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Taliban Directed Attacks From Prison
By ROD NORDLAND and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK The New York Times February 10, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — A cell of suicide bombers operating in Kabul was run by a Taliban member operating from inside the city’s main prison, Afghan officials announced at a news conference on Thursday.
US says customs officer killed in Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News - Wed Feb 9, 1:48 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – A U.S. customs employee and two British soldiers have died in insurgent attacks in southern Afghanistan where violence persists despite a winter lull in fighting across the nation.
Afghan District Governor Among Three Killed In Suicide Attack
February 10, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Officials in Afghanistan's northern Konduz province say a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a government building, killing the district governor and two other people.
Taliban key commander detained in E Afghanistan: Police
KABUL, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Police have arrested a key Taliban commander in Nangarhar province 120 km east of Afghan capital Kabul, a press release issued by Nangarhar police department on Thursday said.
Afghan state seeks control over abused women
By Matt Robinson
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's government is considering taking over the running of women's shelters, subjecting victims of domestic abuse to medical examinations and near-incarceration under a proposal rights groups say is a concession to the Taliban.
British envoy to Iran to take over NATO Kabul role
Wed Feb 9, 2:43 pm ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO appointed Britain's current ambassador to Iran as its new civilian representative in Kabul on Wednesday.
Alpine skiing's Kandahar is 'on the limits' for Kostelic
by Ryland James – Wed Feb 9, 2:28 pm ET
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (AFP) – World Cup leader Ivica Kostelic on Wednesday joined the growing number of voices complaining about the difficulty of the world ski championships' Kandahar course.
Afghanistan War: Should the US be talking to the Taliban?
By Jean MacKenzie February 9, 2011 12:05 GlobalPost – International News
KABUL, Afghanistan — A new study released Monday by New York University’s Center on International Cooperation hints that U.S. strategy on Afghanistan needs a major rethink. First and foremost, the authors say, we need to identify the enemy we claim to be fighting.
Actually, Karzai is right about PRTs
Foreign Policy By Joshua Foust 09/02/2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, everyone's favorite punching bag in Afghanistan, has decided provincial reconstruction teams—PRTs—are, in fact, bad for his country. "The Afghans want to have a government of their own. The Afghans don't want a government from abroad," Karzai told reporters in Kabul. "The transition means giving the whole thing to Afghan ownership and leadership. Naturally then the PRTs will have no place."
News Analysis: Stalemate over electing speaker to prolong Afghan parliamentary crisis
Xinhua By Abdul Haleem, Zhang Jianhua Feb. 9,2011
KABUL - The lawmakers' continued failure over the past two weeks to elect speaker Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of Afghan parliament, has reached to deadlock as none of the contesters has bagged majority votes to secure the slot.
Human rights groups in Afghanistan shift focus from NATO to atrocities by Taliban
ANI via Yahoo! India News
Kabul, Feb 10(ANI): Human rights groups working in war-torn Afghanistan have shifted their focus from abuses attributed to NATO forces towards those committed by Taliban insurgents.
U.S. troop cut could set back Afghan gains-thinktank
Reuters By Adrian Croft Adrian Croft Wed Feb 9,2011
LONDON - President Barack Obama's plan to begin reducing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in July would jeopardize hard-won security gains there, a security thinktank said on Wednesday.
Like No Place on Earth: How U.S. Businesses Are Succeeding in Afghanistan
Feb. 9 2011 By RICHARD LEVICK Forbes.com
Once upon a time, a Macedonian called Alexander the Great took an army on its way to India through what is now Afghanistan. Some 2,300 years later, that terrain is just as isolate, just as formidable, just as intractable. Like no other place on earth, this surreal landscape offers a most telling backdrop to recent related political and business events in the United States.
Canada leaving Afghanistan a blow to allies: WikiLeaks
The Canadian Press By Murray Brewster Wed, 9 Feb 2011
OTTAWA - A leaked diplomatic cable says former British prime minister Gordon Brown complained to the Americans about the withdrawal of Canadian and Dutch troops from Afghanistan.
2 Afghans Blacklisted as Terrorists
Tolo news February 10, 2011
Two Afghans have been designated as terrorists and banned from doing business with Americans.
Jihadis answer call to arms
Asia Times By Syed Saleem Shahzad 09/02/2011
ISLAMABAD - The al-Qaeda affiliated organization Jundallah has released a video which claims for the first time that its
commanders led members from Russia, Germany, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Tunisia and Tajikistan in the regrouped international jihadi brigade in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area.
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Taliban Directed Attacks From Prison
By ROD NORDLAND and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK The New York Times February 10, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — A cell of suicide bombers operating in Kabul was run by a Taliban member operating from inside the city’s main prison, Afghan officials announced at a news conference on Thursday.
The National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence service, produced a videotaped confession of the cell leader who had organized the deadly bombing of a high-end Kabul supermarket frequented by foreigners on Jan. 28. Identified as Talib Jan, he has been held in the city’s Pul-e-Charkhi Prison, which is run by Afghan officials with American mentors and advisers.
Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the intelligence service, said Mr. Jan was a member of the Taliban-associated, Pakistan-based Haqqani Network, and had been running the suicide bomber cell during his three-year imprisonment. “From inside the Pul-e-Charkhi prison, he was appointing people and giving them targets and instructions, do this, and do that,” Mr. Mashal said, adding that Mr. Jan operated through prison visits from members of his cell. “Most of the terrorist attacks in Kabul were organized by this network,” Mr. Mashal asserted.
At the news conference, a confederate of Mr. Jan, Mohammed Khan, also confessed to helping run the suicide bomber cell, saying he visited Mr. Jan in prison to take his instructions.
