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Deal signed to supply Iran fuel to Afghanistan
Sun Feb 6, 5:33 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran said on Sunday it has reached an agreement with Afghanistan to supply it with Iranian fuel and that it has started delivering the products to the neighbour's private sector.
Afghanistan's Karzai critical of aid bypassing government, pledges to fight corruption
By Geir Moulson, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Sun, 6 Feb 7:11 AM EST
MUNICH - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that channeling aid past his government undermines efforts to make it more effective, identifying NATO's provincial reconstruction teams as one of his concerns.
Karzai to announce Afghan handover start March 21
By David Brunnstrom – Sun Feb 6, 8:12 am ET
MUNICH (Reuters) – The president of Afghanistan said on Sunday he would announce the start of a process to transfer responsibility for security to Afghan forces from international forces on March 21.
Afghan central bank sees Islamic banking law enacted in 2011
By Shaheen Pasha Sun Feb 6, 2011 2:44am EST
DUBAI (Reuters) - Afghanistan's central bank expects an Islamic banking law to be enacted by September, drawing billions in deposits from citizens wary of the conventional banking system, a senior official said.
John Kerry Breaks With Obama On Afghanistan, Calls For Fewer U.S. Troops On The Ground
First Posted: 02/ 6/11 The Huffington Post
WASHINGTON -- One of the Obama administration's key allies in Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), is breaking with the president on Afghanistan and saying the strategy in the war needs to be revised. The development, coming from someone who was once a strong backer of Obama's decision to increase troops in Afghanistan, could deal a significant blow to support for the administration.
Afghan progress on track: Cameron
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday said coalition forces were making steady progress in improving security in Afghanistan and were on track to leave the country by 2015.
Germany pledges to support Afghanistan after troop withdrawal
06.02.2011
The final day of the Munich Security Conference turned to Afghanistan on Sunday with Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle guaranteeing Germany's continued support as Afghanistan continues on its path towards democracy.
Canada's hired guns in Afghanistan slammed in U.S. Senate report
By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Canada spent more than $41 million on hired guns in Afghanistan over four years, much of it going to security companies slammed by the U.S. Senate for having warlords on the payroll.
Words in the Dust’ is an Afghan story of hope
Los Angeles Times By SUSAN CARPENTER Saturday, Feb. 05, 2011
Trent Reedy was an American soldier providing security for the reconstruction of Afghanistan when he saw her. The girl was 13, her cleft lip so deformed that her teeth stuck out straight from her mouth. Her upper lip was split in two. Her nose was distorted.
The Longest War by Peter Bergen – review
This fair-minded and accessible expert guide to the conflict between the United States and al-Qaida is essential reading
The Guardian Peter L. Bergen Sunday 6 February 2011
On around the fifth day of the demonstrations in Cairo, there was a rapid but revealing exchange on CNN. Presenter Wolf Blitzer introduced the channel's national security analyst Peter Bergen, "the author of the new and best-selling book The Longest War and expert on the Middle East". After recapping recent events in Egypt, he asked his guest, "Where, if at all, does al-Qaida fit into this entire equation?" Bergen replied, slightly taken aback, "I would say not at all."
Teenage soldier discovers bomb factory in Afghanistan
A teenage British soldier saved the lives of dozens of his comrades when he discovered hidden cache of ten Taliban bombs during a patrol in Helmand.
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent The Telegraph (UK) 8:15AM GMT 06 Feb 2011
Ranger Gavin Edgar, 19, who only joined the Army last year and is on his first operational tour, discovered the improvised explosive devices hidden beneath a large hay bale in the area of Nad e'Ali in central Helmand.
Afghanistan tries to limit excessive wedding day costs
Families struggle with expenses for ceremony, dowry
Boston Globe By Farah Stockman Globe Staff February 6, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - They invited a thousand people to their wedding and 1,300 came. Pepsi, kabobs, and rice were served, beneath 5-foot chandeliers. A singer crooned about love. The shy bride wore gold jewelry. Her mother cried. The total bill came to more than $30,000.
Iran Faces Renewed Afghan Dam Sabotage Claims
Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) 01 Feb 2011
Bakhshabad dam key to prosperity of western region, but would divert water away from Afghanistan's neighbour.
By Jawid Tabish - Afghanistan ARR Issue 389, 1 Feb 11
Officials in Farah province say repeated attacks on the Bakhshabad hydropower facility are an attempt by Iran to derail a project which would massively boost local energy and water supplies.
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Deal signed to supply Iran fuel to Afghanistan
Sun Feb 6, 5:33 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran said on Sunday it has reached an agreement with Afghanistan to supply it with Iranian fuel and that it has started delivering the products to the neighbour's private sector.
Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi said "Afghanistan's private sector buys all its needed products from Iran," the oil ministry news service Shana reported.
"Oil products were already transited to Afghanistan and we hope from now on this country makes all its (fuel) purchases from Iran as there has been an agreement with Afghan officials," Mirkazemi said.
About one-third of Afghanistan's fuel needs, imported from Russia, Turkmenistan and Iraq, transit through Iran.
The transport of the fuel has become a sensitive issue as the Islamic republic has prevented the passage of trucks carrying the supplies to Afghanistan.
Tehran has hinted to Kabul that it suspected the transited fuel would supply US and other foreign troops fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan.
Iran, which is under international sanctions on its energy sector over its nuclear programme, has sought to increase its petrol production capacity.
Higher prices have also reduced Iran's daily petrol consumption from 60 million litres to about 45 million.
Mirkazemi said the Iranian government has "authorised the export of a billion litres of petrol" of its strategic reserves by the end of the Iranian year in March 2011.
"As new refineries come on line and the production capacity increases the current reserves can be exported and replaced," with new production, he said.
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Afghanistan's Karzai critical of aid bypassing government, pledges to fight corruption
By Geir Moulson, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Sun, 6 Feb 7:11 AM EST
MUNICH - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that channeling aid past his government undermines efforts to make it more effective, identifying NATO's provincial reconstruction teams as one of his concerns.
