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Taliban reconciliation unlikely: Gates
Mon Jan 18, 10:43 pm ET
ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said it was unlikely Taliban leaders would reconcile with Afghanistan's government but that lower ranking insurgents might be open to making peace with Kabul.
Taliban attack shows tactical skill, military limits
By Jonathon Burch And Hamid Shalizi – Tue Jan 19, 10:03 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban scored a strategic and political victory with brazen, well-timed attacks in the heart of Kabul on Monday, but the failed assaults on key government buildings also showed the limits to their military capacity.
Kabul on high alert after brazen Taliban strikes
by Lynne O'donnell – Tue Jan 19, 5:45 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The Afghan capital was on high alert on Tuesday after one of the most dramatic attacks on Kabul since the hardline Islamist Taliban were thrown from power more than nine years ago.
Karzai orders security review after Taliban attacks
by Lynne O'donnell
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday ordered a review of security in the capital after audacious attacks by Taliban militants highlighted the vulnerability of the city's defences.
Kabul paralyzed by bombings, shootouts with Taliban fighters
By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, January 19, 2010; A06
KABUL -- A small but determined squad of at least seven attackers laid siege to the heart of the Afghan capital Monday morning, detonating explosives, hurling grenades and engaging in a fierce four-hour gun battle with security forces in one of the most brazen insurgent assaults on Kabul in at least a year.
Talking Afghan peace while the Taliban strike
Reuters By Sue Pleming 01/18/2010
KABUL - Two minutes into an interview about how best to reintegrate the Taliban into Afghan society, a giant boom stopped a top presidential adviser mid-sentence.
A Little Too Close to the Battle in Kabul
New York Times By DEXTER FILKINS January 18, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - The man with the bulging shawl had only just exploded when the real battle got under way.
Kabul presents easy target for Taliban
Open city leaves militants relatively free to strike at will around official installations and hotels
guardian.co.uk Jon Boone in Kabul and Julian Borger Monday 18 January 2010
Today's attacks at the heart of Kabul were the biggest and most complex ¬assault on the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
U.N. report finds corruption rife in Afghanistan
By Adrian Croft – Tue Jan 19, 8:11 am ET
LONDON (Reuters) – Corruption costs Afghans $2.5 billion a year, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday, with the scale of bribery matching Afghanistan's opium trade.
UN: Afghan Corruption Matches Scale Of Opium Trade
January 19, 2010 By Antoine Blua Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says that Afghans paid out $2.5 billion in bribes over a 12-month period.
13 Taliban militants killed in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Clashes elsewhere in west Afghanistan claimed the lives of over a dozen insurgents and two policemen, police chief in the western region Ikramudin Yawar said on Tuesday.
Afghan Taliban Seek Ransom for Two Kidnapped Chinese (Update1)
By Eltaf Najafizada
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Afghan Taliban are seeking a ransom payment to release two Chinese engineers they seized on Jan. 16 in the country’s northwest.
China seeking to rescue abducted engineers
January 19, 2010
(AFP) - BEIJING — China said Tuesday it was making an all-out effort to rescue two Chinese engineers kidnapped in Afghanistan, and seeking to verify reports that they were seized by the Taliban.
Could foreign troop surge exacerbate vulnerability?
KABUL, 19 January 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of fresh foreign troops arrive in Afghanistan this year, but some prominent aid agencies are voicing concerns that this could lead to the intensification of the conflict, with dire humanitarian consequences.
Gates reassures India on Afghan mission
By Daniel Dombey and James Lamont in New Delhi January 19 2010 The Financial Times
The US on Tuesday sought to reassure a worried India of the Obama administration’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan, amid mounting fears in Delhi that Washington lacks the heart for a prolonged fight against the Taliban.
Congested border crossing may affect U.S. buildup in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, January 19, 2010
SPIN BOLDAK, AFGHANISTAN - The pace of President Obama's troop buildup in Afghanistan hinges in part on a narrow, pothole-riddled dirt track that is controlled by a 33-year-old suspected drug lord and by the whims of the Pakistani military.
Afghan troops vital cog in anti-Taliban surge
By Jason Gutierrez January 18, 2010
(AFP) – CAMP FIDDLER'S GREEN, Afghanistan — Afghan army platoon Sergeant Gul Wazir sizes up four new interpreters joining his unit as they prepare for a foot patrol that could turn deadly in a remote southern Afghan town.
Pakistani Woman Goes on Trial Over Afghanistan Attack (Update1)
By Patricia Hurtado
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- A Pakistani neuroscientist accused of attempting to kill U.S. soldiers and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Afghanistan in 2008 went on trial today in federal court in New York.
AFGHANISTAN: New IRIN book on loss in childbirth
NAIROBI, 19 January 2010 (IRIN) - One of the most risky places in the world for a woman in pregnancy or childbirth is Afghanistan. An Afghan woman is 225 times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in the UK, for example. There is hardly a family in Afghanistan that has not been touched by a tragic experience associated with childbirth.
Rare bird's breeding ground found in Afghanistan
By Michael Casey, Ap Environmental Writer – Mon Jan 18, 7:05 pm ET
BANGKOK – The first known breeding area of one of the world's rarest birds has been found in the remote and rugged Pamir Mountains in war-torn Afghanistan, a New York-based conservation group said Monday.
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Taliban reconciliation unlikely: Gates
Mon Jan 18, 10:43 pm ET
ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said it was unlikely Taliban leaders would reconcile with Afghanistan's government but that lower ranking insurgents might be open to making peace with Kabul.
Gates welcomed plans announced on Sunday by President Hamid Karzai's government to launch a new bid at making peace with Islamist militants, but said Taliban chief Mullah Omar and other leaders would be reluctant to lay down their arms until circumstances changed on the battlefield.
"Just speaking personally, I'd be very surprised to see a reconciliation with Mullah Omar," Gates told reporters aboard his plane en route to India.
"I think it's our view that until the Taliban leadership sees a change in the momentum and begins to see that they are not going to win, that the likelihood of reconciliation at senior levels is not terribly great," he said.
But he added that "we may see a real growth of reintegration at the local district and provincial level" as insurgents "come under pressure and know they're not going to win." Related article: Five dead as Taliban militants strike at Kabul
Those who left the insurgency needed assurances that their families would be protected from retaliation, he said.
Gates and top commanders have said previously that reconciliation efforts stood little chance of success without halting the momentum of the insurgents.
Karzai's new reconciliation plan will be announced ahead of a major international conference on Afghanistan due in London on January 28, his spokesman Waheed Omar said on Sunday.
Conceding that past efforts at peace have failed, Omar said the new plan would include economic incentives as many Taliban fighters had joined for cash rather than to support a hardline religious ideology.
President Barack Obama's administration had not yet seen the details of Kabul's new initiative, but Gates said wooing insurgents was vital to resolving the war.
Karzai has long called for peace talks with the Taliban -- even offering government posts to its leaders -- but the insurgents have refused dialogue until the withdrawal of NATO-led troops on which Kabul relies for security.
Omar said the new plan would reach out to militants in all ranks, from the political leadership to fighters on the ground.
Gates also expressed cautious optimism about the results of US military operations in the southern Helmand province, where a force of thousands of Marines has tried to push the Taliban out of towns and villages.
"I think people are heartened by the early signs of the success of the Marines in Helmand, but its early yet and I don't think anyone is prepared to go too far in sort of talking about success down there."
The Marines in Helmand are part of a surge of 30,000 reinforcements ordered by President Barack Obama last month.
The deployment of the additional troops was on schedule, with about 92 percent of the additional forces due to be in place by the end of August, he said.
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Taliban attack shows tactical skill, military limits
By Jonathon Burch And Hamid Shalizi – Tue Jan 19, 10:03 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban scored a strategic and political victory with brazen, well-timed attacks in the heart of Kabul on Monday, but the failed assaults on key government buildings also showed the limits to their military capacity.
