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U.N. can't back more Afghan elections without reform
By Patrick Worsnip – Tue Jan 5, 7:12 am ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations, criticized over fraud in Afghanistan's presidential elections last year, cannot back future polls without reforms to the voting process, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said in a new report.
Afghan Parliament To Reconvene To Consider New Cabinet Nominees
By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty January 5, 2010
Respecting an order from President Hamid Karzai, Afghan lawmakers will delay taking their winter break until his new cabinet is approved.
ANALYSIS-Karzai may find opportunity in Afghan cabinet snub
By Jonathon Burch 05 Jan 2010 09:35:12 GMT
KABUL, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai may be able to turn a humiliating snub by parliament into an opportunity to draw up a cleaner, fresher government.
Afghan aid fails to feed the hungry
By Peter Greste BBC News, Parwan province, Afghanistan January 5, 2010
It is not hard to see why Alla Gul is upset. Her two-year-old daughter cries weakly in her arms with barely enough energy to eat.
CIA Afghan base bomber was Qaeda triple agent: militants
by Randa Habib January 5, 2010
AMMAN (AFP) – A suicide bomber who killed eight people at a CIA base in Afghanistan was an Al-Qaeda triple agent who duped Western intelligence services for months before turning on his handlers, jihadist websites boasted on Tuesday.
Top intel officer slams work of U.S. spies in Afghanistan
January 5, 2010
Washington (CNN) -- U.S. spies "can do little but shrug" when commanders ask for the information they need to fight the Taliban insurgency, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Afghanistan said in a blistering report.
US general raps intel gathering in Afghanistan
by Daphne Benoit
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A top military intelligence chief is calling for revamped US intelligence efforts in Afghanistan in a scathing report that says the current focus on insurgent networks is "only marginally relevant."
Ban calls for new thinking on Afghanistan
Jan. 5, 2010
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- The current mindset about the effort in Afghanistan is not working as 2009 levels of violence and government corruption plagued development, a U.N. report said.
Pakistan: Taliban brainwashes kids with visions of virgins
By Arwa Damon, CNN January 5, 2010
Nawaz Kot, Pakistan (CNN) -- "When we got to this compound it was shocking for us," Lt. Col. Yusuf tells us, standing in the middle of what the Pakistani military says was a brainwashing center -- for children.
Pakistan highlights West's failure in Afghanistan
By Sebastian Abbot, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jan 5, 10:13 am ET
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's prime minister said Tuesday that his country has been more successful at battling a Taliban-led insurgency than Western forces in Afghanistan, a bold criticism at a time when the U.S. is pushing Islamabad for more help.
Explosion kills 14 Taliban in N Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Fourteen Taliban insurgents were killed as their explosive device exploded prematurely in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, Abdul Rizaq Yaqubi, the provincial police chief, said on Tuesday.
British soldier killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) here on Tuesday confirmed the death of a British soldier in restive southern Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's NATO force needs top civilian: UN
Mon Jan 4, 3:27 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The NATO-led international security force in Afghanistan should appoint a senior civilian official to help improve political and development coordination, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said in a report released Monday.
'Be nice' policy for troops in Afghanistan pays off
By Jeanette Steele, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, commanding officer, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, listens to community leaders of Nawa district discuss recent events at a lunch party Dec. 8, 2009. The celebration was held at the district
People don't care about Afghan detainee issue: Harper
January 05, 2010 Toronto Star Les Whittington
OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canadians aren't really concerned about allegations that the government engaged in a cover-up over the abuse of Afghan detainees.
Afghan dreams of rock and roll
By Moska Najib BBC News, Delhi Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Indie rock - but not from Britain or America.
This is music from Afghanistan, of a kind seldom heard before, but now produced by a trio of young men.
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U.N. can't back more Afghan elections without reform
By Patrick Worsnip – Tue Jan 5, 7:12 am ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations, criticized over fraud in Afghanistan's presidential elections last year, cannot back future polls without reforms to the voting process, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said in a new report.
Corruption, violence and voter intimidation marred last August's vote. After a partial audit of results, a second round was set between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah, but Abdullah pulled out, leaving Karzai the victor.
A report on Afghanistan by Ban to the Security Council, made public on Monday, admitted "the flaws turned the elections into a political crisis," sapping confidence in the Afghan leadership and international will to engage in the country.
The United Nations provided financial and technical support to the Afghan government-appointed Independent Election Commission (IEC) and also nominated three of the five members of the Electoral Complaints Commission (EEC).
But, the U.N. secretary-general said, the process "revealed serious flaws and weaknesses that need to be corrected before the United Nations can engage in a similar supporting role for future elections."
The election commission announced on Saturday that parliamentary elections would take place on May 22.
Among reforms Ban said were needed were a review of the appointment mechanism for the IEC to ensure its impartiality, improvements to the voter registration system, development of domestic observation and strengthening of the legal framework.
The August election row led to a split within the U.N. mission in Afghanistan itself after its deputy head, American Peter Galbraith, accused his Norwegian boss Kai Eide of failing to deal firmly with fraud. Galbraith was fired in September.
"GLOOMY ATMOSPHERE"
Ban said the election saga, along with the increasingly violent struggle against Taliban insurgents, had "contributed to a gloomy atmosphere" in Afghanistan. "If the negative trends are not corrected, there is a risk that the deteriorating overall situation will become irreversible," he said.
"We are now at a critical juncture. The situation cannot continue as is if we are to succeed in Afghanistan," the U.N. chief said. "There is a need for a change of mindset in the international community as well as in the government."
Ban added his voice to calls by the United States and others for a "civilian surge" to match a stepped up military drive against the Taliban, to improve political and development efforts.
