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Afghanistan says U.S.-Russia raid violated sovereignty
By Hamid Shalizi – Sat Oct 30, 8:26 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded on Saturday that NATO forces explain why they had carried out a joint counter-narcotics operation with Russian forces inside Afghanistan, calling it a violation of sovereignty.
Envoy: No peace talks underway with Afghan Taliban
By Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer Fri Oct 29, 4:17 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Leaders of the Taliban resistance in Afghanistan have shown no interest in a negotiated end to the war, despite an intensified and increasingly effective NATO military offensive, a senior Obama administration official said Friday.
Taliban attack on Afghan combat post repelled
by Faizullah Ghamkoor
KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) – An Afghan official said Saturday that 80 Taliban insurgents were killed during a failed attack on a NATO combat outpost near the border with Pakistan.
Foreign soldier killed in southern Afghanistan
Sat Oct 30, 3:04 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – A foreign soldier fighting the Taliban-led war in Afghanistan has been killed, NATO said, bringing this year's death toll to 608.
Suicide car bomb rocks Khost in E. Afghanistan
KHOST, Afghanistan, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- A suicide car bomb apparently targeted security forces in Tanai district of eastern Khost province Saturday, casualties feared, district governor Daulat Khan Qayumi said.
Afghan police training edges ahead as transition nears
By Patrick Markey – Sat Oct 30, 4:56 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – On a dusty shooting range still dotted with rusting husks of Soviet tanks, Afghanistan police recruits fire off three machine-gun rounds, stop, advance, and then fire at the targets again -- or at least most of them do.
U.S. Spending In Afghanistan Often Unaccounted For
by Rachel Martin NPR
October 29, 2010 The U.S. has spent billions of dollars on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, much of it on private contractors who do everything from train Afghan security forces to build schools.
Afghan election body has yet to announce election result although 6 weeks on
By Farid Behbud
KABUL, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Even though six weeks have passed from Sept. 18 when millions of war-weary Afghans dared Taliban threats and cast their ballots in the country's second parliamentary election, the final results have yet to come out.
Q+A-How are private security firms and Afghan aid linked?
KABUL, Oct 29 (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai remains committed to a decree to disband private security companies in Afghanistan, although he has offered concessions.
Afghans See Peril in Switching Sides
The Wall Street Journal - Europe Edition By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV OCTOBER 30, 2010
PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan - The Afghan government and the U.S.-led coalition scored an unexpected success here half a year ago, turning around more than 50 insurgents and recruiting them to fight their former Taliban allies. What happened since then, however, offers a cautionary tale of how much can go wrong with the so-called "reintegration" process, a cornerstone of the coalition's war strategy.
US official: Karzai warned about contractors, but no one listened
CNN International By Laurie Ure, CNN National Security Producer October 30, 2010
Washington - A top-ranking American diplomat said Friday that the international community, including the United States, did not pay enough attention to the Afghan government's repeated statements that it was serious about cracking down on private security contractors on Afghan soil.
Afghans to take over own security by 2015
Financial Times By Daniel Dombey in Washington October 29 2010
The US intends to hand over leadership of the fight against the Taliban to local forces by 2015, according to a top official, in one of the clearest statements yet of Washington’s plans to bring the Afghan war to an end.
Taliban makes demands in Afghan peace talks
The Afghan Taliban is demanding names of its senior leaders are removed from US and United Nations terror blacklists and that a number of prisoners are released as a precondition of further peace talks, according to a key insurgent negotiator.
Telegraph.co.uk - International News By Rob Crilly in Islamabad and Ben Farmer in Kandahar 29 Oct 2010
US commanders have encouraged the Afghan government to establish talks with Taliban and other insurgents in an effort to resolve the nine-year conflict.
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Afghanistan says U.S.-Russia raid violated sovereignty
By Hamid Shalizi – Sat Oct 30, 8:26 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded on Saturday that NATO forces explain why they had carried out a joint counter-narcotics operation with Russian forces inside Afghanistan, calling it a violation of sovereignty.
Moscow said on Friday Russian and U.S. agents, supported by helicopters and Afghan police, destroyed four drug laboratories and nearly one ton of heroin in a raid this week seen as a measure to improve strained ties between Washington and Moscow.
"No institution is allowed to carry out such an operation in Afghan territory without the government's prior consent," Karzai's office said in a statement.
"Such uncoordinated operations clearly violate sovereignty. Afghanistan will respond seriously to any repetition of such actions," it said.