Afghan authorities also introduced four members of a separate Haqqani Network suicide bomber cell who were arrested apparently as a result of the investigation into the Jan. 28 bombing of the Finest Supermarket, which killed 14 persons, including a prominent human rights activist, Hamida Barmaki, and her entire family of six. That second cell included a transporter, who brought the suicide bombers back from Pakistan, the owner of the safe house where they stayed in Maidan Shah, west of Kabul, and two trainee bombers, all of whom confessed publicly at the news conference.
The two bombers, both Afghans, one 20 years old and the other 17, said they had been recruited from madrassas, religious schools where their families had sent them to study in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where extremists are active. “Our people go to Pakistan for religious instruction, and they send them back to us as suicide bombers,” said Mr. Mashal.
The Finest Supermarket was targeted because Mr. Jan had somehow received intelligence while in the prison that two French dignitaries would be inside the market at the time of the attack, Mr. Mashal said. The Taliban had claimed credit for the bombing, saying they had targeted the head of the Blackwater security company, now known as Xe, who was inside. Blackwater had confirmed that its personnel were in the area of the market, but said that none were hurt.
In other Afghan news, a district governor was killed by a Taliban suicide bomber in northern Kunduz province Thursday, a day after the governor of the province publicly boasted that Kunduz had been completely cleared of insurgents.
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US says customs officer killed in Afghanistan
AP via Yahoo! News - Wed Feb 9, 1:48 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – A U.S. customs employee and two British soldiers have died in insurgent attacks in southern Afghanistan where violence persists despite a winter lull in fighting across the nation.
A suicide bomber killed a retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer and wounded three other American customs workers Monday in Kandahar, which remains a hotbed of Taliban activity despite an influx of U.S. troops over the past year,
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement released late Tuesday in Washington that David Hillman, a retired customs officer who had worked for the U.S. government for 30 years, died in the blast at the Inland Customs Warehouse in Kandahar.
Afghan police said the suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside the city's customs house compound during a visit by NATO forces.
The Taliban in Kandahar are attacking officials and others who support pro-government forces. Earlier this month, a suicide bomber killed the province's deputy governor.
In northern Afghanistan, a roadside bomb exploded and killed the director of criminal investigations in Chimtal district of Balkh province. Provincial police spokesman Sher Jan Durani said Wednesday that four bodyguards were also wounded when the bomb struck the vehicle carrying the official, Noor Ahmad.
The British Ministry of Defense said the two soldiers from a parachute regiment were shot and killed while on patrol in Nad Ali district of Helmand province Wednesday morning. Ten NATO service members have been killed so far this month.
Last year was the deadliest of the nearly decade-long war for international troops, with more than 700 killed, compared to just more than 500 in 2009.
Separately, Britain's ambassador to Iran has been picked as NATO's new senior civilian representative in Afghanistan.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced Wednesday that Simon Gass will succeed Mark Sedwill in the position.
NATO's civilian representative works to make sure that governance and development work is coordinated with the coalition's military effort.
Gass, who has been the British ambassador to Iran since early 2009, will formally accept the appointment when NATO foreign ministers meet in April in Berlin.
"Ambassador Gass is a highly qualified diplomat who will bring a regional perspective to this important post," Rasmussen said. "He knows how important the civilian and political aspects of NATO's engagement in Afghanistan are, as Afghans start taking the lead for their own security in the first half of this year."
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Afghan District Governor Among Three Killed In Suicide Attack
February 10, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Officials in Afghanistan's northern Konduz province say a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a government building, killing the district governor and two other people.
Five other people were reported wounded in the blast.
A provincial governor spokesman (Mabobullah Sayedi) said the bomber was able to enter the Chardarah chief's office by pretending to look for work.
The blast killed district chief Abdul Wahid Omarkhail, who had served for several years as governor of Chardarah, along with a bodyguard and a village elder.
compiled from agency reports
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Taliban key commander detained in E Afghanistan: Police
KABUL, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Police have arrested a key Taliban commander in Nangarhar province 120 km east of Afghan capital Kabul, a press release issued by Nangarhar police department on Thursday said.
"Police have captured a Taliban key commander namely Biltoon," the press release added.
However, it did not provide more details. Quoted Nangarhar provincial police chief Ali Shah Paktiawal the press release added complete details would be made public after investigation.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have yet to make comment.
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Afghan state seeks control over abused women
By Matt Robinson
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's government is considering taking over the running of women's shelters, subjecting victims of domestic abuse to medical examinations and near-incarceration under a proposal rights groups say is a concession to the Taliban.
Critics said the draft regulation by the Ministry of Justice would hurt the limited progress made on women's rights since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, and appeared to be an overture to the Islamist insurgents waging war against NATO and Afghan forces.
The proposal, obtained by Reuters, would place all shelters under the control of the Ministry of Women's Affairs.
It would require women to undergo a medical examination before being admitted, oblige them to wear a headscarf at all times and bar them from leaving the grounds of the safe house except with ministry permission to visit relatives.
Medical examinations would be carried out monthly, and women would be ejected if their families say they will take them back or for marriage, the guidelines said, without clarifying if this included abusive families they had fled or forced marriages they were trying to avoid.
"It puts the safety of women in shelters into question," warned Humi Safi of Afghan rights group Women for Afghan Women.
The regulation follows a government investigation ordered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai into the running of the mainly foreign-funded shelters, which some government officials have been quoted as saying are involved in prostitution and drug use.
The accusations reflect widespread suspicion within Afghanistan's deeply conservative society over the influence of Westerners, particularly on women.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the draft illustrated the growing strength of conservative factions within Karzai's government and was an effort to burnish its Islamic credentials.
HRW warned some of the 14 shelters currently working in Afghanistan faced closure because the government lacks the capacity to run them.
