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Karzai seeks peace talks with Pakistan, not Taliban
By the CNN Wire Staff Sat October 1, 2011
(CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai dismissed calls for negotiations with the Taliban, saying neighboring Pakistan is the key to peace talks with the insurgency, the presidential press service said in a statement Saturday.
Kabul hands Pakistan evidence on peace envoy killing
By Hamid Shalizi Sat Oct 1, 2011 8:14am EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's intelligence agency said on Saturday that it had handed Pakistan evidence that the Taliban's leadership plotted the recent assassination of ex-president and government peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani on Pakistani soil.
NATO captures senior Haqqani leader in Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ - Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO captured a senior leader of the al-Qaida- and Taliban-allied Haqqani network active inside Afghanistan, the alliance said Saturday, describing it as a "significant milestone" in disrupting the terror group's operations.
Hope for Afghanistan – with its new generation of law students
For Afghanistan to stabilize, it doesn't just need new buildings and better police forces. It must have educated citizens who can fairly run government, implement laws, and work in the courts. Based on our work with Afghan law students, we have hope for the future.
By By Daniel Lewis | Christian Science Monitor
Recent headlines suggest that Afghanistan is headed for collapse – the result of US troop withdrawals, Taliban attacks in Kabul, and the Parliament in constitutional crisis. While the challenges that Afghanistan faces are unarguably difficult, the defining question is whether Afghans can and will stand up for themselves.
No Afghanistan solution without Pakistan: Mullen
AFP
There can be no solution to the conflict in Afghanistan without Pakistan, the top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said Friday as he stepped down from his post.
Pakistan's military and legislators plan peace talks with Taliban
In the midst of bad and worsening relations with Washington, Pakistan considers new round of peace talks with Pakistan-based Taliban, arguing that 'military solutions' are making things worse.
By Owais Tohid, Correspondent September 30, 2011 at 4:36 pm EDT The Christian Science Monitor
Karachi, Pakistan - After a rare gathering of top military officials and the heads of more than 50 political and religious parties, Pakistan's government has announced that it would negotiate with the militants in the tribal belt along Afghan border rather than dealing with them militarily. The decision marks a significant shift in Pakistan's tactics
Are Afghan prisons locked in failure?
By Marisa L. Porges, The Washington Post Saturday, October 1, 3:14 AM
As visiting day begins at Sarposa prison, on the western edge of Kandahar city, Afghanistan, a throng of burqa-clad women and school-age children gathers outside and waits to pass through the facility’s outer gate. Every spare hand holds either the small fist of a young child or a cloth sack of food and supplies for the men inside.
Obama: Still on track to remove Afghanistan troops
Associated Press By JIM KUHNHENN Fri, Sep. 30, 2011
Citing "huge challenges" ahead, President Barack Obama says he still intends to withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next year and says the administration's strategy for winding down the war remains unchanged.
U.S. Sends Envoy to Pakistan After Tensions Over Tackling Militant Groups
Bloomberg By Paul Tighe and Haris Anwar Oct 1, 2011
The U.S. sent its special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to the region as politicians in Islamabad rejected U.S. allegations their country is aiding guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan.
Small arms fire forces NATO helicopter to land in Afghanistan; crew, passengers evacuated
By Associated Press, Published: September 30
KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO says one of its helicopters made a “precautionary” landing after coming under small arms fire in southern Afghanistan.
Basic Minigrids Promise Major Fuel Savings in Afghanistan
New York Times By ANNIE SNIDER of ClimateWire September 30, 2011
A simple change being made to military camps in Afghanistan will save enough energy to take an estimated 7,900 fuel trucks off the road over the next year, an Army officer in charge of battlefield energy said this week.
What should America's goal be in Afghanistan?
By Melissa Labonte and Peter Romaniuk – Special to CNN September 30th, 2011
Recently, after militants undertook a 20-hour assault on the U.S. embassy and NATO compound in Kabul, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, downplayed the implications. “This really is not a very big deal,” he said, adding that, “If that’s the best they can do, I think it’s actually a statement of their weakness.
Could Pakistan dump the U.S. for 'all-weather friend' China?
Though Islamabad likes to play that card, analysts say, Beijing could never replace the billions in aid that Washington provides. Nor is China likely to risk its own bid to become an economic superpower.
Los Angeles Times By Alex Rodriguez and Barbara Demick October 1, 2011
Islamabad, Pakistan, and Beijing - With every new trough in U.S.-Pakistan relations, talk among Pakistanis of paring down their dependence on Washington and throwing in with China grows louder.
Afghanistan 10 years on
Sydney Morning Herald By Simon Mann October 1, 2011
Washington - A United States marine stationed in San Diego was returning home to Alabama on leave recently. As he headed for his connecting flight in Dallas, Texas, a stranger walked in front of him, reaching for his hand.
Precision strikes are new weapon of choice
USA TODAY By Jim Michaels and Tom Vanden Brook 30/09/2011
WASHINGTON - The United States will increasingly turn to precision airstrikes to counter the threat from radical Islam as it shrinks its military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Afghanistan to host first rock festival in 30 years
Organisers hope hundreds will shrug off security fears to attend 'stealth festival' of local and central Asian bands
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 September 2011
Afghanistan is anticipating its first rock festival for three decades next week when hundreds of fans are expected to converge for a one-day extravaganza of local and international acts.
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Karzai seeks peace talks with Pakistan, not Taliban
By the CNN Wire Staff Sat October 1, 2011
(CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai dismissed calls for negotiations with the Taliban, saying neighboring Pakistan is the key to peace talks with the insurgency, the presidential press service said in a statement Saturday.
"The people of Afghanistan say 'president, you have called for peace but peace with who?'" according to the statement. "I don't have another answer for them, except to say that it is Pakistan we have to approach. We cannot find Mullah Omar. Where is he? We don't know where the Taliban Shura is."
The comments came the same day Afghanistan's intelligence service said it provided evidence that the assassination of former Afghan President Berhanuddin Rabbani was planned by the Taliban council in Quetta, Pakistan.
Rabbani, who was spearheading the reconciliation process with the Taliban, was killed in a suicide bomb attack at his home on September 20. Police said the bomber claimed to be a Taliban member who had come for the talks about peace and reconciliation and detonated the explosives as he entered the home.
"We have given the evidence to the Pakistan Embassy in Afghanistan to cooperate with us," Lutfullah Mashal, Afghanistan's intelligence service spokesman, told reporters.
"We have concrete evidence that (Taliban council in Quetta) was responsible for killing the head of the peace council."
Among the evidence turned over to Pakistani officials were photographs, documents, maps and the location where Rabbani's killing was planned, Mashal said.
Long an enemy of the Taliban, Rabbani was a controversial choice when appointed by Karzai as chairman of the High Peace Council a year ago. He was forced to flee Kabul when the Taliban took over in 1996, but he continued to lead resistance to the regime from his stronghold in Faizabad in northern Afghanistan.
Rabbani's death shocked the war-torn country, undermined the fledgling peace initiative and stoked fears of renewed ethnic conflict between Pashtuns and others, such as Rabbani's ethnic group of Tajiks.
Karzai believes any negotiations must be conducted with Pakistan since the enemy "sanctuaries and operating places" are there, the statement said.
In the statement, Karzai condemned insurgent attacks launched from Pakistan's volatile tribal area that borders Afghanistan.
"We also condemn the attacks on Nuristan and Kunar from Pakistan, and have asked the Foreign Ministry to use emergency diplomacy and contacts to stop these attacks," the statement said.
The comments by the Afghan president follow ones made by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who said last week that the Haqqani network -- which has carried out a number of high profile terror attacks in Afghanistan -- acted "as a veritable arm of Pakistan's intelligence."
Pakistan's prime minister has rejected Mullen's accusations.
Western counterterrorism officials believe that contrary to Pakistan's assertions, the Haqqanis rely on Pakistani territory -- specifically the tribal areas of North Waziristan and the Khurram agency -- to organize, resupply and raise funds.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, Matiullah Mati and Ruhullah Khapalwak contributed to this report.
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Kabul hands Pakistan evidence on peace envoy killing
By Hamid Shalizi Sat Oct 1, 2011 8:14am EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's intelligence agency said on Saturday that it had handed Pakistan evidence that the Taliban's leadership plotted the recent assassination of ex-president and government peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani on Pakistani soil.
