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Tensions rise along Afghan-Pakistan border
Washington Post By Karin Brulliard and Joshua Partlow Monday, July 11, 2011
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Weeks of deadly cross-border shelling from Pakistan and militant attacks from Afghanistan are threatening a fragile thaw between the long-wary nations, raising alarm on both sides about the potential for expanded regional conflict as the U.S. presence in Afghanistan shrinks.
Petraeus Confident as He Leaves Afghanistan
New York Times By CARLOTTA GALL July 10, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - Just days away from the end of his tour as the supreme military commander in Afghanistan, and the end of a 37-year military career, Gen. David H. Petraeus said he was leaving in the belief that his plan to turn around the war and hand over security to the Afghans could be achieved.
24 Afghan de-miner hostages set free
FARAH, Afghanistan, July 11 (Xinhua) -- The armed groups who abducted 28-de-miners in Farah province 695 km west of capital city Kabul on Wednesday set free 24 of them Monday after killing four of them, an official said.
War-tired Afghans worry as security transition nears
By Farid Behbud, Zhang Jianhua
KABUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Despite surge in Taliban-led insurgency this year in Afghanistan, the NATO plans to hand over control of seven areas including three provinces to the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) in the coming days.
Pakistan Says It Doesn’t Need US Military Aid
VOA News July 11, 2011
Pakistan says a U.S. decision to suspend $800 million in military aid to the country will not affect its operations against Islamist militants.
Afghan Joint Operation Kills 20 Taliban Militants
TOLOnews.com By Sonil Haidari Monday, 11 July 2011
At least 20 Taliban militants were killed in a joint Afghan and Isaf forces operation in Kapisa province over the past nine days, Selab 201 Military Corp Media Office said on Monday.
As Improvised Explosive Devices Evolve, Soldiers Work to Find New Methods to Detect Them
Wall Street Journal By ADAM ENTOUS JULY 11, 2011
FORWARD OPERATING BASE DWYER, Afghanistan - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, visiting troops in southern Afghanistan, saw how the art of detecting buried explosive devices has changed little, in some ways, since his Army days despite the billions of dollars spent by the Pentagon to improve bomb detection.
Kandahar’s electrical system in shambles, despite years of foreign aid
The Globe and Mail By SUSAN SACHS Sunday, Jul. 10, 2011
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - If he goes to his office, Fazal Ahmad finds dozens of fuming businessmen and turbaned village elders waiting. If he stays away, people call his cell phone at all hours of the day and night.
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Tensions rise along Afghan-Pakistan border
Washington Post By Karin Brulliard and Joshua Partlow Monday, July 11, 2011
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Weeks of deadly cross-border shelling from Pakistan and militant attacks from Afghanistan are threatening a fragile thaw between the long-wary nations, raising alarm on both sides about the potential for expanded regional conflict as the U.S. presence in Afghanistan shrinks.
Afghan officials allege that the Pakistani military recently launched more than 450 rocket and artillery strikes on two eastern Afghan provinces, killing as many as 40 civilians. Pakistani authorities say six cross-frontier assaults by insurgents based in those provinces have killed least 55 Pakistani security personnel.
Officials on both sides say the attacks portend the dangers of a U.S. military drawdown, particularly along a poorly secured border where militant groups are cooperating to expand their territories.
The border section along northeastern Konar and Nangahar provinces has long been among Afghanistan’s least-patrolled, making it fertile ground for insurgents, and U.S. military officials said they do not have a clear understanding of the violence or the motives behind it. Some Western officials said Afghanistan and Pakistan may be stoking the tensions in a bid to wrest concessions from U.S. benefactors — or to exert power over the long-disputed border and beyond.
Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. military representatives met Thursday in Pakistan, the latest in a series of high-level discussions on the topic, and officials on all sides said they were hopeful that a recent improvement in ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan would keep the situation from escalating. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his troops would not respond to the shelling from Pakistan, which Islamabad says has been minimal and aimed only at fleeing militants.
But strains persist. Afghan officials said shelling from Pakistan continued even after its army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, assured the Afghan ambassador in a meeting last week that it would stop. Members of the Afghan parliament called on Karzai to break with Islamabad over the shelling.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani telephoned Karzai on Wednesday to insist that Pakistan has “shown utmost restraint” and to push for the situation “to be defused quickly,” according to a government statement. Dawn, a top Pakistani newspaper, accused Afghanistan of not acting against “a new theatre of war that is spiralling out of control.”
