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March 28, 2010 

Obama in Kabul for unannounced Afghan trip
By Jeff Mason
KABUL (Reuters) – President Barack Obama arrived in Kabul on Sunday for an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, his first trip to the country since becoming president and commander-in-chief of the U.S.-led war effort.

German minister in Afghanistan for police talks
BERLIN (AFP) – German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere held talks in Afghanistan Sunday on stuttering progress in training the country's security forces, a ministry spokesman said.

UK memos claim drug-taking among Afghan police - paper
LONDON (Reuters) - Drug abuse and high attrition rates among the Afghan police mean it will take many years to create a strong force, according to internal British government memos reported by the warned, The Independent on Sunday said.

Afghanistan: peace in the north, war in the south
by Sardar Ahmad – Sun Mar 28, 3:10 am ET
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (AFP) – Thousands of Afghans took to the streets of northern cities to welcome their new year in a joyous celebration of music, dancing and fireworks.

Bomb attacks kill 11 in Afghanistan
Sun Mar 28, 6:14 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – A string of roadside bomb attacks killed 11 civilians including five children in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, authorities said on Sunday.

U.S. deaths double in Afghanistan as troops pour in
Sebastian Abbot / Associated Press
Kabul -- The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010 compared to the same period last year as Washington has added tens of thousands of additional soldiers to reverse the Taliban's momentum.

Iran reaches out to neighbors in new year summit
The Associated Press By ALI AKBAR DAREINI 27/03/2010
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran used an ancient new year celebration to reach out to Afghanistan, Iraq and other neighbors on Saturday, hosting them at a summit meeting that projected Iranian leadership in the strategic region straddling the Middle East and Central Asia.

Invisible Taliban harass US Marines
by Karim Talbi
MARJAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – Wazir, an elderly bearded Afghan, is adamant: "The Taliban haven't been here for weeks".

Pakistani army kills 22 Taliban near Afghan border
By Hussain Afzal, Associated Press Writer
PARACHINAR, Pakistan – Pakistani troops repulsed a Taliban attack Sunday on an army base and bombed two militant hide-outs close to the Afghan border, killing 22 insurgents in a region where the army is pressing an offensive, a government official said.

British forces to withdraw from Helmand under new US plan for Afghanistan
British forces are to be withdrawn from Helmand and replaced by United States Marines under controversial new plans being drawn up by American commanders.
Telegraph.co.uk By Toby Harnden in Kabul 28 Mar 2010
The proposal, which would have to be approved by a new British government, is facing stiff resistance. Whitehall officials fear that a pull-out from Helmand, where nearly 250 British troops have been killed since 2006, would be portrayed as an admission of defeat.

Karzai, his warlords and the birth of a nation
Afghan president is acting like Henry VII was when he suppressed competing factions in England -- but Karzai has international help
Vancouver Sun By Jonathan Manthorpe March 27, 2010
If Afghanistan is lucky, its president, Hamid Karzai, will prove to be a modern equivalent of the 15th century Welsh king of England, Henry VII.

Russia says U.S. should eradicate Afghan opium
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL (Reuters) – Russia accused the United States on Sunday of conniving with Afghanistan's drug producers by refusing to destroy opium crops, the second time in a week Moscow has taken a swipe at the West over drug policy.

U.S. to Ask Canada to Keep Troops in Afghanistan, Globe Says
By Sean B. Pasternak
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government will ask Canada to keep as many as 600 troops in Afghanistan after their mission ends in 2011, the Globe and Mail reported, citing unidentified people.

'At the end of the day, what really matters is success in Afghanistan'
If British forces are indeed asked to re-deploy from Helmand to Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul, it would pose a major dilemma for policymakers, writes former Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt.
Telegraph.co.uk Richard Dannatt 27 Mar 2010
Some will argue that we have fought, bled and died in Helmand, and should see the job through. They will also point to the waste of effort in terms of contacts made among tribal leaders and local officials. Others, more mischievously, will try to draw parallels with our withdrawal from southern Iraq.

In Nebraska, a Center for Afghanistan Studies - and for controversy
Critics say the institute at the University of Nebraska at Omaha has gone too far in its work with the U.S. military, the State Department and even the Taliban. Its director makes no apologies.
Los Angeles Times By Kate Linthicum March 27, 2010
Reporting from Omaha - On the dusty plains of Afghanistan, a surprising number of people are said to know the word "Nebraska."

Prince Charles' frustration over Afghanistan trip revealed in leaked Whitehall memo
A frank, high-level memo which lays bare the "frustration" felt over the Prince of Wales's trip to Afghanistan has been leaked in Whitehall, causing embarrassment to senior figures in the Foreign Office.
Telegraph.co.uk By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor 27 Mar 2010
Written in florid, diplomatic prose by Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain's special representative to Afghanistan, the email criticises the "all too credible incompetence" by Afghan officials which saw Hamid Karzai, the country's president, absent for the entirety of Prince Charles's two-day visit.
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Obama in Kabul for unannounced Afghan trip
By Jeff Mason
KABUL (Reuters) – President Barack Obama arrived in Kabul on Sunday for an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, his first trip to the country since becoming president and commander-in-chief of the U.S.-led war effort.

Obama's brief trip was expected to include a one-on-one meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, an expanded meeting with Karzai's cabinet and U.S. officials, and a speech to American military personnel.

A White House official, speaking before the trip, said Obama wanted to get an "on the ground update" about the war from General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander, as well as Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador.

In December Obama ordered the deployment of an extra 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan and set a mid-2011 target to begin withdrawal. That increase is under way, though only a few thousand of the extra troops have arrived.

Obama is expected to greet troops and meet with diplomats while in the country.

Obama's domestic victory on healthcare reform last week gives him political space to turn his attention to the Afghan war, which has mixed support from the American public amid rising casualties, costs, and corruption among Afghan leaders.

The trip allows Obama to see the early results of his troop increase strategy, show support for military personnel and refute critics who say his focus on passing healthcare legislation has diverted attention from foreign policy.

Obama traveled to Afghanistan during the 2008 U.S. presidential election but has not been back since his victory over Republican Senator John McCain, whose criticism at the time prodded the Democrat's trip.

The White House official said weather and logistical reasons had thwarted previous attempts at a presidential visit since Obama took office in January 2009.