The interior minister, giving testimony in parliament, also said that a master-mind of the plot -- Hameedullah Akhondzada -- had been arrested. The minister said Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), played a role in the killing.
Rabbani, who was head of the High Peace Council charged with trying to reach a negotiated settlement to the war, was killed at his Kabul home by a suicide bomber claiming to be carrying a message of peace from the Taliban leadership.
"Without any doubt Pakistan's ISI hand has been involved," Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi told lawmakers on Saturday, while discussing Rabbani's killing.
"We have detained Hameedullah Akhondzada who confessed that it was nothing but a plot," he added.
Mohammadi said a fact-finding mission was leaving for Pakistan on Saturday to investigate further, and Islamabad had been given a list of those involved.
A spokeswoman for Pakistan's Foreign Office, Tehmina Janjua, said Pakistan had not received any information although Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani had conveyed to Afghan President Hamid Karzai an offer of cooperation in the investigation.
"Pakistan's offer to investigate stands. As yet, no dossier has been received," she said.
Akhondzada has been named by the Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) but it has given no details of his identity. Acting NDS chief Rahmatullah Nabeel also said that Akhondzada had been detained, but gave no details.
Rabbani was the most prominent surviving leader of the ethnic Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance of fighters and politicians and his killing was seen as a heavy blow to hopes of peace talks and has brought fears of worsening ethnic rifts among Afghans fighting the Taliban-led insurgency.
"PLOTTED IN QUETTA"
The NDS spokesman, at a separate news conference said that the mid-September suicide bombing that killed Rabbani, the government's top peace negotiator, was plotted in an upmarket suburb of the Pakistani city of Quetta.
The Taliban leadership council is known as the Quetta Shura, and is believed to be based in that city, although the insurgent group says it operates only from Afghanistan. Pakistan denies the existence of any Taliban shura in Quetta.
"A confession from those we detained in regard to Rabbani's assassination shows a direct involvement of the Quetta Shura," NDS spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said, adding that one of those arrested was a key player in the plot to kill Rabbani.
"(He) provided evidence and documents which we have submitted to the Pakistan Embassy. Based on mutual cooperation and diplomatic ties with Afghanistan, Pakistan is obliged to take action," he told a news conference in the Afghan capital.
Rabbani's assassination was plotted in Quetta's Satellite Town, an expensive area home to many officials and the city's elite, Mashal added.
He said a commission had been set up to investigate the killing, and further details would be given soon.
Hours after Rabbani was killed, a spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility for his death when talking to a Reuters reporter in Pakistan from an undisclosed location.
However, the spokesman later issued statements denying that he had made a claim of responsibility and said the Taliban were not willing to comment on Rabbani's assassination.
(Additional reporting by Mohammad Ibrahim; Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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NATO captures senior Haqqani leader in Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ - Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO captured a senior leader of the al-Qaida- and Taliban-allied Haqqani network active inside Afghanistan, the alliance said Saturday, describing it as a "significant milestone" in disrupting the terror group's operations.
NATO said Haji Mali Khan was seized Tuesday during an operation in eastern Paktia province's Jani Khel district, which borders Pakistan. It was the most significant capture of a Haqqani leader in Afghanistan, and could dent the group's ability to operate along the porous border with Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.
Shortly after NATO's announcement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied in a message to Afghan media that Khan had been arrested but provided no evidence that he was free.
NATO described Khan as an uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani, two of the son's of the network's aging leader Jalaludin Haqqani. However, in a recent report on the Haqqani's by the Institute for the Study of War, Khan appears as a brother in-law to Jalaludin Haqqani.
The Pakistan-based Haqqani network is affiliated with both the Taliban and al-Qaida and has been described as the top security threat in Afghanistan. The group has been blamed for hundreds of attacks, including a 20-hour siege of the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters last month.
Last week, U.S. officials accused Pakistan's spy agency of assisting the Haqqanis in attacks on Western targets in Afghanistan — the most serious allegation yet of Pakistani duplicity in the 10-year war.
The United States and other members of the international community have in the past blamed Pakistan for allowing the Taliban, and the Haqqanis in particular, to retain safe havens in the country's tribal areas along the Afghan border — particularly in North Waziristan.
"He was one of the highest ranking members of the Haqqani network and a revered elder of the Haqqani clan," NATO said of Khan, adding that he "worked directly under Siraj Haqqani, and managed bases and had oversight of operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Khan also moved forces from Pakistan to Afghanistan to conduct terrorist activity, NATO said. "Jalaluddin Haqqani consistently placed Mali Khan in positions of high importance."
NATO also said that Khan had in the past year established a militant camp in Paktia and "coordinated the transfer of money for insurgents operations, and facilitated the acquisition of supplies."
During the operation Tuesday, Khan surrendered without resistance and NATO forces also arrested his deputy and bodyguard, along with a number of other insurgents, the alliance said.
"The Haqqani network and its safe havens remain a top priority for Afghan and coalition forces," NATO concluded.
The NATO statement said security forces have conducted more than 500 operations so far in 2011 in an effort to disrupt the Haqqani network leadership, resulting in the deaths of 20 operatives and the capture of nearly 300 insurgent leaders and 1,300 suspected Haqqani insurgents.
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Hope for Afghanistan – with its new generation of law students
For Afghanistan to stabilize, it doesn't just need new buildings and better police forces. It must have educated citizens who can fairly run government, implement laws, and work in the courts. Based on our work with Afghan law students, we have hope for the future.
By By Daniel Lewis | Christian Science Monitor
Recent headlines suggest that Afghanistan is headed for collapse – the result of US troop withdrawals, Taliban attacks in Kabul, and the Parliament in constitutional crisis. While the challenges that Afghanistan faces are unarguably difficult, the defining question is whether Afghans can and will stand up for themselves.
One common gauge of progress is the strength of the Afghan police and military. Yet as we know, a fighting force that provides physical security is only one part of the equation. What about the effectiveness and integrity of government ministers and parliamentarians, judges, lawyers, business executives, and others in positions of authority? These people are pillars of democracy, and their performance so far has been disappointing – with corruption, incompetence, and bitter infighting all too common.
Now, however, a wave of students – who were mere children when the US first invaded the country in 2001 – is graduating from Afghanistan’s universities. Can they be bulwarks of successful democracy? Our experiences suggest that this next generation of leaders provides cause for hope for Afghanistan’s future.
As part of the Afghanistan Legal Education Project, I and several other students from Stanford Law School recently visited Kabul for textbook-writing research. There, we sat in on a class, the Introduction to the Laws of Afghanistan, taught to a group of 30 eager Afghan undergraduates at the American University of Afghanistan. The professor, Haroon Mutasem, is a rising star in the legal community. He was first in his class at Kabul University during the Taliban era – even though it was dangerous for anyone from his Tajik ethnic group to “stand out” among the predominantly Pashtun Taliban . He then received an advanced legal degree from the University of Washington on a scholarship.
Mr. Mutasem cold-called students, just as one would at an American law school, and they responded with thoughtful answers and asked pointed questions of their own. The evening class time accommodates students with full-time jobs, like Jamil Danish, who works during the day as a journalist. Mr. Danish wanted to learn about Afghan law to better inform his coverage of politics and current events.
More than a few of the students grew up in Pakistan, where their families fled during the chaos and fighting of previous decades. Several told us they felt a responsibility to learn about the laws of Afghanistan, to understand the country where they now live.
Our group also spoke at length with top legal students selected by USAID from Afghanistan’s public universities for an English-language training program. These men and women were bright and friendly, nervous about their job prospects but seemingly upbeat about their country. The education they received in school is heavy with theory and memorization, but the students eagerly seized the practical knowledge and critical thinking skills in the new Afghan law textbooks that our project writes.
The students plan to apply their legal knowledge in a variety of careers, from business to government to nonprofits. Unfortunately, the private sector is still weak in Afghanistan, and job opportunities are scarce, especially for women.
One afternoon we interviewed Hamid Rasooli, a potential translator for our textbooks. Mr. Rasooli is a mid-twenties returnee from Pakistan, where he learned English in a refugee camp since it was one of the few proven ways to get ahead. As we shook hands at the end of the interview he told us he was particularly interested in translating our textbooks because they bring valuable knowledge to his fellow Afghans, his “brothers.” This is the type of goodwill and optimism we encountered in almost every young adult we met.
RELATED: Who will carry out Obama's Afghanistan exit plan? Three new guys.