The raids carried out by at least 10 gunmen, including suicide bombers, were well coordinated and bold even for Afghanistan and paralyzed the capital for several hours.
However, while the militants spread out across a strategic area near government ministries and a luxury hotel, they failed to seize any of their declared targets and instead holed up in a poorly defended shopping center.
"They just want to show their power, it was an 'attack show' from the Taliban, not a military-based action. I think there was not a military goal," said Wahid Mudjah, a Kabul-based writer and political analyst.
"They just wanted a show for the international community."
The attacks were perfectly timed. They came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai was swearing in cabinet members inside the presidential palace only hundreds of meters away, and after days of media chatter about a new "reintegration" drive to lure insurgents away from the battlefield.
They were also dramatic, with an exploding ambulance adding to compelling images of a city under siege. Gunfire and loud explosions shook Kabul as black smoke billowed from the shopping center where fighters battled security forces for hours.
Headlines in newspapers and television stations around the world talked of "terror in Kabul" and shattered confidence.
The overall casualty toll, however, was relatively low. And government forces never lost control of their key buildings.
Three members of the Afghan security forces and two civilians were killed and 71 people were wounded. Twenty people died last February in a similar commando-style attack.
"The attack was both a success and a failure for the Taliban. It was a psychological success but a failure in that they weren't able to cause a lot of casualties to Afghan security forces," said Abdul Halim Achakzai at the Kabul-based Center for Conflict and Peace Studies.
HEARTS AND MINDS
Capital cities are always vulnerable -- in Britain the Irish Republican Army managed to strike regularly at the heart of London, a far more modern, less chaotic capital, during their violent campaign against British control of Northern Ireland.
"For all the chaos, the damage was not that bad. This was not 1996 where the Taliban basically rolled into Kabul," Kamran Bokhari, regional director for Middle East and South Asia at international think-tank Stratfor, told Reuters.
That the Taliban were able to smuggle in weapons and explosives was in some measure a reminder of the government's policy in keeping Kabul a relatively open city.
Creating a barricaded fortress risks hurting the economy and cutting off the government.
But the raid also highlighted some of the more thorny problems Karzai and his Western backers face in winning over a country as sick of official corruption as it is of violence.
Some of the shopkeepers sifting through the scorched remains of their stock blamed not the attackers but the Taliban's foes.
"The (foreign) and Afghan troops acted very inhumanely by using flammable materials and completely destroyed our properties," said shopkeeper Abdul Rasheed. ISAF said they had troops in the area but had not torched any shops.
The Taliban seem as keen to bolster what support they have among ordinary Afghans as they are to intimidate the government and foreign and domestic security forces.
They recently issued orders to fighters to protect civilians, and during the raid the Taliban did not target shoppers or shopkeepers, instead shooting at walls and ceilings and ordering them to leave, said center manager Abdul Fatah Feroz.
"Clearly, the Taliban cannot allow for a sizeable amount of collateral damage, they cannot stomach that. This is an insurgency, it relies on public support," said Bokhari.
But the Taliban did succeed in spreading fear in an already weary and war-sick population.
"If the Taliban are strong enough to launch attacks just outside the presidential palace, how can we expect better security in the future?" said Feroz, as a crowd of around 30 shopkeepers sifted through the torched remains of their stock.
(Additional reporting by Golnar Motevalli and Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Paul Tait)
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Kabul on high alert after brazen Taliban strikes
by Lynne O'donnell – Tue Jan 19, 5:45 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The Afghan capital was on high alert on Tuesday after one of the most dramatic attacks on Kabul since the hardline Islamist Taliban were thrown from power more than nine years ago.
The authorities are likely to face questions about how the militants were able to penetrate the highly-fortified heart of Kabul, although top US and NATO officials hailed local security forces for their defence of the capital.
Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers launched a series of attacks Monday on commercial and government buildings and fought running gun battles with security forces, leaving five people dead and sending residents fleeing.
Militants managed to breach the city's security cordon as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in new members of his cabinet, part of the painfully slow process of forming a government since the fraud-tainted election last year.
The attacks, the most spectacular since the Taliban laid siege to government buildings in February 2009 and killed 26 people, have left the commercial heart of the city looking like a disaster zone, with buildings burned out and roads strewn with debris. Chronology: Attacks in Kabul
One child was killed, along with four members of the security forces, and more than 70 people were wounded after more than three hours of bombings and street battles, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said.
Seven militants were also killed, either blowing themselves up or shot dead by the security forces.
"Our security measures are always strict, we are always on high alert, and we will be tomorrow, and after," interior ministry spokesman Zamary Bashari said Monday.
The attack throws into question Karzai's plans to bring the Taliban in from the cold by offering fighters economic incentives to put down arms and reintegrate into mainstream Afghan society.
He is due to announce new reconciliation plan ahead of a major international conference on Afghanistan set for London on January 28, but Monday's attack has cast doubt on its chances for success.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Monday said it was unlikely Taliban leaders would reconcile with Afghanistan's government, though lower ranks -- those who fight for cash rather than ideology -- might be open to making peace.
Taliban chief Mullah Omar and other leaders would be reluctant to lay down their arms until circumstances changed on the battlefield, he told reporters travelling with him on a trip to India.
"I'd be very surprised to see a reconciliation with Mullah Omar," he said.
"I think it's our view that until the Taliban leadership sees a change in the momentum and begins to see that they are not going to win, that the likelihood of reconciliation at senior levels is not terribly great," he said. Related article: Taliban reconciliation unlikely, says Gates
But he added that "we may see a real growth of reintegration at the local district and provincial level" as insurgents "come under pressure and know they're not going to win".
The capital has avoided many of the bloodiest attacks waged by the Islamist militants since they launched an insurgency against the government and foreign troops after the toppling of the Taliban regime in the 2001 US-led invasion. Related article: Afghan troops vital cog in anti-Taliban surge
US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the 113,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban under US and NATO command, condemned the attacks while praising the actions of the Afghan security forces.
"Today's attack by the Taliban in Kabul is yet another example of their brutality and contempt for the Afghan people," McChrystal said in a statement.
His remarks were echoed by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
The attackers "made it clear, in their choice of targets, that their aim is to reverse the progress that Afghans are making in building better lives and a better future," he said. Eyewitness accounts: Terror in Kabul
The foreign minister of Australia, which has around 1,500 troops in southern Afghanistan where the Taliban are strongest, said the insurgents' intention was clear -- "to go right to the heart of the new Karzai government in Kabul".
"Afghanistan continues to be very difficult and very dangerous," Stephen Smith said.
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Karzai orders security review after Taliban attacks
by Lynne O'donnell
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday ordered a review of security in the capital after audacious attacks by Taliban militants highlighted the vulnerability of the city's defences.
Karzai called in security officials to discuss how the Islamist militants could have brought their war to the gates of his fortified palace on Monday morning, gunmen and suicide bombers bringing the city to a standstill.
Security forces were put on high alert after the blitz on commercial and government buildings in the most spectacular assault by the Taliban in a year that left raging fires and saw pitched street battles.
The attacks have thrown into question Karzai's plan to bring the militants in from the cold and cast a shadow over an international conference on Afghanistan's future.
Five people were killed, including a child and four members of the security forces, along with seven of the militants.
"After security briefings by the ministers of defence and interior, it was agreed that the current security plan for Kabul be reviewed and that they report back to the president for approval," a presidential statement said.
As the clean-up of Kabul was under way, residents and analysts voiced concern about security. Chronology: Attacks in Kabul
"Kabul is a big city with five million inhabitants, mainly poor people, and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda can take advantage of it and infiltrate the city," said analyst Haroun Mir.
Shopkeeper Fahim, whose store in the Qari Sami mall was destroyed when the building was stormed and set ablaze, said he had lost everything and blamed the government for allowing the attack to happen.
"The Taliban succeeded here, they have shown what they can do," he told AFP.
While the Afghan authorities investigated how the bombers could penetrate the commercial and political heart of the city, security forces won praise for averting a potentially far greater loss of life.