But he also renewed pledges to tackle corruption in Afghanistan, a key reason that organizations are reluctant to deal with the government directly.
Karzai said on the final day of a security conference in Munich that he is "determined to demonstrate Afghan leadership and ownership of the transition process" as Afghanistan prepares to take full responsibility for its security by 2014. He said he would "announce the first phase of transition" on March 21, but didn't elaborate.
Afghanistan has a bureaucracy which "both because of its inherited structures and ill-co-ordinated technical assistance from our partners has become a patchwork of different approaches to governance," Karzai said.
He added that it needs help to build "a civil service that's efficient, modern and apolitical."
That shift, he said, "requires a fundamental shift away from reliance on parallel organizations and mechanisms that bypass the state." He identified "parallel structures" such as private security firms, the NATO-led international force's provincial reconstruction teams and direct support to provincial offices.
"They don't produce the desired result," Karzai said. "Rather, they are contributing to weakened Afghan government and to impediments to the growth of the Afghan state structures and good governance."
"As we move forward toward 2014, the objective should be to enable Afghanistan to take all responsibility for the delivery of governance and services," Karzai said.
Many donor countries have been reluctant to give an Afghan government infamous for corruption and bloated bureaucracy authority over funds — and so distribute most of their aid through international development groups or contractors.
NATO's provincial reconstruction teams, or PRTs — combined civilian-military units working on development projects around the country — often say they use foreign assistance to dig wells or improve roads because money for such things doesn't filter down from the national government.
Karzai said Sunday that his government intends this year to "focus on the drivers of corruption," for instance by improving laws and regulations and developing land management programs.
U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, NATO's top military commander, sought to dispel suggestions of a rift with Karzai over how aid and security are delivered.
"I think we all have the same objective here ... which is to transition not only security operations but other lines of effort," he said.
"So over time we want to, of course, transition private security companies, we want to transition the work that's done in the PRTs, we want to transition the logistics support, the contracting and so forth," he added. "My sense is that's in progress."
U.S. Defence Undersecretary Michele Flournoy concurred, saying that "we fully envision a transition, an evolution of the PRT concept."
Germany's foreign minister, speaking alongside Karzai, said it's right to ask questions about whether international money is reaching the intended recipients.
"We can only justify our engagement, which costs our German taxpayers and other taxpayers of the alliance enormous amounts of money ... if we know and can be assured that this is something that is really for the people," Guido Westerwelle said.
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Karzai to announce Afghan handover start March 21
By David Brunnstrom – Sun Feb 6, 8:12 am ET
MUNICH (Reuters) – The president of Afghanistan said on Sunday he would announce the start of a process to transfer responsibility for security to Afghan forces from international forces on March 21.
NATO agreed with President Hamid Karzai at a summit in November to begin the handover to Afghan forces this year with the aim of completing the transition by the end of 2014.
The Western military alliance has said it hopes to launch the process, which is aimed at a gradual reduction of the 150,000 foreign troops in the country, next month.
Karzai told an international security conference in Munich that the Afghan government was determined to show leadership, adding: "I will announce the first phase of transition on the Afghan New Year, which is the 21st of March."
Karzai said this had been made possible by a big effort to boost the size of the Afghan security forces.
NATO has stressed that transition will be gradual, conducted district by district and province by province, and will depend on security conditions.
NATO initially planned to start the handover at the end of last year. But this was hampered by slow progress in building up Afghan forces and by an increase in insurgent violence, which hit its worst levels since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.
SURVEY FUELS DOUBTS
Doubts over the transition process were underscored on Thursday by a survey that showed Afghanistan's police force is only slightly more popular than the Taliban in the insurgent heartlands of the south.
Results of the U.N.-commissioned survey portrayed a police force widely viewed by Afghans as corrupt and showing favoritism toward people based on personal connections.
The findings were a blow to Western efforts to extend the reach of the central government and its security forces to areas under the sway of a parallel Taliban authority, particularly in the south which has borne the brunt of NATO and U.S. military operations to drive back the Islamist insurgents.
In Munich, Karzai repeated complaints that what he calls "parallel structures" -- private foreign security firms protecting international interests and Provincial Reconstruction Teams run by foreign military contingents -- were hampering efforts to expand the influence of the Afghan government.
He said there should be a similar transfer of the roles alongside the overall security handover.
Karzai further said international backers of Afghanistan must stick to promises to channel a greater percentage of financial assistance through the Afghan government.
NATO's top commander, Admiral James Stavridis, told the conference the alliance agreed with Karzai on a broader handover as Afghan capabilities improved. "I think we are going to see increased Afghan responsibility across the board."
Stavridis and U.S. Under Secretary for Defense Michele Flournoy both expressed guarded optimism about progress in the battle against militants.
Stavridis said the gains were both "fragile" and "reversible" but "I am cautiously optimistic that we are on a good track."
(Editing by Stephen Brown and Mark Heinrich)
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Afghan central bank sees Islamic banking law enacted in 2011
By Shaheen Pasha Sun Feb 6, 2011 2:44am EST
DUBAI (Reuters) - Afghanistan's central bank expects an Islamic banking law to be enacted by September, drawing billions in deposits from citizens wary of the conventional banking system, a senior official said.
The central bank's sharia board will meet Sunday to finalize the law, said Muhammed Qaseem Rahimi, director general of the central bank's Financial Supervision Department. It will then go to the Justice Ministry and parliament for approval.
"Most of the people who can access banking services don't use them just because of the interest, which is not allowed in Islam," Rahimi told Reuters via email.
"The demand for Islamic bank services is very high in banked and unbanked populations of Afghanistan."
Of 17 banks in Afghanistan, six have Islamic banking windows. The central bank hopes to approve the creation of fully fledged Islamic banks after the law is passed, Rahimi added.
Total deposits stood at $3.58 billion as of August 2010, according to a central bank report. But bankers estimate that there is close to $30 billion in circulation that remains untapped by the banking sector.
An Islamic banking law could revive an industry hit by scandal in recent months.
