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Taliban deny meeting UN envoy to talk peace in Afghanistan
by Lynne O'donnell – Sat Jan 30, 3:22 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The Taliban denied Saturday that leaders of the Islamist group fighting to overthrow the Afghan government had met with UN representatives to discuss bringing peace to Afghanistan.
West Resigned To Bribery As Taliban Prepare For Victory
By Arthur Kent, Skyreporter.com
January 30, 2010 -- No gathering of the world’s political elite on the subject of Afghanistan would be complete without a requisite whip-round of the illustrious assembly for all the best half truths, tall tales and flat-out propaganda they can muster.
UK opposition leader opposes early withdrawal from Afghanistan
By Tom Evans, CNN January 30, 2010 9:29 a.m. EST
Davos, Switzerland (CNN) -- The United States and NATO should withdraw from Afghanistan on the basis of success and not set artificial deadlines for a pullout, Britain's opposition Conservative Party Leader David Cameron told CNN Friday.
India 'could do business' with Taliban: reports
Sat Jan 30, 3:54 am ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) – India may join world powers in engaging with moderate Taliban in Afghanistan, despite worries about repercussions for its own security, reports said Saturday.
Afghanistan's Abdullah: Will world return to business as usual?
EARTHtimes.org - Jan 29 8:49 AM
Davos, Switzerland - Former Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah told the World Economic Forum that the global powers involved in his country needed to make sure there was not a return to "business as usual" following this week's conference in London.
Karzai Says He Has Always Favored Peace Talks With Taliban
January 29, 2010
(RFE/RL) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai tells RFE/RL that he has long advocated talking to moderate elements within the Taliban but that the international community is only now endorsing and supporting that view.
Interpreter kills 2 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan
KABUL (Reuters) – An interpreter in Afghanistan shot dead two U.S. soldiers, a U.S. military official said on Saturday, adding that the attacker appeared to be a disgruntled employee rather than a militant.
Afghan govt condemns NATO airstrike on soldiers
By Kim Gamel, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – A joint U.S.-Afghan force clashed with Afghan troops manning a snow-covered outpost and called in an airstrike, killing four Afghan soldiers, U.S. and Afghan officials said. Both sides called the clash a case of mistaken identity.
Air strike kills 8 militants in NW Afghanistan
People's Daily - Jan 30 3:08 AM
Afghan and NATO-led forces have killed eight Taliban insurgents in Badghis province northwest of Afghanistan, a senior police officer in the province said Saturday. "A group of Taliban rebels assembled in Balamirghab district to ambush Afghan forces
Clinton says no talking to 'really bad guys' in Taliban
Fri Jan 29, 10:56 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ruled out talking to the "really bad guys" in Afghanistan, promising that a new drive to woo moderate Taliban would not set back women's rights.
Afghanistan's corruption poses dilemma for U.S. military
By Joshua Partlow The Washington Post Sunday, January 31, 2010; B01
The meeting in a muggy tent at Kandahar Airfield was dragging on when a lieutenant colonel with the Army Corps of Engineers broke in with an uncomfortable question.
Afghan Taliban leader ready to end al-Qaida ties, says former trainer
Mullah Muhammad Omar 'a good man' and wants peace in Afghanistan, says Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar
guardian.co.uk Declan Walsh in Rawalpindi Friday 29 January 2010
The Taliban leader in Afghanistan, Mullah Muhammad Omar, is ready to break with his al-Qaida allies in order to make peace in the country, according to the former Pakistani intelligence officer who trained him.
London conference to yield little result in disarming Taliban
Xinhua By Abdul Haleem Jan. 29, 2010
KABUL - As the much-awaited international conference on Afghanistan opened in London Thursday, Afghans see little chance in achieving the goals set for at the forum attended by representatives of 70 nations and international organizations.
New U.S. air strategy in Afghanistan: First, do no harm
By Nancy A. Youssef, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Fri Jan 29, 5:23 pm ET
NANGAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — As his commander greeted a local leader in a district government building one day recently, Air Force Technical Sgt. Tyler Woodson , 20, scurried past them and ran up three flights of stairs to the roof.
Why is the US backing talks with the Taliban?
The Christian Science Monitor By Gordon Lubold 01/29/2010
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
Analysis: Afghans wary of distant promises
Afghans have become wary of promises of progress made at conferences in far away capitals.
Telegraph.co.uk - UK By Ben Farmer 29 Jan 2010
In the eight years since the Bonn conference laid out the foundations of post-Taliban Afghanistan, successive jamborees have only delivered disappointment.
Russia offers to help NATO, but not for free
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV The Associated Press Friday, January 29, 2010; 12:00 PM
MOSCOW -- Russia is willing to help NATO in Afghanistan, but not for free, the Russian envoy to the alliance said Friday.
Afghan Men Struggle With Sexual Identity, Study Finds
FOXNews.com
An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it.
Taliban's leadership council runs Afghan war from Pakistan
Quetta shura, sheltering over the border and led by Mullah Omar, is strategic arm of Taliban
Declan Walsh in Islamabad guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 11.48 GMT
The Quetta shura has long been the aching achilles heel of western efforts to defeat the Taliban.
While the war is fought in Afghanistan, the thinking part of the Taliban the one-eyed leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and a council of about 14 other men is sheltering on the far side of the border, in the western Pakistani province of Balochistan.
Has the West got the will to carry on shedding blood for Afghanistan?
Telegraph, UK By Con Coughlin 01/29/2010
The strategy is finally right, but our resolve could be starting to waver, writes Con Coughlin.
It has taken the best part of a decade, and we have sacrificed an inordinate amount of blood and treasure in our ill-conceived and badly executed attempts to bring some stability to Afghanistan. However, it can now be said with confidence that we have the basis of a strategy for resolving the conflict.
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Taliban deny meeting UN envoy to talk peace in Afghanistan
by Lynne O'donnell – Sat Jan 30, 3:22 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The Taliban denied Saturday that leaders of the Islamist group fighting to overthrow the Afghan government had met with UN representatives to discuss bringing peace to Afghanistan.
The Taliban issued a statement branding reports of a meeting with the UN's outgoing special representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, in Dubai this month as "rumours" and "propaganda".
Referring to itself as "the leading council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" -- as it did during its 1996-2001 rule of the war-torn nation -- the group said the reports were "propaganda by the invading forces against the jihad and mujahideen".
"The leading council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly denies the rumours reported by some international media about talks between Kai Eide and representatives of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," the Taliban said.
"To defuse this (propaganda) we insist on continuing our holy Islamic jihad against the enemy," it said in a statement, referring to the US and NATO forces fighting the Taliban insurgency.
The statement said the Taliban's refusal to negotiate peace had ensured that an international conference in London on Thursday, attended by around 70 countries, was a failure.
"Now in an effort to recover their military and political prestige, the enemies are resorting to a propaganda conspiracy," it said.
The reports that Eide had met with Taliban figures emerged after the conference, which aimed to thrash out a roadmap for Afghanistan's future with one of the main themes being the social reintegration of Taliban fighters.
A UN official revealed that "active members of the insurgency" had met Eide this month, at their request, to discuss peace talks.
Kai Eide met the men in Dubai, reportedly on January 8, and details were shared with the Afghan government, the official said on condition of anonymity.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who hosted the conference, declined Friday to comment on the reported meeting, calling it an "allegation".
Asked to comment while attending the annual World Economic Forum meeting in the Swiss Alps, Miliband said tersely: "You'll have to talk to the UN about that, because that's an allegation that's been run in the newspapers."
The Taliban had already dismissed the London conference as a propaganda ploy, calling US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown "war-mongering rulers" who wanted "to deceive the people of the world... that people still support them".