The counter-narcotics raid, which was also announced by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, came as U.S. and NATO are calling for Russia to play a more supportive role in their war against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Ministry of Interior counter-narcotics police led the operation with DEA, NATO and Russian personnel playing a supporting role, the U.S, embassy said in a statement, referring requests for details to the Afghan government.
It was unclear how Afghan officials would have taken part in an international counter-narcotics operation in Afghanistan without the central government knowledge or consent.
Russian involvement in Afghanistan is still a sensitive issue since the end of the Soviet occupation of the country. Soviet troops fought mujahideen insurgents for 10 years before pulling out of the country in 1989.
Afghanistan produces around 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw material to manufacture heroin, and trafficking from there is fuelling a major drug problem in nearby Russia.
The drug raid came as NATO's secretary general plans to hold talks next month in Moscow on expanding supply routes to its troops in Afghanistan via Russia and call for more Russian helicopters and pilot training for Afghan forces.
More than 150,000 foreign troops are now backing Afghan forces in a NATO-led war against the Taliban. Casualties are at their highest since the conflict began when U.S.-backed Afghan forces ousted the Islamist Taliban government in 2001.
(Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Paul Tait)
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Envoy: No peace talks underway with Afghan Taliban
By Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer Fri Oct 29, 4:17 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Leaders of the Taliban resistance in Afghanistan have shown no interest in a negotiated end to the war, despite an intensified and increasingly effective NATO military offensive, a senior Obama administration official said Friday.
Richard Holbrooke, special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said recent news reports of extensive discussions between Afghan government officials and senior Taliban commanders were off base. He said there have been no such talks or discussions, let alone negotiations.
Individuals who have fought alongside the Taliban — apparently not Taliban leaders themselves — have been reaching out — "picking up the phone, metaphorically or literally" — and saying, "I've had enough of this war. I'd like to talk to you," he said. Holbrooke mentioned no names but said those who are making such contacts are "provincial leaders, individual commanders."
Those individuals are "feeling the pressure" from a stepped-up offensive by NATO forces, he said, speaking to reporters hours after returning from Kabul.
"This is not, however, the kind of high-level talks which all of you are writing and speculating about," Holbrooke said. "And those are not taking place; they're just being written about. And there's a great confusion in the readers' minds. There's less here than meets the eye. There's no indication at this point that the Taliban leadership wishes to change its course."
Last week NATO and U.S. officials offered a somewhat different description of the level of insurgents involved in the contacts.
Mark Sedwill, NATO's top civilian representative, said on Oct. 20 that the insurgents who had been in touch with the Afghan government included "significant members of the Taliban leadership." He, too, however, said the activity was preliminary. "It's not even yet talks about talks," he said.
The top NATO commander, Gen. David Petraeus, said Oct. 15 that coalition forces had provided safe passage to unspecified senior Taliban leaders who were talking to the Afghan government.
Petraeus called the talks "preliminary," and more recently he has been quoted as calling them "pre-preliminary."
The Taliban deny that any of their representatives have been involved in talks.
In his remarks at the State Department, Holbrooke also said encouraging progress has been made in resolving a dispute between President Hamid Karzai's government and international organizations in Afghanistan over use of foreign guns-for-hire to provide security.
Karzai on Nov. 15 will announce new rules for private security companies, Holbrooke said.
"This will outline the process by which there will be a transition from the current situation, which is intolerable and untenable, to a point where private security companies do not exist or exist only under conditions that the government's comfortable with," he said.
"We now are going to work out the details between now and Nov. 15 for an orderly transition," he said.
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Taliban attack on Afghan combat post repelled
by Faizullah Ghamkoor
KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) – An Afghan official said Saturday that 80 Taliban insurgents were killed during a failed attack on a NATO combat outpost near the border with Pakistan.
"Fresh information that we received from intelligence sources shows that 80 Taliban have been killed. The bodies of the militants were left on the battlefield," said Mukhlis Afghan, spokesman for the governor of eastern Paktika province.
NATO said earlier that 30 Taliban had been killed as international troops repelled an attack on the outpost in Barmal district, which sits on the border of Pakistan's lawless North Waziristan tribal area.
A statement from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the insurgents launched the attack at 1:30 am Saturday (2200 GMT Friday) "from all directions" using rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms fire.
Five ISAF soldiers were injured, it said, adding that they kept fighting.
"The coalition forces called for air weapons team and close-air support during the engagement. A coalition aircraft engaged an insurgent firing position with three precision-guided munitions," it said.
"The air weapons team also engaged a large number of insurgents near the outpost," it said, adding: "Initial operational reporting indicates more than 30 insurgents were killed in the failed attack on the outpost."
