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Kabul to need West for 15 years as UK talks open
by Katherine Haddon – Thu Jan 28, 4:51 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Kabul will need international support for up to 15 years, President Hamid Karzai warned on Thursday as a key summit on Afghanistan's future began in London, focusing on plans to buy-off Taliban fighters.
Karzai Says It Will Take Years to Train Afghan Forces
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL The New York Times January 29, 2010
LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain opened an international conference on Afghanistan here on Thursday, saying international efforts to end the eight-year-old war had reached a “decisive time.”
Taliban Calls Afghanistan Meeting Useless
Conference in London Will Produce No Meaningful Results, Says Taliban
The Associated Press via CBS News
The Taliban are dismissing this week's Afghanistan conference in London, saying it will produce no more results than previous gatherings organized by "the invaders," meaning the U.S. and its allies.
Karzai seeks Afghan reconciliation
Aljazeera.net
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has said his country must reach out to its "disenchanted brothers" in an effort to stabilise the war ravaged nation.
Afghan Tribe to Fight Taliban in Return for Aid From U.S.
By DEXTER FILKINS The New York Times January 28, 2010
JALALABAD, Afghanistan — The leaders of one of the largest Pashtun tribes in a Taliban stronghold said Wednesday that they had agreed to support the American-backed government, battle insurgents and burn down the home of any Afghan who harbored Taliban guerrillas.
Afghanistan summit: Why is the US backing talks with the Taliban?
Heading into this week's summit of Afghan allies in London, the top US general in Afghanistan said he supported President Hamid Karzai's plan to reach out to the Taliban.
By Gordon Lubold The Christian Science Monitor Staff writer January 27, 2010 at 8:42 pm EST
Washington — Only the first few thousand “surge” forces have arrived in Afghanistan as part of the effort to tame the Taliban’s resurgence there. But the top US commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is already talking about a negotiated peace with the enemy – a move that would seem counterintuitive so early in the new counterinsurgency campaign.
Karzai urges West to help draw in the Taliban
by Katherine Haddon
LONDON (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged Western partners to help him woo moderate Taliban insurgents as an international fund to pay them off was launched on Thursday at a major conference in London.
Swedish diplomat named top UN envoy to Afghanistan
By John Heilprin, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jan 27, 6:09 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. chief named a veteran Swedish diplomat on Wednesday to serve as the next top U.N. official in Afghanistan, a day ahead of a 60-nation conference in London on the nation's future.
International allies mull exit from Afghanistan
By David Stringer And Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writers – Thu Jan 28, 6:44 am ET
LONDON – Major world powers opened talks Thursday seeking an end to the grinding conflict in Afghanistan, drafting plans to hand over security responsibilities to local forces and quell the insurgency with an offer of jobs and housing to lure Taliban fighters to renounce violence.
Afghanistan summit: Gordon Brown says 'tide must turn'
Thursday, 28 January 2010 BBC News
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said mid-2011 should be the deadline for "turning the tide" in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan.
The Afghan conference: A blueprint for victory or a call to retreat?
Deutsche Welle By Chris Kline 01/27/2010
London is a long way from the battlefields of the Hindu Kush but on Thursday, the British capital will see the NATO allies and the Afghan government try to hammer out a viable strategy to defeat the Taliban.
Top Afghan Minister: We Need The Taliban
Sky News By Peter Hoskins 01/27/2010
Afghanistan's finance minister has told Sky News that inviting the Taliban into government is the best thing for his country's future.
Embattled US troops take cynical view of progress in Afghanistan
The Guardian By Jon Boone in Bala Murghab 01/27/2010
Reintegration will be high on London agenda – but that might be hard for some to swallow, not least the US soldiers in field
We will stay until Afghanistan is secure
Transition is not a code word for exit. Today's conference will give our mission another boost
The Times Anders Fogh Rasmussen January 28, 2010
International conferences are ten a penny; many deliver little more than long communiqués and longer speeches. Today, almost 70 world leaders will meet in London to take forward the international effort to bring peace to Afghanistan — and this conference must and will be different. It must deliver results.
Afghanistan: More talks, more war
The Guardian Thursday 28 January 2010
No international conference on Afghanistan would be complete without the leak of a memo to undermine it. The damage was done to today's conference in London by the publication of diplomatic cables from the US ambassador in Kabul.
Up to 20 insurgents killed in Afghan clash: NATO
Thu Jan 28, 2:48 am ET
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan and NATO forces called in air support after coming under attack from a "large number" of militants in northern Afghanistan and killed up to 20 insurgents, officials said Thursday.
Military partnerships may be the nation's best path to peace
Washington Post By David Ignatius Thursday, January 28, 2010
Gen. Stanley McChrystal this week expressed a truth that military commanders know better than anyone: "A political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome," he told the Financial Times. The problem is getting to that political settlement in a way that the combatants find acceptable. This can take years, even decades.
'Dogs of war' saving lives in Afghanistan
by Jason Gutierrez – Thu Jan 28, 1:38 am ET
SOUTHEAST OF MARJAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – For the US Marines patrolling the dusty footpaths of southern Afghanistan, a bomb-sniffing black Labrador can mean the difference between life and death.
NATO troops kill Afghan cleric, officials say
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 26 mins ago
KABUL – NATO troops in a convoy killed an Afghan cleric as he was driving Thursday in Kabul, prompting a protest outside a U.S. military base.
Rare Afghanistan convoy attack in normally safe Pakistan city
A NATO convoy bringing supplies to Afghanistan suffered a rare attack in Karachi on Thursday – the first such ambush in the relatively secure port city. A day earlier NATO said it had secured an alternate supply route through Russia.
By Huma Yusuf Correspondent Christian Science Monitor January 28, 2010
Karachi, Pakistan - A NATO convoy came under assault Thursday while carrying supplies through Pakistan to Afghanistan in a rare ambush inside Karachi, the relatively secure port city from which 300 to 400 of the coalition’s trucks leave each day.
Uncle of Afghan terror suspect Zazi arrested: NY Times
Wed Jan 27, 2:51 pm ET
NEW YORK (AFP) – The uncle of an Afghan immigrant charged with conspiring to bomb New York during the anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks has been arrested, The New York Times reported Wednesday, saying authorities would not reveal the reason for his detention.
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Kabul to need West for 15 years as UK talks open
by Katherine Haddon – Thu Jan 28, 4:51 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Kabul will need international support for up to 15 years, President Hamid Karzai warned on Thursday as a key summit on Afghanistan's future began in London, focusing on plans to buy-off Taliban fighters.
Karzai, re-elected in November after corruption-riddled polls, wants to shore up foreign backing for his troubled presidency but NATO countries, led by the US, are facing increasing domestic pressure to bring troops home as soon as possible.
Hundreds of protestors are expected to target the high-profile conference in London, being attended by Karzai, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Some 110,000 international troops are in Afghanistan and their numbers are set to rise, but Karzai on Thursday told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that Kabul would need international help for years to come.
"With regard to training and equipping the Afghan security forces, five to 10 years will be enough," Karzai said.
"With regard to sustaining them until Afghanistan is financially able to provide for our forces, the time will be extended to 10 to 15 years."
Meanwhile Brown, his co-host at the conference, stressed the gradual handover of control in some provinces to Afghan troops -- which could allow a reduction of foreign troops.
"Our strategy is to help the Afghan people to be strong enough so that their own security is their responsibility and not the responsibility of 43 countries," he said.
Officials in London hope the gradual handover of some Afghan provinces can begin within 12 to 36 months.
Karzai also has been lobbying for support for a 500 million dollar reintegration programme to offer Taliban who are not Al-Qaeda jobs if they stop fighting. The conference will likely see fresh announcements on the initiative.
The plan has already gained support from countries including the US, Britain and Germany.
But the Taliban have publicly rebuffed negotiations and reiterated in an emailed statement on Wednesday a demand for "invading forces" -- its term for foreign troops -- to withdraw as a condition for any talks.
"The London conference is in fact aimed at extending the invasion of Afghanistan by occupying forces," it said, dismissing the meeting as "just a waste of time".
The talks could also see announcements on increasing the number of Afghan troops.
"I want a decision that Afghan forces will be increased substantially," Brown told Radio 4.
"I want a decision that in 2010 they will rise to 200,000 including the police, in 2011 to 300,000, so that Afghans can gradually take more control of the security of their own country."
The Afghan war has been raging for more than eight years and last year was the bloodiest yet for international troops there.
The size of the NATO-led force fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan is due to rise to 150,000 by the end of the year, after 30,000 US soldiers are deployed as part of a surge along with an expected 10,000 from other countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is the biggest donor of aid and has the third largest number of troops, said on Wednesday that the London conference would "determine the success or failure of our mission".
Afghanistan's allies are looking to step up reconstruction and development aid, but are also expected to press Karzai to clamp down on rampant corruption that has sapped efforts to date and to implement needed reforms.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday warned leaders that military strategy must be "matched by a clear political 'road map'" which the London conference would help to chart. Related article: NATO calls for clear roadmap at London talks
"There is new momentum in this mission and it is gathering pace. The London conference will give it another boost," wrote Rasmussen in The Times, calling for action on measures including improved governance.
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Karzai Says It Will Take Years to Train Afghan Forces
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL The New York Times January 29, 2010
LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain opened an international conference on Afghanistan here on Thursday, saying international efforts to end the eight-year-old war had reached a “decisive time.”
“By the middle of next year, we have to turn the tide,” he said.
The one-day gathering of almost 70 nations, including the United States, plans to dwell on efforts to lure moderate Afghan fighters away from the Taliban with offers of jobs and housing to and hasten the handover of security responsibilities from foreign to Afghan forces.