Much has changed during Obama's first year in office.

Top U.S. officials held a multi-month review of the White House's war policy, culminating in the decision to send more troops. When all 30,000 arrive by the end of this year, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will have tripled on Obama's watch to 100,000, along with more than 40,000 from other NATO countries.

Karzai, who remained in power after a fraud-marred election, has launched a high profile effort to reach for reconciliation with the Taliban, who have made a comeback more than eight years since their ousting by U.S.-backed Afghan militias.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week the timing was still not right for reconciliation with senior Afghan Taliban leaders.

Obama speaks less often to Karzai than did his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, who launched the war in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
(Editing by Patricia Wilson and Doina Chiacu)
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German minister in Afghanistan for police talks
BERLIN (AFP) – German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere held talks in Afghanistan Sunday on stuttering progress in training the country's security forces, a ministry spokesman said.

De Maiziere met with his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar and General Stanley McChrystal, commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, as well as representatives of the European Union police mission EUPOL.

He acknowledged that training efforts had "not yet been a success" but said redoubled international efforts would help focus the mission.

"I am optimistic that success can still be achieved in Afghanistan," De Maiziere said after the talks, according to a ministry spokesman.

"What needs to happen is to intensify and coordinate our contribution, the EUPOL contribution, that of the Americans and that of the international community. If we do that, then Afghans will eventually be able to assume responsibility (for their own security)."

Plans are in place to expand the strength of Afghan police to 160,000 from around 100,000 as part of the fight against the Taliban insurgency.

Germany took command of the international mission to train Afghanistan's police forces in 2002 at the request of the Afghan government.

According to the German interior ministry, there are currently about 190 German trainers and experts on the ground including 140 for a bilateral training mission.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government announced plans in January to boost the total to 260 trainers.

Experts have warned of the difficulties of recruiting quality trainees, as most Afghans are illiterate and drug addiction is widespread, while the current force is marred by widespread corruption.

Germany currently has 4,570 troops in Afghanistan, the third-largest contingent after the United States and Britain.

Amid strong popular opposition to the mission, Merkel's government decided in January to send up to 850 more troops.
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UK memos claim drug-taking among Afghan police - paper
LONDON (Reuters) - Drug abuse and high attrition rates among the Afghan police mean it will take many years to create a strong force, according to internal British government memos reported by the warned, The Independent on Sunday said.

The Afghan National Police (ANP) is being trained by Western forces and strengthening it is a main aim in the war against Taliban insurgents.

But a series of British Foreign Ministry papers said attrition rates among officers in Helmand Province, including losses caused by death, desertion and dismissal, were as high as 60 percent while half the latest group of recruits had tested positive for narcotics, the Independent said.

It also said non-existent "ghost recruits" could make for up to a quarter of the force's purported strength.

Bribery, corruption and lack of engagement with the local community were also mentioned, the newspaper said.

Some memos suggested stricter vetting of recruits and increased pay in higher-threat areas to combat the problem.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement: "The challenges to police reform are significant and long term, but progress is being made.

"We are aware of widespread criticisms of the ANP, some of which are deeply concerning. The UK is fully committed to police reform to ensure a professional and accountable police force."

Britain has about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, the second-largest contingent behind the United States. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown supports the training of Afghan forces in order to start handing over responsibility for security.

The memos seem to confirm long-standing claims of ineffectiveness and corruption within the Afghan police force, which is often accused of taking bribes at checkpoints, colluding with the Taliban and keeping phantom employees on its payroll.

But poor equipment contributed to about 1,500 Afghan police being killed in fighting between 2007 and 2009, three times as many deaths as suffered by soldiers from the Afghan army.

There are 80,000 policemen in Afghanistan but the local Interior Ministry wants to double its size to 160,000 in line with Washington's demands for larger Afghan security forces, which would help facilitate an exit strategy for Western forces.

(Writing by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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Afghanistan: peace in the north, war in the south
by Sardar Ahmad – Sun Mar 28, 3:10 am ET
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (AFP) – Thousands of Afghans took to the streets of northern cities to welcome their new year in a joyous celebration of music, dancing and fireworks.

Less than 700 kilometres (435 miles) to the south, residents of poverty-stricken villages, towns and cities riddled with mines and plagued by bombings know only war as they struggle for survival.

In Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of the northern province of Balkh, authorities estimate that half a million people gathered for Nowruz, a 3,000-year-old Zoroastrian festival marking the Persian new year.

The southern province of Helmand could not have been more different as 15,000 US, NATO and Afghan troops battled Taliban insurgents in the biggest offensive of a war now in its ninth year.

As a half-hour fireworks display burst over Mazar on the evening of March 13, a series of suicide bombings killed 35 people, mostly civilians, in Kandahar city, capital of the southern province of Kandahar, the site of almost daily violence.

"I'm just glad I'm from the north," said Hamidullah, a 32-year-old agriculture student at Balkh University.

"This side of the country is better than that side," he told AFP, likening north and south to chalk and cheese.

As he spoke, crowds were gathering for the traditional new year games -- buzkashi, in which horsemen fight over a goat carcass, camel fighting and ram fighting.

In the south, dog fighting was once the most popular betting man's sport, but Taliban attacks have claimed huge casualties among spectators.

Southern Afghanistan is home to the Pashtun tribes, the nation's largest ethnic group and the country's traditional rulers, as well as the source of Taliban leaders.

The north, separated from the south by the Hindu Kush mountains and accessible via the treacherously steep and narrow Salang Pass, is dominated by Tajiks, the second largest ethnic group, as well as the Uzbek, Turkmen and Hazara tribes.

President Hamid Karzai lacks standing among his fellow Pashtuns while Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek leaders, mostly warlords who won their following fighting the Soviets, are popular among their tribes.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from Kandahar from 1996 until their overthrow in the 2001 US-led invasion.

Remnants of the extremists retreated to the villages they had sprung from back in 1990 as a radical Islamic militia swept across the country to take power.

From those villages across the south -- a rugged region stretching from the foothills of the north-eastern Hindu Kush to the south-western border with Iran -- the Taliban have regrouped, rearmed and returned in the form of a deadly insurgency, waging war on the Western-backed Kabul government.