Claims and counterclaims
The border tensions come as long-fraught relations between the two countries had appeared to be warming. The strains also coincide with a new round of talks between U.S. officials and an insurgent official said to be close to Taliban leader Mohammad Omar. Afghans contend that Pakistan seeks to undermine the talks because it wants to control them. Pakistan denies the assertion.
In a telephone interview Sunday, Konar’s governor, Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi, accused Pakistan of attempting to disrupt the already fitful peace process in Afghanistan by “confusing [the Taliban] and making them worry about coming over and laying down their arms.”
The timing of the accusations could have political benefits for both countries. Afghanistan is negotiating a strategic partnership with the United States that would outline the two nations’ relationship after 2014. Afghanistan has demanded weaponry such as fighter jets and tanks, both of which U.S. officials think the young Afghan army does not need; the cross-border violence could bolster Afghanistan’s claims that it is under threat from neighbors.
Pakistan, meanwhile, is facing cuts in military aid from U.S. lawmakers fuming over the discovery of Osama bin Laden there, and its army has deep concerns about a militant backlash as Americans draw down.
It is nearly impossible to verify what has occurred along the mountainous and remote border section in question, which abuts far northwestern Pakistan. NATO forces have little presence on the Afghan side, and Pakistan’s army has few troops on its side. The span is largely monitored by weak police forces, as well as by tribal militias in Pakistan.
Afghan officials said the Pakistani military began firing mortar rounds, rockets and other heavy artillery across the frontier in late March. Afghan security officials in those areas say they have documented deaths and injuries to scores of civilians, including children. The Konar police chief, in a June 23 letter to the Interior Ministry’s human rights department, called the strikes “a clear violation of human rights” by the Pakistani military.
Pakistan says groups of about 300 armed militants have charged on six occasions from Afghan hideouts into Pakistan, most recently Wednesday. Civilians have also been abducted and killed and buildings set aflame, said an army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. He said that Pakistani forces’ response to such attacks “may have resulted accidentally in some rounds falling on the other side” but that the Afghan claims are “highly exaggerated.”
Rahimullah Yousafzai, an editor with the Pakistani daily the News who is an authority on the area’s militant groups, said such shelling would fit a pattern. “Pakistani forces just fire indiscriminately from wherever they’re attacked. They also kill civilians here in Pakistan,” he said, referring to similar assertions by residents of areas where the army has battled insurgents.
In its defense, the Pakistani military has stepped up criticism of Afghan forces and the U.S.-led NATO coalition, which it says jeopardized Pakistani military gains along the border by inadequately guarding the Afghan side. Pakistani officials said the attackers are mostly Pakistani Taliban fighters who were expelled by army offensives but easily found shelter among their Afghan brethren — a reversal of long-standing U.S. complaints that Pakistan has allowed the Afghan Taliban sanctuary in its lawless border belt.
U.S. military officials acknowledge that Pakistani Taliban fighters have found refuge in eastern Afghanistan’s mountains. Some Pakistani officials suggest that Afghanistan is encouraging the militant sieges to stoke problems.
“What more can we do?” said a Pakistani military official, who said Afghan officials have rejected Pakistani suggestions to fence or mine the border. “They should accept their responsibility and not always press us for more.”
Pakistani Taliban spokesmen, in statements and interviews, have asserted responsibility for the attacks, which they call retaliation for past army operations. Some said a small number of Afghan fighters also have participated.
Unevenly matched armies
Some observers say that no matter the scale, the shelling amounts to a blunt display of aggression by Pakistan’s army — a force that has been unable to contain a fierce domestic insurgency but that remains far stronger than its nascent Afghan counterpart. One senior Afghan official, who is close to Karzai and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, said he thought Pakistan seeks to provoke and show its might to the United States as the two nations’ alliance frays in the wake of bin Laden’s killing.
Nader Khan Katawazi, an Afghan parliament member from the east, said Pakistan “wants to show the world that it still has the power to control Afghanistan after the foreign troops leave.”
The senior Afghan official said Karzai, who regularly condemns NATO troops for civilian casualties, has shown restraint because he realizes the weak Afghan army cannot seriously confront Pakistan.
