authorities.
Karzai, in his order, also said that the Interior Ministry is responsible to provide security for the diplomatic missions and international agencies based in Kabul and other Afghan cities.
In the order, the president tasked the Defense Ministry and National Security Directorate to ensure security for logistic convoys of international troops on their way from Kabul to provinces and onward to districts.
The decree, according to observers, would further strain the already strained relations between Kabul and Washington as more than half of these companies including the Blackwater, accused of killing civilians in Iraq, and USPI, are American or hired by Americans to provide security for the U.S.-led coalition troops and their facilities.
In a sharp reaction, Pentagon's spokesman Bryan Whitman, according to media reports, described the deadline as "very aggressive" and questioned if the timeline was realistic.
"Until that time, though we are going to continue to work with the government of Afghanistan to improve the oversight and management as well as developing plans progressively reduce their numbers as security conditions permit," media quoted the Pentagon spokesman as saying.
NATO-led troops, according to observers, would not trust Afghan national security forces very much as renegade Afghan soldiers at least twice opened fire on their colleagues and mentors, killing two Americans and three Britons in the past months.
Reported mysteriously poisoning of Afghan policemen in their checkpoints would also undermine the trust of international coalition troops towards the capability of Afghan national security forces.
At least two cases of poisoning policemen have been reported in southern Afghanistan over the past one week and claimed the lives of six police personnel in Kandahar and six others in the neighboring Helmand province.
Five more guards of a private bank were also beheaded after mysteriously poisoning by their friends in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif earlier this month.
Ordering private security firms took place amid mounting pressure by Washington on President Karzai to control the alleged corruption as part of efforts to win the war against insurgency in Afghanistan.
Weeks earlier, President Karzai announced his armed forces is ready to assume security responsibility by 2014.
The bold decision taken by Karzai prompted the influential U.S. senator John Kerry, head of Foreign Relation Committee, to visit Kabul twice since last Tuesday.
Senator Kerry, according to a section of Afghan press, returned to Kabul from Islamabad on Thursday, instead of moving to Washington, urging Karzai to be inflexible on the deadline set for wrapping up of security firms.
Spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan Josef Blotz, while cautiously backed the decree, has conditioned its successful transition to the capability of Afghan security forces.
"ISAF supports the president's intention to achieve this," adding ISAF will speed up efforts to grow up the capability of Afghan National Security Forces and reduce the need for private security firms.
Disbanding so many private companies at once, according to observers, would render between 30,000 to 40,000 people jobless, a burden added to the already poverty-stricken society.
Ordering private security companies amid mounting pressure on Afghan president to fight the alleged corruption, observers believe is a "tit for tat" response that would negatively affect the bilateral relations and eventually enables anti-government militants to recruit new fighters.
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4 US troops killed in eastern Afghanistan
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – Four U.S. troops were killed in fighting in eastern and southern Afghanistan on Sunday, and a former guerrilla leader who battled Soviet invaders decades ago was killed by a roadside bomb in the country's north.
Three of the U.S. casualties died in insurgent attacks and one was killed by a homemade bomb, NATO said.
The deaths bring the number of international forces killed in Afghanistan this month to 42, including 28 Americans, according to a count by The Associated Press. Sixty-six American troops were killed in July, making it the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
The exact places where the casualties occurred were not given, although heavy fighting was reported in Jaji district of eastern Paktiya province, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the border with Pakistan.
Afghan army and border police joined U.S. troops in ground fighting, while attack helicopters provided air support, according to Afghan commanders. An unknown number of militants were killed, they said.
In the country's north, insurgents using a bomb detonated by remote control destroyed the vehicle in which former guerrilla commander Salaam Pahlawan was traveling as he made his way Saturday to government offices in Faryab province's Al Mar district, said provincial police commander Khalil Andarbi.
The attack also killed two of Pahlawan's sons, ages 5 and 10, and two bodyguards, Andarbi said.
He said Pahlawan had been commander of anti-Soviet forces in the district but had lately been serving in an advisory role as a tribal elder. Many surviving veterans of the 1979-1989 Soviet invasion have been targeted by the Taliban for allying themselves with the government in Kabul.
