Afghanistan News October 25 2010


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October 25, 2010

Karzai says his office gets cash from Iran, US
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that once or twice a year, Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses and that Washington also provides "bags of money" because his office lacks funds.

Iran Must Not Meddle in Afghanistan, U.S. Says After Bag of Cash Reported
Bloomberg By William McQuillen and Phil Mattingly 25/10/2010
The U.S. said Iran shouldn’t interfere with Afghanistan’s internal affairs following a report that an Iranian official gave an aide of President Hamid Karzai a bag filled with packets of euro bills.

25 may have been killed in Afghanistan airstrike
By Katharine Houreld, Associated Press Writer – Mon Oct 25, 6:34 am ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – About 25 people may have been killed in a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Monday, an Afghan official said.

NATO confirms killing 15 militants in Taliban hotbed
KABUL, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Monday confirmed killing 15 militants in Taliban hotbed Helmand province of southern Afghanistan.

Holbrooke: Nothing close to formal peace talks in Afghanistan
By Tom Cohen, CNN October 24, 2010
Washington (CNN) -- Reconciliation talks in Afghanistan between the government and Taliban insurgents are less formal than full-fledged peace negotiations, U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Afghanistan: More high-level Taliban interested in talks: Holbrooke
Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP) 24 Oct 2010 By Jim Mannion
WASHINGTON — High-level Taliban leaders are showing interest in talks with the US-backed government in Kabul in increasing numbers, as pressure mounts from an intensifying NATO military campaign, a special US envoy said Sunday.

Dutch aid worker abducted in Afghanistan: officials
by Gul Rahim
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – Gunmen kidnapped a Dutch aid worker and his Afghan driver on Monday in the increasingly volatile north of Afghanistan, local officials said.

AFGHANISTAN: Security firm ban will not hurt us - NGOs
25 Oct 2010 16:19:27 GMT
KABUL, 25 October 2010 (IRIN) - President Hamid Karzai's decision to dissolve all private security companies in Afghanistan will not adversely affect the work of NGOs, civil society representatives say.

Afghanistan to develop $3 trillion in mining potential
By Amena Bakr Mon Oct 25, 2010 12:14pm EDT
DUBAI (Reuters) - Afghanistan is estimated to be sitting on $3 trillion worth of untapped mineral deposits, but poor infrastructure and investor caution are inhibiting development of its mining industry, its mines minister said.

Troops death toll in Afghanistan hits 600
by Karim Talbi – Mon Oct 25, 7:40 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The number of foreign troops to die this year in Afghanistan has reached 600, by far the highest annual toll in nine years of war despite tentative reconciliation efforts with the Taliban.

Russia supports greater role by India in Afghanistan
NEW DELHI, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Russia has expressed support for a greater role by India in Afghanistan, saying that both Russia and India were on the "same side" in their fight against international terrorism.

Terror Defendant Pleads Guilty Before Guantanamo Tribunal
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 25, 2010
A Canadian captive who was captured at the age of 15 in Afghanistan has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Al-Qaeda and killing a U.S. soldier before a U.S. war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.

Almond Production in Balkh Decreases by 2,000 Tonnes
Tolo news October 24, 2010
Officials in the Agriculture, Irrigation and livestock Directorate of the northern Balkh province have warned of low almond crops this year

Afghan gameshow brings relief, and a chance of cash
Reuters By Patrick Markey Sun Oct 24, 2010
KABUL - His country might be at war, but Afghan gameshow host Rahim Mirzad reckons his daily helping of fun and laughs is just the relief his audience needs -- and the chance to become a millionaire doesn't hurt.

Extremists winning the mind games
Asia Times By Syed Saleem Shahzad 10/24/2010
ISLAMABAD - The promotion of a progressive intellectual movement in the Muslim world was the brain-child of various American think-tanks as a means to counter radical Islam and al-Qaeda's ideological appeal.

Time running out to teach Afghan soldiers to be self-sufficient
Toronto Star By Paul Watson Star Columnist Mon Oct 25 2010
SPERWAN GAR, AFGHANISTAN - With each shuddering blast of the artillery guns, the Afghan National Army soldiers weaned themselves a little more from their Canadian military mentors.

Afghanistan Juggles Fraud, War And Maybe Peace
NPR By NPR Staff October 24, 2010
It has been another busy week in Afghanistan. Preliminary results from the country's parliamentary election show widespread fraud, and there is more speculation about talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Plus, war continues in the south of the country. Host Liane Hansen talks with NPR's Jackie Northam in Afghanistan.

Talks with the Taliban Still Face Many Hurdles
By Jason Motlagh time.com Monday, Oct. 25, 2010
In Afghanistan, it seems that everybody these days is talking about talks with the Taliban. Since President Hamid Karzai established a peace council last month to midwife negotiations between his government and the insurgents, an avalanche of media reports have suggested that something may finally be taking shape behind the scenes.

Afghan gameshow brings relief, and a chance of cash
Reuters By Patrick Markey Sun Oct 24, 2010
KABUL - His country might be at war, but Afghan gameshow host Rahim Mirzad reckons his daily helping of fun and laughs is just the relief his audience needs -- and the chance to become a millionaire doesn't hurt.

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Karzai says his office gets cash from Iran, US
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that once or twice a year, Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses and that Washington also provides "bags of money" because his office lacks funds.

Karzai's comments come a day after The New York Times reported that Iran was giving bags of cash to the president's chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, to buy his loyalty and promote Iranian interests in Afghanistan.

The Times quoted unnamed sources as saying the cash amounted to a slush fund that Karzai and Daudzai had used to pay Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders — and even Taliban commanders — to secure their loyalty.

Karzai told reporters Monday that he had instructed Daudzai, a former ambassador to Iran, to accept the money from Tehran.

"It is official and by my order," Karzai said.

He added that several nations have given money to his office — the first being the United Arab Emirates, which provided $1.5 million nine years ago when Afghanistan's interim government was formed.

"That was a big help and we submitted all the money to the central bank and we were paying for the daily expenses of the government," Karzai said. "After that, a number of other countries helped us in the same way."

Karzai did not offer details about how the money was spent, saying only that it was used to "help the presidential office" and to "dispense assistance" to certain individuals.

"This is transparent. This is something that I've even discussed while I was at Camp David with President Bush," he said, referring to meetings he had with former President George W. Bush at the U.S. presidential retreat outside Washington.

"It is not hidden," he said. "We are grateful for the Iranians' help in this regard. The United States is doing the same thing. They are providing cash to some of our offices."

Asked whether the U.S. actually gives bags full of cash to the presidential office, Karzai responded: "Yes, it does give bags of money."

The Associated Press requested comment from the U.S. Embassy, but has not yet received a response.

The Iranian embassy in Afghanistan dismissed the allegations that the Iranian government was making cash payments to Daudzai, calling them "ridiculous and insulting." The statement was issued earlier Monday, before Karzai's comments.

In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said he was not surprised that Karzai's office was receiving money from Iran, which he said was playing a destabilizing role in Afghanistan.

"I think Iran in Afghanistan — much as it has been in Iraq — has been walking both sides of the street for years," Morrell told MSNBC. "On one hand, as this report indicates, clearly trying to curry favor with the government while at the same time on the other hand, training, arming, financing, directing anti-government forces."
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Iran Must Not Meddle in Afghanistan, U.S. Says After Bag of Cash Reported
Bloomberg By William McQuillen and Phil Mattingly 25/10/2010
The U.S. said Iran shouldn’t interfere with Afghanistan’s internal affairs following a report that an Iranian official gave an aide of President Hamid Karzai a bag filled with packets of euro bills.

