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Afghans Arrest Taliban Leader, Army Turncoat
July 30, 2011 | Associated Press
A senior Defense Ministry official who allegedly leaked secrets that helped the Taliban stage suicide attacks in Kabul has been arrested by the Afghan Intelligence Service -- one of three high profile arrests announced Saturday by the agency.
Attack on a Patrol in Afghanistan Kills Seven
By SHARIFULLAH SAHAK July 30, 2011 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — A bomb attack on a patrol killed two NATO soldiers and five Afghan soldiers on Friday evening, in an impoverished area of eastern Afghanistan where the Afghan government has little presence and where there have not previously been many lethal attacks on soldiers.
As drawdown approaches, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan reluctant to leave
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post Sunday, July 31, 5:00 AM
Garmser, Afghanistan — This farming district along the Helmand River, once one of the most Taliban-saturated corners of southern Afghanistan, has turned so quiet over the past three months that some U.S. Marines here quietly wish for a gunfight. “Just to get off a few rounds,” said one, “so we can feel like Marines.”
Trilateral peace talks to be held in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Top Afghan, Pakistani and the U. S. diplomats will meet in Islamabad on Tuesday to push for peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
Lawmaker Claims Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Her Guest in Afghanistan
Tolo news July 30, 2011
A member of Afghan House of Representatives on Saturday claimed that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, is in Afghanistan and her guest.
Afghanistan's Warring Sides Seek Advantage Prior to Possible Talks
Voice of America By Phil Ittner July 29, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan is approaching its 10-year anniversary with no end in sight to the fighting. There are efforts, however, to negotiate a political settlement to the conflict.
Kabul television
After helping to modernise Afghanistan’s media, David Ensor is about to direct the Voice of America
Financial Times By Annie Maccoby Berglof July 29, 2011
In 2006, David Ensor quit his job as CNN national security correspondent and moved from Washington DC to an apartment off Kensington High Street in London, with his wife Anita, a former news producer, and their nine-year-old son Andrew. “Life is short. I’d spent 32 years covering the news and loved every minute of it. But journalism is the sidelines, just the first draft of history. I wanted to participate.”
Iranian Diplomat: US Pursuing Suspicious Strategy in Afghanistan
Fars News Agency July 30, 2011
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Ambassador to Kabul Fada Hossein Maleki cautioned that the recent surge in the assassination of Afghan officials concurrent with the start of the US pullout from the country is suspicious.
US military chief Mike Mullen takes the heat in Afghanistan
By Lyse Doucet 29 July 2011 BBC News
Southern Afghanistan - Summer in southern Afghanistan is blazing hot in every way; temperatures soar and the fighting season reaches its peak.
Afghanistan Team Denied Chance at 2012 Olympics
New York Times By JOSEPH D’HIPPOLITO July 29, 2011
Afghanistan’s national men’s basketball team will not get a chance to qualify for the 2012 Olympics after requests for visas to travel to a prequalifying tournament were denied.
Afghanistan's Warring Sides Seek Advantage Prior to Possible Talks
VOA News July 29, 2011 Phil Ittner
Kabul, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan is approaching its 10-year anniversary with no end in sight to the fighting. There are efforts, however, to negotiate a political settlement to the conflict.
Mullen: Surge in Afghan violence, assassinations expected; to discuss attacks with leaders
Associated Press Saturday, July 30,2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The recent spike in spectacular violence rocking southern Afghanistan has been expected, but it’s not clear yet how the attacks will affect the area’s fragile governments, the top U.S. military officer said Friday as he arrived in the embattled region.
Kabul: the best of times, the worst of times
Sydney Morning Herald By Ben Doherty, Kate Geraghty July 30, 2011
The economy of Afghanistan, and its capital in particular, faces collapse when foreign forces and money leave. Words by Ben Doherty and photographs by Kate Geraghty, in Kabul.
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Afghans Arrest Taliban Leader, Army Turncoat
July 30, 2011 | Associated Press
A senior Defense Ministry official who allegedly leaked secrets that helped the Taliban stage suicide attacks in Kabul has been arrested by the Afghan Intelligence Service -- one of three high profile arrests announced Saturday by the agency.
A spokesman also said a senior Taliban official accused of leading an insurgent propaganda campaign in eastern Afghanistan, and an insurgent who allegedly helped organize an April 1 attack against the U.N. headquarters in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif that killed 11 people, including seven foreign U.N. employees.
Infiltration has become a serious concern for Afghan forces and the U.S.-led military alliance that is training them -- often on bases they share. The Taliban have said the practice has become one of their main strategies in their war against the U.S.-led coalition and President Hamid Karzai's government.
Several attacks involving bombers wearing military uniforms have targeted foreign troops as well as official Afghan institutions, including an April suicide bombing by an attacker wearing an army uniform that killed three people at the Defense Ministry.
The intelligence service recently arrested Gul Mohammad, an army officer who was serving at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Kabul, the agency's spokesman Lutifullah Mashal said at a news conference.
Mohammad, who was an eight-year veteran of the army, was in charge of three checkpoints in the capital -- one near NATO headquarters and the presidential palace, and two others on a road where the coalition has many bases and training facilities.
Mashal said insurgents offered Mohammad 200,000 Pakistanis rupees ($2,300) to help organize suicide attacks in Kabul. Many of the suicide bombers operating inside Afghanistan are thought to be trained in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions, which border provinces such as Nuristan and Nangarhar.
Mashal did not give Mohammad's rank or provide any other details about his role at the ministry, but said he was from the Taliban-controlled Waygal district in northeastern Nuristan province. Mashal said Mohammad is also thought to have supplied insurgents in the area with information on Afghan army troop movements.
He said Maulvi Rahimullah, who was allegedly responsible for the media, publication department and Internet services for a Taliban shura, or council, based in Peshawar, Pakistan, had been detained. Rahimullah, who was from the Pachir Wagam district of eastern Nangarhar province, also was a member of that shura, Mashal said.
According to Mashal, he also went by the alias Azrat Bilal and was reportedly the Taliban deputy shadow governor of Nangarhar in charge of recruiting in four eastern Afghan provinces. The third man arrested was identified as a suspected weapons supplier named Maulvi Sabor who was arrested in Balkh province.
Mashal said all the arrests occurred in areas where the international military coalition has transferred responsibility for security to Afghan forces. Two provinces and five provincial capitals were turned over to government forces earlier this month, part of a gradual handover of responsibility that will lead to full Afghan control by the end of 2014, when foreign combat troops are to leave the country.