But, sounding a cautious note before the conference started, President Hamid Karzai said it could take 5 to 10 years for Afghan forces to take over from the American-led coalition fighting the Taliban and even longer to end his country’s dependence on financial aid to sustain its military.
As the conference opened, Mr. Karzai also urged King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to play a prominent role in overseeing peace efforts. And, he said, peace talks should embrace “all our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers who are not part of Al Qaeda or other terrorist networks.”
He said he planned to call a national gathering, known as a jirga, to debate the proposals.
Some news reports said the Taliban leadership had reacted dismissively to the strategy, saying its fighters would not be influenced by offers of financial betterment.
The conference was called late last year after President Obama promised to send an extra 30,000 troops to curb a burgeoning insurgency that has claimed increasing casualties among American and other coalition forces.
Leaders including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gathered in the ornate chambers of Lancaster House near Buckingham Palace to hear Mr. Brown open the gathering by saying that the transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan forces would start this year.
“This is a decisive time for the international cooperation that is helping the Afghan people secure and govern their own country,” Mr. Brown said. “This conference marks the beginning of the transition process,” he said, referring to the security handover to Afghan authorities.
Earlier, in a BBC radio interview, he spoke of the strategy to divide the Taliban into moderate and hardline camps, seeking to lure some insurgents away from militancy. But, he said, he believed “the first thing is to strengthen the Afghan forces, and then to weaken the Taliban by dividing them.”
“You cannot have a situation where you are making advances to those people who are prepared to renounce violence and join the democratic process and say they will have nothing more to do with the activities that they have been involved with in the past unless you have a strong Afghan army and police,” he said.
In the same interview, Mr. Karzai said, “With regard to training and equipping the Afghan security forces, 5 to 10 years will be enough.”
“With regard to sustaining them until Afghanistan is financially able to provide for our forces, the time may be extended to 10 to 15 years,” he said.
The conference is being attended by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. But Iran, an important regional player and neighbor of Afghanistan, announced through its state-run media that it would not attend.
John F. Burns reported from London, and Alan Cowell from Paris.
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Taliban Calls Afghanistan Meeting Useless
Conference in London Will Produce No Meaningful Results, Says Taliban
The Associated Press via CBS News
The Taliban are dismissing this week's Afghanistan conference in London, saying it will produce no more results than previous gatherings organized by "the invaders," meaning the U.S. and its allies.
The Taliban also say in a statement on their Web site that offers of economic incentives will not draw away fighters from the movement because the militants are not fighting for "money, property and position" but for Islam and to end the foreign military presence.
The statement said the eight-year international presence has benefited no one except "drug dealers, corrupt people, human rights violators and land occupiers in government offices."
The Taliban also say Afghanistan would be no threat to any other country if the militants return to power.
CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan
Meanwhile, the United States government will support a plan to reintegrate Taliban fighters set to be announced by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, special representative Richard Holbrooke said Wednesday.
The veteran U.S. negotiator said Karzai will outline an ambitious plan Thursday to convince low-level and midlevel Taliban fighters who don't back al Qaeda to give up their fight against U.S. and NATO forces.
The plan will be a centerpiece of the one-day London conference designed to boost the flagging war effort in Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces have been taking increasing casualties from a resurgent Taliban. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in London Wednesday for the talks.
Holbrooke said U.S. officials believe the majority of Taliban forces do not back al Qaeda or its extremist ideology.
"The overwhelming majority of these people are not ideological supporters of Mullah Omar (the fugitive Taliban leader) and al Qaeda," Holbrooke said. "Based on interviews with prisoners, returnees, experts, there must be at least 70 percent of these people who are not fighting for anything to do with those causes."
He said he was encouraged by recent polls in Afghanistan indicating that a majority now blames the Taliban, not Western forces, for the country's violence.
Holbrooke declined to say how much the reintegration plan would cost.
"We don't know enough about the plan," he said.
Karzai said Wednesday that Afghanistan aims to reduce soon the burden on its allies of providing security, but cautioned that Afghan forces would need long-term international support.
Meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Karzai said that "Afghanistan does not want to be a burden on the shoulder of our allies and friends"
"Afghanistan wants to soon be defending its own territory, its own people, with Afghan means," he said.
Holbrooke said there are "red lines" that could not be crossed during negotiations with Taliban figures, and that those who back al Qaeda, or support the group's harsh treatment of women, would not be accommodated.
He said there has been no discussion of an amnesty for Taliban fighters, saying the immediate goal is to convince them to stop fighting.
"My philosophy is that you're trying to prevent future deaths," he said. "We're trying to offer an opportunity to get shooters off the field so they don't kill more people. My heart goes out to the families that have lost loved ones, but this is not a disservice to them."
Holbrooke, who played a central role in negotiating the Dayton peace agreement that helped bring the Bosnian war to a halt, said the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is far more complicated than the one he faced in the Balkans.
He said the goals for the London conference go beyond the reconciliation plan and will include discussions of a province-by-province handover of security control from U.S. and NATO forces to Afghan forces. But he conceded no timetable will be announced.
Instead, conditions will have to be met before the security transition can begin, he said.
The U.S. also plans to endorse stronger anti-corruption measures in an effort to clean up government practices, he said.
Holbrooke endorsed Karzai despite widespread vote-rigging in the last election and leaked diplomatic cables showing that the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan had grave doubts about Karzai's fitness to lead.
"The election last year was very messy, as President Obama has said publicly," Holbrooke said. "But he is without doubt the legitimate, elected president, despite the voting irregularities, which were very unfortunate, so the international community will work him."
The Afghan government received strong support Wednesday as Britain's Treasury chief Alistair Darling announced that Afghanistan's creditors have agreed to debt relief worth US$1.6 billion ahead of the London conference.
He said on the decision will help Karzai's government to rebuild the country's fragile economy.
Afghanistan's Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said in London the country had now received debt relief worth a total of US$11 billion.
Meanwhile, NATO said Wednesday it had reached agreement with Kazakhstan to open a new supply route for international forces through Central Asia, offering an alternative to the alliance's main logistics chain through Pakistan, which has come under repeated militant attack.
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Karzai seeks Afghan reconciliation
Aljazeera.net
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has said his country must reach out to its "disenchanted brothers" in an effort to stabilise the war ravaged nation.
Addressing a one-day international conference on Afghanistan's future in London, the British capital, Karzai said that fighters who are "not part of al-Qaeda or other terror groups" must be reconciled with the government.
The Afghan leader said his government would set up a national council for peace and reconciliation, and has asked Saudi Arabia to help guide the process.
Karzai and officials from more than 60 countries are meeting on Thursday to examine ways to bring an end to nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan.
Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said the conference "marks the beginning of the transition process" that will see "the Afghan people secure and govern their own country".
He said the summit would set a target for Afghanistan to boost its military and police forces by October 2011 in an effort to "turn the tide".
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato chief, are also among those attending the talks.
Peace and reconciliation
Karzai is seeking support for a $1bn plan that would offer cash, jobs and other incentives to the Taliban and fighters in other armed groups, in an attempt to bring them back into mainstream society.
Taliban fighters have been invited to a "peace jirga", or a traditional gathering of tribal elders, expected to be held early this year, a government spokesman confirmed on Thursday.
Hamid Elmi, Karzai's deputy spokesman, said: "We are using all kinds of possibilities - our neighbouring countries, the international community, the king of Saudi - to encourage the Taliban to come".
But Haroun Mir, deputy director for the centre for research and policy studies in Kabul, told Al Jazeera that Karzai's proposal could be hampered by plans to increase the number of foreign troops in Afghanistan.
"Karzai has been talking for a long time for reaching out to the Taliban.
"But ... the US military surge and additional Nato forces in Afghanistan in the coming months [will see] the intensity of fighting increase.
"I don't know how president Karzai could implement his own strategy of reaching out to the Taliban if there is increased fighting going on in Afghanistan," he said.
The Taliban have dismissed Karzai's plan, saying its fighters would not be swayed by financial incentives.
Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from London, said the policy of outreach to the Taliban indicates a "complete U-turn" from the policies of the past US administration.
However he said it is still unclear if the strategy will be successful.
Abdullah Abdullah, a former Afghan foreign minister and Karzai's challenger in the country's recent presidential election, said reconciliation should be an immediate priority but should start at the local level.
"The door has to remain open for national reconciliation," he told Al Jazeera.
"I believe it has to be a nationally debated and transparent programme under the realm of the constitution of Afghanistan."
Secret talks
But Abdullah Abdullah said obstacles remain to implementing such a policy.
"I don't think the Taliban at this stage are willing to enter negotiations. Also, their association with terrorist organisations, like al-Qaeda - that's the main issue at the moment - and they are working like one organisation."
Thursday's conference comes nearly a week after a meeting between Afghan government officials and members of an armed opposition group fighting alongside the Taliban.
Al Jazeera's David Chater, reporting from Kabul, said the talks were held with the group Hezb-e-Islami, in the Maldives islands, between January 23-24.
He said a Taliban leader had been due to attend the meeting but dropped out in the last minute citing health reasons.
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Afghan Tribe to Fight Taliban in Return for Aid From U.S.
By DEXTER FILKINS The New York Times January 28, 2010
JALALABAD, Afghanistan — The leaders of one of the largest Pashtun tribes in a Taliban stronghold said Wednesday that they had agreed to support the American-backed government, battle insurgents and burn down the home of any Afghan who harbored Taliban guerrillas.
Elders from the Shinwari tribe, which represents about 400,000 people in eastern Afghanistan, also pledged to send at least one military-age male in each family to the Afghan Army or the police in the event of a Taliban attack.
In exchange for their support, American commanders agreed to channel $1 million in development projects directly to the tribal leaders and bypass the local Afghan government, which is widely seen as corrupt.
