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Afghans Disqualify Quarter of Parliamentary Votes
VOA News October 20, 2010
Afghan election officials have disqualified nearly a quarter of the 5.6 million ballots cast in last month's parliamentary election.
Afghan election body announces preliminary results of parliamentary polls
KABUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Fazal Ahmad Manawi the chief of Afghanistan Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Wednesday announced the preliminary result of parliamentary elections held on Sept. 18.
Sitting lawmakers head Afghan legislative elections' preliminary results
KABUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Sitting legislators have topped the preliminary results of Afghan parliamentary elections held on Sept. 18, that was announced on Wednesday.
Taliban leaders said to be in Afghanistan peace talks
Extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of leadership, who are secretly leaving sanctuaries...
The New York Times By DEXTER FILKINS Tuesday, October 19, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - Talks to end the war in Afghanistan involve extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group’s leadership, who are secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops, officials here say.
Afghan president hopes success for peace process
KABUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday said that he is hopeful that the recent peace talks with Taliban insurgents would bring lasting peace and stability in near future.
Afghan Peace Talks Face Tough Obstacles
Gary Thomas VOA News October 19, 2010
Preliminary contacts have opened between the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai and some elements of the Taliban on possible peace negotiations. It is not clear at what level the peace feelers are taking place. But all the parties with a stake in any Afghan peace talks have different and often conflicting policy goals of what any talks might achieve.
Iranian Weapon Shipment to Afghan Taliban Raises Alarm
FoxNews.com By Jennifer Griffin October 19, 2010
Two weeks ago Afghan officials intercepted a shipment of Iranian weapons en route to the Taliban in the Afghan province of Nimroz.
A Joint Fair of Iran and Afghanistan Opened in Kabul
Tamim Shaheer Tolo news October 20, 2010
A joint fair of Iran and Afghanistan products was opened on Wednesday in the capital Kabul
More than 140 companies 40 of them Iranians have participated in the fair.
CIA admits errors led to Afghanistan bombing
Financial Times By Daniel Dombey in Washington October 20 2010
The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged that a series of missteps and errors led to the worst attack on its staff in decades.
Roadside bomb blast kills 10 Afghan civilians, injures 4
ZARANJ, Afghanistan, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 Afghan civilians were killed and four others injured as a roadside bomb struck a minibus in Afghanistan's western Nimroz province on Wednesday, provincial police chief said.
Mine blast injures three in E Afghan city
KHOST, Afghanistan, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Three civilians were injured as a remote-controlled bomb detonated Wednesday near a shop in Khost city capital of the same name Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, provincial police chief Abdul Hakim Isaqzai said.
Afghan Government Orders All Private Banks To Be Audited
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 19, 2010
The Afghan government has announced that all private banks in the country will be audited following a corruption scandal that nearly brought down Kabul Bank, Afghanistan's largest privately owned bank.
Get Tough on Pakistan
New York Times By ZALMAY KHALILZAD October 19, 2010
Washington - WHEN I visited Kabul a few weeks ago, President Hamid Karzai told me that the United States has yet to offer a credible strategy for how to resolve a critical issue: Pakistan’s role in the war in Afghanistan.
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Afghans Disqualify Quarter of Parliamentary Votes
VOA News October 20, 2010
Afghan election officials have disqualified nearly a quarter of the 5.6 million ballots cast in last month's parliamentary election.
The Independent Election Commission announced Wednesday that it had ruled 1.3 million votes invalid.
Voters in the September 18 election picked candidates to fill 249 seats in parliament's lower house.
Final results were originally set to be released on October 31, but could be delayed by claims of vote-rigging and other irregularities.
The election followed last year's presidential vote which was marred by widespread fraud. The parliamentary poll also went ahead in the face of threats from Taliban militants.
In the latest violence, Britain's defense ministry says one of its soldiers was killed by an explosion. This year has been the deadliest for international forces in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The British defense ministry said the soldier was clearing explosive devices in the southern Helmand province, when the blast occurred.