The statement also dismissed a plan by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to woo what he and Western leaders refer to as Taliban "moderates" -- essentially unemployed and poor men who fighting for cash rather than ideology -- with offers of money and jobs.
"They announce that they will provide money, employment and opportunity to have a comfortable life abroad for those mujahedeen who agree to part ways with jihad," the Taliban said in an earlier statement.
"This is baseless and futile," it said. "Had the aim of the mujahedeen of the Islamic Emirate been obtainment of material goals, they would accept dominance of the invaders in the first place."
And it criticised the Afghan government as corrupt, describing as fraudulent the recent presidential election, after which Karzai, linked to a high proportion of bogus ballots, was declared victor.
"Traffickers of intoxicating items, human rights violators, corrupt persons, national traitors and usurpers of people's private property grabbed power," it said.
Karzai's government is backed by 113,000 troops US and NATO troops, with another 40,000 being deployed this year, bringing the fight to the Taliban, who many military officials say are starting to show signs of battlefield fatigue.
Nevertheless, the usual winter slowdown in fighting has failed to materialise, with foreign troop deaths at 44 for this month, compared to 25 for January 2009.
The latest deaths came on Friday, according to NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which released a brief statement saying that two US soldiers and a US civilian were killed in eastern Afghanistan.
An ISAF spokesman confirmed to AFP the "employee" was an American civilian but said no further information was available on what happened or where.
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West Resigned To Bribery As Taliban Prepare For Victory
By Arthur Kent, Skyreporter.com
January 30, 2010 -- No gathering of the world’s political elite on the subject of Afghanistan would be complete without a requisite whip-round of the illustrious assembly for all the best half truths, tall tales and flat-out propaganda they can muster.
In this regard, Thursday’s London conference on the bleeding wound of Southwest Asia began with invocations that can only be described as incredible.
There was Britain’s Gordon Brown, claiming that international forces are “turning the tide” against the Taliban.
Then it was Afghan President Hamid Karzai's turn. He claimed that most of the militants, suicide bombers and killers of schoolgirls are just “disenchanted brothers” who can be lured “back into mainstream life” (Brown’s words) by shelling out a fistful of dollars here, a bucket full of Pounds Sterling there.
Karzai said that five to ten more years of the haemorrhaging of Western tax dollars into the Afghan army and police will do the trick in terms of security.
He didn’t mention that he has restored an alleged war criminal, Rashid Dostum, to the post of army chief-of-staff, and reappointed as Defence Minister a hard-drinking incompetent, Rahim Wardak, the father of one of the Kabul regime’s leading war profiteers, Hamid Wardak.
Gordon Brown waded into the treacherous tides of timeframes with outrageous claims about how many soldiers and policemen the Kabul regime will boast by the end of this year and October of the next.
We have to wonder: has the man not learned anything as Britain’s wartime Prime Minister?
Setting deadlines in Afghanistan is like counting votes in future elections (or past ones, like Karzai’s). No honest person would dare try.
Then again, honesty appeared to have no place in the conference’s Lancaster House venue. A key goal for the 60 national delegations was the creation of a half-billion dollar slush fund to provide payoffs to "moderate" Taliban gunmen and bombers, who might be willing to kiss Karzai on both cheeks and lay down their arms.
Simply stated, this stands to be the most audacious program of industrial-strength baksheesh the world has seen since the creation of the Karzai regime itself.
The “internationals” still don’t get the drift of things in Afghanistan and Pakistan (whose military is the Afghan Taliban’s patron, and the central driver of the conflict).
The vast majority of anti-Karzai militants can be expected to treat bribes from foreigners exactly as the Karzai brothers and their avaricious cohorts have done during the past eight years. They will take whatever money is on offer, bank it in Dubai and then do exactly as they please in Afghanistan, while Pakistan’s generals continue to set the agenda.
In the fog of collective dementia that settled over Lancaster House, not a single one of the designer suits preparing for the group’s photo opp dared ask this crucial question.
Why, when fully 70% of Afghans live in abject poverty, and nearly one-third of the population can’t get enough food, are world powers handing over more scarce tax dollars to those who deserve it least, namely the lords of war and the Khans of chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
And what about that other unfortunate fact on the ground? Karzai has tried for more than four full years to lure Taliban fighters to his discredited regime, and has failed miserably. (See Skyreporter’s video report “Meet The Taliban”, posted March 26, 2007 on page 39 of Recent Stories).
With killers like Mullah Omar, the Haqqanis and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar running and gunning as never before with the Pakistan military’s backing, why should anyone be attracted to the crumbling House of Karzai now?
Instead, Karzai's enemies will show themselves ready and willing to loot the footlockers of faithless foreigners, before getting back to the business of winning the war, an objective the U.S.-led coalition has evidently abandoned.
Listen closely through the din of disinformation in London, and you could almost hear the voices of the dead: “We gave our lives for this?”
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UK opposition leader opposes early withdrawal from Afghanistan
By Tom Evans, CNN January 30, 2010 9:29 a.m. EST
Davos, Switzerland (CNN) -- The United States and NATO should withdraw from Afghanistan on the basis of success and not set artificial deadlines for a pullout, Britain's opposition Conservative Party Leader David Cameron told CNN Friday.
Speaking to CNN's Christiane Amanpour from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Cameron said it's important to build on and reinforce success rather than set a deadline for a pullout at some point in the future.
"We want to withdraw troops on the basis of success -- on the basis of an Afghan national army that's able to take control of parts of the country -- rather than believing there are artificial deadlines where we can do these things automatically," said Cameron.
With an election coming later this year, current opinion polls suggest Cameron could become Britain's prime minister.
His remarks come a day after the London Conference on Afghanistan that proposed a $500 million "pay-for-peace" plan designed to convince rank-and-file Taliban to give up the fight.
Cameron's rejection of withdrawal deadlines distances him from U.S. President Barack Obama, who plans to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July 2011.
The United Kingdom has joined the United States with a pledge to send more troops to Afghanistan -- 30,000 more from the United States and 500 more from the United Kingdom. The British reinforcements will bring that contingent to about 10,000, roughly one-tenth the size of the U.S. contingent.
Cameron also discussed Britain's relationship with the United States, one he noted is occasionally contentious despite many shared values.
Acknowledging that Britain is the junior partner in the relationship, Cameron said he strongly supports the so-called "special relationship" between the two countries.
"It's not a sentimental one," he said. "I think it's based on some very real things from our history. We fought through northern France together to rid the continent of Nazism. We stood together after 9/11."
The United Kingdom stood by the United States in 2003 when the two countries agreed to invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. Britain's role in the war and the events that led up to it are the subject of a sweeping inquiry currently under way in London.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair testified Friday that the United States and Britain had slightly different views about the need for war. Americans favored regime change, while Britain said it was Saddam Hussein's reported aims to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Cameron said that what matters is not one day's evidence to the inquiry, but whether Britain and its allies learn the lessons of the mistakes that were made in Iraq. "That will be the real test of this inquiry", he said.
"For all that's happened, Iraq is definitely better off without Saddam Hussein and without his brutal regime," said the Conservative Party leader, who voted in favor of war with Iraq.
On economic policy, Cameron also highlighted the importance of tackling Britain's massive budget deficit which, at 13 percent of Gross Domestic Product, is the worst of any major developed country.
He said the deficit is unsustainable and the British people are demanding leadership on this issue.
"We know that if we don't do it, we could end up in a situation like Greece or other countries that are in really serious difficulty."
Greece is trying to tackle out-of-control budget deficits of about 13 percent and soaring public sector debt. And that's raising fears the European Union may have to bail out Athens.
Cameron made no mention of any European bailouts for Britain in his interview with Amanpour.
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India 'could do business' with Taliban: reports
Sat Jan 30, 3:54 am ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) – India may join world powers in engaging with moderate Taliban in Afghanistan, despite worries about repercussions for its own security, reports said Saturday.