“The Taliban have been trying to destroy our tribe, and they are taking money from us, and they are taking our sons to fight,” said Malik Niaz, a Shinwari elder. “If they defy us now, we will defeat them.”
The pact appears to be the first in which an entire Pashtun tribe has declared war on Taliban insurgents.
But the agreement, though promising, is fragile at best. Afghan loyalties are historically fluid, and in the past the government has been unable to prevent Taliban retaliation. The agreement may also be hard to replicate, since it arose from a specific local dispute and economic tensions with the Taliban.
While the Shinwaris are now united against the Taliban, if payments from the Americans falter or animosities flare with the Afghan government, the tribe could switch back just as quickly.
Moreover, it is not clear that the elders, whatever their intentions, will be able to command the loyalties of their own members. After 30 years of incessant warfare, many of the traditional societal networks in this country have been weakened or destroyed.
In many places, the Taliban are stronger than the tribes themselves.
Indeed, in the past, Taliban gunmen have killed or threatened tribal leaders who defied them, and the American military and the Afghan government have largely been unable to protect them.
Many of the Shinwari elders said Wednesday that they had already received death threats. The brother of one elder, a district governor, has already been killed.
The pact is but one plank of a carrot-and-stick strategy toward the Taliban as the United States pours more troops into Afghanistan in the hopes of inflicting setbacks that might make the Taliban more willing to negotiate. While the Americans are rewarding tribes who confront the Taliban, on Thursday the Afghan government is unveiling its latest plan to woo back both Taliban foot soldiers and their leaders.
That plan hopes to compensate for past failures that were underfinanced, lacked the buy-in of allies and did not prevent revenge killings.
The new plan has two tracks: to reintegrate Taliban fighters into Afghan society and to allow Taliban leaders to play a political role in Afghanistan, a far more politically charged idea.
The Karzai government wants countries attending an international conference in London on Thursday to back its plan and agree to finance it — at least initially.
In exchange for laying down arms and agreeing to abide by the Afghan Constitution, Taliban fighters would be guaranteed jobs and an enforceable amnesty.
The pact with the Shinwari tribe would complement the reconciliation effort. It echoes a similar phenomenon that unfolded in the Iraq war beginning in late 2006, which ultimately contributed to a substantial drop in violence there. In Iraq, tribal leaders from the country’s Sunni minority rebelled against Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia and joined forces with the Americans. The phenomenon was known as the Sunni Awakening.
But no one expects to be able to duplicate the scale of the Iraq effort, because in many parts of Afghanistan the Taliban have not only intimidated or killed local tribal leaders but insinuated themselves into the very fabric of the hierarchies of the tribes.
By contrast, in this part of Afghanistan tribal loyalties are strong and the tension between the Shinwaris and the Taliban longstanding. The conflict came to a head last July, when two Shinwari elders — Mr. Niaz and Malik Usman — insisted that a local Taliban commander named Kona stay away from a group of Afghan engineers who were building a dike in their valley. When Kona’s men kidnapped two of the engineers, the Shinwari elders decided they had had enough.
In a confrontation that followed, members from the two Shinwari subtribes killed a senior Taliban commander who had come from Pakistan and chased Kona back across the border. After that, Mr. Niaz and Mr. Usman set up a local militia to keep the Taliban out of the valley, called Momand.
“The whole tribe was with me,” Mr. Niaz said in an interview in November. “The Taliban came to kill me, and instead we killed them.”
The dispute also had an economic element. Many Shinwaris make their livings by smuggling across the nearby Pakistani border. According to some tribal members, the Taliban had tried to take over the Shinwaris’ business and its smuggling routes.
The dispute caught the attention of American Special Forces units, who descended into the Momand Valley on helicopters and offered help to the local Shinwaris. The Americans gave them ammunition and food, they said.
On Wednesday, Mr. Niaz and Mr. Usman said the Special Forces teams had not visited them in many weeks. Nevertheless, they said, they decided to call in the help of the rest of the tribe.
For their part, the regular American Army forces in Jalalabad said they were startled by the Shinwaris’ decision. At a tribal council meeting — called a shura — held last week, 50 Shinwari elders decided to declare that the entire tribe would oppose the Taliban.
“The shura proclaims that the Shinwari tribe stands unified against all insurgent groups, specifically the Taliban,” the agreement stated.
Among other things, the tribal elders declared harsh penalties against Taliban sympathizers, including huge fines and expulsion from the area.
“The shura authorizes the burning of residences of those found harboring the Taliban,” the proclamation said.
But the Shinwari elders did not merely declare their opposition to the Taliban. Although they declared their allegiance to the Afghan government, they directed at it a nearly equal measure of fury, condemning “all the corruption and illegal activities that threaten the Afghan people.”
“We are doing this for ourselves, and ourselves only,” said Hajji Kafta, one of the elders. “We have absolutely no faith in the Afghan government to do anything for us. We don’t trust them at all.”
Sensing opportunity — and wanting the agreement to stick — the American officers decided to bypass the government entirely and pledge $1 million in development aid directly to the Shinwari elders. That method of financing — directly to the shuras — mirrors that of the National Solidarity Program, which has gained much admiration here for the efficient way it has dispensed development aid.
The agreement, struck during a hastily arranged tribal council meeting last week, was reaffirmed Wednesday at a gathering of the Shinwari elders, Afghan officials and American commanders in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province. The pact was signed by 50 Shinwari elders, some of whom stamped their thumbs on the document because they cannot read.
Col. Randy George, the senior American officer in the area, said he was encouraged by the recent events. But he was not declaring victory.
“You’ve got to start somewhere,” he said.
Alissa J. Rubin and Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.
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Afghanistan summit: Why is the US backing talks with the Taliban?
Heading into this week's summit of Afghan allies in London, the top US general in Afghanistan said he supported President Hamid Karzai's plan to reach out to the Taliban.
By Gordon Lubold The Christian Science Monitor Staff writer January 27, 2010 at 8:42 pm EST
Washington — Only the first few thousand “surge” forces have arrived in Afghanistan as part of the effort to tame the Taliban’s resurgence there. But the top US commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is already talking about a negotiated peace with the enemy – a move that would seem counterintuitive so early in the new counterinsurgency campaign.
But McChrystal’s recent, vocal support of reconciliation and reintegration – welcoming top and low-level Taliban fighters to lay down their arms to join the Afghan political process – may be just good battlefield politics. McChyrstal, considered a sophisticated operator, is supporting President Hamid Karzai on the eve of a summit in London on Afghan security.
“As a soldier, my personal feeling is that there’s been enough fighting," said McChrystal in an interview with the Financial Times this week. "What I think we do is try to shape conditions which allow people to come to a truly equitable solution to how the Afghan people are governed.”
Also this week, the United Nations Security Council lifted sanctions against five top Taliban leaders. The move opens the door for the negotiated settlement backed by Mr. Karzai.
McChrystal’s support of this effort has been met with some surprise worldwide. Security in Afghanistan is still far from established, meaning the military is not yet in a position to dictate the terms of the reconciliation.
But there has been a shift in approach to reconciliation, say experts. The US and the international community have been more open to Karzai's attempts to bring former fighters into the political process as a way to bolster Karzai’s weak government.
“Our understanding is that Karzai is convinced that if he can protect those insurgents ..., he can turn many of them around and essentially change the dynamics of the insurgency,” says Haseeb Humayoon, a research analyst at the Institute for Study of War in Washington.
Other experts believe top officials in Washington are pushing for peace negotiations as an appealing option at a time when the American public’s support for the war is fragile at best.
A repeat of Iraq?
Moreover, all wars ultimately end with reconciliation, and the process is especially important to insurgencies. McChrystal’s push for it now may be a rhetorical carrot-or-stick admonition.
Negotiated settlements have worked before. Despite vast differences between Iraq and Afghanistan, the American military worked intensely to reconcile with former Sunni fighters in Anbar province in Iraq in 2006. That ultimately set the stage for the so-called Anbar Awakening that ended much of the hostilities.
Sunni tribes there had become disenchanted with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which was killing Iraqis and stealing territory. In some cases, Al Qaeda would kill sheiks and leave their bodies in the desert, a form of disrespect to the region's thousand-year-old conventions.
Many Sunnis thought Al Qaeda, once seen as righteous warriors fighting the foreign occupation, had gone too far. That divide created the room the US needed to drive a political wedge between Sunnis and Al Qaeda.
It was at that point that the work of Lt. Gen. John Allen paid off. As a one-star general, he had spent much of his time in 2006-07 in neighboring Jordan, encouraging tribal sheiks who had fled Anbar, to return to Iraq. That encouragement led many Sunnis to flip and agree to work within the new, Shiite-led government.
Such negotiations have a bad reputation in places like Pakistan, where past Pakistani governments had repeatedly reconciled with Taliban fighters , only to see cease-fires dissolve. But those negotiations had been essentially a capitulation to the enemy to extricate the Pakistan Army from an unpopular and costly war, experts say.
How reconciliation might work in Afghanistan
McChrystal has long supported reconciliation and reintegration done right: National-level reconciliation is needed to welcome some Taliban leaders back into the Afghan political process in some form, and reintegration is the “peeling away” of Taliban foot soldiers who no longer choose to fight.
“Insurgencies of this nature typically conclude through military operations and political efforts driving some degree of host-nation reconciliation with elements of the insurgency,” McChrystal wrote in his strategy document.
The military’s position has always been to distinguish between the “reconcilable” and “irreconcilable” enemy. The US military considers most high-level enemy leaders irreconcilable because of their deep, ideological positions. Other leaders, however, may be persuaded to stop fighting if there is something in it for them.