“We understand that Iran and Afghanistan are neighbors and will have a relationship,” Philip J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement “But Iran should not interfere with the internal affairs of the Afghan government.”

The New York Times reported today that, in August, Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Feda Hussein Maliki, gave a plastic bag filled with euros to Karzai’s chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, on Karzai’s personal aircraft. The Times cited an Afghan official who spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity.

The payment, part of a stream that totals millions of dollars, was intended to promote Iran’s interests and to counter U.S. and other western influence in Afghanistan, the Times said, citing unidentified Afghan and Western officials in Kabul.

“It’s not totally surprising at all,” said Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations. “The U.S. would be naive to think Iran is not trying to exert itself in Afghanistan.”

Anthony Cordesman, a senior defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also said the payment reported by the Times shouldn’t be a revelation for those with experience in the area.

Competing for Influence

“The truth is, you’ve been involved in a prolonged competition for influence in Afghanistan between the United States, Pakistan, India, Iran and to a lesser extent China and Russia since the start of this,” Cordesman said in a phone interview today. “They should scarcely be surprised by cash payments because they’re dealing with an economy where gray payments are part of the system.”

Karzai and Daudzai declined to respond to written questions from the Times about their relationship with Iran, the newspaper said. The Iranian ambassador also declined to answer questions, and his spokesman said the allegations were western media gossip, the newspaper said.

Iran has been providing funding for the government, as well as for its Taliban opponents, the Times reported, citing an unidentified senior NATO officer. Cash for the Taliban is aimed at undermining the U.S., not for ideological purposes, Coleman said.

“Iran has no love for the Taliban and the Taliban has no love for Iran,” Coleman said. “It’s not an ideological move between the groups, but a purely cynical move to support insurgent groups that tie down the United States.”

Sheltered Al-Qaeda

The militant Islamic Taliban controlled Afghanistan and sheltered the al-Qaeda terrorist network before being ousted by a U.S.-led invasion of the country following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S.

The U.S. cut diplomatic ties with Iran after the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran, where 52 diplomats were held hostage for 444 days. They were taken hostage during the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted the monarchy and brought Shiite Muslim clerics to power.

Calls to the Afghan Embassy in Washington and Iran’s delegation to the United Nations weren’t immediately returned. A recording at the Iranian interest section at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington said the office was closed and to call back at a later time.
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25 may have been killed in Afghanistan airstrike
By Katharine Houreld, Associated Press Writer – Mon Oct 25, 6:34 am ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – About 25 people may have been killed in a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Monday, an Afghan official said.

NATO officials confirmed there had been an airstrike in Helmand province but said initial reports indicated that there were no civilian casualties. The coalition was continuing to look into the operation, the officials said.

The head of Helmand's provincial council, Fazal Bari, said local officials had told him that 25 people had been killed but that the casualty figures could rise because many bodies were still buried in the rubble.

He said the dead were inside a mosque in Baghran district, but NATO says it has no reports of a mosque being struck. Baghran is the northernmost district in Helmand, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

"People are very angry," said eyewitness Salah Ayap, a 26-year-old driver in Maigan village where the strike took place. He said that foreign troops arrived in the village around 2 a.m. and there was a fierce gunfight before the airstrike.

Only two walls and one small room of the large mosque were now standing, he said, and villagers were digging the dead out from the rubble with farming tools and washing them for burial. He said nearby houses has also been damaged, and some civilians were wounded and a 10-year-old child killed.

In the capital of Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told reporters that once or twice a year Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses. He said the U.S. has known about the Iranian assistance for years and that Washington also gives the palace "bags of money."

There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials.

Karzai's remarks came in response to a The New York Times report a day earlier that Iran was giving cash to the Afghan president's chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, to buy his loyalty and promote Iranian interests in neighboring Afghanistan.

The newspaper quoted unnamed sources saying the money had been used to pay Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders — even Taliban commanders.

Karzai says several nations give his office money because it lacks revenue.

In an unrelated incident, an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan killed a NATO service member, the coalition said in a statement on Monday, bringing to 50 the number of coalition soldiers killed this month. The statement did not provide further details on Sunday's death.

In the eastern province of Khost, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle at a checkpoint, killing two civilians and a police officer, said provincial police chief Abdul Hakin Esaqzoy. He said five police and five civilians were also wounded.

The Afghan insurgency has traditionally been fiercest in the country's south and east, along the border with Pakistan. Most of the insurgency's top commanders are believed to be hiding in the mountainous Pakistan border area. NATO and Afghan troops have been trying to wrest back control of the southern provinces from the Taliban since July, but attacks and roadside bombs are still daily occurrences.

NATO has also been trying to kill or capture Taliban leaders in airstrikes and in joint ground operations with the Afghan army.

Residents say the push has resulted in patches of security in the south, but the insurgency has stepped up attacks in other parts of the country, including the north, which has traditionally been more stable.

In northern Afghanistan Monday, a suicide attacker blew up his explosives-laden car in Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, said Mahmood Akmal, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

The attacker died, but no one else was injured in the blast, which appeared to be targeting a coalition convoy, he said.

___

Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
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NATO confirms killing 15 militants in Taliban hotbed
KABUL, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Monday confirmed killing 15 militants in Taliban hotbed Helmand province of southern Afghanistan.

"Afghan National Security troops and International Security Assistance Forces targeted a senior Taliban leader during a joint operation in Baghran district, Helmand province, Monday," ISAF said in a statement released here.

The targeted senior Taliban leader is a member of the Taliban military commission which oversees and guides all Taliban military actions in Helmand province. He is also the former Taliban deputy shadow governor of Helmand province, the statement added but did not give his name.

It said multiple intelligence reports led the combined security force to the senior Taliban facilitator's location, adding upon arrival at the location the joint security force immediately took fire from several insurgents.

"The joint security force returned fire, killing four insurgents," it emphasized.

A total of six men, six women and 12 children exited peacefully from the compound and were protected, the statement further said.

As the joint security force was preparing to depart the area, a group of 11 heavily-armed insurgents in three vehicles and six motorcycles approached the joint security force at high speed in an apparent attempt to engage the force, it said.

"Upon determining the insurgents a threat, close air support assets using precision fire weapons, fired on the approaching insurgents killing all 11 insurgents," it further stressed.

After ensuring that no civilians were in or around the IED ( Improvised Explosive Device) factory and the adjacent weapons cache, the joint force called in close air support assets and destroyed them, it stated.

It said a handful of suspected militants were also detained by Afghan forces.

Earlier, Deputy to chairman of Helmand Provincial Council Hajji Fazal Bari in talks with Xinhua said 25 militants including four commanders were killed in Baghran district late Sunday.

However, some locals said that several civilians may have been among those killed during the air raids.
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Holbrooke: Nothing close to formal peace talks in Afghanistan
By Tom Cohen, CNN October 24, 2010
Washington (CNN) -- Reconciliation talks in Afghanistan between the government and Taliban insurgents are less formal than full-fledged peace negotiations, U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

In comments to CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program, Holbrooke said the contacts so far involve "an increasing number of Taliban at high levels" who have approached President Hamid Karzai's government to talk about possible reconciliation.

According to Holbrooke, media reports may have created the false impression of formal negotiations akin to the process that led to the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian conflict.