He called for a "dedicated civilian structure," but said this must involve Kabul and be co-chaired by an Afghan minister and by the U.N. special envoy -- currently Eide, although the Norwegian is due to be replaced in March.
Ban also said Eide supported appointment of a top civilian official by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, although some U.N. officials have voiced concerns that such a figure could overshadow the U.N. envoy.
Eide is due to address the Security Council later this week, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
Western diplomats say two leading candidates to replace Eide are Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura, a former U.N. special envoy to Iraq, and Jean-Marie Guehenno of France, who ran the U.N, peacekeeping department from 2001 to 2008.
In an unusual move, the New York Times ran an editorial last Friday endorsing Guehenno.
Ban's report also painted a bleak picture of the security situation in Afghanistan, noting an average of 1,244 violent incidents per month in the third quarter of 2009, a 65 percent increase over the previous year.
There were 784 conflict-related civilian casualties between August and October, a rise of 12 percent over the same period of 2008, and insurgents assassinated an average of nine people per week in the third quarter, he said.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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Afghan Parliament To Reconvene To Consider New Cabinet Nominees
By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty January 5, 2010
Respecting an order from President Hamid Karzai, Afghan lawmakers will delay taking their winter break until his new cabinet is approved.
Karzai issued the decree on January 4 after the parliament on January 2 rejected two-thirds of his 24 ministerial nominees.
The lack of parliamentary approval, coming just before legislators were expected to begin their annual six-week recess today, was widely seen as snub that could leave the country without a functioning government.
But Yunus Qanuni, speaker of the Wolesi Jirga (People’s Council), said today that the parliament's lower house plans to reconvene to consider 17 new names expected to be submitted by the president by the end of the week.
"From today we will go into a recess. But on the order of the president, we will convene on Saturday to debate the [remaining] cabinet names he will introduce," Qanuni said.
The parliament's rejection of most of Karzai's initial nominees has been portrayed as an opportunity for the president to introduce new faces to the government who are not tainted by ties to warlords or militias and are broadly acceptable to the electorate.
Karzai's nominees for some of the top ministerial posts -- including the defense, interior, finance, and agriculture ministries -- have been approved by the lower house, and are viewed as acceptable to Afghans and the international community alike. A nominee for foreign minister has yet to be proposed.
Ties To Warlords?
With the Afghan electorate and foreign donors looking for proof that the country is serious about combating corruption, the focus has fallen on the rejected nominees.
Reuters, for example, has cited an unidentified foreign diplomat as suggesting that Karzai's initial list included representatives of warlords, fueling concerns that some nominations appeared intended to reward political allies for their support during the presidential election campaign.
But insiders in Kabul, speaking to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity, suggest that as Karzai begins his second and last term in office, the president has little need to please domestic powerbrokers in order to remain in power.
In recent months Karzai's alliance with warlords and other strongmen has led to confrontation with his Western allies, who have come to resent the dominant role such domestic powerbrokers play in Afghan politics, despite initially supporting them as allies against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Lawmaker Kabir Ranjbar, who represents Kabul in the parliament, tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that lawmakers are likely to reject any new nominees tied to the warlords.
"The president has complete power over what kind of people he introduces [to the parliament] and the principles and values he would base their nomination upon,” Ranjbar said. “I am sure that their majority will once again be rejected if their nomination is based on power-sharing and rewarding the warlords and factions who supported the president during the election."
Presidential spokesman Siyamak Herawi tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that Karzai will forward new nominations by the end of this week.
"The president is working hard on compiling the remainder of the new cabinet,” Herawi said. “It is possible that he will send the new list to the parliament on Saturday or Sunday, so that they can get a vote of confidence."
Herawi said a foreign minister will be appointed following a major Afghan conference that is to take place in London later this month.
Afghan media is rife with speculation that Karzai could opt to reintroduce some of the cabinet members rejected by the parliament, possibly for other posts.
Amirzai Sangin, who the parliament rejected for the post of telecommunications minister, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that he remains committed to working for his country in any capacity.
"This is our country and we love it. I work for my homeland. Even if I am not the telecommunications minister, I am ready to work in any position considered significant by the president,” Sangin said. “What is important for me is to continue working and to use my potential to serve my country."
The Afghan people will be watching closely to see if their wishes for meaningful reforms are met, or if the continued factional wrangling over the new cabinet is a sign of things to come.
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondents Norias Nori and Ajmal Toorman contributed reporting from Prague and Kabul.
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ANALYSIS-Karzai may find opportunity in Afghan cabinet snub
By Jonathon Burch 05 Jan 2010 09:35:12 GMT
KABUL, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai may be able to turn a humiliating snub by parliament into an opportunity to draw up a cleaner, fresher government.
Last weekend lawmakers vetoed over two thirds of Karzai's cabinet nominees, but the candidates thrown out include many with ties to power-brokers who helped Karzai win a fraud-ridden and heavily contested presidential election earlier this year.
Now parliament has given Karzai an excuse to jettison those candidates himself.
Tainted by fraud and with limited results to show for eight years in office, Karzai is nonetheless a skilful politician who has navigated Western pressures and balanced complicated domestic power groups to stay in office far longer than most expected.
After the vetoes Karzai said he was surprised and upset, but analysts say he would have been expecting -- and perhaps even pleased to see -- the rejection of some nominations put forward to pay back political favours from his election campaign.
Parliament in fact vetoed 17 of his 24 ministerial candidates on Saturday, with lawmakers apparently relishing a rare opportunity to hold the president to account.
The result looked like a debacle, and the United Nations described it as a distracting setback. But the result arguably also handed Karzai the chance to return a better slate without entirely alienating important supporters.