Foot soldiers, meanwhile, may be fighting Afghan and international forces simply to earn money for their families and can sometimes be easily reintegrated politically. The London summit may begin by targeting these elements, reports suggest.
High-level political reconciliation will likely not occur until the Taliban recognizes it has nothing to gain in continuing to fight. For his part, Mullah Omar, the head of the strongest faction of the Afghan Taliban, believes the insurgency is still strong.
“We are more likely to bring insurgents in from the cold if we are arguing from a position of strength, and we are not there yet,” says John Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert and author.
But Mr. Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington, believes that NATO is beginning to turn things around. Drone attacks have diminished the Taliban’s command-and-control capabilities and created dissension within the ranks, Nagl says.
Ultimately, political success may be dictated by progress on the battlefield. In coming months, more of President Obama’s 30,000 surge troops will be headed to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Marines in Helmand Province are preparing to mount a battle in the Marjeh district, a Taliban holdout.
When that battle takes place in the coming weeks, thousands of Marines will move into the area to root out as many as 1,000 Taliban. The outcome could have an impact on when US and Afghan forces gain the upper hand on the Taliban.
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Karzai urges West to help draw in the Taliban
by Katherine Haddon
LONDON (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged Western partners to help him woo moderate Taliban insurgents as an international fund to pay them off was launched on Thursday at a major conference in London.
Opening the 70-nation conference, Karzai said Afghanistan and its Western supporters must "reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers who are not part of Al-Qaeda".
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the conference marked "the beginning of the transition process" under which responsibility for security will gradually be transferred from international to Afghan control.
Brown added that a district-by-district, province-by-province handover would start later this year and warned Al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan: "We will defeat you."
But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed that Afghans and extremists needed to understand that the handover of security responsibilities was "not an exit strategy".
"It is about making clear the conditions that will allow Afghan forces to safely take the lead in a particular area," she was to say, according to an advance copy of her speech.
Brown announced the international fund, believed to be worth 500 million dollars (360 million euros), to back a reintegration plan to give jobs to Taliban fighters who are prepared to renounce Al-Qaeda.
The United States, Germany and Japan are among nations that have voiced support for the Afghan-led plan.
Karzai said he would establish a national council for peace, reconciliation and reintegration and call a "peace jirga," or traditional gathering of Afghans. He reiterated a call for Saudi King Abdullah to play a role.
"We ask all neighbours, particularly Pakistan, to support our peace and reconciliation endeavours," he added. "We are looking forward to the international community supporting this.
Iran was the most notable absentee from the conference, with Britain accusing Tehran of missing an opportunity to play a constructive role.
Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of sheltering Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who have been fighting his government -- and attacking the international forces that support it -- for nearly eight years.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan welcomed the conference's focus on peace.
"We've always said there is a clear need for a peace process to begin. We are encouraged by the attention this has been given," spokesman Aleem Siddique told AFP.
But dozens of Afghan protesters outside the conference were less sure.
"We didn't go through all this war to have Taliban back," Tahmina Yousofi, 32, a doctor who left Afghanistan three years ago, told AFP.
"We are ready to fight all the Taliban all our lives but not to live in peace under the Taliban."
The Afghan president wants to shore up foreign backing for his troubled presidency, but NATO countries led by the United States are under pressure at home to bring troops home as soon as possible.
About 110,000 international troops now are in Afghanistan, and their numbers are set to rise, and Karzai told BBC radio earlier Thursday that his country would need international help for years to come.
"With regard to training and equipping the Afghan security forces, five to 10 years will be enough," Karzai said.
"With regard to sustaining them until Afghanistan is financially able to provide for our forces, the time will be extended to 10 to 15 years." Related article: NATO calls for clear roadmap at London talks
Brown said international allies would help Afghanistan to grow its security forces to 300,000 by October 2011.
The size of the NATO-led force fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan is due to rise to 150,000 by the end of the year, after 30,000 US soldiers are deployed as part of a surge along with an expected 10,000 from other countries.
Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told the meeting that Afghanistan was committed to taking the lead but its lack of security manpower was still a "critical obstacle".
It would be a "strategic mistake" for international forces to leave the country too early, he said. The United States has indicated it wants to start drawing down its forces by 2011.
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Swedish diplomat named top UN envoy to Afghanistan
By John Heilprin, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jan 27, 6:09 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. chief named a veteran Swedish diplomat on Wednesday to serve as the next top U.N. official in Afghanistan, a day ahead of a 60-nation conference in London on the nation's future.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that Staffan de Mistura, the former U.N. representative in Iraq, will succeed Kai Eide of Norway and become the top United Nations envoy in Afghanistan starting on March 1.
"He has been working in many difficult and dangerous posts," Ban said of de Mistura in an AP interview. "He has a wealth of experience and wisdom, and he knows a lot of leadership in Afghanistan. Therefore, I'm sure that he can be a very effective leader in Afghanistan."
Ban's announcement was timed to precede Thursday's conference to discuss a plan for getting Western countries out of Afghanistan. U.S. and NATO forces have been taking increasing casualties from a resurgent Taliban, and are trying to shift more of the burden onto Afghans by speeding up the training of the Afghan army and paramilitary national police.
Much of the focus will be on a $500 million plan to provide jobs and other economic incentives to Taliban fighters and lure them away from the insurgency — a goal that Ban said he supports.
"They should renounce their positions. They should lay down their arms and they should cut their ties with al-Qaida," Ban said. "When they are ready to show their genuine commitment to work together with the Afghan government, for their own society, then I think the international community should favorably consider (them)."
The United Nations on Wednesday revoked asset-freezing orders and travel bans on five former Taliban officials, which Afghan President Hamid Karzai had been pressing for as part of his effort to draw them back into the fold. None of the five is believed active in the Taliban.
Western officials said the reintegration plan would not involve cash handouts to insurgents, but be focused on providing housing and jobs in the nation's growing security forces.
Eide's rocky two-year tenure overseeing the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan was marked by a fraud-marred national election and a deadly Taliban attack on U.N. employees. The U.N. mission suffered from a pre-dawn assault Oct. 28 on a Kabul guesthouse where dozens of U.N. staffers lived. Five U.N. workers were among those killed in the attack, which prompted the U.N. to relocate hundreds of employees, some outside Afghanistan.
Eide's stewardship also was tarnished by allegations from his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, that he was not bullish enough in curbing fraud in the August presidential election. Karzai was declared the winner three months later after his last remaining challenger dropped out of a runoff.
Eide has said that the controversy over the election was not linked to his decision to leave.
The challenge for de Mistura will be to restructure the civilian side of the international mission during the Obama administration's military strategy of sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Eide has proposed better coordinating the civilian effort under the U.N. umbrella.
The U.N. chief said he expects the conference to provide "a clearer picture for support of the Afghan government" in exactly how it plans to help bring peace, stability and economic development there.
"At the same time we expect the new Afghan government to come out with a strong compact for governance, addressing corruption, and promoting political reconciliation among its people," Ban said. "In the longer term, the basic principle is we need to give more authority to the Afghan government."
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International allies mull exit from Afghanistan
By David Stringer And Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writers – Thu Jan 28, 6:44 am ET
LONDON – Major world powers opened talks Thursday seeking an end to the grinding conflict in Afghanistan, drafting plans to hand over security responsibilities to local forces and quell the insurgency with an offer of jobs and housing to lure Taliban fighters to renounce violence.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai greeted delegates from about 70 nations and institutions in London, seeking to win new international support after more than eight years of combat which is threatening to exhaust public good will in the West.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen also joined talks aimed at setting targets to transfer security control of several Afghan provinces to the local police and military by the end of 2010.
"This is a decisive time for the international cooperation that is helping the Afghan people secure and govern their own country," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, opening the one-day talks. "This conference marks the beginning of the transition process."
Brown said the conference would set a target for Afghanistan to increase its military to 171,600 by Oct. 2011, and boost police numbers to 134,00 by the same date. "By the middle of next year we have to turn the tide," he said.
Karzai envisions Afghanistan's government taking control of security in all 34 provinces by 2015, but said he expects foreign troops to stay in his country for up to a decade.
Announcing his plan to lure Taliban soldiers back into mainstream society with offers of jobs and housing, Karzai said Afghanistan was moving "slowly but surely toward the end goals of peace and stability."
Karzai called for support from Afghanistan's neighbors — especially Pakistan and oil-rich, influential Saudi Arabia.
"We hope that his majesty (Saudi) King Adbullah will kindly take a prominent role to guide and assist the peace process," he said. The Afghan chief said he would convene a peace jirga — or conference — to discuss the proposals.
"We must reach out to all our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers who are not part of al-Qaida or other terrorist networks," Karzai told the meeting.
International allies will pledge at least $500 million for Karzai's program, but Western diplomats said the money would not pay for cash inducements. Funding will be used to create jobs in the country's police and army, or in agriculture — and pay for housing, officials said.
U.S. special representative Richard Holbrooke said many low- and midlevel Taliban fighters were motivated by financial need, rather than ideological support for the Taliban or al-Qaida.
In a sign of possible tensions over the ambition of the program, Holbrooke said negotiations with higher ranking insurgents are unlikely, while Karzai and other Western officials indicated that, over the longer term, the program may eventually target leadership figures.
Officials in London suspect Karzai hopes to eventually bring some Pakistan-based leaders of the Afghan Taliban into the political process — if they agree to renounce violence.
"Some pretty unsavory characters are going to have to be brought within the system," Mark Sedwill, NATO's newly appointed civilian chief — and the ex-British ambassador in Kabul — told a meeting Wednesday.