India still considers the Taliban to be a terrorist group with close links to Al-Qaeda and other outfits.
But New Delhi would back proposals to reach out to them conditionally, Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna told the Times of India newspaper in an interview published Saturday.
"The international community has come out with a proposition to bring into the political mainstream those willing to function within the Afghan system," he said.
"If the Taliban meet the three conditions put forward -- acceptance of the Afghan constitution, severing connections with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and renunciation of violence -- and they are accepted in the mainstream of Afghan politics and society, we could do business," added Krishna.
The Economic Times quoted Krishna as saying the Taliban "should be given a second chance" and that military action was not the only way to counter their activity.
Krishna's comments follow a major international conference in London this week where nearly 70 countries backed a 500-million-dollar Afghan government drive to tempt fighters to give up their weapons in exchange for jobs and other incentives.
India has provided over one billion dollars in humanitarian and development assistance to Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 and also warily backed US President Barack Obama's surge of 30,000 extra US soldiers.
But it has expressed concerns that an early US exit from the war-torn country could reverberate in the region, already reeling from a wave of militant violence in Pakistan.
"We're next door and our experiences make it difficult for us to differentiate between good or bad Taliban," Krishna told the Times of India.
He said Afghanistan's stability depended on neighbouring countries' "support, sustenance and sanctuaries for terrorist organisations" ending immediately, an apparent reference to long-time foe Pakistan.
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Afghanistan's Abdullah: Will world return to business as usual?
EARTHtimes.org - Jan 29 8:49 AM
Davos, Switzerland - Former Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah told the World Economic Forum that the global powers involved in his country needed to make sure there was not a return to "business as usual" following this week's conference in London. "Is London just a small bridge to pass and then it's back to business as usual?" he asked in Davos.
Though saying he supported the building of state institutions over the last eight years, including the police and army, "at same time there has been an increase in the insurgency," the Afghan politician noted.
Expressing the need to work with the people of the troubled country, he said: "In an insurgency if we lose the people we lose the war."
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said the powers in Afghanistan were aiming to support the government.
"The delivery in Afghanistan is to be done by Afghans, and we will support them when they do the right and necessary things," he said, later adding sarcastically that matters needed to be handled at "slightly better standards."
Representing the local leaders in Kabul, Ashraf Ghani said the government knows "it needs to act or it will lose, both international support and lose domestic support."
Using business language he said Afghanistan was a "high-risk, high-reward" scenario.
While Bildt insisted he did not base his policy on popular opinion but on the parliamentary majority his government controlled, David Milliband, the British foreign secretary, noted that it was also the public in the West that needed to be considered.
"There is a great deal of concern in the UK about the losses we are bearing ... The burden being borne by the UK," the foreign minister said.
He said the "red line" for cooperation of Western powers with local forces in Afghanistan would not only be al-Qaeda-related figures, but also those that did not respect the Afghan constitution, including equality issues between men and women.
Leaders at the London Afghanistan conference on Thursday mapped out a way for Western forces to begin leaving the country, as they approved a grand strategy aimed at strengthening the Afghan government in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
NATO countries will step up training and funding to increase the manpower of the Afghan security forces to over 300,000 by the autumn of 2011.
A 140-million-dollar fund was established to pay for a scheme to entice lower-ranking Taliban fighters to leave the movement.
But in return for international aid, the Afghan government will have to take drastic steps to root out corruption and improve the lives of the population, speakers at the London conference said.
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Karzai Says He Has Always Favored Peace Talks With Taliban
January 29, 2010
(RFE/RL) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai tells RFE/RL that he has long advocated talking to moderate elements within the Taliban but that the international community is only now endorsing and supporting that view.
"During my eight years in office and until today, I have constantly spoken in favor of holding talks with the Taliban and conducting peace talks with the Taliban," Karzai said.
"Until last year, we lacked support from the United States, other Western governments, and NATO, and we had differences over this issue," he added. "Luckily, the Americans did agree and accepted our policy. The conference in London was held to confirm that policy, and we hope that we will be together in its application. We hope that we will execute that policy in cooperation."
Karzai spoke to RFE/RL on the sidelines of the January 28 international conference on Afghanistan in London.
Peace Talks
At the conference, Karzai set the framework for dialogue with Taliban leaders by calling on the Islamist group's leadership to take part in a "loya jirga" (a large assembly of elders) to initiate peace talks.
Reuters news agency reported that the Taliban reached out to the UN's representative to Afghanistan three weeks ago to discuss the idea. Members of the group's leadership council, the Quetta shura, met secretly with Kai Eide to talk about the possibility of a meeting with Kabul, according to a UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Karzai said the idea to meet with members of the Taliban reflects his long-held belief that ending the U.S. led-war would always require more than a military solution.
"Now, on our way towards peace and stability, we believe that military action alone can't secure Afghanistan. So we initiated a peace process and negotiations with all our Afghan brothers, no matter with whom they are connected -- the Taliban, Hizb-e Islami, or other groups -- but only those who are not related to Al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups and those not holding any extreme ideology against their own land and the world community," he said.
"[We will talk to] those who recognize Afghanistan's Constitution and are interested in Afghanistan's security. We want them back in our society," Karzai added.
Kabul's peace initiative comes as Western powers involved in the Afghanistan conflict are turning up the pressure on Kabul to make progress that will allow them to begin withdrawing combat troops.
Ready To Take Over
At the London conference, leaders and ministers from more than 60 countries gathered to talk about the way forward emerged with an agreement that Afghan forces should take the lead role in providing security in several provinces by late this year and early next.
The Afghan leader said he had tried to deliver the message that the Afghan people are ready and willing to accept responsibility for their country's security and future.
"The London conference was organized according to an Afghan agenda." he said. "Our aim here was to make sure all major efforts related to Afghanistan's future developments, security in Afghanistan and region, and the fight against terror -- as far as what happens within Afghanistan's territory and related to Afghans -- should be organized through Afghans, by Afghans, and under their leadership and by the Afghan government," he said.
The conference also agreed that a fund should be established to pay low-level Taliban fighters to leave the insurgency and support the democratically elected government.
Taliban Buy-Out?
Karzai told RFE/RL that the Taliban has successfully turned "thousands" of Afghans against their own country and that regaining their loyalty has become a priority:
"A very important point here is that we know that there are thousands of our country folk in the hands of others and being used by others against their own land," he said. "These are people who have been deprived of their societies, villages, and homes as a result of our own mistakes, mistakes that have been committed by the international community, NATO, U.S. troops, and others."
He added, "We especially want the huge numbers of young people to come back home. We want to provide them with opportunities and for them to live in accordance and under the guidance of Afghanistan's Constitution."
On January 29, a spokesman for the Taliban said the group's leaders would decide "soon" whether to join peace talks.
Prior to this latest outreach effort, the Taliban repeatedly said negotiations with the Afghan government could only take place when foreign troops had completely withdrawn from Afghanistan.
Some 110,000 NATO-led troops are in Afghanistan, including 70,000 Americans.
Karzai won a small victory on January 25 when a UN Security Council committee removed five former senior Taliban members from its list of individuals facing sanctions over their links to a terrorist organization. Karzai had sought their removal as part of his reconciliation plan.
The UN said in a statement that the five would no longer be subject to international travel bans and asset freezes.
Afghans Only
One of those removed from the list is former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, who spoke to RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan in Kabul on January 29 about the plan to invite Taliban members for peace talks.
"I think it is very important that all sides, Afghans, foreigners, and the Taliban, consider the idea of peace and take specific actions to lead us toward peace," Muttawakil said.