"Karzai is not that unhappy," said Wahid Mujdah, a Kabul-based writer and analyst.
"He can select another 17 people and maybe this time he will introduce other people trusted by the international community."
Karzai's reputation was tarnished following his return to office in the controversial election last August. His cabinet selection was seen as the first test of his promises to stamp out state graft in his new term, and he got only mixed marks.
DREAM TEAM?
The international community was pleased to see faces liked and trusted by the West stay in key ministries including defence, interior, finance and agriculture. They all also had decent relations with parliament and were returned to office.
But Karzai was criticised over other familiar nominees, many with tainted reputations. Analysts suspect they were named to thank power-brokers who had supported him during the election.
"He will take this as an opportunity to turn to those ministers he didn't want in the cabinet in the first place but had to placate," said a foreign diplomat in Kabul.
"And he can now say: I tried my best, but my hands were tied by parliament," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Even those who do not think Karzai planned any rejections believe he can benefit from the mass cull.
"I don't think Karzai would have calculated a plan ahead of time but he now has an opportunity to come out as a national leader," said Haroun Mir, co-founder of Kabul's Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies.
"He can invite the opposition in and no one can then blame him because he can say: 'we are in a fragile situation'."
Mir said the president had been so negligent about the vote -- visiting southern Helmand province the day it was held despite facing a hostile and fragmented parliament -- that it was unlikely he felt he was fielding a dream team.
"He did not even bother to go to parliament to introduce his ministers, they were never presented as a team. So the president was indifferent from the beginning," Mir said.
COMMANDER REJECTED
Karzai will not be able to ditch all of those with ties to his collection of sometimes unsavoury backers, none of whom are likely to take the swipe by parliament lying down.
A new list expected to be presented later this week will contain some of the rejected candidates, but in different ministries than the first time around, a senior official said.
But by the same token the President cannot return to parliament with the exact same clutch of names.
Perhaps the highest profile scalp claimed by legislators was one of the few members of the clique that rose to power in the civil war era considered clean enough to join the government.
Ismail Khan, the candidate for energy minister, was a renowned anti-Soviet guerrilla leader and anti-Taliban commander in Western Afghanistan.
Other nominees rejected by parliament included allies of former warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek accused by the West of war crimes and human rights abuses.
Both Khan and Dostum threw their weight behind Karzai's election campaign at the eleventh hour, Dostum returning from exile in Turkey days before the vote and staging a massive rally in support of Karzai in his bastion in the north. Dostum has denied any last-minute deal with Karzai.
The West would certainly be happy to see these names go, and many Afghans would also like to see Karzai turn his back on them.
Karzai's chief spokesman Omar has publicly denied the president knew beforehand whom parliament would reject, but some say the incumbent had already calculated ahead.
"One minister who was not appointed, told me Karzai had said to him: 'this is not the final, final cabinet. This is going to be a long procedure.' This means Karzai knew there would be rejections," said Mujdah. The foreign diplomat agreed.
"Karzai is very surprised so many were rejected but we know he had two or three substitute cabinet ministers lined up," the diplomat said. (Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Jerry Norton) (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
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Afghan aid fails to feed the hungry
By Peter Greste BBC News, Parwan province, Afghanistan January 5, 2010
It is not hard to see why Alla Gul is upset. Her two-year-old daughter cries weakly in her arms with barely enough energy to eat.
The child stares vacantly at the other patients in the Charikar hospital ward, her muscles wasted with malnutrition, her angular bones protruding like twigs beneath her papery skin.
When Alla Gul returned with her family from a refugee camp in Iran six years ago to Afghanistan, they expected better things.
The Taliban had fallen, security had returned and international aid began pouring in - billions of dollars' worth.
"It's indeed very difficult. For months, we haven't been able to afford to buy meat for our children. It's very painful to watch," she said.
Alla Gul says she never wanted handouts. But she and her husband - a contract farmer who gets a portion of the produce from the land he works - always believed they would lead a comfortable life.
Now, he simply can't earn enough to feed the family.
Dr Aslam Fawad is despairing. Each day he walks the malnutrition ward, watching more and more patients arrive from across this otherwise fertile farming district.
Poverty is so deep that even many farmers are unable to feed their families.
Dr Fawad does his best to help, but the dire state of the economy means that some patients keep returning, time after time.
"The malnutrition problem in Afghanistan, and especially Parwan province, is very bad. That's because of the years of fighting, the damage to our infrastructure and rising unemployment.
"It's all helped to make things worse," he said.
Deep discontent
The statistics bear him out: officially, unemployment is about 40%, though it is probably far higher than that; of those who do have a job in Parwan, 45% earn less than one dollar a day; chronic malnutrition for children under five across Afghanistan is 54%.
And perhaps most surprising of all, on a UN scale of human development indicators, Afghanistan has slipped from 117th in the world, to 181st - second from the bottom - since the Taliban were ousted.
Professor Sayed Massood, an economist from Kabul University, believes that backsliding is responsible for much of the deep discontent with the government, and growing support for the insurgency.
He blames the crisis of public confidence on the policy of pouring billions of dollars in development aid into regions where the insurgency is strongest.
"Instead of the benefits [of aid] going to friends, they are going to enemies. We needed to spend money in the places where the people believe in democracy and work for the government.
"But instead only the enemies are getting rich," he said.
"We need to set examples of peaceful provinces that are also prosperous, but that's just not happening."
Prof Massood argues that the international community has adopted an aid policy that has been entirely counter-productive.
"They have politicised aid; they have tried to use their money to bring about political change in the frontline provinces - they have tried to bribe their enemies.