"This is a good achievement for Afghan forces in these area, and a loss for the enemies who are trying to attack in those places where the transition of forces is taking place," Mashal said.
But violence continued around the country unabated.
Insurgents killed seven Afghan soldiers and a translator alongside two NATO service members in a bombing and ambush Friday in eastern Paktia province, according to the deputy provincial governor Abdul Rahman Mangal. He said the group was on patrol in the Zurmat district.
Police acting on tips in Kunar province also intercepted six would-be suicide bombers who local residents said were on their way to conduct an attack in the provincial capital of Asadabad, said Wasifullah Wasify. The provincial spokesman said one attacker blew himself up outside the vehicle on a road in Khas Kunar district, injuring one policeman. Police shot and killed two attackers and arrested two others, but one escaped, he said.
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Attack on a Patrol in Afghanistan Kills Seven
By SHARIFULLAH SAHAK July 30, 2011 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — A bomb attack on a patrol killed two NATO soldiers and five Afghan soldiers on Friday evening, in an impoverished area of eastern Afghanistan where the Afghan government has little presence and where there have not previously been many lethal attacks on soldiers.
The explosion, at dusk in a mountainous area of Paktia Province’s eastern Zurmat district, also wounded two Afghan soldiers and a NATO interpreter, according to a NATO spokesman.
Although Paktia is one of three provinces where the Haqqani network, a particularly brutal insurgent group that is now based across the border in Pakistan, is active, local elders said this attack was staged by local Taliban who are angry at the government.
“Most of the Taliban here are from Paktia Province and are fighting the government and foreign forces bravely because the government has done nothing for these people here,” said a local tribal elder, who asked that his name not be used. “Not one of the government officials has shown up to help the Mamozai tribe; neither have they come to the village where this happened, nor come down to our village.”
“All our youths are jobless; they have nothing to work, so they have to join the Taliban and fight for them.” he said.
The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, said Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman for the east and north of the country.
Although in the past there have been relatively few attacks in Paktia Province, it has recently become more violent, with at least five American deaths there in July, counting the two on Friday, according to icasualties.org and Afghan security officials. The three earlier American deaths also occurred in Zurmat district; three Afghan soldiers died in that attack as well, according to Afghan security officials.
The area borders two more violent provinces, Paktika and Ghazni, and has both high mountains and some forested areas, making it easy for the Taliban to move from village to village.
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As drawdown approaches, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan reluctant to leave
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post Sunday, July 31, 5:00 AM
Garmser, Afghanistan — This farming district along the Helmand River, once one of the most Taliban-saturated corners of southern Afghanistan, has turned so quiet over the past three months that some U.S. Marines here quietly wish for a gunfight. “Just to get off a few rounds,” said one, “so we can feel like Marines.”
Since the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment arrived in Garmser in mid-April, they have struck fewer than 10 roadside bombs, none of which have proved fatal. Just one grenade and “no more bullets than you could fit in your front pocket” have been fired their way, said the battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Sean Riordan.
Two summers ago gunshots and bomb blasts echoed across the cornfields, and medical evacuation helicopters swooped from the sky almost every day to collect the Marines’ dead and wounded.
The relative tranquillity that has been achieved seems the necessary prerequisite for Americans to leave and hand over responsibility for security to a feisty local police chief who has surprised U.S. officers with his grit and resourcefulness.
But the Marines do not want to depart anytime soon.
To cement hard-fought gains and prevent Taliban holdouts from wresting back the district, Marine officers want to maintain their current force level of about 1,000 troops until the end of the year. At that point, they estimate, they should be able to get by with half as many, assuming the area receives additional Afghan security forces.
“Transition needs to proceed in a careful, well-planned way,” Riordan said. “We don’t want people to think we’ve abandoned them.”
Garmser illuminates the trade-off facing top U.S. commanders as they struggle to fulfill President Obama’s recent order to remove 10,000 troops by the end of the year, and an additional 23,000 by the end of next summer, while also diverting more of the remaining 68,000 forces to eastern Afghanistan to confront a growing insurgency there. In doing so, they do not want to jeopardize the security gains that have been achieved in the south.
Every battalion and brigade commander, it seems, has a reason for why his area should be exempted from major cuts. In Garmser, it is proximity to Pakistan. In other parts of Helmand province, it is the worry of resurgent poppy production. In Zhari district to the west of Kandahar city, it is symbolic importance to the Taliban. The group’s reclusive leader, Mohammad Omar, was born there, and it has long served as a command-and-control hub for insurgents seeking to regain control of Kandahar.
A 4,500-soldier brigade from the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division has pushed into once-impenetrable Taliban redoubts in Zhari this summer, encountering dozens of homemade mines as they have sought to clear villages of insurgents. The operations have increased security, but the Afghan government’s presence still is fledgling, and the Afghan army unit there remains incapable of substantial independent operations, leading American officers in the area to recommend only minimal reductions over at least the next 12 months.
Senior officers believe that keeping large numbers of troops in the south for another year or two could help maintain public confidence as the conflict shifts to a new phase that involves more targeted killings. The recent assassination of top Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai’s brother and the mayor of Kandahar, and dozens of lesser-known people across the south who have worked with the government, have deeply unnerved the population.
Military culture also leads commanders to want to hold onto as many troops as they can, lest they be seen to have left too soon.
Top generals are sticking with their resource-intensive nation-building strategy, despite the hope of some administration officials, including Vice President Biden, that the drawdown plan would start to force a narrower mission aimed at killing al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
The commanders are betting that they can achieve their original goals — pummeling the Taliban, building up the Afghan government and security forces, and persuading low-level fighters to switch sides — before they have to send away large numbers of troops.
But they also are embracing initiatives that would have been scoffed at a year ago in an attempt to improve security quickly. They are shifting resources from mentoring the Afghan army to the police. They are expanding a program to train villagers as armed guards beyond the rural areas for which it was originally envisioned. And they are replacing sand-filled barriers with concrete walls at hundreds of small patrol bases, hoping that permanent structures will mollify residents’ fears of abandonment.
The final decision on how forces are allocated rests with Marine Gen. John Allen, who recently took over from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus as the supreme allied commander in Afghanistan. Although Allen has indicated to subordinates that he does not foresee fundamental changes to the overall U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, he will have to address competing demands in the south and the east.
Allen, said one senior military official in the country, “faces a very difficult task ahead. He has to find a way to put out new fires, while trying to ensure the fires that his guys think they’re getting under control don’t flare back up.”
