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Pentagon chiefs: Afghans can manage by 2014
By Anne Gearan And Matthew Lee, Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia – Afghanistan should be ready to handle its own security by the year 2014, the top U.S. defense chiefs said Monday.
In Afghanistan, small-scale security handovers quietly ensue
By Barbara Starr, CNN November 8, 2010
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- While President Barack Obama and the military talk about transferring territory to the Afghans next summer, in many places across Afghanistan, largely out of public view, the handover of security from U.S. to Afghan forces, has already begun on a small scale.
Parts of Afghanistan under Kabul control next year: Clinton
Mon Nov 8, 1:40 am ET
MELBOURNE (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday she was "convinced" that parts of Afghanistan would be under the control of Afghan forces by next year.
NATO-Afghan operation kills 15 insurgents in south
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press – Mon Nov 8, 7:47 am ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan and NATO forces targeted suspected insurgent strongholds in a joint operation in southern Kandahar province, killing 15 and capturing 13, an Afghan official said Monday.
Egyptian president meets Afghan FM
CAIRO, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasoul here on Monday to discuss bilateral ties and the situation in Afghanistan.
Analysis: How to make civilian 'surge' in Afghanistan work
By Elise Labott, CNN Senior State Department Producer November 8, 2010
For one week, CNN's Jill Dougherty and Elise Labott were embedded with U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, part of the Obama administration's civilian "surge." Watch the series "The Other Afghanistan Offensive" on "American Morning" (6-9 a.m. ET) and "The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer" (5-7 p.m. ET) this week.
Hundreds of Afghan poll workers grilled over fraud
By Sayed Salahuddin Mon Nov 8, 2010 3:07am EST
KABUL (Reuters) - Hundreds of part-time workers used by Afghanistan's election body in a disputed September parliamentary vote are being questioned by a U.N.-backed watchdog for possible involvement in fraud, officials said on Monday.
Attorney General Office Sets 48-hour Deadline for IEC
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 07 November 2010
The Attorney General's Office Sunday set a 48-hour deadline for the Independent Election Commission to allow investigations on invalid votes
Afghanistan Plans to Indict Officials
Wall Street Journal By MATTHEW ROSENBERG And MARIA ABI-HABIB NOVEMBER 7, 2010
KABUL - Afghan prosecutors are planning to indict nearly two dozen current and former senior officials—the current mining minister among them—on allegations of taking bribes and stealing government funds, Afghan officials said.
Court to Decide on Graft Cases of 2 Afghan Ministers
TOLOnews.com Written by Shakeela Abrahimkhil Sunday, 07 November 2010
The Afghan Attorney General's Office announced on Sunday that corruption cases of Mohammad Amin Farhang and Habibullah Qaderi, former Afghan ministers will be sent to the special court
7 more Taliban militants give up resistance in N Afghanistan
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- Seven more Taliban insurgents laid down their arms and resumed normal live in the northern Kunduz province on Monday, provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Seydkhili said.
Second batch of Afghan Local Police to be deployed in 9 Afghan districts
KABUL, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan Interior Ministry has begun recruiting and training of second batch of community police or Afghan Local Police (ALP) who would be deployed in nine Afghan districts where Taliban threats are high, spokesman for Interior Ministry Zamarai Bashari said Sunday.
Afghan Forces Hurt by Attrition, Leadership Gaps, NATO Finds
Wall Street Journal By JULIAN E. BARNES NOVEMBER 8, 2010
Significant progress has been made in building up the Afghan security forces, but continuing attrition among police officers and a dearth of midlevel military leaders pose major challenges, according to a report on the international training effort to be released Monday.
Canada considering staying in Afghanistan
By Rob Gillies, Associated Press – Sun Nov 7, 5:32 pm ET
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – Canada's defense minister said Sunday that Canada is considering a U.S. request to keep troops in Afghanistan past 2011, but switch them from a combat to a training role.
ANALYSIS-Afghan review backs US plan, despite violence
By Ross Colvin and Paul Tait
WASHINGTON/KABUL, Nov 7 (Reuters) - A December review of the Afghanistan war is expected to say the U.S. strategy is working despite increased violence and record casualties, and that a July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing can be met.
Australian, Afghan troops kill Taliban leader
Mon Nov 8, 2010 11:07pm AEDT ABC News Australia
Australian forces killed a mid-level Taliban leader in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province on Saturday.
Our Indian problem in Afghanistan
The Washington Post By David Pollock Monday, November 8, 2010
President Obama's trip to India offers a crucial, and counterintuitive, opportunity missing in all the talk about Afghanistan: how to accommodate Pakistan's interests in that country. Unless we find a way to do that, Pakistan will not stop its tolerance of or support for the Afghan Taliban or other extremists on its border with Afghanistan
Some Skeptics Questioning Rosy Reports on War Zone
New York Times By ELISABETH BUMILLER November 7, 2010
WASHINGTON - The recent reports circulating in Washington’s national security establishment about the Afghan battleground of Marja show glimmerings of progress: bazaars are open, some 1,000 children are in school, and a new (and only) restaurant even serves goat curry and kebabs.
For Afghan Wives, a Desperate, Fiery Way Out
The New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN November 7, 2010
HERAT, Afghanistan - Even the poorest families in Afghanistan have matches and cooking fuel. The combination usually sustains life. But it also can be the makings of a horrifying escape: from poverty, from forced marriages, from the abuse and despondency that can be the fate of Afghan women.
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Pentagon chiefs: Afghans can manage by 2014
By Anne Gearan And Matthew Lee, Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia – Afghanistan should be ready to handle its own security by the year 2014, the top U.S. defense chiefs said Monday.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said NATO should endorse the 2014 timeline proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai when the alliance holds its annual summit later this month.
"As a target at this point that makes sense, so I am comfortable with it," Mullen said.
The 2014 date would give a symbolic deadline for ending the war and bringing most combat forces home. The war is already in its 10th year and unpopular in the U.S. and Europe.
The U.S. plans to begin withdrawing some of its 100,000 troops next summer, but has never said exactly how long some forces would remain. The top NATO civilian in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, has said the 2014 deadline is feasible for all but a residual allied force including special forces and trainers.
U.S. responsibility will extend for years, Gates said Monday.
President Barack Obama and other NATO allies will consider plans for transition of security control at the November 19-20 summit in Lisbon, Portugal. Although Gates had once said he hoped a few districts could be transferred this year, NATO is now looking at beginning the process in the spring.
"You'll see a thinning of the foreign forces in a particular district or province so there's a safety net under the Afghans ... as they take charge," Gates told reporters following two days of meetings with Australian defense and diplomatic chiefs that also included U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"This is a tough fight that we're in but we're convinced that starting next year there will be parts of Afghanistan that will be under control of the Afghan government and its security forces," Clinton said at a press conference with Gates on Monday.
"I can't stand here today and tell you when or on what timetable," Clinton said. "We'll be making those assessments based on conditions as they occur."
U.S. officials say the war is beginning to turn around after two years of stalemate. Although eager to underscore that claim of progress by handing over some security control, military officials are worried about backsliding. The first districts to move under Afghan police and Army control will probably be in safer areas far from front line fighting in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
Gates also said that although he welcomes preliminary talks between the Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government, the insurgency isn't likely to cut a deal unless it is weakened further.
"The Taliban need to clearly see that the prospects for success have diminished dramatically, and in fact that they may well lose," before senior leaders would be ready to negotiate a lasting political settlement, Gates said.
That tipping point would be difficult to foresee at least until next spring, Gates added.