"But they don't understand that it works the other way around. If you improve the economics of the people, the politics will follow. If you don't, you will lose them."
That might explain why the insurgency appears to be spreading to parts of the country that until now have been relatively peaceful.
Slowly switching sides
Rural Parwan province, just to the north of Kabul, is still quiet, but there are growing signs of discontent with the government, and resentment at the way the people have been neglected.
Abdullah Khan heads another family struggling to find enough food. He is a tractor driver, working the fields for neighbouring farms.
But a month ago, his two-year-old daughter Rabia also had to be admitted to hospital with severe malnutrition.
Rabia is recovering with Dr Fawad's help, but several days ago his wife gave birth to another girl - one more mouth to feed just when they can least afford it.
"Instead of aid going to those like me who need it, it goes to rich, corrupt people. I'm very angry at the government," Abdullah Khan said.
The government badly needs the trust of Abdullah Khan and those like him - moderates who just want a peaceful life.
But the more Afghanistan's children suffer, the more support for the government slips, and the more it grows for the insurgency.
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CIA Afghan base bomber was Qaeda triple agent: militants
by Randa Habib January 5, 2010
AMMAN (AFP) – A suicide bomber who killed eight people at a CIA base in Afghanistan was an Al-Qaeda triple agent who duped Western intelligence services for months before turning on his handlers, jihadist websites boasted on Tuesday.
The Jordanian intelligence services, believing the bomber to be their double agent, brought him to eastern Afghanistan with the mission of finding Al-Qaeda number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the websites and Western intelligence agents cited by US media said.
But instead he blew himself up at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the Pakistani border, killing seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, a top intelligence officer and member of the royal family.
The deaths of the seven agents marked the US Central Intelligence Agency's worst single loss of life since the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983.
Jordanian media gave no details of how Captain Ali bin Zeid died even though King Abdullah II, Queen Rania and virtually the whole royal family turned up at his funeral.
The slain officer's family said that Bin Zeid had been in Afghanistan for 20 days and had been due to return home on December 30, the day he was killed. But even on Monday, officials continued to deny any Jordanian involvement in the international coalition there.
Both jihadist websites and Western intelligence agents cited by US network NBC News identified the bomber as Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi alias Abu Dujana al-Khorasani.
Balawi was arrested in late 2007 and then recruited as a double agent by the Jordanian intelligence services but in reality continued to work for Al-Qaeda, they said.
He ran a blog, http://abudujanakharasani.maktoobblog.com/, on which he posted calls for jihad -- holy war -- and martyrdom, that the Jordanian authorities presumably regarded as cover for the role of double agent.
The blog was still available on Monday but was inaccessible on Tuesday.
"He spent months travelling between Afghanistan and Pakistan and fed the Americans the information that the Mujahedeen (jihadists) wanted them to receive," the Ana Muslim ("I am a Muslim" in Arabic) website boasted.
"Every time that the reports which he gave proved accurate, their confidence in Abu Dujana rose."
Balawi was taken to the CIA base in Khost because he claimed to have urgent information about Zawahiri, the website said.
Related article: Top general slams US Afghan intel
He was not searched as he went in because a CIA agent boasted: "He is our man, so there is no need," the website claimed.
The bomber then pretended to detail plans for a mooted operation on a piece of paper and asked the intelligence agents to gather round to look before blowing himself up, the website said.
Jordanian Islamist sources said that Balawi, 36, was a doctor by profession and a married father of two.
He was born in the impoverished Amman satellite city of Zarqa, hometown of Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who became infamous for a series of videotaped beheadings of Western hostages before his death in a US air strike in June 2006.
The penetration of the base in Khost, reportedly a major base for covert operations along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was a setback for already under-fire US intelligence agencies.
Obama's top military spy chief in Afghanistan Major General Michael Flynn has delivered a blistering assessment of their capabilities.
In a report published by a Washington think-tank on Monday, Flynn urged radical changes to an "intelligence apparatus (which) still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which we operate and the people we are trying to protect and persuade."
US intelligence officers, he said, "are starved for information from the field, so starved, in fact, that many say their jobs feel more like fortune telling than serious detective work."
The problems, Flynn stressed in the document, are less environmental than "attitudinal, cultural and human."
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Top intel officer slams work of U.S. spies in Afghanistan
January 5, 2010
Washington (CNN) -- U.S. spies "can do little but shrug" when commanders ask for the information they need to fight the Taliban insurgency, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Afghanistan said in a blistering report.
U.S. military intelligence officers in Afghanistan spend too much time focusing on enemy groups and tactics and not enough on trying to understand Afghanistan's culture, people and networks, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn wrote in a report published Monday.
American military intelligence gathering is "ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers," Flynn wrote
Click here to have your say on the damning intelligence report
His report comes out less than a week after seven CIA officers and a Jordanian intelligence agent were killed by a double agent who set off a suicide bomb inside their base in Afghanistan.
But the report is about military intelligence gathering, not the CIA's work, one of Flynn's co-authors, Marine Capt. Matt Pottinger, told CNN.
"This is primarily about improving intelligence within the Department of Defense," he said via e-mail
"Our timing was independent of the tragic event in Khost Province," he said, referring to the attack that killed the CIA officers.
Flynn co-wrote the report with Pottinger and Paul Batchelor of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency for a Washington think tank, the Center for a New American Security.
Flynn's boss, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, backs the report, a spokesman for U.S. forces there told CNN.
"We support this kind of activity. Gen. McChrystal is looking for ways to make things better," Adm. Greg Smith said.
But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it is "a bit irregular" that a report of this kind would come out through a think tank.