Battleground to backwater
The U.S. effort to evict the Taliban from Garmser began with the arrival of a battalion of Marines in the summer of 2008 to replace a much smaller contingent of British soldiers. Back then, the insurgents controlled almost all of the district. The front lines — the British had trenches that evoked World War I battles — began less than a mile south of their base in Garmser’s main town.
The first wave of Marines seized several square miles of territory from the Taliban, and four successive battalions continued the effort, suffering dozens of casualties as they pushed south along the Helmand River valley and struck improvised bombs buried in roads, farmland and mud walls. The effort culminated earlier this year with the clearance of the last insurgent pocket in the far southern reaches of the district.
There is now only one Taliban cell operating in the area, and it appears focused on intimidating and attacking Afghans who are cooperating with the government, according to Marine officers. The holdouts do not appear to have links to al-Qaeda or other international terrorist groups; almost all of the fighters and commanders who have been captured over the past few years have families in the area.
“This is an amateur backwater for the insurgency now,” said Riordan, who sports a shaved head and bulging muscles.
What has occurred in Garmser has taken significantly longer than the 18 to 24 months that top military officials promised Obama it would require. The counterinsurgency effort in this district of about 150,000 people has already stretched for three years and cost the United States about $3 billion.
“Anyone who said you can go from full-on combat to transition in two years wasn’t being realistic,” said a field-grade military officer in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his assessment contradicts those of his superiors. “The lesson is that these things are going to take a lot of time and a lot of treasure.”
Embracing the police
The most influential figure in shaping the pace of transition in Garmser is not Riordan, nor the district governor, nor even the top Afghan army officer in the area. It is police chief Omar Jan.
In recent weeks, his men have captured the Taliban shadow governors responsible for Garmser and neighboring Nawa district, and they have found a cache of bomb-making equipment that Riordan estimates would have sustained the insurgents all summer.
Although the Afghan police have long been written off as incompetent and corrupt — the U.S.-led effort to train security forces has devoted far more resources to the army — Garmser suggests what is possible when an energetic leader is willing to work with international forces and tribal leaders, and combine modern law enforcement tactics with traditional ways of doing business.
A few months ago, the Marines used their helicopters to transport police officers, and their motorcycles, to the vicinity of a Taliban hideout; the police then closed in on their bikes, surprising the suspected insurgents. In mid-July, some of the officers switched into civilian clothes and rode tractors up to a house where they captured seven suspects.
In many other districts, police chiefs are Soviet-era holdovers who believe their job is to run checkpoints, or they lack local knowledge. Omar Jan is a creature of Helmand, where he is known by his two names.
U.S. officers remain concerned that his proclivity for graft could ultimately turn people against him — excesses by the police are among the reasons the Taliban was welcomed back by the population in parts of southern Afghanistan — but for now, the Americans are thrilled to have an Afghan who wants to lead instead of simply following foreign forces. And his efforts seem to be welcomed by residents desperate for security.
Despite high hopes for the Afghan army, most soldiers assigned to units in the south are not from the area, and many are not ethnic Pashtun, making them relative strangers. Most army units in the south still do not conduct independent operations, preferring instead to patrol next to Americans.
As a consequence, senior U.S. officers across southern Afghanistan intend to shift more of their personnel assigned to work with local forces from the army to the police. “We’re now at the point where the police is more important than the army,” Riordan said.
But Omar Jan is sometimes too much of a maverick. One recent morning, Riordan ventured to the police station, a two-story building — the only one in Garmser — in which Omar Jan and his top aides live and work, to talk about the tractor raid. Riordan came with praise, and a plea.
“This is great news,” he said. But he urged Omar Jan to inform the Marines the next time the police conduct such an operation to avoid the possibility of a “friendly fire” incident. The Marines, he said, would also be able to provide medical and bomb-disposal assistance if the police required it. “All I ask is that you coordinate with us,” Riordan said.
Omar Jan, a solidly built man whose deputies rush over when he waves his hand, responded by explaining how his extensive network of informers provided the tip that led to the raid.
“You are blind in this area,” the chief said to Riordan. “The same with the ANA [Afghan National Army]. If the enemy shows up without their weapons, you guys won’t recognize them, but we will.”
Omar Jan wants the Marines to stick around because he fears Taliban infiltration from Pakistan, which is 30 miles from the southernmost part of Garmser. But he also wants the Americans to keep their distance.
He said he was worried that the Marines would deem his men abusive if they observed his operations. “If we search and we don’t find anything, people will sometimes accuse us of stealing,” he said. “When the Marines arrive, they will think we are misbehaving.”
That was the opening Riordan needed. He gently implored Omar Jan to focus not just on capturing insurgents but winning the trust of the local population.
“It’s not enough to catch the Taliban,” Riordan told the chief. “You need to have the people on your side.”
Expanding village defense
In Zhari district, 75 miles northeast of Garmser, the pressure of transition has led U.S. commanders to embrace a new Afghan security force.
After American soldiers and Afghan border police swept into Nalgham, a village that had long been used as a Taliban command and logistics center, the commanders turned to an initiative by U.S. Special Operations Forces to train villagers to defend their communities.
The effort was originally intended for remote districts that had few foreign forces, not in places such as Zhari, which is close to a large city and the focus of major coalition military operations. But the commanders now think it can help encourage residents in those areas to cooperate with the police and army.
A group of elders from Nalgham had a similar idea. Soon after the clearing operations, three of them, representing the three principal tribes in the village, held a community meeting called a shura. Abdul Wali, a leader of the Achekzai tribe who had recently returned from Kandahar, announced that it was “time to stop talking and start acting.” Others agreed.
They resolved to create a local defense force that would report to the three elders, who decided to call themselves the “weapons shura” to set themselves apart from other village shuras in Zhari, which, Abdul Wali said, “are only about talking.”
The creation of such forces, called the Afghan Local Police, is a key element of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. Special Operations Forces, working with the Afghan government, have set up local police teams in 43 districts.
In Garmser, where the Marines are employing their own variant of the program, the participants do not conduct patrols or man checkpoints. Instead, the principal value has been to funnel intelligence to Omar Jan.
Because of concerns among senior Afghan leaders, including President Karzai, that the forces could become militias, the U.S. military has required the Ministry of Interior to approve every district that wants local police. To assess support for the program in each area, the ministry convenes a large shura, which is what occurred a few weeks ago in Zhari.
Officials from Kabul, Kandahar and the district government urged residents to back Abdul Wali — who pledged that he would control his men — and other leaders who wanted similar teams in their villages.
“It is your responsibility to defend this area,” said Abdul Razziq, an enterprising but illiterate border police commander who has been serving as Kandahar province’s interim police chief since the previous leader was assassinated this spring. Although he has been accused of extensive corruption and extrajudicial killings, his men are the most effective Afghan security force in the south.