The U.N. on Tuesday removed the names of five former Taliban officials — including a former confidant of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar — from a U.N. sanctions list in support of the reconciliation efforts. "We wish for more progress in this regard," Karzai said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Staffan de Mistura, the former U.N. representative in Iraq, will succeed Kai Eide of Norway to become the top United Nations envoy in Afghanistan starting on March 1.
"He has a wealth of experience and wisdom," Ban said Wednesday in an Associated Press interview.
The Taliban dismissed Karzai's reintegration plan, saying in a statement posted to their Web site Wednesday that their fighters wouldn't be swayed by financial incentives.
"For those insurgents who refuse to accept the conditions of reintegration, we have no choice but to pursue them militarily," Brown said. He pledged to root out terrorists "in any and every country where you seek refuge."
In return for their continued backing, Afghanistan's allies will demand strict foreign monitoring of anti-corruption efforts following the country's fraud-marred elections last year.
The talks — at a grand Georgian town house in central London — have been called in hope of plotting an eventual exit from Afghanistan for Western nations amid rising military casualties and growing public disquiet. Organizers hope to produce a civilian strategy to compliment the military surge which will see the U.S. and its NATO allies deploy 37,000 extra troops to Afghanistan.
Iran's London embassy said Thursday Tehran would not send any representative to the talks. Spokesman Hossein Mahmoudi said Iran believed the conference was too heavily focused on military intervention.
A spokesman for Britain's Downing Street said it was "deeply disappointing," that Iran had chosen not to attend, but urged Tehran to make a constructive contribution to discussions on its neighbor's future.
___
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Raphael G. Satter in London, Heidi Vogt in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and John Heilprin, in New York, contributed to his report.
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Afghanistan summit: Gordon Brown says 'tide must turn'
Thursday, 28 January 2010 BBC News
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said mid-2011 should be the deadline for "turning the tide" in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan.
Speaking at a 70-nation London summit on the future of Afghanistan, he said the nations faced "a decisive time".
Before the talks began, President Hamid Karzai said Afghanistan could need foreign support for its security forces for up to 15 years.
He later announced plans to reintegrate some Taliban fighters into society.
The Taliban have ruled out talks until foreign forces leave Afghanistan.
Foreign ministers from around the world are expected to give renewed momentum to nation-building in Afghanistan during the one-day summit.
"We must reach out to all our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers who are not part of al-Qaeda or other terrorist networks," Mr Karzai told the meeting.
Opening the conference, Mr Brown said it marked the "beginning of the transition process".
"By the middle of next year, we have to turn the tide in the fight against the insurgency," he said.
Pledging support for the expansion of the Afghan security forces, Mr Brown said: "We will agree today that the Afghan National Army will number 134,000 by October 2010, and 171,600 by October 2011.
"And similarly today we will commit to supporting a police reform plan, with Afghan national police numbers reaching 109,000 by October this year, and 134,000 by October 2011."
This would bring Afghan national security forces to 300,000, a presence far bigger than the coalition forces, Mr Brown said.
'Financially able'
The talks are being hosted by the UK, UN and the Afghan government.
In his address, Mr Karzai reiterated a long-standing call for King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to "kindly play a role to guide peace and assist the process".
Senior Taliban figures have good contacts with Saudi Arabia and have been engaged in a series of secret peace talks there over the years since they lost power in Afghanistan in 2001.
BBC international development correspondent David Lyon says that in calling for Saudi involvement in an Afghan loya jirga (tribal council) in the spring, the first major tribal meeting for eight years, Mr Karzai is signalling that there may be a wider peace deal involving more key Taliban figures.
Speaking to the BBC before the talks got under way, Mr Karzai said that five to 10 years would be enough time to train and equip the Afghan security forces.
But he added: "With regard to sustaining them until Afghanistan is financially able to provide for our forces, the time may be extended to 10 to 15 years."
Donor countries are expected to set up a fund to help lure Taliban members back into Afghan society.
But Mr Brown told the BBC any effort to reintegrate insurgents could work only if Afghanistan's own army and police were strong enough to take charge of security from international forces.
"The first thing is to strengthen the Afghan forces, and then to weaken the Taliban by dividing them," he said.
"You cannot have a situation where you are making advances to those people who are prepared to renounce violence and join the democratic process and say they will have nothing more to do with the activities they have been involved with in the past unless you have a strong Afghan army and police."
Mr Karzai has won general support for his reintegration plan, but Western nations are expected to ask for more details on the strategy at the summit.
The proposed fund would help reintegrate defecting foot soldiers with the promises of jobs, cash and protection.
Anti-corruption drive
Mr Karzai outlined a six-point plan to take his country forward, saying in his address he was deeply grateful for the international support his country had been given and Afghan people would not forget the sacrifices that had been made.
Karzai quizzed over warlords
He said good governance and fighting corruption would be the key focus of his action plan.
Corruption is seen by ordinary Afghans as one of the biggest problems in the country, surveys have found. It has also been a long-standing concern among Afghanistan's Western backers.
One of Mr Karzai's most significant proposals is the creation of an external watchdog composed of anti-corruption experts from around the world.
Hard fighting ahead
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the timing of the London conference is critical.
According to most military analysts the Taliban is riding high, but the US surge in forces is under way and weeks and months of hard fighting lie ahead, our correspondent says.
More work will be done on bolstering Afghanistan's own security forces, as well as setting goals on development and governance and a renewed emphasis on setting Afghanistan's problems in a wider regional framework.
A follow-up conference will be held in Kabul in a few months.
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has named a long-serving UN diplomat, Staffan de Mistura, as his new representative in Afghanistan.
Mr De Mistura, who holds Swedish and Italian nationalities, will replace the outgoing head of the UN mission in Kabul, Kai Eide, when he steps down in March.
Mr Eide was accused by a colleague of being too close to President Karzai and his government, and of downplaying fraud during presidential elections last year. Mr Eide always denied the allegations.
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The Afghan conference: A blueprint for victory or a call to retreat?
Deutsche Welle By Chris Kline 01/27/2010
London is a long way from the battlefields of the Hindu Kush but on Thursday, the British capital will see the NATO allies and the Afghan government try to hammer out a viable strategy to defeat the Taliban.
If improved war fighting is high on the collective agenda so are good governance, reconstruction and development, the persistent corruption that hampers them, and the entrenched drugs trade which helps fuel the war and finance terror.
The heavyweight diplomats at the conference are clearly US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and the US Special Envoy to both Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, who are expected to have close meetings with their European counterparts, especially British, French and German partners in NATO and ISAF.
While the US has always dominated allied efforts in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001, as the US military presence in Iraq is being reduced, strategic focus shifts to South Asia, and American troop levels in Afghanistan will more than double this year from 32,000 to 68,000. The war and therefore the allied agenda is all the more going to become an American-accented affair.
Washington is seeking another 10,000 European soldiers to join the 36,000 strong non-US, NATO and coalition contingent in the field, but thus far it seems unlikely to get them. Although there has been support for reinforcements from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the numbers being offered are relatively token.
Germany has promised another battalion of 850 soldiers. France thus far is unlikely to send more, though its soldiers unlike the German contingent, the Spanish and Italians, remain on combat operations, rather than security and reconstruction duties. Brown had called for 5,000 more pairs of boots on the ground, but its doubtful that they would be British troops, as the Ministry of Defense intends to make dramatic budget and equipment cuts, as part of larger government austerity measures, in light of the global economic turndown.
But Professor Malcolm Chalmers, an Afghan scholar at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told Deutsche Welle that "military burden sharing is less central to the Americans nowthe division of labor with its allies matters less as they are able to shift from Iraq, they are going to go ahead regardless, but the level of commitment on the ground by their allies will determine their place at the table and how loudly their voices are heard in shaping policy."
Can the surge succeed?
The great hope in NATO corridors is that the massive surge of combat troops, especially in southeastern Afghanistan, and in particular Helmand where the Taliban have offered the fiercest resistance and where not incidentally much of their vital opium crop is grown, can start to tip the military balance in favor of the allies. "It's not impossible to make a real difference, if there were a real change in momentum and it could be sustained," Chalmers said.
But there are many hotspots in Afghanistan and NATO soldiers have to secure 650,000 square kilometers (250,000 square miles) of the most difficult terrain, without even matching the sort of troop levels the Soviets once mustered, who themselves were often bogged down and hard-pressed to counter Mujahadeen attacks. Guerrilla strategy dictates if the enemy brings to bear overwhelming numbers and firepower against you, you shift locale where he is weaker and less prepared. With the Taliban operating in some 70 percent of Afghanistan's territory, there are no guarantees on what sectors of the country remain quiet.
And as the suicide bombing attacks in Kabul earlier this month showed, as President Karzai was swearing in his cabinet, not even the Afghan capital is safe. During the spectacular bombings and shootings some 20 Taliban fighters detonated bombs and stormed a host of key government ministries in the very heart of supposedly the most secure government district, across from the central bank and a stone's throw from the presidential palace.
Although the attackers were dealt with swiftly, the incident reflected that the capabilities of the Afghan National Army, the Afghan National Police and the National Security Directorate or intelligence service, are still sorely lacking. Building the capacity of all three remains crucial to any hope of an eventual allied withdrawal.
Pullout plans are premature
A timetable for a hoped-for Western pullout is likely to be discussed in London but Professor Chalmers says interpretation of an allied retreat is premature. "The time scale for a military pull out is condition-based, its not strict clock watching. Obama said a draw down could begin later in 2010 if there is progress with the surge, but a draw down is not total withdrawal so we have to see what happens in the next year, and if the fighting over the next few weeks in Helmand is an indicator of where things will go."