"That is not the case," said Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan who was a major figure in the Dayton talks.

Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, has acknowledged that U.S. and NATO troops are ensuring security for Taliban fighters and insurgent leaders who want to travel to meet with government officials.

"Indeed, in certain respects, we do facilitate that," Petraeus recently told a London audience, "given that, needless to say, it would not be the easiest of tasks for a senior Taliban commander to enter Afghanistan and make his way to Kabul" if the NATO forces were not aware and willing to allow it to happen.

Inside the International Security Assistance Force, it is privately acknowledged by top officials that this has included "safe passage," essentially promising not to attack or bomb convoys or locations that may involve insurgents trying to contact the Karzai government.

But several top ISAF officials also caution that substantive progress has not yet been made in getting Taliban and insurgent leaders to talk to the government. As one indicator, British Maj. Gen. Phil Jones, head of the ISAF reintegration effort, told CNN that safe passage events "are fairly rare things, to be frank."

Holbrooke said lack of a clear Taliban leadership structure prevents the contacts so far from approaching any kind of formal negotiation.

"There's no Ho Chi Minh. There's no Slobodan Milosevic. There's no Palestinian authority," he said in reference to well-known peace negotiations involving Vietnam, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Middle East. "There is a widely dispersed group of people that we roughly call the enemy."

Among the elements comprising enemy forces in Afghanistan are al Qaeda, "with which there's no possibility of any discussion at all," as well as the Afghan Taliban, which "seems to be a loose organization with a very shadowy arrangement," Holbrooke said.

He also named the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, a terrorist group that that has tried to attack the United States; the Haqqani network, which he called "a notorious, separate group of Afghan Taliban inside Pakistan who do a great deal of the mayhem and carnage inside Afghanistan;" and the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba group involved in the Mumbai, India, terrorist attack.

"Now, I've just listed five groups. An expert could add another 30," Holbrooke said. "So the idea of peace talks ... doesn't really add up to the way this thing is going to evolve."

Holbrooke emphasized that a successful solution to the Afghanistan conflict remains a "daunting task," and that a military solution is not the goal.

"We can't win it militarily, and we don't seek to win it militarily because a pure military victory is not possible, as Gen. Petraeus and his colleagues have repeatedly said," Holbrooke explained.

"The American public should understand that this is not going to be solved overnight," he said. "It is going to be a difficult struggle. It has a political component, where you're not trying to win this war militarily, and a Dayton-type negotiation is also very unlikely. But some kind of political element to this is essential, and we are looking at every aspect of this."

In Afghanistan, Petraeus' military strategy includes significantly increasing ground and air attacks to pressure the Taliban into believing they have no option but to come to the negotiating table.

ISAF officials say the current rate of strikes is about four to five times what it was 18 months ago.

State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley recently said American officials are not involved in the talks between the Afghan government and members of the Taliban leadership, but U.S. officials do have "some knowledge" of what's going on during the meetings.

Crowley said ISAF has advance knowledge of the meetings and ensures that "there is safe passage for these meetings to take place."

CNN's Barbara Starr contributed to this report.
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Afghanistan: More high-level Taliban interested in talks: Holbrooke
Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP) 24 Oct 2010 By Jim Mannion
WASHINGTON — High-level Taliban leaders are showing interest in talks with the US-backed government in Kabul in increasing numbers, as pressure mounts from an intensifying NATO military campaign, a special US envoy said Sunday.

But Richard Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, cautioned that the feelers so far add up to "contacts and discussions" rather than peace negotiations to end a war now in its tenth year.

"What we've got here is an increasing number of Taliban at high levels saying, 'Hey, we want to talk,'" he said. "We think this is a result in large part of the growing pressure they're under from General (David) Petraeus and the ISAF command."

Holbrooke's comments in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria were the latest sign that Washington is encouraging Afghan President Hamid Karzai's peace overtures toward the Taliban as it looks to begin drawing down a US surge force next year.

Karzai has set up a High Council for Peace to pursue a dialogue with the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

The New York Times reported last week that Taliban leaders were being offered safe passage by NATO troops from their sanctuaries in Pakistan, and in one case were flown to Kabul in a NATO aircraft.

Some commentators have seen the turn as part of a "fight and talk" strategy by Petraeus, the ISAF commander, who has escalated drone attacks in Taliban sanctuaries while using his surge forces to weaken insurgent strongholds in the south.

Holbrooke, a veteran of war-ending peace negotiations in other conflicts, cautioned not to expect the war in Afghanistan to be settled by formal peace negotiations as they were in Vietnam or Bosnia.

"In this particular case, unlike the two issues I mentioned a moment ago, there is no clear single address that you go to.

"There's no Ho Chi Minh. There's no Slobodan Milosevic. There's no Palestinian Authority. There is a widely dispersed group of people that we roughly call the enemy," he said.

The list of groups includes the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Pakistani Taliban, the Al-Haqqani network, Hesb-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Al-Qaeda.

The only group Holbrooke specifically ruled out talks with was Al-Qaeda.

"So the idea of peace talks, to use your phrase, or negotiations, to use another phrase, doesn't really add up to the way this thing is going to evolve," Holbrooke said.

But he said the war could not be won militarily and "some kind of political element to this is essential, and we are looking at every aspect of this."

Holbrooke was guarded about the role in talks of Pakistan, which is widely reported to maintain links to Taliban groups as a way to preserve its influence in Afghanistan after NATO forces depart.

Pakistan has resisted US pressure to move against militants in North Waziristan, a tribal area on its northwestern border with Afghanistan that some of the most effective militant groups have used as a sanctuary.

Beyond the threat it poses to US and NATO operations in Afghanistan, the sanctuary is also seen as a base to plot and train for attacks against the West by groups like Al-Qaeda.

"Let me just say that we have discussed this with the Pakistanis. Right now they have 70,000 of their troops working on flood relief in Pakistan," Holbrooke said.

"I'm not here to defend the Pakistani military or to attack them. They know our views on the importance of this area you're talking about."
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Dutch aid worker abducted in Afghanistan: officials
by Gul Rahim
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – Gunmen kidnapped a Dutch aid worker and his Afghan driver on Monday in the increasingly volatile north of Afghanistan, local officials said.

"A Dutch aid worker working for an NGO (non-governmental organisation) that helps the disabled was abducted today in Khan Abad district," Faiz Mohammad Tawhidi, Takhar provincial spokesman, told AFP.

The abducted pair were travelling in a private car to neighbouring Kunduz province when they were stopped by armed men and snatched at gunpoint, an Afghan intelligence official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The Dutch government later confirmed that gunmen had kidnapped one of its citizens and his Afghan driver.

"I can confirm that a Dutch man and his Afghan driver were abducted in northern Afghanistan today," foreign affairs ministry spokesman Christoph Prommersberger told AFP in The Hague.

"They were held up in their car at gunpoint."

Prommersberger said the Dutch embassy in Kabul was in contact with Afghan authorities.

"Where necessary and possible, we will support Afghanistan in bringing this matter to a positive conclusion."

Prommersberger could not confirm reports that the man worked for a Dutch NGO, nor would he give his name or "any personal information".

Criminal groups and insurgents have kidnapped several dozen foreigners since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul. Victims are often sold on to insurgent groups, although the majority are released safe and well.

Monday's abduction comes just weeks after a British aid worker was killed during an attempted rescue by US forces in Afghanistan. She was kidnapped along with three Afghan colleagues on September 26, also on the open road.