The central bank took over Kabulbank in September, the country's largest private bank, after irregularities of about $579 million raised red flags with authorities.
The crisis added another layer of uncertainty for the country, which already struggles with record levels of military and civilian casualties as well as corruption concerns.
But Islamic banking could renew trust in the sector, said Alam Hamdard, Kabulbank's head of Islamic banking.
"The crisis showed Islamic banking provides more transparency," he said in a telephone interview. "We could show them that their money was safe and secure in tangible projects that were being developed."
Hamdard said Islamic bank customers at Kabulbank did not withdraw funds at the same level as conventional banking customers during the scandal.
SHAKING OUT PILLOWS
But reaching the conservative Muslim masses and educating them in how Islamic banking differs from the conventional system is a challenge, with some bankers taking to the airwaves or sitting down at religious gatherings in rural areas to preach Islamic finance.
"Our ultimate goal is to shake out all the money that is lying in pillows and not with the economy in order to contribute to the rebuilding of Afghanistan," Khan Afzal Hadawal, Chief Executive Officer of Bank-e-Millie Afghan, said by telephone.
Hadawal said Bank-e-Millie's Islamic banking business has $15 million in deposits and that is projected to rise to $50 million by the end of the year as demand grows.
The Islamic banking sector in Afghanistan could attract up to $6 billion in five years, he said, if the sector starts to offer products such as Islamic credit cards, debit cards and automated teller machine facilities. (Editing by Robert Birsel)
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John Kerry Breaks With Obama On Afghanistan, Calls For Fewer U.S. Troops On The Ground
First Posted: 02/ 6/11 The Huffington Post
WASHINGTON -- One of the Obama administration's key allies in Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), is breaking with the president on Afghanistan and saying the strategy in the war needs to be revised. The development, coming from someone who was once a strong backer of Obama's decision to increase troops in Afghanistan, could deal a significant blow to support for the administration.
"What I don't want is to be party to a policy that continues simply because it is there and in place," said Kerry in an interview with the Boston Globe about his evolving views on the war. "That would be like Vietnam. And that is what I am determined to try to prevent."
Kerry, according to the Globe, is calling for "a more limited focus and fewer American troops than the 155,000 that are in place now." In the coming months, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be holding a series of oversight hearings on the Obama administration's strategy.
"Obviously, I think progress has been made in military terms, but everybody agrees there is not a military solution," Kerry said. "What I worry about is whether or not the governance [improves] sufficiently to make a difference."
Kerry isn't alone in his concerns. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the committee, recently told reporters that many Americans are increasingly getting frustrated with the war and are going to have to decide whether they want to continue spending billions of dollars for many years to come.
"For ordinary Americans looking at all this, they wonder, where does this stop?" said Lugar. "Here, American taxpayers have been generous. Billions of dollars are going to Afghanistan to try to improve the standard of living of people, apart from the military side. But we're running into real problems with regard to Afghan law and administration, and even humanitarian matters."
The Afghanistan war has not, unlike the Iraq war, had a figure equivalent to the late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a conservative Democrat with strong national security credentials and ties to the military who became an outspoken critic of the war. Several observers have said that Kerry could possibly have the same impact if he took up that mantle, in large part because of his record in Vietnam.
"Afghanistan now awaits its Fulbright," wrote Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, in The Washington Post, in December. "It is time for the Senate to make an independent review of the war, and to challenge -- as Sen. J.William Fulbright did during the Vietnam war -- a president unwilling to end a conflict he knows will not be won. Surely, it is fate that the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is Sen. John Kerry. Nearly 40 years ago, as a brave, decorated, young Navy lieutenant returning from Vietnam, he challenged senators to do their duty, saying that each day 'someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows...that we have made a mistake. ... How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?'"
Kerry,however, told the Globe that he doesn't think Afghanistan is the same as Vietnam. "Some people try to make it [Vietnam] and some people want it to be the same exercise," Kerry said. "But it just isn't. Unlike Vietnam, where there was no threat to the United States, and no real strategic interest -- it was trumped up -- here there is a real one."
He said though that he is applying many of the lessons from that war to the current conflict. "Don't take things for granted," he added. "Don't take things at face value. Don't believe everything somebody tells you because they are in a position [of authority]. Probe it. Look at it. Test it. Look for the truth. It took us too long to get to the truth in that war."
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Afghan progress on track: Cameron
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday said coalition forces were making steady progress in improving security in Afghanistan and were on track to leave the country by 2015.
"I do think we've made progress," Cameron told CNN, adding that ensuring that Afghan forces could take over responsibility for the country's security was the ultimate key to allowing US, British and NATO forces to withdraw.
Britain has about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, making it the second-largest contributor after the United States to the NATO-led coalition.
Based in the central province of Helmand, which Cameron called the "toughest part of the country by a very, very long way," they are battling Taliban insurgents and training local security forces.
"The ticket for President (Barack) Obama and for me to bring our troops home is the training of the Afghan army and the police, which is going well," Cameron told CNN.
"We need to keep that progress growing, and we need a strong government in Afghanistan to help deliver that change," he said.
"I believe those things can be done, and we will be able to meet our deadline of not having combat troops or troops in large number by 2015."
In his State of the Union address last month, Obama renewed pledges to start withdrawing some of the nearly 100,000 US troops in July and to begin handing over security duties to Afghan forces in 2011.
Top US officials have suggested an initial mid-2011 withdrawal date will only involve the return of a small number of troops, with NATO leaders aiming to hand over security for to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
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Germany pledges to support Afghanistan after troop withdrawal
06.02.2011
The final day of the Munich Security Conference turned to Afghanistan on Sunday with Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle guaranteeing Germany's continued support as Afghanistan continues on its path towards democracy.
Opening a debate on global and regional security challenges, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Munich Security Conference on Sunday that 2011 should see a significant shift in focus from military to political support for Afghanistan.
The NATO-led military mission has decided to begin handing Afghan forces the lead in the battle against Taliban rebels this year with the aim of giving them full responsibility across the nation by 2014.