For many years there has been an emphasis in Afghanistan on building structures, both physical and governmental: new courthouses, new laws, new schools. These produce easily quantifiable results and indicate progress on paper. But for Afghanistan to stabilize, a key ingredient is educated citizens who can effectively and fairly run the government, implement the laws, and work as judges and attorneys in the courts.
Based on our group’s interactions with the next generation – people like Mutasem, Danish, and Rasooli – we believe there is hope. By empowering this generation of students with legal knowledge, they can be building blocks for a stronger Afghan democracy as they fan out into critical positions in the government and economy. Importantly, America still has time to think about how it can best foster this long-term development going forward.
Admittedly, our experiences are anecdotal, but they are also targeted. We work with only a small, unusually well educated subsection of Afghans. But there is no doubt that these students are the next generation of leaders, for better or worse. We believe the next generation will work for the better.
Daniel Lewis is a third-year student at Stanford Law School and co-executive director of the Afghanistan Legal Education Project based there.
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No Afghanistan solution without Pakistan: Mullen
AFP
There can be no solution to the conflict in Afghanistan without Pakistan, the top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said Friday as he stepped down from his post.
"I continue to believe that there is no solution in the region without Pakistan, and no stable future in the region without a partnership," Mullen said at a ceremony to handover to the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey.
"I urged Marty to remember the importance of Pakistan to all of this, to try and do a better job than I did with that vexing and yet vital relationship," Mullen added in remarks.
"Our strategy is the right one. We must keep executing it."
Last week Mullen accused Pakistan of exporting violence to Afghanistan through proxies and charged that the Haqqani network, an Al-Qaeda-linked group, was a "veritable arm" of Pakistani intelligence.
His comments triggered new tensions with Washington's uneasy ally, Islamabad, with Pakistani leaders closing ranks against US pressure for action against the Haqqanis and refusing to be pressured into doing more in the war on terror.
Mullen also told Dempsey at the ceremony at Fort Myers in Virginia that "his biggest challenge is going to be Afghanistan" where more than 100,000 American troops are due to hand over responsibility for security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
The challenge would be "in seeing this critical transition through to its completion, in making sure that the security gains we have made are not squandered by the scourge of corruption or the lack of good governance that still plagues the country," Mullen said.
Mullen told CNN in an interview to be broadcast Sunday: "The worst case, for me, is to see Pakistan deteriorate and somehow get to a point where it's being run by insurgents who are in the possession of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons technology, which would mean that that part of the world would continue to deteriorate and become much more dangerous."
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said of the new Joint Chiefs chairman: "Marty's strategic vision is the right one for this time of transition."
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Pakistan's military and legislators plan peace talks with Taliban
In the midst of bad and worsening relations with Washington, Pakistan considers new round of peace talks with Pakistan-based Taliban, arguing that 'military solutions' are making things worse.
By Owais Tohid, Correspondent September 30, 2011 at 4:36 pm EDT The Christian Science Monitor
Karachi, Pakistan - After a rare gathering of top military officials and the heads of more than 50 political and religious parties, Pakistan's government has announced that it would negotiate with the militants in the tribal belt along Afghan border rather than dealing with them militarily. The decision marks a significant shift in Pakistan's tactics since the war on terror began after Sept. 11, 2001, and it comes at a time of tense public relations between Pakistan and the United States.
“Pakistan must initiate dialogue with a view to negotiating peace with our own people in the tribal areas,” reads a statement issued after the Sept. 29 meeting in Islamabad. “…There has to be a new direction and policy with a focus on peace and reconciliation. ‘Give peace a chance’ must be the guiding central principle henceforth,” reads the statement.
The ten-hour meeting – called an all-parties conference – was held in the wake of a steady decline in relations between Washington and its frontline ally, Pakistan, following the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US special forces on Pakistani soil in May 2011, and after last week's direct assault on the US Embassy in Kabul by a Pakistan-based militant group, the Haqqani network.
US military officials have long grumbled privately of their feeling that Pakistan was not doing as much as it could to rein in groups like the Haqqani network, based in Pakistan's Waziristan district, or the Peshawar and Quetta-based factions of the Taliban. But when retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke openly his belief that the insurgent Haqqani network was a "veritable arm" of Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence department (ISI), his statement caused a media storm in Pakistan and fierce denials from Islamabad.
Admiral Mullen's accusations triggered apprehensions here that the US may launch military action in Pakistan or conduct more raids similar to the Bin Laden operation, or that it may cut financial aid to Pakistan.
As a sign of how seriously Pakistani officials took the charges, the country's most powerful military chiefs, including Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, and the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, attended the meeting, hoping to send a strong message of unity to Washington. ISI chief Pasha, in his in-camera briefing, dismissed the allegations and said the spy agency was not exporting terrorism in Afghanistan and has no links with the Haqqanis, according to the politicians attended the briefing.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Pakistan will not bow to US pressure to step up its fight against militancy.
"Pakistan cannot be pressured to do more, and our national interests should be respected," Mr. Gilani told the meeting.
Now, Pakistan must finalize the “proper mechanism” for engaging the militants into negotiations.
Pakistan's military has deployed around 150,000 troops in the semi-autonomous tribal belt along Afghan border and is engaged in fighting with Al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban militants, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
This military activity has carried a heavy political cost, analysts say, as Pakistani Taliban militants have carried out a series of deadly suicide attacks against sensitive military installations, including its headquarters and against the Mehran naval base near Karachi, in a wave of violence that has claimed thousands of lives.
“When America is adopting the policy of reconciliation with Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan, why can’t we go for dialogue with militant groups in Pakistan?” said Haider Abbas Rizvi, a key legislator of the powerful Karachi-based Muttahida Quami Movment (MQM), after attending the Islamabad conference.
The negotiations will be held only with those militants who recognize Pakistan’s constitution, Mr. Rizvi said, and not with foreign militants. Pakistan’s soil will not be allowed to use for any kind of terrorism, he added.
“Military operations are not the solution," said Imran Khan, a former cricket star-turned-politician, known for his strong anti-US views. "It didn’t work for America in Afghanistan, and it won’t be effective even today. Time has come to talk peace so let’s give peace a chance.”
The pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazl-ur Rehman, who also attended the conference, said, “America, after facing humiliating defeat in Afghanistan, wants to push Pakistan deep into the war. We should not fight with our own people for somebody else’s vested gains.”
But analysts believe that striking negotiations with Islamic militants will pose serious challenges.
“We struck peace accords with militant commanders during the past and those blew up on our face,” says Peshawar-based defense analyst, retired Brig. Mohammad Saad. “Once you enter into negotiations, they [the militants] grow bigger than their size and start believing themselves as equal. The more the state talks to them, they will become a bigger problem in Pakistan.”
“Their agenda is different," Brigadier Saad adds. "Their ideology is in clash with the norms and values of any modern civilized society.”
The military struck peace alliances with Taliban militant commanders including Naik Mohammad and Baitullah Mehsud, both of whom were later killed by US missiles in Pakistan's semi-autonomous South Waziristan district. In 2008, a provincial ruling party called the Awami National Party signed a peace accord with Taliban leaders in Swat in February 2009 and allowed them to implement Islamic sharia law in the Swat valley. But in return, the Taliban denounced Pakistan’s constitution and its parliament, and tried to extend strict Islamic laws beyond the Swat Valley to the rest of Pakistan. Pakistan's military eventually moved into the Swat valley in May 2009 and pushed out the Taliban with military force.
Reaching out to the Pakistani Taliban will be problematic, because the terrain occupied by the Taliban is difficult to travel in, and the local population of religiously conservative tribesmen show strong support for the Taliban.
Even more difficult is determining who actually is in a position to negotiate on behalf of the main militant group, the TTP. The TTP, which is still controlling parts of Pakistan's tribal belt along the Afghan border, is a cluster of many militant outfits with different backgrounds and carrying different ideologies, unlike Afghan Taliban-led by Mullah Omar.
“So today it's much more difficult to talk to the militants and it's quite hard to bring Pakistani Taliban on to the negotiating table and much harder will be to reach a consensus with them with various ideologies,” says Washington-based analyst, Imtiaz Ali, a research fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU). “Apparently they may look weaker because of the continuous military operations against them but there are so many groups. So the big question will be whom to talk to.”