Most of their activity is focussed in the south and south-east, where they have established "shadow" administrations, challenging the authority of the government, which in many places has no presence.

Karzai holds onto power with the backing of international forces under US and NATO command, set to peak at 150,000 by August under a US strategy to speed up the end of the war and then draw down troops.

The first test of the strategy was launched in the poppy-growing Marjah district of Helmand province in mid-February with US Marines leading 15,000 troops against the Taliban and drug cartels that have been in control there for years.

Initial operations are already under way in neighbouring Kandahar, described by military planners as a vital objective in the war.

"I love Kandahar," said Attaullah, who runs a real estate agency in the city.

"But life here is very, very hard," he told AFP as he sat in his office waiting for customers.

"We live under extreme hardship. Every time there's an explosion I think my young son might die, if not in the explosion then maybe just from the fear of the noise.

"I have lots of money but it doesn't help. I might leave the country. This place is not for living," the 42-year-old said.

Landowner Mohammad Jaweed, 34, described similar troubles.

"I can't even go to my farms in Maywand," he said, referring to a Kandahar district largely under Taliban control. "Sometimes I get nothing from the harvest."

The deadly reality of the south has persisted since 2001, yet in the north the Taliban struggled even when they were in power to gain a foothold in the face of local people's hostility.

As a result, northerners enjoy security, run thriving businesses and prosper in all aspects of life.

"We have been lucky," said Mohammad Ibrahim Ghazanfar, a successful businessman from Mazar-i-Sharif who said his import-export company had expanded into banking, thanks to "good security here".

"Security plays the most important role in any country's economy," he said.

"If you have good security your business improves, and here we have good security. It has been the key asset in improving our business" in post-Taliban Afghanistan.

It is not only business that prospers in the north.

Local governments have been able to complete hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of development projects including schools, clinics and government facilities, power plants and roads, Atta Mohammad Noor, a powerful warlord and the governor of Balkh said in a recent speech.

Cultivation of poppy -- the raw material for heroin -- has also been cut to almost zero, he said, in stark contrast to the south, where Helmand produces most of the world's opium, a three billion-dollar-a-year illicit industry.

Balkh alone had contributed about 10 billion afghanis (200,000,000 dollars) to national coffers in taxes and revenues, Noor, who remains in power despite opposing Karzai during last year's elections, told a new year ceremony.

Nevertheless, security is fragile as the Taliban-led insurgency has in recent years managed to spread its footprint across 80 percent of the country.

The Taliban now have a presence in the northern province of Kunduz, where small pockets of Pashtuns live among Tajiks and Uzkbeks, as well as Badghis and Faryab provinces, where US forces plan to reinforce NATO allies.

Their influence however remains weak compared to the south.

"I'm concerned," Ghazanfar, the trader and banker, said of the Taliban growth in Kunduz, which lies on a key transport route connecting Afghanistan to neighbouring Central Asian states.

"We already have problems along the road from Sherkhan Bandar," he said, referring to the border crossing with Tajikistan.
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Bomb attacks kill 11 in Afghanistan
Sun Mar 28, 6:14 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – A string of roadside bomb attacks killed 11 civilians including five children in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, authorities said on Sunday.

Five children were killed in the western province of Herat when a roadside bomb went off Saturday, the interior ministry said in a statement.

The children were playing in Angil district when the buried device went off, it said.

Six other civilians were killed in two separate but similar bomb blasts Saturday in the troubled southern province of Helmand, the statement said.

The statement did not give more details about the bombings but it blamed the attacks on Taliban insurgents.

Improvised bombs are a favourite weapon of the militants fighting to topple the Western-backed government in Kabul.

There are about 120,000 troops under NATO and US command in Afghanistan battling the Taliban-led insurgency now in its ninth year, with troop numbers expected to swell to 150,000 within months.
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U.S. deaths double in Afghanistan as troops pour in
Sebastian Abbot / Associated Press
Kabul -- The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010 compared to the same period last year as Washington has added tens of thousands of additional soldiers to reverse the Taliban's momentum.

Those deaths have been accompanied by a dramatic spike in the number of wounded, with injuries more than tripling in the first two months of the year and trending in the same direction based on the latest available data for March.

U.S. officials have warned that casualties are likely to rise even further as the Pentagon completes its deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and sets its sights on the Taliban's home base of Kandahar province, where a major operation is expected in the coming months.

"We must steel ourselves, no matter how successful we are on any given day, for harder days yet to come," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a briefing last month.

In total, 57 U.S. troops were killed here during the first two months of 2010 compared with 28 in January and February of last year, an increase of more than 100 percent, according to Pentagon figures compiled by The Associated Press. At least 20 American service members have been killed so far in March, an average of about 0.8 per day, compared to 13, or 0.4 per day, a year ago.

Britain, which has the second largest contingent, has lost at least 33 troops since Jan. 1, compared with 15 for the same period last year.

The steady rise in combat deaths has generated less public reaction in the United States than the spike in casualties last summer and fall, which undermined public support in the U.S. for the 8-year-old American-led mission here. Fighting traditionally tapers off in Afghanistan during winter months, only to peak in the summer.

After a summer marked by the highest monthly death rates of the war, President Barack Obama faced serious domestic opposition over his decision in December to increase troops in Afghanistan, with only about half the American people supporting the move. But support for his handling of the war has actually improved since then, despite the increased casualties.

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll at the beginning of March found that 57 percent of those surveyed approved his handling of the war in Afghanistan compared to 49 percent two months earlier. The poll surveyed 1,002 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said the poll results could partly be a reaction to last month's offensive against the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province, which the Obama administration painted as the first test of its revamped counterinsurgency strategy.

Some 10,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan forces seized control of the farming community of about 80,000 people while suffering relatively few deaths. But the Taliban continue to plant bombs at night and intimidate the locals, and the hardest part of the operation is yet to come: building an effective local government that can win over the loyalty of the people.

"My main thesis ... is that Americans can brace themselves for casualties in war if they consider the stakes high enough and the strategy being followed promising enough," O'Hanlon said. "But such progress in public opinion is perishable, if not right away then over a period of months, if we don't sustain the new momentum."

A rise in the number of wounded -- a figure that draws less attention than deaths -- shows that the Taliban remain a formidable opponent.