"Afghan National Security Forces effectively dealt with the situation and should be commended," said US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of international forces in Afghanistan, a sentiment echoed by the NATO chief.
Karzai declared that the Afghan security forces -- which are set to stand on their own within five years -- had brought the situation under control after three hours.
But the attack was highly symbolic as it struck the only part of Afghanistan controlled by local forces just as the Western-backed Karzai was swearing in ministers for his new cabinet.
The Taliban said on Tuesday the attack aimed to send several messages and was timed to coincide with the swearing-in ceremony.
A purported spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told AFP the attacks proved "the Taliban can't be bought off with money, they wage jihad and heed the orders of God.
"More troops are not the solution," he said, in an apparent reference to the extra 40,000 soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan this year by the US and NATO to reinforce the 113,000 international troops already fighting the Taliban.
"Seven of our people proved what we can do," Mujahid said.
The attacks "also sent a message to the international community before the London conference telling them that they have invested in an administration that is not capable," he said, speaking by telephone from an unknown location.
Karzai is due to announce a new reconciliation plan this week before a major international conference in London on January 28, but Monday's attacks cast doubt on its chances for success.
Wadir Safi, Kabul University political science professor, said the Taliban's "show of force" meant Karzai did not have a grip on the reconciliation process.
"(The attacks) happened at a time when Karzai has a plan for the Taliban, but he doesn't have contact with the important ones.
"It's a long process, there are Taliban in and around Kabul. They are here and can obviously be activated."
Afghanistan's intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh said the Taliban were not able to fight face-to-face.
But he conceded: "Terrorist attacks are a phenomenon that unfortunately we will be facing for a long time."
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Kabul paralyzed by bombings, shootouts with Taliban fighters
By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, January 19, 2010; A06
KABUL -- A small but determined squad of at least seven attackers laid siege to the heart of the Afghan capital Monday morning, detonating explosives, hurling grenades and engaging in a fierce four-hour gun battle with security forces in one of the most brazen insurgent assaults on Kabul in at least a year.
The attacks left two civilians and five members of the Afghan security forces dead and 71 people wounded, 35 of them civilians, according to senior Afghan security officials. The officials said most of the injuries were caused by grenade blasts. All seven assailants died in the assaults.
The siege once again highlighted the vulnerability of Kabul, where bombings and other attacks have become relatively common.
Afghan police, with the backing of the Afghan National Army, are responsible for security in the capital. But the training of Afghan security forces, here and throughout the country, remains a major concern for U.S. and NATO officials.
After the attacks ended Monday, the police seemed at times overwhelmed by the crowds of onlookers as they pushed to get closer to the scene. At one point, nervous policemen began firing volleys from automatic weapons in the air and aiming weapons directly at the onlookers to push them back. A plainclothes police officer angrily waved his pistol at a crowd of journalists and pointed it at the head of an American photographer who he thought was standing too close to a barricade.
A spokesman for the Taliban, in e-mail messages to news outlets, claimed responsibility for the assault. He said government ministries, the central bank and the presidential palace were among the targets.
The siege began at 9:50 a.m. when the first attacker blew himself up at a traffic circle not far from the heavily fortified presidential palace, where President Hamid Karzai was preparing to swear in 14 members of his cabinet.
About five minutes after that explosion, a band of three more attackers, concealing their weapons and explosives vests under heavy gray shawls, stormed into a shopping complex directly across a narrow street from the Justice Ministry, witnesses said. When a mall security guard confronted them, they opened their shawls to reveal their weapons and bombs, told him to get everyone out, and then raced to the top floor of the building.
"I was in my shop on the second floor. Three suicide bombers got in, but they went up to the very top floor," said Haji Abdul Ghafoor, 66, who had a clothing store in the mall. "The watchman started shouting for everybody to run away. . . . There was panic inside the building. Everybody was running. About five minutes later, the gunfire started."
A carpet seller in the mall, Shafiur Rahman Shinwari, 32, said he and about 25 other shopkeepers bolted themselves in the basement while the mayhem swirled above them. "I told every shopkeeper just keep quiet; turn off your cellphone," he said later. "If any cellphone rings, they'll know we are here."
"There was gunfire, there were grenades, it was like death," Shinwari said. After more than three hours, they were nearly overcome by the heat and smoke before they were rescued by security forces. "It was too hot, and because of the smoke, everybody was coughing," he said.
According to the government version of events, one of the three attackers at the mall then got into an ambulance and drove to the traffic circle by the Education Ministry, with a shawl covering his right hand, which was resting on a detonation switch. When he was stopped by police, "he got out of the ambulance and blew himself up," said Amrullah Saleh, the director of the Afghan government's National Directorate of Security, the intelligence service.
After the shopping mall was retaken, three militants holed up in a building next to a movie theater, setting off a battle with security forces there.
Afghan officials said the Taliban was trying to target civilians in the assault. "This kind of attack shows the weakness of the enemy," Saleh said. "It shows the terrorists have lost their ability to fight face to face. They are using terrorist activities and hurting innocent civilians."
Afghan officials praised the rapid response of security forces, which they said prevented further casualties, and they hinted that the attackers had come from across the border, without naming Pakistan.
By Monday night, the capital resembled an armed camp, with most of the center of the city closed off. Afghan police, soldiers and NATO forces were positioned at intersections and on rooftops, and businesses in the heart of the city shuttered.
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
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Talking Afghan peace while the Taliban strike
Reuters By Sue Pleming 01/18/2010
KABUL - Two minutes into an interview about how best to reintegrate the Taliban into Afghan society, a giant boom stopped a top presidential adviser mid-sentence.
"Oh my God, again it's a suicide (bomber)," said Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, adviser to the Afghan president on home security and the man in charge of devising a plan to reintegrate the Taliban.
"This is how you work in a country in war," he added, after which several more blasts followed, most probably grenades. A volley of gunshots was heard as Afghan security forces battled insurgents nearby.
Seemingly unfazed by the background noise, Stanekzai said he wanted to continue with the interview, offering tea.
"This can happen in any country, even a stable one."
Not quite. Monday's attacks, in which suicide bombers blew themselves up at several locations in Kabul and heavily armed militants fought a pitched battle with security forces, were brazen even by the standards of this country.
For months, Stanekzai has been working on a plan to reintegrate lower to mid-level Taliban fighters and bring them down from the hills, offering job training and protection once they make the decision to lay down their arms.
"This is why we have to prevent more people from joining this madness," said Stanekzai, who later heard his nephew was among those injured in Monday's strikes.
The new reintegration programme "is one of the most important things that we are doing, but hopefully this kind of violence will turn people against them," he said in an interview in the vice-presidential compound near the scene of the attacks. Staff in the compound were locked down as the attacks unfolded, prevented from leaving the building and moved away from windows. Streets nearby were blocked by security forces as helicopters clattered overhead and the sound of wailing ambulance sirens could be heard rushing to the scene.
MESSAGE
Stanekzai's reintegration plan is expected to be discussed by allies at an international conference in London on Jan. 28. He said he expected the Taliban were launching attacks before then as a show of force.
"Usually, this is the kind of thing they are doing. If there is a big event they do this. This is the kind of message they want to get to the media: that they can do something like this."
People in Afghanistan were tired of the war and wanted to live in peace, he said. The hope was that with increased military pressure, there would be an opportunity for insurgents to give themselves up and realize "they are not on the winning side."
However, he stressed the young men with explosives strapped inside their jackets who caused mayhem in Kabul on Monday were not on the list for reintegration.
"These are the ones who have to be brought to justice," he said. "The long-term impact of these programs is to prevent these kinds of incidents from happening."
"This is a tough life. It is a pity we have been like this for the past 30 years. Something has to be changed. Every day people are sacrificed without knowing for what," he said.
Minutes later, his chief of staff interrupted the interview. "Maybe it is time to go downstairs," he said, leading the official and the interviewer into a safe room in the basement.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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A Little Too Close to the Battle in Kabul
New York Times By DEXTER FILKINS January 18, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - The man with the bulging shawl had only just exploded when the real battle got under way.
