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Key soldier in Afghan war crimes case faces court-martial
By Laura L. Myers – Sat Jan 8, 1:02 am ET
SEATTLE (Reuters) – An Army staff sergeant was ordered on Friday to be tried by a military court to face charges that include murdering three unarmed Afghan civilians, keeping body parts as grisly war trophies and beating a whistle-blower who told superiors about widespread hashish use in his unit.
Former US sergeant jailed for Afghan bribery
(AFP) – January 7, 2011
WASHINGTON — A former US Army staff sergeant on Friday was sentenced to 90 months in jail over a scheme to solicit more than $400,000 in bribes from a contractor in Afghanistan, officials said.
Germany to set end-2011 start date for Afghan pullout
By Sabine Siebold – Sat Jan 8, 1:02 pm ET
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – The German government will ask parliament this month for approval to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan at the end of the year, excerpts of the proposal obtained by Reuters showed on Saturday.
Netherlands agrees Afghanistan training mission
by Mariette Le Roux – Fri Jan 7, 12:56 pm ET
THE HAGUE (AFP) – The Dutch cabinet agreed Friday to a police training mission to Afghanistan, 11 months after the last government collapsed in a spat over military deployment to the conflict-torn nation.
Karzai is not insane -- just irrelevant
Foreign Policy By Paul Miller Friday, January 7, 2011
There is a major cottage industry among Washington analysts in Karzaiology. Karzaiologists spend weeks and months pouring over the tea leaves of the Afghan president's latest outburst or rash decision and periodically emerge to pronounce upon the United States' prospects for success in Afghanistan.
Afghan Peace Delegation Talks Peace in Pakistan
Tolo news January 8, 2011
Afghan peace delegation led by Burhanuddin Rabbani has started peace discussions with senior officials in Islamabad.
Members of the Afghan peace delegation consisted of members of High Peace Council Friday met with Premier Yusuf Reza Gilani, a key player in Afghan peace deals with the Taliban.
U.S. Seeks to Keep Afghan Troop Strength
With Planned Drawdown Looming, Brass Looks to Preserve Front-Line Soldiers While Trimming Support Personnel
Wall Street Journal Saturday,January 8, 2011 By JULIAN E. BARNES, ADAM ENTOUS and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
WASHINGTON - U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan are seeking ways to maintain the level of combat troops there, even as they make plans to cut the overall number of American personnel to meet the White House's mandate to start shipping out forces by summer.
Afghan leader seeks Pakistan's role in Taliban talks
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Former Afghan President and head of the peace council Burhanuddin Rabbani on Friday sought Pakistan 's help to persuade Taliban to agree to dialogue with the Afghan government.
AWOL soldier ordered to finish tour in Afghanistan
By Kristin M. Hall, Associated Press – Sat Jan 8, 3:18 pm ET
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – A Kentucky soldier who went AWOL after he said the military wasn't treating his mental health issues has been ordered to deploy to finish his tour in Afghanistan.
15 militants surrender in northern Afghanistan
January 08, 2011
Over a dozen anti-government militants laid down their arms and surrendered to government in Afghanistan' s northern Kunduz province Friday, a private television channel said on Saturday.
NATO service member killed in Afghanistan
Sat Jan 8, 3:23 pm ET The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan – NATO says a roadside bomb has killed a coalition service member in eastern Afghanistan.
Three civilians killed in Afghan violence
Sat Jan 8, 1:54 pm ET
KABUL (AFP) – Three civilians and two militants were killed in Afghanistan Saturday in incidents including the bombing of a tractor in the troubled south of the war-torn country, officials said.
Afghan protesters accuse Iran of blocking fuel exports
BBC News By Bilal Sarwary 7 January 2011
Kabul - Hundreds of protesters in Kabul have accused Iran of stopping fuel tankers from crossing the border into Afghanistan.
British role changes in Afghanistan
Jan. 8, 2011 at 10:18 AM
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- British troops will work to secure a key road running through one of Afghanistan's 's most violent districts, officials said.
In Wider War in Afghanistan, Survival Rate of Wounded Rises
New York Times By C. J. CHIVERS January 7, 2011
KHAKREZ DISTRICT - Afghanistan — Intensified fighting and a larger troop presence in Afghanistan in 2010 led to the highest American combat casualties yet in the war, as the number of troops wounded by bullets, shrapnel and bombs approached that of the bloodiest periods of the war in Iraq.
"Fighter" Mark Wahlberg weighs in on Afghanistan
By Bob Tourtellotte – Sat Jan 8, 4:20 pm ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. presidents aren't the only ones who make surprise visits to troops in Afghanistan. "The Fighter" Mark Wahlberg made his own trek to the war-torn country in December, but with little media attention that typically follows dignitaries and Hollywood stars.
In Kabul, kites fly high in battle for the skies
Deutsche Welle - Sat Jan 8, 4:32 am ET
New York, London and Hong Kong may have iconic, indelible skylines made of stone and glass. But Kabul's is a little more free-flowing - it's made of paper.
Young Afghans Leaving in Droves
Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) 07 Jan 2011
Best and brightest emigrate from Herat province to escape worsening prospects.
By Shahpoor Saber - Afghanistan ARR Issue 386, 7 Jan 11
Young educated Afghans in the western province of Herat, once regarded as a stable, increasingly prosperous part of the country, are leaving to make better lives for themselves abroad as they see no future for people like them in a deteriorating security climate.
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Key soldier in Afghan war crimes case faces court-martial
By Laura L. Myers – Sat Jan 8, 1:02 am ET
SEATTLE (Reuters) – An Army staff sergeant was ordered on Friday to be tried by a military court to face charges that include murdering three unarmed Afghan civilians, keeping body parts as grisly war trophies and beating a whistle-blower who told superiors about widespread hashish use in his unit.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord Commanding Officer Major General Curtis Scaparrotti ordered Stryker Brigade Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, 25, of Billings, Montana, to stand trial. No date was set.
Gibbs is one of five soldiers from the brigade charged with murder. Twelve soldiers in all face charges in the most serious prosecutions of alleged war atrocities by U.S. military deployed in Afghanistan since the war began in late 2001.
The Stryker Brigade cases, with some 4,000 photographs sealed from public view including some reportedly of soldiers posing with Afghan casualties, have drawn comparisons to the inflammatory Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq in 2004.
Gibbs faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment without parole for charges that include of premeditated murder in the deaths of three unarmed Afghan civilians, including a cleric, in the Afghanistan villages of La Muhammad Kalay in January 2010, of Khari Kleyl in February 2010 and at Qualaday in May 2010, according to court documents.