The number of U.S. troops wounded in Afghanistan and three smaller theaters where there isn't much battlefield activity rose from 85 in the first two months of 2009 to 381 this year, an increase of almost 350 percent. A total of 50 U.S. troops were wounded last March, an average of 1.6 per day. In comparison, 44 were injured during just the first six days of March this year, an average of 7.3 per day.

The increase in casualties was partly driven by the higher number of troops in Afghanistan in 2010. American troops rose from 32,000 at the beginning of last year to 68,000 at the end of the year, an increase of more than 110 percent.

"We've got a massive influx of troops, we have troops going into areas where they have not previously been and you have a reaction by an enemy to a new force presence," said NATO spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale.

The troop numbers have continued to rise in 2010 in line with the recent surge. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that a third of the additional forces, or 10,000 troops, are already in Afghanistan. They plan to have all 30,000 troops in the country before the end of the year.

U.S. officials have said they plan to use many of the additional forces to reassert control in Kandahar province, where the insurgents have slowly taken territory over the past few years in an effort to boost their influence over Kandahar city, the largest metropolis in the south and the Taliban's former capital.

Many analysts believe the Kandahar operation will be much more difficult than the recent Marjah offensive because of the greater dispersion of Taliban forces, the urban environment in Kandahar city and the complex political and tribal forces at work in the province.

The goal of both operations is to put enough pressure on the Taliban to force them to the negotiating table to work out a political settlement to end the war -- a process the U.S. believes will only gain momentum once the militant group has lost traction on the battlefield.

"Until they transition to that mode, then we will have fighters ready to take shots at us and plant IEDs (improvised explosive devices)," said Lt. Col. Calvert Worth Jr., commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines Regiment in central Marjah.
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Iran reaches out to neighbors in new year summit
The Associated Press By ALI AKBAR DAREINI 27/03/2010
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran used an ancient new year celebration to reach out to Afghanistan, Iraq and other neighbors on Saturday, hosting them at a summit meeting that projected Iranian leadership in the strategic region straddling the Middle East and Central Asia.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said it was the first of what he hoped would be yearly gatherings to mark the Nowruz celebrations and promote closer ties with the six neighboring nations where the holiday is celebrated by Farsi-speaking communities.

"That Nowruz promotes affection and social contacts among the people is one of many characteristics of this festival," Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast on state TV.

In particular, the president has looked recently to come closer to Afghanistan, where Iran is wary of a long-term U.S. military presence.

Earlier this month, Ahmadinejad made his second visit to Afghanistan as president. During the visit, Ahmadinejad criticized Washington's policies in the country, arguing that the United States was playing a "double game" in fighting militants it had supported decades earlier in their battle against the Soviets.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was among those attending Saturday's events in Tehran. The other nations were Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Iraq, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

President Jalal Talabani represented Iraq, where full parliamentary election results released Friday gave a leading edge to a Shiite candidate who has been less friendly toward Tehran than some of Iraq's other top political figures.

Ayad Allawi, who was an interim prime minister after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, leads a secular, anti-Iranian coalition that won the most seats in the March 7 election.

Nowruz, which means "new day" in Farsi, is a spring festival of Persian origin that began on March 21 and continues until early April.

Nowruz, the day of the vernal equinox, is celebrated by more than 300 million people worldwide as the beginning of the new year. The celebration predates Islam, going back thousands of years to the time when Zoroastrianism — with its central theme of the struggle between good and evil spirits — was the predominant religion of ancient Persia.

Under the Achamenid dynasty, which ruled about 2,500 years ago, Persia stretched from the Indus River to Egypt, to central Asia, forming the largest empire on earth until that date.

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon suggested that the Nowruz gathering be held next year at Persepolis in southern Iran, the spring capital of the Achamenid kingdom, where the kings hosted Nowruz celebrations.

"Nowruz, with a history of 6,000 years, promotes the message of unity, honesty and happiness," he told the meeting.

Hard-line Iranian clerics have discouraged some elements of Nowruz that they consider pagan festivals, but their guidance is not heeded.
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Invisible Taliban harass US Marines
by Karim Talbi
MARJAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – Wazir, an elderly bearded Afghan, is adamant: "The Taliban haven't been here for weeks".

So US Marine Lieutenant Jackson Smith prepares to take his leave. Suddenly, gunfire rips through the dust on the outskirts of Marjah, a settlement that last month was the focus of a major US-led offensive to clear out the Taliban.

Smith's men dash to the nearest wall for protection. "Where da f(expletive) does it come from?" shouts one against the din of at least two assault rifles.

More than a month after US Marines led 15,000 troops into action in Marjah, on the poppy growing plains of southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, the Western-backed government does not have the area under complete control.

Operation Mushtarak, launched on February 13, is the biggest offensive since the 2001 US-led invasion kicked the Taliban regime out of Kabul and the first test of a US strategy to end the war as soon as possible.

Crouched down in the dust, the Marines try to position M-4 machine guns on a low wall to return fire. On a hill overlooking the village, an Afghan soldier fires a heavy machine gun and the ground shakes.

"OK, guys, we move to the next wall," orders Smith as the firing gets heavier.

"It's ours, ours, no worries!" shouts Sergeant Robert Kayser as the soldiers duck down on hearing the rat-a-tat-tat of an American heavy machine gun.

The streets are deserted in the village of mud, cement and straw-built farmhouses. Through a small hole in a wall a family gestures at Taliban fighters firing slightly further along, from a house near a mosque.

The soldiers advance with difficulty: one Marine falls over while scaling a low wall. Another, weighed down by two rocket launchers and his gun, falls into the water while stepping over an irrigation canal.

Bullets continue whistling overhead. "It's f(expletive) close," laughs a Marine.

About half an hour later, the Taliban cease fire and the soldiers advance.

An Afghan soldier under Commander Amanullah -- a northerner who fought against Soviet troops in the 1980s and emanates nonchalance under fire -- insists he has seen an insurgent near the mosque.

Marines and Afghan soldiers enter a house and question the head of the family, a man apparently in his 50s.

Amanullah becomes impatient: "It happened right outside your home and you didn't see anything, you didn't hear anything, just like usual," he snaps.

The man insists he was going to have a cup of tea near his poppy fields and took shelter on hearing the first bullet.