In June, they roared up to Nalgham in pickup trucks and quickly identified friend from foe. By the time they were done, seven insurgents lay dead and dozens of others had fled, allowing U.S. and Afghan soldiers to take control of the area.
“If you don’t help us, we will force you to help,” Razziq told the crowd at the shura.
A few of the Americans observing the meeting thought he was joking. But nobody laughed.
Building up confidence
When Riordan meets with people in Garmser, the same question gets asked again and again: When are you leaving?
“If you leave too soon, everything we have achieved will be lost,” Mohammed Zakir, a gray-bearded elder, told Riordan over a snack of watermelon in a reed-enclosed patio on a recent afternoon. His sentiments echoed those of several tribal leaders in the district.
“We’re not going to desert you,” Riordan responded. “We will be here until the Afghan forces are capable of handling security on their own.”
Since Riordan cannot be sure how many Marines will be here by January, he is trying to find ways to make less look like more. And that involves lots of concrete.
His battalion is now spread among 51 posts in Garmser, some so small that they lack portable toilets, hot food and showers. Instead of closing many of them to prepare for the drawdown, he is transforming them into more permanent-looking structures, with brick watchtowers, concrete walls and new buildings to replace sandbags, rows of razor wire and tents. Each will have a makeshift gym where Marines who wish for a gunfight can work off their aggression.
Bases that appear enduring, he reasons, will ease concerns about the U.S. departure, even if they are eventually filled with only Afghan forces.
“It says, ‘Security is here to stay,’ ” he said. “And it competes with the Taliban’s fear campaign.”
But community representatives such as Zakir still focus on the number of Marines in the district.
“We defeated the Russians with your support, but then you left and the Taliban showed up,” he warned Riordan. “We know what will happen if you stop supporting us again.”
The battalion commander nodded. “Our country understands that we need a longer-term commitment this time,” he said. “But you have to understand we cannot keep this many Marines here for much longer.”
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Trilateral peace talks to be held in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Top Afghan, Pakistani and the U. S. diplomats will meet in Islamabad on Tuesday to push for peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
U.S. Special Representative Ambassador Marc Grossman, Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Jawid Lodin and Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Salman Bashir, along with the military and intelligence representatives of the three countries will participate in the meeting, said a Foreign Ministry statement.
The Core Group has been established to promote the process of reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan.
The trilateral meeting takes place at a time when the U.S. has started phased withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan. Several other NATO member countries have also announced gradual withdrawal of their forces and the process will be completed by 2014.
NATO forces have already transferred security responsibility to Afghan forces in five areas.
Taliban militants have also stepped up attacks on foreign and Afghan forces and government officials in recent days. Taliban had claimed responsibility for the killing of the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was killed by his guard in Kandhar this month.
President Karzai used his speech at the funeral of his slain brother to appeal to Taliban to join the peace and reconciliation process, but Taliban rejected the appeal.
Sources said the meeting is likely to discuss the recent tensions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Pakistani army says that Pakistani militants have established bases in border regions of Afghanistan and launch attacks on Pakistani border posts and villages.
Afghan officials say that Pakistani forces have fired hundreds of rockets and artillery shells into Afghanistan and killed dozens civilians.
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Lawmaker Claims Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Her Guest in Afghanistan
Tolo news July 30, 2011
A member of Afghan House of Representatives on Saturday claimed that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, is in Afghanistan and her guest.
Homa Sultani, an Afghan MP representing Ghazni province, criticised the government over being reckless about her remarks saying the Afghan government hasn't paid any attention to what she said of receiving the Taliban Leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in her house.
Some lawmakers suggested that a delegation should be formed to visit the leader of the Taliban at Homa Sultani's home.
"At the moment Mullah Omar is in Afghanistan away from ISI and Pakistan. He is our guest and with us. His message is that he is ready for reconciliation and peace talks," Mrs Homa Sultani claimed.
Insisting on accuracy of her remarks, Mrs Sultani said if she is proved wrong she is ready to be punished.
"If my words are proved wrong, then I am ready to be punished for making a big lie on a big issue," she said.
Finally some of the legislators suggested formation of a delegation to verify Mrs Sultani's claim.
Shir Wali Wardak, an Afghan MP representing Wardak, said: "If the leader of the Taliban has come over to someone's house for a party, we should set up a delegation and as soon as possible we begin our negotiation with him."
The remarks came as Afghan security forces have consistently emphasised that the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is living in a safe haven somewhere outside Afghan borders.
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Afghanistan's Warring Sides Seek Advantage Prior to Possible Talks
Voice of America By Phil Ittner July 29, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan is approaching its 10-year anniversary with no end in sight to the fighting. There are efforts, however, to negotiate a political settlement to the conflict.
Recent calls to end the war in Afghanistan come with complications.
This is the fighting season, the summer months when poppy farmers are not in their fields and mountain paths are clear of snow. And the fighting is particularly intense as the Taliban look to retain control of territory, particularly in the east and south.
Attempting a negotiated settlement
For NATO and U.S. forces that means fresh offensive operations.
For the Taliban - a series of assassinations and high profile attacks.
Mohammad Stanekzai is the chief executive of the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program. He said talks are already underway, but the Taliban will not be allowed again to control Afghanistan like they did in 2001.
"It is not the return back to the Emirate of the Taliban. It is that we provide the opportunity for Afghans that they can be part of the society, of the political system," said Stanekzai. "But at the same time, we should respect the wishes of all the people. All people of Afghan do not want that rule again. And they understand that, that they cannot rule the country."
Seeking peace
Afghanistan is war weary. The Soviets invaded in 1979. Civil war broke out in 1992. Then nearly 10 years ago, international troops took on the Taliban.
Afghan Parliament Member Fawzai Koofi said she wants her two daughters to grow up in peace. She worries that hard won civil rights, especially for women, could be lost.
"Political rights of individuals will be limited. Our concern is that we will lose all these civil rights," said Koofi. "Either lose them or they will be limited. What are we going to achieve? What are we going to lose? Is it going to guarantee peace in Afghanistan? A peace with justice? A peace with dignity?"
NATO considers women's rights, the Afghan constitution and an end to violence non-negotiable. Koofi said talking with individuals is fine, but she worries about the Taliban as a faction.
"Our concern is not individual re-integration of Taliban. Because, you know, that individual does not contribute to peace or war," she said. "Either they are with Taliban, they cannot increase the war. Or they join the government. Our concern is as a woman, as people who believe in a democratic country, our concern is Talibanization of the process."