The Taliban deny they are being beaten down.
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In Afghanistan, small-scale security handovers quietly ensue
By Barbara Starr, CNN November 8, 2010
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- While President Barack Obama and the military talk about transferring territory to the Afghans next summer, in many places across Afghanistan, largely out of public view, the handover of security from U.S. to Afghan forces, has already begun on a small scale.
In the last several days, U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan have handed over two small outposts to Afghan forces in the district of Nawa, a place which once saw heavy fighting, according to a senior official from NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
Across the country, several small outposts have either been turned over to the Afghans, or U.S. troops have pulled out of areas because Afghan control is sufficient the official said.
These moves are in advance of the broader plan to turn over entire provinces, districts and sub-districts to Afghan control expected to begin in 2011.
Just days before the mid-November NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, these minor moves will give the alliance, and the Obama administration, the ability to announce that transition on some scale has begun.
The larger scale transition is now being intensively planned by U.S., NATO and Afghan officials according to several ISAF military officials.
NATO is now calling it "Inteqal"---its means "transition" in both Dari and Pashtu according to NATO, but going down that road is a bit slower than first expected. Still succeeding at Inteqal will be the road home for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
At next month's NATO summit in Lisbon no announcements are now likely about which specific areas of Afghanistan will be first to be turned over or transitioned to Afghan control, according to several officials representing member nations of the alliance.
Instead, NATO will simply announce that the transition process is under way and reaffirm Afghan security forces are expected to take the lead in conducting security operations across the country by the end of 2014.
It's a process that will be very gradual.
In an exclusive interview with CNN last month, General David Petraeus the top commander in Afghanistan said he does expect to be able to recommend a U.S. troop reduction in July, but he declined to say how many troops might be headed home.
He said some could also be reassigned to other jobs inside Afghanistan.
Petraeus told CNN said that in just the last few weeks, he has seen progress against the Taliban momentum in some parts of Afghanistan, including west of Kandahar.
"My assessment is that the momentum that the Taliban enjoyed until probably late summer, has broadly been arrested in the country. It doesn't mean it's been arrested in every location in the country, but it means by and large that is the case, and moreover, more importantly, the ISAF and Afghan forces have achieved momentum in some very important areas," he said.
One Western official confirmed to CNN that earlier this year there were indications that the alliance and the government of Hamid Karzai were ready to agree on the first several provinces that would be part of the transition process, but delays in establishing the final agreements are likely to mean now that no announcements will be made until early 2011.
Several months ago, U.S. military officials were privately indicating some of the first provinces to be turned over to Afghan control could include Parwan, Panjshir, and Bamiyan where violence has been relatively low.
Major General John Campbell, commander of Regional Command-East, told CNN he also believes those three provinces will be some of the first to be turned over.
The French have also made it clear they would like to leave a district of Kabul province and turn it over to Afghan control.
NATO and the Afghan government have now established a joint process to assess which areas are ready for turnover based on several factors, according to the western official who is familiar with the internal debate inside the alliance.
A joint Afghan-NATO Inteqal Board is being set up, provinces will be assessed, and the recommendations made to the Afghan Cabinet for final approval.
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Parts of Afghanistan under Kabul control next year: Clinton
Mon Nov 8, 1:40 am ET
MELBOURNE (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday she was "convinced" that parts of Afghanistan would be under the control of Afghan forces by next year.
"This is a tough fight that we're in, but we're convinced that starting next year there will be parts of Afghanistan that will be under the control of the Afghan government and its security forces," Clinton told reporters.
The long-running war in Afghanistan, where Australia has some 1,550 soldiers deployed, was a focus of annual security talks between Clinton and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and their Australian counterparts.
Clinton said Washington was committed to its strategy in Afghanistan.
She said she was confident that security could increasingly be handled by Afghan forces from next year -- subject to local conditions and detailed analysis.
"We can't stand here today and tell you when, or on what timetable, any of the details, because we will be making those assessments based on the conditions as they occur," she said.
Clinton's comments follow a report that the US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, has drafted a timetable for handing over control of some provinces to local security forces.
The Times reported on Monday that Petraeus will present a colour-coded map containing a small number of "green" areas which are designated for handover within six months at a NATO leaders' summit on November 19.
The plan indicates that the western province of Herat is due for an early handover, while NATO forces are expected to remain in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand for at least two more years, the paper said.
Australia, which has suffered mounting casualties in Afghanistan in recent months and has lost 21 soldiers there in total, has indicated it is likely to have some role in the country for the coming decade.
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NATO-Afghan operation kills 15 insurgents in south
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press – Mon Nov 8, 7:47 am ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan and NATO forces targeted suspected insurgent strongholds in a joint operation in southern Kandahar province, killing 15 and capturing 13, an Afghan official said Monday.
NATO and Afghan forces have been trying to seize control of the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan since July. They have established some pockets of security but the ultimate success of the operation will depend on the Afghan government's ability to secure the area with its own forces and provide services to the population.
U.S. officials have said that the war against the insurgency is slowly beginning to turn around and that some of the 100,000 American troops will begin withdrawing by next summer. They have not said how many troops will remain but are confident that Afghanistan should be ready to handle its own security by the year 2014.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said in Australia on Monday that NATO should endorse a 2014 timeline proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai when the alliance holds its annual summit in Portugal on Nov. 19. President Barack Obama and other NATO allies will consider plans for transition of security control at that summit.
"As a target at this point that makes sense, so I am comfortable with it," Mullen said.
The top NATO civilian in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, has said the 2014 deadline is feasible for all but a residual allied force including special forces and trainers.
The head of Britain's armed forces has said that at least 1,000 British troops will be needed in a support role in Afghanistan after the government's 2015 deadline to withdraw from combat fighting.
Gen. David Richards told The Sun newspaper in an interview published Monday that Britain would not "cut and run" in 2015, and will continue to train Afghan security forces. Richards said Britain's current force of 10,000 troops, mainly based in restive southern Helmand province, will likely face intense combat for at least another year.
In Kandahar, the 14-hour joint operation began before dawn on Sunday and lasted until early evening in Arghistan and Maruf districts, provincial spokesman Zelmai Ayubi said.
In a separate incident in the south, a rocket exploded in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, killing one civilian and wounding four, said Kamaluddin Khan, the provincial deputy police chief.
In the east, NATO said a service member was killed by a bomb on Monday but did not provide any other details. The latest death brings to 621 the number of NATO soldiers killed this year.
Separately, the Afghan Ministry of Education condemned the burning of a school in Laghman province east of Kabul. The ministry said gunmen set fire to the girls' middle school Sunday night, burning the structure and its contents, including 850 copies of the Quran, the ministry said.
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Egyptian president meets Afghan FM
CAIRO, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasoul here on Monday to discuss bilateral ties and the situation in Afghanistan.
Talks between Mubarak and Rasoul dealt with bilateral relations in light of Egypt's directives to consolidate relations with Afghanistan in all domains, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said at a press conference, according to Egypt's official MENA news agency.
The visit reflected Afghanistan's interests to brief Egypt on steps taken to achieve peace and stability in the country, he added.
Rasoul said he expressed desire to strengthen Afghanistan's relations with Egypt, saying it is one of the most important priorities of Afghanistan's foreign policy, according to MENA.
Afghanistan is determined to go ahead with the peace process aiming at achieving stability, said Rasoul, adding that Afghanistan is ready to cooperate with all sides who are not connected with al-Qaida or any other terrorist group.