At least 300 British troops have been killed by enemy action in Afghanistan during the entire nine-year conflict.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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Afghan election body announces preliminary results of parliamentary polls
KABUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Fazal Ahmad Manawi the chief of Afghanistan Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Wednesday announced the preliminary result of parliamentary elections held on Sept. 18.
"Over 50 percent of members of Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of Afghan parliament are new faces,"Manawi told journalists at a news conference.
However, he did not give any name, saying this is preliminary results and in the final results of the elections the names could be changed.
Final result is expected to be announced within month.
Initially, the preliminary result was scheduled to be announced on Oct. 9 but was postponed twice on the ground of investigating over 4500 complaints received by Electoral Complaints Commission.
He also added that women in the western Nimroz province defeated their men rivals and secured the two seats allocated for the province.
Around 5.6 votes were casted on the ballot boxes on the election day in the country's 34 provinces and of these 1.3 million votes had been invalidated after processing, the election body's chief said.
"The number of votes identified as valid were more than 4.2 million and it is a matter of pride for all Afghans who used their franchise amid problems and security threats,"he emphasized.
Afghanistan's second parliamentary election since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 was held amid tight security on Sept. 18, as Taliban militants vowed to derail it.
More than 2,500 people including over 400 women from across the country contested the election to secure seat in the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of parliament in Afghanistan.
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Sitting lawmakers head Afghan legislative elections' preliminary results
KABUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Sitting legislators have topped the preliminary results of Afghan parliamentary elections held on Sept. 18, that was announced on Wednesday.
Mohammad Mohaqiq with bagging over 16,000 votes has secured the first position, followed by sitting speaker Lower House Mohammad Yunus Qanooni, the result pasted on election commission website said.
A critic of government and parliamentarian Mohammad Ramzan Bashardost with securing over 7,000 votes secured the third position and sitting lawmaker Abdul Rasoul Sayyaf had won forth position, according to the website.
Meantime, three women won the contest in Kandahar the Taliban birthplace in south Afghanistan; while two women have secured the two seats allocated to the western Nimroz province.
Meantime, election body's chief Fazal Ahmad Manawi who announced the preliminary results hours ago said that the result could be changed as it is not the final and the final result expected to be announced within month.
"Over 50 percent of members of Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of Afghan parliament are new faces," Manawi said.
More than 2,500 people including over 400 women from across the country contested the election to secure seat in the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of parliament in Afghanistan.
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Taliban leaders said to be in Afghanistan peace talks
Extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of leadership, who are secretly leaving sanctuaries...
The New York Times By DEXTER FILKINS Tuesday, October 19, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - Talks to end the war in Afghanistan involve extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group’s leadership, who are secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops, officials here say.
The discussions, some of which have taken place in Kabul, are unfolding between the inner circle of President Hamid Karzai and members of the Quetta shura, the leadership group that oversees the Taliban war effort inside Afghanistan. Afghan leaders have also held discussions with leaders of the Haqqani network, considered to be one of the most hard-line guerrilla factions fighting here; and members of the Peshawar shura, whose fighters are based in eastern Afghanistan.
The Taliban leaders coming into Afghanistan for talks have left their havens in Pakistan on the explicit assurance that they will not be attacked or arrested by NATO forces, Afghans familiar with the talks say. Many top Taliban leaders reside in Pakistan, where they are believed to enjoy at least some official protection.
In at least one case, Taliban leaders crossed the border and boarded a NATO aircraft bound for Kabul, according to an Afghan with knowledge of the talks. In other cases, NATO troops have secured roads to allow Taliban officials to reach Afghan- and NATO-controlled areas so they can take part in discussions. Most of the discussions have taken place outside of Kabul, according to the Afghan official.