"It could be devastating," HRW's Afghanistan researcher Rachel Reid said of the regulation, which requires approval by Karzai and his Council of Ministers to become law.
The government, Reid told Reuters, is trying "to position itself as something the Taliban can do business with."
The Taliban barred women from education and most jobs and ordered them to wear burqas outside the home. Almost a decade since its overthrow, the United Nations said in a report last year that child marriage and "honor" killings remained widespread and the authorities were failing to enforce laws to protect women and girls.
Afghan women still face imprisonment for so-called "moral crimes" such as adultery or running away from home. The guidelines also said women suspected or accused of crimes would not be admitted to shelters, raising fears that women fleeing abusive situations could be barred on the grounds they were suspected of these "moral crimes."
(Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Miral Fahmy)
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British envoy to Iran to take over NATO Kabul role
Wed Feb 9, 2:43 pm ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO appointed Britain's current ambassador to Iran as its new civilian representative in Kabul on Wednesday.
Simon Gass will replace Mark Sedwill, another Briton, who has served in the post for a year. He will formally take up the position at an April 14-15 meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin, the military alliance said in a statement.
The announcement that Gass is to leave Tehran could help defuse a diplomatic row with London. The Iranian parliament is due to vote in the coming days on a motion to break all diplomatic ties with Britain in protest at comments he made on the embassy's website about human rights in Iran.
Gass said he would be coming into the Afghan role in "a period of transition in Afghanistan which will be critical for the country's stability and security."
Sedwill, who previously served as Britain's ambassador in Kabul, has pushed plans for a gradual handover of security responsibility from the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan to Afghan security forces.
The district-by-district, province-by-province transition envisages Afghan forces having full security responsibility countrywide by 2014, and should allow for a gradual reduction in the 150,000 foreign troops in the country.
NATO plans to announce details of the transition plan in March, with a view to launching the actual process later in the first half of this year.
NATO officials said Sedwill was leaving as scheduled as he had reached the end of his mandate.
Despite 10 years of war, foreign troops have struggled to contain a Taliban-led insurgency, which has spread countrywide and brought the worst levels of violence since U.S.-led forces drove the Islamists from power after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
(reporting by David Brunnstrom, additional reporting by Robin Pomeroy in Tehran, editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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Alpine skiing's Kandahar is 'on the limits' for Kostelic
by Ryland James – Wed Feb 9, 2:28 pm ET
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (AFP) – World Cup leader Ivica Kostelic on Wednesday joined the growing number of voices complaining about the difficulty of the world ski championships' Kandahar course.
On Monday, defending world downhill champion Lindsey Vonn branded the course 'too dangerous' for the women's speed events, now Kostelic, has said the course is 'on the limits' of what racers can ski safely.
"The piste could be better, even if the conditions can't be altered," said the Croatian after taking bronze in Wednesday's super-G.
"You can have asked 99 percent of athletes here and they would have said they are not happy.
"We forwarded our feelings to the race director, who listened to what we said, but the course today was on the limits, the bumps, the visibility, it all came together."
Kostelic quit Garmisch on Wednesday night to take a week off to rest and train.
He will miss Saturday's downhill and Monday's super combined, the Croatian team's press officer told AFP.
But he is set to return next Wednesday for the giant slalom on Friday February 18 and the slalom on February 20.
Warm day-time temperatures in the Bavarian Alps and sharp frosts at night have conspired to make the Kandahar course extremely icy and Kostelic explained the harsh conditions racers face at break-neck speeds.
"Almost all of the course is in the shade and your body shakes so hard from the icy bumps that you can't see clearly enough, so the hits are much harder," he said.
"It's pretty much you or the course, you need to be in charge of it."
Vonn, who is struggling with the after-effects of a head injury from training last week, finished seventh in Tuesday's super-G and said she was 'shocked' by the course after training on Monday.
World and Olympic giant slalom champion Carlo Janka of Switzerland finished only seventh in the men's super-G.
The Swiss star has said he may also skip the super-combined and downhill to defend his world title on Friday February 18.
"It is a very demanding course, at the halfway point of the race, it was more of a fight just to stay on my skis," said the 24-year-old.
"I think I will skip the downhill and super combined, it doesn't make sense to race in these conditions for me."
Having failed to defend his world super-G title, compatriot Didier Cuche said he did not feel in control of his run, as he finished just outside the medals in fourth, but insisted it is up to racers to adapt to the conditions.
And super-G race referee Guenter Hujara says there is little more organisers can do in the face of spring temperatures here.
"At the moment, we can't do any more to protect the racers," he said.
"We try to control the speeds. For example, the super-G course has been lengthened significantly, compared to the course we had here for last year's World Cup finals."
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Afghanistan War: Should the US be talking to the Taliban?
By Jean MacKenzie February 9, 2011 12:05 GlobalPost – International News
KABUL, Afghanistan — A new study released Monday by New York University’s Center on International Cooperation hints that U.S. strategy on Afghanistan needs a major rethink. First and foremost, the authors say, we need to identify the enemy we claim to be fighting.
“Separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda: The Core of Success in Afghanistan,” as the report is called, fundamentally challenges the assumptions that lie at the heart of U.S. policy: that by fighting the Taliban we are punishing the forces that perpetrated Sept. 11, and consequently making our homeland safer.
In U.S. President Barack Obama’s first Afghanistan policy speech in 2009, he announced a “clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
That being the case, say authors Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, the United States and its allies may have been engaged in a slight case of overkill for much of the past 10 years. In the process they ignored overtures that might have short-circuited the Afghan insurgency and made it possible to help establish a more peaceful, stable state in this volatile region.
The study, released under the aegis of eminent Afghan expert Dr. Barnett Rubin, will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers in the halls of power and academe.