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Analysis: How to make civilian 'surge' in Afghanistan work
By Elise Labott, CNN Senior State Department Producer November 8, 2010
For one week, CNN's Jill Dougherty and Elise Labott were embedded with U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, part of the Obama administration's civilian "surge." Watch the series "The Other Afghanistan Offensive" on "American Morning" (6-9 a.m. ET) and "The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer" (5-7 p.m. ET) this week.
Washington (CNN) -- The tripling of U.S. civilians since early last year, along with an additional 30,000 U.S. troops, was meant to extend the reach of the Afghan government and defuse the influence of the Taliban.
These Provincial Reconstruction Teams (known as PRTs) are doing everything from providing security, to conducting reconstruction and development, to improving the government's capacity to deliver services and establish rule of law to the Afghan people.
For the nearly 1,100 American civilians, the breadth of effort is inspiring. U.S. agronomists are teaching Afghan farmers how to boost farm output. Women are getting paid for a day's work as they learn job skills for future employment. Youth are taking part in local shura to learn about the workings and responsibility of government.
A major part of the U.S. civilian effort is focused on agriculture, which makes up a vast percentage of Afghanistan's economy. We met farmers in Wardak province who traveled more than an hour under threat of the Taliban to learn how to combat pests and clear their land after the summer's floods. We traveled up to a mountainside in Kunar province on the border with Pakistan to meet villagers learning how to reverse the effects of deforestation.
Rebuilding Afghanistan's farms
This is all to improve "food security" in the country. Today, food security for many of these farmers simply means growing enough food to feed their families. But with 80 percent of the Afghans working in farming, the ultimate goal is to wean the Afghan economy off poppy production and return the country to its place as breadbasket for the region.
Sometimes security means a paycheck, even a small one. U.S.-funded "cash for work" programs employ Afghans to clear dams, refurbish hospitals and complete other labor-intensive projects to benefit the community. Several of these programs are geared toward women.
We met women learning how to paint and plaster and how to become midwives and journalists. The stereotype of Afghan women is that they are oppressed and hopeless. We found the exact opposite: strong, hard-working women determined to support their families, follow their dreams and improve the lives of their fellow Afghan sisters.
We saw so many little pockets of hope, each of them producing modest gains. But in and of themselves, these bright spots do not necessarily add up to a policy. The concern continues that the U.S. will fail to translate these gains into a path for Afghanistan to stand up on its own.
The vast majority of the projects the U.S. is undertaking in Afghanistan are designed for "quick impact." We heard many times during our trip the goal of these programs is to show some immediate improvement in the quality of life for Afghans so they are not forced to turn to the Taliban.
Now that may work temporarily. These families who clearly benefit from these projects in the short term may not join the insurgency today. But certainly the U.S. cannot fund and implement these programs indefinitely. What happens when U.S. troops go home and U.S. funding dwindles? It's not clear at this point whether these programs can be transferred to the Afghan government and sustained.
What's more, quick impact and the focus on the "now" can come at the expense of setting up Afghanistan for the future. We saw little coordination between the Provincial Reconstruction Teams and the Afghanistan government about long-term development and reconstruction, which is critical in areas where NATO forces are holding the area and where true building can begin.
The whole concept of the PRT and civilian-military integration is for the civilians, working with the Afghan government, to capitalize on the gains made by the military on the battlefield. This is the subject of a brewing debate between the U.S. government and nongovernmental organizations that feel the Obama administration is sacrificing the kind of long-term development Afghanistan needs in favor of a quick fix that will allow U.S. troops to come home.
In Nangarhar province, home to the city of Jalalabad, an audit by the congressionally mandated Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found many of the U.S. reconstruction activities were being conducted in a vacuum. The programs, it said, were "implemented with little input or visibility of provincial officials," leaving Afghan officials in Nangarhar "disenfranchised" and "severely limited" in their ability to sustain U.S.-funded development projects.
In some provinces, the collaboration between the United States and the local government was evident. In Wardak, Kandahar and Kunar, we saw the Provincial Reconstruction Teams collaborating with local government on key issues affecting the province and working together to advance Afghan-led solutions. U.S. civilian advisers to the local government are often working out of the provincial governor's office. Sometimes, they are even living on the compound with these officials. In Jalalabad, we didn't see any local officials at all.
The key ingredient to success in Afghanistan will be the ability of the Afghan government to assume responsibility for providing security, delivering services and establishing rule of law.
But the challenge of building institutions in a country where none have existed is enormous. In many cases the current capacity of the local government is next to nothing. Local governors suffer from corruption within their staffs, unqualified employees or both. The mayor of Kandahar is basically a one-man band with a few administrative aides.
Everywhere we turned there was a reminder that this civilian surge, meant to bring stability to the country, is largely dependent on the security situation.
Collision at intersection of quick fix, long haul
Right now about 400 of the nearly 1,100 civilians in Afghanistan are out in the field, with the rest working out of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Even those in the provinces are largely confined to the compounds on which they live, unable to get out regularly into communities. While we were in Afghanistan, we operated inside a military bubble, traveling by armed convoy in many cases just to visit a project.
In Afghanistan, we found many well-intentioned civilians from the U.S. and other countries working hard to make the country a better place. They are living under incredibly difficult conditions, risking their lives to stabilize Afghanistan. Several advisers we met were finishing up their yearlong tours and signing up for another year. There is still more work to do, they said.
These civilians know they are on a race against the clock. Many were quite candid about the intense pressure they face to show progress before July when President Obama said he wants to begin withdrawing U.S. troops. They hope to get Afghanistan to the point before then where the gains they helped foster can be sustained and built upon by the Afghans once they leave. Right now, they say, Afghanistan is still too fragile.
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Hundreds of Afghan poll workers grilled over fraud
By Sayed Salahuddin Mon Nov 8, 2010 3:07am EST
KABUL (Reuters) - Hundreds of part-time workers used by Afghanistan's election body in a disputed September parliamentary vote are being questioned by a U.N.-backed watchdog for possible involvement in fraud, officials said on Monday.
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has already thrown out almost a quarter of the 5.6 million votes cast in the September 18 ballot. Final results still have not been announced as officials sift through thousands of complaints.
Protests calling for the election to be scrapped and a new vote held began in the capital Kabul last week and spread to Jalalabad in the east, a worrying sign for the credibility of the Afghan government before a NATO summit in Lisbon this month.
Signs of political trouble are also likely to weigh on U.S. President Barack Obama when he reviews his war strategy next month, with violence at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001.
The IEC said on Monday the names of almost 1,100 of its part-time workers had been given to the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) for checks into their possible involvement in fraud.
"They include the heads of some sites and chairmen of some (polling) centers," IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said.
"They are being referred to the ECC to see what sort of role they may have had in the fraud," he said.
No new date has been set for the release of final results, which had been due on October 30, potentially leaving Afghanistan in political limbo.
Farid Afghanzoi, the head of foreign relations for the IEC, said legal charges could result from the investigations.
"The ECC will deal with them and may refer them to the judicial organs if need be," Afghanzoi told Reuters.
Officials at the ECC were not immediately available for comment.
The leaders of hundreds of protesters who gathered on Sunday warned of possible violence if what they said was an illegal vote was not annulled. They also accused IEC officials of taking bribes and of unfairly throwing out valid votes.
THOUSANDS OF COMPLAINTS
Last week, Afghanistan's deputy attorney general said a fraud investigation had been launched into officials at the IEC following allegations from candidates.
Thousands of complaints have been pouring in since polling day. The poll went ahead despite a Taliban threat to disrupt it, although there were scores of attacks and 17 people were killed.