The proximity of the combat post to the border hints at the possibility the insurgents had crossed from Pakistan, where the Taliban's leadership council is believed to be based.
The insurgency in Afghanistan is now in its 10th year since the Taliban's regime was overthrown in the US-led invasion in late 2001.
Remote border regions have proved particularly volatile in recent years.
The insurgency in Afghanistan is now in its 10th year since the Taliban's regime was overthrown in the US-led invasion in late 2001.
Remote border regions have proven particularly volatile in recent years.
NATO said Saturday that two of its soldiers died in separate attacks in the volatile south of Afghanistan, where the insurgency is concentrated.
One died in an insurgent attack on Friday, the other in a similar incident on Saturday.
The nationalities of the soldiers were not revealed, according to policy.
An AFP tally based on that kept by icasualties.org puts the total number of foreign soldiers to die in the war this year at 609, compared to 521 for 2009.
NATO and the United States have more than 150,000 troops in Afghanistan, many of them deployed to the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand in a major counter-insurgency push.
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Foreign soldier killed in southern Afghanistan
Sat Oct 30, 3:04 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – A foreign soldier fighting the Taliban-led war in Afghanistan has been killed, NATO said, bringing this year's death toll to 608.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the soldier died "following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan Friday", without giving more details.
An AFP tally based on that kept by icasualties.org puts the total number of foreign soldiers to die in the war this year at 608, compared to 521 for 2009.
NATO and the United States have more than 150,000 troops in Afghanistan, many of them deployed to the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand in a major counter-insurgency push against the militants.
The Taliban have been waging an insurgency since their regime was toppled in a US-led invasion in late 2001.
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Suicide car bomb rocks Khost in E. Afghanistan
KHOST, Afghanistan, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- A suicide car bomb apparently targeted security forces in Tanai district of eastern Khost province Saturday, casualties feared, district governor Daulat Khan Qayumi said.
"The blast occurred around 4:30 p.m. local time when a convoy of foreign troops was passing the area," Qayumi told Xinhua.
He also said that a vehicle was slightly damaged in the blast.
However, he did not reveal further information, saying NATO-led forces may release a statement in this regard.
The attack took place just hours after NATO-led troops stormed Taliban positions in Bermal district of the neighboring Paktika province in the wee hours of Saturday, leaving 30 insurgents dead, according to NATO-led forces statement.
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Afghan police training edges ahead as transition nears
By Patrick Markey – Sat Oct 30, 4:56 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – On a dusty shooting range still dotted with rusting husks of Soviet tanks, Afghanistan police recruits fire off three machine-gun rounds, stop, advance, and then fire at the targets again -- or at least most of them do.
For Italian police trainer Lieutenant Colonel Massimo Deiana, even that equals progress for Afghan forces who will eventually take the lead from foreign troops in the fight against insurgents as Western leaders mull timelines for pulling their troops out.
"Before they would line up just firing 50, 100 rounds and finish," Deiana said. "Now we are starting to see results."
Building up Afghanistan's police and army is being watched keenly in Washington and Brussels as Western forces look to hand over security to Afghan troops, a transition U.S. President Barack Obama says will start from July 2011, when he plans to start pulling out some U.S. troops if Afghan forces are ready.
President Hamid Karzai wants Afghan forces to take full security responsibility from 2014, a proposal NATO believes could be endorsed at its Lisbon summit next month -- depending on security on the ground and on Afghan readiness.
NATO trainers say they are making slow progress as they rebuild military institutions, often almost from scratch, and try to forge a more professional officer class, all while fighting a growing insurgency.
Recruits at the national police training center outside Kabul show advances in basic training but also illustrate the realities NATO instructors face bringing them up to par.
Italian carabinieri took over training at the base a year ago. They give recruits at least six weeks of training in basic police work and elementary combat courses, with more time for officers and the civil order police.
On a recent training session, recruits ran through riot shield techniques and baton strikes, as well as role-playing a roadside bomb blast. Inside a classroom, two Italians instructed Afghan officers on to how to lead a patrol in an urban area.
Six weeks is too short, but better than nothing, trainers say. For many, though, policing starts with a pen -- learning to read and write.
"We are at the very beginning, we have been here one year, and we've made progress," said Italian General Carmelo Burgio. "We started at zero, no literacy, no NCO training, no shooting training. Now they can face the situation better than before."
LAGGING BEHIND
Long seen by Afghans as inept and corrupt, the national police lagged behind training of the Afghanistan National Army, which was the focus of foreign instruction efforts after U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.