Stumbling blocks abound
Further complicating a negotiated peace are regional disputes, tribal alliances and widespread lawlessness.
But in the end, Stanekzai said, Afghans must make peace among themselves.
"One thing should be made clear, nobody will serve the interests of Afghans other than Afghans themselves. And this is one thing: that Afghans should become united in order to save this country," he said. "And definitely we need the support of regional countries and international community. But the definite factor is the Afghan themselves. To put their differences aside. To come together and look to the game. And not to be the victim of the game of others."
For now the talks are behind closed doors and the fighting continues. But with public support in the West waning, and Afghans themselves eager for peace, the push is on to find a way to end a war that has cost so many lives and caused so much damage.
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Kabul television
After helping to modernise Afghanistan’s media, David Ensor is about to direct the Voice of America
Financial Times By Annie Maccoby Berglof July 29, 2011
In 2006, David Ensor quit his job as CNN national security correspondent and moved from Washington DC to an apartment off Kensington High Street in London, with his wife Anita, a former news producer, and their nine-year-old son Andrew. “Life is short. I’d spent 32 years covering the news and loved every minute of it. But journalism is the sidelines, just the first draft of history. I wanted to participate.”
Three-and-a-half years after taking a private sector job as head of public relations at Mercuria, an energy company, Ensor was tapped for a new senior US government post in Afghanistan: director of communications and public diplomacy for the US embassy. The job of communications “tsar” included a hefty budget to build up Afghan television, telephone and radio infrastructure and programming: “[The late diplomat] Richard Holbrooke asked me to go. I wanted to do my part to make sure Afghanistan moved into the modern world and never became a base for terrorist camps again,” says Ensor, 60, tanned from his time in Kabul.
Ensor’s move to London was driven by an urge to return to childhood stomping grounds. “Our daughter Kaya was already at school in England. We moved to London because I’d lived in Kensington and Hampstead on and off growing up and wanted to come back as an expat. I had fond memories of being taken to the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.”
Forty-five years after Ensor left for a US boarding school, had life in London changed? “It’s dramatically different. For one thing, there is no fog. I can remember as a little boy the terrible fog that used to descend. You could hold your hand out and couldn’t see it. Schools would close. And the buildings were so covered in soot that they were black. Today, London is a lot brighter. And, of course, it’s much richer. And it’s completely international. But while there was great hardship after the war, with the cold and the rationing of one egg a day, there was great spirit.”
While Ensor is American, his English/British family roots run deep. His father, an oil executive, was a British bomber pilot and squadron leader during the second world war who sometimes towed gliders packed with priests to France. “They were men dressed in the garb of French priests.” He didn’t ask who they were. “Better not to know.” He “was a classic member of that generation, modest and didn’t like to talk about the war. He said war was awful.”
Ensor’s great-great-grandfather was a manufacturing mogul from Dorset who sold gloves to the British army during the Crimean war. His maternal great-great-grandmother, a duke’s daughter, died in the Staplehurst railway crash, a death recorded by fellow passenger Charles Dickens, who, says Ensor, “wrote of ministering to a dying gentlewoman. He gave her brandy.” Ensor’s grandfather, Sir Robert C.K. Ensor, also had a claim to fame: he helped found the Labour party. “He was at Winchester school when he learnt that his grandfather’s fortune had been gambled away. His parents were suddenly penniless. It was a shock. I think that’s why he became a socialist. He went to London, met the Webbs, George Bernard Shaw, the Fabian Society. They all teamed up with the trade unions and launched Labour,” says Ensor, who keeps a framed print of a local 1910 campaign poster.
R.C.K. Ensor also wrote a popular volume of The Oxford History of England. “It’s still in print. I still get royalty cheques.” The volume addressed the effects of technology on history: “My grandfather wrote that the invention of the bicycle helped lead to the suffrage movement. The bicycle gave women mobility, independence.” Is there any modern innovation that could play a similar role in Afghanistan?
“The mobile phone,” he replies. “It’s revolutionising life. Five or six years ago there were 10,000 mobile phones; now there are 15m. An Afghan woman who’s living in a house behind high walls has access to texting. Texting helps overcome illiteracy.” Ensor expanded social networking sites such as Paywast, where small businesses track wholesale prices during war. “It’s more popular than Facebook.”
Are there parallels between his father’s war experience and his own? “I only covered wars: El Salvador, Bosnia, the Falklands. Chechnya ...” But he adds that “one of my great-great-uncles died in Afghanistan, in the battle of Maiwand. I couldn’t help thinking, here I am, an American diplomat, not a British soldier, and we are back in the same place fighting. He was fighting for the British empire. I was there on behalf of a coalition of 48 nations trying to help the Afghan people get back on their feet. He fought with guns. I was fighting the war of perceptions.”
Once in Kabul, Ensor was outfitted with a staff of 60, heavy security and a chunk of more than $4bn in aid. He set about creating television, radio and phone towers as well as home-grown programmes from news shows and soap operas to an Afghan cop drama. “A lot of the programmes I founded are aimed at the young. Afghan police are perceived as corrupt. We wanted to create positive role models.”
Does he have hope for an end to the conflict? “There’s a great war weariness. It’s cost a lot of money and a lot of blood. We abandoned the place before and the price was high. We do it again, the price is higher. We have to have patience, maybe not with 100,000 troops but some presence, or our children will have to go in.”
Soon Ensor will be packing up with his family again to assume a new post as director of Voice of America in Washington. Meanwhile, he relishes ordinary life as a London expat.
“It’s strange to be in transition. Kensington High Street is a highly pleasant place to live, with its cafés and restaurants ... After Kabul it’s a relief to walk freely in the streets without men with guns. And it’s a relief to see children. Children and spouses are not allowed in the US embassy compound.” He adds, “I think I’ll take some walks to Kensington Gardens. It’s a cliché but it’s nice to know that some things, even in war, remain constant.”
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Iranian Diplomat: US Pursuing Suspicious Strategy in Afghanistan
Fars News Agency July 30, 2011
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Ambassador to Kabul Fada Hossein Maleki cautioned that the recent surge in the assassination of Afghan officials concurrent with the start of the US pullout from the country is suspicious.
"These events produce abundant suspicions and ambiguities," Maleki told FNA on Saturday, adding, "That such assassinations are carried out concurrently with the pullout of the first group of the US military men from Afghanistan cannot be ignored easily."
Referring to the contradictory remarks of the US officials about Washington's plan for withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, he said, "Such contradictory comments show that after 10 years, Americans do not have single policy on Afghanistan and seek to change their methods and tactics any second."