The basic premise of the study is that the Taliban are a different group — ideologically, strategically and tactically — from Al Qaeda. Fusing the two has made it almost impossible for the international community to conduct anything approaching productive negotiations with the Taliban — no one wants to be seen to engage with the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center and knocked a wall out of the Pentagon, killing over 3,000 civilians.
But according to van Linchoten and Kuehn, “the Taliban leaders do not seem to have had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. Bin Laden effectively manipulated the Taliban, using their lack of international experience to advance his own goals.”
This is hardly received wisdom among the American punditry.
Bruce Reidel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an influential advisor on Afghanistan within the Obama administration, dismissed any suggestion that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are marching to different drummers.
In a new report he co-authored with Michael O’Hanlon, also of the Brookings Institution, he argued:
“Those who assert that the Afghan Taliban may no longer have sympathy for these other extremists base their hopes on a thin reed. Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden continue to work together to send terrorists to the United States, as illustrated by the foiled 2009 New York metro attack planned for the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks … The Taliban were active recruiters for an Al Qaeda attack on the U.S. homeland.”
Peter Bergen, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and CNN’s security affairs analyst, has long argued that the Taliban and Al Qaeda have fused.
But van Linschoten and Kuehn muster some compelling arguments to the contrary. They document considerable friction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda both before and after Sept. 11, and also give chapter and verse of the Taliban’s overtures to the Afghan government in late 2001 and early 2002.
“This was an important moment for the Taliban leadership; if they had been given some assurance that they would not be arrested upon returning to Afghanistan … they would have come, but neither the Afghan government nor their international sponsors saw any reason to engage with the Taliban at that time — they considered them a spent force.”
The war of attrition now being waged in southern Afghanistan is also a mistake, the authors argue. While U.S. military officials publicly insist that body counts are not the sole or even the best metric of success, it is reports of Taliban deaths that clog the wires at the press center of NATO’s International Joint Command.
Briefs on Taliban fighters or facilitators who have been “neutralized,” “dispatched,” “overcome,” or “killed” are issued several times a day.
The massive punch is taking its toll, say the Taliban with whom van Linschoten and Kuehn have been speaking. But it might not ultimately be good news for the U.S. forces. While the mid-level Taliban commanders have been all but wiped out, their places are being taken by a younger, more radical, more ideological group.
“These newer generations are potentially a more serious threat,” the authors argue. “This generation of commanders is more ideologically motivated and less nationalistic than previous generations … it is not interested in negotiations or compromise with foreigners … they are citizens of jihad.”
These younger fighters might also be more inclined to accept the blandishments of Al Qaeda, whose help they will need if they are to have any hope of chasing the foreigners out of their homeland.
“Al Qaeda operatives have been known to seek out direct contact with such younger field commanders inside Afghanistan … Where the old leadership speaks of a fight against foreign invaders, the new generation is adopting the discourse of fighting against infidel crusaders.”
So the international troops are in a sense creating the very enemy they will have to defeat. The authors dub the war in Afghanistan “an avoidable insurgency” and urge the international community to open talks with the Taliban before it is too late.
“Many Taliban leaders of the older generation are still potential partners for a negotiated settlement,” they conclude.
This study might be seen by some as an apologia for the Taliban, or a hopelessly rosy view of the insurgency.
But both van Linschoten and Kuehn have spent years in Afghanistan, much of it in the southern city of Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban and still its ideological heartland.
They have conducted hundreds of interviews with Taliban members, officials, ordinary Afghans, as well as international experts on the movement. They edited “My Life With the Taliban,” the autobiography of Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.
The present study is a condensation of what will become a book-length treatment of the subject. They found that when they began their research, they could not easily stop.
“Every tidbit in the study is a chapter in the book,” Kuehn said.
But all the talk is probably academic at this point, something that both van Linschoten and Kuehn acknowledge.
“The window of opportunity has been closing for years already,” van Linschoten said. “It would be speculation to guess whether it has now firmly slammed shut … I don't mean to say that a change would not be possible. There are things that the U.S. could change in terms of their political and military strategy, even though massive alterations don't seem likely.”
But if neither side is willing to budge, the future could be grim indeed, the authors said.
“In the end, past experience, the proven track record of regional actors and members of the insurgency and the Afghan government, and current U.S. policy suggest that a wide-ranging set of talks … is ultimately unrealistic as a possibility for the near-term Afghan political calendar. In that case, internationals would do well to begin preparing for possible scenarios which would involve the movement of large numbers of Afghans outside and inside the country, as well as escalated conflict environments.”
In other words, civil war.
But it is still not too late to examine what the international community is doing in Afghanistan, the authors said.
“Most aspects of current policies — especially our base assumptions — could benefit from us stopping to pause for a moment and reconsidering point by point what the evidence for each argument is,” van Linchoten said.
In this he echoes recent remarks by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is breaking away from the Obama administration’s position on Afghanistan.
As the senator told the Boston Globe over the weekend, "What I don't want is to be party to a policy that continues simply because it is there and in place … That would be like Vietnam. And that is what I am determined to try to prevent."
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Actually, Karzai is right about PRTs
Foreign Policy By Joshua Foust 09/02/2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, everyone's favorite punching bag in Afghanistan, has decided provincial reconstruction teams—PRTs—are, in fact, bad for his country. "The Afghans want to have a government of their own. The Afghans don't want a government from abroad," Karzai told reporters in Kabul. "The transition means giving the whole thing to Afghan ownership and leadership. Naturally then the PRTs will have no place."