NATO's plan calls for Afghan armed forces to be built up to 300,000 soldiers and police by November next year -- 134,000 of those police. That means quantity for now often takes priority over quality, trainers say.
NATO training chief Lieutenant General William Caldwell has warned that, unless allies provide more specialist trainers, especially in the police force, transition could be delayed.
Attrition is still a struggle with 133,000 recruits needed to fill the 50,000 spaces required to meet next year's target for the Afghan armed forces, he said. Some police units face an attrition rate at around 50 percent.
"The issue is not whether we are going to get there, but what we are going to look like when we get there in terms of quality," said British Major Paul McNicholas of the NATO training mission.
Questions over Afghan recruitment have been raised after recent "rogue" attacks on trainers. Two Spanish police were killed by a policeman they were training in August. In July, three British Gurkha soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier.
In an effort to stamp out corruption and build loyalty, police salaries now match army pay at a basic rate of around $176 a month. More than 27,000 recruits have also had basic literacy classes, with that number expected to reach 50,000 by the end of the year.
"No one can say we are ready for transition tomorrow," says Italy's Burgio. "If I told you six weeks was enough, it would not be professional. But before it was nothing."
(Reporting by Patrick Markey)
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U.S. Spending In Afghanistan Often Unaccounted For
by Rachel Martin NPR
October 29, 2010 The U.S. has spent billions of dollars on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, much of it on private contractors who do everything from train Afghan security forces to build schools.
These projects are crucial to the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
Now more than eight years into the war, the government office in charge of tracking these projects has issued its first major report. The conclusion is that billions of dollars have been spent, but no one knows for sure what that money has bought.
Better Tracking System
Between 2007 and 2009, the U.S. government paid $18 billion to roughly 7,000 contractors doing reconstruction in Afghanistan.
Patrick Peterson, who wrote the report for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, says the big problem is that the agencies doling out those funds — mainly the Pentagon and the State Department — don't have a clear way to track this kind of spending.
"There are contractors who provide food and meal service for our troops – that's not easily distinguishable from a contract say to build a road in Afghanistan, conduct a police training or conduct an anti-drug operation in Afghanistan," Peterson says. "That's the challenge."
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says this is no obscure accounting challenge. The U.S. contracting problems in Afghanistan have huge consequences for the U.S. military strategy.
"Has it seriously jeopardized our ability to win the war? The answer is yes," he says.
Not being able to track reconstruction dollars means not knowing if projects designed to win over the Afghan people are working.
Counterproductive Reconstruction Efforts
At the same time, lax U.S. contracting rules have, in some ways, actually fueled parts of the insurgency, Cordesman says.
"You don't know whether the money is being used by power brokers or corrupt officials or people who are using it to build up local power or, for that matter, simply to pay off the Taliban and other insurgents," he says.
The reports issued this week by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction are the first to give a comprehensive look at how all contracting dollars are being spent. The big question is why it's taken so long.
"This might have been excusable going into Afghanistan in 2002," Cordesman says. "We had no real experience in doing anything like this. More than eight years later, there's absolutely no conceivable excuse."
Congress didn't pass legislation creating the Afghanistan Inspector General's office until 2008. Now that the office is up and running, it's produced a report that says the reconstruction records are so bad that it's almost impossible to review them.
A Broken Office Overseeing The Spending?
Special Inspector General Arnold Fields says it's his job to conduct audits and investigate the funds made available for reconstruction in Afghanistan.
But, he says, "If I cannot identify those funds for reconstruction in Afghanistan then I'm unable to carry out the full measure of the legislation."
Earlier this year the Afghanistan reconstruction office was itself audited and got a failing grade on management and standards.
A group of senators, led by Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill, the chair of the subcommittee on contracting oversight, has called on the White House to fire the special inspector general.
McCaskill says if the White House doesn't act soon, she'll call a special hearing on the matter when Congress re-convenes next month.
She and others say you can't expect to fix the contracting system in Afghanistan if the office meant to do the fixing is broken, too.
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Afghan election body has yet to announce election result although 6 weeks on
By Farid Behbud
KABUL, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Even though six weeks have passed from Sept. 18 when millions of war-weary Afghans dared Taliban threats and cast their ballots in the country's second parliamentary election, the final results have yet to come out.
The preliminary results of Afghanistan's second parliamentary elections since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001, held amid tight security was announced on Oct. 20 with surfacing over 50 percent new faces.
However, the names of dozens of the sitting parliamentarians including speaker for the Lower House of the parliament Mohammad Yunus Qanooni, the government's critic Ramazan Bashardost and a few more had topped the winners list.