American officials said last week that talks between Afghan and Taliban leaders were under way. But the ranks of the insurgents, the fact that they represent multiple factions, and the extent of NATO efforts to provide transportation and security to adversaries they otherwise try to kill or capture have not been previously disclosed.
At least four Taliban leaders, three of them members of the Quetta shura and one of them a member of the Haqqani family, have taken part in discussions, according to the Afghan official and a former diplomat in the region.
The identities of the Taliban leaders are being withheld by The New York Times at the request of the White House and an Afghan who has taken part in the discussions. The Afghan official said that identifying the men could result in their deaths or detention at the hands of rival Taliban commanders or the Pakistani intelligence agents who support them.
The discussions are still described as preliminary, partly because Afghan and American officials are trying to determine how much influence the Taliban leaders who have participated in the talks have within their own organizations.
Even so, the talks have been held on several different occasions and appear to represent the most substantive effort to date to negotiate an end to the nine-year-old war, which began with an American-led campaign to overthrow the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks. “These are face-to-face discussions,” said an Afghan with knowledge of the talks. “This is not about making the Americans happy or making Karzai happy. It’s about what is in the best interests of the Afghan people.”
“These talks are based on personal relationships,” the official said. “When the Taliban see that they can travel in the country without being attacked by the Americans, they see that the government is sovereign, that they can trust us.”
The discussions appear to be unfolding without the approval of Pakistan’s leaders, who are believed to exercise a wide degree of control over the Taliban’s leadership. The Afghan government seems to be trying to seek a reconciliation agreement that does not directly involve Pakistan, which Mr. Karzai’s government fears will exercise too much influence over Afghanistan after NATO forces withdraw.
But that strategy could backfire by provoking the Pakistanis, who could undermine any agreement.
Mullah Muhammad Omar, the overall leader of the Taliban, is explicitly being cut out of the negotiations, in part because of his closeness to the Pakistani security services, officials said.
Afghans who have tried to take part in, or even facilitate, past negotiations have been killed by their Taliban comrades, sometimes with the assistance of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.
“The ISI will try to prevent these negotiations from happening,” the Afghan official said. “The ISI will just eliminate them,” he said, referring to the people who take part.
Earlier this year, the ISI detained as many as 23 Taliban leaders residing in Pakistan after the intelligence service discovered that the Taliban leaders were talking secretly with representatives of the Afghan government.
Cutting Mullah Omar out of the negotiations appears to represent an attempt by Afghan leaders to drive a wedge into the upper ranks of the Taliban leadership. Though there is some disagreement among Afghan officials, many regard Mullah Omar as essentially a prisoner of the Pakistani security establishment who would be unable to exercise any independence.
Some American and Afghan officials believe that the Taliban is vulnerable to being split, with potentially large chunks of the movement defecting to the Afghan government.
The Haqqani group is the namesake of Jalalhuddin Haqqani, a former minister in the Taliban government in the 1990s who presides over a Mafia-like organization based in North Waziristan, in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The Haqqani network has sheltered several members of Al Qaeda and maintains close links to Pakistan’s security services.
The group is believed to be responsible for many suicide attacks inside Kabul that have killed hundreds of civilians. Earlier this year, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of NATO forces here, asked the Obama administration to declare the Haqqani network a terrorist organization. That has not happened.
Indeed, the endorsement of such talks presents the Americans with a paradox. Many if not most of the leaders of the Taliban and the Haqqani group are targets for death or capture. Many of the same individuals are also on the United Nations “black list,” which obliges governments to freeze their assets and prevent them from traveling.
Waheed Omar, a spokesman for President Karzai, acknowledged that the government was in contact with a range of Taliban leaders, but he declined to discuss any details. “I cannot confirm that there have been discussions with the Quetta shura,” he said.
The Taliban leadership and those in their immediate circle appear to be in the dark as well. A Pakistani cleric close to the Quetta shura and the Haqqani leadership said in an interview that he was unaware of any face-to-face discussions with Afghan leaders. But he said the Afghan government had recently sent out feelers to several Taliban commanders, with the proviso that Mullah Omar be left out.