Westerwelle promised Germany's continued support even after 2014, when Afghanistan hopes to be able to take over its own security issues.
"Whoever wants a stable situation should not forget that are responsibility does not end in 2014," he said.
The foreign minister said he was satisfied with the development of the police and army in Afghanistan, and that he did not think that the beginning of the withdrawal of German troops at the end of this year would cause security issues.
"The training of soldiers and police officers is going quicker than expected. That's our first success," he said.
Westerwelle said the key to success in Afghanistan would be all parties working together.
"That's not easy, but reconciliation is never easy," he said.
Westerwelle also said it was important to encourage investment in the country, as that would provide more stability.
"That's why long term peace depends on all those who are currently militarily engaged in the country, also developing their economic commitments – explicitly with investments," he said.
Room for improvement
Westerwelle praised the recent opening of the new Afghan parliament and invited Afghan President Hamid Karzai to have a "good and fruitful cooperation with parliament."
But he also criticized the administration of Afghanistan, saying that corruption and nepotism were not uncommon.
Karzai promised to fight corruption, to develop a functioning administration and improve security. He asked Western governments to help him reform the country's patchy civil service, a fertile breeding ground for corruption, and invest in its economy, noting its strategic location in Asia and its mineral wealth.
He also vowed to reconcile "as soon as possible" with moderate members of the Taliban who accept the constitution and renounce terrorism.
Karzai said he would announce the start of the transition of security responsibility from NATO to Afghan forces on March 21, his country's New Year, adding that his country was ready to take on more responsibility.
"We are determined to demonstrate Afghan leadership and ownership of the transition process," Karzai said.
NATO hopes to build up Afghan security forces to some 306,000 soldiers and police by the end of the year to begin taking over from around 140,000 foreign troops fighting across the nation.
Author: Natalia Dannenberg (AFP, dpa, AP).
Editor: Sean Sinico
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Canada's hired guns in Afghanistan slammed in U.S. Senate report
By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Canada spent more than $41 million on hired guns in Afghanistan over four years, much of it going to security companies slammed by the U.S. Senate for having warlords on the payroll.
Both the Defence and Foreign Affairs departments have employed 11 security contractors in Kabul and Kandahar since 2006, but have kept quiet about the details.
Now documents tabled in Parliament at the request of the New Democrats provide the first comprehensive picture of the use of private contractors, which have been accused of adding to the chaos in Afghanistan.
The records show Foreign Affairs paid nearly $8 million to ArmorGroup Securities Ltd., recently cited in a U.S. Senate investigation as relying on Afghan warlords who in 2007 were engaged in "murder, kidnapping, bribery and anti-Coalition activities."
The company, which has since been taken over by G4S Risk Management, provided security around the Canadian embassy in Kabul and guarded diplomats.
Tundra SCA stands on guard for the Defence Department outside Canadian military forward operating bases and has collected more than $5.3 million.
The U.S. Senate report included Tundra on a list of companies that poach staff from Afghan security forces — something that has long angered President Hamid Karzai, who last year moved to eject all private security from the country.
More than $438,000 of the Afghan-owned, Canadian-run company's expenses remain secret, for operational security reasons. But Tundra's website, unlike other contractors, promotes its intelligence "gathering and analyzing" abilities.
A Kandahar warlord, with links to former governor Gul Agha Sherzai, earned $2.5 million since 2008 providing security outside of the provincial reconstruction base.
Col. Haji Toorjan employed a 40-man militia. But there are questions about how much was spent for his service because the documents tabled in the House of Commons are not consistent with access-to-information records and published reports that show he was on the payroll in 2007.
More than $3.4 million went to Washington, D.C.-based Blue Hackle to guard the governor of Kandahar and train his security detail. Canada started paying that expense in 2008, after Karzai replaced the notorious Asadullah Khalid, who was accused of human-rights abuses and had his own private militia known as Brigade 888.
All of the contracting happened even though the federal government has no overall policy or legislation to govern the use of hired guns — unlike other countries, notably the United States, which has imposed strict accountability guidelines on its contractors.
Even with those rules, the American system was found lacking by U.S. senators, who heard complaints from NATO that there was "little awareness of money flow" and that some of the contracts were "enriching powerbrokers, undercutting counterinsurgency efforts and delegitimizing the Afghan government."
The Canadian International Development Agency, which delivers aid projects in Afghanistan, said it does not employ security companies, but agencies that it hires to deliver programs do.
One of those contractors, SNC Lavalin, hired the Watan Group to guard one of Ottawa's signature development projects, the Dahla dam. The company, owned by relatives of Karzai, was recently blacklisted by the U.S. military.
A spokesman for the Defence Department declined comment on Friday.
Foreign Affairs said it has no concerns about the record of the ArmorGroup's new owners, despite the criticism in Washington and noted the company had signed on to a non-binding international arrangement of best practises for armed contractors.
"All private security contractors employed by Canada are known to the Afghan Government, and are subject to Afghan law," said Jean-Bruno Villeneuve, a department spokesman, in an email late Saturday night.
"G4S Risk Management is a signatory of the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers, which was signed in Geneva this past November."
He said the department has no plans to draft an oversight policy and believes the current reporting mechanism — applied through contract language — are sufficient.
The NDP's foreign-affairs critic said it's appalling Ottawa had no mechanism to govern hired guns and charged that what the country tried to accomplish in terms of rule of law in Kandahar has suffered.
"It undermines our credibility," said Paul Dewar. "Afghans are not stupid. They see these people. They see what they're doing and they know who is paying them."
Opposition parties have throughout the war mounted attacks on the use of contractors, but never had a complete picture from which to draw conclusions. Even with the release of figures and contract names, Dewar said there are still many important questions left unanswered.
"We've spent tens of millions of dollars on what I would consider to be some very dubious characters, to do what?" he said. "Foreign Affairs, in particular, needs to be held to account. I'm blown away by what I'm seeing here."