"Both sides should give up on setting conditions and start the dialogue from simple positions. Directions must be identified. The opposition party's security should be guaranteed regarding the so-called black list, prisoners, and sanctions. I think, even it is not an easy task, but it is achievable through negotiations, dialogue, and understanding," he added.
But Muttawakil said he wasn't sure the idea of buying off lower-level fighters would work.
"As far the effectiveness of involving money in this process, I look at it as an issue of suspicion, and it is controversial," he said. "First, corruption is something that the current administration in Afghanistan cannot simply deny. It is also lacking in ability."
On the other hand," he added, "[the international community] in the past were making promises of huge amounts of money, but they don't fulfill those promises, which are forgotten."
Above all, Muttawakil said, if peace talks are to succeed, foreigners must be kept out. "Now is the time for an Afghani experience," he said.
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report
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Interpreter kills 2 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan
KABUL (Reuters) – An interpreter in Afghanistan shot dead two U.S. soldiers, a U.S. military official said on Saturday, adding that the attacker appeared to be a disgruntled employee rather than a militant.
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said earlier that two U.S. service members and one "U.S. employee" had been killed in an incident in the east of the country on Friday, without giving further details.
"Initial indications are this was a case of a disgruntled employee," said the U.S. military official.
The incident took place in Wardak province southwest of Kabul, which was also the scene of a clash between Afghan troops and NATO-led forces overnight in which the foreign troops called in an air strike that killed four Afghan soldiers.
There was no indication that the two incidents were linked.
An Afghan provincial official, who also asked not to be named, said the interpreter had quarrelled with the soldiers over pay and treatment, before opening fire.
The interpreter was shot dead by other soldiers after killing the two.
(Reporting by Peter Graff and Hamid Shalizi; writing by Peter Graff)
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Afghan govt condemns NATO airstrike on soldiers
By Kim Gamel, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – A joint U.S.-Afghan force clashed with Afghan troops manning a snow-covered outpost and called in an airstrike, killing four Afghan soldiers, U.S. and Afghan officials said. Both sides called the clash a case of mistaken identity.
Afghanistan's Defense Ministry condemned the killings in the eastern Wardak province and demanded punishment for those responsible. NATO called the deaths "regrettable" and announced an investigation.
The deaths are likely to strain relations between NATO and Afghan forces at a time both are calling for a closer partnership in the fight against the Taliban.
Underscoring those tensions, an Afghan interpreter killed two U.S. service members Friday at a combat outpost elsewhere in Wardak province, a NATO official said.
A U.S. soldier then killed the interpreter, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information. It wasn't clear why the interpreter had opened fire on the Americans.
Both attacks occurred in the Sayed Abad district, but the official said they did not appear to be linked. First reports indicated three Americans were killed but NATO officials said one of the dead was an Afghan.
Saturday's fighting began about 3 a.m., when a joint U.S.-Afghan force traded fire with another Afghan unit manning the outpost, which the army said had been established 18 months ago to guard the highway. International troops then called in an airstrike, killing the four Afghans, NATO and the Afghan ministry said.
The NATO official confirmed they were Americans, and Afghan officials they were Special Forces working with Afghan commandos.
Associated Press Television News footage of the aftermath showed American armored vehicles on the highway, about a half mile (a kilometer) from the hilltop outpost. The snow outside the fortified compound was blackened by the airstrike.
"Besides expressing heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyrs, the Afghan Defense Ministry is condemning this incident," the Afghan statement said, adding a delegation had been sent to the area to investigate. "After the investigation is completed, the Defense Ministry wants to bring those responsible to justice."
Provincial officials said the fighting was due to a misunderstanding as the joint force returned from an operation. Provincial spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said seven Afghan soldiers also had been wounded.
NATO said the Afghans began shooting first and the joint force returned fire before calling in the airstrike.
"We work extremely hard to coordinate and synchronize our operations," NATO spokesman Brig Gen. Eric Tremblay said.
It was believed to be the first fatal friendly fire incident since November, when eight Afghans — four soldiers, three policemen and an interpreter — were killed during close combat amid a search for a missing U.S. paratrooper.
Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said at the time that the deaths had been caused by "an air attack by NATO forces" during the fighting.
Saturday's incident followed the deaths Friday of two U.S. service members and one U.S. employee who were killed in eastern Afghanistan. In a statement announcing the deaths, NATO did not specify the circumstances or give further details pending an investigation.
That suggested the deaths may not have been due to hostile fire.
Also Saturday, NATO said its troops opened fire on a taxi the day before as it sped toward a patrol, ignoring warning shots. Two civilians were killed and one was wounded in the shooting, which occurred in the Muqor district of Ghazni province.
U.S. soldiers shot and killed an Afghan imam Thursday when his car approached a convoy on the eastern outskirts of Kabul.
Elsewhere, joint NATO-Afghan forces came under attack in the northwestern province of Badghis at about 1 a.m. Saturday (2030 GMT Friday; 3:30 p.m. EDT Friday), prompting a gunbattle and an airstrike that killed eight militants, including a group leader, deputy provincial police chief Abdul Jabar Khan said.
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Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
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Air strike kills 8 militants in NW Afghanistan
People's Daily - Jan 30 3:08 AM
Afghan and NATO-led forces have killed eight Taliban insurgents in Badghis province northwest of Afghanistan, a senior police officer in the province said Saturday. "A group of Taliban rebels assembled in Balamirghab district to ambush Afghan forces convoy but intelligence report indicated their hideout prompting Afghan and international troops to raid their position on Friday night from ground and air resultantly leaving eight insurgents dead," Deputy to provincial police chief Abdul Jabbar told Xinhua.
Jabbar also said that there were no casualties on the side troops and civilians.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have yet to make comment.
Source:Xinhua
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Clinton says no talking to 'really bad guys' in Taliban
Fri Jan 29, 10:56 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ruled out talking to the "really bad guys" in Afghanistan, promising that a new drive to woo moderate Taliban would not set back women's rights.
Clinton doubted that Afghan leaders or the international community would reach out to hardliners like Mullah Omar, who headed the Taliban regime which imposed an austere brand of Islam from 1996 to 2001.
"We're not going to talk to the really bad guys because the really bad guys are not ever going to renounce Al-Qaeda and renounce violence and agree to re-enter society," Clinton said in an interview with National Public Radio broadcast on Friday.
"That is not going to happen with people like Mullah Omar and the like."
Clinton was speaking from London, where a global conference threw its backing behind a multimillion-dollar fund to support Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plan to integrate militants who lay down their arms.
The chief US diplomat, a longtime advocate of women's rights, acknowledged that some Afghan women were concerned about dealing with the Taliban -- whose regime forbade women from going to school, working or traveling on their own.
However, she added: "I don't think there is cause for alarm that the current government or any foreseeable government would turn the clock back like that."
She said it was crucial for women's rights that "there is enough power in the state and through the new Afghan security forces to make sure that there's never a resurgence of the Taliban that would come close to taking over large parts of the country.
"That's what we're preventing," said Clinton.
She rejected suggestions the strategy would confuse people just as the United States and its allies pour another 40,000 troops into Afghanistan to battle Islamic extremists.
"You can't have one without the other," said Clinton.
"Only a surge of military forces alone without any effort on the political side is not likely to succeed; only an effort to make peace with your enemies without the strength to back it up is not going to succeed."
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Afghanistan's corruption poses dilemma for U.S. military
By Joshua Partlow The Washington Post Sunday, January 31, 2010; B01
The meeting in a muggy tent at Kandahar Airfield was dragging on when a lieutenant colonel with the Army Corps of Engineers broke in with an uncomfortable question.
"I'm not sure how to put this," he told some 40 American soldiers and civilians gathered here two weeks ago in the heart of Taliban territory. A commander of the Afghan border police had offered to give the U.S. military prime land at a crossing with Pakistan to build a waiting area for supply vehicles needed for President Obama's troop increase. The same man, U.S. officials believe, earns tens of millions of dollars a year trafficking opium and extorting cargo trucks.