Against the backdrop, some analysts said, they fear militants on both sides are working together more closely and increasing their territory along the border region. Bilateral disputes will only benefit them, Yousafzai said.
“Those areas have now become a problem — they are now being used by the militants on both sides,” he said, referring to regions where military presence is light or which have been vacated by U.S. troops, including parts of Konar. “This problem is going to become even more acute as NATO forces withdraw.”
Special correspondents Sayed Salahuddin and Javed Hamdard in Kabul and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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Petraeus Confident as He Leaves Afghanistan
New York Times By CARLOTTA GALL July 10, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - Just days away from the end of his tour as the supreme military commander in Afghanistan, and the end of a 37-year military career, Gen. David H. Petraeus said he was leaving in the belief that his plan to turn around the war and hand over security to the Afghans could be achieved.
“It is very hard, but it is doable,” he said in his last scheduled interview before his departure this month. “A number of different elements have to keep coming together to achieve our objectives. Again, we are talking about an objective that is Afghans able to secure and govern themselves with some continued level of support.”
General Petraeus, who is widely credited with turning around the war in Iraq, was called in July 2010 to preside over a major expansion of the American military mission in Afghanistan. Now, he is leaving to take a civilian job as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
He has had command in Afghanistan during a critical year, as 80,000 extra Afghan and international coalition forces were added to the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, leading to intensified fighting and sharply higher casualty numbers. And he is leaving earlier than planned, in the middle of the summer fighting season and before any lasting effects of the so-called troop surge are clear.
Yet the general said signs of progress were beginning to appear. Insurgent attacks were down in May and June compared with the same months in 2010, and July is showing the same trend, he said.
“This just means that they have less capacity; they have been degraded somewhat,” he said of the insurgents. “This is the first real indicator — for the first time since 2006 — compared to the previous year, insurgent attack numbers are lower.”
But he warned that there would still be tough fighting in the next 15 months before 33,000 surge troops are brought back to the United States, according to the schedule that President Obama laid out in a speech on June 22.
American forces still have to consolidate gains against Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan this summer and are pushing into Taliban strongholds in northern Helmand Province, one of the deadliest battlegrounds and the main source of Afghanistan’s opium crop. And they still must secure important outlying districts in nearby Kandahar Province that insurgents have used as infiltration routes.
In the winter, the military will shift much of its intelligence and logistical and combat support elements to eastern Afghanistan to focus on the insurgency that filters in from Pakistan’s tribal areas and runs along Afghanistan’s eastern border provinces, General Petraeus said.
The campaign will not be as intensive a fight for every village and vineyard as it was last fall in southern Afghanistan, but will rest largely on the buildup of Afghan Army and police forces to guard the border, block infiltration routes and strengthen communities and local government, he said.
American forces are to provide the critical extras, namely helicopters and forces to support more intelligence gathering, surveillance, targeted operations and mentoring of Afghan forces.
“President Obama has said Afghan forces will stand up but will not stand alone; there is a sense of continued commitment,” he said. “Fifteen months is a long period of time.”
Two remaining problem areas are the remote provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, in northeastern Afghanistan, where 50 to 100 members of Al Qaeda continue to find sanctuary, and where Afghan and American forces are very thinly spread, he acknowledged. The coalition can continue to disrupt the insurgents with operations, but ultimately the solution will have to be a “local solution,” he said.
Central to the plan that General Petraeus is leaving to his successor is the program to recruit and train village men into local police forces to guard their communities and strengthen local governments. The program is still in its infancy; so far, only 7,000 of a planned 30,000 men are operational.
And there have been setbacks, particularly in places where the Taliban retain influence, including reports of trainees abusing their power in some regions. Yet General Petraeus said the abusers were self-appointed militias, not part of the official program, which he sees as critical to turning popular support toward the government, as occurred in Iraq with the Awakening Councils.
The plan also relies on the expansion of the national army and police forces by 60,000 more members. The police are the most uneven of the Afghan forces, with a reputation for corruption and inefficiency, yet it is the many new policemen stationed along the roads and in towns of southern Afghanistan who have helped change the security outlook there.
The effort to recruit and train Afghans to take over is now in full motion, with 12 training establishments in operation, from the military academy down to regional police training centers, General Petraeus said. It is slow work, however, and every recruit needs three months of basic education before training can even begin, he said.