One of the most famous anti-Soviet commanders, Ahmad Shah Massoud, was killed in an al-Qaida suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a time when the Taliban was providing safe haven for the terrorist group.
In western Afghanistan's Herat province, insurgents Saturday ambushed a convoy carrying a provincial council member running for a seat in next month's elections for the national parliament, killing the man's brother, said Raouf Ahmedi, police spokesman for western Afghanistan.
Abdul Hadi Jamshadi's bodyguards returned fire, but Ahmedi said it wasn't known whether any militants were killed.
The attack appeared to be part of a campaign of terror and intimidation being waged by the Taliban in hopes of sabotaging the Sept. 18 elections.
Fighting around the country on Saturday and Sunday killed five Afghan soldiers and at least 17 militants, according to the defense and interior ministries. Five of the insurgents were killed when roadside bombs they were trying to plant exploded, while a joint NATO-Afghan operation in the southern province of Zabul resulted in the death of a senior Taliban commander, Sandar Yar, according to a provincial government statement.
Insurgents in Kandahar province, one of Afghanistan's most violent, killed the head of a private security company Saturday, while one civilian was killed and five wounded by a land mine in Herat's Anjil district.
President Hamid Karzai has ordered such companies to cease operating in Afghanistan within four months, posing a challenge to the U.S. and its allies who rely heavily on contractors to guard supply convoys, installations and development projects.
Complaints have mounted that the firms are poorly regulated, reckless and effectively operate outside local law, and the order to disband them is part of the president's moves to assert his authority.
German Brigadier Gen. Josef Blotz, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force overseeing foreign troops in Afghanistan, said ISAF supported Karzai's order and would work with his government on plans to carry it out.
However, Blotz said an interim solution may have to be found that addresses the need for some contractors to continue to operate.
Separate solutions needed to be found to provide protection for diplomats, development projects, and convoys, as well as ensure security around forward operating bases manned by foreign and Afghan troops, Blotz said.
"It is a very complex thing," he said.
Karzai has also ordered the removal of some of the capital's ubiquitous security barriers to free up snarled traffic.
Work crews outside a police recruiting center in eastern Kabul on Sunday attached steel cables to iron hoops embedded in the concrete blast walls and used cranes to move them away slab by giant slab. Some were loaded aboard trucks and removed, while others were simply shifted back from the street closer to the walls of the actual center.
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Associated Press writer Mirwais Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
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UK official decries video game with Taliban role
Associated Press
LONDON – A video game that allows players to adopt the role of the Taliban is a "tasteless product," Britain's defense secretary said Sunday, calling on retailers to show their support for troops by not selling it.
Liam Fox said he was "disgusted and angry" by "Medal of Honor," produced by California-based Electronic Arts Inc.
"At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands. It's shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers," he said in a statement. "It's hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product."
The company did not immediately respond to e-mails from the Associated Press, but spokeswoman Amanda Taggart was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying the game's format "merely reflects the fact that every conflict has two sides."
"We give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Most of us have been doing this since we were seven: someone plays cop, someone must be robber," the newspaper quoted her as saying. "In Medal of Honor multiplayer, someone's got to be the Taliban. Nobody who plays video games is going to be shocked or surprised by this."
Other versions of "Medal of Honor" have been set in the World War II era. The new version is scheduled to be released in October.
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Afghan president pledges that women's rights will not be sacrificed for peace with Taliban
August 22, 2010 Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — President Hamid Karzai gave assurances Sunday that the rights of Afghan women will not be sacrificed in pursuit of a peace deal with the Taliban.
In an interview with ABC News' "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," Karzai also pledged to vigorously fight corruption and allow two Western-backed investigative teams to pursue corruption cases without political interference — even if they go after his friends and allies.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry warned Karzai this month he was risking the loss of congressional support if he did not take significant steps to stamp out the bribery, favoritism and graft that have eroded trust in his government at a critical phase in the war.
Karzai said he was willing to talk peace with Taliban figures who break with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups — a key U.S. condition — and accept the Afghan constitution. He said there had already been "individual contacts with some Taliban elements" but not formal negotiations.
The president acknowledged fears among Afghan women's groups and ethnic minorities that their political, economic and social gains might be eroded under a future peace agreement with the Taliban, which banned women from most jobs and education during their years in power.