“The problem is, they want to exclude Mullah Omar,” the cleric said. “If you exclude him, then there cannot be any talks at all.”
The Pakistani cleric said that some discussions among members of the Quetta shura may have taken place recently in Saudi Arabia, where many of the group’s leaders had traveled during the holy month of Ramadan.
One Pakistani security official said he was aware of talks involving a member of the Quetta shura. But he said those discussions would likely come to nothing, because the Taliban leader did not any have official endorsement.
“He’s useless,” the Pakistani security officer said of the Taliban leader. “This guy is not in a position to make a deal.”
For their part, American officials say they are wary of investing too much hope in the discussions. In the past, talks — or, more accurately, talks about talks — have foundered over preconditions that each side has set: for the Taliban, that the Americans must first withdraw; for the Afghan government, that the Taliban must first disarm.
Perhaps the biggest complication lies on the battlefield. As long as the Taliban believe they are winning, they do not seem likely to want to make a deal. In recent months, as the additional troops and resources ordered up by President Obama have poured in, the American military has stepped up operations against Taliban strongholds.
So far, the insurgents have shown few public signs of wanting to give up. That much was acknowledged Tuesday by the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta.
“If there are elements that wish to reconcile and get reintegrated, that ought to be obviously explored,” he said in Washington. “But I still have not seen anything that indicates that at this point a serious effort is being made to reconcile.”
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington. A Pakistani employee of The New York Times also contributed reporting.
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Afghan president hopes success for peace process
KABUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday said that he is hopeful that the recent peace talks with Taliban insurgents would bring lasting peace and stability in near future.
"Hope for peace and stability in Afghanistan has significantly increased," Karzai told an audience including government officials gathered at his fortified palace.
"The Afghan people, our international partners and our neighbors all are working to bring peace and stability for this country, and we are hopeful the stability in Afghanistan in one or two years will be better than today, and better than two years ago, " Karzai emphasized.
Karzai also said that the newly established High Council for Peace is busy in making procedures for finding the ways to open negotiations with unhappy Afghans and oppositions who are fighting his government.
"Since we are hearing from Taliban and from other countrymen, many Afghans are hopeful for these peace initiatives," he stated.
Weeks ago, Karzai announced formation of the High Council for Peace with objective to accelerate the efforts for achieving the government-backed national reconciliation program and talks with Taliban militants.
The 70-member High Council for Peace includes two ex-president Sibghatullah Mujadadi and Burhanudin Rabbani, former Taliban commanders, parliamentarians, government officials and eight women.
Furthermore, the president days ago confirmed that there were some unofficial contacts with the Taliban for quite some times.
However, Taliban militants in a statement released to media described the peace council as a ploy of the United States to deceive public opinion and emphasized for Jihad (holy war) against the NATO-led forces stationed in Afghanistan.
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Afghan Peace Talks Face Tough Obstacles
Gary Thomas VOA News October 19, 2010
Preliminary contacts have opened between the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai and some elements of the Taliban on possible peace negotiations. It is not clear at what level the peace feelers are taking place. But all the parties with a stake in any Afghan peace talks have different and often conflicting policy goals of what any talks might achieve.
Just who is participating in these first tentative talks, which by all accounts are solely between the Karzai government and the Taliban - and what they are discussing is shrouded in secrecy.
But U.N. al-Qaida-Taliban Monitoring Team coordinator Richard Barrett tells VOA the talks, preliminary as they are, are being propelled by a realization on all sides that a military solution will not work. "I think the time is propitious because everybody realizes now that the fighting is not going to take them anywhere. Everybody has got time pressures. You of course have domestic pressure here in the United States. The war is becoming less popular, people are asking more questions about it, and I think that there is more desire for it to end. And that is true even more so in other troop-contributing states," he said.