The ECC last week said it had received more than 6,000 formal complaints, a third of which could affect the final outcome.
Out of those, around 40 percent relate to polling irregularities and some 17 percent to violence and intimidation. Other gripes include problems accessing polling sites and counting irregularities.
Signs of political instability are growing, even as Afghan President Hamid Karzai aims for Afghanistan to take over complete security responsibility by 2014. Obama has pledged to begin a gradual drawdown of U.S. forces from July 2011.
Several of Karzai's ministries are being run by caretakers after parliament rejected numerous cabinet nominations this year. Karzai will not be able to put new appointments forward until a new parliament is formed, which now appears weeks away.
Western nations have been wary of following Afghan officials in dubbing the September election a success after last year's fraud-marred presidential ballot. The top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan said last month "considerable fraud" had taken place.
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Attorney General Office Sets 48-hour Deadline for IEC
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 07 November 2010
The Attorney General's Office Sunday set a 48-hour deadline for the Independent Election Commission to allow investigations on invalid votes
In case the IEC does not let the Attorney General's Office to carry out probes on invalid votes, officials in the IEC will be suspended based on article 50 of government employees law.
On the other hand, the election commission calls for more elaboration about the comment made by the Attorney General's Office.
"If they don't respond in 48 hours, we will start suspending some officials in the IEC according to the article 50 of the government employees law," said Deputy Attorney General, Rahmatullah Nazari.
We have received more than thirty complaints against Independent Election Commission, Attorney General Office said.
"This has turned suspicion into reality that there are some series of corruption and misuse going in which a number of IEC officials are involved," said Mr Nazari.
But the spokesman for IEC, Noor Mohammad Noor said the Attorney General's Office should make its demands clear.
Mr Noor said: "No law that is enforced in Afghanistan allows Attorney General's Office to meddle in electoral affairs, but if it prosecutes a crime the IEC will cooperate."
"We will wait and see what kind of threat the Attorney General's Office will pose to IEC after "the 48-hour deadline" that has been announced through the media," he added.
It is said that review of fraud cases will take a month's time and it's expected that the final results of parliamentary elections will be postponed.
It has been days that some Afghan candidates and law makers are protesting against IEC accusing the organisation of widespread corruption.
The protesters have called the elections illegitimate and urged for a new election.
They have warned to continue protesting on the streets, if their demands are not considered.
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Afghanistan Plans to Indict Officials
Wall Street Journal By MATTHEW ROSENBERG And MARIA ABI-HABIB NOVEMBER 7, 2010
KABUL - Afghan prosecutors are planning to indict nearly two dozen current and former senior officials—the current mining minister among them—on allegations of taking bribes and stealing government funds, Afghan officials said.
If the indictments proceed, the suspects would be the highest-ranking Afghan officials charged with corruption, despite years of allegations from Western officials and domestic critics of widespread graft in President Hamid Karzai's administration.
The U.S., which has pressed Mr. Karzai to make tough moves against corrupt officials, said any prosecutions were welcome, although the U.S. Embassy said it couldn't comment on specific cases.
But some U.S. officials privately were skeptical. No indictments have been handed down, they said, and noted there has been little movement on a number of major corruption cases that touch directly on the president's inner circle. Those are considered a higher priority, at least by Washington, they said.
U.S. and other Western officials have for years accused Mr. Karzai of trying to scuttle investigations into high-level corruption, which they fear has turned Afghans against his government and fueled the Taliban insurgency.
But the U.S. and its allies, which have spent millions setting up Afghan anticorruption task forces, have struggled with how to tackle the problem. Direct and public pressure on Mr. Karzai has most often resulted in ugly public spats with the Afghan leader; private pressure has most often been brushed off, the officials said.
Mr. Karzai and his top officials, for their part, have maintained they are doing all they can about corruption, arguing evidence presented in the past by Western officials wasn't substantial enough to warrant criminal charges.
Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said Sunday that some of the 20 former and current officials facing possible indictments have been under investigation for years. Most are former officials, he said, although the number includes at least one sitting Cabinet minister. The group also includes a former provincial governor and a serving senior officer in the Afghan army.
The indictments are being considered only now because of a special court, set up in late summer, charged with hearing cases against Cabinet ministers and other senior officials, he said. The specially designated court is required by Afghanistan's constitution to try high-ranking officials.
"The investigations are complicated," he said in an interview Sunday. "We didn't have the special court we needed."
One of the most senior former officials under investigation, ex-Commerce and Industry Minister Amin Farhang, is alleged to have stolen $19.5 million from Afghan government coffers by signing padded contracts for fuel shipped through a number of Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, Mr. Nazari said. A major portion of Afghanistan's fuel is imported through Central Asia.
Mr. Nazari said prosecutors had invoices and other documents proving Mr. Farhang siphoned off money that he claimed was being used to buy fuel. Mr. Farhang blamed the investigation on a "political conspiracy" and denied he hadstolen any money.
"The Attorney General is blaming me for corruption to divert attention away from corrupt people in the government," he said in an interview.
The sitting Cabinet minister under investigation, Wahidullah Shahrani, the mining minister, is alleged to have taken bribes, an Afghan official said, declining to discuss specifics of the case.
The minister's father, Nematullah Shahrani, who advises Mr. Karzai on Islamic affairs, is also facing a possible indictment for allegedly taking bribes when he was the minister of the Hajj, the pilgrimage Muslims take to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the religion's holiest city, the official said.
The Attorney General's office didn't offer any formal comment on the investigation on the Shahranis, both of whom declined to discuss the allegations.
Despite Washington's eagerness to see Mr. Karzai tackle corruption on his own, some U.S. officials were cautious about the latest cases. Apart from the fact no indictments have been handed down, they also pointed out that most of those facing possible indictment were former, not current, officials, all of whom had been forced out of unelected offices, meaning they had likely fallen out of political favor with Mr. Karzai.
"If you want to be cynical, you could see these as the expendables," the official said.
The official cited Mr. Farhang as one of that group. Mr. Farhang served for years in Mr. Karzai's government, rising to be commerce minister. But he wasn't renominated for that or any other post after Mr. Karzai's re-election last year. —Habib Khan Totakhil contributed to this article.
Write to Matthew Rosenberg at matthew.rosenberg@wsj.com
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Court to Decide on Graft Cases of 2 Afghan Ministers
TOLOnews.com Written by Shakeela Abrahimkhil Sunday, 07 November 2010
The Afghan Attorney General's Office announced on Sunday that corruption cases of Mohammad Amin Farhang and Habibullah Qaderi, former Afghan ministers will be sent to the special court
Mohammad Amin was serving as commerce minister and Habibullah Qaderi as transport minister.
The Attorney General's Office said if Habibullah Qaderi compensates the government for the losses he has caused, he will be exempted of punishment.
"We are working on the cases and we haven't sent any of them to the court," said Deputy Attorney General, Rahmatullah Nazari.
Mr Farhang, the former commerce minister, emphasises on a transparent investigation over the allegations.
"Because it took a long time, I went to President Karzai through his brother and asked him please hold the special court as fast as possible. I'm really keen to show my own evidence and papers," said Mr Farhang.
Mr Farhang said that some high ranking government officials are involved in his case.
"If Mr Qaderi is ready to compensate the losses he caused to Afghan government and people, we won't consider any punishments for him," said the Deputy Attorney General.
Meanwhile, the former transport minister rejected the allegations.