The Marines fan out around his home. "Hey guys, don't go on that road, it's loaded with IEDs," shouts one.

On the road -- a track between fields -- bombs have wounded four Americans and an Afghan soldier in recent days.

The Taliban haven't been found and the troops resume their patrol. Children play in the street and life seems to return to normal. Some even come and shake the Marines' hands.

But no one tells the Marines they know where the Taliban are hiding. They insist the last fighters fled weeks ago.

"They lie -- of course they lie. They are scared to death. They won't say where the Taliban are. Taliban must have hidden their weapons. They must be somewhere in a compound. Who knows?" says Sergeant Kayser.

In the courtyard of one farm, it is not the attack that preoccupies a group of three Afghans. "You killed our dogs. If you continue, the people will hate you," says one.

"Where was the shooting coming from?" retorts Sergeant Kayser.

The Afghan with the long white beard gestures vaguely in the direction of a Marine encampment. "You promise, but you don't keep your word," he charges.

"What did we promise?" asks the sergeant.

"Not to come at night anymore," says the man.

"We are not coming during the night, searching houses. We patrol at night to kill Taliban," says the sergeant.

"Patrol, OK, but don't fire on us," says the Afghan.

"We don't shoot at you," replies the sergeant calmly.

On the way back, firing echoes at least three kilometres (two miles) away in a neighbouring district.

"It's supposed to be a quiet area. But nothing is easy here," says Smith.
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Pakistani army kills 22 Taliban near Afghan border
By Hussain Afzal, Associated Press Writer
PARACHINAR, Pakistan – Pakistani troops repulsed a Taliban attack Sunday on an army base and bombed two militant hide-outs close to the Afghan border, killing 22 insurgents in a region where the army is pressing an offensive, a government official said.

The fighting occurred in Orakzai tribal region where many militants are believed to have fled from a major operation in their former stronghold of South Waziristan.

The official, Samiullah Khan, said a group of militants attacked the base with rockets and automatic weapons. Security forces retaliated and killed 10 attackers. The military helicopter gunships later bombed the hide-outs in nearby Chapri Ferozkhel area, killing another 12 of them, he added.

The government says more than 100 suspected militants and five soldiers have been killed in fighting in the region in the last week.

Officials have said the militants killed so far include Uzbek and Arab nationals.

The region has been the main base of the Pakistani Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud. A suspected U.S. missile strike is believed to have killed him in another tribal region, North Waziristan, early this year. Taliban have denied that, though they failed to prove otherwise.

Also in the northwest, a bomb ripped through a shop selling movies and music in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said the city police chief, Liaqat Ali Khan. Four people were wounded in the attack.

Many Islamist extremists object to music and television, which they consider un-Islamic. Scores of shops selling movies and music have been attacked by the Taliban in recent years in the country's northwest.
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British forces to withdraw from Helmand under new US plan for Afghanistan
British forces are to be withdrawn from Helmand and replaced by United States Marines under controversial new plans being drawn up by American commanders.
Telegraph.co.uk By Toby Harnden in Kabul 28 Mar 2010
The proposal, which would have to be approved by a new British government, is facing stiff resistance. Whitehall officials fear that a pull-out from Helmand, where nearly 250 British troops have been killed since 2006, would be portrayed as an admission of defeat.

Under the plans, British forces would hand over their remaining bases in Helmand to the US Marines as early as this year.

Such a move could bring back unhappy memories of the 2007 withdrawal from Basra in southern Iraq, which provoked jibes about British forces being bailed out by the Americans.

The proposal is linked to a reorganisation of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces that will split the current Regional Command (South) in two after an American-led offensive against the Taliban in Kandahar this summer.

A senior American officer in ISAF said that "the Marines will be the primary force in Helmand and Nimruz" while "British forces will go to a combination of Kandahar and Uruzgan and Zabul".

British officials opposed to the move argue that the ground-level expertise and knowledge of local power brokers in Helmand, which they have built up over many years, would be squandered in apparent contradiction of the "know the people" counter-insurgency doctrine put in place by the Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal.

But while acknowledging the political sensitivities, a senior British officer in ISAF said that a new role outside Helmand would be central to Gen McChrystal's campaign strategy, which is based on protecting the main Pashtun population centres.

"Through the microcosm of the UK media lens, a lot of people will say, 'We fought, we've spilt British blood in Helmand and now we're withdrawing'," the official said.

"Completely wrong. We're going to where the main effort is."

Under Gen McChrystal's plan, Helmand and Nimruz will come under a new Regional Command (South West) while Kandahar, Uruzgan and Kabul will constitute Regional Command (South East).

The US Marines have a strong tradition of independence and a determined preference for operating alone in a single area, as they did in Iraq's Anbar province. Nato has agreed that Major General Richard Mills of the US Marines – who for 18 months commanded ground forces in Iraq's Anbar province – will take command of the new south-western area of Afghanistan.

In a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph, Gen McChrystal stressed that Kandahar was of "tremendous moral importance" to the Taliban because it was their former capital and the birthplace of their leader the one-eyed Mullah Omar.

Asked whether British forces would move to Kandahar, he responded carefully: "There's a lot of politics involved in where forces go, so rather than start a political debate about where forces are what I'd rather do is just move on with where things are now and let things develop."

Canadian forces, 2,500 of which are currently based in Kandahar – where British forces won a decisive battle in 1880 that brought the Second Afghan War to an end – are due to withdraw from Afghanistan next year. Some 2,000 Dutch forces in Uruzgan are due to be pulled out by August.

British forces first deployed to Helmand in significant numbers in spring 2006, when 3,300 members of 16 Air Assault Brigade arrived. Their mission was to restore security so that reconsstruction could begin and the illegal opium trade be disrupted.

But they faced an immediate upsurge in Taliban activity and this has continued ever since, leading to regular calls for greater troop numbers. There are currently around 10,000 from the UK in the region, and 248 soldiers have been killed there.

This would leave a vacuum in south-eastern Afghanistan at a time when US Marines are pouring into Helmand as part of President Barack Obama's surge of 30,000 troops, which will soon bring American forces to a level of 100,000, double what they were a year ago. About 20,000 US Marines will be in Helmand by this summer, more than twice the number of British troops there.