The scene shifted quickly, like a movie reel sped up: The suicide bomber, stopped from entering Afghanistan's Central Bank, burst into pieces at its footsteps. Six surviving gunmen, who had wanted to follow their comrade inside, dashed instead into a shopping center and let loose from the rooftop with rifles and grenades. And hundreds of commandos with the Afghan government swarmed to the scene and opened fire.
For the next two hours the battle unfolded with cinematic vividness at the very heart of Afghanistan's American-backed government. Waves of commandos encircled and fired and blasted the gang of guerrillas inside. The guerrillas fired back with equal ferocity, and with the knowledge, surely, that they were going to die. Children and old men and office workers ran stricken in waves.
In the cacophony it was hard to know what to do.
“Should I abandon my post?” an Afghan soldier shouted into his radio.
“Stay!” his commander barked back, guns booming all around. “Stay at your post and fight!”
The war in Afghanistan does not come often to its capital. By and large the fight unfolds in the countryside, where the insurgents are, where the people live. For a capital at war, Kabul on most days is a remarkably quiet place, with daily life unfolding in its ordinary way. In this respect, it differs vastly from the capital city of that other American war, Baghdad, where the guerrillas and terrorists and government soldiers fought and died every morning for years.
Yet there the insurgents were, not 50 yards from the palace of President Hamid Karzai, trying to fight their way into one of the country's most important institutions. They'd come wrapped in baggy shawls, under which they'd hidden their guns and grenades and suicide vests. First dozens, then hundreds of Afghans rolled toward the fight, some in uniform, some in slacks, some with polished American gear, some with the rusting antiquated junk left behind from the Soviet epoch.
And they fought. The Afghan soldiers were undisciplined and chaotic, but no one flinched and everyone fired. They rushed to the battle like kids to a school yard brawl. After three decades of uninterrupted warfare, that's the way it is here.
“I ran out of ammo in there,” an Afghan soldier yelled at his comrade as he rushed out of the Faroshga market, where the militants were holed up. “You're supposed to be my friend and you didn't bring me anymore ammo.”
“I've got nothing left,” his buddy said.
Then, about an hour into the fighting, another explosion rocked the streets not a mile away. The ground trembled as if in an earthquake. In the heat of the fight, many soldiers thought they were being ambushed from the rear. But when they turned and looked up the street, they saw another wave of terrified civilians, running not away but to them.
The bullets came close, whizzing past too fast for me to think. I crouched behind an iron wall, pressing the thing for a cover, and an Afghan officer looked down at me with a mixture of bewilderment and rage.
“We have come here to die,” the officer said, shaking his head. “But why on earth are you here?”
After three hours the shooting began to die down. Another wave of civilians ran out, this one bank tellers and shopkeepers who had been trapped inside. They had cell phones to their ears; they were calling home.
“That was my mom,” said Mohammed Ayub, a young bank teller, puffing and smiling. “She's happy now.”
And then, finally, it was over, or nearly so. The Faroshga market burned and belched. The soldiers dragged two slain militants onto the sidewalk for display.
One of the guerrillas lay under a wet red blanket, the other beneath a black garbage bag. A soldier lifted the blanket, revealing a lifeless face cleaved wide open. The skin was pale, the hair black and the eyes wide open.
“Pakistani,” a man said. But there was no way to know.
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Kabul presents easy target for Taliban
Open city leaves militants relatively free to strike at will around official installations and hotels
guardian.co.uk Jon Boone in Kabul and Julian Borger Monday 18 January 2010
Today's attacks at the heart of Kabul were the biggest and most complex ¬assault on the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
But although the scale was more ambitious than previous attacks, the style was familiar. The attacks on -government buildings less than a year ago now look like a smaller dress rehearsal, involving, as they did, eight Taliban fighters and three main targets.
In between such spectaculars, attacks of one sort or another are common in Kabul. A western security official estimated there is a security incident, on average, every seven to 10 days.
The last few weeks have been a good illustration. On 15 December a suicide car bomber struck near a Kabul hotel. There were isolated rocket attacks on 26 December and 7 January, and then again last Friday.
As the capital of a country at the height of an insurgency that has been escalating over the past seven years as the Taliban seek to claw back control, Kabul is an inevitable and easy target.
It is the government's most vulnerable point, as attacks there cause immediate loss of face. The city also lies close to one of the main focal points of the conflict, the eastern provinces of Kunar and Laghman, where an insurgent group known as the Haqqani network is active.
The group, based in North Waziristan in Pakistan's tribal areas, is thought to have been responsible for last February's attacks and another bloody and well-planned attack two years ago on the Serena hotel, a favourite of visiting westerners. The network is consequently a leading suspect for the latest attack.
The Afghan government and its Nato supporters were tonight presenting the incident as the reflection of a glass half full, pointing to the quick response of the Afghan security forces.
Amarullah Saleh, the head of the NDS, Afghanistan's domestic intelligence agency, said "60%" of the attackers were killed before they could blow themselves up. "We did not allow them to spread catastrophe. By sacrificing their lives [the security forces] saved tens of Afghan civilians," Saleh said.
Brigadier General Éric Tremblay, the spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said: "This was an Afghan-led operation, rapidly seizing the initiative and rapidly neutralising a complex and synchronised attack."
As a result, Tremblay said, the insurgents were not able to inflict the sort of death and mayhem they had clearly intended to with so many suicide bombs.
But the attack was undoubtedly a blow to the image the Afghan government likes to project, of a country making its way towards normality.
President Hamid Karzai has called an international conference in Kabul this spring. If the conference were to go ahead, it would be under the same sort of conditions as Karzai's second inauguration, last November. Then, the whole city was closed down to allow the safe arrival and departure of hundreds of -visiting foreign dignitaries.
Closing down Kabul for any longer than a couple of days is not realistic. It is a bustling, crowded city of 3.5 million people which is growing rapidly at its edges. Foreign embassies and Isaf's headquarters are protected by multiple checkpoints. Those enclaves could be expanded to include the central business district and the main ministries, creating a Baghdad-style green zone, but only at the cost of strangling the economy and handing the insurgents a victory.
At present the police guard the main routes into the city and conduct occasional checks, sometimes as the result of intelligence. They could be made more rigorous, but that would bring an already sluggish flow of traffic to a standstill, and many bombers would still get through.
Tremblay argued that cities are impossible to defend against determined attackers who are willing to sacrifice their lives, citing the examples of the deadly attacks on Mumbai, London and Madrid.
The only short-term defence is intelligence. Zemerai Bashary, the interior ministry spokesman, said there had been intelligence reports that a ¬spectacular attack was on its way, but that those reports were not specific enough. A bomber with a car full of explosives was stopped on his way into Kabul on Sunday night. It was not clear whether he was linked to the attacks, but it seems likely, and in that case there could have been an intelligence failure.
"There had been steady indications that there was going to be an attempt to do something like this," a western security official said. "But with all the information you have coming in, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Many informants are paid, and so tell you what they think you want to hear. We try to cross-reference the information we get, but it's a difficult game to play."
In the longer term, most Afghan and western analysts agree, it is impossible to isolate the capital. Such attacks on Kabul are only likely to stop when the insurgency ends, and that will require a political settlement that still appears far off. Timeline of Kabul attacks
14 January 2008 Six people are killed, including a Norwegian journalist, in attack on the gym at the Serena hotel.
27 April President Hamid Karzai survives assassination attempt during a military parade close to his presidential palace. Three civilians are killed.
7 July sA suicide car bomb outside the Indian embassy kills 58 in biggest attack in the city since the war began.
20 October Two Taliban gunmen kill British aid worker Gayle Williams as she walks to work, accusing her of spreading Christian propaganda.
25 October David Giles, a Briton working for courier company DHL, is shot dead along with a South African colleague and an Afghan guard.