Quite recently the outspoken US General Stanley McChrystal, the overall allied commander in Afghanistan, reiterated that a foreign army alone could not secure military victory in Afghanistan, that it was crucial that the Afghans themselves bear the brunt of the fight themselves as soon as possible and that some sort of political accommodation be reached with the Taliban. Distasteful as that notion may be to some, the allied strategy may well be to reach the negotiating table through overwhelming firepower and a position of strength, rather than one of weakness and impasse where the generals find themselves now.
As matters stand now, talking to the Taliban is not a prospect yet. And if the US shoulders most of the bill for fighting the war, there will be calls for greater international financial support to help carry the burden of reconstruction. And while there are some lofty and noble sounding resolutions in the draft of the Afghan compact devised for the conference, on achieving greater transparency in government, curtailing corruption and fostering economic growth, these are just that, well-intentioned words and not much more.
The entrenched corruption of Afghanistan's government according to the UN consumes $2.5 billion (1.8 billion euros) yearly of international aid funds. The plan on the table to be discussed at the conference for more aid to be distributed directly through Afghan ministries could well raise some eyebrows among donor nations. In short we may not see too many dramatic changes in London or any great surprises as the die for Afghanistan is already well cast.
Editor: Rob Mudge
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Top Afghan Minister: We Need The Taliban
Sky News By Peter Hoskins 01/27/2010
Afghanistan's finance minister has told Sky News that inviting the Taliban into government is the best thing for his country's future.
Speaking to Sky's Jeff Randall, Dr Omar Zakhilwal said: "What would be so wrong to convince a soldier who is trying to kill you to run a peaceful life and be an ally?"
He also denied claims that proposals to offer cash to the Taliban amount to bribery.
"It is not bribes," he said.
"When we talk incentives it is investing in the environment and conditions makes it conducive for them to come."
At the same time, Dr Zakhilwal confirmed that millions of pounds a day were being siphoned out of the country but blamed outsiders for the worst excesses.
"These are international contractors getting big money directly from donors and they are taking it out," he said.
Dr Zakhilwal also took the opportunity to insist that the deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan have not been in vain.
He said: "I think every Afghan, women, men, children, adults are grateful for their sacrifices and (for) every sacrifice you could count thousands of achievements.
"If you had not engaged terrorists on the battlefields of Afghanistan you would have to deal with them on the streets of London."
The comments came ahead of an international summit of world leaders in London.
The heads of 50 nations are gathering to agree how best to help the country battle corruption, drugs and violence.
Britain has already paid a heavy price for its commitment to the troubled region.
Last year was the bloodiest yet for British forces in Afghanistan, with 108 deaths.
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Embattled US troops take cynical view of progress in Afghanistan
The Guardian By Jon Boone in Bala Murghab 01/27/2010
Reintegration will be high on London agenda – but that might be hard for some to swallow, not least the US soldiers in field
It was meant to be a routine patrol. But when a group of 28 American paratroopers and Afghan soldiers found themselves pinned down by the Taliban it almost ended in a bloodbath.
As many as 90 insurgents almost completely surrounded the platoon from the 82nd Airborne as they walked across open ground. With machine gun and sniper fire coming from almost all sides, the only place to hide was a ditch a foot deep.
Enemy rounds ripped into piled mud sending dust into their eyes. The insurgents trained their fire on anything that came into view – kit, radios and helmets.
"We need help now!" Kell Anderson, the platoon's leader, bellowed into his radio, going on to warn that they were fast running out of ammunition and about to take casualties.
Unable to clearly identify the insurgents' firing positions, the men could not call in mortars and had to wait for a pair of aircraft to arrive and perform swooping gun runs to provide cover for the men to dash to safety, rounds hitting the ground between their feet.
None of this happened in the southern badlands of Afghanistan where the Taliban are exacting a seemingly relentless death toll from mostly US and UK forces, but in Bala Murghab, in Badghis province in the far north-west.
A backwater in the war in Afghanistan, nine miles south of the border of Turkmenistan, it has been neglected for years by both Nato and the Afghan government. But it is places like Bala Murghab, in a supposedly more secure corner of the country, that expose the immense difficulties the country has ahead of it in building self-reliant ¬security forces and persuading a new breed of increasingly competent Taliban fighters to lay down their arms.
"They are far more accurate in their firing here than in Helmand," said Jason Holland, squad leader of the patrol. "In Helmand we had more air coverage and indirect fire. We were never pinned down like we were yesterday."
Major Todd Grissom, battalion operations officer, described it as "the worst experience we have had here" since they arrived in October.
The fighting in Bala Murghab has been fierce ever since 4 November when the 82nd Airborne began painstakingly winning back an area where insurgent control began almost at the gates of the valley's small forward operating base.
As foreign ministers meet in London tomorrow, the effort to create a patch of government control nearly 2 miles wide and 4 miles long highlights the power of the counter-insurgency techniques the Americans have been vigorously implementing, but also the difficulties.
For one thing, a rapid "transition strategy" towards Afghan control seems out of the question in a valley where the support of the local population is still far from certain. The close working relationship the Americans have forged with the police and the army is exactly the sort of "embedded" training the US commander, Stanley McChrystal, has called for. But the local police chief is still crawling out from the shadow of the tribal mafia that did much to alienate the local people.
Last Sunday one of the 205 Afghan soldiers working in the area was taken away by helicopter (the roads in and out being under insurgent control). He had been arrested on suspicion of helping the Taliban fire mortars on to the main US base.
Even with extra troops it is hard to see the Afghan National Army (ANA) ever being able to survive the sort of attack the paratroopers came out of unscathed on Tuesday. One soldier, Lieutenant Justin Heddleson, estimated it might require as many as three companies of ANA, compared with the three US platoons who currently do the job.
"But there would be a far higher body count. The Taliban would come back within a year," he said.
Extra Afghan troops are meant to be on their way, but none of the 40,000 US soldiers earmarked as part of Barack Obama's 18-month "surge".
While non-US Nato allies have pledged many additional thousands for northern Afghanistan, they are often of limited use – particularly in Bala Murghab where a contingent of 235 Italians are hamstrung by national caveats imposed in Rome that prevent them from taking part in offensive operations.
While the US platoon were watching bullets whistle over their heads their Italian colleagues with whom they share a house were unable to help, and spent the time paving their section of the compound garden.
Standing up a clean and competent local government is an almost Sisyphean task in an area where a powerful network, part tribal, part criminal, has its hands in everything. Some local officials are believed by the Americans to be passing on "taxes" and information to the Taliban's shadow district governor, while others have close ties to insurgents. At least one government official has not been seen for months, such is his fear of being arrested by the Americans for what they say is his corruption.
In the town of Ludina, at the northernmost edge of the US security bubble, children may wear orange and blue anoraks with the logo of Nato's International Security Assistance Force, but there is little willingness among the town's men to help the Americans, despite gifts of cash and small reconstruction projects.
This week a man passing the checkpoint outside the nearby platoon house had his hands sprayed with a chemical. They turned bright pink – a clear indication he had been handling explosives. To the anger of the Americans, some of whom narrowly missed serious injury from a bomb they encountered while on patrol, the suspect was freed after a delegation of Ludina elders argued his case with the local government.
Reintegration will be high on the London agenda – the attempt to persuade insurgents to lay down their weapons. But that might be hard for some to swallow, not least the US soldiers nearly cut down by a bomb this week.
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We will stay until Afghanistan is secure
Transition is not a code word for exit. Today's conference will give our mission another boost
The Times Anders Fogh Rasmussen January 28, 2010
International conferences are ten a penny; many deliver little more than long communiqués and longer speeches. Today, almost 70 world leaders will meet in London to take forward the international effort to bring peace to Afghanistan — and this conference must and will be different. It must deliver results.
The urgency is clear. A few weeks ago 36 countries in the Nato-led Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) mission agreed to send 37,000 more forces, on top of the 80,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Right now thousands of international forces are flowing in. This is an important demonstration of solidarity with the Afghan people, and a strong rebuttal to anyone who suggests that our nations are looking for the door. It is already allowing Isaf to conduct big operations that would have been impossible with the troop levels of last year. The Taleban will feel the effect.
But the effort and sacrifice of our soldiers alone will not be enough to turn the corner in Afghanistan. It will have to be matched by a clear political “road map”. The London conference will help to set that out.
In London, the Afghan Government will unveil plans to improve governance, fight corruption and bring Taleban fighters back into society if they are ready to lay down their arms. It is clear to everyone that improvements in all these areas are essential. Indeed, it is clear, first and foremost to the Afghan people, who rate governance and corruption as bigger problems than security.
The plans being presented by President Karzai are realistic and achievable, but implementing them will require determined leadership, as well as international support. I believe that at the London conference those plans will get the support they need, including the financial means. Then it will be up to the Afghan Government.
We will also discuss how to transfer the lead in security operations to Afghan forces. Two important decisions have just been taken. First, the Afghan Government and the international community have agreed to increase the Afghan security forces to 171,600 soldiers and 134,000 police officers by 2011.
Second, Nato has just launched the military planning to take forward the process by which responsibility will be handed over to Afghan forces, province by province, where conditions allow, based on the military advice of the commander of the Nato-led mission and the political advice of my senior civilian representative in the country.
Two days ago I selected the British Ambassador in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, to be my new senior civilian representative in Afghanistan. Mr Sedwill is eminently qualified — he knows the country, the people and the Afghan Government well. He also knows the region, having been the British Deputy High Commissioner in Pakistan. He is fully dedicated to the international mission and to the Afghan people. He has my full confidence; he will have my full support.
Mr Sedwill takes up his post at a critical time. In 2010 there will be new momentum in the international effort to help Afghanistan to find its feet and provide its own security. As the Nato-led military mission to protect the Afghan people ramps up, the civilian effort is ramping up as well. Co-ordination of that civilian effort will be more important — and more challenging — this year than ever. That is the job I have given Mr Sedwill, which he will carry out in co-operation with the UN mission and the Afghan Government, to help to support the overall transition to the Afghans taking the lead.