The Taliban continues to deny that any discussions have taken place, insisting that foreign forces must leave Afghanistan before there are any talks. But analysts say that stand is a bid to keep the movement together as things move into a political phase.
The United States says the Taliban must first lay down their arms, renounce al-Qaida, and accept the Afghan constitution.
Former EU Special Envoy to Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell says these are really negotiating points. "I do not believe for a minute that these will be preconditions. These are issues to be discussed at the table of negotiations, but not as preconditions. I think most of us have seen it this way from the beginning, just as the Taliban preconditions - that they will not sit at the table until the Western forces have withdrawn - will stand. I think that this again will be another issue for discussion," he said.
No one can predict with any certainty what the end political solution will be. But Francesc Vendrell thinks it will involve not a coalition government, but some other form of local and regional level power-sharing.
"A coalition, personally, I do not see it. I do not think it is realistic, or if it were, it would last a few days. Power-sharing, under which the Taliban commanders would exert power in some provinces and districts in the south and possibly the east, I think that is different. I think that is more conceivable," Francesc said.
The Obama administration is to begin another review of its Afghan policy in December. If conditions permit, President Obama would like to start phasing out the U.S. troop presence beginning in July.
But some analysts believe any negotiated solution will require at least some foreign troop presence to remain to guarantee security. Richard Barrett says the Taliban may not like it, but in the end it may be their best protection against a repeat of 1992, when victorious anti-Soviet mujahedin fighters took to battling each other, setting off a civil war.
"Having American forces or other forces there for a period actually allows greater stability while a new political process can get under way and a new government can get sort of established. So I think that in the back of their minds, the Taliban will say, 'We do not want fighting, we do not want this very, very prominent presence of foreign troops that we have at the moment, but we do understand that there has to be some sort of guarantee of stability while we sort our own problems out," he said.
Neighboring Pakistan has a stake in the talks and would like to have a say in the outcome. But Francesc Vendrell says Pakistan's role in the new talks, if there is any, remains murky.
"The imponderable is, is Pakistan trying to sabotage these efforts? Are they simply neutral? Are the U.S. [officials] able to persuade the Pakistani army and the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] to at least deny themselves the temptation to sabotage such contacts unless they are through them [the Pakistanis]? I do not know," Vendrall said.
Pakistan is deeply concerned about growing Indian influence in Afghanistan. Analysts say it is this fear that drives at least some elements of the Pakistani army and intelligence services to, officially or unofficially, back the Taliban as a strategic hedge against Indian influence in the Karzai government. U.S. officials remain concerned that Pakistan has not been sufficiently aggressive in Washington's view in eradicating the Pakistan-based Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuaries.
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Iranian Weapon Shipment to Afghan Taliban Raises Alarm
FoxNews.com By Jennifer Griffin October 19, 2010
Two weeks ago Afghan officials intercepted a shipment of Iranian weapons en route to the Taliban in the Afghan province of Nimroz.
“The police chief of Nimroz announced that they had intercepted a couple tons of Iranian explosives marked as food and toys,” said Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, who just returned from a two week visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Until recently U.S. military commanders would quietly slip journalists information about the unhelpful role that Iran and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were playing in Afghanistan. A role that often provides some of the same support and weaponry to the Taliban that it did to militant groups that were fighting U.S. troops in Iraq.
Commanders provide journalists with examples of Iran spreading its economic influence in the Western part of Afghanistan and trying to buy candidates and their loyalty in Afghanistan's recent Parliamentary elections.
But on Monday Iranian diplomats were seated at a NATO conference in Rome at the invitation of the Obama administration to discuss the way forward in Afghanistan. It was the ninth meeting of the NATO contact group which included foreign ministers and high level dignitaries, including U.S. Special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.
“We recognize that Iran.has a role to play in the peaceful settlement of the situation in Afghanistan,” Holbrooke said.
He added, “for the United States today, there is no problem with their presence [at the meeting]."