Some senior American officers believe the British have become too attached to "Helmandshire" and have developed tunnel vision.

Although British troops have been praised for their valour, the consensus within the American military is that control of the province has slipped away because of inadequate numbers, poor equipment and thin logistical support.

Senior American officers also believe the British became distracted by defending bases in outlying areas like Musa Qala, Kajaki and Sangin when they should have concentrated on the more-populated central Helmand.

A Washington defence source said that, under the new plan, "Helmandshire will become Marine-istan."

The main British logistics base in Afghanistan is already at Kandahar airfield – a factor that makes a shift from Helmand more feasible. Nato forces in southern Afghanistan are currently commanded by Maj Gen Nick Carter from his Regional Command (South) headquarters at the airfield.

Mark Sedwill, formerly British ambassador in Afghanistan and now Nato's Senior Civilian Representative, acknowledged that withdrawal of British forces from Helmand would make "a lot of sense" when viewed from a "purely military perspective".

This was because "the challenges in Kandahar are very well suited to the resources we can bring and the capabilities" British troops have.

"Could we end up with the Brits in Kandahar?" he said. "I guess theoretically we could and certainly I wouldn't rule it out because from the ISAF perspective we need to look at what is the sensible force deployment as the Canadians draw down after 2011 and given how central Kandahar is to the entire campaign.

"But any shift of that kind is not just an ISAF decision, it would have to be agreed with the British government of the day. There would be enormous political sensitivities to manage just because of the amount of investment of blood and treasure that has gone into central Helmand."

Maj Gen Gordon Messenger, senior British military spokesman, said that there was "no thought at the moment of doing anything other" than "a job which is utterly, utterly needed as part of the coalition force in central Helmand".

He added: "How that function changes over time is clearly being looked at ... and there are any number of options. But it would be unwise to view moving and conducting ground-holding in Kandahar as one of them."
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Karzai, his warlords and the birth of a nation
Afghan president is acting like Henry VII was when he suppressed competing factions in England -- but Karzai has international help
Vancouver Sun By Jonathan Manthorpe March 27, 2010
If Afghanistan is lucky, its president, Hamid Karzai, will prove to be a modern equivalent of the 15th century Welsh king of England, Henry VII.

It was Henry Tudor who, through luck in battle, ruthless decision-making and cunning in government, ended more than 400 years of clan and tribal civil wars, and began to forge England into one of the first unified states of Europe.

Like Afghanistan today, the countries of Europe were nations in name only. The monarchs and heads of state had little authority and spent most of their time bartering for support and money among rival clan factions in order to keep their crowns.

Real power was in the hand of the regional dukes and earls whose brutality, corruption and ambition made them indistinguishable from the warlords who are both Karzai's supporters and opponents today.

Henry, from one of the warring tribal factions, the House of Lancaster, began his reign after seizing the throne in 1485 by marrying Elizabeth from the rival House of York.

He set out by threats, bribes and the astute use of power to undermine the power of the nobility, the regional warlords.

He established the Privy Council, forerunner of today's cabinet, as a way of getting around the power of Parliament, at that time a gathering of warlords and tribal leaders like Afghanistan's loya jirga today.

Henry dispatched law officers, justices of the peace loyal to him, to administer courts throughout the country and to undermine the judicial authority of the local lords.

He also slowly introduced a system of central taxation, which included huge financial penalties on regional lords who kept private armies.

As Karzai contemplates forging Afghanistan into a centrally governed nation state -- something it has never been before -- he is in a significantly different position than was Henry Tudor.

Karzai has more than 100,000 American and allied troops on his soil attempting to defeat the insurgency by the Taliban, the warlord-ridden remnants of the regime ousted in 2001.

These foreign contingents are both fighting to defeat Karzai's enemies and giving the president a leg-up on future power by training the national army and police force.

Karzai also has international aid money pouring in by the truckload to spur development. This has put a huge capacity for patronage at his disposal to buy off and acquire the loyalty of regional warlords, a facility that is sometimes too glibly dismissed as corruption from the perspective of western civic morality.

That illustrates that there are both advantages and disadvantages for Karzai in the foreign commitment to his country's future.

Last year's elections were a good example.

There were and still are choruses of outrage among western governments and other observers at the evident massive election fraud leading to Karzai's re-selection as president.

The fraud, said the commentary, de-legitimized Karzai's renewed presidency and undermined his authority to lead the Afghanistan project forward.

Henry VII would say that is rubbish.

Far from undermining Karzai's legitimacy, the fact that he was able to fix the results in such a conclusive way showed everyone in Afghanistan that he is the top warlord. He has acquired more than sufficient military and patronage muscle to buy off and subvert enough warlords to sustain his central power.

In a manner very similar to the way English dukes and earls decided to side with Henry Tudor after his victory over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, Afghanistan's most significant warlords see it is time to become part of the aristocracy of the emerging Afghan state.

Karzai's vice-president is the Tajik warlord Muhammad Qasim Fahim. Fahim has a horrendous human rights record, but so do many others now expressing loyalty to Karzai. They include: the mass-murderer Uzbek commander Abdul Rashid Dostum; the Hazarra Shiite minority warlords Hajji Muhammad Moheqiq and Karim Khalili; the murderer of hundreds of Hazara civilians in 1993, Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf; and opium drug warlord Gul Agha Sherzai.

In the past few weeks Karzai's people have been negotiating terms with the representatives of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, another accused mass murderer, who is on the American most-wanted list, and whose Hezb-I-Islami armed retainers are an important element of the Taliban insurgency.

Henry Tudor would approve.

jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com
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Russia says U.S. should eradicate Afghan opium
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL (Reuters) – Russia accused the United States on Sunday of conniving with Afghanistan's drug producers by refusing to destroy opium crops, the second time in a week Moscow has taken a swipe at the West over drug policy.

U.S. Marines have advanced into one of the main opium-growing regions of Afghanistan's Helmand Province since February, but have told villagers there they will not destroy the opium crop that is blossoming this month.

"We believe such statements are contrary to the decisions taken on Afghan narco-problems within the U.N. and other international forums," said a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry released by the embassy in Kabul.

"The touching' concern about the Afghan farmers actually means, if not directly, then certainly indirectly, conniving (with) drug producers," it said.