The lieutenant colonel wanted to know: "Does anyone else see this as a problem?"
The silence that followed revealed a basic dilemma the United States now faces in the war in Afghanistan. After eight years of dropping bombs and killing insurgents, the new American military strategy makes explicit the need to fight corruption to build a more legitimate Afghan government. But corruption is a complicated enemy. American officers may want to remove or marginalize shady local officials such as Col. Abdul Razziq, the 33-year-old police commander in the town of Spin Boldak. Yet, when that goal comes up against other imperatives -- maintaining short-term security, gathering intelligence on the Taliban or moving supply trucks over the border -- fighting corruption often loses out.
"What is the focus -- is it security and stability? Or is it governance and anti-corruption? That's a discussion well above me," said Lt. William Clark, an American squadron commander at the border who meets with Razziq three times a week and describes their working relationship as "excellent." Clark told me he has talked to Razziq about the need to curb the drug trade, smuggling and extortion at the border, but in the end it's a matter of priorities. "He looks out for our welfare and our best interests," Clark explained.
Afghan citizens paid an estimated $2.5 billion in bribes last year and rate corruption as a more serious problem than security, according to a recent U.N. report. But individuals such as Razziq play a valuable role for the U.S. military: Commanders say he and his 3,500 armed men have preserved their town as an oasis of calm compared with other parts of southern Afghanistan.
"The dilemmas that we are involved in are extreme," said Todd Greentree, the senior U.S. civilian working with a brigade of American soldiers based in Kandahar. "We are attempting to carry out our policy of connecting people to a regime that has serious legitimacy problems, which builds a contradiction into our strategy."
Indeed, Razziq, who has also been accused of stuffing ballot boxes for President Hamid Karzai in last summer's election -- he denies all the allegations against him -- is hardly the most important example of this dilemma. The dominant power broker in Kandahar, Ahmed Karzai, the president's brother, is widely suspected of involvement in the drug trade. In October, the New York Times reported that he has long been on the CIA payroll for his help in recruiting a paramilitary force and acting as a liaison with the Taliban. Throughout the conflict, a host of warlords and regional strongmen have received support from American forces seeking to maintain order.
When Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, visited Razziq this month, he played the role of polite visitor, requesting help in accelerating the flow of trucks over the border. When asked whether he was concerned about partnering with a suspected drug trafficker, or whether he had proof of Razziq's alleged crimes, McChrystal demurred. "I don't have anything to say on that," he said. "I just don't have the depth of information."
Other U.S. officials regard Razziq -- whose inquisitive gaze and patchy beard hardly seem right for the part of border mob boss -- as a notorious criminal whose behavior corrodes the credibility of Afghan authorities over the long term, even as it may help protect American soldiers in the short term.
"People join the insurgency because of rage at the monopoly of power and resources and the abuses of people like Razziq," said one NATO official who works on corruption issues in Kabul. "He convinces us that he's keeping the road safe, when in fact his actions may be partly responsible for the burgeoning of the insurgency in Kandahar province."
Greentree, a former foreign service officer who has served in five war zones and has written a book on counterinsurgency lessons from the U.S. involvement in Central America in the 1980s, said such calculations force the military to diverge from its stated anti-corruption stance. Besides, he said, American efforts to arrest government officials could be destabilizing and -- considering the malleable state of the Afghan justice system -- a waste of time.
When asked if it's even possible to noticeably improve Afghan governance, Greentree hesitated. "The goals that we set for ourselves are infinitely ambitious; the timeline that we've set to do it is extremely finite," he said. "So looking at that reality, it is doubly difficult to come up with a course of action, and the right incentives, to be effective."
In recent months, American military and civilian leaders in Afghanistan have clearly devoted more attention, both in rhetoric and behind the scenes, to tackling corruption. A Major Crimes Task Force, made up of Afghan intelligence officers backed by the FBI and British law enforcement officials, now investigates allegations of government corruption. In September, McChrystal instructed his troops to start collecting intelligence on government corruption and assembling lists of the most serious offenders, according to officials familiar with the order.
"Actively collecting information on abusive practices should be part of the culture change that must take place in the intelligence branch, refocusing effort away from the enemy and toward the population," read a draft paper that circulated within the NATO military and the U.S. Embassy, and that informed McChrystal's order. "Millions of dollars are being lost to [the Afghan government] each month through officials' involvement in smuggling of raw materials, cooption of contracting processes, capturing of development resources and customs revenues."
NATO military officials, along with representatives from the U.S. and British Embassies, have begun meeting to prioritize the worst offenders. Several U.S. government agencies have approached those working in Afghanistan, offering technology and expertise to collect evidence for corruption investigations, officials said.
For U.S. soldiers in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, official corruption -- from public health officials stealing medicines and charging customers at the "free" clinic, to police shaking down passing cars -- hurts their ability to undercut the insurgency. "The government was so nonexistent, to be honest with you, and so hated," said Lt. Col. Jeffrey French, a battalion commander for the area. "We had to offer the populace a credible alternative to the Taliban."
In October, international law enforcement and military officials helped Afghan authorities plan the arrest of a senior border police official in Kandahar named Sayfullah. According to evidence collected through wiretaps and bank records, Sayfullah allegedly collected salaries of hundreds of "ghost" policemen and stole money from a government fund intended to pay orphans and widows. U.S. officials said this arrest of such a senior official on corruption charges is unprecedented. Since then, another former border police official, Ali Shah from Paktika province, has also been arrested on corruption charges.
But corruption cases do not move quickly through the Afghan government. In recent weeks, disputes between the Afghan intelligence agency and the police over who should lead the Major Crimes Task Force have slowed its work. Meanwhile, the border officer appointed to replace Sayfullah, a former deputy police chief in Kandahar named Hakim Angar, was blocked at the last minute from taking up his duties despite protests to the Interior Ministry by the British ambassador and American generals. This job, commanding the border police in four southern provinces, including Kandahar and Helmand, is potentially crucial for fighting corruption.
As for the man that U.S. officials suspect helped block the appointment? They know him well: He's a 33-year-old border commander who has a great piece of land for the Americans to use in Spin Boldak.
Joshua Partlow is the Kabul bureau chief for The Washington Post.
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Afghan Taliban leader ready to end al-Qaida ties, says former trainer
Mullah Muhammad Omar 'a good man' and wants peace in Afghanistan, says Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar
guardian.co.uk Declan Walsh in Rawalpindi Friday 29 January 2010
The Taliban leader in Afghanistan, Mullah Muhammad Omar, is ready to break with his al-Qaida allies in order to make peace in the country, according to the former Pakistani intelligence officer who trained him.
Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar, a retired officer with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, said: "The moment he gets control the first target will be the al-Qaida people. He wants peace in the country, he doesn't want adventure. He has enough of that."
If accurate, his assessment would be a major boon to western countries scrambling to find a negotiated solution to the Afghan war. Talking to the Taliban was the principal focus of a major conference on Afghanistan held in London this week.
But how to divorce the Taliban from its al-Qaida allies who have provided funding, expertise and ideological drive over the past eight years is one of the major headaches facing diplomats and intelligence officers.
Few know the Taliban as well as Tarar, who is sometimes called the "godfather of the Taliban" owing to his pivotal role in fostering the group's emergence during the chaos of Afghanistan's 1990s civil war.
Speaking at his home in Rawalpindi, the 65-year-old downplayed the significance of reports that the head of the UN mission to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, met senior Taliban commanders in Dubai earlier this month for "talks about talks".
"The people who went over there didn't have any value. There were no hardcore people from Mullah Omar's shura," he said, citing refugees and "people coming from Afghanistan" as his sources.