Transition is not a code word for “exit”. This mission will continue until the Afghans are capable of securing the country themselves. But, of course, we want to bring this forward as much as possible. That is why I will be pressuring the allies and our partners to contribute much more to the Nato training mission in Afghanistan. Trainers are an investment with an almost immediate payback: capable Afghan forces that can take the lead from our soldiers. We all want that. We need to make it happen.
Some might look at the terrorist attacks in Kabul last week and ask if it is realistic to talk about transition to an Afghan lead. Don't be fooled.
Militants may try to make a propaganda success out of this, but it was a military failure. They did not enter any of the government buildings targeted; the only building they penetrated was a shopping centre. Afghan forces, which have taken the lead for security in Kabul since 2008, countered the attacks and established order on their own, without any help from the Nato-led mission. Afghan forces can stand on their own feet. They will do that more and more in 2010.
The London conference should also take steps to improve the co-ordination of the civilian effort in Afghanistan. A huge amount of aid and other assistance goes into Afghanistan; not enough is co-ordinated, either with the Afghan Government's priorities or between donors. We can, and must do better. The UN, the Afghan Government, Nato/Isaf and donors must enhance their execution and co-ordination of civilian assistance.
In 2009 there was a lot of reflection in many countries on how best to take this mission forward. That phase is complete — 2010 is about implementation: with clear Afghan plans to improve governance, a more focused civilian effort, and a substantially stronger military mission. There is new momentum in this mission and it is gathering pace. The London conference will give it another boost.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen is Secretary-General of Nato
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Afghanistan: More talks, more war
The Guardian Thursday 28 January 2010
No international conference on Afghanistan would be complete without the leak of a memo to undermine it. The damage was done to today's conference in London by the publication of diplomatic cables from the US ambassador in Kabul. The star guest of today's conference, President Hamid Karzai, the man on whom too much of Washington's strategy rests, is, in Karl Eikenberry's words, an inadequate strategic partner who continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden. The cables were written in November and pre-date President Barack Obama's announcement of a surge. Since then, their author professed his unequivocal support for the mission before Congress. But that is not what his cables say. In arguing that more troops would only increase Afghan dependence and may delay the day when US troops can be withdrawn, they undermine the whole rationale of the surge. The leaking of the cables just before this conference goes beyond the realm of healthy debate. It can only attest to abiding divisions within the US administration itself.
So another conference starts – this is at least the sixth in nine years – with private doubts about strategy being expressed by the very people whose job is to promote it. As we all knew he would and despite speeches to the contrary, Mr Karzai has doggedly resisted attempts to reform his graft-riddled government. He comes to London with only half a cabinet in place, but having reaffirmed the appointment of General Abdul Rashid Dostum as his chief of staff, a man accused of serious human rights abuses. Zarar Ahmad Moqbel, the man who oversaw the most corrupt organisation in the government, the interior ministry, has gone up in the world. He is now in charge of combating the opium industry, the world's largest. It may be truer to say that he is now in charge of the opium industry. Two of the shadiest ex warlords, Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili, are vice-¬presidents. Thus far Mr Eikenberry's predictions about the behaviour of the Afghan president, after an election which was internationally discredited, have held true. Mr Karzai's real interest is in rewarding supporters and keeping the warlords onside. Having recognised his dodgy re-election, Mr Karzai's international backers have once again no real levers to pull against the Afghan president.
This has a bearing on the second plank of the London conference, an attempt to engineer new talks with the Taliban. The stage has been set for this by the removal of five former senior Taliban officials from a UN sanctions list, and Mr Karzai may attempt to steal the show by announcing a Loya Jirga, or an assembly of elders, to discuss talking to the Taliban. Without Mr Karzai in place, and without a surge, this may have had a chance of success, even though it would require enough senior Taliban to recognise that they too cannot win militarily, and there is scant evidence of that. With Mr Karzai in place the prospects of a breakthrough are slimmer still. In December 2007 he expelled a western official for trying just that. Michael Semple has written extensively about the value of negotiating with Taliban. Mr Semple believes a Belfast-style power-sharing agreement with the Taliban remains the only viable way out of a conflict that can not be won militarily. While the war rages, he argues, it becomes a cover for serial breaches of human rights on both sides, and removes accountability both by the ¬government and the Taliban.
This is not the current model of reconciliation, which would be a means of splitting the footsoldiers from its leadership. Taliban ¬commanders will not break with the person they regard as the symbol of resistance, their leader Mullah Omar. Real negotiations would not be an attempt to win the war by other means but a move away from it. The problem with the surge is that, far from persuading the Taliban that they cannot win, it gives them every ¬incentive to fight on.
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Up to 20 insurgents killed in Afghan clash: NATO
Thu Jan 28, 2:48 am ET
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan and NATO forces called in air support after coming under attack from a "large number" of militants in northern Afghanistan and killed up to 20 insurgents, officials said Thursday.
The warplanes were scrambled when combined forces patrolling in the northern province of Baghlan late Wednesday were attacked by rockets and machine-gun fire, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
"ISAF air assets bombed and strafed the insurgents ... Afghan national security forces estimate 12-20 insurgents were killed," ISAF said in a statement.
Afghan army General Murad Ali Murad confirmed the incident to AFP and said it occurred along the Kabul-Kunduz highway, a key supply route for the international forces.
The clash came as Afghan leaders and their international backers were set to hold a major conference in London later Thursday to chart the future of operations in the strife-torn nation.
From their strongholds in the south, Taliban insurgents waging war against US-led forces and the government of President Hamid Karzai have expanded into northern and western parts of the country in recent years.
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Military partnerships may be the nation's best path to peace
Washington Post By David Ignatius Thursday, January 28, 2010
Gen. Stanley McChrystal this week expressed a truth that military commanders know better than anyone: "A political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome," he told the Financial Times. The problem is getting to that political settlement in a way that the combatants find acceptable. This can take years, even decades.
The United States is now in its ninth year of fighting Muslim extremists around the world. People sometimes wonder whether America has learned anything during this painful time, or whether we are condemned to keep digging deeper holes for ourselves. Certainly, we're still digging in Afghanistan, where McChrystal, the U.S. commander there, believes that an acceptable political settlement won't be possible unless we squeeze the Taliban harder. I think he's right about that.
But I sense there's a growing recognition, especially within the U.S. military, that America has to get out of the business of fighting expeditionary wars every time a new flash point erupts with al-Qaeda. The Pentagon has adopted this proxy strategy of training "friendly" countries (meaning ones that share with us the enemy of Islamic extremism) from North Africa to the Philippines.
This "partnership" approach hasn't been articulated by the Obama administration as a formal strategy, and it doesn't get much media coverage. But it's worth a careful look, because it may offer the best path toward a world where the United States isn't always operating as an anti-terrorist Robocop.
The essence of this strategy is to train other countries to fight Islamic extremism that threatens them at least as much as us. As a senior military officer says: "We can't possibly go everywhere that al-Qaeda metastasizes. The idea is to build capacity for foreign militaries to deal with problems inside their borders." ad_icon
Yemen offers the clearest example of how this "partnering" can work -- and how it differs from the direct combat the United States waged in Iraq and Afghanistan. For more than a year, the United States has been training Yemeni special forces and intelligence agencies to deal with a growing al-Qaeda presence there. The United States supplies some high-tech hardware, but the Yemenis do the fighting.
The breakthrough came last July, when Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh decided that his regime was threatened. It was his fight, in other words, not just ours. "We had an embrace in July, literally and figuratively," says Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander who has been the U.S. point man with Yemen.
Traveling with Petraeus several months ago, I saw evidence of this forward-training approach nearly everywhere we stopped. They're low-visibility programs, deliberately, and Petraeus was reluctant to discuss some of them. But other military officials sketched the outlines.
Let's start with Central Asia, where the goal is to prevent the Taliban contagion from spreading to former Soviet republics. The United States is training special forces or other security units in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. To gain Russian support, Petraeus dropped the old rhetoric about competing for energy in Central Asia and instead stressed common enemies.
Other below-the-radar U.S. training missions are helping East Asian countries with large Muslim populations, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The big battlegrounds remain Afghanistan and Pakistan. The White House held its first review of its new Afghan strategy on Jan. 15, and a top White House official says Obama came away "satisfied" with progress there. The meeting analyzed new polls showing the Taliban's unpopularity; improved Afghan army recruitment rates; better security in some districts of Helmand and Kandahar provinces; and steps to ensure that at least 90 percent of President Obama's surge of 30,000 soldiers arrives by August. "It's not a critical mass yet, just guideposts," cautions the White House official.
The toughest theater of this conflict is Pakistan. The U.S. advisory role is evident there, as roughly 100 U.S. Special Forces soldiers "train the trainers" of the Pakistani Frontier Corps. But just last week, the Pakistanis balked at closer partnership, saying they would delay for six months the next phase of their campaign against Taliban extremists.
Partnership is about shared interest, and the American fight against the Taliban gives Pakistan a golden opportunity to secure the tribal areas along its western frontier for the first time in its history -- with a big American army over the border to help.
American troops won't be in Afghanistan forever -- all wars do end, eventually -- and the Pakistanis may miss their chance. That would be a historic mistake, but as U.S. commanders have come to understand, it's their fight, not ours.
davidignatius@washpost.com
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'Dogs of war' saving lives in Afghanistan
by Jason Gutierrez – Thu Jan 28, 1:38 am ET
SOUTHEAST OF MARJAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – For the US Marines patrolling the dusty footpaths of southern Afghanistan, a bomb-sniffing black Labrador can mean the difference between life and death.