This didn't used to be controversial. When the first PRT was created in early 2003, it was actually called a provincial transition team because the idea was to transition control of an area from U.S. to Afghan control as capacity was built. Of course, that first PRT, in Gardez, Paktia, only had one civilian on it who was supposed to monitor all the reconstruction and governance activity in three provinces. Soon, the PRT program got a new name -- reconstruction this time, not transition -- and by 2007 there were 25 PRTs across the country.
Evaluations of PRT performance have been mixed at best. One researcher at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies found in 2008 that PRTs "lead to counter-productive results such as the strengthening of local Power Brokers and the weakening of the government in Kabul." This is because coalition forces "again and again form an alliance with local militias and supply them with weapons and money."
The idea of transitioning reconstruction and governance from PRTs to the Afghans was stillborn, as well. In 2008, Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group, testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. He said PRTs "operate without any transparent or common doctrine or even reporting lines for nonmilitary actions." Further, he said, "there are no agreed-upon benchmarks for determining when that transition [to Afghan administration] can take place and when it should take place." Even actual members of PRTs have said that "no amount of development will improve security conditions." Their efforts, while admirable for many reasons, did not actually contribute to the broad goal of defeating the Taliban.
PRTs, in other words, are a mess, and they have been for a long time. Because there is no plan for how PRTs should be used, or just as importantly how they could eventually be transitioned into normal Afghan governance, it's difficult to complain when Karzai wants them gone until you realize what that really means: relying on the notoriously corrupt Afghan government. The United States doesn't like how the Afghan government operates, nor do many Afghans -- they see it, rightly, as being distant from normal citizens and rife with greed and corruption.
However, the Afghan government is how the United States will eventually withdraw from Afghanistan. Building a stable Afghan government that can defend itself is one of the main pillars of the Obama administration's strategy for the country, and when PRTs funnel hundreds of millions of dollars away from Afghan government control and oversight -- however troubled -- they are directly undermining the very government the United States is relying on for victory. This is why the World Bank has thrown millions of dollars at various "capacity building" projects in the country in an effort to improve its administration and oversight. It is also why funneling more aid through the government -- however gradually -- is actually better for the long-term health of Afghanistan, even if it contributes to aggregate corruption.
Regardless, this might be something of a tempest in a teapot anyway. As Peter Marton, a research fellow at Corvinus University of Budapest noted on his blog, Karzai didn't exactly demand that PRTs be instantly disbanded. Rather, he called for a gradual transition of greater Afghan self-rule over the next three years, and he noted that by the official transition date of 2014, the PRTs will be unnecessary because the Afghan state will have taken over administration of reconstruction projects.
In other words, what Karzai is calling for is precisely what establishment policy advisors want anyway: a responsible transition from NATO to Afghan rule. It's neither shocking nor controversial that he'd start talking about this right now, either, because it takes years to undo the enormous buildup of people and equipment that the PRTs represent -- and just as long, if not longer, for their functions to be transitioned to Afghan hands.
Joshua Foust is a fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. He blogs about Central Asia at www.registan.net.
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News Analysis: Stalemate over electing speaker to prolong Afghan parliamentary crisis
Xinhua By Abdul Haleem, Zhang Jianhua Feb. 9,2011
KABUL - The lawmakers' continued failure over the past two weeks to elect speaker Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of Afghan parliament, has reached to deadlock as none of the contesters has bagged majority votes to secure the slot.
The third round of voting to elect house speaker was held Tuesday but ended in fiasco as none of the leading candidates was able to secure 50 percent+1 votes of the 249-seat Lower House.
In Tuesday's voting two candidates namely Amanullah Paiman and Abdul Qayum Sajadi secured 69 votes and 87 votes respectively in the 249-seat House, forcing the lawmakers to vote for a forth time on Saturday to elect house speaker, interim speaker of the house Mohammad Sarwar Usmani announced after wrapping up the noisy session.
Among the votes counted in Tuesday voting there were 40 white votes and 39 invalids that had erupted controversy. Some MPs had proposed that the white votes should be divided between the two candidates and anyone garner more deserve to become speakers; while other MPs disputed, saying white votes means that vote owners favor none.
President Hamid Karzai inaugurated the Lower House on Jan. 26 more than four months after holding parliamentary elections.
Afghanistan's second parliamentary election in the post-Taliban nation was held on Sept. 18 and the result was announced on Nov. 24, 2010.
In the first round of the race, held on Jan. 29, Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayaf, a former anti-Soviet Union and anti-Taliban resistance leader and his rival Mohammad Yunus Qanooni -- an ex- friend to Sayaf and former house speaker had secured 119 and 116 votes respectively.
To overcome the standstill, faced the Lower House at the moment, would take more times, observers believe.
"Overcoming the deadlock requires modifying the constitution and modifying constitution needs proposal of one third of house and backing by two third of lawmakers," an analyst and parliamentarian Mohammad Farhad Azimi told a television panel discussion.
He also asserted that besides the failed candidates would attempt to sabotage the next election process for, adding "both the government and opposition have their own role in electing the house speaker."
Another problem that the Wolesi Jirga or Lower House is facing is the setting up of a special court, constituted by President Karzai to investigate fraud allegations leveled against some now- seated parliamentarians.
Although, the parliamentarians have challenged the legality of the special court, the legally controversial body has already implicated three sitting legislators for alleged involvement in fraud and vote rigging; while MPs enjoy immunity. It is unclear what impact the special court's ruling would have on the sitting legislators.
Another political observer Hashmat Ghani Ahmadzai said in the television panel discussion that "Involvement of certain circles in government has caused the current crisis in parliament."
With this perspective and controversies, electing speaker of Lower House would take more days if not weeks.
Afghan parliament is made up of two chambers -- Wolesi Jirga or Lower House and Mushrano Jirga or Upper House or Senate.