The other question will be who represents the government. “If they choose pro-Taliban clerics and religious leaders, they will mess it up because they deep down share their (the militants') views so there can’t be any legitimacy,” says Khadim Hussain, director at Ariana independent think-tank in Islamabad. “The talks will carry legitimacy if the negotiators are moderate and influential political figures. I believe they should adopt a model like Afghanistan’s Peace Council headed by slain [former Afghan president Burhanuddin] Rabbani.”
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Are Afghan prisons locked in failure?
By Marisa L. Porges, The Washington Post Saturday, October 1, 3:14 AM
As visiting day begins at Sarposa prison, on the western edge of Kandahar city, Afghanistan, a throng of burqa-clad women and school-age children gathers outside and waits to pass through the facility’s outer gate. Every spare hand holds either the small fist of a young child or a cloth sack of food and supplies for the men inside. A half-dozen smiling Afghan guards watch the steady flow, preparing to search for contraband. American advisers observe from a distance, waiting to see whether the guards will follow their basic lessons on how to run a safe and secure prison.
More pressing questions hang unspoken in the dry air: When will the training be done? When can U.S. officials hand Afghans the prison keys — figuratively and literally — and walk away without serious security and humanitarian concerns?
These concerns loom over nearly everything the United States does in Afghanistan, particularly under pressure from the deadline for security transition by the end of 2014. But prisons stand at the intersection of multiple security and non-security efforts, including those that address detention and corrections operations, the rule of law and the justice system, corruption and the reintegration of former Taliban fighters. Setbacks in reforming the Afghan corrections system are frustrating for U.S. officials. They are ready to leave but unable to go.
Despite the combined work of U.S. and NATO officials, detention operations in Afghanistan remain among the most problematic in the world. Since 2001, the number of prisoners held in the country’s 34 provincial prisons and 200-plus district detention centers has grown from approximately 600 to nearly 21,000. Overcrowding has strained a decaying infrastructure, while personnel shortages, inadequate guard training and corruption have further undermined operations. Add poor government oversight and the persistent influence of militant extremists throughout the country, and Afghan prisons have become a necessary evil — an essential component of security efforts that often causes as many problems as it solves.
Most of these problems persist despite many years and many dollars spent on reform efforts. Security is still a major concern. In April, more than 480 Taliban prisoners tunneled out of Sarposa in what some corrections experts call the most amazing breakout since the Great Escape of World War II. Corruption continues to be rampant. Detainees bribe poorly paid guards, get cellphones to call criminal associates and allow radicals to exert widespread influence throughout the prison system. As a result, insurgents can use prisons as bases from which to plan lethal operations against U.S., coalition and Afghan forces.
Concerns about prisoner abuse are also still present. Just a few weeks ago, the United Nations reported systematic torture at some Afghan detention centers, prompting U.S. and NATO officials to stop transferring prisoners to Afghan custody in several provinces.
Part of the problem may be how U.S. and coalition officials have approached prison reformation in Afghanistan — by introducing systems and methods that are effective in Western prisons and training Afghans to look at their corrections system as we do ours. But American corrections experts say cultural norms and the situation on the ground mean that Afghan prisons often function very differently than those in the United States. They describe guards’ relationships with inmates as nonconfrontational and less authoritarian, and say that Afghan detention centers sometimes serve more like halfway houses than anything else. Some NATO allies concede that while newly constructed prisons improve security by increasing the likelihood that prisoners will be locked in their cells, they also challenge Afghans to forgo elements that resonate culturally, such as having inmates share a collective life in the prison courtyard. As a result, even our best efforts at reforming their correction system inevitably leave gaps.
This is a picture of failure on many levels for the Afghans. It suggests problems within Afghanistan’s Central Prison Directorate, which supervises the corrections system. It highlights rule-of-law deficiencies throughout the country, including a weak formal justice system and ineffective counterterrorism laws that render courts and prosecutors powerless. As a result, prisons burst at the seams with petty criminals while high-threat individuals often are released. It underscores how corruption undermines everything we do there. Even as the United States pours billions into Afghanistan, the budget for prisons remains meager, with guards underpaid, undereducated and prone to accepting bribes.
While doing research at Sarposa this summer, I was struck by the eerie silence in the sea-green-colored hall of the political block. Prisoners and family visitors mingled noisily in the main corridor of the criminal wing, but the political wing — home to captured Taliban members and those charged with terrorism-related crimes in Kandahar province — was mostly empty. Empty except for two medium-size cells that housed almost a dozen former prison guards, all of whom who were under investigation for helping the Taliban inmates escape this past spring.
That escape was the second major break from Sarposa in less than three years. In 2008, about 1,000 prisoners escaped during a massive attack by Taliban militants. Since then, American and Canadian advisers have worked tirelessly to improve the prison — including refurbishing its cellblocks, rebuilding its watchtowers, and providing its guards new equipment and training — but the problems continue. They’re inside the system. The mass exodus of almost every inmate from the political wing could not have occurred without the knowledge — and probably the help — of Afghans inside and outside the prison.
Indeed, while militants in the neighborhood southwest of Sarposa spent an estimated five months digging the escape tunnel, no community member reported the activity to U.S. or NATO officials or otherwise helped prevent the jailbreak. Threats of retaliation from insurgents probably silenced many residents, but what about the security officers and local political leaders who have committed to supporting our efforts? Even more concerning are suspicions that officials at the very top of the regime — including President Hamid Karzai — must have had foreknowledge of this brazen, well-coordinated escape, in which hundreds of Taliban members quietly snuck out over a four-hour period through a tunnel that was wired for lighting and ventilation.
Karzai’s regime lamented the breakout, calling it a “disaster.” Little has changed, however. And the United States and the international community continue to provide training and to fund prison reform programs — because, for now, our soldiers keep capturing bad guys, and we need someplace to put them. But vulnerabilities in the prison system represent a greater danger to Afghanistan’s long-term security and well-being than to ours. Ultimately, Afghans need to take responsibility for its failures and successes.
After spending 10 years and billions of taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan, the United States can and should demand more from Afghans. While recognizing the potential shortcomings of Western-focused reform programs, the United States should require greater Afghan accountability in the initiatives we provide and fund, and more Afghan responsibility for ensuring that a transition will be possible, in detention efforts and beyond. Karzai must set the example on this. Until he decides that his role as Afghanistan’s leader involves, first and foremost, holding his government and his people accountable — including punishing those who are complicit in corruption, mistreatment or other problems central to the flawed corrections system — failure will remain the status quo.
Marisa L. Porges is a former counterterrorism policy adviser with the Defense and Treasury departments.
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Obama: Still on track to remove Afghanistan troops
Associated Press By JIM KUHNHENN Fri, Sep. 30, 2011
Citing "huge challenges" ahead, President Barack Obama says he still intends to withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next year and says the administration's strategy for winding down the war remains unchanged.
Obama made his declaration in a letter to congressional leaders Friday. The letter accompanied a semiannual report assessing the administration's policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The letter reports improvement in the fight against al-Qaida, as well as a reversal in the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan and headway in the training of Afghan security forces.
"Huge challenges remain, and this is the beginning - but not the end - of our effort to wind down this war," Obama wrote.
The 33,000 troops represent the force surge Obama announced in December 2009. Last June, he announced the withdrawal of 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year and that the 33,000 surge troops would leave Afghanistan by the summer of 2012.
In his letter, Obama said that plan was still on track.
The report is less upbeat about Pakistan, however, citing continued U.S.-Pakistan strains over the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. It also addresses continued political instability in Pakistan that has confounded efforts to undertake economic reforms.
U.S. contributions to Pakistan's counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts decreased because of reductions in the U.S. military presence in Pakistan at the request of the Islamabad government, the report said.
There is no mention of the links that U.S. official have alleged between Pakistan intelligence and the Haqqani insurgent network. But the report contains two classified annexes that were not made public.
"Insurgent activity and high-profile strikes against security and government forces contributed to a decline in the security situation," the report stated.
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U.S. Sends Envoy to Pakistan After Tensions Over Tackling Militant Groups
Bloomberg By Paul Tighe and Haris Anwar Oct 1, 2011
The U.S. sent its special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to the region as politicians in Islamabad rejected U.S. allegations their country is aiding guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan.
Marc Grossman left yesterday on a tour that will also include India, China and Central Asia in preparation for a conference on Afghanistan in Turkey in November, the State Department said in Washington, without providing a detailed itinerary.