NATO's top commander General David Petraeus briefed the group which included this high ranking Iranian diplomat about "transition," another word for handing over control to Afghanistan's security forces.
"That's not admitting defeat,” Holbrooke said. “That's, as we've all said, we are not going to win this war by purely military means. General Petraeus said it again this morning in our briefings. The war will not end on a battleship in Tokyo Bay or at Dayton, Ohio. It will end through a different kind of process.”
That process is raising concerns among some Afghans, Pakistani officials, and U.S. military experts.
“Perhaps General Petraeus and the Obama Administration and NATO want to make it appear as if the Iranians are cooperating, but it's all smoke in mirrors,” AEI’s Rubin said. “All the Afghans I talked to said that Iranians were up to no good and unfortunately sitting down with the Iranians and including them in our talks about the future structure in Afghan security forces is going to be perceived by Afghans as the United States is surrendering, of the United States leaving and allowing the Iranians to fill the vacuum.”
President Obama's announcement that the first U.S. troops would be leaving in July 2011 changed the equation in Afghanistan. Afghan officials want assurances that the U.S. and NATO aren't leaving.
"It is critical that the international community speaks with one voice in reiterating to the respected constituency the message that has been repeated over and over again in this meeting that transition will not mean withdraw or exit," said Afghan foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul.
The Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini tried to ease Rassoul’s concern.
"We shouldn't talk about exit strategy,” Frattini said.
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A Joint Fair of Iran and Afghanistan Opened in Kabul
Tamim Shaheer Tolo news October 20, 2010
A joint fair of Iran and Afghanistan products was opened on Wednesday in the capital Kabul
More than 140 companies 40 of them Iranians have participated in the fair.
The Afghan Ministry of Commerce and Industries said having held such joint fairs could be beneficial improving trade between the two countries.
"They should help us make our balance higher and we know bringing the balance up is a bit difficult," said deputy commerce for Commerce and Industries Ministry, Ghulam Mohammad Yelaqi.
Iranian ambassador in Kabul, Feda Hosain Maliki, encouraged Afghan traders to travel through Iran's Chabahar Port.
Such projects "should be planned for maximum use from Chabahar Port and it could improve economy and trade in Afghanistan, in Asia and even in China," said the Iranian ambassador in Kabul.
The fair has been welcomed by Afghan traders.
"The fair is useful for Afghan and Iranian traders," said an Afghan businessman.
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CIA admits errors led to Afghanistan bombing
Financial Times By Daniel Dombey in Washington October 20 2010
The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged that a series of missteps and errors led to the worst attack on its staff in decades.
Officials acknowledged on Tuesday that the agency had concerns about Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi for months before the supposed source killed seven agency employees in Khost, Afghanistan in December 2009 in the biggest loss for the CIA since a 1983 Beirut bombing.
Leon Panetta, CIA director, said that a report he commissioned into the attack found “shortcomings across several agency components in areas including communications, documentation and management oversight,” as well as vetting and security.
“Scepticism [about Mr Balawi] was voiced over a number of months,” said a US official, noting that this was “the first time in the agency’s history that one of its assets has killed their case officer”.
The official confirmed reports that a CIA employee in Amman had failed to pass on a warning from a Jordanian intelligence officer three weeks before the attack that Mr Balawi could be working for al-Qaeda and said other warnings had preceded that. At the time, some CIA officials saw Mr Balawi as a source who could help the agency locate Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two.
The official said: “Sometimes concerns were voiced in meetings, in emails and instant messaging, [but] if we have serious concerns about an asset being potentially a double agent, you should formally document that in an intelligence cable.”
The findings of the investigation, led by Thomas Pickering, a former top US diplomat, and Charlie Allen, a former CIA officer, come in the wake of President Barack Obama’s complaint that US intelligence agencies failed to “connect the dots” over last year’s Christmas Day attempt to blow up a flight above Detroit, just five days before the Khost attack.