30 October - Five people die after suicide bomber blows himself up inside information ministry. The Taliban say foreign advisers inside were the targets.
11 February 2009 Taliban fighters, including suicide bombers, storm two government buildings. More than 20 people killed and nearly 50 wounded.
15 August Taliban suicide bomber kills seven and wounds 90 outside the headquarters for the Nato-led force.
17 September 10 Afghan civilians and six Italian soldiers die in a suicide car bomb attack on a road between Kabul's airport and the US embassy.
8 October Seven Afghan civilians are killed and 45 wounded in a blast outside the Indian embassy.
28 October Five foreign UN staff are killed when militants attack the Bekhtar international guest house.
13 November Car bomb explodes near a Nato convoy outside a US military base, injuring nine foreign soldiers, several civilian contractors and Afghan bystanders.
15 December Suicide car bomber strikes outside a former vice president's home in the main diplomatic neighbourhood, killing eight and wounding dozens.
18 January 2010 Attacks on multiple locations, including shopping malls and the central bank, kill at least four ¬security forces and one civilian. ¬Security officials say at least nine of the attackers were killed.
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U.N. report finds corruption rife in Afghanistan
By Adrian Croft – Tue Jan 19, 8:11 am ET
LONDON (Reuters) – Corruption costs Afghans $2.5 billion a year, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday, with the scale of bribery matching Afghanistan's opium trade.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said a national survey it conducted showed Afghans were more concerned by public dishonesty than insecurity or unemployment.
"Bribery is a crippling tax on people who are already among the world's poorest," UNODC's Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement, adding the scale of corruption was equivalent to nearly a quarter of the country's economic output.
He urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to "urgently administer tough medicine based on the United Nations Convention against Corruption which he pushed so hard to ratify."
U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western leaders have pressed Karzai to root out corruption in his administration.
The report was released nine days before an international conference on Afghanistan in London where Karzai is expected to face more calls to tackle graft from countries that have sent troops to help his government battle Taliban insurgents.
The London conference should set clear benchmarks for the Afghan government on corruption, Costa said.
Karzai, when he was sworn in for a second five-year term in November after a tainted election, promised measures to fight graft. But he has also defended his record on corruption, saying the issue had been "blown out of proportion" by Western media.
PART OF EVERYDAY LIFE
The report, based on interviews with 7,600 Afghans conducted between August and October last year with people in 12 provincial capitals and more than 1,600 villages around Afghanistan, found that graft was part of everyday life.
In the past year, one Afghan out of two had to pay at least one kickback to a public official such as a police officer, judge, prosecutor or member of the government.
The average bribe was $160 in a country where economic output per capita is just $425 a year.
In total, Afghans paid out $2.5 billion in bribes over the previous 12 months, equivalent to 23 per cent of Afghanistan's Gross Domestic Product and similar to the proceeds of Afghanistan's opium trade, the report said.
This was similar to the revenue of the opium trade in Afghanistan in 2009, which UNODC estimated at $2.8 billion.
Citizens were asked for bribes when they needed a document or a license, to have their rights protected in courts or to receive medical treatment, the report said.
Costa urged Karzai to turn the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption into "an independent, fearless and well funded anti-corruption authority. At the moment, this is not the case."
Public officials should be vigorously vetted, including through the use of lie detectors; public servants should disclose their incomes and assets; and governors and local administrators "with proven records of collusion with shady characters" should be removed, he said.
He called for transparency in public procurement, tenders and political campaigns, and for tighter regulation of financial institutions to prevent money laundering.
(Editing by Dominic Evans)
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UN: Afghan Corruption Matches Scale Of Opium Trade
January 19, 2010 By Antoine Blua Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says that Afghans paid out $2.5 billion in bribes over a 12-month period.
In a report issued today, titled "Corruption in Afghanistan," UNODC says the figure is equivalent to almost one-quarter of Afghanistan's gross domestic product (GDP), and is similar in size to the estimated $2.8 billion in revenues from the opium trade in 2009.
One Kabul resident tells RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that graft is part of everyday life.
“I think there is no one in Afghanistan who has not experienced the bad phenomenon of corruption. Everybody has faced corruption in government institutions, in court, and in the prosecutor's office," he says. "You can see corruption everywhere. About 20 minutes ago, in front of my eyes, police stopped a loaded truck and then let it go after the driver gave him 50 Afghanis. This is corruption, the bribe. People face it and see it everyday, including me."
The UN survey tells a similar story.
Based on interviews with 7,600 people in 12 provincial capitals and more than 1,600 villages around Afghanistan between autumn 2008 and autumn 2009, the survey shows that Afghans consider rampant corruption as their biggest problem.
Fifty-nine percent of the respondents felt that "public dishonesty is a bigger concern than insecurity (54 percent) or unemployment (52 percent)."
Explicit Demands
One Afghan out of two had to pay at least one kickback to a public official during the survey period.
More than half of the time, the request for illicit payment was an explicit demand by the service provider.
The report says citizens were asked for bribes when they needed a document or a license, to have their rights protected in courts, or to receive medical treatment.
In most instances, the bribes were paid in cash.
The average bribe was $160, in a country where GDP per capita is $425 per year.
A spokesperson for UNODC in Vienna, Walter Kemp, tells RFE/RL that corruption is a major impediment to improving security, development, and governance in Afghanistan.
"Corruption is not only a crime in itself, it's a lubricant for other forms of organized crime, like drug trafficking," Kemp says. "But not only that, it is a major impediment to development.
"If money which is designed to help the country disappears in a big, black hole, then that certainly hinders the ability for the country to rebuild itself. Also, it's a hindrance to security and, of course, the implementation of the rule of law."
UNODC found that the biggest culprits were police and local officials, followed by judges, prosecutors, and members of the government.
The international community does not escape criticism. The report says more than half of Afghans believe that international organizations and nongovernmental organizations "are corrupt and are in the country just to get rich."
It says this perception risks undermining aid effectiveness and discrediting those trying to help the country.
Set Clear Benchmarks
Meanwhile, lack of confidence in the ability of public institutions to deliver public goods is pushing Afghans to look for alternative providers of security and welfare, including antigovernment elements.
For all these reasons, UNODC urges the new Afghan government to make fighting corruption its highest priority.
Kemp says an international conference on Afghanistan in London later this month should set clear benchmarks for the Afghan government on corruption.
"We're calling for the international community to use the UN convention against corruption as the benchmark for measuring progress in Afghanistan," Kemp says. "And there's plenty of very concrete measures in there about how to prevent corruption, about how to criminalize corruption, how to recover stolen assets, and so on. So we're saying: There's no need to start from scratch."
The UNODC is also calling on President Hamid Karzai to turn the country's anticorruption agency, the High Office of Oversight and Anticorruption, into an independent, fearless and well-funded authority.
Since Karzai began a new term in November after an election marred by massive fraud, his Western allies have put him under mounting pressure to crack down on corruption.
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13 Taliban militants killed in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Clashes elsewhere in west Afghanistan claimed the lives of over a dozen insurgents and two policemen, police chief in the western region Ikramudin Yawar said on Tuesday.
"Police forces ambushed Taliban fighters in Bakwa district of western Farah province Monday killing eight rebels and injuring six others," yawar told Xinhua.
He also said that militants stormed a police checkpoint in Balamirghab district of Badghis province on the same day (Monday) and killed a police constable.
However, he insisted that police returned fire and eliminated five militants.
Taliban outfit has not to make comment yet.
Militancy and conflicts have been rising since beginning this year as both Taliban and government troops have speed up operations to consolidate their grip.
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Afghan Taliban Seek Ransom for Two Kidnapped Chinese (Update1)
By Eltaf Najafizada
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Afghan Taliban are seeking a ransom payment to release two Chinese engineers they seized on Jan. 16 in the country’s northwest.
Taliban guerrillas based in Faryab province abducted the men, who were working on a road-building project near the border with Turkmenistan, said Ahmed Jawed Bedar, a spokesman for the provincial governor. “The kidnappers said they will release them in exchange for payment,” Bedar said by phone from Meymaneh, the provincial capital.