Military officials have often complained that the weak and corrupt Afghan government is not adequate to the task of governing. Yet General Petraeus commended recent moves by President Hamid Karzai to combat corruption in the Afghan armed forces, in particular his removal of the chief surgeon of the main military hospital in Kabul and a senior air force officer.
General Petraeus said he subscribed to the comments over the weekend by Leon E. Panetta, the former C.I.A. chief and now the defense secretary, that Al Qaeda was near strategic defeat.
General Petraeus said that after a period of breakdown as a result of the raid against Osama bin Laden in May, cooperation with Pakistan was resuming on dealing with militant groups along the Afghan-Pakistan border, like the feared Haqqani network.
“I think they recognize the problems caused by the Haqqani network,” he said of the Pakistani military. “Now, that does not mean there is unity of thinking about what to do about them, because they are enormous challenges for them.”
Al Qaeda and the other insurgent groups based in Pakistan’s tribal areas remain intent on attacking Kabul, and the only solution is for Afghan forces to guard their own borders and infiltration routes with a layered defense, General Petraeus said.
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24 Afghan de-miner hostages set free
FARAH, Afghanistan, July 11 (Xinhua) -- The armed groups who abducted 28-de-miners in Farah province 695 km west of capital city Kabul on Wednesday set free 24 of them Monday after killing four of them, an official said.
"The abductors set free 24 de-miners today in Dillaram district," spokesman for provincial administration Naqibullah Farahi told Xinhua.
Without blaming any group for the abduction, Farahi said all the mine sweepers were released without any ransom being paid, adding mediation of local elders led to the release of the hostages.
Four bodies of the de-miners were found on Saturday.
However, earlier Farah's police chief Syed Mohammed Roshandil accused Taliban militants of involvement in the abduction, saying the militants killed four de-miners on Saturday after kidnapping them.
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War-tired Afghans worry as security transition nears
By Farid Behbud, Zhang Jianhua
KABUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Despite surge in Taliban-led insurgency this year in Afghanistan, the NATO plans to hand over control of seven areas including three provinces to the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) in the coming days.
However, the war-weary Afghans are fretful whether the Afghan army and police would be able to bear the burden of security alone in the absence of foreign forces.
"Where is security, even with the presence of over 140,000- strong NATO and U.S. forces right now, roadside bombings, insurgent attacks and suicide bombings are taking place almost every day," Abdul Shukor, a resident of southern Kandahar city told Xinhua in a brief interview in Kabul on Monday.
The transition of security control from over 140,000 NATO-led troops, with nearly 100,000 of them Americans, to Afghan forces is due to complete by 2014 when the war-torn country is due to take over the leadership of its own security charges from U.S. and NATO forces.
The transition process will begin in the seven areas identified by President Hamid Karzai earlier this year. The first batch includes provinces of Kabul, Panjshir and Bamiyan, as well as the western Herat city, northern Mazar-e-Sharif, eastern Mehtar Lam and Lashkar Gah city in the south.
"Actually, the situation in Afghanistan is uncertain, it is critical and that the presence of international forces is still needed since Afghan forces are not strong enough to secure the country," the bearded man went on to say.
Also at the same time, later this month, the U.S. troops, part of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), is to begin a gradual withdrawal from insurgency-hit country.
The U.S. President Barack Obama on June 22 in Washington announced his plans for Afghanistan troops' drawdown that is set to begin later in July, ordering 10,000 troops from the insurgency- hit country by year-end with a total of 33,000 troops to be out by summer 2012.
The plan would withdraw all the "surge troops" he sent to Afghanistan since late 2009 to strengthen the fight against the Taliban fighters.
After the initial reduction, according to media reports, the U. S. troops will continue going home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead and that the U.S. mission will change from combat to supportive role.
However, Shukor maintained he is not optimistic about the capability of national security forces to secure all 34 provinces after NATO and U.S. forces withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014.
"The transition is on track and informally already begun," Chairman of Afghan Transition Coordination Commission Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai said during regular Security Council meeting on Sunday.
Ahmadzai told a local TV channel recently, "What you will see in the last week of Saratan month (July 16 to July 22) would be ceremonies or formal procedures to observe the transition process."
According to local media report, the Afghan National Security Council with President Hamid Karzai on the chair in its weekly meeting on Sunday ordered security officials to maintain security all over the country especially in highways connecting big cities around the country.