"I think it struck everybody a bit curious," he said. "My sense is this was an anomaly and we won't see it again." He said he was not sure Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had seen the report, though he had been provided with a copy on the day of publication.
"The most I will say is that it was an unusual and irregular way to publish a document," Whitman said.
The report said some good work is being done on the ground, and that local intelligence officers "know a great deal about their local Afghan districts." But, the report said, they "are generally too understaffed to gather, store, disseminate and digest" information.
And, critically, they do not have the resources to gather information which could give Americans a better understanding of Afghanistan, such as census data, patrol debriefs, minutes from councils with local farmers and tribal leaders, polling data, translated summaries of radio broadcasts that influence local farmers and the like.
"This vast and underappreciated body of information.... provides... a map for leveraging popular support and marginalizing the insurgency itself," Flynn and his colleagues argue.
As a result, "U.S. intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis and information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency," they say.
The report claims they cannot answer basic questions unrelated to the military fight against the Taliban, such as: "Is that desert road we're thinking of paving really the most heavily trafficked route? Which mosques and bazaars attract the most people from week to week? Is that local contractor actually implementing the irrigation project we paid him to put into service?"
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US general raps intel gathering in Afghanistan
by Daphne Benoit
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A top military intelligence chief is calling for revamped US intelligence efforts in Afghanistan in a scathing report that says the current focus on insurgent networks is "only marginally relevant."
Major General Michael Flynn, the top US and NATO military intelligence officer in Afghanistan, made the unsparing assessment in a report written with two other intelligence officials and published Monday by a Washington think tank.
"Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the US intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy," Flynn and his colleagues wrote.
The top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has made counter-insurgency warfare the centerpiece of a new Afghan strategy that seeks to secure the population and win over increasingly disenchanted Afghans.
But Flynn's report said the US intelligence effort in Afghanistan is consumed with tracking militants and roadside bombs.
It said "the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which US and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade."
"US intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis and information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency."
Flynn's paper comes less than a week after a Jordanian double agent blew himself up at a base in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, killing seven Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents and a Jordanian officer.
More alarming yet, the conclusions were released as the United States is massively increasing its troop presence in Afghanistan -- with the US presence set to reach 100,000 forces this spring -- to regain terrain from emboldened Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
According to Flynn, military intelligence officers deployed in Afghanistan are "ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced."
They are also "incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers," he added.
In order to correct the flaws, the general urged military units on the ground to write and share reports on their patrols, their exchanges with farmers and local leaders or on radio shows heard by locals.
Comparing the war in Afghanistan to campaigning for a government post, Flynn stressed that "in order to succeed, a candidate's pollsters and strategists... must constantly explore the local levels, including voters' grievances, leanings, loyalties and activities" that opponents could exploit.
Intelligence officers "must embrace open-source, population-centric information as the lifeblood of their analytical work," not just clandestine work, Flynn said.
He cited lieutenant general Samuel Wilson, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, as saying that "the real intelligence hero is Sherlock Holmes, not James Bond."
Some in Washington reacted coolly to Flynn's remarks.
"Counterinsurgency, starting with a clear understanding of the enemy's motivation, strength and intentions, has to be a major focus of intelligence in the country," a US intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.
"If you get that piece wrong, you're not going to have much success with anything else."
Flynn wrote the report with an adviser, Marine Corps Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul Batchelor of the Defense Intelligence Agency's Senior Executive Service.
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Ban calls for new thinking on Afghanistan
Jan. 5, 2010
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- The current mindset about the effort in Afghanistan is not working as 2009 levels of violence and government corruption plagued development, a U.N. report said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his latest report to the Security Council gave a dour assessment of the international effort in Afghanistan.
"If the negative trends are not corrected, there is a risk that the deteriorating overall situation will become irreversible," he wrote. "We cannot afford this."
His report on Afghanistan said the average rate of violence in the third quarter of 2009 increased 65 percent compared with 2008 levels. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, meanwhile, said there were more than 750 conflict deaths from August to October, a 12 percent increase from the same period in 2008.
The secretary-general downplayed suggestions that a marred presidential election was to blame for insecurity, instead focusing on an inadequate state-building processes, a weak national security force and other underlying issues that led to the election problems.
"There is a need for a change of mindset in the international community as well as in the government of Afghanistan," he said. "Without that change, the prospects of success will diminish further."
Kai Eide, the outgoing U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, addresses the Security Council on Wednesday to discuss any possible changes to the mandate for UNAMA.
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Pakistan: Taliban brainwashes kids with visions of virgins
By Arwa Damon, CNN January 5, 2010
Nawaz Kot, Pakistan (CNN) -- "When we got to this compound it was shocking for us," Lt. Col. Yusuf tells us, standing in the middle of what the Pakistani military says was a brainwashing center -- for children.
It was here, according to the Pakistani military, that children aged 12 to 18 were turned from innocent youngsters into cold-blooded killers, willing to blow themselves to bits as suicide bombers.
The discovery of the compound was first reported in Pakistani media last month. Yusuf says his unit took it over after a three day battle with militants.
Part of the compound consists of four rooms -- each wall adorned with brightly colored paintings in clear contrast to the barren and harsh landscape surrounding it. The children were told that this was what awaited them in heaven.
Each of the images has a river flowing through it. Some have people playing in the water. Others have women lining the banks.
The military says that the children are told that these are rivers of milk and honey, that the women are the virgins that await them in heaven. That the children were told that they will live in the company of the holy prophet and be served feasts.
One has a home similar to the mud homes in the area which the military says is meant to invoke memories of where the children are from but with a beautiful mountainous green backdrop. Written across it are the words "Long live the Taliban of the mountains."