Bedar said he did not know how much the Taliban are demanding in what is the movement’s first known abduction of Chinese citizens in the country. Akhtar Mohammed, a Taliban commander in western Afghanistan, confirmed by phone that Faryab-based Taliban are holding the Chinese and seeking ransom.
The Chinese government is “making every effort” to rescue the men, who were seized by “unknown armed forces,” foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters in Beijing. China is increasing its presence in Afghanistan after having won the right in 2007 to develop the Aynak copper deposit, the country’s biggest mining project.
While Afghan Taliban have abducted non-Chinese foreigners for ransom, they have not previously claimed responsibility for any of the few attacks there against Chinese citizens. Unknown gunmen shot dead 11 Chinese road workers in northern Afghanistan in June 2004, in what officials said then may have been a contract dispute.
China’s state-owned People’s Daily said Chinese analysts are “perplexed, as they believe that it is not Taliban strategy to challenge China.”
Across the Afghan border in Pakistan, where China also has stepped up infrastructure-building projects, Taliban have kidnapped at least four Chinese workers since 2004. One was killed in a rescue attempt by the Pakistani army, while three were freed.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eltaf Najafizada in New Delhi at enajafizada1@bloomberg.net;
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China seeking to rescue abducted engineers
January 19, 2010
(AFP) - BEIJING — China said Tuesday it was making an all-out effort to rescue two Chinese engineers kidnapped in Afghanistan, and seeking to verify reports that they were seized by the Taliban.
"On January 16, two staff members of a Chinese corporation were kidnapped in Afghanistan. They were kidnapped by unknown armed forces," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.
"The relevant departments are investigating relevant issues and verifying the situation. They are making every effort to rescue these two people and ensure their safety."
A local Afghan official said Sunday that the two engineers had been helping to build a road in northern Faryab province when they were kidnapped along with their two local drivers and two guards.
Taliban spokesman Yusuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the abduction, saying the Taliban's Islamic court, or shura, would decide on their fate.
Ma said China was seeking to verify if the kidnappers were in fact members of the hardline Islamist group.
Criminal gangs and Taliban insurgents have kidnapped several dozen foreigners, many of them journalists, in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led operation to topple the Taliban.
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Could foreign troop surge exacerbate vulnerability?
KABUL, 19 January 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of fresh foreign troops arrive in Afghanistan this year, but some prominent aid agencies are voicing concerns that this could lead to the intensification of the conflict, with dire humanitarian consequences.
The civilian death toll has been mounting, and insecurity, attacks on, and intimidation of, aid agencies have also squeezed humanitarian space across the country, thus reducing or denying essential services to many vulnerable communities.
“In our experience, every massive increase in troops since 2005 has led to intensification and spreading of the conflict and an increase in civilian casualties,” Reto Stocker, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Afghanistan, told IRIN.
Over eight years after the Taliban were ousted by a US-led military intervention, the situation in the country has been described as fragile and critical by the UN Secretary-General - a point further emphasized on 18 January with a series of deadly attacks on the centre of Kabul.
President Obama has said the extra 30,000 US troops would help secure areas and create safe environments for development to take place, but the Taliban have vowed to step up their campaign of violence in 2010, and have been doing so even during the customary winter lull in fighting.
Vulnerability
“If the increase in troop numbers means access to conflict areas diminishes further that will exacerbate vulnerability,” said Sheilagh Henry, head of field coordination at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Should there be a further escalation of armed conflict in 2010,” warned Charlotte Esther Olsen, country director of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), “NRC with the humanitarian community in Afghanistan is concerned that high levels of internal displacement, or flight to neighbouring countries may occur.”
IRIN asked spokespeople at the headquarters of the NATO-led forces in Kabul about the aid agencies’ concerns but received no specific answer.
Further intensification of the conflict could have a disastrous impact on civilians that have already been badly affected by the fighting, aid agencies say.
They also fear that they themselves could increasingly become targets, with the insurgents aiming to create a widespread sense of insecurity, thus making humanitarian work more risky and difficult. The troop surge could also increase the military’s involvement in civilian, humanitarian and assistance projects, further blurring civilian and military boundaries.
“Important civilian objectives”
In his last briefing to the UN Security Council as Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Afghanistan on 6 January, Kai Eide warned: “The military surge must not be allowed to undermine equally important civilian objectives.”
Eide proposed strengthening Afghan government institutions, improving aid effectiveness and enhancing coordination among donors as key civilian objectives which should complement the military surge.
“Institutional development and enhanced coordination are long-term objectives,” said Ajmal Samadi, director of Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM), a Kabul-based rights watchdog. “There is an urgent need for a response plan to the immediate humanitarian consequences of the anticipated rise in conflict in 2010.”
Traditional humanitarian principles stress assistance should be independent and impartial - serving the victims rather than any political agenda. In Afghanistan, holding that line has proven difficult.
Humanitarian Action Plan
OCHA said it has launched a US$860 million Humanitarian Action Plan for 2010 in which vulnerable populations in Afghanistan are the key focus. Additionally, the organization is keen to set up an “Emergency Response Fund” which would help aid agencies to access a pool of funding readily available to respond to emergencies, including conflict-induced emergencies.
“The government, as the body ultimately responsible for the safety and security of the people of Afghanistan, must look into contingency plans for displacement,” said OCHA’s Henry.
However, much of OCHA's and other aid agencies’ planning and strategies will depend on access, security and implementing capacity.
An attack on a guest house in Kabul on 28 October in which five UN international employees were killed has affected the organization’s capacity: Since the incident, over 340 UN international workers have been temporarily relocated outside Afghanistan.
IRIN asked the ICRC, the UN and other aid agencies what should be done to minimize the impact of the conflict on civilians:
“The most efficient way to avert unnecessary suffering in times of conflict is strict adherence to international humanitarian law,” said Reto Stocker of the ICRC.
“We hope the number one priority in military operations will be civilian safety and protection,” Aleem Siddique, spokesman of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN.
“Military actors must adhere to the civil-military guidelines elaborated by the Afghanistan National Civil Military Working Group in 2007 in order to improve NGO security,” said Charlotte Olsen of the NRC.
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Gates reassures India on Afghan mission
By Daniel Dombey and James Lamont in New Delhi January 19 2010 The Financial Times
The US on Tuesday sought to reassure a worried India of the Obama administration’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan, amid mounting fears in Delhi that Washington lacks the heart for a prolonged fight against the Taliban.
As the US steps up its effort to win international assistance for Afghanistan ahead of a conference on the country in London next week, Robert Gates, US defence secretary, told Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, that Washington did not intend to cut and run.
Some Indians have been unnerved by President Barack Obama’s announcement last year that the US would seek to begin taking forces out of Afghanistan in July 2011 – a plan the US president unveiled even as he authorised the accelerated deployment of 30,000 extra troops.
One concern is that without a strong US presence in Afghanistan the country will once again fall under the sway of India’s rival, Pakistan, which backed the Taliban in the 1990s. Another is that the spread of Islamist militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan will lead to attacks on India, the world’s largest democracy and a state with a Hindu majority.
Speaking after Mr Gates' meetings with Mr Singh and with S.M. Krishna, external affairs minister, a senior US defence official said Mr Gates anticipated both men’s concerns about Afghanistan.
“We are not going to leave the region,” Mr Gates said, according to the official. “As the military component of the counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan achieves success the economic and our political components of our engagement will rise in comparison."
The official said that India indicated its willingness to contribute more to infrastructure and health projects in Afghanistan.
New Delhi has received Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Sherard Cowper-Coles, the UK’s special representative for Afghanistan, in recent days. Both were seeking India’s co-operation ahead of the international conference in London on Afghanistan, which seeks to bolster support for President Hamid Karzai’s government.