The final result, according to election timeline set up by Afghanistan Independent Election Commission (IEC), was expected on Oct. 30.
Nevertheless, registering thousands of complaints by voters, candidates and election observers have slowed down the process and caused postponement.
Ahmad Zia Rafat, a commissioner and spokesman for the UN-backed Electoral Complaint Commission (ECC) said last Thursday that so far the complaint commission had received nearly 6,000 complaints and out of these, more than 2,500 are serious and could affect the election results if proved.
"The ECC has adjudicated almost 70 percent of more than 2,500 of electoral complaints which has been triaged and categorized as group (A) or serious allegations that would affect the results at polling stations level," Rafat said.
ECC is composed of five members including two international commissioners.
The complaints registered with ECC, according to the official, include using state machinery, influencing election workers at polling stations, stuffing ballot boxes illegally, double voting, vote-rigging and using faked voting cards.
Ballot papers in more than 400 polling stations, according to Rafat, have been mulled and voided.
Final result of Afghanistan's second legislative elections since the fall of Taliban regime in late 2001, due on two weeks would not be announced until all the allegations and complaints are adjudicated
Originally, IEC and security bodies had planned to open over 19, 000 polling stations across the country and only 17,700 had remained open on the election day enabling voters to cast their votes.
Finally around 5.6 million votes were casted on the ballot boxes on the poll day in the country's 34 provinces and of these 1. 3 million votes had been invalidated by election body after processing.
More than 2,500 people including over 400 women had contested the parliamentary elections on Sept. 18 to secure seat in the 249- seat Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of parliament in the post-Taliban Afghanistan.
According to the Afghan electoral law, final results cannot be announced until all complaints are adjudicated.
Announcing election result would at least take two weeks more as ECC spokesman Rafat expressed hope last week that Afghans could see the final result before Eidul Adha or Eidul Qurban the biggest annual religious festival falling on Nov. 15.
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Q+A-How are private security firms and Afghan aid linked?
KABUL, Oct 29 (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai remains committed to a decree to disband private security companies in Afghanistan, although he has offered concessions.
Here are some questions and answers about the decree and what it means for the delivery of aid in Afghanistan:
WHAT IS THE DECREE AND WHO WILL IT AFFECT?
A decree by Karzai in August gave all private security companies in Afghanistan -- domestic and international -- until December to disband and turn in their weapons.
According to the government there are more than 50 registered security companies in Afghanistan -- half of them foreign -- employing up to 40,000 guards, most of them Afghans. The companies compete for contracts worth billions of dollars and are used to guard convoys, embassies, development projects and even foreign military bases. The decree from the outset had a few exceptions. Foreign embassies will continue to use private firms to protect their premises and guard diplomats as they travel. Firms that train the Afghan army and police will also be able to keep those contracts but will have to stop all other work.
Unregistered companies, those guarding roads, convoys and other installations, will have to disband by mid-December. On Wednesday, Karzai offered a small concession to companies guarding commercial development projects by effectively giving them an additional two months to disband. The move appeared to have been prompted by concern in Washington that aid work contracted to profit-oriented development firms would suffer because they relied on private security firms for protection. Some of these development companies have already reported scaling back projects in preparation for the ban.
However, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella group for non-profit non-government organisations (NGOs) in Afghanistan, said the ban will have little impact on aid work carried out by its members because most operated without armed protection. Out of the 2,000 Afghan and 360 international NGOs in Afghanistan, only around six use private security firms, ACBAR said.
WHY DID KARZAI ISSUE THE DECREE?
The government has said the push to scrap security firms was linked to Karzai's 2014 timetable for Afghan forces to take over all security and operational responsibilities from U.S. and NATO-led forces. However, the reasons appear to go deeper than that. Karzai has long been critical of the companies, saying they are involved in widespread corruption, have caused horrific accidents and fuel insecurity in the country. Many Afghans see them as operating with impunity, and they have been accused of a series of killings, crimes and scandals but have rarely been convicted. A U.S. Senate inquiry into private security contracting earlier this month also concluded that funds had sometimes been funnelled to warlords who were linked to the Taliban, murder and kidnapping.
But many others say the real reason is money. Contracts for private development companies and the security firms that guard them are worth tens of billions of dollars. However, only a small portion of that ever gets spent in Afghanistan. For years the Afghan government has been urging Western donors to channel more money through its ministries so it can decide how funds are spent. Donors say they have been reluctant to do this because of endemic government corruption and a lack of capacity in nascent ministries. The decree, observers say, is about Karzai hitting donors where they are most vulnerable. Afghanistan relies on handouts for roughly 80 percent of its spending.