According to statements given to Army investigators by co-defendants, Gibbs allegedly set up the murders by placing grenades and an AK-47 with the bodies, and then shooting the bodies or ordering platoon members to shoot the bodies.
Gibbs allegedly kept fingers, severed with medical shears, and displayed them at platoon mates to intimidate them.
Gibbs faces a dozen other charges that include keeping body parts such as teeth, finger and leg bones as war trophies.
The cases began as an investigation into hashish use by members of what was then known as the 5th Stryker Brigade, but grew into a probe of what prosecutors described as an infantry unit run amok.
Phillip Stackhouse, a civilian attorney defending Gibbs, has described Gibbs' involvement as legitimate combat killings, He was not immediately available for comment on the order.
In a related action on Friday, a three-member Army Court of Criminal Appeals ordered that a preliminary Article 32 hearing of the youngest Stryker Brigade soldier charged with murder, Private First Class Andrew Holmes, 20, could continue.
The appeals court had ruled in mid-December that Holmes had no right to use the sealed photos in a preliminary Article 32 hearing on the dead Afghan civilian he's accused of killing.
Holmes's attorney Dan Conway said he'll appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the nation's highest military court.
"The photographs in question provide exculpatory evidence that PFC Holmes did not cause the death of the victim in this case," Conway said, adding that Holmes was "not a part of any conspiracy to murder innocent Afghanis. He's a young man that was trying to do his job and got unwittingly used as a cover story."
Two of the 12 Stryker Brigade soldiers have been sentenced after court-martial trials.
On December 1, U.S. Army Medic Robert Stevens was ordered to serve nine months at this home base, demoted to E-1 private but allowed to remain in the military.
Corporal Emmitt Quintal was ordered to be discharged this week for bad conduct after serving a 90-day sentence of hard labor and demoted to E-2 private.
(Editing by Peter Bohan)
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Former US sergeant jailed for Afghan bribery
(AFP) – January 7, 2011
WASHINGTON — A former US Army staff sergeant on Friday was sentenced to 90 months in jail over a scheme to solicit more than $400,000 in bribes from a contractor in Afghanistan, officials said.
Stevan Nathan Ringo, 26, was also ordered by US District Judge T.S. Ellis to forfeit the proceeds of the scheme, which included $408,495 and other property, the Justice Department said.
Ellis ordered Ringo to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term. Ringo pled guilty on September 24 to one count of bribery.
According to court documents, Ringo was stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank in the Logar Province of eastern Afghanistan, where he supervised fuel redistribution.
Ringo admitted that between December 2009 and February 2010 he accepted more than $400,000 in cash from a government contractor in exchange for fraudulent paperwork allowing the contractor to steal fuel from the base.
The total value of the fuel stolen in the course of the scheme was nearly $1.5 million.
The case was prosecuted by the Justice Department in the Eastern District of Virginia with help from the International Contract Corruption Task Force (ICCTF).
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Germany to set end-2011 start date for Afghan pullout
By Sabine Siebold – Sat Jan 8, 1:02 pm ET
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – The German government will ask parliament this month for approval to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan at the end of the year, excerpts of the proposal obtained by Reuters showed on Saturday.
The disclosure came during a trip to Pakistan by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who lauded Islamabad's role in combating militancy and underlined a need for closer cooperation between the nuclear-armed state and Afghanistan.
The pullout proposal, drafted by foreign and defense ministry officials, is set to be agreed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet next week before it is sent to the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, for approval on January 28. The measure is likely to pass easily, with opposition backing.
"The government is confident it will be able to reduce the presence of German troops from the end of 2011, during the handover of responsibility for security," the proposal reads.
Germany is the third largest troop contributor to NATO operations in Afghanistan, with around 4,600 forces based in the north, where violence increased last year.
The war is deeply unpopular among Germans and has brought down both the chief of the armed forces and a cabinet minister over a German-ordered air strike against the Taliban last year in which civilians were also killed.
A German president had to resign last year after saying during a visit to Afghanistan that Germany should use its armed forces to back its foreign trade interests.
COOPERATION
Speaking to reporters after talks with Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Westerwelle said his country appreciated Islamabad's efforts in fighting militancy, but called for cooperation between Islamabad and Kabul to tackle the menace.
"We encourage Pakistan and Afghanistan to closely cooperate in the interest of stability and peace," he told reporters in the capital Islamabad, flanked by Qureshi.
Pakistani action against militants along its Afghan border is considered crucial to maintain military operations against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
Pakistan will be a pivotal player in any Afghanistan accord due to the influence it has on the Taliban, which it nurtured to fight Soviet troops occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The United States and its allies acknowledge Pakistan's role in stabilizing Afghanistan, but Islamabad is under rising U.S. pressure to crack down on militants who used Pakistani sanctuaries to plot attacks in Afghanistan and in the West.
Reports of some militants with German citizenship killed in a suspected U.S. drone attack in North Waziristan in October deepened concern that foreigners, some with Western passports, had travelled to Pakistan and planned attacks on Europe from the remote mountains.
The German foreign minister said his country would fully support Pakistan in countering terrorism.
Qureshi sought more cooperation in the defense field and asked his German counterpart to liberalize export control policy to help Pakistan modernize its means of fighting militants.
"We feel that there is German equipment that could be provided to the armed forces to enhance our capacity in dealing with counter-terrorism," he said. "German equipment is good equipment."
Westerwelle said he was hopeful a coming move by the European Union to lower trade barriers for imports from Pakistan would help stabilize the country's economy.
(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony in Islamabad; editing by Chris Allbritton and Mark Heinrich)
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Netherlands agrees Afghanistan training mission
by Mariette Le Roux – Fri Jan 7, 12:56 pm ET
THE HAGUE (AFP) – The Dutch cabinet agreed Friday to a police training mission to Afghanistan, 11 months after the last government collapsed in a spat over military deployment to the conflict-torn nation.
"The cabinet decided today to send an integrated police training mission to Afghanistan in the period 2011 to 2014," Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced after the weekly cabinet meeting.
"In total, the mission will entail 545 men and women," he said, adding it would have a "strict training objective. No component of this mission will be involved in any military offensive."
The decision comes some six months after Dutch troops withdrew from Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Around 1,950 Dutch troops were deployed in Afghanistan until last August, mainly in the central Uruzgan province where opium production is high and the Taliban very active.
During the four-year mission, 24 Dutch soldiers were killed.
NATO's request for an extension of the Dutch deployment sparked a political row that led to the centre-left government's collapse in February last year, precipitating the August pullout.
The governing coalition at the time was led by the Christian Democratic Action, which is now part of a right-leaning minority government in a loose alliance with the anti-Islam PVV, which is opposed to the training mission.
The government "needs a majority in parliament" to send the mission, said spokesman Henk Brons.