The images may appear simple. But for the children from this part of Pakistan they are captivating. They grow up in abject poverty surrounded by dirt-colored mountains with treacherous gullies and valleys with no exposure to the outside world. They are gullible and easily manipulated.
"I have never seen such elaborate paintings about so-called heaven," Taliban expert Zahid Hussein says, looking at the images.
He has seen similar tactics in the past and spoken extensively with would-be child suicide bombers in the custody of the authorities.
"They [the militants] say life is a waste here and if you do a good thing you will go to heaven, immediately to heaven. For someone who does not have anything to look forward to, who does not have any opportunities and is living a wretched life, this sort of thing comes as a big incentive," Hussein explains.
He says the children end up believing that their life in this world is worthless, that life only starts in the hereafter. The Taliban is offering them a fast track option to paradise, a longed for escape from their daily reality surrounded by violence.
Nawaz Kot was once a Taliban stronghold.
"The militants were mostly hidden away in bunkers. The tactic they would use was long-range sniping and IEDs (improvised explosive device) on the road," Brigadier General Sarfraz Satter explains as we bump along the road just outside of his brigade's base in South Waziristan on our way to the training center. "They [the militants] had all those positions up there."
He points to the mountaintops in clear sight of his headquarters. When the military launched its operation to take these lands back, he says they knew that the compound was a training center, that perhaps children were involved. What they didn't realize was the sheer level of indoctrination.
The children were from the local area. He says the parents would send them thinking they were getting an education and, more importantly, free food.
"But they don't know what kind of religious education their child is being put through." General Satter says, acknowledging that for the next phase of operations to succeed, there has to be a focus on education. "When we start our rehabilitation, we have to reopen schools to stop them [the parents] from sending their children into the wrong hands."
The military says that the compound could house some 200-300 children. The Pakistani military believes it was in full use until the summer when they bombed it. Since then they say that numbers had dwindled although they are not sure how recently children were staying there. But for the children that have already passed through the compound, it's likely too late.
"The pamphlets we found tell us they were trained in weapons handling, preparing of suicide jackets and ambush tactics," Lt. Col. Yusuf says. "These terrorists keep the children at the frontline, and most of the casualties have been children when they [the terrorists] are attacking the posts.
"They say to them, 'Look your sacrifice will not be wasted,' and so he [the child] is mentally prepared to do whatever they want him to do,' expert Zahid Hussein further explains.
He says it's a complete distortion of Islam, but one that the children fervently believe.
"They are also led to believe that the Muslims who are killed in suicide bombings, they will go to heaven as well. So that is a very powerful instrument of brainwashing," he adds.
The Taliban says that this particular compound is not one of their's. But they say that they are actively training children from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East to be suicide bombers.
As Pakistan tries to cope with an ever increasing wave of suicide bombing, a chilling statistic is coming to light.
"Almost 90 percent of suicide bombers, if you look at their profile, are 12 to 18 years old," Hussein says.
The war on terror expert says there also needs to be a war on poverty and a commitment to providing education and opportunity so that children in the future won't be turned into murderers, thinking that suicide and death are their only escape from a hopeless life.
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Pakistan highlights West's failure in Afghanistan
By Sebastian Abbot, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jan 5, 10:13 am ET
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's prime minister said Tuesday that his country has been more successful at battling a Taliban-led insurgency than Western forces in Afghanistan, a bold criticism at a time when the U.S. is pushing Islamabad for more help.
The comments could be particularly aggravating to the Obama administration, which is frustrated that Pakistan has not done more to target Taliban militants launching cross-border attacks on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Such help is deemed critical to the Western coalition's success.
"The success of our efforts stands out in sharp contrast to what the coalition forces in neighboring Afghanistan have been able to achieve over the past nine years," said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani while presiding over a meeting of senior military personnel and politicians who deal with defense issues.
Gilani pointed to recent anti-Taliban military operations in the country's northwest near the Afghan border as evidence of Pakistan's success.
"Over the recent months, we have registered considerable success against terrorists and militants," said Gilani. "Law enforcement actions in Swat, Malakand, FATA and most notably in South Waziristan have been executed with precision and in record time."
South Waziristan is located in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area and was the Pakistani Taliban's main stronghold in the country before the army launched a major ground offensive in mid-October.
But Pakistani officials have used the recent offensives as evidence that the country has its hands full battling local Taliban militants waging war against the government and doesn't have the capacity to expand its military operations as demanded by the U.S.
Many analysts believe the Pakistani government's reluctance is also driven by a belief that Afghan Taliban militants with whom it has a long history could serve as useful proxies in Afghanistan if coalition efforts fail and foreign forces withdraw.
Gilani countered criticism that his country is not doing enough to help the West, saying "restoration of peace and stability in Afghanistan is a matter of direct and legitimate interest to Pakistan."
"We will continue to play a constructive role in this regard," he said.
Militants have responded to Pakistan's most recent offensive in South Waziristan a wave of retaliatory violence that has killed over 600 people since mid-October, including a bombing on New Year's day in the southern city of Karachi that killed at least 44 people.
Authorities said Tuesday that the blast targeting a Shiite Muslim procession in Karachi was caused by a homemade bomb, not by a suicide bomber as was first reported.
"After scientific tests in a laboratory, we have a consensus opinion that this is not a suicide attack," said police officer Shafqat Malik. "It was a remote-controlled improvised explosive device that had a dual trigger."
The bomb was hidden in a box installed along the road for Muslims to insert torn-up verses of Islam's holy book, the Quran, that they find on the ground to preserve their sanctity, said Malik.
The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.
___
Associated Press writer Asif Shahzad contributed to this report from Islamabad.