NGOs have also been critical about the way aid money is spent in Afghanistan. According to a report by leading British charity Oxfam, nearly half of all the money spent on aid leaves the country in international salaries alone, with some expatriate consultants costing up to $500,000 a year.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
The international community in Kabul has been keen to show unity with the Afghan government, saying they support Karzai's decree but had concerns only with its implementation and timing.
Despite the two-month deadline extension, it is still not clear what will happen to those organisations who rely on private firms for protection. Karzai has said the government will provide its security forces to guard them. But critics point to the already overstretched Afghan army and police force, which still rely heavily on the support of 150,000 foreign troops.
Finally, what will happen to the tens of thousands of Afghan guards employed by these firms? The government says it plans to integrate them into the army and police force but critics say many will be reluctant to join. Private guards often earn several times more than an ordinary soldier or policeman, and vetting them will also be a serious issue. (Editing by Paul Tait and Sugita Katyal)
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Afghans See Peril in Switching Sides
The Wall Street Journal - Europe Edition By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV OCTOBER 30, 2010
PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan - The Afghan government and the U.S.-led coalition scored an unexpected success here half a year ago, turning around more than 50 insurgents and recruiting them to fight their former Taliban allies. What happened since then, however, offers a cautionary tale of how much can go wrong with the so-called "reintegration" process, a cornerstone of the coalition's war strategy.
The reintegrated fighters' leader, Commander Sher, is now dead, possibly killed by a U.S. bomb last month. His militia is in disarray. And, to other potential defectors, the fate of these men serves as a vivid warning about the perils of picking the American side in this war.
The U.S. has long favored reintegration—an effort to win over low- and mid-level insurgents with incentives such as jobs and cash—over the more controversial attempts to cut a deal with senior Taliban leaders, known as "reconciliation," which the U.S. has more recently facilitated.
The reintegration drive, however, has been slow to take off, in part because potential defectors fear the coalition won't be able to protect them against Taliban retribution.
That turned out to be the case here in Baghlan, an increasingly volatile northern province.
Commander Sher and his men used to belong to the country's second-largest insurgent group, warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami. They lived and fought in Shahabuddin, a strategically important area straddling a Y-shaped junction of highways linking Kabul with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Just like the Taliban, Commander Sher's men kidnapped travelers and attacked supply convoys and American troops on the roads.
But in March, after Mr. Hekmatyar indicated he was interested in peace talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the more-numerous and better-funded Taliban muscled in on Hezb-e-Islami's turf here, demanding the right to collect Islamic taxes and run local shadow administrations.
After days of fighting, Commander Sher's militia fled to the provincial capital Pul-e-Khumri, some eight miles to the south.
"The Taliban said that we were spies for the government, and were threatening us," explained Syed Mohammad, a cousin of Commander Sher. "That's why we decided to join the government and protect our people and our area."
Commander Sher's men were feted by the Afghan government as a success of the reintegration drive. By July, they were joining coalition soldiers on raids and patrols. "That is what progress is: taking your enemy and making him your friend," said a U.S. officer who patrolled with them.
Commander Sher's militia returned to Shahabuddin in August, after an offensive by coalition and Afghan troops pushed the Taliban out of the strategic highway triangle.
In early September, the Taliban struck back, sending a suicide bomber to Commander Sher's new base. The bomber was intercepted outside, but managed to detonate his vest, killing three militiamen.
Then, the evening of Sept. 16—two days before Afghanistan's parliamentary elections— around 60 Taliban fighters converged on the area in a complex maneuver, first blowing up a bridge 1.2 miles to the south, cutting off the only road into the village. At the time, some 10 militiamen were inside their fortified outpost, and 20 others in two nearby compounds.
U.S. and German forces tried to relieve the besieged outpost, but "progress stalled while the combined force waited for a bridge that insurgents destroyed to be repaired," a coalition official said. At that crossing, the allied troops, too, came under fire from Taliban small arms, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. It would be two days until they managed to enter the village. Commander Sher's men were on their own.
"We asked Commander Sher to surrender, but he refused," says a local Taliban commander, Agha Saib.
Finally, U.S. aircraft appeared over the village and the militia's base. Mr. Mohammad, the cousin of the commander, says the remaining militiamen, who had by then abandoned the outpost and gathered in a compound nearby, were asked by the coalition to indicate their location with a red cloth. Mr. Mohammad and Commander Sher spread a red quilt on their compound's roof.