Last week, Russian U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the Security Council that U.S. and NATO commanders should continue to eradicate opium poppy fields.

NATO rejected the criticism and said Russia could best help by providing assistance to the fight the insurgency.

Moscow, which lost its own bitter war in Afghanistan during the 1980s, frequently criticizes the NATO military campaign.

U.S. Marines captured the former Taliban stronghold of Marjah last month in what was billed as the biggest offensive of the 8-year-old war. They say they will not eradicate opium there, but will pay poppy farmers to destroy their own crops and will then provide seed for them to plant other crops next year.

Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium, a thick paste extracted from poppies and processed to make highly addictive heroin and then smuggled abroad. Military commanders say the trade funds the insurgency.

The Russian statement said the stance taken by the United States and NATO "ignores the fact that thousands of people die from heroin ... including in Afghanistan." If NATO troops would not carry out eradication themselves, they should provide force protection for Afghans to do it, it said.

Poppy eradication has largely been seen as a failure by the international community. According to the United Nations, less than 4 percent of poppy planted in Afghanistan over the last two years was eradicated, and at a great human and economic cost.

Foreign troops in Afghanistan have never carried out poppy eradication themselves, but they have provided logistical support and security for Afghan eradication programs, and programs run by Western security contracting firms.

The United States said last year it would phase out its eradication efforts and would concentrate instead on interdiction of the drug, going after traffickers heroin factories.

(Editing by Diana Abdallah)
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U.S. to Ask Canada to Keep Troops in Afghanistan, Globe Says
By Sean B. Pasternak
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government will ask Canada to keep as many as 600 troops in Afghanistan after their mission ends in 2011, the Globe and Mail reported, citing unidentified people.

The troops would act as military trainers, and would likely be located in Kabul, the newspaper said.
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'At the end of the day, what really matters is success in Afghanistan'
If British forces are indeed asked to re-deploy from Helmand to Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul, it would pose a major dilemma for policymakers, writes former Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt.
Telegraph.co.uk Richard Dannatt 27 Mar 2010
Some will argue that we have fought, bled and died in Helmand, and should see the job through. They will also point to the waste of effort in terms of contacts made among tribal leaders and local officials. Others, more mischievously, will try to draw parallels with our withdrawal from southern Iraq.

That, however, would be cheap and wrong. The truth is that Gen Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander, has a major problem. The Canadians and Dutch, who have made a significant contribution to the campaign since 2006, are pulling out: their military capacity is small, and they have shot their bolts. So, Gen McChrystal needs a replacement force in Kandahar. To whom does he turn?

He has three choices: the US Army, the US Marines or the British. There are no other major players capable of taking on the task. He also recognises, quite correctly, that this campaign is going to succeed or fail in Kandahar and Helmand, the Pashtun heartlands which the Taliban must secure in order to have any chance of controlling the country again.

Gen McChrystal has been considering for some time how to focus his resources more closely on both areas. Up to now, the two have been under the command of a single major general in Kandahar. This is a huge command, and has become even more demanding as more troops have flowed in this winter. So, he has been thinking for some time of creating two commands in the south, one focused on Helmand and Nimruz, the other on Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul.

The general's dilemma is who provides the troops in each. The US Army is already heavily committed in the east of Afghanistan and not yet substantially out of Iraq, so could probably not take on another major commitment. The US Marine Corps, with a history of independent action, is already deploying additional troops into Helmand and Nimruz, in sharp contrast to the numbers that we have been able to provide over the last four years.

Which leaves the British. Our main logistical base has been Kandahar since 2006, our fast jets operate from there and our force size would more than compensate for the withdrawal of the Canadians and Dutch. So to move us is a perfectly logical option – and if Gen McChrystal decides that it is the best course of action, our response should not be to carp, but to devote our energies to making it happen.

Admittedly, we should insist on two caveats; that the Americans or Nato meet the large administrative costs of the move, and that a British major general retains command in the provinces. But at the end of the day, what really matters is success in Afghanistan, not being unhelpfully parochial about "Helmandshire".

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt is a former Chief of Defence Staff
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In Nebraska, a Center for Afghanistan Studies - and for controversy
Critics say the institute at the University of Nebraska at Omaha has gone too far in its work with the U.S. military, the State Department and even the Taliban. Its director makes no apologies.
Los Angeles Times By Kate Linthicum March 27, 2010
Reporting from Omaha - On the dusty plains of Afghanistan, a surprising number of people are said to know the word "Nebraska."

It began as a fluke in the early 1970s, when administrators at the University of Nebraska at Omaha launched the Center for Afghanistan Studies. They wanted to distinguish the school as an international institution, and no other university was studying the then-peaceful nation half a world away.

As Afghanistan became a central battleground in the Cold War and then in the war against terrorism, the center -- and its gregarious, well-connected director, Thomas Gouttierre -- were fortuitously poised.

Equal parts research institute, development agency and consulting firm, the center has collected tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. military, the State Department and private contractors for its programs at home and in Afghanistan.

Like much of America's involvement in that nation, it has not been without controversy.

The center has come under fire from some academics who say it has not generated the kind of scholarly research needed to help solve Afghanistan's problems. It has also been criticized by women's rights groups for its dealings with the Taliban.

Most frequently it has been targeted by peace activists, who say the center's past and current collaborations with U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan are unethical.

"I don't think the University of Nebraska has any business teaching kids anywhere in the world how to be killers," said Paul Olson, president of Nebraskans for Peace, an activist group that has been calling on the university to close the center for the last decade.

As evidence, Olson points to the center's $60-million contract with the U.S. government in the 1980s to educate Afghan refugees who were living in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation.

It printed millions of textbooks that featured material developed by the mujahedin resistance groups -- including images of machine guns and calls for jihad against the Soviets.

Gouttierre says criticisms of the center are "revisionist" and fail to acknowledge the challenges of working in a society that has been at war for three decades. The center's aim, he says, has been to build cultural understanding and empower the Afghan people.

"Our interest is humanitarian," he said. "They are victims who lost years of their lives on earth."

Few Americans know more about Afghanistan than Gouttierre, who fell in love with the country as a Peace Corps volunteer there in the 1960s.

He and his wife, Mary Lou, arrived during the "golden age" of Afghanistan, a time before the Soviet invasion, the rise of the Taliban and the widespread production of opium.