That means Rutte will need support from opposition lawmakers in the face of the PVV's disapproval.
The prime minister said Friday the purpose of the new training mission would be "the strengthening of the civilian police and justice system in Afghanistan" and the "advancement of the constitutional state".
The mission would include 225 police trainers in Kabul, Kunduz and Bamiyan.
"We will also retain four F16 (fighter jets) in Afghanistan. The F16s play an essential role in finding roadside bombs and boosting our security on the ground," he said.
That will involve technical support personnel, including medical and logistics experts, as part of the team, said Rutte, arguing that the Netherlands' work in Afghanistan "is not done".
As part of the ISAF mission, the Netherlands "made an enormous contribution to Afghanistan, with huge personal losses," the premier added.
"We should be proud of what we achieved in Afghanistan, often under difficult circumstances. There is also much appreciation internationally. But the work is not done.
"It is in the Netherlands' best interest that the Afghan authorities are themselves able to guarantee security, public order and the constitutional state, to ensure that Afghanistan is no longer a refuge for international terrorists, and to earn the trust of the population."
Rutte, who insisted the decision was "thoroughly deliberated" and based on the outcome of two fact-finding missions to Afghanistan, said the security of the Dutch trainers would be ensured by troops from Germany, the lead ISAF nation in Kunduz.
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Karzai is not insane -- just irrelevant
Foreign Policy By Paul Miller Friday, January 7, 2011
There is a major cottage industry among Washington analysts in Karzaiology. Karzaiologists spend weeks and months pouring over the tea leaves of the Afghan president's latest outburst or rash decision and periodically emerge to pronounce upon the United States' prospects for success in Afghanistan. I was a practiced hand in Karzaiology for years. According to the Washington Post, "There is near-universal agreement among top U.S. officials involved in Afghanistan that Karzai's behavior and leadership have a direct bearing on the outcome of the multinational counterinsurgency mission."
What worries the Karzaiologists most is that Hamid Karzai appears quite insane. He is rumored to erupt in periodic emotional outbursts. He threatens to join the Taliban. He tried to ban security barriers in Kabul in 2006 and private security firms nationwide in 2010. He exhibits paranoia about Britain, the United States, and, especially, Pakistan.
There is a variant of this view, held by the likes of journalist and activist Sarah Chayes and others, that says that Karzai's government is neither weak nor crazy: it is in fact highly capable, just at the wrong things. It is highly capable of graft, corruption, extortion, and tribal nepotism. Karzai is the head of a well-oiled tribal kleptocracy, in this view.
Regardless, all members of the School of Karzaiology agree: Karzai is massively important and hugely dangerous.
This view is at least vastly overstated, if not outright wrong. It commits two basic errors. First, it underestimates Karzai's rationality. Second, it overstates his actual importance.
Karzai is a much shrewder political operator than U.S. analysts give him credit for. Western analysts have a tendency to fall prey to a perspective bias. They expect that Karzai views himself and his situation the same way we do; since his actions make no sense to us, they can't possibly make much sense to the man himself. Therefore, Karzai is "emotional," "unstable," "paranoid," and "irrational."
But Karzai is acting fairly rationally given the constraints and pressures he faces. He is head of a government that for most intents and purposes does not function, no matter what he decides. He faces an insurgency that seems to have staying power and an international force that does not. He faces a parliament that is unwieldy at best, openly hostile at worst. He "appoints" governors who likely still have their own private armies (which he lacks), who often wield more effective power than he does, and who only recently took sides in a ruinous civil war -- the renewal of which is always a tacit threat hanging like a Damocles Sword over Karzai's head. Karzai faces an impossible balancing act.
But in response, Karzai does not have many options. His "decisions" don't actually change reality so much as they express intent or exhibit symbols. In the face of his many challenges, almost the only tools he has are words. If he wants to protest air strikes or home raids, he makes dramatic statements about a "foreign occupation." If he feels threatened by conservatives and warlords, he starts to burnish his Islamic credentials and sound populist rhetoric. If he believes the Taliban are winning and the international community is withdrawing, he threatens to switch sides. None of these words stem from real beliefs so much as they simply reflect whichever pressure Karzai feels most urgently at the moment.
In response to Chayes and others (whose views and work I greatly respect), who argue that Karzai does in fact head a highly capable network, I respond that capacity is not fungible. Even if it is true that Karzai heads a highly effective organized crime ring (and I think the thesis is overstated), the Karzai network's capacity for extracting illicit resources cannot simply be rerouted to productive ends, like building roads and schools, if Karzai had a sudden change of heart, or a sudden heart-attack. Governance requires fundamentally different skills than corruption. A change at the top does not change the skills, abilities, and inclinations of a whole network. The Afghan government and the Karzai network are equally incapable of governing, regardless of their skill at criminal enterprises.
Karzai's "decisions," then, are not public policy: they are rhetoric. The Afghan government is incapable of having, much less implementing, a public policy. The fight to persuade Karzai to make the "right decision" on any given policy issue is really an effort to make his government appear more attractive to Afghan moderates. The effort to make him a more effective "manager" is about renewing his appeal to western donors. Policy towards Karzai is mostly an effort to improve Kabul's image, not capacity.
That is important, but it is far less important than most Karzaiologists will tell you. The counterinsurgency campaign will ultimate succeed or fail based on a thousand other factors, not Karzai's rhetoric. The war will be won or lost by how well our soldiers fare against the Taliban; how sustainable the internationally-sponsored economic reconstruction effort is, and how well local government officials -- not Karzai -- meet the needs of Afghans on the ground.
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Afghan Peace Delegation Talks Peace in Pakistan
Tolo news January 8, 2011
Afghan peace delegation led by Burhanuddin Rabbani has started peace discussions with senior officials in Islamabad.
Members of the Afghan peace delegation consisted of members of High Peace Council Friday met with Premier Yusuf Reza Gilani, a key player in Afghan peace deals with the Taliban.
Beginning peace talks with senior Pakistani officials on Thursday, the members firstly met with Pakistan's President, Asif Ali Zardari.
Mr Zardari pledged his country's enduring support to Afghan peace efforts.
Ghairat Baheer, presenting Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party of Hezb-e-Islami in the talks acknowledged withdrawal of foreign forces as the only condition to bring peace in Afghanistan.
"I think foreign forces should leave Afghanistan based on a timeline and as long as they stay, their presence would be a motive for continuation of war in Afghanistan. Till the motive is not removed, the war will continue in Afghanistan," Mr Baheer told TOLOnews.
Pakistani experts said the Taliban do not count on Karzai's government and the peace council.
"The Taliban completely reject this. They do not accept Karzai's government and they think Afghan government does not authority and it is Americans who make all the decisions," Rahimullah Yousufzai, a Pakistani political analyst, told TOLO news.