Linda Norgrove died of penetrating "fragment injuries" to her head and chest, an inquest heard in Britain and her funeral is to be held on Tuesday on the Isle of Lewis, off the northwest Scottish mainland.

US and NATO officials initially believed Norgrove was killed when one of her captors blew up a suicide vest -- but a subsequent military review suggested she may have been killed by a rescuer's grenade.

A member of the elite US Navy SEALs suspected of having accidentally killed her could face disciplinary action, officials have said.

The British press said the attempted rescue was ordered because officials believed her life was in danger, with her captors talking about killing her, based on eavesdropping on radio conversations and other intelligence.

Her three Afghan colleagues were released unharmed on October 3.

In August a 36-year-old British doctor, Karen Woo, was shot dead along with a German and six American medical aid workers in the northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan. Two Afghans were also killed in the attack.

French journalists Stephane Taponier and Herve Ghesquiere, who work for the television channel France 3, have been held hostage in Afghanistan since being kidnapped east of Kabul on December 30 in an area rife with insurgents.

Although the Taliban rebellion has been concentrated in the south and east of the country, it has spread progressively since the 2001 US-led invasion toppled their Islamist regime.

The violence is now killing record numbers of Afghan civilians and members of the 152,000-strong US and NATO-led foreign military, and increasingly threatening parts of the north once considered relatively safe.
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AFGHANISTAN: Security firm ban will not hurt us - NGOs
25 Oct 2010 16:19:27 GMT
KABUL, 25 October 2010 (IRIN) - President Hamid Karzai's decision to dissolve all private security companies in Afghanistan will not adversely affect the work of NGOs, civil society representatives say.

"The closure of private security companies will have absolutely no impact on NGOs," Laurent Sailard, director of ACBAR, a coordinating body of over 100 Afghan and foreign relief agencies, told IRIN.

"If all private security companies are shut down tomorrow it will have no negative impact on NGOs but will even have some positive impact given that there will be less armed people around," said Nic Lee, director of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO).

Of the 380 organizations receiving free security information from ANSO only a few use private security services, he said. ACBAR also said the few NGOs with links with security firms tended to use their advice rather than armed guards.

However, some private contractors and donor organizations warn they will be unable to work without private security arrangements - something that may indirectly affect the work of some civil society groups.

Some NGOs receive funding from the US Agency for International development (USAID) and other donor agencies and the inability of such donors to monitor projects due to a perceived lack of effective security arrangements, could impact those projects.

By January 2011, all private security companies, except those operating inside embassies, international organizations and foreign military bases, must be dissolved and replaced by Afghan police forces, according to a decree issued by President Karzai on 17 August.

Up to 40,000 Afghans are employed by dozens of security firms, both foreign and local; President Karzai has accused some of colluding with armed opposition groups and criminal gangs.

US pressure

US government agencies and contractors are the biggest users of private security services in Afghanistan, and the US government, which is also the biggest donor to Afghanistan, has asked Karzai to consider compromises to avoid disrupting projects.

"We recognize that there's a gap that presently exists, and we are working through - with the Afghan government and others within the international community - to try to figure out how to help Afghanistan implement its decree, but at the same time make sure that essential operations continue to function," Philip J. Crowley, assistant secretary in the US State Department, told reporters on 22 October.

Karzai responded in a 20 October speech: "Our foreign friends should not come asking us to allow these companies to continue their activities… Instead, they should help strengthen our police."

Providing security for diplomats and aid workers, including UN employees, is primarily the responsibility of the Afghan government, experts say.

However, the fledging Afghan security forces, particularly the police, are not trusted by foreign diplomatic and development entities which prefer to hire private international guards.

Some UN agencies have also hired private international guards at their offices in Kabul and elsewhere in the country. Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy, paid tribute to "internal international security guards for their bravery and courage" after an attack on a UN office in Herat Province on 23 October.

"Misunderstanding"

"There is a misunderstanding about NGOs and private contractors and companies," said ACBAR's Sailard: Media reports suggesting NGOs would be unable to work without private security companies were "misinformation and erroneous".

NGOs are non-profit and operate according to humanitarian principles, but there are also numerous for-profit contractors which carry out rebuilding and development services for the military or a belligerent government, he said.

NGOs have a long history of work in Afghanistan but private security companies have mushroomed only in the past nine years, aid workers say.

"NGOs don't use weapons and don't hire armed guards for security," said ANSO's Nic Lee.
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Afghanistan to develop $3 trillion in mining potential
By Amena Bakr Mon Oct 25, 2010 12:14pm EDT
DUBAI (Reuters) - Afghanistan is estimated to be sitting on $3 trillion worth of untapped mineral deposits, but poor infrastructure and investor caution are inhibiting development of its mining industry, its mines minister said.

"This estimate is based only on 30 percent of the country's area; there is still 70 percent we have no idea about," Afghan Mines Minister Wahidullah Shahrani told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an industry conference in Dubai on Monday.

Since the start of the year, the ministry has been making presentations in London and New York to drum up investor interest in the nascent mining sector.

By July next year, the ministry hopes to award a tender to a foreign company for the development of the Hajigak iron ore deposit west of Kabul, said Shahrani.

"We estimate that there are 2 billion tonnes of reserves in Hajigak, with a 62 percent of iron concentration," he added.

U.S. defense officials, who recently examined the results of a 2007 USGS survey and other information from the Soviet era, estimate Afghanistan's mineral wealth could top $1 trillion.

Mining experts say this figure is untested, however, and caution that it will take years, even decades, for that level of revenue to materialize because of a host of problems from war and infrastructure to a government trying to overcome years of corruption.

In February, Afghanistan had scrapped an earlier tender for the Hajigak deposit, citing global recession and low investor interest in a large vertically integrated project.

Afghanistan awarded a giant copper contract in 2007 to a Chinese consortium to develop a deposit in the Aynak region south of Kabul, and Shahrani said he expected there would be Chinese and Indian interest in the forthcoming iron ore tender.

The ministry also plans to launch tenders by late 2011 for the Balkhab copper deposit, which has reserves of around 45 million tonnes and is located in the north, he said.

"This will be a very active year for issuing tenders, and we want to assure investors that the government will not interfere in the mining business and will only have a regulatory role in the process," he added.

(Reporting by Amena Bakr; Editing by Jane Baird)
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Troops death toll in Afghanistan hits 600
by Karim Talbi – Mon Oct 25, 7:40 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The number of foreign troops to die this year in Afghanistan has reached 600, by far the highest annual toll in nine years of war despite tentative reconciliation efforts with the Taliban.

The milestone was reached after a NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announcement that a soldier had been killed in an insurgent attack in the east on Sunday.

Another NATO soldier was killed in a bomb blast in the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan on the same day.

The toll of 600, according to an AFP tally based on a count kept by the icasualties.org website, compares to 521 killed in all of 2009 in what was previously the deadliest year on record for the forces in Afghanistan.

On average, two soldiers die each day. A total of 2,170 foreign soldiers have been killed since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan which overthrew the hardline Islamist Taliban regime.

A Taliban-led insurgency has since strengthened each year, but it is most intense in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.

At least 1,348 American troops are among the dead, and the US military provides two-thirds of the 150,000-strong international force in Afghanistan.

Foreign and Afghan forces are currently engaged in a major offensive around Kandahar city -- the largest city in the south -- aimed at pushing the insurgents out of the area to bring an end to the war.