"There hasn't been any mismanagement. All of our actions were based on law and I totally reject [the allegations], said the former minister for commerce, Habibullah Qaderi.
Involvement of top Afghan government officials in the corruption is one of the big concerns and currently around twenty high-ranking Afghan officials including two ministers in the present cabinet of President Karzai are accused of corruption.
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7 more Taliban militants give up resistance in N Afghanistan
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- Seven more Taliban insurgents laid down their arms and resumed normal live in the northern Kunduz province on Monday, provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Seydkhili said.
"A Taliban local commander Mehman Shah along with his six armed men who were active in Aliabad district handed over their weapons to security officials this morning and resumed their normal life there," Seydkhili told a news conference here.
With joining Commander Mehman Shah to the community, the peace process would be accelerated and the government control will be further strengthened in Aliabad district and adjoining areas, the official further said.
More than 100 armed militants have laid down arms and joined the government in Kunduz and the neighboring Takhar and Baghlan provinces over the past one month, according to officials.
Taliban militants have yet to make comment.
The Afghan government has been calling on Taliban militants and other armed opposition groups to lay down arms and join the government-initiated national reconciliation program.
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Second batch of Afghan Local Police to be deployed in 9 Afghan districts
KABUL, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan Interior Ministry has begun recruiting and training of second batch of community police or Afghan Local Police (ALP) who would be deployed in nine Afghan districts where Taliban threats are high, spokesman for Interior Ministry Zamarai Bashari said Sunday.
"The ALP program is moving quickly and recently we started the process of recruiting and training of ALP in nine more districts across the country," Bashari told a joint weekly press conference with spokesman of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Brigadier-General Josef Blotz here.
According to Bashari, the process has already begun in three southern provinces of Kandahar, Uruzgan and Daikundi provinces where Taliban are active and local police would be deployed in Kandahar's Maruf district, Chora and Deh Rawad districts in Uruzgan province and Kajran in Daykundi province.
Five other districts where ALP would be deployed are located in northern Kunduz and Baghlan provinces, eastern Kunar and Paktia provinces and the southwest Badghis province, Bashari said.
The Afghan Local Police (ALP) has been formed in line with Presidential decree issued last July and the responsibility of ALP is to maintain security in their villages, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry added.
"If ALP arrests any suspects they will have to hand them over to National Police," he asserted.
According to Bashari the number of ALP, with a special uniform, will be around 10,000.
The first batch of ALP has already been deployed in eight districts in southern and eastern Afghanistan in late September this year.
The government of Afghanistan has requested the United States to support for the Afghan Local Police in two significant ways, said ISAF spokesman.
"Providing fund to supporting this important security initiative and partnering with the Ministry of Interior for giving training and providing technical assistance," General Blotz said, adding "ISAF is committed to this program."
Briefing journalists on security developments in the past one week, Bashari said that 111 security incidents have been registered over the past one week that left 55 civilians dead and injured 79 other non-combatants around the country.
"Ninety-three rebels have been killed, another 13 injured and 156 insurgents have been arrested by police in the past one week," he said.
He also admitted that 34 police personnel have been killed and 58 others sustained injuries over the mentioned time.
In response to a question about the reported killing of two NATO soldiers by an Afghan army soldier, ISAF spokesman said, "it is a complex issue. I do expect the American national side, the military side coming with a press release to media."
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Afghan Forces Hurt by Attrition, Leadership Gaps, NATO Finds
Wall Street Journal By JULIAN E. BARNES NOVEMBER 8, 2010
Significant progress has been made in building up the Afghan security forces, but continuing attrition among police officers and a dearth of midlevel military leaders pose major challenges, according to a report on the international training effort to be released Monday.
The review by the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan comes ahead of a Portugal gathering of North Atlantic Treaty Organization heads of state this month to discuss the international military effort's future.
Outside experts concurred with the report, noting dramatic improvements in the quality and quantity of Afghan security forces. But they also noted that Afghanistan's lack of experienced midlevel military officers means the international military will likely need to provide help for some time.
Enthusiasm within NATO for long-term mentoring of Afghan security forces appears to be eroding, and military leaders hope to persuade alliance leaders to continue their training commitment. "They are absolutely moving in the right direction," said Andrew Exum, a scholar at the Center for a New American Security. "The question is: Is it too little, too late?"
The attrition is most acute among the elite Afghan National Civil Order police, who are heavily used by the government to hold areas cleared by NATO forces, according to the report. Such heavy use, and the lure of jobs with private security companies, has led many to leave the force, experts said.
The lack of experienced military leaders flows from the military's quick expansion and relative short history of the security forces. Leaders of some strong units have been transferred to new units, diluting leadership.
Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, the commander of the training mission, began overhauling the training program and introducing more trainers in November 2009. Since then, the Afghan army has grown to 138,164 people from 97,011, while the national police force has grown to 120,504 from 84,958. "It is an incredible uplift," Gen. Caldwell said in an interview.
In the report, Gen. Caldwell and his fellow trainers identify a range of problems NATO must address. Although attrition among the civil-order police has improved over the past year, it was nearly 56% in the months preceding September 2010.
Gen. Caldwell said police officers had faced too many demands. "Their operational tempo was too high, we used them too much," he said in the interview. "Their quality of life wasn't very good." But attrition has begun to drop under a new rotation that guarantees civil-order police three weeks off for every 12 weeks spent fighting and five weeks spent training, he said.
He also said that over the past year, international trainers have sought to ensure that the increase in security forces doesn't hurt the strategy it was meant to support: the counterinsurgency effort against the Taliban.
Until a year ago, the report said, many local police were sent into the field immediately after being recruited, with little or no training, and "some policemen abused the Afghan population and engaged in criminal activity." Gen. Caldwell said such actions undermined the fight against the Taliban by alienating the population from the government. "The police are the initial interface the people of Afghanistan have with their government," he said. "If the police interaction is a negative experience, they are not going to have hope this government will take care of them."
While military officials said Afghan perceptions of the police have begun to improve, Stephen Biddle, a scholar at the Council of Foreign Relations, said improving training may not be enough to curb police corruption that forces many police chiefs to pay for their posts, causing them to shake down locals.
But Dr. Biddle and other analysts praised NATO for accelerating training while improving quality. In the past year, NATO has trained 35,000 police officers compared with only 33,000 in the war's first seven years.
"They have been able to grow at a rate that, quite frankly, no one had thought possible," said retired Gen. James Dubik, who oversaw training of security forces in Iraq. Gen. Dubik said that as the command turns to building up technical specialties, including logistics, intelligence and medical personnel, more trainers will be needed.
According to the report, NATO needs 900 more trainers to build up such specialized training. Helping the Afghan military sustain itself is key to building on recent improvements, Gen. Caldwell said. "We want to sustain the momentum we've achieved," he said. "Without specialized trainers, we will not be able to sustain the momentum. The progress that has been achieved could be reversible."
Write to Julian Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com
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Canada considering staying in Afghanistan
By Rob Gillies, Associated Press – Sun Nov 7, 5:32 pm ET
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – Canada's defense minister said Sunday that Canada is considering a U.S. request to keep troops in Afghanistan past 2011, but switch them from a combat to a training role.
Defense Minister Peter MacKay said the troops would not remain in Afghanistan's volatile southern Kandahar province.
"It will be out of Kandahar and will be behind the wire, a noncombat role," MacKay said.
Parliament has mandated that the combat mission end in 2011.