Those concerns were heightened last week when Taliban militants in northern Afghanistan stoned a young couple to death for adultery in the first confirmed use of the punishment here since the hard-line Islamist regime was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.
Karzai said he was in "deep, deep shock" over the stoning and would ensure that women's representation in peace talks would be "solid and meaningful."
He said the Afghan people must make sure the gains made by women "in political, social and economic walks of life" since the fall of the Taliban were not only protected "but are promoted and advanced further."
Karzai also promised the two anti-corruption task forces — the Major Crimes Task Force and the Sensitive Investigative Unit — would be allowed to conduct corruption probes of high-level government officials regardless of their political connections.
Karzai demanded more control over the work of the two teams, which are mentored by U.S. and British law enforcement officials, after the recent arrest of a top presidential adviser, Mohammad Zia Salehi, for allegedly accepting a car in exchange for help in exerting pressure on Afghan officials to ease off in another corruption case.
The Obama administration sees Salehi's arrest as a litmus test of Karzai's willingness to fight corruption.
Karzai confirmed during the interview that he had intervened "very, very strongly" because Salehi's civil rights were violated during his arrest.
"This man was taken out of his house in the middle of the night by 30 Kalashnikov-toting masked men in the name of Afghan law enforcement." he said. "This is exactly reminiscent of the days of the Soviet Union where people were taken away from their homes by armed people in the name of the state and thrown into obscure prisons in some sort of Kangaroo courts."
Nevertheless, Karzai said the case against Salehi would be allowed to proceed according to Afghan law.
"Corruption should be handled most effectively ... and with a lot of pressure, but it has to be across the board and apolitical and without vested foreign interests," he said.
Karzai also said he would press ahead with plans to disband Afghan and foreign security firms by the end of the year, despite U.S. concern the move might endanger American-run aid and development projects that rely on those companies for their own protection. Private security guards also protect NATO convoys ferrying supplies to American and other international bases throughout the country.
Even before Karzai's order last week, U.S. congressional investigators had been looking into allegations that Afghan security firms were extorting as much as $4 million a week from contractors paid with U.S. tax dollars and then funneling the money to warlords and the Taliban to avoid attacks against convoys.
Karzai said the presence of dozens of security companies was preventing the development of the government's own police and army because young Afghan men preferred to take jobs with private firms that pay better and don't impose discipline.
"I am appealing to the U.S. taxpayer not allow their hard-earned money to be wasted on groups that are not only providing lots of inconveniences to the Afghan people, but actually are, God knows, in contact with Mafia-like groups and perhaps also funding militants and insurgents and terrorists through those firms," Karzai said.
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Afghan police killed during airstrikeBy the
CNN Wire Staff August 21, 2010
(CNN) -- Three Afghan police officers were accidentally killed in an airstrike and a bomb killed five Afghan civilians in separate incidents in northern Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said on Saturday.
The airstrike incident, which occurred on Friday in Jowzjan province, began when insurgents shot at Afghan security forces, and the troops asked for air support.
An air weapons team consisting of two helicopters launched a hellfire missile and fired 30 mm rounds "toward an identified firing position."
The service members later found the three dead police and other wounded officers. ISAF dispatched a team to the region to investigate.
In the other incident, an improvised explosive device attack killed five Afghan civilians and wounded two other people on Saturday. One of those killed was a leader of the Arkabi, a local tribal militia.
"IEDs continue to kill and hurt innocent Afghan people who are going about their daily lives," said Col. Rafael Torres, ISAF spokesman.
In other violence, three NATO service members died in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, ISAF said two died in insurgent attacks and another one was killed by an improvised explosive device.
CNN's Joe Sterling contributed to this report
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Tribal clash leaves 20 injured in S Afghan province
Xinhua Aug. 21, 2010
QALAT, Afghanistan - A clash between two tribal groups in Afghanistan's southern Zabul province left at least 20 people injured with five of them in critical conditions, provincial administration spokesman Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar Saturday.
"The clashes took place in Suri district on Friday but the reason had not been determined so far," Rasoulyar told Xinhua.
A land dispute which trigged an ethnic clash between Afghan nomads and Hazara in Afghan capital Kabul left over a dozen people dead and injured last week.
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