Dewar questioned why contractors were needed in the first place. But a defence expert, who has written extensively on the use of hired guns in war zones, said they are fact of life in the age of all-volunteer armies.
The contractors, usually ex-soldiers, are most often used in a defensive manner, taking up guard duties that free combat troops, said researcher Dave Perry in Ottawa.
He also cautioned that moral outrage over unsavoury alliances with local warlords should be tempered.
In conflict zones "I think it would be hard to find somebody who could provide credible security force that did not have something in their past that somebody could point to and say that they've done something inappropriate," said Perry.
What is needed, he said, are concrete guidelines.
There are an estimated 40,000 armed security contractors operating in Afghanistan. Karzai ordered them out of the country last fall, but concern about how aid and development groups would protect themselves forced him to back down.
Instead, the Afghan government has demanded that firms register with the government and begin paying taxes.
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‘Words in the Dust’ is an Afghan story of hope
Los Angeles Times By SUSAN CARPENTER Saturday, Feb. 05, 2011
Trent Reedy was an American soldier providing security for the reconstruction of Afghanistan when he saw her. The girl was 13, her cleft lip so deformed that her teeth stuck out straight from her mouth. Her upper lip was split in two. Her nose was distorted.
Shock was Reedy’s reaction when he first saw the girl he came to know as Zulaikha -- a girl who became the inspiration for, and centerpiece of, his debut young adult novel, “Words in the Dust.” Based on Reedy’s real-life experience helping Zulaikha get corrective surgery, “Words in the Dust” is a striking and beautifully told story -- one that is unusual not only because it is by a first-time author, but also because it’s told from Zulaikha’s point of view.
It’s difficult enough to write authentically about a foreign culture. It’s even more difficult to write from the perspective of another gender. Yet Reedy, who was 26 when his contingent of the Iowa National Guard was deployed to a combat zone in the western province of Farah, felt compelled to write about her. “After her surgery, when she was leaving the base, I promised I would tell her story,” said Reedy, who served 13 months in Afghanistan. “It was a mission I absolutely had to accomplish, no matter how long it took or how ridiculous it sounded that a white guy from Iowa would write it.”
The story, as Reedy tells it, is an imagined filling-in of the blanks since cultural tradition prevented Reedy from meeting with Zulaikha for extended periods of time. That makes his fiction all the more surprising -- and rewarding as Reedy deftly taps into the emotional inner space of a girl whose entire life has been shaped by her deformity.
“Words in the Dust” begins with the neighbor boys relentlessly teasing Zulaikha on walks to the market. Her stepmother is oblivious to the bullying and sends Zulaikha to run errands and otherwise fills her days with chores. The oppressive patriarchy of the Taliban is woven into the fabric of her daily life, with little encouragement of the girl’s interest in literacy or acknowledgment of Afghanistan’s rich cultural past.
Zulaikha’s father and extended family are benefiting financially from the military presence, but her parents are suspicious when U.S. soldiers approach to offer help in obtaining her surgery. It is gender politics and Afghan tradition that threaten her chances at a normal life -- a life that Reedy renders with an emotional clarity honed from observation and the cultural detail of first-hand experience.
Reedy had been in the military since leaving high school. He’d wanted to be a writer since the fourth grade but pursued that only after receiving inspiration from an unlikely source: “Bridge to Terabithia” author Katherine Paterson.
While he was in Afghanistan, Reedy’s wife sent him the book, which was an important reminder of “hope and beauty and friendship,” said Reedy, who had never heard of Paterson before reading the 1977 Newbery Medal-winning classic. “I needed that book. I needed that reminder that art is important.”
He wrote Paterson a thank you note, and the two began a correspondence. “I don’t generally hear from soldiers, and it was this absolutely incredible letter written in the wilds of Afghanistan,” said Paterson from her Vermont home. She said that Reedy is now “like one of my children.”
Reedy’s book is dedicated to the 78-year-old Paterson, who also wrote the book’s introduction.
“I was just so moved by the whole way he was able to get into the heart of this child and her pain and her disability and the longing to be a part of what her mother and grandmother were a part of: the beauty of the Afghan tradition, wanting to be able to read and go to school,” Paterson said. “It’s such a wonderful story. It became vivid to me in a way that news reports and watching television you don’t get at all.”
When Reedy returned from the war, Paterson helped him obtain a residency at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. It was there, just a year after he’d returned from his war-torn outpost, that he began writing the story of the girl he and his fellow soldiers had helped and her challenging family life, her encounters with the U.S. soldiers that led to her surgery and the effect of the U.S. military presence on her city.
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The Longest War by Peter Bergen – review
This fair-minded and accessible expert guide to the conflict between the United States and al-Qaida is essential reading
The Guardian Peter L. Bergen Sunday 6 February 2011
On around the fifth day of the demonstrations in Cairo, there was a rapid but revealing exchange on CNN. Presenter Wolf Blitzer introduced the channel's national security analyst Peter Bergen, "the author of the new and best-selling book The Longest War and expert on the Middle East". After recapping recent events in Egypt, he asked his guest, "Where, if at all, does al-Qaida fit into this entire equation?" Bergen replied, slightly taken aback, "I would say not at all."
This is not the first time Bergen has had to field such startling questions about al-Qaida or Islamic militancy in general. Since first becoming interested in the topic in the mid-90s, and meeting Osama bin Laden in 1997, Bergen has, through his books, journalism and lecturing, established a reputation as one of America's foremost al-Qaida experts. Though there are some with a more specialised knowledge of certain corners of the vast field that is "jihadi studies", few rival Bergen's overall knowledge or ability to explain, patiently and intelligibly, complicated concepts to people whose knowledge of the subject is, at best, variable. He is also one of the very rare such figures to consistently spent time on the ground: in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and most recently in Egypt.
The Longest War is ambitious both in scope and aims. It sets out to chart "the enduring conflict between America and al-Qaida". Its goal, the author says, "is to tell a history of the 'war on terror' in one volume." In particular it aims to tell the story from all sides. Events in the US have been well covered by a series of instant histories by Bob Woodward and through the wonderful American tradition of senior figures releasing detailed memoirs soon after leaving office. Though some of the material in The Longest War is familiar, Bergen, through interviews with lesser-known figures, particularly from the world of counter-terrorism, adds much to what is already known.