Maleki reiterated that Afghanistan and the regional countries believe that the Afghan government enjoys the capability to establish security throughout the country, and said, "The international community and the US should act upon their undertakings and provide the Afghan government and national forces with the necessary tools and equipment."
Iran, along with other regional countries, has on numerous occasions asked for a withdrawal of foreign forces from the region, describing it as the only way to restore peace and tranquility in this part of the world.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in August that withdrawal of American forces from the region is the only way for US President Barack Obama to prove he is serious about implementing his campaign motto of change.
Ahmadinejad criticized his American counterpart for failing to realize his campaign trail promise of "change."
"They (the Americans) announced that they had pulled out part of their forces from Iraq in recent days and claimed that their move was in line with their slogan of 'change,'" Ahmadinejad said in August.
"You said you would withdraw all your troops from Iraq, why is it that some of them are still in this country? Secondly, where are you relocating your forces from Iraq?"
"Americans want to relocate their soldiers to Afghanistan. What kind of a change in their military policy is this?"
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US military chief Mike Mullen takes the heat in Afghanistan
By Lyse Doucet 29 July 2011 BBC News
Southern Afghanistan - Summer in southern Afghanistan is blazing hot in every way; temperatures soar and the fighting season reaches its peak.
But this year it really is boiling hot.
We landed at midnight at Kandahar military airfield, on aircraft bringing the top US military advisor Admiral Mike Mullen and his team to take the temperature here.
Even at that hour, the blazing heat of the day still lingered.
In recent months audacious Taliban attacks have killed leading Afghan figures and key US allies.
It has left Afghans anxious and uncertain at a time when the US is preparing to pull out the 33,000 extra troops it put on the ground last year.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tried to take some of the heat out of that worry. Slower drawdown
"We expected these kind of spikes in the campaign including spectacular assassinations," Admiral Mullen said matter of factly just before boarding the C-32 military plane that took him from the seat of American power to America's battle in southern Afghanistan. "They are not surprising," he emphasised.
Just days ago, Kandahar Mayor Ghulam Haider Hamidi was killed by a suicide bomber in broad daylight.
In neighbouring Uruzgan province, an assault involving multiple suicide bombings killed at least 17 Afghans, including BBC reporter Ahmed Omed Khpulwak.
"This campaign has been tense and worrying for years," Admiral Mullen told me as he strode across the tarmac at the Andrews Air Force base just outside Washington. "We are moving in the right direction," he insisted.
But there was also a note of caution. The gains from the past year of intensified, US-led military operations, including targeted killings, were "fragile and reversible."
That is the catchphrase now used by senior US military officers, including the last commander here, General David Petraeus who will soon take up his new post of CIA director.
Admiral Mullen, the US President's most senior military advisor, is known to have preferred a slower drawdown of US forces than the plan recently announced. 10,000 US soldiers will leave this year, and another 23,000 by the end of 2012. Power broker
But now his job is to carry it out. He pointed out that by the end of next year, there would still be 68,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan.
That is double the number when President Barack Obama took office.
He also mentioned forces from the Nato coalition as well as a "significant build-up" of Afghan National Security Forces.
Asked about Afghans' nervousness over the timing of the pull-out, he said he was "confident there were enough forces to reassure" them.
The US's key ally and main power broker in the south, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the President's half brother, was recently assassinated by his own bodyguard.
His death left a dangerous power vacuum, but one senior US military source said opinion was divided on its impact.
"He worked with us on some issues, on others he was obstacle; for example, when it came to improving governance." Magic trick
Aggressive clearing operations over the past year, and a massive injection of American aid, have pushed the Taliban back from many districts.
US officials portray suicide bombings as signs of Taliban weakness. But for many Afghans these brazen attacks confirm the insurgents' ability to confront more conventional military might.
As on the many other trips he has made to this region, Admiral Mullen will be briefed by senior commanders and also hear from more junior officers about the challenges they are facing in this fight.
He has also brought some American entertainers with him "to bring a smile to their faces" including popular television comedian Jon Stewart, basketball legend Karl Malone, and world famous magician David Blane, who told me he was bringing a "lot of amazing magic".
I asked if he had a magic trick that could bring peace. "I want to bring peace everywhere," he replied with a broad grin. "That's why I like doing magic."
For the past four years, Admiral Mullen, who ranks as President Obama's top military advisor, has travelled to southern Afghanistan in the baking heat of summer so he can experience the gruelling conditions for his troops on this key battleground in the Taliban's main stronghold.
This is expected to be the admiral's last visit to see the soldiers in the field before he retires in two months.
But he brushed aside any notion this was a "farewell tour." He knows a lot can still happen in this hottest of seasons in Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan Team Denied Chance at 2012 Olympics
New York Times By JOSEPH D’HIPPOLITO July 29, 2011
Afghanistan’s national men’s basketball team will not get a chance to qualify for the 2012 Olympics after requests for visas to travel to a prequalifying tournament were denied.
The eight-man squad of Afghan-Americans was supposed to play this weekend in Uzbekistan in a three-team tournament to decide the FIBA Middle Asia Zone’s berth for September’s Asian championship in Wuhan, China. The winner would represent that continent in next summer’s London Olympics.
But after several days of hectic activity and despite the involvement of the Afghan Embassy in Washington, Uzbekistan’s foreign ministry Thursday did not authorize the visas to travel to the tournament.
That decision — combined with the Afghanistan Olympic Committee’s refusal to release $70,000 in financing before restoring $30,000 in travel expenses at the last minute — may prove costly.
“We will never do this under these circumstances again,” said Coach Mamo Rafiq, who won the South Asian Games’ gold medal last year with a team of college students and men with full-time jobs and families.
“As a coach,” Rafiq said, “I can’t call on these players and have them work out for four months knowing that there’s a question mark whether they’re going to go or not.”
One such player is Haroun Arefi, a 6-foot-4 swingman who just graduated from San Diego State and seeks a career in physical therapy.
“It’s tough to say, ‘We want to keep going’ when we’ve got other stuff to do,” said Arefi, 24. Afghanistan’s Olympic committee and basketball federation submitted the roster and visa requests “three months ago,” said Esmael Husseini, the team’s manager, who served as a liaison between the team and the Uzbek Embassy.
Yet when he presented the players’ Afghan passports to the Uzbek Embassy, Husseini said, he was told that he had to submit American passports because the team did not have an invitation from Uzbekistan’s basketball federation.