Islamabad has long been insisting that Pakistan could play a crucial role between Afghan government and the Taliban leadership.
In his last trip to Kabul, Pakistan's Premier said Pakistan is "part of the solution not the problem".
The US has increased pressure on Pakistan to destroy insurgents' footholds made in Pakistan's territory, but growing crisis in Pakistan has made those efforts even more complicated.
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U.S. Seeks to Keep Afghan Troop Strength
With Planned Drawdown Looming, Brass Looks to Preserve Front-Line Soldiers While Trimming Support Personnel
Wall Street Journal Saturday,January 8, 2011 By JULIAN E. BARNES, ADAM ENTOUS and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
WASHINGTON - U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan are seeking ways to maintain the level of combat troops there, even as they make plans to cut the overall number of American personnel to meet the White House's mandate to start shipping out forces by summer.
Under one early proposal, commanders in Afghanistan would cut from 5,000 to 10,000 staff positions, maintenance personnel and intelligence analysts. But the number of Army and Marine infantry would be untouched, as would brigade and battalion headquarters.
A senior military official said Gen. David Petraeus has yet to authorize any formal planning for the July 2011 drawdown of forces that President Barack Obama announced more than a year ago. But other officials said Gen. Petraeus and administration officials in Washington appeared to back the general approach of culling support positions that may be redundant or expendable, while preserving, or even increasing, the proportion of front-line infantry troops in the field.
"You're still engaged in a war and you don't want to give up combat power," said an administration official. "Why would you send home gunfighters and keep cooks? It doesn't make sense."
The plan to reduce troop levels, which President Obama announced when he committed 33,000 additional troops for Afghanistan in December 2009, has been a running source of tension between the White House and the military. Reducing troop levels is a political priority, especially with anxiety on the left about the length and cost of the war. Military commanders are wary that too fast a withdrawal could imperil what they see as their fragile gains.
As recently as last month, Vice President Joe Biden promised that cuts in July will "not be token" and will amount to a substantial reduction. But U.S. officials played down the chances top administration officials would object to a reduction that preserves combat strength, at least initially. "Obviously you begin with the people that make sense to bring home. But ultimately it does involve combat troops," an official said.
Gen. Petraeus believes he has been given wide latitude by the White House to determine how to cut, according to a military officer familiar with his thinking, and also understands the cut must be more than 2,000 people. Officials believe reducing forces between 5,000 and 10,000 could satisfy demands within the White House for a substantial reduction. But cutting at the upper end of that range could entail reducing the military's firepower, they say.
Although there is no official cap, military officials in Afghanistan have been told they can't exceed about 98,000 troops, which is close to the current deployment.
Some senior officers believe keeping the same number of combat troops in Afghanistan after the beginning of the drawdown is critical to breaking the will of the Taliban to keep fighting after the summer. "The message [we are hearing] from the Taliban is that we are leaving," said a senior defense official. "A significant number will leave, but I guarantee there won't be any combat forces cut."
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved temporarily sending 1,400 more Marines to Afghanistan, part of an effort to increase U.S. combat strength ahead of the spring fighting season and before the drawdown begins. Commanders want up to 3,000 extra combat troops in all to during the critical spring period to cement tentative military gains in the south of Afghanistan.
Separately from the July drawdown, officials say top commanders in Afghanistan are reviewing the makeup of their forces, looking for support troops that could be sent home and replaced with additional front-line "trigger pullers."
As part of this process, defense officials said, hundreds of support troops have already been sent home to make room for more combat troops. Mid-level officers in Afghanistan said it is often an arduous process to replace support personnel, noting that requests to fill staff jobs are subjected to intense scrutiny to ensure the positions are needed.
"We've got a lot of guys who never leave the wire," said one military officer, referring to a military base's perimeter. "I think we're asking what each one of them does and do we need what they do."
Stephen Biddle, a military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, voiced skepticism about relying on support personnel reductions, saying many play important roles and that their numbers in theater have already been thinned out. "It certainly makes sense to try to remove the lowest marginal contributor first," he said. "But I am skeptical that there are large numbers of people who are just plain not helping the war effort."
Some military officials believe many jobs could be replaced with civilian contractors or civilian government employees. Military intelligence analysts, especially those assigned to higher-level headquarters, can be replaced with officials from civilian agencies or even contractors.
Also, military officials said there was room to cut personnel in maintenance depots, where Army motor pool workers could be replaced with contractors.
Commanders are also looking at where they can rely on Afghans—soldiers or civilians—to fill jobs left vacant by the withdrawal, the officer said. Afghan and coalition officials said this week they had an informal agreement in place to raise the target number of Afghan forces—police and Afghan National Army—to about 400,000, about 30% higher than the current target. There are currently around 260,000 local police and army forces in Afghanistan.
The drawdown might give coalition commanders an opportunity to more fully mesh forces with the nascent Afghan army, a move that could help improve the capabilities of the Afghans.
"They're looking at everyone who isn't on the line; do senior officers all need aides? Who can be replaced by contractors? Whose job can be done by someone else? Can you make two or three jobs into one?" the officer said.
Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com, Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com and Matthew Rosenberg at matthew.rosenberg@wsj.com
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Afghan leader seeks Pakistan's role in Taliban talks
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Former Afghan President and head of the peace council Burhanuddin Rabbani on Friday sought Pakistan 's help to persuade Taliban to agree to dialogue with the Afghan government.
Rabbani arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday to seek Islamabad's role in the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
"We want Pakistan to help us for peace, security, stability and to encourage Taliban to come to the negotiating table," Rabbani told reporters in Islamabad on Friday.
He said Pakistan and the Afghan peace council had agreed on the formation of a joint mini-Jirga or council to work for the removal of misunderstanding between the two countries and to discuss bilateral security issues.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai formed the 70-member peace council last October for talks with Taliban and other rival groups, however, Taliban have rejected any talks with the council.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that there is no change in Taliban policy and there will be no talks with anyone unless the foreign troops leave Afghanistan.
A delegation of another Afghan opposition group Hizb-i-Islami met the peace council members in Islamabad and presented their proposals including the withdrawal of foreign forces within six months.
Rabbani met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and political and religious leaders, who supported the peace council's efforts.
"All the meetings with the Pakistani political and military leaders were fruitful. Our visit is the major confidence building between the two countries," he said, adding that Pakistan wants peace and end to violence in Afghanistan.
Rabbani backed the idea of opening office of Taliban in Turkey and said the peace council can hold direct talks with Taliban in Turkey.
The idea of the Taliban office was first floated in the summit meeting of the Presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey last month and Pakistan says it does not have any objection to the proposal.