The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus has said there in Afghanistan still would be tough fighting in the next 15 months before US withdraws 33,000 troops, according to local media reports.
However, the out-going U.S. commander has expressed confidence that his plan to turn around the war and hand over security responsibilities to the Afghan forces could be achieved.
"At the same time when foreign troops begin withdrawal they should speed up training and equipping Afghans soldiers and police, while provide them with modern weaponry including airpower," a Kabul resident Faridon said.
"Personally I support the transition process but I think it was premature for Afghan troops to take the lead and defeat Taliban," Faridon said.
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Pakistan Says It Doesn’t Need US Military Aid
VOA News July 11, 2011
Pakistan says a U.S. decision to suspend $800 million in military aid to the country will not affect its operations against Islamist militants.
In an interview with VOA Monday, Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas says the military is conducting its operations in the country's tribal region without external support. He says the Pakistani military is using its own equipment, ammunition and other resources to fight al-Qaida and Taliban militants along the Afghan border.
Abbas also criticized the U.S. decision, telling VOA that providing aid with conditions is unacceptable.
On Sunday, White House Chief of Staff William Daley told ABC's This Week that the United States has decided to suspend the multi-million-dollar military aid package to Pakistan.
Daley said Pakistan has been an important ally in the fight against terrorism, but it has taken some steps that have given Washington reason to withhold some of the military aid. He did not elaborate.
U.S. officials have been quoted as saying the move is a response to Pakistan's decision to expel American military trainers and put limits on visas for U.S. personnel.
Analysts say the suspension also is aimed at pressuring Pakistan's army to do more to cooperate with the U.S. to fight militants.
Ties between Washington and Islamabad have been frayed since the raid by U.S. special forces that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in northern Pakistan on May 2.
Last week, Admiral Mullen sparked a controversy when he commented on the murder of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad, who was beaten to death in May. Mullen said that while he could not tie the killing to any specific Pakistani agency, he had not seen any evidence to counter reports that the government approved the murder.
Islamabad denounced his comments as “extremely irresponsible and unfortunate.”
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Afghan Joint Operation Kills 20 Taliban Militants
TOLOnews.com By Sonil Haidari Monday, 11 July 2011
At least 20 Taliban militants were killed in a joint Afghan and Isaf forces operation in Kapisa province over the past nine days, Selab 201 Military Corp Media Office said on Monday.
The operation was launched in Dandowich, Merakhil, Tatar Khil, Adi Zai, Doulat Khil, and Tagab district of Kapisa province to clear militants.
Five Pakistani residents were also killed in the operation, the Media Office said.
Twenty three Taliban militants and five Afghan National Army Soldiers were wounded during the operation, the office added.
Isaf forces and civilians have suffered no casualties, it said.
Media Office said that Isaf forces have seized large number of weapons during the operation that ended on Sunday night.
Afghan and foreign forces have increased their operations in the country as security transition to Afghan forces will begin soon.
Foreign forces' withdrawal is to begin this month and the process is to be completed by the end of 2014.
Meanwhile, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, Afghan transition chief, said in the national security meeting on Sunday that security transition to Afghan forces will begin in a few days.
The process of handing over responsibility will be started as completed as planed, he added.
The National Security Council called on the security organisation to tighten security of the highways and take all other necessary measures.
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As Improvised Explosive Devices Evolve, Soldiers Work to Find New Methods to Detect Them
Wall Street Journal By ADAM ENTOUS JULY 11, 2011
FORWARD OPERATING BASE DWYER, Afghanistan - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, visiting troops in southern Afghanistan, saw how the art of detecting buried explosive devices has changed little, in some ways, since his Army days despite the billions of dollars spent by the Pentagon to improve bomb detection.
During a visit to Forward Operating Base Dwyer in Helmand province, Mr. Panetta, 73 years old, witnessed a group of Afghan soldiers training with long, crudely constructed bamboo poles with hooks at one end, scraping through a dirt field to find and destroy improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
The sight reminded Mr. Panetta of when he served as an Army intelligence officer from 1964 to 1966. "When I was in the Army, you used to do that by bayonet," he said.
The IEDs planted today by Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan are far more powerful and sophisticated than the mines that troops faced in the 1960s, officials say. Commanders at the base told Mr. Panetta that insurgents use pressure-sensitive plates, wall-mounted explosives and remote-controlled devices to try to kill U.S. and Afghan forces on patrol.