The first two bombs hit the Taliban-held outpost and a nearby house that had been overrun by the Taliban. The third one, Mr. Mohammad and Afghan officials say, demolished Commander Sher's compound, killing him and two other militiamen, and injuring seven others.
German Maj. Gen. Hans-Werner Fritz, the coalition commander in northern Afghanistan, disputed this account. "I would like to stress that he was definitely killed by the Taliban," he said about Commander Sher.
That isn't what Baghlan government officials and the surviving militiamen say they believe. "He was definitely targeted by the Americans—the only question is whether he was targeted by mistake or deliberately," said Baghlan's provincial council chief, Mohammad Rasoul Mohseni, who sent a delegation to investigate the incident.
A coalition official familiar with the matter said the bombing is now under investigation, with the inquiry focusing on who exactly controlled the air assets and authorized the strike.
Coalition ground forces entered Shahabuddin two days after the attack began. Amid the ruins they found the sprawled bodies of five reintegrees, a coalition spokesman said.
Most of Commander Sher's surviving fighters now are idling in the provincial capital. A succession dispute has brought further discord to the group.
German troops and U.S. Special Forces, meanwhile, have since established a permanent outpost of their own in Shahabuddin. Some 20 militiamen from Commander Sher's unit are helping them to man it.
On Oct. 7, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up near German troops there, killing one soldier and injuring several others. Coalition officials say Shahabuddin is more secure now. Mr. Mohammad disagrees. "The area," he says, "is now largely controlled by the Taliban." —Frotan Ghousuddin and Habib Khan Totakhil contributed to this article.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
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US official: Karzai warned about contractors, but no one listened
CNN International By Laurie Ure, CNN National Security Producer October 30, 2010
Washington - A top-ranking American diplomat said Friday that the international community, including the United States, did not pay enough attention to the Afghan government's repeated statements that it was serious about cracking down on private security contractors on Afghan soil.
Speaking to reporters at a press briefing, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he supports Afghan President Hamid Karzai's decision to rein in private security companies.
"He was correct on this issue, and we didn't -- the international community did not take it seriously enough, and we should have," Holbrooke said. "And now we are."
Karzai has said he believes that the private security companies are creating a parallel security system that challenges the Afghan security forces. He formally announced their disbandment August 17.
The Afghan government said Wednesday it will form a committee to plan the phasing out of private security contractors without endangering development projects.
The committee, led by Afghanistan's minister of interior and staffed NATO and International Security Assistance Force representatives, will prepare a timetable for the dissolution of contractors protecting development projects and submit it to Karzai by November 15, the Afghan government said.
Holbrooke, just back from Afghanistan, dismissed news reports saying that Karzai is bowing to international pressure. "He didn't back down,' Holbrooke asserted. "He just insisted on compliance with this previously issued decree. Afghanistan is a sovereign country, and respect for its sovereignty was necessary."
He added, "Tens of thousands of security guys, from all sorts of countries, wondering around, heavily armed, some of them illegal, some of them highly corrupt, some not corrupt, under multiple contracts -- you can't have country in a situation like that."
Holbrooke acknowledged that there was "a big dustup last week," and "a lot of tension in the air" after Karzai's announcement, but said he issue is under control now.
The United States had previously expressed concern about Karzai's pledge to phase out the country's 52 private security companies by year's end, saying that if implemented, the move would leave critical aid personnel unprotected and unable to continue their work.
U.S. officials have been negotiating with the Afghan government over such protection, and had been asking for clarification on which contractors would be allowed to remain in the country and under what conditions they could operate.
Earlier this month, the Afghan government clarified exceptions to the proposed ban, saying that firms offering protection to embassies and foreign diplomats would be allowed to continue to operate. The decision "addressed the concerns of NATO and foreign embassies regarding the private security companies' dissolving process," a statement from Karzai's office said.
However, it said that other private security companies not engaged in that work "are a strong threat for the national security and national sovereignty of the country" and that their dissolution would continue as planned.
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Afghans to take over own security by 2015
Financial Times By Daniel Dombey in Washington October 29 2010
The US intends to hand over leadership of the fight against the Taliban to local forces by 2015, according to a top official, in one of the clearest statements yet of Washington’s plans to bring the Afghan war to an end.
Ivo Daalder, US ambassador to Nato, said the alliance’s Lisbon summit on November 19-20 was likely to announce that transition to Afghanistan taking lead responsibility for security would begin “on a case by case, province, by province basis” in the first half of 2011.