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AWOL soldier ordered to finish tour in Afghanistan
By Kristin M. Hall, Associated Press – Sat Jan 8, 3:18 pm ET
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – A Kentucky soldier who went AWOL after he said the military wasn't treating his mental health issues has been ordered to deploy to finish his tour in Afghanistan.
Spc. Jeff Hanks, who turned himself in on Veterans Day, says his command has ordered him to return to Afghanistan immediately and he expects to leave within days on a flight back to his unit.
The Fort Campbell-based soldier told The Associated Press on Friday that he still believes his issues have not been adequately treated.
"My family doesn't want me to go, but I am not disobeying a command order," he said.
Kelly DeWitt, a spokeswoman at the post on the Tennessee-Kentucky state line, confirmed Hanks is scheduled to deploy within the next few days, but declined to comment further on his case.
The 30-year-old Army infantryman went AWOL and returned home to North Carolina during his mid-tour leave last year, but turned himself in on Veterans Day. Since returning to the post on the Tennessee-Kentucky state line, he said he has been given medications to treat his headaches and nightmares and has been told to seek counseling in Afghanistan.
Hanks is a member of the 101st Airborne Division, which has been deployed numerous times to Iraq and Afghanistan. He said his post-traumatic stress dates to his 2008 deployment to Iraq.
He spent about six months in Afghanistan last year and said he suffered a concussion when a mortar landed nearby. He said counselors outside of the military have diagnosed him with PTSD, but he hasn't been treated since he returned. He said he also took an MRI scan that was ordered by his audiologist, but he has not yet received the results of that screening.
"It's been stressful to be here (at Fort Campbell)," Hanks said, noting that he doesn't think anything has changed since he held a press conference last November outside the gates of the installation.
Going back to his unit in Afghanistan, he said, "makes me anxious." He expects he will have to complete another four months in Afghanistan to finish his one-year tour.
Supporters from Iraq Veterans Against the War said they planned on Saturday to deliver to Hanks' command a letter detailing what they believe are "violations of Hanks' right to heal."
Hanks said he is not anti-war, but said the group that is supporting him "understands the situation I am in."
Hanks is married to a former soldier and has two girls, ages 4 and 5. His commitment to the Army lasts another 2 1/2 years. He doesn't want to leave and face military punishment because he could lose his health care coverage.
"I think the best way to get help is to just wait until I get out of the Army," he said.
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15 militants surrender in northern Afghanistan
January 08, 2011
Over a dozen anti-government militants laid down their arms and surrendered to government in Afghanistan' s northern Kunduz province Friday, a private television channel said on Saturday.
"Fifteen armed insurgents surrendered to government in Kunduz province yesterday," Tolo television reported.
Citing police spokesman in the northern region, Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, the popular television channel also added that the militants who were active in Chardara district handed over six pieces of weapons to authorities.
Chardara and Gortipa districts have been regarded as the hotbed of Taliban militants in Kunduz province, however, the insurgents fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have yet to make comment.
Over 200 anti-government militants, according to officials have given up militancy and resumed normal life in the northern region of Afghanistan over the past couple of months.
Source: Xinhua
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NATO service member killed in Afghanistan
Sat Jan 8, 3:23 pm ET The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan – NATO says a roadside bomb has killed a coalition service member in eastern Afghanistan.
NATO said the attack took place on Saturday, but did not provide the nationality of the service member or give the exact location of the blast.
Ten service members with the international coalition have been killed so far this year. Last year was the deadliest of the nearly decade-long war for international troops, with more than 700 killed, compared to just over 500 in 2009, previously the worst of the war.
The U.S. plans to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July, and NATO soldiers are scheduled to pull out of the country by 2014, handing over responsibility for the country's security to Afghan forces
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Three civilians killed in Afghan violence
Sat Jan 8, 1:54 pm ET
KABUL (AFP) – Three civilians and two militants were killed in Afghanistan Saturday in incidents including the bombing of a tractor in the troubled south of the war-torn country, officials said.
The first explosion took place in Marjah district in the southern Helmand province as a tractor carrying civilians struck a roadside mine, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.
"Two civilians were killed and one injured in the blast," Ahmadi said.
Ahmadi blamed the "enemies of peace and stability", a term often used by Afghan officials to describe the Taliban, for the attack.
A third civilian was killed when a magnetic bomb attached to his vehicle exploded in the southeastern city of Khost Saturday, deputy police chief Muhammad Yaqub told AFP.
The victim owned a cassette shop in the city, he added.
Separately, two militants were killed in Greshk district of Helmand province Saturday as they tried to plant a mine, an army spokesman said.
"Two enemies of Afghanistan were killed while planting a mine to target innocent Afghans in Greshk district, but their device exploded prematurely, killing both on the spot," an army spokesman in Helmand, Rasool Mohammad Safi, said.
The incidents come one day after a Taliban suicide bomber targeted a bathhouse in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, killing 17 people including a police officer.
Twenty-three people were also injured in the explosion, the deadliest in Afghanistan since October.
The United Nations has said that 2,412 Afghan civilians died in the first 10 months of 2010, an increase of 20 percent on the corresponding period in 2009.
The Afghan interior ministry said 1,292 policemen died in the war last year.
The Taliban, who were ousted from power in a US-led invasion in 2001, have vowed to increase their assaults against Afghan and NATO-led troops stationed in Afghanistan.
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Afghan protesters accuse Iran of blocking fuel exports
BBC News By Bilal Sarwary 7 January 2011
Kabul - Hundreds of protesters in Kabul have accused Iran of stopping fuel tankers from crossing the border into Afghanistan.
Demonstrators marched outside the Iranian embassy accusing Tehran of interfering in Afghanistan's affairs.
Soaring fuel prices have angered many Afghans at a time of high demand during winter.
Afghan officials say 2,500 fuel tankers are stranded at the border. Iran denies blocking fuel exports to Afghanistan.
It is thought the Iranian government fears the fuel could be used by foreign forces, but Afghan officials say these concerns are unfounded.
Earlier this week Iran's ambassador in Kabul, Fadahoseyn Malaki, dismissed reports that Iran had barred fuel exports to Afghanistan.
"We give fuel to the Afghan nation," he told a news conference, although he added his government still had concerns which "should be addressed".
Friday's demonstration was led by Afghan MP Najib Kabuli, who has organised similar protests against Iran in the past.
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British role changes in Afghanistan
Jan. 8, 2011 at 10:18 AM
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- British troops will work to secure a key road running through one of Afghanistan's 's most violent districts, officials said.
It is the first time British troops have established a permanent presence outside Helmand province since 2006, The Guardian reported.