Tarar said Taliban talks could succeed only through direct engagement with Omar, the one-eyed leader whom he trained in guerrilla warfare during the 1980s.
Tarar still speaks affectionately of his former student, who has not been seen publicly since 2001. "He is a good man. He is for his country, not for any mischief," he said.
Tarar warned that any attempts to break the Taliban through cash bribes or "reconciliation" schemes would fail. "They are trying to damage the main actors, to isolate them. But I know the Afghan psyche. It won't work," he said.
Despite a welter of speculation this week there are few hard facts about the prospects of negotiations with the Taliban any time soon. It remains unclear whether the insurgents, who have spread to 33 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, are ready to negotiate, or would prefer to simply await the departure of western troops.
Tarar was a key link between Pakistan intelligence and the Taliban when posted to Afghanistan in the 1990s. He was popular with Afghan militants for his enthusiastic embrace of their culture and his shared religious zeal.
He shares the hostility to US policy common to many Pakistani officers. The Afghan war cannot succeed because there is a lack of "conviction", he said.
"If the Americans bring a superior faith, or a convincing cause, they can win. But they don't have it. Even their own soldiers are unhappy," he said.
The ISI is likely to play a key role in any talks with the Taliban. A senior western official said the ISI's co-operation was vital if not to aid negotiations, then at least to prevent the spy agency sabotaging them.
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London conference to yield little result in disarming Taliban
Xinhua By Abdul Haleem Jan. 29, 2010
KABUL - As the much-awaited international conference on Afghanistan opened in London Thursday, Afghans see little chance in achieving the goals set for at the forum attended by representatives of 70 nations and international organizations.
Security, good governance and development are the priorities that the war-weary Afghans need to move towards a prosperous state, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in his remarks at the conference.
Karzai also said that the Afghan government is ready to negotiate with those Taliban fighters who have no link with the al- Qaida and other terrorist networks.
However, Afghans see little chance in bringing militants into mainstream of community and convincing them to lay down arms.
"Taliban would not accept any peace plan presented in London as the militants term the international troops deployed in Afghanistan as the occupying force," an Afghan analyst and former Taliban official Waheed Mughda told Xinhua.
Mughda also is of the view that the London conference would have little impact on regional cooperation in counter-insurgency as Iran, an immediate Afghanistan's neighbor, did not attend the forum.
Hosted by Britain with an objective to muster international community's support to help Afghan government in fighting militancy, corruption and ensuring good governance, the participants at the conference are expected to establish a fund for encouraging Taliban to hand over their weapons.
To bolster the peace process with the Taliban, the United Nations a day earlier on Wednesday removed the names of five former Taliban leaders from the black list, including the ousted regime's foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil who lives in Kabul.
According to the peace plan, for those Taliban fighters lay down arms and resume normal life, the government would provide with job, land and pension.
Nonetheless, Taliban outfit in a statement released on the eve of the London conference described the forum as a trick by U.S. and Britain to deceive their nations and divide the militants.
The radical outfit in the statement posted on its website Wednesday also vowed to continue Jihad or holy war till the expulsion of foreign troops from the post-Taliban nation.
The London conference took place amid Karzai's failure to have functioning cabinet at home as only 14 out of the 25 cabinet nominees have won vote of confidence from the Wolesi Jirga, or the lower house of the Afghan parliament.
Experts are of the view that incomplete cabinet would weaken Karzai's position at the conference and could raise question about his ability to achieve the ambitious plan which include brining lasting peace through reconciliation, eliminating corruption and ensuring good governance.
"I do not see any change in the policy of the U.S. and NATO in war against Taliban and associated groups," another Afghan analyst, Qasim Akhgar, told Xinhua.
A human right activist and writer, Akhgar, also doubts U.S. honesty and seriousness in war against terror. "If they (U.S. and the allied nations) were serious in war on terror, definitely the Taliban and other militants groups have already been eliminated," said Akhgar.
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New U.S. air strategy in Afghanistan: First, do no harm
By Nancy A. Youssef, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Fri Jan 29, 5:23 pm ET
NANGAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — As his commander greeted a local leader in a district government building one day recently, Air Force Technical Sgt. Tyler Woodson , 20, scurried past them and ran up three flights of stairs to the roof.
There, Woodson, of Macon, Ga. , surveyed the town. He saw children playing soccer in an adjacent field, trucks traveling on the main throughway and, several hundred yards away, a glorious range of mountains touching the sky.
He knew that was the best place to drop a bomb from an F-16 — where there was no chance of striking anyone or anything.
"See over there," he said, pointing. "It's flat, so there's no chance of debris falling on anyone."
This is the new U.S. air campaign in much of Afghanistan .
Six months after Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal , the top U.S commander in Afghanistan , issued a tactical directive urging troops to walk away from a fight rather than risk killing civilians, the Air Force is engaging in a campaign of restraint. Instead of air strikes, airmen increasingly are searching for places they can drop bombs that can be heard and felt, but where they're unlikely to damage buildings or hurt people.
It isn't a universal effort. In Afghanistan's Khost and Helmand provinces, Afghanistan's most violent, U.S. jets more frequently drop bombs that are intended to maim and kill.
In less conflicted areas such as Nangahar, however, soldiers are increasingly seeking tactics other than air attacks to get them out of hairy situations. Among the alternative uses of air power: buzzing enemy positions in a show of force, and shooting flares or dropping warning bombs instead of directly engaging the enemy.
Privately, ground troops see that the restraint is putting them in greater danger, and so far, they aren't seeing results.
Afghans still seem no more willing to provide information to U.S. forces, the troops say, despite of the U.S. efforts to minimize civilian casualties, even in a province such as Nangahar, where education levels are relatively high. A senior military officer acknowledged in a December briefing with reporters that the Taliban have expanded their shadow government to nearly every Afghan province, a sign of complicity and fear among law-abiding Afghans.
Afghans say they appreciate the Americans' more cautious approach, but they continue to fear the Taliban's return to power.
Some troops say they look for ways around the directive.
"The directive . . . It's nice. I read it, but I am going to make sure my guys come back. Period," said one platoon sergeant who requested anonymity to speak more candidly.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Stephen P. Mueller , the director of coordinating air resources in Afghanistan and a McChrystal adviser on Air Force matters, said he's aware that troops feel less safe and is trying to address that by stressing that they'll get air support when they need it.
"All we are asking is for the pilot and crew to be a little more judgmental," Mueller said. "We are trying to counter this (notion). But I fundamentally believe it is the best way to go."
The adjustment is part of the Air Force's effort to find a place for jet fighters in a counterinsurgency campaign. Even precision guided munitions are best for killing hundreds of enemy troops clustered on a battlefield, not for one or two insurgents running away from a housing compound, Air Force commanders concede. Dropped on buildings to kill a handful of enemy fighters, bombs almost certainly also claim the lives of civilians.
Since McChrystal's directive, "we have seen . . . significantly less use in compounds," Mueller said.
Air Force statistics show that non-lethal shows of force have become more common in the months since McChrystal's directive.
Those statistics show, for example, that U.S. troops came into contact with an enemy 590 times in July, the month McChyrstal issued the directive. In 33 percent, or 198 of those cases, they responded with a non-lethal aerial show of force. By November, non-lethal shows of force made up 88 percent of the responses — 110 out of 139 instances of troops facing enemy fire.
Col. Joe Beissner , 45, of Alexandria, Va. , vice wing commander of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing who's served in Afghanistan before, said the military uses less air power now than it did two years ago.
The Air Force is now asking: "Is there a better way we can do this than drop a 200-pound bomb?"
Woodson's rooftop surveillance in Nangahar province is part of a program designed to provide a bridge between ground forces and pilots in the air. Several hundred Air Force joint terminal attack controllers, or JTACs, are assigned to Army units in Afghanistan to help determine whether to drop a bomb, and if so, what kind.