However, it is on the other side that the book is revelatory. The internal workings of bin Laden's group are still largely obscure, at least to the general public, and Bergen does a fine job of negotiating the maze of personalities and ideologies to explain the various evolutions al-Qaida has undergone.
One valuable early point is that the 9/11 attacks were deeply controversial within al-Qaida itself, and the broader Islamic militant community. Many believed that to risk the overthrowing of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the consequent loss of a safe haven was a mistake. Noman Benotman, a Libyan former militant and Afghan veteran, now in London, told Bergen that "the tactics took over the strategy". Some, though far fewer, believed it was theologically unjustified.
These debates, often acrimonious, continued. By 2007, senior figures, among them founder members of al-Qaida and senior Gulf clerics with strong militant credentials, were renouncing violence, or at least bin Laden's leadership. Another debate within militant ranks was over whether to favour an "open front" strategy, where non-conventional but overt campaigns would aim to "liberate" territory, or a broader, decentralised strategy, which would aim to spark a "global uprising" and a host of miniature al-Qaidas would spring up. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the latter was the brainchild of Syrian-born Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, better known as Abu Musab al'Suri, who was one of those in Afghanistan pre-9/11 who was deeply suspicious of bin Laden and his pretensions to primacy within the world of Islamic extremism.
This argument reflects a broader one among analysts over the centrality of al-Qaida in contemporary militant Islam. Bergen is very clear: al-Qaida and bin Laden remain critical. They are at the centre of many plots, providing leadership, inspiration and focus. In the unlikely event of the capture or killing of bin Laden – and Bergen surgically slices away the bombast to reveal the deep inadequacies of the hunt for the fugitive terrorist – a huge hole would be left.
Here, Bergen perhaps goes too far. Certainly al-Qaida continues to play a major role, particularly in adding the practical knowledge and strategic focus that turns a "bunch of guys" into a terrorist cell. But if the radicalisation process is traced further back, other elements become much more important, not least personal acquaintances and the ideological environment in any given community.
A survey of militant Islam around the world shows how limited bin Laden's influence is on the broader movement, despite the media attention he receives. Though new groups in Somalia and the Yemen are linked, tenuously, to the "AQ hardcore", many others – in Iraq, Indonesia, Algeria, Morocco, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan – are not. If these groups have sometimes come close to al-Qaida's vision in ideological terms, they would not necessarily evaporate if bin Laden was removed from the scene. Indeed, the current interest of Pakistani groups such as Lashkar e-Taiba or Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami in global agendas could be read as a sign of the end of al-Qaida's monopoly on international campaigns.
This debate has huge implications for the current crisis in Egypt, in which al-Qaida, as Bergen told Blitzer, has played no role whatsoever. Rather than asking about al-Qaida, Blitzer should have been asking about Islamism more generally. One of the most striking developments over recent years in the Middle East has been the growing conservatism, political, social and religious, of much of the population. Often this has been in opposition to the westernised values and lifestyles of an elite unwilling to share power and wealth with the expanding urban middle class. In Egypt, democracy is seen as a tool to oust that elite.
Quite what will follow is uncertain. The critical question is the extent to which the population share the social values of the educated, media and tech-savvy activists who have so far been driving events. Though the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organisation founded in Egypt in 1928, would probably win only a third of votes in a free and fair election, it is likely that a "mild or moderate" Islamist worldview is shared by a greater proportion of people.
One possibility is an evolution along the lines of Turkey, where an ongoing tension between new conservative, religious moderates and an old secular elite has neither derailed economic growth nor destabilised the country. But other less positive outcomes are entirely feasible. The biggest problem for reformers in Iran, too, is bringing on board the country's reactionary rural and working-class constituency, who are still suspicious of anything that smacks of westernisation.
A second element is worth remembering. Bergen recounts the history and roots of "the longest war" (that there is still no commonly agreed name for the conflict reveals much about the lack of clarity as to its real nature and even the identity of its participants). It is a conflict that is often described as "generational", meaning that it will last for somewhere between 20 and 25 years. However, there is another sense in which generations play a role. Looking at some of the regions hit by violence associated with militant Islam in recent years, such as Iraq or Saudi Arabia, it is clear that the revulsion most people feel when they see what radical campaigns at home actually mean was the crucial factor in the failure of extremists to convince communities to heed their call-to-arms. The same was true of Algeria and Egypt in the 90s. Yet those out on the streets in Cairo and Alexandria are extremely young. In Egypt, 29% of the population is under 30. Most barely remember the hideous brutality that accompanied th
e militant campaigns of 15 or 20 years ago. They may, if their aspirations are not met in this new period of change, be tempted to turn once more to the bomb and the bullet.
But to understand "the equation", as Blitzer put it, you need to understand al-Qaida, and Bergen, with this detailed, serious, scrupulously fair, perceptive and sometimes startling work has made a significant contribution to us doing exactly that.
Jason Burke's new book, The 9/11 Wars, will be published by Penguin later this year.
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Teenage soldier discovers bomb factory in Afghanistan
A teenage British soldier saved the lives of dozens of his comrades when he discovered hidden cache of ten Taliban bombs during a patrol in Helmand.
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent The Telegraph (UK) 8:15AM GMT 06 Feb 2011
Ranger Gavin Edgar, 19, who only joined the Army last year and is on his first operational tour, discovered the improvised explosive devices hidden beneath a large hay bale in the area of Nad e'Ali in central Helmand.
The soldier, a member of 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment, was leading a patrol through a hamlet last week when he suspected that a bomb or bomb-making equipment might be hidden beneath the hay bale.
The soldier, who holds the position of lead "Vallon Man" – the Vallon is a mine detector – is responsible for trying to discover hidden bombs and explosive caches when on patrol.
The job is regarded as one of the most dangerous but important roles in Afghanistan.