Troops from the Household Cavalry have been operating on the 12-mile stretch of Highway 1 in Maiwand district since mid-December. They are overseeing patrols and checkpoints with soldiers from the Afghan army.
British troops were asked to oversee western Maiwand so U.S. troops could be used elsewhere in Kandahar province.
News of the shift has been low key, in part, the newspaper said, because of sensitivities about British troops operating outside the area controlled by Task Force Helmand, the United Kingdom-led military mission in southern Afghanistan.
Since 2006 most U.K. soldiers were concentrated in Helmand under British command.
British Defense Secretary Liam Fox visited Afghanistan this week and said Britain is happy to operate outside Helmand in a subordinate role.
"We want to be a good NATO partner and that's why we are on Route 1 at the moment," Fox said. "We don't see our bit of Helmand as being a unique British territory. We are here as part of NATO and people need to grasp that."
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In Wider War in Afghanistan, Survival Rate of Wounded Rises
New York Times By C. J. CHIVERS January 7, 2011
KHAKREZ DISTRICT - Afghanistan — Intensified fighting and a larger troop presence in Afghanistan in 2010 led to the highest American combat casualties yet in the war, as the number of troops wounded by bullets, shrapnel and bombs approached that of the bloodiest periods of the war in Iraq.
But the available data points to advances in the treatment of the fallen, as the rate at which wounded soldiers who died reached a wartime low.
More than 430 American service members died from hostile action in Afghanistan last year through Dec. 21, according to official data released by the Pentagon last week at the request of The New York Times.
This was a small fraction of those struck. Nearly 5,500 American troops were wounded in action — more than double the total of 2,415 in 2009, and almost six times the number wounded in 2008.
In all, fewer than 7.9 percent of the Americans wounded in 2010 died, down from more than 11 percent the previous year and 14.3 percent in 2008.
The fatality rate declined even though many more troops patrolled on foot, exposing the force to greater dangers than in years past. Several doctors said the improvements came not from a single breakthrough but through a series of lessons learned over nearly a decade of fighting two wars, such as placing medevac helicopters closer to the fighting and the more extensive use of tourniquets.
Although fatality rates for wounded Afghan troops are not similarly available, doctors involved in their care said hospital records showed that they trail those of Western troops by a few percentage points, but have also fallen.
Several soldiers and those who care for them framed the improved survival rates as the grimmest sort of success. Many more troops — some missing multiple limbs or their genitals, or suffering brain damage — are being rescued from near death. But their wounds will be exceptionally difficult to overcome later as they try to resume work, and social and family lives.
Along with interviews with medics and military doctors, and a month spent by two journalists from The Times observing the collection and immediate treatment of troops suffering from a wide range of trauma, the data shows the results, in broad terms, of an evolving contest for wounded soldiers’ fates.
The contest pits a multilayered and expensive effort to keep troops alive against the sharply increased rate at which they suffer grievous injuries, some beyond what any medical system can heal.
A clear decline was evident: In 2005, 19.8 percent of wounded American soldiers died from their injuries. For the past five years in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fatality rates for wounded Americans have otherwise fluctuated between 9.4 and 14.3 percent.
(The data draws from a sample running into the tens of thousands; in 2006 in Iraq, for example, nearly 7,200 American troops were wounded by hostile action, more than 700 of them fatally.)
The statistics further served to reinforce consistent trends in the battlefield’s array of lethal hazards, and offered glimpses of wars within the war.
More soldiers in Afghanistan in 2010 were wounded by explosive devices (at least 3,615, compared to 828 troops reported to suffer gunshot wounds). But the higher fatality rates from gunshot wounds (12.9 percent versus 7.3 percent for wounds caused by bombs) made rifle and machine guns the most statistically deadly weapons.
Rocket-propelled grenades, for all their ferocious reputation, proved less of a threat. They wounded 373 American soldiers, of whom 13 — 3.5 percent — died.
No matter the improved odds, the data, like the field observations, illuminated that even the most determined efforts to cheat death could still be desperate — like the case of an Afghan soldier wounded on Dec. 9.
He was a disoriented young man on a stretcher with his uniform cut away, revealing wounds caused by a makeshift bomb.
His face was mashed. A tourniquet was cinched to his left leg, high by the hip. His abdomen swelled slightly from the bleeding within. From his torso rose the odor of burned flesh and hair.
The man worked with an American Special Forces team. Medics labored over him as the helicopter lifted from the dust, counting minutes in a race against time.
Medical workers attributed his improved chances to several factors, among them changes in training for soldiers who administer first aid, swifter movement of victims to hospitals made possible by more helicopters in the war, and shifts in procedures in operating rooms.
Equipment has also been a factor, including heavier armored vehicles more resistant to explosives and fire-retardant uniforms and gloves — two factors doctors and soldiers say seem to have led to a decline in the frequency and severity of burns.
“We have seen fewer burn injuries over all,” said Col. Evan M. Renz, director of the Army Burn Center in Texas, “even as the number of troops in Afghanistan has climbed sharply.”
Doctors said a change in attitude about tourniquets also prevented many deaths. Until a few years ago, they said, tourniquets were often regarded as a measure of last resort, not always applied swiftly to those with severe extremity wounds.
Every soldier now carries at least one tourniquet — some carry several — in their first-aid kits or visibly on their flak jackets. Fellow soldiers apply them immediately. “The liberal use of tourniquets has clearly been a lifesaver,” said Dr. Eric Elster, a Navy commander and director of surgical services at the NATO hospital at Kandahar Air Field.
One doctor, deployed in an area of fighting along the Arghandab River, said medics on patrols had become more proficient at other lifesaving techniques, too.
These include opening airways via tracheotomies, using needles to decompress swollen chest cavities that can collapse a wounded soldiers’ lungs and applying pressure dressing and bandages with clotting agents to areas — the groin, neck or armpits — where tourniquets have little effect
“This is just basic techniques, trained well,” said Lt. Col. Michael Wirt, brigade surgeon for Task Force Strike, a unit of the 101st Airborne Division.
Confidence in the ability to mitigate trauma — including legs shattered or amputated by bombs — has led to a sometimes visible practice that most units discourage: troops who pre-emptively apply tourniquets loosely to their thighs or upper arms before patrols.
“I think potentially that’s a negative,” Dr. Wirt said, adding that it could be read to suggest nervousness, or that such soldiers are too focused on being wounded. “Our command has not endorsed that.”
Part of the willingness to use tourniquets, doctors and medics said, has been related to the speed with which wounded soldiers reach hospitals.
Afghanistan’s harsh climate, combined with a relative dearth of helicopters in years past, often restricted the reach of medevac crews.