“For more than a month, I’ve been calling” the Uzbek Embassy, Husseini said. “I asked, ‘Did you get any confirmation?’ They said, ‘No.’ ”
Americans did not need an invitation to visit Uzbekistan, Rafiq said. But expediting visas for American passports costs $210 per visa. When Husseini notified the players, he said, each sent him their American passports along with $210 by overnight mail. Then the Uzbek Embassy’s consular office questioned the players’ nationality.
“This application was submitted for Afghan citizens,” said Mamam Ismailov, who heads the Uzbek Embassy’s consular office. “But they submitted to the embassy, I don’t know why, U.S. passports.”
Rafiq said: “I actually had to call USA Basketball in Colorado and have them send an e-mail with an official stamp from USA Basketball saying that these players had never played in any type of USA Basketball competition.”
During the week, Hussein and an Afghan diplomat visited the Uzbek Embassy with a letter from the Afghan Embassy. Eventually, Husseini said, an official opened the door and took the letter. The invitation from Uzbekistan’s basketball federation arrived Wednesday.
“They said, ‘The invitation arrived, and we’ll issue your visas in 10 days,’ ” said Atiq Panjshiri, executive director of the Afghan Sports Foundation, a nonprofit organization that represents Afghanistan’s basketball federation overseas.
“We did not receive confirmation from our capital,” said Ismailov, whose embassy returned the check for the visas.
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Afghanistan's Warring Sides Seek Advantage Prior to Possible Talks
VOA News July 29, 2011 Phil Ittner
Kabul, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan is approaching its 10-year anniversary with no end in sight to the fighting. There are efforts, however, to negotiate a political settlement to the conflict.
Recent calls to end the war in Afghanistan come with complications.
This is the fighting season, the summer months when poppy farmers are not in their fields and mountain paths are clear of snow. And the fighting is particularly intense as the Taliban look to retain control of territory, particularly in the east and south.
Attempting a negotiated settlement
For NATO and U.S. forces that means fresh offensive operations.
For the Taliban - a series of assassinations and high profile attacks.
Mohammad Stanekzai is the chief executive of the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program. He said talks are already underway, but the Taliban will not be allowed again to control Afghanistan like they did in 2001.
"It is not the return back to the Emirate of the Taliban. It is that we provide the opportunity for Afghans that they can be part of the society, of the political system," said Stanekzai. "But at the same time, we should respect the wishes of all the people. All people of Afghan do not want that rule again. And they understand that, that they cannot rule the country."
Seeking peace
Afghanistan is war weary. The Soviets invaded in 1979. Civil war broke out in 1992. Then nearly 10 years ago, international troops took on the Taliban.
Afghan Parliament Member Fawzai Koofi said she wants her two daughters to grow up in peace. She worries that hard won civil rights, especially for women, could be lost.
"Political rights of individuals will be limited. Our concern is that we will lose all these civil rights," said Koofi. "Either lose them or they will be limited. What are we going to achieve? What are we going to lose? Is it going to guarantee peace in Afghanistan? A peace with justice? A peace with dignity?"
NATO considers women's rights, the Afghan constitution and an end to violence non-negotiable. Koofi said talking with individuals is fine, but she worries about the Taliban as a faction.
"Our concern is not individual re-integration of Taliban. Because, you know, that individual does not contribute to peace or war," she said. "Either they are with Taliban, they cannot increase the war. Or they join the government. Our concern is as a woman, as people who believe in a democratic country, our concern is Talibanization of the process."
Stumbling blocks abound
Further complicating a negotiated peace are regional disputes, tribal alliances and widespread lawlessness.
But in the end, Stanekzai said, Afghans must make peace among themselves.
"One thing should be made clear, nobody will serve the interests of Afghans other than Afghans themselves. And this is one thing: that Afghans should become united in order to save this country," he said. "And definitely we need the support of regional countries and international community. But the definite factor is the Afghan themselves. To put their differences aside. To come together and look to the game. And not to be the victim of the game of others."
For now the talks are behind closed doors and the fighting continues. But with public support in the West waning, and Afghans themselves eager for peace, the push is on to find a way to end a war that has cost so many lives and caused so much damage.
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Mullen: Surge in Afghan violence, assassinations expected; to discuss attacks with leaders
Associated Press Saturday, July 30,2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The recent spike in spectacular violence rocking southern Afghanistan has been expected, but it’s not clear yet how the attacks will affect the area’s fragile governments, the top U.S. military officer said Friday as he arrived in the embattled region.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him that he plans to talk to Afghan leaders during his visit about the surge in dramatic attacks and political assassinations in the south, and said U.S. officials are working hard to advise them how to improve their own security.
Mullen’s unannounced trip to the region — with late night talk show host Jon Stewart and others in tow to entertain the troops — comes on the heels of a spate of bombings Thursday in the southern province of Uruzgan that killed at least 19 people, and just days after Kandahar’s mayor was assassinated by a suicide bomber. The mayor was the third southern Afghan leader to be killed in the last three weeks.
Mullen’s visit — his 15th to Afghanistan — comes at a critical political and military time, as he looks to assess the ability of the Afghan security forces to weather the violence and lay a path for their future. Within months U.S. troops will begin their slow, but deliberate withdrawal from Afghanistan, a process that is coming under more pressure from a Congress determined to slash spending, including on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
There have been expectations, Mullen said, “that there are going to be these kinds of spikes, in particular these spectacular assassinations. There are some who believe this is all they can do, given the challenges that the Taliban have faced over the course of the last couple of seasons.”
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, in a clear bid to regain territory they lost over the past fall and winter as coalition forces pressed into insurgent strongholds in the south. There are persistent fears, however, that the escalating violence will jeopardize coalition gains, erode citizens’ confidence in the Afghan government’s ability to protect its own people, and undercut U.S. efforts to turn security over to the Afghans.
Over the winter, U.S. commanders offered cautious optimism that they were making headway in the south, a longtime Taliban stronghold. But during the spring thaw, U.S. commanders warned that insurgents — many returning to Afghanistan from across the border in Pakistan after the winter — would pick up the pace of their attacks.
The U.S. is in the process of turning over control of security to the Afghan forces in seven areas across the country, a process that will continue until they are in the lead across the country by the end of 2014.
Under President Barack Obama’s plan, 10,000 U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of the year, and another 23,000 by the end of next summer.
Asked about the withdrawal process for this year, Mullen said the details have not yet been worked out. He said he will talk to his top U.S. commander there, Marine Gen. John Allen, about it during the trip. And he said that the U.S. will likely pull out some combination of large and small units, but it will be up to Allen to evaluate his battlefield needs, and make recommendations based on that over the coming months.