The JTACs also are responsible for knowing where aircraft are and how long it will take them to arrive at a battle. Once they've arrived, the JTACs help negotiate the best use of the aircraft.
The ground commander is often just thinking "I don't want my guys to be shot anymore," said Air Force Maj. Jayson Schmiedt , an F15C pilot from Colorado Springs, Colo. "So we tell them, 'Tell us the effects you want, and we will provide it.'"
It takes three years to train a JTAC, and there's a shortage — the military hopes to add another 100 among the 30,000 surge troops, bringing the total number in Afghanistan to roughly 300.
Woodson, who's assigned to accompany the 1st Squadron , 108th Cavalry Regiment , Georgia Army National Guard , spends much of his time in the field looking for places to drop a warning shot, in case soldiers ever come into danger.
As the 108th Cavalry's commander, Lt. Col. Randall Simmons , 40, also of Macon , met with local officials, Woodson determined the GPS coordinates of the mountain's flat top and made a note of them. In an attack, there may not be time to look for the best spot, he explained.
There are limits to warning shots, of course, said Capt. Roger Brooks , 36, who hails from Dallas, Ga. , and commands the JTACs supporting Simmons' regiment as part of the 165th Air Support Operations Squadron of the Georgia Air National Guard .
The Taliban are smart and adaptable. If they see only warning shots and flares, they'll eventually figure out "it's just an air show," he said.
For now, however, it still works, largely because 30 years of war have taught Afghans to fear death from the sky.
Measuring the gains of restraint, however, is harder to determine. On a late December day, guardsmen were returning from a day-long patrol. Brooks was serving as the JTAC.
Along the main road to the base just outside Jalalabad, the unit was flagged down by a man who said that a policeman had found a roadside bomb up ahead in a busy area of shops, where it should have been difficult to hide an explosive without others knowing.
As Lt. Col. Simmons interviewed the local police chief about how a bomb could have been buried just outside his station, Brooks determined that an F-15 was flying 15 miles to the north. He jumped out of the truck and began trying to find a target.
As he listened to the police chief's answers, which were growing increasingly evasive, Brooks became antsy. Taliban fighters might be nearby, and the unit was now stopped. He asked the F-15 to drop flares. Ten minutes later it did, sending the villagers running out of fear they were about to be struck.
That was a success, Brooks said. The troops were safer. Still, he sighed.
Under the new tactical directive, Brooks would have to explain why he used the flares.
"All I can think about is the paperwork," he said. "It will take hours for 15 minutes of air power."
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Why is the US backing talks with the Taliban?
The Christian Science Monitor By Gordon Lubold 01/29/2010
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 Karzaiâ 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 publicâ 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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Analysis: Afghans wary of distant promises
Afghans have become wary of promises of progress made at conferences in far away capitals.
Telegraph.co.uk - UK By Ben Farmer 29 Jan 2010
In the eight years since the Bonn conference laid out the foundations of post-Taliban Afghanistan, successive jamborees have only delivered disappointment.
Gordon Brown s London conference did contain more momentum and concrete strategy than many of its predecessors. But in Kabul and the southern provinces where it must produce results, the difficult questions remain unanswered.
The two-tier plan to lure fighters away from the Taliban while tentatively opening the door to talks with their commanders assumes the Taliban wants to talk and doesn t think it can wait out the West.
An attack on the capital of Helmand province 12 hours after the conference ended delivered one possible answer to Hamid Karzai s desire to reach out to disenchanted brothers .
More than 110,000 Nato-led forces have yet to convince the Afghan people they have reversed the momentum of four years of intensifying violence.
The kind of overhaul of the Afghan government and economy promised in London also requires time.
Politicians tying themselves in knots trying to promise Afghans they will not be abandoned, while also promising domestic voters they will not stay forever, encourage the Taliban to believe it need only lie low in Pakistan for a few years to triumph.
On the key point of safe havens, London delivered nothing. There remains a lack of incentives for Pakistan s government to put pressure on the Taliban leadership inside its borders.
A plan to split junior fighters from their masters and persuade them to give up the fight, in return for jobs and land, also assumes the insurgent command has little control over its men. Many Afghans believe throwing money at fighters without addressing the reasons why powerful families and tribes have taken to the hills to fight is a waste of time.
Using Western money to buy off fighters who need to somehow make a living needs to be coupled with power sharing and genuine negotiations with the Taliban leaders who are motivated by political ambitions. Here, the biggest obstacle could be Mr Karzai himself.
The Afghan president has said he is ready to welcome commanders who renounce violence, sever ties with
al-Qaeda and abide by the Afghan constitution.
Is he really ready to make concessions that would let a powerful opposition into the government? The brutal way in which his allies and inner circle have guarded power between them and cast out rivals is one reason for the insurgency s growth.
Many doubt Mr Karzai will be willing to share power with a new opposition from his own back yard in the Pashtun tribal south.
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Russia offers to help NATO, but not for free
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV The Associated Press Friday, January 29, 2010; 12:00 PM
MOSCOW -- Russia is willing to help NATO in Afghanistan, but not for free, the Russian envoy to the alliance said Friday.
Dmitry Rogozin also slammed NATO for failing to do more to fight the drug trade in Afghanistan, saying Russia has suffered because of that failure. And he expressed skepticism about a plan to pay Taliban fighters to abandon violence and join the mainstream of Afghan society.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged Russia last month to provide helicopters and training for the Afghan air force and to train more local police.
Rogozin said Russia was looking at the request, but wants to understand who will pay for it. He added that some NATO countries could help share the costs.
"We aren't going to supply NATO with anything free of charge," he said in a video hookup from Brussels. "They can afford to pay for that."
He didn't rule out providing free supplies to the Afghan government, but said that would require a political decision by the Kremlin.
Moscow has repeatedly expressed its willingness to help the war effort in Afghanistan, due to fears that a return to power by Taliban extremists would destabilize Central Asia and endanger Russia's security.
But the country's support for NATO- and US-led operations so far has been limited to offering transit for railway shipments of non-lethal supplies and air corridors for weapons supplies, as supply routes through Pakistan have come under increased Taliban attack.
Rogozin said shipments have been slow to start because NATO has dragged its feet on negotiating transit agreements with Central Asian nations. He also said technical problems regarding U.S. air transit need to be solved, but he refused to elaborate.
He criticized NATO harshly for failing to make stronger efforts to fight drug production.
"NATO doesn't want to do more to fight drugs in Afghanistan, because it fears it would inflict more losses to its forces," he said. "They prefer to turn a blind eye to that. They think it's not their problem, because Afghan heroin mostly goes to Central Asia and Russia."
Rogozin was also openly skeptical of a NATO plan to persuade Taliban fighters to disarm in exchange for jobs and homes, saying that the world community must focus on rebuilding the nation's battered infrastructure. He argued that Russian companies should be awarded contracts for rebuilding factories, power plants and other facilities built by the Soviet Union.
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Afghan Men Struggle With Sexual Identity, Study Finds
FOXNews.com
An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it.
As if U.S. troops and diplomats didn't have enough to worry about in trying to understand Afghan culture, a new report suggests an entire region in the country is coping with a sexual identity crisis.
An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it.
The study, obtained by Fox News, found that Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually -- yet they completely reject the label of "homosexual." The research was conducted as part of a longstanding effort to better understand Afghan culture and improve Western interaction with the local people.
The research unit, which was attached to a Marine battalion in southern Afghanistan, acknowledged that the behavior of some Afghan men has left Western forces "frequently confused."
The report details the bizarre interactions a U.S. Army medic and her colleagues had with Afghan men in the southern province of Kandahar.