Rgr Edgar, who has been specially trained to identify potential threats, ran his Vallon mine detector over the bale and when the alarm sounded, indicating a potential IED, he told his fellow soldiers to move away from the danger zone.
Using the skills learnt in his pre-deployment training and developed over the four months he has so far spent in Helmand, Rgr Edgar began confirming the presence of a number of bombs.
He cleared a safe area for the men to move into whilst they awaited the arrival of a specialist IED disposal team to make the unstable munitions safe
The haul is the biggest to have been found by the Royal Irish troops in their area of operations to date. It comprised:
• one formed IED containing 8kg of explosives in a container and a direct firing charge;
• six IED main charges in the form of 81mm mortar shells with explosives and fuses attached;
• a large quantity of pressure plate components and detonation cord;
• 15 tubes of rocket propellant designed for rocket-propelled grenades;
• a large bag of home-made explosives;
• five battery packs
Rgr Edgar, who is originally from Coleraine in Ulster but is now based in Tern Hill, Shropshire, said: "As we were patrolling, I moved around the corner of the compound and saw the haystack.
"I passed the Vallon over it and it started to bleep, which immediately caused alarm. I slowly started to pull the top of the hay away to investigate further and then saw the pressure plates. I couldn't believe my eyes.
"I was delighted to find all these explosives because I knew that, now we had them, they couldn't be used against us by the insurgents.
"This will be a big loss to the insurgency but it's great news for us – and the local people who now won't be at risk of being blown up by these indiscriminate weapons."
Lieutenant Colonel Colin Weir, Commanding Officer of 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment, praised Rgr Edgar's professionalism, and said: "The IED threat in this area has been significant; we have lost life and limb to IEDs in this area. Ranger Edgar's professionalism has, without doubt, saved lives.
"Our weapons experts assess that the material recovered could have made at least 10 IEDs – so a good morning's work."
In the last two years the IED has become the Taliban's weapon of choice and is now responsible for the majority of casualties being sustained by British troops in Helmand.
Most IEDs are made in small bomb factories in hamlets in Taliban-controlled area of the province. The bombs are often poorly made and extremely unstable but have proven to be very effective.
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Afghanistan tries to limit excessive wedding day costs
Families struggle with expenses for ceremony, dowry
Boston Globe By Farah Stockman Globe Staff February 6, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - They invited a thousand people to their wedding and 1,300 came. Pepsi, kabobs, and rice were served, beneath 5-foot chandeliers. A singer crooned about love. The shy bride wore gold jewelry. Her mother cried. The total bill came to more than $30,000.
But the groom responsible for paying for the wedding — Sultan Mehmood Faiz, a 23-year-old Web designer for the Ministry of Public Works — makes only about $300 a month. “In Afghanistan, people think marriage only comes once, so they are trying to arrange the best wedding, even if they are poor,’’ said Faiz.
Marriage in this embattled nation is a two-sided coin: an emblem of hope for the future and a symbol of Afghanistan’s battle with inflation.
In the nine years since the US military toppled the Taliban regime, the price of bread has jumped from 2 to 20 cents. A bundle of firewood has gone from 14 cents to $1.50. A simple house that rented for $30 per month now fetches $500. But perhaps nowhere has inflation caused more discomfort than in the skyrocketing cost of marriage, which has leapt from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands.
Marriage costs have become a major political issue. Members of Parliament, as well as the Ministry of Justice, are seeking to outlaw expensive weddings. The proposed law limits the number of outfits a groom must buy for his bride to three, and the number of guests at a wedding to 300, as well as mandates that the party end at 11 p.m.
On the fourth floor of the Ministry of Justice, a decrepit building with a stairway pockmarked with bullet holes from an insurgent attack, Abdul Majeed Ghanizada said it is vital to national security.
“Most of the young generation cannot get married, ’’ said Ghanizada, who drafted the bill. “Some people when they get engaged must go for several years to do manual labor in Pakistan to try to save money. And other people will join the Taliban, just so they can get paid and be able to marry.’’
Faiz is one of the lucky ones. His father, who owns a successful construction company, helped pay for his wedding. But Afghan officials estimate that roughly half of all men of marriageable age can’t afford to tie the knot.
Inflation ran 30.5 percent last year, in part because of the infusion of Western non-governmental organizations, military contractors, and foreign-educated specialists who are willing to pay top dollar for luxuries and necessities.
Afghan employees of foreign organizations, as well as corrupt Afghan officials and drug traffickers, easily earn a hundred times the salary of an ordinary person, making the gap between rich and poor in Afghanistan among the widest in the world.
“Huge money came to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban,’’ said Ghanizada, who recalled that his own wedding in 1992, at the height of civil war, was held at home for $700. “Now, if a man has a daughter, he says, ‘My daughter’s wedding should be organized at the same hotel as my neighbor’s daughter.’ ’’
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Middle-class families in Kabul take out bank loans or sell their homes to pay for a marriage, which routinely includes feeding up to a thousand friends and relatives during three ceremonies, buying gold jewelry and as many as 15 bridal outfits, and paying a lump sum known as dowry to the bride’s parents.
The problem is greatest in southern Afghanistan, where the insurgency rages, because dowry alone can reach $20,000, despite widespread poverty, Afghan officials said.
Families have coped in creative ways.
Elders have organized mass weddings, sometimes paid by a local charity, where dozens of couples marry.
Some parents quietly allow their future sons-in-law to have sexual relations with their daughters before the official marriage if the men make a down-payment on the dowry and begin working to pay off the rest. Parents seeking a match for their son look for potential brides with brothers who could marry their daughter, so that households merely swap daughters and no dowry is required.
But the proposed marriage law has provided the best hope for cash-strapped families.
“I hope they pass this law as soon as possible,’’ said Qandi Gul, a 45-year old mother of 12, who bemoaned the high cost of weddings through the wire mesh of her burqa. Her third son, age 20, just got engaged and agreed to pay $3,330 for the dowry, even though he barely makes $5 a day selling bananas.