Mullen, who is making what may be his final trip to the war front before his planned retirement Oct.1., said the U.S. “has to work harder to protect ourselves” and do everything possible to reassure the Afghans and help them prevent such attacks.
Billing this as his usual visit to the war front during the brutal summer heat, Mullen brought Stewart, magician David Blaine and basketball great Karl Malone with him to entertain and meet with troops.
“More than anything else it just brings a little bit of America halfway around the world, puts a smile on their faces,” said Mullen, as he waited at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., for Stewart’s private plane to arrive. “It also reminds them we appreciate it, and that a lot of people at home really care about what they’re doing.”
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Kabul: the best of times, the worst of times
Sydney Morning Herald By Ben Doherty, Kate Geraghty July 30, 2011
The economy of Afghanistan, and its capital in particular, faces collapse when foreign forces and money leave. Words by Ben Doherty and photographs by Kate Geraghty, in Kabul.
It's a metaphor for this city, and its two-speed, ephemeral economy.
Looming over the dusty, noisy alley of metalworkers' lane in Kabul is a gleaming skyscraper.
Daily, the building's shadow sweeps over the metalworkers' wooden workshops. And then it is gone.
''We work 100 metres from these buildings,'' metalworker Kazem says, pointing, ''and less than a kilometre from the Presidential Palace but we have no electricity.''
He reaches into one side of the open waistcoat he wears over his shalwar kamiz, taking an imaginary wad of cash from the pocket and transferring it to the other side of the same garment.
''There is money in Kabul but they don't use [it] to help people. They make just like this. Take the money from one pocket to the other.''
Afghanistan's capital has boomed with the influx of overseas money during the war years of the past decade but many Afghans say they have seen little of the benefit, and they worry about what will happen to the economy, and their security, when the foreign forces, and their foreign money, leave.
There is no domestic economy in Afghanistan.
The World Bank has found that 97 per cent of the country's gross domestic product is linked to spending by the international military and donor communities.
And a report from the US Senate foreign relations committee last month warned: ''Afghanistan could suffer a severe economic depression when foreign troops leave in 2014 unless the proper planning begins now.''
The US spends about $US320 million ($290 million) a month in non-military aid in the country, and has poured in about $US18.8 billion over the past decade.
Today, there are two Kabuls. One flourishes on the back of Western attention and money. The other languishes, mired in a war-torn country benighted by corruption and violence.
The city has grown from about 1.5 million to more than 5 million in the past decade, as Afghans, seeking work and simple safety, flood the capital.
Gleaming new malls and apartment complexes have sprung up in the city centre for the rich, countered by swelling, crowded shantytowns at its outskirts for the poor.
Property prices now rival those of Western capitals. In 2009, house prices in parts of the city rose an astronomical 75 per cent. Rents went with them, forcing thousands further out.
Wages, too, have skyrocketed. But only for the few. Afghans who win contracts with embassies, international NGOs or foreign contractors, can earn $US1500 a month.
Public sector worker wages remain between $US50 and $US250 a month.
Kazem, 31, with three young children, earns far less again. He says ''ordinary Afghans'' have seen little benefit.
''In the early days, we used to get some contracts from NGOs for construction but now we don't see any of that money at all.''
The most lasting change he's seen is a near-trebling of the rent for the workshop he shares, from 3000 afghanis ($58) a month, to more than 8000.
Kazem says foreign money won't help Afghanistan in the long term, only a peaceful country will.
''We don't need aid, we don't need food, we need security. When security is good, business is good. We can make a strong country; we want to work to provide for our families.''
The co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, Thomas Ruttig, sees security and economy as intrinsically linked. One cannot be developed without the other.
The collapse of one imperils the other. The money that has flooded Afghanistan in the past decade has created an economic bubble, as well as a false sense of security, in the capital.
''I quote here an Afghan friend of mine, 'the day the West stops paying for the Afghan Army and the Afghan police, the next day there is no Afghan Army or Afghan police any more','' Mr Ruttig said.
''That's a very tough thing to say, very dramatic and probably a little bit exaggerated, but I think only a little bit exaggerated. There is a dependency on Western money.'' Without the international dollars flowing in, Afghanistan's economy will founder, Mr Ruttig said.
The country has almost no industry. Manufacturing barely exists and efforts to create a mining sector from the land's mineral wealth have so far amounted to little. The government is weak.
The Finance Ministry has admitted it is unable to collect taxes outside Kabul because it is unsafe and because its bureaucracy has essentially collapsed.
''The biggest part of the economy that is left is drugs somewhere around 11 per cent of the Afghan population is involved in the drug economy,'' Mr Ruttig says.
Despite a fall in production, Afghanistan still accounts for 77 per cent of the world's opium, and the narco-palaces which dot the country are testament to the drug trade's continuing profitability.
Now, with an end date set for Western troops to pull out of the country, Afghans are looking beyond 2014.
''Most of the governments say, some say it on the record, most say it off the record, 'when the soldiers leave, the money will also leave','' Mr Ruttig says. ''So, you now have this stealing-and-putting-it-in-Dubai-accounts spree.
''A lot of money is now going out of the country because people need insurance for post-2014 and that includes the government.
''The Kabul Bank case [where it's alleged up to $US900 million in fraudulent loans were made to bank insiders] is a classic self-service instance people put their money into the bank and they just steal it from them.''
In central Kabul, 23-year-old Parwiz Chakari manages his family's chic fashion house, Tolo Shopping.
Western styles are particularly popular with the capital's young and newly rich here; the ubiquitous Che Guevara is a T-shirt favourite.
Parwiz says that while the influx of money into Kabul means there are more people with money in their pockets, they are still only a small fraction of the population, and many of them are not spending it in the country. Business has been bruised, too, by a bombing six months ago a couple of hundred metres up the road.
''After an attack in the city, there is a few months bad for business. But it will come back to normal, as long as there are no more bombs. When the people feel safe, business comes back.''
The impending pull-out of US troops, and everything that comes with them, is a concern in Kabul's busiest business district. ''People worry. If the Americans do leave in 2014, the security might go bad, civil wars might start again.
''That is a fear people have, and that would affect the economy. But I am not sure the Americans will definitely leave,'' Parwiz says. Afghanistan has never been allowed to develop a peacetime economy, he said.
For all of his life his country has been occupied, or at war with itself. The conversation is interrupted by a woman in a burqa, who comes into the shop, hand out, begging for money.
''This is the real economy in Afghanistan,'' Parwiz says, shaking his head, ''people are still just trying to survive.''
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