Some members of the Obama administration have also described a subsequent May 1 attempt to explode a car bomb in Times Square as a “successful plot” since it too was not detected by intelligence agencies beforehand.
The US official said that in the run-up to the Khost attack, there had been “multiple points of failure, both at home and abroad”, adding: “You put all these things together and in retrospect, it paints a picture of, in some cases, poor decisions and poor judgment, not limited to one individual or group.”
In a possible reference to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which some US officials have long suspected of playing a double game with Islamist extremists, Mr Panetta cited the need to “more carefully manage information sharing with other intelligence services”.
And in a seeming reference to the CIA campaign of drone strikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban targets – which reached record levels in September, he said the agency had to “maintain our high operational tempo against terrorist targets, even as we make adjustments to how we conduct our essential mission.”
Mr Panetta endorsed the task force’s conclusions that the CIA needed to improve discipline in communications, pay more intelligence to the risk of counterintelligence, give senior officers a more effective role and standardise security procedures.
He added that the report found that Mr Balawi “fit the description of someone who could offer us access to some of our most vicious enemies”, that he had already provided independently verified information and that CIA headquarters had been consulted on the decision to meet him on the Khost base.
The CIA is now creating an integrated counterintelligence vetting cell to focus on high-risk/high-gain assets such as Mr Balawi.
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Roadside bomb blast kills 10 Afghan civilians, injures 4
ZARANJ, Afghanistan, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 Afghan civilians were killed and four others injured as a roadside bomb struck a minibus in Afghanistan's western Nimroz province on Wednesday, provincial police chief said.
"The gruesome incident occurred on the main road from provincial capital Zaranj to Dil Aram district around 2 p.m. local time as a result 10 civilians including women and children were killed and four others injured," Abdul Jabar Purduli told Xinhua.
No groups or individuals have yet to claim responsibility for the attacks while Taliban militants have often in the past been blamed for planting mine on roads to target security forces.
Earlier in the day, a similar incident left three civilians including a woman dead in the country's southern Ghazni province.
According to Afghan officials, over 1,200 Afghan civilians have been killed in Taliban-led militancy over the past six months.
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Mine blast injures three in E Afghan city
KHOST, Afghanistan, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Three civilians were injured as a remote-controlled bomb detonated Wednesday near a shop in Khost city capital of the same name Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, provincial police chief Abdul Hakim Isaqzai said.
"Anti-government militants planted a mine near a butcher shop and exploded it today leaving three people injured. The butcher shop provided meat to Afghan Border Police stationed in the province," Isaqzai told Xinhua.
He said the three injured were evacuated to the city hospital for medical treatment.
No group or individuals have claim of responsibility. However Taliban militants in the militancy-hit country have been warning the local contractors not to cooperate with Afghan and NATO-led forces.
Khost and the neighboring Paktia and Paktika provinces in eastern Afghanistan have been experiencing Taliban-led security incidents over the past couple of years as over 20 civilians have been killed and dozen others injured in roadside bombings organized by the militants over the past couple of weeks there.
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Afghan Government Orders All Private Banks To Be Audited
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 19, 2010
The Afghan government has announced that all private banks in the country will be audited following a corruption scandal that nearly brought down Kabul Bank, Afghanistan's largest privately owned bank.
Presidential spokesman Waheed Omer announced the move but gave no more details.
Central bank spokesman Emal Ashour refused to comment on the audit order.
The move comes after a massive scandal at the Kabul Bank in early September that led to investigations of former executives over allegations that they had granted themselves huge loans off the books.
However, reports that control of Kabul Bank had been taken over by the central bank have not been confirmed.
compiled from agency reports
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Get Tough on Pakistan
New York Times By ZALMAY KHALILZAD October 19, 2010
Washington - WHEN I visited Kabul a few weeks ago, President Hamid Karzai told me that the United States has yet to offer a credible strategy for how to resolve a critical issue: Pakistan’s role in the war in Afghanistan.