On the flight to Delhi, Mr Gates addressed the timetable for the troop surge in Afghanistan, which has provoked doubts about both the July 2011 transition and Mr Obama's pledge to get the 30,000 extra troops in place by this summer.
“We knew from the outset that it would be a challenge,” Mr Gates said of the rapid deployment. “We still are on track to have about 92 per cent of the forces in there by the end of August.”
He added that convincing the Taliban leadership to give up the fight largely depended on the US’s military success: “Until the Taliban leadership sees a change in the momentum and begins to see that they are not going to win, that the likelihood of significant reconciliation at senior levels is not terribly great.”
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Congested border crossing may affect U.S. buildup in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, January 19, 2010
SPIN BOLDAK, AFGHANISTAN - The pace of President Obama's troop buildup in Afghanistan hinges in part on a narrow, pothole-riddled dirt track that is controlled by a 33-year-old suspected drug lord and by the whims of the Pakistani military.
It is down this road each month that thousands of cargo trucks bearing U.S. and NATO military supplies pass through the only major border crossing in southern Afghanistan -- the area where most American troop reinforcements are scheduled to deploy.
Here at the border crossing, where traffic switches from the left side of the road in Pakistan to the right in Afghanistan, supply trucks must pass along with the flood of pedestrians, donkey carts, drug shipments and materials to make roadside bombs. Only about 2 to 3 percent of the vehicles are regularly searched, and payoffs to border guards are rampant, U.S. military officials say.
The chaos and congestion of this border crossing have become a matter of urgent concern as military logisticians scramble to fulfill Obama's plan for bringing 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year. Compounding the problem is that Pakistan has been slow to respond to U.S. proposals to create a separate lane for coalition military vehicles and nighttime crossing rights, U.S. officials say.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, flew to Quetta, Pakistan, on Monday to meet with Pakistani military commanders, then toured the border crossing with officials from both countries.
"It's absolutely key to have this gate functioning better," said Maj. Gen. Hubert De Vos, a Belgian army officer who is the deputy chief of staff for resources with the coalition military command. "It's a direct link to the south, and the south is absolutely critical."
Hastening overland supplies of fuel, food and military equipment to Afghanistan is just one issue in a frenzy of logistical work that is required to feed, house and protect soldiers coming to fight. The military is rushing to construct and expand military bases, dig wells and build power plants, dining halls, aircraft landing strips and temporary housing. At the end of each week, coalition officials responsible for southern Afghanistan convene for hours to monitor the progress -- meetings that have earned the nickname "Friday night fights."
Maj. Gen. Don T. Riley, the chief engineer for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the pace of traffic through Spin Boldak needs to increase to 150 NATO supply trucks a day, up from the current average of just under 100. These additional trucks are needed, among other reasons, to slake the military's demand for fuel, which is expected to increase by 30 to 40 percent.
The U.S. military has longer-term plans to build a bypass road around the crossing. In the short term, it is pushing for overnight access through the border.
But for the past month, Pakistan has given little ground. Part of the problem is apparently bureaucracy, with at least five Pakistani agencies involved in providing security for NATO convoys between the port city of Karachi and the border. In the past, Pakistani officials also have criticized U.S. plans to increase troop levels, arguing that an intensified war will spread back into their country.
There is trouble on the Afghan side as well. The urgency to increase the flow of military supplies has forced the U.S. military to rely heavily on Abdul Razziq, the illiterate local commander of the Afghan border police.
According to U.S. military officials, Razziq wields near total control over Spin Boldak and the border crossing. Razziq, a former anti-Taliban fighter, owns a trucking company, commands 3,500 police, effectively controls the local government, and reportedly takes in millions from extorting passing vehicles and trafficking drugs. He is a colonel, but his soldiers call him "general." On Monday, Razziq popped pistachios while smiling and chatting with U.S. generals.
Razziq can shut down the border crossing at will. He also provides intelligence to Americans about potential attacks and keeps the insurgency in check in his area. He says he is amenable to U.S. plans to fast-track NATO supplies but has tried to keep U.S. soldiers at arm's length at the crossing point.
Razziq said in a telephone interview that the allegations against him are "totally baseless," and that in the past three months his police has confiscated 11 tons of drugs and arrested at least 15 traffickers. "If they have any kind of evidence, then they should present that evidence," he said.
Razziq's power also seems to anger Pakistan, which already has a fraught relationship with Afghanistan over the disputed border. One Western official who works with the Pakistani Army said Pakistan wants the border crossing to be more efficient to avoid backups on its side.
But, he said, Pakistani officials find Razziq "unpalatable," think that he is slowing traffic and are upset that "he's getting all the money." Fittingly, the Friendship Gate, which marks the border with dual archways, is locked.
Riley, the chief engineer, said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, regional envoy Richard C. Holbrooke and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry are "all working feverishly to get the two governments to work a little more closely together" to speed supplies.
After his meetings in Quetta and Spin Boldak on Monday, McChrystal sounded optimistic.
"We want to make sure that it's as efficient as it can be," he said of the border crossing. "And instead of it being something where the two nations don't work closely together, we'd really like it to be something that's a little closer to a handshake. And I think we can do that."
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.
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Afghan troops vital cog in anti-Taliban surge
By Jason Gutierrez January 18, 2010
(AFP) – CAMP FIDDLER'S GREEN, Afghanistan — Afghan army platoon Sergeant Gul Wazir sizes up four new interpreters joining his unit as they prepare for a foot patrol that could turn deadly in a remote southern Afghan town.
Wazir and his 32-man unit operating alongside America's 1st Battalion 6th Marine regiment are a vital cog in Helmand province, which is the focus of a surge in US troops fighting the Taliban insurgency.
"I need you to tell us if you hear of anything from the other side. We want to know everything if we are going to enter a village," Wazir told the new recruits as his American counterparts stood nearby.
"We have only one enemy: the Taliban. We should finish the enemy and bring freedom to our countrymen."
The 24-year-old father of one began working alongside US forces six years ago. The training has paid dividends as his men are now professional soldiers using state-of-the-art American weaponry.
He has also learned valuable lessons in planning and strategy, as well as how to "manage information" -- the military term for countering Taliban propaganda.
He says he believes the Marines value his work, and living in the same barracks or together in the field he has come to appreciate what some Afghans see as an invading force. Related article: Five dead as Taliban hit Kabul
But following President Barack Obama's setting of an 18-month timeline to begin drawing down US forces, Wazir said he feared the worst.
"We are happy we are working with them. We cannot do anything if they want to leave soon, but we are grateful for all the assistance," Wazir said.
"These are good fighters, and I want to believe we are ready once they (the Americans) leave. But so will the Taliban."
Obama, the head of US and NATO forces, General Stanley McChrystal, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai say they are determined the country will take responsibility for security within five years.
To make sure, they plan to reach a benchmark of 400,000 security forces -- comprising army and police -- within 18 months.
There are nearly 100,000 troops in the Afghan army, which is projected to grow to 136,000 next year. Karzai's allies would like it to grow as high as 240,000 soldiers.
These ambitious figures have sown concerns that recruits will be taken on to fit the quantity, not quality requirements of a government in a hurry to finally prove it is up to the job.
Experts warn the nation lacks literate young men, senior soldiers with leadership skills, facilities for training, and money for weapons.
With almost 40,000 more troops due to arrive in Afghanistan from the United States and its NATO allies in 2010, Western leaders are eager to show Afghan forces are making enough progress for them to start thinking about withdrawal.
Western public opinion has turned against the commitment to Afghanistan, as voters grow weary of a rising death toll in a far away war.
General Egon Ramms, a German commander in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, said late last year that of 94,000 Afghan soldiers trained, 10,000 had defected, and an estimated 15 percent of the armed forces were drug addicts.
Hoping to strengthen its forces, the Afghan government recently announced a 33 percent pay rise for soldiers and police, which has boosted recruitment and morale.
Sergeant Galen Haffner, who oversees Wazir's unit, said the Afghan soldiers were fierce on the battlefield but still rough around the edges.