IEDs planted by the Taliban are responsible for most U.S. casualties in Afghanistan. Mr. Panetta's predecessor at the Pentagon, Robert Gates, invested heavily in new technologies to try to minimize the threat. The military now uses specially designed armored vehicles to protect troops, sophisticated jammers to block radio signals, as well as drone aircraft to spot insurgents planting explosives.
In Iraq, much of the investment fighting IEDs went into jammers, which blocked radio signals that set off bombs. As a result, most bombs are now set off by pressure plates or command wires. Jammers are ineffective against those trigger methods, forcing the military to place more emphasis on spotting bombs before they are triggered.
At Dwyer, the Afghan trainees used the bamboo poles to feel at a distance for the telltale signs of an IED, such as protruding wires.
The bamboo-pole contraption was the brainchild of a U.S. Marine, whom commanders at Dwyer identified as Gunnery Sgt. Holly, who served in Helmand and was subsequently killed in an incident unrelated to his work with IEDs.
The 10-to-15-foot bamboo poles, referred to as the "Holly Stick," caught on fast among troops. Since they were put into widespread use in the area, IED "find rates" have increased by 35%, said Col. David Furness. He attributed the improvement to the methodical pace at which the hooks or sickles are used to scrape the earth.
Handlers feel for possible IEDs using the hook. A soft patch in the dirt is a sign the earth had recently been moved, an indicator that an explosive device may be buried below.
A Pentagon body tasked with developing IED defenses is now making a U.S.-manufactured version of the Holly Stick that will be retractable so it can be carried more easily by foot soldiers, the defense secretary was told.
Mr. Panetta sounded impressed. "It's a good idea," he said.
During his two-day visit to Afghanistan, Mr. Panetta met with President Hamid Karzai and other top Afghan officials, as well as top U.S. commanders.
Mr. Panetta said he emerged convinced "we are on the right path" towards the goal of transferring full security responsibility to the Afghans by the end of 2014.
Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com
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Kandahar’s electrical system in shambles, despite years of foreign aid
The Globe and Mail By SUSAN SACHS Sunday, Jul. 10, 2011
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - If he goes to his office, Fazal Ahmad finds dozens of fuming businessmen and turbaned village elders waiting. If he stays away, people call his cell phone at all hours of the day and night.
The refrain is always the same: Give us electricity.
Mr. Ahmad, known to everyone here as Engineer Fazal, has the thankless job of running the utility company in Kandahar province. Through years of war and then neglect under Taliban rule, he has kept the shambolic system running, however imperfectly, by patching it with just about anything he could scrounge up short of chewing gum and rubber bands.
But Mr. Ahmad cannot give what he does not have. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan. Yet the electrical system here in the country’s second-largest city is on the verge of collapse, leaving people like Mr. Ahmad puzzled and frustrated. “First they should have paid attention to electricity,” he said. “Where there is electricity, there is life. There is security.”
It is now 10 years since the world started pouring money into Afghanistan. Much of the largesse came to Kandahar, the Taliban heartland. The largest part of the spending has been driven and delivered by the military, pushed into what commanders call “hot” areas where Taliban influence is strong and the Afghan government is weak.
The assumption, voiced by civilian agencies and the military alike, was that the more money that could be spent here, the more secure it would become.
Kandahar has seen the impact. It has new schools and rural government centres. The provincial capital has paved roads, a new set of sidewalks and some solar-powered streetlights. Irrigation canals are being repaired and village playgrounds built.
Yet the massive infusion of foreign money has not paid off in increased security, according to many aid experts. Nor has the money bought the Afghan government or the international community much love. And only now are foreign aid agencies and the military starting to take on the basic infrastructure, like Kandahar’s patched-together electricity network, rather than quick-fix projects that ate up most of the money in the past.
With last week’s withdrawal of Canadian combat forces from Afghanistan and the start of a wider withdrawal by other NATO countries, questions are being raised about the utility of spending aid money to achieve military objectives.
That formula, instead, may be counterproductive: raising unrealistic expectations, distorting the economy and fuelling corruption that further erodes Afghans’ confidence in their government.
“The assumptions of what could be done were unrealistic,” said Andrew Wilder, the director of Afghanistan and Pakistan programs at the United States Institute for Peace. “There were high expectations that development aid would have a security effect. In the end, you got neither.”