In the region and in the wider war against terrorism, Pakistan has long played a vital positive part — and a troublingly negative one. With Pakistani civilian and military leaders meeting with Obama administration officials this week in Washington — and with the news that Afghan leaders are holding direct talks with Taliban leaders to end the war — cutting through this Gordian knot has become more urgent and more difficult than ever before.
Pakistan has done, and continues to do, a great deal of good: many of the supply lines and much of the logistical support for NATO forces in Afghanistan run through Pakistan. Drones striking terrorists and militants in the tribal areas do so with the Pakistani government’s blessing and rely on Pakistani bases. And Pakistani security services have worked with the Central Intelligence Agency to capture hundreds of Qaeda operatives.
At the same time, Pakistan gives not only sanctuary but also support to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani terrorist network. This has hampered our military efforts; contributed to American, coalition and Afghan deaths; and helped sour relations between Kabul and Washington.
What’s more, Pakistani military leaders believe that our current surge will be the last push before we begin a face-saving troop drawdown next July. They are confident that if they continue to frustrate our military and political strategy — even actively impede reconciliation between Kabul and Taliban groups willing to make peace — pro-Pakistani forces will have the upper hand in Afghanistan after the United States departs.
When dealing with Pakistan, the Obama administration, like the George W. Bush administration, has pursued two lines of action. First, it has tried building up Afghan security forces, providing military assistance and supporting the Afghan economy and state institutions, all in hopes of hardening the country against Pakistan-backed insurgents.
Second, the U.S. has tried to soften Pakistan’s support of extremist militants through enhanced engagement as well as humanitarian, economic and military assistance; indeed, Congress last year approved a five-year, $7.5 billion package of nonmilitary aid, and among the options being discussed by American and Pakistani officials this week is a security pact that would mean billions of dollars more. But such efforts have led to only the most incremental shifts in Pakistan’s policy.
To induce quicker and more significant changes, Washington must offer Islamabad a stark choice between positive incentives and negative consequences.
The United States should demand that Pakistan shut down all sanctuaries and military support programs for insurgents or else we will carry out operations against those insurgent havens, with or without Pakistani consent. Arguments that such pressure would cause Pakistan to disintegrate are overstated. Pakistan’s institutions, particularly the country’s security organs, are sufficiently strong to preclude such an outcome.
Nonetheless, this aggressive approach would require the United States to think through a series of likely Pakistani responses. To deal with an interruption of our supply lines to Afghanistan, for example, we must stockpile supplies and start bringing in more materiél through the northern supply routes and via air.
At the same time, we should present clear, significant incentives. In exchange for demonstrable Pakistani cooperation, the United States should offer to mediate disputes between Pakistan and Afghanistan; help establish a trade corridor from Pakistan into Central Asia; and ensure that Pakistan’s adversaries do not use Afghanistan’s territory to support insurgents in Pakistani Baluchistan.
More fundamentally, the United States needs to demonstrate that, even after our troops depart Afghanistan, we are resolved to stay engaged in the region. To that end, the United States should provide long-term assistance to Pakistan focused on developing not only its security apparatus, but also its civil society, economy and democratic institutions.
Finally, the United States should facilitate a major diplomatic effort focused on stabilizing South Asia. This must involve efforts to improve relations between India and Pakistan. Based on my recent discussions with Pakistani officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari, I believe the civilian leadership would welcome such a move.
Without inducing a change in Pakistan’s posture, the United States will have to choose between fighting a longer and bloodier war in Afghanistan than is necessary, at the cost of many young American lives and many billions of dollars, or accepting a major setback in Afghanistan and in the surrounding region. Both are undesirable options.
Instead, the Obama administration should be forcing Pakistan to make some choices — between supporting the United States or supporting extremists.
Zalmay Khalilzad, a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the president of a consulting firm, was the ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration.
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