He added: “the goal will be to advance this process . . . so that by end of 2014, [in] every province in Afghanistan, security will be the responsibility of the Afghan forces.”
Mr Daalder told a meeting in Washington DC: “That doesn’t mean US and Nato and partner forces will have gone; it means that the responsibility for security in the provinces will be primarily in the hands of the Afghans. The international capability will be in support of that rather than in the lead.”
The ambassador’s comments come in the wake of heated discussion within the US about President Barack Obama’s plans to begin drawing down US forces in July next year. The US administration has repeatedly insisted that the pace and scale of that transition will be determined by “facts on the ground”.
The problems of maintaining a united front within Nato have been highlighted by decisions by the Netherlands and Canada to pull all their combat troops out of the country this year and next. The UK government has also announced a 2015 deadline. “We can’t be there for another five years, having been there for nine years already,” David Cameron, prime minister, said in June.
In the past US officials such as Robert Gates, defence secretary, have invoked Mr Karzai’s ambition for Afghanistan to take responsibility for overall security by 2014, but without setting out firm deadlines.
The Obama administration acknowledges deep and continuing problems with corruption in Afghanistan and Taliban and al-Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan, while also maintaing that contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban are unlikely to amount to peace negotiations that could deliver an end to the war.
But officials argue that a transition to Afghan forces can succeed because of the combination of stepped up Nato attacks on the Taliban and intensive efforts to train Afghan forces to a point where they can take on a weakened foe. The US government is spending $11.8bn on Afghan training this year alone.
The Nato summit is also likely to include a bid by the alliance to “restart” relations with Moscow – Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president is attending – and intense discussions on missile defence. Turkey has reservations about US-championed plans to make missile defence of Nato country’s populations and territories a formal part of the alliance’s mission.
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Taliban makes demands in Afghan peace talks
The Afghan Taliban is demanding names of its senior leaders are removed from US and United Nations terror blacklists and that a number of prisoners are released as a precondition of further peace talks, according to a key insurgent negotiator.
Telegraph.co.uk - International News By Rob Crilly in Islamabad and Ben Farmer in Kandahar 29 Oct 2010
US commanders have encouraged the Afghan government to establish talks with Taliban and other insurgents in an effort to resolve the nine-year conflict.
President Hamid Karzai established a High Council for Peace earlier this month to foster negotiations with insurgents. The US has used its helicopters to take Taliban commanders to meetings.
Afghan and Nato officials hope the talks can progress as they prepare for a withdrawal of American forces next year.
Ghairat Baheer, a leader of the Hizb-I-Islami insurgent group, headed by his father-in-law Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has disclosed to The Daily Telegraph the Taliban’s conditions for the talks.
“For the Taliban side it’s all about the blacklists and the release of prisoners as a goodwill gesture,” he said. “Those are the main issues — as well of course as the withdrawal of foreign troops. After that, in the later stages, would be talks about the setting up of a joint government.”
The chances of a negotiated settlement have grown in recent weeks as the prospect of a military victory for Nato-led forces has diminished.
Earlier this month Mr Karzai inaugurated a jirga or peace council of tribal elders and former warlords amid mounting reports that two insurgent groups — the Taliban of Mullah Omar and the Haqqani network — had begun talks with Kabul. Last week The Daily Telegraph reported that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, reputed to be the second in command of the Afghan Taliban until his arrest in Karachi, had been spirited from a cell in Pakistan to hold secret talks with officials in Afghanistan.
Baheer said Hizb-I-Islami was in regular contact with government officials but the process was at an early stage.
He said little progress could be expected from the Taliban until its leader, Mullah Omar, was included in talks.
“If there’s no approach to him then it can’t be fruitful,” he said. “You cannot ignore the boss or founder of the political party.”
The UN sanctions blacklist drawn up in 1999 freezes assets, restricts travel and prohibits arms sales for al-Qaeda figures including Osama bin Laden, as well as 135 high-ranking members of the former Taliban regime.
They include Mullah Omar, Mullah Baradar and dozens of Taliban commanders who acted as governors when they held power in Afghanistan.
Several Taliban leaders have been removed from the blacklist at Kabul’s request as a possible overture to negotiations.
However, the US has ruled out releasing Taliban prisoners held in Guantánamo bay.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan taken off the list in July, said the withdrawal of Nato troops was a precondition of any settlement talks.
He said: “The Taliban say: 'Until you leave my home I don’t want to talk with you. You occupied my home, you captured my home, you captured my dignity. Why should I talk to you? To surrender to you?’ The Americans are not ready to talk.”
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