Mushrano Jirga or Senate is a 102-member house. One third or 34 members of the chamber are appointed by the President according to Afghan constitution. However, the house has already elected its chairman, deputy chairman, secretary and deputy secretary; while President Karzai has yet to appoint selected senators.
Wolesi Jirga has to pass bills, approve national budget, give vote of confidence to ministers, head of independent government bodies and legalize the presence of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan as proposed by some circles.
Still seven ministries out of all the 25 ministries are run by acting ministers and the Finance Ministry is expected to soon present the annual budget for Afghanistan's 1390 fiscal year begins from March 21, 2011.
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Human rights groups in Afghanistan shift focus from NATO to atrocities by Taliban
ANI via Yahoo! India News
Kabul, Feb 10(ANI): Human rights groups working in war-torn Afghanistan have shifted their focus from abuses attributed to NATO forces towards those committed by Taliban insurgents.
The change in attitude is prompted by more than just raw statistics, as NATO and American military leaders have made reducing civilian casualties a cornerstone of their policy and have moved quickly to investigate claims of abuses and often issued apologies.
"NATO, in some cases they acknowledge their mistakes; to some extent they have taken positive steps in terms of reducing their impact," The New York Times quoted Ajmal Samadi, Director of Afghanistan Rights Monitor, as saying.
"On the insurgent side we don't have any acknowledgment of the problem and instead we see a brazen continuation of their crimes," he added.
Outraged by growing civilian casualties in Afghanistan, many local and international activists are now calling for the insurgents to be investigated for war crimes and viewed as war criminals. The insurgents are now blamed for more than three-fourths of all civilian casualties, according to United Nations statistics, and those casualties increased by 20 per cent last year.
While a code of conduct put out by Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar in 2009 and updated last June called for avoiding civilian casualties, the Taliban have since claimed responsibility for many attacks where civilians were, if not necessarily the targets, the main victims.We haven't seen any change in the conduct of the Taliban since their code of conduct," said Ahmad Nader Nadery, a commissioner of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
"To the contrary, we've seen an increase in roadside bombs and suicide attacks in places where there are civilian populations," he added.
Human Rights Watch's Afghanistan analyst Rachel Reid said that NATO had moved a long way with their tactical directives, meeting human rights organisations and listening to their concerns.
"There is a real need for more pressure and open dialogue with insurgent forces for their violations of the laws of war," she emphasised. (ANI)
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U.S. troop cut could set back Afghan gains-thinktank
Reuters By Adrian Croft Adrian Croft Wed Feb 9,2011
LONDON - President Barack Obama's plan to begin reducing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in July would jeopardize hard-won security gains there, a security thinktank said on Wednesday.
The International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), which regularly conducts research in Afghanistan, recommended current force levels be maintained until July 2012.
"The directive to begin drawing down U.S. forces in July 2011 ... is based on domestic politics and pressure for a withdrawal rather than a realistic assessment of on-the-ground dynamics in southern Afghanistan," said ICOS President Norine MacDonald.
"A drawdown just when fighting is likely to be at its most intense in the summer months would jeopardize the recent hard-earned progress," she said in a statement, presenting a new ICOS report.
Obama decided in late 2009 to pour an extra 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, bringing U.S. forces there to around 100,000, in an effort to defeat a resurgent Taliban.
Obama said in December that U.S.-led forces were scoring gains against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan but warned they were fragile and reversible.
He said the United States was on course to meet his pledge to begin withdrawing troops by mid-2011 and transition to full Afghan security control by 2014.
Many NATO leaders are under pressure from war-weary voters to bring troops home from Afghanistan, which last year saw its worst violence since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.
NO TIME TO BUILD LOYALTY
MacDonald said the current military withdrawal calendar put pressure on the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to produce quick results in training Afghan forces, increasing the risk of choosing "quantity over quality."
"It also does not allow sufficient time to build the political loyalty of these forces, or provide assurances that these troops will be both able and willing to stand up to Taliban attacks or intimidation," she said.
The ICOS report focused on the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where U.S., NATO and Afghan forces are involved in heavy fighting against Taliban insurgents.
It found that the U.S. troop surge in southern Afghanistan had improved security significantly.
Major gains had been made in clearing districts previously held by the Taliban, and the Afghan security forces were growing in competence and number, although security challenges remained serious, ICOS said.
The report said there were widespread fears about Afghan security forces' complicity with the insurgents.
As ISAF cleared insurgent strongholds in the south, this could push the Taliban to switch its focus north of Kandahar, toward Kabul or through further expansion in the northern provinces, it said.
(Editing by Ralph Boulton)
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Like No Place on Earth: How U.S. Businesses Are Succeeding in Afghanistan
Feb. 9 2011 By RICHARD LEVICK Forbes.com
Once upon a time, a Macedonian called Alexander the Great took an army on its way to India through what is now Afghanistan. Some 2,300 years later, that terrain is just as isolate, just as formidable, just as intractable. Like no other place on earth, this surreal landscape offers a most telling backdrop to recent related political and business events in the United States.
In late January, the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting convened to investigate the alleged waste of taxpayer dollars spent on Afghan infrastructure projects and to take a closer look at the supervision of government contractors.
The dynamics were predictably adversarial as cost overruns were decried while Commission Chairman Michael Thibault noted that an audit by Major General Arnold Fields (USMC Ret.), the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, found that the Department of Defense, the State Department, and USAID don’t even know how much money they’ve given to contractors. “Too many projects come in over budget and behind schedule, so the amount of waste in our construction efforts quickly rises to staggering proportions,” said Thibault.
Fields’ comments were especially portentous. “These issues place the entire U.S. investment of $11.4 billion in facilities construction at risk of not meeting Afghan needs or intended purposes and resulting in a large degree of waste,” he said.