Canada has about 2,900 troops in Afghanistan. More than 150 Canadian soldiers have been killed and more than 1,500 have been wounded since Canada first sent troops to support the U.S.-led invasion after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The U.S. has been hoping for months that Canada would not pull its troops out of Afghanistan and now it appears almost certain that Canada will announce it will stay albeit in a different role.
"As we transition out of the combat mission we are considering the options to provide aid, development and behind the wire training in a non combat role," said Dimitri Soudas, the top spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
MacKay said Ottawa is not prepared to say how many troops might stay, but said NATO has identified a shortfall of about 900 troops to conduct training. He said about 400 Canadian soldiers do training now.
He said Prime Minister Stephen Harper would have more to say in the coming weeks in the run-up to the Nov. 18 NATO summit in Portugal. Harper told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier this year that Canada's military mission in Afghanistan will end in 2011 despite U.S. hopes of an extension.
MacKay hosted a variety of foreign politicians, diplomats and academics at the Halifax International Security Forum over the weekend.
At the forum, Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carollina, who both sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Saturday urged Canada to keep its troops in Afghanistan past 2011 in a training role.
Canada increased its deployment in Afghanistan after declining a U.S. request to send troops to Iraq. Canadian troops assumed responsibility for Kandahar in 2005. Harper has previously said Canada has done its part by serving in Afghanistan's most dangerous province, a Taliban stronghold.
Canadians have long been concerned about the toll in Afghanistan. The bodies of all Canadian soldiers who die there are flown to Ontario and driven to a Toronto morgue before their bodies are returned to their hometowns. Canadians often line the overpasses of Highway 401 — now known as the "Highway of Heroes" — to pay tribute to the fallen soldiers.
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ANALYSIS-Afghan review backs US plan, despite violence
By Ross Colvin and Paul Tait
WASHINGTON/KABUL, Nov 7 (Reuters) - A December review of the Afghanistan war is expected to say the U.S. strategy is working despite increased violence and record casualties, and that a July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing can be met.
But General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, will say that since the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops was just completed in late summer, it will take more time to get a complete picture of how the strategy is working, analysts said. That could affect the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal.
"There will be progress but a lot of ambiguity about interpreting it because of the late start to a lot of these offensives and the seasonality of warfare in Afghanistan," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus in the past.
Ahead of the review, U.S. officials have been offering more upbeat assessments of a war widely perceived as going badly for the United States and its NATO allies nine years after U.S.-led forces invaded to topple the Taliban for sheltering al Qaeda.
Petraeus has ordered stepped-up operations -- making greater use of elite special forces -- that have killed or captured hundreds of Taliban militants in recent weeks.
In late October, he said the Taliban's momentum has "broadly been arrested." But critics and security analysts say Petraeus is presenting an overly rosy picture.
"It is far from clear what impact these deaths, the rate of these deaths, and the prospect of more deaths are having on the calculus of the larger Taliban phenomenon and its senior decision-makers thinking," said global intelligence company STRATFOR.
For a graphic on U.S. casualties and troop strength in Afghanistan, click: http://r.reuters.com/dyb24q
A NATO official in Brussels expressed concern that Taliban commanders were being quickly replaced and that killing current insurgent leaders could mean they would simply be replaced by "younger, less reasonable" radicals.
U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the review after announcing a new strategy last December to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.
When he rolled out his new strategy, Obama set the deadline to start withdrawing forces under pressure from anti-war liberal Democrats. But if the review says the strategy is working, that could give him more room to agree with generals in the field to keep forces there longer to ensure that military gains are sustained.
Although the Afghan war was not a major issue in last week's U.S. congressional elections, Obama is still under pressure to show positive results, especially after attacking his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, for his prosecution of the war.
MORE REPUBLICAN OVERSIGHT
Republicans, who criticized the July deadline for potentially emboldening the Taliban, will have greater oversight of the war after seizing control of the House of Representatives last week. But a top Republican has signaled that the party will not try to amend the July 2011 date.
An administration official stressed the review was never meant to lead to an overhaul of war strategy -- unlike Obama's first review of strategy in Afghanistan and a 2006 Iraq war review that led then-President George W. Bush to boost U.S. forces under Petraeus.
The review "is not designed to change the direction we are going in in Afghanistan because we believe we have the right strategy. What the report is is a candid look at how the strategy is working," the official said.
"There are improvements (in security) we believe set the conditions for the beginning to talk about the transition to an Afghan lead beginning in July 2011," he said.
Other U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said training of Afghan forces could be one area where the strategy is "tweaked."
Current U.S. targets call for expanding the Afghan army and police to 306,000 by next October from more than 260,000 now. A more ambitious target could be set to increase the force further beyond October 2011.
Another area would be looking at ways to keep pressure on militants in Pakistan, where strikes by pilotless U.S. drone aircraft have reached all-time highs in recent months.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is pressing for the review to address a sharp rise in civilian casualties, as well as the role of private security companies and ending or reducing the number of night-time raids and house searches, Karzai's chief spokesman, Waheed Omer, told Reuters.
In a mid-year report, the United Nations said civilian casualties had spiked by 31 percent in the first six months of 2010 against the same period of 2009. It blamed three-quarters of the deaths on insurgents.
More than 479 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since December, when the new strategy was unveiled.
The willingness of Petraeus to talk up the U.S. military successes in Afghanistan has surprised those who remember him as a taciturn general in Iraq who was always cautious not to appear overly optimistic about gains on the battlefield.
There is much speculation in Washington as to why he has been so talkative.
One theory is that he is trying to shape the Taliban's view of the war as the group is engaged in preliminary talks with Karzai's government. Another is that he is trying to stiffen the resolve of politicians in Washington ahead of the report.
The Taliban is also closely watching the review. Obama should not think that "if we find this person, destroy this group or that movement, the issue will be resolved," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington and David Brunnstrom in Brussels; Editing by Kristin Roberts and Vicki Allen)
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Australian, Afghan troops kill Taliban leader
Mon Nov 8, 2010 11:07pm AEDT ABC News Australia
Australian forces killed a mid-level Taliban leader in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province on Saturday.
The Defence Department says Mullah Mohammadullah and another insurgent were killed when they fired at Australian soldiers and troops from the Afghan National Security Force.
It says Mohammadullah distributed weapons and money to insurgents, and planned operations against international forces in Afghanistan.
The combined force was on an operation in the Shahid-e Hasas area, near Deh Rawud, to disrupt an improvised explosive device (IED) and weapons distribution ring.
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Our Indian problem in Afghanistan
The Washington Post By David Pollock Monday, November 8, 2010
President Obama's trip to India offers a crucial, and counterintuitive, opportunity missing in all the talk about Afghanistan: how to accommodate Pakistan's interests in that country. Unless we find a way to do that, Pakistan will not stop its tolerance of or support for the Afghan Taliban or other extremists on its border with Afghanistan - nor will it let us eradicate them. While serious analysts agree that such a shift is necessary for any U.S. success in Afghanistan, many fail to follow this logic to its conclusion: that we must persuade Pakistan it can crack down on Afghan extremists without jeopardizing its cross-border interests.
What are those interests? First and foremost, to minimize the presence and influence in Afghanistan of Pakistan's own archrival, India. Yet somehow this point is absent from most American debates about these issues, probably because of our narrow focus on terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. In fact, the United States has stoked Pakistani paranoia by encouraging India to become the region's major economic player in Afghanistan, to train Afghan officials, and exercise other influence on the Afghan government and people.