“Job one between the U.S. and Pakistan on the counterterrorism front is to tackle the Haqqani network,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said earlier yesterday at a briefing in Washington. “We’ve got to find a way to work on this together.”
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani hosted political parties, including Islamic opposition groups, in Islamabad two days ago in a show of unity after U.S. charges that Pakistan-based insurgents struck American targets in the Afghan capital, Kabul, last month. Lawmakers called on Gilani’s government to renew peace efforts with militants in Pakistan’s regions bordering Afghanistan.
“What’s important in this case is that we continue to have very clear and candid conversations among all of the principals with their Pakistani interlocutors,” Nuland said, according to a State Department transcript. “Ambassador Grossman is on his way to the region to continue those conversations.” Intelligence Service
Admiral Mike Mullen, who retired Sept. 29 as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last week said the Haqqani Taliban faction, which the U.S. blamed for a strike on its Afghan embassy, “acts as a veritable arm” of Pakistan’s Inter- Services Intelligence Directorate. Pakistani government leaders said the claims “are without substance and derogatory.”
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Sept. 15 that the U.S. won’t allow further strikes on its forces by the Haqqani group, which is based largely in Pakistan’s border district of North Waziristan. Some congressional leaders have urged tougher policies, with Republican Senate Armed Services Committee member Lindsey Graham saying the U.S. may have to consider a military response.
The Pakistani politicians in their resolution, which isn’t binding on the government, called on Gilani to seek talks with Pakistani militants in the country’s tribal regions near the border with Afghanistan, who have been targeted by army offensives for more than two years. Army Operations
Earlier negotiations to convince militants to end violence have failed. The army began campaigns in South Waziristan and the Swat Valley in 2009 to weaken the Pakistani Taliban. The group had aligned itself with al-Qaeda and carried out suicide bombings and commando-style gun attacks, killing thousands of Pakistani civilians and members of the security forces.
Grossman will also visit Kabul after the Afghan government yesterday said it may suspend its efforts to work with Pakistan on a process to end the war in Afghanistan because no progress has been made.
Afghanistan may work more closely with the U.S., Europe and India instead of trying to negotiate with Taliban groups based in Pakistan, President Hamid Karzai said in a statement issued by his office. Rabbani Assassination
The Afghan statement said Karzai met with government and security officials to assess Afghan policy after a suicide bomber killed Burhanuddin Rabbani, the head of the government’s High Peace Council, on Sept. 20.
“In spite of three years of negotiations and efforts to make peace and good relations with Pakistan, the Pakistani government has not taken any steps to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries or prevent Taliban military training and armament on its soil,” the statement from Karzai’s office said.
Karzai told Kabul-based Noor TV that he will send investigators to Pakistan to seek the killers of Rabbani. The envoy’s colleagues on the peace council and Afghanistan’s intelligence service say the suicide bomber came from the area of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province in southwestern Pakistan where Taliban leaders fled after being overthrown by U.S.-led forces in 2001.
Talks involving Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.S. have been “useful,” Nuland said yesterday in Washington. Grossman will discuss the value of the process and “to see where we go” with officials in Kabul and Islamabad, she said.
“We continue to think it’s an important structure,” Nuland added.
To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net; Haris Anwar in Islamabad at hanwar2@bloomberg.net;
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Small arms fire forces NATO helicopter to land in Afghanistan; crew, passengers evacuated
By Associated Press, Published: September 30
KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO says one of its helicopters made a “precautionary” landing after coming under small arms fire in southern Afghanistan.
The alliance says the CH-47 helicopter was conducting a medical evacuation and had one patient on board in Friday’s incident.
It says in a statement that shortly after the landing, another military helicopter arrived and took the patient, passengers and crew to a nearby NATO facility. The statement does not report any casualties suffered as a result of the helicopter incident.
NATO says the landing site has been secured and efforts are under way to recover the helicopter. No other details were released.
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Basic Minigrids Promise Major Fuel Savings in Afghanistan
New York Times By ANNIE SNIDER of ClimateWire September 30, 2011
A simple change being made to military camps in Afghanistan will save enough energy to take an estimated 7,900 fuel trucks off the road over the next year, an Army officer in charge of battlefield energy said this week.
By networking battlefield generators together in 28 basic "minigrids," the Army can use diesel-fed generators more efficiently, taking approximately 545 units offline, said Col. Tim Hill, who directs the Army's operational energy program and oversees basing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-two of those mini-grids have been built and at least six are planned for this year, according to Hill.
The changes come as military brass increasingly recognize the combat dangers of trucking diesel to far-flung camps and the financial necessity of cutting what was last year a $15 billion fuel bill.
Although the military has not been consistently collecting data on combat fuel consumption, all signs point toward generators as a major energy sink, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Sharon Burke said in June as she released the Defense Department's first battlefield energy strategy (Greenwire, June 15). Such generators provide electricity for everything from air conditioners to computer systems at battlefield camps.
In part because bases need to be able to grow or shrink as troops are moved in and out, camps in Afghanistan were designed with generators attached to each building, regardless of how much energy that building used. Even if two buildings with low energy needs sat directly next to each other, they each had their own generators. Since units operate most efficiently at peak, this created massive waste.
"Part of our issue is we haven't been doing the master planning at any of our forward operating bases," Hill said. "It's been ad hoc, at best."
Building even a crude electrical distribution grid to link generators allows them to share loads and be run more efficiently, he said.
Hill described the systems going in right now as little more than "a wire connecting the generators." Even greater savings will come from the cutting-edge intelligent microgrid systems being tested now, he said.
Such systems, with some capabilities similar to those of a civilian smart grid, are being designed to allow renewable sources to be fed in, energy demands to be prioritized and buildings to be monitored for when unused systems can be shut off.
"We're building an intelligent system that is dynamically monitoring the status of the grid at all times and then making the decisions to either shed or start up sources and either shed or start up loads," said Paul Marks, a senior manager at Lockheed Martin, which has contracts to build battlefield microgrids for the Air Force and Army.
To tackle the ever-changing nature of military camps, battlefield microgrid systems are designed to be able to grow and shrink easily, a quality called "plug and play" by the industry.
If the military decides systems like these are safe and effective, they could cut energy use even more, Marks and Hill say. In demonstrations, the system Lockheed Martin tested for the Army cut fuel use by 30 percent, according to Marks.
To a Pentagon that is facing steep budget cuts and sustained violence in Afghanistan, that poses a rare bit of good news.
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What should America's goal be in Afghanistan?
By Melissa Labonte and Peter Romaniuk – Special to CNN September 30th, 2011
Recently, after militants undertook a 20-hour assault on the U.S. embassy and NATO compound in Kabul, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, downplayed the implications. “This really is not a very big deal,” he said, adding that, “If that’s the best they can do, I think it’s actually a statement of their weakness.” Following the recent assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, former Afghan President and leader of the government’s efforts to negotiate peace with the Taliban, the ambassador should rethink his poorly chosen words.
The uptick in violence in Afghanistan includes multiple attacks in the capital (the British Council, the Inter-Continental Hotel, and the Afghan Defense Ministry), as well as the recent assassinations of four of President Hamid Karzai’s closest advisers: his half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai; Kandahar city mayor, Ghulam Haidar Hameedi; long-time mentor, Jan Mohammad Khan, and outspoken Taliban opponent, Mohammed Daud Daud. These events have occurred against the backdrop of a particularly deadly summer for U.S. forces – at 70, U.S. casualties in August set a record for any month in America’s near-decade long engagement. By any measure, the current situation in Afghanistan is a very big deal.
Crocker’s bravado echoes U.S. and NATO attempts to demonstrate a return on the massive investment of blood and treasure in Afghanistan. An April 2011 Pentagon report noted the “tangible progress” allied forces have made in eroding enemy morale and momentum. The commanding officer of Regional Command East, Major General Daniel Allyn, recently claimed that Afghan government and security forces in his area “continue to grow in capability and confidence.” And, in commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11 in Kabul, General John Allen, international force commander spoke of having “reversed the momentum of the insurgents I can say with confidence that, together, we’re on the path of success in Afghanistan.”
True, levels of insurgent violence have dropped across much of Afghanistan, especially the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, where most of the surge troops have been deployed. But these deployments have merely displaced the violence, shifting the conflict to other regions or to some point of time in the future as U.S. and allied troops withdraw. Under these conditions, the gap between U.S. rhetoric and Afghan reality is unsustainable, revealing yet again the shortcomings of American strategic thinking about Afghanistan.