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Explosion kills 14 Taliban in N Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Fourteen Taliban insurgents were killed as their explosive device exploded prematurely in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, Abdul Rizaq Yaqubi, the provincial police chief, said on Tuesday.
"Fourteen Taliban fighters were busy in planting explosive materials in a minibus in Bagh-e-Sharkat area in outskirts of Kunduz city late Monday to target Afghan and foreign troops," Yaqubi told Xinhua. "Suddenly, it exploded, killing all insurgents on the spot."
Taliban militants have so far made no comment.
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British soldier killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) here on Tuesday confirmed the death of a British soldier in restive southern Afghanistan.
"An ISAF service member from the United Kingdom died Sunday during a fire fight with insurgents in southern Afghanistan," said a press release issued by the ISAF.
The British soldier died while on foot patrol Sunday in Helmand province, according to British Ministry of Defence.
However, the ISAF refused to release detail of the incident.
Some 10,000 British troops stationed in southern Afghanistan under the ISAF command.
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Afghanistan's NATO force needs top civilian: UN
Mon Jan 4, 3:27 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The NATO-led international security force in Afghanistan should appoint a senior civilian official to help improve political and development coordination, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said in a report released Monday.
The report also stressed the need to beef up the international coordination structure in the war-torn country "under a United Nations umbrella."
Ban said naming a top civilian official within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) "would help to improve coordination of its political and development efforts, in particular by the provincial reconstruction teams, so as to ensure their greater adherence to Afghan plans and priorities across provincial borders."
He noted that while his outgoing special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide of Norway, maintains overall responsibility for coordinating international civilian efforts, the UN mission there (UNAMA) needs to be bolstered with staff with the required experience and able to have better talks with key donors countries and embassies in Kabul.
Ban's report made clear that to be successful, any form of international coordination must be properly linked to the Afghan government.
"The situation cannot continue as is if we are to succeed in Afghanistan," he warned. "There is a need for a change of mindset in the international community as well as in the government of Afghanistan."
Eide, who was criticized over his handling of the deeply controversial August fraud-marred election and who is to step down when his mission ends in March 2010, is to brief the UN Security Council this week on the activities of his mission.
His time in Afghanistan has seen the Taliban insurgency reach its deadliest since US-led troops ousted their regime in 2001, kickstarting international efforts to build democracy and develop the impoverished nation.
In a related development, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky refused to comment on a December 31 New York Times editorial stating that Ban was considering three candidates to replace Eide.
The three are Jean-Marie Guehenno of France, the former head of UN peacekeeping operations, Staffan de Mistura of Sweden, currently a senior official with the Rome-based UN World Food Program, and Ian Martin of Britain, a former UN special envoy to Nepal.
The New York Times endorsed Guehenno but Nesirky told a press briefing Monday: "The selection process is still under way. It is still not completed."
Record numbers of Afghan civilians and Western soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan over the past year.
NATO and the United States have 113,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban insurgents, who have spread their footprint over the previously peaceful north and east, inflicting record Western military casualties.
Up to 40,000 more US and NATO troops are to arrive over the course of 2010, backed by thousands of civilians, as the war strategy turns from battleground tactics to development and aid.
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'Be nice' policy for troops in Afghanistan pays off
By Jeanette Steele, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, commanding officer, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, listens to community leaders of Nawa district discuss recent events at a lunch party Dec. 8, 2009. The celebration was held at the district administrator’s residence in honor of McCollough and 1/5’s success in the district over the past five months – bringing peace and prosperity to the area after driving Taliban forces away. McCollough, known throughout Nawa as “Colonel Bill,” dressed in traditional Afghan clothes and a headdress out of sincere respect to Afghan culture
CAMP PENDLETON — Lt. Col. Bill McCollough told his Marines something you might not expect to hear on an Afghanistan battlefield: “When in doubt, I want you to be nice.”
The commander of a Camp Pendleton infantry battalion said the “be nice” strategy appears to have worked in the 90,000-person Nawa District of Southern Afghanistan. His 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment was deployed there for the past seven months to oust the Taliban from of the strategically important opium poppy-growing stronghold. The 800-troop force returned home late last month.
Their success offers a preview of what military leaders want to see happen throughout the country where President Obama recently commited to sending an additional 30,000 U.S. troops, including 4,500 Marines from San Diego County.
One analyst called the Marines’ efforts in the southern Helmand Province a “petri dish” for top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
“He’s looking at this for proof of concept,” said Jeffrey Dressler, researcher at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C.
And while McCollough says he thinks the public relations and community-building efforts of his Marines were working, the question remains whether the new Afghan government will take root or if the Taliban will succeed in returning after American troops leave in 2011.
“All I know is this one place. ... But I think the same thing could be done elsewhere,” said McCollough, a 40-year-old from Minnesota’s north woods who added that he believes most of Nawa’s residents were happy the Marines had arrived, by the end.
Dressler cautioned against calling the job complete. “You just can’t jump the gun and declare success and move on,” he said. “There’s a lot more work to be done there.”
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People don't care about Afghan detainee issue: Harper
January 05, 2010 Toronto Star Les Whittington
OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canadians aren't really concerned about allegations that the government engaged in a cover-up over the abuse of Afghan detainees.
"I think polls have been pretty clear that that's not on the top of the radar of most Canadians," Harper said in an interview with CBC-TV correspondent Peter Mansbridge.
The government had been on the defensive late last year over allegations that it tried to cover up information that Afghan authorities were abusing Afghan detainees after they were handed over by Canadian soldiers. And opposition MPs say Harper decided to suspend Parliament until March to shut down a House of Commons committee probing the detainee controversy.