While Canada and the United States devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to Kandahar projects, much of the foreign spending in the restive province came wrapped in a
military package.
In just the last eight months, Canada’s last battle group spent $51 million from the Commander’s Contingency Fund, the discretionary money available to military officers in the field for small-scale quick-fix projects. The comparable American commanders’ fund has dispensed nearly $2.7-billion in the last eight years. While the portion spent in Kandahar has not been made public, officers here say most of it was concentrated in southern Afghanistan.
Mr. Wilder, who oversaw a study of the counterinsurgency effectiveness of such spending in several Afghan provinces, said it often had “perverse” effects.
“In a tribal society, that kind of spending exacerbates rivalries,” he said. “You could do a really good project in this one village and have a good effect, but then nine villages around it are unhappy.”
Much of the aid money also ended up in the pockets of “malign actors” and insurgent groups, he added. “Basically if you pour lots of money into a war zone with little accountability and oversight, it’s inevitably going to fuel corruption,” Mr. Wilder said. “In some cases there probably wasn’t as much corruption as was perceived to be, but everyone assumes the worst.”
Local officials say that not enough of the aid money reaches Afghans and when it does, it distorts the economy and undermines the government.
According to recent report from the Provincial Reconstruction Team, the civilian wing of the coalition aid effort in Kandahar, city officials complained that foreign contractors on aid projects were poaching skilled professionals by paying salaries 15 times higher than the government can pay.
The provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa, also blasted a $200-million aid project that had foreign consultants giving horticultural classes to Afghan farmers. With that money, the report quoted him as saying, he “could have paved the streets of Kandahar in gold.”
Late last year, the regional military command in Kandahar set up a joint civilian-military unit to start planning big-ticket infrastructure projects. With the military mission in Afghanistan set to end in just over three years and military money to fade with it, it marks a shift toward more classic development projects.
Commanders in the field still want money for quick cash-for-work schemes. “He’ll want to do something that will counter a source of instability, whether or not it makes sense development-wise,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre St-Laurent, a Canadian military engineer who runs the infrastructure arm of the new unit. “Between stabilization and pure development, there’s a zone in between where we’re at right now.”
The story of Kandahar’s electricity woes is emblematic of how muddy that zone has been.
Unless they have their own generators, live in the prison or stay at the main hospital, city residents have electricity for just six hours a day, every other day. Anything from a single frayed line or a strong gust of wind takes the whole thing down at any time. Poles sag. Lines droop. Insulation is worn away. Transformers lack fuses. Diesel fuel promised by the central government in Kabul to run the old generators arrives late or not at all.
Outside the provincial capital, service is even spottier. Some small towns have generators, but most places have no electricity. One small rural area gets power from a tiny hydroelectric station built by Germany during the Second World War. Mr. Ahmad, the utility director, is particularly proud of having kept its near-antique machinery in operation.
A sustainable solution remains elusive.
Before the wars that tore Afghanistan apart, the main source of Kandahar’s electricity was hydroelectric power from the Kajaki dam in neighbouring Helmand province. The dam is nearly 60 years old now and American attempts to modernize it have been frustrated for the past seven years by contractor delays and Taliban attacks. It provides only fitful power over frayed lines.
By late last summer, amid fierce fighting in the south, the city’s chronic electricity problems were finally deemed a military emergency. As a senior Pentagon official put it, fixing the system “was an essential part of our campaign plan to defeat the Taliban.”
Using money from their discretionary cash, American commanders brought in a new set of generators and a warehouse full of equipment to repair the city’s grid earlier this year. The commanders’ fund will also pay the annual fuel bill of $106 million for four years.
“It’s going to take years to get this done, and we can’t wait to get the pretty package,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Thomas Black, the deputy commander of the project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“You can’t say, wait and we’re going to do one big fix,” he added. “We have to look at what can we do right now.”
For Mr. Ahmad, it all represents a gift that is impossible to refuse but could be difficult to maintain. The Afghan government does not have the money for diesel fuel after the military stops paying for it.
Asked how many skilled employees he has who can run the new machinery, he answered, “Two or three.” He said he hopes to hire more, maybe some new engineering graduates. But the salary he can offer is not much more than what an illiterate teenaged police officer earns. His own salary is the equivalent of $400 a month.
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