The surge in military deaths has followed the deployment of about 40,000 extra US and NATO troops under a White House strategy designed to clear major towns and cities of the Taliban and restore confidence in the government.

The Afghan interior ministry said that bombings killed five people on Monday. Three died in a suicide attack on a police checkpoint in the eastern province of Khost and two civilians in a roadside bombing in Helmand province.

Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon headed to Kabul on Monday for two days of talks with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai focused on the deteriorating security situation.

A majority-Muslim country and the poorest state to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago, Tajikistan has been wracked over the last two months by violence blamed on Islamist militants.

Dushanbe has said the incidents -- including a devastating attack on a military convoy that killed at least 28 soldiers last month -- were plotted and carried out by Al-Qaeda-linked militants operating out of Afghanistan.

The US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan said an increasing number of Taliban leaders are showing interest in talks with the US-backed government in Kabul as pressure mounts from the intensifying NATO military campaign.

"What we've got here is an increasing number of Taliban at high levels saying, 'Hey, we want to talk,'" Richard Holbrooke told CNN in an interview.

"We think this is a result in large part of the growing pressure they're under from General (David) Petraeus and the ISAF command."

But he cautioned that the feelers so far add up to "contacts and discussions" rather than peace negotiations to end the war.

The New York Times reported last week that Taliban leaders were being offered safe passage by NATO troops from their sanctuaries in Pakistan, and in one case were flown to Kabul in a NATO aircraft.

Karzai has set up a High Council for Peace to pursue dialogue with the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

Western public opinion is growing increasingly tired of the war, angry over corruption within Karzai's government and mounting casualties.

Dutch troops ended their mission in Afghanistan on August 1. Italy plans to hand over control of large parts of western Afghanistan by the end of 2011.

Canada, which is the sixth-largest contributor of troops, intends to pull its estimated 2,830 troops out of the south in 2011. US President Barack Obama has said he wants American troops to start withdrawing from July 2011.

The objective is for Afghanistan to take over responsibility for security by late 2014, but experts doubt that local security forces will be big enough or sufficiently well trained to shoulder the burden on schedule.
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Russia supports greater role by India in Afghanistan
NEW DELHI, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Russia has expressed support for a greater role by India in Afghanistan, saying that both Russia and India were on the "same side" in their fight against international terrorism.

"We desire that India's role increases in Afghanistan. This is what we desire and this is our thought process. What Russia can do for Afghan people, it is doing and will continue to do," local media quoted Russian Federation Ambassador to India Alexander M Kadakin as saying on Sunday.

"The facilities that we created in Afghanistan during the Soviet era, we are rebuilding and repairing them. We will do this. We are helping the Afghan Home Ministry also," said the Russian envoy who was in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand to witness Indo-Russian joint Army exercise "Indra 2010".

Kadakin also said Indian and Russian thinking on Afghanistan was the same.

"We want Afganistan to be peaceful, democratic country, and not a source of terrorism. We are against... if American and allied forces leave immediately, overnight, there will be a 'gadbad' ( crisis). This gadbad (crisis) is not good for India or Russia," he was quoted as saying.

He said any crisis in Afghanistan will have huge impact on Russia due to drug trafficking and arms smuggling.
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Terror Defendant Pleads Guilty Before Guantanamo Tribunal
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 25, 2010
A Canadian captive who was captured at the age of 15 in Afghanistan has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Al-Qaeda and killing a U.S. soldier before a U.S. war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.

The Canadian captive, Omar Khadr, has spent nine years in custody and could be sent home in a year to finish serving his sentence for the five terrorism charges.

The details of the plea deal were not disclosed.

The tribunal jury, of seven U.S. military officers, is expected to gather on October 26 to issue a sentence. Some reports suggested his lawyers had sought an eight-year cap on his total sentence.

The plea means Khadr foregoed his right to appeal the sentence.

He could have faced a life sentence in connection with charges against him.

The case apparently marks the first time since World War II that a war crimes tribunal has prosecuted a defendant for acts allegedly committed as a juvenile.

Khadr admitted to killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade during a gun battle at an Al-Qaeda compound in 2002.

His plea, the second before the tribunal since U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to close the Guantanamo detention center when taking office in January 2009, included an acknowledgement of the court's jurisdiction.

compiled from agency reports
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Almond Production in Balkh Decreases by 2,000 Tonnes
Tolo news October 24, 2010
Officials in the Agriculture, Irrigation and livestock Directorate of the northern Balkh province have warned of low almond crops this year

The sudden cold weather in the first months of this year and the climate changes are the main reasons for a decrease in almond crops this year, the officials said.

Officials in the Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Directorate of Balkh said almond is one of the province's major exports, and the directorate is doing its best to enhance almond crops in the years ahead.

"Our total almond production throughout the province was 5,000 tonnes this year which was mainly exported to Kabul," Abdul Wakil Niazi, a senior official in the Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Directorate of Balkh said.

Local almond sellers in the province have also expressed concern over the import of low-quality almonds from abroad, that is mixed with local almonds and get exported.

"Our almond production has decreased 60% this year, compared to last year," an almond seller told TOLOnews reporter.

The Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Directorate of Balkh has said that the Afghan government is planning to plant almond trees in around 2,000 acres of land in the provice.
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Afghan gameshow brings relief, and a chance of cash
Reuters By Patrick Markey Sun Oct 24, 2010
KABUL - His country might be at war, but Afghan gameshow host Rahim Mirzad reckons his daily helping of fun and laughs is just the relief his audience needs -- and the chance to become a millionaire doesn't hurt.

In a rundown warehouse studio on Kabul's dusty outskirts, Mirzad presents the "Treasure" -- "Ganjina" in Afghanistan's Dari language -- gameshow, where prize money of up to one million afghanis ($21,000) is on offer, a fortune in one of the world's poorest countries.

"In Afghanistan after 30 years of war, we had no gameshows, no big television programs like this. This is fun," said Mirzad, a former journalist. "When they see how emotional people are and how they react, it lets them forget everything."

Producers say the show is popular but risque for Afghanistan, where conservative Muslim clerics have in the past sought to ban foreign soap operas seen as a corrupting influence running against Islamic principles.

Just like a similar Western gameshow, Ganjina contestants choose one of 20 boxes representing an amount of cash from one to one million afghanis. Contestants eliminate boxes one by one and take home the amount in the last box.

The program came back on air on local TOLO TV two weeks ago after it was banned briefly by the government because of complaints it depicted gambling.

Afghanistan's government has tussled before over television content. The cultural ministry two years ago ordered stations to stop broadcasting Indian soap operas it deemed un-Islamic.

For all Ganjina's modest set -- glass floor tiles are cracked and smaller contestants have to stand on red bricks to lift them up behind their podium -- the program has a loyal following.

"You get to take something home with you. When it is a matter of money everyone is interested," said Masood Sanjer, channel manager at TOLO TV.

NO U.S. MILLIONAIRE

In a country where violence has stunted development and forced the government to rely on foreign aid, television and telecommunications are two industries enjoying growth.

Afghanistan's war is at its bloodiest since the conflict began in 2001 when U.S. and Afghan forces ousted the Taliban leaders from power.

A decade after the Taliban were toppled, Afghanistan television airwaves have their staple of soap operas and news programs, a sharp contrast to the austerity imposed by the Taliban, when TV and music were banned by religious police.

Still, Ganjina's celebration of cash irks some of the country's conservative clerics.