In a mud house in Kabul, he wrote love poems in the Afghan language of Dari. At the high school where he taught English, he built a basketball court (he later coached the Afghan national basketball team).

And he met a collection of people who would later figure largely in Afghanistan's history -- future Marxists, anti-Soviets and ministers of the current government of Hamid Karzai.

In 1973, after nearly 10 years in Afghanistan, Gouttierre was invited by the University of Nebraska to lead the newly launched Afghanistan program, with the title dean of international studies.

Gouttierre moved to Omaha and set up an exchange program with Kabul University. He recruited Afghans to come teach and helped organize a large library of donated Afghan materials.

The U.S. funded its educational projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan until the 1990s, when the Taliban took power and the contracts dried up.

That left the center to do "whatever was necessary" to continue its programs, Gouttierre said.

In 1997, that meant signing a contract to train workers for Unocal, a California company that was trying to build a natural gas pipeline in Afghanistan. That year, several Taliban ministers came to Nebraska for a tour of the campus. Several women's groups, angry over the Taliban's repressive policies against women, protested.

It was the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that launched Gouttierre -- and the center -- onto the international stage.

The morning of the attacks, Gouttierre showed up to teach his Introduction to International Studies lecture and found half a dozen reporters sitting in the center aisle.

Over the next 10 months, he said, he gave more than 2,000 interviews to journalists from around the globe who wanted to learn about the rise of the Taliban and about Osama bin Laden, whom Gouttierre had researched while on a United Nations peacekeeping mission to Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The center's newfound prominence helped garner more funding.

In 2002, the State Department gave the center a $6.5-million contract to print 15 million textbooks. Images of AK-47s were absent in these books, but they included phrases from the Koran, prompting criticism that U.S. funds were inappropriately being used to print religious material. The following year, the government did not renew the book contract.

The university has defended the center. Terry Hynes, senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, called it "a superb asset" to the school.

These days, the center leads a Department of Defense-funded literacy training program for the Afghan army. It also hosts a program for social scientists who are being trained to accompany U.S. military teams in Afghanistan to help facilitate cultural understanding. Eighteen such groups, known as "human terrain teams," have come to Omaha over two years before shipping overseas.

Gouttierre stood before a cramped class of trainees one morning this winter. In a lecture that lasted several hours, he talked about the history of Afghanistan and about U.S. involvement there since Sept. 11.

"We under-sourced the military and we outsourced redevelopment," Gouttierre said, his voice rising. What Afghanistan needs, he said, is rebuilding. And the stakes could not be higher.

"If we succeed, it's going to be seen as an American success," Gouttierre said. "And if we fail, it's going to be an American failure."

kate.linthicum@latimes.com
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Prince Charles' frustration over Afghanistan trip revealed in leaked Whitehall memo
A frank, high-level memo which lays bare the "frustration" felt over the Prince of Wales's trip to Afghanistan has been leaked in Whitehall, causing embarrassment to senior figures in the Foreign Office.
Telegraph.co.uk By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor 27 Mar 2010
Written in florid, diplomatic prose by Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain's special representative to Afghanistan, the email criticises the "all too credible incompetence" by Afghan officials which saw Hamid Karzai, the country's president, absent for the entirety of Prince Charles's two-day visit.

The memo, marked "restricted" but obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, also refers in its opening line to the fact that Charles has "at last" visited Afghanistan – uncomfortable reading for senior British officials who have tried and failed to lay on trips for the Prince there on at least three occasions in the past.

The Prince's trip to Afghanistan was largely seen as a success – boosting the morale of the British troops with whom he mingled at Camp Bastion, the UK headquarters, and at front-line bases.

The memo said the royal visitor was not spared "squaddie humour", including being introduced to the "perfumed delights of the Desert Rose" – the rudimentary lavatory facilities in use by troops.

However, the leak of the memo will particularly embarrass Oxford-educated Sir Sherard, 55 – who is tipped to be one of David Cameron's leading foreign affairs advisers if the Tories win the general election – as it is unlikely to be warmly received in Kabul, the Afghan capital, which was the first stop in Charles's visit.

It is not the first time a leaked email has landed him in hot water. In October 2008 his bleak assessment of the Nato campaign in Afghanistan was made public, including his view that the US's strategy there was "destined to fail".

The latest memo, sent out on Friday, begins: "Historic first visit to Kabul and Helmand, enabling HRH at last to see for himself this extraordinary land; the security, political and economic challenges it faces; and how the Afghans and their international partners are seeking to address them.

"Owing to the President's staff's all too credible incompetence (but nothing more sinister), Karzai was away in China throughout a Royal visit which the President himself had long solicited.

"This defeated one of its main purposes – to continue to develop the invaluable relationship between Karzai and someone he regards (along with the Prime Minister) as one of his few true friends in the West.

"Warm phone calls before – and, I hope, after – the visit have kept the Prince-President relationship in good repair... So, for all the frustration, we probably ended up with the best of both worlds."

In Kabul, the memo notes, the Prince met a range of figures "from smartly saluting Gurkhas to bemused Afghan laundry ladies" as well as the "extravagantly Old Harrovian head of the Afghan Environmental Protection Agency, Prince Mustapha Zaher."

It adds: "After Kabul, the Prince's programme in Helmand may have seemed more monochromatically military.

"But beneath the relentless round of visits and briefings lay deeper and darker themes, of war and sacrifice, and of courage and dedication...

"Amid the serious business of war, there were lighter touches too: the Red Hackle of the Royal Highland Regiment, for example, on proud display, giving new meaning to the Dispersed Pattern Material of a senior officer's helmet; the skirl of pipes which greeted the party through the choking dust of Patrol Base Pimon; and, everywhere, squaddie humour, of which the day's best example was perhaps His Royal Highness's introduction to the perfumed delights of the Desert Rose."

The email praises the "quiet professionalism of HRH's Household in cheerfully overcoming a series of security and logistical challenges that would have spooked many others."

Sir Sherard is a colourful diplomatic figure and father of five who, as ambassador to Israel from 2001-03 often turned up to engagements in a black bowler hat and carrying a furled umbrella.

Also a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, he was "our man" in Kabul until taking up his post as Britain's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan last year."
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