Respectfully, there is also another risk that, by underestimating the odds against which the private contractors in Afghanistan are struggling – and by holding our companies to impossible future criteria – we equally endanger the mission. To be sure, if there are abuses, they should be stopped. If reporting channels to ensure accountability are clogged, they should be cleared.
But a vital perspective has been missing throughout this dialogue to which a few points are germane.
First, we are talking about building an infrastructure almost from scratch: electricity, clean water, essential institutions like schools and hospitals, as well as security and law enforcement. The needs are “staggering,” to use Thibault’s term, and only a total commitment of private sector resources, in a seamless partnership with the U.S. and Afghan governments, can begin to fill the void.
Such a partnership is essential in the fight against terrorism. Absent that partnership, primitive infrastructures like Afghanistan’s, with the distrust they breed, will produce new generations of killers regardless of who happens to hold power in Kabul or Damascus or Baghdad. Electricity, on the other hand, creates light and warmth while, beyond such bare essentials, the future can bring greater Internet connectivity, widespread media access, universal education – all the benefits associated with the 21st century.
As such, the last thing we want to do at this juncture is to polarize our own forces with government officials on one side and global business developers on the other. America’s political agenda in Afghanistan is simply unattainable without the confident participation of private enterprise. And, by “confident,” we mean an environment in which private business feels it can rely on the support of governments in order to achieve a collective success at day’s end.
Second, to fortify the public/private partnership, we must underscore the extraordinary accomplishments that have been made even under the conditions that pertain in Afghanistan. Last year, for example, the USAID and private contractors unleashed significant power for electricity, providing light for half a million people in Kabul and throughout the North East Power System (NEPS). When completed, NEPS will increase available electric energy to over 50 percent of the population of Afghanistan located along its north to south corridor.
Third, every success begets more success. The electricity generation has already provided a direct boost to the economy with hundreds of construction jobs for Afghan citizens. It has also benefited the city’s residents by reducing pollution as small and inefficient generators have been turned off.
Meanwhile, other infrastructure projects now provide more than just the hope of ongoing progress. For instance, the completion of a railhead in Mazar-e-Sharif this year will link the Uzbek and Afghan railways. Just ahead, the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement becomes official on February 11.
The more trade agreements that governments negotiate, the greater the impetus to build out the infrastructure. When businesspeople cross borders to trade (even as they once did on the old Silk Routes), they will want plumbing supplies, fresh food, private security, etc. Other businesspeople will be the ones to provide it. Again, we see the crucial link between private sector and public sector initiative.
For all their ongoing success stories, the private contractors still have a big chore on their hands, and it’s one only they can do. Right now they are letting others tell their story, and it’s not been a particularly positive one. Nor will senators and cabinet members necessarily rise to their cause; the politics are too uncertain, the bureaucratic labyrinths too daunting.
Instead, the private sector warriors must tell their own stories about Afghanistan – the historic challenges they face, the successes they’ve achieved withal. They must, like good trial lawyers, articulate narratives that marshal overwhelming evidence of nascent success.
If they make their case, the rewards will be monumental for all of us.
Richard S. Levick, Esq., is the president and chief executive officer of Levick Strategic Communications, a crisis and public affairs communications firm. He is the co-author of The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis and Stop the Presses: The Crisis & Litigation PR Desk Reference, and writes for Bulletproofblog. Mr. Levick is on the prestigious list of “The 100 Most Influential People in the Boardroom,” which is compiled by the NACD and Directorship Magazine. Reach him at rlevick@levick.com.
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Canada leaving Afghanistan a blow to allies: WikiLeaks
The Canadian Press By Murray Brewster Wed, 9 Feb 2011
OTTAWA - A leaked diplomatic cable says former British prime minister Gordon Brown complained to the Americans about the withdrawal of Canadian and Dutch troops from Afghanistan.
The document indicates Brown feared the departures would undermine public support for the war among NATO countries, particularly the United Kingdom.
Online whistleblower WikiLeaks released the U.S. diplomatic message, which also shows Brown fretting over which nation could replace the departing allies in Afghanistan's volatile south.
The leaked cable, from September 2009, provides a rare, behind-the-curtain peek at how Canada's closest allies viewed the decision to quit the fighting by July this year.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay have said they felt no pressure from either Washington or London to stay in Kandahar, and that allies respected Parliament's decision to leave.
They both maintained that position, even as Harper announced Canada would switch to a training mission in Kabul last November.
But the cable reveals an anxiety rarely voiced in public and suggests the U.S. tried to persuade Canada to station some troops at the provincial reconstruction base in Kandahar after combat operations ended.
Brown's comments were made during a visit to British and American soldiers in Helmand province in August 2009, and were made before the Obama administration decided to significantly raise American troop numbers.
U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who at the time commanded NATO forces in Afghanistan, warned the British prime minister that the situation was "serious and deteriorating," but that it could be turned around with more troops. McChrystal was pressuring Washington for an additional 40,000 soldiers.
The general briefed Brown about the progress of the first American troop surge, which started in the spring of 2009, and plans to turn the war into a full-blown counter-insurgency struggle.
Brown wondered how the departures would affect the strategy.
"The PM said that if the Netherlands and CANADA (sic) left, public opinion in other countries, including his own, would suffer," said the diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
A few months prior to the meeting, Brown had authorized an additional 1,000 British troops for the fight in Helmand, and had dispatched another 700 for temporary duty during the September 2009 Afghan presidential election.
Brown saw the weight of the war increasingly falling on U.S. and British shoulders and asked: "Would there be extra burden sharing by those who had done so little?"
The question appeared to be a backhanded swipe at Germany, Italy and Spain which, despite significant troop concentrations, refused to allow their troops to operate in the volatile south.