"This program keeps thousands of young Afghans away from learning their religious education," said cleric Mowlawi Gull Ahmad at a Kabul mosque.

"This is just a waste of time, this is just greed."

The program recently got its first Afghani millionaire, a government worker, but is far from the U.S. program "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire."

Famous mosques and mountain scenes from Afghanistan decorate the walls of the studio. Dressed in a grey suit and purple shirt, Mirzad conducts the show from a dais, playing to the camera which swings on a crane counterbalanced with 20-kg gym weights.

Only one of the 20 contestants was a woman, smartly dressed in a blue suit and a pink headscarf.

On a recent recording, school children, women in shawls and young men in jeans packed on to the studio's basic wooden bleacher-like seating, Western pop music blaring before they exploded into whistles as Mirzad strolled onto the set.

A young man chosen as the first contestant drew groans from the audience after losing out on top prizes shortly after starting his round -- including the one million afghani pot. Minutes later he was left with his final prize: 10 afghanis, or just 25 cents.

"You really wiped the smile off my face when you lost the one million," Mirzad told him. "Now you've won the lowest prize on this program. Best of luck in the future."

(Editing by Sugita Katyal)
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Extremists winning the mind games
Asia Times By Syed Saleem Shahzad 10/24/2010
ISLAMABAD - The promotion of a progressive intellectual movement in the Muslim world was the brain-child of various American think-tanks as a means to counter radical Islam and al-Qaeda's ideological appeal.

In Pakistan, the regime of General Pervez Musharraf (president from June 2001 to August 2008) adopted the idea and brought forward credible modernist Islamic scholars and their schools of thought.

Another experiment after Musharraf stepped down and his idea fizzled was to launch a Sufi movement to confront radical Islam. Sufism is defined by its adherents as "the inner, mystical dimension of Islam".

However, this creeping modernizing, which attained considerable success, was halted in its tracks, handing the advantage back to extremists, including the Taliban.

The establishment-backed Sufi movement was led by the Brelvi school of thought, but it turned the debate of enlightenment and radicalism into a sectarian debate over Sufis and Salafis (Sunni Muslims in general opposed to both Sufi and Shi'ite doctrines).

Sufis were promoted in Khyber Agency and in the Swat area and other parts of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province to convince the population to turn against the Taliban. Government-sponsored conferences by the Brelvi school of thought against the Taliban were staged in urban centers.

Militants, though, exploited this sectarian sentiment to such a degree that the whole process of modernization was taken back to square one, and the government had to enlist the help of traditionalists to quell spiraling violence - more than 46 Sufis were killed in Swat in 2009.
Unrest continues, and this year militants have carried out organized attacks on Sufi shrines. The most recent strike was on October 7 against Abdullah Shah Ghazi's tomb in the port city of Karachi in which two suicide bombers killed eight people. This forced the closure of other shrines in Sindh province.

This sectarian strife has further evolved into a battle between radical Islam and moderates, whether they adhere to Sufism or a modernist Islamic school. Hence, articulate and non-aggressive modernist intellectuals have also been drawn into the line of fire.

A prominent Pakistani psychiatrist and religious scholar, Dr Farooq Khan, was among the modernist scholars; he was shot dead by the Taliban after they issued a target list of intellectuals working against their interests.

The main ideologue of the modernist movement, Dr Javed Ghamidi, left the country for Malaysia after learning of this threat, while others went into hiding and dropped out of the public eye.

The attack on the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine was the third high-profile incident in the past few months. Militants bombed the shrine of Sufi poet Rahman Baba in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province, attacked the shrine of Syed Ali Hijwari in Lahore, beside assaults on a number of small shrines across the country. Scores of people have been killed and hundreds injured.

"We simply don't have the police force to guarantee the safety of these shrines which have now become very vulnerable - every day crowds of hundreds go to them," a senior police official told Asia Times Online, adding that there were hundreds of shrines in Punjab alone. "It's not humanly possible to protect them."

Musharraf's gamble Musharraf's move to launch an intellectual movement against radical Islam was risky as it meant going against centuries-old religious beliefs, in particular the Mavera-un-Nahri traditions of Islam, a promoter of radicalism.

Musharraf's important policy speeches were written by a select group of modernist scholars who harshly criticized traditionalists. One of the most prominent, Javed Ghamidi, was installed as chairman of the Islamic Ideological Council, an official organization for the interpretation of Islamic tenets.

The Ministry of Information sponsored television programs that introduced Ghamidi and his ideological aides, including Khan - who left the country - and Dr Khalid Zaheer.

This intellectual movement emphasized that only a Muslim state could declare jihad (war) and therefore dismissed the Taliban-led Afghan resistance, the Palestinian struggle, the Iraqi resistance and all other Muslim struggles, saying they were not jihad.

Most of these modernist scholars, including Ghamidi, were formerly prominent figures of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI - a South Asian version of the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's oldest and largest Islamic political group that was founded in 1928 in Egypt.)

The JI has for years been the premier Islamic party in Pakistan and traditionally it has been considered the only intellectual Islamic movement that challenges liberal and secular systems in South Asia. In Pakistan, 80% of opinion leaders are believed to be adherents of the JI.

However, after leaving the JI, Ghamidi started to change the ideological course of the country. While lower cadre in the JI were siphoned off by al-Qaeda, the intellectual cadre were completely, according to a JI leader's own term, "Ghamidized". (See Pakistani students prefer guns to books Asia Times Online, July 27, 2010.)

At the same time, a sizeable number of young intellectuals in the radical camp were turned by the moderates, and these new "recruits" broadcast their newfound views in the media and in books.

Some of them became effective preachers on popular television channels against jihad. These scholars adopted a very moderate approach on other tenets of Islam, such as wearing the veil and music, and they strengthened Musharraf's argument for "enlightened moderation" in Pakistan. They also built up support for a modern syllabus in madrassas (seminaries) that traditional clerics had no choice but to accept.

At this point, Musharraf resigned and the movement lost momentum. The subsequent attempt to induct Sufism as an opposition force against the Taliban has now backfired and rolled back the whole process.

The main ideologue of the Sufi movement, Dr Sarfaraz Naeemi, was killed by a suicide bomber in 2009 and the serious of attacks on shrines this year has effectively closed down the epicenters of Sufism in Pakistan and silenced key leaders.

The government has even removed Ghamidi as chairman of the Islamic Ideology Council and replaced him with a traditionalist, Maulana Mohammad Khan Shirani, a member of the pro-Taliban Jamiat-e-Ulema-s-Islami.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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Time running out to teach Afghan soldiers to be self-sufficient
Toronto Star By Paul Watson Star Columnist Mon Oct 25 2010
SPERWAN GAR, AFGHANISTAN - With each shuddering blast of the artillery guns, the Afghan National Army soldiers weaned themselves a little more from their Canadian military mentors.

Long breaks to deal with wonky radios, and the pursuit of insurgents by American aircraft, threw the small unit of Afghan gunners off their rhythm Sunday. In a real fight, insurgents would have had lots of time to escape the death raining down.

But the Afghan soldiers did manage to fire 20 rounds from two Soviet-era howitzers without a disaster. Their Canadian mentors said the dull, distant thuds that followed each cannonading blast were accurate strikes against empty desert.

The trainees’ new skills won’t have much impact in a war against shadowy insurgents, whose most lethal weapon is homemade bombs, a conflict that’s now into its 10th year.