An additional amount must be saved by the family — whose 25 members live in one house and run a traditional bread shop — to book a wedding hall, she said.
But talk of the new law sparked some concern in the row of massive wedding halls that lines the road to the airport, decorated with purple trees and a fake moon three-stories high. Mohammed Yasin, the owner of the Kabul Paris Wedding Hall, said the government should consider the cost they incurred to build the halls — and the taxes they pay.
He said he felt for the common man who can’t afford to marry but noted it would be hard to keep wealthy people in this lawless country from spending whatever they want.
“Even my special menu now is not enough for them, and they ask me for even more special things,’’ he said, adding that some pay as much as $100,000.
At the nearby Uranus Wedding hall, decorated with a pink rose fountain, Nesar Ahmad , the 21-year-old manager, noted a silver lining: An elite class of young men with high-paying jobs cover the cost of their own weddings and therefore are more empowered to choose whom they marry — a decision traditionally made by parents.
Faiz chose his own bride — a cousin who appealed to him because of her good character and education. Still, he told them he didn’t want to pay dowry.
“These rules are from before, and we are in the 21st century,’’ he said. But he and his parents agreed to pay for a wedding at Mumtaz, one of Kabul’s most expensive wedding halls. They rented the bridal clothes and chose the most economical menu, but the costs still mounted.
Even one of the highlights of the ceremony required cash: As per tradition, his sister danced with the knife and refused to give it up for the cutting of the cake until he forked over about $75. The memory of it made him smile.
“That was my favorite part,’’ he said.
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Iran Faces Renewed Afghan Dam Sabotage Claims
Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) 01 Feb 2011
Bakhshabad dam key to prosperity of western region, but would divert water away from Afghanistan's neighbour.
By Jawid Tabish - Afghanistan ARR Issue 389, 1 Feb 11
Officials in Farah province say repeated attacks on the Bakhshabad hydropower facility are an attempt by Iran to derail a project which would massively boost local energy and water supplies.
In the latest incident, unknown armed men abducted two project engineers in the Khake Safed district on November 26, 2010. One of the engineers was killed and the other was released after a ransom of 100,000 US dollars.
Mohammad Younes Rasouly, the deputy governor of Farah province, claimed the attack was a political act intended to disrupt development in Afghanistan.
"There are foreign elements that are trying to disturb and put at risk construction of the Bakhshabad power plant, so that no company will be willing to implement the project," he said.
In 2008, when Indian engineers carried out the initial survey of the project, in the eastern district of Bala Baluk, 110 kilometres away from the provincial capital Farah, they envisaged it would take three years to complete and would provide irrigation for 840,000 hectares of agriculture land.
However, construction work has been repeatedly stalled due to security concerns. Local security officials have in the past claimed that Iran is paying Afghan insurgents to interrupt building activity.
Younes Rasouli, the deputy governor of Farah province, said that in March 2009 12 policemen were killed by militants, in an attack on a police checkpoint near the project site, the deadliest incident to date.
He said that Iran was opposed to the building of the dam because it would divert water from the Farah river, which would particularly affect the Iranian provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, in one of the driest regions of the country.
Abdul Hadi Kashaf, the former director of provincial energy and water in Farah, also claimed Iran was interfering in the construction of the dam.
"Iran does not like this power plant being built as it has a fundamental need for this water, and will not hesitate to obstruct the building of this dam, because if the water comes under our control, Iran will have many problems," he said.
Senior United States officials have claimed on a number of occasions that Iran has been supplying arms to insurgents in Afghanistan and, in March 2009, Afghan security forces found a cache of Iranian-made explosives and ammunition around the dam.
There have also been accusations that Iran has attempted to sabotage work on the construction of the Salma dam in Herat province. (See: Iran Again Accused of Trying to Halt Afghan Dam)
"The interference of Iran is as dramatic as the shining of the sun, but who is here to prevent it?" asked Sayed Ahmad Khan, the head of the Farah provincial council.
Once the dam is built, farmers would no longer have to irrigate their fields using expensive water pumps – which would lead to greater prosperity for the whole province, he said.
The government should prioritise this project, he added.
Faqir Mohammad Askar, the police chief of Farah province, said that the sabotage attempts follow a clear pattern.
"It is clear who does not want construction of this dam because now the construction work has stopped we have no security problem," he said. "When the work starts, the security problems increase."
However, Hosain Mear Skandari, an official from the Iranian consulate in Herat, roundly rejected accusations of interference. "It's propaganda against Iran, they don't have any evidence or proof for what they are saying," he said.
Nonetheless, a lack of water remains a serious problem in Farah, where most of the population is dependent on farming.
Mohammad Aslam Dana, head of the provincial agriculture and livestock department, said that although the province had 560,000 hectares of agricultural land, only about an eighth of it was farmed due to lack of water.
Farmers' reliance on fuel-powered water pumps to irrigate their lands limits how much they can put under crop.
Gulam Haidar, 45, a resident of Tosak village in the west of the province, told IWPR, "I have a lot of agricultural land but since there is no water I can't grow much."
He said that although he had previously irrigated his grape and pomegranate orchards with a water pump, high fuel prices meant he could no longer afford to do so.
"If this dam was built, Farah would become a big wheat producer. I would like to ask the government to build this dam for us as it has not done anything else for us yet, and it should also prevent Iranian interference, too," he added.
The provision of energy also remains a major concern for people in Farah.
Mir Khatam, the head of the provincial department of energy and water, said that they were currently able to provide sufficient electricity for just one out of the six districts of Farah city and none at all to outlying areas.
Some residents use electricity generators, but few can afford this option.
Farah shopkeeper, 32, Ali Ahmad told IWPR, "We have to use generators to stop our food going off, but the price of fuel is so high here, which in turn affects the price of foodstuffs. In the end, it is the poor who come under pressure.
"Today the happiness of the people of Farah is held hostage by the Iranian government. If only the Bakhshabad dam were established, Farah province would have everything."
Jawid Tabish is an IWPR-trained reporter.
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