Getting past the language barrier was also a problem, and instructions relayed through the chain of command needed to be carefully repeated.
"These are real warriors. They are probably better off than most of these young American guys who are out here in combat," Haffner said.
"But I don't think they are ready to do it on their own."
In particular he highlighted problems checking soldiers' backgrounds for possible links to the Taliban.
"There really is no question about their capability to fight, but once we pull out they would have to do it on their own," Haffner said.
"Without logistical help from us and any additional support from the Afghan government, they will fail."
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Pakistani Woman Goes on Trial Over Afghanistan Attack (Update1)
By Patricia Hurtado
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- A Pakistani neuroscientist accused of attempting to kill U.S. soldiers and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Afghanistan in 2008 went on trial today in federal court in New York.
Aafia Siddiqui, 37, who was educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University, is accused of “attempting to kill United States officers and employees” and assaulting the officials, according to an indictment.
Afghan police detained Siddiqui outside the compound of the governor of Ghazni province on July 17, 2008, when she allegedly was found carrying documents on bomb making.
A day later, while being questioned, Siddiqui allegedly attacked U.S. officials, including two FBI officers when she grabbed a U.S. Army officer’s rifle and fired it at U.S. agents and officers. When an interpreter and agents attempted to subdue her, she assaulted them, according to prosecutors.
Siddiqui was shot and wounded in the incident, prosecutors said.
U.S. prosecutors said in court papers that the notes she carried included references to “dirty bombs,” “cells” and a “mass casualty attack” that listed various U.S. locations including Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. Saddiqui also had a computer thumb drive with “over 500 electronic documents” that contained “anti-American sentiments and references to the creation and use of various weapons.”
Siddiqui isn’t accused of planning attacks on the landmarks or of any terrorism charges, according to the indictment.
Siddiqui, who has a biology degree from MIT and a doctorate from Brandeis, attended school in the U.S. from 1991 until June 2002, prosecutors said. She returned in December and left in January 2003, the U.S. said in court papers.
“I am someone who spent 12 years in the U.S. and am grateful to the U.S. for my college education,” Siddiqui wrote in a letter to the court last July.
Siddiqui’s attorneys have argued she suffered from a “delusional disorder” and was “self-destructive.” Prosecutors argued she was “malingering.” U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman, who is presiding over the case, found her competent to stand trial.
During jury selection last week, Siddiqui interrupted the trial with outbursts and the judge ordered her escorted out of the courtroom. Siddqui was allowed back in the courtroom for opening statements today.
Siddiqui told the court she “had nothing to do with 9/11” and suggested Israel was behind the attacks while insisting she’s not an anti-Semite.
Berman later said Siddiqui has a right to be present in court for her trial.
If convicted of the crime of carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, Siddiqui faces as long as life in prison, said Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan.
The case is U.S. v. Aafia Siddiqui, 08-CR-00826, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in New York at pathurtado@bloomberg.net.
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AFGHANISTAN: New IRIN book on loss in childbirth
NAIROBI, 19 January 2010 (IRIN) - One of the most risky places in the world for a woman in pregnancy or childbirth is Afghanistan. An Afghan woman is 225 times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in the UK, for example. There is hardly a family in Afghanistan that has not been touched by a tragic experience associated with childbirth.
In Veil of Tears, a 60-page colour booklet [http://www.irinnews.org/pdf/Veil_of_Tears.pdf] (PDF Download, 4MB) launched today, IRIN brings you a unique collection of personal stories of loss and courage in childbirth, as told by women, men and children from different parts of Afghanistan.
The stories were originally recorded in local languages, Dari and Pashto, for IRIN Radio broadcasts.[http://www.irinnews.org/RadioCountry.aspx?Country=AFG] Transcribed into English in Veil of Tears, they convey the immediacy and intimacy of the interviews conducted by IRIN reporters, who travelled in some cases for several days to reach the remotest villages in Afghanistan.
The testimonies in Veil of Tears offer some rarely reported perspectives on the issue of maternal mortality and as a compilation tell much about the state of today's Afghanistan in the words of some of its most ordinary citizens.
The interviewees in the booklet talk about the struggle to get enough nutritious food to sustain a woman through pregnancy, and to feed their families on any given day; they describe the awesome distances and terrain that separate people living in the villages from the nearest health facility; they describe the lack of proper roads and transport that may leave a donkey cart as the only option to attempt a life-or-death journey with a pregnant wife or mother to a hospital; they explain the cultural and social rules that might mean decisions by men are made too late to save a woman and her baby.
The women in these stories speak out, and some describe brave efforts to educate themselves against all the odds in order to fight for better reproductive health services for other women.
The Afghan government and its partners have made notable achievements, such as increasing the number of health facilities in the country from 400 in 2001 to 1,755 in 2008, and developing midwifery training programmes, but huge challenges remain to be tackled to make childbirth safer for Afghan women.
Veil of Tears showcases some of the work of IRIN's Kabul-based radio project, which closed at the end of 2009 after six years of humanitarian radio production and journalistic capacity building in Afghanistan. IRIN's radio work continues in Somalia [http://www.irinnews.org/RadioCountry.aspx?Country=SO], where we broadcast daily humanitarian news and information directly to Somalia on shortwave and via partner FM stations in the country.
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Rare bird's breeding ground found in Afghanistan
By Michael Casey, Ap Environmental Writer – Mon Jan 18, 7:05 pm ET
BANGKOK – The first known breeding area of one of the world's rarest birds has been found in the remote and rugged Pamir Mountains in war-torn Afghanistan, a New York-based conservation group said Monday.
A researcher with the Wildlife Conservation Society stumbled upon the small, olive-brown large-billed reed warbler in 2008 and taped its distinctive song — a recording experts now say is probably the first ever. He and colleagues later caught and released 20 of the birds, the largest number ever recorded, the group says.
At the time, however, Robert Timmins, who conducting a survey of aviary communities along the Wakhan and Pamir rivers, thought he was observing a more common warbler species.
But after a visit to a Natural History Museum in Tring in England to examine bird skins, Timmins realized he had something else on his hands.
Lars Svensson, a Swedish expert on the family of reed warblers and familiar with their songs, was the first to suggest that Timmins' tape was likely the first recording of the large-billed reed warbler.
"Practically nothing is known about this species, so this discovery of the breeding area represents a flood of new information on the large-billed reed warbler," said Colin Poole, executive director of group's Asia Program. "This new knowledge of the bird also indicates that the Wakhan Corridor still holds biological secrets and is critically important for future conservation efforts in Afghanistan."
Researchers returned to the site of Timmins' first survey in 2009, armed with mist nets used to catch birds for examination. The research team broadcast the recording of the song, which brought in large-billed reed warblers from all directions, allowing the team to catch 20 of them for examination and to collect feathers for DNA.
Lab work comparing museum specimens with measurements, field images, and DNA confirmed the find: the first-known breeding population of large-billed reed warblers.
"This is great news from a little-known species from a remote part of the world and suggests that there may be more discoveries to be made here," said Mike Evans, an expert on birds in the region for BirdLife. He did not take part in the discovery.
Researchers are hoping the discovery sheds light on the bird, which U.K-based Birdlife International in 2007 called one of the world's rarest. The first specimen was discovered in India in 1867, with more than a century elapsing before a single bird was found in Thailand in 2006.
But the announcement of the discovery of a home to the large-billed reed warbler came the same day Taliban militants launched an assault the Afghan capital, underscoring the challenges of doing conservation work in the country.
The bird was discovered in the Pamir Mountains, a sparsely populated region near China that has been relatively peaceful. It is, however, difficult to access — part of the reason the breeding site is only now being discovered.
WCS is the only conservation group doing scientific studies in Afghanistan. It has been involved in helping set up the first national park, Band-e-Amir, in central Afghanistan as well as working with the government to create the first-ever list of protected species.
A preliminary paper on the finding appears in the most recent edition of BirdingASIA, the magazine of the Oriental Bird Club.
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