Yet it’s another, shaky step forward in the rush to build a professional army that can do more of the fighting on its own, and give Canada and its NATO allies here a credible way out of a war that is losing support back home.

“You’re trying to grow an army at the same time as you’re trying to train it,” Colonel Ian Creighton told the Toronto Star, after watching his troops’ protégés at work. “And it takes a tremendous amount of resources to do something like that in time.

“That’s one resource we’re all short on, is time,” added Creighton, 50, of Scarborough. “We’re racing right now. But my troops worked day and night with these Afghans and they’re all keen. They take great pride in their ability to fire these guns.”

As the Afghans aimed their howitzer barrels south, Afghan combat units backed by U.S. troops and airpower continued their push to seize nearby western Panjwai, which NATO commanders call the Taliban’s main base for attacks on Kandahar city.

They say allied forces have surrounded the town of Talukan, roughly in the middle of a strategic northern route through an insurgent stronghold known as the horn of Panjwai, where it’s slow going against compounds wired with improvised explosive devices.

Gen. David Petraeus, the American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, says the operation to clear insurgents from Zhari and Panjwai districts, west of Kandahar city, is in its final stages.

Canadian troops and Afghan soldiers are blocking escape routes to the east and south, across the desert toward Pakistan, while patrolling other areas of Panjwai, trying in an effort to keep Taliban-led insurgents off balance and on the run.

Canadian soldiers doing the dangerous grunt work of counter-insurgency caution that their enemy is resilient and adaptable, and say Taliban fighters remain in numerous villages, watching and waiting, as they usually do when winter approaches.

Spring normally marks the beginning of a new fighting season, so Petraeus is under intense pressure to get Afghan security forces steeled to hold cleared areas, and local Afghan leaders ready to provide an alternative to Taliban rule.

Canadian forces are due to begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan next spring, just when the insurgents are expected to make their toughest move to retake lost ground.

And after congratulating his artillery gunners with certificates and handshakes Sunday, Brigadier-General Ahmad Abibi left no doubt he wants Canadian troops to stay, if only as trainers.

“It doesn’t matter how capable our army is,” he told the Star through an interpreter.

“They still need more training and resupply.

“Canadians have done a great job with mentorship and resupply. But our army is young. In this short period of time, we’ve had a lot of success. We are still in extreme need of Canadian help.”

In Panjwai villages where Canadian troops are relying more heavily on Afghan soldiers, often backing up operations planned and led by ANA forces, sharing critical materiel with poorly equipped Afghans is common.

Canadians have loaned night vision equipment to Afghan troops so they can have an advantage against insurgents in night operations, and have a better chance of spotting them from outposts guarding key routes.

Radio links are sometimes so feeble that Canadian soldiers patrolling at night have to shout as they approach ANA soldiers’ compounds to avoid getting shot at.

A year ago, the U.S. defense department’s inspector general listed several shortages that were hampering the ANA’s development, including too few howitzers and mortars, as well as insufficient communications and engineering equipment.

The auditor general stressed the need to supply more D-30 122 mm howitzers, the same type being fired here Sunday.

“Continued shortage of D30s and lack of parts to service these howitzers deprives the ANA of a critical combat enabler that will have to be provided by the U.S. and the (NATO-led) coalition on a continuing basis, and limits the operational capability of the ANA forces,” the report added.

The U.S. considered sending the Afghans American-made U.S made 105-mm howitzers, but dropped the idea because the ANA already has a significant number of D-30s, which are simpler to maintain and operate, and its shells are in ANA stocks.

The auditor general also pointed to significant gaps in the supply chain that keeps Afghan troops and police supplied with food, ammunition, equipment and other items they need to stay in the fight.

“Neither the Afghan National Army nor the Afghan National Police had enough trained and experienced logistics personnel to make their logistics processes and procedures function properly,” the report said in September 2009.

“Moreover, trained logistics personnel and units had been periodically diverted to ‘front line’ security roles, which has been the Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces’ priority.”

The effort to build up the security forces is so daunting because Canadian and other allied mentors haven’t simply been polishing a professional force’s skills. They’ve been building a fighting force from scratch, in the middle of an often ferocious war.

When the U.S. went to war against the Taliban following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, former Northern Alliance guerrillas fought alongside American Forces units, who called in massive airstrikes.

In those days, Afghan artillery skills consisted of pointing rusting howitzers and multiple rocket launchers in the general direction of a target, opening fire and hoping someone bad got hit.

In the next month or so, the artillery unit mentored by Canadians will be getting new Russian D30 howitzers that have been better maintained, and are less weathered than their current arsenal, said Lieutenant Josh Barber.

A former developmental social worker, Barber knows the value of patience. He thinks his Afghan artillery trainees are ready to go into battle.

“You’ve got to look for small victories,” said Barber, 29, of Deep River, Ont. “If you look for them to all of a sudden be a fully capable, Western-standard artillery with all the bells and whistles, then you set yourself up for failure.

“Do they have all the equipment that Westerners have? No they don’t. But they are firing the way we used to fire. And accurately.”

Faced with largely illiterate army recruits, Canadian mentors had to start by teaching basic reading and math skills required to calculate targeting information so that shells are less likely to kill friendly forces or civilians.

Captain Mark Lee, who leads a 17-member Canadian team of mentors, has spent long hours working with Afghan commanders to persuade them to put more trust in their non-commissioned officers in the field, so they can make quick decisions in the heat of battle.

He has also struggled to get ANA troops to ask for resupply from their own logistics operation instead of the preferred option: asking Canadians for freebies.

“We’re going to be gone, probably, next summer and these guys, potentially, will be on their own,” said Lee, 33, of Halifax. “Nobody’s going to be there with handouts for them.

“They have a system in place that works, so we’ve been teaching them how to use it properly. They ask us for food, water and fuel. And we say, ‘Guys, you can get this stuff. It’ll take a little bit of work, but you can get it.’”

Lee sympathizes because he’s dealing with Afghan soldiers who are tired, risking their lives for low pay. And, in most cases, they are northerners fighting far from home.

He doesn’t see whiners doing a chore, but dedicated soldiers eager to succeed.

“We’re taking baby steps here,” Lee said.

He can’t wait to see the gunners stand on their own, in battle with the Taliban, all barrels blazing.
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Afghanistan Juggles Fraud, War And Maybe Peace
NPR By NPR Staff October 24, 2010
It has been another busy week in Afghanistan. Preliminary results from the country's parliamentary election show widespread fraud, and there is more speculation about talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Plus, war continues in the south of the country. Host Liane Hansen talks with NPR's Jackie Northam in Afghanistan.

LIANE HANSEN, host:

It's been a busy week in Afghanistan. Preliminary results from the country's parliamentary elections show widespread fraud. There's more speculation about talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. And the war continues in the south of the country.

NPR's foreign affairs correspondent Jackie Northam joins us from the Afghan capital Kabul to fill in the details.

Good morning, Jackie.

JACKIE NORTHAM: Good morning, Liane.

HANSEN: Start with the peace talks. Afghan and U.S. officials say, ultimately, there has to be a political solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. There has to be some peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government. There are a lot of different accounts of whether the process is underway. What do you know?

NORTHAM: Well, as you say, there's certainly a lot of talk about any sort of -the possibility of peace talks. But there are so many conflicting accounts about who is talking to whom and what level of the Taliban structure is involved.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that he's already begun secret peace talks. But there has been some backtracking or clarification of his statements. Karzai's spokesman told us that, in fact, there's been some reaching out or signals by both sides, but certainly, no sit down negations have taken place.