With the increased troop presence in 2010, there are now three Army combat aviation brigades in the country, and detachments of medevac helicopters have been moved to small outposts near the fighting —minutes away from many firefights or bomb blasts.
Within a half-hour of being wounded, a large fraction of troops now are en route to hospitals and being tended by flight medics. On repeated flights flown by the two journalists in May, June and December, some wounded soldiers were retrieved within 20 minutes of their injuries. None waited an hour.
The case of the wounded Afghan soldier showed the risks from wounds that battlefield first aid can barely help, and for whom speed might not be enough.
The man lifted his head and gazed down at his ruined body. Blood ran from his rectum. He had little time.
He frantically waved his burned arms, which were so damaged and sensitive that the medics hesitated to start an IV.
Instead, Sgt. Patrick Shultz lifted a small electric drill and cut through the bone below the man’s right knee, creating access into the marrow to administer drugs.
The hospital was not much farther ahead. But it was too late — 30 minutes after arriving, this man was dead.
For patients who reach NATO-run trauma centers, the overall survival rates have approached levels unseen in past wars. The staff said this was in part a result of the accumulated experience of surgical teams in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as shifts in how patients were treated.
For one example, Dr. Elster and Dr. Wirt said the military had dropped administering saline solutions to patients in favor of what they called “massive transfusion protocols” — giving enormous quantities of blood.
High-volume transfusions aid in clotting and carrying oxygen, and have prevented more patients from dying in the hours after suffering severe wounds, they said.
“It is not unusual for us to give a patient 50 or 100 units of blood in the first 24 to 48 hours,” Dr. Elster said.
At the military hospital in Kandahar, 98 percent of Western troops that arrived alive last year did not die, the staff said.
For Afghans the survival rate was several percentage points lower.
Doctors said there were many reasons, including that most Afghans had not been issued fire-retardant clothing and often traveled in pickup trucks. Unlike vehicles used by American forces, pickup trucks stop neither bullets nor most shrapnel, and are easily blown apart by roadside bombs.
Moreover, Afghan soldiers are often loath to wear protective equipment, including helmets and bulletproof vests.
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"Fighter" Mark Wahlberg weighs in on Afghanistan
By Bob Tourtellotte – Sat Jan 8, 4:20 pm ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. presidents aren't the only ones who make surprise visits to troops in Afghanistan. "The Fighter" Mark Wahlberg made his own trek to the war-torn country in December, but with little media attention that typically follows dignitaries and Hollywood stars.
Dressed in jeans, leather jacket, bullet-proof vest and battle-ready helmet, Wahlberg stepped off military transport and into the former home of a Taliban drug lord who had been ousted by U.S. troops. There was no Hollywood-style shootout, although he says he might have felt better with a gun in his hand.
The 36-hour visit days before Christmas was made without much fan fare because, he said, he didn't want any publicity.
"That's not why I was going," he told Reuters in an exclusive interview this week. "I just wanted to go over there and spend some time with them and know that we do appreciate what they're doing, and bring well wishes and love and support from home. That's all I wanted to do.
He said he wanted to see for himself the conditions under which the troops and the Afghan people were living. "It was something that I was very excited about doing, and I'm very glad that I made the journey."
Wahlberg, 39, rose to fame as a young rapper and later became a movie actor and producer of hit HBO show "Entourage," which is based on his own life as an up-and-coming star.
He even portrayed an ex-military marksman in "Shooter," and said that when he was young and in legal trouble he considered joining the U.S. Marines. His trip to Afghanistan was the first time, he said, he had a chance to visit troops.
The quick in-and-out was arranged by Bill White, ex-head of New York's Intrepid Air Sea and Space Museum, who met Wahlberg through a friend. Wahlberg told White he'd like to go to Afghanistan. White said he would see if he could arrange it.
WAHLBERG SHIPS OUT
Wahlberg, a married man with four kids, said traveling into a war zone before Christmas was not an easy decision, but his family understood.
"I've been in a lot of hairy situations in the past, and I felt like, you know, we were going to be traveling with the U.S. military, so it can't get much safer than that."
When asked if he was scared, he smiled and said, "I probably would have felt a little safer had I had my own weapons ... but no, I'm a very spiritual guy and I get on my hands and my knees and ask God to protect me."
While at camps in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, the actor showed "The Fighter," an inspirational film about a boxing champion played by Wahlberg, to some 3,000 troops. He ate with them and visited them in hospitals. They asked questions, took pictures and collected autographs.
"They're still extremely positive and optimistic that they're doing a lot of good over there and helping a country that's really in need," Wahlberg said.
He said he was surprised to find that, not only did U.S. troops know him, but Afghan people and troops did, too.
"The Fighter," of course, is enjoying major success in Hollywood during this awards season. Box office is solid; reviews are strong. It has made several 2010 top 10 lists, and is widely expected to pick up Oscar nominations when bids for the world's top film honors are handed out later this month.
Where the troops' reviews were concerned, Wahlberg said it was better than some pundits in Hollywood.
"I've always considered the military as the real super-athletes of the world, and if anybody could appreciate (his boxing character's) fight and heart and never-give-up attitude, it would be the soldiers of the U.S. Armed Forces," he said. "So, they really got a kick out of the movie.
If "The Fighter" should win Oscars, the actor who is known to shun the limelight said on Hollywood's big night, his wish would be to have the troops back home to enjoy it, too.
"I know that they have a job to do, and I understand that, but I hope that they finish their job quickly, and they return home safely to their families."
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Christine Kearney)
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In Kabul, kites fly high in battle for the skies
Deutsche Welle - Sat Jan 8, 4:32 am ET
New York, London and Hong Kong may have iconic, indelible skylines made of stone and glass. But Kabul's is a little more free-flowing - it's made of paper.
There are very few playgrounds in the Afghan capital. Decades of war and foreign intervention have reduced Kabul's recreational infrastructure to paper, bamboo and string.
In workshops across the city, these simple components are assembled to make hundreds of thousands of bright paper kites which can be seen soaring above the unexceptional streets every night of the week. It's a pastime in which Afghans of all ages have been indulging for centuries.
Tamim has worked as a kite salesman in Kabul for the past two decades. On a normal day, he says he sells around 200 kites, which range in price from 15 cents to around 80 euros ($100). But not every day is normal.
“Sometimes we sell up to 20,000 kites a day,” Tamim told Deutsche Welle, referring to the days preceding major holidays.
Thirteen year-old Ahmad Hassani has come to the market with just a few cents in his pocket. He has to settle for a small kite which he and his friend Zabi Rahime let loose above a rubbish and rubble-strewn wasteland nearby.
“When I see my kite climb into the sky, I feel happy,” Hassani said. “I enjoy it.”