Beyond the defeat of al Qaeda, U.S. objectives in Afghanistan have meandered from marginalizing powerful actors like the Taliban, to state-building, to counter-insurgency (COIN), to decapitation (hence, the preponderance of drone strikes in the Obama era) and, most recently, to embracing reconciliation and negotiation with the Taliban.
Beneath this flip-flopping, a worrisome fact remains: America has misidentified its core interests in the region. The U.S. has consistently set its political and military objectives very high. It has assumed that Afghanistan is a place where a stable, democratic state can be readily built with infusions of foreign aid. The prevailing COIN strategy has become orthodoxy despite the absence of reliable local partners and the knowledge that communities will remain under threat from warlords and the Taliban long after American and allied troops leave Afghanistan.
Tough talk this week from outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, who charged Pakistan with supporting the Taliban-linked group responsible for much of the recent violence in Kabul, the Haqqani network, risks exacerbating the trend of strategic overreach. As long as America’s aims in this war remain fuzzily defined, the conflict will become further protracted. Policymakers once again need to ask themselves: What do we want to achieve in Afghanistan? This time, they also must ask: What can we reasonably expect to achieve?
The U.S. long ago accepted that “victory” in Afghanistan would be unlike any other military “victory.” Commenting in 2010 on whether U.S. goals in Afghanistan could be achieved, Major General Bill Mayville, former chief of operations for General Stanley McChrystal, noted “It’s not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win.” What we now face in Afghanistan is a failing state, under feckless leadership, plagued by a chronic insurgency.
Policymakers and military planners should frankly assess why its current strategy has yielded only more fighting over time and whether America’s best bet for ensuring stability lies not on the battlefield but in establishing far more limited and pragmatic goals for what success should look like in Afghanistan. In 2009, the Obama administration debated between supporting COIN and a more limited strategy focused on counterterrorism. That latter option should be revisited as U.S. and NATO troops withdraw to ensure that Afghanistan does not once again become an exporter of international terrorism. That’s less than what America and its allies have aimed for to date, but it would indeed be a big deal.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of Melissa Labonte and Peter Romaniuk.
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Could Pakistan dump the U.S. for 'all-weather friend' China?
Though Islamabad likes to play that card, analysts say, Beijing could never replace the billions in aid that Washington provides. Nor is China likely to risk its own bid to become an economic superpower.
Los Angeles Times By Alex Rodriguez and Barbara Demick October 1, 2011
Islamabad, Pakistan, and Beijing - With every new trough in U.S.-Pakistan relations, talk among Pakistanis of paring down their dependence on Washington and throwing in with China grows louder.
Just days after the U.S. accused Pakistan's premier spy agency of aiding insurgent attacks against U.S. targets in Afghanistan, Chinese Vice Premier Meng Jianzhu appeared this week in Islamabad reassuring Pakistani leaders that China backed Pakistan's efforts to protect its sovereignty.
The vice premier's comments apparently referred to Pakistani worries of a future U.S. airstrike or targeted ground operation against Taliban-allied insurgents in the tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani beamed when talking about his country's friendship with China, deeming it "higher than the mountains, deeper than the oceans, stronger than steel and sweeter than honey."
But could Pakistan ever afford to turn away from the U.S. as an ally and replace it with China, which Islamabad routinely calls its "all-weather friend?"
Analysts say such a move is highly unlikely. With nearly $9 billion in annual trade with Pakistan, China is Islamabad's biggest trading partner, as well as its leading arms supplier. But it could never replace the billions of dollars in economic and military aid that Pakistan gets from the United States, experts say, as well as billions more in loans from international lenders heavily influenced by the U.S., including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
"If Pakistan thinks China will compensate for the loss of American ties, they are overestimating," says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based security analyst. "The kind of economic assistance that Pakistan gets from the U.S. cannot be replaced by the Chinese. And the Chinese recognize that they cannot do it."
Yet even if the notion of China becoming Pakistan's dominant foreign benefactor is unrealistic, Pakistan doesn't hesitate to use its strong ties with Beijing — and the prospect of deepening those ties — as leverage against Washington. The tactic becomes particularly evident during moments of crisis in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
After the U.S. commando raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May in the Pakistani military city of Abbottabad, a secret, unilateral operation that Pakistanis decried as a blatant breach of their country's sovereignty, Gilani was welcomed by Chinese officials in Beijing with a gift of 50 JF-17 fighter jets. Gilani also heard comforting words from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who advised the U.S. to respect Pakistan's sovereignty.
The assertion last week by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, that one of the most dangerous factions in the Afghan Taliban insurgency, the Haqqani network, was "a veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency deeply angered Pakistanis and prompted officials to seek out expressions of solidarity from long-standing allies like China and Saudi Arabia.
Mullen bluntly accused the ISI of helping Haqqani militants in attacking the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Sept. 13 and in a truck bombing in Afghanistan's Wardak province Sept. 10 that injured more than 70 American troops. Pakistani officials have vehemently rejected the allegations.
"Clearly Pakistan is playing that card, whether it's the China card or the Saudi card," said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and an expert on South Asia affairs. "They would like to show themselves, and the U.S. and the rest of the world, that they have other friends if the U.S. seeks to make trouble with them."
Pakistan's ties with China date to 1950, when Pakistan became one of the first countries to recognize the communist government of the People's Republic of China.
Beijing has invested heavily in several major infrastructure projects in Pakistan. They include nuclear power plants, gold and copper mines, major highways and the construction of a deep-water port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, envisioned as a future strategic site for Persian Gulf oil destined for China.
Beijing also sees its alliance with Pakistan as a valuable counterweight to its chief South Asian rival, India. For its part, Pakistan has looked for ways to ratchet up the relationship. In an unusual decision announced this month, officials in Sindh province said they would require all students in sixth grade and higher to learn Chinese, beginning in 2013.
While Pakistan's ties with China have grown stronger, its relationship with the U.S. has been weakened by deep mutual distrust.
Lawmakers in Washington have threatened to freeze all economic and military aid to Islamabad if Pakistan doesn't act against the Haqqani. The network uses the North Waziristan tribal region along the Afghanistan border to launch suicide bombings and other strikes on U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan and Kabul.
Some Pakistanis believe that with China's backing, their country could withstand whatever punitive action Washington takes.
"If the U.S. does this, of course China has promised us that they will stand by Pakistan in every condition," said Hamayoun Khan, an expert in Pakistan-China affairs and a former analyst with Pakistan's Institute for Strategic Studies. "China has said it considers Pakistan as a core interest.... China has made it clear that Pakistan is a trusted ally. So anything done against Pakistan would be considered an act against China."
Other experts, however, say China's ambitions to become an economic superpower supersede its relationship with Pakistan. Though Pakistan and its role in South Asia are important, China takes care to avoid undermining crucial, complex ties with the U.S. and the West.
"China's relations with the U.S. are extremely important," said Rizvi, the security analyst. "They have investments in the U.S., and U.S. multinational corporations are investing in China. And the Chinese have long-term goals of becoming an economic giant on a global scale. So they're not going to act in favor of Pakistan and in the process disrupt their relations with the U.S."
China also has its own counter-terrorism concerns involving Pakistan: Islamist Uighur separatists who Beijing says train in northwestern Pakistan and then slip across the border to carry out attacks in the Xinjiang region. China has been pressing Pakistan to clamp down on Uighur separatists training in tribal regions along the Afghan border. In late July, Uighurs conducted a series of ambushes on police and firefighters in the western Chinese city of Kashgar, leaving 22 dead.
"I don't think the Pakistani government's perception that China comes to do business without any preconditions — that it doesn't have any counter-terrorism concerns — is altogether right," said Ed Husain, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"Despite what the Pakistanis would wish to convey to the West, the relationship with China is not as deep or as free-ranging as Pakistanis would want us to believe."
alex.rodriguez@latimes.com barbara.demick@latimes.com
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Afghanistan 10 years on
Sydney Morning Herald By Simon Mann October 1, 2011
Washington - A United States marine stationed in San Diego was returning home to Alabama on leave recently. As he headed for his connecting flight in Dallas, Texas, a stranger walked in front of him, reaching for his hand.
''Thank-you for your service,'' the woman, in her 60s, said earnestly, repeating a common refrain among Americans. As she spoke, her travelling companion patted the soldier's shoulder approvingly. The encounter was a snapshot of a nation's gratitude: daily across the US, in myriad ways, Americans honour those in uniform with pride befitting the world's only superpower.