These "dogs of war" have saved countless lives and their record for finding hidden explosives has won them a loyal following.
"They are 98 percent accurate. We trust these dogs more than metal detectors and mine sweepers," says handler Corporal Andrew Guzman.
Trained to detect five kinds of threat, from military grade C-4 plastic explosive to common chemicals used by the Taliban to make improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the dogs play a vital role alongside their human comrades.
Bomb expert Sergeant Crush is all concentration as he leads a foot patrol by two squads of US Marines deployed to Afghanistan as part of Washington's fresh surge to end an eight-year insurgency by the Taliban.
His job along with Corporal Goodwin is to lead the men to safety through dusty footpaths and compounds where Taliban militants plant deadly bombs that have left many troops dead in recent months.
They are from a group of four Labradors, who are on average four years old and have all seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"These dogs are great. They keep our Marines alive," says First Lieutenant Aaron MacLean, 2nd Platoon commander of the Marines 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment Charlie Company, to which the dog team is attached.
Crush suddenly goes on a swift bound, sniffing out a corner of a compound in the outskirts of a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province.
There is a quick change in his demeanour, his muscles tense up, he freezes, sticks out his tail and then lies down with his paws extended up front.
The area turned out to have been a former storage place for ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser compound recently banned by the government that the Taliban commonly use in making powerful homemade bombs.
"It's better safe than sorry," Guzman says.
Just days earlier two squads of Marines were ambushed and trapped in a compound. Two Marines died after stepping on the pressure plates of IEDs, just minutes before the dogs were to have cleared the area.
The force of the explosion threw the handlers and the dogs to the ground, but they quickly got up and resumed their jobs.
The dogs also provide an emotional crutch for young Marines facing death every day. They crowd around the dogs and play with them inside the camp. There are frequent questions about adopting them after the Labradors end their tour.
Lance Corporal George Grimm, the handler of Corporal Brooks, says most Marines feel safer with his bomb team leading the way.
Brooks, a three year-old Labrador with tan fur, has been deployed three times in Iraq and Afghanistan and has helped with the recovery of approximately 14 bombs and saved many lives.
One sniffer named Ringo gained a legendary reputation for having found as many as 30 daisy-chain landmines in Iraq, he says.
"Our life is in this boy's hands pretty much," says Grimm, a 19-year-old who has been Brooks' handler since late last year. Grimm grabs a rubber toy called a "konk" and lets Brooks nibble on it.
"They don't ask for much except to be taken cared of," he says.
Handlers say the US government spends huge amounts of money to train the dogs in a civilian-led programme contracted out by the defence department. Related article: Pressure mounts for Afghan solution
They begin training when they are puppies, and by the time they reach two and half years old, are ready to be deployed.
The bomb squad in Afghanistan prefer using pure-bred Labradors over sentry dogs such as German Shepherds because they are easier to train. Labradors are also hunting dogs who can pick up a scent as far as 500 metres (yards) away.
With the Taliban increasingly relying on IEDs to cripple the US advance, officials say up to 70 dogs are now on operation in southern Afghanistan alone, where the insurgency is festering.
More are expected to be deployed in the coming months, officials say.
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NATO troops kill Afghan cleric, officials say
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 26 mins ago
KABUL – NATO troops in a convoy killed an Afghan cleric as he was driving Thursday in Kabul, prompting a protest outside a U.S. military base.
Police and witnesses said imam Mohammad Yunus, 36, was shot to death with his young son in the vehicle as he approached a main road from a side street.
NATO said foreign forces opened fire on "what appeared to be a threatening vehicle," killing the cleric who presided over services at the Paktia Kot mosque.
The cleric was hit by four bullets and died on the way to the Wazir Akbar Hospital, according to his son-in-law, Abdul Qadir, adding the family had taken the body to the province of Laghman for burial. Yunus had two wives and 10 children, Abdul-Qadir said.
A shopkeeper who witnessed the shooting said the convoy was composed of American armored vehicles and was traveling on the main road in the direction of Jalalabad. A gunner in the first vehicle opened fire as Yunus began to pull onto the same road, the 25-year-old shopkeeper said, identifying himself only as Aymal.
Aymal said he didn't hear any warnings before the gunfire. NATO said an investigation was under way and appropriate action would be taken to ensure that the troops complied with policies aimed at protecting civilians. It said Yunus' family would be compensated in accordance with local customs.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Camp Phoenix to protest the killing. They dispersed after police promised the Americans would discuss the death with local elders, according to Abdul Qadier and district police chief Col. Rohullah, who like many Afghans only uses one name.
A recent U.N. report showed that the number of civilians killed by NATO-led forces has dropped after U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, ordered measures curbing the use of airstrikes and other weapons to protect the population.
It said civilian deaths at the hands of the Taliban have increased.
"Despite all the measures that we put in place to ensure the safety of the Afghan people, regrettable incidents such as this one can occur," NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said in a statement about Thursday's shooting. "On behalf of ISAF I express my sincere regrets for this loss of life and convey my deepest condolences to his family."
In other violence Thursday, a U.S. service member was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, according to the international force. The death brings to at least 26 the number of American deaths in Afghanistan this month, nearly double the 14 killed in all of January last year.
An Afghan policeman also was shot to death by two militants on a motorcycle in the southern city of Kandahar, provincial police chief Gen. Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.
NATO also confirmed that as many as 20 suspected militants were killed Wednesday in fighting in northern Afghanistan.
Provincial police said Wednesday that 11 insurgents, including two senior commanders, were killed in a joint air and ground assault targeting a Taliban compound west of Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province.
Joint forces called in air support after coming under fire from a large number of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, NATO said in a statement issued Thursday. It said attack aircraft "bombed and strafed insurgents in a treeline," killing 12 to 20 of them.
___
Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
(This version CORRECTS that the imam's body was taken to Laghman province.)
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Rare Afghanistan convoy attack in normally safe Pakistan city
A NATO convoy bringing supplies to Afghanistan suffered a rare attack in Karachi on Thursday – the first such ambush in the relatively secure port city. A day earlier NATO said it had secured an alternate supply route through Russia.
By Huma Yusuf Correspondent Christian Science Monitor January 28, 2010
Karachi, Pakistan - A NATO convoy came under assault Thursday while carrying supplies through Pakistan to Afghanistan in a rare ambush inside Karachi, the relatively secure port city from which 300 to 400 of the coalition’s trucks leave each day.
Any assault on the Pakistani supply route is worrisome to the US-led forces in Afghanistan, who use it to ship three-quarters of their materials and will need it even more as the surge of 30,000 US troops progresses.
But the attack in Karachi – which is the commercial capital of Pakistan, and has largely escaped the bomb attacks troubling other major cities and the northwest – raises particular concern, especially if it marks the beginning of a trend.
“We will have to increase our vigilance to ensure that such attacks do not become commonplace,” said a police investigator at the Special Investigation Unit, which runs counterterrorism operations in the city.
As a sign of NATO’s desire to loosen its dependence on the Pakistan route, which comes under frequent attack, the organization said Wednesday it had secured agreement from Kazakhstan to allow transit of nonlethal supplies into Afghanistan. This paves the way for an alternate supply route that also includes Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
Neighborhood is home to militants
In Thursday’s assault, which took place in a western township of Karachi called Baldia, four gunmen on motorcycles opened fire and threw grenades at three trucks, wounding three people.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but some local police officials believe it was the work of the Pakistani Taliban (called Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan), which operates in the country’s northwestern tribal belt.
According to the SIU officer, Baldia township is home to militants affiliated with TTP as well as other banned sectarian outfits.
“[Baldia] is one of the few parts of the city we have not been able to infiltrate and clear of militants,” he says.
Earlier this month, a blast at a house in Baldia left eight people dead, and police later uncovered a cache of suicide vests, guns, and explosives at the property.
Few attacks in Karachi
The last attack on NATO supply trucks in Karachi took place in December 2008, when unknown attackers torched several vehicles parked at the New Truck Stand.
Security for NATO supply trucks had been increased since the 2008 attack, says Noor Khan Niazi, president of the Karachi Goods Carriers Association.
In September 2008 Shaukat Afridi, whose transport company supplied fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan, was kidnapped for ransom and then killed by militants affiliated with Harkatul Mujahideen, a banned sectarian group.
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Uncle of Afghan terror suspect Zazi arrested: NY Times
Wed Jan 27, 2:51 pm ET
NEW YORK (AFP) – The uncle of an Afghan immigrant charged with conspiring to bomb New York during the anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks has been arrested, The New York Times reported Wednesday, saying authorities would not reveal the reason for his detention.
The daily cited law enforcement officials who confirmed the arrest of Naqib Jaji, 38, an uncle by marriage to accused terrorist Najibullah Zazi, who is accused of building bombs from household products.
The Times wrote that court records and interviews with family members indicate that Jaji was indicted on a single felony charge of unspecified nature.
The newspaper wrote that the court docket on the case lists him as John Doe, a common practice in cases where a defendant is cooperating with law enforcement officials.
Before his September 20 arrest, Jaji's nephew Najibullah Zazi worked as an airport shuttle bus driver in the western US city of Denver, Colorado.
Prosecutors say Zazi had carried bomb-making instructions in a laptop, and had been shopping for large quantities of chemicals found in beauty products such as hydrogen peroxide and acetone, chemicals that could have been the ingredients for explosives.
They also say he received explosives training in Peshawar, Pakistan, a hotbed of Al-Qaeda activity.
The Times reported that Jaji in public remarks indicated some antipathy toward Zazi, but also said it was "impossible" that his nephew could be a terrorist. Both men are being held in New York.
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