To Pakistani perceptions, this raises the threat of foreign influence in Afghanistan, and increases Pakistani determination to hang on to the Taliban, the Haqqani group and other insurgent networks to both counter Indian influence and protect Pakistani interests in Afghanistan. This in turn makes it impossible for the United States to succeed in its declared goals of stabilizing Afghanistan and securing it against violent extremism while safely reducing the American military presence.
India, of course, is an increasingly important regional and global partner for U.S. foreign policy. But it is in India's self-interest to contain extremist pressures in Afghanistan and Pakistan - and one paradoxically clever way to do that is to lower India's profile in Afghanistan. During his visit, Obama should drive home the point that such self-restraint would best serve our common interest in stabilizing the region.
Pakistan's other major interest is to promote a friendly regime in Kabul. This is hardly as simple as it sounds. Afghans are famously proud and prickly about their independence, and some are still not fully reconciled to Pakistani rule over some 30 million Pashtuns across the border. In fact, Afghanistan has never recognized that border along the Durand Line, drawn by the British raj in 1893 to mark the limits of Afghan rule.
Recently, however, and entirely apart from, or even against American advice, the Afghan and Pakistan governments have moved to resolve some of their differences. Afghan President Hamid Karzai abruptly removed the chief of his National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh, who was widely viewed as anti-corruption but also anti-Pakistan (a point that received much less attention in the U.S. media). In return, Islamabad stopped blocking Afghan trucks from using Pakistani roads and negotiated an Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement allowing Afghan traffic all the way to India.
There is much the United States should do to capitalize on this momentum. Most urgent is to start working closely with Pakistan on our Afghan reconciliation and reintegration policies, instead of ignoring Pakistan's expressions of interest in these plans. We should also tell Islamabad that we are encouraging Kabul to send security personnel for Pakistani (rather than Indian) training - and then do so. We should encourage Kabul to pursue reasonable confidence-building measures, such as letting Pakistan know about pending Afghan government appointments in the border provinces. We should advise Pakistan that the United States recognizes the Durand Line and will work with the Afghan government to lay this ancient issue to rest.
All these small steps will help convince Pakistan that it can work more confidently with us and with the Afghan government, without playing the old double game of keeping insurgents and extremists in reserve. While we cannot buy or bully Pakistanis into abandoning their interests in Afghanistan, we can show them new ways to secure those interests. Properly understood, this is no longer a zero-sum "great game" in the region.
Adjusting our policies to accommodate Pakistani interests is essential to U.S. national interests in Afghanistan. And contrary to conventional wisdom, it is consistent with the long-term interests of our friends in the Afghan and Indian governments in countering the violent extremists who threaten us all.
David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was a senior State Department adviser for the broader Middle East from 2002 to 2007 and served on the secretary's policy planning staff from 1996 to 1999 and again in 2001.
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Some Skeptics Questioning Rosy Reports on War Zone
New York Times By ELISABETH BUMILLER November 7, 2010
WASHINGTON - The recent reports circulating in Washington’s national security establishment about the Afghan battleground of Marja show glimmerings of progress: bazaars are open, some 1,000 children are in school, and a new (and only) restaurant even serves goat curry and kebabs.
In Kandahar, NATO officials say that American and Afghan forces continue to rout the Taliban. In new statistics offered by American commanders in Kabul, Special Operations units have killed 339 midlevel Taliban commanders and 949 of the group’s foot soldiers in the past three months alone. At the Pentagon, the draft of a war assessment to be submitted to Congress this month cites a shift in momentum in some areas of the country away from the insurgency.
But as a new White House review of President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan gets under way, the rosy signs have opened an intense debate at the Defense Department, the White House, the State Department and the intelligence agencies over what they really mean. Are they indications of future success, are they fleeting and not replicable, or are they evidence that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top United States and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is simply more masterful than his predecessor at shaping opinion?
At the White House, so far there is uncertainty and skepticism. “There are tactical cases which seem promising as discrete bits of evidence,” a senior White House official said in an interview over the weekend. “What’s not clear is whether those cases can be put together to create a strategic trend.” Marja, he added, “looks a lot better than two years ago. But how many Marjas do we need to do and over what time frame?”
The debate centers on the resiliency of the Taliban and the extent to which the group can rebuild from the hammering it is taking. Most involved say that there are positive trends for the Americans, but that the real answer will not be clear until a new fighting season begins as the weather warms next year.
“The fundamental question is how deep is their bench,” said Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. official and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who led last year’s extended White House review of Afghan strategy that resulted in Mr. Obama’s ordering 30,000 additional United States forces to the country. “By next summer we should have a pretty good idea. If they’re having trouble replacing people that we’re killing on the battlefield, then we’re on the right track. But if by next summer they’re producing new cadres that are on the same order of quality, then we’re in deep trouble.”
A related variable is the uneven quality of more than 250,000 members of the Afghan Army and police. “There’s absolutely no question that where Petraeus’s troops have moved, they have done the Taliban immense damage,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “What is not yet clear is whether it will be sustainable, and that will depend on the success of the effort to train the Afghan security forces.”
Another question is what impact killing so many midlevel Taliban commanders will have on American efforts to pressure the group’s top leaders to negotiate an end to the war. United States commanders are encouraged by radio intercepts showing Taliban fighters demoralized and angry that their senior leaders remain in havens in Pakistan, which theoretically could make the Taliban more willing to make a deal. But intelligence experts view the intercepts as anecdotal at best.
The White House official said that wiping out midlevel Taliban fighters might have unintended consequences. “Are these guys being replaced by guys less beholden to the senior leaders in Pakistan?” the official said. If that is the case, in any future peace talks, “it’s possible that the leaders at the top could not deliver.”
Military officials for the most part take a more optimistic view and intelligence officials a more pessimistic view of recent developments in the war. In part the difference is cultural — the job of the intelligence analyst is to not be surprised by bad news — but deep doubts about the war remain imbedded in the spy agencies.
In the past year the C.I.A. has delivered a number of sober assessments about worsening violence in Afghanistan and the growing strength of the Taliban. Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., has been dismissive in public statements about nascent peace talks, saying that Taliban leaders have no incentive to strike a deal because they believe they are winning the war.
A senior United States official familiar with intelligence on Afghanistan reflected that view last week. “The Taliban have shown an ability to adapt their tactics quickly and are a very patient bunch,” he said. “They sometimes fan out when the going gets tough for them and then coalesce to mount resistance.”
A former C.I.A. official with longtime experience in Afghanistan said that the recent statements about American progress in Afghanistan reminded him of what was sometimes written about the Russians before they began withdrawing from Afghanistan in defeat in 1988, when they had been at war there for nearly 10 years.
“I don’t find many people I talk to who really believe any of this,” he said.
The military’s more positive view is hardly monolithic; doubts also exist within its ranks. The Defense Department’s coming war assessment says that violence once again increased in Afghanistan in the past year, in large part because of the aggressive American military operations in the south, while Pentagon officials readily acknowledge that security has deteriorated in previously quiet areas of the north.
But commanders on the ground in the south repeatedly say they have seen tactical progress in recent months. “There’s no safe location in Marja where you can say, 100 percent, I’m not going to get shot at,” Lt. Col. Kyle Ellison, commander of the Second Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment, said in an interview in September at a base in Marja, a 75-square-mile swath of farming villages in Helmand Province that was the site of a major NATO and Afghan offensive in February. “But when we first got here, you couldn’t walk outside this gate without getting a shot.”
Last week a team led by Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the president’s Afghanistan adviser at the White House, returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan with data that will serve as a basis for Mr. Obama’s review of the war next month. General Petraeus is also assembling masses of data.