Indeed, at SeaWorld in San Diego, where the military is the city's biggest employer, servicemen and women are invited to stand and are applauded routinely before Shamu the killer whale does his stuff.
At sports events the country over, fans give a ''shout out'' to those who serve; tax deductions apply to people donating their old car to veterans' groups; food outlets give priority to military personnel, and throw in a free Coke. A writer to one airline magazine recently volunteered that he had swapped his business-class seat with a soldier travelling in the last row of economy. ''I urge all readers to try to comfort these young men and women serving our country and our freedom and liberty any time, any place an opportunity arises,'' he wrote.
Respect for the military is an integral part of the American way, and 10 years after George Bush first rained bombs on the Afghanistan badlands that harboured al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, Americans retain their unwavering faith in the 1.5 million who serve, though a constant stream of casualties has leeched public support for the longest war in US history.
American soldiers continue to be returned home in caskets as the death toll climbs towards 2000. Another 4800 US personnel have died in Iraq.
Now, as Washington extricates itself from both conflicts, new challenges, imposed by America's parlous financial state, threaten to reshape the US military, even undermine its capacity to deter conflict as much as respond to it.
More than at any time in the post-Cold War era, America is being forced to carefully redefine its priorities to fit a shrinking public purse, a necessity that is alarming hawks, as well as military families. The army alone is said to be planning to cut 50,000 soldiers, and all branches of the services will be under pressure to do likewise.
But more striking still will be choices made over equipment and technology, over how to re-equip services drained by a decade of deployment, while investing in the hardware to meet emerging 21st century threats.
''It would be nice to think we could now save money because we think we can come home from the war,'' says Joe Cerami from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.
''But we have to retrofit the force and prepare for whatever the next contingencies might be. People aren't sitting still everybody is looking for an advantage, China included, Iran included, probably Syria as well. [They] are all going to be continuing to try to find an edge, so we're going to have to compete for quite a while.''
The new guns-versus-butter debate is, more accurately, a guns-versus-fewer-guns debate, one that ironically has been precipitated largely by the two conflicts that were triggered by the September 11, 2001, attacks on America and that started, officially, with those bombing raids on October 7, 2001.
Financed essentially from borrowings, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars - along with tax cuts that benefited mostly the well-off - have fuelled successive deficits that have added more than $US6 trillion to America's national debt. During that time Pentagon spending swelled from around $US400 billion a year to almost $US700 billion. The overall size of the armed forces barely changed: but waging war sent costs skyrocketing.
Now, a reckoning looms. As part of the much-vaunted deal between warring Democrats and Republicans to lift the debt ceiling in return for tough deficit-reduction steps, the Defence Department must find savings of $US350 billion over the next decade.
But that is a starting point. More worrying for the Pentagon - and for defence contractors generally - is the prospect of even deeper cuts should a bipartisan ''super-committee'' fail in its mission to identify further budget savings across all of government.
As part of the carrot-and-stick deal that raised the statutory borrowing limit above $US14.3 trillion (thereby allowing the US to continue to pay its bills), additional cuts are set to be imposed automatically should the committee miss its Thanksgiving deadline in November. That outcome could lift the cuts demanded of the Pentagon to nearer $US1 trillion.
Recently retired defence secretary Robert Gates had argued that a saving of $US400 billion was the maximum that the Pentagon could deliver, although observers characterised his stand as ''a negotiating position'', one that would ultimately be managed by his successor, former CIA boss Leon Panetta. But Gates was clear about the risks of cutting too deeply, arguing that to do so would be likely to dilute the military's deterrent effect.
''The lessons of history tell us we must not diminish our ability or our determination to deal with the threats and challenges on the horizon, because ultimately they will need to be confronted,'' he said recently.
''Beyond the current wars, our military credibility, commitment and presence are required to sustain alliances, to protect trade routes and energy supplies, and to deter would-be adversaries from making the kind of miscalculations that so often lead to war.''
Gates has already flagged as a likely consequence of the cuts a full review of military pay and retirement benefits, as well as a rethink on weapons acquisitions and even the military's two-war philosophy - its preparedness for fighting two wars at the same time.
The nature of America's accounts makes apparent the risk to defence. More than 60 per cent of the $US3.8 trillion annual budget is spent on items mandated by law - namely Social Security and the healthcare scheme for the elderly, Medicare.
Of so-called discretionary items, defence spending, including the Department of Homeland Security, accounts for about 60 per cent, leaving the ''super-committee'' with little room to manoeuvre.
The equation almost certainly guarantees that the Pentagon will be asked to find savings beyond Gates's optimum, an outcome that would reduce the margin for error for the architects of the Pentagon's future programs.
''It's not so much the recession that is a threat to national security,'' defence analyst Todd Harrison tells The Saturday Age. ''It's our debt, and the fact that we can't fight a major war without borrowing massive sums of money. So the credibility of our ability to fight and win a war, and therefore to deter a war from ever happening in the first place, depends on our ability to borrow. Our economy, our budget situation and the current politics are putting that at risk right now.''
America's threadbare budget was exposed essentially by the global economic downturn, but the crisis for the military was brewing long before.
More than a year ago, Gary Schmitt, of the American Enterprise Institute, pointed to a US military overstretched. ''The gap between what is needed to modernise the military and the resources being provided is larger than any 'reform' can bridge,'' he observed. ''It's far from clear that the US military can withstand another eight years of flat or declining [core] budgets and remain the pre-eminent global force it is today, continuing to spare us the costs that come with a world in which there is increasing anarchy and less order as American military power recedes.''
And the Quadrennial Defence Review Independent Panel, headed by two former defence secretaries, William Cohen and William Perry, was equally blunt, warning of a ''train wreck'' given ''the ageing of the inventories and equipment used by the services, the decline in the size of the navy, escalating personnel entitlements, increased overhead and procurement costs, and the growing stress on the force''.
Now the train wreck looks to have arrived, and tough strategic choices will be necessary as the troop build-up and training directed by the nature of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq give way to new priorities, and as the US shifts attention from the Middle East towards the western Pacific.
In recent years, America's navy and air force have suffered: the size of the fleet has fallen by about 10 per cent and the air force's aircraft inventory is the oldest it has ever been. Maintenance costs for both are rising.
But key replacement programs will be squeezed in the current climate. An example is new-generation jet the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, in which Australia has a key stake, and which has already been targeted by Congress for around $US600 million of cuts. The effect has been to slow down its production timetable, while lengthening the average age of existing aircraft. Some analysts speculate that the Pentagon might ultimately jettison the navy version of the JSF, opting for more Super Hornets instead, despite their inferior capability.
''State-of-the-art? Or something a bit less impressive? You have to weigh those factors,'' one analyst said.
Quandaries arise on nearly every budget line and in every facet of defence. Does the US try to maintain its unchallenged advantage in space? To do so, it will require continued massive investment in space-based systems.
''Do we want to continue to maintain our advantage in a long-range strike and stealth aircraft, those kinds of capabilities?'' asks Harrison, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. ''You know, to do that we have to continue to invest in the technology and in things like a next generation bomber.
''Do we want to maintain our advantage in the undersea and our ability to protect undersea infrastructure? To do that requires investment. And so on and so on. You can go down the list and in all these areas we have big choices to make and we can't say 'yes' to all of them.''
Even the successes of the latest conflicts, such as America's use of unmanned aerial vehicles, will not necessarily offer ongoing efficiencies.
''Those aircraft are a lot less expensive to build and operate than fighter aircraft or bombers that we would have been using instead,'' Harrison adds. ''But the problem is the UAVs that have worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan, like the Predator and the Reaper, can operate only in uncontested air space.'' Adding stealth capabilities to give them wider application will also add costs.
Pentagon watchers say ''smart cuts'' are required. Ultimately, the US could favour co-operative, multi-force action that is more easily contained, for which the assault on Libya offers a template, over expensive counter-insurgency.
But as Joe Cerami observes: ''We will still need a navy to be getting oil safely out of the Persian Gulf, and dealing with piracy off Somalia. And in the air, the technology is moving so fast that you have to keep up with any possible opponents.''
THEN there are the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran.