A kite made for fight and flight
The classic kite flying formation is as a pair, with one piloting while the other feeds or reigns in the string. Kites can soar higher than a kilometer over the city, and it is at such altitudes that wind and air currents provide the perfect environment for dynamic, dramatic maneuvering.
Historian and writer Abdul Rahman Oman Niazi told Deutsche Welle that paper makes the best kites.
“It enables you to fly the kite up high but also paper allows you to make kites big enough to be seen from the ground. You can't do this with plastic.”
There have been periods when kites have vanished altogether from the skies over the capital. In 1996, when the Taliban seized power in Kabul, it banned the practise which it deemed un-Islamic. When it was toppled in 2001 kites began to flutter back into public life looking better than ever.
“The color is more beautiful, more vibrant than before,” says Tamin, referring to new, brighter inks that arrived on the market during Afghanistan's kite curfew. The traditional string fibers were replaced with tougher nylon too, and Tamin makes use of both innovations in his current work.
He thumbs a brown lumpy glue in a bowl and spreads it on the paper, quickly bending and fixing in the bamboo frame. Finally he runs thread along the perimeter of the kite and turns a hem on it with glue. He says it protects the kite in the event of attack.
The aerial battle field
What from the ground looks like a graceful ballet of color, is in fact the fiercest of kite-on-kite carnage. Kite flying in Afghanistan could just as easily be called kite fighting, and the key is in the kinds of string used – strong acrylic fibers laced with crushed glass which tear into the kites, snap kite string and often leave bloody tracks on the fingers of the impassioned kite pilots down below.
“It's sharp like blades,” Ajmal Hoshmand told Deutsche Welle from his spot on Kabul's Nadar Khan Tapa hill. “We have to put on tape to protect our fingers.”
The combat element of the sport might be what keeps Afghans flying kites well into adulthood. Certainly something does, for as the sun begins to set, the hill is thronged with flocks of grown men jumping up and down in excitement, and father-and-son duos working wordlessly in tandem to secure another victory.
Down below are herds of kite runners who, at the first sign of a battle won, jump and scramble for the prize – a defeated and often damaged kite.
“I don't want to catch kites, I only want to fly them but I have to catch them because my money's finished,” said Imran Khan Dodkhail, a teenager carrying a damaged windfall. He quickly sticks it together and launches it back up into the hostile skies.
Battles are won and lost every evening in the sky above Kabul. With the simple flick of a wrist, emperors become paupers and emperors once again. The metaphorical significance of these battles in light of Afghanistan's recurrent woes is striking, but of little interest to the flyers.
“I came here to catch some kites and simply have fun,” Tahir Shah said. “It's been a very dangerous time in Afghanistan. Now we want a good time in Kabul. The time is coming for people to have enjoyment.”
Author: Don Duncan (tkw)
Editor: Anke Rasper
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Young Afghans Leaving in Droves
Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) 07 Jan 2011
Best and brightest emigrate from Herat province to escape worsening prospects.
By Shahpoor Saber - Afghanistan ARR Issue 386, 7 Jan 11
Young educated Afghans in the western province of Herat, once regarded as a stable, increasingly prosperous part of the country, are leaving to make better lives for themselves abroad as they see no future for people like them in a deteriorating security climate.
Analysts say the brain drain will have a hugely negative impact on Afghanistan's chances of recovery and development.
Medical graduate Farid, 27, is about to travel to Europe illegally through a network of human traffickers. He says he will be sorry to leave Afghanistan and his family behind, but sees little other option.
"The future of this country looks very dark to me. The international community is not being honest; it's pursuing its own ends. The government is mired in corruption. There is war, killing, suicide and sorrow, sorrow, sorrow every day. How long can it go on?" he said, explaining his reasons for leaving. "I want to go somewhere where I won't hear about death and killing, where at least I'll find mental peace."
The exodus of people like Farid is the reverse of what happened after the United States-led invasion of late 2001. At that time, large numbers of refugees who had been in Pakistan and Iran, in many cases since the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, began coming back in hope of being part of a new post-Taleban era of stability and prosperity.
Instead, conflict resumed and spread across much of Afghanistan, with the Taleban now present even in formerly secure provinces like Herat. At the same time, the western-backed Afghan administration is widely perceived as corrupt and inept, and incapable of delivering basic governance, services and rule of law.
White-collar emigration is a particular indictment of the situation since, as Farid himself points out, he is fairly secure financially.
Ramez, a 28-year-old economics graduate from Herat university, is in a similar position – far better off than the average Afghan as he has a company job and an income. But he too plans to leave as soon as possible, again because of rising violence and failed political systems.
"I hear nothing but bad news – arbitrary behaviour, violation of the law, intimidation, embezzlement, looting and killing," he said.
Basira Mohammadi, the head of Herat province's department for labour and social affairs, agreed that war and the lack of good governance were the primary factors motivating young people – above all those with an education – to get out of Afghanistan.
"If national officials don't make an effort to ensure security and create an atmosphere of confidence for the future, Afghanistan will lose its greatest asset," she warned.
Abdol Sami Wafa, head of the provincial youth affairs department, said poor employment prospects were an additional factor. While there are no precise figures, in part because so many go as illegal immigrants, Wafa said there had been a ten per cent rise in the exodus of educated young people recently.
"Most of my own relatives have left the country," he added.
Wafa said the information and culture ministry, under which his youth affairs department comes, has been running programmes to recruit young people to government and other agencies.
What sets the current brain drain apart from earlier refugee movements is that these educated emigrants are opting to head for the West instead of neighbouring states.
Wali Mohammad Hadid, a journalist in Herat province, said the change was a result of increased exposure to life in western countries, often acquired through the internet.
"Educated people and specialists who have studied abroad, and whose knowledge our country needs, will tend not to return once they complete their education. This will do irreparable damage to academia in this country," he predicted.
Abdol Zaer Mohtasebzada, deputy chancellor of Herat University, confirmed that some of the 500 students and lecturers who had gone abroad to study had simply not returned.
Mohtasebzada spoke of an entire generation frustrated by institutional corruption and the collapse of security, rule of law, and democracy given "massive fraud" in recent presidential and parliamentary elections
A student who asked not to be identified told IWPR he was in Herat visiting his family during the vacation, and said the only reason he might come back permanently once he graduated was that he and others had given the higher education ministry guarantees that they would do so.
"Nevertheless, I am still looking for a way to stay there [abroad]," he said. "The only people who enjoy respect in this country are warlords and the leaders of armed groups. The lives of powerful individuals are secure, and so is their future. The country has no need for knowledge or reconstruction; it's a bull-ring for other countries that have interests here. Peace will never be secured here."
Shahpoor Saber is an IWPR-trained reporter in Herat province.
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