And certainly, the Taliban's senior leadership has denied any notion of talking with the Karzai government, which it says is a puppet of the U.S. government. So really, the best we're seeing here right now is talks about talks, but really nothing substantial.

HANSEN: Is the United States already involved?

NORTHAM: Well, General David Petraeus, the overall commander here, says he supports the peace process, and has said that the U.S. has helped facilitate the safe passage of Taliban members here into Kabul.

But again, it's uncertain what level of Taliban they were, because all the signs we're getting here, all the statements by the insurgent group, it just doesn't appear that there were senior leaders of the Taliban here - which arguably are the ones with whom you want to be talking, because that's who's organizing the attacks against the U.S. and NATO forces here.

HANSEN: At the same time that the U.S. is facilitating the transport of those Taliban members into Kabul, it's kicked into high gear militarily - reports that a massive military operation is underway around Kandahar. Do you have any sense of how it's going?

NORTHAM: Well, reports from NATO and U.S. officials here say that the offensive around Kandahar region is going well, that they're clearing out the militants. And these officials also say that there's a cohesive military and civilian operation.

So, in other words, once the militants are cleared out, then you start trying to set up civil society - build up local governance, courts, institutions of society. That's the idea.

Now, if this is starting to sound familiar, Liane, you may want to go back to about a year and a half ago when the U.S. went to a place called Marjah, just a small town in the southern province of Helmand. They cleared out the Taliban. They tried to build up a government - do the same thing that they're trying to do in Kandahar. But it hasn't held. The Taliban began moving back in, and there's a full-out fight for control of Marjah.

And that's just a small speck of a town, not Taliban-central like Kandahar. So even though signs are looking good in Kandahar right now, I think the U.S. is going to be certainly careful before calling it a full-out success.

HANSEN: And briefly, about the election. The Afghans are still trying to sort out their government. They voted in parliamentary elections. It said 1.3 million of those votes have been disqualified. What happened?

NORTHAM: Well, the election commission did come out and say nearly 25 percent of the ballots cast were discarded because of fraud, and that there's still investigations underway. So the results of these parliamentary elections are not expected till the end of the month.

And this really doesn't help give the Afghan government legitimacy, especially as it comes so soon after last year's presidential election, which, as you remember, was also ground down in fraud.

HANSEN: NPR's Jackie Northam, in Kabul.

Jackie, thank you very much.

NORTHAM: Thank you, Liane.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
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Talks with the Taliban Still Face Many Hurdles
By Jason Motlagh time.com Monday, Oct. 25, 2010
In Afghanistan, it seems that everybody these days is talking about talks with the Taliban. Since President Hamid Karzai established a peace council last month to midwife negotiations between his government and the insurgents, an avalanche of media reports have suggested that something may finally be taking shape behind the scenes. It's said that the two sides may already be having secret discussions, despite the Taliban's public stance that it won't do so until all foreign forces leave the country. U.S. officials, in turn, have expressed support for the initiative, claiming to have facilitated some of the meetings, even as American troops concurrently wage a major combat offensive across the militants' southern heartland. But no one from either camp with intimate knowledge of what's really happening has come forward with anything concrete. Is there a change in the wind, or just more hot air?

What's certain is that, with the Afghan conflict now entering it's 10th year and levels of violence at an all-time high, President Karzai is throwing what's left of his executive weight behind a political settlement that he sees as the only antidote to a failing military effort. Although sporadic, informal contacts between Afghan government and Taliban delegates abroad in recent years amounted to nothing more, many observers agree that a groundswell of international support for dialogue — combined with the U.S. military's plans to begin a troop drawdown next summer — has given the embattled President more traction to push for serious talks. The new peace council, composed of about 70 prominent Afghans tasked with creating a framework for any future discussions, would appear to be a solid down payment. Yet a host of sticking points on the government's side lie in the way of a possible sit-down — assuming the Taliban actually are ready to go to the negotiating table.

Should the insurgents be serious, Burhanuddin Rabbani, the council's head, has said a small team would be put together to meet with them. But to some critics, the selection of Rabbani, a former President and mujahedin leader who fought against the Taliban, is an immediate obstacle to peace. A host of Afghan parliamentarians and political commentators contend that his presence alongside other warlords on the council could deter long-standing Taliban enemies from going to the table. The critics are also skeptical of how a familiar cast of well-connected strongmen will stand up for Afghans who suffered as a result of their actions during the country's brutal civil war, during which thousands of civilians were killed by competing militia factions. "Don't they know that there are up to 30 million Afghans who have a right to determine the direction of their future too? ... Let's get rid of these selfish and egotistical people who think of themselves as leaders," wrote columnist Idrees Daniel in Kabul Weekly, an English-language newspaper.

According to a study done by Thomas Ruttig, director of the Afghan Analysts Network, an independent think tank in the capital, 53 of the 70 peace-council members are associated with armed groups that fought in the country's internal conflicts, including a dozen members who held positions in the Taliban's government from 1996 to 2001. The Network does credit a subset of the former Taliban in the peace council with working to "obtain a role as pioneer thinkers on peace and reconciliation-related issues" that could become a "meaningful channel for future negotiations." Otherwise, only a small minority — composed of 10 women and a couple of men — is without past affiliations, an imbalance that's troubling to a host of Afghan civic organizations that fear that freedom of speech, women's rights and other hard-won advances are bound to be abridged in negotiations with the Taliban. Says Fawzia Kufi, an MP from Badakhshan province: "There must first be an agreement on the preconditions."

Yet this presupposes that all parties can find a suitable place to hold talks. Taliban representatives are reportedly said to have made security assurances should they host the talks (perhaps in Pakistan, where the intelligence agency, the ISI, is widely believed to influence the movement's leadership council in Quetta). There is also the prospect of meeting in a third country, like Saudi Arabia, scene of previous meetings between Taliban and Afghan government representatives. Peace-council members, meanwhile, insist that NATO authorities should make the necessary assurances for meetings to be held on Afghan soil. The commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, last week asserted, without giving specifics, that safe passage had already been given to Taliban leaders. "It would not be the easiest of tasks for a senior Taliban commander to enter Afghanistan and make his way to Kabul if [the coalition] were not willing and aware of it and therefore allowing it to take place," he said.

But one of the top former Taliban officials living in Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, dismissed reports of high-level talks and guarantees as propaganda meant to sow confusion, asserting that it "would be stupid to trust the Americans." The onetime envoy to Pakistan, who spent several years in the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay after the Taliban's fall, explained that the stringent list of U.S. conditions (renounce violence, cut ties with al-Qaeda, respect the Afghan constitution) preclude any prospect for evenhanded talks. Indeed, he says the conditions were the reason he declined to be on the peace council. He is adamant that "powerful" foreign forces must leave the country for negotiations to begin in earnest, lest Taliban leaders feel threatened. "I know there is nothing going on between [the Afghan government and U.S.] and the Taliban," he told TIME in an interview at his Kabul home. "Why would they come when they are being targeted? There is no benefit."

Then again, although the cleric has in the past maintained phone contact with his former comrades-in-arms and still dons the telltale black turban, he no longer belongs to the movement. Asked for whom he ultimately speaks, he replied with a smile, "Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef." So far as the elusive Afghan peace talks are concerned, it's hard to take anyone's word for granted.
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