''There is the old saying 'peace through strength', which is not bad advice for a wise course of action,'' adds Cerami, who served in the army for three decades. ''Now, how much strength you need to deter threats is always going to be a judgment call, but that's one that's going to have to be made. I can't for the life of me think that any of these threats that are out there are going to go away any time soon.
''And we're constantly discovering new threats with weapons of mass destruction, with technology transfers, in cyberspace The first time there's a cyber attack that shuts down major operating systems like the internet or Wall Street, the American people are going to be demanding why the government has not prevented that from happening, and my guess is that will be a military task.''
A priority that is non-negotiable?
For Harrison, it is the upgrading of America's nuclear arsenal; for example, a replacement for ballistic missile-carrying submarines, ''critical to maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent''.
Cerami argues, however, for more resources for diplomacy, more exploration of civilian programs to complement and even replace military ones, and a greater commitment from NATO to share costs, though he concedes that Europe's own budget woes make the latter unlikely.
The view that threats are myriad and ever-evolving gels with that of military leaders such as Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who retires today. ''Our global commitments have not shrunk,'' he says. ''If anything, they continue to grow, and the world is a lot less predictable now than we could have ever imagined Cuts can reasonably only go so far without hollowing the force.''
And tailoring budgets for future threats remains an inexact science. ''Remember, you're talking 10 years out,'' Cerami cautions.
''What could happen in 10 years? Who knows? Because it's going to change every year as we go through budget hearings. Unfortunately, it'll be the next shock like a 9/11 that will jolt everybody back to reality.''
Simon Mann is US correspondent.
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Precision strikes are new weapon of choice
USA TODAY By Jim Michaels and Tom Vanden Brook 30/09/2011
WASHINGTON - The United States will increasingly turn to precision airstrikes to counter the threat from radical Islam as it shrinks its military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"This administration has made a very conscious decision that it wants to get out of large conventional-warfare solutions and wants to emphasize counterterrorism and a lighter footprint on the ground," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official.
On Friday, a U.S. airstrike in Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an anti-American cleric who was behind several high-profile attempted attacks on the United States. His rhetoric also helped inspire Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who is charged with killing 13 people during a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, a military base in Texas.
Friday's strike in Yemen was the latest in a growing U.S. reliance on airstrikes to target al-Qaeda and its affiliates throughout the region.
The drone strikes allow the U.S. to target militants far and wide, reflecting the growing dispersal of al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The United States has targeted militants in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen with drone strikes in recent years.
"This is clearly the weapon of choice when it comes to military action against al-Qaeda," said Rick Nelson, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The increase in drone strikes comes as the United States is reducing its military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, wars that were costly in American lives and money.
Drone strikes are seen as far less expensive and less likely to risk American lives. "We no longer have the political or economic resources" to conduct large operations such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq, Nelson said.
The U.S. strategy also includes establishing ties with regional governments in order to get intelligence that can pinpoint the location of militants or to assist in targeting them with raids. And it helps to have approval from a friendly government before launching strikes within its borders.
"The model is to combine long-distance remote strikes on key planners and leaders (and) build up local governments to control their own space," said Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
President Obama praised Yemen's cooperation with the United States when he announced the death of al-Awlaki.
But the U.S.-Yemen relationship has been complicated by a widening revolt against Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who only recently returned to the country after being wounded in an attack on the presidential compound.
Growing violence there has threatened Saleh's regime and placed the United States in the position of working with a regime that may collapse, leaving uncertainty in its wake.
Riedel said Saudi Arabia, another key U.S. partner in the region, also may have supplied intelligence that helped target al-Awlaki. He was killed in Aljawf, a region near the Saudi border.
Airstrikes carry the risk of killing innocent civilians, which helps turn people against the United States and places internal pressure on friendly regimes that allow the strikes.
"The drones are a double-edged sword," Riedel said. "It really doesn't matter how clean the strikes are. It is very hard for us to persuade Yemenis or Pakistanis that only bad guys get killed.
"We don't have a whole lot of credibility in Yemen and Pakistan, and they tend to believe the worst," he said.
The drone strikes recall previous and less successful cruise missiles strikes, such as 1998 missile attacks in Sudan and Afghanistan. The strikes were launched in retaliation for attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
The U.S. cruise missile strikes were aimed at a factory in Sudan, which the United States said was making chemicals to help Osama bin Laden, who planned the embassy attacks, and at a training camp in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was not at the Afghanistan camp when the missiles struck, and there were questions raised about the role of the chemical factory.
Today's strikes are based on better on-the-ground intelligence and more precise technology, analysts say.
"Drones are more effective than cruise missiles," said Richard Fontaine, a military analyst at the Center for a New American Security.
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Afghanistan to host first rock festival in 30 years
Organisers hope hundreds will shrug off security fears to attend 'stealth festival' of local and central Asian bands
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 September 2011
Afghanistan is anticipating its first rock festival for three decades next week when hundreds of fans are expected to converge for a one-day extravaganza of local and international acts.
Sound Central, a "stealth festival" that organisers hope will draw up to 2,000 young Afghans, will showcase Afghan bands playing music from doom metal to blues rock, as well as musicians who have flown in from Iran, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
The music will almost certainly be a new experience for most fans in a country which has not hosted such an event since the entrance of Soviet troops in 1979 heralded the start of decades of violence and the eventual Taliban takeover.
People seeking a change from traditional Afghan music tend to listen to western pop or soundtracks from India's Bollywood films.
"The real, bottom-line aim of this festival is to ignite youth to be interested in modern music," said the organiser, Travis Beard, who dreamed up the festival four years ago and has been working on it in earnest for the last two years.
"What we are trying to do is to expose them to new kinds of music so they can get into those styles of music, and also just start playing music. Hopefully we'll get some kids saying: 'Hey this is really cool! Dad, can I get a drum set?' or 'Mum, can I get a guitar?'," Beard said.
Beard is an Australian who first came to Afghanistan as a news photographer five years ago, joined a band in Kabul and rediscovered his love of music "after many years away".
He got involved in supporting Afghan musicians – with instruments or a place to practise – and the festival was inspired by the community they formed. With that in mind, he organised the festival and a week of workshops for Afghan musicians and underground, pre-festival concerts for all the bands at the festival to play more experimental music to a committed crowd.
"I live in Herat, which is an old city and the people are too traditional," said Masoud Hasan Zada, a full-time journalist and part-time lead singer of blues-rock band Morcha, or the Ants.
"There is too much tradition, including traditional music. It's too hard to talk about modern music, especially blues … it's horrible sometimes," he told Reuters.
He spent a week in Kabul at the workshops, learning everything from online marketing to stage presence – something Beard says is particularly hard for musicians who are talented but grew up in a culture that frowns on exhibitionism.
"We are going to teach them how to actually rock out," Beard said with a grin at the start of the workshop, where more experienced performers thrashed on air guitars and jumped around a tiny stage, under the quizzical gaze of the students.
The festival is a daring venture in a country where music was banned for years under the austere Taliban regime, music stores are attacked in some cities and some of the Afghan musicians playing have had to shut down their websites or cut their hair because of social pressure.
Security concerns mean publicity has been mostly word of mouth, and the date has been kept vague. Messages revealing the time and venue will go out to fans only on the morning of the event.
The crowds may still be relatively small but at the underground concerts leading up to the festival there were already a few die-hard fans.
"I really want to hear you scream," shouted Sabina Ablyaskina, lead singer of the Uzbek funk band Tears of the Sun, in the tiny concrete bunker where the bands have been warming up for the festival in front of a core of devoted fans.
The crowd was a mix of hip young Afghans, one in a pair of Kanye West glasses, and a few expats. They roared back at her and then started dancing, hard, to the music.
"This is the first time I'm watching music live, the first time in Kabul we've had something like this," says breathless 22-year-old Asil Ahmad. "It's one of the most unforgettable nights."
At 11.15pm, the next band were just starting to get into their stride when the power cut off. At first organisers thought it was one of Kabul's regular electricity shortages but then discovered that the landlord and his family – trying to sleep upstairs – weren't quite as taken by rock'n'roll.
But Afghanistan is muddling along towards a new music future. That night, an impromptu acoustic concert by torchlight kept the crowd dancing for half an hour.
And the landlord eventually agreed to leave the power on for the rest of the week – if the concerts ended early.
So Afghanistan's first underground concerts now start at 8pm and are over by 10.30pm, and there's no bar or alcohol allowed, in deference to the laws of the Islamic Republic. But the crowd don't seem to need anything more than the music.
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