In one instance, a group of local male interpreters had contracted gonorrhea anally but refused to believe they could have contracted it sexually -- "because they were not homosexuals."
Apparently, according to the report, Pashtun men interpret the Islamic prohibition on homosexuality to mean they cannot "love" another man -- but that doesn't mean they can't use men for "sexual gratification."
The group of interpreters who had contracted gonorrhea joked in the camp that they actually got the disease by "mixing green and black tea." But since they refused to heed the medics' warnings, many of them re-contracted the disease after receiving treatment.
The U.S. army medic also told members of the research unit that she and her colleagues had to explain to a local man how to get his wife pregnant.
The report said: "When it was explained to him what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked, 'How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong.'"
The Pashtun populations are concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of the country. The Human Terrain Team that conducted the research is part of a military effort to learn more about local populations.
The report also detailed a disturbing practice in which older "men of status" keep young boys on hand for sexual relationships. One of the country's favorite sayings, the report said, is "women are for children, boys are for pleasure."
The report concluded that the widespread homosexual behavior stems from several factors, including the "severe segregation" of women in the society and the "prohibitive" cost of marriage.
Though U.S. troops are commonly taught in training for Afghanistan that the "effeminate characteristics" of Pashtun men are "normal" and not an indicator of homosexuality, the report said U.S. forces should not "dismiss" the unique version of homosexuality that is actually practiced in the region "out of desire to avoid western discomfort."
Otherwise, the report said, Westerners could "risk failing to comprehend an essential social force underlying Pashtun culture."
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Taliban's leadership council runs Afghan war from Pakistan
Quetta shura, sheltering over the border and led by Mullah Omar, is strategic arm of Taliban
Declan Walsh in Islamabad guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 11.48 GMT
The Quetta shura has long been the aching achilles heel of western efforts to defeat the Taliban.
While the war is fought in Afghanistan, the thinking part of the Taliban ‑ the one-eyed leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and a council of about 14 other men ‑ is sheltering on the far side of the border, in the western Pakistani province of Balochistan.
The shura, or leadership council, has multiple functions. It directs the military campaign against western troops and it co-ordinates the political and propaganda campaign that has so successfully undermined the rule of President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.
The Afghan war is organised and run out of Balochistan, according to Seth Jones, a senior civilian adviser to the US special forces commander in Afghanistan.
"Virtually all significant meetings of the Taliban take place in that province, and many of the group's senior leaders and military commanders are based there," he wrote in a newspaper article last month.
Quetta shura is a label of convenience for meetings that take place in the Baloch capital ‑ a dusty, suspicious city that hums with intrigue ‑ and also in surrounding villages and Afghan refugee camps.
The shura has no fixed location. A senior western official says that when the heat is turned up during intermittent Pakistani security raids, or threats of American drone strikes, the shura members scatter as far as Karachi, 380 miles to the south.
Mullah Omar's deputy, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is said to be the chief shura organiser, while battlefield operations are in the hands of his military commander, Abdullah Zakir. Other nodes of militant leadership are hidden along the porous 1,600-mile border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Analysts speak of another shura in Peshawar, as well as groups controlled by the Taliban-allied warlords Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. But the Quetta shura is by far the most important. As Barack Obama announced his Afghan surge plan recently, US officials put pressure on Pakistan to attack the Quetta shura by suggesting they could extend drone strikes to the area.
Pakistanis bristled at the demand, partly because the army is already stretched with other operations, but mostly for strategic reasons. Pakistan's army sees the Afghan Taliban as a future check against Indian influence in Afghanistan once western troops leave.
Balochistan also borders with Helmand, where almost 10,000 British troops are fighting. British officials say they have been quietly applying pressure on Pakistan to tackle the Quetta shura for several years, but with no results.
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Has the West got the will to carry on shedding blood for Afghanistan?
Telegraph, UK By Con Coughlin 01/29/2010
The strategy is finally right, but our resolve could be starting to waver, writes Con Coughlin.
It has taken the best part of a decade, and we have sacrificed an inordinate amount of blood and treasure in our ill-conceived and badly executed attempts to bring some stability to Afghanistan. However, it can now be said with confidence that we have the basis of a strategy for resolving the conflict.
But have we found the formula for resolving the country's ills too late? With no let-up in the death toll, do Britain, America and the other Nato states committed to rebuilding Afghanistan really have the willpower to see the job through?
One of the more noticeable features of yesterday's conference on Afghanistan in London was the disconnect between the time-frame envisaged by the Afghans for stabilising their country, and the more Panglossian approach of Mr Brown and other Western leaders. At the opening of the summit, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, reiterated his view that it will be at least 15 years before there is a government and security infrastructure capable of running the country. Mr Brown thinking no doubt of the forthcoming election gave a far more upbeat assessment, claiming that Afghans will be able to start taking charge of their own security by the end of the year.
What he glossed over was the fact that the government will take control only of those regions that are not being targeted on a regular basis by the Taliban a pitifully small area. As the recent suicide bombs in central Kabul demonstrated, the Taliban has the capability to attack at a time and place of its choosing.
But before we get side-tracked by the pitfalls of the new strategy, let us celebrate some positives. These have been pretty scarce in the eight years since the West became embroiled in the country's chaotic affairs.
Undoubtedly the biggest failure of Western policy-making since those heady days has been the inability to appreciate fully the threat posed by the Taliban, and the organisation's ability to terrorise large swathes of the country even though it was no longer in power. This miscalculation not only lay at the heart of the West's decision to turn its attention towards Iraq in 2002, but also was behind the mistaken belief that the Taliban was finished, which persisted throughout the decade. When the British Government agreed to send troops to Helmand in the summer of 2006, in support of the Nato-led reconstruction effort, a total of 3,500 were deemed sufficient to control a region the size of Wales. By the time the current force of 10,000 has been supplemented by 20,000 US Marines, the total fighting strength will be 10 times that of the original contingent.
The arrival of the Marines and other reinforcements is part of the military surge planned for this summer. It is designed to destroy the remaining Taliban strongholds, both in Helmand and in other regions. People might question how a strategy that is bound to increase the bloodshed in the short term, at least can be squared with the attempts to achieve a political reconciliation that were widely discussed at yesterday's conference.
The answer is that a political settlement will remain elusive so long as the Taliban has the capacity to undermine efforts by Nato and the Afghan government. Maintaining the military pressure is also a vital part of the wider strategy to persuade the Taliban to lay down its arms and enter political dialogue. There is only so much carnage the parents and families of the young Taliban fighters who have perished in their thousands can stomach.
The other big factor that has undermined the West's handling of the conflict has been its failure to comprehend the nature of the Taliban. The organisation, which was founded by a small group of Islamist extremists, was conceived by Pakistan's ISI intelligence service as a counterweight to India's attempts to develop its influence in Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Although the Taliban managed to take control of the country by the end of the 1990s, its strength derived from the small group of Islamist extremists around Mullah Omar, who controlled the organisation. This was reflected in the small number of fighters who fled the country in 2001: many Afghans who had supported the Taliban simply switched their allegiance to the new government.
The reason the Taliban is so strong today is not because millions of Afghans have suddenly been converted to its uncompromising ideology, but because it has persuaded the fierce Pashtun tribesmen in the inhospitable border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan to support its cause. The Pashtuns, who traditionally dominated the country's political institutions, feel disenfranchised by the settlement negotiated after the Taliban's overthrow. Tempting them back into the political process, even if it means paying large sums in "compensation", makes good sense, as many of the tribal elders backing the insurgency against Nato are doing so for personal gain, not out of ideological commitment.
But to do this will take time. The elephant in the room at yesterday's conference was just how much longer the West is prepared to risk the lives of its soldiers for a cause that many of their countrymen no longer believe in, or are prepared to support.
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