U.S. ambassador and former general Karl Eikenberry suggested keeping Canadian and Dutch provincial reconstruction bases in place as a way to persuade both countries to stay.
The Dutch went ahead with their withdrawal last year and, like Canada, have volunteered to help train the Afghan army and police.
The cable also alludes to some of the cracks in the relationship between Hamid Karzai and NATO, suggesting that the Afghan president "was still looking for a strong and lasting NATO and the U.S. security guarantee toward Afghanistan and the region while suspicious of our motivations and objectives."
Roland Paris, a foreign policy expert at the University of Ottawa, said there was always a disconnect between Canada's parliamentary motion, which explicitly stated troops must leave Kandahar, and the Harper's government policy of getting every soldier out of Afghanistan.
"Our allies were hoping the government of Canada would have a change of heart before the deadline and they might very well would have been working to encourage that change of heart," he said.
McChrystal's description of the situation as "deteriorating" in the fall of 2009 struck Paris as significant.
He said U.S. commanders are more often prepared to give you an unvarnished view of the war and where it was going, but added that at the time the general had surge plan to sell to a skeptical administration.
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2 Afghans Blacklisted as Terrorists
Tolo news February 10, 2011
Two Afghans have been designated as terrorists and banned from doing business with Americans.
The United States has blacklisted Khalil-u-Rahman Haqqani the brother of Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Sayed Jan Abdul Salam.
The designation has barred US citizens' from engaging any financial deals with the two men.
The two men are blacklisted for providing support to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
In a statement released by the US Treasury Department on Wednesday, Khalil-u-Rahman Haqqani is accused of raising funds for the "Haqqani Network", a group that is considered as the biggest threat to US forces in Afghanistan.
Abdul Salam is accused of having collected thousands of dollars in donations for al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and is also accused of having assisted terrorists procure ammunitions and run a training camp.
Haqqani Network is based in Pakistan's tribal areas and it is accused of being behind many insurgent attacks in Afghanistan.
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Jihadis answer call to arms
Asia Times By Syed Saleem Shahzad 09/02/2011
ISLAMABAD - The al-Qaeda affiliated organization Jundallah has released a video which claims for the first time that its
commanders led members from Russia, Germany, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Tunisia and Tajikistan in the regrouped international jihadi brigade in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area.
The video features commanders and members who have been killed and others Jundallah claims are still active. It is the first of its kind showing international jihadis in action under the umbrella of Jundallah and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and their combined operations against the Pakistan army.
Prepared in Jundallah's studios, the propaganda material was completed in December 2010 and contains background commentary in the Uzbek, Turkish, German and Pastu languages, and subtitles in English.
The footage shows lopsided guerrilla operations against Pakistan army checkpoints during August 2010, the veracity of which cannot be confirmed, but also reveals emphatically that operations were planned and executed by various Tajik, Uzbek, Turk, Russian and German citizens along with local commanders, including Sajna and Noor Islam.
Sajna, recently placed as a commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - Pakistan Taliban) in South Waziristan, and Noor Islam, an elderly tribal commander and a long-time patron of al-Qaeda and Uzbek militants, were previously just names. But they uncover their faces and talk explicitly about their past and present contributions to militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Jundallah was formed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (now detained in the United States) in South Waziristan following the US's ousting of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. (See The legacy of Nek Mohammed Asia Times Online, July 20, 2004.)
During a recent trip by this correspondent to the northern Afghan province of Baghlan, situated on the edges of the Central Asian republics, Afghan officials confirmed that Jundallah had brought members of Russian and Central Asian origin to Baghlan and Kunduz provinces. According to them, the target is not exactly Baghlan and Kunduz, but the Central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan as well as Russia. (See Soft Sufi, hard-rock militant Asia Times Online, January 22, 2011.)
Several recent dispatches published by Western media confirm that the Tajikistan and Uzbekistan authorities are greatly concerned over growing signs of militancy in their countries, which they believe is trickling through from Afghanistan. The recent attack in Moscow has also been blamed on similar al-Qaeda-led militants who have a sizeable number of Russian Muslim converts. The video shows the faces of Russian Muslim converts killed in action.
Militant training schools feature as the most significant part of the video. These seem to be divided along ethnic lines among al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. The schools featured with their names shown in subtitles include those for training elders and those providing training to boys in their early teens (militants call them the Delta force and they are mostly the children of killed Arab, Uzbek and other foreign militants).
It is unclear whether the footage of the training schools was taken before 2009 or after 2009. In late 2009 the Pakistan army carried out a massive operation against militants, routing most of their sanctuaries in South Waziristan. The militants either retreated to North Waziristan or to the mountain tops between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The video puts the date August 2010 in subtitles of footage showing guerrilla operations against the Pakistan army to illustrate their comeback in South Waziristan, but the exact date of the content could not be independently confirmed. However, parts are definitely recent as some scenes show Uzbek militants talking about Germans operating with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who were killed in drone strikes October 2010.
The video has surfaced after several events, including the arrest of an Afghan Ahmad Siddiqui in Kabul and German citizen Rami Mackenzie in Pakistan who confirmed the presence of militants of Caucasian origin in the Pakistani tribal areas who had converted to Islam and been taken to South Asia for the purpose of launching attacks in their countries of origin.
Asia Times Online also broke a story of Canadian jihadis (see Al-Qaeda to unleash Western jihadis, January 15, 2011) which named people operating in the Pakistani tribal areas.
After the exposure of so many events, the recent video once again fuels fears about al-Qaeda's obsession for carrying out global operations.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief and author of upcoming book Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban, beyond 9/11 published by Pluto Press, UK. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com. The video footage was arranged by Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, a journalist from Pakistan's South Waziristan.
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