But Harper said Canadians are more interested in the recession battering the country. "What's on the radar is the economy."
The Prime Minister said his government wants to focus on economic conditions when Parliament reopens on March 3 with a speech from the throne and a budget the next day.
But there's no doubt the opposition parties will return to the Afghan detainee issue in March, he said. "They've been on that subject for three or four years now. I'm sure they'll continue on it."
In his first public comments on his decision to close down Parliament for the second time in a little over a year, Harper said it was a "routine constitutional matter" if the government isn't threatened with defeat by other parties in the Commons.
"We want to take some time to recalibrate the government's agenda" on the economy and other policies, the Prime Minister said. He didn't name the other priority issues but Conservatives have said law-and-order legislation will feature prominently in the next session.
He also said the government will quickly fill vacancies in the Senate to make it harder for Liberal senators to make changes to Conservative legislation approved in the Commons.
On the question of realigning airline security in the wake of the latest terrorist scare in the United States, Harper said security measures in Canada will have to become tighter.
"We don't have to take identical measures (as the U.S.), but we certainly have to undertake measures that would prevent any similar kind of threat in Canada."
Ottawa will examine the 14-country terrorist watch list announced by the U.S. in recent days to see if Canada should adopt this approach. But "we may arrive at different conclusions," Harper said.
"There are issues of treating people fairly and treating people equally, of balancing privacy concerns with the ultimate goal that we must protect" travellers, he said.
But Harper stressed the importance of not overreacting. It's important that "we make sure that we respond in ways that are intelligent, ways that effectively identify threats before they happen, as opposed to simply massive bureaucratic sets of rules." Harper said Canada learned this lesson with the gun registry, which his party wants to dismantle.
He also said:
- "The consensus out there would be, nobody wants an election" at a time of continuing economic challenges.
- He would like to see the unemployment rate, now at 8.5 per cent, move back closer to the 6 per cent level.
- He's "less optimistic" than he was four years ago about the possibility of Senate reform.
- Economic circumstances, not a change of heart, caused him to run up a record $56 billion budget deficit after saying he would never preside over a deficit.
The interview was aired on CBC-TV's The National on Tuesday night.
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Afghan dreams of rock and roll
By Moska Najib BBC News, Delhi Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Indie rock - but not from Britain or America.
This is music from Afghanistan, of a kind seldom heard before, but now produced by a trio of young men.
The band, Kabul Dreams, is made up of vocalist Sulaymon Qardash, bass player Siddique Ahmad and drummer Mujtaba Habibi, who claim to be the country's first and only rock and roll group.
"One year ago in December we decided to create this band and since it was happening in Kabul, we thought Kabul Dreams is a good name," says the 19-year-old vocalist, who bears a distinct resemblance to Liam Gallagher of the British band Oasis.
"It's a real dream to play indie rock music in Afghanistan."
Catching on fast
I caught up with the three-piece in Delhi, where they took part in the South Asian Bands Festival, which seeks to promote regional cultural ties.
Qardash - who likes indie fashion - grew up listening to Britpop bands like Radiohead and Travis.
With the political turmoil which gripped Afghanistan in the 1990s, all three members sought refuge in the neighbouring countries of Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Iran, where they were influenced by the Western music they heard.
"During the years of the Taliban, we were away and one positive thing for all of us was that we had an opportunity to learn music and have good facilities where we could practise," says Ahmad, who lived in Pakistan for 10 years and played with bands producing new music.
While original Afghan music is closely associated with traditional instruments like the rubab and dombura, indie rock is still a new genre - but it is catching on fast among Afghan youth.
Exposure
"Lots of young people are listening to rock music," says Ahmad.
"Because we don't have any rock music, they listen to international bands and music from neighbouring countries like India and Pakistan.
"We thought it was about time for Afghanistan to have its own rock band."
The group mixes Afghan rhythmic patterns with rock and roll music.
And what's more unusual, they sing in English.
"Since the three of us come from three different parts of Afghanistan and speak in three different languages - Pashto, Dari and Uzbek - we thought it would be a good idea to sing in English," says Ahmad.
Habibi, on drums, feels they will also get more international exposure with a language that is spoken widely.
But first things first: the band has yet to release an album.
So far the trio have only performed for a niche group of expats, non-governmental organisation workers and educated young Afghans familiar with the new genre.
But the continuing security threats in the country have placed restrictions on public gatherings and their performances.
And in the absence of an organised music industry, new bands like Kabul Dreams face difficulties in financing and producing their music.
"Other bands around the world have lots of opportunities and facilities, but we have to do everything ourselves," says Ahmad.
"We have a video shoot, we have to take care of everything. There is no production house that we could go to."
Provocative
The 27-year-old studies during the day and works with Habibi in a recording studio.
Qardash is a presenter with a private TV and radio station. Much of their salaries is invested in Kabul Dreams.
Despite the challenges, the trio want to bring a musical revolution to the Islamic country, where playing rock music is considered too Western and provocative.
"Playing rock music is a risk but we want to play in Afghanistan," says Qardash, as he tunes his guitar.
"We love our country and we want to change our young generation, we want to make something new."
Ahmad points out that Kabul Dreams is truly multi-ethnic, consisting as it does of an Uzbek, Pashtun and Tajik.
"The reason we formed this band was to give a message to the Afghan youth, a message that they can live together," he says.
"Because Afghanistan has always been a country with different ethnic groups, different people who speak in different languages and even have different cultures, our message is that it is possible to be together because we have examples all over the world."
Ahmad feels the younger generation of Afghans has learned from the mistakes of war and is now indifferent to the issue of ethnicity.
"One Afghan," he reiterates. "That's it."
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