“It is certainly true that Petraeus is attempting to shape public opinion ahead of the December review,” said an administration official who is supportive of the general.
“He is the most skilled public relations official in the business, and he’s trying to narrow the president’s options.”
But national security officials across Washington are already saying that the December review will only tweak the policy, not change the strategy, and that the real assessment will come in July 2011, the deadline for the beginning of the withdrawal of American troops.
“The bidding is still out,” the White House official said.
Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.
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For Afghan Wives, a Desperate, Fiery Way Out
The New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN November 7, 2010
HERAT, Afghanistan - Even the poorest families in Afghanistan have matches and cooking fuel. The combination usually sustains life. But it also can be the makings of a horrifying escape: from poverty, from forced marriages, from the abuse and despondency that can be the fate of Afghan women.
The night before she burned herself, Gul Zada took her children to her sister’s for a family party. All seemed well. Later it emerged that she had not brought a present, and a relative had chided her for it, said her son Juma Gul.
This small thing apparently broke her. Ms. Zada, who was 45, the mother of six children and who earned pitiably little cleaning houses, ended up with burns on nearly 60 percent of her body at the Herat burn hospital. Survival is difficult even at 40 percent.
“She was burned from head to toe,” her son remembers.
The hospital here is the only medical center in Afghanistan that specifically treats victims of burning, a common form of suicide in this region, partly because the tools to do it are so readily available. Through early October, 75 women arrived with burns — most self-inflicted, others only made to look that way. That is up nearly 30 percent from last year.
But the numbers say less than the stories of the patients.
It is shameful here to admit to troubles at home, and mental illness often goes undiagnosed or untreated. Ms. Zada, the hospital staff said, probably suffered from depression. The choices for Afghan women are extraordinarily restricted: Their family is their fate. There is little chance for education, little choice about whom a woman marries, no choice at all about her role in her own house. Her primary job is to serve her husband’s family. Outside that world, she is an outcast.
“If you run away from home, you may be raped or put in jail and then sent home and then what will happen to you?” asked Rachel Reid, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who tracks violence against women.
Returned runaways are often shot or stabbed in honor killings because the families fear they have spent time unchaperoned with a man. Women and girls are still stoned to death. Those who burn themselves but survive are often relegated to grinding Cinderella existences while their husbands marry other, untainted women.
“Violence in the lives of Afghanistan’s women comes from everywhere: from her father or brother, from her husband, from her father-in-law, from her mother-in-law and sister-in-law,” said Dr. Shafiqa Eanin, a plastic surgeon at the burn hospital, which usually has at least 10 female self-immolation cases at any one time.
The most sinister burn cases are actually homicides masquerading as suicides, said doctors, nurses and human rights workers.
“We have two women here right now who were burned by their mothers-in-law and husbands,” said Dr. Arif Jalali, the hospital’s senior surgeon.
Doctors cited two recent cases where women were beaten by their husbands or in-laws, lost consciousness and awoke in the hospital to find themselves burned because they had been shoved in an oven or set on fire.
For a very few of the women who survive burnings, whether self-inflicted or done by relatives, the experience is a kind of Rubicon that helps them change their lives. Some work with lawyers who are recommended by the hospital and request a divorce. Most do not.
Defiant and Depressed
Engaged at 8 and married at 12, Farzana resorted to setting herself on fire when her father-in-law belittled her, saying she was not brave enough to do so. She was 17 and had endured years of beatings and abuse from her husband and his family.
Defiant and depressed, she went into the yard. She handed her husband their 9-month-old daughter so the baby would not see her mother burning. Then she poured cooking fuel on herself.
“I felt so sad and such pain in my heart and I felt very angry at my husband and my father- and mother-in-law, and then I took the matches and lit myself,” she said.
Farzana’s story is about desperation and the extremes that in-laws often inflict on their son’s wives. United Nations statistics indicate that at least 45 percent of Afghan women marry before they are 18; a large percentage before they are 16. Many girls are still given as payment for debts, which sentences them to a life of servitude and, almost always, abuse.
A bright child whose favorite subjects were Dari language and poetry, Farzana dreamed of becoming a teacher. But she had been promised in marriage to the son of the family that was providing a wife for her brother, and when she turned 12, her in-laws insisted it was time to marry. Her future husband had just turned 14.
“On the marriage day, he beat me when I woke up and shouted at me,” she said. “He was always favoring his mother and using bad words about me.”
The beatings went on for four years. Then Farzana’s brother took a second wife, an insult to Farzana’s in-laws. Her mistreatment worsened. They refused to allow her to see her mother, and her husband beat her more often.
“I thought of running away from that house, but then I thought: what will happen to the name of my family?” she said. “No one in our family has asked for divorce. So how can I be the first?”
Doctors and nurses say that especially in cases involving younger women, fury at their situation, a sense of being trapped and a desire to shame their husbands into caring for them all come together.
This was true of Farzana.
“The thing that forced me to set myself on fire was when my father-in-law said: ‘You are not able to set yourself on fire,’ ” she recalled.
But she did, and when the flames were out, 58 percent of her body was burnt. As a relative bundled her raw body into a car for the hospital, her husband whispered: “If anybody asks you, don’t tell them my name; don’t say I had anything to do with it.’ ”
After 57 days in the hospital and multiple skin grafts, she is home with her mother and torn between family traditions and an inchoate sense that a new way of thinking is needed.
Farzana’s daughter is being brought up by her husband’s family, and mother and daughter are not allowed to see each other. Despite that, she says that she cannot go back to her husband’s house.
“Five years I spent in his house with those people,” she said. “My marriage was for other people. They should never have given me in a child marriage.”
A Common Option
Why do women burn themselves rather than choose another form of suicide?
Poverty is one reason, said Dr. Jalali. Many women mistakenly think death will be instant. Halima, 20, a patient in the hospital in August, said she considered jumping from a roof but worried she would only break her leg. If she set herself on fire, she said, “It would all be over.”
Self-immolation is more common in Herat and western Afghanistan than other parts of the country. The area’s closeness to Iran may partly explain why; Iran shares in the culture of suicide by burning.
Unlike many women admitted to the burn hospital, Ms. Zada showed no outward signs of distress before she set herself on fire. Her life, though, was hard. Her husband is a sharecropper. She cleaned houses and at night stayed up to clean her own home — a nearly impossible task in the family’s squalid earthen and brick two-room house buffeted by the Herati winds that sweep in a layer of dust each time the door opens.
To her family, she was a constant provider. “Before I thought of wanting something, she provided me with it,” said Juma Gul, 32, her eldest son, a laborer who earns about $140 a month. “She would embroider our clothes so that we wouldn’t feel we had less than other people.”
As he spoke, his 10-year-old twin sisters sat near him holding hands and a picture of their mother.
In the hospital, Ms. Zada rallied at first, and Juma Gul was encouraged, unaware of how hard it is to survive such extensive burns. That is especially true in the developing world, said Dr. Robert Sheridan, chief of surgery at the Shriners Burn Hospital in Boston and a trauma surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The greatest risk is sepsis, a deadly infection that generally starts in the second week after a burn and is hard to stop, Dr. Sheridan said. Even badly burned and infected patients can speak almost up to the hour of their death, often giving families false hopes.
“She was getting better,” her son insisted.
But infection had, in fact, set in, and the family did not have the money for powerful antibiotics that could give her whatever small chance there was to survive. Juma Gul eventually managed to beg and borrow the money, but not before the infection spread.
Two weeks after his mother set herself on fire, he stood by her bed as she stopped breathing.
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